Friday, 8 June 2012

florian-geyer-steuer

Despite polls showing majority public support for the matter were it put to a referendum, the Berlin plan for the European Union fiscal compact has been struck down again, primarily due to internal strife and international rejection of a financial transaction tax levied on stock trades. Using current market activity, some seventy billion euro annually could be skimmed off the top and shore up emergency funds. Opponents argue that such projections are unrealistic, since without region-wide or even world-wide buy-in, adoption of the tax, places with the tax regime would become islands, cordoned off from the rest of the financial sphere, which becomes in turn more lucrative for not having to worry about this tithe-ling—something very nominal, from a tenth to a hundredth of a percent of the value of the transaction.
Like the Tobin Tax on currency exchange, it would also reduce speculation and short-selling. At the same time, France has announced that it will introduce its own domestic transaction tax, regardless of what the rest of the world does, and given this weak contrary argument, I wonder how big that sphere of participants has to expand, according to the brokers and the bankers, to the make the field level, globally or within the euro-zone only. I am against austerity measures because in general they have been a poorly managed sacrifice (Aufopferung), uneven and without edification, but to corner the market and demand this tribute on any level is not only staving off the inevitable but also perhaps reducing the need to enact those tougher elements of the compact, including member states ceding control of their budgets and social programmes. A toll charge, easily and automatically born, that pushes some responsibility onto the banking houses that enabled this crisis is a better solution, despite any insincere fears of a temporary traders’ egress (to some other haven off-shore), than the lingering deflection of propaganda and stereotype, aggrandizing the status quo, which drains the possibility for real recovery and reform.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

pyrrhic victory or yes, we have no bleeding turnips

“Another such victory and I am undone.”

The ethos of the battlefield has, for the most part, been relegated to the invisible and agnostic sphere of finance, which has created an aversion to bloodshed and protracted war-making, since that is not a good climate for business—most business, likely there’s a calculus for acceptable loss and trigger for cutting-off the profits for the infernal machines, but it also tends to overshadow the “retrograde” and black market skirmishes that still go on and the people who take part in these sorties and surprises. The majority of what passes as an economic victory (although industry innovation and what’s now called a come-back or revival, like with Ireland or Iceland and what will happen for the Greek people, is not being entertained with this category of robber-baron success) is little cause for celebration (DE/EN), priced in terms of bankruptcy for the competition, the bleeding dry of stake-holders (shareholders and debtors), loss of jobs and living-standards, and trend-setting easily overturned that’s mere redistribution among the oligarchs. What are deemed key institutions are even sustained after being vanquished at the expense of public treasure. Those who would like to see struggling members of the European currency union quickly dispatched and dismissed unwillingly, rather than risk a sort of economic cold war, are rushing away from triumph. The EU’s proponents and founders could not have anticipated the spread of the economic collapse and that such a crisis would force a sober discussion of policy (how taxation and budgets are drafted) integration and is not using the plight of some members to justify the hegemony of others—rather this experiment in amalgamation, an imperfect union, shows how diminished the whole would be without its constituent parts and that the abridgement of differences is no basis for abandonment or ejection. Though the belligerents of politics and finance are intertwined, there’s principle enough, I hope, within the governments (at the behest of the people and not business or self-interest alone) to make the right decisions and have cause to celebrate.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

sanctuary

The diplomatic tensions between the US and China are rising over the yet unclear deportment of a vocal dissident. I am not sure what to think about this. I do not know enough about the situation to be able to penetrate broader judgments that span from unwise meddling to enshrining basic human rights.
 It is exceedingly difficult to assay the situation, especially when all parties are not exactly forthcoming. I was encouraged at first that the US State Department seemed to fake left and then indicate that it might not kowtow to other pressures and more practical considerations. I feel sympathy for this activist and his family and their grander cause, which surely touches a billion souls, but at the same time I have to wonder how it might play out if the situation were reversed. Months ago, there was an international outcry over the detention of a provocative artists and many politicians plied their resources into gaining his freedom, but just as countries resign at the futility of opposing American policy—pointedly demands for the sharing of flight manifests and financial transactions with the US Department of Homeland Security at the risk of being labelled a rogue nation or merely going-along-getting-along through secret deals for very public treaties—that would bring down all the wrath that can be mustered on malingers. How would American react to China railing against the detention of a figure like Bradley Manning, the Wikileaks informant who has been tossed in an oubliette somewhere—much less extracting him with an ambassadorial cavalry? What constitutes an internal-affair, and can the determination be made in the face of hypocrisy?

Friday, 27 April 2012

rushmore

The fourth President of the United States, author of the Federalist Papers and significant contributor to the US Constitution, James Madison called government the greatest reflection of human nature.
Invoking the so-called Founding Fathers can be a tricky thing, since they are used as straw men many times for arguments that they’d rather not be brought into and reductio ad absurdum positions. No constitution is inviolate and can of course be read selectively. Madison said many sage things that are resounding and ought not to be forgotten and are certainly more agile, adaptive and current than the language of any law or designs at strategy. Though the charter documents of America could not have anticipated the complex environment of an intricately connected world, Madison was able to address, succinctly, the latest incarnation of nightmarish Orwellian conveniences being thrust upon the whole planet at America’s behest: “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” After public outrage and protest defeated SOPA and PIPA and lamed ACTA, the US government was amazingly quick to regroup with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). This law’s essential powers and scope are the same as its avatars—only the justification was changed from piracy to the more serious-sounding threat of corporate espionage perpetrated by Russian and Chinese agents, intent on sabotaging America’s prosperity and economic edge.

Sunday, 22 April 2012

triangle man

In a follow-up interview, after adding his voice to the chorus of educators, entrepreneurs, innovators, futurists, writers and artists expressing grave concern over the openness and continued utility of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee (DE/EN), who made the internet accessible though his perseverance and invention of hypertext mark-up language, made a very eloquent remark that should be all rights be the coup de grรขce and last word to the bullies of the world.
Berners-Lee simply said that the internet is bigger than the entertainment industry, bigger than record labels and movie studios. The potential for fostering creativity and discovery and the threat to this freedom of congress is much more significant than the grossly magnified grievances of a few thuggish companies, who have the backing of politicians and inflated claims of damages. In fact, although apparently we’d be better off believing the charm-offensive that equates copyright integrity to the last bastions against all the nightmarish ills of the world, the scale of economy of the entertainment industry is relatively tiny and could be handily absorbed (though I doubt the situation would be improved) by anyone of the technological giants that has built empires of connectivity. We have been put at the mercy of bullies in a lot of other ways as—and though it’s an obvious statement, we’d do better not to forget again: freedom, honesty, integrity are bigger than any illusory security; peace and unity are bigger than any one nation’s peccadilloes or aspirations; not demonizing others is bigger than spreading one’s personal gospel; conserving nature is bigger than profits (though for the last two, forces are ardently at work with discrediting keeping matters in perspective). Understanding scale and priority is something that we are all capable of at first glance, and despite efforts to skew and burden our feelings, I think, with a gentle reminder, we’re able to see through that deception as well.

Thursday, 19 April 2012

manuscript culture or head-up forward crawl

Several luminaries of internet architecture have recently had some sharp and needful words regarding the restrictive environment that governments and businesses are cultivating. Current conditions certainly would not have fostered free-exchange, creativity and innovation and the internet, in terms of content and scope could not have developed as it had. Increasingly aggressive policies are being reinvented and re-flagged under different names but with the same unsavoury and prying aims. That assault and invasion is awful enough, but critics are also right to broach the trend towards compartmentalization.
Like some medieval scriptorium, a lot of information, news and culture meant also for the broader public is being concentrated by aggregators into isolated platforms that are card-catalogues that are at most offering a tantalizing abstract or a bit of nosiness. In the tradition of antique librarians, this inventory, cultivated and expansive as an almanac or chronology, is jealously guarded, and though bidden by the same hosts, come with a caveat of conformity and house-rules. Increasingly, whatever is shared behind the arras of social-networks and networking-applications is really being shunted down a memory-hole, perhaps not forgotten but verging towards inaccessible, like video and cassette tapes and other obsolete forms of coding. What treasures and histories, discoverable but undiscovered, are relegated to film, floppy disks and format? Or even hidden in the shipwrecks of faded enterprises—like mySpace and other groups? Cultural heritage, when and where it can be shared ought not be sequestered or offered up to a repository—especially one whose conditions and conduct are not transparent. Patience and native-curiosity may save what’s in the stacks, physical archives, basements, attics and junk-drawers from oblivion, but as more and more research is confined to digital media and what’s readily accessible, I do not think humans are very backwards-compatible.

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

kopfgeld

The awkward tension between Switzerland and Germany over emerging taxation treaties, banking reforms and German bounty-hunter tactics has resulted in a legal volley between the two countries, including the arrest-warrants for the offending tax-inspectors, a travel-ban for employees at a major Swiss bank for Germany and harsh language that threatens to undermine any progress on transparency and cooperation struck recently (DE/EN). In February 2010, three German tax-inspectors entered into negotiations with an anonymous former bank executive, perhaps disgruntled, to acquire a data CD pilfered on the executive’s way out, which supposedly contained intelligence on international clients who may or may not have been banking in Switzerland for purposes of tax-evasion (the overwhelming countries and banking systems of choice for tax-dodgers are UK and American parking-spots, despite all the flailing and over-reaching of jurisdiction by Britain and the US) .

There was certainly a lot of second-hand absconding and economic sniping by proxy, but the transaction is ultimately criminal in nature. Neither country’s statutory privacy laws would sanction such an exchange, which was paid for with tax-payer funds by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and it will remain unclear who was baited or was the instigator since the only witness who might have known the executive’s identity committed suicide shortly after the sale. This may be a very chivalrous skirmish, but it is having negative effects on further negotiations for a repatriation programme of secreted money and trust between Europe and the Confederation that’s rooted in plunder. Regardless of philosophical questions and whether the greater good is a Kantian moral imperative, this act was still executed illegally (at best—and there are strong indicators that more intrigue is at work) with the German government knowingly buying stolen goods. What was done cannot be easily undone or forgiven and this blunder deserves discussion, regarding how else financial straits are eroding sovereignty and the rights of private citizens. Swiss laws and Swiss neutrality are constituted differently than German or European Union standards, and it is no accident of history that Switzerland, by direct vote, has refused overtures to join the EU and other institutions time after time. Such stanchness for democracy, instead of wholesale commitment of the public without the public’s assent, is a Swiss hallmark and ought to be respected before the escalating situation can ever be put right.

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

beacon

Thank goodness for radio broadcasts and hobbyists, I was thinking while driving to work, since larger and larger swathes of the communication spectrum is going silent. First cable made aerials unnecessary, then quite a wide plateau followed with satellites but now analogue (and seemingly approachable) are being replaced wholesale by digital channels. Of course, everything is awash in an invisible smog of cellular and wireless transmissions but those do not have a significant range nor persistence.

For decades, the compendium of human business rippled, diffuse and faint but still with some tiny hope of being seen, out—slouching in all directions from television and radio. Now much (and with a tendency towards more) of communication is tethered, careening awkwardly in sort of a closed-circuit matter-of-record. Never before has so much been recorded verbatim, and many people are committing more words to the ages than exchanged in conversation, but the audience is limited, private and through the annuals of time, probably would not be beatified as a chronicle of the moment. I’ve amassed some visitors to PfRC from all over the world and it’s fun, but there’s no possibility, no point of entry, for anyone outside of our idiosyncratic protocols and routines, to share what we have done and what we are doing. One does not need to imagine some alien culture, curious that we've gone quiet, for this argument, since already we are finding difficulties with backwards-compatibility and our own future generations may dismiss our records as inscrutable or irrelevant, like so much surplus magnetic-tape and floppy disks.  The world-wide web is a closed system and perhaps irretrievable and irreparable should the architecture of the internet go away. That buzzing swarm of cell phones and WiFi and their longer-range counterparts are, besides, garbled and coded—further to make the intended the exclusive audience and allow no spillage, but I do wonder sometimes if encryption could possibly appear more intelligible than natural language.

Thursday, 8 March 2012

centennial

With the deadly cruise ship fiascos of the recent weeks, the somber commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic coming up in mid-April probably constitutes one of the most infamous events of the year 1912, but that year, on the cusps of revolution, exploration and war, was filled with a calendar of events. The year, framed by drug issues, begins with the International Opium Convention, ratified at Den Haag and ends with a Germany pharmaceutical concern developing and patenting the amphetamine that would become known as Ecstasy. In between, a biochemist identified and defined the concept vitamins, isolating essential nutrients, and another pharmacist developed an organoleptic scale to rate the relative spiciness of chili peppers. The studio system in Hollywood was formed at this time, man reaches the South Pole and the Balkan Powder Keg began to rumble. Monarchy was not the exception but rather the rule in Europe, with only the Swiss Confederation and twee San Marino as republics, and European colonial possessions formed a patchwork in Africa and Asia for later strife by proxy.
 There were firsts for aviators and aviatrixes, with national air defense forces formed in earnest—and the auto-pilot came into being. Bold experimentation in the arts took place, during the active periods of the likes of Picasso, Kandinsky and Duchamp, as well as the literature of Joseph Conrad, Willa Cather, DH Lawrence, Jack London and Thomas Mann--Bertrand Russell also philosophizing and Carl Jung probing the collective unconsciousness. Some of the art and personalities seem distant and unreachable—not dismissed and forgotten, but only just so, on the advancing edge of modernity. I wonder how people might remember about 2012 and how vital those far-off ripples from our time might heave or wash-out.

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

ratiometric or gmbh

Though the end of the Christmas shopping season and despoiled by colder, more seasonable weather has resulted in a slight turning away from positive prospects, the unemployment rate in Germany remains at historic lows, levels certainly unseen following re-unification. And though there is far less wage-gentrification and perhaps purer, more honest numbers to go by and to live by (since the struggles of the working poor are not just statistics, a divisor or remainder to be made up elsewhere with social support), the health of the German job-market may not be completely brash and rosy, as there are still inequalities and possibly expectations heaped on some who cannot hope to meet them. There is also something, not sinister or menacing exactly, but maybe a little suspect and at the expense of neighbours about the persistence of the success of the German markets.
I have no doubt that transparency and genuinely good stewardship are the major contributing factors, but I do wonder if there isn't some balance with an extra long, retributive or invisible fulcrum that's off-kilter because of Germany's recent good-run. All this was a round-about way of saying that there is no longer a one-to-one correspondence between employers and the unemployed (Arbeitgeber u. Arbeitslose), but it is certainly still fairly commensurable, and it, I think, was more than just a campaign sound-bite for the Chancellor to point out the earlier correlation: that the number of job-seekers matches, down to the person, the number of registered businesses, franchises, branches, store-fronts and firms, some 2.88 million, in Germany. Each business, the Chancellor appealed, taking on just one person would eliminate unemployment entirely. Of course, it probably would not pan out so well, and I wonder what a situation where all people are fully-employed, busy, engaged and obligated would mean not only for political attitudes and sympathies but for other elements of society as well.  Most Germans, I think, work in order to live and not the other way around, but--not free from want nor in heated competition, I wonder if those priorities might go missing as a community approaches that one-to-one ratio.

Monday, 2 January 2012

specie

The rampant and entrenched fear of euroblivion for the common currency and for Europe's economic and political future relevance seems to me rife with dishonest and expedient bursts of fright. The currency union, many skeptics and hand-wringers argue, was conceived with errors, primarily citing that the push for economic integration without political alignment was too naive.
On the surface, that is a compelling argument but maybe that also smacks a bit of sophistry: Greece and Spain may not have the same tax regime and collecting mechanisms as Germany or France, nor perhaps the exact same philosophy when it comes to maintaining social programs, but I think that peace, cooperation, and willingness to participate in the EU parliament and abide by those rules does suggest a good degree of coming together politically. Differences that are not mutually exclusive, even in the context of the shared euro, and there is no politics or policies incompatible with the whole of the community. And granted financial inequalities glossed over made it possible for some nations to secure more and more cheap credit, but all that virtual money is created in a vacuum, betting on making good on outrageous debts, without the backing of property or manpower hours behind it—on both sides. Now these ledgers threaten a renewed stripping of that varnish, moves to create inequalities artificially and enhance competition. I am sure there was greed all around and not all players had the purest of intentions, but the goal of the EU was not this inversion. The fear that is visited on the economies and governments of Europe is not only a diversion-tactic and is going to spur the change that will safeguard these ideals, but rather help vouchsafe the lenders and usurers who've exhausted the opportunities elsewhere. Responsibility, fairness and stability are not fast-moving commodities.

Saturday, 31 December 2011

never brought to mind or party likes it's the year 1932

Franรงois the head is certainly ready to party. Daily Mail writer Dominick Sandbrooke presents an interesting, though rather bleak and depressing, article paralleling the political and economic framework of the year to come with that dark period eighty years ago.

The analysis is not a condemnation or pronoun-cement of doom but does offer some stark similarities in mood and faith that are in turn some stark warnings. Though I think when there is profit to be made from social anxieties and fearful portrayals it is hard to escape corporate and media traps, the world, I think, will not go down the same path. There has been an embarrassment (embarrassment as a unit of measure, like the cup of kindness that we all share as well) of disappointment and discouragement, but rather than bringing the world to the brink of chaos, maybe positive things will come of this frustration--a backlash that steamrolls injustice, avarice and gentrification. Predictions are notoriously difficult to make, and perhaps now that Mr. Sandbrooke has put his reporting out there, though he never posed it as anything more than a question, a possibility, maybe he has jinxed it, our future guarded from all cheerless best-guesses. We can resist the influence-peddlers and propagandists and make this coming year a bright one, though hope and pride both humble before the lessons of history.

Monday, 28 November 2011

polity

Der Spiegel staff writer Georg Diez has an excellent, thoughtful portrait of German sociologist and philosopher Jรผrgen Habermas and his perception and understanding of the economic crisis threatening the institution of Europe. Lucidly and refreshingly, and with a unique sort of serenity for the audience who would listen, Habermas describes the move into post-democracy, post-sovereignty, where governments are driven by the whims of markets and day-traders--instead of commerce carried out all levels within the framework of civics. I have been trying to attack this argument on all fronts, calling the economic situation a hoax meant to perpetuate great game for its winners and to leech away the substance of public office, but Habermas has through discourse managed to encapsulate the sum of all dangers. He commends the media for its unrelenting coverage, some of which I would have stinted as fear-mongering and unreflective, but Habermas was also able to look beyond the pedestrian problems of corruption in politics and greed and recognize (and validate) a fear for a diminished public voice and politics disengaged when the legacies of whole peoples are chained together and bound by representatives that are unelected and not vetted with authority--no more referenda, plebisites (Volksentscheid) but rather everything decided by treaty and steerage and stock-brokers--in some cases, and would abandon the European ideal for finances.

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

winner, winner turkey dinner or klatu, barda, nikto

Should clear and irrefutable signs of extraterrestrial life suddenly be discovered, such a revelation would, I think, certainly diminish and relegate our less concrete worries to the pettiness they're born, though there's probably still a question in timing of such feats and people, whether they voice it or not: I'm sure there are some secreted thoughts about how this spoils the holidays, vacation plans, campaigns--private, unlike the extent the news would upset the social contracts between borrowers and lenders. It makes me think about the episode of the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov, when Jesus is rejected because His return is interfering with the mission of the Church. I'll bet that some households would find that sort of incident exasperating while trimming the tree. Aliens of course are not guaranteed to solve all our problems, and there's no evidence of imminent discovery, although this a big unknown factor--like unanticipated technological break-throughs (like the democratization that quality, affordable three-dimensional printing or some new property distilled from research at CERN--or the fact that no one can reconcile that there are planets made of diamond and asteroids made of gold just out of reach of the prospectors)--and new constellations of distant worlds are coming into sharper focus every day.  Given the potential for the foreign and unfamiliar, both as observers and possibly as the observed, wisely time and experiment has been invested in speculative, alternative biological chemistries so that scientists might not miss alien life when it presents itself. Abundance, valance--elective affinities, and chemical properties, solubility as well as solid-state performance are considered in all imaginable permutations, so as not to be guilty of chauvinism, even if the chance for interface and exchange seems to get less and less the more one diverges from the familiar. Maybe far-off extraterrestrial astronomers are dismissing Earth at this moment, seeing our home world as not even on the fringe of their Goldilocks Zone (EN/DE): too hot, too cold, too small, too large, too precarious and impermanent, exposed to the whims of a harsh and destructive universe. Just a little bit of mutual jingoism in science might make it impossible to recognize intelligence or even life.  Our bodies and biology, too, adapted to life on the inclement surface of a planet instead of the sheltering underground or under the oceans, bent and woven with specific gravity, would probably repulse a being that developed under different conditions and limitations as overly fragile or brute. I hope that there is no conspiracy to spare our planning the mortification of changing our priorities, but I also hope that we are not blinded by our chauvinism and attitude to richness and variety (off-world or otherwise) that's at the edge of discovery.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

les trois perdants or suspension of belief

There are at least three news items vying for dominance and, I think, the vogue of cognitive dissonance has gained more than just a foothold of priorities over the past months--maybe as it ever was, struggling and causing disbanding as well as diluting native abilities to identify distraction from the real pith and moment. In no particular order, the latest triumvirate consists of 1) the US military embassy re-establishing a consular presence in the Pacific, a contingent of Marines stationed in Australia, evidently as a counter-measure for Chinese influence in the region (EN/DE);
2) the punitive, aggressive down-grading of German state public sector lenders (Landesbanken) by a major credit-rating agency (EN/DE)--ostensibly because the German government would be able to vouch for all their liabilities (and these public institutions should not be let off lightly for venturing into risky, speculative areas and gambling indirectly with tax-payers' money) but in reality probably to pressure Germany towards privatization (and under their own purview) of these financial bulwarks by the supra-national union of bankers and deprive not only civic and charitable organizations a lending source but also the politicians some grace-and-favour leverage and authority, and, I think, only more proof of how else money can be weaponized and turned against self-determination; and 3) the re-vitalization of the occupation movements spurred, apotheosized, ironically by evictions on Wall Street and elsewhere, which, truth be told had probably dimmed a bit over the past weeks, an eternity in the life-cycle of a sit-in, with a message and action. Such a triple-threat as this is not orchestrated and conspired but take any three headlines and try to see if one is not the natural consequence or the more advanced expression of the others, projecting from a safe distance what history might make of these daily preoccupations.

Friday, 21 October 2011

viennese waltz or ballroom blitz

 

The negative attention plied and mounting on the European Union and imminent crisis talks, replete with rumour and grandstanding and loggerheads, is striking me as a very sort of Zen/Non-Zen exercise. There is an imponderable quality to the debate, that the raining down of economic doom, has levied undue focus on these otherwise normal and healthy proceedings. The European clubhouse, founded primarily on hope, understanding and cooperation but also maybe cynically on the guilt of Germany and the opportunism of others (and the constituent parts were never, it seems, painted with so much contrast when there were borders), is holding deliberations among its treasurer, secretary and president. If this was happening with a less scrutinous watch, would there be so much noise? Of course what happens matters, especially when it could affect the timbre of politics, social support, peace and self-determination, yoked or not to an indenturing debt, but other major economies have also collapsed under the weight of their own greed and surfaced (not recovered) none the wiser, unlike Europe who has already made regulations more transparent and more robust in order to reemerge again, stronger and more secure.
There is no easy or obvious answer to these challenges, but nor is there a wrong decision that cannot be overcome. The most-watched designations are overgenerous and meaningless, and Triple A-Alpha-Ailm-Aleph-Double-Plus-Super-Thanks, I'm sure will settle to a new baseline.  There is something horrible and vicious about an academic exercise, a zero-sum-game--something that claws its way back to equilibrium--that seems very Non-Zen but also a little bit reassuring that affairs will adjust and right themselves, and that the core of a place, buildings, streets and communities can be much older and essentially more durable than their latest ascribing armour--city, nation, state.

Saturday, 15 October 2011

mnemotechny or counting sheep

In the quiet evenings after our daily adventures in Ireland--much more to come in following episodes, I read the very memorable and inspiring "Moonwalking with Einstein" by Slate writer Joshua Foer (Penguin Books, 2011). In a sense, right after I had checked this volume out from the library, the anticipation of reading it had my thoughts roving to the old James Burke BBC series Connections and the Day the Universe Changed and the installments that addressed memories, specifically the mental constructs of utilized by the ancients and story-tellers of long ago of palaces or cathedrals as cues for memorizing and understanding.
Revisiting those riveting techniques and then recalling passages from Plato about the hazards of the written (uncommitted) word, printed on a page but not imprinted elsewhere and making memory something external was a little bit revolutionary for me, in the retelling. The author’s coverage of participatory journalism that made him the architect and landlord of many memory palaces really highlighted the extent to which we have made our memories something outside of us, relying on the internet, digital photographs, and even surrendered to GPS when one of the things that humans are innately good at is navigation and spatial awareness, and thus in a time where memorization is frowned upon and seen as demeaning, punishment, how much practice really can perfect and lead to expertise. Our minds are really capable of incredible things and we may be too quick to fault them or resort to the latest crutch.  After all, what innovation comes without a jolt and a hook from what came before. I fully intend to investigate this, but don't take my word for it... Speaking of the memorable and what creatures might people your own memory palaces, last time we were in Ireland, we noticed that neighbouring sheepfolds had begun tagging their flock with spray paint, usually a green, red or blue dot. This time, however, there was a splendid group that appeared nearly tie-dyed.

Friday, 23 September 2011

antitelephone

There's quite a bit of discussion about the rather rigourous and consistently unexpected measurements that physicists at the CERN laboratories have chanced upon and disclosed as an invitation for peer-review. Neutrinos from Switzerland are arriving in a partner research facility in Italy a bit earlier than expected, just a bit faster than the speed of light, which is a cherished constant and supposed impossibility. I think no one is suggesting that Albert Einstein's century old theories of special relativity and derived equations are wrong, but such discoveries are exciting and disabusing, even when debunked and remediated. I do wonder how the neutrinos' arrival was clocked in the first place, though I am certain that the scientists are desperate themselves to be proven wrong. CERN is a particle accelerator and when one is coaxing particles within fractions of the speed of light, the energy required approaches infinity and mass, inertia that resists going faster builds and builds. Nothing in Einstein's work, however, precludes the existence of particles that always move at the speed of light or even faster, just so longer as they were not accelerated and cannot convey energy or information. Rather than strictly quantifying an exact relationship between matter and energy, Einstein's work is a framework that reveals logical profundities that are reflected and confirmed in our understanding of the fabric of the universe. That physical objects, as predicted by Einstein and others, undergo a time-dilation as they increase speed has already been proven: subatomic particles boosted to near light speed, in a sense, survive much longer and travel further than their limited half-life at rest proffers. By extension, anything traveling faster than light, would appear to a stationary observer to be moving backwards in time. The neutrinos could arrive in Italy before they were dispatched from Switzerland, but such a result seems to violate common-sense, causality and everything else. If, as in the contemporary thought experiment, one's future self could call and influence the decisions of one's past self, everything seems to come apart and go all out of sequence--unless that is what already is happening and we cannot see it for our own logical blinders.