Ever sleep with a reindeer?

How about twelve of them at once? I know, I know. That’s none of my damned business and whatever two (or more) consenting adults do in private and all that…

But in case you haven’t–and it is Christmas season now and all that–here’s your chance. But be warned: This actually has to do with “art” (whoever he is).

OK, so take some notes here: There’s this art museum called The Hamburger Bahnhof, but it’s in Berlin. And it’s not a Bahnhof. In it you will currently find an exhibition called “Soma” which has something to do with said twelve reindeer and giant mushroom sculptures alluding to some ancient Hindu legend about a hallucinogenic drink that was a magical elixir for, I dunno, magical purposes or something.

But none of this is all that important. The way cool thing about this exhibition is that if you want to, you can shell out 1,000 euros and spend the night there. Sleeping there. In a rotating bed. In the exhibition. Being an exhibitionist, so-to-speak. No, without any of that magic elixir, but still.

Hmmm. If they would include the magic elixir (and the over-nite wouldn’t cost any more than a stay at Motel 6), I think I could actually consider considering it.

As part of the “reflective component” of the exhibition, guests can rent a single revolving bed in the middle of the reindeer herd for 1,000 euros ($1,363) per night.

Street View Egging Update

No good “anti-privacy vandals,” egging Street View opt-out homes like that.

It’s folks like this (the vandals, not them there folks up there) that give Street View a bad name in this country. Other than Google itself, I mean.

And the latest bizarre German Street View shot? How about this one: Capturing the birth of a baby on a street in a Berlin suburb, “although there are question-marks over the veracity of the incident.”

“We respect people’s right to remove their house from Street View and by no means consider this to be acceptable behaviour,” a Google spokesperson said.

Gottcha!

Just kidding about that being a bomb yesterday, folks. Just testing, I mean.

Wasn’t that hysterical? And here you thought American companies couldn’t export any cool stuff anymore.

And today’s Fehlalarm (false alarm)? A suspicious object that wasn’t a bomb this time either caused an ICE train to be evacuated at Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof (sorry, the linking is acting up a bit at the moment: http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/terrorgefahr-in-deutschland-fehlalarm-im-ice-attrappe-in-namibia-1625680.html)

“BKA officials have examined it and the result is that it is a so-called ‘real test suitcase’ from a U.S. company. This company produces alarm and detection systems and these test suitcases are made to test security measures.”

German drones in action

No, not in Afghanistan or in Pakistan.

In Gorleben. Unconfirmed reports say that up to 20 innocent (although greenish) German civilians were not killed in a recent non-attack, but were photographed instead, which is pretty much the same thing over here.

It is unclear at this time if the folks over at Google’s Street View have expressed an interest in purchasing the photos or not–pixelated, of course.

Um Straftaten nachträglich aufklären zu können, hat die Polizei erstmals eine unbemmannte Drohne mit Kamera eingesetzt.

Ah! Scenic Lake Constance…

The charming landscape, the panoramic views, the armaments industries booming everywhere…

Of course none of these companies (or the communities that live off them) use terms like that if they can avoid it. They prefer calling them “security engineering” or “defense technology” businesses instead, for some strange reason. Maybe because like everwhere else in Germany, they’re all pacifists down here too? Interesting article.

“Genuine pacifists are hard to find around Lake Constance. Most have turned more pragmatic long ago–or maybe their name is Nena. The pop singer performed here last year at MTU’s 100th year anniversary company celebration. And she sang her peace song 99 Luftballons too, of course, and 14,000 guests sang along with her. Before Nena arrived, the celebration’s main attraction had been a Leopard II tank.”

“Laut dem schwedischen Friedensforschungsinstitut Sipri liegt die Bundesrepublik auf Rang drei hinter den USA und Russland–und das, obwohl die deutschen Exportkontrollen zu den strengsten der Welt zählen.”

It’s OK when Germany goes alarmist, I guess

As expected, now that stuff is happening HERE, the Germans start getting all nervous and fidgety and s#*!t and suddenly want the EU to agree to tighter air freight security and are basically hyperventilating all over the place, which is fine with me (it’s about time). The alarmists.

Although Europeans certainly do have enough to hyperventilate about these days. When it comes to planes, I mean.

Germans now to be frightened by Google Carbots

And they aren’t even here yet. But they will be, soon. Halloween is coming up, after all.

And you thought Street View was scary. This is going to be a real privacy invasion, people. These robotic nightmares have mind reading laser probes that will continually feed on their victims’ brain-stem cells and gather more personal information about them than even they (at Google Imperial Command) will know what to do with. But they will, with time.

Die sind immer und überall.

Once the Stuxnet worm infects a system…

Whether it be a Siemens system in China, Indonesia, India, the United States, Australia, Britain, Malaysia, Pakistan and, oh yeah, now in Germany too “it quickly sets up communications with a remote server computer that can be used to steal proprietary information or take control of the SCADA system.”

Other than in those systems in Iran, I mean.

Just in time for Germany’s the big 20th anniversary reunification party or what?

“I can’t stand it! I know you planned it!”

For Siemens with love

The highly complex stuxnet worm–it’s complexity, some say, suggesting it could only have been created by a “nation state“–has targeted systems at Iran’s first nuclear power station, systems made by the German company Siemens.

Stuxnet is tailored to target weaknesses in Siemens systems used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other utilities. But I can’t see why anyone would be interested in doing such a thing as Iran (with Siemen’s help) has repeatedly stated that it is only developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 

Hmm. I guess you could say da ist der Wurm drin (the worm is inside) = there’s something very wrong with that. With making ridiculous statements like that, I mean.

Nun bestätigte ein Regierungsmitarbeiter, dass in Industrieanlagen 30.000 Rechner mit dem Virus infiziert wurden.