Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

I distinguish between two types of saving. One I call eco-optimised and the other sustainable. The former is about using the available funds or resources in the most optimised way possible so that the investment brings the maximum return. For example, I only use as much washing powder as is really necessary - in other words, I save on powder - so that the laundry just gets clean. If I use too litt...

The advantage of seeing with only one eye is that when it is good, you see well. If, on the other hand, you have two eyes and one of them is impaired, this affects your overall vision. So the good eye cannot correct or cancel out the defects of the corrupted eye. On the other hand, if you see with only one eye, you lose the depth of field that can only occur with two eyes, preferably healthy ones....

We all know thirst from our own experience. Thirst becomes more intense in the absence of hydration and humans are not able to go nearly as long without water as they can without food. Thirst is a signal from the body that an elementary need must be satisfied. We also know thirst for life. The desire for life, for fulfilment, for meaning. Analogous to the thirst of the body, the soul also has thir...

In English there is the expression "when the rubber hits the road". It means: a theory or idea is tested to see if it actually works. In that sense, it is a kind of reality check, as they say. In the best case, this can be confirming and encouraging; in the worst case, it can be sobering and frustrating. We experience such moments from time to time in life. When we are doing well, we may...

Do you have a passion for something like jewellery, shoes, bags or anything else? Then you know the effect of liking something because you've seen it on someone else or in a shop window. But when you try it on and wear it yourself, it looks less good or inappropriate on you - you are disappointed. You can then quickly reject yourself and make yourself small, thinking "if only I were like...

With a valve like a bicycle inner tube, you can only blow air into the inside with pressure from the outside, but no air can get from the inside to the outside. In a ventilation system, there is a grille at the exit of the shaft so that nothing coarse can enter the shaft. Nevertheless, the air from the inside penetrates to the outside. Ventilation shafts of underground garages or metros often have...

Have you ever had cold hands or feet? These are the physical extremities that first indicate a lack of warmth or blood circulation. They are signals that something is wrong in the body. You can tolerate or ignore these signals for a certain time - but if nothing changes in the condition or situation for too long, it can become dangerous. That sounds understandable - especially when it comes to phy...

I know very little about cars. But I do know that not all cars are the same, but that there are different types of vehicles. There are smaller, practical cars for city traffic, which have less transport volume but are very practical when looking for rare parking spaces. And there are the larger off-roaders, which have a good stance and drive off-road, but also consume more fuel. And in between the...

When autumn comes, the first chestnuts, or marroni as we call them, are available. They taste great roasted, and in our country you can get them on the street directly from the roasting barbecue, usually in a paper bag. This is shaped like an upside-down cone open at the bottom, so the marroni are put in there. But the interesting thing about these bags is that they are folded in such a way that t...

I met an American soldier the other day who totally reminded me of the actor Denzel Washington. It was interesting: even before I could speak to him, I already had an image of him - namely what I associated with the actor. For me, Denzel Washington is an impressive man and I associate only positive qualities with him - and this is exactly what I transferred to this soldier, even though I had not y...

I got stuck on the German word "satt" which means full the other day. In German it is mainly used in the context of food intake. There it means: I have eaten enough, my feeling of hunger is gone, my need for food is satisfied. But it is also used colloquially: to be fed up with something in the sense of being tired of something. In Switzerland we have an additional usage: satt in the sen...

There are some things in nature that we cannot consume in raw form, but that we can consume in processed form - cooked, for example. I'm thinking of certain vegetables or beans or similar. Other things from nature we can put directly into our mouths and eat - some fruits or salads. Why is that? Why can't everything that is good for us and that we can tolerate be consumed directly and every...

Are you guided by your intuition? What is intuition actually? On the internet you can find: A talent for making a good decision right away without explicitly understanding the underlying connections. We use this term relatively quickly without thinking about what we actually mean. Is it simply the residue of not deciding purely rationally and not being guided by logical arguments? Or is it a talen...

We talk about everyday life and mean something like routine, doing things that one does every day or very regularly, behaviour and tasks, programme points in the daily routine etc., which are recurring and do not have any potential for something extraordinary in the normal case. But everyday life can also be special. An extraordinary day - that is what I wish the listeners of the Audiostretto podc...

If we were to experience snow in our regions in summer, it would be extraordinary. In the truest sense of the word: except - ordinary. So: everything - except ordinary. Habits... they are familiar to us and they give us security. I can rely on something because I know it from experience. I can predict or see roughly what will happen next because the event follows a certain logic or pattern that is...

Do you like to write with a really well-sharpened pencil? Or would you rather use a really thick board marker? The result is clearly different. While the fine pencil stroke of the sharpened pencil is hardly legible or recognisable from a certain distance, the marker is rather difficult to use for a really beautiful, caligraphic typeface. And that's right, because both pencils have their own ta...

Headphones are used so that something that wants to be heard is not audible to everyone, but only to the person wearing the headphones. Headphones are designed to fit the ears as snugly as possible to provide optimal listening quality. There are also those with noise cancellation. These filter out external, unwanted environmental noise so that what is heard is all the more brilliant and clear. Goo...

In a relay race, a team runs together and only the sum of the times of the individual team members defines the final time. A delicate moment is the handover of the baton. This has to be practised. Even experienced athletes often drop the baton and literally lose a lot of time. A baton handover is the visible sign of "no longer me, but now you". The focus moves away from me to the person...

I hardly know anyone who doesn't like strawberries. When it comes to strawberries, I hardly know any fruit that can be so deceptive. By that I mean: the individual fruit may be bright red and super ripe judging by the eyes - but when you eat it, it's bland and tasteless and just watery. Not all strawberries, of course, but certain ones that were harvested too early are. The same fruit in t...

Loyalty means sharing and representing the values of another in the interest of a common higher goal. To represent them even if one does not fully share them, as long as this serves the preservation of the common goal. We can have loyalty towards a person or group or a cause. One can be loyal out of two different attitudes or motivations: either out of conviction and trust or out of pressure and f...

There are tides at the sea. They mean that the sea doesn't always start or end at the same place, but floods the beach to a greater or lesser extent at a certain point. This is due to the position of the moon and its gravitational effect. The beach is therefore an area that knows flooding and dryness and this within a few hours. Therefore, I suspect that it is not suitable as building or culti...

There is a flight mode on modern smartphones. You can activate it by pressing a button or tapping the screen to immediately interrupt mobile communication without switching off the device. You are - as it is called in new German - offline. This means that I can still use the mobile phone if I just want to do things on the device that do not require a mobile phone connection - take photos, for exam...

There are materials that react more violently to contact with oxygen than others. For example, they change their colour or surface structure. This process is called oxidation. So the oxygen - the oxide, so to speak - causes a reaction. Chemically, the oxidising substance gives off electrons at the atomic level because of the oxygen. In other words, the oxygen withdraws electrons from the material....

Have you ever experienced this: you wanted to charge a device such as your mobile phone - but you had the wrong cable at hand? Maybe there was a USB-C cable on a mini-USB connector or a Lightning. Annoying: it doesn't work and the device can't be charged. Or I've been on German trains travelling in Switzerland and couldn't plug in my 3-pin laptop connector to charge the device beca...

There are the classic crisps that are sold in bags. That's how I got to know them as a child. In recent years, I found out that such chips are also available in a cardboard packaging that reminds me of a tennis ball tube. In it, the chips are nicely arranged in a row - so totally space-optimised. In the bag they just fly around. Still, I find it strange that I get crisps in the shape of a cert...