I have a tendency of getting bored of staying in the same place and environment for a long time. After my grand euro tour in August and the psy/ambient festival in Greece that followed it in August i had to go back to Crete in order to attend my course exams, in order to complete my IT course, something i have to get over with soon enough. During the exams in June i stayed at a friends place in Heraklion, Crete, though in September i decided to stay in an Occupied building in my college campus. The self organized residence has mainly a left wing political character. The main theme of this residence involves people who are against hierarchy, racism and control of any kind. It is a place of free expression, political, artistic or existential, a group of people highly tolerate to alternative lifestyles and belief systems. Eventually i decided to stay till the end of October, afterwards stay some time in my hometown, Khalkis and then join the army in the 12th Nov, as i am obliged when being born in Greece

Luckily enough i found it rather easy to fit in this group of people, each one with different though systems, political views and lifestyles. The building use to be the old college dorms and was abandoned after the new ones were built in another part of the campus. Before 3 years as i was told this building was occupied forming a place called an occupation with mainly a political character. The inner need of expression could be seen in any part of the building, from colorful wall paintings to political flyers and posters. The building involved the rooms each resident had, the kitchen, the main lounge, coffee place, outdoor kiosk, studio, inner garden, toilets, showers as well as rooms for visitors which i lived in during my 2 month stay. Every room had Internet access, which combined with the 2 speaker set i brought with me could, made my stay more enjoyable and productive during the time i stayed in my room. In the beginning of September i bough a cheap eee pc, which will probably cover my needs till next year. I brought with me my car, packed with the essentials, from speakers, clothes and accessories i would need for a 2 month stay.

I myself political was never active in any leftist political group, though i found many common ideas with my political identity of decentralized and unhierarchical systems. For me it is important to keep a distance when learning about something new and not incorporating it immediately to your belief system, but rather to reason with it first. I do not consider myself an anarchist and i don’t tend to get involved in political activism, though i tend to incorporate this belief system when dealing with various systems and structures (software, energy etc) Nevertheless personally it is very important to be able to experience new things and learn from them without getting directly attached to them.

I had the chance of meeting some very interesting and diverse personalities, ideas and views from people highly stimulated from injustice and unconformised with the systems of control, governmental or capitalist. Each resident with a different life style and way of viewing society altogether. Each one came with a unique personality, thought system, music linking and appearance. I used to walk by that building viewing it with a hostile manner, though eventually figured out that despite the negative image it may project to the outsider, the atmosphere was very friendly if you get to knew the residents. They were a mix of students, workers, dreamers, political activists, hippies, musicians and travellers. I myself have a small mix of all those, so i managed to have a common ground with most residents i had the chance to meet.

The residence was organized in an unhierarhical fashion, where decisions were ade during the weekly meeting in the coffee room. Tasks and jobs that were needed to be done were handed out volunteraly during that weekly meeting as well as issues which bothered the residents and had to do with buidling as a whole. Most of the times the resident were able to discuss reasonabely though many times the opossite occured.

Overall it was a great 2 month stay, where i experienced so much and will consider living again in order to finish my IT course next year. I will also consider visiting some similar residences in Spain and else where in Europe during my 2009 summer eurotour. It is a great example on how people with not much can live trully live out their everyday. Just by combining something few you have can sum up for the benefit of the many. Thinking that our society could be transformed in such manner may seem utopic, decontructing the western capilistic system, though i find it realistic to build unhierrchical and community driven social structures. It mostly has to do on our willing to cooporate, interact and communicate with each other defying our short term benefits, through deep social tranformation and progression we manage to gain a better living for all.

Evolution and change is always persistent in any form of biological species. Studying the evolutionary timeline of biological species on earth we can note according to Darwinism, that through natural selection simpler biological forms evolved through random changes in their genetic information, adapting to their surroundings according to primal survivalist and reproductive instincts. Simple forms of biology progressively evolved, forming complex immune systems, neural networks and specialized organs. All this process carried out for millions of years, had mainly to do with the ability of biological species to store information with the use of genetic code. Our genetic code, the DNA may be the most efficient way of storing million strings of information , in order to carry it on throughout the generations. The progressive state that steadily perfected this information according to outer circumstances and survivalist needs led to forming of the human species. We as a human species are the product of the ability of biological species to adapt, evolve from simpler lifeforms to something as complex as ourselfs.

From an very early stage of our inhabitance on this planet technology was always the key to our survival. Hunting for our food and keeping warm could not have been done without the use materials found locally and though reasoning we could build our first tools in order to achieve our primal survival goals. Our survival depended on it and mainly expanded our physical abilities which were not given through evolution. Many people when hearing the word technology think that it has only to do with electronics and computers. In fact it was a term with ancient Greek terminology. Τεχνολογία (Greek) is formed by Reasoning and Technical. Through reasoning the first forms of technology were formed using technical elements from nature. The axe, spear, fire, clothing are all primitive forms of technology. The way this technology was built was carried out through generations only by our ability to communicate the techniques (information) so this technology could be built. The forming of technology was carried out strictly because of survivalist reasons, because as a human species we are physically inferior to other animal species. The means of carrying out this information was done through spoken and written language. It is still today the most efficient and human like way of communication. Many times the communication medium changes when using telephone landlines, mobile phones or the internet. The principle though remains the same.

Comparing the two progressing processes of transforming information someone could note some same basic principles. They are physical processes which:

• The ability of this given system to store and transmit information throughout time is highly efficient
• Use of elementary building blocks, chemical elements in order to form complex mechanisms and tools
• Simple forms, transform into more complex ones
• Causability is the basic driving force
• Randomness also plays a very important role
• The most simple but efficient-effective designs were those which lasted in time
• Designs that failed to adapt throughout time were lost once in for all
• The designs that last tend to use and transform energy very effectively
• Good designs tend to have the ability to reproduce this information very easily

Offcourse there are many differences between them though it is very interesting when examining their similarities. Human made technology though does not always as efficient as it could be and frequently is used for many harmful causes that affect us directly. It has to do with society itself, its basic forms and needs. It is a mirror of our needs, wants, mentalities and attitudes towards each other. Technology itself is the ability we have to use elements found on this planet to make tools for a certain purpose. It cannot be labeled as good or bad, and has mainly to do with how we intend on using it. The 21st century has shown profound new ideas and tools we are starting to use and build. Ecological and efficient systems, from LED house bulbs to solar-wind-wave energy producing islands, the internet, biotechnology and many other applications seem to make reality what we not very long perceived as science fiction. We have the ability to produce new ideas and concepts in a very high rate than any other time in history. A small change of information on our genetic code that took thousands of years now through technology is a matter of days.

Prometheus, a figure from Ancient Greek philosophy who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to humans stands as a good symbolism to technological societies itself. We seem to have a great ability on inventing new tools and tehnologies though we many times dont have the best causes and education on using them. so many people have the impulse on using new technologies without the proper education concerning their use. Consumer electronics seem to be thrown out very frequently nowdays. They end up in landfills because the consumers have no education on why they should recycle them in the 1st place. Causability concerning uses of everyday products has seem to lost. Most purchaces today are made through impulse and not through need. Modern concumer society does not regard that less is better and we tend to be satisfied by quantity and not by quality. Comparing the basic driving forces of how technology is spreaded and used with the biological diversity of our biosphere we can note several differences. In my view biology is far more sophisticated, complex and effient than man made technologies . Structures found in nature are the best teachers for implementing them. Through the passing of time formations and mechanism in nature steadily perfected in terms of efficiency and through the need of survival-reproduction. Human made technology has different driving forces, whereas many inventions are made just by luck, military uses, space and aeronautics uses or just for profiting by it when releasing to the consumer market.

Society itself though shows many similarities in a different scale with the natural ecosystem. They are both have a dynamic structure and somehow in both cases, the most effient and effective design lasts through time. So technology from carved wood to the internet is just a process of natural selection occurring in our society. There are needs and uses where technology steps in and fills that gap. Offcourse for once again the most important thing on developing new uses of technology is reasoning of it’s use, side effects and causability. We must not forget that the most advanced and complex technology/organ of nature today, is the human brain, which we ought to use more of these days.

The Map of The Internet as shown above

Throughout the human history i can note several critical transition points on our ability to express, distribute ideas to each other efficiently to a person to person level. It led to our ability to cooperate and know how to build primitive technology we would rely on our survival. The need of having a way to store and distribute this information led to the formation of written language, making information more resistant to time and  geographical area. These two points in human history were crucial in order to be able to form complex social structures like political, educational and technological systems in society. Written language at first was carved on plates of stone making it somehow an inefficient means of distributing information. With the invention of typography this barrier was brought down and when widely accepted books could be easily carried around making knowledge and information available to almost everyone. This led to the reinvention of science, social sciences and the rebirth of human spirit during the renaissance. This eventually led to an ever increasing development in technology paving its way to the industrial revolution. During the 60’s a new science was born called Informatics. The science of the technologies, teqniques and ways to store, distrubite and transform information on an electronic and electromagnetic level. A cold war bi-product was the network used to distribute this information called the ARPANET, todays internet’s presuccessor. After the end of the cold war during the 90’s this new sophisticated network was commercialized, making it an highly efficient way to distribute information globalwide, ina very short time.

During the first years of its commercial life it was mainly used for e-mailing and viewing static HTML pages through a web browser. The dynamic architecture of this new communication network always succeeds to its constant redefinion of its own form, web technologies and ways people can collaborate and distribute information. Web services we were never able to be predicted became reality like electronic shopping (eBay), collaborative encyclopedias (Wikipedia), collaboratively built software called opensource platforms (Linux, BSD), always surpise us of the numerous possibilities this new hypermedium will provide us in the near future. The quality and quantity of information stored on the internet is growing geometrically. Consumer electronics and computer’s started to become everyday appliances, leading to the mass reduction on the overall manufacturing cost. According to Moore’s law which claims that the computer power doubles every 1,5 year leeds to the reduction of computer power cost throughout time. Today it is feasible to buy a small laptop computer for under 350$ – 300euros. Storage has also become cheap and extremely flexible. Free network storage is also a new phenomenon, where it is able to publish and share large amount of information on the internet (Flickr, Youtube, Box.net, GMail etc). Offcourse there are alternative means of the storage suppliers to earn the cost of network storage through advertising, subscriptions and not charging the storage space directly. Google shows a great ability to buy and hand network storage for free in a mass scale. Complete desktop operating systems like Linux or MacOSX and Windows to a smaller extent, are built in a manner to have a close interconnection with this vast network. A new trend in software platforms like Debian Linux, iPhoneOS installer etc shows that through a well built package and feed catalog, software can be directly installed and used. It automatically updates with any new release and security fixes without almost any human interaction at all.

Offcourse when taking about software platforms we mistakelly think about desktop pc’s or mobile-portble devices. There are many to name Linux, Windows, MacOSX, BSD, Unix (PC Platform) Symbian, iPhone OS, Google Android (Mobile Platform) though we seem to forget to mention the forecoming and possibly dominant platform of the next decades. That is no other that this vast network itself, the internet. It was made because of the need of information distribution between desktop computers during the 70’s. The big turning point through was when the so called Web 2.0 which started after the .com boom in the begining of this decade. Wonderful collaborative and innovative services were formed, expanding the static html web pages into a dynamic and interactive service. Multimedia started to be widely used, apart from pictures and sounds, mainly with the use of the proprietary flash language. AJAX a relatively new web technology, which is opensource as most of the rest web technologies that exist today, shows gret signs of progress into making webpages, application alike. Google services where AJAX is widely used, manage to simulate popular desktop software like mail clients, organizers and calendars, office suites etc. Offoucerse their capabilities are limited compared to a complete office suite, though seem to be widely accepted because they are platform independent and accessible from anywhere. There are also some examples of web services which simulate a desktop OS to a very limited extent though. All these services though are mostly new, have only been around not longer than 5 or 7 years. Web technologies them self are not static as well, and luckily enough seem to evolve in an open manner, constructed one in top of another, mostly at first for practical reasons. As a decentralized network open specifications, on how things work, are crucial on the success of a technology and its wide adoption. Offcourse only time can tell of which web technologies will evolve from the existing ones and which needs will leed them on their creation. Dynamic web laguages for instance were made because there was a need for user interaction, flash because of the need of vector motion graphics and web video etc. The same manner will apply to any new web technology arises. Ofcourse in the internet sphere it is extremely hard for a software vendor to monopolize any given web technology because developers from all over the world which will actually use this web tool in order to construct web services need clear and distinct specifications of how this given technology works.

Appart from the everyday applications, uses and software tools the internet is consisted of, it is an interesting approach when examining the internet as a network itself. It is consisted of interlinks between servers, clients through switches, routers using many communication mediums like fiber optic cables, coper cables, wireless networks, satellite networks etc. Processing units which use this network such as desktop pc’s, servers mobile devices seem to act as a unity altogether, forming a worldwide neural network. This overall processing and storage ability seems to be in many cases redistributed with this network. Offourse when dealing with technology we mostly forget that various technologies have to do with us, humans using them. So in the case of computers, it can be considered as a technical tool to process, store and distrubute information we use in our everyday lifes. This information can consist almost anything from ideas, thoughts, multimedia, structures and pasterns in society. So this network has to do mainly with us and how the product of our intellectual can be stored, distributed, organized, restructured, transformed in order to reshape the impact of our thoughts themselves in everyday pasterns of society. Noosphere, is one expression of this consciousness unification via this new medium as it can be shown in the wikipedia quote below:

In the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere (sometimes spelled noösphere) can be seen as the “sphere of human thought” being derived from the Greek νούς (”nous”) meaning “mind” + σφαίρα (sfaira) meaning “sphere”, in the style of “atmosphere” and “biosphere.” In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky’s noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements.

For Teilhard, the noosphere is best described as a sort of ‘collective consciousness’ of human-beings. It emerges from the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. This is an extension of Teilhard’s Law of Complexity/Consciousness, the law describing the nature of evolution in the universe. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, added that the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega Point—which he saw as the goal of history.

Some examples of how the internet has started to impact society can be found in educational systems, banking systems, everyday communication (IM’s) and has started to impact and threaten traditional mediums like radio, tv and newspapers. Offcourse the internet is in a very, very early stage, with just of 15 years of comercial addoption. It’s use has to do directly with the structures in society itself and always ought be so. The pace of its evolution can be seen in an everyday timescale, which also coresponds with the geomemetrical growth of computing power and storage capacity. Offcourse this system called the internet feeds upon itself and constantly gets rstructured and reorganized. Many science fiction writters i had the chance to read their work, seem to have predicted this new medium far before the initial introdution of the internets presuccesor the ARPANET. I guess it is a indespensible need of an organised society which many had seen so far ago. It is interesting enough to see how Arthur Clarke for instance throough a fiction book managed to predict an far more evovled version of the internet in the 1950’s. In his book “The City and The Stars” hs describes a developed future society that is forced to live underearth. Their own personal space, like our known living rooms are consisted of a floating spheres where personal thoughts and dreams were projected onto its surface. This idea mirror could interconnect with any other person in this city, and physical presense was not needed in order for human interaction. This mind tool could step in any place or time if the user wished to do so. It was unsure even to the people using this mental tool whether it was real or not. To me this which was written 60 years ago, instanstly strikes me as the internet evolved far in the future. This concept was percieved far before digital networks, computers in a home level, mobile phones and all the gismos of consumer technology. It was concieved through the need of our thoughts and mind to interconnect with each other and defy the limits of space and time. Time will show on how this new complex and dynamic system will evolve and how it will be adopted in various social structures. There is a big need of keeping this new medium open, decntralised and uncotroled from certain political, finanical and coorporate control. Offcourse all the above must be a part of this system though it is very important to avoid the shaping of it in strictly their individual intersests.

As usuall i have embeded a small video of the perspective of this new network to evovle in an intelligence itself:

Man was always an explorer and always will be. Starting from a simple nomad and collector of food, he organized, forming complex societies, institutions, science, technology, arts, transportation and just before 50 years we came to the point where we were able to defy gravity itself. Reluctant at first, the first humans just orbited into the higher parts of our atmosphere, just being able to see the earth from a very near distance, visualizing our small blue planet as a unit, without all the numerous divisions we tend to apply in every social and political level. Unfortunately though, through conflict during the cold war era, space technology progressed and we managed to explore the biggest part of our solar neighborhood. Several maned missions were sent to the Moon, although they had small scientific value. Numerous probes were sent to the nearby planets, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus etc which managed to uncover so many secrets they withheld from us for thousands of years.

The night sky, always stood as an amazing piece of art of the cosmos itself. It was the only night entertainment for thousands of years, before electricity and amusements were invented. Through observation alone, we managed to understand so many things of our place and coordinates in space. The movement of the night sky is so accurate, it stood as an astral clock and navigational beacon for centuries. Sciences like mathematics and cosmology were introduced in order to explain and modelize this piece of art. Constellations were given forms from everyday society, pinpointing the most observable groups of stars in the sky. Every religion attempted to explain the origin of the cosmos and our place in it. Each religion managed to give a somehow plausible explanation of how everything observable came to be, though some succeeded to confirm modern cosmology. The Hinduistic model of creation comes in parallel to an amazing extent with the big bang theory for instance. Eitherways we can conclude that the cosmos was always incorporated in belief systems globally. The human species has always felt as a part of all this breathtaking picture we are able to see every night. The theoretic scientific work kept going for thousands of years, so we became able before just 50 years ago, to send something of our own technological achievements into our solar system. Voyager is already out of our solar system, heading to the stars. It holds upon it the basic information of the species that sent it, standing as a modern bottle into the cosmic ocean. We may someday stumble upon it when touring the cosmos in the following eons, making it a relic of our historic timeline in space.

The heart of civilization started in Mesopotamia (Babylonians, Sumerians), moved to the coastline of the Mediterranean sea (Ancient Greece, Egypt, Roman Empire), spread throughout Europe and finally head overseas (North & South America, Oceania, Asia). We colonized the whole planet, fulfilling our thirst for exploration, profit and being challenged by the unseen. Moreover today we stay home, preserving the old divisions and mentalities that have always held us back. Taking in mind the present state of technological & scientific progress, colonizing other planets and solar systems is just a matter of time. I personally am in favor of such an idea, though in order to do so, countless of obstacles have to be overcome. First of all we must redefine our motivation on doing to. If we take the colonization of the European nations as an example, it can easily stand as something we should avoid. Profit and exploitation alone will only led us to making the same mistakes, seen throughout history. Society today stands immature to act as a colonizer of other planets and star systems. The realistion that we ought to stand as a unity has not been fulfilled yet, where division and conflict can been seen in every social and political level everyday. We seem to find it so hard to agree, cooperate, and act for the benefit of the whole in the long term. Each political action in every nation is measured in short term economic and diplomatic profit, forgetting the anthropic values they ought to promote. Fundamental social values play the last part in the higher levels of decision making. So concluding i personally believe it is too soon to start talking or planing about moving to other worlds. Space colonization may be soon feasible technologically though there is a need for fundamental social and political transformation in order to do start doing so.We have just started to show signs of achieving that goal. Environmental issues like global warming which demand action in a worldwide scale have made us realize this need. The impact of closed cooperative and idea systems like the internet have just started to impact society itself. Time will only show if we are mature enough to fulfill unity in a large scale. Economy, media, society, communication are being more global, dynamic and fast paced. Each one with different aiming and technique.

As for space exploration itself it was initially boosted through conflict in the cold war era, though today great signs of progress can be seen overall causability is concerned. US, European, China’s, India’s and Japan’s space agencies very often corporate into achieving a common scientific and technological goal. Achievements as the International Space Station, Hubble, numerous space probes and many other planned  missions seem to show great signs of change of our ability to work together and pursue clear scientific goals. Mainstream science fiction most of the times fails to foresee social advancements and mostly rely on our existing forms. Though many sci-fi writers manage to invent new structures and mentalities in advanced hypothetic future societies. Space exploration cannot be treated as something distinct from society itself. Every human species and every country must play a crucial role in this process. Transformation and change will maintain our sustainability and balance on our heading into the future and finally to the stars. Nothing is set to develop into a certain manner, thus future is made today, constructed by every aftereffect of our present action. Finally i have to name a man which always stands as a great inspiration for me, where if it wasn’t for his documentaries and ideas i may not have started this article and blog in the first place. That man is Carl Sagan, a great scientist, exobiologist and most important of all anthropist, humanist and great thinker of our modern times. He was involved in many of NASA’s achievements and never ceased to note out the anthropic value every human action and achievement we ought to have in mind. The least i could so is to embed one small part of his documentary series which underlines man’s visions in space

From the dawn of human civilization, the way we organize any complex social, economical or any other system has the greatest impact to our future development. There are many examples of centralized social systems which in their principle have not changed after many centuries. Monarchy as a form of governmental system was one of a great example of how some few self elected people managed to conserve their authority over other people for many centuries in numerous occasions. Historically societies tend to hand authorities to the few, which in most cases led to the halt on social and scientific development.

The biggest social change that occurred throughout history began in my home country, Greece. In a time period of 400years numerous of social, scientific and political changes occurred, challenging the old thoughts and preserved mentalities. The most profound change in the political system was through the introduction of democracy. A political system which in theory everyone as an Athenian citizen had the ability to decide over or against any decision made in his town/country. Contrary to old Monarchic and Oligarchic political systems, it decentralized the decision making into the whole spectrum of the Athenian citizens. Ancient Greece was also one of the first civilizations that introduced the modern scientific method. Reasoning and experimenting were common in scientific circles. The expansion of this way of thinking was done through introduction of educational systems and social forms that helped the further development of any promising mind.

I can find numerous of other historical examples where society managed to overcome the old way of thinking and foresee new structures in order to head into the future. An interesting era to watch this transformation occurring is today. Most of the nations on this planet have capitalistic economies, democratic governmental systems and the dynamics of any country is influenced by global changes in economy, diplomacy etc. Although at a first glance someone may speculate that our complex systems are decentralized, infact they are not. I have tried to distinguish some of modern societies main elements and examine where to what extent they are centralized or not.

Economy

Western Capitalistic Economies rely on the dynamics of the free market and the ability of any private person to buy, sell goods or services. The value of local Currencies and their availability in a country are regulated in each countries central bank. Banks in general play the role of the money agents where they have the ability to buy and lend money for private interests. Someone may speculate that Western Capitalism as an economic system is fully decentralized because it mostly depends on the dynamics of the free market, it is strictly regulated by financial entities, the central banks, feds etc, where the structure of them can be visualized into a pyramid of regulators. Many economic elements in societies like inflation, unemployment, interest rates, value of money in order to lend, the cost of energy (oil) are strictly regulated by a group of banking and financial entities. Though capitalism may appear as a decentralized and a dynamic system, it is highly regulated and centralized. Before the introduction of banks money was invented as a practical way to represent the value of goods and services. Because of practical reasons a centralized authority regulated the printing and flow. I dare to be reluctant in stating the above because i have no economic educational background.

Modern applications semi-decentralized economic technologies is internet banking, paypal where they manage to directly provide their financial services at a fraction of the original cost. Electronic economy is becoming global, faster and far more accessible to end consumers. Paypal for instance, n internet payment financial entity has managed to form a highly effective e-money system, which has started to widespread almost everywhere. Offourse it is still centralized though it manages to overcome the dependence of local banks and regulators.
Zopa, an emerging concept, involves social lending (p2p lending), where lending and borrowing money can be done from person to person through the internet. Borrowing money through this service becomes far more decentralized and personal, with also an amazing low borrowing rate. Numerous other internet financial services exist which manage to redefine old concepts.

Government/Political Systems

Throughout history though many thinkers managed to challenge the old and introduce new economic and political systems. Communism, a political system introduced in the start of the 20th century, in theory tried to hand the proletarian (the people) all the production and economic shares. In practice though to my view it led to become another oligarchic political system, having in many cases the same mentality as fascism. China today, and Stalin’s Russia were some examples of these practices. Today most agree that communism was a failed and declined political system that belongs to the past. US capitalism on the other side managed to contradict the above political system. It mainly relies on the dynamics of the capitalistic economy, it’s growth, consumer spending etc. It manages to achieve a freedom on private investments and generally a freedom of movements when private financial interests are involved. Today most countries have capitalistic economies which vary from place to place and have some form of democratic political system. Democracy as we know it today is one of the most widespread political systems. Unfortunately as many other concepts, in practice it has nothing to do with its original definition. In ancient Greece where is was first conceived and practiced it had to do about handing out the decicion making to the many. Today democracy invloves a complex electing and respensentative system where throuhg political parties accoring to their political plan and ideology are elected to form a goverment and alltogether are involved in voting for or against new govermental laws. With this way modern democracy is practices it virtualy confines the citizens into just electing a political party amongst few. They are confined just to decide every 4 years, virtually keeping them out of the decision making process. Offcourse in a democratic country there are many ways of being politcical active through various non-profit organisations, political activism, strikes, public referendums and many more. Democracy today is by principle centralized and confined to the few elected. Offource the constution defines in which way authority and dicision making is practiced. Decantralizing this system in every level is still a utopia. Public referendums are avoided mainly for political reasons, making them almost unexistent in people’s minds as a form of deciding about a crusial political issue. Redifing and reforming a more decantralized system is feasable with the use of technology, public awareness and acting local though this process cannot only be done through the redifinition of concepts in the constution. Offcourse the only one with the authority of doing so are the pre-elected representaives who by no means want anything to do with redifing their place in the pyramid of authority and handing it out to the many.

Information/Education/Software

Information, as strange as it may sound was the reason we evolved into human species today, through the evolution of our genome, the DNA. In social terms the distribution and spreading of information, initially through speech led to the advancement and increase of complexity of out local societies. The biggest boost of that everlasting process was done through the introduction of typography, books and modern educational systems. A new medium which was initially developed in the cold war era, was introduced commercially in the early 90’s. This medium is no other than the internet. Initially poor in content, it managed to evolve in a huge scale, and has become today the most dynamic, complex and well structured information sphere. Contrary to other preexisting mediums as the radio/tv etc it differs to the extent of user interaction. Information does not flow vertically, from the few that own a tv/radio station, but horizontally from the end users to each other. The web technologies and structures of this network led to the building of amazing services and knowledge databases like wikipedia, youtube and numerous special interest communities like forums, message boards and wiki’s. Offcourse no one could have predicted all the above. Some may say that the internet is a form of applied democracy, where each one can interact, change and form this new structure. To my view though the internet as a network/technology/medium is still in it’s early infancy though. The rate of it’s growth in size, complexity and userbase is surely profound and will start to impact everyday society/economy/politics/distribution systems worldwide. Offcourse everything we adopt should be done after some extensive reasoning. This dynamic and interactive structure of this network has surely started to impact the way software is produced and distributed. Open source software is a great example of this transform, where following an revolutionary philosophy, it practically managed to provide free software, as in freedom and price, through a decentralized manner. Unfortunately open source software has many obstacles to overcome, in order to become widely adopted. Nevertheless it is a great sign of how the introduction of a new way of thinking combined with the use of the internet started to challenge the old and had a positive impact on society itself. An observer could easily notice that through the wide adoption of the internet, it’s really hard to force the use of centralized techniques. The end user, to a different extent each time, has realized that the spreading, growth and evolution of this new medium, depends on his freedom and ability to fully interact with it, contrary to old centralized mediums. To me though the internet as i mentioned above is in it’s early infancy, not because web technologies are inefficient or underdeveloped, but because it has only just started to impact social forms and structures. Electronic democracy is still a utopia, although the technology fully exists. That is because politicians on the one side cannot imagine loosing any of their decision making authorities and handing them virtually to the whole spectrum of society.There is also almost no realization of this need and feasibility from the part of society. To me the progress of human civilization can by no way be achieved through progressing technology and science alone. The true progress occurs in society itself, on our ability to self- realize, reason, interact, cooporate and overcome old and preserved mentalities with the use of education, self knowing , technology and extensive reasoning.

Energy & Transportation

Energy distribution today unfortunately is one of the most centralized systems. Oil, gas, electricity is distributed and produced by a few corporate and government entities. Ofcourse this centralized system could not have been created by mistake. Some few, early realized that energy would be the main element of the 20th century society, so electric cars were never produced in a mass scale and fossil fuel was presented as the only way of gaining portable and efficient energy. This centralized system played a crucial role in the evolution of modern economy and industry. Not recently enough though, a side effect of all this was the destabilization of the global climate from the CO2 emission on a massive scale. The environmental hazards were realized decades ago, though industrialists and economists which influence global politics managed to persuade us of for the opposite. The environmental damage caused was named as science fiction, rumors, urban myths etc. The 1st sign of political realization of the hazards we faced from the existing energy distribution system occurred in Kyoto, with the signing of the well known Kyoto protocol. It was an ambitious atempt to radicaly change in the way we produce energy. Offourse the lobbyists were not persuaded once again, so it was almost neglected by the US government, the biggest CO2 emitter globally. Though in 2008 things have changed, realization of this environmental problem has started to spread and at last numerous political and technological practices have started to focus on the environmental problem. Eco friendly technologies and techniques though seem to be in most cases decentralized. With the present state of environmental technologies it is feasible for a home and car owner to be energy sufficient. Efficient solar and wind installations, electric plugin vehicles manage make this fully feasible. The electricity grid network has started to become more decentralized and horizontal. Offourse it is very early to say that the above are reality. Peer to peer energy networks may appear soon enough, mimicking the structure of the internet itself. To achieve this transformation it mainly depends on political will, where through new laws and regulations, monopolized energy markets will be forced to become open and horizontal. Environmental technology itself has progressed to a promising level, though to fully build a decentralized energy distribution network, energy efficiency must be the 1st aim. Ironically i predict that this transformation will occur mainly by need, because environmental hazards have become everyday reality. Achieving a decentralized energy distribution system is a very big task, that requires political will, realization from the civilians of this need, mass adoption of renewable energy technologies and long term investment on them. For once again change will be the key element to maintain and sustain our balance in energy demand and supply, where fortunate enough this decentralized model can only use renewable energy sources and technologies.

Products & Goods Supply

Historically the supply of goods was mostly done between small scale producers (vegetables, meat, clothes, goods etc). Societies used to be far more less demanding on specialized goods and products so they were more over selfsuffient on a community scale. Offourse human needs progressed so did the distribution and production system. It became more complex an global, leading to the global economy. Nowadays prices on basic food commodities like wheat, corn and sugar are somehow regulated by various economic entities. 3rd world countries which do not have direct access to these basic food sources have to bare this increase on food prices. Biofuels appear to be one of many reason of this price increase, though they probably are just the transitional tool to overcome our dependence in fossil fuel. In a local level food prices are most of the times regulated by the supply and demand from the producer himself and the buyer. Offourse when intermediate suppliers intervene with the food distribution, food prices are mostly regulated by them. That is mostly seen in large urban areas where it is not possible for the producer himself to directly sell his goods to the whole spectrum of the population. Local markets though seem to achieve this peer to peer selling system, where prices are mostly regulated by supply and demand. Intermediate suppliers are in most cases the ones that are responsible for high prices. Also a basic factor on price formation is the cost of producing goods. Water, machinery, loans, pesticides etc manage to affect the final price to a big extent.

An emerging distribution system on suplier consumer products are internet shops. Amazon, ebay are just some examples of this trend. Sellers who directly buy in bulk from product manufactures themselfes, manage to sell directly through the internet in amazing low prices. The same product in ebay for instance may sometimes cost a 1/4 of the cost compared to local markets. Offcourse this happens because intermediates, tax, customs and general selling costs are eliminated. This new distribution system is something fairly new, though is most of the times confined to products that can be easily sent through postage. Nevertheless it manages to challenge the old distribution systems, paving the way for new applications and decentralized distribution networks. Peer to peer product selling is much more feasible through the internet, where the end consumer benefits from the low cost.

Emerging decentralized technologies and networks

Offourse it is mostly up to us to rethink and challenge the old, where with reorganisment and existing technology we can redifine and decentralize  existing centralized systems. TV and wireless networking are some ideas i have expanded in some other blog articles, which unfortunately are still in a conceptual stage. My main impulse when dealing with this mind provoking concept is to make everyone realise that he/she has the ability to change and interact with any given system around him. Offourse this has to do mainly with the manner each system is constructed. The internet is a very good example of such system, but it is really important for this philosphy to be implemented and practiced in every level of society, so we could say that we are progressing as a whole and not just recycling old concepts and techniques.

Technology. It’s everywhere around us and defines our everyday routine and life. From paper to space shuttles, it’s all artificial, man made. It’s not a product of natural selection and evolution but a child of our thoughts, ideas and needs. People today think that the term technology describes only computers and mobile phones. That is somehow untrue though its a general term which involves digital technology as well. It all started back then when our ancestors soon enough realized that their hands alone were an insufficient mean providing them a way of gaining their food. Through a mental procedure ancient man used the materials and objects that were locally available and made stone and sticks into hunting tools. Man’s needs, thus his technology progressed in a very slow pace throughout the past thousand years. An increase of technological innovation started when organized and complex societies were formed (Babylon, Egypt & Ancient Greece) where knowledge and education was the key to their progress.

When studying the timeline of technological progression someone could easily note that after the Renaissance there has been a huge boost on our ability to produce, distribute and use our man made technology. Information and education have played a crucial part on this acceleration. Books and modern education systems made it able for almost everyone to reason and have the chance to achieve numerous things. There is no doubt that the 15yrs of the commercial existence of the Internet, has accelerated this growth. My main reasoning though when starting to compile this article is not to examine the technical and historical aspects of this growth. I feel the need to rexamine the philosophy of technology.

We most of the times reason when acting and progress in any level. I feel there is a lack of that mental procedure when dealing with technology. Modern capitalistic societies tend to make people think that the only way to progress is buying new technology and getting rid of the old. Mobile phones are a great example of that mentality. I cannot blame people’s choices when doing so, even because i many times tend to act in the same way. To me though people tend to spend a big sum of money on commercial products they know little about their usage and capabilities. There is a big educational gap and many urban myths involving some uses. People tend to fear using the internet thinking their money or identity might be stolen. It is true that these can happen though its very rare when you know how to use this new medium. Dangers do exist with electronic appliances though in most cases they are overexagerated. The pace of technological production seems to be far ahead our capabilities of knowing how to use the things we own. It is very important to confine your needs and only buying what we will actually use frequently. My generation, considering that i’m 23yrs old is moreover capable of digesting new stuff. Small children as my 8yr old sister was brought up in a household where my family was capable of using modern technology. She seems to find learning using technology more easy than everyone else. That proves that we ought to know and learn how to use our tools in order to make them work for our own benefit.

Another philosophical approach to this issue involves the way technology is constructed rather than used. As an IT graduate analyzing the techniques and the timeline of an individual technology makes it far easier to understand in depth what i use everyday. Especially in Information Technology, my main impulse is to deal and try to promote with technologies that are constructed in an open and user friendly manner. The term open source describes the technologies where collaborative and transparent techniques are used. This philosophy in technology has starting to widespread especially after the wide usage of the internet. Open source implementations seem to be more efficient, clean and free. Offcourse not everything can be constructed without any corporate involvement and not having profit as the main aim. Solutions for professionals are most of the time expensive and confined to one supplier.

A big drawback of the technology we used during the 20th century and are still using it on the 21st is the way we use and produce energy. Mass transportation increased the need of burning fossil fuel using a centralized distribution network which we are still using today. An internal combustion car almost everyone uses today, even me, needs gas as an energy input, a somehow inefficient way of producing energy, and exhausts greenhouse gazes and heat. The same principle of producing energy can be found on powerplants, household heating systems etc. Fossil fuel input, greenhouse gazes and heat as an output. That principle even to a non expert sounds unreasonable. A trend has started to grow, which will eventually become a need, is the ability to use a fraction of the energy compared with old systems and produce the same usable output. Efficient lamp bulbs, efficient home appliances, efficient homes, cars and mass transportation systems are some that come in mind. The ability to consume less energy depends highly on the adoption of more efficient technologies, market and government policies as well as our ability to organize and reason our actions, systems that demand great sums of energy.

Unreasonable Uses and Consequences of Technology

• Environmental Pollution
• Urban Traffic
• Computer Viruses
• Unprocessed Urban Waste
• Inefficient Energy Systems (Cars, Powerplants etc)
• Nuclear War
• Spam Mail
• Noise

Reasonable Uses of Technology

• The Internet
• Environmental friendly energy production systems
• Distributed & Free Knowledge
• Open Systems
• Recycling
• Urban Organization
• Electric Public Transportation Systems (Subway, Trains, Trams)
• Space Exploration
• Anthropocentric Scientific Research

We are today in a very crucial standpoint. Technology is widespread on western societies, though we still lack the education and reasoning concerning its proper use. We have forgotten that we ought to preserve our home, planet earth and tend to act arrogantly and seem to be so near sighted most of the times. We should always keep in mind that technology ought to work FOR us and NOT against us. Preserving the environment and the stability of our society is for our own long term benefit. Most of the problems today cannot be solved through progressing technology alone.  Each one of us has to realize the things we ought to do in order to change our present faulty state. That can be done through education, collaboration and redefining what we should aim as a person, society and species as a whole

I always wanted to consider myself as a traveler, in every level. Exploration, change and learning are considered for me essential for heading in the future. This summer or 2008 i decided to try something new to me, something i have always wanted to do for a really long time: A small tour of Europe. The main reason for my traveling was Ozora Festival, an annual psy/ambient music festival held in the countryside of Hungary. It is considered one of the most important psychedelic gatherings in Europe and worldwide.

I had planned & booked everything i ought to (festival tickets, flight to come back and interail ticket) and i though i should leave the rest as it comes. I surely didn’t knew what to expect, but i thought that would be the most exciting part of this journey. So it all started in the 1st of August, packed with only a small backpack, a tent tied to it, a sleeping bag and strictly some few traveling essentials

1st Aug > 11th Aug

(Greece) Chalkida > Athens > Patras > (Italy) Ancona > Rome > Firenze (Florence) > Milano > (Switzerland) Zyrich > (Germany) Stugart > Nuremberg > (Austria) Vienna > (Hungary) Budapest > Symotinya > 5days stay at the festival > (Slovakia) Bratislava > (Greece) Athens > Chalkida

11 unique days, each one filling for the rest. I had never attempted solo-backpacking before though i think it was worth it. It’s the best reason for talking and getting to know other people on your tour. The 1st night was spent on the boat from Patra to Ancona, Italy. The 22hour sea voyage was fairly long though fortunately i spent a good 10hours of sleep. I can say that i’m used to boat trips after 5 yrs of traveling to Crete back and forth in order to attend my college course. On stepping foot in Italy i was somehow puzzled at start, though i found out soon enough that the best way finding your way around is by using a rail map and just asking whoever looks likely to know English. The first part of the train ride to Rome was somehow unlucky because of the 1hour train delay and because i had to get off in a small Italian town because of technical difficulties. The next train to Rome left in some hours so i decided to find a spot in the countryside and camp saving some money for staying in a hotel and gaining a new second night experience. Now thinking of what i did may sound foolish but i don’t regret on doing so. After Rome i head to Florence for sightseeing and then i decided to stay at a youth hostel in Milan. Staying there was surely worth it, as i had never been to one before. I instantly met my South Korean roommate and eventually met a group of Brazilian guys outdoors. It was surely a great night whereas i had the chance to meet people from all over the world and share our experiences and thoughts. Unfortunately the next day i was late to wake and everyone was gone.

Having some more days ahead of me till the festival started i though of going to Switzerland. The train ride to Zürich really paid me off. The scenery on the Italian and Swiss alps was breathtaking. The train infrastructure is so developed it really amazed me. The tunnels & bridges seemed to blend harmonically with the Swiss countryside. Arriving at Zürich i managed to find information on going to the youth hostel there. It was surely more luxurious and organized but i disliked the fact the atmosphere there was not so pleasant as in Milan. I had the chance to meet a girl from the US and a group of Ukrainian people who knew very few English. The next day i head towards Hungary through Austria. I found out that the faster way of going to Vienna was via Germany (Stuttgart & Nuremberg). It was a chance to go through Germany and arriving there earlier than going directly to Vienna. The German countryside was great though i did’t have any time to go sightseeing. On arriving to Vienna 10 at night i though i should better stay at a youth hostel. Unfortunately they were all full so i went back to the station and slept for free there using my sleeping bag. The train left 5 in the morning to i think it was worth that experience as well.

The 1st part of the traveling part of my journey was almost over though i was not disappointed at all because i knew i had a great festival ahead of me. I arrived in Budapest first thing in the morning. It was the first time i was so confused in my journey because i had to use the local currency, almost no one understood english and i had no idea how to get to the festival. I used an internet station in order to get more information and i found out that i had to take the subway to the other train station. On arriving there i met a Danish group that were also heading to Ozora fest and they told me that we had to take 2hr train ride to a village and then take a bus from there. So i did and was amazed when entering the festival area. Pictures and videos cannot describe that festival especially at night. For me it was the 1st major festival i had been to and surrely will consider going again next year. It was like living in an alternate society in a city of tents and music stages blending harmonically with the Hungarian countryside . The irony of this event was that everyone, involving me seemed to have a close connection to nature and technology. The dress code was utterly different to what someone would find everyday. People were far more willing to meet and help each other. It was literaly a tower of Babel. So many different languages could be heard though most of the people knew english especially those from western europe. I was glad to find some greek people as well. The music was so good and unique especially in the chill stage. 5 intense day filled with music, culture, diverse languages and a very inspiring vibe everywhere around you. 5 days is as much as someone could cope with, because of dirt and the exhausting dance stage timeline. It is really hard to describe this experience in words, but was surrelly worth the effort going there

The last day i decided to head towards Slovakia where was flight was leaving for Athens, so i woke up in the morning and packed all my things and head towards Budapest in order to find a train for Bratislava. Hungary left me with mixed feelings. A great impression for the festival and the countryside and bad regarding the fact that it was so hard to communicate with Hungarians in English even with young people. Slovakia seemed to have a better infrastructure from what i could see from the train ride. Finally i had to wait a couple of hours for my flight. The big journey all ended on the 11th of August when arriving back to my hometown, Chalkida from Athens

This 11day trip to Europe was one of the best traveling experiences i have had till now. I was far more easier than i had expected and is somehow cheap way for seeing so many places. The total amount i spent was 650 euros which is reasonable compared for a 11day holiday in Greece. For me this journey is just a begining and i’m surely willing to do so more exploring when i finish my military obligation next year. My main inspiration for experiencing this journey was i movie i was in June called “Into the Wilr”. It is a fantastic movie both in acting and photography. I cannot consider myself anywhere near to the true explorer of the protagonist of this movie, though i tried doing some extreme stuff as well. Throughout my journey i had the chance to meet people that were touring Europe for several months. Offcourse mine was in a smaller scale though i think for 11 days i saw and experienced as much as i could.

A slideshow follows if you click on the read more link:

Free software is not just a trend of IT but a need in modern days. End users demand transparency, decentralization and safety for their desktop operating systems, which Linux is able to provide. Linux has succeeded to some extent though it’s long term goals is gaining a 2 digit market share sometime in the near future and gaining support from 3rd party software vendors. Another notable market are the mobile users. Through time, since the mobile phone became a dominant tech accessory, Smart Phones were introduced, as a mini mobile operating system able to cover anyone’s computing needs when on the move. Today the following propetiary mobile OS are the most dominant: Symbian OS, Windows Mobile/CE, iPhone MacOS, Blackberry and some other that have a smaller market share. The iPhone as a newcomer has managed to stir the mobile industry because of its innovative interface and menu. The biggest downside of the iPhone though noted by most users and me is the persistence of its manufacturer (Apple) to lock and confine the end users almost to death. Locked network, no official support for 3rd party software, locked Bluetooth services, only sync with itunes and numerous other irritating and confining features. Symbian and Windows Mobile devices though are not so locked to a Software and Hardware level. Most policies of the major players in the mobile industry seem to follow to a different extent each time this restricting policy.

Till now no truly open and free complete operating system exists in a widely accepted and commercial level on the mobile platform. 2008 though is the year of change in this industry. Google, a silicon valley software giant, never lacks to show innovation and insight. It has been sponsoring and investing on Google Android, a Linux based mobile OS which aims to be 100% open and free. It is this time speaking in its end developing stage and will be introduced through various mobile devices in the end of 2008. Google Android has been so frequently talked about like any other mobile OS that has before it has been out yet. To my view this OS should exist for some years now because the rest of of smart phone platforms have already matured and are widely adopted.

Nokia, the biggest mobile phone manufacturer also shocked me with some good news. It decided to buy all of Symbian shares and form the Symbian Foundation, completely opening all of Symbian’s code. Offcourse nokia had some good reasons for doing this strategic move, though the whole process may take till 2010. To my view these reasons are the following:

Symbian OS has somehow come behind in innovation (still no support for touchscreens) and is clearly started to be threatened by the newcomer, the iphone. Also Nokia knows very well that Google Android is likely to dominate the market, proving a complete and cutting edge open mobile OS. So they say if you cant fight them just cooperate with them, or in this case adopt the same approach and philosophy. Symbian is likely to gain back from the mature and highly experienced Linux community or in this case the forecoming Open Symbian community. Opensource has proven to have a much better dynamic from any other model of software and never fails to show great innovations. Linux is a great example, with the only difference that Symbian OS has the largest userbase in the world. The scale of the opensource dynamics will clearly benefit Nokia, which will probably make Symbian gain it’s lost pace with innovation. It will cost less, making any Nokia phones cheaper to buy in comparison to any other smartphone surcharged with the cost of software ownership. The fact that Symbian will become open will not affect the existing 3rd party software developers, but in contrast will benefit them a lot, making their work more easy.

Today the mobile market has not felt the impact of the forecoming opensource OS’s, though the future beholds a dominance of free software. Desktop Linux may lack to hold a decent market share because Windows had predominated the desktop market and the switch is really hard because of the lack of software support. Also Microsoft’s strategy is to have Windows preinstalled in every Desktop or Laptop computer so it automatically builds its userbase. So talking in mind these 2 factors, the new open mobile OS’s Symbian has no need to worry about them because it has the biggest market share and will be preinstalled in most phones.

The above hypothesis which is likely to become reality in the following years is a step closer to fullifilling the need of any society to work with and use decentralized, free products that work in a transparent way, removing all the restraints concerning its use. Technology ought to made in such a way so it works FOR you and NOT against you, making this intellectual product belong to you, everyone and nobody at the same time

We are living in a very critical era, where our survival and energy sustainability will depend on our ability to adopt change. Humans sometimes find it hard to change but in the case of the existing energy model we will be forced to. A transition to means of energy other than oil will be done because the oil prices will touch sky high prices and the earth itself will show greater signs of distress. The fact that the globe is steadily warming up combined with the instability of the price of oil has led mainstream society to look into way for adopting alternative energy sources. National power grids get electricity supplies from comparatively expensive renewable energy sources (solar, wind & hydro power) though the maximum dependency of these sources can not reach further from a certain percentage because it affects the grid’s overall stability. Coal and oil are realistically cheap ways of producing electricity though a transition to alternative energy producing technologies is crucial, if we want a mild transition from the existing dependance on oil.

So what are the means we have today of adopting eco-friendly portable energy sources? A medium of storing energy through electricity has always been batteries which vary in their chemistry, oil and all of its products which has already stored energy in its carbon based chemistry.Hydrogen, a chemical element which unfortunately cannot be found in nature because it simply floats into space is also an option which will be seen soon enough. Today in 2008 there are many automotive technologies which rely on one or more of the above energy sources.

First of all we have the natural gas/oil/petrol internal combustion automotives: They have been used from the start of this century as a mean of mass transportation. Today we totally rely on them apart from some Hybrid Vehicles and electric trains. Biofuel production seems to fight low oil production, but as it has shown it leads to soaring food prices. To my view it is not something permanent, just a small placebo pill for a smooth transition from oil to electric cars. The good side: Oil provides a good way of portable energy already trapped into its carbon chemistry. The bad side: CO2 greenhouse emitions, non renewable source and dependency to a large network of oil producers and distributors

Electric Vehicles (EV’s): A not so new concept, though it has started gaining approval in the last decade. The concept is simple. Charge the car’s batteries from the electricity grid and use this stored energy to move a highly efficient and non polluting electric motor. The good side: High efficiency of energy transformation to the electric motor, renewable and non pollutant means of transportation. The bad side: Low millage independence because of the low capacity of the existing battery technology, unsifient charging infastructure exists today.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV’s): They combine a hybrid technology and use an internal combustion engine and an electric motor to give power the the wheels. The gas engine only kicks in when extra juice is needed, and also transforms the lost kinetic energy made into heat from the breaks, into electricity to charge the car’s battery. Today exist some commercial car models with this technology, though the Toyota Prius can be said that is leading this path. The good side: Very high Miles Per Gallon especially (50MPG for Prius) when your driving habits include driving in the city on low speeds. Low MPG equals to low transportation costs and low CO2 greenhouse emissions The bad side: relatively high cost of Hybrid vehicles. Their fuel consumption is not as good as it ought to in high speeds and open roads. The battery may also appear as a downback because in theory you have to replace it every 10yrs.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV’s): They basically use the same technology with ordinary HEV’s with the only difference that they have batteries with a greater capacity and chemistry, with a slight difference in their electronic circuitry. Today there is no commercial car available though there are many Toyota Prius converted to support the plug-in feature through 3rd party manufactures. The car pictured on the top of this article is one of them. Toyota announced that it will be releasing the 3rd generation of Prius with a factory built solar panel in order to power the A/C of the car and also charge the battery when stalled. An astonishing 100+ MPG has been reached in certain conditions for these vehicles. They rely mainly on the power grid for providing their mobile energy needs. Some have also converted their roof into a solar surface so the car can be charged when unplugged and stalled. Ofcourse these vehicles rely on oil but nevertheless its the 1st transition phase to overcome our reliance on imported oil. Toyota is planning to release in 2009 the 1st comercial plug-in model available. The good side: It uses the already tested and full proof hybrid technology with the advantage of a greater autonomy from its bigger batteries. The best millage per gallon achieved by any vehicle of this category. Lower independence on oil giving the end user the ability to use alternative energy sources. The bad side: The high cost of gaining this technology and the reliance to power grid electricity which may at first may not be available in parking spaces, homes etc.

Hydrogen Vehicles: Another interesting way of making energy available in portable transportation is Hydrogen. The engine itself is highly efficient , though the process of producing Hydrogen from electricity is not energy efficient at all as the below picture shows. The energy cost of producing this fuel is so high to start with that we would have to pay several times more to move our vehicle the same distance than we would need with gasoline. Though the product of Hydrogen engines is clean water the environmental cost of transforming electricity to Hydrogen is so high, it makes it wortless in environmental terms. The existing technology also show that in order to store Hydrogen in a compressed tank in your car a lot of space is needed which is unable to provide the same millage as a conventional gasoline tank. The good side: Environmental friendly and renewable fuel. The bad side: The existing technology is not able to make it cost efficient, whereas the 60% of the energy needed is lost in the process. The whole fuel infrastructure must change in order to make it plausible to the masses. A vehicle which relies only in Hydrogen needs a large low pressure tank which is unable to provide a wide distance range. The same suppliers of todays oil will propably supply us with this new fuel, perserving their monopoly

Hybrid Hydrogen Electric Vehicles: Through the research i’ve done so far i have not come into such a vehicle although it would be a possibility when the Hydrogen Fuel Infrastructure has been established when oil can not been attained anymore in the following decades…

The main aspects of these emerging portable energy technologies which will be able to cover our ever increasing need for transportation are the following:

The network of suppliers of fossil fuels: It has been the most lucrative industry of the 20th century. Global politics today are leaded by every societies and nation’s need to consume an ever increasing amount of fossil fuels. Wars and military actions in a global scale are motivated by the strategic advantage of gaining power over the source oil. The price of oil we pump our cars has to do with the rate of its production, foreign exchange rates and a sum of factors we end consumers come close to be aware. This energy supply model must stop if we want a more fair, environmental conscious, free and informed society and must transform itself into something alternative

The electricity grid: Today we also relly on electricity which is also provided through a centralized system. The means of producing electricity is coal, oil, nuclear energy and a bunch of renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro power. Nuclear energy is the cheapest of all though it is not widely accepted by the public and practically may be enviromental friendly if all cautions are taken in mid. Oil and coal are also some cheap but highly polluting ways of producing electricity. Finally renewable sources relly heavily on expensive infrastructure but manage to some extent to achieve energy independence to a national, community and household level. So any plug-in vehicle’s energy source would be a combination of the above. Some may say that they just move the pollution from the cars to the factories but the truth is that not 100% of our electricity is from polluting sources and even if it was it is still more effective producing polluting energy in a mass scale in factories. Realistically today a 2 digit percentage is from renewable sources and in some countries a great amount is from nuclear power. Nevertheless todays technology has proven it able to achieve a household independence in electricity, making a plug-in electric vehicle owner to a big percentage unaffected by the network of Oil/Hydrogen suppliers

The network of Hydrogen fuel suppliers: This today is still science fiction but may soon be reality. The bad thing about thus network is that is will be built on the economics and policies of existing oil networks. Do we want that to happen? Hydrogen has been proven as an inefficient way of gaining portable energy. Do we want to rely on a bunch of companies for proving us overpriced fuel?

Our Sun: The everlasting energy source. We sometimes find it diffucult to understand that all the energy we use comes from our closest star. Todays technology has proven somehow unsuffient to cover 100% of our energy needs from the above source. The technology used in solar power can only convert a small percentage into electricity, whereas wind power an energy sources also triggered by the atmopshere heat differences which achieves to somehow partialy cover our needs. Innovation, research and investments are steadily increasing the technology efficiency so the impact on using this everlasting energy source will become greater. Large scale thermosolar plants in California and Spain, household installed panels, windfarms, hydroplants and a lot of examples in everyday consumer products like the plugin solar Prius.

Battery fuel cells: This is the biggest barrier of electric vehicles which actually limits their range. The charging can only be done over a big time period so, simple EV’s are not likely to become mainstream any time soon. Technology in battery cells is steadily improving and you can clearly see that on a 15 year time range since the 1st mobile phone and laptops were introduced. As for PHEV’s more battery capacity and means higher cost and extra car weight. Practically though converted Priuses can achieve a 50 mile range using only their power batteries, enough to supply the range needed for urban transportation. So realistically existing battery technology manages to cover the biggest part of urban transportation which covers a big percentage of the average car users needs.

My current transportation status: This time speaking i am a lucky car owner of a 1100cc Citroen Saxo. It’s a relatively light, cheap and fuel efficient car. Ofcourse i seek altrenative ways of getting around like using my good old bicycle and public transportation. Hybdrids were always on my mind, as a lover of sophisticated technology and environmental friendly solutions. I made a promise to myself for my next car having hybrid technology. Through the research i’ve done i’ll probably go for a plug-in solution and if it is possible i would love to install solar panels to it. Offcourse money in life is the biggest barrier to achieving your goals. According to Toyota the PHEV will be released in 2009. I forecast to going into a loan after 2010  for that purpose but i firstly need to have my IT degree, finish my millitary obligation and have a job that pays over 900 euros. Owning this car means that i must commit but i guess its a step that i will need to take finally.

Conclusion: My main philosophical impulse when dealing with this subject is the following: Store and distribute free and renewable energy from our beloved star called the sun and pay ONLY for the technology, which when widespread and openstructured will become cheaper, making people able to NOT relly on closed markets and monopolies. Charge your car from the sun, grid or home solar panels downsizing the overall transportation costs and making us independent of our energy supplier. A new era is coming where we have to understand that each one of us has the ability to change the way he/she was forced to do think and act till now, through information, adoption of new technologies and global awareness.

I try to avoid writing technical howtos in my blog, because i simply dont have any extra technical advice to give more than is allready there in the web and somehow find ready solutions to any technical problem by a simple search. Although i try not to bore myself on techtalk i though i should write about a fantastic linux distrubition i’ve been using for over a year now, which initially made me switch to Linux , a wonderfull, free & open desktop operating system. I have always been using a computer from an early age. Back in the mid 90’s, a small kid like me back then had the only choise on using Windows 95 or any of its successors. Adminitingly it was during the 90’s the only widespread complete operating system with a graphical interface. Through the progression of time an emerging operating system came to be, though it lacked a consistent graphical interface during the 90’s. In 1991 when the first lines of code were writen, so the birth of the GNU operating system was marked, know as GNU/Linux or just Linux. Due its open structure and the freedoms it gives the end users, Linux Distrubutions were born, which consist of a sum of free software neartly packed and easy to install. They do not refer to Linux’s version, but rather name of a pack of free software, which are installable in Desktop Computers. The three major distrubutions which drew the path to future distrubutions: Debian, Slackware, Redhat. Ubuntu Linux, a debian based distro, happens to be my current Linux distro.

Ubuntu has drawn a lot of attention in the past years fro the computer world, due its user friendlyness  and focus on simplicity. Though many people critisize its approach to simplicity, they must aqknowlege t,he fact that it is the main reason of Linux’s steady addoption rate. I have thought that the next step i should follow is changing my distro to something for more experienced users, but i have made some seconds thoughts only because Ubuntu has the better support fron anything else. Deb files and Ubuntu repositories are a common thing in 3rd party software providers combined with the quality of support provided by the ubuntu forums. which seems to cover my troubleshooting i have faced till now. The company behind ubuntu and all it’s successful forks (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu etc.) is canonical, founded by a wealthy South African Space Tourist (Mark Shuttleworth). His vision was big and he seems to have achieved his goal to a certain point projecting his personal philosophy to this project. After 4 years he initiated the ubuntu project he had managed to be the 1st distro which is bulded with Dell computers and in many cases has made govermental and other organisation to be able to easily switch to this free OS. Free and open software to me extendes far more from a technical viewpoint. Yes it is cutting edge, stable and extremly dynamic software though what mostly exites me is the ability of modern civilisation to manyfacture and distribute  a quality intellectual product to everyone free of charge with ansolutely no strings attached to its use. Linux is able to prove that people can gain profit from developing free and open software by not charging the software itself.

The main question is how we can project this community driven activity and final product could be adopted to more aspect of our society apart from software and knowledge? Money, energy, food and transportation is some elements we can’t do without as humans nowdays. We must firstly examine the complex systems work in order to provide us these elements and try to work our way around into addopting an open and unhirechical way to distribute them. The above statement surelly needs another entry for further examination but my main view is to avoid seeing any system (Linux etc) abstracted from society itself.