Prove that you are not a robot

Ha. Welcome to the 21st century. Finally someone told me to prove that I am not a robot.
What else do I have to say.

Goschpoidlistan

Austria is Goschpoidlistan, the land of the Goschpoidls. A Goschpoidl is usually a male human being whose job it is to irritate you completely.

My recent Goschpoidl encounters happened on the train between Vienna and Linz and on a mountain summit in Upper Austria.

The train-Goschpoidl seems to be a social worker, a really unusual profession for a Goschpoidl. However, his task is to involve you in a conversation by making statements about your computer. After this he will make sexist or other doubtful comments and drink his beer all along. I adore him, because he looks so harmless and humble: But beware of the Goschpoidl: He is a full-bred xenophobe and sexist.

The other Goschpoidl roams the mountains of Upper Austria and Steiermark. He tries to bemoan the weather if he can and then sit on your lap for a rest.

I wonder what the Bauernbergpark Man would have to say to the matter of Goschpoidls.

Another poem (German)

Schon lange nicht mehr

Ich habe schon lange nicht mehr

Die weißen Rosen gesehen

Die rund um die Kirche wachsen

Habe schon ewig nicht mehr

Deine Stimme gehört

Wie du mich in den Schlaf flüsterst

Schon lange nicht mehr

Habe ich das Salz des Meeres

In meiner Nase gefühlt

Lange nicht mehr

Den Schnee auf meinen Händen

Schmelzen gespürt

Nicht mehr

Denke ich an jene Tage zurück

An denen die Sonne lachte

Mehr

von alldem kann ich mir gern wünschen

Doch was kommt ist ungewiss

Collingridge Dilemma

The Collingridge dilemma is about unpredictability. It is about the fact that you cannot predict the future. This sounds rather pathetic for such a nice name. I mean, isn’t it obvious?

However, it is about unpredictability in the very narrow context of technology assessment or better the social control of technology. Nevertheless, we struggle hard to avoid future analogues of the atomic bomb.

Instead of sitting still, doing nothing but sitting, we carry on to do research to become faster than our problems, our destiny, faster than light: and this in the face of the Collingridge dilemma.

An old Austrian song about the new wave of motorcycling in the 1950ies states: “I don’t know where I am going to, but I’ll be the first one there.” That is the power of technoscientific innovation. And the scientists themselves are the best motorcyclists by adding: “We are just curious”.

In the Collingridge dilemma of everyday life we have our experiences and base our assumptions on them. Maybe that is the reason why we survive. The problem is that no two moments in time are the same, and so are the places.

We keep on struggling against this constant change and so we suffer.

Back to technology assessment: After two days at a TA conference in Vienna I am sure that we need some time to catch up with what already exists, instead of pushing the frontier further. But maybe we can never achieve this.

In a world without technology, the Collingridge dilemma is gone. But will we still be there?

Black Swan

Again I don’t have to say much. This picture speaks for itself. I knew that they exist but I have never seen one before. So behold, the black swan.

Sintra

Sintra. South West Europe. Portugal.
I roam the palaces with my friend from Kasachstan, telling him stories about Conchita Wurst. Then I see him:

He is creation and I even forget about Wurst. I consider the contrast to the Lisbon suburbs that I just had crossed and think of the Bauernbergpark Man.

He would like to live in this park instead. The climate is ideal for Bauernbergpark Men...

Humble and touched I will return home.

I have seen a place with more tourists than in Salzburg.

Cool

It is nice and fascinating though, especially when you walk a bit away from the main tracks.

However, cu soon.

Always leaving town

It is time to travel again. The luggage I’ve left behind or even thrown away is my PhD.

So I am travelling lighter now.

I’ll go to Linz, Wels, Graz, Vienna, Lisbon and back. All I need to do is listen. All I need to do is to perform – and listen some more time.

This is good. There is not too much thinking involved, just breathing in, listening, breathing out, breathing in, performing and finally breathing out again. Nothing more and nothing less than that.

I have recently considered publishing my poetry. However, who cares about that. People tend not to read poetry nowadays, and you cannot compete with Rilke or Whitman.

So what.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Maybe I will put some more of my poems on the blog. However, I will have to discuss this with my manager and best man first.

This morning I read some statistics on pickpockets. Barcelona seems to be pickpocket paradise.

Lisbon is on rank 8 among European cities and regions.

So when I come back I still want to have this device and my other belongings.

So what?

Breathing out.

The traveller is always leaving town…

Trainology, Timeology, Sociogology

Trainology is the science of sitting in a train, and even sometimes standing and is an interdisciplinary endeavor. It is partly anthropology and partly sociology. And science and technology studies because the train is moving.
Case study: Why do people not grasp the concept of silent coaches?

Timeology is more of an art form between physics, sociology and time management. I have stolen the term from Douglas Adams of course.
Case study: Why is it that we cannot own time and why that is a pity for capitalism?

Sociogology is not a misspelling of sociology. No. It is the sociology of sociogols, who are a subgroup of sociologists who call themselves sociogols.
Case study: The history of sociolé.

Of course we can invent many names for sciences. Some are more accurate or important some are less entertaining. There are as many sciences as band names.
Still the guys, two rows away, keep ranting on about bullshit, as loud as possible, using the cell phone too, sitting in the silent coach.
Still I wonder, where the saying "time is money" comes from. Please don't tell me. Sure it was not Buddha who said that.
Still I miss my sociogolic friends sometimes. Discussions in the dark. Social sociology, not desktop sociology. Lively, interactive, multi-facetted.

I'm not far from home, still on the train, still listening to the silent coach barbarians, still considering:

Trainology, Timeology, Sociogology

Regenesis

This makes me wonder a lot about people’s intentions, although it seems to be about science.

I am on a train in a tunnel on the way from Vienna back to Linz and the train has stopped.

That gives me time again to consider the question: Can we simply stop?

Stop? Sit and watch?

Watch the flowers grow, the water flow by, the clouds pass?

Or do we have to be faster, ever faster to escape doom, to run to the hills, to act as quickly as possible? Be quick or be dead?

The real Regenesis would not be a material one; it would be one of our minds.

I am a preacher of slowness, of solitude, emptiness and nothing.

Not even that. I am a passenger in a quiet world, I don’t move, I sit still even at high speeds. Yes

Regenesis: Why would we want to change something that is recreated every instant.

Why, I wonder?

Solitude