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Viggen

Triumviri
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  3. Viggen
    I recently stumbled over Mark Twains Appendix D from Twain's 1880 book A Tramp Abroad called The Awful German Language
     
    ...being a native german speaker, i found it fascinating how Mark Twain "manages" to learn the german language and how he wrote with his usual wit about it...
     
    Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have been an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our "good friend or friends," in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German tongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:
     

    SINGULAR Nominative -- Mein guter Freund, my good friend.
    Genitives -- Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend.
    Dative -- Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend.
    Accusative -- Meinen guten Freund, my good friend.

    [*]PLURAL
    N. -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.
    G. -- Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends.
    D. -- Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends.
    A. -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.


    Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them...
     
    My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.
  4. Viggen

    The Boss in Vienna

    By Viggen,

    About two weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen had a concert in vienna, my sister and my brother had the privilege to get tickets and with 50.000 other fans, they could be part of something that never happend before in Europe...
     
    ...he played Jersey Girl for the first time in Europe! All it took was a girl in the audience with a TShirt written Jersey Girl on it. The camera got hold of her and she was all of a sudden on the big screen. When she realized she was on that big screen she took of her TShirt and waved at Bruce, he grabbed it, went back wrapped it around the microphone and performed for the first time "Jersey Girl".... (especially for her).....
     

  6. Viggen
    In 2008 (1st of January till 21st of May) we had 649,837 Absolute Unique Visitors
    In 2009 (1st of January till 21st of May) we had 746,778 Absolute Unique Visitors
     
    ...up by 14.91%!!!
     
    p.s. while the USA makes up the majority of our visitors,
    i would like to share with you exotic places we had exactly 1 visitor
    202. Samoa 1
    203. Gabon 1
    204. East Timor 1
    205. Cook Islands 1
    206. Montserrat 1
    207. Niue 1
    208. Greenland 1
    209. French Guiana 1
    210. Anguilla 1
    211. Aland Islands 1
    212. Tajikistan 1
    213. British Indian Ocean Territory 1
    214. Norfolk Island 1
    215. Sierra Leone 1
  9. Viggen
    Long weekend getaway + 3 Airports + eleven times controlled/checked as if i am on some sort of watch list or member of an terrorist organisation = considering buying my own plane and screw that whole crappy procedure
     
    To give you an example; on my way home from Airport C to Airport B, i get controlled first at arrival (which means belt off, shoes off, all pockets emptying) in a queue of like 2 billion people (or at least it feels that way), finally its my turn and stop, somewhere it is still beeping on my body, so the thorough examination starts, back and forth about 4 times, it`s still beeping somehwere on my body but they couldnt find anything and finally give up. I move about 3 steps further to my hand luggage and i was told that i have some sort of weapon in side the bag and i must open it in front of them, so i open my hand luggage and we are searching for about 20 minutes through my bag to no avail, needless to say the queue behind me was getting reeeeaaaally long, and my patience was no longer existing.
     
    Eventually after putting that hand luggage 5!!!! times through that xray, they gave up (i would like to add that the whole time i was standing there without belt and shoes) I really feel that terrorist accomplished everything the wanted, they screwed up the lifes of millions of ordinary people....
     
    p.s. i rather not mention any of those involved airports, because by now i start to believe they are out there to get me....
  10. Viggen

    Tudo Bem?

    By Viggen,

    ...to combine the need to learn portuguese with making my blog more active, i will keep this as a diary of my progress, (well we will see about that progress part)...
     
    ....as it happens Transparent Language gave away free downloadable language course in exchange of writing about the experience, so here i am busy downloading a 330 MB file, its a bit slow for my liking (just under 200kb/s) but hey, its a free download. There is also an option to download an Ipod version, (dont have one, so skip that). All in all i am rather excited, i should have started learning portuguese long ago...
     
    I keep you up to date...
     
     
    p.s. they even have a Latin course available....
  11. Viggen

    Tweet Tweet

    By Viggen,

    The news is now out on the forum and via our newsletter (you should get it during the course of the day), we are officially Tweeting now, if you never heard of Twitter and wonder what the heck is this all about, go to http://tweeternet.com/, its basically a micro-blogging service that allows people to type in short messages or status updates that can be read by people following them. An individual message or status update is often referred to as a 'tweet'.
     
    If you go to http://twitter.com/UNRV you can see, first of all what we have written (always limited to max. 140 characters), also you see on the right hand site, Followers and Following.
    Followers are people that are following what we have to say, Following are the people that we (UNRV) are following and therefor receiving their messages.
     
    I found two authors via Twitter already (Adrian Murdoch and Caroline Lawrence are our followers and we follow them)
     
    ...in anycase if you have already an Account follow us, you might get a free map even... (read newsletter or forum and you know how)
     
    Happy Tweeting...
  12. Viggen
    ...last night i had a really strange dream,we were hosting a conference for publisher and authors, but who knows maybe i just glimpsed into the future...
     
     
    UNRV Anual Digital Classics Conference London
     
    UNRV ADCC Agenda Overview
     
    09:00am-9:15am Conference Welcome by Chris Heaton
     
    09:15am-10:00am Opening Keynote by Elinor Hirschhorn (Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer Simon & Schuster) Classics in the Digital Age - Challenge and Opportunity
     
    10:00am-11:15am Adrian Goldsworthy - How to write for the mainstream without compromising quality
     
    11:15am-11:45am Coffee and Tea
     
    11:45am-12:30pm Caroline Lawrence - Children and the Classics - Why you shouldnt write for little adults but for Kids
     
    12:30pm-13:15pm Andrew Brown, (Managing Director, Cambridge University Press) - Meeting the needs of authors, readers and publishers
     
    13:15pm-14:45pm Lunch
     
    14:45pm-15:30pm Professor Mary Beard, (Classics editor of the TLS) - Engaging the Reader/How to make your writing come alive
     
    15:30pm-16:15pm Olivia Hetreed, (screenwriter) - From the Book to the Screen - Insights from a screenwriter
     
    16:15am-16:45am Coffee and Tea
     
    16:45pm-17:30pm Steven Kessel, (Senior Vice President Amazon) - Kindle/How to profit from electronic books
     
    17:30pm-18:30pm Live Panel - Discussion with all participating speakers who will answer questions from the audience
     
    ...i dream of weird things, right?
  13. Viggen
    There was always a way to use an integrated spell checker on the forum, however it was only available if you use the rich text editor, and this one had some serious bugs, so i never mentioned it...
     
    With the latest upgrade of our forum software (2.1.4), most of those issues have been fixed, so i am happy to explain it how it works...
     
    First, this only works with Internet Explorer...
     
    You need to install the spell checker software here ---> http://www.iespell.com/download.php then go back to the forum, go to My Controls, there you go to Board Settings, change "Type of text editor to use when posting" to "Rich Text Editor" then save it...
     
    Now you have when you post a new icon on the top bar (says ABC), once you are finished typing your post just click on it and it will spell check the text for you....
     
    cheers
    viggen
     
    p.s. ok the spell checker is not perfect though (it tries to replace viggen to virgin )
  14. Viggen

    Vienna oh Vienna

    By Viggen,

    I am going next weekend to vienna!
     
    One of the reasons i really love to go to vienna is that my brother and my sister lives there, and its just 200 miles away from here, but its a different world compared to my little hometown. According to the Mecer Quality of Living global city rankings 2009 it took first spot worldwide, and I am not arguing with that!
     
    ...and for everyone that hasn`t been there, here is a little video of the vienna inner city
  16. Viggen

    Weapon worn on belt

    By Viggen,

    ...in my series of "what people are looking at Google", my todays freak search phrase is "Weapon worn on belt",it never has been in the Top 20 search phrases, i couldnt find it even in the Top 40, and yesterday all of a sudden hundreds of people are looking for "weapon worn on belt", there are of course two things that could have caused this, first, all of a sudden (crossword, TV show, news report) people are searching for this, or people have always searched for this in numbers but for some google algorythmic reason we got promoted for this search phrase by google yesterday.
     
    I can see us on the first page for "weapon worn on belt" and it goes to our Legionary Equipment Page.
     
    cheers
    viggen
  17. Viggen
    China has the most sophisticated and effective Internet censorship regime in the world, employing North American technology from Cisco Systems Inc. and Canada's Nortel Networks Corp., among others, to filter out banned material. But China is just one of a growing number of states censoring the Internet, using primarily American filtering programs.
     
    But the computer smarts of Ron Deibert, Nart Villeneuve, and Michael Hull, combined with their passion for politics and free expression, have led them to develop a highly anticipated software program that allows Internet users inside China and other countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Burma, to get around repressive censorship and not get caught.
     
    more at Toronto Star
  19. Viggen
    Yesterday was my cousins wedding, i was invited there and although i thought it was going to be a complete disaster, it was bloody cool!
     
    The bride was from Russia and couldn`t speak a single word of german! He met her while he was studying technical physics in ST. Petersburg. Luckily she speaks fluent english, so at least 90% of the guests could have a conversation with her, plus a good friend of the family knew a russian girl that lives now for more then five years here, so we had a translator and a new friend for the bride. It was at times really funny, having this russian-german-english mix of conversations.
     
    ...in any case, one of my cousins classmates who will became a monk was sitting next to me, so I pretty soon got him engaged in a roman history discussion, as he is very knowledgeable in the early church history, can read and write, old greek, latin and hebrew and was pretty relaxed about christianity, we had some pretty interesting hours. I invited him to join our forum, let`s see if he does, once he sobers up! ;-)
     
    btw.
    I learned three things about Russia;
    ...the russian language in action is much more pleasing to the ear then i thought
    ...being a professor in Russia means you are bloody smart, but you wont make a living and
    ...russian girls can drink more then you, don`t try!
  20. Viggen
    Phew, now when we (PP, Moon and I) started in 2003 with Unrv.com we couldnt imagine how this all would turn out, all we wanted was a simple site with some basic info for a online role play game that theme was the Roman Empire...
     
    The growth of articles and members and contributers is growing in a pace thats just incredible, to give you some examples...
     
    Google has 58.000 pages indexed, now thats massive looking back starting with about 20 a few years back...
     
    2007 till yesterday Unrv.com had almost 3.000.000 pageviews and almost a million unique visitors
     
    I (not sure how many PP gets but assume plenty to afraid to ask ) get about 20 to 50 emails a day concerning Unrv.com
     
    We get contacted by bestselling authors, top universities and Professors from all over the world, and all that i have to manage in a few hours in the morning.
     
    So please excuse me if my replies are sometimes slow, or a review isn`t published right away, the newsletter is not as often, or you dont see me around as much as you think i should...
     
    We have hundreds of ideas how to make Unrv.com even better or more interesting, however we all have a day-job, so implementing new stuff takes unfortunatly more time then we want...
     
    ...sometimes i wonder if i should just ignore all the monthly bills that i have, quit my job and work full time on Unrv.com...
     
    ...anyway thanks to all the contributers that makes this place special...
  21. Viggen

    Where Are People From?

    By Viggen,

    To give you some insight from where visitors to UNRV.com are coming from, here some stats...
     
    United States 60%
    UK 16%
    Canada 6%
    Australia 4%
     
    From all the USA visitors are..
    10% from California, 9% from NY State, 5% from Pennsylvania, 5% from Virginia, 5% from Texas, 5% from Florida and 4.5% from New Jersey....
     
     
    Some exotic places we had visitors from the last couple of days are....
    Tanzania, Sudan, Malawi, Cayman Islands, Uganda, Palestinian Territory, Syrian Arab Republic, Vietnam and Guam....
  23. Viggen

    White Men Can Jump

    By Viggen,

    I just watched today europe`s biggest TV Show Wetten, dass..? (which would translate into something like Wanna Bet..?). This show is one of the few i really like to watch on a regular base (its usually about 6 times a year), it has the
    , and some really funny moments on german TV.  
    Todays venue for the show was the Coliseum in Mallorca, which is a wonderful setting to begin with, the next great thing was swiss Michelle Hunziker, a beautiful women that seems to be not only pretty but also has this feel good laugh and fun person to be around. (italians should know her well she hosts there a show). Finally, eventually it has been proven, white men can jump!
  24. Viggen
    08th of April birthday parcel sent from Austria to South Africa
    30th of April, first enquiry at the South African Post Office for the parcel as no collection slip has yet arrived - Answer; no parcel has arrived
    08th of May, second enquiry for same reasons with same result
    22th of May, third enquiry for same reasons with same result
    05th of June, fourth enquiry for same reason - were told, "oh, that parcel has been sent back to Austria as no one collected it" FUUUUUUUUUUUCK
  25. Viggen

    World War 2 Memories

    By Viggen,

    I recently discovered some old stuff from my grandpa (who passed away about 10 years ago) in the attic. It is mostly photographs, postcards and war related documents from 1932 to 1948. I thought i share some images i scanned today over the next few weeks in my personal series "WWII Memories".
     
    The first image i scanned today is actually rather unspectacular. A simple postcard from end of January 1944. From someone unknown to me (Dr.med. Elisabeth Obladen) to my grandma. It is stamped in Stuttgart (strange enough it says Stuttgart - Stadt der Auslandsdeutschen) (something like Stuttgart - City of the foreign born Germans)
     
    The stamp itself shows an image of Adolf Hitler and it looks like it cost back then 6 Reichspfennige?
     
    Next to it is another stamp which says "Nahrung ist Waffe" (Food is a weapon?). At the bottom left there is another imprint "Der F
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