Datenschutz! Datenschutz, Datenschutz, Datenschutz Datenschutz. Robot insects.
Drones. Datenschutz. Robots. Amazon. Amazon drone robots. New ideas. Bad technology. Technology bad. Bad ideas.
Then there’s the Datenschutz part.
Jeff Bezos. Darth Vader. Das Imperium schlägt zurück (The Empire Strikes Back).
Technisch ist es möglich, der Datenschutz aber ist heikel.
Zwangs- = compulsory. Umlage = levy, share in the costs. Put those two together and what do you get? Forced to share. But we’re talking about money here folks so let’s just call it another tax and get it over with already.
This latest planned tax consists of forcing German households to purchase so-called “smart meters” or modern electricity meters that are supposed to regulate energy consumption by drawing electricity from that so wonderfully green German energy grid whenever this energy is cheaper. You know, like when hell freezes over?
This will only set back German consumers another 70 or 80 euros after already having been hit with a seven percent energy bill increase planned for next year, too (the seven can and will change, of course, and we all now in which direction it will be going).
Turn it around as much as you want. Anyway you turn this German energy turnaround around, you’ll always get the same result. Once you’ve turned it around, I mean. She is like way too expensive, señor.
But what can you expect from a government that is about to go retro and way back in the Wayback Machine to the good old days of SPD Never-Never Land again?
“Verbraucher sollten mit attraktiven Angeboten überzeugt, statt mit immer mehr ordnungsrechtlichen Einbaupflichten gezwungen werden.”
PS: The next German word of the day will be Abzocke. Here’s a tip: It means rip-off.
In a behavior study taking place at a German zoo, scientists have discovered that apes prefer popcorn to movies showing explicit ape sex scenes.
Maybe they would get better results if they did a misbehavior study instead.
“Maybe they are not so interested, as Bonobo apes very often have sex anyway.”
German’s a bitch. That’s why German kids are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore and have begun to simplify it by introducing a new form of German that is, well, more like Turkish.
This year’s Langenscheidt-Verlag German youth word winner is “Babo” and is Turkish for boss, sort of.
Other recent not so memorable winners include “Yolo” (2012) for “yolo” and “Swag” (2011) for “swag.” Neither of these have a Turkish connection, however. But they are kind of on the short and sweet side.
Chabos wissen, wer der Babo ist.
Of course non-German speakers can say pretty weird stuff, too.
Thank goodness this gender quota nonsense is finally about to be settled so a new coalition government can be formed in Germany.
Word has it that the CDU has agreed to let the SPD in if the proposed legislation stipulates only that each gender will be represented by at least one gender each.
German companies listed on the stock exchange will need at least 30% of supervisory board members to be female from 2016, according to proposed legislation.
This is another one of those “only in Germany” numbers. Or maybe it isn’t (I’m slowly losing track of what’s going on out there in “the real world”).
The Deutsche Bahn’s program to use small drones to patrol railyards by night in a bid to fight graffiti spraying graffiti terrorists has suffered a setback. Although the test flights worked out just wunderbar, the German Luftsicherheitsbehörden (air security authority) has stopped the program for now as no night flight permits have been permitted – for drones designed to patrol railyards by night. Ordnung muss sein already.
This is actually a bit of a relief for me, to tell you the truth. Before reading the article I was convinced that the flights had been cancelled due to Fluglärm issues. Fluglärm (aircraft noise) is a big honking major awesome all-important obsession for all Germans at all times in all regions and all locations all over the country (and tomorrow the world) and I was sure that I was about to read how these mini-drones were simply too loud for the Anwohner (local residents), whoever or wherever they were.
Whew! That wasn’t the case, like I said. At least not this time. But let’s just wait and see what happens when/if these things are ever actually allowed to fly.
“Die Tests sind exzellent gelaufen, ein hervorragendes Einsatzmittel. Jedoch erteilen die Luftsicherheitsbehörden der Länder derzeit keine Fluggenehmigung für die Nachtstunden.”
Grant political asylum to a Straftäter (criminal offender)? Not even Germany can pull that one off. Angie & Co. just said nein to this indistinct possibility.
It was nice for leading figures in the German Outrage Industry to pretend like they could for fifteen minutes or so, I guess, but sooner or later even the best/worst of them have to come back down to Planet Earth again.
Die Voraussetzungen für eine Aufnahme des Whistleblowers lägen nicht vor, sagte Regierungssprecher Steffen Seibert.
PS: But it ain’t over till it’s over, Amerika. Vice President of German Parliament (one of six – nice work if you can get it) Claudia Roth HERSELF is still planning to press criminal charges or something. Someone is suspected of having actually listened once to what she said on her little green cellphone – eavesdropping-wise, I mean. And I pity the fool who gets in her way (thanks A.K.).
This just in: The current German outrage about allegations that the NSA may have listened in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone conversations may only just be the tip of the outrage iceberg.
Non-American intelligence experts around the world are now indicating that this type of inexcusable practice may also have actually been carried out in the past by other non-American intelligence agencies “out there” and that no one seemed to care much or be all that terribly surprised about this type of thing at the time as this is of course the very reason why said intelligence agencies freakin’ exist in the first place Himmel Herrgott Sakra (for f#?!#’s sake)!
Here are just a few of these indiscrete intelligence expert observations:
“I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté. You’d almost think our politicians don’t bother to read the reports they get from the intelligence services.”
“I can’t believe anyone is terribly surprised. I mean, every government in the world tries to collect the best info that it can and that’s true of the German, American, British, French and countries all over the world,”
“I was a government official for many years and I assumed my cellphone and my email account was susceptible to foreign intelligence services spying.”
“You get a picture of who is friends with who, and their friends of friends. It’s like Facebook – incredibly helpful if you want to sketch out a network of contacts.”
“This is par for the course. Countries eavesdrop on other countries. If you have Angela Merkel’s telephone number you will listen in to it if you can.”
“Finding out what other governments are thinking is what intelligence agencies do.”
All must go the way of the dinosaurs sooner or later.
Wait a minute. Do any of you out there even remember the Waldsterben (death of the forests) hysteria?
The ozone hole, the annual thinning of the protective ozone layer in Earth’s stratosphere over Antarctica, was slightly smaller than average this year compared to its size in recent decades, NASA said on Friday.
Observing Hermann 