My father sailed the seven oceans and my mother loved travelling from an early age. But they were not alone. My parents kept all the post cards they received from the 1960s onwards. This map shows the locations the postcards were sent from.
Mapping 1960s and 1970s postcards
Costa Dorada
When growing up I wore watches so I could arrive at school in time but with the onset of smartphones I abandoned watches altogether. Until recently, when I bought a Seiko solar diver SNE573P1 from the Prospex series. I owned this watch for about a year when I thought it would be cool to wear an automatic watch. Practically everything is battery operated and the thought of a piece of precision engineering, which works without a battery, appealed to me.
It is not easy to pick a watch from the thousands of options. I choose to limit myself to Seiko because they are affordable to me. I can forget about a Rolex Explorer, Submariner or a gold-cased Gruen Precision 510, besides, my name is not Bond. Since I love mountain walking the Alpinist sub brand of Seiko caught my eye. Seiko had just released a reimagined Alpinist from the early 1960s.
The original Alpinist was made for Yama-otoko, mountain men. With post-war disposable income weekend mountain hiking trips became a possibility in Japan. It even seems to have been the theme of the 1962 movie 山男 の 歌. (Song of Mountain Men). But the longer I looked at the modern interpretation of the very original Alpinist, the more differences I noticed. I was looking for a different heritage watch.
Seiko didn’t use the Alpinist brand for three decades until 1995 when Seiko introduced a very different Alpinist: the “Red Alpinist”. This watch had an internal compass bezel and a second crown to operate the compass. It allows you to find north when pointing the hour hand in the direction of the sun. It came in different dial colours but the black dial on a metal bracelet appealed to me for its 1990s look. The black dial reappeared in 2003 on the Alpinist 8F56, in 2006 on the SARB15 and in 2020 on the latest version, the Seiko SBDC087.
1995 Seiko “Red Alpinist” 4S15-6000
Advertisement for the Seiko Alpinist 8F56 from 2003.
The 2020 Seiko SBDC087 (Outside Japan: SPB117J1) looks very similar to the 1995 Alpinist 4S15-6000. It has the same Cathedral hands, internal compass bezel, date cyclops and shark teeth hour markers, alas not applied with lume. The Alpinist branding is gone, but it is hard not to see the SBDC087 as an Alpinist. It feels like a heritage watch to me, a 1990s heritage watch. I consider the dial both understated and interesting to look at. I don’t think I will ever get lost in the woods to a point I need the built in navigation tool. The watch is not a diver but still has a 20 bar water resistance, which is over-engineerd for a watch like this. I bought my watch directly from Japan under the Japanese product name SBDC087 for ¥ 70 818.
Seiko Prospex SBDC087
Calibre 6R35
Case diameter 39.5 mm
After spending only a month with my “Alpinist” I realised I wanted to replace the solar Seiko with an automatic diver. This choice was even harder because Seiko makes so many divers. I almost went for a recently discontinued SKX013 when I read about the “Captain Willard”. I had disregarded this watch because of its size, but the 46,6 mm lug to lug length was not so different from the 45.9 mm lug to lug Alpinist.
The Captain Willard is another heritage watch, which takes almost all of its design from the Seiko 6105-8110 which was produced between 1970 and 1977. Back then it was a reliable but cheap watch. The 6105 was popular among US soldiers in the Viet Nam War and was available in the U.S. military PX’s (Post Exchanges) on bases in Southeast Asia. It could withstand the rigours of the humid jungle.
The watch got its nickname because Martin Sheen, as U.S. Army Captain Benjamin Willard, wore a Seiko 6105 in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now. I planned to replace the metal bracelet with a rubber Tropic strap.
Well worn Seiko 6105-8110
Seiko Prospex SBDC109
Calibre 6R35
Case diameter 42.7mm
I had planned to sell this watch to finance the “Captain Willard” but the resale value of this solar is not great. I will keep it and use the Tropic strap I intended for the Willard on this solar watch. This strap is made by the same Swiss company, which introduced rubber straps in the 1960s. They are manufactured in Italy. I can use the solar as a sports watch to monitor the minutes when running.
Seiko Prospex SNE573
Calibre: V147
Case diameter: 38.5 mm
Lug-to-lug: 46.5mm
Next to my two automatic watches, and the solar, I bought a typical dress watch with a quartz movement. This watch is from the Seiko Dolce line has some heritage going back to the 1980s when slim luxury quartz watches became popular. It’s gold coloured and has a fake crocodile leather strap of poor quality. I have to replace the strap at some point but the lug width is 17 mm and I need a shorter strap because the watch itself is rather small.
Seiko Dolce SACM154
Calibre 8J41 (quartz)
Case size: 28 mm
Case thickness 5.3 mm
Seiko Dolce & Exceline collection
Mapping my travels
Places I visited
The Netherlands
Germany
Belgium
Luxembourg
Ireland
United Kingdom
Iceland
Sweden
Denmark
France
Spain
Italy
Switzerland
Austria
Poland
Slovenia
Czechoslovakia
Rumania
Hungary
Bulgaria
Yugoslavia (before 1992)
Kosovo
Montenegro
Macedonia, later called North-Macedonia
Greece
Turkey
Moldova
Transnistria, only recognised by Abkhazia, Artsakh and South Ossetia
Morocco
Tunisia
Egypt
Tanzania (6 months residence in Dar es Salaam)
Kenya
Ethiopia, briefly crossed the defunct border and was immediately detained by soldiers.
Zimbabwe
Zambia
Turkey
Syria
Jordan
Israel/Palestine
Qatar (residence just after birth)
South-Korea (6 months residence in Busan)
Japan
China
Thailand
Vietnam
Ragnar Kjartansson (1923-1988) opened his first ceramic studio, Funi Keramik, in 1947.
The pottery was first housed in the old downtown at 13 Odinsgata street, Reykjavík, Iceland. The first equipment and the ovens were built by Ragnar Kjartansson, who was the driving force behind the product development and design of the company. He was a member of the Icelandic Sculptors Society which he established in the Icelandic capital in 1972 along with Hallsteinn Siguryhsson, Jon Gunnar Arnason, Porbjörg Palsdottir and others.
Glit pottery can be recognized by the pieces of Icelandic volcanic rocks baked into the clay. I was very lucky to find a small vase online, which I bought.
In March 2020 I filed Data Access Request with Clearview. Apparently my face had been added to their database without my knowledge.
This is worrisome. The New York Times wrote an article about the practises of Clearview AI: “More than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year, according to the company, which declined to provide a list.” The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
It is likely my face has been added to a database of an American police department without my consent or even knowledge. Clearview was backed financially by Peter Thiel, a right wing venture capitalist. Another early investor is a small firm called Kirenaga Partners. Its founder, David Scalzo: “I’ve come to the conclusion that because information constantly increases, there’s never going to be privacy. Laws have to determine what’s legal, but you can’t ban technology. Sure, that might lead to a dystopian future or something, but you can’t ban it.”
Never have vaccines been more controversial as during the 2020 - 2022 pandemic. Yet vaccines have been part of our lives from the moment we were born. I have a comprehensive list of all the vaccines I had during my lifetime. My yellow booklet “International Certificate of Vaccination against yellow fever” (which also holds other vaccinations) from before 1992 has been lost during the airplane crash, therefore I have to guess my 1991 vaccines when I traveled to Kenya.
My childhood vaccines
8 March 1970: Small pox (Doha, Qatar).
April 1970: Diphtheria - Tetanus - Whooping Cough & Oral Polio. First dose (Doha, Qatar).
May 1970: Diphtheria - Tetanus - Whooping Cough. Second dose (Doha, Qatar).
June 1970: Diphtheria - Tetanus - Whooping Cough. Third dose. Oral Polio. Second dose (Doha, Qatar).
Age 18 months: Diphtheria - Tetanus - Whooping Cough & Oral Polio. Reinforcing dose Fourth dose.
14 June 1973. D. K. T. P. Booster (Winterswijk Netherlands).
27 October 1978. D.T.P. Booster (Winterswijk Netherlands).
20 Juli 1982. Tetanus, Netherlands (Winterswijk Netherlands).
Variola (small pox) virus
The vaccines I had for my travels to Kenya, Egypt, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Thailand.
1991: Yellow Fever and Hepatitis A vaccine, possibly BMR.
1 July 1995: Diphtheria-Tetanus-Poliomyelitis.
17 May 1995: Typhim Vi 0,5 ml.
17 May 1995: Hepatitis Propylaxe gamma-globuline 2 ml.
18 April 1997: Cholera.
18 April 1997: Meningovax 0,5 ml.
18 April 1997: Havrix, hepatitis A vaccine. 1 ml.
18 May 2001: 2e hepatitis A vaccine.
18 May 2001: Yellow Fever Vaccine, 0,5 ml.
29 May 2017: DTP.
13 June 2017: BMR, 1 ml.
Transmission electron microscopic image of an isolate from the first U.S. case of COVID-19, formerly known as 2019-nCoV. The spherical viral particles, colorized blue, contain cross-section through the viral genome, seen as black dots.
Influenza vaccine, once a year since 2018.
COVID-19 vaccines:
11 May 2021: Comirnaty, Pfizer/BioNTech, 0,3 ml.
16 June 2021: Comirnaty, Pfizer/BioNTech, 0,3 ml.
13 December 2021: Spikevax (Moderna), 0,25 ml (Germany).
9 July 2022: Moderna, 0,25 ml. I lied about getting my third vaccine in Germany in December 2021. For the Dutch authorities my fourth dose is my third dose (booster). I wasn’t allowed to get my fourth dose in The Netherlands because my age is below 60.
22 October 2022: Comirnaty, 15 mcg Original, 15 mcg Omicron BA.4-5. Since The Netherlands was using the Omicron BA.1 vaccine, which also protects well enough. Data doesn’t show a significant difference between the BA.4-5 and BA.1-vaccine. But because I could opt for Germany getting the Omicron BA.4-5 vaccine made more sense.
13 October 2023. mRNA-vaccin XBB1.5 van Pfizer/BioNtech. XBB1.5 was already sequenced in 2022. XBB.1.5 is a descendent lineage of XBB, which is a recombinant of two BA.2 descendent lineages.
[ These are some rough ideas I yet have to edit into a more comprehensive story. ]
In 2003 I logged into Second Life. It was an awkward experience. Second Life was to be the evolution of the internet: a 3D virtual space on a 2D screen. Even banks used marketing budget to establish a virtual bank branch in Second Life. Those places were deserted. Why spent time in a virtual ABN Amro bank? Just because you can is not a good answer. Dance floors would be packed though. I remember being able to score a green fairy while hanging out on a dance floor, a little avatar of a green fairy which would hover around you. Other than that Second Life was pretty boring and soon forgotten. Second Life still exists but the number of users has declined since its peak in the years after 2003.
The evolution of the internet in the first two decades of the 21st century would not be VR but social media on mobile devies with Facebook gaining the most users. In 2008 Facebook surpassed Myspace as the most-visited social media platform. In 2012 Facebook prioritized mobile and found its way to people’s mobile phones instead of desktop. I’m not sure if there is a correlation but the more time I spent on Facebook the less time I spent seeing friends face-to-face. Almost two years of isolation during the pandemic was a tipping point when it came to seeing friends. For this reason I am weary of Metaverse. I don’t want my avatar to meet friends’ avatars in VR while living this life alone. I will take the red pill and disappear into the forest.
Facebook is all about marketing data, user’s data, your data. This became a problem when Facebook started to market data to political interest groups. This contributed to the Brexit vote in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump in the same year.
In 2014 Facebook acquired virtual reality headset maker Oculus for 3 bililon USD. This acquisition would become important in the future strategy of Facebook.
By 2020 Facebook had become a dumpster fire. Mark Zuckerberg was refusing to safeguard its users from disinformation in targeted political advertisements. Journalist Carole Cadwalladr on Twitter: “It’s no longer possible to hold free & fair elections. But we can’t even acknowledge this.” Instead of repairing the existing Facebook platform Zuckerberg has double downed and announced a name change to Meta, ignoring the past and gave a glimpse of the future in an 1:17 hours presentation: The Metaverse and How We'll Build It Together.
The Metaverse merges 3D virtual reality with the current internet. This means part of our lives will be lived as avatars in virtual spaces. This set off images of the movie The Matrix (1999). Zuckerberg could have been announcing vaporware in the presentation and maybe, like Second Life, Metaverse will never take off. But maybe it will.
If it will, Metaverse will be an ad-supported space, dressing your avatar will likely cost money and if you want to hang virtual art in your Metaverse living room, you will likely have to pay for it, maybe with cryptocurrency. Zuckerberg left no misunderstanding that market places will be build into Metaverse. All the while your data will be exploited by Meta for profit.
Image from The matrix (1999). Do we need to be extracted from Metaverse?
Star Trek the next generation. The holodeck on board the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), year 2363 - 2371. Real people in a virtual reality space.
Metaverse at this point is a loose collection of ideas, part of it will be augmented reality (AR) instead of virtual reality (VR). Both are fundamentally different but could supplement each other if the AR experience carries over in VR seamlessly connected by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Current VR headsets can also do AR.
Algorithms are already shaping our experience on Facebook and Instagram. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has exposed how the company harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters in 2014 without authorisaztion. Personal information was used to target voters during the 2016 US election with personalized political advertisements. In 2015 Facebook was alerted to this breach but did little to recover the data. Cambridge Analytica was owned by hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon.
Wylie, Christopher (October 2019). Mindf*ck: inside Cambridge Analytica's plot to break the world. London, United Kingdom: Profile Books.
I don’t want to be blind to the positive aspects of Facebook and social media in general. It does connect people and families who sometimes live oceans apart. Dave Winer has an excellent point to make.
Further reading:
Facebook almost missed the mobile revolution. It can’t afford to miss the next big thing.
