Elephant intelligence

According to American behavior scientist elephants are able to recognize their own mirror image. In an experiment they painted a cross with odorless paint on a group of female elephants. One of these elephants was named 'Happy'. When she was looking in the mirror she repeatedly touched the cross with her trunc.

[ and this was considered proof she recognized herself... ]

But they are wrong...



I have studied the footage at length and I come to a totally different conclusion..!

The images that should 'proof' it all...

Happy the elephant has an extensive conversation with her mirror image friend:

Hey you, hey, I'm talking to you...
There's something strange stuck to your head!
There, look at it, there.
Yes, over there, it doesn't look right...
...Yes, it's there, get it off...
Yeah, it's there, how difficult is t to understand..?

[ stupid animal...... ]

Pension-time

After many, many years working for Blokkert, my mother thought it was time to quit. Today was the final definite saying goodbye reception, including an assortment of (former)colleagues, fingerfood and drinks.



I have never heard this many cup and saucer anecdotes as tonight. But that was to be expected, after 40 42 years of being responsible for the crockery department in a number of stores, you know what you are talking about...

[ like knowing 200 different article numbers by heart... ]

Saying goodbye cart...

My mother is now taking a computer course. I'm curious what she thinks of this post...

Daylight savings

I love that time: daylight savings

[ one hour extra sleep... ]

This thing now goes under one hour later earlier...

Useless and furry

Sometimes you encounter something you just do not get. Today I discovered someting completely useless.



They were living in the fruit bowl of Rogier and Laura. Laura told me they were not edible. I haven't found out what they were, or what there purpose is in this world.

[ I do know they won't stay in the hippotamus mouth... ]

What is it's use..?

Todays highlight

When I came back from school when I was still a little boy, you where always asked the same question: "How where things today..?". You then always gave the same response: "Fine...".



Now-a-days nobody asks me this question when I come back home. Sometimes this is a shame, because you really want to tell someone about your day. But most of the time it's just as well. If someone would ask you, you might realize that you haven't done anything interesting that day...

[ like today... ]

The highlight of the day was probably the fact that at some point the coffee machine ran out of cups. You needed to place a plastic cup yourself in the machine before you could get your coffee or tea.

[ normaly the machine automatically provides the cup... ]

Self-service today...

I hope something interesting happens real soon. Otherwise I won't have any stories to tell if someone asks me about my day...

They exist...

In my original 'Das Experiment' post I was joking about the possibility of hungry gnomes. Today I saw something that made me fear that it was possible that the Swedish candy was not eaten by a colleague, but by actual gnomes...



Every day the coffee/tea machine is cleaned and refilled. Someone comes by with a special cart that is filled with ckeaning stuff and fresh coffee, tea and chocolate milk.

[ everything in powder form, the machine just adds water... ]



This cart is also stocked with all kind of documentation, like a thick manual what to do when the machine is clogged. Besides these manuals I spotted a strange pamphlet sticking out of a map on the sde of the cart:

Gnomes exist

[ in Dutch: Kabouters bestaan... ]

The picture is not sharp, but it does state the gnome thing...

The machine cleaner does visit all floors. If there is anyone that knows the buildings inner most secrets it would be him.

[ or he's our sweet tooth that want to blame someone else... ]

Das experiment (2)

There gone, disappeared, all of them!

[ someone really liked them... ]

Every piece of the Swedish candy has been eaten...

Das experiment

When someone returns from a foreign usability test candy is brought to fill the UCD cookie jar. It has become the custom to try and bring some weird excotic sweets.

[ which sometimes turn out to be too excotic... ]



This time we got exciting red candy from Sweden. When the bag was opened, an extreme sweet scent spread thoroughout the office: The sweets tasted like incredible sweet chewing gum.

[ but without the chewing part and even sweetererer... ]

Not nice: so they went to the coffee corner...

We donated the candy to the general purpose coffee corner, so everyone could enjoy it.



It is always an interesting experiment to place candy in the coffee corner. You'd expect that anyone who tries one, will think twice before taking another. But if I divide the number of employees on our floor by the number of disappeared sweets, I have to conclude that someone must actually like them...

[ or that we have hungry gnomes running around in the office... ]

Working and cooking

Today I've added a new item to my list of things you should not try to do at the same time: working and cooking.



I thought it was OK to quicklyanswer an email while I was making some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

[ but I was wrong..! ]

My house still smells of charcoal...