a very interesting article which only requires rudimentary knowledge of the theoretical principles of quantum physics.

“… They say an infinite number of doppelgängers, or copies, performing the experiment is equivalent to one observer doing the experiment an infinite number of times. This picture ties the abstract Born rule to something concrete – the existence of multiple, identical observers; a possibility that could arise if our universe is large.

In their scheme, some of these copies would get one outcome in a quantum experiment and others another outcome, with the relative numbers agreeing with the Born rule. So instead of a single observer who doesn’t know the outcome of an experiment ahead of time, in this picture multiple observers get different outcomes, and quantum uncertainty “comes from the fact that you don’t know which observer you are”, Aguirre says.“

Violence can be disapproved from a moral point of view, but let’s face it, the real, ultimate truth about violence was revealed once for all in Starship Troopers.

Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn’t solve anything.
Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that. [to Carmen] You.
Carmen: They wouldn’t say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
Jean Rasczak: Correct. Violence has resolved more conflicts than anything else. The contrary opinion that violence doesn’t solve anything is merely wishful thinking at its worst.

Clinton – People Power in the Disco Hour from Luaka Bop on Vimeo.

She lets him describe how her ink is her blood and her body—his description sounded like religion. Tracing various lines and pictures littered around her skin, he told her stories about who he is. Vines turn into waves turn into a whale with a thought bubble. What’s on his mother’s grave, where he grew up, what gives him hope. Hope is a funny thing to feel.

She tries to avoid it.

He was cute and asked her to draw on him with a Sharpie. She placated him. She drew a dragon snaking its way up his arm with wings that conveniently spread out over his chest and back. He’s pretty sure this was just an excuse to get him to take my shirt off.

It worked.

He “hmm”ed over her suggestions and “oh yeah”ed over the pictures she showed him on her laptop.
Months passed. She persisted. “I can’t even believe how badly you need one,” she said. They continued to talk and go to lunch and do other things that would indicate a growing friendship.

It was a Thursday and an empty, nothing-filled day when he said, “I know what I want to get.” And then she said something and they went up on the rooftop.

Kitra Cahana and Chris Urquhart are currently working on a collaborative and multi-media project about modern nomads living in America entitled Welcome to Rainbowland, for which they received a first place in the World Press Photo 2010.

The Rainbow Gathering is an annual festival that takes place around the Fourth of July holiday weekend in a different American national park each year. Part of the point is to celebrate inclusiveness and pray for world peace. The festival attracts hundreds of teenage runaways and travelers who are nicknamed ‘The Dirty Kids’.

Faithful to the Postmodernist theory, one could claim that any number of styles and manners could be practised simultaneously, so that theories of art became effectively numberless, each one the philosophical equal of every other. However it seems obvious that the art world is more incoherent than pluralist. Individual subjects within art such as photography, the representation of landscape and religious issues in art and globalism are marked by differences and misunderstandings that cannot be characterized as pluralist. In that field, many people decline to argue about the index, or about Roland Barthes’ punctum, and by itself this could be a normal effect of a plurality of interests. But at least some of those people also have no position on those subjects, and have no reason why it should not matter that they have no position.
Photography criticism seems to be more than a simple plurality of viewpoints, but a heterogeneous field, past any reasonable hope of developing a coherent conversation. Amen.

A nice post from the good http://dailymeh.tumblr.com/

Eigengrau

The color of darkness:

Eigengrau (German: “intrinsic gray”), also called Eigenlicht (“intrinsic light”), dark light, or brain gray, is the color seen by the eye in perfect darkness. Even in the absence of light, some action potentials are still sent along the optic nerve, causing the sensation of a uniform dark gray color.

Eigengrau is perceived as lighter than a black object in normal lighting conditions, because contrast is more important to the visual system than absolute brightness. For example, the night sky looks darker than eigengrau because of the contrast provided by the stars.