dankInformatik

On my way to Sweden I took the boat from Rostock. As I came around the curve down to the terminal I did a double-take - here was the MS Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a very nice ship indeed, all decked out with this silly "stamp" on the side: "dank Informatik" (thanks to computing).

This year, the one following the "Einstein Year" in Germany, is the Year of Computing. You find this silly thing everywhere, I find it rather embarrassing, as there are so many thing that are going wrong in Germany, thanks to computers ... There was even one suggestion made that you put a sticker with "dank Informatik" on all of the broken machines that litter town.

I was concerned that someone had paid lots of money for the advertising, but it appears that Scandlines is a sponsor for the iniative, so they get a break for the tax write-off the painting has entailed, but nothing more. Strange, though, that they are not listed on the sponsor list of the Year of Computing. Oh well, who would put a thing like this on his boat just for the fun of it?