You do not believe the headline? You should – if you live in the Eurozone! But let me start with my job. I am engineer in the automotive branch. All OEMs invest large amounts of money into the development of cars that save fuel to make mobility for the customer affordable due to the increasing price of oil. Well, this contradicts to the headline, but it is easy to explain: In the year 2000 you had to pay about USD 1.20 for EUR 1.00. The barrel Brent did cost USD 60, which equals EUR 72.50. Today the situation has changed. Oil costs about USD 120.00 for one barrel Brent, BUT you get USD 1.55 for EUR 1.00. That makes a price of EUR 77 for a barrel of oil. So the increase in price in the Eurozone is marginal. But we pay more than twice as much for gasoline and diesel! So it is clear, that the customer is fooled. Exxon, Shell and others do profit from our perception that the oil price is exploding, which is actually only true if we would pay them in Dollars. But they take our expensive Euro and we have nothing to do against it. Pointing out that would be the job of our cartel authorities, but nothing is done – maybe due to tax intakes which increase analogously. Any suggestions for changing that?

When starting out with SuSE Linux one may end up being a tad disappointed. Especially when it comes to the point where you want to play your first MP3 file and find out that you’re accused of wanting to access a restricted format.

This is because common file extensions used by DVD, MP3 etc. are under copyright. But like always, there is a work around to this issue….

The packs will enable you to have:

• Flash
• Java
• Latest Amarok (with MP3 Support) for KDE, or Helix-Banshee for GNOME users
• Encrypted DVD (libdvdcss)
• Extra xine Codecs, for MPEG-4 etc. (libxine1)
• K3b with MP3 Support (k3b-codecs)
• Win 32 Codecs (w32codec-all)

..as well as the option of installing (select Advanced mode at the screen) many more applications, including Opera, KMPlayer, Kplayer, MPlayer, Azureus, VLC, Codeine, and more.

Note: Different copyright and patent laws apply differently depending on what country you are in; if you are unsure about a particular restriction or patent, you might consider applying for legal advice. This site does not offer legal advice. For more information about why some formats/codecs are restricted and why they don’t ship out-of-the-box on openSUSE, read Restricted Formats.

All you have to do is download

Multimedia Codecs for Restricted Content for K-Desktop-Environment
that will guide you through the rest of the setup - practically it takes care of the installation of its self for my experience -

Multimedia Codecs for Restricted Content for GNOME
and this YMP file if you are using GNOME

Until the post by John McCrea I was unaware of the fact that today is a very special day

So here is to one of man’s greatest inventions!

Happy Birthday, WWW! 

There are the times out there when I think: “damn, why did I just give away all of this valuable information for FREE?” And I did it again, increasing the value of the clients platform by probably 1000%.

Not, that the clients are not thankful for it. But then again: how am I gonna live off of that?

Gotta work on my toughness there, I suppose

Back to work!

I’ve been called a lot of names throughout my life. But pseudo intellectual was a term new to me.

Reason? Simple: Since I perceive English to be the international language (beside the fact that it’s a lot more comfortable to speak) of the future, pretty much all of my profiles and all information about me on the web are not written in German, but in English. And since my businesses operate pretty much around the globe, it would be impractical to limit access to information about the brand “Lars Hilse” to 80MM German citizens (beside a few million others who understand German) instead of making it available to 5BN people worldwide.

Some girl, whom I had contacted, thought of this to be pseudo intellectual. My 3 newest pairs of boxers that she didn’t even know what she was talking about Anyhow: cute

I was confronted with the cool risk deterioration feature of the banking industry - a. k. a. Basel II - several times in the past. For those that are not familiar with what Basel II is (click)

In a nutshell: the greater risk to which the bank is exposed, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability Wikipedia. And since entrepreneurs are (in general - and by their business plan yet so good) considered an “unbearable risk” makes credits damn expensive, if at all possible.

What this means for an entrepreneur?
You will hardly receive money from the bank for less than 10%. Even if your possessed assets outnumber the requested  amount 10:1 you’ll be asked to kindly pay a ridiculous amount of interest.

Now, entrepreneurs are usually not dumb… A fact the clever bankers obviously haven’t discovered. So the logical consequence is  that they come up with great ideas to get their hands on money. Cheaper than banks will offer it.

The result is that, all over the world, little pools of friendships are developing amongst entrepreneurs which lend each other money (that they currently don’t need in operations etc.) at an interest rate that doesn’t hurt the other (like the bank’s 11-15% would).

And this is where it gets nifty!! Not only has the bank shot its self in the foot because it receives NOTHING, but - from the lender’s point of view - the money that I don’t currently possess is good money because I don’t have to pay taxes for it.

I was waiting to get my hands on this list forever! The official soundtrack does include most of the “rocky” songs. But hardly anyone knew the name of the GRAND songs at the dance off in the gay bar and during the bachelor’s party.

So here is the (almost) complete list (one song on the bachelor’s party is missing):

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Exactly - in the SPAM box of my Gmail account

Click this link to view this 24/7 business and general news tv station from Germany.

When I was on the train back from Utrecht I had finally gotten hold of my inbox. (Sorry to everyone that had to wait)

So I work, and work, and work and behind me is this attractive blonde… perhaps something in her mid twens making no effort to gain attention or anything…

Anyhow - after having finished my work I put down my head on the table in front of me to get some rest and when I wake up she’s gone (got out in Bremen I presume) and the note below is on my notebook bag.

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