Posts
.
Kultwit is a confusing option. If there's that much to tweet, why not blog them?
.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What To Learn About Singularity
.
Excerpt from TIME February 21, 2009
2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal
Original article is here.
Sin.gu.lar.i.ty
n: The moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.
(At age 17, Kurzweil appeared on 1965 TV Show I've Got A Secret, showcasing a computer that composes music --his own invention)
(on artificial intelligence)
"... Kurzweil would spent much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It's an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do if you don't have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence."
"...We will successfully reverse-engineer the human brains by the mid-2020s. By the end of that decade, computers will be capable of human-level intelligence. Kurzweil puts the date of the Singularity --never say hes not conservative-- at 2045. In that year, he estimates, given the vast increases in computing power and the vast reductions in the cost of the same, the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all the human intelligence that exists today."
Ray Kurzweil Explains the Coming Singularity (from YouTube channel BigThink)
(on life extension)
".. After artificial intelligence, the most talked-about topic at the 2010 summit was life extension, biological boundaries that most people think of as permanent and inevitable. Singularitarians see as merely intractable but solvable problems. Death is one of them. Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them. Like a lot of Singularitarians ideas, it sounds funny at first, but the closer you get to it, the less funny it seems. It's not just wishful thinking; there's actual science going on here.
For example, it's well-known that one cause of the physical degeneration associated with aging involves telomeres, which are segments of DNA found at the ends of chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get shorter, and once a cell runs out of telomeres, it can't reproduce anymore. But there's an enzyme called telomerase that reverses this process; it's one of the reasons cancer cells live so long. So why not treat regular noncancerous cells with telomerase? In November, the researchers at Harvard medical School announced in Nature that they had done just that. They administered telomerase to a goup of mice suffering from age-related degeneration. The damage went away. The mice didn't just get better; they got younger.
Aubrey de Grey is one of the world's best-known life-extension researchers and a Singularity Summit veteran. A British biologist with a doctorate from Cambridge and a famously formidable beard, de Grey runs a foundation called SENS, or Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. He views aging as a process of accumulating damage, which he has divided into seven categories, each of which he hopes to one day address using regenerative medicine. "People have begun to realize that the view of aging being something immutable — rather like the heat death of the universe — is simply ridiculous," he says. "It's just childish. The human body is a machine that has a bunch of functions, and it accumulates various types of damage as a side effect of the normal function of the machine. Therefore in principal that damage can be repaired periodically. This is why we have vintage cars. It's really just a matter of paying attention. The whole of medicine consists of messing about with what looks pretty inevitable until you figure out how to make it not inevitable."
.
Excerpt from TIME February 21, 2009
2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal
Original article is here.
Sin.gu.lar.i.ty
n: The moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.
(At age 17, Kurzweil appeared on 1965 TV Show I've Got A Secret, showcasing a computer that composes music --his own invention)
(on artificial intelligence)
"... Kurzweil would spent much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It's an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do if you don't have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence."
"...We will successfully reverse-engineer the human brains by the mid-2020s. By the end of that decade, computers will be capable of human-level intelligence. Kurzweil puts the date of the Singularity --never say hes not conservative-- at 2045. In that year, he estimates, given the vast increases in computing power and the vast reductions in the cost of the same, the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all the human intelligence that exists today."
Ray Kurzweil Explains the Coming Singularity (from YouTube channel BigThink)
(on life extension)
".. After artificial intelligence, the most talked-about topic at the 2010 summit was life extension, biological boundaries that most people think of as permanent and inevitable. Singularitarians see as merely intractable but solvable problems. Death is one of them. Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them. Like a lot of Singularitarians ideas, it sounds funny at first, but the closer you get to it, the less funny it seems. It's not just wishful thinking; there's actual science going on here.
For example, it's well-known that one cause of the physical degeneration associated with aging involves telomeres, which are segments of DNA found at the ends of chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get shorter, and once a cell runs out of telomeres, it can't reproduce anymore. But there's an enzyme called telomerase that reverses this process; it's one of the reasons cancer cells live so long. So why not treat regular noncancerous cells with telomerase? In November, the researchers at Harvard medical School announced in Nature that they had done just that. They administered telomerase to a goup of mice suffering from age-related degeneration. The damage went away. The mice didn't just get better; they got younger.
Aubrey de Grey is one of the world's best-known life-extension researchers and a Singularity Summit veteran. A British biologist with a doctorate from Cambridge and a famously formidable beard, de Grey runs a foundation called SENS, or Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. He views aging as a process of accumulating damage, which he has divided into seven categories, each of which he hopes to one day address using regenerative medicine. "People have begun to realize that the view of aging being something immutable — rather like the heat death of the universe — is simply ridiculous," he says. "It's just childish. The human body is a machine that has a bunch of functions, and it accumulates various types of damage as a side effect of the normal function of the machine. Therefore in principal that damage can be repaired periodically. This is why we have vintage cars. It's really just a matter of paying attention. The whole of medicine consists of messing about with what looks pretty inevitable until you figure out how to make it not inevitable."
.
Monday, February 21, 2011
What To Learn From Child's Brain
.
.
"In investigating the child's brain, we are going to uncover deep truths about what it means to be human; and in the process we may be able to help keep our minds open to learning for our entire lives." (at 9:52 of 13:28)
Patricia Kuhl at TEDxRainer
Seattle, Washington,October 2010
Patricia Kuhl at TEDxRainer
Seattle, Washington,October 2010
.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
From Sagan's "Scientific Experience"
.
In 1985, Carl Sagan gave Gifford Lectures, a scientific tradition of lecture series established to promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest term (this is googleable). Psychologist and Philosopher William James gave lectures on the same occasion in 1902. His lectures were entitled The Varieties of Religious Experience (published later). In tribute to James, Sagan entitled his The Varieties of Scientific Experience, and later on published, too.
Below are parts excerpted from Scientific Experience. The conjectures are beautiful, I hope they will be proven valid (italics are mine).
---
“I find myself engaged in the spacecraft exploration of nearby worlds, something that would have been considered the most rank fantasy just two generations ago, when the Moon was the paradigm of the unobtainable. Some of you will remember those poems and popular songs --“Fly Me To The Moon,” meaning asking for the impossible. And yet in our time a dozen human beings have walked on the surface of the Moon...”
“I’ve spent much of my time over the last twenty years in the exploration of solar system. Our robot emissaries have left the Earth, have visited every planet known to the ancients, from Mercury to Saturn, and reconnoitered some forty attendant smaller worlds, the satellites of those planets. We have flown by all those worlds, we have orbited and landed on three of them: the Moon, Venus, and Mars. There are something approaching a million close-up pictures of other worlds in our libraries. And it is remarkable experience. Here’s world never before known by human beings, and then, for the first time, it is explored. This is a continuation of the spirit adventure that I think has been a propelling force in human history. The worlds are lovely. They’re exquisite. It is a kind of aesthetic experience to see them.”
“...We started hundreds of thousand to millions of years ago as itinerant tribespersons, in which the fundamental loyalty was to a very small group, by contemporary standard. Typical hunter-gatherer groups are maybe a hundred people, so the typical person on the planet had an allegiance to a group of no more than a hundred or a few hundred people.
The names that many of these tribes give to themselves are touching in their narrowness. All over the world people call themselves “the people,” “the men,” “the humans.” All those other tribes, they aren’t people, they aren’t men, they aren’t humans. They are something else. Now, that doesn’t mean that a state of constant warfare existed among these tribes, as Thomas Hobbes, for example, imagined. A significant fraction of of those early gropus, there is reason to think, were benign, calm, peace-loving, not interested in systematic, bureaucratized aggression, which is the function of states at a later time.
As time passed, groups have merged, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily, and the unit to which personal identification and loyalties are due has grown. The sequence is known to all of those who take courses in the history of civilization at universities, in which we pass through allegiances to larger groups, to city-states, to settled nations, to empires. Today the typical person on the Earth is obviously a patchwork quilt of political, economic, ethnic, and religious identifications, owing allegiance to a group or groups consisting of a hundred million people or more. It’s clear that there is a steady trend, if the trend continues, there will be a time, probably not so far in the future, when the average person’s typical identification is with the human species, with everyone on Earth.”
---
* Among many things, Carl Sagan is known as an astronomer. He is one of significant leading scientists who promote public understanding of science. He wrote Broca’s Brain: Reflection on the Romance of Science in 1979, Cosmos in 1980, and Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of Human Future in Space in 1994 (his other publications is definitely googleable). His novel Contact, inspired by his scientific odyssey, was adapted into a box-office feature-length film under the same title, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConnaughey. Scientific Experience is later published, too (edited by Ann Druyan, an author and, without coincidence, one of the producer of the movie Contact)
* I don't know if this amount of quoting is a copyright breach (I hope not)
.
In 1985, Carl Sagan gave Gifford Lectures, a scientific tradition of lecture series established to promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest term (this is googleable). Psychologist and Philosopher William James gave lectures on the same occasion in 1902. His lectures were entitled The Varieties of Religious Experience (published later). In tribute to James, Sagan entitled his The Varieties of Scientific Experience, and later on published, too.
Below are parts excerpted from Scientific Experience. The conjectures are beautiful, I hope they will be proven valid (italics are mine).
---
From Chapter 8:
The Crimes Against Creation
The Crimes Against Creation
“I find myself engaged in the spacecraft exploration of nearby worlds, something that would have been considered the most rank fantasy just two generations ago, when the Moon was the paradigm of the unobtainable. Some of you will remember those poems and popular songs --“Fly Me To The Moon,” meaning asking for the impossible. And yet in our time a dozen human beings have walked on the surface of the Moon...”
“I’ve spent much of my time over the last twenty years in the exploration of solar system. Our robot emissaries have left the Earth, have visited every planet known to the ancients, from Mercury to Saturn, and reconnoitered some forty attendant smaller worlds, the satellites of those planets. We have flown by all those worlds, we have orbited and landed on three of them: the Moon, Venus, and Mars. There are something approaching a million close-up pictures of other worlds in our libraries. And it is remarkable experience. Here’s world never before known by human beings, and then, for the first time, it is explored. This is a continuation of the spirit adventure that I think has been a propelling force in human history. The worlds are lovely. They’re exquisite. It is a kind of aesthetic experience to see them.”
From Chapter 9:
The Search
The Search
“...We started hundreds of thousand to millions of years ago as itinerant tribespersons, in which the fundamental loyalty was to a very small group, by contemporary standard. Typical hunter-gatherer groups are maybe a hundred people, so the typical person on the planet had an allegiance to a group of no more than a hundred or a few hundred people.
The names that many of these tribes give to themselves are touching in their narrowness. All over the world people call themselves “the people,” “the men,” “the humans.” All those other tribes, they aren’t people, they aren’t men, they aren’t humans. They are something else. Now, that doesn’t mean that a state of constant warfare existed among these tribes, as Thomas Hobbes, for example, imagined. A significant fraction of of those early gropus, there is reason to think, were benign, calm, peace-loving, not interested in systematic, bureaucratized aggression, which is the function of states at a later time.
As time passed, groups have merged, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily, and the unit to which personal identification and loyalties are due has grown. The sequence is known to all of those who take courses in the history of civilization at universities, in which we pass through allegiances to larger groups, to city-states, to settled nations, to empires. Today the typical person on the Earth is obviously a patchwork quilt of political, economic, ethnic, and religious identifications, owing allegiance to a group or groups consisting of a hundred million people or more. It’s clear that there is a steady trend, if the trend continues, there will be a time, probably not so far in the future, when the average person’s typical identification is with the human species, with everyone on Earth.”
---
* Among many things, Carl Sagan is known as an astronomer. He is one of significant leading scientists who promote public understanding of science. He wrote Broca’s Brain: Reflection on the Romance of Science in 1979, Cosmos in 1980, and Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of Human Future in Space in 1994 (his other publications is definitely googleable). His novel Contact, inspired by his scientific odyssey, was adapted into a box-office feature-length film under the same title, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConnaughey. Scientific Experience is later published, too (edited by Ann Druyan, an author and, without coincidence, one of the producer of the movie Contact)
* I don't know if this amount of quoting is a copyright breach (I hope not)
.
Friday, February 11, 2011
What I Learned About Heroes
.
I admire scientists and artists. I marvel the former for their aspiration to pursue truths, and the latter for beauties. I think it's Pythagoras who pointed out that the two are one and the same (or may it's just that he discovered mathematical scale in music --then I overgeneralized it). I suppose my heroes are those who find ways from their scientific paths to artistic, or vice versa.
.
I admire scientists and artists. I marvel the former for their aspiration to pursue truths, and the latter for beauties. I think it's Pythagoras who pointed out that the two are one and the same (or may it's just that he discovered mathematical scale in music --then I overgeneralized it). I suppose my heroes are those who find ways from their scientific paths to artistic, or vice versa.
.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Children Make Terrible Pets
.
(picture screen-captured from peterbrownstudio.com)
(major spoiler alert!)
Lucy, a young bear, took home a human boy she found squeaking behind bushes. Keeping him a pet, Lucy finds children make the worst pet to take care of (aside from the fun of it). She too will learn that, for the pet, keeping it as one is not always the best thing.
This is Peter Brown's picture book following Curious Garden and Children is as fun as Garden is, and more. His drawings are something to marvel over and over again. One can immediately realize they are of meticulous design instead merely of things to pass time with (Brown quite the experimenter when it comes to drawing styles). Almost on every page he jokes without skidding off the main story. To make his point on empathy, Brown reverse the roles of pet and pet keeper (genius, I say).
To peek his works you can visit his studio here.
Click here, too, to read book description.
.
(picture screen-captured from peterbrownstudio.com)
(major spoiler alert!)
Lucy, a young bear, took home a human boy she found squeaking behind bushes. Keeping him a pet, Lucy finds children make the worst pet to take care of (aside from the fun of it). She too will learn that, for the pet, keeping it as one is not always the best thing.
This is Peter Brown's picture book following Curious Garden and Children is as fun as Garden is, and more. His drawings are something to marvel over and over again. One can immediately realize they are of meticulous design instead merely of things to pass time with (Brown quite the experimenter when it comes to drawing styles). Almost on every page he jokes without skidding off the main story. To make his point on empathy, Brown reverse the roles of pet and pet keeper (genius, I say).
To peek his works you can visit his studio here.
Click here, too, to read book description.
.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
It's A Book by Lane Smith
.
A two-page spread of It's A Book by Lane Smith. Really love it. Source: NYTimes.com
Check out this It's A Book video trailer for McMillanChildrens' new release children picture book. It's A Book, by Lane Smith, tells a story of three friends: Monkey, Jackass, and a Mouse. The laptop-nerd Jackass finds Monkey's book curious and doesn't know what to do with it. Funny story. New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik wrote this short review.
PS: I didn't know children picture books have trailers :-)
.
A two-page spread of It's A Book by Lane Smith. Really love it. Source: NYTimes.comCheck out this It's A Book video trailer for McMillanChildrens' new release children picture book. It's A Book, by Lane Smith, tells a story of three friends: Monkey, Jackass, and a Mouse. The laptop-nerd Jackass finds Monkey's book curious and doesn't know what to do with it. Funny story. New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik wrote this short review.
PS: I didn't know children picture books have trailers :-)
.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
What I Learned From Playing Badminton
.
I used to think that sports is a thing you do upgrade your stress threshold. I was wrong. That’s exercise. Sports is a whole different thing of beauty. I have been doing thing all wrong.
About almost five months ago I got a badminton invite. Since one of my 2010 resolution was ‘socialize more’, and it was October and have to meet some quota, I took up the offer and have been playing along for a while. That was the first time I found out that I am not bad at sports. I suck with perfection (from my choice of words you will be able to judge how badminton-illiterate I really am).
I have always thought that badminton court was just a small box. It wasn’t going to be hard to guard. I could do that myself. I couldn't be more wrong. It never occurred to me that there is such a thing as standing at the right vs. wrong spot. I consistently give ways for my opponent to make me sprint across my side of the court just to get my racket to tip the cock just a little bit. And the shuttlecock, I thought it was just a light thingie to bash over the net. It is indeed bashable, but toward me, seldom by me. I’m so easy of opponent, I always have to twirl my way to the cock because it is always going to a vacant side (and I allow quite of space of those). I never thought it could make me very busy.
But these people that I play with: They understand where to stand and be ready moment after moment. When they talked me the play-by-plays, I my brain just went overdrive. I understand completely what they’re saying, but those instructions require complex, high-speed, real-time motor processing which I’m probably unequipped for. Even after months of trainings.
On a double match, partners plan their attacks, predict defenses, share equal grounds to cover, manage their power releases, keep their partners optimistic. For the whole ordeal, score after score, they have only few seconds. They coordinate themselves without so much as a word. If they do, they chose their words with conciseness, brevity, and without offense (well, most of the time). That’s hard core multitasking. That’s social skill at the speed of thought. To act out those instructions myself I would need three seconds delay. That is, by the way, a complete unfit request. By then I would have already lost a point and disappoint my partner.
These people measure themselves, their matches, and get ideas on how the game will play out. Will they be competitive? Will there be more offenses or defenses on their sides? Will they be facilitative or deceptive?
Here is my favorite part: how much jokes they will throw on the court? They will be fouls, countless of them. That’s where you get scores. You make your opponents err as many times as you can. It’s either theirs or yours. It’s amazing how they laugh the hell out those. In televised sports event they call the encounter of two parties a match. In our court, we call them games. That’s how they can afford the amount of laughs on the court. Those errors aren't faults, they are bloopers. For that, they laugh when they win, and they laugh when they lose. In comedy, jokes crack us up for their element of surprises and their degree of reality -distortion. That’s exactly what they bloop around on the playfields. They crack them up and make them come for more the next week.
Last thing. When these friends gather around, 80% of their talks are soccer. They describe matches, analyze them, commenting on the transfers and the politics of it. This is where I’m drawing some serious line. At least for now. Who knows. Maybe resolution for 2015.
.
I used to think that sports is a thing you do upgrade your stress threshold. I was wrong. That’s exercise. Sports is a whole different thing of beauty. I have been doing thing all wrong.
About almost five months ago I got a badminton invite. Since one of my 2010 resolution was ‘socialize more’, and it was October and have to meet some quota, I took up the offer and have been playing along for a while. That was the first time I found out that I am not bad at sports. I suck with perfection (from my choice of words you will be able to judge how badminton-illiterate I really am).
I have always thought that badminton court was just a small box. It wasn’t going to be hard to guard. I could do that myself. I couldn't be more wrong. It never occurred to me that there is such a thing as standing at the right vs. wrong spot. I consistently give ways for my opponent to make me sprint across my side of the court just to get my racket to tip the cock just a little bit. And the shuttlecock, I thought it was just a light thingie to bash over the net. It is indeed bashable, but toward me, seldom by me. I’m so easy of opponent, I always have to twirl my way to the cock because it is always going to a vacant side (and I allow quite of space of those). I never thought it could make me very busy.
But these people that I play with: They understand where to stand and be ready moment after moment. When they talked me the play-by-plays, I my brain just went overdrive. I understand completely what they’re saying, but those instructions require complex, high-speed, real-time motor processing which I’m probably unequipped for. Even after months of trainings.
On a double match, partners plan their attacks, predict defenses, share equal grounds to cover, manage their power releases, keep their partners optimistic. For the whole ordeal, score after score, they have only few seconds. They coordinate themselves without so much as a word. If they do, they chose their words with conciseness, brevity, and without offense (well, most of the time). That’s hard core multitasking. That’s social skill at the speed of thought. To act out those instructions myself I would need three seconds delay. That is, by the way, a complete unfit request. By then I would have already lost a point and disappoint my partner.
These people measure themselves, their matches, and get ideas on how the game will play out. Will they be competitive? Will there be more offenses or defenses on their sides? Will they be facilitative or deceptive?
Here is my favorite part: how much jokes they will throw on the court? They will be fouls, countless of them. That’s where you get scores. You make your opponents err as many times as you can. It’s either theirs or yours. It’s amazing how they laugh the hell out those. In televised sports event they call the encounter of two parties a match. In our court, we call them games. That’s how they can afford the amount of laughs on the court. Those errors aren't faults, they are bloopers. For that, they laugh when they win, and they laugh when they lose. In comedy, jokes crack us up for their element of surprises and their degree of reality -distortion. That’s exactly what they bloop around on the playfields. They crack them up and make them come for more the next week.
Last thing. When these friends gather around, 80% of their talks are soccer. They describe matches, analyze them, commenting on the transfers and the politics of it. This is where I’m drawing some serious line. At least for now. Who knows. Maybe resolution for 2015.
.
Friday, January 28, 2011
What I Learned From Reading, Watching, Browsing, Listening Drawing As Much As Everything-- As I Can
.
A few years ago I came across a quote by some guy named Goethe. The quote, by the way, was:
I had no idea who exactly Goethe was (I’ve already wrote him an imaginary apology-slash-gratitude letter for this), and still I haven’t paid him the respect by at least completely finding out who he really is (I may have to write him another letter, or maybe just a serious historical background check will do --one a lot more than merely Wikipedia-ing).
I had a hunch that Goethe was in more than one way famous. That I found the line from some book of famous people’s quotes sort of helped. About the hunch part, I was right on the money. I just didn’t know by how much. At the time his importance slipped me, but the quote was extremely sound that it stucked in me.
Most quotes are metaphors and I skipped them. Not that they are not true, but that they are too often being overused as the truths. Einstein, among countless others, made numerous complaints about how his metaphors were taken literally, sometimes even to their contradictory meanings.
But this particular one by Goethe was straightforward instructional. And open-ended, too. No metaphors. No cause and effect offered. In fact, it is only only a suggestion (despite the word ‘should’). So I decided to follow it literally for some time.
I pick a song everyday to attend to. Sometimes the occasion is obvious it is as if the days pick their own songs, like the first day of the new year, twelve days of Christmas, a month of Ramadhan, graduation day, high day at the office, low day at the office, broken-hearted day, Friday-being-in-love day. Sometimes the days are so fuzzy I surrender to iPod to shuffle my mood in, a song a day. I read poems, too (read as in, not out loud). I’m no poetry literate, so for some while song lyrics would have to do. That my iPod shuffles helps me not to be too picky (and I have my friends stuffed my iPod with songs I would never stumble into). On reading department, I’m more of a book reader than poetry, so I continue doing that, too.
I ‘take in’ pictures, too, one for each day. I’ve seen pictures good in merely a decorative sense. Though they are good, ones that communicate insights are more captivating. They are visual version of great ideas books. Sometimes even a simple graph will do. Armed with Google I found unlimited stocks of picture websites. It is safe to know that a-picture-a-day will not stop any time soon, or at all.
And the people whose work of arts I follow have not shown any sign of exhaustion. Contrary to the myth of blocks of any kind --writers’ block, painters’ block, musicians’ block, and on-- they don’t seem to run out of ideas. In fact each previous ideas seem to make solid, elaborating bases onto which new ideas will continue building. Creation seems to be an endless looping, autofeedback process. Steven Johnson, in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, used the term adjacent possible: that creation of one thing leads to multiple possibilities for the next creations (Johnson actually borrowed the term from biologist Stuart Kauffman --another person to whom I will Wikipedia later to see his historically significance. I think Kauffman used the term to describe the rich life creation on coral reeves ecosystems).
One of my teacher told me something about the term “sharing”. In corporate world, “sharing” does not necessarily means to give without anticipating returns. In fact, the word implies an estimation of particular amount of returns. Though sharing, in its internet sense of the word, doesn’t even remotely reflect this, it actually does the same thing.
The people I was talking about go sharing-spree everyday, more than once a day, even. They pay forward fellow artists’ works online in however way possible --now, they retweet-- and get reciprocated in return. Their own works plus others’ works combined are more than enough idea banks for them. Maybe there are even more ideas available than the time to actually work on them. I take it that this is what my teacher meant about “sharing”. The only different is, unlike in corporate context, most of the times these people don’t exactly expect any sort of return on investments. But return on investments are exactly what they get. The whole interaction is like a whole army of adjacent possible. Just the thought if it is scary (in a good way). I don’t think ideas exhaustion is even in their realm of possibility.
Since the first day I followed Goethe, I started to blog the stuff I found, making inventories of them in case other people are interested to know. I only realized then that the act of picking plus putting them on a dedicated space enhances experiencing them. On day #100, I stopped blogging them (there’s too many of them I couldn’t keep up and blog them at the same time). Then I go on making countless scribbles, writing small notes, whistle strange new tunes. I posted some of them, and some strangers responded: reposting or commenting. Whatever they do, they feed me new stuffs to think about. There’s a good feeling knowing that even the simplest ideas matter. There’s even a greater feeling that you yourself will not run out of ideas, my very own “adjacent possible”. I owe most of that good feeling from strangers who respond.
Now I’m seriously looking for ways to use these insights (I’m sort of clueless). Maybe turn them into real works. Help needed.
.
A few years ago I came across a quote by some guy named Goethe. The quote, by the way, was:
“One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words.”
I had no idea who exactly Goethe was (I’ve already wrote him an imaginary apology-slash-gratitude letter for this), and still I haven’t paid him the respect by at least completely finding out who he really is (I may have to write him another letter, or maybe just a serious historical background check will do --one a lot more than merely Wikipedia-ing).
I had a hunch that Goethe was in more than one way famous. That I found the line from some book of famous people’s quotes sort of helped. About the hunch part, I was right on the money. I just didn’t know by how much. At the time his importance slipped me, but the quote was extremely sound that it stucked in me.
Most quotes are metaphors and I skipped them. Not that they are not true, but that they are too often being overused as the truths. Einstein, among countless others, made numerous complaints about how his metaphors were taken literally, sometimes even to their contradictory meanings.
But this particular one by Goethe was straightforward instructional. And open-ended, too. No metaphors. No cause and effect offered. In fact, it is only only a suggestion (despite the word ‘should’). So I decided to follow it literally for some time.
I pick a song everyday to attend to. Sometimes the occasion is obvious it is as if the days pick their own songs, like the first day of the new year, twelve days of Christmas, a month of Ramadhan, graduation day, high day at the office, low day at the office, broken-hearted day, Friday-being-in-love day. Sometimes the days are so fuzzy I surrender to iPod to shuffle my mood in, a song a day. I read poems, too (read as in, not out loud). I’m no poetry literate, so for some while song lyrics would have to do. That my iPod shuffles helps me not to be too picky (and I have my friends stuffed my iPod with songs I would never stumble into). On reading department, I’m more of a book reader than poetry, so I continue doing that, too.
I ‘take in’ pictures, too, one for each day. I’ve seen pictures good in merely a decorative sense. Though they are good, ones that communicate insights are more captivating. They are visual version of great ideas books. Sometimes even a simple graph will do. Armed with Google I found unlimited stocks of picture websites. It is safe to know that a-picture-a-day will not stop any time soon, or at all.
And the people whose work of arts I follow have not shown any sign of exhaustion. Contrary to the myth of blocks of any kind --writers’ block, painters’ block, musicians’ block, and on-- they don’t seem to run out of ideas. In fact each previous ideas seem to make solid, elaborating bases onto which new ideas will continue building. Creation seems to be an endless looping, autofeedback process. Steven Johnson, in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, used the term adjacent possible: that creation of one thing leads to multiple possibilities for the next creations (Johnson actually borrowed the term from biologist Stuart Kauffman --another person to whom I will Wikipedia later to see his historically significance. I think Kauffman used the term to describe the rich life creation on coral reeves ecosystems).
One of my teacher told me something about the term “sharing”. In corporate world, “sharing” does not necessarily means to give without anticipating returns. In fact, the word implies an estimation of particular amount of returns. Though sharing, in its internet sense of the word, doesn’t even remotely reflect this, it actually does the same thing.
The people I was talking about go sharing-spree everyday, more than once a day, even. They pay forward fellow artists’ works online in however way possible --now, they retweet-- and get reciprocated in return. Their own works plus others’ works combined are more than enough idea banks for them. Maybe there are even more ideas available than the time to actually work on them. I take it that this is what my teacher meant about “sharing”. The only different is, unlike in corporate context, most of the times these people don’t exactly expect any sort of return on investments. But return on investments are exactly what they get. The whole interaction is like a whole army of adjacent possible. Just the thought if it is scary (in a good way). I don’t think ideas exhaustion is even in their realm of possibility.
Since the first day I followed Goethe, I started to blog the stuff I found, making inventories of them in case other people are interested to know. I only realized then that the act of picking plus putting them on a dedicated space enhances experiencing them. On day #100, I stopped blogging them (there’s too many of them I couldn’t keep up and blog them at the same time). Then I go on making countless scribbles, writing small notes, whistle strange new tunes. I posted some of them, and some strangers responded: reposting or commenting. Whatever they do, they feed me new stuffs to think about. There’s a good feeling knowing that even the simplest ideas matter. There’s even a greater feeling that you yourself will not run out of ideas, my very own “adjacent possible”. I owe most of that good feeling from strangers who respond.
Now I’m seriously looking for ways to use these insights (I’m sort of clueless). Maybe turn them into real works. Help needed.
.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
What I Learned From Writing
.
That I’m not quick to get to the point; and I elaborate more on my way making my point than on making my point.
.
That I’m not quick to get to the point; and I elaborate more on my way making my point than on making my point.
.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
What I Learned From The West Wing
.
The West Wing is a TV series revolving around the day jobs of of US President with his senior aides. It is a multicharacter show with the president not necessarily being the center of the universe. It aired for seven seasons, premiered in September 1999. The plot progresses from Bartlet administration going through disappointing second year, running for a second term, and leaving legacy to the next presidential candidate. The casting list includes Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Dule Hill, Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, and Stockard Channing. The West Wing is created and lead-written by Aaron Sorkin, and lead-directed by Thomas Schlamme, and produced by John Wells (but the roles changes hands repetitively during its seven years).
I don’t know a zip about the science of politics. And I am only familiar with its practices as far as the media would expose them, which means it’s a lot of fucks (not literally). But if anyone asks me my favorite TV series (not that anyone asked), I would name The West Wing with sick consistency. It has been so for the past ten years (who knows if it’s because that not many series has measured up, or simply that I lack TV experiences).
Watching it, one would forget that the The West Wing showcases allegedly one of the most scandalous profession. In the show, however, politician is no such thing. It is on the contrary the most romantic, even humanely, one possible (in the vocational sense of the term). It makes one forgives one’s self for ever liking politicians --at least the politicians in the show-- the way men forgive themselves for ever letting themselves screwed for having goosebumps watching A Walk To Remember (In Walk’s case, good thing we, men, rehab ourselves soon afterward).
The way Aaron Sorkin wrote it, President Bartlet’s is the most open-minded, collaborative, full of freedom, creative, and --to mention this again-- “humanely” White House, or any workplace for that matter. Every staff, senior-level or lower, are free to contribute their thoughts, negotiating any option available within the best interest of the constituents they represent. They are even entitled to make their cases with the leader of their free world. There is not an episode goes by without some arguing, debating, or for goodness sake from time to time, shouting at the president involved. At the end of the day (or, episode) everyone would found some new enlightening common ground to start over, with President Bartlet not all the time being right (in fact, he seldom is, but in a good way).
Open transaction of ideas and aspirations like these are not limited even within the oval office. It is very noticeable that every in-oval-office dispute ends with the staff recusing himself out, saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” I think it’s really “Thank you Mr.President for the opportunity to make my case,” or “for the chance to speak my mind, just for the peace of it,” or “for even considering my thoughts. I know yours is the hardest job to make decision.” Or maybe it’s all of the above. It is as if gratitude is mandatory all over the House. It is one of the most inspiring detail of the series.
The West Wing’s are meticulously-written scripts. Sorkin might only appear writing pages and pages, but anyone who watches even only one of its episodes should realize that he was going for detailed sculpture of audiences' semantic experiences. There is no room for ambiguity for a show in which long, back-and-forth conversation is the main course. Everyone in the show talks fast and accurately. Through the series I learned how clarity of speech can be evidence for one being true to his or her words; that one choice of adjective can, within minutes, makes your eyes water; and that every ideas within our minds, delivered accurately, will guarantee unforgettable comprehension and elated feelings. You cannot get any sappier than that.
If there is any flaw in The West Wing, it is that every character is that verbally fluent and shares the exact sense of humor. Everyone one celebrates language as valuable, unlimited assets and they do no less when they kid around. They make the kind of jokes that get you feel appreciated for the intellect you possess, or maybe just the promise of it. And boy do they make a lot of them. I would imagine that in a place of such stresses, comedy would serve as lubricant that keeps unhealthy conflicts away (by the way, do you know that founder of positive psychology Martin Seligman identified humor one of important adaptive character strengths?). So you see, for me, this flaw poses no problem.
So here are your thoughts that Sorkin tweaks by you watching The West Wing: that you deserve a boss like Bartlet, and colleagues like everyone in the show; that there is no such thing as small stuff; that all ideas are worth hearing, even if they contradict everyone in the office (especially if they contradict everyone in the office); that you are as good as both your words and deeds; that you deserve a job bigger than the works; that it is okay to think these ways; and that these thoughts should be okay not only in the world of fiction, but in real life, too (just saying).
And if these aren't true, at least The West Wing gives a glimpse picture of how politics works, regardless of its murky accuracy.
The West Wing is a TV series revolving around the day jobs of of US President with his senior aides. It is a multicharacter show with the president not necessarily being the center of the universe. It aired for seven seasons, premiered in September 1999. The plot progresses from Bartlet administration going through disappointing second year, running for a second term, and leaving legacy to the next presidential candidate. The casting list includes Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Dule Hill, Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, and Stockard Channing. The West Wing is created and lead-written by Aaron Sorkin, and lead-directed by Thomas Schlamme, and produced by John Wells (but the roles changes hands repetitively during its seven years).
I don’t know a zip about the science of politics. And I am only familiar with its practices as far as the media would expose them, which means it’s a lot of fucks (not literally). But if anyone asks me my favorite TV series (not that anyone asked), I would name The West Wing with sick consistency. It has been so for the past ten years (who knows if it’s because that not many series has measured up, or simply that I lack TV experiences).
Watching it, one would forget that the The West Wing showcases allegedly one of the most scandalous profession. In the show, however, politician is no such thing. It is on the contrary the most romantic, even humanely, one possible (in the vocational sense of the term). It makes one forgives one’s self for ever liking politicians --at least the politicians in the show-- the way men forgive themselves for ever letting themselves screwed for having goosebumps watching A Walk To Remember (In Walk’s case, good thing we, men, rehab ourselves soon afterward).
The way Aaron Sorkin wrote it, President Bartlet’s is the most open-minded, collaborative, full of freedom, creative, and --to mention this again-- “humanely” White House, or any workplace for that matter. Every staff, senior-level or lower, are free to contribute their thoughts, negotiating any option available within the best interest of the constituents they represent. They are even entitled to make their cases with the leader of their free world. There is not an episode goes by without some arguing, debating, or for goodness sake from time to time, shouting at the president involved. At the end of the day (or, episode) everyone would found some new enlightening common ground to start over, with President Bartlet not all the time being right (in fact, he seldom is, but in a good way).
Open transaction of ideas and aspirations like these are not limited even within the oval office. It is very noticeable that every in-oval-office dispute ends with the staff recusing himself out, saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” I think it’s really “Thank you Mr.President for the opportunity to make my case,” or “for the chance to speak my mind, just for the peace of it,” or “for even considering my thoughts. I know yours is the hardest job to make decision.” Or maybe it’s all of the above. It is as if gratitude is mandatory all over the House. It is one of the most inspiring detail of the series.
The West Wing’s are meticulously-written scripts. Sorkin might only appear writing pages and pages, but anyone who watches even only one of its episodes should realize that he was going for detailed sculpture of audiences' semantic experiences. There is no room for ambiguity for a show in which long, back-and-forth conversation is the main course. Everyone in the show talks fast and accurately. Through the series I learned how clarity of speech can be evidence for one being true to his or her words; that one choice of adjective can, within minutes, makes your eyes water; and that every ideas within our minds, delivered accurately, will guarantee unforgettable comprehension and elated feelings. You cannot get any sappier than that.
If there is any flaw in The West Wing, it is that every character is that verbally fluent and shares the exact sense of humor. Everyone one celebrates language as valuable, unlimited assets and they do no less when they kid around. They make the kind of jokes that get you feel appreciated for the intellect you possess, or maybe just the promise of it. And boy do they make a lot of them. I would imagine that in a place of such stresses, comedy would serve as lubricant that keeps unhealthy conflicts away (by the way, do you know that founder of positive psychology Martin Seligman identified humor one of important adaptive character strengths?). So you see, for me, this flaw poses no problem.
So here are your thoughts that Sorkin tweaks by you watching The West Wing: that you deserve a boss like Bartlet, and colleagues like everyone in the show; that there is no such thing as small stuff; that all ideas are worth hearing, even if they contradict everyone in the office (especially if they contradict everyone in the office); that you are as good as both your words and deeds; that you deserve a job bigger than the works; that it is okay to think these ways; and that these thoughts should be okay not only in the world of fiction, but in real life, too (just saying).
And if these aren't true, at least The West Wing gives a glimpse picture of how politics works, regardless of its murky accuracy.
Josh Lyman playing out argument with assistant Donna Moss.
The West Wing casts' reunion intervew.
.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
What I Learned From Debating With My Senior
.
(on technology and human lives)
A senior of mine resents information technology so much that she thinks human lives are so way better when the world was without them. To keep my description of her fair, I think she is one of the most reasonable people I know. It is just that I think she always delivers her opinions more dramatically that they deserve. I have never succeeded to persuade her in the subject. Maybe I don’t understand her point just as much she doesn’t understand mine.
In the against-too-much-technology, she is not alone in her side of the club. I have read articles after articles arguing that people now inhabits a world of distraction and no longer pay their dues to being “fully in the moment”; that the quality of human communications have degraded; or worse, that we have become organic robots. All thanks to the technologies besieging us. Some of these arguments are rhetorical, some scientific. Most are consistent with what my senior argued, all of which I must admit will not disagree.
However, I think such arguments are partially valid at best. Firstly, only little of of these arguments are comprehensive enough. They are overfocusing on limited aspects of both technological features and behaviors. Secondly, they speak in terms of increase and decrease. I don’t think that because some university have discovered that, for example, texting and social networking abuses have decreased working memory accuracy that we should abandon our smartphones behind. Not that these negative findings are erroneous, but any for-or-against decision on the issue is missing the point. They are missing other changes outside the continuum.
Some of the technology-driven changes that have been taking places, are taking places, and potentially will take place are too valuable for us to even slightly interrupt, let alone terminated. On individual level, simple blogging acts have begun to go epidemic in bringing out the good, if not the best, in us. See sites like PostSecrets, ThingsWeForget, and ICanRead; and if they are not evident enough, see where the links takes you. The all-around take-and-give among users should overwhelm you. Where we were once learn things intensively, people are learning more diversively. This is not the case of better-or-worse. At least, it is premature for us to say so. Just because we call them users, it doesn’t make them less human.
Organizations whose missions are to channel and sync netizens’ acts of goodwill --like CreativeCommons, One.org, Wikipedia (happy birthday, by the way), OpenData, Innocentive, AcademicEarth, TED-- have begun to show promising results and more. They are educating the world, leveraging it to healthier state, and making extreme poverty its history --or at least they’re trying to (and that’s already more than hopeful).
Having said that, I think the negative findings that we encounter would serve better as control signs to keep our multilinear changing civilization in-check. As the world gets more and more connected, learning-by-doing is happening on a global scale. The world is at its most ambiguous, it’s scary, it’s exciting. Though all possibilities of horrors are ever more highlighted, so are the beauties (the Wikileaks case should best illustrate this). And any snap judgment we make about our world, and our humanity, is nothing more than negligence.
(on technology and human lives)
A senior of mine resents information technology so much that she thinks human lives are so way better when the world was without them. To keep my description of her fair, I think she is one of the most reasonable people I know. It is just that I think she always delivers her opinions more dramatically that they deserve. I have never succeeded to persuade her in the subject. Maybe I don’t understand her point just as much she doesn’t understand mine.
In the against-too-much-technology, she is not alone in her side of the club. I have read articles after articles arguing that people now inhabits a world of distraction and no longer pay their dues to being “fully in the moment”; that the quality of human communications have degraded; or worse, that we have become organic robots. All thanks to the technologies besieging us. Some of these arguments are rhetorical, some scientific. Most are consistent with what my senior argued, all of which I must admit will not disagree.
However, I think such arguments are partially valid at best. Firstly, only little of of these arguments are comprehensive enough. They are overfocusing on limited aspects of both technological features and behaviors. Secondly, they speak in terms of increase and decrease. I don’t think that because some university have discovered that, for example, texting and social networking abuses have decreased working memory accuracy that we should abandon our smartphones behind. Not that these negative findings are erroneous, but any for-or-against decision on the issue is missing the point. They are missing other changes outside the continuum.
Some of the technology-driven changes that have been taking places, are taking places, and potentially will take place are too valuable for us to even slightly interrupt, let alone terminated. On individual level, simple blogging acts have begun to go epidemic in bringing out the good, if not the best, in us. See sites like PostSecrets, ThingsWeForget, and ICanRead; and if they are not evident enough, see where the links takes you. The all-around take-and-give among users should overwhelm you. Where we were once learn things intensively, people are learning more diversively. This is not the case of better-or-worse. At least, it is premature for us to say so. Just because we call them users, it doesn’t make them less human.
Organizations whose missions are to channel and sync netizens’ acts of goodwill --like CreativeCommons, One.org, Wikipedia (happy birthday, by the way), OpenData, Innocentive, AcademicEarth, TED-- have begun to show promising results and more. They are educating the world, leveraging it to healthier state, and making extreme poverty its history --or at least they’re trying to (and that’s already more than hopeful).
Having said that, I think the negative findings that we encounter would serve better as control signs to keep our multilinear changing civilization in-check. As the world gets more and more connected, learning-by-doing is happening on a global scale. The world is at its most ambiguous, it’s scary, it’s exciting. Though all possibilities of horrors are ever more highlighted, so are the beauties (the Wikileaks case should best illustrate this). And any snap judgment we make about our world, and our humanity, is nothing more than negligence.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
What Was I Thinking?
Why Some Power Tools Have Slipped My Mind
There was a scene in Creation (the movie) where Darwin was writing the The Origin Of Species manuscript. I think the scene is sexy. One, it’s a writing scene. Two, it looks very antique (old, brown, and slow –it’s quite a hazy way of describing, I know, but that’s the best I can come up with for now). This being around 1800s, writing involved paper after paper being individually hand-written. In that scene, Darwin put a stack of just recently written paper and some leather bound notebooks into a small shelf. After a while, something about that shelf made sense about something else.
The shelf, if I remember it correctly, was a CPU high (which CPU model is beside the point) and were divided into several compartments. Each compartment would fit a chapter-thick of papers and several leather-bound notebooks, into which they are slipped horizontally –as the scene depicted. I suppose the number of shelf compartments would at least equal the number of chapters a book would eventually amount to. It was so systematic it was enlightening.
Then it hit me that the interface logic of a Windows Explorer (or the likes of it, if you use other operating systems, I suppose) is consistent with that shelf. Such a shelf would enable a writer to arrange his/her raw materials. He (I’m going to skip “/she” and “/her” for efficiency reason, no sexism intended) could, from very early phase of writing, decide to which compartment some notebooks or scribbled napkins should go and move them to another one he thought more fitting. When progressing to writing a particular chapter, the system would save him the time being distracted by data noise. And after having done with the working chapter he could place it in the same space where its raw materials were, where it reasonably belong. This is outlining brought to life.
After all the years using Explorer (yes, by the way, I used that operating system), it is only then that I realized how beautifully intuitive the software really is. I have been moving contents in and out of folders only for the sake of retrieval, or worse, a sense of visual neatness (as the number of times I go nuts finding a file would indicate). Putting my self in Darwin’s shoes (which by the way I have no idea what they look like) I realized how in my hands those features have been no more than routines, no longer power tools as they are. This is not yet mentioning copying, cutting, pasting, and renaming.
I see two reasons why I have been missing this out. One, Explorer’s file size is so miniscule compared to the total OS package that I don’t feel I paid for it (some of us don’t even pay for the whole thing). It is as without price as it is without value. In fact, that it has any value at all never crosses my thoughts. I don’t know how much Darwin’s manuscript shelf cost. It might not did him much since he was quite the gentleman of wealth of his time. But I do suspect that the shelf was a stand-alone purchase. It didn’t ship out with any stack of blank papers (or do Darwin typed them? When was typewriter invented, by the way? --“wikipedia-lazybum”). That alone must have made the shelf almost impossible to go unnoticed. It was after all a stationery relevant to one of Darwin’s main business: writing.
Two, unlike Darwin, (and all writers and/or thinkers of similar age of time) I deal with my data, digital as they are, symbolically. There’s no touching involve during the interaction, aside from mousing around. Darwin literally got his hands on his. The manuscript shelf, I suppose, had proxied his mental processes --categorizing, reasoning, problem solving, etc-- extended to direct physical actions, making his thoughts way clearer and thus richer than ours. Imagine that: thinking and moving, fully synchronized, during complex problem solving, multiplying the quality of its output.
I wonder how much of this is responsible in making The Origin such a beautiful opus, both as a scientific insights and a prose.
Maybe it has slipped my mind that Darwin’s manuscript shelf has evolved into Explorer we're more than familiar with. If I’m right, that means a degree of negligence may have cost us some amount of valuable quality of thinking --and thoughts-- for quite some time. I think it is worthy of our time to look back and retrace what and how ancient tools have enabled the crafty, creative minds before us. If living up to their standard is too much, a little copy-catting will not hurt.
.
There was a scene in Creation (the movie) where Darwin was writing the The Origin Of Species manuscript. I think the scene is sexy. One, it’s a writing scene. Two, it looks very antique (old, brown, and slow –it’s quite a hazy way of describing, I know, but that’s the best I can come up with for now). This being around 1800s, writing involved paper after paper being individually hand-written. In that scene, Darwin put a stack of just recently written paper and some leather bound notebooks into a small shelf. After a while, something about that shelf made sense about something else.
The shelf, if I remember it correctly, was a CPU high (which CPU model is beside the point) and were divided into several compartments. Each compartment would fit a chapter-thick of papers and several leather-bound notebooks, into which they are slipped horizontally –as the scene depicted. I suppose the number of shelf compartments would at least equal the number of chapters a book would eventually amount to. It was so systematic it was enlightening.
Then it hit me that the interface logic of a Windows Explorer (or the likes of it, if you use other operating systems, I suppose) is consistent with that shelf. Such a shelf would enable a writer to arrange his/her raw materials. He (I’m going to skip “/she” and “/her” for efficiency reason, no sexism intended) could, from very early phase of writing, decide to which compartment some notebooks or scribbled napkins should go and move them to another one he thought more fitting. When progressing to writing a particular chapter, the system would save him the time being distracted by data noise. And after having done with the working chapter he could place it in the same space where its raw materials were, where it reasonably belong. This is outlining brought to life.
After all the years using Explorer (yes, by the way, I used that operating system), it is only then that I realized how beautifully intuitive the software really is. I have been moving contents in and out of folders only for the sake of retrieval, or worse, a sense of visual neatness (as the number of times I go nuts finding a file would indicate). Putting my self in Darwin’s shoes (which by the way I have no idea what they look like) I realized how in my hands those features have been no more than routines, no longer power tools as they are. This is not yet mentioning copying, cutting, pasting, and renaming.
I see two reasons why I have been missing this out. One, Explorer’s file size is so miniscule compared to the total OS package that I don’t feel I paid for it (some of us don’t even pay for the whole thing). It is as without price as it is without value. In fact, that it has any value at all never crosses my thoughts. I don’t know how much Darwin’s manuscript shelf cost. It might not did him much since he was quite the gentleman of wealth of his time. But I do suspect that the shelf was a stand-alone purchase. It didn’t ship out with any stack of blank papers (or do Darwin typed them? When was typewriter invented, by the way? --“wikipedia-lazybum”). That alone must have made the shelf almost impossible to go unnoticed. It was after all a stationery relevant to one of Darwin’s main business: writing.
Two, unlike Darwin, (and all writers and/or thinkers of similar age of time) I deal with my data, digital as they are, symbolically. There’s no touching involve during the interaction, aside from mousing around. Darwin literally got his hands on his. The manuscript shelf, I suppose, had proxied his mental processes --categorizing, reasoning, problem solving, etc-- extended to direct physical actions, making his thoughts way clearer and thus richer than ours. Imagine that: thinking and moving, fully synchronized, during complex problem solving, multiplying the quality of its output.
I wonder how much of this is responsible in making The Origin such a beautiful opus, both as a scientific insights and a prose.
Maybe it has slipped my mind that Darwin’s manuscript shelf has evolved into Explorer we're more than familiar with. If I’m right, that means a degree of negligence may have cost us some amount of valuable quality of thinking --and thoughts-- for quite some time. I think it is worthy of our time to look back and retrace what and how ancient tools have enabled the crafty, creative minds before us. If living up to their standard is too much, a little copy-catting will not hurt.
.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
I Should Have Signed Thank You. Who Knows.
Dear whoever stumbles upon this note,
Last Saturday at a coffeeshop, when I was preoccupied drawing a compulsive artwork (still not even close to finish by now), my two accompanying friends handed me a small card. Written on one side was a short message on Indonesian, on the other English. It says (something like this): “Hi, I’m deaf and mute… and bla bla bla… souvenir… bla bla bla… helping… bla bla bla… Rp.20.000… bla bla bla. Thank you” (bla-bla-blas added by the nonmultitasking, preoccupied author).
All I got is deaf and mute. I looked higher to my friends about to ask what it was and, to my surprise, found a girl sitting near us, apparently have had joined our table. Still preoccupied with some elements of the previous compulsion, my attention-limited mind tried to made the math of the situation: she is the deaf-mute, the bag on the her right arm are the souvenirs, priced for Rp.20.000.
I have been a fan of human intelligence --creativity, arts, tool invention, culture, and the sorts-- for as long as I can remember. Language has been on the top of the list, and sign language and the culture than come along with it have been on a reserved special spot.
Seventeen years ago, lack of learning materials, I learned sign language watching a TV series Reasonable Doubt. I made my own picture dictionary, illustrating more than 100 words the main characters --the deaf lawyer and signing detective-- signed. It brushed my drawing skill more it did my language skill. I got my first sign language dictionary at a used book store. It was in an extreme, inappropriate condition when I found it and is still in my over protective possession, more as a memento than a resource. Come Amazon.com and I made sign language dictionary one of my earliest purchases. Come YouTube and the earliest search I made was sign language. To present day, I subscribe to more than thirty channels belong to deaf users, checking up on a regular basis for the stories they have to share and songs they interpret (awesome stuff!).
I have stumbled upon numerous friends who found signing is interesting and asked me to teach them. Even after convincing them that I was nowhere near a qualified source, they still managed to coerce me to say yes. And so I shared them what I know. The self-guilt of teaching them false signs and grammar I paid by putting in their heads the amazing human mind and the culture that goes naturally with it that the deaf people possess. I made sure they get it, and so when their days of finding sign language interesting have passed, I can assure myself that the days they realized the deafs are amazing will not.
In the coffee shop, all I got is “deaf and mute” and I was excited. Very excited. But my introversion kicked in hard. I muted (that’s a error right there, but in the spirit of just-get-on-with-it, I’m getting on with this). I didn’t say anything. All I did to show I’m interested was taking out Rp.20.000 and take one of the souvenirs (it’s now tied to my shoulder bag). She moved along after honoring us with a gratitude gesture, not a sign. I should have signed thank you, but I didn’t. The way home that night was filled with me being unable find excuse for my being stunted.
Had I signed that ‘thank you’, this note would have been about me having a conversation with a deaf girl. With my limited signing skill, we would have probably written our talks back and forth with my iPad. Wouldn’t that make a much more interesting note, better yet, an iPad advertisement? (nah, the conversation alone would be as much interesting). Even if the whole deaf and mute thing was a scam, me being duped would still make a much more interesting story than this one.
I’m planning to go back to the place, hoping for the luck of bumping into her again. Chances are slim, so I’m asking you, whoever you are who kindly reading this note, a favor. If you happen to be around Pondok Indah Mall and got approached by a deaf and mute girl who fits my story, please tell her that I would like to learn everything there is about sign language and deaf mind WITH ALL DUE RESPECTS, please emphasis on: WITH ALL DUE RESPECTS. Tell her my name is adih and my cell number is 0818120241 and I’m not dangerous.
If I’m lucky, then you will be reading a note about me learning sign language and deaf mind from a deaf girl.
Anyway, thank you for reading.
Sincerely
Adih
Last Saturday at a coffeeshop, when I was preoccupied drawing a compulsive artwork (still not even close to finish by now), my two accompanying friends handed me a small card. Written on one side was a short message on Indonesian, on the other English. It says (something like this): “Hi, I’m deaf and mute… and bla bla bla… souvenir… bla bla bla… helping… bla bla bla… Rp.20.000… bla bla bla. Thank you” (bla-bla-blas added by the nonmultitasking, preoccupied author).
All I got is deaf and mute. I looked higher to my friends about to ask what it was and, to my surprise, found a girl sitting near us, apparently have had joined our table. Still preoccupied with some elements of the previous compulsion, my attention-limited mind tried to made the math of the situation: she is the deaf-mute, the bag on the her right arm are the souvenirs, priced for Rp.20.000.
I have been a fan of human intelligence --creativity, arts, tool invention, culture, and the sorts-- for as long as I can remember. Language has been on the top of the list, and sign language and the culture than come along with it have been on a reserved special spot.
Seventeen years ago, lack of learning materials, I learned sign language watching a TV series Reasonable Doubt. I made my own picture dictionary, illustrating more than 100 words the main characters --the deaf lawyer and signing detective-- signed. It brushed my drawing skill more it did my language skill. I got my first sign language dictionary at a used book store. It was in an extreme, inappropriate condition when I found it and is still in my over protective possession, more as a memento than a resource. Come Amazon.com and I made sign language dictionary one of my earliest purchases. Come YouTube and the earliest search I made was sign language. To present day, I subscribe to more than thirty channels belong to deaf users, checking up on a regular basis for the stories they have to share and songs they interpret (awesome stuff!).
I have stumbled upon numerous friends who found signing is interesting and asked me to teach them. Even after convincing them that I was nowhere near a qualified source, they still managed to coerce me to say yes. And so I shared them what I know. The self-guilt of teaching them false signs and grammar I paid by putting in their heads the amazing human mind and the culture that goes naturally with it that the deaf people possess. I made sure they get it, and so when their days of finding sign language interesting have passed, I can assure myself that the days they realized the deafs are amazing will not.
In the coffee shop, all I got is “deaf and mute” and I was excited. Very excited. But my introversion kicked in hard. I muted (that’s a error right there, but in the spirit of just-get-on-with-it, I’m getting on with this). I didn’t say anything. All I did to show I’m interested was taking out Rp.20.000 and take one of the souvenirs (it’s now tied to my shoulder bag). She moved along after honoring us with a gratitude gesture, not a sign. I should have signed thank you, but I didn’t. The way home that night was filled with me being unable find excuse for my being stunted.
Had I signed that ‘thank you’, this note would have been about me having a conversation with a deaf girl. With my limited signing skill, we would have probably written our talks back and forth with my iPad. Wouldn’t that make a much more interesting note, better yet, an iPad advertisement? (nah, the conversation alone would be as much interesting). Even if the whole deaf and mute thing was a scam, me being duped would still make a much more interesting story than this one.
I’m planning to go back to the place, hoping for the luck of bumping into her again. Chances are slim, so I’m asking you, whoever you are who kindly reading this note, a favor. If you happen to be around Pondok Indah Mall and got approached by a deaf and mute girl who fits my story, please tell her that I would like to learn everything there is about sign language and deaf mind WITH ALL DUE RESPECTS, please emphasis on: WITH ALL DUE RESPECTS. Tell her my name is adih and my cell number is 0818120241 and I’m not dangerous.
If I’m lucky, then you will be reading a note about me learning sign language and deaf mind from a deaf girl.
Anyway, thank you for reading.
Sincerely
Adih
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Curious Tone
.
Last week I met an old friend. There were times when we were colleagues, shared times, and hopes. We were a team and most people thought so, too. But we shared time less and less especially after I went on schooling. His career took an enlightenment turn and he sky-rocketed to be one of the most important person in the company he worked for. He got much smarter, too. He was practically a genius the last time I remember. I didn't think anyone can get smarter than that. Apparently he can.
But our meet did not leave a pleasant impression. It was a memorable reunion not in the way I imagined. He took an interest on the book I was carrying that day. I mentioned I don't understand much of what the book was saying, and he probe my lost-ness. That's the point where the conversation took an unpleasant turn, at least for me.
He answered my questions with some sort of anger tone. It was as if he was disappointed that I asked such questions. Worst, I feel like I was not worth his time. There was no trace of the familiar warmth of friendship from what was going on there. I feel like I'm a stranger to him. He kept going on and on about how I understand things in a limited, singular way (being aggressed aside, most of what he said were, I think, true).
It still confused me to this day that he lashed out. He lost me somewhere in the middle. I remember thinking during his impatient speech how there was still a chance for my day to be saved if I just bail out. I can't remember if my day started good or bad, but it didn't matter. I didn't want to be there. A seat away would do. Just not there. Then someone interrupted us, and he was distracted. That was my exit.
I never got my questions answered. Most of his answers were more of half-way analogies. Even without the interruption, I don't think his answer would be enlightening.
Maybe he lashes. Maybe he lashed out on me. Maybe he lashed out on me because I dissapointed him. Maybe it was just my luck. Maybe it just wasn't his best day and he was not himself. Maybe if it had been someone else, not me, he would have restrained himself. Maybe there was a trace of our friendship in him after all --that his lashing out on me, and not on anyone else, was because there I was, finally, a familiar face. Maybe it was an honor. Maybe I have been doing the same thing. Maybe it was none of the above. Maybe I think too much (and this went on as he was 'enlightening' me).
It's amazing how a little raise of tone is capable to undo an established bond. If so, maybe pulling it down would redo it, and that the next time around, he and I will make better use of time.
.
Last week I met an old friend. There were times when we were colleagues, shared times, and hopes. We were a team and most people thought so, too. But we shared time less and less especially after I went on schooling. His career took an enlightenment turn and he sky-rocketed to be one of the most important person in the company he worked for. He got much smarter, too. He was practically a genius the last time I remember. I didn't think anyone can get smarter than that. Apparently he can.
But our meet did not leave a pleasant impression. It was a memorable reunion not in the way I imagined. He took an interest on the book I was carrying that day. I mentioned I don't understand much of what the book was saying, and he probe my lost-ness. That's the point where the conversation took an unpleasant turn, at least for me.
He answered my questions with some sort of anger tone. It was as if he was disappointed that I asked such questions. Worst, I feel like I was not worth his time. There was no trace of the familiar warmth of friendship from what was going on there. I feel like I'm a stranger to him. He kept going on and on about how I understand things in a limited, singular way (being aggressed aside, most of what he said were, I think, true).
It still confused me to this day that he lashed out. He lost me somewhere in the middle. I remember thinking during his impatient speech how there was still a chance for my day to be saved if I just bail out. I can't remember if my day started good or bad, but it didn't matter. I didn't want to be there. A seat away would do. Just not there. Then someone interrupted us, and he was distracted. That was my exit.
I never got my questions answered. Most of his answers were more of half-way analogies. Even without the interruption, I don't think his answer would be enlightening.
Maybe he lashes. Maybe he lashed out on me. Maybe he lashed out on me because I dissapointed him. Maybe it was just my luck. Maybe it just wasn't his best day and he was not himself. Maybe if it had been someone else, not me, he would have restrained himself. Maybe there was a trace of our friendship in him after all --that his lashing out on me, and not on anyone else, was because there I was, finally, a familiar face. Maybe it was an honor. Maybe I have been doing the same thing. Maybe it was none of the above. Maybe I think too much (and this went on as he was 'enlightening' me).
It's amazing how a little raise of tone is capable to undo an established bond. If so, maybe pulling it down would redo it, and that the next time around, he and I will make better use of time.
.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Universally Preferable Sound?
.
Saya bertanya pd @pbadi #bunyi. Jawabannya saya kompilasi di sini. menarik. Enjoy! :-)
Saya bertanya pd @pbadi #bunyi. Jawabannya saya kompilasi di sini. menarik. Enjoy! :-)
PERTANYAAN:
@pbadi Tanya, boleh? Mungkinkah bunyi tertentu secara umum (mungkin bahkan universal) lebih disukai dibanding bunyi lain? #bunyi
JAWABAN @pbadi
tweet 1:
Mnarik skali ptanyaan mas. Jwbn saya adlh mungkin. Namun yg jls, ada kriteria bunyi yg dpt ditolerir. #bunyi
Tweet 2:
Maksud ditolerir di sini adalah berada pd ambang penginderaan. #bunyi
Tweet 3:
Pd properti frekuensi, ambang pnginderaan kita adlh 20Hz-20kHz. Pd batas bawah & atas bs jd kita tdk nyaman mdengarnya. #bunyi
Tweet 4:
Jika rendah sekali akan trdengar buzzing dan shaking, jika trll tinggi memekakkan telinga. #bunyi
Tweet 5:
Jika rendah sekali akan trdengar buzzing dan shaking, jika trll tinggi memekakkan telinga. #bunyi
Tweet 6:
Jg tjd pd properti amplitudo, trlalu kecil tdk trdengar, tll bsr maka tkanan udaranya bs mrusak membran telinga >sakit. #bunyi
Tweet 7:
Tp yg saya smpkan itu adlh bunyi tunggal > satu pitch, satu waktu, energi dan timbre yg konstan. #bunyi
Tweet 8:
Saya percaya bhw asosiasi ekstra bunyi sgt mpengaruhi disukai/tdknya bunyi. #bunyi
Tweet 9:
Dan yg sgt penting adlh kesesuaian dgn konteks. #bunyi
.@pbadi Tanya, boleh? Mungkinkah bunyi tertentu secara umum (mungkin bahkan universal) lebih disukai dibanding bunyi lain? #bunyi
JAWABAN @pbadi
tweet 1:
Mnarik skali ptanyaan mas. Jwbn saya adlh mungkin. Namun yg jls, ada kriteria bunyi yg dpt ditolerir. #bunyi
Tweet 2:
Maksud ditolerir di sini adalah berada pd ambang penginderaan. #bunyi
Tweet 3:
Pd properti frekuensi, ambang pnginderaan kita adlh 20Hz-20kHz. Pd batas bawah & atas bs jd kita tdk nyaman mdengarnya. #bunyi
Tweet 4:
Jika rendah sekali akan trdengar buzzing dan shaking, jika trll tinggi memekakkan telinga. #bunyi
Tweet 5:
Jika rendah sekali akan trdengar buzzing dan shaking, jika trll tinggi memekakkan telinga. #bunyi
Tweet 6:
Jg tjd pd properti amplitudo, trlalu kecil tdk trdengar, tll bsr maka tkanan udaranya bs mrusak membran telinga >sakit. #bunyi
Tweet 7:
Tp yg saya smpkan itu adlh bunyi tunggal > satu pitch, satu waktu, energi dan timbre yg konstan. #bunyi
Tweet 8:
Saya percaya bhw asosiasi ekstra bunyi sgt mpengaruhi disukai/tdknya bunyi. #bunyi
Tweet 9:
Dan yg sgt penting adlh kesesuaian dgn konteks. #bunyi
Legend Time Out
.
There's an old song of with, I believe, strange lyrics (I don't know the title, but I bet Google does) : How much is that doggie in the window? The one that's waggling its tail. How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie for sale.
I'm thinking: That's scary. I'm lucky I got my taste set on some legend, like The Beatles. But then I'm curious whether it's possible The Beatleshood aren't always I Will, or Black Bird, or In My Life, or I Am The Walrus. Put aside that they are The Fab Four and some peculiar numbers emerge. Though not exactly some "doggies in the window", they are peculiar nonetheless. Michelle, my belle, these are words that go together well (I mean, really?).
Then there's I'll Get You. I can just imagine a weird, if not disturbing, scene. Paul and John, probably on either's flat, or some studio (not just some studio, obviously). One grabbed a guitar, the other followed. Having stumbled upon some chords, John pitched Paul some line, "How about: Imagine I'm in love with. It's easy cause I know. I've imagined I'm in love with you many many times before." And Paul went, "Perfect!"
Where's the (fill in some Killer Beatles here)? . But then again, when one is preconditioned with their legendary status, it's easy to take up all the songs as the works of legends, accordingly. Therefore, despite the recent enlightenment, I will from time to time find myself being ambushed by, say, firecamp acoustic, or some FM radio surprise, or the shuffling of an MP3 player (mine's Samsung, by the way, not iPod --I don't know why I wrote that), I bet the one hundred bucks I don't have that I would sing along, with eyes closed.
.
There's an old song of with, I believe, strange lyrics (I don't know the title, but I bet Google does) : How much is that doggie in the window? The one that's waggling its tail. How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie for sale.
I'm thinking: That's scary. I'm lucky I got my taste set on some legend, like The Beatles. But then I'm curious whether it's possible The Beatleshood aren't always I Will, or Black Bird, or In My Life, or I Am The Walrus. Put aside that they are The Fab Four and some peculiar numbers emerge. Though not exactly some "doggies in the window", they are peculiar nonetheless. Michelle, my belle, these are words that go together well (I mean, really?).
Then there's I'll Get You. I can just imagine a weird, if not disturbing, scene. Paul and John, probably on either's flat, or some studio (not just some studio, obviously). One grabbed a guitar, the other followed. Having stumbled upon some chords, John pitched Paul some line, "How about: Imagine I'm in love with. It's easy cause I know. I've imagined I'm in love with you many many times before." And Paul went, "Perfect!"
Where's the (fill in some Killer Beatles here)? . But then again, when one is preconditioned with their legendary status, it's easy to take up all the songs as the works of legends, accordingly. Therefore, despite the recent enlightenment, I will from time to time find myself being ambushed by, say, firecamp acoustic, or some FM radio surprise, or the shuffling of an MP3 player (mine's Samsung, by the way, not iPod --I don't know why I wrote that), I bet the one hundred bucks I don't have that I would sing along, with eyes closed.
.
Monday, June 21, 2010
On Pixar's Day & Night
.
* Good opening...
* Heey, nice 2D-3D combo. That's new.
* Cooool, awesome with the metaphors!
* Whoooaaw! what a story!
* All that and a message,too? Geeeniuuuss!!!
.
* Good opening...
* Heey, nice 2D-3D combo. That's new.
* Cooool, awesome with the metaphors!
* Whoooaaw! what a story!
* All that and a message,too? Geeeniuuuss!!!
.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Pixar Keeps Getting Biggar
.
John Lasseter once declined Disney’s proposal to produce Toy Story sequel for DVD release --Disney-style second-class rate manufacture. He argued that Pixar has only one reason in minds to produce sequels: better stories. Toy Story 3 shows they still deliver that promise. After fifteen years since the first time the gang introduced themselves and you’ve got a friend in me still ring true.
When Pixar-Disney released the original Toy Story in 1995, I bought the ticket merely on the ground that it has a Walt Disney brand on it --a gesture of a loyal customer. Disney was on the mid chapter of its downfall. Its animated features were at best doing okay in box office race (Hello Pocahontas!). Their exploitation of cable TV downgraded them to mediocrity. Disney was in desperate hours and pixie dust just wouldn’t cut it. Who would have thought that Disney’s decision to outsource Pixar to bring the magic back to the kingdom would work like a charm? Maybe not even Disney and Pixar themselves realized at the time that two magic lamps are better than one.
Toy Story is such a tease I want to take a peek behind Pixar’s curtain. When the DVDs were finally released, I exhausted repetitively all their special feature contents. I take up readings on anything Pixar-related (I tell you, movie magazines, printing nothing but trivia, are the poorest source of all). Business industries, it turns out, can never get enough lesson on creativity and innovation from these storyheads (only cool stuffs are in these articles!). Pixar office setup: it’s practically a brainstormer in bricks and stones! Pixar people: They’re Donald Ducks in the flesh. Pixar approach: simulating face expression, camera movements, hair-fur-feather, lighting, water. They make experiments look like millennium party. It’s in their credo that every detail is worth sweating happily.
Since the release of Monster, Inc. I take Pixar’s next movie project way too seriously. I went through the upcoming of each release with the anxiety that the day Luxo’s light is dimming has come and Pixar can no longer keep up with the growing number of audiences’ inflating expectation. I’d feel terrible if that happens (I think I sound creepy). Time and time, from The Incredibles to Up, I stand absolutely corrected, which then leaves me with the guilt of ever having the nerve to lose faith in the first place (again with the creepy part).
David A. Price ended his biographical take on the company, in his book Pixar Touch, by likening it to teenagers taking off from their adolescent stage. One probable outcome of such situation is having stripped off of their playfulness and gradually head on to stagnancy. In other word, it’s Disney all over again. Price pointed out that Pixar’s next challenge is to not let that happen. It has been two years since the book is first released and Pixar --to borrow Prices’ perspective-- is stepping up to young adulthood. I am among those groups of people who are curious of how the real Pixar story will unfold.
In this third installment of Toy Story, subliminally or not, Pixar sets their first and oldest son Andy off to college. The plot: The judgment day that every toy dreads has come --the day they turned into throw-aways. (There is indeed always a stronger plot to grow for any sequel Pixar wishes to produce). The Story: the gang learned about the truth of how their Andy feels of them via a bumpier ride --unlike the prequels, direct contact with real-live throw-aways. The end: Andy tenderly bequeathed his story friends to a child neighbor that merits his own level of narrative masterdom.
Pixar’s specialty --solid plots, body of story that rocks, an end rich of grace-- are all there in the right places. If anything, those are evidences that Pixar are nowhere losing their touch. Such craftsmanship cannot be an accident. And for hypothesis sake, Andy’s elegant decision might clue you in something about Pixar’s actual development report card. A good apple comes from a good trees, right? I hope so. If it does, Price’s optimistic scenario of adult Pixar may have started to take place after all. That’s great to know.
After the last line of the credit title left the screen I let out a long exhale, once again being ever glad to be proven wrong. Cars 2 is next in the pipeline and already my heart starts racing.
.
(warning: spoiler inside)
Toy Story is such a tease I want to take a peek behind Pixar’s curtain. When the DVDs were finally released, I exhausted repetitively all their special feature contents. I take up readings on anything Pixar-related (I tell you, movie magazines, printing nothing but trivia, are the poorest source of all). Business industries, it turns out, can never get enough lesson on creativity and innovation from these storyheads (only cool stuffs are in these articles!). Pixar office setup: it’s practically a brainstormer in bricks and stones! Pixar people: They’re Donald Ducks in the flesh. Pixar approach: simulating face expression, camera movements, hair-fur-feather, lighting, water. They make experiments look like millennium party. It’s in their credo that every detail is worth sweating happily.
Since the release of Monster, Inc. I take Pixar’s next movie project way too seriously. I went through the upcoming of each release with the anxiety that the day Luxo’s light is dimming has come and Pixar can no longer keep up with the growing number of audiences’ inflating expectation. I’d feel terrible if that happens (I think I sound creepy). Time and time, from The Incredibles to Up, I stand absolutely corrected, which then leaves me with the guilt of ever having the nerve to lose faith in the first place (again with the creepy part).
David A. Price ended his biographical take on the company, in his book Pixar Touch, by likening it to teenagers taking off from their adolescent stage. One probable outcome of such situation is having stripped off of their playfulness and gradually head on to stagnancy. In other word, it’s Disney all over again. Price pointed out that Pixar’s next challenge is to not let that happen. It has been two years since the book is first released and Pixar --to borrow Prices’ perspective-- is stepping up to young adulthood. I am among those groups of people who are curious of how the real Pixar story will unfold.
In this third installment of Toy Story, subliminally or not, Pixar sets their first and oldest son Andy off to college. The plot: The judgment day that every toy dreads has come --the day they turned into throw-aways. (There is indeed always a stronger plot to grow for any sequel Pixar wishes to produce). The Story: the gang learned about the truth of how their Andy feels of them via a bumpier ride --unlike the prequels, direct contact with real-live throw-aways. The end: Andy tenderly bequeathed his story friends to a child neighbor that merits his own level of narrative masterdom.
Pixar’s specialty --solid plots, body of story that rocks, an end rich of grace-- are all there in the right places. If anything, those are evidences that Pixar are nowhere losing their touch. Such craftsmanship cannot be an accident. And for hypothesis sake, Andy’s elegant decision might clue you in something about Pixar’s actual development report card. A good apple comes from a good trees, right? I hope so. If it does, Price’s optimistic scenario of adult Pixar may have started to take place after all. That’s great to know.
After the last line of the credit title left the screen I let out a long exhale, once again being ever glad to be proven wrong. Cars 2 is next in the pipeline and already my heart starts racing.
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)