jacobort

Finally got the 3D printer for school, Replicator 2. My first print, el gran futbol... 

All kinds of protests going on in Kiev for the past weeks. It's coming to a head these days. 

School was canceled today (Police Move in on Protestors BBC) Lenin statue came down Sunday (NYTimes). We visited it yesterday...

I'm working on getting a 3D printer for school with hackerspace-Kyiv which should be built shortly. It's great to see and be in touch with what's going on with Kyiv's creative culture. The project above is coming soon to Ukraine by hackerspace...

Kiss or kill. Kiss the glory or die trying. Losing is death, winning means breathing. The struggle is what makes a victory, a winner.How many times have you cried of rage and pain? How many times have you lost your memory, your voice and your judgment because of your tiredness? And in this situation, how many times have you been thinking: Try again! A couple of hours more! Another hill! Pain does not exist, it is only in your head! Control it, destroy it, delete it, carry on! Make your opponents suffer, kill them. I am selfish, am I not? Sport is selfish because one has to be selfish to be able to fight and suffer, to love loneliness and hell. To stop, to cough, to be freezing, not feeling one’s legs, to feel nauseous, to vomit, have headache, a shock, blood running down your body… Have you got something better to offer me? 

The secret is not in the legs. It is to find enough courage to go out and run when it’s raining, windy, when it’s snowing. When flashes of lightning hit the trees. When snowballs or ice rain hit your legs, your body and make you cry. To continue, you have to dry the tears from your face to be able to see the stones, the obstacles, the sky. Forget some hours of party, face tens of reproaches, say no to a girl, to the warmth of the blanket covering your face… Send everything to hell and go out in the rain until your legs bleed after having fallen down and risen again to keep running up… Until your legs shout: ENOUGH! And leave you alone in the middle of a storm in unknown mountains… until death.

Shorts drenched by the snow, brought by the wind that slaps your face and freezes your sweat. Light body, light legs. Feel the way the pressure of your legs and the weight of your body are concentrated on the metatarsus of your feet’s fingers, exerting a pressure capable of breaking stones, destroying planets and moving continents. With both legs in the air, flying like an eagle and running faster than a cheetah.

Or when you are going downhill, when your legs sink in snow or mud, just before pushing forward, and make you feel free to fly, scream of rage, of hatred and love in the heart of the mountain, where only the bravest rodents or birds can become your confessors, hidden in their nest under the rocks…

I'm reading Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, it's a book about memory and his story to become a memory champion. There's loads of little snip-its about memory, probably not that unfamiliar but good stuff. Like the connection with visual objects and spacial perception. A person can put pieces of information into a place for it to be remember. Also, the way the brain works as a big connection devise, one memory is linked to another to another to create a web of stuff that helps us remember. Here's two quotes I just read.. 

"...we are all like those chess masters and chicken sexers (people that know the sex of a chicken based on spots), interpreting the present in light of what we've learned in the past, and letting our previous experiences shape not only how we perceive our world, but also the moves we end up making in it." (p. 67)

I’ve been reading a lot of books on North Korea in the past few months. First, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which was stories from North Korean defectors, then Pyongyang, a graphic novel with a bit of humor towards the Kim Dynasty and a good story by a talented animator. The most recent was one that made a big impact.  

Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine harden

The story of Shin In Geun, the first person known to have been born in and escape from the “non-existent” labor camps in North Korea. I was shocked by the stories he told while being in the camps. There’s so many to name, but things like snitching on classmates, forced obedience to the guards, executions for stealing 5 cornels of corn, and his incomprehensive of love or family. It also tells of his changes to adaption in South Korea and American. He says, “I escaped physically, but I haven’t escaped psychologically,” (p. 190). The final chapters discuss Shin’s refuse to be a voice for human rights but show his interest, then ends with a description of Shin telling his powerful story with confidence. “[his refusals] to be silenced, could help tens of thousands who remain in North Korea’s labor camps.” It gave me chills, incredible story.