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I’ve been using the Babylon Translation software on-off for many years and I think it’s a great tool. However there are some things which bother me a lot:

- My mother language is German and I noticed that quite a lot of articles are wrong in the German-English translation. Also some of the definitions seem to be completely wrong to me. It seems they didn’t really double-check their entries. I took the time to send them an email but it took them many weeks to even acknowledge my email. I estimate that I’ve found about 20-30 articles which are wrong, and about 2-3 wrong meanings in the German-English dictionary. If you need a reliable dictionary I recommend Oxford. Pity they don’t have a similar application, they could make a lot of money.

- Another thing I found is that their “perpetual licences” aren’t really “for ever”.  The support chat on the sales page seems to be single-mindedly concentrating on upgrading you to the new version which requires a new “perpetual licence”.  In the end I was forced to buy the third “perpetual licence” because on Vista the old version didn’t work properly.

- They also have an affiliate program but even though I made a lot of leads, I never made sale. I wonder why is that. You can set up the affiliate program to notify you by email when you’ve made a lead (a user downloaded the program) or a sale. You can’t set it up to only get an email when you’ve made a sale, which is really annoying if you constantly get emails about leads, when in reality you only want a notification email when you’ve made a sale.

Apart from that I think it’s a nifty tool, I wonder why there aren’t any other software companies which offer something similar. At least I don’t know any serious competitors.

This book is based on the bestseller “Fast Food Nation”. Even though the subtitle is “Everything you don’t want to know about Fast Food” I strongly suggest you read this book. I haven’t quite finished the book yet but this book makes an interesting read no matter if you regularly eat at McDonald’s or Burger King or not. One chapter is about what influence the “American Way of Life” has on Alaska since it became part of the USA in 1959. Before it was part of the US Alaskan children had virtually no problems with their teeth, but since Coca Cola distributes their soft drinks it has become very common. The book also explains how many American schools depend on soft drink companies to pay for uniforms and other expenses. In other words schools are encouraged to turn kids into junk food junkies instead of teaching them about nutrition they are co-operating with the big corporations.

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The last book I’ve read was Felicity Lawrence’s book “Not on the label”. I’ve haven’t heard of her before but the title was kind of getting my attention so I chose to read it. It gives insight on what effect supermarkets have in today’s society. Now I shop a little bit different. If I can buy something from the local bakery I’ll go for that. Tesco’s bread always (so it seems) has some preservatives and quite a few of strange ingredients. Plus in supermarkets you kind of feel a bit anonymous. It touches on a many interesting subjects. For instance about illegal immigrants doing the hard work in the food industry and how they are being exploited.

The book explains CBP, something I haven’t heard about. It’s short for “Chorleywood Bread Process”. According to Wikipedia it was developed in 1961 by the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association at Chorleywood (a town in Hertfordshire) and the majority of bread is made in that way. The problem with this process is that the fermentation process is reduced to a very short time, which means the bread won’t taste as good and therefore more salt is used according to Felicity Lawrence’s book.

Another modern invention is “Modified Atmosphere Packaging” (MAP), which reduces the oxygen inside the package of vegetables in order to extend the shelf life. Felicity Lawrence says however that products might look fresh but actually lose vitamins as fast as without MAP. So it basically fakes freshness.

Supermarkets also sell a lot of products (everyday products like milk) below profit. In many countries this is forbidden or restricted by law, not so here in the UK. The problem with this is that it makes it difficult for smaller shops to sell these things. Supermarkets can basically drive smaller shops into bankruptcy that way and then raise the price again.

Felicity Lawrence writes for the Guardian and seems to know a lot about the food industry. She also seems to be a nice person, I’ve emailed her and she even answered. She said that she will soon release a new book.

Anyway her conclusion is basically that supermarkets have too much power and they abuse it. It’s a must read book because how you shop will affect everybody (including yourself).

Jeremy Paxman has chosen this book as the most memorable read of 2004:

“If you want to know why the food you buy in the supermarket tastes of cotton wool, or you want to find out how British agriculture has been ruined, read Felicity Lawrence’s Not on the Label. It’s a brave and depressing examination of the calamities caused by a policy laughingly called one of ‘cheap food’.”

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_Bread_Process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Atmosphere_Packaging

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/felicity_lawrence/index.html

Professor Richard Dawkins is becoming more and more famous as an outspoken atheist. He presented and wrote the documentary “The Root of All Evil?” and recently published the book “The God Delusion” which is a huge success on Amazon. No matter if you believe in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism this might help you to understand on what atheism is based on and why they believe what they believe. I think its not dangerous to believe in something, it only becomes a problem if you think you are 100% sure. Even Richard Dawkins says he can’t be sure that there isn’t a God.

The problem with the God question is how do you define God. Since there isn’t a clear definition it’s pretty pointless to argue about this matter. If we define God as the creator of the universe and everything in it then we should not ask whether God exists but what God is. Because by this definition God exists since the universe exists.

No matter if you are a religious person who does Koran or Bible studies or not we should come to terms with the fact that there are no certainties. Even if the Catholic Church doesn’t like to hear it, the Pope isn’t infallible and many things in the Bible are contradictory, cruel and don’t make sense at all. But then again hardline atheist need to understand that religion is not just about the god question but also about moral guidelines and being part of a community.

Another famous book by Richard Dawkins is the “The Selfish Gene” which Dawkins published about 30 years ago and has been equally successful like his newest book but has nothing to do with Atheism or Agnosticism.

The God Delusion

Here’s a tip if you are a hay fever sufferer. Forget antihistamines, these will only be a big burden on your health. My wife took these to control her hay fever but had some unpleasant side effects. Now she successfully treats her symptoms with homeopathy. Make sure to get a proper consultation, it might take some time to find the right homeopathic remedy. My wife was lucky with the second homeopath, the first time she didn’t succeed but the second she went to an hour long consultation and now happily lives without antihistamins.

Yesterday there have been riots in Hungary because their leader admitted that he has been lying about the economy there. I have to say this make me really angry, because the leader of a country should be as competent, intelligent and honest as possible. Indeed a leader of a country has so much responsibility that he should be almost be perfect. Well, how many such people exist that are near perfect? And what are the chances that they are our president? The chances are near zero. That’s why I strongly dislike the concept of leadership. There are many examples in history where leaders have made the lives of many a misery. That’s because it’s completely mad to give so much power to a single person or even a small group. Also make no mistake, in today’s world the margin of error is getting smaller and smaller. We have weapons to end human life on this planet several times over. That means we have to change how we make political decisions, we need to evolve democracy. Software is getting smarter, every year our industry produces computer which are faster. On the other hand democracy didn’t evolve much.

The idea that we vote for people we hardly know is absurd. So what would the political process in an ideal world be? Ideally the smartest, the most competent people would make the political decisions. In other words political power should be given according to competence, not according to the ability to sell oneself successfully and to give speeches.

So instead of voting every few years we should find the most competent people for each political decision. For instance if we would like to make a decision concerning how our hospitals work then those people who actually work in that field like nurses and doctors should be given more political power to help make a decision in that field. Want to invade a country? How much do you know about history of that country? Have you lived there? How much do you know about changing a political system successfully through war?

Every person should make a case for themselves why they feel they are competent in this particular decision and they should get judged by a “political jury”. The jurors would be made up from members of the public and their task would be to find out how competent somebody is for a particular political decision. Of course this system isn’t foolproof, but because in every decision many people would be involved it makes sure we come to the right political decision - even if some people have been misjudged.

The current system is a bit like communism, where everybody gets the same of something, in this case voting power. Unfortunately like communism this democratic process doesn’t work very well. People who prefer to read the “The Economist” instead of watching “American Idol” should be rewarded with more political power. Ticking a box every few years is not really what democracy is about, at best its a very primitive form of democracy. Becoming a politician shouldn’t be the only way to make political decisions.

With todays “collaborative software” we could easily set up a system which would produce much better political decisions than the current system. For instance Wikipedia is an example of such a software.

The key for a better world is a smarter political process, and I would even go so far as to say that our survival depends on it. Think about it, modern man exists only for a very short time, and we’ve already had large scale wars which killed millions of people, we’ve already destroyed large portions of this planet through pollution, and the western world is living an unsustainable life style. We wouldn’t be where we are if we had made different decisions in the past. Which basically means the current political systems don’t really work very well and need to evolve.

The problem is that the people in power are happy that they are in power, and they won’t change the system to get themselves out of power. That’s why democracy doesn’t evolve much. So we need to put pressure on politicians to change the system.

If you like this idea you can help spread it by blogging about it, linking to this blog entry, discussing it with family and friends, etc. Also you can find more information about similar ideas by searching for Microdemocracy or E-Democracy on Google.

According to the Mayo Clinic “each year more than 100,000 Americans die of alcohol-related causes and alcohol is a factor in nearly half of all U.S. traffic deaths.” That means about every 10 days alcohol kills as many people as the September 11 attacks.

In the UK 22,000 people die from alcohol related causes per year. Since moving to the UK I’ve noticed how many people have a drug problem here, especially with alcohol. The pub culture is so deeply ingrained in British society that it takes a heavy toll. But not only in Britain it is a problem. The son of my father’s cousin went on a trip to the Dominican Republic with his girlfriend. At a party they were offered free alcoholic drinks. And here is the irony of the story, because normally he doesn’t drink alcohol, but because it was free he had a drink. Later he had an argument with his girlfriend and went back to the hotel room. When she returned too she found him dead lying on his bed because he choked to death on his own vomit. He was a young and handsome guy. This free drink was the most expensive mistake of his short life. Anyway this is just one story, another one I’ve heard is from one of my class mates whose younger sister was killed together with another child by a drunk driver.

The British government pays a lot of money for adverts on television to warn of alcohol abuse. But if a few minutes later there is an advert from a beer or vodka company encouraging you to drink alcohol then it seems a bit pointless. Alcohol is an addictive substance so if some ads tell you to drink responsibly how much an effect do you think that has? So I’m definitely for outlawing advertising alcoholic drinks. Also I think that alcohol is too cheap. It should reflect the damage it inflicts on society. Another thing that really bothers me are TV ads in general which mostly try to sell products to you which you do not need. You might think that TV ads are harmless but in reality the big corporations shape our society through them. They are given a tool to program and control the minds of especially young people. By the time a child has grown up it has seen thousands and thousands of adverts where happy beautiful people drink beer, eat fatty food, etc. So I think its a big mistake to give big corporations this kind of powerful mind control. Its an illusion to think because of the ads we are better off because we don’t have to pay a TV licence. Society pays a much higher price because of the influence these ads have. For instance if we ban alcohol commercials we easily could save millions of dollars in rehabilitation and lost working hours. These alone could cover the TV licence and we still would have free TV without the brainwashing.

In any case I doubt we will really solve the problem as long as our Western society doesn’t reject alcohol like we do with heroin or other heavy drugs. I’m not in favour of banning alcohol but everybody who drinks alcohol, even if its in a reasonable way is part of the problem not the solution because its like a voice saying alcohol is not a problem in our society. If you are strong enough to say no to alcohol other people will follow this example.

Think about it, every day women are beaten by alcohol abuser, people killed by drunk drivers, families destroyed, children born with disabilities because their mothers were drinking during pregnancy. Famous people like George Best, Bon Scott, Jim Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, and many more died too early because of alcohol abuse. Famous or not every life counts.

I don’t know if you’ve read about the “Chaos theory”, a famous example is the “Butterfly Effect” which states that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings in China can effect the weather in another country thousands of miles away. I don’t know if that’s true but everything you do will have an effect on other people. For example if you decide to drink alcohol, then maybe your children will drink too because of your influence, they themselves will have an effect on their friends and so on. And its basically just a question of time until someone is influenced who can’t handle it and will cause harm to himself or other people. Like Maximus says in “The Gladiator” movie “What we do in life, echoes through eternity”. Think about.

I suspect as long as somebody makes huge profits through the alcohol industry and our society isn’t smart enough to see the bigger picture, not much will change. If you drink you support an industry which is indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people next year, and it could be someone you know and love. Be smart and become a non-drinker and possibly save a life, maybe even your own.

At the moment I’m reading “The Lion Graphic Bible: The Whole Story from Genesis to Revelation” by Mike Maddox. Its basically the Bible in Comic form. As a child I’ve been taught about the Bible, but now reading it I realise how little sense it makes. First God in the Bible suddenly decides to create the Heavens and the Earth. Then he creates animals and Adam and Eve and puts two trees into paradise. One is the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” from which God forbade Adam and Eve to eat. The evil snake convinces them to eat from this tree. The first thing that comes to mind is why would God put a tree into the middle of Paradise and then forbid Adam to eat from it? And why was it forbidden? What could possibly be so evil about a tree? And what motive could the snake have (which God created) to seduce Adam and Eve to eat from it? Also what is the connection from eating from a “forbidden tree” and suddenly feeling ashamed of one’s nakedness? And I wonder how Adam and Eve populated the planet without incestuous relationships? The story later continues with God being unhappy about the world which had become “corrupted” and he decides to kill off all humans except Noah and a few others who save the species on their huge ship. Why did God think that this would improve things, since the genetic code of humans hadn’t been changed by him? If he was unhappy with his creation wouldn’t it make more sense to re-create a new species? And how did Noah manage to pack a whole zoo on his ship and feed them for 40 days? By that time the lions would have eaten the gazelles for sure.

One could argues of course that the Bible is only symbolic and can not be taken at face value. Anyway I will keep reading, if you are interesting in the Graphic Bible, click on the click below.

The Lion Graphic Bible

“Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others.” - Winston Churchill

Most people in the Western world believe that democracy is the best political system to live in. True it may be the best system so far but if you think about it what democracy really is, its far from “power to the people”. How involved is the average person into politics? Ticking a box every 4 years is hardly what deserves to be called “democracy”. We vote for people we hardly know. So what would be better? I think we need to take democracy to a new level. Why not vote for political decisions instead of politicians who might act in their own interest?

If you look at Wikipedia you know there’s a lot of knowledge out there, everybody knows something we just need to find a system to tap into that knowledge and this needs to be reflected in political decisions. The decision to go to war in Iraq affected thousands of people but how many people were involved in this decision? I think its time to have Wikipedia style politics. Many people do not like politics because they can not really influence much and know that many politicians are corrupt. If any person can directly influence political decisions we would have many people be interested in politics again. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is that everybody can change anything at any time so its often unreliable and messy. If we want to have Wikipedia style politics we need a system to reward knowledgeable people with more “voting power” than people who never try to learn new things. The biggest problems of democracies is that politicians tend to become “people pleaser” to stay in power. For instance we know now that Global Warming will become a serious problem in the future and what new laws have been passed? You can still fly for 20 Pounds to your favourite Spanish island and pump a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere for very little money. We are wholesaling our environment and future.

We need to manage a country like we would manage a company. What would happen if we would manage our companies like countries? Exactly, they would be broke. Most countries are broke, even rich countries are seriously indebted. This should tell you there’s something seriously wrong with how politics work in todays time. We need to reward knowledgeable people with more political or voting power. Like we reward people in a company who work hard with a promotion. The biggest challenge is putting in place a system which judges or rates people’s knowledge, but its definitely possible. We do it successfully in schools and in companies. We would also need to judge the judge like for instance it is done at Slashdot. Its time that democracies evolve, that we use what we learned from the Internet. In some countries you can already vote without paper, why not take it one step further and make political decisions through computers with the help of anybody who is willing to share their knowledge. This might sound Utopian but I’m sure this will happen sooner or later, hopefully sooner, we would all benefit from it.

Doing a little bit research on the Internet I realized that many people already have the same thoughts like I have. Please visits the links below and support this idea of E-Democracy. We do not need politicians, everybody should be one!

http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Campaigns_Wikia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edemocracy
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rodmell/index.htm

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Viral infections like the common cold or flu are a real problem for many people, especially in winter. For all those people I’ve got a recommendation for the treatment without side effects. As soon as you feel the typical flu symptoms like sore throat, sneezing, runny nose, fever, coughing, inflammation take “Ferrum phosphoricum” (or short Ferrum phos.) to prevent it from breaking out. You can buy it from a health shop, chemists or just google it and buy online. Start with a low potency like 6x (D6 in some countries) to see how your body reacts. If it doesn’t relieve the symptoms after 1 or 2 days it might help to increase the potency of the medicine. Make sure not to touch the medicine, instead put the pellets into the cap and then directly into your mouth under your tongue.

The good thing about Ferrum phos. is that it does not have any side effects. Be aware that there are some strong aromatic substances which can disturb Ferrum phos. from properly working. These include coffee, or everything that contains coffee and menthol toothpaste. There are some special homeopathic toothpastes (without peppermint) available which are suitable to take during treatment.

I’ve taken it for about 2 years with a lot of success. If you take Ferrum phosphoricum please let me know how it goes. I’m convinced its a good way for common cold prevention, and also to alleviate the symptoms if the common cold is already in full swing.

It is also suitable for pregnant women and children since it doesn’t have any side effects. Be aware that even if you take Ferrum phos. the cold still might last the usual 5 to 10 days to cure but with less severe symptoms.

If you can not get Ferrum phos. from your local pharmacy try the links below to buy it online. There is also a link to buy the peppermint free toothpaste from Weleda which I quite grew to like, because it has a nice fennel oil taste and not that artificial toothpaste taste like Colgate.

Ferrum Phos 6x - 1000 tablets

Ferrum Phos 30x - 500 tablets

Peppermint Free Homeopathic Toothpaste from Weleda