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 Lundoxia Presents (1 of 10): A video about stoicism A 5-minute video about the ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism, which also bears similarities with ancient Chinese taoism. |
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Lundoxia Presents (2 of 10) : Facial recognition and the future of nanotechnology A fascinating 6,5-minute report by The Economist about facial recognition. Eventually, nanotechnology will become so advanced, combined with x-ray camera technology and powerful telescopes in outer space, literally each and every single living person on the planet (even humans living deep in caves) will be identified, on one single database, all 7 billion or more people. People are obsessed with privacy. You can draw a diametrical analogy with the Dutch Calvinist psyche centuries ago that if one had curtains in the window then he or she was obviously trying to hide something. Recently I tried explaining this to some young English women in their 20s. They responded saying: "that sounds suspicious". In their mindsets, you would only NOT have curtains if you were an exhibitionist. But what if the ones looking are Peeping Toms? Aren't the lookers the ones causing someone to be called an exhibitionist? Eventually it is nanotechnology that will erase terrorism. The technology will become so advanced that it will detect such people long before they can commit their misdeeds, similar to the Hollywood film MINORITY REPORT (2002) starring Tom Cruise. But they won't even need psychics, massive amounts of data and x-ray pictures, right down to the nanometer of any object on Earth (including caves and the bottom of an ocean floor) captured from as far away as a telescope in space, will be sufficient evidence. And the state? Even centuries before today's technology, this was a subject of continued debate. Yes it can be a slippery slope to an Orwellian totalitarian nightmare, or a benign one foretold by H.G. Wells in his prophetic satire THE TIME MACHINE (1895) in which humans in future societies are profoundly apathetic, have no opinions nor intellect as everything is done for them by super-advanced technology. Eventually technology will become molecular and indifferentiable from organic life so this prediction is a possible future reality. As the Dutch axiom goes: "wij zijn niet zo ver vandaan" (we are halfway there already.) |
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Lundoxia Presents (3 of 10): Savusauna (introduction to smoke sauna in Finland) and maintaining the Jedi codes of sauna ethos; Plus, the art of Löyly There are very few "sauna-savvy" countries on Earth where the collective population is familiar with the practice and correct ethos; Finland is number 1 and perhaps even on a par with Estonia (called Saun in Estonian.) Russians might argue on this, where it is called Banya; yet Karelia which is in Russia is formerly part of Finland (ceded to Russia in 1939), so it is a misnomer. There are only a wee handful of countries on Earth that sport a collective sauna tradition, and they are all in Europe, and vary greatly in numbers or percentage of frequent sauna goers compared with the total population. In Finland conservative figures indicate at least 80% of Finns are weekly sauna goers and have free access to a privately owned sauna, explaining the near disappearance of public saunas during the post-World War II period due to the rise of purchase power. This is a sharp difference between Finns and Dutch: Dutch rarely entertain at home; they pay money to go out. Finns stay at home or go to friends' places to entertain. On my last Finland trip I entered the incorrect apartment building and was trying to enter the door of the wrong flat; an unknown man opened the door and with a happy face invited me to the party he was having inside his home. Other countries such as The Netherlands and Germany boast a decent percentage or frequent sauna users. Other Germanic nations such as Flemish/German-speaking Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and German-speaking Switzerland also have sauna traditions although much less than Holland or Germany. And I was always stunned at the lack of saunas in the other Nordic nations (or the remaining Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania for that matter) of Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. There are some but again it is hit or miss and very few and far between. It's about uniformity/consistency in respecting the preset codes, maintaining a certain standard, decorum or ambience and concentration of sauna use in a given country. At its best such as Finland or Estonia, it is stoic and thus self-regulating non-verbally. In super-prude Norway, forget it. In Sweden, because it borders Finland, you can find them but it takes investigation (granted, Norway snakes northeast overtop Sweden and Finland with its piece of turf called Finnmark, yet is thinly populated mainly by Sami, or Laps/Lapps.) I go to one in Copenhagen sometimes but it is gender-segregated and totally walled-off creating the vague sensation of claustrophobia. Copenhagen's Frederiksberg public swimming facility with saunas schedules weekly nude swims and monthly sessions where the entire facility is nudity-obligatory (I wish it were the opposite: nude all the time with scheduled slots for bathing-suit clad people!) URL: https://vimeo.com/54637378 (copy and past this link in your upper browser rectangular space bar - many people still don't know this!) As you penetrate eastward into Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine or Hungary you can find some but the ethos really starts to thin out and the sauna loses its meaning somewhat: it is hit or miss. Once in Kiev with a Ukrainian woman we entered into a sauna cabin which dot the city's outskirts. The man says in Russian to my Ukrainian escort: "are you going to fuck in the sauna?", she got angry and we went to another place run by a babushka and it was much better. What is the criteria to a proper sauna? It cannot be sex act-oriented. It must be minimum 80 degrees (I prefer the stronger ones above 100.) You must be fully naked. It should not be gender-segregated as this was never in keeping with Finnish egalitarianism (Finland is the only non-monarchy among the Nordic states except Iceland whose populace is essentially ancient Norse. Note: it is only in the last 100 years or so that public saunas in Finland started gender-segregating, though today there are only about 15 public saunas left in Finland according to a Finn, since most Finns already have their own private saunas.) What if you had a sauna date and the date consisted of both genders? This is the problem. It is a conundrum to contemplate the gender segregation of Finland in this regard, and a tragic betrayal of its social model of egalitarianism. It's a question of objective experience to separate the phoneys from the genuines. A sauna is a sauna is a sauna, regardless what country it is in. If you veer too far outside the parameters of what constitutes a sauna, please don't call it a sauna; call it a hot room, a Banya, a bath house or anything else, but not sauna. For example: the moment a fellow sauna user tells you not to pour water on the rocks for any reason, or says you must ask permission, basically it's no longer a sauna, it's a lunatic box. On a report I wrote in 2014 I interviewed one of Finland's foremost sauna experts. He said: "in some countries like Germany they have it all wrong. They think you can only pour water on the sauna's rocks at specific times or that you must obtain all fellow sauna sitters' permission first. The whole point of Löyly - the Finnish word for pouring water on rocks in the sauna - is that it is a spontaneous non-verbal act, and is repeated. You lose the sense of time and come into the nowness. But by far the best saunas are savusauna (smoke sauna.) It's worth an expedition to Finland to get a taste of it. I think electric saunas are so bad that I no longer categorize them as saunas due to the synthetic heat the electricity produces - heat is not heat; there are all sorts of forms of heat...I think I'd rather take an infrared sauna instead of an electric sauna. Note: granted, there are pockets of isolated exceptions. In certain regions of Canada or the US there may be sauna clubs run by descendants of Finnish immigrants. But these are usually private clubs or between friends and form an extremely low percentage overall. Ditto for nudist resorts; a nudist resort is a private establishment focused on nudism and not authentic Finnish sauna ethos. Just because a nudist resort has a sauna does not qualify it as a genuine sauna. |
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Lundoxia Presents (4 of 10): All the world's passports (great video for design lovers) Do you love design? Then this YouTube video will intrigue you. Have you ever wondered what all the world's passports look like? For years I did and there was no way to know unless you worked at an airport and had access to such information. Now on the internet you can see all the passport designs. This one lists 199 passports including those of Palestine, Kosovo, Macao, Vatican City, Hong Kong and Taiwan. But those six are not United Nations (UN) member states and not real sovereign states for one reason or another; they are territories or special jurisdictions. Many people still think Switzerland is not a UN member, but in fact it joined in 2002, the straggler of all stragglers. Since then all independent countries are UN members (except for the occasional secession such as Montenegro in 2006 and South Sudan in 2011), the "de facto club" affirming mutual recognition for each other's sovereign nation states. As the Mexican José Ángel Gurría (Secretary-General of the OECD) said: "everybody who's somebody is a member" (speaking about OECD membership, which could also symbolically be applied to UN membership; sovereign states are also called "persons" in legal jargon, hence this anthropomorphism or personification.) Any designer or design aficionado will know a good design must not be too busy-looking. The immediate visual impact must be clear and symmetrical, which is the essence of beauty. Bright and happy, as a writer once said of the ideal appearance of his longhand. The image must communicate the message in the blink of an eye and most passport designs fail miserably at this. Probably, people will think passport design is unimportant, but I think nothing is unimportant. This is Taoism; each thought, deed or written word is important. As long as you're doing anything, do it mindfully, a hard yet noble goal to achieve. The Japanese call it ikigai. Most passport designs are too busy, brash, dull or stiff-looking. Also there are too many identical recurring visual themes such as stars, eagles, lions and other animals (Australia has a kangaroo and ostrich on its passport but when I mention this to Australians, they don't know which is an indication the design has left little or no mental imprint) or overly intricate coats of arms. Many designs are too blurry or faded, especially if the contrast between the logo, lettering and the passport color is poorly thought out. Also, lines cannot all be only squares or rectangles; balance out the angles and shapes, adding in circles or ovals. There are many bad fonts and boring or unoriginal "rubber-stamp" type logos. A logo must be totally unique and stand out at first sight, making it instantly memorable or even iconic, like the Swiss passport. Another negative facet of most passports is: too many words or text. The wording should simply read the name of the country. Ideally, a country should have a name, instead of a definition. For instance, France is a name. "United Kingdom" is not a name but a definition and could easily refer to any number of countries such as Denmark or Norway, which are also united kingdoms. "United States of America" could easily refer to Brazil, which is also a united states in America and Latin Americans outside USA indeed rightly call themselves Americans as America is a singular continent composed of 35 sovereign states, or independent countries (there are 20 more territories in the Americas such as Greenland or Bermuda but they are not sovereign states/independent countries.) Do you have favorites among all these passport designs? Here is my Top 10, not in any order of preference: 1. Morocco: beautiful, clear and crisp contrast of colors (blue and gold.) Nice font too. Not too busy, nice immediate visual impact. 2. Zambia: nice simple design with a human theme, logo-wise. 3. Bahrain: beautiful choice of color tones in the gold and red with a clear logo, not too busy in appearance. 4. Croatia (Hrvatska): Clean and simple. Notice that Croatia became an EU member in 2013 but managed to persuade the EU to retain its dark blue passport color, instead of adopting the mandatory EU burgundy red as all other EU passports. I wonder how this was achieved? 5. Andorra: beautiful rich mahogany brown tone, a most unique color choice and a super clean logo with a super clean font. 6. Monaco: beautiful human theme and coat of arms. Only I wish they would use a vivid red instead of burgundy, bearing excessive resemblance to the European Union (EU) passport color of which Monaco is not a member. 7. Liechtenstein: nice choice of color and font, with what is probably the most gorgeous coat of arms in the world. 8. Ireland: how can you not love that harp? Is this the only country with a musical instrument as its logo? How unique! 9. Switzerland: arguably the most iconic passport ever conceived. Awesome embossed designs in this one, of the cross. Also, even inside the passport (if you've ever inspected a Swiss passport close-up), each page features intricate art work of iconic Swiss landscape and historical persons. A fantastic attention to detail in this work of art, with some of the most advanced security features. 10. Norway: nice color and clean coat of arms. What a "short and sweet" name in Norse for the name Norway: Norge |
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Lundoxia Presents (5 of 10): Take the train from Amsterdam to New York (via Siberia) New York to London by train, via the Bering Strait across Russia, Alaska and Canada. What a neat idea: great for freight! |
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Lundoxia Presents (6 of 10): Deutsche Welle (DW) report on YouTube about nude sauna culture in Germany Another excellent, super-rare report about nude sauna practice in Germany, by a British woman, for Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's public international broadcaster. This item is a gem for lovers of all things esoteric and eclectic. When I was a travel writer publishing pieces in mainstream magazines, if my submitted piece contained a passage about the super-exceptional unisex nudity of German, Austrian or Dutch public saunas then the editor would delete it before publishing; either the editor thought I was inventing this plain true fact, or automatically and wrongly linked up the non-sexual nudity with lewdness, worried about potential complaints from the readership. Hence this "nude fact" remains one of the best-kept secrets on Earth. And yet wearing a swimsuit inside a sauna is severely unhealthy (inhaling its bacteria in the extreme heat of the sauna potentially causing legionnaire's disease, especially if the temperature is below 90 degrees Celsius), not to mention the foul odor of the wet swimsuit in the sauna. 30 years ago my father filed reports as television journalist for Deutsche Welle (DW), which had a large studio in Cologne (some reports still exist on YouTube as recent uploads*; search under " Neil Lundy / European Journal".) We initially lived in an apartment by the Rhine, a section of Cologne called Rodenkirchen. Nearby there was a local sauna I frequented. I could not believe the diametrical juxtaposition of being in the company and conversation of young nude German women as a then 16-year old in 1988, compared to the previous two years at an all-boys school in Toronto wearing a uniform with shirt and tie on a property where girls were forbidden. Night and day. Hallelujah to the German Freikörperkultur, the sign of an enlightened civil society. It was 30 years ago that I drove up to Amsterdam from Cologne in a vintage 1972 silver Mercedes Benz, assisting on reports about the homeless, soft drugs, prostitution, same-sex marriage and euthanasia, the latter three issues not then yet legalized (2000, 2001 and 2002 respectively); what a journey for any lad! *Probably the most popular of which is the 1987 report on Poteen, Irish Moonshine; a segment of which will be aired on Irish television as part of a sitcom in 2019 (!) |
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Lundoxia Presents (7 of 10): A planet Earth without humans Now in the Corona Virus world, this is a topic on people's minds: planet Earth without humans, what would it look like and what would happen? A beautifully animated video from BBC Ideas of 3,5 minutes on YouTube |
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Lundoxia Presents (8 of 10): The emergence of electric cars in 2018 A 6-minute video about the emergence of electric cars in 2018, with some cities such as Paris, Athens, Madrid and Mexico partially only allowing electric cars into their city centers by the year 2025 (The Economist.) The end of fossil fuel cars by the year 2040? |
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Lundoxia Presents (9 of 10): an animated video by ARTE on YouTube to proper sauna ethos (updated 23 August 2020) This YouTube linked video by ARTE is in German and is a follow-up (part 2) to the original 3,5-minute video posted one year earlier, in October 2018. This 2,5-minute animated video makes the point about Germany more or less being the only country in the world with unisex public saunas in which nudity is standard. Some other European countries such as Liechtenstein, Austria and Switzerland also sport this feature. The Netherlands too but recently big spas are introducing swim suit days, such as Spa Zuiver: starting on 1 September 2020 half the week will be swimsuit-only days, which for me automatically disqualifies it as a proper sauna. Ironically in the "sauna bible", published by the Finnish sauna society, it states that a sauna is specifically designed to use nude, not with a swimsuit. Yet in unisex public Finnish saunas they use swimsuits. In Holland there used to be a Dutch sauna authority that warned of Legionnaire's disease with the wearing of swim suits in saunas (bacteria from swim suits in small enclosed spaces), especially if the temperature of the sauna was below 80 degrees Celsius. The practice of non-sexual unisex nudity at public (non-club/non-membership) venues as a standard is limited to a small number of European countries. In Poland this practice has recently sprung up, notably in spa-oriented hotels with saunas, in conjunction with Löyly (the pouring of water on the rocks with whipping of birch tree branches on the body) and is described as "non-textile, in keeping with sauna ethos". The Body-shaming phobic or body-negative condemn such nudity as perverted or gratuitous and attempt to link up mere nudity with sex when there is no link, yet body-neutral or body-positive people maintain that such non-sexual nudity should be unworthy of comment or further ado. The body-negative make issue where there is no issue when no wrong acts are committed. It is mental. Germany leads the way in its inner city parks where nudity is permitted such as in Berlin (Tiergarten) and Munich (Englischer Garten.) Seeing is believing. |
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Lundoxia Presents (10 of 10): Excellent video illustrating how a virus floats through the air By far the best illustrations I have seen so far showing how a virus floats through and on air, by Vox on YouTube, 6 minutes. |
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Lundoxia Presents (Addendum/Elf): Manu Dibango (1933-2020) One of the first celebs to die of Coronavirus The Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango (1933-2020) is one of the first celebs or celebrated musicians to die of Coronavirus. He died in Paris on 24 March 2020, aged 86. His hit song SOUL MAKOSSA was also hugely popular among B-Boys (breakdancers) in the early 1980s. I used to play this song over and over in Lahr Schwarzwald (you'd be surprised the number of cool vinyl record shops even in that tiny town back then!); for me his music is also quintessential to the B-Boy spirit: positive, electric energy, otherwise we would not be able to break dance. Long live the B-Boy spirit and the great, deep, euphoric and amazing musical vibes of Manu Dibango! Linked from YouTube: Soul Makossa (album), 1972 |
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Lundoxia Presents (The Dirty Dozen): Uitspraak op VoVo op 21 augustus 2020 (ruling on motion to suspend at the Council of State in The Hague) Updated on 26 November 2020 Linked: 21 August 2020 VoVo (voorlopige voorziening / motion to suspend) court ruling at The Hague's Council of State, published on RaadvanState.nl All these court rulings (judgments/uitspraak) are public records and published on rechtspraak.nl by punching in the keywords "fietstaxi vergunning" in the search field. Summary: The city of Amsterdam banned all rickshaws (fietstaxi, trishaw, velo, or bike/trike taxi or pedicab in North America) effective 1 April 2020. This ban had been decided by the city in March 2018 and it initially scheduled the termination for 1 April 2019, then postponing it to 1 April 2020. The city gave no scientific reason for its termination other than it found the streets too crowded. This personalized emission-free inner-city transport was legally practiced in Amsterdam for 18 years (between 2002 and 2020.) Six of we rickshaw licence holders appeared in court on 18 February 2020, winning in the court rulings dated 8 and 9 April 2020, published on 20 April 2020 in which the court ordered the city to make a new decision within 6 weeks. Instead the city refused us again. We then filed fresh appeals to that new denial, but the court has not announced court dates for hearings a half year since those fresh appeals were filed. Meanwhile on 21 August 2020 one appellant failed at the Council of State in his bid to suspend (called a VoVo in Duch) the rickshaw licence termination pending his higher appeal. Given this precedent, winning a VoVo is now an impossibility. That appellant's hearing for his higher appeal is now set for the end of February 2021. ------------------------------------------- In this linked VoVo ruling the following sentence says a mouthful: "De voorzieningenrechter acht mede van belang dat het verbod exploitatie van de onderneming van [verzoeker] niet geheel onmogelijk maakt" This means: "the judge considers that this prohibition does not make it impossible for the applicant to operate his (rickshaw) enterprise." This statement refers to the city of Amsterdam allowing rickshaws to carry out "reservations" (but not to wait in a public space nor allow passenger/s to step into a rickshaw in public) while being banned as of April 1st 2020. Yet the judge refuses to recognize that a neutral observer would be unable to tell the difference between a rickshaw "reservation" and a non-reservation, given that in both cases the rickshaw must wait in a public space and transport passenger(s) in public. Police officers and ticketing (fine/penalty) agents are uninterested in determining this arbitrary difference and have already warned, fined and confiscated some of the few illegal rickshaws who now remain active despite the prohibition. This is a terrorizing and insidious atmosphere in which to work and exist, echoing the hunting down of "replicants" in the film BLADE RUNNER. As the jolly Dutchman would quip: "dat is niet fijn". If a future higher appeal fails in The Hague, could the appellant(s) take this case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but this is an option being examined now and is dependent on the outcome of complex factors. Some say of us: "they are lucky to have had bike taxis for 18 years and should just accept it". But this is to say the city should cancel all businesses and professions. The city pretends it is our employer when it is not. We are self-employed persons registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. ------------------------------ Some rickshaw runners have become mailmen or returned to construction or boat gigs, while others have bailed out of Holland and sold their rigs. This link will be kept updated with developments as they happen. This was my "Dirty Dozen": 2008-2020. I will let this website and domain name expire around early April 2021, having bowed out on the first day of lock-down: 17 March 2020 and sold my rig on 7/11. Between now and then I will post updates. After that my other domain names such as Lundoxia.com and ThomasLundy.com will be redirected to my Twitter or YouTube pages. It was quite the slice. The legal appeals are historic issues (concerned with the past rather than the present), yet some have withdrawn their appeals and more may still withdraw. Our win on 8 and 9 April 2020 was symbolic, and just too bad that the city denied us again 8 weeks later, instead of granting us the win and reinstating our licences to the end of the licence period ending on April 1st, 2022. That was just plain bad sportsmanship on the part of the city. - - - - - - - - - - Some background on this termination: Many other licences or permits such as those for beer bikes, horse-drawn carriages, tuk-tuk motorized vehicles and even canal boats are being subjected to new restrictions or total bans, as part of the wider "Stad in Balans" policy to clamp down on tourism all taking effect in 2020. Amsterdam has been grouped together with the other "Crunch Tourism" cities of Barcelona, Venice and Prague with excessive human density (over-crowding) into tiny historic "old town" city centers. |
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