Jonas Beckman

Working against a deadline here. Not much sleep. But it’s fun!

I’ll take a break for some serious swimming now.

Daylight saving time is now in effect. This is too early – maybe I can go back to sleep for an hour or so.

BTW – next week I’ll be at OOPSLA in Seattle. I’ll be back home Sunday 10/11.

Speaking when you see evil and stupidity is good. Letting others know you see it too is powerful. Yesterday, Hal said:

I had convinced myself that it was my own pessimism coloring my perceptions of what has been happening to my government.

But Hal is certainly not alone in worrying about how freedoms of thought, expression and movement are regarded as luxuries too dangerous to afford (to quote Landon Winner). This is happening all over Europe, too, as numerous small legal decisions threaten to make the European Union an even more closed and undemocratic institution.

Meanwhile, the Moscow hostage crisis ended with all terrorists and more than 100 hostages dead. Maybe Russian special forces did what they had to do. But when Vladimir Putin escalates the bloody war in Chechnya it is a deliberate choice.

Indeed, Russia has a long, sad tradition of talking about anti-terrorism while silencing critics and killing those it wants to kill anyway. But when George Bush and others see Vladimir Putin today, they apparently admire his efficiency more than anything else.

In my solitude I have seen things very clearly, which are not true.
—Antonio Machado

Michael Barish takes a wow to write garbage every day until the end of the year:

Actually, there’s another, bigger reason I’m going to write garbage, but I can’t talk about that. Nor can I talk about why I can’t talk about it.

Link via Martin

I received a small message today that was clearly not intended to make my heart and mind lit up like fireworks – but it did.

Early Saturday morning. I have woken up very early for more than a year now.

I’m working, reading, thinking etc. I am in shape and swim more than ever. I have plans and work to make them happen, one small step at a time. Some of my friends are happy, some are having a hard time. Me? Right now I’m sad. But trying not to feel is pointless.

I’ll take my favourite dog for a long walk.

Spent two hours prowling around in the rain with Tintin. Stockholm was almost unbearably beautiful: damp, clear colors under a grey sky.

On this day I tried not to be in love.