Saturday, December 16, 2017

Have your say! - Cryptocurrency Bubble

With my techy friends all having read books about this long ago (and some of them making loads of money -- and I mean loads!), I really feel I need to learn more about it. :-(


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Guadalupe Roldán
Date: Wed, Dec 13, 2017


I hear everyday in my job how my workmates talk about their investment in cryptocurrencies, and I begin to be interested in this issue. Since Bitcoin was invented in 2008, many other cryptocurrencies have been appearing as different tradable digital assets. But what are they? In few words, cryptocurrencies are a form of digital money that are supposed to be secure and anonymous. 
We find the origin of cryptography in the Second World War, when it was used a method to keep sure all the communications, through elements of mathematical theory and computer science. The base of these new coins is the same secure outlook.
Not only can we invest in cryptocurrencies and trade them for other currencies, but also can we use our computers to create blocks on the network and generate coins. However, you would need a powerful computer to generate new Bitcoins, so, at the end, you also need to invest money on that.
The world of cryptocurrencies is really wild and even faster than wild, so I consider that spending time before going deep into it is essential to find out if this is a bubble waiting to burst or a good investment.



Friday, December 15, 2017

Have your say! - Who owns the Moon

In connection with the topic, I'm so excited I'm visiting NASA's

Kennedy Space Center in Florida for my next birthday! 


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carlos Honrado
Date: Tue, Dec 12, 2017

Article

Recently, Trump's administration has put a spotlight on the Moon again, many years after the Apollo missions.  It seems that as Mars deadlines approach the US government has realized that there are many things to be tested before, and the Moon it's a perfect place: a stepping-stone to Mars.
The other major space agencies, ESA and Roscosmos, which have long been interested in the Moon over Mars, have now a new ally.  The main collaboration purpose is to stablish a colony on the moon or at least a manned base.
The article I bring here is about a topic that drew my attention while attending a Moon Seminar: the outer space law. No country has legal ownership on the Moon. However, should you make a rocket, get it launched with you inside, land in the Moon, and then build your happy place there in bare land, you would be de facto the owner of that place.
The Moon is believed to be rich in Helium H3 and hold rare-earth elements. Rare-earth elements are used today in many electronic components such as televisions, mobile phones and solar panels. We currently have got plenty of rare-earth elements but the vast majority are in China. From a political point of view, no western country wants China controlling the world's market of this minerals. Given this, being the first company to find a deposit and mine the Moon grants an extremely lucrative business.
I think that it is going to take a long time to have such a necessity on Earth which should make moon mining profitable. However, as the article points out, countries signing and ratifying the Moon Agreement is essential in order that private companies don't misuse the Moon and its resources.

P.S.:  You can visit https://www.google.com/moon/  to see the landing sites of the Apollo missions which organizations want to preserve as a World Heritage site.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Have your say! Gunpowder at the Prado

Thanks, Pilar. I can't talk about Fortuny's yet, but I found Cai's exhibition most extraordinary, once you learn about the technique.



From: pilar Mallén Bernal
Date: Tue, Dec 12, 2017

How to make the most of a day just as ordinary as any other.

It is autumn, Tuesday and you are in Madrid.  You have the whole day ahead of you. Despite the beauty of the autumn colours and the sunshine outside, you have been invited to see the Fortuny exhibition at the Prado Museum. "Go with the flow", you think to yourself. "Never has the Prado leave you nonchalant".

Then, magic happens. While you are letting yourself go in the painting of the Spanish artist who achieved most international renown in the last third of the 19th century, still another exhibition awaits you next door: Cai Guo-Qiang, the first contemporary artist to create on-site at the Prado.

If you think that Fortuny's trips to cover the Spanish-Moroccan War (1859)were pretty much about his need to express colour, light and shadow, what can we say of this Chinese artist, with his nearly 30 paintings made with gunpowder?




Fortuny (1838-1874)


Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid 11/21/2017 - 3/18/2018
The Museo Nacional del Prado is presenting an exhibition on Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874), to be displayed in the two principal galleries of the Museum's extension. This is the first retrospective on this leading Spanish artist to be presented at the Prado, which houses most of Fortuny's masterpieces due to the generous bequests of Ramón de Errazu and of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, the painter's son, as well as acquisitions purchased by the Museum.
As with the previous monographic exhibitions held at the Prado, Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874) will offer a reassessment of the artist's finest works.
Mariano Fortuny was the Spanish artist who achieved most international renown in the… | +



The Spirit of Painting. Cai Guo-Qiang at the Prado

Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid 10/25/2017 - 3/4/2018
Cai Guo-Qiang is the first contemporary artist to create on-site at the Prado. This is his first solo exhibition solely focused on painting in over 30 years.
This exhibition, which arises from Cai Guo-Qiang's ongoing dialogue with El Greco and in which he establishes a relationship with the great masters represented in the Prado, comprises nearly 30 paintings made with gunpowder; eight of them ignited on-site at the Salón de Reinos. Also on view are an oil and an acrylic created at the start of his activities as a painter; and various sketches and drawings on matchboxes by his father, Cai Ruiqin, who steered him towards painting.
Room D will be showing a 20-minute documentary by Isabel… | +



--
Profesor: dícese por algunos del prototipo de moda de chivo expiatorio y paria privilegiadosites.google.com/site/mrmoiseseoi

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Have your say! - 3D hearing experience. Use of headphones mandatory

From: Gema Rodríguez Núñez
Date: Fri, Dec 8, 2017




I have selected this link because it really called my attention when I heard it for the first time.  As it is in English I think is too good an audio for this activity, but for getting the effect, you need to hear it with headphones. It is absolutely compulsory, because if not, it doesn't work.
What surprise me the most is that if you really close your eyes and relax yourself for a while, you can actually feel that someone is cutting your hair around you. I had seen several times this kind of illusions but only with images, however this audio shows that sounds can also cheat on your brain. The effect is known as "binaural sounds", and it is based on the different position of each ear. Although they are quite close one of each other, there are some centimeters between them, and that's the reason why the sound frequencies that arrive at them are slightly different on each. By moving the volume and the wavelength, the sensation can be recreated and one completely feels that the sounds are in different places of 3D space even when they have been reproduced only on two headphones.
For me, though all the audio is great, there are some extra awesome moments: when the door is closed, the moment with the bag on your head and when the scissors and the electric razor go from right to left and you can sense they are nearly touching you. And the best is that the haircut is free!!!
                If you have enjoyed it (what I hope), you can find more examples of this sort of "auditory illusion" on the internet searching for "3D hearing experience".


Have Your Say! - Synesthesia in the language

From: Julio
Date: Sat, Dec 9, 2017

Synesthesia is the natural-born skill in which some people perceive one sensory stimulus in two senses, mixing senses. For example, there are people who can see images when they hear sounds, or feel on their skin some sounds, or taste some sounds, etc.

But, what call my attention more is that apparently there is some kind of slight synesthesia in the everyday language, (and specially in literature). This would prove that everybody is a bit synesthetic.

There are many examples. For instance, expressions like "dark music", "to feel blue", "bitter truth", etc., use adjectives belonging to the realm of one sense with nouns belonging to the realm of another different, as visual with hearing, for instance. Apparently, these are semantic mistakes. However, everybody somewhat understands the meaning of these expressions, and I think this is because we all have a bit of sensory intermixing.

Another stronger proof of this is the bouba/kiki experiment: Most people associate the name kiki with the image with vertices, (because both the pronunciation of kiki and the vertices in the starred image are spiky), and associate the name bouba with the rounded image, (because they aren't spiky).

Monday, December 4, 2017

Have your Say! - City growth and urban mobility

From: Javier Domínguez Martínez
Date: Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 10:10 AM

CITIES GROWTH AND URBAN MOBILITY
Gran Vía Street, in the 30's
Gran Vía Street, today
Project of Gran Vía Street transformation

Some days ago, we were talking in class about the world's biggest cities by population and its growth. I've thought it over and I would like to connect this topic with the urban mobility and the outlook for the cities future.
As you know, the cities are swelling - according to some studies, urban population are going to rise by 2.5 billion by 2030 - and therefore the car usage will soar. Due to the expectation of this scenario, some challenges come for the biggest cities such as air pollution, climate change, traffic congestion, …
Talking of traffic congestion, in the 60's and 70's the cities tried to solve these issues by constructing more and larger highways in order to respond to the emerging of private vehicle travel demands. Nevertheless, this path seems not to have solve the issues that were supposed to sort out. This way, I do believe that not only haven't this measures solved these issues but also they have made it worse.
Consequently, nowadays some cities have begun to choose other way to solve the growth of urban mobility demand. Thus, the traditional public transport – underground trains, buses or trams – is improved at the same time that other systems or urban mobility are developed such as shared bicycles or shared electric vehicles programmes.
These measures are usually combined with traffic restrictions such as congestion charges (London), alternate circulation permission depending on the vehicle plate number (Athens, Paris), restricted areas (Madrid).
On the whole, I do believe that there are going to be a lot more changes in our urban mobility habits and only the future will show us if nowadays trends will solve current and future urban mobility needs.

Links with some videos and articles: