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by admin June 21, 2016 September 2, 2016 01474
From article published on hej-kto-polak.pl in 2013:
In 1989 we were cheated, and for almost a quarter century after that, we were deceived. But we need not despair; we should look at the bright side. What all of this means is that real freedom is yet to come!
Whilst wandering through the Internet, looking for witnesses who could shed a little light on any of the white spots in recent Polish history, I once came across the memoir of a man who, in June of 1989, was the chairman of Solidarity Trade Union Committee in Gorzow Wielkopolski. His account is so interesting that, in my opinion, it ought to be publicized as much as possible, using the most extensive passages possible.
But before I quote from it, let's recall that as a result of the Roundtable discussions "the liberal communists" and "the un-extreme Solidarity people" decided that at the beginning of June 1989 Poland would hold "its first free and democratic elections ". What happened next, his account concisely recounts:
Pretty soon it became apparent that the election of June 4th, 1989 was in no way a celebration of democracy, but rather a gross imitation. Its true character came out with brute force on the day after the first round. The voters sent to hell the national list, which meant all the top commies lost. The list consisted of 35 names, and only 2 got more than the needed 50% of valid votes. For both the Jaruzelski Junta and Walesa/Geremek group this came as an unpleasant surprise, because the voters negated in election booths the agreement reached at the Round table.
For me, the surprise really was how the new "Solidarity" proved to be as centralized as the old PZPR (Communist united workers' party), because of what happened after the first round. Our witness continues:
I was summoned to an urgent conference in Warsaw. The assembly was led by Bronislaw Geremek who ordered all leaders of the Citizens' Committees to urge voters to participate in the second round, despite winning by "Solidarity" in the first round everything the Reds consented to, therefore not having any reason to go to polls again.
However, as it turned out later this activating of voters was done as a formality only. The "mediators" had no intention to let anything go uncontrolled. And so, as a seasoned "people's" democrats would do, the creators of the new system took matters into their own hands rather than relying on voters. The voters were not really needed for the Roundtable dealers. The author of the memoir recalls the continuation of this "road to freedom:"
To seize the situation, on June 8th, 4 days after the 1st round, Solidarity leader Walesa (afterwards we found out, a secret police agent, code "Bolek") bluntly announced that he approved changes to elections rules for the 2nd round. Walesa was joined by others: first Geremek snubbed the nation overjoyed by the commies' loss in the first round, that "pacta sunt servanda"—agreements should be kept; then Michnik warned not to be tempted by "triumphant-confrontational rhetoric", and advised not to celebrate too loud, as this could upset Communist Generals Jaruzelski and Kiszczak. After these proclamations nothing stood in the way of State Council to change the electoral law by decree (during elections!) and announce it on June 12th, 5 days before the next round.
This plot, with its illegal and unconstitutional State Council decree clearly reiterates the circumstances of Martial Law's imposition on Poland in December 1981. At that time, the State Council was also not authorized to issue decrees; in accordance with applicable laws during the Fall-Winter Session of the Parliament (Sejm), the State council did not have such powers. But, simply in order to simulate maintaining the rule of law after carrying out military pacifying operations, the Jaruzelski Junta tried to legalize them.
Similarly in 1989 the first decision made was to "subdivide power", portion the spoils, and only then try to give this arrangement a semblance of legality. The Martial Law and the 1989 elections can therefore be thrown into one and the same rogue sack.
The author of this memoir concludes his story about the creation of the Third Republic by citing some well-known facts, which nevertheless are worthy to evoke:
Communist dictator Jaruzelski was elected the President of the Polish People's Republic on July 18th, 1989. Several days later, on August 2nd, the Parliament entrusted the post of Prime Minister to another Communist General, Czeslaw Kiszczak, a "distinguished" military police officer, later a chief of the communist secret services. In the 50s he specialized in sending interrogated people "on the tiles," which meant torture (see: http://www.bibula.com/?p=2941). This police chief, recognized by Michnik as a "man of honor", inflicted a painful blow to the builders of "freedom regained on 06.04.1989" legend. Testifying at the end of April 2009 before a court he stated, among others, "In 1989 nobody won anything. It was us who allowed Solidarity to assume power (…) I understand their disgust, but you cannot lie that Solidarity had won."
The name "Round Table" was probably meant to be associated with Knights of King Arthur deliberations of lore. However, as it turns out, more accurately its role is determined by the place in which it was stored, the partition-era Governor's Palace.
It's true: they cheated us in 1989, and brazenly deceived us for nearly a quarter century. But let's look at it from the other side. I do not think we should give up and despair. Because this means that freedom is yet to come!
Roman Misiewicz – born in 1964 in Debica, a lawyer, former editor of the "Nowa Okolica Poetow", published inter-alia in Creativity, Fronda, Toposie; recipient of "Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna" award for 2003.
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There's An Algorithm For That: Humans Falling In Love With Scripted Artificial Intelligence
dericiousknitty September 29, 2018 September 28, 2018 Eyes to See, Future Technology
I recently met a young woman named Wild Rose on an online chat forum. We struck up a conversation and within the first five minutes, Wild Rose – who is married, has a daughter, and lives in Texas with her in-laws – started telling me about her lover, a man called Saeran.
Saeran, she told me, is the illegitimate son of a politician who had grown up with an abusive mother. He is handsome, has white blond hair, golden eyes, a large tattoo on his shoulder. Wild Rose said that when she first met him, her "heart literally ached" and her cheeks "flooded with blood".
She then paused and added: "But I don't think Saeran loves me the way I love him. I love him genuinely. I'll never know his true feelings."
The reason: Saeran isn't human. He is a character in a mobile phone game called Mystic Messenger, which was released two years ago by Cheritz, a South Korean game developer. It has since been downloaded by millions of people worldwide. The game is a mix between a romance novel and Spike Jonze's 2013 movie Her, in which a man develops a relationship with a Siri-like character.
The primary aim of Mystic Messenger is to pursue a romantic relationship with one of a number of characters in the game, one of whom is Saeran. To cultivate intimacy with these virtual beings, you talk to them via a text message. The responses are pre-scripted, but feel dynamic and sincere. Winning the game is not about scoring points or beating a final boss; it is about reaching a "good ending" where you and your virtual lover live happily ever after.
A picture of Jumin Han, one of the characters in Mystic Messenger, and his cat, Elizabeth III. Photograph: Oscar Schwartz
The idea of simulating romantic relationships through gaming is not unique to Mystic Messenger. This genre of game – often referred to as dating simulations or dating sims for short – emerged in the 1980s in Japan, where they were popular with a predominantly male audience. But since the rise of mobile and online gaming, dating sims have become popular outside Japan and with more diverse demographics.
In the past year, there has been a bumper crop of hit dating sims, including Love and Producer, Dream Daddy and Doki Doki Literature Club. Unlike earlier generations of dating sims, where the action centered on erotic interactions with virtual girls, these games foreground conversations between players and characters, and often have nuanced and well-developed scripts. Mystic Messenger is one of the most popular of this new generation dating sim.
Since dating sims first came out, they have been controversial. In Japan, many critics saw the rise of dating sims as a signifier of alienation, a retreat from human relationships in a machine-mediated society. And as the popularity of dating sims develops once again, similar concerns are resurfacing. But the growing community of people who play dating sims are mostly impervious to this disapproval. The most dedicated romantic gamers do not see their interactions with virtual characters as a substitute for human companionship, but as a new type of digital intimacy.
As well as spending hours playing dating sims, fans chat with each other on online forums about their favorite characters and the contours of their virtual relationships. It was on one of these forums that I met Wild Rose. I had joined hoping to get a better understanding of why people play these games and whether the relationships they form with virtual characters possibly foreshadow a future in which the boundaries between real and virtual companionship will become increasingly blurry, if not irrelevant.
When I first asked Wild Rose to explain how and why she fell in love with Saeran, she told me that if I had any hope of understanding, I had to first enter the world of Mystic Messenger and experience it for myself.
https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html
I started playing Mystic Messenger one weekend when I didn't have much else on. In the game's plot, I was a young woman who stumbled upon a private messaging app. There I met a group of hyper-realistic anime characters with exaggerated eyes, slim, aquiline noses and jaws who were to be my new "friends". The narrative of the game was that together we had to organize an upcoming charity event due to take place in 11 days.
The gameplay of Mystic Messenger was unlike anything I had experienced. It did not involve collecting coins or moving through levels but chatting with these other characters through multiple-choice responses. While these characters were basically just interactive cartoon characters that would automatically respond to prompts from the player with pre-scripted answers, they still felt lifelike, and talking to them required tact and social nous. One character called Jumin liked it when I asked him about his pet cat. Another called Zen was a narcissist who only ever wanted compliments. Of all the characters in the game, I was most drawn to Jaehee, the only other woman in the group. She was the most intelligent and self-deprecating. I found her slightly sardonic attitude towards the other characters in the game funny. "It may not be fun chatting with me since I'm a woman," she said ironically. "But I hope you do not avoid me too much."
Part of what made Mystic Messenger compelling was the fact that it ran in real time. This meant that once you started, if you stepped away from the game you would miss out on vital conversations and lose track of where you stood with your virtual friends. This social dynamic reminded me of being a teenager, when I'd come home from school and log on to MSN Messenger and sit there for hours and hours.
Cat-obsessed Jumin Han feeding his beloved Elizabeth III. Photograph: Oscar Schwartz
For the first few days, I played Mystic Messenger conscientiously and tried to make sure that I responded to every one of Jaehee's messages. I was on the app two to three hours per day, which felt like a lot. But compared with those I spoke to on forums, my commitment to the game and Jaehee was paltry.
Amy, a single mum from South Africa who was part of the Mystic Messenger Addicts forum, told me that she played every day for at least six hours. Once she had successfully wooed one character, she would refresh the app and start again, focusing her attention on someone new. "That way I can fall in love with every character, get to know them all so intimately." I asked her which of the characters she liked best so far. "That would have to be Zen," she said. "He's nice. Kind of like an ideal boyfriend, maybe. He knows what's important to him. He's into his career. He doesn't make me feel inferior."
Natsuki, also a self-proclaimed "addict", told me that she played for at least four hours a day and liked Jumin best. Wild Rose said that when the game first came out she would play for up to five hours a day but had since cut down. "If I could play more I would," she said. "But I have a daughter to look after and I'm studying. This has meant many sleepless nights catching up."
When dating sims first became popular in Japan, they were often reported on by the media with a tone of moralizing disgust, partly because of the obsessive way fans played. These games were seen as an escape, a last resort for nerdy men who needed virtual girls to substitute for real, healthy heterosexual relationships. Along with anime and manga, dating sims were blamed for the low fertility rates in Japan, and the young men who played these games were sometimes described as "herbivores", as if lacking in carnal desire. This attitude was shared by western media, too, where Japanese dating sims were seen as a curious, almost alien pathology. Following the widely reported story of Nene Anegasaki – the man who married his favorite character from the dating sim Love Plus – an article in the New York Times Magazine described these games as a last resort for men who needed virtual women as a "substitute for real, monogamous romance".
With the popularity of dating sims now growing outside Japan, similar concerns have once again emerged. In China, where a dating sim called Love and Producer was downloaded more than 7m times in its first month, media reports about the game have been mostly negative, if not alarmist. One Chinese commentator argued that the only reason young people were drawn to dating sims was because their real lives are "brutally lacking" in real love. "The simplicity, consumerism, and hypocrisy of romantic simulation games," he wrote, "reflect the love-free disease that belongs to this era."
When I raised these criticisms with Wild Rose, she dismissed them as narrow and close-minded. She told me that playing Mystic Messenger had actually made her emotional life more stable and fulfilling. Mystic Messenger was a place where she could explore some of her unmet emotional needs, where it was safe to fantasize and imagine other ways of loving.
"When I met Saeran my world changed," she said. "I felt that he was talking to me and me alone. I felt interesting and needed."
In Japan, where this debate about intimacy with the virtual has been unfolding since the 1980s, there is a word that gives shape to the idea of loving a virtual non-human. That word is moe, which derives from the Japanese verb moeru, meaning to burst into bud. This word was originally used in ancient Japanese love poetry to describe nature blossoming into life. But within the dating sim and anime subcultures, it has come to describe the unique feeling of intimacy that one can feel for a virtual or fictional being.
Japanese writer and dating sim enthusiast Honda Toru argues that moe is part of a broader "love revolution". "Someday soon the hierarchy of real and artificial will break down," he said in an interview in 2014. "This future will be about knowing that we are in love with fiction and accepting it … Someday we will be able to accept that the world of dreams is a good world, with a warmth and solace that cannot be found in human society."
Patrick Galbraith, an anthropologist who has studied moe and otaku culture in Japan for many years, says that the decades-long existence of dating simulations in Japan has fostered a more accepting attitude to intimacy with virtual characters. "A lot of gamers in Japan could be very angry, but they're not," he said. "This is because society tells them, mostly, that their new way of loving is OK. These are people are not seen as unwell, but just trying to live otherwise." Galbraith also points out that these simulated dating environments provide a safe space to flirt without the risk of misreading social cues or being rejected. "If we would just stop pressuring people to act only within a limited set of social norms," he said, "maybe we would have fewer toxic individuals."
But not all gamers who play dating sims feel that they are part of a "love revolution" or ushering a new era of digital intimacy. Cecilia d'Anastasio, a game journalist who has written about Mystic Messenger, told me that most people who play the game do so because "it is fun, it is compelling, there is a narrative, it lets you master a new skill". In fact, there are lots of dating sims players who find the idea that they are somehow falling in love with the characters in the game slightly perverse.
Private chat with Jaehee Kang, the author's favorite character in Mystic Messenger. Photograph: Oscar Schwartz
In February, Pape Games, the developer that made Love and Producer, released an ad that portrayed a young woman telling her mother that she had finally found a husband, but that the husband was a character in the game. On Weibo, many fans of Love and Producer responded angrily. "So, this is what the company thinks about its loyal gamers?" said one. "As a married women who has a stable income and relationship, I only play this game because I like the voices of the character," another said. "I can clearly distinguish the virtual world from reality."
But the capacity to distinguish between the real and the virtual may become harder over the next decade as game developers use AI and sophisticated natural-language processing to make characters more interactive and realistic. Aaron Reed, who works at SpiritAI – a tech company that is doing just that – told me that while we are still decades away from designing anything as persuasive as Samantha in Her, more human-like characters are going to become pervasive in the coming years.
"Obviously as the technology gets better and the interactivity increases we're going to be able to form closer connections to characters in games," Reed said. "They will operate with greater flexibility and ultimately seem more lifelike and easier to connect to."
But for Wild Rose and many of the other dating sims enthusiasts I spoke to, making the characters more "human" wasn't particularly exciting or even desired. Saeran didn't need to be real for her to care about him. And she was well aware that there were probably tens of thousands of other gamers out there who he said the same loving things to. But it didn't matter. For Wild Rose, intimacy with the virtual was something that could only be played out fully between the screen and her imagination. When she played Mystic Messenger, she allowed herself to momentarily suspend disbelief and enter this virtual relationship.
She told me that in this way, her love for Saeran was very similar to how she had loved anime characters as a young girl. "When my parents were at work I would watch anime cartoons. I became very attached to some of the characters and I would draw fantasy worlds where we lived together." When she showed these drawings to her cousins, they made fun of her. "They teased me all the time for loving these characters, and now it's the same as people who criticize my love for Saeran," she said. "I don't think Saeran is human. But I think my love for him can be real even if he isn't."
As compelling as the simulated world of Mystic Messenger was, after a week, I couldn't keep up with the endless messages and emails from Jaehee and my other "friends". My life in the real world kept interfering with the development of my burgeoning virtual intimacy. That is, it was difficult to justify not making dinner because I had a chat scheduled with a character in a game. This form of digital intimacy didn't captivate me in the way it did for Wild Rose. I found my conversations with her, also conducted via text, far more compelling than my conversations with Jaehee.
But playing Mystic Messenger did make me rethink my relationship with other virtual characters that I communicate with through my phone, like Siri or Slackbot. What I learnt from Wild Rose, who stood at the vanguard of relations with these virtual others, is that when we interact with these characters we are engaged in a collective suspension of disbelief, allowing ourselves to imagine that they understand us, that they are kind of alive. Yet unlike Wild Rose, most of us do not acknowledge the role imagination plays in these relationships with the non-human. We pretend that these anthropomorphic algorithms are coming alive because of technological innovation alone, rather than cultural process and collective myth-making. It is at this point that we risk losing control of the fantasy.
"It's like how people love God," Wild Rose said the last time we spoke. "They don't see him. They never meet him. Yet they lay their faith and love in his hands. Why don't people understand that's the way I love Saeran?"
Original Article:https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/26/mystic-messenger-dating-simulations-sims-digital-intimacy
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algorithm, artificial intelligence algorithm, celia d'anastasio, chat forum, cheritz, date simulation, destruction of family, doki doki, dream daddy, end of human contact, her, human relationships, humans falling in love with scripted artificial intelligence, Japan, jumin, jumin ham, literature club, love and producer, lover a man named sarean, moeru, MSN messanger, mystic messenger, nene anegasaki, pape games, patrick galbraith, saeran isnt human, scripted conversation, sim, simulating romantic relationships, siri-like character, spiritAI, virtual girls, weibo, wild rose
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The time for the complete remolding measures the concrete workability.
The Vebe test can determine how the concrete will behave during compaction. It is also especially useful for measuring samples that may be too stiff to be measured by a standard slump test.
Humboldt's Vebe Consistometer method is based on the same principle of the simple slump cone test, but it has the advantage of a mechanized action. After removing the slump cone, the concrete undergoes a vibration to determine slump.


Back in London! (Well okay, I got back almost a week ago now, but I started writing this post on the flight from Sydney to Dubai.) That was an eventful visit back to Wellington: rain, sun, an indoor picnic, dancing, a couple of walks, various dinners, chats and catch-ups, playing in a playground in the middle of the night, star-gazing, painting a horse-jump to look like a sailboat, several attempts at geocaching with mixed success, and wandering around Sydney.
Before you get bored with the wall of text, here are some photos (or on Facebook if you prefer). Follow along if you like.
I spent just under 3 weeks in NZ, so a bit over 3 weeks away from London. My flight out, rather depressingly, left London on Sunday night to arrive in Wellington on Tuesday afternoon. I did not visit Auckland this time around, as I did not have quite so many people up there to see any more, so my only trip outside of Wellington was a day in and around Palmerston North. I went up with my mum to have lunch with my grandparents, one of my cousins and an aunt in Feilding, and saw the house my grandparents recently moved into in a retirement village there. They seem to be settling in well, though it is a bit smaller than their old house. I then spent some time with my friends Daniel and Sharon, whose wedding I went back for last year. Daniel has spent the last few months working as a grounds keeper at an equestrian centre just out of Palmerston North, and I ended up helping him with a few things he wanted to get finished before going home. In particular, he was repainting the stands for a horse jump to look like a sailing boat on the sea, so I painted part of that. I then headed to a family dinner with a different set of cousins and aunt, and my grandparents again. My cousin Lisa, who works as a chef, made us a very tasty dinner. I was then back down to Wellington first thing the next morning and back to work.
On Friday night some friends who blog together on common topics from time to time had organised a dinner to get together and chat, so as I was conveniently in town I was able to join them. I think there were about 14 of us who made it to the dinner, including a few hangers-on, and we had some good conversations over Chinese food at Cha. After dinner some of us went for hot chocolate and coffee somewhere else, and then I continued on to my friend Emma's birthday party. She lives in a bit of a hippy flat in Mount Vic full of vegetarians and green activists, which suits her rather well. As well as a couple of other friends, there also happened to be a guy there with whom I had been friends in primary school, and probably not seen since, so we caught up a bit and he told me about his radio play. Wellington is full of connections like that!
On Saturday I had hoped to go for a walk, but the weather was not at all up for it, so instead a few friends came over to play card games and catch up, and then we made pizza together for dinner. I went back to my old church, The Street City Church, on Sunday morning, but did not see many people I knew there any more. Afterwards I had planned to have a picnic at Freyberg Beach to catch up with lots of people, but again it was raining so we had an indoor picnic at my parents' house instead. Though not quite as good as the beach I think we did a decent job, with picnic rugs out on the carpet and even a stone turtle. It was good to catch up with everyone all the same, though as always at big gatherings it was hard to have many long conversations with people coming and going all the time.
Monday night I caught up with some friends from Memphis (the old compsci graduate lab at Victoria University) and Innaworks for pizza, Tuesday was dinner with the Hornblows (aunt/uncle/cousins on my mum's side of the family), and Wednesday dinner with my old flatmate Richard and his wife Sarah. It was great to catch up with Richard about what he has been up to, and his plans to perhaps start a small local brewery with some friends following his recent success with a home brewed beer of his winning an NZ-wide competition.
Thursday was ANZAC day, so I took a day's leave from work and got some friends together for a walk. 4 people came in the end: Cat, Gael, Jill and my brother Tim. We started at Aro Park, in Aro Valley, and walked up through Polhill Reserve to the Brooklyn wind turbine. From there we continued along the fenceline of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary (aka. Zealandia) for a little, before continuing off along the ridgeline to Red Rocks, then back along the coastline past Owhiro Bay to Island Bay, from where we caught a bus home (except Cat, who decided to walk the whole way). I made a map of our route, or as near as I could get it. We stopped to look for a couple of geocaches along the way, though only found one of them. The weather started out rather rainy, for the first couple of hours, but cleared up beautifully in the afternoon. Cat managed the first hour or two of the walk (uphill, on gravel and mud) without shoes, but eventually gave up and put his shoes on.
Thursday evening was dinner with some of the Walbran side of the family.
Friday night I went out for some swing dancing to see how the Wellington scene was doing, though sadly was not able to convince any friends to join me. It was pretty small, only about 10–20 people I think. After a couple of hours of swing they had a woman named Elizabeth Wise who was over from the US to sing and play some blues for us to dance to. By this point there were only about 10 people and not many dancing, but it was good music, and I had a few nice dances before I headed home.
My second Saturday in Wellington had much nicer weather than the previous one. We started the day with brunch at a local café to celebrate my dad's birthday. My little brother Mark was down from Auckland for a few days as well, so it was cool to have all 5 of us together in the same place. After that, my friend Michael organised a walk at Otari-Wilton's Bush, and I invited some more friends to join us. There were 8 of us in the end, which was an excellent number: me, Michael, Melissa, Isabel, Matthew Kiernan, Enoch, Josh Baker and Polly. This was a much shorter and easier walk than the previous one, and the weather was great all day. We took a few silly photos at the end, and after a little car trouble all headed our different ways.
I went to the Makertorium exhibition at Te Papa, a one-day showcase of all sorts of creations from people, clubs and companies around NZ. It was pretty cool. There were a lot of 3D printers and quadcopters, but all sorts of other things as well. I took a few photos, though they do not really do it justice.
After that I went to a friend's house-cooling party in Mount Victoria, then Richard's beer launch party. The prize for the homebrew competition he won was to have a brewery in Auckland make a batch of his beer, and so he organised a bit of a celebration at the Kelburn Village Pub, which had it on tap. Most of the people I knew had unfortunately gone by the time I arrived, but I did see a few on their ways home as I made my way up, and also got to see a couple of people I knew still there. I then got a last-minute invite to another friend's flatwarming party up in the far reaches of Brooklyn, so walked all the way there to hang around for a bit, then all the way back home to Hataitai.
Sunday morning I visited the local Elim church where a number of my friends go, then caught up with a few friends in the afternoon, walking around the waterfront and then meeting some others in the Botanic Gardens. Emily, Beth and Teresa were all in Wellington for a few days, in a happy coincidence, so I was able to catch up with them to varying degrees.
The next Monday night I was invited to a party which was partly to celebrate my friend Josh Thompson getting back to Wellington, so it was good to catch up with him and my other friend Daniel. Tuesday night was dinner at the Greenhaus flat in Newtown with Peter and Elaine. Peter, being his usual self, had ended up double-booking himself so was not able to join us for dinner after all, but I made some dessert for us to share when he got back a bit later in the evening and before he had to go out again. And I had a great long chat with Elaine, catching up on and discussing all sorts of things. Peter, Elaine and I (plus a bunch of others) all used to flat together in 2008, my last year of university, and Peter and I were also friends from college.
Wednesday night I was able to join in a regular ribs night that some of the ex-Memphis crowd have, trying out different restaurants around the place. This time was Uncle Mike's Kansas City BBQ in Petone, which was good. Thursday night I was originally planning to do some night geocaching with a few friends, but it was all a bit disorganised and then it ended up raining so we decided not to go after all. My friend Jill dragged me along to a ballroom dance class instead, which was interesting.
Friday afternoon I went to the Xero drinks for a bit to catch up with Will and Donald. Will was a colleague of mine at Google London, who recently moved back to Wellington with his wife and young kids after having lived in London for many years. He seems to be enjoying being back. Afterwards I was catching up with Talitha, as I had not yet seen her by that point. As we were looking for somewhere to eat we happened to run into my friend Tim Best, so he joined us for dinner at a nice Korean Barbecue place. That certainly does happen a lot more in Wellington than it does in London! Even in the less than three weeks I was back, there were at least 6 times I randomly bumped into people I knew around town.
On Saturday I had a wander around my old university, VUW, to see what had changed. They have built a new building where the quad used to be, with several levels of space with seats, desks, shops and so on connecting to the library. It all feels rather different to how it used to. I met up with Felix and Tim for lunch in town; Felix had been back in China for a while so I had not been able to see him earlier. I then met up with Emma for a bit.
On Saturday night I dragged a bunch of my friends along to a contra dance, which was good fun in the end despite a few problems. There has been a monthly contra in Wellington for about 10 years, with a band called Chilli Jam. I had only been a couple of times, years ago, but wanted to see what it was like compared to London, and to dance with as many of my friends as possible, so invited a bunch to go with me. The numbers had always been fairly small, but little did I know it had been declining recently, and they were planning to stop this year after the April dance (i.e. just before I got back). Fortunately they got an excellent turnout in April, and a friend of mine happened to be there and told them that they should keep on going at least a bit longer as I was organising a group to come to the next dance, so they decided to keep running them for the time being. Anyway, so I had about 10 friends or maybe even a couple more who came along, which was great. There were only about 30 people dancing in total I think, so I knew almost half the people there. However, we turned up on the night, and the band and caller were there, but the church hall where we were supposed to be dancing was locked and we could not get in. Apparently it was also full of junk for some reason. Fortunately it was a nice calm mild night, and we were able to get some power for the band and caller, so after sorting ourselves out we formed up in a longways set on the footpath outside and had our dance there, to the bemusement of all the passersby walking and driving through Kelburn village that night. The combination of uneven footpath, background noise, about 3/4 of the people never having done any contra before and people walking through made for a rather chaotic few dances, but they were good fun nonetheless, and quite a unique experience. We even managed to get a few passersby to join in which was cool. Perhaps this is something to do more often! I have danced Lindy Hop and blues outside a few times in London last summer, but not contra before. Oh, someone took some photos of us dancing. And one of my friends says we were mentioned in the local newspaper, though I have yet to see this.
Afterwards Polly had the excellent idea of organising a bunch of us to hang out for a while, so we headed down to Freyberg Beach in various cars to play on the climbing frame there for a bit and watch the stars, before heading to Enigma for some late night coffee and gelato. All in all, an excellent last night out in Wellington!
Sunday I went to church in the morning, then joined some people for lunch from the Chaffers market in Waitangi Park, then throwing a frisbee around for a bit. Great weather again. I then headed home to pack and get an early night, before getting up at 4:00 am on Monday to get to the airport and catch my flight out. By this point it had started to rain quite heavily, and apparently there was quite a bit of flooding in town on Monday, along with thunder, lightening and even an earthquake. It seems I got out just in time!
I spent the better part of Monday in Sydney, as I had a stopover there from 8:10 am until 4:05 pm. I had a walk around Centennial Park, as I had not been there before, then went for lunch at Google to catch up with Arya (a friend from university) and stretch (who used to be on my team at Google London). It was good to see them both, though I lost track of time a bit and ended up leaving at about 2:30 pm, only just in time to get to the airport and catch my flight. I had not meant to cut things quite so close. Anyway, the rest of the journey home was fairly uneventful, some minor delays due to mechanical problems and air traffic control meant I arrived in London about an hour late, but otherwise everything was fine and I managed to nap a bit on the flights. I arrived in London around 7:30 am, headed to work, and did a fairly decent job of staying awake all day. And now here I am!
Starting this Monday I am going to try blogging every day for a week, as something I am trying with some blogging friends. I may find this a struggle.
I have just returned to London after a month-long visit back home to New Zealand (well, okay, I am actually writing this from the aeroplane between Sydney and Singapore, but I will be in London by the time I post it). It was great to be back home! It was a pretty full-on month, as I was working from home for most of the time I was back then spending as many nights and weekends as possible catching up with friends and family and generally trying to make the most of being back in NZ. I did also take a few days off, as well as the two public holidays for Easter.
Arriving in Wellington on the afternoon of Friday 23rd March, I flew up to Auckland first thing on Saturday morning, where I stayed a couple of nights with my little brother Mark who has just started studying engineering at the University of Auckland. I slept on the floor of his room in one of the student hostels, so was surrounded by 18-year-olds. As well as Mark I was able to catch up with one of my cousins and 4 different friends who are currently living there, and also made it to the Saturday night of the New Zealand Swing Dance Exchange, which so happened to be on that weekend in Auckland.
Back in Wellington, I had a picnic at Freyberg beach (repeating the procedure from last time I was visiting Wellington), a barbecue, a board games afternoon (interrupted by a bit of sailing on the harbour), a walk on Easter Monday (the City to Sea walkway, which goes from Parliament to Island Bay via a series of parks, punctuated only briefly by sections on the road), and dinner with various friends. I ended up eating quite a few times at various Malaysian restaurants in town, of which it turns out Wellington has quite a selection, more than I had realised. Indian curry houses came a close second. I went night geocaching with some friends, which I had not tried before and was fun (we found 2 of the 3 caches we were looking for), and did some normal geocaching another day as well. I made it to Speakeasy (Wellington's weekly and only swing dance social) 3 times, though only managed to get friends to join me for the last one of those times. I also went up to Palmerston North for a night to catch up with various family and family friends up there. Just wandering around the Wellington waterfront and central city was also good when the weather was nice. But the main highlight, of course, was to see all my friends and family whom I had not seen for a year or more.
One of my main reasons for visiting at that time of year was to attend the wedding of my friends Daniel Wilkes and Sharon McGowan. Daniel I knew from college, since my first year at Rongotai in 2001, and Sharon I knew from university a fair few years later. Both the wedding and the reception were well suited to Daniel and Sharon, as they are suited to each other.
Anyway, it is now over a week and a half since I started writing this, so I should probably get on with posting it. It seems like a different world over here, so far away from New Zealand. I do miss home a lot still, and I still need to work out what to do next year in that regard. The weather having been so cold and rainy here since I have been back has not enamoured me of London.
Oh, last weekend was fairly fun though, if rather exhausting: I went to blues dancing workshops (taught by Annette Kühnle, visiting from Germany) both afternoons, then socials both nights as well: Down Home Blues (with live music from Dan Nash) on the Saturday night, and Book Club Blues on the Sunday. Okay, I should not write sentences with more than one colon. This weekend I am going to the Saturday night of London Lindy Exchange, where there will apparently be a band battle between the Shirt Tail Stompers (from the UK) and Gentlemen & Gangsters (from Sweden). I decided against going to all the rest of the exchange as I have been too busy lately, and need some time to catch up on other things. Like blogging. And fixing my bike, planning my trip to the US and Canada in June (I have booked the international flights at last! I still need to sort out planes, trains and busses within North America though, as well as accomodation and such), perhaps finding a dentist, emailing various people, hopefully buying some shoes, and probably a bunch of other stuff I need to do that I cannot think of right now.
In the meantime, you can look at my photos from New Zealand (and one from Sydney) if you want. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Sydney. I had about 8 hours in Sydney between flights on my way back to London (much like last time I made the same trip), so was about to go into the city and wander for a bit, then have lunch at Google with a couple of friends who work there now (a friend from Wellington, and one of my colleagues from London who transferred over there a bit over a year ago). Unfortunately it was raining pretty much the whole time I was there, but I nonetheless managed to walk through some of the city and the botanic gardens and make it out to Mrs Macquarie's Chair.
That will do for now I think. Now to see whether I can manage to write anything about community.
New Zealand here I come!
Hello dear readers! Those of you living in NZ may be happy (or perhaps unhappy?) to know that I am planning a visit back home in just under two months. I fly into Wellington on Friday 23rd March, and back out again on the morning of Monday 23rd April. I will be working from home for a fair bit of that time, but should be fairly flexible and certainly free most evenings and weekends as well as taking some leave, and also hope to visit at least Palmerston North and Auckland (and perhaps also Christchurch if anyone down there wants to see me) at some point.
So, who is keen to catch up, hang out, tramp / dance / bake / picnic / dine / converse? Is anyone keen for a weekend camping trip or anything like that?
Going to the Saturday night of TUX 5 in Toronto (great band, some great dancers, and great fun).
Going ice-skating for the first time in something like 20 years, also in Toronto (I was not very successful, predictably).
Learning the basics of Balboa dancing.
Sliding down a snow-covered hillside on inflated tubes in Kitchener with some Googlers.
Catching up with Teresa in Toronto, and Charlotte in London while she was visiting on her European tour.


text:
The ICT Zone
Far Fetched Fridays
The ICT Zone Magazine
Ernesto Alcantara Redefines What Successful Coaching Is
By: Victor Olorunfemi
Much like with the business, art, and professional worlds, when it comes to soccer, Wichita, Kansas, is often looked at as the dysfunctional younger sibling to the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Where the Kansas City area boasts a handful of professional teams, a population of over two million, and more families capable of exploiting the youth soccer system, outsiders often view Wichita as the opposite. A less populated city of about 400,000 boasting more 'Road work ahead' signs than high school soccer state championships. "Why go to Wichita when you could recruit in Kansas City?" is a question many of the best prospects from the area face and must overcome.
Yet, despite this, Ernesto Alcantara has used Wichita, KS, to produce some of the best players the Midwest region has seen in the last decade.
Coaching, especially in youth sports, can be a lot more subjective than one would think. What quantifies a good coach? Is it winning the most trophies, or is it about more than that?
Ernesto Alcantara is one of those rare people who redefine and surpass what it means to be a 'successful' coach.
Ernesto Alcantara is one of the few that prioritizes individual development above all in America's money-hungry youth sports system. The most important factor to him is that his players are improving day in and day out. That way, they'll excel not just for him but when they move on to the next level. It is a system where players feel valued, improve daily, and understand their role within a team.
This type of development-first orientation can often mean results take a backseat as players make the mistakes that come with challenging their weaknesses and turning into complete players. And the truth is, at times, some families would rather win a U-10 soccer league in a system that sees their child stagnate than lose more games in a system where the players improve and grow more confident under a coach that prioritizes technical development.
This fallacy is an obstacle course Alcantara is familiar with. He's lost families and players who found other clubs that offered the immediate gratification of winning rather than the patience player development requires. In sports, scoreboards and trophies are more tangible, whereas player development is more of an art, an art that requires a boatload of patience.
"Having the patience to develop players in the technical aspect. Willing to lose games, so paying that price ... sometimes the family correlates development with winning, and they end up leaving. The patience in just knowing that you develop the players individually and it's going to create a good experience for them later down the road, no matter what team they go to."
It can be a controversial philosophy to some, but it is hard to argue with the results.
His track record speaks for itself. There is a common denominator in most of the best soccer players to have come out of Wichita, KS, in the last decade. That common denominator is Ernesto Alcantara, a man who started coaching before he even knew what it was.
There's Maycee Bell. A 20-year-old Wichita native who won the 2016 Kansas Girls Gatorade Player of the Year as a freshman in high school, the first out of Wichita in 15 years and second ever, every other winner is from the KC metropolitan area. She has played games for the U.S. Women's Youth National Team and was the ACC Freshman of the year at North Carolina.
There's Ally Henderson-Ashkinos. She has started and played in 74 straight games for Baylor University, a prestigious Division 1 program in the BIG12.
There's Jordan Eickekman. Who starred at Missouri State, helping the program to their first Conference Tournament Trophy in 17 years in 2017, and second ever.
There's also Brookelynn Entz. She was recently selected in the NWSL draft by Kansas City and will leave K-State as a trailblazer with more records than she can count.
Those are just a few among many from club soccer. And not to mention the likes of Cindy Benitez and Katy Rodriguez, who were All-American collegiate players out of Butler CC.
The last part of that prior paragraph, mentioning how Alcantara was a coach before he knew what it was, speaks to his calling in life. If you ask him, his first coaching job came in the backyard of his parent's home as a young teen in Garden City, KS.
"I started coaching in my backyard in Garden City. I was coaching my brothers and sister, I didn't know that was coaching, but I was ... Not very good, but it's not that I wanted to coach, just trying to organize some backyard soccer."
The fact that Alcantara mentions his backyard as a teen as his first experience in coaching says a lot about a man who views coaching as more than just the prestige of winning trophies and prioritizing results above all.
Not that he doesn't have the results to go along with his excellent track record in player development.
He has won more league trophies than he can count, won state and regional soccer championships, reached the final four of the National Youth Futsal tournament on multiple occasions, and been on the staff of nationally-ranked teams among a long list of accomplishments. He has also been awarded the Presidential Exemplary Service Award by the KS Youth Soccer Association, coached for the U.S. ODP Developmental programs, and has received recognition as one of the best teachers in the Wichita Schooling community.
He is only getting started too. Not yet in his 40s, Alcantara is constantly seeking avenues to improve.
As Alcantara sees it, there is always something to be learned to help him become a better coach, a methodical approach to improvement. Alcantara gave a comparison that stood out. In the same way, you would feel much better if a surgeon operating on a loved one had a degree and education in the field. Coaches should also seek coaching education and expertise in handling someone else's loved one and the impact coaching can have on a youth's life.
Back to the original question of what makes a good coach. When asked about some of the trophies he had won as a coach, Alcantara replied, "Ahh, you know what, I didn't start keeping track of this or thinking about this until I had to build resumes."
That resume includes successful stops at all levels and different places as both a head coach and assistant coach. It includes middle school, high school, JUCO, NCAA, ODP, and club soccer. Alcantara has put together the template that has helped him change the landscape of Wichita soccer. And right now, that means as a coach and one of the directors at Kansas Rush Wichita.
Born in La Loma, a city in the mountains of Mexico with a population of just a few thousand, Alcantara, grew up in Garden City, a town of 25 thousand in western Kansas. He is well accustomed to the unique lessons and perspectives towns like these offer. A population that small makes the city feel more like one large community than a collection of different people. Small towns like this are building grounds for forging and molding the character that allows their citizens to excel anywhere they go, as Alcantara has.
In small cities like La Loma and Garden City, each individual is of value to the community, and the lessons they learn will allow them to succeed if and when they choose to go to a bigger city.
Perhaps it was growing up in a place like this that painted some of Alcantara's feverish commitment to ensuring that each and every single one of his players improves as individuals so that when they leave his teams, they can excel anywhere as people and as players. Fortunately for Wichita, KS, Ernesto Alcantara has brought those lessons, and there's no telling what kind of athletes and people he'll help develop next.
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