Ausgeliefert

April 15, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, ARD, Berlin, Distortion, Documentaries, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hype, Journalism, Propaganda, Public-Service Broadcasters, Satire, State-Run TV 9 Comments

As in being at the mercy of.

Everbody agrees that big American hi-tech companies are fundamentally evil, right? Well they do here in Germany. In Germany’s state-run media, I should say (they actually call these channels “public-service broadcasters” here because that sounds better).

Anyways, the latest greatest twist to the anti-Google/Facebook/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon agitpop over at the ARD is breaking new ground (or maybe it isn’t) by unabashedly inventing witnesses and working/living conditions in one of Amazon’s German plants in a scarry documentary about that horrible company called Ausgeliefert – and all of this while using the generous funding provided by the compulsory charge every German household has to pay to support objective “public-service broadcasters” like these, of course.

Germans have to pay this charge now whether they even own a television or not, by the way. Hmmm. The ARD called their documentary Ausgeliefert (as in being at the mercy of Amazon), and that’s something every German knows about personally already. Being at the mercy of the ARD like they are, I mean.

Dort, gezeigt wurde das in einer angeblichen E-Mail, würden Menschen “abgefüttert wie die Schweine”, hieß es. Eine Behauptung, der CoCo von Anfang an widersprochen hat und nun vor Gericht zunächst Recht bekam. Der besagte Speiseraum existiere gar nicht, so das Unternehmen: “Das ist schlicht eine Erfindung der ARD-Journalisten, gegen die wir auch juristisch vorgehen.”

Der HR hat bereits vor der Gerichtsentscheidung bestätigt und eingestanden, dass der strittige Screenshot der E-Mail “fingiert” gewesen sei. Zudem musste der Hessische Rundfunk über seine Rechtsabteilung zugeben, dass auch eine im Film porträtierte polnische Leiharbeiterin namens Agnieszka Lewandowska “niemals als Leiharbeiterin bei Amazon beschäftigt war.”

Tanks For The Memories

April 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, History Tags: Abrams Tanks, Allied Forces, Berlin, Cold War, German, Germans, Germany, Military, Tanks, US Army, World War II 3 Comments

Or if you combat ’em, join ’em?

The U.S. Army’s 69-year history of basing main battle tanks on German soil quietly ended last month when 22 Abrams tanks, a main feature of armored combat units throughout the Cold War, embarked for the U.S.

“There is no [U.S.] tank on German soil.”

US-Amerika Raising Tensions Again

March 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Hi-tech, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Defense, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Military, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Pacifism, Pacifists, Satire Leave a comment

United States military forces have once again dramatically and unnecessarily raised tensions all over the place (but in North Korea mostly) by clearly demonstrating that they intend to react to any preemptive nuclear strikes conducted by North Korea against the United States with what will most likely be a more than sufficient show of overwhelming force.

Concerned European peace researchers are alarmed, of course, and stress that this type of bravado only sends signals that could result in confrontation and should cease immediately already. Or else.

Nordkorea hatte den Amerikanern jüngst mit einem atomaren Erstschlag und dem Angriff von amerikanischen Militärstützpunkten im Pazifik gedroht.

Berlin’s Rotten Infrastructure Indirectly Responsible For The Death Of This Poor Little Rat

March 26, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Animals, Berlin, Electricity, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Infrastructure, Power Providers 2 Comments

This was gross negligence on the part of power supplier Vattenfall, if you ask me. And even grosser, uh, something for the guy who had to clean up the mess afterwards.

An innocent and relatively harmless rat was way too easily able to make his way through some little hole in the wall of a network power station place in Tempelhof today and cause a short in a 10,000 volt power line that took down the power for some 2,200 apartments and 170 businesses in the area.

Needless to say, this action took down the rat, too. We can only hope that it was clean, green energy that got him.

Erst vor wenigen Wochen hatte eine Ratte einen Stromausfall im havarierten japanischen Atomkraftwerk Fukushima Daichii ausgelöst.

We’re Not Doing Anything Wrong

March 24, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms Sales, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Profit, Saying No, Weapons, Weapons Exports 3 Comments

The following was taken from the aricle “Wir tun doch nix…” in this week’s Die Zeit.

Germany is neither this consistently pacifist country (described beforehand in the article) nor this worldly-wise state dealing in power politics, rather a bad mix of both: A country that strictly refuses to participate in military interventions but makes every effort to export its weapons instead, gladly to dictatoships in crises regions; a country that is very guarded when it comes to criticism concerning human rights issues in China and Russia, a country that has even begun to wonder if democracy itself is always the best answer; and all of this while acting as if it were the world champion of morality at the same time.

No, nobody would want to live in a country like that. Not even the Germans themselves.

Profitieren statt intervenieren. In einem solchen Land möchte man tatsächlich nicht leben.

Where’s The Money?

March 17, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Climate Change, CO2, Cost, Economics, German, Germans, Germany, Government spending, Green Technology, Humor, Ideology, Politics, Renewable energy, Satire, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Peter Altmaier, will now be shutting down 14 German climate protection programs due to cost conerns, not that anyone here who can do any arithmetic will take much notice or much less care.

Funding for something called Elektromobilität (electromobility) will be cut first, soon to be followed by funding cuts for Stromspeichern (energy storage technology) with the other cuts soon to follow. Billions of a vital natural resource are missing, it seems (they call them “euros” here), this because European CO2 emmission rights certificate trading just ain’t bringing in the cash it’s supposed to do.

Do I detect pattern here? Why is it that the so-called real world is always getting in the way of those way cool dream world plans that so many folks out there want to make come true so really, really, really bad? Who is behind this, anyway? It just has to be a conspiracy (again).

Demnach sollten die Projekte ursprünglich aus dem Energie- und Klimafonds der Bundesregierung finanziert werden. Dort klaffe jedoch eine Milliardenlücke, weil der europäische CO2-Zertifikatehandel nicht genug Geld in die Kasse spüle.

Germans Concerned That Facebook Makes Them Even More Predictable Than They Already Are

March 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Privacy, Satire 1 Comment

A recent study entitled “Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior” has some 80 millian German privacy advocates terribly concerned that Facebook might even be more revealing than they already feared it was.

The study has uncovered, for instance, that the vast number of users with female first names are in fact women. What is more, users who post pictures of themselves on Facebook run the very real risk of revealing to everyone their racial background. And perhaps creepiest of all was the discovery that the so-called “Facebook likes” a user “likes” with his or her Facebook like button reveal to the entire world just what it is said user “likes.”

This brings with it many sinister implications, of course. Unscrupulous data miners could deduce, for instance, that men who regularly like posts and pictures about beer are very likely to like beer themselves. Women, say, who actively like all things Barack Obama (especially after the first four years) are most definitely Democrats. And the list just goes on and on and on.

It is unclear at the moment what the privacy advocates will be able to do to curtail this flagrant invasion of privacy but at least most have agreed not to like it.

Mein Geschlecht, meine Hautfarbe, meine Drogen.

The Trains In Berlin Are Reliable

March 11, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Climate Change, CO2, German, Germans, Germany, Global warming, Humor, Public Transportation, Satire, Snow, Trains 1 Comment

And don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Whenever it snows here, for instance, like it did big time over the weekend, you can rely on a few S-Bahn and Deutsche Bahn stretches to break down in earnest the next day, or in this case Monday.

Germany is a country unfamiliar with snow, you see, or at least I have to assume as much, because much of their technology is not designed to operate in this weird, white and powdery substance.

In their defense, though: I’m not a scientist or anything, but I think all of this more-snow-and-cold-than-usual has something to do with this global warming phenomenon thingy or something. Because its snowing right now, yet again. As we speak, so-to-speak. In the German Spring.

Auf die Bahn ist Verlass: Nach dem Schneefall vom Wochenende brach der S-Bahn- Verkehr am Montag auf mehreren Strecken zeitweise zusammen. Und am Hauptbahnhof wurden am Mittag die Zufahrten vor beiden Haupteingängen gesperrt, weil Schnee und Eisbrocken abrutschten.

German Defense Technology

February 21, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hypocrisy Tags: Abu Dhabi, Arms, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, IDEX, Weapons 1 Comment

Made in Germany. By German pacifists.

For the International Defense Exhibition & Conference (Idex) in Abu Dhabi. For all of us, I mean.

Die deutschen Konzerne betreiben einen großen Aufwand, um sich in Abu Dhabi zu präsentieren. Denn wer auf der Arabischen Halbinsel Rüstungsgüter erfolgreich verkaufen will, muss seine Produkte auf der Idex zeigen.

If It Wasn’t For Fake Names I wouldn’t Have No Names At All

February 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Big Brother, Big Government, Bureaucracy, Court Rulings, Facebook, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Internet, Law, Privacy, Satire Leave a comment

Fake Germans everywhere are distraught about a legal battle Facebook ITSELF won yesterday in Germany affirming that users in that country must register on the website with their real names.

This is a terrible blow to German privacy in general and the German Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in particular because, well, this leaves the door wide open for companies like Facebook “to determine their own policies about anonymity within the governing law” when offering their services and, uh, that is just plain unacceptable or something because, well, then people like the Data Protection Commissioner could soon be out of work.

Die Entscheidungen sind mehr als verblüffend.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hi-tech