Day 1, 2 and India

The 21st Winter Olympic Games is under way and even after 2 days, we have exciting performances, tragic moments and historic records made.

The Opening Ceremony was the first ever indoors at BC Place, temperature controlled at 70 degrees during the proceedings. Here, we get our first and often only look at our tropical and small nation athletes. We've profiled so far athletes from Mexico, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nepal, Pakistan and Bermuda. Each of these nations have sent one athlete to the games and it was those athletes who we saw on Friday night holding their nation's flag. Israel chose Alexandra Zaretsky, an ice dancer among a team of three Olympic veterans. The Brother, Christopher Papamichalopolous, of a Brother-Sister team held the flag for Cyprus.

The other big headline from the past few hours is the death of Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili. It was the first death in Olympic competition since 1964 and the first luging death since 1975. As a result, his best friend and fellow luge competitor Levan Gureshidze has withdrawn from the competition leaving only Figure Skaters and Skiiers in Georgia's Olympic Delegation.


Luging has continued at the Olympics where we have "Chinese Taipei" (Taiwan), and India currently competing. Shiva Keshavan, pictured above and India's flag bearer for the opening is currently ranked 28th out of a field of 38th after two of four luge runs. Keshavan was born in the southern state of Kerala and took up winter sports in Italy during his university education. He began competing at in 1997 at the age of 16, was the youngest luger at Nagano in 1998. This year, he hopes to beat his best Olympic finish, 25th place set in 2006. In Vancouver, Keshavan as well as his three Olympic teammates, apline skier Jamyang Namigal and cross country skier Tashi Lundup, marched into the stadium with uniforms donated by the Indo-Canadian community in Vancouver. Maybe Russell Peters pitched in. We'll keep you posted on his progress, as well as Chinese Taipei's Ma Chih-Hung, through tomorrow.

India has had a long Summer Olympic history, with a dominant Field Hockey history. The national team has won eleven medals in twelve Olympic games between 1928 and 1980 and won 6 straight Olympic Gold Medals in Men's Field Hockey between 1928 and 1956, a record for any national team in any sport.

Finally, many of our tropical and small Olympic nations compete in downhill skiing, an even which was postponed till after Monday. Short Track Speed Skating has begun. We'll cover Hong Kong's female Speed Skater in the coming days. Nineteen year old J. R. Celski, competing for the United States, has also won a Bronze in short-track speed skating. He is half Filipino through his mother's side.

Let's hear it for India and all the athletes!

Israel and Cyprus at the 2010 Olympics

Israel has participated at nearly every Olympic Games since 1952, except for the boycott of 1980. The nation began winning medals at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and has won a medal every Summer Games since, mostly Bronzes in Judo, Sailing and Canoeing. In 2004, Gal Fridman won Israel's only Summer Olympic Gold Medal for Windsurfing in Athens. Fittingly, Gal means "wave" in Hebrew.

Israel has actually had better success in the Paralympic games. In 1968, Mexico decided against hosting both an Olympic and Paralympic games and the Paralympic games then was awarded to Tel Aviv. As the host nation, Israel took third in the medals table winning a total of 62 medals, 18 of them gold.

The Mediterranean nation has participated in every Winter Olympics since 1994. Many of its athletes were figure skaters born in the former Soviet Union. The tradition began with Misha Shmenkin. He competed in 1994 and 1998 and now coaches figure skating in Virgina. The Ice Dancing pair Chait and Sakhovski followed and competed in 1998, 2002 and 2006, pictured Right. Galit Chait actually grew up in New Jersey, first figure skating at the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink in New York City. She currently coaches the Zaretsky siblings who ice danced in 2006 and will ice dance again next Friday on the 19th of February in Vancouver. This pair is based with Chait in southern New Jersey.

The ice dancers are joined by Mikail Renzhin, making an entire team of three Olympic veterans. Let's hear it for Israel!

Just a short hop across the Mediterranean Sea lies balmy Cyprus. The nation has competed in every Summer and Winter Olympic Games since 1980 and has never won a medal. This year, brother and sister, Sophia and Christopher Papamichalopolou will compete in Vancouver. Sophia is picture on the left and is a 20 year old student at the American Academy in Larnaka. Cyprus actually contains a few ski resorts. This website contains a trail map and this link contains a live web cam shot of the slope.

Let's hear it for Cyprus!

Ghana at the Winter Olympics

On Friday, Ghana will make its Winter Olympic Debut in Vancouver. Ghana debuted at the 1952 Summer Olympic Games of Helsinki as the colony of Gold Coast and has competed every other time since except for 1956 and its boycotts of the 1976 and 1980. Ghana has medaled four times, never Gold, with Boxers in the 1960s and 1970s and has most recently won bronze with its Soccer team in 1992, Barcelona.

As Ghana's first Winter Olympic athlete, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is certainly making a splash as "The Snow Leopard." Nkrumah-Acheampong is 35 and was born in Scotland, before he moved to Ghana as a child. He was a safari guide before returning to Great Britain in the year 2000. He discovered the sport after becoming a secretary at a British ski center has since went on to found the Ghana Winter Olympic Association. He has secured funding from the government to build an artificial ski slope in the hills north of Accra and has attracted major attention from British news outlets and even sponsorship from Basecamp Adventure Sports group.

In a BBC interview he states that "The only thing we [Africans] have to overcome is the cold." For links with video, click here for his Mail Online piece and here for his BBC Sport piece. Let's hear it for Kwame and Ghana!

Nepal and Pakistan

The 21st Winter Olympic Games begins in 4 days. Next on the list of our tour of small or tropical nations are some quite cold ones beginning with Nepal. Sitting at the roof of the world, Nepal sure is frosty. However, the tiny nation only made its Asian Winter Games debut in 1999 and its Winter Olympic Games debut in 2002. These games featured Jay Khadka, a cross-country skier. It turns out that a British Millionare and hiker, Richard Morley, adopted Khadka when his father, a Nepalese Policeman, died saving his life while the hiker was in peril. Morley, who goes by Dahiji in Nepal, was also a skier and many years later served as team coach for his adoptive son at the 2002 Olympic Games. While Khadka is the first official Olympian from Nepal, the nation's participation in winter sports predates the Winter Olympics as Mountaineering was a semi-official sport in the 1924 Olympics. The Gold Medal won then was won with a team consisting of several Nepalese sherpas.

Dachhiri Sherpa participated in the 2006 Winter Olympic games and will again compete in this year's 15 km Cross C0untry Ski event. Literally born at the foot of the Himalayas, Sherpa has climbed Mt. Everest several times and hopes to improve on his 94th place finish in Torino. He is joined by Shyam Kumar-Dhakal who was selected by Coach Morley for his kick-boxing skill. He has competed in France, where Morley operates his training facility, for several years prefering the Super G event in down-hill skiing.

Nepal has competed in nearly every Summer Olympic games since 1964 and normally sends boxers.

Pakistan, conversely, has a strong Summer Olympic record. The nation first competed in the 1948 Olympic Games and through the 1950s and 1960s, the Pakistani Men's Field Hockey team traded First and Second place with their rival Indian Men's Field Hockey team winning Gold in 1960 and 1968. Their Field Hockey team has medaled in the sport as late as 1992, winning Bronze in Barcelona.

Muhammad Abbas, a 23 year old, will compete in Vancouver as Pakistan's first Winter Olympic Athlete. Abbas comes from the Balistan province, home of the famed Karakorum Mountains and K2, the second tallest mountain in the world. He is competing in the Giant Slalom when competition starts on February 21. Abbas was selected among eight Pakistani skiers who toured Europe on the dime of the Pakistani Military, who has offered financing and support. Pakistan is the home of the Naltar Ski resort, not far from Abbas' hometown.

Let's hear it for Pakistan!

Bermuda and the 2010 Olympics

Bermuda has participated in the Olympics since the 1936 Olympic Summer Games and won their only medal, a bronze, in the 1976 Olympic Summer Games, captured by boxer Clarence Hill.

In terms of Winter Olympics, Bermuda first sent their Winter Olympian, Simon Payne, in 1992. He competed in the luge then and again in 1994 where he reached 30th in Men's Singles. Today, he appears to practice law. The tiny, Atlantic nation then passed on its Luge prowess to Patrick Singleton, pictured on the left. Often sporting only the traditional Bermuda shorts in sub-zero temperatures, he has competed in every Winter Olympics since.

In 1998, he fell in love with Nagano and Japanese culture as a whole. There, here met skeleton racer Kazuhiro Koshi, who helped him switch from the luge. Both men have qualified for this year's Olympics. Mr. Payne switched to the skeleton in 2002 when it became an available Olympic sport, which literally means going head first, belly down on a bobsled/luge track rather than feet first, belly up on a sled.

In order to qualify for the skeleton this year, Mr. Singleton had to reach 60th in the world Skeleton rankings, the place he holds as he heads into Vancouver.

Mr. Payne is joined this year by Dartmouth prep-lad Tucker Murphy, who turns 29 this year. He represents Dartmouth's class of 2004 where he rowed as well as skied. Scientifically minded, he studied Biology in College and went on to earn a Rhodes Scholarship. He qualified under a cross-country rule stating that given his participation in the 2009 World Championships, he is able to represent Bermuda in the 15km sprint, an event that many of our small or tropical nations have entered.

Let's Hear it for Bermuda

Special Gomotopia Winter Olympic Coverage

The 21st Winter Olympic Games begin on February 12th, 2010 in Vancouver and a total of over 80 nations will participate. While many headlines will be written about Germany, the US, Austria, Russia and Canada, all countries with lots of snow and who performed well in 2006, I will begin my coverage on smaller and tropical nations taking part at the Olympics.

The history of random nations at the Winter Olympics begins with Mexico at the 1928 Olympic games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. A four man team participated and finished 11th out of 28. Since then, it took 56 years for Mexico to participate again with the entry of Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg in 1984. Born in Mexico City, Andy Himalaya is descended from German Royalty and at several times was an Alpine Skier, Photographer, Pop Singer and all-around hustler. He participates again this year in 2010, in his words, upholding the tradition of "exotic skiers." Here's a video documenting his long career, including a visit to Andy Warhol's factory and his "coolest downhill suit" the Desperado in 2006.

This year, together with Mexico, I'll be covering 19 warm or otherwise small countries participating in Vancouver. While the list of attendant nations is still up in the air, Wikipedia reports that Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, Peru and Serbia are competing for the first time. While, Montenegrins and Serbians have participated under different flags, we celebrate these new nations, all sending skiiers.

Following Mexico's example, the fate of a whole nation at the Olympic Games is often placed on the shoulders of one athlete who qualifies over and over. Ethiopia made its Olympic debut in 2006 with Robel Zemichael Teklemariam [link with video], a cross country skiing instructor from Colorado who had to ask his brother to run the 2-man Ethiopian Skiing Association. Be his fan on Facebook.



Other nations chose to concentrate on specific sports. Hong Kong has short-track speed skating and Nepal, a quite snowy country, sends cross-country skiiers.

Brazil, Bermuda, Cyprus, Monaco and Chinese Taipei have participated consistently through the 1980s. South Africa participated once in 1960 and again consistently since the 1990s after its post-Apartheid reentry. Portugal, Morocco, India has participated on and off since 1952 and 1960 and 1964 respectively.

And sadly, while Jamaica is sending a cross-country skiier, its Bobsled team may sit out the Olympic team one more time.

DC Math, Science and Technology Fair

Logo for my office's D.C. Math, Science and Technology fair, March 2010.

Geographical Distribution of GEMS Students

Gains in Mathematics and Science is a summer program run by the Department of Defense's Army Educational Outreach Program. They provide summer hands-on modules at sites around the Washington, DC area running programs for middle and high school students. Last year, around 500 students attended the program from many nearby schools and even students from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I made the diagram above to best convey the geographical distribution of school participation based on their type, location and contingent size.

A Letter to Janet Cornfeld, Cornell Class of 1972

Ms. Janet Cornfeld '72 is the point of contact for the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network for the DC and Maryland area. I know nothing about her except for her position as member of the Cornell Club of Washington, her year of Graduation and that I want to encounter more fellow alums. I'm sure she's a nice person with a good career. What lies below is an e-mail I sent her recently.

Dear Ms. Janet Cornfeld '72
My name is Ryan Gomez and I am a recent graduate of Cornell University. I graduated with a major in Operations Research and Information Engineering in the class of 2009. I have recently returned to the Washington D.C. area and aim to be a good member of my community. Recently I applied and was accepted to be a Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador. Please let me know how I can serve the current crop of potential Cornellians in the Washington area.

Currently, I am a near-peer mentor with the Army Educational Outreach Program working with Middle and High School students in the District of Columbia. I facilitate hands-on Science, Technology and Engineering activities to students unlikely to enter these fields. This way, I help the Department of Defense's mission of inspiring America's next scientists and engineers. Through this experience, I intend my career to be civic in scope, community strengthening, personally enriching and lots of fun.

Cornell is a place I miss terribly. I lived in no less than six places on campus: North, West, Greek, and Collegetown. I was eventually embedded into a community centered around a salon at 400 Oak Avenue. We attracted, among others, Baja Auto Racers, Cornell Democrats and Hotelies. We shared meals, told stories and organized field trips. Music filled the house. Recent graduates of our members have found themselves in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Napa Valley and everywhere in between. Apart from this community, I pursued courses in six of the seven Colleges to supplement my Engineering degree. Operations Research itself taught me the art of collecting, simulating and modeling data.

In the past year to reflect on my Cornell experience, I developed a historic Map of Collegetown, that focused on the neighborhood since 1960. The period between 1968 and 1972 was particularly rich in history and you must have wistful stories of epic gatherings, passionate debate and youthful mischief from your stay during this time. I'm pleased to report that much has not changed about coming of age at Cornell, despite the University's many changes. Additionally, I have provided a few infographics on the state of Cornell's enrollment at the MetaEzra blog and spent the time since graduation contacting local alumni and other professionals for informational interviews.

With my college years behind me, it is my wish to volunteer in service to both prospective students and Cornell's Alumni Institutions.

Thanks Very Kindly,
Ryan Gomez '09

New Cornell Enrollment Infographics

Over the Fall I've created these infographics that detail the enrollment of Cornell kids from the fall of 2008 for MetaEzra.com. I wanted to post them here first to get feedback from my friends.





Please let me know how I can improve these infographics and send me ideas for future ones.

What does Ryan Gomez read?

Earlier I tried to put my whole Google Reader page for all of you to browse. That's actually very difficult to do. Instead of showing my categorizations of the 106 blogs I read, I can only share certain articles. I will faithfully do my best to report and annotate articles I find interesting.

You subscription would flatter me greatly.

Shared Blog posts of Ryan Gomez

A list of notable blogs I follow are as follows.

For national politics I follow The Washington Post and The New York Times. My family has a home subscription to the Post and I should likely subscribe to the Wall Street Journal.

FiveThirtyEight is one of the best. It is a progressive leaning political blog with tight statistical analyses that a baseball bean counter could love. One cannot control what one cannot measure!

For Additional Commentary I subscribe to magazine blogs such as the New Yorker. A lot of people feel that the New Yorker is uppity, but I don't. In print, I skip the event listings and proceed to read every word. Its writing is committed to getting into the heads of the actors involved in a wide range of topics. I am confident that any reader who picks up the paper will find at least one crazy article that they'll like. I shared the articles on Trent Reznor and Kat Williams.

I also subscribe to Salon.com and Slate Magazine. They're both something to read, though I can't tell the difference between the two. They cover national events, fashion and stuff and cover Mad Men widely. I don't watch Mad Men, though I might.

I have blogs on Photoshop, Flash and Design, but I only read the articles when I have a specific tutorial in mind I want to read. Pixel2Life.com floods my reader as does Layers Magazine. Aduzeedo is my favorite in this category, featuring futuristic daily and weekly roundups.

I'm looking to expand my Music blog profile. Of note, Fullundie features Soul and Motown selections.

I have a LifeSkills catagory that round up several established blogs that discuss productivity, money and living well. Consumerist, owned by Consumer Reports, reports corporate bullshit well. LifeHacker is also very good but produces lots of articles. The blog itself has different feeds, such as best-of's-only. Zen Habits is hokey and Get Rich Slowly will help those with incomes.

The Sartoralist has its own category. I'm a fan of portraiture and tryin' my ass to look good.

I have more blogs on Maps, GIS and Mapping API's than I need. Start at Planet Geospatial and wander. There are blogs on Strange Maps, blogs specific to Google maps, etc. Axis Maps is good, but posts irregularly.

Becoming a member of my community is important to me so I have blogs on DC and Muryland. DCIst is very good, but owned by a non-local group. Wonkette is snarky. Silver Spring Penguin and Silver Spring Scene for my predictable dinner-and-a-movie neighborhood. Start with DCBlogs roundup.

Post Secret. People send in postcards of secrets to some guy in Germantown, MD. For Everyone.

Blogs about Visualizations and Infographics is a mix of mapping and photoshop, have their own category. GraphJam and Indexed are joke sites. Flowing Data and information aesthetics cover it all.

Many more blogs await to be added to my list and please expect a healthy dose of recommended articles through following my shared blog posts page.

Musical Selections: Marvin Gaye: The Master Compilation (1961-1984) in .flac

Job Search So Far

For all those wondering how my job search has been, I've been pursuing a split path. The first direction is contacting as many people as I can, making friends and gaining information. It was once said among my travels that the only way to get a Job was through informational interviews.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a portfolio of goods providing infographics to www.metaezra.com.

As a sketch, I've listed all the people I've had meetings with since early June. The arrows indicate whose contact enabled me to reach the next person. The timeline at the bottom indicates time between first contact and the meeting.

If done in a formal context, I'd clean up the typography a bit and add useful markers explaining what the arrows and time line does.

A Link to the graphic remains Here

"May Heaven Help the Distracted."


Listening Selection: Etta James, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Ice Cube.

A Map of Collegetown

Thanks to Matt Nagowski, alum, for posting my map on his blog. I used GIS to process the building footprint and elevation data and did the rest in Photoshop and Illustrator together with old newspaper archives, phonebooks, yearbooks and interviews. It's the thing I'm proudest of most, so far.

Here to metaezra.com article.

I miss the damn place again

I wanted to respond to my spectacular weekend. I attended Cornell's Orientation Weekend to see old friends and stuff. I wanted to write about it but I couldn't so instead I wrote a letter to a pair of professors of mine. I'll post the response sometime.

Hello,
This is Ryan Gomez, a student from a class of yours a while back. I've recently graduated and wanted to report that I'm doing well as a graduate of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering looking for a career in Mapping, Cartography and Data Visualization.

I also want to be a better writer. I'm inspired this late evening to write to you because you were a writing teacher of mine. College happened to me in a big way, in the most typical of ways. I expanded my mind, I took a lot of classes, met a lot of cool people and went to a lot of parties. I learned about how the process of forming words happens in a specific place in the brain. I've read beautiful stories of wit and struggle. I learned the world is much bigger than me and that I want to react, participate and create.

Do you have any advice?

I just came back from Orientation Week to see my old friends, now in whatever place I was in for my Sophomore, Junior and Senior year. I wanted to react on a blog I'm writing to help me communicate but I'm stuck. I can only imagine what a professional writer must discuss through the analysis and creation of literature. When I try to write, all those things flood to me. Where do I begin? Point of View? Rhetoric? Plot? It's as if in my search for a formula, that word-forming part of my brain shuts off. When I do start to write, I want it to be perfect, and such the cycle of perfectionism and procrastination repeats.

So allow me to ask:

• Why is it that your write over why I make maps or others say, go into business or medicine?
• When do you get inspired to write and how do you follow a piece of writing to the end?
• In what proportion do you write prose, poetry, analysis, stories, non-fiction? - professionally and personally.
• Is it really like elementary school? - the Writing Process - and what are your thoughts on the process of composing?
• What familiar patterns do you use in your compositions?

Respond at your leisure. Any thoughts would be appreciated..

Thanks for being a Teacher,
Ryan Gomez '09

Post-Graduation Movies

Salon.com features an article about post-graduation films in the wake of the movie's "flunking grades."

College and High School fare has always been aspirational. College Films offer dreams of debauchery to High School films. High School films offer paths to popularity. What are we to make of these films that cater to 22 year olds? Many appear to deal with friendships that were suppose to last forever. Listlessness settles in as the future constructed then is muddled by reality.

For the record, do I have the same angst? Many of these films, faultlessly, show upper middle class straight White kids who attended schools like Berkeley, Oberlin and Georgetown. Adventureland particularly deals with a kid who graduates with a liberal arts degree only to find himself working as a carnie at a fair.

As a point of reference, my family came to this country in the year I'm about to have. I didn't know what that felt like until I went to the Philippines over the summer. I respect my parent's generation so much more for leaving such a beautiful but flawed place. Even those endowed with dynastic gifts have to deal with the traffic and the hustling and the heat. I was born here as a result. My trepidation lies in the fact that I'm convinced, more than ever, that I was born to do something specific. There's no Newsweek cover that talks about Data Visualization and Mapping, so I'm not too late, but there's no Time cover that gives me the ammunition of words, labels and paths that I can use to defend against my own doubts.

I'm really not scared. I suppose I can't decide to be of the financial aid disaster that may loom or the friends that may scatter. Many of these films deal with marriage, which is beyond my radar. Each offer a time capsule of generations of young actors, the Brat Pack, the Baby Boomers, Generation X and even our own.

Given the 'specificness of being an American youth,' I thought my friends were the most special, certain bunch of kids in the world. I thought my experiences were my own, unrivaled by no one. Multiply this by the hundreds of thousands and the result is the Class of 2009.

My time was damn special though, for I decide it to be.

As a service to you, I present these trailers.

Adventureland (2009)



St. Elmo's Fire (1985)




Kicking and Screaming (1995)



Reality Bites (1993)



The Graduate (1967)



And for the record, a College Film, of our former life?

Speaking with Lee Byron

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Lee Byron on the work he's done in Data Visualization. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon, Mr. Lee has worked at the New York Times, IBM and Facebook and has produced some of the space's most celebrated installations.

I'll post more about our conversations later, but I was struck most by these points:

• I think he produces great work and it was my pleasure to let him know that.
• Coming from a design background, he holds such principles as playfulness, wonder and interactivity in his work.
  
• This sense of play has helped him build his extensive portfolio. He simply loves what he does and works on things he enjoys.
• His celebrated Olympic Medal Count Map over Time took three weeks to build.
  
• His background is rooted in Design and his programming background began with learning Actionscript in Flash.
  

Additionally

• I learned more about the Human Design and Interactivity program at Carnegie Mellon
• The cultures at IBM and New York Times and Facebook are similar and different. IBM is more academic in a corporate setting, the New York Times is rather fast paced and Facebook is growing from its classic Silicon Valley roots.
  

A complete recollection of our interview, including links to his work and other musings should be posted before I leave for Ithaca this weekend.

Musical Selection.

Documentaries for Monday

The Truth According to Wikipedia, by the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO in English on Web 2.0

The devil's advocate: "It's no coincidence that it was those hippies that built the technology that enables Wikipedia and the bloggosphere, it's no coincidence that the fathers of the Internet now in silicon valley are these pot-bellied older guys with ponytails."

He's right. The Internet will be just as human as the book. In China today, there's heavy controls on the internet and massive propaganda powers. But the Chinese aren't stupid, they themselves contribute to Internet life heartily. And here am I with a blog.

The humanity of progress is no argument against progress.

My Brilliant Brain- Make Me a Genius.

From Channel 5 in Britain brings an uplifting profile of Susan Polgar, first woman chess grandmaster. I'm always sensitive with the word genius, because in some senses it's dehumanizing, as if geniuses are calculating machines measured against such standard of perfection. Modern science, the documentary above and Ms. Susan's own father make the case that any child can grow up to be extraordinary.

The special itself is rather public, in the classy British sense. It employs CGI and a few gimmicks along with simple but generated drama.

First off, we can only hold 7 things in our heads at a time, like phone numbers. 867-5309. Ms. Polgar can recreate the 28 pieces of a chessboard from memory because she can chunk these pieces into about five or so ominous groupings in her mind. She cannot do that with randomly places pieces.

It touches on much of what Malcolm Gladwell discussed in Blink. Experts, through training and dilligence, move instictively rather than calculatingly. Firefighters are shown pwning chessmasters at fighting fires. A digression on faceblindness, standard for cable cognitive fare, features a London Times reporter who's "colorblind" to faces. We recognize faces new and old by measure the proportions of face features and comparing it with the face ratios of faces we've seen before. [Well, probably a hell of a lot more complicated than that.]

Ms. Polgar's genius is revealed at the end of the episode through brainscans. She recognizes chess patterns with the same pattern recognizing part of the Brain that recognizes face patterns and instictively reacts.

The idea that anyone can be a genius is comforting.

Oh: And this shit is hilarious. Barack Obama reading from his audiobook. NSFW. Also here.

Musical Selection.

Portfolio Additions

Let me take this time to link to some pictures I've taken. This set features me and my close friends Leah, Amanda and Dave.

On Woodstock

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of August 1969, whose 40th anniversary was this weekend, has always been an inspiration for me.

This is an opportunity for me to reflect, amidst the slow news cycles of August, on a favorite topic of mine: the March of the Generations. I really like the music from the 60s, it's what I study. When Woodstock happened my own parents were 9 and 10 and 12 timezones away in the Philippines. And I had little concept when I was their age, when preaching about the 1960s, of the Vietnam war and all that. I was a bit of a dork when I was younger, but I do know now that I wanted a world where I could be whatever dork I wanted to be, even if it pained me, and that peace and love's embrace would reach even me.

I just moved back from the rolling hills of Upstate New York and I'm going back this weekend. It was there where a floormate Freshman year, I'll call him Graham Nash, played me the famous 1970 documentary. He found most significant that Joe Cocker's backup singers were male. Over the weekend I finally watched the movie. I know all the music by heart, so it was the faces of the young people that fascinated me the most. Lining up at phone banks calling family, the hustling of cigarettes and the drum circles. I'm happy to learn that being young in America is that specific, even for someone who looks more like the Viet Cong than GI Joe.

It's been written that Woodstock was a moment rather than a movement. That too soon, not that people got old, but that first with Madmen, the Graduate, Woodstock then Fear and Loathing in Las Veas, the world stayed as sketchy as ever. Sketchy as hell, where people succomb to greed, lust and anger but have to hold it in. (Not to say that vice will go way. I'm charmed by its eternity, especially when people are honest about it.)

Hunter Thompson has a beautiful passage in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was about how being in San Francisco in the mid-60s was such a specific and special time. The forces of evil in the world were to lose, not out of violent means, but because the momentum was on the side of the fresh, and the young, and the love. It was "riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..."

"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

The Baby Boomer generation did okay for themselves. According to a VH1 History Channel special, the couple above in the embrace are old now, grandparents. Harmless, cheerful and near retirement. I guess the same goes for the milenials. Some how I can't imagine snooty sixty year old hipsters in skinny jeans in 2046, but I can imagine a whole generation with a grateful world behind and an incomplete one ahead. We'll all be alright.

What do I mean to say that hasn't already been said? I'm tired now of thinking of a world defined before Marley and Jay-Z, without wikipedia, without ringtones. Back then, my place was set mainly decided by who my Father was. People were drafted into war. In America you can be whoever you want to be, but the market for Freedom is tight even today. Nostalgia aside, it was very difficult back then. I wanna look ahead now. A better question to ask, thus, is what bears saying even if a million times forgotten and a million and one times said?

That Love is the Answer. Let's Love ourselves and each other and build our new Century ahead.

Musical Selection: Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together and love one another right now.

Hello World

Hello world, my web log begins.

May it give me focus, to break the cycle of procrastination and perfectionism. For a mind like mine, its easy to get stuck in the details of bridges ahead. Of reciprocal blog links, google ads, designs reminiscent of Moroccan bank notes. Is my writing good enough? Do I have enough to say? What if I speak, and what I say doesn't matter?

It feels good that starting today, that it is written is better than how what is written might be better. By focusing on that, it will be better. Every day.

I am also committed to providing a rich, multi-media experience. Maybe on the internet, you can speak over no ones head. May no allusion be left behind.

With that:

"No one cares about what you think, unless you do what you think. No one cares what you do, unless you think about what you do. No one ever really cares what you say."

Designer Jack Shultz interview. In fact...

"What other people think of you is not your business."

I got that from Church yesterday. Perhaps its also the title of a book.

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Musical Selection.

Marked a shift away from guitars to keyboards and marked a new reliance on studio musicians.