The Future is here...finally!

Simply and subtly a.m.a.z.i.n.g.

Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo.

The idea was crafted by Lit Studios, an art and technology project developed by one guy in the North East. One bloomin' guy! No price tag yet... which may be a good thing, because that which is greatest in value lacks expense. You can imagine how amazingly efficient society would be with such a device.

[[I'll edit this post later - its a friday night so I should go out and be a bit social]]

Friday Barley and Hops Review Preview

I know I know, ego cognito ego cognito, no internet no media for 2 weeks.
But this announcement has been coming for a while.

Each week on Friday, a new type of beer will be tasted and reviewed, similar to the style of
those tribes of winos that frolic the champagne region of France of all things.

Starting off this week is a brew from Munich. (not the city in Sweeden) The Spaten brewery has produced a "Premium" version of the original batch. They both cost the same at the supermarket and were cheap, cheap.

So called "premium"...what a joke

There obviously was no sober person working within the spastic Spaten corp, tm, inc, whatever, etc. that actually tasted the regular version and the premium. Here's the summary put gently:
They're both the same quality tool for inebriation! Some knob-jockey put the SAME mix in different bottles and got a raise as well as four small Pacific island nations. What-a-joke, its like when Coke (tm, whatever) put out "new coke" and with pepsi started to sell water of all things. Don't package the same thing in two different labels, because a "unknowing" consumer (yea right, its a foreign beer, they have some intelligence) would supposedly buy something that says premium over plain regular for the same price. There's a hilarious quote from Obama that puts it a bit differently, "you can put lipstick on a pig, but you're still stuck with a pig."

Moving on, no updates 'til next friday. But here's a short list of the stuff I've been keeping track of being off the media for a week:

• Personal nutrion/caloric input (all organic)
• Weight fluxuation
  
• Excercise/caloric output (burn)
• Books read per week
• Commute distance/mode
• DJ's met, more here than one would think
• conspiracies debunked
• Big News: started remixing songs again, by the name....(stay tuned to find out)
  

And also here's a remix I made of Hiras hit "Back on Earth"

unpredictable art

Art is unpredictable, unstable, free from restraint and thus a threat to the norms of modern society. Such is the state of the modern artist, whom are given a dilemma: Express the freedom of any thought comprehended while slowly alienating oneself from society or contain ones outrageous thoughts, cap them with a "safety helmet" and blend in so as to contribute to the possible wrongs of societal structure.

Blunt, yes. Observant, yes. It evokes the emotion of the character Marvin from The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. "Brain the size of a planet...(shakes head)."

...speaking of art, I took a few photos of dinosaurs at the Botanical Gardens. Think Jurassic Park, but in Texas. Awkward fit, but there you go.

(EDIT PHOTOS LATER)

Nature offers a relaxing environment that is recalcitrant to the civilization mankind has set-up. Its a very enlightening place and I think I may just quit any using any form of media for a week or two. That includes this bleak project that only the two of you and the google tracking bot pay any attention to with updates. The stint will exclude the use of internet for email, study, and academic-related purposes, naturally. There'll be a hard copy which I'll update what happens during this experimente.

~Adios for now~

Speakeasy Literature

Man, this weekend may pull a roadrunner on my animus*. Two novels were bought at my local for-profit literature emporium, Bookpeople, after extensive credit card verification. (One has not used plastic capital since a couple months before the credit crisis). I intended to find a copy of H.G. Wells' Men Like Gods, but nonetheless my journey took me back to Chuck Palahnuik, whom the populous may know as the writer of Fight Club. "Choke", the new movie that recently premiered in cinemas, was also articulated by Chuck, so with that book I also picked up a random novel about the social complications of superintelligence in a society that advocates repression of thought: How I Became Stupid by Martin Page. That one will certainly be intriguing.

No real big ideas or questions to examine today, just a series of quaint observations. If anything, the benefits of tribalism circled about, but nothing serious.

Being in an apartment and other buildings this week got tiring real fast, so a read and a stroll around the local park by the lake shore was a keen choice for the day. May do that again tomorrow. It was pretty ace to see differing tribes/families sharing the same paths and bridges. (One universe, one love = excellente). I noticed most people out there for objectivist reasons, which is fair enough when no harm is intended, but not many in the park just to be in the park.

From walking about, I snagged a few images with the theme of nature taking over the domain of man. Rather great that nature still limits the power of man, instead of man thinking it is superior than or master to nature. That kind of arrogant thinking is unsustainable and we're learning very quickly the survival of our species is not yet secure in an infinite universe/superverse. Man likes having a hundred buildings for every five trees...something is clearly wrong. Man likes to think it is special, but it's not. We're not the center of the solar system (Aristarchus, Bruno/Copernicus), not the center of the universe (Hubble), and not the only tool-using, intelligent species to have existed on earth, and highly likely the universe (anthropology 101, Sagan).





After strolling the avenue like a Lithuanian millionaire, I reached a big hill, and sat down while the sun retreated from view. Right by the auditorium in that area is a couple of elegant, rhythmic fountains in moving in forcibly programmed harmony. There was the usual pack of kids enjoying life, adults gossiping/taking their mind off worrying about kids, and geriatrics enjoying themselves not caring about what others think. This links a couple concepts, from observations that I've had, that collide into each other:

1. The two wisest stages of life are youth and old age
2. Most people in between those periods like to think they actually know anything or everything, due to constant job occupation keeping them from asking too many questions
   
3. The first step to wisdom is to know that you know nothing
   
4. Time is an illusion
5. Civilization represses the imagination
6. Profit seeking corrupts the evolutionary process

I'll write a bit more on those concepts later.

*The word animus is derived from Latin, I can't really explain the definition (complicated), so look it up yourself

Sustainability in Modern Art

Derrick Jensen, I would say, is one of the most forward philosophical writers on ecology in the context of our modern world. The point he drives forth, in most of his books, is "well...what really is sustainable anyway?". Namely his two books: Endgame vol. 1 and vol. 2 universalize that question on a planetary scale. From what I have read of his works so far, he exposes several things that the general public is only now just realizing, such as the effects of industrialism on the environment and the safety of our species' survival.

Well I minimized that question to concentrate on how humanity can create highly expressive, yet sustainable modern art. To begin with, can sustainable art piece be a predominantly permanent item?

Here are some photos that would suggest a yes to that answer:

Mayan Temple

Chinese Hill converted into a Mausoleum

Serpent Mound in Adena, Ohio

Wood henge did not last as long

And here are some pictures that suggest a "No, not all the time I say" response:

I assure that no plastics were used in the construction

It was a good try at least

Made from rubber bands and recycled aluminum cans

Gravity's only a "theory" anyway...

Analysis:

Technically both answers are correct. The only difference with the yes and no answers is that it would take an awfully long time for the component materials of the more predominantly permanent architecture (...which is an art form for those none the wiser) to be separate d from each other or reduced to different physical states. Whereas the jenga tower is highly susceptible to falling, the "green" car to rusting/composting, and the chair is to rusting. Some of the most permanent structures and pieces of art on the planet were created many thousands of years ago and are less susceptible to environmental change because they coincide with the area around them as more natural landmarks than modern skyscrapers.

The Eiffel Tower, a comparably modern design, along with Salvidor Dali's The Persistence of Memory, were only created in a way that would give them an effective lifespan of a few centuries before they needed restoration efforts by humans. But great sustainable architectural achievements like the Mayan Temple of the Sun and Stonehenge have lasted and will last many more centuries than their designed use.

*Note: The Pyramid complex at Giza, Egypt was not included in the predominantly permanent art section because of the traditionally hot and dry climate the buildings reside. This will cause them, if man no longer exists or makes any preservation efforts, to be engulfed completely in neighboring sand dunes within the next full rotation of the Earth's axis (26,000 years). The Mayan Temples will still remain by then, covered by foliage they may be, but the overall structure would still give its effect.

What is real in a place that changes?

Searching google images for abstract concepts, I came across a rather strangely put question:

What is real in a place that changes?

Now THAT would certainly be an interesting notion to investigate! The obvious answer to anyone with a passion for unadultered reason would be the fundamental laws that govern the make-up of the place itself.

Yet from a philosophical standpoint, yes I can see why this question would need answering. Philosophy explores the gaps in knowledge and when those figurative gaps are filled, new sciences and aspects of culture (ie music, drama, art, some aspects of politics) are created. The philosopher, exploiting these gaps, comes to the big question: ...well, how do we really know what reality is anyway? I admit I don't know, and those that say they know would rather pursue the philosophical than the practical. What I can say for sure from the various great philosophical works I have read and my own emprical, logical reasoning, is that this very well might not be the ultimate reality even if there possibly is one. The ego in realizing it can think, can without a doubt deduce that it exists, and I would go on to say if one exists then one has to also exist in some perspective of reality. (Whether it is in the imagination of a giant bug about to get squished or in an atom of a geode)

A blue dot, with a dominant species that prefers destruction to discussion

Given all of that, I can say that change itself continues to show it is real. Take for instance our tiny blue planet. It was not always the size it is now and accumulated mass via violent clashes of matter in what we authoritatively call "our" solar system. Those clashes ceased and change happened again as the crust cooled...changing of the seasons, life began, etc.

An amazing achievement of an intelligent species learning about the universe

Scientists throughout human history know that the laws describing how the universe functions and changes occuring due to those functions are what is real. Even the universe itself is changing and has been ever since the Big Bang...and possibly before.

It is statistically improbable that we are the only intelligent lifeform to exist anywhere in this universe

String Theory and Brane Theory are two of many that illustrate scientists, especially physicists, do not limit themselves to understanding only this universe, contrary to what opponents of science would have one believe.

Like the reality of change itself, we can change also and consistently have, mostly for the better...with the exception of the primitive man that answered the question at hand (what is real in a place that changes?) with a statement similar to this: well there must be something that causes all these hardships for us, lack of food, lightning, and predators. It must be a bigger being than us, living in the sky as we are a bigger being to an ant. It must also determine our fate, we should please it. ...unfortunately the chap that went, "hey, how do we know there's a being up there? Didn't we just make that up because we didn't know? Couldn't it be something else like our environment and the pieces within it that cause our plight?", didn't reproduce as well. I wonder how things would have turned out if he did?

Meaningful Possibilities

Good afternoon! If it is not the afternoon in your location then no worries it is the afternoon somewhere else, time is all relative anyway.

Being the first entry in the series, I would like to introduce and illustrate the purpose of this page. It has occurred to me that, while exploring the endless possibilities of ideas and concepts that surround the universe, I ought not to certainly keep the discoveries of my journey to myself and those that I communicate with in my daily life. Therefore for purposes of self and the collective body of intelligent-thinking species it would be mutually beneficial to post and extend any findings that I have come across on my journey.

Alright...that was a mouthful, but on to the fun stuff!

Recently in a local collegiate publication, I read a short article describing the effects of binaural audio on the brain. Apparently binaural recording has been around for at least a century and produces the remarkable effect of three-dimensional audio. This is not merely the 7.1 surround sound effect a user gets while playing an album in the living room or where else one has their system set up. While binaural audio has the stereo effect in common with expansive audio systems, its effect derives from the use of headphone speakers and the difference of frequency in the audio delivered by each speaker.

For example: While playing a tune, say Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the left headphone produces a frequency of 15 Hz while the right puts forth 10 Hz.

To the interest of the neurologist, psychologist, and any other individual with interest in study of the mind, when the brain receives sound from two differing frequencies it attempts to adjust itself to the beat frequency. In that attempt, the brain produces hypnotic effects, depending on the frequency difference, that mimic different types of brainwaves.

The list of effects includes: relaxation, increase of brainwaves (yes, seriously), sleep inducement, and increased concentration.

The benefits of binaural audio are staggering, namely the increase of brainwaves that would enable one to learn new languages quicker, memorize/retain information, and develop new thoughts.

Here's a sample, (make sure to wear headphones and dim the lights):



cheers and please post a comment. Your thoughts are welcome!