If you raise ravens...

Install Snow Leopard on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required (Lifehacker)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:44:59 +0100

Install Snow Leopard on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required (Lifehacker):

Two weeks ago I detailed how to build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, start to finish, with a little Terminal work. If you’re not comfortable with command-line hacking, you can now install Snow…

Remains of 1,800 German civilians found in wartime mass grave in Malbork, Poland, formerly Marienburg | World news | guardian.co.uk

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:45:34 +0000

Remains of 1,800 German civilians found in wartime mass grave in Malbork, Poland, formerly Marienburg | World news | guardian.co.uk

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Red Army Faction boss to be freed

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:04:27 +0000

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Red Army Faction boss to be freed:

Am I being cynical when I view this as a publicity stunt?

Architectural plans for Auschwitz have been discovered

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:34:43 +0000

Architectural plans for Auschwitz have been discovered:

The blueprints of genocide. Gruesome discovery in a Berlin Flat. Mass Murder rendered in plan and to scale, straight lines and precision. All on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Kate Connolly on the new film about the Baader Meinhoff terrorist gang | Film | guardian.co.uk

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:14:59 +0100

Kate Connolly on the new film about the Baader Meinhoff terrorist gang | Film | guardian.co.uk:

This podcast by Kate Connolly is pretty cursory but is notable for a number of factors, mostly omissions. Firstly, I don’t know how in the contemporary discourse of German film they manage to miss mention of Das Leben Der Anderen and instead point to earlier films like Untergang and Goodbye, Lenin! I can see the point that is being made that the ‘toxic waste’ of 20th Century German History is being processed for big Euros at the box office.
If, indeed, the new Baader Meinhof film does, as it claims to do - debunk the ‘Prada Meinhof’ terrorist chic it doesn’t seem to lead to a greater debate about the obfuscation of the real and unresolved issues of the German past. Why is it that guilt is seen to be laundered like so many ill-gotten gains through popularist whitewashing? Is this not really the struggle faced by German filmakers from the outset from 1946 onwards? Is this failure to deal with the past not the misguided trigger for the actions of the R.A.F. themselves?
As for Ostalgia and Terrorist Chic that these films represent or claim to debunk - are these phenomena simply part of the uncritical digestive system of the body of german politic, so to speak?
The fact remains critical films about the german past made by germans are few and far between (I can think of a couple only, The Nasty Girl and to a lesser extent Der Untertan) - critical films, films which are unflinching in their exposure of the horrors of the third reich, for example, are left to the accusers who suffered at the hands of the ‘meister aus Deutschland’.
If there is to be true ‘vergeangenheitsbewaeltigung’ then it must be a german cinema that is the sharpest critic in exposing it’s own past and it’s own complicity.
I don’t see that happening soon.

How Sweden Solved Its Bank Crisis - NYTimes.com

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:46:24 +0100

How Sweden Solved Its Bank Crisis - NYTimes.com:

Funny how this would never fly in the USA.
Taxpayers can take the burden whilst the Banks get that most unholy absolution and don’t even have to say a hail mary.

So what’s this about the failures of Socialism again? How about the failures of Capitalism? It leaves most of the planet on starvation wages and benefits fools who get so greedy they kill the golden goose. It’s ok though, the taxpayers will bail them out. If they want any healthcare they’ll have to buy into the insurance scam or well.. y’know… die.

Humberto Solás, 1941-2008

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:20:00 +0100

Humberto Solás, 1941-2008:

Fiery and intense Cuban film director, probably most famous for ‘Lucia’, a triptych of Cuban historical eras with stylistic turns to match, Humberto Solas also adapted Alejo Carptentier’s historical epic ‘The lost steps’ in 1991. Most recently he championed ‘no budget’ digital film making, setting up a Festival in Cuba for this self-styled ‘Cinema of Poverty’.

BBC: Compact and bijou - the slums of tomorrow?

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:54:54 +0100

BBC: Compact and bijou - the slums of tomorrow?:

The alienated pod revealed. As usual real-world design has more to do with what profiteering corporate building contractors can get away with to increase those profit margins. Like proverbial toads in a kettle we’ll just take it - mainly because we can’t afford not to and frankly have never expected anything better.

The siege mentality that comes from having such small defended spaces creates a city run on anxiety.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | East German spy swap fixer dies

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:16:20 +0100

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | East German spy swap fixer dies:

The stuff of spy fiction and tales of derring-do in the frosty mornings on a bridge in the deepest winters of cold war Berlin. I wonder how many secrets he took with him to his grave? Fascinating man. RIP.

BGH-Urteil - Ex-RAF-Terroristen müssen nicht in Beugehaft (SdZ)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:15:00 +0100

BGH-Urteil - Ex-RAF-Terroristen müssen nicht in Beugehaft (SdZ):

Terrorists from another era of terrorism seem so benign, so idealistic - naiive, even.
But I remember the photographs at the post office in West Germany. Square, black and white blurry images of hard faces, women with strange contemptuous gazes. All presented in a context of fear next to the gaping maw of the Rabies poster.

Kafka, überscharf - NZZ

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:05:29 +0100

Kafka, überscharf - NZZ:

“Doch steckt die Kafka-Forschung schon seit längerem nicht mehr in den sechziger Jahren und kann man solches in zahlreichen Publikationen nachlesen, wenn man denn will. Kafka aus dem Hermetismus der Hermeneutiker «ausbaggern» zu wollen, ist schon recht, doch dazu muss man zuerst der Grube der eigenen Vorurteile entstiegen sein. Warum es so menschelt gerade in der Kafka-Forschung, wäre ein eigener Forschungszweig.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:11:30 +0100

Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89:

Cantankerous, maverick, eccentric or ultimately plain old nuts. There has to be a marking of his passing. In the tradition of Tolstoy and the grand romantic deluded aristocrats in a republic he was the cultural face of Russia when all we had otherwise in the west was sleet and tanks endlessly parading before the politburo greys at the kremlin. He gave voice to the Gulags, the immense crimes of ‘uncle’ Stalin. A survivor and champion of the older Russia he was both icon and iconoclast. Do Sevdanye, Aleksandr…

Times Higher Education - All the privileged must have prizes

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:54:44 +0100

Times Higher Education - All the privileged must have prizes:

Grade inflation, or how an american university education is worthless.

I saw this myself when visiting Harvard 2002-2003. Money runs the show and nobody gets a a C average anymore. I thought Oxbridge was bad in terms of over-privileged brats. Frankly, they could not hold a candle to the Harvard crowd. Getting to Harvard ensured them a lifelong ticket to success, just being there was adequate. A GPA can be fixed by a complaint to Daddy or the Dean.

A lost heritage: Nazi pictures reveal full devastation wreaked by allied bombers | World news | The Guardian

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:27:20 +0100

A lost heritage: Nazi pictures reveal full devastation wreaked by allied bombers | World news | The Guardian:

Before the bombs fell and the rebuilding in the image of other ideologies took place.

In Praise of Kipple #001

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:19:16 +0100

The Sejin SPR 8695 Mini Keyboard.

PS/2 (but runs fine with a USB adapter) Simple, reassuringly two-tone beige and grey like all computers should be in their souls and utterly nondescript.

Stamped out in some Korean factory by the hundreds, stacked high in backrooms, or in cardboard boxes with countless cables and ethernet cards. The staple filler of electronic junk salad in tiny electro-kipple shops from Katowice to Taipei. Unloved and thrown in free with a mouse to those who buy the bigger ticket anachronisms or simply left in the buffet bin for a quid or a dollar.

This is the soft forest floor of hypermodernity, endless brand-less electro-mulch. A testament to function over form and anonymity over name. No one got excited to get a Sejin SPR 8695 Mini Keyboard, no one can remember a new one. Not many noticed the satisfying keypress, fewer still the adjustable height flaps at the back.

Yet it is a thing of wonder in the morass of the deprecated and the mass produced forgotten.

Raphael Grignani - Thoughts

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:20:39 +0100

Raphael Grignani - Thoughts:

Really great news, My friend Raphael can walk unassisted as of today. A horrible snowboarding accident literally tore his reality from under him. In the time it took him to recover, our daughter Clara, walked. A sobering thought.

Yes, file under mortal and personal observations.

Good luck with the rest of your recovery, Raphael!

Lost Metropolis footage could finally make sense of Lang's sprawling classic | Film | guardian.co.uk

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:12:00 +0100

Lost Metropolis footage could finally make sense of Lang's sprawling classic | Film | guardian.co.uk:

A glorious critical and (un)popular disaster for Fritz Lang, but this was decades, maybe centuries ahead of its time. Every dystopian nightmare-scape from Brazil to Blade Runner to Alphaville owes it a debt beyond measure, and I’m not even including the legacy left to post-apocalyptic anime greats like Akira
Now the film is complete,or as complete as it can ever hope to be. I cannot wait. Metrolpolis in its distributed and butchered version was confusing at best. But a master like Lang has reasons for things and to cut away at it is to drill holes in a magnificent ship.
Lets hope the Museum in Buenos Aires and the Murnau foundation can come to a quick resolution and this can be made available for all to see.

DEFA 'Befrieung' DVDs out (Not that you care)

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:39:39 +0100

befreiung.mov (video/quicktime Object)

The Liberation of Europe in Mega-Epic style brought to you by the people who (yes, yanks you will hate this, but it’s true) actually liberated Europe.

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:31:00 +0100

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | guardian.co.uk:

Bruce Schneier points out the Elephant in the room or the naked monach - whichever you prefer. The Mythology of public fear as enacted by cinematic cultural tropes: like the spy cameras, the fake tourist. The Camera under terrorised conditions is a suspect device.
I think it serves another purpose - the Camera, once that symbol of easy-giong feel-good snaps - that ‘kodak moment’ machine of happy memory must be basnished. To take pictures of buildings must be construed as a precursor to blowing them up. The Anxiety society demands action and to underscore the helplessness new rituals must be performed, new Ghostdances played out.
The symbolic value of objects must be altered to meet the panic needs of the powerless. What better object to demonise than the camera. No more rodney kings caught on film. The power of surviellance under these conditions belongs entirely with the state.

French elite declare the Bobo extinct | World news | The Observer

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:42:35 +0100

French elite declare the Bobo extinct | World news | The Observer:

So this is it?

Maybe. It’s perhaps fitting that the Mai 68.ers are into thier 60’s and their Bobo kids are, like me, into middle age. Perhaps Boboism - with no small debt to that raving neo-conazi David Brooks - was a misnomer. 68ers had the priveldge of a form of self-definition. BoBos. Well it was always pejorative and it was always inevitable. Hypocrisy, as ever is reserved for those who profess a moral standard. Raving libertarians and the myopic resentful right aviod the minefield by laying the mines.

Do I feel sorry for the BoBo? Not really. If he or she ever existed it was only in the distainful gaze of others. True decadence is reserved for those who get to define themselves and make everyone else feel small about it.

As for Generations, X, Y Z… we’re out of alphabet and the ‘WhatevAR’ generation could give a shit about your columns in the LRB or your knowing chuckle at New Yorker cartoons. It’s ok David Brooks, your side won. We have a generation of egotistical little capitalists with an unquenchable sense of entitlement. Don’t blame it on some dead operatic ghost of Socialism. You know it’s bullshit. It’s your doing. Keeping it ‘real’, aspirational celebrity ‘culture’. The trouble with wrecking elitism with a sneer, is that you devalue criticism.

Think on that as the bored ASBO teen feeds you your hospital mush when you’re bedridden in your final days.