Some friends of mine are getting married this September 11th. Apparently that was the only date available when they booked locations. It seems people want to avoid that date for the obvious reasons. On September 11th 2001 I was in the US staying with friends in the town of Frederick, Maryland. I was halfway through an round-the-world holiday, and the next day I was scheduled to go to New York to stay with another set of friends.
Greece is collapsing. The news regularly shows riots in Athens; the papers discuss the dire economic straits. A person here in London could easily form the view the precipice is near.
Having spent a week in Athens last month, I didn't leave with the impression disaster was imminent. People generally seemed to be going about their daily business. There were no clear signs of distress (apart from one incongruity). Indeed, other cities I have visited appeared to be in worse situations. While a large amount of my time was spent in busy tourist throngs around the archealogical sites, I also travelled out into the surrounding areas. What I saw appeared to be a working city. There were numerous storefronts with decent traffic and many business offices. The streets became busier after work hours. Bars and resturants were quiet during the day, but became busy late in the night. At one point we saw a crowd blocking a street near Syntagma, it could have been a well behaved protest, or just as easily people waiting for some celebrity. There was a lot of graffiti, but also a lot of graffiti art. Not so different to London really and there was probably about the same number of unused/abandoned buildings. Although unlike London, many of the occupied buildings appeared quite run-down and not well maintained.
There was one indication of possible problems. On a quiet side street North-East of Omonoia we walked past trees, parked cars, buildings that looked like apartment blocks, and little shops. Then there were two burnt out cars next to each other. They were completely wrecked - the fire destroyed everything. However, there was no damage apart from the cars. Either the fire was somewhere else and then the wrecks dumped there or the immediately surrounding area was cleaned up (but the cars left). Both seem strange. Apart from these wrecks, Athens did not feel different to most cities I have visited.
Cities are ususally places of vibrant activity - normally business related. Visit London, Paris, Sydney, Barcelona or Milan and you feel you are in a working city. There is the sense that the locals are busy getting things done. Travelling around London, I am constantly amazed by the number and variety of business nameplates outside buildings. You can walk for hours from the Shoreditch across to Hammersmith and it is busy offices the entire way. Washington and Rome feel more dominated by tourism and government, but there is still lots happening around you. Two places I feel didn't match this description, at the time I visited, are Lisbon and Tunis. There was a general lack of activity in Lisbon, it seemed almost empty. Never have I seen so many empty, decrepit buildings. Tunis was similar, full of people, but they didn't seem to be doing much. There was always a large number of men sitting in cafes, presumably un- or underemployed. These two cities felt like they were in dire economic straits. Indeed, Portugal is currently mentioned in similar financial terms to Greece, but that situation was clearer on the streets of Lisbon than Athens.
I've been coding hard the last week or two on a secret squirrel project, thus this blog has been a little neglected. Fear not, I have a few posts planned once I have some spare time. For the meantime, here is an After School Special in honour of the UK inflation figures announced today.
When I was in primary school there was a strange little fad for a couple of months that illustrated some concepts in supply and demand. For some reason, I don't remember why, one student agreed to become another's servant. I think the "servant" was Jason, but the "master" was definitely Ben. In return for following Ben around and doing the occasional little task, Jason would receive a dollar a day. It wasn't a real dollar. Instead every morning Ben would present Jason with a piece of paper (about the size of an old Australian dollar note, or at least the best approximation thereof that could be managed by ripping up our workbooks) with "1 Dollar" written on it and Ben's signature. Jason didn't think this too bad a deal since Ben was the cool kid in class and getting to hang out with him was a blessing.
After a couple of days this agreement showed no sign of being forgotten. Instead, Ben even hired a second servant. At this point a number of other kids in the class decided they wanted servants too, and thus the problems began. About a third of the class wanted servants, but less than a third wanted to be a servant. A day's wage rocketed. Over consecutive days we started to see handmade $2, $5, $10 and $20 bills passed around. Some kids tried to make their notes more ornate and artistic to entice potential servants to prefer their money, which seemed to work for a bit.
By this stage some of the servants were building decent piles of worthless paper. There was a constant problem of what to use the money for beyond servants. Some was passed around as servants subcontracted or paid for small tasks. Occasionally someone might swap sides to get or spend cash. However, people were beginning to lose interest in the concept. There wasn't much of an economy until Jason (definitely him this time) starting making rings. By a ring I mean wire soldered into a small loop with a shard of glass at the join. With this innovation a whole range of backyard jewellery was produced, most of the class got involved as master, servant, jeweller or consumer. Some people from other classes joined in too. Prices continued their rise for another week or so but at a less frenzied pace as people were hitting the limits of being able make money by hand (strangely no one thought of producing a note with greater than $100 face value, the largest real Australian note available at the time). Then people began to print money.
Literally print money. I went round Ben's place one Sunday (he lived just round the corner) and he had obtained a toy printing press and paper guillotine. With each crank he produced six $100 notes and he was cranking hard! On Monday he instantly became the richest kid in class. By Wednesday the economy collapsed and we (the boys at least) went back to playing soccer and A-Team.
I'm a lapsed fan of sci-fi novels. It has been a while since I last read one which caused as much thought as Neuromancer or The Foundation series or the early Culture books. The last sci-fi book I read, the Algebraist, just didn't cut it. I've also found myself outside circles where recommendations are readily available, so reading Marc Andreessen's modern top 10 sci-fi authors blog post piqued my interest and I think I may be trying a few of them out soon.
The description of some of the books as post-Singularity caught my attention. It is a very interesting idea and reminded my of the first time I heard of the concept while reading Diaspora by Greg Egan (from my home town of Perth). The book was lent to me by a workmate, Dale (I can't remember his surname). At the time it made little impression on me at all - I think I told Dale I found it cold. However, memories of the story have stayed with me for many years now and I often think about the ideas I first encountered reading it.
Sorry Dale, you are right, Diaspora is a good book.
One weekend afternoon I was wasting some time and had the TV on in the background. Some sort of animal bothering show was on and caught my attention. The show's image was overlaid with a sign language interpreter signing the dialogue. So I turned off the sound and tried to work out what was going on from the sign language. At first the host was just annoying alligators, but then he interviewed a young girl who had her arm in bandages. At one point the girl repeatedly pinched her bandaged arm with her whole hand in a detached manner. I guessed she must have been talking about being bitten by an alligator at the time and waited for the sign language version. Apparently, the sign language for being bitten in the arm by an alligator is furiously pinching your arm with the whole hand while alternating between a furious face and a scared face!
