Europeana - Connecting Cultural Heritage
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Europeana - Connecting Cultural Heritage

Projekthomepage mit Systeminfos, Metadaten, Technisches, etc.

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The indispensable Michael Lewis reports from Reykjavík on the de facto bankruptcy of Iceland. An amazing story: the country's currency is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance. This was the result of a collective madness stunning even by US standards of financial insanity. Lewis asks how a 300,000 person fishing nation with one of the highest living standards in the world managed to turn itself into a national hedge fund? Lewis reports on an inbred country where, among other things, the men are largely nuts and the women seem to have completely given up on them, The result is the first lesbian head of state, an all-female political party, and the nation's only profitable bank run entirely by women. Like most of what Lewis writes about the intersection of people and large sums of money, this is another "drop whatever else you are doing and read this" article.

on the financial meltdown ef Iceland

Iceland's collapse. "One of the distinctive traits about Iceland’s disaster, and Wall Street’s, is how little women had to do with it."

"Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown. "

Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.

Mashable is exclusively announcing the 19 finalists in a European startup competition, selected by a panel including Amazon CTO Werner Vogels.

Silicon Valley isn't the only place that's a hotbed for social media and web entrepreneurship: Europe is filled with skilled entrepreneurs and successful

Mashable is exclusively announcing the 19 finalists in a European startup competition, selected by a panel including Amazon CTO Werner Vogels. It’s all part of the 2009 Next Web Conference in Amsterdam this month, which gathers together Europe’s tech community and brings it some well-deserved international attention.

In 2001, Portugal officially abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, replacing punishment for therapy. Did it work? How many people reading this article have served jail time for drug use? How many know someone who has? It's an arbitrary system, and people don't seem to respond well to systems that rely on harsh but infrequently carried out punishments to regulate behavior--as anyone who has ever spent more than two hours with a toddler has probably already figured out.

In 2001, Portugal officially abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, replacing punishment for therapy. Did it work?

I'd like to see verification of this from someone other than the Cato Institute, and it's important to remember that the US =/= Portugal, but still... interesting. April 2009.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

The data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success. Within this success lie self-evident lessons that should guide drug policy debates around the world.

VoteWatch.eu is an independent monitoring website of EU politics. It provides detailed information about parliamentarians' voting records and formal political activities – from committee work to parliamentary reports – and includes easy-to-access information on the political coalitions that are formed around policy issues.

Hold øje med, om politikerne kommer til møderne samt hvordan de stemmer

‘VoteWatch.eu is an independent monitoring website of EU politics. It provides detailed information about parliamentarians' voting records and formal political activities.’

Voting in EU Parliament: all MEmbers, by coutnries, votes etc..

Excel·lent portal que recull de forma sistemàtica els vots dels europarlamentaris

Added from delicious

“Here lies Europe, overwhelmed by Muslim immigrants and emptied of native-born Europeans.” That is the obituary some pundits have been writing in recent years. But neither the immigrants nor the Europeans are playing their assigned roles.

Apparently Europe is no longer going to be drowned in a sea of Muslim babies. Because I know you were all so worried.

"At the turn of this century, the conventional wisdom among demographers was that the population of Europe was in precipitous decline, the Islamic world was in the grip of a population explosion, and Africa’s population faced devastation by HIV/AIDS. Only a handful of scholars questioned the idea that the Chinese would outnumber all other groups for decades or even centuries to come. In fact, however, the latest UN projections suggest that China’s population, now 1.3 billion, will increase slowly through 2030 but may then be reduced to half that number by the end of the ­century." Fascinating article on demography, including the prediction that in 2050, Africa will have a majority of the world's Christians, in addition to being the demographic center of Islam.

"A list of 100 hotels, culled from readers' suggestions, that represent some of the best bargains for travelers headed to one of 14 European cities in the next few months."

A list of 100 hotels, culled from readers’ suggestions, that represent some of the best bargains for travelers headed to one of 14 European cities in the next few months.

Early (1906-1915) Color photography from around the russian empire

...black colonial soldiers - who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces - were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital.

Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory. Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead. Yet the BBC's Document programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers - who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces - were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital. By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.

Allied High Command agreed, but only on one condition: De Gaulle's division must not contain any black soldiers.

"We were colonised by the French. We were forced to go to war. Forced to follow the orders that said, do this, do that, and we did. France has not been grateful. Not at all."

WWII

유럽여행을 하고 싶다. 영어공부도 열심히하고 기회가 된다면 가보고 싶다. 누가 나좀 보내줄 사람 없을까... 돈모아서 계획하고 가야겠지 근데 사실 외국에 한번도 나간적이 없고 아는 사람도 없어서 무서울것 같은데.//그런데 진짜로 보고싶다. 실제로 한번 보고싶어 사진도 찍고싶고...

Tips on credit cards AND travel insurance

Suggests getting a Capital One card.

But why pay any fees at all? To keep from handing banks money unnecessarily (isn’t the bailout enough?), I also keep a money market account at Capital One Direct Banking, which charges nothing (and earns me No Hassle rewards points). I linked this Capital One online account to transfer money regularly from my Bank of America account. The transfers can take awhile — up to a week — so I always make sure to get that under way well in advance.

v

The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.

EMU - european monetary union

"There are accidents waiting to happen across the region, but the EU institutions don't have any framework for dealing with this. The day they decide not to save one of these one countries will be the trigger for a massive crisis with contagion spreading into the EU."

Brazil lost 650K jobs in 1 mo - Jan apparently??? how

n accosted many times, but never with success. Although I wouldn’t recommend this tactic to everyone, here’s my secret: If you are forced to walk somewhere dodgy, such as the Albayzin or Sacromonte areas of Granada in Spain (tiny thousand-year-old streets, a labyrinth where masked thieves — usually little punk kids — like to prey), one thing I’ve found that works is putting on the “Oh man, what have I done?!” face. This is the kind of face one may have as they are thinking to themselves: “Oh man, I shouldn’t have hit that last person so hard...I wonder if they’re dead?” Imagine it. It’s the face of a person who has absolutely cracked, gone off the deep end, and just killed someone. This may sound really weird, but trust me, if you wear

Interesting list of scams perpetrated on travelers. I always ask myself if I am just lucky or actually more careful -- apart from the occasional over-charging taxi, nothing has ever happened to me.

Cover yourself against travel scams

This is the Offical Playstation Blog For Europe Inc UK

An article about Vauban, Germany from the NY Times

New York Times article discusses car-free suburb in Vauban, Germany, and other car-reduced developments in other country.

Car-free town in Germany

while the top income-tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, the numbers are a bit misleading. “People coming from the U.S. to the Netherlands focus on that difference, and on that 52 percent,” said Constanze Woelfle, an American accountant based in the Netherlands whose clients are mostly American expats. “But consider that the Dutch rate includes social security, which in the U.S. is an additional 6.2 percent. Then in the U.S. you have state and local taxes, and much higher real estate taxes. If you were to add all those up, you would get close to the 52 percent.”

29 Apr 09 /

Free Loading Free Lance writer extols the collective virtues of the Dutch.

For 18 months now I’ve been playing the part of the American in Holland, alternately settling into or bristling against the European way of life. Many of the features of that life are enriching. History echoes from every edifice as you move through your day. The bicycle is not a means of recreation but a genuine form of transportation. A nearby movie house sells not popcorn but demitasses of espresso and glasses of Dutch gin from behind a wood-paneled bar, which somehow makes you feel sane and adult and enfolded in civilization. Then there are the features of European life that grate on an American sensibility, like the three-inch leeway that drivers deign to grant you on the highway, or the cling film you get from the supermarket, which clings only to itself. But such annoyances pale in comparison to one other. For the first few months I was haunted by a number: 52. It reverberated in my head; I felt myself a prisoner trying to escape its bars. For it represents the rate at which

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

“‘I say, “It’s spelled ‘crap,’ as in crap,”’ said Mr. Pearce, 61, who has lived in Crapstone, a one-shop country village in Devon, for decades.”

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Ask the residents of Titty Ho, North Piddle, Spanker Lane or Penistone.

Penistone...Tumbledown Dick Road in Oxfordshire...Crapstone. You gotta love the brits.

from guardian

La explosión del volcán Eyjafjallajökull hace 2 semanas hizo que el tráfico aéreo de media europa quedara suspendido por unos días. En ésta llamativa animación se ve la vuelta a la normalidad (especialmente en lo que afecta a UK).

A visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Due to varying ash density across Europe, the first flights can be seen in some areas on the 18th and by the 20th everywhere is open.

The statistics and causes of Russia's startling post-Soviet population decline...

"The upsurge of illness and mortality, furthermore, has been disproportionately concentrated among men and women of working age—meaning that Russia’s labor force has been shrinking more rapidly than the population overall."

Commercial Open Source in Europe Versus the US

We just finished the first Europe Open Source Think Tank (OSTT). Andrew Aitken of Olliance and Alexandre Zapolsky of Linagora hosted a fantastic event. I highly recommend it to anyone who can attend. During the course of the two days...

Seven Coffee Shops in Amsterdam that are Good to Go

experienced tech entrepreneurs looking to support and invest in Europe’s most passionate geeks

We're experienced tech entrepreneurs looking to support and invest in Europe’s most passionate geeks. We’re a pre-seed investment company designed to enable great people to launch great ideas. Our start-up and support process accelerates the route to beta, profitability, and success.

check this out. Cool infographic thing pdf.

"We're experienced tech entrepreneurs looking to support and invest in Europe’s most passionate geeks. We’re a pre-seed investment company designed to enable great people to launch great ideas. Our start-up and support process accelerates the route to beta, profitability, and success."

"We're experienced tech entrepreneurs looking to support and invest in Europe’s most passionate geeks. We’re a pre-seed investment company designed to enable great people to launch great ideas. Our start-up and support process accelerates the route to beta, profitability, and success.

“We're experienced tech entrepreneurs looking to support and invest in Europe’s most passionate geeks. We’re a pre-seed investment company designed to enable great people to launch great ideas. Our start-up and support process accelerates the route to beta, profitability, and success.”