Nature by Numbers

A movie by Cristóbal Vila inspired on numbers, geometry and nature. Thank you, Hundreth!

Symphony of Science: spreading scientific knowledge and philosophy through musical remixes

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Paul Sagan

Or, if you are a talented specialist in audio remixing with a passion for science, all you have to do is mix electronic music of your own produce with extracts of scientific television series, to create videos that explain why you must first invent the universe. It might seem like something cool and hype to get the kids all excited, but in reality it is quite profound and moving. I admit my opinion might be biased, as I have grown up watching these sort of series and never gave up the habit. In great measure, I share the enthusiasm and passion of those science luminaries, and they are largely responsible for my continued fascination with science. I cannot possibly imagine how can anyone not be touched and praise by the message these brilliant scientific minds convey.

The project is called Symphony of Science, and is lead by the Washington-based electronic musician John Boswell. The goal of this enterprise, says Boswell, is "to bring scientific knowledge and philosophy to the public, in a novel way, through the medium of music". For the making of videos, Boswell uses pitch corrected and auto tuned audio and video samples from television programs featuring scientists and educators, such as Carl Sagan's Cosmos, Richard Dawkins' TED presentation on our "queen" universe and series The Genius Of Charles Darwin, Richard Feynman's 1983 BBC interviews, Stephen Hawking's Universe series, Jane Goddall's TED presentation on What separates us from the apes? (in no particular order, and just to list a few).

Ever since their launch, in December 2009, Boswell has created 6 videos: A Glorious Dawn, (featuring Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking), We Are All Connected (featuring Bill Nye, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman and Neil deGrasse Tyson); Our Place in the Cosmos (featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku); The Unbroken Thread (featuring Richard Attenborough, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan), The Poetry of Reality - An Anthem for Science (featuring Michael Shermer, Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Jill Tarter, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Carolyn Porco, and PZ Myers); and The Case for Mars (featuring Robert Zubrin, Carl Sagan, Brian Cox, and Penelope Boston). The videos have attracted over 8 million views online, contributing to the release of the first song, A Glorious Dawn, on a special 7" 45rpm vinyl single.

If I had to choose a favourite - and indeed I have to pick one video only to show here - I would go for for the Poetry of Reality. It was one who made me think that this was why I had studied science in first place. And, and in this strange days I have to live, that speaks volumes.

Palitos la reine? Oh, you mean ladyfingers!

This is what happens when one tries to recreate an old family recipe and is away from home: the secret ingredient is nowhere to be found.

To cut a long story short, I want to cook an ice cream cake. It is an old family thing. My Mother cannot remember who gave her the recipe, and has been doing this cake for as long as I can remember. Only three ingredients are needed: condensed milk, double cream and palitos la reine.

To get double cream is easy enough. There is plenty of it where I live, available in different brands, from all parts of the Swiss geography, with slightly different compositions. If anything, I would be lost in diversity.

The condensed milk proves to be a bit more of a challenge. Where I come from, condensed milk is sold by the can. A small can of 370g like this, to be precise:

But, where I live, the most usual presentation is a squeezable tube. A big tube of 250g like this, to be precise:

There are probably very good reasons to sell condensed milk by the tube. But, for what I need it, this exotic presentation is not too practical. However, the supplier offers the condensed milk density and the mass, for an accurate conversion. Meaning, one spends a few minutes with careful calculations to find the exact quantities. When cooking, one pours a bit more, just in case. Then, check for sweetness, and add a bit more at random guess (and a bit more, just in case).

Lastly, the most complicated ingredient of all, the palitos la reine. The name roughly translates to “the queen sticks”. They are light and sweet sponge cakes roughly shaped like stick or an elongated eight. In Portugal, they are ubiquitous and you can find them in all patisseries, freshly backed or powdered. Like this:

After looking for a while in the local stores for any sort of cookie that could be used as a replacement, I was about to bake my own palitos. But, during a desperate last search on the internets, I found out that they seemed to be used to do Charlotte Russe (nothing but palitos la reine with an aromatic cream of chocolate and coffee, explains the author of the entry on Wikipedia). Also, they seemed to be used for Tiramisu, as a replacement for savoiardi. A couple of mouse clicks after, I had in front of me the picture of a ladyfinger (or savoiardi) (or palito la reine).

My local bakery still didn’t have them (classical Swiss answer: “we don’t use this here”). An Italian shop assistant a few stores down the road was more than happy to sell them (“for Tiramisu, non e vero?”. Actually, no, but I was not the one to disappoint a nice young man).

Twenty-four hours latter, Mr Burnt Sugar finally tasted the much celebrated ice cream cake:

My Mother would be proud of me...

A grand day out I

On this occasion only, and without setting a precedent, this weekend I dragged myself out of the urban jungle and ventured into the wilderness. This time, I went to Ebenalp, in Canton Appenzell. Indeed, that same Appenzell that became the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote in 1991.

But, I digress. The plan was to take a look at the Seealpsee, a lake that mysteriously turned blood red last Summer. In fact, scientists found latter that the colour was due to Tovellia sanguinea, an algae so rare that does not even exist on Wikipedia. For the moment, there are still no signs of red blood lake. The only thing I could find on the orange-red spectrum was this lovely orange lichen.

At the top of the Ebenalp, we could see the Bodensee, known elsewhere as Lake Constance. At some point in my life, I used to pass by it everyday on my way to work. Then, I replaced it by Lake Zurich and now, it is distant memory, as blurred as the horizon line in this picture.

d'après

Ping Pong is a project done between Colombian artists José Antonio Suárez Londoño (J.A.S.L.) and Mateo López (M.L). Every week, they agree on a rule and make a graphic composition about it. They are not allowed to discuss their work, or show each other their pieces. This one was about d'après (from French, it means according to, in the opinion of, or retrieved from).

J.A.S.L and M.L also exchange between themselves a small Moleskine drawing notebook, where they keep an on going graphic discussion. Casas Riegner, their gallery, edited a fac simile of the Libreta No. 1, specially for ArtBasel 41.

All they work was sold before the ArtBasel public viewing started. They are good like this... By the end of Libreta No. 4, their collaboration will be over.

Picture:

d'après (2010)

© J.A.S.L and M.L

A PJ state of mind

I repeat myself today: I am in PJ state of mind. Take life as it comes...

A brief story of Microbiology

Another Brickfilm release for a RevMen Studios production: A brief story of Microbiology. Why bother going through endless hours of intense tedium when Lego can say it all in less than 10 minutes? It is directionally correct - and it was a global project.



By the way, can anyone please help Mr Leeuwenhoek with his animalcules? He seems to keep on finding them in rather suspicious places...

Star Wars in 2 minutes

Why bother watching 6 3 long and tedious progressing very slowly Star Wars episodes, when Lego says it all in 2 minutes (and 12 seconds)?

Thank you, Hundreth!

Edit - Ricardo was kind enough to let me know that this is only a brief summary of episodes IV to VI. So, to be factually correct, this video only refers to the second part of the Trilogy (also called the "classic"). In Lego time, the whole series would take an estimated 4 minutes (and 24 seconds).

Not yet in the soundtrack of my life: Natalie Merchant brings back to life old poems

Natalie Merchant was the voice of 10,000 Maniacs from 1981 until she embarked on a solo career in 1993. For the past five years, she has been researching, writing and recording a collection of songs adapted from the works of classic and contemporary poets.

"This new collection of songs, Leave Your Sleep, is my first studio album since 2003. It is the most elaborate project I have ever completed or even imagined" she says. Something very special, I would dare to add, and I have only seen the performance she did during last TED 2010. The two-disc set was released today, but TED video was made available a few days ago:

I have updated my Facebook status with my bra colour

Yesterday, I logged in to Facebook, and found a bit strange that some of my female friends had a colour on their statuses. Just a single colour, like white, red or black. Polka dots was also an increasingly popular status to add to my confusion. Even a male friend dared a proud green, that was much commented throughout the day.

Was it all just another Facebook throw a snowball moment? (or was it an hamburguer?). Was it meme? Did anyone really know what was going on? Bloggers were just as confused as the users and the virtual discussions begun. At some point, the rumor that it was the colour of your first bike start to spread, but the pink with white flowers should have given an hint that this might not be entirely correct. The poor male who said green was apparently referring to its bike, though a latter post on wooly items didn't help him to restaure his pride. At some point, there were as many users asking why the colors as those updating their statuses.

The answer could not be more simple - women have been posting their bra colours. And this was all nothing but an extremely well suceeded vira campaign of uncertain origin, to raise awareness on breast cancer and early detection. Apparently, on Tuesday or Wednesday, a few women received a chain e-mail that sounded like this:

Some fun is going on . . . just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status Haha.

Whit in a few hours, the message start to spread around and thousands of women changed their statuses to their bra colours. Until now, nobody has claimed ownership of this mail and to this moment is still uncertain whom or when started this viral campaign. Or indeed why. In fact most Breast Cancer Associations were cautiously denying ownership of this campain. They are happy with the outcome, but they were still figuring out happened. Even the breast cancer awareness ♥ I updated my Status with my Bra colour ♥ Facebook group was surrpised to have an excess of 20 000 new fans by late Friday afternoon.

So, what colour is your bra?

The Sound Track of My Life IX - Every Breath You Take by The Police and True Colors by Cindy Lauper

And Joana asks me - don't doubt about the coolness of cucumbers or the freshness of lettuces, but maybe it a bit too cheeky for you to deny you might allegedly hypothetically have been in garage parties?

Indeed, it is correct. Though my Mother was convinced I was at library, I might have allegedly hypothetically probably been in couple of parties or high school events, even. I might have listened to this couple of songs, or in an excess of modernism, the New Romantics. Allegedly hypothetically. But, it was dark and nobody remembers for sure.

The Sound Track of My Life VIII - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies and More Than Words by The Extreme

It was a bit far from my intentions to post about these couple of songs, but I sort of owed it to the lady without whom I wouldn’t never have never started the Soundtrack of My Life. The whole thing started a few days ago, when much to much to my dismay, Joana posted on her Facebook a log about Mmm mmm mmm mmm’s by the Crash Test Dummies. A very short comment followed the song: Do you remember this one? This was the slow music by excellency... Oh, so many garage and basement parties… oh, so many first kisses...

Of course we don’t remember this song…. It was something we heard on MTV playlists and generalist radios, and thought it was for fools (and kid sisters). A tune that made critics wonder whether the world in general and the pop music in particular was close to an end. I mean, after the almost poetry of the Beatles songs, what could we make out of such inspirational words as Mmm mmm mmm mmm? Indeed, not much.

I have to add that Joana is a few years younger than myself. Though in general, we like the same music and share favorite bands, sometimes we fall into a generational gap like this one. The Crash Test Dummies’ Mmm mmm mmm mmm single was released in late 1993. By those days, I was day in, day out in Fragil, cool as a cumcumber and fresh as a lettuce. In all my coolness, a song had to be dark and obscure, preferably electronic to be heard. And, the grungier, the better. An order too tall for Mmm mmm mmm mmm and the Crash Test Dummies.

I would be insincere if I said Mmm mmm mmm mmm was not on the Soundtrack of My Life. In fact, I admittedly bought a Crash Test Dummies CD, just because I like its singer voice (True story. I have to say that disc is not bad at all either and has traveled well). I can recognize the song, but I cannot attach it with a story or a moment even. But, ask Joana, and she will tell you a whole different story. She might even say this is a true pop song, with simple and touching lyrics, that was heard by a whole a generation while falling in love for the first time.

Shamelessly, I asked Joana, about another song my sister used to like: More Than Words, by The Extreme “Oh, yes”, she answered. “that was another one!”. And indeed it was another one. My sister also used to sit and watch it on MTV on every possible occasion. Apparently, it was just to check the Portuguese flag on the background.