just to let you know

why I am a pacifist

For me, the current events in Iraq bring it all back again.

Back in 1993, I decided not to join the german army for the (back then) 13 months of mandatory service - a basic right every German is entitled to. Instead, I decided to work in a day care center for children with behavioural difficulties and hyperactivity. Working in such an environment taught me more about life and human beings than any army in the world could have.

I am not trying to fight the case for those soldiers who tortured and killed enemy fighters in such a despicable way. However this alarms me because I think there still is a thinking amongst the coalition forces that conflicts such as this are controllable. Of course, there are the Geneva Conventions to obey to - but to me, there is far more to it.

In a war, human beings are pushed far beyond they physical and phsychological limits - we can not expect them to act in a "whiter than white" way if we send them into a region where life threatening attacks are happening on a daily basis. The fact that some of these coalition soldiers were poorly trained and educated makes matters only worse. There certainly shouldn't have been a conflict in the first place, but it's too late to argue this case.

To me, the most important thing is that the coalition faces the facts, stops the rhetorics and prepares to hand over rule over the region as soon as possible.

ieCapture

I know CSS is supposed to work in MS IE 6 .... hang on ! Yep, there are some difficulties and CSS still needs a fair amount of troubleshooting - especially if you opt for the future-proof, non-TABLE layout. But what to do if your design platform is a Mac and no PC can be seen anywhere near (and installing an emulator is a non-starter) ?

Well help is at hand, oh knights of the "holy style sheet" ! It comes in the shape and form of ieCapture , an online viewer developed by Daniel E. Vine.

ieCapture allows you to enter a URL - it then goes away and takes a PC screenshot of the page you entered. On a subsequent screen, you can view or download the screeshot.

The only current drawback is speed - Dan has already admitted that this service requires a speed boost. But checking out the current version number (0.0.4) suggests that dear Dan might have some more improvements in stock !

Linkable

• Freedom of information act request makes it possible: TheMemoryHole.org - The website showing the US soldier coffins that no one was supposed to see.
• German radio station SWR3 - asked its listeners to vote for the greatest first lines of lyrics ever written: according to their audience it's from Alanis Morisette's: Ironic.
• interesting NYT article on Steve Jobs & Apple
• Collision Detection talks about "Koolio", the world's first real beer-serving lab robot. "Pint of Caley 80 and a bag of crisps please, Koolio - and make it snappy !"
• A german postman decided to sell contents of parcels himself rather than delivering them.

Outrage

• Pentagon in the US outraged over photos of coffins of war deads
• British public outraged over pictures of dying Princess Di on national american television.
• "All Germans are Nazis" says Express newspapers owner Desmond and makes himself some new friends.

movies in german worth seeing

As a scottish exile-German I started building up a german DVD collection some time back - my favourites so far include (english subtitles or language where indicated - this is NOT an ordered list):

• Wir koennen auch anders - directed by Detlev Buck (1993)


• Kleine Haie - directed by Soenke Worthmann (1992)


• Lola Rennt - directed by Tom Tykwer (2000) - also available as UK Import DVD in english language and subtitles


• Verschwende deine Jugend - directed by Benjamin Quabeck (2003)


• Das Boot - directed by Wolfgang Petersen (1981) - available in english language and subtitles


• Abgeschminkt - Directed by Katja von Garnier (1992)


• Nach Fuenf im Urwald - directed by Hans-Christian Schmid (1995)


• Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum - directed by Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta (1975) - with english subtitles

ring, ring, ring

Mobile phones with self-recorded ringtones annoy me. It's not the tune itself that bugs me - it's the fact that a snippet of music is used for such an ordinary thing as a signal of a telephone to tell it's holder that there is an incoming call or message. Why can't phones just ring ? They rang for decades. Now they talk, bark and soon they probably smell, too. Oh it's just too much.

A colleague's mobile phone "jukeboxed" in the office yesterday - delighting all of us with a fraction of Coldplay's "Clocks". Obviously he likes the song so much he wanted it on his mobile. In the spirit of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" I am now trying to work out what the constant repetition of a song snippet does to the song itself. Does it get better or worse ? Well, I'll probably can't enjoy the song again, that's for sure - as it will now always remind me of a mobile going off.

We all seem to have become a society of "scanners and snippeteers". Taking in a full work (even just a 4 to 5 minute song) has become too tedious and long for most people. Everything has to be summarised, cut, edited, pasted and zipped. And I've had enough of it.

Last but not least I'll introduce you to the most abyssmal form of self-recorded ring tone: a voice saying "Ring ! Ring ! Ring !" - no comment.

Linkable

• Apple praised on announcement of better speech recognition in next release of OS X.
• NYT technology story on Sony's lack of innovation and the their Connect store - who cares ?
• on Sunday, The London Marathon wrote another beautiful story: Tracey Morris - still a fun runner in 1999's London Marathon - finished yesterdays race within the qualification time for this year's Olympics in Athens and will most likely be picked for the british team.
• Spiegel.de's Adrian Schimpf with a little german vocabulary list of english football idioms

iPod: is Apple's marketing its own worst enemy ?

There has been a lot of talk about the apparently short life span of iPod batteries. iPod lovers counter any criticism quite rightfully by stating that batteries in MiniDisc players didn't last longer than 18-24 months either.

On the whole, it looks as if people seem to be really picky when it comes to the iPod - and I think this is not only because of the price. In my opinion, the problem is to be saught deeper. Now I am not trying to evangelise people here, but to me it's a fact that Apple products are top-notch design, intuitive and fun to use. Apple products make technology take the back seat and let people get on with the job at hand. In my book, that's how any tool should be designed. Over the course of the last years I found Apple users to be the most critical when it came to products and services. Why is this ? Apple users are so critical towards Apple because they - just like Apple - strive for prefection and usability. These people swim against the stream and live Apple day by day.

All the new iPod users do just the same. What do you think they've been doing since 1984 ? They have been watching Apple ads and for one reason or another never made the decision to cross the bridge to the bright side. With the iPod, a lot of consumers now hold their first bit of Apple kit in their hands. And they are looking for ways to show off their product. They want to have reasons and prove points. "I want my iPod to sound better, last longer and look nicer than any other player.". Why ?

Because it's from Apple !

Linkable

• a scene from 12th Night has been translated into SMS language.
• the oldest existing german/jewish NY newspaper - Aufbau - is not available in print anymore. The last circulation figures of the bi-weekly issue were around 10,000.

German Easter Egg Tradition

Because it's Easter I thought I'd delight my readers with a fairly unknown Easter egg tradition my family keeps alive: the Easter Egg smashing ! It's actually fairly similar to Christmas Cracker opening...

Nothing serious or complicated (as you might expect from Germans). All the 2 participants have to do is
a) agree on the side of the egg to smash
b) put the egg into each players hand
c) whack them against each other

The person with an intact egg after the smashing is the winner.

Just like that ! Happy Easter !

Linkable

• Ross Anderson of Cambridge Uni believes that P2P news networks will substitute news services such as the BBC by 2010 and thereby by-pass censorship. Why by 2010? RSS and XML syndication do already give us this ability today. All that it takes is more freelance journalists to publish and syndicate their articles.
• German customs are currently auctioning a formerly seized Ferrari online.

Alemannia Aachen... The rocket is unstoppable

On Monday, I was one of 16.000 football fans that witnessed another victory of Michael's and mine favorite team Alemannia Aachen. Union Berlin was the visiting club at the Aachener stadium called "Tivoli".

Straight from kick-off Alemannia faught for the ball very hard and our goalgetter Bashirou Salou nearly managed to provide Aachen with a fast lead. But then Berlin directly started a counter attack and Aachen made a similar defensive mistakes as against Berlin before. However the difference was that the guests took the lead this time. Fortunately Aachen managed (although with severe problems to start with) to turn the game and the final score was 4:2. Later in the match Alemannia began to show more and more great football.

One thing we now all hope for is that Alemannia will play with such success in Berlin in the Cup Final. I mean i am not sure that Alemannia will definintely win the final against Werder Bremen with a performance such as Monday's (Werder has had a successful season so far - after a long period in which they were only playing a little role in the German 1. Division), but I am hoping for a good game in Berlin.

My first block entry

Hi, my name is Sebastian I am Michael's younger brother. Michael and I decided it would be fun to share this great opportunity to let the world around us know what keeps genius brains like ours busy =).

So in the future I will deliver news from around my home and birthtown Aachen - which is also where Michael comes from. I want to write about things that are important to me. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to some of your comments.

translating booms in the EU

BBC correspondent Angus Roxburgh seems to have a problem with it.

Lamenting on that "the tower (nb. of Bable) grows and grows" and complaining that an estonian interpreter's work won't be understood back in her home country anyway (how insulting is that).

All in all an article that's written by someone who probably is not appreciating the versatility and differences of other languages.

But maybe he is right: let us all switch to English - at least we can then appreciate the multicultural views and opinions Brits have about people in "Europe" (as they say when they talk about the continent - almost suggesting they are not part of it) even more. This also shows that even geography and EU treaties suddenly gain a different perspective if looked at the british way.

Let's all go English - we don't know what we're missing.

Linkable

• The BBC has opened a forum site for One Minute Movies

Berlin, Berlin

Linkable

• In case you can't be bothered with watching the Eurovision Song Contest on May 15th, here is a website listing all songs and even offering audiofiles / videos for most of them.
• Andy Budd has posted a recent entry on Google PageRank algorithms and how to make them work for you.
• According to a survey carried out by The Independent 11% of all Brits think Adolf Hitler never existed.
• The BBC marks the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death
• The Observer's Top 10 sporting things to do before you die - unbelievable but true: I did no. 4 already ! :-)
• A lot is said and speculated about Google these days. This is a very interesting set of blog articles on Google's potential future ambitions

A little motorway anecdote

On a recent car trip down to the Midlands area we went through a construction site on the motor way. While driving through it, I spotted a speed camera in the midst of it. To my surprise, I found the top of the camera covered by an orange hood. On the back of it (facing the driver's view) it simply said: "Out of service".

"How kind of them", I thought, "to let all drivers explicitly know that this camera won't work right now."