I'm back. I was slipping out of my old routine and slacking, so am here to attempt to get back into things. There is only one thing to blame, really (other than myself of course), and that is Battlefield 3. What a glorious, epic game that is. It lives up to all my expectations and surpasses some. The single player is an intriguing story, and although the overall length of the game is a little shorter than most would like, I found it reasonable. The action is intense and varied, thanks to the mechanism of switching between several characters to tell different parts of the same story, with brilliant building of suspense during cut scenes and plot moments.
I think this game wows mainly because of the graphics and effects. The Frostbite 2 engine used by DICE is absolutely breathtaking. The sheer beauty of the world allows you to overlook pretty much any flaw. With lens flare glinting off the spray-flecked glass canopy of your F-18 as you take off from the deck of U.S.S George H W Bush in the Persian Gulf on a stormy, moody day, streaking through clouds towards an Iranian airbase, you really feel part of something on a huge scale, and you absolutely do not care about anything other than nailing those bogeys.
LOOK AT THE SHINY!
The lighting, the shadows, the smoothness of the soldiers' uniforms, their animations, the detail on vehicles, the environment, on your weapon.. everything. It's phenomenal.
Multiplayer is where the game really shines. The maps are great and offer everything from close-quarters inner city combat with tight alleys (The Grand Bazaar, Seine Crossing) to long range vehicle warfare (Caspian Border, Kharg Island), with variations on each map depending on game mode. The weapons are suitably meaty, sound effects are great (especially player call-outs, when they are pinned down or out of ammo), ground vehicles are easy to pick up, difficult to master, whereas helicopters and jets are just... difficult.
There are a few flaws. Some menus are difficult to navigate, and a glaring omission is the ability to quit between games.. you have to wait for the map to load before exiting the game, which does get annoying. Sometimes changes you make to your kit or solider aren't saved between sessions, and EA's whole 'Buy an online pass' thing is a horrific money-grabbing scheme that means BF3 is going to be more expensive as a second-hand game, due to having to buy a new code for online play. There is no manual included with the game so unless you can find the controls in the menus or remember them from the tutorials forever, good luck. Ridiculous.
Still, those technical faults aside, I think this is a truly brilliant game, and one I am not ashamed to be wasting my days playing.
It's a rather impressive beast, the main tower unit is roughly half as big again, (if not more) as my old one, all matt black metal, plastic and hexagonal fan vents. My old PC was a faithful if tired old companion, having been with me for four years or so. During that time he had multiple nervous breakdowns, a pretty serious one leaving him somewhat crippled a few months ago. The version of XP was corrupted... somehow... so the hard drive had to be split up and a clean new version put on beside it - it worked, but he was never the same after that. He got slower and slower, and had repeated issues with memory running out and so on.
It was time for a new one, and I am very, very grateful to my partner for hooking me up with my lovely new machine. The old one is going to be put in the living room with a new hard drive and hooked up to the TV as a media PC, which is cool, but I'm not sure how much use it will get, considering we have an Xbox 360 and the V+ Media box already hooked up.
My new PC is named Ceres, mostly after the dwarf planet that inhabits the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but then I soon realised that is also the name of the Roman Goddess of agriculture, grain crops and fertility. My huge, hulking computer is a girl!
Oh well. So far everything has been great. I'm loving Windows 7, and the ability to run more than two programs at once is refreshing. One thing I realised yesterday whilst transferring my most valuable files (music albums) across the network, was just how much clutter I had accumulated across various folders - things I had held onto because they might be useful or valuable someday - and when it came down to it, I realised they were useless and that I would not miss them. So I didn't transfer anything except my music collection, some photographs and a few stories and things I had written that I intend to work on again someday; I left 98% of the couple hundred GBs worth of stuff behind - and I was right - I don't miss it. I feel great having a clean, empty, fast computer that isn't bogged down by years of collected garbage.
Perhaps it would be good if we could upgrade our lives sometimes and leave all the baggage and trash behind us..
My recent lack of posting is due almost entirely to a game called Glitch. Pretty much every spare minute of my time has been taken up by dipping into this fascinating world. At first, I was overwhelmed and confused, but I am glad I stuck at it.
So what is Glitch?
I'm not sure I can explain it properly. To play, it feels like a platformer, but it also has resource gathering, character progression and items to buy and sell. On top of that, it has a buddy and auction system, turning it into a very social and friendly game. You get bonuses if you help people, rather than ignore them. You can trade goods between characters so that everyone can find what they need to complete their next challenge or build their next item.
The world is based, apparently, inside the dreams of some giants, and ranges from craggy mountains and caves to grassland, mudflats and dense temperate pine forests. There are islands with far more abstract areas located on them, all bright purples and yellows, populated with spice trees and bubble plants.
Character customisation is both cosmetic and skill-based. There are a huge range of clothes, hair, ears, skins and so on to allow you to craft your Glitch into your ideal protagonist. My Glitch, named Hyperdoodle, rocks a long old navy-style trenchcoat, a cargidan, some boots and bright blue-silver spikey hair.
Skills initially seem rather confusing. You have limited options to start with that all seem to revolve around picking fruit, making sandwiches, and befriending animals. It takes time to unlock the ability to train in, what I consider, the far more fun fields of mining, alchemy, meditation and teleportation. Every skill is useful, and you eventually have the chance to learn them all - the best thing is that you can study them while outside the game - which is good, because some take more than 24 hours to complete!
It really is a fun little game, and it is very hard to convey the epic scale of it here, I think you'll have to check it out for yourselves. A basic account is free to play, and for the moment at least, they offer a free month's upgrade to a subscriber account, which allows access to far more character parts and clothes. You can find the game here:
Hiroo Onoda was a Second Lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army, an intelligence officer, trained in guerilla warfare and commando tactics, with express orders to under no condition surrender or take his own life - he was told that the Japanese Army would return for him eventually. He took this order to the extreme when it emerged that he and his small unit of three men were still fighting long after the war ended.
They were located in the jungle of Lubang Island in the Philippines and harassed the civilian population there for decades. All attempts to convince the men that the war was over failed - they assumed that pamphlets, leaflets, letters and even family photographs dropped from planes were hoaxes constructed by the Allied forces. One of the men, Yuichi Akatsu surrendered to Filipino forces in 1950, after walking away from Onoda's unit.
Parties were sent into the jungle to find the three remaining men, who were still harassing locals and waging war on what they thought was an enemy dressed in civilian clothing. In 1954, Shoichi Shimada, a member of the guerilla group, was killed by a shot fired by a search party sent to find them, leaving just Inoda and his last man, Kinshichi Kozuka in the unit.
Kozuka was killed by local police in 1972, when he and Onoda were burning rice collected by local farmers.
Norio Suzuki, a college drop out who was travelling the world, looking for "Lieutenant Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman, in that order", actually managed to find the Lieutenant in February of 1974, when dozens of search parties had failed, and tried to convince him that the war was over and he should surrender. Onoda refused, saying he was waiting for orders from a superior officer.
Suzuki returned to Japan with photographs as proof of their encounter, and the government located Onoda's former commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, who had since become a bookseller. He flew to Lubang and on March 9, 1974, finally gave Onoda the orders he had been waiting for the past 30 years. He was relieved of his orders and post without having to surrender. He handed over his rifle, still in good working order, his sword, some grenades and 500 rounds of ammunition, as well as the dagger his mother had given him in 1944.
He had killed some 30 Filipino inhabitants of Lubang, and had been engaged in several shootouts with police, he was pardoned by the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, due to the extraordinary nature of the situation. Onoda returned to Japan as something of a hero - he wasn't the last Japanese soldier to be found fighting the war, but he was definitely the most popular.
Now, reading about Onoda got me thinking. What if I had been in that situation? Would I have surrendered sooner, or carried on fighting for thirty years? You may think it was common sense to assume that the war could not possibly have lasted so long, but to the highly patriotic Japanese soldiers, that notion was more believable than the concept that Japan would have lost the war. Ultimately, it was a combined sense of honour, duty and patriotism that led Onoda to carry on fighting for so long. Would I have been able to exhibit similar qualities in a similar situation?
Raised in the way he would have been, with his mindset and beliefs that were drilled into him from an early age, perhaps I would. Of course, being an insulin-dependent diabetic, it's highly unlikely that I would have been sent anywhere - but mentally, I think I could do it. It would get easier over time, not harder. You'd fall into a routine, a strong sense of purpose and you'd find it ever easier to justify your activities. Couple that with the extreme paranoia of war, the undying patriotism and loyalty of soldiers in that period, but especially that of the Imperialist Japanese Forces, and orders that not only require you to keep going, but also promise specifically how you will be relieved... and you have an understanding of just how easy it would be to hide in a jungle for thirty years, taking the odd shot at a local and burning their rice harvests.
Onoda was not a hero or a villain. He was just doing what he was told.
Something that has always fascinated me is graffiti. I'm not talking about scrawling your name over a wall with a fat pen, I'm talking proper, artistic, beautiful masterpieces.
As I grew up, I found the drab greyness of suburban life rather a drag; the average building around where I lived (Uxbridge and Hillingdon, North-West London) was decidedly dreary in comparison to the beauty of the natural world. There were parks, sure, but they were boring, built not for attractiveness but for functionality: all children's play areas and football pitches. The urban environment lacked imagination, sparkle and colour.
I started to notice graffiti at quite a young age and immediately found it interesting. Why would someone go to the time of spraying such elaborate designs on a public wall? Why would they risk getting caught by the police for the sake of painting? The rebelliousness really struck a chord with me. I will be the first to admit, I was a good kid. Maybe too good. I never did anything wrong, and part of me regrets that these days - to have been out there exploring and messing about must have been exciting.
My younger brother used to go out tagging at night, he would take a thick yellow or black paint pen and doodle his name or a signature 'tag' on some wall somewhere. He'd spend hours practicing on sheets of A4 paper, wasting hundreds of them, and it boggled my mind, how someone could be out there doing this stuff andnot want to actually create something beautiful. At that moment, I realised I understood proper graffiti - it is art. Tagging is just destroying property, it's ugly and pointless, whereas someone who can put even a moment's thought into an original and quality design before spraying can be regarded as an artist who wants to brighten up the bleary, grey urban landscape.
For my birthday this year, my partner bought me a book called Graffiti World by Nicholas Ganz. If you've ever had more than a passing interest in graffiti, I highly recommend it as a rather detailed and thorough guide to street art all over the world. Reading interviews in the book with these artists has helped confirm my belief that ultimately, graffiti is a good thing. It not only pretties up the place, but it can also be used to convey important political or ideological messages, or simply provide a moment of insight and inspiration.
My favourite pieces are usually very simple messages that contain a great truth or idea in very few words.
My other favourite type of graffiti are those that combine epic characters and abstract murals and paintings.
Seak
Faith 47
rockGroup
Daim
Corail
Maybe someday I will try to develop and perfect my own writing style, but I am very unlikely to ever use it out on the street. Luckily, I am quite happy to bask in the magnificence of these writers and their art without going out and practising it for myself.
If I asked you to point to the Aral Sea on a map, you might guess somewhere in central Asia, you know, one of those places like the Dead Sea or the Black Sea that sounds vaguely exotic and mysterious. It was, in fact, on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, not far to the East of the Caspian Sea.
I say 'was', because it has shrunk at a horribly alarming rate. In 1985, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world, covering approximately 26,000 square miles. This is a view of it from the north side, taken by a Space Shuttle.
Over the next couple of decades, the sea began to shrink quickly, due to irrigation works carried out in the 1960's by the Soviet Union. The canals they built diverted water away from the two main rivers that fed the Aral Sea, to cotton farms in the surrounding areas. Soviet Engineers predicted that this would cause the lake to dry up, but the projects went ahead anyway, without regard for the impact on the environment and people that lived around the Aral Sea.
August, 2009. The Aral Sea is now only the world's eighth largest lake, and is split into two portions that cover barely ten percent of its original surface area. The Little Aral Sea is the blob at the top (north) of the image, located within Kazakhstan. A dam has been constructed to hold the water in, and to slow evaporation. Water levels are now rising in this smaller portion of the Sea, enough to reduce salinity and allow fish stocks to recover. However, the southern Aral Sea, located in much poorer Uzbekistan, has no such project, and with no major source of water flowing into it, is likely to have vanished entirely by 2020.
This is not some small puddle. The amount of water lost from the Aral Sea is equivalent to completely draining Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the two smallest of North America's five Great Lakes, some 900+ cubic kilometres of water. The fishing industry on the Aral Sea once employed 40,000 people and is now utterly destroyed. The main fishing town is now miles from any water, and the few fish that do remain have to compete with increasing salinity - more than 20 species of flora and fauna have become extinct. Boats litter the desert that was once the sea bed, a desert that is poisoned by chemicals and toxins from farming cotton, and from the Soviet chemical and biological weapons testing facility on Vozrozhdeniya or "Rebirth Island" (which is now no longer an island and is merely part of the exposed lake bed). Dust storms whip up the toxic sand and blast it across the basin, causing serious health problems for those who still live in the surrounding areas.
All in all, the Aral Sea is a tragic example of a government putting short term financial ideals ahead of long term environmental and human needs. Work is underway to try to save the Aral Sea but most projects are prohibitively expensive and totally impractical. It is very likely that the only remains of this once vast body of water will be a small lake and a poisoned, lifeless desert.
Today, I'd like to share some of my favourite inspiring quotes with you. The thing about a good quote is that it has to be succinct, direct, and ultimately strike you as the truth. In everything from speeches to song lyrics, there are lines and phrases that grab hold of me and drag me to another place - often one of clarity and inspiration, but sometimes quite the opposite. I'll try to explain why I love each quote as we go along.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
- Albert Einstein
I often list Einstein among my favourite people of all time, and for good reason. Not only was he quite possibly the greatest physicist of the 20th century, but he was also a campaigner for human rights, equality and education. You need only look at his Wikipedia page to see just how much he contributed to the world of science. His most famous work is surely the E=mc^2 equation, which states that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. I do feel that imagination is more important than knowledge, but it took this quote to help me realise it - you can know everything in the world, but without imagination, you can't dream of what to do with that knowledge.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I've always held the ideals of equality close to my heart, and MLK is possibly the finest example of a modern human rights leader as you're likely to find. His speeches were utterly intoxicating, and I could give you several fantastic quotes from him that have inspired me in the past. I think his assassination was ultimately, not such a bad thing; he became such a powerful symbol in death, more so than he ever could have in life.
"A conservative is a man who believes nothing should be done for the first time"
- Alfred E. Wiggam
I am strongly opposed to conservatism in all of its forms, and this quote beautifully sums up my feelings about those who wish to 'conserve' whatever ideal they promote - whether it is a return to an older system or way of life or maintaining things as they are and opposing progress on principle. The state of the world now and in the past is a shocking, horrible mess, unfair and unjust - to keep it the same or send it backwards, is, in my view, to remove basic freedoms and securities that people need in order to survive. Progress is a positive thing, always - to work towards a goal, to improve and grow, is surely the natural desire of all living things - to conserve and regress is to stunt, limit and wither.
"To laugh often and much; to win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children... to leave the world a better place... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
This quote pretty much sums up my entire philosophy on life. Success cannot be measured by how much money you earn or how many fans you acquire, but by the positive impact you have made on other people's lives - to be remembered fondly is the greatest achievement that I can imagine.
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Three epic quotes from one epic person. They speak of personal responsibility, the reality of an individual's limited effect on the world, but the huge effect he will have on those around him, the dangers of hypocrisy and the hopeful, beautiful idea that all bad things come to an end.
"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
- Steve Jobs
Say what you like about his company, Apple, but Jobs himself was a rather brilliant man, and I know he will be missed.
We went to see Jurassic Park at the cinema last night. It's out on re-release for some reason, maybe because the film is now almost twenty years old - which is a scary thought - perspective like that really helps you appreciate just how old you are getting.
I must confess that Jurassic Park is probably my favourite movie of all time. Watching it again yesterday allowed me, for the first time, to properly appreciate the brilliance of it; rather than just going "OOOH DINOSAURS RAWR!", I was able to consider just how much creative effort must have gone into building the models and rendering the CGI of the monsters in the movie. I've seen films released in the past couple of years that have worse effects than Jurassic Park. Since this one, there have been a couple of sequels of declining quality - none of them come close to the visceral impact of the original.
The acting is brilliant too, especially from the two children, Lex and Tim - the way they portray fear and excitement is utterly and entirely believable, dragging you deeper into the world of the movie. Tim reminds me of myself at his age, actually: inquisitive, excitable, slightly awkward and goofy but eager to learn and explore.
But what makes me love this movie, and dinosaurs, so much?
Honestly, I have no idea.
I've always loved dinosaurs. They were a defining feature of my childhood, thanks partly to Jurassic Park, but also due to multiple trips to the highly impressive Natural History and Science Museums in London. The idea of a world filled with these giant monsters is utterly fascinating and bewitching.
When I say giant monsters, I mean it:
I do genuinely wish that some species had survived until today, imagine going on safari and seeing a Triceratops! Of course, they were pretty much all wiped out 65 million years ago, and the survivors eventually evolved into what we know today as birds.
Rawr!
More and more dinosaurs have been found in the past few years that exhibit evidence of having primitive feathers on their bodies, sometimes as a fluffy coat, others had them for dominance displays and gliding.
Of course, everything that we know about dinosaurs has to be guessed at from fossil records or figured out by examining birds today, but that just makes them all the more intriguing and exotic. I think part of their charm is that we've had to build up our knowledge of them from scratch, and in doing so, they have become partly our own creations - ripe for use in all kinds of media, stories and childhood fantasy adventures.
Perhaps this blog has become a little too focused on art and science, I need to randomise it up a bit... but what other fields are there? Almost everything that interests me can either be broadly defined as art or science. Music, photography, sculpture and literature can be lumped together as the former, whereas astronomy, engineering, animals and nature, history and geography can be loosely associated with science, or at least, the study of those fields involves some degree of scientific approach.
Some things can be thrown onto the border between both definitions: architecture, cartography and even gadgets/electronics combine significant elements of each.
Perhaps only a few things fall outside of these two spheres.
One of these is religion and the spiritual world.
I guess you could say that science, art and spiritualism occupy the three most commonly referred to body parts; science is the brain, art is the heart, and religion has the soul. It's a neat way of looking at it, I think.
I am by nature a skeptic: I like proof and evidence.
This leads me, inexorably, to being an atheist.
I do not believe in a God, a Heaven or a Hell. There is no Devil. No sin. No spiritual afterlife.
There is a reason why no prayer has ever been answered; why there has never been any actual evidence of any kind of divine intervention; and why no miracles have ever been documented that could not be explained through scientific examination.
I personally feel that religion was invented as a way of explaining the world at a time when science was in it's infancy. It has done some good over the centuries, teaching morals and keeping records. Perhaps without organised religion, humanity would have remained barbaric and feudal, perhaps not. We'll never know.
However, the past good it may have done cannot justify the continued espousal of mystical conjecture and superstition as fact and truth. Religion was a crutch on which humanity could rely for so long, but now it is slowing us down. I respect your right to believe in whatever you choose, however I implore you to allow your children and those around you to choose for themselves as well. Indoctrination is dangerous and has no justification.
I am a supporter of the theory of evolution, and you only have to gaze into a chimp or gorilla's eyes in order to see that we came from the same place. I guess you could label my personal beliefs as Secular Humanism, which can be defined as follows:
Secular Humanism is a comprehensive life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead happy and functional lives. Though it posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God, it neither assumes humans to be inherently or innately good, nor presents humans as "above nature" or superior to it. Rather, the Humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of Secular Humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology — be it religious or political — must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of Secular Humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through science and philosophy.
I'm also a huge fan of Epicurus, a Greek Philosopher who lived between 341 and 270 BC. He taught that:
The purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
I don't feel that a rejection of religion must inevitably lead one to a path of spiritual emptiness. You have to learn to appreciate exactly what it is that makes each of us special - it is not because God put us here and gave us some instructions. It is due to a series of remarkable and beautiful events that gave birth to the Universe, our Galaxy, our planet and finally to all the fabulous life and wonders upon it, including us. Our time alive is but a fleeting moment in the history of the universe, and that is what makes it all the more special. To have this opportunity to explore, discover and invent, to love, laugh and cry, to gaze upon the stars and the majestic beauty of everything we know, is a precious gift, given to us by chance, and we should make the most of it.
You don't need to believe in an afterlife when you understand how truly fantastic this life can be, when you realise that the atoms and molecules making up your body, your eyes as you read this, have existed for billions of years, and were once part of a star, or a nebula, or another world, and will very likely be part of something else again, long after you have no need for them. The thing about that fact is that, well, it is a fact. It can be proven. To me, and I hope, to most, it is something far more beautiful and rewarding than any promised 'heaven', and it is tangible. It requires no belief, only knowledge, and that is part of its beauty.
Look.. I ended up talking about science again. D'oh!
... you can think of nothing to post about and then a dozen brilliant topics turn up at once. I might make two or more posts today, to make up for recent slacking.
First of all, we were watching Scrapheap Challenge, a fantastic show in which teams battle it out to build the best contraption that must then defeat their opponents in a contest or two. The only resources at their disposal are what they can find in a scrapyard. I often feel I would really enjoy such an experience, despite having absolutely no practical skills whatsoever, and only a basic knowledge of things like engines, axles and so on.
In the episode I watched last night, they were attempting to build battleships, and one team decided to use Archimedes Screws to provide propulsion for their craft, which were powered by hydraulics.
This made me realise that I had completely forgotten the difference between hydraulic and pneumatic, and in case you have ever wondered what the difference may be, here it is.
Hydraulics in general refers to the applied science of managing the mechanical properties of liquids, based upon the theoretical foundation of fluid mechanics.
A hydraulic system is one that makes use of liquid fluid power to carry out work. This means that a hydraulic fluid (usually some form of petroleum oil with additives; edible oil or water is sometimes used in factories where food is produced) is pumped through tubes and hoses in order to provide force or torque multiplication. It is popular due to the ability to apply the force over a long distance, with no need of mechanical gears or levers.
It is a complicated technology with very simple principles: If you push on one end of something, the force will be applied at the other; by altering the pressure of the medium being pushed, it is possible to apply the force at a different rate. I shamelessly ripped the example below from Wikipedia, which, as I am sure you're aware, is where I have been getting most of the facts for my posts from.
Cylinder C1 is one inch in radius, and cylinder C2 is ten inches in radius. If the force exerted on C1 is 10 lbf, the force exerted by C2 is 1000 lbf because C2 is a hundred times larger in area (S = Ï€r²) as C1. The downside to this is that you have to move C1 a hundred inches to move C2 one inch.
(lbf or 'pound-force' is a stupid unit, by the way, and is equal to exactly 4.4482216152605 Newtons)
The units and measurements of the components is unimportant from a theoretical perspective; the ratio is what matters here. At the other end of C2, you will need an actuator such as the brakes on your car. This is not one of those fancy engineering subjects that has very few real world applications: Hydraulic machinery is used in all kinds of situations, most notably on the linkages of heavy equipment such as excavators, diggers and earth movers.
You can see the darker hydraulic cylinders all over the arm that work as linear actuators here. Yes, I know, it's a big one.
Pneumatics, on the other hand, revolves around the use of pressurized gases in order to achieve a similar effect of mechanical motion to hydraulics, but with one or two differences. Pneumatic systems use any easily compressible gas such as air or pure gases like nitrogen or carbon dioxide.
Compared to hydraulic machines, pneumatic ones are simpler to design and control, and more reliable with a longer operating life, because the gases used are compressible whereas the liquids used in hydraulics are not, meaning excess force caused by a shock to the system can be absorbed by the gases, but not by the hydraulic liquids. Of course, this also means that energy is lost in the transfer of force, due to the compressed gas absorbing it. Hydraulics are capable of exerting far more force due to the incompressibility of the liquids at work.
So basically, there you have it: Hydraulics uses liquids and is slow and powerful, whereas pneumatics use gases and are quicker but weaker.
Pneumatics should not be confused with the pneumatic class of humans from Gnosticism. The pneumatic saw himself as escaping the doom of the material world via the secret knowledge, and outsiders could only know these secrets by joining a gnostic group. To be a gnostic is to believe in three planes of existence: the pure unknown (demiurge), the material world of coitus and comfort, and the pure spiritual realm of ascension or escape. Pneumatics were the highest class of humans, above psychics and hylics, the latter of which were the lowest and concerned only with the physical and material world... but that's another blog post.
Yet another sculpture I have randomly stumbled across that struck somewhere deep inside me. It's not often that a piece of stationary visual art really moves me; music and film do, plenty, but paintings and sculptures less so. However, I am pleased to be discovering more and more objects and pieces that enthrall and inspire me, and this is surely one of them.
This monument is located in a former sandstone quarry in Lucerne, Switzerland, and is dedicated "Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti", or "To the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss". It portrays a dying lion protecting a shield which bears the fleur-de-lis coat of arms of the French Monarchy, and beside it is another shield bearing the coat of arms of Switzerland.
It was hewn in 1820-21 by Lukas Ahorn, having been designed by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. It commemorates the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred during the French Revolution of 1792. The Guards were a group of mercenaries that were attached to the French monarchy from the early 17th century, and they were guarding the Tuileries Palace in Paris when the building was overrun by revolutionaries. Outnumbered and low on ammunition, many were killed in the fighting, and more were murdered after their surrender. What was left died of their wounds in prison or were executed during the September Massacres later that year, bringing the total to around 760 men. About 100 escaped Tuileries and a 300-strong detachment survived by being in Normandy at the time.
Below the sculpture is engraved the names of the officers and the approximate number of soldiers who died (DCCLX = 760), and survived (CCCL = 350). The sculpture was initiated by Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, an officer of the guards who was on leave in Lucerne at the time of the fighting.
It remains a sobering testament to, what I feel, is the entirely unnecessary loss of life in the course of following one's perceived duty, orders or ideals. Sometimes violence is necessary to achieve some form of greater good, but the wanton massacre of prisoners and the murder of those who have surrendered to you is utterly inexcusable.
To truly appreciate the work of the Lion Monument, simply cast your eyes over the Lion of the Confederacy, a sculpture in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.
The lion, which guards a field containing the remains of unknown Confederate and Union dead, was carved by T. M. Brady in 1894, and is a very near copy of (or at least, greatly inspired by) the Lion Monument from Lucerne. However, it has far less impact, despite being a monument to an equally tragic and powerful event. I feel that this is almost entirely due to the setting. The lion in Georgia is vulnerable and weak; it has been dragged out into the open to die alone in a field, surrounded by enemies and vultures. Compare it to the other Lion, which is at rest; although dying, he is safe and secure, having made his way to a favourite place in which to spend his final moments at peace. He may have been killed, but he is strong enough to die on his own terms, in the place that he chooses, knowing that he did his best. Perhaps Mark Twain summed it up better:
"The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.
Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is."
If you're ever angry or annoyed, vexed, enraged or frustrated, simply look at a penguin.
Marvel at the absurdity of such a creature. Bask in the ridiculousness of those tiny legs, the big, flappy wings and the beady little eyes that betray a beautiful, almost child-like naivety. You cannot imagine a penguin ever being malicious or cruel. Cheeky and naughty maybe, but never mean.
Look at him, just chilling out. He doesn't have a care in the world, and neither should you. Life is far too short to waste it on worries, anger and uncertainty, so just chill out and roll with it. He gets it, and so does the next one.
He's so cool, so utterly unconcerned with anything. He'll just stand there all day, head cocked to one side in a pose that would take fashion models years to perfect. Isn't he beautiful?
This penguin will kick your ass without even moving. He's just that awesome. You wanna fight him? You wanna be angry and aggressive and waste your life being mad at things you can't control? Look into his eyes. He understands, and he empathizes with you; but he has no time for your silliness, he's too busy just being an awesome penguin.
In my previous post on peanut butter, I mentioned that I love old maps, but this isn't quite true.
I love all maps.
Cartography (from the Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is a wonderful art, a method of viewing the world that combines both skill, passion, attention to detail and dedication. To relay information about reality in a format that is easy to understand, portable and accurate has long been a goal of explorers and civilizations all over the world, and maps are the ideal way of conveying such data.
Map of the world centered on America prepared by the American atlas publisher Joseph Hutchins Colton in 1852
I think the adoption of ships as the main form of transporting huge amounts of goods from the New World back to the central powers in Europe was probably the largest catalyst for cartographers. Maps and charts were vital in order to give the trip the best chance of survival; sure, you might still die on the voyage of scurvy, pirates or unfriendly locals, but at least your chances of getting lost, and therefore journey times, were drastically reduced - and the less time you spent at sea, the faster you could make money from your goods and the less chance you had of dying.
It is thought the very first maps date from 8,000 years ago, and they have grown in complexity and beauty ever since.
If you look at the image of the map from 1852 above, you'll see the legend 'On Mercator's Projection'. This means the map uses Mercator's cylindrical projection system in order to display the Earth in a simple way that is most useful to sailors who need the charts for navigation. A set of complicated equations is needed to alter the position of objects such as continents from a spherical surface onto a uniform cylinder. This leads to some distortion, which becomes more and more exaggerated as you head towards the poles.
Mercator's Projection is the one we are most familiar with; however, distortion has led to the effect that Greenland is the size of Africa, whereas Africa is in fact 14 times the size of Greenland. Alaska appears roughly the same size as Brazil, but the latter is actually 5 times larger than Alaska. However, for something devised in 1569, it's not a bad attempt.
Since then, dozens of people have attempted to combine mathematics and common sense into producing a suitable, accurate map that displays the Earth, which is curved, on a flat surface. A list of them can be found here. My personal favourite has to be the Polar Azimuthal Equidistant Projection, mainly because it is such a great way to view the world: we are all spread out evenly, with no one continent given preference over any other. You may have seen it before, on the emblem of the United Nations:
Maps are not just required on a global scale.
We need them to get around our cities and countries, to find suitable routes to work or the fastest way to get to your holiday destination. Since the advent of aeroplanes, large maps for mass travel and transportation between continents have become less crucial, but cartographers are still able to busy themselves with producing the most accurate and detailed local maps they can.
What started thousands of years ago with carvings on walls and tablets has culminated in projects like Google Earth and Bing Maps, as well as Sat-Nav and GPS, arguably the some of the most useful tools ever created.
But what next? Now that we have satellites and aircraft equipped with cameras that can map the world for us, where do we go from here?
Easy: Space. There are hundreds of bodies out there that need mapping for us to better understand them, just as creating a map of our world helped us to know it better; and when that is done, you can always fall back on fantasy, simply creating maps and charts of imaginary worlds for the fun of it. I do this quite often - a doodle can turn into an entire planet with continents, countries, cities, rivers, seas and islands, all waiting to be explored and described in my head...
'Peanutter' is the word I used to use until my early teens when talking about Peanut butter. Apparently, two words was simply too much to bother with, but I am happy to say that I have grown out of that habit; however, I have not grown out of loving the sweet, nutty paste that is the source of so much joy and wonder around the world.
Peanut butter is possibly my favourite thing in the world, right up there with chocolate, the space shuttles and old maps.
As the name suggests, it is a buttery paste made from crushed peanuts, the origins of which date back to the Aztec Native Americans centuries ago. It wasn't until the late 1800's that modern processing methods and the addition of vegetable oil made it a smooth, spreadable foodstuff, and several patents from that period exist for different methods of peanut butter production.
Today, peanut butter is popular in North America, the UK, the Netherlands and parts of Asia, with the world's biggest exporters being the U.S.A. and China. It is available in two forms: Smooth and Crunchy. I find myself quite firmly planted in the 'Smooth' camp - Crunchy is yummy enough, but the bits get stuck in my teeth and it's just slightly more annoying to deal with in general.
The U.S. actually has a law about Peanut butter that determines exactly what it is and what may or may not be put into it. Read it here (if you like that kind of thing).
I actually eat the stuff pretty much everyday, on toast or in a sandwich, and I never, ever get bored of it. My favourite brand of Peanut butter is definitely Skippy, but that stuff is hard to find over here (luckily, because it is really quite bad for you...)
When I was a kid, seeing this tub in the shopping bag was like Christmas had come early
The healthiness of Peanut Butter depends entirely upon the type of oil used in the manufacturing process; avoid those that make use of hydrogenated vegetable oils, that are rich in trans fatty acids. Naturally, peanuts contain protein, vitamins B3 and E, magnesium, folate, dietary fiber, arginine, and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid, and this good stuff is passed on in peanut butter, making it really quite a useful addition to the diet.
The peanut plant is susceptible to the mold Aspergillus flavus which produces a nasty carcinogenic substance called aflatoxin. Since it is impossible to completely remove every instance of aflatoxins, contamination of peanuts and peanut butter is monitored in many countries to ensure the levels of this carcinogen remain safe for human consumption.
January 24th is National Peanut Butter Day in the United States, and I think the entire world should have a holiday to celebrate this fabulous stuff, where we can bathe in it, throw it at each other in the streets and where we are forced to spread it over everything we eat. Peanut butter and chicken salad, anyone?
"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known...
... Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?"
Carl Sagan, 1994
Carl Sagan is one of my heroes, mainly because of these passages from his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. The image he refers to was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990 at a distance of about 6 billion kilometres from Earth, just as it was leaving the Solar System. It was Sagan who requested the image to be taken, and it remains a fabulous reminder of the utter insignificance and fragility of our world and its inhabitants - something I feel it would be very beneficial for everyone to remind themselves of once in a while.
I saw this picture randomly the other day and I was utterly awe-struck. For a start, the doorway below is about the height of a person, and it has three floors of rooms inside. Imagine conceiving and sculpting something this huge. What an epic task.
This beautiful work of art is situated in the gardens of what was once the Villa di Pratolino, a Renaissance patrician villa in Vaglia, Tuscany, Italy. The villa and gardens were constructed between 1569 and 1581, and the Colossus came into being between 1579 and 1580. The villa itself was mostly demolished in 1820, but the gardens survived and are still open to the public today. The Apennine Colossus, or Appennino, was created by legendary Italian sculptor Giambologna (1529 - 1608), who is responsible for well-known works such as various versions of Mercury, plus Samson Slaying a Philistine (1562), Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82) and Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599).
His first major commission was given him by the nephew of Pope Pius IV, which was to create the bronze figures of Neptune and the others on the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna, which was finished in about 1567. On that fountain, I particularly like the lactating figures around the bottom. Those renaissance types sure knew how to add a touch of class to their town squares.
Yesterday, I visited the National Museum of Scotland here in Edinburgh. What a fantastic place!
It's free to get in, and is absolutely stuffed with cool things to gawk at.
Some of the items there include:
Ancient Egyptian writing tablets
Blue Whale jaw bones
A Black Knight rocket
Native American tribal dress
A ski-doo
A skeleton cast of a Giant Sloth
A huge 1950's telescope from the Royal Observatory
Stunning geode formations
At least one set of bagpipes
It really is a brilliant collection, the museum itself is beautiful, having just undergone extensive renovation. One of the most fascinating exhibits, to me anyway, was Sir Alexander Fleming's impressive collection of awards and medals, particularly his 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine. It was the first time I have ever seen a Nobel medal in the flesh, and it was an awe-inspiring moment to gaze upon objects that once belonged to such a brilliant and important person - it has been estimated that his discovery of penicillin has helped save over 200 million lives in the last 50 or so years.
You can search and browse the Museum's collections in a surprisingly well-made and easy to use catalogue here: http://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/
I have absolutely no doubt that we'll be going back again soon - even a few hours there was not enough to see everything - and maybe next time I will remember to take the camera with me...
The past week has been a busy one, hence the lack of posts on this blog. I shall attempt to make it up to you by talking today about the city I live in: Edinburgh, and how I relate to it.
Although I wasn't born here (I come from London and grew up there), I feel this city is my true home, and what a glorious home it is.
I moved here in 2005, at the age of 18, for university. I attended Heriot-Watt, which is on the outskirts of town, and stayed in the Halls of Residence there. During the first year, much of the city of Edinburgh was a mystery to me. I had almost everything I needed on the university campus so rarely ventured forth into the city, perhaps for trips to the cinema, shopping, stuff like that.
After first year, I moved with my boyfriend (who had come up with me from London), and with two friends, into a three-bedroom apartment in Leith, which is in the North-East corner of the city, right on the coast. Leith had a bit of a reputation for being somewhat 'soiled', and I discovered that a fair part of it is.
One night I was walking to get a take-away dinner with my friend Mike, I was discussing the reputation of Leith with him when a dirty, obviously drunk homeless man walking along just ahead of us started swearing and cursing, saying, "Leith, Leith, Leith.. sick a' hearin' folk ta'kin' crap 'bout Leith! It's nae tha' bad!" He proceeded to go on like this for some time in his state of drunken moral outrage, only getting louder and ruder, thereby possibly proving that Leith is, in fact, that bad, with drunken old homeless guys shouting swear words in the street.
Of course, it was quite some time before I found the prettiest parts of Leith. It is not such a bad place - down by the shore, it is rather lovely, with some great places to eat and explore.
After two years in that apartment, we moved out of the city again to share a house with our friends way out in East Calder, some considerable distance from the city. I do love how the countryside is so accessible there - it is a small town, barely more than a village, and nearby are fields, a country park and a river with some really stunning spots to relax in. In fact, on the walk home from the bus stop past the leisure centre, there was a field on the right hand side sometimes full of horses. One sunny day I stopped there a while and meditated, just standing looking at the horses and up at the green leaves of trees over the path, glowing from the sunshine, and had my first ever truly enlightened, peaceful moment... but that is another blog post.
After I graduated university, my boyfriend and I eventually moved into a two bedroom apartment in Dalry, near Haymarket station. This is about the point that my love affair with the city properly began.
I came to appreciate the subtle beauty of the buildings, the history of each road, the way the city had evolved and spread like an organism. Even on a rainy day, the place is still magical, with many fantastic areas to find.
Dean Village is one of my favourite spots. Set in a valley right in the heart of the city, it is a sparkling oasis of green just a short walk from the main city centre.
This is the view from the bridge leading into the village, looking down the river. The church you can see here is actually at normal street level in this area of the city.
This is the view from the bridge by the church in the picture above, looking down on the village. I feel this picture gives a good idea of the scale of the valley and the lushness of the flora within.
Here I am looking back along the river, towards the village and the church. A good chunk of the river here has a developed bank and path and is a great place to walk or cycle.
I feel so lucky to have come to such a beautiful, historic city.
This is the Scott monument on Princes Street, the main shopping street in Edinburgh. Just look at it. The detail is phenomenal. You can go up inside the columns and get a view from the top, which we haven't got round to yet, but plan on it soon. Fun fact: It is the largest monument to a single author anywhere on Earth.
Examples of architecture like this are common all over the city, with buildings here ranging from Gothic and Victorian to Georgian and more modern ones, every building has a story and a character all of it's own.
There are too many amazing parts of Edinburgh to list in just one post, I may describe some more another time. I have to admit, I feel a connection to this city, far deeper than anything I ever felt when growing up on the edge of London. Sure, the UK capital is a fabulous city, but I think it is just too big. Edinburgh is great: You can walk all around it in a couple of hours, it has everything you could possibly need here, the people are friendly (mostly), bars and clubs have great atmospheres, and most importantly for me, the city is in touch with nature - there are so many green leafy corners to enjoy, and they are so well maintained, you can almost forget that you're in a city of over 450,000 people.
I simply cannot imagine a more perfect place. It would take somewhere very, very special to convince me to move away from here.
It is hard to escape what is happening in Libya at the moment. After a stalemate that seemed like it would continue in a bitter civil war for years, the rebels have broken into Tripoli and captured much of the city after a blistering advance through seemingly phantom resistance. The NATO strikes to eliminate the Gadaffi regime's heavy armor and air assets seem to have done their bit, leaving nothing but the odd sniper and truck in the way of what is undoubtedly a brutal tidal wave of uprising and rebellious spirit.
Good for them, it's about damn time they got rid of that nutter.
In any of these situations, there is always one weapon you see being waved around, fired around a corner or into the air, or brandished triumphantly over the burning remnants of a truck, tank or torso.
The AK-47.
Here it is in Libya:
It is hard to find a better, more complete symbol of freedom and rebellion anywhere else on Earth. How did such a thing come to represent so much?
Partially due to the simplicity of the design and the wide-spread availability of the AK-47. Cheap and easy to construct and maintain. It is simple to use, packs a powerful punch and will work pretty much anywhere: deserts, swamps, jungles, you name it.
It is the natural choice of governments, groups and individuals looking for maximum reliability for minimal cost. There are tens of millions in use around the world today, more than all other assault rifles combined.
The AK-47 was always used by the 'bad guys'. After WW2, it was used by the Soviets, including the Vietcong, and in all manner of Middle-Eastern, Asian and African wars, in which cases it was sometimes being used against NATO or Western powers, traditionally seen as oppressors and overlords to many of these people. The AK-47 was their path to freedom. It has become part of counter-culture, the fight against 'the man', the weapon of choice for the down-trodden underclasses who desire nothing more than taking their destiny into their own hands.
It represents hope and power in the hands of the underdog, where previously there was none. I have a hard time imagining any other man-made thing that represents such an all-encompassing, unifying and yet divisive and destructive ideology.
Guns aren't exactly cool... but they are still awesome and inspiring.
This movie has a pretty ridiculous title. You feel it could have been made far snappier and more catchy, but, if you wanted to include the term 'Planet of the Apes', what else could you call it? I'm not here to review the title, though, so let's get on with it.
That handsome fellow is Caesar (played by Andy Serkis, who was Gollum in Lord of the Rings), a chimp with massive intellect and ability, thanks to experimental brain-enhancing research carried out on his mother by brilliant, if slightly goofy, scientist Will, who is seeking a cure for his own father's Alzheimers.
I'm going to start by simply saying that I didn't really care too much about any of the humans in this movie, or their stories or their motives. For me, it really is all about Caesar. He has more character than anybody else in this film put together - he is the star, and to see it all from his perspective gives you a unique view of how an intelligent chimp would view humans. His touching bonds with members of Will's family are gradually eroded by what he perceives as repeated betrayals, and the abuse he suffers does nothing but strengthen his resolve, making him an entirely lovable and supportable underdog.
Every step of the way, you are cheering for Caesar, and it is made that much easier by the simply stunning visual effects that went into creating him, along with the motion-capture-fabulouness of Serkis. You can feel his emotions, his feelings, his defiance and burning desire for freedom and you empathise with him completely, something that is very rare in cinema these days among human protagonists.
I have seen many comments on various other reviews that say things like: "Oh yeah, come on, like, we'd totally just shoot them all."
I had a similar question going into this movie: How are the apes even able to overpower us?
But rather than just dismiss the possibility that apes would even have a hope against the tooled-up residents of the United States and call the movie a pile of nonsense, I actually went to see it, and I feel my question was answered entirely successfully and this movie somehow managed to create a scenario that you could certainly call plausible... apart from maybe one tiny detail, but in order to describe that, I would have to post spoilers, and that is not my business.
Just go and see this movie, you will be very pleasantly surprised. I expected it to be average at best, yet came away very satisfied and actually wanting more.
Allow me to summarise my review with a helpful set of bullet points.
Pro's
Fabulous effects
A lovable underdog
Great build up of tension
Excellent action sequences
Intense, memorable moments
Satisfying and surprisingly believable story
Con's
Humans are nothing more than plot devices - even James Franco is a bit feeble
Perhaps one tiny unlikely detail, but it can be explained away
No explanation of what would happen to other animals
I'd say this movie was a very solid 8/10 and definitely worth going to see. It is much, much better than you'd expect.
After yesterday's somewhat grumpy tirade, I feel I should lighten the mood by speaking about something that everyone loves: Music.
When I talk about music, naturally, I will speak about the genres or songs that I personally enjoy. I often hear people say 'oh this song is shit, so is that', but can you qualitatively prove such a claim? Is that song really that bad? What makes it that bad, and is it a fact or just your opinion? Simply because you don't particularly enjoy a piece of music, does not make it bad; the opposite is true: music that is demonstrably talentless, tuneless and aggravating to everyone around you can be the best thing you have heard in ages. It all comes down to opinion, which by definition, cannot be ultimately correct or incorrect.
People pour so much love and feeling into the music they listen to, they feel the need to defend their choice to the death if necessary, whilst simultaneously attacking everyone else's preferences in order to validate their own. Hey, come on guys! It doesn't matter, does it? Music is music and it is all brilliant in some way.
So what is brilliant about it? In a technical sense, the ability of a mind to formulate lyrics, arrange them into a pattern to fit notes played on a, quite frankly, bewildering array of instruments, and then for the singer to match those notes and produce something that your ears can deliver to your brain as a torrent of information and stimulation, thereby generating feelings, emotions and euphoria... is simply astounding. The processes involved are as complex as anything else humanity is capable of.
Of course, you can just press a button and make a machine do it for you. That may reduce the perceived talent within the piece, but it does not render it invalid, terrible or worthy of hatred. You can simply say "No thank you" and listen to something else rather than launching into a twenty minute barrage of bile-flecked vitriol about how the singer is a jerk, a talentless moron and produces nothing more than soulless money-vacuums for the music industry. All of that may be true but as long as there is at least one other person out there who disagrees with you, your opinion remains just that: an opinion, not fact.
This is, hands-down, my favourite song right now:
I like fairly poppy punky rocky alternative stuff, I guess. I would say the above song is brilliant: It drags me in and gives me such a fantastic feeling every time I listen to it. I love songs that sound unique, fresh, different. Even a single line or solo in a song can get me hooked on it, purely because, to my ears, it sounds so perfect.
However, if someone insulted that band or song, how would I react? I would feel personally attacked, as if someone was questioning my judgement, my values, my integrity. Then I would remember that they were simply trying to have their opinion pose as fact and as such it is not worth being offended by what they have to say.
Accents are another thing that I adore about some bands:
People sometimes ask me how I find new music.
First of all, I listen to Last.fm sometimes, which will recommend and play songs for me that are similar to what I already love. I also talk to friends about what they are listening to, if they have discovered anything good recently. Youtube suggestions are helpful as well - for instance, this song is by a band I love, I looked up one of their songs to put in here and it suggested a new one I hadn't heard before:
You can find music everywhere you go. Some of my favourite songs I have heard while in a bar or club, found out from friends what they are, and now every time I listen to that piece of music, the associated good times come with it:
I told you in my first post about how I adore visions and ideas that are epic in their design and albums are a fantastic place to discover worlds and concepts beyond our own. A Thousand Suns is Linkin Park's latest album, and at first listen, it seems pretty okay. Then as soon as you learn that the album 'theme' is nuclear war and devastation, it makes perfect sense and the album is now one of my absolute favourites of last year. Watch this in 1080p, fullscreen and allow it to totally absorb you:
A Thousand Suns was a big departure from Linkin Park's usual stuff. Many people hated it, purely because they hadn't done something similar to their first couple of albums. However, my personal feeling is that they have evolved. They've done the nu-metal thing and have gone so far now that I'd be inclined to call this album it's own genre. It is such a mix of things and crafted with such devotion and commitment that I cannot help but love it.
Another band that has created a recent concept album and reinvented themselves, to a greater degree than Linkin Park, are My Chemical Romance.
This was them a couple of years ago, from their Black Parade album (which was also a concept, really), a wonderful compendium of energetic and violent anger, misery, hatred and no small amount of brilliant tunes to shout along to when in a bad mood; I adored it:
... and this is them now, from their latest album Danger Days:
... to come up with subjects suitable for blogging - mostly because you have to make them interesting.
Or at least, thought-provoking; but how can you stimulate discussion and opinions when the chosen subject is generally considered quite dull?
I feel that the key is to find a way to relate the subject to the reader - they need to understand how this thing, this person, this event could affect them. Then they can decide if they like it or not, form an opinion, discuss and defend it and insult anyone who thinks otherwise.
I spend lots of my time talking to informed, educated and intelligent people, so when I come across someone who has not formed an opinion of, or even has no knowledge or care over, a well-known event, I can get a little flustered and indignant. Mostly, this tends to revolve around politics. The apathy of many people boggles my mind. The sheer ignorance of some makes me want to commit horrific acts of violence in the name of education and information.
I met somebody once who didn't know how many days there are in the year. She was in her late teens. When I told her, she asked how I managed to remember it.
Remember it? I don't remember it. I've known it so long that it is carved into my head in eighty-foot high letters, like some vast primitive human's cave doodle on the inside of my skull. The other little cavemen in there dance around a fire, chanting the number over and over again, along with figures such as my own birthday, the first few digits of pi, the number of days in the week, my PIN number, the temperature of absolute zero and so on. We all have certain things inside our head that are ingrained, carved, plugged into us, that we just know, without taking the effort of remembering. For someone to lack something so simple is just.. beyond comprehension.
I think the problem is that this situation is only going to get worse. I don't know about you but I have noticed a massive deterioration in behaviour and education in younger generations. I think the recent rioting across England is a symptom of this. Don't worry, I'm not here to talk about those, enough drivel has been spouted concerning them the past few weeks.
Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. It'll ruin your life and those of your children too, if you let them go down the same moronic path. It is a waste of potential, of effort and of energy. If you are not willing to make the most of your short stay here on Earth by learning as much as you can, making intelligent, informed decisions and passing that knowledge on, then what is the point in existing?
It was suggested that I create a blog to showcase some of my writing talent and to provide me with something to do between my regular forays into the darker recesses of the internet in the search for jobs, entertainment and terror.
So here we are. A little about myself:
My names is James;
I am 24 years of age;
I am educated to degree level;
I live in the glorious city of Edinburgh, Scotland;
I am an atheist, perhaps 'secular humanist';
I have a fiance, and he rocks my world.
Each of the above points will likely get a more descriptive and elaborate post of their own as I struggle to come up daily with topics and ideas for discussion. I have written blogs before but often lost interest, perhaps I can keep it up a little longer this time.
Does the name of my Blog have any meaning?
Well, as you might be able to tell by now, I can be a little odd. I am frequently grasped by epic, surreal concepts, the more fantastical and outlandish, the better, and this, I think, is one of them.
If you wanted to start up a daily newspaper to be distributed throughout the Galaxy, across hundreds, if not thousands, of worlds and species, what would you name it? Well.. this is my idea.
'The' would be a common concept to many intelligent races: A definite article, something implied, or discussed or familiar to all. It exists, it is solid and definite. THE Milky Way. THE Earth. THE White House. There are many 'white houses' on Earth, yet there is only one White House. Such it is for many newspapers today, actually: The Sun, The Times, The Guardian. 'The' lends them a certain gravitas, a sense of solidity and definite purpose.
'Galactic' refers, of course, to a single Galaxy, something that any species familiar with the concept of an interplanetary newspaper would hopefully be familiar with. I rather like the word; it brings images of vast, sweeping spirals and dense, bright clouds of beautiful stars and nebula to my mind on every occasion. What privileged beings we are to be able to look up at the little dots of light in our night sky and know that they form part of a structure that could potentially be home to millions of worlds such as our own. I can think of no grander ideal than the concept of peaceful co-operation, communication and travel between those worlds.
'Radiance' is a measure of light emitted from a certain area, and as light has a constant speed and presence, we can possibly assume it is a fundamental aspect of complex, intelligent life everywhere in our Universe. I am in no doubt that life may exist out there that has no relation to light, no dependence upon it - after all, the creatures that live around Hydrothermal vents right here on Earth gain their fuel entirely from chemicals released by the vents without relying on the Sun for any energy whatsoever.
Light is also information. From the simple repeated flash of a torch to signal in Morse Code, to the nanosecond pulses of coherent LASER light fired down optical fibre cables, to the humble lightbulb that allows us to read at night, the stellar constellations that helped guide sailors throughout history, and the tiny blinking LED that tells us whether an appliance is off, on or on standby, humanity relies almost entirely upon light for the majority of information it consumes.
So there we go. The Galactic Radiance: A source of information accessible to anyone or anything with the time to browse its pages. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.
