ampelmännchen

During a not-unheard-of seizure of common-sense, Germany's traffic ministry yesterday rescinded a proposal that called for municipalities to replace out-dated traffic signage with new, modern versions, identical in regulation but with some subtle differences in ideograms.  For instance, a crosswalk should no longer bear the likeness of a man scurrying across the street, hand on hat to keep it in place, but rather the more modern, gender neutral stick figure.  Directional arrows indicating no parking should be displayed on the top and not the bottom of the circular sign, as they were prior to 1992. 

On coming cars, apparently, should not have smiley faces.  By not enforcing the change, German municipalities have saved hundreds of millions of euro, and kept the Ampelmaennchen safe for years to come.

open-apple F

In the midst of all the hype and anticipation surrounding the release (and gray-market re-selling apparently inspired by buyers' remorse) of the iPad, a Germany company is coming out with a rival tablet personal computer.  The so gennant "WePad" comes with more memory, a more flexible operating system, more ports and a camera, including G-3 capabilities.  Both are new, sleek models and I am sure that this will be the new trend and fashion accessory and look of computers for the future--but what I really want (besides the flying cars that I was promised by such luminaries as Faith Popcorn) is something as versatile and technologically mysterious as a tricorder, not to mention rugged enough to repell those first awful smudges and scratches.

defaced and shilling

Now that the privacy debate on social media has really heated up and Germany and Switzerland are woefully upset with the conduct of Facebook for not allowing users--or even photographic by-standers to purge their posting histories or depart the Web 2.0 altogether, the government and the military have embraced the technology.  I am sure that the Internet Masters of the Universe can keep a better clearing-house of people's foot-steps and faux pas better than any spy agency.  Maybe that's why these changes to the privacy policy are being pushed forward without consultation.  Or maybe the government is a little behind the curve on integrating new technology.  Facebook profiles for Army organizations are dormant and ham-fisted and on par with the body-scanners.
I've courted a few, hopefully not too intrusive, sponsors in the sidebar.  I don't want these postings to be all decked out with advertisements like a NASCAR rally.  I have noticed that my most frequent supporter is the Obama administration's web presence.  That's another way, apparently, the government has channeled the power of the Internet.  I suppose for anyone, however, these offerings would be mirrors of one's own perusals.

drove my chevy to the levee

Our condolences and sympathies go out to the people of Poland.  It just takes one's breath away and it is impossible to really grasp the political and cultural magnitude of the loss they have sustained from the weekend.  Historically, Poland seems unduly beaten up as it is what with always being the first country invaded because of its lack of natural borders, stereotypes for the diaspora, and the fact that the regimental entourage were on the way to commemorate the anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish officers and academics by the Soviet Stalinist regime. 

I think that the intelligence agents of the world could benefit from a random conspiracy generator--just to pare down on a lot the immediate nonsense.  Like Buddy Holly's and Bea Arthur's Tsunami Factory, PLC, or Jimmi Hendrix' mail-order avian influenza and magic bullet emporium, or the banking consortium of Ponzi-Prime's collapsable building franchise opportunity.  Arthur Allen. Weather-control.  Celebrity baby photos.  Now is no time to play the pyramid.  I immediately repaired to speculation too--conspiracies are a way of retrieving some meaning from accidents and incomprehensible tragedies.  I thought a long the usual lines of the plot devices for conspiracies: Lech Kaczynski had an identical twin brother; his government had conceded to Bush's missile defense shield being based in Poland; the plan to link Germany to Russia via gas pipelines through Poland; possible relation to the Uni-Bomber; stance against corruption or gay-rights; EU accession; the fact that the entire envoy was loaded on one twenty-year-old Russian Tupolev as the Polish Air Force One and Kaczynski had a reputation of bullying his official pilots into sticking with his itinerary; Vladimir Putin's hasty charge to personally lead the accident investigation.  It is very sad and all too fresh or the leadership's line of succession.  I do not want to slander their memories and accomplishments, nor there to be a pall cast on Poland's continuance and future.

strangelove or loose nukes tour

Yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama III and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev had a summit in Prague to renew their joint pledges for nuclear disarmament and to promote an environment free of household atomics.  Next, Obama turned his attention toward immergent but no longer classed rogue states on the cusps of going nuclear, significantly increasing the stakes with rhetoric of sanctions against Iran and Syria.  Though the physics and technological threshhold underpinning a nuclear reation is accessible to all-comers and no secret, esoteric knowledge or even priracy of anything proprietary, I believe the so-called nuclear club is a good measure of kiss-and-tell talk.

It turned out that Iraqi claims of menacing arsenals of weapons of mass destruction were just that.  Naturally the old guard of that country would want to appear as strong as possible to its aggressors who were escalating the matter in the first place by dictating that membership in the club was exclusive and had a grandfather-clause.  Baghdad's posteuring was a necessary deterant and probably a policy to match the Soviet's and the US' mutually assured destruction, had the US invasion and occupation not forced Iraq to show its hand.  Maybe Iran, Syria and all the rest are exaggerating their endowments too.

unikat

Friday afternoons are usually conducive to a bit of aimless browsing about.  Sometimes it seems that it takes people the whole work week to puzzle out a disaster of significant immediacy to spring from the end of the day on Friday.  Other times, especially during fairer weather, it seems those same dilemma-rousers can't be bothered for their keen sense of time.  While checking what was out-and-about for the weekend, I stumbled across this wonderful gallery of fashion, taken ad hoc on streets in Köln by a photographer very adept at capturing portraits of individual senses of style.  Yesterday, a coworker's husband, at a ceremony at the culmination of a big project, said that perhaps now with this over, we could enjoy a quiet and relaxed Friday.  I replied that we probably wouldn't recognize it if it came along.  Though it is a shame that one needs reminding--others seem to never forget--there is virtue in sometimes slacking off, confident that at least the immediate has been addressed and bedded.  It is a little like these expressive faces and unique costumes that don't seem so remarkable and photo-worthy in one's own eyes but brilliant through the eyes of another.  Sometimes, on a quiet afternoon, with the weather holding up, we are only tethered to our desks, passively on strike, to notice and celebrate such things.

billions and billions

While I am sure that some one could counter this with a statistical anomaly to explain this spate of occurences, it does seem that there have been quite a few earthquakes lately--or at least what's been deemed worthy for copy-cat reporting: Haiti, Chile, Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia.  I wonder if this uptick has any thing to do, as some would repute, with the CERN LHC coming back on-line and evaporating microscopic black holes destabilizing the earth's crust and mantle and magma being coaxed closer to the surface and causing seismic activity.

Carl Sagan, years ago, speculated that perhaps what accounts for the dearth of intelligent alien life, lack of encounters, is due to advancement to one critical point in technological progress, wherein the species either figures out how to safely harness the new power or ends up destroying itself with it.  Sagan thought that nuclear weapons were the dark test, but maybe it's in cellular phones and electro-smog or in courting the Higgs-Boson particle.

and tang was a spinoff from the space race

Egyptologists at universities in Switzerland and Germany (including my former home at the foot of the campus in the fair city of Würzburg) are finding a novel use for the latest reactionary technology meant to keep us safe: the full body scanner, surplus I suppose that officials are loath to install at European airport, are very adept at penetrating mummy wrappings.

The scanners can take good photographs of the mummified innards without being terribly invasive--at least the ancient Egyptians do not feel their privacy violated when they are being screened for contraband and fairy dust.