Reflected Landscapes

itscolossal:

Reflected Landscapes by Victoria Siemer

Mi Mu Gloves

I’ve always loved Imogen Heap, but this is at another level!!!
Love love love this glove and can’t wait to play with them!

Global Communication Patterns

Communication Patterns around the World.
In this era of multi-cultural collaborations, these diagrams become really relevant. Lewis’ communication diagrams show how cultures use language to negotiate, the shapes show greater conversational range, obstacles and cultural traits.
“By focusing on the cultural roots of national behavior, both in society and business, we can foresee how others will react to our plans for them, and we can make certain assumptions as to how they will approach us. A working knowledge of the basic traits of other cultures (as well as our own) will minimize unpleasant surprises (culture shock) and enable us to interact successfully with different nationalities.”

via Business Insider Singapore

Generation Like by Douglas Rushkoff →

What happens when the quest for teenage identity occurs online? Watch Douglas Rushkoff documentary: Generation “Like” on Frontline.

Rethink our story of human evolution

We need to rethink our story of human evolution! 

Scientists in Spain have found a femur bone in a cave that shows the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries. 

The DNA found tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans, who were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia.  In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that the fossil found in Spain dates back about 400,000 years.

Based on previously discovered ancient DNA and fossil evidence, scientists generally agreed that humans’ direct ancestors shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals and Denisovans that lived about half a million years ago in Africa.

Their shared ancestors split off from humans’ lineage and left Africa, then split further into the Denisovans and Neanderthals about 300,000 years ago. The evidence suggested that Neanderthals headed west, toward Europe, and that the Denisovans moved east.

Humans’ ancestors, meanwhile, stayed in Africa, giving rise to Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago. Humans then expanded from Africa into Asia and Europe about 60,000 years ago. They then interbred not only with Neanderthals, but with Denisovans, too. Later, both the Denisovans and Neanderthals became extinct.

“Now we have to rethink the whole story,” Dr. Arsuaga said.

Dr. Arsuaga doubts that Denisovans were spread out across so much of the Old World, from Spain to Siberia, masquerading as Neanderthals.

One alternative explanation is that the humans of Sima de los Huesos were not true Neanderthals, but belonged to the ancestors of both Denisovans and Neanderthals. Read more on The New York Times.

The photos from Jimmy Nelson, 100 tribes around the world that have not yet embraced technology, make me wonder how is it that we all came from the same tribes? I feel I see the resemblance on similar genes in people’s eyes, in their noses, their resilience and curiosity, and their inventiveness to thrive under new circumstances. 

Tools for Urban Transformation →

Tools for urban transformation, workshop imparted by Chris Woebken via Laboratorio para la Ciudad, Mexico. 

The Science of the Interior

'The Science of the Interior'
Have you ever imagined what is happening inside of your bone structure while you are practicing yoga?
This video is a beautiful representation of the inner subtle movement of the bones and the vertebras while a body practices Yoga Asanas.
The rad (short for radiological) folks at Hybrid Medical Animation have developed an incredibly awesome way to see how our leg bones are connected to our hip bones, making it animatedly beautiful with yoga in motion. Imagine an instructional app to teach adjustments to yoga teachers/ students?

Unspoken: a Creative Pratyahara Retreat

This weekend I’m going on a creative Pratyahara Retreat: Unspoken. Two days of silence, yoga, meditation and painting. 

Pratyahara is the 5th limb of yoga and it is concerned with taking us from the outside to the inside, with withdrawing the senses, so that the yogi, like an inner-naut, can travel within and find the Self.

Pratyahara is built brick by brick through yama niyama, asana and pranayama, then utilized in dharana dhyana and samadhi.  It is the fifth petal of yoga, also called the “hinge" of the outer and inner quest.  It is the pivotal movement on yoga’s path.

In Sanskrit, pratyahara literally means “to draw toward the opposite”.  The normal movement of the senses is to flow outward and this limb is concerned with going against that grain. 

Pratyahara is mano-vrtti nirodha, it directly works from the mind like a pneumatic tool to cut its outgoing habits by changing its direction to penetrate inwards towards the core.

Withdrawing the senses helps us come into the present moment without any filters, that is what Pattabi Jois meant, to come to a blank state where there is no projection, where we simply are.

Pratyahara is a culture on the mind.  As I see it is a “new wiring”, a creation of a new habit of sorts where we change directions as the attention constantly goes out and we rein it inside.

Pratyahara has to be firmly established on asana and pranayama which disciplines the organs of action, perception, and mind.

Seventh Sense

Seventh Sense (Excerpt) / 第七感官 (五分鐘版) (by 舞蹈劇場安娜琪)
This is one of the most amazing live performances I’ve seen! Defies time and space and every dimension. The improvisational dance in contrast with the hyper modern projection mapping is superbly executed!

Addicted to the Internet

How would you cure someone if they were addicted to the internet? Or best, how would you know by yourself if you were addicted to the internet?can you cure yourself?

In this short documentary, we see that China declared in 2008 that internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Here a bootcamp-style treatment center for young men addicted to video games.

But this video and the movie ‘Her’ (see next post about the guy that falls in love with her operating system - virtual assistant) have left me with the question on what to do after knowing you’ve spent too much time behind the computer and it might be affecting your cognitive and social skills? In the metro, in the bus stop, in the airport, I look around and everyone is lonely, looking at their screens. In all the coffee shops, everyone is behind a laptop or with a tablet. Babies with cell phones. Nannies with ipods.

Is this solitude time an opportunity to go within? to learn? to expand? to connect? to create? to discuss?

Can you identify when your mind wanders so much that you don’t know where your thoughts are? why are you reading this? why are you watching this video? is this something you planned on doing or did you stumbled into this as all the other hundreds of unimportant facts you find?

via Pedro Reyes by the New York Times

Coffee shops as the modern temples

Tellason Stories: Meet Jeremy (by Vertical Online)

I arrived this morning to San Francisco after a month of being in Mexico City. I feel happy to be here again, the city of great coffee shops and attention to intentional design.

These are two of my favorite spots in the city, the new secular temples where people commune around craftsmanship, design and great taste.