Time Concepts

Tell me about your concept of time. How do you define time? Answers to this question are likely to depend on your upbringing, affinity to a specific scientific discipline or epistemological belief(s). Aristotle defines time to be subordinate to the more basic principle of change. To understand change we need the concept of time. Two points in time define time, intermediate points are possible, which might be interpreted as a precursor of infinitesimally short spells of time. To explain change, Aristotle refers to his concept of time. Other concepts of time build on the notion of succession of events or sequences of events.
Clocks going round in circles have been used to show the progression of time independent of events. Beams of atoms later allowed for more precision of time keeping. The prevalent concept of time still is dominated by the idea of time as an arrow, usually depicted in some diagram resemblance based on the Cartesian coordinate system, but usually starting at 0 or a particular point in time as diagrams in economics.
Following on from the old concept of change and time, we still claim for causality in most day-to-day experiences or for social processes the link to a chronological progression of time. In statistical analyses building on time-stamped occurrences we may use event history analyses or stochastic differential equations to analyze (social) change depending on one or several (earlier) factors. Even the theory of deterministic chaos, which is applied in weather forecasts for example, arises from the sequence of point of measurements.
Mainly since Isaac Newton we cherish the notion of a universal time, which helps us to coordinate different locations on our planet with reference to the Greenwich mean time. Other concepts of time make use of infinity of time and how to deal with this. Life before, or life after death, are human constructs trying to make time understandable or at least manageable for us beyond our own living time. Depictions of time in the arts, paintings or music opens up yet another vast space of thinking about, as well as, experiencing time. We did have and still do have a great time thinking about time.

Blue Sky

In the period of romanticism the associations with a blue sky were very different from today. Getting out into the sun was a kind of privilege for the “leisure class”, of people who could afford to enjoy time outside for boating, walking or other pleasures. In our technology-driven 21st century the associations with Blue Sky are more like a technically enhanced view through for example “Windows” at the news and opinion platform or “Bluesky”.
Several scientific websites that report data on blue skies and air quality more generally across the world report indicators like ozone values O3, sun intensity, micro particles 2.5µm and 10µm, Nitrogen Dioxid NO2 to name the mostly quoted indicators. Hence, just enjoying the blue sky outside isn’t the same as it was before. People working outside in the sun or at times of a blue sky but with high air pollution levels are incurring severe medium-term health risks. The Ozon layers at very high altitudes protect our skin and eyes against high UV-radiation, but O3 on the ground is tough for eyes and lungs.
Technology has come with many blessings, but the negative effects on a global scale become also more evident. Getting used to a particular lifestyle, which produces lots of emissions of aggressive fine particles will make it more difficult to just simply enjoy a blue sky.
In consideration of all these background data with regional variations, we surely need an AI-system which we can ask for advice, whether we should go outside and enjoy the blue sky with or without respiratory mask.
Romanticism has led us all the way to Californication and dangerous enshittification of the air that surrounds us. Youth and the next generations will have very different associations with Blue Sky than we have the chance to, at least, have had.

Mindmap Me

Tools like artificial intelligence allow all sorts of transformations and depictions. The photo editing tools are widespread and particularly popular among the young users. My own transformative exercises, latest with www.bairbe.me, have yielded interesting insights, well worth an intergenerational playmate. For the guys there is the www.yobrick.com version for brick gamers.
The App “Canvas” allowed me to delve deeper into my own mind by giving instructions of how to create an image of the structure of the blog entries on this webpage. Of course, it is not (yet) a real AI-generated content map, but it is only a matter of time until such tools will exist. After all, this would be just an arranged and rearranged list of contents using the hyperlink structure of the texts as well.
For the time being, I derive my own structure of the blog entries by topics, categories and tags including the hyperlinks or internal referrals. Interlinkages are mostly stated explicitly. However, there are many implicit links, which are obvious to some, but not others. AI-systems could use occurrences of words,  synonyms and antonyms . Colors in addition to bubble sizes and (in)direct lines may complement such mindmaps. This can help to reveal another, additional layer to connections between categories or tags. The Ai-generated image shown below was created with the APP Canvas as a first approximation and AI-augmented test version in form of abstract images).
Next steps on the way to understand human intelligence and, maybe, augment it with a next generation AI-system would use a colored-3D version of such a mindmap and use the chronological evolution of the blog posts in a kind of evolutionary animation. This should allow us to go beyond the usual psychological classification of fluid and crystallized intelligence. We might come to grips what it means to be “in a Paris state of mind” or when hallucinations become overwhelming.

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Hugo intergenerational

Well, this entry is not about Hugo Boss, whose name is probably known to more people worldwide nowadays than the French poet and writer Victor Hugo. The latter Hugo, however, is likely to be known to more generations to come than the former one. In his 19 years of exile with his family he had the unique chance to get to know his grand children a bit closer, which was rather unusual for the late 19th century. The romantic poet was charmed to an extent that he could help it, but to express himself in a longer poem. „L‘art d’être grand-père“ (The art of being grandfather)“. Victor Hugo experienced the death of own children and his wife before and his grandchildren surely gave him reason to believe in a more joyful tomorrow. Comments on this poem mention the idealised vision of the romantic regard on children and even more so on his own grandchildren. « Leur front tourné vers nous nous éclaire… … Ils trébuchent, encore ivre du paradis. » 

We forget all earthly quarrels just listening to the soothing sound like children’s rhymes. Hugo is a master of all literary classes and he ensured that his intergenerational legacy would be part of this.  (Image: Maison Victor Hugo, Paris, writing desk ro stand in front of)

Shoa Memorial

In the neighborhood of the Paris City Town Hall you find the Mémorial de la Shoa. There is a constant flux of visitors and pupils with their teachers passing through the rooms. They all continue to be really moved by the shocking images and their efforts to try to understand the full extent of the Shoa and the terrible effects it had even on survivors of the concentration camps. The continuation of the memory of the memories of those survivors by young people is one of the strong points of this exhibition. The transmission of memories finds many new ambassadors against the tendency to forget or downplay the horrors committed by the Nazis. 

Of course it is overwhelming as an experience, but it all the more necessary to keep memories alive and guard against each tendency of denial. In the age of fake news and historical deep fakes, it will be all the more important to immunize people against any attempts of manipulation of historic truths. The availability of the information online and through youtube-videos is an indispensable next step in the preservation and dissemination of the documentaries. The Mémorial of the Shoa in Paris is an essential part of this commemoration as 76.000 Jewish persons were deported to concentration camps from France as well.(Image: Mémorial de la Shoa, Paris 2025)

Text to Image

Long before everybody started to discuss Artificial Intelligence, which in many applications takes the form of transformation of a textual prompt into an Image, Photographers have had literature or quotations in their mind that shaped their images. This was a kind of poetic imagery not always easy to recognize. The exhibition in the „Institut de France“, Bibliothèques Mazarine (LINK), with photographs by Nicolas Fève (LINK) offfers a great insight into this way to conceive of an image and its realization through photography. Exposing the sources of inspiration as well as the photo is like adding textual citations to an image in a much more inspirational and transforming manner than AI is doing these days in 2025. 

Text to image is only one out of the many ways texts might guide imagination, but it is a powerful and gripping one. The history of literature is full of other forms like videos based on novels, comic strips to make classic texts in Latin more accessible. As we shall ask AI products like texts and images to cite their sources and honor authorship, photography as art and science might enhance the literary experience by adding citations to an image. This has the additional advantage that more people will follow up on the sources of inspiration.

Apocalyptic Collection

As long as humanity exists we had to deal with the experience of apocalyptic horrors. First, mankind could not make sense of natural disasters. Second, after we understood many of the disastrous events on earth and even most cosmological events, we proceeded to create our own apocalyptic disasters. 

One thousand years of unimaginable suffering and destruction are the subject of a unique exhibition at the BNF entitled Apocalypse. The documents start with biblical representations of it and continues throughout the centuries. The artists‘ attempts to depict and characterize the Shoa is part of the exhibition. The atomic bomb is another issue of the 20th century. In the 21st century artists try to move beyond the different forms of the apocalypse. The collection of various kinds of dealing with apocalypses constitutes itself an apocalyptic experience. We still have to go a long way to come close to understanding what drives disasters and what the role of mankind is on this way to seemingly endless destruction. The apocalyptic experiences remind us to keep asking some fundamental questions.  (Image: Exhibition Apocalypse at BNF Paris, Center Piece by Otobong Nkanga, Unearthed)

United by travel

The economic rationale of profit maximization privileges the construction and management of profitable connections. For train transportation this has spurred over decades the construction of new train lines between metropolitan cities or regions. Whereas connections between Paris and Brussels are abundant and expensive from central stations those living somewhere in between the 2 cities, for example in Mons, have had little chance of access to reasonably priced and fast train connections. This neglect of the in between cities is slowly changing. Sufficiently fast and reasonably priced connections allow Europe to grow together also at the margins. Public transport as alternative to car traffic across borders for „in-between cities“ will bridge the gap between the ease of travel between metropolitan an more remote areas. There is economic growth to be reaped as connected infrastructures allow for economic as well as social mobility and joint development. This is the real European challenge ahead of us and not the numerous summits without tangible results for rural and urban populations beyond metropolitan regions. For regions spanning countries, some will be finally reunited by better public transport a kind of ecological unification.

Artists Intergenerational

Generations influence each other. That’s a very simple general statement. Biographies, auto-biographies and life course research have all established sometimes more, sometimes less direct influences between the generations. The exhibition “A partir d’elle. Artists and their Mother“, curated by Julie Héraut, combines literature, photo and video that speak to the rather complex psychological or sociological issue. Visits in 2025 available at Stichting A, Brussels.
The starting point of the inquiry into the nature of photography by Roland Barth is chosen like an investigation into a crime. Sophie Létourneau had written an essay which proposes to read the original text by Barthes from this perspective. The artists in the exhibition seem to follow this process of asking themselves what their relationship to their mother is like and how to represent this in an artistic form.
A life course perspective, which takes images or videos with 10 or about 20 years difference, offers a kind of analytical as well as artificialized vision of the evolution of the artists’ relationships with their mother. Realistic images with a morphing backwards from old to young is presented next to images confronting young and old next to each other. “Words don’t come easy to me” could be the title of one of the videos where a young artist has a particularly hard time to talk to his/her mother.
Just after the celebrating Franz Kafka last year and his famous “Letter to my father”, the inquiry into artists and their mothers complements the analytical and artistic vision and interpretations of the child and parent intergenerational relationship.

Sustainable Food

Climate change has a severe impact on sustainable food production. The OECD reports annually on the evolution of volumes of production and monitors the resources and subsidies allocated to the agricultural sector of the economy. The sector and the whole nutrition chain are frequently perceived as a major driver of shrinkflation, greedflation and cheatflation.
Changes need to be introduced with a medium and long-term perspective in order to allow for smooth adaptations of the sectors involved and to avoid so-called hog cycles.
Most economic debate is focused on the quantity of production. The loss of production due to climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine has been and continues to be substantial causing starvation and premature deaths. Another issue is the lower quality of food due to droughts. Repeated events call for adaptations. Certainly the adaptation of more resistant crops is part of the answer. However, the other side of the same coin consists in the consumer’s readiness to buy products that suffered during a drought. Just as the reduction of fertilizers and less water in the production of droughts reduces the size of fruit, for example, we, the consumers will be systematically challenged in our purchasing habits of fresh food.
Price-sensitive consumers will have to choose the products that have reduced prices due to drought quality loss. Other consumers may choose the drought affected product if a “resilience message” is attached to such products. Solidarity with climate affected farmers, just like bio-farmers’ products in ecological production, opens up another perspective to more sustainable consumption and farming.

Hallucinations

In the 21st century hallucinations have become a daily experience. The origins of the word can be followed back at least to the Latin verb “alucinor”, best translated with “to hallucinate”. As a verb to can conjugate it, meaning that I can do it, you can do it, s/he can do it, and we may do it in groups. Roman emperors did it, American presidents do it and, of course, AI does it. Hence, it is a great subject to study.
In “Nature” 2025 we find ways to limit hallucinations of AI systems. The strategy consists mainly in repeated queries of the same type, but from different angles. It is a bit like cubism applied to informatics. On “github.com” we can follow the rankings of AI-models using LLMs based on the “hallucination-leaderboard” developed by Vectara. On “huggingface.com” you can test the Hughes Hallucination Evaluation Model. For example it is possible to run a test of your own small text documents (just like any blog entry on this webpage) and what the AI systems will do them in an attempt to summarize your ideas. According to the “hallucination-leaderboard” we are confronted with a 1.3%-4% hallucination rate of the top 25 LLMs as AI-systems. In text based systems the quantity of “errors” is a first indicator only. The seriousness of the omission, addition of wrong information or an erroneous judgment will be left to the reader or analyst to uncover.
There is now a lot to do to test various AI-systems on their “trustworthiness” in summarizing my own work. My very own daily hallucinations have become a large data base as a test case for the capacity of LLMs to make sense of them.
Based on the series of passed blog entries I shall test the capacity of AI to predict the n+1 blog entry. It would be great to know today what I am going to write about tomorrow etc. Thanks to AI I shall have (finally) a sort of intellectual life after death (not sure whether I should want this). Enough of hallucinations and on hallucinations for now, back to serious readings or fictionalized science. (Image: extract from Delphine Diallo, Kush, 2024 at Hangar Gallery Brussels).

Korean Uprisings

With the recent Korean uprising against the imposition of martial law the world has witnessed a successful defense of democratic rule in South Korea. International politics has quickly moved on to other areas of the world where people’s struggle to obtain or sustain the freedom to vote and the freedom of expression.
However, the Korean history of uprisings goes back a least as far as the beginning of the Cold War period with the separation in 2 Koreas. The 1980 uprising of student protests in South Korea was extinguished with brutal force and mass killings. Can literature heal the wounds of uprisings? Only the best of literature can. The Korean female author and poet Han Kang (Nobel laureate 2024) has accomplished this. In the novel 소년이 온다 “Human acts” (English title), “Celui qui revient” (French), ”Menschenwerk” (German) the Gwangju Uprising 1980 is the historic backdrop against which the loss of human dignity during dictatorships is narrated. Han Kang manages to depict the empathy of family members who are confronted with the brutality of the military forces. It is tough on readers as they become the witnesses of the violence described as such and the sorrow of the whole social environment of the victims.
The Nobel Prize for literature 2024 honors the “world literature” aspect of Han Kang’s writings over many years. Many prizes have been allocated for representative writers (80+ % were men) of a country. The different titles of professional translators chosen for this novel reveal the potential to link to very different national narratives and connections to national memory of uprisings. Translating literature from different cultures can be challenging as readers frequently want the narratives somehow to relate to their own “endured” experiences. World literature, just like world history, goes beyond this and takes the reader by the hand and broadens emotional and human horizons.
(Image: Gallery Lee Bouwens, Brussels, exposed Jungjin Lee Voice #02, Voice #26 in 2025, inkjet pigment prints, Jungjin Lee)

Existence as Eggsistence

Artists have their own ways of hallucinating. They don’t need an AI to generate ideas beyond the normal, even allowing for 2 standard deviations off the usual. As a result of the thorny question about your existence, Ram Katzir came up with the impressive statement about his „eggsistence“ being subjected to a squeezed experience. Ever increasing shares of the labor force would subscribe to this statement about the modern workplace. Each turn of the screw risks to crack up the egg‘s shell. Rather focus on the egg, try to get a grip on the screw. There are thousands if not millions who crack up under the excessive pressure of economic and political circumstances. The new platforms of food, grocery and parcel delivery at home have become the latest example of AI-assisted and algorithmicly managed screws. What is driving your eggsistence. It is about time to  ask fundamental questions again. (Image: Eggsistence, by Ram Katzir 2021 in Brussels, Galilas Collection Belgium)

Victims and Perpetrators

In addition to the annually proclaimed “We shall never forget the concentration camps and the murder of 6.000.000 Jews”, we should add: “We shall not be silent”. Silence about a crime can be interpreted as the “latent” continuation of hatred. Silence might just be a pretended ignorance of the genocide and the holocaust. We have to keep very alert amidst the spreading falsification and numerous falsification attempts of historical facts surrounding the ideation about the Nazi-time and Nazi-terror from the 1930s onwards culminating in the Shoa and systematic mass killings of civilians and any actual and deemed opposition.
Particularly in Germany there is a renewed need to go beyond the “Stolperstein-Initiative” and continue also sometimes own personal research of family histories in order to understand the logic and power of perpetrators. Some spectacular legal cases like “Klaus Barbie” or “Rudolf Eichmann” or the Nuremberg trials became historic events, but the crimes of many Nazis during these times remained below the radar of wider public attention.
In view of many disrespectful utterances of some politicians and even some business men the old and new perpetrators of antisemitic propaganda and acts should have to face more fierce opposition. This needs the commitment of the silent and sometimes shamefully indifferent people across the world. (Image: list of concentration camps, sign in Berlin Schöneberg, Richard von Weizäcker Platz).

Holocaust Remembrance

The 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau marks a very special kind of remembrance. As the number of survivors of Nazi-terror and genocide is shrinking the testimony of survivors is becoming more rare and more precious. According to the “Jerusalem Post” on 2025-1-28 (p. 9) the number of survivors that came back to the site of horrific crime has shrunk from 300 ten years ago to 50 in 2025. The strength and courage to continue to testify amidst having reached 90+ or even 100+ years of age is a “living memorial” of its own kind.
Many television stations across Europe have followed the example set by this special Holocaust remembrance day and focused equally on recorded testimonies or additional live interviews of survivors. Please keep repeating these testimonies to confront people with the outcome of Nazi-terror in Europe. The choice this year was a courageous one. Instead of speeches of sorrow and lip service to fight antisemitism by acting politicians, the focus on the testimony of survivors in public, on TV and to large audiences will encourage others to continue to give testimonial of these horrors.
(Image: extract of Pressreader newspaper titles 2025-1-27)

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Electronics repaired

The all electric society will have a number of consequences. We need to think about durable electronics. Many electronic appliances get broken rather quickly even by normal usage. The task to repair the beloved electronic gadgets of your children or simple electronic household devices reveals the fallacy of the consumerist societies. “Use it and throw it away, if it is not working any more”. This is the standard mantra of our societies. In order to save resources, we have to reuse, repair and re-engineer a lot of electronic devices. So far, the engineering process consisted largely in finding ways to assemble fast and with inputs as cheap as possible. The task of designing products that are repair-friendly, circular and allow to disassemble the product easily is a bit counter-intuitive to the consumerist society. If your juicer lasts for years, you will be unlikely to buy another more fancy one or even a connected one very soon.
Repair-friendly design and assembling will be the next generation products of the all electric society. Plugs, interrupters, relays and electric engines of older devices will be valuable after the original use in a household product, which has seized to function. Many parts can be put to other use. Re-engineering with sustainability in mind has an important function also in the move towards gaining autonomy again. For the repair of electronic devices we shall focus more on fine motor skills of our hands again. The shortages of electronic components to build cars after the Covid-19 crises and the disruption of supply chains for other reasons provide a good lesson to advance faster in the direction of electronics repaired.

Synthetic opioids

Across the globe there are many tough lessons to be learned about synthetic opioids. These psychoactive substances fall under special legislation and can only be used with medical prescriptions. The strength of these substances is usually compared to heroin and the risk of addiction to these substances is very high.
A recent paper in International Review of the Armed Forces Medical Services (2024) has highlighted also “the abuse of the synthetic opioid U-47700” at times of military conflict. The power of these drugs to suppress the feeling of pain is helpful for medical operations. The abuse, however, may consist in the use of the drug to “keep fighting whilst pain is suppressed”. Such use of synthetic opioids increases the risk for addition and the fatal consequences of overdoses. The reporting of such occurrences in a specialized medical journal is an important warning against the conscious and willingness to abuse the drugs for war purposes.
The finding reminds us of the abuse that was already widely spread during the Nazi led 2nd World War (“Der totale Rausch“). The addictive potential was experiences even after the war time in terms of active combat was over. The costs to society of such abuse as well as use of supply chains of provision of opioids during peace times remain a problem for many years after the war. After a war, the war on drug abuse continues. Fighting addiction is a lengthy and painful process.

Defence Spending

As in research there are many dual use products, which can be part of defence spending. Robotics in production or rockets to launch satellites for telecommunication are such examples. Much less known to the public is the amount of military spending that goes into medical developments that benefit both the military as well as the civil population. Countries build a whole ecosystem round the provision of medical services for defence purposes , which consists not only of a sufficient number of qualified persons, but also companies that provide specialised products. Most of them have civil applications as well after minor adaptations.
Oxygen provision was a prominent example of a product that has civil and military uses in treatment of respiratory infections or contaminations. A mobile transportable operation table is another element of daily rescue services as well as potential use in situations of conflict, just like anesthesia machines. An increase in spending on such infrastructure and the necessary long-term training of persons operating and maintaining these medical applications take time and considerable financial resources.
The current debate in Europe and NATO neglects the considerable time delays in production and provision of the equipment. Research on “Skill Needs in OECD countries” has shown the substantial delays between sudden skill needs and the time to train high-skilled persons.
The International Review of the Armed forces Medical Services is a journal dedicated to publish up-to-date information on needs of medical products and persons trained to use them in special emergencies. The need to safe lives in extreme and dangerous conditions needs preparation of thousands of specialists. Of course we hope that such an incidence will not happen. The persons and material have an obvious potential to serve the civilian population in more peaceful times as well. The unfortunate “hog cycle” in skill provision is not a problem for dual use products or services.
(Image: edited extract of a mobile operation table)

Ukraine Chanson

The Russian war in Ukraine is not limited to the military killings. From the earliest period in 2014 already Russia initiated a war on Ukraine culture and Ukrainian cultural heritage. Therefore, it is great to witness the efforts by Ukrainian musicians not only to retrieve their rich heritage for example in the field of chansons, but to develop traditional songs with new formats. Jazzy versions of children’s songs have been sung with an admirable soft voice by singer and composer Viktoria Leléka and her band.
Most people might think of children’s songs as an insignificant niche of music. The importance of singing songs for children and babies is a scientifically well documented finding. Early bonds are created and a sense of belonging and comfort, particularly during difficult times of life. Comforting music is also an intergenerational issue. Transmission of emotions and values across generations is the very fabric of societies. The recent album “Kolysanky” and the song “Ne Zhal” is a great reminder that it is the children that count not the, maybe, broken cradle.
During the war time with many absent fathers, chansons can bridge the emotional hardships. The movie “The Chorist” had demonstrated the power of children songs for children, their parents and all generations involved. Chansons have a much longer “half-time of life” than war.
From an unknown French composer the cradle song “Fais dodo Colin …” and Brahm’s Wiegenlied are classics many people in Europe will remember from their childhood and still transmit them today. Great news that Ukraine continues this tradition with new, innovative adaptations of their own lively cultural heritage.
(Image: extract of lyrics Ne Zhal’, from webpage)

Corridorisation Connectivity

In some cities, “I love Paris” (Jazz Song), we admire the “breath-taking” large corridors, right in the centre of the city. This has been the outcome of the urban planning in the 18th century. Haussmann designed large parts of Paris with huge corridors despite the medieval narrow streets in some of the arrondisements”. Ease of traffic, fewer riots and representative housing became the new mantra of urban planning and superb boulevards.
In the 21st century it is about time to question the notion and social process of corridorisation. This has been accomplished in a paper by Fatima Tassadq et al. (2025). Modern infrastructure like fibre-optic cables, energy or water networks are easiest to deploy in urban spaces with large corridors than the complex narrow inner cities with supposition of different kinds of network layers. The grand ideas of the 18th century should be questioned from time to time and some districts that have escaped the corridorisation might well have a particular charm about them, maybe just because they seem to escape the rational approach of making and structuring space by means of large corridors. Large corridors separate city districts and they are a major driving force of gentrification.
The rationality of corridors has some roots in maths or physics of complexity. A recent paper by Shanshan Wang et al. (2024) reports the surprising finding that the transport corridors in several cities across the globe allow for a 1.3 times the distance of transport networks compared to the so-called direct linear “bird’s flight line”. Hence, corridorisation is (has been) a rather pervasively applied model of urban planning.
Alternative approaches advocate in favor of the 15-minutes walking distance city. All amenities like shops, schools, maybe work and services should be reachable within a 15 minutes walk. This does include “walking corridors” that facilitate (social) connectivity in inner cities. Cyclists also claim their corridors or fast lanes across cities, which underlines the pertinence to take corridorisation seriously and apply the concept with care.
In any case, social connectivity is key. The big social media platforms operate similar to the traffic infrastructure in the 21st century and provide huge corridors to knowledge and people. We only realize this once a service (for example tiktok) or the internet altogether gets disconnected. We have moved from (social) categorisation to (social) corridorisation as technology and rationalisation have taken the upper hand to structure our (social) lives.

Cheatflation

There are many ways to study inflation. You may start by looking through your collection of bills. Economists like to swear by the consumer price index or indices, if you are even more into inflation. In textbooks like “economics for dummies” we learn about rational behavior and price adjustment mechanisms through the “invisible hand” to find some sort of equilibrium.
Advanced economics courses will teach you about strategic behavior inspired by game theory and the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of cheating. For advanced economists it is, therefore, inevitable that “cheatflation” should be part of the economists’ vocabulary. Of course, a profit maximizing entrepreneur is likely to way the risk of being found out contributing to cheatflation against the potential gains.
How to cheatflate? Too easy. Any producer of a product can cheat by using, for example, other ingredients than those printed on the product label, usually cheaper ones. Instead of fruit juice (wine) you may just sell colored water with lots of sugar (ethanol) in it, but still label it fruit juice (wine) and get away with this, until a consumer protection group makes a fuzz about it. A more sophisticated way is to sell investments in ESG-rated funds, but then include dirty stocks without proper notification in the fund, which probably increases profits based on wrong labels.
There is a specific quality to cheatflation, which makes it different from shrinkflation or enshittification. The drive to “obtain unfair advantages” through cheating across a whole country or region makes cheatflation an economy-wide process and subverts general fairness rules as well as trust in a society.
(Image Saccharometer, DTM Berlin 2024)

Obesity Revised

The scientific paper on a revised definition of obesity was produced by the special Commission on Obesity. It appeared in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology in 2025-1. The previously common practice by medical doctors was to classify person in the obesity category based mainly on the simple calculation of the body mass index (BMI = weight/height²). A BMI  > 30 put persons into the obese category and stigma.
Since the Covid-19 society-wide testing experience, we are all familiar what it means if you get misclassified and have to live with the consequences (exclusion from work or events etc.). The simplifying and summarizing BMI calculation and classification has also produced many wrong classifications. For example, persons with a lot of muscles (just watch this at any fitness studio) will have a high weight relative to their body height², but they are likely to be more healthy than many other light weight, but seriously stressed persons.
In empirical test theory such cases are the so-called false positive cases, i.e. classified as obese, but not a medical problem at all. Medical doctors and health insurances should not finance special treatments for these persons, which foregoes treatment of other more needy persons.
With new expensive drugs on the market to treat obesity it is even more important to test with more precision the normal, pre-clinical and clinical status of obesity. Fatty tissue or muscles, that is the relevant question. Fatty tissue in muscles is the next level testing issue.

Covid Literature

In 2025 it about time to evaluate the medium term impact of the Covid-19 crisis in Europe and world. The various lockdowns caused unexpected “spare time” or time in isolation. Some otherwise very busy persons embarked on literary projects during these months. Most of the outcomes have now been published. Most authors would not label their writings as “Covid literature”, since they do not deal with the Covid pandemic in any sense. However, only due to the additional time resources, and maybe writing as a creative coping mechanism, some persons became and dared to become authors eventually.
For some isolation from the usual work context was a lonesome experience, others realized literary projects. Camille Paulhan (edition Sombres Torrents) for example used freed up time to write “Couper à travers les ronces” published in 2021. Her short stories, like narrative clips, range from introspection to memorable encounters with art works and artists. As an expert on “perishable art” Camille Paulhan is particularly sensitive to the “fleeting moments” of encounters and maybe of life itself. The Covid-pandemic has certainly reminded us on the increased risks to our existence during a pandemic. The literature originating during these months and years might reveal specific virtues only ex post.
You might still be able to buy a copy at the publisher. The bookshop and gallery Yvon Lambert (online retrieved on 2025-1-20) says sold out, but shows several pages online. Although books may become a perishable product, some copies will survive due to the efforts of fans of perishable art and moments.

Artists networking

Creating a network between rather idiosyncratic artists is no easy task. The more they develop a unique style separate from other painters mixing with other artists can be a challenge because you might find yourself in the position to continually defend your new style. Therefore, building a network of artists that understands the concept or emotion that drives you is a great advantage. In the catalog of the Caillebotte exhibition in the Musée d’Orsay Paris the map of living and working spaces of Caillebotte and his artists’ friends like Claude Monet is a great way to demonstrate the degree of networking and creative spaces that propelled the impressionist movement. The galleries and greater exhibitions of the impressionists took place in the vicinity of the established art institutions, but were not admitted into the traditional exhibition centers like the Louvre. The map from the catalog provides insights into the cognitive map of Paris which Caillebotte had in mind at his time. Artists see cities as opportunity spaces which facilitate or impede the creative processes.

Politician Cycles

In a bookstore which sells books in English or American language we find lots of biographies or autobiographies of politicians. As a politician you don’t even have to be out of politics when your biographical account or your own view is published, let alone be written. Publishers seem to hunt politicians who made headlines, no matter good or bad. Outside the EU you can always sell biographies at half price, if the volumes sit for too long on the precious shelves of bookstores. Most of the biographies are found in the history section of shops or libraries, however some show off in sections like politics (if not dead for too long) or in the business and management sections. Leadership is a big issue in the latter disciplines, but the psychological or sociological literature starts to meddle with the received wisdom of how single person leadership is in fact facilitated with the many great people around the sometimes outstanding single person. Maybe the focus on a single person is an easily understood and simplifying concept of leadership. In the case of Obama (2x) two single historical accounts complement the one person focus. In 2025 Michelle Obama skipped the funeral of Jimmy Carter where she would have had to sit next to Donald Trump (according to the Daily Telegraph and probably endure small talk). Politics appears to move in circles and politicians might find themselves encircled.

Space Missions

As we realize that critical infrastructure on earth is not safe in times of military conflict, space missions have become an additional form of competition between countries, continents and alliances. India has accomplished in January 2025 the coupling of 2 space satellites. The level of technological knowledge to achieve the coupling and decoupling of satellites included among other competences the mastering of algorithms that control sensors and propulsion. Beyond the communication cables on earth, satellites can assure telecommunication services, if other networks are interrupted.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISPO) has announced the successful “space docking experiment” (SpaDeX) and joins the other 3 countries US., Russia and China as the 4th country to achieve this. The race in space and to space beyond earthly competition shifts attention also to the additional category of a race to technological innovation and applications of those. Since the war of Russia in Ukraine we know about the “dual use” factor (civil and military) of satellite technology. Satellite images of your own country are helpful in many respects ranging from weather forecasts, rain, draughts and habitat changes or population movements. Early warnings of flooding are surely important civil applications. Movements of military equipment by potential enemies are much needed early information, which increases warning time spans. With more satellites in space the good as well as the dangerous potential is expanding. Sovereignty in the 21st century certainly has a technological dimension. Therefore, the demonstration of satellite coupling in space accomplishes not only a dual use achievement, but also fulfils a triple use or ambition. The 3rd one is political. Hey, look we are also watching you, or might do so.
(Image: Robert Indiana “Imperial Love” 1966/2006 in Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie)

Indigenisation

In reading up on the « all electric society » it is useful to see what the international market has to offer in innovation of electronics, but also to understand the potential of mass production. In this little research the came across the „Electronics for you magazine“ (LINK) from India is a great source. Trends of miniaturization of electronics and power savings for consumer products as well as some high tech space and wave technologies receive systematic coverage. 

The November issue 2024 (p. 63) used the term „ Indigenisation“ to refer to the process of a country’s own technological development to ensure independence from being cut off from advanced technologies. Producing in India for Indian use seems to be an answer to economic and technological risks. India‘s space exploration program builds on own supply for civil and probably military purposes as well. Indigenisation of production, therefore, is an adequate term for own indigenous production of specific advanced components. 

Contrary to the trend of globalization, which dominated the 2nd half of the last century, „Indigenisation“ is likely to dominate numerous sectors of the economy in the coming years. Made in India is, of course, a brand. Small countries might find indigenisation more difficult to achieve. It needs to be checked, whether indigenisation or „self-reliance“ (Atmanirhbar Bharat) implies plural societies and identities to the same extent.

Drawing Drafts

The exhibition “Drafts – From Rubens to Khnopff” at the MRBAB offers an art historian’s view on the role of drafts in the creation of art across centuries. You will not be surprised to discover that drafts played and play a crucial role in creative works. With a restriction to drawings, paintings and sculptures, the exhibition highlights the “creative gesture” originating in a sketch of a detail of a body, a face, the body, compositions of forms or perspectives on space. In some instances, infrared reflectographic camera technology or similar techniques were used to reveal the so-called underdrawing of a painting to allow the comparison of a draft with the “finished” or “published” version as an oil painting. The time span across centuries allows to stress the importance of drafts and drawing rather than the spontaneous creation of a unique piece of art. The 20th and 21st century saw this process of creation challenges by several artists and performative versions of art. The basic creative process, however, remains an important pedagogical access to better understand art and its creation.
The curators of the exhibition Bücken and Maréchal (MRBAB) encourage visitors to use pencils and paper to try out the technique of pencilling or just to try to a sketch of something of interest. This certainly contributes to let the message and encouragement to create yourself sink in to the memories of visitors. All in all a very modern view on old and not so old masters.
(Image: Triple view of Jacques Jordeans, Allegory of fertility of the earth, 1623-25 MRBAB).

Modular books

Online publishing offers much more flexible forms of publishing. Even traditional book formats can be organized in new ways. Instead of a fixed sequence of chapters, paragraphs or blog entries, the sequence becomes a matter of choice. Either in the author’s hand or in the hands of readers, the cruising through content allows very individual experiences of what still is the same content. Just as learning, which is ultimately an individualized process, the reading or scrolling through content creates singular experiences with the content. Several choices of more in depth reading should keep the reader interesting to dig further along the personal knowledge trajectory according to own prior interests.
The motivation of a person to read depends on the reader’s own interests and current situation or context. The “state of mind” constitutes the willingness to stop at certain pages or entries. The search function, keywords or tags allow to deviate from an author’s intended sequence of chapters. An online textbook has easy entry and exit points. They are not predetermined. The risk, however, is that the reader stops at a point without loose ends, somehow in expectation of a conclusion of a succinct summary. That’s probably the easiest job for any AI system, based on a series of entries.
However, the joy of the journey through knowledge gets lost through the use of AI as a short cut. Just like physical exercise rewards you with additional strength, mental exercise keeps us healthy.
Traditional predefined sequences – like books, e-books or flip-books are also available on this webpage either through the post archive or the continuously growing books, e-books or flip-books page.

Californication

In a song by the „Red Hot Chili Peppers“ the term californication appeared for the first time as far as I remember. This song is rather critical of the superficial californian way of life. The belief in the dream that you may get rich quickly in California has suffered another blow wit the thousands of homes burned in the wild fires in January 2025. Dry and arid areas are spreading and the lack of water makes it very hard for firefighters to protect homes, particularly in difficult to reach valleys. Stormy weather adds to the speed of fire spreading. All these elements are predictable additional risk of climate change. Californication is the old and new word to describe a trend of acceptance of increasing climate risks by at the same time neglect of environmental precaution. Hollywood is just around the corner there and the film industry might come up with some other narratives than just the previous californian dream. Get rich fast, then run away. Sustainability is a more difficult concept and yet it keeps getting more and more attention.