Sin City (2004) and Renaissance (2006)

Both movies share some key scenery and style, both let you with questions about society in general.

Image credits:
Renaissance poster

Sin City Poster

The Ride

The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

― Bill Hicks

Image Credits:

http://neotomi.deviantart.com/

Addicted to Stories

Quest for fire (1981)

Today I watched this movie which is set in Paleolithic Europe, 80,000 years ago, its plot surrounding the struggle for control of fire by early humans. It is a movie worth of watching. 

Wiki Article on Quest for Fire

Can you show me were are we now?

From Thomas Paine to Tom Morello

Browsing over free audio books in the public domain, my attention was drown by the cover images of two particular books that were listed one after the other, both written by the same author. The titles were thought provoking, "Common Sense" and "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. 
I  have read articles in which they reference Paine's work in certain topics related to science and skepticism. Those books had my curiosity, but now they have my attention. 
Thomas Paine was a brilliant person who was born in Thetford, England in 1737.  He came from a worker family, therefore he  experienced what it meant to be commoner, what it represent, and how make things better. Some describe him with tree interesting traits: a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination*. 

While reading more about him and his work, I encountered a familiar name "Rage Against The Machine". This musical band was also familiar, a  friend once show me a live performance of them in the 90's. I'm going to use my "I am a former religious and an immigrant" card as an excuse of why I did not understand what they were saying, neither who they were and what they, as a band, sing about. I did not pay much attention.

Once again, I experienced the fact that pop culture passed right by me like a plane over a car. With a very peculiar combination of members, discussing social issues as if they were breakfast topics, holly macaronis Batman! Those guys were playing with fire!
I discovered that the guitarist of RATM, Tom Morello, started a comic named Orchid, described as "Suicide Girls meets Joan of Arc" which sounds like a thrilling combination worth of read. Well, I guess I have another book to my "to read".

Further Reads:

Wiki article on Thomas_Paine
Common Sense and its meaning today
Wiki article on Rage Against the Machine
TM brings class consciousness to comics
TM on his new comic and OWS Movement
Suicide girls meets Joan of Arc
Common Sense Audio book

A box match

I stumble upon this illustration in which two cephalopods are entertaining a crowd.

More here:
http://www.benhipp.com/

My absurd quest for knowledge

It have been almost 10 years since I finish my Bachelor Degree in engineering. There are many things that I learned and I do not remember. One of my excuses for not knowing things that I am supposed to know, is that my education happened long time ago and my brain repurpose that unused memory space for more relevant stuff. I have to admit, that is a very optimistic point of view.

Another excuse I have, is that I found that the classes I do not recall were pretty boring. Imagine a professor teaching/preaching concepts to students as if they were in a catholic mass. The examples presented in class were not exciting at all, especially when those examples did not explain practical applications of the subject in question. A mechanical way to approach problems, without too much thinking in between.

Other courses were as you were being part of a country founded by corporations, in which your professor was an embassador of Cisco, Oracle or Microsoft. I recall one of them spreading the good word of Cisco Certifications as if they were more valuable than any other type of education. A considerable group of young students believed him. I paid for a full CCNA training.

Finally, sometimes there was the absence of motivation. The stimulus of the class was not grasping a concept or set of concepts to be applied in real world situations. However, getting a grade or just complete the course doing the bare minimum was desirable outcome, at least from the student point of view. I recall several of my classmates express their frustration saying: "I just want to be done with it".

In the last 2 years, I have embarked in a quest for knowledge in several disciplines from engineering to humanities. Thanks to the influx of high quality education websites (Udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy), video lectures from top universities (MIT, Caltech, GATech), documentaries, audiobooks on the public domain (LibriVox), books on the public domain , and finally all the contributions of internet users creating short tutorials or short lectures explaining complex concepts using simple words (TED Ed, Crashcourse). I do not have to be present at a particular hour, in a particular place with a particular person. I can just sit in my computer, learn... ummm... Anything? Yes! Anything.

Do you want to learn to play piano? There are millions tutorials for that.
What about playing guitar? There is a gazillion of them.
What about chemistry? Yes! Top teachers and professors share their lectures.
Computer programming?  Well, let me put it in this way, it is relatively easier to learn to talk to computers than to talk to people.
Countless examples can be presented. You get my point.

Why, you would ask? Well, I love to study and learn new things. I do not know when a piece of knowledge will be handy. Information may save your life or save you money on car insurance [was that a pun?]. A little piece of information puts you in advantage in front of the people that knows less or nothing.
I hoard knowledge. I enjoy connecting the dots between interdisciplinary concepts. Draw parallels between exhibit A and exhibit B. Learn from others, make my own conclusions, taking home what I consider good, getting rid of what I consider bad. Updating my erroneous preconceptions and misconceptions is now a part of my daily life.

Knowing makes me happy.

The ideal model of what is really important to us

Our definitions of importance varies from person to person. In the grand scheme of things, it varies depending on your geographical position, the time/era you live or lived in and the culture that surrounded you at that moment. However, there are needs that transcend time and space, and probable all of humans share in common.

The Chilean Economist  Manfred Max-Neef summarizes those fundamental human needs as follows:

Need	Being (qualities)	Having (things)	Doing (actions)	Interacting (settings)
subsistence	physical and mental health	food, shelter, work	feed, clothe, rest, work	living environment, social setting
protection	care, adaptability, autonomy	social security, health systems, work	co-operate, plan, take care of, help	social environment, dwelling
affection	respect, sense of humour, generosity, sensuality	friendships, family, relationships with nature	share, take care of, make love, express emotions	privacy, intimate spaces of togetherness
understanding	critical capacity, curiosity, intuition	literature, teachers, policies, educational	analyse, study, meditate, investigate,	schools, families, universities, communities,
participation	receptiveness, dedication, sense of humour	responsibilities, duties, work, rights	cooperate, dissent, express opinions	associations, parties, churches, neighbourhoods
leisure	imagination, tranquility, spontaneity	games, parties, peace of mind	day-dream, remember, relax, have fun	landscapes, intimate spaces, places to be alone
creation	imagination, boldness, inventiveness, curiosity	abilities, skills, work, techniques	invent, build, design, work, compose, interpret	spaces for expression, workshops, audiences
identity	sense of belonging, self-esteem, consistency	language, religions, work, customs, values, norms	get to know oneself, grow, commit oneself	places one belongs to, everyday settings
freedom	autonomy, passion, self-esteem, open-mindedness	equal rights	dissent, choose, run risks, develop awareness	anywhere

I wonder... What would be the proportion of people in our modern society that are able to have at least a subset of this list? 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness#Infancy_and_early_childhood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs

Where is the Money?

The origin of exchanges of goods and services dates back hundreds and probably thousands of years before the invention of money. The barter type of transactions had a couple of problems that at some point lead to the creation of money. For example, for barter to occur between two people, both would need to have what the other wants. Also, in this system there is an inability to assign value to something in which each party involved agrees on. 
Then, at multiple points in time and space as history, many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of commodity money.
A brilliant idea that slowly filled our greed to get more and more. In every era, there have been people who had an excessive desire to accumulate money, power and prestige. 
The desire of money as the end goal in life: no matter what it takes, no matter what happens, no matter who benefits and who does not, more money is what seems to motivate them to continue getting more money. 
In your life time, someone will appear with a brilliant idea of sell you stuff you probably do no need. Others sell you products to hide the (at the moment) inevitable process of aging. There are people who grow food in contaminated areas to avoid profit losses. There are countless examples and people will go where the money is.
Enjoy.

 

Further reads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
http://boingboing.net/2009/05/13/life-inc---an-extra.html
http://www.newsweek.com/economy-human-history-greed-76435

Memento mori

Memento mori (Latin 'remember (that you have) to die) is the medieval Latin theory and practice of reflection on mortality, especially as a means of considering the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.

Airplanes

Goofy video I made, testing all the tools I have available in Linux. This is my first video edition ever.
* Magic Lantern with a Cannon T5i.
* ImageMagik  to combine still images into a video.
* OpenShot to edit video.
* Borrowed to music from a cover of the song Feeling Good covered by Muse, and covered again by eScala

It is less than less than 20 seconds, enjoy!

A cow or a pig?

It was supposed to be Toad, from Mario's game.

Subtle

It took me a while to find a subtle detail in this picture:

Monday, November 17th

Explained Visually (EV) is an experiment in making hard ideas intuitive. The team at Setosa is working full-time on explanatory visualizations, so expect a visualization every week for the next few months. Sign up to hear about the latest visualization.
http://setosa.io/ev/

And today I found this video....