wayback machine: einheit und ostalgia

The reunification process of East- and West-Germany happened in several phases and was highly formalized, from the Mauerfall, treaties, to economic desegregation to the ultimate political and sovereign reunion, whose twentieth anniversary is commemorated on next Sunday, 3. October. Der Spiegel (auch auf englisch) has aggregated perspectives on this theme and offers personal memories and reminiscence. From the point-of-view from all these years forward, it has been fascinating to watch the stampede of documentaries touching on all aspects and sharing H's personal experiences and memories of the way things were and the transition.

Living near the former border and cold-war frontier, we have explored the monuments to the period in depth and visit storied sites in the east quite often, whose part in the DDR are not to be discounted and dismissed but still do barely seem an instance in the far-reaching histories of these places. Germany and Europe is a continual reinvention and now a peaceable conglomerate, but I do wonder what measure of the present condition will be recalled and honored twenty years on with the luxury and comfort of change and reform.

white fright

Huffington Post contributor, John Ridley, offered a funny, provocative piece the other day, "The unbearable whiteness of anti-intellectualism."  Despite the economic down-turn, the honey-pot for exploiting the fears of white people is bottomless and apparently no limits either to the credibility of distractions.  Stoking such irrational fears sells fall-out shelters, pharmaceuticals and newspapers, as well as financing wars and political campaigns.  The spate of shock-and-awe US headlines are endless: political indiscretions of a teen-age witch, mad-hatter's tea party, chimera influenza, rubbish-bins that snitch if one does not recycle, and don't forget the bed-bugs, roving terror threats and vague warnings never to be off-guard.   I am sure it is not a phenomena peculiar to Americans but I do believe that they have elevated the art form. 

Meanwhile, more pressing, tangible and less phobic concerns are ignored, like the American government trying to hide the true scope of its indebtedness like a guest on a day-time talk show that's appealing to this same fear base, or sacrificing one's privacy in the name of someone else's estimation of security, and abusing the natural environment.  Scare-mongering is not a helpful tactic, and rather a race to the bottom that appeals to and enhances those latent feelings of panic that exacerbates small differences.  

l'ecran magique

Available from Headcase, purveyors of many things weird and wonderful, is this iPad sleeve in the form of a classic Etch-A-Sketch, which was originally a French invention which had its premiere at the International Nürnberg Toy Fair in 1959.  This is pretty cool and is a perfect match, although a violent shaking is probably not to be recommended.

aqua teen hunger force

Comparisons of genetically modified organisms to Dr. Frankenstein is a bit of an insult, since he did not go to mad scientist school for all those years to be called Mr. Frankenstein, and he reanimated a human cadaver, not a vegetable or a fish, and he brought his monster to life without gene manipulation nonsense. There is a debate over the American Food and Drug Administration's being poised to endorse the sale of genetically altered salmon as fit for aquaculture and fit for human consumption. This move seems very ill advised--to dabble with Mother Nature--especially at the behest of business people and fisher-folk. Animal husbandry has taken thousands of years of selective breeding to produce contemporary livestock and stabbing straight to an animal's DNA is a big presumption.  Europe is right to proceed with extreme caution and skepticism on this front.  There is a significant portion of any creature's genetic code that researchers have dismissed as redundant or hitchhiking, and tinkering with the chemicals that give this salmon the ability to mature faster may mean that its shelf-life is severely reduced, prone to food poisoning, or that its immune system is not so hardy. The gene responsible for fast growth could compromise safety by making venomous fish or hyper-intelligent fish who are more vocal about being eaten. And what if these GM salmon interbreed with natural populations? Salmon may lose their ability to navigate fresh- and salt-waters, the wild populations could get sick, or things could turn out like the Secret of NIMH.

meme

As thousands of Germans are choosing to opt out of Google’s roving eye, though it does not seem as dystopic as some mad, fascist Orwellian world-view, there are some concomitant actions in Germany and the European Union that are taking a circumspect and long view at the virtual frontier.
Ahead of a summit on data protection and consumer rights, politicians are calling for means, no self-regulated and left to the industry, to cover one’s internet tracks, especially those footprints left unintentionally and exploited by marketers or in digital photographs that record one’s location and that has a persistence of memory on the web. Surely, such government safeguards cannot satisfy everyone, and some argue that governmental efforts would be better spent on protecting consumers from disreputable internet service providers and other underwriters of fraud, but it is an excellent example of government predicting and adapting to technology, rather than reacting to it within an insufficient legal framework. Furthermore, the crowning achievement, at least in prospective circulation, comes from a working group in Strasbourg in the form of an “internet treaty,” similar to the line in the sand drawn with international cooperation over the ownership of the Antarctic or outer space.

This proposal aims to keep the internet globally open and neutral, curbing government influence over content or allowing deals that would make the internet two-tiered, given speed and preference to paid, premium content. This seems especially important as US, Canadian and other governments seek to assert regulatory control, censor and spoon-feed back to the world public what it already has created, sometimes out of desperation to cut deals in favour of big business or to realize and retain more tax revenues from internet activities.

unschärfe

Following a novel approach to saddling a chip with bits and bytes using pulses of light instead of miniscule electric current, subscribers to Moore's Law and general aficionados of bigger, better, faster, more are anticipating that quantum computing is within the industry’s grasp, promising computers that will be able to essay complex calculations that are outside of the realm of contemporary processors, making for better models and more accurate predictions as well as improved capability to conduct internet searches.

The amount of data banished to the virtual oubliette is increasing exponentially and scientists, from meteorologists, marketing executives, to chemists and astronomers, have increasingly complex scenarios to ponder through. Brute computational force, however, is not science or creativity—rather it is having that proverbial arsenal of an infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters to produce a literary classic. It is the same sort of logical extension that has given rise to those spontaneously generated 100 kilometer long traffic jams in China that pop in and out of existence with no explanation, since the country’s recent prosperity has allowed more to own a car. Likewise, discovering a new pharmaceutical by testing every possible permutation is no real accomplishment and interactions overlooked can present real dangers, especially if researchers become too reliant on computing power to filter out their red herrings and incompatibilities. The serendipity of a new finding, even from a mistake or stumbling upon something unexpected, goes out the window. Wouldn't the internet become an ironic genie if it could deliver exactly what was requested with no errata everytime?  How should one learn about anything new?  Besides, the nature of quantum mechanics does not suggest that circuitry would be without gremlins and bugs of an esoteric and unpredictable variety.  Maybe it would be like the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, and produce self-fulfilling prophesies, like creating the earthquake it predicts or randomizes non-sensical results, ballerina mountain range, feathered titanium gazebo. In computing it is ever garbage in/garbage out.

fremde, etranger, stranger

France and Sarkosy are the brunt of quite a bit of honest scrutiny in the European Union, driven by coverage which may not be just as genuine. Now as accusations are exchanged that Merkel and Germany have plans to carry out similar mass-deportations of Sinti and Roma (the ethnic groups formerly known as gypsies), one parliamentarian has drawn allusions to the atrocities perpetrated during the Second World War. Immigration, minority protection, and human welfare are all heady subjects, deserving of close and objective attention. The tone, however, is being set by sensational journalists, it seems, and smacks very much of the recent brawl in America over Koran burning and the so-called Ground Zero mosque. Much of the public was so enflamed because they were led to believe that there was to be a mosque built on the rubble of the World Trade Center site. Never mind that the Ground Zero mosque was to be primarily a non-denominational community center and that there was already a mosque in mid-town Manhattan several blocks closer by. Such a local zoning issue should not have attracted the interest of the whole world and some Christian fanatics without some media false flags. France deported no more non-EU citizens from the country than in years past, and did not particularly target Roma camps, or alter policy during the dog days of summer when no one was watching, as other reporting suggests.

View from Burger King at Ground Zero

Every year, during vacation time, holiday campers take notice of squatter sites because they venture further into the woods and some may feel a little less safe because of them. Stereotypes about Roma realize and perpetuate learned traits, and the public has experience with few people of that background, save the fictional Esmeralda from the Hunch-Back of Notre Dame, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Chaplin and Boba Fett, preferring nomadic, swarthy, mysterious, fortune-tellers. By no means do I condone expulsions and that there should not be more efforts to understand what is going one, only that this may be one of those distractions that can easily fail to make one look at the underlying conditions.  If one community bucks the trappings and standards of another, the one that dictates those mores will always feel threatened and imagine resistances that are not there.

perils of penelope

My mother has found a whole slew of challenging yet relaxing puzzle and logic games for her iPad.  They are a lot of fun and demanding in sense one wants to push these expeditions through to their conclusion.  The graphics and tactile sensitivities are amazing as well.

 I think that this too would be an excellent forum, platform for reviving some of the Nintendo games of the mid- to late-eighties, those handful of zen and phrentic games, like Bobble Bobble or the Adventures of Lolo, whose teasers were I am sure a primer for the military aptitude test--ASVAB or AbFab, like in that movie the Last Starfighter where that kid was recruited for the galatic armada for beating an impossible game, or some endless map-based pursuit against a whole medieval bestiary.  These games were always second picks in the video shop after one had exhausted the latest releases but were always entertaining and thought-provoking.  I think that this could also be a resurrgence, although a beaten game is forever a beaten game and is a sphinx with no secrets, of those early personal computer adventure games, like the classic King's Quest series.  Maybe again, game engineers will create whole worlds and sagas that draw the player in and that require finesse and cleverness.