Coat of Arms of Amsterdam by Ssolbergj

I had recently undertaken a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There were a few strong first-time impressions, which I want to document before they fade.

The strongest first impression is from the check in and check out system in trams (and, likely, other public transportation nets). Tickets are all NFC-based, and you must swipe/touch special verifying devices upon entering and exiting a tram. If your ticket is valid, green light and a sound tone will notify you (and everyone around you) about this. If your ticket is no longer valid, you’ll get red light and a different (louder also? not sure) sound.

These chipcards come in a variety of forms: non-reloadable cards for 1/24/48/etc hours (from the moment of the 1st check in), anonymous reloadable cards, and other card types.

Upon entering a tram with an invalid (train ) ticket, we were greeted by… a woman in a cage! She was selling tickets to those who didn’t have them. It was already late evening, but she was smiling a lot and also tried to figure out if we really need just a 1h ticket, or if a multi-day ticket would be better for us.

I am not entirely sure why checking out is necessary, other than for collecting loads of data on passenger flows (oh, sweet sweet data to analyze!). I also haven’t checked what happens if your ticket runs out while you are in a tram: will it fail to check out, forcing you to buy another one? Most likely not: should still let you out (there are actual tourniquets at tram exit doors).

Check in/out system itself is not a negative impression, it is just peculiar. A bit on the negative side is the density of video surveillance cameras everywhere, especially in/around shops. I am mostly positive about video surveillance in public places, but I’d still prefer these cameras to be less visible. A simple dark-glass semi-sphere on the ceiling is much better than 2-3 various-size and -shape cameras looking at you. (These cameras are often so different that you wonder if some of them are fake or if they were gradually installed over the years to cover more angles.)

But video surveillance density wasn’t really the 2nd impression, more like an afterthought or 3rd/4th impression. The 2nd biggest impression is that of the people. Smiling and happy-looking people everywhere! It does feel like a big difference to a place where I live in Germany. Even at the restaurants, it seems much more likely to be greeted and served with huge friendly, relaxed smiles in Amsterdam than in Saarbrücken. A few days is not enough to be totally sure… It could be that Christmas holidays contributed to this overall happiness that I’ve observed. It could also be that most of the smiling/happy people on the streets were tourists like me, enjoying their vacations. This still contributes to the city’s atmosphere, so I guess it is not too important what the real cause of happiness is

Speaking of tourists, hordes of them! Everywhere! I do not even want to think how Amsterdam looks in the high tourist season in summer – could be not so happy anymore. At least during Christmas time I had only seen highly positive and patient attitude towards tourists – maybe except when tourists walk on the bicycle lanes

The city itself is gorgeous! Looking at all the beauty I was only worried about lots and lots of tilted buildings and living conditions in them.

Speaking of beauty, women in Amsterdam do dress up very nicely, and seem to use lots of cosmetics (sometimes too much).

Just to round it up, I think art is at the heart of Amsterdam. It is everywhere – including the people. I’m lacking the words to define this more specifically in a concise manner. You have to visit it to feel this for yourself.

I hope I’ll visit Amsterdam again soon. There are some more shady parts of it which I haven’t yet explored

There are lots of good, real, helpful self-development/self-improvement techniques. These can often be practiced non-stop in one’s everyday life. These can often also be practiced in parallel, for a likely synergy.

There are lots of success books and biographies of successful self-made people. Some stories are quite well-known, while some remain hidden gems. Likely enough reading for several months, non-stop!

There are many good books on business, data analysis, engineering, software development, and other fields. Likely many years of reading non-stop!

Some people say that in 5 years one can master a common subject of choice good enough to become an expert. Others point out that many activities (and their co-activities) can be monetized or turned into profitable versions of said activities.

All in all, the only thing required is action.

Which books do you have on your 2016 reading list?
What is the field you will be an expert in by 2021, assuming you start in 2016?
Information consumption aside, what will you produce in 2016? What will be your actions?

Presentation about Ukraine

• Goal: general introduction of Ukraine.
• Target audience: German and international students, including PhD students.
• Duration: approximately 25-30 minutes.
• Presented: January, 16, 2015, in Canossa, Universität des Saarlandes, Campus, 66123 Saarbrücken, Deutschland, during the Ukrainian Evening (Landerabend Ukraine).
• Presentation planning group: Dima Panfilenko (Landerabend organizer), Bogdan Tokovenko, Varvara Obolonchykova, Zarema Ibragimova, Ivan Pryvalov.
• Slides: Dima Panfilenko (initial version of tourism slides and text), Bogdan Tokovenko (all the other slides/text and final tourism slides/text).
• Useful feedback and criticism: Varvara Obolonchykova.

Презентація про Україну

• Мета: загальне ознайомлення.
• Цільова аудиторія: німецькі та міжнародні студенти, аспіранти.
• Тривалість: приблизно 25-30 хвилин.
• Представлена: 16 січня 2015-го року у Canossa, Universität des Saarlandes, Campus, 66123 Saarbrücken, Deutschland, під час українського вечора (Landerabend Ukraine).
• Цей твір ліцензовано за ліцензією Creative Commons Із зазначенням автора – Розповсюдження на тих самих умовах 4.0 Міжнародна.

You can also download slide notes as a text file.
Original PowerPoint presentation file is available on request.

License
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• Adapt: remix, transform, and build upon the material.

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The Bellingcat shelling report is available in several languages and file formats:

• Origin of Artillery Attacks on Ukrainian Military Positions in Eastern Ukraine between 14 July 2014 and 8 August 2014 (PDF)
• Ursprung von Artillerieangriffen auf Stellungen der ukrainischen Streitkräfte in der Ostukraine im Zeitraum 14. Juli 2014 bis 8. August 2014 (German/Deutsch PDF)
• Происхождение артиллерийских ударов по позициям украинских военных в восточной Украине с 14 июля по 8 августа 2014 г. (Russian/по-русски)

On Sunday, the 18th of May, the sad 70th anniversary of Crimean Tatars deportation by the Soviet regime, in Saarbrucken journalist Olaf Sundermeyer was giving a lecture titled “Ukraine: Die rechte Freiheit – Nationalismus und Rechtsextremismus” ( http://www.a3wsaar.de/aktuelles/details/d/2014/04/15/ukraine-die-rechte-freiheit-nationalismus-und-rechtsextremismus/ , or as a PDF).

I was unable to attend it, but looking at the abstract I felt the need to analyze and criticize the viewpoint Olaf presented. To do so, I went sentence by sentence through the abstract from the link above, picking items I cannot agree with, and providing my arguments.

“Rechtsextremisten und radikale Nationalisten gehörten zu den treibenden Kräften der Maidan-Proteste in Kiew.”
This statement, as it is written, is misleading. I do agree that starting mid-January radical forces were much more noticeable in the Euromaidan movement. However, I disagree that they were the driving force. I would rather say that the appearance of such groups was historically inevitable and awaited for by the less aggressive protesters. Let me provide a brief overview of the events, leading to the escalation of the conflict and appearance of radical groups.

After about 1.5-2 years of promising European future for Ukraine (and actually making some steps in that direction), in November 2013 the Yanukovych government had absolutely unexpectedly (and without any clear reason, other than Putin’s pressure) announced that it will not sign the Association Agreement. During the last decade of November, groups of journalists, students and other activists protested against this decision, demanding that Ukraine continues its integration in Europe. The protests were futile, totally ignored by the government and then-president, and it was clear that the protests would dwindle within a few days. At the verge of November and December, Yanukovych was visiting China to sign some agreements, giving his government quick money support (apparently, Yanukovych “family” has stolen too much from the budget, and it was already in a near-catastrophic state). This visit might have been the reason behind ordering a ruthless, exceedingly cruel, clearly illegal night attack (~4 AM) of the special police forces on the few hundred activists still remaining on the Independence Square (Maidan). It is also important to understand who was there at night: mostly patriotic students, who strongly disagreed with the pro-Russia stance of the government, understanding that closing with Russia will result in Ukraine freezing in Soviet-like time – becoming the like of a few Russia satellite countries, where presidents are more like monarchs – they do not change for decades and even longer. And these Ukrainian patriots were beaten ruthlessly – an unprecedented crime for Ukraine as of 2013. Next day, on the 1st of December, dozens of thousands of people were protesting and demanding that those responsible for the mass beating are prosecuted. On the 1st December, had Yanukovych actually punished some of his people, the protests would calm down. Instead, the protests of the 1st of December were also heavily suppressed, injuring dozens of people (including journalists), and arresting 9 clearly non-radical protest participants. The 1st of December was the first day when some young masked guys were attacking the police with chains and stones; these were referred to as provocateurs by other protesters, as these masked guys could have been used by the government (or even external adversaries) to justify the (again too cruel) suppression of the protests. None of the actual provocateurs were arrested. There are videos showing some of those provocateurs actually freely walking through the police cordon – behind it and then back to the front.

Anyway, instead of actually listening to the reasonable, legal demands of the initially peaceful protests to punish those who have exceeded their authority on the 30th of November, the government and the president chose to ignore the protests – not even publicly acknowledging they happen – while trying to suppress them with police. When this failed, Euromaidan entered the “latent phase” – starting longer-term camping on the Maidan, resisting attack attempts on the 11th of December and after that. During this latent phase, Maidan activists were kidnapped, beaten, and killed for being Ukrainian and speaking Ukrainian. (This hatred of everything Ukrainian was manifesting itself again in Sloviansk, occupied by Russian and pro-Russian terrorists – at least 3 Ukrainians, including a local people’s deputy, were tortured and murdered in Sloviansk within the first days of occupation.) This turned the protests from being “for justice” into “against anti-Ukrainian government”. I will give only one example of why the government was indeed anti-Ukrainian, though there are many more examples: the “minister of education” of Yanukovych government claimed that… there is no such thing as Ukrainian language and Ukrainian nation! There were massive and prolonged student protests to remove that “minister”, but he stayed in his chair until the Ukrainian Parliament voted a new cabinet of ministers in February 2014.

If you have been following my line of thought, then by this paragraph it should be clear that Euromaidan evolved from being “for European future of Ukraine”, to “for justice and prevention of exceeding authority”, to “for defending Ukraine and defeating the anti-Ukrainian government”. Until mid-January, the government and the president were ignoring protesters’ demands. Any negotiations of the Ukrainian political opposition (which chose to support the protests and to serve as a negotiator between protesters and the government) with the president ended with nothing, other than untruthful promises not to attack the Maidan. According to a former member of the former president’s Party of Regions, these negotiations were always terminated after a call from Moscow; even when the foreign ministers of several EU countries had night-long negotiations with Yanukovych, those were interrupted (paused) for a call from Putin.

Up until mid-January, there was hope for a peaceful resolution. All Yanukovych had to do by that time was disband the government (especially the internal affairs minister), and have a new government formed.

Instead, the former president’s Party of Regions, in a scandalous hand-voting, passes laws which basically forbid any protests, and also increase criminal penalties for participating in the protests. This is when protests extended to the Hrushevs’koho street and became violent, with stone and (eventually) fire cocktails throwing. This is when the guys attacking police were no longer referred to as “provocateurs”, but rather “activists”. This is also when the first Ukrainian patriots, Ukrainian nationalists were shot dead by the police – one was ethnic Armenian, another one – ethnic Belorussian. They both moved to Ukraine searching for better life, they both loved Ukraine, and they did not want Ukraine to become a russified satellite of Russia.

After mid-January, radical forces did obviously participate in the protests. Were they driving the protests? I wouldn’t say so; they had popular support, but couldn’t really do much more than they were already doing. Was it possible that these patriots would not appear? Not after the anti-protest laws; conflict escalation was inevitable, and sooner or later even previously-peaceful protesters would start throwing stones.

After this context, does the statement “Rechtsextremisten und radikale Nationalisten gehörten zu den treibenden Kräften der Maidan-Proteste in Kiew.” hold? No. Nationalists and radical forces did not drive the protests; they were the spearhead of the protests, but not the spear-wielding hand.

“Militante Kräfte des „Rechten Sektors“ ebenso wie bürgerliche Funktionäre der „Svoboda“ (Freiheitspartei).”
Here, a distinction must be made – what is really meant by “militant”? Is it “militant” as in Slovians’k, where helicopters were shot down using well-timed double rocket-launches? Obviously not. Is it “militant” as in Kalashnikov-wielding Russians and separatists killing Ukrainians? Obviously not. So what does “militant” really mean here? I wish the author had used a more precise term.

“Diese ist nun an der Ãœbergangsregierung beteiligt, und in der Westukraine fiel ihr die Macht auf allen Ebenen zu.”
Using “militant” in the previous sentence, the author seems to imply that somehow aggressive and/or armed protesters were in the government. This is entirely false. The temporary government was likely the best one (professionally) Ukraine had since its independence. Indeed, some people (I know 2) entered the government circles after being active in the protests; however, one of these never took part in any radical activities (he was more of a social activist, actually), and the other one is not technically in the government (he’s in the state security council). I personally do not approve of these two quickly ascending to governmental positions, but the reality I am describing is quite far from the author’s statement that “radicals are now part of the government”. In addition, the second part of the statement makes no sense at all. First of all, Ukraine is a sovereign country; “Western Ukraine” is a geographical notion, not administrative – so it is plain impossible to have “Western Ukraine” fully fall under someone’s control (well, except for military occupation, as happened after Russian invasion in the Crimea). Also, how does the author imagine this “complete transfer of power”? Ukraine has a vertical of executive power, with the government/president at the top. Also, the temporary government was appointed by the Parliament of Ukraine – exactly the same parliament as elected a few years ago – same people there. How does the author imagine people’s deputies from all over Ukraine allowing something like the claimed “full power takeover” in the Western Ukraine? This statement is a clearly demagogic one. It is a pity that the author who claims to be a journalist allows himself statements like these.

“Hier versucht sie ihren ethnischen Nationalismus umzusetzen, während sich die „Svoboda“ in Kiew als moderater Partner der Europäischen Union präsentiert.” (“here” refers to Western Ukraine from the previous sentence)
Nationalism in Ukraine is not ethnic. Nationalism in Ukraine has the following primary goals: 1) make sure Ukraine is a de facto independent and prosperous state, deciding its fate on its own (this, by the way, does not go well with any kind of EU association); 2) make sure Ukrainian language is safe, and is also the single common language for all citizens of Ukraine – just like German is in Germany, also for immigrants. I have no doubt that there is a small, marginal percentage of people who wish to live in a mono-ethnic state – just like there are similar marginal communities in all countries. However, neither Svoboda, nor the Right Sector ever claimed “ethnic purity” to be their goal. Moreover, Right Sector was the first to help the Jewish community in Odesa, Ukraine, to eliminate the consequences of the vandalism on a Jewish cemetery in Odesa; the head of Jewish Odesa community, together with a representative of Right Sector, then made a statement, a part of which included the promise of Right Sector to actually protect Jewish memorials from vandalism. Would Mr. Sundermeyer still refer to the Right Sector in the context of ethnic nationalism after this?

Ukraine is a multi-national country, and as the deaths of the Armenian and Belorussian show, Ukrainian nationalists can be of different ethnic origin. I wish Mr. Sundermeyer did more facts research before claiming “ethnic nationalism” as being “implemented” in any parts of Ukraine.

“Dorthin verfügt sie allerdings über langjährige Kontakte zu europafeindlichen Parteien wie dem „Front National“ (Frankreich), „Jobbik“ (Ungarn) und zur rechtsextremen NPD.”
Here, only a quick comment regarding the “Jobbik” party: I heard it supported the Russian annexation of Ukrainian sovereign territory (Crimea); I cannot really sanely imagine how would Svoboda or any other patriotic party actually maintain ties with Jobbik after they supported Putin’s aggression.

“In der Ukraine bildet die „Svoboda“ gemeinsam mit militanten Paramilitärs und gewalttätigen rechten Fußballultras eine eigene „nationale Front“, die durch die Machtteilhabe der „Svoboda“ stark unter Spannung geraten ist. Unterdessen muss die EU mit einem unheimlichen Partner verhandeln, weil der tatkräftig mitgeholfen hat, das verhasste Oligarchenregime zu stürzen.”
Just a few quick points here.

• What does the author mean (again, see above) by “militant paramilitary” here?
• Mr. Sundermeyer claims the link between Svoboda and the football fans. He should know that normally football fans of different teams may even start fights with each other after the games of their teams (I guess British football fans are the most widely known for this). However, when the Yanukovych regime was trying to suppress protests, Ukrainian football fans had united in their patriotism, and they stayed united throughout military invasion of Russia into Eastern Ukraine. Football fans are mostly young guys; there were born and raised in the independent Ukraine, and they are patriots of Ukraine. This does not mean there is a link between Svoboda and the fans.
• By the way, Svoboda is not in any way radical. Yes, some of its representatives have somewhat less brains than others, and make ridiculously xenophobic statements, to be later announced as their private opinions by the party itself to shield from nonsense. Let me give you an example of Svoboda being a usual patriots party: during the recent celebration of Israel’s independence in their embassy in Kyiv, a lot of Svoboda representatives came with their congratulations. Would a radical nationalist party do this?
• It was not the “oligarch regime” which was overthrown by the parliament, but the “criminal regime”, where the “family” of Yanukovych relatives and friends were sitting on all the financial streams, including the state budget. I think there is a significant difference between “criminal regime” and “oligarch regime”.

(Speaking of the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine) “An diesem Tag könnte es einen Rechtsruck vom Atlantik bis zum Don geben.”
Not really. Candidates from nationalist parties do not, unfortunately, have enough support to realistically win the elections. I believe this statement was added purely for the “artistic effect”.

“Veranstaltung der Svoboda, an der auch Unterstützer rechtsextremer freier Gruppen teilgenommen haben.”
Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer shows a photo, where, among other people, there is a guy in the national Ukrainian upper clothing, and wearing a black full-face mask, with the subscript above. I wonder, what is so “right-extremist” about the guy? His face mask? Well, I agree this is not normal in the civilized society, but is it “right-extremist”? Definitely not. Wearing a mask is not extremism by itself. Ok, then maybe its the national clothing he wears – because there is nothing else unusual about the guy? Well, if national clothing is the sign of “right-extremism” to Olaf, then he should probably never attend Oktoberfest. Or is Mr. Sundermeyer working for the guys who believe that “there is no Ukrainian nation”? That would explain the “right-extremism” of the national clothing. That would also explain why Mr. Sundermeyer is focusing so hard on the invisible “right extremists” in Ukraine while Russian chauvinists hunt and kill Ukrainians, Gypsies and Jews in Eastern Ukraine, and proclaim Orthodox Christianity as the “state religion” of the so-called “Donetsk people’s republic”.

I believe that Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer does not really work for Putin – I did see Olaf mentioning something about the plethora (between 17 and 33) right-extremist organizations in Russia (like the “Славянский союз”). However, I think that Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer, focusing on his field of research (which is right-extremism), sees too much of it in Ukraine, while ignoring both the marginal state of any such movements, and the context of the current events in Ukraine.

Suggested reading:

• StopFake
• 5 important facts that the Western press is getting terribly wrong in Ukraine
• The Battle in Ukraine Means Everything

We thoroughly planned this trip:

1. a ~160 km route was constructed and uploaded (as GPX) to a specialized handlebar-mounted GPS device (it was manually merged from several routes, with one of the parts found here);
2. food/water/etc breaks (30-40 minutes long) were planned every ~30 km – a total of up to 5 stops;
3. optimistic arrival time, calculated from the distance estimate (~160 km), optimistic average speed estimate of 25 km/h, and estimated ~6 hours of actual bicycling: 14:00. That left us 1 backup hour before the time we actually needed to be in Baden-Baden for the seminar.
4. Every participant had 2 liters of potable liquid and enough food to last until at least 16:00.

What really happened:

• we started ~15 minutes later than planned, which shortened our initial 30km-break to ~10 minutes;
• average speed was approximately equal to the optimistic estimate only during the first 1-1.5 hours;
• when our average speed started decreasing, we cut down the length of all further breaks, so all of our breaks were up to 10-15 minutes long;
• sometimes we missed proper route turns (up to 4-5 times), but we never had to go back more than 50 meters;
• at around 12:45 we were ~20 km away from our destination (less than an hour bicycling – well within the optimistic estimate!);
• near Baden-Baden itself, we deviated from the planned route a few times (“hey, that road looks better!”), and lost about 30 minutes exploring “better roads”;
• we’ve arrived at 14:30 – sooner than our other co-workers, who were driving out of Saarbrücken between 12:00-12:30, and encountered unfavorable traffic conditions.

My bike’s speedometer reported an average speed of ~22.5 km/h (this excludes breaks – only while moving), and total distance was ~160 km. My coworker’s average was 24 km/h. The weather was a little on the cold side – we started with air temperature around 12 degrees Celsius, and most of the way it was around 15 degrees; for the last 1-2 hours it raised to about 19, which seemed hot, and then the skies sprinkled us with some rain – literally a few hundred meters away from the destination :).

Overall, the trip to Baden-Baden felt great! I’m fairly confident that both of us could have bicycled for some 20-40 kilometers more – which, I feel, sets the distance goal for the next trip…

However, we still had to go back – also by bicycles – on Wednesday, the 26th of June. I’d rather not do this, but going back by train seemed too dull and entirely not challenging…

There were 3 problems:

1. Legs did not restore fully from Monday to Wednesday, and
2. the human sitting device (a.k.a. “ass”) restored even less than the legs; and, finally,
3. we did not have the route back!

We did have two routes: the one we used to go to Baden-Baden, and the alternative “flatland” route. However, this alternative seemed to only use Landstrasse (two-lane roads with a speed limit of 100 km/h), and we really wanted some nice Radwegs (bicycle-only roads). Feeling adventurous, we decided to go north along the Rhein river, then turn West to follow a supposedly well-marked bicycle route through Pirmazens. This route was supposed to be slightly longer – ~180 km.

Here was the plan for the back travel:

• depart when ready (after post-seminar social activities and buying food for the trip);
• use a bicycle route as suggested by google maps on the smartphone;
• no specific plan for breaks and rest.

It did not fail entirely, which is good. I guess.

We departed somewhere after 1 PM. (Quick math: it took us 9.5 hours of real time from Saarbrücken to Baden-Baden, which implied arriving at 1 + 9.5 = 10:30 PM, but we happily ignored this…)

The first and likely the worst problem: neither one of us was able to memorize the map from the smartphone screen to keep going for at least a few km before having to stop, pull out the phone, and check the map. Things were fine still in Baden-Baden – it was relatively easy to get out of it – but then we had to stop sometimes as often as every 200 meters! I did not count wrong turns – possibly because most of the time it was too late to go back, so we just kept going in the roughly correct direction.

Another candidate for the title of the worst problem: a very specific part of the route, where google maps sent us to… What was marked as a bicycle path, in reality was something not even walkable easily – a narrow uphill forest trail with lots of variable-size/shape rocks and fallen tree branches. We did have to get off the bicycles a number of times there.

About 35km away from Pirmazens we did find the proper bicycle path. It was really well-marked, so we didn’t have to check the map at all until Pirmazens itself.

At 20:30 we stopped next to the sign “Pirmazens Center 1.4 km” to find the railway station and trains schedule on the phone. My coworker had neither front nor back lights on his bicycle, and with routes sometimes using Landstrasse it was plain dangerous to continue. At 20:31 we learned that the last connecting train to Saarbrücken departs at…. 20:41!!! (Next one – after 5 AM next day.) These 10 minutes were the most psychologically intense in our trip. Long story short – we made it to the train; with the tickets still hot from the ticket machine, and having found out that bicycles are indeed allowed on EC/IC trains, we boarded the train at 20:40

Odometer statistics after arrival home (there + back): 282 km, 14:40 bicycling time, average speed 19.2.

Looks like well-planned long trips are much more enjoyable and efficient than “let’s go that way!” long trips

Aurora Borealis timelapse HD – Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

A total of 80k people were registered with respiratory infections (not classified by flu type). Several small samples tested for A/H1N1 (which is the cause of swine flu pandemic) indicate that 30-50% of all cases could be swine flu (with other cases being “seasonal flu” – that is, previously known influenza types and subtypes). It is reported that ~37 died since Monday, with symptoms matching those of swine flu. Most of the statistics come from the Western regions of Ukraine, which were the first to face rapid daily temperatures decrease – which could have been the trigger of massive infections.

Today I’ve seen a number of people in Kyiv’s underground railway wearing medical face masks (or just pulling their scarfs up to cover noses). Drug stores were literally stormed for anti-virus medications, immune system stimulators, medical face masks, vitamins, etc.

If not the virus, then panic is definitely in the air. I do not recollect seeing something like that before.

In 2007 in Ukraine, there were over 62 000 road accidents with over 9 000 killed and 77 000 injured.
This is 20% increase comparing to 2006.
And this is also almost two people dead from road accidents per 10000 of population, and 16(!) people injured per 10000 of population.
Based on these numbers, every Ukrainian is (on average) at 0.16% risk of being injured and at 0.02% risk of being killed in a road accident.

(An increase in the number of new cars sold in 2007 relative to 2006 was 46.1%: from 371000 sold in 2006, up by 171000 to 542000 new cars sold in 2007.)

On average, road kill accidents take 3-8 times more lives in Ukraine, then in other European countries.

If you visit Ukraine – watch out for reckless, drunken, stupid, blind, ignorant drivers and violating, unpredictable, dummy pedestrians.

The further from the Kyiv’s downtown you are – the more watchful you should be.

This post used the numbers from this press-release (in Ukrainian).

At the end of the video, when future supercomputers are described, it hinted me at two distinct long-living ideas: that of singularity (in the sense of a breakthrough leading to the immediate exponential growth and even probable abrupt mankind transformation), and that of Artificial Intelligence. The video suggests that this will happen somewhere between 2013 and 2049, which is hard to believe.

Information overload is definitely a feature of the modern world. There’s still space for further overload, but what will be the result? Psychotic workers, or super-intelligent and hyper-efficient “infohumans”?

China, India and their bordering states (sorry, no offence here – just to shorten the list) were long known to constitute the largest mono-national parts of world population. It’s clear that after fairly recent joining of the Asian states into a superstate cooperation commonwealth, half of the world’s population already resides in that commonwealth. This projection for the future seems the strongest of all shown in the movie.

I would strongly doubt the “largest English-speaking country in 10 years” to be China. Imagine: you live in a 1+ billion people country, and you are financially stable (we all know that China is the fastest growing world’s economy); why would you need to learn English, which is so different from your native language? Chinese language is the way – so start learning it as soon as you can (BTW, seen somewhere that the number of Japanese blogs, as expected, became larger than the number of English blogs. Now waiting for Chinese blogs? )

If it’s convenient and well-designed, I wouldn’t mind visiting such a fast food once in a while. Though it’s hard to imagine having breakfast there every day: too dull, I suspect. But have to try first to be sure.

Some more videos of delivery and disposal:

(But, in short, the philosophy is: “100% efficiency in urban movement”.)

All the videos (except for two) are embedded from the Parkour series at ExpertVillage. As a side note: ExpertVillage shows ads before the video from time to time.

To start with, you may want to know the short history of parkour. Here is a movie from one of the parkour-evangelists:

Next, here’s a short sample of parkour from YouTube:

If you decide to try, you need to watch at least two more videos – about the equipment and safety measures.
First – equipment:

Safety should be self-understood, but in addition to that common-sense, here are some advices on how to behave while performing the most common parkour elements:

Next, there is a whole set of videos under the common title “training”. Here they are:

(I used to practice the one above at school… it was known as “goat jumping”)

And, of course, some video-hosting services like youtube will give you a variety of parkour-keyworded videos.

Some people say that it’s worth living in order to “make a difference”, to improve something, to push the evolution – any evolution, be it the improvement of education or dedicated environmentalism. What do you “improve” playing computer games? Evidently, you support the computer game industry, which recruits more and more game zombies, withdrawing them from reality, depriving them of the ability to make a difference, and gaining more and more support, growing larger.

Playing computer games is already a kind of a sub-optimal virtual reality, where one can hide from real life. Suboptimal, because as of now it lacks complete sensual dive – only visual and audio contacts, both handicapped to the extent correlated with hardware and software used. But still, it’s a reality – because MMORPGs are highly addictive, and even single-player games are addictive as well.

Think of this virtual reality in this way: when you start playing and like the gameplay, you already lose some part of your precious lifetime. As you lose it, your contacts with real world get weaker – so you may spend more time diving into your favourite VR. This process repeats until you maintain only the basic links to the real world – like going to the bathroom once in a while, or getting some food to snatch promptly and continue playing. As you do like your VR, and being interrupted angers you, you start disliking and even hating real life – for the hardships it has in gaining some social recognition, in earning your living, in achieving anything at all. You prefer the other way – the way it’s done in your VR: with magic, dragons, simple economics model, and especially – ability to save and reload as needed.

The ability to save/reload/restart/pause is a key which makes a difference between your VR and what we call real life. This is a kind of super-control of time and space at your fingertips. This is why you do like the game, even if you get killed once in a while. In reality you cannot pause time, you cannot save and revert back to previous state, you cannot just easily restart – your life is adding up to what you have and what you can do at the moment.

One can spend years playing a single game, being half-human for that cause – with no real-life ambitions, dreams and ideas. Eventually, the game is studied all across – all the maps are known, all the scripted characters predictable, nothing more to gain or possibly just no more charm and thrill in the game. Swimming out from the private VR, the VR diver finds that nothing had actually changed in his/her life while in the VR. Nothing improved, something probably got worse. Some worldwide events happened (bombings, wars, hungers, pandemics, disasters), but they do not matter – so what if they happened? Nothing makes a difference for a person swimming out from VR, just the desire to dive back – to hide, actually – and continue living as a screen-bound vegetable, getting fat, dumb, and old. Or just getting older – still, the time is wasted.

For the most of the people who play computer games I was evidently over-exaggerating. But not for all. Some people really get stuck that strong. And – believe me, as once I was going the same wrong way – it’s very hard to stop the VR insanity.

It was only the understanding of permanently losing time, which will never come back or be given again, that kicked me off the wrong path. Fortunately, I didn’t yet spend years playing – only months in a row, like a gameaholic, with severe back-to-reality remission periods.

I want this message to reach those who feel they are getting addicted to their own private VRs, and probably those who are already similar to what I described. STOP before it’s not too late. Do not think that you still have time – you will regret it, believe me. You will regret every single minute spent wasting you real-life time. Also, keep in mind that some people already died just because they spent 16 hours a day playing computer games… (no links here, you may have heard of these cases, just search for them)

I can think of only one exclusion and excuse: if someone wants to win the world computer games championship. This case is not within the scope of this post, I’ll just leave it out.

I know that lots of people play computer games and hour or two daily, and that they are completely normal and do not get addicted. These are fortunate or just strong/clever enough to limit the escape instinct. But still – is wasting 2*365/24=~30 full days a year in front of the screen a good thing? This means playing the whole year in a 12-year period. This means wasting 1/12 of your lifetime for nothing sensible or important.

Heed the warning. Learn from the mistakes of others, or at least learn from your own mistakes.

Do not ignore real life – it’ll get you at the end anyway.

• First, find some list of holy grails (or problems humanity is facing). Read it, and define the top three items which were interesting for you.
• Find out more about each of the items.
• And, finally, think if you could devote at least 5 years of your life to solving any of the chosen problems.

Of course, you have to take into account your real current abilities, and the approximate limits of your ability to learn new data and methods.

If you already had some ideas on what’s your mission, then most probably the three chosen problems will somehow relate to what you expected.

If you were “completely clean” – this is a good and really simple starting point.

Personally, I learned a couple of new challenges humanity has that I didn’t even hear of before… So even if there is no need for you to “find the life mission”, it might still be interesting.

For all others – good luck in searching for your life mission!

From my early childhood, I did not want to specialize. I just didn’t like the idea of doing only some limited portion of work, when there are so many interesting things to do. Becoming a specialist a priori seemed the way to boring life, because as a specialist you must do only the small subset of things related to you profession.

Opposite to becoming specialized in some field, I imagined doing that and this for some short periods of time, and eventually becoming a ‘specialist in everything’ (which pretty much equals to a ‘specialist in nothing particular’).

Evident drawback of dispersing efforts is that although you can do anything good enough, you can hardly achieve excellence. And without excellence you are not that needed in the market. Without staying focused on a single subject for a long time, you do not grasp all the specifics of it.
Another drawback is the lack of motivation. You do have temporary interest, but if there are many of them, it is again ‘Yet Another’ thing you do. You can be motivated by being paid for your activities, but that is different from real, persisting from-within motivation.

1. The earlier you become motivated, the better for you.
2. Experience is what matters the most. If you have it – you can get the necessary certificates. Education is good, but experience outperforms it. Still: early education is easier.
3. You should try new opportunities you find at least a little bit interesting or challenging – but do not do that at once for all opportunities you see! Get them one by one, and it’s nothing bad in stopping at one of them for better acquaintance.

If you find yourself in a position of being unable to find what you are interested the most in, you must no relax! If you live with the understanding of not beign devoted to some idea, and do not take steps to resolve this issue, you may fall far down the social ladder. Probably the only reliable solution for such a person is taking the hardest, the most challenging opportunities you encounter. This way, want it or not , you will eventually specialize or get experience sufficient for good and satisfied life.

I am still a bit undesided on what is my main interest. However, I did define the small subset of what interests me most, and I’m dispersing my efforts in this relatively small circle. The problem with my advice at the end of the previous paragraph seems to be in taking actually the most challenging opportunities – if one has a choice, he’s more likely to go the easier way.

There is one more danger in staying ‘undefined’, even if you do follow the hardest path. You may get stuck in the ongoing activities, and then, even if you stumble upon what you’d like more to be doing, you may simply fail to step from ‘stable now’ into the ‘uncertain future’. This is especially the case as you grow older and older.

One more, final word of warning for the ‘undefined folks’: do not just idle with no aim, earning some or even occasional income. (I’ve heard from an Australian friend of mine, that Australian young people do not continue studying at the universities after school – a lot prefer to become construction workers.) If you go the harder way, you are likely to end up with more support behind you, unlike the case when you ‘go easy’.

Update:see this post for an easy way to find your life mission, if you’re completely lost.