Gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte

I just discovered today after reading an Associated Press article what measurement unit follows the now commonplace computer term gigabyte, which is defined as a staggering billion bytes.

The article spoke about a booming business for "electronic discovery" centres like Kroll Ontrack that keeps permanent digital files and other scraps of corporate intelligence that may be valuable in litigating lawsuits. These are not just Internet sites, mind, but also records kept in hard drives - "wedged between everything from personal e-mails to pornography", tech writer Brian Bergstein said.

The need to keep all the files in a database has ballooned the size of Kroll Ontrack's data-crunching centre in less than 18 months, from a half-petabyte of storage to two petabytes.

Wha? What's a petabyte? The Free Dictionary says: "A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 terabytes."

That's nice. Sounds like a jillion e-mails or Jpeg files. But how much more will that carry than, say, my soon-to-be-beefed-up 100Gb-capacity PowerBook G4?

And -first things first- what's a terabyte anyway? I had never heard of that before, although the past week had me asking coincidentally about the beyond of the beyond. It's a unit of information equal to a trillion (1,099,511,627,776) bytes or 1024 gigabytes. That's a lot.

So a petabyte -as if repeating it actually makes it easier for the mind to grasp- is 2 million gigabytes or one quadrillion bytes.

Consider that the Internet Archive, which aims to store almost every public Web page ever to appear, currently totals one petabyte. Or in familiar terms, 20,000 PowerBook G4 notebook computers valued at around US$2,000 each. (Okay, with the new Intel Core Duo Macs, which potentially have its hard drive capacity boosted from 10Gb to a theoretical 1 terabyte, maybe just a thousand of those. Still, it boggles the mind.) We are definitely moving on to bigger things.

Paging K-PAX and John Nash.

Comienza el Año del Perro

Mi compañero Jerome que esta destinado en Roma me envió un artículo desde la agencia de noticias española EFE, donde trabaja su ex-novia, Maribel. El artículo, entitulado "Comienza el Año del Perro con previstos conflictos y desastres" y escrito por Francisco Luis Pérez, da pronósticos de luchas, dificultades y conflictos para el Año Nuevo del Perro de Fuego que comienza domingo.

Según adivinos taiwaneses que siguen una milenaria tradición china de adivinación observando el antiquísimo calendario agrícola lunar, "las relaciones entre familiares, parejas y amigos serán puestas a prueba en el año nuevo, por lo que un adivino taiwanés recomienda un cuidado especial de todas las relaciones afectivas para evitar dolorosas rupturas."

"La dirección este y oeste son beneficiosas, la del norte no es positiva y la del sur tiene poco beneficio", afirma Wang Li-neng desde el famoso templo de Longshang, uno de los más antiguos de Taiwán y que se encuentra atestado de fieles que buscan respuestas para sus inquietudes y planes.

Los países del sur tendrán conflictos con los del norte. No es un buen año para las naciones de Latinoamérica, Africa, Oceanía y el Sudeste Asiático, pero las fuerzas negativas se pueden contrarrestar con un renovado esfuerzo, pronostica Wang, que destaca que el Año del Perro exige justicia y perseverancia.

"Los países deben buscar lazos al este y al oeste, por eso las relaciones entre Taiwán y China, entre Europa y Estados Unidos, y entre EEUU y Japón pueden mejorar e impulsar la economía mundial", anuncia Wang.

Los demagogos políticos tendrán un mal año y se enfrentarán a resistencias y violencias porque en este período que empieza es necesario andar con esfuerzos y consistencia y no con palabrerías, apunta el adivino.

Las tensiones sociales pueden recrudecerse también los cambios políticos y la llegada de líderes jóvenes al poder, pero los cambios tenderán a ser positivos para la mayoría, según las fuerzas que operan este año.

No son noticias muy buenas para todos nosotros que buscan lazos mas fuertes entre el este y oeste. Si los pronósticos se realizan entonces un año de mala leche para nuestro país será seguida con otro egalmente malo.

Tampoco será un año muy bueno para los EEUU porque el artículo dice que "estará marcado por conflictos violentos creados por los hombres, por lo que se impone una diplomacia pero basada en la imparcialidad y la justicia, y no en imposiciones o engaños."

Menos mal que la amenaza de epidemias y enfermedades no aparece este año, pero no hay ninguna seguridad que el tipo de peligro natural como el tsunami en Asia, huracanes en América Central y del Norte, el terremoto en Pakistán y la India y hombruna en Niger que marcaron 2005 como el año de desastres naturales no aparecierán en 2006.

Así se acabó para mi el Año del Gallo en que cumplí los 36 y encontré el amor despues de perder el otro. ¿Que dicen adivinos taiwaneses sobre las perspectivas personales?

En el plano personal, la influencia del perro tiene aspectos positivos y negativos, y en este año exigente los esfuerzos aislados no darán fruto y no podrán evitarse los conflictos, sobre todo en las relaciones interpersonales.

Será un año duro, sin lugar para las falsedades y los preciosismos, un periodo para retornar a las raíces, a los principios.

Los nacidos bajo los signos del Dragón (1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000), Gallo (1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005), Oveja (1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003) y Perro (1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006) afrontarán fuerzas negativas.

A los dragones les esperan cambios de trabajo o residencia y no deben iniciar empresas nuevas; las ovejas experimentarán cambios drásticos, tensiones familiares y amorosas, además de dificultades para ganar dinero.

Los gallos lo tienen todo en contra, habrá dinero y será un buen año para los negocios y la salud.

Los signos con más suerte en el Año del Perro son la Liebre (1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999), el Caballo (1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002) y el Tigre (1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998).

La Liebre ha pasado un mal año y ahora tendrá un respiro, aunque le esperan cambios drásticos, más gastos que ganancias y tensiones laborales y familiares.

El Caballo se enfrentará a contradicciones, pero hay perspectivas de triunfos profesionales y separaciones cortas.

El Tigre tendrá la protección de personas influyentes, el peligro de agotamiento y enfermedades, y la posibilidad de lograr sus deseos con esfuerzo.

La Serpiente (1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001) dispondrá de oportunidades y negocios, prosperidad económica y viajes, mientras el Mono (1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004) tendrá un año difícil, con muchos imprevistos y peligro de rupturas amorosas.

Inessa nació bajo el signo del Jabalí y según los pronósticos ella va a enfrentar retos profesionales este año. No dice nada sobre el plan sentimental.

Al Jabalí (1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007) le espera mucho trabajo y responsabilidad, con peligro de dispersión e imprevistos, que podrán superarse con esfuerzo.

El Ratón (1936, 1948, 1960, 1972,1984, 1996) tendrá problemas en sus asuntos personales y deberá actuar con gran prudencia, mientras el Buey (1937, 1949, 1961, 1973,1985, 1997) enfrentará desafíos grandes, pero con paciencia verá disminuir sus dificultades.

En el sistema del calendario Chino, el par de animales y elementos que representan al año, sigue un ciclo de 60 años, por lo que el último Año del Perro de Fuego fue en 1946.

Ese año se produjeron tensiones y cambios decisivos a nivel mundial, tales como la creación de la ONU, la independencia de Filipinas de Estados Unidos, la proclamación de la república en Italia, el inicio de la Cuarta República en Francia y la condena de los criminales de guerra en el juicio de Nuremberg.

¿Habrá alguna posibilidad que esas prediciónes no pasarán? Bueno, el mismo Wang declara que "El horóscopo chino no predice hechos, sólo nos desvela las tendencias y fuerzas que operan, pero el esfuerzo humano y la habilidad para manejar el destino es tarea personal y social".

Tennis Fashions

Like in the music and movie business, the sports world also has its phenomena - overnight or otherwise. No where is this truer than perhaps in telegenic sports.

Out of nowhere the ongoing Australian Open has provided tennis -which has had its biggest and most popular attractions come from the women's side- a new darling in the men's circuit. About time, I say. Unlike the beauty and bluster provided by Sharapova, the Williams sisters and the comebacking Martina Hingis, men's tennis has had less of a popular following recently. Among its biggest heroes, for every emotional or flamboyant player like McEnroe or Agassi, there are dry and mechanical champions like Lendl, Courrier and Sampras.

Unlike the buttoned down Wimbledon or the American-dominated US Open, the French -and to a lesser extent- the Australian Opens provide more opportunities for the minting of new heroes. The more flawed they are, the more interesting. In the past we've had Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Gustavo Kuerten and Gaston Gaudio. Last year I followed Kazan-born, Spanish-trained Marat Safin overcome the annoying Lleyton Hewitt claw back from near-collapse to claim the so-called Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific. This year I've not really kept to date with the progression of the rounds (and perhaps never really had a wont to, until the semi-finals or finals) since Marat the Mercurial (and infinitely interesting than perennial winner Roger Federer) bowed out in the early rounds in this seventh edition he's played in. Of course there are other good players in the draw, but after this result I just gave the Open up to the relentless and methodical Federer.

What few people likely counted on was that even though we all knew the eventual destination the journey could still be fun. This was provided thankful journalists and crowds by Cypriot sensation Marcos Baghdatis, who has disposed of an impressive series of seeds on the way to the final, which will take place on Sunday against (of course) Federer. He mowed down until today Andy Roddick and Ivan Ljubicic, seeded second and seventh respectively.

Today, apart from the impressive stats, he provided drama in his semifinal match against the dangerous Argentine, David Nalbandian. Just like last year's drama between Safin and Hewitt, the duel between the two played out for an extended period and was even interrupted by a sudden downpour. Nalbandian is not a jerk like Hewitt but there was no denying the Cypriot Mr Popularity. His winsome smile and easygoing attitude won him more fans with each passing game as his determination and volleys. Also, having a girlfriend like Camille Nevier dutifully watching adoringly from the stands also helps in a big way.

I hope he'll stick around longer than Claudio did.

Happy Together

We just saw on DVD Wong Kar-Wai's Cheun gwong tsa sit (Happy Together, 1997), a film shot partly in B&W that explores the growing alienation two homosexual men from Hong Kong experience in antipodean Buenos Aires.

Although it won WKW the Best Director prize -the first for a Chinese director- at the Cannes Film Festival, the initial personal impression I got wasn't too overwhelming. Inessa actually liked it; I found it a bit more of a muddle (and this is already taking into consideration Wong's penchant for non-linear storytelling).

Without doubt, one can already see the development of the director's knack of portraying relationship conflicts that he would eventually demonstrate impeccably in later stories of heterosexual entanglements, Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love, 2000) and 2046 (2004). Of course he's handled onscreen relationships before or given free rein to his frenetic, jigsaw mise en scène with his patented UnsteadyCam. Two examples that come to mind are Chung hing sam lam (Chungking Express, 1994) and A Fei jing juen (Days of Being Wild, 1990), set in Hong Kong and Manila respectively.

In an AOL reader's review, Anthony Leong described the movie's portrayal of a "pathological relationship" as insightful precisely for its reality-based tediousness and repetitiveness. I tend to disagree, though, that the casting went out on a limb for putting "two of Hong Kong's brightest straight actors" in the role of gay lovers. Maybe Tony Leung isn't but wasn't the late great Leslie Cheung openly gay? Anyway, Yanks would no doubt call it ahead of its time since it wasn't until late last year when Taiwanese director Ang Lee was able to cast two of Hollywood's brightest straight actors (ahem), Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Oscar-bound Brokeback Mountain.

Not wanting to do a bodge job of describing the plot of this film, allow me to just cite the eminent Mr Leong:

Lai Yiu-Fai (Leung) and Ho Po-Wing (Cheung) are a couple of ex-patriates living together in Buenos Aires. However, after an aborted trip to see the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil, a symbol of renewal that is touched upon throughout the film, they drift apart. Lai becomes a doorman at a tango club, which pays enough for him to maintain a claustrophobic flat in a rundown building. Meanwhile, Ho sells himself out as a hustler, making a living off of a series of one-night stands. However, after finding Ho bleeding on the street, beaten up by a 'bad trick', Lai decides to take Ho back in an attempt to 'start over', and finally make the trip to Iguazu.

Maybe one of the reasons I found the film a muddle was that I couldn't be fagged to figure the more-linear-than-usual WKW plot. Can't be bothered to make heads and tails of it for a blog entry, so let me just again plagiarise the quotable Mr Leong:

HT exhibits many of the hallmarks inherent in all of Wong Kar-Wai's films. The story, rather than being plot-driven, is theme-driven, with many layers of interpretation. Every aspect of the story, whether it be characters, the occupations of the characters, or even where they stand in a room, speaks to hidden metaphors and subtext. His characters are usually divided into two camps with opposing philosophies, and this is seen in the contrast between Lai and Ho. Lai, the more reserved and responsible of the two, is haunted by the past and is blinded to opportunities in the present by the haze of nostalgia. Ho, the more petty of the pair, has a shiftless life without any 'memory' of the past, which leads to a meaningless existence and the need to define his own purpose through his relationships with others. This same juxtaposition was seen between Yuddy and the cop in "Days of Being Wild", and the Hitman and Michelle in "Fallen Angels".

One can only surmise that this bloke is a non-professional critic for the way he actually talks about the film and not around it, which most armchair-type chaps usually do, without having seen all of the film, using blatantly evasive codswallop such as comparisons to the Beat Generation. Just because the blurb said something like "gay road movie set in Argentina" doesn't necessarily mean you should dust off your Viking 1957 first edition of "On the Road" nor flex your Jack Kerouac metaphors from high school! Additionally any mention of Ginzburg or Burrough is completely unwarranted.

(Now that we're back in the business of criticising Yanks, let me just comment about the way they take such a long time to clue in into certain trends that have long dominated the world outside of America or have even gone stale elsewhere. Wong Kar-Wai is a good case in point. If rental-video-clerk-turned-emblematic-director Quentin Tarantino hadn't been into chopsocky films, who knows how long people in the States would've taken to notice the Shanghai-born filmmaker. Worse, the way everyone bandwagons it's astounding, especially how people there seem to give up on critical thinking all together. No wonder everyone went for the invasion of Iraq and are not exactly up in arms over the truly impeachable offense of federal spying. To my relief, a film critic from the ultimate benderville, San Francisco, actually questioned the basis of Wong's celebrity in a piece from November 1997. To wit, G. Allen Johnson says "It's hard to decide whether Wong Kar-Wai is great or just momentarily fashionable. His films are confidently made, to the point of being cocky, yet it's their very bravado that makes them suspicious.")

(Of course it's just like me to criticise Americans and then quote one of them. There are, of course, spot-on remarks in the Johnson review: "Wong works with an internal clock rather than a conventional one. He edits his film not to music or plot resonance, but to emotion - or lack thereof. In some ways, he's a minimalist, using glances and action to convey information. When there is dialogue or narration, he makes every word count".)

Since I've gone this much stealing from AOL proprietary material, might as well go the Full Monty and iterate the way the film's technical details measure up, circa 1997:

The images that Wong Kar-Wai and his ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle in HT are, as usual, stunning. Using the same techniques employed in "Fallen Angels", where the luminance of the image was boosted through the use of high-contrast film, Wong Kar-Wai creates a dizzying array of richly-textured shots. Those familiar with his films will see the usual indulgences-- the sped-up footage of city traffic, the arty and introspective slo-mo, the MTV-school-of-film-making, the long monologues, the shifting points-of-view, and the Godardian influences of jump-cutting and iconography (the fixation on stationary objects, such as clocks, street signs, and statues)-- all of which speak to the themes common to all Wong Kar-Wai films: the transiency of relationships, the introspective point-of-view, and the persistence of memory.

Although there were some pleasing bits in the film I glossed over the significance of the subplot involving Chang Chen (Lo Dark Cloud in Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000) I would have to agree with the AOL reviewer who says that Happy Together is "a straightforward narrative with the existential philosophy and the stylish-camera work toned-down", which essentially makes it only passable as a Wong Kar-Wai film. "The exhilaration of watching his films comes from fitting together the pieces of a 90-minute intellectual puzzle, and subsequent viewings generally revealed new interpretations and nuances", says Anthony Leong. This one, however, does not have enough of that nor even enough of the kind of eye-candy that made In the Mood for Love such pleasurable viewing.

Glacial times for josei-tachi

It seems that the real cold isn't being experienced in Japan's streets at all. According to Kaori Shoji (a prolific reporter, trendspotter, art critic and editor of about Naoko's age, known for her fast wit - a regular Dorothy Parker who can outshine Mickey Berdy any day), the real freeze that's wreaking havoc on the landscape is the refusal of Japanese men to bother with flesh-and-blood women. Unlike in Russia, where the negative birthrate is probably being rolled back by the first real optimism for the future in decades, in Japan not even the country's positive growth is enough to spark any passion between the sexes. In a 10 January 2006 article entitled "Men retreat from 'hassle' of loving relationships" in The Japan Times, Shoji writes this humourous piece:

We're told that the nation's economy is in its best shape in a decade. While this is "roho (good news)," other things are happening in this country that are not so hot. Literally.

According to sources, many eligible Japanese men are in the throes of what's become known as "Renai Ken-o Sho (Dislike of Love Relationships)" and, consequently, the number of loving couples has plummeted to probably the lowest in the last decade. Single women are complaining that the dating scene has never been so barren, and those fortunate enough to have boyfriends live in fear of the extremely high turnover rate: "Kyo no kanojyo wa ashita no moto-kano. (Today's girlfriend is tomorrow's ex-girlfriend)."

Yes, there is less relationship-security now than ever before, and it's all the result of the Japanese male's seeming reluctance to get close, get committed and become that most coveted of conditions: "jyounetsuteki (passionate)."

Out-of-love epidemic
"Korewa mohaya byokidane (this has officially become an epidemic)" says editor Michiyo on this out-of-love trend. This is her story: After three whole years of nurturing warm, friendly relations with a "doryo (colleague)," Michiyo confessed her love one morning after an all-night, "futarikiri (just-the-two-of-us) drinking stint. Instead of taking her in his arms and declaring likewise (as she had envisioned) he looked acutely embarrassed, turned away and muttered: "Sou yuno, nashini shiyoyo (Let's not go there)."

Shocked, Michiyo's professional antenna went up: This colleague had to be part of a bigger disease eating away at the hearts and minds of the nation's men. It should be noted that Michiyo is smart, attractive and sexy -- she owns eight pairs of skin-tight, pin-heel boots that, when combined with her collection of skin-tight Earl jeans, makes her look like a "wasei Kyameron (the Japanese Cameron Diaz)," the kind of look that, it might be assumed, would attract suitors.

Let's not go there? What was the guy thinking?

And this would seem to be the collective Japanese female wail. They just don't know what men are thinking, or want anymore. Before, it had been so simple. Men wanted women and that was all there was to it. It was the guy's job to deduce the workings of the female mind.

Now, the tables have turned. Men are constantly shying away and looking embarrassed while women lay bare their hearts and fling them at their reluctant, shuffling feet. "I sense a nation-wide wave of 'don-biki (a great, pulling away)' on the part of men" analyzes Michiyo. "They actually act affronted when women confess. They act like little girls, they act like 'otome (virgins)!' "

It's true. The widespread "ren'ai ken-o" goes hand in hand with the widespread otome-ization of the Japanese male. Ten years ago the media gasped when young men were discovered to shave their legs and buy skin-care products. Today the focus is on young men who see sexual relationships as something "kimoi (disgusting)" and who seem to have little interest in venting their physical desires with actual partners. They live for "shigoto (jobs)" and "shumi (hobbies)." Above all, they value their privacy.

Heavy burden
Behind the "shoshika (low birth rate)" phenomenon (which has mostly been palmed off as the fault of the nation's women), is this to consider: Japanese men are less interested in love, let alone such an "omoni (heavy burden)" as marriage and "kosodate (child-rearing)."

Michiyo did an informal survey among the single men in her department, and reports that six out of eight replied that the reason they choose to avoid ren'ai altogether is because they cannot see any merit in being with women. "Onnanoko wa mendoudashi, renraku shinakya-naranaishi, purezento toka okane kakarushi... (Girls are a hassle, they expect me to call, I have to buy them gifts and that would cost money)" was one 34-year-old male's sum-up. He would rather deploy his funds and time in other ways, ways that would be infinitely more rewarding than in a "kocchini nanno tokuni naranai (There's no profit to be gained)" love relationship.

Girls of Nippon, we live in glacial times.

Some of this had already been apparent when I was living in Japan until 2000. It was difficult to imagine another society in which men preened in the same way as women and were viewed as normal. With such dire alternatives for women in Japan, it would probably a lot more fun for foreign men living there now.

Harsh winter in Japan

While we grit our teeth and dig in in an attempt to weather the cold here in Moscow, it's probably good to know that we in Russia and neighboring countries are not alone in our sufferings. Even as the number of fatalities in Moscow from the cold rose to 123 since last October, similar figures were being tallied for all of Japan - making the winter of 2005/2006 the deadliest in 20 years.

I chatted with my colleague about this yesterday afternoon, recalling our own stints in the Land of the Rising Sun. We agreed that although average winter temperatures in Tokyo cannot compare with those in Moscow, at least we were assured of reliable central heating here. In Japan and elsewhere, heating is localised; in other words, you fend for yourself as you are best able to do so. With power costs considerably more expensive in Japan, most families make do with electric stoves, gas heaters or the traditional kotatsu, reinforced by thick jumpers, woolen socks and futon.

For this reason, freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall can instantly disrupt life in Japanese major cities outside those in Hokkaido, the northeastern Tohoku and central Japan Alps regions. Just like in Spain, snow falls only once or twice throughout the winter season and hardly accummulates.

Today, Reuters reported that at least 7 cm of snow had fallen in the Otemachi area of central Tokyo as of 3 pm. It was the heaviest in the capital since 8 cm fell on 27 January 2001. In the Japan Today site, a regular poster said snow had accummulated up to 20 cm by late afternoon. Coincidentally yesterday was also declared 大寒 daikan, the coldest day of the year. The photo to the left shows brolly-carrying pedestrians in Ginza. (I can't imagine Russians carrying umbrellas to ward off snow, though.)

I don't remember when was the worst snowfall I'd experienced in Tokyo, but I do recall that the winter of 1988/99 did cause considerable disruptions in the chikatetsu as well as the suburban train I used to take to my flat in Ichigao. The most I had experienced was perhaps during the week I was covering the Nagano Winter Games in February 1998. I still have the LL Bean jacket and Timberland boots I bought especially for that coverage.

Post Scriptum: I finished up the Norwegian brown cheese, gjetost, that Pang gave me after her trip to Norway last summer. Tried keeping it for as long as I could in my decrepit refrigerator, taking out only choice morsels at a time. Not having a solid bite to munch on, I had little choice but to eat up all the Skivet ost from Gudbrandsdalen in the south of Norway.

Talk about weather gets heated

Everywhere the only thing people seem to talk about is the severe weather and its effects on everyone. Talk seems to take on either of these two types: Dickensian or Londonian. In other words, either one complains about the sheer unbearableness of the situation or how overrated all the complaints really are about. Inevitably the women complain about the cold and the men say it's actually small potatoes.

This kind of discussion is also taking place online. On the Beeb's website, a debate has been triggered by a Canadian and an American about how Russia is again failing its citizens for not being more ready to cope with a situation that's supposedly normal in these parts. Of course anyone who has actually lived here in these last three or four years can attest that Russian winters in general tended toward mildness. In fact the last time such sustained low temperatures were recorded was more than a generation ago in the winter of 1978-1979, when temperatures dropped to minus 38 degrees Celsius. The 1940 Moscow record of minus 42.1 degrees Celsius could be broken, the newsru.com Web site reported, citing meteorologists.

The fact remains that this winter has been deadly even to Russians, who people outside the country believe should have the superhuman ability to be accustomed to this kind of climate. Overnight the temperatures in Moscow plunged to -30 C, killing the homeless and drunks, and threatening power supplies.

Of course, there were offbeat stories as well. Moscow's coldest spell in 26 years brought out the quirkiest in the Russian character with one animal trainer feeding an elephant a bucket of vodka to warm it up -- only to watch the drunken beast set about wrecking the central heating system.

Ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky led other publicity-hungry politicians by plunging into a bitterly cold pond in early morning Christian Orthodox ceremonies.

In Moscow, emergency medical services quoted by Interfax news agency said a further seven people had died overnight from exposure and another 25 people were being treated in hospital. The total number of casualties from the cold in Moscow since the end of October has now risen to 116 people.

One report stated that many of the victims are often drunks who perish in outlying areas after passing out, and their snow-covered bodies are sometimes discovered only after the thaw approaching spring several weeks later. Although I can attest myself to witnessing the death of a homeless man near the Smolenskaya Metro station on my first winter here, this bit about not being found for weeks on end sounded fantastic even on first reading. Rightly a Russian reader on the Beeb expressed similar incredulity at this report.

Apart from the inconvenience of finding my car dead-stalled, there was also the matter of the cold quickly depleting mobile phone batteries, playing havoc with lifts, stalling LCD watches and even jamming automated cash dispensers. Fortunately for me I've managed to stay clear of these enterprising young men who try to turn a quick profit by leasing out their jump leads at a hefty cost: I've nonetheless requested either Lyosha or Vlad to help me jumpstart Balios.

Of course, this one takes the booby prize. According to one newspaper, a 45-year-old man in Mordovia, east of Moscow, was treated for frostbite to four fingers for talking too long on a mobile phone in the freezing temperatures. Fortunately for him he wasn't out tonight, when temperatures are predicted to fall possibly to -34 C, or even colder in rural areas around the city.

How did the cold affect the energy situation? Russia had to reduce gas supplies to Europe to make sure its own domestic supplies were stable. Some companies are even working with lights off and computers turned on in the dark (to bizarre effect). Anna told me the government was encouraging some enterprises to take today and tomorrow off, and work over the weekend instead to make sure the electricity grid doesn't collapse due to the huge spike in demand - "high risk", according to Moscow power company Mosenergo.

Another item I viewed with much skepticism is the report that in Noyabrsk in the Arctic part of Western Siberia, Noyabrskneftegaz oil company had suspended drilling operations because of the extreme cold. I didn't know oil froze at such temperatures.

For a slice of the bigger picture and how life in the streets is affected by this unusual spell, let me quote the following news story I found on Moscow Times.

State schools have given parents the option of keeping their children at home. Police have been told to find places for the homeless to shelter rather than clear them from doorways, stairwells and metro stations as they normally do.

"The present cold is unique by its duration, which will either be a record or be close to a record," Russia's chief meteorologist Roman Vilfand was quoted as saying on Thursday. In an interview with Vremya Novostei newspaper, he forecast temperatures falling to minus 32 or minus 34 Celsius in Moscow on Friday.

In Strogino, on the city's outskirts, other Orthodox believers, some of them old people dressed in long shirts, trooped from church down a lake where they lowered themselves into the bitter waters, immersing their heads and crossing themselves three times in accordance with tradition.

"I'm not scared of minus 30. I do this every year usually in the north. It's a lot colder there," businessman Viktor Shuliakovsky told Reuters, his naked torso steaming in the open air after he emerged from the water.

No one seemed willing to make a fearless forecast on how long the cold would last.

Conventional wisdom holds that Russians are less susceptible to the cold, as if they were possessed of a physionomy better able to withstand negative temperatures. Such views are reinforced by Russians themselves. The truth is actually more prosaic; as Russians themselves say: "There is no such thing as cold weather, only inadequate clothing." Better prepared for the cold, they were able to outlast and use to their advantage the legendary frosts that defeated the armies of Napoleon and Hitler. Not surprisingly macho and as image-conscious as your average Latin American politico, Russian male politicians sought to use the occasion to enhance their image by doing a walrus.

Azerbaijan & MacIntosh

There are just some things in this world that don't seem to go along together, for reasons pressing or trivial. Oil and water, chalk and cheese or -as the Japanese say- the moon and snappers. Never really questioned this paradigm much, just considering it something natural in the cosmic scheme of things.

In this record-breaking cold a seemingly ill-matched pair awaited me at work when I came in, late as usual. In the hour that followed, Azerbaijan and the PowerBook G4 dominated the conversation I had almost in equal doses. It took an old friend and colleague in the field of human rights, Rea, to bring these two disparate elements into a whole. Appearing on chat to say hello from Hanoi, where she was still residing after moving sometime last year from a two-year stay in Kuala Lumpur, Rea said she might move soon to another country, China most likely.

More important, she told me that she might pass by Moscow on the way to or back from a women's conference in Baku, Azerbaijan in April. Living by the same principles or ethics as me, Rea is a fun person to be with, a lover of the eclectic and true, multicultural if not quite multilingual. She is a kind of person one can just introduce to other friends and not feel in the least bit concerned about how she would treat or herself be treated by them.

I don't exactly remember now the progression of the chat but we got to talking about her favourite notebook computer, the Apple PowerBook G4. It just so happens that I possess the exact same machine as she does, down to the processor speed and screen size: 867MHz and 12 inches. And so, interspersing our chat with the next opportunity for a meeting and how to enhance our online lives (through veefy -Wifi- of course), we chatted for the better part of an hour about our experiences (or lack thereof) in both spheres. It was actually very helpful for me, allowing me to value my property a bit more and consider enhancing finally the harddisk capacity and, more important, finally buy for myself the AirPort Card that is important for wireless communication.

By this time, as you can gather, all talk about Azerbaijan and Baku had ceased, being replaced almost in toto by geek talk about installing an AirPort Card and the Intel Core Duo in the new iMacs. There were of course other off-topic things we talked about, such as asking her to take care of my Finnish friends, Timo and Hanna-Kaisa, when they visit Hanoi at the end of February.

Apples and oranges, indeed.

Start of the Big Freeze

Last night, when I started writing about the coming cold the temperature was no more than a few degrees below zero. By the time I left the office to start up Balios it was -18 C. Coming home with my mavourneen at around 11 pm, we stopped for some produce at the local grocer. When we got out into the streets again just after a few minutes the temperature had dropped at -26 C. That has to be the most precipitous temperature drop I've ever witnessed in me life in such a short time!

I woke up this morning to more news reports about The Big Freeze. In the Moscow Times, the country's top health official, Gennady Onishchenko, said Monday that schools in Moscow may have to be closed if temperatures were at -25 C or colder for any length of time. (A Russian colleague once said schools would automatically be closed at -30 C.)

Moscow's homeless people were among the most vulnerable, with some even attempting to get themselves arrested by the police as a desperate means to survive the cold. "Spending a night in the police station is better than anything else, at least it's warm down there," The Times quoted an unidentified homeless man as saying. That's one for News of the World.

Or for the birds, as this photo of migrating penguins sent to me by my friend Vika suggests.

"Honestly, we do not have any experience of working at such low temperatures . It hasn't been so cold for years," said Rita Likhachyova, chief doctor at City Clinic No. 7, which operates a separate clinic for the homeless. "Hopefully, the cold spell will not last and the homeless will find shelter. However, we still expect a lot of patients with hypothermia."

Too late for at least five people, who froze to death in the city over the weekend.

Another interesting tidbit for Rupert Murdoch is that police will be allowed to wear valenki. That's almost like seeing bears in Russia's streets.

Postscript: I looked up Tomsk on the Internet and found out it's more than plausible that it exists. At least there's an account by someone who's actually been there. American engineer David MacDonald has written an article about living in Siberia in Clever Magazine.

Siberia moves into Moscow

Don't say you weren't warned.

Even from last week's stupor at work, at a time when most offices in Moscow might have been forgiven for occasional displays of sluggishness and torpor, people came to life with talk of a cold front engulfing the capital in -25 to -34 C weather - temperatures rarely seen this side of John Howard and GW Bush's version of a petrol-guzzling ideal world. Had any of your colleagues resorted to raising eyebrows, citing Gismeteo.ru would've been enough to silence any doubts.

The Russian weather bureau has had its share of flubbed forecasts but this one, you can ignore lethally at your peril. If the warnings weren't clear enough, The Moscow Times made sure that our fellow expatriates took a break from bashing Russia and Russians or talking about Russian women as if they were heifers and pay attention: its online site had the article "Record Cold Blows Toward Moscow" above the fold, as it were, and on Page 3 (indubitably an attention-grabber in the UK) in the paper edition. It warned of a "record cold snap" that gripped Western Siberia over the weekend, of temperatures plummeting to -50 C and below in the Tomsk region.

Interfax news agency, which has yet to attain the credibility of Reuters or AFP, caught a chap at the west Siberian office of the Federal Weather Monitoring Center mixing his maps. Arctic weather in Siberia, Renat Yagudin said, trying metaphor for heightened effect. This anageographic quote may make good copy, but for a seasoned (or even twice-seasoned) traveller like me who quits Murmansk or Lapland in disgust for producing +4 C weather the soundbite sounds somewhat strange.

Ringing the alarm, the article continued: "Moscow will not escape the cold snap, with the mild weather of the last week set to end. Temperatures will drop to minus 21 C on Monday evening as the cold front from Siberia sweeps in, falling to minus 20 to minus 27 C on Tuesday."

Recent residents of Moscow familiar with Portuguese or Finnish literature may have even remarked that reporter Kevin O'Flynn's writing style appeared to have bizarrely taken, if briefly, Jose Saramago's or Markus Nummi's. It was 0 to -1 C just this morning - how can temperatures drop by more than 20 degrees overnight? (Shades of A jangada de pedra or Kadonnut Pariisi?)

How about 50 degrees, as experienced in Tomsk, a region that skeptics insist exists only to prove that severe weather is still possible in the supposed ice-bound wastes of eternally frozen Russia (if only not to disappoint tourists and twice-seasoned travelers)?

In fact the situation was so serious that a state of emergency was actually declared in Tomsk. So extreme that at least one man died in connexion with the weather conditions while hospitals scrambled for cold medicine to treat non-doubters. For good measure utilities and public transport were disrupted. (Since I don't know anyone who has actually been there, so allow me to suspend my belief.)

Like an epidemic, the cold snap also affected other areas. In Novosibirsk, the mercury fell to a 100-year record low of -40 C while in Krasnoyarsk, where some residents were prophetically preparing to head to the beach and asking us for visas, some people even saw it fit to cancel Old New Year's Eve festivities after fearing an onslaught of -40 C. In the Komi-Permyatsky autonomous district, temperatures of -40 to -45 C forced the collapse of a heating system for 600 residents in the Evetsky settlement, thus prompting authorities to evacuate 85 people mostly preschool children to the capital of Vorkuta. (Googling "Evetsky" of course and getting a grand total of zero hits doesn't necessarily mean that the settlement is just a figure of Interfax's imagination.)

For some good news for a change, The Times said freezing temperatures actually (ahem) stopped dead cold an expected flu epidemic in Tyumen. I suppose these successive accounts of Arctic conditions in a "hot" (in retail, tourism, real estate and energy sphere jargon) country such as Russia could cause either tremendous apprehension or mass hysteria in the population, forcing them to actually believe it and take real measures. But since The Moscow Times didn't really affix an asterisk to the report and the calendar does plainly show that there are still 85 days until 1 April, there might be something to all this.

It's 10 pm. I'm going outside now to check.

* In case you were wondering, the coldest inhabited place on Earth - The Moscow Times reports so that you wouldn't have to subscribe to their News Archive - is Oimyakon, in the Sakha republic, where in 1926 a temperature of -71.2 C was recorded.

A Finnish friend writes from China

Upon getting to work, I found an e-mail from Hanna-Kaisa waiting for me in my Inbox. She and her friend Timo were my first guests in this travel and hosting society I've been a member of since around March 2005. While Moscow by itself does not figure too highly in the itinerary of backpackers and independent travelers -mainly due to overlong visa procedures and tedious registration rules, with most preferring to move on without going beyond the three-day grace period before notifying the local immigration office becomes mandatory- even by this measure it did take a while for anyone to ask me for accommodation.

In fact Hanna-Kaisa only asked for accommodation last month in turn after I had written her asking for hosting in Helsinki. The two, however, are the most charming guests one could ever hope for; they even inspired two of my friends and eventual companions to ask about becoming members. Mo mhuirnín, too, duly got into the spirit (not really difficult, since she's a budding adventurer herself) and volunteered to take the two around during their unfortunately too brief stay in Moscow. It was only Timo's allergic reaction to cats that prevented the two from actually staying over at my flat. Otherwise we would've thought nothing about hosting them for a week or even a fortnight. I think an account of their stay is languishing around somewhere in my Draft box and should promptly be brought out for the Teeming Millions out there.

Last we saw them, they were on their way to Omsk from Moscow to meet up with a Finnish friend studying in the foothills of the Urals (it must be recalled that Omsk is also known Ruy-wide as the hometown of Yulia's Dad and a rockin' town where Maria of Murmansk's guitarist boyfriend Andrey visits for gigs from time to time, apart from being the home of Siberian Cossacks and an important rallying point for heroic-tragic White Russian general Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak during the Russian Civil War) before continuing on the Trans-Siberian Express to Ulan Bator and Beijing.

Although it shouldn't surprise anyone that tourist traffic across the frozen wastes of Siberia continues to be busy all throughout winter (indeed, I still remember how an unusually casually attired middle-aged couple I was on queue with for an opera at the Bolshoi on my first winter here in December 2003 dryly told me how they no longer kept track of the days since setting off through China from Australia on the Trans-Siberian Express) I was still much impressed with the two Finns, who expect to be on the road until the end of March, traveling to Vietnam, Laos, Thailand - as far as their money would last them. They even asked us about passage down the Malaysian peninsula to Singapore on the Oriental Express. They are living a dream I've had for almost a decade.


Anyway, Hanna-Kaisa told me in her e-mail that she had just arrived from the holy mountain in Western China; "3099 metres and about million steps but it was worth it", she recounted in the first line. She must be referring to Emeishan in China's western Sichuan Province, one of the four mountains sacred to Buddhism.

(These shouldn't be confused with the five holy mountains of Taoism, which counts among its ranks the venerable Tai Shan. In a previous life my dear friend Meimei from Shandong by way of Yamagata planted in me a pilgrim's desire to one day pay respects to Tai Shan's towering peaks. Since taking up Chinese studies around 10 years ago I've imagined these holy mountains in my mind's eye as shimmering visions of craggy cliffs whose feet lie shrouded in mists and fog. Scenes so beautiful and so true they've been standardized and produced for mass consumption, not unlike "genuine" Egyptian papyrus art or "authentic" Rembrandt reproductions - or spun off into hideous "tributes", such as Mozart bonbons or James Joyce walking sticks. In Moscow one can find such depictions in factory-rolled ersatz Song Dynasty ink scroll paintings sold in tatty shops in every perekhod or underground passage.

(I call it the Snow Crystal Paradox: any attempt to preserve beauty ultimately destroys the very thing that exudes it. All the more reason to admire the Japanese veneration of impermanence, asymmetry and imperfection. An excellent description of the four sacred Buddhist mountains and the five holy Taoist mountains is available
here.

In photos taken by Quang Tuan Luong from the terragalleria.com site practically all the following 10 traditional scenes of beauty described by Qing Dynasty poet Tan Zhongyue are displayed.

Auspicious Light of the Golden Summit
Moonlit Night at Xixiang Pool
Fairyland of Jiulao Cave
Morning Rain at Hongchunping
Autumn Wind on Baishui Pool
Double-Bridge Spray at Qingyin Pavilion
Snow of Daping
Verdurous Views at Lingyan
Clouds in the Clear Sky above Luofeng
Night Tolls at Shengji

She and Timo had decided to travel separately for the moment, with Timo most likely exploring Shanghai's streets of gold or Beijing's cobbled avenues. "He wanted to see the big cities and I wanted to head to the countryside," Hanna-Kaisa explains. (I myself would've had trouble choosing between the two: I have friends in Nanjing, Changchun, Dalien, Shanghai and Beijing while have always dreamed of going down Huanghe or the Yellow River, setting foot at the Potala Palace in Tibet, walking about in Guilin or visiting the Dunhuang Caves and the Mogao Grottoes.) They'll likely meet up in the southwest, which I take to mean Yunnan Province, which is the gateway to continental Southeast Asia. From there I can imagine them entering Laos through Phongsaly and taking in the mesmerizing Louang Prabang before moving on to Vietnam and the Mekong River.

While we face warnings of Arctic conditions tomorrow in Moscow, Hanna-Kaisa says it's no longer cold in China - at least near Chengdu in Sichuan Province. She's headed toward the south, where, she'll "stop for a longer while in monastery to learn some kungfu."

Her road actually will take her northeast, to the legendary Shaolin Temple near the village of Dengfeng in the Songshan mountains in China's central Henan Province. Shaolinsi is probably the most famous temple in China, less for its long history and role in the development of Buddhism, but mainly for its association with martial arts or Wushu Chan. Every Russian who has seen Jackie Chan's (or more recently Stephen Chow's) movies would certainly know of Shaolin.

Maybe she'll send some photos soon. It would really be good to hear from her again.

Bush, the greatest or biggest terrorist?

Even though I spent the whole day practically napping I still feel out of sorts and not 100 percent recovered from my three-week trip to the Baltics and Finland.

Anyway, I was emptying my box of regular news feeds when I stumbled upon this hilarious (but TRUE) article by Associated Press about "American singer and activist" Harry Belafonte calling George W Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" following a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas over the weekend.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people...support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.

The 78-year-old Belafonte, famous for his calypso-inspired music, including the "Day-O" song, was a close collaborator of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He also has been outspoken in criticizing the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Now if that didn't make people like Fox Channel's Bill O'Reilly lick their chops in delight for being gifted fresh fodder with which to fuel their diatribes against American bleeding-heart liberals and "leftists" like Belafonte, Glover, Sean Penn, Madonna, Susan Sarandon, Dixie Chicks and others. If it weren't mawkish enough, Belafonte even finished his talk by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"

While I might agree to calling Dubya a terrorist (state-sponsored, legalized terrorism is as bad if not worse than the kind perpetrated by Al-Qaida), it's a bit of a stretch calling him the "greatest". It sounds as flimsy as the kind of claims Muhammad Ali loved to make when he was still top dog of the world boxing's heavyweight division.

Practically a sequel to my 26 August 2005 entry that also touched on Chavez, there is something about this obviously charismatic and controversial figure that inspires other personalities to go off the deep end. Somehow, Chavez is made to look extreme by people who either detest or admire him.

There should be some way to analyse him and his actions without having to resort to ideological ranting. (If there was a way, I'm sure the coldly clinical Ignacio Ramonet of Le Monde Diplomatique would've found it.)

Face of Solzhenitsyn's Russia

I've just come home a couple of hours ago, none the worse for wear considering the terrible experience me and especially my friends had on entering Russia. First of all, we were held up for four hours for a very flimsy reason by Immigration guards. We were even held under questioning (although I must say they were sufficiently polite despite the fact that my friend and I were visibly irritated). After getting to Murmansk from Ivalo, Finland at 2 am, we were invited for questioning again by an investigator who made sure we came by assigning a soldier to accompany us during our trip from the border to the city (it was a treacherous move, because we trusted the soldier, thinking he was just hitching a ride with us; we even gave him food and drink during the four-hour trip, he instead turned us over to the authorities). The questioning this time lasted for no more than five minutes, but still it was the most outrageous move by Russian authorities.

When we finally got to our hotel room, I was so exhausted and emotionally distraught by the latest episode that I immediately fell asleep. My two friends went out to buy food at the 24-hour grocery next door. On their return one of them was mugged by a street thug, who hit him hard on the face. They gave chase, didn't get the money back (he lost almost 1,000 USD in cash and valuables) but was invited by the police for investigation. By the time they got to the station, the criminal was already apprehended and put in jail. He has passed off the money to an accomplice, in the meantime. So my friends stayed all night at the police station answering questions and signing reports. They only got to the hotel at 8 am.

We boarded the train from Murmansk on Saturday evening, and it took 36 hours to get here. I'm all okay but feeling very, very tired. Took a bubble bath but still a bit woozy. Slept only two hours because I finished a book about Helsinki last night. The night before that I finished a novel by Finnish writer Jurani Aho.