The Happy Hermit

How people found my blog

Posted on 2012-01-15 by Andreas Moser

Some people find my blog because they have subscribed to it (do the same to spice up your life!), some get the alerts about new posts (and much more) through my Facebook page and some people find me through search engines.

WordPress shows me the search terms that people entered into Google, Yahoo! or other search engines which subsequently landed them on my blog. Search terms like Andreas Moser or Andreas Moser blog are among the entries you would expect, just as world’s best blog, smart blog or funny blog.

The most interesting searches are those that pose a direct question. I actually hadn’t realised that some people enter full questions into Google, just as if they could speak with their computer. Here are some examples from 2011:

why are hot girls dumb?

why are hot girls stupid?

are stupid girls hot?

and similar variations is a question on the mind of a great many people. This is something that I luckily have the definitive answer to.

are the riots still going on in London

was asked 40 times, probably in August 2011. I can assure you, it’s safe to travel to London again. The riots were over after four days. Actually, it was also safe to travel to London during the riots. As always, they looked much worse on TV than from on location. I still don’t know why people google for information like this instead of going to a news website. You should however avoid London in 2012 because due to the Olympic Games, the city will be more crowded than ever. That is one reason why I moved away.

why do I hate Christmas

was asked 9 times. It is really sad when people have to google for the reasons behind their own feelings. I can only tell you my opinion about Christmas.

how to divorce in Germany

how long does a divorce take in Germany

are recurring requests. Please read my FAQ about divorce law in Germany.

obtaining German citizenship

how to get German passport

German citizenship through marriage

and similar terms fall into the same category. Please read my FAQ about German citizenship law.

Five people asked

was war die Wehrpflicht

which translates as “what was conscription?” which shows that people forget rather quickly because Germany only abolished military conscription in July 2011. The article about my experience with conscription (and how I avoided it) is unfortunately only available in German.

Some people asked

why girls don’t answer the phone

to which I don’t really know the answer. I can however suggest that their reasons might be similar to the reasons why I don’t answer my phone.

Read this and you will die

don’t read this or you die

are somewhat strange requests, methinks. Did these readers try to commit suicide by reading a blog? Instead they had to read about correlation and causation.

where is Malta

is a question which I actually prefer people to google it instead of them asking me personally. After my move to Malta, I got the question “where is Malta?” so often and grew so tired of explaining it, that I devoted a whole blog post to it. It is shocking how many people don’t know where Malta is. After all, it’s a country, not just a village.

within a retributivist sentencing system is it justifiable for courts to sentence more harshly those who commit an offence in the context of a riot?

is my favourite question. Articulate, interesting, topical, a complete sentence. For the answer, I will make you read my essay on the philosophy of punishment.

To the question

Andreas Moser gay

I can say “no” just as well as to

Moser Andreas polygamy

although I did write one article about polygamy in Libya.

Those who searched for

explanations for the gender pay gap

found this interesting analysis of why women still earn less than men.

A few asked

what is psychological continuity

and luckily I once wrote an essay about psychological continuity although it might confuse you more than answer the question.

Three times the question

do space shuttles run on nuclear power

was posed. I recommend watching a space shuttle launch (oh wait, they don’t use space shuttles any more, so I’ll post a video here) and then you will have a pretty clear indication what they run on.

I am not an engineer, but this doesn’t look like nuclear power to me. But I may be biased because I am against nuclear power.

The answer to the question

who denies the Holocaust

is unfortunately “still too many” and even more negate the causality behind the Holocaust, how many in Germany and beyond were actively involved in the mass murder, or they pretend that no lessons have to be drawn from history. I have this short reply to Holocaust denial.

As you saw, a thousand different ways lead to my blog which indicates that it is a really worthwhile read; or that search engines don’t work too well.

Posted in Language | Tagged blog, blogging, SEO, Wordpress | 2 Comments

James Bond in Venice

Posted on 2012-01-15 by Andreas Moser

Next weekend, 20-22 January 2012, I will visit Venice for the first time.

A good person to ask for travel advice is my old mate James Bond.

He has already been to this beautiful city three times, the first time in 1963 in “From Russia with Love“. James Bond and Soviet spy Tatiana Romanova leave the Orient Express between Zagreb and Venice, hijack a truck, drive to a dock and embark on a speedboat with destination Venice, not without having to fight off a squadron of boats manned by the criminal organisation SPECTRE:

(I know, some of these old clips are dreadful to watch now. But the last clip from “Casino Royale” will compensate you for the ordeal.)

James Bond returned to Venice in 1979 for “Moonraker“. Bond went to Venice to investigate a laboratory used to manufacture biological weapons, and to team up with astronaut and CIA agent Dr Holly Goodhead. Inevitably, Bond is chased around the canals in his gondola:

(Yes, I also find the hovercraft gondola silly.)

The last time that James Bond was in Venice was in “Casino Royale” (2006), in my opinion one of the best James Bond films of all times.

Here is the scene in which James Bond and Vesper Lynd come to Venice in their yacht:

But he should not have taken Ms Lynd with him. Because Bond later finds out that she stole the money that he had won at the poker tournament in Montenegro. The following clip (unfortunately without dialogue) shows part of the finale in which Bond pursues Ms Lynd and her co-conspirators. They end up in a building under renovation which is being kept from sinking by inflatable supports. In the gunfight, the supports are punctured and the building eventually sinks.

Don’t worry, Venice. I will try not to destroy any of your buildings during my stay.

Posted in Cinema, Italy, Travel | Tagged James Bond, movies, Venice | 7 Comments

Living the Life of a Pensioner

Posted on 2012-01-07 by Andreas Moser

I am only 36, a student and an avid traveller, but I seem to live the life of a pensioner already:

I like to go for walks.
I can often be found in the park, reading a book.
I don’t buy new clothes because the ones I have are still good enough.
I smoke cigars.
I don’t like places with loud music and many people.
The thought of sitting at home, next to the fireplace, and again with a book does not scare me.
It makes me sad to see how young people waste their lives.
I have some grey hair.
I have given up on following technological developments.
I am calm and wise.

Doe this mean that I grew old too soon or that I was lucky enough to leapfrog the mid-life part of sitting in an office for 30 years? Why should I wait until I am 65 to do the things I enjoy?

Two generations (and a previous one in the sarcophagus): My father and me in Caesarea, Israel.

Posted in Life | Tagged retirement | 13 Comments

Bird Flu is not that Bad

Posted on 2012-01-04 by Andreas Moser

From time to time, usually when nothing else of interest happens, the news remind us of bird flu (avian flu, H5N1) again. See The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and The Washington Post for examples from the past few days only. It is a constant scare in the papers, on radio, on TV and parents are telling their children not to play with the birds.

But let me put things into perspective:

Since 2003, fewer than 600 people have been infected with bird flu, of which 335 people died.
That is 37 deaths per year worldwide, which is less than any other known cause of death. (In 2010, in the USA alone, 29 people died from lightning so even that figure is bound to be higher worldwide than the deaths caused by bird flu.)

Looking at the number of people (7 billion) and the number of birds in the world (unknown but huge, based on my own observations), these numbers are extremely low. In addition, while I generally refuse to blame the victims, some people might have almost called for being infected. This is from a New York Times article about the transmissibility of bird flu:

There have also been some anomalous cases, including a group of diners in Vietnam who apparently were infected by raw duck blood pudding, and the handlers of fighting cocks who were stricken after sucking blood and mucus out of their birds’ beaks.

There is another reason why I have a hard time feeling sorry for the few people that are killed by bird flu:

Worldwide, 50 billion chickens are killed every year.
And that’s only chickens. Humans also kill ducks, turkeys, geese, swans and any other type of bird that they can lay their hands on.

Now people will ask “Don’t you see the difference between birds and humans?” Yes, I do see the difference:

Birds don’t kill humans on purpose.
Next time you eat, count the lives lost.

I cannot discern any moral justification for killing animals on such a grand scale. Yes, animals are different from people. But being different does not mean that they are worth less. A bird, a horse, an ant, a whale and your dog have a life too. Some of them have a partner, many of them have children.

Some proponents of mankind’s right to kill animals argue that animals can’t talk, don’t have emotions, don’t have the same kind of sophisticated lives as we do. But we don’t really know that for sure, and we can’t, despite all of the science that we have at our disposal, because this scientific approach will always be guided by how we as humans think. We just cannot imagine, feel or understand what it’s like to be a cat or a worm. Heck, we men can’t even understand what makes women tick the way they do.

For those who like to stress the difference between humans and animals, I would like to point out one difference that I concede: We as humans can pause in our actions, reflect about the ethics of our behaviour and change it.

(Disclaimer: I may change my opinion about bird flu once I will contract it myself.)

Posted in Food, Philosophy | Tagged Health, Statistics | 9 Comments

Why North Korea is Mourning

Posted on 2012-01-02 by Andreas Moser

The world wondered why North Koreans were weeping, crying, sobbing and mourning the late dictator Kim Jong Il‘s death on 17 December 2011. After all, he had oppressed and starved them for 17 years.

See for yourself how North Koreans were crying their eyes out:

(It’s really hard to watch all 3 minutes of it, isn’t it?)

With the help of a very elaborate psychological and scientific process, I have been able to learn what North Koreans really thought:

“It was so embarrassing to lose 0-7 to Portugal in the last World Cup.”

“The whole world will ridicule us for this show.”

“The Arab countries have a real spring. We don’t even have spring rolls.”

“Oh no, not another chubby Kim. How will we be able to tell them apart in history class?”

(On a different note: Watching the above video, it seems that the days after Kim Jong Il’s death in December 2011 would have been the perfect window of opportunity for South Korea to liberate North Korea. It looks as if all the North’s soldiers were so overwhelmed by grief that they could not have put up an organised defence. A missed opportunity.)

Posted in North Korea, Politics | Tagged Kim Jong Il, Korea, North Korea, South Korea | 18 Comments

2012 Warning

Posted on 2012-01-01 by Andreas Moser

Do you remember the film “2012” by Roland Emmerich? It is (another) disaster film about the end of the world, which has allegedly been predicted for 21 December 2012 by the Maya Calendar.

In the film, the earth’s core heats up, volcanoes erupt, millions die in earthquakes, floods consume whole countries, glaciers melt, tsunamis kill almost everybody who is still alive. All countries and continents are affected and destroyed, except for a small part of Africa. It is complete annihilation, an orgy of disasters, explosions and death.

And how did the British Board of Film Classification rate this film? The BBFC warns: “Contains sustained moderate threat and one use of strong language.”

“Moderate threat”? The earth is destroyed and 7 billion people die.

One just has to love British understatement! I wish the people at the BBFC were responsible for the terrorism threat warnings.

Posted in Cinema, Language, Terrorism, UK | Tagged 2012, Cinema, movies, Terrorism | 2 Comments

First New Year’s Resolution for 2012 already broken

Posted on 2012-01-01 by Andreas Moser

It’s 1 January 2012 and already New Year’s resolutions are being broken.

This year’s first culprit is Japan.

"But I can still give up smoking in 2012."

After the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, I am sure many people in Japan included “no more earthquakes” in their lists of resolutions for 2012.

Yet, this morning they had an earthquake again.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged earthquakes, Japan, new year | 5 Comments

New Year’s Resolutions for 2012

Posted on 2011-12-30 by Andreas Moser

It’s this time of the year again: people are making resolutions about what to do in 2012: eat less, exercise more, quit smoking, learn a new language, find a girlfriend/boyfriend, become a millionaire.

My resolutions for 2012? None. Absolutely nothing.

That’s not because I think that I and my life are perfect already. They are not, and they probably never will be.

But if there is something that I want to change or improve, I don’t see why I have to wait for the arbitrarily set date of 31 December or 1 January. When I want to change something, I will do it right away. As I did in 2011:

In March I read “Into the Wild” which inspired me to go on outdoor adventures again. Already in June I walked across England, all the way from the East to the West coast.
I wanted to prioritize my studies, so I reduced my work to part-time.
For my birthday in July, I went to the Channel Islands for more hiking and discovered paradise.
As I became tired of life in London after two years there, I quit my job, terminated my lease and spontaneously moved to Malta.

For none of these things did I say “I’ll do that next year” or “I need to plan it more before I can do it.” I just did them. And I am happy that I did.

Why should I have waited with this until next year?

Whether it’s resolutions, long-term plans or to-do lists, it’s all just procrastination. If there is something in your life that you want to change, the time is now.

If you want to quit smoking, throw away all the cigarettes in your house now. Don’t buy new ones. It’s easy. (If you have cigars, you can give them to me.)
If you want to learn a new language, start today. No, you don’t need to wait until a course starts or the books arrive. For almost any language, you will find the first few lessons online.
If you want to exercise more, you don’t need to register with a gym. Put on your running shoes and go for a run now. If you don’t have running shoes, go for a long and fast walk. If you can’t go outside, do push-ups at home.
If you want to quit your job, write the resignation letter today and e-mail it to your employer. (In some jurisdictions, a signed resignation letter may be required in addition to that.)
If you want to end a relationship, tell your boyfriend/girlfriend that you never want to see them again. (But get your stuff back first.)
If you want to visit me in Malta, buy the ticket. (Maybe after asking me when I will be available.)
If you want to visit any other country, buy the ticket.
If you want to become more intellectual, buy or borrow a good book today and start reading it tonight. (Ask me for recommendations.) If you can’t get access to books that quickly, start with my blog.
If you want to give more to the poor, go out and help a homeless person today.
If you want to be more creative, start drawing, painting or taking photographs.
If you want to live healthier, buy or pick fruits.
If you want to become more adventurous, pack your sleeping bag and spend a night in the forest. (I might even join you.)
Do not under any circumstances use words like “tomorrow”, “later” or “one day”.

Posted in Life | Tagged 2012, new year | 33 Comments

Where is Malta?

Posted on 2011-12-30 by Andreas Moser

After receiving the 25th e-mail from a friend that included the question “Where is Malta, actually?”, I decided to devote a blog post to this recurring question. I cannot do so however, without voicing my despair about people’s lack of geographical knowledge. After all, Malta is a member state of the European Union, so it’s not as if I moved to Guadalcanal or Onotoa. (I had also attempted to describe Malta’s location in my first blog post about moving to Malta.)

So, here is the map of Europe. Malta is within the red circle towards the bottom, in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily (Italy) and Libya (North Africa). Yes, it’s quite small.

For those who don’t know where Europe is, there is a map of the world in the bottom right corner.

And why is Malta part of Europe instead of Africa?

That’s easy. A British law of 1801 (“Malta Act”, 41 Geo 3, c103) settles this question: “… the said island of Malta and dependencies thereof shall be deemed taken, and construed to be part of Europe for all purposes, and as to all matters and things whatever; any law or laws, usage or custom, or Act or Acts …”

Posted in Europe, Malta, Travel | Tagged Maps | 21 Comments