Dancing prohibition

A day after the German holiday of Fronleichnam, I realise that there was no prohibition of dance in this county. Though, the prohibition of dance is a story of misunderstandings. There is a different set of regulation for each county and each day within a county - and there are regulatory differences on whether sports is performed in public, in private, with the aim of commerce or for regenerating the mental health, and whether the whole day or a just a few hours are affected. Actually, there is no English version in Wikipedia - hopefully the German does. The holiday also involves a Monstranz, e.g. in Cologne (a really dirty building, right next to Central station - seen it when changing for trains to Bruxelles). Nevertheless, the Germans can denunciate each other - for dancing.
What else? The eurozone seems to be in a considerable crisis. One of the main contributors is Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel. In fact, her actions seem to suggest that she attributed the crisis to some less well managed member states. That means some member states overspent and thus, increased their government gross debt excessively. According to this account, these countries have to be regulated and brutal spending cuts especially in pensioners, unemployed and public service staff are inevitable (in Merkel's world). Actually, Spain's government gross debt as a function of GDP is roughly 13 percent points less than Germany's. And one might wonder why Spain has such a hard time refinancing. One answer could be that there is threat of the country being unable to support its struggling banking sector. If that was the case, it would be refinanced by some ESM and in fact be under dictatorship of Merkel. If that is was case, Spain's economy could just close the doors. When Merkel offered benefits for Germans buying cars in an attempt of hindering a recession, no measure of stimulation was an option in her Greek policies. Indeed, Merkel's measures remind the observer on Brüning's ideas of austerity. The result is (and was) an unemployment rate of some 52% amongst adults younger than 25 (eurostat). In Germany, these measures were followed by most horrible parts of history and should increase caution if not hinder any German politician in doing the like. Well, maybe it is a more systematic crisis accompanied by half-hearted rescue measures. This would suggest that Merkel's austerity put Europe at risk and topped the bill for the German taxman.

Topping the daily chaos, my laptop is slowly dying. I suspect the CPU cooling device is not working well resulting sudden shut downs. Germany is suffering the carpet affair (the secret service transported a carpet on behalf of a member of government and did not pay custom). Current projects involve a trifle. Simply for marking the most joyful, relaxed and happy event. In contrast to a civilised pageant, streets tend to involve chaos, e.g. Tehran suffers the cars of its inhabitants. Side note, cars are Germany's main industry and Merkel claimed the premium for buying a new car was key in hindering a recession. Another side note, driving a car in Germany is a right not a privilege. Recently, a severe accident occurred. In the ten o'clock news, the moderator said the accident reminded him opening fire into a forest full of tourists and hoping you only hit the trees. In brief words, the driver suffered epilepsy and had an attack before the accident. Also, he used cannabis during the night before. He was sentenced three and a half years for killing four people and severely injruing another three (sounds little, but driving a car was not his fail, just bad luck it went wrong). Bielefeld's university got an aestehtic centre. Really? Seriously? I suppose it's just me and I should increase my asbestos intake (see this university website featuring research from wikipedia). Bielefeld was also home to two severe events, first a fire and a week later an explosion.

Are you sweaty?

Apparently, the so-called body scanners have been used in trials in Germany, more precisely in Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel. Having flown a number of times in and out of there I am surprised I have never seen one. It is well known that body scanners have downsides, including attacks of co-workers. But on the German side of things the main problem was that these machines triggered a substantial number of false alarms - due to underarm persiparation. As an embarrassing result the home secretary asked security companies to develop a more underarm persiparation proof software (see the news).
Also in Germany, I have been confronted with rather bizarre habits of the natives - more on this later, but first of all I was explained that the most standard-ish standard German is spoken in the city of Hanover. I wondered how come. In the quest, I found two potential reasons: a) the largest so-called Schützenfest (I don't know what it is yet. I guessed it involves a lot of people shooting at something, but picures suggest it's best translated as binge drinking.) in the world is held in Hanover, thus a number of German marksmen might have spread the word that this town would set the standard, or b) Hanover is the most noisy city of Germany and perhaps people have to speak very loud and clear?

Bündnerfleisch

Bündnerfleisch mit gepfefferter Nachfrage.
Gymkhanaprüfung. "Und ich bin überzeugt, Sie wollen das auch."
Im Gegensatz dazu ein deutscher Landtag mit Debatte über landwirtschaftliche Produkte - ein Beitrag der FDP von Heinrich Heidel, sowie im Bundestag Detlef Kleinert für die FDP. Letzterer übrigens Ehrenmitglied der Deutschen Parlamentarischen Gesellschaft.

Prince of Darkness

James Gosling the man who founded Java while he worked for Sun Microsystems famously called Larry Ellison "The Prince of Darkness" in his blog. Interestingly, Larry Ellison is CEO of Oracle. About a year ago, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems for 7.4 billion US$. The deal included Java and OpenOffice. There were speculations out there whether Java would cease its existence in the freely available world and programmers using the language would have to pay for employing Java in their programmes. Also, Oracle was said to terminate the "Open" bit in OpenOffice. Others speculated Orcale could attack Google by transforming OpenOffice in an online based suite competing with Google Documents and Microsoft's Web Apps Office. Later in the process, Oracle sued Google for using Java technology in their Android OS. In particular, Google's Dalvik was said to be very similar to Java - though the case is still open. After Oracle made their stand, the programmers of OpenOffice decided to go and form LibreOffice. Now, and here comes the actual point of this: James Gosling was hired by Google. In his blog he said, he would not know what his job would really involve. This is in a row of hirings by Google. Tim Lindholm leading expert in the development of Java for mobile devices was also hired by Google. Wonder where this is going. Should one switch to something else that is compatible with almost everything? It's all changing.
Also in the change log: Cycling in a new area. See the map. At some point in the future, it might more scenic with photos as usual. Also, new language in the environment, an old language in here.

Hunger2.0

Wenn man mal Hunger hat, kann man entweder in den Supermarkt gehen und Essen erlegen - oder auf die öffentlichen Bäume ausweichen. Man kann sich nämlich am städtischen Obst bedienen. Das ganze gibt es dann auch gleich mit der passenden Web2.0-Anwendung. Wenn man ein Tigerhai ist, reicht etwas Fallobst natürlich nicht aus. Vor einigen Wochen wurde in Hull (Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire) ein einzelner Fuß angespült. Er war mit Socke und Turnschuh bekleidet. Einige Wochen später wurde ein Fuß in Terschelling, Westfriesland aufgefunden. Er war ähnlich bekleidet, und Ermittlungen ergaben, die Schuhe stammen vom selben Paar. Und nun das: in einem Tigerhai vor den Bahamas  wurde ein Bein ohne Fuß und weitere Körperteile, aber keine Füße, gefunden. Mit Referenz auf gruselige Mördergeschichten, Agatha Christie wäre am 15. September 120 geworden - und die deutsche Version von Lady Diana, Königin Luise Herzogin zu Mecklenburg[-Strelitz] (auch bekannt von Schadows Prinzessinnengruppe) ist vor 200 Jahren gestorben. Bei Wikipedia, wo man von preußischer Madonna, Lebensbild und Märtyrerin spricht, findet man sogar ein Blatt mit Kritzeleien der Königin (der Herzen - wenn sie damals schon Tony Blair gehabt hätten). Ihre Lobpreisung ging mit ihrem Feiertag nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg unter.
Bei RyanAir geht es auch mysteriös zu. Nachdem man die Strecke nach Altenburg (AOC, aka "Leipzig") einem Review unterzogen hat, ist man wohl bei der Thüringischen Landesregierung nun doch entschlossen nach zweieinhalb Monaten Pause wieder zu zahlen, damit RyanAir Altenburg anfliegt. Das hat natürlich die Lufthansa nicht davon abgehalten, die Preise um 80 Pfund zu erhöhen. Außerdem hat bei RyanAir ein Pilot vorgeschlagen, den raubeiningen Chef O'Leary doch gleich durch einen Flugbegleiter zu ersetzen. Zu dieser Äußerung kam es, nachdem O'Leary Piloten bei kürzeren Flügen einsparen wollte. Bon Voyage, dachte sich O'Leary da wohl und verhandelt nun mit Flughäfen, die in der Nähe größerer Städte sind. Damit möchte er nicht nur Fluggäste, die bewußt auf Risiko gehen, gefährden, sondern auch eine größere Zahl Menschen als man mit den abgelegenen und leicht erpresslichen Regionalflughäfen erreichen könnte. Außerdem läßt sich so die Omnipräsenz der Marke unterstreichen.
Zum Ende noch ein Hinweis auf zwei zeimlich verwegene Sachen: das friedliche Herumklicken auf dem iPad und das Tragen gelber Kleidung.