Category: technology

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Czechia coast

At the Frankfurt book fair we dream ourselves into the imagery of Czechia as a country with beaches and sand castles. The country pavilion of the partnerland of #fbm26 takes us to the ephemeral aspects of literature. While reading we deep dive into uncharted territories and discover unknown landscapes, sometimes even fees. These worlds of imagination become part of us or enlighten sequences of our life course. Taking the perspective of an external viewer widens cognitive and emotional predispositions. There are remarkable ol and new light houses to discover, too. Drawing as performative art, washed away every day like dreams, acknowledges the ephemeral nature of our reading or listening experiences. This message is going to stick with us. 

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More about books

The Frankfurt book fair opens its books and doors on 2026-10-7. The thousands of authors, publishers, translaters and agents are quite concerned about the amount of infringements that AI has brought to the industry. The market is under increasing pressure to secure intellectual property rights and copyright protections. A flood of AI-produced books shall ruin margins out of which authors are paid as well. The spreading of ideas in form of books across borders is threatened. Sebastian Guggolz from the German book trade association claimed even a double theft, first the books, then the ideas by AI. In order to counteract this, the Frankfurt book fair is continuously expanding is function as a platform of exchange of ideas (Juergen Boos) and face-to-face meetings of all involved in writing, editing, producing, trading, teaching and discussing books in the broadest sense. This discourse about books is the real human added value which AI is lacking so far. In this sense of talking about books, books become a kind of merchandising product of an event or a form of take-home-message to participants. A great and promising forward looking agenda for us rather than the retro-captive approach of AI. 

Frankfurt book fair 2026-10-6 press conference

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Agentrification

If you believe that AI-agents are continuously robbing your webpage content, then you will suffer from “Agentrification”. We know about the mental disease of “persecutory delusions” for quite some time. In the realm of webpage analytics a somehow related phenomenon might be the experience, also probably more a delusion, of “agentrification”. Even when you are on holidays, the AI-agents keep working on scraping content of your webpage everyday. If necessary or driven by info requests, this might be several times per day.
There are monitoring tools for this, just like other home security devices. The Plug-In “Known Agents” (extract of image below) does a great job in making such activities more transparent. Humans are reluctant to use AI-provided links to content, but tend to be satisfied with the agent’s fast return. However, checking sources should be a safeguard not to fall into the trap of another kind of agentrification, which is de-skilling due to ample use of AI-returns rather than direct search of information or checking provided links by AI for their trustworthiness.

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Scroll or stop

In 2026-10 the fundamental question is: to scroll or not to scroll? As we have moved into the individualistic society with omnipresence of the not-so-social media we keep scrolling through online content. Our attention habits are subject to so-called cliffhangers which aim to direct our attention on specific topics, surprising images or just steering us to more-of-the-same content. The social media ban for children fights against the addiction to endless scrolling. In most cases, what is good for children is also beneficial for adults. Hence, the “endless scrolling” (which I increased on this blog at several occasions, currently = 30 max entries) is from now on reduced to 10. After those 10 entries, you are invited to read more on one of those entries or use one-click proposed keywords or categories. The search of topics or names is another more specific entry into a social science perspective. Maybe, the invitation to scroll less, but stop more often and read or follow proposed links is a beginning to detox our online habits. 

Tags on www.schoemann.org 2026-10
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Gone gliding

Nowadays gliding in form of hang gliding is a leisurely experience within the reach of almost everyone. The human dream of flying, however, has been shattered by the Icarus narrative, humans aiming too high and too close to the sun. More realistic first experiments were undertaken by Otto Lilienthal, who pioneered the first human built and steered glider based on an innovative concept of the wing at its basis. Aerodynamic construction of the wing with a rounded shape allows air to flow faster on top than below the wing, which lifts the wing and glider upwards. His tragic fatal accident on one of his gliding experiments has been wrongly attributed to a construction default, but recent research has shown that it was most likely due to  bad weather conditions on that particular day (Link Radio3). According to Markus Raffel, Otto Lilienthal was a broadly educated and practicing polymath in addition to his gliding innovations

Science and art Radio3 talk at airport Tempelhof Berlin 2026-9

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70s revival

Brussels celebrates each year the “Car free Sunday” as final part of the mobility week. On 2026-9-20 this event coincides with the very high oil prices again. Just like in the oil crises of the 70s in 1973 and 1979 saving energy for mobility and transport is high on the political agenda in many countries. Just think of the benefits of such events. Less consumption will reduce “greed-flation” and upward pressure on prices. Pollution levels of fine particles and noise are drastically reduced. Children feel safe while riding their bicycles, scooters or skateboards. Parents are no longer on permanent alert due to the risk of accidents. For those who remember or lived during the 70s, they might have a “déjà vu” experience and enjoy a revival of the 70s. The roller skates are up for a revival as well. 

Brussels Car free day 2026-9-20

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VCs shun SA

Venture Capitalists have an eye on long-term safety of investments. Political upheavals, unrest or instability can deter investments as much as risks to the safety of the workforce. The abbreviation “SA” in Germany has at least 2 meanings. (1) Historically, it refers to the “Sturmabteilung”, which was important in the rise of the Fascist movement and Nazi-terror in the 1920s, 1930s. Foreign investors were right to shun away from investments during the rise of the Fascists in Germany as a total loss of the investment was to be expected. (2) In 2026-8 the abbreviation “SA” in Germany stands also for “Saxony-Anhalt”, one of the Federal States of Eastern Germany, formerly the GDR between 1949-1990.
The “Wallstreet Journal”, which is read by many international investors showed on its title page of WSJ 2026-9-7 a report by Bertrand Benoit on the disastrous election in Saxony-Anhalt giving the extreme right-wing party AfD close to an absolute majority of votes. The abandoned investment by Intel into a chip-production near the capital of SA, Magdeburg, has been in retrospect a rather wise investment decision. The internationality of the employees, who build and operate such plants, might have contributed to them feeling rather unsafe in a hostile environment towards foreign workers.

intel processor logo

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Heat Health Protection

The heat waves of 2026 had serious health impacts in Europe and beyond. Hence, it is urgent to propose better protections to shield people from negative heat exposure which worsened the health of millions of people. Digital tools which work to personalize heat warnings and increase preventive strategies like drinking water or reduce physical activity outside during the hottest times of the day. Sounds simple, but thousands of people continue to put themselves at risk to suffer seriously from heat exposure. The macro-level general population warning’s could be much more specific if they included additionally the relevant medical conditions of an individual (Du et al. 2026). Prior health conditions affect the general preparedness to cope with heat. We have an obvious case of bi-directional causality. A worsening heat health spiral could be at the origin of so many premature deaths during heat waves. Search for “cool locations” should be considered very seriously for heat-health protection.

Notre Dame Paris 2026-8

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Gone sailing

There are numerous ways to spend a nice vacation and take off your mind from daily routines. Sailing is certainly one of those leisure activities which ask for full concentration. Steady winds are more the exception than the rule and the skipper is asked to adapt rapidly to changing wind directions and other conditions. Waves and other sailing boats may of course ask you additionally to adapt your course to unforeseen circumstances. All this is a great training to keep on track even in stormy weather conditions around you. Team work helps to set sails as well as in manoeuvers to enter into ports. The Paris Jardin de Luxembourg (image below) allows training of parts of these competencies from an early age on and into old age as well. The physics of power and capsizing are part and parcel of sailing as well just as much as rules for crossing course, of course. 

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Autonomous drones

The weapon industry is shifting rapidly. Beyond slow moving tanks, modern warfare has adopted and applies autonomous drones in the battlefield. On the title page of the NYT of 2026-8-26 we learn about a Russian autonomous drone with US hardware technology (Nvidia Jetson Orin microPC) to kill 3 civilians without them being really the target. These drones are trained to select their target autonomously without a human in control. It is the pre-trained machine which decides on the target and whether to “take-out” the target. Disguised objects may survive for longer. People disguised as useless objects have a higher probability to escape detection if you do not fit into the drone’s visual identification. Autonomy based on artificial intelligence has its limits too. Military intelligence will continue to rely a lot on human intelligence to protect us from the realities of autonomous drones.  

Hiding from drone attack at BNF Paris 2026-8