Veritas

The nice guy paradox

2012-01-25T18:52:00.001+01:00

A friend of mine asked me the other day how I made so many female friends. He saw me with two or three different women in the course of a few months, and (I gather) made an untoward and hasty assumption about the depth of my intimacy with these women. This is a common refrain. I have many female friends, but the vast majority of them are just friends.

It has also happened that women that I have become intimate with have been intimidated (and even scared away) by the fact that I have so many female friends. They too make assumptions, and probably feel threatened—or at least not valued as much as they would like—because I am friendly with so many people. I’m open about my friendships, and I don’t hide much about my life from the new people I meet. I never really saw the point of being secretive or distant. It just isn’t my style.

There’s an old saying: ‘men use love to get sex, and women use sex to get love.’ It’s an oversimplification of course, but it contains a kernel of truth.

Another saying, phrased as a rhetorical question, asks ‘why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?’ This started out as a humorus explanation of why men are often reluctant to commit to a single woman, but instead indulge in comparatively promiscuous relationships.

Well, the other night, as I was preparing dinner for her, a female friend of mine wondered out loud “how is it possible that you’re single, Michael?” This, too, is a tired old refrain.

It occurred to me though that I knew the answer.

The nice guy paradox is that while women always say they want to be with a nice guy, the nice guys often end up with many female friends, but no committed partner. Jerks, on the other hand, seem to be able to write their own checks when it comes to women.

In the original view of the analogy about cows & milk, buying the cow represents committing to a single woman, and the milk represents sex. The parable asks, why should a man commit to a single partner when he can have sex without commitment?

A new viewing of the analogy recasts it from the woman’s point of view. As in the original version, buying the cow is analogous to committing to a single man. But here, the milk represents love. Why should a woman enter into a committed relationship with a man if he is already giving her love?

This insight illuminates some of my past experiences. It helps to explain why the asshole technique works. (Of course, the original explanation from supply and demand still holds.)

I love all of my friends, and I don’t plan to change who I am just to improve my success in the dating game. However, I’ve become more and more aware of the importance of not giving too much of myself to people whom I’ve just met.

This isn’t about playing games or pretending not to be interested. On the contrary, I think it’s very important to express interest openly and directly. What it is about is putting oneself first, and not giving another person more love and openness than one gets in return. This may sound trite and obvious, but for some reason it has taken me a while to let the lesson sink in.

Being a man is fun, scary, wonderful, and fascinating. One of these days, I’ll figure it out!

Forced sterilization for transgender Swedes?

2012-01-16T21:47:00.001+01:00

A friend brought to my attention the fact that in Sweden, to change one’s gender under the law, a person must submit to sterilization, forever forgoing the possibility of having children.

At first I didn’t see the logic behind such a law; a moment’s reflection, however, made it clear why some people want to force this terrible choice on transgender citizens.

The existence of gay, bisexual, intersex, and transgender people threatens the idea of a simple binary division of humanity into two genders. One can understand why this idea makes some people uncomfortable. People may aspire to be open-minded and not prejudicial; but in reality, people like the comfort of knowing at a glance what to expect from someone. People expect different behavior from men and women, for example. I imagine many women would feel uncomfortable sharing a toilet, shower, or dressing room with a person with fully functional testicles, regardless of the gender with which that person identifies. Testosterone affects attitudes, desires, and behaviors; so this reluctance is understandable. People who don’t fit into society’s predefined categories are scary to many because they challenge long-held and cherished assumptions. To grant rights to another, one must often be willing to give up some of one’s own rights.

AmEx Feedback

2012-01-03T09:30:00.001+01:00

I recently applied for a Delta SkyMiles American Express Gold card, enticed by the offer of 30,000 free miles. However, when prompted for my feedback regarding the card, I was straightforward:

“The Delta SkyMiles Gold AmEx is being pushed very heavily right now, by both Delta representatives, and folks standing at stands set up in airport terminal buildings. Even though I did find the offer compelling and opted to apply, I found the campaign a bit too pervasive. Especially in light of recent news about Americans’ destructive and unsustainable credit card spending habits, the ubiquitous push to get people to sign up for a high interest rate AmEx card seemed a bit distasteful and capricious. I have made enough purchases to get the free traunch of miles; I’ll be honest that I intend now to use the card only within my budget, paying off the bill in full every month. Furthermore, a free companion travel voucher will be of little use to me, and this inducement will not be enough to overcome my general objection to paying a yearly fee for a card that already imposes a significant merchant fee. For this reason, it is likely that I will close my account before the end of the first year.”

Lucia 2011

2011-12-13T02:04:00.001+01:00

Lucia concert at Storkyrkan, December 2008

I shall never forget my first Lucia in Sweden. In Stockholm on my own for job interviews, I was startled by the darkness and cold. New friends took me to the Christmas market on Gamla Stan, where we warmed ourselves with glögg and roasted almonds. We then went to the Lucia concert at Storkyrkan. The beautiful music and candlelight reflecting off the red brick walls of the old church transported me to another place, far from the cold, dark city. It was magical and inspiring.

Twelve winters after that snowy Stockholm night, I found myself singing the same songs of the season, in the Predigerkirche in Zürich. Tonight was the dress rehearsal for Nota Bene’s annual Christmas Concert in two days.

I fell like I have come full circle. Come Wednesday night, I hope that my voice may, like Lucia, cast light into the darkness—and perhaps lift the spirit of a lonely traveler far from home.

Happy Lucia!

Fade away

2011-12-05T13:30:00.001+01:00

Since getting my new iPhone 4S, I have found it more difficult to tell which side is up when plugging in the cable. I thought at first it was just my eyesight, but a closer look revealed the truth.

USB connectors, a photo by Michael A. Lowry on Flickr.

The labels on the connectors of the new cable are smaller and printed in a lighter color than on the old cable.

This is not merely a cosmetic change. It’s a functional one.

Because the connectors on both ends of the cable are symmetrical in shape, it’s impossible to tell by touch alone which way is up. The USB logo and corresponding dock connector logo printed on the connectors are important visual cues that save people time when connecting devices. The new markings are very difficult to see. They are practically invisible in low light and to those with poor eyesight.

It’s surprising that a detail like this was overlooked. One hopes that Apple, a company renown for its attention to detail, will address this oversight promptly. A less charitable view is that this was a deliberate choice, motivated perhaps by the same thinking that led to the company’s recent fascination with desaturation in its user interfaces.

A simple solution to misscrolling

2011-12-03T00:29:00.001+01:00

Tim Bray discusses a problem he calls ‘misscrolling’—the disorientation one encounters when scrolling down through a document page by page, and reaching the bottom:

For some reason, browsers are reluctant to leave white space showing at the bottom of the window… leaving the last line you were reading stranded at some random location in the middle of the page.
When this happens, my flow of reading is disrupted because my eye doesn’t knowwhere to go to pick up where I left off.

I thought of this solution a couple of years ago: immediately after scrolling, if the end of the content has been reached, a red line should appear at the point that was the bottom of the page before scrolling. This red line should fade away after a few seconds. The red line tells you where you left off, so you know exactly where to continue reading.

I saw something like this in an e-book reader a few weeks ago. It wasn’t implemented as a line, but a little arrow marker that appeared briefly in the left margin.

Padding the bottom (or indeed, any side) of a document with white space doesn’t seems like the best solution to this problem. When one reaches the end, there should be a clear indication of this. Apple has chosen to bring iOS’s ‘rubber-banding’ effect the Mac to make these edges even more clear to the user.

In a text editor or spreadsheet program, it makes sense to let the user could scroll an arbitrary distance beyond the limits of the content; however, this wouldn’t make a web browser easier to use.

Via Daring Fireball.

Realism vs. idealism in depictions of women

2011-11-29T13:10:00.001+01:00

Venus von Willendorf
Photo: Matthias Kabel

People have long held a fascination with the human—and in particular, female—form. Some of the earliest cave paintings from tens of thousands of years ago include depictions of women. Throughout human history, artistic depictions of the female form have reflected the ideals and longings of the cultures that created them. Both instinct and culture are important to shaping these preferences, and concepts of beauty definitely change over time.

Depictions of women often depart from faithful representation of the female form. Venus figurines dating back thousands of years exaggerate some features like hips, breasts, or genitals. By choosing to emphasize these parts of female anatomy, perhaps the artists hoped to express their awe at women’s power to create and nurture life.

Artists are limited by the medium in which they work, the technology available, and their own knowledge and skill. As the state of the art has evolved, so has the faithfulness with which artists have portrayed the world. What has not changed though is that artists exaggerate. The media and the tools may be different today than when the Venus von Willendorf was carved some 22,000 years ago; but the basic principle is the same: start from images of actual women, and create an idealized image of femininity.

Michelle Merkin

Modern glamour photography takes this process to its logical conclusion. Starting with already fit models, photographers and graphic artists tweak, enhance, add and remove, until the desired image of perfection has been achieved. It should come as no surprise that the resulting images are striking, and effective at capturing the attention of readers (and the dollars of advertisers). Perhaps in part because the images are exaggerated, they are arresting.

The practice of enhancing photos of women has become so widespread though, that it has led to a fair amount of criticism. Feminist pundits worry that unrealistic images of women contribute to an atmosphere in which women are held to an unattainable standard of beauty. The argument goes that the prevalence of images of beautiful women makes women feel bad about their appearance, and makes men expect above-average attractiveness in women. It has been shown that the images to which people are exposed do indeed affect their attitudes and behaviors, so perhaps this is not an entirely unfair critique.

Some have suggested one possible remedy: that a warning label be required on all images that have been doctored. It’s hard to imagine this happening though. Most images created today are enhanced in one way or another. Moreover, there is no obvious place to draw the line between unadulterated and enhanced imagery.

Lizzie Miller
Photo: Walter Chin/Glamour

Other feminist thinkers have argued for more diversity in the portrayal of women. Glamour magazine recently published a photo of model Lizzie Miller, who, although attractive, is somewhat fatter than the typical photo model. The photo elicited considerable feedback from readers, most of it positive. A common theme emerged in the reaction to the photo: there should be more photos in the media of average women.

Unfortunately though, this is not a solution. What is average? In the United States and a growing number of countries in Europe, a significant portion of the population is overweight. If depictions of women were based on the average, this example would be an unhealthy one to follow! Most people would be healthier and live longer if they ate less and exercised more. Body acceptance is a great, but not when it facilitates an unhealthy lifestyle.

It’s a good idea to increase the diversity of body types depicted in media—but centered around a healthy body, not an average one.

Thoughts on Siri

2011-11-23T11:43:00.001+01:00

After using the iPhone 4S for a couple of weeks, I have made a few observations about Apple’s voice-based assistant Siri.

Siri is very good at determining which words you have spoken. However, she is less adept at understanding the meaning of these words. This becomes clear in two ways: first of all, the range of topics and tasks is severely limited. Also, Siri is quite limited in her ability parse even moderately complex syntax. For example, Siri doesn’t understand this simple statement:

“Remind me the day before my brother’s birthday.”

The biggest stumbling block appeared to be understanding the meaning of the phrase the day before. Siri appears not to know that this phrase, combined with the birthday already in my brother’s address book entry, encodes the specific date needed to set up the reminder.

The other big limitation is that Siri has a very shallow conversation flows. She sometimes keeps some context in mind and asks a follow-up question to clarify an ambiguous detail; however, it’s currently not possible to do something like this:

User: Siri, what is David’s birthday?

Siri: I don’t know when David Smith’s birthday is.

User: It’s April 2, 1975

Siri: Would you like me to remember that David Smith’s birthday is April 2, 1975?

First of all, Siri doesn’t know how to add a birthday to an existing contact. Secondly, by the time you tell her the date, she has already forgotten what you were talking about. She doesn’t maintain the conversational context, so she has already discarded the information that would tell her the antecedent of it in the second user statement above.

Next, consider the following example:

User: Siri, remember my appointment tomorrow evening?

Siri: Yes. You have dinner with Karen Jones at 18:30 tomorrow.

User: Please change the time to 8 P.M.

Siri: Alright. I have changed dinner with Karen Jones to 8 P.M. tomorrow.

User: Please add a reminder too. Remind me one hour before.

Siri: OK. I have added your reminder.

This is another conversation that Siri cannot currently have, because there is no straightforward way to set Siri’s context so that she knows that you want to modify an existing appointment. Put simply, there is no way to tell Siri, “Hey, I want to work with item x.”

Siri’s inability to remember or set the conversational context makes the service feel somewhat rigid and restrictive. Adding this ability will be essential to making conversations with Siri more natural and flexible. After using Siri for a while, one begins to feel like one’s conversations are scripted. It’s like the difference between taking a car and taking the train. The car can drive almost anywhere; the train has to stay on the tracks. As soon as you ask something of Siri that is outside of her known conversation flows, she gracefully admits defeat. Then it begins to feel less like talking HAL, and more like talking to an airline’s telephone reservation system. (The many easter eggs people have uncovered are indeed humorous, intended no doubt to distract whimsically from the fact that Siri is not HAL.)

Like Amazon’s Silk browser, Apple’s Siri is a hybrid application that combines programs run locally on the mobile device with operations distributed to a cloud of servers. By splitting up the work between on-device and in-cloud operations, Apple gains several advantages. First of all, the computationally expensive work is offloaded to powerful servers better suited to these tasks. Every operation that can be performed on a server in Apple’s data centers is an operation that doesn’t have to be performed on the iPhone’s A5 CPU. Because computationally-intensive operations consume more power, it makes sense to offload them to the cloud, where battery life is not a concern. This allows Apple to find the right balance between good voice recognition performance and decent battery life. This design requires that Siri have network access, and using the wireless transceivers also consumes power. This means that there’s a trade-off between using battery power to perform calculations locally, and using power to distribute these calculations to the cloud. I expect Apple will adjust and fine-tune this balance in the future, as batteries and mobile CPUs improve.

Another benefit of Siri’s hybrid design is that because the recognition portion of Siri is done in the cloud, many improvements can be made transparently, behind the scenes. Users will not have to install an update on their iPhones to benefit from updates to to the voice recognition engine.

The most important benefit of Siri’s hybrid design though is that Apple is collecting huge numbers of (one hopes, anonymized) Siri conversations. Every question an iPhone user asks Siri is a datapoint Apple will use to refine the system. Voice recognition quality can be expected to improve over time as Apple collects and analyzes millions of voice samples. Even more importantly though, Apple is amassing a wealth of information about what users are asking Siri. When Siri gets the same type of request from thousands of users, this is a clear indication that this is something users want Siri to be able to do. Popular requests that Siri cannot yet handle will be given priority when it comes time to add new features. We can expect an expansion of the topics about which Siri is conversant, the depth of her conversations, and the actions of which she is capable.

Already, Siri is fun and quite useful in some limited situations. It’s just a first step though. Siri 1.0 is but a tantalizing taste of what is to come.

Treat the symptoms when that’s the best you can do

2011-11-21T15:52:00.001+01:00

After getting no help from physicians, I recently decided to try an herbal cough syrup to treat my chronic bronchitis. After just a week, the symptoms that had been pestering me for a year began slowly to subside. Although the problem has not completely cleared up, already I feel much better . My singing has also improved—bronchitis is definitely not good for one’s voice.

Looking back on the many visits I have paid to doctors in the past year, I am struck by a pattern: almost all of the activity during my doctor’s visits centered around performing tests to determine the cause of the problem, and very little attention was paid to treating the symptoms. I had chest X-rays, blood tests, a CT-scan, allergy tests, lung capacity tests, an asthma test, and even tests of potential allergens collected from my home. None of these tests revealed the cause.

No medicines were prescribed, because the tests revealed no problems. “Your lungs look perfectly healthy,” several doctors told me. Ok, fine. Then why do I have to cough every day? No one could give me an answer.

Yet after just a week of taking a Swiss herbal remedy every day, my symptoms had largely vanished. Why didn’t any of the many doctors and nurses I spoke with ever recommend ways to treat the symptoms? Not one of the doctors and nurses I saw ever recommended anything other than further tests.

I’m afraid that this could be an example of the sort of thinking that turns many people against traditional medicine:

If a condition cannot be explained, it’s not a real problem.

If a treatment is not well understood, it’s not a real treatment.

Of course it may be just a coincidence that I’ve begun to improve only now. Perhaps my body needed a year to repair the damage caused by last year’s bout of pneumonia. Maybe the cough syrup was as much placebo as real cure. Maybe changes in lifestyle, activity, or weather affected my health in a positive way. It’s hard to know. I hasten to point out that I too prefer to understand the reasons behind things. On the one had it seems logical that better understanding of a problem will lead to better solutions most of the time; but on the other hand, this too might be a form of self-delusion: it feels good to have an explanation that fits within one’s accepted way of thinking.

For me, a scientific outlook is such an integral part of who I am that I too was very much engaged in the search for an explanation to my problem. Did I unknowingly contribute to the decision to overlook possibilities for treating the symptoms? Was I so set on understanding the problem that I ignored potential solutions? It’s an interesting question.

Still, I’m frustrated that the medical professionals whose help I sought gave such short shrift to treating the symptoms. I feel a deepened sympathy now for those who have much more serious problems than I, and who are neglected in part because their conditions are not well understood.

Facebook discontinues blog and RSS feed importing

2011-11-09T21:14:00.000+01:00

For years, Facebook has given blog authors the ability to import their blog posts automatically and have them added as notes to their Facebook profiles. Facebook is now eliminating this feature, meaning that users will have to add each blog post manually if they want it to appear in Facebook.

What seems clear is that Facebook is trying to convince people to skip the step of posting to personal blogs in the first place, making Facebook the primary location of what would otherwise be blog posts. If people post these items directly on Facebook, they become the property of Facebook. The company can use the information as it sees fit, and keep it cloistered away, unavailable to the public web.

Facebook’s decision sucks, and means I will post even less to Facebook..

If you want to own what you write, don’t post it on Facebook. Post it on your own blog or web page. If you want to share it on Facebook, post a link. Services like dlvr.it automate the process, replacing the feature Facebook is eliminating.

Doomsday survivalists and the anthropic principle

2011-11-02T09:51:00.001+01:00

This morning I read an article on The Verge about survivalist condos—homes built in disused missile silos and military bunkers—intended to allow their wealthy and determined owners to survive a cataclysm.

Most doomsday theories are just plain silly, particularly those based on prophesy. Neither the ancient Mayans nor the authors of the Old Testament had true insight into the future of the world. They were doing the best they could with the information they had, of course; but they were mere storytellers.

However, there are conceivable threats to humanity’s survival. Extinction-level events have occurred in our planet’s history, and will probably occur again. This leads to a macabre corollary to the anthropic principle (and a form of selection bias): those who plan for catastrophe, will be the only ones to survive in a universe where such events are common. Disasters of large magnitude are relatively uncommon. However, assuming such events have a non-zero probability, doomsday theorists will eventually be proven correct: it’s just a matter of time.

I assume though that most of the people who invest in such bunker homes believe that the cataclysm for which they are preparing is likely to occur within their lifetimes. So the real question is whether it makes sense to invest time, money, and effort in what is essentially a form of insurance against an event whose probability is very difficult to estimate. If this investment requires diversion of resources and isolation from the rest of the world, then there are additional opportunity costs. It’s an interesting dilemma!

It’s impossible until it’s imperative

2011-10-28T02:04:00.000+02:00

So many former Mac haters have come around in recent years that I’ve lost count. Now even Forrester is advising IT departments to open up to the Mac, acknowledging that Mac users are more productive than their Windows-using coworkers. My guess? The guys at Forrester finally used a Mac, and were only then inspired to give the platform a fare shake in their analysis.

Someone once said that the typical IT pundit’s definition of an Apple fanatic is “anyone who liked the Mac before I did”. It’s more evidence that people form their opinions first, and find justifications for them later.

Thanks, Steve

2011-10-06T03:55:00.002+02:00

It was with sadness that I learned today of the death of Steve Jobs. Although I never met him, he had a big influence on my life.

My interest in computers began the day my father brought an Apple II+ home with him. Dad had the foresight to see that computers would soon be an vital part of modern life, and he felt it important that we have one in our home. That first Apple computer in the back room of my childhood home was the spark that ignited my lifelong interest in computers—an interest that would later become a career.

I worked at Apple while attending university. Later at IBM, I anointed myself unofficial chief Mac evangelist of the company, patiently overcoming bureaucracy and prejudice to make Big Blue a more Mac-friendly workplace. There are Apple connections in my family too. Shortly after I left Apple, my brother started there. He and his wife now work at the company’s Cupertino headquarters. Without Steve Jobs, my life would have been very different.

From his parents’ garage, Steve started a company that would one day become the world’s largest. Steve imbued everything he worked on with a special philosophy. You can see it in everything from how the Apple designs its products to the way the company treats its employees. You can also see it in the touching stories from the creative team at Pixar. These companies owe their success to Steve’s vision and passion.

Steve went before his time, but damn if he didn’t get a lot done in his life! He truly made the world a better and more beautiful place.

We’ll miss you, Steve.

Effective communication between men & women

2011-07-10T11:49:00.003+02:00

And now, a few more thoughts related to the Watson–Dawkins debate:

In response to Rebecca Watson’s entreaty that men “[not] do that”, a great number of respondents, including Richard Dawkins, opined at length and with varying degrees of civility. It’s clear that different people are interpreting Ms Watson’s comments differently. As I see it, there are two ways to read Ms. Watson’s statement “Don’t do that.”:

1 A kind word of advice to men considering talking to her, limited to that particular situation in the elevator at 4am or ones very much like it.
or
2. A demand not only of how to treat her specifically and limited to that situation, but also a broader statement of what is right and wrong when talking to women in general.

If you interpret her words in the first way, it’s hard to find any fault with them. Every woman has a right to communicate her wishes and preferences to those around her.

However, I can understand why some might have interpreted her words in the second way. Many people go quite easily from “this makes me uncomfortable” to “this is wrong, not just for me but for everyone.” Religious people do this a lot! E.g., “You must show respect for my religious ideas; if you don’t, it will greatly offend me and my god!”

If Ms. Watson’s comments were intended as a broader commentary regarding not just that particular situation late at night in an elevator, but also on how men should talk to women in general, then this would probably explain some of the push-back she has gotten.

Each man is different. Each woman is different. Every situation is unique, and general rules are blunt tools applied to delicate tasks. I can understand men who might have been perplexed by Ms. Watson’s words. I think she might better have expressed herself by starting from a position of empathy and understanding for those she wished to inform. Here’s and example of how Ms. Watson might have communicated her advice more effectively:

“The situation in the elevator made me very uncomfortable. I felt trapped, and intimidated by the stranger. Of course I don’t know what his actual intentions were—perhaps he really only wanted to invite me for coffee and conversation—but the situation felt sexually threatening to me. If he was trying to pick me up after hearing my talk earlier in the evening, then he was being disrespectful, and was way out of line. In any event, it seemed to me that he was ignoring my statement that I was tired and wanted to sleep. Perhaps I should have countered by inviting him for a coffee the next morning in the hotel bar. I mean maybe I really had nothing to fear! But the fact is, I was so uncomfortable with the situation that I was just glad to get away from him.”

“Men, please try to show some understanding of what it’s like to be a woman. Even if you’re a true gentleman, remember that there are a lot of assholes out there. We women have to deal with them all the time. You’ll go a long way toward showing that you’re not one of the assholes if you show a little consideration. This means sometimes forgoing making an invitation if it might make the woman uncomfortable. Your intentions are surely important, but they’re not the only thing that’s important. The situation—and the other person of course—are also very important. If the man had invited me for a coffee the next morning in the hotel bar, I would have been much less like to have taken it as a sexual overture. This alone would have made me more comfortable. Just use a bit of common sense, and do your best to read the other person and the situation before acting. Women everywhere thank you in advance!”

Men clearly need to be conscious of how the communicate with women. I think women could improve how they communicate with men too. Remember that unlike in a debate, the goal should not be to prove the other wrong. The goal is to communicate your thoughts and wishes in a way that the other will understand.

Men, women, assumptions & offense. Thoughts on the Watson–Dawkins debate

2011-07-07T18:41:00.002+02:00

This morning, I read Phil Plait’s blog post on the weekend’s dustup between fellow skeptics Rebecca Watson and Richard Dawkins. Plait sides with Watson in this debate, and doesn’t show much understanding for Dawkins.

Reading some of the many comments on Plait’s post, as well as comments on Watson’s post, I was struck by how one-sided most arguments were. Most commentators stood clearly on one side or the other: they either didn’t see what all the fuss was about, or they thought Dawkins was out-of-line in his remarks.

This sort of misunderstanding is unfortunately quite common. It happens any time two people engage in a debate about a topic informed by different experiences. Each person’s experiences combine to create a set assumptions that can make it difficult to appreciate or even understand another’s point of view.

Rebecca Watson felt uncomfortable with an unwelcome advance from a man she did not know, and believed that the man should have known that his overture would be perceived as sexually aggressive.
Richard Dawkins felt uncomfortable with the assumption that the man’s invitation for coffee in his hotel room represented a threat, and thought that the man should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

Watson believes that men should try harder to understand women. In her view, if a woman feels uncomfortable with a man, it is the man’s sole responsibility; he should accept this responsibility gracefully, adapting his attitudes and behaviors to match the woman’s standards of what is acceptable. A man cannot assume that a harmless invitation will be perceived as harmless. He should know that many invitations will be perceived as sexual, that they will likely be unwelcome, and that they can therefore create a threatening environment for the woman. For him to act as though he is not aware of this is insulting to that woman in particular, and to all women in general.

Dawkins believes that women should try harder to understand men. In his view, men and women should be treated equally—not just in principle, but in actual day-to-day practice. A woman receiving an invitation from strange man in an elevator should feel and react no differently than a man would if he were in the same situation. It is the woman’s responsibility to express her desires and limits openly and clearly. If she is not interested, she should assume the stranger’s intentions are friendly, and should decline the invitation gracefully. For the woman to assume that the man poses a potential threat is insulting to that man specifically, and to all men in general.

These extreme and unwavering absolutist positions belie the hurt and offense their adherents have endured. Both Watson and Dawkins consider themselves victims of the ignorance and intolerance of those who do not understand what it’s like to be in their position. Yet ironically, they are both willfully blind to the feelings of the other. Neither side will understand the other until they let go of this absolutist way of thinking.

Both Watson and Dawkins are skilled debaters, their abilities honed by years of argument. However, no amount of logical debate will resolve this issue. What’s required is for both sides to acknowledge the feelings of the other. Too many debaters—and particularly, many in the skeptical community—are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause that they neglect to show respect for their opponents, and instead concentrate on the mere facts and arguments of the debate. Worse still, erstwhile reasonable people tend to let resentment and rancor slip into their arguments when they feel slighted. Dawkin’s bitter sarcasm is an excellent example of this sort of unthinking lack of consideration of the feelings of others.

Dawkins should offer an apology for the tone of his comment, and make it clear that offending people was not his intention. He should expand upon his ideas and make his position more clear. He should be honest about his feelings and experiences, and how they influence his point of view. He should acknowledge the obvious truth that millennia of evolution have given men and women not just different bodies, but also different minds, feelings, and behaviors. We do not live in a perfect world where no woman need fear assault, and no man the assumption of aggression. Pretending that we live in such a world does not make it so. Dawkins should express some compassion for those women who have been victimized, or who have felt powerless to stand up for themselves. Instead of chastising these women for whining or being meek, Dawkins should encourage women to give men the benefit of the doubt while still standing up for themselves.

Watson should accept that despite her claimed feminism, she is espousing a society in which men and women have different rights and responsibilities. She should be honest about her feelings and experiences, and how they influence her point of view. Men and women are different in meaningful ways. Men initiate sexual contact far more frequently than women, and are inherently more aggressive. There are simple and well understood biological reasons for these differences. Both intuitive common sense, as well as many cultural traditions, build on the assumption that men and women think, feel, and act differently. Watson should not pretend that she supports true equality of the sexes, and instead should lay out a reasoned justification for a system that treats the sexes differently. Furthermore, she should accept the inherent unfairness of such a system, particularly toward honorable, well-intentioned men. She should acknowledge that uncomfortable situations are a necessary part of life. She should express some understanding for men who through naïveté, optimism, or idealism choose an approach that makes her uncomfortable. She should encourage men to express their affection, admiration, and interest in ways that will be most appreciated.

Put simply, Watson and Dawkins must acknowledge the truth in each other’s positions. This will not only make their arguments more honest; it will also engender trust and respect, and make for a more fruitful and less acrimonious debate.

Happy Fourth!

2011-07-04T15:08:00.001+02:00

Captain Big Hat

On this Fourth of July, I wanted to write something touching and heartfelt, stirring poignant memories of fortitude through hardship, and triumph over tyranny. I hoped to pen words inspiring a rededication to the highest ideals of freedom, justice, and equality—an homage to the industrious, pioneering spirit that defined a nation, and still today emboldens the common laborer and the titan of industry, the grassroots volunteer and the astronaut.

Unfortunately, I had a bit of writer’s block, so I won’t write that today. Maybe next year.

But that’s not to say I don’t plan to celebrate. Anyone up for a BBQ at the lake tonight?

The perils of focus-stealing

2011-03-29T16:48:00.000+02:00

Today I was working on a couple of remote systems from my Mac. First, I was working on an Xserve, to which I had connected via Screen Sharing (Apple’s built-in VNC client in Mac OS X). Secondly, I was working on a Linux virtual machine via the vSphere client running on a Windows 2003 server. I had connected to this Windows box via MS Remote Desktop. I had to reboot the Xserve to install updates, and while I was waiting for the VNC connection to be reestablished, I switched over to the RDC session and started working on the Linux VM.

I opened a terminal window and started working—downloading code, compiling it, etc. I was halfway through typing a command when all of a sudden it seemed as though the space bar had become stuck. I don’t write this because the space bar was physically stuck; it just seemed that way because in the Linux console, the command line was filling with spaces. I quickly typed Control-C, but nothing happened. The spaces continued to appear, many tens per second, until the first half of the command I had typed had scrolled off the top of the terminal window. What was going on?

It was then that I realized that the VNC session had been re-established to the rebooted Xserve, and that Screen Sharing had stolen focus, forcing itself to the foreground, albeit on another display. Screen Sharing must have stolen focus between the time when I pressed the space bar down and the time when I released it. The remote box I’d been working on just assumed I was still holding down the space bar. This time, no damage was caused by this bug; however, it’s easy to imagine scenarios where this sort of problem could wreak real havoc.

Focus stealing is evil. Fix it, Apple!

It’s not just about technology

2011-03-04T11:49:00.002+01:00

On Daring Fireball yesterday, John Gruber observed that the way Apple demos the iPad—sitting in a comfy chair, rather than standing at a podium—illustrates how Apple’s competitors overlook the non-technical aspects that go into making a product like the iPad great:

But there are other things any competitor could copy, easily, but seemingly don’t even understand that they should, because such things aren’t technical. Take that chair. The on-stage demos of the iPad aren’t conducted at a table or a lectern. They’re conducted sitting in an armchair. That conveys something about the feel of the iPad before its screen is even turned on. Comfortable, emotional, simple, elegant. How it feels is the entirety of the iPad’s appeal.

The Smart Cover is another good example. This clever invention combines a screen protector and a stand in one handy device that’s actually fun to use. It didn’t require huge amounts of technological investment, economies of scale, or multi-billion dollar purchasing power. It required only thinking about the problem in a novel way. Apple’s competitors could have come up with something like this, but they didn’t. If Samsung, HP, Motorola, and RIM cannot even compete with Apple on something like this, how can they hope to entice customers away from the iPad?

Apple and Intel announce Thunderbolt

2011-02-24T15:18:00.010+01:00

The updated MacBook Pros announced today include a fast new IO system, developed jointly by Apple and Intel and formerly known as Light Peak.

Both Apple and Intel have agreed to call the new technology by a common name: Thunderbolt. When the IEEE 1394 interface (“FireWire”) was developed, different companies used different names to refer to the interface. This led to some confusion in the marketplace, and it seems Apple and Intel are hoping to prevent a repeat of this.

New MacBook Pro specifications appear on apple.com

2011-02-24T14:46:00.002+01:00

Apple announced updated MacBook Pros today. The technical specs of the updated computers were leaked and widely publicized yesterday, and are now officially available on the MBP specs page.

Time for a trip to Stockholm?

2011-01-18T17:45:00.000+01:00

Last winter, while in Andermatt recovering from my first bout with vertigo, I mailed my application for my new U.S. passport. It arrived not too long afterward. Well now, the time has come for me to renew my Swedish passport too. It’s not possible to apply for a new passport at the Swedish consulate here in Zürich; one must do so in person at the embassy in Bern.

So today I spoke with a nice Swedish lady at the embassy, and booked a time to come in and take care of the paperwork. She explained that I would have to bring ID with me, a proof of Swedish citizenship (kindly faxed to my office by the Swedish tax authorities in Stockholm), and 215 Swiss Francs. The price seemed a bit steep to me. I knew I didn’t pay that much for my original passport. A quick search online revealed a page from the Swedish Police, explaining the costs of applying for a passport. Applying at a police station in Sweden costs 400 SEK; applying at an embassy abroad costs 1400 SEK. The higher price is equivalent to just over 200 CHF; this explains the 215 CHF price quoted to me earlier.

It turns out there’s another reason I need to visit the police in Stockholm. Back in October, I received a letter that had been delivered to my permanent address in Stockholm and forwarded to me here. The letter was from the police in Stockholm. The letter advised me that they had my Swedish driver’s license, and that I should come to the police station on Kungsholmen and pick it up in person. I had been missing my driver’s license for a few weeks, and was glad to learn that it had been found. But it took me a moment to figure out how it ended up in Stockholm! Looking again at the letter, I saw that the Police had received my driver’s license from the Swedish embassy in Bern. Then I realized what had happened. In September, there was an election in Sweden. I voted at the Swedish consulate at Stadelhofen, right here in Zürich. When casting my vote, I showed my Swedish driver’s license as proof of my identity. I must have misplaced the license there in the consulate. They sent it to the police in Stockholm because Stockholm is the location of the permanent address on file for me with the Swedish tax office.

I had been planning to go to Sweden sometime in the spring or summer anyway; but now I’m thinking that if I have to pay one thousand Swedish kronor more to get the passport here in Switzerland, I might as well put that money toward to cost of air travel to Stockholm instead. Then I could pick up my new passport and my driver’s license at the same time, and spend a few days visiting friends too.

So now I’m looking at the prices of tickets to Stockholm for weekends in February and March. Obviously, I need to be there on either Friday or Monday too, so that I can be there on a day when the police station is open. So, Stockholm friends—is there anything fun happening in the next couple of months?

Hi from 10,000 m!

2010-12-19T00:17:00.002+01:00

Hi from 10,000 m!, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Well, that didn’t take long. Asking a fellow passenger about his iPad, I caught myself sliding right back into A Southern drawl. I suppose it’s true, what they say: You can take the man out of Texas…

Google is sponsoring free wifi on all domestic Delta flights until the beginning of January, to promote it's Chrome web browser. I already use Chrome for some things, and quite like it. Free wifi onboard I also like.

We’ve had some choppy air on this flight, but it’s smooth sailing now. The sunset is pretty darn lovely from up here. Touch-down in Austin is coming up in another forty-five minutes. I’d say it’s almost time for barbecue. CORRECTION: Time for mom’s pot roast—even better!

New table

2010-12-17T13:03:00.001+01:00

_MAL0653, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

This is my new dining table, a 2.4 meter long solid oak table in a simple and modern style. I’m mostly pleased with it. However, it has a bit of a bow in it, and considering how much I paid for it, I’m not sure I’m willing to accept this defect. Even with this problem though, I think the table is quite beautiful.

I am considering getting benches for the long sides, and two chairs for the ends.

Tea Party bullshit

2010-12-09T12:14:00.001+01:00

In response to my brother’s rhetorical question asking where all the Tea Party deficit hawks had gone, I offer this reply:

For all their bluster about being against Darwin and for Jesus, the fundies on the Tea Party fringe are actually pushing for an agenda that’s their dogma’s exact antithesis: a dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest society where the gap between rich and poor widens every day and a persons value to society is judged solely on the basis of how rich he is. In the Tea Party Utopia, feudalism is the way of the world; corporations and co-opted governments conspire to perpetuate the status quo; and the Golden Rule is replaced by an amoral policy of treating your neighbor as a potential obstacle to success.

Tax cuts for the rich exacerbate the growing income disparity, forfeiting much needed investments in the country’s future just to line the pockets of those who already have more than they need. As Matt Miller rightly pointed out in his Washington Post editorial yesterday, it is particularly galling that the Republicans and their wealthy benefactors are unwilling to make the slightest sacrifice, even during a time of war and appalling deficits.

When the far Right succeeds, it does so because its fiercest adherents are so adept at doublethink that their followers, incensed into a self-righteous and xenophobic fury, do not notice—or ignore—the hypocrisy.

The living room is beginning to be livable

2010-12-08T11:17:00.001+01:00

_MAL9414, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

On Saturday, I purchased a few solid oak tables at Jumbo in Dietlikon. Here’s the coffee table in the living room. The table is just right for the space, and matches the terra cotta tile perfectly.

My dining table should arrive on the 16th or 17th. I’m debating whether to get chairs or benches for it. The table is 2.4 meters long, and benches would allow greater flexibility in the number of people seated on each side; however, chairs are more comfortable. I will decide once I’ve seen the table in place in the dining room.

The small square table that I had originally intended to be a work table in the corner of the dining room—and a place to put a microwave oven—turned out to be bit too short for that purpose. I will move it to the guest room, where it will serve as a small desk. Additional furniture acquisitions will have to wait until after the holidays, because I simply do not have a free weekend day until the New Year!

Genevieve Michelle

2010-12-01T16:25:00.001+01:00

Genevieve, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

A few days ago, my second niece was born. Welcome to the world, Genevieve Michelle Lowry! And thanks to Ethan and Kelly for honoring me by naming their adorable new daughter after her Uncle Michael!

I have an awesome brother

2010-11-09T14:28:00.004+01:00

The past two years, I’ve been living in the town just South of Zürich on the East side of the lake, Zollikon. Two weekends ago, I moved to Wollishofen, a part of the city of Zürich. When moving from one community to another in Switzerland, it is necessary to let the authorities know about your move within about a week of the move. So last Wednesday, I took a few hours in the afternoon to take care of the necessary paperwork. I went to the Zollikon Gemeindehaus and unregistered from the community. With the required stamp in my B-permit, I went to the corresponding office for the Kreis 2 district of the city of Zürich and registered as a resident in my new home city, Zürich. To register in Zürich cost me eighty Swiss francs—considerably more than it cost for me to register in Zollikon two years ago.

On Friday when I returned home from work, I found a letter in my mailbox, from a local restaurant. Restaurant Seerose (German for Water Lily) is located on the lake just a few minutes’ walk from my new home. I often pass by the restaurant when rowing on the lake. It’s nice, and quite fancy. “Wow,” I thought upon seeing the envelope addressed to me, “that was fast.” I assumed that the City of Zürich had shared my name and address with local businesses, and that the restaurant had sent me a note letting me know about their establishment. When I opened the envelope, I found an even nicer surprise waiting inside:

“A message from Ethan Lowry of Santa Clara, California, welcoming you to your new neighborhood.”

The letter was accompanied by a gift certificate for dinner for two at the restaurant. Isn’t that wonderful? In a Skype call later, Ethan explained how he accomplished this clever and generous gesture. He looked in Google Maps for restaurants close to my new address; and finding a nice one, called and spoke with the manager to arrange the letter and gift. I plan to use the gift certificate soon.

Thanks, brother. You’re the best!

Bike to work

2010-11-04T13:43:00.002+01:00

The view on my bike ride to work this morning, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The past two mornings, I have bicycled to work. It’s a fifteen-minute ride up the gentle slope of Alte Landstrasse. When the road passes through the southern part of Kilchberg, it offers a stunning vista of the Lake of Zürich. This morning the sun was shining brightly and there was a thin veil of haze upon the lake to the south.

IKEA “Skogaby” sofas

2010-11-02T10:37:00.001+01:00

New sofas in the living room, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

When I saw these black leather sofas at the IKEA showroom in Dietlikon, I was immediately drawn to them. Their elegant, understated design appealed to me and I was happy to find that they are also very comfortable, and quite reasonably priced. With these sofas, IKEA has once more done what it does best—pared down a piece of furniture to its bare essentials. If you look underneath the sofas, you’ll see that they’re actually hollow! Even the cushions are partially hollow. It’s a clever design that saves material and reduces weight. For my purposes, they’re perfect. The “Rasken” bench is serving as a makeshift coffee table until I find one I like.

I want the style of my furniture to be modern, to balance the somewhat rustic feel given by the thick stone walls, arched doorways, and terra cotta tile. I think these sofas are a good start!

Life in Wollishofen

2010-11-01T22:50:00.001+01:00

Okay, maybe it’s a bit premature to opine on life in Wollishofen in general; but at least I can give you an idea of my first few days here. Friday night I put in several hours more of packing, after having believed that I was done. Yeah, it always takes a lot longer than you expect; and I’m glad I started packing early. Saturday I took the tram to Hardturm and picked up a big Mercedes truck at Hertz. I arrived back home in Zollikon just before the hour of 10, when I had asked my helpers to arrive. I served coffee to the first few to arrive, and once the stragglers had appeared, we began loading the truck.

It went quite quickly. I’d say we were done with the majority of the packing by 11:30. Paul kindly opened his downstairs office so that we could move my bed through his ground-floor door. This eliminated the need to carry the bed up a spiral flight of stairs and then back down again once outside the house. Three bikes were also packed in, after 40 or so boxes. I had time to snap a photo before saying good-bye to my friends. Another group was going to meet me at my new place in Wollishofen.

At the new place, the unloading went equally quickly. José, Nathalie, and Nicole helped me move all the boxes down two flights of stairs and into my new apartment. Toward the end of the unloading I asked Nicole to do us the favor of fetching some pizzas. She had ordered pizzas from a restaurant near Post Wollishofen for her party a couple of weeks ago, and I remembered their having been pretty tasty. These were just as good. Despite a weather forecast calling for cool weather and clouds, we were treated to a lovely sunny afternoon. So we all sat outside on the grassy lawn behind the house, sitting on an IKEA bag and pieces of the pizza boxes to protect our clothes from the wet and somewhat muddy autumn ground. Maren joined us toward the end, and helped us finish the pizza. It was really a beautiful afternoon, and as the wind blew, I captured a short video of the leaves failing like giant snowflakes from the tall trees encircling the garden.

Just as I was saying goodbye to my helpers, my two houseguests arrived. Martina and Vicky from Austria were planning to go to the same Halloween party as I, and had asked if they could spend the night at my place. “Sure,” I told them, “as long as you don’t mind helping me unpack!” So the two of them set to work on my kitchen. In a couple of hours they had turned a barren kitchen into a quite usable and well-organized one.

Martina and Vicky then decided to paint my face green.

We were going to a Halloween party, you see, and I didn’t have a costume. What with the move and all, I hadn’t given much thought to what costume I might wear. Well, I’m not sure what I was—but I was definitely green. The party was at Eva and Bastian’s flat, just a few hundred meters down the road from my new home. I had a good time at the party but I left not too long after midnight. I was exhausted and needed sleep.

Sunday morning after a quick breakfast on the bench overlooking the lake, my guests returned home to Austria. Then two more friends, Daniela and Nathalie, joined me for a trip to IKEA. I had not planned on buying much at IKEA, but once there, I found some things I rather like. I picked up a couple of “Skogaby” black leather sofas and a matching chair, as well as a desk, a bench, and a quite nice guest bed for the spare room. With all of these heavy items, I knew that I would need more unloading help. I called Simon and he was a real angel, agreeing to come down and lend a hand. With a few places to sit, the apartment feels much more livable now. Daniela helped me assemble my desk, and I was then able to connect my computer. I still don’t have internet at the new place though; so I’m relying on my iPhone’s 3G connection for the time being.

This morning I woke up early and returned the truck to Hertz. It took a while to drive through Zürich during rush hour, but I wasn’t in a hurry. The trip from Hertz to IBM took a while too, and I arrived at the office a bit later than usual. Tomorrow my commute will be about 15 minutes. I am really looking forward to that!

Tonight I unpacked some clothes and hung them up in my wardrobes. I also fixed my first meal at the new place—a simple rice dish with green peas. I caught a cold during the weekend, and it persists tonight. I think I’ll fix a tall glass of herbal tea before going to bed.

Bastian’s jack o’ lantern

2010-10-30T23:05:00.001+02:00

, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I’m at Eva & Bastan’s Halloween party, having fun and happy to know that my bed lies just a few hundred meters up Kilchbergstrasse. I’ll try to stay awake a bite more. My costume, you ask? Let’s just say it involves the color green.

Helpers!

2010-10-30T13:57:00.001+02:00

Helpers!, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

With the help of six friends, loading the truck took less tuan two hours. Thanks to Simon, Kirsten, Jonas, Mirja, Carl-Johan, and Gregory for all their help!

Ready for the move

2010-10-30T01:47:00.001+02:00

Lots of boxes, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Packing the “last few things” took a lot longer than I expected. I’m glad I “finished packing” last night so that I had another evening to do all the things I didn’t think would take any time.

I still have a few odds and ends to toss into boxes or bags tomorrow; but I’m hoping that can be done on-the-fly. We shall see.

I’ll pick up the truck at Hertz around 9 tomorrow morning. My friends and I will begin loading the truck at 10, and I hope to be able to get most of it done within two hours. The ride to Wollishofen should take no more than 15 minutes; and then the job of unloading will begin.

I have guests staying over at my new place tomorrow night, so I hope I can at least find a few necessary items in the boxes during the afternoon.

OK, I gotta get some sleep or I’ll be dead in the morning. Over and out.

Back to climbing

2010-10-26T19:33:00.001+02:00

, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Tonight I’m at Minimum for the first time in a couple of months. I’ve “buddy-taped” my fingers together. We’ll see how it goes!

Juan Williams and FOX News deserve each other

2010-10-23T01:36:00.000+02:00

Juan Williams was fired from NPR for stating that seeing Muslim people on an airplane made him nervous. His comment surely resonated with many Americans, an erstwhile diverse and freedom-minded bunch of people, who have nonetheless fallen victim in recent years to a propaganda campaign of fear. Americans these days can be a twitchy folk, easily made nervous by people who are different. If many Americans are made nervous by Muslims, then the neocons at FOX News are to blame for spreading fear rather than understanding.

A reporter’s duty is to report facts, not to stoke fears. At best, Williams’ comment and his unapologetic defense since then show an insensitivity toward Muslim Americans; at worst, they expose a deliberate and self-serving ploy to improve his salary by moving to FOX. That’s where all the other fear mongers are, after all.

The fear mongers have always found a group of others, to stoke fears and control public opinion. It was not too many years ago that the average American would have been nervous upon meeting a black person on the street. If Mr. Williams is aware of the irony of his position, he has hidden it well.

My climbing injury

2010-10-20T15:12:00.005+02:00

My left index finger, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

On Monday I visited the hand clinic at Balgrist, just a few minute’s walk from my home in Zollikon. There I saw Dr. Schweizer, who examined my finger and came to the same diagnosis that I had suspected: partial rupture of the left collateral ligament of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint of my left index finger. This ligament is the main thing that prevents the finger from bending sideways toward the thumb, so it’s pretty important.

In the upper radiograph, above, the damaged ligament would appear just above the joint in the center of the photograph. You cannot see it in this picture because soft tissues like muscles, tendons, and ligaments do not show up well in x-ray photos. This is a top-down view, so that ligament lies on the left side of my left index finger. I sustained this injury while working on a particularly difficult bouldering problem at Minimum, back in the beginning of August. It happened when I held a crimpy grip with my left hand and rolled the fingers counterclockwise to give myself a bit more reach to the right. With the weight bearing down sideways on my fingers, the collateral ligaments bore more than their usual share of the load.

Dr. Schweizer gave me some little strips to use to affix my index finger to my middle finger, limiting its mobility, and all but eliminating the possibility of oblique forces that might cause further damage to the ligament. Two months of rest are called for, along with daily exercises to maintain and restore the finger’s range of motion.

I may climb, but only if I completely avoid using my left index finger, or if I tape my index and middle fingers together tightly and avoid sideways loads. The prognosis a full recovery in time.

Planning for the move

2010-10-17T13:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning, I called and booked a moving van for the end of the month. I plan to pick up the truck early the morning of Saturday, 30 October, and to begin at my place in Zollikon around 10 o’clock. With luck we won’t have rain, and the temperature won’t be too cold. I expect that it’ll take a few hours to pack the truck, fifteen minutes to drive to the new place, and a couple more hours to move all the boxes into the new place. I will reward those who help me move with pizza and beer.

I have been living in a furnished apartment for the past two years, so the only piece of furniture I have here in Zürich is a bed. This means I’ll have to buy a lot more furniture before my new place will be livable. After a bit of searching online, I found a dining table that I quite like at mutoni.ch. It’s a large solid oak table in a very modern style. I still need to find chairs that match the table. In addition, I will need to get bookshelves, a couch & coffee table, a desk & office chair, a chest of drawers, a guest bed, and other several smaller pieces of furniture. I will also need to buy a bunch of lights and lamps; most apartments in Switzerland come without any lighting installed.

I found out that the IKEA in Dietlikon will be open on Sunday, 31 October. This is a special case; normally most stores are closed on Sundays in Switzerland. It’s perfect for me because that Sunday is the day after I move; and I got a special rate by booking the moving van for the whole weekend. I imagine I can get at least a few of the pieces I need at IKEA.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Moving to Wollishofen

2010-10-11T13:29:00.000+02:00

After two years sharing Gordana & Andrew’s beautiful home in Zollikon, I have made the decision to move to the other side of the lake. It was a difficult decision, but I am confident that it was the correct one.

My new apartment is located in Wollishofen, in a part of the city of Zürich known as Kreis 2. It’s just north of Kilchberg, the neighboring town to the south. The IBM Research lab where I work is located just a bit further south, in Rüschlikon. So I will live about halfway between my workplace and the city. This means I’ll be able to stop by home after work, freshen up or grab a bite to eat, and then head into the city to meet friends. My new place is also just five minutes’ walk from the lake, ten minutes’ bike ride from Nordiska & Minimum, and about fifteen minutes from IBM by bus or bike.

The view from my the street near my new home; my view is a bit less spectacular, but still pretty good!

The house is situated about halfway between Wollishofen and Kilchberg train stations. Being a ways from the stations will be a bit inconvenient, but a disadvantage of living nearby a station would be that I would hear the screeching of brakes as the trains pulled in. Where I’ll live, the trains pass quickly by. I will probably buy a car in the next couple of weeks. A car will come in handy during the move, and will make shopping for groceries easier in the future. Plus, I’ve been thinking about getting a car for a while now. I miss having the freedom just to hop in behind the wheel and head out at a moment’s notice. Having a car also means I can take more stuff with me when going skiing, hiking, climbing, and so on.

The dining room

The flat is in the basement of a big old house on a grassy hillside overlooking the lake. It’s on the back side of the house, away from the street and facing the lake. I have my own entrances into the bedroom and living room. The outside door from the living room opens onto a private terrace and a large garden I will share with the other families in the house. There are fruit trees and berry bushes in the garden, and grape vines covering the pergola over the terrace. The place is relatively quiet despite being quite close to the train tracks. The tracks are about a hundred meters away, but down a steep hill and on the other side of a bunch of trees.

The living room, with the dining room and kitchen beyond

The kitchen is tiny, but the dining room and living room are quite big, and have windows facing the lake. There is terra cotta tile throughout the apartment, with floor heating underneath. I’ll have morning sun coming in the window of my bedroom. The house includes a sauna, in the common area just outside my front door. The washer and dryer are also in this shared area, and there is also another shared bathroom there, as well as a bench for lying down and relaxing after a stint in the sauna. This relaxation room has a window and a door leading out into the garden. Big sauna fan that I am, I’m sure I will appreciate this perk—especially in the winter months.

The living room as seen from the bedroom

Now I have my work cut out for me. I’ll get the keys on Tuesday the 26th, and will do the big move on Saturday the 30th. Between now and then, I have to pack up all my things, rent a truck, and enlist the help of friends for the move. I will also try to take advantage of the truck to pick up a few pieces of furniture. In my current apartment, I have just one piece of furniture (my bed), so I’ll need to buy all new stuff for the new place: a kitchen table & chairs, bookshelves, a sofa and coffee table, and lots of lights and lamps. Eventually I’ll probably also get a TV and surround-sound audio system. But honestly—I haven’t watched TV in months, and even if I do decide I want a TV, I can always watch on my computer in the meantime. If you’re free on the 30th, and will be in Zürich, please set aside some time to help out with the move. I will offer beer and pizza to all who help!

I’m sure it makes perfect sense to Windows folks

2010-09-27T13:29:00.001+02:00

From this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, we have the following gem:

The 32-bit version of the Odbcad32.exe file is located in the %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64 folder.
The 64-bit version of the Odbcad32.exe file is located in the %systemdrive%\Windows\System32 folder.

It seems the location of operating system programs was not changed when the OS became 64-bit native. So OS binaries stil reside in System32, even though they are 64-bit binaries! SysWoW64 is short for Win32-on-Win64, and is the location of 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit version of Windows.

Why isn’t it like this?

32-bit binaries go in System32
64-bit binaries go in System64

I suppose that would be too logical.

An open letter to President Obama

2010-09-22T17:02:00.003+02:00

This morning, I received an email from President Obama (sent by way of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). In the email, the president asked me to make a monetary donation to the DCCC to help Democratic candidates campaign for the upcoming mid-term elections.

In the past, I have answered these emails with a donation; but not today. Below, in full, is my response to the president.

Dear President Obama:

My patience is running thin.

Many times in the past, I have been there when you or the Democratic party needed help, because I believed you would bring fundamental change to our government. However, several of your decisions have diminished my enthusiasm:

1. The bank bail-out helped Wall Street, but did almost nothing for the average American. By propping up the value of toxic assets, you perpetuated the lie of these assets’ outrageously overstated values, merely pushing the problem further down the road. It’s also theft. The government has taken trillions of dollars from future generations of Americans and used the money to prop up the net worth of a bunch of capricious thieves who gambled with other people’s money. Private gains & public losses—an old tune I’m getting tired of.

2. The financial reform measures put in place were watered down so much that they do almost nothing to prevent a repeat of the crisis. Banks will continue to gamble with investor’s money, and to lend out many times what they possess in liquid assets. This is a giveaway to banks, and promotes growth at the expense of stability. The new rules have the appearance of having been written by the banks. This does nothing to allay the impression that some on your financial team are serving their former employers first and the American people second.

3. By failing to put a moratorium on foreclosures, and failing to give judges the authority to adjust the terms of mortgages (reducing the principal and not just the interest), you have turned a blind eye to the plight of millions of families whose home values are now much lower than what they owe on the loans. For these families, it now makes more sense to walk away from their homes than to stay. Foreclosures also have the effect of blighting neighborhoods, further depressing home values and making the problem even harder to solve later.

4. You have not properly acknowledged the human causes of the tragedy in New Orleans. Each time you refer to Katrina as the cause, you repeat a lie. Improperly designed levees and flood-walls led to this catastrophe. It was not a natural disaster. Sure, it’s easier to lay the blame on mother nature than on human incompetence and bureaucratic obstinacy; but it’s wrong. Failure to admit the true causes of this tragedy is a great sin because we also risk a recurrence of the problem if the Army Corps of Engineers is not held responsible for their past mistakes. Even today, the Corps is the body entrusted with evaluating its own performance. This is like letting the fox guard the henhouse.

5. Lastly, I know you are facing problems that you didn’t anticipate. But instead of proposing solutions that had the scale necessary to deal with the problems (the stimulus packages, financial reform, and health care to name just three), you instead brought forth lame compromises and half-measures. Instead of using your bully pulpit to stand up for what's right and shame the opposition into silence, you gave even the most intransigent obstructionists a seat at the table, interminably delaying much needed reforms.

I am gratified to see that you have begun to publicly challenge the opposition to propose better (and workable) solutions. But I wonder if it's not too little, too late. I am also pleased to see that Summers is finally on his way out; on financial matters, you would do well to listen more to the likes of Paul Krugman in the future.

I cannot at present convince myself that a donation to the DCCC would be money well spent. I still have hope for the future. But if you want my financial support, you will have to earn it.

Sincere Regards,

Michael A. Lowry

I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I hope the president gets the message.

iTunes app update bug

2010-09-22T12:04:00.000+02:00

I opened iTunes this morning to see that 5 new app updates were available. Yay!

I clicked on the Apps category in the left sidebar, and then clicked on the tiny arrow icon at the bottom.

No updates for you!

FAIL!

The evolution of iTunes from app to store

2010-09-06T11:15:00.002+02:00

Some failed to grasp the sarcasm in my previous post. This is inevitable when one engages in satire. The ongoing discussion on iTunes 10’s bland UI led one commentator to write:

I think the real motivation behind this is to [...] make what you can buy colourful and what you already own bland.

He hit the nail on the head.

From Apple’s point of view, the iTunes/iOS ecosystem has reached a level of market penetration where the focus has shifted away from improving the app and moved more toward exploiting the app’s ubiquity to sell more content.

Since the introduction of the iTunes Music Store, Apple has made each release of iTunes more focused on directing users to stuff they can buy. Here’s just one example: If you click the little gray arrow to the right of an album name, you might expect iTunes to take you to that album in your own music library; but instead, it redirects you to the album in the iTunes Music Store.

Here’s another example: the Ringtones button reappears periodically in bottom row of icons in the iOS iTunes app, and the Podcasts icon disappears. The user can change this, replacing the Ringtones icon with the Podcasts icon; but after a while, it will change back again. Again, this has the effect of directing you toward stuff you can buy (ringtones) instead of stuff that’s free (podcasts).

And one last example: it is not possible to have iTunes save your password for free downloads only. If you want iTunes to save your password, simplifying the downloading of free apps, music tracks, and podcasts, then you must also have a valid credit card on file, and allow iTunes to save your password for purchases too.

Apple’s engineers are well aware that bland, colorless portions of the UI are less likely to capture and hold the interest and attention of the user. This is by design.

From recent updates to the iTunes app, we can infer the following design objectives:
1. Reduce the user interface to its spartan, utilitarian minimum, and focus the user’s attention on the content area of the window;
2. Lead the user quickly to purchasable or promotional content in the Store, and do this from as many places in the app as possible; and
3. Make it as easy as possible to purchase content.

Desaturate now!

2010-09-02T17:49:00.006+02:00

Since Apple released iTunes 10 yesterday, some people with far too much time on their hands have complained about Apple’s decision to remove color from the iTunes user interface. “Grayscale icons are harder to identify than color icons,” they whine, “low contrast icons and UI elements are more difficult to read!”

Humbug!

These complaints are groundless and hysterical. The geniuses at Apple knows what they’re doing. These are the user interface professionals, remember? You know—the same perfectionists who invented the fucking GUI? Apple doesn’t make mistakes when it comes to the user interface of one of the company’s most vital applications! Trust Apple, and update your personal preferences. Color UIs were just a passing fancy, anyway.

I have long wondered when Apple would jump on the desaturation bandwagon. IBM boldly removed color from its UIs years ago. A directive was handed down that all user interfaces were to be harmonized—all across IBM Software Group. Professional graphic artists were brought in to do the meticulous and painstaking work of replacing confusingly colorful UIs with broad swaths of beautiful grayness (and subtle hints of blue). I am glad to see that Apple has finally chosen to embrace IBM’s proven leadership in user interface design.

My only small quibble would be that the iTunes 10 user interface still has too much color. I suggest that Apple follow through with what it has started, and complete the job of removing color from the UI. The capacity display for connected iOS devices is one of the worst offenders.

It’s so gaudy and crass, like a cheap toy prize from a gumball machine. All those colors, screaming for attention! They are more likely to distract and confuse users than to help them. Moreover, even if colors do help the user, relying color cues in the user interface amounts to discrimination against those with color vision impairments.

I’m sure you’ll agree that my proposed improvement is much more professional looking, conveying all the necessary information through a subtle yet rich palette of shades of gray.

Keep up the good work, Apple!

Proof of identity in the digitial age

2010-09-01T12:19:00.000+02:00

I recently contacted my bank in Texas, and requested that they change my billing address. I sent this request in an email via the bank’s secure and authenticated online banking web site. A day later, I received a reply stating that the change-of-address request had to be submitted in writing, and that a fax would suffice.

So a fax, which can easily be forged and can even been sent from a computer, is acceptable as proof that the request comes from me; but an authenticated email, sent via the bank’s own secure online banking system, is not.

This is insane.

Adventures in bathing

2010-08-29T20:48:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I met Elena for lunch at Nordiska. We fixed pizza and ate on the balcony. I played peek-a-boo with her daughter Sonia. It was cool outside, so I turned on the sauna and after I had said goodbye to my friends, stepped in to warm up a bit. Figuring that no one would be outside on such a cold and rainy day, I went out to jump in the lake wearing just my towel. As long as no one’s around, this isn’t normally a problem. But when I got outside, I saw that there was a big party tent on the lawn behind one of the neighboring rowing clubs, and a wedding ceremony was underway!

I didn’t want to walk all the way back upstairs just to fetch my shorts—I planned to go running in these shorts later in the evening and didn’t want them to be wet. But I didn’t think waltzing down to the end of the dock and skinny-dipping in full view of the wedding guests was a good idea either. So for modesty’s sake, and so as not to disturb the wedding, I walked over to the shore by Seeclub Zürich, and tried to make a shallow dive into the water there. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough lateral momentum, and although my torso made it to the deep water, my legs dragged along the bottom. I felt the top of my left thigh being scraped by something sharp. It happened so fast, and I didn’t feel any pain. But when lake water began flowing into the wound, I realized immediately that I had received more than just a scratch. I walked out of the water to survey the damage. It was not a pretty sight. There was a twenty centimeter gash on the front of my thigh, running straight upward from just above the knee. As I walked up onto the lawn, the blood began to stream out of the wound, branching out into a tree-like pattern as it flowed down the front of my shin and onto my foot.

So then I had the task of walking back to Nordiska with blood running down my leg, covering up with my towel without getting it bloody, and again, without making a scene that would disturb the wedding guests. It was a bit ridiculous.

I tracked blood all through the boathouse as I made my way back upstairs. I located the first aid kit in the changing room and stopped the bleeding with a pressure dressing. The situation was stable at this point, but the wound was not going to stay closed by itself. I knew I’d need to get stitches if I wanted to avoid ending up with a large scar. I walked to Bürkliplatz and took the tram up the hill to Universitätsspital Zürich, where within half an hour I had submitted my paperwork, gotten a fresh tetanus vaccination, and had been wheeled on a gurney to an operating room, where I was getting sewn up by a nice Austrian nurse named Veronica. She was friendly, and seemed glad to have something to do. The hospital wasn’t very busy that day. While she worked, I chatted with her and asked questions about what she was doing. I also took two videos with my iPhone. After cleaning the wound, she injected the site with anesthetic. These injections were the only painful part of the procedure. Once the wound site had been numbed, I felt only pressure—no pain—for the remainder of the procedure.

Veronica told me she was from Vienna, and that she was here on a temporary internship. She said that she liked the hospital and the city very much, and planned to move here permanently. She was cute too, so after I was all patched up I told her I had enjoyed talking with her and wondered if she might want to keep in touch. The look on her face said it all: “Oh god. Must every man I patch up ask me for my number?” He demeanor changed in an instant. What had previously been a talkative and friendly person became an unresponsive automaton, just doing her job. Having previously told me that she was planning to move to Zürich, she declined sharing her contact information on the grounds that she was “going back to Vienna tomorrow.” Um, yeah. Just say no, okay? I imagined what she must have been thinking: “How nice. Here’s a gentleman—making nice conversation and not even hitting on m—nope, there, he did it. He hit on me.” I guess she hasn’t yet learned how to decline advances gracefully. These things take practice—and a fair amount of mental energy. Oh well. She did an excellent job with the sutures, and for a while at least, we had a nice chat. If I’d made a new friend, it would almost have been worth all the trouble!

Pretty!, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I was in and out of the hospital in less than an hour. The whole process was remarkably efficient, and the experience made my visits to hospitals in Sweden and the U.S. seem poor and haphazard in hindsight. Of course the Swiss level of service comes at a cost—but luckily I won’t have to pay it out-of-pocket. The hospital visit will be covered by my IBM’s accident insurance. Companies in Switzerland must purchase accident insurance for all full-time employees.

After leaving the hospital, I returned to Nordiska to pick up my things. I fixed a pizza with the leftovers from lunch, and made my way back home. I had planned to go running with Malin, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen. I called her and explained the situation. “If you planned to go running anyway, then there was no point in getting stitches,” she said. OK! I resolved to take it easy and give my cut time to heal. My doctor friend Linda lives and works in my neighborhood. She met me at the tram stop and came by for a while to check up on me—it was very sweet of her indeed. The wound seems to be quite okay. It’s not painful, and in fact the thing I feel the most is the pulling of hairs by the bandage when I move my leg. The doc told me not to exercise using that leg for at least ten days.

My friend Nic had been kind enough to arrange a skiff rowing course for me and some others. A skiff is a one-person rowing boat, and learning to row a skiff requires special training. Since I began to row last year, I had looked forward to the summer when I would have the opportunity to learn to row a skiff. With that skill under my belt, I could row whenever I wanted to—even without a partner. The course was this morning, and obviously I wasn’t able to participate. When I told Nic last night that I wouldn’t make it (and explained why) she told me that it was one of the best excuses she had heard, but that she would want photographic proof of my injury. Hah! If I’m involved, there’s always photographic evidence to be found. Nic agreed to hold a second course for those who missed this one. Thanks, Nic—you’re an angel!

This was my first experience getting stitches. It was interesting and less of a big deal than I had expected. I have since learned that for some minor cuts that might otherwise require stitches, cyanoacrylate (super) glue often works in a pinch. I’ll have to remember to pack a tube of the stuff on my next backpacking trip.

Skype cancels plans to charge iPhone users for Skype-to-Skype calls

2010-08-12T14:25:00.000+02:00

OK, that didn’t take very long. Late last month, Skype announced that it had cancelled plans to charge iPhone users for the convenience of making Skype-to-Skype calls over the mobile network.

The latest version of Skype for iPhone also adds the ability to remain running in the background. This means that you can sign in to Skype, and then still receive calls while using other apps or when the phone is locked. Very nice!

Skype on mobile devices

2010-05-31T16:02:00.012+02:00

Yesterday, version 2.0.0 of the Skype iPhone app was released. The new version adds the ability to make calls over the 3G mobile telephone network. Mac Rumors and TUAW pointed out that Skype plans to begin charging a monthly fee for this service sometime later this year. When Skype will begin to charge for the service is not clear: the pop-up message that appears in the app indicates August 2010; the Skype page at the App Store indicates the end of 2010.

What is clear is that at some point in the coming months, it will become necessary to pay a monthly fee to Skype if you want to use the iPhone version of Skype to make calls over the mobile phone network. Mind you, this fee does not cover calls to ordinary telephones or mobile phones; for that, you’ll have to pay additional fees. The monthly fee we’re talking about here is just for the privilege of using the Skype iPhone app to make calls—even Skype-to-Skype calls—over the 3G network.

Skype-to-Skype calls made from the iPhone app will continue to be free when made over WiFi networks. Presumably such calls will also be free when made from the Mac or Windows version of Skype.

Convenience fee
What’s really interesting is the way Skype is hoping to earn money here. Skype is not really talking about charging for using the 3G network per se; instead, Skype is talking about charging for that subset of calls made from the Skype iPhone App. Many laptop users get their internet connectivity via the mobile telephone network, using a 3G USB dongle, or a built-in 3G transceiver in their laptop. In many places it’s also possible to connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC, enable tethering, and share the iPhone’s internet connection with your computer. In this way it is possible to make free Skype-to-Skype calls over the 3G network from the Skype application running on your computer. Skype is not talking about charging these Mac & PC users for ordinary Skype-to-Skype calls. However, the exact same calls made from the iPhone will soon require payment of a monthly fee.

Skype seems to be betting that users will gladly pay a fee for the convenience of calling from the iPhone version of the program.

Who must pay for Skype-to-Skype calls?

Application	Platform	Connection	Cost
Skype	Mac/Windows	LAN	Free
Skype	Mac/Windows	Wi-Fi	Free
Skype	Mac/Windows	3G*	Free
Skype	Symbian	3G	Free
Skype	Blackberry	3G	Free
Skype	Android	3G	Free
Fring	iPhone	3G	Free
Nimbuzz	iPhone	3G	Free
Skype	iPhone	Wi-Fi	Free
Skype	iPhone	3G	Monthly fee

* including calls made over a 3G connection provided by a tethered iPhone

This strategy is similar to Apple’s approach to QuickTime Pro upgrades: the user pays for convenience, not additional features.

An argument can be made that it shouldn’t matter what the underlying network is. Each user pays for his or her own network connection, and I think Skype is going to have a challenge on their hands explaining why users should have to pay when a call is made over one network, but not another. After all, Skype doesn’t pay more to handle calls originating from 3G networks. And as mobile networks become faster and more widespread, a growing percentage of users will be doing more of their work on these networks. Users accustomed to making free Skype-to-Skype calls may be reluctant to begin paying just because they have switched networks. Skype is clearly hoping to get users accustomed to paying for Skype-to-Skype calls, and believes that 3G calls in the Skype iPhone app represent a good point at which to begin that process.

Skype on modified iPhones

Some iPhone users have been making calls over the 3G network for more than a year. There exists software that tricks the iPhone into thinking it’s on a Wi-Fi network, even when it’s actually just connected via 3G. There are several programs that accomplish this feat. Some cost money; VoIPover3G is free.

Installing these programs requires jailbreaking the iPhone—essentially removing Apple’s iTunes/App Store lock-in and enabling the installation of applications not approved by Apple. Jailbreaking has often been a complicated affair requiring some technical skill and no small amount of patience. However, the task has recently become much simpler, thanks to the Spirit application. It is likely that the speed and simplicity of the Spirit jailbreak will result in many more users choosing to jailbreak their iPhones.

For the past year or so, Skype on the iPhone has been able to detect when it it running on jailbroken iPhone. The first time a user runs Skype on a modified iPhone, the program displays a warning message stating that Skype is supported only on unmodified iPhones. The program continues to function normally though, happily making Skype-to-Skype calls over the 3G network. Version 2.0.0 of the Skype iPhone app does not noticeably change this.

An unanswered question is whether this will change later in the year.

If Skype is able to detect when it is running on a jailbroken iPhone, is the program also able to detect the presence of MobileSubstrate hacks? These are the small programs that fool the iPhone into thinking a 3G network is actually a Wi-Fi network. When Skype begins charging for the convenience of making Skype-to-Skype calls over 3G from the iPhone app, how will the program work on iPhones with such hacks installed? I can envision several possibilities:

On jailbroken iPhones, or on iPhones with a MobileSubstrate hack installed,

Skype continues to work as today, warning the user but functioning normally;
Skype simply refuses to run; or
Skype runs but detects the presence of the hack, and does not make calls without payment.

An arms race could develop between Skype and the iPhone hacker community, with hackers finding new ways to fool the program into thinking it’s running on Wi-Fi, and Skype trying to detect the presence of such hacks.

It’ll be interesting to watch how this develops.

Arboretum

2010-05-01T22:18:00.002+02:00

Arboretum on a rainy first of May, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

This afternoon I went to Nordiska to tidy up a bit after last night’s fun barbecue. It was rainy and cool out—the rain muffling the noise of an already subdued city. After cleaning, I fixed a bratwurst for lunch, and ate it on the balcony while watching the few sailboats braving the rainy weather on the lake. Then I relaxed a while in the sauna and took a quick dip in the lake. After climbing back out of the water and onto the dock, I stood for a while in the cool rain, just staring out over the water.

I snapped this photo on the walk to the boathouse, in the Arboretum park beside the lake beside the lake.

Valborg

2010-04-30T16:04:00.003+02:00

Today is Walpurgis Night, or Valborgsmässoafton in Swedish. I will join a bunch of Swedes for a little barbecue down by the lake. It seems like it’s going to be a nice big group—perhaps 50 or 60 people in all, including rowers and other members of the club; students, and also some au pairs. Last year Valborg came and went without a celebration here; so this time I took it upon myself to organize something. There’s also a party at a disco in town later on, but I want to enjoy the day tomorrow, so I think I’ll skip that.

I was at the boathouse last night too. After an excellent and intense bouldering session at Minimum, I went to Nordiska to relax a while in the sauna. It’s just a few minutes away by bus, so it’s very convenient. I think bouldering & sauna will become a tradition for me. After warming up in the sauna, my friends and I ran down to the lake for a quick swim. The water was much warmer than last week. I’d say it was around 15° C last night; last week it was closer to 8° C. As we stood on the dock relaxing and enjoying the reflection of the city lights in the water, the moon began to rise from behind the hills across the lake. It was a dark crimson-orange, a color I have seen it on only one or two other occasions. I wish I had had my tripod with me; it would have been an impressive photo.

Ok, time to wrap up a few more things at the office before leaving for the weekend.

Will the real Sofia please stand up?

2010-04-28T23:09:00.003+02:00

A few years ago, I met a girl—let’s call her Sofia A.—on the free dating site OKCupid. She told me she had studied engineering at Uppsala University in Sweden. She also told me that she was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Sweden because her father was American and her mother Swedish. We began to chat frequently online. I soon learned that she was deaf and had a girlfriend named Hannah. Eventually our conversations became quite personal. However, although she showed me some photos of herself, we never video-chatted, and we never met in person.

Because Sofia already had a partner, she introduced me to her younger sister Lisa, a student at Linköpings University. Lisa and I also began to chat frequently, and although we considered meeting several times, she was also shy, and we never did meet. Eventually, Lisa also told me that she had a new girlfriend, a woman from Japan working at an engineering company in Linköping. Just as with Sofia, Lisa and I never had a video chat and never met in person.

After a year or so of frequent and lengthy chats with both sisters, Sofia informed me that she had gotten a job with a well-known IT firm in California, and would be moving to the San Francisco Bay area. We continued chatting, albeit somewhat less frequently, and she gave intermittent updates about her life there. When I visited my brother in San Francisco, I suggested to Sofia that she and I meet. She declined, and I began to wonder if she was real.

Then, in October of 2008, I moved to Switzerland for work. Soon after moving to Zürich, I joined Nordiska—the Nordic Rowing Club of Zürich—and became acquainted with many Swedes and other Scandinavians here. Among the Swedes I met at Nordiska were several who worked at the Zürich office of the big IT firm where Sofia had started working. When one of these guys told me he was soon going on a trip to the main office in California, I told him about my friend Sofia. “She’s friendly, smart, and Swedish,” I told him. “Look her up and tell her Michael said hello.”

When he returned from his trip, he had disappointing news. “There’s no one with that name working for the company,” he told me. The next time I saw Sofia online, I told her what I had learned. “I use my Mother’s maiden name when chatting online,” she told me. She declined to tell me her real last name. My other friends at the company tried to identify her by her other characteristics—that she was Swedish and deaf, for example. They were also unable to find anyone working there that matched her description.

Then, one day, I saw some photos posted by a friend online. They were photos from a dance competition at La Isla, a salsa dance club in Stockholm that I frequented when I lived there. In the photos, I saw a face that looked familiar. The girl was tagged in the photos, so I clicked through to her profile and looked at her other photos. Those photos looked very familiar. Then it hit me: these were some of the same photos that “Sofia A.” had shared with me years before, and had claimed were photos of her!

Could this be the same girl? Her first name was also Sofia—let’s call herSofia B.—and she appeared to be from Sweden; but judging from the dates and places mentioned in her photos, she had not lived in the U.S.—at least not recently. I sent “Sofia B.” a short note telling her that she looked familiar and asking if we knew each other.

The next day, she replied. She wrote that I didn’t look familiar, but that we had several friends in common. This is true—we both know several people in the salsa dance scene in Stockholm, and I know some of the people who appear with her in the dancing photos. Sofia B.’s email was open and friendly, and did not seem like the kind of reply I would have received from someone who had just been caught in a lie.

I decided to tell her the whole story. I sent Sofia B. another email, explaining why she looked familiar—that I had had a multi-year conversation online with someone who had been using her photos. I pointed her to the profile pages that Sofia A. had created on OKCupid and Facebook.

I received a new reply from Sofia B. She informed me that the photos on the pages I had shown her were old ones, and that all of them had been taken by one man—a former friend of hers, I gather. The impostor is either that man or someone who had access to his photos. She said that she would look into the matter.

I actually know very little about the person I’ve been chatting with all these years. Lying obviously comes naturally to this person, and I simply don’t know what is true and what is made up. The two “sisters” Sofia and Lisa might actually be the same person. In fact, the person might even be a man.

And of course the real Sofia is surely upset to know that someone else has been using her photos to create a false identity. Sofia B. notified OKCupid and Facebook of the fake profiles using her photos. It took a couple of days for them to be removed.

A few days later, the supposed sister of Sofia A., “Lisa,” signed on and said hello. I told her what I had discovered, and explained that I was no longer willing to chat with her unless she was willing to be honest with me. Her reply didn’t really surprise me. “Nice chatting with you all these years,” she said. She made it clear that her anonymity was sacrosanct, and much more important than any friendship we had shared.

I told her that I felt like fool for trusting her. “I’m sorry” was her final reply.

I feel like I’ve lost a friend. I feel betrayed. And most frustratingly of all, I may never know what was real and what was not. I feel a bit like Neo coming out of the Matrix for the first time, waking up to a different reality, and being faced with the prospect of abandoning old friends and old accepted truths. A small part of me feels a desire to retreat to denial and to invent excuses for the liars.

It’s sometimes hard to strike the right balance between openness and caution when dealing with people. I’m usually pretty trusting of people I’ve just met, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until I have reason to distrust the person. It’s clearly easier however to judge a person’s character when you can see the person face-to-face. Online, it’s easy to hide behind a mask of anonymity. I will definitely be more careful next time.

I’m also realizing that for socializing the ’net is best when it is used as a means to arrange meet-ups in the real world. I have flesh-and-blood friends who are deserving of my time and energy. In the future I won’t be wasting time with phantoms.

The Böögg goes BOOM!

2010-04-20T02:02:00.001+02:00

The Böögg goes BOOM!
Originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry

This afternoon I went downtown to watch the Sechseläuten parade and subsequent bonfire. It was more fun than I expected. After the parade and the burning of the Böögg, I stayed and met up with some friends for a barbecue. We got the help of a man with a long-handled shovel to fetch some coals from the fire, and had a makeshift cookout on the square. Hundreds of other Zürchers were doing the same, and from what I can gather, this has become a time-honored tradition.

Nordisco, 20 March 2010

2010-04-19T15:34:00.001+02:00

_MAL2263, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The party at Nordiska a few weeks ago was a great success. Luc, I, and a few others were the last ones at the party when the sun rose around 6.

This morning I finally got around to posting my photos from the evening. Enjoy!

Sunset through the Eyjafjallajökull ash

2010-04-19T15:09:00.001+02:00

_MAL3095, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Capturing a great photo requires having your camera at the right time and place. Much of the art of photography is arranging to be at the right place at the right time. But yesterday it was just luck. I had been carrying my camera around all day just in case I saw something photo-worthy. Aside from your garden variety holiday snapshots, I didn’t have much success. But then on the walk down Höestrasse to my home, I saw this amazing sunset over Üetliberg. The sky had been covered all day with a sort of soft diffuse silver haze; and at sunset this haze turned a dark shade of yellow—and later, pink. I stood on a handrail and leaned out over the street to capture this photo, zooming in all the way (200mm) and pointing the camera between two houses.

Be kinder than necessary…

2010-04-15T12:26:00.001+02:00

A friend wrote on Facebook this morning: “Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” This started a discussion about the challenge of being kind in Sweden, and the differences between Swedes and Americans. I am reposting some of my comments here.

Swedes are careful about letting people get too close, and tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to social situations. If a Swede passes someone on the street she thinks she might know but isn’t sure, she’ll most likely not greet the person. The risk of accidentally greeting a stranger and having to deal the the resulting awkwardness is, for the Swede, too daunting.

The darkness in winter plays an important role. To get a close enough look at the person passing on the street, the Swede will have to practically stare at the passerby. There’s not enough light, and people bundle up so much in winter that their distinguishing features are obscured. Rather than straining to look or make eye contact, most Swedes will just look straight ahead and not even glance at the passerby.

A Spaniard on the other hand, would greet the person, stranger or not—and upon accidentally greeting a stranger, would make a new friend.

It probably also has to do with the relatively high cost of offering hospitality in a cold climate. I.e., if you have to work hard during the warm months just to save up enough food and firewood to last you through the winter, then you’ll naturally be more careful about whom you allow into your circle of friends. But once a person is a friend—well then you’ve gotta stick together no matter what, and help each other through the hard times. It takes longer to make friends in Sweden; but my Swedish friends are people I would count on through thick and thin.

I think it’s clear that many of the social customs we observe today evolved out of necessity, arising naturally from the conditions of the existing physical and social environment.

Whether social customs are well suited to the present environment is largely irrelevant because it can take a long time for customs to catch up with changing conditions.

I like American courteousness and consideration, because it acts as a social lubricant, greasing the gears of everyday social interaction. The waitress at the diner may not actually wonder how you’re doing when she asks, but it’s still a nice gesture—and even smalltalk can offer the opportunity to engage in a real conversation. I also recognize that the American friendliness is often superficial, and that it can be hard to make meaningful friendships with some Americans.

I try to combine the best aspects of both the American and Swedish styles, being friendly to strangers, but devoting most of my energy to those few like-minded friends who have reciprocated my friendship and have shown me that they deserve it.

I think most Swedes would benefit from trying to be a bit more open and friendly with others. And as I have long said, Swedes actually like being friendly. They just need an excuse.

Martigny, on the way to Chamonix

2010-04-01T22:33:00.002+02:00

Martigny, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After leaving Martigny, the road climbed steeply into the mountains. We should arrive in Chamonix in half an hour. Greg and I will spend the next four days skiing with friends. There’s a little bit of fresh snow on the ground, so we have reason to hope for good snow conditions. The Swiss-French border is coming up. More to come…

New look

2010-03-26T11:52:00.002+01:00

This morning I used the new Blogger Template Designer to refresh the appearance of the blog a bit. What do you think?

Vertigo

2010-03-03T10:54:00.012+01:00

Last week, I took a couple of days off to go skiing with my friend Therese, who was visiting from Stockholm. We woke up early and took the train from Zürich to Andermatt, the place I went skiing with Swedish friends the winter before I moved to Zürich.

We had a great time skiing Wednesday afternoon, had a beer in the sunshine after the last run of the day, and then relaxed in the sauna for a while before having dinner and retiring for the night. I looked forward to a great full day of skiing on Thursday. Unfortunately, fate stepped in the way of that plan.

When I awoke Thursday morning and began to stretch and roll out of bed, I was hit with a wave of paralyzing dizziness. The world seemed to spin around me, and I could not tell up from down. It felt like being very, very intoxicated—only I was completely sober and had just had a solid night’s sleep.

I couldn’t see clearly, partly because my eyes were still cloudy from a night of sleep, but also because they were not entirely under my control. With each episode of dizziness, my eyes would shudder back and forth involuntarily. Still in the haze of early morning half-wakefulness, I was a bit unsure if I was truly awake, or just having a bad nightmare.

I sat up in bed. I felt sick to my stomach. Was it food poisoning? The dinner the previous night had seemed perfectly fine, and I had slept soundly. So that didn’t seem like a plausible explanation. I turned my head to the window to see a beautiful morning of white snow-covered slopes and bright sunshine. Another wave of dizziness and nausea overtook me, and I broke out in a cold sweat. I was terrified.

I stumbled out of bed and struggled to right myself. I fumbled around, leaning on the wall to remain upright. I managed to make my way to the bathroom, where I stood under the shower to warm up. I felt sick and chilled. The shower helped a bit, but I was still in a state of mild panic.

Thankfully, the scientist in me took charge at this point, and I began to analyze my situation. I realized that the dizziness was associated with motion—specifically, it got worse when I moved my head. I naturally became very slow and careful in my movements, turning my whole body instead of just turning my head, and getting up or sitting down without leaning over. I felt like an old man, moving in such a cautious and deliberate way; but it was working. The dizziness was subsiding, and the nausea and chills were gradually fading away.

I returned to the bed, propped up a few pillows behind my back, and just sat very very still. Therese kindly brought to me some breakfast from the hotel buffet. I managed to eat some cereal and drink some juice and coffee, despite a bit of lingering nausea. The fact that I could eat was a very good sign, I thought. Food poisoning, this was not. A bit of experimentation revealed a crucial detail: the vertigo was triggered when I leaned my head to the left—in other words, when my left ear was facing the ground. I then realized that the nausea and cold sweat were only side effects of the dizziness and panic, respectively.

This was the first time in my life that I had experienced vertigo like this, so its onset had surprised and scared me. Once I realized that the feelings of sickness were merely secondary effects of the dizziness, the situation began to feel less frightening and more manageable. The realization that I could control the dizziness to a degree by limiting my movements made me calmer and more relaxed. I could handle this. I was going to be okay.

With Therese’s help, I got dressed and walked to the doctor in Andermatt. His office was in an old building, and had lovely parquet floors and furnishings. In its appearance, it was was like a doctor’s office from 100 years ago. Visiting the doctor was a very calming and reassuring experience. A very friendly nurse there explained that what I was experiencing was quite common, and was caused by a mechanical problem in the semicircular canals of the inner ear. Apparently, bits of crystalline debris can detach and wander in these canals, causing irregular movement of the fluid whose flow in response to head movements gives us our sense of balance. I later learned that the condition is called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The nurse told me that BPPV often goes away after just a couple of days, but that it could last longer, and that in some people, it comes back weeks, months, or years later. The doctor prescribed a couple of medications: one for the dizziness and another for the nausea.

I was feeling a bit unsteady, and still suffering the after-effects of the morning’s exhausting episode; but I felt better and much reassured after visiting to the doctor. On the way back to the hotel, I even felt well enough to go by the post office and mail my application for a new U.S. passport to the embassy in Bern.

Back at the hotel, I ate a bit more, took my medicine, and went back to bed. Therese went skiing, and I slept the whole day. I was mostly ok that evening, and felt even better the next day. By the time we had returned to Zürich on Friday evening, it seemed that the vertigo had almost completely disappeared.

I still experience a brief moment of dizziness occasionally—often when I rouse myself from sleep in the morning. I also sometimes get a faint sensation of my balance being a bit off-kilter; but these are minor nuisances compared to the debilitating dizziness I felt last Thursday. One of my mother’s best friends has a more chronic form of vertigo, and I have a deepened sympathy for her after having experienced a taste of it. I am enormously grateful for my good health!

Update

The Epley maneuver helps alleviate symptoms in many sufferers of BPPV.

Enjoying the sunshine

2010-02-14T13:57:00.001+01:00

Enjoying the sunshine, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The weather is absolutely beautiful here at Savognin. We enjoyed a couple of hours of great skiing and then went to the Berhaus Somtgant for lunch. Gotta go now—more skiing awaits!

Focus stealing

2010-02-09T09:24:00.005+01:00

This morning I was steaming milk for a cappuccino when all of a sudden the toaster stole focus. Now my kitchen’s a mess and smells of burned milk. It’s lucky I wasn’t hurt. Just a few years ago, this sort of thing would have been considered completely unacceptable.

When will manufacturers learn that appliances should never steal focus?

The Apple iPad is the first tablet computer I would actually use

2010-01-28T13:19:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, Apple announced its long-rumored tablet computer, the iPad.

This is not first tablet computer; there have been many devices that could fall into that category released over the years. But all of them, including the HP ‘slate PC’ hurriedly rushed to the stage by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at CES a few weeks ago, have suffered from the same limitations. These limitations are due in large part to the fact that these tablet computers have been based on PC operating systems. Mac and Windows apps are not designed to be used with a touch-screen; so instead of offering something new and better, tablet PCs have offered something worse—ungainly hybrids that didn’t work as well as the PCs upon which they were based.

Apple took a completely new approach to the tablet computer, and has made obsolete all that came before.

Unlike earlier tablet computers, the iPad does not run a PC OS like Windows or Mac OS X. Instead, the iPad runs a new version of the iPhone OS, an operating system built from the ground up with touch as the primary interface. There is no pointer or cursor; your fingers are the pointers. There are no command key shortcuts; instead, multi-touch gestures provide the vocabulary of human-computer interaction.

Apple is the only significant computer manufacturer that controls the whole widget: the battery, the CPU, the OS, and the core applications—Apple does it all. The results speak for themselves. Watch the iPad video or if you have a bit more time, the video from yesterday’s special event. Microsoft, Amazon, and others will have to work hard to match what Apple has accomplished with the iPad.

I’m convinced that the iPad will shortly become the first popular tablet computer. It will define new standards for touch-based interfaces that will be aped by Microsoft and other imitators.

The iPad is not without problems. There’s no way to add more memory; the 3G version cannot be used as a phone; there is no camera; and the pixel density is anemic for a device meant to be used up close. But these are minor nitpicks. Some of these features were no doubt left out intentionally due to cost or time constraints. Apple doesn’t include a feature until it can be done well. It’s certain that future version of the iPad will address some of the more obvious gaps.

I’m excited about the iPad and look forward to playing with one at the Apple Store on Bahnhofstrasse in a few months. Will I buy one? That remains to be seen. Ultimately, my decision will be based on whether I determine that the device provides a compelling capability that I don't already get from my iPhone 3GS and MacBook Pro.

Worth noting

2010-01-25T23:56:00.003+01:00

Some relationship advice given to a friend recently:

“Bad experiences are part of what make us who we are. If we are strong, we survive them. If we are smart, we learn from them. And if we have enough love in our hearts, we do not let the experiences harden us too much.”

It certainly does... smart.

2010-01-12T23:58:00.008+01:00

First they did it to the word green; now smart gets the same treatment. The marketing & business folks have resorted to using an adjective as a though it were a noun:

“Welcome to the decade of smart.”

I think we can safely assume that the folks who thought this up are not simply ignorant of proper English, but are on the contrary entirely cognizant of their error, and hoping to grab the public’s attention for a time through the deliberately unconventional use of language.

There is a long tradition of this sort of thing. Apple’s Think Different advertising campaign is but one recent example.

It is a bit disheartening, however, to observe the effect this has on the language. It’s hard enough to encourage proper use of the language without advertisers’ abominable abuses to the language competing for people’s attention.

From the point of view of the language, using this type of deliberate error in well-funded ad campaigns can be seen as a short-sighted exploitation of a limited resource. The resource in this case is people’s attention, combined with the limited number of novel mistakes that the language can tolerably absorb.

What slash-and-burn agriculture is to the rain forest, so this type of deliberate misuse is to the language. Both yield short-term results, but also leave lasting damage.

There is a disproportionate influence exerted upon the language by commercial entities whose short-term interests have little to do with the long-term consistency, simplicity and beauty of the language.

I have observed a similar phenomenon when it comes to product names. Every few years, some new MBA will come along and decide to rename everything, under the guise of “establishing coherent brand identity across product families,” or some such thing. This inevitably leads to great confusion among sales and technical staff, to say nothing of the poor customers. Sure, the product lineup gets the shine and sparkle of a new name; but here too the unintended consequences are real and lasting: no one knows what anything is called anymore, and there’s the practical impossibility of finding coherent information about a product whose name has changed four times in the space of a few years.

Beyond race

2010-01-11T14:14:00.002+01:00

Some folks have recently claimed that James Cameron’s Avatar contains racist themes. This is absurd. If anything, the film is about the need to move beyond the self-centered view that any one group of people is special. Cameron wants us to expand the circle to include non-humans. This enlightened viewpoint is the opposite of racism. The race (within the species) of the human characters is largely irrelevant, made to seem all the more insignificant by the larger inter-species conflict between humans and Na’vi.

I do not see see Avatar as the story of a white messiah saving a primitive tribe. On the contrary, it seems clear to me that one of the main points of the film is that that race—and even species—is not what makes people special.

On the way to the Alps

2010-01-10T07:03:00.001+01:00

On the way, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I’m joining a couple of colleagues for a day of skiing at Laax, a ski area just 1 ½ hours’ drive from Zürich. The weather is not forecast to be particularly good, but one can always hope that it’s sunnier at the higher elevations. This’ll be my first day on the slopes this winter. I had considered going ski touring today, but opted for good old downhill sking instead because I’m still tired from a long first week back at work. I also did sporty things every day of the week, so I need to do something comparatively relaxing today. I’ll try to post more pix from the mountain!

Gender identity and ID cards

2010-01-08T14:42:00.005+01:00

An article in The Local describes an effort underway in Sweden to offer alternate identity cards to those considering sex-reassignment surgery. The thinking is that those who self-identify as a gender other than their biological gender will be able to present themselves as the person they want to be.

I find this topic fascinating, because it challenges some of our most basic assumptions about what it means to be male or female. People ought to be able to be whoever they want. However, we must also recognize that the presence of people in society who don’t fit into our neat little categories poses some problems.

People like to be able to make assumptions about others. These assumptions save time and offer the illusory comfort that we live in a stable and predictable world. Sometimes though it becomes clear that certain time-honored assumptions are outdated and must be discarded, even at the expense of eliminating this source of comfort and challenging people to abandon their long-held prejudices. Most people today would agree that it is wrong to make assumptions about a person based on the color of her skin. However, it took a long and difficult struggle to get to this point. Along the way, many people were made to feel very uncomfortable, precisely because their assumptions were challenged.

Any time you challenge people’s basic assumptions, you’re going to make them uncomfortable.

One of the most basic assumptions people like to be able to make is that there are only two genders, and that it’s easy to tell who is a man and who is a woman. The presence of transgender people challenges this assumption.

I’ll give one specific example. Imagine a person who is biologically male, but prefers to identify as a woman. Should this person be allowed to share the same public facilities (toilets, changing rooms, etc) as other women? I dare say some erstwhile open minded women might find their open-mindedness challenged upon encountering this situation in real life. And what would be a solution to the problem that would be fair to everyone? I suppose one might suggest that separate facilities for men and women could be outlawed and that the state could enforce unisex facilities. That would eliminate the need to categorize oneself at all, and would be consistent with the trend toward blurring of the boundaries between the sexes. But although fair, that solution too would upset a great number of people, most notably women who like to feel safe in the assumption that their facilities are free of men.

Which assumptions are sacred, and which must be challenged? That’s not an easy question to answer.

Eagle Scout Stories: my contribution

2010-01-04T14:53:00.010+01:00

As a lifetime member of the National Eagle Scout Association, I was recently invited to contribute a short statement about how my experiences in scouting had contributed to my life. Here is the full text of my submission:

Scouting was a very important part of my youth, and I will always look back upon those days with fondness. The discipline and skills I learned in the pursuit of the rank of Eagle have served me well in life, both in my profession and in my personal life. Scouting instilled in me a spirit of adventure that eventually led me to move to Sweden, and later, Switzerland.

I feel it is my duty to acknowledge my disappointment in the BSA’s regrettable decision to exclude gays and atheists from scouting. Scout organizations in other parts of the world do not discriminate on the basis or religion or sexual orientation. It is high time that the BSA take a more enlightened view, and respect the rightful place of all who wish to participate.

It is my sincere hope that the NESA include my contribution in its entirety in the publication, to be entitled Eagle Scout Stories: Tales from the Trails of Scouting’s Highest Rank. The Boy Scouts of America holds that atheists and agnostics are incapable of being good citizens, and that homosexuals are morally crooked and unclean. The BSA’s position is not just controversial; it is indefensible.

Christmas 2009 in Austin

2009-12-26T00:23:00.000+01:00

U.S. passport renewal

2009-12-16T00:29:00.004+01:00

A couple of nights ago, I returned to Zürich after a lovely long weekend in Stockholm. After packing my bag and getting ready for my trip to Austin, I went to Delta’s website, and attempted to check in online. Delta refused to let me check in online because the expiration date of my passport was within 90 days. I checked in at the airport the next morning, and my trip to Austin (via Atlanta) went smoothly. Before leaving Zürich though, I made a comment on Twitter.

Yesterday, the comment drew some replies on Facebook (to which my tweets are automatically copied). A friend explained that Delta was just making sure that people didn’t leave the U.S. without having a valid passport for their return. The website, he said, must not have made a distinction between those traveling from the ’States and those traveling to the ’States. Later, another friend warned me that I might have trouble when I return to Switzerland at the end of the month.

My U.S. passport expires in February, so my original plan was simply to return home to Zürich and apply for a passport via the U.S. embassy in Bern. However, my friend explained that U.S. citizens traveling abroad are often required to have a passport valid for a period of time beyond their stay abroad. The U.S. State Department’s page for Switzerland states that for travelers to Switzerland, “the passport should be valid for at least three months beyond the period of stay.” Some folks are turned away at the airport, my friend told me. Others are refused entry into their destination country once they arrive. Yikes!

I then thought I would just renew my passport while in the U.S. However, the normal renewal by mail takes four to six weeks, and I’m going back to Switzerland at the end of the month. To obtain quicker service, one must pay an extra sixty dollars over the standard renewal fee of seventy-five dollars, and one must submit the form in person at a passport office. The nearest passport office is in Houston, and I didn’t really want to take time away from family and friends just to drive down to Houston for a day.

My friend suggested ABC Passport Express, a company here in Austin that assists with passport applications and renewals. For an additional $195 over the $135 charged by the State Department, ABC Passport will drive down to Houston, submit the paperwork, and return with the new passport. That would mean $330 just to renew my passport a bit quicker. I wondered if there were another way.

I called the State Department and asked if there were any rules that would prevent me from boarding a flight to Switzerland if my U.S. passport were to expire within 90 days. There are no such rules, I was told. I contacted Delta and asked them the same thing. I was told that they didn’t have any policy on the matter, and simply followed the advice of the Travel Security Administration. I then contacted the TSA and asked them the same thing. Once again, I was told that as long as my passport was valid, I would be allowed to travel.

Still, the entry & exit requirements on the State Department’s page caused me a bit of concern. But then I realized: this page states what Switzerland requires of visitors, not what the U.S. requires of departing travelers. My Swedish passport and Swiss residence permit are valid several more years; and because I’ll enter Switzerland using my Swedish passport, I should not have any problems at the border.

Being a dual citizen and a frequent international traveler is at times a bit challenging!

Turkey surprise

2009-12-08T00:21:00.002+01:00

Turkey surprise, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

This evening I went to the gym after work. It’s in Oberrieden, a ways South down the lake, maybe 10 minutes by train from Rüschlikon. I walked down the hill from IBM to the train station, and had just enough time to run into the Coop and grab a few things before catching the train to Horgen, whence I walked back North to Oberrieden. The contents of my shopping bag included a small wheat roll, a carton of chocolate milk, and some granola bars—enough sustenance to see me through my workout.

The spinning (stationary bicycling) class was strenuous and fun. I relaxed a bit in the sauna afterward, and chatted with some of my fellows. One of them, a lawyer I often chat with in the spa, gave me a lift back around the lake. He lives not too far from my home, and has kindly offered me a ride on several occasions.

When I walked in the door I was just famished. I looked in the fridge and saw plenty of food; only nothing seemed to go together. I would have to be creative.

I had a packet of sliced turkey that was about to expire, so I knew I had to do something with that. I also had fresh (well, two-day-old) mushrooms that had to be eaten or thrown out. In addition, I had some left-over red capsicum (bell pepper). I decided to make a pasta with all of the above as a sauce.

I sautéed the mushrooms in plenty of butter and a bit of salt. I then removed the mushrooms and sautéed the capsicum in the now-mushroom-flavored melted butter. I added the turkey, cooked it for a bit, added some crushed black pepper, and poured the mix over freshly cooked pasta. I topped it off with the sautéed mushrooms.

It was sooooo good. I can’t believe I just threw this together at the last minute. I must refer back to this post in the future, and try to recreate this dish!

Polyball 2009

2009-12-07T01:02:00.002+01:00

DSCN4446, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

A year ago I went to the Polyball for the first time. I didn’t know many people here in Zürich at the time, so I went alone. I quickly found the salsa dance floor and started dancing with an energetic girl named Elisa. She and I danced many dances together and exchanged numbers before the end of the evening. We’ve kept in touch in the past year, but hadn’t managed to go dancing again because she lives in Ticino and is in Zürich only occasionally.

This year I went to the ball with Lilian and Daniela, two lovely women I met at Linea Salsa almost exactly a year ago, one week after last year’s Polyball. As last year, I gravitated toward the Latin music. I danced a couple of dances with Lilian and Daniela. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw someone waving to me. As luck would have it, Elisa—the girl from last year’s Polyball—was about two meters away from us! It’s a small world indeed.

I introduced Elisa and her friends to my friends, and we hung out together for most of the rest of the night, dancing disco, swing, and even a few Viennese waltzes. Throughout the evening, I also ran into many other people I know, including several colleagues and folks from the rowing club. It was a really fun party, and we left only around 4:30 in the morning. I am already looking forward to next year’s Polyball!

xkcd Easter eggs that aren’t, but ought to be

2009-12-02T10:16:00.003+01:00

http://xkcd.com/0/

http://xkcd.com/-1/

http://xkcd.com/π/

http://xkcd.com/e^2πi/

Facebook outage

2009-11-27T12:22:00.006+01:00

Facebook has not let me log in for more than a day. The message displayed when I attempt to access the site does not provide much information.

If a few hours of site maintenance are required as the error message indicates, why not find a way to perform the maintenance in a non-disruptive way? If downtime is actually required, why not give affected uses some advance notice so that they can prepare?

If the problem is more serious than that, why not come clean about the matter and give an honest appraisal of the problem and a prognosis for a fix?

This is not what I expect from a world-class Internet company.

Update 2009-11-27 11:30 UCT — “The Facebook Team” responded to my emailed problem report, only to inform me that my account was neither warned nor disabled. The email provided no additional information about the outage, and did not provide any clues to when the site might be operational again.

Update 2009-11-27 12:50 UCT — Out of frustration, I tried repeatedly to log in. On the sixth or seventh attempt, the site actually let me in. However, anything requiring a write to the database fails.

First, I tried to comment on a friend’s photo. That didn’t work.

Next, I attempted to add a link to my wall. No dice.

At least I can get into the site; but obviously the problem isn’t completely fixed yet.

Update 2009-11-27 13:00 UCT — Looks like I spoke too soon. I’m once again unable to get into the site.

Update 2009-11-30 14:00 UCT — At some point Friday night or Saturday morning, the problem was resolved. Better late than never.

Lab-on-a-chip

2009-11-20T12:11:00.001+01:00

zrl_pointofcare_10, originally uploaded by IBM Research - Zurich.

This silicon chip is the result of work being done at IBM Research — Zurich. The researchers envision this chip being used as a diagnostic tool by medical practitioners. I took this photo a couple of days ago. It appeared in an article on physorg.

Climbing again

2009-11-06T15:09:00.002+01:00

Yesterday at lunchtime I joined a few colleagues and met Simon at the private bouldering hall in Adliswil. The problems there are pretty difficult and I hadn’t been climbing in more than a month. So I was not too surprised to find that I couldn’t do much. Still, I had a good time and finished a few problems. Today my hands and forearms are sore. I should really climb more often!

Rowing for the first time

2009-11-03T16:02:00.001+01:00

Rowing for the first time, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Fun!

Halloween 2009

2009-10-31T09:04:00.002+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I went rowing for the first time, and loved it.

Nic and Franzi at Nordiska have kindly arranged an extra rowing course for beginners, and it takes place this weekend. After an hour or so of theory and practice on land, we actually got to take a boat out on the lake. It was both harder and easier than I expected. Rowing requires concentration on many small details: coordinate of the stroke with the others in the boat, balance & posture to keep the boat level, angle & depth of the oar, timing of entering and exiting the water, and many other tiny nuances of movement. When I realized how many things I had to think of simultaneously, I was actually surprised that we were able to make the boat move so well. Toward the end of our first tour on the lake, we were actually making pretty good time!

Today will be the second lesson; tomorrow is the last. I’m looking forward to seeing how I improve with a little practice.

Tonight I’ll go to a Halloween party at the home of a colleague. He and the others in his apartment complex got together and planned what sounds like it will be a really fun party. Each floor in the building will have its own theme: one floor will be devoted to lounging and chilling out; another to dancing; and so on. It’ll be a fun time I’m sure.

At this time of year, I remember those in my family who came before me. So before I leave you, I’d just like to link to a short piece I wrote four years ago, on the topic of a very special Halloween.

Inter-club Regatta 2009

2009-10-29T00:47:00.001+01:00

_MAL3954, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Just a quick photo from last Saturday’s inter-club regatta. Together with Magnus, I bought groceries at the wholesaler near the highway in Rüschlikon. Then I helped Sibylle cook an amazing chicken curry in a huge pot, and occasionally ran outside to take photos of the races. 45 people came to the dinner, and the after-party was a blast. I left shortly before three and arrived home just after two. :)

Google Wave first impressions

2009-10-15T14:14:00.004+02:00

Almost five months ago, I wrote here about the newly-announced Google Wave.

Yesterday morning, I received my invitation. I have spent a couple of hours since then exploring Wave’s capabilities.

The first problem I encountered was that I didn’t have anyone with whom to start a wave. Google was kind enough to give me eight invitations to share with others though, and before long, several of my more tech-savvy friends were online too.

Wave is both more complex and more capable than I realized. Some increase in the complexity of the user interface is an unavoidable consequence of the large number of features Google is trying to cram into Wave. This complexity can be a bit daunting at first. It’s also not immediately clear what Wave is for. I can think of several potential uses for it; but I haven’t run into them myself yet.

Farhad Manjoo writes that with Wave, Google is attempting to fix problems that don’t need fixing. He also opines that it’s not clear why one should go through the trouble of learning how to use Wave. I imagine that the same sort of comment was heard when the telegraph was introduced. “Who wants to learn Morse code just to be able to send a letter?” New methods of communications always require a bit of learning; and the more groundbreaking the advancement, the more adjustment people will require before they understand and accept the change.

I have a vague, and hard to describe feeling of anticipation when I use Wave. My gut tells me that Wave is the beginning of a new revolution in online communications and that what we see now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Best before yesterday

2009-10-12T16:20:00.001+02:00

Best before yesterday, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I arrived late to to work today due to chaos in the city. Apparently there was a power outage affecting the trams. I grabbed a coffee and skipped lunch, but got hungry later in the afternoon. I was glad to find a chicken sandwich in the vending machine. Once I had purchased it though, I saw that the expiration date had been written over by hand. The bread was a bit dry in some places and soggy in others. Aside from this though, it tasted okay. Maybe it wasn’t actually expired. I mean, I don’t think it’s too likely that the vending machines are stocked on Sundays, so perhaps someone just printed the stickers with the wrong date. Still, if I get sick and die of food poisoning, let this be used as evidence!

Hiking in the Alps near Clariden

2009-10-05T13:44:00.005+02:00

_MAL2414, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Saturday morning, I got up early and went for a hike near Clariden with Kirsten & Simon. We took a gondola up part of the way from the Klausenpass side, and hiked up the rest of the way to the Claridenhütte, a cabin operated by the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC). In this cabin, like many, you can get a hot meal and a place to lay your head for not too much more than fifty Francs. The facilities were quite simple. Water was piped in from a stream of melting glacier water. It must have been filtered to remove silt, but had to be boiled to be safe to drink. There was a tap in the private kitchen only, so if you wanted water, you had to ask for it. A small amount of electricity was provided by solar panels on the side of the cabin. These solar panels charged a bank of batteries, and provided enough electricity to power a few dim florescent lights. These lights were on timers, and turned themselves off automatically after just a few minutes. There was no bathroom, no shower, and no sink save that in the kitchen. There was not proper toilet either, only a very simple outhouse fifty meters from the cabin. So yes, the facilities were quite simple; but the cabin was sturdy, and it kept out the cold.

We dropped off our bags, and made a short day hike up to the glacier. Around five o’clock in the evening, we returned to the hut and enjoyed a couple of beers in the last warm light of the sun. The weather was perfect for hiking—cool but not cold, lots of sunshine, and only a bit of wind. The dinner at the cabin was simple but filling: a warm and thick soup with pasta, vegetables, and pumpkin seeds; a cold green bean salad, and spaghetti with meat sauce. We shared a carafe of wine and some sparkling water too. After dinner, we retired to the communal sleeping room located two floors up, just under the roof. I could hear the wind howling outside during the night, and was very glad to be in a stone cabin and not just a nylon tent. I slept quite well considering the rustic facilities.

In the morning we woke up before dawn. Some of the other hikers had awoken hours earlier to embark on longer treks. I caught a few photos of the sunrise just before sitting down to a simple breakfast of hot tea, bread, and cream cheese.

After breakfast we donned clothing for colder and windier weather. The temperature was still just a couple of degrees above freezing, and the wind that had picked up during the night had not abated much since sunrise. We hiked again up to the glacier and looked for a way up to the pass. There was no easy way up that didn’t cross the glacier; and lacking ropes and ice axes, we opted to err on the side of safety and just call it a day. We retraced our steps back down to the cabin, picked up our bags, and then hiked back down to the gondola for the quick ride back down to the valley floor.

It was a great little hike and my first experience staying in a Swiss Alpine cabin. I look forward to more hikes in the coming weeks.

Helsinki business trip last summer

2009-10-05T12:19:00.002+02:00

_MAL0374, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Sixteen months ago, I went on a business trip to Helsinki. I recently found the photos from this trip in the dusty filing cabinet that is my computer. The photos are mostly of Temppeliaukio, a famous church carved into a granite hill in the city.

Inventories of the Invisible

2009-09-30T11:33:00.002+02:00

I found a link to this witty TED talk by John Lloyd at Daring Fireball this morning: illuminating and very funny!

New lighting equipment

2009-09-28T15:09:00.010+02:00

The photo shoot with Hannah reminded me how much fun it is to take photos in a studio setting. When one has greater control over the light, one can do so many fun things that just aren’t possible otherwise. Inspired by this experience, I began to think about putting together my own portable studio—a set of lighting gear I could set up at home or on location. Robban, the chap who lent me his studio in Stockholm during the summer, gave me some good recommendations, and I put together a list of the equipment I would need.

Today I placed an order for my starter kit:

Elinchrom Style RX 600
Elinchrom Style RX 300
Rotalux Softbox Deep Octa 100 cm
Umbrella Wide Reflector 90° 16 cm
Grid Reflector 60° 18 cm
Snoot & Grid
Translucent Umbrella 85 cm
White Umbrella 85 cm
Two light stands and a carrying bag
A carrying case for up to three flash heads
One EL-Skyport transmitter and two transceivers
A sync cable
Lastolite black and white collapsible backgrounds

Obviously I’ll need to find a place to work. I think the living room at home would be a good place.

I’m going to investigate options for setting up larger backgrounds than the collapsible ones I’ve ordered. Plain black or white cloth would probably suffice for many applications I have in mind; then I just need a rig to hold it in place. If anyone has suggestions for flexible and inexpensive ways to set up backgrounds, please get in touch.

Another thing I’d like to do is to find a way to block stray light from the windows, so that I can work during the daytime. It’s too bad this house wasn’t constructed after the built-in rolling shutters became popular in this part of the world—those things are great for blocking out light! Perhaps some heavy curtains would be a good solution. They could remain in place even when not in use. However, maybe there are other ways to block the light. I welcome ideas on this too.

Most of the new gear should arrive within a couple of days. I’m excited about putting it to use for the first time!

Advice for new DSLR owners

2009-09-28T14:47:00.006+02:00

I had a long chat last night with my friend Annelie in Stockholm, who recently purchased her first digital SLR—a Canon 1000D with an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. She was frustrated with the results from her first day of shooting. After a bit of questioning, I learned why: she had taken a bunch of photos using settings chosen essentially at random.

I gave her three pieces of advice:

1. Learn the language and basic principles of photography. Learn how ISO, aperture, and shutter speed affect the amount of light collected. Learn how the aperture affects depth-of-field.

2. Learn the capabilities and limitations of your camera and lens. Learn about the main modes of your camera, and start taking photos in aperture priority mode (A on Nikon, Av on Canon).

3. Get a 50mm f/1.4 lens, and start playing with it. Shoot in aperture priority mode, but also start experimenting with manual mode, particularly in low light settings.

My 50mm f/1.4 lens is my favorite lens by far because of the freedom its wide maximum aperture and light weight afford. I often go out with only my 50. I have learned more about photography while using my 50mm f/1.4 lens than with any other lens. I’ve also taken many of my best photos with this lens. It’s so simple and so fun to use.

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of Annelie’s next photo session.

Helena in the studio

2009-09-23T17:07:00.002+02:00

_MAL8017.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

My good friend Helena Petterson saw my photos of Hannah this morning and gave me some positive feedback. Helena is also a photographer, and so we talked for a while about poses, techniques and ideas for future photo projects. It was then that I remembered the shoot we did together last year. Here are some photos of Helena I took in a studio in Stockholm, just before I moved to Switzerland.

Hannah in the studio

2009-09-22T14:15:00.003+02:00

_MAL3794, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

When I was in Stockholm in July, I spent a rainy afternoon hanging out with my good friend Hannah. On the spur of the moment, I picked up my camera and captured a few remarkable photos of her. Impressed with her natural beauty and ease in front of the camera, I invited her to do a photo shoot with me a couple of days later. We spent a Friday afternoon in a lovely villa on Gärdet. We set up a studio in one large room, but also took photos at other locations in the house. We had a terrific time, joking, laughing, and capturing some amazing photographs. I’m very pleased now to share some of the best photos of Hannah.

Some of my favorite photographs

2009-09-11T17:28:00.002+02:00

_MAL8486, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Recently I selected some of my favorite photos among the thousands I’ve taken in recent years. A recent addition is the photo above I snapped of two new acquaintances of mine, Ray and Jia as we left a bar downtown late one night.

Like many photos that I’m fond of, this one happened spontaneously and without any preparation or planning. I was fortunate to be in the right time and place, and to have my camera handy!

Magnus’s surprise birthday party

2009-09-09T11:51:00.001+02:00

_MAL9429, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

On Saturday I went to Nordiska and attended the surprise birthday party for my friend Magnus. It was a great party and I was among the last to leave around five in the morning. As one of the guests said while toasting to him, Magnus is one of those rare men who is truly, honestly genuine all the time. I try to do this but for me at least, it take a little work. For Magnus, it seems to come so naturally! This is what makes it so easy to be around him.

Here’s to you, Magnus. I’m looking forward yet another party in just a few days!

Jesus would support health care reform

2009-09-08T10:15:00.005+02:00

A small minority on the extreme right of political spectrum have recently been resorting to fear-mongering of the most vile and dishonest kind, in a desperate attempt to stand in the way of meaningful health care reform in the United States. What disappoints me most about this fear-mongering is how blind many otherwise thoughtful people have been to the blatant hypocrisy of these obstructionists.

Many of those protesting the most vehemently against health care reform are people who consider themselves Christians. These so-called Christians treat their religion like a glee club and spiritual self-help program, but ignore the social mission message of Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth told his disciples to care for the sick, to feed the hungry, and to visit those in prison. He had strong words for those who did not do so. For just one of many examples of Jesus commandment to care for those in need, see Matthew 23:31-46.

I believe the Democrats and like-minded Republicans and Independents need to reclaim the moral high ground, and shove the obstructionist protestors’ bibles back in their faces. “How can you call yourselves Christians?” they should demand. Obama should eschew for now the conciliatory tones of bipartisanship, and use his bully pulpit to shame the hypocrites, and to inspire us all toward a higher calling: social justice.

In short, we need to put these fair-weather friends of Jesus in their place—on the defensive.

Sights and sounds from Switzerland

2009-07-08T11:33:00.001+02:00

_MAL1107, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Ethan and I are having an absolute blast hiking in the Alps. I have posted photos and videos from the trip.

Ethan’s photos and videos from Switzerland

2009-07-07T08:21:00.002+02:00

Ethan has a new iPhone 3G S, and has been using it to take photos and videos on his adventures here in Switzerland. With the new iPhone, it’s possible to upload photos and videos directly to a MobileMe account, and Ethan has been doing just that.

Ethan’s photos and videos from Switzerland are pretty good, so take a look!

Hike up to Schilthorn

2009-07-06T23:26:00.002+02:00

This morning after breakfast, Ethan and I headed up to the waterfall near here. From there, we continued up to the Rotstockhütte, where we had a delightful lunch: vegetable soup, bread, dried meats, and cheese from the Alps.

After lunch, and quite on the spur of the moment, Ethan and I decided to try to make it up to the Schilthorn. The proprietor of the hut must have thought we were better hikers than we really are, because he said he didn’t think we’d have any trouble completing the hike in two and a half hours. It just so happened that we had just two and a half hours before the last cable car was scheduled to leave the peak and return down into the valley.

The hike was quite challenging, and we wavered between confidence that we would reach our goal in time, and certainty that it was a fool’s errand. We pushed each other and encouraged each other, and somehow made it to the top with ten minutes to spare. The 22 Sfr tickets to ride the cable car down saved us a four hour hike. We were already quite tired by that point, so we were very glad not to have to hike any more!

We had a nice dinner with Tim at the Hotel Mittaghorn, and then retired to the Moutain Hostel for a beer. Now we’re comfortably settled back into our room in the hillside hotel, and preparing for bed.

I think we’ll go to see the falls at Trümmelbach tomorrow, and perhaps take it easy instead of hiking for 6 hours.

We got lots of pictures and videos; we hope to share them soon!

In the Alps with Ethan

2009-07-06T10:40:00.007+02:00

Ethan arrived last Tuesday morning, and we’ve already had a full week. He hung out with me on Tuesday, saw Luzern on Wednesday, went to the Rhein Falls on Thursday, and took a walking tour of Zürich on Friday.

Saturday after lunch we caught the train to Lausanne, and then a connecting train back along the lake to Montreux. There, we saw Steely Dan in concert and met some of the band members backstage after the show. I had a nice chat with Jim Pugh, Steely Dan’s talented trombonist. We also met and visited with some of the guys from Dave Matthews Band and Chickenfoot. At one point, I took out my U.S. flag (that I always have on hand for just such an occasion), and draped it around my shoulders, Stephen Colbert-style. My patriotism caught Sammy Hagar’s attention, and he stopped to chat with me for a while. At his invitation, I even took part in Chickenfoot’s pre-show huddle. Cool! You rock, Sammy! It was a great Fourth of July.

Sunday we caught the train to Interlaken and then another train, bus, and cable car up to Gimmelwald, where we spent the night. We’re staying in Hotel Mittaghorn, a charming place just ten minutes’s walk uphill from the cable car station. Today we’ll take a nice long hike—either up to Schilthorn, or perhaps down into the river valley below Gimmelwald.

I left my USB cable at home in Zollikon, so I haven’t been able to upload any photos yet. But if I can, I’ll buy or borrow a cable soon. So with luck photos will be online within a couple of days.

Nordiska Spring Party

2009-06-05T21:48:00.001+02:00

_MAL4638, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Oh yeah—did I mention that I went to the Nordiska Roddförening Spring Party a few weeks ago? It was a lot of fun.

Google Wave

2009-05-31T12:34:00.004+02:00

At the Google I/O conference this week, Google gave a preview of Google Wave, a new communication and collaboration platform planned for release later this year. Google intends for the platform to be open-source, and is encouraging developers to contribute to the platform through a set of APIs. Those developers who are interested can sign up for access to a sandbox environment, where they can get their feet wet and where they can test their creations.

With Google Wave, Google appears to have reimagined email, instant messaging, and a host of related online communication media. Why allow email to be constrained by the limitations of SMTP or IMAP? Why should email and instant messaging even be considered separate concepts? In Google Wave, messages are called waves, and a wave can contain all kinds of content from any number of participants. A wave could be a conversation, a document on which several people collaborate, a poll, a bug report, or a photo gallery.

Google’s engineers admit that during the development of Google Wave, even they found it difficult to step beyond their preconceived notions of email and instant messaging. Each of these means of communication has its limitations, and each has applications to which it is well suited. Google Wave is envisioned to be a superset of many of the communication media that preceded it. Some potential uses of Google Wave weren’t apparent to the developers until they had been using the platform for a while.

I’d argue that most of the potential applications have not yet been envisioned. By open-sourcing the platform, Google seems to want to attract the same kind of participation from third-party developers as with the mobile Android platform.

In my eyes, Google Wave could be a potential long-term threat to Facebook. Google’s social networking platform Orkut never gained much of a following (outside of Brazil). Google Wave no only integrates with Orkut, but stands to make it mostly obsolete. With extensions, Google Wave could provide all the capability of Facebook and more. Heck, developers could even provide Facebook-originated content inside of waves. If Google Wave catches on, the next few years will be very interesting ones.

Update 2009-06-01 05:32 UCT—The Google Wave team appear to be fans of the short-lived but excellent Firefly television series. See the Google Wave Wikipedia article for details. Lisa A. brought this my attention. Thanks, Lisa!

ZRL Ambigram

2009-05-29T16:24:00.003+02:00

ZRL Ambigram, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Next Tuesday will be the official laying of the cornerstone of the new NETL building at ZRL. To commemorate the occasion, I designed a ZRL ambigram. During the ceremony, a time capsule will be placed in the foundation. A print of my ambigram will be placed in the time capsule, along with a bunch of IBM memorabilia and examples of pop culture from circa 2009.

Update 2009-06-04 15:25 UCT—The time capsule has been encased in concrete in the foundation of the new building. Some of my photographs of the foundation-laying ceremony have been posted.

A fun coincidence

2009-05-28T16:25:00.001+02:00

_MAL5693, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I went to Slussen bus station in Stockholm on my way to José’s party. There, I met up with two others who were going to the same party. When I took out my phone to check the time, the others laughed. They then took out their phones and I knew why: we all had the same model of Nokia phone, only in three different colors. I simply had to take a photo.

A poignantly beautiful day in Stockholm

2009-05-25T16:11:00.004+02:00

Today is such a beautiful day that it makes me want to cry. These are the days I live for.

This morning I had coffee out in the sun with freinds at Eriksberg, in a little outdoor garden with purple lilac and chestnut trees. At noon, I walked down to Kungsholmen for lunch with Ayse at an outdoor street café. We ate seafood stew with rice, drank sparkling water, and watched the people walk by. Stockholm is great for people-watching when the sun is shining. After lunch, we walked to a café where we shared a slide of carrot cake and drank caffe lattes. I'm tired from spending a few hours outside in the sunshine. When I got back to Malin's place, I crashed on her couch and dozed for a bit.

Now I'm looking out of her sixth floor window as I rest a bit before catching my flight back to Zürich. This has been a perfect trip. I only wish I could have met more of my friends while I was here. I hope to return for a long weekend in June, and plan to spend two weeks in Sweden at the end of July.

I'm excited about returning to Zürich. The weather there has been even warmer than in Stockholm, and there will surely be opportunities for swimming in the coming days.

I'd like to give a shout-out to my friends Joanna and Malin, who kindly let me crash at their apartments for a few days. It's nice to have such thoughtful and generous friends. I look forward to my next visit!

Zürich in the sunshine

2009-05-04T18:05:00.002+02:00

_MAL3705, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

When I first visited Zürich for the job interview at ZRL, it was a rainy and cold couple of days; I wondered if I really wanted to move from one rainy and cold city to another.

I’m pleased to report that when the sun comes out, Zürich is positively beautiful city. On Sunday I joined some colleagues for little hike up to the summit of Üetliberg, from whose lookout tower I captured this photo of the city below.

Linea Salsa’s last social of the season

2009-05-02T19:11:00.004+02:00

_MAL3136, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Way back when in the beginning of December, I went to Linea Salsa’s social—only my second time to go out salsa dancing after moving to Zürich. Since then, I’ve danced at the Polyball, the Zürich Salsa Festival, the Sugar Lounge, and X-tra. But for some reason I had not returned to El Social in Altstetten until last night.

Part of the reason I hadn’t gone to the Linea Salsa socials more often might have been that they are held only once per month—on the first Friday of the month. When I saw that last night’s social would be the last before the summer break, I knew that I had to take the opportunity to do some dancing!

I’m very glad I returned, because I became acquainted with some very nice people last night. Having had the benefit of a second visit, I can say that the atmosphere of Linea Salsa is very similar to that of Happy Feet and SalsaAkademien’s Thursday socials. There are lots of good dancers and most of them are very friendly. It’s possible to buy beverages including beer, wine, and champagne; but most people drink in moderation to save themselves for dancing. For the most part, people who go to Linea Salsa are there to dance. And—importantly for me—the environment is not hazardous to one’s health: the music is played at a reasonable volume, and smoking is not allowed.

I met some of the organizers of the event, including a very friendly chap named Daniel. I also met two more photographers from salsapictures.ch. I think I will learn more about this group; they seem like my kind of crowd—interested in dancing and photography too!

And of course I danced with many charming and talented women—from relative beginners to ladies who were miles beyond me in ability. Lots and lots of fun. I’m a bit sad that I missed all of the Linea Salsa socials in the intervening months since December, and even sadder to know that I must wait until the next one.

Ninety photos from last night are now online.