BasBasBas.com

Category: thoughts

  • Reading!

    Since I spend a lot of time on public transport (either traveling or in the crazy traffic of Istanbul), I get to do quite a bit of reading. At the moment I’m reading two books. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle, this one I’m reading for the second time, and “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai. I found two inspirational quotes in these books that I want to share.

    Something I find very worrying is the growing phenomenom of antitheism. While using StumbleUpon, I noticed an immense number of sites that are very hateful towards religion. Understandably so, because they feel their way of life is being threatened by religion, but personally, I don’t feel that bashing, mocking, fighting or anything else that comes out of negativity can do any good. In “A New Earth“, Eckhart Tolle expresses my feelings very clearly:

    “In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to “eradicate evil,” as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighthing unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.“

    Very wise words. I really admire Eckhart Tolle’s works and can keep reading it over and over. If you really want to grasp the full meaning of his words above, go check out the book.

    A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai

    On my way to Bulgaria, I figured that Eckhart Tolle’s stuff might be a bit heavy for a 10+ hour journey and I’d need some novel to read. I found some novels in my apartment (left by previous inhabitants) and found an interesting one about life in Nepal around the time of the Nepalese independence movement in the 80s. I picked it up and took it with me… On the third page or so, I came across this marble of beauty:

    “Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.” 

    Taken from Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss“. Haven’t quite formed my opinion about it, since the print in my version of the book is quite small and it wasn’t ideal to read in a bus on a Bulgarian bumpy road (and at night), so I had to put it away.

    Have you read any of these books? Thoughts and comments very welcome! I find books are one of the best topics for meaningful and engaging conversations! 🙂

  • 10 Things That Frustrate Me In Istanbul

    As much as I’m enjoying Istanbul, there are also things that frustrate me or have frustrated me in the first weeks after my arrival. I felt a comprehensive list was in order. 😉

    10) People thinking I’m a tourist.

    I generally dislike being seen as a tourist. I’m not a tourist. I prefer to discover places by living there instead of just going there and not truly experiencing it. I did this for Sofia, Bulgaria and I’m doing this for Istanbul. I have a negative opinion of most tourists and don’t want to be perceived or treated as such. However, it’s hard to hide the fact I don’t belong here, because of my Irish skin and blue eyes, but I don’t mind being seen as a foreigner. Hopefully I’ll be seen as a foreigner who lives here as time passes. Which brings me to the next point…

    9) Getting ripped off.

    Like in Bulgaria, if someone thinks they can take advantage of you, they will. This is true just for a minority of people (and a great majority of people at the bazaars 😉 ), but whenever it happens it’s very annoying. The first weeks I was very cautious of it, but it seemed to happen more… Or maybe I’ve just realized something about Istanbul that I didn’t realize before.

    8 ) Istanbul is not as cheap as I thought it would be.

    When I paid 4 lira (about 2 euros) for a coffee on a terrace somewhere, I was sure I was getting ripped off. Looking back, maybe I wasn’t. It’s a very mixed city and in one street you can find a tea or coffee in a bar for just 1 lira, but in the next you can pay 6 or more. Apartments are cheaper than in Holland, but not by much. Although I’m comparing furnished apartments in Istanbul to unfurnished apartments in Holland. This difference makes it a lot harder to settle in Istanbul than it was to settle in Sofia. Sofia, for a Dutchman, is cheap… for now.

    (more…)

  • The Vegetarian Sandwich

    Being a vegetarian in Istanbul is quite the challenge, but it can be done. This however, is not the topic of today’s post. I want to talk about bar/café culture here.

    In Holland, or most North-Western European countries, if I go to a place to eat a sandwich where I’ve never been before, the next time I come back they won’t even remember I was there before. Small towns or villages are (generally) an exception to this rule, but in this 15 million population metropolis called Istanbul, you are remembered and valued.

    The first time I went around the corner here to get a sandwich, I tried to get a vegetarian one. I got a sandwich with some cheese. I liked their attitude though (it was very hospitable and accommodating) and told my friend about it and took him there. When I came back I could see in their eyes that they were happy I not only came back a second time, but also brought another new customer to the place. My vegetarian sandwich now contained cheese and tomato.

    Today I went there again and I heard the one guy say in Turkish to the other something along the lines of “look, he’s back again”. It’s nice to be noticed and it’s great to see how much Turkish business owners value returning customers. This time I got the same sandwich but with cucumber and salad. Next time maybe some fries? Another example.

    In Istanbul there are many places to have some tea with friends, smoke some nargile (hookah/seisha), and play some games (mostly backgammon). Last week I already spoke about going to a nargile traditional waterpipe place in Taksim with some friends. We decided to go there again and I think we’ll be having weekly meet-ups at this place once we’re all spread out over town at different universities. Well, so far we already have weekly meet-ups 😉

    Anyway, we sat down, drank some tea, ordered a banana flavour nargile which had milk instead of water in it and started playing backgammon. After one game, we put back the board and brought out Balance, probably known as Jenga to most Westerners. We played a few games, but the concentration and energy that goes into this game is magnetic and we soon had the attention of the staff. We invited them to come play and had a lot of fun with them. Great!

    It’s important here to form a bond with people. Not just for the free tea, nargile, or having many friends, but for the simple fact that the customer / staff relationship is rather different from in Holland. In one way you are treated with more respect and more formality, in the other way more personal. Maybe because of the more personal touch there is more respect between staff and customer. People don’t just see each other as their roles (there are exceptions of course) or as numbers, but as actual people and treat you as such.

    Except for in Turkey’s mobile phone network provider Türkcell’s shops where they treat you like someone who doesn’t mind having to “come back tomorrow” for seven days per week to avoid getting cut off from the network. Big thumbs down to Türkcell and how their staff treats foreigners. (Just wanted to vent)

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  • Letter from Zimbabwe

    Quite a while ago I got in touch with a fellow blogger named Nick, who I met via the wonderful StumbleUpon community. He’s a young guy who got in touch with the United States justice system at a rather early (but common) age. He blogs about how this all happened and about life in prison. Felonious Ramblings is definitely one of my favourite blogs and recently I saw a very interesting story pop up in my inbox.

    Nick, like me, is quite concerned about various political or humanitarian situations around the world. One of these is Zimbabwe, of which I don’t need to remind you how bad the situation is. A friend of him who was born and raised in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) forwarded him a letter. The guy is Anglo, meaning British Colonial, but lives in Europe now. His family however is still living in Zimbabwe and is having to deal with president Mugabe’s madness and insane grip on his power. Whoever is not pro-Mugabe, or white, faces serious danger in Zimbabwe.

    Following is an email from the guy’s sister in law. Who wrote this in a bit of a hurry it seems, but still it’s very easily readable and tells a very good story about the situation in this country. It seems like it’s turning into anarchy and it reminds me a lot of the situation displayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda. We cannot let something like this happen again, so I’d like to urge you to read and share. Stumble it, email it, share it on Facebook, Digg it, Buzz it… Whatever’s your preference.

    Dear all,

    It has been quite a weekend. We were made very aware of impending problems on our Mount Carmel farm before it even started. Various letters came in as well as verbal warnings from concerned people all over the district. People were told that Mt. Carmel cattle and potatoes would be dished out to them.

    The election campaign is being fought on “one hundred percent empowerment” ie. taking everything that belongs to people who are not black and giving it to Party faithfulls. The Party has got nothing else to offer the people…

    People were told if they did not come they would be beaten. President Mugabe arrived in our little town of Chegutu that afternoon and people were only informed that morning.

    (more…)

  • Ramadan starts tomorrow

    Ramadan, Islam’s month of fasting, is set to start tomorrow. Since Turkey’s population is said to be 98 to 99% Islamic, I expect the Ramadan to be rather noticeable. Hence my decision to start an article about it and introducing the topic, since I’m sure it will be a returning topic over the next month or so.

    Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and starts on September 1 this year. Ramadan’s believed to be the month in which Angel Gabriel revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad. For 30 days, all Muslims are expected to refrain from consuming food and drinks during the day (this includes water and also chewing gum), besides this sexual activity during fasting hours is also forbidden. One is expecting to keep their thoughts and actions pure for the sake of learning patience and humility. It’s a time when even very moderate Muslims who do not go to mosques join in on the fasting and prayer.

    At the end of Ramadan, the breaking of the feast is celebrated by the Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Fitr, but from what I gather from the papers, the whole month of Ramadan is celebrated. In the old area of Sultanahmet in Istanbul, people get together in the evening to celebrate their ‘iftar’, which is the evening dinner consumed to break the fast. According to Turkish Daily News, you’ll be able to find classic puppet shadow plays throughout the neighbourhood which are filled with humour. This puppet play called Hacivat and Karagözwas popularized during Ottoman period in which the two characters portray the illiterate and the educated class, leading to humorous situations. (more…)

  • EntreCard my way

    EC LogoWhile using EntreCard, I’m doing a couple of things to add even more value to my actions or drops. Since it’s rainy and grey outside (can’t wait to go to Turkey), it’s a perfect day to write about it.

    Firstly, I’ll explain what EntreCard is. Secondly, I’ll go through some of the basics for all the readers who are not members yet. Thirdly, I’ll explain what I do in the form of some tips and pointers, so hopefully the whole EntreCard experience will become better for all of us. 🙂

    I find it extraordinarily hard to explain what EntreCard actually is. It’s a blogging community, it’s an advertising system, it’s a way to network with other blogs… On the main page Entrecard talks about themselves as “your businesscard 2.0”. The most essential thing about Entrecard is surfing to other community members’ blogs and “dropping” a card on their Entrecard widget (see top right sidebar). By dropping cards, you earn credits, which you then can spend to advertise on sites that are on Entrecard.

    Entrecard partnered with SezWho, a comment tracking system, so that it can give you credits every time you comment on another person’s blog. Great way to stimulate community-forming on members’ blogs! So as you’re going through your daily dropping, be sure to leave comments! Maybe you get tons of comments nowadays and they don’t mean much to you, but remember that time when one or two comments did matter. Comment on other blogs and experience the gratitude and reciprocation.

    Something else I do regarding comments on my own blog is I generally give them 5 stars through SezWho. What can I say? I love every one of them. This helps people to build their rep on the net.

    If you like a certain post on someone’s site, or like the whole overall site… Stumble it! Digg it! Whatever you use… Just do it! Write a Tweet about it, it doesn’t matter. When using Entrecard, many people are so wrapped up in it, that they forget to give a “thumbs up” for content they like. Start Stumbling content you like of other Entrecard users and you’ll notice that the next time people you stumbled visit your blog, they might leave a stumble before leaving.

    If you place an ad on a site… Stumble or Digg the site! Either when you apply for it, or on the day it’s actually running. Increase your chances of visitors in any way you can.

    Reciprocate drops. Check your inbox and reciprocate. That’s the easiest way to get a basic reader community on your site via Entrecard.

    Put some statistics on your website. I generally check for three things:

    • Number of subscribers to the site.
    • FEEDJIT. Since my blog’s about Istanbul, Turkey, it helps me to assess where most people’s visitors are from. I find that Europeans are generally more interested in my site than people from Indonesia or the Philippines.
    • BlogCatalog. It allows me to see how often the blog gets visitors. It shows the names of BlogCatalog community members and shows how long ago they visited the site. It gives me an indication of the traffic the site gets.

    When none of these are present, I can be a bit wary about spending my EC credits, but not always of course. A lot of Entrecard is about experimenting! After all, it’s just credits you’re spending, so spend away.

    Monitor your EC statistics, award your top ten droppers publically (giving an incentive for others to drop on your site regularly), and make friends! Because EC offers such a friendly environment, if you’re the least bit active, it’s impossible not to make friends. 😉
    If you liked this post, consider subscribing by RSS or email.

  • Sandals vs flip-flops

    Sandals vs Flip-flops header

    So, I’m about to embark on my holiday to Bulgaria. Pushed forward from Saturday, to Wednesday, to Thursday, to Friday, I’ve been preparing for the trip for a while now. Seeing as it will be very warm in Bulgarian and Macedonia, I don’t want to wear my shoes all the time. So I told my girlfriend that when I’m in Sofia, where she lives, she’s going to help me pick out a pair of flip flops. She reacted as if I had asked her to help me find some sandals.

    Well… that’s for Holland. In Holland, sandals are perceived as a rather nerdy thing to wear. Flip-flops are cool! In Bulgaria, flip-flops are apparently not cool. Well, not if you want to be perceived as masculine anyway. Apparently there, it IS okay to wear sandals. Which is a big don’t in Holland.

    So obviously you understand my big fashion dilemma right now. How to look cool everywhere!? I will go not eat something now and starve myself to death so I look more like the people I admire. I’ll leave you with a question though. Or two. Two questions! No, three.

    What’s it like in your country? Are men who wear flip-flops really less masculine? Is wearing sandals in the city for nerds and old people?

    Let the debate commence!

    Sandals vs Flip-flops header

  • Eco-Idea: Solar powered Bit-Stage

    Yesterday was Liberation Day in The Netherlands. Because of Liberation Day (or ‘Bevrijdingsdag’ as we call it), there a lot of free open-air music festivals in parks all across the Netherlands to celebrate our liberty. Since the weather was awesome and there was free live music, I had to be there. The coolest thing I saw at the festival in Utrecht was not any artist in particular but this thing:

    Solar powered Bit-Stage

    What you are seeing right here is a DJ booth, including 4 speakers with good sound, on a car, all powered by solar panels! What a great eco-friendly idea! I like going to free parties, but often wonder about the effect or impact all these parties have on the environment. Especially parties in forests or in nature attended by a lot of eco-loving people. It always seemed a bit hypocritical to me to claim to love nature, yet cause such ecological ruckus.

    This stage offers what seems to be an ‘eco-friendly’ option for parties and quite possibly carbon neutral. I also found two videos of the stage live in action yesterday at the festival. You can choose either funky or Balkan.

    Apparently the car’s batteries can also be charged by pedaling. Cool!

    More info here.

  • My Interview about Wilders

    A few weeks ago I was interviewed about my views on the Geert Wilders movie Fitna by Alex, a PR professional, journalist and blogger from Bulgaria. I have a strong opinion about this, so when he asked me, I immediately told him yes and we made it happen. It was published a while ago and now I figured it’s time for a crosspost.

    What were the first consequences of the Geert Wilders video “Fitna” in Holland?

    Well, the first consequences actually came before the film was released. For about three months, we’ve been waiting for this film, not knowing what would be in it. Given the statements Wilders had made in the past though, a lot of people were worried that it might be very offensive to Muslims and spark riots in some of the immigrant areas of our cities.

    So the main consequence was a lot of fear and a big debate about Islam and it’s position in our society and western society – and how far the freedom of speech goes.

    After the release it stayed pretty calm. I think it’s less bad than what was expected or feared for and the tension really seems to be gone now. Or in the background.

    Was it changed because of that Armageddon-expectations? And in fact this couldn’t be the main version?

    I doubt it. If those expectations had come true, Wilders could have said “Look! I was right.”

    I don’t think it was in his interest to tone his film down. I would find it hard to believe he would done that, it’s not his style.

    Do you feel kind of disappointed of the final result?

    Partly. I was expecting a well produced film, though this is cut and pasting with fragments we have all seen numerous times, probably hundreds, in the case of the 9/11 footage even thousands of times. I am happy that he didn’t go as far as others said, because that could have caused national problems as well as international problems for the Netherlands (politically as well as economically). Some countries were threatening with boycotting Dutch products for instance.

    Can you find Wilders right in any of his statements expressed in the movie?

    Yes, with regards to Islamic extremism being a problem we need to be concerned with, like any form of extremism. No, with regards to the fact that he doesn’t limit his judgment to the small group of the 1 billion Muslims that is extreme, but is generalizing all Muslims.

    Although he himself claims he doesn’t; he is talking about the Islam, not the Muslims. I think that’s just a childish point, because when speaking about a faith in this way, you automatically talk about its followers.

    You’ve lived in Bulgaria for about an year. What makes Wilders differ from Volen Siderov?

    Well, I lived there a half year, and I assume Volen Siderov is from Ataka (?), but I didn’t get enough of an impression of him or them to say anything about that. Sorry.

    I do think Bulgaria is in a very different position than Holland though. Since the Islam in Holland came through immigrants; in Bulgaria through occupation by Turkey. If I wasn’t misinformed, at least.

    Can we expect that Geert Wilders will be treated like they did to Theo van Gogh?

    Times have changed a bit and both are different. Since the politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated, politicians have been getting a lot more security. Since Theo van Gogh, any politician that makes sensitive statements regarding Islam gets more security. Theo van Gogh didn’t have this, as far as I know.

    Geert Wilders has a secret address and has to change from residence every so often (I don’t know and I think they keep it secret for his safety). But yes, he is under threat and I’m sure that there are some crazy people who would try to get him if they just saw the chance to do it.

    It can be either Muslims who think he has insulted their faith/prophet, or people who don’t like his angry and right-wing tone (which can be extreme at times) and are concerned about the future of the Netherlands or just personally upset by him.

    http://bigtandem.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/bas-about-wilders/

  • Google Bans Ecocho on Earth Day

    Being a rather idealistic person, I’ve welcomed (with open arms) search services which try to make the world a better place. My homepage used to be My Eco Seek, but when I heard about Ecocho I switched. This search engine service allowed users to search using Yahoo! or Google and with the profit they get through sponsored ads, for every 1000 searches made, they plant two trees. Google put a stop to this though, on Earth Day, of all days.

    The Internet and its effect on the environment

    Research has found that the Internet and the digital technology industry are responsible for 2% of worldwide CO2 emissions, which is the same share as the airline industry. Being a growing phenomenom, in terms of its users and of its importance, it is great that there are more and more initiatives of websites becoming carbon neutral.

    The Internet is a great medium for making the world a better place. There are so many places for activists to find each other and work together, such as Change.org or Rethos. Even Facebook can be utilised to find like-minded people through their Causes, Events and Groups functions. Nowadays our options to fly carbon neutral are increasing. Dutch airline KLM has such a service, but you can also use independent services such as Trees For Travel.

    So the airline industry is busy trimming their CO2 outputs, slowly, but at least they’re making a start. Why not the internet? That’s what the founders of Ecocho must have been thinking when they came up with their concept.

    New Search Engine Ecocho\'s logo

    Google decides to stop Ecocho from using its technology

    Cho Cho - Ecocho's mascot sad over Google's decisionEven though Ecocho had great results in their first weeks, possibly exceeding their expectations, can now only offer their visitors to search environmentally friendly using the Yahoo! search engine. Although I haven’t looked into their statistics, given the popularity of Google, I would guess that that was also the most picked option for using Ecocho.

    So what has happened?

    The Google AdSense team has found that Ecocho was offering incentives for users to perform searches and AdSense, one of Ecocho’s sources of income, does not allow sites to offer “monetary or non-monetary” incentives to users. This includes paying users for clicks, or donating the profit to charity.

    Ecocho would make money every time somebody clicked on the Google ads (or sponsored search results) they would see in their search results, but Ecocho has never encouraged users to click ads. They actually met the Google AdSense team in Australia before launching and they got two thumbs up, but apparently now they have been turned down (both the thumbs as well as Ecocho).

    For more information, look here.

    So what to do?

    Ecocho asked users to ” target=”_blank”>email Google AdSense about their decision and one of their users set up an email that people could send out.

    Dear Adsense Support,

    I am one of the many users that frequent http://www.ecocho.com, a site recently denied the use of Google search technologies. I must express my disappointment with this event. However disappointed, I understand the value of the specific point of policy that is in conflict: “AdSense does not currently permit sites that offer monetary or non-monetary incentives to users to perform searches on click on ads.” I also understand the the argument regarding the “inability to verify the accuracy of any charitable claims and need to protect the user and advertiser experiences.”

    This is equitable and overall good policy practice. I do, however, wish to implore the altruistic nature and the user-demand for such a service. Due to these reasons I ask, with a voice that echoes many others, that the time needed to ensure and verify the legitimacy of this service is taken. We are confident you will find Ecocho to be completely accurate and genuine.

    We respectfully ask that proper attention is given to the wishes of the Ecocho community and that a viable agreement with the http://www.ecocho.com staff be made promptly.

    Sincerely,
    Ecocho and Google User

    This should be emailed to .

    Google says they’re committed to “helping to build a clean energy future.” Yet they ban Ecocho, a legit environmentally friendly service, on Earth Day of all days – while having an Earth Day logo on their frontpage!

    Yet they don’t seem to be taking action against some services (which I won’t name or list, but you can find it in the comments here) that do encourage users to use their search engine for personal gain. Ecocho shares its fate with another ‘charity’ search engine called Aidgle.

    Here’s something else the people from Ecocho had to say:

    We asked if we could get the Google Adsense premium feed, but were told that they would only consider this once we reached several million searches per month. In the mean time they said they were happy for us to use Google custom search.

    So obviously we are puzzled as to the sudden change of mind of Google.

    Could this… possibly… be about money?

    Google, think about your image.

    People, share the news please using the applet below and don’t forget to email Google!

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