The Dance of the Bear

Some time ago, I heard this medieval song generally named "The Dance of the Bear", a kind a traditional dance of the Pyrenean region. I was particularly attracted by the song because in that period I was reading a book called "The bear. The story of a decayed king".  Still now when I hear or play that song with my accordion, I like to image an ancient dance of people around a bonfire, exorcising the fear for the visit of the King Bear during the nights.

Some days ago, I visited the traditional Fallas in Valencia. This tradition is steeped in pre-Christian rituals where the fire still retains its symbolic cleansing against the end of the winter and good luck brought by the spring equinox.  There, between fireworks and firecrackers, the song constantly playing was a Brazilian song called "Ai se eu te pego", now the fashion of the moment.

Who knows if in a few hundred years, posterity will think that I was dancing that song around the fire.

Certainly, what I would have expected (or maybe what I would have liked to expect) from the evolution of the Dance of the Bear is much more similar to the music that Meikenut proposes in their Laridé a otto tempi.

References:
- Michel Pastoureau, "L'ours. Histoire d'un roi déchu", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Pastoureau
- Meikenut : http://italianfolkmusic.blogspot.com.es/2007/08/meikenut-sons-et-suggestions-dautrefois.html

International Philosophy: Germany vs Greece

Some time ago I was watching this amazing football match Germany vs Greece with a friend of mine. I still remember the lol moment when Archimedes realized what to do! From this video, an interesting discussion started about the suitability of certain languages towards philosophy and in particular, how both Ancient Greek and German may better mold philosophical concepts. We engaged on a very nice discussion about natural and programming languages too. 

Finally, we agreed on these similarities:

 - C/C++ : Latin

 - Java : English

 - Python : Ancient Greek/German

While enjoying some coding this morning, I was back on that concept while  facing with the problem of reading quipus. Without entering too much into the details, the goal is to convert strings like this "XX--XXX-XXXX" into decimal numbers. In this specific case, the string "XX--XXX-XXXX" is equivalent to 234. The number of "-" may change based on positional coherence between different numbers.

Some examples are:

 -XXXXXXX--XX-----XXXXX---    725

 ---XX----XXX-----XXXX----    234

 -XXXXX---XXXXX--XXXXXXXX-    558

The proposed solutions for this problem consist of:

- 30 lines of codes in Java

- 41 lines of codes in C++

If I would have to propose a solution in Python, it might be

[int(''.join([str(t.count("X")) for t in q.split("-") if t != ''])) for q in quipusList]

References: 

- Quipus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

- The QuipuReader problem:

http://community.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&pm=1694&rd=4580

My Friends

Some time ago, I heard about the Mobile World Congress and I can confirm what people say: MWC is like Christmas for nerds. 


Some days ago, I visited for the fourth time the MWC. What you find there is not just high technological gadgets but also a lot of people moving around, making business together, trying to buy but mostly trying to sell. As external observator, I enjoy looking at the chess moves that big companies do for taking the market.

Many of them seem to use this algorithm

1. Compete with your rivals

2. IF you are not able to win

3. THEN buy them

4. IF you cannot buy them

5. Become their friend

References: "Amici miei" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Friends_(film)

Malakias: Oral Tradition and Digital Technologies

Some time ago, I found a lecture about the “Gutenberg Parenthesis” supporting the hypothesis that printed books have been just an interlude. I sincerely found the concept interesting and challenging, though not so really provocative. It may be pretty immediate to agree on the dichotomy between the "enclosure" (as the lecturer liked to say) of the printed press and the openness on the fuzzy internet.

It was really strange that the lecturer, being totally fascinated by Shakespeare, did not mention the “commedia dell' arte” (or "comedy of craft"). There, the actors used to act on a “canovaccio”, an outline of the sketch to be interpreted, improvising and creating the show according to the public reactions and to the circumstances. This early form of theater found its maximum expression at the beginning of the supposed Gutenberg Parenthesis and I suppose that the advent of such parenthesis led to something similar to what happened for Shakespeare.

Some days ago, I heard speaking about a new law called SOPA. This made me reminding that lecture and, at the same time, the burning of the library in the movie “The name of the Rose”. In particular, I continously retrieved the image of William of Barsherville aiming to save as many books as possible having moments of pure madness. In the period that history might had to take place, the Gutenberg Parenthesis had not started yet. The abbey would had to be one of the main center of wisdom of the time (William accepted to solve the mistery only because he would have had the opportunity to visit that library ). But finally, the library was destroyed by the “enclosure” of a Malakia (with an impressive reference to the Greek term), the guardian of the library, completely subjected to those people devoted to shape his thoughts. The example of Malakia should had be the medieval counter-example of what the lecturer states about the “mindwork” and the media technology being in a continuous, double-way positive feedback.

So, a final question remains without answering. Are we sure that a new Malakia will not bring again such "enclosure" into the today internet and media technology?


References:
- "The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Oral Tradition and Digital Technologies", http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/77
- "Commedia dell' arte", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell'arte
- "Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Fracassa%27s_Journey
- "Il nome della Rosa", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose