Wikipedia Forever

I have just made a small contribution to Wikipedia.

Long time ago, when hand held calculators first came out I was a high school student. We had a physics teacher whose name was Şükrü Kapucu (*). He was a forward thinking charismatic man, a sharp intellectual, an unpretentious revolutionary, an unconventional thinker, an outspoken atheist, a gentleman and above all 'a man of enlightenment'. He played a grand role in shaping my identity, may he rest in peace.

Everyday Şükrü Kapucu used to engrave his trademark motto upon us, over and over again: "knowledge is universal". These words never came out of my mind. Today at this moment I still vividly recall with his own voice the very words of his "knowledge is universal".

'Knowledge is universal' means knowledge should be accessible to all. Yet we take it for granted. Providing universal knowledge is not entirely free. It takes a handful of men's determination and volunteer work to make it happen.

Today there is only one non-profit organisation that did the most to spread the knowledge universally, fulfilling my teacher's dream, and that is Wikipedia. There is not a day in my life passes that I don't use Wikipedia at least once a day.

Demand for free universal knowledge steadily grows. Spread of universal knowledge is essential for fighting against poverty, diseases, injustice and poverty. More African villages will connect to Internet than last year. As a non-profit organisation Wikipedia needs our contribution to run its services reliably and effectively.

So please consider donating by clicking the below picture.



(*) I came across this sweet poem (in Turkish) written by Aydın Kahraman for Şükrü Kapucu: http://www.siirdemeti.com/siir_a.asp?siirno=95508

Talent Shows

This is from Susan Boyle web site

Simon Cowell has apologised to Susan Boyle for judging her on her appearance before she started singing on Britain’s Got Talent.

He told The Ellen DeGeneres Show that he was made to look stupid because of his preconceptions about the singer.

Cowell said: “I’m totally guilty, I’d be the first to admit that I judged her on the way that she looked and the way that she walked on stage.

“I was made to look very, very stupid in front of 200 million people. So if you’re watching, I apologise! I learnt a lesson from that.”

Mmm. And we should buy this Mr. Nasty, is that it?

I am sick and tired of morality bastardised in the hands of talent show hosts. Again the whole thing smells nothing but a publicity stunt.

Wikipedia says:

"In 2006, Cowell signed to two more record-breaking deals. In the USA, he agreed to remain as a judge on American Idol, earning £20 million ($33 million) per season for another five years. He also has a deal with FOX which allows his production company to broadcast Got Talent and American Inventor on other networks, but he may not appear on them. In the UK, he signed a "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV, worth approximately £6.5 million a year for three years, which gave ITV rights to his hit talent show The X Factor, a British singing talent show, and Grease Is The Word, a musical talent show to find the stars of a Grease production in London's West End."

This is how it works. You host a talent show, and you would know you reached a gold mine when you found a woman who weighs five tons with a bit of facial hair but with amazingly beautiful voice and remarkable singing talent. Then 'being the nasty judge' you somehow mention how repulsive the woman looks. Your comments of course spirals controversy and ratings sky rocket instantly: "Simon Cowell judged Susan Boyle's appearance..".

Then comes the apology stage. Mr. Nasty 'admits' he has made an 'error' in his judgement of elephant woman, and the rating-meter sky-rockets again.

Finale comes when people get bored shortly after the time the TV station and record companies decide to make a big makeover because public wonders if she'll look any better. After that the victim undergoes a serious overhaul (teeth are straightened, perhaps a few tonnes are lost with a handy Jenny Craig deal) the big girl starts to look slightly more pleasant (at least we can watch and listen her singing simultaneously now.) Yes by the time this happens Mr. Nasty's and pretty much everybody else's attention all of a sudden nose dive, except of course Mr. Nasty's bank account jumps up in the opposite direction.

Fairy tales always sell. Public loves the underdog and losers, they like the story of their rise but they hate to see them remain winners.

Don't get me wrong. Nothing is wrong with not being pretty. It is the exploitation of morality and eventual victimisation of reluctant hero that make my stomach upside down.

Not that I care to watch TV rubbish, but at least I am happy to record in my history that 'I am not stupid' and 'I am not buying it'.

On Chrome OS

Google is going ahead with Chrome OS initiative.

In Bobtuse Bobservations blogger-friend Bob MacNeal quoted Google founder Sergey Brind's words:

We really focus on user needs rather than think about strategy relative to other companies...a web platform on stateless machines that are performant.

Nowadays it is hard not be impressed by anything that Google comes up with. Let me confess I am a big Google fan, I use free Google cloud services, Google search engine, GMail, iGoogle, Google Reader, Blogger (including this blog) to name a few. I appreciate Google's positive contributions in making information available to masses, and their support of open source movement.

However I question Google's capacity to adequately analyse and act upon political, ethical and philosophical consequences of their blunt cloud strategy and I see everyone in the same bandwagon. Nowadays we are like fireflies attracted to the light of Google, we go everywhere with them without much questioning. This seems wrong.

While openness of information and ease of access is a good thing for people, the right to own private information and protect it from preying eyes of abusive and oppressive regimes is an important human right we cannot and we should not neglect.

After all Google is a business and it has to act not necessarily in the interest of noble humanistic ideals but in the direction of its commercial interests. In 2006 Google bowed to Chinese Government to censor itself in China.

Today there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who suffer as minorities, they are being oppressed, silenced and discriminated against with regard to basic human rights.

How do we know cloud computing will not take us to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ? How do we know the cloud itself will not become the big brother?

Project Skeinforce

I am kicking off an ambitious fun project code named Skeinforce.

I set up the following blog for managing the project:

http://skeinforce.blogspot.com/

This means I will be writing less for Negative Matter.

The Beast

If everything on Earth were rational, nothing would happen.
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky-

According to Sigmund Freud our ego's role is to control the fine balance between the super-ego (superconscious) and sub-ego (subconscious) realms.

The ego is the central hub of our consciousness, the gateway to success, failure, happiness, and misery.

Freud argued subconscious realm is driven by primal survival instincts most dominantly by sexual desires. Since reproduction is the ultimate goal of all species this seems a very plausible argument.

When we talk about "emotions" we talk about reflections or transformations of sexual instincts into the superconscious realm. While superconscious submits to the group unconditionally, subconscious resists against full submission. Subconscious strives to maintain a territory of selfish existence by aggression, and emotions reflect the borderline of that territory.

It is absurd to expect individuals to be deprived of emotions, what makes us 'us' is logic and emotions, without our emotional override we would become hopelessly and indecisively stuck in logical deadlocks.

However group pressure forces emotions to disguise themselves under subtle forms. Group pressure, often powerful and overwhelming, tries to keep emotions at bay in order to maintain group discipline and unity.

Therefore the ego acting as a 'safety valve' had to invent elaborate ways to hide but at the same time engage emotions. A subtly threatening short glance with eyes minutely narrowed or a tone in our voice skilfully marks our territory of existence.

Ultimately the group decides what is acceptable and what is not, so the ego has to adjust to a certain code of conduct when it comes to control emotions at bay.

The tension between the group and the individual interests is always there. The subconscious, constantly on alert to protect and expand selfish territory tests weaknesses of individuals or the group for exploitation, whereas the superconscious engaging actively with the group conforms to group protocol, forms alliances and strives to build confidence between the group and the individual.

In group protocol the term "someone being emotional" is used to mean decipherment and consequent exposure of someone's selfish intent.

There is no reason why a rival seeing the individual's emotions becoming highly visible to the group seizing the opportunity and counter assault with "you are being emotional" or in a more subtle form "lets not be emotional". This gives the rival a double advantage; while exposing his team mate's weakness, he seeks to strengthen his selfish status-quo and additionally he gains the group's confidence by seemingly caring for group interests.

We should distinguish between true (genuine) and false accusations of "being emotional". In its worst form some cunning individuals might even try to falsely accuse an individual of "being emotional" whereas there is no such evidence. The accused then taken by surprise and frustration of being falsely accused might become emotional in his response thereby validating the accuser's initially false claim. The attention quickly drifts from the deceptive accuser, the liar scores, and the innocent looses.

To the individual the accusation of "being emotional" (if genuine) means his assault is deciphered and failed. Regardless of the accusation is true or false, the best next move from the point of accused is not to become emotional in response and flee with "why don't we focus on our technical problem at hand" but at the same time marking the accuser in our memory as a formidable rival if his accusation was false. Liars require special attention. Knowing him will prepare us for a future warfare with him. But for now we should just admit withdrawal.

Some may see fighting with "could you please show me the evidence why you think I am being emotional?" would be a better move but in group's eyes this may seem our willingness to drag emotional warfare, so even though when we speak we show no physical signs of emotion, in itself our fair question will be seen as an emotional response from group's perspective.

Human beings are emotional creatures. Subtle as it may often seem there is always going to be an emotional warfare running at different levels in even deceivingly harmonious team environments.

Denial of selfish emotions and believing a fairyland version of comradeship would be a massive delusion with destructive consequences on individual's account. If we take a fully passive and humble approach and shutdown our emotional outlets completely then we would be self destroying ourselves. Submissive and pretentiously humble attitude would inevitably cause depression and self destruction. Whereas we are required to play the game with full prowess hence withdrawal would not help. In fact best ideas can only emerge through conflicts.

Being social animals should not mean to undermine the importance of our emotional psyche. We should simply acknowledge the beast within us and harness its power to our advantage. We should learn to establish sustainable and intelligent alliances between our superconscious and subconscious realms. Eventually such a mixed strategy will benefit both us and the group.