Frolics in Berchtesgaden again

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Observer | A world of evil and hope amid the dark pine trees

To build a five-star spa hotel on this spot was always going to be controversial. For an American corporate hotel chain to do so seems, at the very least, eccentric. From my chic, minimalist £130-a-night room with its flat-screen TV, Villeroy and Boch porcelain and Molton Brown toiletries I can look down the Obersalzberg mountain to the town of Berchtesgaden in the valley below, I can see the woods where Hitler walked with his mistress Eva Braun; see where his henchmen, Goering and Bormann, had their houses; see the site of the old SS barracks. Unlovely ghosts.

Most of the original buildings have long since been demolished. Hitler’s own residence, the Berghof, was flattened by Allied bombers in 1945. But the legacy of the Nazi era, when the party annexed a 100-acre area, turfing out farmers and creating a summer holiday resort for the top brass of the Third Reich, is not comfortable baggage for any hotel to carry. All the feng shui in China cannot sweeten this site.

Inevitably, the building of the InterContinental – a striking modern edifice with cool, white walls and huge windows affording panoramic views – sparked fierce debate in Germany. Last year, Michel Friedman, a former deputy head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, led the protests. ‘The use of the site as a hotel masks the historical reality. Such places should be preserved and used for a totally different purpose.’

I went to Berchtesgaden once, just to see what remained. It’s an eerie place, with stunning views — and those ghosts.

Software patents in Europe

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My Observer rant on this subject is here. I’ve suggested that people find out who their MEPs are and email them on the issue. I’ve also provided a suggested draft text in the hope that it will make it easier for readers to lobby.

More: Bill Thompson, who has written persuasively about software patents before, suggests using Write to Them, a lovely web service created by Tom Steinberg. All you need is to enter your postcode and the names of your public representatives are revealed.

Another great American invention — Gas-Guzzling Hybrids

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MIT Technology Review

In December, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler showed off the technology at the heart of their recently ­announced hybrid-car partnership. The companies said that the transmission packaged with two electric motors would be in vehicles for sale in 2007, boosting their fuel economy by 25 percent. GMs announcement claimed it would advance the state of hybrid technology in the industry. But the system will, in the end, produce an SUV that averages about 20 miles per gallon instead of 16; the Toyota Prius hybrid averages 55.

Time to abandon AIM

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According to this, AOL have modified their terms and conditions to read:

Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

If this is true, then nobody should use AIM. Useful though it has been, it’s time to call a halt.

Quote of the day

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“People have changed more than the organisations on which their well-being depends.”

Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin: The Support Economy.

Patently crackers

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US Patent # 5,443,036

“A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.”

But this pales into insignificance compared with another one Quentin pointed me at. It’s U.S. Patent # 4,022,227: “Method of concealing partial baldness.” It describes “a method of styling hair to cover partial baldness using only the hair on a person’s head. The hair styling requires dividing a person’s hair into three sections and carefully folding one section over another. “ A diagram may be helpful here:

Intel: abusive monopolists — us?

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From Good Morning, SiliconValley

It’s been almost a year since Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raided Intel’s offices in Tokyo looking for evidence that the company illegally pressured computer-makers to use its microchips. Now, it seems the katana has finally fallen. Over the weekend, the commission, which enforces the country’s Anti-Monopoly Law, ruled that Intel’s Japanese subsidiary stifled competition by offering rebates and discounts to five Japanese PC makers on condition that they agreed either not to buy or to limit their purchases of chips made by rivals AMD and Transmeta. “In this case, a company with a dominant market position squeezed out rivals by doing business with the five major PC makers on condition of not using competitors’ chips,” a JFTC official told reporters. Intel, for its part, says it did nothing of the sort, although that is difficult to believe when the combined Japan market share of AMD and Transmeta dropped from 24 percent to 11 percent during the period in question, while Intel’s rose from 76 percent to 89 percent. In any event, the company has 10 days to decide whether to appeal the order, and if it does, the case would go through the commission’s judicial review process.