Monthly Archives: May 2007

The eternal silence

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This is a sad story from Reuters:

The decomposed corpse of a German man was found alone in his bed after nearly seven years, police in the western city of Essen said Thursday.

The police said in a statement the man was 59 and unemployed at the time of his death. He most likely died of natural causes on November 30, 2000, the date he received a letter from the Welfare Office found in the apartment, police said.

Next to the dead man’s bed police found cigarettes, an open television guide and Deutschemark coins, which came out of circulation after the euro was introduced in 2002.

The man’s apartment was in a building with offices and apartments, many of which are now empty.

“No one missed him. No missing person report was ever filed,” the police said.

I have been accused of reclusive behaviour (one person went as far as to call me a hermit), but I can only hope I don’t go out in such a lonely fashion.

My poor brain

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The days are starting to melt into one another. I’ve always been affected by insomnia in some shape or form, but it seems to have become worse in the last few weeks. Switching off is nigh on impossible unless I run myself into the ground, and then I’ll sleep for two hours and be awake for 36. I’m starting to feel like a walking zombie 🙁

Conquering the universe, one microbe at a time

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Well it’s one way to colonise the galaxy.

According to space.com, terrestrial bacteria are being scattered to the distant stars. That’s because they are clinging to derelict rocket stages of Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10. As these stages were never sterilised, the microbes — left by the hands and breath of various engineers — are now on a path out of the solar system. If we can’t get there, at least the bugs that live inside us will. An interesting take on immortality.

The bacteria is probably in a state of suspended animation, but it’s impossible to tell for sure. They may have been irradiated out of existence or still be clinging to life in some shape or fashion. However, microbes which have been dormant on Earth for years have been resurrected in the laboratory, so it’s not outside the realms of possibility that someday, somewhere, our little germs will be brought back to life (let’s hope they don’t turn on those who awaken them). There is a precedent for such life to escape our atmosphere and return intact — at least one of NASA’s moon landings brought Earth bacteria to the lunar surface and back again. Imagine their disappointment when they realised that, instead of finding life outside our world, they’d simply forgotten to sterilise the craft.

Such piggybacking is one theory for how life began on Earth; that meteors/asteroids which smacked the bejaysus out of our planet when it was naught but a nipper survived, then promptly went forth and multiplied. It feels strange to consider the possibility that we are, in essence, aliens.

Not that our distant relatives, if we have any, would even recognise us; but then we probably wouldn’t recognise them either. The universe is not going to be populated by the bipedal descendants of primates, whatever Star Trek, Star Wars and the like would have us believe. The reality is likely to be much more fantastic and at the same time much more mundane. We tend to think of life as equivalent to ourselves; this is only natural as we are the first species on Earth (that we know of) to have developed self-awareness. But “life” is an elastic term encompassing everything from monkeys such as ourselves to the intrepid microscopic explorers mentioned above.

Sentient mud, trees with a conscience and fish that could outthink Einstein are all possibilities we must be aware of.

But notice how I can’t help but compare them to what’s already found on Earth?

It was inevitable

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The English Premier League is suing YouTube for alleged copyright infringement. According to the BBC, the league has filed a lawsuit in New York and is seeking unspecified damages.

The case claims the ridiculously popular website “knowingly misappropriated and exploited” league property. The soccer power group wrote to YouTube in October, asking it to take down material it said infringed the rights of its clubs. YouTube is already being sued by Viacom for $1 billion. I wonder if Google have any regrets about their purchase?

It’s been a bad week for many people’s favourite search engine, as there’s speculation Microsoft and Yahoo! are working on an alliance to tackle Google’s dominance when it comes to online advertising. Ah well, it’s about time Microsoft had to work for their market share.

Tragedy without end

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The warring factions in Sri Lanka agreed a ceasefire five years ago. Officially, both the government and the Tamil Tigers say it’s still in place and they are observing the truce. In reality, the war rages anew.

About 65,000 people died during the war proper (1983-2002). More than 3,000 have died in the last year. About 160,000 have been forced to leave their homes. There have been allegations of human rights abuses and the killing of civilians by both sides. It seems the hopes raised by Norwegian-brokered peace talks five years ago have been dashed.

The conflict dates back to independence from Britain in the late 1940s. The new regime was Sinhalese-speaking and Buddhist in orientation, while the Tamils, who are largely Hindu with Christian and Muslim minorities, suffered widespread discrimination. War broke out when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stepped up their low-level offensive into an armed campaign for a separate Tamil state on the island of Sri Lanka (incidentally, the vast majority of Tamils live in India).

The Tamil fight has stepped up dramatically in recent months. Having lost strategic territory to the military in September, the Tigers killed at least 130 government soldiers in one day of fighting (the number of Tamil casualties is disputed). They followed up the battle with a suicide attack on a naval convoy which killed about 100 soldiers. Bus bombings came next.

Then, in March, the rebels carried out their first airstrike. A second strike last week briefly knocked out the power to the island’s capital, Colombo. Previously, the Sri Lankan government had held total air superiority; the military continues to bomb rebel positions. The island’s only international airport is now closed at nights.

Despite the continuous artillery bombardment by the government, the Tamils operate a de facto state. There are Tamil laws, courts, police and even a forestry department. But they only continue to operate in the absence of government control of the north of the island, where the Tamil Tigers are strongest.

The stated goal of the Tigers — who are listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US — is a Tamil state in the north and east of the island. The current Sri Lankan offensive has largely driven the rebel forces out of the east, which leaves the fortified northern heartland. There is no telling how bloody the fighting will be if and when the government launches a final assault to crush the rebels.

Matthew Rosenberg, who has covered the conflict extensively for the Associated Press, was given special permission to cross the frontier into rebel territory. You can read his report, which details how Tamil civilians are steeling themselves for war, here.

Bus trip

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An elderly man sat across the aisle from me on the bus yesterday.

There’s nothing unusual in that, per se. But this was an unusual man.

I’m not sure if he was drunk or simply strange, but he kept asking me questions. I didn’t realise it at first, because I was listening to music; my earphones are sound-reducing. God knows what the other passengers thought of me, sitting there while a guy tried to engage me in conversation. But they weren’t the kind of questions travellers normally ask one another. Not “how are you?” or “what time is it?”, but “where does this bus go?”

“It goes past the school, then on to the city,” I said.

He looked blankly at me. “Cork city?”

I nodded politely. My interior monologue said: “No, Belfast.” (There are times when I wonder what it would be like to speak my mind at any given moment, then remind myself I wouldn’t want to live in such a world.)

“Where does it stop?”

“South Mall.”

“Where?”

“The South Mall.”

He seemed to mutter absently for much of the trip; the fact that I could make out the noise (but not the detail) while wearing my earphones seems to imply he was being pretty loud.

The schoolkids got on and the old man was drowned out. But about five or six stops later most of them were gone and the aisle between me and the aul fella was clear again. I was sitting there, listening to music and utterly oblivious to the world around me, including him.

I don’t know how long he’d been trying to get my attention. He didn’t gesture at me in a bid to catch my eye, he just kept calling out. Eventually I twigged that someone was talking to me.

He smiled at me with yellow teeth worn down to nubs. “Are we in Cork yet?”

“No, two more stops.”

“What?”

“Two more stops.”

“Oh. Will you tell me when?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you, it’s okay.”

I dimly wondered what kind of life this man had led if he didn’t recognise Cork or realise the bus went there (it’s the last stop on this particular route). But I was in work mode and was largely lost in thoughts of what I had to do. Perhaps I should have asked him, but it never occurred to me.

As the bus trundled along George’s Quay I anticipated the guy’s next request.

“Are we in Cork yet?”

“It’s the next stop, but you can get out here if you like.”

“What?”

“You can get out here. It’s near the South Mall.”

“I’ll get out here so. Thank you, man.”

I hadn’t realised how frail the fellow was. He was wearing a sling yellowed with either sweat or cigarette smoke, although it was hanging around his neck and not supporting his arm. He was almost bent over double as he shuffled his way down the aisle of the bus and down the steps.

I couldn’t see exactly what happened next, but I think he fell. The driver leaped from his seat and down the steps after the old man. I don’t know where he went or how he got there. I wonder if I’ll see him again.

Descendents have a song called “When I Get Old”:

As I travel through my time / will I like what I find? / What will it be like / when I get old?

I don’t want to be that old man. But then, if I were to get into that state, would I be aware of it? And if I was, at 70 years of age, would I care? The 20-something me does, though. Perhaps I’m just a proud man, or perhaps I just like to be in control of my faculties. But I really mean it. I don’t want to be that old man.