Clipmarks | syncopath's clips

Music and the Brain

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:15:59 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Very interesting stuff, suggest to download the pdf file

Over the last two months, Nature has published a series of essays about the latest scientific research into music, and now that the series is complete, it has been made available as a free PDF.

Among the authors of the essays are Aniruddh D. Patel, a theoretical neurobiologist at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, who discusses the brain's response to different varieties of music, and Laurel Trainor, director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, who explains the neural basis of music perception.

Nature also has a special podcast featuring a discussion between science writer Philip Ball and music psychologist John Sloboda, both of whom contribute essays to the series.

Tags: music, brain, neuroscience

looking for Kafka in Tel-Aviv ?!!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:12:18 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: Hoffe died this year, leaving the inheritance to her two daughters. Researchers are hoping they will now be given access to the materials, which will help shed light on Kafka's biography and will likely spark new interest in the author in the academic and literary worlds.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

T.A. flat may hold key to holes in Kafka bio

Ceremonies were held around the world Thursday to commemorate what would have been the 125th birthday of Franz Kafka, the Prague-born writer who gained renown only after his death at 41.

Even today, 84 years after his death, many holes remain in his tragic life story. For years, researchers and academics have turned to a small apartment in Tel Aviv they believe houses the remainder of the author's estate.

The mysterious materials are part of the inheritance left by Kafka to his friend Max Brod, who published his writings in what was then Mandatory Palestine.

After Brod's death in Tel Aviv in 1968, the inheritance was passed to his secretary, Esther Hoffe, who for years refused to allow researchers to view them

She sold some of them at public auction, leaving her with significant profits. Others were smuggled out of Israel and placed in safekeeping in Switzerland

"Zorba the Israeli"

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:04:21 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: His most famous book, "Zorba the Greek," was published in 1946. Its appearance in English in the United States, in 1954, made its author a runaway success that exposed him to the rest of the world.

Zorbas became an adored figure in Western culture, and his prescription for life, passions and animal instincts were idealized. He came to represent all of Greek culture.

Kazantzakis wrote many books. "The Last Temptation of Christ" roused a storm of controversy when it appeared.
(the film version of the book was released, directed by Martin Scorsese with a soundtrack composed by Peter Gabriel.)

"It's the combination of the landscape and the people," Melzer a former philosophy professor says "Greeks have an endless ability to be happy, and we Israelis can only learn from them."

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Zorba the Israeli

"I expect nothing. I fear nothing. I am free," reads the epitaph on the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis, located in a cemetery in Heraklion on the island of Crete. Kazantzakis, of "Zorba the Greek" fame, is not merely an author, poet, translator, and philosopher - he is an institution.

His status as an institution extends beyond the borders of Greece. The International Society of Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis operates throughout the world in order to preserve his heritage. Among its activities is the publication of an annual journal and the organization of events focusing on the author and his work. The society was established in Geneva 20 years ago and has branches throughout the world, including in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and of course Israel.

Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Heraklion on the island of Crete in 1883

He translated Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Darwin and Henri Bergson into and wrote poems, stories, novels

Clip Source: www.ort.fi

The Story of Stuff

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:19:16 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: you can watch it on site: www.storyofstuff.com
on youtube, google video and more ....

Clip Source: www.storyofstuff.com

What is the Story of Stuff?

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The Story of Stuff - Ch.1: Introduction

[Video]

TED Talks - 2 years, 50 million talks, top 10

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:25:38 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: To celebrate two years and 50 million TED talks, we're releasing for the first time the list of the Top 10 TED talks

Clip Source: www.ted.com

These are the Top 10 TEDTalks in our first two years of posting TED video free to the world. Watch the highlights video, or dive in to the talks, using the links at right.

Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks
05:40 Apr 2008

David Gallo shows underwater astonishments
05:21 Jan 2008

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth
07:42 May 2007

Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do
22:30 Jun 2006

Al Gore on averting climate crisis
16:18 Jun 2006

Jill Bolte Taylor's powerful stroke of insight

Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic"
15:15 Dec 2007

Jeff Han demos his breakthrough touchscreen
09:32 Aug 2006

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
20:35 Jun 2006

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
19:29 Jun 2006

Tags: ted, talks, top

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:12:11 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google's research director, offered an update to George Box's maxim: "All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."

Clip Source: www.wired.com

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don't have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don't have to settle for models at all.

Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.

Tags: theory, data, scientific model, computation cloud, google

SYNTHETIC TIMES – Media Art China 2008

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:48:57 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "Works in the exhibition explore the trajectory of unruly visions from the desire to transcend the corporal to the construction of synthetic worlds, from telematic dreaming to transgenic hybrids, challenging the very notion of what we know as reality and what is perceived as being human."

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the National Art Museum of China will present “SYNTHETIC TIMES – Media Art China 2008” in its current location at the center of Beijing. NAMOC is the only national art museum in China that is dedicated to research, presentation and promotion of modern and contemporary arts.

Clip Source: mediartchina.org

The exhibition is organized around four distinctive yet interrelated themes that testify to the bittersweetness of man’s incessant and obsessive pursuit of an ideal world through artistic intervention into media and communications technologies as well as bio-cultural spheres.

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

OP_ERA: Sonic Dimension is an immersive and interactive installation designed as a music box.

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

Urgently! is an info-sculpture that explores such phenomena as information overload, Web 2.0 and information aesthetics

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

anagrams

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

You and I, Horizontal

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

sweat of a body who fear nobod

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

“Alexitimia”

a deficit in emotional cognition.

Clip Source: www.mediartchina.org

"Cloud" carries a strong expressive force that transcends over the time and space

Tags: art, international exhibition, beijing

The science of sex

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:26:15 GMT

clipped by: Beholder

Clip Source: www.scienceandsex.com

Tags: sex, second life, genetic design

Free Online Courses from Great Universities

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:04:48 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug
clipper's remarks: Goody

Clip Source: www.oculture.com

Free Online Courses from Great Universities

Humanities & Social Sciences

Archaeology

Introduction to Archaeology - Feed - MP3s - Ruth Tringham, UC Berkeley

Architecture

Architecture Studio: Building in Landscapes (Video) - iTunes - Jan Wampler, MIT

Economics

Economic Geography of the Industrial World - Feed - MP3s - Richard Walker, UC Berkeley.

Geography

Geography of World Cultures - iTunes - Martin Lewis, Stanford University

History

African-American History: Modern Freedom Struggle - YouTube - Clay Carson, Stanford

Literature

Shakespeare - iTunes - Feed - MP3s - Charles Altieri, UC Berkeley

Philosophy

Introduction to Logic - iTunes - Feed - Patricia Churchland, UCSD

Sciences

Computer Science

Operating Systems Principles - iTunes - Surendar Chandra, Notre Dame

Operating Systems and System Programming - iTunes - Feed - Multiple professors, UC Berkeley

The Future of the Internet - iTunes - Ramesh Johari, Stanford

Understanding Computers and the Internet - iTunes - Feed - David Malan, Harvard University

Liverpool voted "England's most musical city"

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:03:13 GMT

clipped by: syncopath

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Liverpool is 'most musical city'

Liverpool has been voted England's most musical city in a national campaign set up by the Arts Council.

The home of The Beatles and The Zutons - and current European Capital of Culture - took 49% of the vote in an online poll set up by the funding body.

Sheffield - which brought the world the Arctic Monkeys and Pulp - came second, while Manchester came third.

Liverpool Culture Company music manager Gordon Ross said: "The city today has a phenomenal pool of talent."

Expo Zaragoza 2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:02:08 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: art entertainment design & architecture in a grand event of paying respect to Life and Nature.
interesting 2see what it may bring forth? ...

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Expo Zaragoza puts its best eco-step forward

Up to now, one could be forgiven for knowing next to nothing about the ancient Spanish city of Zaragoza, capital of Aragón and the country's fifth largest metropolis. For some reason, it's never had the same mystique as, say, Granada, Salamanca or Toledo. But that seems likely to change very soon.

The transforming event is Expo Zaragoza 2008, an international exposition that opened last Saturday and focuses on the timely themes of water and sustainable development.

Clip Source: www.expozaragoza2008.es

The International Exhibition will offer visitors the opportunity to party at an event with a marked cultural accent, and with a 93-day-long programme that includes more than 3,400 acts from more than 350 companies and artists.

These acts, apt for all members of the public, are a bid for cultural diversity and style heterogeneity, in line with the theme and universal philosophy of the Exhibition, “Water and Sustainable Development”.

The Awakening of the Serpent”.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

EXPO ZARAGOZA 2008

[Video]

Geotourism Challenge: Are you a geosavvy traveler?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:00:31 GMT

clipped by: syncopath

Clip Source: www.nationalgeographic.com

Geotourism Challenge

Clip Source: www.nationalgeographic.com

Are you a geosavvy traveler?

Are you a geosavvy traveler, alert to the quality and character of the destinations you visit? Have you traveled to a place that works to sustain, enhance, and protect its culture and environment for future generations? If so, let us know where it is and what you found. Nominate a person, place, or organization that's doing things right.

The Geotourism Challenge is sponsored by National Geographic's Center for Sustainable Destinations and Ashoka's Changemakers.

"language as a window into human nature'. -

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:32:32 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "language is an instinct, an evolutionary adaptation that is partly hardwired into our brains and partly learned"..Steven Pinker un his new book

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

The rules of language may reveal how our brains really work.

Steven Pinker

a linguistics explorer, hunting around the sentences and syntax of human language for clues

to the inner world of the human brain

how they are used in sentences,

Why so much attention to verbs?

part it’s simply because he finds them fascinating.

Pinker has been a driving force in linguistics theory, analyzing language in labs at MIT, Stanford University

testing to what extent language is biologically programmed. His research suggests that language is an instinct, an evolutionary adaptation that is partly hardwired into our brains and partly learned

This work led Pinker to develop his theory of the evolution of the mind and the source of language

the brain at birth is not simply a blank slate to be shaped by culture and experience. Rather, it comes programmed with many behavioral dispositions and talents

human nature is to some extent innate and shaped by natural selection

Ice Shelf Collapses in Antarctica

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:54:50 GMT

clipped by: syncopath

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

June 16, 2008—Another large plate of ice has broken off the rapidly disintegrating Wilkins Ice Shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula, the above satellite images show.

While the ice shelf, located directly below South America, shrank significantly in previous months (see March images), this is the first documented occurrence of an ice shelf collapsing during the Southern Hemisphere's winter.

A trend of "extraordinary warming" over the past 50 years in Antarctica has caused the loss of several ice shelves

The researchers also warned that the last strip of ice on Wilkins would disappear soon.

"The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position," they said, "making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days."

Extreme Music: Top 15 Free Music Websites That You Will Want to Visit

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:21:27 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: It need no words, just explore and listen

Clip Source: www.musicouch.com

Music is a powerful creation. By its very design, it invokes a storm of stirred emotions, moving seas of unbridled passion within the core of our very soul.

Connecting to the world on a global scale.
Seeking the journey into the mysterious unexplored.
Unearthing a trove of treasures that are unlike anything known before.