Bocklemünd

Privacy, industry and the GDPR. While a lot of brave agents went to gather in Camp Navarro and Castle Kaltenberg, some agents had explored another regions.

The first part of my recent Ingress adventure was a little fielding operation. Agent +Judith Antonowitsch need another 40k mind units to get her silver tier illuminator badge. So agent +Alexander Ritter and I joind in and we built a little multilayer in Cologne, covering the area between the quarters of Bocklemünd, Braunsfeld and Müngersdorf. There was no big planning ahead. We used an existing derp link between two quarters as a baseline, cleaned the quarter of Bocklemünd and set up four layers that added up to missing 40k MU.





The first picture is of a playground element that looks like a model of an atom (Portal: Kletter-Atom). It's located in a socially challenged part of the city (Görlinger Zentrum). There were a lot of young men around who smoked cigarettes with a very funny smell and a known herb that helps you to relax. They were very nervous when I  began to take pictures of the atom. They approached me immediately and demanded to see the pictures.

First I thought they were afraid to be seen smoking weed publicly. But I cannot captures smells. It's self evident that I follow the TOS for portal pictures and and avoind including people in the pictures. They were happy to see that they don't have to argue with me about deleting the pictures of them since they simply didn't exist.

Later I later understood that maybe it wasn't about the weed at at. Maybe these young men just wanted to profit from the new legislation of the #GDPR . This General Data Protection Rule of the EU just came into effect 1,5 hours after I took the pictures.

It gives every citizen the right to decide wheter he wants to be on a photo. In short (commercial) photographers from now on need a opt-in approval of the people pictured by them since it counts as data processing. Especially street photographers consider it a the end of photography as we know it.

So these guys just seamt to be some socially challenged migrants at first glance. Actually they were citizens who knew their rights and knew that privacy is a very important asset for a enduring freedom in a free democratic society. Or weren't they? #whoknows-shrug

The second part took place in the very southern part of Cologne (Köln-Godorf). When driving home I realized that I needed only to take down 3 blue portals in order to build two 10k MU fields on my own. So I did. The south anchor was located at the railway station and harbor of Godorf (Portal: Godorf). They are infrastructgure facilities to supply the neighboring chemical plants of +Shell and +LyondellBasell Industries with raw materials and to transport their products into the world.

I'm always astonished by the complexity of the system that is usually working beyond our sight and ensures that we have enough gas to drive around (cargress or daily commute) and another amenities of modern civilization. With their night illumation on they have a magical look which opposes their actual industrial background.

Can you find the powercube hidden in the pictures?

I looking forward to my next #Ingress adventure. But first I'll get some sleep . Sweet deep sleep. Maybe I'll wake up in a whole new world after the second #epiphanynight ....