Shuarian’s Weblog

As noted yesterday, I enjoyed reading The Winter Queen (wikipedia) for the most part. It generally employs an agreeable writing style and sometimes a certain ironic undertone I quite liked. Story-wise I didn’t expect too much, and was generally pleased with the pace and the plot, even though the story twists don’t always come as big surprises (to engage in the fine art of understatement).

There were, however, two points which genuinely annoyed me and which I’d like to extend upon. The second point spoils the end of the novel, so continue reading at your own risk.

I. Reactionaryism: Apart from the very argument to be made in point 2, it’s hard to name any precise areas / quotes from the book, yet put together, the overall tone just smells of nostalgia for the good old days.

Conflicts get resolved by action; despite his intelligence, the hero mostly survives by the use of force or - another reactionary motif - fate. Leaning onto the fate theme, love for one’s fatherland is crucial to one’s worthiness, and that love being a negative or exclusive love, most bad guys are foreigners. Hard work in the service of the emporer is noble and will be rewarded.

At first, the hero appears to show some understanding for young students who oppose the status quo and reject what they perceive as tyranny of the society towards them. However, that notion gets disposed quickly, as the protagonist undertakes actions which clearly distinguish him from the ordinary and troubled young masses and subsequently turn the pale, nervous clerk to a handsome and fearless super agent.

II. The Role of Women: There are three women who play a signification role in the novel. The one most prominently featured is described as a Cleopatra-like figure; mysterious, beautiful and able to seduce men easily. She also has a strong will and knows how the get what she wants. Of course, that woman is a criminal figure, a whore who (mis)uses her body for achieving her goals only and isn’t afraid to get innocent people killed.

The second woman is described quite favourably at first; she’s a well-educated, caring and lovely lady. Her only flaws are that she takes her good intentions too far - a much needed warning that women shouldn’t aspire to run serious businesses, indeed - and (this one playing into the first point) that she is a foreigner. Consequently, she dies near the end of the story, but not before committing a selfless act first and thus saving her soul in a very Christian inspired way, at least.

Then there’s also a third woman; or rather, a girl. Which of course is even better, because girls are innocent, and thus superior to women. She’s described as being angel-like, pure and naive. As far as I remember, all the dresses she wears are white. She’s also the first of the three women the hero meets, and thus proves that faithfulness is absolutely important; the other women just want to keep the hero away from his luck! And her luck, or so it has to be assumed. For unfortunately, the little princess doesn’t appear to have any thoughts of her own - the protagonist meets her, falls in love with her beautiful looks and she obediently returns his feelings.

Seriously, how can anyone find that even remotely romantic? But it gets better, because they eventually marry. However, marriage means sex, which would destroy the picture of the perfect - virgin - woman. So at the very end of the book, literally before she’s about to lose her virginity, our little angel gets killed (compare to Madonna / Whore complex. Discuss). This gives him another noble reason to continue with his detective/secret agent work.

It comes, of course, as no surprise that this book fails the Bechdel test miserably.

As a final thought, I’ve called my second point The Role of Women. I could easily expand on that by mentioning the pitiable role model of men in the novel, but I guess this becomes obvious from reading all of the above.

The media world lives from selling news. News can, in some ways, be seen like every other market commodity. There’s news which sells well, and news which doesn’t.

The reality, however, is more complex; the demand cannot be easily quantified, but that goes for every other good out there, too. The important distinction then is that real news cannot be produced. Both are bad business factors, thus the media tries to control these unknowns.

On the supply side, they screen news not only by its relevance, but also by the interest they think their typical customer will show. And in order to absorb the unpredictable quantity of news, no-news like gossip, celebrities focused articles or evergreens (and, to be provocative, opinion columns) gets produced.

Now that there’s a commodity to sell, it has to be sold to the customer. This gets done, like with other goods, by marketing it. For news, this means for example (a) placing the commodity as the first on the marketplace, i.e. getting the news out fast, and (b) creating the illusion of the news being of significant value.

Case in point — Apparently, today a power outage caused the two national TV stations of Switzerland to interrupt their airing in large parts of the country for one to one and a half hour. I can, of course, understand that something like this is really life-threatening, especially as such important events like a Formula One race and the final ceremony of the Olympics were supposed to be on air.

So, how does one of the largest newspaper of Switzerland, the Tages-Anzeiger, handle such an incident? They put it on the frontpage of their website, and even several hours after the incident, the corresponding article still is presented as one of the top tree events of the day.

(click on the image for a larger version)

The headline, not surprisingly, labels the power outage as historical.

If you can read German, it’s quite interesting to compare the coverage of the Tages-Anzeiger with the one by another Swiss newspaper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ); the latter appearing to be more informative.

Is this better journalism the NZZ displays there? Or just the sign of another customer profile they have in their business model?

I know it’s pathetic to rumble about social network sites on my blog, but I never waver in front of my own stupidity. He.

This time, the target for my rant is StudiVZ, a social network site which is a combination of MySpace and (especially) Facebook. As it is in German, it might also feature David Hasselhoff, I don’t know. It certainly would explain some of its popularity, for Germans love David Hasselhoff.

Being the open minded grumpy old cynic I am, I visited their site today to learn more about the many exciting new ways to improve my social life. Below are some of their most convincing arguments, which I’ve freely translated to English. As a reference, the excerpts are taken from their self-advertising page “was bringt mir das” (what’s in it for me).

So, StudiVZ, tell me, why shoulda, coulda, woulda I join thy?

* Who knows whom, through whom, and who are the people you usually just know by sight?
Who know’s whom? Fantastic, I always wanted to crack Dunbar’s number.

* Who’s that cool guy in the second row of the auditorium?
Who’s that cool guy? Well, if my past encounters with other humans are any indication, he’s probably able to speak, in case you’d like to know.

Of course, you could also stalk him online until you’ve finally know enough about him to impress him with your vast knowledge about his life! On a second thought, that actually could work.

* Does my flatmate know him?
Well, if you care to know, there’s always the old fashioned way of doing that. Just drop your flatmate an e-mail.

* (Make) new acquaintances in the cafeteria, but without the obligatory exchange of numbers. First and last name are enough to find each other - if one wants. Staying in contact made easy.
Well, that’s quite practical, isn’t it? Just speaking for myself, there are hundreds of people I’d like to know better but don’t because I can’t get over the hurdle of writing down their phone numbers or e-mail addresses.

* Who’s interested in quantum mechanics as well?
The revenge of the nerds is upon us!

* Who are the friends of my best friend at his new university, and why?
Who are the friends of my best friend? Huh, feeling jealous, do we?

Still, this might be a new business venture for StudiVZ. They really should add a service to implement your best friend a GPS sensor to track him. That way, you can know everything about your best friend. Because surely, trusting someone as important as your best friend is way too risky. Of course, some might call it a break of privacy. I call it diversification of assets.

As for the why, maybe he got sick of having such good, intruding friends?

* Build New Crowds
I think this is the essence of my dislike for their site. That’s meant as an advertisement, but it makes me shiver. Although, I guess that’s the reason they didn’t call themselves an antisocial network site.

* Gossip and Chit-Chat
Hey, let’s build a crowd (see above) and see what happens. Answer: Gossip. Lots of it. But please, I thought online communities were meant as an escape from real life?

* What’s Thomas’ favourite website?
I’m sorry to say this, but it’s very likely that Thomas’ favourite website is a porn site. You do not want to see this.

* Did he already upload the newest pictures from the last party at his flat?
Photographic evidence of drunkards. Great, that will really impress the HR manager at your next job interview.

* How does it come Patrick knows Melanie?
Ugh, from stalking each other online, maybe?

* What does Daniel write about himself?
Reading one’s online profile strikes me as a perfectly reasonable way of getting to know each other deeply.

Too bad Daniel forgot to delete Flashdance from the standard I’m-a-sensitive-and-romantic-guy template. With such a favourite movie, friendship will never work. Next.

I guess I can’t end this rant without quoting one of my favourite authors, Douglas Coupland:

I remember in the 80s when cellphones first started to pop. I remember how, if you saw someone using a cellphone on a street, you immediately thought they were an asshole: gee, my phone call is so important I have to make it right here and right now! Twenty years later, we’re all assholes. We’re assholes at the supermarket’s meat counter at 5:30pm, phoning home to ask if we need prosciutto; we’re assholes driving in traffic; and we’re assholes wandering down the streets. And with cellphones and handhelds, we collapse time and space and our perception of distance and intimacy. [Emphasis added]

Well said. ’nuff said.

While searching Google for a good map of Switzerland, I stumbled upon a map called “Muslimkarte”. Being an avid reader of strangemaps (a blog which, as the name says, collects all kind of strange and interesting maps), I couldn’t resist to investigate this particular map for a bit. The map is hosted on winkelried.info, which seems to be a site closely associated with the SVP, a national conservative political party in Switzerland.

Source: Muslimkarte Schweiz

Cantons (administrative districts of Switzerland) whose Muslim population is above 4% of the general population are rendered green. The average for Switzerland is given as 4.5%. Below the map, the text assorts that in Europe (beside the countries of the Balkan region) only France has a higher percental of Muslims.

Unfortunately, the map has some flaws and errors:

* First, the average for Switzerland is 4.26%, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) of Switzerland.

* Second, the assumption that Switzerland has the second highest percental Muslim population is factually wrong. France has indeed a higher percentage than Switzerland, but so do the Netherlands (5%) and Austria (4.8%). And the numbers for Germany (4%), Liechtenstein (4%), Sweden (3.9%) and Belgium (3.8%) aren’t so far away from Switzerland’s average. Sources: Wikipedia: Muslims in Western Europe, Wikipedia: Islam in Liechtenstein.

* In addition to these errors, the use of a 4% as a threshold seems a bit arbitrary.

Thus I tried to address these points and made my own version of the map. As basis for my work, I used the data provided by the FSO in its report Wohnbevölkerung nach Religion, nach Kantonen und Städten, which is available as Excel sheet (at the bottom of the page). The same sheet together with my calculations can also be downloaded.

Taking the average of 4.26%, I chose to highlight cantons whose Muslim population is above average (meaning at least 10% higher than the Swiss average) in dark blue. Cantons with an average percentage (meaning their average differs by more or less than 10% to the Swiss average) in light violet. Cantons which are below average are in grey. Here’s the resulting map:

The two maps look similar, yet the Canton of Lucerne is included in the original map, but actually is below average by my calculations. Overall, I believe my method to be more representative. Still, the possible room for interpretation is pretty limited:

* The Muslim population is more represented in the cantons along the Swiss-German border, as well as in and around the Canton of Geneva. Maybe this means that many of them come from or through Germany and France? Both countries have large Muslim populations (Germany: approx. 3.3 Mio; France: approx. 6 Mio.).

* The most obvious correlation of the Muslim population in Switzerland is with the greater metropolitan area of Zurich, which is also the most important economical area of Switzerland. However, correlation does not imply causation.

And that’s about it. Maybe some further studies could help to understand the distribution of Switzerland’s Muslim population better? The data avaible through the FOS is pretty limited itself, breaking these numbers down to a city or municipality level could offer a broader picture.

Yeah, I know I meant to write shorter posts, but this one basically wrote itself.

As a Swiss citizen, I don’t have any stakes in this race; the foreign policy of the new administration will also affect Switzerland, but the possible policy differences towards Switzerland aren’t that varied. Still, as an avid reader of some political blogs, I’m following the primary season closely.

My favourite candidate (Sen. Chris Dodd) dropped out very early, and so I mostly sat down and watched. As the field has narrowed down to a race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and as the decision comes closer, I’d like to chime in with my thoughts.

Found at Cox & Forkum

 
First things first: I think both of them have the potential to be a good president; both offer comprehensive and sound ideas. If that’s not enough, having the real possibility of either the first woman or the first black man becoming President of the United States is a great testimony to the vivid democratic culture of the states.

Yet I do have a preference for the general election. I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States of America. I’d like to elaborate on my reasons a bit more. As said, the policy differences are not that big, yet there are some important nuances nonetheless.

* Clinton cleary has a more hawkish approach on foreign policy. Her vote for the Iraq War, her vote for declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist group, as well as her refusal to negotiate directly with unwelcome foreign governments, all indicate this. Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and has a more constructive position on foreign affairs.

* A nuclear conflict, or a nuclear terrorist attack, are among the biggest nightmares one can imagine. Barack Obama wants to reduce the nuclear arsenals and stop the spread of nuclear weapons and related technology. Yet he also supports the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

* The current Bush administration has taken outragous steps to increase its power and to set the executive above other branches and above the constitution. Hillary Clinton, despite pledging to support legislative action against the bill, did not show up during a vote held on the FISA bill, while Obama did. This bill would grant telecommunication companies retroactive immunity for the warrentless delivery of customer data to US intelligence agencies. A fine example of Barack Obama’s (who’s been a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago’s Law School) strong stance for the constitution.

* Barack Obama stands strongly for transparency in government matters. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which lead to the creation of a public database about the government’s spending, is just one example.

* He introduced several sound bills on global warming and energy efficiency, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting benefits of the oil industry. During the last year, Hillary Clinton introduced not a single bill on these issues.

* During the last 20 years, the United States have been governed by either a Bush or Clinton (George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993; Bill Clinton from 1994 - 2000; George W. Bush from 2001 - 2008). Under Hillary Clinton, this period could expand to 28 years. This concentration of power in the hand of a few powerful and influential families strikes me as odd for a democracy. And don’t get me starting on the fact that Jeb Bush and Chelsea Clinton might be eyeing a run in 2016.

Also, I normally don’t give much about a candidate’s speeches, or attributes like inspiring. Yet it must be noted that Obama’s ability to mobilise voters is amazing. Never before have so many first-time voters showed up during primaries. Never before has youth turnout be so big. Never before have so many people contributed money to a candidate; he’s close to pass the millionth contribution. And this are individual contributions, mind you. He also leads among independent voters, and might even carry some Republican votes. This all are positive signs for the health of a democracy. Given that many people feel disaffected about politics, big money and globalisation, given that authoritarian regimes and authoritarian tendencies and movements inside democracies have grown stronger, this is another crucial point which makes the case for a presidency of Barack Obama.

Well, the games for this year’s IF Comp are available since September 30. I want to use this and next weekend to post short reviews of the games I play on the go.

In appreciation for the rules of the IF Comp and its traditions, I won’t reveal my final score until the competition is over. While some minor spoilers might find their way into a review, it’s my intention to focus on my perception and liking of the games, as well as on their design and implementation. All reviews will be titled Comp07 Discussion, the tag IF Comp 07 has been added for this occasion.

Instruction for downloading all the games of the competition are available on the the IF Comp 07 site.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I already wrote earlier, Bernhard and I have been to Berlin at the beginning of July. Overall, it was a very pleasant trip, even thought the weather was a bit too rainy. There’s no point in writing a detailed account of everything we did, so instead I’d like to mention just a few highlights and interesting topics. As my website is now up, there’s also a gallery with some pictures.

 
Getting and Staying There

As we only had about a week for our trip, we decided to take a flight instead of a train ride. Much to our surprise, the national airline of Switzerland, Swiss, offered the best fare, even beating the likes of Easyjet et al. Appropriately enough, Swiss is actually owned by the German air carrier Lufthansa. Both flights went without any trouble, and being able to assign and change our seats online was a nice plus, as was the good online food. This was also the first time we additionally bought corresponding tickets from MyClimate.org to offset the carbon output of the flight. While some may argue these tickets are a modern selling indulgences which don’t help reducing the overall emission, I’d say that it indeed does increase the cost of a flight, thus rendering alternative means of transport like trains and buses more competitive and shows a somewhat fairer price. Also, offsetting of carbon emissions is preferable to no doing anything at all, and projects like MyClimate.org certainly raise the overall awareness of the topic.

For finding a good accommodation, I trusted Virtual Tourist and hostelz.com - which led us to the nice Sunflower Hostel. And yes, the place really looks like in the pictures on their site. Their location was excellent, too, and the staff was friendly and helpful. The only downside was a very soft mattress which led to me having a sore back for most of the week. And then there was our ceiling lamp which was so high the staff probably wasn’t able to reach it, so a massive amount of dust had settled there. But these are only minor points, and apart from them, I can wholeheartily recommend the Sunflower Hostel.

 
Berlin’s Rich but Not Always Easy Past

As a city, Berlin has seen a lot, both on the positive side and the negative one. Visitors come into contact with this fact rather soon, as the holocaust memorial site is close to the city centre. There have been some disputes over the site, both before and after the realisation of the project. The memorial, fully named Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, consists of a grid pattern of concrete slabs, which all have different hights. In addition, the many pathways between the grid are no flat but differently sloped. This should, to quote Wikipedia: "(…) produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.". While the idea of this can be clearly seen, it didn’t really work for me. Yet despite this, the site definitely should be where it is, as it serves as a reminder in the heart of the city.

We also visited the remainings of the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen on another day. Most of the buildings had been destroyed, and only the walls of the camp and stones on the grass marked its layout and size. One long part of the inner wall is used as a documentation of the crimes committed in Sachsenhausen. It was both an interesting and disgusting read. Every part was based on the same concept, first describing the crime, then providing a profile of some of the victims, and lastly doing the same for the perpetrators, sometimes using additional documents such as letters to show more details.

While it almost seems like common knowledge, it struck me nevertheless how fruitless it was trying to guess from the profiles whether someone would end up as victim or perpetrator. As said, this actually wasn’t surprising, yet it was an uneasy finding nevertheless. Thus my mind began searching for some other, easy to detect indicators, and examined the faces on the photographs. It seemed to work for the first two or three persons, until some likeable and charming faces turned out to be mass murderers. So one’s appearance offers no clue, either. In the end, one’s actions under such conditions (as in all situations) probably depends on a complex mix of character traits (compassion, ambition, control), moral steadiness and personal experiences, but also at external events, chances and opportunities. Which is a comforting and frightening at the same time. Comforting as it means no one is fated to bad deeds. Frightening as it means no one is save or above them.

Another part of the concentration camp showed the buildings where the people got gassed and their corpses burned. My mind was expecting to see a large complex of buildings, expected all these outragous crimes needed large space accordingly. So I was surprised and shocked at the smallness of the place, it’s terrible to realise how much wrong can be done within such limited space. The effective killing which took place, the thorough utilisation of available space, all showed the term ‘industrial killing’ to be painfully accurate.

One of the old watchtowers hosted a small exhibition. A few video sequences of about three to seven minutes each explored the connection between the residents of the nearby town and the prisoners; asking how much the people of the town knew, and if and how the citizens of the town and the people in the camp interacted and perceived each other.

Back in Berlin, we also visited an exhibition about the East German secret police, the Stasi. The exhibition documented some techniques of the Stasi, its motives and goals, and also showed how deeply affected almost every part of public and private life got by their doings. Also displayed were a few anonymised sample files from citizens of East Germany. The Stasi stored every available information, from a simple CV to assessment by former teachers, employers and neighbours, and other stuff such as a list of favourite hobbies, activites such as borrowing books from the local library or one’s usual jogging route. It really was astonishing how much information they were collecting.

Concerning the famous Berlin Wall, there’s hardly anything left of it.
Still, what remains and what can be read about it demonstrates the masive oppression
the citizens of the GDR (the German Democratic Republic) had to face.

 
And Its Somewhat Glorious Present

Because of its important state, Berlin features many new buildings, from the headquarters of government agencies to shopping centres and offices. The contemporary style of architecture is Berlin goes unquestioned: Glas, lots of glas. Some examples of this are the Potsdamer Platz - which used to be called Berlin’s biggest construction site, but which is now completely enclosed by new buildings - and the main station. The most prominent and best known example is the Reichstag. Its large glas dome, designed already in 1992 by Norman Forster, precedents this best. The insde of the dome looks inspiring, and it’s one of the finest spots in Berlin for overlooking much of the centre of the city. Yet I must admit that the overall impression, memorable as it may be, isn’t as good - the strong break with the traditional design of the building renders the whole sight a bit odd.

The Berlin Main Station - Glas For The People!

A recent attraction of Berlin is Knut, the young polar bear currently growing up in the Berlin Zoo. As we needed some break from other activites, we followed the hype and visited the zoo. To be honest, I wasn’t impressed, almost all cages seemed way too small; so small in fact that we made jokingly tried to guess with how many (or how few) square metres humans would be displayed in a zoo. As for Knut, he certainly looks cute… but, he also seemed a bit depressed when we saw him. Or maybe that was just because of us?

 
Random Thoughts

A random observation while walking down the Karl-Marx-Allee - which was used for holding parades in East Germany - were the oddly differently shaped steet lights. Some are looking rather ancient, and by looking at old photographs, they seem to be an authentic GDR production. Then, there are some new ones, which wouldn’t be that surprising were there not some badly repaired in-betweens. Either they only added the modern ones recently, or they planned on replacing all defunct lamps and run out of money…

All three kind of lamps are visible on this picture
Clicking on it will open a larger version

Speaking of alleys, the way to go round is definitely by foot or by using the well-connected S-Bahn network. Subways are usually too crowded, and also take longer, as they make more stops on their way. A handy seven day pass for all public transport in Berlin is available. Just one thing to add, though - the S-Bahn coaches look dull.

Some other kind of highlight was the great food. I was really surprised at the large and even exotic selection. Thus we ate meals fom African and Asian cuisines, and always got really tastey food, which even was quite cheap. In the end, we rarely made use of the typical German food - so no sausages and no kebabs for us this time ;-)

Politically, Berlin seems to lean heavily to the left, as can be seen by the many posters on the street. Most of them were actually quite well-designed, and it was always funny to read them - some were protesting against globalisation, others were calling for action against the so called fascist government, while others had more local issues at heart. We also got talked to by some activists of a political organisation called BüSo (a name which is too cute for a political movement which wants to be taken seriously, according to Bernhard). They handed out free newsletters, and shortly discussed the political situation with me - did you, for example, know that Dick Cheney will be impeached and removed from office shortly, only to be replaced by Colin Powell? Haha, me neither. Anway, we even read some of their articles, and it’s difficult to place them in the traditional political spectrum of left and right. If the above example isn’t enough, here are some more: The international monetary system will collapse shortly, therefore national currencies have to be reinstated (hu?); humanity needs to build an intercontinental system of monorails (sounds cool!); also, everything is a conspiracy by the British government - Global Warming, for example, which gets advocated by Al Gore, who is a British agent. So is Henry Kissinger, by the way. Believe me, at home I had a good time reading their wikipedia entry (German)..

We also took the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group, an experience I can only recommend.