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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Birds on The Wires

Birds on The Wires
Dream-Like Song
Created From Birds Perched On Electric Wires

Proves Nature is Creative

We all know birds sing, 
but writing music?
"Reading the newspaper one morning, I saw this picture of birds on the electric wires," says video creator Jarbas Agnelli."I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating."

Interpreting the position of birds as musical notes resulted in the beautiful piece you hear above. The work was made over an original photo shot by Paulo Pinto and published in 2009 in a Brazilian newspaper "O Estado de São Paulo."


I've made this short video to demonstrate my interpretation of the birds as notes.
Music made with Logic.
Video made with After Effects.
Jarbas Agnelli






COMMENTS

Since it's in C, and most of the notes are pentatonic (except for a few F notes), it's not really surprising that this sounds good. It doesn't show that nature is perfect, rather that man is creative.

Especially with the opportunity the composer took to time each note to two-quarter-time measures... creative; and in this case, technically adept... 





Monday, April 28, 2014

Perihelion and Aphelion



The closest point to the Sun in a planet’s orbit is called Perihelion

The furthest point is called Aphelion

The planet moves fastest at perihelion and slowest at aphelion.
 


 

Planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun. The orbits of some planets are almost perfect circles, but others are not. Some orbits are shaped more like ovals, or “stretched out” circles.

Scientists call these oval shapes “ellipses”. If a planet’s orbit is a circle, the Sun is at the center of that circle. If, instead, the orbit is an ellipse, the Sun is at a point called the “focus” of the ellipse, which is not quite the same as the center.

Since the Sun is not at the center of an elliptical orbit, the planet moves closer towards and further away from the Sun as it orbits. The place where the planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion.

When the planet is furthest away from the Sun, it is at aphelion. The words aphelion and perihelion come from the Greek language. In Greek, “helios” mean Sun, “peri” means near, and “apo” means away from.


GIFs extracted from Year On Earth 



https://31.media.tumblr.com/1c3a76b2af7af45450369acf5e5bc152/tumblr_mk4k96pxiO1s6z5e9o1_400.gif

Standard of Beauty & Photoshop Before and After


Standard of Beauty & Photoshop

Model Before and After


Time-lapse video shows the radical effect of photoshop on model's body - AMAZING!


The clip, created by GlobalDemocracy.com, shows a girl turned into a bombshell glamor model with the help of a hair and make-up artist and of course, Photoshop.




See Why We Have An Absolutely Ridiculous Standard Of Beauty In this video. There is the reason that even when I was in really great shape, wore a size 4, and was healthy, it was never good enough for me. All of my logic and intelligence have trouble combating what I've seen as "perfect" day after day for my entire life.


Well, I want to see more of this. I want to show my daughter, over and over, why the images of so many women she sees aren't realistic. And what I really want is for us to stop turning beautiful women into drawings and passing them off as real. 

(comment by Laura Willard)

 

Thanks to: Mike Annese (photographer), Emma Hack (hair and makeup), Tim Piper from Piro (director), Sally Gifford (talent). A viral ad of a model being transformed using photoshop as shown on Good Morning America and the Today Show. Created for the purpose of media education. Music track "Body Evolution" by Friends of Monkeys, published by Monkey Dream LLC.


Photoshop Diet




 

Monday, April 21, 2014

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 'Sleep'

Eric Whitacre
Virtual Choir  'Sleep'

COMMENTS:
  • Minh Nguyen - So this is what humanity together sounds like
  •  Nina Kulinczenko  - I LOVE all of this, I have never seen anything soo Powerful in My Life, Amazing Grace ! I hear your song, I can't stop crying tears if Shear Delight !!!
  •  V Sh  - Eric Whitacre music is so extraterrestrial and at the same time it seems to connect with something so deep inside that one is certain that must be the soul that's vibrating in response.. (whether or not it actually exists, when you're inside the music - there's no doubt). So to me he was like a weather...not a person. A gentle wind that blows these sounds against me.. And it was shocking to see this video. Thank you, very inspiring.
  • Big Voice Movie - Awesome video! It's amazing how Art can bring people together and touch the soul like no either medium can.
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Eric Whitacre
A Virtual Choir 2,000 Voices Strong

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Eric Whitacre:  A Virtual Choir 2,000 Voices Strong
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http://www.ted.com In a moving and madly viral video last year, composer Eric Whitacre led a virtual choir of singers from around the world. He talks through the creative challenges of making music powered by YouTube, and unveils the first 2 minutes of his new work, "Sleep," with a video choir of 2,052. The full piece premieres April 7 (yes, on YouTube!).

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.


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Eric Whitacre's 
Virtual Choir 3
'Water Night'
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HD (high definition)  About 1,850 results
  1. by EricWhitacreVEVO   1,374,944 views -  "Sleep" is available now on Eric Whitacre's new album "Light & Gold." Amazon - http://amzn.to/LightGoldAmazon iTunes
     
  2. by EricWhitacresVrtlChr  744,694 views    Water Night, the new album on iTunes. 
  3. Thumbnail 12:33   Eric Whitacre: Virtual Choir Live  by TEDtalksDirector   54,911 views - Composer and conductor Eric Whitacre has inspired millions by bringing together "virtual choirs," singers from many countries ...

  4. 203,702 views   Eric Whitacre is a world-acclaimed composer and conductor. His Virtual Choir project began in May 2009 as a simple experiment ...

  5. if you want to sing up to be in the Christmas choir for one of the biggest churches in the U.S. you can visit this site ...
  6. Thumbnail 4:48   Fly to Paradise by Eric Whitacre - Virtual Choir 4 with Soprano Solo   Learning audio track with virtual choir and sample soprano solo. This song was originally titled, "Bliss," but has since been re-named 

  7. Thumbnail 4:43   Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 4 - "Fly to Paradise" (formerly "Bliss") Solo Audition by Nikki Eoute   You can watch the actual submitted track here http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir/gallery/v/5cfca82d. 
  8. Thumbnail 4:46    Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 4 - Fly to Paradise - Solo Audition   First of all I want to give credit where it is due: The music is by the amazing Eric Whitacre: http://www.ericwhitacre.com The choir ...
     
  9. Eric Whitacre and his physical choir are joined on stage by 4000 voices in his virtual choir. Performance on 5th June at the Barbican 
  10. Thumbnail 4:43   Eric Whitacre - Virtual Choir 4: Bliss (One-Man Choir Multitrack)    Here is a multitrack mix of all 8 of my submissions for Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 4: Bliss (ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir).
  11. This is a step-by-step video that explains the process of submitting a video for Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 4: Bliss. The video ...
     
  12. Thumbnail 5:31   The Seal Lullaby (2013) Virtual Choir - Cantores Connexi - Eric Whitacre   Cantores Connexi, an international virtual choir, performs The Seal Lullaby by composer Eric Whitacre. 20 singers from 20 ...
     
  13. Eric Whitacre, composer and conductor of The Virtual Choir shares his story on how he has re-mastered the choir for the digital ...
     
  14. by Schicksenjaeger   This video was made with some members of the german choir "Junges Vokalensemble Hannover" while recording for Eric ... 
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http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Eric+Whitacre%3A++A+Virtual+Choir+2%2C000+Voices+Strong&oq=Eric+Whitacre%3A++A+Virtual+Choir+2%2C000+Voices+Strong&gs_l=youtube.12...0.0.0.590.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.eytns%2Cpt%3D-27%2Cn%3D2%2Cui%3Dt..0.0...1ac..11.youtube.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhWDCw3Mng

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Airplane Pilot🛫What It's Like

What It's Like to be an Airplane Pilot
Flightdeck

Mesmerizing Time-Lapse
by Jakub Vlk
👇🛫👇
🛫🛧🛬🛨🛧🛨🛩🛪🛫🛬

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Healthy Foods Crammed With Estrogen

4 Otherwise Healthy Foods
Crammed With Estrogen

Estrogen has been linked to obesity and sexual dysfunction. 
You may want to rethink the amount of soy in your diet

Martha Rosenberg
AlterNet


It is no secret that our bodies and our environment are swimming in estrogen. 
Puberty is occurring as early as eight years old in children and recently babies in China have developed breasts. Frogs and fish are becoming “intersex” and losing their male characteristics from excreted estrogens in the environment and waterways. In England, the Daily Mail ran a feature on the phenomenon of women’s bra cup sizes increasing independent of their weights, likely because of environmental and livestock chemicals. The website Green Prophet speculated that women in the Middle East are not yet experiencing cup inflation because their environments have not become similarly estrogenized.

While many people are fans of big boobs, the larger issue of feminized women, men and wildlife should be a wakeup call. Estrogen is blamed for everything from breast and prostate cancer and other hormone-linked conditions to obesity, sexual dysfunction, dropping sperm counts and depression and mood disorders.  
In studies of women given prescribed hormone drugs, estrogen was linked to lung cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer, gall bladder cancer, cataracts urinary incontinence and joint degeneration.

Most of us know we unwittingly get synthetic estrogens (endocrine disrupters) from plastics like BPA, petroleum based products, detergents, cosmetics, furniture, carpeting, thermal receipts and on our food from agriculture chemicals like pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (a good reason to buy organic). But we also get a lot of “natural” estrogens from foods we may eat every day. While these “phytoestrogens” are not as bad as synthetic chemicals, women who are plagued with PMS, fibrocystic disease and water retention, or who are at risk for breast cancer and men who do not want to be feminized may want to use them moderately.

Here are some “good” and “bad” foods that have more estrogen than you may realize—or want.
1. Flax
Flax and especially flax meal has the image of being a healthy superfood. But when you look at a list of the top phytoestrogen-containing foods, flax and flax products are at the very top. A hundred grams of flax packs an astounding 379,380 micrograms of estrogen compared with 2.9 micrograms for a fruit like watermelon. Flax is now widely found in baked goods like bread, bagels and muffins, snack foods, cereals, pasta, drink mixes and used in poultry, swine, beef and dairy cow feed.
It became a popular alternative to fish oil which had been promoted to improve mood, the immune systems and to prevent heart attacks and strokes, especially as concerns about mercury risks in some fish surfaced. A tablespoon of flaxseed oil, which contains alpha-linolenic acid (also found in walnuts and some oils) is “worth” about 700 milligrams of the omega-3 found in fish oil says the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. Flax also provides fiber, a substance lacking in our over-processed diets. But there is another reason it may not be the superfood it appears besides its estrogen wallop. Like so many edible plants today, genetically modified versions of flax are rampant, spreading and rarely labeled. Buyer beware.
2. Soy
What is the second highest phytoestrogen-containing food in most lists? Soy, which packs 103,920 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. Low in calories and with no cholesterol, soy has been a mainstay protein of many cultures for centuries and is considered nature’s perfect alternative to meat by many vegetarians and vegans. It has been hailed as a “good” estrogen that could prevent breast cancer and serve as an alternative for hormone replacement therapy, traditionally made from pregnant mare urine.


Yet the bloom has partially fallen off soy’s rose. Its possible cancer prevention properties were called into question after some animal studies and groups like the American Cancer Society found themselves defending its moderate use. Like flax, unlabeled GMO soybeans dominate the market and have been linked to sterility and infant death in hamsters.



3. Other Legumes and Common Health Foods
Other “healthy” foods like flax and soy may have more estrogen than you think. Legumes like chickpeas (garbanzo beans) red beans, black-eyed peas, green peas and split peas are also estrogenic and black beans pack 5,330 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. Hummus (from chickpeas) has 993 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. 
How about the “healthful” seeds we think of as mingled in trailmix? Sesame and sunflower seeds are among the highest of all estrogenic foods. While their seeds are not a staple of most people’s diets, their oils are widely used in processed and prepared foods. A site for women suffering from the estrogen-linked endometriosis advises against sunflower oil as well as safflower, cottonseed and canola oils and recommends only olive or grapeseed oil.

Other ingredients that can amount to a side dish of estrogen are alfalfa sprouts, licorice and the flavorings red clover and fennel, sometimes found in teas. 
Food ingredients in personal care products can also have estrogenic effects. 
Tea tree oil found in some shampoos, soaps and lotions can enlarge the breasts of boys reported ABC news. And sore and tender breasts have also been reported from using a shampoo with pomegranate.
4. Animal Products
On most lists of products containing estrogen, animal products like milk and beef are at the very bottom. 
Milk, for example, is said to provide 1.2 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. Unfortunately, most “research” that assures the public that hormones used in meat production or milk production (like Monsanto’s  rBGH) result in less estrogen are funded by Big Ag.
Two features betray the Big Ag-funded research —it claims there is no difference between hormones that occur “naturally” in the human body and synthetic hormones, and it claims there are no residues of the latter. If synthetic hormones are so safe, why would we mind residues? The European Union disagrees about the dangers and boycotts US beef, which is swimming in the hormones oestradiol-17, trenbolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol.
 
As for “no residues,” a scientific paper called “Detection of Six Zeranol Residues in Animal-derived Food by HPLC-MS/MS,” disputes the claim. Zeranol, an estrogen-like drug widely used in US livestock production is especially controversial. “Our laboratory has reported that long-term exposure to either Z [zeranol] or E2 [estradiol-17β] can induce transformation of human breast epithelial MCF-10A cells,” says a 2009 paper in Anticancer Research.Translation: it can contribute to breast cancer: “The proper evaluation of the safety of Z [zeranol] is of both public health and economic  importance.”Another paper reports “breast irritation” in people exposed to nothing but the clothing of those working around zeranol. This is an ingredient used in US meat?


A paper which appeared in Science of the Total Environment examines the outbreak of precocious puberty and breast development of children in Italy and Puerto Rico in the late 1970s and 1980s and attributes the symptoms to zeranol-like “anabolic estrogens in animal foods.” In both occurrences, the symptoms disappeared when the hormone-laced food was removed. Zeranol is found in meat, eggs and dairy products “through deliberate introduction of zeranol into livestock to enhance meat production,” says the paper. It is “banned for use in animal husbandry in the European Union and other countries, but is still widely used in the US. Surprisingly, little is known about the health effects of these mycoestrogens, including their impact on puberty in girls, a period highly sensitive to estrogenic stimulation.”


Martha Rosenberg frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on public health. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and other outlets

http://media.salon.com/partners/ID_alternetInline.jpg
http://www.alternet.org/

 


Ancient Egyptian
Harvesting Flax