Hi, and welcome back to Five Things! Your source for interesting, and hopefully unexpected selections of articles that I found somewhere on the interwebs.
I love it when fall kicks in. Immediately at least one of my kids gets a cold and within a week everybody is coughing and sneezing. So much fun. Also, I can see the Birkenstock tan lines on my feet slowly disappear and I’m also back to wearing socks. But honestly, I like this season when it’s still sunny, just a bit colder. Finally, we can eat hot soups and stews again. Isn’t that awesome?
Anyhow, let’s get on with this Sunday reading list!
The Richest Man in Germany Is Worth $44 Billion. The Source of His Family Fortune? The Nazis know.
Klaus-Michael Kühne just got awarded some founders award here in Hamburg and he gets courted by lots of people, including the local politicians and the local newspaper. They all hope that he puts some more money into his hometown Hamburg before he dies and everybody is eager to forget that he moved to Switzerland in the 60s to avoid paying taxes here. I’m a firm believer in paying taxis and then letting the elected government decide what to do with the money instead of having one guy dictating what will happen with the money. He also invested into my favorite soccer team, HSV, and then went to the press to demand which players to trade and also to tell the coaach who should play in the next game.
We should take awkwardness less personally, and more seriously
We have all experienced awkward situations, haven’t we? Let’s have a closer look at why we perceive a situation as awkward and what this means for our understanding of our social infrastructure.
Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars
I’m all for conquering frontiers, but I have never understood this weird appeal of colonizing Mars to some people. Turns out it, it’s not as easy as a billionaire wants it to be, stupid physics and all that…
Stop Drinking from the Toilet!
I’m old enough to remember the good old days of the internet before it became really, really commercial. Not everything was amazing back then, especially not the user interfaces, but we do have to rethink how we use the interwebs and how we want them to be in the future as more and more aspects of our lifes will be digital.
9/11 Used to Be Off Limits. Now Gen Z Has Turned It Into a Meme
Call me old-fashioned, but 9/11 should stay off limits for jokes and memes. I still vividly remember this day, an afternoon in my office and all the news sites crashed and for some weird reason I was able to reach the one person I knew on Wall Street on his mobile from my landline in the office. We could then relay the info that he was ok to my American family who couldn’t reach him.
That’s it. Have a great Sunday! If you missed last Sunday’s edition of Five Things, have a look here:
— Nico