Alpha Core

For the latest release of Mozilla Firefox 3, there’s an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.

If you want to help in the effort of setting this world record, the only thing you need to do is get over there and download Firefox 3 by 18:16 UTC today (June 18, 2008). That’s 11:16 a.m. in Mountain View, 2:16 p.m. in Toronto, 3:16 p.m. in Rio de Janeiro, 8:16 p.m. in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Warsaw, 10:16 p.m. in Moscow, and June 19, 2008 at 2:16 a.m. in Beijing and 3:16 a.m. in Tokyo. There’s also a map on the website where you can track the number of downloads live on a world map.

Mozilla Firefox is an extremely popular web browser, open source and freely available at no cost whatsoever. As of May 2008, Firefox has a recorded usage share of 18.41%, making it the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide, after Internet Explorer. The developers of Firefox aimed to produce a browser that “just surfs the web” and delivers the “best possible browsing experience to the widest possible set of people.” Personally, I’m already using it for years and it’s truly great in features, speed, performance, security, flexibility and user-friendliness! I can heartily recommend it!

Yesterday was Energy Wasting Day!

Or was it now?

Ok, I’ll help you with it: check the date of the post …

Notice anything?

Right, it was All Fools’ Day!

Gotcha …

Attention people: Today is Energy Wasting Day.

The official homepage accommodates you with some really useful tips about how to waste as much energy as possible.

Watch the movie to get a better idea of how much joy today can be and then go out and waste some energy!

It’s the time of chocolate eggs hidden in the garden, beautiful spring flowers and cute little chirping chicks like this one. We wish you all a very Happy Easter! And for those who are wondering, it seems Veselé Velikonoce means Happy Easter in Czech.

Improv Everywhere is a group based in New York City. Their aim is to cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”. Over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents have already been executed since Charlie Todd founded the group in 2001.

During their latest mission 16 agents staged a spontaneous musical in the food court of a Los Angeles shopping mall. They used wireless microphones to amplify the vocal performances and mixed them together with the music through the mall’s PA system. They filmed the mission with hidden cameras, mostly behind two-way mirrors. Apart from their performers, no one in the food court was aware of what was happening.

Be sure to visit their website for detailed information and backround reports.

We recently went to see ‘Auto Auto!‘ (by Christian von Richthoven and Stefan Gwildis) at Fliegende Bauten in Hamburg. At the beginning of the show, there’s a nice looking Opel Kadett E on stage. At the end, well, let me say its value decreased quite a bit and they need another car for every show.

Performed by Christian von Richthoven (amazingly great percussionist), Kristian Bader and Rolf Clausen, the show offers a wide variety in music styles, from classical Tchaikovsky to samba, all being played on… the car! The instruments used are quite creative, ranging from wooden sticks and pieces of cloth to grinders, demolition hammers and heavy axes. Here’s a short clip to get an idea what it’s like:

It was already planned for quite a while, but on Tuesday it was finally so far: we went to Disney’s The Lion King (Der König der Löwen) musical, which is on stage in the ‘Theater im Hafen Hamburg’. Tom and me both agreed that it was a highly impressive and spectacular show.

Here you find a short advertisement movie (scroll down to the Videoplayer and watch TV Spot – Er lebt in dir), which gives a pretty good overview of what the musical is like when it’s performed on the theater stage. The pictures at the same page might also be interesting.

To get a better impression of the disguises and the music of the show, you can also watch this television recording from a German charity show, where the cast of the German musical in Hamburg performed a medley from the Lion King musical.

And: yes, it’s a matter of taste if you like it in German or not. But you should definitely not miss this show!

Our visit to Dialog im Dunkeln in Hamburg was quite an experience! I didn’t think an exhibition could leave such deep impression on me! However, this 90 minute tour in the dark gave me a completely new and profound experience. I couldn’t possibly start to describe the general idea any better than already mentioned on their website:

The concept is simple: visitors are lead by blind guides in small groups through specially constructed darkened rooms, in which scents, sounds, wind, temperatures and textures conveys the characteristics of daily environments, for example a park, a city or a bar. In the dark, the daily routine becomes a new experience. A reversion of roles is created: sighted people are torn out of their familiar environments; blind people provide them with security and a sense of orientation transmitting a world without pictures.

It’s quite terrifying to suddenly find yourself stuck in the dark, right in front of a small bush, somewhere completely off track – you think – while you’re trying to discover where you are, feeling the ground around you with a cane. The group might already have gone further, but then you hear some shuffling feet and suddenly the guide asking if everybody’s alright. You can’t see anything and have to rely on your other senses to get to the next room, where you suddenly face the difficulty of walking around in a city and crossing a street. After a few of these walks in a variety of different settings, you get to the end and order something in the bar. You go and sit down to discuss the whole experience with the guide and yes, all of this also happens in complete darkness. And no, they’re not cheating when giving back change.

As you might already have figured out, I can recommend this exhibition immensely! Definitely worth a visit!

We proudly present our christmas tree of this year!

For all the botanists around: the botanical name for the kind is Picea glauca Conica and in German it is called ‘Zuckerhutfichte’, referring to it’s conic shape. It’s especially recommendable, because it’s known as a slow grower, so that we can keep it for several years – if it survives…

Daniel Unger from Germany is the male winner of the Triathlon World Championships.

The triathlon took place in the city center of Hamburg and is therefore also known as the ‘Hamburg City Man’. The starters for the world championship had to swim 1.5 km in the 17 °C cold Binnenalster, afterwards quickly jump onto their bikes to cycle 40 km through the city center and at last change into running shoes and run over a distance of 10 km. Unger succeeded to leave the other starters behind himself and finished in a time of 1 hour 43 minutes and 18 seconds, which secured him the gold medal. Javier Gomez (Spain) won the silver medal (01:43:22 +00:00:04) and Brad Kahlefeldt (Australia) won the bronze medal (01:43:36 +00:00:18).

The female winner of the Triathlon World Championships is Vanessa Fernandes (Portugal), who finished in 1 hour 53 minutes and 27 seconds. Emma Snowsill (Australia) won the silver medal (01:54:31 +00:01:04) and Laura Bennett (USA) won the bronze medal (01:54:37 +00:01:10).