Der Spiegel's international desk has a interesting feature on attempts in the Rheingau and surrounding regions to preserve traditional viniculture with robotic aid. Engineers at the University of Geisenheim have developed a rover-prototype that can scale the steep hills at times approaching a right-angle.
Tuesday 26 November 2013
auslese
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ก, ๐ฅ, environment
Monday 25 November 2013
paying peter to rob paul
Just scant weeks after the European Union floated the proposal to set negative interest rates for its institutions, there are reports that some American banks threatening to impose the same for depositor accounts should the US Federal Reserve step back on its programme of buying assets—that massive lienholder effort on the part of the US government that has been keeping up appearances for months.
Sunday 24 November 2013
tv tray
I really do enjoy cooking and trying new things—as well as tried-and-true recipes that require more effort than the old stand-bys of frozen pizza, boil-in-bag Indian dinners and fry-ups (though all carefully selected), despite that sometimes my offers to help are deferred to setting the table. I insist that it's not laziness that overcomes continuing overtures to prepare something more elaborate than processed foods and ready meals but I question what's in season and has a shelf-life—since I always am a bit put-off by the idea of tidying up afterwards and making such a fuss just for myself.
catagories: ⚕️, food and drink, lifestyle
totenwinkel
Saturday 23 November 2013
zwรถlf zu eins
On the other hand, an equal amount argue that enforcing such a rule would handicap the ability of Swiss businesses to attract or retain talented leadership. It's comforting to believe that a clerk in the company mail room or a janitor might bring home a salary that's a direct and not too immodest ratio, not earning less in a year than what the highest compensated bring home in a month of the CEOs pay, but I suppose such functions are already contracted out to the lowest-bidder. What do you think about Switzerland's opportunity to make a statement? Whatever the outcome, I don't think the debate will stop when the ballots are counted.
whether and neither
Since the decision in Germany and several other countries to allow records of birth a third option for sexual identity as indefinite, as opposed to male or female, there has been much discussion among linguists on how to frame this new category—with tact and sensitivity. There have been quite a few proposals put forward, which mostly support removing gender distinction from language, culling nuance in other ways too, or reforming the word neuter and its equivalents so as to make it have no negative connotations.