https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/ Essays on the things everyone sees but nobody talks about — energy, agriculture, society and everyday absurdities, written from South Tyrol. en https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ueber-krebs-reden-wir-ueber-die-periode-nicht/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ueber-krebs-reden-wir-ueber-die-periode-nicht/ Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0200 On 25 January 2023, Mikaela Shiffrin stood in the finish area at Kronplatz, having just won her second giant slalom in two days. World Cup win number 84. The ORF reporter asked about the Stenmark record, and Shiffrin answered: "I'm kind of in an unfortunate time of my monthly cycle." She was... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ki-von-noob-zu-mastery-nearly/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ki-von-noob-zu-mastery-nearly/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 10:39:00 +0200 It's just past midnight, and I'm arguing with a machine about the number eight. I want an eight of hearts. A playing card, eight red hearts on it, nothing else. The AI draws nine. I type: eight. It draws seven. I type: eight, one top left, one bottom right, and they're hearts, not stars. It... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/neue-naechte-suedtiroler-nachtleben/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/neue-naechte-suedtiroler-nachtleben/ Tue, 30 Jun 2026 23:31:00 +0200 The ORF special "Südtirol heute" from 31 May 2026 took a look at how and where people in South Tyrol go out today – from the Lederhosen party to the classic club, from pop-up events to alternative daytime festivals. The finding in one sentence: people still dance, just differently. I'm no longer... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/was-man-gehabt-hat/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/was-man-gehabt-hat/ Tue, 30 Jun 2026 22:30:00 +0200 Almost everyone I know here in Pfitsch who has money didn't get it through their own work. They inherited it, were given it, or at least had a tailwind from home. This isn't an accusation. It's simply what I see. It also doesn't mean these people don't work. Most of them do. It's just that the... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/miscanthus-supergras-alpenraum/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/miscanthus-supergras-alpenraum/ Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0200 It grows five centimetres a day, burns like wood, keeps nitrate out of the groundwater, and can be pressed into insulation boards that hold together entirely without glue. In a feature by Deutsche Welle, Miscanthus – giant Chinese silver grass – is presented as a "super grass for all purposes."... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/wie-es-uns-gehe/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/wie-es-uns-gehe/ Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:19:00 +0200 Today was the funeral of my father's godchild. I had been in touch with him only twelve days ago, over WhatsApp. He wrote to me that he was already doing alright. He had been in hospital, he said, and was a little weaker. And still, he was the one asking me how we were doing. I thought to... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/im-kino-ist-stille-heilig/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/im-kino-ist-stille-heilig/ Sat, 20 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0200 I'll admit it openly: at the cinema, I'm the strict one. The guy who tenses up the second someone starts whispering behind him. And no, I don't think that's over the top — I think it's right. I was there again yesterday. At first some people were sitting in my seat, but I didn't care — the row... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/agrovoltaik-bald-ueberall-in-suedtirol-moeglich/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/agrovoltaik-bald-ueberall-in-suedtirol-moeglich/ Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:30:00 +0200 A few weeks ago I wrote here that South Tyrol stonewalls agrivoltaics — and that "landscape protection," as a justification, is largely hypocrisy (Why we should use our fields twice, Solar panels in surplus — and we call them too ugly). Now the Administrative Court in Bolzano has basically said... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/musik-ist-eine-zeitmaschine/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/musik-ist-eine-zeitmaschine/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 23:47:00 +0200 About a year ago, while vibe coding, I kept listening to the same songs. Over and over, the same handful of tracks, for hours. Back then it was just background, fuel for the work. Now I hear one of them — and I'm instantly back there. Not "I remember that time," but there. The same mood, the... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/one-block-of-stone/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/one-block-of-stone/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 10:57:00 +0200 There is a point where skill gets so extreme that people stop calling it skill. They call it magic instead. Alchemy. Something that can't be done by hand. A marble sculpture in Naples has been sitting on that line for almost three hundred years. It's called the Cristo Velato — the Veiled Christ.... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/spacex-kommt-nicht-in-den-sp-500/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/spacex-kommt-nicht-in-den-sp-500/ Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0200 For years the most comfortable rule of investing went like this: buy a world ETF, put it away, done. You don't have to understand anything or pick anything — the index simply mirrors "the market". That very convenience is exactly what's breaking right now. What set me off was an article in the... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/solarmodule-im-ueberfluss-zu-haesslich/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/solarmodule-im-ueberfluss-zu-haesslich/ Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0200 Energy is expensive again. The Iran crisis has sent electricity prices climbing, the Strait of Hormuz has become a bargaining chip in the Gulf, and you feel it immediately on your power bill. And right now, of all moments, the factories that build the antidote stand idle. The economic historian... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/jeden-tag-ist-leichter-als-manchmal/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/jeden-tag-ist-leichter-als-manchmal/ Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:18:00 +0200 I watched a Casey Neistat video that wouldn't let me go. In it he celebrates his two-year mark — 730 days in a row of running, not one missed. His minimum: two miles. His average: over seven. One time the streak nearly got him. New York, flight to London, layover, on to Cape Town — where in that... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/die-zahl-die-niemand-beweisen-kann/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/die-zahl-die-niemand-beweisen-kann/ Fri, 29 May 2026 23:00:00 +0200 There is a number that decides the life and death of entire systems. It is 0.5927. And the unsettling thing about it isn't that it exists — it's that no human can prove it. Let's start simple. Picture the world as graph paper. Each square is either a tree or bare earth, scattered at random.... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/spielregeln-geld-aus-der-tasche/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/spielregeln-geld-aus-der-tasche/ Fri, 29 May 2026 22:56:00 +0200 In mid-June, SpaceX goes public — in just over two weeks. Around 1.75 trillion dollars in valuation, the largest IPO in history. If the price holds, Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire. Sounds like a success story. It's more like a manual for quietly picking the pockets of... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/verzettelt-aber-mit-ausblick-auf-besserung/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/verzettelt-aber-mit-ausblick-auf-besserung/ Wed, 27 May 2026 16:27:00 +0200 A few facts about my setup, unfiltered. 52 Xcode projects sitting in my folder. And yes — I know that's not normal. The honest truth: I'm spread too thin. Again. Most of these projects aren't finished. Some never will be. And that's just the Xcode projects — in other folders there's even more... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/callboys-bordelle-freiwillig/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/callboys-bordelle-freiwillig/ Mon, 25 May 2026 00:06:00 +0200 I just watched a sketch on the German political satire show "Die Anstalt" (ZDF) about sex work in Germany — the segment is here. Sharp, satirical, but loaded with hard numbers: around 32,000 sex workers registered under the Prostitute Protection Act, more than 80% with non-German nationality... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/e-auto-batterien-besser-als-ihr-ruf/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/e-auto-batterien-besser-als-ihr-ruf/ Sun, 24 May 2026 23:18:00 +0200 When you buy an EV, it doesn't take long. Someone will explain to you that the lithium in your battery is mined under catastrophic conditions. That landscapes are destroyed. That it's actually no better than oil. Interestingly, the same person has no problem buying a new smartphone every two... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ki-und-sie-denkt-doch/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/ki-und-sie-denkt-doch/ Fri, 22 May 2026 22:00:00 +0200 I watched the OpenAI video last night and had to pause for a moment to decide whether to take it seriously. When it comes to OpenAI and math, you now instinctively think of October 2025 — when Kevin Weil announced on X that GPT-5 had "solved ten open Erdős problems," and Thomas Bloom, who... https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/jeder-nach-seiner-fasson/ https://elephant-in-the-room.eu/post/jeder-nach-seiner-fasson/ Thu, 21 May 2026 11:45:00 +0200 On 22 June 1740, three weeks after taking the throne, the 28-year-old Frederick II received a report from the Ecclesiastical Department. It concerned Catholic citizens in a Protestant city who wanted to build their own school. His minister von Brand had objections. Frederick scribbled in the...