dengou

I would think so. I was born in '89, so naturally haven't lived the GDR or the few years of chaos after the Fall. But it's still all too recently that things were still changing and not yet there where they should have been when I went to school. We had a lot of changes for our schools and my Gymnasium went through a lot of testing (in addition to changes). Living in Berlin, we didn't have enough teachers, so there are few more factors here aswell. But still, having teachers who teached in the GDR are of course prone to be different from teachers from FRG. My history and geography teacher who lived in the GDR always told us stories about his life. Because the school system allowed it back then he was able to choose the topics himself a bit. He went overboard with GDR/FRG of course, making the Third Reich a very short few weeks (!). In geography he mainly teached about things that were more relevent to GDR knowledge and we even had a GDR music history class one time (I enjoyed that). I wouldn't say that's bad, but still kind of one-sided in the end. I can think of many more examples like him, but not many are/were that open about it as him.

I went to school in the former East, my parents were from the East, I grew up mainly in the East. I was brought up with a mindset that is influenced by the East you could say.

On the topic of WWII: What I gathered from speaking to family and teachers (from GDR) is, that their education on these matters was definitively different from the FRG. I can't speak in details here, since I don't remember how exactly they handled it but it wasn't detailed nor openly. I should probably try to get to the bottom of this again with a few people.

Turns out there is a lot to cover in our history for the past hundred years (and more).

German here too. My personal experience that a lot of outsiders have a much better understanding of the whole topic than most Germans. It sometimes feels as if everyone was forced to have one predefined view of the whole thing that is practically "It was bad, evil and we should feel guilty. Let's move on." Most people don't go beyond that and whenever I talk about things like that with people they will argue that we as a nation are educated on our history. I strongly belief that this is not the case if you don't venture into our history yourself. Like you said, everyone settles for the evil approach and doesn't want to think about it.

I think that's wrong. For the most part because there is this huge veil of silence drawn and you really can't speak open about it without causing commotion. There is such touch of forbiddeness about it and even though it didn't even happen 100 years ago people tend to dismiss everything as if it was ancient history. The same applies to WWI and our colinisation history. As if we tried so hard to dissociate ourselves from these events that we have become disconnected. And I do think we have to connect ourselves to these things. It's like this country has only existed for the last 25 years sometimes. Everything before that is alien, something else. Unless it was good, because we can deal with good things. Let's not talk about bad things.

For one thing, and this is purely based on my personal habitat and school experience, education in school and outside school is terrible or even non-existant. Half-hearted really. I grew up with mostly old-fashioned GDR teachers and most of them grew up in a system that wasn't transparent either, so most of them have a hard time opening up to an extent. But still, they had to abide to school progams. For my time and from what I have heard from others, these things weren't that good. In fact, most of my classes were about the wars. Just plain politics and tactics. I don't think we ever had a deep conversation about the chemical warfare and Germany's role in it in WWI in class. I could probably go on and on about all of the topics that were left untouched. We also never visited a KZ in school. Which is shameful since Sachsenhausen isn't even 40 minutes away. This was at a Gymnasium (high school) of course.

I am glad that I've spend countless hours of self-education on these matters and an interest in confronting these topics via litarature, movies and art. And even though I don't remember all the dates, names and facts I was able to gain a better understanding about these times. It pains me when people don't want to engage with that and blissfully go on into ignorance. I feel ashamed for my country. Not because of what happened in the past, but how we handle our past.

I realize that I might have been just really unlucky with my provided education and that other schools, parents or communities might have done better. There are quite a few memorials, landmarks and communities that are really fitting and do a marvelous job at educating these things. But that doesn't stop the feeling that Germany is really bad at coping with it's past all over the board.

I just reminded myself that milo made a new album just a few months ago. So the flies don't come might be my favorite album this year. He already had an album out under his scallops hotel project but I kind of like his milo stuff a lot more and this is no exception. Milo is just exceptionally great.

I kind of love to bike below 40 degrees. With the right clothing, dry streets/tracks and low wind speeds it's all fun. I'll usually won't go as far as in the other seasons though. After some time it's just hard to not get cold.

Biking around here in the city is really stressful and frustrating sometimes. Half of the time Berlin traffic is just not friendly at all and you kind of have to look out for yourself all the time. I still bike anywhere and anywhen. You can hardly be any faster than bikes in this city. Everything is in reach and we don't have altitude differences. That's why my 8 gear shift is all I need to be fast with the ability to go long routes. It's not very sporty and more of a looker but I get good speeds since it's really light. Managed to easily do longer tours through the landscape around here too. Got it for 2 years now and wouldn't want to exchange it. Although a nice racing bike would be awesome too. But hey who wouldn't want to have multiple awesome bikes.

/edit: Today was the first day below 30 degrees where I could drive. Wet, windy, but still a lot of fun. I totally forgot how good my winter biking clothes are.

Well done, splendid analysis.

I will hold you to these predictions, sir!

I'll just add a few games to TobbRobbs's suggestions for 2D games:

• Never Alone
• Ori and the Blind Forest (I'll gladly repeat that, although a tough platformer)
• Child of Light
• The Swapper
• Rogue Legacy
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War (strong world war I content)
• South Park: The Stick of Truth (maybe? if you like South Park, it's a fun RPG)

As for easy on the eyes 3D-ish games:

• Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons
• Life is Strange
• Telltale Games (Wolf Among Us and such)

There are of course a few more, but I would recommend these regardless of motion sickness. And these should all be available on Xbox One. Maybe you will look at a trailer or gameplay from these and like them. I sure hope so!

I sometimes get hung up on my backlog because I know that I still have games that supposed to be really good and haven't touched them once. Or that I have games that I tried and liked but haven't played to the end due to other interests or stuff. I picked up a lot of games through sales and bundles and my backlog is rather big. But I'm actually working through it at the moment and I don't think that "working through it" seems apropiate for that, as I am still enjoying my time. It's a hobby, sometimes a certain kind of commitment leads to some chores you have to endure with it. For years I have been pretty big into music and wanted to catch up on almost everything. I'd rather have the experience of going through a lot of stuff than having not much to choose from.

Of course this leaves a few things left and right or once played and never touched again. But whatever, it's always a chain of what I'm in the mood of playing right now and sometimes it's not necessary to go all the way to the end of games to enjoy them.

I mean, non-FPS games can be all kinds of games. I have problems with motion sickness from time to time (not at your level though) and I find third-person games easier to process. But games that don't require fast paced shooting and twitch reaction will also do most of the time.

On top of that it really goes down to your perception. Sometimes it helps for me to disable any kind of motion blur or other options, for other people this might not help. And sometimes it's just a few moments of bad camera movement that can induce the feeling (for instance Mad Max in any kind of narrow indoor environment mad me sick for quite a stretch of time) even in third-person games. You kind of have to feel yourself out in that regard.

Of course sitting further away, depending on screen size, will also help at times.

Maybe Gravity Ghost. Not that I think it's the GOTY or anything, but it's a really charming game with a great soundtrack (composer of FTL) and a story that actuall surprised me a bit by how it is presented. In general it is a good game to space out as it is not really challenging. I really enjoyed my time with it. Not very long either, just the the right lenght. Playing around with gravity and flying around planets is always fun.

Been listening to Kangding Ray's new album "Cory Arcane" non-stop since release. Last year's release was already pretty hefty but this time he's moved onto even more minimal techno. Probably his most accessible album to-date although I got a distant feeling of Vladislav Delay in some of the songs, which is great.

Also pretty psyched about Bersarin Quartett's "III". I didn't get into "II" and thought that it wasn't much of an improvement but I'm glad he tried out a few things that make a much better impression this time. On that point, also on Denovali Records, Subheim's new release "Foray" is an interesting listen. Never was a big fan of his work but having that on in the background is quite relaxing.

And if you want to listen to an electronica album that sounds like Blade Runner, look out for Lewis James "G A P S" on Bandcamp. It's dope.

While Black Wing doens't really catch me (I enjoyed both Giles Corey and the first Have A Nice Life, but everything after that kind of left me cold) another realese from Flenser took me by surprise this year: Heat Dust's self-titled. Maybe because I'm just a sucker for post-punk. Bad ass album.