Sip from the what?

Next week, I’m moving to a new place. It’s on Bornholmer Straße in the Eastern part of the city. It’s a nice top floor, 1-bedroom, 893 sq. ft. (83 m²) apartment from 1915 but recently renovated. Take a look at part of the living room:

Later today, I’m going to some local furniture stores to get some basics like a desk, chair, bed, etc. We went to IKEA last night but wanted to see what else was out there.

Things didn’t work out so well with my last landlord who was just subletting his own apartment. This time, it’s maintained by a regular property management company so I think there’ll be much less problems.

A few years ago (2003 to be exact), Clay Shirky gave a notable speech on Social Software at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference. The subject was the evolution of online communities and the repeating patterns that have been observed again and again. It’s a fascinating read if you’re interested in this sort of stuff, especially if you’re active on projects like Wikipedia, MySpace or maybe your own chat & forum. Kelly Martin, a former long-time Wikipedian, mentioned it in her blog a couple of days ago and related it to her experiences as a Wikipedia user and admin.

Today, I’ve moved from Xanga to my own space. I think it was just time to find a more independent place that’s not really associated with anything (yet). On this blog, you will find anything really that I feel like writing about, from the personal to the political, from the technical to the philosophical. Stay tuned!

I finally received my confirmation letter from Humboldt University in Berlin today. They congratulate me for being accepted and ask that I come in to register. Here are their opening hours

Mondays: 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesdays: 1 pm - 4 pm
Fridays: 9 am - 11 am

What I’m supposed to bring:

• My original diploma and GRE results
• Proof of health insurance
• Receipt for having transferred the enrollment fee (€236.68)
• Filled-out enrollment form
• Passport with visa

And no, you can’t do that online, thank you very much!

I wanna go home…

Even though I’m not much of a fan of Mr. O’Reilley, I found the headline fitting. Since people here are getting tired of me complaining about all the things that are backwards with how German people do things and since I still feel the desperate urge to lament about them anyway, I’ve decided to start a new series on this wonderful journal about such things. Today’s part number one.

The German Shopping Experience or Do You Have A Euro?

Earlier this morning, I went to a local grocery store called “Lidl” (the name doesn’t have any special meaning in German so I have no clue why it’s called that; it’s pronounced like “beatle”, just with an L at the beginning). Now, to give this establishment proper justice please indulge me in a little tour. Upon arrival at Lidl, one naturally goes for the shopping carts. There they are, all neatly arranged in several long lines, like one would expect of Germans. Upon closer examination, however, you will notice that they are all chained together. “Interesting”, you might say. As it turns out, to get one of those cards for your own shopping experience, you have to take a €1 coin and stick it in the little lock thingy so it frees itself from the other carts.

This now may prove to be quite a conundrum if you don’t happen to have one of those coins on you. If you have any cash at all, you can go to one of the cashiers and ask them for a €1 coin. The problem is that there’s usually at most one or two registers open and they can’t open the cash drawer unless somebody’s paying that very moment. Furthermore, if the customer’s not paying in cash they can’t give you change either. So, in this lucky case you get to stand behind the register until a customer comes by whose paying in change or bills and not one of those new-fangled debit cards. This may take a while so have a seat.

Alternatively, if you are so unlucky as to not have any money with you at all, you will gladly go to the next ATM to pull out a twenty which you then have to exchange for a bunch of change at the register, after duly waiting of course. Isn’t Germany charming?

But, let’s assume you make it through all this and get a cart of your own. The next step would be to actually enter the store. What you will notice is that there’s exactly one entrance for such purposes. It’s guarded by two turnstiles directly following each other. The cart goes through a little “tunnel” on your left through which you have to push it yourself. So you basically push it into the tunnel a little with your left hand, then go through the first turnstile, pull the cart and push it a little further, go through the second turnstile, and in you are. That was easy, wasn’t it? You will most likely look like a complete klutz. On the other hand, it’s helpful in this case to notice that everybody else looks similarly inept.

So, now you’re in. Oh the glory of the offered products. On the left, cartons and cartons of drinks of the utmost quality, to the right only the best of best underwear and socks. It’s a true shopper’s delight. In reality, of course, it’s not really like that. Well, actually, it’s a whole lot like that, you’re really greeted by cardboard boxes filled with drink cartons and racks filled with socks and underwear. Just the rest was a lie. Truth is, it’s a bit claustrophobic in there, the selection is somewhat slim, store workers will rather clumsily add or replace merchandise including groceries as you shop, and almost everything remains in cardboard boxes. In other words, shelves are a luxury. On the other hand, prices are hard to beat. The liter of milk goes for €0.49 (that would be about $2.41 for the gallon, compare that to $3.98 on average in the US). Other groceries are similarly low-priced.

Once you’ve found everything you’ve been looking for, you will undoubtedly make your way to the register. As I said earlier, there are rarely more than two registers open at a time. Average waiting times of 15 minutes or longer aren’t unusual at all. As your line moves along, you should make sure to gauge how many bags you will need and take the appropriate number from the pile-o-bags under the conveyor belt. It’s important to think about this now because if you do it later, you will inconvenience another German who will most likely throw some insults at you as he hands you your bags. As one would expect, the bags aren’t free (usually between €0.05 and €0.09). On the other hand, they’re very durable so they can be reused (I will devote a whole other post on the German obsession with recycling).

Once you have your bags and there’s enough space one the conveyor belt, you place your items on them. The cashier will scan them and put them aside. If you bought a lot, you should be rather quick at this point and take the items after they’ve been scanned and place them back in your shopping cart. The cashiers are pretty quick at scanning so if you aren’t quick in removing items, there’ll be a backlog and everything will come to a standstill until you’ve done your part. Note also that this is not the appropriate time to start bagging your groceries because you don’t really have time for that. Plus you haven’t paid for your bags yet, which most likely you have placed at the end of the conveyor belt, so you can’t really use them yet, now can you? Right? Right. Anyway, after the cashier’s done scanning, he’ll tell you the total, you pay with cash or debit card using your PIN and off you can go. Naturally, there’s no cashback option, for that there are ATMs after all.

Once you leave the area of registers, you’ll notice a set of tables where other German will be busy bagging their items. You should follow their example. One curious activity that many German customers indulge in at this moment is removing the packaging of their groceries. Like, if they bought a box of cereal, they will take the bag out of the carton and dispose of the carton right there. For this purpose, all supermarkets are required by law (!) to offer big trash cans where such packaging material can be placed. The main reason why people would even conceive of doing this is related to the fact that most Germans don’t have cars or, if they have them, they don’t take them to the supermarket (there aren’t usually any parking spots anyway). So, by throwing away the bulky boxes, things fit better into the shopping bags making carrying them easier too. It’s a whole science.

Anyway, once you’ve bagged your groceries, you will then take your shopping cart to one of the cart lines so you can get your €1 coin back. This may again test your body coordination because you have to navigate your shopping bags and the shopping cart at the same time (you can’t keep the bags in the cart since the cart is about to be pushed under the other carts). If the €1 isn’t worth it to you, of course, you can just leave the cart alone where it is and go home.

The following is an e-mail conversation I’ve had recently with another student at TCU. Names have been anonymized to protect the, uh, innocent.

From: Sebastian Moleski
To …
Hi,

I wanted to congratulate you on your thoughtful analysis of the illegal immigration problem in the United States. The library analoy never occurred to me so I’m glad you explained it to me. I do have some concerns though that I wanted to share with you:

1. You say the library is open to the public and can be visited by anyone and that it welcomes all visitors. But doesn’t this library also discriminate on who gets to do what resources? Membership cards come in all kinds of shapes. Some are permanent and are given to anyone who is born within it, like it is custom for libraries to do, right? Others are sort of like the temporary ones but you have to be related to someone born in the library, be adopted by one or bring a lot of money with you. Then there are the temporary ones that only allow you to use certain resources and check out certain books. If you look at the other books, you get fined, membership card taken away and banned for 10 years.

2. You say that some people do not apply for library cards. But you don’t say why they don’t. What if they aren’t allowed to?

3. You say that stealing (taking books without a membership card) is especially prevalent with children. These must not be children born in the library because they would have a permanent and irrevocable membership card, right?

Overall I have to say that I am embarrassed to go to the same school as you. If you are in your junior and sophomore year, I would have hoped you knew better than to write such a naive and clueless article. Not everyone is welcome in the United States, especially not people seeking to work and make a living. That’s not limited to “our friends from the south” either.

If immigration laws weren’t as racist and disciminatory as they are, you wouldn’t have millions of people entering the country illegally. What would be unheard of in so many other situations like employment, housing, public accomodations, etc. — that is not to discriminate against people based on sex, race, age, ethnic origin, national origin etc. — is for some reason perfectly acceptable when it comes to immigration policy. Maybe you should write about that instead of this insincere, hypocritical and insincere piece you submitted to the skiff.

Congrats on making TCU students look like idiots!

sm

From: …
To: Sebastian Moleski
Sebastian~

The editorial piece that we submitted to the Skiff is supposed to be tongue and cheek. We realize that the issue of immigration is much more involved than library membership cards. It was just an analogy that could help clarify some of our immigration concerns.

A lot of what has been publicized on this issue has come from the viewpoint of the illegal immigrants. We were trying to show the other side. For every illegal immigrant that comes to the United States, US citizens have to pay taxes to take care of their expenses, to school their children, etc. Illegal immigrants reap benefits for what they do not sow and, yes, take up government funds that could be used for its own citizens.

There are complicated issues to immigration and we know that it is not a simple walk in the park to gain citizenship. But the fact of the matter is that moving to the United States without the proper procedure is illegal by law. This new bill coming up is meant to crack down on an illegal activity. Would you be protesting a bill that cracked down on illegal firearms? What about a bill that made stronger penalties for car theft? If you have an issue with unfair immigration laws, then protest the procedures used for immigration, not a bill that enforces laws already in place.

If the roles were reversed and US citizens were going over the border into Mexico, eating their food, using their forms of education, taking jobs, and getting hand-outs from the Mexican government, the the US citizens would be attacked as selfish, greedy, and lazy. And yet, how is this different from Mexican immigrants? Perhaps you are being a bit hypocritical yourself.

As for making TCU students look like idiots, we beg to differ. True idiocy would be to all agree on a complicated issue just because there is a loud, but perhaps not majority, voice in one direction. We posed valid questions and concerns that everyone needs to consider in regards to this issue. We don’t see how that make us idiots.

Thanks for sharing your opinion (at least someone at TCU reads the paper….) and have a fabulous day!

From: Sebastian Moleski
To: …

Thank you for your response. Please do understand however that despite your claims illegal immigrants do pay taxes. It may seem surprising at first but many of them use (fake) social security numbers so they can get jobs where they may get paid less than minimum wage but still have some of that taken for fedeail incom and socieal security taxes. They also have to pay sales and property taxes like everyone else. I’m speculating here but my intuition (and the fact that I’m a foreign non-immigrating student) tells me that if paying taxes meant a legalization of their situation, may of them would gladly do so.

You also keep repeating the mantra that illegal immigration is illegal and there’s nothing wrong with enforcing the law. What you seem to miss though is that there are a lot of people who believe these laws are wrong, unjust, immoral and inhumane. When Rosa Parks refused to change her seat, she was also violating the law, and was convicted of that in a subsequent trial. When millions of African-Americans engaged in civil disobedience because they refused to be treated as second-class citizens any longer, they also broke the law. These people believed that there are sometimes more significant values to care about then whether an action is right according to the law.

Giving foreign people the opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own happiness like every American has by birthright can’t be answered with “that’s against the law”. And no, I wouldn’t call Americans doing the same “selfish, greedy and lazy”. I firmly believe that anybody should have the right and opportunity to live and be a constructive member of society wherever they choose.

sm

From: …
To: Sebastian Moleski
Sebastian~

While some immigrants may choose to use fake social security cards and thus pay taxes, many of them do not. What’s more some states don’t have certain taxes, like property tax, which immigrants would have to pay. The point is, on the whole, immigrants are paying fewer taxes and in much smaller amounts than citizens. Taxes are just one aspect of the immigration concern.

You will have to explain to me how immigration laws are wrong, injust, immoral, and inhumane. The United States does not discriminate against immigrants. All immigrants, regardless of race, creed, sex, and country of origin, have to go through the same steps to gain citizenship. This is not discrimination.

I agree with you that everyone should have the opportunity to live and be a constructive members of society wherever they choose. However, citizenship is a privilege, not a right. It must be earned one way or another. If a person chooses to take the opportunity to become a constructive member of the US’s society, then they must go through the steps that the United States has laid out to earn such a privilege. If they want to pursue happiness in the US, then they need to pursue it through the avenues that our government has set up. After all, if this is the society that immigrants have chosen to join, then they should be willing to follow its laws.

From: Sebastian Moleski
To: …

You’re making the assumption that immigration law treats all immigrants the same. That is not the case. There are at least a dozen different ways to gain permanent residency depending on your background, economic status, family ties, etc. It is also the case that for a very large percentage of people, permanent residency is not available. If you are a native of Mexico and want to move to the United States to work, there is no legal way to get a visa to stay in the country on those facts alone. If you are a student coming to study here and you want to stay in the country, you have to apply for a visa with a quota of 65,000. If there were such a way, your argument would have much more validity.

Immigration policy is applied very unevenly and if you’ve ever spent any time researching that or maybe talked to someone trying to migrate to the United States you would know that. Arbitrary enforcement of laws is the very essence of an unjust legal situation.

About citizenship being a privilege to be earned: when did you earn your citizenship? I’m making an assumption here that you are an American and probably by birth. You didn’t have to do anything to gain that privilege. Somebody in your family tree might have or they might have just come into the country when immigration policy wasn’t as strict as it is today. Asking yourself what you have done to earn your privilege of citizenship might be very unfair but think about it nevertheless. I’m a citizen of Germany. I never did anything to deserve my citizenship, it’s just the way the law works (and just for the record, compared to Germany, immigration in the United States is a piece of cake). How can I ask foreigners to prove that they deserve the opportunity to pursue their own happiness and be a constructive member of society if I never had to prove that myself?

Please also understand that there is a difference between permanent residency and citizenship. Many of the 11 million or so illegal aliens in the country are not looking to become citizens but permanent resident. As a permanent resident, you get all the benefits and privileges of American citizens including paying taxes without the opportunity to run for federal office, vote in federal elections and a few other privileges related to national security.

Immigration laws of this kind discriminate against something that on a very basic level nobody has any control over: the place of our birth. One’s nationality is out of one’s control as much as many other factors including race, gender, age, or disability. It doesn’t make any sense to prohibit discrimination on some of these but not on others.

sm

P.S. If taxation would be a concern, the government could just grant legal immigration benefits to the aliens here while at the same time collect back taxes from them over some period of time so they don’t become destitude. There have been plenty of proposals already on the table where illegal immigrants would have to pay a fine to become legal. I’m not in favor of that but I understand that that would help a lot of people’s sense of justice and fairness.

From: …
To: Sebastian Moleski
Sebastian~

My parents, grandparents, etc. earned my citizenship for me. I continue to keep that privlege by being a good citizen. In your eyes, that might not be fair, but that is the way that it is in almost every country, as you yourself pointed out. If there were not immigration laws and anyone could come into the United States, then the US would be flooded by people from other countries. There have to be policies. These policies have been voted on by representatives that US citizens have chosen. Like it or not, these are current policies. If someone wants to change these policies, then they should go about it legislatively.

As for those immigrants that come to the United States just to work, that is like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. The trouble with Mexico is the organization of their economy. They have the resources to prosper, but need to reorganize. Sending their citizens to the US to earn money will not promote this national re-organization. And yes, I think that if people are working in the United States, then they need to become contributing citizens in its community. If a person is going to benefit from the US’s economy, then they need to be a member of it.

But all this is beside my point. … and I have contention with illegal immigrants because they are breaking the United States’ laws in order to enter our borders. I may not like the fact one of my neighbors has a fence, but that does not give me a right to jump over it.

From: Sebastian Moleski
To: …

Fair enough. But then, whenever you write a story in the Skiff or talk to people about your problem with illegal immigration be honest about it and let them know that your position is based on that and not rational arguments. And stay away from contrived analogies that don’t represent what you really think either.

sm

From: …
To: Sebastian Moleski
Sebastian~

As contrived as the analogy may have been, Randi and I still feel like it brought up some valid points. And it obviously isn’t completely unfounded if it sparked your attention.

Have a great night,

This is in response to the “Illegal immigration like stealing” article in the college student newspaper from Friday. In it, the authors create the analogy of the United States being a library. I can go along with that but want to give you some details on just what kind of library that would be. So here are the ten rules of the library United States and its membership policy:

1. If you are born in the library, you automatically get a permanent and irrevocable membership card. Even if you take all the books, burn down the library, or do anything else against our rules, you won’t lose your membership. On the other hand, depending on badly you break the rules, you will be restricted to a special area or terminated.
2. If you are not educated, we don’t want you, unless you come here to learn, bring your own money to pay for everything you need and do leave after you are done learning.
3. If you are educated, we welcome you. Unfortunately, we only give out 65,000 membership cards a year. If you are very educated, there’s another 20,000 cards. Please take a number and sit over there, outside of course.
4. If you are related to one of the children born inside the library, you may apply for a permanent membership card as well. We’re awfully sorry, but there’s also a very long line so please do take a number and sit over there, outside of course.
5. If you want to marry one of our inhabitants, you may apply for a permanent membership card. Please do understand that you will have to have a different gender from the person you are marrying, that we will watch you to make sure you are a happy couple and, if you do happen to ge divorced within the first few years, you will have to leave.
6. From time to time, we will allow individuals who are not eligible for a membership card to stay inside the country without a card. There is no system to this and it just an expression of our mercy and benevolence. Please do understand that even in this case you will not be able to take a job or return should you choose to leave.
7. If you do not qualify so far, you may also come into the country permanently because you are a famous actor or actress and/or filthy rich. In that case, we will let you in and use the library’s resources at no additional cost because you’re very special to us.
8. If you are retired and filty rich, we have an entire state for you. Please follow the red carpet.
9. If you do not qualify and do succeed in entering the library against our wishes, we may or may not ask you to leave. Whether we do will depend on many factors too difficult to list here. Either way, you will live in fear and outside of the general society. If you have children, they will receive a permanent membership card. However, please do understand that you will not be able to receive one in that case until your child has reached 18 years of age.
10. In even-numbered years, you may find that there are proposals to adjust our membership rules. We are terribly sorry but please understand that these incidents are related to a very important national event in November. They have no bearing on you and will certainly not result in any significant changes to our policies.

I’ve been struggling for years trying to find out what I want to do with my life. I’ve always known that I wanted to do something significant, something that would leave a mark in the lives of others. When I started college, I was a computer science major because I mistakenly thought this would be my career. I was decently good at programming so why not, right? Only I never really got along with other computer folks and the instructors especially. Too many times they appeared to take their own field too serious, as if computer science had any value for its own sake. I quickly came to the conclusion that computer science wouldn’t be my thing and that I would have to find something else.

So I moved on to economics and political science. For some reason, economics had fascinated when I first learnt about it in High School. Call it the nerdy side in me but I found the idea of voluntary mutually beneficial interactions intriguing: that two people can exchange something and both be better off afterwards. At first I didn’t really think that was possible. Surely, if I hand my money to to the guy at the movie theatre, he would be off just as well as I am with my new ticket. What economics tries to explain here is that I’m totally forgetting the internal benefit of the transaction on both parties. The ticket is obviously worth more to me than the money I gave up for it because in addition to receiving a piece of paper, I also get the opportunity to watch the next awful Aeon Flux clone. And the movie theatre guy would rather have a lot of cash than a lot of movie tickets because you can’t pay rent for the place with those.

So I’ve just told you I’m a giant nerd. What does any of that have to do with helping people? Well, the cool thing is that all of this is happening totally voluntary. Nobody’s holding a gun to my head telling me to buy a ticket and nobody’s threatening to bust the movie theatre’s guy’s kneecaps if he didn’t sell the ticket to me. The only reason we’re both doing this is because we both thing we’ll benefit. That’s pretty powerful stuff because it basically means that, if we want to affect people’s behavior, we just have to make the desired behavior beneficial to them.

Poverty and disease exists because there’s someone who stands to benefit from it existing. Or who doesn’t benefit from it not existing, which is really the same thing. If we know what that benefit is, or if we can create some sort of benefit out of getting rid of poverty and disease, we’ve solved the problem. And that’s why I want to become an economist and go to grad school.

Does anybody have any idea how to put this in words a selection committee would wants to read and be ecstatic about?

This has been bugging me for a few days so, in order to share the pain, you can read about it here. The quest to learn about humanity’s suffering has been an adventure spanning many centuries. So, one would think that maybe eventually we would be able to understand human nature, both in the good and the bad. Well, turns out ‐ we do! What’s the worst thing humans have to endure?

Is it poverty where billions live with less than $1 a day in a living situation that can only be described as desparate? Is it torture and terrorism as a result of the countless armed conflicts, wars, rebellions, and other “military incidents” going on? Or maybe it’s inequality where the family or country you are born into or the kind of people you grow up with determine the maximum level of achievement you will ever be able to reach?

NO. It’s…..paying too much for cable television. dishtv has spent billions of research dollars and thousands of hours coming to the conclusion that there is nothing worse than paying too much for cable television. I wouldn’t usually suggest to anyone to pay attention to commercials but this time take a chance. You’ll see what I’m talking about. They have been on a lot lately. Voro, ergo sum?

I found this a long time ago but recent events have brought it back to my mind:

Once the unsafe has become safe,
Once data has been collected everywhere, from the genetic finger print to the probability of cervical cancer,
Once video cameras watch every roaming insect,
Once the most inconspicuous is as open as the most conspicuous,
Once then the near east comes to rest,
Once car traffic is under full control, and bank transfers, and air traffic and intercourse,
Once all phones are tapped and all conversations recorded,
All correspondence archived, all places observed,
Once the danger and also the fear of danger therefore disappears,
Once finally everything is under control, the terrorist in operation with explosives in his trunk and the terrorist on vacation hiking in the Rockies,
Once everything has been done for security and nothing can happen anymore—
Who will then to us, the people, explain the bomb that goes off someday, tomorrow or next year, illegally and uncontrollably, at a railroad station, mall or government building?
– Anonymous