Writing in non-mother tongue and the difference between efficent and effective

If you read through my posts and are native english speaker you might discover: English is definitely not his mother tongue. All others can find hints in pictures and texts. So my postings are definitely effective.

Vienna | Parliament

Vienna | National Library

I live in Vienna. The pictures show, that it is a dark country, mostly at night. You can not see many people in the pictures because they might be sitting in front of their TVs and Computers - just like in any other country. And people here speak German (if you meet one of us - Austrian would be the preferred word), so the texts can be seen as sub optimum efficient.

I think of writing in non-mother tongue as a good exercise in being efficient and effective. Do you know the difference?

Being efficient means doing the things right and being effective means doing the right things.

 The point is that I cannot remember why I starting writing in English. Maybe it is because English is widely spoken, maybe because I wanted to write in English. Who knows.
This might be the right time to order a story by writing something in the comments. Just in case I ever run out of things I could write about.

Real nice sunset pictures when leaving work

The morning started with strange clouds. But the evening was very pleasant.

 

This is again the point where I love my HTC Desire as it makes nice pictures. But I promise to clean the lense first before taking the next pictures. The cleaning cloth is already in my pocket.

Little dragons - but with water?

Is this an ancient cartoon?

While walking through Vienna I found these two animal friends. I wonder what they talk about...

Is there a cultural difference in the meaning of danger?

Actually I was walking to pick up a geocache near Augarten when I found the sign which said something slightly different in English than in German. In English the park area is dangerous (due to a storm - which took place the night before). The German line says "Lebensgefahr" which basically is a threat to life.



So I bought some icecream around the corner and went in. There were elderly men playing Bocce, people playing chess, reading books and some were watching the trees shaken by the storm. The water on the lawn was crowded with crows drinking there.
And everything happened in the shadow of the ugly giant Flakturm G-Tower (oh yes - there is a second one of these buildings in the same park). Too much concrete for demolition inside a urban area. I wonder how many storms they saw without any scratch.

Calculating without electricity

When going through old things today I rediscovered an old Brunsviga 15. An old mechanical calculator. It is bigger than a slide rule and also a little big heavier. The weight must be way over 10 kilograms.

As you can see it has been used. My children are usually amazed by the number of levers. And by the fact that the machine does a decent ring when turned through Zero...

What happened here in 1278?

There must have been a time when putting up monuments was a sports in Austria. I actually like this one. There is a middle ages festival in Dürnkrut (look it up in Wikipedia) on 14th/15th August like every year - do not miss it. It is part of the celebrations of the battle on the Marchfeld.

Strange cloud