In response to the growing interest and esteem of the Bitcoin, Der Spiegel reports, the German
Wednesday 21 August 2013
fiat geld or straw into gold
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, economic policy, networking and blogging
pirate bay or the 13 hongs of scooby doo
Not that contemporary events are not not engaging enough and the roots of greed and corruption are ever so shallow, happening to read a bit of an article on the Fugitive (he kind of reminds me of Shaggy, better get back to the Mystery Machine) while waiting to get a haircut (I am thankful that some places still have a selection of magazines to pass the time and not assume that everyone has or has the compunction to stare at a telephone) read that the place he first sought refuge in Hong Kong was specifically in the district of Kowloon, a pretty posh area in places but also formerly host to one of the strangest, seediest underworlds of history: Kowloon Walled-City.
The British Empire was granted the ninety-nine year lease of the important port city as a result of the Treaty of Nanking that brought a temporary peace to the Opium Wars. Already unhappy with the tariffs and strictures imposed on foreign merchants (transaction were indirect and handled through mediators called hongs and restricted to thirteen factories, industrial parks) by the Chinese Empire, the dissatisfaction was exacerbated for the main player, the royally chartered British East India Company, by having its profitable cotton trade displaced by production in Egypt. To make up for this loss, the corporation turned its focus in the Bengali region to poppy-harvesting and aggressively flooding the market with opium. Chinese objections to this tactic were countered with war that created a rather unbalanced legacy.
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ฅธ, foreign policy, revolution
Monday 19 August 2013
the pillars of hercules or non plus ultra
The European Union is dispatching a committee to possibly mediate the strife between the UK territory of Gibraltar and the surrounding Kingdom of Spain. Although this contention is nothing new, the promontory ceded to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by the Treaty of Utrecht that settled the Wars of the Spanish Succession in the early eighteenth century and residence of the Rock have roundly rejected measures for devolution. The latest escalating episode that has attracted the attention of the EU is over increased border checks that the Spanish government has imposed. Spain argues that autonomous Gibraltar, whose economy is largely based on financial services and internet-gambling is not doing enough to control smuggling and black-market activities, though employing a lot of Spanish day-labourers besides.
Britain argues it is in retribution for the sinking of several concrete blocks off-shore to create an artificial reef in waters that Spain claims, ostensibly to promote sea-life and the haul in this disputed area. From a mythological point of view, it is interesting that the landmark is interpreted as both an act of ditch-digging to reach open-waters quicker, connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic and as an act of narrowing the straits to prevent the ingress of sea-monsters by Hercules. Whether inviting or foreboding, what lie beyond the strait represented uncharted territory. Some contend too that the symbolism of the columns regaled with sash became the dollar sign, $ with two vertical bars from the glyph for pesos. Whatever the real reason behind this dispute and arbitration, whether it be a stance against colonialism or for self-determination and open-borders, is unclear, as British warships enter as they have done some weeks ago in the Falklands, no one is mentioning Spain's own contentious exclaves, the port cities of Ceuta, considered the southern pole of Hercules, and Melilla in Morocco. We will see what happens.
catagories: ๐ช๐ธ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐, foreign policy, labour
Sunday 18 August 2013
rink-a-dink or bed-and-board
Though far from forthcoming and most deflectionary with their motives, administrators for the city of Berlin (not used as a metonym for the government of Germany entire) are making arguments against service-providers that help connect tourists with residents who have a spare room, sofa or air-mattress to offer, saying that the entrepreneurs are contributing to the shortage of affordable housing through speculative by encouraging speculation and holding onto surplus space, awaiting a turn in the properties market.
That hardly seems like a valid accusation to those who have managed to spin a meagre sum of gold by offering the extra space to visitors to the city at a discount and with the bonus of very personable accommodations and native knowledge. For the price, one does not usually find this at traditional hotels and surely the aggressions against the industry and short-term renters is at the behest of the hotel lobby, who stand to lose profits to more flexible and hospitable individuals and probably also sore that private subleters don't have restrict regulations and a tax regime to adhere to. I've often thought about making my work-week flat available for a song (or my car during the week) on the weekends and know I have the means and infrastructure to do so. People caught renting out their homes or parts of it to vacationers could face fines, but that would do nothing to improve the housing situation, since few to none of the participants are hording space, only offering an alternative to regular billeting.
It is happening in other tourist-destinations as well and the ire of municipalities is running counter to consumer-demand. Hopefully in the end, the service-providers will prevail, but this battle-royale seems like the whinging in the States that introduced internet sales-tax or the bemoaning of the postal service and telephone companies over lost revenue due to more expedient and cheaper alternatives. Though we are happy campers ourselves, to pass such a regulation, I think, would be a dangerous assault against sharing, moonlighting and freelancing in general. What is your opinion? Is this like Ma Bell going after Skype or a legitimate way to ease the housing-crunch in big cities?
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐️, transportation, travel
jardiniรจre
My mother recently shared with me this brilliant and unending series of images of landscaping and gardening elements. Gathered from a variety of sources, there a lot of clever and creative ideas that I would like to incorporate. Even without a little plot of land to cultivate right now, I am always drawn to such handiwork and can never resist angling for photos of statues and art work among well tended plants and flowers. Though I know I have hundreds of other photos besides of puti and other personifications posing in gracious gardens, I went back that magical experience we had from not too long ago of exploring the grounds of Villa Carlotta on Lake Como.
Though the planters and statuary on the link are modern and not as ornate and expansive, one can really do a lot with a little space. On exiting the villa grounds, there was a strange group of what appeared to be garden gnomes, half hidden in the hedges, that did not quite fit, I though, with the rest of the style and craftsmanship. The original tenants, however, were Germans, so I suppose that has to be taken into consideration.
Saturday 17 August 2013
mainhattan
Later walking towards the East Harbour (Osthafen) learned that that towering spire—in every German community one sees scaffolding and construction cranes busy with something—visible behind the beautiful and hallowed Cathedral of Frankfurt (Dom Sankt Bartholomรคus), which is also under construction, and the Eiserner Steg, the footbridge across the Main River, is to be the future home of the European Union's financial institution, built on the grounds of the Wholesale Market Halls (Groรmarkthalle) of docklands.
It was really only used as a consecrated place of worship sporadically. The site is more renowned as the venue for Germany's first democratic national assembly, a convention that led to the creation of the Weimar Republic and, after WWII and the reunification.
I never had the chance before to visit the impressive upper, plenary chamber, the assembly hall, and learn about its history, as it was occupied on a previous visit with some awards ceremony. Surely, there is a lot more to discover and to learn about the city, and I am looking forward to my (and our) next chance to visit.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ช๐บ, economic policy, Hessen, travel
Friday 16 August 2013
ligature, ligament
After seeing a street sign like those pictured, featuring a few letters combined as a single glyph, I wondered about what allowances are given to these classy but antiquated examples of paleography. Curiosity yielded former requirements for such presentation in order to maintain a level of economy and to maximise the amount of text that could be fit on a page, though various methods. Researching a little bit, and courtesy of Nag on the Lake, I came across an interesting vignette on the development and history of typography in the West. I wonder what sort of champions are out there in the age of WYSIWYG and without the pressure for brevity in taxonomy.
Thursday 15 August 2013
lass' sie nach berlin kommen or dรฉtente
Better late than never, but I finally had the chance to visit the city museum exhibit on John Fitzgerald Kennedy's state visit to West Germany, assembled to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the event earlier in the summer and in anticipation of President Obama's visit. Kennedy's visit was wildly popular drawing throngs numbering at a million, and the speech featured a couple of other phrases in German and in Latin.
Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was 'civis romanus sum.' Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'
Kennedy's tour, however, did not only include the divided capital but also the Rhein-Main region where the reception was equally well-attended and well-remembered, with this interesting retrospective on display. Traveling from Kรถln, to Bonn in quick succession, overnighted in Wiesbaden (now a Dorint but then the Hindenberg Hotel by the train station) before traveling to Frankfurt and then Berlin. Tens of thousands in Wiesbaden alone flocked to follow the US president's parade route.
The impact of the visit was hopeful and hysterical and in contrast to the efforts of French diplomatic efforts, helped to provide resistance to the slip of the balance of power, appeasement (Entspannungspolitik) and independence towards Europe as de Gaulle was hoping to accomplish. I would like to learn more of this “third pole” notion that France advocated and how that affected the political atmosphere at the time and to be displaced by a statement of solidarity.