Power Lies (and truths (and rumors)) (I)

Sorry, but I just can’t leave the recent public discussion about Nuclear Energy (or maybe Nuclear Power would suit better) uncommented. So here comes my first comment/lament about what I’d like to call ‘Power Lies (and truths (and rumors))’.

First of all, for those who don’t know: I grew up in a rural area in the North of Germany, known for its almost untouched nature, its friendly farmers – and a number of facilities for handling radioactive waste. The whole project is under construction since the 70ies (ongoing), but the first containers named ‘CASTOR’ are already delivered since the mid-90ies.
As long as I can think (literally) I just know that Nucluear Power is not only dangerous, but also simply the wrong way to go.

That said I’ll now come to the first (and actually my favourite) ‘Power Lie’: the Carbon Dioxide Reduction Lie:
Yes, it is true that nuclear power plants can help to reduce the production of carbon dioxide – locally. Once a nuclear power plant is all built and then fed with fuel rods (those nasty parts that radiate very actively and that get so hot that you can boil water with ‘em – which makes a nuclear power plant what it is) a it will basically only emit hot water – and therefore it does not emit carbon dioxide directly.
But until a nuclear power plant is actually built and fed with fuel rods a lot of carbon dioxide is emitted – mostly in the countries where the fuel rods are produced. To compare the actual numbers a so called ‘Life Cycle Analysis’ helps to figure out, what the actual CO2-footprint of a technology is. The exact numbers seem to vary very much though – depending on what is actually compared – and also depending on who actually paid the research.
So.. – ..maybe next time you hear someone saying something like “Nuclear Energy helps reducing carbon dioxide emissions” you can add a little “locally!“.

please feel free to browse on:
-> Greenpeace’s campain page ‘End the nuclear age’ (www.greenpeace.org)
-> Elena’s Motorcyle Ride through Chernobyl (www.kiddofspeed.com)

Happy New..

..Yeah! ..:]

I can’t believe, how seldomly I seem to be blogging on this page..! This shall change..! ..at least I thought it would be a great to try..:|

I would actually have enough good excuses for this grievance – but I don’t want to blame any of my projects for not taking the time for my projects.. – ..that would be just too much. Instead I’ll try to make things better – and write about this time problem.. which solves it already half-way.
This might sound a bit complicated, but I think it’ll work..:]

By the way: I write, post and blog also on other websites.. and one brand new (german) page is located at blog.zeit.de/design, a freshly started blog called Ding-Pong-Blog – a dialogue about the things and the design of the things of everyday life.

well.. greetz, t..

..last post before christmas..?

might be. Time is running, cant’t believe that the last tillintallin-update happened already three months ago! Well. So.

The last post was about the elections.. It actually took also the german government some time to update.. but now they’re ready for take-off – and Germany has its first female “Bundeskanzlerin” – Angela Merkel.
“Bundeskanzlerin” was also just selected to be “the word of the year 2005″. Hm.

Enough for now..? Enough for now.

..to be continued..

some thoughts about the german elections

“..everyone’s a winner”..:)

First I was not so shure if I should really try to comment anything on Germany’s elections – but now it seems as if I’m already quite involved (e.g. with a project, which is documented in my portfolio) ..so I’ll give it a try and post some thoughts about the current situation.. Well. Here we go..:

The first numbers are published – and it seems as if neither of the two “Dream Coalitions” can rule the country: neither the “red-green” coalition of Gerhard Schroeder’s centre-left Social Democrats Party (SPD) and the Green Party, nor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) together with the Free Democrats Party (FDP) got enough votes to form a government.

So theoretically one of the following four scenarious would still be possible:

1) the “Great Coalition”
..between Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Schroeder’s centre-left Social Democrats Party (SPD)

2) the “Traffic Light”
..between “red” (Social Democrats Party SPD), “yellow” (Free Democrats FDP) and “green” (the Green Party)

3) the “black-yellow-green” coalition
..because of the colors it’s also sometimes called the “Jamaikan Coalition”..: between “black” (Christian Democrats CDU/CSU), “yellow” (Free Democrats FDP) and “green” (the Green Party)

4) the “red-red” coalition
..between the Social Democrats Party SPD and the left-wing “PDS/Linke”

At the very moment neither of the four scenarions seems to be possible – or let’s rather say “wanted”. At least if you listen to what “they” say on TV..:)

..to be continued..

The Day After Yesterday

So – I didn’t see Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″ yet, but I saw “The Day After Tomorrow”. And with both movies I connect some great hope: that the U.S. of America Mr.George Double-U and his friends will come back to a state that could be called ‘normal’, stop that self-destructive paranoia, sign the Kyoto Protocol!
And, please, kids, don’t believe -everything- that somebody with pockets full of money and a mind full of …interests… tells you!

-thanks- !

And now for the picture of this post: Berlin is full of shit – literally! – dogs’ shit. So some people invented different ways of making the shit obvious, so that other won’t step into it… which is nice :)

Berlin – Budapest – Berlin

well…

this is my favourite WELTZEITUHR. It only shows the current time of cities, that are on the same time-zone as Berlin :)
I have no clue who actually did this modification – but i love it.

More about this matter will be posted soon…
Have a nice weekend! t_;_,_,___ _ _ _

so this is what you get

1) This picture is actually some months old already. It’s a hand made screenshot of a wurst-cast-szenario:: a damaged Rammstein :) which is not only a german band name but also what i call these small black extra memory sticks that you may plug in to your favourite machine to make it remember a bit better what it was just doing… a RAM-brick.
After plugging in another 512MB, my t-board did not even remember who it was (and if:: how many?!¿)
So:: be careful if you want to do something _good_ to your favourite machine…

2) The other reason for this posting is that i wanted to spread the well of having a small script keeping selected domains from hijacking graphics, stealing bandwidth, funking up you logs’n’stats, misbehaving.

Here it comes::

SetEnvIfNoCase Referer “^http://cybertowns.kom” zucker
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer “^http://www.cybertowns.kom” zucker
Deny from env=zucker

Happy new GEMA! Happy new MiniDisco!

besides all these news about war-preparations, oil on coasts, rising taxes, UB40 on the radio – and all these small- and large-scale Wurst-Case-Szenarios there also seems to be some glittering sparkles at the horizont: The GEMA for example just turned 100 (congratz!) and took the chance to underline the importance of the private-use-copy :) that we all love so much these days.

wow.

Thank you, Grand-Madame de la Musique-Business, have another nice 100 years, and please dont forget the self-made Ministars, the original artists and all the brave kids in their basements, garages and fox-holes, cursing, rehearsing, rockin and rollin…

Makes me wonder about the propagana of the music-industry, that already made even some close friends of mine think that the private-use-copy was already illegal. Bullshit :) comrades! Of cause you may still not steal music – but that`s a different game.
You may instead visit friends with your MiniDisco-Recorder or the Powerbook of your choice and have a coffee-session, just like it was in the good old times of compact tapes (you still have yours somewhere in some box?)

And besides this, i can only recommend you to let somebody repair your favourite broken device! YES! FINALLY! DO IT! Just go to go to your local electronics-dealer and ask him for a special offer for a maintenance session for your favourite broken device! Happiness might be guaranteed!
– And if you have a picture of your favourite broken device then please dont hesitate to send it to me :) and i’ll post it in a brand new BokenDevices-Section or so
> mail AT till in tallin DOT net
!!!schönkedan!!!

greetinx, t_;_,_,___ _ _ _

Time for… (”Zeit für..”)

sooo… this was the other picture i wanted to upload for Your very viewing pleasures :)
The poster – or whatever is left – used to say “Zeit für Taten” … which means something like “Time for Action” … which again was taken quite serious by somebody :) but since it’s a poster of the bavarian right wing party it is not that dramatic. I mean there were alwayss these misunderstandings between the bavarian people and the rest. And maybe it’s even better if these misunderstandings come out quite clear !b!e!f!o!r!e! the elections – rather than !a!f!t!e!r! the elections…
I actually dont know if you know what i mean – i can just say that it might be their own fault, if their “time for action” posters are taken apart – since their campain seems not to be 100% clear to the people and they obviously understand it their ways anyways :)

and tomorrow (in a few hours) i will go to my local voting booth and decide about germany’s future governmen. ouch!
Actually i only found out on CNN how important my HomeZone seems to be – since it’s not clear, if the PDS is -in- or -out- … and that again might decide about the majorities and minorities and the all the rest…

ok. now it’s time to go to sleep – so that i won’t make any mistakes tomorrow X]

gdnght, t_;_,_,___ _ _ _

Berlin Fernsehturm

Flood on the river Elbe

Picking up some things from my parents’ place close to the river Elbe, i witnessed some of the preparation…
This is also where i took this picture – showing some Red-Cross-Army-Truck approaching the “Dömitzer Brücke”.
The atmosphere in that area is tense. Since the rivers are at higher levels than ever before, everybody’s one and only subject seems to be “The Flood”. Farmers are either bringing their goods and animals to safe places or sandbags to where they’re needed most urgent. Convoys of Firefighters, THW, Police, Army, Ambulance and sand carrying Trucks come and go to every direction, rushing through villages, dominating the scene.

I actually don’t know what to write – you might have guessed that already. Compared to the floods in China and elsewhere, the european floods are rather easy to handle – but still it is a strange feeling to see your own homearea in such a state of emergency.

Only now people seem to understand some of the consequences of “The Flood”, affecting vast areas around the rivers Elbe and Donau. Since the floods moved further down the rivers, scenes of destruction are left behind. Many towns and villages, through wich the floods went, look more or less like devastated battlefields, covered by layers of nauseating contaminated mud.
The powers of the waters are the one problem, making buildings collapse, destroying roads and railways (20% of the railroad-tracks of Sachsen-Anhalt have been demolished so far). The other problem is this mud, covering the left behind areas. On the news they only say, it might be a risk for peoples health – nobody should touch it or even eat anything that was in contact with the water. There must be millions of liters of oil, thousands of dead animals, tons of chemicals and who-knows-what-else going down the rivers, endangering natural parks and of going down the drain.
It is said that many people have lost “everything” but their lives – although it is not possible yet to overview what has actually happened and what will still happen.
It seems as if the only fact that is certain at the moment is, that it is a desaster – and it will cost a lot.

I just hope that this crisis will make people think, care and act about the environment more serious. I could now also write again something about cowboys and the Kioto Protocol – but maybe i skip that for now.

t_;_,_,___ _ _ _

PS 01:: Sign the Protocol, Mr. Scrub!
PS 02:: You may hunt down terrorists or not – but you can’t hunt down the weather!

>>> Elbe-Jeetzel-Zeitung
>>> >Hitzacker on CNN