Go to content Go to navigation Go to search

· 12 December 2011, 21:25 ·

Barbara Ehrenreich: A vacation in the West

It would be nice to go on a vacation where I didn’t have to worry about being ripped limb from limb by some big ursine slob…All right, I know the ecologically correct line: ‘They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.’ But who knows what bothers a bear?…So instead of communing with the majestic peaks and flower-studded meadows, I spend my hikes going over all the helpful tips for surviving an Encounter. Look them in the eye? No, that was mountain lions. Bears just hate it when you stare at them, so keep your gaze fixed dreamily on the scenery. Play dead? Let’s see, that works for grizzlies but not for black bears. So do you take off the backpack, get out the wildlife guidebook, do a quick taxonomic determination and then play dead?

What a nice way to start an article!

(Found in: Allison, T., Puce, A., McCarthy, G., et al. (2000). Social perception from visual cues: role of the STS region. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(7):267–278. PDF)

Comment on this article

· 30 November 2011, 01:17 ·

Easing the pain of referencing, Part I: Reference Managers

When you’re writing an academic article, one of the most annoying parts of the process is getting your references right. It’s an annoying but necessary task, that requires a large chunk of time that would be better spent on getting the content right. However, with the help of a referencing software you can reduce this hassle significantly.

A referencing software is essentially a database of the articles you have read. From within your authoring software, e.g. OpenOffice Writer, LaTeX or Word, you can then put in the appropriate citations whenever necessary. Using these citations, the referencing software will then automatically generate a bibliography of all the articles cited, in the bibliography style required. This can be a massive help!

Many referencing programmes can also store and organise the PDF documents linked to their database. Thus, they act like a personal library, containing all the PDFs of the articles you have read—ready to access, annotate and reference, and you have a quick and handy way of searching through all the articles you have read, double-check quotations, and store notes for a document.

Furthermore, a good referencing software will let you import references directly from online library catalogues, publishers, and Google Scholar. (Part II of this series will tell you how) Some even automatically extract the required information from an article’s PDF file.

In this post, I briefly want to introduce three reference managers, BibDesk, Mendeley and Zotero. It is not meant to be a comprehensive How-To or overview of all reference managers available; I simply want to show what is out there, for those that are not familiar with this kind of software. Please look around what else is there, Wikipedia has a table that lists more than two dozen programmes., and is a good starting point to explore what software suits your needs best.

Also, if you use another referencing software, please leave a comment summarising its features, what you like about it and what not. (In particular, I would love to hear about Referencer, Qiqqa, Papers and KBibTeX)

BibDesk

Screenshot of BibDesk library.

BibDesk targets LateX and LyX users on Mac OS X. It automatically generates a BibDesk file that you can then link from your LaTeX/Lyx document.

BibDesk is one of my favourite applications. It has a sleek, comprehensive interface, centred around the library containing all the references. Depending on your workflow, you can create as many different libraries as you like, e.g. one per document. But I have started to keep all references in a single library that contains all references I have ever read in my academic career. I can quickly search the entire database for authors, titles and journals. To structure my library, I have assigned keywords, which is a far more efficient method than creating separate databases.

One feature I absolutely love about BibDesk is its auto file ability. Once I have created a new entry, I can drag and drop a PDF into BibDesk and it will move the PDF document into a single folder and assign it a sensible name. (In my case, this would be First Author, Year - Title (Keywords).pdf, but you can configure this in the preferences.) Thus, my PDFs aren’t scattered all over my hard drive and easily accessible through the search functionality in the BibDesk application. Furthermore, you can store your notes on a reference in BibDesk as well, which is also very handy for lecture notes.

You can get most references from Google Scholar or directly from the academic publisher, so you don’t have to type them in. BibDesk offers you a simple web interface that lets you search a number of academic databases for articles and lets you can directly import the references from within BibDesk. Unfortunately, to my knowledge you can’t do both in one go, instead you have to import the reference, then download the PDF, and then drag and drop it into BibDesk from the Finder.

To use the BibDesk library in LaTeX you can then simply use the standard commands (e.g \cite{}) to add a reference to your document, or you can also use BibDesk’s “Cite Drawer” feature, that lets you drag and drop one or more references with the appropriate citation command. If you’re using LaTeX, I am just going to assume, you know how to do the rest… if not, there are gazillions of tutorials available online.

In LyX, you can use the Insert > Citation to select a reference and its style. But see the LyX wiki on BibTeX for how to link a library and for an in-depth description on how to use BibTeX in LyX.

Whilst BibDesk does not offer in-built synchronisation of your library, this can easily be achieved using Autofile and a software like Dropbox.
There is also a third-party iPad/iPhone app, that lets you synch and read articles on your iOS device, but it is not very reliable and a bit complicated to set up.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a cross-platform application with a clean and sleek interface. Like, BibDesk, it offers a number of advanced features that come in handy, and it can organise your PDFs as well. What I like most about Mendeley, is its ability to guess bibliographical information from a PDF you add. Although this doesn’t work every time, it even makes a BibDesk user like me jealous!

Mendeley also has a web browser plug-in (so you can add a reference to your library when you download the article) and a number of social features. For example it will recommend similar articles based on what you have read and you can browse Mendeley’s crowd-sourced article database.

There are a plugins for OpenOffice Writer and MS Word, so using Mendeley is pretty easy. Mendeley can also automatically generate BibTeX BibTeX files for *TeX users. I haven’t used this feature, and it seems that it does not offer full BibTeX support.

There is an integrated only-synchronisation available, and you can also synch your library with your iPad or iPhone, although the reviews for the corresponding app are mixed at best.

Zotero

Zotero takes an interesting approach to: It is an extension for Mozilla Firefox and you can fetch the bibliographical data in the browser. There is a plug-in for Microsoft Word. I have never used Zotero, and therefore can’t say much about it, but I wanted to mention it due to its unusual approach, which may appeal to some users.

Conclusion

There is no point in writing your references by hand and learning bibliographical styles by hand, when you can get a software to do it for you. Depending on what software you use to write your documents, what OS you use, and what other features you might want, there is a wide selection of reference managers out there that can do the job for you. Many of them will also be useful in collecting bibliographical information for you, and also serve as a personal library.

Although reference managers can be extremely powerful tools, you still have to make sure the automatically generated references are correct and consistent. Particularly when you import a reference from Google Scholar or academic publishers, it may be incomplete or even false. Page numbers may be missing and titles can be wrongly capitalised. But although they don’t take all the work off your shoulders, they are extremely handy.

Comment on this article

· 9 November 2011, 01:01 ·

No News For Me

I’m what you would probably consider a news junkie. Everyday I spend around two-three hours reading the news, coming in through various channels: Blogs, Twitter, the websites of the Guardian, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Heise and so on. From political commentary, election results, campaigns, protests, climate change, copyright legislation, immigration, the NHS, etc.—I read it all. I would usually be up-to-date and well informed.

But after doing this for a few years now, there is little left to surprise me: A new news item on the Guardian? I can guess what it says. Apple releases new hardware? Sure they do. The new Linux kernel brings new hardware drivers? Interesting. NHS reform? Tell me something new. Homoeopathy doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to? Well, neither does Reiki. Climate change is a fact? I’ve seen the evidence. HTML5 might lose the <time> element? Nope, luckily <time> is back. Financial Markets in turmoil? Oh sure, even Berlusconi resigns. The current economic system is inherently unfair? Yep, and that’s not even going into gender aspects. This is how you become a street photographer. This is the law. Apple sues Samsung and Samsung sues Apple? Who cares. But did you know that soon you can talk to dolphins? Disregarding the quality of most science reporting, which is sometimes utterly appalling. But I even read about about pretty pylons and ugly graphs

I devour the content, side with issues, applaud authors who write good analyses and get annoyed with those who—in my view—miss the point. Some stories just make me sad, some make me laugh—good satires usually do both at the same time.

Most of the things I have read, I have already forgotten. Some I keep in my del.icio.us, and from the ones I remember and those I keep there, most of them are irrelevant. But occasionally they covered my back in exams and discussions, and I was able to provide arguments I otherwise couldn’t. Thus, this habit was incredibly useful at times.

But it’s getting too much, too dull and too repetitive, in particular with anything political. Don’t get me wrong, I love politics. But when you scroll through your Twitter feed or the news stream, you can pretty much predict what you’re going to read when you click on an article, and I am getting tired of it. Instead of the Guardian, I would be better off reading Pettit, Popper or Plato. I feel that there’s more to be discovered in there than the daily iterations of the papers. It’s a little bit like zooming out, from the nitty gritty daily politics to a wider picture. But there is another aspect to it: There’s not much I can do about most of the news. Whether I read them or not, not much will change (other than my emotional state after reading a particularly aggravating text). Also, I could also spend the time reading literature and actually taking my mind off things, too.

Enough is enough: For one month I won’t be reading any news. No Guardian, BBC, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Heise, Macrumors, no blogs, I will still be on Twitter but I will disregard any news-like content there. I will make an exception for articles on statistics, evolution and psychology. After all, this is what I study. Oh, and XKCD. One must read XKCD.

Let’s see how it goes.

If the world suddenly comes to an end, please do let me know.

Comment on this article

· 2 November 2011, 22:36 ·

Popper: Irrefutable Marxism has been refuted?

It’s been an in-joke amongst Popper’s critics like Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos that in the subject index of Popper’s Open Society and it’s Enemies lists Marxism as “—irrefutable” and “—refuted” at the same time (Lakatos & Feyerabend, 2010).

But for Popper this is not so much of a problem—he distinguishes between different kinds of Marxism, the original one proposed by Marx and the numerous attempts by his followers to evade refutation. He argues that the original position has indeed made potentially falsifiable predictions about the course of history, and these predictions have been refuted. One example for a falsified prediction of Marx’s theory is the establishment of communism in a non-industrial country like Russia. According to Marx, communism would start in a developed country with a sufficiently large worker’s population, rather than a rural country, like Tsarist Russia. Furthermore, the socialist government was not able to establish a state of governance that would have fulfilled Marx’s criteria of Socialism, and did not lead to a transition to communism1, but eventually faltered. These observations lead to a reinterpretation of Marxist theory, that accounted for all possible interpretations: Whatever happened, it became impossible to say: “Marxism didn’t account for that”, for it was possible to explain everything in with Marxist terminology. Thus Popper writes:

The Marxist theory of history, in spite of the serious efforts of some of its founders and followers, ultimately adopted this soothsaying practice. In some of its earlier formulations (for example in Marx’s analysis of the character of the “coming social revolution”) their predictions were testable, and in fact falsified. Yet instead of accepting the refutations the followers of Marx re-interpreted both the theory and the evidence in order to make them agree. In this way they rescued the theory from refutation; but they did so at the price of adopting a device which made it irrefutable. They thus gave a “conventionalist twist” to the theory; and by this stratagem they destroyed its much advertised claim to scientific status.

It is important to note that for Popper wasn’t so much concerned about truth, but how we get there. In his view, we cannot prove anything. But we can use a method of conjecting a theory, and then attempt to refute it. If it withstands these tests, there is probably more truth in it than in a theory that doesn’t. Popper used this to address the problem of demarcation, i.e. distinguishing between science and non-science. A scientific theory is any kind of theory that makes such predictions and the riskier the predictions are, the better the theory is. A non-scientific theory however does not make any risky predictions, and it is not possible to falsify it. Put together, this also means that a falsified scientific theory is still scientific, even if we may want to reject it on a factual level. However, an unfalsifiable theory is not, even if it is supported by all the evidence, because we cannot test it. This does not mean that it is factually wrong (although we cannot make any statements about this, because it is unfalsifiable).

Newer editions of Conjectures seem to have addressed this pun, as the above picture from my 2002 edition shows: Marxism has been “—refuted” and is “—made irrefutable”. (emphasis added) I am not sure whether old editions don’t, quite possibly Lakatos and Feyerabend just brushed over this for the lolz.

However, there is a serious point to make: As Lakatos and Feyerabend argue2, one of the weaknesses of Popper’s critical rationalism is, historically there can be considerable disagreement as to what counts as a falsification, and what we are supposed to do when one of many predictions of a theory fail. Thus, as Lakatos and Feyerabend argue, almost every falsifiable theory will be falsified at one point, but we may not (yet) wish to discard it. In reply, Popper conceded that scientific theories consist of a core hypothesis and auxiliary hypotheses, and these auxiliary hypotheses might be falsified without forcing us to reject the core. Instead, we may save the core hypothesis by suggesting a new, ad-hoc hypothesis. This solution however dilutes Popper’s critical rationalism considerably, and makes the stringent boundaries quite fuzzy again.

References

Lakatos, Imre & Feyerabend, Paul, (2010) For and Against Method: Including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence, Chicago University Press

Popper, Karl R. (2002) Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge: London

Popper, Karl R. (1963) Science as Falsification (published in the 1963 edition of Conjectures and Refutations.

Popper, Karl R. (2002) The Open Society and its Enemies [Volume 2], Routledge: London

1 One might object that the Bolshevik regime does not represent what Marx considered as Socialism, but this has two pitfalls: 1) Why was Marx not able to predict this part of the history? 2) Such an interpretation also makes the predictions irrefutable unless it clearly specifies when and under which circumstances the ‘real’ Socialist revolution occurs.

2 I quote Feyerabend and Lakatos as if they were generally in agreement, but this agreement was largely restricted to their criticism of Popper. Their own positions were largely diametrically in opposition to each other. Whilst for Lakatos, there was at least some sort of progress, this notion was alien to Feyerabend: For him science had the same status as folk beliefs and neither one or the other brought progress that was worthwhile. Rather, we should believe whatever we feel is best for us, and remain sceptical over all attempts to describe the truth.

Comment on this article

· 14 October 2011, 17:52 ·

When did you decide to become heterosexual?

The best way to present and argument isn’t always confrontational. Sometimes (or should I say often) it’s better to ask the right questions, so that they can work it out themselves. “When did you decide to become heterosexual?” is one of them. It’s not offensive, direct—and gets people thinking.

Thus Chris Baker and Travis Nuckolls went out to ask people whether they thought homosexuality is a choice, followed by the question “When did you decide to become heterosexual?” The attempt to resolve their cognitive dissonance is literary written on some interviewees’ faces. The innocence of the question also means that none of them is offended: It is indeed a valid question to ask. Good work!




(via Mädchenmannschaft)

Comment on this article

· 13 October 2011, 16:41 ·

"I am not going to read your diatribe!"

Paul Feyerabend was one of Popper’s earliest students and followers, but soon turned to criticise Popper’s theories vigorously. Neither of them were shy of words when criticising colleagues’ works, nor would they try to conceal their criticism. Feyerabend recalls the following dialogue:

“‘I am not going to read your diatribe!’ Popper had shouted when he saw my [Paul Feyerabend’s – Antipattern] comments on his diatribe against Bohr. (He calmed down when I told him that many people had complained about my aggressive style and had ascribed it to his influence. ‘Is that so?’ he said, smiling, and walked away.)” (in: Feyerabend 1995, p. 146)

I’ll write a little more on Popper and Feyerabend soon…

Paul Feyerabend (1995), Killing time: the autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, University Of Chicago Press

Comment on this article

· 9 October 2011, 10:15 ·

Chaos Computer Club dissects German police interception software

The hacker group Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has reverse-engineered the German state trojan software that is being used to intercept suspects’ online communication. You can read the full summary of their findings on their website. It is not my aim to reiterate the technical details of how the software works, but the article also states:

The government malware can, unchecked by a judge, load extensions by remote control, to use the trojan for other functions, including but not limited to eavesdropping. This complete control over the infected PC—owing to the poor craftsmanship that went into this trojan—is open not just to the agency that put it there, but to everyone. It could even be used to upload falsified “evidence” against the PC’s owner, or to delete files, which puts the whole rationale for this method of investigation into question. […I]t is possible to watch screenshots of the web browser on the infected PC—including private notices, emails or texts in web based cloud services.

Thus the malware’s capabilities go beyond the boundaries set by the German constitutional court a few years ago. In particular it ignores the protection of personal space that is granted by the German Basic Law (the German constitution) and its ability to manipulate files on the suspects’ hard drive leads the forensic process ad absurdum: How can we trust evidence that is possibly manipulated? I understand that the police wants to tackle crime, and in doing so may feel obliged to cross boundaries—but these boundaries are there for a reason. They ensure that a suspect (or later the accused) is treated fairly and will receive a fair trial. If the evidence that has been collected as part of such a process is not reliable, then it may not be used in court anymore. Thus, such a trojan may prevent the very purpose of the surveillance, i.e. to collect data that can be used in court.

But with a piece of software like this, there is an interesting twist to it, that was picked up by Frank Schirrmacher, the editor of the German daily FAZ: Only few people are able to understand the real capabilities of the software, what it can and cannot do. A judge in court may not be able to assess whether the evidence collected through the malware is reliable and instead rely on the expertise of those who created the software. But according to the Ministry of the Interior the malware is secure, encrypted and stays within the boundaries of law. Here Schirrmacher refers to a statement by Lawrence Lessig, who proclaimed that “Code is Law”, i.e. that the way we interact on the internet and the digital sphere in general is not so much defined by state legislation, but rather by the software we use. Not law, but code sets the boundaries of what we can or cannot do online. Germany’s “federal trojan” is a perfect example of this: It was not the Basic Law that defined its abilities, but the code underneath. But until yesterday, the knowledge of what this code can actually do was left to the few.

It is this ignorance of the law and the purpose of the judicial system that is frightening. Unlike the security flaws it cannot be excused with incompetence, rather it shows an intentionality to violate the authority of the Basic Law and the boundaries it sets to interception of suspects by state authorities. The question for me, as a German citizen, is how the police is supposed to uphold the law if they violate it themselves?

Disclosure: I am a member of the CCC and attended the 24 Chaos Communication Congress. Otherwise I am a rather passive member.

Comment on this article

· 4 October 2011, 23:33 ·

Phil Selway - Running Blind




Comment on this article

· 1 October 2011, 00:05 ·

Detours to Copenhagen, on a bike

For years and years I have been planning on going on a cycle trip from my home village in Brandenburg, up to Copenhagen in Denmark. Right past my parents’ house runs the cycle track Berlin – Copenhagen, with a total of 630km. From Himmelpfort it’s only a little over 500km to Denmark’s capital. It’s all flat, and makes a perfect beginner’s tour. I had been to Denmark quite often when I was child and I was curious whether it would look different to me now, from an adult perspective.

Initially I planned on buying a new touring bike (other than my trusty Sun, which is still in Scotland), indeed I would have loved to have a proper Randonneuse like VSF Fahrradmanufaktur T-Randonneur or the Randonneur by Patria. But financial constraints made me abandon both options quickly, and upgrading my old Bianchi frame would have probably been almost as expensive. Thus, the Bianchi just got a minor overhaul to ensure that it would not fall apart on the way, and the two holes in the rear of the frame (nickname: “vampire bite”) would not cause any troubles when the bike was fully loaded. Check: brakes (“sort of work”), pannier rack (“just attach it somehow—pray to FSM it will hold!”), adjust the old Shimano Positron gear derailleurs (“shifty!”), though the front derailleur refused to cooperate and I decided that 9 gears are enough. (Heck, my Sun in Scotland is three speed only—but rather three gears with a useful ratio than 18, of which most are useless), lights (work surprisingly well) and a fresh oiling.

The panniers, once packed accumulated to a good 20 kg of luggage and the tent plus the roll mat were probably another 4kg, so I was surprisingly within the limit of the pannier—I expected much more! Two rubber bands secured the tent and the roll mat. Surely not the most elegant solution but heck, we’re not on a fashion show here! (more about the rubber bands later…)

Day 1 – Departing from Himmelpfort

I left Himmelpfort at around noon on Wednesday, and aimed to cross the Brandenburg-Mecklenburgian border on the same day. Thus, I passed “Ravensbrück”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravensbrück_concentration_camp on my way to Fürstenberg, before leaving Brandenburg shortly after. Just before Wustrow I stayed on the cycle track which now went through dry, runny sand. With my thin 27” inch wheels this was to no avail, I turned for the main road, and then suddenly my eyes got hold of a few… parasol mushrooms!

larger, tall mushroom in gras ...delicious! bike, leaned against traffic sign I doubt I even came close to that speed limit grey-yellow building with smashed windows, behind trees, An old farm

Parasols are a safe bet, because there’s not much you can confuse them with. Later in the evening I simply fried them with some olive oil, added a bit rice milk and water, and 2-3 pinches of vegetable stock (Salt and pepper would have been nice, too) and had them with a few slices of bread. (Pasta works fine as well) Most delicious!

I was also hoping to find some chanterelle mushrooms, but to spot these from the distance requires eyes beyond perfection. Also, the yellow birch leaves typically found en masse in most forests look like chantarelles from the distance. Yet the rate of birch leaves to mushrooms is probably a 1000:1, and whenever you thought you saw a chantarelle, it turned out to be a birch leaf, thus I could usually not be bothered to stop and check.

Other than that I hoped to spot a sparassis. This rare mushroom looks a bit like a brain, fallen out of the skull or Spongebob Squarepants, just not so square. Despite its looks it is most delicious. It has a firm texture and a spicy taste and again, there are not many mushrooms it can be confused with. Unfortunately I was unlucky, and found none.

All in all I probably cycled a little short of 100km, when it was getting dark at around 10 pm and no campsite in sight. Just before it got properly dark I found a spot on a meadow, just behind some trees, where I set up my tent and had my mushrooms for dinner, together with the mosquitoes. The latter had me for dinner, despite me putting on an extra thick layer of insect repellent. But those blood thirsty bastards were starved out and would not be stopped by anything.

dead trees in swamp not the happiest sight. gas burner with pot containing mushrooms Dinner: Fresh, hand picked mushrooms grass, train and trees in the distance In the distance, a train. Possibly going to Rostock, much faster than me on the bike...

Day 2 – Rostock ahead!

I was just before Waren, and when I woke up in the morning quickly packed my tent to get there. From Waren onwards, my next stop was Güstrow, and it was here that I realised—heck, I might be able to make it to Rostock today! The weather was as good as it could possibly be, not to hot nor too cold, and sunny the whole day. Until the late evening, just before Rostock: All of the sudden it just started to pour down on me. I got soaked through, despite rain-proof clothes and trying to find shelter under a tree. After the rain I was cycling down a hill and heard a ‘cling’ noise, as if a piece of metal fell off. I stopped, checked the road and the bike, but could not find anything. Dear piece of metal, whether you belonged to me or not, you will be truly missed.

bike, leaned against sign offering all sorts of sweet snacks Cake break in Güstrow. road, This is pretty much as uphill as it gets. sheep grazing Sheep!

Rostock was close and I would not stopped until I got there. 30km to Rostock! 20km! 10km! I found an apple tree with delicious august apples in a village before Rostock, and stocked up my fruit supplies. Onwards to Rostock! It was slowly getting late (and dark) when I reached Rostock and tried to find a place to sleep. But the cheapest option wast €80. Rather than throwing out the money I would set for Gedser—the last ferry was at 1.45am. After getting lost a few times in Rostock (heck, it’s dark and I can’t see the way!), I missed all earlier ones.

at night, terminal for the Scandlines ferry Rostick-Gedser Waiting for the ferry. At 1.45am. bike, in front of ferry Rostock-Gedser Waiting to board. Cars, entering ferry at night Ferries at night are quite a sight.

Tired, I reached the port. When I wanted to buy a ticket the lady at the desk asked me whether I’m here with my truck. Thinking of my luggage-ladden bike I was inclined to say yes, but since a single bike ticket was already €17 I figured a truck is probably more expensive.

Day 3 – From Gedser to Stubbekøbing

Once I arrived at Gedser at around 3am, I made my way to the free campsite near the coast. Tired and fed up, I pitched the tent and was ready for bed at around 4am. Instead of the 120km that I planned, I must have cycled about 150km and was knackered. What a day, sleep tonight! I slept till 11am, and left the campsite at around 1pm, after breakfast, refilling the water supplies, checking over the bike, keeping the wasps out of the tent, etc. What started off as a grey but ok day, quickly turned to rain and again I got soaked thoroughly on the way to Nykøbing/Falster.

Fields with freshy cut crops This is Denmark! Bike, parked and fully packed This way, but break first. view onto ferry, with people and bikes Next stop Møn. Young man with bike in front of white church.

Somewhere on the way I met a woman from Berlin and we cycled together to Stubbekøbing, where we met another German guy on a bike. We pondered over whether we should go on, or look for a place to stay. But the guy found an incredibly cheap three bed apartment, and the matter was settled.

Over pasta, parasol mushrooms and wine, it turned out that the man was a Lutheran pastor, the woman Jewish, and I, well Pastafarian, I suppose… In the conversation that followed, we touched upon what religion means to us, the way to lead one’s life, the balance between children and the partner’s career, and last but not least the fall of the wall, and its current importance. Interesting strands of argument developed: Thus, for the pastor the East/West divide was far more significant than for us other two, despite the woman being much closer to his age than mine. But those few years already made a difference, particularly since he refused military service in East Germany. The topic of religion was also unavoidable. Whilst it quite obviously played a big role for the pastor, and he was also interested in the Jewish religion, for the woman religion did not play a big part of her life. Despite this, she lived in Israel for a few years and sent her children to a Jewish school, to pass on the culture. In a similar fashion, the personal significance of Ravensbrück, the concentration camp we all passed on our journey, was perceived differently. Visiting the camp was a very significant experience for him, she however did not stop, partly due to the omnipresent history and the feelings it would evoke, but also because it was part of a past she herself did not experience; it seemed too long ago. Since I grew up just a few miles from the camp, it had a different significance for me: It was always there, and I would often pass it but only every few years I would go and actually visit it. Because of this it was a bit to the periphery of my mind, something I pondered on for a while after that evening. Another topic was the balance between career and children, a feminist issue you might say: She was telling us that she had to step back in her own career after her children were born, and that it was difficult to catch up with her boyfriend, who was now contributing the larger share of the income, despite her having had better prospects before their children were born.

Thus, this turned out to be the most social time I had on my journey to Copenhagen, for most of the other days I travelled by myself and would hardly talk to anyone.

Day 4 – Around Møn

dandelion A dandelion on Møn

From Stubbekøbing the pastor and I took the ferry to Møn (gotta love the øs and ås!), where we parted. I had already been there as a child, and had fond memories of the place. Thus I took the 50 km detour around Møn, and stopped at Møns Klint, the chalk cliff. To get there, you first have to cycle uphill for 1/3rd of the way, park your bike and climb down to the pebble beach. There is a sign, saying it takes 15 minutes to climb down, and it does take 15 minutes, despite the fact that you’re only a dozen metres away from the sea.

møn's klint Møn's Klint road, dividing a field The road ahead.

I thought I’d make it to Præstø but I quickly abandoned that plan when rain clouds gathered over me and it was already getting late. Wanting to avoid a disaster like earlier in Rostock, I decided to call it a day, and made my way to the free camp site in Stege. There, I pitched the tent, made dinner, said hi to the cows that were staying next to me, and shortly after thunderstorm and lightning came over me. I, in the tent, had a safe and dry night, spending most of it reading Three men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome: A book about three Gentlemen from Great Britain, going on a cycle tour in the 19th century Schwarzwald.

Day 5 – Stevns Klint

view from observation platform, sun shining Apparently, this area was used as a surveillance station during the cold war. It was only converted to a campsite a few years ago. campsite at Stevns Klint with observation platform Stevns Klint campsite View onto free campsite in denmark So this is where I stayed, the green tent in the middle is mine. The free campsite at Stevns Klint was one of the best places on the tour. The view was amazing, the facilities really good too and the weather was super-nice. Green tent, with bike in the background at dusk. Stevns Klint Good night! sign on observation platform, indicating the direction to copenhagen View from the observation platform at Stevns Klint, showing my destination... red sky at sunset in denmark, windfarms at distance It's getting dark, whilst I was searching for cover and a place for the night

The morning started off with a nasty breeze blowing right into my face. Even downhill felt as like uphill, and to make things worse I had to cycle on the busy road from Møn to Kalvehave. It felt as if I wasn’t making much progress at all. But with the weather improving, my mood lightened up, too. Later during the day I was pretty cheerful indeed. I passed a few cherry trees, stopped at a few more, and kept on cycling for another 70km. I had just stocked up my food and water supplies at the supermarket at around 6pm, when rain clouds gathered and seemed to chase after me. This quickly turned into a race between me and the clouds, with me reaching the last free campsite before Copenhagen before the rain. The tent was quickly pitched and I found myself at Stevns Klint, one of the best free campsites I had been: There wasn’t just fresh water supply, but a wheelchair friendly toilet, plenty of benches, and even a observation platform to appreciate the view!

The campsite at Stevns Klint used to be a military base for controlling the airspace during the cold war, and a cold war museum is close by. Initially, after looking at the map, I thought I would have the opportunity to go for a swim in the Baltic Sea, but I quickly disbanded the idea: Such a swim would have involved me jumping off the 20m cliff, and I intended to reach Copenhagen in one piece the next day…

Day 6 – Copenhagen, at last!

Bianchi bike in Copenhagen, at sunset A bike romance.

80 kilometres to Copenhagen! No biggie, and thus I started at 9.30 to allow me enough time to get to the tourist information and get a hostel for two nights. Just on the last twenty kilometres I met the pastor again, and together we made our way to Denmark’s capital. But first we went for a coffee, and rainclouds gathered over us—another 50kms to go!

cycle track sign, indicating the direction to Roskilde Cycle track to Roskilde sign in denmark, warning of Krydsende Cyklister Krydsende Cyklister Tune place-name sign Denmark is a musical country. Ølby name-place sign, with guitar sticker Ølby rocks!

When we finally reached Copenhagen it was pouring over us and we quickly made it to the hotel where my fellow traveller was supposed to stay. Soaked (again!), but excited to have made it, I found out that all hostels were booked, and my only rescue was Couchsurfing, where I found a kind soul hosting me for the two nights in Copenhagen.

Day 7 and Departure

I did not make any plans for my stay there, and I am not a very touristy person. They say that the journey is its own reward, and the main purpose of my trip was getting there; once I arrived I did not quite know what to do and took the opportunity of just cycling through Copenhagen. I went through a few alternative streets, visited a few art shops, went briefly to Christiana (but since there was no photography allowed, didn’t stay too long) and generally tried to get a feeling for the city.

street in Copenhagen, flanked with cars and bikes A street in Copenhagen a dozen rear wheels Plenty of bikes in Copenhagen. swans in Copenahgen lake These ungrateful bastards were snapping after people feeding them. Pidgeons at Copenhagen lake Just chilling... Copenhagen, view form a bridge Copenhagen Bianchi bike on bridge in Copenhagen Posing. colourful sign in copenhagen, indicating directions fortjald, kunst, keramik... Directions

One of the things I sensed pretty quickly was that this is a bike city: All main roads had two-way cycle tracks, and you would find yourself in a crop of a dozen cyclists, most of them rushing past you because they knew the way.

Unfortunately I had to be back home soon. On the next morning, I took the train to Nykøbbing. From there I cycled to Gedser (there are no direct trains from Nykøbbing to Gedser) and set over to Rostock, where I took the RE5 regional train going via Berlin. This is by far the cheapest option to get to Berlin. The alternative would be to take the Eurocity via Hamburg, but other than being more expensive it’s not much quicker either. On the way home from Fürstenberg, I stopped over in the forest—and finally found some chantarelles!

Bianchi bike in front of Danish double decker coach Bianchi bike with full panniers, leaned against bench at Fürstenberg Havel train station Home again.

Things I took with me:

  • 2 waterproof panniers by Vaude
  • 1 two man tent (to store my luggage as well)
  • 1 gas cooker
  • 1 saucepan
  • Spoon, fork, knife, plastic cup, tupper box
  • socks, underwear
  • cycling shorts (sexy! but making long tours more comfortable)
  • cycling shirts (no cotton, synthetics or wool dry much faster)
  • a rain jacket (unfortunately not sufficiently waterproof)
  • rain trousers (make sure the material is breathable)
  • toilet paper
  • a small shovel
  • bread, sliced
  • 3 cans of mixed vegs, 1 can of green beans: great for soups and stir fries
  • dried tofu, excellent for stir fries and won’t go off!
  • a few apples
  • vegetable stock

Things I wish I took with me

  • Salt and pepper
  • more plastic bags to separate my luggage. It’s ideal if you neatly group all your belongings in plastic bags, so that you, for example keep all cooking utensils together, all rain clothes and all tools: If it starts to rain, you just pull out the appropriate bag with all the clothes and put them on. Everything is in one place and you don’t need to unpack the entire pannier to find what you need.
  • a proper, 100% waterproof rain jacket.

Cuisine Cycliste

When travelling and camping, it’s good to have a few simple recipes that rely on few ingredients and that you can easily be recombine, to achieve a bit of variation.

  • Cous cous or polenta
  • Pasta is nice too, but takes longer to cook
  • tomato puree can be used to produce flavoursome soups, as a simple bread spread or to add the taste of tomato to other meals.
  • Salt and pepper for basic flavouring
  • vegetable stock will do the rest
  • onions + garlic as a base
  • A few spoonfuls of flour can be used to thicken up stocks and soups
  • dried tofu is a great ingredient to add crunchiness to the dish, and it won’t go off

Polenta-Stew

  • Polenta
  • (Rice) Milk
  • Canned Tomatoes/vegetables
  • Dried tofu
  • vegetable stick
  • Salt + Pepper

Fry a chopped onion in olive oil, quickly followed by the tofu. Add the canned vegetables once the onions are soft. Heat up, until they boil and add the vegetable stock, salt and pepper. Add a bit of milk, and again, heat up until it boils. Then add the polenta, so that it roughly takes up a third of the liquid content and leave to simmer for one minute. Turn off the heat, wait five minutes, stirring occasionally and serve whilst hot.

Couscous salad

  • Canned vegetables
  • 1 onion (coarsely chopped)
  • Water
  • olive oil
  • Dried Soya
  • Vegetable Stock

Pretty much the same procedure, just with water instead of milk, a bit more vegetable stock and the couscous replaces the polenta.

Simple Tomato Soup (sauce)

  • onions (finely chopped)
  • garlic (finely chopped)
  • 1/2 tube tomato puree
  • flour
  • olive oil
  • basil, oregano (if available, otherwise vegetable stock)
  • water
  • Salt + Pepper

Gently fry the onion in olive oil, add the garlic. Once soft, add two table spoons of flour and stir well. Immediately add the tomato puree, followed by water. Season according to taste and availability. Depending on how much water you add, you either get a liquid soup or a thick tomato sauce that works well with pasta. If you add dried tofu with the onions, you well get a chewy bits, too! Now, if that doesn’t sound delicious, I don’t know!

Comment on this article

· 30 September 2011, 18:44 ·

Looking back is different

The beginning of my MSc in Evolution of Language and Cognition here at Edinburgh marks not only the next logical step in my academic career, but is also a time of reflection. Where am I now, how did I get here and where will I be going next?

It is the ‘how did I get here?’ that seems to be the easiest of all questions. In retrospective all those life choices line up in one perfect, straight line and one wonders “Could there have been any other choice?” It all falls so neatly into place… Wasn’t most of the coursework I did in my undergraduate on language? Haven’t I been trying to tackle the question of the origins of communication in these papers? Did I not choose to study psychology because I was fascinated by the work of the Austro-American psychologist, philosopher and linguist Paul Watzlawick? Did I not already as a child get my best grades in biology? Was it not my mother, a biology teacher, who always left her books on biology and evolution on the living room table, so that I could read them? And weren’t my favourite toys my plastic dinosaurs?

Well, indeed: All of this is true. But the past tense is different to the present. Things look different when you look back, compared to what they were like when you underwent them. What once was a deep and thorough maze, looks, retrospectively, like a long, straight road. All the windings, crossings and hills, they are forgotten now. How often did you find yourself at a fork and the decision to go either left or right was more or less coincidental, you might as well could have flipped a coin? If you had asked me a year ago, “what do you want to do for your MSc?” I would have replied: “Political Psychology”. And not having picked this course, left me heartbroken. (But had I not picked the MSc in Evolution, I would have left me heartbroken just as much) Only a year before I started my undergraduate, I did not consider studying psychology. Sure, I had already read most of Paul Watzlawick’s work, and it did have a significant impact on the way I looked at things1. But during my IB, I wanted to either biology, chemistry…or media informatics. In fact, I already had a place to do the latter in a small town in the south of Germany, and only cancelled it when I heard that I had been accepted in Glasgow.

And the list goes on: Before I came to the UK to do my Baccalaureate, I never thought of going abroad for more than a year. It just didn’t occur to me. Even the choice to go abroad, was purely incidental, and more so that I would stay here. But now, the time I spent over here, in England and in Scotland, has become such an integral part to my self-identity, I simply cannot imagine what life would have been like if I had stayed in Germany.

So, I have just moved to Edinburgh and started my postgraduate. When you get older, things fall into place more easily it seems. I got it all worked out, from now on: After my MSc, I will go and do a PhD somewhere in Europe, wherever I can find an interesting and preferably paid position. Then I will try to find a Post doc, again somewhere in Europe, or maybe the States or somewhere else on this planet. Possibly the moon, but I don’t think we will be that far advanced by then. I will try to contribute to the understanding of where we humans are coming from, and more importantly, where we are going to. All this boils down to a set of questions that have been bugging me for the past few years: What constrains are there on the way human societies are structured? What kind of social structures make us feel included and give us the desire to contribute positively to our society? How is it that we can communicate, share our thoughts and feelings, using such an abstract and in itself meaningless communication system, like our language(s)?

This is how I am picturing it right now. But speak to me in ten years time, and maybe things look different then.

1 This sounds a bit hyperbolic. In a way, all Watzlawick did, was raising my awareness for contextual thinking, not looking at the things themselves but at the context they are in and the relationships between them. Although Watzlawick targeted this interactional view primarily towards communication, it is widely applicable. For example, we might use it to describe political relations during the Cold War or the relationship with our neighbours, etc.

Comment on this article