I've been thinking about getting into fishing again for a long time now. I even bought a rod and reel several years ago while on vacation and never used it.
Here in Germany, in order to get a fishing license, you have to take a course and pass an exam, much like it has been since I was a kid to get a hunting license in Iowa. I have fond memories of my Iowa Hunter Safety Course and I could really use some more practice speaking German, so I think I am going to sign myself up for a course with a local fishing club, in August. The June and July courses, unfortunately, are already all booked up.
The fishing club I found close to home, where I plan to do my course, is called the German Anglers' Federation. I have to pop in there on Tuesday and sign up before the course is all full.
Here's the paperwork I am expected to pull together when I want to apply for my license:
Proof that I passed the fishing test or an old fishing license or a membership card from a fishing club dating prior to April 30, 1995
A valid personal ID or passport and proof of address
One passport photo
An application form
I can get lost in places where other mortals find it impossible. I get disoriented popping in and out of the corner store. I take the bus in the wrong direction. Whenever I try to guess which way is the right way to go, I get it wrong. I've been thinking for years about ways to fix this problem. I have strategies that work. When I have to go somewhere new, I figure in extra time for being lost. I always have a map. And a compass. I find a route and I take it exactly the same way every time without ever deviating (deviating from the route is usually a disaster for me). I have a gps in my phone.
None of these strategies really solves the root problem, though. None of them improves my sense of direction.
I had heard about experiments using strong magnets in a belt or ankle bracelet which would pull you toward North at all times, theoretically giving you augmented proprioception. I am pretty sure that such a belt would not go with all of my outfits, so that's clearly not reasonable solution for me. (Proprioception is the sense of where you are in space, and one of my favorite words because it was one that I was missing for a long time.)
I've also thought about using a cell phone compass to make a vibration just for a second, every time your bearing is North, to teach you which streets you walk on go which direction.
Back in January, Radiolab did a show called Lost & Found. It aired on my birthday, as a matter of fact.
One of the segments in the show was about scientists who are starting to study people who have unbelievable gaps in their sense of orientation (some even worse than me). Conclusion: we all have brain damage. Listen to the show for more interesting details.
Another segment of the show was about languages which use cardinal points to organize things and orient instead of using left and right. A woman who lived with a group of people studying one of these languages described how, after many months of living there and studying the language, she suddenly saw herself from a bird's eye view. When she excitedly told the villagers that this had happened to her, they were all a little dumbfounded. They didn't know that it was possible to go through life without this kind of picture of the world as a natural part of your mindscape. They wondered how the poor woman had ever managed to survive childhood.
This gave me an idea for an experiment. From now on, I am going to try to stop thinking in left and right and start thinking in cardinal points. I think it might help me overcome my brain damage! I already carry a compass (and a map) everywhere I go. I've carried a map my whole adult life. I added the compass maybe 10 years ago. With a map and a compass and some calm and patience you can get unlost most of the time. If you get off the map, the compass can usually help you get back onto it.
So now, when I stop into a corner store while on a Saturday evening stroll, I won't pause in front of the door to make a mental note that the store was on my left when I went into it. Instead, I will make a mental note that I had been walking southeast.
A couple guys watching hockey in their back garden in Friedrichshain.
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I was just listening to some TED talks while puttering around the house and clicked on the enticing filter, "Rated jaw-dropping."
It struck me immediately that about a quarter of the talks on the front page of this category have the word "magic" in their titles.
Interestingly, if your search the site for "magic" only 7 of the talks in the first 30 results have the word in the title.
Does having the word "magic" in your title make it more likely that people will rate your talk as "jaw-dropping?" Is the word "magic" somehow important in TED's jaw-droppingness algorithm?
I was only able to go to the Saturday talks in the CoCities conference. By all accounts, I seriously missed out on Sunday.
I wanted to write a nice wrap up of the ideas that I thought were hottest, but the weekend is over and all of the time has been sucked into a black hole of real life.
This was a great conference. I was really impressed by the organization. Especially the splendid quantity of outlets! Most importantly, the talks were excellent and the conversation was even better.
Here are the only three things I would improve for next year:
Coffee. There was a bit of a caffein distribution bottleneck. One of the organizers, Peter Bihr, told me his tale of woe, how they had tried so valiantly to have wonderful coffee, but were thwarted at every turn. I suggest that a simple self-serve coffee system can be all right, but everyone knows I am not a coffee person. I only drink it therapeutically.
Balance in topics. One data geek would do nicely. I am a data lover myself, but I having three talks (four, depending on how you count) about data collection and use means that there were topics that didn't get the attention they deserve. Which brings me to...
Sustainability. This is a big piece that was not talked about satisfactorily. Sure, the smart office building is in this realm, but it would have been really good to hear something about how technology is used to keep cars out of cities, or how technology is used to the benefit of urban agriculture. What is the place of nature in the city?
Warren Ellis
Mostly a science fiction writer
No slides! Hooray!
Roadside Picnic is a Russian Sci-fi novel. Science fiction exists to cast a shadow over the present. We are haunted by what has not yet happened, especially so at this conference. The film based on the novel Roadside Picnic is called Stalker. What had not yet happened was Chernobyl.
The "Zone of Alienation" is what the Chernobyl area is called.
in 2003 there was a report that there are a couple cafes inside the zone. Bread and Vodka remain as currency for Chernobyl.
The present is influenced by the future.
Ghost hunters are very technical people. They roam around with electromagnetic field readers.
20 years ago, William Burroughs was asserting that the human soul is an electromagnetic field. Science fiction haunting the future. (I bet you could find a Greek talking about the soul as an electromagnetic field.)
Archaeoacoustics is the study of old sounds (mmmmmmmm. Lovely idea. Looking on Wikipedia, it is an even more poetic discipline than it sounds at first. It's trying to read ancient clay objects as if they were vinyl records.)
UFOs are stress imagery.
Fault lines and electromagnetic fields create ghosts of the future. (lovely idea)
The future oozes up through cracks in the ground.
Mirages in time, reflections of the future.
Every city street is an electromagnetic cauldron.
RFID tags create huge electromagnetic fields. It's surprising.
(I guess that he is insinuating that we are unwittingly creating a conscious-altering environment for ourselves. Interesting idea, probably at least partly true.)
Experience-inducing fields.
AR to visualize the spirit track.
Ghost boxes are electromagnetic devices for communicating with ghosts through radio waves. Conversations with things that are not alive. We all do that regularly, with our sensors and devices and all.
Mostly, we are giving the gift of the digital city to our ruling classes (inviting fascism, as I was thinking earlier today)
We are depending on these incompetent people without vision to design our digital infrastructures. Sometimes the authorities are so incompetent that they are benign. Governments are not good at technology, which sometimes works to our advantage.
Don't give the keys to our digital infrastructure away.
People like the ones at this conference will create these concepts and these structures, but if we give them over to government and authority, they will turn around and guillotine us with them.
Don't get carried away.
Whose streets are these?
Our streets.
(I love how this closing keynote was in many ways a through-the-looking-glass version of the opening keynote. Well done.)
