I did get the FoxIt’s eSlick first and I immediately liked it. The device is very light and therefore easy to carry around. It supports SD cards, but has enough internal memory to hold dozens of books. It connects to any computer with a standard USB cable and is visible as a USB drive, so it is easy to manage books stored on it on any operating system. And of course it loads its batteries from USB too.

But what I liked most about eSlick was its display – very crisp and paper-like, with characters clearly rendered in a very print-like manner. It was a pleasure to read in any light and I did read a lot over those few days I had it.

I tried it with some books and articles I had on my computer in PDF form, but I was mostly reading Peter Schiff’s “Crash Proof” which I have in both electronic and paper form. I was able to get a hundred pages further into this great book within just a few days – while the paper version has been collecting dust on my bookshelf for some time now. The reason is simple – eSlick is lighter and smaller than even this one book and therefore so much easier to carry around and get those quick reads while waiting for a bus, taking a break from work etc.

However, eSlick did have one annoying quirk with advancing pages. The device has just a few buttons (probably to reduce costs) and they are laid out in such a way that only the biggest square selector button is comfortable to use. This main button also serves the purpose of advancing pages – again, not very comfortable but enough to serve its purpose. However, the problem was the device was like falling “asleep” during the time it took me to read a whole page of my book. When usually just one press got me to next page after reading through it I had to tap the button a couple of times to get any reaction. This was distracting, because I had to mentally disengage from reading and keep on looking at the LED at the top of the device while taping the button to see when I’ll get the device to react. And it also did hang badly a few times – once I had to press simultaneously reset and power buttons to get it back to life.

Also, eSlick can only do PDF and text. And it can’t handle password-protected PDFs, so my attempt to read my copy of the PMI PMBOK failed with “corrupted file” error message.

But even with all those quirks and limitations I was starting to like the idea of having an e-reader after those couple days with the eSlick. So, when Paul handed me his Sony PRS 505 I expected an even better experience. After all Sony has been into ereaders for some time now and PRS 505 is a very popular reader.

The PRS 505 is much sturdier than eSlick thanks to its metal casing and – frankly – has a way better design. It is also significantly heavier. Keys are laid out in a way that makes it much easier to operate even with one hand and the navigation software is also superior to eSlick’s. However, I was utterly disappointed with it.

First, the display is much worse than eSlick’s, which was a surprise as it is based on the very same e-ink technology and I think made by the same company. While eSlick’s screen was crisp and sharp Sony’s looked dull and grey. The background was light grey and characters dark grey – not black on white paper-like display of the FoxIt’s reader.

But even worse, the Sony’s software can’t handle PDFs properly and above all fails utterly at zooming in any format maybe except plain text.

Only after trying PRS 505 I was able to appreciate way eSlick handled PDFs – and especially zooming in on them. eSlick zoom is what you expect it to be: when you zoom in it is the same page, laid out in exactly same way, with same typeface, same diagrams, pictures and sidebars only bigger. Not so with Sony – there zoom means reflow, that is a crude attempt at extracting plain text from the file and displaying it with built-in fonts. So on my “Crash Proof” PDF I had the option of either trying to decipher minutely small print of the 100% zoom or suffer with the reflowed version, without diagrams, with sidebars text just messed up with the main text etc.

Paul suggested that Sony’s zoom may work better on books from Sony’s ebook store which are specifically optimized for the device, so I tried “The back of the napkin” which Paul had on the device (great book BTW, will have to read it one day). Again, zoom failed miserably – while it zoomed text nicely it completely failed to zoom the images, so again it was hard to decipher them – and in this book they are quite an important part. Maybe there is a way to zoom them that I was unable to find, but certainly not by just pressing the zoom button as one would expect.

So, for those two reasons I didn’t read much on the Sony and in fact look forward to giving it back to Paul to get rid of it. To my utter surprise eSlick offered an overall better experience, especially thanks to its way superior display and better PDF handling. If they only fix the software glitch with advancing to new page I think I would be happy with it. In any case even as is it’s the clear winner in this comparison.

Also, after considering it I think that I like some design decisions Foxit made to keep eSlick reader simple. The fact that it handles only PDFs and not dozens of ebook formats like other readers maybe a very good design decision – after all almost anything can be converted to PDF and it is definitely the most popular format for books, articles – any written material other than web pages. The fact that it doesn’t have connectivity means you are kind of forced to focus on reading and are not tempted to browse the web, check blogs or download new content as would be the case with other readers.

Overall Paul did succeed to converti me to the idea of having an ereader and I think I’ll be buying one myself pretty soon. I’d just love to test hands-on (or, rather, eyes-on) the BeBook before I finally decide.

Anyone out there willing to lend me one for a week?

The prospect of RIAA thugs laying their hands on records of what all Last.fm users listened to over – in many cases – years is something that should serve as a wake up call for all of us. Even if it did not happen yet there is no guarantee it won’t happen in the future. Actually, one can be sure that one day it will. As we move more of our data to the notorious “cloud” – that is machines we have no control over at all – we basically make it available to the highest bidder. And consequently we loose some degree of control over our lives and privacy.

Conversely, the corporations operating the “cloud” get more and more insight into our lives, views, relationships, material possessions and even thoughts. Then they sell it to advertisers, governments and – as it turns out – RIAA thugs. This is, basically, why all those services are free to use. The users pay for them not with currency but with their data they feed into them.

And Last.fm is just the tip of the iceberg. Think of Google. If you use the whole range of their compellingly simple and easy to use services then they can corelate your e-mails kept in GMail with your photos kept in Picasa, with your conversations on Groups, your blog posts on their blogging engine, your documents and spreadsheets in their Docs and even your browsing history if you use their browser toolbar or Chromium browser. And they don’t have to manually browse through all that to use it – on the contrary, they can algorithmically process all this data and single out people that match a certain profile. Or detect trends. Or predict events. Or map people’s connections.

There is a book out now called “The Numerati” written by Stephen Baker that describes in terms understandable for a layman what can be algorithmically derived from all the data we leave about us. It is all great for marketers for pinpointing their advertising Google and others live off. But it’s also great for secret police and others who want to single out people based on their views or associations. And great for governments who want to know about trends in a population even before they are publicly expressed.

You think Google won’t work hand in hand with the government if asked, that they would resist to protect your privacy? Don’t delude yourself – they will do it the instant some types from NSA or another gov agency walk into their offices. And they even do it publicly now. Yeah, I know, it is just for predicting flu outbreaks and who would object to something this good etc. But same technology can be used for detecting and pinpointing, say, tax dissent (like tea parties). Or map support for anti-Obama politicians – especially given Google’s political views being in line with the current’s administration.

Since I have been using GMail for some time now I think Google knows more about me than any of the people close to me in the real life. I should have moved away from GMail already – the reason I didn’t do it yet is that using their services is so easy and in our busy lives there is little space left for setting up private servers, installing spam-fighting software etc. But the more I see and realize what is going on the more I’m compelled to do this.

For now I’ve uninstalled the Last.fm’s scrobbler – and so should you.

It is refreshing in a sense to see that looking in detail at any historical period shows how ilusory is the conviction about uniqueness of our own time. And that social forces and pure luck influence the direction and pace of technological progress much more than many intelectuals would admitt.

OK, time to bed, I’m tired enough so that I shouldn’t have trouble falling asleep.

The first thing that I read was the prologue, and it is a fascinating account of a writer’s creative process as he explains to his readers why twelve, why pilgrims and how this short pieces came to be. This is something every aspiring writer should read, because those few pages tell more about writing than many books on the subject.

His stories are not extraordinary. Or, to be more precise, they are not about anything that does not happen every day, year, century between people on this old planet. There is nothing strange in an old ex-president of a little known Caribbean republic to be impoverished, ill and in Geneva. It is also not uncommon that two old migrants from a far away country might meet on the street and start talking to each other. Yet, Márquez manages to tell it as a fascinating story, with changes of prospective as the reader gets to know the characters more and more. The ending is not obvious, just as most endings in the real world. There are some motives or thoughts reader may think characters have that are left unspoken. There is their rich past and little known future which we are left to imagine on our own.

But it was another story that moved me deeply. It was a story about a guy who flies from Paris to New York first class. Along the way he notices the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, but more or less she ignores him. She forgot his face the moment she stepped out of the plane, he remembered hers for years. It moved me, because in a way I found myself in it.

This is true art. I think that real mastery or artistry is in observing carefully the world (be it outside or the internal world of mind) and speaking about the significant in routine, depths of simplicity, weight of the unspoken and lightness of the spoken. I believe it is so because it is very, very difficult to speak about these things in a way that would not seem trivial, uninspiring, boring. And I apply this principle to all forms of art. Take a sunset. In nature each sunset is an immensely beautiful spectacle of nature. Try painting or photographing it in such a way that would convey they feelings the real thing inspires in us. Try to describe normal life in a way that would be moving and deep and inspiring. It’s so much easier to invent dragons and magicians, create imaginary conspiracies spaning centuries or extraordinary events. True masters of the word, like Márquez, don’t need all that.

Read it.

History, as presented in textbooks and classes in most (if not all) schools in our culture is a linear series of events, punctuated by important dates (the day when …), mostly related to important people whose names anyone aspiring to be considered as an educated member of society has to know. This way of looking at history has certain advantages for schooling, the biggest one being that it simplifies it horrendously, flattens it so that there is not much left to be really learned from it. There is therefore no need to stretch students’ – and teachers’ minds over how the world came to be the way we know it. This would lead to problems in grading students’ performance, because certainly there are many valid ways of looking at this question, leading inevitably to differences in opinion. Instead, everybody is supposed to memorize a few names and dates, which is easy to check but doesn’t lead, of course, to any understanding. End result? A series of myths accepted as truths.

One of them is how inventions come to be. There is an image of scientists in his white apron bent over a table with test tubes and Bunsen burners or Albert Einstein with his unkempt hair in front of a blackboard full of hieroglyphical equations. There is a concept that scientific invention is an effect of a well designed processes with its result known, albeit vaguely, to the would-be inventor almost from the start. And if not that, then it must be a lone genius, with mild mental disturbance, getting a moment of epiphany while taking bath.

And it’s the myth that dissolves quickly as one starts to study the real history of human thought, as it goes through history in wild jumps and bumps, anything but linear, predetermined and predictable. That’s what James Burke’s excellent novel and TV series, “Connections”, shows.

Through the book Burke shows us subtle interdependencies, connections, that lead to a given discovery or technology of today. Since the invention of language and, subsequently, writing each of us is in fact benefiting from a huge base of discoveries, thoughts and creations of our predecessors and contemporaries. Each of our ancestors and contemporaries can potentially benefit from results of our minds’ efforts. That’s why in many cases people who discovered an effect or a natural phenomenon didn’t think it’s of any real value, but noted it nevertheless as a curiosity or something of interest. That’s why in other cases people dreamed of creating things that were not possible at that time, like flight, computers, television and hypertext – all of which crossed someone’s mind long before they were possible. At some point, someone combined what was a curiosity for ones, dream for others and out, suddenly, came what we call “invention”.

But then other combinations did happen. People who thought they discovered something of importance, which was not – so far. People who dreamed of things that are not possible – until now, or maybe at all. People who wasted their lives and died in poverty, but a tiny bit of their lives’ efforts lived on in an old book or manuscript and proved invaluable for others. People who enjoyed fame and fortune off things we now consider laughably wrong or just charmingly out fashioned.

One of the most important realizations that I owe Burke was that, while reading his book, it occurred to me that the general outlook on the world we, humans have has not changed at all during the history. You see, we have this view that people lived oblivious to how the world really is in the past, in say, Dark Ages, ignorant and believing in funny stuff like dryads or crystal spheres. But it’s not true at all. In fact, the world and the universe were always the same – practically understood. It means we do know how the world functions, why trees grow, why sun shines and sky is blue, why stars are and so on. There are just some few, tiny details that do not fit but leading scientists are working on them and the image would be soon completed, no worry. And the picture has been like this, almost complete, always. Thus all the funny quotations of 19th century scientists lamenting that they would be soon out of work since everything that is to be discovered surely will soon be.

So, if you ever wondered why we have computers, atomic energy, roads and cheap textiles from China – read “Connections”. It is written in rich, delicious language, and it reads well. It will open your eyes. And even if you’ve seen Burke’s TV series, read the book – it’s not a mere rewrite of the script. It just shares the title and the subject with the TV series, but that’s all.

You see, Zen masters often speak through metaphors, poetically – sometimes simply through poems, sometimes through stories. It is great, but some of us, with our Western, analytic minds need something more concrete, more logical and straightforward first, before we will be able to see the subtle sense behind the verses. I think Tibetan Buddhism is much better at that, it produced not only colorful art, but also lots of strong philosophy, which is very palpable to Westeners. Especially so, when it’s recounted by those of them who spent much of their lives studying ancient texts. Michael Roach’s work is just that, simple yet accurate, covering thousands years old wisdom with today language.

Michael Roach has a very interesting background. Born in LA, educated in Princeton he’s as American as you can get. Yet his life changed in 1972 when his future teacher, a Tibetan Rinpoche crossed his path. He went on to study Tibetan Buddhism in one of its major schools, Gelugpa (the one Dalai Lama heads – they often had reputation of being strong in philosophy), became himself a fully-ordained monk in 1983 and after completing all necessary retreats and studies obtained the Geshe title in 1995. Geshe is roughly an equivalent of a doctorate in theology.

Somewhere along the way Michael managed to study and practice yoga – and to work in the diamond industry. Now, this was kind of a life experiment proposed by his Buddhist teacher – to try to apply buddhist knowledge about how the world functions in a normal, busy life of American businessman and see how it turns out. It turned out great, not only because his career proved very successful but also because its final fruit is the book he wrote – “The Diamond Cutter : The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life“.

The title sounds exactly like all those more or less silly self-help books about almost every aspect of life that litter bookstores everywhere. And, to some extent it is one. But more importantly is a well written, down to earth explanation on how karma works. This is a topic of utmost importance to Buddhist worldview which is very commonly misunderstood, even by scholars. Karma is not fate, as its magically sounding foreign name could suggest. It also has nothing to do with the concept of sins and repentance. It’s just the good, old law of cause and effect only how it really makes the world move.

If we agree that everything that happens has a cause, then it would be neat to know what the cause is for events that seem not to have any. Like, for example, why out of two people working in the same field, on same day, with same effort and dedication only one succeeds? Or why, despite any effort you make, you can’t move out of the country you hate to live in? Wouldn’t it be nice to know?

But I won’t try to get into squeezing 200+ pages into two-three sentences in this review, especially because the book reads very well. Even despite author’s examples from his career in a diamond company being not always necessary and sometimes just too long.

However, karma is of course not the only thing Buddhism has to say – it’s not even the main point. It’s more about how to break out of the karmic chains, how to wake up. It is about meditation. And Roach’s second book attempts to be a gentle introduction to main teachings of Buddhism as taught by his school. “The Garden: A Parable” is very different from “The Diamond Cutter”. It is a poetic story, revolving around a mystical garden to which the narrator comes again and again through his life to receive teachings from famous Buddhist masters from the past that appear there for him. These teachings vary from why practice to how practice and we progress along with the main character as he goes from lesson to lesson. After just 200 pages you can expect to have a fairly good overview of what Buddhism in its Tibetan, Vajrayana version is all about.

Roach’s writing is even better in this book (maybe thanks to lack of stories from the world of diamonds), however I think it should be read after “The Diamond Cutter”. Even though it is gentle the language is already much more poetic (although still not what Zen masters write), which may be harder for some. If, however, you don’t have problems with metaphors and parables – go ahead and start with this one. The book reads well, which coupled with its size ensures you won’t spend more than a week or two on it.

One of the interesting things about Michael Roach is that many of his works, including a series of comprehensive courses on various aspects of Tibetan Buddhism are available free on-line. And this doesn’t mean some short pages – these are complete PDF handbooks, ready to be printed and mp3 of lectures to go with them. It is really unusual, and I think this is the only place where you can actually legally get on-line so comprehensive materials on Buddhism.

The other thing about Michael is how he looks. I didn’t know how he looks when I read his book for the first time (it was “The Diamond Cutter”). And I’m glad it was so, because I didn’t judge his work by how he looks – and, I’m sorry to say, to me he looks like a freak. But, it goes on to show how such perceptions can be misleading, since his works are not freakish in any way. I just hope you won’t make the same mistake and will try them.

These books are as unusual as is their author. He is a son of a Russian soldier who fought in the second world war. He is an ex-officer of the Red Army, who during his service in a tanks regiment participated in the invasion on Czechoslovakia in 1968. He is also an ex-agent of GRU, soviet military intelligence agency, more ruthless and effective than KGB although dealing exclusively in foreign intelligence, not with suppression of internal dissidents.

After this exceptional career, which coming from a poor family he has only luck and his own abilities to thank for, Rezun defected 1978 to the United Kingdom and has remained there ever since. He provided the Western intelligence agencies with vital information about soviet spying, especially about the GRU and soviet’s efforts in stealing new technology from the West. Afterwards, living under protection of the United Kingdom’s intelligence he turned to writing. Only recently he was allowed to travel to some of the Eastern Block countries, including Poland, where his books are very popular.

While other of his writings include memoirs of his unusual life and some fiction, the “Icebreaker” is his most important work which brought him fame and raised an important historical debate, which continues until now.

In the “Icebreaker” Rezun proposes a very convincing explanation of the unprecedented success of Nazi Germany’s attack on Soviet Russia on June 22 1941, as well as much of the Stalinist Soviet Union internal and external policies in the years before the WW-II. His view is that Stalin was preparing to spread the communism and communist revolution all over the world, beginning with Europe. To achieve this he prepared the military machine on unprecedented scale and helped Hitler to start the war. Hitler was to serve as the “icebreaker of the revolution”, destroying the European system of states and preparing ground for the communism. Stalin planned to strike at Germany using the fact that its forces were spread thin, and then overrun it and occupy most (if not all) of Europe.

All this was planned in a very detailed way years before the events took place. A few weeks before the attack, as the military strategy requires, Soviet forces advanced to their border with the Nazi Germany, along with tons of various supplies and materials. Border fortifications were dismantled to clear the terrain for troops advancement and Border Protection Troops (part of KGB’s predecessor, NKVD) were withdrawn handing their posts over to the regular units of the Red Army. Everything was prepared, but then the Germans struck first. Of course, as it was the moment the Red Army was most vulnerable it was defeated quickly by the advancing Germans, who captured lots of vital supplies as well. Soviets were unable to fight, because their equipment, training and doctrine were prepared with attack, not defense in mind. They didn’t even have maps of their own territory, although they had lots of maps of the German territories they were supposed to attack.

Rezun provides numerous proofs and analysis to support his point. Most of these can be easily checked, as he bases his work almost exclusively on publicly available materials, including official Soviet press, military history books and other publications. Some of the data provided is mind blowing, like for example the fact that by 1941 Stalin had one million of trained paratroopers (no other nation came even close to that number). Some of it less sensational, but equally falls in place only if we assume Stalin was preparing to strike somewhere in 1941 like for example the timing of introduction of compulsory military service in the Soviet Union.

The scenario of Stalin’s plans to conquer Europe sounds sensational in the West and is frequently referred to as disputed. However, it is very well documented and has two clear advantages over the classic explanation everyone learned at school.

First, it makes sense. Saying that Stalin, who didn’t trust even his own family trusted Hitler so much as to allow himself to be attacked with his pants down doesn’t make sense. Saying that he was caught of guard because he prepared to attack him is much more logical.

Second, it fits the attitude Soviet Union had for most of its existence. That’s why for a Pole Rezun’s claims don’t sound strange. Poland experienced firsthand Soviet Union’s first attempt to bring revolution to Germany in 1920, when during a bloody war newly created incompetently commanded Red Army was defeated near Warsaw. This little known victory saved most of Europe from communism for years. Then, in 1939 Poland was attacked not only by Germany but also by the Soviet Union, who only 17 days later invaded Poland from the East stabbing the Polish Army in the back.

After the WW-II Poland became part of the Eastern Block, the new war machine preparing to take on the West. Polish Army trained… to invade Denmark. Polish state railways were employing three times the number of workers than needed and maintained unnecessary lines because it was to serve as supply route for the advancing armies. Polish medical schools were teaching much more doctors and nurses than the country needed because it was planned that first line of military hospitals would be located there. Everywhere throughout the Eastern Block factories used machines, that could be switched in a matter of days or sometimes hours to military production. This resulted in using non-optimal equipment and waste of resources, but no one cared.

In 1998 I was in Poznan, on a project for an international tobacco company (they were deploying some kind of system for their sales personnel). They bought out an old communist factory (along with some brands popular on the local market). One of managers told me that they had to replace most of machines, because for example old machines that furled cigarettes were inefficient. They used huge amounts of energy, were bulky and slow. They were however capable of furling ammunition shells. He said he had seen the documentation which proved that the whole production line could have been switched to producing riffle ammunition in a matter of hours.

So, these preparations never ceased. Only in the seventies they were not treated as seriously as during Stalin’s era, which is quite natural because with time and change of generations even the comrades from Kremlin begun to value their comfort more than ideological obligations. However, that’s one of the reasons why I’m convinced Rezun is right.

Interestingly, most historians who attack Rezun don’t dispute the claim that Stalin was preparing to attack, they only argue that he planned to do it much later than Rezun says. This means they agree with the core of his argument and want to debate something, which from my point of view is a mere detail.

Another amazing thing about this book is the fact that it’s so hard to get in the United States. “Icebreaker” is long out of print and new copies are not available. However, the prices of the used ones are amazing. When I checked a year ago they stood at $200, now you have to pay $300 to get one on eBay or through Amazon’s used books service. I’ve even seen an offer on Amazon demanding $600 for a copy! The volumes that followed, “Day M” and “The Last Republic”, were not even translated into English so unless you know Russian or Polish it is not possible to read them.

Which means that to have your won opinion about it you have to either learn a foreign language or be willing to spend quite a lot of money (or be lucky enough to find it in a library). But it’s worth it if you are interested in modern history and wonder why the world looked the way it did in the 20th century. Highly recommended.

I clearly remember the first time I’ve read it. It was in the spring of 2001, which was to be full of emotions and events I was yet unaware of. Tipped by a friend about this book I bought it in a small bookshop I happened to walk by on the lunch break. I started reading just as I left the bookshop, I read while waking back to the office and all the rest of the day spent there (I can admit it now having long left that company). I finished the first reading the very same day, late at night, deeply moved.

I’ve read it many times since. Last time was two months ago. My Spanish friend sent me a book as a gift. When I unwrapped it I rejoiced – it was “El Alquimista” – the Spanish translation. I was really happy, because somehow reading “The Alchemist” back then in 2001 was one of the small influences, small tips that resulted in my interest in Spain and subsequent studying of Spanish. Even despite the fact that Coelho is Brazilian and writes in Portuguese I connected his prose with Spain in my mind. And I always wanted to read it in Spanish. And so it happened, thanks to Miriam, that this was exactly the first book I really read in Spanish.

This Spanish connection is not totally absurd because The Alchemist begins in Andalusia and tells a story of a young Andalusian shepherd on his journey of self discovery. Great lesson of this book is to follow your dreams whatever they are. If you allow your dreams to die you’ll never forget it and your soul would become incinerated, charred shadow, devoid of joy of life.

It makes no sense to recount the story told in The Alchemist here. It is rather simple and serves more as a glue to connect a series of parables in which Coelho transmits his outlook on the world and life. It’s a rather unusual point of view of a Christian, Catholic mystic. But Coelho had a rather unusual life that included psychiatric treatment (thank to his parents), indulgence in the occult, political imprisonment by the Brazilian junta, then spiritual growth and unparalleled success as a writer in the recent years.

Coelho was accused of being shallow and overrated, mainly by critics in his native Brazil. Maybe I’m too shallow but I think in his books he skillfully touches the depths of what really perplexes us all – what is our life and what to do with it. It is, indeed, an overexploited theme in literature – but does it make it less relevant and inspiring? Go and check for yourself.

It’s hard to boil all this down to few sentences but overall it seems that the famous phrase which pulled me towards Buddhism – “The form is empty, emptiness is form” – is more in agreement with current scientific understanding than I expected.

I also have some thoughts going around my head as I read. For example one thing that – so far – has not appeared in the author’s cosmological dialog is recognition of the fact that our perception as parts of this universe of interdependencies is inherently limited. We are unable to scientifically measure or probably even understand in terms of human reasoning anything that might be outside of it. Any speculation reaching outside is bound to be an extrapolation of our own way of thinking – just as saying that life – and especially intelligent one – has necessarily to be based on carbon biology as we know it from Earth.

Another raw, yet unrefined reflection regards consequences of the experiments mentioned. If something clearly can move faster than light (even if it is just some form of information) and stability of phenomena on macroscopic level is rather an illusion than fact then there is hope that somehow the great distances of space can be traversed. It is of course far fetched, but maybe way forward for us is not only to try to blend general relativity and quantum mechanics into one single theory but rather in unifying the understanding of cognizant, conscious part of the reality and what we perceive as inanimate matter. Because it seems that fundamentally they are intrinsically connected.