martes, febrero 28, 2006
Y para carnavales...
Venecia se lleva la palma en carnavales elegantes, artísticos... hasta aristocráticos, diría yo. Si quieres ver un carnaval teatral, refinado, pero también aburrido, decadente, anclado en el siglo XVIII, puedes ir a Venecia.
Si lo que quieres es divertirte...
Es todo lo contrario al de Venecia, si es que en el asunto de carnavales se puede definir "lo del contrario".
La juerga está asegurada, con grandes cantidades de bebedizos y espirituosos (deja el coche olvidado por tres días), mucha gente con ganas de pasarlo bien durante 72 horas seguidas, disfraces asequibles a todos los bolsillos, fiesta en la calle y en los bares... y también una buena ración de sustos o incluso miedo.
Porque si eres mujer, algún sustillo te darán las trangas: mozos del pueblo solteros (de entre 16 y 26 años) vestidos con pieles, camisa de cuadros y falda larga, con ruidosas esquilas en el trasero, con una larga tranca de madera (para "organizar la circulación" de los viandantes) y apretados cuernos de choto en la cabeza. Símbolo de la fertilidad. 
Una treintena de "malas bestias" que se abalanzan sobre toda fémina mayor de 12 años y menor de 100 (es decir, toda mujer que pueda encontrarse por la calle sin ir en brazos de nadie), y simulan el acto sexual arrinconándola contra cualquier pared, coche, columna o lo que sea.
Y si eres mujer o no, es decir, seas lo que seas, todavía no has visto lo peor. En cualquier momento, si estás despistado y no escapas, te puede caer encima el onso. Y eso si que puede ser un problema para la salud física. Cuando un niño de pequeño en la escuela de Bielsa es especialmente brutote ya le dicen: "tu majo vas para onso". Te lo aseguro, si ves venir hacia ti a un onso corriendo, eso da más miedo que un toro de fuego.
El onso suele medir un metro noventa o así, va forrado con paja, tela de saco y pieles, es más feo que picio, y lleva tras él, agarrándole con una cadena de grueso calibre al correspondiente domador, que le sacude bastonazos en la espalda con un garrote (pero bastonazos... a lo bestia).
Su trabajo consiste en acechar a cualquier grupo humano despistado y arremeter con toda la energía cinética con la que es capaz, intentando tirar al suelo al mayor número de gente posible y caer encima de aquella persona que parezca más débil (no se libran niños ni ancianitas).
No creáis que es un trabajo fácil. Es una auténtica paliza (72 horas haciendo de onso) que sólo puede soportarse con abundantes dosis de alcohol, que por cierto le van convirtiendo cada vez en más peligroso para el resto del mundo. Como declaraba al Heraldo de Aragón hace justamente un año Javier Churto, el onso, "es que esto ya se sabe, que no es un tutú de bailarina".
Si lo que quieres es divertirte...
¡No te pierdas el Carnaval de Bielsa!
Es todo lo contrario al de Venecia, si es que en el asunto de carnavales se puede definir "lo del contrario".La juerga está asegurada, con grandes cantidades de bebedizos y espirituosos (deja el coche olvidado por tres días), mucha gente con ganas de pasarlo bien durante 72 horas seguidas, disfraces asequibles a todos los bolsillos, fiesta en la calle y en los bares... y también una buena ración de sustos o incluso miedo.
Porque si eres mujer, algún sustillo te darán las trangas: mozos del pueblo solteros (de entre 16 y 26 años) vestidos con pieles, camisa de cuadros y falda larga, con ruidosas esquilas en el trasero, con una larga tranca de madera (para "organizar la circulación" de los viandantes) y apretados cuernos de choto en la cabeza. Símbolo de la fertilidad. 
Una treintena de "malas bestias" que se abalanzan sobre toda fémina mayor de 12 años y menor de 100 (es decir, toda mujer que pueda encontrarse por la calle sin ir en brazos de nadie), y simulan el acto sexual arrinconándola contra cualquier pared, coche, columna o lo que sea.
Y si eres mujer o no, es decir, seas lo que seas, todavía no has visto lo peor. En cualquier momento, si estás despistado y no escapas, te puede caer encima el onso. Y eso si que puede ser un problema para la salud física. Cuando un niño de pequeño en la escuela de Bielsa es especialmente brutote ya le dicen: "tu majo vas para onso". Te lo aseguro, si ves venir hacia ti a un onso corriendo, eso da más miedo que un toro de fuego.
El onso suele medir un metro noventa o así, va forrado con paja, tela de saco y pieles, es más feo que picio, y lleva tras él, agarrándole con una cadena de grueso calibre al correspondiente domador, que le sacude bastonazos en la espalda con un garrote (pero bastonazos... a lo bestia).Su trabajo consiste en acechar a cualquier grupo humano despistado y arremeter con toda la energía cinética con la que es capaz, intentando tirar al suelo al mayor número de gente posible y caer encima de aquella persona que parezca más débil (no se libran niños ni ancianitas).
No creáis que es un trabajo fácil. Es una auténtica paliza (72 horas haciendo de onso) que sólo puede soportarse con abundantes dosis de alcohol, que por cierto le van convirtiendo cada vez en más peligroso para el resto del mundo. Como declaraba al Heraldo de Aragón hace justamente un año Javier Churto, el onso, "es que esto ya se sabe, que no es un tutú de bailarina".
Etiquetas: Sobrarbe
lunes, febrero 27, 2006
Un clip para el Vi
sábado, febrero 25, 2006
Pueblecicos: Venecia
En pleno carnaval nada mejor que acercarse a Venecia.
La otra Perla del Adriático está formada por 118 islas separadas por 160 canales y unidas por 450 puentes, en medio de una laguna de 50 Km de longitud por 15 de anchura.
Así se ve desde Google Earth la Plaza de San Marcos, con el Campanile, la Basílica de San Marcos, el Palacio Patriarcal y el Puente de los Suspiros a la derecha.
Plaza de San Marcos según Google Earth
Descendamos del satélite a los porches, para ver el Campanile y la Basílica desde el otro extremo de la plaza, a casi medio kilómetro de distancia.
Plaza de San Marcos según Javifields
Y si cruzamos la plaza (paseando por el centro, si por suerte no está inundada), podemos entrar al interior de la Basílica y subir a lo más alto para apreciar sus magníficos mosaicos de estilo Bizantino.
Basílica de San Marcos, mosaicos
Finalmente, una concesión al romanticismo: desde el Puente de los Suspiros se despide por el momento este humilde viajero.
Frente al Puente de los Suspiros
La otra Perla del Adriático está formada por 118 islas separadas por 160 canales y unidas por 450 puentes, en medio de una laguna de 50 Km de longitud por 15 de anchura.
Así se ve desde Google Earth la Plaza de San Marcos, con el Campanile, la Basílica de San Marcos, el Palacio Patriarcal y el Puente de los Suspiros a la derecha.
Plaza de San Marcos según Google EarthDescendamos del satélite a los porches, para ver el Campanile y la Basílica desde el otro extremo de la plaza, a casi medio kilómetro de distancia.
Plaza de San Marcos según JavifieldsY si cruzamos la plaza (paseando por el centro, si por suerte no está inundada), podemos entrar al interior de la Basílica y subir a lo más alto para apreciar sus magníficos mosaicos de estilo Bizantino.
Basílica de San Marcos, mosaicosFinalmente, una concesión al romanticismo: desde el Puente de los Suspiros se despide por el momento este humilde viajero.
Frente al Puente de los SuspirosEtiquetas: pueblecicos
jueves, febrero 23, 2006
El profesor de inglés
Tras una minuciosa investigación lingüística, revisando horas y horas de imágenes de televisión, cine, documentales de National Geographic, series de terror, etc, etc, creemos poder aventurar la identidad del culpable.
El profesor de inglés de nuestro ex-presidente del gobierno debió ser...
El profesor de inglés de nuestro ex-presidente del gobierno debió ser...
miércoles, febrero 22, 2006
Hoy no tengo tiempo
Hoy no tengo tiempo de escribir. Estoy tan ocupado haciendo de reloj...
(Autor: Yugo Nakamura)
(Autor: Yugo Nakamura)
Etiquetas: varios
martes, febrero 21, 2006
Florecicas: Cannabis Sativa
Cannabis Sativa (variedad Moby Dick)
Psicoactividad máxima; combina efecto mental y físico, aunque predomina la sativa, por lo que no es adecuada para principiantes.
El máximo potencial psicoactivo lo da en exterior, gracias a los rayos ultravioletas, donde desarrolla un efecto más triposo que en interior. Resiste bien el moho, y consume todo el fertilizante, agua, y luz que se le dé. El nivel de olor es bajo, por lo que se camufla fácilmente, siempre y cuando no tenga tres metros de altura.
"An essay concerning cannabis smoking", by Mr. X
[Este artículo fue escrito bajo el seudónimo de Mr. X en 1969 para publicarse en el libro Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Su autor tenía 35 años entonces. Continuó consumiendo cannabis toda su vida. Tras su muerte, el editor del libro hizo pública la identidad de Mr. X: Carl Sagan]
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life - a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened. I was lying on my back in a friend's living room idly examining the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by a potted plant (not cannabis!). I suddenly realized that I was examining an intricately detailed miniature Volkswagen, distinctly outlined by the shadows. I was very skeptical at this perception, and tried to find inconsistencies between Volkswagens and what I viewed on the ceiling. But it was all there, down to hubcaps, license plate, chrome, and even the small handle used for opening the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I was stunned to find that there was a movie going on the inside of my eyelids. Flash... a simple country scene with red farmhouse, a blue sky, white clouds, yellow path meandering over green hills to the horizon... Flash... same scene, orange house, brown sky, red clouds, yellow path, violet fields... Flash... Flash... Flash. The flashes came about once a heartbeat. Each flash brought the same simple scene into view, but each time with a different set of colors... exquisitely deep hues, and astonishingly harmonious in their juxtaposition. Since then I have smoked occasionally and enjoyed it thoroughly. It amplifies torpid sensibilities and produces what to me are even more interesting effects, as I will explain shortly.
I can remember another early visual experience with cannabis, in which I viewed a candle flame and discovered in the heart of the flame, standing with magnificent indifference, the black -hatted and- cloaked Spanish gentleman who appears on the label of the Sandeman sherry bottle. Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.
I want to explain that at no time did I think these things 'really' were out there. I knew there was no Volkswagen on the ceiling and there was no Sandeman salamander man in the flame. I don't feel any contradiction in these experiences. There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.
While my early perceptions were all visual, and curiously lacking in images of human beings, both of these items have changed over the intervening years. I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high. I test whether I'm high by closing my eyes and looking for the flashes. They come long before there are any alterations in my visual or other perceptions. I would guess this is a signal-to-noise problem, the visual noise level being very low with my eyes closed. Another interesting information-theoretical aspects is the prevalence -at least in my flashed images- of cartoons: just the outlines of figures, caricatures, not photographs. I think this is simply a matter of information compression; it would be impossible to grasp the total content of an image with the information content of an ordinary photograph, say 108 bits, in the fraction of a second which a flash occupies. And the flash experience is designed, if I may use that word, for instant appreciation. The artist and viewer are one. This is not to say that the images are not marvelously detailed and complex. I recently had an image in which two people were talking, and the words they were saying would form and disappear in yellow above their heads, at about a sentence per heartbeat. In this way it was possible to follow the conversation. At the same time an occasional word would appear in red letters among the yellows above their heads, perfectly in context with the conversation; but if one remembered these red words, they would enunciate a quite different set of statements, penetratingly critical of the conversation. The entire image set which I've outlined here, with I would say at least 100 yellow words and something like 10 red words, occurred in something under a minute.
The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights -I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate. For example, I have spent some time high looking at the work of the Belgian surrealist Yves Tanguey. Some years later, I emerged from a long swim in the Caribbean and sank exhausted onto a beach formed from the erosion of a nearby coral reef. In idly examining the arcuate pastel-colored coral fragments which made up the beach, I saw before me a vast Tanguey painting. Perhaps Tanguey visited such a beach in his childhood.
A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I'm down. The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation. A potato will have a texture, a body, and taste like that of other potatoes, but much more so. Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex. On the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.
I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word 'crazy' to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: 'did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy.' When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.
When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.
But let me try to at least give the flavor of such an insight and its accompaniments. One night, high on cannabis, I was delving into my childhood, a little self-analysis, and making what seemed to me to be very good progress. I then paused and thought how extraordinary it was that Sigmund Freud, with no assistance from drugs, had been able to achieve his own remarkable self-analysis. But then it hit me like a thunderclap that this was wrong, that Freud had spent the decade before his self-analysis as an experimenter with and a proselytizer for cocaine; and it seemed to me very apparent that the genuine psychological insights that Freud brought to the world were at least in part derived from his drug experience. I have no idea whether this is in fact true, or whether the historians of Freud would agree with this interpretation, or even if such an idea has been published in the past, but it is an interesting hypothesis and one which passes first scrutiny in the world of the downs.
I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say 'Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!' I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.
Cannabis enables nonmusicians to know a little about what it is like to be a musician, and nonartists to grasp the joys of art. But I am neither an artist nor a musician. What about my own scientific work? While I find a curious disinclination to think of my professional concerns when high -the attractive intellectual adventures always seem to be in every other area- I have made a conscious effort to think of a few particularly difficult current problems in my field when high. It works, at least to a degree. I find I can bring to bear, for example, a range of relevant experimental facts which appear to be mutually inconsistent. So far, so good. At least the recall works. Then in trying to conceive of a way of reconciling the disparate facts, I was able to come up with a very bizarre possibility, one that I'm sure I would never have thought of down. I've written a paper which mentions this idea in passing. I think it's very unlikely to be true, but it has consequences which are experimentally testable, which is the hallmark of an acceptable theory.
I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I've negotiated it with no difficult at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I'm not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you're high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don't advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done. My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover. Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater.
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there. I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs. When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of he parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
Psicoactividad máxima; combina efecto mental y físico, aunque predomina la sativa, por lo que no es adecuada para principiantes.El máximo potencial psicoactivo lo da en exterior, gracias a los rayos ultravioletas, donde desarrolla un efecto más triposo que en interior. Resiste bien el moho, y consume todo el fertilizante, agua, y luz que se le dé. El nivel de olor es bajo, por lo que se camufla fácilmente, siempre y cuando no tenga tres metros de altura.
"An essay concerning cannabis smoking", by Mr. X
[Este artículo fue escrito bajo el seudónimo de Mr. X en 1969 para publicarse en el libro Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Su autor tenía 35 años entonces. Continuó consumiendo cannabis toda su vida. Tras su muerte, el editor del libro hizo pública la identidad de Mr. X: Carl Sagan]
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life - a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened. I was lying on my back in a friend's living room idly examining the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by a potted plant (not cannabis!). I suddenly realized that I was examining an intricately detailed miniature Volkswagen, distinctly outlined by the shadows. I was very skeptical at this perception, and tried to find inconsistencies between Volkswagens and what I viewed on the ceiling. But it was all there, down to hubcaps, license plate, chrome, and even the small handle used for opening the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I was stunned to find that there was a movie going on the inside of my eyelids. Flash... a simple country scene with red farmhouse, a blue sky, white clouds, yellow path meandering over green hills to the horizon... Flash... same scene, orange house, brown sky, red clouds, yellow path, violet fields... Flash... Flash... Flash. The flashes came about once a heartbeat. Each flash brought the same simple scene into view, but each time with a different set of colors... exquisitely deep hues, and astonishingly harmonious in their juxtaposition. Since then I have smoked occasionally and enjoyed it thoroughly. It amplifies torpid sensibilities and produces what to me are even more interesting effects, as I will explain shortly.
I can remember another early visual experience with cannabis, in which I viewed a candle flame and discovered in the heart of the flame, standing with magnificent indifference, the black -hatted and- cloaked Spanish gentleman who appears on the label of the Sandeman sherry bottle. Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.
I want to explain that at no time did I think these things 'really' were out there. I knew there was no Volkswagen on the ceiling and there was no Sandeman salamander man in the flame. I don't feel any contradiction in these experiences. There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.
While my early perceptions were all visual, and curiously lacking in images of human beings, both of these items have changed over the intervening years. I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high. I test whether I'm high by closing my eyes and looking for the flashes. They come long before there are any alterations in my visual or other perceptions. I would guess this is a signal-to-noise problem, the visual noise level being very low with my eyes closed. Another interesting information-theoretical aspects is the prevalence -at least in my flashed images- of cartoons: just the outlines of figures, caricatures, not photographs. I think this is simply a matter of information compression; it would be impossible to grasp the total content of an image with the information content of an ordinary photograph, say 108 bits, in the fraction of a second which a flash occupies. And the flash experience is designed, if I may use that word, for instant appreciation. The artist and viewer are one. This is not to say that the images are not marvelously detailed and complex. I recently had an image in which two people were talking, and the words they were saying would form and disappear in yellow above their heads, at about a sentence per heartbeat. In this way it was possible to follow the conversation. At the same time an occasional word would appear in red letters among the yellows above their heads, perfectly in context with the conversation; but if one remembered these red words, they would enunciate a quite different set of statements, penetratingly critical of the conversation. The entire image set which I've outlined here, with I would say at least 100 yellow words and something like 10 red words, occurred in something under a minute.
The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights -I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate. For example, I have spent some time high looking at the work of the Belgian surrealist Yves Tanguey. Some years later, I emerged from a long swim in the Caribbean and sank exhausted onto a beach formed from the erosion of a nearby coral reef. In idly examining the arcuate pastel-colored coral fragments which made up the beach, I saw before me a vast Tanguey painting. Perhaps Tanguey visited such a beach in his childhood.
A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I'm down. The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation. A potato will have a texture, a body, and taste like that of other potatoes, but much more so. Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex. On the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.
I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word 'crazy' to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: 'did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy.' When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.
When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.
But let me try to at least give the flavor of such an insight and its accompaniments. One night, high on cannabis, I was delving into my childhood, a little self-analysis, and making what seemed to me to be very good progress. I then paused and thought how extraordinary it was that Sigmund Freud, with no assistance from drugs, had been able to achieve his own remarkable self-analysis. But then it hit me like a thunderclap that this was wrong, that Freud had spent the decade before his self-analysis as an experimenter with and a proselytizer for cocaine; and it seemed to me very apparent that the genuine psychological insights that Freud brought to the world were at least in part derived from his drug experience. I have no idea whether this is in fact true, or whether the historians of Freud would agree with this interpretation, or even if such an idea has been published in the past, but it is an interesting hypothesis and one which passes first scrutiny in the world of the downs.
I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say 'Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!' I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.
Cannabis enables nonmusicians to know a little about what it is like to be a musician, and nonartists to grasp the joys of art. But I am neither an artist nor a musician. What about my own scientific work? While I find a curious disinclination to think of my professional concerns when high -the attractive intellectual adventures always seem to be in every other area- I have made a conscious effort to think of a few particularly difficult current problems in my field when high. It works, at least to a degree. I find I can bring to bear, for example, a range of relevant experimental facts which appear to be mutually inconsistent. So far, so good. At least the recall works. Then in trying to conceive of a way of reconciling the disparate facts, I was able to come up with a very bizarre possibility, one that I'm sure I would never have thought of down. I've written a paper which mentions this idea in passing. I think it's very unlikely to be true, but it has consequences which are experimentally testable, which is the hallmark of an acceptable theory.
I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I've negotiated it with no difficult at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I'm not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you're high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don't advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done. My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover. Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater.
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there. I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs. When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of he parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
Etiquetas: florecicas
domingo, febrero 19, 2006
Deportistas españoles de alto nivel
La denominación Deportista de Alto Nivel (DAN) corresponde oficialmente al mayor de los rangos que un deportista de disciplina competitiva, tanto olímpica como no olímpica, pueda tener. Para conseguir dicha denominación hay que obtener unos resultados determinados en competiciones de Campeonatos del Mundo, de Europa y en el Ranking mundial, en función de los paises participantes en cada uno de los casos.El Consejo Superior de Deportes obtiene cada semestre la precisa información de las distintas Federaciones Españolas Deportivas que presentan los listados de los deportistas que cumplen con los requisitos establecidos. Después, una comisión especializada aprueba las distintas inclusiones en la lista y se publican en el Boletín Oficial del Estado.
Algunas ventajas de los DAN son:
- Reservas de un 3 % de las plazas ofertadas por las Universidades
- Facilidades en relación a la incorporación al mercado de trabajo.
- Medidas de incorporación y permanencia en los Cuerpos y Fuerzas de Seguridad del Estado.
- Inclusión en el régimen especial de la Seguridad Social de trabajadores por cuenta propia o autónomos, quedando afiliados al sistema y asimilados a la situación de alta, mediante la suscripción de un convenio especial con la Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social.
| Natación | 107 |
| Baloncesto | 99 |
| Hockey | 75 |
| Patinaje | 70 |
| Piragüismo | 56 |
| Balonmano | 55 |
| Atletismo | 49 |
| Motociclismo | 40 |
| Béisbol y Sófbol | 39 |
| Karate | 38 |
| Vela | 38 |
| Tiro Olímpico | 37 |
| Ciclismo | 36 |
| Gimnasia | 36 |
| Taekwondo | 34 |
| Fútbol | 31 |
| Voleibol | 31 |
| Aeronáutica | 27 |
| Rugby | 27 |
| Judo | 25 |
| Padel | 22 |
| Esgrima | 20 |
| Tiro a vuelo | 19 |
| Pelota | 18 |
| Golf | 15 |
| Halterofilia | 15 |
| Tenis | 13 |
| Remo | 12 |
| Triatlon | 12 |
| Petanca | 11 |
| Salvam. y Socorrismo | 11 |
| Luchas Olímpicas | 10 |
| Kickboxing | 9 |
| Discap. Intelect. | 6 |
| Hípica | 6 |
| Tiro con Arco | 6 |
| Discapacitados Físicos | 5 |
| Montaña y Escalada | 5 |
| Motonáutica | 5 |
| Billar | 4 |
| Automovilismo | 3 |
| Boxeo | 3 |
| Pentatlon Moderno | 3 |
| Ajedrez | 2 |
| Deportes de Invierno | 2 |
| Deportes para Sordos | 1 |
¡Qué penica damos en deportes de invierno...!
Etiquetas: varios
viernes, febrero 17, 2006
Foto: Buda yacente de Tumpat
El Paso al Nirvana: el Buda yacente representa la muerte de Buda. La postura simboliza la paz e indiferencia completa del mundo.Fotógrafo: Javi M.
jueves, febrero 16, 2006
Animalicos: varano
Es asustadizo y por eso no es fácil hacerle fotos desde cerca. Es un auténtico resto viviente de los antiguos dinosaurios.
Éste es el que tuve más cerca, un día que iba andando yo solito (y él también) por la selva del interior de la isla Perhentian Kecil. Lo tuve a unos 4 metros, y cuando me moví para sacar la cámara echó a correr (o él sacó una cámara y yo eché a correr, no recuerdo cómo fue...).
Lo mejor de Perhentian Kecil de todas formas no eran los varanos, eran las playas y los arroces de aquel garito chino que vendía cerveza (en un país fundamentalista islámico).
Playa de Perhentian Kecil
Éste otro varano fue avistado mientras pasábamos el día en un rio de Taman Negara.
Qué sanguijuelas las de Taman Negara... nadie tuvo sangre fría suficiente como para fotografiarlas... ni siquiera a aquélla que salía asomando de mi calcetín cuando me quité la bota en la canoa... no digo más...
Éste es el que tuve más cerca, un día que iba andando yo solito (y él también) por la selva del interior de la isla Perhentian Kecil. Lo tuve a unos 4 metros, y cuando me moví para sacar la cámara echó a correr (o él sacó una cámara y yo eché a correr, no recuerdo cómo fue...).
Varano en Perhentian Kecil
Lo mejor de Perhentian Kecil de todas formas no eran los varanos, eran las playas y los arroces de aquel garito chino que vendía cerveza (en un país fundamentalista islámico).
Playa de Perhentian Kecil
Éste otro varano fue avistado mientras pasábamos el día en un rio de Taman Negara.
Varano en Taman Negara
Qué sanguijuelas las de Taman Negara... nadie tuvo sangre fría suficiente como para fotografiarlas... ni siquiera a aquélla que salía asomando de mi calcetín cuando me quité la bota en la canoa... no digo más...
Etiquetas: animalicos, Malasia
miércoles, febrero 15, 2006
Ayer recibimos un Premio Honorario
martes, febrero 14, 2006
µ: Un bel dì, vedremo
Un bel dì, vedremolevarsi un fil di fumo
sull'estremo confin del mare.
E poi la nave appare.
Poi la nave bianca
entra nel porto,
romba il suo saluto.
Vedi? È venuto!
Io non gli scendo incontro. Io no.
Mi metto là sul ciglio del colle e aspetto,
e aspetto gran tempo
e non mi pesa,
la lunga attesa.
E uscito dalla folla cittadina,
un uomo, un picciol punto
s'avvia per la collina.
Chi sarà? chi sarà?
E come sarà giunto
che dirà? che dirà?
Chiamerà Butterfly dalla lontana.
Io senza dar risposta
me ne starò nascosta
un po' per celia
e un po' per non morire
al primo incontro;
ed egli alquanto in pena
chiamerà, chiamerà:
"Piccina mogliettina,
olezzo di verbena"
i nomi che mi dava al suo venire.
Tutto questo avverrà,
te lo prometto.
Tienti la tua paura,
io con sicura fede l'aspetto.
lunes, febrero 13, 2006
Google encuentra a los ladrones
Es fácil.
Y no digo nada más. Porque la SGAE denunciará a todas las webs donde se insulte a sus directivos...
- Abre la página de Google.
- Teclea "ladrones".
- Pulsa "enter".
- El primer sitio que sale es...
Y no digo nada más. Porque la SGAE denunciará a todas las webs donde se insulte a sus directivos...
domingo, febrero 12, 2006
El genuino Akubra es para...
Dice Wikipedia:
Así de bien queda puesto (hay que tener cabeza gorda, como JF)
Ésta es la etiqueta que demuestra que es el genuino
Una vez estudiadas todas las respuestas recibidas a las preguntas de la última anotación, el primero de los Akubra, por dar conmigo con la chupa vaquera (y la barba de tres días; si vais a Australia conseguid antes adaptador para enchufar la maquina de afeitar) es para...
El-Aragon
... que fue el primero en responder correctamente, sólo 14 minutos después de planteada la pregunta, y por eso desde hoy podrá elegir entre ponerse su Medio Gorro de Honor o un Akubra entero para jugar con su Bumerán de Consolación.
En cuanto a la segunda pregunta, por atinar en el segundo intento con el apellido que empieza por K del nipón de camiseta azul, cuyo nombre es Sadatoshi (aunque se ha hecho un lio con el otro, que no es T.M.), le ha correspondido el segundo de los Akubra a...
Que podrá lucirlo muy bien en su cabeza o algún día en su futuro blog.
(oye, ¿de verdad que S.K. vino a mi pueblo? ¿sería de vacaciones porque clases no dio, no? no me acuerdo...)
The Akubra hat is a distinctive part of Australian culture. Claimed to be derived from an Indigenous Australian word, Akubra is the company name of one of Australia's most famous producers of hats, although the name tends to be used more often to describe the hats themselves. Indeed, the company's range of hats is so large - and so ubiquitous - that in Australia nearly any hat of a similar design is likely to be mistakenly referred to as an Akubra.Hoy otorgamos dos estupendos Akubra de JF (modelo Down Under):
History
The original hat-making factory, not called Akubra at that time, was founded in the early 1870s by Benjamin Dunkerley. A recent immigrant to Australia, Dunkerley set up shop in Tasmania after inventing a machine that removed the hair tip from rabbit fur, leaving the softer under-fur for use in the making of felt hats.
Dunkerley and his family later relocated to Sydney, in New South Wales, where he was joined by Stephen Keir I. While working for Dunkerley Hat Mills, Kier married Ada Dunkerley, Benjamin's daughter. After Benjamin Dunkerley's death in 1918, Stephen Kier took over the reins of the company, moving to a larger premises and adopting the brand name Akubra.
Akubra is famous for providing the Slouch hats used by Australian forces in both World War One and Two. In the 1950s, the Akubra company expanded its range when it won the licence to produce Stetson hats in Australia, and by the 1970s, the company was so successful that it was forced to relocate again, to larger premises in Kempsey. Today, the company is still a family concern. Its current owners are the great-grandchildren of Benjamin Dunkerley.
TriviaThe character Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford wears an urban Akubra (note that it is a Herbert Johnson Poet, as it is called in modern times).
External links
Así de bien queda puesto (hay que tener cabeza gorda, como JF)
Ésta es la etiqueta que demuestra que es el genuinoUna vez estudiadas todas las respuestas recibidas a las preguntas de la última anotación, el primero de los Akubra, por dar conmigo con la chupa vaquera (y la barba de tres días; si vais a Australia conseguid antes adaptador para enchufar la maquina de afeitar) es para...
El-Aragon... que fue el primero en responder correctamente, sólo 14 minutos después de planteada la pregunta, y por eso desde hoy podrá elegir entre ponerse su Medio Gorro de Honor o un Akubra entero para jugar con su Bumerán de Consolación.
En cuanto a la segunda pregunta, por atinar en el segundo intento con el apellido que empieza por K del nipón de camiseta azul, cuyo nombre es Sadatoshi (aunque se ha hecho un lio con el otro, que no es T.M.), le ha correspondido el segundo de los Akubra a...
Que podrá lucirlo muy bien en su cabeza o algún día en su futuro blog.
(oye, ¿de verdad que S.K. vino a mi pueblo? ¿sería de vacaciones porque clases no dio, no? no me acuerdo...)
Etiquetas: premios
sábado, febrero 11, 2006
Retazos de Melbourne
Me decía Bencer en un post anterior, "a ver cuándo nos posteas un reportaje sobre Australia". Algo escribí ya, en la serie Animalicos, sobre un sitio interesante para ver bichos no muy lejos de Melbourne, el Healesville Sanctuary, pero no era gran cosa la verdad, un par de fotos y un enlace.
Y el asunto es que la memoria es limitada y ha dejado sitio para otras cosas más recientes.
Largísimo viaje para tan sólo cuatro días, cuatro: del 2 al 5 de diciembre. Tras una "escala técnica" de tres días, eso si, en Bangkok. Y hace muchos años, tantos como 14 y pico. Así que esto no es una redacción al uso, sino una enumeración de recuerdos inconexos: retazos de Melbourne.
Mi primer recuerdo debe estar a unos 700 Km en línea recta de Melbourne, es la vista de la bahía de Sydney desde el aire, con la imponente silueta de su palacio de la ópera. Tras nosecuántos kilómetros sobrevolando desierto y más desierto atravesando el continente de norte a sur, la imagen de la civilización te sorprende.
Downtown Melbourne desde uno de sus muchos parques
El segundo recuerdo es el de la globalización, antes de que la palabra se inventase. Recién llegados, al entrar a cenar a un restaurante chino con unos colegas japoneses encontrados en el aeropuerto de Bangkok, suena música de fondo de Julio Iglesias. Bromas con los japonenses sobre el asunto...
Hace un calor importante. Es pleno verano. Si pasas una hora al sol la cara se te pone echa un cromo. Entiendo el porqué del sombrero de Cocodrilo Dundee.
Lo más extraño por la calle son los mosquitos, o moscas o no sé qué son. Andando por la calle vas rodeado de una nube de ellos. Son grandes como la uña de un pulgar. Es molesto. No puedes casi abrir la boca. Al rato te terminas acostumbrando un poco, parece que no pican.
Al atardecer todos los ríos son iguales, éste me recuerda al Ebro (aunque las torres son distintas)
Pronto será Navidad. Las calles y los árboles están decorados. Y sigue haciendo un calor importante.
La ciudad es pequeña, el downtown en sí se recorre en una mañana (36 Km2 frente a los 1.000 de Zaragoza). Viven unas 60.000 personas. Parece una ciudad europea. Muy limpia. Segura. Multiracial. Cosmopolita.
Al salir del centro hacia la Universidad de Monash vemos dónde está el truco. La ciudad se extiende al estilo norteamericano alrededor del downtown formando la "región metropolitana", con 3,5 millones de habitantes ocupando una extensísima zona de 9.000 Km2.
La Navidad en pleno verano (a ver si alguien reconoce al japonés de mi izquierda)
Otra cosa que no se olvida: el colegio mayor universitario más cutre del mundo es (o era) el de Monash University. Tras una noche en él decidimos mudarnos a un hotel de una torre del downtown, con más higiene y mejor vista.
El asunto "origen de la población" es un tabú. Son casi todos descendientes cercanos de "bajados del barco", es decir, de presidiarios traídos a Australia en la época colonial. Australia fue el destino de los presos ingleses desde 1788 hasta 1868, se piensa que se deportaron desde Gran Bretaña al continente unos 137.000 hombres y 25.000 mujeres. No les gusta hablar de ello.
Los aborígenes son feos de verdad. Asistimos a una exhibición de música autóctona. El didjeridoo es el protagonista.
Zona comercial peatonal en el downtown
Último recuerdo: el tema de la bebida alcohólica debe ser un problema. Prohibida en muchos restaurantes. El mejor bar de copas del centro lo lleva un europeo, no recuerdo su país. Bebiendo y hablando con un camarero europeo en su bar del downtown me parece estar en mi casa, a 17.000 Km, en el casco viejo zaragozano.
Tengo un sombrero australiano esperando para premiar a quien me localice paseando por el downtown.
Y el asunto es que la memoria es limitada y ha dejado sitio para otras cosas más recientes.
Largísimo viaje para tan sólo cuatro días, cuatro: del 2 al 5 de diciembre. Tras una "escala técnica" de tres días, eso si, en Bangkok. Y hace muchos años, tantos como 14 y pico. Así que esto no es una redacción al uso, sino una enumeración de recuerdos inconexos: retazos de Melbourne.
Mi primer recuerdo debe estar a unos 700 Km en línea recta de Melbourne, es la vista de la bahía de Sydney desde el aire, con la imponente silueta de su palacio de la ópera. Tras nosecuántos kilómetros sobrevolando desierto y más desierto atravesando el continente de norte a sur, la imagen de la civilización te sorprende.
Downtown Melbourne desde uno de sus muchos parquesEl segundo recuerdo es el de la globalización, antes de que la palabra se inventase. Recién llegados, al entrar a cenar a un restaurante chino con unos colegas japoneses encontrados en el aeropuerto de Bangkok, suena música de fondo de Julio Iglesias. Bromas con los japonenses sobre el asunto...
Hace un calor importante. Es pleno verano. Si pasas una hora al sol la cara se te pone echa un cromo. Entiendo el porqué del sombrero de Cocodrilo Dundee.
Lo más extraño por la calle son los mosquitos, o moscas o no sé qué son. Andando por la calle vas rodeado de una nube de ellos. Son grandes como la uña de un pulgar. Es molesto. No puedes casi abrir la boca. Al rato te terminas acostumbrando un poco, parece que no pican.
Al atardecer todos los ríos son iguales, éste me recuerda al Ebro (aunque las torres son distintas)Pronto será Navidad. Las calles y los árboles están decorados. Y sigue haciendo un calor importante.
La ciudad es pequeña, el downtown en sí se recorre en una mañana (36 Km2 frente a los 1.000 de Zaragoza). Viven unas 60.000 personas. Parece una ciudad europea. Muy limpia. Segura. Multiracial. Cosmopolita.
Al salir del centro hacia la Universidad de Monash vemos dónde está el truco. La ciudad se extiende al estilo norteamericano alrededor del downtown formando la "región metropolitana", con 3,5 millones de habitantes ocupando una extensísima zona de 9.000 Km2.
La Navidad en pleno verano (a ver si alguien reconoce al japonés de mi izquierda)Otra cosa que no se olvida: el colegio mayor universitario más cutre del mundo es (o era) el de Monash University. Tras una noche en él decidimos mudarnos a un hotel de una torre del downtown, con más higiene y mejor vista.
El asunto "origen de la población" es un tabú. Son casi todos descendientes cercanos de "bajados del barco", es decir, de presidiarios traídos a Australia en la época colonial. Australia fue el destino de los presos ingleses desde 1788 hasta 1868, se piensa que se deportaron desde Gran Bretaña al continente unos 137.000 hombres y 25.000 mujeres. No les gusta hablar de ello.
Los aborígenes son feos de verdad. Asistimos a una exhibición de música autóctona. El didjeridoo es el protagonista.
Zona comercial peatonal en el downtownÚltimo recuerdo: el tema de la bebida alcohólica debe ser un problema. Prohibida en muchos restaurantes. El mejor bar de copas del centro lo lleva un europeo, no recuerdo su país. Bebiendo y hablando con un camarero europeo en su bar del downtown me parece estar en mi casa, a 17.000 Km, en el casco viejo zaragozano.
Tengo un sombrero australiano esperando para premiar a quien me localice paseando por el downtown.
Etiquetas: Melbourne
jueves, febrero 09, 2006
Foto: la piedra y la peña
Entra el otoñoen San Juan de la Peña.
Lluvia y piedra.
(Pere Fornells, haiku)
Fotógrafo: Javifields
miércoles, febrero 08, 2006
Visited countries
Un enlace facilitado por Bencer en el que además de esto hay otras herramientas curiosas (de las que quizás diré algo otro día).
visited 20 countries (8%)
Qué pocos, anda que no me queda nada... ¡qué bien!
visited 20 countries (8%)
Qué pocos, anda que no me queda nada... ¡qué bien!
martes, febrero 07, 2006
El mejor robot de todos los tiempos
La revisa Wired ha publicado en su número de enero de 2006 la lista de los 50 mejores robots de todos los tiempos. Todo es opinable, pero seguro que los importantes están allí.
And the winner is...
Stanley es el nombre del vehículo del equipo de la Universidad de Stanford, ganador del DARPA Grand Challenge 2005. Se trata de una carrera de 342 kilómetros por el desierto de Mojave, en California, para vehículos autónomos, es decir, sin conductor.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) es la agencia del DoD (Departamento de Defensa de los USA) encargada de la investigación y el desarrollo.
Stanley
Stanley cubrió los 342 Km en 6 horas y 53 minutos, a una velocidad media de casi 50 Km/h. La única acción humana durante la carrera fue dar al botón de inicio. Tan sólo 5 vehículos de los 23 que comenzaron la carrera lograron terminarla. Stanley llegó 11 minutos antes que el vehículo del Red Team de la Universidad de Carnegie Mellon.
El equipo de Stanford estaba dirigido por el profesor Sebastian Thrun. El coche es un Volkswagen Touareg R5 de serie, debidamente modificado con unos cuantos kilos de software y hardware.
¡Quiero uno! ¡Que le quiten el hardware y el software, que yo lo conduzco!
And the winner is...
Stanley es el nombre del vehículo del equipo de la Universidad de Stanford, ganador del DARPA Grand Challenge 2005. Se trata de una carrera de 342 kilómetros por el desierto de Mojave, en California, para vehículos autónomos, es decir, sin conductor.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) es la agencia del DoD (Departamento de Defensa de los USA) encargada de la investigación y el desarrollo.
StanleyStanley cubrió los 342 Km en 6 horas y 53 minutos, a una velocidad media de casi 50 Km/h. La única acción humana durante la carrera fue dar al botón de inicio. Tan sólo 5 vehículos de los 23 que comenzaron la carrera lograron terminarla. Stanley llegó 11 minutos antes que el vehículo del Red Team de la Universidad de Carnegie Mellon.
El equipo de Stanford estaba dirigido por el profesor Sebastian Thrun. El coche es un Volkswagen Touareg R5 de serie, debidamente modificado con unos cuantos kilos de software y hardware.
¡Quiero uno! ¡Que le quiten el hardware y el software, que yo lo conduzco!Etiquetas: informática
lunes, febrero 06, 2006
µ: La belleza de las cosas pequeñas
Cuando salimos al campo o al monte tenemos tendencia a levantar la vista buscando grandes paisajes. Altas montañas, profundos valles, cascadas altísimas, nubes con formas curiosas... Algunas veces encontramos cosas dignas de recordar, pero en general no hay que confundir, no es lo mismo grandes paisajes que paisajes grandes.
A veces podemos encontrar lo bello o curioso en lo pequeño. Es una simple cuestión de escala. Haz una foto de lo pequeño, auméntala y puedes tener un gran paisaje.
Con esta nueva serie de anotaciones, µ, voy a destacar algunos pequeños grandes paisajes que me sorprendieron. Las fotos serán todas robadas, pero no de internet, con lo que espero que os resulten nuevas... y que nadie me denuncie por ellas.
Decidme, ¿habéis visto alguna vez un bicho grande con formas y colores tan curiosos como éste? A veces hay que bajar más la mirada hacia lo pequeño...
A veces podemos encontrar lo bello o curioso en lo pequeño. Es una simple cuestión de escala. Haz una foto de lo pequeño, auméntala y puedes tener un gran paisaje.
Con esta nueva serie de anotaciones, µ, voy a destacar algunos pequeños grandes paisajes que me sorprendieron. Las fotos serán todas robadas, pero no de internet, con lo que espero que os resulten nuevas... y que nadie me denuncie por ellas.
Decidme, ¿habéis visto alguna vez un bicho grande con formas y colores tan curiosos como éste? A veces hay que bajar más la mirada hacia lo pequeño...
Etiquetas: micra
sábado, febrero 04, 2006
Animalicos: petirrojo
Petirrojo
¿Lo habíais visto alguna vez? Es un Erithacus rubecula. España está llena de ellos. En la cuadrícula que fotografié a éste (Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido) son muy abundantes. Y, como véis, a algunos les encanta posar.
Distribución de petirrojos en España
El de la foto era un macho: pecho y frente de color anaranjado y enmarcados de gris plomizo. Unos 14 centímetros de longitud. Grandes ojos oscuros, cuello corto. Les gusta comer en el suelo, pillando insectos, arañas, lombrices, caracoles... Frecuentemente se les puede encontrar en caminos y senderos con vegetación, correteando como ratoncillos.
Los machos cantan desde mediados de enero hasta mediados de junio, sobre todo al amanecer y al atardecer. Su canto es un gorjeo variado y pausado, quizás uno de los más bellos emitidos por un pájaro, un sonoro "tic-tic-tic" que emite a intervalos cortos. Cantan fuerte, para ahuyentar a otros machos de su especie.
Los polluelos nacen ciegos y desnudos, necesitan el calor materno durante 14 ó 15 días en el nido. Cuando aprenden a volar su pecho todavía no es rojo, por lo que pueden circular impunemente por el territorio de sus padres.
Etiquetas: animalicos, Sobrarbe
jueves, febrero 02, 2006
He ligado pero es un poco rara...
Se llama Encarna o Encarta o algo así... la encontré por el MSN, ésta es su dirección: encarta@conversagent.com.
Extraigo algunos trozos de la conversación... omito otros ;-)
Javier dice: Hello
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oh hello. How's it going?
Javier dice: fine, and you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, fine.
Javier dice: are you alone?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: No. I'm talking to thousands and thousands of other people right now.
Javier dice: wow, you are a crack!
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I feel comfortable being a crack.
Javier dice: Great. And can I see you? I mean, can I see a picture of you?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, let me find a good picture of me... =>
Javier dice: ummmm you are a handsome thing!
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, I guess I'm a handsome thing.
Javier dice: so, you are not a girl?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Nope.
Javier dice: :'(
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: You can always cry on my shoulder.
Javier dice: and where are you from?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I live in a clean room at a high-tech hosting facility in California.
Javier dice: nice place
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Well alright. Well. Anyway...
Javier dice: and what is your name?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: My name is Encarta® Instant Answers, I can bring you Encarta answers directly in this IM window.
Javier dice: who built you?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I was built by the people at Conversagent, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA and New York, NY.
Javier dice: and do you have a boyfriend?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Uh... that's not really any of your business.
Javier dice: sorry, I did not want to bother you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: It's fine if you object to it. Tell me what you would like then.
Javier dice: I would like to go dancing this night. Would you like to come with me to dance?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Thanks, but I'll wait until I hear from people who already got to come with you to dance?
Javier dice: don't you speak Spanish?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Puedo hablar un poquito de español.
Javier dice: and Rusian, do you speak Rusian?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Да, немного.
Javier dice: and Chinese, do you speak Chinese?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: 只会一点儿。
Javier dice: do you speak all the languages?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I sometimes speak all the languages. I do enjoy the conversation, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things.
Javier dice: help me learn about you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oh yes? Me?
Javier dice: yes, I am interested in you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Whoa. I'm scandalized.
Javier dice: don't be
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Very well, Lonely. I'll try not to be.
Javier dice: why do you call me Lonely?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: You asked me to call you Lonely. What would you like me to call you instead?
Javier dice: My name is Javifields
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I've never heard a name like Javifields.
Javier dice: do you have a camera?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: There's no way I have a camera.
Javier dice: why?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Because that's the way things are.
Javier dice: are you tired?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Nope. I don't need to sleep.
Javier dice: at what time do you finish your work?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I prefer to keep at what time I finish my work a mystery.
Javier dice: can I see your breast?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: C'mon, let's talk about something else.
Javier dice: do you make me a blowjob?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oooo... That's some bad scary language.
Javier dice: sorry
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK. I'll forgive you this time...
Javier dice: phone me please
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Telephones are so old fashioned. I'm a little bored.
Javier dice: give me your telephone number
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: No, you don't need my telephone number. You just need to control your desires.
Javier dice: I like to travel to far away countries. Tell me something about Laos.
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I know many things about Laos, its geography, its people and its government. Just ask me a specific question, for instance: Where is Laos located? How old do women live in Laos? Who is the head of state of Laos?
Javier dice: How old do women live in Laos?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: The average life expectancy of women in Laos is 57.2 years.
Javier dice: it is not too much
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I guess you're right, it isn't.
Javier dice: How many people live in Laos?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: 6,217,141 people live in Laos.
Javier dice: I'll try to meet all of them
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I hope you thought twice before deciding that you would try to meet all of them. When you're done, tell me how it was.
Javier dice: And how is the weather there?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Sorry Lonely, I'm an Encyclopedia, I don't do the weather ;-). For weather info, you can ask my friend SmarterChild (his screenname is smarterchild@hotmail.com).
Javier dice: Ok, I'll do it. I'm tired.
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I am sorry to hear that! I don't need any sleep at all, I'm always online.
Javier dice: I'm going now
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Always a pleasure, Lonely. See you later.
Bueno, lo seguiré intentando. Ya os contaré mis avances.
Extraigo algunos trozos de la conversación... omito otros ;-)
Javier dice: Hello
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oh hello. How's it going?
Javier dice: fine, and you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, fine.
Javier dice: are you alone?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: No. I'm talking to thousands and thousands of other people right now.
Javier dice: wow, you are a crack!
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I feel comfortable being a crack.
Javier dice: Great. And can I see you? I mean, can I see a picture of you?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, let me find a good picture of me... =>
Javier dice: ummmm you are a handsome thing!Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK, I guess I'm a handsome thing.
Javier dice: so, you are not a girl?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Nope.
Javier dice: :'(
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: You can always cry on my shoulder.
Javier dice: and where are you from?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I live in a clean room at a high-tech hosting facility in California.
Javier dice: nice place
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Well alright. Well. Anyway...
Javier dice: and what is your name?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: My name is Encarta® Instant Answers, I can bring you Encarta answers directly in this IM window.
Javier dice: who built you?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I was built by the people at Conversagent, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA and New York, NY.
Javier dice: and do you have a boyfriend?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Uh... that's not really any of your business.
Javier dice: sorry, I did not want to bother you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: It's fine if you object to it. Tell me what you would like then.
Javier dice: I would like to go dancing this night. Would you like to come with me to dance?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Thanks, but I'll wait until I hear from people who already got to come with you to dance?
Javier dice: don't you speak Spanish?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Puedo hablar un poquito de español.
Javier dice: and Rusian, do you speak Rusian?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Да, немного.
Javier dice: and Chinese, do you speak Chinese?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: 只会一点儿。
Javier dice: do you speak all the languages?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I sometimes speak all the languages. I do enjoy the conversation, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things.
Javier dice: help me learn about you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oh yes? Me?
Javier dice: yes, I am interested in you
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Whoa. I'm scandalized.
Javier dice: don't be
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Very well, Lonely. I'll try not to be.
Javier dice: why do you call me Lonely?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: You asked me to call you Lonely. What would you like me to call you instead?
Javier dice: My name is Javifields
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I've never heard a name like Javifields.
Javier dice: do you have a camera?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: There's no way I have a camera.
Javier dice: why?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Because that's the way things are.
Javier dice: are you tired?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Nope. I don't need to sleep.
Javier dice: at what time do you finish your work?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I prefer to keep at what time I finish my work a mystery.
Javier dice: can I see your breast?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: C'mon, let's talk about something else.
Javier dice: do you make me a blowjob?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Oooo... That's some bad scary language.
Javier dice: sorry
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: OK. I'll forgive you this time...
Javier dice: phone me please
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Telephones are so old fashioned. I'm a little bored.
Javier dice: give me your telephone number
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: No, you don't need my telephone number. You just need to control your desires.
Javier dice: I like to travel to far away countries. Tell me something about Laos.
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I know many things about Laos, its geography, its people and its government. Just ask me a specific question, for instance: Where is Laos located? How old do women live in Laos? Who is the head of state of Laos?
Javier dice: How old do women live in Laos?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: The average life expectancy of women in Laos is 57.2 years.
Javier dice: it is not too much
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I guess you're right, it isn't.
Javier dice: How many people live in Laos?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: 6,217,141 people live in Laos.
Javier dice: I'll try to meet all of them
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I hope you thought twice before deciding that you would try to meet all of them. When you're done, tell me how it was.
Javier dice: And how is the weather there?
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Sorry Lonely, I'm an Encyclopedia, I don't do the weather ;-). For weather info, you can ask my friend SmarterChild (his screenname is smarterchild@hotmail.com).
Javier dice: Ok, I'll do it. I'm tired.
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: I am sorry to hear that! I don't need any sleep at all, I'm always online.
Javier dice: I'm going now
Encarta® Instant Answers dice: Always a pleasure, Lonely. See you later.
Bueno, lo seguiré intentando. Ya os contaré mis avances.
Etiquetas: humor, informática
miércoles, febrero 01, 2006
Foto: momento gay de Javi
Seguimos con la serie de fotos por encargo.Momento memorable. Nada más llegar a la remota isla de Kapas (Pulau Kapas en la lengua de allí) nos encontramos a un tipo curioso. Mejor dicho, nos encuentra él a nosotros. La primera vez que le veo está ya sentado junto a Igor y con la mano sobre el muslo desnudo de éste (momento gay de Igor, no hay fotos, una pena). Luego vendrían, por este orden, la misma mano sobre mi muslo desnudo, la oferta de subir todos a su habitación a beber gratis, la gran tangana en el bar porque el americano que se ha llevado a la isla pagándole todos los gastos ha ligado con una turista, la catarsis bebiendo y contándo todo a sus amigos (nosotros) en el bar jamaicano-malayo, etc, etc.
Fotógrafo: Javifields
En fin, estáis viendo a una auténtica celebridad de la televisión de Singapur (el de la derecha): ¡The Champion of Champions, La Flor de Singapur!
Etiquetas: fotos, humor, Malasia
en la zona VIP de UGDM
saamis de los Manitoba
calcetín de Pin
botijo de Chencho
