 |
| Close Encounters |
caressing water
feelings flowing to and fro
calmness soaking in
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Dive Impressions 2
 |
| The Orchestra |
a harp and a flute
a soundless blue symphony
your mind opens its gatesa soundless blue symphony
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Dive Impressions 1
 |
| Inner Outer Space |
crowded solitude
awareness of your freedom
purple sounds of travels
awareness of your freedom
purple sounds of travels
Changes
Times are a changing.
Me too.
After my e-sabbatical again regular Thursday's posts.
Dive impressions.
Me too.
After my e-sabbatical again regular Thursday's posts.
Dive impressions.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Support Local People
 |
No, not again! Working for peanuts...
|
When we spend, what an average
Balinese needs two years to earn, for enjoying two weeks of our
holidays, we like to think we are also spreading our wealth to those
not born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
How we achieve the maximum benefit for local population?
a) we buy a flight ticket
b) book accommodation through a booking system
c) choose only locally owned services
d) avoid using services provided by foreign owned businesses
Great! Mission accomplished! Mission – our holidays, yes – our altruistic goal not so much.
For getting to a faraway destination there is no way around – we have to buy a ticket. How the money spend for the ticket is distributed we know.
Maybe an Euro or two trickles down to baggage handler, cleaner, check in staff in Bali.
When you book your accommodation a nice commission will be diverted to the booking system. As a Balinese owner with no tax number, no bank account, no legal paper work can not cooperate directly with this booking system, he uses a friendly help offered some time ago by a clever guest. A tourist who knew how to profit from his stay in Bali is doing this for him (and several others). And of course extracts a fat friendly commission from the Balinese owner. As owner of the Balinese accommodation is in the end getting way less than expected, and his profit margin is sacred – the only solution is to cut a little more on already meager salaries of local staff.
Each employed at the place you enjoy hospitality at gets maybe 20 to 30 cents of your money per day. Cents, not Euros.
Avoid foreign owned businesses and help Balinese people by going straight to a local business, paying in cash, and people employed there will enjoy full benefits of your payment.
And in many cases services come at cheaper price, so it's a pure win-win situation.
There is just a minor catch here.
Local owner pockets more profit than foreign one. At lower prices for the services.
Should we declare him a spiritual guru of the new-age multidimensional economics?
Or a self-centered, egoistic guru leading a permanent “Working for peanuts” sweatshop?
Some facts are not overly advertised. As for instance much longer hours for staff when working for a local owner. Much lower salary when working for a local owner. Much less (or none) benefits for staff working for local businessman.
Similar to anywhere else in the world. Try to estimate if people working at an establishment seem happy – if so, good chances are, a decent part of your money is coming to them as well.
How we achieve the maximum benefit for local population?
a) we buy a flight ticket
b) book accommodation through a booking system
c) choose only locally owned services
d) avoid using services provided by foreign owned businesses
Great! Mission accomplished! Mission – our holidays, yes – our altruistic goal not so much.
For getting to a faraway destination there is no way around – we have to buy a ticket. How the money spend for the ticket is distributed we know.
Maybe an Euro or two trickles down to baggage handler, cleaner, check in staff in Bali.
When you book your accommodation a nice commission will be diverted to the booking system. As a Balinese owner with no tax number, no bank account, no legal paper work can not cooperate directly with this booking system, he uses a friendly help offered some time ago by a clever guest. A tourist who knew how to profit from his stay in Bali is doing this for him (and several others). And of course extracts a fat friendly commission from the Balinese owner. As owner of the Balinese accommodation is in the end getting way less than expected, and his profit margin is sacred – the only solution is to cut a little more on already meager salaries of local staff.
Each employed at the place you enjoy hospitality at gets maybe 20 to 30 cents of your money per day. Cents, not Euros.
Avoid foreign owned businesses and help Balinese people by going straight to a local business, paying in cash, and people employed there will enjoy full benefits of your payment.
And in many cases services come at cheaper price, so it's a pure win-win situation.
There is just a minor catch here.
Local owner pockets more profit than foreign one. At lower prices for the services.
Should we declare him a spiritual guru of the new-age multidimensional economics?
Or a self-centered, egoistic guru leading a permanent “Working for peanuts” sweatshop?
Some facts are not overly advertised. As for instance much longer hours for staff when working for a local owner. Much lower salary when working for a local owner. Much less (or none) benefits for staff working for local businessman.
Similar to anywhere else in the world. Try to estimate if people working at an establishment seem happy – if so, good chances are, a decent part of your money is coming to them as well.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
The Killing Software
 |
| Trust old Abe. |
Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power.
And ignorance is strength, Eric A. Blair would add.
Hm.
a) when I hack and download a designing software I'm a designer
b) with translating software I'm a translator
c) downloading a manual for heart transplantation makes me equal to DeBakey
d) following the instructions from you tube I become a rocket scientist
We all know the names of Shakespeare, Newton, da Vinci, Paracelsus, Mozart, Aristotle, Einstein, Gutenberg, Michelangelo … All of them were brilliant in specific areas.
For ages people were excelling in various specialties. In one, maybe another one or two, related to their basic field of expertise, however, they were smart enough not to try to be geniuses in all aspects of human endeavors.
They allowed cooks to cook, gardeners to garden, politicians to lie, teachers to teach.
Today all the e-connected people are excelling in all the areas of human endeavors. If you are internet savvy, you do not need experts for anything anymore.
If you are a brilliant lawyer and your client who's a medical doctor is explaining to you the finer points of the law, as he has read on the Holy Internet, yes, it's a horrible feeling. But when you as a lawyer are trying to enlighten your car mechanic with your internet wisdom on viscous coupling unit service procedure, this is just completing the circle of a blissful ignorance.
So we have an immense amount of information available to anyone at any time. However, we should be aware of a caveat to this information. As anybody is allowed to add to the treasure chest of human knowledge, the modest sum of useful information is more and more hidden in the exponentially growing garbage – a true proverbial needle in a haystack.
How does it reflect on everyday life?
For too many contemporary designs a better choice of word would be disasters.
Too many contemporary translations are mainly used only for people with constipation problems.
A rather old saying, used by a Slovenian poet as an answer to ignorant critics, is still very much in place today:
“Let the cobbler stick to his last.”
Or in modern translation:
“Shoes only belong to equine.”
And ignorance is strength, Eric A. Blair would add.
Hm.
a) when I hack and download a designing software I'm a designer
b) with translating software I'm a translator
c) downloading a manual for heart transplantation makes me equal to DeBakey
d) following the instructions from you tube I become a rocket scientist
We all know the names of Shakespeare, Newton, da Vinci, Paracelsus, Mozart, Aristotle, Einstein, Gutenberg, Michelangelo … All of them were brilliant in specific areas.
For ages people were excelling in various specialties. In one, maybe another one or two, related to their basic field of expertise, however, they were smart enough not to try to be geniuses in all aspects of human endeavors.
They allowed cooks to cook, gardeners to garden, politicians to lie, teachers to teach.
Today all the e-connected people are excelling in all the areas of human endeavors. If you are internet savvy, you do not need experts for anything anymore.
If you are a brilliant lawyer and your client who's a medical doctor is explaining to you the finer points of the law, as he has read on the Holy Internet, yes, it's a horrible feeling. But when you as a lawyer are trying to enlighten your car mechanic with your internet wisdom on viscous coupling unit service procedure, this is just completing the circle of a blissful ignorance.
So we have an immense amount of information available to anyone at any time. However, we should be aware of a caveat to this information. As anybody is allowed to add to the treasure chest of human knowledge, the modest sum of useful information is more and more hidden in the exponentially growing garbage – a true proverbial needle in a haystack.
How does it reflect on everyday life?
For too many contemporary designs a better choice of word would be disasters.
Too many contemporary translations are mainly used only for people with constipation problems.
A rather old saying, used by a Slovenian poet as an answer to ignorant critics, is still very much in place today:
“Let the cobbler stick to his last.”
Or in modern translation:
“Shoes only belong to equine.”
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