24/12/2013: Christmas Eve WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

This is Christmas Eve WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics…

For the evening we are in, here's timeless and epic Komar & Melamid project The Most Unwanted Music composed for DIA, NYC - a homage to… well… the Christmas Jingle starts at 8:35
http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/04/a-scientific-at/


A powerful visual of Christmas Eve around the world via The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304475004579278183520964564


And on to truly sublime - a Christmas Poem by my favourite poet of all times: Joseph Brodsky:

***
DECEMBER 24, 1971

When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi.
At the grocers’ all slipping and pushing.
Where a tin of halvah, coffee-flavored,
is the cause of a human assault-wave
by a crowd heavy-laden with parcels:
each one his own king, his own camel.

Nylon bags, carrier bags, paper cones,
caps and neckties all twisted up sideways.
Reek of vodka and resin and cod,
orange mandarins, cinnamon, apples.
Floods of faces, no sign of a pathway
toward Bethlehem, shut off by blizzard.

And the bearers of moderate gifts
leap on buses and jam all the doorways,
disappear into courtyards that gape,
though they know that there’s nothing inside there:
not a beast, not a crib, nor yet her,
round whose head gleams a nimbus of gold.

Emptiness. But the mere thought of that
brings forth lights as if out of nowhere.
Herod reigns but the stronger he is,
the more sure, the more certain the wonder.
In the constancy of this relation
is the basic mechanics of Christmas.

That’s what they celebrate everywhere,
for its coming push tables together.
No demand for a star for a while,
but a sort of good will touched with grace
can be seen in all men from afar,
and the shepherds have kindled their fires.

Snow is falling: not smoking but sounding
chimney pots on the roof, every face like a stain.
Herod drinks. Every wife hides her child.
He who comes is a mystery: features
are not known beforehand, men’s hearts may
not be quick to distinguish the stranger.

But when drafts through the doorway disperse
the thick mist of the hours of darkness
and a shape in a shawl stands revealed,
both a newborn and Spirit that’s Holy
in your self you discover; you stare
skyward, and it’s right there:

a star.
***

And another one from Brodsky: 50 years old today:

50 years since: Joseph Brodsky's Christmas 1963:

***
Рождество 1963

Волхвы пришли. Младенец крепко спал.
Звезда светила ярко с небосвода.
Холодный ветер снег в сугроб сгребал.
Шуршал песок. Костер трещал у входа.
Дым шел свечой. Огонь вился крючком.
И тени становились то короче,
то вдруг длинней. Никто не знал кругом,
что жизни счет начнется с этой ночи.
Волхвы пришли. Младенец крепко спал.
Крутые своды ясли окружали.
Кружился снег. Клубился белый пар.
Лежал младенец, и дары лежали.
***

What can I say, but that Christmas is, as Brodsky described it:
"Emptiness. But the mere thought of that
brings forth lights as if out of nowhere."


Merry Christmas to all!

2/11/2013: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

This is this week's only WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics post - sorry folks, busy weekend full of work and a major announcement coming up Monday am.

A NY Times article that resonates on ALL levels with what I have to say about the modern state of intellectual inquiry and our society's willingness to face the truth: ideas, thoughts, words, creativity, innovation, insight - these things are not free. They require effort, input, dedication. And if you value them - you should be prepared to pay for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?_r=0

The deeper issue here is whether the 'free' nature of these goods in the age of internet is destroying the quality of these goods being supplied? I don't have an answer to this, but I can tell you that I have never had a free lunch that I actually enjoyed. If something has a value, it is never free. If something is free, it has no value.

Many of you have noticed that I significantly cut back on commenting in the media and focused on only such 'free' activities which grant me the power to enjoy real freedom to express myself (this blog, for example) and/or which allow me to do real good (non-profit IMHO work). The reason for this is that I no longer find much satisfaction in what I do.

So can 'free' (or exposure-focused) work be of value?


But that is too close to economics, to be here in a WLASze post, so let's backtrack into arts and sciences…

Those who follow my weekend posts know that I am a bit of a fan of space-defining private Japanese architecture. And here's another example, from a public building, but still on human (private) scale:
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/10/29/the-sea-library-in-awashima-by-etat-arkitekter/
Two images: the table first

and then a wonderful counter-point of the wave-faced reflecting wall:

This is a seamless integration of space (room and framed gardens beyond the window), object (table, wall), subject (wave: water to light), light (window to wall or table), personal (constrained space) to total (open-ended reflection in the wall merging with all dimensions of the space around it)… It is an infinite within the finite… Brodskovian:

"Я обнял эти плечи и взглянул
на то, что оказалось за спиною,
и увидал, что выдвинутый стул
сливался с освещенною стеною.
Был в лампочке повышенный накал,
невыгодный для мебели истертой,
и потому диван в углу сверкал
коричневою кожей, словно желтой.
Стол пустовал. Поблескивал паркет.
Темнела печка. В раме запыленной
застыл пейзаж. И лишь один буфет
казался мне тогда одушевленным.

Но мотылек по комнате кружил,
и он мой взгляд с недвижимости сдвинул.
И если призрак здесь когда-то жил,
то он покинул этот дом. Покинул."

Or in english version:

I threw my arms about those shoulders, glancing
at what emerged behind that back,
and saw a chair pushed slightly forward,
merging now with the lighted wall.
The lamp glared too bright to show
the shabby furniture to some advantage,
and that is why sofa of brown leather
shone a sort of yellow in a corner.
The table looked bare, the parquet glossy,
the stove quite dark, and in a dusty frame
a landscape did not stir. Only the sideboard
seemed to me to have some animation.
But a moth flitted round the room,
causing my arrested glance to shift;
and if at any time a ghost had lived here,
he now was gone, abandoning this house.


And while we are on 'spaces' and architecture and imagery, here are the images from the Open House Dublin 2013 photography competition: http://www.flickr.com/photos/irish_architecture_foundation/galleries/72157636936238606/


And to round off, on science side, two posts on AI and the role it plays and might play in the future…

Via BusinessInsider, the story how use of computers in chess training is shifting the nature of the game when played by humans. Now, loads of good stuff here, but the key to me is the point that grandmasters now have to be more creative in their plays, since computerised training of their opponents assigns disadvantage to predictable opening moves and strategies. In other words, indirectly, computer-assisted training leads to increased creativity...
http://www.businessinsider.com/anand-on-how-computers-have-changed-chess-2013-11
This is a classic example of what I termed computer-enabled innovation and creativity - not a system that operates by design, but a system that generates, promotes, advances human innovation.

As computer-assisted cooking does as well, except in this case, it is computer-generated creativity… http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672444/try-a-recipe-devised-by-ibms-supercomputer-chef
I had a pleasure engaging with IBM few years ago in developing new ideas for using Watson's capabilities in finance and insurance, but I never could have imagined that the most powerful AI system can be used to write new recipes for the kitchen…


Enjoy. I will be cooking Uzbeki Plov tomorrow for the family… Computer un-assisted cooking and a recipe that is centuries old...

13/7/2013: WLASze Part 2: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and Zero Economics

This is the second post from my WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics.

The first post is available here and is referenced in several links below.


The Missing Link is something (someone) many have claimed to have seen, and no one really needs to find. Another missing link - the one no one expected to exist, but which has tremendous significance to our future, as reported in Science Daily has been established by two researchers. A deep link between two seemingly unconnected areas of modern science has been discovered by researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Geneva. Basic story is that physicist Dr Nicolas Brunner and mathematician Professor Noah Linden uncovered "a deep and unexpected connection between their two fields of expertise: game theory and quantum physics".

Game theory "gives a mathematical framework for describing a situation of conflict or cooperation between... rational players". "Quantum mechanics, the theory describing the physics of small objects." Dr Brunner and Professor Linden showed that the game theory and quantum mechanics co-share same concepts, such as the concept of locality. By bringing quantum mechanics models into game theoretic setting, the games outcomes were transformed, opening up a possibility for co-sharing of quantum technologies in a game-theoretic setting, e.g in the case of auctions. I would not be surprised if this opens up some AI opportunities in the future too...

Paywall-free link to paper is here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1173v1.pdf


Quantum Physics might be our only hope in resolving the game played by Covanta and Dublin City Managers against the residents of the Dublin Bay-adjoining communities - the game of turning Poolbeg peninsula into a complete toxic dump. But should some magic get us rid of the Covanta crowd and their Grand Incinerator, there are some ideas we can deploy around Poolbeg. One example - get rid of the industrial wasteland by converting the space into habitable and social space.


While on the theme of liveable architecture, here's a lovely conceptual modern low-density house, from Argentinian practice.


More on architecture. From small scale to large. And where else do they do large as Large? Of course, in China.

There is some strange fascination in China with lattice architecture form. Perhaps it is purity of mathematical abstraction - the non-threatening semiotics of pure maths? Social escapism in the seemingly structured and orderly? Or is it the historical nostalgia to lattice as a form of space capture or, for some, people capture? I am not sure. But it does look like much of contemporary 'visionary' architecture in China is about lattice constructs…


Enough of buildings, let's switch to art.

One of my all-time favourite painters [I share this with Jean-Luc Godard, who is not my favourite film maker at all], under-appreciated and under-rated Nicolas de Staël. I sadly missed his exhibition in NYC. Here's his Méditerranée, Le Lavandou, 1952, Oil on canvas, 65 by 81 cm.

De Stael is about bold shape, brushstroke and even bolder use of shadow and light, and colour. He is subtly unbalanced in composition and boldly unbalanced in geometry - two juxtapositions that were similar to Morandi and some other contemporaries. But De Stael also knows depth - brilliantly so. He is a master of abstract landscape or rather space-scape as he transformed the use of landscape perspective to other compositional works, including still-life.


Into an entirely different world next: Brilliant work by the Iraqi artist Adel Abidin, who resides in Helsinki:  Symphony [Symphony of Death], 2012, one channel video installation, 3’15’’, video still

And a good interview with him here: http://www.guernicamag.com/art/bird-and-stone/


Next to sculpture: Bruno Walpoth Wood Carved Sculptures by one of the brilliant Italian sculptors of today:

Joseph Brodsky: "Now the purpose of evolution is the survival neither of the fittest nor of the defeatist. Were it the former, we would have to settle for Arnold Schwarzenegger; were it the latter, which ethically is a more sound proposition, we'd have to make do with Woody Allen. The purpose of evolution, believe it or not, is beauty, which survives it all and generates truth simply by being a fusion of the mental and the sensual." He'd disagree in absolute beauty being embodied in anything but a word. But do take the above images in consideration, will you?.. They are an unspoken word, a Nostalgic word of sorts. They convey thought…


Having tied Nostlagia - a major theme in my first part of this weekend's WLASze (Part 1 linked above) - to Walpoth's work, now to the poetic Nostalgia of abandoned spaces and beyond photography - in painting - Matt Bahen 

Good write up about the painter: http://www.akrylic.com/2012/05/just-before-the-dawn-the-work-of-matt-bahen/ . Recall Richard Artschwager in Part 1 of this week's WLASze, and remember Richard Diebenkorn here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/06/2862013-wlasze-part-1-weekend-links-on.html - it's a cross of themes.


Having posted a link on the debate between causality and correlation (in the Part 1 of WLSAze linked above), let's dig slightly deeper into the nature of inquiry. Here's a slightly windy post on the topic of scientific vs religious systems of thought by E.M. Johnson for Scientific American. You have to read a bit before hitting the main point: "Science is not concerned with truth, it is concerned with doubt. As I’ve discussed before, it is this that makes science and religious faith fundamentally different."

Much of the rest of the post is also interesting. It focuses, in my view, on why science as a system (and religion too) abhors doubt. The author does not say so outright, but I can tell you - doubt is not a publishable concept in science. Majority of peer reviewed publications are on topics of affirmation of empirical or theoretical conjectures. Try writing a critique, doubting something without offering an affirmative counter-proposition. Likelihood is - you will get an outright rejection letter.


Enjoy! And do come back to this blog...

6/7/2013: WLASze Part 2: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and Zero Economics

The send part of my regular WLASze (Weekly Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics). The first part is available here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/07/672013-wlasze-part-1-weekend-links-on.html


Let's start with a Prime Ministerial take on Summer in Moscow

via Russia's Dmitry Medvedev @MedvedevRussiaE on twitter and http://instagram.com/p/baqMWzA_MX/

My reports suggest that the city is, per usual in such weather, is being abandoned for dachas, which makes it great time to be in the city. Moscow has this most outstanding quality to it when it is deserted by the crowds - a city full of signs of its tremendous speed and energy, yet devoid of both. Walking its empty (well, nearly empty, as it is Moscow after all) boulevards, city centre streets, in near-solitude. A museum visited on the 'Members-only' days… a park caught in the stillness of a storm approaching… a train station in the dead of the night…

As Brodsky put it: "Loneliness cubes a man at random." (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-urania/) Except in a good way...

On Brodsky's Urania (linked above) - more threading of the needle: Auden's http://poetry.rapgenius.com/W-h-auden-the-fall-of-rome-lyrics#lyric
"Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast."


An excellent link via @farnamstreet to Clayton Christensen comments on big data and how ideas emerge interview with The Economist:
http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/06/how-great-ideas-emerge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+68131+%28Farnam+Street%29
Quote: "most of our education is organized the same way – silos. One way for individuals to improve decisions and ideas is to intersect the main ideas from the big disciplines."
Gels with my article in last week's Sunday Times:
http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/07/272013-sunday-times-june-30-2013-irish.html

More on the issue of links between humanities, education and sciences and relating also to my Sunday Times article from last week:
http://qz.com/98892/the-humanities-are-not-in-crisis-in-fact-theyre-doing-great/

Yet more on the same topic of broader thinking: https://theconversation.com/thinking-critically-on-critical-thinking-why-scientists-skills-need-to-spread-15005

Thinking critically on critical thinking: why scientists' skills need to spread - the article takes the half of the complete dimension in education by arguing that science skills should be spread wider across non-scientific fields of inquiry. I agree. But this is now an accepted wisdom: artists do use scientific language and tools. The opposite direction is yet to be accepted in education and academia and even applied sciences…


And here's an example of poor use of visual and signifier tools that comes from 'management sciences'. A hideously MBA-ish image of 'Inspiration' based on uninspiring clutter of pop-icons and half-finished 'thoughts' that creates more confusion than clarity and is brought to an even more striking vividness by the 'pensive' nature of an 'artsy thinker' pondering the banality over the space of an 'academist' blackboard... Yeeks!
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130611015532-15077789-8-simple-ways-to-inspire-yourself-at-work?_mSplash=1



Stay tuned for more links in part 3 forthcoming tonight.

22/6/2013: Weekend Reading Links: Part 2 of 3

The second post (of three) of my regular weekly feature of the Weekend Reading Links On Arts, Sciences and Zero Economics (see the first post here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/06/2162013-weekend-reading-links-part-1.html):

Some interesting long-exposure photos: http://likes.com/misc/amazing-longexposure-pics-of-star-trails?v=eyJjbGlja19pZCI6IDExNzI1NDE3MDMsICJwb3N0X2lkIjogMjUxMTQ1OTZ9 These remind me of the dynamics of Hurst's spin paintings series and a circular geometry with fractal qualities of Frantisek Kupka.


Some stunning architecture next:

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/tatiana-bilbao-studio-visit-interview/
That 'gabriel orozco house', roca blanca, mexico, 2008 project evokes Casa Malaparte. my favourite house in all of the world... well, one of the most favourite ones, because it has to compete with Neutra(s) and Mies Van Der Rohe(s) and so on...

Same forceful linear projection into the landscape, same blending into the physical geometry of the landscape and same play on contrast of height and angularity:

Where science meets art: Images of Cosmographic Maps Chart Galaxies and Superclusters in Local Universe
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/cosmography-maps/?cid=co8792474 via @wiredscience and @adamspacemann
I love the term 'local universe'...  Awesome maps show you galaxies and cosmic clusters... and wonkishly clinical 'flow' map... of the 'local universe'

Back on Earth, 'local universes' are moving, again...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130617104614.htm
Just as G8 announced bringing closer (via trade) North America and Europe, so in geology the process of driving Europe closer to the USofA et al is on... so non-economic quote of the day is "This break-up and reformation of supercontinents has happened at least three times, over more than four billion years, on Earth. The Iberian subduction will gradually pull Iberia towards the United States over approximately 220 million years." I dare say, those visas one day will be done with and then Dublin Airport US immigration clearance desks will have to be abandoned.


http://www.urbannexusinitiative.com/ is hosting an exhibition on Liffey: A boulevard of rooms + corridors: http://www.urbannexusinitiative.com/May-2013(2689947).htm This really is worth much more than just few web pages, so let's hope the folks at Urban Nexus get their act together and produce a killer site with images, interaction etc...
As Joseph Brodsky noted:
"What do you love most of all?
Rivers and streets - the long things of life"
Liffey is a tortured river, defaced by modern and contemporary ugliness and decay in places, as well as by spots of rather banal old architecture too, yet highlighted by moments of beauty and by more recent city efforts to bring it to life. It is alive and it is stunningly beautiful as a counterpoint to and reaffirmation of what we, humans, have wrecked around it: good and bad. It is one of the three core natural attractors that create a physically visual pull of Dublin (the other two being Wicklow mountains and the Dublin Bay, the latter being equally defaced by our inability to stop abusing the commons of nature).


The third post of links for this weekend (I warned you I have many this time around) is coming up, so stay tuned.

14/6/2013: Weekend reading links: Part 1

Weekend reading links as usual, and as in previous week - in two posts.

Let's start with some fun. After a week of reading economics on this blog, why not leaf through 12 "random and obscure laws" that still exist. I know the USofA is a liberty paradise but… allegedly, not in Maine and not when it comes to Christmas lights and wreaths… or in Wisconsin as it goes for margarine...
http://likes.com/facts/totally-random-and-obsucre-laws-that-actually-exist?pid=95328&utm_source=mylikes&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ml&utm_term=25124720


My favourite visualisation of Big Data this time around comes from North Korea

And do check out the rest of the fab pics here…
http://likes.com/facts/wtf-north-korea?v=eyJjbGlja19pZCI6IDExMTkzMDIyNzksICJwb3N0X2lkIjogMjUxMjQ3MjB9

Note: on a serious side, I do find the above pic almost artistic - in the same vein as Andreas Gursky's real art: http://artblart.com/tag/andreas-gursky-tokyo-stock-exchange/

which (the above) also came from DRNK… and his very famous
http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/gursky-99cent.jpg
My students from UCD courses in Masters in Management programme would remember the linked image.


From the sublime above to the atrocious below: The Kitsch of Ashgabat http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/06/the-city-of-white-marble-ashgabat-turkmenistan/100528/
My favourite is

The bizarre, tortured, almost shredded geometry of the totalitarian PhysEd comes to memory. No, the true derangement of the tyrant is measured not so much by thousands starved or banished or destroyed, but by grandiose waste of beauty, the more forced, the more permanent, the better. It is hard to explain, but violence to intrinsically beautiful is more characteristic of the delusion than violence to human. perhaps because nature usually poses no political threat, thus defacing nature is purely violent without any purpose.

Perhaps this would do for a better explanation: by Joseph Brodsky

 

Space is memory. The above photo records the former to sustain the latter.


A more modern - almost real-time - Duchampianization in Cyprus:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/us-cyprus-toilets-idUSBRE9590IA20130610
and it's inspiration:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573
I could have chosen to term this Duchampianism - and almost did - except some attribute Duchamp's inspiration to a positive value - the ready made reproduction of the curvature similar to Constantin Brancusi's marbles, which obviously would not have been an appropriate allegory for Nicosia's installation. So perhaps we have amore ad hoc ready made analogy in two pieces, hence, Duchampianization term.


Take this quote for a teaser: "Most people have no clue that quantum computing exists. Even fewer know how it works. But once you understand it, and its vast processing power, you'll understand that this new Digital Age we're living in has barely scratched the surface of the computer potential."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-quantum-computing-2013-6#ixzz2WE8s9ZjW
You will want to read more... I know - I did. And here's the source: http://dwave.wordpress.com/ Just awesome!


Two sets of links on time:

The first one is of two watches - the diametrically opposing works of art:
2013 - Vianney Halter

http://basel.watchprosite.com/show-forumpost/fi-636/pi-5864183/ti-862138/
But do watch the video - a fascinating story, also told in the article linked below:

http://live.wsj.com/video/the-most-important-watch-of-2013/62A235B4-BF3A-4BA0-B500-21048E3B3C30.html?mod=WSJ_article_outbrain&obref=obnetwork#!62A235B4-BF3A-4BA0-B500-21048E3B3C30
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324063304578523182943531780.html


And Ukraine's brilliant entry to Basel 2013:
http://basel.watchprosite.com/page-slide.new/ti-867538/pi-5909858/msid-26618318/fi-/nalbumforum.all_bLoB_s-/
and more pics:
http://basel.watchprosite.com/?show=photo&fi=636&imgid=3355653&msid=26618318&ti=867538&pi=5909858


But time (we are on dimensions theme here - following the note about space) is also linked to memory:

http://lifehacker.com/how-your-brain-perceives-time-and-how-to-use-it-to-you-511184192

And thus - to round up the first post of weekend reading links: of space and time... together:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19072