An American Furry in Germany

    I'm here in Munich for a few days. Actually this is my second day here--on Tuesday I spent half a day saying goodbye to Vienna, then took the train to Munich. On Wednesday I took a short tour offered by the hostel, then wandered around the city for a few hours, then went to the zoo. I had been meaning to go to a zoo ever since I saw a Hannover Tierpark flyer, and now that I finally remember to go, and have the time, I'm in Munich, which has a relatively small zoo. I wish I had remembered to visit Knut while I was in Berlin. But this zoo was pretty neat, still. I finally found some small gifts for my roommates, and I learned a lot of German names for animals (and came to the conclusion that marmalade comes from marmots). I also realized that zoos are unfortunately probably the best places to go to find the worst kinds of people. No, that came out wrong, let me rephrase. The kind of behavior you see out of people at the zoo--leering, heckling, laughing, and making animals noises to try in vain to get the animals to get up and look more interesting (howling at the wolves, squacking at the ducks, and usually making "tsch-tsch" noises at everything)--is not produced by the "scum of the earth", or anything. Quite the opposite--it's usually families, and children, just having a nice day out. But when you think about it, it doesn't speak very well towards human nature. I think the only thing keeping us from acting the same way at any other group, whether it be a different species or just a different group of humans, is the lack of bars, and in a larger sense the lack of the sort of environment that accepts/encourages that behavior. So in that sense I don't like zoos. But I like animals, and it's so hard to see them anywhere else. I need to get a pet otter...
    Today I was going to go to Berchtesgaden National Park, because I've heard it's really beautiful, and I've mostly been seeing cities while in Europe. I ended up changing my mind, though... not sure why, I just didn't feel up to a full day of hiking. Instead I took the bike tour of Munich, which ended up being very fun. I haven't been biking in a long time. We went to a Biergarten, and I had the Schweinshaxe and Pommes, and a halb-Maß of Ruß'n. That's half wheat beer and half lemonade, and pretty tasty. It's the only beer I've had so far that I would consider "drinkable", by which I mean I didn't have to force myself to finish it. A half-liter is less than 20 ounces, by the way. Anyway, I finally ate at a traditional beer garden (actually the second-largest in the world, apparently), and it was fun. So now I've had my fun in Germany, and I'm quite ready to head back. I even have a sunburn, somehow. :(
    Tomorrow I head back to Bremen, then I have to pack, prepare, and finish that software project... and on Wednesday morning I finally head back to the US. It seems like I've been here forever.

    I'm feeling a bit lonely at the moment. I think I know why, too. I've been in Europe for 4 months, and of course I've been meeting tons of people, classmates, furries, etc. But I don't know any of them all that well. They're just casual acquaintances. And just the other day I met Toumal, whom, I just realized, was the first person I've seen in four months who I already knew. I mean, I've known him for quite a while now. And now I'm on my own again, and I still have to get through Munich and finish this programming project before I can go home. And it almost feels like a chore at this point.
    On the other hand, it is after 1 am, and I'm quite tired. I think I just need some sleep.

    I've just arrived in Vienna, and stowed my mysteriously heavy bag (I really thought I was packing light this time...) in the hostel. It is a nice place, too. The hostel in London was what I expected out of a hostel--kind of like sleeping in Round Table Pizza, except without the arcade (I can't post pictures now, but I have them, trust me). This is entirely different. It's well-lit, classy, there are vending machines with all sorts of food, or travel necessities (toothbrushes, toothpaste, towels, condoms...), and there's a bar connected to it. Plus they have a breakfast buffet for just a few Euro, although it hasn't started yet. Plus internet computers at reasonable rates (20 minutes for 50 cents).
    I took a train to get here--more accurately four trains... I expected that an overnight ticket would be a good idea, because I could sleep instead of having to keep myself busy for 12 hours. Unfortunately I didn't consider that this wouldn't work if the trip was split up into 2-hour sections. Fortunately no long layovers, but still... plus, the longest leg of the trip had the worst sleeping conditions. I often have problems with where to put my head when sleeping sitting up... I think the problem could be solved without too much difficulty, if I put my mind to it. Because it's obvious that nobody has yet. The seats seem designed to keep people awake. So altogether I got probably 1 hour of sleep, and maybe a few hours of reasonably comfortable eyes-closed resting that wasn't sleep. Hopefully I won't crash today... but at least after today, I won't have another long overnight journey, and I can have an enjoyable vacation.

    I can't very well post about every single thing that happened in London (and I'm sure you wouldn't want me to go into every sodding detail), but I felt that a general overview lacked a lot of the emotional elements that pervaded the trip. So here are some brief snapshots of the visit.

• I mentioned in the soccer post (Germany vs. Turkey) that while other people have fun by going hog wild, I have fun by putting things in order. So you might not be surprised to hear that in the middle of a rave, I noticed someone trying to fix their broken glowy-flashy-stick, and I sat down and painstakingly put it back together again, in perfect working order. :D
• I went out to get some Subway in the middle of the party, remembering that I hadn't eaten anything for 8 hours, and a few others followed me. On the way there, we ran across someone in a black cloak and white facepaint, presumably leading the Jack the Ripper tour. Noticing the ears and tail on one of us, an interesting interchange took place.
  "What manner of creature are you?"
  "A fox-demon thing."
  "A fox-demon thing... we shall give it a wide berth."
  Then we went on to Subway, and the crowd went on to probably walk past the fursuit rave. :D
• At around 10 pm, when the sun and the temperature were beginning to fall, and I was starting to count the hours until I could go back to the airport, I wandered past the Ritz and found myself in Green Park. I lay down on the grass for about a half-hour, watching the stars emerge and wishing I had brought my jacket. Pretty soon I saw a bat flying around, and it flew right above me for a while.
• I finally ended up retreating early, because London at 2 am had nothing more to offer me, and I figured it would be warmer in the airport. I got on the bus at 2 am, and it took more than an hour to get to Stansted, but after about two blocks I opened my eyes and suddenly we were there. I was very disoriented and sleepy. I hate it when I sleep without even knowing it. It's so... desolate. Like when I walked into the airport and saw dozens of people sleeping curled up in various corners of it.
  

    Okay, London is a blur. I don't know why, either--I could blame the heavy sleep deprivation, but that didn't kick in until I was in the airport headed back, and I've slept 10 hours since then. Unfortunately I woke up at 10 pm, but I think I may go right back to sleep in a moment. Altogether it was quite an experience, but I'm in no hurry to go back.
    The first day was fun--I arrived, took a bus to Golders Green, checked in at the hostel, made up my bed, stored my stuff, etc., then took the Underground to the furry meet. Regarding the London furries, I have to say that more than any other furry group I've met, they fulfilled the "furry stereotypes". Of course, this may have just been due to numbers--there were probably at least 60 furries there, and I wouldn't have noticed the ones who were simply being inconspicuous and normal. However I can say that out of the 60+, I counted no more than 4 or 5 females, and it's almost certain that there wasn't a single heterosexual there that night. :P There was some sort of raving going on (the "dancing with glowsticks" kind, not the "mad as a hatter" kind), which was entertaining to watch, and I didn't join in. I didn't even drink, as it turned out... not that I was opposed to it, but I simply couldn't stomach 7 quid for a cocktail. London, by the way, is undoubtedly the most expensive city I've ever been to, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the most expensive city in the world. They basically take New York's prices and exchange the dollar sign for a pound sign. Actually I've never been to New York, which is a shame, because I believe it would make for a great compare/contrast session.
    When I got back from the party it was around midnight. There were about 20 people smoking outside the door of the hostel, and all seemed to be awake around there, but it was dark when I finally got into the room with the beds. Not entirely dark, and not entirely quiet, but somehow I got over my normal sleepless tendencies and into the "hostel" mindset--which means that I basically lay down on the bed and willed myself to sleep. This being my first real time staying in a hostel, it served as a very good "tester" case for next week in Vienna. Now I know to bring a towel, to shower, and conditioner for my hair, because without it I look quite raggedy. I'm not sure how the towel will get dry... in the lockers it will not, and lying draped around somewhere it'll probably get stolen. Plus I'd be afraid of the conditioner bottle opening in my luggage. Also earplugs might be a good idea, although I do need to be able to wake up before checkout... which means I'll probably just have to rely on mindset to get to sleep. Oh, and I should have brought my jacket. :P But that didn't occur to me until Sunday night, for which I had no room reserved. I had to catch a flight at 6 am or something, which means I had to catch the 4 am bus back to Stansted, and I decided that rather than get 4 hours of sleep and risk sleeping through the alarm, I might as well do without. As it turns out I sleep through alarms quite easily. It's quite inconvenient.
    Sunday was interesting. The first thing I did (on advice from a few of the furries) was visit Camden Town. It seemed to me like the Cancun of London... and I'm referring to the amount and intensity of the tourism going on there. It made me ashamed to be contributing to it. But it certainly had its own unique character. And I finally found a copy of Mille Bornes, just like I had been hoping! :D It's probably a gift for my mother, although I'm tempted to keep it. I remember loving that game, although I haven't played it in like 10 years. And I stopped by Cyberdog, which was... interesting. I would have liked to get something there, but unfortunately I don't really need anything fluorescent.
    When I got out of Camden I didn't really have any other specific destination, so I just wandered around London trying to remember what sort of important landmarks I ought to be seeing. By pure chance I ended up in front of the British Museum, which was wonderful. I'm not much for museums, but this one was nice. And free entry, too, so there's no pressure. Plus they've got the Rosetta Stone there, and they don't discourage flash photography, and there's minimal barriers between you and the artifacts. It's pretty neat. Unfortunately I actually did run out of space in my memory card, largely as a result of the British museum. But that's okay, I don't really need more than two pictures of Big Ben anyway.
    Generally my opinion was that London was a place that was famous because it's so famous (like Paris Hilton), but that may just mean that I was visiting for the wrong reasons. All the same, I think the London mindset is simply too different from mine. I don't believe that everything needs a musical version, although I am sad that I couldn't see We Will Rock You after I found out it was playing. Oh, and I also compared it to Berlin, a bit. I was shocked to find that London simply feels larger than Berlin to me, but I found Berlin to be nicer. London seemed like it was always on the verge of falling apart. There was construction going on everywhere, and not like Berlin's construction, either. Belin is constantly building new things, because the war blew up a lot of it, and they've got the space. London is constantly trying to repair itself to keep itself from collapsing, like bailing water out of a sugarcube boat. Every 10 feet I would pass a big hole dug into the pavement, and horribly rusted piping sitting next to it along with new PVC piping that was to replace it. But the rust was seeping onto the ground, and it was obvious that the hole had been open and untouched for at least several days. It was quite shocking. If I may extrapolate to a national level using the observations of one city on one day, then I'd say that I prefer Germany to England, although I prefer America to both. Not policy or government, just mindset. Germans set out to do something, or fix something, and they have a plan beforehand, and they don't stop until it's fixed. I don't know how much the British plan, but it appears they have a tendency to start things they can't finish, or at least to start too much all at once. And America doesn't usually have a plan, but once we start something, we stay at it until it's finished. And in general we're pretty laid-back.
    But of course this analysis is just my own very limited observations, so either I'm uncannily perceptive, or these comments say more about me than about the respective countries. Which is fine; blogging is always about oneself, in the end. I have one more thing to say, though. I was in London for just two days, but for the last 4 months I've been in a German-speaking country. Rather than being refreshing to hear all this English again, I actually felt unnerved. London felt more foreign than Germany for that reason. And I feel like London saw me coming, and I was just another tourist. But in Germany I'm special. I've put out the effort, I can speak their language (somewhat), and I know what to expect. Then there's the mindset thing, again. And I don't know much about Austria... but I have reason to believe Vienna will be much nicer than London. It was nice to be in London for a weekend, but even at the end of Sunday I was counting the hours. It's nice to have been there, but now more than ever I feel ready to go home.

Where's the "traumatized" tag?

It is raining cats and dogs out there. Water was literally pouring down my arms--my clothes, shoes, and hair are completely soaked. It feels weird when the rain is almost body temperature, too... like my whole body was crying. Unlike sweat, though, it left me feeling clean and refreshed. Just the kind of rain I had been hoping for after this hot, hot day.

    Upon returning from Heide Park, we had about 10 minutes to find a bar before the game started. It took us 20, but we didn't miss anything. Of course, every bar was packed, but I found a great seat in the Lagerhaus, on the banister of the stairs. Not the most comfortable, but I could see more than half the the screen! :P
    The game itself really wasn't that great, actually. It was tense when Germany was up against Turkey, and fully five goals were scored. But this game wasn't as interesting. Spain was clearly better, and Germany gave them a hell of a fight, but only a stroke of luck would let them actually win. Only one goal was scored the whole game, and that was in the first half. If Germany had scored first, it would have been great rooting for them to hold on to their lead, but there wasn't much hope that they could come from behind to win it.
    Plus, the second half of the game there was a squirrely-voiced little man behind me who precisely exemplified the reason why I don't normally like sports. He would challenge every call against Turkey, and clap like a seal every time Germany got fouled, or missed a shot--simply because that's who he was rooting for, not because it was fair or unfair. And to make things worse, he was rooting for 2-0. I'm sure he must have made a bet, but it sounded really small of him. He was so interested in seeing Turkey win that he lost track of the game, and the fact that it is rule-based, and should be fun, and fair.
    After the game ended, I booked it out of there, to try and catch a tram before the streets were blocked, but to no avail. So I had a long walk home to think about the game. I was of course a bit sad that Germany lost, but after all, the better team won. I had nothing to protest, and nothing to celebrate. And of course all the Spaniards in Bremen turned out to drive their cars around the block, honking and waving flags. On Friday it was fun and celebratory, but now it felt hollow. And I don't think it's just because Spain won, either... I think it's because there were only two cars. :P Somehow acting loud and rowdy and stupid is only fun when everyone else is doing it, too. I wonder what the Spaniards were thinking, though. Did they realize, or care, that the rest of Germany was not celebrating along with them? I think this whole enthusiasm business, and taking sides and all, is just not my thing. I kept thinking as I was walking home that I would like some ice cream, and then lo and behold, I ran across an ice cream stand at 11 pm, and got some strawberry ice cream. Now that's something I can get behind. Ice cream is the answer to all problems.

Here's a video I took of the drop tower. Pretty impressive. I could have ridden that all day, if we had the time. :P

    Sunday was a fun day. About 15 of the international students got together and went to an amusement park in Soltau. It's called Heide Park (Careful... the website just started singing to me...), and it's one of the biggest in Germany, I hear. It also has, or so they claimed, the highest free-fall ride ("Scream") and the steepest rollercoaster drop ("Colossos", at 61 degrees). Colossos is made of wood, by the way. Very impressive. And I loved Scream... it was quick, and had lots of seating, so there was never a line. It's 100 meters high, and the seating is arranged so that there's very little equipment in your field of vision. Just your feet, and the earth. It's really amazing. I imagine it's like skydiving, except in skydiving the ground is too far away to be intimidating. I imagine. Also you can't do skydiving over and over again every few minutes. :P And this is probably safer... I'll have to check out some statistics on skydiving, though... now I'm interested.
    To get there, we had to take a train (two trains) for about two hours. There was a short stopover in Büchholz, which almost matches Hanford for sheer desolation. We walked a short ways away from the train tracks, and found a few houses, two or three small casinos, a lot of broken windows, and very few people. Like one or two. To be fair, it was Sunday at around 8 am, but it was still depressing. The only difference is that in Hanford, I was there for 3 hours, instead of 30 minutes, and in Büchholz I wasn't alone. Also we didn't do all that much exploring... conceivably, on the other side of the tracks, civilization still reigned. But because of the early hour, I knew I wasn't going to have a great time if I didn't get to sleep early the night before. And I didn't fail at that, although I didn't entirely succeed--I got to bed around 11. But I already knew that most of the other students would have around 2 hours of sleep, on average. They seemed to have fun despite that, though, although they crashed pretty quickly once we were headed home.
    Anyway, when we first got there, Parker (the other American) said what I think all of us were fearing--"If I end up stepping over 7-year-olds all day, I'm kicking Greg in the nuts." (The whole thing was Greg's idea.) From the front, all that was visible was a cartoon statue holding a sign, a carousel, and all the little kids that were entering the park. If there were any rollercoasters to speak of, surely they ought to be visible over the gate, no? For a while things appeared bleak, but one should never underestimate the ability of more than a dozen sleep-deprived college students to delude themselves by deluding each other. By which I mean, we all started waxing enthusiastic about riding "the horsies", and as soon as we got in we mobbed the teacups, shouting and joking, trying to best each other in our enthusiasm. Fortunately we found the real rides before that "game" wore out. Apparently all the kids rides are at the front of the park, and the opposite corner is filled with the fun rides. Not that the teacups weren't fun.
    Oh, one thing I've noticed about Germany is that there are a lot more dogs here. Everyone seems to have one, and they're all very obedient. I constantly see people walking their dogs all over Bremen, and half the time they don't even have leashes on. But still, I was a little surprised to see this:

    Last night was so strange. There's a lot to tell, so I'm just going to start from the beginning. Last night was the first semifinal match of the European Championship (of soccer), to decide whether Germany or Turkey would go to the finals. I normally don't get into watching sports, but after Germany beat Portugal (unexpectedly, I think), I was interested to see them take on Turkey. Thus I think this was my first time watching a sports game that I was actually invested in. No, I wasn't betting, but I was taking sides, which is a rare thing for me to do. It was nice for a change, but I don't want to do it too often. It was kind of a theme that night--being invested, and prejudiced, and emotional, versus being relaxed, unconcerned, and level-headed. It started with the game, of course, which Germany won. It was a pretty cool game, too--I think there were three goals scored (Germany, Turkey, then Germany again) in the last ten minutes, with the winning goal being scored literally in the last minute. Very impressive.
    But after the game things only got more interesting. We (a large group of international students) trotted over to Sielwall, which is basically Party Central, Bremen whenever anything's going on. Along the way we ran across dozens of cars driving past, waving flags, and honking and shouting in jubilation. It was an interesting atmosphere, and I remarked to someone that I think this was probably more dangerous than the 4th of July, considering how much beer was flowing and how much more mass a car posesses, compared to a firecracker. She just commented on the price of gas (currently about €1,50 per liter, or around $8-9 a gallon). Shortly after I said this, I heard the firecrackers going off. Apparently they have them here, too, and they're more intense than the ones you can buy legally in dry, dry southern California. I mean, there were even fireworks that shot up into the air and exploded once in green sparks--but they were handheld. No controlled show here--I don't know where they were coming from, but basically there were explosives going off everywhere. And the police, who were keeping watch at every street leading into the main crossing, did not seem surprised, or interested in stopping it.
    Once we got into the main area, it was literally jammed with bodies and broken glass. Strangely, I didn't personally see anyone get hurt. Everyone was drinking Beck's, and bottles littered the street, just being stepped on and sifting down into the tram tracks, but no shoes were pierced, and nobody fell down on them (in front of me, anyway). Only a handful were actually, properly drunk, as well--most were just jubilant. I think I'm the only person in Germany who wasn't drinking beer that night. But I wound up right in the center of the mass, and I kept my head about me and tried to keep anyone from falling on the glass, and avoided the visibly drunk people who were a hair's breadth from starting a fistfight. It was actually quite fun. It was like a big, friendly soccer riot, and nobody had any reason to start a fight. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about the nature of man. I mean, the only thing really separating man from the animals is our mind, and there wasn't anything about the mind in any of this. Just a lot of apes shouting and partying. And for a short while I was one of them, sans alcohol. Which was nice for a change. I never climbed up a street sign, though.
    Soon enough I went to go get a drink, and when I came back with a liter of Mezzo Mix (the cola/orange soda that doesn't exist in America), all the other students were gone. One of them had been trying to get them all to go to a club for a while, so I could only assume they had finally gone. I didn't know where it was, or remember the name, but I remembered him pointing in a general direction, so I headed off. Strangely being in the center of a mass of partying people is a bit less fun when there were no friends there. Basically I had just been doing my bit to keep the peace, and looking out for people who were too busy having fun to look out for themselves. (At least I was trying... I doubt anything would have happened without me there, though.) But keeping friends from falling over in a crowd is very different from looking out for strangers, so the center of the riot didn't have much to offer me anymore.
    As I headed in the wrong direction (I never did end up finding them, though I didn't mind), I passed through a park, and saw the dark silhouettes of a few rabbits grazing in the grass. There were less people out this way. I walked towards them, slowly, and as I advanced they hopped away from me and kept eating. I followed them for a while, and eventually I had at least seven bunnies cautiously avoiding me though the park. The one thing I noticed while the bunnies were hopping away from me was how quiet they were. I could hear them, but barely, even when they were hopping. Silent as whispers. I couldn't help but think back to my classification of the rowdy, raucous humans as acting "like animals", when here were these proper animals quietly eating and trying to be left alone. So I left them alone. Also I realized I was walking through the park on a dark, rowdy night, and I probably looked a bit menacing to the people walking past me on the path. After all, I was carrying a bottle, and I was the only person not walking on the path. And I'm a man, which automatically makes me menacing in such situations, I hear.
    I decided to head for home, because all the public transit going my way was pretty well blocked by the party, and it would take me about an hour to walk back. By that time it was already around 1 am. On the way back I ran into someone I had played soccer with last week. By now some time had passed, and the crowd was a tad thinner, and a lot more drunk. He explained to me that last week's game had been 7-0 before I arrived (they were only 4 people against 5), and I hadn't been that impressive the week before last, but after I joined their team we caught up, and eventually won, 9 to 12 or something like that. Of course I already knew this, having been there myself, but he went on and on repeating how great I was, obviously a bit tipsy, so I let him continue. I'm not terribly good at receiving praise, so I didn't know what to say, but I don't think he noticed. :P Eventually (about a half-hour later) I went on my way, walking back to the house at the end of the night.
    I wasn't drunk of course, and I wasn't even tired--in fact I was worried that I shouldn't be drinking so much caffeine so late. But of course I was a bit cautious on such a rowdy night, and also a bit contemplative. Along the way I ran across a bike that had fallen down (or was it pushed?!), so I righted it again. Then there was a trash can fallen over, so I stood it up, and put the bag of recyclables back where it should be. I wondered briefly what the people walking behind me must think... so then when I ran across another bag thrown into the bike lane, I put it back. Pretty soon I found at least a dozen bags of recyclables thrown into the street between the tram tracks, clearly deliberately, so I calmly picked them up and put them right again, just as deliberately--if not more. I still don't know what the people walking behind me thought, because they just walked on while I was doing this. I felt kind of odd, but I had already gone this far, so I couldn't just leave them. I had had fun that night rooting for a team, celebrating when they won, and dodging firecrackers and drunken stumbling people perched on top of other drunken stumbling people. It was fun for a while, but at the same time the only thing I could find to occupy myself was trying to look out for people, and setting things straight. And now as I was walking back, cooling down, and preparing to go to sleep, I was still doing it, and it still felt good. One has to try, right?

Heh, heh.
    Spore is finally coming out... soon. But they've released the creature creator already, so that from day one there will be a huge library of user-created creatures to populate in-game worlds. There's even a contest for creating your own characters--a dance contest. But I'm disappointed, because this laptop can't run the creature creator, and the contest will be over... actually the day after I get back. But I'm definitely getting the game in September. Of all the "big concept" or "sandbox" type games out there, this has to be the biggest and the sandiest. And if by some chance there's anyone reading this who hasn't heard of Spore, then watch this video. Now.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=Will%2BWright%2BSpore%2BVideo

    I was out playing soccer again. Very fun. I'm not terribly good at it, aber... wenn ich nicht gut spiele, dann gern, mindestens. And of course, nobody covers me until I make at least one goal. It's strange... I'm not a great player, but I'm very active, and original. Mostly I think my biggest advantage is that I don't play the way a real soccer player would, so I'm hard to predict. The best example of this was when I received a throw-in, kicked it up over my head, headed it to the side, completely around another player, then went to kick it into the goal and missed the ball. Usually it doesn't happen all at once like that, though. I will completely suck for about ten minutes, then make a glorious pass and everyone thinks I did it on purpose. :P I've mostly figured out how to aim the ball, at least.

    As I was walking back, I ran into a variety of wildlife. First I found a feather, just lying on the grass but in good shape, so I picked it up. Then I saw something in the river which may have been an otter, but I couldn't tell for sure so I went down close to the riverbank. It didn't swim like an otter, but it was almost certainly a mammal because it looked like it was swimming along with just its mouth above water, to breath. Probably a beaver or something, but I never got a close enough look. Then later I ran across a hedgehog, which didn't want to be friends with me. I sat down about a meter away for 5 to 10 minutes, but it never resumed walking while I was around. It just stood there and bristled. I realized that I could pet it with the feather, but it didn't react. If I had gloves I probably would have picked it up, which would have been a bad idea, I'm sure. I wish I had something to feed it, but I didn't. Then later I saw a bunny hopping into the bushes as I approached. It didn't want to be my friend either.
    I can't really blame them... I'm just another human, and generally we shouldn't be trusted. Even without the language barrier, we still have a hard time trusting each other. There should really be a way to tell whether someone is trustworthy or not. I would never hurt an animal, unless I was really really hungry and it was really really delicious. I think I'm generally a pacifist. But from the bunny's point of view, it didn't know that. Even if I told it so, it couldn't take the risk of believing me. I think this is an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. We are all separate beings, and we must make our own decisions for ourselves as individuals. But in many cases, the most rational decision for everyone concerned (individually) is a sub-optimum solution. The amazing thing about language is its ability to bridge two minds, but it's still terribly limited. If only we were capable of really making decisions as a group, without all this friction of individuals. I need to invent an empathy helmet.

    I just finished reading Der Fänger Im Roggen. The first book I've ever read in German. It really amazes me. My comprehension and reading speed really increased between the time I started and the time I finished. The whole book took about a month, I think, which is about how much time it took me to read Atlas Shrugged (in English) just a few months ago. Not a bad pace, honestly. I'm just amazed that I can now flip to any page of the book and start reading, and understanding, and even be able to translate it into English.
    So now that that one's finished, I'm moving on to the Foundation trilogy. Baby steps. :P

    Something strange happened just a short while ago. I was on the tram on my way back from class. As the tram started to pull away from the stop I heard a shout, then another. I looked up, and a thuggish-looking man (by which I mean he was bald and his jacket had no sleeves) has another slightly older man in a headlock. He had a good hold on him, and the man's face was turning red. The bald man had a completely casual expression on his face, like he was used to violence, and it was no big thing to him. A woman near the two was the second one who shouted--I'm not sure if she was with the other man, or if she just wasn't about to walk away from this violence. He turned around, still holding the man in a headlock, and pulled a badge out of his pocket and showed it to the woman. That was about when the tram started to pull away, so I didn't see what happened after that--it stopped her from shouting at him telling him to stop it, though. He let go of the man's head, and then they were out of sight.
    It scared me. At first it looked like they had been in an argument, and the stronger one decided to solve it the simplest way he could. He was clearly pretty strong, and quickly subdued the other man. But when he showed his badge, it didn't make me feel any better. First off, he wasn't wearing a uniform. That shouldn't make a difference, but it does--when someone is clearly a policeman, you know what you're dealing with, and you'll listen to him. But when someone just looks like a thug, you won't do anything he says until he puts you in a headlock, and then you'll only do it because you have no choice, not because of any trust, or willingness to contribute to the general peace. And that's another thing--I clearly saw that when he let the man go, he didn't attempt to run away. Unless he was trying to run in the first place, I don't know why he would physically subdue him in the first place. Was he just trying to walk away from this thuggish man harassing him, not realizing he was an officer of some sort (because it wasn't obvious at all). Did he let him know that he was doing something wrong, or did he decide that first he needed to know who was stronger? And what was he doing wrong, anyway? My first thought was to remember those thuggish types who check tickets on the tram, but I was on the tram, and nobody was checking anything. I can't think of what he might have been doing. The only thing that reassured me slightly was the fact that a woman (quite possibly a complete stranger) wasn't about to let someone be harassed like that. My travel book says Germans don't tolerate public harassment, and that's a bit reassuring (although ironically, the book mentioned it in reference to women being harassed (which of course is a worry when a woman is traveling alone)).
    Still, even assuming that everything was in order, and he was doing something bad and trying to run away or something (which didn't seem to be the case), it still shocked me. There are so many of us, and we're so weak--humans, I mean. We gather together into societies and civilizations, and that makes us strong... but individually, we are still weak. We hide in our cities because in reality the world is a violent and scary place, and outside of large groups we're very vulnerable. We shape our world to make ourselves believe that we're strong, and we can win against the world... but in the end, it is only the group that is strong, and no single one of us can be a group, no matter how hard we try. And then it comes full circle--the group defends itself against the individual. When you are the victim of humanity, who can you turn to? We are safest when we are within human society, but we are then dependent on that society for our safety. We put our weak bodies in the protection of society, and pretend that we are strong... but sometimes it takes us, and we don't know until that moment just how weak we are. And there's nothing to be done, either. Striving to be physically strong, or to own weapons, can only go so far, and can only work for the individual. If everyone makes himself strong and aggresive to keep from being hurt, then everyone gets hurt. And if society decides to punish you, you can't withstand it.
    I've never considered myself a strong person. Physically and emotionally I'm really quite weak. But that's okay. There's something to be said for leaving oneself vulnerable--it is far superior to shielding yourself from everything... until something decides to hurt you. I guess I still had a bit of illusion in me, though. I knew academically that my safety depended only on the willingness of others, but I never knew it viscerally until today. And yet... there's still nothing to be done. I'll never be as safe as I'd like, and trying to be will just make me hard and unfeeling. I'll just have to get along, and hope that random destruction will overlook me.

    Sometimes I feel like I'll always be alone. I'm unique, you see. No question about it. And while most people who know me can appreciate it, I have yet to find anyone who really identifies with it. I'm glad when I find people that appreciate me, and I like feeling accepted, and feeling that I've made people happy. It's something to be desired in life. But it can't be all--it's just casual. And now and then I'll get that ache for something more than casual, because friends are not close enough, and my own companionship is too limited. Now and then I will think of something deeply, profoundly funny, but then feel a bit of emptiness because there's no one there to share it with. I don't know why, but lately that's begun to matter to me--I feel like life isn't complete without having someone to share it with. Laughter is the most basic example of this, but not of course the most trivial.
    But I'm afraid that it may be possible that no soul mate exists for me. I know that's kind of a big assumption after only 21 years of experience at life, but I have evidence, you see. I have found a concept that I think I must be unique in appreciating. It's hilarious, but it's sobering, because it's simply too unique to be shared. On the plus side, it's a good acid-test. If I think someone could possibly be my soul mate, I can easily find out for sure. "Do you agree that it would be a good idea to replace every instance of 'Who is John Galt?' in Atlas Shrugged with 'Where is Carmen Sandiego?'?"

    When I signed up for classes this semester, it didn't go quite as I expected. Well, I didn't really know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect it to be so disorganized. To find courses in English, I had to go across at least three different websites. The course names weren't always the same, the course numbers weren't unique, the websites were all in German, and the course descriptions were first of all optional, and second of all only to be found on individual course websites, not necessarily integrated with the university websites in any way. Fortunately I had an advisor there, who was just about as flustered as I was, but she was helpful, and she could navigate the German web pages much better than I could. At the end of the day, though, I'm only taking four courses, which is the bare minimum to be considered "full time", and only one of them was one of the set I had originally predicted. Which means that when I get back, there might be some trouble about getting "course equivalencies" worked out, and if it turns out that one of my classes isn't equivalent to anything at HSU, it might mean that I was part-time for this semester, in which case they'd want a lot of the financial aid back... but that's in the future. Everyone so far has been very helpful and encouraging about sending me to a foreign country for four months, so I can only assume that they'll do everything they can to keep something terrible like that from happening.
    Anyway, as it turned out, several of the courses I enrolled in were in the Digital Media master's program, because that program is all in English. As it turns out "master's" level courses don't seem all that different from regular courses, so I'm not anxious about it. But two of those courses are held in the HfK (Hochschule für Kunst, or "University of the Arts"), and thus they're more like art courses than "digital media" courses. That's probably the "media" side of it. I've never been very much into art--in fact, usually it actively repels me. So being in a course with a professor (Frieder Nake) who is one of those crazy art types from the 70's (now evolved into the 'crazy old man', a close cousin to the 'dirty old man') has been an eye-opening experience. Not that I agree with a lot of his ideas, but I'm beginning to understand them, at least. And as a result I've found myself having a lot of ideas for art exhibits. Because art is easy. The artists doesn't have to translate his thoughts into a structured language, to build something solid and stable, in accordance with the rules (of law, of a programming language, of physics, etc.). Art is the language of the human mind, given worth because it is only judged from one mind to another--there are no other standards. As the direct representation of the human mind, it is often meaningless, ugly, pretentious, or overrated. But it can also be beautiful, and serve no other purpose than to be beautiful. So as far as it goes, it can be nice.
    Which brings me to the point of this post. I thought of something beautiful. And because lately I've been thinking in kind of artsy ways, I was able to think of this concept as something beautiful, and build it in my mind with no other requirements. I'm pretty sure it's physically possible, but it isn't very practical at all. It would require a lot of special manufacturing, which is a huge overhead cost for a one-time thing like this. But it's nice to think about, and I'd love to see it if it could ever be done in real life. I got the idea when I was looking at a blue LED the other day. This one wasn't the big round ones you normally see--it was tiny, like a millimeter square, and a flat square, not a bulb. And it was super-bright. Almost hurt to look at, but I couldn't look away. It was so shiny. And here's what spontaneously popped into my head.

    Take one of those LEDs, and encase it in a glass sphere. I'm not sure about the size of the glass sphere--maybe like a centimeter in diameter or something. Maybe fogged glass would be better, too, so the light wouldn't be too focused. Connect one of the LED's pins to a receiver of some sort, and connect the other pin to a silver ring running around the equator of the glass sphere (flush with the glass, not outside of it). Then make a whole lot of them, and fill up a big clear container. Then broadcast energy over them, wirelessly, of course. I'm not sure what form this would take, but I'm pretty sure it's physically possible. The LEDs don't require too much energy, I think, so the only question would be making receivers small enough not to dwarf the LEDs. But in my mind (I could be wrong), the lights still wouldn't light up, because they don't have a ground. But when someone dips their hand into the pool of spheres, they will touch the silver rings and complete the circuit--and only the spheres touching them will light up. They could pick up a handful of them and they would glow in their hands, not connected to anything... it sounds really cool, doesn't it?
    There's only one problem, I think--it seems likely that the silver rings would touch each other, so that touching any of them would connect them all to ground. But that seems like more of a technical detail than a strict limitation. There are plenty of ways to make it work. For instance, instead of the wireless power thing, just add a battery to each one. Or add a delay circuit, so that touching it would create ripples that spread in three dimensions and faded out. Or put a little randomization in it (either through software or through clever arrangement of grounding spots, instead of just rings), so that the activation spreads outward from one's hand in jagged, random patterns, like lightning. :D

    Okay, turns out the fonts in the version I was reading were wrong, so certain symbols were being "translated" into their closest ASCII equivalent, which made them the same as other different symbols... anyway, I switched to IE Tab, and it began to make sense. Now I believe I understand, to some extent, the Universal Turing Machine (UTM). And I'm glad I understand it--it's an incredibly complex topic, but it's also very important. However during my research, I came to realize that the UTM is like oil... it's gotten us through the wonderful high times of the 20th century, and it's enabled so many grand discoveries and technical acheivements. But it's getting out of date, and might even be holding us back. Also when you look at it close up, it's kind of ugly.
    Fact is, the UTM is very good as a theoretical concept, but it's been glorified a bit. It reaches the boundaries of what is computable, and for something so (relatively) simple, that looks impressive. But the very idea behind it isn't to show how great its capabilities are--it's to show exactly how limited it is. The UTM is a tool for describing the limits of computability, and shouldn't really be treated as anything more. Theorists hang around with the UTM because it's sexy, but in the end it's still only useful to the theorists. And it's losing its usefulness, too. More complex theories that don't ignore time are not as sexy, but they produce practical improvements in computing theory. And the new paradigms of computing threaten to make the UTM obsolete. The UTM doesn't deal with multicomputing, input/output, parallel computing, etc., not to mention quantum thingamajigs. And there's even a chance that new technologies will be able to compute things that a Universal Turing Machine cannot. And just to devalue the elegance of my statements on the topic, here it is summed up by Geoff Cohen, a very smart man (apparently).
At Least As Powerful
Turing Fundamentalists