Who of the slightly older readers does not remember Rubiks’s Cube, which conquered the world in the 80s. Obviously this equipment is getting more and mor popular again in competitions and with mathematicians. There are suposedly people managing to solve the cube blindfolded, others do it within seconds. For them there is an interesting garment:

“Don’t worry, I’ll solve it in less than a minute!”

NASA is offering the following, however limited job: 90 days in bed with a compensation of $17.000. Does not really sound unattractive, does it?

This is from a German blog and I translate it into (British English) to make sense. Into which direction is the bus going, which you see above, to the left or to the right? Look carefully and think!

90% of nursery school children asked gave the following answer: of course it is going to the right! Why? Well, if it were going to the left you would see the doors of the bus!

via: StoiBär

Just watch the image carefully. What do you see? Is she turning right or left? Clockwise or the other direction?

Seeing her turning clockwise would point to a dominating right half of the brain, mainly responsible for creativity, feelings and intuition. Turning the other direction accordingly would mean the left half, rather responsible for logic and rationality.

Believe it, I have seen her turning in both directions!

via:Basic Thinking, Source (?): the Australian Daily Telegraph.

Maybe somebody still finds more uses?

Thanks Clarissa for the Link!

To know other languages certainly is nice. I am quite glad that I know English well enough to work in this language without problems.

I also know some French, but this week I realised again that there is much room for improvement. The round table I participated in in Toulouse of course was held in French. While I was able to follow the discussion quite sufficiently, I got to the limit of talking quite soon. To introduce myself in French was not much of a problem, but when I had to hold a little talk about our project, I could not help but to excuse myself in French that I would give the talk in English.

Of course the best method to learn a language easily is to live in the country for some time, as I was lucky enough to have had the chance with English. If that is not working you have to just learn words (which would really help me with French). I just am too lazy do not have the energy to do it.

Hanna had complained about all the cables in the cupboards when travellin in the UK. And Michael said that he has the same problem. That was when I remembered one of the wisdoms of life:

“For any sock that (proverbially) disappears in the washing machine, an unused cable will appear in one cupboard”

This is my Tarot Card:

You are The Sun

What do Bush and Apple have in common? The “i”, obviously.

Modern mobile phones have a lot of profiles with different settings. My phone also has a “flight mode”, which so far I understood was to be used on a plane without switching the phone off completely.

Last week I heard the following announcement for the first time on two easyjet flights: “Mobile phones have to be switched off completely, they are not allowed to be operated in flight mode”. Now am asking myself of course, what the flight mode is for. Do you have to use it in a competition like “phone throwing”?
Another announcement I did not know was the one directly after touch-down: “You may now use your mobile phones but you have to switch them of again before leaving the airplane until you have reached the terminal building”.

Switching phones on and off seems to be a new way of keeping nervous passengers occupied.