Angelika We live in tumultuous times. Every morning when we wake up, we ask ourselves what Trump has blurted out today. Describing the man as erratic and impulsive is quite an understatement. A tweet here, an executive order there, which is then immediately struck down by a court, threats directed at his own Republicans and North Korea, deportations of illegal immigrants. We hardly get any rest. Have there ever been more turbulent times? And then I think of the Cold War, Pershing missiles, the Iraq wars, Chernobyl, Afghanistan, and all sorts of other crises.

Angelika You have surely already read here that ugly, bland, overpriced residential high-rises are increasingly dominating the cityscape of San Francisco, displacing beloved and traditionally designed places. However, occasionally, there's a win for the long-established residents of this, in this case it's pub named Zeitgeist .

Michael We get our electricity and gas here on the northern Pacific coast from the local energy provider "Pacific Gas and Electricity" (PG&E). Since we have an (admittedly: idiotic) electric heating system, our electricity bill fluctuates significantly between summer and winter months, ranging from about 70 to 120 dollars per month. As you can see in Figure 3, we consumed exactly 692 kilowatts of electricity in the brutally cold December 2016, according to the meter reader, who swings by roughly every 30 days, subject to their discretion.

Michael When Twitter first came out, back in 2006, with the concept of sending short messages with a maximum of 140 characters, I thought, "I'll give that silly club a year before investors pull the plug," but even I am occasionally wrong! Trump now communicates almost exclusively through this channel with the unwashed masses. And many companies even handle their customer service through it.

Michael We are known for not driving luxury cars but rather aging vehicles of the lower working class (now even *with* airbags!). However, when my colleagues show off their new Teslas, which they can remotely control out of a parking space via a smartphone app, I can't just stand by idly. The company "Automatic" manufactures an adapter that you plug into the diagnostic port under your car's dashboard. The device then connects to the owner's smartphone to send all sorts of interesting data about the vehicle's current location, speed, and whether the driver is accelerating like a maniac or slamming on the brakes.

Michael Recently, Angelika texted me during work hours, excitedly reporting that our (relatively) new car, a 2011 Honda Fit called "Brummi," was acting up and the automatic transmission was suddenly shifting gears very ungracefully. On the "Automatic" app on my phone, I could see that the automatic transmission was reporting an error, so I called my mechanic to schedule an appointment at his workshop. But he waved it off, saying he usually stays away from transmissions, and referred me to a transmission specialist in the Outer Mission district. Oh dear, I thought, this is going to be expensive.

Angelika The German press is now reporting so much about Trump that I hardly know what to write that you don't already know. Even the demonstrations on April 15, the well-known Tax Day in the USA, were covered by Tagesschau. Demonstrators took to the streets to urge Trump to release his own tax returns, which is something every president traditionally does, but Trump doesn't care. He insists that his tax returns are off-limits.

Michael Anyone who is used to the fact that gasoline in Germany might cost 10 cents more directly on the highway than elsewhere will be shocked in America when one gas station charges $3.74 per gallon and the next one, just a kilometer away, charges only $2.55. What, you say, that's not possible? But it is, as you can see from Figure 2 with the gas price app "GasBuddy." At the corner of Valencia and 24th Street, right on the border of our upscale neighborhood Noe Valley, a gallon of regular gasoline costs $3.74, and just a kilometer away, at the corner of Castro and Market, it's only $2.55.