Knowledge

Some months ago, i saw this 2min intro of James Burke's - The Day the Universe Changed, and i simply couldn't forget this sentence:

"You see what your knowledge tells you you're seeing"

Later i came across Dan Everett's work about the brazilian tribe Pirahã. I advice you reading this article from Spiegel - Living without Numbers or Time. Here's a short sample:

"...His findings have brought new life to a controversial theory by linguist Benjamin Whorf, who died in 1941. Under Whorf's theory, people are only capable of constructing thoughts for which they possess actual words. In other words: Because they have no words for numbers, they can't even begin to understand the concept of numbers and arithmetic..."

Hm..., maybe some brain theory can help us out? Check this TED video, Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing. Where he suggests that "the brain is more like a memory system that records everything we experience and helps us predict, intelligently, what will happen next."

Another some-way-related article is V.S. Ramachandran's - The neurology of self-awareness.
Ok. I'm no brain biologist-psychologist researcher, but like you, i do have one and would like to know how it works...

What do you think about this? Do you know some other related articles or videos? Use the comment below to help me/us out.

How to take a Photo of a Collage

thats the way:
- using 2 lamps (40W) making a 45º light incision on the image/collage/painting;
- the ladder i've used as Manual Image Stabilization;
- to further the Stabilization process i've made a 2s SelfTimer.
- Then, afterwards on photoshop you might use Levels>SetWhitePoint to make to white, white! (because of the bad light).

It (kind of) works like a charm, altough i prefer my scanner for the smaller collages. So now you'll see 2 bigger analog collages i've made on 2004 and 2005 (and hadn't worked out a way to digitalize them - they're framed!)

Documentaries

Nice, very nice! Just found out about GUBA. Its a VideoLog, similar to YouTube, Metacafé, Revver and GoogleVideo, but with a nice diference, you can easily find some Documentaries there (and download them too). Enjoy!

Selfness Art

I'm a big fan of documentaries and lectures; and of course free sharing of it.
So 2 weeks ago i downloaded a presentation of Jorge Cortell (thanks for blogging me) on this MVGroup thread (register to login), just because i was going (and went) to the iSummit, so i could learn a little about intelectual property.
I agree with Jorge's SELFNESS idea: that all of our works are selfness beings (like, for example, your son, you [kind of] 'make' it [with someone else], but he's not yours).
Really, if you make a song, it has it's own 'live'.

Speaking specifically on artworks now (don't know yet if it applies to science etc.).
Creative Commons Licenses are nice, but they still limit artists. For example, if i listen to a song and want to remix it, why pay attention to the License? We should be a collaborative society! Of course i will always try to show from whom i have remixed, so if one likes a work (s)he can go back to the original sources.

My advice is, don't read the licenses, just do your art.
So even if my artworks aren't on the SELFNESS license (it doesn't exist yet), feel free to use or remix it.

But how to get sustained by it?
Unfortunatelly our society isn't yet ready to the Donation idea. But as soon as electronic money transfer gets easier and more secure, i think it will start happening.
So if you like or use one's work you can easily help him/her to make more.

Update: Here's another video of Cortell's Selfness ideas (direct download [in OGM]).

k-web videos

Here are two videos that show what James Burke's Knowledge Web is:

• An 'interview' called ReConnections (or here on archive.org);


• And Burke's k-web presentation (on youTube).

The project is fascinating and if you want to help, get more info on how to volunteer on k-web.

e-learning with mp3 players

I'm sure 98% of the songs/stuff on everyone's mp3 player don't worth the bits they use. So here's an advice for ya all.
One great use of my 60GB iPod these days is to learn french on my bike ride everyday to work. The 30min lessons from Pimsleur is the exact timing for my ride, and i can repeat out loud the pardon's, bonjour's, excusez-moi's. Much better than sitting in a classroom repeating, reading and writing all-at-once. You just need one (and difficult) thing: discipline.
Very soon i'll try out some podcasts, like IT Conversations, but thats another post.

pleasure of finding things out

I just saw an excelent BBC documentary from their Horizon series. Its an 49min interview with Richard Feynman about "The pleasure of finding things out".  If you're curious about: education, organizations, nature, chess, religion and quantum physics, you should definitely check it out:
BBC Horizon - Feynman - "The pleasure of finding things out"
(free on google video)

teasers:
"The thing that doesn't fit is the most interesting" (around 28min)
"How to teach: be confusing, chaotic..." (around 40min)

I personally hope that more and more people continue sharing great documentaries.
If you know some links, send me!