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Round corners

Today I've become a bit annoyed by the look of gegenglueck ... it was just looking oldfashioned somehow, but I decided the reason wasn't the colors. So I started to remove and change the borders slightly. Than I remembered the CSS-voodoo at Hospitalitywiki and added round corners. Much better now! And it wasn't very difficult as I'm using bulletproof theme, a great and flexible theme for Serendipity. I've already set up an own colorset in the past, a simple CSS that is used by Bulletproof to replace the standard settings. With a little help of Firebug I identified the related CSS-classes and added the borderstyle. Probably some of this is expected to be done in your own user.css, but that's still empty here ... Right now I like it, if you want to have a look, here is the gegenglueck_style.css

PS: This probably won't work in Internet Explorers. Well, I couldn't care less.

If you don't make noise ...

... noone will hear you. Here someone gives a loud shout and it seemed to work out at least for now. From my point of view BeWelcome is the best of all hospitality exchange networks in terms of organisational values and definetely right now the only one I'd contribute to. And contributions are necessary right now: money is (or thanks to a lot of people: was) running out, the chairman left frustrated, the webpage felt quite dead ... but within a short time after the letter to all members the donations bar exploded"[1], a lot of people show up online and more. Hopefully this momentum lasts and in consequence the networks becomes more usable for actually making contacts, finding hosts/guests and making a difference.

Being part of hospitality networks for nearly four years now, I can only recommend using them, I've met many people from / at different places and enjoyed it a lot. Off course: sometimes it's just a short meetup and a place to sleep, but even that is much more than sitting in a random hostel or hotel. And countless experiences went far beyond simple traveller's gossip. My warmest regards from here to Hongkong, Lahore, Kopenhagen, Helsinki, Kassel, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Viktoria, Funchal and many more places: You've made a difference.

I would really like to get rid of the bad run commercial network of couchsurfing. It's the biggest network and also the most usable one, as most of the people hangout there. But the problem aren't the people, it's the system and at couchsurfing we can't change the system. We could only beg and pray it continues working. So an alternative network is needed, that is run by the people who are the network, where everyone can have an impact on how things are done. And if we really want to, we will make a difference.

[1]We're not talking about really much money here, nevertheless it's necessary to raise it or the servers go offline / domains expire / bank account is closed.

The ugly face of global capitalism: Big Shiny banned from MyS***

As some of you may remember I was involved a little bit with Big Shiny, a sideproject from ACEtone, NYC, the worlds leading studio for fine dub music. In 2004 the masterpiece "Kratzen für das Ebenleben" was released. Flying beyond the radar of the musical industries Big Shiny had become the major influence of all progression in music since than. Probably this has become a serious threat now, so at a first step MyS*** (you know I never link to them anyway) decided to delete the profile of Big Shiny and ban them from their website (more info). So Big Shiny is expecting major deals - the main weapon of the companies to destroy music - any time soon.

Fuck them. You can't stop us.

Ich heul gleich ... / I'll start crying soon ...

(english version below, the referred article from Spiegel Online is german only)

... Ackermann wird zum Sozialfall, er verliert glatt 90% seines Einkommens in diesem Jahr. Bleiben magere 1,4 Millionen Euro, gehen wir davon aus, dass das brutto ist, arbeite ich das in 35 Jahren zusammen. Ackermann macht also in diesem Jahr ungefähr den Verdienst meines gesamten Berufslebens, wenn ich Glück habe. (Disclaimer: Wenn ich nicht müsste, würde ich nicht arbeiten, aber mit der Kohle, die ich derzeit verdiene, komme ich locker klar.) Nein, ich will hier keine Neiddebatte führen. Wenn sich jemand krummlegt, um im Jahr Millionenbeträge zu verdienen, so soll er das tun. Aber, und auch das hatten wir schon, wenn er im Folgejahr am 2. Januar wieder auf der Matte steht, um erneut für einen Millionenbetrag zu buckeln, dann ist er einfach geisteskrank. Und solche Leute darf man dann zu ihrem eigenen Schutz und zum Schutz der Allgemeinheit aus dem Verkehr ziehen. Nicht wegsperren, aber sowas wie Arbeitsverbot bei angemessener psychologischer Betreuung fände ich richtig, um die Finanzierung muss man sich ja kaum mehr Sorgen machen.

Und die Dimensionen sind ja ganz andere: Letztes Jahr hat Ackermann die Ausgaben für sein armseliges Dasein noch mit 14 Millionen bestreiten müssen. Das habe ich in 350 Jahren auch zusammen. Letztes Jahr hätten also zehn Leute auf Ackermanns Kosten die Einnahme eines kompletten Berufslebens generieren können. Im verlinkten Spiegelartikel heißt es außerdem:

Deshalb seien nun alle 1200 führenden Manager aufgefordert worden, ihre Boni zurückzugeben. Die Bonuszahlungen im vergangenen Jahr beliefen sich nach Angaben des Unternehmens auf 300 Millionen Euro.


Schlüsselt man das auf: 300 Mio = 7500 mal 40.000,- = 214 mal "35 Jahre lang 40.000,-/Jahr" (plus ein bisschen für die Portokasse). Man könnte also anstelle des letztjährlichen Obolus für die Führungskader der Wirtschaft, knapp über 200 Leute lebenslang von Lohnarbeit freistellen.

Nur mal so ein paar schnell rausgehauene Vorschläge:

Ihr habt sicher mehr Ideen. Ein weiterere Vorschlag: generiert die freiwillige Arbeit der Begünstigten zusätzliches Einkommen, wird das dem Gesamttopf wieder zugeführt. Könnte ich gut mit leben.

(Ach ja: bei dem Modell gehen die 1200 Führungskader ein Jahr leer aus. Pech gehabt.)

... Ackermann will rely on social welfare soon, as he is loosing 90% of his income this year. Small 1,4 million euros remain, guessing this is before tax/social insurance, i'd work for this 35 years. So Ackermann earns this year roughly my whole lifes income, if I'm lucky. (Disclaimer: If I don't have to, I wouldn't work, but with money I make right now, I'm fine.) No, I don't wanna start a debatte about envy here. But if someone's working his ass off, to make millions, he's welcome to do so. But if he shows up at 2nd of january the following year, to work like a dog for more millions, he's simply mentally ill. And it's allowed to stop these people to protect themselves and the society. Not jailing them, but something like banning from work and proper psychological care seems to be appropriate, no reason to worry about funding.

But the dimensions are for more than that: Last year Ackermann had to made his miserable living with just 14 millions. I'd make this in 350 years. So last year 10 people could have made a whole worklifes income on Ackermann's cost. The linked article also mentioned:

All leading 1200 managers has been asked to give back their bonuses. According to the company's informations the bonus payments have been 300 million euros in total.

A rough calculation: 300 mio = 7500 x 40.000,- = 214 x "35 years of 40.000/a year" (plus a bit petty cash). So instead of paying last years bonuses to leaders of the economy, some more than 200 people could be freed from hired labour their whole life.

Just some fast suggestion:


For sure, you've got more ideas. Another suggestion: If the voluntary work of the choosen ones generates any additional income, it will go back to the main fund. I'd be fine with it.

(Alas, with this modell the 1200 econonmic cadres don't get anything for one year. Tough luck.)