A sub 3 hour Argus!

Yup, I woke up to see the first riders leave for the 109km Cape Argus, and guess what!? THEY did it in under 3 hours (in fact I think all of the riders in the 'elite' group did it in under 3 hours). I, on the other hand, did a sub 'NO' hours run (unless there can be a tme for getting on my crutches and making my way to the couch! ;-)

This year would have been my 10th Argus (I had an entry with the Power / MAD (Make a diference) team, but decided not to ride, back in January already, because it would mean taking leave in my last month of work at EMMU / John Wesley College).

Megan and I have agreed that we will ride together next year. That will be a good motivation for my recovery!

Well done to all those who rode!

Scanning the brains of jazz musicians.

This research shows that Jazz musicians 'switch off' (or at least slow down) parts of their brains - I know a few first year students who have the capacity to do the same thing! Ha ha.

Seriously, this is quite interesting. Since Jazz requires the capacity to move outside of the confines of what is generally acceptable in the composition music (through the inclusion of 'blue notes', crossing octaves, combining irregular timing etc. in the composition). I'm sure that there are many other things that require a similar capacity (e.g., surgeons who deal with the gore of cutting up a human body, social workers who face the brutality of human frailty and economic subjugation in their clients, sex workers who have to perform unnatural acts for survival, ministers who are constantly faced with crises, deaths, and sorrow, oh and of course Justin Timberlake fans.... say no more).

I thought this was quite interesting.

According to new research, jazz musicians unconsciously switch off regions of the brain involved in self-censorship and firing up the area linked to self-expression. The scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders used fMRI to scan the brains of jazz musicians as they played a specially-designed piano keyboard. From a press release:

The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a broad portion of the front of the brain that extends to the sides, showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview. Shutting down this area could lead to lowered inhibitions, Limb suggests.

The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.

“Jazz is often described as being an extremely individualistic art form. You can figure out which jazz musician is playing because one person’s improvisation sounds only like him or her,” says (professor Charles) Limb. “What we think is happening is when you’re telling your own musical story, you’re shutting down impulses that might impede the flow of novel ideas.”

Link to press release, Link to scientific paper in Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE (via Michael Leddy's Orange Crate Art)

Technorati tags: neuroscience, the human brain, control

Retro counter-culture: 1960's Biker photography.

I love old photographs, and I am particularly partial to photographs that deal with the 'underside' of culture. There is little doubt that being a leather clad biker in 1960's Middle America was pretty much as savory as being a machine gun totting Nigerian in the centre of Johannesburg today...

I will admit that I have never been that much of a 'rocker' fan (boy racer bikes, brillcream ducktails, and leather jackets, workers boots, and bluejeans). I was always much more intrigued by the 'Modernist' movement of England in the early 1960's (suits, two tone shoes, racial integration, Vespa and Lambretta scooters, and the music of the The Who, The Kinks, and Southern Soul revival). In fact, my love for my Vespa started because I was a Mod back in the early 1980's (when modernism went through something of a revival with the music of The Jam and The Style Council).

Amazingly, it was the lyrics of the Special A.K.A (and their 1970's song "Free Nelson Mandela", which not surprisingly was banned in South Africa) that first got me thinking about our diabolic political situation in South Africa. The very first poem that I ever had published (in the WITS University United Democratic Front newsletter (a then grouping of the banned ANC, PAC, IFP and various other liberation movements) was inspired by the Southern Soul movement of the 1980's mods. Amazing issues of segregation and racial abuse were still common in the UK as late as 1980. PS. I still own a 1965 Fishtail Parka (with fur on the hood, patches all over it... And of course, a somewhat squashed Vespa! ha ha!)

Well, here's the book of 1960's biker photographs:

In the mid-1960s, photographer Danny Lyon spent several years riding with the Chicago Outlaws and documenting their scene on film. The resultant book, The Bikeriders (1968), is recognized as the first photo book about the biker subculture. It's currently available from Chronicle Books. Smithsonian magazine looks back on that moment in Lyon's career, and tells the story of the portrait above of club members Sparky and CowBoy. From Smithsonian:

Cowboy and Sparky, two pals on bikes. They've just been to a motorcycle race in Schererville, Indiana, and their girlfriends will soon get off work from the Dairy Queen. It is November 1965, and CowBoy - Irvin P. Dunsdon, who uses the capital B to this day - is 23 years old. He feels he's on top of the world.

He and Sparky — Charles Ritter - met in the Army and bonded instantly. When CowBoy got out of the service in 1964, he moved not to Utah, where he came from, but to Gary, Indiana—Sparky's hometown—so he could be there when Sparky got back from Vietnam a year later.

Now, in '65, they stick up for each other. They take no grief from anyone. They share the joy of biking on the open road. They belong to the Gary Rogues, a local motorcycle club.

Link to Smithsonian, Link to buy The Bikeriders book

Technorati tags: counter culture, Mods and Rockers, Biker culture, Vespa, gun totting Nigerians, classic photography

Six years old and kicking the Eeepc's butt!

This is a picture of my very first Sony Vaio laptop (a Vaio PCG-C1MGP). It is Soooo old that it was built without wifi and only has one USB 1.0 port! It has a 20 gig hard drive, and the max ram it could take is 384MB.

Amazingly, my 3G modem works in it. It also has an extended battery that gives about 8 hours. They keyboard is FANTASTIC (in fact I typed quite a lot of my Doctorate on this little machine!)

So, there you have it, 6 years old, smaller than an Asus Eeepc, it runs Linux and Windows, and thanks to my accident I have rediscovered it (I'm using it to edit the book Wes and I have that is coming out soon)!

The best thing of all!? It cost me nothing! Geek value for free! [Although, I can't remember what I traded for it when I got it from Paul 5 years ago]

How to earn a living as a writer with just 1,000 followers of your work!

Yes, I know that for the 'pious', 'un-worldy', readers of this blog, for whom money is of no consequence whatsoever, this post will be of no use... Ha ha! Just kidding! I know we all have bills to pay!

For the struggling authors (like Wessel and I, who are needing to have our kids braces tightened and get new retreads put on old car tires...) it may be of some use ;-)

Regardless, there are two reasons for this post. It makes a lot of sense! Although, in truth, I think that finding 1000 people (described as 'fans' below) who would buy EVERYTHING that I write will be a little more difficult than the author things... Secondly, this is post number 667... I couldn't exactly leave my blog on 666 for too long!

This comes from an original post entitled 'How to earn an artist's living in the 21st century: 1,000 True Fans'

Kevin Kelly's just posted "1000 True Fans," a business plan for all kinds of creators in the twenty first century:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans...

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

Link (via Waxy)

Technorati tags: creative economics, earning a living, 1000 fans, not so easy

An amazing (stalker) tool... Skype, MSN, ICQ, and googletalk (plus GPS location) from a Nokia phone!

My friend Paul gave me a Skype call this morning - nothing too strange about that. However, what was remarkable was that he was calling me from his Nokia E90 cell phone.

He was using a little utility called fring which is free to use... The easiest way to use it is to simply point your phone's browser to the URL, it should automatically detect what device you're using, download it, and once installed you're ready to go!

If you have a phone that has a built in GPS receiver people will not only be able to chat with you (either via voice, or free text), but they will also be able to click on the 'find me' link to see where you are a google map!

It is amazing how such complex communication technology can operate, do so much, and be free!

I can see myself using this quite a bit when I am traveling overseas. All that you need to do is fire up fring, find an open Wifi spot (of which there are PLENTY in the UK and USA), and then you can do free voice chat with your friends and family on skype (or even on fring if they have it installed on their mobile phone). Moreover, within a few seconds they can see exactly where I am on the globe!

Amazing!

Technorati tags: fring, Nokia E90, free voice and text calls, GPS, google maps

Singularity and the Matrix... Spiritual Machines... Mmmmm... Contemporary crazies!? Maybe not?

John van de Laar gave an interesting persepctive on a 'religious movement' that has formed around the central ideas of the first Matrix movie.
I can certainly understand the appeal - after all, throughout history generations have always attempted to locate the sacred within the tools, symbols, and nomenclature of their contemporary culture. The Matrix seems to be so expressive of some of the existential questions, queries, and framing aspects of our reality (these include such issues as the relationship between humans and our technology, eternal existence in terms that we can understand, issues of good and evil etc.)

Some scientists have suggested that these issues may have a far greater influence, and in fact be truer than just sociology, theology, and psychology, could explain. Some others have suggested it is in fact nothing more than 'wish projection' (along the lines of Feuerbach and Freud's theory).

In short, every generation has a built in need to believe that there is more to life than just being born, living, and dying - we seek a transcendent truth (which you can read about in my Doctoral Thesis, by the way - please see the chapter on Neuroscience (chapter 3 I think it was) where I discuss the holistic and transcendent a-priori neural operators that are present in the human brain from birth). In our generation the 'mythology' of our time is intrinsically linked with technology (particularly those technologies that make our lives easier, and in some sense bearable).

A final perspective, which I think is the most rational of them all, is the perspective offered by Professor Cornel du Toit, who suggests that any duality that we create between ourselves and our technology is a false duality. Just think about it, your cell phone is not just an object that performs technological functions, it has become an integral part of your life. For many of us it extends our ability to communicate, it offers us a sense of security, connection with others, and for some (like myself) it even regulates how one lives one's life (e.g., my cell phone has a diary function that alerts me to appointments etc.). Another example cited by du Toit is contemporary banking. We have created both a hard technology (notes, coins, cards, ATM machines) and a soft technology (values, exchanges, commodities etc. which cannot be felt or weighed, or seen, but which have value). Just try to live your life without money and you will soon see how we have allowed a 'created' technology to become an integral part of our identity. How many people do you know whose identity is formed by what they earn, what they drive, and what they use?

I tend to agree with this - faith and technology are not separate realities that are discovering one another, they are complex interwoven system of creating and forming meaning. Both are dependent upon each other.

Anyway, enough of my 'ramblings'....

Read the article below for more on the concept of 'singularity':

Science fiction writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker takes a running swing at the idea of the Singularity, the moment in human history when we disassemble raw matter, turn it into "computronium" and upload ourselves to it, inhabiting a simulation of reality rather than real reality. It's a fine and provocative turn from our Mr Rucker, who has a fine and provocative and deeply weird and wonderful mind.

Although it’s a cute idea, I think computronium is a fundamentally spurious concept, an unnecessary detour. Matter, just as it is, carries out outlandishly complex chaotic quantum computations just by sitting around. Matter isn’t dumb. Every particle everywhere everywhen is computing at the maximum possible rate. I think we tend to very seriously undervalue quotidian reality...

This would be like filling in wetlands to make a multiplex theater showing nature movies, clear-cutting a rainforest to make a destination eco-resort, or killing an elephant to whittle its teeth into religious icons of an elephant god.

This is because there are no shortcuts for nature’s computations. Due to a property of the natural world that I call the “principle of natural unpredictability,” fully simulating a bunch of particles for a certain period of time requires a system using about the same number of particles for about the same length of time. Naturally occurring systems don’t allow for drastic shortcuts.

Link (via Futurismic)

By the way, my own doctoral research considered some of the theological issues in relation to these notions - you can download a copy of my Doctoral Thesis here (please see chapter 2). Two other superb books to read are:

The age of spiritual machines, and Are we spiritual machines. By Kurzweil.
Wiredlife - who are we in the digital age? By Jonscher.

Technorati tags: The Matrix, Singularity, Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil, Dion Forster

Quaker fired from American University for being non-violent.... go figure!?

This story is both sad and disturbing... How far do you go, as a Christian, to stgand for your faith convictions?

This woman simply made her beliefs known, and stuck by them, and so she was fired. I guess it is a little more complex (in that while individuals should have the right to freedom of conscience, that right should not infringe on the rights of others). For example, many Americans believe that it is their religious right to wage war for their way of life! Should one allow those persons the right and freedom to exercise their religious will!? What do you think?

Here's the story:

A Quaker math teacher at California State University East Bay has been fired for inserting the word "nonviolently" into the loyalty oath that state employees are required to sign. The woman, who works with young people who need remedial help with math, has always made this change in the loyalty oaths she's signed throughout her long teaching career, but the CSU East Bay administration fired her for refusing to pledge to violate her religion's tenets to in defense of the Constitution (a document that guarantees religious freedom).

Each time, when asked to "swear (or affirm)" that she would "support and defend" the U.S. and state Constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic," Kearney-Brown inserted revisions: She wrote "nonviolently" in front of the word "support," crossed out "swear," and circled "affirm." All were to conform with her Quaker beliefs, she said...

Modifying the oath "is very clearly not permissible," the university's attorney, Eunice Chan, said, citing various laws. "It's an unfortunate situation. If she'd just signed the oath, the campus would have been more than willing to continue her employment."...

"All they care about is my name on an unaltered loyalty oath. They don't care if I meant it, and it didn't seem connected to the spirit of the oath. Nothing else mattered. My teaching didn't matter. Nothing."

Link

Technorati tags: non-violent, religious freedom, Quaker, fired

All in good time - patience is a virtue

IMG_8008
Originally uploaded by [dudu79].

Isn't this an amazing old Vespa VLB? This is one that was restored to an almost 'new' retro look - if you look at some of my older photos you'll see that my Vespa originally came in a similar silver to this.

If my Vespa is back up to speed before we leave Pretoria I am going to put my white wall tires on her! I have a set just like this in a box in my office just begging to go into action!

Patience is a good thing - but so is a little bit of healthy motivation!

Moof! You don't know the interwebs until you've studied up on the Clarus 'dogcow'

'Moof' that's the sound the dogcow makes... This internet icon was created in the Apple studios in 1983!

The name Clarus is related to the now defunct Apple office suite called Claris Works. For those who remember early Apple operating systems (I still have a Powerbook running system 6 (0r is it 7) in my cupboard!), the dogcow was used by Apple to show the colour and orientation of paper in the print dialogue.

When Apple released OS X the dogcow was no more... Some diehard fanboys petitioned the company to reintroduce it... But alas, it had long since joined other dogcows in the sky.

Some of us still remember the days before the internet... When I first studied towards a BSc (back in the days when science was still busy being invented), the fastest computers were intel 286 SX 25's (or some such), running UNIX and we communicated via usenet and gopher.

By the way, this last week saw the 'death' of an internet icon - the Netscape Browser.

technorati tags: clarus, moof, dogcow, Netscape, usenet, gopher

Secular Sabbath - it's time to unplug

I am 'wired' - by this I mean that there is never a time of the day or night where I cannot access the internet (and particularly my email). My trusty Nokia E90 and iPhone keep me connected to the net when out and about.

Other than that I have wireless network at home to which I connect using the wifi adaptor on my Macbook Pro.

I will confess that I like to remain connected! I like to check my email, occasionally check the RSS feeds on the blogs and websites that I follow, and be able to connect and communicate with ease and reliability wherever I am.

Since my accident, however, I have been trying NOT to answer my phone! It is amazing - I have a message indicating that I am on sick leave, with contact numbers and details for persons to phone if they have work queries, and yet I still get around 10 calls a day saying things like "I know you're off, but could you please...", "Sorry to worry you, but would you mind..."

At first I felt guilty, but then I thought, I am not well, there are others who can deal with the queries and so I have plucked up the courage NOT to answer those calls. Let me tell you, it is NOT easy! I feel guilty, lazy, and worry that others may not answer the calls as quickly or directly as I would.

There are many of us who feel this way about dealing with things. As I think about it, there are a few reasons why we feel this:

1. We want people to think about us as efficient, effective, helpful, and validate our worth. So, we sacrifice our own wellbeing and needs to try and get others to create an impression of us that is unrealistic.

2. We are not secure enough to trust other persons who can do our work as well as we can (although differently) to just do it! This is NOT a good thing! We tend to secretly believe that we're indispensable, and others will manipulate this 'secret' feeling in order to get us to do what they want, when they want it and how they want it.

3. Perhaps we haven't set up good systems to work in spite of us. This is not a good thing in the Church in particular! A great deal of what every efficient, clever, hard working person should do is to work themselves out of a job by helping others to develop and be able to do what they're doing. A good leaders should empower others to do their work, and do it even better than they can. This not only gets the work done but develops participation and sustainability.

I'm sure that there are many other things that you could add to this list (please feel free to do so in the comments!).

What trigured this post? Well, the following article from www.lifehacker.org

Self-described "techno-addict" Mark Bittman (who sleeps with his laptop on his night table to check email first and last thing) decided to unplug every weekend for 24 hours, a day he calls "secular Sunday." At first the experiment made him twitchy and nervous, but over time, he came to enjoy his unplugged day. He writes:

I would no more make a new-agey call to find inner peace than I would encourage a return to the mimeograph. But I do believe that there has to be a way to regularly impose some thoughtfulness, or at least calm, into modern life - or at least my version. Once I moved beyond the fear of being unavailable and what it might cost me, I experienced what, if I wasn't such a skeptic, I would call a lightness of being. I felt connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop.

Like other geeks, on my recent vacation I also found that unplugging does bring about a calm you can't find in your RSS reader. Good night, secular Sunday. See you next week.
I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really.

Technorati tags: secular sabbath, always connected, iPhone, Nokia e90, tunning out

Fake intimacy and cabin fever...

It has been two weeks since my accident. I am pleased to say that I am coming along nicely. Yesterday was my first real trip out of the house since being released from hospital a few days ago. There are some things that you simply cannot ask others to do, like the wedding of a friend. So, there I was, on crutches, light headed, in a a bit of pain, dressed in a suit and clerical collar, in a MAGNIFICENT private Chapel (8 Hope Road, Mountainview in Houghton Estate, Johannesburg), with my friends Mike and Jodi and two witnesses.

It was good to be out, but trips like that take their toll. My knee and ankle seem to be the most uncomfortable at the moment. I am not sure if it is the thought of plates and screws wedged into the bones, or if there truly is some discomfort. Regardless, having my leg out of its usual elevated position left it quite swollen, throbbing, and uncomfortable. The infection seems to be abating a bit - the colour in my leg (around the wound) is starting to change form a yellow / blue, to a more healthy pinkish hue (forgive me for the graphic descriptions, but trust me words are better than pictures at this point)! This means that my fever has been relatively low. I am grateful for that since the fever has left me so FLAT and listless for the last two weeks that I have not be able to move, let alone do anything creative at home. I have slept through most days, occasionally reading, sending a few emails to make sure that the most necessary things are happening at the College etc.

Then, of course, since getting my replacement Macbook Pro, I have been enjoying the delights of virtual communication! I have done a few video calls with my friend Paul in Cape (using skype), and I have checked some flickr photos, read my friends blogs, and very occasionally dipped into facebook.

While I am still not ready to 'face the world', I am getting there.

I found this funny little image (above) that explains my 'cabin fever'.

Technorati tags: cabin fever, accident, recovery, internet,