Kafka In Amadora

In August, 49-year-old tailor Zhang Chaolin, a Chinese Frenchman, died in hospital after being attacked by three teenagers. He had been walking in a quiet street in the north Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. Estimated at more than 600,000 people, France has Europe’s largest Chinese community. But they have not been in the country as long as more prominent migrant groups, including those from Africa. Meriem Derkaoui, the suburb’s communist mayor, condemned Zhang’s murder as “racist targeting”. Frederic Chau describes his family home’s doormat as being like a border between France and China when he was growing up: “I rejected my origins, I wanted to be whiter than white”. Now, he has fully embraced his Cambodian and Chinese origins, and is proud of them. - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37720780

Reasons to believe that the universe is a simulation include the fact that it behaves mathematically and is broken up into pieces (subatomic particles) like a pixelated video game. “Even things that we think of as continuous – time, energy, space, volume – all have a finite limit to their size. If that’s the case, then our universe is both computable and finite. Those properties allow the universe to be simulated,” Terrile said. [ The Guardian (2016)]

There are many ways in which humanity could become extinct before reaching posthumanity. Perhaps the most natural interpretation of is that we are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but dangerous technology like molecular nanotechnology, which in its mature stage would enable the construction of self‐replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter, a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, designed for malicious ends, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet. [Are you living in a computer simulation? by Nick Bostrom]

Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents,  it was loaned to you by your children. (Kenyan proverb) Mass immigration undermines the ability of a collection of individual persons to be a people, to have bonds of loyalty to each other; to have the ability to take pride in each other's achievements and feel shame at their shortcomings; at the limit, to love each other, not in the romantic sense, but in the brotherly sense that marks those who live together well. It is just a fact about human nature, about the kinds of beings we are, that we love and care for those we share life with, and this in a way that is different to those who are strangers to us. These bonds of partiality are most pronounced in intimate relationships. They exist also in political communities. Over time, in the context of concern between generations and cooperation between families, villages, and towns, so communities develop cultures, which bind us together. They can do thi

(transcrito de portugalferroviario.net , trainmaniac) Mais uma semana e mais uma notícia de expansões no Metro de Lisboa: o Governo aparentemente vai apresentar em breve a extensão da linha amarela do Rato até ao Cais do Sodré, com estações na Estrela e em Santos. Esta expansão parece ter ganho à linha de Cascais, apesar desta se debater com problemas operacionais claros de há muito a esta parte. Não consigo deixar de estranhar que o mesmo Governo que assume no Parlamento não ter intervenções previstas para a linha de Cascais pelos meios financeiros necessários possa, alegremente, anunciar mais algumas centenas de milhões de Euros para o Metro de Lisboa , que nem capacidade está a ter de assegurar um serviço minimamente civilizado na rede que já existe. Está quase a fazer 10 anos o último projeto de desnivelamento do Nó Ferroviário de Alcântara, um engulho centenário na mobilidade lisboeta e no serviço da linha de Cascais. Agora que parece ter sido descoberto financiamento para

Snowden revealed that the Orwellian 1984’s Big Brother of the United States Empire is already watching you. And society responded with the indifference of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Two dystopias that complement each other perfectly in 2016.

The Marriage Decision (Wait But Why)