STI Brigade

I'm releasing a new website for Science, Technology and Innovation, therefore called the STI Brigade. You will find there my latest articles, as well as links to other sites articles regarding all about the development of science and technology, and the process of innovation.

Fostering Science, Technology and Innovation worldwide, and having fun doing it!
– STI Brigade's motto.

While it isn't a personal blog, I hope you find it interesting.

Science's social contract

Solvay Conference

Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

– Marie Curie.

Marie Curie (1867 – 1934) was a Polish–French physicist–chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. If you happen to know Spanish, don't miss Omalaled's series of articles on Historias de la Ciencia.

Paint and live without a frame!

Ouran High School Host Club

Young Kyouya's painting, a metaphor of his own life, started limited to a canvas in a small frame –chosen by the expectations imposed by his family and others–, which Kyouya felt compelled to fill without thinking if he could do something else.

Kyouya's Painting.

Nevertheless, a day when Kyouya is challenged by his friend to don't conform anymore with what has been imposed to him, reacting first with anger and refusal though, finally accepts it and begins following his own aspirations, broaden his horizons. He chooses to paint off limits, making the painting grow and cover the whole wall –his true potential–, reveling in perspective the narrowness of the frame which was tried to be imposed over him once, the same one he conformed with in the past.
– Ouran High School Host Club, Episode 24.

Rotten Peach

Rotten Peach by Lukedenby.

Look at you lil' princess,

beautiful as an angel,

but being corporeal,

is opposite of last deathless.

Dead may find you one day,

and not long after the burial,

your hair will start to fall,

making all your beauty decay.

In a coffin you should rest,

while worms carve your eyes,

for them would emerge as flies,

transformed from the earth.

Suit yourself arrogant mistress,

your grace wont be eternal,

from the day of your funeral,

your corpse shall rot to ugliness.

Art is Explosion!

Tower of the Sun, Tarō Okamoto.

Art is Explosion! –Tarō Okamoto.

Deidara: An artist must always seek even greater inspiration or he'll lose his touch.
Sasori: What? You insist on calling those little fireworks of yours art? True art endures the ages… beauty everlasting.
Deidara: As a fellow craftsman I respect you, but art is in the beauty of that single fleeting moment of destruction.
Sasori: Are you trying to anger me?
Deidara: My art is in the explosion itself. Quite different from your old puppet shows…
– Naruto 264, Masashi Kishimoto.

Misunderstanding

You never understood anything, that's because you thought that everyone else felt the same as you do. You misunderstood from the very beginning.
– End of Evangelion

Image, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto

You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet, what are we to do about this terrible significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these words are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that –well, lucky you.
– Philip Roth, American Pastoral (1998: 35).

Military conscience

War, made by armies, es the great expression of violence and ignorance. Japan, for example, has a pacifist Constitution that the government transgress sending troops to other countries like Iraq. I'm not only against all people who use violence to defend some ideals, territory or a ideology, I'm against too to the conscience of an army itself, people who act not by self iniciative but by orders from others.
– Kenzaburo Oé

Interview to Kenzaburo Oé by Xavi Ayén (Spanish)

Age

Image, Carts

We are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.

not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.
– Charles Bokowski

Intellectual error

The Dyers' Street in Kanda, Hiroshige

A certain swordsman in his declining years said the following: In one's life. there are levels in the pursuit of study. In the lowest level, a person studies but nothing comes of it, and he feels that both he and others are unskillful. At this point he is worthless.

In the middle level he is still useless but is aware of his own insufficiencies and can also see the insufficiencies of others.

In a higher level he has pride concerning his own ability, rejoices in praise from others, and laments the lack of ability in his fellows. This man has worth.

In the highest level a man has the look of knowing nothing.

These are the levels in general; But there is one transcending level, and this is the most excellent of all. This person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain Way and never thinks of himself as having finished. He truly knows his own insufficiencies and never in his whole life thinks that he has succeeded. He has no thoughts of pride but with self-abasement knows the Way to the end.

It is said that Master Yagyu once remarked, "I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself." Throughout your life advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today. This is never-ending.
– Yamamoto Tsunetomo

What is Veridis Quo?

The expression Veridis Quo became popular because is the name of a track from the album Discovery of the electronic music duo Daft Punk and especially for the Japanese animation of the album, Interstella 5555: (インターステラ 5555) The Story of the Secret Star System, which without dialogues narrate the story of a space adventure full of color and music.

The origin of the phrase and its meaning is doubtful. One theory suggests that the expression derives as a word play from the name of the album: Discovery → Very Disco → Very Disquo → Veridis Quo. Another theory suggests that the expression originates from the Latin (as a word play too, not as a grammatically correct origin) in which Veridis is derived from the Latin word veritas, which means 'truth', and the word Quo which designates the concept of 'place', resulting in the full meaning of the phrase as «where truth is found».

These two theories are not mutually exclusive, and the origin of the term may actually turn out to be a combination of both, that is supported by the the fact that the track 'Veridis Quo' in the animation 'Interstella 5555: (インターステラ 5555) The Story of the Secret Star System' suggests a deep relationship with the concept of «where truth is found» –represented in the story first as a castle, then as a library and finally as a book that contains the truth–, besides having a rhythm inspired distinctly in disco.

Knights fight in order to make only one truth real… Truth is strong because it is true… Truth is justice because it is true… Don't you think it’s very persuasive? –Serial Experiments Lain.

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