Nikio

I could show you my last slideshow of photos from gymnastics world cup in Maribor (actually I'm doing it right now), but istead I'd much rather share with you my last talk from the conference in Olimje a week ago. The purpose was to present UMMI summer camps and our methods of working there, but in doing so also shine some light on the issues connected with giftedness and creativity, especially with children and youth.

Unfortunatelly for some of you, the talk is in Slovenian. If anyone is willing to make subtitles or translations I can provide source video file and the transcript in Slovenian. I lack time to do it myself. Those of you who understand it, thank you for watching and I'll be glad to recive some comments.

The thesis of my masters work at Faculty of Architecture was done in the field of architectural acoustics. I spent the last year of formal education going around different concert halls and testing their acoustical propreties. But just before the conclusion of my work I was able to get some very detailed information about our Grand Philharmonic Hall which gave me a deeper insight into this field of science and this concert hall in particular. Since then, I didn't have an oppourtunuty to listen music in that hall, but I did thought about it a lot. So you can imagine I was quite excited when Mr. Simon Perčič from UPOL orchestra called me to photograph their concert which was about to happen there.


click below for more (text and pics)

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I will present two examples and then I will draw a conclusion.

1. The other day I was watching a lecture on TED, where the speaker (Michael Pollan) made an interesting analogy; let's take a look at the bees. They are drawn to the flowers by their looks and smell. The flowers actually make them fly onto them and "forces them" to help them (flowers) procreate. The bee is actually fooled by the flower but gets honney in return!

2. Imagine species that are really good at surviving, like sharks or aligators (or humans?), which have been around since before the dinosaurs and have changed only a little during that time. They must be really perfectly built for their purpose of living. Now; wouldn't be just great for you if you could make a shark or an aligator depend on you? That would, in a way, make your survival a lot easier. Is like befriending powerful people. There actually are birds which clean aligators teeth and I imagine those birds are somehow in advantage over the other birds, for they have a really stable source of food and protection.


The conclusion: Are we (humans) any better any better than the bees? I believe not! We too are fooled by tomatoes, cows, pigs and some birds (chickens and turkeys) which now flourish as species. If you have problem imagining that, it is probably because you see tomatoes as "food" and not as a "plant" in the ecosystem (a couple of years living in a city and shopping in supermarkets will actually do that kind of damage to your brain). But that's what it really is! Tomatoes are just plants that grow around in some places! They produce very juicy and tasty fruits which fool us to plant them more and more. In terms of business: tomatoes (along with some other plants like potatoes...) made a risky but very profitable investment. As long as we are here, they have nothing to worry about.
The deal we have with cows, birds and pigs is even more perverse; yes, we do kill individual cows but we take a really good care for the population which has never been larger.

Perhaps this is not the most scientific way to look at the evolutin, but it sure is a lot of fun!

Today I visited the frist in a series of three lectures (link to pdf, 800kb) by Dr. Or Ettlinger who obtained his Doctorade on the field of virtual architecture or virtual space in general. The lecture answered many of fundamental questions of virtual(-ity) and the least I can say is that it was mindblowing. I would really like to share some insights based on my notes and my own thoughts from the lecture.
So here it goes.

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I believe that each of us has been at least for once in his/hers lifetime asking those fundamental questions about time and it's nature. Many people approach these dilemmas from the physical point of view and some of them, like Einstein, were quite successful.

But we all know that this is not the end of this story. Einstein could very well be right, but changes of time become significant only when we're dealing with powerful gravitational fields, high masses or moving that is close to the speed of light.

But what about the time that we, humans, perceive? It may be relative just as well, but under different laws.

Quite recently I've read a book by Steve Taylor who deals with this questions in his book Making time.

The book could be divided in three parts. First part talks about our perception of time in normal circumstances, the second part (which is a bit harder for me to accept) talks about paranormal experiences like precognition, and the third part tries to apply the previously discussed theory into praxis, with a single goal: to manipulate your perceived time, either by making it longer when you're having fun, or to run it faster when you're in pain (or in doctor's waiting room, prison, waiting in a line... etc). Let's examine those three parts separately.

1st part, Chapters 1-6
Author starts by introducing 5 "laws" of psychological time and I hope I'm not violating any law or giving you a spoiler by writing them down:
1. Time speeds up as we get older
2. Time slows down when we are exposed to new experiences and environments.
3. Time passes quickly in states of absorption.
4. Time passes slowly in states of non-absorption.
5. Time often passes slowly, or stops altogether, in situation where conscious mind or normal ego is in abeyance.

I think most of these things are rather self-explanatory, especially if you think of the situations from your own life. Christmas does seem to come faster every year around, and time seems longer when you go abroad (when you return home it feels like you were away for at least a month, while for others it was just an other boring and short week), time does seem to pass quickly when you are absorbed (movies, video games...) and it passes so slowly when you are not absorbed (waiting at your dentist's waiting room). The last law describes situations of meditation, car accidents (when everything seems to be moving in slow motion when you try to recall it) or "in the Zone" experiences described by athletes, artists or performers.

Author spends about 150 pages for this argument and gives really detailed explanation of this theory. He cites many scientific papers and research reports. Reading these chapters was thrilling and it gave me chills... I only wish I could tell you more, but it is hard for me now to condense 150 pages into one paragraph.

2nd part, 7th Chapter
Second part is in my opinion chapter 7 when author tries to argue that linear perception of time is an illusion. While the psychological part of the argument (involving theory of ego) could be OK, he then moves on to the quantum theory which he simplifies just a bit too much. OK, it is proven for the time to be relative across the universe and it could be true that the linear timeline that we sense isn't exactly what really goes on in the universe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that some people have precognitive or similar abilities. I mean, quantum theory is so deep, abstract and yet still unknown, that even one of it's great masters, Richard Feynman, once said: "If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory."
Author should AT LEAST mention that many of those cases could be explained simply by selection bias.

3rd part, Chapters 8-9
So, now that we learned so much about the time perception; how to manipulate our perceived time? Should we travel around like crazy? Change jobs every couple of months? Or perhaps live in a boredom for the rest of the life to make it seem sooo looooooong. Hm... I'm not giving that up If the author finds his way to this blog.... well, it just wouldn't be fair, would it



Overall it is an amazing book, which answered many of my fundamental questions about time vs. psychology. I can't recommend it enough.

I hope now we could debate this stuff within the comments section below. You are welcome to post your thoughts and questions.

It's been more than a month since my switch to iMac and I am more than well adjusted to the new working environment now. And what a difference that is! Now I see what computers should really be like.

Of course, each of us will see and count his own hits and misses. And each of us will see his own reasons to it. I for one like to think that designers and architects, not solely programers, were included into process of software making in case of Mac. When a designer has to design a new kitchen (s)he will most likely make a research which parts and kitchen apparatus are more often used than the other (and how are they used). Then he will apply this findings to make the kitchen more useful and handy. Parts that are needed daily will be placed differetnly than that China tea set which is saved only for special occasions. The "designing" part, where it is determined how will stuff look like comes at the very end. That kind of thinking is really the core of designing process and I believe professional designers are good at it simply because they practice it every day.

When you open some infamous PC software it is clear that this process wasn't applied to it. You are being bombared with tons of different icons, buttons, menues (etc), placed with no hierarchy and logic whatsoever. The icons that you use non-stop are the same size as the ones you use only once a month and they are often placed right next to eachother (I could go on with this). That might be the main reason why beginners are so frustrated when they enter PC environment for the first time. "I just don't know where to click" because "everything looks so messy," they complain. Well, guess what: it doesn't look messy - it is messy!

Going back to PC? You must be kidding.

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.