Archive for 'Scrapbook' Category
Photos of Tokyo
11 March 2007 |
| Tokyo Spring 2007 |
This album contains the photos of my recent trip to Tokyo.
A different Akihabara
4 March 2007Yes, what you see up there is the video that mesmerized Nao, Kazu, and me in a Akihabara store while waiting for Noriko to pay for her DVDs.
Pictures of the snow the blizard left
17 February 2007 |
| Chambana Winter 2007 |
Taking another snow day: Snow cancels UofI classes today too
14 February 2007
UofI has cancelled the classes again today. After the blizzard, today is plowing-the-snow day. Most people are stuck at their homes plowing the snow away from driveways so they can uncover their cars from under the snow hills. I guess tomorrow everything should be back to normal. I am planning to go for a walk on the snow latter thought. It looks pretty from my window 
Taking a snow day: Snow cancels UofI classes after 40 years
13 February 2007
Yup, it is snowing a bit here. The picture above was taken 10 minutes ago from my appartment window. You may not be able to appreciate it, but the visibility is very poor due to the snow fall and heavy gutsy wind. This blizzard has closed UofI. Here you have the chancellor’s e-mail.
All classes have been canceled for Tuesday (Feb. 13) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 5 inches of snow fell overnight, up to another foot of snow is possible by Tuesday night and a blizzard warning is in effect. U. of I. employees who have been designated as essential personnel are expected to report to work.
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor
Is a war for easily-sharing-your-stuff-with-your-friends coming?
15 January 2007Lately, I have been running into more and more Slashdot entries about newly released products to support sharing in one form or another. Just two of the latest one that surfaced: I Like (music-based) and Tubes (share anything from any device).
iPhone blast
10 January 2007I am sure you all saw it already, but Steve Job’s keynote at MacWorld let me speachless. Besides AppleTV, interesting by itself—now there is a new Catalan TV (Vilaweb.tv) channel just broadcasting over the net that I will be able to watch at home in Urbana easily with one of those—Steve dropped the boom of the new iPhone—a phone+iPod+internet device. Smartphones and blackberries are facing a dark and uncertain future. I remember having a conversation with Kumara Sastry not long ago were he was complaining about not finding anything new on the cell phone market (he wanted to change his cell phone). Well, may be there is something new after all and from a kind of unexpected Apple
Two movies, Julio Medem, and Daniel Sánchez Arévalo
7 January 2007
Julio Medem has finished his new coming movie. The director of “La ardilla roja” (The red squirrel), “Tierra” (Earth), and “Los amantes del círculo polar” (Lovers of the Artich Circle)—among others—has finished shooting “Caótica Ana” (Cahotic Ana) which should open Spring 2007. I just hope he has forgotten about the boring “Lucía i el sexo” (Sex and Lucía) and he has recovered his fascinating storyteller qualities. Anyway, lots of expectations every time he comes up with a new movie. Here is as summary of the plot of the movie from Julio’s unofficial web site.
Chaotic Ana is the story - journey of Ana over four years of her life, from 18 to 22. A countdown from 10 to 0, as in hypnosis, through which Ana comes to see that she doesn’t alone. Her existence seems to be the continuation of the lives of other young women who died tragically, all of them at 22, and who live in the abyss of her unconscious memory. That is her chaos. In words of the director and scriptwriter of the movie: Ana is the princess and the monster of this fable feminist against the tyranny of the white man.
If you have some spare time, I would also suggest you to take a look at Daniel Sánchez Arévalo’s “azuloscurocasinegro” (darkbluealmostblack). This is his first film after a long list of successful shorts such “La culpa del alpinista” which was an original idea of Julio Medem who collaborated in the writing of the script.
Antònia Font
1 January 2007I run into Antònia Font last summer, but I did not have the chance to buy their discs in Girona. I hope I can do it before going back to Urbana in a few days. Below you may find some of their videos on YouTube. Happy 2007 
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Batiscafo Katiuskas
Extraterrestres
Wa Yeah!
Challenging lectures on-line at TED
18 December 2006Yesterday I was having dinner with a friend. He mentioned that he had become addicted to the lectures posted on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) web site. I found this interesting description of TED on their site:
TED is all about connections. The connections of ideas and the connections of people. It is based on the insight that to truly understand anything, you need to understand a little bit of everything that surrounds it. And that by allowing ourselves to be exposed each year to a diverse group of some of the most remarkable people on the planet, we transplant ourselves out of the one-dimensional mind-set of much of our working lives and into fertile country that will allow us - actually, almost force us - to grow.
TED also is a valuable source of ideas about innovation and creativity. A quick glance at the list of short lectures just mesmerizes you. It is hard to point one out, I am just going trough them right now, but my first pick was Dan Dennett—most famous for his books, Consciousness Explained (1991) and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995). I still recall sitting in the lecture he gave at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park more than four years ago. Mesmerizing.