Click Clack Gorilla's "ode to spaghettieis" celebrates a German ice-cream dish that looks like spaghetti Bolognese. The noodles are extruded white ice-cream. It was invented in 1969, and remains popular.

It really looks like spaghetti, doesn’t it? I imagine that it is made using a machine much like the one that came with the Play Dough restaurant set I had as a child. (Yep, it is, says the internet. Shops use a fancy automatic press, and you can make it at home with any old noodle press.) I’ve never tried it myself, but I’m willing to bet that it’s as much fun to make as it is to eat. A heap of noodle-shaped vanilla ice cream on a bed of whipped cream and covered in strawberry sauce and coconut chips (or nut chips)? Yum.

But the whimsy doesn’t stop there. Oh no! There are other varieties. Carbonara (with a brownish liquor sauce and nuts), and oh crap I can’t remember the rest (I was at the ice cream shop a couple of hours ago, but I’m going to have to call breastfeeding brain on this one). Just take my word for it. It’s a theme with a number of amusing variations.

When Spaghettieis and I met, we fell in love instantly. It was tasty, it was novel, it was cheap (2 DM to the dollar in those days), and it was responsible for at least half of the ten pounds I gained during our month-long high school exchange. I ate it every chance I got, which turned out to be every day during our final week in Krefeld. But the pounds melted back off once I was out of the land of noodle ice cream and sandwiches for breakfast. Did I say yum?

german food: an ode to spaghettieis (via Neatorama)

(Image: Untitled, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from lainetrees's photostream)

From Wired comes David Wolman's indispensable piece on master counterfeiter Hans-Jürgen Kuhl, a printmaker, artist and rounder who forged millions in flawless US $100 bills, only to have the boodle nabbed in a sting before even one of his Franklins could circulate. Kuhl combined mechanical printmaking talent with an artist's eye and an obsessive commitment to detail, and came up with many ingenious workarounds for beating the Treasury's anti-forgery technology.

However, he sucked at tradecraft. He got rumbled when he took bags and bags of paper waste to a commercial incinerator. A worker noticed what seemed to be bags of US currency (at first) but turned out to be obvious cast-offs from his forging op, and the cops were called in. One sting later, and Kuhl was in jail.

He's out now, and painting again (for the first time in 20 years). He still dreams of making a forgery so perfect you could hand it to the US Secret Service.

Kuhl’s intricate production process combined offset printing with silk-screening (see “How to Make $100″). The hardest features to forge with any level of sophistication are on the front of the note: the US Treasury seal, the large “100″ denomination in the bottom-right corner, and the united states of america at the top. Real US currency is printed on massive intaglio presses (intaglio is Italian for engrave). The force with which the presses strike the paper lying over the engraved steel plates creates indentations that fill with ink, giving the bills a delicate 3-D relief and a textured feel. Its absence is a telltale sign of a counterfeit. For Kuhl this was the most critical puzzle piece: how to create that texture convincingly without the benefit of actual engraving. “I had an idea,” he says, “and I was itching to try it.”

His idea was to apply a second layer of ink, creating sufficient relief to mimic intaglio-pressed paper. But looking under a microscope, Kuhl saw that this second coat slumped as it dried, giving the image a blurred appearance. This problem stymied his progress until he read about UV-sensitive clear lacquer, which dries instantly when exposed to ultraviolet light. That, he says, was when everything clicked. “The ink wouldn’t have time to slump,” he says.

He ran a sheet of paper through the silk-screen press again, this time applying the lacquer and then drying it under UV light. “You don’t see the UV varnish—that is the key. You only feel it,” Kuhl says. This invisible coating atop the raised US Treasury seal and large “100″ in the lower-right corner of the bill was his masterstroke. One official told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that Kuhl’s dollars were “shockingly perfect.”

The piece includes a pretty good technical HOWTO on making your own forged notes. You know, for kids!

The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook—He’s an Artist

(Image: James Yamasaki)

The German bank Sparkasse Chemnitz asked its readers to choose from among 10 designs for its next MasterCard issue. The overwhelming winner was this Karl Marx card. Priceless.

It's not just cheap irony, either. As Reuters reports, "A 2008 survey found 52 percent of eastern Germans believed the free market economy was 'unsuitable' and 43 percent said they wanted socialism back."

The Karl Marx MasterCard Is Here. It Needs A Tagline. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Update BlueGirl sez, "saw your piece on the Karl Marx Mastercard and laughed that I photoshopped just such a thing back in 2010, along with a Che Guevara Visa and a Emma Goldman Mugshot Discover Card -- the card with payback."

I often make my own beer at a local brew-it-yourself taproom (props to The Brew Kettle). The bottles we use are 22-ounces, so drinking one is almost like drinking two. Often times I'll end up drinking more than I wanted or drinking none at all (oh, the horror).

Stumbled across the Hermetus Bottle Opener and Sealer while looking for a Father's Day gift for my dad. Bought one for him, a couple guys in the brew group, and myself. To create an airtight seal simply slip it over the top of the bottle. It works perfectly.

Drank half a bottle one night then sealed it and put it in the fridge. Drank remaining half the second night, and it tasted the same and still had a nice head on it. I love the simplicity of the design!

Support Tom the Dancing Bug and receive untold BENEFITS and PRIVILEGES by joining the brand new INNER HIVE right now! “I signed up the second I read about it. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy hearing Ruben tell the story behind each of his comics. Good luck, Ruben!” -Mark Frauenfelder, INNER HIVE member since [...]

[Video Link] What is this I don't even. The artist is HGich.T, the song "Tutenchamun." Original video sans subtitles and explanations are here. It's several years old, but new to me. (HT: @treyka)

REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

German riot police carry a demonstrator fully covered in paint as police clears the camp of occupy protestors in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, May 16, 2012.

This little feller is a "German Spermatorrhoea Ring," ca 1894. Spermatorrhoea ("involuntary loss of semen") was best fought with this toothy beast, which also doubled as a cure for Onanism ("voluntary discharges from masturbation").

An extremely rare Spermatorrhoea ring fastened with a screw. With provenance from the original German catalogue dating from 1894. Spermatorrhoea means involuntary loss of semen, although the rings were also intended to prevent voluntary discharges from masturbation or Onanism (Originating from Onan who originally "spilt his seed on the ground" Genesis 38:7-9). The ring was placed at the base of the penis and fasted with a screw such that any engorgement of the organ would meet with the teeth of the ring and arrest the process.

German Spermatorrhoea Ring (screw catch) (via JWZ)

The German Pirate Party has taken seats in the fourth consecutive regional election, this time in North Rhine-Westphalia, where it received 7.5% of the vote, which will likely translate to 18 seats. These state-level elections are being viewed in part as a referendum on austerity and other Merkel doctrines, and there's a growing tide of disgust with business-as-usual across Europe. The Pirates are doing a good job of presenting themselves as a real alternative, albeit one with a specialized agenda. The trick will be for the Pirates to articulate the equation that all copyright policy ends up being Internet policy, and all Internet policy ends up being policy for everything, since everything we do involves the Internet. So far, many people are taking that idea to heart. Party founder Rick Falkvinge provides some analysis of the German PP phenomenon:

The first reason is that the German Piratenpartei was long-term from the get-go. Where most pirate parties are started like any internet project – “we’re going to change the world come next weekend” – the Germans knew they would be around for a long time, and invested early in the organizational foundation for that.

The second reason is timing and ripples on the water. When the Swedish Piratpartiet had its breakthrough in the European Parliament, and was in media all over the world, the German Piratenpartei was able to exploit that momentum when a local minister named Ursula wanted to create a net censorship to fight CP. T-shirts with the name “Zensursula” were common, zensur being German for censorship. The goverment did not win the narrative on that one, and the idea of censorship was abandoned while the Piratenpartei raked in new members. I’d say that this was the breakthrough in activist critical mass.

The third reason is Germany’s federal party support. Having won 1% in the European elections and 2% in the federal elections in 2009 entitled the Piratenpartei to considerable governmental funding, which is paid out to all parties that beat the half-percent mark in elections. This has allowed the Piratenpartei to buy themselves the appearance of an established party out in the streets – their posters and banners are everywhere on paid billboards, as well as on streetlights and more activist-associated locations. But all of it looks professional, yet with a new message. It looks electable, which is key.

German Pirate Party Scores Fourth Consecutive Election Win - Falkvinge on Infopolicy