A rediculous spelling mistake by the UN

In 1971 the Princess of Iran Ashraf Pahlavi, sister of Shah Reza Pahlevi, presented the United Nations Secretary General U Thant with a replica of Cyrus Cylinder. This archeologic artefact stems from the 6th century BC and was excavated in 1879 by Hormuzd Rassam, an Iranian-British archeologist. On the clay cylinder a declaration is written in Akkadian cuneiform script, guaranteeing equal rights to every subordinate of the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great, independent on nation or religion. In the late 1960s the Cylinder gained new prominence when the last Shah of Iran called it "the world's first charter of human rights". The cylinder was a key symbol of the Shah's political ideology and is still regarded by some commentators as a charter of human rights, despite the disagreement of some historians and scholars. He wrote that "the history of our empire began with the famous declaration of Cyrus, which, for its advocacy of humane principles, justice and liberty, must be considered one of the most remarkable documents in the history of mankind."

On top of the UN protocol about the ceremony are some handwritten remarks, which show that even in the surpreme international organisation some people had difficulties in not mixing historical characters and places of the mideastern hemisphere.  Instead of linking Iran to the "Edict of Cyrus", they "newly invented" an "Edict of Cyprus". It would be interesting to find out if a copy of this protocol was ever forwarded to the Shahs palace in Teheran, maybe with a post-it saying "For your information" !!  This typo remained unnoticed for more than 40 years,  although the protocol must have been available in the web since several years.

The entire UN protocol can be found here.

               

ELIZA - The Phantastic Answering Machine

Dear Michael,

sometimes I wonder about how much we trust in the electronic communication, that one person writes some words to another person thousands of km away, and these words are converted into a sequence of bits and rush through computer chips and are converted into electric pulses or light waves, send back and forth to satellites until they finally reach the recipient. And the recipient for some reason does not question that the words he reads in the message are nothing else but the written thoughts that his friend has hammered into the keyboard thousands of km away.
Shouldn"t we be more cautious about the messages we receive day by day ? I don"t mean the mail I receive from you, I"m always sure that they come from you, cause they have their very unique style and always contain some code-words that mark them as authentic. But my younger brother, who is studying IT technology in the 2nd course now has shown me something they are doing currently. They got the project to develop a computer program that is able to write "fake answers" to an e-mail. I don"t know how they are doing it, but the program searches for some keywords in an incomming message, and than replies with some sort of standard sentences (that are usually not very complex or intelligent) which again contain the same keywords.
So my dear brother asked me to test his program. Therefore I send him an e-mail and within some micro-seconds already got an answer:

My Dear Brother,
I send you my best wishes to persian New-Year. Did you received my present that I send you by post ? When I packed the parcel I cut my fingers with the scissors and had to put bandage on and now I can only use my left hand. I went with Shava to the mountains on Saturday, because with an injured finger the only proper thing to do is to go out for a walk in nature. We would have liked to stay there till Sunday, but I have no time because I have to prepare for the lecture at college. The students of the new curse will arrive tomorrow, and they want to be entertained properly. I hope you doing well and work hard to become the next Bill Gates or J.v.Neumann.
In love, your sister

No have a look at the answer I received instantly from his program:

"Dear Sister,
O, I did not knew there was persian New-Year. What present you send, I did not received anything. O, you cut your fingers ? Interesting, why you need the scissors for this ! Did Shava liked the mountains ? What else did you do on Saturday ? So the students will come. I hope they will have fun.

Take Care
/your brother"


And now, what you think ? Do you find that the program is doing a good job ? I know my brother was never very keen sending long letters to anybody, but at least he put his own (crazy) ideas into it. But the program that he wrote virtually only repeats what I wrote in my original message. I think it is better to carry on writing down our thoughts, even though the answers may take a bid longer.

Hope everything is fine with you, Good Night.
Ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,
So funny to read your experiences with your brother. Thanks god, it is just a technical project that sends you such standard and formal letters in response to a mail. The quality of a machine-based artificial intelligence was actully tested by one of the earliest and most influential computer scientist (Alan Turing) by setting up a similar device that you and your borther were using. Turing suggested, that an experimentalist should do two verbal dialogues in parallel behind two black curtains. Behind one of the curtains a human person should sit to conduct a dialogue with him, wherease behind the other curtain the artificial-intelligence machine had to be placed. If the experimentalist could not tell after a certain time where the talking machine was and where the person was, than according to A.Turing the machine has passed the criteria of having indeed artificial intelligence.
But I could imagine, that this also depends a lot on the experimentalist. Simple-minded people might get fooled very easily, they might even think that a mail-response from your brothers program comes from a real person. Other people who read and wright a lot are probably much more critical. I could imagine that you are extremely critical. I think it will not be possible for any machine to fool you. You have somethink like a seventh sense to tell what is real and what is fake.

There were several attempts among IT freaks to beat Alan Turings test. They were called Chatter-Bots and among them ELIZA was probably the most famous. ELIZA was such an artifical language dialoge program developed at MIT. The exciting thing was that it should play the role of a psychoanalyst, talking to a patient. When Weizenbaum developed ELIZA, it was the time of Flower-Power, Hippie-Music and mind-extending drugs for the young, but the elder generation discovered the healing power of psycho-therapy. I guess this was the motivation for Weizenbaum designing ELIZA as a psychatrists chatter-bot. But even though ELIZA impressed some people really a lot (they were told that the doctor has a bad flue and therefore talks to them from behind a courtain), dedicated linguists that used the Turing Test could tell that it was only a machine.

I hope you can sleep well and don"t carry on endless dialogues with a machine in your dreams.

Take Care, Ghazal,
Michael

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Hi Michael,
a last remark before midnight: Do you know why the computer program by Weizenbaum, that could participate in seemingly meaningful dialogues, was called ELIZA ? There was the character of Eliza Dolittle, a simple, uneducated person with a very basic language in G.B.Shaws play "Pigmalion" (later in the funny musical "May Fair Lady"). Two university professors, one of them was Mr. Higgins, made a bet: Higgins promised that he will "re-educate" Eliza Dolitte with brute force, give her not just elegant clothes but also a new language. And he will guide Eliza Dolittle to a reception of the high society and nobody should recognised that before she was selling flowers on the market every day. Guess what happend ?

Take care
/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal my Dear,

What is wrong with a girl that sells flowers all day long ?
(See, now you caught me responding to you in the answering-machine-style ;-).
I promise I wont do it again. But don"t expect me to read G.B.Shaws "Pygmalion" now to answer your question. It is already after midnight, and I have to go for a walk with our dog.


I"ll tell you tomorrow about what I think about Eliza Dolittles qualities as a chatter-bot.

Take Care, Good Night
Michael

Darbareye Elly

hi michael,

I did not knew before that UV-light is so essential for our body to produce vitamine D. Interesting aspect, I have to consider this in my PhD-project. So maybe after UV-exposure my TK60 cells are really better off, cause they finally get some vitamine D after living for too long time in the dark incubator ? ;-) And what do you say now: Last year you have been wondering why I prefer to walk home instead of taking the bus. I then told you it is very relaxing for me, cause this way I can let my thoughts flow freely. Now it appears that I intuitively might have known that it is really healthy to spend some time out in the open to reconstitute my vitamine D reservoir.

I already saw the movie "Darbareye Elly" (what means "All About Elly", but the original title in persian is "Kanojo ga kieta hamabe")  about two years ago, after it received the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin film festival. But I watched it again yesterday with Shava.

I liked the movie, although it was no easy entertainment. It had no Happy End, but a Tragic End.
The story starts very relaxed, showing three young families (including Ahmad, brother of one of the women, who just came from Germany where he divorced) spending a weekend at a seaside cottage at the caspian sea. The three families have the silly idea to bring together the lonely Ahmed with the baby-sitter Elly, although they know that she is engaged with another man in Teheran. Whereas all the three couples and Ahmed start to make stupid jokes about this plan, laugh about Elly when she is not around and all appeare very superficial to me, Elly herself is much more closed. She is a girl with some mysteries, she keeps secrets and does not like the continious jokes about the attempted matchmaking a lot. She tries to do the job that she was officially hired for: looking after the little kids of the three families. She frequently calls her mom, who is ill, and after one day she decides that it is better to return to Teheran. The three couples don"t want to let her go, they hide her luggage and her mobile phone. She says that she has to leave and would even walk home. The three couples and Ahmad ignore her and start to play Volleyball and go shopping. Elly helps the kids to fly a kite, but suddenly one of the little boys falls into the water and almost dies. The three man, interrupting their game get panik and jump into the sea, so finally the boy is rescued. But after some minutes they recognise that Elly is missing. And suddenly, the relaxed relationship between the three couples and Ahmed turn into aggression and hate. Everybody accuses the others of beeing responsible for the desaster.

After one day, indeed Ellys dead body is found in the sea: She obviously died while trying to rescue the little boy. The three couples now have to inform some relatives of Elly about the accident, and they can only find Alireza, the man to whom Elly was engaged since three years. They find out his telephone number and ask him to come, claiming that Elly is just ill. When he arrives at the site, finding out that she in fact died, he breaks down. The three couples don"t want to admit that Elly was only invited to this weekend trip to match her to the divorced Ahmad. They try to make Alireza believe that Elly was hired exclusively as a baby-sitter. So they want to get around the conflict by adding more and more lies on top of each other. You can feel how their only concern is to get away with their responsibility.

I think Asghar Farhadi, the movie director, tried to show that this practise of organized partnerships for young family-members is highly questionable and it bears the seed for a tragedy. It is based on the arrogant idea that relatives know best what is good for their son or brother or daughter, and they can easily find a suitable partner using their own judgement. It is obvious that Elly hates this, since she is not sure about her 3 year long engagement with Alireza. But the three stupid couples and Ahmad think that they have the right to interfere with her emotions. They make unpolite jokes about Elly, they lie, and they dont respect her privacy. They are too superficial to see that Elly is full of doubts about her future, and that she does not want to be pushed into a new relationship. She has thoughts that are not for the public, emotions that she does not want to show around.
At the end, this stupid idea of pushing two person together leaves behind two victims: a physical one (Elly, who dies) and her former boyfriend Alireza (who breaks down emotionally). The bad thing is that the three couples continue to lie to Alireza although they see how much he suffers from Ellies death: They tell him that Elly knew from the beginning that the weekend-trip with the three families was intended to bring her together with Ahmad. By this lie, the three couples so cruely leave the mourning Alireza believe, that his girl-friend Elly was searching for an easy adventure with another man. But Elly, in fact, never agreed with this, she said she only joines the company to look after the kids.

I would like to hear what you think about the movie.

take care
/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

Tonight I went to see the movie "Darbareye Elly". It was shown in one of the very small cinemas here, which are specialized on Arthouse movies.

Although you had told me already a lot about it before, it was nice to see it. After the first 5 minutes of the movie, however I thought that we might talk about two different things, cause it started so nice and relaxed, when they drove through the tunnel and all were just shouting for fun. And then they had this short stop-over at a small river, and I immediately recognised the russian Samovar, because we have exactly the same one (as part of a big collection of even older ones). And in the beach cottage, I recognised the old russain fridge, type "Wolga", cause we have the same one in our cottage in Bulgaria. So initially I was a bid distracted by pictures, also had problems to follow the subtitles and at the same time understand the relationship between all the characters and their names (you should have provided me with a sort of set-list of all character and who is married to whom and which kid belongs to which couple). Anyhow, after a while I got the impression that all the seven characters are interchangeable, they looked differently but acted similar. The only exception was Elly, who was mysterious. When she disappeared after the accident with the boy I was hoping for about an hour, that she might not have died in the sea, but just left the place to escape the silly jokes and the attempted match-making. When she was eventually identified in the mortuary it was really sad and I was almost ready to leave the cinema.

Elly reminded my a lot of you, Ghazal. She was also calm and the exact opposite of the loud and superfiscial society around her. She had secrets, that she wanted to keep for herself. She had an aura of pride and aristocracy, which stoud in sharp contrast to the other characters who never thought about the right of privacy or secrets. It is a pitty that it was Elly who died in the movie. I so much wished to see her finding a new live, deciding about her own future, to stay strong and nice and get happy.

As usual , I wish you all the best, success with the project, happyness in daily life but also exciting dreams.

Take Care, Ghazal.

Michael

Full Moon at Dawn

Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

I went to the Bayerischer Hof Jazz-Club yesterday, listened to a funny band "Titus Waldenfels and friends" who played on weired instruments. But they had an amazing singer Julia Schöter from Freising. With closed eyes one could imagine it is Natalie Cole there on stage.
Every second song they played was about the Moon. Like "Paper-Moon", "Moon over Manhattan". It appeared, that it was indeed full-moon night, and therefore I did a foto of it (sorry, its a bid blurred, but I hope you like it anyhow.)

Take Care    Michael

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hi michael,

who was there at the club yesterday ?  Is the gigolo-type waiter still working ?  I remember when we went there on my last evening in Munich, it was nice Music, but only few guests. Is it always so empty ?

greetings
/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal,

I think its is always pretty empty during the evening, when the live-bands play. Later at night, they switch to dance-music from CD and it turns more into a night-club. Than more people come, but this happens usually only at around midnight (We had already left then).  The personel is still the same, and they are so friendly and polite, even though they have to deal with strange guest (like yesterday, a middle-aged lady insisted she wants to dance bare-foot (!!). After two songs, she stopped to dance, toke her coat and wanted to leave the club (without paying her bill, but still bare-footed). Still, the waiter remained very polite.

TAKE CARE,

Michael

The excited Explorer

hi michael,
you send yesterday the article from "The Onion" about the first people on the moon. i was very shocked initially by the rude language. i could not believe that an educated person such as you reads and even circulates such a primitive conversation ? But then I reconsidered and tried to understand what the article is mainly about: O.k., it uses a lot of blasphemic words, like you hear on Octoberfest. But when we ignore those, what remains from this conversation of Armstrong and Aldrin during their first walk over the moon is: They were just emotionally overwhelmed. And there is absolutely nothing bad about this, in opposite: I find it bad if somebody who discovers nature, explores the unknown and steps into a sphere no one else has been before, if he (or she) does not allow any expression of excitement.
Therefore, if Armstrong and Aldrin would have indeed shouted "Fucking Christ, we"re on the bloody Moon", I would 100% feel with them. They were human as we, and why shouldn"t they go absolutely mad walking on the moon, if we are already so much excited just looking on the moon from here.
So who knows, maybe once we discover a gene for a strange disease, we will also shout in the lab "Holy shit, I found this fucking mutation".

Enjoy the evenig, sleep well
/ghazal

Beach without you

Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

I hope you are doing well and feel o.k.
Is it quiet now in the Lab ? Usually this is the best time to concentrate on the project. I hope so much that you find some intellectual satisfaction with the project and not have to consider it as a hard burden and a duty to fulfill.
I prepared some text about the mapping, the markers, the mouse strains and linkage. It should somehow fit into the thesis structure (as much as I remember it was part 2 or so). Just break it apart into the several sub-headings.

And of course, if you find in the text something difficult to understand or wrong or strange, please write me back. I very much like the intellectual conversation with you and I learn a lot from your questions as well.

I will also send you something that explains the animal experiments (the older ones we did years ago and the JF1 x FVB crosses). Was Prof. T. already around ?

I think of you and your aristocratic character, that is so much different from the people here around which are very loud and miss any sense of ellegance. This is usually what one can expect at a beach,but the kids like this and therefore I have to decline.
I"m waiting to see you next week.

Take Care,my dear

Michael

................................................................

Hi Michael!!

T. has not been here yet. I think he chose this week on purpose. Both
you and M. are on vacation.
It is a bit quiet yes. I put aside the labwork yesterday and today to
sit and read and write. btw, the sequencing worked!! im happy. me and
claudia will maybe analyse the data later today.
it is not a burden to do this project. everything has been good so far.

I do not know how to thank you for writing so much for me. i have
written a bit about the mapping and microsatellite and QTL. but it was
not as much as yours. so thank you. you should not do this on your
vacation. just go and have fun. right now i am concentrating at the
first part with chernobyl and thyroid cancer.

take care and see you next week!

/ghazal

...............................................................
Ghazal my Dear,

Good to hear that you managed so well to continue with the project and the thesis during this week. Good luck with the sequence analysis,hope you and C. find some interesting variations between the two strains.
I attache a piece of text that describes the rational for using the JF1 and the FVB/N strain in this project. Please double-check if any of the chromosomal loci or gene names are consistent with what you wrote before. Also, in case you find any other discrepancies with the other text-pieces,please mark it in red and we will go through when I am back.

Ghazal, please don"t feel obliged to say "Thank you" for these small pieces of text. It is my very duty as a supervisor to help you with this. It is you who is doing the sophisticated and very decent experimental work day-by-day, without complaining that it is getting boring. Therefore,it is in fact me who must be extremely grateful. Don"t forget this, please.
And what is maybe even more relevant, that you always have this endless patience with me, if I come around and require that you spend the time after work with me. No MSc student has the commitment of going to the movies or to an exhibition or to the beach with its supervisor, or attend with him a concert or watch the meteor shower in the middle of the night. You could have in fact complaine with Prof. T. right from the beginning and ask for another project or another supervisor. I know I was always a bit violently when I asked you to meet me after work,and who knows how often I have disturbed your planing for the evening when you wanted to read or write something for the project. Therefore,it is the least I can do to help you to get everything together know for the thesis, it is a very small compensation for all the nice days and moments you have been with me and for having been always so patient and listened to my silly stories and telling me something from you. You could have easily send me to hell, you never did (I hope you dont wish you could have done this, but you did not wanted to risk your project).

Ghazal, you will see at the end (and everybody will agree) that a successful MSc project does not need this archetypical and hirarchical relation between student and supervisor, but it also can be done if there is a (sort of) frienship.
For me,to be honest, you are too much a mystery to call this a simple friendship.

I wish you a pleasant evening, a relaxing night, and nice dreams.

Michael

PS:How is your watch doing ? I hope that "No news are good news" and it runs precisely now, since you gave it a bit more freedom around your arm.

...............................................................
hi michael,

i think i found one mutation on the third exon.

yes u are right i could ask prof. t. for another project (and he would not give me another since i already tried in the beginning). but i enjoy it here i would not do it. u could also be a bad supervisor and not wanting to help. so i am grateful.

i send u a text with some questions. answer just if u have time. no hurry.

my watch is suprisingly doing great!its strange.

have a good day!!
/ghazal
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Ghazal my Dear,

Congratulations for finding a sequence variation in FGF10 in one of the mouse strains..
You could check (using Ensembl and search for FGF10 in mouse,and click on the left panel on the button for variations) if this sequence alteration was already described in any other mouse strain. You should also check if it might cause an amino-acid change, in case it is still part of the coding sequence (I remember large parts of exon 3 were already 3" UTR. Maybe you find something.
Before I left, I already ordered primers to test the FGF10 transcript and expression. Could you,please write a mail to O. and ask if and where she has stored the JF1 and FVB/N RNA or cDNA from thyroid (she extracted it as part of her MSc for the expression array).

Thanks for writing that you feel o.k. with how the project developed and that you are o.k. with everything and don"t regret that you came to Munich. You gave me the nicest and most exciting summer of my life, Ghazal. I never felt so much inspiration, excitement and satisfaction to share with somebody a project and many hours after work as with you.

Take Care

Michael

PS:I go through your text today and send you comments tomorrow

Back to the Scrap-Yard

Ghazal, my Dear,

After dropping you at the Guesthouse today, I was quarreling once again with myself for having missed the opportunity to kiss you. It was silly, I know, in particular after I made this terrible observation at a scrap-yard for cars. There I found the remnants of a red Toyota Corolla, that had its upper part shaved away as if St.Michaels sword was used to convert into a cabriolet, and the chairs stained with blood. Obviously, a whole families life was extinguished in an terrible car accident, perhaps within tenth of a second.
Maybe at least once in life one should see how instantly all our long-term plans can literally end in a scrap-compactor and our patience while waiting for second chances in life becomes obsolete.


Therefore I so much enjoy the moments with you, although I always know in advance how terrible it will be later on, when I have to leave you.

Michael

............................................................................................

hi michael,

yes it is nice to be with you. but as friends. and we know that i will leave soon, to go back home.
about the kiss,i am greatful that you did not go so far because i appreciate your friendship very much.hope you understand.

good night and have a good week-end.

/ghazal
...........................................................................................

Hi Ghazal dear,

I very much appreciate your clear and firm statement, I think it is always best to be honest. I hope you considered my open, maybe shameless words in the last e-mail the same way and can tolerate them. The things are as they are, I have no clear idea how to handle it, no experience how to get alonge when emotional and professional relations intermingle. I very much admire that you deal with everything more wisely. For me it is a big help that you can live with the persian-cat blog (as long as it keeps your privacy intact) and that you have no problems communicating by e-mail with me.
What is most important right now, that your MSc project is not hampered, I think it even benefits from it. If you got a different feeling, please tell me.

Take Care, Sleep well

Michael

Munich-Stockholm Chat

Hi Ghazal, did you arrived well in Stockholm ?
Take Care, Michael

............................................................................................
Hi Michael!
Yes I arrived well. Came home very late so I just slept.
Thank you for all the help yesterday.
Take care!
/Ghazal

............................................................................................
Dear Ghazal,
You don"t have to say "Thank you", honestly, I did not felt doing something that I did not enjoyed myself. The few hours walking around town with you and chatting are always like a short holiday break for me. Therefore, If anybody has to say "thank you", it would rather be me.
Take care, my dear
Michael

Swedish Guide through IKEA

Dear Ghazal,

You probably filled your apartment already with the vanilla smell coming from the scent candle. Be carefull you don"t fall asleep with the candle still burning !!!
Was Chrysi satisfied with the pillow ? I was really amazed when I saw you testing the quality of the different cushions at the IKEA store. It so much reminded me of the fairytale "Prinzess on the pea" by Anderson (I think in swedish it is call "Prinsessan på ärten"). Did your parents told you this story ? If not, remind me of it and I will tell you sometime.
Ghazal, I have to admit that I was lying to you today: I have never been to this IKEA befor. I guess you felt it already when I drove 20 km to far north. Thanks god you are such a polite person that you did not said anything. I hope you are not disappointed now. I promise you, in general I"m very thrustworthy. An in particular if it comes to finding a way through an unknown landscape.

I will send you the old e-mail with the pictures from Berlin to your Helmholtz-Address, cause the images are probably to large to be seen on your mobile.

Sleep well ,
Michael

PS: I rarely had such an entertaining ride on the motorway, through the rain and the traffic jam as today with you. And I"m very happy if I can make you laugh.

Birthday

Hi Dr. R.,

Thank you for looking it up for me. it sounds good. The 20 june is my birthday so I have planned to go back home that weekend. And plus maybe it is better to focus more on the masterproject. I have a german book I will try to learn from that.But I will keep it as an option.

I"d like to thank you again for helping me with the project description, I was worrying about it a bit. I will write it in my own words as good as possible.

You said it will be a bit empty next week. I was thinking of not coming in, in the beginning of the week. When will you be there? I will come on wednesday around 2 o"clock. I will take this opportunity to read up on the litterature and write a good project description.

Thank you.

Take care, see you tomorrow.

/Ghazal F

A very polite Cat

Hi Ghazal,

Thank you very much for your e-mail. It was a pleasure to read some words from you. Hope you had a nice day.
I"ll be in the Lab tomorrow only for a few hours, at around lunch I"ll leave to see my parents in Berlin and some friends (where I stay till Wednesday). We talk tomorrow about the best way to organize next week. (Claudia is also away).

I already told the people at KLARTEXT that you want attend the course at the 20th since it is your birthday. They said it is no problem, and in fact they even offered that one can start the course anytime (even now), but this implies that one steps in when the other students are already advanced.
Ghazal, I"m sure that in mid June you have already learned some words or phrases in german just from the people in the Lab, so that missing the first lesson at the school won"t matter.

wish you good night

Michael

PS: please don"t call me Dr.R.
Nobody in the Lab uses these official titles. If you continue with this, I will start to call you Mrs.F (what sounds very nice, I have to admitt).