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I suspect, if the event occurs in 2029 (as Kurzweil predicts), it will most likely be Facebook, or Russian/Chinese state social monopolies. I see A.I. to be monopolistic in nature.Also how do we define AGI?In many narrow fields of specialism, AI is already superhuman, and is able in many cases to generalise and transfer learning across specific tasks sets… However I suspect you’re referring to true AGI, Artificial General Intelligence. I see the breadth of AI’s generalisability widening such that it’s less noticeable, and one day we wake up to discover we’ve already surpassed the AGI frontier.Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns which has been provably accurate, at least within the required tolerances of my assertion, and he places the development of super-human general artificial intelligence around 2029.What comes after that is unknown, but I also believe the following line in film, The Matrix, spoken by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to be an accurate account of reality:-“We have only bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early 21st century, all of mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI: a singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines.”-Morpheus (The Matrix, 1999)The rational for this belief is based upon more than just an interest in Hollywood sci-fi, but rather, it stems from two decades of my career in Search Engine Optimisation.As an SEO practitioner, I have been required to study Google closely. This consequentially led me, more recently to the intense study of A.I. for the last five years. Thankfully, all with the help and guidance of my good friend, Dr Suresh Manandhar, Head of A.I. Research, The University of York.Little had I considered what was developing in Europe and their new monopoly Commissioner Auntie Trust, aka Margrethe Vestager.It started as an open letter only to become this ongoing piece of a flow of consciousness, which i hope one day to edit into something singularly coherent. (Editorial assistance would be appreciate - [email protected])Margrethe Knows! as do her colleagues, who realise what the implications are.Morpheus’ reference to a point in time…“some point in the early 21st century,”If we were to consider super-human capabilities in the narrow sense, many of the examples we’re shown involve games. While Go and AlphaGo’s defeat of Lee Sedol was the most publicised AI landmark in 2016. There are a number of developments in A.I. during 2017 that deeply concern me. Moreover, the fact that the worrying capabilities which I’ll detail later, can only be implemented by very few organisations, organisations who themselves are monopolistic.In my opinion, the Morpheus Moment, as I’ll refer to it from here, happened sometime between August 25th 2017 to September 1st 2017. Let me explain where I’m coming from with this claim.A.I. Monopoly Out-Manoeuvres E.U. CommissionOn August 25th 2017, it was the conclusion of our team, having a month earlier been selected from the applicants to hold the required credentials and experience to participate in an EU Government tender.Our team was invited by the European Commission to tender for the role of Monitoring Trustee in the Monopoly Case against Google, to ensure their compliance following The Commission’s ruling and the accompanying fine of $2.4 Billion Euro (Case search - Competition - European Commission).On the 25th August, we concluded, that despite having the capability and resources to measure algorithmic bias within Google’s organic search, the task presented in this next phase of the tender to be impossible and unworkable, based upon the parameters detailed in: COMMITMENTS IN Case COMP/C-3/39.740 - Foundem and others.It was concluded that the task to be impossible for the following reasons.Neural Networks cannot be audited in any kind of traditional sense which may previously been applicable. One of the members of my team, a former Economics Advisor to the European Union - had a lot of experience in regulatory cases in which he had, on occasion, participated in dawn raids on Telcos in order to obtain forensic evidence. However in Google’s case, this option was no longer available, due to the Ranking Algorithm (RankBrain) to have been announced in October 2015 see Bloomberg Video: Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI MachinesInterpretability…. there’s not enough brains one the planet to look at it”-Yann LeCunnFormer Head of AI Research - Facebook presents the mechanics of this none negotiable handicap.The Great AI Debate - NIPS2017 - Yann LeCunISPs no longer have visibility - what had previously been a trivial method for regulators was no longer an option… The option to subpoena data from the IPSs was closed-off since Google had incentivised web-masters, as of on August 6th 2014, to switch to using secure HTTPs, in exchange for (at first) a modest boost in rankings (see HTTPS as a ranking signal) this ranking advantage was gradually increased to allow slow movers to transition without a dramatic impact on Search Engine result quality. The secure connection removed the opportunity for ISP level analysis of the ranking algorithm and detection of any anomalous artificial bias (ie Google favouring it’s own interests).Statistical machine learning - the third option, which trivial within Organic Search, is an approach which I have further developed over the last 5 years, having formulated the approach over the previous decade. This is based upon the variable position of web pages within a given search result set before and after the application of an algorithm update and uses probabilistic machine learning to identify the principal components distilled from data related to two groups:-Group A - Those pages which benefitted from the update.Group B - Those pages which suffered from the update.The algorithm update itself being easily identifiable as a peak in standard deviation across a result set or collection of result sets in a given country (or regional index - ie Google.co.uk, Google.com.au, Google.jp) - However: in this shopping case, the parameters of the analysis (detailed in COMMITMENTS IN Case COMP/C-3/39.740 - Foundem and others.) required the analysis to be performed on shopping results, for retail in general - rather than a subset of retail, such as mens shoes) in 11 countries, 13 languages. Since the team had access to some of the largest retail Adwords accounts from which to derive a regression model of the quality score derivation.The technology we developed for this purpose is designed to scale without limits, but the problem arises in how shopping search works- Multi-variant testing of landing pages- Split testing of ad creatives- day-parting strategies- massive initial search space of queries in retail… all of which balloon the numbers into a scale which would require bypassing Google reCaptcha v2, with additional unknown factor of what reCaptcha v3 might look like.Other additional complexities include:-- Personalised results and simulating logged in state- mobile vs desktop results- voice search…NOTE: most importantly a probabilistic model was required to return results with a minimum 90% confidence, in order for it to be viable, admissible evidence.I cover more detail in the book [edited for trademark reasons from “Google: The Penultimate Monopoly” to “Search: The Penultimate Monopoly” ] which I will have the PDF first edition finished by March this year.Email me for a preview copy - mail me [email protected] and I’ll ensure you get one (use PreviewBook in the subject line.We marvelled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AIThe team and I were disheartened with the non-result, having got so far as to qualify for the tender in the first place.The following month, our economics expert, based in Brussels, having attended the meetings related to the case at The Commission informed me that he had learned at the most recent meeting the following revelation:-None of the teams were able to make the numbers work.Here we have the first case of a Government agency being unable to ensure a monopoly ruling was being observed.Additionally, the ruling it’s self was made against an AI monopoly, which was being mistakenly considered to be simply a Search monopoly.This case was more important that many give credit. Throughout each technological evolution there always comes an associated monopoly case.IBM: 1969-1982 (U.S. v. International Business Machines Corp.).The thirteen-year legal battle was finally dropped by Reagan's Justice Department. The market share had declined from 70% to 62%.Microsoft: 1998-2001 (Final Judgment | ATR | Department of Justice). Overturned at appeal, with Microsoft settling to play nicely with other PC manufacturers.Google: 2015-2017 (European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Antitrust: Commission fines Google €2.42 billion for abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service). Google, the week following the final application for the Monitoring Trustee tender, announced an appeal against the 2.4 Billion Euro fine.As we see, the ruling against Google was the first tech monopoly case to result in such an outcome with credit to the fantastic work of Margrethe Vestager - European Commission.However this case, originally dates back to 2006 (http://www.foundem.co.uk/Foundem...) - to put that in context…The Apple iPhone had not been released to the public in 2006.Back in 2006 - Google was a search engine, but I’d argue that today, while the vast majority of Google’s revenues have mostly and are still derived from Search Adversiting (Google: ad revenue 2001-2016 | Statista )Google in 2017 is the world’s first AI monopolyGoogle’s monopolistic AI capabilities are enabled by the combination of near limitless computational capacity and instant access to the world’s information.I’ll explain the significance of this next part in more detail later. For now it’s important to remain mindful that Google’s actual compute capabilities remain unknown.Nowhere is it published how many servers and processors are available at any given time, moreover we are unable to estimate this public company’s aggregate compute capability based on Google’s financial records, for example by analysing their energy consumption.Google own the energy grid which supply many of their data-centres and good luck finding any information on Google Energy LLC. Google (as we now all take for granted) has aggregated, sorted and filtered the worlds public information and since Gmail started offering massive amounts of free storage, this now extends to much of the world’s private information.Enabling Viable Artificial IntelligenceThe two most important requirements which are driving AI advancements are the availability of data and compute. Which position Google as an AI superpower.Currently Google is an AI monopoly. The algorithms themselves, though they are now evolving rapidly, remain relatively unchanged since the 80s, and even earlier.The core innovations which led to neural network based AI, including Deep Learning and Deep Reinforcement Learning and for the most part this also applies to statistical methods such as:-Support Vector MachinesRandom ForestsK-Nearest-NeighboursBig-O Notation Should Be Renamed To set(realismIndex(x)realismIndex(x))This computational challenge which relates the size of the data to the number of calculations required to perform a given function upon it is formalised in Big O notation.The following PDF shows how that applies specifically to a selection of machine learning algorithms: https://eferm.com/wp-content/upl...In summary: machine learning algorithms require increasing computational power per data-point and this requirement grows non-linearly as the volume of data-points increases.In order to solve the search engine scaling problem, Google had to solve many problems, which today enable many of the developments in AI. It is not unreasonable to assert that it was the field of Search that led to the success of A.I. - since Search and AI share a superset of technological problems, which have (in many cases) been solved.Google’s Jeff Dean[1], solved many of the problems related to indexing the world’s information, in his pioneering work which includes, Google’s Distributed File System, Map-Reduce and Bigtable and now leads the Google Brain project, Jeff continued much of the earlier work of Geoffrey Hinton, currently Professor of Computer Science University of Toronto, also currently he holds a position as and Engineering Fellow at Google. Hinton, co-invented the Boltzmann machine (Boltzmann machine - Wikipedia) in 1985 and is recognised as a one of the pioneers neural networks. Jeff, having worked with Google since mid 1999 designed and implemented many of the innovations at Google which include portions of the Advertising system but more relevant to our challenge as that he designed and implemented:MapReduce (https://static.googleusercontent...), a methodology whereby distributed computation may carried out over multiple machines in parallel.Bigtable (https://static.googleusercontent...), a distributed storage system for structured data designed to run on cheap commodity hardware connected via a network.In 2011, Jeff and a small team of engineers invented DistBelief. The following quote is taken from the original paper ["Large Scale Distributed Deep Networks"](https://static.googleusercontent...) which Jeff co-authored with his colleagues. Utilizing the tens of thousands of CPU cores developed a parallelizable methodology to an object recognition task with [16 million images and 21k categories](see Large Scale Distributed Deep Networks)."In this paper, we consider the problem of training a deep network with billions of parameters using tens of thousands of CPU cores. We have developed a software framework called DistBelief that can utilize computing clusters with thousands of machines to train large models."In 2011, he led a team to generalising DistBelief into a library built upon a Python interface however despite Python being a relatively slow language, it is popular among developers, due to being relatively easy to learn. It currently is ranked fifth (at the time of writing) on the Tiobe Index, the software development hit parade for language popularity and adoption and time and as with all successful v1.0 software projects, v2.0 delivered dramatic improvements, Jeff Dean along with a team of scientists worked on a refactor of DistBelief, which became TensorFlow. (TensorFlow)Democratised Artificial IntelligenceDespite Python being a relatively slow language due to it's dynamic type system, TensorFlow remains unaffected by this performance limitation. TensorFlow's lower level architecture is based on the performant, compiled, statically-typed, C programming language.Further more, this low latency, C based interface merely bridges the gap between the popular, high-level, almost human readable Python language, and real work horses: CPUs and GPUs and more recently TPUs. This is where the computationally expensive operations take place.These innovations, along with unknown computation, near limitless budgets and the worlds data are very attractive the Artificial Intelligence researchers, especially since some working results seem to simply pop into existence then the number of iterations of an algorithm are passed. In late 1980s the algorithm for a working neural network existed, but when tested and left running for a week, yielded a non-result, if they had left the compute running for a year back in the late 80s, it would have been provably correct. This lack of available compute along with limited availability of training data led to a period known as The AI Winter and quite possibly the demise of programming languages like Lisp and Prolog, in favour of the performant C and later C++, which acted as a more favourable interface to the faster and faster hardware, CPU performance was, at the time, doubling in speed every 18 months, but has since reached it’s physical limit.Monopolising Intellectual ResourceThe following shows Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)’s 2017 accepted papers grouped by affiliation and filtered for industrial labs - note: this is misrepresentative as Russia’s Yandex and China’s Baidu appear to only present a token offering.Additionally, a point to note is that China and Russia’s search engines do not publish the names, positions and roles of their respective A.I. researchers, unlike the Major Western Industrial A.I. Labs, Google, Facebook and Microsoft for example.I’ve also aggregated DeepMind with the rest of Google’s divisions, but left D-Wave System separate due to it largely being akin to The Moon Mission, ie Vapourware. ;)A.I. Research Labs & Intellectual ResourcesI also took some time to scrape Research at Google , Facebook Research and Microsoft Research and constructed these charts which show the appropriation of intellectual resource by field of research (Oct 2017) and intend to show the migratory patterns of the named researched in the book I’m working on, Google: The Penultimate Monopoly.Microsoft Research, as we can see, and as expected, their research resources are mostly focusses on AI, which is more than double that of the next most heavily resourced field of research.Facebook Research, the most heavily resourced field being Human Computer Interaction and UX, perhaps semantics since Facebook distinguish a difference between Applied Machine Learning, Facebook AI Research, as well as Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing - there was actually only one guy listed under Artificial Intelligence, which begs the question, where are the boundaries.Google Research, both of the above research labs are dwarfed by the raw intellectual resources of Google, these include Geoff Hinton, the Godfather (some would say, of deep learning - though Geoff himself puts much of the credit with his predecessors), though we also know this is a moving target as we know there is currently a war taking place in the acquisition of this talent.The issues which concern me … I’ll add here shortly.Europes still considers Search monopolise over AI monopolies. The Singularity Von Neumann first coinedArguably it happened, the moment the Rosenblatt’s Perceptron was first verified as a provably valid, biologically inspired first attempt at a neural network.The New York Times wrote:The Navy last week demonstrated the embryo of an electronic computer named the Perceptron which, when completed in about a year, is expected to be the first non-living mechanism able to "perceive, recognise and identify its surroundings without human training or control."(source: Electronic 'Brain' Teaches Itself, New York Times, 1958)Perceptron algorithm wired and operational.History of the PerceptronConsider the possibility of the question…Is DNA a self-reproducing nanotechnology, described by John Von Neumann in “The Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata”?It’s now clear we have passed the point of being able to hold an objective reality consistant with anything in history.DeepMind's Richard Sutton - The Long-term of AI & Temporal-Difference Learning"This is a really special time, and we can look forward now to doing an amazing thing which is maybe understanding the way that the mind works, this is a monumental event, not just this century, but for thousands of years, maybe in the history of the earth, when intelligent beings, animals, things that can replicate theselves finally come to understand the way they work well enough to, by design create intelligence... and so the big thing that's going to happen is that we're going to come to understand how the mind works, how intelligence can work, how it does work and just the fact of our understanding it, is going to change the world... It's a big event, and we should keep this in mind." - Professor Richard Sutton University of Alberta (July 2017)Footnotes[1] Jeffrey Dean - Research at Google

The name “Indonesia” is derived from the Latin word Indus meaning “Indian” and the Greek word nesos meaning “island.” Indonesia was originally called Indian Archipelago or East Indies Islands.The name “Indonesia” was coined in the 1850s by James Logan, editor of the Singapore-published Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, as a shorter equivalent for the term “Indian Archipelago.”Indonesia is the world’s largest country comprised solely of islands. It is composed of 17,508 islands, some 6,000 of which are inhabited.With 238 million people, Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, just behind China, India, and the U.S. The island of Java, with over 140 million people, is the most populous island in the world.On September 8, 1664, the Dutch under Pieter Stuyvesant made one of the most bizarre real estate deals ever when he traded the rights of the island of New Amsterdam (now the island of Manhattan) for the tiny British-controlled Indonesian island of Run. This transaction was also an important turning point in American history.Marco Polo visited Indonesia at the end of the 13th centuryMarco Polo was the first European to visit Indonesia, in 1292.The Indonesia archipelago is spread over the Pacific “Ring of Fire” that is situated in the Western Pacific. The country has over 400 active volcanoes and records at least three earthquakes a day.Bahasa Indonesia is Indonesia’s formal language, but the country recognizes more than 700 other languages as well.Java has become a slang term for the word coffee, after the coffee beans grown on the island of Java. Coffee bushes and the habit of coffee drinking were introduced by the Dutch East India Company to Indonesia in 1696.During World War II, the Japanese invaded and occupied Indonesia from 1942 to 1945.Indonesia is the third worst emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.With its rich variety of flora and fauna, Indonesia is second in the world after Brazil with the highest level of biodiversity in the world.Out of the 10 largest islands in the world, three are a part of Indonesia: Borneo, Papua/New Guinea, and Sumatra.Despite being one of the G20 group of world’s leading economies, roughly half of Indonesia’s population lives on less than US$2 a day.Indonesia is one of the world’s largest producers of nutmeg, which is native to its Banda Islands.Indonesians are superstitious people, and one such belief is in the latah, which happens to women when they are startled by something like a loud noise. The latah causes women to react to the noise by using uncharacteristically foul language or falling to the ground in a fit. Indonesians explain that latah results from the soul leaving the body through sudden fright.The word “ketchup” in English comes from the Indonesian word kecap, which is a sweet soy sauce.Indonesians do not openly discuss sex. The general term in Bahasa Indonesia for both male and female sexual organs is kemaluan, meaning “shame” or “embarrassment.”Indonesia's highway to hell (Herianus / iStock)Jakarta, Indonesia, is the world’s largest population center without a metro train system that results in some of the worst traffic jams in the world.Indonesia men admire virility, and the term jago (“rooster”) characterizes a man who is successful with women. Indonesian men admire the philandering reputations of U.S. Presidents like John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.Indonesian societies tend to be very tolerant of alternate expressions of gender. Banci are men who dress and behave like women and have held special places in Indonesian culture and society, such as matchmakers, artisans, performers, healers, and ritual specialists.In Indonesia, kissing is called cium (“to sniff”). Most Indonesians kiss by sniffing each other’s cheeks, by way of standard greeting. In some places in Indonesia, people rub noses among family to show affection, but it can also become foreplay as well.Popular in Indonesia, Conglak (“cowrie shell”) traces back to Egypt as among the world’s oldest game. Likely introduced to Indonesia by Indian or Arab traders, Conglak consists of a long (18-inch) carved, wooden board with seven cup-like indentations on each side and one at each end. Initially, 98 cowrie shells, stones, or beads sit evenly divided in the recessions. The object is to move as many pieces into one’s “home” cup as possible.Kalimantan—which shares three-quarters of the Indonesian island of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island—has integrated prostitution to a degree perhaps unmatched anywhere else in the world. Most hotel spas, massage centers, karaoke bars, night clubs, and pubs offer “the extras.” Kalimantan society as a whole turns a blind eye to the practice, but many Muslim-run hotels still demand that couples produce a marriage license before checking in.[11]Adult male orangutans, found in the wild only on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra, are said to be eight times stronger than a human.[11]Pepper was introduced to Indonesia’s Sumatra and Java from south India around 600 B.C. Black pepper is the result of picking unripened fruits and drying them in the sun, while white pepper comes from larger fruits left on the vine until ripe.[18]Muslims make up 87.2% of Indonesian population, which makes it the world’s largest Muslim majority nation.[14]There are over 202 million Muslims in IndonesiaThe Javan rhinoceros is one species that is found only in Indonesia. In 2011, the International Rhino Federation declared the Javan rhino extinct, leaving only an estimated 50 of these animals living on Java’s Ujung Kulon Peninsula, the only examples left in the wild.[12]Jakarta, which was called Batavia by the Dutch, is the capital of Indonesia and is the 13th largest city in the world.[11]The island of Sumatra was originally known as Swarnadwipa (“Island of Gold”). It was Marco Polo who corrupted the name to Sumatra in his 1292 report on his journey through the Indonesian archipelago.[11]Indonesia is the only country to see the Komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, in the wild. The first published description of the Komodo dragon was in 1910 from a Dutch expedition to Komodo Island, where two of the dragons were shot and their skins taken to Java. One theory holds that the Chinese dragon is based on the Komodo dragon.[11]Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian country to have been a member of OPEC, although it left the cartel in 2008 due to the decline in world oil prices.[6]Indonesia is home to the Rafflesia arnoldii, the world’s largest flower, which may be the world’s stinkiest flower as well, and Amorphophallus titanium, the world’s tallest flower.[11]Rafflesia arnoldii has the largest single flower of any flowering planIndonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, which can be found in roughly half of the manufactured goods in any supermarket or drug store. Everything from peanut butter to soap to cosmetics contains palm oil in various forms.[15]The Indonesian government recognizes only six religions—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Confucianism. Every Indonesian citizen must belong to one of those religions, regardless of what they believe, and two individuals of different religions may not legally marry, unless one of them converts.[10]Indonesia is home to the world’s largest volcanic lake, Danau (“Lake”) Toba, which is located on Sumatra and is the site of a massive super-volcano eruption that is thought to have happened 69,000 to 77,000 years ago. It was the largest known explosive eruption in Earth’s history in the last 25 million years.[11]Among the Mappurondo on the Indonesian island of Borneo, they still practice headhunting in the ritual of pangngae; however, they use coconuts instead of real heads during their simulated “hunts.”[9]The phrase “run amok” originated in Indonesia. “Amok” comes from the Indonesian word mengamuk, which translates to “make a furious and desperate charge” but is linked to deeper spiritual beliefs. It was believed to be caused by hantu belian, an evil tiger spirit that entered one’s body and caused one to do heinous acts.[18]In Indonesia, frog-leg soup is known as swikee or swikeIndonesia is the world’s leading exporter of frog legs. During the last decade, Europe alone imported 4,600 tons annually, with France, Belgium, and the Netherlands being the main importers.[1]Indonesia’s small Hindu population remains mainly on the island of Bali. One of Balinese Hinduism’s superstitions that endures to this day is the not letting a baby’s feet touch the ground for the first six months of their life to prevent the devil from entering the child and, as a result, children are passed from adult to adult instead.[4]Almost everyone in Bali has had their teeth filed down. This practice is rooted in the belief that the six main vices—anger, confusion, jealousy, drunkenness, desire, and greed—all enter the body through the top six teeth. By filing away the teeth, the vices are thwarted.[4]In 1859, The English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace wrote Charles Darwin that the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited by one distinct fauna in the east and one in the west. He refined his theory, drawing a boundary between the two regions. His delineation became known as the “Wallace Line,” dividing Sulawesi and Lombok to the east and Borneo and Bali to the west.[7]The famous “Java Man” fossil, subsequently named Homo erectus, was found by Dutch physician Eugene Dubois on the Indonesian island of Java in 1889. Since then, even older bones have been found in Java, and geochronologists have dated the oldest Homo erectus specimens to 1.7 million years old.[11]U.S. President Barack Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, including a period in the exclusive central suburb of Menteng, where he attended the SDN Menteng I government-run school. He was given the nickname “Barry” by his fellow students there.[11]Krakatoa's explosion is widely believed to be the loudest sound ever heard in modern historyKrakatoa, a volcano in Indonesia, is the site of the largest volcanic eruption ever recorded. Occurring on August 27, 1883, it had a force equivalent to 2,000 Hiroshima bombs and resulted in the death of 36,000 people. A tsunami 131 feet (40 m) high, radiating outward at a speed reportedly of over 311 mph (500 kph), destroyed coastal towns and villages. The explosion was heard from Sri Lanka to Perth, Australia, and the resulting waves led to a noticeable surge in the English Channel. It was the greatest volume of sound recorded in human history.[7]Clove-impregnated kretek cigarette sales account for 90% of the cigarette sales in Indonesia. They were fist marketed by Nitsemito, a man from Kudus, Java, in 1906, who said kretek helped his asthma. His Bal Tiga (“Three Balls”) brand grew into one of the biggest Indonesian-owned businesses in the Dutch East Indies.[11]According to the old Javanese tradition of pingit, or confinement, Indonesian girls from the ages of 12 to 16 are virtually imprisoned and forbidden outside the family home.[11]On the Indonesian island of Flores in September 2003, archaeologists discovered a skeleton the size of a three-year-old child but with the worn-down teeth and bone structure of an adult. They named the skeleton Homo floriensis, later nicknamed “Hobbit.” Experts think that “Hobbits” were part of Homo erectus species that fled from Africa around two million years ago and spread throughout Asia.[11]The Indonesia Pasola has to be the most extravagant and bloodiest harvest festivals in Asia. Two teams of spear-wielding ikat-clad horsemen gallop at each other, hurling their spears at rival riders. Despite the blunt spears, injuries and occasional accidental deaths still occur.[11]Papuans, native to the world’s second largest island Papua/New Guinea, are Melanesians and very distinct from other Indonesians. The Portuguese, who originally discovered New Guinea and its surrounding islands in the early 16th century, originally called the islands Ilhas dos Papuas, from the Malay word papuwah (“fuzzy-haired”).[11]Bird of Paradise feathers have long been used in Papua traditional dress and they became so popular as European fashion accessories before World War I that the birds came close to extinction. Trade in the feathers has been illegal in Indonesia since 2000, although the feathers are still smuggled out of Papua.[11]Borobudur is the world's largest Buddhist templeThe Buddhist temple of Borobudur on the Indonesian island of Java is the largest Buddhist monument in the world. It resembles a nine-tiered “mountain,” rising to 113 feet (34.5 m) tall. It is said to have taken 75 years to complete.[7]Among the Dani tribe in Papua/New Guinea, Indonesia, one of the most unusual customs is to amputate one or two joints of a woman’s finger when a close relative dies. Many Daniwomen have fingers missing up to their second joint, although this practice is now prohibited.[11]On December 26, 2004, the world’s second largest recorded earthquake, a 9.3+ magnitude quake, struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The resulting tsunami hit more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean, leaving more than 300,000 dead or missing and millions displaced. The force of the earthquake is said to have caused Earth to wobble on its axis and shifted surrounding land masses by up to 12 ft. (36 m).[11]After the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa, it was recorded that so much ash filled the sky that it was darkened for days and global temperatures were reduced by 53° F (12° C) for several years.[11]Indonesian nasi Padang (“Padang cuisine”) is served without a menu. If the dish contains a liquid, it is probably a coconut-milk curry, and meaty dishes are usually beef, buffalo, occasionally offal, or even dog. The most famous Padang dish is rendang, in which chunks of beef or water buffalo are slowly simmered in coconut milk.[11]The myth of the orang pendek (“short man”) is the Indonesian version of the Western Sasquatch. Common folk stories claim the creature has feet that face backwards so it can’t be tracked through the forests.[11]The passing of a so-called anti-pornography law in 2008 potentially made many forms of Indonesian behavior illegal, from wearing penis gourds on Papua to the modest gyrations of traditional Javanese dancers.[11]Each of its eyes is actually heavier than its brainOne of Indonesia’s most interesting critters is the tiny nocturnal primate called the tarsier. These creatures, found on Sulawesi Island, are recognizable by their eyes, which are literally as big as their stomachs, so big they cannot rotate them in their sockets. Luckily, their heads can rotate 360° to compensate.[11]In the 1650s and 1660s, Banten Island’s Sultan Ageng Tirtajasa decreed that all men aged 16 or over must plant 500 pepper plants.[11]The Asia-Africa Conference staged in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 launched the Non-aligned Movement, comprising countries that wanted to align with neither the USA nor USSR. It also gave birth to the term “Third World,” originally meaning countries that belonged to neither Cold War bloc.[11]The film and novel titled The Year of Living Dangerously was inspired by a major 1964 speech by Indonesian Founding Father Sukarno and was drawn from Italian leader Mussolini’s slogan “Live Dangerously,” which was originally penned by 19th-century Germany philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.[11]Arguably one of Indonesia’s stranger exports is Kopi Luwak (Cat Poop Coffee), which is the world’s most expensive beverage, costing around US$1,000 per pound. Kopi Luwak is made by feeding small, catlike civets coffee berries. After they defecate, the berries are collected, washed, and ground into coffee, which supposedly has an unrivaled richness and little bitterness.[5]The word sembako refers to Indonesia’s nine essential culinary ingredients: rice, sugar, egg, meat, flour, corn, fuel, cooking oil, and salt. When any of these becomes unavailable or more expensive, repercussions can be felt right through to the presidency.[11]Batik painting, a blend of craft and art, remains popular in Yogyakarta on Indonesia’s island of Java, where it was invented as a pastime for unemployed youth.[11]The word "gamelan" means 'to hammer'In Indonesia, traditional music is played by a gamelan orchestra. This is a percussion ensemble consisting of bronze metallophones (instrument with tuned metal keys), led by drums, and containing a few wind and stringed instruments too. Most villagers in Bali own at least one set of gamelan instruments for ritual occasions.[3]Papua is home to more than half the animal and plant species in Indonesia, including more than 190 mammals, 550 breeding birds, and more than 2,000 types of orchids.[11]In Indonesia, rice in the field is called padi, rice grain at the market is called beras, and cooked rice on your plate is called nasi.[11]Indonesia’s national dish is nasi campur, which is essentially the plate of the day. Served in stalls, warungs (small shops or cafés), and restaurants, it is always a combination of many dishes and flavors.[11]Indonesian children on Bali are traditionally always given at least four names.[3]Electricity and television came to Bali, Indonesia, only in the last quarter of the 20th century.[3]Important DatesDateEvents60,000–40,000 BCFirst Homo sapiens arrive in the Indonesian archipelago, probably the ancestors of the Melanesians, which are found today mainly in Papua.705Moussa ibn Noussair conquers Morocco and spreads Islam among the Berbers.711Archipelago rulers open trade routes between China and India. Hindu Indians arrive in Sumatra, Java, and Bali.5th centuryIndonesian ships control most trade in the archipelago and sail far as China.6th centuryMuslim traders arrive in Indonesian ports, bringing their religion as well as their goods to trade.7th centuryIndonesian farmers begin growing rice.8th centurySailendra Dynastry emerges in central Java and rules for 200 years. They build the giant Buddhist monument Borobudur.10th centuryAirlangga founds Java’s first great empire, bringing central Java and Bali under some semblance of a united kingdom.1292Marco Polo writes about the Islamic sultanate in Acehin, in northern Sumatra.1294–1478Kertanegara’s son-in-law Majapahit establishes a great kingdom and monopolizes trade between Sumatra and China.1505Portuguese ships reach Indonesian waters.1511Portuguese conquer the city of Melaka (Molucca). Months later, they sail to eastern Indonesia seeking spices.1520Java is completely converted to Islam, which leaves Bali as the sole remaining Hindu island.16th and 17th centuriesIslamic Mataram kingdom rises to power.1595Four small Dutch ships reach the pepper port of Banten in northwest Java.1611–1700From its headquarters at Batavia (now Jakarta), the VOC (Dutch East India Company) establishes a chain of ports to control the trade to and from the Spice Islands.1664The Dutch swap the island of Manhattan with the British in exchange for the small Banda island of Run.1795–1824In the Napoleonic Wars, Britain takes control of the Dutch East Indies. Archipelago is split between Dutch and British; borders are similar to modern Indonesia and Malaysia.1799Netherlands’ government takes over operations in Indonesia from the VOC.1811Thomas Stamford Raffles, lieutenant governor, rediscovers Borobudur, buried under centuries of volcanic soil.1825–1830“Java Wars” between resistant Javanese and Dutch break out.1845Notorious and brutal rubber plantations are developed on Sumatra.1883Krakatoa volcano erupts in the sea west of Java.1906On September 20, Dutch troops advance upon Denpasar, Bali. Entire royal family and entourage meet them with only daggers, and all are shot or committ suicide. Day is remembered as Puputan (“Ending”).1927Sukarno organizes the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI). Indonesian nationalism begins to spread among groups from Muslims to Communists.1928The All-Indonesia Youth Conference proclaims its historic Youth Pledge, establishing goals of one national identity and one national language (Bahasa Indonesia).1930sDutch East Indies produce most of the quinine used in the world’s tonic water, to the delight of gin drinkers everywhere.1941–1942World War II breaks out and Japan conquers Indonesia.1945World War II ends; Sukarno proclaims Indonesia an independent nation on August 17.1965General Suharto seizes control of country and becomes new leader of Indonesia.1967Indonesia joins League of Nations.1969Netherlands cedes West Papua/New Guinea to Indonesia. Region is renamed to Irian Jaya (“Victorious Papua”).1975Indonesian forces invade East Timor, recently independent from Portugal, Ensuing battle lasts almost 25 years as East Timorese resist Indonesian occupation.1979–1984Government’s transmigration program reaches its peak with almost 2.5 million people moving to outer islands from overpopulated Java, Bali, and Madura before the program ends in 2000.1979Free Aceh Movement (GAM) is founded.1999President Habibie announces East Timor could vote for autonomy or independence. On October 19, Abdurrachman Wahid becomes the fourth Indonesian president. Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno’s daughter, is vice president. East Timor votes overwhelmingly for independence.2001Megawati Sukarnoputri becomes Indonesia’s first female and fifth president.2002On October 12, a terrorist car bomb explodes outside of a nightclub in Bali, killing over 200 and destroying a city block.2003Discovery of the small humanoid fossils on the island of Flores named Homo floriensis.2004Indonesia elects new president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (S.B.Y.), in the first direct election in Indonesian history. On December 26, a massive tsunami devastates the region of Aceh on the north coast of Sumatra, killing 200,000.2005Indonesian military forces withdraw from Aceh after 31 years.2006Women’s groups take to the streets of Jakarta to protest Indonesia’s anti-porn bill, which would apply strict Muslim dress codes to them and not men.2010In November, Barack Obama visits Indonesia, hailing it as an example of how a nation can embrace democracy and diversity.2011Dutch government apologizes for the 1947 massacre of at least 150 people in the village of Rawagede on the island of Java during Indonesia’s war for Independence.

1968 - Moving to ManhattanNew York City Was an Old FriendBetween the 1950s and 1970s, I had been in Manhattan hundreds of times, loved the lifestyle, and knew Manhattan is a world class business and fun city but unless you live in Manhattan, it’s a pain to get to, what with trains, buses, and subways commuting jamming people together in cattle like conditions. I had become familiar with New York City for the first time while I was in the Navy during the late 1950s. In 1957, one of my best friends, Ted Strauss, had introduced me to The Grand Concourse in The Bronx where we developed friendships with different girls. In 1957 and 1958, I ran a Sailor Taxi Service to Manhattan from Norfolk, dropping sailors off in Times Square before proceeding to the Bronx to see my girl friends. During the same period, my destroyer parked in the Hudson River by the George Washington Bridge for two “Fleet Weeks” whereby I stood Military Police duties on infamous Eighth Avenue and explored Midtown from the deck of a Police Radio Jeep. I found that the city takes care of itself, as night club and bar bouncers kept discipline rather than the NYPD. Then, while working for IBM in the 1960s, I was often in Manhattan on special assignment, or attending school in IBM’s Eighth Avenue Educational Center. In 1964, I was in Studio 41 at the CBS Broadcast center for three months preceding the Johnson/Goldwater Presidential Election. I set up CBS’s election system, the one that predicts the winner through voting extrapolation techniques. While at CBS in Studio 41, I worked with the poll expert, Lou Harris, and met all the CBS broadcast personalities, including Walter Kronkite, Eric Severoid, and Roger Mudd Down the hall was a most amusing character, Captain Kangaroo.I loved NYC . . . There were thousands of delights, with tens of thousands of people walking about, and no question about it, the best girl watching in the world was available in Manhattan - particularly in midtown along its many avenues, lined with skyscrapers, building ledges and street cafes to sit around. A particularly good area was in the fifties on Sixth Avenues where many water fountains abounded and granite veranda patios filled with tables, chairs and sitting ledges. Whatever your fancy, blond, brunette, redhead, Asian, White, or Black, the woman of you dreams would pass by every five minutes - or oftener! And the food, just for lunch, every kind of food is available, with hundreds of Delis, street cafes, ethnic restaurants, Halal street carts, and fast food eateries every two blocks. Eat a New York pizza and you are doomed to never be satisfied for a slice anywhere else. The beautiful people of the world came to Manhattan for fame, fortune, and excitement. Careers in show business and the business world topped the list as reasons so many bright and attractive people moved to Manhattan. And for some like me, it was for freedom, escaping the segregated south to become all I could be!Martin Luther King is AssassinatedOn April 3, 1968, the day I transferred to Manhattan, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The King assassination riots, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, was a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States were the greatest wave of social unrest the United States experienced since the Civil War. His death led some people to feel angry and disillusioned, as though now only violent resistance to white racism could be effective. The Washington, D.C., riots of April 4–8, 1968, resulted in Washington, along with Chicago and Baltimore, receiving the heaviest impact of the 110 cities to see unrest. My northwest DC neighborhood on 14th Street near the Maryland border was devastated. I lived on 13th and Iowa Avenue in a second floor flat, a mere half block to 14th Street, which was torn down all the way to K Street in downtown DC. I was a white man living in a black neighborhood and local people knew where I lived. I was told later by Mrs. King, my next door neighbor and the black couple downstairs from me, that black rioters broke into my apartment looking for an easy kill, but that morning I had left for New York. What luck on my side . . . but the whole area was torn down, burned, and all stores broken into and cleaned out.Consulate HotelShortly after I arrived to live in Manhattan, an earnest young Computer Engineer turned a teacher of technology at the 'New School' graduate program - being a straight laced, all mid western Wisconsin chirp who just left ten years in segregated Virginia, took a hotel room at the Consulate Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on 49th Street between Broadway and 8th Ave until I found an apartment. Bettie came to see often, she was my love and I missed every minute away from her. This was Hell’s Kitchen and I learned my way around town by getting on the subway (50 cents) choosing a line and station at random and getting out and walking around. I guess nobody thought I was worth mugging. But I met so many interesting people in the process. I lived in Times Square and worked in Greenwich Village and hung around Washington Square and Union Square. I have to tell you, I never, not once, ever had bad things happened to me, even though New York had that ‘Wild West’ adventure happening thing about it, all I ever experienced were good times and great people. There was movers’ strike in New York City so all my baggage from Washington DC stayed in a local warehouse which made me stay at the Consulate for more than three months. The Consulate was an old and dumpy hotel, but was a fantastic Manhattan location for night life, or Broadways Shows, one theater is next door and another one is across the street. It was extremely close to Subway stations, Rockefeller Center, hundreds of bars, night clubs, and restaurants. I appreciated meeting many of the talented Broadway hopefuls staying there while they auditioned with Broadway producers for a shot at the big time. We would eat breakfast in the coffee shop in the Consulate lobby and get to know each other. These Broadway hopefuls came from all over the USA and all had their hearts on their sleeve for the making it into the big time. One extraordinarily beautiful black woman whom I befriend from California did make it and got a job in the chorus line of “Dream Girls.”The New School for Social Research 66 West 12th Street - Greenwich VillageI worked for Control Data Institute and taught Computer Technology at the New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village, a celebrated graduate school for advanced adult education to bring creative scholars together interested in improving their understanding of the key issues of the day through active questioning, debate, and is renowned for its teaching and being an international think tank. The New School is a Global School designed to promote economic and cultural diversity. I absolutely loved NYC, it had been my personal retreat and big city love interest for years. Living there exemplified a free expression of life, it was highly artistic and academic in Greenwich Village, full of very accomplished performing arts and creative characters from all over the world, funky and crazy beyond expression. It fit me like a glove! I lived in Hells Kitchen in the Consulate Hotel for three months and moved to Jamaica, Queens for about two years. I taught computer courses, wrote books, explored the City, rode subways all over, the A Train was best and met hundreds of interesting people. After six months there, I was promoted to a Supervisor and managed both hardware and software classes. I counseled students and got the nick name of "Father Jerry." I also continued my National Recruiting and hired hundreds for CDC. I loved teaching Grad students, most were PhDs looking to learn the basics about computers. They were an international set, most spoke multiple languages, had written books and were just the most fun bunch I had ever come across. My hangout was in Washington Square Park, just a block away, filled with NYU students, protesters of every stripe, performing artists and crazies. I met many well known artists, producers, playwrights, authors, actors and musicians there. The artistic crowd is an interesting bunch, funny, smart, and down to earth who don't give a shit about appearance. What a difference from the segregated retarded south!?Greenwich Village - My home for yearsNew York, in fact the rest of the country, has always accused Greenwich Village of being a little well . . . different. There is definitely a personality type that inhabits the area. You need to have an open mind and be someone's who's bold and independent and doesn't mind going out of their way to meet people or at first be out of your element. It's great for people who adapt well to new situation, love having their hands full, making connections and have big-time aspirations and want to be able to submerge themselves into their career from the start. We tend not to march to quite the same drummer as most of the rest of the country, which may be why we have attracted the artists, writers, musicians and all the rest of the excessive personifieds to the Village for so many years. It’s not that we in Greenwich Village “draw outside the lines” - we draw within much bigger lines and use brighter colors! Fertile doesn't even begin to describe Greenwich Village's yield of creative genius. Abstract expressionist painters and Hollywood types like Woody Allen congregate here, as well as folk musicians and poets.How to describe the Village? . . . First of all, be different. The Village is all about diversity. Everyone you meet here is fascinating in their own way. I was teaching graduate students at the New School and especially enjoyed the diverse academia and performing arts characters I met there and in Washington Square Park; actors, playwrights, university professors, and protesters of every stripe. Greenwich Village is all about a unique culture . . . hail, hail, the gang’s all here: a galaxy of scoundrels, artists and geniuses commingling in several key artistic scenes; the jazz and folk explosions, Off Broadway’s theater productions, where nonconformists, individualists, bohemians, progressives gather; where avant-gardes, experimenters, gays and lesbians could gather and feel at home; where actresses, poets, chorines, working girls, socialites hang out. As I walk around, enjoying espresso at the never ending street cafes and conversation with highly educated and talented people, dancing at the clubs filled with all kinds of exotic girls, hanging out with NYU students and professors in Washington Square Park, I fall in love with this counterculture mecca.Greenwich Village long ago earned a reputation as a magnet for bohemians and intellectuals. Generations of artists and writers gave the neighborhood its freewheeling identity, and radical thinkers from Upton Sinclair to John Reed have held forth in smoky Village cafes. The neighborhood has a definite live-and-let-live, left-of-center vibe, and the Village remains one of New York's most appealing neighborhoods, and an especially lovely place to stroll. Leafy streets, lined with Federal-style town houses and ivy-covered brownstones, meander at will, defying the symmetrical street grid pattern that brings order to the world above 14th Street. You can take the A, C or E train to Eighth Avenue and 14th Street, the Village's northern border.Union SquareJust a few blocks from my location on 5th Avenue and 12th Street was Union Square, a favorite place for me to walk to and sit around for lunch. It is right down 14th Street on Broadway and Park Avenue South near 4th avenues. There are many bars, street cafes and restaurants on the periphery of the square, and the surrounding streets have some of the city's most renowned (and expensive) restaurants. Union Square is a popular meeting place, given its central location in Manhattan and its many subway lines underneath the streets. Many buildings of The New School are near the square, as are several dormitories of New York University. Union Square is, and was, a frequent gathering point for radicals of all stripes to make speeches or demonstrate. Many different type of markets are held in the square, the best-known of these is the Union Square Greenmarket, where 250,000 customers per week can purchase 1,000 varieties of fruits and vegetables, which is bigger variety of produce available than what is found in a conventional supermarket. Then it was a short walk to Washington Square Park which was on 5th Avenue in the in the center of NY university buildings. Washington Square Park (WSP) is affectionately known as the place where all NYU students go to get away from their dorm mates when they're getting busy in between classes. It's a very calm area with some cobbled streets and old houses. A street away on 6th Avenue there were four blocks of outdoor vendors and artists selling their bargains and paintings.Washington Square Park (WSP)Washington Square Park is the colorful center of Greenwich Village activity, punctuated by the Washington Memorial Arch at the square's north end. Historically, Washington Square Park hasbeen a parade ground, as well as the site of public executions, but today its pleasures are considerably less martial. One block away from my 5th Avenue office building, Washington Square Park is my third favorite park in Manhattan (Central Park and Bryant Park being 1 and 2). There is always very interesting people playing chess, some performance artists, break dancers or some other type of entertainment mulling around looking for a crowd with lots of great seating areas so the can watch. Consequentially, Washington Square isn't really a park - it's a hundred music and entertainment options rolled into one. There are dozens of impressive musicians claiming a bench or corner of the park to earn a few bucks, artists making or offering things of beauty, chalk and sand artists, comedians, jugglers and people looking for a challenge at the chess board. My first time in Washington Square Park there was behind me, sitting on the grass, was a woman who had two gray parrots with her. They were both on a leash. Really. Not far away was a woman with a bright yellow sign reading, “Conversations, $1.” Not far away there was a guy banging out a tune of some sorts on his guitar and half singing and half shouting a song with lyrics such as “Before you left did you order a cheeseburger?” The fountain in the center had cold water, which was especially refreshing during a muggy summer days. Everyone at the park was relaxing or reading, so I was left in peace while I breathed in the air and chilled out for awhile. There were a few colorful characters, but they left me alone, which was good enough for me. As I left the park and headed toward Broadway, a young man was at the piano on the eastern edge of the square playing Rachmaninoff. He then proceeded to play Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” after which he asked if we had enjoyed it and added, “I wrote that one myself.”Exploring ManhattanThere are thousands of delights, with tens of thousands of people walking about, and no question about it, the best girl watching in the world is available in Manhattan - particularly in midtown along its many avenues, lined with skyscrapers, with building ledges and street cafes to sit around. A particularly good area was in the fifties on Sixth Avenues where many water fountains abounded and granite veranda patios filled with tables, chairs and sitting ledges. Whatever your fancy, blond, brunette, redhead, Asian, White, or Black, the woman of you dreams would pass by every five minutes - or oftener! The beautiful people of the world came to Manhattan for fame, fortune, and excitement. Careers in show business and the business world topped the list as reasons so many bright and attractive people moved to Manhattan. And for some like me, it was for freedom! For lunch, every kind of food is available, with hundreds of Delis, street cafes, ethnic restaurants, Halal street carts, and fast food eateries every two blocks. Eat a New York pizza and you are doomed to never be satisfied for a slice anywhere else. Now you see the bold and the beautiful, the famous and discover they are just like you, scared of the notoriety and needing a small space to hide in. That is the biggest lesson you learn in Manhattan that we are not so different, all the races, colors, ethnicities and religions types are so much the same.Nothing in the world beats the night life in New York, which includes various types of hang out places like Bars, Cocktail Lounges, Billiards, Comedy Clubs, Dance Clubs, Hotel Bars, Music Clubs, Sports Bars, Piano Bars, Jazz & Blues Clubs. Yes, in New York you can always hear any type of music, from plenty of jazz, pogoing punk to thumping hip-hop on any night of the week the live music scene very well reflects New York’s diversity. If you are looking out for some dance clubs with Caribbean, Brazilian, African tastes, or even cheesy numbers or hard-hitting drum tunes, you can get that too. Crazy things happened all the time. I bought beef jerky sticks from a street cart, an Amish man, in Union Square park on a gorgeous sunny day in Gotham after a business meeting. There were hundreds of people milling about enjoying the day as I was. As I sat eating my jerky sticks, I saw an attractive big busted woman wearing absolutely nothing above her low-cut jeans; her beautiful breasts on full display. It made my day. What a delightful vision of splendor!All the New Yorkers pretended not to notice but, I like to smile and luxuriate in spiritual feelings so, I was most happy as she walked by, breaking up the routine of another day chasing a buck in New York. The City is good for open minded people and will stress out and even annoy closed minded people. Be prepared for everything. So here we go . . . a walk around NYC.As a new person to Manhattan, I performed the obligatory Staten Island Ferry ride and then caught the subway to Clark St Brooklyn, as advised by others, to walk toward the Manhattan skyline across the Brooklyn bridge. The first time I walked across was with friends from the job. We caught a cab to the other side and had Grimaldi's Pizza first, hmm mm yum. Then we began our walk. The bridge is monumental. I loved every second of it and my photos turned out amazing. On any given day visitors from all over the world stream across the walkways to spy the towers of Manhattan and Lady Liberty from high above the East River. The melting pot begins here. Visitors should know that the rather narrow walkway is shared with a large number of bicycle commuters so keep your eyes open and respect the dividing line. I would highly recommend walking from the Brooklyn side because then you have the beautiful Manhattan skyline to look at on your walk. It really was breathtaking.The Brooklyn Bridge connects two great New York City boroughs, Manhattan and Brooklyn. When finished in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the tallest structure in America and the longest suspension bridge in the world with a span that reached 1,596 feet. Today, the bridge is often the sight of protests, marathons, and even a passage for mass numbers of commuters like during a Transit Worker’s Union three-day strike. Normally about 5,000 pedestrians and 2,500 bicyclists commute daily across the Brooklyn Bridge on the elevated pedestrian walkway. You can walk it, drive it, bike it, take a subway across or just admire it. One way or the other, the Brooklyn Bridge soaring over the East River is one of New York City’s most famous routes, both for tourists and born-and-bred New Yorkers.I just finished walking the Brooklyn Bridge going from east to west and saw the City Hall of New York, and my tourist map said Chinatown was nearby. I asked two Chinese ladies sitting on a park bench the direction and they said just follow "Central St." True enough, before me were several Chinese restaurants and bargain stores after a short walk. Shirts were being sold for just $2, and great caps for three for $5, but I came here for the food! I wanted to eat some beef Chop Suey like my dad got from the Chinese restaurant in Milwaukee every Friday night. It was notable that there were also lots other Asian restaurants, like Vietnamese. All the stores here target to Chinese people as customers, the newspaper and signs are in Chinese. Of course, the area isn’t just an ethnic ghetto and it is very popular among the tourists too, at least the central part along Canal Street where you can find many souvenir shops and a lot of seafood markets where old Chinese ladies go to shop some weird sea creatures that smell bad! There are also many markets that sell traditional herbal medicines (I didn’t try any) and a lot of street vendors everywhere with some strange exotic fruits. I walked for a while in the small streets and barely met with anyone other than Chinese people. I drunk something at Hon Café where nobody could understand in English that I just wanted a milkshake so I drunk something else! Then I returned back to the small alleys and visited the central park of the area which is Columbus Park. The Chinese community gather there for socializing. I noticed many ladies under their colorful umbrellas chatting and playing cards and the men in different tables playing an unknown to me domino game. Some interesting points to see here are the two Buddhist temples I saw, probably there are more but those are the ones I saw on the map. On Mott Street I found many accupressurist charging $5 for 10 minutes.Something told me I was nearing the financial district because of all the starched white shirts in vests in pin striped suits were walking down the street. Girls in high heels and dark suits, men with ties and their hair all in place. No tattoos and dread locks on this side of town. There were a lot of voices that sounded angry, so I followed the sounds. I sure didn’t want to miss a good story. It was a group of New York Telephone employees picketing in favor of some new work rules. My next encounter was probably the most interesting of the day. Six or eight protesters were camped out on the sidewalk by City Hall.They were angry about the upcoming budgets cuts against the have-nots, the poor, the sick, the elderly and of course they cited the budget surplus and the wealth just down the way on Wall Street. It’s an age-old problem, and I wonder if we’ll ever solve it, the ethical debate over the makers and takers. The good news is that I got on the E train going back to Queens and got off at the right station. I am getting to be a real New Yorker.Lately I have been walking up the avenues to 42nd street to explore Manhattan. It was hot and I was sweaty and wanted something sour, I stood with a dime in my hand to buy a big sour pickle. I picked on from the barrel on 8th Avenue, then, task complete, walked out into the sunshine, extra bright after the darkness of the store, hands full of candy and a smile on my face. Across the avenue, Lanza's, an Italian restaurant, occupied the same spot since the 1920s. It seemed so old: small white octagonal tiles on the floor, wainscoting and mirrors and pictures of Italy on the wall, bent-wood chairs at the tables. It was a little more expensive than the other Italian places I went to. It was the first place I ate Veal Marcela and I remember the sensation of the buttery meat melting in my mouth. The Italian ice place next-door was an important stop after dinner at Lanza’s on a hot day. The soothing lemon ices, smooth and tart, were served in a pleated paper cup. You’d squish it to get the ices to come up where they could be licked, I can still feel and taste them on my tongue.What I found in Manhattan were diversity in neighborhoods, architectures, and ethnicity. Yesterday I walked uptown on Fifth Avenue to Grand Central because it was so beautiful; a crisp air bright blue afternoon sky and I love to walk the streets of New York because there is no need to be crammed and sweating in a subway car. Each time I’ve walked to Grand Central. I’ve taken a different avenue or have zigzagged my way uptown. I like to get a feel for each avenue, see how they’re different, see what’s around me. Today I took Lexington Avenue and I’m glad I did. Besides how narrow it was, compared to other avenues, it was beautiful. Old buildings, more residential on the stretch I walked than other avenues. But the main reason I was so happy to be on Lexington was because, as I was stopped at a corner waiting for traffic to pass, I heard a little voice call out, “Mr. Luenzmann?” Had I heard the voice say, “Jerry” I probably wouldn’t have turned around because no one yet knows me by my first name in New York City outside of the New School. But because my ears are so trained to small voices calling me by my last name, I turned around immediately and there in front of me was one of my students. She was getting out of a cab with her mother right where I was, and after a few surprised seconds, they invited me up to their building’s roof! It was the first rooftop I’ve been on in my life in New York, and I couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful vista or two more lovely people to be up there with. The building has a view of the East River, where Macy’s 4th of July fireworks explode before their eyes, and, better yet, the Empire State Building basically leans over them. We were so close I could almost see the people in the building’s offices. I exaggerate of course, but the view was really beautiful.One day I met a young lady at Trader Joe's, a sweet eyed, brown skinned vixen from Tunisia. She wanted to go dancing. New York City is full of immigrants, who left their nation(s) and culture to pursue a better life in the Big Apple. I wondered about the millions of immigrants who come here for some freedoms, whether religious or economic. I wonder about the societies they come from and whether they do a better job of handling all of these emotions we do battle with every day. But I do find it ironic that we, this nation of ultimate freedoms, purports to allow all pursuits of happiness and inclinations (in the north), yet so many of us seem so uncomfortable with some of our most basic instincts: to challenge, to create, to run and play, to sing and dance, to be truly who we are even when it doesn't fit in with someone's expectations.I went to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade when the streets came alive with the sights of zombies, witches and super heroes. Several hundred revelers lined Manhattan's Sixth Avenue to watch the steady stream of masked characters and floats jammed with singers and dancers. Open to anyone in a costume, the event prides itself on being an anything-goes spectacle. I loved the Village, regarded as an artists’ haven, the Bohemian capital, the center of the Hippy movement, and the East Coast birthplace of ’60s counterculture movements. And I was there for all of it!Cruising Times SquareTimes Square - iconified as "The Crossroads of the World" and the "The Great White Way" - is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. I got my start there in the 1950s when I was in the Navy spending many weekend liberties in Manhattan. For a sailor from Milwaukee stationed in the segregated and dismal 1950s south, Times Square was an euphoria of delight, a paradigm of exoticness coupled with the world's diversity of peoples and life styles all wrapped in one package. During our annual 'Fleet Week' when my Battle Group visited New York City and my Destroyer anchored in the Hudson by the George Washington Bridge, I stood Military Police in Times Square before we were deployed to the Med for six to eight months. Compared to dismal Norfolk, Manhattan was like comparing Paris to Calcutta.I fell in love with the Big Apple back then and again when I worked in the Big Apple throughout the 1960s with IBM. Yes, it was a rough environment and not for pussies, but I had been around the block a few times (African and Middle East 3rd world, Islamic and communist countries filled with insurgencies and the violent Civil Rights battles in the south) and could handle myself well in any situation. It was a time when sex shops were legalized and compounded by Times Square’s accessibility and central location and the world's most infamous Port Authority bus terminal at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue.In the 1960s, Times Square was a breeding ground for crime, drug addiction, and plenty of X-rated peep shows. Times Square was lude, rude and vicarious, filled with live nude shows, sex shops, erotic bookstores, X-rated movies that attract dare devil voyeurs and perverted paramours. Hundreds of dance and night clubs dotted the area, providing live entertainment to supplement the revivals and spectacles on Broadway. Times Square also has Jazz Clubs, Art Galleries, with hundreds of restaurants and hotels. It is the most exciting and depraved place in the Unites States.Even with all its sleaze, Times Square has to be the neon sign capital of the world, and there was something magical about the way thousands of neon lights blink incessantly that cast a eerie glow over all the bejeweled and exciting creatures of the night walking about, including such nefarious characters as prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts, paramours on the prowl and tens of thousands of curious tourists looking for a thrill. To top it all off is the filth of the Port Authority bus station - also known by commuters as the 'asshole of the world.' Across the street was the grimy street character enclave Terminal Bar, a classic dive bar Juke joint, with dancing to the Top 40, Merle Haggard and Fats Domino on the saw dust covered floor, but it did have its good points. It conferred dignity, nobility and grace on those who had been diminished and marginalized skels until they found their place at the Terminal Bar. Both the Bar and Bus Station were filled with drunks, merchant marine sailors, drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes that hung out at what was considered to be the roughest bar and street corner in NYC. Ex boxers, wrestlers and famous entertainers who fell on bad times were the standard bearers of the place - they had a few bucks for the watered down drinks. It was mind your own business and keep your mouth shut territory and don't get on a political or religious soap box about anything!Since I enjoy the weird and unusual and while walking 8th Avenue at 42nd Street, poked my head into the Terminal Bar once in a while, its notoriety drew artists and punks and the curious. I like that no one took any crap, bigots and perverts were promptly deposed of. Judgmental religious missionary types were the worst, but Priests who came to have a drink with the boys and consult were welcome. You could always find lost teeth on the floor that been knocked out from fights. When I did Military Police Jeep Patrol, I made some stops at the Terminal Bar to keep unruly sailors out of the hands of the efficient and no nonsense NYPD who would lock them up in an over night drunk tank along with Times Square perverts. I found that straights like businessmen in pin striped suits and high class women in furs and high heels went there to experience the 'other world' once in while, to get dirty and hang out around 3 a.m.But, it wasn’t really welcoming to slumming business engineering hipsters like me or bush league adventures looking to make nice with Terminal bums. You needed tattoos, earring, being unshaven with long hair, having a worn out - been through a war and barely survived look - to enter without provocations coming back at you. It was still an enclosed society with it’s own brutal code, not easily cracked by the voyeuristic aesthete. After slumming and nightclubbing all night, skulls like me had double eggs and bacon breakfast around the corner at the 11th Avenue Diner with its sing waitresses and where Mickey Spillane and Jimmy Breslin got their story book characters from. Yes, back in the day, Times Square was dirty, grimy, laden with pimps and prostitutes, but, man, was it ever fun for a voyeur like me! You could pick and choose our dirt and go for it. I was enamored with it and it touched parts of my soul. I am a writer and there were thousands of stories to tell. It had everything and every type of person you could imagine. I like weird and got along so well there. I loved the Big Apple. It was all about freedom, opportunity, acceptance of everyone emboldened within neverending exciting adventures. I decided not to walk Manhattan in an orderly manner but, rather, to walk wherever I happened to be in the city on a particular day or what appealed to me according my mood. If I felt like open spaces, I would walk the upper part of Manhattan; if I wanted streams of people milling around, it would be midtown or lower Manhattan. I didn't skip any streets because I learned from my first few walks that you never knew what was around the corner. When walking around Manhattan, you learn the city's quirks and niches, the things that make New York what it is. This is great if you have never been to NYC, or if you have been to an area and never truly explored it. I learned this my first day out: Why do Brownstones have tall stairways? To avoid the smell of manure before the car was invented of course!A few days ago I walked down to the Wall Street area. Leaving the West Village, heading south along Greenwich Street, I could see a change in architecture . . . the pretty brownstone streets were soon replaced with rows and rows of old warehouses. Real old ones, the kind that are begging to be restored into vibrant, new loft spaces young people would inhabit. I’ve always wanted to restore an old warehouse. On I walked as the landscape transitioned again. Taller, newer buildings sprung up amidst the old ones. I stopped for lunch in Tribeca and had my first real street meal today from a Halal [i.e.: Muslim] vendor. For $5, which include a coke (I mean a soda), I had one of the most delicious meals I’ve had in a long time. REALLY! It included something that resembled a hush puppy, but it was seasoned totally differently. I was enjoying my meal until the pigeons arrived. And folks, let me tell you, these New York pigeons are REAL aggressive. That bird came within six inches of my lunch and would not back off at all.Walking Harlem on Sundays was very uplifting as you could hear singing in the air from all the churches. There are dozens of them in Harlem, some large, some as small as a one-door garage. One time when I had gotten off the train at 125th street, I stopped outside the station to stretch my legs before beginning a long walk downtown. A man in a wheelchair rolled over to me and asked if I was O.K.. When I told him I was just stretching my legs, he said, "O.K, as long as you're alright," and rolled away! On another occasion, a young African-American was sitting in front of a brownstone next to it and as I passed him he asked me if I was going to buy the house. I told him I wasn't but that if I were his age, I would seriously consider it. Manhattan has so many kinds of people experiences I wondered what kept me so long from enjoying them. There was always a show to see in Manhattan whether it was the sidewalk stores in Washington Heights, the quaintness of Greenwich Village, the "busyness" of Chinatown and the lower East Side, or the multitude of activities going on at Harold Square, Columbus Circle, Union Square, or Madison Square Park.People want to know what area I liked the best and I always have to dodge that question because I had no favorite. Manhattan is like twenty different countries - you appreciate each one for what you learn from it whether it's the Latino influence in the north or the Chinese in the south. I guess my favorites are Times Square for its grittiness and exhibitionism of neon lights and people and Greenwich Village for its intellectual contents and people. In looking back, I realize that the walking was mentally stimulating as it motivated me to get out of my comfort zone each week. Walking in Manhattan was like living in the moment, very spiritual on many levels as you were alone with the world without being alone.