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Misc

Aids – yes, it still exists…

2007-11-20

Welt-Aids-Tag Saturday after next, December 1, is World Aids Day – an important and serios matter (Aids, not just that one day). “There is no cure for Aids. And every year, three million people are dying worldwide from the conequences of Aids, 40 million are HIV infected. And the number of new infections is rising again here, too, for several years.” (quote from www.welt-aids-tag.de, translated)

World AIDS Day, observed December 1 each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. It has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world. Its symbol is the red ribbon, which also has got its place in the header of my blog now. (mostly from Wikipedia)

In Great Britain, there’s a campaign named G.I.Jonny “to inform and protect” which offers, besides information, “real stories” from six young people to listen to, and you can create your own (virtual) action figure, which might e.g. look like mine:

G.I.MDDWC

G.I.Jonny via [this-time-not-]Just4Fun (German; Alex already made a baton out of it)

World Toilet Day

2007-11-19

Today, on November 19, is World Toilet Day, declared by the World Toilet Organization – who would have thought something like that exists?

But there’s a meaning to it, befauce over 2.6 billion people don’t have toilets at all – and for many more, the situation isn’t much better. Which isn’t all too good for people’s health, much too often there’s bad hygiene, and the excrements are discharged directly into the environment.

Wikipedia:

The United Nations claim that more than 5 million children die every year from sanitation related diseases such as diarrhoea. More than a billion people without sanitary facilities relieve themselves on streets and in rivers, heavily polluting the water. The most important source of water contamination in developing countries is due to the lack of adequate sanitation facilities. Although public toilets are available in most countries, most of them are poorly maintained.

The WTO envisages clean, safe, affordable, ecologically sound and sustainable sanitation. It aims to advocate sustainable toilet systems through capacity building and public education, and by implementing real time projects.

(via kultpavillon via BloggerAmt)

Variable loyalty points

2007-11-15

The German food discounter Rewe is currently running “the sharpest loyalty point campaign” with the knife manufacturer Zwilling – for each 5€ you pay at Rewe, you get one discount ticket, and once you got 30, you get a discount on certain Zwilling products. So a rather simple discount ticket system (limited to one manufacturer), but the variability of the tickets’ values seems strange to me:

Product Price with discount Regular price Value of one ticket
knife-block 9,99 € 49,50 € 131,7 ct
meat knife 14,99 € 32,50 € 58,37 ct
lard knife 9,99 € 19,50 € 31,7 ct
bread knife 17,99 € 39,50 € 71,7 ct
cooking knife 21,99 € 48,50 € 88,37 ct
universal knife 11,99 € 24,50 € 41,7 ct
peeling & vegetable knife 9,99 € 29,50 € 65,03 ct
santoku knife 19,99 € 45,50 € 85,03 ct
steak knife set 29,99 € 74,50 € 148,37 ct
knife scharpener 9,99 € 15,95 € 19,87 ct
multipurpose scissors 9,99 € 19,95 € 33,2 ct
scissors set 13,99 € 30,50 € 55,03 ct

That’s an average of 69,17 cents per discount point – but with a range of 19,87 to 148,37 cents!

I don’t want to be so vicious and call the recommended prices without discount phantasy values, there must be some sensible basis to them – but the discounts do seem pretty arbitrary…

Just don’t show the biggest number!

2007-11-08

More specifically, the largest number with a currency symbol that states a price increase. E.ON Bayern has, as announced, written to its (still) customers to inform about the planned electricity tariff increase with a letter and a brochure, also offering some own tariff variants. The red box at the side of the letter says (my translation):

“What is changed by the electricity price adaption?
For a family with an average annual consumption of 3,500 kilowatt hours, the montly costs rise by about 5.60 Euro.”

In the letter’s continuous text:

“At an average consumption of, for instance, 3,500 kilowatt hours per year in the basic tariff, the price per kilowatt hour rises by 2.14 Cent, and at the same time the basic charge is reduced by 7.80 Euro per year.”

If you want to know how much more you have to pay each year, you have to calculate yourself: 3,500 x 2.14 Cent − 7.80 € = 67.10 €.

In the brochure, then, they give the total year’s costs (712.50 to 766.50 Euro) for all new tariffs (including loyalty price and price guarantee), but not for the old tariffs, either.

Y’know, honi soit qui mal y pense…

Space-time problem

2007-11-04

Or better: Zeit(=time) space problem, ;) because I had to find space for the 20-volume ZEIT lexicon – which is already almost three years old, but now, as the WELT will soon release their own lexicon, of course at a discount for 139,- (in the “bild der wissenschaft shop”), i.e. basically for 1 cent per page (and thus clearly cheaper than the competition, and with more pages, more words, but less images and without DVD-ROM).

Pictured here not yet on the bookshelf, but on the floor in front of my comic shelf:

Zeit lexicon

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