Stone Age of Iron Gates

There were lots of breakthroughs in human history until this date. Some were instant and recognisable events or technological inventions and some were slow evolutionary processes in history of our species. Whatever they were, the outcome was always reshaped course of mankind entirely. In our own time one of those is no doubt learning how to split the atom and very invention of nuclear bomb. We are still living in the post-turbulence time of that latest breakthrough that has potential to rise us from the Earth toward the stars. Some would say that it is still unknown whether this one is more of a civilization killer event or true entrance into another phase of humanity. We will wait and see. Either way, it is breakthrough, nevertheless. In early human history there was one similar invention that had the same uncertainty. It was called "Neolithic Revolution" and it happened in the middle of the Stone Age. And yes, even though we are still here, consequences of this invention are still very much all around us.

"Lepenski Vir" by Giovanni Caselli

Yes, the invention is of course, the agriculture along with domesticating wild animals. In this part of the world it happened around the year of 5300BC and along with Vinča culture, it was invented by the one of the oldest civilization that occupied Iron Gates, the great gorge of mighty Danube at the spot called Lepenski Vir (Lepen Whirlpool) near the Koršo hills at the right bank of the river. The gorge had everything for the rise of one medium sized settlement for our Mesolithic predecessors. Large river with lots of fish, hills and valleys very near the bank with lots of small animals, deer and especially easily hunted herds of aurochs (now extinct specious of wild cows) and lots of water birds.

Many things happened in human minds with agricultural way of life. If you ask me, it was the point when humans abandoned the 'natural' way of life or to better say it was the time when natural equilibrium with humans being just a part of the biodiversity micro-cosmos of the inhabited area changed inevitably. We became the ultimate and the only player. Growing our own food and enslaving wild animals had risen us toward the god like creatures and we left our prehistorical ways for good. Just like with nuclear power, we made one great step in human evolution. And just like with nuclear bomb we invented all the side-effects we are suffering to this day.

With agriculture we didn't just invented unlimited food supplies. We got ourselves envy and jealousy toward our own neighbor and cousin for simple things as him having more food or land. We started to hunt for pleasure and not just for food. We started to steal and hate. We invented divine beings and prayers for them to spare our crops from natural hazards between planting and harvesting seasons. Let me just not repeating myself too much on the topic. Please read more about it in my last year post Supermarket Religion with review of one very interesting book and another civilization who lived in old settlement of 'Göbekli Tepe' in nowadays Turkey.

Anyway, yesterday I took my family to the Lepenski Vir and it's wonderful museum to learn more of this great people and how and why, on Earth, they managed to survive several millenniums in tent based settlements and lasted for maybe the longest period of time in human history. As for why, unfortunately I can't explain with words. You would have to visit Iron Gates and see it for yourself. In short - it is beautiful site. The river is magnificent and the gorge is one of the kind. The forests are still there and the feeling is, well, if I was one of the Mesolithic explorers on foot, finding this place would be the same as finding the heaven. Migrating it out would be, from one hunter and fishermen group point of view, well, stupid.

Perhaps the only thing this place doesn't have is lots of room for large agriculture fields and eventually these people left it as soon as they became too dependable by the Neolithic Revolution and from that point in time in fifth millennium before Christ we have no idea where they went and spread. Probably upstream Danube in search for large plains for their crops is currently most valuable scientific explanation. Maybe something more happened in addition to agricultural reasons to force them to leave but we don't know. Today, one of the large dams in the world, named 'Iron Gates I', created significant landscape change in form of a long river lake and flooded entire gorge and all the ancient settlements preventing further exploration in search for more clues.

Perhaps, for me, these guys in pre-agricultural times were extremely interesting for many reasons. Anthropologically speaking, they were large comparing to other humans in Europe at the time and lived longer and healthier life. Thanks to their diet with most of the fish dishes on their stone tables some of the prominent members of the society lived more than 60 years and some of them were tall enough to play in NBA with ease. Well, of course, most lived about 40-50 years old, but with their average height of 165 for women and 172 for men they might have origins in old Cro-Magnon species from Paleolithic. Fascinating story about all the skeletons in tombs were that no traces of violent deaths were found. Apparently, they were extremely peaceful people and also interesting fact that all excavated skeletons (more than 150 in total) miss only two teeth gives a clue that their amazing diet with almost 70% fish and rest of the meat and berries was a fact that they literally lived in some sort of the Mesolithic paradise.

At the end, all the main exploration and excavations of this site was made by professor Dragoslav Srejović of the University of Belgrade. 136 buildings, settlements and altars were found in the initial excavations in 1965-1970. I read somewhere that Dragoslav Srejović was a giant in a Newton way of definition and I couldn't agree more. This short film above is the same one they played for us in the museum. I am sorry I couldn't find the one with English subtitles but it was great learn and amazing documentary considering it was filmed in the same time lapse as the exploration. And as my wife noticed it has even a romantic tale in the background that gives a special touch and feel of one typical archaeological life in mid sixties.

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepenski_Vir
http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

Thassos Island Today and Before

The age of this blog is both old, in a sense of fast maturing of internet and IT technology in general, but also very young if we are counting human age in old fashion way. When we first visited Thassos island dozen of years before, internet and social sharing technology were about to enter their unstable teenage years, so to speak. It was the time when I bought my first digital camera, HP PhotoSmart C850 with it's state of the art optics and digital technology from the time. Pictures from Thassos back then in the summer of 2003 were probably my first attempt to take more artistic landscapes from our Greece vacations and today is perhaps the time to compare both what changes in photography gadgets and also with Thassos itself after full 12 years.

Let's start with images first. After 12 years in time distance, I decided to choose the same number of images for this post - half of them shown above, all taken with HP Photosmart C850 with 4 megapixels CCD sensor and half below taken from this summer vacation with Nikon D5200 and CMOS sensor with approximately 20 megapixels more than in old HP. It is insufficient to say that 12 years of maturing of technology in optics, hardware and software is easily noticeable.

As for Thassos island, very little changed over the years. Local people are still the same, very hospitable and friendly, beaches are the same as they probably were hundreds of thousands of years before, the Aegean sea is still crystal clear, just like in the time of Zeus and the company and the Sun is the same hot, like in all Julys in previous millenniums and eons.

What is little different are the people who are visiting Thasos - this year there were more tourists from Eastern European countries, like Romania, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Ukraine and Russia and less from the Western Europe which is probably the result of the anti-Greece media campaign due to political conflict between Greek government and EU and financial crisis in Greece these years. I have to say that at least during our stay on Thassos I couldn't notice any crisis or any problems whatsoever. Man-made crises are always like that, they always have profusely enhanced exposure in media and the truth is never on either side in conflict and never in media. I know it is a cliche, but you probably heard the phrase "trust no one" and if you ask me, it is always the ultimate truth when it comes to raw propaganda, news in media, especially if it is related to some political affairs like current one in Greece vs EU (and by EU you can freely read Germany).

Usually, our thanks goes to our local Big Star travel agency and their forum called Putopis! which hosted couple of my posts from this blog. Also to the Greek agency Mouzenidis Travel and the perfect Filippos hotel we spent our entire vacation within olive groves near the village of Rachoni and its stairway (Greek: σκάλα) to the sea.

http://www.thassos-island.com/

Science of Life in Solar System

There will come one day in the future. Relatively and astronomically speaking, it might come sooner than we think. It could happen way before we realize that there is no turning back. The day when mother Earth will simply say - sorry guys, I have no more energy to sustain this kind of life anymore and when most of biodiversity cocoons on Earth will reach the ultimate hazard and start imploding back into themselves. Air and water pollution will help a lot and not even planet's regular motions will be able to take us into another interglacial cycle. It is as much inevitable as what we are going to do next. We will take a long look toward the stars and say: "Well, we have to do this sooner or later. It's time to leave the Earth. Time to jump into Christopher Columbus's shoes again. And find the new home."

But we will not get far. There will be no warp drives, "phasers on stun", robots, AIs or artificial gravity like in Sci-Fi blockbusters and there will be no scientific breakthroughs that will bring Moon or Mars gravity to the comfortable number of 1. No, we will be completely helpless in all our efforts to terraform other planets and gas giants' moons. Not at first. Or fast. Or to make large asteroids to rotate. Or to initiate Mars' core to fire it's lost gone magnet. Or to make Venus to act little less than hell.

Artificial biodomes of Eden in Cornwall, England ^*

Interview With an Expert

Have you ever thought about the most common software application installed on your computerized devices in your home? Is it some super tuned operating system you can't live without? Or is it some sort of office application you use to write, make presentations, and connect with your friends and business acquaintances? Maybe it is your favorite browser you are using on a daily basis to connect to your social network? Or some photo gallery application with tons of your digital photos and video clips? Perhaps it is some Skype-like communication device that is always within reach? Whatever it is, and depending on who you ask, I am more than positive that there are no unique answers.

Microsoft's HoloLens

I am sure everybody knows (?) why they are so fused to computer screens these days, but in our case there is no doubt. In total sum of our digital home appliances that can be found on various desktops or fit nicely in our backpacks or pockets, the most dominant cross-computer application is Minecraft. That includes a couple of Androids and Windows Phones, various personal computers, and one Xbox console. Not only that, we tried the most of Minecraft installations, maps, and mods, but we are also hosting a small server with our own growing world. Well, by 'we', I surely include myself with a teeny-tiny share in the plural meaning of the world, but the majority of the 'we' belongs to Viktor, who is our in-house expert for Minecraft affairs.

But before giving some thoughts on the Minecraft game, I asked our expert couple of questions in hope of understanding why one not-so-graphically demanding application and one not-so-typical game that requires not-so-much-of-real-gamer skills when it comes to quick interaction between the characters and other players is so popular and truly became a worldwide phenomenon and won so many awards over the years.

In-house expert for Minecraft affairs in action

Following is a short interview with me asking questions and Viktor answering them. To be honest, I am not really that familiar with all the Minecraft world; let's face it, over the years it grew into a full internet movement with MineCon and everything, so I hope my prepared questions are not off-the-topic or old, rusty, and non-interesting.

Anyhow, I will be taking that risk, and here's the full interview between father and son and more than 30 years of generation gap in between:

When did you learn about Minecraft, and how did you feel playing it for the first time?
At first I didn't like it that much, but later, after I watched "The Asian Guy Gamer" and their Minecraft videos on YouTube, I bought a Minecraft disk for Xbox 360 and started making my own worlds. I am playing it almost every day ever since.

Why do you like Minecraft so much and how is it different from other games?
Because I can build things and make my own worlds. Also, there are so many worlds out there, and every game can be different, and I can do whatever I want.

What do you like the most in the game?
To search and mine diamonds and make armor, swords, tools, etc. To build large houses and castles and to play within online servers.

How would you rank Minecraft installations and why?
1. PC 2. Xbox 3.WP 4. Android. PC version is the best, simply because I can play in multiplayer mode with my friends online. It also allows typing commands and cheats. And I have a server of my own with my IP.

Who are your favorite characters and skins in Minecraft?
Hulk and Foxy for skins and Ender Dragon for characters. Horses in Xbox are also great.

What is the most complicated structure that you ever built?
Roller-coaster in PC and large, eight-story house in Android game.

Who are the best Minecraft gamers you are following online?
Definitely Pat and Jen, Channels: PopularMMOs & GamingWithJen. Also Think's Noodles, The DiamondMinecart, and Stampy.

If you could, what would you do to improve Minecraft in the future?
I would like to see portals between servers somehow. So I can make a portal on my server that ends on some different server. Also more interesting machines.

Which one do you prefer: Creative or Survival mode?
Survival.

Is Herobrine real?
Only in some mods.

Well, there you go. I can't be completely sure, of course, but it is pretty certain that if you asked any other seven-year-old Minecraft gamer, you would get the same answers. More or less. However, this game attracts players of any age. I was no different. I remember when I turned it on for the first time, and after spending half an hour in the tutorial, my first reaction was "What's this?" followed by "What should I do now?". And then I realized. This is not the ordinary game. Like most of the other games, where you clearly know what to do and what your goal is. No, here, there are no goals and there are no levels. There is no ultimate ending you are reaching toward. The only thing Minecraft is giving you is the environment. The rest is all yours.

Creeperized Wallpaper for true Minecraft gamers

As soon as I figured that out, it was pretty obvious that in order to turn the game on, you have to deal with two switches. One is to click on the icon to start the game, and the other is in your head. The one that says "Imagination Power On". So I clicked on that one too, and everything started to make sense. The next thing I knew was that hours passed in the real world while I experienced a truly great and short entertainment inside. In a nutshell, Minecraft doesn't require some expensive VR gadget to render the world for you. It does all that with elementary graphics and ordinary three-dimensional programming. What it is extremely successful with is the interaction with that other switch in your head that makes everything possible. Very few games are capable of such things, and this is the main reason Minecraft has been so successful for so long. For that matter, I have fears for the direction of future Minecraft and the vision in Microsoft in order to use it inside of their version of Google Glass, called HoloLens. I surely understand the need for next-gen gadgets and that VR is always trying to get into gamer's worlds effectively, but in this particular case, it could destroy the very essence of Minecraft imagination. I am sure that HoloLens, when it comes or in one of it's future versions, will effectively merge the real world with the imaginary one and, in this case, perfectly render the Minecraft world into your living room. Imagine that.

But is this really necessary?

Maybe.

Perhaps not. Playing imaginative games like this one is just like reading books. You don't need extra help to render the virtual world. You have the ultimate gadget already. For free.

The little gray cells.

Solar Eclipse

Moon travels around the Earth in elliptical orbit and logically there are two points in its path where it is closest and farthest from us. Today it was in "perigee-syzygy" of the Earth-Moon-Sun system or simply called "supermoon". Coincidentally, it happens that today it has the power to fully block the sunlight in northern Europe and made the biggest shadow one can do on Earth. In Serbia it only made partial eclipse covering somewhat less than 50% of the Solar disk. These are 12 photos I took in intervals of approximately 10 minutes from eclipse start at 9:40 until it went away around 11:58. The biggest shade was at 10:48. We were pretty lucky today since the nature gave us clear sky with just one stubborn cloud that covered the Sun-Moon kiss around 11AM.

Above image is the composition of those 12 photos which I took through our Sky-Watcher telescope with solar filter. I still don't have proper camera or adapter for taking astronomical photos so I used our dSLR and manually took images. Therefore, photos are not ideal and perfect so I used little photoshopping to make them as clear as possible.

More about today's event in our neighborhood I found at timeanddate.com and tons of websites as the media literally went viral this morning. No wonder as the next partial eclipse in Europe will be in 5 years and next total one is not expected before 2026. Unfortunately total eclipse in Serbia will not be visible any time soon.

It sure is spectacular when our Moon eclipses the Sun but in the celestial sky above there are more events in the same fashion. I mean, situations when three Solar system bodies become aligned, so to speak. In this update of the blog story about classic eclipse, one of those I took with our scope on May 9, 2016. It was transit of Mercury across the Sun and the photo ended very well. I managed to catch one of those giant Sunspots as well.

Milan's Public Journal related chapters and threads:
Astronomy & Cosmos, Fringe Science, Beth's Q&A and Science & Technology

More stories and posts:
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Do You Live to Work, Or Work to Live?

Do you ever wonder why we work like we work? Why working time lasts those eight hours and why takes the best part of the day? Who made it this way? And why? It all started with industrial revolution in early 19th century which culminated into real nightmare for most of workers, especially in large factories, where long working hours were mandatory and kept people outside their homes all day long. The working day was 10 to 16 hours, six days a week and not only for adults. Use of children was cheap and preferable. Deaths and illnesses from exhaustion were common and it was cruel and inhuman. Eventually, the nightmare spread from workers toward capitalists as well, in form of rise of social movement with Robert Owen's famous slogan "Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest".

Well, today, almost two centuries later, we now live, more or less, in Owen's vision, work around eight hours per day and enjoy our lives during the work or after. Or both. Nobody today dies from the job. Well, not due to poor working conditions, anyways. Perhaps some of us are in danger from the death by boredom in some rainy days in the office, but, and again more or less, today we are in control of our professional careers. On the other end, if you ask me, even this eight hours are sometimes too long. Many times. They say that with age comes the wisdom, but also comes a certain dosage of laziness, especially in second part of the working hours. After 20 years of continuous work in my professional career, eight hours now seem too long. I passed that period in my life with idealistic thoughts and glimpses to the world as it is waiting for me to make the difference. If you are in your forties, there are other variables that must be included in private and professional life. Middle age crisis for example. Not enough challenges like before. Too much routine in both lives. Too competitive environment, to say the least, wherever you look. Generation gaps. Following faster ways of living. And you don't have to be in forties anymore to feel the difference or experience injustice.

Perhaps it is time again for another Robert Owen to appear and try to get shorten this eight hours to six or less. Or to try and modify the working habits and move everything possible to freelancing and outsourcing. To ban offices in those businesses that still insist on using them in old fashion ways, although the entire job can be done today from kitchen table and home wifi. Before, when I was teenager and later when I was trying to make first step in my professional career, they used to say that major changes will come in 21st century. New millennium will change everything. Well, the 14th year now in new spectacular century is about to expire in few months and I can't notice anything majorly different. More or less. But still, the major question from the old times is still there. Do you live to work or you work to live?

It would be unfair if I continue with this story without answering it first. And to be honest, from the beginning and my first employment, I always worked to live. For me, family and home was, is and it will always be the number one. No exceptions. No matter how important was the project I was involved in. But to be completely honest, if I used a scale from minus ten to ten, where -10 means full commitment to the job, while +10 is the finest family time, I would not score the biggest number too often. I don't think I score it easily even today. It is impossible. Sometimes, if comes into my life challenged and pure, the job can suck me in for days. Months even. But always let me go. So my number is within wide scale from -5 to the very high of 9 with more positive then negative values. Ten only sometimes. And I want to keep it that way. If I looked to all my half-a-dozen companies I were working with in my former professional life, the cruel truth is, with couple of exceptions, that I didn't stay in touch with my former co-workers. We all moved along. Simply put, while our intelligence and educations defies us completely, our curriculum vitae is nothing more than a document only worthwhile during searching for a new job. Nobody cares what is written inside while you are having steady job. Only in between two of them.

But enough with work, let's see the other side of the medal. The story I wanted to tell in the first place and maybe unconsciously, I started with too long introduction. What actually inspired me for today's story is Tony Parsons - British journalist and novel author. About month ago, after I read three Harlan Coben's thrillers in a row and two of James Patterson's Alex Cross series during the summer, I felt that I needed a break from tension and crime stories. But I can't really swallow those light readings with love stories in foreground so I went into search for something different - hoping to find a story based on ordinary life, family affairs or one of those with "true story" written on main covers. Tony Parsons, with his "Man and Boy" trilogy, gave me exactly what I wanted. And more.

If you didn't read it already, I recommend it warmly. It is about typical family of the early 21st century, filled with both, pain and love, surrounded by tough life in one large city in which work and mortgage can destroy your life in a split of a second. Harry Silver, in main role, shows us everything what might strike one modern family in one fast-forward world and where, no matter how he tries to maintain normal family life, this proves to be not entirely possible with all the mistakes and distractions from the job. It is also about conflicts between generations and what connects them. About shallowness of business life. Friendships. This is the story that will force your eyes to let go a tear of two too often but also it will put a smile on your face every now and again as well.

I stumbled to the "Man and Boy" within Serbian Laguna - my favorite online bookshop, in their editor selection called "Laguna gems" or something like that, and after I reached second cover I felt hunger for more stories like this one. So I browsed bookshop's online store again, secretly hoping for a sequel, and searched the author's page. To my surprise I found two more novels in the trilogy and also short news about author visiting our town in the tour of promoting his latest book. To cut the story short, I ordered remaining novels, read them in record time and yesterday Viktor and I grabbed the first book and went to the signing event to meet Tony in person. I knew that a person who was able to write Harry's adventures, couldn't be much different than his main character, especially after I read somewhere that his personal life story has many connecting points with the novel itself. As it turned out, Tony Parsons was one great guy with nothing but the smile on his face despite the endless line of people waiting for the autographs. He was especially nice with Viktor and shared the fact that his middle name is also Victor, named after his father, so I can't resist not to share the photo of two Viktors below. After the event, my son and I went to McDonald's for a happy meal and to sort out our impressions and later first thing he said to his mother when we came home was: "It was the best day!". I couldn't agree more.

Tony Victor Parsons & Viktor

Anyway, to resume the main story and in conclusion, my life outside work, in its current stage, is one huge place and full of wonders and challenges. No matter if I just read a book, watch a movie, do dishes, participate social occasion, play a game, travel or enjoy precious family time, it is always far ahead of the most enjoyable project at work for which I, in the end, receive a paycheck. This always makes me feel that "work has this strange effect of zooming things larger than they really are".** Money is one great thing we can't live without, but sometimes, if not always, it manages to spoil the very essence for the work it is paid for. In the latest years when I ask myself why I worked so hard on a project that gave me pleasurable time while it lasted, I always answer with "Oh yes, for the money'. And it wasn't my first thought when I asked myself the same question twenty years ago...

Image refs:
http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/5-things-every-son-needs-to-hear-from-his-dad.html
https://vomitingdiamonds.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/boredom-at-the-office/

Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
* http://connections.msn.com/articles/detail/256476535
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/typical-work-day-length/
** http://www.thehighcalling.org/work/work-life-balance
http://financecareers.about.com/od/careermanagement/a/LiveToWork.htm

Schrödinger's Cat and Intelligent Movies

In short it goes like this: "There's a cat in a box... That has, like, a 50/50 chance of living because there's a vial of poison that's also in the box. Regular physics would say that it's one or the other. That the cat is either alive or dead, but quantum physics says that both realities exist simultaneously. It's only when you open the box that they collapse into one single event." This quote is me paraphrasing James Ward Byrkit, writer and director of the movie "Coherence" I've just watched. Although Erwin Schrödinger back in 1935, when he first wrote his famous thought experiment, invented pretty complex radioactive trap for the poor cat inside the box, I think that "vial of poison" and James' full description in the script is one of the best interpretation of the quantum paradox there is. The quantum weirdness is one of the most intriguing areas in science, that is still buzzing our minds for about a century now. I wrote about it a little last year in post Quantum Weirdness and when it comes to science, it was one of the posts I enjoyed writing the most in the past.

About 90 years ago, Niels Bohr, the greatest Danish physicist of all times, described the quantum mechanics perhaps with the best explanation ever since. He said something like this: "Quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once. It's only when we observe its state that a quantum particle is essentially forced to choose one probability, and that's the state that we observe. Since it may be forced into a different observable state each time, this explains why a quantum particle behaves erratically."* Well, describing the quantum behavior is a challenge ever since and because of Bohr who managed to do it first, all other explanations combined we call today "The Copenhagen Interpretation". The Schrödinger's cat is just Erwin's metaphorical attempt to put it closely into our world of big which we should understand better. But we will get back to the 'cat' later..

And relax, this is not going to be the scientific post or some nerdy brainstorming and (usually) utopistic ideas of mine. Instead it will be about movies. Yep. Just short glimpse of one of my favorite direction within Sci-Fi genre of movies. The one where, just like with reading books, you don't need any big productions, fancy and state of the art visual effects, expensive sets and VFX or famous actors to create great entertainment. This is a genre I like to call Sci-Fi for the brains. Like in the movie "Coherence", the plot is placed down to the real people, or to be precise into familiar settings. There is no space ships or vividly animated aliens or any villains for that matter. All you need is your imagination, little background knowledge and that's all.

I will show you now three movies I recommend warmly and without too much spoiling the films for all of you who still didn't have the chance to watch them. Couple of days before "Coherence" I have seen the blockbuster "Edge of Tomorrow". I liked it a lot, of course, but still, even though with great cast and effects, the story is nothing exclusive or new. It also provides expected closure and left no room for too much thinking or brainstorming over the story. On the other side, "Coherence" with it's relatively anonymous cast and script, that can easily fit within the set in some small theater or school gym, tried to exploit the very cat of mister Schrödinger's and provide one more Copenhagen interpretation, only this time with people in main roles and our own personalities instead of "vial of poison". It all started with simple dinner party and with ordinary people who eventually realized what might happen when you open the box. Is the cat alive or dead, or to be precise what is really happening when different possibilities emerge out of the box in the same time ... try to find at the end of the movie. It's not what you might expect and what we got used to in regular movies, but not every story has the happy ending. I guess in this one, the ending is like in quantum mechanics and like the cat from the century before, "Coherence" has both happy ending and ... not. You have to see it to understand. That's all I will say.

The second Sci-Fi jewel in the same sub-genre is "The Man from Earth", written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Richard Schenkman back in 2007. The science behind this one is biology and how, in its most divergent (and also on the edge of impossible) path, it might affect the very history of mankind. Or to be precise, explained it. The story focuses on John Oldman, the man who, due to some biological anomaly, doesn't age ever since he was born in Cro-Magnon tribal society 14000 years ago. Like any other science fiction, the movie doesn't try too much to explain the reasons of his presence and instead portraying his straggle to fit, ability to learn throughout time and adapt into different parts of the world and his everlasting crave to tell somebody his story. And this film is exactly what it is about - finally, the "old man" Oldman, currently university professor who's about to leave and start another loop, decides to share everything with a group of his peer colleagues. Well, he will learn that impossible stories like his one is not possible to be accepted that easily or at all. But the audience behind the screen will get great entertainment and possible solution for some parts of our own history, and especially, religiosity and it's main figures during the eons. Including Buddha and Christ. Oh yes, and don't expect the sword fights, mad scientists or any action at all, like it was in "Highlander" and it's, almost stupid plot with cutting heads off for the "prize". The set of this movie is only one small living room. The only thing you have to do is sharpen you brain cells before clicking the "Play" button.

Finally, the last one is "Primer", extraordinary film written, directed, and produced by Shane Carruth. Shane was also playing the main character in the movie and the entire project finished with only $7,000. It's hard to say what science is behind this one. Probably the best bet is to use word "fringe" for this as the main theme and background technology is "time travel". The script is based on the one of oldest time travel paradigms. The one that doesn't include parallel universes and instead the time traveler is ending into his very own universe where the danger of "butterfly effect" can ripple the time stream and change everything. This is the most intelligent script and movie I have seen so far and before I watched I read some reviews before and remember this one: "Anybody who claims they fully understand what’s going on in ‘Primer’ after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar". Well, I am not either and to be completely honest I didn't manage to follow entire story and understand it after the first (and last) watching but more or less I got the almost whole picture from that only session.

The key point in understanding the science (fiction) behind "Primer" is to comprehend what is happening with the guy who enters the time machine and when he does in the first place why his major concern is to make sure that his parallel copy enters the box no matter what. The problem with this is well speculated in the article from Discover Magazine I read once, and in short, if time travel into past is possible, nature must have some mechanism in order to prevent inconsistent events like in this case non-entering the box by the time traveler after the loop is initiated. Confused? Maybe to better understand this paradox, take a look at this image***:

The hazard is obvious, if the "original" in its own blue timeline didn't enter the box at 6PM, the green parallel timeline would not exist in the first place. In other words, if "double" meets "original" and stops him from entering the box, the paradox is obvious and we can only imagine what happens if that "butterfly" occurs. That's why "the science fiction behind time travel" in recent years actively rejects this approach and involves another universe being destination for time travelers instead of the origin universe, which would explain consistency of traveling into past. Of course, we might ask what would happen if ALL "originals" from ALL universes decide to time travel? Whatever universe they arrive, the copy of them will be needed to enter the box in destination universe and we have the same problem again, let's call it "Multiverse Butterfly Effect"... Anyway, if you didn't see "Primer" or want to watch it again, try to comprehend this image first. It will help a lot.

These three movies, even though from the same genre and sub-genre, differ in used background science and I can't truly compare them with each other. So I can't favorite one of them but these are the movies I like to give thoughts again and again... They are not really made for just entertainment and for me, more memorable then regular Sci-Fis.

Images and article refs:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schroedingers_cat_film.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
* http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/.../quantum-suicide4.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
http://coherencethemovie.com/
** http://www.amazon.com/Wanted-Schrodingers-Magnet
http://manfromearth.com/
http://www.primermovie.com/
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)
http://www.myvisionmyway.com/the-man-from-earth-minimalist-poster.html

Fishermen and Pirates of Evia

The road this summer took us approximately 700 km south to the second-largest Greek island, Evia (Εύβοια). Starting from this year, we decided to leave Macedonian Greece and start spending our vacations and visiting other regions of the country and this southern part of the Balkans. Our vacation resort was located only about 100 km from the spot where the famous 'Battle of Thermopylae' took place and where, in the late summer of 480 BC, King Leonidas of Sparta confronted a large army of the Persian Empire led by Xerxes the Great, who was trying to occupy ancient Greece in the second Persian attempt. The Greeks were vastly outnumbered and faced with imminent collapse after the betrayal during the second day of battle. Leonidas dismissed the majority of his army and, in the most famous last stand, remained to guard the narrow pass of Thermopylae only with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans. We all know what happened next. At least many of you saw the movie, and although it was diverted from the real happenings and portrayed Leonidas defeat in a more or less artistic way, this was one of the most striking battles of them all. In the following months and years, Greeks managed to stand on their feet and finally, in a couple of naval battles, forced Xerxes to withdraw and to finally end the war.

Anyway, history aside, we spent ten days in the town of Pefki, at the northern shore of Evia. It is inhabited only by local fishermen, and its small harbor is occupied with small- and medium-sized fishing boats. Every night this small fleet was sailing out from the bay and in the morning was returning with tons of various catches for local markets, restaurants, and further industrial export. Fishing is a very successful business in Evia, and there is no surprise if you see a fisherman's latest model of Mercedes-Benz parked next to his boat. Of course, during the summer, the small fishermen's town grows into a large tourist resort, and over a couple of previous years, the Serbian 'tourist armada' started to grow rapidly. Many Greeks have already learned a couple of Serbian words, and lots of menus in local restaurants and tavernas are already translated to Serbian as well. Even the Serbian flag is waving on the beach next to the Greek one in several places. I guess Persians did it all wrong; instead of invading the Greek peninsula, they only needed to sail here for summer vacations and start spending gold and coins, and Greeks would probably raise their flag for free. :-)

This vacation was a perfect chance to test our Olympus µ TOUGH-6010 under the water. Viktor and I were very excited about this and made tons of photos and video clips. The camera heroically withstood salty water, and some of the photos, after little post-processing, ended very well. Video clips, although not in too high resolution, captured nice underwater activities, especially in those times when Viktor dropped the camera to the sandy floor and we had to search for the little thing while it was recording all our efforts from the bottom of the sea. Crystal clear water of the Aegean helped a lot, and we are looking forward to our next underwater adventures.

Flat Sausage Fair

Approximately 15 years ago I was working as a lab assistant in the programming department of microassembly and object-oriented languages within the College of Applied Technical Sciences in Niš, Serbia. I was engaged with all five semesters and was teaching students from their freshman year to graduation, and every now and again, along with the board of professors, I was asked to attend their final exams, followed by a sort of social celebration in the form of a small festivity with a table full of food and drinks.

On one such occasion, a student who came from Pirot, one of the biggest cities of eastern Serbia, asked us if we had ever tried before a sausage called "vitamin bomb", which, he said, was one of the oldest delicacies from the region he came from. I spotted that one of the professors, who was actually known to have tried almost everything when it came to food and drinks, started nodding his head, but it was clear that the rest of us heard it for the first time. The student looked at the professor and said, "I am sure you never tasted this one," and pulled out from the bag a ... well ... something that looked exactly like a "horseshoe" in both shape and color. I glanced toward the professor who claimed that he tasted it before and saw that even he was surprised with the strange-looking sausage in the student's hands. The student glimpsed the same, warmly smiled, and explained to us what it is and how it's made. Today, almost two decades later, the "vitamin bomb" sausage is a recognized brand, and the simple translation from Serbian "Peglana Kobasica" is "Ironed" or "Flat" Sausage. Last year, the town of Pirot and its tourist organization created the first "Flat Sausage Fair", and yesterday, despite poor weather, we decided to visit the second fair made in honor of this great Serbian soul food, which is the mutual name for all those old recipes that survived centuries in their original forms.

But what is so special about this sausage that it earned its own fair?

The recipe is not the secret, although this is not a meal you can make in a couple of hours in your home; with a little enthusiasm, it is doable, and results could be extraordinary. From what I can find online, you need a great selection of various quality meats (cleaned and stripped of all fats and unwanted parts), ultra-finely chopped or minced and mixed with spices (up to 2% of different chilies, 2% salt, 1% garlic, and 1% pepper, followed by other suitable spices according to your taste). No water or any other liquids are welcome in the mixture. Now comes the interesting part. After filling is ready and wrapped into eatable natural sausage casing, sausage should be formed in the "U" shape and left for drying on the draft. The drying "chamber" must be very cold, with an optimal temperature around zero degrees or colder, with as low humidity as possible, and in the presence of great frost, keeping outside water from vaporizing in great scales. Usually with a bottle, sausages are pressed and ironed two or three times a week, after which they take the form of a horseshoe. Ironing is necessary for most of the unnecessary air and water to be ejected from the sausage, which ensures longevity. Needless to say, they are purely organic with no preservation of any kind, no additives or artificial colors, no heat treatment, and no exposure to smoke.

Since there is no strict recipe when it comes to ingredients, it is clear that with different mixtures of various meats and spices, they come in a wide variety of different tastes, and given the fact that they are made of and the nature of the preparation that has not changed from the times dating a couple of centuries before, in my humble opinion, I have to say that I haven't tried better sausage yet. And believe me, I have tried many. Even those advertised on large scales, like the white sausages of Bavaria or great Danish delicacies you can buy outdoors, are simply not worthy rivals. Furthermore, the energy value of the sausage is very high, and it is usually served in small dosages and sliced into tiny, a couple of millimeters chopped pieces. Best of all, due to the fact they contain almost no water inside, you can store them in a deep freezer, where they keep their original taste and shape even after a couple of months. Yesterday's fair was, like the year before, organized very nicely and with thousands of people browsing and tasting the specimens. We bought a couple of kilos of different varieties with different meat mixtures and spice ratios, and the winner for me was a hot, whitish, extra tasty brand. It was moderately hot, made out of four different kinds of meat (besides beef, they used the best parts of goat, horse, and donkey meat), and with a great mixture of spices. The casing is giving this particular one a whitish color, which is also pretty cool and unique.

Unfortunately, because of yesterday's weather and half a meter of snow outside our weekend house, we couldn't get to the fair earlier and see its social side, so I am including the video I made last year. Somehow and also to my taste, the jazz band playing last winter fits greatly to this particular fair and the advertising product.

Serbian Flat Sausage*
http://www.rostiljanje.com/gastronomske-manifestacije/peglana-kobasica/

Image Refs:
http://www.pirotskevesti.rs/lokalna-samouprava/na-hiljade-turista-dolazi-na-sajam-peglane/
http://www.pirotskevesti.rs/gradska-hronika/pocinje-prijava-za-sajam-peglane-kobasice/
http://www.pirotskevesti.rs/lokalna-samouprava/ogromno-interesovanje

Refs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NjN4KZ1zdo
http://www.peglana.com/english/index.htm
http://www.pirotskevesti.rs/zivot-drustvo/praznik-peglane-u-hali-kej/
http://fondazioneslowfood.it/ark/details/1707/pirot-ironed-sausage
http://www.tanjug.rs/news/113206/pirot-hosts-flat-sausage-fair.htm

Constantine & Naissus

A couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was a very popular name. Especially among soldiers in the Roman and Byzantine empires, along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within Latin, Cōnstantīnus, and Greek, Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos), the name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast, especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called Moesia Superior, with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for the Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I have lived ever since. The Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin", and even though it is not related to the the military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name, Viktor, won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son, his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip), but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.

Constantine the Great*

Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will be equally about my birth town, the history of the Christian religion and the "Edict of Milan", a small glimpse of the Roman Empire, the end of the Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria, and a little photography along the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of the "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and Licinius I, his fellow emperor of the eastern part, in February of 313 BC, declared Christianity, the rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole of southern Europe, northern Africa, and a big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after the Crucifixion of Jesus, where the modern history we are living in started. But the early days (or, to better say, centuries) of "modern history", or what we love to call "AD," were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of the fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great cities, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since—the great Library of Alexandria. In those times, over a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and many other nations were stored in the library, and comparing it to nowadays terminology, we can safely say that the entire ancient "internet" was located within one single library. More than a hundred scholars worked full-time within the library's walls, performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, and writing books. It was one of the shiniest periods of the whole world's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews, and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there were no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities rose to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and in his raid, around 391 AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of the Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents were destroyed, and the temple was converted to a church. The rest of the library's treasure was probably lost a couple of years later when one of the most famous women who ever lived, Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity, or the era of prosperity I was talking about in the post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten, and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640 AD, where all the remaining scrolls were proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who foresaw all possible futures of the Roman Empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge the definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with the first multicultural societies. Rome and Constantinople under his rule and the rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive Alexandria's fate. At least until a couple of centuries later when the third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The Crusades. What happened to Alexandria in the fourth century started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If the story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts, and they all originate way back to the point of the first founders of my hometown. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that its location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Whoever the warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times, your path would lead through Naissus, and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were a member of the Triballi tribes who invaded this area in the 4th century BC, a member of the Gallic groups who invaded the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century BC, or a Roman who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all, but with the price of thousands of men lost in numerous battles, with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus", where Romans with the help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Goths and their allies. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns and barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs, in the year 540 AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium, but also with frequent interruptions by various invasions in the face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). The second millennium was no different, and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers: firstly by Byzantine forces, the Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, the Ottoman Empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans, and the Nazis and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium has devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.

Third-century Roman soldiers battling Gothic troops**

Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in the 3rd century and after. The most famous one was of course, Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organized economy by the name of Mediana***. Until it was fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine, including Julian the Apostate, who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman Empire, and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of the Neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia), and for several edicts in various laws, including the Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts were not successful for a longer period of time, and religions with gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best-known role of the residence of Mediana, which is, by the way, only a couple of hundred meters from my home, was in the year 364 AD, when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation between west and east was never without serious consequences. The separation of the Roman Empire, over time, moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, starting with Rome's fall on September 4, 476. The Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math, and the Church finally separated in the so-called "Great Schism", culminating in the early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium has passed since then, and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking at each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one Catholic cardinal and one Orthodox patriarch and ask them why the Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" the lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy, and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once and for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this, and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse of the world, please go to Science of God.

In front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena

Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, Master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner, and after a little search online, I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote, but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and the religious event happening this weekend.

This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorialized with special liturgy (λειτουργία), where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš, or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give the rising new religion a chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city, and for this occasion a piece of wood from Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus, were transferred to Constantine's new church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display, and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic, and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was the official event for "VIPs", which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was the presence of a zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's a topic for another story.

1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia

After 1700 years, I guess lots of things changed. There is no Roman Empire anymore or big crusades, but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about the Christian church in general whatever we want, but one thing is for sure. A society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are, and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until we die, there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean, I can't imagine a wedding here in Serbia without the church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organizations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine the Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan