Ditchme - Blog

The Miracle Machine

Robi — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 10:09:50 +0000

Subtitle: I don’t believe in miracles

When I was a small boy my parents took me with them on a day trip to a lake in the Black Forrest. As customary in many touristic places there were lots of souvenir shops along the lake side. We didn’t have much money, so window shopping was what we did most of the time. But this time we came along a small vending machine, just the shape and size of a chewing gum machine. It sold many different things, maybe also chewing gum. Each of us children got a coin and bought something from the vending machine. When I turned the lever a kind of a card ticket drop into the tray. It was a fortune card. I can’t remember much details but there were two numbers on it that were meant to be used in a lottery. Curious as we were we bought a lottery ticket the next week and combined the two numbers from the fortune card with four other numbers as required for the 6 out of 49 lottery.

My conception of the world and the laws that operate it were seriously shaken when the lottery numbers were drawn the next Saturday. The two numbers from the fortune card were right. How could that be? How could the miracle machine have know when to dispose that particular fortune ticket?

Well, we didn’t win much in the lottery. With 3 out of 6 numbers right, we more or less won the money for the lottery ticket back. Months later when we made another trip to that lake in the Black Forest we went to the miracle machine again. But no more fortune cards came out of it.

This Week Should be Forgotten

Robi — Fri, 13 Okt 2006 20:06:25 +0000

This is how I feel: Just watched an episode of Star Trek - Next Generation, that one where Worf switches between quantum realities whenever Geordie's visor is near. Maybe you know that view, like from a distance, I guess that's what you could call symptoms of a trauma.

Today Someone Died

Robi — Thu, 12 Okt 2006 21:43:42 +0000

Not that I knew him very closely - a project partner from the UK. An admirable person with an Irish accent. He probably knew, for a month or so, that his illness was incurable. That's not much time, not much time. Life is short. I'm listening to "Child in Time". And a line from a [...]

Market Day

Robi — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 07:43:48 +0000

Been doing a sort of a market study. ;-) Well, finance you know. There is a really good book that explains the basics of high finance: "Der Nebel um das Geld " by Bernd Senf. Also "Atlas der Globalisierung" has some interesting facts. E.g. the volume of sold and purchased virtual goods is much larger [...]

Vacation is over

Robi — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 19:22:09 +0000

Spam bots again... 112 spam comments. If indeed someone wrote a comment in the last two weeks, please try again.

Germany Germans German

Robi — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:35:24 +0000

I just read that the coalition (current governement) wants to make it easier for highly qualified foreign workers to immigrate. This makes me mad. Are we Germans not only too upper class to do the dirty jobs but also too stupid to run our own business? With 5 million people unemployed, calling for workers from [...]

Audio - The Other Dimension

Robi — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 12:28:03 +0000

24 July 2006Annoying sound on the way back from Bonn. 21 September 2005Erfurt, waiting for the train back home. 8 May 2006Athens Metro, Announcing Evangelismos Station 5 February 2006Esslingen Castle 7 February 2006S-Bahn to work, next station Altbach30 July 2006Heavy rain on the balkony. 30 January 2006Daily walk after lunch, snowy path up-hill. 22 April 2006A visit to the zoo - [...]

Plochingen - A Little Guided Tour

Robi — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:21:42 +0000

Yesterday I had a little guided tour through the town where I live. To the left you see the "Rain Tower", architected by Friedensreich Hunderwasser. Top right: the old town hall. You may notice the concrete foothold/poles the building is standing on. That's because it wasn't build where it is standing now. It was [...]

Spam Bots

Robi — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 05:19:40 +0000

Just deleted 141 spam comments. This is getting annoying. Until now the level of spam comments was about 10 to 20 per week. But 141 is something different. So if you really had posted a comment in the last 24 hours, ... .

Cool Tool

Robi — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:41:18 +0000

It's not a tool actually, well. But it's cool: