The topic of week 4 in Sari’s photo Projekt 52:
Churches
I simply have to take a photo from my archives, since this combination isn’t available today anymore, of course:
Projekt 52 topic 4: Churches
Hear Ye the Prophecies for 2012
Hear ye these words spoken by Me, thy Propfet, to thou seeking knowledge, on this mystic Friday full of answers (20+12+2)×42 days before the big date which is 21 Decembre 2012 on 11:11 UTC, time of the Winter Solstice at the end of an epoch of yon notorious calendar which hath been named Maya Calendar:
- Indeed foolish is he who believeth that nothing will happen. ‘Tis many a thing that is going to occur: People will die, people will be born, there will be many an accident, the Earth will shake, and much much more.1
- Many people will start on their Christmas vacation on yon Friday before ye Christians’ special day.
- Certainly mysticism dreamers and cranks, the number of which will not be low, either will expect the End of the Worlde or a Rise of Consciousness, the Ascension to New Spiritual Dimensions – some alone, some in community with their likes at various festive gatherings.
- For consciousness, know ye, is quite a subjective matter, certainly many will at first rejoice and believe that something changed for them indeed – though when they will notice in the days to come that this was not all that great after all or that there was nothing there from the very beginning: it is then that they will rather doubt themselves, doubt their spiritual responsiveness and doubt the maturity of their souls, instead of considering how far from Reality they were lost in their abstruse reveries.
- This, too, will be the right time for resourceful Profit-seekers and the dreamy Believers, ye who will write more guides and almanacs for every-one who hath not been raised and who hath not ascended, just as they have written and will yet write for 2012, after nothing grandiose hath happened before in 1999/2000.
- And they will explain in their books that they alone know why nothing grandiose hath happened; and the number of different explanations will rival the number of those who explain.
Anyone dareth contradict??
See also: Questions and answers about 2012 (at Nasa)
Photo (original): scol22/sxc
- Like on every other day; and you can expect at leasr one earthquake of magnitude 5.0 or higher every day anyway. [↩]
FAIL³
Usually I hit the Mute button whenever there are adverts on radio, ’cause there often is a lot of annoying crap there – which I find confirmed when occasionally I do hear some ads, like shortly before New Year’s Eve.
The ad I’m refering to here was, on its own, not that bad – no silly singing around or overenthused proclamations of the oh so sensational offers etc. –, but that a brand of champagne, Mumm, that is (German), advertises the year horoscope on its website on the radio, well, even though it’s common to greet the new year with a glass of champagne, that’s a bit… odd. Since I was curious about the nonsense they babble in that horoscope, I opened that site – and it FAILs usability and content in multiple ways, I think:
FAIL #1: The start page
Translation: “Accessing this site is only allowed for persons of age. Please enter your date of birth.”
A ridiculously noneffective age verification – might this even make some visitors expect more than a little alcohol? If at least this was effective and protect children from nonsense such as horoscopes…
FAIL #2: Loud music
For if you have jumped this huge hurdle of your date of birth, a cheap pop-ish jingle including spoken slogan booms at you, and no volume control or mute button on the site. Luckily it’s “only” 15 seconds long – and lucky are those who have a Mute button on the keyboard. But the sentence “Mumm ist, wenn man’s macht” = “Courage is if you do it” does fit somehow…
FAIL #3: The horoscope itself
Which was written by a certain Michael Allgeier, also not unknown (German) in the astro scene. Again with a date-of-birth selection dialog – however, even though labeled “Your personal horoscope 2009”, there is only one text for each span of ten days. And with the ususal newspaper horosope wish-wash with general section and sections about love/relationship, job/money and fitness/wellness all over. 
And they added a little lexicon which of course is so impudent to take all this stuff serious and describe astrology itself as (my translation):
A thousands of years old empirical science that puts man in a certain relationship system to the star constellations. This symbol system allows the drawing of conclusions about the individual abilities and problem areas of a person. Certain prognostic techniques also allow considerations regarding future developments or events. Also statements about relationships among persons or entire peoples can be done with the help of astrology.
(Needless to say that astrologers (a) disagree on their statements and (b) in the way they reached them – even if (c) they just say the usual shallow stuff. Needless at least among those who don’t blindly follow their astrologers…)
Somehow I got the impression that someone consumed too much of his own product to get the idea to do all this that big and in a serious manner…
See also:
Photo: vierdrie/sxc
Time (Projekt 52/02) and God and anyway…
Nice occasion to combine two topics in one post… The topic of week 2 in Sari’s photo Projekt 52:
Time
“Consider that death does not hesitate!” – that’s what the entry to Pfaffenhofen’s cemetary says. So make the best of your life, time’s limited! As also the atheist campaign with ads on busses in London (and elsewhere) says: “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” And there are plans these days to start such a campaign in Germany, too (about which also sapere aude notified me); the German version of the slogan is still being discussed.
Coordination is done on the German Brights-Blog, who will also add the possibility to support this campaign with donations.
Links (and Videos) of the Week (2009/02)
(Videos are not embedded this time.)
- Icy days and nights – great (but also some kitschy) photos at The Big Picture.
- Revolutionary products from Apple: A notebook without keyboard and a tiny notebook with just one key (videos; via ad and TweakPC).
- Astrologie ist Unsinn! – Astrology is nonsense, German, already lots of comments.
- Quark stars as magnetars.
- Great hulahoop dancer (video; via Conny)