06 Aug 2009
My sister stumbled upon a very interesting website today, and so I would like to share this with my readers (and listeners).
This is a website related to music. In it, you have many videos available which produce sounds, and together, or one by one, create stunning music, in B flat.
I have to say, my utmost respect for those who created this, it is a brilliant experiment, and just stunning that you can play around with music all in one same scale in this way.
Check out the website right here: http://www.inbflat.net/
31 Jul 2009
A few years ago I dreamt of being able to have all this connectivity, lets say, things being published here, automatically-published there, and elsewhere. I knew we were getting there, as I have been configuring my services for the past few months, but I didn’t know we are so advanced.
If I made a rundown or a graph explaining the connectivity between social media sites I currently have, it would grow too large, or the connections would not exactly be easy to draw. * Update: Well I’ve decided to draw it anyway:
For instance: My Youtube is posting to facebook, google reader, twitter and two of my blogs. One of those blogs is lemiffe.com which when receiving a post will alert ping.fm which will then release a post of my new blog post to facebook, twitter, my blog at blogger, myspace, google talk’s status, and quite a few other sites.
Now, the only problem I currently see is the level of redundancy. Sites talked to other sites, which in turn talk to other sites, so whenever these sites provide much more connectivity to other services we might end up in a cyclic-post system in which one service posts to the other which in turn posts back to the first one initiating a never-ending cycle in which the user would have to stop one or the other service manually.
I really believe more insight should be applied, like, verifying the other sites connectivity and checking it will not repost to a site the first site has already posted to. This can be done via pure XML transactions between both sites, I mean, thats what web services are for, right?
Another thought I came up with is a Centralised User Account Service, which deals with the connectivity between users of different sites. Lets say: Gravatar meets facebook and ping.fm. All the services first verify the users information on the Centralised service, then they verify which permissions the user has applied concerning posting, which pages must the service send the new update, video or blog message to, and negotiate it only with the Centralised site, which will in turn send off the appropriate XML for all other “connected” sites.
It’s just a thought, Security-wise I am not sure where this would lead to as very tight security would have to be placed. Gaining access to the account of a user at the Centralised Site would be, well, Armageddon for that user. So probably a tighter security would have to be placed, with 128 big encription, SSL sockets, MD-6, who knows what else, but it’s just a thought anyway.
30 Jul 2009
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about movies lately. Specifically about their impact on our lives. I’ve had a few talks in the past with different people about their views on movies, and the views are quite contrasting. I am talking not only about the violence in films, or pornography, or offence, but about it’s effects on our own minds, and our society as a whole.
Obviously this is such an extensive topic, and I can not board it completely throughout this blog post, nonetheless, I will try to address some of the issues that I have been thinking about lately.
According to Wikipedia, a Film is considered to be the following:
“Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.
Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important artform, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating — or indoctrinating — citizens.”
Now, we can logically infer that when speaking about movies we are talking about all it’s genres and sub-genres, all it’s different forms including B&W film, speechless, etc.
I can logically deduce that humans create films to express feelings they have, feelings we all have. But have we gone too far? I’m not going as far as to call Film stupid, or not an art, but I think we have to make a clear distinction to what is fake and what is real, and to what is tolerable or bearable and what is simply going over the limit.
By typing Violence in Films in Google I get 224,000,000 results. It is obviously a matter of great concern for the public.
“By the time the average U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,00 acts of violence on TV.” - New Scientist, 2007
So how exactly does violence, rape, murder, sex, and verbal offence contribute to violence and indecent acts in our society?
This website cites quite a few facts that have studied concerning this topic. It says: Researchers followed 329 subjects over 15 years. They found that those who as children were exposed to violent TV shows were much more likely to later be convicted of crime. Researchers said that, “Media violence can affect any child from any family,” regardless of social class or parenting.
So we can clearly see it has an effect on our lives. What intrigues me the most is why can’t we, as rational human beings, make a distinction between what clearly is supposed to be an art form, and reality. Why do we let a motion picture inflict damage on the progress of our own lives?
“Because ours is a puritanically-based society and we have problems with depictions of sex, we tend to eroticize violence. For many people this creates an unfortunate, often even unconscious, link between sex and violence.” - from “Sex Research, Censorship, and the Law”
I come to think of this as true up to the extent that all our actions are based on what we learn and what we know, and we as human beings learn by seeing and imitating. Following this trend of thought we can infer that as we see from movies, we tend to act accordingly, by the means of learning and practicing.
Therefore I come to the conclusion that we, as a society, are not ready to create our own art forms, and expression, and really understand and act independently to so. In painting, we often let our minds wander off based on the expression, colours and objects depicted in the artist’s creation. May people have commited murder based on this? Indeed it is possible, just as it was also possible to commit murder after reading “The Catcher in the Rye”, so why not?
We, as a society, must first learn to control our bodies, our minds, and our actions before putting ourselves to the test and searching for a medium for expression, and searching for alternate art forms. After all, there is a lot to be learned about murder. Watching crime films, and different genres of films gives a lot of insight as to how the world works, what we are made of, why we do the things we do. Nonetheless, we must learn to control ourselves before being exposed to such material, as the untrained mind will not only obtain knowledge from the good parts of movies, but also will learn from the bad parts, the inmoral parts, the violent parts, etc.
I think we still have a long way, to really learn to think.
- Edit 23/Oct/2012: Changed ”The Catcher and the Rye” to ”The Catcher in the Rye”, thanks Sophia for noticing this.
29 Jul 2009
According to the BBC Business News, “Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a long-rumoured internet search deal that will help the two companies take on chief rival Google.
Microsoft’s search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft’s online offering.”
I wonder if this will be the key to a revival of Yahoo’s profits, and a deeper immersion from Microsoft into Web Technologies, as Microsoft has always struggled with the Web ever since it’s release of MSN (Microsoft Network).
Could this be it?
19 Apr 2009
I had forgotten what it is to truly feel free. It has been quite a long time since I actually spent a weekend doing what I wanted to do, even if that meant what others would consider ‘working’.
Nonetheless, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s just so frustrating to live life thinking about all the variables surrounding you, how you affect them, how they affect you, and how everything you do will result in the change of those variables, possibly crippling their function in society and therefore affecting you.
Then everything is expressed in the function of time, or f(t), so all resulting variable values are the result of this expression, making it even harder on our brains to evaluate the processes and determine our actual value.
Sometimes it is better just to disconnect. Leave the bloody computer for a day, or if you use it just not worry about people needing you or the need to reply to email. Leave the cellphone, turn it off, feel disconnected. When you remove the pressure of being contactable, many pressures dissipate, leading to less stress.
I feel I’ve somewhat neglected the textual content of this blog. Not because I don’t want to write, or not feeling inspired. I think it is a direct result of the conflicting variables in my head. I hope I have more time to write from now on.