America day 6

Aunt Dee lives in an amazing home, in an amazing neighborhood and has an amazingly non creepy collection of plastic dolls and rabbits. We were advised to not drive into or near New York because of a snow dump from last night. Instead we took a very infrequent $15/person/way Bolt Bus from Cherry Hill New Jersey to the middle of Manhattan.

My first offical impression of New York was amazing. We hopped off the bus, half frozen from the -11 degrees F (C), and got screamed at by a construction worker flinging sand onto the pavements. We then ventured our way towards Bryant Park, where they had installed an ice skating rink and a lot of small shops and stalls. It was at this location that I finally lived out my dream of getting served a hotdog by a bored and aggressive vender. It was just like the movies; he lazily squirted on sauce and plopped on way too much relish.

We knew we only had 7 hours in New York until our next Bolt Bus, so we decided to tactically visit the rockerfeller building and see another ice skating rink and some famous tree. After that we sprinted our way to the broadway theatre via a pizza place. The show was called "a bronx tale" and it was amazing. If you're reading this, you'll know me well enough to know that I hate any form of artwork including plays. This was completely different, I loved it. The accents were really enticing and the story line was refreshingly different from a standard Disney plot line.

Time was running out so we decided to hustle our way to central park. It was beautiful. Really glad America hasn't sold all of it's soul for more apartment buildings. I'm going to try and attach a photo to this blog post, but in the likely event that I'll forget, just google "Central Park in winter". Same thing.

We were really pushed for time now so we decided to catch a subway to the 9/11 memorial center. It was exactly what I had expected. Filthy, poorly sign posted, and inefficient. It was quite amazing to see all the personalities in the New York subway, they had everything from uptight wealthy workers to downright crazy people. One black chick had dressed up as Santa Claus with a delicately written sign on her saying "Nigga Claus". She had a boom box too and was screaming to everyone "Nigga Claus is BACK! White Santa is dead!".

The 9/11 memorial had an atmosphere about it that was hard not to pick up. Even the light construction noise and cars tooting in the background didn't distract from the ambiance. Will have to go back to do the full tour when we get more time.

America day 4

We had the intention of renting a car today to go on a hike around Blue Spring state park, but in the end Kaz's Grandma let us borrow her car instead. Whoopie! After devouring about 1/2 pound (kg) of cap'n crunch we were on our way.

On our arrival at Blue Spring state park, I was relieved to see quite a few Americans preparing for runs, bike rides, and walking tours. Phew, not all Americans live such a sedentary lifestyle here. The first thing we did was take a 10 minute boardwalk tour of the manatees (sea cows). They're exactly what I had expected; giant, slow, barely conscious, floating eating machines. Amazingly they lived in complete harmony with the gaters who lived there too. Sadly, periodic thick white scars on their backs meant they didn't live so harmoniously with propeller boats. After that we completed a 10 mile hike which took us through swampland, sand and tall grassy areas. It was a good hike, but completely flat (oh yeah, Florida is about as flat as the Netherlands). Can't wait to start my Alpine hike up north!

On the way back we passed a few shops and I got myself a new pair of sneaks (sneakers) ((shoes)), and about 10 bags of mulch, and food for dinner. We had decided to do Aunt Lori's garden, and cook some dinner as a thank you for housing us.

Before I end this post, I wanna do something weird; I want to talk about Kaz's Grandma. It was tremendously sad to notice that she would spend almost every hour of the day sitting on the couch in the dark watching Fox News on TV. I'm not kidding, probably about 23 hours of the day since she preferred sleeping on the couch where the colors and sound of the TV could wash over her. Apparently this has been a long term habit of hers, built in from decades of being a stay at home mum. She didn't strike me as depressed, but it was depressing to witness. I know this isn't an accurate representation of the average American elderly person, but I think it does indicate how poisonous a sedentary, automated and gender divided culture can be.

America day 5

Today was a moving day. We woke up at 5:30am and Kaz's Aunt Lorie (Lory? Loury?) drove us to the airport to fly to Newark airport. The plane ride went smoothly; so smoothly in fact that I managed to read a few pages of a book Kaz game me for Christmas: Artemis.

The only snag we hit was renting the car. Apparently the insurance we had payed for online had been cancelled by default after changing the pickup time. It was at this moment I got the full dose of the New Yorker "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Looking back at it now, I'm kinda glad I had the experience of staff being completely unhelpful and downright lying to their customers about company policy, however at the time, i was beyond furious.

Anyway, we finally got the car sorted and we were on our way to Cherry Hill where Kaz's aunty lives in New Jersey. We arrived there after 2 hours of driving, had an amazing dinner and good walk around town and a good nights rest.

Aunt. D is a math teacher for a community college. We had a fascinating conversation about the quality of US education. The conclusion: It's not good. A lot of the high school graduates she teaches don't even know their times tables or how to add fractions. Terrifying. Apparently this is in large due politics. Teachers can choose what parts of math they want to teach, so many just ignore the challenging stuff. State tests are designed to make sure teachers teach students everything they need to know, but students that fail the exam still move up to the next grade anyway, so in practice, there's no incentive (from the teacher or the student) to fill in massive gaps in their math knowledge.

America day 3

The first thing we did today was go on the hunt for food. We found a few places on Google maps that seemed like good go to's for breakfast, so after about 30 minutes of social pleasantries we start our walk around town.

Wow America, just wow! Your walking pavements are just awful. It seems that the cracked and broken streets of Jakarta have a close contender for the 'most neglected sidewalks in the world' prize. America's addiction to driving has created a domino effect of problems; one of which is that it's impossible to walk anywhere, and another is that public transport is pretty much non existent. I'll rant about public transport later. When we finally arrived at our destination we got to see an amazing entendre of about a dozen giant pick up trucks trying to park in oversized parking lots, followed by an encore of obese people waddling around into shops. Sadly we couldn't find the ideal coffee shop we were looking for - only boiled peanuts and donuts.

When we got back, the whole family was set on going to the beach! The sun was shining, the grass was green, and the gators were grinning. The beach was actually beautiful, it stretched on for miles (kilometers) and miles (kilometers). After being deprived of a healthy dose of sun cancer in the Netherlands for 5 months, I was more than keen to have a dip in the ocean.

Once we got back it had suddenly turned to night, and dinner was ready for us all. Another good 'ol Southern meal. Fuck I love potato salad.

Overall, it I really enjoyed the slow pace of today. All of Florida seems to be very easy going and simple - great for a holiday. Don't think I could live here though.

America day 2

We woke up at the crack of 11pm, fed ourselves some bagels and some extremely sugary cereal, then proceeded to make our way to the gun range with Jacob.

First we made a quick stop at Walmart  to buy some ammunition. It turns out, you don't even need a licence to buy a gun or ammunition, all you need is an American passport. So Kaz bought about a hundred rounds of bullets for a 22 Cal rifle and a 16 AR. As we drove about 45 mins to the shooting range, we had some time to probe Jacob to find out more about his views on gun laws. Here's what we found: 1) you can apply for a licence to have a concealed weapon. This means exactly what you think; you can walk in public places with a gun hidden under your jacket. 2) You can drive out into the woods to go shooting if you don't want to go to a gun range. This is cheaper, but you run the risk of getting shot / shooting other hunters since (according to 19 y/o Jacob) there are no designated hunting areas or shooting directions. You just have to hope no one is in the way of your bullets. 3) This is my personal favorite: "The best thing about having a gun is that you feel invincible with it".

When we arrived at the gun range, we found out that firing the gun was no way as exciting as hearing other people firing guns. Every 10 seconds we heard deafening booms coming from shotgun fire and sniper rifle fire followed by hoots, cheers and simple one liners. The whole atmosphere of the place was drowned with male bravado - this was made especially obvious when we found out women don't have to pay the $10 visiting fee.

When we got back we had a bit of time to devour some left over pizza, ham and creamy potato salad from last night before heading off to the Kennedy space center. I won't go into detail, but it was a lot of fun. You got to see the actual space ships, launch pads and simulation training machines. Sadly they didn't go into a lot of detail about the Engineering behind the difficulties the Americans had, or the historical significance German rocket scientists played, but either way it a was a lot of fun.

America day 1

Finally I'm going to start writing a proper blog post. No more random artsy philosophical crap. Well.. maybe I'll sneak in a few philosophy posts along the way, we'll see.

Ok, so I woke up at 4:30am to catch my flight from Amsterdam to Orlando Florida. It was a bad start on my end; the plane was horribly delayed (and yes, I know, I should have checked whether the flight was on time rather than just rely on a Google update), so I stayed at the airport for about 4 hours. Also, I had forgotten to write down the American address I was staying at so I got fully stumped by the polite Dutch lady when I went to the checkin counter to get my boarding pass. However, once I got on the plane, everything was just fine; I sat next to a biologically Indian woman, who had grown up in Caribbean and had lived the last 30 years in the Netherlands - needless to say, she had a strange accent and a very interesting perspective on life. I had no idea, the British had sent Indians to South America to be farmers!?

On arrival, I was hoping to pass through a duty free shopping area so I could buy a few bottles of wine, or at least one of those yummy chocolates. No such luck. Instead I spent a good 10 - 15 minutes having a very one sided conversation with an American immigration officer who was more interested in the type of software I use as an Engineer than reading through my printed visa waver form.

Once I finally got out of the airport, I met Kaz who had patiently been waiting for me for an hour. I had planned to do one of those cliche romantic runs from the movies (can't remember which one, maybe baywatch?) where we sprint into each others arms, but that was cut short by a car almost hitting me as I crossed the road. Damn :(

When we got to the house in Titusville I met the whole family and then some. The whole family is lovely and incredibly hospitable.  So much food, so much alcohol. I forgot how much I missed Southern Food. I met a bloke called Jacob, a 19 year old who owns several guns and a car. Needlessly to say, I pressured him into taking us shooting tomorrow.

In the evening, to my surprise, everyone gathered around the TV at 8:30pm to watch the Eagles vs Raiders game (it's Football) ((American football)). It didn't seem very Christmassy, but it was an interesting cultural experience.

USA USA USA!

Distopia or Utopia?

So I've already written about freedom briefly before, but there were a few things I wanted to add to my last rant. Here we go:

It's non controversial to claim that our environment and culture shapes who we are; especially our personalities. I see it all the time, in almost any category. 1) In fashion Australians want to look strong, the Dutch want to look fit. 2) In daily conversation Americans need to constantly engage in conversation, but the Polish are often quite and reserved. Obviously this doesn't describe everyone, but there's clearly a bell curve centered differently for each country with a surprisingly small variance.

The question I think we should naturally ask ourselves after observing this is: what does freedom mean in a society where at least almost all of your desires and decisions are determined by your genetics, environment and culture? I don't know the answer to that question, but I think the only answer can come from an objective moral theory based on utilitarianism.

I think freedom is a highly prized (and bizarrely undefined) concept in all Western countries. But what if it turns out that having too much freedom conflicts with the greater good? What if we can prove mathematically that more well being is gained by tactically making someone suffer before rewarding them? What if we have the means to drug ourselves into a blissful oblivion? Is a slave with purpose happier than the individual? Sadly, I've found these types of questions can't even be asked because there's too much emotion around the subject. One of the culprits of this entanglement of emotion in my mind is the brilliant George Orwell. In 1984 he presents a straw-man perception of a world rich with surveillance, technology and limited freedoms.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but maybe a world like that minus the ridiculousness could be a real utopia. Maybe maximizing freedom is a dead end that's no more compassionate than overfeeding a dog with unlimited food. 

Every human has been dealt a strange hand; we've got hundreds of evolved mental dispositions that can drive us in a direction that we can objectively tell is wrong. We need to build a moral compass to stop us from wandering off the edge. 

Body Augmentation

We have more power to artificially change our bodies than literally every generation of humans before us. In the near future, technology will only improve and body augmentation services will only get cheaper and more effective. By itself, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact it can be a great thing! The scary part is the growing divergence between technological growth and moral growth. If we don't grow our understanding of moral philosophy, then our moral decisions will be largely influenced by our culture and biology. Why is this a problem? Well, for small things like piercings and tattoos, it's not. But for potentially irreversible things like gender change or silicon implants, it could be. 

Don't get me wrong, I think in some circumstances, extreme body augmentation can be a great thing and can empower a person to maximize their well-being. But I suspect that's not what we'll be dealing with in the near future; instead I suspect people will be shaping their bodies blindly in response to arbitrary changes in culture.

This is just one example that I believe underscores the importance of ripping the responsibility of deciding morality away from religion and moral relativists, and placing it in the hands of scientists who can objectively progress it from a few simple axioms.

Ireland wedding

Good news! My first quarter at Delft is over. Bad news! The next quarter begins immediately afterwards. I really strained myself physically and mentally for these last exams, and a short holiday is exactly what I needed.

Fortunately, my eldest cousin, Andrew, decided to get married so that I could have a weekend off in Ireland. The wedding was located in Cork, a city in the very south of Ireland. Nothing quite symbolizes Ireland's national drinking problem like a cork at the bottom of a wine sack shaped country.

Ireland met my expectations; the Guinness was amazing, the food was simple & delicious and the people were talkative & friendly. The wedding itself was really well done. All my British family members were there, so it was a mixture of pleasant and overwhelming to meetup with them. I think I struggle to get along with Brits, they've all got such a thick layer of forced politeness burring their real emotions that its almost impossible to have a conversation at a level deeper than fluffy small talk. I regret to say that I shut off during the wedding and selfishly made as much 'me time' as possible by going on multiple lone walks around the country side. I'm not sure when I transformed into such an antisocial introvert, but I'm sure my uncompromising hatred of small talk, suits and arbitrary cultural conventions played a large part.

Next stop, Holland. Next stop for my Dad and Uncle... also Holland.

Consciousness

I've been following philosophical discussions about AI recently. One idea which seems to penetrate the discussion a whole lot is about whether we should treat AI machines with compassion if they ever reach "consciousness".

I think this is a flawed question because I don't think consciousness is a binary switch, I think it's a spectrum. Consciousness is a fundamental property all living things have evolved with to different degrees. Mold, for example, can grow and form itself by reacting to the environment, and trees "know" when to grow and shed leaves. I think when you look at it this way, consciousness is nothing more than a very complicated accumulation of indifferent particles reacting to the environment by the laws of nature. I think its tempting to see ourselves with such an advanced level of thinking that it's tempting to draw an artificial line in the spectrum and declare one side conscious.

This becomes relevant when talking about morality, but i'll save that for a different rant :)

Liberals and cognitive bias

I've recently become aware of the strong liberal backlash to offensive ideas being shared on US campuses. Two of which that annoy me most are the Berkeley University protest and the Yale student mob harassing the professor Nicholas Christakis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELzUfKWTvI0).

It's tough to say when you view these things on YouTube whether these events are an accurate representation of liberal ideas. None the less, I've noticed my own liberal friends become increasingly more staunch about their ideas, so I think this rise in dogmatic and violent liberalism is somewhat accurate. Here's a cartoon mocking what I think is a mainstream liberal and conservative approach to truth.

I suspect the leading cause of this is that most young people trap themselves in virtual echo chambers, which leaves them emotionally hypersensitive to opposing ideas. This makes it harder to view social issues objectively. How can you have a rational conversation about gay rights when the atmosphere is so emotionally unstable? It's just not a good way to pursue truth! 

I fear that the internet has also become the modern day equivalent of gathering your pitch fork and torch. It's easy for a group of people to damage businesses via reviews, and it's even easier to write hate speech anonymously via message boards. Having the power to cause an instantaneous effect due to a spike in emotion is a cause for instability. And das bad.

You're gonna be surprised to hear me say this, but I think the main culprit of these problems is NOT religion, it's the internet. We're biologically predisposed to seek confirmation bias, and to feel anger, and I think these primal parts of ourselves are being facilitated with 21st century technology.

objective truth

I've met people who study philosophy who claim that 'everything is subjective'. This mocks that viewpoint.

Cultural rulebook

Must... not... rant... about... arbitrary cultural... norms... Arraaargghh

Why is it that walking around the city shirtless is so offensive? If it's because seeing a potentially ugly sweaty persons torso in the city is physically or mentally scaring to some degree, then it should also be culturally taboo to do it at the beach.

Why is it that we can't eat with our hands at a restaurant? If it's because the sight of someone eating with their hands is disgusting to you, then it should also be culturally taboo to do it at the beach. 

Why is it that we all feel the subtle pressure not to run while on a deserted pedestrian walkway? If it's because it's too dangerous or causes too much congestion, then it should also be culturally taboo to run on a crowded beach. 

The reason we act in certain ways isn't entirely for practical reasons. Humans have evolved to conform to accepted norms - and those norms evolve over time as well due to environmental and social factors. The real reason we don't do the things I mentioned above is mostly because 1) Accessorizing through clothing has historically been a sign of wealth and success 2) Eating with cutlery is hygienic and 3) Running through streets has historically been associated with childish or criminal activity. 

It frustrates me that people defend these arbitrary cultural norms by lazily labeling any other way of acting "impolite". But why is it impolite? It's not for practical reasons, it's because people subconsciously learn to mimic a behavior observed in certain places at certain times. Saying that "it's just polite" is a really circular argument. 

I feel like I'm going crazy just watching humans march around like ants obeying arbitrary cultural norms. So I thought I'd mock this idea by creating a 'cultural rulebook'. Here it is.

Suspension of judgement (philosophical rant)

Two cartoons in short succession! Aren't you guys lucky? You're in for a real treat today! Today I'm going to mindlessly rant about suspension of judgement.

Every claim you believe to be true (eg I'm 27 years old, gravity is 9.81 m/s^2, the earth is round etc etc) requires evidence or rational proof to be true. This is clearly true for scientific things like proving a^2 + b^2 = c^2. But I think it's also true for "subjective" things like 'my family loves me'. Why? Well, the only way to try and pluck something true from a mysterious universe is to make hypotheses about the world (eg water evaporates) and experiment with the universe as much as possible (eg testing hundreds of buckets of water in different environments). Statistically speaking, the larger the sample size, the more confident we can be that our hypothesis is true. Mathematical statements like x = -b +-sqrt(b^2-4ac)/2a are things that we can be most confident of being true because these are generalized formulas which means they'll work for any number (an infinite sample size!). Sadly though, we can never have absolute certainty that anything is 100% true (even 1+1 = 2) because we could all be in a vat seeing a virtual world that could be fake. This means that to be entirely rational you should suspend judgement on literally everything. That's where practicality comes in; where you should believe things to be true proportional to the likely hood that they're true - but this is a rant for another cartoon.

Anywho, my whole point was to say this. At no point would it be rational to believe anything true on faith. Faith requires belief without evidence, and I think this is the most intellectually damaging approach to truth that there is. If faith was an appropriate way to discover truth then the world should bend according to my imagination - why not have faith that the world is flat? Or that orange juice is made from spider blood?

Even if something is true then it would be rational to suspend judgement until you have enough evidence to believe it.

Freedom isn't good for you.

Hey folks, I've been wanting to make this small little cartoon for a while now. I kinda rushed it a bit so don't judge me on my drawing skills.

The purpose of this cartoon is to show that the human desire for more freedom is nothing more than a product of our evolutionary past. The first two rows aren't controversial at all; we all know that our bodies have evolved to naturally crave high energy sugar and to minimize physical labor. And we know this is a problem because a recent explosion in technology has placed our primitive bodies in an environment where we have unlimited snack food, and a sedentary lifestyle.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to connect the dots a bit further. I think early humans evolved with a biological urge to maximize choice. 10,000 years ago the choice to have another home, meal or piece of clothing would have been a huge evolutionary advantage. Now humans are placed in an environment where there is almost unlimited opportunity (career wise, clothing wise, travel wise etc) which I suspect is ironically a huge source of anxiety for us since choosing one path is closing the door on all the others. In western countries (and especially in America), freedom is value that we continue to strive blindly towards, yet I suspect our biology is misleading us. I think we'd be on the whole happier if we had less freedom, and instead one very well defined path for our lives.

I'll even go one step further and suspect that depression (which is a super complicated condition correlated with hundreds of variables) is mainly caused by having a lifestyle which is sufficiently different from the lifestyle our caveman brains expect us to be living.

Delft Second Impressions

So I've been in Delft for about 3 weeks now. This place is great; the weather has been amazing, my flatmates are all awesome, I've made a few friends from the induction and the University seems to be a great mix of social, sporty and academic.

First about the weather. It's been sunny and shining every day (except one) that I've been here. This actually makes me a little scared because now I know the next coming months of weather must be especially shit to live up to Netherlands average of bad weather.

I have 3 flatmates; Joost (Joosty-toasty), Ivo (Ivory), and Ubles (Blue balls). All of them are great fun. Meeting Joost and Ivo went just as you'd expect - I met them when I first moved in and they seemed like really social guys. Ubles was different; I first met Ubles as he was half way between a frantic rush to drop off some acoustic equipment and leave with another suitcase. As he waved hi and bye to me he managed to squeeze out that he was in a band that had just performed in Poland and was about to perform in the north of the Netherlands. Later that week I found myself fiddling around with the radio only to hear Ubles voice pop out of the speakers - apparently he's also a radio host for his fraternity in his spare time from being a full time Architecture student and programmer. All 4 of us gather around on Mondays to do a group activity like go to a pub, watch a movie, cook dinner etc. I'm very happy I've found a house with mature people who genuinely care about flatmate integration, this is exactly what I was looking for. Moreover, I think the stereotype that Dutch people are too direct to the point of being rude, false. It's true that they're very direct, but this is a very welcome trait for me, because now I don't need to potter around someones feelings to describe something objective. The Dutch have a saying which translates directly into "I hear what you're saying and I disagree, let's move onto another topic". Amazing :D

The house is also a messy shithole! Yay! There's a small hole in my ceiling, paint is peeling off everywhere, and the staircase is so dangerously steep you have to rock-climb to get to the lounge. There are also a whole bunch of half-assed Engineering projects scattered around the house everywhere, some of these include; the radio power supply connected to the light-switch, a neck tie connected by a pulley system to flip a switch, a half built hot tub in the back and a beer crate that's been filled with soil, plants and herbs (we officially have a beer garden!).

OK, now let's talk about some general things I've observed about Holland. People here are tall, like really tall. I think I'm slightly below average height and now I constantly get the sensation that my view is being obstructed by giant bobbing blonde human heads. I suspect the reason Dutch people are so tall is so that they can remain above sea level if the dykes ever break. Dutch people are also super honest. At some super markets they have scanner guns which customers can pick up to record their own items as they shop. The staff completely trusts them as they go through the self serve checkout in less than 10 seconds.

Oh yeah, the food here is a really good! Not as good as German food, but still pretty mouth watering. Cheese and mustard has become my new favorite snack food. I've cooked dinner a few times for my flatmates and once they incorrectly start questioning my strange cooking styles, I reply "oh, that's just the Australian way of doing it". If anyone asks, under-cooked chicken is an Australian specialty.

Not everything is perfect though. I set up my bank account with ING on the 13th of August and I still haven't received my bank card in the mail. WTF, mate? It takes me less time to send a bicycle to Australia and back again...

Delft First impressions

I'm in the Netherlands now!

I've been here for about a week. In this time I've gotten to know my way around the city and gotten to know my Engineering flatmates; Joost, Ivo and Ibles. More on them later. Here are the main things I've learned about Delft:

1) Bike riding is everywhere. I was expecting there to be a lot of bikes, but this is something else. They're hardly any cars, and under every railway station there's a huge underground storage facility holding thousands of bikes (think iRobot, except replace advanced AI robots with worn down and weathered bikes). My flatmates tell me that once University starts I'll get to experience "bike rush hour" in the morning. I honestly can't wait to see a large line of stationary bikes with all riders angrily ringing their high pitched bike bells. I purchased my own crappy bike for 65 euro and I'm proud to say that the novelty of calmly riding around town is already wearing off. I'm now as impatient and fast as the locals. I can't wait to drag race an elderly woman in an electric wheel chair.

2) The city is beautiful. The architecture of the buildings and the cobbled walking paths make the whole city center seem like a castle. The beautiful network of canals & bridges running through the city also add to this feeling, and kinda look like a really inefficient moat.

3) Delft is a student town, and that means there's a big nightlife here. I went to a small festival yesterday in the city center and I noticed two main things: 1) all locals look like they belong in the cast of "Greece" the musical - a lot of them have leather jackets and have slicked back hair, and 2) Beer throwing is a thing. At festivals most people will drink 90% of their beer and then throw the plastic cup and the other 10% of beer all the way to the mosh pit. It literally rains beer.

4) The university is amazing! I've toured the whole area and the facilities are top notch - much better than UNSW. I've also had a look at my flatmates thesis projects so I could get a gauge of the quality of work that will be expected of me. I think I'm going to be really challenged here. Dis gon be tuf.

5) Winkel is Dutch for Store :)

Day 6 Austria

I woke up at 9am so I could frantically get my stuff together to check out on time. I met up with Kumaran (the Irish dude) right afterwards and we decided to check out the city together.

Begin Interesting backstory:
Before I got wasted last night, I decided to book a bus all the way to Amsterdam. Coincidentally the Irish dude was catching the same bus all the way to Brussels.
End of Interesting backstory:

I took a tour around the castle and city center. It's a really beautiful tiny city. There were little kidlings playing Pokemon Go trying to catch a legendary Pokemon by the castle. It reminded me a lot of when I was traveling around Europe with my family as a kid with my face glued to a black and white gameboy. No regrets.

Munich was the first stop out of many towards the Netherlands. We managed to make a few friends on the bus and we all decided to grab beers at a beer garden and eat kebabs at a neighboring stall. The lack of rain made my experience of Munich this time round a whole lot more pleasant.

While I was on my 12 hour bus ride to the Netherlands I had some time to reflect on what I had learned traveling through Germany and Almost Germany.

1) If you want to order the big 1L beer glass, do not call it a "stein". They don't know what that means. Instead order "Une Mass"
2) Starbucks has free WiFi
3) WC stands for bathroom

There were some other things I learned, but those were the main ones.

Day 5 Austria

I arrived in Salzburg in the late afternoon and made my way directly to my 30 euro / night hostel called "Muffin". Rather than catch public transport, I decided to waddle my way through the city center. My first impression of Austria is that it's very similar to Germany (my lasting impression is that it's very similar to Germany). When I arrived at my hostel I was initially very pessimistic about my socializing opportunities because I saw lot's of people in their 50's waddling around. I later found out that there was a classic music festival over the weekend which was filling up every form of accommodation - hence the expensive hostel and the presence of old people.

However, I was lucky enough that I managed to run into an Irish guy and Austrian girl while I was making dinner in the kitchen. They were active hikers in their early 20's that had just finished hiking independently around the Austrian Alps. I didn't have the equipment, time or organizational skills to do a hike in the alps this trip, so I decided to live the experience through their descriptive story telling.

We all had the intention of going out to the city center to grab a few beers, but we all got distracted playing ping pong and drinking beers at the hostel instead.

By around 4:30am, I stumbled drunk into my 4 bedroom hostel trying desperately not to wake my 50 y/o Chinese woman and Indian male roommates up.

Day 4 Germany

Munich is big, like really big, like so big it makes Los Angles looks still massive, but only kind of massive. In fact, because Germany is so well interconnected by roads and train lines, it’s not uncommon to find people who work in Munich, but live in an adjacent city. Johns Uncle is one of those people, and he gave me a lift to Munich at 6am for free. I arrived at 7am and proceeded to walk around the city for a solid 11 hours before I could meet up with my Austrian friend after she finished work.

Walking around Munich was interesting, but exhausting. It started to rain quite heavily at 12:00 so my walk around “English Park” was cut short. It also meant I couldn’t enjoy Munich’s famous beer gardens as much since I had to sip on my beer undercover and not in the garden. On the Brightside though, I spent a large chunk of time in the University and state library which was kinda cool! The bottom of Munich’s University featured a small museum where anyone could learn about how the University of Munich tried to stop the Nazi’s. If I remember correctly, the “white rose” was a small resistance movement started in 1942 which opposed many Nazi-esk things, including the invasion of Russia. But I think shortly after small group of academics got started releasing their pamphlets, they got shut down by the “Gestapo” and assassinated.

I met my friend, Anita at a beer garden at 6:00. I was sore, tired and full of way too many pretzels, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a lovely German dinner and stein. We had planned to do a Beer garden pub crawl around Munich, but after some misadventures with bike riding in the rain, I put in the towel and begged for an easy night of Game of Thrones and hot chocolate. I got my wish.

Gutten bye Germany. Next stop, Austria!

Day 3 Germany

Today I learned that Augsberg is famous for having the largest prostitution per resident ratio in Germany. :)

 John had work today so this was my chance to borrow a bicycle and explore the city on my own. In an expected turn of events, breakfast had been prepared for us - it was a traditional German breakfast including; bratwurst, pretzel and heffeweizen. Absolutely delicious. I'm sure having alcohol super early in the morning 2 days in a row didn't help my lingering jetlag.

There wasn't much to do in the town, but I proceeded to do the lost tourist march to find all the major attractions anyway. There were a few cool statues and some overpriced museums. In the midst of it all I got to meet with a homeless man who is informally known as the "King of Augsburg". I took a shameless selfie with him and was on my way. On the way back I stopped by the University to check out their facilities. My lasting impression is "meh, is aiight I guess".

By late afternoon I retreated back to Johns mums home to cocoon myself in the comforts fast WiFi and free food. Once recovered I went for a 2 to 3 hour hike around the giant park next to the house. It was fantastich!

In the evening John and I went to a brewery to try a lot of local beers. It was a good end to a good trip :)

Next stop, Munich!

Day 2 Germany

We woke up at the crack of 7am to go on a long hike. I had breakfast with the family, including Johns grandmother and uncle. At some point I joked that I planned on using "schnapps" to hydrate myself during the hike instead of water now that I'm in Bavaria. Sadly, the grandmother, who knows literally no English (that's right, none) latched onto the word "schnapps" and assumed I wanted some with breakfast. In the most aggressive act of hospitality she poured me a full shot of 60% APV schnapps that was in the cupboard next to me. I gestured that John wanted some too, and we began what would become a great day of tipsy hiking.

We drove 2 hours south to a hiking track called Höllen Thalklamm (Hell Valley). It's a trail that goes up and around the mountains that separate Germany from Austria - Trump would be proud. We packed 6 beers for the trip and 1 bottle of water - we could refill the water bottle at anytime from the stream that we were hiking along. There was a restaurant at the top where I enjoyed SpecKnödel (kinda like a bacon dumpling) & sour kraut. The meal was perfect and it reinforced my strongly held view that Germany has the best food in Europe.

We arrived back home instantly using a teleporter (the Germans call it the "autobahn"). We reached a max speed of 180 km/hr... how fucking crazy is that!? A wonderful traditional meal had been prepared for us, and an additional guest called Roxanna (a relative of Johns from Romania) had joined us for dinner. Everyone's proficiency level in English was very different; the grandmother at the bottom and Roxanna at the top, so we had to take turns switching between English and German, with poor John acting as a UN translator the whole time.

I wanted to end the night with a bang by going to a pub to drink a few more steins, but God decided to become my own personal bouncer and made it piss down with rain. Instead we watched War Dogs and went to bed. Great day all up.

Day 1 Germany

This small collection of posts will be about my trip around Germany before I begin my new life in the Netherlands.

But first, some housekeeping: I've spent the last 7 months in Sydney working at Smart Sparrow. Before flying to Europe Kaz and I visited my parents in KL. After almost a week, Kaz and I split ways and I headed to London for Laura's wedding. On the 7th, free from family commitments, I made my way to Luton Airport to fly to Munich.

Once I arrived in Munich, Johannes (who I call John because I'm a dumb English speaker) picked me up and drove us both to Augsburg. We got lost a few times but made it there in the end. I put far too much pressure on John to go to a pub before we arrived at his parents place. He reluctantly accepted and we both powered down a well anticipated and unearned stein and Hefeweizen. No food in either of our stomach's got us both a tad tipsy, so I figured the only way to sober up was to accept Johns offer to drive his manual car all the way home. Spoiler: We didn't die, but I did stall the car in the wrong lane a few times. I guess its fortunate for me it was only a 2 minute drive in a safe and empty neighborhood.

When we arrived we found out Johns mum had stayed up till midnight just to greet me. John said its because an Australian arriving is "big news"; I think it's because she wanted to make sure she wasn't housing a psychopath. Either way, she was very hospitable and lovely.

Science and Moral progression

I'm baaaaack.

The rise in AI has interested me quite a lot lately. Imagine a driver-less car that's destined to hit either 1 pedestrian or 3. How would the AI process what to do in a situation like that? These are moral questions that will eventually need to be coded into the AI.

Sadly though, technological progress is skyrocketing, while moral philosophy is still pottering around at an elementary philosophical level. My experience from studying moral philosophy at University taught me that there is no unanimously agreed upon definition of morality, yet alone an objectively progressing moral science. I suspect religion is the main culprit for this.

Regardless, this chasm between science and moral philosophy is going to be a huge problem for the future. I suspect whole new fields of moral engineering will pop up, sidestepping regressive philosophical relativists. If it doesn't, however, I suspect technology will become increasingly unbounded and will be incorrectly viewed as the cause for a lot of damage & and destruction.

Freedom fighter in the future

I've decided i'm gong to create really quick and silly cartoons mocking George Orwell's view about technology. I actually really liked the book, but I don't like the hysteria about technology and AI that's become quite mainstream since.

Future

Working in the Engineering industry has taught me a lot. One of the things it taught me was that large companies have too much inertia to adjust to changes in working culture. I think this is because a) retraining a lot of staff is hard and inefficient and b) The decision makers of big companies are quite traditional and don't see the real trend of work culture.

This cartoon compares a traditional linear prediction of work culture (Expectations) and what I think will actually happen (Reality). I also wanted to include one other row: Expectations = 50% male 50% female work split in every field. Reality = Analytics driven analysis of individuals creates a natural male / female ratio in different fields.

Social Media and truth

Hey folks. Another random cartoon to keep you uninterested. Throughout the US election I couldn't help but focus less on the candidates, and more on the way my friends and I were being informed. I, like many other young people, rely a lot on social media to get instantly informed about the world. Consequently, I noticed a plethora of 1 minute videos, memes and emotionally fuelled one liners pop up everywhere. This really annoys me because despite the fact that we live in a time when we have access to almost unlimited information, much of that useful information is diluted with emotional crap. 99% of what I saw online focused on Trumps hair, hands or way of talking rather than his proposed policies - which is what really matters.

Now I know what you're saying: "filter out the dumb content and focus on the good stuff". Sadly this isn't so easy to do because even formal debates on respected News channels are still structured in a way which adds to confirmation bias. The whole idea of a debate where 1 person is "versing" another person is inherently flawed - instead there should be a collaborate effort by experts to analyze on agreed data.

This image describes just the influence social media plays in keeping us in our own echo chamber. TV, Newspapers and social groups all have their issues too.

In other news, I currently live in Sydney, I'm working for Smart Sparrow and I'm leaving for Delft at the end of July. Yeew!

Australians

Heyo so I'm back in Australia after spending xmas with my family in KL, Malaysia. There are some things I definitely missed about Sydney:
1) free rent (thanks mum and dad :D)
2) The weather
3) The beauty of the city

There are other things I definitely did not miss about Sydney. One of those things are Australian women. Now bare with me here: this is just another mindless stupid rant of mine - what i'm showing below is massively exaggerated.

This little piece of artwork/shit is called "how Australian women think".