Chimp Evolution

Chimp won. Ok. Hail Chimp! No sour grapes. I've rooted, obviously, for Kerry, but I don't mind. Who are us, poor Brazilian liberals, to know what the best is for US? I’ve been following reds and blues opinions, and I've noticed that all of them have been sold a bill of goods. Sure, Hiawatha Bray, from Boston Globe, pushed a little too hard, but I also don't think that US citizens are losing the American Dream. Many liberals are quoting Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" as a way to explain that the defeat were due a moral values confrontation. Hey, the Scopes trial is history now, people! (Strange that the new sally of the creationists is coming from technogeek gurus, as George Gilder, while the best evolutionist rebuttal came from National Geographic Magazine, a supposedly conservative outlet.) The reality is much more complex than red neck counties and latte drinkers strongholds, and the liberals are wrong if they play the Manicheism game. Against all odds, David Brooks, from The New York Times, has shot a principled view: In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues. Yes, the reality is definitely not black and white or red and blue.
UPDATE: Jim Lindgren, from The Volokh Conspiracy, remembers that John Scopes based his teachings on George Hunter's "Civic Biology" (1914), a book about eugenics and white genetic superiority. Go figure.

[ Paul Westerberg - Looking Up In Heaven ]

Skype Over Beethoven

Now I'm talking with my friend Mark Abene through Skype. He is in Queens, NY, and I'm in São Paulo, SP. This little piece of VoIP tchotchkes made this miraculous bridge happens, I can tell you. I can hear a chain gang busting into Mark's house carrying several bags of tacos now. They are eating and playing Mark's arcade and talking about the World Series that will be over tonight (David Blumenstein, one of the gang, says that Boston Red Sox will sweep the series from St. Louis Cardinals). Meanwhile the gang play and I try to convince Mark that 2600 Hacker Quarterly still put out good stuff, David calmly watches The West Wing on NBC (I guess he has a crush on C.J., I don't know). I'm also trying to convince them to stop the US political quagmire and go to the ballots next Tuesday. C'mon, boys, GWB and Kerry are in a statistical dead heat and every vote counts now. How can you put up with that stalemate? Do you need a stimulus? Then run and watch the last Eminem's videoclip.

[ Czerkinsky - Natacha ]

First and Only

Christopher Lydon was the first podcaster. Period. What Jon Stewart would think about podcast? And Bill Maher? Plus: An opera about the massacre of Muslims by Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica, circa 1995. Hum... Does Bill Clinton play sax in it?

[ Brian Wilson - Our Prayer ]

Duelfer & Ellsberg

The Duelfer Report will rampage likewise Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers? The predicament is if Iraq's embargoes worked out or not in inhibiting Sadam's WMD dream. Thus, one must remember that France vetoed US in UN in exchange for a bunch of oil contracts. I guess that WMD was just a talking point, as mentioned by several credible sources (and how credible!) in the new documentary "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War", by Robert Greenwald. Rather than RAND Corporation, the world deserves the Institute without Boundaries (see Massive Change)

[ Plus Minus - She's Got Your Eyes ]

Semiotic Ghosts

In his last review for Technology Review, professor Henry Jenkins had a whim. The Tomorrow That Never Was is the best review about Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow (a new retro-futurist film) and, at the same time, In The Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman's new graphic novel. And, for the general amusement, professor Jenkins, probably unware, has set off a genuine "when life imitates art" occurrence upon refering to the Zeppelin Hindenburg III. Two times.

[ Gotan Project - Around About Midnight ]

Clampdown!

In one more attempt to grant a technology clampdown, Computer & Communications Industry Association was obstructed from taking part in the meeting on S. 2560, also known as the INDUCE Act, a proposal created for extend the power of copyright laws and debunk innovation. The stakes involved are high, because the law might affect several sort of devices, as VCRs, optical disk recorders, radio receivers, audio devices, IMs, personal computers, iPods (and other personal music players) and online music services. It simply covers every recording, duplication and information technology device today – even the Internet itself.

[ X - Hungry World ]

Mesh in Salvador

ITU TELECOM AMERICAS is to be held from 3-6 October in Salvador, Bahia. I'm almost certain that 3G will be addressed. Yes, because it is supposed to surrogate the DSL and cable broadband networks. For know, the developing countries have been watching the war between GSM and CDMA. But this is the iceberg's tip. In the undercurrents new and exciting technologies start to emerge, as Flash-OFDM and WiMax. Giants as Intel, Nortel and Cisco back the last. But, in my opinion, Wi-Fi mesh networks could be faster deployed in Brazil, instead of WiMax. Time will tell.

[ Guided by Voices - Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud ]

Venezuela From Below

Last weekend I've seen Venezuela From Below, a film by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler, and it made my mind boils big time. It is a well-directed documentary about the revolutionary process by which Venezuela is passing through. The film is absolutely educational and begins with a historic overview introduced brilliantly by the philosopher Carlos Lazo. The ascension of Hugo Chavez, Lazo explains, is the result of a bourgeois process that excluded the left-wing parties from the political decisions. The outcome of this exclusion was inevitable: the reclaiming of a progressive constitution. It is staggering to note how Venezuelan people are politicized and how well they are versed in the participatory culture. The people, supported by the army, refuted two coup d'etat and several attempts of sabotage of the country's main economic asset: the oil production, concentrated in the oil company PDVSA, in Puerto La Cruz. By the way, the army is very embedded into the people environment, and Ressler's documentary has captured the proof of this concept, a show where soldiers and other officers play guaracha before a dancing popular audience. The revolutionary spirit has triggered a broad process of grassroots self-organization in vital areas like education (Mission Robinson, Ribas and Sucre), health care (Barrio Adentro) job generation (Vuelvan Caras) and alternative media (El23.net). Venezuela From Below is highly recommended for Brazilian investigative journalists, left-wing politicians and rappers.

[ Señor Coconut – Autobahn ]

Moog and Theremin

Ok. This is completely irresistible not point out to two thought-provoking documentaries. The first is "Moog" (2004), about Bob Moog, inventor of electronic musical instruments, the most famous one named after his name. The second is "Theremin" (1995), about the Russian inventor Leon Theremin, who created the world’s first electronic instrument, and it also bore his name. Needless say that I’m looking very forward to watch them.

[ Kings Of Convenience - Know-How ]

Je Ne Sais Quoi

Oil crisis is killing giant squids. Who is next? Tiburonia granrojo? Sick capitalism... Some are understanding the Pirate War as a Marxist struggle. Brazil, I'm by your side during the development agenda for WIPO attack!

[ Moss - Semantics is a Bitch ] [ Fantastic Plastic Machine - Beautiful Days (Reprise) ]

AdSense à la Benedict

Congrats, Kuja! Your Google AdSense application has been approved! I know it is a bummer sign a Certification of No U.S. Activities, but, hey, you might even earn some dimes if God help you. Congrats also to Anthony Bourdain, Les Halles chef, for have aroused in Kuja the K-line (see The Society of Mind, by Marvin Minsky) of the Eggs Benedict receipt!

[ Belle And Sebastian - Stay Loose ]

Radioactive Knee

My diagnostic was: osteoarthritis of the knee, result of an ancient war injury. The clinic doctor suggested a different approach of the trivial non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, so we've decided for a new technique known as intra-articular injection of sodium hyaluronate (hyaluronic acid), a product extratcted from rooster combs and filtered at molecular level. This is a natural polymer, breed of the glycosaminoglycans family (note that it is not "shenanigan"), radioactive components of extra cellular matrix. Wow! Feeling like Homer Simpson! :) The doctor had shot rightly on the spot, as if the syringe were an acupunture needle. Bingo! I give praises to him and to Hublog, who have had created the code for HubMed, a repository of papers with topics related with medicine and health. There I've found a curious abstract called Reduction of DNA fragmentation and hydroxyl radical production by hyaluronic acid and chondroitin-4-sulphate in iron plus ascorbate-induced oxidative stress in fibroblast cultures. And the classic Hyaluronic acid in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee, by E. C. Huskisson and S. Donnelly. In this study, they demonstrate that five weekly intra-articular injections of sodium hyaluronate (Hyalgan, in the case; in mine, Polireumin) were superior and well tolerated in patients with ostheoarthritis of the knee with a symptomatic benefit which persisted for 6 month. Beautiful. Hey, folks! I have also survived Service Pack 2!

[ Postal Service - Sleeping In ]

Point-to-Point Tunneling, The Other Way

TeledyN has delighted Ben Hammersley with its "Living Webservices" story. FlickR is really a scale-free network, since it tunnels, somehow, other galleries through RSS channels.

[ Telepopmusik - Genetic World ]

Brighton, 1999

Brighton, 1999
Originally uploaded by Kuja.

My wife, Maria Teresa, shot this in 1999. Before we'd arrived in this Albion gray and metallic coast city, we've stopped at Forrest Row, near East Grinstead. A guy from Scholle Müllerinnenart was returning to an earlier or less mature pattern of feeling...

Black Clouds over the Black Sea

Do you think the caucasian disputes are focused in Chechnya? No. You also have to mention Abkhazia, South and North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagstan and Adigeya. Ah! Don't forget Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh.

[ Chichi Peralta - Un Dia Mas ] [ Sensation Junkies - Ollala ]

Bush Mix

Congratulations to all people who had courageously counterstroke the National Republican Convention in NY. Furtherfield and Anne-Marie Schleiner had promoted live and online multimedia performances - the first jamming the official media channels with staggering guerrilla broadcasts and the former launching the project OUT (Operation Urban Terrain), an artistic intervention of military games played out in public spaces. (This makes me get ashamed of how idiots are some Brazilian media "artists" who overstate their ridiculous public SMS messages as state-of-art interventions.) Yesterday, Bush Jr. had made his address in Madison Square Garden. How loath and nauseating is his overbearing arrogance! I almost puked when I heard this line: Some people think I have the swagger. In Texas, it means walking. Gosh! Who he thinks he is? Tom Mix? If so, Kerry is right when he says that the soul of America is in Hollywood.

[ Talking Heads - Stay Up Late ]

Orion Drooling Features

Orion Multisystems, Inc. is offering a home multi-thread super computer loaded with drooling features: Orion also announced a partnership with Wolfram Research, Inc., which pioneered the modern concept of technical computing when it launched Mathematica 15 years ago. Millions of users on every continent currently use Mathematica technology. The company's gridMathematicaTM combines the power of the world's leading technical computing environment with modern computing clusters and grids to solve the most demanding problems in mathematics, science, engineering, and finance. And Tableau Software is selling google-type databases with graphics a la Tufte.

[ Dzihan & Kamien - Sliding ]

Burnout Case

Robert Bryce has showed that US lost the Iraq war. Imagine Hitchcock's Saboteur crossed with an Arab version of They Might Be Giants (but instead of the oil galore, imagine a burn out field). Iraq today confirms Baudrillard's statement in Pataphysics of Year 2000, in which one can read that "political (...) exchanges have set loose a tempo of liberation whereby we have become removed from the sphere of reference to the real, to history".

[Bossacucanova - Mais Perto Do Mar]

No Pain, No Gain

If you hear Johnny Cash singing "Hurt" you'll feel a kind of bluegrass pain, spiritual or even physical. But what is "pain"? This question has been poking doctor's minds for centuries. Albert Schweitzer, for example, called it "the most terrible of all the lords of mankind". I've found his statement in a website about a medical Symposium which took place in 1998. More recently, a journalist friend of mine had showed to me The Hedonistic Imperative, a manifesto that proposes eradicate suffering in all sentient life by means of genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

[ Beck - Paper Tiger ]

Future of the Past

I've seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" yesterday and I liked. It is a "scriptwriter film", yes, but this is not a problem at all. Because it is also a kind of authorial film well conducted by a known videoclip director. I agree that there is an overacting of twist and turns, but the apparently chaotic narrative mirrors perfectly the to and fro love of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet characters. It is a libel in favor of forgetfulness, an important cultural self-organizing resource, as affirmed by Eco. Nietzsche and Pope almost force the audience into believe that it is possible erase from the brain a sorted out memory. But I guess that Ingram Marshall, American compositor, is right: The all too familiar hymns of my childhood have come back to haunt me ... For me the research into memory is an important tool. We are, all of us, always searching our past in an attempt to understand the present. I’ve recorded his “Steal Across the Sky” piece from Radio@Netscape, which streams in Dolby AAC. Nice capture, if it is saved with a pure FhG codec (not LAME).

[ Unkle - Bloodstain ]