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Visitors since November 2011

Strange Fruit in Singapore's China Town


Melbourne-based performing arts company “Stange Fruit” appeared at the Chinese New Year celebration in Singapore’s China Town on January 27, 2011. Perched atop 5-metre high flexible poles, the troupe bends and sways in the air at pace with intriguing bits of new-agish music. The first half of their 25 minute performance at thet heart of Singapore’s China Town is shown here, captured with the EF 24L II lens wide open on the EOS 7D.

Pablo Marquez: Musica del Delphin (Luys de Narvaez 1580)


Ok, this not jazz, as it was written several centuries before jazz was invented,, but it is a truly amazing recording nevertheless. Masterly interpretation of Luys de Narvaez “Seis libros del Delphín” by Argentine guitarist Pablo Marquez for the ECM label. Marquez got to choose 17 of the more than 40 pieces included in the “Seys libros” compendium. Originally published in 1538, the pices were composed for the vihuela, a predecessor of the modern guitar.Here Marquez skillfully demonstrates how rewarding these pieces can be even in a modern instrument. This impecable performance preserves the intimate, introspective character of the pieces. Timeless, beautiful music of a mystical nature. Pablo Marquez was born in the northwest of Argentina in 1967. He has played with bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi, cellist Anja Lechner, the Rosamunde Quartett and the Ensemble Alma Viva.

Audio files of two favorites, Diferencias sobre Conde Claros (libro VI, 1) and Segundo tono (libro I, 2) appear below.

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Beautiful Tasmania (part II): Marsupials on the run

Not unusual to encounter a great variety of marsupials in Tasmania, particularly if you find yourself in a nature park, such as the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. A prime example of true Tasmanian fauna, the famous Tasmanian Devil, is not as devil-looking as one might think, here caught sniffing out the mid morning air.


A Spotted-Tail Quoll run frantically in circles around his domain. A Koala, quite a bit calmer by nature, stared flematically at some point in the distant horizon from a vantage point by his favorite tree.


And, of course, the ubiquitous kangaroo, or at least one of the many varieties of it. Here in a close-up portrait, with his own body bokehing away in the background.

For this day, I just took my Canon EF 100mm L f/2,8 IS macro lens mounted on the EOS 7D. A combination that proved very suitable for capturing these animals at relatively close range.

Fully open, this lens allows excellent subject isolation and high speed. The Quoll shot was one frame of a series that saw the 7D bursting away at 8 fps.

Beautiful Tasmania (part I): Singh-Ray's Vari-N-Duo gets the best out of Mount Field National Park waterfalls

Tasmania is truly a photography paradise. The Mount Field National Park offers endless opportunities with amazing greenery and breathtaking waterfalls. Here a few examples, starting with the iconic Russell Falls.

An exposure of 0.5 to 1.0 seconds, like those shown here, makes the falling water silky smooth, strengthening the sense of movement. In plain daylight, however, such exposures would clearly result in a totally blown-out image. A neutral density (ND) filter can be used to diminish the light getting into the camera and so allow longer exposures in bright natural light. The Vari-N-Duo from Singh-Ray combines a neutral density filter adjustable from 2 to 8 f/ stops and a warming/polarizer in a compact and convenient design. The desired amount of density can be dialed to achieve a proper exposure. The combined warming/polarizer reduces glare from sky, water, wet rocks, and other reflective surfaces and enhances color saturation for added drama. Polarization can be easily controlled by rotating the ring just behind the min/max ND ring.  A sturdy tripod is a must, obviously.

 

Making science (part V): Bad project

“I want good data, a paper in Cell
But I got a project straight from Hell”

“I wanna graduate in less than five years
But there ain’t no getting out of here”

“Oh oh oh… caught in a bad project”


Crazy mice. Smelly brain cells. Empty Western blots. It’s a bad project alright. Or… is it? There are indeed bad projects out there. Research projects begin with a question that is to be answered. If no question has been formulated, however general, and experiments are being done only because they are doable, then a bad project is on the horizon. With a question at hand, hypotheses have to be made as to the posssible answers, ideally covering all logical possibilities. Lack of hypotheses in a project is not a good sign. The question posed may not be answereable. (We’ve all heard about hypothesis-free studies. That’s okey for a group leader with 50 postdocs and lots of other projects. Not recommended  to anyone that wants to graduate and get a job in less than five years!) Hypotheses help designing the experiments that are going to distinguish between them. Experiments are typically designed to systematically disprove them one by one. A neat, key experiment to prove one of the hypothesis upfront is more difficult to come by. Some experiments may just add support to a particular hypothesis, but not prove it or disprove it outright. So far so good. But a good project should also allow for serendipitous discoveries. Paradoxically, serendipity is one of the most common ways of advancement in science. Alas, serendipity can not be planned. But it can be encouraged. In addition to concrete goals and defined questions, research projects that allow some amount of open-ended possibilites have greater chances to extend into (positively) unexpected directions. It’s a fine balance, in which informed intuition plays a vital role. (For a discussion of intuitive thinking, see Making Science Part III.) Lady Science in the video above seems to be having more problems than just a bad project. But those are topics of other discussions.

Wonderful, unreleased recording from Jan Garbarek's “Photo with...” Quintet live in Kiel, Germany, 1979


The web would sometimes seem to be infinite. Looking for something else, I recently stumbled upon the You Are What You Hear blog site. Dedicated to unreleased live jazz recordings, it contains thousands of mp3 files with previously unheard-of jewels from all corners of the jazz musical spectrum. Remarkably, the last entry in the site was made two years ago. But everything is still there: a time capsule carrying a treasure trove of music, floating in cyberspace.

The catalogue is endless, and one should make sure to download everything indispensable as soon as possible. To me, that includes this incredible recording from norweigian saxophonist Jan Garbarek live in Kiel, Germany, the 10th of July, 1979, with his quintet from the iconic “Photo With…” ECM album featuring Bill Connors in guitar, John Taylor in piano, Eberhard Weber in bass and Jon Christensen in drums. The concert contains no less than 10 tracks and 2 hs 20 min of uninterrupted joy, all there at the YAWYH site. Too good to be true? Well, it is true. And since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, here we have two tracks from this amazing concert. “Blue Sky”, the first track of the “Photo With…” album (15:32 min) followed by “Melting” (21:38 min), the first track of Bill Connors’ “Of Mist and Melting” ECM recording from 1977. (Also available from the Audio files sidebar.) Truly incredible stuff. Nothing more to say than…enjoy!

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UPDATE 2011-11-25: Too late folks. The YAWYH site has been taken down.