Cloaking device . . . off

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1. Chinese media are abuzz over the “mysterious beauty in black” seen behind President Obama during his visit to Shanghai. It turns out her name is Wang Zifei and she is a graduate student at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.

2. Another cool China link: artist Liu Bolin becomes invisible by painting himself exactly like the background.

3. Finalists in National Geographic’s International Photography Contest. My favorite is the one of the New Zealand farmer.

4. Crispy Gamer’s Ten No-Bullshit Rules for buying video games for kids. Crispy Gamer is increasingly becoming one of my favorite gaming sites. These guys can write.

5. Lev Grossman picks the six greatest fantasy novels of all time.

Invisible spoke to me more potently than many of Auster’s other recent works.

Don’t misunderstand, Auster again explored themes of identity, chance, and reality, but this novella in particular struck me as being far more concerned with character.  Moreover, though the story jumped around in time and made use of several perspectives, it was one of his more linear stories in quite some time—that is, it definitely had a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I also appreciated the format in which he chose to deliver the story.  Auster is always one to experiment with narrative technique, and Invisible’s endeavor succeeded.  Sometimes such fiddling can distract the reader, but not with Invisible.  The shifts felt organic and added to the overall story, making it far more interesting than had it been written conventionally.

Perhaps the most electrifying aspect of Invisible was the pure mystery involved.  I don’t want to go into detail for fear of spoiling any plot points, but Auster did a magnificent job of providing enough evidence to make you scratch your head and question your allegiances.

The only complaint I have—albeit a minor one—is that the book ended rather abruptly, even by Auster’s standards.  It had to conclude somehow, I suppose, and it’s always better to leave the reader wanting more, but I think a very interesting discussion could ensue analyzing why Auster chose to end the book with the specific scene he did.  I was also surprised by the sexual explicitness in this work.  I’ve never read anything quite so sexually descriptive from Auster, but the scenes ended up playing a very important role in the question of character and were absolutely warranted.  He even added a line about writers having to be willing to make themselves uncomfortable if they wanted to be any good, and I wonder if that was a nod to the gratuitousness.

All in all, if you’re an Auster fan, I think you’ll find this outing enjoyable and challenging.  If you’ve never read Auster before, you have to accept him as a writer who demands much from his readers and offers few answers in return.  However, he is a superb writer and he will make you think, which is unusual in today’s books.

So i’ve finally decided!! I’m submitting my application to University of Western Sydney for Bachelor of Social Sciences Peace and Development!  It was a tough decision between that and Bachelor of Communications Journalism but i finally decided. I think it would be a great thing to be formally trained in an area i am passionate in. I’m really looking forward to going to University, as i really never thought i would get a chance to do it.

Through volunteering with Invisible Children i have uncovered a side of me that id never really knew existed. I want to continue to expand, grow and further my knowledge so i can in turn be of more help to those who require it the most.

So…Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes are in the air for me and my life and i really am excited. I’m going to apply to start mid year so that way i have around 6 months to get my medication settled and hopefully all my ongoing tests done and be cleared for start June 2010!

Nici nu stiu cum sa incep acest post. Pentru ca e inutil. Pur si simplu. Nu ca ar fi ceva de capul celorlalte. Dar cum sa vorbesti despre ceva ce aproape nu exista, ma rog, despre oamenii invizibili de pe yahoo messenger. Pe sistemul “eu sunt un om foarte ocupat, de-aia intru direct pe invisible cand ma autentific (“loghez” pentru cei care nu sunt preocupati de limba romana) pe yahoo messenger”, oamenii gasesc tot felul de motive pentru a sta pe internet dar nu chiar, asa, un pic mascat, stim bine ca un pic de mister atrage intotdeauna. Pe cine atrage? Pai, cel putin pe cei care folosesc servicii care ii detecteaza pe cei care intra pe invisible. Si uite asa n-aveam ce face intr-o zi decat sa-mi dovedesc, nu stiu daca mie, voua sau celor care stau pe invisible ca motivele celor din urma nu sunt foarte rationale. La intrebarile:

1. Tu stai pe invisible?

2. Daca da : de ce stai pe invisible?

Daca nu : ce parere ai despre cei care stau pe invisible?

3. Folosesti vreun serviciu gen ydetector pentru a-i verifica pe altii?

mi-au raspuns 23 de persoane (din lista mea de ym – sex F : 8 , sex M : 15) care se intamplau sa fie online in momentul chestionarii. N-am calculat reprezentativitatea desi rezultatele sunt destul de reprezentative, nu incape indoiala si nici n-o sa impart rezultatele pe sexe pentru ca nu mi se pare relevant. Rezultatele sunt :

• Pentru intrebarea 1. :  au raspuns cu DA – 13 persoane si cu NU – 10 persoane.

• Pentru intrebarea 2. :  – cele 13 persoane de la intrebarea 1 au dat raspunsuri ca:  (daca s-a repetat un anumit raspuns nu l-am mai scris)

Pentru ca atunci cand stau pe available nu vb decat cu prietenii; stau pe invisible ca sa nu se observe cat stau de mult pe mess.

Ca sa nu ma deranjeze cate 5 oameni cu ce fac atunci cand intru pe mess si am treaba.

Atunci cand sunt ocupata sau ma uit la un film.

Pt ca mi-e lene sa scot bifatul de la logarea pe invisible.

Atunci cand lucrez ca sa nu ma vada clientii daca am depasit termenul proiectului.

Nici eu nu stiu uneori; ca sa vorbesc doar cu anumite persoane sa nu fiu abordata de altele.

Cand vreau sa vorbesc doar cu cateva persoane si nu vreau sa dau permanently offline la ceilalti.

Ca sa evit anumite persoane.

- celelalte 10 persoane care au raspuns cu NU la 1. au spus  despre cei care stau pe invisible :

Je m’en fish; nu abordez oamenii pe mess.

Au motivele lor si nu ma deranjeaza.

Ca sunt neinformati; atunci cand esti online nu e obligatoriu sa raspunzi.

Sunt boi.

Proasta ca si cei care nu te mai baga in seama de ani de zile decat la nevoie.

N-am nicio parere ; nu fac diferente.

• Pentru intrebarea 3. au raspuns : cu DA – 13 persoane si cu NU – 10 persoane.

Pot sa mai zic in plus ca aproape toti cei (care mi-au raspuns la intrebari) care stau pe invisible folosesc si un serviciu gen ydetector pentru a-i verifica pe altii. Eu ma gandesc ca daca are omul treaba nu intra pe messenger, sau daca are foarte multa treaba nu intra deloc. Daca totusi are treaba si vrea sa stea pe messenger de ce suporta sa aiba asemenea specimene in lista de ym care-si desfasoara intreaga viata sociala pe internet si care deranjeaza incontinuu? Ei nu au auzit de delete+ignore? Un fel de shift+delete. Si apoi pentru ce s-a inventat messenger-ul? Initial pentru a vorbi cu persoanele cunoscute si apropiate care sa zicem erau din alta tara, alt oras pentru o perioada mai scurta sau mai lunga de timp. Nu pentru a citi status-uri, a vedea poze de la avatar sau de cat timp e idle icsulescu. Nici nu se spune : vorbesc pe messenger, ci STAU pe messenger. Imi venise adineauri o chestie : culmea egocentrism-ului sau oare a singuratatii?! : sa-ti pui status cand esti pe invisible.

I used to sing in church a lot. I am not a soloist, but I do very well in a group. Because I did well in a group, most people assumed I would do well as a soloist and I sang a lot in both churches. I was never good enough for anything beyond the older people who attended and could barely hear me (haha), but I did enjoy it.

This was the last song I planned to sing in church. I chose it because I felt like nobody saw the real me. I bought the music, practiced it, and planned to sing it in mid-October, 2007. Unfortunately, I found the real me at the end of September, so I never sang it publicly. But I still like it, because it reminds me of how lost and lonely and invisible I felt, and then I think, now I do see the real me, and many others do now, too. And it is wonderful and beautiful to finally set myself free.

“The most demanding part of living a life time as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one’s most intimate sensitivity.”
—Annie Truitt

El nuevo libro de Paul Auster, que en España publica Anagrama, promete. Estoy inmersa en su lectura y os aseguro que recupera al Auster de los viejos tiempos, ese de ‘La noche del oráculo’ o ‘El libro de las ilusiones’. Personajes bien trazados, la literatura como telón de fondo, y escritores como protagonistas de una historia contada a varias voces y que se mueve entre los convulsos años 60 y la actualidad. De nuevo, crea esa atmósfera ‘Auster’, con personajes carismáticos y misteriosos y mucho amor, de ese intenso pero no siempre triunfal que tanto le gusta al autor de Brooklyn. En Estados Unidos, ‘Invisible’ ya está recibiendo buenas críticas. Entre ellas, de The New York Times. Aquí dejo el enlace para el que esté interesado en leer la crítica. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Martin-t.html

Paul Auster da un salto literario en su nueva novela: Invisible (Anagrama). Esta vez el autor neoyorquino se sirve de tres narradores para contar una historia que oscila entre 1967 y 2007. Es la vida de un veinteañero que sueña con ser poeta y que conoce a una pareja de franceses, a partir de lo cual su vida se precipita hacia un juego perverso de ilusión, exploración, y peligro. Una historia marca Auster que Babelia avanza hoy en ELPAÍS.com, ya que la novela llegará a las librerías el 1 de diciembre.

No recuerdo en absoluto por qué me encontraba allí. Alguien debió invitarme, pero hace mucho que se me fue de la memoria quién pudo ser. Ni siquiera me acuerdo de dónde se celebraba la fiesta -en el norte o en el centro de la ciudad, en un apartamento o en un loft- ni de mis motivos para aceptar la invitación en primer lugar, porque por aquella época tendía a evitar las grandes congregaciones de gente, harto del barullo de la multitud que habla mucho y dice poco, azorado por la timidez que me sobrevenía en presencia de personas desconocidas. Pero aquella noche, inexplicablemente, dije que sí, y acompañé a mi olvidado amigo adondequiera que me llevase.

Lo que recuerdo es lo siguiente: en cierto momento de la velada, me encontré solo en un rincón de la estancia. Estaba fumando un cigarrillo mientras observaba a la gente, docenas y docenas de jóvenes cuerpos apiñados en los confines de aquel espacio, oyendo la estruendosa mezcla de palabras y risas, preguntándome qué demonios hacía allí y pensando que tal vez era hora de marcharme. Había un cenicero sobre un radiador a mi izquierda, y al volverme para apagar el pitillo vi que, sujeto en la palma de la mano de un desconocido, el receptáculo lleno de colillas se elevaba hacia mí. Sin que lo hubiera advertido, dos personas acababan de sentarse en el radiador, un hombre y una mujer, ambos mayores que yo, y sin duda con más años que ninguno de los que se encontraban en la habitación: él, alrededor de los treinta y cinco; ella, veintinueve o treinta.

Leer el primer capítulo de “Invisible”, de Paul Auster (PDF)

También  disponible en:
El poeta decapitado – lanacion.com
Novelista con alma de poeta – El Universal.com.mx.

I asked a friend how her weekend had been and she responded “I was so angry at one point! I went to Future Shop …”. Uh huh. I knew exactly what she was going to say because I’ve been there and experienced the same phenomenon that she did. When women of a certain age enter Future Shop electronics stores, they become invisible. Yes, I said invisible: hidden, unseen, imperceptible to the eye of a human sales clerk. If it had only happened to one woman at one store, I would have just believed it to be rude sales staff at that location ignoring the woman. But when it happens at different stores to different women, there’s only one logical conclusion: a nasty curse has been placed on the entire chain of stores that renders middle-aged women undetectable. The curse can be broken by getting a sales clerk to look you directly in the eye, but that’s easier said than done. If you are determined to shop at Future Shop anyway, here are some suggestions that may help you to receive some attention.

1. To indicate your genuine intent to buy, sing “money, money, money, money” while dancing down the aisle throwing real bills into the air. The other customers will no doubt turn to stare at you, causing the sales clerk to also look your way and accidentally make eye contact. Considering that young employees are generally unfamiliar with the concept of actual cash though, this ploy may be ineffective even if they can see you. Still, singing “debit, debit, debit, debit” while waving your card around just doesn’t have the same pizzazz.

2. Set up signs in front of the store entrance saying Mature Women’s Day and post a couple of your friends there to stop anyone not fitting that category from entering the store while you shop. With no other customers to distract them you may be able to get the staff’s attention, although you might still only be visible in a semitransparent, shimmering sort of way.

3. Wrestle a sales clerk to the floor and sit on his chest until he looks you in the eye. While definitely the most satisfying solution, remember that the young man won’t initially be able to see who is forcing him to the ground and, in his terror, he may put up quite a struggle. Plus, the police, who can always see you, normally frown on this type of action.

4. Have a coven of witches, fairies, gypsies and everyone else you feel might be helpful join you at the entrance to your local store on a busy Saturday afternoon and work together to try to lift the curse forever. Do it for the benefit of middle-aged women everywhere who have money to spend and would like to blow it on electronics.

If none of those options work out, do what my friend and I did and take your business elsewhere.

“Control, apparently, is not the answer. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, iffy, suggestive or spontaneous. What’s really needed is nothing more that a broad sense of what you are looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way.

Simply put, making art is chancy — it doesn’t mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.”

From Art and Fear, David Bayles & Ted Orland

author’s note:

“O world invisible, we view thee:
    O world intangible, we touch thee…”
            —  Francis Thompson, In No Strange Land
 

SPINNING EYES

Open eyes at birth closed
with the first whack
of life.  But I could still feel
with my red skin
and sensed
another world
right behind
my left elbow.

But every time I turned to see
that world turned away from me.
Don’t tell me “no”—I know
what I feel: this other world
slips like a wild animal
into the brush, and watches
as I work
to discern its markings
among the leaf shadows.

Perhaps this other world
is so hard to see
because this other world
is really not “other”.

Yet this desire of ours
is the best frustration:
I’ve turned, turned, turned

and though
never quite quick enough
to catch that other world
off guard—

all this dizzy motion
has me spinning, thus giving
momentumto my slow, steady
spiral—opening
upwards.

© 2009, Michael R. Patton
earnest audio
new steps

Thereby.  And thereby hangs a tale… or, in this case, tail.  We can see it this time.  Last time it turned up, it was invisible.

 Im; thereby, by it.  Let’s have a closer look at the individual signs.  First, i:

 A simple sound, and a simple sign to draw.  I usually start at the top, making a little curve which turns into the downstroke, a bit like a walking stick.  Then I start at the walking stick handle and draw a slightly outward-sloping line which curves back in again to meet the bottom of the first downstroke, and closes off the bottom of the stalk.  And a stalk is what it is, as this symbol represents the flowering head of a reed, like these ethereal beauties:

It’s difficult to capture such fragile beauty in stone or ink, but the originals do retain their purity of line:

Now, we’ve had m before, but it was in brackets because the scribe hadn’t actually put it in to the inscription, as often happens with common symbols in formulae, when you’ve got umpteen to bang out in the workshop and most people can’t read anyway.  M was the invisible owl.  We can see him now:

 There, I told you he was gorgeous.  He’s tricky to draw, but he has four basic characteristics; if you emphasise them in your hieroglyphic hand, he will be recognisable.  They are:  a flat head; a front-facing face (unusual for the Egyptians, who were always presenting their best profile to the observer); a wing that folds right across his breast, as though he’s glaring at you over the top of his arm in his cape, like Zorro, and a square bottom to his tail.  Put them all together, and you’ve got yourself an ancient Egyptian owl.

Back to the drawing board.  I usually start left to right with the flat line of the head, then a sharp turn downwards and a little curve in for the side of the head and neck, and a long curve at about 45 degrees for his back.  Then I come back up to his shoulder and make the deep right to left curve of his wing, swoop it round and just make his wing tip meet the line of his back.  The I go back to my starting-point at the top left of his head and come straight down the side of his head and neck, slope down and in for his body (doing it this way means you get the line the right side of his wing.  If you do the outline first and the wing second, you sometimes don’t leave enough room.)  Do a sharp dogleg in under his belly and a couple of little vees for his feathery legs, then down again for his tail, squaring it off at the bottom.  Then you can draw him a couple of little stick feet emerging from his feathers, and a nice deep v with curly ends for his eyes and beak.  He’s a complicated sign to draw, but he’s worth it.  And look what they could do with him when they had time:

I am so glad we can see him this time.  He’s beautiful!

So there we are, Line 3 of the offering formula well and truly dissected:

khet nebet nefret wabet ankhet netjer im:  “every good and pure thing by which a god lives”.

In the not-so-distant future, the technology may be customized to address many critical inspection needs. A normal handycam at a showroom

 A group of researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology in the US has developed a handheld camera that uses microwave signals to non-destructively peek inside materials and structures in real time.

The compact system can produce synthetically focused images of objects – at different planes in front of the camera – at speeds of up to 30 images per second. A laptop computer then collects the signal and displays the image in real-time for review. The entire system, powered by a battery similar to the size used in laptops, can run for several hours, rendering it portable. “In the not-so-distant future, the technology may be customized to address many critical inspection needs, including detecting defects in thermal insulating materials that are found in spacecraft heat insulating foam and tiles, space habitat structures, aircraft radomes and composite-strengthened concrete bridge members,” said Dr. Reza Zoughi, the Schlumberger Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering at Missouri S and T, who is leading the research effort.

The technology could help medical professionals detect and monitor a variety of skin conditions in humans, including cancer and burns. It could also help Homeland Security personnel detect concealed contraband (such as weapons). Even homeowners could see a direct benefit from the technology as it potentially could be used to detect termite damage.

The idea for developing a real-time, portable camera came to Zoughi in 1998 while he was on sabbatical in France. In 2007, Zoughi’s research group completed the first prototype and has spent the past two years increasing its size and overall efficiency.

“Unlike X-rays, microwaves are non-ionizing and may cause some heating effect,” Zoughi said. “However, the high sensitivity and other characteristics of this camera enables it to operate at a low-power level,” Zoughi added.

Currently, the camera operates in the transmission mode, meaning objects must pass between a transmitting source and its collector to be reviewed. The team is working on designing and developing a one-sided version of it, which will make it operate in a similar fashion to a video camera.

“Further down the road, we plan to develop a wide-band camera capable of producing 3D or holographic images,” Zoughi said.

Art in Community

At the Wall, Win Reason, View from Living Stone Studio, Camino, Pressure, 91, Footsteps in the Sea

November 21st 8-9:30pm

at The Tapestry

Live Music, Wine and Food

Artist in Attendance

]]> http://addicts4gadgets.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/transparent-toaster/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:34:48 +0000 swiff88 http://addicts4gadgets.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/transparent-toaster/

Keep an eye on your bread so that you can pop it up when it looks exactly the way you like it. It currently needs a bit of tweaking but we’ll let you know when it’s available for toasting heaven!

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