Voluntarily IKEA is pledging six million euro to a fund to compensate East German prisoners forced to make furniture for the company. As was the case with several western firms during the 1970s and 1980s, the Swedish lifestyle purveyor subcontracted production to the GDR, including forced labour of the incarcerated, many imprisoned by the regime for political reasons, a misdeed that the company has been trying to redress through government channels since it first came to light in 2011, hoping other companies would follow their example. The first store in West Germany opened in Eching, near Munich in 1974 and the first outlet in the former East in 1990 within a month of reunification.
Tuesday 29 October 2024
Sunday 27 October 2024
9x9 (11. 936)
die krรผmelmonster: in 2013 the German version of Cookie Monster pilfered and ransomed the golden Leibniz Kek for charity
bad map projection #102: a blended USA / Australia gazette that almost works
0,1 arcsec: hunting for dark matter and dark energy the Euclid space telescope (previously) unveils a dazzlingly 3D map of one percent of the Cosmos—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
bob & carol & martin & barbara: various adaptations of a comedy about partner-swapping during the sexual revolution
red lion passage: alleyways of London then and now
bokeh and backscatter: spirit photography and the history of the medium— the New Shelton wet/dry
clockwork universe: The Birth of the Robot by Len Lye—see previously
geoconfirmed: a volunteer group tagging the space-time coordinates for footage of conflict zones to combat disinformation
cheese heist: using an elaborate scam, £300 000 pilfered from artisan cheddar makers—see previously—via jwz
Tuesday 22 October 2024
berlin-krise (11. 924)
Instigated by a relatively routine control stop that quickly escalated into an international incident following the construction of the Berlin Wall and increased tension among the occupying forces, culminating with the partition of the city and the Soviets seeking a separate peace with East Germany. Resulting with the standoff between Russian and American tanks eventually withdrawn in stalemate five days later, the crisis was sparked on this evening in 1961 when US Deputy Chief of Mission in West Berlin, Edward Allan Lightner, Jr and his wife were asked to present their identifications at Checkpoint Charlie en route to attend an opera in East Berlin. Refusing to comply (Khrushchev had relented on earlier demands of restricted movement of the Allies) and thought their USAREUR plated vehicle was sufficient proof for passage. In response to this dispute, US president JFK recalled Lucius Clay from retirement as a show of American resolve, dispatching several armoured vehicles to the crossing along with a retinue of troops and a military police escort for the Lightners. A plan by the Americans to bulldoze the inchoate wall was countermanded, but there was a face-off nonetheless, which in addition to the tanks included US soldiers armed with Davy Crockett guns, an over the shoulder personnel launcher for tactical nuclear warheads. Under terms negotiated by spy, diplomat and back-channel contact Georgi Bolshakov, both sides stood down. Bolshakov later helped dispel thoughts that Khrushchev and the USSR conspired in the assassination of Kennedy for the public, his brother RFK and widow.
Sunday 20 October 2024
fernsehkrimiserie (11. 919)
Hugely popular and enjoying cult-status outside of West Germany, the crime drama featuring Horst Tappert as Kriminaloberinspekktor Stephan Derrick focussed on solving murder cases in the Mรผnchen area. Airing until 1998 when the principal actor attained the age-limit he’d set for himself announced his retirement, all episodes of the twenty-five season run had the same cast (with prominent guest stars) and were all written and produced by the team of Herbert Reinecker and Helmut Ringelmann. There were fan clubs internationally and as one of the first television programmes from the West broadcast in China, Derrick was reportedly used as part of police training curriculum. Like “Beam me up Scotty,” the tag line associated with show the show, “Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen,” (to his assistant, “Harry, bring the car around,”—to imply we’re done here”) the phrase is never actually said on screen though there are close occasions of it. The title melody for the establishing sequence (see also) is from English-German pop singer Les Humphries.
Thursday 10 October 2024
konzentrationslager uckermark (11. 894)
H and I took a hike around the forested trail of the Sidowsee out of Himmelpfort and continued along the path back towards Fรผrstenberg.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Operation Nickel Grass (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: a visit to Bรผdingen, assorted links to revisit plus Victorian mosseries
eight years ago: computer-generated music from Alan Turing
nine years ago: the inspiration for the Flying Dutchman plus automating laundry
ten years ago: the reasoning behind making Brussels the capital of the EU plus Wikipedia as a major
catagories: ⚖️, ⛓️๐ฅ, ๐ฉ๐ช, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Wednesday 9 October 2024
groรer lychensee (11. 893)
Leaving the Haussee of Himmelpfort, we took a short trip through the tributary Wolblitz (the river‘s name meaning the Little Havel in Old Slavic) for a really magical route with wooden bays and tight curves all to ourselves and crossed into the public dock in Lychen. We walked around the town for a bit and had a nice lunch at a former coffee mill and rostery. One the way back to the boat, we passed the the historic home of one Johann Kirsten who circa 1900 invented the push pen, thumbtack, whose present occupant had somewhat appropriately it seemed established a Museum of Fake News, using the windows as a bulletin board for made-up headlines. The weather turning windy and rainy and not much time left in the day for traveling, we returned to the campsite by the lock in Himmelpforte and had our pitch still waiting for us—although our neighbors had moved on, an older couple who had been on the waters since May and had been working their jobs remotely thanks to the pervasive WiFi coverage with the company of their two adventurous cats.
synchronotpica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), a pristine tomb discovered in Naples plus a fully outfitted station wagon
eight years ago: more links to enjoy, the Altamura Man plus Parliament under repair
nine years ago: the Best of Reddit
ten years ago: parenting around the world
eleven years ago: debt-limits and default
Tuesday 8 October 2024
coeli porta (11. 892)
synchronoptica
one year ago: fantastic spiralling art with AI (with synchronoptica), a graphic design collection curated by Kristen Lound plus LEGO as a media for fine art
seven years ago: murderous dioramas, proposed sovereignty for a Great Lake plus Japanese bathroom ghosts
eight years ago: Obama to his successor on unfinished business, solar plasma eruptions, a new front in the Cola Wars plus early canned, robotic music
nine years ago: holiday creep
ten years ago: the Ebola outbreak, stealing drug-offenders identities plus the landed gentry unchanged for a thousand years
Monday 7 October 2024
finowsee, woblitzsee, drewensee und zurรผck (11. 891)
Leaving the habour, we hooked up and to the north through a narrow channel that led to the Greater and Lesser Priepert lakes through the Finowsee that forms a round bend in the river.We pasted underneath the Hausbrรผcke Ahrensberg, a covered bridge (one of the few intact in northern Germany) that spanned the crossing to Drewensee.
Taking a long canal through the forest, we arrived at the inlet to Woblitzsee and stopped in the small town of Wesenberg to walk the dog and have a late lunch. The place is dominated by a high Middle Ages hilltop fortress (Turmhรผgelburg).
The lock at the outlet turned out to be the the most powerful one in the network of waterways with the floodgates really powerful instead of the usual sinking and rising and ended up passing through twice in rather quick succession as the anchorage we planned to stay at on the way to Neustelitz was closed for the season.Rather than risk getting stuck somewhere after the locks closed, we headed back to the first camp by Fรผrstenberg, seeing some of the boating lesson in practise and navigating the buoys which warn of hazards and the course to take that switch depending on whether one is travelling up- or downstream, and arrived just at sunset.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐️, ๐ข, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Saturday 5 October 2024
bundeswasserstraรe obere havel (11. 888)
H and I travelled north for a houseboating holiday on the Havel, which intersects with a few different national parks crossing the borders between Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐งณ, ๐ข, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Thursday 3 October 2024
einheitswippe (11. 893)
Long in planning, the Freedom and Unity Monument slated for Berlin (see previously) has missed another opportune inauguration and seems to be teetering towards collapse amid contract disputes with its designers. Conceived as a sort of seesaw where when enough people congregated on one side it would pivot towards revolution and reconciliation, it was planned to open in 2019 in deference to 1989, and while the foundations for the ramp has been installed and ready for the steel shell, the architects have had disputes with subcontractors and federal government fearful of what a failed dedication—with one’s thumb on the scales, so to speak—might project.
Sunday 22 September 2024
mauritius (11. 863)
Fรชted on this day on the occasion of his martyrdom in 287 by execution for refusing to kill local Christians under order of Emperor Maximian, this disobedience punished with decimation—killing one out of every ten rebellious soldiers, at the Roman outpost of Agaunum (present day Saint-Maurice in the canton of Valais, and not to be confused with St Moritz in the Engadine, also named for the same leader of the Theban Legion), Maurice (โฒโฒโฒโฒ โฒโฒฑโฒฃโฒโฒฅ) is a popular and widely venerated saint whose patronage includes multiple kingdoms, municipalities and professions. Depictions and iconography of Maurice have been contentions throughout the centuries, with some suggesting that Holy Roman Emperor (who the saint champions with some crowned before his altar in St Peter’s) Frederich II in the eleventh century initiated the darker-complected trope as a symbol for the Crusades, and that the Christian mission was a universal and non-discriminatory one. Others argue Maurice was never turned Black, though the otherness (see also) went through periods of acceptance and intolerance, including the Nazis’ forbidding the city of Coburg’s coat of arms (since 1493) for glorifying another race and temporary replaced the Wappen with a sword (as guardian of sword-makers) with a swastika on its pommel. Patronage also include armorers, Alpine troops, infantry soldiers, cloth-makers, weavers, dyers and the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Austria, Piedmont, Sardinia, the Houses of Savoy, Lombard and the Merovingians and is invoked against muscle cramps and gout.
Monday 2 September 2024
8x8 (11. 811)
two minutes of hate: Trump stokes more violence against the press at his rallies, hosted at former/current sundown towns
don’t ask, don’t tell: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews the 1969 film The Gay Deceivers about two straight men’s attempts to avoid conscription
crate digging: one individual’s project to rescue forgotten songs from oblivion by persuading labels to release them online—via tmn
bรผndis sahra wagenknecht: populist parties from both ends of the political spectrum gain support in Thรผringen and Sachsen and may need to work together as no other is willing to caucus with Alternative fรผr Deutschland—see more, see previouslybig rigs: electric-powered excavators and other heavy machinery convincing more industries to de-carbonise—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
the treaty of aigun: Taiwanese president Lai says if China was concerned over territorially integrity, it should begin with Outer Manchuria ceded to the Russian Empire in 1858, including what’s now known as Vladivostok (ๆตทๅๅดด, Sea Cucumber Bay)
dumpster diving: the modern archeology of trash
choose your gear: the evolution of the action movie poster and how it reflects our view of masculinity
ultra vires: season two of Rachel Maddow’s series (previously) on the history of assault on democracy profiles senator Joseph McCarthy’s beginnings as a Nazi apologist—well before the Red Scare
Sunday 1 September 2024
sunday drive: schwickershausen (11. 808)
We visited the small village in the southern district of Schmalkalden-Meiningen just over the border, formerly an independent municipality under the imperial knighthood of the Hennebergs until from the late tenth century1836 under the cadet matrilineal line that split jurisdiction between Rรถmhild and Schleusingen and the Bishopric of Wรผrzburg giving the tiny community three mayors for most of its existence.
We took a walk around the reservoir (Talsperre) built up in 1968 primarily for agricultural use but we were a bit baked in the sun and there no shade crossing over the fields. The setting was nice however and the water looked inviting for a hot day. Passing back through the village, we found the gatehouse and Wasserburg—not far from the ensemble in Roรrieth we had visited a few years earlier, built originally in the twelfth century by Konrad von der Kere for the courtly office of Truchseร(e)—owing to its female dynasty, from the Latin dapifer, a server responsible for the royal table and feeding of guests and evolving onto the often ceremonial and inheritable role of steward, seneschal with administrative duties including the appointing bailiffs and supervising domestics—destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt and rebuilt around 1540 in Renaissance-style, restored extensively in 1992. The algae filled moat, however, did not looks so inviting.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฐ, ๐ง, Rhรถn, Thรผringen
9x9 (11. 807)
city corridor: Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit the built and unbuilt visions of architect Paul Rudolph—see previously
move over miss marple: German television mystery series imagines what the former Chancellor is doing with her retirement
batteries not included: peruse the complete catalogues of Radio Shack produced over its six decades of business—plus this theme songmizzenmast: experimental solar sail prepares for its first voyage—see previously
a copy of a copy: AI’s synthetic data is its downfall—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
marshmallow test: the heuristic for delayed gratification and executive functions is fraught with bias and harmful assumptions—via Hyperallergic
preowned platform: IKEA launches a second-hand marketplace to become a circular company within the decade—via Nag on the Lake
substantially worse than random chance: seemingly counterintuitive probability puzzles are perplexing social media—see previously
cerceri d’invenzione: the aesthetic and romance of imagining ruins of foregone civilisations