The Cortices Balance from BodyTalk
March 2009
Bodytalk is an advanced health care modality, which addresses poor balances within the bodymind on an energetic level. Balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain is one of the core techniques of the Bodytalksystem. This has profound effects on the overall well-being as it helps to reset the amygdala and to reduce stress levels. Specific and immediate effects include improvements in thinking ability, memory and concentration, feelings of well-being and enhancement of general physiological body function. The simple technique takes only a minute a day and is recommended for every person. In this short video clip by John Veltheim you get the how and why to do the Cortices Technique of Bodytalk. Adobe Flashplayer must be installed to watch this cortices video.
The 8 secrets men carry within
February 2009
Many men carry a mountain of rage and a lake of tears. This is the sad and true message, be it because of a psychologically invasive mother or an absent or aggressive father. The dynamics behind are in depth explored by the Jungian analyst Dr. James Hollis in his book »Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men«.
Psychologically most of men have remained, essentially, the uninitiated, wounded male characteristic of our time. It is time for us men to look more consciously into our own wounding. One of a man's greatest developmental tasks is to achieve a healthy separation from the bond with his personal mother. Only then he can get in touch with his own soul, and free himself also from the Saturnian's shadow. Good references are the various rites of passage that are still observed in the tribal and indigenous cultures on our planet. Strange enough that the civilized world cannot handle this important move from a trouble-free existence of a child to the mature meeting of responsibility with full awareness and guidance for their own sons.
I highly recommend this book, and as a glimpse will reveal the therein stated 8 secrets men carry within.
- Men's lives are as much governed by restrictive role expectations as are the lives of women
- Men's lives are essentially governed by fear
- The power of the feminine is immense in the psychic economy of men
- Men collude in a conspiracy of silence whose aim is to suppress their emotional truth
- Because men must leave Mother, and transcend the mother complex, wounding is necessary
- Men's lives are violent because their souls have been violated
- Every man carries a deep longing for his father and for his tribal Fathers
- If men are to heal, they must activate within what they did not receive from without
Suse Linux random hangs or freezes on Asus or Acer notebooks - Problem solved
February 2009
On my ASUS A3FC I experienced random system freezes with Suse Linux 10.3 11.0 and 11.1. It took some time to figure out that the root cause was not the new Kernel, but a bug in the DVD drive firmware. Affected are certain TSSTcorp TS-L623D drives. The firmware of the TS-L623D stops responding after being continuously polled by hald-addon-storage.
Following workaround should stop the freezes
- keep a CD in the TS-L632D drive or
- kill the hald-addon-storage process or
- cross-flash the drive firmware of TS-L632D to the SC03 or SC04 version
Bad firmware versions are
- Acer: All firmware versions including AC00 and AC01
- Asus: All firmware versions including AS05 and AS99
- Samsung: SC02
Good firmware versions
- Samsung: SC03 and SC04
Since Asus did not provide a firmware update the only solution was to cross-flash my firmware.
How to cross-flash in Windows
Be warned that you are at your own risk to cross-flash the firmware of the drive. Also it might void the warranty.
- Download the Samsung Firmware update utility sfdnwin.exe
- Download the Samsung Firmware TS-L632D_SC04.BIN
- Run »sfdnwin -nocheck« to cross-flash
Problems with Qatar Airways - 18 days without trekking equipment
November 2008
In October 2008 we went with Qatar Airways Zurich - Doha - Kathmandu, to go for a 3 weeks trekking into the Mustang Area. That means - in fact, we wanted to fly with Singapore Airlines, but due to delay/ missed connecting flight, we were transferred to Qatar Airways. In transit in Zurich the Qatar Agent (Dnata) took our luggage receipts from Singapore Airlines and issued new luggage receipts for Qatar. The corresponding baggage tags he wanted to attach to our yet to be localized luggage - which he did not, which he did not even mention in the Qatar system.
Interestingly both the check-in Zurich, as well as the transit desk in Doha confirmed that our luggage would be on board, which was not true as we found out later. When we arrived in Kathmandu, there was no trace from our baggage and no trace from Qatar Staff either.
We informed a Lost & Found agent about the loss and left local contacts with him. Qatar personnel did not respond even the next day and was not reachable. An e-mail request to the Doha headquarters remained unanswered. On day 3, we reached Qatar employees. Qatar Airways did not even know where our luggage was.
We were left on our own with only our hand luggage. There was no support and no compensation or assistance for the planned trek (3 weeks with a tent, 0 deg C at night in the Himalayas). Qatar staff behavior was of indifference.
We decided to risk the trekking despite the circumstances, with last minute temporary purchases and borrowing equipment from our tour operator, not to loose the trek and vacation, worth 3000 USD plus airfare. We had a significant loss of travel quality, 3 days in lost time, spending 500 USD extra on purchases and took a higher health risk.
It lasted 18 days until our tour operator was able to locate the luggage in a large warehouse at the airport. It was waiting for us already 17 days - with the original tags from Singapore Airlines, send from Zurich, with only 1 day delay.
Qatar could and should have known this, and with better communications, without such logistics problems, the entire trek would have been possible without any additional cost. In addition to the above losses, we had to inform about a theft from one of the bags (new functional wear worth 600 USD).
For all this - after lengthy discussions and bureaucracy - Qatar Airways gave us 100 USD compensation per person on the departure day and declined further compensation.
An airline may define how to compensate for delayed and lost luggage. For lost vacation time there is no obligation to compensate.
Maybe Qatar Airways needs less flight time and is a little cheaper for travels to Nepal. As long as nothing happens, this is ok. But the criterion for good service is simply if something happens, and here I am not satisfied with Qatar Airways will try to avoid this airline in future.
Quite different was the response from Singapore Airlines. Although the situation was not their fault, SIA issued a flight voucher for the next trip.
The hole story is on File KTMQR12005 and also discussed in the Virtual Tourist Forum
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The Multimap API
November 2008
Multimap is a popular mapping website, offering street-level maps of the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and a number of cities worldwide; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs with map overlay; Bird's Eye imagery and local information. Website developers can register for a Multimap Open API key, allowing to build highly-interactive websites. The Multimap Open API comes with its Mapping and Geocoding modules as standard, but also now offers the new Routing and Local Information modules. In addition, the Multimap Open API also integrates with Microsoft Virtual Earth to provide access to high resolution aerial and Bird's Eye imagery.
Fake or Nothing - uksoccershop.com does not refund for sold out articles and for fake items
October 2008
Order 74195 Purchase from UKSoccershop.com 02/Jul/2008 23:07:45 WorldPay transaction ID: 1560772275 Paid GBP 86.48 1 shirt and 1 short
Order 74340 Purchase from UKSoccershop.com 05/Jul/2008 11:23:18 WorldPay transaction ID: 1660607406 Paid GBP 118.48 2 shirts
Order 74470 Purchase from UKSoccershop.com 07/Jul/2008 11:41:05 WorldPay transaction ID: 1461334751 Paid GBP 54.48 2 shorts
Can you imagine you order 3 authentic sets of Adidas® shirts and shorts over the internet, make advance payment of 260 GBP, and from the shorts all you receive is 1 item in wrong size (others sold out), the shirts you receive come with fake printing? This happened to me in July 2008 with the as per advertisement »Number One for Football Shirts«.
Initially I only realized about the wrong size short. I was asked to return the short and promised to get a full refund for the 3 shorts including return shipment. I sent the short with registered mail (RF103761848CH 18-Jul-2008) but despite many reminders no refund was made. All communications went via tickets (ID: IFO-370049, COD-393374, BTH-587418, and VVV-557154). Phone calls were never answered.
I then googled about experiences from other customers and learned that in many cases refund was promised but not given. Also I read about problems with printed shirts, that authentic printing of names and numbers was sold, but in reality the prints were fake. I got an authentic printed shirt from a reliable dealer and made a comparison with the sent uksoccershop shirts. I realized also my uksoccershop shirts had fake printing. The print was not shining. It was a plastic foil which went way beyond the letters and numbers and there were no holes within the numbers but only imitations of holes. I opened another ticket (ID: SFQ-371599), included the close-up photos and requested a refund also for the shirts. I received a promise to investigate but there was no further reply or refund also in this case.
Finally I reported the issue to my credit card company. I also informed consumerdirect UK and adidas customer care UK.
Original Adidas transfer print with holes
Fake print from uksoccershop - plastic foil