Quotes

Declaring People Terrorists so They Don’t Become It

Remarkable (para-)phrase attributed to French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic :

Declaring people terrorists–who are not–so they don’t become it.

This is to become the basis for new French “anti-terror” legislation.

I couldn’t find the original (French) quote, but a German translation of it.

Es gibt Leute, die man als Terroristen kennzeichnet, damit sie es nicht werden.

Which translates into something like

There’re people who get branded terrorists so they don’t become it.

Poetic APIs

During PyCon 2014 Erik Rose gave a very insightful talk about dos and don’ts of designing APIs. Towards the end he “gets meta” and groups all his points into categories drawing connections how different design goals influence each other. You see two main groups–”lingual” and “mathematical”–and he closes with this gem: 😀

This spotlights something that programming languages have over ordinary human languages. Programs are alive! They not only mean things when people read them, but they actually do things when run. So, very literally a program with carefully chosen symbols is poetry in motion.
— Erik Rose (PyCon 2014)

https://youtu.be/JQYnFyG7A8c

Patlabor 2

This movie was truly way before its time … living in the post-9/11 world, seeing that this plot is from 1993 gives me goose bumps. *shiver*

Anyway, one of the most beautiful scenes has two characters have a more philosophical discussion set to a very “dreamy” (almost hypnotic) visual and audio backdrop:

Arakawa:
What are you, the police officer, and I the JSDF officer, trying to defend? It’s been half a century since the last war. Neither you nor I have experienced a war. “Peace” … Peace is what we’re supposed to defend. But what is the peace of this city, this nation? The all-out war and the defeat. The US occupation policy. The Cold War under the nuclear umbrella and the proxy wars. And civil wars still go on in many nations of the world. Ethnic clash, military conflict. Blood-drenched economical prosperity created and sustained by those countless wars. That’s what’s behind our peace. Peace created by an indiscriminate fear of war. An unjust peace that is maintained by having the wars elsewhere, but we keep denying ourselves this truth.

Goto:
No matter how phony the peace may be, it’s our job to defend it. No matter how unjust it may be, it’s better than a just war.

Arakawa:
I understand how you hate “just wars.” Whoever said that word was never half decent. History is filled with people who fell from grace believing in that. But you know only too well that there isn’t much of a difference between a just war and an unjust peace. Ever since the word “Peace” became the excuse of liars, we lost our faith in peace. Just as war creates peace, peace also creates war. A make-believe peace that’s merely the period between two wars will eventually give way to real war. Have you ever thought about that?
While receiving the benefits of war, they’re hiding the truth behind the TV screen. Forgetting that they’re merely at the rear of the battle front … or rather pretending to forget about it. Such deceit will be punished sooner or later.

Mother’s Day Haikus

Here some Haikus for Mother’s Day:

Mothers never stop
No weekends nor holidays
A whirlwind of care

Ein Geschenk Allahs
Zu Füßen das Paradies
Auf Erdn zu Lieben

Tanten wie Mütter
Unermüdlich, hilfsbereit
Sonntags Kaffeklatsch

Sadly this is not from me. :/

Anne Babamız
Allah dâim korusun
Cennette mekân