German state parliament bans laptops - Pirate party show up with typewriters

http://www.crackajack.de/2012/09/26/typewriter-protest-der-piraten-gegen-computerverbot/

by fgribreau • 14 years ago

137 47 14 years ago

crackajack.de

ctdonath• 14 years ago

Malicious obedience via retro tech.

debacle2• 14 years ago

Is the proper term for this sort of protest "malicious obedience?"

klodolph• 14 years ago

"Malicious obedience" means following orders when you know the result will be disaster. So, sure.

zellyn• 14 years ago

Djehngo• 14 years ago

I have heard it referred to as "Malicious compliance" but I haven't witnessed the concept referenced enough that I would expect a universal term for it.

snips• 14 years ago

The German finance minister played Sudoku on his iPad during a heated Greek bailout debate.

pjmlp• 14 years ago

Tablets and smartphones are allowed, just laptops are not.

reinhardt• 14 years ago

Oh, in that case he's off the hook I guess, there's nothing to see here, move along.

tomjen3• 14 years ago

As somebody who distaste the bailouts, I hope he did it to tell Greece that enough is enough.

sandis• 14 years ago

More on why they're banning laptops : http://fraktion.piratenpartei-sh.de/2012-09-19-bericht-aus-d... (in German),

Google-translated version: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&...

tlrobinson• 14 years ago

Maybe it's a bad translation, but banning laptop with noisy fans and clicky keyboards seems perfectly reasonable to me.

lnanek22• 14 years ago

Seems like a waste of tax payer money to me. Just put up with the fan/keyboard noise. Done. Maybe crank up the speaker volume for whoever has the mic.. There are people out there who struggle every day with shitty cars that break down all the time because they can't afford anything better. I just loaned my jump start battery to one. Wasting people's money on preventing fan and keyboard noise seems like a real let them eat cake moment. If they think that's a real problem, they are too well equipped to actually feel real problems.

Gormo2• 14 years ago

Why?

If one were to bring in a desktop computer with even noisier fans and keyboards into the parliament chamber, would that be OK? If a member just had a bunch of loose fans running at his desk, and banged away all day on a disconnected keyboard, would that be OK?

Why not just ban the thing causing the problem itself, and not worry about contingencies that are orthogonal to the problem (e.g. what kind of larger-scale devices the noise-making items are embedded in)?

stephengillie• 14 years ago

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sdoering• 14 years ago

The most interesting bit is in my opinion, that the debt of the region is already really high.

But as laptops are now banned from parliament, every member of said parliament shall receive a tablet, because he/she has to be able to keep working with digital files in parliament.

Being a citizen, things like this make me sad.

Atropos2• 14 years ago

The regions debt is 27 billion euros, spending or saving 100.000 euros on tablets doesnt make any real difference.

Incredible that I'm getting downvoted for this. So if you have 100,000 $ student debt, you should stop sending holiday cards and use email instead, to save 40 cents?

In large organizations some costs are just to minuscule to warrant any mindspace. In this case the spending doesn't even seem evidently frivolous, why shouldn't every parliamentarian have a tablet? In the Netherlands they replaced paper with tablets and even managed to achieve cost savings.

carlosantolin• 14 years ago

Things add up, you know.

tisme2• 14 years ago

That's exactly the attitude that got them to 27 billion euros deficit in the first place!

wikke• 14 years ago

There is no way the region ever pays that back, better spend now, when the system crashs they at least got some things.

dexen• 14 years ago

> only mobile computers that run silently without a fan or no mechanical keyboard and hinged screen (from google translate)

While `run silently and no mechanical keyboard' has at least some merit, what's the point of mentioning hinged screen?

There are some dual-(hinged-)screen tablets http://blog.laptopmag.com/msis-dual-screen-tablet-video-hand...

mariuz• 14 years ago

Maybe they should come with their portable enigma machines

terhechte• 14 years ago

While this is an interesting way of disobeying and a nice idea in general, I have to admit that it also feels a bit overreacted. The reason why laptops are banned (as outlined in this document: http://fraktion.piratenpartei-sh.de/2012-09-19-bericht-aus-d...) are that people used them during the parliament hours for social networking or games and that the clicking of the keyboard and the fans and harddrives of the laptops created a distracting noise. Tablets are specifically allowed.

I can understand that the noise that a set of laptops generates can be distracting. On the other hand does a tablet not really help if you want to type down thoughts or parts of what's currently being said. So the smart thing to do would be to only allow very silent fanless laptops (my MacBookAir, for example, seems to make no noise at all, except when watching YouTube videos).

I sincerely doubt that it makes sense to try to ban the clicking of keyboards. That's like trying to ban the shuffling of paper. Bringing a typewriter which makes really loud typing noises doesn't sound like such a good idea in that context. A foldable bluetooth keyboard + would have been the better idea; that way they wouldn't show disobedience, but instead they'd display that there're other ways in which one can be silent and still use a keyboard in there.

lnanek22• 14 years ago

There were probably typewriters used there in the past. It's good way to make the law seem silly and a waste of money, because the government ran fine in the past with something much noisier. Buying a certain kind of keyboard to adhere to a stupid law would make disobeying pointless, since it is also a waste of money.

gambler• 14 years ago

If government officials don't care about parliament sessions and are playing games during them, the noise of their keyboards is the least of your problems. I think typewriter is a great way to express that. You can't play games on it, unlike iPad.

bduerst2• 14 years ago

You know, this view is probably the minority here but I think that the way we conduct meetings has changed.

Whenever I hold a workshop or longer meetings, I always try to give 5-10 minutes on every hour so people can "reconnect" with their email, news, social network, or whatever it is that is trying to occupy their mindshare with me.

I've noticed a marked increase in engagement whenever I allow this. I know that the people there should be paying attention, but in practice they are incapable of it.

Atropos2• 14 years ago

The real reason why they are banned: Because the majority of the parliament wanted it that way and voted for the rule. I don't get the outrage at all, why shouldn't the parliament get to decide how they run their own sessions?

debacle2• 14 years ago

The tyranny of the majority is a major detractor of democracy.

dak1• 14 years ago

Why shouldn't the minority that didn't support the rule get to ridicule it?

Luc• 14 years ago

Not quite the majority of parliament - it's the 'Ältestenrat', the 'Council of Elders' composed of representatives from the different political fractions that decides on these procedural rules. So perhaps about 15 people for a majority?

k_bx• 14 years ago

tablet + keyboard seems like a solution

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

Er, instead of banning laptops, why not address the actual problem, and just ban noisy keyboards...?

Some keyboards are very soft and basically silent. I'm sure they'd quickly identify suitable models which people could use.

Given that they allow tablets, it's clear they don't really care very much about people goofing off with social networking and games...

Gormo2• 14 years ago

> the clicking of the keyboard and the fans and harddrives of the laptops created a distracting noise. Tablets are specifically allowed.

Why not just ban the noise itself? Why deal with the inevitable complexity of attempting to capture the causes of the noise in a system of arbitrary categories, and suffer the collateral damage of suppressing activities and objects that aren't generating noise, while still subjecting yourself to non-laptop-related sources of distracting noise?

mtgx• 14 years ago

If they aren't using those laptops (or tablets if they have any) to read the legislation that's being discussed or anything like that, but for any other stuff, then there's really no reason why they should have those laptops there. They need to focus on the new laws being passed, not checking Facebook and Twitter.

ef4• 14 years ago

Yes, but consider how doomed you are if you need to treat your parliamentarians like irresponsible children to keep them on task.

But I think there's probably a more charitable explanation that everyone is too polite to say: large chunks of the business being conducted may in fact be bullshit, and deep down they know it.

raldi• 14 years ago

Isn't that up to the voters to decide?

Snap of photo of the representative checking Facebook while legislation is being debated, and make it into a campaign ad when the next election rolls around.

But honestly, I'm sure this is nothing new. Legislators have been daydreaming, doodling, passing notes, and reading books during debates since time immemorial. It's not like attendance is even mandatory in the first place.

rlt3• 14 years ago

That's quite a misleading title.

I thought Germany had banned laptops nation-wide for some reason.

ibotty• 14 years ago

another image (of pirate party member angelika beer) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A3t_kZLCUAA3i1R.jpg

German state parliament bans laptops - Pirate party show up with typewriters

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