other stuff

Cognitive overload

The whole act of packing one life into boxes and moving to another location is on the surface a trivial event. This triviality is however an illusion, the event is a mass of decisions that need to be taken: boxes, packing, changing address, notifying the electric, telephone and broadband company and on and on.

All this is manageable until the added decisions of decorating come along. Life seems easy and major decisions seem manageable until you all of a sudden spend half an hour trying to decide which curtain rail will fit in the bedroom. Seriously! Half an hour trying to arrive at a decision over curtain rails!!

Since seemingly simple decisions quickly become a quagmire of choices the act of moving stuff from one place to another creates a cognitive overload even before arriving at stupid decisions like where to put stuff in the new place.

Moving the boxes is the easy part. It reminds me of a Sufi proverb: Freedom is the absence of choice.

Posted on by mklang

Theatrical weekend and snow

This weekend had a theatrical slant. A movie premiere on Friday including the red carpet walk (not as part of the film but as a “trophy” boyfriend). Sunday was closing night at the children’s theater’s production of the musical Jungle Book with the Norwegian lyrics…

and a birthday party which ended with a bit of a paint shop…

On the way to Göteborg on Monday it was snowing a lot and by the time the train reached the outskirts of the city the snow was piled high… Wednesday is my moving day and now I am really hoping for a big melt down since I need it to be dry on moving day.

Posted on by mklang

Absurdist theatre and reality

The existentialist Albert Camus actively explored the absurd in human existence. Among his work was the play Caligula in which he used the example of the mad roman emperor to show that reality is a mad game. In the play the madness of Caligula (the emperor) is not totally irrational but it is a way in forcing people to realize that the world is totally crazy and that individuals must react.

So in the play when Caligula acts madly (he claims to be the goddess Venus, appointing his horse to Consul and priest, forcing senators wives to act as prostitutes in state brothels) he does so to make a point. It makes for a fascinating interpretation but most probably it was just plain old madness.

Via Neatorama I came across the quotes of Prince Philip and after a bit of googling the examples flooded in – the man is so politically incorrect it almost seems like he is acting with a purpose. But like the Caligula in reality he is just a nightmare of politically incorrect behavior.

Here are some examples:

To a native woman in Kenya: You are a woman, aren’t you?

At a World Wildlife Fund meeting: If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.

To a driving instructor in Scotland: How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?

To a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: You managed not to get eaten, then?

To an Aboriginal man on Australia: Do you still throw spears at each other?

To the President of Nigeria, who was dressed in traditional robes: You look like you’re ready for bed!

For an expanded list of his mad quotes go here…

Posted on by mklang

Interior decoration frustration

Aaaah, right now with the move days away and I am struggling to figure out the furniture solutions needed for the new place. Writing a thesis seems easy compared to all the decisions needed to finish a home. Just take a look a these choices available for bookshelves. Some of them are nice but I still have not found anything I like. Bah, its easier to write a paper…

brace-case.jpg

Posted on by mklang

Hopeful news

My living problems may soon be resolved. Today I live in a very small place (30 square meters) on the bottom floor of an ugly concrete high rise (not too high though) surrounded by other concrete buildings. It’s a one room affair so I can lie in the bed and listen to the fridge humming away. My current living situation is depressing but reasonably cheap.

Things I miss in my living situation today:

  • Sofa (actually a whole living room)
  • Ability to open the curtains without passers by looking in
  • A view
  • Waking-up without seeing the washing-up
  • Having my books in shelves inside rather than in boxes in storage
  • Ability to invite people over

The operative word is maybe – so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted on by mklang

Comment on the Open Source Decade

It’s been ten years since the term open source was launched and one of the architects behind it, Bruce Perens, discussed this in an interview

“No. If Bruce Perens could change anything from that day in February 1998 when he announced the Open Source Definition and the Open Source Initiative he’d alter the very way open source licenses are ratified, to halt what he regards as the chief threat to the next ten years of open source: license proliferation.

Perens said the growth in licenses, especially the emergence of “badgeware”, or attribution licenses used by numerous open source companies, such as last year’s Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), is dangerous. Today, we have 68 licenses ranging from the well-known GNU General Public License (GPL) to the, well… the OCLC Research Public License 2.0 recognized by the OSI.”

For more on this check out the State of Open Source Message on Bruce Perens’ own website

Posted on by mklang

On closets

The metaphor of “coming out of the closet” is a good one. The image of the closet as the place where socially unacceptable secrets are hidden is very apt. In a discussion on religion in Sweden with my Greek flatmate in Lund I used the term “closet Christian” without really reflecting over its meaning. He questioned the term and I began to expand what I meant. The more I spoke the more the term struck me as odd – but suitable.

The metaphor of the closet, and in particular the idea of coming out of the closet, refers mainly to homosexuality. But the content of the closet is naturally dependent upon the social setting. Sweden is a very secular society, it is not radical, but rather a form of absolute indifference.

It is not really a disbelief based upon the questioning of the existence of god in the manner of Epicurus

Is god willing to prevent evil but not able – then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing – then he is malevolent.
Is god both able and willing – then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing – then why call him god?
Epicurus (341-271 BCE)

But it is a more casual, detached form. It has become such an accepted position that there is little or no need to argue the position. Most people do not even feel the need to explain the lack of belief. It is a simple fact, disbelief is the ruling norm.

Sweden is also extremely accepting of homosexuality. So much so that it is easier to be a homosexual than a Christian. What I mean by this is that, in Sweden, it is easier to shock your surroundings by admitting to believing in god than admitting to a non-heterosexual lifestyle. So I guess that there must be groups of Christians who prefer to keep their faith hidden so that they will not be stigmatized (however lightly) by the groups in which they mix.

Posted on by mklang

Beatles in Space

NASA will transmit The Beatles song Across the Universe through the Deep Space Network – a network of antennas – next week making it the first song ever to be beamed directly into space. It kind of makes you think. What will the aliens make of the lyrics

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

I wonder if the collecting societies are already working out what NASA should be paying the Beatles in royalties?

Posted on by mklang

Interns to the Open Rights Group

The Open Rights Group is looking for summer interns. If you have the time and inclination this is a really worthwhile pursuit.

Are you a student thinking ahead to the long summer months? Are you itching to contribute to an exciting and socially beneficial cause? If you fit this bill and are interested in computer science, politics, law or culture online then come and intern for Open Rights Group.

The Open Rights Group works to  raise awareness in the media of digital rights abuses and to protect digital rights online.

Posted on by mklang