Culture of Germany - Demography

Demography. In accordance with modern European patterns of demographic development, Germany's population rose from about 25 million in 1815 to over 60 million in 1914, despite heavy emigration. The population continued to rise in the first half of this century, though this trend was hindered by heavy losses in the two world wars. In 1997, the total population of Germany was 82 million. Of this sum, nearly 67 million lived in former West Germany, and just over 15 million lived in former East Germany. In 1939, the year Germany invaded Poland, the population of what was to become West Germany was 43 million and the population of what was to become East Germany was almost 17 million. This means that from 1939 to 1997, both the total population and the population of West Germany have increased, while the population of East Germany has decreased. 

Culture of Germany - Location and Geography

Germany is located in north-central Europe. It shares boundaries with nine other countries: Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. 

Culture of Germany - Identification

Identification. The name Germany is derived from the Latin word Germania, which, at the time of the Gallic War (58–51 B.C.E. ), was used by the Romans to designate various peoples occupying the region east of the Rhine. The German-language name Deutschland is derived from a Germanic root meaning volk, or people. A document (written in Latin) from the Frankish court of 786 C.E. uses the term theodisca lingua to refer to the colloquial speech of those who spoke neither Latin nor early forms of Romance languages. From this point forward, the term deutsch was employed to mark a difference in speech, which corresponded to political, geographic, and social distinctions as well. Since, however, the Frankish and Saxon kings of the early Middle Ages sought to characterize themselves as emperors of Rome, it does not seem valid to infer an incipient form of national 
consciousness. By the fifteenth century, the designation Heiliges Römisches Reich ,or "Holy Roman Empire," was supplemented with the qualifying phrase der deutschen Nation , meaning "of the German Nation." Still, it is important to note that, at that point in history, the phrase "German nation" referred only to the Estates of the Empire— dukes, counts, archbishops, electoral princes, and imperial cities—that were represented in the Imperial Diet. Nevertheless, this self-designation indicates the desire of the members of the Imperial Estates to distinguish themselves from the curia in Rome, with which they were embroiled in a number of political and financial conflicts. 

Italian culture traditions: Carnivals and celebrated holidays in Italy

There are many celebrated holidays in Italy separate from the National holidays in Italy. In the ancient Roman Empire at one stage there were 182 celebrated holidays in Italy and Rome!
Today in the smaller towns of Italy you can find the most colorful carnivals.

Tufara in Molise re-enact the sacrificing/burning of a figure called "Carnevale" a huge straw puppet and a metaphor for all the sins of the population.

Italian culture traditions: Italian religion

Almost all Italians are baptized but perhaps only 40% are practicing Catholics. About 85% of Italian Religion is accounted for by the Catholic faith. The remainder of Italian religion is made up of Muslims, Protestants, Jehovah's witnesses, Jews and Buddhists. Freedom of worship is written into the Italian Constitution.
The Roman Pantheon was the first building in Italy (and perhaps in the whole world?) dedicated to the people of Rome to freely practice their religion/spirituality.

The general audience given by the pope is usually every wednesday morning at 11Am in St Peter's square or the Papal Audience Chamber. Tickets are free but you need to book. Fax the "Prefettura della Casa Pontificia" at fax.06 6988 5863.
There are also blessings from the library window at noon on Sundays.

Italian culture traditions: The Italian lover

Apparently all is not well with the famed Italian lover. If television is to be believed Italian males are having trouble finding their customary 2 partners - the faithful wife that keeps house like Mama does, and the whore-lover who fulfills the needs of the libido.

Having to fulfill their needs in a society moving towards equality is an ever increasing challenge.
Another spanner in the works is that many Italian males (again, if television is to be believed) are suffering from an inferiority complex relating to the size of their equipment. Apparently Rocco Siffredi has created havoc for the average Italian who now believes his abilities to be short of the Italian median.

Italian culture traditions: Festivals

The Italy food culture is celebrated by what can only be described as diet busting Italian food festivals. Bring it on.

In Rome it feels like a food festival every weekend. If money belts are supposed to be buckled tighter nobody mentioned that to the Romans. Oil, gold and property mortgages may drop and fluctuate but restaurants in Rome are doing a brisker trade than ever!
Most food festivals, or should I rather say, more food festivals happen in Summer. In Rome and Lazio (amongst others):

Italian culture traditions: The Italy food culture

The principle reason why many visit Italy is for the food. And who can blame them! The dining has to be among the best, if not the best, in the world.
 
Italian Breakfast: Many a tourist has walked tummy grumbling out of their hotels in the morning. Italians are not big on the "most important meal of the day". Breakfast in Italy is usually a croissant and an espresso.
Luckily for some of us most Italian hotels are catching on and now serve plenty of cereals, yogurt, fruit, cold meats and bacon and eggs.

Italian culture: Identity

Italy is really many different nations in one and has in fact been a unified nation for a shorter period than most "New World" colonies. These articles provide interesting insight into Italian culture traditions and customs...

Nintendo outlines a foggy future that includes new hardware, pimping out Mario

 

Nintendo continues to reel following the Wii U’s wretched 2013 performance, with falling stock prices, self-imposed executive pay cuts, dramatically slashed financial forecasts, and a possible push toward new business models for the coming year. President Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and fellow top executives faced investors in Tokyo yesterday to explain what will be done to fix the company’s ailing business. The Wall Street Journal was in attendance as a liveblogger on translation duty, so bear in mind that it’s possible some meanings were misinterpreted.

Is The Last Of Us Coming To PS4?

Remember that awesome game that came out last year on PlayStation 3 and totally blew everyone away with its amazing graphics, emotional story, superb voice acting and memorable characters? I am of course talking about The Last of Us.
Well according to a member on the PlayStation community, The Last of Us: Game of the Year edition is due to be released on the PS4 sometime in July. The user said he couldn’t reveal his source without getting him/her fired so it seems we can only take his word for it. He also said that Beyond: Two Souls will come to the PS4 as well.
Sony hasn’t announced anything regarding a PS4 version of either The Last of Us or Beyond: Two Souls but keep in mind that Tomb Raider has just been ported to next gen consoles so it’s not such a leap to think Sony might do the same.

Facebook Reports Strong Game Revenue

Facebook has revealed that games on their platform are still making decent revenues even if the social network is struggling with keeping their users.
For the last quarter ending December 31, revenue from total payment and fees added up to $ 241 million. Revenue is up 8 percent, although again this comes exclusively from desktop users, a declining userbase for the network.

Facebook simply lost out on the fight for casual and indie developers to mobile, and shows no signs they know what it takes to win those developers back.

Grand Theft Auto V has Shipped 32.5 Million Copies

We all knew that GTA V was going to sell extremely well, we weren’t surprised when we heard it was the best selling game of 2013. What we didn’t predict is that it’s close to being the best selling game of all time.
The current holder for the best selling game of all time is Nintendo’s Mario Kart Wii which has sold 34 million copies to date. It doesn’t take a maths genius to figure out that GTA might well beat that record if it keeps selling.
Considering GTA was only released in September last year it certainly seems like it will beat Mario’s record in due time. Considering that GTA V was the most expensive game ever ata cost of £170 million it’s safe to say that the developers, Rockstar games are probably quite relieved it has been such a huge success. In the first 24 hours of its release, GTA V made $800 million in one day and within three days it had crossed the billion mark. The game also got many perfect scores from reviewers around the world.

With DLC still to come and a rumored PC port, GTA V seems more than capable of being the most successful game of all time.

Source: CVG

Behold the Massive Leap in Realism Between Metal Gear Solid and MGS V

Diminishing returns? That is a concept which may hold true in the coming years. But for now, there is a clear difference in graphic realism between the original Metal Gear Solid on Playstation, released 16 years ago, and Metal Gear Solid V, slated for release this year.
Take a look at the image after the jump and tell us if you aren’t amazed at the difference in graphical fidelity between the PS1 and PS4.

 

EA Manipulating Dungeon Keeper Reviews

 

EA's reboot of Dungeon Keeper for mobile devices has been almost universally panned as a thin specter of its namesake with abusive monetization policies. Not to be discouraged from profitting on a bad game, EA's solution is to manipulate the average user score to keep the game high on the Android charts. 

League of Legends has 27 million daily players

 

At the very least this is the year where the LoL virus overtakes the entire globe, as it turns out League of Legends has over 27 million daily players, with as many as 7.5 million people playing at one time. 

Nintendo Outlines Its Long-Term Survival Plans

Speaking in a shareholder briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata reaffirmed the company's commitment to Wii U and 3DS.
"I am here to tell you about our future, and to begin with, I would like to mention what Nintendo will not change," he said.
As such, Nintendo will continue to focus on console hardware and software as its core business. Moreover, the company will be pouring more cash into the research and development of future hardware.

Captain America 2 to lead into Avengers 2

The new Captain America movie will impact Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It'll have an impact on Agents Of SHIELD too...

Heading into UK cinemas at the end of next month is Marvel Studios' latest movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There have been suggestions before that this is a pivotal film in terms of helping to set up Joss Whedon's upcoming Avengers: Age Of Ultron. And as part of a conference call with investors, Disney's CEO Bob Iger has cemented that.

Sony is leaving the PC business

 

Sony has had a lot of trouble with its hardware business over the past half decade. Whether it was early lacklustre sales of the PS3, or a declining TV business thanks to increased Korean competition, it's struggled. Today it's a little healthier, but its still going to get out of one aspect of the hardware game, by selling off its Vaio PC brand. 

Can your PC handle Titanfall? Probably

While Titanfall is an undeniably pretty game, it doesn't pack hundreds of characters on screen at once and in reality there's only going to be a few human players in each game - so perhaps it's no surprise that the system requirements aren't that bad at all.

These aren't necessarily official, in that they come from a press release, but the Tweets that outed the information were by Vince Zampella, co-founder of Infinity Ward and Respawn, so you can put at least a bit of faith in them.

He said: 

Innovative Metal 'Exosuit' Takes Divers to New Depths

It looks like something astronauts might wear in space, but this metal suit actually has a more Earth-bound purpose: to enable divers to work deep underwater without needing to spend time in a decompression chamber after they return to the surface.

The hard metal dive suit, known as Exosuit, is designed for users to operate underwater safely down to a depth of 1,000 feet (305 meters), reported Wired. The $600,000 suit is equipped with a so-called atmospheric diving...

Facebook: Why Some are Choosing to Leave the Social Site Behind

Most wouldn't dare dream of leaving their favorite social media networking site: Facebook. Yet a new study takes a more in-depth look into how some people are able to leave the site behind and never look back.

Vegetation Change Wiped Out Ice Age Beasts Like Woolly Mammoths

A new study has revealed that it wasn't just climate change that killed off the woolly mammoth. Instead, the changing diet of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceros and other animals of the arctic was the main driver behind their extinction. Eske Willerslev and his research team at the University of Copenhagen have determined this theory through DNA analysis.

Big space rock makes an impact on Mars

 

Sometime between July 2010 and May 2012, a really big space rock slammed into Mars. An image of the resulting crater, released February 5 by NASA, shows a scar about 30 meters across.
Impacts aren’t uncommon on the Red Planet, which gets hit by more than 200 asteroids or comets each year. But few crashes leave such visible scars as the one shown above.
The photograph was taken November 19, 2013, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Based on the blue and black blast zone that appears to explode from the crater, astronomers estimate that the impact threw material as far as 15 kilometers.

By: ScienceNews

Microsoft Pays Gamers To Trade In PS3 For Xbox One

Microsoft is targeting Sony fans with a new promotion whereby used PlayStation 3 consoles can be traded for $100 towards the purchase of an Xbox One.
"Visit your store, let us recycle your PS3, and get $100 of store credit towards the purchase of a new Xbox One," the company announced.
The promotion is valid only at brick-and-mortar Microsoft stores in USA and Canada. Traded-in PlayStation 3's must be complete, fully functional, and not password protected. The promotion runs through the end of February or while supplies last.

Flappy Bird - New Game

 

Flappy Bird is a game developed by Dong Nguyen and released on Android, iOS.  The genre of the game is probably closest to a very simplistic arcade-style title in which the player strives to top their high score each time.

Rumour: 'Police-Themed' Battlefield Game in the Works

 

5 retired RPGs deserving of a sequel

Some game worlds leave a lasting impression. You’ve either played them into the ground already, or they’ve become so dated that re-playing them would only serve to taint fond memories. With these caveats in mind, I present (in no particular order) my top five RPG game properties deserving of a long overdue sequel.

Dark Sun