Flickr introduced a new service: they localized their site for different languages. Part of this service is, that pictures that are marked as "medium" or "restricted" will not be displayed anymore to users who indicate that they are from Germany, Singapore, Korea or Hong Kong.

That kicked off a huge debate about censorship and especially the Germans, regarding themselves as citizens of a free country in which people and arts are free, raise their voice.

It is not clear yet, why these restrictions have been applied. The flickr staff made a statement, that brought as much light to the discussion as a broken lamp during a Finnish Winters night. There are assumptions, that the restrictions in Germany apply due to a German law that forbids showing of so-called "Nazi-Symbols", i.e. symbols that are related to the third reich. Other people speculate that the German government might have had a say in that.

It is all speculation. It is not known why these restrictions are applied. Most likely flickr just wanted to be super-save and put the new mechanism there due to anticipatory obedience. One can understand that, but it could have been made clear from the beginning that this will happen and what are the reasons.

I would not go so far as to call this censorship - not yet. Give flickr a few more days to get themselves informed and to clear things up.

This discussion already hit German newspapers (at least heise and Spiegel), but it seems no English / American paper so far has woken up on this. This shows where the focus is.

I am currently working on a presentation on data- and telecommunication history and in the last part I dwell on all kinds of online services and give an overview of Web 2.0.

Whilst doing that work, I developed the desire to highlight those services that I really use on a daily basis - and out of which I also get the most benefit, be it in efficiency, entertainment or the feeling that I did something useful. So below you find my personal 23 favourite web applications. Whacky nerdy techy stuff - I know.

And yes - for most of the people who regularly spend too much of their office hours by browsing through the online parts of the local galaxy, the below list might be a bit boring. Sorry for that - maybe there are nevertheless some new things, such as the Hunger Site or LibraryThing.

In any way: Enjoy the summer, spend less time in front of the screen and don't try every link you find in a blog - it only costs time.

On May 19th 2007 Hans Wollschläger died.

He translated James Joyce's Ulysses to German.

He gave me the possibility to read the Philip Marlowe novels, when I did not dare yet to read them in English.

His way of using the German language was unique and never pretentious.

I never saw a picture of him, until I recently read about his death in a German magazine. He only existed for me in words - in the words of other writers, which he translated.

He will never translate again.

• German obituaries / Deutsche Nachrufe
• German National Libray Listing for Hans Wollschläger
• Speech given by Wollschläger ("Vom Schatten über Allem")

Children become people, Offspring become personalities, kids become permanently online. And so she did and it is my pleasure to welcome her online on flickr and at the German social network of localisten (profile only visible if you have an account and logged in).

Welcome Theresa! And may you bloom and blossom in reality and virtuality!

The "Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe" (Museum of Art and Trade) in Hamburg finally shatters all my dreams in a new exhibition on "Bunte Götter - Die farbenfrohe Welt der Alten Griechen" (Multicoloured Gods - The Colourful World of Old Greece), in which the buildings and statues from the age of Antiquity are shown with their reconstructed colours.

After reading (not yet seeing) Frank Millers graphic novel "300", I was sure that the guys from Sparta looked like he depicted them: brown-pastel shades with red being the only statement that could be made in this great time.

Now, after this exhibition, can anyone imagine the staging of a Greece tragedy in such costumes? Does anyone want to see Oedipus, cutting out his eyes, in a turquoise robe with light yellow spots? Was there any way to avoid the take-over of this culture by the Romans and later on by the Barbarians, who for sure were dressed in proper grey and earth-coloured stuff?

Ah, that's the downfall of Western civilization.