Waves made solid

Wow, my last post was in March... Time flies - except that it felt like March, temperature-wise, up to not very long ago.

Never mind...

Here is a very succint post, whose sole purpose is to highlight the following website:
http://www.pierrecarreau.com/

Enjoy the watery geometries!

ScienceCom #1 - What is out there

A while ago I was reading an Italian newspaper, "Repubblica" - I was browsing various articles when a title in small prints caught my eye: the article mentioned the foundation of a new research centre to study the risk that humans destroy themselves by giving birth to a machine that eventually turns itself against its creator. Without further ado, here is the relevant link: http://www.cser.org/.

Pause.

This reminded me that a few months earlier I had bumped into an equally odd website: http://beyond.asu.edu/.

Another pause.

Continuing my journey through the resources of the internet, here is the most recent discovery (thank you, Rob!): http://storify.com/ingorohlfing/overly-honest-methods-in-science.

... Now what?

Let's start thinking about what such websites have in common - a certain vision of scientific research, perhaps.
My reaction when I read about the first project listed above may be described as a rapid sequence of thoughts along these lines:

- who are these people, and is there so much money out there that one can possibly spend on such nonsense? Clearly this is easily classified as a non-directional, superficial rant.

- no, but... Seriously? I can think of at least three alternative possible causes for the destruction of our race - and none of them includes a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) turning into our terminator. Maybe I'm narrow-minded, though.

- why would someone come up with such an idea? Sometimes one hears people commenting on a silly proposal: "they had no more original thoughts to work on, hence their uninteresting latest idea". In this case it's the other way round, so to say. It seems like, oppressed by centuries and centuries of scientific debate and discoveries, and in a century - the current one - where the "Publish or Perish" principle has become deeply rooted into many researchers' brains... The focus on the identification of the most significant and meaningful priorities may be lost. Minds might start to wander freely, they may stumble on an idea or a hypothesis - and if they are not prompt enough in recognising it as a divertissement (an entertaining diversion), this may grow in size and eventually become a real entity like a centre or an institute.

The second link I copied above generated analogous considerations, except that here the centre is not "newly born"... It's up, running and, to be frank, I'm still debating within myself as to whether I find the whole structure trustworthy or not. Browsing the website there seems to be an equal amount of odd contents and stimulating talks and seminars.

The third website is probably the most interesting one; the first obvious reaction is laugh, of course - partly because many of the entries are just great, and partly because (especially if the reader is a scientist, or maybe-to-be-scientist too :) ) it is rather easy to spot a few comments that sound familiar and well-known. The second reaction comes as a question: why would anyone ridicule research? Perhaps the verb I chose is too strong, but I do feel like all the contributions to this web page subtract to science and scientific progress a share of its authority and reliability, not to mention its - supposed?! - rigour. Now, I know that such doubts arise every time one hears in the news that this or that paper (often published in a good journal) turned out to be an inventive creation of its authors, so to speak. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the point that strikes me here is the participation of young researchers and students. These "confessions of questionable scientific practice" belong to people who have just started to approach reseach or are still relatively new to the field - yet they all seem to have encountered a few examples of "bad science". And, more importantly, they are willing to share these experiences, wink and have a laugh about them.

I don't mean to sound intransigent or support censorship. This post is a mere collection of thoughts on the subject of what is out there, in terms of the scientific community and its views on itself and the world around it. Thank you for reading!

Flowchart #2 - I decide to write about writing

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I am quite fond of everything that is related to typefaces and letterforms - with a special interest in handwriting - both in their standard and more creative expressions.

When it comes to calligraphy, it turns out that there are a few websites one may be curious to explore: for instance,

- http://www.calligraphyonline.org/index.html -- click and learn about the "Society of Scribes and Illuminators"... With such a name for their society the website deserves at least a visit, don't you think?

- http://www.clas.co.uk/index.html -- a recent discovery, hence I cannot say much about it; their summer course looks interesting...

- http://www.freehandwriting.net/ -- probably one of the first websites I found out about; I have never met Monica Dengo, but I had a chance to attend a short workshop run by one of her students and thought it was brilliant! Also, at least one of Monica Dengo's classes takes place in Venice... Not a bad location, huh?

Some days ago I thought of a connection I hadn't considered before. Penmanship as it is presented in the few above-listed websites stems from a rather specific - almost élite? - point of view on the matter: here writing by hand is not seen as a necessary skill allowing to communicate and express oneself, but rather as a more abstract activity - where sometimes one may even wonder whether the aesthetics became more relevant than the content. Thus it presupposes, by definition, that one learnt how to write in the first place, from the alphabet up to entire sentences and paragraphs, distinguishing between upper, lower case letters and so on. Have you ever asked yourself this question: how did I learn to write? How long was this process, and what was the evolution of my handwriting up to its present form?

I then decided I would look into this matter. With a scientific approach, of course.

And eventually, I drew the flowchart that is shown below.

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light...

This is Berlin - again! This time the photos shown here come from an entirely different source: they were taken at the Buchstaben Museum (http://www.buchstabenmuseum.de/), which is a tiny yet meaningful (and playful) display of... Neon lights - precisely. Except that the point is not their being glowing. The aim of the museum is to preserve and document letterforms, as written on their homepage, as well as to plan "events designed to develop an appreciation for typography and for the items on display".
What I found very interesting is the opportunity to see various "fonts" applied to specific, real-life examples (a fishmonger's shop, a café and so on), with styles and "tricks" that change in time: the three photos below, for instance, the light with the glowing "W" comes from the thirties or the forties, if I am not mistaken. I love the "r" and "t" in the first photo, the way they are linked - it is a very peculiar graphic solution; and I found the "G" in the third picture very smooth and... Gentle.

The remaining two photos were taken with a more "scientific" approach in mind: here one learns how it is actually possible to fabricate such neon lights... Or at least, how this was done up to the invention and success of LEDs, I suppose. It is then almost natural, I think, to realise that this museum and its collection are not only about aesthetics; there is a true interplay of art and science/technology. The perspective might thus change, as a particularly smooth and curly typeface is not only nice to look at, but also likely to have been quite a challenge to produce as the neon light that is displayed right in front of you. :)

I imagine that it did make sense to gradually switch to LEDs - perhaps we (as a civilisation) should even rethink critically this sort of "glittery and 'must be eye-catching' culture of signs and messages".
I believe it is important that places like the Buchstaben Museum exist, because they do act as a "memorandum" of a few examples of virtuous human creativity and ingeniosity, all of which are aspects to respect and treasure.

A note -- While I was visiting the museum I happened to glance at a pile of small leaflets, each one with a big green "M" on it - I took one with me, and discovered this website: http://www.motaitalic.com/. It is not a very easy task to define what "Mota Italic" truly is - it is a gallery/shop in Berlin, but I think it is fair to say that it is mainly a proper type foundry. This means that if you visit their website and fancy one of their typefaces, you can purchase them and start using them when you write a document on your laptop, for example. I then had a relatively extensive look at the website itself: one page that caught my attention was http://www.motaitalic.com/typefoundry/fonts/gemma/rotalics - do not get me wrong, I love standard italics, but this "rotalics" does look interesting, too!

A second note, as important as the first -- If you don't know (or forgot) where the title of this post comes from, I suggest you check this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsX03LOMhI. ;) [I am not entirely sure about all the words as they are shown in this video, but most of them seem right to me!]

Random links

If you have one minute of free time, go to http://www.thetravellingbarn.co.uk/

All right, the website is clearly under construction, but one question arises naturally: what are these people doing, and what is their aim?

Let us consider the known data: "build a barn", "the vision", "hire us" (menu bar). My personal (partial) conclusion was the following: these folks have some experience in wood carving and construction, and they will build a barn with a given shape and size. Then they will "put themselves on the market", so that if someone desires to get a barn for a festival, for a wedding... or just because they got bored with their 8th floor flat with a wee view on a tube station, well, there you go, call "The Travelling Barn"!

Now, what do you think? Posts most welcome. :)
For something completely different, I went bookshopping today and saw a couple of books about clouds. Hmm, interesting, I thought. I thus discovered the "Cloud Appreciation Society": http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/
Oddly interesting.