Nota Bene

I’m a bit tired by now of all the AI news, but I guess I’ll have to put up with it a bit longer, for it’s sure to continue to be talked about non-stop for at least another year or two. Not that AI will then stop developing, of course; it’s just that journalists, bloggers, TikTokers, Tweeters and other talking heads out there will eventually tire of the topic. But for now their zeal is fueled not only by the tech giants, but governments as well: the UK’s planning on introducing three-way AI regulation; China’s put draft AI legislation up for a public debate; the U.S. is calling for “algorithmic accountability“; the EU is discussing but not yet passing draft laws on AI, and so on and so forth. Lots of plans for the future, but, to date, the creation and use of AI systems haven’t been limited in any way whatsoever; however, it looks like that’s going to change soon.

Plainly a debatable matter is, of course, the following: do we need government regulation of AI at all? If we do — why, and what should it look like?

Read on…

Not long after landing at the world’s scariest airport, we got straight into what we came for: we set off on our trek – at first through the narrow streets of Lukla; in among the donkeys dzos, of course…

In among the what? The dzos – a dzo being a hybrid between the yak and the cow. Well, well: this post’s only just begun and you’ve learned something new already!…

Read on…

The trek to the Nepalese Everest Base Camp covers a distance of some 50+ kilometers, takes around a week to complete, and starts out in the small town of Lukla. Not that getting to Lukla itself is super easy, since there are no roads to the place. I guess on-foot, horseback or motorbike are possible, but that would more time to an already rather lengthy hike up to the Base Camp. Accordingly, the main way most visitors reach Lukla is by air – plane or helicopter. And here’s the town – at the foot of the Himalayas, but still nearly 3000 meters above sea-level (as you can see from this aerial pic, the weather wasn’t so great from the outset) ->

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All right folks, you’ve had the intro-post on our trek up to the Everest South Base Camp in Nepal. Now for some details. Here’s how things went down up…

Every day of the trek was pretty much like… any page of a book – if you don’t get up too close to the words to be able to discern and read them, those pages are all pretty much the same…

Every morning we were up at the crack of dawn to pack the bags to be able to hand them to the sherpas at 7am. Then came a meagre (at least, to me) breakfast; still, I didn’t come for the gastronomy so – whatever. Then at 8 – everyone in our group to the hall of our guesthouse, and minutes later we were out and off…

Actually, the first day was a little different. We were up at 3.20am to leave our hotel in Kathmandu an hour later to make it in time to catch the very first scheduled chopper to Lukla. Quite why the need for such an early start I still don’t know (we only flew into the Nepalese capital the evening before), but never mind – we didn’t notice any tiredness as we kicked off the first day of our trek! First up, we take the main – or perhaps only – street of Lukla:

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Greetings boys and girls! 

Been a while, I know. But of course it has – I’ve been more than half-way up Everest! I’m not joking either )…

Indeed, I was fulfilling a long-held dream of mine – getting up to the southern Base Camp of Mount Everest – the one in Nepal. I’d already viewed the world’s highest point from the northern – Chinese – side when we took a road trip across Tibet (via China) in 2019. Well now the time had come to check it out from the other side. And here it is – the peak of Everest (left of center) ->

In short, we gave our bags to Sherpas to carry, put just the bare necessities + the all-important photo-video equipment into our own backpacks, and off we popped. And we made it! Not all, but many of us )…

Read on…

Curiously, in the comments at the bottom of my Instagram post about my visit to Orenburg, a dear reader suggested we visit her nearby hometown of Gui (pronounced Guy; not Gay). Another commenter stated something along the lines of, “What? That hole?!” To which the original commenter retorted, ~”actually, yes – it is a hole, kinda, since it has the deepest hole mine in the whole of Europe!” This interaction was all the more amusing to me since I was reading it… in Gui!…

We flew to Gui (incidentally, a +1 to my list of cities in the world visited) by helicopter. Perfect. In the car we would have missed the fantastic aerial-panoramic views of the vast steppe, and it’d have taken us four hours…

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Hi folks!

Sorry I’ve been quiet of late, but I was away on a business trip in the Orenburg oblast (region) and it was non-stop intense work, so I didn’t have time to write up my impressions. So here, today, is me catching up…

Orenburg-region highlight? There were three actually…

The first – a personal record: the furthest I’ve been underground (1310 meters below the surface!) ->

The second – the lecture I gave at Orenburg State University organized by the progressive folks at the Orenburg branch of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media ->

And the third: a small dose of tourism, naturally. This included a pleasant stroll along Orenburg’s main pedestrianized street ->

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Finally, my Asia-Pacific tour (Korea–Japan–Singapore–Thailand) had come to an end. My physical body, if it could talk, would probably say “and thank god Buddha it’s ended too!”, since the tour sure was physically draining: flights every ~three days, and nothing much else besides work-work-work in-between. However, my mind would never say such a thing. It’s what I do, and what I love doing. It’s on trips away like this one when I feel fully alive – completely in-sync with the rhythm of life.

Bye bye Thailand! We’re heading home!…

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Hi all!

Central Bangkok river excursion – done.

Next up, as promised, it was back on land and a walk over to the Grand Palace and former royal residence. And royally grand, swish, sumptuous, splendid and magnificent it is too…

All righty. Walkies…

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Our business in Thailand duly completed, it was time for my traditional spot of micro-tourism. First things first – boat trip on the Chao Phraya river through the heart of Bangkok…

In a nutshell: beauty all around – plenty.

We pass our first “temple/palace” – a beaut – but, curiously and perplexingly, it turns out it’s nothing special – neither noteworthy nor Wiki-worthy. I couldn’t even find it on Google Maps! Rather – I could, but it’s not marked as this or that temple or palace; it’s just someone’s mansion, it seems! ->

Read on…