Allgemein

Eve And The Last Gentlemen.

Gentlemen, if you aren’t already feeling bad because of the weather try reading Steve Jones’s essay “The image of Y” in today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (premium). Jones is about to publish a book about the genetic deficiencies, disadvanatges and misconfigu­rations of the stuff that makes us what we are. And no, I am not talking about beer, football, Porsches or even Playboy magazine, but the “Y”-chromosome. Not surprisingly then, his book is called “Y“.


In addition to the significant costs of being male that we’re already bearing – shorter life expectancy, no multiple orgasms, only to mention a few – according to Mr. Jones it might well be that


“…in less than ten million years, the male gene-machinery might take an entirely different turn, and what we call man today might have changed completely.”


Gentlemen, it might not be immediate, but we could be an endangered species. This, my fellow Adams, seems to be a point worth mentioning when talking to specimen of the Eve-il female genetic predators out there…

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self-referential

Server Down.

For those who wonder – the server was down from Saturday afternoon on – and for lack of any explanation by the service provider, I can’t even tell you why. Before that, it had worked without any noticeable interruptions for 4 weeks. I hope it won’t happen again.


Still too hot. Still too busy. More later.

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Allgemein

The Good On Paper Germans.

“We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that’s exactly what happens in most American schools. Since the group has no real purpose, there is no natural measure of performance for status to depend on. Instead of depending on some real test, one’s rank ends up depending mostly on one’s ability to increase one’s rank. It’s like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another’s opponents in an inexorable zero-sum competition.”

This was the most remarkable one paragraph summary of life in an institution we call school that I ever read. It has been written by Paul Graham in an article called “Why Nerds are Unpopular“, but in fact it’s a very eloquent essay about the institution we call school and it’s functions, dysfunctions, causes, and effects in a modern world with highly specialised separation of labour. It’s a long article, but one well worth reading.

Sure, a lot of what he explains is likely unique to the United States or even to the kind of suburban public school (not the English meaning) that he has in mind. But the paragraph I quoted above is, in my opinion, universally applicable to secondary eduction institu­tions, whenever, whereever. When I was in high­school (or rather, the German Gymnasium), I have been pretty involved in school politics, but I never thought about school as some kind of hopeless Hobbesian state of nature in which no stable cooperative behaviour between the “inhabitants” could ever develop because there is a fixed time horizon for interaction and all real incentives are seriously discounted. Combine that with teenagers’ social inexperience and you have a seriously dysfunctional social institution. One that is indeed not adapted to anyone’s needs. One in which Golding’s “The Lord of The Flies” is on constant replay, as Graham remarks.

Weiterlesen →

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Allgemein

sahara.

It is so freakishly hot today that I have not simply decided to reduce physical activity to a subsistence level, I am also inclined to believe this AFP report about Italian meterologists who claim that the meteroloigical equator has shifted 20 degrees northwards this year –


“It’s as if the African desert is moving to the North.”

He’s right. Have you ever been to the Sahara desert? This is what its chilliest, most northern bits look like. And this is precisely how it feels outside today.



I guess I should think about getting a camel one of these days, and a scrotum protector – camel riding is clearly the most inconvenient way of travelling ever conceived of.

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quicklink, US Politics

Poor Tony.

Today’s NY Times editorial looks at Tony Blair’s credibility crisis and decides that opposing Washington on a number of important issues would be helpful for him right now. I disagree.

Opposing will not be enough. He will need substancial evidence that supporting the US administration against one’s own voters’ opinion does pay off eventually. If the American administration does not want to find itself completely unilateralized the next time it needs a hand from Whitehall, Bush needs to give Blair something that is costly and thus credible. I’m thinking Kyoto, or stepped up pressure on Israel. Whatever has lower opportunity costs for Bush.

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US Politics

The People For Larry Flynt?

In 1996, Milos Forman’s film “The People vs. Larry Flynt” showed the world that exercising one’s right to free speech can be dangerous. There were a lot of people who had a lot against Larry Flynt, the owner of Flynt Publishing, a company specialising in the production of visual stimuli like the rather well known “Hustler Magazine” [the first porn link in this blog…]. Even when he barely survived an attempted assasination that left him paralyzed, Flynt did not give up to defend his rights and challenge America with Voltaire –

“I may not like what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”


Now Mr Flynt seems to be about to make an expensive bet about how many people will not just let him say what he sees fit, but let him say it in their name – on Monday, he announced that he would enter the now likely Schwarzenegger-void race [the Terminator will make an announcement on Wednesday] for the succesion of Californian governor Gray Davis.


It would be easy to see this campaign as a passtime for a old and rich publisher, as the electoral system does not seem to impose too many restrictions on prospective candidates, according to CNN. And rather likely, it is just that.


But given Flynt’s record of fighting against the people, it would certainly be interesting to see what he would do for them.

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Allgemein

Like Ice In The Sunshine.

I don’t know how many of you know this eighties commercial-song for Langnese, Unilever’s German ice cream brand, but whenever temperatures rise to unbearable levels, this song somehow creaps back into my brain. I guess it’s because of the second line: I am melting away, on this sunny day…

Weiterlesen →

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quicklink

traffic data retention.

Ever wondered what the legal situation regarding internet traffic data retention by ISPs and governmental access is in EU countries? Don’t look further, saveprivacy.org has a note sent by the general secretariat of the EU council to the EU’s Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime (MDG) that outlines the current legal situation as well as possible future projects with respect to traffic data retention.

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oddly enough, Political Theory, quicklink, USA

Trading Bush-Shares.

Ever wanted to short sell a few Condis and find out what the price for three-month Colin-Caps is? Spiegel Online reports that Paris-based American expat Andrew Geiger has initiated the American Action Market, a trading platform that will (intentionally) provide insights into the actions and decisions of the US government. The idea is modeled after the US Department of Defense’s now withdrawn idea of a Policy Analysis Market. (link to story)

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