Quantum Forest

Most of us spend our days interacting with objects. Most of the time we do not notice these interactions, so they are ‘good’, meaning invisible, undemanding, non-distracting. For example, I scan the bus ticket when boarding (the only issue is to check if I need to top up the card any soon), turn on the TV, look at the time in an analogue watch. There is no hesitation.

However, there are times when objects claim for our attention. I am walking in the corridor of the school and there are doors, many doors, which remind me of the start of Get Smart. Some of them I have only to push, some I have to turn the handle, but there is no indication of which one is which. There is no consistency.

This afternoon I went to the common room for a cup of tea and nobody has arrived yet. There are eight light switches and no relationship between their position and the lights being controlled. I do not use the switches often enough to remember the ones that I should use, so it is always back to trial and error.

Keeping my photo library synchronised amongst computers running Windows and OS X is difficult if not impossible. The way we interact with collections of pictures is still too primitive. It may be that the abstractions we use are just not that useful for big collections.

These three examples show small interruptions, bumps and — in the last case — an opportunity for someone to make a great product, one that anybody will be able to use.

Sometimes it is really easy to keep on going, but sometimes things get complicated and I need some extra inspiration. El flaco Spinetta is fail safe on this; this time he comes with Canción para los días de la vida:

Tengo que aprender a ser luz
entre tanta gente detrás
me pondré las ramas de este sol que me espera
para usarme como al aire

Maybe it is time to break the few remaining links and move on.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice?

• To have Picasa for the mac too. I would be able to keep photo libraries in sync between the windows laptop and the mac. I certainly prefer picasa to iphoto; reasons: faster, deals with larger libraries in a much better way and it does not create duplicates when making changes to pictures.
• To have some money to waste on the Asus EEE, although currently only the 4 GB model is available in New Zealand. I wouldn’t trade it for my macbook pro, but for travelling would be great, much lighter and smaller than the new macbook air. When on the move I most often use the computer to access internet, check email and compose simple text. Some times I take movies for a trip, but I can survive without them.
• To have geolocated forest statistic databases with an interface through google maps. Just click on the maps and get meaningful data. Sort of combining private companies data sets, FAO data, environmental data layers, etc. A GIS system for dummies, making discussion on environmental issues much more relevant.
• Laptop batteries that didn’t suck.
• Character recognition software that would let me take notes in any crappy piece of paper and that would understand my handwriting.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable — Shimon Peres.

I think of my taxes supporting part of the programs and cry.

I am coming back to my always unpredictable posting pattern. Well, I have written nine posts in Spanish at Tren de Carga, but they treat other topics that do not quite fit in this blog.

Maybe I am trying to tackle the issue pointed by Khoi Vinh: by posting short posts with quick, short term benefits one is avoiding writing long-haul pieces, which have an unknown pay off in what appears o be a distant future. This time I went for finishing two confidential reports and submitting a paper for publication. I discovered that I have material for about three or four more papers; it is just a matter of putting the time and finishing things. Or, as The now habit puts it, it is a matter of starting, starting and keep starting.

I have also been following a large number of design news through Monoscope and linked sites. It is a nice change and it helps to think from a diferent point of view: it adds perspective. Sort of coming back to the quote often attributed to Marshall McLuhan:

‘We don’t know who it was that discovered water, but we’re pretty sure that it wasn’t a fish.’

Coming back to writing in Spanish, it is fraught with danger of living in the past. I realised that I have been emphasising writing ‘old memories’ because it is what I remember the most in Spanish. That is certainly a route to stagnation. Thus, I am switching now to cover more recent —as in today’s — events and see how do they fit with the rest of the blog.

Thinking about contrasts

Today: Weather was great today in Christchurch. Went to downtown, had a trip in tram (some months ago I bought a year pass), went to the beach, mowed the lawn, went for a ride in scooter, had an excellent meal, visited a friend that just had a baby.

Yesterday: started at 5:45 am, took a taxi to the airport, my flight was cancelled. There was no point on flying later and arriving after my meeting. Wasted $35 on taxis and endured 2 hours of phone conference. They are so hard to follow!

Overall a good week.

Some years ago I went to this ‘art cinema’ with a friend to watch ‘Fanny och Alexander’ (Fanny and Alexander), a film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. We were patiently waiting in the queue to buy tickets when this couple or über-intellectual looking guys (UILG) came from the previous showing:

— Bergman is dropping the ball, I can’t believe it!, said UILG 1.
— Yes, how could he do such a simplistic movie…, replied UILG 2.

Gosh, they were talking about Bergman — one of the most painfully intellectual directors in the planet — as if he were some sort of Silvester Stallone making utterly simple movies. They were talking about one of the most boring movies I have seen in my life (it won four Oscars, which says a lot about my taste or about the Oscars). Actually I was able to stand only half an hour and left (having paid for a ticket), for the first time in my life. Simplistic movie… Who were they trying to impress? Then I was thinking, do I act sometimes like this couple of jerks? Answers: each other and yes, some times I behaved like them.

Whenever I start acting like the stereotypical arrogant UILG I remind myself of this movie. There is no point on trying to pass as extremely smart because I can stand more boredom than you can. The smart thing to do is build bridges towards people rather than burn them; to make complexity meaningful rather than a sign of superiority.

Four Oscars, what were they thinking?

P.D. 2007–07–31. I heard the news that Bergman just died. What a coincidence!

Last Sunday I was on the phone:
— Are there any news?
— X, Y, Z and Fontanarrosa is dead.
— … Negro Fontanarrosa, the cartoonist?
— Yes, he had been sick for a while and just died.
— … (more silence).

I felt sad. It was like the disappearance of a dearly held relative. My brief time in Argentina — a bit over three years, 1982 to 1986 — started in me the love for the work of Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Luis Alberto ‘Flaco’ Spinetta y Roberto ‘Negro’ Fontanarrosa. Inodoro Pereyra and Boogie El Aceitoso (a quintessential Fort Bragg’s trained WASP) — Fontanarrosa’s most popular characters — have been with me for twenty five years. I felt sad, but I was not in the mood for a requiem or an elegy. Instead I wanted to revisit his great sense of humour.

It is really strange the things that one keeps: many houses and containers later I have lost a huge number of books, but almost no books or music created by the aforementioned. My clippings of ‘Boogie El Aceitoso’ (taken from Revista Humor) are still carefully folded in an envelope. It is in that envelope that I found one of Fontanarrosa’s stories, describing the superpowers of ‘shy, diminished, feeble little men’.

Click over the images to get a larger (~128KB) version. A quick translation of the dialogue is available below. In the translation M is Marcia (the Woman), F is the feeble man and B is Boogie.

First image

M: Listen Boogie. May be you know the fondness we Americans have for ‘superheroes’.
M: You may have read some of the adventures of Superman, Batman and Robin, Captain America…
M: but there are lots more: Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Submariner, The Torch, Spider Man…
M: The Flash, Mister Fantastic, Iron Man, Giant Man, the Invisible Girl, etc, etc.
M: Well, look covertly. That man over there, he is one of them…
B: He doesn’t look very healthy.
M: That is their main characteristic, Boogie! Generally, superheroes have two personalities. In normal life they are shy, diminished, feeble little men.

Second image

M: But in their other personality, they have super powers. They get transformed.
M: Listen! He is standing up! May be he is looking for a place to change his clothes, put on a cape, a mask!
M: Oh, yes! He is getting into a phone booth! The typical hiding place to access his super powers.
F: Colenel Windley? It is me. Listen. I definitively dislike the faces of that hispanic couple who I hired in my company. I will fire them. You check their papers… I want them expelled from the country.
F: They have a son living in Los Angeles. Have them mixed up in something: drugs or something similar. I want him in jail and then deported…
F: Contact Puerto Rico so they are not welcome there. Panama and Haiti neither. I do not like them much… Very good… Proceed.
B: Hey Marcia… your superheroe is leaving with the same imbecile look as before.
M: Well… I do not know… I have heard of him.
B: Ha… super powers.

Note: There is a Spanish version of this post in Tren de Carga.

Not long ago I was dropping some friends in Christchurch’s International Airport. While waiting for their call to board they bought some food in one of the airport’s restaurants, including a bottle of Phoenix Organic juice. ‘Yummy!’ — I was thinking — ‘Orange, mango and apple juice’. See picture (sorry, poor mobile phone picture follows):

I have never cared about the ‘organic’ part of food names, but my expectation from reading a label was that most of the juice would be orange, followed by mango and — finally — apple. I do not know, but my cognitive approach at reading labels is thinking that ingredients are listed in order of importance. But wait, turning the bottle shows a different approach (sorry again, crappy mobile camera):

The label states: apple juice (74%), orange juice (20%), mango puree (6%), natural mango flavour, vitamin C. How do I feel about this type of labelling conduct? Deceived and misled are words that come to mind. The labels of some other Phoenix juices show the same problem: most of the content is cheaper apple juice, although the product name start with another (more expensive) fruit name. For example, ‘feijoa and apple’ (apple juice 85%), ‘guava and apple’ (apple juice 90%), ‘blackcurrant and apple’ (apple juice 86%), etc. Ludicrous. They should just call the juices ‘organic apple juice with a dash of XXX’.

I am back from Chile. After six years without visiting my birth country I went — mostly for business — for one week. It has taken a while to get back in to my natural rhythm and to absorb everything that happened during this trip.

We had a very interesting set of meetings with companies, a good visit to the Centro de Biotecnología of the Universidad de Concepción and very good reception from the New Zealand Embassy in Santiago. There is scope for very interesting collaboration with Chilean organisations and there is the intention — from both sides — of making things happen.

Itinerary

Sunday: Christchurch – Auckland (Qantas, 1.5 hours), Auckland – Santiago (Lan Chile, 14 hours) and Santiago – Concepción (Lan Chile, 50 minutes). Arrived Sunday 6 pm to the hotel in Concepción.

Wednesday: Concepción – Valdivia (Lan Chile, 50 minutes).

Thursday: Valdivia – Temuco – Santiago (Lan Chile, 2 hours).

Sunday: Santiago – Auckland (Lan Chile, 14 hours), Auckland – Christchurch (Qantas, 1.5 hours).

Departures from Carriel Sur airport, Concepción.

Comments on airline quality? Qantas is better than Air New Zealand, which in turn is better than Lan Chile. Lan had a two hours delay when leaving New Zealand and four hours delay when leaving Chile. That meant missing connecting flights going there and coming back. Good point for Lan: they got me emergency exit seats — with a bit more leg room — at last minute request.

Bureaucratic stupidity: having to pay USD 56 as an entrance fee because I was travelling with an Australian passport. Essentially it is revenge: Australia charges the same amount to Chilean visitors.

Santiago is chaotic

We were extremely lucky weather wise. It did not rain while we were in Valdivia. I had told John and Dave than most likely we would not see the Andes from Santiago, because of the dense wall of smog. However, it was raining in Santiago the night that we arrived from Valdivia. Next morning (Friday) it was completely clear and it was possible to see the Andes with snow going almost all the way down to Santiago. Very impressive, postcard like view. After the first few hours it was possible to see how smog started creeping up the mountains, in such a way that by Sunday morning one could only see the top. I expect that by Monday the Andes would have been completely invisible.

Santiago was chaotic. The implementation of TranSantiago (see Wikipedia entry as well) — the new(ish) public transportation system — has been clearly a failure. People queuing everywhere, road works galore trying to put new bays for large buses, fare evasion, highly stressed Chileans, etc. People in the provinces seem to be having fun at the cost of ‘Santiaguinos’. As in many (most?) countries, people from the capital city are not always held in high esteem by the rest of the population.

What about the post title?

There is a song called ‘Vuelvo’ (I return) by Patricio Manns and Horacio Salinas, which I have always liked. The lyrics start:

Con cenizas, con desgarros,
con nuestra altiva impaciencia,
con una honesta conciencia,
con enfado, con sospecha,
con activa certidumbre

pongo el pie en mi país,
y en lugar de sollozar,
de moler mi pena al viento,
abro el ojo y su mirar
y contengo el descontento.

I have lived half of my life outside Chile, and that song reflects my mood quite well (or not). I am perfectly inconsistent with regards to this topic. I like ‘activa certidumbre’ (active certainty), certainty that I understand as either overpowering or that requires work to be really certain.

If you a. live in Chile, b. you know me and c. you think I should have contacted you while I was there… sorry. I made the decision to limit my non-business time (i.e. two days) to family only. Next trip should be a bit longer, but do not hold your breath: it took six years for this one to happen.

I am still processing information and drafting some messages for people that I met during this trip. I will write to you, but it still may take another couple of weeks. I will keep documenting my impressions of this very short (in time) and long (in distance) trip in coming posts.

A story by Seth Godin reminded me of similar situations that I have faced in the past; particularly one in Chile. Over there many supermarkets used to — and probably still do — ask customers to leave bags in a storage area at the entrance. This is the typical ‘all customers are potential thieves’ treatment, which is very common in Chile.

Anyway, I was carrying a backpack with photographic equipment (two cameras, telephoto lenses, flash, the works) and needed to buy a few groceries. I went to this supermarket in Valdivia, when I was stopped by one of the employees requesting that I leave my backpack on storage. I pointed out that there was a big sign saying ‘… and we are not responsible for any losses’.

— Please leave your bag in storage.
— But I am carrying very valuable equipment here and you will not take responsibility for any problems — pointing to the sign.
— It is our policy to keep bags.
— I won’t trust you with my bag if you are not trusting me with a few groceries.

Employee calls supervisor, I do not accept leaving my bag and, finally, they agree with letting me in carrying a bag. So, why do people accept being treated as criminals as the normal state of affairs?