Great, great Britain is being hilariously useless at the moment. How can a country suck this bad at winter in a temperate climate? For the record, yes, there it is snowing here, right now, and has been for days. And there's quite a lot of snow. And nobody really cares. And, at 47.9°N, I'm quite a bit further South than the British Isles. More to the point, I came across this splendid e-mail by a German expat in England today. I hope this amuses you. You can find the original at Fefes Blog, below is a quick and dirty translation into English by myself.

[...]
I was at Sainsbury's shopping for a proper Sunday lunch.

It was like there was a war on. We might not be able to stop the country with bombs, but after a little ice and snow they're almost about to re-introduce the old ration stamps. Two gigantic vegetable aisles, empty save one or two cabbages and peppers.
[...]

There's more snow in Berlin than here. But this place is in a state of emergency. Normally, when it snows, everybody just goes South and waits for the snow to melt. (Okay, the North knows how to cope with snow, but nobody lives there anyway)
Thing is, it's not melting.
Snow tyres are a completely alien concept. There are barely any snow plows, side streets are still snowed in. No garbage disposal, no mail.

Trains are being cancelled one after another, and are on an emergency schedule anyway. Complete standstill. And everybody's acting like that was normal and adequate. Absolutely normal that people stop going to work at the slightest sign of snow.

[...]

PS: The best bit is that nobody clears the pavement. Apparently, you can't be sued that way if somebody slips, because that'd be an “Act of God”. If you do something, on the other hand, you're aware of the danger and just didn't do it properly. That means that nobody dares and everybody is happy to have an excuse for doing nothing. That's the kind of absurd nonsense they're happy to accept here.
I do keep my pavement free, I'm way too German not to do it.

And the people applaud me like some kind of hero. All I can say is, damn, if you think that's the way to go, do it as well!
[...]

via fefe.

To be fair, there are forms of humorous art only possible where the infrastructure is not in place to free town squares of snow.

They want to take away our coffee machine! First they took our predecessors' sofa, and now this. This is outrageous. Waaaaiiiit… maybe I should start at the beginning. Maybe I should start by telling you who “we” are.

The final two years of Gymnasium in the classic, soon to have been replaced, Bavarian school system is the Kollegstufe. That's like sixth form, for all you English readers. “We” are the Kollegstufe at my school, and, some time in the previous semester, we were granted the luxury of being allowed to use a disused classroom for, on paper, studying, after having complained about not fitting into the corridors for years. Since then, we have turned it into quite a pleasant sitting room which has even managed to remain, for me at least, the best place in the building for actually studying, if only because we got hold of the most comfortable chairs far and wide.

In the region, it is traditional to have a gigantic party after the Abitur exams. An expensive party. So, as Kollegstufe, we organize legendary (for-profit) parties and whatever else we can think of that gets us money. Ergo, we have a budget. A budget that one could put to good use, one that could be used to finance a coffee machine. Best idea ever. What we bought is a Senseo-brand coffee pod machine—a system that works well and produces good coffee that costs less than 9 cents Eurocents, that is per cup, assuming you buy your pods from ALDI.

Naturally, there are quite a few students now that use the machine quite a lot, and drink quite a lot of coffee. It's great, we love it, and are probably addicted. There's always a great atmosphere in that room. Not surprisingly, there is a group of “regulars” that seem to always have a cup, or at least pod, of coffee on themselves. Interestingly, this group consists mostly of art students. And myself of course. Students of physics (sleepless geek zombies?), French (goes well with café) and, well, German, are also good candidates for coffee drinking. But—enough of that.

I am a geek, and this is my week.

I considered entering the Global Geek Week video contest, but, in the end, I came to the conclusion that I'm not that good at vlogging, the prize would probably be relatively useless to anyone living outside the US (like me), and that a nice lengthy blog post would do just as good a job at conveying the thoughts I would have presented in the video.

So, the obvious question is, what is a geek or nerd ? I think it is fair to consider these terms synonymous: some people see differences in the nuance of the terms, and the origins are, obviously, distinct, but nowadays, they mean essentially the same things. Originally, geek is an insult applied by non-geek teenagers to peers who are actually intelligent, know how to read, and get better grades at school. The term is most popularly applied to boys with no social life worth mentioning since these are that tiny bit more alien and scary to the kids that hang around at train stations and smoke all day. Nowadays, the term is most commonly associated with the type that spends all day in front of the computer.

Most of the kids insulted as geeks are actually, or at least potentially, geeks in the way that I'd use the word, which is, I believe, a way that most geeks, at least computer geeks, on the internet would agree to. Geeks are intelligent people that think for themselves and get excited about using their own intellect at the risk of venturing outside the social norm. Geeks are not only intelligent. They actually enjoy it.

As per this definition, quite a lot of people deserve the label “geek.” Let's start with the usual suspects:

As you almost certainly know, blood is a very important part of the human body. It transports all kinds of stuff—oxygen, nutrients, waste products, hormones, diseases. All sorts. As you can see, blood is essential. You probably also know that anyone with, say, a chainsaw and a bit of bad luck can lose more than they would like. What you may not be aware of is the fact that the majority of the population actually requires a blood transfusion at least once at some point during their lifetime. And that's a lot of blood.

So, where does all that blood come from ? With all the scientific advances of the last few millennia, we still aren't able to create synthetic blood with a load of chemicals, and I doubt we will be any time soon, since human blood contains a lot of different living cells that would need to be properly grown. It just isn't that easy. So, obviously, all the blood given to those that need it has to be donated by healthy adults. Strong, healthy adults like you and me. That is why donating blood is important. That is why you should donate blood. Your donations could save lives.

The idea of donating blood scares a lot of people. Maybe you just don't like blood. Maybe you heard of some distant relative passing out after donating blood. Maybe, the last time they collected a blood sample for examination, your doctor's assistant failed to hit your vein five times before getting the stuff. Whatever your concerns may be, there really isn't anything to worry about. Almost all blood donations run smoothly. If you're a healthy, grown-up human being, you will almost certainly be able to cope with the blood loss. he amount of blood donated is 500ml; the average adult contains more than five litres of blood, meaning you'd typically lose less than 10% of your blood. Not that big a deal. The important thing to remember is that the people doing it, taking your blood, taking care of you, know what they're doing. The person sticking the needle into your vein will have done that many times before, there will be trained medics all over. You will be taken care of.

When you plan to donate blood, there are, of course, certain thing you need to pay attention to. You need time. Afterwards, you'll have to relax as much as possible. You need water. Make sure you drink a lot beforehand, and afterwards. Depending on how much you usually drink, add a litre or maybe two of non-alcoholic beverages and you'll be fine. Obviously, you should be well healthy, and you shouldn't be hungry either. As for who is allowed to donate, you have to be at least 18 years of age (there is an upper limit as well), and there has to be a certain gap between donations. In Germany, men may donate blood six times per year, women up to a maximum of four times. In the UK, you can donate about three times a year, I believe.

When I went to donate some of my blood not two weeks ago, I went to a local primary school, where the Bavarian Red Cross Blood Donation Service (BRK Blutspendedienst) was set up for the afternoon. In larger cities, there tend to be permanently open blood donation facilities, but I don't exactly live in a large city. So, I went in, showed my ID, and got a long list of yes/no questions to answer. Are you feeling healthy ?, Have you ever contracted Malaria ?, Do you have HIV ?, Are you pregnant ?—that kind of thing. When I had all of them answered, I had a doctor look over all of that, ask me a few questions, and explain what was going to happen, after which I went to the next desk, where the formalities were finalized, and got to lie down next to all the other donors. Everything was very well organized. Quick chat with a friendly medic, got a needle in my arm, waited ten minutes, done. I didn't even have to look at my blood, or anybody's blood, in fact. Half a litre of blood less pumping through my body, I was given a drink, told to stay put for a while, and then go outside, to the barbecue, and relax some more.

That's what you really need your time for. The formalities at the beginning can take up some time, sure, but you really shouldn't skip the relaxation afterwards. You almost certainly will feel a bit weak. I was told not to stand up for long periods of time. I, like most people, coped perfectly fine, but some people don't, maybe because they're having a bad day, or maybe because their organism simply is fragile. It's always best to stay on site for a bit, because, if something were to happen, you'd be helped. Where I was, everybody got a number stuck to their arm with which it would have been possible to easily find the donated blood in case you need it yourself, all of a sudden. Even if there were some problem, that wouldn't be a problem: everybody on site is a trained medic, there are always doctors there.

As I hope you can see, there really isn't anything to worry about. And remember, your donations could save lives. Ideally, you should donate blood as often as possible, make a commitment of increasing others' chances of survival. If you would like to share your experiences, please do. Below is a list of web sites that you might want to visit. If you know of an equivalent in your country, let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Germany

United Kingdom