Rock 2007

Most of my life my music taste has been tagged as "underground", "alternative", "eclectic" or plainly "weird". My discs collection stores alternative electronic music, noise music, drum & bass, clasical music, african percusions, independent music, hip hop, and some pop discs too. In the last months I have been touched by the "new american folk" movement, starting from Diane Cluck and then moving all around the branches, down to the roots and up to the leafs.

The novelty is that, in the last weeks I became charmed by... the Rock. Yes, that "oh so popular", the music that everyone hear, the default choice for the Generation Y members.

I admit it, I Like Rock 2007.
I can loop all day long on such songs as:

- Lavinia of The Veils


- "The objects of my affection" or "Young Folks" of Peter Bjorn and John




- And of course, even more famous, The Strokes with songs such as "You only live once" or "Razorblade"





I invite you to loose the shame and open your ears. Prepare your mind to loop all day long on this songs and your body to shake at the rythm of the old quarter: voices, guitars, drums and bass.

ps: yes, all of this and more available at deezer.com

ps2: it took me some effort but I found back the links to the original game that inspired the inserted video. I played that classic a few years ago and I recognized it as soon as I saw the video. There is the original, the blonde version and the bush version.

About renewable energies

Finally, here is a first version of my short essay. Comments are welcome.

"""
I think that the debates on the energy problem have diverged to low quality discussions because of abuse of a vague language and the forgetfulness of the basics notions learnt in school. I'm writing this article hopping to help a little to remember the school physics and assimilate them into the daily dialogues and debates.

In this article I will argue over two and only two ideas that seems totally disregarded in non-specialist discussions:

1. Renewable energies does not exist
2. The energy issue is not one but two problems

No productive discussion on the energy issue can be made without an understanding of this two ideas. If you are confused, please read on.
"""

The cool sheep

I think I already read this one in the past, but it never hurts to look some photos of your past footsteps.

Some of my favourites advices on "how to be creative":

• Ignore everybody.
• The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
• You are responsible for your own experience.
• Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
• The world is changing.
• Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
• Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
• The best way to get approval is not to need it.

Annie Leonard, I love you

This is by far the most pedagogic document I have seen on "what is wrong with our life ? what should we do ?". I do not agree with all the arguments, but I see a very high value on this 20 minutes long video.



I invite you, with insistence, to visit storyofstuff.com.

I'm willing to put money/time of life to have translations of this video, not only the language but also the content, so at least every person living in a "developed country" could reflect itself on it.

We are bacterias

I'm still working on my renewable energies essay. Feeding my mind I found this nice fantasy, provided by the very chaotic talk of Philippe Starck.

Life on Earth appeared around 4 billions years before. Given the existence of the sun, life on earth will disappear in about 4 billions years more. Today we are half on the way of the history of life on Earth.

Billions years ago the first unicellular entities had no idea of how they would evolve, that someday they heritage would become things such as us, humans. Just as them, us, humans, have no idea of how we will evolve, and which will be our heritage in the distant future.

Let us just hope that our heritage will be of life and joy, and not a sterile desert of
death and silence.

The ear was talking to the mouth

One more proof that innovation is all about thinking without the veil of our knowledge.

"""
Think-A-Move, Ltd. (TAM) has developed a [...] human-machine interface technology that provides revolutionary device control and communications capabilities. This patented technology takes advantage of the ear's ability to act as an output device [...]
"""

Truth and lie

Consuming Coca Cola is unnecessary, not good for health and an affront to most of the culinary criteria. We should drink mainly water.

A bottle of 1 liter of water requires 26 liters of water.

Truth and lie

An hybrid car consumes half of an average American car. Hybrid cars are good.

In order to be sustainable we should consume 400 times less oil.

Three quotes

Very different sources, same spirit.
All of them are translation attempts.
I may or may not agrees with this ideas, but I like to think about them.

"""
In the last 3000 years mankind has made no progress whatsoever on well being.
"""
The anthropologist who spent enough time with Amazonians.

"""
The birds are the only creatures allowed to go beyond the walls in [of] this world.
If by feeding them we create a place where they can survive without any struggle
they will only inhabit this town and will probably never fly free again.
It might be happy for them, but I feel sorry for them.
"""
Haibane Renmei, Episode 4.

"""
[...] We must first dissimulate that this boat does not have a captain, that it never had, that it is only carried by the temper of the winds and storms of the world market. This is the true secret of this world, the one who contains all the others, the media lies, the political manipulations, the state crimes.
To discover the answers that the current economic rules can provides to the current disaster to which they let to, we must first remember this: the mercantile system lies, since its conception, on desire and privation. It develops, stays and reinforces itself on places where the human communities can not by self sufficient. Who would buy food in a place where each one could gather, collect and hunt as he pleases ? Who would work on unpleasant activities in exchange of good he would posses abundantly ? The fundamental enemy of the mercantile system is the capability to satisfy, freely and autonomously, the fundamental needs. Frustration and misery are its leaven.
This misery allows the managers of this system to make work the ones who previously lost they autonomy, to make them produce merchandises which will be then sold to other needy ones. In the articulation of this two movements - manufacture and distribution - lies the source of the mercantile added value and obviously the powerfulness of the system itself. This power allows it to reproduce itself through the same means [alienation of the individual, communitarian and universal self in a market economy], reducing even more the human autonomy to allow its own grow. The misery of the needs is the staple of the mercantile system, and the ones who administrate it must nibble the remains of human freedom in order to impose they monopole on the satisfaction of the vital needs. [...]
"""
Michel Bounan, La folle histoire du monde.
Translation note: I use the term "mercantile system" as "a system relating to trade, traders and market", not related to the traditional meaning of "the 18th century European managed economy system".

come to me Aeolus !

As a follow up of my previous article on high altitude energy I found this great ilustration of the different methods currently explored. Click on it for a larger version.


From SF Gate.

In my quest for european initiatives I have only found an Italian (right figure type) and a Dutch one (left figure type). Inputs still being welcome.