Demise of wall clocks

In the foyer where the giant teddy bear with its lifeless gaze is watching crowds below, parents take pictures of their children with cellphones. Travellers from all over the world are buzzing about in the airport. This place feels like an extraterrestrial space station with air conditioners protecting humans from hostile desert weather outside. There is even a small botanic garden inside.

Battered by a fourteen hour flight, standing there before the final leg of our journey, we were happy regardless. We moved to an area where people watched an electronic display of flight schedules. 

I don’t wear a wristwatch. 

My cellphone was still showing Sydney time. I wanted to know what the local time was. 

I looked around, high ceilings, giant columns, gorgeous shop windows, shrines of Italian fashion brands, the giant teddy bear, and the flight schedule display, but no sign of a wall clock anywhere. 

Remembering gorgeous Swiss railway clocks and their imitations, I wonder what happened to them. 

We used to have wall clocks in foyers. They were useful artefacts of the analog age. If your mechanical wristwatch failed or you didn’t own one, you could always count on wall clocks. They were revered, communal objects.

With the rise of cellphones, we forgot wall clocks. 

Apple initially used the Swiss railway clock design without permission in iOS 6. Although the exact details of the licensing agreement are confidential. It was reported that Apple ultimately paid Swiss national rail operator SBB about CHF 20M (about US$ 22.4M as of January 2014) to license the use of the clock design. Apple later removed the design from its operating system with iOS 7 (Source: Wikipedia)

The cellphone clock is useful, precise, and doesn’t require readjusting. But cellphones are multifunctional devices, and displaying time is a demoted function. The clock is permanently present on the home screen and sometimes on the status bar. However availability of local time depends on the Location service that may not be available when you don’t have Internet access. That is often the case in airports.

My eyes scanned the flight display, no trace of the local time. 

Five minutes passed. Next to a label “Local Time” at the bottom of the flight display I saw a tiny digital clock. 

A deep sigh followed. 

A4

I have a little trade secret to share with you. Whenever I need to communicate my ideas on a printed medium, I use a single sheet of A4 page, and only on one side.

The most frequently used paper size is A4 measuring 210 by 297 millimetres.

The significant advantage of A system is its scaling: Folded brochures of any size can be made by using sheets of the next larger size, e.g. A4 sheets are folded to make A5 brochures.

But there is something else in A4.

A4 is a meme, it simply evolved with modern human.

In addition to scaling advantages I think A4 evolved to be the most frequently used paper size, because a single sheet of it is the most efficient medium to convey ideas.

Not too big, not too small, elegantly scaled.

Next time you have an idea, try fitting it into an A4 sheet, and I guarantee you it will be read by majority of people.

Exceed an A4 page by one line, or use a different paper size, you will have less people reading it.

I call it Natural Selection.

The Bad News

Sometimes despite our effort to curb unpleasant news, we cannot avoid them entirely. Recently I came across this dreadful news of a couple were said to have had sex, went shopping and ate pizza as their 3 year old toddler Scott McMillan lay dying on 4 November after alleged incidents of escalating violence by the pair including, it is claimed, beating him with a frying pan and hanging him upside down by his feet.

Regardless of statistical rarity of such incidents we, great majority, are all deeply distressed by such news.

On the one hand as a society we should know about bad news, knowing is the only way to start thinking about what went wrong and accordingly develop ways to start improving.

On the other hand media outlets love breaking bad news, simply because it is the cheapest way for them to increase their circulation.

I think avoiding media, not watching TV, not following media outlets on the Internet is not the solution.

We need a balanced approach.

Sure we want to have a pleasant weekend, with family spending the afternoon in a grand park, strolling and enjoying a cone of ice-cream, followed by a visit to a nearby museum. We want nothing to ruin such experience. We know, our remembering self will give precedence to bad experiences, they are the ones in our memories persist into the future.

But life comes as a package, there can be perfect moments and we should seize them. But life itself in its entirety, is far from being perfect. Hence looking at a compromise, and developing a wisdom to balance bad news with positive approaches seems to be a good strategy.

We cannot do anything for the poor boy. Capital punishment of his parents may provide temporary relief, our primordial instincts will come into play, however it won’t let the problem go away.

A meaningful discussion on how we can be aware of psychotic individuals in our communities, what services should be improved for prevention of abuse is a good start. Then as responsible fellow human beings we should look into ways to contribute to such solutions with our participation. By being mere observers we cannot cause change. We need to articulate change and participate to it.

References:

Whitsunday Coast Guardian Article:
http://www.whitsundaycoastguardian.com.au/news/torture-and-killing-boy-3-could-be-punishable-deat/2500669/

Mario's Sicilian Sauce

Disclaimer: This writing is purely Art, it does not necessarily reflect my own view. The protagonist is portrayed as a male character who swears a lot. Some readers may be offended by the language, if so they can stop reading it now. Reading is entirely voluntary.

Mario's Sicilian Sauce

Mario, a friend of mine, a true Sicilian, a painter, a natural born alchemist to the bone, once taught me how to cook the best pasta sauce.

Ingredients:
- 10+ big Fresh juicy Roma Tomatoes (very ripe Truss tomatoes will do as well)
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
- Chillies to taste (cut fresh or dry)
- Handful of Fresh basils from the garden if possible or else from the supermarket
- Two cloves of fresh juicy garlic.
- Good olive oil to cover the base of pan up to 3-5 mm high.

Method:
Put olive oil into the pan, and start with high heat, don’t burn it, just break the lazy bone of oil. In the mean time fucking crush tomatoes in a blender, chuck them into the pan, add salt, black pepper, and chillies, crushed garlic, and basil, still high heat, lid open, wait until boiled.

Put the damn lid on. Reduce heat to mid, but let the thing to boil like crazy inside. Keep the man-made hell inside the pan intact for about an hour.

Then open the lid carefully. The water cumulated on the inner lid will come out, don’t burn yourself, will you? The idea is to steam cook tomatoes, with flavour trapped, in decent fire (my fucking idea, you like it fine, you don’t, I don’t give a shit).

Yeah, open the lid, stir and look. You should see oil escaped towards the inner wall of the pan. Leave the lid open for the rest of cooking.

Reduce heat. Just imagine you are a newly attended Devil in Hell and you have soft spot for people like Putin, Erdogan, or Murdoch. So you want them cooked very gently and slowly. Reduce the damn heat as such. Fucking lid is still open.

Go back to your Facebook, and Like shitty photos of friends. Every now and then, move your fucking ass, get up, check out the pan, stir Erdogan, Putin, and Murdoch mixture gently. Remember you are the good-hearted Devil. Do this shit for about an hour at least.

The sauce will burp every now and then during this time. The colour should kind of turn into Burgundy. The oil should have moved away totally to the edge.

Turn off the heat, chill out, put the lid back on, let it rest, sizzle off.

Your god damn Sicilian sauce is ready. No I don’t know how the hell you want to cook your damn pasta. Just mix it slowly and thoroughly with the sauce with respect. Open up a red with your loved one, and enjoy the meal.
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The Office Horror

The office is where we hang our identity on a coat hanger when we get there, and wear it back when we leave.

Essentially we sell our self along with our work, in return for cash. The office is a small scale North Korea, where we are constantly reminded of values and behaviours of the corporate propaganda paying us.

Just about everybody, including party leaders play a game, day after day, a game that everybody spends every effort to pretend it is real.

In this play, often in subtle ways, we allow ourselves to be threatened, bullied and pacified, we allow emotional rape and pillage, we are dragged to say things we don’t believe, do things do not fit us.

We long for five o’clock to pick up and wear our identity back from the coat hanger, only to have a break for sixteen hours, delusional to the extent to believe that we are free at last, in this never-ending play.
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In honour of Joseph Gerrald

We owe our freedom to great sacrifices made by men and women who preceded us in this life. They were no ordinary people. They showed great courage and took honourable stand against injustice and against all the odds. Many of them were less known to us, nevertheless their achievements were not less significant.  

Joseph Gerrald was born in the West Indies, educated in England and practiced as a lawyer in Philadelphia, USA. In London he became a leading member of the British Reform Movement advocating equality, free speech, regularly elected parliaments and universal rights to vote. He was one of the 'Scottish Political Martyrs' tried for sedition at Edinburgh in 1794 and sentenced to 14 years transportation to New South Wales.

While waiting to be transported to Australia, a government minister, Henry Dundas, offered to arrange for Gerrald to be given his freedom if he promised to stop advocating parliamentary reform. Gerrald refused and on 25th May he left Portsmouth aboard the Sovereign.

He died at Sydney on 16 March 1796 aged about 35, and was buried in this garden on the site of the First Farm, near this spot.

Joseph Gerrard burial spot, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

'For myself, my friend, whatever destiny awaits me, I am content. The cause which I have embraced has taken deep root, and must, I feel, ultimately triumph. I have my reward. I see through the cheering vista of future events the overthrow of tyranny, and the permament establishment of benevolence and peace. It is as silent as the lapse of time, but as certain and inevitable.' 

Joseph Gerrard, 17 May 1795 

Sensual Bruschetta

Bruschetta is my all time favourite light lunch dish. So easy to prepare in lazy summer afternoons, so healthy, and so Mediterranean, I keep making them every time with a twist.

Toast diagonally sliced Rustic bread with or without olives. Slice open one end of a garlic and rub on bread slices while they are hot. Dice Roma tomatoes , and avocado, throw them randomly on bread slices. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil. Optionally, add humous and black olives on the side.

Make no mistake this is a sensual dish. Tomatoes will fall, your hands and face will be soaked in oil. But that's the way it is, like quality sex.

An antique shop in Amsterdam

An antique shop window in Amsterdam.. Delight of browsing through objects survived distant past. Just think about care, craftsmanship and love embedded in these objects, and happiness or sorrow they caused in fellow beings who are no longer with us. These objects whisper us stories they witnessed, life dramas they were part of. Alas we can't hear them.

The valley of the cobras

I still remember that day vividly. I was returning home from the school. It was late afternoon. There was snow on the ground and it was bitter cold. Yet I was in a completely empty state of mind to ignore everything around me.

My father was sent to London on duty. He was coming back home. And I knew he was going to bring me an electrical train set. The nirvana of all toys at the time.

Neither snow, nor bitter cold, nor people and cars, nothing mattered. My legs were gliding on the ground. I was moving in a time travel tunnel. Images around me were blurred. It was the year 1965.

Every boy has a special toy. Mine was that train set.

My obsession with train sets had started the year before. I was 5+ years old back then and I already had an enormous apatite for books. I was able to read newspaper articles thanks to my patient mum who gave in my nagging and taught me reading (I was too little for school). We also had comics at home. One of them was a black and white copy of the comic book titled “The Valley Of the Cobras” by Herge the creator of TinTin series.

In 1935, six years after Tintin had first appeared in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième, Hergé was approached by Father Courtois, director of the weekly French newspaper Coeurs Vaillants (Valiant Hearts). Coeurs Vaillants also published Tintin's adventures, but while Father Courtois enjoyed Tintin, he wanted a set of characters that would embody classical family values — a young boy, with a father who works, a mother, a sister and a pet — in contrast to the more independent Tintin who, the whole of his career, has had no mention of relatives at all. (*)

I was literally fascinated by the Valley of the Cobras that I read it countless times. One of the scenes I was very fond of was the one showing a rather mean character with the name “Maharajah of Gopal” who was playing on the floor with a toy train joined by Jo, Zette and Jocko (the monkey) in a chalet that belonged to an engineer "Monsieur Legrand" who had given the Maharajah a beating on his buttocks for his ill manners a few days ago while skiing outside. The Maharajah upon realising his meanness decides to behave and buys a toy train for the engineer’s kids Jo and Zette. The real purpose of the Maharajah was to offer Monsieur Legrand a job in his Himalayan province to build a bridge.

Now you understand why and how much I was thrilled two years later on that bitter cold afternoon, as I was gliding towards home, my mind completely absent of anything around me and I was imagining nothing but playing with my train set, just like Joe and Zette in that warm cosy chalet in Switzerland with Maharajah of Gopal.

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo,_Zette_and_Jocko

Craftsmanship

This video shows craftspeople creating hand made parts for an iconic brand Leica.



Hand-made products are still thriving in Italian, Swiss, German and Danish workshops and in other countries throughout Europe.

Yes they are in small numbers and they are mostly for wealthy who can afford them.

But my point today is not to open a lengthy discussion about economic crisis, globalization, far-eastern sweatshops or wealth distribution. Plenty of that stuff is widely covered in media.

I would like to talk about something related to being a human.

When you watch the video you will notice something interesting. There is no music. There are sounds of hand making process and background noise of the workshop. There is no rush. There is buzz.

I could almost feel the cool sensation of creating something with your hands. An intimate bond is woven between you, the object you are bringing into life and the fortunate future owner.

Creating hand-made is a happy process under right conditions. It brings calmness, human touch and humanly sensations into air.

I would like to see hand-made arts and craftsmanship survive. There are indications that they may in fact. So long as Europe sticks to its centuries old brand names and keep authenticity they may hold on in niche markets. As a result we may be able to keep some of those beautiful art forms, craftsmanship and human experience for decades to come.

Global Citizens

in Google+ Nick Bauman wrote:

"About 2500 years ago in a smaller seaport town in the eastern Mediterranean, a proposal was submitted to the city council by a man, a lesser noble, in a citystate which was facing its greatest existential threat. His name was Themistocles and he was worried about the impending invasion of his country by the great Persian army led by Xerxes. This plan was a plan of community self-sacrifice where the state would sponsor a project joined by all his countrymen to fight the Persians. They would use the silver from a collectively held mine to build a fleet of warships to challenge Persia at sea. The effort ended up being a great leveling of Athenian society, leading to what we recognize as the first democratic state in the world. The wealthy gave up some of their own wealth, too, to fund the project. The citizens gave up their very homes to fight. By the end, while the Persians were sent packing, Athens was besieged and the wealthy members of the city opened their stores to feed and shelter many of the displaced citizen army."

One of the positive effects of the GFC is, it brought us, “Global Citizens” together. We are living in an era of “Global Citizenship”. National Citizenship is dying.

We no longer should talk about “American-way”, “Australian way”. These memes are static stereotypes that lost meaning. Arrogant, racist, empty and irrelevant, they impose limitations in our thinking, they wrap heavy chains around our intellectual freedom. 

We should instead talk about “human values”, values that made us, like wisdom,  justice, care for environment and compassion; these are universal and limitless human values.

First and foremost the revolution ignited by “occupy” foot-soldiers made us to face a new reality. It is ‘us’ Global Citizens, and only up to us to create a better world. We now all have a shared responsibility in this. The moment has come and it is not something we should or can avoid, but something to embrace and work on.

We need to see that our survival does not necessarily depend on “fitness” criteria defined by individualism. Perhaps after all it is no longer “survival of the fittest” but it ought to be “survival of the wisest”. History brought us to face a new level of reality check.

We are New Athenians and the New Athens is the Globe.

Where is my money?

I have a product I sell in Apple App Store called MiniBluebox. In October 2011 upon inspecting Sales Reports available at  iTunesConnect website and comparing them to my bank’s transaction records I found a discrepancy and sent the following email to Apple:

“According to Financial Reports in iTunes it appears I was paid AUD 49.90 and AUD 101.07 on 29 September 2011.

However based on my Bank's transaction record I received two payments; AUD 49.90 and AUD 76.07 on September 2011.

Please see attached screenshot showing section of transaction history with Apple's payments. Please note transaction reference numbers of your payments and the amount you paid on the right.

To be at the safe side I checked transaction history from July 2011 to 20 October 2011 and there is no other payment from Apple during that period.

It looks like Apple owes me AUD 25.0.”

I received the following response from Apple:

“Payments sent to Australia are transferred via international wire.  We do not owe you any additional earnings.  The "missing" amount is due to international wire fees charged by banks participating in your payment transaction.  These fees are referred to in your Schedule 2 Contract.”

Indeed they were right. Schedule 2 Contract has the following clause:

“You remain responsible for any fees (e.g., wire transfer fees) charged by Your bank or any intermediary banks between Your bank and Apple’s bank.”

Apart from outrageous AUD 25  "wire transfer" charge, my real problem is lack of transparency in this transaction. It is not clear who charged AUD 25.

My bank certainly didn’t charge it, as it would have appeared in my transaction history.

Apple seems covered itself in the Contract –as big corporations often do-.

But my earnings simply disappeared and there is no account for it.

All I ask for is a written record of this “missing” item whether it be a “wire transfer fee” or otherwise.

I tend to think Apple should at least provide a written account for the wire transfer expenses between their bank and my bank.

Am I asking too much?

Neon lights

There is something mysteriously beautiful about neon lights in twilight.

As the night closes in like an owl’s heavy wings, neon lights appear to remind strangers their irresistible solitude.

In those magic moments of twilight we see the sunlight tangoing with neon lights.

We witness a silent carnival in twilight; the most ordinary becomes extraordinary and beautiful.

Then suddenly the full moon rises over the roof of Café Artemis. We hope the night may bring pleasant surprises.

A stranger walks in to a Tobacco shop.

The man behind the cash register gazes at him with tired eyes.

A breeze of slight discomfort fills the air.

Chinese restaurant in Bodrum

Sometimes life offers us bizarre opportunities to laugh about.

These days we see accidents like this one more often than before. Thanks to Globalisation, we now have Amazon rainforest tribesmen wearing I Love NY teeshirts.

This photo shows a mosque overlaid by an image of a tiny and hopelessly ugly mini-shopping centre. On the right a Chinese Restaurant. Sacredness and solemnity of the mosque are challenged by an opportunist vision.

A Chinese Restaurant in a holiday town in Turkey would have been a laughable idea until not long ago. I think it is still funny if you consider great majority of tourists pour into Turkey for authentic Turkish food.

click to enlarge

I have to say I hate the modern sun-roof like structure in the middle; at first glance it looks as if it is cut out from a modern Texan skyscraper overnight by an organised mob of Turkish pirate-architects.

But the hideous blue glass thing makes a perfect irony in terms of composition. It shows local merchants' desire to become modernised. These local small businessmen lack sophistication that may only come through centuries-long social refinement. Nevertheless despite my urge to throw up, I salute their bravery to change themselves.

This photo was shot in Turgutreis, the second largest holiday town in Bodrum peninsula, in September 2011.

Many beautiful things

How we organise things reflect our attitude towards life. These photos were shot during my holiday in Bodrum, Turkey in September 2011.  They show my desire to capture life from merchandise organised by simple shopkeepers.  

turkish delights

shoes

breads

seashells

glasswork

beads

beautiful charms from ayse and ali

sunglasses

herbs

flat bottles

Coffa or cauphe

In 1656 a London barrister, Thomas Blount, published his Glossographia: or a Dictionary, Interpreting all such Hard Words of Whatsoever Language, now used in our refined English Tongue. Blount’s dictionary listed more than eleven thousand words, many of which, he recognised, were new, reaching London in the hurly-burly of trade and commerce¹:

coffa or cauphe, a kind of drink among the Turks and Persians, (and of late introduced among us) which is black, thick and bitter, destrained from Berries of that nature, and name, thought good and very wholesom: they say it expels melancholy.

Three and a half century later I am enjoying a well-made cup of Turkish coffee here in Bodrum, Turkey. The aroma and flavour of centuries long oriental tradition leaves a distinguished taste on the palate up to an hour.

The diamond shaped thing on the plate is called süt helvası from Fındıklı, Rize; a rough sugar-like dessert made by cooking equal amounts of sugar and milk for hours until the mixture becomes thick.

This should not make you believe that we Turks are equally good at making Cappuccino, or Latte. In my view the best Italian coffee is served in Roma, Italy or in Sydney, Australia.

You should enjoy local food proven by centuries long scrutiny when you are travelling and avoid global brands in order to make your holiday a memorable one.

1. From The Information, James Gleick

Focus

I know cliché it may sound, but this book changed my life:

Focus -a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction- by Leo Babauta

Before I started to read Focus, I already became close to a breaking point due to my bad online habits I developed over the last few years.

I let information overload littering my consciousness like there is no end. I have it all at home, Facebook, Google Reader, Google Buzz, Twitter, Gmail, Delicious, LinkedIn, hundreds of friends, tweets, ‘Like’s, you name it.

To make things worse I try to catch up with every other progressive agenda that I feel passionate about, be it atheism, teaching evolution, gender equality, global peace, human rights, democracy and so on.

I maintain two blogs, Negative Matter and Evrim Olgusu (Turkish).

At work things are not any better. Let me say though, the company I work for is one of the best organisations in the IT industry in terms of work practices. I have a very reasonable workload and stress free job. Yet being my own enemy I manage to create stress for myself out of nothing, thanks largely to my lack of awareness about ill effects of distractions.

The Focus book will convince you how much, without being aware, we enslave ourselves to information overload, how distractions become addictions, and how much unnecessary stress they create on us. Then it will teach you techniques to eliminate the problem and find your own rhythm.

Last week I started to apply some of the techniques I learned, and I already witnessed substantial benefits. Currently I am still experimenting with different methods.

In a nutshell the message is:

"Divide work/hobbies -things that require focus-, and distractions in separate time-slots, both at work and in your private life, and simplify your life by getting rid of the stuff you don't need".

The crucial point is to deal with disruptions in predefined timeslots. This may at first seem to be a contradiction, as by definition distractions happen unplanned. So they seem.

The idea here is not to get rid of distractions. In fact, as Babauta states, at times we need distractions, to prioritise our work, and relax stress caused by probable bottlenecks in our focused work.

The key idea is to condense distractions and focused work in separate timeslots.

Here are some simple steps I took:

1. I disconnected from Facebook.
2. I reduced Google Reader RSS feeds by 90%.
3. I changed my browser’s home page from Gmail to plain Google search page (not iGoogle).
4. I close excessive tabs opened in my browser.

At work:

1. I clean up my desk clutter, and don’t let clutter to cumulate. No papers, no sticky pads, no objects between my PC monitor and me. I have just my teacup.
2. I have one small pile of paper to the left of my direction (not directly visible). The pile is neat –no paper is hanging- and I regularly reduce it.
3. I have one plain A4 page hung on the empty panel to the right of my direction. On it there is a small list of items I intend to finish during the day. This page changes every morning. There is nothing else hung on panels I am facing.
4. I check my email in predefined timeslots. At the moment I am trying this schedule: 9am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm. At these times I check my email, and respond to messages. I try to remain within 15-20 minutes boundary each time.
5. In the development environment I use –Microsoft Visual Studio-, I pay attention to workspace clutter and frequently close files I no longer need.
6. Similarly I clean up my Windows desktop. I have no shortcuts, folders on my desktop wall, which are not absolutely necessary.

Well it works. It works beautifully. I cannot tell you how much my productivity and quality of work I produce increased at work and at home.

In incoming days I will be experimenting with different techniques and I will let you know how I proceed. Until then bye.

For more information on Focus, the book, see:

http://zenhabits.net/focus-book/

Drop your sandbags

Liberation came when I decided to quit Facebook.

What started as a simple desire to share ideas, talk about progressive politics, and in between share a few jokes or youtube links in a virtual world came to an abrupt end.

My interest to Facebook started to feel like as if my body was stuck under a pile of colossal machinery designed for self gratification.

I don’t intend to put down people who use Facebook. I think everybody must have different reasons and capacity to commit their time and energy into it.

What I naively expected was intelligent conversations -no pun intended-.

Instead what I ended up having were some ‘Like’s, ‘Hahaha’s, ‘LOL’s and plenty of nothing. People did not bother to respond or interact as much as I wished them to do so.

Frankly writing on blank whitewash walls in a prison cell would have had the same effect.

Well, this must be the way Facebook works then. People share shallow sketches of their boring life -mine included-, and great majority of users seem hardly capable of putting their energy into anything other than sharing a few photos or videos someone else made.

I now regained time, momentum, focus, control, vitality and desire to pursue my private projects.

Strongly recommended..

To liberate yourself, drop your sandbags.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

My generation grew up with spaghetti westerns. Probably the most popular one was Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I watched this film for the first time in 70’s. 

The film reaches its climax in finale, an unforgettable duel scene among a trio; Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes. 

As I snuggled into my chair, eyes frozen without a twitch, I gazed at the barren landscape, I felt the heat, the tension as if it would last another lifetime before the music stopped and they drew their guns simultaneously. 

At the time every boy in our neighborhood walked and talked like Clint Eastwood,  sometimes with a piece of fake paper cigar between our innocent lips. It was the coolest thing.

Almost forty years later I found a DVD in our local supermarket, thrown into a big basket. I was eleven years old again. I bought it, rushed home and watched.

I was curious how much I would remember. I did not recall most scenes, the faces and plot did not fit exactly.  I could not remember war scenes at all. Perhaps I was drawn too much into Blondie, the aura of his personality hypnotised me.

“There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present, is capable of re-living the past, but basically it has only the present. And then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score, and maintains the story of our life.” from 2010 TED Talk by Daniel Kahneman “ The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory.”

We are what we remember. The scenes picked by my remembering self survived and gave way to other thoughts, memes and ideas. Dead ends and dull became dead, truly, just like Angel Eyes.

Diminishing Patience

I don't blame teenagers. When I was a teen being a 'fool' was the norm, so is today. We used to speed in dark quiet country roads with headlights turned off, we adored Converse ALL-STAR sneakers despite their discomfort and unbearable smell, we wore tight Levi's jeans despite our reproductive organs crushed in them to the point of becoming a castrato, we suckled 1 lt. Coke bottles after we played basketball all day.

I have been lucky that I survived all this frenzy of nonsense with 5 stitches on my lower chin from a bicycle race without brakes, and chronic gum disease due to suckling too much Coke. I now pay 200 AUD to my periodontist every 6 months. Most of this stuff was of course done in order to impress girls. Incapacity to follow tidal waves of hormonal commands thanks to the median moral code of 'modern civilised society' resulted in adolescent DNA miss-triggering in confusion in all sorts of directions. So no, I don't blame teens. They have every right to be fools.

Since I am now following a self imposed rehabilitation programme for treating my own bullshit I feel obliged to explain in logical terms why I hate "modern" mobile phone.

I must admit, for a long while I unfairly accused mobile phone manufacturers of a conspiracy by deliberately over-designing and overloading the device with non-essential features.

My main problem though is to do with SMS and its implications of overuse. SMS stands for "Short Message Service"¹. A useful feature when first introduced, but turned into an unfortunate memetic⁶ accident in the evolution of human phenotype⁷. Today SMS acts like a virus to break communications between generations of human species.

Teens literally took SMS to an unprecedented level. They use SMS for many short messages, but not necessarily for sensible messages. Since teens' chronic bollocks of "not being understood" has never been addressed properly by their singlet wearing bear drinking fart-all-day-and-watch-reality-TV parents, somewhere along the line they discovered that they could use the mobile phone to develop their own language.

As a matter of fact "SMS teen language" is quite similar to the secret language I developed with Ali, my childhood friend. We developed a cryptic language from an alphabet of transposition cyphers². Our aim was to send each other cryptic messages written on a piece of paper, on serious issues such as whether it is possible to have sex with the most beautiful girl in our neighbourhood.

So SMS provided privacy, convenience and lots of opportunities to establish foolish conversations between fools. Again I have no problems with this.

Drama starts when a baby boomer like me had to put up with a design destined for generation Y.

The number one problem is I have to pay for the features I never or hardly use, SMS, video, Internet, ring tones, you name it, all sorts of rubbish. It has now become a science to learn how to use the mobile phone to make a voice call, and how to respond to an incoming call out of the box. This is absurd, and I have every right to protest it to the extent of becoming grumpy.

To make things worse according to second law of thermodynamics the battery eventually becomes flat and can no longer be charged and we are forced to take our grim trip to a store to face the mobile phone sales person. This is a man usually in his twenties and there is no way of understanding what he is talking about. You just give in, say "give me the damn phone kid", sign the contract and hastily get out of the store only shortly after to realise that the new version is designed to drive you mad. The half-Chinese, half-English manual is written in the smallest possible font just to mean "your time is over grandpa" and to push baby boomers into a mass suicide. The phone now has full of traps. Any wrong key pressed will take you to a web site the service provider designed to charge you from accidental hits.

The number two problem is to do with the generation gap. Cliche it may sound, I have always admired the fact that we had "the generation gap". Baby boomers have all sorts of darn things to worry about in terms of feeling themselves useless, for example occupying public toilets much longer than their fair share thanks to an unfortunate mutation on genes controlling the prostate function somewhere back in the evolution of human males.

So by engaging communications with teens it might occur to boomers that they are in fact useful and they are now paying their debt to a larger group they belong to for being pain in the ass, this is something their DNA put together so we should not resist against it³. Unfortunately with SMS the generation gap turned into a "generation black hole", SMS sitting in the event horizon⁸.

The implications of a "generation black hole" could be far worse than one might think.

Today's teens in alarming rates read less, exercise less, watch reality TV, hyper-click every link they see on the Internet, develop attention deficit and anxiety disorders at a very early age thanks to SMS, MySpace, Facebook, MSN messaging, Twitter, and Red Bull. To a large extent they do not bother at all to communicate with older generations.

This is in contrast to older generations who also hated the conversation with their parents but nevertheless used to put some effort to maintain the communications started usually by their parents. Perhaps they had less distracting stuff surrounding and bombarding their attention span and they did not have choice.

Historically maintaining the virtue of "patience" has always been a problem in teen generations. Again I cannot blame them for this. We society as a whole is guilty of creating a culture of "diminishing patience". Our society feeds on anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Exponential advances in technology, globalisation of former state economies and shareholder greed are pushing "the pace of life" to warp speed levels in a frenzy of mutual positive feedback loops. And there are many indicators to support this. Take rock music for example which died in 70's.

There are no longer groups like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd spending a year on an album, and teens who are biting their nails off for the release -usually a masterpiece- and eventually rushing into a store, appreciating its eternal flavours on a precious vinyl record. Today music, including other art forms became disposable like toilet paper. Diminishing patience is to blame.

Diminishing patience inflicts older generations too⁴. Today hyper-clicking⁵ on the Internet created a culture in which it is no longer possible to construct complex, intelligent, sustained and meaningful conversations.

We might have a chance though. Rising sea levels may push our species to slow down. We might go back to drawing board and create new memes, or bend old ones to prevent an environmental catastrophe. For that we would need patience and the virtue of "listening". We need to slow down, and re-learn "listening" and "reading" each other.

(1) SMS
(2) Transposition Cipher
(3) Passing on the wisdom
(4) Why do we need to rush -inspiration from Carl Honore-
(5) Hyper clicking
(6) Meme, memetic
(7) Phenotype
(8) Event horizon of a black hole