2015

Another year for me and you.
10 more days to go this year.
Emptiness.
More emptiness.
OK. This is no poetry. It is my account of 2015. So let's get it started.
What do I have to say, that you haven't read or seen in the media?
Ah yes, now I know:
Forget about it!!!
Walk out into the streets or into the hills and see for yourself. What can you do?
Ask yourself! What have I gained from reading the news today?
Is it information, you call it or does it give you pleasure to learn about all that suffering?
Be honest! Isn't it like reading good fiction for you?
Or do you need it for being able to say: Everything goes down the drains?
2015 was not better or worse than any other year, but the media machine brings the fear more effectively to all of you.
I don't blame all those people who only do their job and whose currency is simply attention.
I blame myself, for consuming it.
Where would we be without all this gossip?
In ignorance, or just in paradise?
2016 is coming closer, tick tack tick tack.
And with it a lot of love and peace that no one will write about.
I am considering to delete this post.
No I wont do it.
After all the weird stuff about time there ought to be something more serious and critical.
Before I forget it:
Have a nice Christmas Time wherever you are and a good 2016, whatever that may mean for you.

Frog Time

Clock Time

Time Warp

It's astounding...
2016 is approaching. We will soon cross the line between numbers again.
Between 15 and 16, between last year and next year.
It is just another one of these imaginary boundaries.
...time is fleeting
Maybe because there is no time, just the present.
So no 15 and 16
Just a constant flux.
...madness takes its toll...
Maybe the result of having too much time to think about time
will result in being the next Bauernbergpark Man (wherever he may be).
Whenever I see the paintings of Chronos devouring his children
I wish that there was no time.
In the timeless moments when I think about time I also wonder
what it is that lets seemingly irreversible processes and linear
time concepts into our lives.
I hope that soon I will not have too much time to think about time.
But that is another story.

Christmas Time

Christmas time, quiet time.
The desire for peace and quiet is almost lost - almost.
I take my stone and walk into the dark, the festive dark into the fields and I think about the Star, no I see the Star and I collect the peace and quiet in my stone and carry it with me.
I carry it to you, to all of you, to all that have assembled in remembrance of the Nativity, and to those who only need the quiet in their hearts, in their minds, in their souls, in their bodies.
And it is stronger than the noise, than consumption, than wastefulness, and above all stronger than hate, because it is nourished by the emptiness, by the stars, by the Tao and by God.
And after I have distributed my festive peace and quiet this Christmas time, I take my stone and put it back to the other stones.
And there is peace upon the land.

The Book of Questions 5

What are you guarding under your hump?               And the turtle replied:

Said the camel to the turtle.                                      What do you say to oranges?

Qué guardas bajo tu joroba?                                     Y la tortuga preguntó:
dijo un camello a una tortuga.                                  Qué conversas con las naranjas?

from Pablo Neruda "The Book of Questions"

translated by William O'Daly

Copper Canyon Press 2001

Time and Eternity

To bring this Cosmos into being the Soul first laid aside its eternity and clothed itself with Time.

                       - Plotinus

I am full of awe. How can you come up with such a sentence? I am deeply impressed. It is full of wisdom and poetry.
If you deal with concepts of time for a while, the merciless truths of irreversible thermodynamics or time dilation it is very pleasing to come across such a quotation.
Plotinus further stated: "And this is why Time can never be broken apart, any more than Eternity which, similarly, under diverse manifestations, has its Being as an integral constituent of all the eternal Existences."

Let that be a lesson to all the slaves and slave keepers of the clock. Time can never be broken apart!
In the realm of clock time it is sometimes hard to escape. It is hard to escape the close association between clocks and time.

Even as I am writing this, in my room a clock is ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.
In the upper right corner of my screen there is a date and the time. I think it will be my focus, my objective, my goal, my dream, my utopia, to get rid of clock time. Somehow it seems to be the same problem as to undo technology. Was the introduction of clock time an irreversible process.

What did the Soul do to us when she clothed herself in Time? Well, create us. And it is not clock time, that Plotinus talked about. It is something richer, fuller, more all-encompassing as the commodity, the exchange value, the Procrustes' Bed of clock time.

Flower Clock

Flower Clock (Work in progress 7)

Even more time to think about time

Isolation

Sounds negative.

Isolation from chaos doesn't.

In the time before spring 1848 Austria enjoyed an era called the Biedermeier. It was a time of political conservatism, censorship and repression. However, it was also a time of peace and coffee-shop culture. Conservative poets, authors and painters flourished, such as Grillparzer. Another author of this time, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote: "Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom."

In my current situation, my isolation, my own little Biedermeier, my contemplative paradise, I wonder what I miss.

Climate change? Refugee crisis? Polarization of political forces all over Europe?

It may be the calm before the storm, but I keep enjoying every step when I walk the dog, I am grateful for every bite of food I get, I breathe in the same air as my loved one and feel happy, I sit and medidate. I turn just a few screws and leave the rest to others. I practice the art of "not-searching".

If this prepares me for harder times to come, or if this situation will even improve is a matter of the shape of things to come.

In the meantime, I think about time, draw flower clocks and do whatever is necessary. I am here. I am calm and grounded, open for the new and aware of my strengths.

Nevertheless, I feel the desire to share this, to widen the circle of peace and quiet and to get rid of all critical Biedermeier comparisons.
I'll be back with more flower clocks and even more time to think about time.

Flower Clock (Work in progress 6)

Flower Clock (Work in progress 5)

No time

Whenever I come to the point where I think that there is not enough time, and whenever I meet people who claim the same, I think of Master Ryokans wonderful words:

Ich ging hin, um Reis zu erbetteln.
Aber der blühende Buschklee
zwischen den Steinen
ließ mich den Grund vergessen.

I went there, to beg for rice.
But the blossoming bush clover
between the rocks
made me forget the reason.

Flower Clock (Work in progress 4)

Flower Clock (Work in progress 3)

Temporal Priority Principle

The temporal priority principle tells us that causes must precede their effects. Unlike Terry Pratchett's reannual grapes that have to be planted in the future to grow backwards in time, we have to plant our crops in spring so that they grow in summer and can be harvested in early autumn (to talk about climate zones with four seasons).
However, I tend to write about concepts before I really understand them. This is great fun although it might annoy some true philosophers of time.
At the moment I am reading about the role of time perception in developmental psychology. I am not surprised to see names like Piaget and Gelman and...wait a moment...I have to stop because I have to watch a movie.
These are two independent actions, independent of cause effect relationships and therefore much more interesting to consider. What shall I do first?
See. It is much more difficult than let's say the question: Shall I drop dead before the bullet hits my brain? Will the apple fall down before I let go?
This gives rise to the subjective temporal priority principle with considerations like: What will my wife do if I continue to read philosophy literature instead of helping her with the movie?
These considerations introduce some sort of moral causality on a very low level. As I have no clue about ethics I will stop writing and finally watch the video.

Chronobiology

The discipline of chronobiology tells us a lot about our inner rhythms. The existence of genetically inherited chronotypes and its distribution among the population lead to some conclusions for the individual and for politics.
The political consequences should be at least:

• Later start of schooldays, especially in countries where it starts at 8 a.m.
• Better individual arrangements of shift work
• The end of changing the clocks for summer-time

However, the main problem here as well as in other areas is the unbelievable inertia of politics regarding scientific insights and wisdom in general.
We prefer socially grown values and myths to solid experimental data.
Sad but true.

The Classification of Dawn

Do you remmeber the seminal movie "From Dusk Till Dawn"? As your mind recalls the story from crime to vampire, I have to ask the crucial question: Which dawn?
In tropical lands this question is useless of course, because dawn is very short. The sun rises quickly and the light travels with it.
Far away from the equator things are different.
There is the astronomical dawn with the sun 18° below the horizon. It is not so dark anymore, whatever that means. Seemingly some lux crawl across the horizon.
Then there is nautical dawn, with the sun 12° below the horizon. You can already identify the horizon.
Finally civil dawn comes along, the sun 6° below the horizon. The light is bright enough for outdoor activities.
Ten minutes ago I didn't know that. Now I do and it fascinates me. Of course the same classification must work for dusk. I am looking forward to the movie "From Nautical Dusk To Civil Dawn" or maybe "From Civil Dusk To Astronomical Dawn" or...

However, dealing with time, I am glad that there is more to a sunrise, than the grenadine syrup.

Flower Clock (Work in progress 2)

It is getting bigger. I've just read that Carl von Linné (Linneus) actually planted one in Uppsala Sweden. I wonder how much observation time is needed to get to understand this. Maybe Linneus was also standing on the shoulders of giants.
Maybe he had more time than we do. However, I also enjoy having the time to draw this.

Flower Clock (Work in progress 1)

I have mentioned that the floral clock is my favourite. So I have started an attempt to draw one.
These are my humble beginnings.
While outside autumn and winter (also political) are coming, this gives me enough warmth and pleasure to stay optimistic.
A world with floral clocks cannot be entirely bad.

Clock time, social time, body time II

Another representation of the same problem

Clock time, social time, body time

As regards time, I consider this to be the most crucial relation of all. How can we live (body time) together (social time) in the face of pressure on us that is measured, even dictated by clocks (clock time)?
Shouldn't there be a paradigm shift from the power of the clock to the power of the body before it is TOO LATE?

Time for Largo Appassionato

As Friedrich Gulda hammers his fingers into the piano in Beethoven's 2nd Piano Sonata in A Minor (wait a moment I have to replay that bit) I wonder again about time, its representations, the question if it is an illusion, chronobiology and time's more pragmatic aspects of: When shall I get up? and How long shall I boil my egg?
The slow bits of Beethoven's piano sonatas as for instance the Largo Appassionato of the 2nd, give you time. Time to enjoy music even when writing your blog.
Bamm, bamm, bamm jadada da da bam bam bamm. Brilliant.
Ok, ok let's speed up. It's time for Allegretto at least.
No more hammering, more flying across the keys.
My thoughts also start to speed up.
Which means that I am getting confused.
Ah the Scherzo is over.
Now it's Rondo time.
No stop again.
Let's play the Largo Appassionato one more time.
Click there. Double click choose. Click back.
Close your eyes and enjoy !!!

To be rally able to enjoy this blog entry get a version of Gulda plays Beethoven CD One Piano Sonatas 1, 2 and 3. This is not an advertisement. This is not an advertisement.

Bamm, bamm, bamm jadada da da bam bam bamm

The Tooth of Time

Unfortunately the German expression "der Zahn der Zeit" meaning the ravages of time does not exist in English. The tooth of time mercilessly gnaws away everything: beauty, solidity even stone.
Additionally it rots away itself. Teeth are marvelous symbols for our progress through life.
They hurt when they arrive, they cause trouble when they try to leave you again.
From milk teeth to wisdom teeth they are a kind of clock for your biological age or just the detectors for the effects some of your unhealthier habits.
So consider the tooth, from the tooth fairy to the sabre-toothed cat, from cradle to grave, from shining white to utterly rotten.
So the most evident victims of the tooth of time are teeth itself. This idea makes me smile a big smile showing almost all of my teeth.

Today, on my way to the dentist, I passed a border control that held up a number of refugees. I wonder what the future will hold for them and for us. May our teeth rot together in peace and understanding.

25 Years 25 Questions

It is class reunion time.

What is your job now?
Are you married?
Do you have children?
Can you remember xy?
Can you remember what we did to yz?
Where is x?
What happened to y?
Were you there 5 years ago?
Do you still have that hobby?
Do you still ski?
How often?
What are your plans?
Do you still see xyz?
Do you earn a lot of money?
Why do you look much younger than I do?
Where does your belly come from?
Is it the good life?
Do you really speak xy?
How old is your wife?
Do you want children?
What is your wife's job?
Where do we go after closing time?
Is it far?
Is there enough room for all of us?
Is x still here?

That is all you need to know...

However, we had a good time.

Ars Electronica Time 2015

My 10 favourite moments at this year's Ars Electronica Festival in Linz were:

1) 1001 Models of Habitat for the 21st Century, a collection of architect's models from Austria presented in a huge hall at the Post City

2) The venue of the Post City itself

3) 3-D printed sculptures by Nick Ervinck andJonathan Keep

4) The hybrid Art exhibits, especially PSX Consultancy and Teacup Tools

5) The Prix Forum with the winning artists in the category hybrid art

6) Gerfried Stocker's introduction parcours in general

7) The Mercedes F015

8) The Deep Space Presentation of Artwork at a Refugee Settlement in Jordan

9) ESEL-Complain, a self designed bycicle

10) The general atmosphere of the world coming to Linz

Spider Time

This is the image of a dead spider, covered in white mould, hanging in mid-air in front of a cellar grating in front of a bycicle wheel, in front of a backyard, in front of the world.
Tomorrow I will bring a better camera to capture more details.
If you could see the real thing, you would be able to tell how beautiful it is.

In the outside world friends die in motorcycle accidents, refugees die like flies on the open sea and in trucks in the middle of the continent.
Inside I sit and meditate, read Meister Eckhart and drink stinging nettle infusion.
Is this the same world?

When you look at the picture long enough you will realize: It is!

Back from the Beach

Back from the beach, drinking my stinging nettle infusion I want to keep the openness of the sea and the beaches in my head.
How can I achieve that?
When I occasionally step out of my comfort zone, I return with more openness.
It seems to be a time for new paths, new highways, new decisions.
However, I will carry the beach with me, in my mind.
It is always there, and it is always here, too.
It is not a memory but an attitude.

So bury me not in the lone prairie but carry my ashes to the mighty sea.

How can I share my beach-experience with others? That remains to be seen in a time of media transported permanent crisis.

The rocks on that beach have seen many a crisis. They are a billion years old and now they have to face erosion. Limpets lurk upon some of them. Moss and algae grow on others. Soon their billion year old existence will turn into a billion grains of sand.

The show must go on, they say. So lets go back from the beach into the facespooky, business wishy-washy-laden world of racist gobbledegook. But let the rocks and the beach be my companions there.

On the Beach

This is what my beach looks like. I do not own it, but it is my favourite beach. It is near Melvaig in Scotland, quite remote. Just a few people make their way there, because it is hard to reach from the inland road. Sheep and cattle graze above the nearby cliffs. It is sandy but also full of larger rocks.
For me it is also a metaphor for the good things in life or for life in general.
For the moment I have nothing more to say about it.

Time-out Two

Another way to pause, to stop for a moment is to write into the diary. Yes, not the blog, the public, show-off, soul-strip version. No.
I mean the paper and pencil style, secret, modest version, that I occasionally read for myself and very rarely to a friend or my wife.
It has become something special for me, a ritual, a time-out.
At the moment, a plastic bag with all my older diaries stands next to my office chair. It is my treasure, rather vulnerable to fire and vandalism, compared with the cloud-saved 21st century blog, the bioblog, the seemingly unpublished one.
It is my treasure chest, there for a journey into my past.
My joyful, painful, unstructured, well-planned and chaotic past.
There are countless stories in these little books, stories of love and loss, of success and paradise gained, regained and lost again.
As I have time to think about time, I can as well think about my old times, too.
Time for another time-out.

Time-out

Between Alfred Komarek's "Anstiftung zum Innehalten" and Barbara Adam's "Time" the desire for a time-out gains momentum.
A time-out from what?
A time-out from the treadmill, the hamster wheel, as we say in German (Hamsterrad)
And a time-out from the anesthetic that we call our comfort zone. (Thank you Placebo)
But is this not a contradiction?
No, just a slight change of perspective.
A step up the ladder on to a higher plane, or down the ladder to a lower plane, whatever direction you may consider.
Just to gain a broader horizon, that is worth it.
However, do not blame the blind for not being able to see colours.
Never forget how it was in the wheel.
Otherwise you become worse than those caught within.
So between these words of wisdom and the slogans of despair (Thank you New Model Army) do not forget fun.
Another reason to leave your comfort zone once in a while and have a time-out from feeling smug, lazy or powerless.
And consider this candle for reasons you can imagine:

Newtonian Time Management

Time is money. But if time does not exist, will money still be there?
On the safe side of life, in the check-list laden literature of executive training and management skill development, these questions do not exist.
Time is money. Everyone knows that.
But what was this relation like before Benjamin Franklin?
Would Newton and Leibniz still have their dispute in modern turbo-captitalism?
Well, money is not the thing that it used to be - especially not a thing - well not an object. It is mere stardust of binary codes in virtual worlds. Your nice pieces of paper are just the remains of another age.
And time?
Believe me time is money.
Time is also cocoa butter, Brussels sprouts and chocolate fudge.
According to Isaac Newton there is such a thing as time out there. There is also money out there.
So when you have finally succeeded to overcome this equation, time being money, in your ol' grave, you can look back and see if it is/was/will be true.
However, it is incredible what you can win if you spend your time not in the pursuit of money. In some cases you will end up even earning money, too.
Time is money.
I don't think so.
Time is money.
If time is money, we can build a money clock. Without doing any research on that idea, I assume that it already exists.
There is only the need for a periodic oscillation or happening.
You can base your timing on your individual money clock, dependent on how much you earn every year, every month, every day, every hour, every minute, every second, every quantum tick of the universe. Interesting phenomena can be observed with this sort of time: Acceleration with wage raises, complete halts of your personal universe, yes indeed.
I love that.
Time is money.
Time is on my side.
Money is not on my side.
Therefore: Time is not money.
Time to go to some logic classes.
If you open a book on time management called Zeitmanagement, on page 7 you will read: Everybody knows: Time is money.
Although I hate the burning of books, some of them do really deserve that.
And if I am wrong, the words will finally rise like a Phoenix from the ashes and scream:
Time is ice-cream.

NIST F-1 and other clocks

The NIST F-1 is the atomic clock of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado.
Although it is very accurate (it loses about a second in 20 million years) it cannot compete with the Linnean flower clock.
The flower clock captures the beauty of change, whereas the F-1 only counts the oscillations of cesium atoms, which are not meant for the perception of the human eye.
However, for me the perfect description of time is the image below (Could be the marks of the Hershebian lawyer beetle).

Perdurantism and Endurantism

Perdurantism and Endurantism or 4Dism and 3Dism respectively are two ways to describe persistence of objects in time.
My belief that the universe is created anew every instant (how short that instant may be) faces the question of how it does that with keeping rather complex forms almost the same (at least on a macro level)
Otherwise, instead of my body, there would be a chaotic blur of matter in the next moment of time?
Is it really the sheer force of electromagnetic patterns and other forces, or are there essences involved?
And furthermore, what are the pragmatic aspects of these questions?
At least we know, although we keep the same form, on an atomic level we wobble and swing all the time.
Hang on, I have to read more about that.
Then there will be more thoughts about perdurantism, endurantism and eternity.

Tarqeq

the Inuit moon spirit

Reflections on the Yodelling Stick Insect

In the Garden of Five Surprises you will also find the yodelling stick insect.
When I read this for the first time, some four or five years ago, I thought it is some sort of mosquito that yodels before it bites you.
Well, it is an insect at least.
In "reality" it is an insect that is famous for its camouflage and which is simply able to yodel a little.
I imagine that it is really a surprise, when you find out where the yodeling comes from.
From all the surprises in the Garden it is my favorite one.
However, when you are occupied a lot with time theory, the yodelling of the stick insect can be very comforting, much more than its mere human Swiss or Tyrolian counterparts.
Humor is very important, especially in a world like this.
From now on, whenever I will read a newspaper, I will consider the fascinating ways of the yodelling stick insect, as a counterpart to death, torture, famine, terror and whatever you read about every day.
So be it.

What's the time?

Time after time

This could actually mean: again and again.
It does so in the Cindy Lauper song, and in the Miles Davis versions.
However, is there a time after time?
Is time an illusion?
Is it really a dimension?
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time has got 689 pages.
I guess that not a single living human being on this planet can live long enough to understand the total content of the book.
Another time paradox?
It is clear that before time, time didn't exist.
But before that?
I think it is time to smile now.

Eternalists, possibilists, presentists

Romans, countrymen, lovers.
As a learning individual, I have just encountered the fact, that there are several categories of thinking about time.
But do I have to chose. Am I, as usual, not a logic human being when I say:
One day, one day I am an eternalist.
I count the stars and say they were, will be and are now.
Another day I will say:
Och aye. Tomorrow is just an illusion.
And on the third day I will read The Power of Now.
And this is just the beginning…

Time 2 (time in diverse languages)

Zeit           Tyd     ጊዜ      Tiempo     زمن

সময়

Tiempu Zaman Ваҡыт Čiesos Час

Време

সময়

དུས་ཚོད། Amzer Вăхăт Vrijeme

Саг хугасаа

Temps کات Čas Врѣмѧ Amser

Tid

Zeman Χρόνος

Tèimp   Time    Tiempo    Tempo

Aeg

Tiempu  Denbora     زمان   Aika

Temps

Tidj

Timp

Tiid  Am  Tempo  Ára   Sṳ̀-kiên   זמן  समय  Vrijeme

Tan

Idő  Tempore

Waktu

Tími

Tempo Tempo 時間

Wektu

ಕಾಲ  დრო  Уақыт

Wakati

ລາຍຊື່ໜ່ວຍນັບເວລາ  Tempus  Laiks Zäit   Laikas  Tied  Време

കാലം

काळ  Masa

Цаг хугацаа  Cāhuitl Tijd  Tied

समय

ई

Tid  Tempe   Nako  Temps  ସମୟ

ਸਮਾਂ  Czas

Temp  ویلہ   وخت   Tempo   Mit'awi  Timp   Время   Час   Кэм   Tempu   Vrijeme

කාලය

Čas Čas

Nguva  Wakhti  Koha

Wayah  Време

Tid

Wakati

Czas

Замон

เวลา

Wagt

Panahon

Zaman

Вакыт

Час

وقت

Vaqt

Thời gian

时间

時間

Time 1

Time to think about time

Time
Time to think about time
More time
End?

Silence

Birdsong and wet grass pave my way
A new beginning
Silence

Undo technology

How do you undo technology?
Is it like tearing your implant out and try to live without it, or is it just like throwing your crutches away, learning again to walk.
Consider the car. I must admit that I occasionally dream of a world without cars, or at least with much less. Then I watch another episode of "Game of Thrones" and wonder what a White Walker would do with a combustion engine.
But what about electricity. Can we undo the power grid?
Can we undo agriculture and be hunter-gatherers again?
Hmm.
What are the next steps? Brain implants and exoskeletons?
I guess this looks like a one-way dead-end street.
There seem to be options, however. We can differentiate the world into high and low tech-zones without today's divide into western and third worlds. At least it seems that we can trash our smart phones, light a candle and kiss someone we love.
Can we undo technology?
It seems easier to make gold out of lead by staring at it.
"Lets turn of the TV just for a while and whisper to each other in the dark" A 1990ies song.
Too many words again?
Undoing some technology might make this blog obsolete.
Maybe I could engrave something into rock, and call it a block.
Enough for today.
Buh-bye.

Stage II

There will be a new beginning soon. No one will notice that. It happens continuously, all the time.
It starts with an exercise.
You have to look for a place with nice clean ground, or soft meadow. Then you kneel and imagine that you are a seed. You follow the first stage of growth, of a sapling out of the seed with your body and stand up, break through the surface and feel the light of the sun.
You can do this several times (after intervals of a day or so) until you feel fresh and newly born.
Make sure to read the proper guidelines for this exercise in the Paolo Coelho book.
Then feel free to start all over again.
The initial reason to name this blog bioblog, was not only the association with biography but also with biology. This is over now. No regrets.
It is all biography and no biology any more.
I am just kidding.
Everything is in flux.
Stage two of meditation is to gain total peace of mind, no thoughts, just a clear head. It is just a stage on the journey to an all encompassing mindfulness.
And still the journey exists just here and now.
We make too many words.
So stage II will have less words, more silence.
Silence
Si...

Simplify

Buried under tons of matter, we dig ourselves out to breathe again. We throw away all the things we don't need. All the things we've never needed, we don't need them now. What do we need? Not much. There are even people who have less then that. So much chemistry in all that dead matter, that wants to come alive again, to be used, to be read to be listened to: not necessarily by us.
So what else is there to do at the beginning of the journey that is the rest of our lives. Throw away more ballast. Get rid of matter, ropes and weight. Fly!
Start with the basement and the attic. Demons are hiding there, Bauernbergpark Men and Goschpoidls, frozen in matter. Go through all your surroundings and free yourself. A totem here, a soft toy there…
Finally the day is over. You can rest but you fell that tomorrow you can encounter everything lighter, less concerned, fearless.
You have mastered your own dungeon. Hello world!

Privateering

It looks as if the following posts all have the title of a Mark Knopfler album. All for the sake of writing something. Stuck between "Kingdom of Gold" and some episode in "All Men Must Die" I try to practice my writing skills.
Just recently I have been invited to contribute to a journal blog but I cannot do that. It is enough to have two blogs for myself and I think I could not meet that journal editor's expectations.
Who is interested in Bauernbergpark Men and Goschpoidls?
Ah yes. Goschpoidls. I decided yesterday that the female Goschpoidls are the worst. Although they seem to be rarer than their male counterparts a group of them in a train coach where you are locked in with them for an hour or so can really annoy you to death. Even the shouts by another woman: "quiet please" were ignored completely. My secret weapon, the ear plugs had to be replaced by iPhone, headset and "Down to the Waterline". That did the trick.
In Vienna they were gone. No more Goschpoidls in the underground and on the train back. What a relief.
I must admit, that I am listening to Privateering now. Knopfler has really brought music back into my life. I am very grateful for that although I use his older music as secret weapon against Goschpoidls.
I have just learned a word as good as Goschpoidl. It is gobbledegook (In German Kauderwelsch).
Why don't you learn these words at school but from a Knopfler album 25 years after leaving school.
Life is strange and full of Goschpoidls and gobbledegook.

Tracker

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary a tracker is a person who can find people or wild animals by following the marks that these leave on the ground.
It is also Mark Knopfler's latest album.
I am listening to "Lights of Taormina" and enjoying myself. I got that CD from my mother for Easter. A nice idea, given that I will go to a Knopfler concert in July.
To be honest I haven't paid much attention to what he did after the Dire Straits who were one of my favorite bands when I was young.
That will change soon. After listening to "Tracker" for the fifth time now, I have the feeling that this music goes well with my favorite Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash tracks (not to forget Dylan)
It is not only the guitar playing, that was the center of the ol' Dire Straits stuff, but also really the lyrics and the composition of the songs.
These are real stories. Good ones. Intense ones.
I am looking forward to the July concert and hope to be able to hear more of his stories then.

Natural History Museum

In an unpublished bioblog this picture is indispensable.

After more than 1000 km on diverse trains I fantasize that the Bauernbergpark Man was an incarnation of him. At least the beard is similar. So as I don't have a picture of the Man, now you can see how he looked like.
After more than 10 hours on diverse trains, I cannot think of anything more interesting.
I could take a copy of "The Origin of Species" and reason about it. No, not today.
After London, Pevensey, Eastbourne, Battle, Margate, Stansted, Lille, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Passau I feel a little tired.
On the other hand I feel as satisfied as this guy:

I mean the Blue Whale, not one of the Rhinos.

See, after Téléphone, the Tiger Lillies and Queen and of course The Grateful Dead, I will go to sleep now and dream of a better blog post.

The sofa at the edge of the forest

Again, the Greatful Dead are the inspiration for my writing. Just a box of rain…
And "The Restaurant at the End of the universe" by Douglas Adams is the godfather for the title of this post.
The sofa at the edge of the forest. "I don't know who put it there" the Greatful Dead are singing into my ears through my headphones. Whereas they mean the box of rain, I mean a symbol for irresponsible idiocy.
Someone put a sofa there. You can still see the tire tracks of the mini-van they must have used.
The only one who would have liked that is the Bauernbergpark Man.
However, this is not at the Bauernbergpark, but at about a distance of 30 miles from that.
Now it looms there, blue and gray, losing color in the spring rainfall.
It is there a week now although the local authorities know about it.
A 21st century bullshit memorial.
It really made me angry.
Now as I walk by every day with the dog the anger is gone.
In the town there was the Bauernbergpark Man, here it is the sofa, that reminds me how luxurious my life is. I can afford to bring my old sofas to the waste dump, although I have the one with the black leather pillows stored away in the cellar, I must confess.
So I am waiting.
Waiting for the day when the sofa is gone again.
I hope it will be replaced by nothing.
Maybe at night, with the full moon out, the ghost of the Bauernbergpark Man will sit on the sofa and roll a cigarette. Then he will smoke it before he will start one of his rituals.
I won't care much for I will be lying in my bed, dreaming of an edge of the forest without sofas and Bauernbergpark Men.

Attics of my life (A goodbye to Terry Pratchett)

This is the name of my funeral song, preferably the live version. And then "We'll meet again" by Johnny Cash is also in the top three.
Maybe someone can take care of that.
Not that I plan this funeral to be soon, but who knows.
I've just heard a story about a funeral today, about a priest saying a Latin mass. I guess that inspires me now - and of course the Grateful Dead song.
It is sooo beautiful.
And ah yes.
Terry Pratchett left us yesterday. SOMEONE visited him and took Terry with HIM. The story REAPER MAN, when Death sets out to learn how to forget becomes rather tragic in the context of Terry's illness.
In the attics of his life there must have been many things. He was the only writer I have read (maybe except Matt Ruff) who was able to describe the doors to insanity properly. (In the Wee Free Men). He showed how expendable the whole "Lord of the Rings" story is in "Witches Abroad"- "Beware of the slimy ones- they are the trouble makers" and he really made me rolling on the floor laughing. One time someone even came to check my room to see if I was OK. It was just "Interesting Times" or "The Colour of Magic" or "Eric" or "Small Gods".
I hoped for a moment that it was a mistake. That someone had not seen the sign "I aten't dead".
I once fantasized, that I was in a bar with three witches, who staged a play to bring back his memory. In my fantasy it worked and he left, writing some more books.
Now he might be able to see again. If his version of the afterlife is true, he might rest in deaths domain for a while, feeding a cat, talking to the raven or the Death of Rats, and then he would go to the place in which he believed, Great A'Tuin, roaming space with four elephants on her back, carrying the Disk, the mirror of all worlds, forever and ever…

PACITA Conference

1) The venue, the food and the entertainment were brilliant. However, one participant I talked to observed that to focus on these issues is not the goal of a conference. The  “Neue Mälzerei” and the “Umweltforum” add atmosphere to TA talks. And I liked the dancing on Thursday evening. Let’s rock TA.

2) Before the conference there was a workshop on OpenTA, an Internet platform of NTA (Netzwerk TA), which was a nice warm-up for the conference and gave me insights into the possible use of www to connect among TA practitioners and especially to have a platform for news and publications.

3) The keynotes by Naomi Oreskes and Roger Pielke were interesting but caught up in a very US American context. For me they were all about identifying the bad guys.

4) My favourite talk was by Armin Grunwald about a hermeneutic approach toward prospective TA. He argued that hermeneutics are the only way to deal with a maximum of openness with respect to foresight and that it enables us to learn more about our present ideas about the future and possibilities to act.

5) Virgil Rerimassie gave talks about engaging politicians with respect to the issue of synthetic biology. Although both talks were rather similar I enjoyed the positive rhetoric and the commitment.

6) The poster presentation was a bit weird and too short for my taste. However, the atmosphere of the Umweltforum saved that one, too.

7) The organizing team was extremely helpful and also guarantee a smooth process and environment for the conference.

8) Alexander Bogner retold the story of problematic aspects of early engagement with technologies, not only in the face of the Collingridge dilemma, but with respect to participatory approaches, that might lack the desired outputs of legitimization and gain of additional knowledge.

9) As regards methods, the conference was a treasure chest, starting from ITA’s CIVISTI and going as far as the use of narrative design objects.

10) However, I experienced some repetitions and redundancies on the conference with what I knew before and with what I have heard on other conferences. I think this means, when I selected the talks that I went to, I did not leave my comfort zone. On the other hand: it was a comfortable conference.

Snow white

Ups and downs, night black and snow white.

These are snow crystals, lots of them.

I used to live among them.

Now I am a tourist between them.

Still they make me happy like a child or a polar bear.

Snow white, and black as night.

Going into detail

After 40 minutes in the Medical Museum in Copenhagen (http://www.museion.ku.dk) I have to post these beautiful microscopes:

And they shall be a metaphor for looking into details. 40 minutes gave me enough time to be impressed by the wonderful museum that contains everything from the monstrous to the magic, from the ugly to the genius.

There was the Femme Vitale, a sculpture made of the average amount of pills that you would take in your lifetime, an exhibition on obesity and a biohacker lab, among other brilliant things (see website).

But what do you get in 40 minutes…

An impression of the surface.

The microscopes show, that from epidemology to the human micro-biome there is always a way to dig deeper.

And to learn Danish for a start, to be able to get the few untranslated bits too.

To make another advertisement in my blog: If in Copenhagen - go there !!!

Come as you are

Following the findings of positive psychologists 50% of the variance in the happiness of a population is determined by the genetic setup. Only 10% are determined by life circumstances.
40% is in your hands.
However, the first secret for all you scientific happiness searchers out there is to accept this ratio.
Then let's start working on that:
Don't expect too much from the circumstances but marry, have children, do a fulfilling job and try to stay healthy and the 10% are yours: no kidding
Let's tackle the 40.
Sleep regularly, do exercise and try to achieve something in your job or studies.
That's the baseline.
Then devote time to your friends and relatives, express gratitude frequently, be helpful, be optimistic about the future, live in the present moment, commit yourself to lifelong goals, and take setbacks easy.
So you can tune your happiness.
The other 50% we will leave aside for the moment, because that gets us into the realms of synthetic biology phantasms and eugenics.
Having said all of this (and I think that giving it a try is an excellent endeavor) my personal only true suggestion is:
Come as you are