Kasi-Blog

Please excuse my tendency for sensational headlines. Currently the British rain has invaded Cambridge. It’s the soft trickle that all cyclist enjoy so much because it wets all clothes. The city of Cambridge was filled with shoppers and incoming students, so I fled it as quickly as possible and went home to install the Internet connection on my laptop.

Back to headline: last night we had our first (informal) meeting of the new students of International Relations at Fort St. George Pub. About ten students were present, some Americans, some British students and some from other countries in Europe and the World. Interestingly some of the British students are distinguished gentlemen which already had a long career in the British Military. They have families and sometimes children and I think they will add a valuable perspective in our classes, so I look forward to join them in the debates. Read on, my friend »

I don’t know why, but whenever I have to make a picture for an ID card, I look like a goofy nerd. It’s always the same routine: all exhausted from running around the campus trying to get my paperwork together, I sit in front of one of these digital cameras attached to registration computers, they take a picture and it looks like I don’t know how to use a comb. The last picture from the ID Card of the Catholic University of Leuven was so terrible that I did not dare to show them to anybody except the library stuff. This time it’s not as bad, but almost. I don’t know how I managed, but before walking to the Card Office, I shaved myself and cut myself slightly on the cheek, and now the picture features a beautiful red spot on my right cheek – looks like marmalade. Read on, my friend »

It happened quite a while ago, but apparently Facebook banned breast feeding pictures which caused an uproar by Facebook users advocating for Lactivism. Read more at Switched.

MeinNachbar.de, one of quite a German Social Networks for creating ties between people living in one area, has been on-line for the last three months and is already hosting more than 50.000 users.

The site offers to connect users and their profiles via a GoogleMap, a feature that was already very popular among bloggers at BlogScout.de.

Thanks again to all participants at the Workshop on Friday. I posted a list of participants in the Googlegroup and I am updating the Blog-O-Pedia entry.

After Monster was hacked a new job portal called yourcha has recently started.

Danny Pham from the IT-Company Crossbits seems to have be inspired by the voting scheme on www.hotornot.de. He developed a similiar voting platform for the underwear brand sloggi. The aim of the community is to choose a new model for its marketing campaign.

After much hassle I am now officially admitted to Cambridge University. The biggest obstacle was obtaining a certificate that I have withdrawn from my studies fully stamped and translated. The German Mail Service must have seen a 100% turnover increase due to my mailing between the UK and Germany, because I sent the withdrawals to Cambridge, translations, officially stamped translations… Anyway, now it’s through and I am excited to go.

It’s been a long and very interesting trip to Russia. Kazan, St. Petersburg, Moscow – beautiful cities. Practising my Russian language is a big help. Now lots of work waits here in Germany, articles about Democracy in Russia, the Russian blogosphere and Russian Social Networks.

Via Ivan Begtin.

Won a prize of http://www.justinguitar.com for best use of a guitar.

There is no doubt that the blogosphere is ideal for attracting lawyers of all kinds: during law studies, lawyers often have to minimize their own creativity for the sake of learning the correct judicial argumentation. In blogs you can write whatever you want, and you don’t have to deal with a second opinion – unless you want to do.

From the incomplete list of law blogs that you can find below, you can learn some interestings things about the international blawgosphere:

• Quite a few lawyers are using their blogs to promote their own skills and expertise – the blog is a marketing tool and not just a tool for personal expression. Legal Marketing and Real Lawyers Have Blogs are only two of the many specimen that discuss this phenomenon
• Many lawblogs focus on issues related to Intellectual Property, such as trademarks and patents. These topics are heavily debated in academics, law studies, economics and politics. It is one of the fields of international law that has seen a tremendous change in the last decade. And it seems that specialisation on this topic still leaves a big piece of cake for the many lawyers working in this field.
• IP-Blogs have specialized even further, by covering some specific regions (Asia, China) or areas of international law.
• For other specialised law fields, blogs are rare. There are a few blogs discussing Franchise Law; Construction Law; Sports Law; Pharma, Bio, Nanotechnology Law, Leasing and Factoring; Human Rights or Media. This could be a big opportunity for new law-blogs creating their own niche.
• Some blogs feature a great sense of humour. To name one: Patent Pending.
• Very few international law-creating institutions have their own blogs, and neither do insiders from these institutions. Some of these institutions have RSS-Feeds to be utilized, but so far Web 2.0 has remained outside of their sphere.
• There are some blogs from lawyers working in large law firms, but most of the lawyers are working in small law firms. Great prominence in Germany gained the Großbuden-Nerd.
• Law Blogs focusing on general Issues are adressing mostly one specific country. The German-American Law Journal is one of the few exceptions of a bilingual law blog. I found only few law blogs in other countries, such as France or Denmark.
• For reason of completeness, I also listed some blogs that have some relation to law, such as the economics of law.

Please feel free to make any changes at the Blog-O-Pedia-Article or give feedback here in the comments. Some issues concerning the German Blawgosphere you will soon find at Blogtrainer.

Read on, my friend »

I am currently doing some changes on my blog, such as using permalinks and installing tags. I also want to focus my writing a little bit more on three things: firstly, my personal life, secondly the development of social networks especially in Germany, thirdly the focus of my studies at Cambridge: the international relations of law, economics and politics.

The first one will still happen here on the Kasi-Blog, but I am moving the other two topics into separate categories which are not necessary appearing in the main-loop. The stuff about social networks will appear in the category echologist and the domain www.echologist.com will soon link to that. I am also trying to find out how to produce RSS-Feeds that only link to one category.

Wenn man von Fürstenberg/Havel nach Klockow fahren will, mit Bahncard 50 und Großkundenrabatt im Reisezentrum in Berlin am Hauptbahnhof 6,20 Euro bezahlt, aber bei der Rückfahrt für die gleiche Strecke, nämlich von Klockow nach Fürstenberg/Havel OHNE Großkundenrabatt, aber mit Bahncard 50 nur 4,15 Euro, dann ist doch irgendetwas faul, oder nicht?

Full article on the (potential) relationship between arrest numbers for illegal immigration into the US, the subprime-bubble and the US economy, here.

Listening to “Vorspiel“, a weekly radio show on MotorFM which features the favorites songs of popular artists, I learned:
_ Motor FM does too much talking.
_ I don’t care what shitty songs artists listened to when they were young, stupid or ignorant
_ Even though I really like The Go-Team, I think their music preferences are mostly appalling, except for Grooving with Mr. Bloe, of course.