Empty Box Empty Box

April 21, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Boston Marathon, Crime Fighting, German, Germans, Germany, Hamburg Marathon, Paranoia, Security, Terror, Terrorism 1 Comment

Hamburg police have determined that an empty box found in a subway station just before the Hamburg Marthon was scheduled to begin turned out in fact to be an empty box.

However, if the box had not been empty, no one would have had any video footage of the person who had placed it there because, as you can see, surveillance cameras are still black (as in evil) in Germany.

In light of the Boston Marathon bombings, a new German “debate” about increasing the number of surveillance cameras has begun once again but will lead to nowhere fast as usual.

Kurze Aufregung im Umfeld des Hamburg-Marathon: Die Polizei hat am Sonntag einen verdächtigen Gegenstand in einem U-Bahnhof in der Innenstadt untersucht.

Germans Want More CONTROL

April 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypochondria Tags: Angst, Berlin, Bureaucracy, Control, Germans, Germany, Get Smart, Humor, Internet, Politics, Satire 2 Comments

A commission convened by Germany’s parliament believes the Internet should be given a greater political priority in the country.

The commission has recommended that Germany needs a permanent Internet commissioner.

CONTROL good. KAOS (the Internet) bad.

Let There Be Light

April 18, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, History, Humor Tags: Aerial Photography, Architecture, Berlin, Buildings, East Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Swastikas, West Berlin 1 Comment

Or at least a little more of it in the eastern half of town, I mean.

“Berlin at night. Amazingly, I think the light bulbs still show the East/West division from orbit.”

PS: Speaking of interesting aerial shots of Berlin…

OK, OK. This is in San Diego. But still.

There actually is one of these in Berlin, I’m told. I just couldn’t find it right now. Anybody know where?

Guy Paid To Warn Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance Warns Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance

April 17, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Crime Fighting, Data Protection, Fear, Frank Zappa, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Satire, Video Surveillance 1 Comment

This guy and millions of other Germans, too (although they don’t get paid and therefore do it for free).

Datenschutzbeauftragten (data protection officers) are just that way over here, whether they’re Datenschutzbeauftragten or not.

It doesn’t matter that most of this video surveillance might be taking place for a reasonable reason (like crime prevention/fighting – think Boston Marathon), there is clearly a pathological fear of being watched in play over here (and not just over here, either). It’s a sign of the times, I guess. I know. It’s only paranoia (but I like it).

Oh. This suddenly reminded me of some old lyrics (sort of) to Frank Zappa’s Didja Get Any Onya?

…Years ago in Germany when I was a very small boy, zere was a lot of people standing around on ze corners asking questions: “Why are you standing on ze corner, acting ze way you act, looking like you look? WHY DO YOU LOOK THAT WAY?” And they ask me and I only would say: “I don’t . . . I don’t know, I’m just standing ’round ze corner waiting here . . . just in . . . in ze evening, and . . . and it’s so nice outside . . . the night is so nice . . . why . . . are you just asking these questions . . . ”

“Offenbar scheint eine notorische Neigung zu bestehen, Nachbarn zu überwachen. Und eine pathologische Befürchtung, überwacht zu werden.”

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.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Hi-tech