Again, I shall start with a story of my own (I really like telling stories):
Almost a year ago an old cinema theather in my town was commissioned for destruction as a new building was planned for that location. And indeed, the old cinema was in a such a bad shape that this was practically the only option (beside social reasons). But before it was torn down, I went there to take a few photos for the historical record. As I came home I realized that my computer might crash and that the photos could be lost. So I submited the selected few to a local newspaper which was happy to publish it. My reasoning was the following: let's say that the paper comes out in 1500 copies. Most of the people will throw it away after a month or two, but there are some collectors, in my opinion there are about 30-50 of them. It is safe to assume that after 10 years we'll still have about 30-50 copies of those photos. Some collections might get somehow lost but after 50 years we'll still have some. The historical record is thus safe(er)!
But what about after that? After 50 years the paper on which the photos are printed will begin to decay and the photos should be reproduced into an other medium. And here's where we start having legal problems. Acording to existing law such reprodiction is illegal for it creates new copies of photos which will be protected by the law for an other 20 years (copyright term in Slovenia is 70 years).
I am still alive and kicking In fact, I have so much work that I didn't have time to blog at all. The last four days I was on a trip to Côte d'Azur which was totally awesome! I will post more pics when I have time to process them, but for now this shall suffice.
Originally posted by Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence, page 134:
To the cortex, our bodies are just part of the external world. Remember, the brain is in a quiet and dark box. It knows about the world only via the patterns on the sensory nerve fibers. From the brain's perspective as a pattern device, it doesn't know about your body any differently than it knows about the rest of the world. There isn't a special distinction between where your body ends and the rest of the world begins.
We can now draw at least two conclusions. Firstly, that would explain the dualism in religion about body and soul being separated. But I will not talk about that. Instead I'm interested in an other phenomenon. Perhaps there there is a degree by which you can separate the rest of the world from your body and the level of it depends on psyhological aspects of "skill". Maybe you are a skilled skier. Do skies feel like an object when you are "in the zone" skiing? I bet not! The same thing happens to me when I'm in the zone with my photo camera (Steve Taylor would say that my ego is in abeyance while by "inner game" model self1 would be in charge) I can no longer separate my camera from the rest of my body. It becomes a part of me. In the same fashion a conductor perceives his baton - just as an other part of his body. The more skilled you are, the more the object feels as a part of you. So perhaps very good pilots think of their airplanes just as a bigger body inside of which they slip to fly. And we all feel of our cars as a new and bigger body when we drive. If that is true, we can explain a series of things that occour in connection to cars:
- It can explain why people extend their ego to cars. Pimping cars is nothing else than bodybuilding with different means. - It can explain why it "hurts you" when a rock or something hits the car, - It can explain why people worry so much about scratches on their cars, - It can explain why people do all that nasty stuff inside their cars (like picking their nose). They are inside of the body, how could you see them?
Not much to say; the latest my.opera upgrade messed up my costum css designs. I hope that guys will solve this soon. I kinda like this one. I added a new poll to the the sidebar. I want to know how much television do you watch now. Did internet change your watching habits? It did for me. I voted for the last option
And yes... spring is knocking on the door! Finally!
Yes! I finally get it what the Star wars saga is all about! It took me a long time, didn't it? But in the previous years, when episodes I-III were comming out, I didn't have enough patience and knowledge to fully understand, even though I did saw episode I and II at the time. Now, during this hollidays, I saw all six of them in a couple of marathon evenings. I watched it in the same order as they were filmed. You must know it was a powerful and overwhelming experience.
Yesterday I was photographing the concert of our local brass band. Unfortunatelly I couldn't play, because I was missing the practice in autumn, but listening to my band for the first time in many years simply as a visitor was a delightful experience anyway.
The light for photographing was not exactly dim, but chaotic, so I decided it is time to experiment. I took a BW film (Ilford PAN 400) to avoid any shifts in color temperature and pushed it to 3200 ISO!!! It is was the first time I did a push of such magnitude and I didn't know what kind of results to expect.
Well - It is better than I expected!!! A lot better! The pictures are not as grainy as one could predict and they gained a lot of contrast. A lot of whites and a lot of blacks, but not many greys inbetween. The images have some sort of mystic atmosphere, they look very similar to the image of the Sin City movie, which is soooo stylish! Here is an example (It is made by hands in the darkroom, no photoshop whatsoever - just raw scan of a physical image).
Spending the night in the darkroom (developing photos) is usually an experience of solitude and contemplation. Time passes very quickly and while you wait for the image to appear, there is a lot of time to think. It is funny, how analogue photography seems more real to me than the digital. I believe it is because more senses are involved in the process of it. With BW films, you literally do the photos with your own hands, and you can touch it, smell it, see it... In the digital world, everything is so abstract and distant. I am not trying to romanticize it too much, but there is something too it. It is like playing an electirc piano; it sounds and feels like the real thing, untill you try the real thing! When you can actually feel, see, touch and smell the strings or mechanisms that produce the sound the whole experience gets far more overwhelming.
It is the physical world we have been living in for the last 99.9999...% of the evolution and all our mental devices are more or less developed to serve the function of the physical perception. Abstract thinking is really cool because it helps you to think about the future and things beyond, but the power of the experience is still based upon sensorial perception.
One thing that strikes me the most when I read books or listen to humanistic [=understanding human] lectures is how impossible it is for us to see our mind the way it really is. The dilemma is the following: how to adress the problem? Should we study the brain as a piece of hardware or our mind as software. Somehow this reminds me on the nature of the light which could be understood both as a wave or as a partice (when in fact it is none of it, really).
There are many who aproach our brain as hardware and achive amazing results. The other day I was visiting TED Talks and found astonishing Vilayanur Ramachandran's talk. You should see it. The software paradigm has some benefits of it's own as well. For one it's far simpler methods are useful to deal with patients in mental care therapy. Well, Freud took it (too) seriously and his books often sound like a mathematical argument where everything has it's logical place. In his terms, our mind is a large peice of OS software code, where the larger part is hidden (to us) and performs tasks that peak out only when certain results of previously done processing are important. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but I see no reason whatsoever to study brain or mind by one method only.
The dilemma actually multiplies itself on a smaller scale. Within the hardware paradigm some explain it as the chemistry in the brain (?!!?), others as the sum of connections between synapses. That can be very accurate in many cases. For example; fading memory can be described by less and less active connections (synapses have less and less neurotransmiters active). Software apologists have their own crossroads; are we programed by our (supressed) desires and ...aammm... chemistry (?), or do we hold the power of free will (Glasser)?
Somehow there just isn't a theory around to condense it all. It seems like we are programed to see either the lady or the man with the saxophone, but not both at the same time ("or are we?" Glasser might say). You might want to see Jeff Hawkins' video for that matter. Hopefully we'll manage somehow. Our minds have this limited way of thinking that satisfys humble everyday's experience, but science has a good record of breaking them.
What is one to say when an honour is given. Is a modest "Thank you" enough? So I say; thank you for reading my blog, thank you for connecting to the idea that is behind of it and after all: thank you for expresing that with your vote. I am deeply honoured.
Of course the benefit is mutual. A bit more than a year ago I was in serious doubts wether I should start a blog or not. At that time it seemed like everyone has it. Why should I do it? What do I have to say, I'm just an ordinary guy. Hm...
So I figured out, that I should treat my blog like "my own news paper". Be a reporter and reader at the same time. Report on things that happen arround me (and maybe a little bit about me). When I was browsing blogs of people form all over the world, I have found their places and stories interesting, so it should work vice-versa. A statue in Ljubljana, that I go by everyday, seems nearely invisible and very ordinary to me, but it should be an attraction for someone who lives on the other side of the globe, right?
A little bit of subjective opinion can't do harm. This is what separates a blog from an official media. And that's what makes it interesting.
Then there is an idea of sharing knowledge and ideas to raise up the awareness. I already wrote about that. So at the end of all, I believe there are many reasons why to start a blog.
Thank you for giving me an oppurtunity to speak out. Thank you My Opera for this wonderful atmosphere* that you've created here and that inspires us to make it even better.
yours, Nikio
* did you notice how nice are members here to eachother. In many other communities there are A LOT of posts and comments that express hate, that are insulting or even backstabing. Here this things are practicly nonexistent!
I've came to the conclusion that small details of everyday's life situations take a key role in the quality of our lives and success we achive. How is this possible? For example; we all know how important is the first impression a new guy makes on us when we first meet. Imagine two different situations; in first he's a smiling and open charachter and in second he is a timid and closed person. Maybe the real person behind is the same and he just had an extremly good or a bad day. In first case you might decide to continue a relationship with that person and you shall gain a fantastic new friendship, but in second, you missed that chance. And it is all because that bustard didn't have the guts to gather some strength and simply be nice for a minute.
So I think it is extremely important that we take a conscious part in order to control such details. Smile, when you meet new pepople, think carefuly what to wear not just on important occasions, but all the time, write adress on envelope with special care (you will impress the reciver), look confident when you enter the room... Of course this takes effort (a lot of it, sometimes), but which good thing doesn't!?
I believe your everyday life experience will then be a lot more powerful. You will have more of life and I think this kind of thinking leads to better business as well.
In 1997 I was taking part in a summer research camp as an ordinary adolescent kid. Mentors of such camps are usually notable experts and thinkers, who try to inspire new generations to think differently when they grow up to be artists, scientists, business people (etc). One of those mentors was an architect and painter Teo Tavželj. Eventhough he could never fit the profile of a "computer geek", he said something that I've remembered to this day. His words were: "During the history, whoever held the right information had an important key to power and success. With the growth of the internet, information will be less and less valuable because it can easily be obtained. Therefore people with ideas will rise up and intelectually dominate the world." It's quite obvious today how right he was (remember, it was 1997!).
But with internet network becoming larger and larger something else happened. Sharing! I think sharing intellectual property (movies, photos, music) can be ethically disputable, but sharing ideas and knowledge is actually a great benefit for the whole world and for me personally. This is what blogs are all about! One day I am reading about biology, then about nuclear physics, some other time about a rock concert in Germany or maybe about flods in China... My global awareness has never been greater! Everything that seems so distant on TV, feels so close to me on blogs!
So I felt obligated to contribute my part. By using Opera, as my favourite browser, I was naturally attracted to take a look into My Opera community. I wasn't surprised to find how well it is organised and how much more this blogs have to offer against their competition. I decided to give away a fraction of my time to share my life(views), ideas and knowledge. By doing this properly, we have a tremendous tool to make the world a better place.
This is the basic reason why I became a member of My Opera community. Other providers usually destroy the whole idea of contribution with tons of ads and pop-ups. Opera software and My Opera community are different. Beside being free and free of rubbish, they are intelligent, ellegant, robust (yet highly costumizable), and simple to use. So the decision for this software and blog was simple. At this moment I have my personal blog and several other accounts which I use together with groups of students to share and connect our work on a greater distance. It's practical, educational and a lot of fun. Like the internet should be!
Today I am deeply moved by death of Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest tenors of all time. I was privileged to meet him on Histria Festival in Pula, on 3th of July 2004. I was there as a photographer. They took us with a boat from Fažana to Brijuni islands where the press conference was performed. He was a bit late to the event, but about two minutes before he entered the room, there was already an electricity in the air. People had beacome nervous in anticipation and when he finally came, the whole room bursted in a loud and warm applause. He just smiled and waved his hand. After the brief statement of Bashkim Shehu, the director of festival and a very noble man from Pula, Pavarotti got to speak. He told us that he's very happy to perform in such fabolous city, especially in the Arena, roman theatre in Pula. Then the members of the press started to ask questions. Let's be honest, a few of them were totally off topic and even stupid (as it is allways like that on such events), but he never lost his nerves and remained a true gentleman in the best possible way. He was just kindly smiling. After 15 or 20 minutes his managers told that it was enough and we should stop. But Pavarotti just couldn't. He was there for us. It was like he was in pain to leave the conference so he managed to negotiate one last question with his staff. And here's where I came into place. I lifted my arm really high and he looked at me so kindly, almost like he was my father, and said something like that (I was too excited at that time to remember the exact words): "Well young boy, what would you like to know." So I asked him about his repertoare for the concert which included a vast part of Puccini'sLa Bohemme (Che gelida manina, Si, mi chiamano Mimi and O soave fanciulla, performed with Carmella Remigio, Itallian soprano, fabolous voice!). My question was targeting his first performance in early 60', when he debuted with this exact role. Is there any special connection to it? What is his relationship with Rodolfo after many years? His reaction was exceptionally warm, like he was overwhelmed by the fact that I actually did some homework about his career (well, I was doing it since I was 12... don't ask, I was a strange kid). He explained to me that he was a young passionate boy at that time ("much like you", he said) , trying to make it in the big world. Rodolfo is exactly that kind of role. So everytime he sings Rodolfo, he is reminded on that times, which were hard, but carried all the romantic things of youth. I was moved! Then it was really time to end. Some of us attempted to get an autograph, but he was tightly surrounded by his mannagers and bodyguards, so it was impossible.
The next day, on my birthday, he performed a marvelous concert. Eventhough his voice wasn't exactly like we remember from his best times (due to age and illness), the charisma was enormous!
There is are reasons why we think of him as the greatest, but most of them go beyond music!
Anyways - today I wanted to share this with you, because the occasion feels right.
As you know, my job last week was not just to blog at Ummi camp, but also motivate other participants to do it. I think it was successful. . Many of them are now getting their own accounts at my.opera.
To make a long story short. These camps are fantastic opportunity to meet the most amazing people. One of them is Ksenija Benedetti, Chief of state protocol at Government of Republic of Slovenia. After her mindblowing lecture on nice behaviour, table manners, dressing code (etc) - which was all backed up with her professional experience - I seat down with her to talk about Slovenian presidency of EU. As Chief of state protocol, she will be in charge to organise all the events connected to it. The translation is kindly done by Maja Petek.
This article is a little contribution towards understanding abstract art in general. I was actually thinking to write about cubism and Picasso, but that shuld wait for the next time. I believe this comes first.
People often visit modern galleries and watch modern art with no understanding, because they expect to recognize parts of their physical reality. I think there is much more to human life than that. What about our passion and love, fears and demons, what about our phylosophy? Isn't that worth expressing? And how could you do it if not by complex "rebuses"? How did it come t that?
On the left: Le guitariste by Pablo Picasso (1910)
More and more i write about weather. Firstly because it is getting more and more weird. Well, it is getting warmer. Which is nice I know the situation might be serious, but there are reasons to be sceptic about. There is no situation in science, where a nice amount of scepticism isn't wellcome. I believe we are making really a lot of damage, but on a local scale. Devastations of Aral sea or Amazon forest are just two examples. Then there is acid rain, nuclear radiation (not only from Chernobil, but from many rotten submarines as well),...etc! Those are all catastrophies, but on a smaller scale. Globally they don't have a larger impact on life. Life is, however, very hard to kill. I believe it is enough for a few mice and a couple of lizzards (and perhaps some bacterias) to survive, and the entire world will be repopulated within 20 million years. Who knows, some species might develop intelligence. Imagine their struggle trying to understand what will be left from us
Secondly, i have nothing else to write about.
Well... i must say it was lovely. See the pics in the gallery.
PS: I also went swiming... on 15th April. That is a new record for me. The teperature of sea is about 16°C (right on the surface is a bit more...), which is IMO enough, considering very hot sun and 25°C in shadow. So from 20th March (when i reported on having snow) to 15th April we had "fake" hardcore winter, real spring and now "fake" summer. This rapid shifts make me feel like a time traveler. Who knows what might be waiting for us next month. Maybe an entire new season of frogs falling down from sky.
I just found out about this, and i was quickly addicted to this small 22-minutes videos of the most remarkable people speaking about future and new ways of thinking.
I strongly suggest you see them. This one is just an example:
Since the internet took over the world (or at least what we think of as a world...) information is no logner a problem. Anyone can find out anything. Everything is outthere: graphs, figures, graphical data, numbers, books, quotes... everything! So the only thing left are the ideas and ways of using that massive knowledge. Charish and protect your ideas, they are more valuable than ever!
So just as we thaught this the global warming erased winter from our dictionary, this happened. I must say, yesterday evening was nice and romatic, but today it is all very redundant. No matter what season we're in, there shure will be some days that don't fit in at all. That's all we can count on nowadays.
I went on a beach today. The weather was sunny in the morning, but then quite cloudy when i got there. Anyways - it was worth it. After taking a nap on a beach among the waves I took some photos, talked to the fishermen and got to know a family from Austria. I hope you'll enjoy the pics. Find more of them in the gallery section
I came across this funny looking little book last month in a bookshop whilst trying to find Aristoteles... The title got my attention and I started reading it right there. The first pages made laugh outloudly! It was extremly humorous to me, how a first class philosopher uses strict methods to analyse and define something like bullshit. The cost was 11.96 €, so I said, what the hell... and i bought it. Yesterday I read it trough and I must say the subject is far more serious than I expected. Bullshit is really all around us and means bigger deanger to truth than lie. But we all bullshit every once in a while, mostly because we are forced to make stuff up. People expect us to know something and tell it, but we don't have a clue. So we bullshit them. Or sometimes we are in a situation where we have to make a great impression on somebody or maybe even a bigger corwd of people. Bullshit is one of the best ways to do it So, if you want to learn more, I suggest you read this book or view interview with the author on Youtube firstly.
In fact, I have so much work that I didn't have time to blog at all. The last four days I was on a trip to 
WIDGETIZE