LIBRARIES

In history we read about the destruction of Alexandria's famous library because of a fire.  We know many philosophers lived for a while there during ancient time. Strorage of a knowledge was and still is a challenge for a humanity.Today with the new electronic technology it became cheaper and cheaper. Not only knowledge , but we are now able to collect and store huge amount of data as well. Processing big data also became an important profession.

We read from the social media that a supermarket data processor discovered one of her client pregnancy even before she knew it ! Maybe it is just an urban legend.

Until internet era libraries was the only source of knowledge. Governments spent a lot of money for the contsruction and maintining them properly. University students were spending most of their time for research and surveys at libraries.

After the discovery of the internet knowledge started to spread around the world easily and be accessible to anyone even almost for free..The impact will be great to educational inequality. Now you just ask questions to the web browser you are accustomed to and you get thousands of answers , videos and articles in second.

Now we have to teach students to ask smart question to find out proper answers.

Avram Aji

01.04.2022

"ABUNDANCE" BY PETER DIAMANDIS

Is our future beter then before ? This is what Peter Diamandis wrote in his book "Abundance". Yes, and I totally agree with him . All the news we are getting from social medias TV's radios , newspapers are based on bad news. Good news are not attractive. This is why we are automatically programmed to think about that we are at worse era of human history.

But surely it is not. With many figures given only in the last century the world population surged by four times , electrical  power entered into every corner of our life giving us the possibility to cook, drive, illuminate , heat , communicate et cetera...

Travelling became 80 times faster from Jules Verne's 19th century period. Communicating reached to light speed with fiber cables against centuries ago surface mailing which was taking sometimes months to reach.All travelling means are less polluting the world than previous decades. In Germany in some cities already cars working with diesel are prohibited to run. Electrical and even hybrid cars proved to be less polluters than their ancestors. Using hydrogen as a fuel in cars is also investiagted intensively. Using solar pannels to electrolize water to obtain pure hyrogen may reduce the costs of fuels. Needless to say emitting zero atmospheric polluting waste.

Existing laws are obliging farmers, processors, traders and packers to supply into the market more nutritious food with less and less chemical contamination while in the past we were not even aware of its perniciousness.

Improvment in medicine and drug industry is spectacular. Many diseases were eradicted , many epidemics confined in narrow areas. The mechanism of many diseases where deciphered and preventive counter combat invented in a short time. The Spanish Flu killed 50 millions in 1918 while the world population was only 2B while Covid 19 pandemic killed only the one fifth while the world polulation grew by 4 times.The vaccine of Covid 19 was ready within a year only!

Our beleif in science and technology is getting stronger and stronger. 

Avram Aji

15.04.2021

HOW TO RESHAPE OUR FUTURE

 It is really difficult to perceive the pace of technological changes in our routine , day to day life. Mostly we fell that there is no change in our life while the accelaration is mind boggling ...

One of biggest misperception is that you think that you need to work hard and neglect your social life , like taking care of your family , your physical and mental body to earn a living but abundant money.

Is the humanity working harder than previous centuries? Or do we have more leaisure time than before ? These are arguable questions. Until we reached todays' legal montly 160  working hours our ancestors spent  longer hours in factories. But do we take into consideration the -new normal of one or two hour commuting ? In big cities  this is real a big problem.

With the actual pandemic , working from home became our new normal adding us many hours to our life . Offering us also the choice to select when we want to work or when we are more energized. For some of us are mornings and for other after. midnights...

The new "Zoom" videoconferance technology made us to understand that travelling is not really such necessary for few hours of business meeting abroad or inland

We are even experiencing company audits from a long distance. This an amazing challange. We must take into consideration that we are actually on the verge of this technological development. Not yet the requisite technology and software is perfect. But getting better and better day by day. Even the internet call leader Skype fell behind Zoom/Team new softwares.

Youtube and Google opened us us a new world for learning what we need. You only need to learn on how to ask them ? And what to ask? You even fix your computer failure with a quick investigation on the media? 

No need to have a good cookbook to prepare an excellent dish. Or to plant flowers into pots , play a musical instrument , computer programming ,you just name it...

In the past it was only libraries offering you information. Persons having access were privileged . Being a librarian was a profession. Now Google  is  listing and sorting a huge variety of choice on what you are looking for. 

In an article Michael Simmons wrote that we need to compete these new technologies and AI softwares in order to survive and have a prosperous life. If we fall behind then our life will be wasted. 

Maybe Deep Blue beated Kasparow in chess tournament but we must take into consideration that Kasparow mental ability is not limited with chess. He can drive a car, cook marvellous dishes, speak many languages, play tennis or swim , read books, talk ... The human capacity is contiously outsmarting the new technology and will continue forever. 

Now the crucial question is what to learn ?

Avram Aji

14.03.2021

WHY THEY NEED NUCLEAR WEAPON?

 WHY IRAN AND NORTH KOREA IS SO AMBITIOUS IN HAVING NUCLEAR POWER?

Below you have the countries having nuclear power :

These figures are taken from FAS Federation Of American Scientists.We know the political dogfight between Russia and USA. Hence we mustn't be surprised on the equality to the numbers. Also another similarities between Pakistan and India inside centenaries old feud. France is the second biggest nuclear power producer in the world with 63130 MW after USA having 99000 MW. Having the technology and material which faciliate the production of nuclear weapons. 

Archrival UK surely can not fall apart. China was always affraid of the two superpowers of the world.Now that he became as powerful as them he understood that he can not stay indifferent to the world politics and international trade. In such state,you need to spend effort in world stability even to the farthermost activities. The world has experienced this with 9/11 attack.

Israel is surrounded with enormous amount of religious hatred environment although nowadays its borders reduced to Syria and Gazza.

North Korean ambition has similarities with Iran. Anxiety and show off.

Can we say that that nuclear weapons made the world more stable and prevented 3rd and 4th world wars? Surely wars in whole world is decreasing.

When Chernobil exploded in 1986 the radiation waves travelled all around the world and affected all crops. Due to the prevalent system of news distribution channels we came to know about more intensively abour nuclear danger , obviously after WW2...

Today we know that there has been previous explosions -but not that much maybe - and few later on. 

The above graph is from the book "Enlightenment" of Steven Pinker. You may notice that wars and losses are diminishing surely...But not at the pace that we expect.

Large conglomerations  is making the world much more stable. It is amazing to understand how such a big organizations like USA , EU , China and even Russia (although smaller in size when compared USSR days) are now managing 1/2nd of the world population but handling almost %90 world economic activity. 

Countries with high instability , like Iran, Afganistan , Yemen and few in Africa whom were not embedded into such big conglomerations are staggering. They are also threatening the world stability.

Avram Aji

13.03.2021

WHAT WE LEARNED IN 2020

Approaching to the end of the year 2020 I want to urge you to make a brain storming to better understand what will  be the consequences of the pandemic. How the world will reshape itself for the future of the humanity. 

It is very sad for me to say that the world has not been successful in fighting the Covid19 pandemic. My personal view is that the pandemic should have be handled by medical science competent personalities while was driven by politicians. In normal times it is their duty to manage the world but when it comes to medicine no any politicians can say any world.The very first instinct that living creatures have is to struggle to stay alive. Anything else comes afterwards. During these hard times what politicians continue to think on how to be re-elected thus how to avoid any kind of confrontation with measures to be taken if it is against their followers.

It looks so odd that the world couldn't unite under one umbrella in the struggle to fight against this desastrous virus in finding remedies to cure and produce preventive vaccines. In every corner of the world researchers raced against time while a shared wisdom couldn't be established. Commercial concern was in front of the health. 

A quite important part of the world population lost their jobs and spent their saving in order to survive. Good managed affluent countries helped better to those who are in trouble but always staying within their country borders. Populist administrators aggravated the situation of the suffering people in every walks of life.

I know that the early the measures taken , will reduce the escalating losses. The first vaccinated countries will produce early herd immunity hence they will stop the detriment of the existing industry. 

It is proven that having the biggest airports, the longest bridges ,the best highways, the tallest skyscrapers , the biggest army did not have any tiniest contribution to ameliorate our situation against this atrocious plague. Psycological repression will last long in our mind if we succeed to survive.

Prevailing populist regimes in most part of the world failed very badly. The shutting down of the sanctuaries and the weakness of the clergy was disturbing.Thinking on the goodness and benevolance of the Redcross centuries ago establishments, today's  clergy fall into disgrace due their stagnation and despair.

The extreme travelling greed will be suppressed surely  for a while. Extreme imported food dependencies will be maybe reviewed. Rich underground resources worth nothing if you don't have a good medical research centers and scholars to fight against.

The importance public health and preventive medicine is much better understood. Children were the most affected by staying away from their habitat. If we succeed to vanquish this pandemic we have to put our utmost effort  to the children to catch the time lost. 

Avram Aji

19.12.2020

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

I learned this adage at my primary school in sporting lessons as Atatürk's one the most famous sayings. But I encountered afterwards in many other older books than Atatürk's era realizing that he just repated it in various occasions while it became like one of his aphorismas.I remember to encounter it ,in Grigory Petrow "The Land of White Lilies" than I realized that this adage was quite older than his age. Now that I encounter its Latin version than there is a good probability to be dated to Roman era..

My parents had chosen St-Joseph as a secondary school for me. Most of the teachers were French priests. The most part of the education was in French obviously... Although it can be accepted now as old fashion the education was marvellous with a lot memorization .The directorate was sending reports every week, we had exams every day. There was an intense follow up to all parents. But almost a half a century before sporting was very important in this school. The first day and the first lesson was creating volleyball teams . We kept on playing all the time in all breakes.Almost there was no way to escape learning and practicing.

Although I was not very good at school I learned to play tennis afterwards and keep playing joyfully.
Cycling and swimming also are my favorites to exercise. Although I agree on the importance of excersizing I have never been fan of watching matches on TV.

Last year with the recommendation I got of a friend I read the book named "FEELING GOOD" of David Burns who is giving the details of psychology  and many kind of disorders. Than after I learned that some characteristic  traits like to be shy or over excited are just psycological disruptions. My view to the life changed . Now I am thinking that the most important thing in life is to keep you psychology at the best possible state and level. Only after you can have a fulfilling life.

Psychology must be taught in schools intentionnally and we must be aware of our feelings all the time and in case of any kind of disruptions we have to find a way to heal and prevent depressions and advanced sicknesses by the intervention of specialists...

I am thinking that if you are not in full concious of your feelings and thinking healthily your body will reflect . For instance an obese person is not someone who eats a lot, we must suspect of his or her psychological state as well.. The same may apply for heavy smokers too..

Avram Aji
11.07.2020

AMAZING MINDS

In my lifetime I came across with few persons with amazing  minds which I  admired all my life. I am reading the book PEAK of  Anders Erricsson where he made a deep research about very cleaver persons and also organized experiments whether an advance skill can be obtained by intentional practice. 

First I would like to tell you about the persons that I met personally with extraordinary minds.

Charli is a school friend of mine . He was a year ahead of me . He used to play guitar and sing quite well although music remained just as a hobby all his life. He still can play and sing you long hours without any kind of paper and notes in front. He is able to memorize all the lyrics , chords and the tones of the songs he likes.
Surely he is putting some efforts to learn it by heart but afterwards he is unbelievable.

My wife used to work in a bank. She had such a good memory that
all the clients and their accounts were in her mind all the time. One day she had a phone call from a distant branch in a different city of his bank . A client of her was requesting to retrieve an important amount of money through this branch. My wife immediately started to describe on the phone the traits of her client. Sure the applicant was not him but a swindler and his ID was fake. He was captured and sent to jail.

I joined a trekking group by the intervention of a good friend of my. Izmir is surrounded by many mountains ranging from 1500 to 2500 m high. Even we were doing the same route to the same peak I was never aware of the direction we had to take while the the guide in front was like wandering in the center of a city. The map and compass was embedded in his mind.

Avram Aji
12.07.2020

My wife and I were dining at a fancy restaurant in Izmir when a group of youngsters arrived and sat just across from our table. There were ten of them. After a while, the waiter came to take their orders. These ten individuals separately ordered different menus and drinks. The waiter simply listened without taking the tiniest note. I remained quite puzzled and finally dared to ask our waiter how he was able to instantly memorize the orders of ten different people. He replied, "This waiter is exceptionally skilled at memorization."

20.09.2023