Allgemein

Greenwich is everywhere.

Auch wenn man nicht es eigentlich nicht glauben mag, dieser Blödsinn wiederholt sich regelmäßig: Diesmal sind die Briten dran. Spiegel Online: "Britische Parlamentsmitglieder zerbrechen sich den Kopf, wie sie die Insel vor den dunklen Seiten des Internets schützen können." Wie schon – mit einer Zeitschranke für als jugendgefährdend geltende Inhalte im Internet.

Die General Mean Time mag ja in London definiert werden, aber ob sich deswegen Anbieter an der Datumsgrenze an die englischen Regeln halten werden?

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Economics, finance

World Markets: Another One Of Those Days.

It’s another one of those days for global stock markets. To honor the occasion, I thought about linking to one of my favorite management articles of all times, that appeared in the McKinsey Quaterly right before the first dot-com crash in 2000 and is called “Valuing dot-coms” even though the subtitle is far better: “Discounted Cash-Flow Analysis Without Cash-Flow”. Alas, what was available back than without a cash-flow is now only available to premium users, or about USD 150 per annum… now that may be an interesting analogy to the current US housing market.

Be that as it may, here’s a great way to stay updated: the global markets page of the NYT business section makes excellent use of available web technology to visualize a lot of information.

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/worldmarkets/worldmarkets.asp

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oddly enough

Oddly enough – Brothel offers customers gas rebate

Personally, I hate the whole voucheritis that has infected Germany over the last couple of years. I get why marketing departments love them, and yes, if I worked in one of them, I’d probably be infected as well. But as a customer, I find them as annoying as it gets. Although, apparently, not all vouchers are equal, as today’s Reuter’s “oddly enough” reminds me –

NEW YORK Reuters – A Nevada brothel is trying to stimulate business by offering free gasoline.

Clients of the Shady Lady Ranch will get a $50 gas voucher if they fork out $300 — worth about one hour’s worth of services — at the brothel in Beatty, Nevada, 130 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Owner James Davis said he already has had to order another $1,000 set of gas vouchers because the first $1,000 were spent in one week.

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German Politics, privacy

Noch ein Schäuble-Klassiker

Via netzpolitik.org ein Clip, der wohl heute morgen im ARD-Frühstücksmagazin gelaufen ist. Dort gibt es eine Rubrik names “Kinderreporter”. Heute befragten die Kinderreporter Politiker zum Thema Überwachung. Am Ende des kurzen Beitrags mache ich mir vor allem Sorgen über die technische Kompetenz derjenigen, die für die gegenwärtig anstehehende Kodifizierung grundsätzlicher technischer Fragen des menschlichen Zusammenlebens verantwortlich sind. Und natürlich stelle ich mir die Frage, ob man von der Antwort des Innenministers Wolfgang Schäuble auf die Fragen der mit einer Minikamera spielenden Kinder (“Wir wollten Ihnen mal zeigen, wie es ist, wenn man überwacht wird oder ausspioniert.”) auf sein Menschenbild bzw. Demokratieverständnis schließen kann.

“Wir tun aber die Leute nicht ueberwachen und ausspionieren. Nur wenn es ganz schlimme Boesewichter sind, wo die Polizei hingucken muss, aber so brave Kinder wie ihr ueberwachen wir nicht.”

Hier ist das Video –

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Bürgerrechte, intellectual property rights

What Fuckery Is This?

Over at afoe, Alex has put it more eloquently than I would have. Specifically by asking the question above which I probably would have avoided, but which is more than appropriate in this case –

“What fuckery is this? It looks like the French government, having failed to impose an awful record-industry inspired snooping act at home, is trying to policy-launder it through the European Union. The so-called “3 strikes” law foresaw that ISPs would be required to cut off service to anyone who was found downloading or distributing copyrighted material three times – which of course implied that the ISPs would be expected to filter all traffic by content, a wildly grandiose, authoritarian, and insecure idea. (Wonderfully, Nicolas Sarkozy outsourced his Internet policy to a committee led by the owner of a chain of record shops; a little like putting the manufacturers of candles in charge of street lighting.)

But the legislation failed in France; so here it is, coming straight back via the European Parliament. The odd bit, though, seeing as it’s a French idea chiefly backed by the EPP (=European Conservative group), is that it’s being pushed by the British Tories in Brussels – half of whom don’t believe there even should be a European Parliament. Specifically, according to Heise.de (German link), it’s the Tory MEPs Malcolm Harbour and Sayed Kamal. Kamal is responsible for possibly the most egregious tagnut of a clause in the whole thing, which would permit essentially unrestricted telecoms surveillance for the (naturally undefined) “security of a public or private communications system”, and Harbour for the copyright/content-sniffing bit.”

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German Politics

Auch wenn man es eigentlich nicht glauben will…

Kein Wunder, daß die Bundesregierung nichts von den illegalen CIA-Gefangenentransporten durch deutschen Luftraum wußte – sie wollte ja gar nichts wissen…

Bundesinnenminister Schäuble hat es vor dem BND-Untersuchungsausschuss abgelehnt, dass der Verfassungsschutz die Aktivitäten von US-Geheimdiensten in Deutschland mit nachrichtdienstlichen Mitteln beobachtet. Die US-Regierung habe erklärt, dass sie im “Kampf gegen den Terrorismus” die Souveränität und Gesetze anderer Staaten achte. “Ich habe keinen Anlass, daran zu zweifeln”, sagte Schäuble. (via fefes Blog)

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music, songwriting

Suzanne Vega, measure for measure

I simply love Suzanne Vega’s writing about song writing. I think it’s amazing how she can lay out the complex creative process leading up to a lyrically and musically finished and polished song. In her latest entry in the NYT’s measure for measure blog, she writes about being comfortable with being a two hit wonder and about the creative development and production of her 80s hit “Luka”.

Suzanne Vega, Surviving the hits.

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