Today I saw 2 kids, about 10 of age, kicking a football in the heart of the city. Moreover they were shooting it against an empty wall. And then I instantly became filled with joy! It reminded my of my childhood when I could have spent an entire day kicking footballs at walls with my buddies.
But that was not the only reason; the other one is the hope that the image gave me. It's been at least 5 years since I've seen kids playing outside in a random location. And now I saw these two on a cloudy Sunday morning, at about 5°C, having fun with that ball. So, there is still hope for this whole civilization. I thought that the new generations were completely drown in the technological virtual world and that we would end up the way we were depicted in Wall-E, screen-equipped floating couch-potatoes. This proves me wrong and I was so happy about it!
In this current society where all our existence is an endless race against the clock, our own bodies are the main time mongers.
If you think about it, the human being is, in general, a very high-maintenance organism.
First of all, one needs an average of 6-7 hours of sleep and even with a consistent doze of cafeine this cannot be reduced to less than half of it.
But the time remaining isn't completely active, because of the all the other biological and hygienic needs (eating, washing...). So of the 24 daily hours, 40% is already taken out, which leaves us with 14h to dedicate to work, loved ones, social interactions and active relaxation.
Nowadays there isn't a fully healthy way to mix these stuff, especially when it comes to work. Actually there are very few 100% valid combinations like eating or getting a drink with someone, but it mostly involves the interaction and/or relaxation part.
So actually the activities that require the most of our time sleeping and working are never and, respectively, rarely mixed up with the others. I mean you can say that you enjoy your work and that one top of that you interact with people that you consider close, but still the reality of duty and results still hangs up somewhere in a corner.
All I'm an trying to say is that we should get more information from the sleeping patterns and the way that we could use them especially to complete our work. The brain already does that at some extent why not boost it up a notch. And on top of that an extra 15-30 minutes of sleep in the morning would not be such a bad idea, so what if we could get up already showered and fed.
In the end you might say that the days won't get any longer and that we already live some very routinized lives, so why bother; the thing is that we only have one life and that we sleep during one third of it, letting it pass by.
I know that outer-space civilizations are a fascination for most of us and especially for Hollywood producers, but the recent bombardment of not so brilliant movies to the utmost, with some exceptions, makes me ponder. Luckily (or not) they came up with variations of the subject:
the classical fighting of the invasion: Battle for L.A.
superpowers movies: I am Number Four
save your sorry behind: Skyline
10 paces duels: Cowboys & Aliens
...and many more that I've probably left out; not talking into account what's to come in 2012 (Chronicle, Battleship...)
So, where does this invasion come from?
I am here to expose 2 theories (probably one more plausible than the other, but who knows)
Firstly, all of this redundancy is another repercussion of the excessive consumer society, hitting this time the movie industry. There's a couple of alien movies that worked; people get intrigued by the subject, then less imaginative directors come up front with copycats of the movie concepts and the cash continues to flow. This pattern can be applied to any film genre especially correlated with the increasing amount of motion pictures coming out each year.
The less rational explanation but my favorite, since I have a certain weakness for the Conspiracy Theory, is that someone wants us to be prepared. If you look back this trend started along with the rumor about 2012, the start of a new era, which was also subject of a movie; at that time there was "The day the Earth stood still" and it escalated from there. If you add the latest discovery of the twin planet ("Another Earth" rings any bell?) and the current economic and social instabilities all of this seems to make sense. Maybe some major stuff is awaiting and we should get used to the idea.
Actually the whole reasoning of the second theory could serve as fuel for the first, and probably it does, but that doesn't mean that it is faulty to 100%. What do you say?
Here is something that's been making me wonder for some time now: Does our subconscious have masochist traits?
When I let my mind wander around, at least once a week it comes up with some dumb event from the past which I regret it happened. Moreover, it makes me relieve the strange feeling that I had about myself even enhancing some discomforting aspects.
What is strange is that pleasant memories usually need to be triggered by an event or an interaction with a person or an object. In general they don't pop-up in moments when the active part of the brain is on stand-by.
So, is it in our nature to be self-doubtful, insecure and disappointed of ourselves? Or is just me the one who has all these weird passive behavioural manifestations? The thing is that I'm quite happy with what I am...but maybe my inner-self thinks otherwise...
It was planned to write one day about the burring environment issue and the exasperating reasoning related to it. The next video was quite the last drop:
There's only two words for it: high-quality-custom-made BS.
First of all, it was one of the most politically cliched speech I've ever heard on the matter. All that was said was, poor people (especially Chinese), poisonous plastic, democracy (as if it had something to do), the little bottle, and the 2nd rate comedian puns; and NO real information to support any of these. The clamshell example reminded me of what a "world renowned scientist" and also dictator-wife once said: "How comes that cows make ammonia by themselves and you need all these high pressure and temperatures?" By the way, Biomimicry is the fundament of most of the human inventions, and it's being used without bearing a pompous name for centuries and centuries: planes are an obvious example of this.
On a more general scale the majority of the environmental talk are turned about plastics and I know you might say that I'm biased, but all of this is not about one product but more on a mentality. It goes like this: Something (plastic, cars, cow dung...) pollutes and it is bad, let's get rid of it. Well, my answer is the last 150 years are the source of this menace, technology is bad, rocks were alright, let's get back to the stone age.
What I don't understand is this tendency to advertise a backwards trend, when all it is needed is to go forward and improve the existent solutions or come with brand new ones. Of course, that what is superfluous needs to go and that can be pretty easily spotted. Let's take the example of plastics: for the technical solutions it is slightly impossible to revert to previous materials like metal or wood, but on the other hand some extra layers of packaging should go away. There are very few who could really do 180° and give up the cosines and easiness of today's comfort, probably very determined people and Amish communities; but for the basic somehow selfish human being, like myself, this is unimaginable: I mean why should we give up on stuff, which are about 75% useful, when we can do better? The military research still advances so new inventions should come up sooner or later.
Also, the ones involved in decision taking processes ought to be less biased (especially from a monetary point of view) and once a decision has been taken a whole mechanism should be put in motion to watch how things are done. Like for the chemicals inside toys and for waste disposal: every step has to be registered and so, no mistakes, involuntary or not, should appear. Example: companies should be forced to obey the stricter rule between the one of their country of origin or the one where they're selling the product; that's how regions with looser legislation won't end up with rejected batches from other corners of the world. The reasoning should be done on a planetary scale not on a petty wallet-size one. It may sound utopic but I still keep some hope on the human preservation reflex.
Another thing is about education: people should me more informed in a responsible way about everything coming in contact with them. This should be done in an instructional manner, without any materialistic or apocalyptic witchcraft-style way: plastic bottles are bad, they have chemicals in them! The thing is, that everything has chemicals in them and instead of seeing all this like kryptonite, we should learn to read a label and not take everything for granted.
In my opinion the major workshops of the present are: recycling - the intelligent way (not dumping into a hole and covering it up), non-fetishist or snotty alternative sources of energy, better fuel to energy ratio machines, less greed and dumb money-digging and population positive awareness.
To conclude, we generated our own freaking geological era, we can't go back, we should go forth but leave the blindfold and the spiked-boots behind.
Best musical discovery: the briliant guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriella
Best movie: Inception
Best book: The Silmarillion
Best show: The Enchanted Flute at Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon
Best acquisition: my current flat
Unfortunately there was no music album released this year that genuinely impressed and for this I hope that 2011 will show an improvement.
I wish you all have an excellent 2011.
At this magical time of the year, I would like to write a couple of words about a magical manifestation of the human brain that has been dazzling me for quite a while. In my non-specialist opinion, it seems to be the most complex activity of the entire nervous system: dreaming.
There are plenty of more or less scientific theories that try to explain its purpose and its meaning, but I won't develop any of them. I only wanted to express my fascination related to this phenomenon.
During an apparent state of almost complete inactivity, there are bits of our being that are entirely awake. First the eyes that swing around whilst closed, and even if the visual systems are shut down, one could live the most vivid experiences of an entire day, and sometimes even remember them.In addition the brain seems to be racing as if a normal activity would be in question.Our organisms are even more impressive, being able to block the involvement of the muscles in the process, thus avoiding involuntary injuries.
A dream would pick random thoughts, people, places, feelings, mix them together and deliver a more than authentic cocktail, that sometimes remains plausible even after waking up. You could end up on a video game quest, with a blockbuster tension, taking place somewhere you'd seen but never been to, being surrounded by your childhood friends who seem to be best buds with your office colleagues and never doubt the improbability of such an exploit.
At times, one could also find the desired answers to various issues, throughout a dream, or almost die trying to escape one.
There are people who say that the real life is what you dream, and that the dream what you seem to be living every day; and this sound like a cool concept.
Obviously such an amazing phenomenon was depicted in all sorts of art forms, the latest being the movie I consider to be the best of 2010: Inception, which shows that dreams could be manipulated, altered and twisted to serve a purpose. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to control this really active state of the mind and make it work to our advantage as the body rests...food for thought...
One more thing, the most important aspirations that someone could have from one's existence are also called dreams; should that be a deception for the real life or a spark of hope for the imaginary one? Because for each side there are only some dreams that come true.
So anyone sharing the same fascination?
Once again it has been a while since l last shared something on this blog. At the time I was spending some self-imposed holidays at home.
And a bunch of stuff changed have since as I've started a new chapter on the professional side of my life: working on aPhD project and thus extending my stay in Strasbourg by 3 more years.
So, in the last month I got my diploma, a job, a new house, made new friends and became mobile with this cutie, which I'm using to write this post.
It was assumed to be an alteration of the Matrix, it is a phenomenon that most people encounter several times in their lives; I, myself, have lived it pretty often. I'm talking about deja-vu.
Every once in a while it might feel like the same thing has already happened just the way it does at the time; and I want to know what is all of this about!
The thing is that there are no real theories behind the event; it can't be lab-s(t)imulated so it is nearly impossible to study it. So all the real ideas are as plausible as the fictional ones.
What's uttered is that deja-vu could be related to syndromes such as schizophrenia or anxiety or that it's a malfunction in the perception of memories, which would place stuff that happened milliseconds ago in a far distant period of time.
Opening the gate to other worlds, first we have dreams. The phenomenon is depicting something you've dreamed in a vivid moment; but dreaming something that particularly precise, ain't it wicked? (But I have a strong feeling that you'll be reading some other stuff about dreaming here soon.)
There's also the Matrix proposition, but that's a bit far-fetched.
And so we're left with the final explanation, which I tend to embrace in a supernatural way of seeing things even though Fringe is not my cup of tea...drum-roll...Deja-vus are glimpses of memories from other dimensions that the person has already visited. So our minds go wandering from time-place to time-place and their keep little tokens that come up when you except the least.
I guess that makes us all visionaries (if we could trigger the reenactment at any given instant) or is my dark side darker that I thought, with its deja-vus any other month...
Next year it's the International Year of Chemistry, and I consider this to be a huge opportunity for this field of activity to get a better image.
Nowadays the public opinion mostly ignores or associates this branch of science with all the bad stuff in the world. Well, it is time to spread out the word and bring out the coolness in Chemistry. As a chemist I can assure you that the opportunities in this domain are limitless and that without Chemistry, all the commodities that are today taken for granted would not have been possible. A shortlist would be:
Medical and Pharmaceutical advancements
Transportation
Technical and Device Development
Energy
Food
Constructions
Cosmetics
Quality of living
...and many more
You would probably bring up the Environmental issue, but that is like saying that the Nuclear Bomb is the fault of Atomic Physics. The thing is, Chemistry has the capacity to clean-up after itself (it already provides the tools, you know...), all that is needed is that the humans really take the situation seriously and change their views and behavior.
So, for all the Chemists out there, do your job well and be good lobbyists! and for the non-Chemists widen your perspective on this amazing Science!
The biggest and greediest movie BS in history. I didn't think much of Cameron's originality but he sewed all the stolen concepts pretty well to make the blockbuster Pandorean story.
So after that well molded forgery, he got to the next level: bloody highway theft. Not only that he has the first 2 Box-Office pictures, but also wants to rip-off everyone by releasing a long version of Avatar in theaters. 8 minutes were added to the film, and the price is even higher that a normal 3D movie (ex. in France it's about 15€ - full price) because it is only IMAX 3D.
I find this outrageous for all the people who bought the DVD, one of its purposes being to reveal the director cuts. There are 3D TVs now; it's almost as real as in cinema! These people should ask to pay only the IMAX extra, because 8 min on a 160 min movie is 5%, that means almost nothing, there are no changes in the story whatsoever.
I wonder if the guys who came with the idea were stuck that much in financial fertilizer that they wanted to suck every cent they could from the franchise. They have invented the infinite sequel (the infiniquel): let's add the time the actors spent in the bathroom and make a big campaign about it...
Also I heard that a real sequel might see the light of day, and that's just another BS. It took him 15 years to come up with unobtainium what will there be after only a couple more?!?!. This story has been told, Jakesully has nothing more to say, not that he had much to say in general, use the technology to create something new, and original this time; change the color theme for instance!
There are certain surrounding phenomena that occur permanently but for which I fail to find an explanation. They just happen, like Murphy's Laws.
One of them is related to cords, like earphones, chargers etc. I guess you all noticed that no matter how or where you place them, I mean, neatly put in a corner of a drawer or just thrown on the table, when you'd want to reuse them after, let's say, 8 h later, they'd be all tangled-up. In my opinion there should be a public grant for the research on the wire morphing that could clarify this capacity of an apparently inanimate object to mix itself up.
The other one would involve time and its ability to dilate and contract depending on the activity or the lack of one.Actually, when you're doing something is quite normal not to see the time go by, but there are other situations that lack logic. Like, when you get bored and try to make the hours go by, but no matter what you do, even developing a new quantum mechanics theory, the clock will always show that only 2 minutes have passed.
There is also the opposite, and that happens to me a lot: sitting purposeless and doing infinitesimal stuff, and realizing after a quick glance at the clock that half a day just vanished. This, mixed up with the 'tonight I'm going to bed early' saying is a perfect self-fueling match-up.
If you have some personal thoughts or other experience that are beyond human reason please share.
Update: found a new one, that's generally true in my case even though there're many of you who would disagree. It's about getting up a couple of minutes before the alarm goes off, but on out-of-routine occasions. In general, one gets used to a schedule and thus the body is able to predict the getting-up hour; but when you have wake up a 6h30 on a Sunday morning to catch a train , things seem to get more difficult. Still, you are surprised to open your eyes and notice that it is 6h27. I guess there's some kind of latent adrenaline rush that bumps you out of bed at the exact moment, but I have no really idea about how that happens.
