Saturday 5 April 2014
zapadnik
catagories: ๐, networking and blogging
Thursday 3 April 2014
stรผtzpunkt
Germany has called a special commission in order to hopefully seriously investigate the surveillance activities of the USA and the UK, and perhaps most importantly, German complicity in the process. One rallies for outrage with a tremolo-heroism but perhaps most realised that this was always the case and the wages of the modern world, whether willingly or otherwise, despite however one might feel about his or her situational-awareness as compared to the lolling public.
If faith was neither granted nor stinted or even comes as a surprise is a question for the individual, mostly dependent upon convenience and voluntary disclosure. An artificial mystique (though a code easily broken yet infinitely adaptable) of allegory and spindled metaphor has developed to augment and improve insider-messaging, which can be accessed by outsiders still. Concurrently, however, comes the revelation that the revelation that German was also the base for a sort of extraordinary rendition (the speed of light does not out-strip national jurisdictions). A satellite installation of Ramstein not only monitored the continent of Africa but also the whole world around. Though such studiousness is typical, I do not think such behaviour is as ultimately productive as protocols, or consignment, suggests.
wallflower or standoffishness
Most do not have have the patience to suffer negotiation and are quick to disdain the how process as show and an odious, bureaucratic necessity and as the stuff of foregone conclusions due to an unlevel playing-field. Most of the outcry has only produced an effort to bring the remaining part of Ukraine into the folds of NATO and a sloppy batch of sanctions that are prone to backfire, whether in ones backyard or on ones stoop, and the perception that Ukraine only exists as a sort of football to be exchanged between opposing sides. Realpolitik has been endowed with an unstoppable inertia back to Cold War thinking, without considering the question of governance—self-determination being accorded as something inviolable, despite performances given endless plaudits, regular standing-ovations, for results that did not necessarily need encouragement nor merit an encore. Could any one else administer the whole of Ukraine or parts of it any differently? Is the Western limning of the spheres of influence an assumption too far? It is impossible to say, I feel, without meaningful dialogue.
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ท๐บ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, foreign policy
Wednesday 2 April 2014
legacy-software
After a thirteen year life-cycle—which sadly seems like an unnatural longevity, something possessed, nowadays when new refrigerators and other durable appliances either and especially computers do not or are not allowed to grow so long in the tooth due to consumer proclivities and notions of life-cycle replacement schedules, the operating system Windows XP is essentially receiving its do not resuscitate orders.
Next week, Microsoft will end customer-support and quit issuing security patches for Windows XP, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to attack and logical integrity on the decline. It simply worked and was accessible, which owes a lot to its stamina—particularly in the technological environment, and I would much rather be using XP, rather than its princeling descendants with their apps and non-intuitive visual platforms. Its success and ubiquity means that some sixty percent of computers in Germany still run on XP—however it is not the hand-me-down CPU tower of ones grandparents that causes concern, rather it is the networks of cash-registers and automated teller machines, plus an undisclosed number of utility relays and other fail-safes. Foreknowledge aside, I am sure that the vacuum will not only be filled by predators but also by white-hat hackers, willing to uphold this vintage.
catagories: lifestyle, technology and innovation
international pixel-stained technopeasant day
catagories: holidays and observances, lifestyle
Tuesday 1 April 2014
Monday 31 March 2014
fulda-gap
The Fulda Gap, the pass between the Rhรถn mountain range and the Vogelsberg massif, was known to strategists for a long time with the armies of Napoleon retreating from Leipzig along this route and the final push of the Allied armies following the same path into Germany in the final days of World War II. Today, the preserved installation is a conference centre, a youth camp and a museum. I noticed that many of the parents visiting were having a hard time explaining the place and artefacts to their young kids—not that I could do much better. Speaking of the whites of their eyes, I have updated this map of occupied Germany to include Soviet posts.
Not that all Americans were (are) necessarily better integrated into their host communities and did not create their own little ghettos, the Russian units stationed in the DDR had no interaction with the “economy” and very little evidence or memory remains of their presence. Far from some historical curiosity or conundrum, I am glad we took the time for reflection and that such places have been preserved and honoured.