Inside view of Basilica of St. Anastasia in Verona. It’s the city’s largest and one of at least four outstandingly beautiful churches. Each of them is worth a visit.
NSFW (Nikolaus’ Song for the Week)
This week’s song is - again - for those learning Italian or Austrian German or both. It’s from Josh.
On YouTube:
Possibly not the most intellectual song ever written, but fun, in particular on vacation in Italy.
Retrospect
Bycicle Trip Villach- Finkenstein - Faaker See -Tarcento -Udine-Torre die Mosto-Jesolo-Vicenza-Verona
Felix and me are on our way through the Veneto.
We started from Villach, stayed over night in Finkenstein and visited Faaker See for a few minutes. I learned that the lake is private property and that it was once owned by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s uncle. Tourism (and the whole economy) had seen better days already.
After a capuccino at the border (with some military border guards, but no border controls), we went on the “Alpe Adria Radweg” to Tarcento, over all more than 100 km- which was a lot on day 1 in extreme heat. The cycle path is very nice, with lots of old tunnels that are cool and dark and beautiful views on the river Fella. There was even a beautiful waterfall directly on our way and Felix took a cooling bath there.
I needed to become 56 to order two Pizze (one for lunch, one for dinner) on one day. Felix rightly said that once you made it to Italy, you can’t do anything wrong foodwise. The evening ended with a heavy thunderstorm with lots of rain.
Day 2 brought us from Tarcento to Torre di Mosto where we stayed in a beautiful villa, after, again, 100 km.
Traces of last day’s rain water were still visible.
Despite of the heat, we got quite muddy and wet.
In Trre die Moste, there was a 90 minutes power outage, presumably in the whole village in the evening. I admired how relaxed the locals dealt with it, including a party of about 50 people trying to celebrate a graduation - which is difficult if fridges, door openers, the kitchen oven, music and the lights don’t work. I learned that power cuts are a standard problem in the area, presumably due to more and more tourists, air conditions, smart homes etc. increasing demand (too) quickly.
I didn’t see a single wind turbine today all day and the bike routes somehow reminded me of obstacle courses.
We had - what we thought to be - a quick lunch in a bar in which everybody was eating Risotto. So, we ordered that too, only to learn that it was a complimentary gift which is why we had 2 main courses, 2 sodas, 1 l mineral water and 1 espresso for less than 10 €. Every bar I attended so far (an we attended many, taking a brake every 2 hours or so, due to the heat) was fine with accepting e-payments but could not book any tip electronically (for tax reasons?) - which means that you need cash for tipping (which is presumably, probably for precisely this reason, no longer custom in Italy).
During this day’s ride I listened not only to too many Italian pop songs from some of the old men and some of the younger such as Paolo Nutini - who is only half Italian, though.
I also followed a remarkable conversation between Lex Fridman and Ivanka Trump.
This was stunning in many ways. First, obviously, because of Trump’s unconditional, uninterrupted self presentation - all three hours long, in all this intimate Fridman-like communication on “important” things in life; second, however, because she managed (at least for me) to appear much more sensitive, reflected and self critical than I would have ever expected.
Day 3 was consumed by a short sidestep to Jesolo with nothing interesting to report (apart from Biden stepping back and Jesoolo being devastated by mass tourism).
On day 4 we went to Vizenca - 120 km in the heat -, many of them on a very nice cycle path I had never heard about before.
However, taking a bike in Italy is still clearly not seen as a standard way of transport. Every second crossroad and every single roundabout hinders you from cycling straight through like the cars do - you always need to take a detour 90 degrees left or right, then go into the wrong direction, then make a 180 degrees U-turn and then again a 90 degrees turn.
I also learned that it will be difficult to travel back fro Verona to Vienna with the bikes with us: Trenitalia tells you that you can take a bike with you on international trains - but only if it’s folded and in a bag. Seriously.
Regional trains presumably take bikes - but there’s no guarantee and things look really complicated. Rad-Forum has more funny details on the matter (and has a design trajecting one directly back into the 90ies).
I had lots of time to listen to Austrian/German Podcasts, here are some of the highlights:
It’s a (kind of) documentary about a Russian couple who worked as spies in Germany until 2011. Their fake identities were established in Austria which is why there is a lot of informtaion about Austrian/Viennese “laisser faire” on espionage in there.
Next was:
This is oustandingly interesting for at least 2 reasons: First, because it shows in many ways, how ignorant law makers, police, media are about what’s happening on TikTok in general.
Second, because the episode is full with information on a recent case of (potential) hate crime, cyberbullying and violence against women that is unbelievable: Mois - who is accused by his ex-wife aanyskh of serious and contimouus violence and who has produced a series of online videos since her coming out that show a mixture of potentiak crimes, antisemitism, aggression, crazyness and threat on an aimless journey through Europe. The amount of alleged police-ignorance in this case is just unbelievable.
Some more background and debate of the case is also on Reddit.
I also listend to a very interesting perspective on Gottfried Helnwein and the rumours that somebody might want to build a museum for him. Mathias Dusini is just perfect in criticising Helnwein’s relevance as an artist, the commercial interests of (young, rich) Austrian conservatives trying to push his market value and the alleged scientology related aspects of his biography.
And last, not least, Julian Hessenthaler, contextualising the Ibiza tapes five years later again.
This might be a good oportunity to watch again what he said in #arsboni:
Day five brought us from Vicenza to Verona.
It was, again, very hot, but only about 70 km, so relatively easy. I listened to an outstandingly interesting Podcast-interview with one of the founders of Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas.
I didn’t like all his answers and some of the questions neither, but the product (and the people making it) is truly interesting - they want to do nothing less than to disrupt internet search via a smart combination of AI and search.
Every answer given by the system needs to be linked to a source - just like in a seminar paper.
Not everrything to read about the company is nice, though. Some call it a “Bullshit-Machine”, others blame them to ignore robots.txt and - here we are - copyright, being a “Grand Theft AI”, spreading misinformation.
Another problem is that the system, trying to provide accurate information based on cited, trustworthy sources, uses more and more unreliable sources generated by AI. Garbage in, garbage out gets a completly new meaning.
However, if you don’t know Perplexity yet, you should really try it! And the podcast is fun to listen to, there’s lots of insight on Google in it, but also on search, truth, knowledge, data and information. I enjoyed these parts a lot before arriving at the arena.
On day five, I visited a Roberto Bolle and friends ballet show in the arena. Bolle is the guy I had in last week’s weekly newsletter, dancing to Celentano’s Prisencolinensinainciusol. This is a complete coincidence as I had hardly ever heard of him before.
The whole event reminded me more of a mixture of Circus Maximus, a beauty contest and an evening in a disco in the 70ies, but the physical presence and performance of the dancers was impressive and it was fun.
YouTube has a promotional summary.
Prospect
Summerschool/Summer Discourse
I will be teaching - again - at Vienna University’s summerschool . My track starts on Sunday July 28. I will also deliver a keynote (on AI regulation) during the “Sommerdiskurs” there. The overall topic is “Rethinking Solidarity” this year. The list of speakers is - again - just brilliant and this is the most rewarding summer activity one can think of.
I will - most likely - record most of the ssions again, as I did during the last 2 years.
For example, Martin Selmayr was there 2 years ago,
and iris Eisenberger, Bernhard Schima, Klaus Steinmaurer (and me) last year
#arsboni
I will have a conversation on academia, Covid and environmental information on Monday July 29, 17.00 CET.
Daisy
stayed in Vienna, jumped in any water she could find and is not amused about the heat. We will need to put here into a dog-residence for the next two weeks as dogs are not allowed at the summerschool’s venue BIFEB.
© Birgit Forgó-Feldner
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)