jorge.cortell.net

Carna botnet offers us this amazing 24 hour visualization of relative IPv4 utilization observed using ICMP Ping requests.

Look at the data, just look at it! Don’t you see people’s sleeping patterns, internet usage patterns, eating schedule habit, cultural differences, urban influence, regional inequalities…?

4 flights and 40 hours later (after having missed Japan Week), I am back in New York in the modern and technological Delta terminal (C, not D) at Laguardia Airport, with its tablets and card readers on all tables and bars at all bars and restaurants.What a difference from the Delta Terminal 4 at JFK! Luckily the new one will be finished in May, because the old one is falling apart.

Even the fastest business trips can be full of anecdotes. This time they were not all fun or nice ones, though.

Wednesday, in Phoenix I learned how technology is put together and delivered via a very interesting “back stage” tour of one of Avnet‘s largest integration facilities. It really makes you understand the technology delivery process much better.

The next day, in Albuquerque I received a very different tour: probably the largest and best equipped medical examiner’s office in the world, where I had the “privilege” of seeing restricted areas like the evidence room, the refrigeration unit full of corpses (where we will all, one day or another, end up), and one of the hardest things I have seen in my life (and I have seen very very rough things): the autopsy of a baby and an adult.

The baby, which looked completely like a realistic doll, easily handled with one hand by one of the examiners, sitting there dead, arms down to his sides, while his skull was sawn open. His skin, pale yellow, in sharp contrast with abundant dark hair, made his eyelashes and eyebrows quite prominent. As if hanging on to a last resource of identity before an inevitable decomposition.

The adult, with the thorax already completely open, exposing lungs, heart, and the rest of the inner organs, skin apart like a book.

Amazing how extremely graphical TV shows, video games and movies have made us assimilate those images. But it is still fairly hard. As one of the examiners told me, many police officers faint when they see that.

After that I took a taxi back to the airport. And the taxi driver told me how his brother had just committed suicide.

I probably do think about death and the fragility of life more often than most people. But still, and overdose of extreme stimuli left me a little bit numbed for a while. Luckily the airport’s free wifi allowed me to concentrate on a very dehumanizing task: work.

On the air, over Minneapolis Saint Paul, I saw the snow, blanketing everything and everywhere. It reminded me of the Siberian tundra, and brought back memories. Many memories.

Now I am finishing this little post on the plane approaching New York. Back to life. Back to reality?

Read Quote of Balaji Viswanathan’s answer to Microsoft: Why isn’t Microsoft ‘cool’? on Quora

Today Juan gave me a great compliment, for which I am grateful:

You embody the saying “Fall down 7 times, get up 8″

Astonished I witness the trees rise
tall from their base,
not even rooted.

Leafs leave,
group,
organize,
and shifting shapes,
take to the sky
only to dive down.

A red dragon,
a viking vessel,
coming straight at me.

The memory of holding your hand,
and blinking,
gets me through.

But how far could even a never fading memory take me?
I shall hold your hand again, or be taken by the leafs.

Although it may not be too obvious, I have been going through a few very hard weeks for several reasons. So someone who knows me well told me I should not be stupid, and should have fun. Let’s be it, then!

As part of their James Bond 50 years celebration, MoMA has been showing some of 007 movies in their collection (the largest by any museum in the world). So  yesterday I was invited, and I of course invited Stephanie to be my guest, to the screening of the latest James Bond movie: “007 Skyfall“.

Guess who is in the movie (OK, everybody knew already but me, so?) fellow Spaniard Javier Bardem!

So, how about the movie?

I enjoyed it because… let’s just say it’s another 007 movie. Perfect technical production, some brilliant moments (I love their artistic intros), some very weak plot points and attitudes (very dangerous defense of covert operations), messy clichés (the reckless and bloody hitman-corporate-terrorist improbable link), and an attempt to bring current events (powerful China, of course!), technology (ascii in the hex column? unix X system showing a real time 3D in a dump mode? “evolving, self-reprogramming, obfuscated code”? really? that’s SO weak! you guys need a better tech advisor), and depth (childhood and unresolved trauma, beautifully scenefied in a remote Scottish house) to what it is, and is expected to be, just pure fun.

So leave your Lacanian interpretations and your Bergman expectations at home, and enjoy the ride. If you can and will. You don’t need to “be warned” because 007 has always been that: circus, opium, fast food, simple joy, and even nostalgia (people clapped the most when he got into his Aston Martin vintage DB5!) and you know that, and sadly that’s exactly why the formula and the franchise work.

Which intellectual doesn’t have a kid inside? which kid does not want to be a man (or be told what one should be even if that’s very wrong)? which simpleton does not want to be awed?

From tilted posts to trees completely gone, after hurricane Sandy there were many signs of destruction around New York.

I had to stay at Stepahnie’s apartment (thank you again!) until Monday, because my building remained without power. And even after the power returned, the telephone and internet took two more days.

Some people were not so lucky, with all hotels fully booked, and had to stay at home for days without power or water. I heard of a woman who paid over $400 for a night in a room at the Gramercy Hotel, even though they did not have power or water either, just because she was too sacred of being at home alone for so long without electricity.

So, when Stephanie went to her office, I also went to work: to help others by helping handing out food and water in one of the “soup kitchens” (the one at 27th street). Signs of reconstruction were everywhere. And that’s when the real “American Spirit” shines its brightest light (not with flags or elections): when everybody comes together, in a fairly self-organized way, to wholeheartedly help.

[Note: images on this post, except those of the gallery above, have not been taken, or downloaded, or hosted by me; for full attribution follow the source]

Many people tried to help as they could. From great efforts, to little gestures. It all helped.

And just when things seemed to slowly be returning more or less back to normal, winter storm Athena reminded us that it can always get worse, and “Winter is coming”. Thousands of flights cancelled again, snow everywhere… pretty but cold!

Note: Start video on 33:33 (absolutely nothing happening before that, but just people waiting for the panelist to go on stage).

On Friday I was invited to attend Slavoj Žižek’s lecture “Conditions of Possibility” with M. Hägglund & A. Johnston at City University of New York’s Graduate Center.

Martin Hägglund (associate professor of comparative literature and humanities at Yale University) and Adrian Johnston (professor in the department of philosophy at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and a faculty member at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta) both read legthy and endogamic discourses about Heidegger, classic philosophical concepts, and stubbornly narrow minded “canons”. You can not make philosophy (then again, they were reading and regurgitating, not creating or philosophizing) and begin by taking for granted Kant, Heidegger, Hegel, Lacan… We are in the XXI century! Of course those were great philosophers, and their contributions are extremely significant, but that does not mean they are unquestionable. As a matter of fact, that’s what philosophy is about!

Isn’t it about time we look beyond the fatality of cause-and-effect, the linearity of time, the etnocentric and anthropocentric view of philosophy?

On the contrary Žižek, in his well known flamboyant manner (his tics have gotten much worse, I wonder about his health), and making a few, but not too many (which was a welcomed change) pop-culture references, did not read, questioned his colleagues, and went on about seemingly disparate subjects that eventually tied in together quite well.

I may not agree with all Žižek says, but one has to respect such a risk taker in a world dominated by idolatrous worshipping ass kissing experts and their endogamic and excluding entourage.

On Thursday I went to 319 Scholes to attend the art opening of “Collect the WWWorld: The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age“.

Beyond the anecdotal post/pre hispter crowd, the exhibition itself is a sad celebration of noise. Which, in itself is as valid, or invalid, as any other starting point in the endless debate about art (more so in regards with contemporary, electronic, net, etc).

But it is its legitimization attempt, with research project, curator, catalogue, and international tour, which brings the debate to a whole different level. Again, struggling with the Institutional Theory of Art. Again, falling in the trap of the spoon fed.

Again under the false impression that art, time, space, and the like are limited resources. They are not! And they are not because we, ourselves, our time, our space, our bodies, our mids, are indeed limited, and therefore, when put into context and perspective all those other subjective concepts upon which scarcity we base our interactions on, do become unlimited in the light of our own finitude.

So don’t celebrate noise as an abandonment to the vastness of the unreachable. Don’t hide behind noise as a way to escape the unavoidable void. Embrace your own limits and work to expand them. Thrive in uncertainty, certain that the external shall not define you.

On Friday I went to NY Comic Con, like everyone else, I guess, with the idea of having fun, of experiencing first hand one of the “major events” that a true nerdy geek can attend. I also wanted to meet Cory Doctorow (although we actually ended up not meeting). It has been years since I last met him, and it was the perfect “excuse” to attend the conference.

When I arrived, I was really surprised to see the size of it. I knew the Jakowitz Center was big, I had been there before several times. But I was not expecting a Comic Con to have such size and be attended by so many people. The waves of attendees kept coming in hours after the doors opened.

Of course, the most readily noticeable aspect of the conference is the customs many people wear. I started taking photographs, only to understand it was a waste of time, since so many people were taking the same photographs, and they would be shared online.

But the phenomenological metaphysics philosopher / cultural anthropologist / developmental psychologist that I carry inside (oh, yeah, it does get crowded in my brain sometimes could not just “let go and have fun”. Had I been socially sharing the event with someone with whom to “just enjoy”, I know I would have done just that. But she was not there. So I let my mind have all the fun.

Many were the traits and inter dynamics to be observed and analyzed. This post could turn into a large essay or a book if I went into detail. So I’ll just make a quick note and keep the longer analysis in my “to-do” list:

• Unlike many cos players I spent hours observing at YoYoGi Park in Tokyo, who were expressing themselves, as a personal need to experience the union and self-identification with the chosen character, the American counterparts seemed a bit more interested in the attention, the show, the “cred”, the social aspect of it.
• Those who were “capturing the odd images” as I first had the impulse to do, re-enforce the permeable boundaries of social spheres by doing so.
• Pre-made identities are quite tempting, for they represent an effortless way to achieve a “persona” without the need to work on the issues and more importantly accept the responsibilities and pain that goes into actually choosing one’s own. Because, although somehow restricted by experiences, circumstances, and neurological structures, we DO have a choice. And over identification with fictional characters is the psychological equivalent of fast food: quick, effortless, filling…  but it keeps us from healthier choices if it is not balanced.
• The naïveté with which some fans approach story lines, characters, and authors, starkly contrasts the ruthless business interest that go on behind the scenes most of the time.
• Most characters and comics draw (no pun intended) from the very same sources Western cultural tradition has been doing over millennia: the classic Greek drama, full of linearity, polarization, violence, tension, determinism, simplification… On the other hand, there are many sketched Western influences in Japanese comic (manga/anime) works, but they are mainly exaggerated aesthetic clichés rather than an structural narrative influence.

Of course there are many more aspects to analyze, and a lot of fun to be had. So I guess it would be a good idea to return next year, but hopefully in good company