Author Archives: Hermann Observer
This Doll Must Die
Don’t EVER let anybody tell you that Germans are lasch (feeble) when it comes to threats posed to them by foreign intelligence snoops.
Forget about not caring about Putin & Co., forget about spinning your wheels ridiculously with your NSA spying affair. We’ve got a real live (sort of) freakin’ wi-fi-connected Internet doll on the loose and we’re all going to die if we don’t kill her first. OK. So we don’t know who she’s working for yet. But still.
A German government watchdog has ordered parents to destroy an internet-connected doll for fear it could be used as a surveillance device. According to a report from BBC News, the German Federal Network Agency said the doll (which contains a microphone and speaker) was equivalent to a “concealed transmitting device” and therefore prohibited under German telecom law…
“My Friend Cayla” uses a microphone to listen to questions, sending this audio over Wi-Fi to a third-party company (Nuance) that converts it to text. This is then used to search the internet, allowing the doll to answer basic questions, like “What’s a baby kangaroo called?”
Why would anybody want to know what a baby kangaroo is called, huh?
And this is just the beginning, too. These wi-fi-thingies will soon be everywhere. “It doesn’t matter what that object is — it could be an ashtray or a fire alarm.” Damn right. So after you’ve finished strangling this doll toss everything else out of the window while you’re at it. Just in case. They’re out to get us, people. They’re everywhere, I tell you. Whoever they are. Bad dolly!
At what point did we enter this Philip K. Dick novel, anyway?
Remember The Seven Million Dollar Man?
Well they’ve got a 1.1 billion Eurofighter over here. Lawsuit, I mean.
Austria is seeking as much as 1.1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) from Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH and its main shareholder, Airbus Group SE, after a probe concluded the companies deceived the government in a 2003 purchase of fighter jets.
“We can’t accept that Austrian taxpayers are co-funding bribes by way of the purchase price. We have clear evidence that Eurofighter and Airbus deceived Austria. This deception has caused massive financial damage.”
Berlinale Has Numbing Effect On Audiences This Year, Too
It numbs them with its politics. And its smugness. Intentionally so. Every year. And if you don’t have the “correct” kind of politics and smugness, it will numb you all the more.
The opening night of the Berlinale was all about politics, from the red carpet, where Green Party politician and Bundestag vice president Claudia Roth sported a black dress adorned with the word “Unpresidented” in large letters – an apparent dig at U.S. President Donald Trump’s spelling aptitude and/or his perceived behavior as commander-in-chief – to officials and speakers taking the stage to talk about free speech, free art and resistance to oppression.
“It’s kind of an antidote to massive budget films with millions of special effects and stuff, which in the end creates a kind of numbing effect: I want more, I want more, I want more.”
Peugeopel
That rolls right off your tongue, doesn’t it?
GM gets rescued by the American government (government is a code word for taxpayer, by the way), Opel gets rescued by the German government and Peugeot gets rescued by the French government. Is there a pattern developing here or something? Now GM is going to rescue itself out of Europe and dump its Opel on Peugeot, making it a Peugeopel. But who the hell would want to rescue one of those?
General Motors is in advanced talks to sell its European Opel subsidiary to France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen, Handelsblatt confirmed after Reuters broke the story. A Peugeot spokesperson told Handelsblatt that the two are in discussions “over the purchase of Opel.” A deal “could be announced within days,” sources told Reuters.
Seit Jahren versucht General Motors vergeblich, seine Marke Opel zu sanieren. Nun steht offenbar ein Verkauf an den französischen Konkurrenten Peugeot an.
This Was A Hard Decision To Make
No, not deciding as in electing the walking sleeping pill Frank-Walter Steinmeier himself so unceremoniously to the ceremonial office of president of Germany. That was a no-brainer, in more ways than one. I mean deciding as in whether to write a post about that boring election or about the cat in Lörrach. So here’s the cat story.
This cat locked his owner lady out of her apartment by shutting and somehow locking the balcony door while she was out there getting some fresh air. There was no locksmith available at that hour so she called the cops and they threw her one of their nightsticks so she could bust the glass door open to get back inside again. Is that cool or what? Other than that though, not much going on.
Mit einem Sprung gegen die Klinke hatte die Katze die Balkontür in der Nacht zu Sonntag von innen verschlossen.
German Air Farce Ready For Action
Only one of Germany’s eight way-over-budget Airbus A400M military transport planes is working at the moment, if working is the proper word for a military transport plane that will never actually be used anywhere anyway. Jeepers. That’s like, I dunno, less than half or something.
Germany’s defense minister Ursula von der Leyen apparently discovered this problem single handedly after the A400M she had taken for a visit to Lithuania broke down there.
Meanwhile… Countless aircraft belonging to German Billigflieger (budget airlines) loaded with countless tons of German tourists don’t seem to be having any technical problems whatsoever. Their number will be increasing dramatically this summer. You just got to set your priorities right these days, I guess.
Zum Sommer wächst das Angebot der Billigflieger an deutschen Flughäfen kräftig.
Levina
German Of The Day: Schweinefurz
That means pig fart. And pig farts are super hilarious here in Germany (Hey, German humor is what it is. I’m not passing judgement here or anything).
Unless, of course, they are directed toward foreign heads of state, so-to-speak.
A German court upheld ban on a satirical poem which suggested Turkey’s president had sex with animals and watched child porn. The Hamburg court upheld its injunction issued in May banning re-publication of parts of the poem which it called ‘abusive and defamatory’.
A lamb or a llama fart probably probably wouldn’t have been all that bad in this guy’s poem, but pig fart? That just doesn’t cut it (Cut it, get it?).
„Schweinefurz“ ist für Erdogan besonders ehrverletzend.
What’s So Tricky About That?
“The trick is to try to create the sense that the people at the time don’t know what’s going to happen,” says Tykwer (director Tom Tykwer, Babylon Berlin). “No one in 1929 could have imagined what would become of Germany.”
No offense, Tom, but no one at anytime can ever imagine what is about to happen. That’s the way of the world. But good luck with your TV series anyway.
Ordinary, Babylon Berlin certainly is not. Based on the series of novels by German writer Volker Kutscher, its a Raymond Chandler-style crime story — about a German detective, Gereon Rath (played by Volker Bruch) sent to Berlin to investigate a porn ring run by the Russian mafia — set against the social and political upheaval of Germany in 1929. when the world’s most modern and progressive society is threatened by rising right wing extremism and a world economy teetering on the brink.
“Babylon Berlin” wird die teuerste deutsche TV-Serie. Sie startet im Oktober auf Sky, ein Jahr später in der ARD. In Clärchens Ballhaus wurde nun ein erster Clip gezeigt.
