By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war.^[37] The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals: engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers.^[37] The direct cost of manpower losses to East Germany (and corresponding gain to the West) has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses.^[37] In addition, the drain of East Germany’s young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment.^[40] The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German communist frontier was imperative.^[41]

The barrier was built slightly inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Later, it was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People’s Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany’s western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man’s land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.^[46]

Aaron Swartz – The Network Transformation

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013 / avicenna2020 / 1 Comment

TO CALL Aaron Swartz gifted would be to miss the point. As far as the internet was concerned, he was the gift. In 2001, aged just 14, he helped develop a new version of RSS feeds, which enable blog posts, articles and videos to be distributed easily across the web. A year later he was working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, and others on enhancing the internet through the Semantic Web, in which web-page contents would be structured so that the underlying data could be shared and reused across different online applications and endeavours. At the same time he was part of a team, composed of programmers like himself (albeit none quite as youthful), lawyers and policy wonks, that launched Creative Commons, a project that simplified information-sharing through free, easy-to-use copyright licences.

Most of this he did for little or no compensation. One exception was Reddit, though he later sounded almost contrite about the riches showered on him and his colleagues by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue and over a dozen other prominent lifestyle magazines, which bought the popular social news site in 2006. In any case, he wasn’t a good fit for corporate life, he said, and left a few months later—or, depending on whom you talk to, was asked to leave. But the cash did let him focus on his relentless struggle to liberate data for online masses to enjoy for free.

For although programming was his first love, campaigning was his true vocation. He co-founded Demand Progress, a group that rails against internet censorship and which played a prominent role in the online campaign last year that helped to scupper proposed anti-piracy legislation supported by Hollywood film studios and other content owners. HisGuerrilla Open Access Manifesto of 2008 presaged—and perhaps inspired—recent threats by academics to shun journals that charge readers for access.

Remembering Aaron Swartz, Honoring a Pioneer & Activist

Aaron Swartz’s father says he was ‘killed by the government’ (telegraph.co.uk)
A moment of Silence for a Social Activist Hero-Aaron Swartz (computerinformationsystems.wordpress.com)

How You Brake The Borders….

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 / avicenna2020 / 1 Comment

Prosthetic limbs are incredibly valuable to amputees because a prosthesis can help restore some of the capabilities lost with the amputated limb. Although prosthetic limbs have still not advanced to the point where they can rival the functionality provided by biological limbs, the capabilities they do provide can be significant. Great strides are being made each day in the field of prosthetics, and while great technological challenges remain, artificial limbs are becoming increasingly similar to real limbs.

How the ITU could put the internet behind closed doors.

November 14, 2012November 14, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

English: 100 years International Telecommunication Union Deutsch: 100 Jahre Internationale Fernmeldeunion :*Graphics by Lichtwitz :*Ausgabepreis: 40 Pfennig :*First Day of Issue / Erstausgabetag: 17. Mai 1965 :*Michel-Katalog-Nr: 476 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We love the internet.

And we’re guessing you do too. Think about all the awesome things it gives us: A vast communication network; innovative businesses; a platform to freely speak or challenge powerful governments; and hundreds and hundreds of hours of cat videos.

All this great stuff is available because the internet was designed in an open and inclusive way, with a multitude of voices being able to get a say on how it’s governed.

But the internet is in danger.

There’s a meeting between the world’s governments in a just a few weeks, and it could very well decide the future of the internet through a binding international treaty. It’s called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), and it’s being organized by a government-controlled UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

SIMON KENT – UN agency wants to control the Internet (sunnewsnetwork.ca)
FW: Changing the internet as we know it? – Rex P. (inquiringminds.cc)
UK ranked fifth in the world for broadband (xlntelecom.co.uk)

One Young World

October 22, 2012October 22, 2012 / avicenna2020 / 3 Comments

The premier global forum for young people of leadership calibre. It manifests the reality of common humanity and the shared existence of all the peoples in one world, Its purpose is to connect and bring together the youngest, brightest and best and to ensure that their concerns, opinions and solutions are heard.

One Young World Launches Fund To Provide Early Financing To Growing Social Businesses At 2012 Summit (sacbee.com)
Delegates Welcomed To Pittsburgh For One Young World Summit (pittsburgh.cbslocal.com)

Canterbury couple turn bus into a new home

July 1, 2012July 1, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

What a great concept; an idea and a necessity wonderfully transformed into reality. Totally love it. This is the future of housing. The way things are going…. wont be long. The big boys in the auto industry should learn a thing or two from this innovative and practical story. Wishing the couple all the best.
deshantor il y a 17 heures

Getting the bus home: Couple move into double-decker because they can’t afford a house (mirror.co.uk)

Suu Kyi accepts Nobel Peace Prize

June 16, 2012June 20, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

Nobel price

Her interview with John Simpson is marvelous. Despite years of being detained, her defiant and determined, yet gentle, forgiving and understanding, charisma will carry her through the path toward democracy.
Watch her talking in London
Such a dignified and wise woman. Our world is richer for having people like her around. I’m happy for the Burmese people this momentous day.
andromedacarina il y a 1 an Continue reading →

Eckhart Tolle on Presence

June 13, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

One night in 1977, at the age of 29, after having suffered from long periods of suicidal depression, Tolle says he experienced an “inner transformation.”^[7] That night he awakened from his sleep, suffering from feelings of depression that were “almost unbearable,” but then experienced a life-changing epiphany.^[9]Recounting the experience, Tolle says,

I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching.^[11]

Tolle recalls going out for a walk in London the next morning, and finding that “everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the traffic.”^[9] The feeling continued, and he began to feel a strong underlying sense of peace in any situation.^[5] Tolle stopped studying for his doctorate, and for a period of about two years after this he spent much of his time sitting, “in a state of deep bliss,” on park benches in Russell Square, Central London, “watching the world go by.” He stayed with friends, in a Buddhist monastery, or otherwiseslept rough on Hampstead Heath. His family thought him “irresponsible, even insane.”^[11] Tolle changed his first name from Ulrich to Eckhart, by some reports in homage to the German philosopher and mystic,Meister Eckhart,^[6]^[8]^[12] by other reports he was drawn to that name coincidentally.^[13]

Oprah and Eckhart Tolle – The False Power of Ego (evolutionarymystic.wordpress.com)
What’s it Like? (3wordsfor365.com)

A Jamboree in Baden-Wüttenberg

June 1, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

At Düsseldorf I was delightfully surprised by the warm wellcoming of the friends up there, particularly how the hugging between the friends was, so exiting that the shared happiness was deeply touching and tears could have come to my eyes. After that we collected the luggage in a van belonging to one from the Düsseldorf ?s scout group and we reached the upper floor in order to catch the train leading to central town.

We walked along several streets behind our guide to the club and there, we joined many German friends boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. A large room fully furnished gathered us. Later we’ve taken a rest on a lawn in the garden until tea time, fully tired after a long ride on foot through the main streets leading to a high tower ?Rheinturm? that gives a beautiful overview of the ?Rhein? river and a big part of the town.

After dinner each two or three Tunisian lads or girls were designed to join a guest family in order to spend the night. Daby and me followed Florian who took us home in a van. Then we got upstairs in his flat. After a short rest we went down town for a short walking and to buy postal stamps for a letter that I managed to write during the rest time after lunch to be sent to my family in Tunisia next morning.

On Sunday we’ve taken the breakfast at Florian’s then we went down town for a morning walk through the streets and many other interesting sites. We’ve been discovering the river shore and the bridge near the church and the harbour. Some ships were loading huge boxes; others were empty and heading to the north probably to carry other stuff.

Few people this Sunday morning were riding bikes here and there. A large public garden was beautifully green full of grass, benches spread everywhere appeal riders to take a rest in the shade. The morning was shiny and silent; we sat on the stares near the river a place chosen to meet the whole group before visiting the town.

Through Düsseldorf

At ten everybody was ready and we started to play on the grass. Tunisians and German scouts and guides making two fighting groups. The joke was extremely funny and some bit tiring. An hour later two official guides were presented. One who speaks German went with the German scouts and the other who speaks French went with the Tunisian scouts and guides.

We began by visiting the ?Düssel?, river that had given its name to the town ?Düsseldorf?.Through the history churches were built and monuments represent nowadays the long struggle between Germans and Foreigners and on the other hand between Catholics and Protestants.

Lovely cafés and bars invite tourists from many German regions or foreign towns to appreciate the particular beer well known in this historical town. It was lunchtime and the whole restaurants on both sides of the streets were crowded and you can smell different kinds of tasty food along our going by. At the end of the visit we walked along the riverside until we reached a grassy public garden where we may picnic, take lunch and rest. In the shade under a tree, boys and girls sat around to eat cold meal with fruit and drinks. Meanwhile on the roads across the park bikes of different sizes went up and down the bridge riding happily in a sunny Sunday. Thereafter we went back to the club building were we spent nice time playing or making some scout activities until dinnertime. Finally my friend Daby and me followed Florian on foot to his flat. It was slightly raining but we went on. At home Florian?s sister spent with us a short time in the living room, I mailed home using the Internet and then said good night.

Travel to Hauenstein

On Monday we have to take the bus in order to camp in the woods near Hauenstein. The way was long and we arrived over there at about four o?clock in the afternoon. We started by building the tents before the rainfall, however, drops of rain begun falling just when the last tent has been built. We took dinner in a big black tent then on the wet grass we came up to light a nice campfire around which we spent the first outdoor night, singing scout songs. German guides with guitars and Tunisians with an Arabic guitar”‘OUD” the fresh air smoothed by the wooden fire spread to our corps a nice feeling of happiness.

The next day we started woodcuttings, construction of useful means to make the tents more furnished and easy to live in. The sightseeing all around was extremely beautiful with mountain forests and cloudy sky. It was actually a sight for sore eyes Near our camp there were children of different ages between seven and fourteen made a lot of noise by listening to loudspeakers and pop music. Sometimes their screaming or hands clapping was clearly heard through the silent of the green wood.

On the second day we went after lunch for hiking through the forest. It took us the whole afternoon walking in paths in the large forest. Very beautiful sightseeings were appreciated by the way. The most interesting place was upon a very high stone overviewing the little town ?Hauenstein? with its nice red roofs and white walls. Arriving at the camp, tired as we were, it was hard to stay for so long around the campfire that night.

The next day we had to choose between climbing and shopping in a small town not very far from our camp. I took the bus to go shopping. We were very delighted to discover a pretty town very clean and beautiful. On the way back to the camp we crossed the other group who has chosen climbing. They told that they have much enjoyed the exercises and learned a lot about the art of climbing mountains.

Düsseldorf (apostcardaday.blogspot.com)
On the eve of 100th birthday, philanthropist Ralph Hauenstein shares his secret that helped win World War II – MLive.com (mlive.com)
Beat of….Dusseldorf (luxurytravelbeat.com)

Gymnast UK Gymnastics documentary

May 31, 2012 / avicenna2020 / Leave a comment

I really enjoy her gymnastics 🙂 I hope many gymnasts learn from watching this docu that even if you are not in the spotlight doesn’t mean you are out of it. Hard work and sticking in there gives result in the end. I had a similar story myself back in ballet school where I always was 2nd or 3rd cast for things until one day I needed to jump in with two hours notice in a show. I made the most of that opportunity. Can’t wait for this summer now!!! Go Team GB! (and I’m a swede) 🙂

This is one of the best documentaries on sports I have ever seen.

kristy922 il y a 7 mois 64