This category contains posts that don’t cover any specific topic.
I saw a piece of a BBC documentary about a British savant, Daniel Tammet, and was fascinated, since contrary to the character of Rain Man in the film, Danil was able to explain his capabilities, and observe the functioning of his brain. I picked up his book straight away when I saw it and read […]
“Born on a blue day” by Daniel Tammet Read More »
We Feel Fine is an incredible display of the power of the web to transform the way we think about humanity. Emotions are among the most human of characteristics, and being able to see their power dynamically is astonishing. We Feel Fine is a website that analyses blog postings to search for those that contain
We all feel fine – and it shows Read More »
Family Tree Originally uploaded by david.orban This is a partial view of my family tree, as it is growing on http://geni.com, which enables family members to freely collaborate on adding further and further details. Started less then a month ago, my tree now includes almost 300 people, spanning 5 generations, and covering three continents.
As reported by Bru, and originally posted on his blog by Maurizio, the Ritalia initiative that we started yesterday to try and re-invent with modern tools, and effective open collaborative methods the abortive www.Italia.it portal, is causing an uproar in the blogosphere. The aim is ambitious, immodest, and innocent, happy, at the same time. Let’s
Try to help a hopeless 40 million euro online project in Italy, and get menacing emails Read More »
One of the games I always play at the start of a new year is an excercise in synesthesia:what color is the coming year? For example to me 2006 was orange, 2005 was yellow, and 2004 was blue. My colors are not necessarily as neat as the basic ones: to me 2000 is bright white
What color is 2007? Read More »
The literary agent John Brockman, editor of the Edge.org website, asks each year a question to representatives of the third culture, unifying the artificial divisions of scientific and humanistic cultures. This year’s question is “What are you optimistic about?” Reading the stimulating and often provocative answers is a favorite passtime of mine: I put them
Happy 2007 with the annual question of Edge.org! Read More »
Advent calendar Originally uploaded by david.orban. I have been recently contacted be a Museum of the city of Surrey in British Columbia, Canada. They were asking for permission to include my photo of a rather nice, and unusual advent calendar. Of course I complied eagerly, and asked about the nature of their exhibit: it is
My photo in a Museum in British Columbia Read More »
New apartment buildings Originally uploaded by david.orban. I am told these sell for five thousand dollars per square meter. No local with a normal job can afford them of course. Even if a lot of the local salaries come from unofficial sources. The real estate market with come back to earth, but it will be
New apartment buildings Read More »
Signs of the past Originally uploaded by david.orban. The lingering signs of the communist era express the physical difficulty of parting with the past: be it monuments that praise principles not shared anymore, crumbling public housing, now sold at astronomical prices which make Moscow one of the most expensive cities in the world to the
My russian illusions Originally uploaded by nicointhebus. I am leaving for Moscow tomorrow and will be there for the first time, spending a week mainly for business, but as usual with the hope of having some time to look around as well. Having been raised in Hungary in the ’70s, where the Russians were looked
Leaving for Moscow tomorrow Read More »
