Amira

Twitter https://twitter.com/amishare - Amira

<3 - Sepi ⌘ سپی

Ses photos sont magnifiques. J'aime beaucoup... - Omar Bhar

:)))) - Eivind

World smile - ali

http://www.findingdutchland.com/happies... - the king of the interweb

"I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. (...) My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. (...) Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure." - Amira

Such a heartbreaking yet inspirational article. - Stephen Mack

"Network optimality has been described in genes, proteins and human communicative networks. In the latter, optimality leads to the efficient transmission of information with a minimum number of connections. Whilst studies show that differences in centrality exist in animal networks with central individuals having higher fitness, network efficiency has never been studied in animal groups. Here we studied 78 groups of primates (24 species). We found that group size and neocortex ratio were correlated with network efficiency. Centralisation (whether several individuals are central in the group) and modularity (how a group is clustered) had opposing effects on network efficiency, showing that tolerant species have more efficient networks. Such network properties affecting individual fitness could be shaped by natural selection. Our results are in accordance with the social brain and cultural intelligence hypotheses, which suggest that the importance of network efficiency and information flow through social learning relates to cognitive abilities." (...) - Amira

"Species with frequent opportunities for information transmission and social learning should more readily respond to selection for managing social relationships. As for cultural complexity, species with more efficient networks should show higher cognitive abilities55, 60. Future work that manipulates social network efficiency (by modifying individual centralities, information or disease flow for instance) could assess how the fitness of group members is affected and how individuals subsequently adapt their behaviours and manage their relationships to optimise their social networks within environmental constraints." - Amira

"The estate's library was stocked with texts by prominent thinkers of the day. (...) The 1,800 scrolls were found some 260 years ago buried in the Villa dei Papiri in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed alongside Pompeii in the catastrophic eruption. Though the scrolls survived, volcanic gases carbonised the papyrus, making them extremely brittle. Attempts to unroll the scrolls would cause them to crumble. (...) The technique they have used is X-ray phase-contrast tomography. This monitors the changes in the phase -- that is, the speed -- of an X-ray beam as it passes through material. When the radiation beam passed through the ink, the change was faint, but detectable. (...) The team believes this is a good first step into one day reading these scrolls more fully, since the experiment was intended merely as a proof of concept, and can be fine-tuned -- perhaps using the more sensitive grating interferometry imaging technique rather than XPCT. "The impact of our discovery that XPCT can read writing inside carbonised papyrus rolls reaches far beyond the study of one particular Herculaneum papyrus. It holds out the promise that many philosophical works from the library of the Villa dei Papiri, the contents of which have so far remained unknown, may in future be deciphered without damaging the papyrus in any way," the team concluded." http://www.cnet.com/news... - Amira

"Anybody who focuses on the ancient world is always going to be excited to get even one paragraph, one chapter, more," says Roger Macfarlane, a classicist at Brigham Young University in Utah. "The prospect of getting hundreds of books more is staggering." Most of the scrolls that have been unwrapped so far are Epicurean philosophical texts written by Philodemus—prose and poetry that had been lost to modern scholars until the library was found. Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who developed a school of thought in the third century B.C. that promoted pleasure as the main goal of life, but in the form of living modestly, foregoing fear of the afterlife and learning about the natural world. (...) "Regardless of the individual text, the library is a unique cultural treasure, as it is the only ancient library to survive almost entire together with its books," he says. "It is the library as whole that confers the status of exceptionality." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history... - Amira

Merry Christmas :) - Eivind

bellissimo, issimo - obe

“You must have enough technical dominion to forget about it. That is when you can begin to express yourself.” --obit http://www.nytimes.com/2014... - Adriano

where are you Amira? we missed your beatiful feeds:) - Kamil

I will back in the New Year :-) - Amira

"An enterprising blogger has recorded a piece of music hidden in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, bringing to life a series of notes that originally appeared on the backside of one of Bosch’s sinners. Posting on her Tumblr, a self-described “huge nerd” called Amelia explained that she and a friend had been examining a copy of Bosch’s famous triptych, which was painted around the year 1500. “[We] discovered, much to our amusement,” she wrote. “[a] 600-years-old butt song from Hell.” Once zoomed-in, the object of Amelia’s interest is clear: Bosch left sheet music “written upon the posterior of one of the many tortured denizens of the rightmost panel of the painting”. (...) While music and musical instruments are major motifs of his masterwork, which has long been on display in Madrid, these are often interpreted as symbols of pleasure, lust or the notoriously naughty habits of travelling minstrels." - Amira

Hah! - Jennifer Dittrich

does it sound like the Dead Can Dance version? - Adriano

"Grammy nomination for 'Best engineered album (Classical)' Original Sountrack Excerpt of ' A Late Quartet' with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener. Brentano String Quartet: Mark Steinberg, Serena Canin (violins) Misha Amory (viola) Nina Maria Lee (cello) Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone." - Amira

"The Google Art Project is a collaboration with museums large and small, classic and modern, world-renowned and community-based from over 40 countries. Together they have contributed more than 40,000 high-resolution images of works ranging from oil on canvas to sculpture and furniture. Some paintings (like The Starry Night) are available in ‘gigapixel’ format, allowing you to zoom in at brushstroke level to examine and appreciate the incredible detail of these masterpieces. In addition to the high-resolution images, each artwork also features expertly-narrated videos, audio guides, viewing notes, detailed information, maps and more. It’s a remarkable online resource and one that’s worth exploring. Below you will find a small selection of the 150+ featured artworks of Dutch post-Impressionist, Vincent Van Gogh. I selected paintings that were available to view in very high-resolution so I could zoom in extremely close-up and capture the brush stroke details." - Amira

"Venezuelan economist Ricardo Hausmann and Chilean physicist César Hidalgo, in a joint effort of Harvard University and the Massachutes Institute of Technology MIT, draw a new world map of economic adventure, and suggest the Earth may not be flat. (...) The world is full of economies with different degrees of complexity. As Hidalgo likes to put it: the world is unequal in its diversity. Some countries produce a few simple goods, while others manufacture many different and complex ones. Every single product carries specific knowledge embedded -or "capabilities". The interplay of capabilities can bring about combinations that prompt, rather, cell phone manufacturing from tree felling, as was the proverbial case of Nokia. To get behind this magic, Hausmann and his coworkers created the model of Product Space and the Economic Complexity Index: based on trade data and complexity theory a graphic representation was produced, akin a neuronal web, to reflect the productive knowledge of each country. The aim is no other than to chart the paths to development." - Amira

"The most extreme weather in decades has swept across North America, sending the mercury plummeting and causing chaos – but also creating stunning pictures." - Amira

" Alfred Joseph Frueh (1880-1968) was a cartoonist and illustrator, who was probably best known for his caricatures of theater personalities appearing in The New Yorker from 1925 to 1962. In addition, he was also a creator of paper sculptures, pop-ups, cut-outs and toy animals. Frueh (pronounced "free") began his career working in the art department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch until 1908. After studying in Europe, he settled in New York, and began a tenure with The World. In 1913, he married Giuliette Fanciulli while on assignment in Europe, and they resettled in New York a year later. While on assignments for The World, he would often write illustrated letters to his wife and family. These and other printed materials, artworks and photographs documenting his notable career, are contained in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. The 3D illustrated letter seen above, is designed to inform his wife about the details of an art gallery before her visit, and it was included in the 2007 exhibition More Than Words, at the Archives of American Art's New York Research Center. A companion publication featuring these artful letters was published by Princeton Architectural Press." - Amira

very nice... - Technology Spot

"Madame de Florian was a French socialite and actress who fled to the south of France during World War II. She kept her apartment in Paris on the Right Bank near the Opéra Garnier, though, in case she wanted to return. However, she never went back to it after the war. Since 1942, the apartment has been sitting untouched, until recently when an auctioneer entered her apartment. What he found was a time capsule, full of treasures. (...) The apartment is like a history lesson, showing what life was like during that time in Paris. Inside, a painting by Giovanni Boldini was found, a portrait of the apartment’s owner herself Madame de Florian. Stepping into this apartment is like stepping into history. The apartment was able to remain abandoned and untouched because Madame de Florian continued paying the rent until her death in 2010 at the age of 91. Despite paying the rent, she never returned." - Amira

wow... - Technology Spot

"There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time look like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight-Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck-tonight you could almost taste time." ― Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles) - Amira

Wojciech Kilar (17 July 1932 – 29 December 2013) was a Polish classical and film music composer. "Although he cited his first love as writing symphonies and concertos, he won worldwide attention as a film composer, writing scores for more than 130 films and working with celebrity directors such as Jane Campion (Portrait of a Lady) and Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, for which Kilar received the ASCAP Award 1992 from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Producers in Los Angeles and the prize for best score in a horror film in San Francisco in 1992, and Polanski's The Ninth Gate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... // (...) His compositions ranged from the avant-garde Riff62, to soaring choral works such as 1981's Exodus (used in the trailer for Schindler's List) and Magnificat (2006). (...) In Poland, he was known for working with three influential Polish film directors: Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Krzysztof Zanussi. (...) In 2003, he received a Bafta nomination for his work on The Pianist. (...)" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news... - Amira

Ziemia obiecana (Land of Promise) http://www.youtube.com/watch... // Wojciech Kilar — Tango (from Salto) http://www.youtube.com/watch... // A Woman's Decision http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Amira

Merry Xmas :) - Eivind

Merry Christmas John! :-) - Amira

"A bizarre instrument combining a piano and cello has finally been played to an audience more than 500 years after it was dreamt up Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance genius who painted the Mona Lisa, invented the ‘‘viola organista’’ - which looks like a baby grand piano – but never built it, experts say. The viola organista has now come to life, thanks to a Polish concert pianist with a flair for instrument-making and the patience and passion to interpret da Vinci’s plans. (...) ‘‘This instrument has the characteristics of three we know: the harpsichord, the organ and the viola da gamba,’’ Zubrzycki said as he debuted the instrument at the Academy of Music in the southern Polish city of Krakow. (...)" - Amira

"The flat bed of its interior is lined with golden spruce. Sixty-one gleaming steel strings run across it, similar to the inside of a baby grand. Each is connected to the keyboard, complete with smaller black keys for sharp and flat notes. But unlike a piano, it has no hammered dulcimers. Instead, there are four spinning wheels wrapped in horse-tail hair, like violin bows. (...) A sketch and notes in da Vinci’s characteristic inverted script is found in his Codex Atlanticus, a 12-volume collection of his manuscripts and designs for everything from weaponry to flight." - Amira

"Storytelling has been around as long as language has existed. We love to tell stories and we love to share stories. The most popular stories appeal to people the world over, regardless of culture, age or language. Let's take a look at the data on some of the most popular books the world has ever seen." - Amira

sonder -- n. "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk." - Amira

What's your favorite word and why? http://www.quora.com/Words... - Amira

"The origin of human music has long been the subject of intense discussion between philosophers, cultural scientists and naturalists. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, US, have now found striking parallels between our music and the song of a small brown bird living in the Amazon region. The Musician Wren favors consonant over dissonant intervals, something that has rarely been observed in other animal species before. This bird's musicality goes even further: it prefers to sing perfect consonances (octaves, perfect fifths, and perfect fourths) over imperfect consonances leading to some passages which may sound to human listeners as if they are structured around a tonal center. The Musician Wren (Cyphorhynus arada) is aptly-named, because these birds use the same intervals in their songs that are heard as consonant in many human cultures. This is what composer and musicologist Emily Doolittle and the biologist Henrik Brumm found out in their zoomusicological study. Consonant intervals are perceived to fit well together." - Amira

"They sound calm and stable, and are the basis for keys in Western Music. It is because Musician Wrens preferentially produce successive perfect octaves, fifths, and fourths that their songs sound musical to human listeners. In fact the researchers found passages in the songs of the Musician Wrens with striking similarity to passages of e.g. the composers Bach and Haydn. (...) "Our findings explain why this bird species plays such a prominent role in mythology and art. However, it does not mean that birdsong in general is constructed like human music – there are around 4000 different song bird species and each has its own way of singing. Some are not very musical at all," says Henrik Brumm, research group leader in Seewiesen. It remains mysterious whether and how musician wrens perceive musical intervals and how they think about structuring their songs, though this would be an excellent subject for further study. The perception of intervals and other aspects of human music by non-human animals are of considerable relevance with regards to the origin of human music." - Amira

"An Oxford University classicist is bringing back to life the music of ancient Greece, unheard for thousands of years. (...) Piecing together the lyrics, rhythms, instrumentation and notation through the painstaking study of ancient documents, he aims to show that the music is not lost beyond recovery. (...) It is often forgotten that the writings at the root of Western literature – the epics of Homer, the love-poems of Sappho, the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides – were all, originally, music. 'Dating from around 750 to 400 BC, they were composed to be sung in whole or part to the accompaniment of the lyre, reed-pipes, and percussion instruments.'" - Amira

"The rhythms – perhaps the most important aspect of the music – are preserved in the words themselves, in the patterns of long and short syllables. (...) And now, new revelations about ancient Greek music have emerged from a few dozen ancient documents inscribed with a vocal notation devised around 450 BC, consisting of alphabetic letters and signs placed above the vowels of the Greek words. Dr D'Angour said: 'The Greeks had worked out the mathematical ratios of musical intervals: an octave is 2:1, a fifth 3:2, a fourth 4:3, and so on. (...)" - Amira

"Family and friends contribute to a celebration of Richard Feynman, one of the most inspiring and influential scientists of the 20th century. Feynman, who died 25 years ago, helped design the atomic bomb, won a Nobel Prize for Physics and solved the mystery of the Challenger shuttle catastrophe." - Amira

"Yayoi Kusama's "Fireflies on the Water." I saw it at the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and I believe I could only view it for 30sec to 1 minute because of the crowds, but i could have stayed there for hours. Being inside this space of infinity in the middle of a large museum exhibition was such a shift of perspective that it was hard to approach how you feel in the space. Which is infinite, and enclosed. It was transformative. And allowed me to begin to appreciate installation art, when it's done right, which it often isn't. And it brought me to a greater appreciation for Kusama's work." // "[E]ncountering the life sized installation piece by Liza Lou at the National Gallery in London in 2001. This thing, a life sized, fully 3 dimensional 1950's American kitchen rendered entirely in millions of glass beads (took her 5 years) just suddenly made me so happy I laughed out loud. " // "Artist Spends 5 Years Covering Entire Kitchen in Millions of Glass Beads: You might think you know what patience means, but American artist Liza Lou clearly has a bit better understanding about what meticulous work really is. Her first large scale work Kitchen took 5 years to complete (1991–1996), and is, as the title suggests, a life-size replica of a kitchen, covered entirely in millions of glass beads." http://www.pinterest.com/pin... - Amira

"The Number Sense is an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Describing experiments that show that human infants have a rudimentary number sense, Stanislas Dehaene suggests that this sense is as basic as our perception of color, and that it is wired into the brain. Dehaene shows that it was the invention of symbolic systems of numerals that started us on the climb to higher mathematics. A fascinating look at the crossroads where numbers and neurons intersect, The Number Sense offers an intriguing tour of how the structure of the brain shapes our mathematical abilities, and how our mathematics opens up a window on the human mind." http://www.amazon.com/The-Num... - Amira

See also: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being by G. Lakoff http://bit.ly/1iEg9lh Where Mathematics Comes From http://bit.ly/1iEg15e (pdf) and "Mathematical Knowledge" http://www.scribd.com/doc... - Amira

“Like the bird the poet of this lyric sings twice over so as to recapture the first moment, to bind his day together, to redeem the past from its pastness, to put futurity into the present." -- Robert Browning - Amira

Can crumble being a creature of time be an instant? - Todd Hoff

Q: Is there a line between art and science, and where does it start to blur? Cormac McCarthy: “There’s certainly an aesthetic to mathematics and science. It was one of the ways Paul Dirac got in trouble. He was one of the great physicists of the 20th century. But he really believed, as other physicists did, that given the choice between something which was logical and something which was beautiful, they would opt for the aesthetic as being more likely to be true. When [Richard] Feynman put together his updated version of quantum electrodynamics, Dirac didn’t think it was true because it was ugly. It was messy. It didn’t have the clarity, the elegance, that he associated with great mathematical or physical theory. But he was wrong. There’s no one formula for it.” - Amira

Q: What kind of things make you worry? Cormac McCarthy: “If you think about some of the things that are being talked about by thoughtful, intelligent scientists, you realize that in 100 years the human race won’t even be recognizable. We may indeed be part machine and we may have computers implanted. It’s more than theoretically possible to implant a chip in the brain that would contain all the information in all the libraries in the world. As people who have talked about this say, it’s just a matter of figuring out the wiring. Now there’s a problem you can take to bed with you at night. (…) Well, I don’t know what of our culture is going to survive, or if we survive. If you look at the Greek plays, they’re really good. And there’s just a handful of them. Well, how good would they be if there were 2,500 of them? But that’s the future looking back at us. Anything you can think of, there’s going to be millions of them. Just the sheer number of things will devalue them. I don’t care whether it’s art, literature, poetry or drama, whatever. The sheer volume of it will wash it out. I mean, if you had thousands of Greek plays to read, would they be that good? I don’t think so.” - Amira