almost a diary

Ok, let’s face it. Mating, human mating in particular, is a complex communication process involving all sorts of biological and cultural codes that no one will ever really understand – except with hindsight, when we call it evolution, because that sounds much nicer than ignorance. Hence the proliferation of experts and (particularly paid for) advice on the matter – when no one actually knows anything, then everyone can contribute without ever really being wrong about what codes to use when.

Case in point, tonight I saw a poster ad for a singles’ party at the local university this Friday. Now I suppose some people may live under the impression that studying as a whole isn’t much more than a singles’ party, but apparently, that’s no longer the case – evolution, remember? But it wasn’t the party itself that I found interesting – apparently, the organisers are going to hand out differently coloured ribbons indicating a particular person’s willingness to flirt. While I understand that coloured ribbons or other signs have long played a certain role in identifying potential partners in particular, often sexual, subcultures, where colours are usually codes for the person’s specific preferences, I am a tad bit confused about colours indicating willingness to flirt at a singles’ party for students?

Seriously, how many different kinds of flirting are there that can be usefully differentiated? Well,  I guess I have to go and see evolution with my own eyes to find out…

Großes Kino: Stefan Niggemeier dekonstruiert Dieter Gorny. Und den Rest der Branche. Das krasse ist ja, da ändert sich nix, weil sich da nix ändern muß, solange diejenigen, auf die die Lobbyarbeit zielt, keinen blassen Schimmer von der Ökonomie des geistigen Eigentums in einer vernetzten Welt haben, und die, die die Lobbyarbeit betreiben, immer noch glauben, daß sie deswegen das Netz doch noch zu “Music On Demand” (anyone remember?) umbauen können.

http://www.stefan-niggemeier.de/blog/understanding-dieter/

Die eben zu Ende gegangene Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema “Zukunft der Social Networks” läßt leider erste Zweifel aufkommen, was die politikferneren Themen der Konferenz betrifft, denn zu deren Zukunft konnte man dort leider nicht besonders viel erfahren.

Today, Reuters offers a possible, yet likely unrelated, explanation for the NHS’s attempts to help her majesty’s citizens to ‘sexercise’ sufficiently. According to the news agency

“half of UK men would swap sex for 50 inch TV.”

According to a survey of 2000 Britons, conducted by the British Electrical retailer Comet, asking what they would give up for a large television, it was allegedly found that 47 percent of men, yet only about a third of women would give up sex for half a year.

Questions of scientific and statistical validity notwithstanding, published just before Valentine’s day, even as a joke, that’s not exactly a compliment for British women…

Happy belated new year, gentle readers. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been enjoying Australian hospitality. Unfortunately though, due to an unfortunate combination of hosting issues at home and lack of decent internet connectivity down under, I have not been able to blog my trip as I had planned to.

I will definitely recapitulate a couple of things over the next couple of days, but today I’m just content that I managed to get almostadiary back online without having to go through too much of a hazzle. So let me just wish you a happy 2008 before I’ll begin to reconstruct my sister’s blog, ‘boulot, métro, dodo‘, which, alas, has been just as affected by the server trouble.