This last year i’ve getting really into the matter of parametric design, mechanisms and stuff, and I (almost) convinced that engineering/ process will define all the productive areas in the next years, but not only in administration and economic fields, but entertaining, architecture, music and arts in general too… we are walking (not walking, flying!) to the inflexion point between reality as we know and a completely dependent cyber reality (yeah, I’m being too exaggerated…maybe).

The art examples I’ve chose are an example of how engineering and mathematical investigation can become art with the help of human sensitiveness, and a bit of geniality.

The Hoberman sphere is, in my opinion, a beautiful game of mechanisms, marketing and art, giving  shape to a fascinating effect of life in a bunch of scissors.

 

I get to know this through an investigation about the scissor-henge system for a teacher this year (I have to expose Friday), the same system Chuck Hoberman use to create that animated sculptures, the fascinating, from my perspective, is that isn’t really complex when you get to know it a little deeper, and the perceptual game is absolutely amazing.

 

 

The second one I chose is in the same way, a simple use of materials and physics to give life (yeah I like animated objects) to a couple of bars. These things are called tensegrity structures, and I know them for the same investigation subject. I can’t find the video to show you the expo of an specific artist who use this method to create living sculptures, so I left just an example of tensegrity and how it looks, I hope you’ll feel the same as I, with simple materials, physics and imagination you can create non-conventional art, but not less impressive than traditional.

Torrente

"Torrente: el brazo tonto de la ley", is an spanish comedy from 1999, directed, written and starred by the filmmaker Santiago Segura.

I get to this movie in my adolescence (2005/2006), when I started to get bored of typical Hollywood’s blockbuster, so put my attention in foreign movies (outside USA and Chile). Casually, my uncle recommended me a Spanish movie from director Alex de la Iglesia, titled “El dia de la Bestia”, a comedy/horror film about the final battle of a priest and a heavy metal fan against Satan. Well, I really enjoyed that movie, and one of the main reasons was the heavy metal fan played by Santiago Segura. Since that, I became an assiduous watcher of Spanish movies, and a fan of Alex de la Iglesia and Santiago Segura.

Ok, returning to our subject, Torrente is a private detective (ex policeman), who claims to be the Spanish James Bond, but is actually the antithesis. His life is a mess, addicted to alcohol and cocaine, fat, racist, xenophobic and totally incompetent in any task, so only he and a couple of teenagers believe he is a national hero. One day, and just for coincidence, find out a drug trafficking network and decide to put end to it and keep the money of a big “drug deal”, with the help of his teenager sidekick.

The movie was lots of laugh, with a really unique sense of humor, putting in evidence cultural aspects of Spanish society of that time and featuring an antihero who steals the affection of watchers with an irreverent way of law enforcement.

This scene show a little bit what i'm talking about, enjoy (formed criteria)

US drone strike in southern Yemen kills four al-Qaida-linked militants

A drone from USA killed four Al Qaeda militants in Yemen, an ally country of USA which have one of the most dangerous Al Qaeda base in the region.

The procedure was through An air strike with a flying drone to the car of the suspects, which were armed with power guns and explosives, killing four, left two wounded and one left scene.

This attack was a part of the US forces campaign to stop one of the most important networks left by Osama Bin Laden, because of the continuous terrorist attacks in government buildings.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/04/al-qaida-militants-killed-us-drones-yemen

VIRTUOSO!! (someday)

Ok, actually I’m doing a lot of interest stuff compared to last year. For example, I started as a class assistant at advanced construction 2: complex geometry, where we study the behavior of geometry with parametric patterns, and how to use certain software to put complexity to geometry, to finally turn it into a construction system. The other interesting stuff I’m already learning is Korean language, because I want to make a degree in Korea about construction materials and technologies…

So, based on that “learning schedule” (pretty tight) I’m not really into learning something else just because I don’t have time and energy, but that don’t means I don’t want to, so I’ll tell you briefly about  what I would like to learn in the future, but not necessarily with a real projection on accomplish it, just for fun (someday).

I literally (not literally really…) sucks at music. I barely hear some groups, and my only relation with an instrument was the flute at primary school (because was mandatory, other way I wouldn’t tried it). For that reason, one of my dreams (more than dreams, I just have imagined it) is become a virtuoso playing electric guitar, something that looks the most impossible thing to do in the universe, actually I think that flying a rocket to the moon looks easier to me… That guys who play unbelievable riffs while the stage explode in fireworks and the crowd shout insanely, must be one of the most adrenaline and exciting sensations in your life…I should give a chance to music someday.

Pucon

If I have to title one vacation as memorable, that definitely must be my first vacations with my school friends at Pucon. That was the first time the “wolf pack” (me and my 3 best friends) go out that far, so was a special occasion for all of us.

We stayed at Ignacio’s grandfather house (his grandfathers have various houses there, so they borrow us one), for two weeks. We all had different schedules so we split in “teams” to arrive. The two first was Ignacio and me, because we were free earlier, so just took a bus in Santiago and rode for something like 7-8 hours… the other ones, Emanuel and David arrived a couple of days later.

The first thing we do when we were all reunited was buy beer (a lot of beer) to celebrate, so we spent the day drinking and hiking the wonderful landscapes of Pucon/Caburga. The nights were similar, but instead of hiking we were to clubs like kamikaze or others, so each day was crazy. For example, in a club was the free tequila shots night, and we can barely remember what happened the rest of the night… another day, we were to the casino and play almost all the games there with a lot of luck, we spent like 30000 and leave with something like 50/60000, without knowing the most of the rules of gambling, we just said, “what is this??- I don’t know let’s play it”… was really sick.

So, for all that crazy and happy moments with my friends, I think Pucon 2010 was one of my favorite vacations ever.

PARANOID

 

Ok first at all I must admit that I’m not “that” fond for music, so I’ve always been more enthusiastic for visuals than sounds (actually I have a 20/20 sight but my hearing isn’t the best), but that doesn´t mean I can’t appreciate a good song nor I haven’t a favorite band or music style (a good soundtrack can make the difference between a good scene or a crappy one).

In my case I like rock, hard rock and heavy metal (heavy metal, not the loudly and incompressible kind of metal…). British bands from the 70’s-80’s like Black Sabbath/Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are my favorite, with powerful voices and great costumes singing about crazy worlds and epic fantasy stories, pretty cool…

 

Between these bands, I think the most relevant is Black Sabbath as the precursors of a new kind of rock with the song Paranoid, giving birth to the heavy metal we know nowadays. I’m not really sure when was the first time I heard it, but probably in 2006-2007 saw the video on VH1.

 

The lyrics and rhythm are really simply, but the atmosphere that generate is awesome, and sound like you’re falling down endless, which is perfect for the lyrics, because talk about an insane guy who realizes that he can’t control his life and now it’s too late to enjoying it.

ROFL

Hi everyone, this time I want to get my serious side apart and show you two funny videos which booming the internet a couple of years ago.

The first one is called “Leroy Jenkins”, just like the protagonist name. As you can see, the whole video is an screen capture from the online videogame World of Warcraft, which is basically a fantasy epic wargame with magicians, warriors, orcs, elves etc. (something similar like The Lord of the rings) and the idea is to create guilds with another characters to defeat “Boss creatures” and raise your level (and becoming addict).

So, to contextualize, we can see a guild who are reunited to defeat one of this unbelievable powerful and really hard to find Boss Creature (they’ve must expended at least 3 hours to find that place), and apparently planning the properly strategy, sharing goods like potions, weapons etc.

The funny begins when we realize that someone is not answering or moving, and stay quiet, but suddenly, we can hear the warcry “LEEEEEERROOOOOOOOOYYYY    JEEEENNKIIINS!!!!!!!!!” and the character start running across the dungeon like a maniac attacking everything in his path… because of this all the guild members try to stop him and, in a few seconds, they all get killed.

The most hilarious part comes when they asked him “what the F@ck!!!” and his answer was “I was eating chicken…” because of this Leroy Jenkins becomes a global superstar among gamers all over the world and even create a special character and a card (for the cardgame inspired in this videogame) named Leroy Jenkins.

I’ve spent all my words so I just gonna link this second video about the best cry ever (look for the remixes by yourselves).

Pretty Good

I think that webquest was an interesting activity, and a good way to put our skills in a real life situation, so 10 points to that.

Wasn’t difficult at all, considering that all the information needed was given, and we just had to look for specific info in the links, making it a little bit repetitive and odd; could have been more dynamic have formed groups of 4-5 members, give each a particular travel zone, and design by ourselves a complete route to places to visit, thereby, we wouldn’t lost so much time looking for stations in the confusing London subway map, and, on the other hand, have the possibility to known more interesting places in a “more complete” team schedule.

Talking about my agenda, I think that in a real situation would make a more architectural planning to seize its historic charge and, obviously, link it with my career. The only reason of giving that schedule was because of the time (and because we had everything to do it quickly and efficiently so…).

Finally, from my perspective, was a very good task mainly because put us on a possible real situation, giving us an idea of some useful English-keywords used to find the basics like prices, transport routes and important places, combining the language learning with Its application.

vote for pedro

When we think about comedy (and by we i mean you), there are typical characters whom  comes to our minds, like Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Nicholas Cage, Che Copete etc . But there´s one who owns all of them, I’m obviously talking about Napoleon Dynamite.

Napoleon dynamite is a 2004 film made it with a couple of bucks, but earns more than a million worldwide (a lot for an independent film). It’s basically about a kind of weirdo/retard guy, who met Pedro (a Mexican newcomer at his school), and the “adventure” to become Pedro in school president with the slogan “vote for pedro”.

This is a hate/love film, actually, it´s really difficult to understand the humor type that involve the characters, which transformed it in a cult movie around the world. That’s the reason I love it, make laugh with odd/awkward situations, the use of “death time” scenes with just two guys sitting at school dine doing nothing, but creating an atmosphere of stupidness, which from my perspective, it’s more valuable than a simple joke, fart, boob or even a dialogue.

Without doubts, Napoleon Dynamite is at my top 3, cause isn’t the typical American school comedy, actually, is the antithesis of that, transform the most useless and blank guys in the main characters of a 2 hours comedy.

Just watch the video...

video here

I know that this gonna look really weird, especially considering my last post about smashing another faces on the ground playing rugby, but this isn’t  about music, but something else that’s difficult to explain…(that sounds weirder).

These nine Korean girls reunited, dancing and singing at perfectly synchronization are the korean pop girl group known as Girls generation (so nyo shi dae in Romanized korean aka SNSD). They sing…korean pop, that’s just pop but…in korean. I must clarify that I don’t like pop of any kind or country, but SNSD are extremely gorgeous, cute, and sexy at same time, so is impossible to not put attention to them. The aesthetics, colors, faces, dance moves, winks, smiles…agh etc. can turn the toughest guy in a helpless kitty.  It’s just kind of hypnotizing to me.

 I don’t care about the lyrics (stupid in most cases), or voices, or concepts, but see these girls on stage is a visual delight, I mean… c’mon there are 9 gorgeous girls in them 20’s dancing and cheering for no reason, that’s thousands times better than watch rough guys playing guitars and screaming fiercely (I just prefer hear that kinds of groups like judas priest or iron maiden). Anyway, this must be consequence of this time, the era of visuals (talking about youtube…).

Crouch, touch, paaaaauseeee...ENGAGE!!!

Between that bunch of people who looks like in a drunken fight, I’m the of the back-right, at bottom… and no, it’s not a fight, we are playing Rugby.

This picture was taken at the UMCE’s sport complex in Ñuñoa, in September 21 of 2011, and it’s part of our first official Rugby game as the FAU team against laws’ team, for the Universidad de Chile’s inter faculty tournament.

This picture show specifically a common rugby movement called Line, which consist on throw the “ball” between 2 lines of players (3 to 5players each line) distanced by 1mt approx.  who must rise the tallest member, and then he  try to fight in the air to obtain the ball. As you can see, we won that line.

I really like that picture because first at all represent a whole semester of hard training as a team, and the most of us have never played it before, so the nervousness/exciting was up to high, considering that the law team is well-known because his triumphs and skilled players (they formed that team more than a couple of years ago, we just 6 months ago).

I don’t really know who took it, but I´m really thankful to him/her, because we lose that match for infinite to 0, but it´s useful to encourage us for the next tournament this year… our goal:

Smash their faces on the grass and demonstrate who faculty rules!

This must be one of the most beloved gadgets that I’ve had in my whole life, the playstation (or psx) it’s the beginning of an era that will mark my life forever.

First at all, the psx it’s a typical  videogame console, and one of its most remarkable features are the inclusion of 3D graphics, and the CD as the support for games, which was a revolution in that time (1994).

I obtained my “first” psx in October 1999, for my 10^th birthday. This could sound really weird, but I’ll never forget that day, basically because my parents never bought me a super nintendo, saying that videogames are prejudicially for childrens learning and stuff… (today scientific researches says exactly the oppose). This console becomes in one of my friends, actually every day instead of hang out with my “real” friends (like a kid…), we reunited at my house and spent many hours trying to defeat ”true ogre” in very hard difficulty (the final boss of tekken 3, a fighting videogame). My second psx I obtained a year later (the second because I burnt the first one), and today, I still playing next gen videogames (ps2 from 2003) and xbox 360 from 2007… sincerely I’ll do it till my retire and beyond, thanks for all Play Station.

bbboring.co.uk

Personally, that’s not the kind of webpage that I used to visit to learn English or any other language, actually I found it a little annoy, or maybe boring. Just the fact to use the web to specifically learn is, from my point of view, a waste of time. I’d prefer to watch a movie without subs, or play a videogame (a real videogame) and decode the walkthrough, or just read articles about my interests in foreign language and use web dictionaries to understand it … well, I don’t wanna transform this text in a critic based on my studies methods, so I’ll write what I saw in that page.

There is a really boring section about grammars, with random videos (random topics) and audios, then, a less boring section with articles and news (there you can find a couple interesting ones like the green building), and the rest I don’t really want to explore it, but I would  give it a chance… (please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that the contents are basic, but the “web concept” it’s not for this days, when the information is everywhere and you must incorporate it to your daily life.

Brasilia

In 2010, I had the opportunity to visit one of the most relevant metropolis in the modern architecture’s history, the Brazil’s capitol, Brasilia.

I traveled with a bunch of FAU’s students, some of them my best friends, and take us a lot of hours to arrive because of the bad airline organization (worst airline ever).

One of the main reasons for my visit was the Latin-American encounter of architecture’s students, a massive celebration which each year congregate thousands of young people around the same topic, architecture/urbanism. But, obviously, a lot of young stressed students cannot only talk about their careers, so parties were a must.

The daily schedule was divided between seminaries, workshops, forums, guided visits and parties, so we were active all the time for a period of 7 days (yeah, a whole week). That give us the chance to learn how actually work a modern city and most important, meet people from all over the continent, from Brazilians to Peruvians, Paraguayans etc. ,contacts that continue even today.