Grad Sch possibility:
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2011-04-12
2011-04-08
2011-04-01
2011-03-29
//WWII
A quick regurgitation.
Had a fun conversation with my roommate Yao today while watching WWII documentaries. It was about the relationship of theory and practice, I think.
The French army had better military technology than the Germans. Their tanks were stronger and tougher than the German Panzers, yet, the Germans still overrun their forces! It was the Germans, who used more intelligent war strategies, like flanking. They reintepreted the role of the tank in war. The french merely replaced Horses with tanks, and essentially fought a conventional front line war. They were treating the tank as an analogue for the horse, and this slowed down the tank.
The Germans also had great precision bombers (another interesting story), but no long range bombers. This was tied to their ideology of the tanks supporting the ground forces. Therefore, they couldn't assist in the war with the Russians. Americans, on the other hand, had long range bombers. Their war was like a form of acupuncture, where they bombed key industrial sites before the invasion.
Therefore, their perspective theories (and blind spots) guided the development of their war machines.
p.s. the tank was invented by the British in WWI to overcome trench warfare.
p.p.s. Armageadon, the series by National Geographic, is fantastic. The narrative is smooth and immersive with no fragmented MTV-style cuts. It also had beautifully muted colour footage of the war itself: slightly blurred and muted, like a city draped in fog, giving your imagination just enough space to dance in it.
A quick regurgitation.
Had a fun conversation with my roommate Yao today while watching WWII documentaries. It was about the relationship of theory and practice, I think.
The French army had better military technology than the Germans. Their tanks were stronger and tougher than the German Panzers, yet, the Germans still overrun their forces! It was the Germans, who used more intelligent war strategies, like flanking. They reintepreted the role of the tank in war. The french merely replaced Horses with tanks, and essentially fought a conventional front line war. They were treating the tank as an analogue for the horse, and this slowed down the tank.
The Germans also had great precision bombers (another interesting story), but no long range bombers. This was tied to their ideology of the tanks supporting the ground forces. Therefore, they couldn't assist in the war with the Russians. Americans, on the other hand, had long range bombers. Their war was like a form of acupuncture, where they bombed key industrial sites before the invasion.
Therefore, their perspective theories (and blind spots) guided the development of their war machines.
p.s. the tank was invented by the British in WWI to overcome trench warfare.
p.p.s. Armageadon, the series by National Geographic, is fantastic. The narrative is smooth and immersive with no fragmented MTV-style cuts. It also had beautifully muted colour footage of the war itself: slightly blurred and muted, like a city draped in fog, giving your imagination just enough space to dance in it.
Hello Cher,
First, thank you for the song! It made me smile so wide, I played it all night long while working. One is always faced with the dilemma of how literally to read into a song, but I'll take it at half-face value. Thank you, I like you too, very much so actually, and for very much the similar reasons. =) I am quite fond the comfortable oddness of our relations.
Its funny you sent me this mail at this moment, because you popped into my head over the weekend. To be specific, on Sunday morning at around 1am: A friend from berkeley visited and we went for a stroll around downtown at the time. We ended up chatting and having a drink in a tree, with the Disney Concert Hall draped in the background and drunken revelers walking below. Tarzan and Jane in the concrete jungle?
I consider it to be one of those Modern Primitive moments, like grifters plucking secret unplanned moments from the aftermath of modernity and urbanization. A phrase that comes to mind is "A Home at the End of the World", for some reason. But that is another stream of thought so I'll just bookmark it for now.
Yes, this notion of the rational and, in my opinion, its categorical reductiveness. It recalls a book I read some time back, "We Have Never Been Modern" by Bruno Latour. Briefly, from memory, he argues that modernity is an act of purification - think of the Bauhaus and how chairs became direct expressions of their function. But isn't this expression of function and the dogma of reason really just another form of belief? Its a faith in facts mistaken as unquestioned dogma.
But then, if its just another framework for making decisions and living, why must it become so banal? For example, it bothers me that after centuries of living, the basic utensils we eat with are still the spoon, knife and fork, which fits so perfectly with soup, steak and stuff. Would a different kind of utensil breed a different kind of culinary experience?
Dan, a friend in school, thinks we need standards, a base form or format to work off on. If not, anarchy. For the sake of it, I argue for the opposite. If everything is reduced to the same common denominator, its like doing math with only factors of two. You miss out on a lot of difference.
Don't you adore the notion of difference and friction? The childlike ability to always be mesmerized, seduced and corrupted by different ideas of living and its interpretations. You must be. Maybe thats why you ask so many questions.
A singular reality is a barrier to the world of dreams. Does it concern you when the imagination becomes locked into the weight of facts confirmed by precedent. But that means, what has been is what will be, no? A form of planning. What if what could be never has been?
Its so much fun, this tension between planning (the rational and logical) and spontenaeity, the supposed free. I hope it always oscillates.
to end this long email, if you're up for it, I'd love to share this video presentation which I think encapsulates the above. Its about the design process of the Seattle Public Library, which is in itself a very strange looking and oddly organized building, but when peeled back, it is a product of a hyper rational investigation. Dali used the term best I think- the Paranoid Critical Method (PCM), where, like in the world of a paranoid, everything becomes related to a subject of your focus. By chasing that mirage, you might end up somewhere you never expected. =)
a hug and kiss,
Lenn!
First, thank you for the song! It made me smile so wide, I played it all night long while working. One is always faced with the dilemma of how literally to read into a song, but I'll take it at half-face value. Thank you, I like you too, very much so actually, and for very much the similar reasons. =) I am quite fond the comfortable oddness of our relations.
Its funny you sent me this mail at this moment, because you popped into my head over the weekend. To be specific, on Sunday morning at around 1am: A friend from berkeley visited and we went for a stroll around downtown at the time. We ended up chatting and having a drink in a tree, with the Disney Concert Hall draped in the background and drunken revelers walking below. Tarzan and Jane in the concrete jungle?
I consider it to be one of those Modern Primitive moments, like grifters plucking secret unplanned moments from the aftermath of modernity and urbanization. A phrase that comes to mind is "A Home at the End of the World", for some reason. But that is another stream of thought so I'll just bookmark it for now.
Yes, this notion of the rational and, in my opinion, its categorical reductiveness. It recalls a book I read some time back, "We Have Never Been Modern" by Bruno Latour. Briefly, from memory, he argues that modernity is an act of purification - think of the Bauhaus and how chairs became direct expressions of their function. But isn't this expression of function and the dogma of reason really just another form of belief? Its a faith in facts mistaken as unquestioned dogma.
But then, if its just another framework for making decisions and living, why must it become so banal? For example, it bothers me that after centuries of living, the basic utensils we eat with are still the spoon, knife and fork, which fits so perfectly with soup, steak and stuff. Would a different kind of utensil breed a different kind of culinary experience?
Dan, a friend in school, thinks we need standards, a base form or format to work off on. If not, anarchy. For the sake of it, I argue for the opposite. If everything is reduced to the same common denominator, its like doing math with only factors of two. You miss out on a lot of difference.
Don't you adore the notion of difference and friction? The childlike ability to always be mesmerized, seduced and corrupted by different ideas of living and its interpretations. You must be. Maybe thats why you ask so many questions.
A singular reality is a barrier to the world of dreams. Does it concern you when the imagination becomes locked into the weight of facts confirmed by precedent. But that means, what has been is what will be, no? A form of planning. What if what could be never has been?
Its so much fun, this tension between planning (the rational and logical) and spontenaeity, the supposed free. I hope it always oscillates.
to end this long email, if you're up for it, I'd love to share this video presentation which I think encapsulates the above. Its about the design process of the Seattle Public Library, which is in itself a very strange looking and oddly organized building, but when peeled back, it is a product of a hyper rational investigation. Dali used the term best I think- the Paranoid Critical Method (PCM), where, like in the world of a paranoid, everything becomes related to a subject of your focus. By chasing that mirage, you might end up somewhere you never expected. =)
a hug and kiss,
Lenn!
2011-03-24
http://archrecord.construction.com/news/OnTheBoards/0803taiwan.asp
firm to apply: mecanoo, periphiques
firm to apply: mecanoo, periphiques
2011-03-22
Emergent behaviour, and to some extent parametrics as well are perhaps less interesting when applied to the building-discipline of architecture. Instead, I find its capabilities in simulating natural phenomena a lot more interesting in that it can be used as a tool to design processes of erosion, cracking, melting etc toward a soft-specified end goal.
For example, the study of a cracking field in the dry heat vis a vis wet parts and the spaces or ruptures this might produce. By coding in the relationships, the territory can be seeded accordingly to create a space that is to the architect's orchaestration.
For example, the study of a cracking field in the dry heat vis a vis wet parts and the spaces or ruptures this might produce. By coding in the relationships, the territory can be seeded accordingly to create a space that is to the architect's orchaestration.
2011-03-20
2011-03-16
//Robert Sapolsky, Freedom From Religion
http://ffrf.org/legacy/fttoday/2003/april/index.php?ft=sapolsky
http://ffrf.org/legacy/fttoday/2003/april/index.php?ft=sapolsky
2011-03-14
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