so, it's lea's birthday soon. i'm feeling a beach party complete with tents, fire, poi and beeeeeer.

ideas?

i'm happy to report our first mouse! i personally think that it is empirical evidence of spontaneous generation. we have a lot dirty clothes in dark corners and crumbs all over the place and this is known, according to that theory, to produce mice spontaneously.

that or the fact that we haven't had cats outside in a while and there's an open door to the backyard. but this one sounds so boring.

anyway, problem solved without killings, and it does seem it was a mouse, not a rat.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

this new type of man… turns his interest away from life, persons, nature, ideas — in short from everything that is alive; he transforms all life into things, including himself and the manifestations of his human faculties of reasoning, seeing, hearing, tasting, loving. sexuality becomes a technical skill; …feelings are flattened and sometimes substituted for by sentimentality; joy, the expression of intense aliveness, is replaced by “fun” or excitement; and whatever love and tenderness mankind has is directed toward machines and gadgets. the world becomes a sum of lifeless artifacts; from synthetic food to synthetic organs, the whole man becomes part of the total machinery that he controls and is simultaneously controlled by. he has no plan, no goal for life, except doing what the logic of technique determines him to do. he aspires to make robots as one of the greatest achievements of his technical mind, and some specialists assure us that the robot will hardly be distinguished from living men. this achievement will not seem so astonishing when mankind itself is hardly distinguishable from a robot.

the world of life has become a world of “no-life”; persons have becomes “non-persons”, a world of death.

~ erich fromm, the anatomy of human destructiveness, 1974



depressing, but important?

lecture nights worked out great. here's a small summary:

1) lecture on optics by Ash (12/02/2010)

an overall perspective on optics, light as a line, wave, particle, lenses, reflection, eyes, mirages. well, a portrait on how basic, every day phenomena are described and used to provide for our day to day optical tools. the web is a good place to start. good starting points would be How Stuff Works: Light and the wikipedia article on light.

2) lecture on visual sociology by Denis (14/02/2010)

a basic description of what visual sociology is, with a lot of examples. several stood out, but in my case the media choices for depicting certain events as non neutral, focusing on fake narratives, versus the real, usually less biased, narrative. for example, the death of Carlo Giuliani, where the picture chosen by the media told a completely different story. how these stories can be perceived, and also created as fiction, is part of what was discussed.

as another narrative example, Tatiana played The Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock, about a new york squat that sank under hard drugs influence.

overall, i think the experience was positive, with some discussion afterwards and most people wanting more. in fact, the lack of sleepy uninterested students made it more welcome than most talks when i was in uni. probably something about the informal setting.

the next one will probably be by Anxo about René Quinton and his work on the healing powers of salt water. Quinton, sometimes referred to as the french Darwin, is still credited today, as his "Quinton Plasma" is registered worldwide as verified working medication. no dates on when it will happen. despite the topic, Quinton was no quack.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

just another saturday night wtf

we've been having a few fires outside lately, and were treated to some fire poi by tatiana and lea :)

this friday the 12th feb will be super-fantastic geeky lecture night. 

i will be talking a bit about optics and denis will be talking about his studies in sociology. 

by niklas from sweden