Between the Lines

WEDNESSDAY 21: A few weeks ago Mikala Lykke was asked if she could create a sculpture of recycle materials, live in in High Tåstrup, just south of Copenhagen. I promised to help. Their smiths helped us, and now work has progressed; here's the 'skeleton':



This sculpture will be created during 4 hours sunday 25 May; Wish us luck...

WEDNESDAY 2: Last month I designed a new website, that went online 1 April. It started with an order for a graphical symbol to be used in a paper folder (yes sometimes there's still life offline), and when I finally had that finished it had evolved into a website as well: www.dilem.dk. Unless you can read danish, you wont get much out of the text. But at least I can explain that Dilem stands for Danish Ideabased and Local Electronic Media. An association of all danish local TV- and radio stations. Autumn next year Denmark switches from analog to digital broadcasting, and the whole media landscape will then be rearranged.

WEDNESDAY 19: Arthur C. Clarke has left the planet...

From an old interview in Wired:

WIRED: What, for you, remains the greatest mystery?

ACC: Oh, ETs. You can't think of anything bigger or more important than that, can you? If in fact we are alone, it means that we're not only the heirs to the cosmos, but its guardians; which is a portentous thought.

WIRED: It's equally portentous to imagine that we might be that lonely.

ACC: Exactly. It does seem incredible. But either alternative is amazing; whether we're alone or not alone.

WIRED: And the question could be answered any time: tomorrow, next century, or never. Which brings me to a more pqersonal question: As a futurist, do you spend much time thinking about your own death?

ACC: I think about it more than I ever did in the past, of course, since I've had these brushes. It doesn't worry me; I hope I won't have any discomfort, is the main thing. And I'm more concerned with the people I love, and the animals I love, than myself, in a way.

WIRED: What is it that you'd most like to be remembered for?

ACC: I'm happy that people are calling the stationary orbit the Clarke Orbit. I think that's enough. And of all my books, The Songs of Distant Earth. It's got everything in it that I ever wanted to say.

WIRED: Have you given any thought to what you'd want your epitaph to be?

ACC: Oh, yes. I've often quoted it: "He never grew up; but he never stopped growing."

MONDAY 25: Sometimes things may seem very logical, and yet it isn't so.
Here's a recent example: Most people would say Google, if you ask for a 'search engine'. One would logically assume Google to agree. Nevertheless nope.

Googles first proposal is: Altavista. Google is not nr 1, nor 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc...
but lurking somewhere on the third page. How many look that far normally..?

And if you ask Altavista for "search engine": Yahoo (Google hiding on page 2)

However, if you ask Ask (the third major search engine), the answer is: ask.com...

FRIDAY 22: Now Firefox has been downloaded 500.000.000 times (corresponds to about 150.000.000 users). Download of the last 100 million happened in less than a half year. Congratulations..!

SUNDAY 17: Perhaps you can still recall the french riots a few years ago; cars burning in the streets, general disorder and the public asking: Why do young people behave like that, what went wrong..?

Now the same kind of trouble have reached Denmark, but the questions remain. Perhaps philosophy can provide an answer. Let's ask Plato:

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Hm, not much of an answer really. Let's try Socrates instead:

"Today's young people love luxury. They have bad manners, scorn authority, have no respect for their elders and gossip when they should be working. Young people don't stand up any more when older people enter the room. They contradict their parents, swagger around in society, gobble up all the sweets on the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers."

No, that didn't help either. More than 20 centuries ago
we find the same kind of troubles. History just repeats itself...
Or does it? Let's try a mirror-version, to gain perspective:

"What is happening to our older people? They disrespect kids, disregard their children. They ignore justice. Petrifying in front of TV, like zombies devoid of any emotion. Their minds are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Or what do you think..?

TUESDAY 8: Well, not to my present knowledge, but the rumours are out there. Here's one site that insists that: "There is no hope for Canada. God hates Canada! Canada's doom is now irreversible!" Nope, it's not a joke: godhatescanada.com...

Don't feel too safe, just because you're not canadian. God also hates Sweden...

MONDAY 7: Jart Armin: "Eighteen days ago, on December 5, a small 24-kilobyte package of encrypted data pinged noiselessly from one PC to another, then another, and another, across the internet in Europe, America and the Far East. Soon, the electronic synapses of a network of millions of computers around the world sprang to life. Thousands were in ordinary houses across Britain. The PCs had one thing in common: all had fast broadband connections. Despite being in sleep mode, they were able to accept, process and react to these digital commands from outside." Read more...

Sounds a bit like science fiction, but we're not even 20 minutes into the future.
Actually this is now...