Tuesday 25 June 2013
for more information, please re-read
ravelin or navi knows best
Although I really appreciate GPS (a navigational system) for never saying, “Why do you want to go there?” though turning really bossy and panicky if one strays from the
direct route and sometimes betraying a twisted sense of humour, maybe
sometimes the question should be asked. On the way back from one of the
few errands that I need to drive to accomplish, I decided to find out
what Fort Biehler exactly was. I had spied this turret from the
Autobahn every time I passed that way but it turned out it was not part
of the fort at all, but a much older watchtower (Warte) of the village of Erbenheim, the landmark built in 1497. It difficult to find the right angle and distance to take a picture of the tower, which had little contrast against the overcast skies but some thoughtful person put a miniature model in his garden, though the actual tower was facing just beyond.
The fort, I found out after a long walk through the neighbourhood and the forest was an inaccessible ruin, cordoned off behind a security fence in a training groud used by the German and America military for exercises and there was not much to see of the foundations itself.
Completed in the last decades of the 1800s, Fort Biehler was part of a massive ensemble of defensive constructs known as Fortress Mainz, this area being where the Palatinate's possessions slipped south of the Rhein and into Hessian holdings, named in honour of the chief of the Prussian corps of engineers and architect, General Hans Alexis von Biehler, who designed many such structures, including the citadel at Spandau and was nearly as prolific as his French rival, Marquis de Vauban, whom we've chased around during our travels as well.
In accordance with the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, Fortress Mainz was defanged and the fort was used to garrison French forces before eventually being cannibalised for building material in the 1930s. With sweeping views of Wiesbaden and Mainz from this area, it was easy to imagine the vantage such a fortification had and I'm glad that GPS devices are not overly opinionated or timid about exploring.
Monday 24 June 2013
of mice and men or hoodoo economics
Though it is hard to say how well the experiment's participants were shielded from the fact that they were subject to research, since knowing that one is taking part in a psychological or behavioural study makes people act in strange ways, trying to prove their cleverness or uniqueness—the observer-expectancy effect, sort of like a clinical Stockholm Syndrome, the Frankfurter Rundschau (via the English daily the local) features the work of a sociological battery of test conducted in Bamberg, raising the stakes, to illustrate how a competitive environment can quickly undermine our convictions and values.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ง , economic policy
Sunday 23 June 2013
heel, toe or a shoe-horn, the kind with teeth
I always thought that they looked kind of cool but I could not imagine until now what they might be good for, besides stubbing one's toes on. I did not spy any for a couple of weeks, and even asked and told H about my idea—“You know, those little anchors.” No one knew what I was talking about, especially something that one can always find. I found one, but it turns out it's not an anchor at all, but I suppose could be modified for that purpose, but rather a cobblers' tool, like a little anvil for forming and beating a shoe into shape. It always works for the purposes of holding down indoor-outdoor carpeting.
catagories: antiques, graphic design, lifestyle
Saturday 22 June 2013
prism break or needle in a haystack
Surely Germany has a Stasi-Rebooted programme in the fight, which probably explains the dispro- portionately mild accusations and demands for explanation levied against the Americans—for fear of looking like hypocrites for having the same aspirations and no country is trusting and completely innocent. The internet is always adapting and a few steps ahead of the surveyors and here are a few professional tips and upgrades that you can use to stave off (or at least watch) the nosiness and eavesdropping—that is, if you can believe this resource is not a front thrown together to get people to load software on their communication devices to make prying them open even easier.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐ฅธ, foreign policy
Thursday 20 June 2013
of malls and mosques
Writing for the Spectator, Norman Stone has an interesting primer on the developing situation in Turkey, which challenges some of the stereotypes and assumptions that pooled a lot brave and bracing defiance into a batch of plainly detrimental expectations. Maybe the Western world really wants this place to live up to their idea of an acceptably Muslim and swarthier version of Germany, and of course in Germany and anywhere else home to a diaspora, there's discomfort and a certain sort of blanket surmising and feeling of being crowded out balanced out with an imperfect logic of thinking that the immigrants (anyone vaguely Turkish-ish) weren't able to hack it back at home, so Deutschland is not recipient of the choicest of masses.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ช๐บ, ๐น๐ท, ๐ง , revolution
Wednesday 19 June 2013
one hand clapping or monkey see, monkey do
The science desk of the BBC features an interesting study and meta-analysis of the mentality and momentum of audiences, concluding basically that applause is a social contagion. Watching footage of hundreds of endings to live speeches and other performances showed that the catalyst was the clapping of one or two individuals, sustaining the ovation, until an equal sampling of the audience stops.
catagories: ๐ง , networking and blogging