Leveraged Intelligence

If I could travel in Time, I would …

This is the Friday offering of the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a list of the members with links to their blogs on the left.  We write on the same topic each Friday without knowing in any way what the others have written.  This should be VERY interesting to see what the different members come up with and I want to personally thank Judy Harper, the Creative Writer in Progress on the left for such a delightful suggestion.

How many of you have seen the Will and Grace show when Jack met Cher?  This clip is so funny, because Jack always imitated Cher – and you will see by the end of it how it fits in with our time travel theme.

Jack meets Cher

If I could turn back time … what the heck would I do with it?

I put this together with certain assumptions.  First, I assumed that I would not be visible to anyone in the circumstance, would not be able to interfere, just observe.  Second, I assumed I could not be harmed by events or the environment.  Third, I assumed I could place myself anywhere in space as easily as I could in time.  In other words, I would be kind of a ghost!

Then I decided to just start free associating.  My interests are always so eclectic, as anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows.  I knew that if I had this ability, I would have a large number of interests that would be continually changing.  In fact, what I can’t actually put in place here is how my next target would change depending upon the experience at the current and last place.

Also, note that none of my travel is to the future!  I would only want to learn things from he past … but I wouldn’t want to screw up my present by knowing anything of the future.  Besides, I think that any future would be a probable outcome anyway.

So, enough with the prelims.  Here is the list of times / places that flowed out of me.  And, let me tell you, this list would just grow and grow and …

• Go back to see how the pyramids were constructed!
• See if I could find Jesus, Joseph and Mary, John the Baptist, the Disciples.
• Check out the events surrounding Moses at various points!
• Check out the first humans at Olduvai Gorge.
• Go see the Founding Fathers, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin.
• Go to the School Book Depository in Dallas to see if Lee Harvey Oswald really did do it alone.  Also, I might have to multiply locate to the Grassy Knoll.
• Visit Einstein in his study at the point that he boiled the essence down to E=mc²
• Return to the Renaissance and watch Michelangelo at work on David, on the Sistine Chapel.
• Go to the moon to watch the first landing, the first steps.
• Watch Mozart and Beethoven compose.
• See how Shakespeare wrote and directed some of his plays.
• Watch Krakatau explode and Vesuvius erupt!
• Watch DaVinci painting the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
• Watch Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige, each in his prime.
• Watch and listen to Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address.
• Watch Orson Wells and crew create War of the Worlds for the radio.
• Go to China and observe the life and surroundings of Confucius.
• Go to old Tibet, with one of the early Dalai Lamas – or, at least the Dalai Lama in early incarnations – at the Potala.
• Check out some of my early ancestors in Germany and see, in about 1630, where Barthold Hake came from.  He lived in Hemeringen, ten miles from Hameln, but … before that we do not know.

And on and on.  Where would you go?  What would you want to see?

Laughing ‘til the Tears Roll Down

There is cerebral humor, the type that you really enjoy, the type you comment upon, the type that often makes a point and makes you think.  Then … there is humor that goes so immediately to something so primitive, so deeply seated, that all you can do is laugh ‘til the tears roll:

Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman – they were masters of this.  Enough said, for here is another of my favorites from their show.  Enjoy:

My Little Warrior

She isn’t very big, just a smidge over 5 ft. tall (about 153 centimeters).  A smidge is just about this much – ||.  And, she can seem quite civilized as you can see above.

Yet, we find that going to New Zealand has brought out a different side: a mini Maori Warrior Princess!  She texted this message to me on Sunday:

I’m about to dress in warrior clothes, get my face painted with traditional markings, and do the haka!

I show you the Maori Haka from YouTube:

She said that only the men stick out their tongues – as though that would make me feel better.   Her group was videotaped performing it (not the group above, no) and then put on a DVD that she will be bringing home in June.

But … I’m almost afraid to bring her home …

Gentle Humor: Frank and Ernest

One of the beauties of ripening like a fine wine – also known as aging – is the growing appreciation of gentle intelligence.  We have spoken a bit about religion and Christianity lately, but I think it is in the small everyday things that we find peace accomplished, not just in the sanctuary.

Gentle humor isn’t a bad place to start.  Some think that humor must be cutting to be intelligent.  They would miss the intelligence of a Johnny Carson.  And … they would miss the quiet gentle humor of a Thaves.

Debate and Politicians

Remember the old High School letter I showed you eons ago.  The beauty of growing up in a small town is that you don’t have to be particularly gifted to letter in a sport – therefore, I lettered.  But, sports weren’t the only things for which you could be recognized  (it was a school after all and there was SOME emphasis on academics).  It was also possible to get medals for scholarship and debate, among other things:

Now, if you look at little closer at that debate medal:

You’ll see exactly how we looked!  Long tails, hands to hip and held high in dramatic emphasis, point made, point won!  Well, we didn’t look exactly like that, but it is a cool image.

I took debate my Senior year and thus was only a novice debater.  It was a fascinating thing to do, really.  Debate tournaments have something like six debates you give in a day – I think it was six, or was that tennis matches for a tennis tournament?  Each alternating debate throughout the day required that a debate team take the opposite side of the argument.  In other words, first debate, pro; second debate, con; third, pro and on and on.  Two debaters on each team presenting arguments and rebuttals.

One of the first things you learned was how far from any absolute truth a position can be.  After all, if that were the case, you would be required to tell the truth, then lie, then truth, etc.   Instead, you spent time researching topics and writing arguments and quotes on note cards.  Then, as the opponent brought up points, you refuted them with your own evidence.  It made it more difficult for me to see the world in absolutes and black and white.  It also made it more difficult for me to accept carte blanche the statements of politicians, for when they use statistics or show evidence, I remember those tournaments.

At one point, my novice Senior self, coupled with my novice Senior partner were scheduled against the best debaters from one of the other schools in the tournament.  We were going to get our butts kicked.  Except … I was probably wandering lost or something or just got to the room early … who knows?  The woman who was the judge for the debate was also in the room and we struck up a conversation.  We talked about how she was enjoying the tournament … and her kids … and my family … and WHAT SHE ADMIRED MOST IN THE DEBATES SHE HAD ALREADY JUDGED!  The Motherlode!!!

She warmed to the task and told me all about how the debaters that looked her right in the eye and did this and did that she found the most persuasive.  When the other debaters arrived and we began … I looked her right in the eye … and I did this … and I did that.  She even smiled when I made one point!

To everyone’s amazement, when the tallying was happening, I was given the points as the top debater, the other team took rankings two and three, and my partner took ranking four.  And – she gave the debate to our team based upon my stellar performance.

Their team and their coach protested, for this debate cost their team the tournament.  Their coach said I had cheated!  He didn’t know how, but he knew I had cheated.  But, the judge stuck with her ratings and that was that.

That is why I watch for devices in politicians’ speeches, devices designed to override content; but it’s also why I still admire the skill of a great speech.  Churchill and FDR could mobilize nations to greatness while Hitler mobilized a nation to evil.  The key is to not fall into the trap that judge did; to listen to content and meaning, looking for substance, not the manner of presentation.

Don’t make the countering mistake, either.  Don’t think that the honed  skill of a speaker automatically indicates deceit or lack of real meaning.  We have also had great leaders who were extremely charismatic and quite accomplished at the podium.

Last, don’t make the mistake of taking one argument, good or bad, as an indication of the quality of the next argument.  Every point must stand or fall on its own merit.

3D Movies: Take Two

Technology, when first introduced in any arena, doesn’t just sharpen the focus, for a while, it BECOMES the focus.  It is a bit like skinny dipping … the nudity is fascinating for awhile, but the fascination wears off.  That is why I have no concern about full-body scans at airports.  They will become WAY boring to  the people using them very quickly, so they won’t be getting many jollies!

If a technology is expensive enough, like a movie such as Avatar with a $400 million outlay, the story has to be pretty good.  But it isn’t exactly Tennessee Williams here.  Right now, they have made sure to pick an engaging story that serves the technology, which it does quite well.  Soon they will compete, as people become used to 3D, for excellent story lines.  For example, Dr. Zhivago is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever watched while based on the main novel of a Nobel Prize winning author.  It would be even more enchanting with this technology.  Or, maybe something with the epic sweep of Shane.  Something that could put you in the scenery, real scenery with people, for something like Ben Hur!  The Ten Commandments would be a great candidate.  Actually anything with Charlton Heston – and Chuck could be computer generated although fluid acting might give that away!

What I’m getting at is that eventually the story will be the story again when it comes to movies and 3D will be as assumed as color and sound in a movie is now (neither of which existed in the early movies).  In the meantime, Carol and I will go to the musical Wicked! performed live on stage in San Francisco.  I hear it is in 3D!

3D Movies – Cool!!

Yesterday afternoon, Carol and I went to see the 3D movie Avatar.  Conrad’s review: Wow, that was cool!!!  Carol’s review: Yeah, it wasn’t too bad, but it drug in the middle.  Conrad’s response: What??

The deal for me is multi-fold.  First, it is an action movie to a large extent and that kind of makes it a guy movie to begin with.  Second, it is a genre that I like and Carol just can’t stand science fiction of any kind or fantasy that isn’t maybe Alice in Wonderland or something.  Third … to do this requires some cool gadgets!!!  I’m in Heaven.

Note at this point: if in a 3-hour movie Carol didn’t go to sleep or walk out, you know the story was actually pretty good.  For $400 million, it damn well should be – and I heard this morning that it has sold over $1 billion so far.  It takes a James Cameron for a studio to risk this much.

But, anyway, back to the gadgets, back to the magic.  How the heck do they do it?  And, is it really that much better than the old 3D with glasses that were red and blue plastic?  The answer to the second question is that it is in a totally different league than the old 3D movies where they tried to scare you by having a pole stick out or a monster come out after you.  Then, you would take the glasses back off and they would tell you the next time to put them on.

Now, the entire movie is 3D.  And, the 3D image is extremely realistic.  For one thing, there isn’t any of that color bleed like the old ones had, the colors are the normal colors start to finish.  And … this is how they do it.:

There is a spinning disk spinning at 3 revolutions for each frame of film.  It has to go fast so you don’t see a flicker – and so that it doesn’t induce an epileptic seizure in susceptible people.  Seriously!  When I became a science teacher, one of the items we were sent was the frequency at which to never set a strobe light.  There is some kind of a resonance that can induce seizures and the spinning disk has to be sure to not hit it – like that Japanese movie a few years ago that nailed a bunch of folks!

Half of this disk is polarized vertically and half of it is polarized horizontally.  By polarization, it means the plane in which a wave oscillates.  In plainer plane language, if it is polarized vertically, that means the waves only go up and down.  If polarized horizontally, they only move side to side.

You have had sunglasses the had polarization filters in them, because reflected light tends to bounce in one plane predominantly, the horizontal plane.  So, they have vertical striping that only allows vertical waves to pass through, just like you can only go through a door standing up and not laying sideways on a cart.  They hand our polarized lens glasses to you when you enter the theater, but they are not dark glasses and each lens is polarized in the opposite orientation.  So, the left eye, for example can only see vertical waves and the right can only see horizontal waves – or vice versa.

Now, there is a hole in my knowledge right here.  I don’t know why this disk spinning three times per frame would divide images appropriately – I think it has to do with Red, Green, Blue presentation – but there are alternating images that are cast on the screen, one that can only be seen with the left eye and one that can only be seen by the right eye.

This is happening so quickly that the brain thinks each eye is seeing one image continuously.  Well what is the brain doing with these two images that is so special?  The same thing it does every day.  Your right eye is never seeing exactly the same thing as your left eye.  The closer something is to you, the more the difference in what the two eyes see.  Want an example?  Look down and tell me how many noses you see.  Didn’t know you had two of them, did you?

When something is far enough away, then the two eyes distinguish no difference whatsoever.  Neither eye can tell any difference when it looks at a star as compared to the other eye.  So, giving the illusion of depth is conceptually fairly simple.  If the object you are showing is supposed to be close, give the two images a fair amount of separation, each image looking at the object from a slightly different angle.  If the object is supposed to be far away, present the two images pretty much together.

Voila!  3D.  Cool!!

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

My good friend and classmate, Rhonda Cash, reader and contributor to this blog, sent me this piece on creativity.  It is a marvelous piece on genius.

I have come to a moment of epiphany or perhaps I have attained Satori.  What I have realized is that if anyone wants to gratuitously criticize it, whether it’s because you were in a car accident yesterday or you find yourselves constipated and in need of relief – why you go right ahead.  If it is a worthy idea, I encourage others to engage and work with the idea.  If not, kiss it on the cheek and send it out the door.  If it loves you, it seems that it will return in any case.

The Proud Papa

Imagine my surprise and pride when receiving this email from the Oakland Symphony and seeing my daughter right there up front performing!

But, let me tell you a more complete story.  My daughter’s sophomore year of high school, she was singing in this marvelous choir that I have mentioned on the blog before, the Mt. Eden High School Choir.  The choir competed that year in a Christmas Carol competition worth $3,000 to the winning choir!  The Symphony Conductor, Michael Morgan, happened to join the crowd and was quite impressed – but not with my daughter’s high school, for he didn’t stay long enough to see them perform.  But, before he left, he told his assistant to stay and watch and invite the winner of the competition to perform at the Symphony’s holiday Let Us Break Bread Together concert.

Mt. Eden won the competition, not a surprising result for a choir that has been the California Golden State champion three times since 2002.  The Golden State champion is crowned the top choral program in California for that year.  Out of 38 million people, they are the best.  The next year they host the competition and do not compete.  That means that in the past eight years, they have either been the champion or hosting six times!  Since its inception, they have never been defeated in the Women’s Golden State.  So, they are a fine choir indeed.

Anyway, Michael Morgan has invited them to perform – but has never heard them!  So, in the first rehearsal, the Oakland Gospel Choir, adults known far and wide for gospel music, does their set.  Then, the Oakland Symphony Chorus does their set and are very good.  Now it is down to 32 kids they have at the side of the stage, the advanced singers from the choir, the chamber singers, and they ask them to go ahead.  You can see the adults of the other two choirs and the Symphony orchestra sitting patiently to listen to these kids, basically waiting for the rehearsal to complete.

And the kids start singing.  You have to hear them to believe it!  I saw heads from the two choirs and the orchestra literally snap around!  By the middle of their first song, the gospel choir is swaying to the music.  And, at the end, everyone just stands up and applauds enthusiastically!

When they performed the next evening, they brought the house down!  Standing ovation!  And you had to hear the piece they did with the orchestra playing behind them with the acoustics of that concert hall.

Maestro Morgan, after their last piece, issued a public invitation for them to perform every year at the Break Bread concert … and they have ever since.

I am including below a link to a video taken by someone sitting in the audience when it was announced that Mt. Eden was the championship choir in the spring of 2008, our daughter’s senior year.  At the beginning, you get the euphoria of finding out they have won.  Then, they go to the front to sing some music for the presentation ceremony.  It is not short, three songs, but you can move the time point forward to about 2:30 if you would like to see about where they start singing.  And, yes, I’m fully aware that this is the equivalent of showing you slides of our trip to Missouri, but … well, you know …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nKAgGsYVBM&feature=PlayList&p=D8381A2FEF1C153F&index=0&playnext=1

For other performances, simply search for Mt. Eden Choir at http://www.youtube.com.

Making Pumpkin Pie!

I am part of a mailing list the bikehikebabe delivers some of the funniest images to that you’ve ever seen.  And, this one in a collection of Thanksgiving cartoons and pictures I thought was the funniest of a funny bunch!  If I knew who put this together, I would give them credit in a heartbeat, because this shows a wit and creativity that should be recognized.

But, alas, I have no idea who made the picture.  If they step up, I will post their name here – but, in the meantime, I just have to say, “Thanks, bhb, you made my day!!!”