What do Greece and the Philippines have in common?

The Greek currently feel about Germany in financial matters  like the Filipinos about the USA when it comes to the military – pissed off about paternalism and lack of ‘independence’. But as soon as they are in the deep shit (i.e. bankrupt / razed by China) they cry out for help from exactly those countries they trash talk about.

True story.

Watched ‘The Avengers’ today. Learned something. Loved it.

So, Avengers is quite a good movie I must say.
It helped me finally understand the underlying metaphysical concept of superheroes, which in turn lead to some anthropological revelations. Keeping those in mind, I sorted the superhero movies sprouting up over the past few years into a timeline and compared it to the timeline of global political and economic events, followed by an analysis of similar times in recent and human history when similar concepts of folklore were popular; and I completely understood why this crap is so successful again these days – why we all desperately need to watch superhero movies.

Using my findings I could lean back and enjoy the concepts and messages in the film exactly the way they are subconsciously intended to work. Having never really been a fan of what I regarded as fantastic superficialities, it really was a 180 degree turn in how I look at and appreciate it.

So, bottom line, I liked that movie a lot.

Also, I think Captain America’s haircut is awesome.

P.S.: I’m not a nerd. My mother had me tested.

They know, and nobody does anything about it

The ancien regime, in its latest coup in the hopeless war against progress took down Megaupload and Megavideo, which were among the largest file sharing websites there are.
Of course, there are plenty of others. But today, while trying to get my daily dose of on-demand TV series on iwatchnetwork.eu I realized that the Megaupload assassination must have sent a wave of shock through the web.
Since Megavideo and many others do not work very stable under Linux I had switched my attention to two much smaller hosters, videoBB and Videozer. Usually there are plenty of links to the series episode I currently want to watch, and usually they work. But today I was shocked to find out that NONE of them worked, neither for the newest episodes nor for very old ones (which tend to be off the focus of the copyright-protector-file-deleters) Even links that had worked the day before suddenly only showed “This file has been deleted by the user” (of course, the user…)
That was a very quick reaction and it was done so completely that is set me thinking. I mean, given, if I had such a website I would have immediately started deleting illegal files so the governments of the western countries don’t slaughter me like they slaughtered Megaupload. But this must take a while, especially if you consider that these websites probably only employ a handful of staff. So what is the conclusion? To me it looks like they knew very well that 99%+ of the files they were hosting were illegal. How could they not know that anyway ? But they must have been prepared, maybe kept them all in a specific server directory which could be easily turned off to take it offline. One single click and you are off the grid.

Clever, and good for them. Bad for me.

I am not getting tired of saying it – the media industry has completely missed the turn of the century, and they are completely unaware of the opportunities and the necessities the internet brings. I would love to watch my TV series legally (and therefore always available) but where can I do that? Sure, there is Hulu, which once was praised as the future of media consumption. There are others that followed this example. But it is all in United States. Here in Singapore, as in Europe, or wherever, one still has to rely on pirated content. Fighting piracy without replacing it with a legal alternative is majorly unfair, and even more so it is fruitless. In June last year, the German government took down a very successful website that collected links to illegal movies and series. Two weeks later, it was there again. Not that Germans love the illegal, in fact we tend to stick to laws and rules more than most other countries, but what is the alternative? Especially in my home country the big TV companies can not be counted on. They do have online portals where you can watch their content – but it is all crappily dubbed and only available years after the original aired in the US (which is typically the home country of the series we are watching) No alternative, so what can you do? For some reason I still don’t understand, the big media and production companies still fail to see this. They should fire their marketing staff, every single one of them.

It’s not that it doesn’t work. Of course a company must generate profit, and they can, very well. For years already, the producers of South Park have put the show’s episodes online – for everyone in the whole world. Even in Germany they are available in English, besides the dubbed version.
Obviously this works, and obviously they make profit with it. Of course they have some commercials, but still far less than they do on TV. It’s only fair to have commercials.
Secondly, try to find South Park on those illegal streaming sites – you won’t. There is no need to host them illegally as they are available legally. Even on YouTube you have a hard time finding anything.
And last but not least, I believe that the popularity of the show has increased ever since it was available online. Of course it has – just today, after trying in vain to watch first Family Guy, then Big Bang Theory, The Office and How I Met Your Mother, I went to my last resort: South Park. Even though I have seen every episode dozens, if not hundreds of times, I keep watching it, simply because it is the only source of this form of entertainment available at this time.

I am simply amazed that no other film company has tried to follow this obviously good example. Not a single one. I just don’t understand why…

You can’t run away

I guess one of the things I have learned lately is that you can try to get away from your problems, your worries, everything that makes your life bad, run to the end of the world and beyond but it doesn’t change one thing.

I ran. I ran from boredom, from repetitive patterns, from nothing new ever happening. I also ran from heartache, from streets and places, people and buildings filled with memories of broken promises, disappointed hopes and dead-end paths. I ran far, I crossed oceans and mountains, rivers and deserts. I found a little island that promised salvation, promised a new beginning. I went and it was indeed a new beginning, the beginning of the best time I ever had in my life.
But the truth is, light will always cast shadows. And the beautiful tropical island that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes, while giving all the salvation and happiness it does, does not make you tranquil as you think when you are a little country boy dreaming of the tropics’ lustful fruits and the shallow bliss promised by the big cities of this planet. After all, some people sail to tropical islands and end up being hacked to pieces and cooked, even in our days. True story, it just happened to a German adventurer in French Polynesia two weeks ago. I’m glad it’s not that bad for me, but the problems I ran from seem to have brothers and sisters that wait in every corner of this world, wherever you go. They will be there, lingering in the endless black of a pretty girl’s eyes and in the leaves of the palm trees you take a stroll under with her in your arms. They linger under way too short sundresses in October and in the fabrics of the new shirt you had tailor-made to impress; in the dark under your two comfy seats in the movie theater and on the dance floor you shuffle your feet on. They are dissolved in the raindrops that fall on the umbrella you and her are trying to both fit under and the drinks you gulp down together. They hover over your head when you stand at the bus stop alone hoping a yet to be met soul mate will have reserved a seat for you. These problems are ubiquitous. They are deeply engraved in the very thing that makes us human.

I’m not saying the glass is half empty but I found that it is just not that easy to run away. Lately I have been feeling like running away again, running back, starting over again. Hopes of blissful shallow happiness have been disappointed, the vulnerable young flowers of mutual affection are brutally chopped back as they begin to blossom, requiring more time and nutrition to grow back. But I know I shouldn’t run again. Not for the reasons I am giving myself for it. Stay and fight, fight destiny, fight stubbornness, fight anyone and anything that stands between you and happiness. If you run away from your problems once and find that it’s no better on the other side, and in turn you run away again, you might end up being on the road for the rest of your life, never truly happy, never satisfied.
Enjoy the light you are standing in, try to forget about the shadows it casts, but bear in mind that they will always follow you. Move around into brighter light but remember that it only casts darker shadows. Most importantly, enjoy the light you are currently in instead of trying to find a brighter one of which you hope it might drown the shadows.
Because it doesn’t.

Steve Jobs resigns – my last Apple rant

Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple. My friend sent me a very excited SMS while I was on the bus home and my initial comment was “yeah so what, he has done that before” but apparently this time it is serious. The speculated reason is that his cancer worsened his health too much. In that case, it is the best decision to resign from the stressful job of selling junk to millions of fanatic disciples. I hope he is going to be well and wish him all the best.

But what does that mean for Apple? While I am definitely not a fan of Steve Jobs, I have come to admire his talent of turning people into consumption machines which will take simply everything out of your hands for any price you name. He is a genius. Not a technology genius, and not a creative visionary, as some comments today title him – no, he is a marketing genius and only as such could he have given Apple the position it has today.

Yes, I wrote that his job was selling junk to zombie consumers, and I wrote that he is not a technologic visionary. I mean it. Jobs never invented anything, he just sold it. Many people have built computers and invented things, but I am quite sure that his colleague Steve Wozniak would have never been able to stay afloat if Jobs had not been able to sell the stuff. When Jobs was gone from Apple, they faced bankruptcy, and only Jobs’ return made it possible for Apple to stay alive.
And as for today’s products I will now cause every Apple user on the planet to drop their jaws and get into a wild rage by saying that their tech gadgets are not half as special as the proud users think. Seriously, what is a Mac? A Mac is a PC wrapped in gay white plastic. What is a Macbook? A Macbook is an average laptop (at best) wrapped in gay white plastic. What is an Ipod? And Ipod is an MP3-Player wrapped in blabla that is just way more complicated to use than a normal MP3 – no integrated USB, no drag-and-drop of files, but instead the need to plug it to a computer (of course, if it is not an Apple Computer the Ipod can cause serious harm to the software) and fill it using Itunes – a gay gray version of nameanyopensourcemediaplayer. What is an Iphone? Well, the Iphone was indeed a new concept but actually it is only a little computer with a phone function, too small to be comfortable for use and too big to be comfortable to carry in your pocket. What is an Ipad? A big Iphone, or a Macbook without keyboard and CD drive. I really don’t see the technical revolution. My friend recently said “Steve Jobs deserves credit for revolutionizing the way we communicate” – No, he doesn’t. Philipp Reis, Graham Bell, Bill Gates and the inventors of the Internet revolutionized the way we communicate, Apple just built on those.

Steve Jobs merely revolutionized the way we consume. Apple has a loyal customer base like no other company ever before. Apple is worshipped like a religion, in which the fruit logo replaces the cross, Steve Jobs replaces Jesus, Microsoft replaces the devil, the products replace indulgences, Apple stores replace churches, advertising replaces the inquisition and geeky customers replace the people who go on the crusade to kill and torture everything that does not believe in Christianity. In a more contemporary context replace my words by “Quran”, “Mohammed”, “America”, “72 virgins”, “Mosques”, “bin Laden” and “Terrorists”. Well you get what I mean.

And herein lies my deep aversion towards anything that is Apple. I have a friend who always was very interested in computers and technology. Eventually, he bought a Macbook and within a short period of time he turned into a total intolerant dick defending Apple in about the same manner someone defends the pope when you point out the retarded points about the Catholic teachings. He is not the only one, others have gone the same way. May be that they like Apple products better, but their 180° turn into dickheads was highly uncomfortable to me. And so, just like I told the Scientology guy who once stopped me and the Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing my door bell that I do not want to hear anything about their religion, I refused to get involved with Apple and its diabolic brainwashing machinery.
Not that I don’t acknowledge the advantages these products have over competitors, but (aside from my refusal to be sucked into the cult) unlike Apple users I do also acknowledge the disadvantages. Use a Macbook in the sun, the smooth display will f*ck you big time. Use a silicone protector for its keyboard and you will be glad to see dirt prints on your display afterwards. Try getting up on time the day daylight savings time starts when you use your Iphone as an alarm clock. Try customizing your Apple software. Try downloading an “app” that Apple does not like – there are none as the distribution channels are controlled and censored by the company. Yes, the products may be good but after all they are at best on par with other ones. Consider the incredibly overcharged price and you get ripped off. All so you can carry around a computer that is wrapped in gay white plastic and has a fruit painted on it. Congratulations, you have been “appled”. In Germany we actually have the word “veräppeln” which could be translated to this.

Apple, and especially the genius Steve Jobs, have turned millions into zombies who are not only willing to pay a lot of money for the products, but who also desperately wait for them, camp outside the store to buy them first and are absolutely willing to overlook and stubbornly deny any flaw or disadvantage pointed out to them regarding the product itself or the company policy. They love to be slaves of commerce, they love to be ripped off and if Steve Jobs had told them to go kill a Windows user, some would have done so. Except, the most fanatic Apple users would of course break off any contact with former friends who are Windows users. Say what you will, Steve Jobs has to be admired. His marketing skills are those few people in history have possessed, including Alexander the Great, Hitler, L. Ron Hubbard and Barack Obama. Some use their skills for good, some for bad. Steve Jobs used it to make money, is that good or bad? Neither, I would say. If I possessed the skill to sell shit to the masses and make billions with it, I would do so. There is nothing unethical about it, it’s the customers’ own fault that they are stupid and blind.

What does it mean, Jobs being gone? He left at the peak of his company’s career, that is certain. After the Ipad, which was already anything but a revolution, there is nothing more to invent. Ipod (touch), Iphone and Ipad are already so similar you can barely tell them apart. And with the enormous market share and loyal users, the brand is losing its major strength: being the one that is different. Remember the “I’m a Mac – and I’m a PC” commercials? Apple rose to success by using the Differentiation Strategy. Buy a Mac and you are finally free from Windows. Another bit of genius marketing – Apple mad its disciples believe that everybody who didn’t own a gay white computer is a Windows-user. Unfortunately, this is widely true and it used to be about 100% true a while ago. Linux still only has a market share of about 1% of the operating systems, for some reason I have never heard of Android for computers, and of course the Apple OS can not be installed on a computer that is not gay, white and overpriced. However, not my point. The point is that Apple was the different one, nibbling on Microsoft’s 100% market share. Now Apple’s market share is nearing the critical mass, the point where using Apple products is mainstream, and Apple will no longer be the different and unique one (how could you ever be unique with that anyway, all the items look the same and are zero customizable) and somebody else will use this approach on Apple. It is over, it has been slowing down for a while. The current attempt to keep Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab is just a ridiculously desperate approach to make the fat years last just a little bit longer. But at some point – even with an Apple monopoly – the geeks will realize that they do not need a Macbook, Iphone, Ipad and Ipod as they all do the same jobs. Apple is going to have to retrench, shrink to a healthy size and accept the position as one of many competitors in the field. Just like IBM and Microsoft had to.
With that happening, my hope is that Apple will finally become cool. I am not using an Iphone even though I have been eyeing the possibility of purchasing a smartphone and so far the Iphone seems to be one of the best choices in that segment. But I would always see myself as one of these people who follow the crowd to what is “cool” and I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore.
Maybe now that the prophet Steve Jobs is gone Apple will pursue a less aggressive marketing and through this and external factors become a brand just like any other – as it has always been but not been perceived. With the peak of technological and sales success reached, the company itself will become normal. And then, maybe, even I will buy Apple stuff if it is better than the competition. So far, it is not and only sells because the disciples think it is, but there is going to have to be some product improvement or otherwise Apple will suffer the same fate Microsoft did – being left behind.

某些女人

It’s weird – you’re minding your own business and along comes a woman. Not any woman – one of these women who appear perfect, flawless, too good to be human. Unnaturally beautiful, unnaturally in behavior, with an unnatural way of talking. Only their smile seems very natural, but superhuman. They appear to be from another world, not human, more god-like. They have your attention when they walk in, they have you do anything for them when they say hello.

I have met one of these women recently, exactly as described above. Too flawless, too smooth to be human, or natural, or material for that matter. She knows that all the guys around her hold their breath when she walks by, she knows that any of them would do anything for her. She is the one to pick. To pick anyone. And when she picks you, you have no choice, no option to say “no”. It is her pick. And once she picked you, to help her with anything, you are happy that you can help her because she is such a lost, poor girl. All alone in the big city barely speaking the language of the class she is attending. And she rewards you for your deliberately shared homework and your translation services with one of these superhuman smiles. When she goes home, she throws her head around so her hair flies, and gives one of these exhilarating smiles while she says “bye-bye!” And just like in that Deep Purple song, when she stands close to you she makes electric shadows beyond your finger tips. Those electric shadows are your nerve endings tickling with excitement. But still you hesitate touching her even as much as tapping her shoulder when you want to talk to her, and if you are smart you never will touch her.
Because deep inside you know that a girl of that kind loses her magical, angel-like appeal once your brain has figured out she is no less material and human than you yourself, or any other girl. Girls of this kind base their whole attractiveness on conveying the image of being non-material, being angels or one of these tricks the male imagination plays every once in a while. When they are being materialized, their glitter goes away. When you know for certain that she is real, the mask will fall, the glow die forever, and all you see is a pathetic little girl with tons of make-up, pretty clothes and too little self-esteem to come out of their shell. Who had everything handed to her all her life. Then you realize that she has probably never had any profound friendships and for sure no real relationship because she does not allow anyone into her personality, behind the mask. Do you want her to be your girlfriend? No, you don’t. And neither does anyone else. You know this, and you know that touching her would kill the excitement. So enjoy the tickling of your nerve endings, but do not touch her. That would be bad for both of you. Just recite your Deep Purple lyrics:

Oh, it’s not the kill,
It’s the thrill of the chase

That book I am waiting for

I am waiting for a certain book to come out. A book that could shed a lot of light on the history of mankind by simply pointing out the similarity to current social phenomena familiar to everyone. A book about marketing. About manipulating the masses into believing. But simply analyzing the marketing strategy for Oreos does not work properly. Why not go all the way and use the most prominent examples possible for mass manipulation from the past and current?

In the sixties, the youth asked how their parents could have been so stupid to follow the Nazis when the cards were obviously on the table (ie in that Austrian guy’s book) right from the beginning. In fact, many really intelligent people were disciples of Hitler, and only very few of them would have been really so deeply evil.
It is obvious that this was not primarily, as sometimes proposed, a matter of German mentality (of slavish obedience), nor of people being especially stupid, or that the economical and political desperation can be named as the sole reason.
This historical phenomenon is nothing but the most prominent example for an ever-repeating pattern not tied to anything but human stupidity. And these days the answer to the questions of this earlier generation is so simple: “Have you traded your technological items for similar ones of a higher price with names that begin with an I yet?”

I am curiously waiting for a book by a respected historian and/or psychologist answering this former question with the latter. It is long overdue but maybe either all the respected scientists have already eaten from the fruit of sin (like scientists in the 30s owned swastika buttons) or just don’t have the guts to touch this sensitive topic.

Unless this desired piece of work already exists and I have just missed it (if so, please tell me), I would do it myself, but I could never do it completely enough nor would anyone listen to me. But comparison of symptoms and psychological aspects would definitely be interesting and surprise many while forcing others to devote much more efforts in their ignorance.
Maybe it would even result in the knowledge that freedom of mind is impossible to us. We are, and have always been, lemmings actively searching for single figures to tell us what is good for us. It makes life a lot easier if we don’t have to choose between several similar models of tech items (music players, phones, or computers) but be pre-programmed to only like that one the old uncle with the bad taste in clothes said is better. The problem is, the more this snowball of technology-vegetarians grows, the harder it is to hold against it. And maybe eventually, the bandwagon effect breaks you like it has already broken so many who are weaker than you (the majority of the snowball’s mass) And then you have a round white, not war but profit-oriented version of this:

This concludes todays rant. Thank you for reading. To those interested I recommend the following article on brand loyalty: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/

The ghost is dead.

The United States are the greatest nation in the world. What 300 million American citizens have been taught already in kindergarten alongside creationism and how to shoot a gun should now have become obvious for the whole (western) world. They have successfully hunted and killed two weak old men dressed in lumps, and it only took them ten years, two countries thrown into chaos, 1.2 trillion dollars and the lives of 6000 soldiers (plus 1200 from allied nations.) Congratulations, America. Only your success in Vietnam was of greater magnitude.

Okay, enough for the sarcasm, let’s get serious.

Osama bin Laden is dead. I heard that on the radio this morning. Before that, I had gone to the bank and only glimpsed at the TV they have on the wall there. I saw footage of bin Laden and thought to myself: “Seriously, this guy has been dead for so long, they should finally let that go.”
Why did I think he had been dead for so long? For several reasons. First of all, in the chaos that followed 9/11, a high Taliban leader stated that he had attended bin Laden’s funeral several weeks earlier. Second of all, and this weighs more, the USA have the most extensive network of spies and intelligence technology. Everybody knows that they can read the newspaper in China. And they couldn’t find a guy who didn’t even bother disguising himself? They had found so many guys before. It seemed very, very unbelievable to me that they couldn’t find bin Laden for over ten years. But then again, they didn’t even find the weapons of mass destruction which Saddam definitely had. Sorry, I’m slipping into sarcasm again.
The most important reason for me, and I actively thought about these things 14 hours ago when I stepped out of the bank, was the bounty of 50 million dollars. Seriously, for that much money every man would abandon his principles and break promises. So somebody should have talked. Perhaps one of the hundreds of innocent ‘terrorists’ in Guantanamo. Sarcasm… sorry.

from @Goleudy (Twitter)

The picture that was going around is obviously fake, as was revealed by Twitter user Goleudy this morning.

Anyway, this doesn’t say anything. Apparently he was killed by a head shot, and who would want to see that on the media? So give them a photoshopped image to print in their newspapers. DNA tests practically confirmed his identity and his wife identified him. So let’s face it: bin Laden was alive all the time, American intelligence is far less intelligent than I suspected, and he is dead now. Period. No conspiracy theories needed.

Before moving on, let me say something about the justification of this action. Given, the human rights, which are acknowledged and subjectively interpreted by the USA, grant even someone like bin Laden the right to a fair legal process. The order to kill him without giving him the right to defend himself and hear the charges pressed against him was horribly illegal. But, lucky for America, according to the Huffington Post bin Laden was firing back at the soldiers, so at best he was killed in self-defense.
But seriously, who cares? This man was responsible for the deaths of many innocent people, his fight against the “Crusaders” only sparked an even larger crusade which itself sparked more hatred against the west. He, as all of his followers, was a major threat to peace and safety worldwide. Why would he even deserve being treated like his life was worth anything, if he clearly didn’t care for the lives of others? Not saying that justice should yield completely, and clearly a clean process like those in Nuremberg would have been better, but I doubt that anyone really does feel offended by this.

What is far more interesting than the circumstances of bin Laden’s death are the questions it raises.

Is al-Qaeda destroyed now? Is the worst over? Of course I am no expert but as far as I am informed, al-Qaeda is organized in a loose network. Hence, their “head” or “leader” can’t have much more actual power over them than Jesus has over us. Of course, their spiritual guide is gone now. But didn’t we learn 2000 years ago: if you crucify their spiritual leader, they will only worship him even more. There will be new leaders, there already are new leaders. So really, how much changes now that bin Laden is dead? Anything?
What might even happen is that the already loose network of al-Qaeda might split up into several independent organizations, operating from different bases, maybe without bases overall, from everywhere. Certainly, this would give the American arms industry a good profit for years to come.

According to the propaganda we have been exposed to for the past ten years, bin Laden was the head and the solely responsible person for all the evil in the world. All the terrorists reported to him. That is what we were made believe. And “the war on terror” was a perfect disguise for the repressive, dictatorial laws western governments installed over the years. The paranoid fear of terrorism, always fuelled by the governments and the media, lead to a general fear of the Islam itself, to discrimination, to hatred. I can only imagine how many children in the western democracies were raised to believe that brown people were dangerous and generally suspicious. This is sad.
But, if you strictly interpret the propaganda, all these laws can be revoked now, all these means of surveillance and repression can be taken down and we can go back to Y2K. Naturally, the governments have taken care of that. Before noon European time, politicians warned us of a raised terror threat (even more raised than all the raised ones before) and that, of course, the people couldn’t be set free now that the evil leader was removed.

Laughable.

America already actively searched for replacement super villains. Saddam was a good candidate, but he didn’t hide well enough. But thank god they have Julian Assange. Yes, Americans call him a terrorist. Only, he is a westerner himself and his supporters are spread all over the globe. Before it was easy to point out the enemy: a brown muslim with a long beard. Now this is not so easy. So maybe for the next ten years, nobody will trust anyone anymore. Let’s hope not, though.

So this was May 2, 2011. The ghost that haunted America for such a long time is gone.  The question is if this is a step towards winning the “war on terror” or losing it. If the terrorists retaliate, then we will have reached the end of a loop that puts us back to where we were on September 11, 2001.

This year is the year that the world changes. What we experienced in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya, in Syria, are events that have a good chance of changing the world forever, towards a better place. I for one am so sick of all the hatred out there, on both sides by the way, of the constant fighting for or against ghosts. The ghost is dead now. Time to bury the decade of hate once and for all.

I have thought and written about the issue of the “war on terror” and the things that were wrong in the past ten years extensively in the article on 9/11 on my website: http://www.christian.rebehn.org/en/911.html

French

I am currently watching a documentation about Tunisia. I think the people interviewed sometimes speak French and sometimes Arabic, but I’m not sure. I just can’t tell these languages apart.

Just like a while ago, when I was standing next to two African-looking men on the bus. For about five minutes I overheard their conversation, thinking about how African languages are pretty interesting and that I would like to learn about their structure.
Then suddenly I realized that they had been speaking French all along.

What ever happened there? Gaul was off to a very good start, speaking Latin. Just like in what was later becoming Spain, Italy, Romania. So what turned that beautiful language into – well – the French one?  When the Roman Empire collapsed, tribes from all across Europe mingled and shuffled around. In the late 5th century AD, a big part of modern-day France and modern-day Spain belonged to the Western Gothic empire. A Gothic influence on Latin would have resulted in Spanish and French to be quite similar. Eventually, France developed out of the Frank empire. The Franks however were also present east of the Rhine; Alemanni and Burgundians migrated across the Rhine as well. So whatever influenced the French language must have influenced the German as well. Granted, the people in southwestern Germany speak mighty weird, but it’s still, to some extent, conceivable.
It just makes me wonder. Officially, French is a Romance language. Not knowing any Romance language except Latin itself, I am able to have an external view – or hearing – of these things. In writing, one can see some similarities to Spanish and Italian, which are crazily similar themselves. But spoken French is as far from a European language as one can be. I am dying to find out what went so terribly wrong there. In Gaul, the development of the language took a way that was very different from that in the neighboring countries. That includes the Germanic languages German and English as well. Even German is more similar to Latin and Spanish than is French. It’s a weird thing to think about.

The downfall of creativity

In the world and society we live in, we become less and less creative. I noticed that in me but apparently, popular artists seem to suffer from the same syndrome. This became obvious to me when I listened to an old song today.

In 1980, people would play another artist’s song as a tribute to them.

By 2000, musicians would simply cover songs they liked, but with no intention to honor the composer.

In 2010, it has come to people ripping bits out of popular songs and screwing them up (calling it ‘remix‘) because they do not have the creativity of coming up with great melody or text lines themselves and because they hope to gain popularity through the popularity and recognition value of the song they ‘remix’.

It’s sad, really.