Karl Hagemeister's art

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Karl Hagemeister (1848-1933) was a German landscape artist. In the 1880s he spent time in Paris where he absorbed impressionistic influences. The play of light and form became more pronounced in his work, and he developed a richer and vibrant color palette. He was well known and regarded in his day. The German hyper-inflation after WWI financially ruined him and he retreated to a more private and eventually less productive phase before his death. 

Karl Hagemeister

Oskar Schlemmer paintings

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Oskar Schlemmer was a German artist active in the first half of the 20th century. He was an early member of the Bauhaus School. Bauhaus was a movement that attempted to merge all of the visual arts types -- architecture, theater, painting, etc. -- into a single uniform style. Bauhaus inspired art featured straight lines, simple planes and a general lack of ornamentation. It was very influential at its height, but the rise of the Nazis put an end to it. Adolf Hitler greatly disliked it. 

Schlemmer started out designing costumes for their theater (and his costumes are every bit as ridiculous as you might imagine), but he eventually moved on to painting. With Hitler's rise he was forced out of his academic positions and maintained a low profile for the rest of his life.

Oskar Schlemmer self-portrait

WWI Fokker DVII biplane

The above video shows the construction methods and workings of a Fokker DVII biplane. The planes entered service in 1918, late in the war, but proved to be an excellent warplane. After the war all existing DVIIs were transferred to the allies as part of the armistice. Below are a pictures of surviving planes. 

 

Carl Gustav Carus paintings

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Carl Gustav Carus was a 19th century German who, as was common among well-bred gentlemen of his day, was multitalented. He was physiologist, philosopher, biologist and a painter. These are some of his paintings. In his art he was of the Romantic school and was interested in capturing the workings of geology. Hence his paintings focus on the landscape, with a lot of ruins and small figures in them.

Carl Gustav Carus

Art of the Franco-Prussian War

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In 1870 Otto von Bismark maneuvered to place Prince Lepold on the Spanish throne. This created a crisis in France because they felt it would have led to them being surrounded by a Prussian/Spanish alliance. Leopold's name was withdrawn, but the crisis simmered. 

In July of 1870 the French, believing they had a much better equipped army, declared war on Prussia. Alas for the French, the Prussians mobilized much quicker and pushed into France. By September the Prussians were besieging Paris. The French government collapsed and the resulting treaty ending the war resulted in the French paying an indemnity to Prussia as well as ceding Alsace and part of Lorraine (one of the grievances that was to lead to WWI). The war also unified Prussia with southern German states, which led to modern Germany. 

These are paintings from that war. They were done after the war and some of them give the 19th Century romantic version of war as a noble thing, Others, at least from the German perspective, commemorated victories. The French paintings tended to nurture grievances that were to fester. 

There are more images after the jump. 

Apocalypse and miracles

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These images are from the Book of Miracles, a German early Renaissance work that shows various miracles, natural disasters and visions of the apocalypse drawn from Biblical sources and legends. There are more examples after the jump.

Gustav Wunderwald paintings

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Gustav Wunderwald was an early 20th century German painter. He started as a scenery painter and set designer, but at the end of WWI he became a full time painter. His final exhibition was in 1934. After that show the Nazi government, who considered his paintings to be improper, prevented him from selling or exhibiting his work. He died in 1945.   

Self portrait

Inside the UB 110, a salvaged WWI German submarine

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In 1918 the UB 110 was sunk. It may have been the last submarine sunk in WWI. The English salvaged it, intending to commission it into their navy, but the war soon ended and UB 110 was scrapped. How they could have ever figured out all the controls and valves needed to sail her is beyond me,

These pictures, and those after the jump are photographs that were taken while she was in dry dock being refitted. They are from Rare Historical Photos post Inside the German submarine SM UB-110, 1918. There are more pictures as well as more information about the UB 110 which, including a possible atrocity at the time of her sinking, at the linked article.

A minor Cold War drama

Mathias Rust landing at Red Square in 1987 (click to enlarge)

In the spring of 1987, in a rather odd stunt to promote world peace, a young German named Mathias Rust flew a circuitous route from Hamburg to Moscow via Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. When he arrived in Moscow he landed near Red Square. From the Rare Historical Pictures post Mathias Rust, the teenager who flew illegally to Red Square, 1987 (which has more details of Rust's flight):

Around 7:00 p.m. Rust appeared above downtown Moscow. He had initially intended to land in the Kremlin, but changed his mind: he reasoned that landing inside, hidden by the Kremlin walls, would have allowed the KGB to simply arrest him and deny the incident. Therefore, he changed his landing spot to Red Square. Heavy pedestrian traffic did not allow him to land there either, so after circling about the square one more time, he was able to land on a bridge by St. Basil’s Cathedral. After taxiing past the cathedral he stopped about 100 metres (330 ft) from the square, where he was greeted by curious passersby and was asked for autographs. When asked where he was from, he replied “Germany” making the bystanders think he was from East Germany; but when he said West Germany, they were surprised.

Rust was arrested two hours later. He was charged with several violations, the most serious being that he had illegally entered Soviet airspace. Rust argued that he was merely trying to promote world peace. He carried with him copies of a plan he had developed for a worldwide democracy, which he referred to as “Iagonia”. Rust’s trial began in Moscow on 2 September 1987. He was sentenced to four years in a general-regime labor camp for hooliganism, for disregard of aviation laws, and for breaching the Soviet border.

Rust was released early and went on to live an eccentric life. In 1989 he fell in love with a West German nurse, only to land in jail again when he stabbed her when she rejected his advances. He was released after 15 months, converted to Hinduism and was engaged to the daughter of an Indian tea merchant. He got in trouble with the law again in 2001 and 2005. Currently he claims he is an advisor for an Swiss investment bank and is still a peace activist of sorts.

Stratfor and Alexandra Maria Lara

The latest article in George Friedman's series on the current state of geopolitics concerns Germany.

NATO, and to a larger degree the EU, were post war organizations that were intended to neutralize Germany's power by binding it to France. 

With German unification, and now the economic difficulties of the EU, there is a shift in power taking place on the continent.

In light of that Friedman considers several possibilities: a rump EU or Germany allied with either France or Russia and discusses the ramifications of each situation.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below. A link to the entire article at Stratfor is at the end of the excerpt.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I looked for a German actress. I ended up with Alexandra Maria Lara, who's actually Romanian, but she moved to Germany at the age of 4. That's close enough for me, and so she gets the honors for this article.

Ms Lara started out on German TV as a teen, but quickly transitioned to film where she has had international success. However, for the sake of this post, her most famous part was as Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's secretary, in the film Der Untergang.

Der Untergang's English name is The Downfall, and from it is the clip of Adolph Hitler ranting and raving that has appeared in about a bajillion parodies. Granted, internet fame like that is hard to top, but I'm sure we all agree that a Hot Stratfor Babe award beats it hands down.


The State of the World: Germany's Strategy By George Friedman, March 12, 2012

The idea of Germany having an independent national strategy runs counter to everything that Germany has wanted to be since World War II and everything the world has wanted from Germany. In a way, the entire structure of modern Europe was created to take advantage of Germany's economic dynamism while avoiding the threat of German domination. In writing about German strategy, I am raising the possibility that the basic structure of Western Europe since World War II and of Europe as a whole since 1991 is coming to a close.

If so, then the question is whether historical patterns of German strategy will emerge or something new is coming. It is, of course, always possible that the old post-war model can be preserved. Whichever it is, the future of German strategy is certainly the most important question in Europe and quite possibly in the world.

Origins of Germany's Strategy

Before 1871, when Germany was fragmented into a large number of small states, it did not pose a challenge to Europe. Rather, it served as a buffer between France on one side and Russia and Austria on the other. Napoleon and his campaign to dominate Europe first changed the status of Germany, both overcoming the barrier and provoking the rise of Prussia, a powerful German entity. Prussia became instrumental in creating a united Germany in 1871, and with that, the geopolitics of Europe changed.

What had been a morass of states became not only a unified country but also the most economically dynamic country in Europe -- and the one with the most substantial ground forces. Germany was also inherently insecure. Lacking any real strategic depth, Germany could not survive a simultaneous attack by France and Russia. Therefore, Germany's core strategy was to prevent the emergence of an alliance between France and Russia. However, in the event that there was no alliance between France and Russia, Germany was always tempted to solve the problem in a more controlled and secure way, by defeating France and ending the threat of an alliance. This is the strategy Germany has chosen for most of its existence.

The dynamism of Germany did not create the effect that Germany wanted. Rather than split France and Russia, the threat of a united Germany drew them together. It was clear to France and Russia that without an alliance, Germany would pick them off individually. In many ways, France and Russia benefited from an economically dynamic Germany. It not only stimulated their own economies but also provided an alternative to British goods and capital. Nevertheless, the economic benefits of relations with Germany did not eliminate the fear of Germany. The idea that economics rule the decisions of nations is insufficient for explaining their behavior.

Germany was confronted with a strategic problem. By the early 20th century the Triple Entente, signed in 1907, had allied Russia, France and the United Kingdom. If they attacked simultaneously at a time of their choosing, these countries could destroy Germany. Therefore, Germany's only defense was to launch a war at a time of its choosing, defeat one of these countries and deal with the others at its leisure. During both World War I and World War II, Germany first struck at France and then turned to deal with Russia while keeping the United Kingdom at bay. In both wars, the strategy failed. In World War I, Germany failed to defeat France and found itself in an extended war on two fronts. In World War II, it defeated France but failed to defeat Russia, allowing time for an Anglo-American counterattack in the west.

Binding Germany to Europe

Germany was divided after World War II. Whatever the first inclinations of the victors, it became clear that a rearmed West Germany was essential if the Soviet Union was going to be contained. If Germany was to be rearmed, its economy had to be encouraged to grow, and what followed was the German economic miracle. Germany again became the most dynamic part of Europe.

The issue was to prevent Germany from returning to the pursuit of an autonomous national strategy, both because it could not resist the Soviet forces to the east by itself and, more important, because the West could not tolerate the re-emergence of divisive and dangerous power politics in Europe. The key was binding Germany to the rest of Europe militarily and economically. Put another way, the key was to make certain that German and French interests coincided, since tension between France and Germany had been one of the triggers of prior wars since 1871. Obviously, this also included other Western European countries, but it was Germany's relationship with France that was most important.

Militarily, German and French interests were tied together under the NATO alliance even after France withdrew from the NATO Military Committee under Charles de Gaulle. Economically, Germany was bound with Europe through the emergence of more sophisticated multilateral economic organizations that ultimately evolved into the European Union.

After World War II, West Germany's strategy was threefold. First, it had to defend itself against the Soviet Union in concert with an alliance that would effectively command its military through NATO. This would limit German sovereignty but eliminate the perception of Germany as a threat. Second, it would align its economy with that of the rest of Europe, pursuing prosperity without undermining the prosperity of other countries. Third, it would exercise internal political sovereignty, reclaiming its rights as a nation without posing a geopolitical threat to Western Europe. After the fall of the Soviet Union, this was extended to include Eastern European states.

The strategy worked well. There was no war with the Soviets. There was no fundamental conflict in Western Europe and certainly none that was military in nature. The European economy in general, and the German economy in particular, surged once East Germany had been reintegrated with West Germany. With reintegration, German internal sovereignty was insured. Most important, France remained linked to Germany via the European Union and NATO. Russia, or what was left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was relatively secure so long as Germany remained part of European structures. The historical strategic problem Germany had faced appeared solved.

Europe's Economic Crisis

The situation became more complex after 2008. Germany's formal relationship with NATO remained intact, but without the common threat of the Soviet Union, the alliance was fracturing over the divergent national interests of its members. The European Union had become Germany's focus, and the bloc had come under intense pressure that made the prior alignment of all European countries more dubious. Germany needed the European Union. It needed it for the reasons that have existed since World War II: as a foundation of its relationship with France and as a means to ensure that national interest would not generate the kinds of conflicts that had existed in the past.

Read the rest of The State of the World: Germany's Strategy at Stratfor.

Stratfor and Brünnhilde

The current Stratfor article by George Friedman discusses the entanglement of Germany and Greece in the current EU financial crisis.

He points out that Greece's debt problem is partly Germany's fault. The German economy rests on exports to the Euro Zone, so German's have had a loose credit policy which has abetted in creating the problem.

Greece has two options, sacrificing its sovereignty as a price for financial aide or defaulting on their debt. Neither choice is a good one, but Greek politics might make default the more palatable option.

The German position is likewise complex, with the reality of their domestic politics as well as the rest of Europe's understandable concern, particularly in light of Germany's performance in the 20th Century, about Germany exerting so much influence in another country's affairs as being worrisome. As a result Germany has a thicket of problems to try to work its way through as well.

It is an interesting article. Below is an excerpt of the start of it, but I recommend you follow the link after the excerpt and read the entire article.

As for the article's Hot Stratfor Babe, of course Brünnhilde was the obvious choice. Not only because she is Teutonic, although that certainly helped her case, but primarily because she is so often associated with the American saying, "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."

Although the origin of the saying is unclear, the most common explanation for it is that the fat lady singing refers to the 10 minute aria sung by Brünnhilde that ends the Götterdämmerung cycle of operas by Richard Wagner. There are other explanations, the most convincing being it is an old Southern expression, "Church ain’t out till the fat lady sings." They are chronicled in this Phrase Finder post if you're interested in pursuing the matter further.

Whatever its origin, regarding the EU financial crisis it looks like it is getting closer and closer to the time that the fat lady finally sings. I do not look forward to the radiating shock wave from that aria.


Germany's Role in Europe and the European Debt CrisisBy George Friedman, January 31, 2012

The German government proposed last week that a European commissioner be appointed to supplant the Greek government. While phrasing the German proposal this way might seem extreme, it is not unreasonable. Under the German proposal, this commissioner would hold power over the Greek national budget and taxation. Since the European Central Bank already controls the Greek currency, the euro, this would effectively transfer control of the Greek government to the European Union, since whoever controls a country's government expenditures, tax rates and monetary policy effectively controls that country. The German proposal therefore would suspend Greek sovereignty and the democratic process as the price of financial aid to Greece.

Though the European Commission rejected the proposal, the concept is far from dead, as it flows directly from the logic of the situation. The Greeks are in the midst of a financial crisis that has made Greece unable to repay money Athens borrowed. Their options are to default on the debt or to negotiate a settlement with their creditors. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union are managing these negotiations.

Any settlement will have three parts. The first is an agreement by creditors to forego repayment on part of the debt. The second is financial help from the IMF and the European Union to help pay back the remaining debt. The third is an agreement by the Greek government to curtail government spending and increase taxes so that it can avoid future sovereign debt crises and repay at least part of the debt.

Bankruptcy and the Nation State

The Germans don't trust the Greeks to keep any bargain, which is not unreasonable given that the Greeks haven't been willing to enforce past agreements. Given this lack of trust, Germany proposed suspending Greek sovereignty by transferring it to a European receiver. This would be a fairly normal process if Greece were a corporation or an individual. In such cases, someone is appointed after bankruptcy or debt restructuring to ensure that a corporation or individual will behave prudently in the future.

A nation state is different. It rests on two assumptions. The first is that the nation represents a uniquely legitimate community whose members share a range of interests and values. The second is that the state arises in some way from the popular will and that only that popular will has the right to determine the state's actions. There is no question that for Europe, the principle of national self-determination is a fundamental moral value. There is no question that Greece is a nation and that its government, according to this principle, is representative of and responsible to the Greek people.

The Germans thus are proposing that Greece, a sovereign country, transfer its right to national self-determination to an overseer. The Germans argue that given the failure of the Greek state, and by extension the Greek public, creditors have the power and moral right to suspend the principle of national self-determination. Given that this argument is being made in Europe, this is a profoundly radical concept. It is important to understand how we got here.

Germany's Part in the Debt Crisis

There were two causes. The first was that Greek democracy, like many democracies, demands benefits for the people from the state, and politicians wishing to be elected must grant these benefits. There is accordingly an inherent pressure on the system to spend excessively. The second cause relates to Germany's status as the world's second-largest exporter. About 40 percent of German gross domestic product comes from exports, much of them to the European Union. For all their discussion of fiscal prudence and care, the Germans have an interest in facilitating consumption and demand for their exports across Europe. Without these exports, Germany would plunge into depression.

Therefore, the Germans have used the institutions and practices of the European Union to maintain demand for their products. Through the currency union, Germany has enabled other eurozone states to access credit at rates their economies didn't merit in their own right. In this sense, Germany encouraged demand for its exports by facilitating irresponsible lending practices across Europe. The degree to which German actions encouraged such imprudent practices -- since German industrial production vastly outstrips its domestic market, making sustained consumption in markets outside Germany critical to German economic prosperity -- is not fully realized.

Read the rest of Germany's Role in Europe and the European Debt Crisis
  

Stratfor and Natassja Kinski

Today's Stratfor article discusses Germany's changed status in the EU in light of the on-going debt crisis in southern Europe. Part of the rationale behind the post-war EU project was containing Germany. At the same time France used Germany's resources to enhance its own status on the world stage.

However, the crisis in southern Europe could only be solved with German capital. Germany has careful to maintain control of the European Financial Security Facility (EFSF), the financial mechanism for conducting the bailouts. As a result Germany, using the EFSF, can dictate terms to the southern European countries coming to it for assistance. At present that means they sacrifice financial autonomy to Berlin, and of course who knows what the future holds.

In addition, Germany is modifying its position with Russia. As a result England and France are both going to need to reconsider their posture and Central Europe once again finds itself sandwiched between two major powers.

For the article's Hot Stratfor babe I naturally decided to select a German actress. Finally, after my usual detailed hunt, I settled on Natassja Kinski for the much coveted honor.

The main appeal in attaching her to this article was that, considering the fact it is about economic crisis, she was involved in the Francis Ford Coppola film One From the Heart. That film was a box office disaster, grossing a little under $640,000 at the box office while costing $26 million to produce. As a result Coppola was forced into bankruptcy 3 times in the next decade and ultimately forced to sell his studio Zeotrope.

Meanwhile Kinsky, who incidentally was not responsible for the film's bombing, continued her prolific film career.

It was a little hard to find an appropriate bonus video of her -- apparently she forgets to get dressed an awful lot before appearing in front of a camera -- but I finally found one, albeit a very strange one. So, after the article you'll find a clip of a very stoned looking Natassja appearing on the David Letterman show. As an added, added bonus she's followed by John Candy who goofs off her earlier appearance. 


GERMANY'S CHOICE: PART 2
By Peter Zeihan and Marko Papic, July 26, 2011

Seventeen months ago, STRATFOR described how the future of Europe was bound to the decision-making processes in Germany. Throughout the post-World War II era, other European countries treated Germany as a feeding trough, bleeding the country for resources (primarily financial) in order to smooth over the rougher portions of their systems. Considering the carnage wrought in World War II, most Europeans -- and even many Germans -- considered this perfectly reasonable right up to the current decade. Germany dutifully followed the orders of the others, most notably the French, and wrote check after check to underwrite European solidarity.

However, with the end of the Cold War and German reunification, the Germans began to stand up for themselves once again. Europe's contemporary financial crisis can be as complicated as one wants to make it, but strip away all the talk of bonds, defaults and credit-default swaps and the core of the matter consists of these three points:

1. Europe cannot function as a unified entity unless someone is in control.
2. At present, Germany is the only country with a large enough economy and population to achieve that control.
3. Being in control comes with a cost: It requires deep and ongoing financial support for the European Union's weaker members.

What happened since STRATFOR published Germany's Choice was a debate within Germany about how central the European Union was to German interests and how much the Germans were willing to pay to keep it intact. With their July 22 approval of a new bailout mechanism -- from which the Greeks immediately received another 109 billion euros -- the Germans made clear their answers to those questions, and with that decision, Europe enters a new era.

The Origins of the Eurozone

The foundations of the European Union were laid in the early post-World War II years, but the critical event happened in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on Monetary Union. In that treaty, the Europeans committed themselves to a common currency and monetary system while scrupulously maintaining national control of fiscal policy, finance and banking. They would share capital but not banks, interest rates but not tax policy. They would also share a currency but none of the political mechanisms required to manage an economy. One of the many inevitable consequences of this was that governments and investors alike assumed that Germany's support for the new common currency was total, that the Germans would back any government that participated fully in Maastricht. As a result, the ability of weaker eurozone members to borrow was drastically improved. In Greece in particular, the rate on government bonds dropped from an 18 percentage-point premium over German bonds to less than 1 percentage point in less than a decade. To put that into context, borrowers of $200,000 mortgages would see their monthly payments drop by $2,500.

Faced with unprecedentedly low capital costs, parts of Europe that had not been economically dynamic in centuries -- in some cases, millennia -- sprang to life. Ireland, Greece, Iberia and southern Italy all experienced the strongest growth they had known in generations. But they were not borrowing money generated locally -- they were not even borrowing against their own income potential. Such borrowing was not simply a government affair. Local banks that normally faced steep financing costs could now access capital as if they were headquartered in Frankfurt and servicing Germans. The cheap credit flooded every corner of the eurozone. It was a subprime mortgage frenzy on a multinational scale, and the party couldn't last forever. The 2008 global financial crisis forced a reckoning all over the world, and in the traditionally poorer parts of Europe the process unearthed the political-financial disconnects of Maastricht. [continued after jump]

Wednesday Links

Russia responds to Obama's election with missiles.

Antitrust kills the Google + Yahoo deal.

The 10 genetic secrets of a cancer revealed.

Obama's scientific policies, in his own words.

British Big Brother wants to monitor and record every single use you make of the internet.

Some electoral map perspective.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace.

The 8-armed animals of yesteryear.

Economic crisis mounts in Germany.

Bacteria you can hold in your hand.

The case against humanitarian intervention.

Friday Links

Why the Republicans must lose!

If you're going to Mars, you better be prepared to stay.

Blowing up Jews in Russia.

10 things to do for a freshly laid-off developer.

The irony of Obama.

Did feathered dinosaurs precede birds?

Lighting up Berlin.

The current state of the cancer art.

Mexico's spreading drug violence.

18 ways to live below your means.

Check out some people in the Living Library.

Chavez expands his empire.

When spiders eat birds.

US Johnny still can't add.

Ready for a brain wipe?

Spend now, tax later.

Friday Links

What Ayers believes.

The fungus that eats pollutants.

Two questions that mattered.

The colors of the brainbow.

$900b gone today. Dow in worst decline since 1931.

Machine learning for a more beautiful you.

You need the $12,000 bulletproof shirt.

Why energy in Germany comes increasingly from Russia.

When character trumps degrees.

Earthquakes in the Midwest.

Trees growing in Antarctica.

Salmon in Switzerland.

2008 rankings of the top 200 worldwide universities.

When doctors go bad.

How the turtle got its shell.

The right to free universal health care.

Errant black holes.

A mouse-bites-snake story.

Friday Links

In a crisis, you want a crisis manager.

Software that spots the spin in political speeches (check out the graph).

Bring on the business failure tax.

Secret Big Brother in Germany.

Selling arms to Iran and Venezuela.

Are crows smarter than monkeys?

Greed beyond irresponsible.

Big Brother for your car.

Bring back the Resolution Trust Corp.

The fastest life on the planet.

The Rosenbergs were definitely spies.

Russia wants a piece of the Arctic.

Friday Links

Are passenger trains doomed in America?

Every body's talking.

Using biofuels is putting people into poverty.

1,000 more German troops for Afghanistan.

It's a fractal world after all.

The wave of Democrats.

It's baaaaaaaaaack!

Facebook takes the lead.

April 16, 1178 BCE.

Brazil the money magnet.

Fat people will pay!

Sunday Links

Introducing Bored.

Tuning out news of American success.

Eight years of wrongness.

Their time has almost come.

More human feet washing onshore in British Columbia.

Let's kill two birds with one stoning.

Introducing Texter.

The Solstice Cyclists.

Paying off a debt with a daughter.

Pi as a crop circle.

The world's new cultural capital?

The growing danger of political segregation.

Wednesday Links

Why startups fail.

Leaders, not whiners.

The solution to poverty is—getting rich.

Lead exposure correlates with criminal behavior.

Using Python to work with the operating system.

Pajamas in Shanghai.

The short history of nerds, from Seuss to Obama.

The false narrative of American defeat.

The free trade paradox.

Diving for treasure with AUVs.

5 essential rules for negotiation.

Wishful thinking about oil.

Introducing Muxfind.

Cells beneath the water (water), cells beneath the mud.

A ray of housing hope?

An honor killing in Germany.

The Messiah of the red-diaper socialists?

Weekly Links

Biofuels are a "crime against humanity".

Labor shortages in China.

Meet The Shadow.

Big German Brother?

Windows Home Server reviewed.

Pirate-hunting robots on the seas.

The world's tiniest radio.

Deathrays made of light—for viruses.

Monkey brains are hardwired for counting.

Food prices are rising.

Every robot lost the race.

Mining humans to circumvent captchas.

In Britain, they came first to track the animals, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an animal; And then they came to track the little children, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a little child; And then they came to track the students....

9 staircases.

87 rattlesnakes.