Missing Mary Road

Islamic Artisans Constructed Exotic Nonrepeating Pattern 500 Years Before Mathematicians As early as the 15th century, elaborate symmetrical tile work on medieval Islamic buildings contained patterns straight out of modern math.

Medieval Islamic artisans seem to have developed a procedure for creating jigsawlike mosaics that ultimately led them to an exotic pattern that mathematicians would discover nearly half a millennium later. Researchers report that 15th-century buildings in Iran feature tiles arranged in a so-called quasicrystal, which is symmetric but does not repeat itself regularly.

“Here is evidence it [the pattern] was being used, if not understood, 500 years ahead of when we had any idea what was going on with [it] in the West,” says physics graduate student Peter J. Lu of Harvard University. Lu began poring over photos from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan after seeing hints of the pattern while traveling in Uzbekistan. The Islamic artisans seem to have spun a wide variety of symmetric traceries from a set of five shapes, according to a report Lu co-authored, published online February 22 in Science.

Can creative writers put their egos to one side and work successfully as a team? That’s the question Penguin and De Montfort University are exploring with a new literary experiment – a collaborative wiki-novel.Based on the principles of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, the novel, called A Million Penguins, is open to anyone to join in, write and edit. None of the words, characters or plot twists will be attributed to any individual and – and this is the element of the project most likely to bruise delicate egos – participants are free to edit, chop and change other writers’ work.

In an effort to avoid the kinds of “reversion wars” which blight Wikipedia, a “core team” of students from De Montfort’s Creative Writing and New Media course will act as moderators and the ethical guidelines listed on the wiki urge contributors to “be polite” and to treat others’ contributions as they would like their own to be treated. Nonetheless, it is a shot in the dark, as Penguin acknowledge.

A Million Penguins.

A Million Penguins Blog.

One of the fun things about The Adventures of Asterix comic books is its use of latin phrases. Here’s a website that collects Asterix latin sayings and their translation.

Acta est fabula: It’s all over (lit. the drama has been acted out)
Alea jacta est: The die is cast
Audaces fortuna juvat: Fortune favors the bold
Auri sacra fames: The cursed hunger for gold
Aut Caesar, aut nihil: Either Caesar or nothing
Ave atque vale: Hail and farewell
Ave Caesar morituri te salutant!: Hail, Caesar! Those who are about to die salute you!

1. “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Socrates’ belief that we must reflect upon the life we live was partly inspired by the famous phrase inscribed at the shrine of the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself.” The key to finding value in the prophecies of the oracle was self-knowledge, not a decoder ring.

Socrates felt so passionately about the value of self-examination that he closely examined not only his own beliefs and values but those of others as well. More precisely, through his relentless questioning, he forced people to examine their own beliefs. He saw the citizens of his beloved Athens sleepwalking through life, living only for money, power, and fame, so he became famous trying to help them.

2. “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” – William of Ockham (1285 – 1349?)

Commonly known as Ockham’s razor, the idea here is that in judging among competing philosophical or scientific theories, all other things being equal, we should prefer the simplest theory. Scientists currently speak of four forces in the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Ockham would certainly nod approvingly at the ongoing attempt to formulate a grand unified theory, a single force that encompasses all four.

The ultimate irony of Ockham’s razor may be that some have used it to prove God is unnecessary to the explanation of the universe, an idea Ockham the Franciscan priest would reject.
3. “The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” – Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)

Referring to the original state of nature, a hypothetical past before civilization, Hobbes saw no reason to be nostalgic.

Whereas Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains,” Hobbes believed we find ourselves living a savage, impossible life without education and the protection of the state. Human nature is bad: we’ll prey on one another in the most vicious ways. No doubt the state imposes on our liberty in an overwhelming way. Yet Hobbes’ claim was that these very chains were absolutely crucial in protecting us from one another.
4. “I think therefore I am” – René Descartes (1596 – 1650)

Descartes began his philosophy by doubting everything in order to figure out what he could know with absolute certainty. Although he could be wrong about what he was thinking, that he was thinking was undeniable. Upon the recognition that “I think,” Descartes concluded that “I am.”

On the heels of believing in himself, Descartes asked, What am I? His answer: a thinking thing (res cogitans) as opposed to a physical thing extended in three-dimensional space (res extensa). So, based on this line, Descartes knew he existed, though he wasn’t sure if he had a body. It’s a philosophical cliff-hanger; you’ll have to read Meditations to find out how it ends.
5. “To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi).” Or, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” – Bishop George Berkeley (1685 – 1753)

As an idealist, Berkeley believed that nothing is real but minds and their ideas. Ideas do not exist independently of minds. Through a complicated and flawed line of reasoning he concluded that “to be is to be perceived.” Something exists only if someone has the idea of it.

Though he never put the question in the exact words of the famous quotation, Berkeley would say that if a tree fell in the forest and there was no one (not even a squirrel) there to hear it, not only would it not make a sound, but there would be no tree.

The good news is, according to Berkeley, that the mind of God always perceives everything. So the tree will always make a sound, and there’s no need to worry about blipping out of existence if you fall asleep in a room by yourself.
6. “We live in the best of all possible worlds.” – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716)

Voltaire’s famous novel Candide satirizes this optimistic view. And looking around you right now you may wonder how anyone could actually believe it. But Leibniz believed that before creation God contemplated every possible way the universe could be and chose to create the one in which we live because it’s the best.

The principle of sufficient reason holds that for everything, there must be sufficient reason why it exists. And according to Leibniz the only sufficient reason for the world we live in is that God created it as the best possible universe. God could have created a universe in which no one ever did wrong, in which there was no human evil, but that would require humans to be deprived of the gift of free wills and thus would not be the best possible world.
7. “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” G.W.F. Hegel (1770 – 1831)

Similar to “vision is 20/20 in hindsight,” Hegel’s poetic insight says that philosophers are impotent. Only after the end of an age can philosophers realize what it was about. And by then it’s too late to change things. It wasn’t until the time of Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) that the true nature of the Enlightenment was understood, and Kant did nothing to change the Enlightenment; he just consciously perpetuated it.

Marx (1818 – 1883) found Hegel’s apt description to be indicative of the problem with philosophy and responded, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, what matters is to change it.”
8. “Who is also aware of the tremendous risk involved in faith – when he nevertheless makes the leap of faith – this [is] subjectivity … at its height.” – Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)

In a memorable scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy deduced that the final step across his treacherous path was a leap of faith. And so it is in Kierkegaard’s theory of stages of life.The final stage, the religious stage, requires passionate, subjective belief rather than objective proof, in the paradoxical and the absurd. So, what’s the absurd? That which Christianity asks us to accept as true, that God became man born of a virgin, suffered, died and was resurrected.

Abraham was the ultimate “knight of faith” according to Kierkegaard. Without doubt there is no faith, and so in a state of “fear and trembling” Abraham was willing to break the universal moral law against murder by agreeing to kill his own son, Isaac. God rewarded Abraham’s faith by providing a ram in place of Isaac for the sacrifice. Faith has its rewards, but it isn’t rational. It’s beyond reason. As Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reason which reason does not know.”
9. “God is dead.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Well, you might not hear this one in a graduation speech, but you’ll probably hear it in college. Actually, Nietzsche never issued this famous proclamation in his own voice but rather put the words in the mouth of a character he called the madman and later in the mouth of another character, Zarathustra.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche endorsed the words. “God is dead” is often mistaken as a statement of atheism. It is not, though Nietzsche himself was an atheist. “Dead” is metaphorical in this context, meaning belief in the God of Christianity is worn out, past its prime, and on the decline. God is lost as the center of life and the source of values. Nietzsche’s madman noted that himself came too soon. No doubt Nietzsche, too, thought he was ahead of his time in heralding this news.
10. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” – Albert Camus (1913 – 1960)

Camus’ solution to the philosophical problem was to recognize and embrace life’s absurdity. Suicide, though, remains an option if the absurdity becomes too much. Indeed Camus’ own death in a car crash was ambiguous. Was it an accident or suicide?

For Camus, the absurd hero is Sisyphus, a man from Greek mythology who is condemned by the gods for eternity to roll up a stone up a hill only to have it fall back again as it reaches the top. For Camus, Sisyphus typified all human beings: we must find a meaning in a world that is unresponsive or even hostile to us. Sisyphus, Camus believed, affirms life, choosing to go back down the hill and push the rock again each time. Camus wrote: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
11. “One cannot step twice in the same river.” – Heraclitus (ca. 540 – ca. 480 BCE)

Heraclitus definitely isn’t alone here. His message was that reality is constantly changing it’s an ongoing process rather than a fixed and stable product. Buddhism shares a similar metaphysical view with the idea of annica, the claim that all reality is fleeting and impermanent.

In modern times Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) described time as a process that is experienced. An hour waiting in line is different from an hour at play. Today contemporary physics lends credence to process philosophy with the realization that even apparently stable objects, like marble statues, are actually buzzing bunches of electrons and other subatomic particles deep down.

so some friends of mine have a band named Falak. they’re based out of canada originally but now have become rather global. the keys guy lives in south carolina, the lead guitar lives in dubai, the bassist lives in afghanistan, vocals and drummer live in toronto. they have also released their first video which you can see on their website. do give it a watch. they’ve been playing for many years now and have performed alongside big names such as the cowboy junkies and junoon. they’ve been reviewed by FM101, the toronto star, ATN, bandbaja and many more. here are two of the most recent reviews from Dawn and the Daily times. they’re not your average run of the mill desi band. they believe in solid rock, politically charged lyrics and even more politically charged standpoints against censorship and oppression. they also have a MySpace page, where you can interact with them and follow their blog. Do download and listen to their tracks and watch the video and let me know what you thought.

Do check out this band’s music at
http://www.myspace.com/zerobridge

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Biography (from original site)

Zerobridge is an actual bridge in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. The story goes that as they were building bridges to connect the suburbs to the city center, they would name them by numbers, 1 Bridge, 2 Bridge, etc. The only bridge that was there before construction didn’t have a name, and so they called it Zerobridge. The band zerobridge first formed out of informal jam sessions between brothers Din (vocals/guitar) and Mohsin (drums) in the fall of 1999 in their parent’s basement in Potomac, Maryland, USA. Soon after, Din moved to New York City and was joined by Mohsin the following year when he relocated to New York to attend Fordham University. The two got a rehearsal space, started playing shows, completed an EP and began work on a full-length record. In September 2003, the first self-titled album was finished and in 2004 NYC bassist Greg Eckelman and guitarist Kenji Shinagawa were recruited to complete the band that is now zerobridge.

Zerobridge combines Western influences with an inherent musicality and tonality that draws from their South Asian heritage. The family emigrated from their native Kashmir to the UK where Din was born (“I was born in a small town in England called Pontefract, which is in or around West Yorkshire. They’re known for their Pomfret cakes and hospital maternity wards. That’s all I know about the place.”). When they completed their journey across the globe and settled in the US, Mohsin was born to a family that now had three brothers from three different continents (the eldest brother was born in Kashmir before the family left their homeland). Din acknowledges these two sides of his musical development: “My biggest influences are U2, the Beatles, and the Stones. They set the bar. Basically I just love any band that writes great songs, like The Velvet Underground, Zeppelin, The Smiths, Wilco, The Clash, Oasis, Radiohead, Joy Division/NewOrder. A lot of South Asian music influences me as well, like The Sabri Bros and Hindi film composers like A.R. Rehman and Ishmael Darbar, but the list can go on forever.” “No gimmicks,” adds Mohsin, “we put our hearts, souls and sweat into whatever we do. It’s about love, war, and curiosity I suppose. It’s just painfully true good rock and roll.”

“The songs range from the overtly political, extremely personal, or are influenced by a book I read or even about nothing whatsoever,” says Din, “Lyrics or lyrical ideas just happen when I’m inspired to write them. When I listen to songs, I care about how everything sounds together. Melody is most important; the lyrics seem to flow once the music is sorted out.” The band’s first record contains many political songs (“Refugee Citizen,” “The Choice”) because at the time, and even more so now, the climate in the world was such that you could not ignore the issues. Specifically, there are lyrics from the brother’s experience traveling to Kashmir in December 2001; that trip set a lot of the tone for the overall recording of the record. Seeing and learning about the hardships that their family and the general population went through over the last 25 years was an eye opener for the brothers, especially during their time spent there in the harsh winter months. “I couldn’t help but write about what I saw,” Din says, but “even then, we still felt like outsiders. So when I wrote songs like ‘Suffering Moses’ or ‘Nothing Doing,’ I tried to be true to what I experienced and true to the fact that I was removed from it all at the same time. Reading authors like Edward Said, Agha Shahid Ali, Sudha Kohl, and Salmon Rushdie have also inspired me and enhanced the overall worldview of the lyrics. If I had to choose, my favorite song from our first record would probably be ‘Suffering Moses.’ That would be our finest tribute to Kashmir. Musically it’s just this short and sweet little pop ditty. I wrote it while I was on that trip on this cheap Indian guitar that I borrowed from my cousin’s friend. The name of the guitar was a “Givson,” which is hilarious.”

When their first record was completed, the brothers were in New York City ready to bring zerobridge to a live audience which was virtually uncharted territory and grueling, considering it was just the two of them. Din explains, “It was crazy and kind of a nightmare at first, but totally fun at the same time. There was so much production on that first record that we couldn’t possibly reproduce everything live. Our first gig was absolutely horrible. We played to a packed audience at the Sidewalk Cafe, in the east village. We played five songs, White Stripes style. When it was over, Mo and I just looked at each other and broke down in hysterical laughter. It was all so absurd, but it was the first step to what we were trying to achieve. Playing live is a completely different ballgame than being in the studio. I decided that I had to write new songs for the live setting, and figure out ways we could transpose our recorded songs for the stage. We also set out to find other members to form a complete lineup.

After countless auditions and playing more live shows, in July 2004, zerobridge had finally found their bass player. Greg Eckelman has been a bass player for countless bands in and around New York City, most notably Orange 9mm. Greg’s personal and professional experience in the music industry also played a pivotal role in the overall management of zerobridge. The band became a much stronger and tighter unit with the newer and older songs finally coming into their own for the live setting. More shows and a bigger following developed, and most significantly was the band’s endorsement and guidance and production from legendary David Bowie/John Lennon guitari st, Earl Slick.

“That has been the biggest thrill and honor so far,” says Din. “I never would have thought that the man who has played with John Lennon and David Bowie would like what we were doing and be so closely involved. It’s a total blessing.” From working closely with Earl Slick several years back, Greg had became fast friends with Earl. When he was sent the first zerobridge record and early demos of the newer material, Earl was enthusiastic about zerobridge and wanted to be more closely involved in the development of the band, primarily the with production. As Din says, “The Strokes have JP Bowersock; zerobridge has Earl Slick.”

In the summer of 2005, zerobridge retreated to upstate New York for a weekend to record 10 songs with Earl Slick as producer and guitar player. Mark Plati, who has played with and produced David Bowie and who has also worked with the likes of Robert Smith of The Cure was recruited as co-producer. The results were instant. Din explains, “We were psyched, totally focused, and relaxed. Earl was so easy to work with and his creative input was invaluable. What we’ve done with Earl and Mark just blows me away. The band sounds like a real band, capturing the strength of our live performance. Just the fact that Earl played on all these songs just does my head in.” As Din’s brother Mo said after the recent CMJ showcase at Arlene’s Grocery, “We’ve come a long way from playing in our parent’s basement in Potomac, MD. It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished in the last year and right now we’re taking it to another level.”

And what exactly are the new songs about? Din says, “They pretty much speak for themselves. Like I said before they capture a rawer, more live feel. There are still the political rants like “Taleban Shake” (a live favorite) and TWA. A lot of these tunes are a lot more personal, dealing with relationships, like “It is What it Is” and “All the Unnecessary Drama.” There’s a song called “2minutes5″ which is the first where the music was written by the whole band. It’s a total rocker. The songs are just more upbeat and we get off on the fact that the crowd loves to dance to the music. That’s the ultimate compliment.”

In Kashmir’s capital, Zerobridge is now a decrepit structure that people are only allowed to walk across. Just beyond the bridge is a café called the zero inn, a place where the bothers, family, and friends go just to hang out and have cold Kashmiri coffees (which are like frapuchinos, but far better according to the brothers). It’s a sentimental place with a really unique name. Sometimes bands and places inherit the same cool names.

these are some profoundly beautiful artistic creations by jennifer maestre made just with pencils. she’s done nails, beads and pins too!

Omniscience. Now that would be the epitome of perfection! To be within it all; encompassed; surrounded and surrounding. A gestalt approach to existence. You are the cage; you are the sand; you are the cat; you are the mouse. You are the camera; you are, potentially, human.

The gestalt approach is most often used in dream therapy and calls for the dreamer to role play and identify with each part of the dreamscape. i skipped gestalt 101 but its not rocket science and its quite easy to grasp. We understand that a cage is an object designed only to confine and reluctantly free; that sand is illusionary and slips too easily between loosened fingers – from one end of the hourglass of love to the other end of loss or hate. We understand that every story has two polar opposites; lovers and haters; friends and enemies – protagonists and antagonists.

On a not so complete tangent: photography is the selfish craft of capturing your perspective and pawning it off as omniscient objectivity. To force another to believe in the reality of the contents of the frame. The shot will invariably land in albums, web-galleries, blogs etc and because it is deemed an actual image and not an artist’s painted perspective, everyone will believe and accept whole-heartedly, unreservedly, religiously even, that the images and words neatly printed and bound are reality.

Personify the sand; be each grain filling a blank canvas, coating its emptiness with deceptive intentions. You are the prey flying behind the hunter; you are the shifting ground the prey spins upon; you are absorbing the blood of food chain victory. This has become survival of the fittest. The cat is caged, a hunter confined. Yet, this creature is proud, sleek. she is confident and dominating while maintaining a natural state of relaxation. Every movement of bone beneath skin is revealed without care. The predator usually wins – any deviance from this lends to madness. Once established that death is eminent, acceptance should naturally ensue. The mouse’s cage is delicately placed in an opposing corner; the latch is removed and the victim is released from this detention chamber. You refuse to role play this underdog; it is not a positively calculated risk; mathematics and science do not enter this equation. A hopeless predicament bound to the constraints of history and the rigid and unmoving laws of nature’s wilderness. Thus, the only option available is to run in panicked frenzy from the hunter’s thirst for blood.

Voyeurism, in mainstream society, is often frowned upon as an immoral act of cowardice. Yet the camera is a part of this human, merged into the body as if this very machine was a new and currently unidentified limb eagerly waiting for nature to appear in the artificial; waiting for the prey to be gloriously defeated without challenge. The mouse runs, the cat chases; a primal re-enactment of conflict at its most crude and basic moment.

Anything chased will inevitably run away. So don’t chase the scene; let the scene chase you, reveal itself to you; your anticipating eyes open wide watching as the cat approaches its prize. Watching as the mouse turns, spinning above the uneven ground, tiny claws out, teeth exposed. The mouse screeches, refusing to be taken without some resistance.

Click. Flash. The moment is captured like perfection before the sacrifice to more powerful beings, happily ingested. The image returns, birthed as nature obscures the artificial. The sand is now real; the cat is real; the camera is real; omniscience is real.

Humanity is artificial.

did you know that was bart’s full name? well, if you didn’t go read up on wikipedia. anyway, the trailer for the simpsons movie is out. it’s not gonna be that great. actually at this point there’s very little reason to believe it’ll be any good at all. anyway, in sort of related news, alan moore will be showing up on the simpsons pretty soon.