Ardent Agnostic

Stealing IP only from those want to be stolen from

2012-02-15T08:09:00.000+01:00

What are the rules of the game for the people who promote free downloads of movies and music?

I can see that there would be room for musicians and film makers who release all their material for free so other people can copy it and enjoy it. I can see how the artists would benefit from the attention and appreciation they get, and from the fact that people can listen before they buy. I can see millions of people paying to go to the concerts with those artists and freely paying for the material on online stores out of sheer gratitude. I can also see that the results might be better if left to true enthusiasts who believe in their art than the industrially produced movies of Hollywood and big music companies.

However, I cannot see that it could be my decision if a particular artist should handle his/her music in that way.

If a movie company invests in a new movie based on the assumption that people should pay for it every time they watch it - in the cinema or on their own devices, then, surely, it is not up to me to change that business assumption by downloading the film for free from some channel the movie company does not control?

If a musician hates making tours and wants to live on selling their music only on recorded media, then, how can I take the decision that this musician should give away their music for free to me?

Isn't the inevitable conclusion that it is not only illegal, but also immoral, to acquire intellectual property for free against the express wish of the producer?

If all media was free, then we would limit the production of movies that require people to pay. We would limit the music that depends on payment.

But on the other hand, this does not mean that the protection of the artist's rights has to be a top priority of the state. It does not mean that harsh punishments and infringements on freedom of speech are excused.

It just means that we should follow the rules of the game.

Why does Charybdis send the Stocks up?

2012-02-13T23:51:00.002+01:00

It is pretty clear that the Greek cannot go on spending like they do. They have to cut down, because there is no money to spend.

On the other hand, it is very unlikely that the recent austerity measures will actually help their economy. They will slow it down. The measures will lead to increased poverty and probably to increased unemployment. Having a lot of unemployed Greek will not help any economy - the Greek or any other one.

Now, as the Greek parliament accepts the austerity measures that will sink their economy, the stocks of the world go up. Is that really the right direction?

Scylla and Charybdis. Damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I have a feeling that the stocks go up not because the investors think what is happening is good. Perhaps not even because it is the lesser of two evils. But because now, at least, there is less uncertainty.

Optics in Renaissance Art

2012-02-10T22:56:00.000+01:00

I just watched a program about the so called "Hockney–Falco thesis", which claims that the explosive development of renaissance art largely was due to advances in optics and new techniques for mirrors and lenses for camera obscura. The controversial bit of the theory is basically the word largely.

It is well known that artists did use optics to project pictures on to canvases, like in the 16th century picture below from a "Sketchbook on military art, including geometry, fortifications, artillery, mechanics, and pyrotechnics". (Source: Wikipedia commons.)

The controversial bit is just how much it was used, and if it was crucial to the explosion of life like pieces of art from the renaissance and onwards. And I do not care. I'm agnostic.

Regardless, it is interesting to consider the possibility that already at the time, there was a technical competition between artists. Those who could afford the best optical equipment could achieve the best paintings, just like you today can achieve much better photos with a DSLR camera than with a phone camera. There may have been discussions already at the time, which tools were best, like we today discuss the advantage of high resolution over noise reduction in dark pictures.

Besides, a large number of objects must have been real. When we see a magnificent lute in an old still life, it is very likely that the artist really had access to a lute in order to project it onto the canvas. It was probably rare that he painted something he had seen in the past from memory.

The artists could project different objects on top of each other, and paint one person one day, and call in another person to be projected onto the same canvas another day - each part being photorealistic in isolation. But just like when we today cut and paste layers in Photoshop, one had to pay attention to make sure that the different parts fit together realistically.

It is said that when Matteo Ricci in 1601 introduced Western paintings to the Chinese emperor Wànlì (万历, 萬曆), there were people at the court who said that the paintings were admirably life like, but it was not art. If the paintings indeed were made with optical aids, the Chinese may have perceived them like we perceive holiday snaps next to a Renoir or Picasso.

The Italian painter Giovanni Niccolo taught painting in Japan at the end of the 16th century. His pupil Jacopo Niva (倪一誠) executed religious art at several locations in China, like a copy of a Virgin of St Luke for a church in Beijing and decorations for a church in Nanchang. Matteo Ricci noted that to the Chinese, Niva's pictures seemed more like sculptures than paintings. I know of no evidence that Niva actually used optical projections for his paintings, but even if he did not, his paintings built on a tradition that partially included optical projections. The perceived hyper-realism could explain the Chinese reactions.

Proof that God does not exist

2012-01-13T22:58:00.000+01:00

There is no room for God. There are things we do not know in the world, but there are no mysteries only a god could explain. As science potentially could explain everything, there is no purpose with a god, and a god without purpose does not exist.

That's a pretty good proof, isn't it?

Luckily my faith is strong, and I believe in God, even though I have proof he does not exist.

Resistance is Futile

2012-01-04T22:03:00.001+01:00

Certain victories stand out. Today I have seen two dozen things on the internet that were blatantly wrong, and I resisted the temptation to answer any single one of them.

Will power!

More Regulation or Less?

2011-11-09T20:04:00.000+01:00

Funny how many people simplify the economy to just two options: Regulations are "good" or "bad".

A more realistic list of our options would be:

1. Idiotic regulations.
2. Idiotic deregulations.
3. Clever well thought through regulations.
4. Clever well thought through deregulations.

A large number of people clearly choose 1 over 4. And a similarly large number of people choose 2 over 3.

Personally, I pick both 3 and 4 over both 1 and 2.

Amazon's Business Model - Eternal Debt

2011-11-02T10:45:00.000+01:00

What is the realistic business model for the e-Book market? Let's say I pay $10 to Amazon for a book for my Kindle. For that price, I can read it on all my Kindle-devices: a Mac, a PC, an iPhone, an iPad, and so on. I can remove it from those devices and download it again a few months later. Or a few years later. Or a few decades later. Or a few centuries later. Or millennia.

Clearly there is no time when we customers expect to be cut off from books we paid for. That means that we expect Amazon to provide a server for all future, with all our books downloadable to all Kindle-enabled devices we or our descendants may have available. And that without having to pay another cent. Ever.

How does Amazon's balance sheet handle this eternal debt? Let's say that it costs them 0.001 cent to keep a book available on their servers for one hundred years. Then the cost to keep that book available for eternity is 0.001 time infinity, which is... Let's see... It is an infinity cents, which means roughly one infinity dollars, or if you are European, converted to Euro: one infinity Euro in debt for all eternity.

It does not seem like a great business to me.

Grandma Duck's Electric Car

2011-11-02T10:18:00.000+01:00

Today I learnt that Granma Duck's car is electric. It turns out that it is based on a Detroit Electric, an electric car that was produced 1907-1939. This goes to prove that there is nothing new with electric cars.

The picture above is a 1915 model at Tekniska Museet in Stockholm.

I knew that Tintin's cars mostly were based on real cars, but it was news to me that members of the Donald Duck family had real cars as well.

Promises Frighten Me

2011-08-21T21:02:00.000+02:00

The state of the world economy frightens me after all. First the Federal Reserve says it does not expect to raise rates until 2013. Then US vice president Joe Biden says that the US will never default. How can they possibly know that?

If the economy had really been in any kind of acceptable shape, they could have given figures instead of verbal promises. The more frequent promises are, the more likely it is that they cannot be backed up by facts.

Downhill to a refreshing bath

2011-08-19T10:56:00.000+02:00

Last time there was turmoil on the stock exchanges in the world in 2008, I was deeply worried. Now, when the DAX has gone down 30%, it simply feels like business as usual. We are having a really cold shower, and that can be refreshing.

Period!

2011-06-30T20:41:00.001+02:00

Whenever I read a posting on the web that contains the single-word sentence "Period.", I stop reading and go elsewhere. The phrase is an excellent indication that the author is too lazy or daft to apply logical reasoning, and that he is delusional enough to believe that other people would be interested in his unfounded assertions. Reading such an entry is always a complete waste of time. Exclamation mark!

One Past - Many Futures

2011-06-19T10:00:00.001+02:00

There is only one past but there are an infinite number of futures.

Isn't that unfair?

The Story of a Picture in Public Domain

2011-04-30T14:17:00.001+02:00

About five years ago, I submitted a photo of an orca to Wikipedia, suggesting that someone might want to add it to the English page about orcas. No one did, as far as I could tell. I forgot all about the picture, until today, when the owner of the site Animalandia sent me a nice mail thanking me for having released the photo to public domain.

I then accessed the photo's page at Mediawiki and discovered that the photo actually is used in Wikipedia articles in Arabic, Breton, Spanish, Hungarian, Korean, New Norwegian, Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Swahili, Vietnamese and Chinese. It is also used in some articles in English, but not the one about orcas, which I had intended it for. In the Spanish Wikipedia, it is even used as a "Medalla de Orca saltarina" for editors who have made important contributions to Wikipedia.

What about the rest of the internet? I googled around and quickly found several pages where the picture is used:

To me this, is how public domain should work. A simple picture is released and dozens of people who happen to need such a photo simply use it. No hassle. Just use it.

That Nobel Prize Winner is an Idiot

2011-03-26T16:57:00.000+01:00

The Nobel memorial economy prize laureate Paul Krugman yesterday wrote that one should not apply austerity measures in an economic crisis - a theme he often comes back to.

The problem with the whole article, as with many of his articles, is that he does not set any criteria. He claims that the problems in Portugal, Britain and Ireland have become worse because of slashed spending. That may be true or not. However, even if it were true, there clearly is a limit as to what a country can afford. If there is no money, there is no money. You can go out and borrow to some extent, but not infinite amounts. There must mathematically be a limit.

Personally, I could easily take a loan to buy a Toyota Yaris for €10 000. However, no bank in their right mind would lend me €200 000 to buy a Bentley. I would not be in my right mind myself if I applied for such a loan, even if I needed that particular car for some good reason. The economic potential is not there. Somewhere there is a limit.

If I had to go through some expensive medical treatment, I might need €10 000 000. Does that mean that I would pay for it? No. The money is not there. I might need it, but I could not afford it. Would that be a tragic situation? Yes, but there would be no way around it.

Likewise for a country's economy. Increased spending or quantitative easing may be the right measure in some situations: When the conditions allow it. If the conditions are not there, increased national bond yields and unemployment will unfortunately follow, but there is no way around it.

Increased spending cannot always be good for all economic situations. It may have been the way Britain should have gone (something I'm not convinced of), but that would not mean that it necessarily has to be the way the US should go. They are two different countries. The conditions are different.

If Krugman can provide data that shows that the US currently is in the kind of situation where increased spending makes sense, by all means, that is the way to go.

However, the argument that increased spending always makes sense for all countries in all situations does not work.

Computers and Skilled Jobs - Who is Skilled?

2011-03-07T13:35:00.000+01:00

In a New York Times article called Degrees and Dollars, Paul Krugman writes about how computers may be able to replace a lot of activities that traditionally were considered skilled labour, like some of the things lawyers and engineers do.

There is a twist on that subject. Traditionally, corporations set "measurable" targets for their employees. That means that they put more weight on a task like "sell x number of units" than on "gain an understanding of customer needs". The former can easily be measured. The latter cannot.

Now, the "skilled" activities a computer can perform are repeatable and easily measured. In other words, the traditional company prioritises tasks that computers can do over humans. Setting measurable objectives is a fairly measurable objective, so even management of those companies could to some extent be replaced by computers.

And if management is a computer that very efficiently assigns tasks to other computers to earn money, what do the computers use the money for?

Luckily computers are not yet good at imagining fun things to do with money.

Say have you met Libya, Libya, the Tattooed Lady?

2011-02-24T22:47:00.000+01:00

It is difficult to judge what the West should do or have done with Libya and the current crisis. Actually, it is not that difficult to judge - the difficulty is to come with the right judgement.

The Libyan map is tattooed with numerous peoples and religions: Arabs, Berber, Touareg, Tebou, Barasa, Majabrah, Sunni, Ibadi and so on. There are city dwellers, farmers, people who live by the coast and people who live in the desert.

Some of those different groups surely feel more distant to Muammar Gaddafi (معمر القذافي‎) than others. But how many of the Libyans feel primarily that they are Libyans?

That is the snag. Libya right now is in a horrible state, and at first glance it might seem like the human thing would be to send an international army to the country to put things in order. However, every outsider who tries to change the country in one direction or another, may contribute to a united "anti-foreigner" feeling in the country, and that movement would certainly be exploited by Gaddafi.

Yes, he has his own foreign mercenaries who fight for him, but they fight on Libyan orders. Not the orders of "the people" or of a democratically elected government, but the orders of the leader of the country since many decades, and that may give it some kind of legality in the eyes of some.

Sending foreign troops from the outside is a sensitive thing, and it is impossible to predict how the different Libyan groups would perceive it, no matter whose side the foreigners were to fight on. It might make some of the Libyans feel more nationalistic and loyal to Gaddafi. A foreign invasion might actually help Gaddafi. Or not.

On the other hand, it is horrible to stand without doing anything at the sideline and see the Libyans kill each other.

So what should be done? I do not know. I'm afraid I am agnostic.

Scientists surprised

2011-01-27T11:05:00.000+01:00

At a recent physics convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group of scientists from the university of Bratislava (Portugal) were walking to a nearby café, when a little girl jumped out from behind a corner and shouted "Booh!" Reports reveal that they were all surprised. "I think none of us had expected anything like this", said one of the visitors.

Everything is Cyclic

2010-12-24T08:12:00.000+01:00

A few years ago, I had breakfast at the same time in the morning twice. First in Osaka (大阪), then, having crossed the international date line, in Honolulu.

I recently had a similar experience. I checked in for a two hour flight one day. The next day, I went to the same airport and checked in again for the same flight.

Phileas Fogg gained one day by crossing the date line. Could he have saved a day by checking in for the same flight twice in a row as well?

What is more likely to make us younger? What is more likely to make us more experienced?

North Korean Yeonpyeong Attack - Not on Purpose?

2010-11-29T21:40:00.002+01:00

In spite of the international outrage, the recent North Korean attack on the South Korean Yeonpyeong, 연평도, islands may have been a clumsy mistake. The attack seems so utterly pointless that not even the North Korean leadership perhaps thought of it.

Imagine this scenario. You are a North Korean soldier. You have heard all your life that there are evil countries like South Korea and the US who constantly are trying to attack the country you live in, and where you, in spite of some hardships, have had a fairly decent childhood. Now, this is the real thing. You are a soldier close to the border, and the evil enemies are close by. Suddenly, you see and hear the South firing with canons.

You know that your duty is to defend the country of your family and friends. (You do not have to think about the fact that you defend Kim Jong Il, 김정일, and the communist party as well.) You give alert. "We are under attack." Surely that is the only reason why the South would fire their canons - to attack us. They are, after all, evil - that's what you have heard all your life. Your officers panic. They also want to defend the country of their families and friends. They immediately order retaliation.

This is important. This is to defend the peace of your community, to make sure that nothing harms your parents, your sisters and brothers, your friends and your small innocent nephews and nieces, perhaps your own children. It is such an important task, and you are part of it. Of course you have to fire, fire and fire again, against the evil anonymous enemy out there.

This goes on for about an hour, and 170 shells have been fired. During most of this time, the South shoots, now definitely at you and your friends, who have done nothing worse than trying to defend your near and dear. You finally stop shooting, when a senior officer gets involved and tells you to. About one hour later, the South stops their shooting as well.

You make your report to your command, who send their report to Pyongyang, 평양, where the top leadership has to try to explain the incident to an annoyed international community, without admitting that their country messed up.

I do not know if this is how it happened, but it seems as likely to me, as some well orchestrated North Korean plot to achieve something one does not even know what it might be. My experience is that politicians make a lot of clumsy mistakes. I am willing to believe that the North Korean politicians are as clumsy as the ones in the West.

The Euro - not that much of a crisis

2010-11-29T19:53:00.000+01:00

Ever since Greece got into financial trouble at the beginning of this year, there have been people, mostly from outside the currency union, who predict its sudden demise. I will stick out my usually so agnostic neck here, and say that they are talking utter rubbish.

Is there a crisis? Yes, of course it is. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, all have huge economic difficulties. However, it is not a crisis that is worse than other economic crises in the past. The world economy is a dynamic system, and there are bound to be crises popping up here and there, like in Denmark in 1987, the United Kingdom and Japan in 1992 or Taiwan and Korea in 1997. All those countries had their own currencies, and that did not save them from any crisis at all. Some of them have recovered, like Taiwan and Denmark, and some have not, like the UK and Japan.

The recent crises within the Euro area proves that the Euro is not a fool proof way of keeping a country out of economic troubles, but I do not know anyone who ever claimed it was.

There is a crisis, an issue, a problem, a situation, and now politicians and the market forces are working on solving it. We do not know yet, how good or swift the solution will be, but it is very likely that there will be some solution.

The Euro prevents some traditional ways of solving the problem. Spain cannot devalue its currency to get more competitive. However, devaluations are very blunt instruments. With a devaluation, everyone in a country gets temporarily poorer. Everyone will get less money to buy imported goods - and domestic goods, made of foreign parts. A domestic company which needs foreign parts to sell on the domestic market will be hit by a devaluation, perhaps so much that it actually goes out of business, causing unemployment and further disasters. If Spain would devalue its local currency, it would lower the salary for all those people who work for financially sound companies, as well as the ones that need to become more competitive.

With the Euro, there will be no devaluation, and financially sound Spanish companies will be able to do business as usual. Other companies will have to take some drastic measures, like laying off people or lowering salaries. However, if there had been a devaluation, Spanish companies would get more competitive, and some companies outside Spain would get less competitive in relative terms, and they would run into problems. When there is a shortage of money, someone is inevitably hit. The question is who and how.

The Euro in its present form is a new concept, and no one knows exactly what solutions will emerge, but there will surely be solutions for a lot of the people involved. For some people, there may be no solution, and their living standard will be permanently lowered - just like in other crises in countries with their own currency.

But let's assume for a moment, that the Euro is to be blamed for the current problems, how would one get rid of it?

That is a real problem. It is almost impossible to do so.

A country with a poor economic situation could be tempted to leave the Euro to be able to devalue. The problem is that it inevitably would be known in advance that they would leave, and before the cut-over, everyone would rush to remove their money from the poor country, as everyone would know that the currency was meant to lose value. People would transfer all their savings abroad. Companies would transfer their headquarters and capital abroad. The flow of capital would be immense. The intended effect, a loss of value of perhaps 5-10%, would extend to a drainage of the entire country's resources.

A country with a good economic situation could be tempted to leave, not to be dragged down with the falling value of the Euro. The problem here is the same, but with inverted values. Everyone would know in advance that the country would leave with the intention of pushing up the value. There would be an enormous pressure to buy assets in this country to take advantage of the appreciation to come. This would drive the currency so high, that the salaries in the rich country would become impossibly high. The companies would not be able to afford them, as their products would be too expensive to export, and mass unemployment would follow.

This means that it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, for anyone to leave the Euro - at least for the purpose of fluctuating a local currency up or down.

Besides, there are all the practical costs we paid once when we joined the Euro, that will need to be paid again: transition of accounting systems and software, replacement of all slot machines (like parking meters, vending machines, ATMs), distribution of the new currency and elimination of the old currency (the Euro that is still valid in other countries) and so on.

In addition, for every country leaving the Euro, the old arguments are still valid. International travel would become more expensive, as we would have to start paying exchange fees again when going to neighbour countries. International trade would be more cumbersome and more expensive, as each transaction would have to pay for the risk involved. That would lower the trade volume, and one thing no economist outside North Korea denies today, is that trade is necessary to generate wealth.

At last someone to talk to

2010-11-29T19:02:00.000+01:00

There is an elderly (and charmingly fictitious) lady in our house. She lives on her own, but clearly has a need for company all the time. When you bump into her in the corridor, she will talk about this and that with you, until she suddenly turns around and tries to involve your neighbour in the conversation when he tries to sneak past.

Recently the block got an elevator with a synthetic voice, and the lady adores it:

I can go up and down for ever talking with the elevator. It is so polite.

"You have reached the third floor."

"Yes, that's it, isn't it? Golly, are we there already?"

"You have reached the fifth floor."

"Are you sure? I could have sworn it was the sixth floor. Yes, look at that. That's where the Duponts live. I recognise their pretty door mat. It is the fifth floor indeed."

"You have reached the second floor."

"You are having me on, aren't you? This is the fourth floor. No, there is no use arguing, I'm sure it is. I should know, shouldn't I? I have lived in this house for years. You were installed just a few weeks ago."

"You have reached the seventh floor."

"Oh, that is my favourite. Did you know it was? I like the view from the windows here. You can see the roof of the Negresco in the distance. It is so lovely. Thanks for bringing me here..."
And it never gets tired of talking with me!

Life is never boring for people who can appreciate a talking elevator. If they only taught people how to do it in school, the world would be a much happier place.

Me - A Gentle Savage

2010-11-17T20:09:00.000+01:00

If you travel in a country where not everyone has access to basic education, you will meet people one could (politically incorrectly) call "savages". Most of them would definitely not be savages in the sense "wild brutes", but in the sense of a gentle savage - a mostly nice person who has limited grasp of civilisation. They will probably speak more languages than you do, but that will be local languages, and they will not be able to write anything down. They will not know basic things about astronomy, quantum physics, banking systems, foreign countries, the theories of relativity or evolution. They will often be nice people, just like you and me, fun to chat with and helpful if they see you have a problem. However, due to their background, they would score low on a typical intelligence test, even one designed for people who cannot read or write or count. Their lack of education and experience would make it difficult for them to fit in the rich part of the world.

Some years ago, a very intelligent little girl asked me "when does the world start?" I did not understand what she meant at the time. She may not have understood it herself. But I think the world soon will start, and it will leave me behind as a gentle savage.

Hardly any adults today have had access to internet all their lives. All adults have been raised by parents and teachers who lived most of their lives without internet. However, there will be more and more adults who do not know of any world without computers and the internet. And they will get children and will teach young people, who have had computers around them since before they were born.

The coming generations will get education and experiences and stimulations that we older people can never catch up with. We will to them be savages, hopefully gentle ones.

What Camera did Irving Penn use?

2010-11-01T14:33:00.001+01:00

There is a good old apocryphal story about the author Ernest Hemingway and the photographer Irving Penn.

Ernest Hemingway to Irving Penn:
“Your photos are really good. What camera do you use?”
Irving Penn to Ernest Hemingway:
“Your novels are excellent. What typewriter do you use?”

The problem with the story is of course that it does not give the important information, which camera did Penn actually use? Luckily, the National Portrait Gallery in London can inform us that he used Rolleiflex, Deardorff V8 and Hasselblad. And certainly a bunch of others during his long life.

Ernest Hemingway used a Corona #3 typewriter when he want to Europe in 1921. Thanks to this blog for finding references about this in Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 1969, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons. He is also supposed to have used a Royal Arrow, Underwood and Halda. Three of his typewriters allegedly still are at the Hemingway villa Finca Vigia in Cojimar Cuba.

Staggering Happiness

2010-10-12T19:32:00.000+02:00

There is a rumour... (Actually, no, there isn't. But there could be. And perhaps soon will be, if people read out this blog to each other in a mumbling voices.) Anyhow...

There is a rumour that a team of zoologists from the university of Cuxhaven have found a new species of cockroach in South Eastern Sawarak on the border to Indonesia. The exterior aspect of the cockroach is somewhat unusual, but what is stunning is its mind.

Several tests of the hormones in this tiny animal, showed that it was the happiest thing ever identified. The structure and concentration of the chemicals showed that it was far happier than even a grown up human can ever aspire to become. It was happier than a winning football team and even happier than hundreds of dolphins playing with red plastic balls.

Naturally, the researchers felt bad about destroying such intense happiness, and none of them wanted to harm the cockroach in any way. Consequently, the cockroach gained the privilege to walk around in their morning cherry jam and eat as much as it wanted.

This is the first known example of an animal having developed a call for envy and compassion as self defence.

Fighting Islamisation - a Strangely Consequent Approach

2010-09-08T22:08:00.004+02:00

My brother-in-law, Bob, was really upset the other day. He discovered that their new neighbours were Muslims.

"This needs to be stopped!" he said. "They move here, to a nice Christian neighbourhood..."
"Well, the couple across the street are atheists."
"Yes, but I'm sure they do not mean it. If they had to choose, I'm sure they would be Christians."
"Your next-door neighbours on the other side are also atheists, actually. And the Smiths further down the street. And the Joneses further up are Hindus."
"Yes, yes, but they are not Muslims. And that is the point. We non-Muslims need to stick together."
"Because you have zero confidence in Muslims?"
"Stop right there! I have little confidence in Muslims. Not zero. Zero is a concept we Westerners imported from the Muslim world eight hundred years ago. It is a Muslim idea, and we do not need it."
"We do not need the number zero? What about typing the year you were born, 1970?"
"That can easily be done with good Christian numerals: MXMCLPRSPQRX or something like that."
"Are you feeling well? I could get you a brandy."
"Never will I drink that disgusting Muslim drink."
"What? Muslims do not drink alcohol."
"True, but the chemical process of distillation is something we Westerners learnt from the Muslims during the middle ages. I will never drink any distilled drinks again."
"You need to sit down. Help yourself to some fruit, if you want to."
"Don't you have any non-Muslim fruits?"
"What?"
"Look in the bowl. Full of Muslim propaganda! Peaches, apricots, oranges..."
"... which we all got from the Muslims. I get the idea. A glass of water then? Or a cup of water, in case we learnt how to make glass from the Muslim world."
"A cup will be fine, thanks."
"Good. Lemon with that?"
"Lemon!"
"Sorry, probably something we got from the Muslims, right?"
"Absolutely. Like artichokes, aubergines, saffron and spinach."
"Well, I was not about to offer you any slice of spinach in your water."
"Fine!"

I went to the kitchen to get a cup of water without lemon or spinach. When I came back, Bob was busy tearing my nephew's pocket calculator apart with a penknife.

"Bob, what are you doing?!"
"Look at that! Sine, cosine, tangent, all Muslim inventions. I will remove the buttons from this sinful gadget."
"No, you will not. That sinful gadget is not yours."

I pulled the calculator from him and looked at it.

"You removed the division sign. Do you want to imply that we learnt division from the Muslims?"
"No. We Westerners have always been able to divide, as have all civilisations, I guess."
"And?"
"It is the slash to separate numerator and denominator that is a Muslim idea. We cannot have that, can we?"

I sighed and switched on the radio to get some music to calm down with. Bob immediately started to scream and covered his ears.

"Switch it off! Switch it off!"
"What now?"
"It is the Beatles!"
"And the Beatles were Muslims?"
"No, but they play guitars. Guitars are measly Muslim instruments that were brought to Europe through Spain in the middle ages."

I switched channels.

"And what about Johann Sebastian Bach's incredibly Christian Mass in B-minor? I can hardly think of any more Christian piece of music."
"This is nothing to joke about." Bob rushed up and switched it off. "The violin has its roots in the Muslim instrument rebab. I refuse to listen to that Islamic noise. No symphony orchestras when I'm around, please!"

When he rushed up, he dropped the cup of water on his shirt. I offered to lend him a dry shirt of mine, but he pointed out that cotton was brought to the West by Muslims. I offered to go to the pharmacy around the corner, to buy him some sedatives, but he pointed out that pharmacies were a Muslim invention.

"Bob," I finally cried. "You are mad. You are nuts. There is no reason in anything you say. You should be locked up in an asylum."
"Yes," he answered. "Yes. Yes and No."
"What?"
"Yes, I am mad. And I am proud of it. There have been mad people around in the West since the beginning of time. It is a good old Christian state of mind. However, the idea that one should take care of the mad people in asylums, that is an invention from the Muslim world, just like other hospitals, so I absolutely refuse to be treated in an asylum."

Ehm

2010-08-27T18:58:00.000+02:00

I forgot what I wanted to write now.

Do you remember what you wanted to read? If so, please write it down on a piece of paper and read it out with a loud and clear voice.

No computers, please

2010-08-06T10:49:00.002+02:00

There is a New York Times blog about a coffee shop where they do not allow computers. Or e-Book readers.

The logic of the coffee shop may have something to it. They want a rapid turnover of clients so they get rapid turnover of money. If people have too nice a time, playing computer games or reading long novels, they can stay for ever and take up place for paying customers.

However, why stop at electronic devices? They should prevent anyone from having too fun. No paper books. No newspapers. And something that is even more time consuming than reading is of course: friends. There should be no talking allowed. No chatting. No laughing. Preferably no drinking or eating either.

That would really make people leave quickly.

The World is not Boolean

2010-07-17T10:47:00.003+02:00

Being agnostic does not always mean that you do not know. It often means that you know that you do not know. That means that you have more information than someone who considers himself informed.

I just read this in a booklet about evolution:

Mutations can be:

harmful
beneficial or
neutral

That is a good example of an informed statement that is blatantly false. The general idea is of course right, and it is something to keep in mind if you want to learn about evolution.

However, there are not exactly three possible labels for each mutation. We cannot take a particular mutation and classify it as "harmful" and nothing else or definitely "beneficial". And we rarely can claim it to be absolutely "neutral".

Unless you define what those terms mean, the statement has hardly any information value at all. Beneficial for what? For the individual? For the group? In the current environment? In any environment? When the individual is young or when he grows old? For males or females?

Sickle-cell anaemia is caused by a mutation that also happens to make the person immune to malaria. Is that "beneficial" or "harmful"? Both. If you live on Greenland, it is a bad mutation, but if you move to Congo, that same mutation can help you.

One could go out on a limb here, and say that each and every mutation has some beneficial and some harmful value. Sometimes, it is almost entirely beneficial and sometimes almost entirely harmful, but most of the time somewhere in between.

There are admittedly "neutral" mutations. Those are mutations that have absolutely no effect whatsoever.

The point, however, is that we have a tendency to put absolute labels on things, and think using those labels. Was the war in Iraq "good" or "bad"? Is the lady in the at the news stand down the street "nice" or "nasty"? Are state subsidies to collapsing banks "good" or "bad"?

The answer to all those questions, if one thinks about it, is "neither". Or "both". A bit of this and a bit of that.

This does not mean that it does not matter. It matters a lot, when you are leader of a country and a major bank collapses. You have to choose: either you save the bank or not. Just do not think that the decision will be "right" or "wrong". It will be mostly right or mostly wrong. It may help some people long term, and harm other people short term. The decision will be partly good and partly wrong. The task is to figure out which decision is more good and less bad.

But if you describe the world in absolute terms, you describe a world that does not exist.

Poor white South Africans

2010-06-25T18:44:00.003+02:00

An acquaintance of mine had seen a television program that clearly was based on Finbarr O’Reilly's photos. The program had apparently been biased in a way to tell the story of the current horrible situation of the poor whites in South Africa, ignoring the situation of poor blacks.

What the program did not mention was that there always have been some poor white people in SA, just like one of the comments says below the NYT article: "The emergence of Afrikaner nationalism, over 100 years ago, was tied, in part, to a desire to lift poor white Afrikaners out of poverty." There have of course been many other poor Europeans in Africa, notably Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique.

The implicit statement of the television program, that black majority rule makes loads of white poor for the first time in Southern Africa's history, is clearly wrong.

But as a white European, it is not easy to find any acceptable reaction to O'Reilly's pictures. One has to sympathise with the poor whites, of course, as one should sympathise with poor people of all colours in all countries. On the other hand, it feels very awkward to pick out this particular group, when there are plenty of poor blacks in South Africa and plenty of other poor people in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola and so on all the way to the United States and Zimbabwe.

Food is handed out to residents in Coronation Park. Photo: Finbarr O’Reilly

Karlfeldt vs Dickens vs Eliot - three learned men

2010-06-20T00:28:00.002+02:00

In the poem Sång efter skördeanden the Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt, describes how Fridolin "talar med bönder på böndernas sätt men med lärde män på latin" - "speaks with peasants in peasants' ways but with learned men in Latin".

It is a very useful expression in Swedish. The problem is to find an equivalent English saying that describes the ability to change language and style according to whom you speak with.

The best thing I found so far is originally from Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend:

‘For I aint, you must know,’ said Betty, ‘much of a hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn’t think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.’

The last sentence, He do the Police in different voices, was taken up by T. S. Eliot, who used it as the working title of The Waste Land.

Unfortunately, that phrase is a far cry from Karlfeldt's lines, at least for my purpose to describe someone who is able to adapt his language to the situation. If anyone has any better proposal, feel free to post it.

We are completely cut off, but it does not really matter

2010-04-15T22:34:00.003+02:00

Strange that the current eruption of the volcano of Eyjafjallajökull is not more noticeable than it is. All air traffic in Northern Europe is cancelled. And yet, we do not really care. We communicate with family and friends and foes that are thousands of kilometres away as easily as we always do using the internet, even if hardly any physical transport can take place.

Diagnosed psychopaths

2010-03-30T20:11:00.002+02:00

In my (fictitious) sister's company, all management went to a psycho-therapy training. Part of the training was a so called ppt test, which unfortunately showed that all managers without exception had psychopathic tendencies. They were therefore all dismissed and sent for urgent treatment.

The company could of course not work without management, so the shareholder's board were in a hurry to employ new managers. To speed up the process, they borrowed the ppt test to quickly identify candidates with the kind of psychological profile they considered desirable.

The Final Language

2010-03-17T19:37:00.005+01:00

All the different languages we have in the world today are the evolutionary result of people trying to communicate as efficiently as possible with different starting points. As time goes on, people will select more and more efficient features in their languages. Of course one feature that is efficient in one language may not be efficient in another. For example, Chinese has much fewer possible syllables than English, so it is efficient to add tones to make clearer distinctions between syllables. As English has more syllables, it does not need tones.

Languages will drift around, picking up and dropping features that are efficient for different purposes: clarity, speed, variety. But sooner or later, all languages will reach the ultimate stage, where they have turned into the most efficient language possible. I call this ultimate language Magnusianian Languagistically Perfectissimotasticanianish.

You do not believe such a language will ever appear?

I challenge you. Just wait 20 000 years and see, what the world will come up with.

The Joy of Getting Well

2010-03-15T20:40:00.002+01:00

Few things can give you such pleasure as a really annoying illness. It does not matter if it is life threatening or just a cold. The only point is that it shall be annoying. It shall cause you such grief that you can think of nothing else for one or a few days. Pain, fatigue or a runny nose. It is impossible to ignore.

Then you get well. And suddenly the world looks bright again.

If you never had been ill in the first place, it might never have looked bright. The end of your illness is what the world waited for to start looking bright.

From Hanzi to kana to konfusion

2010-03-12T14:43:00.007+01:00

Today's language lesson comes from Asia, a continent I like as much as I like all the other continents.

The three characters you see in the column to the left above are Chinese characters - hànzì in Chinese. In Japanese they are called "kanji". The first character, 己, is today pronounced "jǐ". However, a thousand years ago or so, it was probably pronounced more like "ki" or "ke".

The second character, 止, is today pronounced "zhǐ", but back then, it was probably more of "te". The bottom character, 毛, is today pronounced "máo" - yes, like chairman 毛 of the Chinese communist party. A thousand years ago, however, he would probably be called chairman "Maw" or something like that.

That was the first column.

The Japanese, who did not have any writing system themselves 1500 years ago, decided to use the Chinese characters. They took 己 and decided to pronounce it "ko" - almost like the Chinese. However, they decided to simplify 己, and instead wrote コ. Or こ. Likewise they made two different versions of 止: ト and と to write "to". And chairman 毛 was used to write "mo" in the simplified shapes of モ and も. The variants you find in the second column are called "katakana" and the variants you find in the third column are called "hiragana".

Now, you probably guessed what the fourth column is. Yes, it is exactly the same three characters again! It is the hiragana variant written in a font inspired by the 12th century poet and calligrapher Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家).

The font's name is Kazuraki (かづらき). If you also want to be able to write Japanese in a way so people will not be able to read it, you can buy it from Adobe.

----
The above and many other ancient Chinese pronunciations can be found at Rinet. A lot of what we know about ancient Chinese pronunciation comes from the works of Karlgren.

The Wisest Liar

2010-02-04T07:07:00.003+01:00

If you come to a primitive community, like a medieval European town, an Arabian 7th century Rashidun desert camp or a 13th century Kamakura Japanese fishing village, where would you go for information? Who is the most knowledgeable person in the place? The priest of course!

The irony of it is that the most knowledgeable persons are the ones that most certainly would disagree with each other most vehemently if they met. One of the three priests might be right, but the remaining two would be liars. And they would still be the best source of information.

Do we have similar sources of information today? Discuss.

Meat Eater to help the Animals

2010-02-04T07:00:00.001+01:00

Me: Here you are, eating a big steak. I thought you were vegetarian.

Him: I was. But I realised that there were more important things in the world than my own health.

Me: Like...?

Him: Biodiversity. Imagine if everyone stopped eating meat. There are all those species that have been bread by humans for hundreds or even thousands of years with one single purpose: to be eaten. If we stopped eating them, species like farm pigs and broiler chickens would have nowhere to live, and we would lose them as species. The only way to make sure that they survive as a species is to eat them as individuals.

Me: I think I'll have a salad. I would not risk salad going extinct.

Afghanistan - the journalists are losing the war

2009-12-12T18:36:00.002+01:00

In the war between most of the world and the Taliban in Afghanistan, there may be no winner, but it seems the world definitely is a loser.

This is not because not enough weapons are sent in. This is not because the world does not have enough soldiers. It is not because the Taliban have highly skilled huge armies. Most people seem to agree on this.

However, no one has come up with any convincing explanation for why the world is losing. The people who are supposed to come with explanations are journalists, people who are there, who have contacts, who know the place. And yet we hear nothing much of actual value. We get informations that are easy to collect: the number of troops, the statements of political leaders. But do we get information that matters?

Among the Taliban, how many of them have chosen to fight for the Taliban, and how many have been forced to join them? No one seems to know. Of the ones who chose to join them, what were there reasons for doing so? There must be thousands of different reasons, but I can hardly mention any, and even less do I see any concrete measures taken to remove those reasons.

How much of the country is "safe", be it in the hands of the Talibans or in the hands of the allied troops and the Afghan government? How much is unstable? How many people fear for their lives? How many fear without reason? How many do not fear, even though they should be afraid? In the safe areas, what do people think of the foreign involvement in the country? How many of the women think the burqas are horrible and how many of them actually like the protection it gives? How many of the anti-allied anti-government forces would happily give up weapons, if they were just given... something? And what would that be?

It seems no one can answer those questions. No one knows. No one knows how to handle the questions, how to handle the peoples of Afghanistan, what their needs and desires are.

That's where the journalists fail. Without this information, we, citizens of democratic countries, cannot give any rational opinions on what should be done. Without this information, we cannot pressure our leaders to rational decisions.

And the result is a prolonged and irrational war. And we are in it.

A Royal Question

2009-10-25T20:19:00.004+01:00

I recently got a question about what I think of monarchy. The short answer is: "nothing."

That brief answer constitutes a good short blog entry, which everyone will appreciate, as time is such a precious thing in our busy time. It is also in line with my agnostic view of the world. However, it does not keep me occupied for long, and I have a few minutes to fill out this evening, so let me expand "nothing" to... well... "something". But not much.

There is no good definition of "monarchy". There have been kings and queens with crowns and without. There have been kings and queens that were elected, and some who inherited their job, a little like Kim Jong-il (김정일, 金正日) in North Korea. I do not know Kim's exact title, but the common epithet "Dear Leader" (chinaehan jidoja, 친애한 지도자) could probably be replaced by "King" without changing much in practice.

What is important for any country is that the leader does not make a mess of things, like killing millions of people or declaring silly unnecessary wars at the other side of the globe. Kings have done some really silly things, but so have presidents, Reichskanzlers and general secretaries of the ruling party. The important thing is neither the title nor the way the title was given. The important thing is the result.

"It does not matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice", as Dèng Xiǎopíng (邓小平) said. (Bùguǎn báimāo hēimāo, dàizhù láoshǔ jiùshì hǎomāo. 不管白貓黑貓，逮住老鼠就是好貓。) He was talking about something else, but the proverb works on titles of rulers as well. Ironically, he himself was regarded as China's real leader, even when his only official title was honorary chairman (róngyù zhǔxí, 荣誉主席) of the China Bridge Association (Zhōngguó qiáopái xiéhuì, 中国桥牌协会).

In other words, if a country has a king or a queen or a president or a dear leader as head of state does not really matter, as long as the person behaves in a decent way.

The lazy ones will save us

2009-10-25T20:16:00.002+01:00

In my sister's company, management has discovered the importance of procedures. The problem is, of course, that some people do not want to apply them. Management realised that the one big group who were unlikely to follow procedures, were people who were smart enough to think about when to apply them. The solution was simple. No new employees with imagination and intelligence will be hired. Existing employees that show tendencies to use their own initiative will be terminated immediately.

The internal web site for employees gives the messages: "Follow our agreed procedures." "Don't think, unless someone ask you to." "It is good to be too lazy to think." "If you feel an urge to question our procedures, take some time to do some internet shopping instead. At least, that's good for the country's economy."

Dolly by Falstaff, fakir

2009-08-15T23:00:00.005+02:00

There is a poem called simply "Dolly" by the author Axel Wallengren, also known as Falstaff, fakir. It goes like this:

Dolly, Dolly, har du hjärta?
Svara mig, du grymma snärta!
Nej, du har ej. Oh, vad smärta!
Därför går jag nu till Berta.

As far as I know there is no English translation of it, so I will do an attempt of my own to render as much of the eloquence as possible:

Dolly, Dolly, where's thy heart?
Answer me! Thou cruel art!
Oh, what pain, for thou hast none.
Therefore I'll to Betty run.

Brain Sport

2009-08-15T20:47:00.002+02:00

The human brain accounts for only 2% of the body weight but it takes 15-20% of the body's energy consumption. Consequently, the most efficient way to lose weight must be to think really hard.

I'm not sure that is true, but it is worth thinking about.

The Tongan Word for "No"

2009-07-14T12:22:00.002+02:00

You may have heard this educational song by Flanders and Swan:

Oh its hard to say, olimakityluchachichichi, but in Tonga that means "no",
If I ever have the money, 'tis to Tonga I shall go...
For each lovely Tongan maiden there, will gladly make a date,
and by the time she's said olimakityluchachichichi,
It is usually too late!

You may also have spent hours, perhaps days, repeating "olimakityluchachichichi" to yourself, as a first step to learn Tongan.

You then wasted some time, I'm afraid. Flanders and Swan were not particularly accurate on this point, and the real Tongan word for "no" is "‘ikai".

(I have not found any overly reputable source for this, but search the web for Tongan no 'ikai, and you will find some bilingual official forms and private blogs that confirm it.)

Xinjiang and Turkey - who gets at whom?

2009-07-14T11:17:00.002+02:00

10 July 2009, there was an article about the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, describing the events in Xīnjiāng (新疆, شىنجاڭ) as a kind of genocide.

11 July, there was another article, stating that three quarters of the victims were Han (汉) Chinese and not Uighur.

Does that mean that mr. Erdoğan denounced an Uighur genocide of innocent Han Chinese?

Considering that the Uighur are a Turkish people, that is unlikely. It is more likely that he either did not know the official numbers or did not trust them.

Global Times also gives a gender breakdown: 26 Han Chinese women were killed. Only one Uighur woman was killed.

We do not need to trust Chinese official figures - as little as we need to trust figures from any other source which has interests at stake. However, neither do we have to pretend that they do not exist.

Analysing this kind of events is usually very difficult, considering the complexity and how little facts are available. To ignore some claims but not others does not make it easier.

Bizarre

2009-06-04T12:35:00.004+02:00

This is a blog entry entirely for my own benefit. There is a word I simply cannot spell correctly. Actually, I'm sure I can spell it correctly, but I do not know which language I spell it in, when I spell it. So:

Bizarre is how you spell it in English and French.
Bisarr or bizarr is how you spell it in Swedish.
Bisarr is how you spell it in Norwegian.
Bizarr is how you spell it in German and Hungarian.
Bizzarro is how you spell it in Italian.
Bizar is how you spell it in Dutch and Danish.
Bizarro is how you spell it in Portuguese or Spanish.
Bizarní is how you spell it in Czech.

How it spells itself is not yet known.

Why hunt the pirates? Why Hadopi?

2009-05-14T20:00:00.003+02:00

The French government recently passed a law that will cut off internet users who use their account for illegal file sharing.

Sharing copyrighted files is illegal, and there is nothing strange about that. Artists have created something, and they should receive some compensation. Protecting their rights is a perfectly legitimate thing to do.

However, what is strange is the proportions the issue has taken.

Governments do not usually spend huge amounts on artists and art. However, here, suddenly, the government is willing to sacrifice people's right to share information, something which is article 19 in the the United Nations declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

In other words, the French government is willing to take the risk of breaking an internationally accepted law of human rights for the sake of artists.

They can do so of course. It is a matter of weighing one law against another. But I still wonder why they choose to do it? If artists are so powerful lobbyists, why do they not ask for more public subsidies?

There are other important things in the world. Global warming. Economic meltdown. Diseases. Wars. Why, pray why, do governments spend so much time on controlling file sharing, when they do not support the artists more economically?

Documentary that is not documenting

2009-05-10T10:34:00.002+02:00

There is a National Geographic production called "Wall of Death" about wildlife close to the Dead Sea.

The program has no obvious purpose. It is a "nature program", so it of course has sequences with wild animals. However, it also shows obviously staged sequences like a "live recording" of animals' behaviour during an earthquake. Clearly it is impossible to time camera setup with earthquakes, that can happen any time or never, and even if they managed to catch a real earthquake, it is a slim chance that they would be able to film any animals during the few seconds an earthquake usually takes.

Sometimes it is obvious what are staged sequences, and sometimes it is impossible to tell. The result is that you sit and spend all your time thinking "is this true? or is it fake?" And once you have seen the program to end, you have no idea what you actually learnt from it, if anything. However, you know you lost 50 minutes of your life.

Creationists have more fun

2009-05-09T14:59:00.003+02:00

I met a man in the main square today. He asked me if I had read the bible, and I answered yes.

"It is a magnificent book, isn't it?" he continued.
"Well, partly yes. But I have problems with things like the bits about Adam and Eve. It is not easy to fit with modern science."
"Oh, forget modern science! God created all plants and animals."
"You seriously believe that?"
"If you admire the wonders of the trees on the steep slopes in a valley, would it not feel great to have someone to say thank you to? If you see a strange insect, would it not be great to be able to say that's the way God made it, instead of trying to figure out some strange evolutionary purpose?"
"But do you believe in it?"
"Of course, I do. I like feeling great. We creationists may be wrong, but we have more fun."

No Fondness for the Enemy

2009-05-06T21:55:00.005+02:00

I do not like this. On NPR, a military psychologist, Bryce Lefever, on the subject of torture says:

"I have no fondness for the enemy, and I don't feel like I need to take care of their mental health needs."

There are many logically valid arguments for torture, even though they rarely hold morally. If someone knows he can extort information from a prisoner, thereby saving the lives of thousands of others, then logically, torture may be an option. It is another story that the techniques used by the US apparently were useless. They could have worked, and that means that the argument theoretically works.

But what is really disturbing with Lefever's statement is not that he approved of some useless painful interrogation techniques. It is that there are people he felt he did not need to take care of. Labelling other human beings as people you do not need to take care of, gives a very bad taste in one's mouth.

There is not any such category of people according to the laws of any Western (or Eastern) democracy. Bank robbers have legal rights. Enemy soldiers have rights described in the Geneva Convention. Murderers cannot legally be lynched by angry mobs. Every human has a value. Every human is worth some care and protection. Every human has rights.

I took Lefever's statement verbatim but out of context. It is possible that he did not mean it quite that bad. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He has the right to it. He is human.

Negative apples

2009-05-06T12:31:00.003+02:00

When I went to school we had plenty of examples counting with apples. "You have 2 apples. Bob has 3 apples. How many apples do you have together?" I thought that was pretty easy, I'm proud to say.

However, nowadays, people seem to count in negative assets. Fiat lost 48 million euro the first quarter 2009. Still, as they lost less than the competition, that makes it possible for them to buy (?) other companies, like Chrysler, Opel and Saab.

"You do not have 2 apples. Bob doesn't have 3 apples. Who has most apples? How many apples do you not have together?"

Apple is buying Twitter

2009-05-05T19:50:00.005+02:00

There are plenty of rumours on the internet right now, that Apple will buy Twitter.

I would just like to point out that it is all just rumours that do not deserve any comment at all. It is often enough if someone uses the words "a normally reliable source" for a lot of people to believe it, even though they normally would not trust the journalist or site, who writes that the source is reliable.

This rumour is not worth mentioning anywhere. If you see a website propagating the rumour, stop reading the entire site immediately, and come to this blog instead. Just make sure you avoid the particular blog entry, where I mention that Apple is buying Twitter.

Chrysler, Opel, Saab... and Fiat. Why?

2009-05-04T20:10:00.004+02:00

I do not get this. Last week the world seemed to give a sigh of relief that Fiat had made a deal with Chrysler. This week there seems to be a new deal with GM's European brands SAAB and Opel.

All this may work, of course, and the result may be an economically healthy car giant. But is there any particular reason to believe so? Chrysler already failed miserably in a merger with German Daimler. SAAB and Opel still presumably have plenty of links with GM, which makes some of their parts. And Fiat had huge economic problems themselves until not so long ago.

Fiat and their subsidiaries Ferrari, Lancia and Alfa Romeo make great cars to drive, but they are not known for their high quality, or commercial success.

This merger concerns a number of very different brands and technologies. A lot of skilful organisation needs to be applied to make it work. Does any of the involved companies own those skills?

The stop after Croydon

2009-04-29T07:09:00.002+02:00

The Swift telescope has now managed to see something further away than anything we ever saw before according. It is a star that goes "pop" somewhere even further away than Croydon. The star got the poetic name GRB 090423. (GRB stands for gamma-ray burst.)

Scientists can find things so far away, but how good are they at finding things that matter, like a cheap and good restaurant in Monaco?

Intellectual Property, where is the border?

2009-04-22T21:02:00.002+02:00

As there are no technical limitations to sharing any music, films, images or texts with everyone in the world, someone has to set up strict limit to what is legal to share - at least if we want to continue protecting intellectual property.

However, where can anyone find any natural border? Take the following cases:

Play music for yourself in your walkman.
Play music at home with your family.
Play music at home with friends.
Play music at home at a party with your colleagues.
Play music at your workplace with your colleagues.
Play music at your workplace for your customers.
Play music at your workplace for your potential customers.
Play music in marketing material for your customers.
Send a music file to your sister in the next room.
Send a music file to your brother in another country.
Send a music file to a friend of your brother's in another country.
As a music teacher, play someone's music for your pupils.
As a music teacher, send someone's music file to your pupils.
As a music teacher, post someone's music files for your current pupils on the web (with password check).
As a music teacher, post someone's music files for potential pupils on the web (no password check).
Send a music file to everyone within your corporation world wide.
Post a music file for download by everyone within your corporation world wide.
Publish an essay on a particular piece of music and illustrate it with written score snippets.
Publish an essay on a particular piece of music and illustrate it with written scores that taken together cover the whole piece.
Publish an essay on a particular piece of music and illustrate it with music sound samples.
etc...

Which of them are legal, and which ones are illegal?

I'm sure lawyers and law makers have rules that can be applied to all those cases. However, where is the "natural" border between between legal and illegal? If there is no natural border, the law will be very difficult to apply. And it will be very different from one country to another.

Chinese History in European Museums

2009-04-11T21:15:00.006+02:00

There are a number of European museums with decent permanent collections of classic Chinese art, like British Museum in London or le Musée Guimet in Paris. Unfortunately, I do not think anyone matches the big American collections at for example the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the MFA in Boston.

However, right now there are a number of interesting temporary exhibitions in Europe.

In Zürich, there is an exposition at Museum Rietberg with paintings by the Qing (清) dynasty 18th century painter Luó Pìn (罗聘), whom the museum strangely enough calls Luo Ping.

The poets Hánshān (寒山) and Shídé (拾得). Painting by Luó Pìn.

In Paris, at the Musée Cernuschi, there is an exposition with restored paintings from the 15th century all the way to the 19th century, covering both the Ming (明) and Qing (清) dynasties as well as the republican China.

The mythical figure Zhōng Kuí (鍾馗). Ink painting at the Musée Cernuschi by Lǐ Shìzhuō (李世倬) (1690?-1770?).

But the strangest exposition is probably the one at the Louvre. It contains stamps and drawings executed in 18th century Europe by European artists on commission from the Chinese emperor Qiánlóng (乾隆). Qiánlóng wanted documentation of his war 1755-1759, and for some reason, he chose to ask European artists to illustrate it. It took the European artists seven years to fulfil the request, but we do not know much on how well the work was received in Beijing.

The magnificence and level of detail of the stamps are unfortunately difficult to render on the web, and the printed catalogue is of too small size to do them justice. A visit to the Louvre is well worth it to see the originals before the exhibition ends 18th May 2009.

Nicolas de Launay after Jean Damascene. The battle at Yešil-köl-nör.

Ziad Fazah - a man who does not speak 59 languages

2009-03-28T13:27:00.028+01:00

Somewhere in Rio de Janeiro, there lives a man who claims he can speak 59 languages. That would not hurt anyone, if either this was true, or if he did not try to exploit the claim.

Does he exploit the claim? Yes, he is a language teacher, and he has published language books in several languages. Who would not like to learn from a man who has been able to learn 59 languages?

His claim probably encourages other people to learn languages, but he also takes job opportunities from other, more qualified people. The problem is that there is not much evidence that he is particular good at any language.

For example, looking at a random page from one of his books, he suggests "few tea" as an idiomatic translation to English of Portuguese "pouco chá". No native English speaker would say "few tea" instead of "a little tea" or "some tea". It could be a typo, but it hardly shows that the proofreading of his books is very good.

At the back of one of his books, he himself lists 58 languages, he claims to speak: part 1, part 2. Surprisingly, the list contains both Dzongkha (dzonka) and Bhutanese (butanês), which are two names for the same language. It is like saying that you are bilingual if you speak both UK English and British English.

So far the claims of Fazah seem supported only by the fact that he has written short language courses for beginners in three languages: English, French and Spanish. The quality of the books is not verified. They do not seem to be brilliant enough to be translated for the European or North American market anyhow.

More support for his claim came in early versions of the Guinness Book of World Records, where he once was listed as the man who spoke most languages in the world. Guinness has now removed that category, probably because they realised the futility of "counting" the number of languages people spoke. The year I have heard for Ziad's inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records was 1993. However, at least the French edition of that same year bluntly denies that anyone could learn to speak more than 20 to 25 languages fluently: "Il paraît impossible pour un être humain de parler couramment plus de 20 ou 25 langues ni d'en apprendre plus de 40 au cours de sa vie." They anyhow list half a dozen people they claim have or had exceptional knowledges of languages. Ziad is not mentioned.

It is anyhow impossible to set a definite limit between "being able to" and "not being able to" speak a foreign language. In some contexts it is enough to be able to order a beer. But if you, for example, want to participate in an ecological conference in a foreign language, you need to master hundreds of biological, chemical, meteorological and economic terms. In addition it is impossible to draw a line between two "languages". In Fazah's list, he counts the Chinese dialects Mandarin, Cantonese and Wu (吴, Chinês Xangai) as separate languages. At the same time he humbly counts Serbian and Croatian only once under the name "servo-croata". That is a perfectly possible division, but he could also have counted Chinese only once and Serbian and Croatian as separate languages. This just shows how fuzzy the border is between languages and dialects, and how impossible it is to count them.

Besides, there is no documentation anywhere of how Guinness validated Fazah's claim in the first place. They may have relied on an unconventional kind of support for his claims: television shows. Yes, just like for Uri Geller, television shows have been quoted for Ziad Fazah as evidence of his exceptional abilities.

It is often quoted, how Fazah has appeared on television shows where he spoke "successfully" with native speakers from a large number of countries. Now, I have never seen any shows where he actually succeeded. They may exist, and they may be perceived as convincing by some people, but I have never seen them. However, I have seen a clip on Youtube, where he failed on really simple phrases in the television show Viva el lunes on the Chilean station Canal 13.

On this show, there was a Finnish lady who said to him: "Koko maailmassa on noin viisi miljoonaa ihmistä, jotka puhuvat suomen kieltä. Varmaan myös tiedätte, että Suomessa puhutaan virallisesti suomea, ruotsia ja saamen kieltä." That roughly means: "There are about 5 million people in the whole world that speak Finnish. You probably also know, that Finnish, Swedish and Saami are the official languages of Finland."

Fazah's answer was roughly: "En verdad me dijo que, cómo puedo por ejemplo aprender idiomas ah, finlandés, porque es totalmente un idioma de otra origen extranjera, y cómo, yo me siento aprendiendo este idioma, siendo de una otra cultura differente." This in English is more or less: "She asked me how I am able to learn Finnish, which is a language of foreign origins, and what does it feel like to learn this language, which is from another culture?"

Then there was a Russian who in a very clear voice asked "Какой сегодня день недели?" which simply means "What day of the week is it?" Fazah's answer was "Какой...?" ("what...?) and then nothing more.

Then came a Chinese man, who had a more elaborate question: "你懂得五十八种语言。真可谓是语言大师。中国普通话是较困难。那么(我)向你题一个简单的问题。在地球上...在月球上能够看到唯一的地球上的人造工程是什么？" (Nǐ dǒng de wǔ shí bā zhǒng yǔyán. Zhēn kě wèi shì yǔ yán dà shī. Zhōngguó pǔtōnghuà shì jiào kùnnán. Nàmė (wǒ) xiàng nǐ tí yī gè jiǎndān de wèntí. Zài dìqíu shàng... Zài yuèqíu shàng néng gòu kàn dào wéi yī de dìqíu shàng de rén zào gōng chéng. Shì shénmė?) This means more or less: "You understand fifty eight languages. One can say that you are a great linguist. Mandarin is quite difficult. So I will ask you a simple question. From the Earth ... from the moon, one can see only one man made object on earth. What is it?"

The expected answer was "the Great Wall of China". However, Fazah's translation was: "Dónde aprendió los conocimientos del idioma chino? Y también en qué lugar usted lo absorbió con facilidad?" which in English is "Where did you learn Chinese? And where did you learn it so easily?"

Further there was one man speaking Farsi and a lady speaking Greek without Fazah understanding their questions.

In some of these cases, he clearly had no idea what the people asked him, and yet, he desperately tried to come up with some answers that in the end made no sense at all.

There are no reliable first hand sources available on the internet that prove that Fazah knows more than five languages (Portuguese, French, English, Arabic and Spanish), and there is no clear indication of how well he speaks even those languages. He may speak more languages, but there is no proof for it.

There is evidence that he may fail to understand anything at all of simple phrases in Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Farsi and Greek at least - languages he lists among the 58/59 he claims to speak.

If he had wanted to prove that he was unusally gifted, there are a large number of ways that could be done. He could publish essays in foreign languages. He could start a multi-lingual blog, where he answers people's questions in 59 languages. He could walk around in the city with a video camera and record himself talking to foreigners in their own languages. There is no shortage of foreigners in Rio. And he could upload the evidence to Youtube.

He has chosen not to do any of that (but see the update below).

In short, it is very likely that Ziad Fazah is one of billions of people who are unable to speak 59 languages.

Update 26 August 2009: A longer ten minute version of the Youtube video has been posted here. It contains more comments and translations to Spanish, of what Ziad Fazah understood and did not understand in the different languages.

Update 20 February 2011: Ziad Fazah has started a Youtube channel where he talks in several languages. It is well worth a visit. Note that Ziad is speaking on his own. There is currently no interaction with other speakers. The vocabulary he uses is not big, and the subject is mostly the same: he speaks all the languages of the world - fifty nine, and he is a great guy. (59 languages in the world? Where did he get that number from?)

When you watch any of his videos in a language you do not understand, please, do not assume that Ziad's version is in any way perfect. I do not have qualifications to judge all the 17 languages he has out there right now. However, I have some understanding of about half of them, and in most he makes errors in grammar and pronunciation that a school teacher would not accept. In some of the videos, there are just a few errors, but in some there are a lot.

Purposefulness

2009-01-17T14:15:00.001+01:00

My nephew, my sister's son, has decided to get rich. He is so determined that he promised not to leave the bathroom until he has become a millionaire.

The decline of Europe

2009-01-15T21:42:00.003+01:00

The current economic crisis may be a moment when the living standards in the "rich" countries fall drastically, and the emerging markets gain relative wealth.

For Europe there is one thing that always could have remained a source of income, however, and that is tourism. There is only one Toledo, one London, one Mont Saint-Michel and one Sacra di San Michele in the world.

Thousands of European towns and cities are potential tourist destinations for the rapidly increasing number of tourists from China, India and the rest of the world.

However, many towns have torn down reasonably old buildings and replaced them with new concrete structures. There are concrete structures all over the world - many of them nice. The ones built today in China and Malaysia are not in any way less impressive than the European ones.

The old cities however, the architecture of the early 20th century and older, that is something that is virtually unique to Europe. There are of course small pockets of old European style architecture elsewhere, but nowhere is there such an impressive accumulation, as there used to be in Europe.

Now, after two bloody unnecessary world wars and vast amounts of bad city planning, there is not much left in Europe either, limiting even tourism as a potential source of income.

Automated slander

2009-01-15T21:33:00.004+01:00

In my sister's company, management has yet again problems with the productivity of the employees. They discovered that a lot of time is spent by the coffee machine, where the present slander the absent.

To satisfy this need they added a function to the electronic address book. From now on, you can click on any name, except your own one, and select an option called "comment". In this field, you can enter anything you think about the person, no matter how negative or positive. Everyone at the company can read all comments about everyone except themselves.

By automating this basic human need of saying bad things about others behind their backs, management hopes to limit the time people feel they have to spend at the coffee machines.

Intolerance and Christianity

2009-01-05T21:34:00.002+01:00

How come Christianity appeared out of nowhere in the fourth century with so little tolerance for non-believers, compared to older religions?

It is possible that they simply carried on, what was there before.

Step 1. The Romans think it is a great idea to have everyone make sacrifices to the emperor. It is not a controversial idea at the time. A lot of people of most religions made sacrifices to different entities, so why not to the emperor? It was simply a way of keeping the country together, like when British MPs have to swear allegiance to the queen, or when Americans salute their flag, or when Danish immigrants have to perform a test to prove their knowledge of the country, before they can become citizens.

Step 2. The Christians, when they appear, think step 1 was not that great an idea. Their religion stipulates that there is only one god, and that is not the emperor.

Step 3. Christians of all different kinds of beliefs are occasionally prosecuted by the Romans, because of step 2.

Step 4. Within a few decades during the 4th century, Christians discover that theirs has become a state religion. But in step 3, the idea of religious prosecution had appeared. The Christians, now in power, use this concept to hit back at non-Christians, tit for tat. They do not initiate it. They just do not break the habit.

Besides, not tolerating non-believers turned out to be a winning strategy, something other religions have learnt later on.

Fun fact of Nicaea

2009-01-03T12:15:00.003+01:00

One thing one may not think of is that the first Council of Nicaea (Νίκαια) was convened by a heathen, emperor Constantine the first. The council took place 325 AD. Constantine lived 272 - 337, and he only got baptised at his death bed.

The council of Nicaea was when the Nicene Creed was first formulated. In other words, the creed hundreds of millions of Christians use, was formulated under the charge of a non-Christian.

Not that it matters that much, of course. God was probably in charge of the emperor.

Confucius entrapped

2008-12-16T20:47:00.003+01:00

In the 1999 film "Entrapment", Catherine Zeta-Jones' character, Gin, sees the following Chinese characters, which are supposed to be used to dial a code:

蚊子炮打
夺刀用与
生别牛枪

She immediately spots that six of the characters can be used to say 别用炮打蚊子, bié yòng pào dǎ wén zi, which means "Don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito." She identifies this as a Confucius (孔子) quote.

This is a top secret room in one of the biggest banks in South East Asia. It is strange that they would choose a code that is easy to guess. But I guess, they perhaps had good insurance, so they did not really care.

The grammar of 别用炮打蚊子 is not particularly classic, as far as I can tell. It is good modern Chinese, but hardly the kind Confucius would have used 2500 years ago.

It is also surprising that Confucius would have anything to say about cannons, almost one thousand years before gunpowder was invented.

So, basically, it seems like Gin is wrong from beginning to end.

But, I do not know if that matters very much, because she had a pretty smile when she said it.

Setting Madoff in perspective

2008-12-16T06:33:00.002+01:00

I overheard this conversation on a train recently.

"Did you hear they got Bernard Madoff? He had squandered 50 billion dollars. Hearing things like that, I wonder why the police raised their eyebrows, when they found out I had taken just 500 euro from the bank where I work. That's nothing in comparison."

"Yes. It's the same thing for me. I blew off just 4 billion euro, and you should hear the fuzz they made about it."

Eradicating with compassion

2008-12-14T09:05:00.005+01:00

It is often claimed that man is a horrible threat towards nature. Allegedly, we are much worse than any other species.

It is true that man is responsible for one of the worse mass extinctions on earth. However, it is due to our power, not due to our lack of concern. This is in fact something that sets us apart from other animals. Man is a compassionate animal.

It is likely that there were stone age people worried about the survival of the woolly mammoth. However, they lacked the legal institutions to protect them. It is even possible that the last human hunter who killed the last mammoth thought that there were plenty of other ones around, and had he known that this was the last one, he would not have killed it.

It is likely that there among the sailors approaching Mauritius in the 17th century to get dodo birds, there were some who were concerned with the survival of the species. However, as each sailor went there for just a short period of time, there was no long term plan set up to protect the birds. And once rats and cats were set loose on the island, there was no way to remove them to save the dodo.

We know that people in India feel bad about cutting down the habitat of tigers. However, when you need to feed your own children, they take priority over tigers, especially as the tigers presumably could go elsewhere. The problem is that people around "elsewhere" may say the same thing and cut down the tiger's habitat there. Luckily, the government of India has set up long term legislation to protect the tiger. If it is enough, we still do not know.

A squirrel would never have set up long term legislation to protect the tiger. A squirrel would probably not care if the last tiger died in front of its very eyes. No other animal, except man, cares about the survival of tigers.

At the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, they made attempts to help chimpanzees find food hidden under cups, by pointing at the right cups. The chimpanzees did not understand the gesture at all. However, chimpanzees happily point at objects themselves, to hint that humans should give something to them. It is just that chimpanzees never point to each other. They are unable to fathom the concept of someone else helping them in this way. As soon as the human changed gesture from pointing to an open hand, as if the human tried to grab the food, the chimpanzee understood the gesture. "If the human tries to get the cup, that means that it contains food, and then I can get it." (Documented in "Why Don’t Apes Point?" by Michael Tomasello.)

Chimpanzees are able to cooperate, when they get a reward for it, and sometimes even without direct reward. However, they seem to have a very limited sense of gratitude or compassion.

There are of course some animals, who care about other species. There is for example the fennec fox, which never eats all the berries of a bush, as it "knows" that the bush needs them to survive. Likewise there are plenty of animals living in symbiosis with other animals. However, in all those cases, it seems their behaviour is part of their DNA to protect some other species.

No other animal has the human ability to reflect and feel compassion about another species, for either practical or moral reasons.

Our challenge now is to set this compassion in practice.

Non compassionate squirrel

Ed Wood - what's his grandeur?

2008-12-13T20:45:00.004+01:00

I recently saw my first, and hopefully last, film by Ed Wood, Bride of the Monster. This film producer is famous for being the worst one ever. His films are really low budget. The plots are idiotic. The actors are for the most part abysmal, and the "special" effects would make a child feel embarrassed because of their simplicity.

So, why do we admire him? Why did Tim Burton make a film about this failure, and why did Johnny Depp star in this award winning film about the worst of the worst?

Anyone could produce such a bad film as Bride of the Monster. In fact, most of us are potentially even worse film producers, and that is the reason we do not enter the business.

The amazing thing with Ed Wood was not that he was bad, but that he had the tenacity to go on and gather money to produce new films, in spite of his mediocrity.

What we admire is his energy to produce anything that bad.

The Auto Bailout - who does it hurt?

2008-12-11T22:32:00.003+01:00

The US senate is not overly enthusiastic about the 14 billion dollar bailout of the car industry. 14 billion is of course much less than the 25 billion that the car industry initially asked for, but it may still be too much.

The bailout will go mainly to General Motors and Chrysler, who are worst off. Ford will lose out comparatively, as they get less money, as a punishment for having run their business better in the past.

The car businesses in other countries will lose competitive advantages against the American firms. Other countries will find the need and a good excuse for subsidising their own car industries, which then will hurt the American car industry.

American consumers, as well as consumers everywhere in the world, will lose out, as three badly run companies will be kept alive - something that hurts the more efficient competition.

American tax payers will lose, as they will have to provide the money.

Producers of other products will lose, as their products will look less accessible than cars.

This does not mean that it is obvious that there should be no bailout, however. There are almost a quarter of a million people directly employed by the three big auto manufacturers, and perhaps as much as three million indirectly depending on it.

If the three companies were to close down overnight, the repercussions are impossible to judge. Banks would fail. The housing market would dive even deeper. It is impossible to tell if the American economy, or the world economy, could handle that.

Luckily, it is unlikely that all three companies will close down suddenly. There will be attempts at solutions, mergers, acquisitions by other companies, domestic or foreign ones. In short, it is possible that the economy could survive without the bailout.

The only worrying detail is that it also is possible that it might not.

Cultural Indians

2008-12-06T06:45:00.003+01:00

My sister was recently assigned to a job which involves a lot of contact with people in Mumbay (मुंबई). To make sure she could handle the cultural differences, she was sent on a course to learn to handle the Indian mindset.

"The important thing is to keep the locals happy. Small gifts are often appreciated - especially glass pebbles and fire water. You always greet an Indian by raising your right hand saying 'how!' (If you are German you should still not greet the Indian with 'wie!', but with 'how!') After that you go on to ask how his squaw is doing, and how many buffaloes he has killed in the morning. If you are invited into an Indian's teepee, look out for his tomahawks and praise their beauty."

That was the only kinds of things they learned. She was very disappointed. She had hoped to at least learn how to comfortably sleep on a bed of nails.

Where is all the money gone?

2008-12-06T06:31:00.003+01:00

Is the current financial crisis a fictional crisis? It seems like everything worked fine until suddenly people decided not to lend money to each other any more.

No, it is probably the other way round. It was pure fiction that it seemed to work in the first place.

Subprime crisis - I knew it!

2008-10-13T11:20:00.002+02:00

Have you noticed the amazing lack of experts and analysts who can say: "Just as I predicted, the financial crisis has come and driven the world economy to a halt and slashed the value of the world's stock exchanges by half. Just check my article from last month."

And yet there is no shortage of analysts who know exactly what will come and how to tackle the crisis.

How come there are so few people who knew what actually happened, but so many who know what will happen?

Blessed be the agnostics.

Protecting your money

2008-10-10T21:48:00.003+02:00

Just to cheer myself up, I started thinking about the global economic crisis. "How", I thought, "can I place my money in the safest way in these dire times?"

Shares? You must be joking.

Real estate? That is not falling right now, where I live, so it probably will very soon.

State bonds? States may not be able to honour them. Iceland seems very unlikely to do so.

Foreign currency? Falling and rising in a chaotic dance.

Local currency? It may work short term, but inflation may get very tough.

Gold? Diamonds? Petrol? None of them very safe.

No, the safest way to place money right now is to spend it. Then you know it has been of some use. Therefore I'll buy another laptop next week and go on holiday in Tuscany. I only hope it is expensive enough, so I get to use as much money as possible. I could not afford keeping it.

Protecting a home from small things

2008-10-08T22:31:00.005+02:00

There was a paper in my letterbox this morning. The title was "Should we accept electro-magnetic radiation through our homes?" As I use electro-magnetic waives when I listen to the radio, watch television or use my mobile phone or even read a book, I decided that the answer was "yes", we shall accept it, and threw the paper away.

However, it reminded me of another thing going through our homes: neutrinos. I can see no benefit with billions of neutrinos rushing through my bedroom every second, and yet it happens. What is the government doing? Are there any committees investigating how this can be stopped?

I know they are small little fellows, but imagine one neutrion hits a glass bottle so it falls over and breaks. That would be really annoying, would it not? All that orange juice all over the table!

They are so small that it would not help putting tin foil around the apartment - I know that. They just rush through it. It would not help getting a cat either. The cat might catch on or two of the neutrinos, but then it would probably go to sleep, and billions of other neutrinos would just continue through the living room, past my armchair and then out again.

Therefore I put up a sign in the vestibule: "Neutrinos not wanted. Please, stay away. Please, please, please?"

If that does not stop them, I do not think anything will.

The right focus

2008-09-30T12:54:00.002+02:00

We are in the arguably most severe economic crisis since 1929, so everyone's attention should be at the economy, right?

Well, apart from the American congress, which yesterday chose not to do anything at all.

But look at the favourite articles by the readers of The Independent, one of Britain's most serious newspapers.

The most viewed articles on their website at this moment are the following ones:

The Ten Best Sex Toys
Lawrence dogged by injury
The 50 Best Menswear
'I couldn't function without cocaine'
The Ten Best Ways for a Man to Impress a Woman
Sean O'Grady: Why bailouts only add to the sense of panic
Dominic Lawson: Why should anyone trust Joe Biden?
The Ten Best Cushions
Crisis derails John McCain's fightback
Exclusive: The methane time bomb

Well... hmm... at least twoof them are about the economy, even though the five first ones are not.

Maruska's road to fame

2008-09-28T21:32:00.005+02:00

There are plenty of people who have their photos taken, that do not get famous, even if their photo happens to appear in a newspaper. There are plenty of pretty people, who do not get famous. There are plenty of happy people who do not get famous. There are plenty of trade unionists who do not get famous. However, if you show true intense happiness over a political event and if you are pretty and a journalist happens to take a picture of you at that very instant, you can get reasonably famous.

That is what happened to Maruska Piredda, an air hostess with Alitalia. Last week, when her trade union, Cisl, said no to yet another proposal to save the airline, she was happy over the outcome, and her radiant face made it to newspapers around the world.

To many of us, her reaction seemed bizarre. The airline has no money left, and it is bleeding millions every day. Any attempt to rescue Alitalia seemed laudable, and here signora Piredda shouted of joy that the rescue was refused.

Corriere della Sera was also intrigued and interviewed her. She was also interviewed on Italian state television.

There are two interesting things here. One is that someone can get famous for being happy in the wrong place. The other is that it may not have been the wrong place after all. For the time being (28 September 2008), it seems like the airline is saved anyhow. And the strong (some people may say "mad") actions of the unions may have led to better conditions for the staff in the long run. Provided the airline survives.

Wisdom of the North

2008-09-25T22:38:00.003+02:00

In many bookshops in Europe and America, you can find books with titles like "Wisdom of the Orient" or "Eastern Philosophy". Likewise, in China and Japan, you can find books with titles like "Wisdom of Western Philosophy".

What so far seems to be missing is "Wisdom of the North". I try to remedy that with a few words of wisdom from Sweden:

From the world of plants:

På tallrik ätes efterrätt,
men om man tänker efter rätt,
man också tallrik kallar,
den skog som talrik är på tallar.

About animals:

"Far, får får får?"
"Inte får får får! Får får lamm."

From the world of skilled crafts:

Knut knöt en knut. När Knut knutit knuten, var knuten knuten.

Luck - an important ingredient in genius

2008-09-25T22:14:00.003+02:00

There is an old scam that goes like this:

Send one thousand messages to one thousand persons. 512 messages predict that the stocks will go up the following week. The other 512 recipients get the message that the stocks will go down. Next week, you send only 512 messages, depending on the actual outcome of the stocks, so all the current recipients will get the impression that you were right last week. In 256 of the new messages, you predict that the stock will go up, and in 256, you predict that it will go down. Next week, you limit yourself to 128 messages, depending on if the stocks went up or down. You do this for about two months, halving the number of recipients each week, and you will soon be down to a handful of recipients.

Now, you send these few recipients a message asking them if they are now convinced of your knowledge of the stock market. If so, they can subscribe to your upcoming newsletter at an exorbitant cost.

The recipients can see from the messages they have so far received that you always have been right in your predictions, and they are reasonably likely to trust that you will succeed in the future as well.

Of course, you are completely unable to live up to their expectations, but that is besides the point.

The important thing is that you through a completely random process was able to give the impression that you were incredibly clever.

Now...

Let's have a look at some professions, like teachers or company directors. Let's assume that everyone with these professions have identical skills.

Nevertheless, some teachers will produce a large number of exceptional students, just through the laws of random chance.

Likewise, some company director may end up with a range of very successful deals and high profit for their companies.

This does not mean that anyone can be a teacher or a CEO. Skill clearly plays a roll in results. That is common sense.

However, it means that luck is an ingredient not to ignore in success.

Today's crisis - whose fault?

2008-09-25T21:07:00.003+02:00

People try to blame each other for today's problems in the financial market, but it seems equally likely that it is the fault of no one.

Each investor tried to maximize his profit. Even if they could see that the risks were high with subprime loans, they almost had to take them not to get behind their competitors.

This is a good example of a case where the capitalist system does not work. The system encouraged each individual to take risks that are unsustainable if everyone takes them.

The ironic thing is that part of the cause lies within the planned economy. Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as part of the New Deal, which was US government intervention to solve the mess of the 1929 crash.

The investment banks were a result of the Glass-Steagall Act, 1933, which also was part of the New Deal. This act prohibited banks from both accepting deposits and underwriting securities to avoid speculation and conflicts of interests, so investment banks and commercial banks split into different institutions.

A problem was that this focus on one activity made the investment banks fragile, something which became apparent this year, 2008, when all the five big ones disappeared. (Bear Stearns got problems and was bought by JPMorgan Chase in March. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America 14 September. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 15 September. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley became mixed banks 22 September.)

And yet, we all saw this happening before our eyes. The Democrats cannot say that the Republicans created the crisis, as both parties have had full access to all information. If the Democrats had been any wiser, they would have warned about the problem earlier on. Neither can the Republicans claim that the Democrats caused the mess, as the Republicans have had eight years to fix it without doing anything at all.

But it does not stop there. The Europeans did not warn about the situation. The Chinese did not see it coming. Neither did the Arabs, Africans, South Americans or anyone else. No one in the whole world was able to convincingly say that this problem was coming.

The conclusion for each and everyone of us is this: I was not alone in not seeing this coming. I am not alone in ignoring how to fix it.

FM and FM

2008-09-25T20:59:00.002+02:00

There is something strange with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They were state supported institutions whose main purpose was to make it possible for people who could not afford it to buy houses.

The result was that they made the housing market unstable. They were there to hang a Damocles sword over the economy.

The excuse was that they helped poor people buy their homes. That is a very worthy cause. However, making it easier for poor people to buy houses, means that the demand increases and house prices increase. And this increase is illusory, as the prices depend on FM and FM. Once the state decides not to support them, the prices fall, and everyone loses.

A detailed survey

2008-09-15T12:09:00.002+02:00

In the company where my sister works, a director heard that customers sometimes were not happy with the delivery time. To investigate this, a group was formed to create a survey. The draft survey was sent to each department manager. Each manager was able to add at most 10 questions to the survey. It was decided that each answer should contain a mandatory text field, where the customer should enter an explanation for his answer. In addition, multiple-choice answers were allowed. The average number of choices for each question was 17.2.

A few months later, the survey was ready to go out to customers. The return rate was an unfortunate low 2%, but luckily the group managed to get enough material out of each response to compile a report with 400 pages. The summary conclusion was 87 pages, according to people who claim to have read that far.

When management saw the report, they were very proud of the result and archived it for future use, once they had time to analyse the material.

That is, they archived everything that was stored electronically. Part of the report was an appendix written by hand in a paper notebook. It was the result of a janitor, who used to ask customers who came to the building "Are you happy with our delivery times?" He wrote the answers down in his notebook. 98% answered "no". 2% answered "yes".

That paper was thrown away.

Something to lose sleep over - usability

2008-08-03T14:16:00.004+02:00

Somewhere in the Netherlands sits a computer program designer, who works for the GPS manufacturer Tomtom.

This designer decided that the words "now disconnect the device", was enough for smart people to understand that they should go to the menu "Device" and choose the option "Disconnect", after which they should physically disconnect the device.

I yesterday evening apparently did not belong to the group of smart people, so I just disconnected without going through the menus, and the GPS crashed completely.

On Tomtom's website there are of course support links, but none of them go to any forums where one can ask for help.

The FAQ required me to enter the GPS's model type. The box says Tomtom ONE. The options on the website were TomTom ONE XL, TomTom ONE 30 Series, TomTom ONE 3rd Edition, TomTom ONE 2nd Edition and TomTom ONE 1st Edition. The device itself does not give the number.

I was also asked to enter the product code. There was a very informative picture telling me how to get the product code from the device, IF THE FRIGGING THING HAD BEEN WORKING. If I go to the support site, because the device does not work, why do they require me to enter a product code I only can get from a working device!?

The entire support site was in French, by the way, even though there was a non-working option to enter English as preferred language - mostly as decoration, I guess.

In the end I followed the instructions at this faq. It told me first to reset the device (after it had forced me to guess a random model number.) I then restored the software (without success), backed up and duplicated the file system, reformatted the card, restored the content and finally cleared the flash.

The entire operation took about four hours. This morning I woke up four hours later than usual, and missed the opportunity to take a nice brisk walk in the fresh morning temperature. It is now around noon and more than 30 degrees.

That computer program designer in the Netherlands made me lose four hours of my life. Dear, Tomtom, sack him!

Clarity without Perfection

2008-07-29T10:22:00.002+02:00

To many teachers, writing well is to write perfectly - not to write clearly.

What we usually are taught in school is to write with correct spelling and perfect grammar. However, it is perfectly possible to write using correct spelling and perfect grammar without being clear.

Is that clear?

Private Photos in Public Spaces

2008-07-17T22:12:00.002+02:00

One should not forget that people may feel strongly about having their photos taken in public, and accept their feelings - no matter what they are. When I go to a public space with my camera, I consider myself a guest, and I should respect the wishes of everyone around me, as much as possible.

On a trip to Taiwan last year, I saw a charming small workshop where a woman with a very characteristic face was working. It was a perfect shot opportunity, so I asked for her permission to take a photo. She was very polite, but very firmly said no. Just the workshop and not her? No. Just her outside the workshop? No.

If this woman is photophobic at her private workplace, she has all the rights in the world to be so in public as well. I do not want the presence of my camera make her nervous when she goes shopping or crosses the street.

Taking candid pictures of private people can cause exactly that kind of nervousness, so I do not do it if I can avoid it.

Does that make me lose photo opportunities? Yes.

Does that make my portfolio poorer? Yes.

Do not other people take plenty of candid photos in public spaces? Yes, they do.

However, I think we own it to the respect for others, not to do to them what they may highly dislike, regardless of if we happen to share their dislike or not.

There are, after all, plenty of people who happily say yes to having their picture taken, when asked. And there are plenty of people in public situations, like parades, public theatre, concerts and demonstrations, who implicitly accept having their photos taken. They choose to be there to be seen.

Limit the phone access

2008-07-17T12:40:00.003+02:00

It may not be the biggest problem human civilisation has encountered, but is not all inclusive rates for mobile phones horribly annoying?

You may sit down on the train or in a bus to peacefully read a book or a newspaper, and it turns out that the person next to you has unlimited minutes on his/her phone, so they go on talking, talking, talking, just to be social with someone at the other end. It does not cost them anything after all.

I'm all for short useless messages like "We are just approaching the station. No, wait, not yet. But we'll soon be there. Just on time." However, when the discussion goes on for 30 minutes or more, it is torture. Sometimes what you eavesdrop is not even interesting enough to publish to the world on your blog.

The greater gift

2008-05-31T22:38:00.002+02:00

I just forgot what I intended to write about. Luckily.

Could you imagine what our brains would be like, if we remembered all the clever ideas we ever had? What an incredible chaos there would be!

Forgetfulness is a much bigger gift to us from God than memory.

Headline spin and bias

2008-05-01T09:58:00.004+02:00

Our opinions are usually based on facts to a reasonably large extent. I guess that at least 15% of our opinions come from evaluations of facts we hear. The rest is based on the subconscious desire to share opinions with people around us, the desire to oppose the opinions of people around us, and repeated unsubstantiated messages in media. It has been claimed that "the fourth estate", media, are important in forming our opinions, as they select which facts to give us.

At least as important is the way they present those facts.

One striking example of this is a story presented at sina.com and AFP. Both articles build entirely on a story from China's state news agency Xinhua (新华). They do not use any other sources. All the facts are the same. However, Sina's headline is Policeman killed in pursuit of riot leader. Read no further. You learn that a policeman is killed, the poor fellow. AFP's headline is Police kill Tibetan during gun battle in China: state media. Again, read no further. You learn that a Tibetan is killed by nasty Chinese police, the poor fellow. If you read both headlines you may end up very confused. Was a policeman killed or did he kill? It turns out both are true.

The two news sites slyly ignore the death of one or the other of the two victims in the headline. This conveniently twists the opinions of the casual reader, who reads headlines but not articles.

Svarabhakti

2008-04-26T22:20:00.004+02:00

As I grow older there are a lot of things from the past that I forget. Some things disappear completely. Some things hang around like very thin threads that make me almost remember them, but not quite.

For many months, perhaps years, I have wondered about one word that has been bouncing around like a rubber ball in my brain every now and then. I did not remember exactly what it sounded like, so it was impossible to search for it on the world wide thingummy.

Today, finally, the word became clear enough for me to find it: svarabhakti.

In case you also go around and wonder what it is about, here is what I found out:

A svarabhakti is a vowel that is inserted between two consonants. One example would be if you pronounce blue really slowly: be-lueue. The e between b and l is a svarabhakti. In many languages a large number of words have svarabhakti, like German, Dutch, many Celtic languages and Icelandic. It is difficult to find an Icelandic text without any words with the suffix -ur, and the u in -ur is a hundreds of years old svarabhakti. The word maður used to be maðr, but the Icelanders gave up pronouncing the tricky consonant combination ðr and added the u to make things easier.

The word svarabhakti comes from Sanskrit. Svara (स्वर) means sound, vowel. The word bhakti (भक्ति ), on the other hand, belongs to those words that can mean about anything: devotion, fidelity, order, part and division. The logic of the full word is "a vowel that divides" [two consonants from each other].

Other words for the same thing are epenthesis (ἐπένθεσις, from επι, on + εν, in + θεσις, placement) and anaptyxis (ανάπτυξής, growth).

At least that's what the internet tells me. However, it is unable to tell me where and when in the past I had seen the word before.

The clear message

2008-04-23T20:05:00.004+02:00

Occasionally one can hear people asking for a "clear message" to this or that person or country about this or that issue. Clarity is a nice thing. A clear summer day is much nicer than an unclear summer day. Clear vision is nicer than blurry vision. A clear mind is better than a confused mind.

So let's have a look at some of the clear messages given in history:

Serbian nationalists gave Archduke Ferdinand a very clear message the 28 June 1914.

Germany gave Poland a very clear message 1 September 1939.

Japan gave the US a very clear message the 7 December 1941.

George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein a clear message 20 March 2003.

The results of these messages may not always have been what the sender intended, but they were undoubtedly clear.

Have I made myself clear in this blog entry? No? Good!

For a good cause - or two

2008-04-22T20:45:00.005+02:00

A friend of mine lives in Lyon. He is sick of the continuous anti-Chinese bias in Western press, so he will join the boycott of Carrefour that some Chinese bloggers plan for the 1st of May. Carrefour is the target, as it is the most visible French retailer in China. So my friend will shop at Auchan instead the 1st of May. This may be tricky, as it is not yet clear if Auchan will be open on the 1st of May, which is a public holiday in France. Carrefour may not be open either, but my friend claims this will just diminish his temptation to abort the demonstration.

Just in case, he will go twice to Carrefour in advance, the 29th and 30th of April, to pile up things he usually buys there, so he will not risk missing anything the crucial day.

Note that this is a protest against the French insensitive handling of the crisis in Tibet and a protest against the biased Western press. At the same time, my friend is a big fan of Tibetan culture, so the weekend before the 1st of May, he will participate in a manifestation for Tibet - especially for momo (མོག་མོག་).

I do not know if my Lyon friend fully understands the issue, but we live in a democracy, so even people who do not understand things are allowed to say what they think.

I also have some Chinese friends living in Shanghai. They have obviously heard a lot about the proposed boycott the 1st of May, and they are completely aware of the consequences. Therefore they will exceptionally go shopping at Carrefour 1st of May, as it hopefully will not be as crowded as usual.

Democratic action against democracy

2008-04-20T20:48:00.007+02:00

This is perhaps a cheap observation, but at the same time as the French propagate for democracy in China, the Chinese use the democratic rights they have to demonstrate against France for that same reason.

Side effect of fighting crime

2008-04-19T10:21:00.002+02:00

The pirates who seized a French luxury yacht a few weeks ago have now been charged by a French court.

This is of course excellent news. The innocent civilian crew on the ship, who were all taken hostages, can now feel that they are better protected on future trips outside Somalia, and so can thousands of other sailors. Pirates will now know what awaits them if they attack French ships, and probably ships from other rich countries as well.

However, they are likely to face no worse consequences than before, if they attack Somali ships - and perhaps Eritrean, Yemenite, or ships of many other Arab and African nationalities. If the innocent crew had been North Korean or Cuban, would the French have taken so swift action to liberate them?

It is difficult to demand of the French or any other country to spend as much resources on protecting and liberating foreign nationals as their own. But, surely, it is an unfortunate situation.

Pirates outside Somalia now risk concentrating on ships from countries that are too poor to protect their nationals efficiently.

Kunlangeta - mon amour

2008-04-13T21:21:00.004+02:00

This is a conditional truth: there are few people who are so nice to be with as psychopaths. A psychopath tries to manipulate you. He lies to you. He does everything for himself, even if he has to crush you. And he is really charming, when he does this.

The psychopath is like a glass of wine - it is very pleasant if you only know when to stop. You need to be able to back out, go away, hang up and cut off at any moment. And you need to be aware, to think of this at every instance: this is not just a glass of water; this is not a decent person. Keep the distance.

If you get to depend on a psychopath, you are toast.

Kunlangeta is allegedly an Inuit Yupik word for psychopath. It is mentioned by a Jane Murphy in an article in Science from 1976 to illustrate that there are psychopaths in all cultures. It is very easy to make that kind of vocabulary claims for small languages without being contradicted. There are less than 20,000 people speaking any dialect of Yupik, and it is unlikely that many of them are aware of all the clinical symptoms of psychopaths. How many of them will read that article from 1976 and verify or deny the claim? Let's not forget that one of the most ridiculous linguistic claims ever has been made for Inuit languages: that they should have hundreds of words for snow.

The same article claims that arankan is the Yoruba word for psychopath. However, Yoruba is a big language with more than 20 million speakers, and there are actually dictionaries available. The word simply means "malice" or "evil". It is hardly surprising that there is a word for nasty in Yoruba, and that does not prove that there are psychopaths in Nigeria. It is very likely that there are some there as well as elsewhere, but the mere fact that Yoruba has a word for nasty is no proof.

Nothing new under the sun - not this anyhow

2008-03-27T00:31:00.006+01:00

A lot of the fiction we read, hear or watch are just variations of archetypal myths that have been around for thousands of years. Sometimes the myths are well documented. Sometimes they are less well documented.

As an example we can take a song from last week's Now Show on BBC 4. It was Mitch Benn who started off with a classical "serious" introduction mentioning the author Arthur C. Clark and a recent finding that there is methane on the planet HD 189733b, which is 63 million light years away.

He then starts singing with an introduction about watching the stars - a theme that has been around for thousands of years. Only at the fourth line comes a slightly hidden reference to what clearly will be the theme of the song.

We cast our eyes out to the stars
Lose dodgy home made probes on Mars.
Who would imagine, who could tell,
the first sign of life would be a smell?

Note that the reference is not in clear. The same message could have been given in much more explicit words, but to keep the tension, it is only the very last word that hints at what will come: smell.

Then comes a stanza where the message is very blunt. It is reasonable to assume that man has laughed at flatulence for ten thousand years, and conceivably hundreds of thousand years. A studio audience of 2008 is still bound to laugh at the mere mention of the word "fart" - something that triggers certain emotions in most us, be they laughter or disgust.

Something's farting way out there in space
Are they friendly, are they hostile?
search your heart and search your nostrils.

To further play on the motive of emotions, the listener is asked to "search his heart" and then in an anaphora also his nostrils. Asking the listener to search his heart, his emotions, is a theme that catches our attention, and it certainly has done so for thousands of years.

Something farting in some far off place
And they left a trace behind
a close encounter of the whiffy kind

Again, the "far off place" evokes the distant unknown. During the neolithic it may have been the next valley. For Moses the promised land. For Columbus India, and for Neil Armstrong the moon. To all of us, there is some distant place where we have not yet been.

The reference to a "close encounter of the whiffy kind" uses the ancient method to create a bond between singer and audience by referring to common knowledge. In this case, it is of course a reference to the Steven Spielberg film from 1977 with a title alluding to a close encounter of the "third" kind. (For those who have forgotten, according to dr. Josef Allen Hynek, an encounter with aliens of the first kind is sighting. An encounter of the second kind is one with evidence for the encounter. An encounter of the third kind is contact. Dr. Hynek did not comment on whiffy encounters, as far as I can tell.)

The next stanza is probably the weakest one, and it does not follow known narrative archetypes very much. The mention of a distant place is just a repetition. The "gas giants" do not refer to any known mythical organism, and it does not clearly define the nature of such an organism. The stanza is probably perceived by most as a far fetched attempt to get more out of the gas theme without actually adding much of a message.

Something's farting way out there in space
it's hitherto unknown to science
someone's letting off gas giants.

The final stanza evokes an imaginary reality - a "what if" statement, just like man has probably done for thousands of years. Here Mitch Benn launches the thought that aliens may use olfaction as a major method of communication. It is of course far fetched, as smell does not transport very quickly over large distances. But it is nevertheless a possible means of communication for beings who stay close, like insects using hormones to call each other's attention. Even humans use hormones for sexual communication, but we are usually unable to consciously recognise the smell of hormones, even though we subconsciously use the information when selecting our partners.

Something's farting at the human race,
but we mustn't get irate.
It might just be how they communicate.

Ironically the whole theme of the song is incorrect. Methane is a gas that does not constitute a major part of flatulent gases, and it is in fact odourless. A fairly big part of the methane in the atmosphere admittedly comes from mammal flatulence, but most of the emitted gas in a flatus is nitrogen. The smell of flatulence mostly comes from sulphuric compounds, skatole and indole.

Factual accuracy is of course not needed in order for a fictional work to be appreciated. The lack of factual accuracy is very likely also a fictional theme that is thousands of years old.

An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur

2008-03-23T23:24:00.010+01:00

Conspiracy theories are often used to explain things that do not have any simple explanation - at least not simple enough for the speaker. Or they can be used to replace an explanation that does not fit one's ideas of what the world should be like.

Here is one theory for example: The present riots in Tibet are started by the Taiwanese government. The reason is that the riots will badly affect the Chinese stock market, which will go down, thus slowing down the economic development and inflation, which long term is good for the Chinese economy. It is in the interest of the Taiwanese to have a neighbour with a healthy economy, as that is good for their export market.

Is that a likely theory? Of course not. But all the steps individually are logical, even though the sum of them is ridiculous.

For most events in the world, it is easy to make up a "theory" like that, which may explain what you do not understand.

However, a lot of things happen without anyone wanting them. Some examples:

The first World War, 1914-1918, was in no one's interest. The state leaders who started it thought it would be a short affair, but no one had anticipated the importance of the Chauchat and other machine guns, the air forces or the tanks. In 1914 no one could have anticipated the Russian revolution or its consequences for the rest of the 20th century. It was development that happened on its own, without any conscious decision taken by any single individual. The entire war was just one big blunder.

The Russian revolution in itself was a strange case of things happening without anyone understanding its consequences. The members of the first polite bureau during the October revolution 1917, the people who kicked it off, were Lev Kamenev (Лев Борисович Каменев), Nikolai Krestinsky (Николай Николаевич Крестинский), Andrei Bubnov (Андрей Сергеевич Бубнов), Grigory Sokolnikov (Григорий Яковлевич Сокольников), Leon Trotsky (Лeв Давидович Троцкий), Josef Stalin (იოსებ სტალინი, Иосиф Сталин) and of course Vladimir Lenin (Владимир Ильич Ленин). Out of these all but Lenin were killed off by Stalin in different ways. In other words, five out of seven initiators were killed due to the event they had themselves started. Out of the 1,966 delegates to the 17th Communist Party Congress, which confirmed Stalin's power, more than half were later arrested by him, and most of them died. Clearly, they had no idea what they were doing - just like so many decision makers today.

When Osama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن‎) and al-Qaida (القاعدة) blew up the World Trade Center in 2001, they cannot possibly have had any idea what the effect would be. They could not know if the American response would be bigger understanding for Islamic issues with American policies, the deposition by the Americans of the Saudi government or mass conversion to Islam. Neither could they have predicted the irrational attack on Iraq, which, as we know now, was completely unrelated to al-Qaida. Here we had a case of an irrational action from al-Qaida that was followed by an irrational action by the USA.
‎
In spite of this the world moves forward. The state of affairs was well put by the Swedish 17th century statesman Axel Oxenstierna. His son doubted his own abilities in taking on an important diplomatic mission. Axel Oxenstierna replied:

An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?

Or in English:

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is ruled?

The Best but not the Only

2008-03-19T21:02:00.001+01:00

There is a very big difference between thinking that your own opinion is the best one and thinking that your own opinion is the only possible one.

Mysterious Tibet

2008-03-18T21:09:00.004+01:00

This is an apolitical blog entry. It does not intend to accuse anyone. It does not intend to free anyone from responsibility of their actions. The intention is just to add perspectives to current events.

There have been riots in Lhasa (ལྷ་ས་) the last few days. No one can deny that. For most of us Tibet is very far away. To many of us, all of China is very far away. It is populated by people we may not know, and it is ruled by a government that is very different from all Western governments.

A team of neuroscientists at Harvard have recently discovered that we use the same brain region (the ventral medial prefrontal cortex or vMPFC) when we think about people we consider similar to ourselves, as we do when we think about ourselves. When we think about people we do not consider similar, however, we do not use that brain region.

It is reasonable to assume that most of us Westerners do not use the vMPFC when we think about the Chinese. It is also very possible that a lot of Chinese do not use it when they think about Tibetans, and that a lot of Tibetans, especially Tibetans in exile, do not use it when they think about Han Chinese. ("Han" is a word for people who speak some variant of Chinese as first language - not Tibetan or other non-Chinese languages.)

It is much easier for us Westerners to condemn the Chinese government than our own ones. It is very far away, and we do not need the vMPFC to think about it. The pure fact that people get killed in Lhasa may trigger people to condemn the Chinese government. Well, killing is not good, so that must be reason enough to condemn the government, must it not?

It can be. It often is. This may be a case when it is. But let's anyhow apply some perspective.

Last year there were riots in Villiers-le-Bel in France over a mortal car accident where a police car was involved. 130 policemen were injured. 70 cars were burned. One library, two schools, one police station and several shops burned down. Did you blame the French government?

Last year in Nørrebro in Denmark, 750 people were arrested in riots over the closure of a youth centre. Did you blame the Danish government?

In 2001 in Genova, Italy, 329 persons were arrested, 400 rioters and 100 security men were injured and 1 person was shot dead in riots around the Group of Eight Summit. Did you decry the Italian government?

In 1992 in Los Angeles, USA, 53 people died in riots over a questionable court verdict. Did you condemn the American government? Would you boycott American products because of this?

We still do not know exactly what triggered the events in Lhasa - something that perhaps is not that surprising, as the Chinese government considers it has the right to block news when it thinks it is needed. However, the cause for the riots is very likely to have something to do with some Tibetans' desire for independence from the People's Republic.

We do not even know if they planned to start riots for their goals, or if the riots just happened, as some tense situations got worse.

There are, however, reports that the violence has been aimed at Han Chinese. A Swiss tourist, Claude Balsiger, said everything that looked Chinese had been attacked or beaten up. The Economist talks about an orgy of anti-Chinese rioting and at least one Han Chinese stabbed to death by the rioters.

Still, it is very difficult to judge if the rioters had cause for their violence, and it is not known how violent the authorities' answer has been. People have died on both sides, but the exact circumstances are not known to the outside world.

The Tibetans may fight for what they perceive as the freedom of their country, like the IRA in the United Kingdom and the ETA in Spain. Have you blamed the Spanish governments for the 800 casualties in the fight with ETA, and did you want your country to cut all ties with the British government for the 1800 casualties when fighting the IRA?

And if you did so, did you use your vMPFC when you did it?

Hopefully, this blog entry has not changed your opinions on Tibet or China. Regardless of your opinions, that was not the blog's intent. But hopefully some of you now feel you have a better foundation for whatever opinions you have - and hopefully your vMPFC plays a part in it.

"I just did like they did"

2008-03-14T20:06:00.009+01:00

The picture above of smiling girls on a picnic is taken at a recreation home called Solahütte. The girls are having blueberries enjoying a day far from work. Solahütte is just a little South of Auschwitz, and the man handing out blueberries is Karl Höcker, adjutant of the concentration camps' commander. The girls are SS helpers. At the same time, 1944, hundreds of thousands of people are exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz no more than 30 km away.

If you had met one of those girls on the street a sunny summer day, would you have imagined that they could work at a concentration camp? Would they have been able to imagine it themselves 10 years earlier? 5 years earlier? 5 months earlier?

There was a recent article in der Spiegel about how common people were introduced to the SS for work in the camp.

Karl Höcker himself had been bank teller before joining the SS. The camp commander, Richard Baer, had been confectioner - probably giving free candy to happy children.

Nine out of ten new SS men who came to work in the camp refused the order "kick that man in the stomach", the first time they heard it. The fresh SS men seem to have had common human moral standards: "Kick him!" "No, I will not do it." That means that nine out of ten SS men refused to obey order in one of the strictest armies in history. They refused the first time.

Then started an intense psychological attack with insults and group pressure to make the newcomers do what they were told. Most of them gave in of course.

Most humans follow the moral standards of the group around them. If your only acquaintances think it is fine to steal towels at hotel rooms, you may very well think so too in the end. If they think it is fine to cheat with their tax declaration, you may do so too. If they think it is fine to steal cars, to burgle apartments, to sell drugs to minors - you may think so too in the end. Imagine if you did not know anyone who did not do it. Imagine that all your friends did so. Everyone who ever showed they cared about you. Everyone you cared for. If your choice was between losing the only friend you had or to help him steal a car, what would you do?

The older SS men made sure than the younger ones were treated as friends, people who cared, people one could confide in. An inside jargon kept them together against "the others".

In the concentration camps, the older SS men used arguments as well. The prisoners were considered "criminals". Some of them had committed no other crime than to be born by a Jewish mother, but they were "criminals" in the eyes of SS, and they had to be treated as such. The violence against the prisoners was supposed to be necessary considering the "danger" the prisoners posed.

The psychological defence of the newcomers was slowly broken down - just like it is in some armies and other organisations today. And once the young SS man had accepted using violence, realising the status it brought him in the eyes of the older ones, he could be used to foster other newcomers in a vicious circle of increased violence.

The article in Der Spiegel may be biased. It may be read as a twisted excuse for what earlier generations have done. But it all seems very plausible. Humans are not inherently evil, but the clay we are built of can be shaped to make us criminal and evil given certain circumstances. The same lump of iron can be made into a gun or a ploughshare - be it in Rwanda, Nanjing (南京) or Srebrenica.

This does not free us from responsibility of course. On the contrary. Considering that some of the worst crimes in the world have been committed by people who probably just imitated what people around them were doing, we should consider "I just did what everyone else did" the worst of all defences.

Un straniero crudo

2008-03-08T10:30:00.008+01:00

Dan Brown has written a book called "Angels and Demons". It is mostly set in a city called "Rome" in a country he cleverly calls "Italy", just like the real country occupying the Apennine peninsula. It is a very entertaining book, at least as long as you remember that Brown does not have any clue about the real Rome, Italy or the Italian language or anything at all, apparently. Unfortunately, it is possible that your mind slips during the reading, and you briefly think he tries to come with facts or realistic descriptions, and then your adrenaline shoots up so your head is about to explode. He for example claims that the Christian Eucharist was inspired by the Aztec and he places Argentina on the Eastern side of the Atlantic.

And then there is the linguistic aspect. After languages like Esperanto, Volapük, Lojban and Klingon, the world now has a new artificial constructed language: Dan Brown Italian, (DBI). DBI vaguely resembles real Italian, but it is largely unintelligible by any Italian. A phrase like "we're fungito" does not mean anything in Italian. A "straniero crudo" means "an uncooked foreigner", whatever that is supposed to be. And when a DBI speaker says "È chiusa temprano" to express that something is temporarily closed, an Italian speaker's natural reply would be "do you speak English, by any chance?"

In spite of the large number of factual errors, the book remains entertaining. Dan Brown did the right thing to publish it. And all his readers do the right thing in making fun of him for it.

The strange road to quality

2008-02-20T19:05:00.002+01:00

A film containing dialogue is just a film.

If you dilute the dialogue with music, it becomes less intellectual. The more music, the more imbecile the film.

If you dilute the dialogue with silence, the film becomes more intellectual. A real high quality film contains no dialogue and no music at all.

A distant election

2008-02-10T22:06:00.001+01:00

Today there was a stampede at a concert in Indonesia, where 10 people died. After 30 years the Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea is finally brought to justice for crimes where millions of people died. More than 10,000 people fled from Sudan (السودان ) to Chad (تشاد‎) after attacks in Darfur (دار فور‎). We have cut down 20% of the Amazon jungle during the last 40 years.

And what do we get to read about on the front pages of our newspapers? We get to read who has won 3 out of 50 primary elections in a country, where we do not have the right to vote. Why would I care what is going on in primary elections in a country thousands of miles away? Tell me who won after the final election. That is enough for me. If I cannot affect the outcome of something that has no impact on me, I do not want media to spend space on it. There are other important matters in the world.

And yet, that seems to be something that Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, 日本経済新聞, Politiken, de Volkskrant and many other have not understood. All of them allocate more space to news about the American elections than one can reasonably justify.

Perspectives

2008-02-10T19:36:00.002+01:00

I recently saw some presentation trying to impress me with the size of the universe. You know, one of those things that say that you are just a little dot compared to the entire earth, which is just a little dot compared to the Sun, which is just a little dot compared to the stars Betelgeuse (the name is a typo from يد الجوزاء) or Antares (Αντάρης).

However...

Size is not all that matters. The most complex known object in the universe is your brain. Or mine of course. Even my little bird brain is more complex than a planet like Jupiter. Jupiter has a certain interest to us, as there is so much of it so close to us, but it is all brawn and definitely no complex brain in it. It is all big boring mass.

And if Antares tries to brag with its size, that is not really convincing, as it easily would fit inside our solar system, inside Jupiter's orbit.

The really big things in the universe are the holes between the things - not the things themselves. And empty holes are really boring. A hole where you can hide your house key may be interesting, but holes that are light-years across are just mind-bogglingly and utterly boring. Unless you have a lot of house keys.

Not even the size of emptiness is particularly impressive. Without a telescope, you can see things that are 3 million light years away, and what one can see is a distance one can grasp.

To get to the full size of the big and boring universe, one only has to go another 3000 times that distance. In other words, if you each day travelled as far as one can see, you would not need more than ten years to cross the universe. And you would probably not see anything particularly interesting along the way.

With that perspective, I think things like Japanese adjectives or the social relations among bonobos are much more interesting.

Winning is not important

2008-01-27T14:51:00.001+01:00

They try to save the Tour de France from the doping scandals.

The problem is that it is so important for the participants to win, so the temptation to use doping will always be there. The solution is to make it less important to win. Instead one could base the rules on Just a Minute. You count points, but you do not really care about who won. The exact number of points is never revealed. No prices are handed out. And if there is a argument about the points in a particular stretch of a mountain stage, Nicholas Parsons always is the one with the last word.