Wednesday, June 15, 2005 1:12 PM | rahel luethy | 0 comment(s)
am kommenden samstag, 18. juni 2005, gibt's in bern um 14h eine grossdemo gegen fremdenfeindliche blocherpolitik. mehr infos hier (auch betreffend kollektiv-tickets ab basel).
Friday, June 10, 2005 10:50 AM | rahel luethy | 6 comment(s)
yet another blog meme quiz (via ben):
You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.
Materialist | | 88% | Cultural Creative | | 63% | Existentialist | | 63% | Modernist | | 56% | Postmodernist | | 50% | Fundamentalist | | 25% | Romanticist | | 25% | Idealist | | 19% |
What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com |
the questions in the quiz are definitely a lot better than the resulting text. although I can live with the first part of it (
everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together), the rest sounds rather simplistic and I think I explicitly disagreed about the corresponding questions?!
I don't think that
the big picture can be understood via its smaller elements. on the other hand, this is our current approach in science and I think that it is an adequate approach because I just don't see any alternatives. maybe the problem is rooted in the claim to eventually understand the big picture? I'm pretty pragmatic about this (thinking that it will never be possible). it should not be a goal but a driving force to answer smaller (and sometimes more interesting) questions...
somehow this problem of observing how things work (
science is answering small questions to contribute to the big picture) and trying to figure out whether this is how they must work (
can the big picture be understood via its smaller elements?) reminds me of a similar fallacy which is popular among a lot of evolutionary biologists: they think that because evolution will favor certain traits, these traits are inherently "good" and individuals should try to actively promote them. one example is that you should have kids because your genes will otherwise be less frequent in the future.
but: you don't jump off your balcony just because the laws of gravity predict that you will fall. maybe I'm going a bit too far here...
Tuesday, June 07, 2005 12:31 PM | rahel luethy | 1 comment(s)
...here comes a link to the meanest posting i've ever seen:
I am better than your kids used to live on a university server a few years ago but was shut down due to the enormous traffic it generated. yesterday, i discovered that it's alive again.
it's so hilariously funny that i can't help spreading the word about it. btw: i love kids ;-)
Friday, June 03, 2005 10:13 AM | rahel luethy | 1 comment(s)
"hello basel, we're the rockband soulwax". this is how stephen dewaele (the belgian variant of kuno lauener) opened yesternight's live act on das schiff. and then there was rock...
in fact there was not only rock. there was rock combined with unbelievably cool live electronica and an amazing show. pure, contagious enthusiasm:
(pic curtousy of nic maire - i'll duck down next time, promised)
i've already seen soulwax live @ abart about half a year ago. they were wearing the same, black channel shirts and the gig was so cool that i was rather hesitant to go see them again in basel. it couldn't possibly be that good again. it could.
one more chance: montreux jazz festival, 16.07.05
