MoZ: Faster! Higher! Broader! Jülich!

People, you won't believe it, but there is a new attraction in Jülich!! (Who knows it? Right, it's the city of Peter Grünberg! Don't know him either? Well, have a look)

Today I heard that Jülich, or - as I now call it- "The City of genius", has unveiled - hold tight! - JUGENE, the supercomputer!! "Wow", I thought with the toothbrush in my mouth: "So what?!" But then they gave some facts about the "fastest computer in Europe" and it accured to me what this thing is able to do. It was said that JUGENE can finish a complex arithmetic (that had to do with astrology, but I didn't really get it) in ONE DAY. A usual computer (and by that I don't mean my lovely laptop, but one that's used for science) would need about TEN YEARS for that!! "That's fast", I now thought: "Michael Schuhmacher is so going to lose against this computer!"

The supercomputer impressed me and I started some research. I wondered how such a machine looks like and found this photo. Okay, I admit that JUGENE is not really practical, but who cares as long as it's fast, right?!

Thinking this made me suddenly fall into a total Zenny mood. Is that really what this is all about? Does it always have to be faster, higher, broader? Will there ever be the state of fastest, highest, broadest - the point where we cannot get better? Will technology ever rest? Probably not. Probably the whole sense in technology is its development - always getting better.
That makes me feel really sorry for JUGENE, Jülich and Jürgen (Rüttgers) who's so proud of the supercomputer: Today they are stars, but in a few years, they allready be old and slow. Then we are maybe going to say: "There's this new super-duper-computer and he's doing complex arithmetic in about one minute. JUGENE would have needed a whole day for that one..."

MoZ: Think pink!

I can't believe what I just did! I bought a new mobile!! AND IT'S PINK!! I'm a bit shocked about myself, but on the other hand I can't wait till I finally get it. It's not only a phone - I mean which phone is only that, nowadays?? It is more of a camera with which you can call friends! If that's necessary? Well, I guess not, but technology is developping so damn fast, that I feel I have to hold the track somehow. So I just bought it. A communicating camera.
But I promise it won't ruin the evenings with my friends, like the new iPhone of a friend does. Do you know this effect? Suddenly he's not able to communicate properly anymore, because there is allways a new "ap" he has to show us. Ain't that funny? A PHONE that destroys communication. Kind of ironic.
Mine won't do that. BECAUSE IT'S PINK!! :-)

Time to tweet good bye

Yesterday I heard about a new media tool: Webwill. A Swedish design student has invented it and is developing it for her diploma. On first sight it is only an online testament – a webspace where you can save your last will or last words. But webwill can do more, or better it is planned to do more when it’s released. Webwill has access to all your online identities like your Facebook-, studiVZ-, MySpace- and/or Twitter-account. So, when you die offline, it changes your online status, too, or simply deletes your online identities. It is also planned that webwill saves your last words and automatically send them to your online contacts. A message from the grave – if you want so. What a nice idea. Creepy, but nice.

I mean: Everytime a friend or beloved person dies, you wonder what he would have liked to say to you if he had known he would die. “The last words” are some kind of a precious good that wants to be spread.

Okay, I have to say that my first thought about webwill was: How impersonal, how cruel! A friend dies and all you get is a PM?! But then I thought that nowadays the main way of communicating is the web. Some friends talk to you mostly via internet, so it seems to be not that impersonal anymore. And then I remembered how my grand aunt died and all we got was an email from my uncle. We weren’t really close, but still we were really pissed off back then. But today even our whole family communication runs via mail. Today we have to say: Good that we got the notice of her death at all.

Another point that accured to me is the deathless character of our internet identity. Diing offline has no influence on our online-ego. We still exist there unless anyone of our relatives has access to our account and deletes it. We have so many online contacts, sometimes from all overthe planet. Don’t they all deserve to gat a notice of our death? That’s only possible via internet.
Death is in some way the most exciting thing of life. People tell others every day what uninteresting stuff they are doing on Twitter.com. So when we come to the exciting point – THAT would be worth a tweet, right?! A tweet from the after life. Great!

Probably this concept is nothing for everyone, but me personally I like the idea. I like the idea to have the possibility to say “good-bye” to the world. I guess it would give me the feeling of having a little bit of influence on my death. Also, it takes away the pressure of saying something really incredible and great and thoughtfull in my very last moment. It makes it easier, because I know I’ve said everything before.

But what would my last words be? Probably it will be as simple as this... ;)

MoZ: Big Bang!!

My latest Moment of Zen was rethinking my last Post "Show me you email account..." or better: I kept thinking about the quote from The Big Bang Theory. Well, if any of you has read my whole profile or (even better) knows me in person, you are aware of the fact that I'm kind of a TV-Series-Maniac. The Big Bang Theory is one of my latest discoveries (well, actually my brother discovered it and kind of forced me into watching it - Thank you!!) and it allready kept me up several nights literally RIBLing (that's my more comfy way of *rofl*: Rolling In Bed Laughing)!

The concept of the series is in my eyes genius: It is about freaks! Leonard and Sheldon, the protagonists are physicists who share an appartment and together they have an IQ of 360 (with Sheldon endowing the bigger half). Their hobbies are World of Warcraft, Halo, Comics, Maths, Startrek (they even speak klingone...) and stuff like that. So, when they first meet their new neighbour Penny, who is working as a waitress while waiting to become a huge star and, well, let's say: a little naive, it becomes clear very soon that these guys have serious deficiencies on the social level. Especially Sheldon has absolutely no interest in other people and it's just hilarious watching him to try following the "protocol of social binding" as he calls it.

I think The Big Bang theory is one of the best TV series that has lately been produced and so my MoZ is this time more an advertisement: Go watch it!! I'm sure you will love it and laugh like you never did before! And you can learn a lot from it, too. For example that there is an Algorithm for making friends...

Show me your email account and I tell you who you are...

Ok, I have to admit that this is some kind of a Last Minute-Moment of Zen, but I got my reasons: I didn't have anything like weekend the last few days (yes, you are allowed to pity me!). That's because I was part of a huge event called "72 hours". Over 100 000 young people in Germany attended it. The concept is very simple: On Thursday at 17.07 pm (sharp!) every group got an envelop with a social task. From that minute we had exactly 72 hours to fulfill this task and I can now tell you: That is not long! Me and 12 friends of mine didn't only have to renew the garden of an old people's home in our town, but we had to look after 35 kids at the age of 7 to 12 who wanted to "help" us. I guess it is clear which task was the more exhausting one and kept us up all night....
The reason why I tell you this is, that this experience led me to a Moment of Zen I had in bed this morning (after trying to make up for some sleep). Suddenly it occured to me, that I had been "offline" for about 4 days. That is quite a long time, I thought, but I really didn't miss Internet. I have to say, that I never was such an Internet person. I'm really a mess in researching online, I still prefer newspaper and TV for my everyday-information and surfing is not one of my favourite activities. But still the Internet got me somehow and now I have two email adresses, my family has its own homepage, I update my studiVZ account every day and, well, as you know: I'm a blogger now. So when I woke up this morning, the first thing I had in mind was: I have to go online. Not because I had missed the Internet, but because I expected loads of news. I expected hundreds of eMails and some new friend-invitations or group-infos or even both on studiVZ. Going online seemed to me as necessary, because in a few days there would be so many news that I could never recover them. And really: I had over 50 mails in my outlook, one new friend (who prefers to stay anonymous;-)), one new group and some new links on studiVZ and a comment on my blog (read it, Jana ^^).
What is interesting about these expectancies is that I know I would have been disappointed, if they wouldn't have been fulfilled. Although I could delete more than half of the emails without reading them, because their information was already old I was pleased to have them. Somehow the internet has become a source for self-assurance. The more mails you get, the more friends you have, the more links you have, the more comments you get, the surer you are, that you are recognized. We think, that our email account tells us how well-liked we are, although most of the emails we get are circulars and the people sendind them sometimes don't even know our faces. In the TV-series The Big Bang Theory produced by Chuck Lorre (the mastermind of Dharma&Greg and Two and a half men), one of the protagonists once said: "Well, you have to admit that we don't have that many friends", and his friend replied: "What do you mean? I have 230 contacts on myspace!"
Our second life has more and more influence on how we feel in our real one. I don't think that is good or in anyway healthy, but I have to admit, that the Internet occures to have this effect on me as well.
Anyway, I'm not like this couple who married in "Second Life" and in real life and got divorced in both, because he betrayed her in the visual world. That's insane, right?!

My "Free Will(y)" - Moment of Zen

Maybe I should begin this post by explaining why I started Ellie's Island. Well, I have to admit: It wasn't my idea. It is more part of my studies. In this semester I paticipate in a seminar on New Media in which we are supposed to write our own blog. I thought that was a great idea and - tadtadadaaaa - here it is: my own blog. Our lecturer is Svetlana Makeyeva, an American Studies PhD student. You should have a look at her own blog Svetlana's Politcal Soup and Prunes for dessert. One of her ideas for the class was, that we have our own Moment of Zen at the end of each session where we write down our thoughts and questions. Since we didn't have enough time in class I will now post you my latest Moment of Zen.
It was a comment of Susanna in our latest session that brought me to my MoZ question. During a discussion she said, that she didn't believe in something like "the free will". That striked my mind, because it occured to me, that I never really thought about that. The question whether men have a free will or not is one of the most important and most discussed in the history of human being. How can it be that I never wondered about that phenomenom? I kind of walked through life without questioning... well, anything! But what was interesting was my first reaction on Susanna's statement. My first impression was: She's right! Especially in Cultural Studies we learn and see in how many ways men are influenced. It's only logical, that therefore our will is influenced by many aspects, too, and can never really be "free".
Still I wanted to know more about the philosophilcal discussion about "free will". And what do we do today to dig deeper?! Of course: We google! So I googled "free will" and found a very interesting page titled The Information Philosopher. It gives a great overview on different philosophical schools, great philpsophers and their thesis, the history of philosophy and the main discussions and conflicts in philosophical circles. There is a long article about "freedom" and "free will", which I found very interesting and also very helpful in understanding the problem of something called "free will" and also in getting an impression of the complex discourse about this topic. The chapter "The History of the Free Will Problem" introduces a philosophically not that adepted person like me to many different ideas on the free will problems and helps to find your own definition of that term.
I'm not that sure about my own interpretation, yet, but I guess it goes in a similar direction as Susanna's statement: Although it is a very unpleasent and kind of depressing thought, I have to say that I don't believe in a "free will" either. We are bombed by impressions and ideas and solutions and arguments and examples and advertisements every day. Our brain simply is not able to give us a free will. It has to decide for us which information shall be filtered. But our brain itself is influenced by all these impressions and ideas and solutions and arguments and examples and advertisements. So it is them who influence us and don't leave us our free will. It's a vicious circle.
Wow. I feel like I have to watch Free Willy now.......... so sweet these orcas ;-)