Ministry of Truth

It seems my worries about the latest governement crisis are irrelevant if not entirely redundant. And I am making peace with the fact that I myself am highly fictitious.

If you believe you live in Belgium, you would do well to try this link instead. Scroll down and click on "Belgium doesn't exist". Mentally prepare yourself to have your fundaments thoroughly reshuffled. When you're ready to accept your lot, come find me at my fictitious address and we can go hunt down a fictitious pint to wash away our highly fictitious troubles.

Thx Tom, for opening my eyes! It goes a long way to explaining my persistent existentialist crisis.

Proof is in the Pudding

My therapist...

(yes, I own one)

... has mentioned the once or twice that the number of thoughts and ideas for new projects buzzing around my head, combined with the many unfinished personal projects I have on the go, make even HER feel a little exhausted. Top that off with a subtle dusting of impatience and focus issues on my part, and it's a recipe for disaster.

A quick glance around my flat leads me to think she might just be on to something...

books 1&2:

book 3: book 4: books 5&6: book 7:

This is nothing new. There are pictures out there somewhere of a 7-year old Le Pew watching television whilst reading a book AND constructing some dodgy lego-technic invention, all at once. The parental units used to fire questions at me to verify whether I really did follow what was on TV AND in the book at the same time. Legend has it my feedback was accurate. Altho this might be the stuff of parental myth-making, it proves that my attention is scattered, to say the least.

It was with great pain then, that I decided to put books 1 to 6 back on the shelf, imposing an embargo on their re-un-shelving until book number 7 (Critical Mass by Philip Ball) has been thoroughly completed.

I believe sane people called it "focus". A neologism to many a neuron in my system.

I may need to consult my GP about the unabated side-effect: a continuous itch to grab an extra item to occupy myself with.

Free Market & Economics*

While I am a physicist by background, my current job requires a basic knowledge of a great many other subjects, which is exactly the way I like it. My boss, despite being a scientist by background also, is a very clever economist, which proves that one really needn't limit one's self to just the one field of study. You'll often find that people trained in more than one field, have an unusual and often interesting perspective on things.

To do my job well, it would be handy to have a better grasp on the basic principles of economics. So I've decided to spend a few weeks studying the subject in my spare time. And I have to say, I find it fascinating.

I'm guilty of participating in many a naive student protest against globalisation and free-market economies. While my peers and I undoubtedly had our hearts in the right place, I think few of us really knew what we were demonstrating against. And if we did, we certainly didn't have any alternatives on offer. These days, I firmly believe that it is pointless to argue something's rebuttal until you have a solid alternative. Which means you should study hard to find one.

In reality, there seems to be no such thing as a free-market. At least not a working example of it. Authorative regulations are strewn throughout the global market. And I believe this is neither a good nor a bad thing.

To me, it seems that our current economic model is first a reflection of our human nature and second, an endpoint of an intricate system seeking its natural balance. Those who know a little about Complexity Theory, will know that when many small components (like humans, businesses, governments) interact, some regular and predictable patterns emerge, often evolving towards some statistical state of balance (or in mathematical terms: towards an attractor).

To clarify my viewpoint, an example:

There are many rules in place to regulate the approval of new medicines. Before a drug can be put onto the market, it needs to go through a lengthy approval process. A patent needs to be applied for, the Company needs to prove that it is safe and efficient by means of extensive clinical data and if it wants to be reimbursed by the state, it will need to prove that is differentiated from other existing products and provides a substantial benefit for the patient... and so on.

Not only is this process lengthy, it is a costly investment too. While the government has put these regulations in place to protect society, it has led to a predictable downside: Because the cost of bringing a new product to market is high, it is justifiable only if there is a big market for it. In other words, unless Companies know that the product will be bought by a large group of individuals, it's hardly worth making it. They want a big profit margin, and a large return on investment.

As a direct result, Companies stopped trying to find medications for rare diseases. Fairly logical and predictable, if you think about it. Not enough people will buy it, so the return on investment is too small to even be considered as a viable option.

But our system keeps itself in balance: The Authorities came up with a new way to counter this downside. It created the status of "Orphan Drug". An Orphan Drug is a drug designed to treat rare conditions, generally with a prevalence of less than 5 per 10,000 people. If a company invests in making an Orphan Drug, the authorities reward the company with an extra 10 years of Market Exclusivity for that product.

Basically, products are standardly protected by a 20-year patent. This gives the Company up to 20-years of market monopoly, in which they can try to make enough money to regain their investment. After those 20-years, the patent generally expires (unless legal action is taken to extend it), and other companies can start making their own versions of it. But if you have invested in an Orphan Drug, the Authorities will grant you an extra 10-years of Market Exclusivity and this makes it more appealing for drug Companies to develop medicines to treat rare diseases. This new rule ensures that the general public gets what it needs and that the companies are happy.

Many would argue that this proves that a Free Market doesn't work, because the Authorities had to interfere. But this situation (in which companies stopped investing in rare diseases) was created by Authority interference in the first place, so it wasn't a Free Market to start with. At least, that's what I think. I believe the idea of a Free Market is a utopic idea. It'll never exist.

Instead, I feel that the current Market is an excellent example of action-reaction at work between many small components and a fairly balanced system emerging as a result of that interaction. I also believe, and I may be very wrong about this: that the Authorities are an intrinsic part of that economic system. It's not an external meddler, but an intrinsic part or our current economic model. I don't think you can think of the Market and the Authorities as individual systems entirely. They constantly feed on and into eachother and without the other, they wouldn't exist. The Market represents our human nature. So do the Authorities. They are driven by the same underlying principles (albeit with differing motives, humans have conflicting interests after all) and are simply smaller parts of the whole.

And like many dynamic complex systems, the balance will continuously shift. It's evolving. The recent move towards organic food, is a good example. It's due to an interplay between people's wants (healthy food) and people's needs (new money-earning products).

We are the key-players in this. It is our intrinsic nature that drives the economy. Our choices, needs and nature drive the economy. So I find it highly simplistic to pronounce our current economic model "bad" or "good".

It's simplistic nor simple. But fascinating, if anything.

*Disclaimer: my knowledge of economics is in an ongoing state of flux. My opinions and insights are likely to evolve. Deductions made in this blogpost are mine. As are fallacies in logic. Feel very free to comment and put me right.

At 17 (Cue Janis Joplin)

The last few weeks, I've been pondering what it would be like to meet my 17-year old self again. A decade seems to have made all the difference. My intrinsic nature, quite logically, hasn't changed. But my opinions and attitudes to life, my self-perception... they've undergone drastic changes. And while that's surely a good thing, I do regularly try to tap back in to who I was when I was 17.

I remember the strong opinions I held and vowing to myself that I would never forget what I felt right there and then. And I haven't forgotten. I can recall the motivations behind those opinions, the emotions associated with them and can trace the changes all the way back to where I am today. On some things, I've blatantly taken a 180 degree turn. And while I feel I have done so with reason, I always wonder whether I would be able to explain myself to the 17-year old Le Pew.

If you could. Would you meet up with yerself? If you could go to dinner with who you were 10, 20, 30 years ago... would you? And if so, what would you try to convey to yourself, if anything at all?


I for one would like to go for dinner with Pew17, although the first issue would most likely be the choice of restaurant. Pew17 is a devoted vegetarian. I'm a reborn carnivore. However, since I'm the one most likely to pay for said meal, Pew17 will simply have to swallow the proverbial beef. I'd like to have a beer or perchance a glass of wine to accompany my meal, but Pew17 refuses alcohol or drugs of any kind. I'd confidently wear bootcut jeans, boots and a snug sleeveless top, while Pew17 is desperately trying to hide her (imaginary) Pluto-sized arse with a monstrously baggy T-shirt and one of dad's old jumpers.

Five minutes after the waitress has brought us our drinks, the ash-tray on the table will start to overflow with shredded napkin or beer cards. We're both fidgetters and it's highly likely that the labels will be peeled off both our drink bottles before the starter arrives. When the waitress walks past, we'll both sneak a quick peek at her bum. We'll feel slightly guilty at the overt sexism of our actions, but it's something we've never quite been able to control.

Pew17 will stare at me when I'm not looking, wondering how this could be her in a decade. She'll be disappointed with the fact that I've blatantly never had the guts to get a funkier hairstyle. Sad too, to see that the spots haven't all cleared. But happy that she'll succeed at shedding half a stone.

I know what the first question on her mind is. It's the one that'll keep her awake at night for another year or so. But she will wait to ask, as she's not sure I'd still understand. And I will wait to tell, as it's the topic most worth discussing. We'd need to ease into it.

I'll first tell her that I didn't become an astronaut. Not a space-engineer. No job at NASA. And that NASA disbanded the height-restrictions just before I went to uni, so that the choice not to become an astronaut, was entirely in my own hands.

She'll ask me how much longer she has to wait before she gets to move to Colorado. And I'd reply that we now have a rather distinct disdain for anything American. That the US flag got thrown in the bin a few months after we started uni. She'll growl at me. Tell me off for forgetting the promise I'd made to myself "not to settle for local". I'll tell her we didn't. That we left when we were 20 and only just properly returned a few months ago. And that it's been a fun - unamerican- wild ride.

She'll ask me who I vote for. And I would explain the concept of libertarianism. I would let her in on how things stopped being so black and white, just a few years ago. That opinions are not always a clear-cut thing. That she should watch Dogville, to understand what I mean. That it is possible for your gut to believe in one thing, but your mind to forfeit to another idea altogether. That the most important way to make a difference, is in first degree: by affecting those around you.

When my mobile phone rings, I'll pick up and say: "Hey babe! Can I ring you back in a wee hour? I'm having dinner just the now. Yeah, we're still at the restaurant. Uhuh. Yeah she ordered the vegetarian." She'll go quiet. I will let her mill it over. Then she'll take a deep breath and try: "Was that... your boyfriend?" I'll grin. "What do you think? What do you hope?"

She'll sigh and say that she honestly no longer knows what to hope for. I'll tell her it was my girlfriend and that she'd save herself a lot of time and energy, if she would only stop worrying about defining herself.

She'll scratch her neck, fiddle with her bottle and then she'll blurt out: "Does it ever get easy?" Yes it does. You'll learn to tune into yourself and pick it up in others. You'll learn not to fall for straight women. To not limit yourself to a label. To explore the fluidity of your sexuality without restraints. Without guilt. You'll figure out that you can be both genders, regardless of your sex. You'll figure out how not to be panicked by the stereotypes. How to work around them. To become your own definition. That the spectrum is there to move around on freely, without having to settle down.


She'll ask me for some advice. We've always had the inclination to skip to the final chapter of the book before starting page 1. I would like to tell her to be more lenient on others and to be kinder to herself. To ignore mirrors and explain to her the difference between good mirrors and bad ones. And that since the only good mirror is based in the toilets of a club in Dublin, all others are bound to make one look fatter than one really is, so it is best to ignore them altogether. I would like to tell her not to panic. To learn to count on herself. To never settle for second best. I would tell her to pay attention. That time goes by faster than she thinks. I'd tell her not to burn her diaries, because memory goes downhill fast. To not waste her time playing poker at the pub all day, the first year at uni. I'd tell her to trust her own instincts, because they never lead us astray.

That's the advice I'd like to share with her. But I won't. I need her to make the same mistakes all over again. To discover what I've learned. Changing her, would mean changing who I am today, and for the first time since long, I actually quite like me.


But I would tell her this, before parting ways:

"Your fear of loneliness is misdirected. What stifles you now, will become your drive. And the only thing holding you back, ever, is yourself."

As she slips onto her moped to set off home, I will shout after her: "And don't leave your moped at the house in France, once the house goes up for sale!!"

The Sunday Struggle #11

Are you stuck in your carsey today, with nishta to fake but to fiddle your luppers? Need some bona jogger, or a few hints at web-charper worthy subjects? Grab yourself a pogy bevvy and just varda below. I've screeved pogy tips:

1. Learn Polari, the forgotten Gay language.
Polari was developed in Britain in the 1950s as a secret code to communicate. Homosexuality was very much illegal still and it was a means to escape detection by police.

2. Compile a ransom note with the help of the Visual Dictionary

It's a collection of images of words, found in our urban environment. (Thnx Lynne for this excellent find!)

3. Watch a movie/sit-com without paying or stealing at TV Link
A huge selection of high quality films and series you can watch online for free without the need to download them to your laptop illegaly first. (Thnx Matt & Val for this tip)

4. Take time out to think about what you're thinking: The Thought Project
Photographer Simon Hoegsberg took three months to stop strangers in the street, asked them what they had been thinking about the exact moment he stopped them. He recorded their answers on a dictaphone and then took their picture. His website is a very interesting collection of their random thoughts. (Via Ine)

5. Sound familiar? The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon:
Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. The reason for this is our brains' prejudice towards patterns. Our brains are fantastic pattern recognition engines, a characteristic which is highly useful for learning, but it does cause the brain to lend excessive importance to unremarkable events.
(Thnx Disco, u know I love patterns and emergence ;-)

6. Get stuck in the fallacy of logic, the wonder of incentives and some sound economic-cultural thinking at Freakonomics.

7. Break out of the box by separating your circle of concern & circle of influence:In Excellent and in hindsight obvious little strategy on where to focus your energy (Thnx Jo)

"looking at ways to influence and change our surroundings it is helpful to notice where we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns--our health, our family, problems at work, the national debt, etc., and it is these things in our lives that make up our Circle of Concern. As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them in a smaller Circle of Influence."

8. Those of u expecting a new offspring any time soon, would do well to read this article first before choosing a name ;-)

PS: Since I've started the Sunday Struggle, I've received some excellent tips from many of you, so please do keep them coming! ;-)

Observing The Habitat

What do you pack on your first visit to the girlfriend's natural habitat? I had a chocolate cake and ample supply of Belgian cookies, but surely I was supposed to bring some other stuff too? Clothes yes. But which ones? Packing makes me feel uncharacteristically girlie. And there's no point bringing your entire wardrobe, cuz that'll just make you look like a right tit. Plus, Jo's chivalrous and only wee, so it's not fair bringing a bag twice her size. She'll only insist on carrying it to the car for me anyway.

After a lot of faffing, I settled on a weekend-sized duffel-bag full of freshly laundered clothing, the basic toiletries, a notebook to jot down my observations and a good book in case Jo would tire of my rambling at any point over the weekend. I turned up at the airport way before schedule, and lost about 5 years of my life when this cheery announcement sent me off in a wee panic:

- Leeds Bradford: Cancelled -

As it turns out, only 14 people had signed on for the flight to Leeds Bradford, and despite the 300 euro airfare per person, BMI simply couldn't be arsed chartering a separate plane for such a small group. So instead, they transferred us all over onto the semi-full East Midlands flight, told us we were lucky to still get a flight out and dropped us of at Leeds Bradford via detour, a whole 2 hours later than expected. If I hadn't been so relieved that it wasn't a proper cancellation, I would have kicked up a real fuss.

But then, my mind was on my final destination, for just this once. My mind slid out of focus, however, when I had to make my way through customs. As I dropped my bag onto the X-ray belt and placed the chocolate cake on a separate tray, a very scary thought crossed my mind: What if... what IF, the bakery accidentally left a knife in the chocolate cake while making it? I mean, it happens. Not often. But it happens. And it would be just my luck that the knife would accidentally be forgotten inside the ONE cake to be scanned at a high-security airport that day now wouldn't it? I was in half a mind to just bin the cake entirely, but then decided that my neurosis was simply in overdrive, and stepped through security with my fingers crossed.

Just as my cake was passing through the X-ray, the lady in charge called her two superiors and stopped the conveyor belt. They eyed me up suspiciously for a few minutes whilst talking amongst themselves and finally turned to me with the words: "Is it a good cake?"

It took me a moment to gather my wits and I eventually replied: "Well Sir, that depends on why you want to know?" To which he said: "We were just thinking of keeping it." "Oh well then, it's a bad one," I replied. Which made him grin as he handed the cake back over to me.

Looks like I wasn't about to be arrested for suspicious knife-smuggling after all.

- Angel of the North in Brussels??-

I took a big risk flying without my lucky travel-sock, but I figured I'd just about all the luck I needed, waiting for me at the other end of the channel ;-)

There's something peculiar about long-distance relationships. No matter how close you've become, no matter how long you've known each other for, there's always a refreshed amount of flutters, nerves and shyness each time you meet up again. It generally takes an hour to settle back into where you last left off, but the fantastic aspect of it is, that you switch into an accelerated gear after that. You have both made a conscious effort to make time for each other for those few days, and you can well and truly focus on each other and on what it is you both want to do. It's remarkably fluid and intense.

While it was my first visit to Jo's habitat, it felt very much like coming home. I did warn her that I wasn't quite sure whom I'd kiss first: Her or the British Soil. I'd not been back to the UK since I left for New Zealand last August, so I'd more than missed Britain. But when I walked through the gate and saw her pretty smile flash back at me, I couldn't resist kissing her first ;-)

She offered to carry my bag for me and I was relieved I'd stuck to a weekend-sized bag.

The drive to her house was a quiet one. We squeezed each other's hands a fair few times, but we were both settling into that strange mixture of re-acquaintance and excitement, and it felt nice to just sit there, among all the tension and unspoken thoughts, with her next to me.

Walking through her front door was like finally finding another difficult piece of the puzzle I was trying to solve. When you meet someone long-distance, it takes a while longer before you get to see the clear picture of each other. You fall in love gradually. Bits of the puzzle are revealed to you only slowly through texts, e-mails, phone conversations and the stolen moments spent together. But a person's home, where they keep their memories, where the rooms are drenched in their daily routines, can reveal substantially more to you than any conversation can. And as such, every new encounter is like falling for someone all over again, only deeper.

It's been a while since I've had such an indulgent, relaxing weekend. We went wherever the flow took us. Much to our surprise, we actually successfully made it out of the house a few times. Strolled the lovely historic streets of the town, hunted down some poached eggs for breakfast, indulged in a traditional Sunday Roast down a local pub, spent a night on the town with some friends, whiled away some time over coffee at Borders while perusing (and buying) books. All incredibly relaxing.

I have a major thing with books. When I was little, my mum arranged it so that I could have three library cards instead of just the one, enabling me to take out 15 books a week. And when I'd made my way through most of what the local library had on offer, my dad started taking me to FNAC once a month, where I would be allowed to buy as many books as I wanted, provided they were of a certain level (was never allowed to buy "the baby-sitter's club" ;-)) And I think to me, those visit to the library and bookstore were like the proverbial visits to the candy shop.

So I love bookshops. And thankfully, it's a passion shared by Jo. I love strolling through them for hours, sitting on the floor in front of a section that tickles my interest, just perusing the books on offer. I genuinely feel that Belgium still lacks on bookshop-culture. Most good bookstores in Britain have coffee shops incorporated in them, and there's sofas strewn throughout the entire shop where you can cosy up for a wee read. There's few things more invigorating than having all that information and story-telling at your fingertips, while being given the time to browse them at leisure.

The nice thing about relationships then, is that you get given a second set of eyes. And because Jo loves books as much as I do, we were feeding off each other in the bookstore. She'd spot things I had missed and vice versa, and while our topics of interest don't necessarily always overlap, our interest in each other enriches the perusing experience. After much oooh-ing and aaaah-ing, I walked out with a book on Banksy's artwork, a photography book on emerging patterns and "Freakonomics", a book I would very much recommend to anyone with an interest in incentives, logical fallacies and economics.

Now, this going to sound a little sad. But do any of you have deeply hidden fantasies about "the love of your life", like say, a knight in shining armour coming to your rescue, or a bad boy/girl on a motorcycle driving you off into the horizon? Vivid dreams about the day Richard Gere walks into the factory in officer's outfit to lift you into his arms and carry you out? Or of Fred Astair tap-dancing his way over to you to seduce you with his singing? No? Right, well don't judge me on this then, but I've always had a massive thing with Dirty Dancing and Grease. And while I fancied "Frances" and "Sandy" instead of Patrick Swayze or John Travolta, the romantic view of love instilled in my head is very much to do with dancing and music.

I don't have "a type" as such, but a nice smile, sparkly eyes and some killer dance-moves never fail to seduce me. And I didn't quite realise how deeply rooted this romantic "Dirty Dancing"-fantasy of mine was until I went out clubbing in York. Jo slipped down in the booth next to me while we were waiting for our drinks, and I could tell she was itching to have a wee boogie. Five minutes later, she was up on the dancefloor strutting her stuff and my jaw just dropped. Now that girl can dance. Not only that, she can dance WITH me. None of that Tango-style classical malarky, no... just freestyle contemporary fun. Feeding off each other's energy, a rhythm that was very much in sync.


Maybe, just maybe, scents and pheromones aren't the only factors of seduction at play in human relationships. I suspect rhythm and pacing very much are too.

- A slightly inebriated, sultry Jo on
our way home from the club-

The Sunday Struggle #10

I've been doing some decorative planning for my flat this weekend, mostly designing stencils and cutting them out. Stanley knives are a real bitch to handle, I have to say. I'm going to trial-run one of them tonight, paint them on my wall to see how it takes. Will put a pic of it up on my blog shortly after. While I'll be spending the rest of my Sunday on translation work and some catching up for my Proper Job, I've found a few Sunday distractions for this week's Sunday Struggle:

1. I think it's important to uphold the whole Sunday tea & cake tradition, and in my mind, there's currently only one place to be for cakes: Tarte Françoise.

Jo'll kill me for writing this on a public forum, but then again, this is a public forum with a highly visible comment section and she's got a "Right of Response" *wink*... Jo managed to eat a WHOLE cake by herself in multiple sittings throughout one weekend. THAT's how fab they are. (Allright, I had a wee sliver too (but twere only wee) and it should be stated that Jo actually clocked up 100k on her bike that visit, so she could defo use the calories).

2. I've blogged about this once before, but I hunted down the site again recently because I simply love the artwork so much. You can now see the entire collection here.

3. I am always looking for alternative ways to represent data. While some forms are more useable than others, this recent find is definitely clever: it uses the color-proportionality on the flags of countries to represent the data. Striking.

4. I'm not about to jump on the CO2 bandwagon, but it's always a clever move to:
(1) save money by keeping your electricity costs low
(2) keep your offices cooler by ensuring all's switched off at night.

This handy power strip was designed to scan your pc's energy usage and knows when to automatically shut off other devices that do not require to stay on, such as printer, scanner, speakers, etc. There are outlet spaces for devices that need to remain on all the time as well. Brilliant.

5. I'm a bit of an instant gratificationist, so I like it when design motivates me to just hold off a wee bit: Superbitus is a one-piece, bomb-shaped ceramic money box. It's supplied with a white marker to write the purpose of the savings on it, like "new bike" or "weekendtrip". To top it all off, you can drop the bomb so it shatters when you've reached your goal, and collect yer money from amidst the shards.

6. And finally, some fun playing around with visual perception: Julian Beever's 3-D street drawings.

The Sunday Struggle #9

Right then, today's Sunday Struggle is bound to have a minimal target audience, what with the lovely weather out, but here it goes nonetheless. I've amassed the following links/gimmicks/curiosities for you for today:

1. Design your own tie: Girl-ties are all the rage again, and I quite fancy some for the dressed-up days at work. Unfortunately, the only website that seems to sell ties specifically designed for women is a rather crap one. So until someone can point me in the right direction, maybe designing my own tie might be the best alternative.

2. Floor & Wall-stickers: I spotted these and thought they were a good idea in terms of decorating, if you don't fancy going for the regular wall and floor arrangements. Tango-steps explained on your floor or a cheeky plug-socket. They come in at around 50 euros each and I think that's a tad overpriced for something you could quite easily do yourself in the space of a few lost hours on an overcast Sunday...

3. Publish Yourself: (Thx to Ine for pointing this one out). It's one of the several "print yourself" sites out there, but it gives itself a bit of a leading edge by providing an easy downloadable tool with lots of templates that guides you through the process of publishing your poems, your photos, or even your entire blog... in a neatly bound book that would fit well on your lounge-table. I am currently publishing Ubiquitous 2005, Ubiquitous 2006 and a photo-album of my round-the-world trip.

4. Livingstones Lounge: I won't have enough space in my new flat, but if I had, I would most definitely splash out on creating a wee corner like this. It looks fab for kids, or for a lazy comfi Sunday-afternoons, leisurely splashed out across some pebles with yer book or sunday paper.

5. And for the most random inventions of the week: The Jonny Glow Toilet Locator and the Hamster Shredder . Designed to help men aim for the toiletbowl in the dark (a problem I am unlikely to encounter in my house-hold what with the absence of men, but I can imagine this would be problematic for some other family arrangements), and an ecological way to shred your paper. I am actually all up for that Hamster thing, and may even suggest it to my boss at our next meeting. Every office needs a mascote. It might as well do something useful too.

6. Photography: Kelli Connell: Look closely at the pictures and you will notice that both people in the image are actually one and the same person. On Connell's website she explains:

"This work represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. Polarities of identity such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, the motivated and resigned self are portrayed. By combining multiple photographic negatives of the same model in each image, the dualities of the self are defined by body language and clothing worn."

This play with the duality of identity, and sometimes the seemingly contradictory co-existence of both aspects, is very close to my heart. Fits in perfectly with my own Queer identity and daily introspective moments.

7. Organic Fizz: Delish British goodness. With this warm weather, I find it hard to stay away from the Diet Coke. But in terms of rehydration, these fizzy drinks are by far the better choice. May have to import those when I go out to York in a fortnight.

8. Word of the Day: My girlfriend has a thing for words. She knows a plethora of them and they get me hooked on her story-telling. She's introduced me to Dictionary.com, a site that sends you a new word of the day every morning. Today's word was rather appropriate, so I decided to include the link ;-)

prolix
\pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\,
adjective:
1. Extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy.
2. Tending to speak or write at excessive length.

Search Hits

I'm not too sure how I feel about people find their way onto my blog by entering keywords such as this into Google:

While "annoying belgians" might not be a hit to be too proud of, I had two hits just last week from people googling for "wringing pigeon's neck"...

I think the world is finally catching onto the pigeon conspiracy! Thank sod for that.

Beyond Enthusiastic

When my girlfriend warned me that she could talk for Britain, I brushed off the comment with a very smitten reply along the lines of "But babe, I could listen to you ramble for hours". What I didn't know then, is that the talking doesn't generally stop when she goes to sleep. This for two very different reasons: Jo is a notorious sleep-talker (whole dreamt-up phone conversations and the lot) and well, Jo's also got a tendency to become very excited about cute little things.

Just a few nights ago, I got prodded in the arm at about 4.30 a.m. It was with some reluctance that I surfaced from the dream I was having, but when I opened my eyes, I found two very awake, sparkly shiners staring back at me.

"Do you know," she said excitedly, "that there's a place in Edinburgh called Saxe Coburgh?!?!"

A little confused about why exactly this bit of information had warranted a prod so early in the morning, I replied: "Erm... what?"

"Well, isn't your royal family called Saxe-Coburgh?!?" *excited Jo-wiggle*

Now, it has to be said. If anyone else were to attempt interrupting my sleep for such a random bit of information, they'd probably get a good thumping or a dangerous little growl, but right then, all I could see, was a big happy grin on the pretty face of that excitedly wiggly girlfriend of mine, and I couldn't help but burst out in a wee giggle.

Now, I think the REAL test of our relationship will come if she'd ever insist on talking me through the life-cycle of the single-celled amoeba in the middle of my sleeping pattern, but until then, I can't wait to find out the other random bits of info that excite this girl so much ;-)

Hierarchy on its way out

A friend introduced me to del.icio.us a few weeks back and while I was initially a bit hesitant to use it (unlike her I'm not an early adaptor), I am now absolutely besotted by the concept.

Del.icio.us is a webbased feature which lets you store you favorite links and bookmarks online on the basis of semantic categories. Most of us organise our computer files and links in a hierarchical manner: we create files and subfiles to store them under.

For instance, if I am trying to hunt down a picture of a friend's party a while back, I would open a file called "LePew" then "Pictures" then "Olympus Camera" and then I need to rack my brains to remember when exactly this party took place, because I have stored all my private pictures by month. So if the party was in August 2005 I'd have to click on a file called "08-2005" to locate it. It's a bit of an effort, to say the least.

My weblinks were stored in a comparable manner. But del.icio.us now allows you to tag your links. For instance, if I was to store my own blog as a favorite, it would first of all be stored under its own name "Ubiquitous" and then instead of placing it in a file or subfile, I would simply attach tags to it: "blog, Pew, science, entertainment, ubiquitous, lesbian, Ghent, physics, life" etc... whichever term I would associate with this link. When I next try to find the link, I merely need to type in a few key-words to hunt it down, instead of trawling through a hierarchically structured directory.

What makes it easy, is that this type of storage is based on semantic and associative thinking. You don't need to remember dates or filenames. You simply think of keywords that naturally spring to mind when you yourself think of that file. And I'm becoming increasingly aware of just how associative my brain thinks. I rarely remember exact facts (which can be frustrating at times). But I do remember concepts, ideas, keywords,... that link into and out of others to connect the general dots and to see connections between otherwise unrelated or distantiated topics. I guess this is a common characteristic for people used to interdisciplinary environments and for conceptual thinkers. But what strikes me, is how different my keyword structures are from other people's.

Del.icio.us allows one to make "Tag Clouds" which is a visual representation of all your keywords. I've browsed the del.icio.us pages of several friends and they are generally very succinct and logical it seems, with keywords such as "blog", "music" or "fun". Whereas my tag cloud... well... see for yourself:

The Sunday Struggle #6

I've had a very relaxed week and weekend so far, so I doubt this Sunday will be much of a struggle, but here's this week's hot tips:

(1) MindPicnic: This site is highly addictive. It will show you a tiny section of the Google Earth maps and asks you to pin-point/guess where exactly on Earth this image was taken from. It then tells you by how many miles you guessed wrong. I discovered last night that it's an excellent chat game: find yourself a competitive chat-mate and challenge them to beat your closest mileage. (Beware of competitive swearing *cough* Jo *cough*)

(2) When Objects Work: A Belgian company attempting return to Minimalism. Successfully so. I particularly like Yindigo Monchizuki's design:

(3) God's Debris: Disco sent me this link as a Sunday Struggle suggestion and this is exactly what I will be doing for the rest of the day: finishing the book. It can be downloaded for free here. A synopsis of the book:

"Imagine that you meet a very old man who—you eventually realize—knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what’s wrong with the old man’s explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage."

( 4) Andreas Gefeller Photography: This is absolutely stunning photography and most definitely the kind I would place on my wall. Birdseye perspectives rendered into entirely new visuals.

(5) Sunday quote to entertain my fellow physicists: "Physics is to Math what Sex is to Masturbation" by the legendary Richard Feynman ;-)

(6) My RSS feed list has grown expansively the last two weeks and for those of you looking for good blogs out there to follow on a regular basis, here's my suggestions:

FlyBottle
excellent, down-to-earth, philosophy blog

Apparent Dip
brilliant blog kept by a geologist with a broad interest.

Science Freak
comprehensive and fun Physics blog

Experimental Philosophy
scientific/neurobiological take on philosophy

Better Living Thru Design
the latest design features

Olelog
blog on Earth Science, aimed at a more scientific audience.

Cosmic Variance
particle physics collective blogging with a twist

Eureka Alert
current events newsflash on just about any field of science.
(warning: this site blogs about 15 posts per day on average, so highly time-consuming)

The Meaning of Liff

"In Life, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.Our job, as we see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society."

-Douglas Adams & John Lloyd-

I know this is old grub and I suspect most of you have read at least parts of the Meaning of Liff, but the topic of language and ideas came up in an intriguing conversation last night, and it instantly reminded me of the Meaning of Liff.

We talked about how certain terms are hijacked by a subset of people (or organisations) and taint the concepts related to the terms in such a way that people will instantly categorise them when they hear it. Take, for instance, the terms "energy" or "flow". Many people will instantly link these terms to new age concepts or "hippy-esque" ideologies, while in fact, the concepts behind these terms are universal and uncoloured by any ideology. So we discussed the importance of the evolution of language. How language needs to continuously be enriched. How concepts need to be defined by words that keep them approachable for anyone. How terminology needs to be altered so that the concepts themselves aren't instantly incorrectly categorized.

Language can be both rich and inadequate and I do believe we need to conciously and subconsciously work at its adaptations and growth.

The Meaning of Liff is a playful example of this. Do we have a word for that feeling of sitting down on a chair after someone else has just sat on it. You know... sitting down on that warmth left by a previous owner? Nope. Well, the Meaning of Liff conjures up a new word for it. And hundreds more. Fascinating and fun. You can buy the "dictionary" here.

Mt.Ruapehu Collapse

I'm in Vienna at the moment for a wee family visit and while I normally read the newspaper over breakie, it takes more than one strong coffee in the morning before I dare attempt ploughing my way through a german newspaper. So I am always greatful if others cut my struggle short by pointing out the significant events for me (thx dad):

Mount Ruapehu Collapse Imminent

Last October, I spent 10 days in Taupo (NZ) whilst waiting for the snowstorm at the Tongariro Crossing to clear. The first signs of renewed activity at Mt.Ruapehu broke out on the day of my arrival there and I had somewhat foolishly hoped that this would herald a wee miniature natural disaster for me to explore while I was there.

While Mt.Ruapehu is one of the world's most active volcanoes, the issue at hand is not the risk of a sudden violent lava eruption but rather the overspilling of its crater lake. These last two decades, the Ruapehu crater (which is about the size of 23 football fields) has filled up with water and volcanic debris, and the walls of the crater now look set to collapse. When this happens, it will trigger what is known as a Lahar.

"A Lahar is a type of mudflow composed of pyroclastic material and water that flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. They have the consistency of concrete: fluid when moving, then solid when stopped." (source: Wiki)

New Zealand is absolutely geared towards professional monitoring of its volcanic landmarks and the installment of early-warning systems will allow documentary makers to record the event when it happens. This will undoubtedly lead to some spectaculair footage and valuable scientific data. I can hardly wait. *Psyched*

- Mt.Ruapehu (The Calmer Days, 5/10/06) -

For more of my volcanic piccies click here, here or here

The Sunday Struggle #5

Bored today? You could...

- Go outside (keep reading ;)

- Jot down any weird questions that pop up in your head during the long workweek and submit them to the Mad Scientist's Network (preferably no questions in the Biophysics field or they may ask me to answer them and I'm on holidays next week ;). Here's a good example to get your creative juices going: How could/would you burp in Zero Gravity?

- Take a moment to appreciate some homegrown architecture & design with a high drool-factor: Glenn Sestig Architects. I would however, NOT recommend a visit to the Glenn Sestig Restaurant (Kortedagsteeg, Ghent) as the food's disproportionately overpriced in terms of its quality. Or to quote a Dutch proverb: "Schoenmaker blijf bij je leest". Especially when one does the latter so exceedingly well.

- Or for the PhD Students who've not collected enough data of their own yet: Play with other people's data and create your own weird conclusions.

- Roll your eyes at a bit of excellent geek humor ;)

- You could bookmark 3191 : Two female photographers, living 3191 miles apart, share 1 photo blog.

- Plan your next underground party

- Or help me track down the parameters of The Awesome Floating Bed: I have searched everywhere for more specifics. As a PhD in Magnetism (well... kind of) I would really like to know the weight of the bed and the actual magnetic material (I suspect it's a composite)... so I could spend my own Sunday struggling through calculations of the magnetic field strengths needed to repel the bed from the base-magnet. I seriously doubt it's safe to have credit cards, pacemakers or mobile phones nearby, but man does it look impressive!! *grin*

- Or, to round it all off, we could indulge in a bit of Civil Engineer-bashing (an all-time favorite amongst us "cool" physicists;) .... The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster

-Cartoons courtesy of XkCd (thanks Oirish!)-

The Brits and their Alcohol

Was watching Graham Norton on BBC2 this evening and he played around with worldmapper (brilliant site by the way!)...

The map above demonstrates the alcohol consumption per country depicted by adjusting the relative territories of each country accordingly *grin*

Beware: Rant On The Way

I came out off the geek closet at work today. I'd received a few comments on my supposed use of expensive words (apparently the word "contamination" is classified as expensive these days) and on the fact that I was reading an English book during our breaks. So, I finally decided to out myself. Told all about how I've been living a double life and how I hope they will accept me for the geek that I am *grin*.

The response was really surprising. I had anticipated little more than a few shrugs and a stone-cold banishment from the social room. But instead, people started coming to me with more and more questions the further the day progressed. At first, it was just one of the girls. She told me she'd never had a chance to study, but had always been interested in science and its relation to things like religion, spirituality etc... We had a very pleasant conversation about this topic and I noticed that the others around us were listening intently, despite not participating.

After a while, someone else moved a little closer and said: "Would you mind if I asked you something? I've always wanted to know... birds... the way they all fly together, like... do you know how they do that, or is that not something you've studied". It's funny that this question should've come up, as it's the token example of Emergence in Complexity Studies. So I got VERY enthusiastic and explained as far as my limited knowledge stretched.

After that, the questions just kept coming from all corners. It'd turned into a game. They were testing my knowledge, but also, asking questions to which they'd apparently never found the answers themselves. And I have to say, the questions were interesting and insightful.

One of the questions though, turned the game into a rather poignant realisation. The person had been to see the doctor last week and was diagnosed with a virus, but was told by her doctor that there was no reason she shouldn't be at work. She said she couldn't remember the name of the virus, and hadn't really understood the doctor's explanation. She was worried, but afraid to ask him for more info, because she felt stupid. So I asked her if she could describe her symptoms and I said that while I was no doctor, it DID sound like a standard bout of mononucleosis. She said that that wasn't the word he had used, so I ventured a guess and said: "Well, did he maybe call it the Epstein-Barr virus?" She instantly recognised it and said: "YES!!"

It made me realise how seriously wrong we are. Us scientists, doctors, people responsible for communicating facts to laymen... we have got it seriously wrong. If a doctor doesn't sense that he should use less jargon when dealing with people who have no medical background and sends them home without answers because they are afraid to ask... then seriously, he shouldn't be a doctor.

I'm the first to admit that while I have some very libertarian-socialist viewpoints, I believe that a liberal/capitalist system is far more workable for everyone in our current global climate. We will always need people who do menial jobs... jobs that keep our economy floating. And sure, not everyone is up to the task to do high-flying jobs, but I very strongly believe that it is important that we keep including everyone into our information dispersal systems. Regardless of "status" (if you can call it that), people should always be made to feel that they belong. That they matter as much as the next person does. Because if we don't, we are re-widening a gap between the different social groups, our grandparents fought so hard for to close. Perhaps the gap will be less about money, but more about the possession of information.

The people I work with have thousands of questions. Interesting questions. And they are eager to listen if only someone would explain it to them in an understandable way. They might not read books, or browse the Internet for answers, but they like getting answers to things that pop into their heads during the experiences of every day life.

And I was thinking... maybe the government or several scientific institutes should subsidize something like an Info-Crew. Like a group of scientists/medics/experts who visit factories to work alongside the people there for a day or two, to just chat with them during work and over lunch breaks. So they get conversations going in an informal manner and people can just fire away their questions. No teaching. No lecturing. Just an easy access point to get answers to THEIR specific questions. It would certainly help to re-align the opinions about science and medicine. We'd probably start re-gaining our credibility if people felt that they OWNED the science as much as the researchers do.

Anyway. Just my two cents.

To apologize for this rant, I shall leave you with a little gem of an mp3: Metric - The Twist. Just click the file name in the box below to start listening. (Cool text as well)


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Weird Creatures

I was talking to someone about weird animals today and I remembered an episode in David Attenborough's Life of Birds where he captures the Lyre Bird on film. Not many people seem to know about these birds.

I always thought it was written "Liar Bird" because that's basically what the animal is. A liar. It mimics all the sounds around him, very much like a human beatbox. I found the clip on YouTube after a bit of searching and if you scroll on through to about 2 minutes or so into this 4 minute clip, you will actually hear the Lyre bird make the sound of a picture camera, a car alarm and, more poignantly, of chainsaws cutting down the forest.

Faffing & Geekiness reach all time high

Some PhD students clearly have far too much time on their hands: How Gay is your Starsign

Also, since I no longer live in Britain and therefore can't participate in any of the exciting competitions myself, I have decided that my brit-based scientist friends have to participate for me. It's Famelab auditions again! Jim, Ann, Od, Lynn, Fi, Bino, Rob... get in!

One I can and will try for (and would recommend to anyone with an interest in public understanding of science): Science in School Webzine.

Blue-collar Pew & The Perils of Trying to Make a Girl Smile

Well dear readers, the Pewster has finally decided to become the responsible adult she swore she'd never be: I'm buying a wee flat in Ghent. The notary is drafting the deeds to the property and I expect to sign them within the next few days. I won't elaborate much for the time being, as I don't want to jinx the deal until it's safely sealed, but suffice it to say that it is highly likely that I will be committed to mortgage down payments some three months from now. I am also, as you may well remember, still acutely unemployed. (Or as the parental unit chooses to call it: "A Doctor in Science probing the job market").

While I am still in the running for the two jobs I've applied for and while I have another interview lined up for Friday, the impending doom of down payments has somewhat spurned me into action. I signed on with a job agency last Friday and because I've refused any lab or office positions, I have been assigned a blue-collar job in a warehouse for Surf & Snowboard gear. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time I've ever done a job that isn't even remotely related to the higher brain functions. And it turns out to be an experience long overdue.

My first day on the job has been quite a shock to my system. It's an entirely new experience for me to be treated as if you've no intelligence whatsoever, just because of the type of job you're carrying out. The foreman assumed I'd be slow on the uptake and literally went over everything three times. After explaining to me what to do with the yellow and blue labelled items, he promised me he'd explain the green labelled items tomorrow, because "two new things is quite a lot to process on your first day". I really had to bite my tongue not to comment.

The contrast with my PhD research couldn't possibly be greater. I remember entering the Neurology Department of the hospital in Zurich on my very first day there and being greeted by the head of the department with the words: "So, what's your plan of attack for the day? How are you going to set up this experiment?". I remember feeling utterly nauseated at the thought of the responsibility I had with respect to the patients and the fact that he assumed I'd be capable of figuring everything out for myself. Back then, I often pondered the potential joys of a job without responsibilities. But after today, I can safely say that I actually really derive a weird satisfaction of that nauseated feeling of being slightly out of my depth and that I could probably never be happy doing a job without it.

The task at hand today was so mind-numbingly menial that I decided to set myself a little target challenge. About an hour later, the foreman told me I was working too fast. Apparently there's only enough work for 6 weeks worth of temping and if we work too fast, there's a risk that people will not have a paid job in 5 weeks time.

So I really needed another challenge. And man did I find a good one. The warehouse just so happens to be a bit of a lesbian hot spot and shortly after I arrived, a girl introduced herself to me with a big knowing smile. The penny didn't drop fast enough and for a while I got distinctly worried about how quickly she'd picked up on my gayness, just on the basis of my looks. But then it clicked... she'd a stamp on her hand and had clearly been at Spass this weekend. She must have spotted me there. This in turn triggered another bout of panic at just how drunkenly I must have been for her to have noticed me there. Was I swinging off poles or dancing on top of the bar?!? :s At any rate, the workplace was soon teeming with friendly smiling lesbians in the know. Except for one.

Sexy When Angry (SWA) stalked through the building all morning with aggression oozing from every single one of her movements. She kicked every box she came across with an angry grunt, never once cracked a smile and basically ignored me completely. So, to make my day ever so slightly more interesting, I set myself the challenge of making her smile before the day was up. But to add to the challenge, I set a rule that I wasn't allowed to talk to her. So I had to make her smile without ever talking to her. Not talking to her was easy. She was wearing headphones and even from 4 meters away I could hear she was doing some serious eardrum damage. Making eye-contact didn't seem to work, which complicated matters somewhat.

But then, SWA unwittingly turned the odds in my favor. She was conducting a forklift with a 3 meter pile of heavy boxes near where I was stacking some stuff. As I bent forward to pick something off the ground, stuff came crashing down all around me from behind. SWA had lost control of the forklift and the entire pile had caved in my direction. If it hadn't been for the freak chance of me bending forwards that exact moment, I would very likely have been in hospital with some serious injuries right now. The entire warehouse went dead quiet. SWA had turned completely pale and stared at me in sheer horror. Taking stock of the situation, noticing all my limbs and fingers were still attached to my body, I just turned to her with a smile and winked at her. Five seconds later, her expression of anger and horror had turned into a big smile of relief. Mission accomplished.

*sigh* what one wouldn't do to make a girl smile ;-)

Anyway. All in all, the job is ok for the temporary purpose it serves. And at any rate, any place irresponsible enough to let Pew run around with a Stanley knife, is worth a venture ;-)

I'll take my mp3 audio lectures with me tomorrow to keep my brain occupied during the menial tasks. I'd reached the lectures on Nietzsche by the time I fell ill in Argentina, but I suspect that the fever might have skewed my hearing and interpretation of the grand master to a pretty large extent. Nothing better than a healthy dose of Existentialist Angst whilst carrying out a Sisyphus-esque job ;-) Just hope no one wants to hear what "music" I'm listening to. No desire to out myself as geek just yet...