randformblog on math, physics, art, and design |
The program in Oxford was very packed however I fastly managed to sneak into a museum. Thus before I go to Goettingen I fastly post some recommendation for a fantastic exhibition which is currently at the Ashmolean in Oxford called the “Lost world of Old Europe”.
My classmate Brigitta Erbzenzähler (here some previous works of her in german: zischende zwischeneinlage , short story) took recently a creative writing class in Baltimore, USA. She is trying to enhance her market chances, so she is now heading for the english language. Her assignment in Baltimore was to write a story which contained some elements of sex or crime and which could be suitable for being published in a womans magazine. She didn’t finish her assignment in time in order to get a native speaker spellcheck, proofread and lectorate yet. So the below work dubbed “008” is a rather unpolished version. Her decision to prepublish this unpolished version on this blog was motivated by the possibility that some readers might be interested in publishing the final version. Since she is currently a bit broke, I accepted to publish her story again at randform, although it is again a bit out of the theme and style of the blog. It may entertain you during my absence.
illustration: V. Levinson from the book “Fregattenkapitän Eins” (translation of Fregat Kapitana Edinytzyi by Vladimir Ljowschin), Raduga Verlag Moskau 1989 und Detskaja Literatura Moskau 1968
There are some interesting upcoming mathematical talks here in Berlin. One is by Marcus du Sautoy (if the volcano permits), who is one of the british guru’s for the public understanding of math (see also this randform post). Among others he was invited by Günther Ziegler, winner of the communicatore prize and many other prizes. The other talk will be by Wendelin Werner (see also this randfrom post) at the theatre of castle Sanssouci. Unfortunately I can’t attend Wendelin Werners lecture because (if the volcano permits) I am going to be in Oxford at a spring school and workshop. After that I’ll be in Goettingen for a workshop.
I do not intend to blog in Oxford (I doubt that the youth hostels have internet) and probably also not in Goettingen, so stay tuned.
Some more images from the book “Fregattenkapitä Eins” and its beautiful illustrations after the click.
Soheil Nasseri (who was featured a couple of times here on randform) is again becoming an actor. This times he is going to play the role of a pianist of the 19th century (means in particular one hour of Chopin). He will perform together with an orchester and the ballet of John Neumeier, Lady of the Camellias. The show is going to be end of Mai in the Metropolitan Opera House, which fits in about 30000 people!
(small clarification added on May 3: The Metropolitan opera house fits in 3800 people at one performance, since there are 8 performances with Soheil Nasseri this gives altogether about 30000 people who may attend his performances)
Before this big event is taking place he rehearsed his performance here in Berlin in the Salon Christophori – a repairshop for fortepianos and other historical instruments in front of ca. 100 highly critical inhabitants of Berlin (…just to make sure that New York gets the right quality! ;-) ) His performance was partially together with Tuyêt Pham (mimicking the orchester).
The performance was no exception since next to the repairshop (where you can by the way adopt the repair of a fortepiano) Salon Christorphori hosts a series of high quality performances of artists who enjoy the possibility to perform in a rather casual context (and with better conditions than in a department store). Unfortunately the future of the Salon is rather unclear since the place is currently refurbished with unclear (and most likely gentrified) future tenant situation.
“Small” cultural occasions like the above described are important for the cultural life of a city. They serve not only for local communication and entertainment but are equally of educational value. Unfortunately as described before music education in Berlin is not as it could be and more unfortunately the situation is worsening. In a protest note well-known musicians protest against the cutbacks of music education in schools .
Soheil Nasseri with Tuyêt Pham saying good bye
That is how it currently looks in front of Salon Christophori
Another musical event I attended last week (just in case you wonder what I am doing):
The fantastic crossover project featuring the flying steps and the well-tempered clavier -> youtube video
foto by fotonotof
Short notice: as published in one of the current gazettes (2010-04-20) of the US Trade mark office the company Disney had filed an application for the name “snow white” (if I understood correctly ?) for:
Production, presentation, distribution, and rental of motion picture films; production, presentation, distribution, and rental of television and radio programs; production, presentation, and rental of sound and visual recordings; production of entertainment shows and interactive programs for distribution via audio and visual media, and electronic means; production and provision of entertainment in the nature of shows, current events news, and entertainment information via communication and computer networks; amusement park and theme park services; educational and entertainment services rendered in or relating to theme parks, namely, live stage shows, live amusement park shows, live performances by costumed characters, and presentation of live theatrical performances; presentation of live stage shows; presentation of live show performances; entertainment in the nature of theater productions; entertainer services, namely, live appearances by a professional entertainer
short video clip about jboard (1.4 MB) (link to 12.1 MB)
randform reader Lano Ferryman asked in a comment to a randform post:
If you are so interested in new input devices – so why don’t you report on the new iPad?
answer: First of all I think there had already been quite some media coverage about the Apple iPad thus I dont really think that testing the iPad on randform is really needed. And in order to be fair one would need also to report on other similar tablet computers or tablet PCs. Moreover I haven’t seen the iPad yet, apart from displays in in-depth video demonstrations. Tim is a bit skeptical about it, since you can’t run a programming language on the iPad, so he couldn’t e.g. install his string-rewriter jsymbol on the iPad. So he is rather waiting, like there is e.g. a Berlin company called neofonie, which produces a similar pad, called wePad (wikipedia site (sofar only in german)) which is announced to run like with an Android-like-OS that is it is some Linux, but able to run with Android applications (and rumor has it, that google is also about to release an android powered pad), furthermore Adobe Air is available on the wePad, thus Flash would run on it (i am not such a fan of flash though). However the webpage of the wePad isn’t really overly informative. On the wePad’s facebook site (in german) one can at least read (in german) that more information in particular regarding price etc. is to be released tomorrow.
It is also that I am getting more and more reluctant to promote new technologies which make people want to consume more.
On the other hand its not that randform is totally uninterested. Tim has meanwhile some new programs, which would run nicely on an iPad-like pad. The above short clip displays his program jboard (under development) for using an electronic board. I was asking him to implement something like stickers (on the right side of the board) where you can store little pieces of text and graphics, which you can freely move and copy to other pages. The stickers are automatically “tagged” with parts of what the sticker holds, but one can also tag them also with any other self-designed icon/text. So for example if you have a table you are constantly referring to throughout a lecture then you can get that table from the sidebar by clicking on your icon. We forgot to display the highlight feature in the clip.
update 13.04.10 – I forgot to mention: Tim is not sure wether jBoard will be GPL, LGPL or something similar, in any case jBoard will be open. There will also no ridiculous patents be filed (like for the stickers). Further development of jBoard will be rather slow, in particular next week the semester starts again and Tim will mutate again into a teaching machine.
A reader commented to the post dripping pains:
It is quite arrogant to say that such a design is bad – just because you have other criteria! You say your comment shouldnt be seen as an insult, but of course it is an insult! Even worse you discredit the makings of a different country than your country of origin, you should have a better respect of other cultures! Your comment may sound very disheartening!
My reply to this and some more photos from the Juno oven (see above) which works without dripping pans (the drip goes onto the outer surface and is not collected in a dripping pan) after the click.
Read the rest of this entry »
When we were in Japan a good year ago, we had the great chance to see mount Aso.
just in case someone didnt notice this comment.
There is currently a public debate in Germany about what to do with long-term unemployed or similarily precarious individua. In particular in Germany there exists a social care instrument called “Hartz IV” which combines unemployment benefits and welfare benefits. The debate saw meanwhile quite some contraversial statements, including a statement by the current minister for foreign affairs Mr. Westerwelle, who warned -according to Spiegel-Online in that context of “late-roman decadence” and – again according to spiegel-online demanded that recipients of Hartz IV who do not display enough flexibility should be further sanctioned (there are already sanctions). One of his main ideas which stood behind these statements was – if I understood correctly that “work should be worthwhile again” . In particular it was inferred in that context that some recipients of Hartz IV receive more benefits than some who work full-time in a badly paid job. Meanwhile people tried to collect information about which assertions are correct in that context. Like there was a nice (partially even tabularized comparision) about benefits and unemployment in Berliner Zeitung (unfortunately I currently cant find the link) which displayed that less benefits do not automatically increase job chances. Likewise Frederic Valin of the Berlin blog Spreeblick collected some arguments, which disagree with some common buzz-terms which were used by some politicians, others provided examples where working (in contrast to receiving benefits) would not pay out a.s.o. The debate had now been even more spurred by the SPD top-candidate for the federal state of Nordrhein-Westfalen Hannelore Kraft who suggested –according to Spiegel Online – that recipients of Hartz IV may have at least some kind of job if they could work in places which are oriented to the public good like in care for the elderly etc. These recipients could then earn a little more money than the usual Hartz IV money, which is 359 Euros a month. The main idea behind that proposal being probably that this would relief recipients of Hartz IV from the feeling of being some kind of public “parasites”.
In all the discussion I somehow missed out something, so I felt I had to explain this here on the blog.
Guido Westerwelle’s idea that “work should be worthwhile again” will here actually also be the key issue in my arguments. The question how to find a measure for what is “worthwhile”, independent of market mechanisms will be at the center.
I do not agree with Mr. Westerwelle that people who do not display enough flexibility should be further sanctioned. I do not understand how he might have drawn his conclusions from the idea “work should be worthwhile again” and I will try to explain this. (Apart from what I am going to say it should be inferred that the quest to lower benefits seem to have its flaws already by “free-capitalistic” standards, because if you would reduce or cut the current benefits then the low-paid labour market would be flooded and thus low-paid work (in Germany there is usually no minimum wage) would be even less worthwhile.)
There had also been already quite some discussion here in Germany about a basic income for everybody. This discussion is of course not limited to Germany and there are other suggestions for innovating reimbursement like for example Jeremy Rifkin talks in this interview (mentioned in the comment section of Valins post) about the use of time-dollars a.s.o. I think time-dollars may make sense only in very special circumstances and the argument against them is again related to the question when “work is worthwhile again.”
Before coming back to the discussion about the value of work, one has to digress a bit.
The “world market” would in a simplified picture basically consist of three main ingrediences: ressources (I consider machines to be ressources for simplicity), the labour market and the financial/partially entrepreneurial sector. In the labour market one gets money for labour and in the financial/partially entrepreneurial sector the money is again very simply speaking mainly made by providing the “fluidity” (i.e. e.g. by distributing investments, transfer actions), by handling risks and responsibility (like for example for the workers).
Labour is usually paid according to availability of the needed work force (the market).
Now one observes the following: The labour market is in decline. It is first in decline with repect to the overall production, mainly due to rationalization but secondly it is in decline with repect to the financial sector. For the first assertion I have spend quite some time to gather actual data in the past days, whereas the second assertion will be left unproven.
side remark I:
Data for the assertion that the labour market is in decline: In the already mentioned interview Jeremy Rifkin gives some data for the decline in employment (and in fact he wrote a whole book about it) and there are others (some are e.g. listed in the german Wikipedia). In fact the issue of “machines killing labour” is old enough that as a kid I imagined that when I would be an adult I wouldn’t need to work anymore. This situation is not yet there (and its very debatable wether it will be like that) but there are meanwhile rather clear indications that the overall trend of rationalization is killing jobs is true. I didn’t read Rifkins book and there is probably enough data in that book, but there is also public accessible information in the internet. That is the International Labour organization ILO hosts at laborsta quite an amount of data, however this data has only very partially been analysed. I actually even corresponded with the ILO and it seems one of the best available statistical ressources which display the long-term decline of employment is given in this document. Here the socalled elasticity is listed over 4-year periods starting from 1992 and ending in 2008 (Box 19b). The elasticity is calculated by dividing the observed growth rate of employment during any past period by the observed growth rate of GDP during the same past period. That is for example if the amount of people having an employment would be growing by a factor of 0.02 and the world-wide GDP would be growing by a factor of 0.06 in four years then the elasticity would be about 0.3 as it is given in the table. In other words if the GDP wouldn’t grow one could assume that the employment would be in rather rapid decline. Similar things can be deduced by looking at the productivity (see productivity at KILM) which seems to have been growing in the same order of magnitude on a first glance (unfortunately here there seem to exist no worldwide analysis).
Hence as a consequence of the above the money which used to be in the labour market goes either into the financial sector or into ressources ( i.e. simplified into machines). There is also quite some labour going into “information production”, which could also be seen as going into ressources, however it should be noted that here the issue of its easy duplication has to be considered.
As a consequence Rifkin proposed e.g. in his interview to establish a tax on machines.
side remark II:
There is also a trend to delegate the original entrepreneurial risk to labour force. See for example outsourcing of the job market for software development (see e.g. this or this company) This happens even on the academic market and not only on the teaching side (see e.g. this randform post) but also on the research side -where it should be pointed out that especially special types of research are a high-risk undertaking (see e.g. this company, which is supported by one of the most prestigious scientific journals).
By looking at these trends (it would be of course helpful to have more data accessible and more data analysis at hand than the above one currently provided by ILO) one sees that unemployment is rather not due to “lazy parasites” which should be seen in connection with “late-roman decadence” but rather due to a world-wide rationalization.
Sofar there seems to be no easy recipe how to adress the above problems and maybe – at least for a certain time there can be only smaller steps applied (like maybe the above mentioned taxation on machines). However I think it is necessary to rethink the paradigm of work in general, which brings us back to the original question of when is “work worthwhile”. In particular it is also clear by the above that the old labour market mechanisms do not work anymore as they used to. There will be more and more people without labour and if there is no welfare these people will be without income.
As a consequence it will be important to understand what work means and why and when “work is worthwhile”. And as I tried to explain above it is worthwhile to understand this independently of current market mechanisms.
In particular the usual “parasite” reproach towards unemployed presupposes that work is something “unpleasant”. Paradoxically it is however NOT SO THAT THE MOST UNPLEASANT JOBS ARE THE BEST PAID JOBS! On the contrary, not so pleasant jobs like cleaning public toilets are rather lousy paid!
Thus if one would assume that employment would decline to such an extent that unemployment/welfare benefits would be needed to be paid to a great percentage of the poulation, i.e. if one would be in a situation, where one would have a quasi basic income, then it is indeed an interesting question, who would do the unpleasant jobs in that context.
Hence for simplicity assume all of the population receives a basic income. My claim is that in this context it is important to find out what is not pleasant/especially strenous at a job and to have a public debate about that. In particular in that context “work could be seen worthwhile again” if the unpleasant parts are adequately honoured. If these unpleasant parts would be honoured adequately then there would still be enough people doing “unpleasant” jobs, in particular those which can’t be done by machines (why not clean the toilets of Bahnhof Zoo for a month stay in a villa at an italian lake?). The time dollar is only very limited capable to capture the unpleasantness of certain jobs. It is by the way also not easy to assess creative work with a time-dollar. This reassessment of the value of work however would probably also imply that rather pleasant jobs may be paid rather poorly.
It is of course not easy to assess, what is unpleasant and what not, in particular skills, personal preferences and mentality play an important role in here. Everybody who knows the fights about who does what in a household will agree. But as already said it would be interesting to have a public debate about this. This could give interesting insights into wether the payment for example for some “one Euro jobs” (or similar proposals like the one of Mrs. Kraft) in the public sector are adequate. For me it would also be interesting to discuss wether grading math assignments (which is not pleasant) is really more than 12 times less unpleasant than being a bank director, assuming that the skills are comparable.