The spy who came in from the cold:
The spy who wants to go to a warm country:
Does it really matter if Nelson Mandela dies, as long as Morgan Freeman is still alive?
And what does this say about the line between reality and film?
Before you criticize me for publishing this now, keep in mind that all (!) the newspapers have already written their obituaries for Nelson Mandela. They are just waiting for the news to come in so that they can press the “publish” button.
Nelson Mandela is a great man. But he is 94 years old and he spent 27 of those years in prison. Of course his health is frail and he will pass away soon. Realising and accepting this is the more dignified way to handle the inevitable than “to pray” or to put hope in other voodoo practices or to claim that a nation’s future will be threatened if one old man will stop breathing.
He lived to see the results of his struggle. I don’t know what more one can expect from life.
Excuses? None.
So I will go for a run
in the sun.
That should be fun!
When I moved to Lithuania last summer, I was even more lucky than usual. The friendly couple whose apartment I stay at offered me to keep and use their bicycle for the duration of my stay. But they admonished me to keep it indoors and always lock it when I park it somewhere in the city. As I live on the third floor and the bike is rather heavy, this makes it a bit of an exercise each time I want to use the bike. Therefore I unfortunately don’t use it as often as I’d like to.
I am usually quite lax with property (although in this case it’s not mine, so that’s not an option), but bike theft seems to be a serious problem in Vilnius or maybe all over Lithuania indeed. I didn’t see any bikes remaining outside in the area where I live. Two of my friends had their bikes stolen while they were at the theatre. An attempt by the municipality to establish a system of public bikes had to be cancelled after too many got stolen.
Last week I went to Kaunas and saw how serious the problem is there: cyclists put their bicycles up into trees and lock them there, for fear of theft. And this was in the middle of the day, in the centre of the Old Town, right in front of City Hall.
This bike theft epidemic is very sad, because Lithuania is flat and green, making it an otherwise perfect country to cycle. But if your ride gets stolen every 50 km, that takes the fun out of the trip.
On 12 May 2013, I participated in a half marathon at beautiful Trakai in Lithuania. There were four laps, 5 km each, around the small town and along the shoreline of the lakes. It was very well organised and it was not too competitive, more of a relaxing day for those who want to run 21 km and test the limits of their body.
My last half marathon had been two years ago, so I had to start to practise around a month before. Luckily, I live right next to Vingis Park which is great for running, and I had planned to lose some weight anyway.
I started at the very end of the field (on the far right in the red shirt):
But then I sensed the enormous amount of energy that I had within me, and in just a few seconds I catapulted myself at the tip of the field of runners:
From there on I continued like a bolt of lightning, stunning both the people of Trakai and my fellow runners. My smooth pace was only interrupted when between the 3rd and the 4th lap (that is after 15 km) I had to find a toilet, where I lost about 5 minutes. Deducting these 5 minutes from my official result of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 23 seconds, I still remained under my standard goal of 2 hours.
It felt good and I am looking forward to the next half marathon. If you know of any in the area, let me know.
I already explained how to photograph a sunset in a very detailed step-by-step guide.
Today, I will show you how to enjoy a sunset. It’s much easier:
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the political satire In the Loop, with James Gandolfini as General Miller.
And for those who have already watched it, enjoy my favourite scene again:
One of the most important concepts in moral philosophy is the categorical imperative by Immanuel Kant. Its first formulation reads
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.”
which in very simplified and thereby slightly distorted ways means that everyone should act according to moral guidelines that he/she wishes to become universal laws for everyone to follow. It is easy to see how this thought will prevent you from murdering, stealing and raping.
But in my current situation, it doesn’t help. For my thesis in philosophy, I have to read Kant’s works and I am wondering whether I should do so. If I use Kant’s own categorical imperative, I will have to ponder if I want the maxim that I should read Kant’s works to become universal law. Obviously I don’t want that. I can’t want that because then everyone would be busy for at least a week and in that time couldn’t bake the bread or the pizzas I wish to eat, produce the radio shows I want to listen to, deliver my mail and work at the hospital should I fall ill.
Thus, the application of Kant’s big theory prevents me from reading about it. What can the value of such a paradoxical theory be? Not much, I suggest.
Google Reader was probably the best invention by Google (much better than Google Glass, and in my mind also better than the search engine which turned billions of people into lazy students without proper research skills). I used it almost every day. I had subscribed to blogs, newspapers, podcasts. All news streams were organized in one page with intuitive design and easy handling.
But a few months ago Google announced that it would kill off Google Reader as of 1 July 2013, apparently because it didn’t make any money with it (which is a fair argument for a private company), but maybe because they were too busy passing on all of your e-mails to the NSA.
I was shocked. How could I get all my different podcast subscriptions into one page? How could I follow all my favourite blogs and magazines on one page? How could I sync what I had read on my computer with what I had read on my tablet? Would I lose all of my RSS feeds which I had collected over the years?
Luckily, there are alternatives. I checked out a few, and tried The Old Reader and Feedly. I wanted to test both of them for a few days to see which one I would like more, but Feedly already won after a few hours. In fact, it is not only a substitute for Google Reader but it is much nicer, has plenty more options, works faster and without any problems when downloading podcasts and is much more beautifully designed. Except for the search function, there is nothing to be missed. Had I bothered to try out different RSS readers earlier, I probably would have used Feedly all along.
The lesson: Even if there are things which you like and think are indispensable, don’t worry if you lose them. Chances are you’ll find something better. The same probably applies to people.
By the way, Google is still advertising the service it will shut down in two weeks. What a silly company.
Park in Gaza:
Gezi Park, Istanbul, Turkey:
I am waiting for Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to speak about “the suffering and the inhumane conditions of life in Gaza” again. He probably won’t even notice the irony.
The Happy Hermit 