8 de septiembre de 2017

La quinta estación

Otra de mis incorporaciones de la Feria del  Libro 2017. Como el último, también publicado por la editorial Nova y también premio Hugo, éste de 2016.

La autora, Nora Jemisin, crea un mundo nuevo que raya entre la fantasía épica y la ciencia ficción, un mundo en que algunos humanos tienen un don y lejos de gobernar, han sido sometidos y domesticados.

La narrativa me ha sorprendido; el tratamiento que hace de los personajes, la elección de la voz del narrador, cómo se relacionan entre sí, creo que no sólo es novedoso, sino magistral.Un libro con un argumento que engancha, un estilo rápido y pulido, una traducción muy buena y una idea brillante.

Mi único pero es que el final no puede quedar tan sumamente abierto a la continuación, que ya existe, 'The obelisk gate', y que además fue ganador del premio Hugo en 2017, repitiendo la hazaña de Orson Scott ganador del premio Hugo en dos años consecutivos con 'Los juegos de Ender' y su continuación: 'La voz de los muertos' o de Lois McMaster Bujold también ganador consecutivo del premio dos años, con 'El juego de los Vor' que aún tengo pendiente.

Autor: N.K.Jemisin
Nºpags: 425

6 de septiembre de 2017

Societal net energy yield is falling

Over the next few decades, the overall costs of fossil fuel energy production will increase, even while the market value of fossil fuel energy remains low. The total net energy yield available to fuel continued economic growth will inexorably decline. This will, in turn, squeeze the extent to which the economy can afford to buy fossil fuel energy that is increasingly expensive to produce.

  1. The world’s fossil fuels overall experienced their maximum cumulative EROI of approximately 44:1 in the early 1960s.
  2. The more EROI declines, a greater proportion of the energy being produced must be used simply to extract more energy. This means that EROI decline leads to less real-world economic growth.
  3. Complex civilizations tend to accelerate the use of resources, while diminishing the quantity of resources available for the civilization’s continued expansion — because they are continually being invested in solving the new problems generated by increasing complexity.
  4. The highest level of productivity was reached around the 1930s, and since then with each industrial revolution has declined.
+ Inside the new economic science of capitalism’s slow-burn energy collapse (by @NafeezAhmed)

11 de julio de 2017

El problema de los tres cuerpos

Ya conocéis mi inclinación por la literatura de ciencia ficción y reconozco que suelo incluir en mis lecturas muchos premio Nebula y Hugo.

En 2015, por primera vez desde su inicio, el premio Hugo fue otorgado a una obra de un autor no anglosajón; comenzaba la invasión editorial China.

Cixin Liu ha conseguido vender más de tres millón de copias de la primera parte de una trilogía; cifras que en este género, sólo autores como Asimov, Orwell o Scott Card, han conseguido.

El libro tiene una base científica muy sólida, que hace que determinados fragmentos sean de difícil lectura, pero la estructura, la definición de los personajes, la trama y el desenlace, son francamente buenos.

Como los clásicos de la ciencia ficción, plantea problema morales, éticos y sociales, en un paralelismo de la historia de la Tierra, con un futuro imaginario que bien podría ser cierto en cualquier momento.

El inicio transcurre durante la revolución cultural China, liderada por Mao, con la demonización de la ciencia y la persecución a científicos que no apoyan los nuevos dogmas con ojos ciegos; ¿es la ciencia, el camino al progreso y la libertad? Es una de las preguntas que flotan en el libro desde la primera página, mezclado con la sobreexplotación de nuestros recursos, el afán por encontrar vida fuera de la Tierra, el dilema de qué ocurriría si algún día contactásemos con extraterrestres.

Un libro muy bien escrito que obliga al lector a reflexionar sobre temas que, sin formar parte de nuestro día a día, subyacen de alguna forma en el pensamiento universal.

Autor: Cixin Liu
Nº pags.: 408

25 de mayo de 2017

The future is a pluriverse by David Bollier

Some believe that the commons are incompatible with commodity markets. Others claim that markets and commons may form mutually beneficial relations with each other. What are your own views on this issue?
I think it is entirely possible for markets and commons to “play nicely together,” but only if commoners can have “value sovereignty” over their resources and community governance.  Market players such as businesses and investors cannot be able to freely appropriate the fruits of a commons for themselves without the express authorization of commoners.  Nor should markets be allowed to uses their power to force commoners to assume market, money-based roles such as “consumers” and “employees.”  In short, a commons must have the capacity to self-regulate its relations with the market and to assure that significant aspects of its common wealth and social relationships remain inalienable – not for sale via market exchange.
A commons must be able to develop “semi-permeable boundaries” that enable it to safely interact with markets on its own terms.  So, for example, a coastal fishery functioning as a commons may sell some of its fish to markets, but the goals of earning money and maximizing profit cannot be allowed to become so foundational that it crowds out commons governance and respect for ecological limits.
Of course, market/commons relations are easier when it comes to digital commons and their shared wealth such as code, text, music, images and other intangible (non-physical) resources.  Such digital resources can be reproduced and shared at virtually no cost, so there is not the “subtractability” or depletion problems of finite bodies of shared resources.  In such cases, the problem for commons is less about preventing “free riding” than in intelligently curating digital information and preventing mischievous disruptions.  In digital spaces, the principle of “the more, the merrier” generally prevails.
That said, even digital commoners must be able to prevent powerful market players from simply appropriating their work for commercial purposes, at no cost.  Digital commoners should not simply generate “free resources” for larger market players to exploit for private gain.  That is why some digital communities are exploring the use of the newly created Peer Production License, which authorizes free usage of digital material for noncommercial and commons-based people but requires any commercial users to pay a fee.  Other communities are exploring the potential of “platform co-operatives,” in which an networked platform is owned and managed by the group for the benefit of its members.
The terms by which a commons protects its shared wealth and community ethos will vary immensely from one commons to another, but assuring a stable, benign relationship with markets is a major and sometimes tricky challenge.
During the last years we saw a boom in digital-commons, developed in urban areas by collectives and hack labs. What are the potentialities for non-digital commoning in the city in its present form – heavily urbanized and under constant surveillance? Are its proportions incompatible with the logic of the commons or the social right to the city is still achievable?
There has been an explosion of urban commons in the past several years, or at least a keen awareness of the need and potential of self-organized citizen projects and systems, going well beyond what either markets or city governments can provide.  To be sure, digital commons such as maker spaces and FabLabs are more salient and familiar types of urban commons.  And there is growing interest, as mentioned, in platform co-operatives, mutually owned and managed platforms to counter the extractive, sometimes-predatory behaviors of proprietary platforms such as Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit and others.
But there are many types of urban commons that already exist and that could expand, if given sufficient support.  Urban agriculture and community gardens, for example, are important ways to relocalize food production and lower the carbon footprint.  They also provide a way to improve the quality of food and invigorate the local economy.  As fuel and transport costs rise with the approach of Peak Oil, these types of urban commons will become more important.
I might add, it is not just about growing food but about the distribution, storage and retailing of food along the whole value-chain.  There is no reason that regional food systems could not be re-invented to mutualize costs, limit transport costs and ecological harm, and improve wages, working conditions, food quality (e.g., no pesticides; fresher produce), and affordability of food through commons-based food systems.  Jose Luis Vivero Pol has explored the idea of “food commons” to help achieve such results, and cities like Fresno, California, are engaged with re-inventing their local agriculture/food systems as systems.
Other important urban commons are social in character, such as timebanks for bartering one’s time and services when money is scarce; urban gardens and parks managed by residents of the nearby neighborhoods, such as the Nidiaci garden in Florence, Italy; telcommunications infrastructures such as Guifi.net in Barcelona; and alternative currencies such as the BerkShares in western Massachusetts in the US, which help regions retain more of the value they generate, rather than allowing it to be siphoned away via conventional finance and banking systems.
There are also new types of state/commons partnerships such as the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban commons. This model of post-bureaucratic governance actively invites citizen groups to take responsibility for urban spaces and gardens, kindergartens and eldercare. The state remains the more powerful partner, but instead of the usual public/private partnerships that can be blatant ripoffs of the public treasury, the Bologna Regulation enlists citizens to take active responsibility for some aspect of the city. It’s not just government on behalf of citizens, but governance with citizens. It’s based on the idea of “horizontal subsidiarity” – that all levels of governments must find ways to share their powers and cooperate with single or associated citizens willing to exercise their constitutional right to carry out activities of general interest.
In France and the US, there are growing “community chartering” movements that give communities the ability to express their own interests and needs, often in the face of hostile pressures by corporations and governments.  There are also efforts to develop data commons that will give ordinary people greater control over their data from mobile devices, computers and other equipment, and prevent tech companies from asserting proprietary control over data that has important public health, transport, planning or other uses.  Another important form of urban commons is urban land trusts, which enable the de-commodification of urban land so that the buildings (and housing) built upon it can be more affordable to ordinary people.  This is a particularly important approach as more “global cities” becomes sites of speculative investment and Airbnb-style rentals; ordinary city dwellers are being priced out of their own cities.  Commons-based approaches offer some help in recovering the city for its residents.
Why bring the commons to the management and governance of a city?  Urban commons can also reduce costs that a city and its citizens must pay. They do this by mutualizing the costs of infrastructure and sharing the benefits — and by inviting self-organized initiatives to contribute to the city’s needs. Urban commons enliven social life simply by bringing people together for a common purpose, whether social or civic, going beyond shopping and consumerism.  And urban commons can empower people and build a sense of fairness.  In a time of political alienation, this is a significant achievement.
Urban commons can unleash creative social energies of ordinary citizens, who have a range of talents and the passion to share them.  They can produce artworks and music, murals and neighborhood self-improvement, data collections and stewardship of public spaces, among other things.  Finally, as international and national governance structures become less effective and less trusted, cities and urban regions are likely to become the most appropriately scaled governance systems, and more receptive to the constructive role that commons can play.
Contemporary struggles for protection of commons seem to be strongly intertwined with ecological matters. We can clearly see this in struggles like the one that is currently taking place in North Dakota. Is there a direct link between the commons and ecology?
Historically, commoning has been the dominant mode of managing land and even today, in places like Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is arguably the default norm, notwithstanding the efforts of governments and investors to commodify land and natural resources.  According to the International Land Alliance, an estimated 2 billion people in the world still depend upon forests, fisheries, farmland, water, wild game and other natural resources for their everyday survival.  This is a huge number of people, yet conventional economists still regard this “subsistence” economy and indigenous societies as uninteresting because there is little market-exchange going on.  Yet these communities are surely more ecologically mindful of their relations to the land than agribusinesses that rely upon monoculture crops and pesticides, or which exploit a plot of land purely for its commercial potential without regard for biodiversity or long-term effects, such as the massive palm oil plantations in tropical regions.
Commoning is a way for we humans to re-integrate our social and commercial practices with the fundamental imperatives of nature.  By honoring specific local landscapes, the situated knowledge of commoners, the principle of inalienability, and the evolving social practices of commoning, the commons can be a powerful force for ecological improvement.
What should be the role of the state in relation to the commons?
For more on these topics, I recommend two reports by the Commons Strategies Group:  “Democratic Money and Capital for the Commons:  Strategies for Transforming Neoliberal Finance through Commons-based Alternatives,” about new types of commons-based finance and banking (http://commonsstrategies.org/democratic-money-and-capital-for-the-commons-2/); and “State Power and Commoning:  Transcending a Problematic Relationship,” a report about how we might reconceptualize state power so that it could foster commoning as a post-capitalist, post-growth means of provisioning and governance.  (http://commonsstrategies.org/state-power-commoning-transcending-problematic-relationship)
How essential is, in your opinion, direct user participation for practices of commoning? Can the management of the commons be delegated to structures like the state or are the commons essentially connected to genuine grassroots democracy?
Direct participation in commoning is preferred and often essential.  However, each of us has only so many hours in the day, and we can remember the complaint that “the trouble with socialism is that it takes too many evenings.”  Still, there are many systems, particularly in digital commons, for assuring bottom-up opportunities for participation along with accountable governance and transparency.   And there are ways in which commons values can be embedded in the design of infrastructures and institutions, much as Internet protocols favor a distributed egalitarianism.  By building commons principles into the structures of larger institutions, it can help prevent or impede the private capture of them or a betrayal of their collective purposes.
That said, neither legal forms or nor organizational forms are a guarantee that the integrity of a commons and its shared wealth will remain intact.  Consider how some larger co-operatives resemble conventional corporations.  That is why some elemental forms of commoning remain important for assuring the cultural and ethical integrity of a commons.
We are entering in an age of aggressive privatization and degradation of commons: from privatization of water resources, through internet surveillance, to extreme air pollution. What should be the priorities of the movements fighting for protection of the commons? What about their organizational structure?
Besides securing their own commons against the threats of enclosure, commons should begin to federate and cooperate as a way to build a more self-aware Commons Sector as a viable alternative to both the state and market.  We can see rudimentary forms of this in the “assemblies of the commons” that have self-organized in some cities, and in the recently formed European Commons Assembly.  I am agnostic about the best organizational structure for such work because I think it will be emergent; the participants themselves must decide what will be most suitable at that time.  Of course, in this digital age, I have a predisposition to think that the forms will consist of many disparate types of players loosely joined; it won’t be a centralized, hierarchical organization.  The future is a “pluriverse,” and the new organizational forms will need to recognize this reality in operational ways.
What is your vision of a commons-based society? How would it look like?
I don’t have a grand vision.  I stand by core values and learn from ongoing practical lessons.  We don’t know the developmental evolution that will occur in the future, or for that matter, what our own imaginations and capacities might be able to actualize.  Emergence happens.  Yet I do believe that commoning is far more of a default talent of the human species than homo economicus.  We are hard-wired to cooperate, coordinate and co-evolve together.  Especially as the grand, centralized market/state systems of the 20th century begin to implode through their own dysfunctionality, the commons will more swiftly step into the breach by offering more local, convivial and trusted systems of survival.
The transition of “commonification” will likely be bumpy, if only because the current masters of the universe will not readily cede their power and prerogatives. They will be incapable of recognizing a “competing” worldview and social order.  But the costs of maintaining the antiquated Old Order are becoming increasingly prohibitive.  The capital expense, coercion, organizational complexities, and ecological instability are growing even as popular trust in the market/state and its political legitimacy is declining.
Rather than propose a glowing vision of a commons-based society, I am content to point to hundreds of smaller-scale projects and movements.  As they find each other, replicate their innovations, and federate into a more coordinated, self-aware polity – if we dare call it that! – well, that’s when things will get very interesting.


The Particular Finest

Presented by aurynn shaw

Your Team In Four Dimensions

So I had a meeting the other day, where a really interesting term came up, that of temporal teams”.

In the context of the conversation, we were discussing teams that come together to achieve some goal, but disband after the project is completed. It’s a model that’s used extensively in the film industry, where contractors are brought together for the project and part ways at the end.

This is a workable model for projects that don’t have an extended lifecycle, but isn’t really appropriate for ongoing software development, as so much state is held inside the heads of the team working on it, and bringing new people in later without the original team means they’ll be fumbling in the dark.

But we have onboarding, and our teams don’t disband, and we’re sad but happy when our teammates leave us for other things. But our team lifecycles aren’t that they grow and shrink, by gaining and shedding people.

Instead, I think our teams only ever grow.

Standing On Shoulders

Wait, what?” you might ask - people are leaving all the time! My team is staying roughly the same size!

That may look true, but consider what you do as a developer and how you build new things on top of existing tools and techniques. Those things that you build on aren’t just pieces of code, they are also expressions of the culture in which you build them. After all, culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you do.

These pieces of underlying software are your foundation. They determine what makes sense and what paths you can take, impose their design choices upon you and limit possibilities. Your culture, what you do is founded on the culture of what came before and what they did.

So how does this relate to teams?

Similar to the external libraries you use, what team members have done before you limits what you can do now. They made decisions that are now part of the foundation upon which you build, and the culture of those decisions is encoded in that foundation.

Decisions of what library to use, how to deploy the software, how the architecture is intended to work. These are decisions that you couldn’t affect, but still affect you.

Exponential Complexity

But I said earlier that your team size only grows, and I still haven’t explained why I said that.

If you think about the idea that what you can build is determined by others’ past choices and past culture, then, when did they actually leave the team? Every day that you interact with the choices they made you are having a conversation with them, communicating with their ideas, ideas that form the basis of the ideas that you can have.

So why is this important?

Well, Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users, which tells us that the number of communications we need to make with our team members is also proportional to the square of the number of members. A team of 6 members requires 36 potential communication events to discuss ideas and approach a consensus.

So why is that important?

Your past team members are a part of that. They aren’t full members as far as the communication properties of the graph goes, since they’re only ever telling you things, but they are communicating with you across time.

A potential revision to Metcalfe’s Law to account for this is n^2 * m, with n representing current team members, multiplied by past team members. Past team members no longer communicate with each other, and no longer communicate with current members, and the longer they’ve been gone from the team, the less relevant their input.

So why is this important

Modern software development is a team sport, and the complexity of team communication is a vital aspect of team dynamics. As a result, removing *m from the equation means not rebuilding the culture of the team but ripping out its foundations. Since the foundations are often encoded into the software and datasets that the team works with, this can mean replacing large pieces of the software codebase or backing datasets, either through a clean rewrite” or an evolutionary process.

And this is necessary! Choices that were correct in the past may no longer correct in the present, and will always need re-examination in the future. We implicitly know this and feel bad that we’re making the wrong” decision now for expediency or other constraints.

Thinking of how our software must always evolve in terms of Metcalfe’s Law means that understanding our communication around our decisions is important and must be an intentional act. Because software is a team sport and the quality of our software rests solely on our ability to communicate and collaborate, treating the future team as non-existent is an act that disrupts future cohesion and teamwork.

The Future Tense

It’s a disruptive act because it increases the communications complexity far beyond the size of the team and the number of departed members. The reasons for decisions are lost and, like the bugs and edge cases embodied in our code, must be continually rediscovered and lost again.

The most obvious cause is a lack of good documentation. From no comments in source code to poor README or wiki or other up-to-date resources, you are not communicating with future team members.

And for your current teammates, this doesn’t seem to matter since they can just come and ask you, after all. Even more, they’re in the middle with you, they understand what’s going on and where things need to go, what the plan is.

That information is your context, and we already understand that we need to communicate that when we’re onboarding a new teammate and gett them up to speed. But instead of treating this as an intentional act, we treat this as an implicit function of the current team, passing on context using osmosis through immersion.

This mostly works, but over time the knowledge around why the team or organisation decided to do something is lost. The ultimate failure mode of this effect is the normalisation of deviance, where extremely harmful behaviour has been so accepted and internalised that potentially lethal results can occur.

How do we fight this? We write down why we’re doing something, what the context we had when we made that decision is and what the cultural requirements were. If we don’t the culture forgets, the reasons are lost, and you aren’t communicating with your team.

Knowledge Sinks

Another failure mode of future team communication is the Knowledge Sink. You’ve likely encountered this person, someone who’s worked to make themselves indispensable on one particular aspect of knowledge, who refuses to write things down or allow others to encroach on their domain.

Again, while annoying, this can seem somewhat harmless as you can just go ask them, but we all know that that doesn’t work over time. We have terms for this like vulnerable to busses” where we try to recognise and joke about the fact that we will be remarkably crippled if we lose them.

Again, these people are very toxic to the team. They’re safe enough today, but that knowledge and context is lost when they leave. These people aren’t useful repositories of knowledge or context that other team members can ask, they are knowledge sinks, absorbing knowledge as a black hole absorbs light that leaves only the what we are doing, not the why, or, depending on their efforts, the how. We are prevented from effective communication.

Contempt Culture

These behaviours are strongly rooted in contempt culture, and are performative examples of we are better than you” directed towards the future. The person who refuses to document code because it should be self-documenting holds contempt for those who lack the time to learn code as well as he does, for the future who will need to dedicate more energy to improve things. He thinks that if you aren’t smart enough to understand the code, you shouldn’t be coding.

The person who acts as a knowledge sink has contempt for the healthy communication and function of his team, he demands that others perform more work to route around the damage that he causes.

But more importantly, poor communication is contempt for the future. He sacrifices the future to his own need for importance and devalues the future of the team by increasing their communication cost of each decision we make and each cultural norm we adopt.

But I actually don’t have time right now

Not having time is valid, and important to acknowledge. Like all things, this is not meant as a you are bad for doing this, but a you really need to think about this. By considering what we do under new lights and within new framings, we give ourselves better tools and ways of acting with considered intent.

We often don’t have time in the here and now to broadly define our decisions and our culture. We have deadlines, milestones, and business needs that must be considered. But we can talk about our future selves and make them a part of today’s communications. We can think of steps towards including our future.

When we discuss that inclusiveness and think of what that entails, we discuss when we can put the communications we need on our roadmap and the intentionality of what we will say. Instead of relying on implicit cultural osmosis and the potential for harmful normalisations, we begin to explicitly define our own culture by what we choose and what we do.

And I think the future is worth it.


Aruba Technical Publications

0 Kudos

iAP OpenVPN and L2tp/ipsec

Here is a quick overlook of the 2 types of VPN :

We would need this type of support in order to obtain the following functionalities:
- Monitoring the device (with Airwave or other open source aplication).
- Upload syslogs to a central server.
- Provide split tunnel traffic (We are doing content filtering given the role of the user for example).
- Provide Management access only through the VPN tunnel.
- Have a VC for multiple locations ( Multiple locations in one city that have the same config would have one VC)

Here is the link on the Partner Center :


National Health

0 Shouts   -   165,650 Scrobbles

National Health was a progressive rock band associated with the Canterbury Scene. Founded in 1975 by keyboardists Dave Stewart and Alan Gowen, the band also included guitarists Phil Miller and Phil Lee, bassist Mont Campbell, vocalist Amanda Parsons (one of "the Northettes" from Hatfield and the North) and "temporary" drummer Bill Bruford. Before their first tour Lee departed; after the tour Campbell was the next to exit, replaced by bassist Neil Murray. By 1977 Bruford was off to form U.K.), and former Hatfield drummer Pip Pyle took the drum spot. Before the first LP National Health, Gowen and Parsons also quit, though both returned long enough to record the self-titled 1977 debut album.

Top Songs

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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Cocoon—A Traveling Space | Dobers and Strannegård | JD Pirtle

The Cocoon initially strikes me as a relatively uninteresting project, but the discourse about it’s varying functions and implications takes on a fascinating form as this text unfolds. The section about space and time is a bit nebulous--some of the strongest concepts come when they relate these notions to architecture. The very fact that there might be some need for a proxy for disconnection, that we would need a physical object to remove ourselves from the terrors of an information society is very intriguing. I wonder how effective it is at escaping this world? If anything, The Cocoon’s power comes through the fact that it highlights and defines the state of psychosis in developed, technocratic societies. The authors mention how stressed we all are, but are we any more stressed than 100 years ago? We don’t choose to unplug. We like our social networking, our inter-connectedness. The Cocoon shows that people are unable to choose moderation in respect to technology and social interaction anymore than food, alcohol, sex, etc. That is the true power of the piece.

I found myself thinking of various forms of meditation, found on almost every continent. Why is a physical object needed to instigate a meditative state? The Cocoon is evidence that we now require a device, a proxy or an application with which to interface with to achieve what was always possible (think Wizard of Oz). The impact of this piece is truly in its commentary of Western society. Perhaps we can use our technocracy to find a middle ground, a moderation between the stressful space we have created and all other types of space?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Assessment and Treatment Using Virtual Reality

Art U Need |Duman, et al | JD Pirtle

When Duman leaves us with the question, “Do we need public art?”, I find myself wondering why this debate is still raging on. Public art, in the form of large, permanent, sculptural objects has been a vital component of the architectural landscape of societies since prehistory. In the wake of Conceptual art and the collision of art with Capitalism, we have just really (in the past 35 years) begun to question the efficacy the practice. As several of the authors describe, public art is used to whitewash social ills, create atmospheres of prosperity and (in regeneration) “sex up the control of the under-classes.” But, so what if it is an advertising tool for the regeneration of urban centers (Gehry in the Harty text)? Why do the authors of these texts see institutional public art as such a failure? Can’t public art serve varying communities in varying ways? What is so wrong with “looking through the eyes of a tourist” or seeing art through the eyes of members of elitist art enclaves?

It is impossible for public art sponsored by the government to appeal to the majority of its citizens. Corporate sponsored public art will always seem disingenuous in a climate where corporations are simultaneously manipulating government and defrauding the citizenry. I applaud efforts to create socially engaging art projects, to democratize the output of these activities and encounter an alternative culture, but why can’t all of these things coexist? Can’t everyone use art as they wish? I believe that governments should be able to use art for propaganda, obfuscation and deception. I believe that corporations should be able to use art to appeal to consumers sense of culture and importance. I believe that quasi-intellectuals (who don’t proof their writing) should be able to use public art as a subject upon which to belabor political and philosophical leanings. Why can’t “art become a political imperative?” Who says? John Waters?

The power of art is owned by no one, it should be checked by no one.

Seattle's Hammering Man with guerilla art ball-and-chain add -on

The horror of Safeco Field's many objects of public art

Not all propaganda/nostalgia-based public art is bad

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Art U Need

Prior to living in Chicago, I have never had public art forced upon me on a regular basis. I certainly haven’t traveled the entire Midwest, but Chicago seems to have an overwhelming amount of publically commissioned art floating around and there are many instances where I wonder “why is this here, no one bustling around downtown seems to even notice that it exists, they simply have become tourist attractions.”

“The main challenge for those in charge of public art commissions and opportunities, particularly in regeneration, would appear to demonstrate whether they can do anything more than gesturing by shifting from one dominant type of object-based, large scale sculptural output, to a more directly participator, cheaper, friendly, amicable, unassuming type of work, which ticks both the box that assuages the vociferous art constituency in its demands to align public art output with contemporary practices, as well as the box which make sure that at least the public involved and counted for the record, ‘understands’ the work done and will not complain afterwards."

I agree with a couple points first presented in the text, however feel that these things aren’t necessarily the main challenges of public art. In accordance with Joe Baldwin and the text, works that are rooted in participatory action are imperative for public art to flourish and survive. Even at the lowest level, the “bean” (as most Ohioans call it) / Cloud Gate, thrives on simple public interactions--touching, climbing, taking myspace-esque pictures with your friends on its reflective surface. Does that qualify it as a great public sculpture? I am not the person to pass that judgement, but it sure seems to be more ‘popular’ and memorable than the famous Alexander Calder Flamingo positioned not even a mile away.

I think by creating more participatory, temporary, and amicable works, the public art world becomes more accessible to a wider range of people allowing them to also feel as if they are co-creators (specifically when discussing interaction based installations). As co-creators the passive nature of traditional public sculpture slowly has the potential to become eliminated and invites new potential forms for the work to take with each new visitor.

I think the true challenge is to create works that address and meet a certain “high level” of conceptualization but also have the ability to speak to the ‘common’ person (those with no background or even a necessary interest in the arts) without presenting the work as if it needs to be dumbed down for public acceptance/enjoyment. Another challenge is obviously putting this work where everyone can enjoy it. The text and Joe Pankowski both discussed something that I too feel is a problem in public art: the safety of the content, and more importantly the location of its installation (the disparity of public works in poorer communities). This part of the text seemed particularly interesting because it made me think about the fact that we exist in a time where we have such a huge influx of artists who are all about creating works that create social awareness, change, promote interactivity, there are still few artists and institutions willing to produce funds to create works where they are needed for community unification, education, and enjoyment.

Before even getting into the thick of this essay I couldn’t help but thinking of these chairs that I saw at IKEA the last time that I was at their store near Cincinnati.

I remember tons of screaming kids curling up in them and ripping the shade down so their parents couldn’t find them, and I thought, “where can I find the adult version?” It also reminded me of a 1 day class challenge to create a wearable out of wood scraps in 4 hours, and I decided to (poorly) create a cocoon / beehive shaped pine “hood” to hide most of my skin to attempt to erase my race in an effort to avoid a question I am asked at least every three weeks (mostly by African American children) ---“are you mixed?”

I think that this text was really interesting as is this project, and the cocoon’s form has obviously been borrowed for many utilitarian and other artistic practices. The portion of the text that spoke to me the most was on pages 827-828

“Speaking of space as a social, physical, mental, and cultural implies the introduction of relationships. Spaces are mediators of relationships, they are incorporate action, and Lefebvre argues that the conceptualization of space implies the construction of a tool for analyzing society. Space, says, Lefebvre, is not a thing but a number of relations between objects, artifacts, and living entities. Hence space is relational, concerns the physical and is produced through human interaction with humans and/or non humans (Latour, 1997).”

I think this is the most valuable way to look at space, is not s a locale, but as a relational grouping. By viewing space this way within artistic practice we can expand our conceptual implications. Thinking about space in terms of relations can and should influence the space(s) in which we see our own work existing.

The Cocoon is a piece that broke the mold of the traditional views of space. "You carry your space of calm and quite in a bag, to be used when you need it." In a way I think we all have something that we consider our Cocoon; the space underneath a blanket, with our head covered by a hooded jacket, or finding solitude in the comfort of an ikea chair.

Cocoon - Response

The discussion about abstract spaces, physical spaces, mental spaces, social spaces and the inter-relationships is very refreshing. Through the cocoon, people experience a unique space that is passively tailor-made for them based on their acquired taste of existence in such spaces. I just got off the phone with my mother who has traveled to all the continents except South America and Antarctica. I thought she would be the perfect example for me to relate to the transportation / transformation concept that the paper delves deep into. The need for her to disconnect/connect herself from/to culturally, geographically, economically, aesthetically different social spaces has been growing since she was a child when she was deprived of it due to a joint-family based micro-economy in her house and other factors like her father not being able to support that need due to various other micro-nuclear strands of relationships within her family.

But, once she became independent and established herself, she could feed that need. Now, she could transport and transform herself into various different people. Experience the same breath of fresh air in a geographically and culturally alien space has a totally different feel to it. The cocoon here which was supposed to shut out outside influence from the social space as you inhabit or experience it and still managed to travel and transform its intended purpose by having a life of its own. She just got back from a tour to another country where she was supposed to wear a veil in public to go around.

I could not stop from comparing it to the cocoon. She had the time of her life in this place where she says the civilization is so unspoilt and so very less exploited that even through all the restrictions she had a peaceful and mind numbingly rollicking experience there. She rates it the first among all the countries she's traveled and Switzerland comes next close to second place.

Having said that butterflies come out of cocoons. And the cocoon is one of the avatars of the butterfly when it is young. Even though it is invisible to the naked eye I see cocoons around everyone and everything in this world. Enough of my rambling now. Overall I think the design spoke to me in various physical, social, metaphysical and cultural levels.

A Hindu Woman from 100 years ago in her cocoon!

I can't see her.. can you?

Cacoon response - Oleksiuk

As the Peter Dobers and Lars Strannegård point out in The Cocoon-A Traveling Space, the art work Cacoon by Jennie Pineus is worthy of consideration on a number of levels. The work intuits and reflects our construction and conceptualization of space, and the various journeys of the piece prompt us deconstruct our notions of space across broad swaths of symbolic, representational, and physical space and time.

This deconstruction runs counter to our built up universe, but parallels its long-term entropic state. In his talk "World With Us, World Without Us" as part of the Long Now Foundations series on Long-term thinking, Alan Weisman points out (.mp3 is free) that despite the damage we have done to the world in our short existence here, if we went away tomorrow, Earth planet would get along just fine without us. Instead of using this claim to support notions that humans are incapable of wrecking the planet, he sees this as a hope that we can turn the tide of the damage - that the damage we are doing is to ourselves only. He makes the environmental personal, and asks, if Nature took its course, would it include us?

My thesis work also explores some of ideas of geographic space embedded in Cocoon. Andyland-Ukraine investigates being a global citizen - a perspective that strips away many layers of identity to get to care ideas of alterity and reciprocity. In this role in my thesis semester, I am a student, a Chicagoan, and Illinoisian, a Midwesterner, an American, a Westerner, and an artist. That's quite a bit of cruft to contend with. But at the end of the day, I am exploring being a global citizen - acting in the role of international relations: a diplomat, an agitator, an activist (and researcher).

Expressed within the work are transnational boundaries, reciprocity and alterity of public and social spaces and the systems that mediate them, as manifested in the physical, economic, political and symbolic realms.

Cocoon, Joe Pankowski

When I think of this cocoon piece and project I think of the countless times I have come across people on buses and trains who want to sleep or just get away from the chaotic space around them. They kind of zip up there jacket, tuck their head into the jacket, and flap their jacket hood over their head so they are totally emerged in their jacket. I have even seen people tuck their arms up out of their jacket sleeves placing them in the center of this make shift space. I feel they are looking for regeneration, day takes a lot out of people and if they can just be mentally detached from it for just a half an hour maybe they will feel a little more sane. It's like the quote in the article; "You carry your space of calm and quite in a bag, to be used when you need it." Instead of dealing with the given space alloted to us, the cocoon idea gives us a abstract control over our space. I could see this explaining why most people desire to own a car instead of using mass transit in most cases. The car is a cocoon module that is personalized with seat and steering covers, scents, music, and movie entertainment. It's a space that people think they can control making them feel less stressed about the reality of the real chaotic world.

Art u Need - Oleksiuk

This response addresses three of the five essays contained of the Art U Need document, beginning with Public Art u need, Public Art for all, Public Art as boycott: directions in artists' reponses to the present state of public art in the UK by Alberto Duman, continuing with the untitled statement by Catherine Harty, followed by In search of a situation by Claire Doherty. I will take bits and peies of each of these to stitch together a response of what resonates with me.

Alberto Duman attempts to frame what public art is what it can be and some of the theoretical considerations that deserve expression in getting there. He aptly deconstructs the economic and political purpose of attempts at public art programs in the place and time in which he writes (the UK recently, including the runup to London's Olympic games in 2012). Duman's criticisms range from the theoretical considerations of gallery space (a la Robert Smithson), to criticism of the bureaucracy of public art as serving the interests of the art world, and not the public, or attempting to impose an art agenda on communities rather than provide negotiation or discourse.

In her untitled statement Catherine Harty responds to the very definition of public art with a quote from Chantal Moufee: "Critique that public art is not art that is in a public space, but art that institutes a public space, a place of common action among people." To this end the project we have been assigned to create a "social space" and this edge of social/public is an area I am interested in exploring further and am currently doing so in my thesis work. To clarify Harty's point a little further, we can deconstruct Harty/Mouffe's statement or quote: whose public is it? How do we contextualize public?

Claire Doherty seems to chime in with the answer. Site specificity is the key indicator of a public artwork or one that attempts to comment upon publicness and socialness. Is a public artwork the same contextualized in say downtown Chicago vs Tiennamen Square? I would say "no". Thus Duman's assessment that publicness is relative to the discourse on the relations (via Bourriand) betwen the makers, audience or community and the bureaucracy that surrounds it is poignant. My recent work explores this are as well. In Andyland-Ukraine, I attempt to juxtapose two notions of personal/social/public space to investigate relationships, economic political in the realm of artistic discourse.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Baldwin - Cocoon/Travelling Space Response

I'm really excited bout the exploration of eh space between creating work and the path it goes down - this is something Ive done in some of my own work, tracking down through a stats panel the sites that post articles on the mobile garden and checking them out to see: how it was framed; how it was viewed by their readers through comments, discussions, retweets, etc; what the overall reach was, at least electronically.

"We seek to understand spacing activities behind the travels and view the travels from a spatial
perspective focusing on the relation between transportation and transformation,
of emptiness, form and content."

This exciting role of logistics manager/coordinator/tracker is something on the nexus of new media, a conceptual new media in my opinoin - in like with what Duchamp did to traditional arts - this can do for new media and other current media work. It is not also exciting but one of teh economically viable ways of producing work. The focus isn't on the chair, if it goes well with other furniture, or if someone breaks their neck sitting on it - but the attention around and about it and what the work generates in terms of response, critical and whimsical.

The authors as "how did this happen?"

It had to happen, as many movements have democratized art production and appreciation, there is then a failure of agency. The power dynamics of exhibition and representation also drop out when this democratization happens. The artist find themselves ina strange place as maker, diacourse, historian (past, present, and future), marketing director, and the person funding the construction of the work, even if conceptual and only the time is labored.

Baldwin - Art u Need Response

Duman state clearly what I believe to be the truth in public art right now

Indeed creating participatory and temporary works would not only be cheaper and friendly, but also leave the canvas blank for scores of artists to create multiple work upon at later times. Instead of thrusting large expensive sculptures into a public square why not choose the work of local Chicagoan Joshua Dumas, - work that ring in harmony with the arts, theater, that are fluid sculptures and full of abilities to have meaningful dialogue on current contexts.

Duman nicely makes all of his text safe to the standard copy and paste, making citing his work difficult. Here is a screen grab of the section quoted:

In this act Duman portrays not only the artist trying to make a public work, as in the Breaking Ground Research Papers document, but also becomes the institution and corporation trying to protect or obscure what is rightfully his - and if not he then the publisher of the document, yielding to guilt by association.

Duman's conclusion of the "current cultural climate... the amnesiac and sealed conditions into which most activity of public art seem to take place" hits the head on the nail as he might put it. While many artists would love for every detail to fall under "poetic serendipity", I have found that engaging in public works is taking on a serious shopping list of additional concerns, but also a challenge to hold tight to that serendipity with an added sense of focus that take into account real concerns worthy of my time.


Description: Stereo sound effect of a steam engine blowing it's whistle as the train passes a railroad crossing. The bell and it's Doppler effect can also be heard. This mid/side stereo recording can be converted to mono without phase problems.

Description: a short passenger train passing.

Description: Sound of: horns of large ships in port

Description: sound of electric train arriving at the station platform.

Description: Transportation Aircraft Pilot Voice Clip Pa Speaker Male Flight Crew Please Prepare For Take Off.

Description: sound effect of a locomotive train passing by.


What seating arrangements reveal about classroom teaching

by Benjamin Minch, Staff Writer

When you walk into a classroom for the first time, you rarely think anything of the way the desks are arranged, the importance is in the people surrounding your seat. Many would overlook this feature, but seating arrangements of classrooms are one of the most important factors in contributing to the learning experience of the classroom. Seating arrangements can encourage students to cooperate, keep them from cheating, make it easier to access learning material such as a whiteboard and even contribute to the mental outlook on a class.

At Fountain Valley High School, after walking around and surveying over 75 classrooms, I have determined that there are five basic categories that all classroom seating arrangements can fall under: facing each other, wide class, amphitheatre, groups of four and long traditional classrooms.

Facing Classrooms are efficient because of the dual white board layout.Photo by Jamie Pham

When walking into a classroom where desks facing each other, you can infer that this class will be very lecture heavy with student interactive learning using whiteboards. These classrooms are predominantly world languages and English classrooms, with 16 in total. Classes of this type are usually lecture-based because students must learn a completely new language or new grammatical tips. Out of all the foreign language classes surveyed, nine of them showed this arrangement and half of the english classrooms also showed this pattern. Classrooms of this type according to Spanish teacher, Allison Gomez “are more efficient because there are usually two whiteboards in the classes.”

Wide classrooms are the most common at FVHS
Photo by Jamie Pham

The most common type of classroom at FVHS is the wide classroom, where there are more seats across than rows back. These classrooms are predominantly science classrooms, but there are also many math, history and art classrooms that are this style. One of the major benefits of this classroom type is that no student is stuck in the back where they cannot see. This encourages students to focus on the front of class as well, and discourages talking amongst students. Teachers would most likely be using this arrangement if they lecture a lot, or want to keep troublesome students in control.

Group Seating encourages interactions and teamwork. Photo by Benjamin Minch

Most math classes follow the “pods” format, where seats are arranged in groups of four. Many teachers like this style of classroom because it allows students to help each other with work and collaborate together to help one another. Classrooms with pod seating are very student focused, with very little lecture and a focus on experiential learning.

Some math teachers, such as Leslie Murray, are against this type of seating “because they encourage too much talking and some students are unable to see the board”. Murray also states that a wide classroom is “easier to stamp homework and there is more room around the classroom to walk around.”

Long Classrooms are very traditional and lecture heavy. Photo by Jamie Pham

The most ancient seating arrangement of classrooms, which is still relevant at FVHS, is the long classroom. In this arrangement, the back of the classroom is very far away from the front of the classroom, so it is often hard to pay attention in the back. Classrooms of this type however, utilize this distance very well. Most of these classes have computers at each desk, and students do independent work. Long classrooms help separate students so they can work efficiently and learn on their own without distractions.

Amphitheater Classrooms reveal a student led class with presentations. Photo by Calvin Tran

The least common of all of these classroom arrangements is the amphitheatre type of classroom, with seats on three sides of the class. Some teachers such as Cory Nelson “use this style because they split into groups often to compete or collaborate”. For example, in his AP United States History class, Nelson separated the class into three sections for the Civil War reenactment and they battled each other with questions. Amphitheater classrooms only make up six of the many classrooms of FVHS, but these classrooms are truly unique in their teaching styles. They offer creative and competitive environments, where projects are often created in groups. When entering a classroom with this seating type, you should expect to have some friendly competition and group presentations with creative ideas.

Classroom arrangements can play a big psychological role on the student and affect the different interactions they make along the day. Hopefully you now have an idea of what these different arrangements are used for, so it can help you make decisions about whether or not it is a good fit for you.


Internet Business Opportunity In Crisis

Everywhere are talking about the crisis. Some seek to overly alarm predicting dire consequences and others mention it more carefully but without presenting it as the next cataclysm that lies ahead. The truth is that in one way or another crisis for some is close to other already arrived. The first thing is to know that we have the courage and are prepared to face But this new situation has been announced and financial capitalism in check will also think its good. You might ask: What is the good that comes through this crisis?.

Well, I think it will hasten the digital revolution. I believe the vast flow of information, networking, advertising and much to name, to sum up by saying what makes up this incredible new digital world, growth this year will not imagined. It is a truth if we say that the digital economy still operates very low cost, and this occurs simply because the products and services offered are of mass consumption with real innovation and efficiency. The network will be the place will turn over turnover worldwide in 2009. I think this is a true and real opportunity will be a year of great growth. Where most people there is an influx of business. If the crisis of shrinking sales volumes will need to invest more in advertising to keep selling, “and where do you think will turn advertising in this new era? Advertising is what gives strength to the digital economy, is the wheel that moves.

Promotion In The Network And Optimization

The marketing and advertising on the Internet share the stage, so it is sometimes difficult to determine their areas of action. So I thought it interesting to write a series of articles about some concepts that may be practical, especially for those who are new in the world of ebusiness. Many concepts are known for those familiar with the current terms of traditional marketing, find your web environment adaptation, the final analysis, the digital space is merely the medium for the company, or entrepreneur, making their actions communication and advocacy on the web. Its scope is universal, the potential to achieve customer loyalty, agility when implementing actions and strategic approaches to adjust on the fly, make the Internet a very effective in developing marketing strategies by the company. As in the case of traditional business, the online brand image is one of the greatest assets of the company and in many cases, it is the engine of growth and corporate expansion.

Therefore, Internet advertising is for the advertiser, the vehicle to reinforce your brand, sell products or establish strategic relationships with a community of potential users and growing. Some terms that we must become familiar before entering fully into the world of online marketing include: Banners (Banners advertising) were the basis of communication in Internet advertising, are still widely used, although overshadowed by the text ads. They consist of a “pill” of advertising in a graphic format, usually rectangular or square shape that is inserted into a point on the web. They are usually dynamic, in formats such as gif or swf (flash) and have the possibility of deriving traffic to a website with one click. Printing: Printing is known as the term that defines the number of times a particular ad is displayed on the web. Usually has full charge of the page as an impression.

A synonym would be “Impact.” CPM: Cost per thousand impressions. Hit: A web page consists of different types of files, images, text, sound, etc. HIT occurs when downloading a completely one of these files. Clicks: (Click through) is the mouse click is done on an ad and using a hyperlink to the page announcer. Cookies are electronic tags that are activated when you visit a certain area of a web page. The user can accept or reject them and are used to track the movements of a user within a page. They are stored in the user’s computer. Sponsorhip: (Sponsorship) consists of a financial contribution agreed between the company or owner of a website and the sponsoring company, usually in exchange for outstanding corporate presence and web advertising sponsored. CPC: Cost per click, CPM differs from that in this case, the advertiser only pays when the visitor clicks on your ad. These are some of the terms that have been used or used in Internet advertising, there are certainly many more and we will the scroll slowly. Hector Gestiomedia Granell.

Political Operatives

" One point of agreement between the two respondents is identified as professionals who serve as the link between the organizations or clients and legislators, acting in turn as political operatives. Furthermore, both assume that this type of consultancy can be summed up as "political relations", leading to a certain position to give business, which may be reflected in a better political position by their customers and the proposals they have to done before legislators. In particular, former Senator Almaraz finds it difficult but not impossible, to establish a dialogue with the legislature, since Congress has durability, because we can not give up a certain topic by a single congressman or senator, what important link is to work with each of the legislatures. "Politics, like politicians, have movement, some legislators will be elected by their states to a post, the change in Congress is much, much wear," he says. Proposals The proposals carried out by both the business and industry, as well as legislators, must invariably favor the society.

Hence, political consultants should be aware not only of political events, but also the social and economic development of our country and other nations. This may be the impact that implies a proposal made by a consultant, identify legislators as well as customers, the importance of political consulting. "What matters is what you bring, what you going to propose and how we do," said Almaraz, for both the customers and legislators are very timely and appropriate studies are conducted to ascertain the impact of the reforms and driven changes in the law.

31st Century Prophecies

Futurology Sci-fi?: The year 3001, the human race has evolved in ways that in the 21st century could not have been understood, quantum computers can create virtual environments and manifest them in reality (3D), these devices allow for nanotechnology display example and lead a paradise of the mind to the reality that instantly environment not only mentally but physically, something more advanced than that developed teleportation a few centuries ago, for travel between place and place on the same level that still is used for daily transportation on Earth, there’s no countries as they are known today, they are now called states and there is one representative of the Earth (President) at the Confederation of the multiverse, you can now travel from one galaxy to another through dimensional portals mutations have been some species have become extinct while new ones have appeared, the Earth now receives as tourists to beings from other worlds and universes, which also to a mixture of races orginado between people from different worlds and universes, if you could call “Business” the most popular activity is the management of leisure, in fact what we in the 21st century is called job is as the equivalent of a distraction, hobby or occupational therapy, as everything can create and bringing it to the 4th the 5th dimension, people “work” for fun, does not need anything in return for their work because everything can be created from “nothing” “vacuum” medical practice is through quantum devices that transform energy the body, so the enfemedades have been completely eradicated, there is always risk of viruses from lower worlds energetic, but vaccines are now fields of energy (shields) that are installed by a specialist in the aura of people and filtering and transmutes all forms of negative energy, technology is so incredible that it is as if you try to explain to someone from the middle ages what the internet in the 21st century, you would burn in green wood, so I better here stop and I hope to share more in upcoming episodes disclosures, I remember Charles Darwin, who once said: species that will survive in the future will not be the smartest or the strongest but they have greater flexibility to adapt to changes. until the next entrega..


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Maharloka (Subtle Mental World): the fourth loka in Sanskrit.

Mahatattva : the first and most subtle part of the mind.  It is the decision-making part of the mind. After messages are received by the Chitta, then recognized by the Ahamtattva part of the mind, decisions will be made as to how to react to the message by this part.

The decision which will be made most of the time will be influenced by the state of spiritual progress of the person (from what chakra the propensity or reaction comes).

The Universal Mahattattva is the decision-making part of the Universal Mind.

Mahatma : great soul.

Mahdi (Mehdi) : the One the Muslims are waiting for, as Christians are waiting for Christ!

Maitreya (Mehdi) : the One Buddhists are waiting for, as Christians are waiting for Christ!

Male: the Divine Logic.

Man (used interchangeably as Adam and the Higher Nature): the male part that was separated from the original dual-natured Adam.  However, it has also been used interchangeably with the same meaning as Adam.

Also it has been used to symbolize the higher nature (Divine Logic) of the human in general. When this Divine Logic is directed toward the mundane, it becomes worldly logic.

Man-god (Perfect Master, Sat-Guru): same as Sat-Guru.

Manipura : the third chakra in Sanskrit.

Manomaya Kosha (Mind) : the Kosha corresponding to the third chakra.

Mantra : the empowered words used to invoke the latent spiritual forces.

As it is explained in the books The Base and The Essence, the first expression of awareness appeared in the universe at the time when the balance between the three forces in the universe was disturbed.  Then the operative powers of the three gunas were released, which was "The Word."  This Word is the creative power in the universe and created the first sound vibration.

Sound cannot be without vibration.  So through this Word, with different frequencies, many different things were created in the universe.  In reality all things are nothing but vibrations at different frequencies.

For example, two objects with similar frequencies can stimulate each other even if only one of them is put in motion.  That is, if there are two objects with the same frequency range close to each other, and we vibrate one of them, the other one will be vibrated without any need of external stimulation.

This law is also true in the spiritual sphere which consists of ethereal factors.  If the vibrational frequency of different levels of spiritual states are known, that level of spirit can be vibrated (awakened) with the sounds of the same frequency, and that state of consciousness can be realized and mastered.

Mantras are the words which are used for this purpose.  Their power is their ability to stimulate and awaken different levels of spirit and bring understanding of that level to the Soul.

Also the effect of music follows the same principle.  That is why according to the level of spiritual advancement, different people like different kinds of music.  Also each type of music affects people differently.  Therefore, listening to spiritual music is recommended, and any music which is crudifying and agitating to the mind should be avoided.

However, in higher consciousness a person can no longer enjoy earthly music because his music is in heaven, which is superior to earthly music.

Mark (Greed): greed is the mark of those who are in their lower natures "mark of the beast" (The Revelation, chapter 13) -- and are the followers of Maya and their desires, and are attached to this external world.

Masjed : mosque; Islamic equivalent to a temple, synagogue, church, etc.

Maya : the illusion of separation from God, which results in the excessive and unnecessary attraction to the external world.

This universe was made to be utilized for spiritual progress.  When this view is forgotten and things start to be used in unnatural ways for the satisfaction of the lower nature, the same becomes Maya (illusion).

For he who follows the Darma of everything, there is no Maya.

Meditation: the process of directing attention from going outward to going inward.

In Sanskrit the word for meditation is "sadhana," which means "struggle."  So it is a process of struggling to know the self, the relationship of the self with the universe, and overcoming those forces which are in our way toward the goal to be(come) Divine.

Meditation is not escapism, but an all-out and in struggle to overcome all kinds of evil (tamasic) influences.

God and self-realization are not for those who want to escape the struggling but are for those who are soldiers of the Lord.

Mehdi (Mahdi): see Mahdi

Messiah (Messias): the Savior; the one who comes to the earth to further human progress toward their goal and their understanding of God.  He comes at a time when many have reached higher consciousness and the old teachings lose their validity or have been badly distorted, or when confusion ("cloud") has overcome human understanding.  Then the Messiah brings "the new wine" (spiritual wine, nectar of realization).

Michael, Angel (Raja Guna): the mutative force in the three creative forces of the universe (three gunas).  It is the force responsible for actions in the universe or the part of the Universal Mind that feels "I do."  That is why it is Michael and his Angels which fight with the dragon (devil, Maya) in chapter 12 of The Revelation.

Middle Path: balance.

The human is an extremist.  For most of them, it is either black or white.  But the best way is the middle path, or a balanced path between physical (material), mental, and spiritual needs.  Emphasis on any of them without progressing in others is imbalance.

However, because to maintain this balance is difficult, humans should strive toward this balance, but at the same time remember that all things depend upon time, place, and person.  According to the time, place, and person, the action can be from ignorance, passion, or knowledge.

Therefore, unless that complete balance is achieved, the middle path means to strive for creating the balance between the physical (material), mental (psychological) and spiritual spheres with flexibility to adjust to the situation.  Also it means not to go to extremes.

Mind: in general refers to the three parts of the human mind as Chitta (tama guna), Ahamtattva (raja guna) and Mahattattva (satva guna).

Especially it means when man is bound by his desires toward the external world, then he will create a false ego as mind, which makes life miserable.

When the mind becomes spiritualized, it becomes Buddhi (when it is directed toward God-realization and "I am" feels it is a part of the "I AM").

Mithra: the sun god of the religion of Zoroastrianism.

Mithraism : a branch of the Zoroastrian religion whose followers worshipped the sun god Mithra, one of the gods of this religion.

It was believed Mithra would be born from a virgin who would come at the end of time to destroy the dark forces and establish the truth.

This branch of Zoroastrianism spread from its original land (Persia) to the West and later on became one of the most prominent religions in the Roman Empire.

In fact the signs of the sun can be seen in the Roman culture in their equipment, clothing, and even their hairstyles.  It is believed that if Christianity had not been accepted by the Romans, the religion of the West would have continued to be Mithraism.

Christianity replaced this religion.  However, many of its beliefs, dogmas, and festivals continued to exist under the newly accepted Christianity, and continue even to this day.

Moaad : the last day of judgment.

Moaad is one of the three principles of Islam.  The other two are "Tohied" and "Nabovat."  Moaad means there will be a last day in which all will be judged according to their lifetime deeds.  Those who have done good, will go to heaven (higher consciousness or Pure Consciousness), and those who have done evil will go to hell (will stay in ignorance, or the manifested universe).

Moon: symbol for woman, mother of the family, or the emotional part of the human.

Morning Star: sun. The largest star which shines after the morning has started, is the sun.  So the morning star is the sun. Its symbolic meaning is the same as for the sun.

Moslem (Muslims): the followers of Islam (surrendered or submissive ones).  Islam means "to be surrendered and submissive to the Lord."  Therefore a Moslem is one who is surrendered (or submissive) to the Will of God.

Mother: the Divine Grace, The Holy Ghost.

Mount Zion: a symbol used in the Bible for the Hierarchy of the Kingdom Of Heaven.  The human organizational structure is shown as a triangle upward (3upss15c.gif (899 bytes)), but the organizational structure of the Kingdom Of God is shown as a mountain (or pyramid) which is much more stable than human organization.

Mountain: God's governmental structure.

The organizational structure in management starts with a president at the top, then two or more vice-presidents under the president, and then some departments under each vice-president.  This goes on until the very bottom of the Hierarchy is reached.  This structure is shaped as a triangle upward (3upss15c.gif (899 bytes)).

A mountain also has the same triangular shape (3upss15c.gif (899 bytes)), but it is three dimensional.  As the human organization is triangular and unstable, God's organization is solid and stable like a mountain.

Mountain also symbolizes people with great characters and the leaders of society whom others can depend on and trust.

Muawiya : the fifth Caliph of Muslims.

Muhammad , Prophet : the Prophet and founder of Islam.

Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in Arabia around 570 to 632 A.D.

Muladhara : the first chakra in Sanskrit.

Muni : the silent ones.

Murdering: "to murder" is different than to kill.  When a person is killed, it is done either by accident or because of the circumstance that allowed such a killing (self-defense, by order of the judiciary body, etc.).  But when premeditated for selfish reasons, it is murder and is what is called "shedding the blood" in the Bible and God's Commandments.

Mutative Force (Raja Guna): same as raja guna.

Mystical Paths: all the mystical paths followed by many different groups, cultures, religions, etc.  These paths are referred to as the Far East Philosophies in our teachings (see Far East Philosophy).

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The New Puritanism, or, Some Troubling Tendencies in Video Game Criticism

[23 April 2014]

By G. Christopher Williams

PopMatters Multimedia Editor

Have video game critics grown overly sensitive? Is the role of the critic to protect us from what might be offensive?

“Lenny Bruce is not afraid.”
—R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, Document, I.R.S., 1987

It isn’t uncommon when receiving review codes or review copies of a game from PR representatives to include a few notes to the reviewer and editor about the game itself. I recently asked a rep over at Atlus, a publisher largely known for Japanese import games, for a review copy of the game Conception II for one of my reviewers. Along with some general details about the game and some links to assets like screenshots and videos that could be used in the forthcoming review, that rep sent along a brief FAQ about the game, a series of questions and answers that he felt might be issues that came up for reviewers, like how to deal with multiplayer and other technical issues.

Again, none of this is especially uncommon when receiving a review copy of a game. However, one “question” in the FAQ struck me as interesting. Indeed, unlike the other questions that made up the FAQ, it actually wasn’t framed as the kind of question that he foresaw a reviewer asking. It was phrased as a statement that a reviewer might make about the game:

Q: I find this game offensive!

A: That’s totally fine. I will default to your journalistic ethics to determine how much it affects your review scores. If you have deeper concerns, I will be eager to talk to you about any issues you have.

This “question” provoked any number of questions in me. Has Atlus grown so accustomed to their games being seen as offensive that they felt the need to say this? Does this speak to the tendency of video game reviews and video game criticism to discuss offensive material more commonly as the medium has matured and increasingly produced “edgier” content? Does this speak to some tendency in video game reviewers and video game critics to get offended easily? Maybe all of the above?

Now, I personally didn’t know too much about Conception II when I queried Atlus on behalf of my reviewer, so I ran a quick search on Wikipedia out of curiosity concerning why Conception II might be potentially offensive and read a brief description of what the game is all about. Apparently, Conception II is a game about a high school kid charged with saving the world (no big shock, as that is often the premise of JRPGs). The twist to this common narrative premise is that, like the Persona series , I guess, the protagonist must create relationships with others in order to empower himself in forthcoming battles. Unlike Persona, though, all of these relationships concern fostering relationships with young women in order to produce “star children” that will be helpful in battling evil (which also finally gave me some sense of why the game was called “conception”). Essentially, the game sounds as if it will be a dating/mating simulator.

Is that offensive? I don’t know. I haven’t played the game.

Does it sound a little weird and potentially troubling? Sure, maybe, but again, I don’t know. I haven’t played the game.

What also struck me about the whole situation is that I had recently received an e-mail from a PR representative from another company, Idea Factory International, that imports Japanese games to the United States, an e-mail of a vaguely similar nature.

The e-mail’s subject line read, “Regarding the decision to censor Monster Monpiece” Again, I was unfamiliar with the game at the time, but what followed was a description of a digital card game involving a group of “Monster Girls” who would be portrayed on the cards in a very sexualized way. The gist of the company’s position lay in the following paragraph:

We work very hard to satisfy our fans and want to bring the same content being offered in Japan. However, Western society is not as lenient as that of Japan when sexual images are involved—especially images of humanoids that appear to be younger than a socially acceptable age. The borderline of what is “acceptable” will always be extremely gray and vary from person to person, but as a responsible company working in the U.S., we had to make the difficult decision that we did. We sincerely apologize for those who do not agree with any level of censorship, but we greatly appreciate your understanding with the decision we have made.

Once, again, I am not entirely certain what to make of this information. Admittedly, the above paragraph made me feel a bit more uncomfortable about the content of Monster Monpiece right from the get go, than my later reading of the contents of Conception II. Indeed, Monster Monpiece does not sound like a game that I want to play myself due to my sense of the potential nature of the content. However, looking back at this e-mail having more recently read the e-mail from Atlus, some similar questions begin to arise about what various game companies’ expectations have become concerning how offensiveness is dealt with in the gaming press, as well as the kinds of reactions that have become all too common in that same press.

In the “Preface” to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the playwright Oscar Wilde says of literature, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. “ Wilde’s statement, of course, resists the tendency of literary criticism towards an ethical criticism, instead suggesting that what books are to be evaluated on is on their quality of design, nothing else. This statement is likely problematic for those critics who see the chief value of art criticism as being ethical or political in nature, given that the ethics on display in a work of art are often those critics’ chief interest.

Indeed, though, Wilde goes on to say that ethical concerns are not what the artist is all about, saying simply, “No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style,” and here is why Wilde sees this as true, “The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.” Now, please understand that this argument does not get Conception II or Monster Monpiece off the hook for critical evaluation, but what it does suggest is that the role of the critic is to consider the value of the work (whether it is “well written or badly written” or, perhaps, more clearly put in terms of games, whether it is well designed or poorly designed), not to evaluate the values that the work represents, as these are merely its materials.

And indeed, if one begins looking at the history of literature, one quickly finds that there are an awful lot of books that might seem to be (or have been very often seen) as morally or politically offensive in nature: Nabokov’s Lolita, (which might seem especially apt here), Joyce’s Ulysses, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, anything written by Phillip Roth or Chuck Palahniuk, and the list goes on and on. These books are seen in literature as incredibly important works despite their potential immorality, sexism, racism, troubling sexual content, and possible pornographic content. Indeed, some of them have even been eventually seen as important because of their handling of such materials, not despite them at all.

Once again, this doesn’t mean that Conception II or Monster Monpiece are as significant or as artistically rendered as Lolita or Ulysses or Huckleberry Finn, but it does ask that the critic consider these works’ relative value as what they are, games, and how well they are constructed as a result before jumping to knee jerk conclusions about them. And frankly, in video game criticism where discussion of previews and teasers and PR releases is so common and so frequent, there is much to be said about critics’ tendencies towards their own ethical sympathies, rather than to their concern with evaluating whether a work is very, simply put, “good” or not.

I have been troubled by discussions over the years with game critics about games like Bayonetta and Grand Theft Auto V concerning these games’ questionable content, who when asked, “Have you played it yet?,” then hem and haw and tell me about what they think are the troubling ethical and moral concerns of what they “have heard” or what they “have seen” in a screenshot or in a trailer, not in what they have actually experienced as a whole. These critics seem to me to be considering the materials of a potentially artistic work, without considering instead how those materials are handled in the work as a whole, or having given consideration to the idea that offensive material might be extremely important material to successful expression.

I frequently refer to criticism of this kind as the “New Puritanism”, and I see it as coming as commonly from the political Right, as I do the political Left, from deeply religious people, as I do from staunch atheists. And frankly, I see these recent e-mails as a kind of representation of the chilling effect of that attitude of criticism. It places the artist in a bind. Not offending anyone has the potential of cutting off the artist from perfectly valid material, from perfectly valid expression.

I don’t know what I think of Conception II or of Monster Monpiece. Again, how could I? I haven’t played them. But I do know that I admire that PR rep at Atlus who simply states that finding the game “offensive” is “totally fine”. He has at least given the critic, the journalist the space to express what he or she wants to about the game, and he at least seems confident enough in the game as a whole to have an open discussion about its materials and to advocate for putting the game out there to be judged, regardless of whether its material is offensive or not.

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A shanty town with a sign for a restaurant, one of many which have sprung up along Highway BR163 as the population changes due to changing agricultural practices in the area. The highway ran from Santarem on the banks of the Tapajos river for one thousand miles south into the state of Mato Grosso and was unpaved except for a small stretch at its northern end. The area surrounding the highway was the front line in the battle between local communities and environmentalists who tried to prevent to spread of rainforest destruction by illegal loggers and companies which bought and seized land for use in cattle ranching and growing soy beans for export from Brazil via the port at Santarem.


Великобритания 2

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LET’S LEARN MORE ABOUT GREAT BRITAIN! Places of interests in Great Britain Britain is rich in its historic places which link the present with the past. In my opinion the most interesting of them are: Stonehenge Greenwich Wimbledon Stonehenge, one of the best-known archeological sites in the world, is probably the most mysterious place in England. Lying on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, this group of huge stones has always attracted both tourists and scientists trying to solve the mystery surrounding its origin. The first stones appeared here in 3100 ВС but it was only in 2100 ВС that Stonehenge began to resemble the shape that we know today. The complex stone structure included a circle of 30 upright stones, their tops linked also by stones, to form a continuous circle about 30 m across. It is unknown where these huge stones came from. The latest theory, and the most probable one, says that they must have been brought here by a glacier. What is interesting is that whoever built Stonehenge did not place the stones at random: the builder must have been a good mathematician and familiar with the rules of perspective. The whole construction could have been an astronomical observatory, made for observing the eclipse of the Moon. WIMBLEDON WIMBLEDON Wimbledon is tennis. Every year, since 1877, the place has been closely connected with tennis tournaments, which are unofficially regarded as the world championships. Every tennis player simply dreams of playing at Wimbledon, not to mention winning there. The Wimbledon championship is one of the sport's four Grand Slam events. Wimbledon is not far from central London, only a 40-minute-drive from the West End. The district of Wimbledon is actually worth visiting and not only because of the tennis tournament. Wimbledon began growing during the 16th century, but archaeological research shows that people had already been living there in prehistoric times. The man responsible for popularizing Wimbledon was Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter who, among other things, improved the road to London. Gradually people built houses there and opened shops and this is how Wimbledon became an integral part of London. Wimbledon has always been a sports centre: in the 19th century it was the meeting place of the National Rifle Association and the scene of many duels. Then it also became the home of the AH England Croquet Club, which later changed into the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, whose tournaments gradually became the most important sports event in the world. GREENWICH In the 18th century Greenwich was only a riverside village near London. Today it is part of London and you can get there by the river Thames, on special regular cruises from Westminster, Charing Cross, and Tower Piers. Greenwich has the oldest London park - Royal Park, as well as being home to magnificent buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren. OLD ROYAL OBSERVATORY The Observatory was built in the 17th century when Charles II appointed John Flamsteed to be the first Astronomer Royal who devised how to calculate time at sea. This was essential for exploring and mapping the globe. Today in the Observatory you can see the largest telescope in Britain and take part in special shows in the Observatory Planetarium. I think that these places are so interesting! THE END Литература Журнал Easy English № 64, 68, 85www.amercom.ruwww.gif.10000.ru www.study.ru

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