Purpleinterviews

If you are into purple music, this announcement might be of interest to you:

INTRODUCING PURPLEINTERVIEWS

Well, after a longtime thinking about this project, this is the begining of Purpleinterviews.

This website will be devoted to post interviews with people who have been related, in one way or another, to Prince, his music and his career.

The primary material will be interviews which were done during the existence of a legendary site, Housequake.com. Those interested in Prince music don’t need further information, but in case you don’t know it, feel free to google about to learn why it was widely considered THE REFERENCE website for purple music lovers.

Besides, we will try to include (upon acceptance of their respective authors) some additional interviews which are available in the web.

Once all of the above is posted here, we could consider new interviews, provided there is enough interest and possibilities. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy what’s to come.

There are a few important things I have to finish this week. But then, we will move forward.

Welcome everybody!

Is this the project for the future mirrorless camera from Nikon?

Nikonrumors.com has published information and drawings of a patent, made by Nikon both in Japan and the USA, which seems to be their prototype to enter the category of mirrorless cameras, by using a sensor which is smaller than the one used in micro4/3 cameras.

Time will tell if this is a finished specification, or if it is just a hint of work underway. In the mean time, it seems that the widely expected joining into the EVIL cameras field from the two gorillas of photography, Nikon and Canon, is approaching.

iPad + velcro

I found this video on the web and it is quite curious; beware, if you try any of these iPad uses, do it at your own risk!


iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Arabian and night jasmine in full effect

Today, for the first time in 2010, in the late evening we started to smell two of the plants in our mini-garden: in Spanish we call them Dama de noche and Diamela, and in English they are called night jasmine and arabian jasmine, respectively.

Both have in common a delightful perfume (sometimes it can be too strong, when spring is at its peak, in the case of the night jasmine), small white flowers (much smaller in the case of the night jasmine) and a bold message to the casual homer: life is happening all around you, it does not care about deep phylosophical questions on its meaning or lack of meaning, and you better enjoy it as long as you can.

Carpe diem.

Dama de Noche (Night jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum)

Diamela (Arabian jasmine, Jasminum sambac)

Prince to play 7 dates at European festivals (and counting)

Well, as some people speculated recently, Prince has announced what is his first proper tour in Europe since 2002 (previous shows in the 2000s were hardly tours: London was a 21 dates stay, and the rest were more or less one-off gigs).

Thus far, this is what is confirmed:

4 July, 2010: Denmark, Roskilde, Festivalpladsen (Orange stage)

5 July, 2010: Germany, Berlin, Waldbühne

9 July, 2010: France, Arras, Citadelle

10 July, 2010: Belgium, Werchter, Festival Park

12 July, 2010: Switzerland, Geneva, Stade de Genève

13 July, 2010 Austria, Linz, Linz Gugl Stadion

18 July, 2010: Portugal, Aldeia do Meco, Herdado do Cabeço da Flauta Meco, Palco Super Bock

Recent rumours suggest that we could see an addition to this list:

17 July, 2010: Spain, Benicassim, FIB Festival

Besides, there are other unconfirmed rumours indicating that Prince would appear at the final Johnathan Ross show in the UK, being recorded in June 17. If this gets confirmed, one could expect some show around that date in the UK.

But these are strictly rumours at this time, so hold your horses.

Google, this smells REAL BAD

In case somebody is not aware, Google has been "unadvertedly" collecting information about private wifi networks when they were capturing pictures for their Streetview.

This article describes well the story, which IMHO smells extremely bad: Google knowledge about private lives is already pretty extensive (only by looking at their own archives of google searches). But this story suggests they are rising up the bar and getting truly into privacy of people, without any consent being asked either to the individuals or the countries where they live.

7

I have never been superstitious, and the older I get, the more I stick to facts and tangible things, rather than oblique explanations for happenings in life.

But some coincidences get my attention. For instance, for one reason or another, the number 7 has always been around me:

I was born on the day 17 of a month of 1967. When I was a kid, I lived in my hometown, in a house number 17. Then I moved to Córdoba and I was living in the number 7 of another street. Then I moved to a new house after marriage: It was number 7. Yet again, we moved to another house: once more, number 7. None of this numbers was looked after, it was all a matter of coincidence.

But after so many 7s, one wonders if that is actually just a coincidence.

Recently, I planned the days for a professional, important happening which needs to be organized after agreement with five people with different plans. At the end, it will happen next June 3 and 4. You get the idea.

A certain musician would say "Coincidence or fate?". I say coincidence, but very curious coincidence nonetheless.

The end of Lost: full disappointment

Well, I have to say it: I am completely disappointed by this ending. As many others, I was more or less convinced it was impossible for them to answer everything, but that is one thing; another is not answering anything at all from the main questions.

Besides, I think I remember that the writers denied in the past that the plot was related with people after death, but maybe I am wrong. Anyway, to me, the way they ended the series completely fucked up its charm. It was easy, oversimplified, and overall I have the feeling that the writers reached a point of no return where there was impossible to give a somehow reasonable end for the story. So they decided they could just about say anything in the final, since it was going to be fucked up in any case. I think that, if I was running a school for writers of tv series, I would use this chapter to say: "this is exactly what you should NOT do in order to end a tv series based on mysteries".

What a huge contrast with the end of my other recent favourite series, The Soprano; of course both have nothing in common, but my point is that The Soprano had an end which was pure perfection. Lost ended in a pure mess; as someone wrote it, I think only the Vatican is happy about this final.

The end of Lost

I was a latecomer to Lost, which hype had intrigued me big time for a few years. Last Christmas, a friend gave me the first 5 seasons and my wife and me spent many nights watching three or even four chapters in a row, to the point we became fully plugged in the series. So we have been watching the final, 6th season with great interest. In fact, it's the first time we have seen a tv series with subtitles, as we could not wait until it was aired in Spain with translation. (Yes, to those of you who don't know: all foreigner tv series are aired in Spain with translation, and there are excellent actors doing such translation).

Today I plan to get the final episode of Lost with subtitles again, so the Mystery (or rather, the Loads of Mysteries) of Lost will be over in just a few hours. I had a certain fear that, with the many strange things that happened along the previous seasons, we might be somehow disappointed, but still I admit the writers managed to keep the interest very high for a very longtime; so I have the hope that they drafted a plan in order to, at least, fulfill the major expectations and let the followers of the series more or less happy.

Tomorrow possibly I will post my reflections on this final; hopefully I will be as happy as I was when I saw the final of the other series that has blown my mind in the last years, The Soprano.

Fergie's dirty deal

Monarchies were supposed to be respectable institutions (were they?) , flying above the normal world in order to take care of the High Interest of the Country.

But news like this provide considerable matter of reflection to become supporter of the Republic.

That is, until the day when the ex-wife of a President of the Republic is caught in similar dirty deals, as Fergie.

Craig Venter announces the creation of the first completely synthetic cell

I am a biologist doing research, and I'm not sure if this is very good or bad news (especially, considering who is leading the team who made this advance); but anyway, this is one of those headlines which have much deeper impact than it looks on first regard:

Craig Venter announces the creation of the first completely synethetic living cell

Video preview of the new Pentax 645D

Plenty of stuff to make serious photographers drool big time:



I hope Pentax will get a much deserved hit with this new camera.

Thanks to Aaron, reloaded

For a number of reasons that I am not going to explain, I thought that today is a perfect time to read again what I posted in this blog on February 9, 2010. Here you have it:

The purpose of this is only to express the gratitude of we, who called ourselves "quakers" in homage of a great website called Housequake.com.

Since unfortunately we can not post at that website anymore, I thought it could be a good time to post in acknowledgement and gratitude to Aaron, the founder and owner of Housequake. He has made a labour of love during almost 12 years which led to a world class website, as someone called it; a place for interaction, friendship and intelligent discussion. A place where you could speak about your favourite music, and about any other thing, within the respect, and with a quality in the content rarely seen in forums. And also a place with loads of reference information regarding a certain musician and his music.

And all this work was done purely for the love of the music of a certain musician.

Housequake is already being greatly missed. May this humble blog serve to say a huge

THANK YOU AARON!

More than one year has gone, and I feel exactly the same.

May 2010 in Córdoba: Patios

This patio won the 2010 Patios contest in Córdoba; it is located in the Marroquíes street, at around 5 minutes walking from my home. One of those places where my moto, "Carpe diem", takes its full meaning.

No further words needed, just enjoy the beauty.