zipfelbund

Since the inception of the holiday, the date of formal reunification rather than events leading up to it chosen in 1990, the chief celebrations have cycled through several host cities, usually state capitals.
Wiesbaden was the setting of 1999’s festivities and created the Compass Confederation, settlements that represent the geographical extremes (see also) of Germany:
the cardinal points being List on the Island of Sylt in the North, Selfkant in the West, Görlitz in the East and Oberstdorf in the South, the towns honoured annually as co-celebrants. Though it took decades longer for the German map to have these extremes and present borders, the most westerly municipality of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Selfkant, was annexed by the Netherlands as war reparations in 1949. The allocation of this single district was the much diminished outcome of an original demand for Aachen, Köln, Münster and Osnabrück, pared down significantly when the Dutch failed to garner support from the US for it. After three years of negotiations at the Hague, the territory was returned to West Germany (see also the Kleine Wiedervereinigung) in August 1963—with the exception of a hill and surrounding glade called Duivelsberg/Teufelsberg which the Netherlands retains and maintains as a nature reserve.

prager botschaft

To prevent further exodus to the West Germany via Prague, the government of East Germany closed its border with Czechoslovakia on this day in 1989 after some seven-thousand political refugees had camped out on the grounds of the West German Embassy and were granted safe passage on special trains bound for the BDR. The Velvet Revolution is fomenting at the same time as unrest in Berlin, Leipzig and elsewhere ensues and once the border is reopened a month later, another group of East German asylum-seekers cross into Hof, a West German frontier town.

8x8

surveillance cinema: iconic movie scenes from the perspective of security cameras, via Kottke’s Quick Links

take this job and fill it: a satisfying gallery of resignation letters

sight safari: a map application that draws on Wikipedia’s proximity function (previously) to generate the most scenic routes

fortress america: Trump wanted to fortify border wall with snake- and alligator-filled moats

🍕: a startup in Seattle demonstrates a mobile robotic chef that makes up to three hundred pizzas an hour, via Slashdot

flyover: a cache of gorgeous, high-resolution images of our planetary neighbour courtesy of the Mars Express orbiter

biogarmentry: living apparel made from biofabricated textiles photosynthesise

pareidolia: a surveillance camera detects a face in the snow and won’t shut up about it

musköbasen

Via the always engrossing Things Magazine, we learn that the Swedish navy, amid renewed tensions over Russian incursions, is re-staging a mothballed sea fortress hewn into the fjords outside of Stockholm. Fully operational in 1969 after nearly two decades of work, the base at Muskö boasts cavernous habours for destroyers, a subterranean hospital and an extensive network of underground roads, though after years of disuse, it will take some rehabilitative measures to bring the installation back up to code.

registreret partnerskab

Passed into law by the Folketing on 7 June of that year, legal recognition for same-sex domestic partnerships came into force in the Kingdom of Denmark on this day in 1989.  The first legislation of its kind, registered couples were accorded almost equal rights and responsibilities as opposite sex married couples with the proviso that one member either be a Danish citizen or that both parties be in residence for at least two years. The definition of a resident was expanded extraterritorially for the purposes of the law to cover Norway, Iceland and Finland, extending the jurisdiction as far as they could. On 15 June 2012, the partnership law was repealed and replaced by a gender-neutral Marriage Act (Ægteskabsloven).

weltzeituhr

On this day in 1969, to commemorate the upcoming twentieth anniversary of the founding of the DDR, the iconic structure also known as the Urania World Clock (for the Uraniasäule that was destroyed in the war which it replaced as a public timepiece) was unveiled to the public in East Berlin’s Alexanderplatz as part of a plan to modernise the square and make it a showcase for the world. Envisioned by Czechoslovakian designer Erich John, the metal rotunda supported by a twenty-four-sided column representing the main time zones of the Earth displays the current time for one hundred forty eight cities, periodically updated to reflect contemporary geopolitics. The turret mechanism is in constant motion but it is imperceptible except in time-lapse.

enthüllungen

Much to my abject horror—especially considering how I nag H about recycling and how I aspire to be better—I was zero-days old yesterday once I realised to my shock (being raised around tubs of Shedd’s Spread Country Crock is no excuse as I’ve lived here going on two decades now) that plastic packaging like yogurt cups and containers for butter and other spreads have a printed cardboard hull that must be separated and sorted for proper disposal.
I know that once such things were wholly plastic, something more rigid and not needing the support of a cardboard frame, and many still are—but I shudder at the thought while the onus for reducing and recycling is on us as consumers to think how many good intentions have been spoilt through contamination. It’s a little sneaky and I’ve never seen the surface layer peeled back in the store or cupboard, but the labeling is present and I’ll wager Germany has conducted outreach campaigns. I hope through my disabused ignorance that a bit more trash gets sorted in the end.