What If?

Since I was a young kid, alternate histories always fascinated me. The idea that the whole story could have been written in a completely different way than it was, just because someone made a different choice, be it small or large, many years ago simply captivates my mind. To this very day I find myself gravitating towards books that tell of a story set in an alternate reality, caused by a simple change in decisions.

One of the biggest alternate realities explored by several authors was the Axis triumph during the second world war. Amongst others, Robert Harris and Philip K. Dick explore this concept in their books, Man in the High Castle and Fatherland respectively. In the former, Dick explores the ideas of a North American east coast being the Greater Nazi Reich and the west coast as the Japanese Pacific States of America, with the two being split by a buffer zone. In his book, the military loss in the second world war stemmed from the fact that future president Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated in 1933, which in turn caused the United States to become more isolated from the rest of the world and never developing into the military power that eventually, in our reality, together with the rest of the allied forces, led to victory in the second world war.

Similarly, in their collection of stories titled Back to the USSA, Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman explore another alternate reality where a communist United Socialist States of America was established following a second american civil war in the early twentieth century. But its not just a few authors that wonder at what could have been. Amazon's television series adaptation of Man in the High Castle was given very good reviews, with a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. And the fact that it was determined to be the most streamed original series of the year by Variety Magazine, clearly shows that a lot of people find the idea of living in alternate world very very intriguing. Even the brilliant mind of Sheldon Cooper couldn't resist postulating these hypotheses, as it was shown when he was playing the made-up game of Counter Factuals with Amy in the Big Bang Theory's season four episode, The Zazzy Substitution.

So when the other day I was randomly scrolling through my Facebook news feed and came upon the the following post by my friend Stefan,

"Malta could have been annexed by Russia after the French capitulation in 1800, under the pretence of the Czar reconstituting sovereignty to the Order of St. John (of whom he was now the Grand Master). 

If those Russian soldiers had indeed landed in 1799, how different would Maltese society be right now?"

I couldn't help but drifting away in my own little head thinking about what could have been. Some of the replies were quite entertaining actually, ranging from how we'd have vodka, instead of wine, in the cellars and bears, instead of dogs, tied up in the yards. But all of this also got me thinking of several other occasions in my tiny country's long long history, where things could have diverted from what now is history, to scenarios that I guess we cannot even imagine.

With the second world war being such a significant chapter of our history, one can think of several scenarios where the result could have been the complete opposite of what actually happened. I'm sure that most Maltese like me would instantly think of the convoy of ships that somehow made it to Malta on the 15th of August, 1942. Without those greatly needed supplies, the island would have surely surrendered to the Axis powers, which in turn would have led to them having an uninterrupted corridor all the way from Germany down to Libya, which would made it next to impossible for the Allies to win in the North African theatre of the war.

But even a few years before that, The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was hell bent on establishing an Italian Empire, one which definitely included Malta as part of its territories, as shown on the Italia Irrendita map drawn in the 1930s on the left. In fact, Mussolini claimed that the Maltese language was a dialect of Italian and also theorised about Malta being the cradle of the Latin civilization. This nearly became a reality when Italian forces made it to Africa, conquering Libya and as far down as Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia).

And, what if the French hadn't surrendered in Malta after the uprising in 1799? I have to admit that there is no way where I can see myself speaking French and eating frog legs instead of speaking Maltese and devouring tons of pastizzi.

Much closer to modern times, we also could have become part of the United Kingdom, if Dom Mintoff's negotiations for integration had been successful back in 1958. A referendum had already been held two years prior to that, and it had passed with 77.02% of the voters being in favour of integration. Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad, or maybe it would have, who knows?

Realistically, if I were to keep mentioning historical events which could have had a different outcome than they actually did, this blog post would drag on to eternity. But, I guess, its nice to think about what could have been every now and then. Maybe in another universe, these events actually happened in a different way than in ours.

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P.S. It has been a while since I posted any music, so here we go, the latest track that got stuck in my head, Clockwork's remix of Abby's This Song Remains Through All. 

I am tired

I am tired. 

I am tired of waking up every morning to the same routine. 

I am tired of having to do it every day. To get out of my bed; to have a shower; to make my way to the office, even though I'd still be half asleep; to make myself a mug of "coffee", because lets face it, one cannot call that instant stuff real coffee, and maybe I somehow wake up ...

I am tired of going through the different papers; BBC News, CNN, The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Reuters, the Times of Malta, The Malta Independent, the Malta Today, and maybe a few others.

I am tired of the fact that every day, the headlines have to be dominated by yet some other form of bad news.

I am tired of reading about Charlie Hebdo and Beirut, Jakarta and Ankara, Paris and Brussels; a number of bodies piling on top of each other, a number that just keeps increasing ...

I am tired of the violence in Syria and Libya, in Iraq and Yemen, in the Ivory Coast and all over central Africa ...

I am tired of Cruz and Trump, and also of Clinton and Sanders, and the whole ridiculous circus that the US presidential race has come down to ...

I am tired of budget cuts and NHS reforms, to Brexit or to not, Corbyn and Cameron; the joke that is becoming UK politics ...

I am tired of Panamanian flags and blogging crazy old hags, old tal-Lira clocks and cocaine blocks, illegal developments and overseas bank statements. I am tired to hear the promise of clean politics and good governance, and yet, term after term, this seems to be ignored. L-aqwa fl-Ewropa they said ...

I am tired of UKIP and Lega Nord, Front National and the NDP, Viktor Orban and also Erdogan ...

I am tired of all the sexists and racists, creationists and extremists, politicians and journalists, populists and neo-fascists, climate change deniers and gun lovers ... 

Maybe it was because I grew up in the peaceful couple of decades that followed the cold war and now things are going south again; or maybe because I was too ignorant to all of it, up till this moment. 

I can look at my past and remember a time when us children played outside without our parents worrying; when we could eat anything and allergies and intolerances weren't a thing; when war was always so far away from our shores and we needn't to worry; when one's biggest worry was if it was going to be pasta or pizza for dinner in the evening; when financial planning for me meant if my pocket money was enough for an extra piece of chocolate or not.

I also look at my present and wonder if I might be next, at some airport terminal, or a station or maybe on the tube, that gets blown up to bits because of some crazy extremist with a skewed point of view of our world. Or if its someone I know, someone who I wouldn't have had the time to say good bye to.

And then I try to imagine my future, but I cannot. I don't want to. I am scared to.

I am too tired, and I cannot do this any more.

I am tired.

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My thoughts go to the victims, and their families, of the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Istanbul, San Bernardino, Paris and all over the rest of the world. 

Thank you Alexandra!

1. So, it seems like that these blog posts have unintentionally become a bimonthly occurrence. I wish to apologise for that ... it really was not my intention for this to happen, however the pattern seems to have emerged by itself and since its relatively relaxed, ah what the well ... why not go with it ...

2. Its seven in the evening, and I am still sitting at my desk in the office ... So I thought it would be good for my mental health to stop working for a second and do something else with my time ... such as write a post over here. Today was one of those days where I started a million different things, and only progressed a teeny weeny bit in each and every one of them, so much for productivity. But during this particular day of craziness and head banging against my desk, I read an interesting article which made me wonder about what I am actually doing with my life, and why.

I was randomly browsing on the internet during my lunch break, the following article that got published on the  International Business Times caught my attention. For anyone who is interested to read it for themselves, you can follow the link below.

Sci-Hub: Russian neuroscientist running 'Pirate Bay for scientists' with 48 million free academic papers

So for those who couldn't be bothered to read it, the article tells the story of a Kazakh woman, Alexandra Elbakyan, who essentially became the modern day Robin Hood, of the world of science. But lets back track a little bit here, all of us that somehow are involved in the world of science and academia know how much  of a pain it can be sometimes to obtain access to scientific  papers whilst we are trying to research something. Only the inexistent God above knows how many a nights I spent banging my head against the desk, searching on Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, Research Gate and the Wiley Online Library and so many more search engines looking for scientific papers and journals that maybe, just maybe, I could reference in my work. Luckily enough, the University gives me accessto loads and loads of material and journals, however there still are those few papers and journals which I would like to read but I'd have to access to, unless I pay the typical $30. And as you can imagine, that would be the last nail in the coffin where my patience would be kept ... thus resulting in the following reaction ...

Well apparently, as she was writing her dissertation, Alexandra encountered these same problems we all do, but she had had enough of this crap. So, she decided that all science should be free for all to access, and that is the story of how Sci-Hub was born.

Sci-Hub.io

If there is any research paper you desire, but you cannot manage to access it for free online, you can access it illegally via this magnificent jewel of a website. Alexandra referred to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights when she was asked about the controversial website by an interviewer, and said "there should be no obstacles to accessing knowledge, I believe, everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits" - quoted from the article I already linked above, which in turn they quoted it from another article published by RT.

Personally, I think say her reasoning is perfect. But then I also ended up thinking, that being part of the scientific world myself, would I want my work to end up being freely distributed to everyone, and me not getting a penny's worth out of it? The thing is, scientists already do not make any money from publishing their work. Sometimes they even have to pay to publish their work on journals and to present it at conferences. So is it right that the publishers sell the papers for $30 each, whilst the scientists gets nothing?

And it was then that I remembered a reply that Elon Musk gave to an interviewer, who had asked him why he had given away for free all the patents Tesla had obtained over the years.

"If we're all on a ship together, and there's holes in the ship, and we're bailing water out ... and we have a great design for a bucket; we should probably share the bucket design because we're all gonna sink!" - Elon Musk

And that pretty much gave me the answer I was looking for. If Elon Musk has just given away for free all of Tesla's patents for other companies to make the same scientific advancements, why should the publishers of scientific material make the life of budding scientists so hard to give them access to previous scientific work, and make so much money in the meantime? 

Fuck the big corporations, fuck the publishers, fuck the institutions looking to make money off scientists ... if we do not do something, and something quick about the state of the world that we are living in,there soon will be no world left to live in. So to hell with money and to hell with the regulations ... thank you Alexandra! This world needs more people like you !

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03/03/2016 Update - Apparently the site is no longer accessible. I am guessing due to some legal shit ... sad day where instead of defending the right to science, the courts have defended those who want to make money out of the scientists' hard work. Shame.

Bye Bye '15 ... Hello '16

Another year has gone by. And I have to admit, I kinda still cannot believe it. This has been the first whole year of my life where I have lived it entirely abroad. Before I came to England, I thought it was going to be different once I got here. A year and a half ago, during the summer of '14, I was sad. Well, maybe sad is not the word I am looking for, but I definitely was not happy with my life. I had just finished my undergraduate degree, had no job, and could not wait to move abroad. Move abroad, with the idea of having that new beginning, which everyone at some point during their lives end up craving for. Since I was way younger, I always thought that moving abroad would make my life so much simpler, happier, and overall for the better. And yet, here I am, eighteen months later, realising what a load of crap that was. I mean it is true, to a certain extent, I achieved big steps. I cannot deny that I moved forward in terms of career and academia, but when it comes to the rest of the stuff, my personal life ... things just got more complicated ... even just looking at the basics: laundry, cooking, shopping and cleaning ...

Still, I do not want to be a pessimist, and there is no denying that '15 has been one of the most diverse and crazy years of my life! I started the year in London, and then I travelled to three places to which I had never been at before, these being Ireland, Berlin and Milan. I fell so much in love with Ireland that I can't wait to go back, this time to Dublin, in a week's time! Berlin was undescribable. We had so much fun! To this day I am still unsure about what was best part of the holiday, cycling around the city during the day and seeing its beauty and history sculpted on the building façades, or the long hours of partying during the night inside the city's abandoned-factories-turned-into-clubs by the river. Urban Spree and Suicide Circus, without any doubt the two best clubs that I have ever been to! And the cherry on top of the travelling cake that was this year, was Milan. With everything ranging from Leonardo Da Vinci's manuscripts at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana to great food and wine, from chilling at Parco Sempione to a long adventure round of the streets of the city by night, it surely was a great time!

But that was not all ... two holiday trips back home to my beloved Malta; two space related conferences; these being the annual UKSEDS conference in Guildford and the UK Space Agency Conference in Liverpool; a random music festival in Oxfordshire; and in the meantime ... by some miracle,  I managed to finish, and get a good result in, my Masters degree.

As if that was not enough, I once again uprooted my whole life and moved to a new city ... this time,  back to the Midlands, to Birmingham. Its funny how whilst I am writing this post, I am wearing my old University of Nottingham hoodie ... and I can't believe how it's already been three years that I spent a semester over there. In three years I managed to move from Nottingham, back to Malta, then to Guildford and now its Birmingham's turn. And yet, I am on my way to the same place where I always go this time of year, London. London has always had that kind of grip on me. There's something captivating about it which I cannot describe. No matter where I go ... somehow I manage to find myself back to London. It is one of the most beautiful cities ever, and nothing ever seems to get boring over there!

I don't want to write a lot today, I just wanted to say a few words as an homage to 2015, since it has been such an eventful year of my life. To me, this was the year of space and also the year where I started really travelling. What a year ...

I guess now I'll just have to wait and see how 2016 is going to be ... bring it on universe, how bad can it be?!

Happy new year everyone !

Limbo

So yeah, like many other people, I've said it all before ... its 2015, we're all connected, the Internet is a wonder, we're all lost in technology and we lost basic knowledge about human interaction, bla bla bla ... the usual bullshit. However, I've just realized that there is a grey area in between the modern idea of having everyone, from all over the world, within reach from your phone, to the older, pre-telephone idea, that distance means that you'll never see someone ever again.

The Internet, with all its wonders, starting from cats farting rainbows and ending with ... I'd rather not say what I stumbled upon the other night, in one of those scary corners of YouTube ... is one if the best magicians ever. 

The first trick of magic is that it is all an illusion. And the Internet, being the great magician that it is, creates a really good illusion for you. It provides you with the means to communicate with people that are physically far away from you. It makes you think that everything is normal, that both of you are still as close as when you used to meet up every other day, and that every time you either Skype or FaceTime with each other, its as if you were meeting up face-to-face at the pub or a restaurant.

And, that's how it gets you. You think it is the same as before, that nothing is going to change... but its not. And yet you don't realize. And slowly, the faults start to show, but you would be in denial. You wouldn't text as much as you used to, but you'd ignore it. Finding time to Skype or FaceTime slowly becomes harder and harder, but you'd justify it. And you'd manage to justify it with all sorts of excuses, from being busy at work, to being out with some mates or even just being too tired. And you'd genuinely believe all of those excuses, that's the beauty of the illusion.

That is how it starts, the beginning of the end. Then it ends, and its OK. You think you can handle it. Its not as if it is the first time you've been through this. And it is THEN, that the worst happens. Because now, in this day and age, a clean break doesn't exist any more. There is always that temptation to call, or to text ... to somehow reach out, still with the illusion that somehow, everything can still be saved, even though you are a million miles away, and in reality there is no hope.

And then you realise that, and you say it to yourself, and you even manage accept it, for a few hours. Then it's as if the Internet, and all of its minions, have hatched a collective plan against you. Your Facebook news feed reminds you, but you keep scrolling. WhatsApp shows you that contact once again, yet you manage to close the app. Skype shows you that she's just logged in, but you manage ignore it. And after making all kinds of mental sacrifices to get through the day, and actually manage not fall into any temptation, that one song pops up on your iPod as it is on shuffle, and there you have it, a bucket of ice cold reality just soaked you from head to toes, and you realize that you're back to square one. 

I know what you are going to tell me ... yes, its true, you can change your settings to hide their updates here and there. But lets be realistic, if its not Facebook, its WhatsApp, or Instagram, or Twitter, or Skype, or some fucking-stupid-app-that-you-would-have-even-forgotten-that-you-had-installed. 

And it is then, that you realise that, that at least for the time being, you are stuck in limbo. That you are too far away to make it work, and yet, still too connected to move on.

Thank you, Internet. Thank you.

Wonderful Things Happened Here

September. September is a special month. Through out my whole life, September was  always the month which represented the start of something new, be it a new academic year with the same friends, being going to a new country, or, as in this case, moving to a new city and starting off a new adventure. And for that, September has also been exciting, the start off an adventure, new beginnings every time.

However, September also represents a time of goodbyes. I am writing this post as I am walking randomly about the campus of the University of Surrey, where basically I just spent my whole year. And what a year it has been! From Surrey to Berlin, from satellites to card games, well ... we basically did everything. And I have to say that this, being the last day on campus, is the hardest of them all. I cannot put into words how much I am going to miss everything about this place, but most importantly, miss the amazing people that I met here.

Amongst the highlights of the year were a trip to Emerald Isle for St Patrick's Day, the countless nights playing briscola or scopa in our tiny kitchen, a crazy trip to the techno capital of the world, Berlin, randomly fishing in the university lake or doing some out of the blue bee keeping, all those times we cooked and had dinner together, and with each dinner, obviously there came a couple bottles of wine ... the countless hours of laughter we spent together saying the most random things that could ever cross one's head, it was all of this that turned Surrey from just another university, into a second home. The lake, the lawns, the trees and houses are all replaceable, and realistically the location doesn't really matter at all. Its who you're with that counts. And it was all of these special moments, each with their own simplicity, that will always be in my heart.

When I first got to Surrey, I saw this phrase written all over the place: "Wonderful things happen here". And at first I thought it was such a pretentious thing to say, but twelve months later, as heartbroken as I am to leave this place and these friends, I have to say that wonderful things do happen here, and they are as wonderful as they can ever get.

To paraphrase Eduardo Galeano, "[one] never really says goodbye, [one] says, 'See you later.'" And I am quite sure that this is the case here with all of us. September might be the month where we are saying out goodbyes, but all the other months of the year represent the opportunity to say 'Hello' again, and to me, that will be the most important thing of them all.

It was an amazing year, which I am definitely going to cherish forever, but as I also said in the beginning, September is also the month of new beginnings, and with that thought, the story continues ... in Birmingham.

P.S. Song of the day, after Francesca got me addicted to it ... is this:

The Bird, the Cow and the Coyote

Its been a while since I last wrote anything. First it was exams, then it was going home on holiday, then this and that .. to cut the long story short it was an eventful couple of months. But today, after a solid eight hours of swearing at my laptop and banging my head against the desk, in the futile attempt of getting some thesis work done, I decided to fuck it and take a break. So, I went back  to watch one of my all time favourite movies from since I was a kid. This is the Sergio Leone's, 1973 spaghetti western comedy, "My Name is Nobody", or in the original Italian, "Il Mio Nome e' Nessuno", starring Terence Hill and Henry Fonda. 

Before I keep on rambling, I'd like to point out how the soundtrack to this movie, by Ennio Morricone, is amazingly calm and nice to listen to, so here's the link:

In the movie, Terence Hill's character recounts a fable told to him by his grandfather in the 1800s. However, every time I watch this movie, I cannot think of a better story that still applies to the modern times. And so here is my version of the fable ...

"There was once this small bird, who didn't yet know how to fly. This story was happening in the middle of a very cold winter, and this bird was unlucky enough to fall out of his warm nest and onto the freezing ground below. Poor little bird, he was dying of cold, and so he starting doing thing he knew how to do, he started to chirp as loud as he could, for someone to hear him and maybe come help him. Lucky for him, this cow was walking by, and when she saw him there in the cold, she felt really bad for him. But after a while, she came up with a clever and easy way to warm him up. She walked past him, lifted her tail and ... *splat* ... took a massive dump on him. 

The bird was now warm and cosy, and definitely much happier than before. And so he started chirping again, to tell the world how happy he was! His chirping however, didn't go unnoticed. Close by, a coyote was minding his own business, and as soon as he heard the bird's chirping, he quickly came to see what was going on. The moment he got there, he instantly noticed the small bird chirping happily. Being a cunning coyote tat he was, an idea soon popped into his head. He slowly walked up to the still happily chirping bird, grabbed it by the wing ... cleaned it thoroughly and ... *gulp* ... ate him in a single mouthful!"

... and that's it. It is kind of sad when you think about it. At first, one might think that this story is disgusting and quite pointless, however, like many of Aesop's, it had a deeper meaning to it.

If you stop for a bit and think about it for a while, the moral of the story surfaces on its own. It is a reflection on the behaviour of modern day society. As Fonda's character in the movie later on discovers ...

"Not all of the people who throw shit in your direction, do it because they want to hurt you. And sadly, not everyone who pulls you out of, and cleans you from shit, does it because they want to help you. But most importantly, if you're in shit ... shut up and keep it to yourself, before some coyote comes by and eats you before you even realize!"

And with that thought, and all this talk about spaghetti westerns, I'm off to make myself a nice plate of spaghetti!