Sometimes you hear the thoughts
Before the words are spoken.

Hiding under the clouds,
When the full moon is above.

Published originally December 11, 2011 @ 1:43 am.

Slussen is inevitable one of the strangest places in Stockholm. It is a major traffic node and public space where you used to end up on the New Years Day. It is Stockholm’s awkward Times Square. In the underground there is a terminal of the buses from south-east Stockholm and the Saltsjöbana that feed the Tunnelbana. On the ground it is a multilevel interchange and roundabout that elegantly curves to gradually climb to Södermalm from the lower Gamlastan.

Slussen is literally a monument of the car predicting the emergence of the motor society, but on the most humane level even in its brutalist appearance. It is the only interchange in Sweden that is inhabited by people. In Slussen it is safe to walk and cycle because it is impossible to drive fast in the curves. There are even some pockets where you can party or chill.

Slussen is also an architectural monument of the mainstreaming modernism of its time. It looks crude and non-appealing, especially to the tourist eye. Very few tourists will climb the slope of the interchange and even fewer will walk in the sketchy tunnels. The wrecked lemonish ceramics glazed walls and seemingly always closed shops always add to the uncomfortable feeling in the underground passages. Slussen concrete architecture stops the flows of tourists from Gamlastan and protects the urban life of Södermalm from the average tourist gaze.

The debate about rebuilding Slussen started with a competition over two visions: to rebuild the existing multilevel interchange and roundabout as it is or to build New Slussen or Nya Slussen in Swedish. The second vision won and since there is debate how should New Slussen look like. One argument was that Slussen was flat before 1920s and it should be flattened today. The flattened New Slussen was dominant image since. In 2008 there was an exhibition of four solutions of New Slussen and none of them had the charm and bizarre thoughtfulness of the existing one. Until today there was not really a consensus on the looks of the future Slussen.

In my work on future cities I pursued vision of hybrid cities that interweave the green city in the compact historical cores of the traditional European cities. I use sustainable cityscaping to describe this process of upgrading the dense urban cores into intensive contained ecosystems. I used my previous inspirations to sketch an image of New Slussen one summer day in 2009. I was sitting on the Gamlastan’s planks envisioning an interconnected network of skyscrapers of pure brutality and postmodernism-(neo)classicism in front of me.

I made sketches how Slussen would look like if the circular buildings and squares grow into round hybrid (green city in compact city) skyscrapers. The existing interchange and roundabout will climb to Gondolen and Mosebacke square with series of bridges connecting (neo)classical skyscrapers (even a postmodern-(neo)classical sky-high reflection of Gamlastan and existing Slussen). New Slussen will turn into more complex multilevel structure, more intensive, more brutal, more humane and more environmental friendly. In my vision the skyscrapers are agglomerations of chaotically organized (neo)classical apartments with interwoven hanging gardens. The hanging gardens will partly supply for food and energy and partly clean water and waste .

Growing skyscrapers in New Slussen is definitely a crazy idea. But I was wondering is it better to discuss crazy then mediocre ideas. Do we need more crazy ideas in the debate about New Slussen?

The meaningful days in
a box of pictures,
a box of stars,
purple and silver.

Did you hear the spring?
‘I looked’, he said,
it was behind the pictures,
in the box,
all covered with snow,
purple and silver.

Did you hide?
‘Under the moon I did’,
he whispered,
‘as it seductively
drowned in the asphalt’,
purple and silver.

He likes those days,
When the clouds are coming,
In the city,
He likes those days.
When the raindrops form,
In front of his window.
Thousands raindrops,
Morphing and falling three hundred storeys down,
In the sticking filth,
In the everlasting fog of the old city,
He likes those days.
He likes when the clouds are coming.

An older poem recycled.

I usually do not care about viruses and computer problems, but yesterday I got a very vicious virus. The virus managed to crypt all my audio and video files and courteously asked to go to a webpage where there will be information how to proceed. Just imagine that suddenly my computer turned mute. I went on the webpage and I downloaded an application called activation.exe that asked for a blackmail of 19.53$. The application gave two choices, direct payment by card and PayPal. I used PayPal and sent the money to Pavel Kostenko on pakovelli@gmail.com (PAYPAL *PAKOVELLI). The password that I got was 28087526. The application later made a key that I used to decrypt my audio and video files. It luckily worked.

How the virus works? It targets all the usual audio and video files (mp3, avi, wmv) and crypts them with an extension .CrYpTeD. The extension is connected with Antivir Certify .exe file (HDXOZMES.exe was in my case) file that was in WINDOWS/System32 folder. Another virus file was WINDOWS/Temp/~TMC.tmp. ~TMC.tmp was the blackmailer file that came up on the restart of the computer.

I did not pay the blackmail immediately. When I saw that all my audio and video files got an extension .CrYpTeD I used bulk rename, but the virus manages to cut the start and end of the audio and video files. That is maybe ok for mp3 files that can play like several seconds later and end earlier, but it killed all my Xvid files. I usually make my animations as Xvid avi’s. It was a pay or die situation for the files.

I use videos in my presentations and a virus like this can be devastating. Even if it is not about work, all of my camera videos could have been gone. I have backups of most of them, but restoring an entire folder of tens of GB movies would have taken days.

I hope that my post will help someone who gets in hostage files trouble. I also hope that it will affect any makers of this kind of blackmailing software to stay away from vicious programming.

IN THE BEGINING
FEW PICTURES

Three suns
Were born
On the boats traversing the sky.
A lavish breakfast
They craved,
A great sacrifice,
The golden eyes of time.
A lavish breakfast
They craved,
Before breakfast
They darkened.

1.1.

… (On the top of the building across there is a small child. With poison arrows he is killing the clouds. On the street, the undead celebrate, on the street, there is a streetlight and metal garbage can…)
Sol: (He is knocking on the door)
Hirona: (Just a voice) Who is it?
Sol: Sol.
Hirona: Who?
Sol: Sol.
Hirona: (She looks through the small opening on the door) That is a stupid name!
Sol: (Surprised)
Hirona: (She opens the door) I am Hirona.
Sol: (He is hiding his tears)
Sol: God…
… (The garbage can on the corner was totally crashed by a machine that fall from the sky. The can is bleeding…)
Sol: …damn.
Hirona: This is for you, an umbrella.
Sol: Thank you.
… (Hirona closes the door. On the street it is snowing and everything is quiet…)
Sol: (He is knocking on the door)
(No answer)
Sol: Beautiful…
(The streetlight is off)
Sol: (He is knocking on the door)
(The streetlight is on)
Hirona: Who is it?
Sol: You forgot…
(Small white flowers are growing from the blood of the garbage can…)
Sol: … your face.
Hirona: I am sorry. I am really lost these days.
Hirona: Thank you.
Sol: Hmmm. (He is thinking)
(Still snowing)
Sol: You know, I am looking for the Third street.
Sol: I am caring…
(He is putting down the frozen bird from his head)
Sol: (tired) … a gift.
(He seats on the street)

1.2.

… (He learned that the music heals all the wounds)
Sol: (He is walking on а narrow path) The frozen desert is behind this park. The shadows and sculptures of this ice age are dancing. The clouds have covered the sky…
Sol: Someone has closed all the winds in the glass bottle and they are in the future.
Sol: (He seats under an old frozen tree) Damn…
Sol: I was seating in front of the door, too long.
Sol: I saw.
Sol: No one.
Sol: Suddenly music.
Sol: Some child killed the cloud.
Sol: One day.
Sol: The spring will come.
Sol: One day.
Sol: (He is playing the flute)
(From nowhere the crows appeared to listen to the music. Few old and wounded people also came to the bridge)
Sol: (He is playing the flute)
(The music stopped)

Take a
Tear
And put it
In your eye.
Take a
Tear
From the eyes of the
Frozen figures.
Take a
Tear
From the eyes
Of the sick and the wounded.
Choose
Free.

1.3.

… (They have locked the sun in the cage above the bridge)
The Kid: Why?
Sol: It is too cold.
Sol: You rush too much, Kid…
(It throws the bait…)
Sol: The people should be happy.
(Nervously)
Sol: Hide now.
(They are hiding behind one aluminum can)
Sol: Shhh…
(Countless colorful butterflies are arriving from everywhere. Who can resist freshly prepared flowers?)
Sol: Now.
(The net killed half of the butterflies)
Sol: Take my red scarf.
The Kid: (It puts the scarf)
Sol: Good bye.
(He puts a bridle on one butterfly)
Sol: (Waves)
(The Kid flies away on the butterfly)
Sol: (Looks att the broken wings on the ground) What a mess.
(Someone jumped from the bridge)
Sol: (Sadly) What a mess.
Sol: (He closed his eyes)
Sol: (Few tears rolled in his hand. He opened his umbrella.)
(Dead butterflies fall from the sky)
Sol: You know. The butterflies live three days.
Sol: Then, they live three more.
(It starts to snow)
Sol: The unlucky ones.
Sol: (A bloody tear drops from his eye)
Sol: They like the light.
Sol: Hand.
Sol: Wool glows.
Sol: It is terribly cold.
Sol: (He straightens her body up) Wool hat.
Sol: Wonderful.
Hirona: (She opens the eyes) I am Hirona.
Sol: I am Sol.
Hirona: (Looking at the dead butterflies) That is a stupid name.
Hirona: I have never seen so colorful creatures.
Sol: (He gives her one butterfly) You have to be hungry.
Hirona: Thank you.
(The streetlights smiled in the pearls on her necklace)
Sol: I am not hungry.
(Her shadow travelled away in the pearls on her necklace…)

The sky cursed bitterly
At the colorful butterflies
The sky cursed bitterly
For ten nights
…
They killed three stars
Three evening stars.

Note: I will slowly translate my old play about Sol. Click here to read this play in Macedonian.

While the sky was grey,
He walks again
Along the fence
Where no one really passes,
He plays with the wires
Playing a song to the autumn,
While the sky is grey.

17-10-2008: On the 22nd of October in 14.00h Todor Stojanovski will hold a presentation in the municipality of Aerodrom in Skopje about sustainability and development.

25-10-2008: The lecture in the municipality was published on the webpage of the municipality of Aerodrom

01-01-2009: Happy New Year!

01-01-2010: Happy New Year!

Welcome @ Weblog TS.TŽSiS!