Stone To Stars

Time

2011-11-30T10:00:00.001+13:00

Some days are a real loss, or a win if you consider the writings of Dr Seuss. Looking at the battery meter on the laptop computer, time is depicted as a draining potential. But it has a fullness from which it has to start...

And so it is: Today was filled with pain, it was filled with longing, and finally, it was filled with reminiscence shared with souls of my kin. This is a loss and it is a win. I speak not of the lost time here. I dare not mention time won, because time is an artifact we construct of necessity and guilt. Time as an artifact of deliverance and guilt does not enter my life anymore.

I reconstruct the images. The images reflect the experiences. There is the image of my childhood friend. She wears a simple dress and she kisses me, doll in hand as we imagine being husband and wife. We know nothing, but we copy, and it leaves a mark. It ignites a flame of commitment that I keep to this day. Sealed with a kiss, we stand together. Some walk away from this, with a shrug and a new-found love. Pain has shades of intensity.

There is loss, and there is gain. The images compress and the images dilate. I see long summers and endless loneliness, I see winters filled with hope and letters smuggled over school desks as I learn about the smell of nearness.

We listen to music, we taste the shudders cuddled in a simple kiss. The draining potential kicks in as soon as the link is made, There is expectation and fear of loss, moments of unbridled optimism, and finally fact. But time, I maintain, sits in the background, like a darkness, waiting to be constructed as a causality. The doctrine of the what is and what will be lurks for those without the power of imagination!

I see toes wriggling innocently and with utter abundance. It is the kick-start that gets energised by a walk down a passage and a sense of destiny. There is no time connected to this. These are just images that string together. Some may call for causality, I call for the smell and the emotion of the image. Yes, I defy the science and I defy the insistence on the ticks of time, I only see the movement of that fairy body and the golden hair that signaled my fate. There is an image of the mother of my son that becomes my imagined future and a reality that dawns many images later. Time passes, almost as an aside.

We look at the watches that hog our lives, the calendars that steal our love and our abandonment. We read the days off and we count the hours. These are the days of tragic loss as we calculate the seconds to our demise.

But I care not for these measures. I live for the soft touch of lips, the moments of a shared hug when it is least expected, the handshake and the extended eye contact. I live for the smell of self-love, carefully prepared after a warm shower and administered from a lovingly selected bottle of perfume. I watch hair shift over a brow, and I see the varnish on a nail. I see the sweat on a brow in a meeting and the intent in a frown. I collect these images like shells at the seashore.

The tide comes in and the tide recedes. It takes and it delivers. I do not connect hours to these images. Hours will detract from the feelings, hours will bring a blandness to the events. Repetition is the bastard son of these time ticks, and I renounce the existence of this abomination.

No, I live with an image of the next and images cascading away from me to my birth. I imagine the impossible and I extend my dreamy moments into the light of day. If I can dream it, I can give birth to it. My dreams are simple though. I find the lips of my lover in a tender embrace, I am not older and I am not younger, and I smell the clear intent of closeness and I taste the urgency of life.

It is now and as I imagine it. I look at the footsteps of my God that walks before me. The moment is an artifact of deliverance and I know no guilt as I walk the path I see unfolding before me. The quick-snap lock of time is unsprung.

Trading in Carbon

2011-11-20T10:32:00.001+13:00

Here in New Zealand motorists are reported to pay up to $25 per metric ton of carbon when they fill their cars with fuel. Some sources report that the open market cost for carbon credits is just over $13 per ton. The fuel supply companies are effectively making a 100% markup on carbon credits on the face of it. This is similar to governments making money trading in carbon credits.

As a simple man with a desire for simple explanations, I find it hard to understand why there is a trade in carbon credits. Yes, I know all about global climate change and the smarty pants scientists putting evidence on the table that we are the cause of the impending doom. But how does this trading scheme work, if it trades in the unseeable and unmeasurable based on sketchy science? Why are we going along with it? Is it because we have been kicked into submission and guilt?

Let’s just look at this quickly using round numbers: one liter of automotive fuel (C₈H₁₈) weighs about 700g (equal to about 6.2 mole of fuel) and reacts with 2.4kg oxygen to form about 2.2kg of carbon dioxide (CO₂), which translates to about 600 gram of carbon. This means that for an average tank of fuel used (50 liters), you produce about 30kg of carbon, and this translates to about 75 cents per refill. Or you could pay about 38 cents, if the fuel companies did not rip you off.

I maintain that this is fruitless expenditure. Where is the money going to? You see, I see 1.5 cents per liter disappear from my wallet. That is REAL. I use about 800 liters of fuel per year in the one car we use. Obviously I also consume fuel when I take the bus or the taxi cab. I have no idea how much that is. So let’s just work on 1000 liters to make the case here. That is $15 per year. Insignificant! Maybe we are playing along because in the bigger scheme of things this is of no consequence....

But wait, there is more. Wolfram Alpha reports that there were 3.1 million vehicles in use in New Zealand in 2006. Assume there are about 4.3 million people living here. Just for now, assume there are a steady growth in vehicles and that it came to about 3.5 million vehicles this year. As a very conservative assumption, assume all these vehicles have similar patterns of use to mine, then we use about 3.5 billion liters of fuel per year. That comes to $52M of carbon tax. $52,500,000!!! Not shabby.

If I now ask where that money is going, I think I am asking an important question. Let us take this further. I can buy a large beech tree for about $15 (Fagus Sylvatica Purpurea). This tree will conservatively sequestrate about 15kg of carbon per year in the climate of the South Island. One tree will sequestrate the carbon delivered by using about a half a tank of fuel. As I am generating 600kg of carbon per year, I need to have 40 healthy beech trees somewhere to sequestrate my carbon production from using typical transport. That comes to an investment of $600. These 40 trees will stand there and consume carbon for the rest of my natural life. The 3.5 million vehicles need to have the same sequestration, so let’s make it easy and say that we need to invest $1000 per vehicle. That comes to $35B once-off. I hope my math is right, because it says that we can sequestrate the carbon we produce in New Zealand from using cars and trucks by investing about $35B in trees. That is 670 times what we pay in tax per year.

I assume a tree like this will need 10m²to flourish (I do not have a lot of information on this, so maybe someone can comment). I need 400m² planted with these trees. Nothing else, just the the 40 trees. Make that 500m² for the sake of my argument. The total perennial crop area of New Zealand is about 1.8 million hectares. I have 36 million spots available for my trees to sequestrate my type of fuel consumption. Sure, we also need to produce other crops, but they do their bit in cleaning up carbon too.

Back to maths. We need to clean up 3.5 billion liters of fuel derived carbon. One tree does 15kg of carbon which is generated by 25l of fuel. Therefore, we need 140 million trees, or about 140 000 hectares covered in trees. That is less than 10% of the perennial crop area covered in trees or similar carbon sinks. I hope my math sucks big time.

I am worried that we do not attempt the maths, that we do not ask the questions and that we do not take our governments to task on this. A once-off payment of $35B will cover us for a few years (say 10). That comes to $1 extra per liter, or $1000 for every vehicle. This is what we need to pay to pay for the carbon pollution, if that argument holds. I see no trees being planted. Will I be exempt from tax if I plant 40 trees?

So why are we paying $52M per year? It is not enough to make a difference. Where is the money going? Are we the generation that is guilt ridden and ripped off because we choose to be ignorant? Please check my math. I try to spend no more than an hour per blog entry, which means I my me mistaken here. If I am right though, we should be asking a few questions.

(Image used under the Creative Commons License - see http://www.freefoto.com/preview/15-19-15/Tree)

About Sugar - InfoGraphic

2011-11-16T20:26:00.001+13:00

Created by: Health Science

Mindless Rant

2011-11-12T09:06:00.001+13:00

It is so bloody hot in Pretoria, South Africa, this week! It is close to 40˚C (104˚F) every day and the night time temperatures never go below 20˚C. We are all on edge and tired. Beer is warm in a country where people consume a crappy brew called Castle by the tanker load. I mean, who calls a beer Castle? It must have been a hot summer when they came up with that name. And it shows in the beer. Have one and your whole system turns to toxic sludge. Come on SAB Miller XXX fishpaste - sue me!

Oh, and I woke up to discover that Steam had been hacked. I was angry man!! What is this? And I mean, STEAM hacked - the same idiots that ban people for a typo!! HACKED!! Karma is such a bitch. Lucky I have a tech savvy son to help me secure my account. He LOLs as he confirms that I have not left any important stuff in the account in any case. I use 1Password to generate the mother of all passwords. Take that! Even without salt that is a killer. I feel better - momentarily.

The politics are just as hot. The leader of the ANC Youth League was suspended for 5 years from his party. He responds in defiance from an even hotter Limpopo that he’ll appeal the outcome. Why? Please claim that you have heat stroke Julius. Just continue with your business my friend - it is good as it is. Please do not have another march from nowhere to nowhere to test the resolve of your followers. People might die.

In Cape Town the Aussies look like they are crushing the local flower boys in one of two REAL cricket games, just to be blown away by a great bowling attack on the mother of all of the weirdest pitches ever prepared at Newlands. One has to ask how this happened, and in the light of the history of screwing with the game, one feels cheated. I mean - WTF!! This is worse than the Bryce (who remembers him) debacle a few weeks ago. But who would notice? It is about the money these days. Screw the poor fools that thought they would be seeing great cricket on Saturday.

Went to the local super supermarket, you know the posh one, and bought imported (I cry in my warm bubbly) pomegranate. Use by date is 3 days from now. It has a distinct fizz to it and being a consumer of alcoholic beverages, I notice the smell of the by-products of fermentation. I take it back and I ask if they would replace it. Yes, sure, no worries. So I open the next container, and point out that it too is evolving. The manager sniffs it, and no, it is fine. This is where the beast in me wakes up, I guess. So I say, well, I’ve paid for it, and I am happy to walk away from this - you just eat it sir! Nope, no can do! Why not, well he does not like pomegranate. You see where this is going? It is warm, even in this posh air-conditioned shop. Fade out and fade in as I walk out into the late afternoon with a bottle of warm bubbly.

Meanwhile I pour over pics from Dunedin NZ where my family indulges in seafood and a bottle of the most divine Sauvignon Blanc bubbly from somewhere cool in New Zealand. I listen to TuksFM and they insist on playing metal. I mean, get a life, just play some Johnny Cash - we are all dead already, have mercy. Metal! Sweating teenagers with hormones dripping from hot guitars and drummers sweating blood. There is no mercy in this world. The TV offers nothing of value. It is Noot vir Noot. For those souls reading this outside South Africa, this translates to Note by Note, but for those in the know, it equates to crap squared! About two minutes into the show, the host does what is expected and he chooses the girl in the second row for a competition - NO SHIT SHERLOCK!!

I open doors and windows. This allows the great multitude of insects in, even on the fifth floor. It is clear to me now. We are the dinos of our age. It is time. We refused to pay carbon tax, so GAIA is taking revenge and unleashing the exoskeleton brigade. I smile and take a sip of iced bubbly while I spray the room with a phosphate and chlorine mix laced with nitrous elixirs. What the hell - GAIA is pissed off already.

A cool breeze clears the smell of death momentarily and my thoughts go back to late 2009. The pool light is set to deep red and we are floating in the salty warm water. The stars are bright lights in a black sky, even here in the city. We are wrapping up here before moving to the next phase of our lives. There is sadness and anticipation as we point out the familiar constellations and we talk about the winters in Bloemfontein when we first discovered the majesty of the Universe.

I walk out on the balcony. Some idiot grills his motorcycle in a moment of madness, a dog barks at a shadow and I look towards the east where Saturday is dawning. I imagine my love welcoming the day...

This afternoon a tree was dropping red flowers and leaves like tears. The vastness of loss of so many lives and so many loves hangs over this day, Turning away, I sip the bubbly and I realise it is a pretty good day to be alive today. 11/11/11

Social Media

2011-11-03T10:31:00.000+13:00

I was blown away when I first read about hypertext and the concept of rich documents in Byte Magazine (1988 - Volume 13 number 10 to be precise). What a pity that one cannot access these articles easily anymore, and just another reason to support the move away from publishers owning content.

Back to the story... I remember that I was asked to talk in a small forum about technologies that I thought would change the way we deliver information content. This volume of Byte came as a revelation and shaped much of my thinking about situation awareness, of all things! The article by J. Fiderio “A Grand Vision--Hypertext mimics the brain's ability to access information quickly and intuitively by reference” was so well written and made so much sense. How would we thread these links in electronic documents to access the content in this natural manner? Remember, this was before the days when Marc Andreessen’s Netscape hit our screens, and years before Internet Explorer! Most people were using the internet to send e-mails around. At best you could search for stuff in a static ‘online’ database like dBase III.

I remember telling the forum that having these hot links in documents that could even reside on the internet, we would be able to jump from one piece of information to the next relevant one without skipping a beat in our unfolding understanding of subject matter. We would ‘flick the pages’ almost at random looking for the information we needed, weaving new information as we went, all based on current documents on other topics. For me as a generalist, this was exactly what I needed to really do what I do well, and that is to integrate across boundaries. I had no idea how this would be done in terms of the underlying technology, but I knew that once we had thought about it, and with the exciting emergence of the internet, it would only be a matter of time.

In 1992 I saw the first application of this technology in a simple product for the masses: The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia was part of a bundle of software I got with a CD ROM drive. Over time the hypertext links in documents just became part of the every-day experience. These days I am constantly trying to convince people to accept the work I deliver in PDF or HTML formats, so that I can add links to other material in the document. Why do we still want to print things on paper and have static documents? I guess there may be reasons, but think about it. You can get so much more, and I can even keep those links updated with new information at a small cost. We can have real live documents.

How do social media applications fit into this discussion? Well, FaceBook is just one big ‘hypertext’ mess. Almost everything on the page is a link to something else, and then on to the next thing, and so on. In Twitter we see the use of link shorteners in almost every post. The post is almost just there to grab attention - the real stuff (or the fluff) is somewhere else. Links appear everywhere, even ones to show where you are when you are posting something. This truly represents how we interact with content, it helps us answer the what, why, where, how and when type questions on the fly. Our search engines thrive on these links. Our social media applications use this to sell us stuff, to find people, to share ideas.

My current social media favourite lives on my iPhone. Instagram allows me to capture the emotions I feel with a picture in the instant I experience it. I have to write very little. I add the place where the picture was taken, some text to describe the moment and then the picture becomes the story. This works for me as a visual thinker. Chrissie asked the other day: “Who would want to see your snap shots?”. I think Jan-Dawid answered appropriately by saying that it not just the picture, it is about the moment, the place, the hidden story. He gets it. The picture is the start. Instagram allows people to 'Like' and add comments. But often a 'Like' is enough - you know what was going down, you acknowledge that you grasped it, the moment became a common experience. The art is to compose the message in the picture. This is a long way from a static link in one document to some other content in another document. However, it started with that Grand Vision that Fiderio talked about.

Where are we going next? I am not sure, but I do know that retakes on FaceBook will not do it, and Google+ is just not intuitive enough for me. Twitter is good to broadcast with, but it seems to be a bit one-way. Instagram may be the first of a new breed. Live links in the pictures may be an obvious next step. Links to where pics were taken, immersive experiences and ways to have tracks of pics, rather than just a singular timeline, may follow. The closer we get to telling stories around the fire and learning from the discussion, the closer it comes to being natural. I think that is the key.

My Instagram images can be seen at: http://instagrid.me/drhenkroodt/ It lacks the descriptions, etc. You can also link to my stream if you have the Instagram app by looking for @drhenkroodt

Now, if only I can get that Byte magazine from 1988 in electronic format.....

Of the heart

2011-10-20T08:46:00.002+13:00

What is distance to the heart? A beat translated to a flutter under soft skin and not seen, I guess. But that same heart will not be still and it beats through the fiber of space and time and we know it, no matter the time of day or the physics of the moment. The rhythm flickers through dreams and manifests in the moments of a day. Distance is not of the heart, it is of the mind.

The soul manifests in the heart. As the soul flees the confines of the flesh the heart shudders and retires. It is silent.

The soul is not of the material world, it knows no boundaries and it is good that its tongue can speak without knowing chains. Beating in a rhythm that is ancient and understood by all, the universal translator whispers in every wave of this universe.

And so we sing to each other, oblivious to the kilometers and the hours. The song is without pretense, and it knows no lies. The mind finds pain and elation in the notes, and it disguises it in the clothes of the moments we live in. We know, we know it as a primal truth, the mind can never be trusted!

Listen closely and suspend the logic, suspend the mind, send it on a holiday and wave it away. Listen to the heart.

I hear you my love. Your voice is clear. Together we turn to the bright blue sky over those hills and the bay. Only the angels see us smile in this moment. Let me hold your hand through this day as I go into this night. We know distance is not of the heart.

Campaign for the counter trend

2011-10-18T08:06:00.001+13:00

To be precise, this piece is about modern economic systems failing society. My simple disclaimer here is that I am not an economist. I am one of the individuals trying to make a living running his own, single person business.

After almost 25 years in the corporate environment my situation changed in a way that left me in a spot where I discovered that my years of diverse experience were counting against me. It was difficult to cast me in a specific job in the corporate pigeon holes. Had I been doing the same type of job for a decade, it could have been simpler, but I am also a generalist, not a specialist. I integrate the specialized stuff that others work on for ages; they research the details, I see the patterns that link it across boundaries. Maybe it is just a failing of the human resources departments, or the agencies, or my own inability to sell myself, but no-one could translate my (previously valued) experience into their environment and I could not do it either. I could not get into interviews and I had no option but to start my own business.

You soon find out that the economies of the world primarily consists of two large entities: government clusters and large corporations. Both have similar hierarchies and similar loops and hoops that one must learn to negotiate. As a knowledge worker (and I’ll come back to this concept) it is exceedingly difficult to compete for contracts that are being outsourced as companies and government departments become increasingly closed entities. This is to my mind the result of the insane concept of intellectual property. While several academics have questioned the idea, corporations and governments have (with eager lawyers in tow) seen it as another way to hype their perceived value. They own an asset that is intangible they claim, they can attach a price to it and they can trade in it. And so they do, trading these imaginary assets on their books. It seems that it often exceeds the real value of the company.

Where have we seen this before? Simple, the dot com boom and crash consisted mostly of organizations with some sort of innate value, unquantifiable in many ways, just waiting to be unlocked and valued on potential. The concept of a knowledge worker is part of this - we supposedly trade in things that consist of knowledge. Is this true? I think not. I have skills and access to the knowledge base of humanity. My skills can be tested. What we know is written down in books and other records. Experience and know-how are things locked up in people and in their networks. It is not quantifiable, unless it is used to generate solutions to real world problems or to discover new opportunities to develop and improve the human condition (or in some cases to take advantage of it). It is tested and made explicit in this way. It becomes tangible and only then does it have value. Do the corporates own people, like slaves? Well, we have to conclude that this is indeed true if they claim to own that which is in the heads and in the networks of people. I think this is a silly notion.

How does this link with my claim that the economic systems are failing us? For one, the economies of countries now rely heavily on this concept of potential value. They trade in it when they trade futures on the stock exchanges, and they use it to borrow money to make their departments work, all under the banner of making the countries viable and sustainable. It may surprise you that I am not at all confessing to being a capitalist, socialist, marxist or communist. None of these systems are viable anymore. They all claim to be something special, but it all comes down to a few being in power positions, able to manipulate the situation. Socialists claim that they will look after society by spending the money on societal projects, but they soon run out of the resources to continue to live up to the promises. Capitalists give free reign to the corporations to generate wealth for all, but somehow that money goes only into the pockets of a few. In both cases these ‘organisms’ thrive on being able to centralise the power structures. Freedom to the workers and other slogans just do not cut it any more. This is why I am amused by the whole “Occupy” movement. It is just another outlet for anarchists, marxists and disillusioned (read “failed”) capitalists. And it is just another excuse for those that are aggrieved by what others have and they lack, just an excuse to demand more in exchange for - what?

For a while now I have been following another train of thought. It seems the current financial systems and the economic paradigms driving them are running out of steam. We cannot continue to grow within the context that we are used to: growth equals making and selling more stuff. Growth will need to be something different as we are running out of planetary resources to support the “more” paradigm. Similar thoughts are being expressed by several individuals on the web. Rather than campaign for redistribution of the wealth (or what is left of it) the new thinking challenges the role of centralised centers of power, whether these are big corporates or governments. Sustainability will come as a counter trend to the development of larger metros and ever larger budgets to keep these monsters intact. Smaller cooperatives with distributed power based on synergisms will most probably start to replace the failing über systems. As fewer and fewer people can afford to be part of the mega systems they will be forced to find other ways to look after themselves. Local networks (and this includes those that extend via the internet) will become centers of power focussed on nodes of one or in some cases, the collection of a few. The currency will change back to skills exchange in many cases. Growth will be measured in value addition and the supply of necessities at a personal level, not by the desirability engineered by the brand managers.

Where this awareness cannot take root successfully, the rot of the large systems will cause major social upheaval and unrest. More “occupiers” will emerge with insatiable demands that will lead to the destruction of the power sources of the large systems as well as the occupiers in many instances. This is an uncomfortable view of the future. It may not come to the extremes explored here, but it will come in a form similar to what I describe here unless something really disruptive happens soon.

It should be obvious that if we want to campaign for anything at this time, it would be worthwhile to work to ensure that systems and technologies for communication and electrical power are secured. More people will be forced to know more about more and not more about less. Not being part of a metro may be rather beneficial. Campaigning for decentralisation could possibly avert disaster if those in governmental power realize that this is the way to best govern to the benefit of those that still chose to take part in elections. The next few years will be exciting as we see these patterns unfold. I’ll be campaigning for this evolution while working to develop my network and my skills and understanding who my fellow cooperative members are. You will not find me camping on the town commons.

The Apollo Age

2011-04-21T00:07:00.000+12:00

On 16 July 1969 mankind took an important step towards the stars. It was the next step in a journey of discovery and exploration that is core to the spirit of man. It was the age of anti-war demonstrations and a new realisation that we were exhausting the resources of the planet. I am a proud child of that age of nuclear power and space exploration and hugging a fellow living entity. And, to this day I am blown away by the image of a rocket perched on a plume of fire and smoke, breaking free of this earth with a mighty thunderous roar that beats into your soul.

The whole image reflects adventure and when one considers the technology that made it possible, I feel that we are not nearly so ready to take real risks these days. Dredging a working harbour suddenly becomes fraught with dangers. There may be a small colony of undiscovered snails that will be wiped out, the surf break may suffer and surfers may not be able to surf there as in the past, and so it goes. The masses wave posters about global warming and a raped planet and no progress can be made without coughing up a million impact studies printed on the bodies of a thousand trees. If this attack fails, the hordes fall back on the bread before roses argument: millions are hungry, millions are dying, millions are ill, as if this is something new!

While this is happening, this civilisation slowly recedes into navel gazing and emotional derailment. It is all about my little village, my little garden, my fishing spot, my house at the sea side, or, the small village on a continent on the other side of the planet, the orphans of war, the people ravaged by the effects of a drought, the latest quake and the latest acts of a dictator. I look at the daily news and it is filled by the wailing naysayers forever getting in the way of any new ideas. Do not build the new soccer stadium before you have spent money on my local school, rather spend the money on relieving my tax burden so I can buy more of this or that. People work from Monday to Friday, feel like there is no hope, and join causes on FaceBook to save the rhino, to save a whale, to save the planet, supporting the next battery car, without actually being part of the emotional effort and the financial pain! Sales of anti-depressants soar and people cannot understand why addiction to all sorts of substances go through the roof.

Could it be that we are just not designed to be so focussed on mankind and its primary survival? Is it possible that when we lose our sense of adventure and when we are not pushed into the unknown, we are by default into a mode of decay? Maybe we can only survive when we are looking beyond ourselves (meaning that we move beyond worrying constantly about man and the environment) and when we have audacious goals, like putting a man on the Moon when our technology does not even allow us to calculate the orbit of our tin can that well.

Do not get me wrong, we only have one Earth and we must tread lightly, we must be kind to it and all of its inhabitants. But we should not forget who we are, and I leave that for you to decide for yourself. For myself, I am one with a longing for the future that is grander than any imagination of the now, and where we manage better, where we go from stones to stars. I am not part of the clan that wants to remain small and I am not ready to cope with the same beans for dinner and marrying my cousin, however comfortable it may be.

All information from NASA, used under agreement on site: http://history.nasa.gov/ap11fj/01launch.htm

Energy

2011-02-28T17:45:00.000+13:00

I was tempted to start this piece by claiming that our society is becoming more sophisticated. As I typed the word, I suddenly worried that it was not conveying the idea I had. My dictionary says that if I use it to describe a person, it means that the person is aware of and able to interpret complex issues. A system that is sophisticated has high complexity. I then thought that “advanced” could work, but that again could imply that I mean “highly evolved”.

I guess that what I have in mind is that our society (and I hasten to add that I do not want to call it a civilisation either) is putting more demands on the environment every day and our technology requires more and more energy to deliver the comforts we have come to expect. We use huge amounts of fossil fuels to run our cars, for heating and for cooking. We manufacture materials from these resources: plastics come to mind, and we cannot effectively recycle it. The list is long.

What sparked this piece was a combination of things. I was typing away on my keyboard when a little warning came up on my desktop to inform me that the keyboard was low on power. I rushed over to where I have a stash of batteries for just such an emergency, and next to it is the graveyard of used cells. I was shocked to see how many spent batteries I have collected over a short period of time. These things are not easy to recycle and probably use a vast amount of energy to deliver the 1.5V for a few months. It has been shown (and debated hotly) that the Toyota Prius is more of an environmental hazard than a Hummer over its useful life, mainly because of the cost of developing the materials used in the Prius. We use batteries every day in our mobile phones, our flashlights, the computers we use and as backup power for most things that use electricity.

Apple is a high technology company that is striving to bring down its impact on the environment. Whether you like the company is another matter, but I did find it interesting to see how they go about minimising the effect of their company on the environment. What was not surprising is the role the users of the technology play. If we could recycle …. And it is here where I find a problem with all of the arguments. The reality is that recycling is expensive as well, especially in the energy used to do it traditionally. It is obvious that it would be best to go without that iPhone or Droid monster in your pocket.

It is rather obvious that our requirement for energy is more than what we can deliver from the traditional resources. Assuming that we will continue to require lost of electricity for example, we need to think how we can deliver it from renewable sources. We may need to pump non-renewable energy into developing the technologies to develop renewable energy. It comes down to bootstrapping. As long as we realise that we can ONLY bootstrap from the non-renewable sources and that they are running out as I type.

With all of this in mind I find it rather demoralising when people advocate against a source like wind power, based mostly on the emotional argument that it impacts negatively on the scenic beauty of a place. Almost by default these farms go up where most people do not go, exactly because of the fact that it is rather windy there. The really good windy places are almost always cold places too. But property values decrease when the skyline is littered with these huge machines, it is said. The turbines kill bats by bursting their lungs and impacts on hunting as clearing is needed to establish the sites, etc. The impact on human health is claimed too, as the “constant exposure to infrasound” is harmful. Oh, and it is not nearly as efficient as a coal burner.

The same goes for solar panels. Well, it is true that they are expensive to make (processing of materials, etc.), they only work when there is enough light (surprisingly) and they are not as efficient as, wait for it, burning coal. What about solar collectors, like heliostats? The initial costs can be high and to work well you need quite a bit of sun every day. Interestingly enough, the communities that do use massive amounts of energy are in places where there are not that much sun available every day, or even for months on end. And I guess it will blemish the beauty of that peaceful valley in which it is built.

Hydro is an option, but hugely expensive to get going. Most other schemes are just so esoteric that it is not worth mentioning. Obviously we can use nuclear, and in many ways it is the best option around. But we have come so far down the road of viewing nuclear power as bad that it is possibly easier to just give up cell phones. It comes down to the fact that we still seem to have too many choices. This makes it possible for us to compare and discover all sorts of disadvantages, which unfortunately leaves us feeling less than happy with any option. Soon, however, we may have fewer options than we thought we had, and bootstrapping into clean options may then be even more difficult than it is today.

The fact remains that the demand for energy is spiralling out of control, and it underlines the reality that we are definitely not sophisticated. Certainly, if we cannot find alternatives or curb our usage, often because of emotional issues, this makes us stupid too. I would love to hear from you on this one.

I only use images that I own the rights to. The one in this piece is from iStockPhoto.

Ups and Downs

2010-12-12T17:19:00.001+13:00

Normally I write about wider topics, but today I am inclined to get personal. It is a windy and emotional Sunday for me in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Maybe it is time to take stock of a year, or even of a couple of years. It has been an amazing and scary journey since March 2008. Not only did I experience an epiphany of sorts where I saw how life should be different and how it could be more rewarding, but I also went through the turmoil of following my new insight and dragging my family (and the dog) into it. And here we are, still in the process, but much of the change is behind us.

Chrissie is in a new position at a new hospital,and she is very happy and successful. I have seen her flower into a new being as I imagined in the taxi in the middle of Johannesburg in 2008. For all the effort, this is reward beyond any expectation. My wife, my best mate, my fellow traveller on this road of life is now an assertive and confident individual, slowly growing into the full potential I believe she has. As Ian Dean (a very wise man) once said: “Chrissie has a certain presence that many of us just dream to have.” I took this to heart Ian, I listened and wondered why she is not shining like she should be. Now she is getting there. It is her time. I am awestruck.

My son is finding it tough. Perhaps he is like me, a slow starter. In 1995 I was siting in an old library room at the chemistry department of the University of Stellenosch. It was a cold day and I took the early flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. I was waiting on a professor that was supposed to be able to evaluate my proposal for a doctorate. He walked into the room, a man with a smile and a soft attitude, and after listening to my carefully prepared presentation, he made a few comments. Only one stayed with me: “Jan, some people flower later in life. It is more important to know that you have to persevere than it is to achieve early.” This is what I hope Jan-Dawid will hear from people around him. We are ready when we are ready, not a second before then. And we are often ready for things completely different from what we think we should be. It takes wisdom that we do not have necessarily at age twenty. I just hope that he takes the cue from us and persevere through the tough times he now faces.

I have registered my own company and I am getting to grips with what it means. At the same time I am trying to do more at home, to be a more supportive partner to Chrissie and a better father. I also try and take Jessie (the Irish Terrier) for regular walks. It is not easy, to be honest. I have many days of severe doubt and fear. At fifty it is scary to drop everything and take up something completely new. It is also something that gets the energy flowing. That is important. Some guys buy a Harley, some get a girl friend (in her twenties), I move to NZ. I guess it equates.

In summary, it has been 24 months of discovery for us. It has been more than a 100 weeks of contemplation for me. It is not done yet, not by any measure. We have a house and we can sleep sound at night. I have the resources to cook for friends and give them a glass of wine. We can crack jokes and debate the plight of humanity.

I can look into my beautiful wife’s eyes and see her joy and I can see my son getting to grips with reality. This is all I need. And perhaps to have Jessie listen when I ask her not to go after the cat across the street. We need less than we imagine.

Kissing

2010-12-10T21:35:00.000+13:00

The art of loving needs some attention at the end of 2010, I guess. Many of us have long-term relationships and these need more effort to keep them fresh and vitalised. It is easy to be blown away by the heady fragrances of a new lover. It is an automatic reaction to buckle at the knees when a new flame ignites the pheromones. However, how do you ignite the flames of an established relationship, how do you kindle the embers of those passionate days?

Without being ready to take responsibility for the outcome, may I suggest the following course of action? (As my son would claim: whatever - just get on with it!).

Kiss: Science tells us that this is the primary way to ignite the fires of passion. We only kiss those we are comfortable with. Yes, just forget about kissing your aunt when you were a kid, it does not count as kissing! So kiss with clear intent to pleasure. Slowly and with intent to touch the soul. Kiss with the sole intent of giving something of yourself. Kiss where it matters.

Kiss your special one on their eyelids. Land kisses on ears and on the nape of the neck. Brush over hair with your lips. Lightly taste the skin of a forehead. Brush over cheeks. Caress shoulders with your lips. Find the lips of your partner - but softly now - like flowers touched by the airy attention of butterflies. Breathe in the soft fragrance of your lover and savor it for a moment, then breathe your heart over them.

Spend time in embrace. We need to be touched and we need to touch. We were made for kissing in soft embrace. We were made to speak in soft tones and to share moments of quiet. Go into these days with only one intention - the one of touching with deep care. Kiss with intent, kiss with your soul.

Have a great end to 2010.

Via: OnlineDating Blog

Snapshots

2010-09-15T17:47:00.000+12:00

When you remember an event, what does it “look” like, or feel like? How do we “experience” the past? A new website I subscribed to recently suddenly had me thinking quite a bit about this.

According to the scientists (and no, I am not even going to try and make this into a scientific paper with references - just go search Scientific American for some good articles), we have long term memories, short term memories and sensory memory. We have ways to remember things that we use to drive a car for example, which seems to be located in a different part of the brain than the part that remembers your fifth birthday. The sensory memory fades quickly and is related to what we remember shortly after having seen a flash card with a number of items on it.

I am interested in what I call the snapshots in time that we seem to carry with us. These are those images that somehow get burned into our minds: a specific scene that we remember fondly, how someone looked on a specific day, a feeling that we resurrect sometimes in moments of solitude. Do these snapshots fade or change over time, do we re-contextualize them as we move on in life and what is it that makes for a good snapshot for each of us - is it the same for all of us?

My first overseas trip was when I was already 35 years old. I remember packing my analogue camera and a video camera to make sure that I capture as much of the event as possible and bring it back to share with my wife and family. I took hours of video, and quite a few rolls of film. The film I promptly developed on my return and as soon as I had an opportunity I sat my wife down in front of he TV and started playing back the video. I had high expectations of how she would react. Obviously it was not going to be the same as being there, but still, it would be great to share all these events.

Not so. And you will probably tell me that you could have told me so!

Some things that I found very special she found utterly boring. I had long sweeping country side shots, she asked what the people looked like. I had lots of pictures of old churches and great buildings, she wanted to know how I experienced the interactions with the people I met. Yes, it was great to see the different places and things, but to her there was a disappointing lack of “life” in what I brought back. After that, I noticed that she almost always had people in her photographs, some posed, but mostly just grabbed in a moment! Somehow our contexts were not overlapping...

Maybe we all have different signals that we use to recover the experience? And this brings me back to the website that triggered all of this: Blipfoto.com. Here you are allowed to post only one image on the day that you took it, building a snapshot collage of the days of your life. I’ll let you go there from here just now. But before you go, first imagine something that you would have liked to capture today and that you would have posted there. I have learned that I need people in my snapshots too, and not posed for the moment so much as just being in the moment of life - frozen in a certain setting that will help me recall a multitude of emotions. Enough already - link me to Blipfoto!

Migrants

2010-09-06T13:36:00.000+12:00

Immigrant - “A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country”. That sort of sums it up when natives of a country consider anybody that was not born in their native country. How can they become truly part of us? And when the chips are down, these immigrants are easily pointed out as being part of whatever problem the natives may be facing. I believe that the migrants may hold the keys to more solutions than what they are credited for and I shall return to this later.
When a person emigrates, the loss of sense of place is immediate. The natives in the country of origin see the emigrant as a “loss” for the country or in many cases as “good riddance”, one less person to worry about, or in the worst case, the emigrant is seen as a traitor to the values and culture of his country of birth.
All immigrants and emigrants are transients or wanderers in the eyes of those that have never ventured to settle outside their known world. As migrants our accents give us away, the simple things we get wrong in conversations, the subtleties of the culture you are trying to adopt, all these things set you apart. In many cases being an immigrant puts you at a disadvantage in the work place. Can this person be trusted, will this immigrant be able to cope with our way of doing things, and should he/she not rather start at the bottom and remain there?
Many immigrants to the developed countries go through stringent selection processes. You must be of the right age group, you must have a skill that is in short supply, you cannot have a criminal record, you must bring enough currency to fend for yourself for a while, you and every family member that comes with you must be in excellent health, you must conform to very interesting rules and regulations, and once you arrive, none of this is effectively recognized by the people you meet every day at the supermarket, in the job interview, on the bus and in the classroom.
Still, governments have expensive immigration programs. They see it as a way to bolster the economy, to grow the number of productive citizens, to cover for the skills that leave their country for various reasons, to bring investment into the country and to get a certain diversity that they see may be advantageous in future. These are all valid reasons. But do the general population accept these facts?
The world is rapidly changing and the developing countries have aging populations. For this reason getting skilled young people from other countries into the economic activity makes sense. As long as the immigrants can integrate with he culture of the new country, this is a good way to renew economies. The key is integration. This can only be achieved if there is acceptance that the immigrants are carefully selected for their future contribution and if the community invites them in and values their contributions.
Many older people have a sense of adventure and massive experience that they can bring together to the benefit of a country. The fact that they are older and wiser must be seen as a positive for those countries looking for exceptional skill sets. Here you can choose people with proven track records in the country of origin, you can inspect their value systems by interrogating friends and family and co-workers. The fact that they have the energy and the will to bring incredible change to bear on their settled existences must be an indication of the potential of these people to be active participants and agents for change in their new countries. For this to happen the communities in the new country must acknowledge this potential and integrate these people rapidly at the levels of planning and strategy to harvest the wealth of experience. In many cases these people bring established and strong families with them that can be centers of renewed growth in family values in developed countries where this has deteriorated.
As I said earlier, I believe proper immigration policies and programs are key to the constant renewal of cultures and countries. Immigrants are not the slaves of the new era, they are often the cream of the crop. They may be the ingredients needed to refresh a stale economy, or to bring the insight for renewal of a stagnant city, or they may bring with them the warnings of paths taken somewhere else that ultimately led to disaster. It is up to the communities in which the immigrants imbed themselves to utilize this resource. It also asks of the immigrants to unconditionally adopt their new environment, and to do the rootstock onto which they are grafted proud by bringing forth magnificent fruit.

Stories Wrought by Volcanoes

2010-04-23T07:53:00.003+12:00

When I was flying in from Washington DC to Copenhagen on 12 April I asked to sit on the left-hand side of the aircraft in the hope of seeing the volcanic activity at Fimmvorduhals in Iceland. Little did I know that there would be such a powerful eruption only days later at Eyjafjallajoküll. This event started an avalanche of stories that will be told for the next couple of years by thousands of people directly touched by it.
I was alerted to the fact that I may not be able to catch my planned flight back to South Africa by a travel companion. I looked at the people around me and while a lightness filled my heart I responded with a simple “Fantastic!”. An act of God stranded me in my happy place! I was in Sweden. My family was safe in New Zealand, my dog was happily lounging at Xantah Kennels in South Africa and my house was locked up, lawn spritely growing with the recent rains, and my pool was filled with a chemical cocktail guaranteed to outlive anything. I considered my credit card balance and realised my company sent me here in the first place. I would keep the extra cost to a minimum, work on my projects (I do a lot of individual stuff in any case) and use my free time to experience Stockholm and maybe even more. And I did just that. Some of the images I captured are shown at my Picasa site and on FaceBook. I put one here at the top - it touched me deeply.
But back to my story: you know, I learned other things. For example, we all tend to handle a crisis in our own ways. It is clear that it is a function of how we see and experience life. Is the glass half full.... Can you adjust your sails to the changing winds, or do you look for the outboard? Can you see opportunity in adversity? Do you need others to have sympathy with your plight, or can you help others even when you are taking strain?
I saw so many pictures on TV of people complaining, of people insisting on support, of people blaming others, most of them at an airport, stranded during or after a long expensive holiday. There were others. The couple that got married in Singapore, where the hotel owner heard that they were on their way to be married in Europe, were accommodated by the same hotel owner, who organised a wedding for them there, and invited all his stranded guests to the wedding. That is a worthwhile story!
The elderly couple from Australia were only happy to be on TV so they could let their children know that they are out of pocket but ok, and happy. That is the story of two people that have seen it all and have nothing to lose but life and each other - and they smile.
Yes, there were immediately some stories of people losing millions and claiming someone should pay, there were growers of vegetables for Europe in Kenia that said they would have to throw the food away and looked for compensation - while the food could just as well feed the hungry in that pitiful place. Everywhere there were people trying to play cards that they did not hold. Innocent people at hotel desks were crapped on, tour operators were told how they should go out of business, and yes, some people did not do their jobs, I know, but in a way, this was way beyond us.
Now, I want you to think about the people and animals in Iceland. Imagine the situation there. How are the farmers going to feed their animals; the air is toxic, the soil is toxic, the water is toxic? Who can they blame? God? The planet? Global warming? Does it make sense that those who only have to wait to be shipped home should take up 90% of the news coverage? Should the world not react like in Haiti?
No!
Maybe the people in Iceland are proud and brave and used to making it work, regardless. Maybe they never rely on hand-outs. Maybe God blessed them with the right attitude to handle volcanoes. Maybe they are the lucky ones. Maybe they have the real stories to tell. And maybe they represent the true spirit of man!
I could not get rights to show the pictures on my page that I wanted you to see. Unless you are a large business you do not deal with Reuters or their photographers, I guess. But do yourselves a favour and surf over to this website.
This was the one picture that tore my heart out. We have such a special link with these animals. While I was writing this, I was listening to some music from Iceland. The artist is Jónsi and the CD is called “Go”. I love the first track and the lyrics - well, check it out here. Jónsi is the frontman of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. For those with a sense of adventure - Go Do!

Anthem

2009-10-19T23:13:00.003+13:00

With international sports events now becoming one of the biggest draw-cards for television content directors, we have had the opportunity to be exposed to many national anthems on a regular basis. An anthem is typically a musical piece written as a response to some cause or call. Derived from Greek and Saxon words, the anthem has a place in religious events as well.

Anthems are often emotional expressions if intent, devotion and promise and prayer. In many instances, anthems are seen as tools to engender and unite people around a common cause or country, after wars, or struggles for example. Anthems come from the souls and the hearts of people only when they truly believe in what is being sung.

I thus find it difficult to contend with the modern trend of mixing several languages in one anthem. Unless you understand the language that you are using, how can you feel the emotions stirring in you from the context that comes with language, how can you be truly absorbed in the emotions? I understand that these modern anthems are attempts at consolidation of nations and cultures, but they fail to my mind, because they are compromises. Such a compromise is at best a reminder of something that could have been. I am sure that there will be many comments about my position, and that will be great. However, my idea here is to get to another position, that of the anthem of our souls.

I this piece, my aim is to consider what I call the anthem of the soul. For this, we need to go back to the roots of the word. The dictionary on my MacBook says that an anthem is a rousing or uplifting song, sung antiphonally (from the Saxon antefn and Latin antiphona, and originally from Greek, which indicates an “opposite voice” - or in answer to something). In church, the antiphon was usually sung in response to a psalm, or other part of liturgy. Gregorian chant is an example of the original form.

These chants and songs are devised in a way that makes the words and/or the emotions clear. It responds to a call, a higher voice. In some of my previous pieces on this blog I spoke about how the lack of playfulness, rushing around and an absence of hope whittle us down to nothingness. Our souls are dumbed down by constant insistence by those around us to deliver something, to do things now or to be accountable for even more things. We are brought up to listen closely to the voices of parents and peers, teachers and politicians, and those that can muster the loudest call. We are swamped by the messages and calls on television, radio and the other forms of media, including the internet.

We become deaf to the higher calling in our lives. We stray from the path we are intended to take, our own voices start to fail us, and our language becomes garbled. Where is the energy and belief that fire the devotion to our true role on this planet? It is swamped by the noise and our response to our life’s calling turns into a whisper. In an attempt to compromise, our personal anthem becomes just a reflection of the demands of those shouting us down. We answer in their voices, slowly disappearing as a unique voice. Our souls blend into nothingness, our value diminishes to zero.

We have no anthem left, no rousing song to take us through the day, no way to show our good intent, or to rise to the occasion when we are called to do those things that lift us as humans above the other animals. How can we care for our planet, for the frogs being poisoned, for the birds being pushed out of their habitats, if we have no soul that responds with an uplifting burst of song?
We all need to go back and ferret in the corners of our souls for the song we need to sing to the world. Each one of us must retrain our voice to sing in our own language, with crystal clarity about our call, our intent and our promises to the universe around us. We must not hide behind circumstances or the past. Write a book, draw something, sing the song you always wanted others to hear, play the piano, walk the dog, teach someone something you have mastered, learn from a friend, wave goodbye to old enemies, respond with energy to a sunrise. In fact, do none of the above! I echo Popper, who urged his students to listen closely to what he had to say, if only to be able to dismiss it and to replace it with their own original ideas.

Just bring your anthem to the liturgy of life.

The image above is from my personal library and my not be used without written consent. It is a recent photograph at a wine farm called “Anthem” in New Zealand. This piece is dedicated to my best friend and her quest to sing her anthem as her soul wants and her Creator wishes.

Star Jumps

2009-10-05T00:22:00.005+13:00

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?
– Dr. Seuss (from the Dr Seuss iGoogle Gadget)

We live in hectic times! Hectic: I like this word, because when you understand where it comes from I think you will agree that it is a proper descriptor for this day and age. According to the excellent built-in writing tools of OSX, the word is derived from the Greek word hektikos, related to hexis, habit, or state of mind or body. In medieval medicine it was used in conjunction with a regularly recurrent fever. Someone with a hectic fever had flushed cheeks and hot dry skin.

We live at a frantic pace. The schedules are insane, the electronic diaries we keep are driving us relentlessly from one meeting or engagement to the next. Our days are chopped up into the Franklin Planner, and the 15 minutes of solitude every day remains as a stark reminder only of what we have again missed today.

Here we are in 2009, running around as if a deadly illness is driving our bodies up the wall, trying to be efficient and sane. We use all sorts of modern technology to help us survive. But I am starting to think that the technology is not helping at all. It is just cranking up the pace. The expectation is now that this blog will come out at around 750 words in less than an hour. This includes thinking about the topic, researching some of the things I wish to say and constructing a readable story, pumping it into the blogosphere and inserting, as a final touch, an appropriate image.

I have 11 applications open at once while I am typing away. Three of these are related to the topic, 3 are communication related applications, allowing me to see who is online now so I can organise and discuss other tasks, one is monitoring bandwidth usage and two are doing methodical searches for a document I am preparing on simulation. The other two applications hold images and drawings in several stages of completion. Today is Sunday, it is a slower day. By the way, one of the applications is a browser with four tabbed windows in it, because I am also looking for cheap car rentals, I am trying to track a flight so that I can see if it is on time and two windows contain weather information and news items.

What is the point of this, you ask? You have more things on the desktop, more things in the car, more things on the mobile phone, more beeps on the berry, and several thousands demanding attention from a device starting with “i” something. My point is that all of these things are making us hectic. The bringing together of so many information streams are taxing our bodies and minds. It is not integrated in a way that allows me to actually have time for myself. It is in fact often tools in the hands of relentless masters to ask why you seem to be inefficient. The reality is that all these tools are just that - tools: they do not create extra time for me to think. If the expectation was that this blog would take a day, and I still used the modern tools to do it, this might have been a really good piece. I could think about the flow, the arguments, and the aesthetics. Now, it is a quick piece, just a blog!

When I looked at the word hectic in a message I was sending, I realised that we are not maintaining our bodies and minds as we should, using the modern technology to be efficient, rather than frantic and hectic. We should now have more means to understand how to maintain balance. We should stop promising delivery to the levels of insane expectations of a few that have lost the plot already. Someone has to argue for quality and beauty to become norms again, to ask that people become appreciative of the way that the brain dumbs down if we do not calm down and to ask that we use time to consider the real problems we face on the planet.

We need to be able to walk away from it on a regular basis, to breathe country air, to walk in isolated places and to listen to the wind in grass and leaves, to imagine positive outcomes, where the schedule is subservient to the goal. Smile, jump, bring the fever down with a cup of tea, a good book, some calming music and a long hug of a fellow inhabitant of the planet. Then we’ll have energy to be smart, to be efficient and to make the time to play.

Star jumps are not just for kids, but before you try this at home, you have to relax and release, then imagine weightlessness and flying. The star jump also leaves you with a blush on the cheeks, but there is no fever. It is hectic in another sense - in the sense of experiencing the sheer thrill of being a kid again! Remember those endless days...?

In appreciation of my beautiful friend - the star jumper!
The image is not for re-use without her written consent.

Maps

2009-09-26T22:35:00.003+12:00

My fascination with maps started early. I remember how my dad planned a trip from Windhoek in Namibia down to Kimberley in South Africa, using a large map. We poured over it, and I was transfixed by his calculations, and the tracing of the lines on the map with his pencil as he smoked his Rothmans cigarette. In those days large sections of the route were dirt roads, there were areas where we would cross rivers only if they were not in flood as no bridges existed and in many cases we would drive through dry river beds and we needed to know when to exit onto a road to stay on the route down to South Africa.

The important thing was that we would be doing this at night. We were driving down in December and to spare me the inconvenience of the incredible heat, my parents were going to start the trip at 16:00, driving through the night to arrive in Kimberley midday next. My dad was a real navigator. He would study a route and then just go to his destination. On that trip from Windhoek to Kimberley I was sitting in front in the white Ford Corsair, my mother was pregnant with my brother and she was sitting in back. During the night I remember looking at the light from the radio as it crackled and hissed over the short wave, my dad expertly navigating through the dark of the desolate Namibian landscape: Mariental, stopping for fuel and my dad asking for water for our thermos, Keetmanshoop, Grünau, and he sun rising at Karasburg, cracking open a real desert morning, cold and sharp, with Fanus Rautenbach on the morning show on the radio, my dad being tired, but committed to continue driving through those hours when sleep is at every corner of the eye. Eventually we would cross at Ariamsvlei and then it was a couple of hours to Douglas, where my dad took a break on the farm Duikersvlei, before doing the last stretch to Kimberley and the comforting smells of my grandmother’s house, mutton chops, potatoes, pumpkin, onions and her own preserved peaches in a thick syrup, all of it washed down with the then famous Kimberly Hop Beer. Oh, and Covent Garden Ice Cream...
And through all of this, the map was there. My dad was looking at it, folding it, estimating arrival times, etc.
When I went to school I collected maps, from the old territory maps of the British, to maps of the Union of South Africa, and beyond. I studied these drawings carefully, almost memorising distances, imprinting the key cities into my brain, and finally dreaming about all those exotic places. London, Stockholm, Inverness, Paris, Rome, Sydney, Tokyo, St Petersburg, New York, and great areas of land mass - Alaska, Patagonia, the Andes, Australia - this list is long. And I wondered what it would be like being there in these exotic places. Maps unlocked my imagination and my great passion for travel.
Maps have a long history. Early maps were done in clay, or on papyrus. Some were designed for the journey to the afterlife, others were used to show who owned what, and who ruled whom. It soon became useful as navigation tools, and later, in the days of the great maritime explorers, the art and science of mapping became the competitive edge of nations.
We take geographical and star maps for granted, expecting high resolution and accuracy, and maps that change to reflect our changing world. One of my favourite sites is the world sunlight map, that shows the cloud mass and the day-night partition of the planet. I like the maps from the Weather Underground on which I can see changing weather patterns in my area. I have their gadget set up in my iGoogle space for example. From my blog you can also go to the map that indicates where visitors to my blog came from (left bottom of the blog).
There are other maps hat we use every day, like Mind Maps, Concept Maps, and many other diagrammatic descriptions that allow us to navigate through information. There are even maps of the World Wide Web. And while we are talking about the web, I must mention Google maps as well. I believe that Google is doing us all a favour by building these maps and allowing us to use them as support to many new applications. As always, knowledge brings power, and danger. A map in the hand of a fool is a sure way to come to disaster.

The image above is from iStockphoto - and I have bough the rights to use it here. Before you use any of the images that the links take you to, consider the intellectual rights of the owners and get permission to use it. It is the right thing to do.

Excellence

2009-09-19T20:15:00.004+12:00

Excellence: ěk'sə-ləns, a word that is only about 600 years old. Interestingly, this word is now being used quite a bit. As Centers of Excellence, Excellence Award, and then in lesser contexts like excellent food, excellent technique, and many more, it has slipped into the vocabulary of board rooms, the printed media and it has become a bit cheap as a result. What about words like superb, merit, distinction?

Love. A word in a similar disposition. I’ll leave it at that.

Soon I’ll be attending another Excellence Awards ceremony, where individuals will be praised for their achievements. Their lofty achievements will be recounted, it will be shown how noble they have been in their endeavors to achieve beyond their peers. But excellence is a close family member of the brother called exaggeration. Inflated statements may be made to substantiate the lofty claims.

How do we assess the quality of the work done? “Quality” is another slippery word. In 1988 I was given a copy of “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. My friend Jack Fletcher wrote (amongst other things) the following on the inside flap “Besides, no serious post graduate study in ‘science’ should proceed without first reading this!”. What was it that Jack wanted me to notice? Was it the turmoil of the search for understanding, seeking the deeper self and the dynamics of relationships, or perhaps the confounding behaviour of mechanical devices? Or was it about the metaphysical element ‘quality’? Pirsig’s main character argues back and forth during the 17 day journey about the dimensions of this word, looking at it holistically, analysing it, etc.

In the case of “excellence” one could claim that it is similar: can one find the place where the rational and the romantic perceptions come together to bring appropriate meaning to the word? I believe this is necessary if we want to lift the word back to where it belongs. So that it can describe the things that are out there on the edge of our experience, not within reach of everybody that puts in a bit effort. No, it must demand blood, sweat and tears; it must call for the sharpest of analytical ability being applied during its creation, and it must be seen as a guiding light for others trying to achieve in the same area. It must be beautiful.

If it is a book, it must be new, it must challenge the analyst, it must puzzle the zen student, it must make one nod in agreement, while you have a suspicion something is still lurking to be discovered and it must bring the romantic forward in all of us, blinding us with the sensation that we have happened upon real beauty, something deeply good. I believe the same goes for technology and science. In fact, for all human endeavor one can bring examples that will fit the template described above. The template may have dimensions I missed here, but I guess it is a start. Best for me to call in those that have been recognised for excellence to speak on it.

I leave you with this, from Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” Act IV Scene ii:

Who Is Silvia?
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

I use images from my own library and other open sources, as well as commercial sites. All commercial images are paid for and may not be used without you also buying rights to them. Do the right thing, reward the efforts of the artists. Image in this piece from iStockphoto.

Charlotte's Web

2009-08-29T07:27:00.003+12:00

Sometimes we need to make a promise that is seemingly beyond our ability to keep. Then we must keep it. To see the worth in others, to believe in the inevitable triumph of virtue over the mundane shuffle of ignorance and vice - the path of worth.
Working towards a goal that perches high on a cliff above the plains of your ability, this is truly a worthwhile enterprise.
To keep a promise.
The subtlety of living in the next life, the life after our own, is the highest cause. For our children, for those reliant on us. The quid pro quo is that we respect this and live and die accordingly, that we learn from this and complete the cycle.
Sometimes we have to believe blindly in what is written, sometimes we have to contribute to what is written without expectations of return in investment, and we must learn not to judge within the limited bounds of our flawed perceptions. Maybe this is at the core of growth and sustainability. How do we live a simple life, in sync with ethics in these times of spin and the webs of words? If only we can claim a core value - something like being a gentleman, being truthful, being able to walk away from the lure of fame, money and personal status, being a husband, a father, an honest son, a loving grandfather…
The day dissolves into the black ink of night. Sleep comes on silent wings to find each of us alone, facing the remnants of a day, the consequences of life, always as if in preparation of death. As we pray, we live our hopes and dreams, our fears. Some of us are privileged to find the arms of loved ones in this moment, some need to turn once more to a pillow for consolation, some are swallowed by the monster of chemistry.
Some have the luxuray to say “Goodbye”, “Goodnight”, “I love you” and even “Miss you”. But it all comes down to our moment of truth, did we live a lie or did we live a life of promises fulfilled. Every day, every life.
In memory of a gentleman: Piet Smit
Image from FreeFoto

In Celebration of Women

2009-08-25T07:57:00.003+12:00

August is the month for celebrating women in South Africa. A fine institution, and one that helps every person to focus on the role and position of women in society. If you are expecting a long story on the superficial greatness of the female of the species, quit the page and surf on. This is not about celebration, unfortunately. It is mostly about the farce of equality.
We are not equal; yes, I’ve said it. It is true, from a physical perspective, through physiological evidence, to emotional reality, we are different. We are not the same - we are different - males are not females: the art of stating the bloody obvious. Even in same sex relationships we establish role diversity. Why do we want to erase the diversity, why is it so important to eradicate the great divide? Even when the evidence is piling up against this misconception?
If it is about the atrocious suffering of women under religious dogma, if it is about the incredible and obvious discrimination against the being of the female, if it is about the vicious violence perpetrated against these beautiful beings, then let’s rave and protest. But if it is about burning of the bra - move on!
South Africa is living a lie when it comes to the rights of women. We have a Bill of Rights that insists on equality, but we do not protect women from rape. Look at our statistics (if the MAN Bheki Cele will allow us to publish it). In many companies, the contribution and critical role of women in establishing and maintaining the social fabric, is negated by policy: 5/8 positions for women with small children are not allowed, women are discriminated against at bonus time if they were on maternity leave, stupid jokes are cracked when a women needs to go for a yearly check-up, etc. We are still in the age of barbarians - or worse, we have declined beyond anything human when it comes to how we treat women in this country, despite the ANC flighting a good array of women in government. Rape is still tolerated on the grounds of ethnicity, the past , drug abuse, and (for crying in the proverbial bucket of badly made beer), poverty!!!
When you read this, think about the women in your life, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a life partner, a friend with compassion. Open your hearts and regardless of your gender or your sexual orientation, enforce a moment of silence, of reverence and promise to work towards the future of humanity by celebrating our gender differences and roles. Be smart enough to acknowledge it and then work actively to enforce equality for every human under the law, but walk away from the fallacy of sameness. We are different, and I love it. I say this as I salute the exceptional qualities of the the women I know, and those that love me for what I am. And to my life partner, best friend, mother, pioneer and lover - thanks for making me exceptional.

The image is from iStockPhoto and I have bought the rights to using it here. Do the right thing - respect the rights of artists.

Play

2009-07-25T21:47:00.002+12:00

This is a perspective from a child (at heart), one that grew up in the sixties and seventies in a country under a weird regime, on a continent filled with people of great complexity. I guess this implies that whatever I say here may be very local and simply too bounded by my “reality” to be true in general. I guess that’s true of most things, but I thought it would still be interesting to explore some ideas with you.

When do people cease to play - not games bound by some game rules, but play in a way where the patterns are only dictated by imagination? “On average at age ...” in your answer will work for me.

I have thought quite a bit about this over the last day or so. It seems to me that many people, driven by all sorts of social and environmental issues drift slowly out of the ability to imagine freely, to try things openly and to just go bravely where they have not gone before or to go bravely where they have failed before!! There are all sorts of reasons: social norms, for example. I want to get back to society and the style-cramping influence it can have a bit later. There may be environmental issues - lack of food or a harsh living environment in general. But the more I think about it, and the more I read and search the web, the more I see that even these things do not get in the way of the in-born need to play. In the worst of places, but if the physical energy is there, kids will still devise a game.

However, the societal erosion of our ability to be free souls deserves a bit of a discussion here. If one grows up as a boy in some societies, you are afforded more freedom to express yourself than the girls. Already this is something that is inexplicable in this day and age. Over time, the rules of engagement start to encroach on even the most vivid of imaginations. At a certain age certain things are not socially acceptable any more - why - no-one can explain. Maybe, some may claim, it will cause a chaotic society, maybe it will be too dangerous for the individual, maybe it may irritate or confront the “values” of majorities, minorities, or dinosaurs.

The impact of this degradation of imagination and freedom of expression in play is that the society dumbs down. I am willing to back this up by stating that we only have to look at those individuals that made and are making the big contributions to humanity. Imagine an imagination deprived Albert Einstein, consider a conforming Madonna, think of where we would be if all the jazz musicians of the world would stop improvising. Now look at how these people try and in many cases retain their playfulness. Joking, dancing, playing and often ending up being frowned upon by society for nonconformist behavior, these things are all part of the content of the books of life they write. They have their serious moments - we all do, for sure. Later, we tend to pine for them, reading their biographies.

You may be quick to point out that some are destroyed in the process. This is true. However, some individuals in society are destroyed by the sheer hopelessness of it all, the pure day-to-day grind. They may end up in the same morgue as the playful ones and on the same day. Which one is responsible for the bigger tragedy? The excuses at age 50 include that our dumbed down state cannot be changed this late, it is politically incorrect, that we grew up this way, that a mother somewhere caused it, that it is too dangerous now, and possibly even, that you will never like it anyway, or that stress prevents you from relaxing enough! “It is better to burn out than it is to rust”, exclaims Neil Young on the album “Rust never sleeps”.

I am not advocating stupidity. When I look at the kids running on a beach, racing their bicycles in a quiet neighbourhood street, when I see boys pushing and shoving each other around in an impromptu tag type game in a pool - then I see the spirit I am talking about. When I see the boys diving off a cliff on a warm summer day into azure waters below, I know that they have not been hit fully by the plague of “I will not try this, because...”, “It does not fit with my image of…” or “It is just not done!”. They see it for what it is - enjoying the richness of life by being deeply free to express their vitality. They still have a spirit of exploration.

Being able to run, to dance, to imagine, to try, to fail, to experience new things, to try again and again, to joke and to tease, to look at the clouds and to chase their shadows on a beach, these are the things that I believe form part of play. Playing with your partner in special ways in a relationship, trying new things to delight and surprise, encouraging your kids to run on the edge rather than to explain why everything is: wrong, ugly, grim, not done, not acceptable, a bit too weird - you name it - just this may be the first steps on the path to recovery.

This is a path that includes the deep emotion of a hug, the explosive fragrant crunch of a fresh pear as you bite into it and the heart-racing excitement of remembering as you kiss a lover on the forehead, when all the familiar things fire you up to renew, revitalise, to imagine and to say: “What if …. “.

My wish for you is that you may also be in the group of those that still play like this, even at the moment when death rips them away from this place.

The photo in this blog is by a friend, Michelle, who gracefully allowed me to use it on this blog. Have a look at some of her other work at Photo.net.

About the applications

2009-07-19T23:07:00.005+12:00

As a techie, I tend to collect all sorts of applications. Yes, I pay for them, and even if they come for free and there is a way to donate to the creator, I do so. I was a programmer once. Anyway, before I put something on this page, I check it out for quite a bit, and only when I really like it, does it end up on my blog.
I have several interesting things here down the left and at the bottom. The first one is the clock. It is just so cool in how it "drips" into place. Very creative - why have a normal clock when you can have this? Why have a clock? Well, when people access my blog I like to give them a sense of place. To me, context is everything, and knowing that I am from Africa and a specific time zone adds to that feeling of "visiting" somewhere, don't you agree?
There are all sorts of other things here, one being the place where you can sign up as a follower of the blog. Consider it if you like the stuff here, and if you use Google's iGoogle, you can use the quick reader there to peek into the site without actually opening it - which is cool, because then you can decide if you want to actually surf over. Time is so precious.... think about it.
The Wikipedia sign is to remind you of one of the greatest things about our time - access to information. I contributed my Euros to their drive for some funds as I feel that I use the site without even thinking these days. Just to get some quick info, just to satisfy the curiosity - it does all of that and often more. Why don't you consider giving them a bit of money? Think how much you have earned using their free service....
Of course there is the Dilbert widget. Yes..... I am not a fan, and yes, I see too many things being portrayed that I see where-ever I go in organizations. It is tragic in a way, and a reminder.
One of my favourite apps is the one close to the bottom left, ClustrMaps. This nifty thing tracks access to my site and then shows a little dot to show where the visitors came from, or at least where the IP address says they came from (let's not fool ourselves). Recently I have subscribed for two years to the zoomable version and you can now click in to see a bit more detail. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Keep on clicking. My site is not advertised on Google and does not end up easily in the search engines. I prefer to keep it that way. However, feel free to send the link on to friends, and log in from your travel sites.
There is also a link that shows some photos uploaded to Picasa. It is a bit more about me and the family and our travels. At the bottom there are other bits and pieces. I update these every so often, and the Einstein quote is updated automatically daily. As you can see, I like good alcoholic beverages, music from the edge (mostly), and books are a passion (no - addiction). There is also that app that shows how the world is going to the dogs. Man, I keep it there to remind me to recycle, to think about the diseases we just cannot seem to conquer, and to think how we can be kinder to our planet in general. If you want to send an e-mail, use the stylish e-mail wrapper - why not....
Last, but not least: when I started looking for a name for my blog and online presence, I thought quite a bit about my life and that of my family. My father and my father-in-law came from poverty-stricken families, both were hard working and family focussed and both felt that one must always aim way above the target. My grandmother maintained that one must focus on your goals, pin back your ears like a whippet at the races, and go with all your energy towards that elusive prize if you ever are to achieve anything. Tenacity is called for, and honesty, integrity - like old Buzz Lightyear. Starting at the stones, the basic building blocks, the things in our immediate environment, we must aim for the big innovations, using what we have (even if it is only stones) to get to our bigger goals and dreams, the stars. Later, I found this quote from MC Escher: "So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars."

Hope

2009-06-30T09:26:00.007+12:00

Hope - a “future” word. I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow. I hope the tests will be positive. I hope today will be a success. I hope I will be forgiven. I hope my dreams will come true. I hope I’ll get a job. I hope the boss will be happy. I hope they find a cure for HIV soon.

It is closely related to “Wish”. I wish I could be as smart. I wish this would work for once. I wish I was a painter.

Hope is recursive, it calls upon itself to salvage hope.
Pearl Jam: “I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on”.
Pink Floyd: “Wish you were here...”.
If only. If only I had done more… If only I had the dress…. If only they would see me for what I am… If only I could be there tomorrow...

Dreams. My dream is to be a doctor. My dream is to marry you, my love. My dream is to be the best pianist ever. My dream is to put food in the hands of multitudes.

Hope is survival, hope is at the core of existence, hope is close family of despair, hope is the partner to love and faith. Hope cannot die. Hope is released last from Pandora’s box - to conquer the other evils released by the insatiable curiosity of humankind. Nietzsche defends hope as the one thing that will save humanity from itself.
Yes, “Hope” is human.
I hope you see the point.

The graphics are from iStockPhoto, licensed to me. Free the creative spirit and oppose piracy - pay for your graphics and songs. It is the ethical thing to do.

The peculiarity of Skype-immediacy and physical separation

2009-05-03T23:38:00.002+12:00

Many of us rely more and more on video links for or communication, using Skype for example to talk to people and to see them at the same time. This is a result of the internet becoming a ubiquitous commodity. In fact, the connectedness that comes with the internet is now so pervasive that one is often caught with a feeling of loss when you cannot quickly access the web to read something on Wikipedia, or to search for a phone number of a restaurant, or to get a quick response from a friend somewhere else on the planet.

We connect through mobile phones, netbooks, laptops and less and less through machines in fixed positions. We carry our communicators with us like a Start Trek scouting party, constantly sharing ideas with like-minded people on the web. As the access to bandwidth increases and the cost per MByte of data decreases, the feasibility of adding video to the mix increases. As an early adopter of technology and self proclaimed trail blazer when it comes to accessing the newest stuff that the web can offer, I have been using Skype for quite a while now in business and in recreation. Sharing a desktop via other applications like GotoMyPC allows one to show people what you mean, to run a presentation remotely and to be in the room with a simulated presence that is often so “immediate” that it becomes possible to communicate on a very personal level over thousands of kilometers. One can see how your audience reacts to your words and gestures, you can react through voice prompts and tonal variation, and bring the message across in a way that is only really second to being there physically. The interactive nature of the Skype experience, for example, is something that could not be imagined a decade ago when we started to use instant messaging via the web and cellular mobile links.

These days I use Skype or the Jabber protocols to chat, talk and video link all the time. From talking to loved ones here in South Africa, Australia, the UK, Canada or in New Zealand, to chatting with a collaborator a few kilometers away, working from our homes on a new document deliverable. Constantly in touch, constantly aware of your social network, you become more valuable as a resource. People can see when you are awake, where you are on the planet and even judge your mood by just looking at the cryptic message on your Skype, iChat or Google Talk application.

But on another level I have been experiencing some worrying side-effects of this technology. Being ready on demand to communicate is a time consuming business. Being open to what I often see as unmaskable interrupts inhibits the ability to work for an extended period of time focussed on a specific topic. One may argue that it is simple to just switch the link off, but that feels like, and probably is akin to, going into solitary confinement, or becoming a lonely hermit somewhere on a mountain top. I think it taxes cognitive abilities and it drains energy at a rate that we did not expect. It rushes us along from one message or link to the next to service all the interrupts as well as we can. It is more invasive than e-mails.

Video feeds, despite how positive I feel about the technology, also have a negative psychological effect in many cases. Let me explain: when I do a video call to a loved one in Australia for example, there is the emotional pain of separation, the obvious reality of the missing physical immediacy of that person, which is masked by the virtual presence on my laptop screen. For 10 minutes or so, I am intimately connected to the person on another continent, I see their eyes, hear their voices, read the body language and I am tricked into feeling as if I am being with them in one physical space. So close, almost touching, so alive, almost smelling their presence. And then you terminate the call. Immediately they are again in some far-away location, there are immediate feelings of loss, as if the person was snatched away from your embrace by sudden death. Nothing “real” remains on the LCD in front of you, where their presence only lingers as some digital activity marker on the Skype application interface. The joy of being united is replaced by immediate sorrow. It is as if physical pain sweeps over one at that moment. I do not know if this is a good thing, to be subjected to the trauma of separation on a regular basis.

How this is different from the lightly scented letter, written on fine paper in a familiar handwriting, which is read over and over again and inspected for the slightest of nuances and emotion, I cannot say. However, I have a feeling that the brain is tricked more successfully into a feeling of nearness by a Skype video feed, and that the loss is greater as no trace remains when the call ends.

This, I guess, is the price we pay for being linked so closely through communication technologies, while being able to move and settle globally with immense ease. We remain souls confined to physical instantiations - bodies. Those bodies need warmth and physical closeness, a light touch on an arm, a good hug, and someone to hold when you are happy or sad.

Can someone please invent that “Beam me up, Scotty” machine soon?!

The graphic in this post is from iStockPhoto, licensed for my use. You should buy the rights to it if you want to use it - it is the ethical thing to do.

Strategies for tough times

2009-03-18T10:02:00.006+13:00

When asked recently to share some strategies for tough times, I was surprised to learn that very few of the people I queried on the topic actually had strategies and matching plans for the tough times we are facing today. Is it because we are so used to the rapid pace of change that we just allow ourselves to be swept away by it as we get older? Or is it that some of us feel we are experienced enough to manage? Maybe some of us are just so paralyzed by the imminent disaster that we are not able to think!

Let us look at some of the issues in more detail. I like to start with FEAR. Fear renders us incapable of thinking straight, of devising an escape, and we become like the frog in the water that is being heated and discovers too late that it is going to be cooked! The mechanics of fear and the influence (in the long term) on the brain is well documented. Living under the constant stress of the unknown, the stress of the inevitable impending disaster and the feelings of shame and guilt that often overcome us, the brain is physically modified. In “Destructive Emotions - and how we can overcome them”, Goleman recounts discussions between the Dalai Lama and several important scientists and explains how fear and anger disable our ability to reason. It makes sense: when you are being set up for lunch by a lion, there is no reason to think, there is only reason to run! If we are constantly bombarded by fear and negative emotions, the brain is modified physically, impairing memory, lowering our ability to fight off disease, etc. Being able to balance the negative emotions with positive images and stories, with laughter, resets the situation. Emotionally intelligent people have the ability to balance the negative and the positive and in this way regain control over the frontal lobe activities related to logic. Logic allows us to see fear and other negative emotions for what it is, and allows us to inspect the reasons for our misery. Only then can we consider the strategies and plans to overcome it.

The first part of our strategy is to cultivate positive images and thoughts on a regular basis and to consider the good things in our lives, even in the darkest moments. Read a good uplifting book, work in the garden, play with a dog or a cat, meditate, pray, go for a long walk and look for the beauty of nature around you, blank out the ugly, look at the bark of a tree and brush your hands over the bristly leaves of a conifer.

Once your brain is ready for the ideas to flow freely, get into action, WORK. “Work?”, you ask, “Is that not what causes so much misery?”. David Whyte writes in his astonishingly beautiful “Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity”: “Why are the stakes so high in our work? Why do we work long hours, ignore our children, neglect our spouse, spend enormous amounts of time away from home, and, at worst, stoop to theft, bribery, threats, and bullying to get things done?” And then: “ The one who refuses to forget their humanity and in remembering, helps everyone else to remember, too.” This is the key, work, any kind of work, volunteer work, your chosen career, work at the church on Sundays, all of these things are in fact opportunities to contribute to your fellow man, to act humanely, to go outside of the self and into the domain of those with needs around you and to help them. This is the counter-trend! Reaching out through work is powerful. It gives meaning to your being here, lifts the image of the self, adds worth to every second spent alive. Laced with the humanity of a smile, a joke at your own expense, a tender word, a touch and sometimes a quiet tear in deep sympathy, it becomes the wings of freedom for your brain to act in the most positive way of all - innovation.

The second part of our strategy is to work with a positive attitude in a servant manner so that you can see the opportunities for innovation. Even if you have lost your job, do not stay at home, get to the nearest community centre and volunteer, help the neighbours with something, contribute to the lives of others. It is strange how opportunity comes knocking when you are in good spirits.

Once you are focussed outside of yourself, you can start to make plans to move on, to turn the tough times into prosperous times for you and those around you. Working as a volunteer while your car is being repossessed has a negative impact on you and your ability to help others. One must be practical. I have learnt that one must have two plans at any given time. If plan A fails, move to plan B and promptly devise plan C and possibly even D. The first thing to do is to get to grips with what you have now squarely identified as your specific set of problems. Remember, standing back and working with others in a giving way and cultivating positive energy inside and outside yourself allowed you to see the issues you face for what they are, problems that can be surmounted by logic and planning.

“Where do I start though?”. By looking at the problems one by one and even if they are not linked, trying to find the one that, once resolved, will bring the biggest relief. However, this is not as obvious as it seems. Sometimes one can start with something that is fully under your control, just to show that you can take control. Give up something that is costly, like smoking or drinking excessive amounts of beer, or Coke. You have enough incentives: money, health, but above all, control over something.

In “Innervation - redesign yourself for a smarter future” Guy Browning tells us that creativity starts by standing back and looking anew at your circumstances. Identify what it is that prevents you from getting to where you want to be from where you are now. List these things. Ian Woodrow starts here in his brilliant little book “Close… but no cigar - six easy steps to solving business problems” and states that these are the little critters that must be sorted out. Within a few pages he develops a great strategy to understand the problems. With this under control, you can plan a course of action that will take you to the envisaged state in the future. The trick is to try and estimate the risks, those things that you must manage closely to ensure success. If possible, devise at least two plans to get to your goal, or even slightly different goals, but both desired destinations (maybe one is less desirable than the other, but both are much better states to be in than where you are now). Take cues from your work with other people, as their advice as well. Lastly, write down the plans with dates and milestones so that you can work towards fixed goals. If you miss a milestone, stand back, evaluate the problem, modify the actions, try again, ask for help, etc. If all else fails (sometimes the environment changes again), switch plans. Be positive.

Having a plan and putting it into action is the third essential part of the strategy.

Lastly, give yourself credit for taking control of the situation. Smile about the things that did not work according to the plan, and devise new plans. This is learning. It changes your filters of perception and allows you to see new opportunities. Sometimes we see so many opportunities that we forget to focus on our original goals. Stand back and decide that focus is needed. Some plans must actually be executed to conclusion before you will benefit from them. The best way to stay focussed is to devise an end-state that is not too materialistic, and also not too emotional and lofty. An end state is often a short paragraph, written as a story, telling you what it will be like to be in the desired state. With this fixed in your mind you can focus and evaluate progress properly. There is no secret here, no magic, just plain old common sense.

The final part of the strategy consists of focus and perseverance. Pin your ears back and race towards the finish line with all your might and do not be distracted by the wooly mammoths of fear and self-doubt!

Personally I set small short term goals and my long term plans are rather audacious. It must be worthwhile to embark on the journey, with a goal at the end that forces me to look up, otherwise the stones in the road may become boulders from where I stand.

The image at the top is from iStockPhoto. I bought the rights to it, and so should you if you want to use it.

2012, Pole Shifts and Global Warming

2009-03-09T08:02:00.003+13:00

As a scientist I am often asked to speculate about theories, myths and legends. With the current focus on global warming I am often asked to comment on the reasons for the phenomenon, ways in which we can prevent the situation from getting worse and often, if it could be linked to other phenomena, predictions by the ancients and and even to partake in bets about the end of the world as we know it.

The last part is simple: as I have no evidence and information that I can use to even develop a feasible hypothesis about an apocalypse date, it is useless to take a bet on the end of the world. In any case, should I die before such a date, it would signify the end of the world for me, and would that be good enough as a deal breaker, and if I did win the bet (how?), why would I worry, as I cannot easily rake in the millions riding on it!

The other parts are more difficult, and more interesting to attack. I do not believe that global warming is so simple a phenomenon that we can point a finger at the big corporations spewing toxic fumes, or my old fridge or even the cows farting, as the major reasons for global warming. I just know enough about systems dynamics to consider a multitude of interrelationships that may be the cause. But let us consider a few of the popular theories at this time.

First of all there are the stack of prophecies. These range from what Merlin had to say about the impending catastrophe, to what the Mayan calender points to, the predictions of old faithful Nostradamus and obviously the I Ching, the Bible and several other “holy” texts. I have tried to read many of these “holy” texts or sections of them over the years, but I am not sure that I can safely claim that any of these are clear on the specifics of mankind’s demise. Sure, as a Christian I can tell you that the Bible is clear about a final day of reckoning, a time when all that we know as the world will be destroyed to be replaced by another place. It is also made clear that no man will know the date.

Merlin is a great character, but I have no evidence that that character belonged to a real flesh and blood human like the rest of us. Nostradamus did actually share the dust of Terra with us, and he did write some compelling things. However, every time we consider his prophecies we have to do so with 20-20 hindsight. Only after 9-11 could we link the prophecy to the event. Would it not be nice if we could do this with a couple of days to spare, or is this just the essence of doomsday prophecies: no way to know “when” until after the fact?

Which brings me to the current topic of many videos on YouTube, large discussion groups on all sorts of web pages and even prime time programs on TV: The Mayan 2012 prediction. Now for those living in ignorance, the long and the short of it is that the Mayans were really good at astronomical observations and that they also wrote down quite a bit of their work. They devised a very accurate (insanely so for the time) calendar of astronomical events like solar and lunar eclipses. This comes as no surprise as people were often offered to the gods on those special days and knowing up front about the impending solar eclipse would give one and one’s network of friends and family a great deal of bargaining power, not to mention the ability to survive mass offerings. Still, the events linked and predicted by these masters of calculation amazes us all and they predict a bit of a final event around 2012 (December to be more precise). I have some references at the end of the blog for you to surf to. My personal feeling is that 2012 was really far into the future for them, way beyond any retribution, and I am not sure, but it could also be that when they saw what was going to happen then, they promptly decided this was it - the end. In reality, planets will align in a certain way during 2012, but we have no reason to believe that this will cause the whole “engine” of the solar system to seize up and to go down in flames. It takes a bit of maths and calculations to show what the forces will be on the participating planets, but I do not see anybody publishing the results of those. My guess is that the scientists that can do this, discover that it makes no difference, and the rest just repeat what is read on the web and take it for the truth.

“But global warming is different!”, I hear you say. Yes, and so it is, but if you page through the web of links below, you’ll see lots of “links to show that this is no coincidence”. The human mind is a very susceptible thing and it is constantly looking for cause and effect links to try and understand the current situation. Our survival depends on this, and we have been very successful in the past doing just this, finding reasons for what we see around us. We have found many causal relationships and used these to predict the future and in this way we have survived and thrived as a species. Some things are a bit more non-linear, and to try and find simple links may cause us to miss the reality by quite a mile, thus ending exactly where we did not want to be, in the middle of (often) a self-made disaster.

Sometimes global warming is linked to the discovery of a proto-planet called Eris outside the orbit of Pluto, which was promptly relegated to a proto-planet itself. So now we have 8 planets and a couple of large planet like objects in the solar system. But back to this planetoid. This thing is seen as the mythical planet that will swing past earth and that will slow it down so as to stop the rotation of the earth. Back in the Old Testament of the Bible, there is in fact a situation where just such an event occurred. Anyway, you may go read that link below as well. Personally I am quite ok with these things, if the earth has to park for a day or so, to allow Joshua to sort out the enemies, cool by me. If it happens again, and we survive it like he did, even cooler. From a scientific perspective one must ask what the physics of such a situation will entail, and what would happen to the physical systems of the planet, including tidal action, weather systems, etc.

Back to global warming, which is often mentioned as a result of these events mentioned above. Is it possible that the current melting of the ice caps is a result of us doing damage, or is it these extra-terrestrial events, or a combination of it all. I do not know really, but I do believe that we are really messing with our local eco-systems. That is always a serious issue. Whether we can influence such a large system as that of Terra over a period of about 150 years is my open question. Most large system are really rather solidly set in their ways and no amount of arguing from the chaos guys will convince me that the earth is an exception. I believe we will kill ourselves in local optimisations of waste long before the earth system will just flip its lid. I think we are a bit too idealistic to think we can sink this ship by ourselves. Yes, we can make our lives a real misery by cutting down the forests, by fishing waters to emptiness and by pumping so much smoke into the air that we suffocate. Some trees will always survive this, some insects could care less, and many furry animals will go merrily on their ways with humans dead and forgotten.

Let’s face a fact or two here. We emerged from a small ice age in the 1840’s, something not brought on by the cool gadgets of the Renaissance. We have gone through hot spells around 1000 AD when the Vikings found it easy to sail to Iceland, colonise it and cut all the trees down. But soon it became rough and they lost links with Denmark and Norway. It became cold and the seas were not that friendly. Must have been the loss of the forests of Iceland I guess (!). People migrated across from Indonesia to Australia at some point when the land masses were linked because the ocean levels were low. Was it because of so much water captured in ice or because it was a hot period and water was not trapped in ice but actually in the ocean or in the weather system in general?

The blog is getting too long, so here goes with the 2012 “Flip of the Poles” theory. So if it is not serious enough that all the planets will align and thus tear us apart, the poles will flip in a day and wipe us out as the cosmic rays come in to fry us when the atmospheric magnetic shield of the earth collapses. Our electronic systems will fail, birds will go south (literally), whales will beach, people will be disoriented and snails will stop snailing. What happens to tortoises I am not sure, but supposedly they have survived previous flips. You see, we have had this in the past, but we are not sure that humans will survive it this time around.

The reality is that many scientists are sure that a flip is a slow process, taking a few hundred years and that the effects of such is phenomena will manifest in animal migration patterns being disturbed and modified, that our electronic systems will have to evolve to cope with the effects, etc. It may have an impact on weather and in fact many suggest that the current spell of global heating has to do with the sun and its recent polar flip, amongst other things. A polar flip may just steer us towards a small ice age again, who knows.

So there you have it. I do not know, and frankly, I have many more immediate problems to resolve. I worry about the water resource in South Africa, about poverty and diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria, etc, and about my retirement annuity. As a friend recently said, if only we get wiped out by a comet, it would be great. He would be the first on a hill somewhere screaming: “Bring it on!”.

Sometimes we have to be rational, face our problems and do something about that what we have control over. Sometimes “hoping” for a disaster of extraterrestrial proportions to end it all and to absolve us from the possible crime of wasting the planet ourselves, is just childish. If something like that happens I am sure the human spirit will come through for us if there is the remotest possibility of survival. For me, in God I trust!

_________________________________
This is not a reference list, but rather a list to help you see what is on the web on these topics
It is not the only places, but I found each interesting, for various reasons!

From a GAIA perspective

Doomsday

Related to other lore - human origins

The birds are going south!

NASA Sun Polar Flip

NASA Eris

Pole flip simulation (cool!!)

Bible Joshua

++++ Hey, my graphics come from iStockPhoto - and it is copyrighted. I bought the right to use them here, so please respect the property of those artists and buy their work if you like it. It is the right thing to do. ++++

Murder at 175 Haldon Road

2009-01-10T02:34:00.003+13:00

South Africa is, contrary to what the government wants the world to believe, slipping even farther down the path of extreme, mindless violence and criminality. I grew up in Bloemfontein in a house situated on the edge of town (Google Earth screen shot left), because my father loved the fact that we could walk out of our garden into the garden of nature. There we played as kids learning about the richness of the Free State fauna and flora; the strong scent of wet plants after a summer rain storm still comes to me now as I write this piece.

We had many happy years there, in fact we lived there from 1969, when the house was built for us and when my father died in 1988, my mother stayed on in the house up to 2003, when it became obvious that it was too risky in the new South Africa for her to be living there alone and we sold the house. This house was acquired by the parents of a school friend of mine recently and they moved there as it was becoming too risky for them to stay on the small holdings about 3 km west of our house. Murders, burglaries and rape occur regularly in these parts these days, none of it even making it to the local news papers anymore. No, it is more important to report on the serious issues in Gaza at this time (and I agree that no matter where you stand in this battle, it is a serious issue). But I am sure that for us in South Africa what is happening locally is also of the gravest concern.

To return to the topic of this piece: Yesterday the elderly couple hired a painter to help them with some painting around the house. When the husband left to quickly buy some supplies from a nearby shop, the painter went into the house and killed his wife in a brutal manner. The reason: no-one is sure, but it could not have been for money, because these people were not wealthy, it was not for food as the government often claims, or for a job, as both had been provided for through his employment on that day.

Maybe it was just because it is easy to kill and walk away from it in South Africa. It is easy to target the elderly. Some would even say it is easy to get away with murder if you kill people from the appropriate race or cultural group in South Africa, as was witnessed earlier in 2008.

Not many people read my blog as it is not an “open” blog, but those of you that do stumble upon it while surfing the web, please stop for a moment and imagine what it would feel like if you discovered that a brutal murder was committed in the house where you grew up n harmony with so many people and cultures. Imagine your room where you went to sleep safely every night, now the scene of a hideous crime, blood staining the walls. Imagine the sorrow of those hat have lost a loved one for no other reason that law will not be enforced by your government before an election they fear they might lose. Imagine your sense of powerlessness as part of a minority in a country where complaints about this situation is brushed off the table as eurocentricity or racism of some kind or just not being able to live with the reality of a new dispensation. Then consider whether you want to invest or support such a country.

I write this from another city in South Africa, and my mother is relatively safe in her new house behind burglar bars, alarm systems and quick reaction panic buttons. But my friend lost her mother and for her there will not be any real recourse to proper justice. A murder was committed at 175 Haldon Road in Bloemfontein and it does not even make it beyond a small article in the local news paper. These are the atrocities that we live with in Africa.

The Southern Higher Latitudes

2008-12-26T05:48:00.007+13:00

For some time I have been considering the climate and other desirable features of the higher latitude cities. In particular, I am interested in the southern latitudes. This should come as no surprise as I live in South Africa. The photo at the right here is Cape Point as seen from a stormy sea just south of it. I was lucky to be on a South African Navy Corvette when this photo was taken. It might seem calm enough, but those waves are 5m from top to bottom! Other photos are from south of Dunedin in New Zealand and obviously of the incredibly beautiful Table Mountain in Cape Town (With permission from Martin Wierzbicki).

Back to the topic of this piece; reading Jared Diamond’s interesting work “Guns, germs and steel: a short history of everybody for he last 13,000 years” I realised that the lands at higher latitudes and especially those with Mediterranean climates are rather special in that often the edible grasses came from those areas (especially in Eurasia). These grasses were domesticated early and proved critical to the development of civilisations. I guess the question then is why the tropics are almost as hostile as the arctic zones when it comes to food security for people, etc. Jared has several wonderful explanations in the book and it is well worth a read.

Still not satisfied I kept on looking and found this article at a NASA site. In “Location, location”, Rachel Hauser tells us that in 1990 about 35% of the world population lived on 1% of the ice-free land. We are also told that somehow the rate of economic growth of the poor nations are much lower than that of the rich nations and the link is made to the location of the fastest growing economies (despite the process of globalisation). Interesting enough, most of the poor countries are situated in the tropical regions of the world. Looking at climate zones and coastal proximity, it was found that only three tropical economies were classified as high-income (Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore). Every country zoned as temperate had either middle or high income economies and in countries (and economies) straddling both temperate and tropical climates (for example Brazil and Australia), it was found that wealth concentrated in the temperate zones.

The three key factors driving this situation were: coastal proximity, prevalence of infectious diseases and agricultural productivity. It is explained that tropical agricultural yields are low because the soils are more “fragile” than temperate soil, etc.

These things all make sense to me. I also find that I cope better with climates that are cooler and often less humid. I like “seasons”: very cold winters and mild summers. I work best when I can see how the days get longer or shorter and where dusk and dawn are long events. Some time ago I had to write a motivation for air conditioning of some old offices. I had a tough time explaining that most people find it hard to concentrate or work in an information type environment for a reasonable stretch of time when it was hot. I was told that because they were sitting quietly at their computers, they could easily stand temperatures up to 30C. I did not agree, and eventually the fight was won, and now I see people setting their conditioners to about 23C, and I see them actually working and not looking tired and restless. The climate in the higher latitudes is such that one can easily regulate the temperature in the working environment via natural means. Anybody who has been to Hauser’s three successful tropical economies will also know that there the information worker environment is highly climate controlled. Is this possibly also a key to economic success? And if it as simple as that, why is it that the poor countries do not take this information to heart like Singapore did, for example? Any ideas?

All Saints Day

2008-11-01T01:17:00.001+13:00

On the 1st of November most Christians in churches closer to the Catholic Church will be keeping All Saints Day. This is in contrast to the pagan feasts and other reasons for parties falling on the 31st of October, going under the name of Halloween.
I’ll be in Brisbane on Halloween and flying from Australia to South Africa on All Saints Day. It is about the context of All Saints Day (ASD) that I want to talk in this blog. Thinking about the context of ASD, I suddenly thought about my grandmother. Born just after the turn of the previous century, she saw both world wars and raised 5 children under very difficult circumstances in South Africa. It was a time of colonial rule of most of Africa, and she and her children were called names and ridiculed for speaking Afrikaans (a descendent language of Dutch). Discrimination against Afrikaners like my grandmother was not recognised for what it was by the world at the time - racial and cultural discrimination of the worst kind. One wonders how this contributed to the nationalist dreams of people like my grandmother and her children, and how it contributed to them being ready to be exploited by politicians during the Apartheid Era.
But these things mean nothing when compared to the thing she did well. She had a secret recipe for a South African delicacy called a “koeksister” and here grape jam was beyond belief on warm toast, made by toasting bread directly on warm stove plates on those eye-watering cold winter nights in Kimberley. She was not an easy woman to get along with, but she had a simple approach to life: always speak the truth and keep things simple.
She prayed a lot and in later years when we spoke on the phone (we would call her once a week) she would often say that she has so many people to remember in her prayers that she often fell asleep during these prayers. She would quickly add that she always had us up front in the queue, so we would be ok!
She was an active woman her whole life and she had a coloured young woman living with her in the house, and when this lady’s son was born, he stayed with my grandmother, often sleeping with her in her bed after falling asleep after a long day and a great bedtime story. She always said that he was her reason for waking up! On the day she died, she got up in the morning, at age 94 and still readied herself for shopping. She walked a couple of kilometers to the shops, did not feel well and went past her doctor, who immediately had her taken to hospital. When the family reached the hospital, she was calm and collected, and with a clear voice gave them the instructions on where the koeksisters were, where the frozen meatballs were, etc. She had prepared everything in detail for her funeral and the family get-together as is the custom. And with clear eyes and a smile, she asked that we let her go and she passed on.
There was a feeling of immense loss but also of great peace when I was told of her death. I knew that from that moment on one less person was praying for my well-being. There would also not be anymore koeksisters and grape jam on toast dripping with butter. But most of all, we have lost a person of great serenity, of simple and straight-forward values and a person with wisdom of almost a 100 years locked up in every sentence.
Tomorrow on the plane I’ll be remembering her on All Saints Day, for all the right reasons. I know we all have people to be remembered on this day. Go ahead, let’s be grateful. Being touched by these people gives us direction. And maybe, it shows us the way so that we can become saints in our own way.

Operating Systems with Client Awareness

2008-10-26T14:48:00.006+13:00

I need to explain my background in computers as the context for his piece. I was privileged to have access to an electronic calculator when I was a kid. This was 1977 and I was positively influenced by the power of this device. I soon understood that getting the right answer meant that I needed to consider the rounding errors that were still part of the calculators of that era. I became a master of the little machine by spending an enormous amount of time with it.

In 1980 I became the proud owner of a Sharp EL5100 programmable calculator, while I studied computer science at University, learning to program in FORTRAN 77 on a mainframe. This calculator was followed by a Sharp PC1500, which I could program in BASIC. Then I bought an Apple //e in 1984 and finally a HP15C (which I still use today). I used the Apple //e for programming in Apple 6502 machine code, Apple Basic, Apple Pascal and Turbo Pascal running on the Z80 card of the Apple. For the latter I wrote my own graphics routines that used a tunnel built into the Z80 card to access the Apple routines in ROM. I had the opportunity to use the first Macintosh and Lisa computers and then I was forced to switch to PC architectures in the early 1990s, where I continued to program in various languages, including C and C++. I wrote my own PostScript driver for the Apple //e before I retired that machine in 1998! I think it is fair to say that I have experience in tweaking and forcing hardware and software to do my biding.

I used a wide variety of application software and wrote a lot of my own as well. Over the years I realized that one can spend an inordinate amount of time on tweaks and tasks other than your primary goals, like writing that research report, developing that business presentation or writing the book you always wanted to write. Most of this tweaking and fiddling comes naturally to so-called techies. It is easy for them to set up the operating system on a new machine, to extend the word processor with scripts and to add all sorts of fancy formatting and programming to a spreadsheet. But it eats up time.

Many people do not want or could not care for this sort of “power”. They want to access the power of a computer. They want to be seen as a client by the vendors of the software and hardware, not as collaborators on the software and testers of the new interfaces. They want to point at an icon that makes sense to them, get a page up and start typing the letter, etc. They do not want to learn how to set up a piece of software, or tweak it to work with the printer. 90% of the features are just hurdles to them.

This is my contribution today: maybe we should start to look at these users as clients of our hardware and software, not as useless or stupid newbies that should just get out of our lives. If we see them as clients, we will design the operating system and the hardware so that they can feel comfortable, so that they have access to the powerful functions without knowing to open a terminal window and type SU to get administrator rights to modify things. Yes, allow that for the tweakers, they are clients too. But many people want to work (write a fancy report, add a picture, add video, etc) without wanting to know about file formats, codecs, etc.

I am using a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5, a descendent of the Berkley Software Distribution of Unics and the FreeBSD line of code as well as the ground-breaking NEXTSTEP system. So, at heart it is Unix. I also run openSUSE 11 in a VMWare fusion box, along with Windows XP Professional and Windows 98 from Microsoft on the Mac. SUSE is a true Linux child and this version is a very popular distro with only Ubuntu possibly being more popular. There are similarities between the metaphors of OSX and SUSE, but one thing is clear, OSX is streets ahead in ease of use. I switched on my Mac out of the box, it ran unassisted through the initial setup functions, found my wireless network, connected, discovered my printers on the Microsoft based network, and was ready to roll before 30 minutes were up. I then installed several packages. Put in the CD, click and wait, and then work, no drama. The only software that took a bit of tweaking was the VMWare Fusion stuff. I discovered that I was sold an older version and once I downloaded the free update, things went better. Then I discovered something interesting.

Installing XP under Fusion was simple enough, but took 30 minutes and several tweaks (similar to setting it up on a new PC) before it was functional. It was not simple at all. Windows 98 was even worse and needed many tweaks to get to work. SUSE took me a full day to get going!! I had to wade through sub-directories and fiddle packages, I had to get down to code and scripts to get the VMWare package installed, resorting to super-user status before I could get it to work, with no real gains. The openOffice (2.4) with SUSE would not read some of the documents done in the same version under XP, asking for character sets etc to be modified, corrupting the files. So, SUSE is not for my wife! It does not understand anything about serving me as a client, it assumes I want to waste my time tweaking things. It is Unix, and so is OSX, but on my Mac I am treated like a valued client, on SUSE I am treated like I should know it all or suffer. It is too busy being smart-ass and cool to care about the user that just wants to get on with work. And the software on it is really good (in the sense that it is free and can be coaxed into doing things if you are willing to sit and fiddle).

Windows XP is really not bad after all. It works most of the time, as long as you do not overload it over time with lots of applications and modifications. Office 2007 is also very good and quite intuitive in a weird way. I can do really good work in minutes and I can access the advanced features easily when I need to. Not bad and I hope Windows 7 is more like XP than Vista.

Lastly, my son bought a new laptop and it only comes with Windows Vista Home (something – not Basic). This is a self-indulgent OS, constantly going off to the internet to check things, constantly telling you what to do, throwing stuff into your face without you asking for it, and it does not just connect and play. Not for my wife either, and by the looks of it, my son (a new breed of super user) hates it. As he says, the stupid thing is always busy with it-self and has no time available for him to actually get some work done. Yes, Vista is so busy doing things on your machine that it has very little time left to listen to what you want to do. I guess we’ll soon sell that laptop and replace it with a Mac.

If you want to feel like a valued client, get some work done and feel like you have accomplished things, get a Mac. I can say this after 30 years of working with computing machines. For now you have no real choice, unless you have lots of time to waste.

New Zealand

2008-10-21T17:06:00.002+13:00

This blog is written and submitted from Dunedin in New Zealand in late October. One would expect it to be warmer, but it is just around 15 centigrade and the breeze is quite cold from the west. From the walkway at the hotel I can see the brilliant green hills to the east dotted with mustard yellow vegetation. The air is clear and crisp.
The opportunity to visit this beautiful country arose suddenly and despite huge cost, we decided as a family to just do it and make the break! The flight from Johannesburg on Qantas started late as expected. I am sure that this is not the fault of Qantas, but rather that of the system shared with South African Airways and by the Airports Company of South Africa. Checking in took over three hours and we were only airborne after 21:00, and this with the flight planned to leave at 18:10! In typical South African fashion everything went along at a snail’s pace, with all sorts of extra events invented to slow progress to departure, like several searches of luggage, each successive one being successful in finding something missed by the X-ray machine and previous rummaging. When we finally took off in a typical Gauteng thunder storm, things became more organised, with Qantas assuring us hat we would still be able to connect to Auckland on the same day (or within eight hours). This was important, because the process at the Australian embassy to get a transit visa is now so drawn-out that we could not get that done in time (it could take more than a month, and this to pass through the airport!), and all our flights were planned to ensure that we had a smooth passage. I was told that most South African families on trips to Australia and New Zealand are now viewed with suspicion by the staff at the Australian embassy. I wonder why?
We were put on another flight to Auckland when we arrived in Sydney, with the real Aussies at the airport being friendly and VERY professional. Our introduction to New Zealand after more than 13000km of travel was smooth and professional, with friendly and efficient people working at 02:00 with a smile. The next day we had another great flight to Wellington, where a friend that emigrated to New Zealand about a year ago awaited us as we walked off the plane. It was as if this new Kiwi was just an extension of the psyche of the nation here, friendly and relaxed, light years away from the stressed person we knew in South Africa. A couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc later we finally went to bed at a civilized hour. Wellington is a wonderful place, rich in culture and atmosphere, and we definitely left too soon.
My first glimpse, through clouds, of the Otago area was filled with lots of emotion. The sun brushed the hills with yellow strokes. The brilliant green patchwork was dotted with white flecks where the sheep reflected the sun slicing through the clouds. The airport is modern, but the single runway is just long enough to handle the 737. Dunedin mixes the modern with the old in an effortless way, the pace is relaxed, but there is a purpose for everything.
As I look out at the new clouds rushing in with a cold front I think about the many decisions ahead of us. On an island things are so finely balanced.

Dogmatic Sloganism

2008-09-01T23:23:00.001+12:00

The beliefs held by the freedom fighters in Africa and I guess in the rest of the world are often mostly informed by slogans. For example, what are the belief systems that benefit from a leader in South Africa singing a “struggle song” like Umshini Wami (Bring me my machine gun)?

South Africa is a country with a broad spectrum of cultures and backgrounds. People from the Zulu culture might feel positively encouraged to support what a leader stands for when he chants this song, based on the fact that it brings back the memories of a successful struggle against Apartheid. However, given that this regime had been ousted almost 20 years ago, might negatively influence minorities and their mental models, creating fear of another campaign against certain groups. One would guess that simple logic would dictate that such action would not necessarily be possible. I mean, would Jacob Zuma really take up a machine gun (if he had one) and go off to some sort of campaign? I think not. However, why does it seem to work for his followers?

I think it comes back to humans being so massively open to the power of suggestion. We tend to take a single piece of information and then elaborate on it mentally to try and understand where this might lead. This extrapolation and interpolation will be driven by biases and not by facts. If you had recently been held at gun point during a car theft, you might immediately see a link between Jacob chanting away and the guy pointing a gun at you. The effect of fear will then be used by the brain to develop a rather dark picture. Similarly those that are desperate for change and action might not ask the key questions to test the possibility of this actually reverting to a new struggle of sorts.

Successful slogans are linked to emotions; they consist of simple words, linked to vivid images and symbols with accepted universal meaning. It is interesting that the universal symbols of revolution are so well known. These revolve around flags, songs, fists/hands/weapons, and simple tools. Flags have a long history and reflect coherence, hands and tools show where the power lies (with the individual people and not with the corporates) and weapons, the means to the end. Each of these elements may be crafted to become a coherent whole to et a simple doctrine across. This is the essence of dogmatic sloganism.

Why would it be used so extensively by revolutionaries? Simplicity, I guess. Getting a message across without the need for long debate; hungry and angry mobs do not do well during long debates. So back to Zuma and the ANC: is the use of slogans now a sign of an organization that has not grown at all or is it just that their support base are not capable of debate, or is that they are too hungry to be bothered by logic? My feeling is that it is more sinister: sometimes we can be swayed by slogans even when we know that the logic dictates something else, for all the reasons above. Is the ANC using slogans now, because it wants to defy common sense? This is something Robert Mugabe did for a long time and very successfully. Even when his country was falling apart rapidly, slogans kept the crowds aligned. Are you able to break out of the grip of dogmatic sloganism?

I use my own graphics and graphics sourced from iStockPhoto - observe the copyright.

Symbols of Conversation

2008-08-10T01:53:00.025+12:00

In a previous blog I spoke about language as an important element of the learning process. In a discussion with a friend, we considered what we mean by language, and with a bit of debate (and still open to debate), we concluded that there are at least three types of languages that people use: Spoken language and sound utterances, written symbols and strings of symbols, and gestures and body stance. A fourth possibility could be telepathy, but given that there is a lack of well documented evidence, we decided, for now, to not consider it.

Some written text (this sentence for example) conforms to a set of rules for the English language and it is represented by a combination of symbols called the English/western alphabet. I could have done something similar by using another form of encoding, called the Chinese character set, or any other one of several sets. In each case the character combinations would either develop a word or a concept, or even be a full concept. This written language is a record of the spoken languages that we learn for example during our early formative years. At some stage we might get formal instruction as to the use and rules of the language and some individuals master it to such an extent that they can ‘verbalise’ and put to text very complex emotions and mental images. Poetry is an example, and the picture below is my rather untidy handwritten section from a poem by an Afrikaans poet called Breyten Breytenbach (from “Die Windvanger”).

Mathematical symbols may be used to convey certain principles more effectively. However, here the rules are strict, and instruction on the use and the rules are needed before this written form (some of which are called equations) will make sense to readers. Mathematical symbology allows us to describe in a consistent way the world around us and some of the natural phenomena we perceive. There are also several implied relationships, as in this equation ascribed to Euler and the equation from the discipline of chemistry followed by one from physics:

Similarly, the notation of music must be mastered before music may be written down or, as in the case of the poem, before music may be composed successfully. We need to understand what the symbols and strings of symbols mean, what their spatial relationships imply and we must understand the context, before the symbols will make sense.

We use “body language” and facial expression to communicate. The following set of images are taken from Daniel Goleman’s book “Destructive Emotions” and shows what can be termed universal human emotional signals.

It is my contention that all these elements are in play during the process of learning, from birth onwards. Over a glass of dry white wine, a young friend of mine recounted her experiences at school, both good and bad, and we found some interesting patterns! Successful teachers know how to utilise all the language elements and apply them in imagination-stimulating ways to convey concepts. They tell the stories that make the symbols friends! They recount situations and generate scenarios where the expectations can be linked to internal theories towards solving the problem of making sense of the environment. This environment could be many things. It could be the lines and dots of the Cartesian plane, it could be the pathways of the nerve system, it could be the patterns and behaviour of the benzene ring in chemical design and it could be the form and stroke of a brush on a virgin canvass.

There is one prerequisite though for all of this to succeed. We must recognise that we as humans, although we have the a priori (genetic) ability or predisposition for symbol manipulation, still need to be made aware of the rules of engaging with these symbols and we must master them before we can apply them successfully. The South African school system seems to have missed this point completely and it reflects in the demonstrated slip in international standing in reading and maths ability. Please ensure that this does not happen where you live on our beautiful planet. It cuts to the heart of what makes us different from other species on this planet. Humanity cannot afford to have our young people crippled in this way.

So now, go read a poem or page through a book on mathematical proof and listen to some music. Find the sheet music for your favourite song. Be human to the hilt!

(Copyright notice: I use graphic elements licensed to me by iStockphoto.com. Observe the rights of the owners of this material.)

Learning

2008-08-08T09:35:00.004+12:00

The question of learning is a fascinating one. Why do we learn, how do we learn, and what do we learn? One can probably try and answer these questions by considering the current thinking on cognition. Perception is fundamental to this tack. With perception goes the thinking around memory stores: long term memory and short term memory. All of this seems a bit mechanistic to me to be honest.

Yes, surely situation awareness is key to learning, for many events are just filtered out. Interaction with the environment may be seen as core to the process of learning and indeed, it forms the basis of nearly all theories of learning and intelligence. But is that it? My dog is rather aware in this sense, and in terms of homology it has an organ similar to my brain in the physical space. Does this mean that my dog is just especially impaired when it comes to learning? Where did humans leave dogs behind in evolution of the learning ability of the brain and can we be sure that this is in fact the case? Is knowledge just the product of learning or can we claim the concept of a priori genetic knowledge? Darwin punts the need for evolutionary learning (a priory learning) as a prerequisite for survival. Does this mean that real learning can only happen in the context of survivability, that is, the acquisition of true knowledge, knowledge that transcends the individual is dependent on threat scenarios?

Some authors, notably Karl Popper, point to language as a key concept in self-awareness and the concepts of knowledge (Popper is careful to not call this knowledge the equivalent of the German “Wissen” – the Greek equivalent of the knowledge of the gods). If this conjecture is accurate (it approaches Truth), then there is definitely a difference between me and my dog. However, my dog has signalling abilities; I used signals recently in France to explain that I was feeling like death warmed up to a French doctor. I signalled my pain when I breathed, coughed and looked dizzy! He considered my situation knowingly and did exactly the tests that my Afrikaans speaking doctor would do had I consulted him. And he came to the same conclusion and prescribed similar antibiotics. Surely, this was only signalling. In context to be sure, but my dog can do that as well. I am just not sure that my dog will be able to put together the story of its own misery in a past, present and future coherent sense.

Being conscious of identity, having a theory (not just a sense) of time and being able to construct discourse on expectation seems to be other aspects of learning that are important when I read musings of the enlightened ones. I know that my dog has a sense of time, but I have no evidence that it can construct a signalling event to me or another dog to communicate the expectation of me going on holiday and sending it off to the dreaded kennels!

All of this made me wonder how the people in charge of the school system come up with the methods used to train humanity. Do they use threatening circumstances to get kids to become mathematicians? Possibly, but I suspect that approach is not too successful. Is it about “cognition”? Again Popper has a bit of a different view. His conjecture is that we theorise about things, that we see problems, that we attempt solutions before we observe in a directed manner. We seem to have an expectation of events that drives our need to know. I am sure that I am not doing Popper justice, but this is the best I can do on a blog site!

What is more, theorising is connected to being able to tell a story, to imagine a beginning, middle and end, to see causality as a thread during the recounting of something, even if it is imaginary, like a fairy tale. Telling a story is uniquely human it seems, and that brings me to the (possibly) related work of Stephen Denning on Business Narrative. Here stories are used to share learning and discovery. Back to the start of the blog, and we find the cognition elements there, but if we follow Popper and Denning in a logical fashion, it seems that cognition (and learned information) is a result of experience on the back of a theory of possible outcomes and expected problems, and expectations met or refuted, in the real world or in the imaginary world.

Maybe successful learning is a result of such a process, and not just copying of behaviour or patterns. Yes, that may be part of learning, but true knowledge seems to come from some empirical process. I think this means that we must 'learn' to listen to our inner stories, have mind experiments, develop models and stories, expect outcomes and test this against reality. Another important point is that when I talk about "language", I include all the concepts of mathematics and music as well. Just like the construction of conversation in spoken word was learned during childhood, we must learn the concepts of mathematics for example. Again Popper points out that normal children have a priori language abilities...

The core concept is that we need to suggest possible outcomes even before we experience them. From the delta we deduce something new about the world (even if the delta is zero!) and we adapt accordingly.

If someone will tell me a story about Einstein and his problems, his conjectures and theories, then maybe, just maybe, I can be a successful student of relativity theory? Well, it is clearly not as simple as that, because as Popper points out, I must do my own theorising then with what I have heard and with what I expect, build my own expectation set and "solve" the problems from my unique perspective. Just maybe I can find the story that will lead me to new discovery on the back of what I already understand through the manipulation into a causally/logically coherent theory of possible worlds. Maybe a story is at the heart of learning….

Democracy

2008-08-07T21:28:00.003+12:00

Let me start by saying that this is not a critique on democracy, and that it is not an attempt to describe or explain democracy. It is a simple commentary on the state of affairs.

For some time now I have had this uneasy feeling around what is being described as democracy in South Africa. It is thus fitting to look at what the word means and in what context it stands. Consider “monarchy” – mon:archy, the rule by a single person and “aristocracy” – rule by the aristocrats, those that are the “best”. Democracy stands in relation to these as the “rule by the (free) people”. It implies that the people have the power and jurisdiction to direct how things will be done.

As a theory it sounds great, as long as the assumptions are clear. For example, as long as the majority is not much bigger than the minority, that is, as long as there is a power balance, those representing the people in the positions of decision making will be careful to consider what actions might swing the power balance. If the democracy is based on some sort of representation that is not specifically allied to the party from which the representatives come, then the individuals may make the best decisions on behalf of the constituency. The assumption is that party dogma will take the back seat and that the individual will operate with integrity and within the moral value system of the majority.

My concern is with these assumptions. If the understanding of democracy is only that the “will of the people is paramount”, and if the people are not sensitive to how they may be open to powerful suggestion from those in the positions of power, things may go horribly wrong. It might be that the people come to recognise less and less of the failings of the bureaucrats because of a cultural predisposition to believing that those elected are indeed morally sound. Ultimately, if the elected individuals fail, the implication is that the people failed!

How can one test whether a democracy, or any other form of rule, is sound? I suppose there are many logics available for this, but I like the approach of Karl Popper. Unless the people can remove the government without bloodshed, the system is flawed. I also feel that if it becomes exceedingly difficult to ensure that government does what is in the best interest of citizens, and if government resorts to “sloganism” in order to suggest new realities and values and to preserve their positional power, then there is no rule by the people and a “tyranny” is taking root. In fact, then the country has embarked on the road to dictatorship.

It is with this in mind that I consider the situation in South Africa. I see slogans everywhere, urging the people to rule in step with the wishes of the ruling party and in many cases towards the preservation of those in power. The majority is not balanced by a minority that can shift the power by pointing out the immoral acts or failings of those in power. Those in power talk about blood and spread fear. Is this a democracy? Back to Popper: there are two kinds of state: one where it is possible to get rid of the government without bloodshed, and the other where this is impossible. Then I must consider how the previous regime exited: was it through bloodshed? The new regime is quick to claim that this is so, but closer scrutiny shows revolution fired by dogmatics, pushing children into the line of fire for the cause and finally the previous regime that negotiated itself out of power. I cannot claim that this is the only way to see the situation, but it definitely is one that, if it is close to the truth, takes South Africa close to the edge of chaos. Then we must now consider how we shall preserve our freedoms as a matter of urgency.

The last word goes to Popper: “Democracy in the sense of ‘rule by the people’ has practically never existed, and when it has, it has been an arbitrary and unaccountable dictatorship. Rule by the people cannot be; it is unaccountable.”

Stress and quality of life

2008-07-03T10:03:00.004+12:00

It dawned on me today, floating in the Mediterranean at Cannes, that my memory is severely impacted by the life style I’ve been leading since 1995. As the warm sun needled my exposed skin and the cool water lapped over me, I stared up into the blue sky and tried to remember my previous trip in July 2006 to the same place – and I could not recall much! My memory had these little snapshots, but they were link-less, story-less, meaningless in a way.

As we experience stress, hormones are released in the brain, impacting several structures physically. If the stress becomes a permanent feature, the chemicals will have a permanent impact on these structures, it seems. For example, we seem to “blank” out those stressful moments. The memory is erased before it is created and with it other good things suffer as well. Over time, no memories are created beyond the superficial.

Trying to be too many things to too many people at once, living up to the expectations I created, being manipulated by unscrupulous people with power over me (financially for example) had created a zombie!

I designed this zombie by creating an untenable vision for myself and I informed other people of it. Some of them now use this as the whips and stirrups to control my will and direction. I have become a slave, relentlessly trying to be more than what is human, constantly hearing only those words that tell me I am not good enough.

Time flashes by. I have no anchor points in memory, nothing to fill the days, running on empty I urge myself into every future moment, responding with the intellect of a smart robot, but without soul, without the passion and integrity of wisdom. Wisdom comes with real lived age, not with time passing under self-induced memory inhibiting drugs.

What am I saying? The time has come to stop the bus, to get off, to stroll through the park, to smell the wood and the grass, to see the insects, to hear the far-off voices of people in love, to look at the sky, to see the faces in the clouds, to share stories, to laugh, to be quiet, to think about God, to listen, to love in a simple way, to consider what I consume to sustain me, to live by the second, to suspend time and to die with grace.

My task is simple: take the first step and get off the bus. It has consequences, I realize that, but what if I do not do this now, will I have another moment of clarity under a black-blue sky, immersed in the substance that is us….?

Where are you today? Are you reaching for the bell to signal departure at the next stop, or are you too busy worrying about what to do next to keep your bus rolling? Are you grazing like a sheep, focused on the next tuft of grass, or are you looking up to see the next field of green?

I recall the words of “Wish You Were Here” suddenly:

So,

So you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field

from a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade

your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange

a walk-on part in the war

for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,

year after year,

Running over the same old ground.
What have you found?

The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Wind mills and the sun

2008-07-01T11:06:00.021+12:00

I have written previously about the concepts for sustainable power. The only real source of sustainable power available to us is the sun. I suppose one must also consider the possibility of generating power from tidal activity, energy that is driven by the lunar-terrestrial system, but I have not seen too many success stories in that area. So I guess it is reasonable to consider the sun for now as the only candidate.

It drives the climate system and thus winds and rain. Rivers may be used for hydro-electric power and winds may be harvested by wind generators. We can use the direct energy of the sun to heat solar heaters and to cook food in the heat of solar collectors, or we can use photo-voltaic cells to change light into electricity. Heliostats can be used to drive turbines for generation of electricity. Quite a diverse range of options provided we are willing to consider them all carefully. It seems though that we have all sorts of issues with some of these options, like the fact that many people dislike wind farms. They claim that it disturbs the landscape. I suppose it is true that one could find it disturbing to see these machines all over the place, but at the same time we have no problem with the aesthetic disaster posed by steel power cable pylons, or coal fired power stations belching smoke. People consider hydro-power, but often forget the impact of building weirs and channeling systems in fragile river eco systems to tap into the energy.

The point is that everything has a price: what we need is to develop an unbiased score card for all these alternatives to fossil fuels. Communities must consider the costs of being completely reliant on the electricity network or to be part of a system that supplies much of what is needed around where they live. The video on this page was recorded close to Shrivenham. It shows the turbines on the Westmill wind farm that belongs to a co-operative of 2400 members. What can we do in our own communities to lighten the burden on our planet?

Developed World Plus

2008-06-20T08:57:00.003+12:00

Sweden

is an amazing country with an amazing culture. During my recent visit I was impressed by the Swedes and their way of doing things. It seems that they are preparing constantly for the future – a long term plan. They are very punctual, and service orientated. Their systems work. If it fails, they are quick to repair and maintain it and quick to explain why delays occur when they do.

Stockholm is remarkably clean for such a big city with so many visitors. At the same time there is a keen sense of caring for nature, for bringing up their kids in the first few years at least in a close family unit and for being part of their nation. There is much to learn there, and in all my discussions, the people were open and engaging, free of fears of being hi-jacked or attacked. Children and women are safe, even late at night on the tube.

A warming and calming experience, it showed me again that it is possible for humanity to live in reasonable harmony. It only requires respect, a sense of belonging and above all, the discipline to take responsibility for the here and now and for the future. They do not dwell in the past and they do not shift blame. This is what we must achieve in South Africa as well. Yes, Sweden do have some ghastly issues too, but it is being managed actively, decisions are made and executed. How do you become “First World Plus”? I quote a new friend in Sweden: “I make decisions and act on them, I do not change my decisions, I only make new ones.” Subtle.

Nordic Ice

2008-06-11T17:25:00.004+12:00

Sometimes we just need a bit of a change of pace and environment to see things in perspective again. Sometimes you just have to spend a bit of time with new friends in an exotic place to get the stress release needed. During our short visit to Stockholm we have had great weather so far and we have seen wonderful things. Mingling with a culture different from your own is always great and at a gala dinner in the Vasa Museum, we were fortunate enough to meet Keith and Karen Pollock from Vancouver.

Discussing all sorts of issues we soon realized that we all have the same things that delight and bother, it is just the intensity that differs! To celebrate the long day, we decided to visit the Ice Bar at the Nordic Sea Hotel. At the same time Sweden pulled off a 2-0 win over Greece in a soccer match, which had the whole of Stockholm celebrating like crazy. Chrissie had a great vodka drink called Diamond Dust: Vodka, lime and tonic and I went for Wolf’s Paw – no surprise there I guess. The drinks are served from ice tumblers in a very cold room at an exorbitant price, but who cares. We had fun.

Maybe all we need is a proper break from our environments to see life for what it can really be. So now I’m off to go get rid of that Wolf’s Paw taste and the after effects (which strangely include a rapidly growing beard and a keen sense of smell and hearing, and I find it hard typ........).

Rome

2008-06-07T07:04:00.007+12:00

When in Rome... And so we did. It is not easy if you cannot do the language in this town. People ignore you, so if you plan to visit the eternal city, buy that language course and practice. It will pay back in the savings you make by being able to negotiate!
I only spent a few hours in town, but it was amazing. Soon pictures from this trip will feature on my Picasa site (reflected in the slide show on this page). But I was really here for work, and that is why my visit to the city was brief. The work was a fantastic learning experience, more so as it again strengthened my resolve not to just buckle under pressure and to be part of some non-event in Africa. I think we must always remember what humanity can achieve if it puts its mind to it, rather than to consider being less just because that is what culture prescribes. We in Africa have some really cool ideas and smart approaches and we must continue to believe in ourselves: that is the only way.

Then, I must also reflect on my visit to the Colosseum: I walked into the place expecting to feel a sense of wonder, but a deep feeling of despair and fear gripped my soul as I looked out over the trenches. It was as if I could smell the pain and trauma, as if all those animals and people that suffered were still there to remind us not to ever be so cruel again. Returning to my room I fired up my browser and checked in on the news in Africa. Zimbabwe! I suddenly experienced the same emotions that came to me in the Colosseum. God help the poor people, animals, in fact, all of creation that suffer under the incredible selfishness and brutality of so many ignorant leaders in the world, and especially in Africa. May people with clear and balanced positive values come to power soon, because we cannot build monuments like those I saw in Rome anymore. Or are we no more than what we were 3000 years ago?

Space - The Final Frontier

2008-05-30T05:12:00.002+12:00

South Africa is at present a space faring nation, having joined this exclusive club with the launch of a small satellite built in Stellenbosch in the late 1990s. We could have been there earlier, was it not for the unfortunate impact of political change on our scientific capability. We were close to having our own launch capability as well, but today not much of that expertise remains in the country.

And now, through a weird coming-together of events, we might also forfeit our capability to develop and build our own satellites. The details are messy and shrouded in controversy. My concern is with the people that dedicated their lives to this dream, those that went without sleep, without salaries sometimes, to make the deep dreams of South Africans to also be counted a reality. That dream is slipping away from us, again. This past few weeks had been some of the worst days of my life, leaving my physically ill. Helpless in the face of bureaucratic process I had to listen to people saying that maybe we do not need this capability. The message is clear; we are not top class as a nation.

I do not and will not subscribe to such nonsense. It is irresponsible to have bureaucrats decide what we may dream as a nation. The audacity is too much to handle!

Regardless of the outcome of all the debate and counting of rands and cents, I will continue to strive for the stars. I know that there are more of us out there. We must not be quiet about this. We must insist on being seen, on being counted, on contributing to the knowledge and achievements of humanity. We must never resign to just making a living, to just worry about our immediate needs, soulless and aimlessly just crawling from womb to grave, always asking for hand-outs, hoping for something to come to us for free!

Let us take what will come to us over the next few weeks and turn the adversity into a competitive edge. If we scrape through, let us decide never to get this close to disaster again. If we take a knock, let’s gather the pieces together and try again, from stone to stars, via the staircase of smart work.

Zen, the complex and xenophobia

2008-05-27T20:09:00.012+12:00

Alan Watts, a Zen student (I guess he would forgive me for calling him a student), says: “Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so, perhaps, are the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible.”

This is the distinct feeling I get when reading about and listening to the explanations of complexity and emergence. Some would have me believe that we can design for a specific emerging property, whilst others would have it that true emergence must be surprising. This duality arises, it seems, from the inability we have to untangle highly connected things. This is absolutely no good when we try to make sense of our world today. As a scientist of this age, I am perturbed by our inability to come to grips with these things. It is as if the path has arrived at too many forks all at once, as if time is howling around us, like a vicious wind, dragging us towards a catastrophic end. In mathematical terms, it seems as if we have arrived at one of those points on a logistic map where everything suddenly become chaotic, where the slightest change in the dynamics around us, ramps the whole system to another level of unpredictable behaviour. The end of certainty, for sure, Prof Prigogine!

Our divide and conquer approaches seem to fail us when we try to make sense of the xenophobia in our country, for example. Some of us quickly look for other theories, like a mysterious third force, that is driving the killing of people all over the place. Some blame it, predictably, on the past. Whatever the driving force, we cannot seem to analyze the problem down to its constituent levers, ready to be pushed and pulled into a new and better configuration. We assume (realistically) that poverty is normal in a society of free traders, but sometimes something skews the system and poverty becomes an overriding feature of a society. Worse, the gap between the poorest and the richest becomes massive. The worst case scenario is when those rich few are actually also those in charge of the society and were voted into that position by the poorest people in an attempt to escape the poverty. Again, it sounds simple, maybe too simple. One step further, and we can imagine these rulers using their positions to “direct” the society to believe certain things, to distract them from the reality of their miserable existence, or to direct them towards sinister goals to preserve their power base. This has got nothing to do with xenophobia, but it makes for a very nice cover.

Shown below is the very deterministic equation to generate a logistic map, and below it the map showing the bifurcation forks and the high density of possible states of the system to the right.

If we are somehow in such a chaotic state, what equations are driving our state, where do we go next, or will the system have to explode or implode necessarily before we can have relative stability again? Is this what revolutions are all about? Was our “managed” revolution to come from Apartheid to democracy just a fork in the road where both choices actually lead to disaster? Or was this path chosen even before Apartheid? Was it chosen maybe a couple of thousand years ago? I cannot imagine that it is possible to know the answer, but I am willing to bet that it is also not as simple as blaming it on the history of the past 1000 years or the past 50 years or just to blame it on poverty alone.

Photo from iStockPhoto.com (licensed to Jan Roodt - do not copy this image)

Arcadia

2008-05-21T05:32:00.002+12:00

Arcadia – that place of the Golden Age, the domain of Pan, where incorruptible life emerges as if by magic, and the name of a play by Tom Stoppard. In Arcadia Stoppard toys with the idea that the concepts of chaos theory could have been discovered in the early 1800’s. He develops the ideas of chaos theory through one of the main characters and the play asks some of the eternal questions again: truth, evidence, what are these, by what qualities do we recognise these?

For me the key is in the next quote from Act 1, Scene 4: it sums up my experience of the world since 1981: “It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you knew is wrong.” Newtonian certainty finally gets the boot when Prigogine publishes The End of Certainty. Gleick publishes Chaos and Hofstadter wins me over to the concepts of holism (first coined by Jan Smuts) when I read Gödel, Escher and Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid after my mathematics professor asks me to take the rest of the semester off to read it (we both gave up on me for a year while I considered what was really important). I return a year later to mathematics, applied mathematics and physics, ready to suffer through the linear and the deterministic, just to get to Schrödinger, Einstein and Planck, to name a few. I was never the same, always keen to work with uncertainty, keen to understand why we cannot predict some things so well, keen to model these complexities.

These days I bask in the Golden Age of our information age discoveries. I marvel at the work of Cilliers, Alexander, Wheatley, Strogatz, Capra, to name a few. All are trying to make sense of complexity and emergence. The only black spot in my Arcadia is the current system of learning in schools that claims to prepare children for this new reality.

It does this, it claims, by expecting of kids to re-invent the wheel, to discover pi, to discover the structure of language, and a miriad of other things that are typically part of the accumulated body of knowledge of humanity. How many of these poor souls will suddenly develop into a Derrida, an Einstein or even Michelangelo? All I know is that this leads to a lot of confused people, people not ready to absorb and question the merits of the thinkers of our time, basically shuting them out from the new age of wonderment. “When almost everything you knew is wrong” has a premsie built into it: we knew something that we took for truth and we discover a new truth to replace it through our keen analysis and synthesis of the current knowledge base. We sometimes walk away from our truth, deliberately discovering beyond ourselves. But by no means can we attain this without walking the path first.

The path of Zen is often described along the lines of the quest of searching for an animal, finding it, taming it and harnessing it towards fullfilment of our needs, only to discover that the animal “is not”. I leave you with that thought and the discovery of Tung-Shan: “The man made of wood starts to sing. The woman made of stone starts to dance. This cannot happen through logic.”

To our children: Arcadiae vias peregrinentur!

Flying

2008-05-19T02:07:00.002+12:00

Those that know me well will know that I just love flying. It is one of the best ways to get from A to B in a hurry – or it used to be. These days getting to an airport and onto the plane might take as long as your plane journey. When flying to Durban from Johannesburg, it takes about 40 minutes to get to the airport, another 40 minutes to get airborne as a minimum and then about 20 minutes to get to the car rental. The flight time is about 60 minutes. What a pity.
But getting onto the plane for the flight has a certain magic to it for me. The seats, the food, the magazines, all of it somehow reminds me of my dream to see all sorts of far-away places. You get out of the tube with wings, walk onto another continent or island and you are suddenly part of a new culture. The air is different, the daylight casts a different shadow and even the people look different. There are different smells as well.
I remember my first visit to New York in 1992. After a long and tiring flight from Johannesburg to London and then to New York, and after a taxi ride that took forever, I finally found myself in a small room in an even tinier hotel just off Times Square. As I later walked out into the cold night air I was aware of a scent I never smelt before: I soon located the source, a Wendy’s, about a block away! My first real introduction to VERY fast food was scary to say the least.
Many years later, in Linnköping in Sweden, I had a sudden sensation of being where I belong. Walking through some snow back to my hotel after a stroll around town, I looked at the people cycling past and my soul screamed out for being part of that place. Where I have always felt that I was “home” when I walked out of the airport at Johannesburg after a long overseas flight, this time was different. I walked off the plane and felt sorrow for having to return. The smells and scents were familiar, but it was not mine anymore.
Every trip has added to my life, enriching me and convincing me that not everything about globalisation is bad. Those that fear the world and the currents of change will be washed away. Those governments that put up barriers to the free flow of people and skill will suffer for it. The people that are fanatic about preserving their cultures and languages will lose it in the hugeness of the diversity out there. We must learn to carry culture with us, in our hearts, and to enrich it with experience. What is culture today was new a century ago.
But back to airplanes: have you ever thought about those fantastic machines? Which one is or was your favourite? I always loved flying in a Boeing 727. It was such a novel design. It was fast! It was quiet inside! It was the mark of “far away” for me. I like the 747 too, and the 737 is great, but the 727 stands for me as the icon of the new age. Yes, I know about the other planes, the Comet, the McDonald Douglas machines and today the oh-so uninspiring Airbus aircraft. Anyway, I hope you will be going somewhere exotic soon and that you will think about the marvels of modern technology while you do. I’m going to Italy (Rome) soon for the first time and then I’m off to Stockholm for a couple of days. I’m so looking forward to the trip.
For the aircraft fanatics, go visit http://www.airliners.net/ . The picture at the top is from a great photographer in Australia, David Morell. Go visit him at http://www.davidmorrell.com/index.cfm.

Wine

2008-04-21T06:58:00.003+12:00

Wine has been made in South Africa since the first harvest in 1659, after Jan van Riebeeck started a trade post in what is today known as Cape Town. He must have planted his vines almost when he got here in 1652. Good for him and his insight. Today South Africa has a good wine industry, with top class wines being exported all over the world. We do have a local grape variety, called Pinotage, which was developed here by Professor Perold in 1925 by crossing Hermitage and Pinot Noir. It takes a special person to make a good red wine from Pinotage.

Why this lesson in history? Maybe because we have several hundred wine farms and other producers of wine in South Africa today and I feel that also in this area of expertise South Africa had achieved acclaim. As the shortages of electricity, lack of government skills and management issues start to take their toll, I wonder if the wine industry will also suffer the fate of other areas in South Africa that had gone pear shaped recently. We used to produce the finest doctors (Chris Barnard springs to mind), scientists and even the classiest of social reformers, but because of crime and lack of education (to name a few factors), we are slipping fast down the ranks of the nations to the bottomless pit where other African nations wallow in their self-pity and destructive behavioural patterns.

More reason to stock up on wine while it is still good and cheap, it seems. There was a time when I thought we would be making some of the best Sauvignon Blanc known to man, but today, sipping away at a Cloudy Bay from New Zealand, and reading about the political interference and affirmative action idiocy that seems to threaten our industry, it became clear to me that we might also be on the verge of missing this milestone. So join me if you may and let us drink to what we have and what might be gone tomorrow, for there are few leaders left in the world, and we seem set on choosing the worst of them to rule in Africa. (By the way, the photo up top is of a great Australian red, as it was being quaffed by me on a long, reflective afternoon in Melbourne.)

Gender and Equality

2008-04-08T08:48:00.003+12:00

Gender: are we equals?
Equals in what, I ask. And on what grounds must we compare ourselves? To what end? As I look at you my love, would I not want to be your equal, your slave, your master?
As Sam Hamill says in the “The Sound of Water”: ‘It is easy to imitate; it is difficult to attain.’ As the debate rages and the war of the righteous and the pretentious continues, we walk through the days of spring, summer, autumn and winter to our demise. As we breathe small clouds at the white old moon, I go with you to where we must rest. Only our differences made it worthwhile.

“Pretending wisdom,
a man tells a woman all
about the eclipse”

Why would I want to understand your mysterious ways? Why would I dare compare myself to you? The futility warms my heart tonight.

Haiku

2008-03-17T03:42:00.009+13:00

Always interested in poetry and reading about the different forms, I came across the haiku form. Traditionally Japanese, there are now many excellent haiku in English as well, although some break with the rather strict rules. For example, a Haiku has three lines only. Each line has a prescribed number of syllables: 5-7-5. And one of the four seasons is referred to in some way and coupled to something else in nature. Sometimes this requirement is fulfilled by referring to an “element” (fire, water, wood, earth, metal – the Taoist cosmological elements) or by mention of technology or materials (glass, phones). Strictly speaking, one is then deviating from the pure form and it must be a conscious decision that is reflected in the image generated by the rest of the poem. There is also a so-called “pause” that is traditionally placed at the end of the first or second line. In some cases, you will find this pause as a dash in front of the third line. Here is one of my own in Afrikaans:

op my koel herfs-stoep

kloek-kloek rooiwyn in my glas:

ou bamboesklok ril

Roughly translated, it says:

my cool autumn porch

tipple red wine in my glass:

bamboo chimes shudder

The idea is that in autumn we rest after the harvest, maybe with a glass of red wine. Pouring it from the bottle produces a sound similar to that which is produced by a bamboo chime in a breeze. Here the image of autumn is again reflected in the idea left with the reader of the chimes moving in that uneasy breeze before evening (parallels with the coming winter). Anyway, as you can see, I am just learning and playing around with it for my own enjoyment. Being a visual thinker I need some way of reflecting on the emotions conjured up by the things I see every day.

Here is a favourite from a grand master:

from which tree’s blossom

it comes, I do not know

this fragrance

- Basho

And a modern one:

across the fields of stubble

flame stalks flame

- David Cobb

Learn how to write a haiku at http://haiku.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp/~shiki/Start-Writing.html and if you want to see a Java engine have a try at it, go to http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm

If you need a little book for winter, try out “ Haiku – Poetry Ancient and Modern” by Jackie Hardy, last seen at http://www.amazon.com/Haiku-Poetry-Ancient-Jackie-Hardy/dp/0804838585

Stars

2008-03-05T09:01:00.003+13:00

I have always been fascinated by the stars. I remember when I was a kid in Windhoek in Namibia in the early 1960’s how I would sit on the fence in the corner of our yard and watch the sun go down. Like a big ball of fire it would slowly descend on the hills in the distance and the air would cool down rapidly, so rapidly that I could feel it on my cheeks. Then the stars would pop out of the dark blue hemisphere above me, like little lights being switched on one-by-one.
Linda would sit next to me and ask all sorts of questions. She was my neighbour and only friend at the time. I would know all the answers of course. My imagination ran wild as I extrapolated from bits of stories my dad told me. The stars were very far away. Some were balls of fire and some were places just like earth. We imagined what these places would look like, whether the people on those far-away specks in the sky were watching us as we were watching them. We fell silent as the Milky Way appeared slowly, glowing above us with a coldness of deep space that we could somehow feel, making us shiver. I was going to be a rocket man. I would build rockets that would take me to those places and I would come back, floating down by parachute and maybe I would have a present or two from those stars.
Today I can barely see the stars from where I stay in the city. We add more lights for safety, we add more lights for comfort and we dim our imaginations as we do so.
If you feel like exploring the stars right on your computer screen, surf over to the Open Source site of Stellarium and watch in wonder how your screen is transformed by the work of the people that are writing this fantastic piece of software. I wonder what happened to Linda...

Listening to our souls

2008-02-10T02:26:00.001+13:00

In my quest to facilitate teamwork and to discover new ways to generate a passion for excellence I met with a phenomenon called Bruce Copley. Bruce introduced me to, amongst other things, a new musical instrument called the Hang (pronounced “Hung”). Maybe the story I am about to share will explain the strangeness of it all.

During 2001 I was working with a dear friend, Michelle Groenewald, on ways to make the work experience of our team of scientists and engineers more vibrant and integrative. We were trying to help people understand the linked nature of everything in our lives. The idea was for all of us to discover for ourselves how our actions can never be seen in isolation and that we all do things that vibrate through time, almost like the notes of a song on a cold and quiet evening.

After some experience of Bruce’s work, we decided that some individuals in the team might benefit from the experience that Bruce delivers during his events. We caught a plane down to Cape Town and arrived on a cold and stormy night, driving over the mountain to Bruce’s place. There we met in a Teepee, with Bruce playing away on his didgeridoo. He also invited a drummer and maker of African drums. I promptly bought a drum that evening. Not any old drum, but rather a drum that still to this day ring true with my moods. Michelle went on and procured a Hang from Bruce some time after that, and through a twist of fate, she sold it to me after a short while. As with the drum, the specific instrument just spoke to me when I heard its first few sounds.

I still have not managed to master the Hang, but I am not too concerned. Whenever I sit and tap away at it I know that my soul is sending a message into time and years later, with only a few successes at making the workplace a better space, I have come to believe that few things matter as much as allowing your soul’s voice to be heard. Write a Haiku, play a drum, sing or whistle, but be heard. Like the inventors of the Hang did, and how even they have to modify what is seemingly a prefect design to take into account learning, new materials and the demands of our times. Thanks again Michelle and Bruce!

Powerless

2008-02-04T07:51:00.000+13:00

One can argue the role of a government from many angles. In a democracy (of any sort), the idea is clear: the people elect individuals from amongst themselves to run the country. The idea is that these elected officials will do what is in the best interest of the people who elected them and that they will serve the country and people in a transparent and responsible manner. Basically, we say to those that are elected: “Listen, we need someone to run the country while we are busy making our lives work. We’ll pay you good salaries and we’ll even hold you in high esteem. Stand in for us in the global village.”

Maybe it is more complex than this. Obviously not everybody in a country gets to be represented by whom they would have chosen, mainly because their ideas differ markedly from that of the majority. I can live with such a view as well. So if a government is allowed to dump a country into abject poverty, then it is the wish of the majority. This sounds absurd. Nobody would ask their representatives to make the country poorer. Or would they?

Maybe the elected spokespeople are not as honest as we hoped. Maybe they have another agenda altogether, it is just that we did not notice. Maybe they give us inaccurate information on many topics.

I need to point out the weirdness in South Africa at this time. We know that Eskom failed to do the job we want them to do, that is, supply us and our neighbours with affordable and reliable electricity. The government (those chosen by the majority) admitted to failing as well when they stopped the plans to upgrade and expand the electricity generating capacity. Mines will now produce less, jobs will be lost and the country will become poorer. One would expect that the majority would be angry, that the servants of this majority would resign and that new servants would be elected to fix the problem. But this is not the case.

Rather we see Eskom and the ministry of energy pointing the finger at the citizens, claiming that we are responsible for the mess by using electricity in a wasteful manner. We switch on too many lights to protect our property, we go to bed too late at night and we wake up too early. We use air conditioners and we actually also take baths too frequently. They must thus take matters in their own hands now and punish us by outlawing normal cheap light bulbs, by sending “electricity police” to private homes and by rationing our electricity supplies by installing devices that will switch our supply on or off when they decide to do so. The majority must be in agreement, because I see no revolution in the streets tonight.

Anyway, I have some ideas for you to get through the next few months.

The average electricity consumption per household in South Africa was estimated at about 1200kW.h The plan is to only allow 500kW.h before punitive measures will be taken – you will pay MUCH more for every kW.h above the allocated maximum.

Have a look at your bills over the last year, work out what your household average is and switch to gas for cooking and possibly solar heating for warm water. Think about how many devices you leave on standby and switch these off when not needed. These include chargers for cell phones, the TV, your DSTV decoder, the printer, etc. See if you can lower consumption by using fluorescent bulbs (and look for those with low mercury content). The Eskom site does have some tips as well. However, some of the tips are just plain silly. Go have a look at http://www.eskomdsm.co.za/resdsaving.php and decide what you should try.

Last, but not least, let us consider who brought this on. If it was us as a silent majority, then let’s fix it by being vocal and saying clearly what we want. If it was the result of individuals not doing what we wanted them to do, that is, look out for us, then let’s make sure they are removed from their positions, as they are not good servants!

General information on pictures in the slideshow.

2008-01-28T08:55:00.000+13:00

Photos in the slideshow are from my Picasa files. Many were taken with my Sony Ericsson cellular phones, and some using my Sony video cameras. Every so often I use a Canon Ixus 950 and even a Pentax K1000. Because I was asked, that's why!

This was a quick grab with my phone of very special people in a small restaurant in South Africa, close to Cape Town. As with this photo, my stuff is always opportunistic. I do not try to compose. It is only there to stimulate my memories.

TwixT: Enabled by games

2008-01-28T06:19:00.000+13:00

During 1986 I met Jack and Marc, two chemical engineers who introduced me to the world of board games. Over a period of two years we played games like TwixT, Third Reich, Civilization, Diplomacy, etc. regularly on weekends. Being exposed to their great gaming skills opened new thinking patterns in my mind that are still extremely useful today when I need to think at the strategic and tactical levels of business. It plays a major role I believe in helping me solve problems in "out of the box" ways.

We also shared fantastic ideas, good food and great wines during and after our encounters. We came to understand how different we are and how many things we share. I also learned about losing (no mercy with these guys) and still having fun, something that was a foreign concept to me at the time.

Today, our kids are spending an "inordinate" amount of time online or over weekends playing games like Warcraft (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml). Recently my son finally gave in and introduced me to the basics of a variant of Warcraft. I played against intelligent agents for a while before taking him on. I played a great game, but finally lost. He allowed me to learn before finishing me of in a flash. And it was great fun. There was little strategy to it, and he assured me that this is because I am playing a simple version at the newbie level! I see him and his friends when they lan, and I recognise so much of what I experienced with Jack and Marc. It is my conviction that some of these games are enabling our young minds in the art of strategy and tactics and we should rather engage and encourage before we criticise our kids.

Last, but not least, I still love board games: there is strategy and intrigue, little cute bits and pieces and the warmth of being engaged in a meeting of minds. If anybody out there has a full physical set of TwixT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwixT) that you want to sell, let me know. Let's play!

On Operating Systems

2007-12-25T22:48:00.000+13:00

Is it possible that operating systems will disappear into the background for most users? I certainly hope so, and my reason is simple: I am tired of being held hostage by corporate mind control. For many years now I have had to comply with the choices my company makes on the operating system, the wordprocessor, the spreadsheet, the e-mail programme, etc. I use. And this influences what I can use at home, because I must be able to easily transfer my work from home to work. My day is not broken into work bits or home bits or gym bits. It has elements of everything mixed up nicely to my liking. Being forced to go with Linux (because this is a corporate decision to throw off the tyranny of Microsoft cost structures in poor countries like South Africa (!)) by my corporate masters is rather disabling. Suddenly all my old little apps must make way for new ones and with it new learning and wasting of time. So if someone could come up with a computer system that is fun to use, that allows me to work in a paradigm that fits with that of my clients when needed and fits my needs at other times, I'll go out and buy it. Maybe I'll go look at that beautiful Mac again.

"Black Swan" Events

2007-12-20T03:57:00.000+13:00

During a visit to Australia recently, I bought a book (see BOOKS below) recommended by a good friend of mine, Andrew Fields. It is all about the Black Swan events, unanticipated, unimaginable and surprising discoveries that reset our paradigms of thinking. In short, up to the discovery of Australia, the concept of a swan did not include anything but white swans. Swans were white, a fact there for all to see, and I cannot imagine that anybody even speculated about swans being black. The question is: how much of what we hold as absolute truth is in fact absolute! I've been struggeling through another book for about a year now, simply called "Truth: A Guide", by Simon Blackburn. He takes an interesting stance on the epistemology of truth - almost a stance of "you know it when you see it". Well, I am still to get to the end of that book. Meanwhile, back at the ranch so to say, a black swan arrived this week. And I am wondering how much of what I see around me will remain as absolutes. Welcome Jacob Zuma.
Jan

Space-Based Solar Power

2007-12-18T20:11:00.000+13:00

Imagine we could get "carbon free" power from space. It sounds like science fiction, but it seems that there are people that believe enough in this concept to publish around it. On earth we are looking at heliostat farms, places where solar collectors are set up to drive power generators that will supply so-called off-the-grid communities with electricity. SBSP takes this concept to space! The picture on the left (taken from "Space‐Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security" - Report to the Director, National Security Space Office Interim Assessment Release 0.1) shows the idea. I would like to hear from you if you have an interest in this!

This blog spot was born on 15 December 2007

2007-12-16T03:56:00.000+13:00

Something we wanted to do for a while, but never got round to. We hope you enjoy the images and stories we'll share here.
Jan