ratogi.net

keep it moving

ratogi — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:48:28 +0000

Spending the past few months dealing with academics and airplanes hasn’t lent itself to keeping this space up to date. But life has gone on, and now the photo gallery has largely caught up with it. Recent additions are the Hoover Dam, the holiday Panama Canal cruise, Missouri, Seattle, the final Space Shuttle launch, and Kenya (with side trips to Tanzania and Uganda, and a layover in Dubai… more on the work behind this trip and its follow-on soon).

world jukebox

ratogi — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:02:59 +0000

A compilation of favorite songs from different places on the globe. (Note that many of these are not official videos, but fan-assembled compilations of still images… sorry. The music is still there though.)

Khumbula (South Africa), “Sibali”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzyFW7mnqKo

Tribalistas (Brazil), “Carnavália”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp7IVMGllUE

Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté (Mali), “Gomni” (also check this one)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjtfcSWmBmA

Sara Tavares (Portugal), “One Love” (also check this one)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDBpJOIuQ30

Rodrigo y Gabriela (Mexico), “Diablo Rojo”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUibjcu2L_s

Yungchen Lhamo (Tibet), “Happiness Is…”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee58iv63M2A

Tinariwen (Mali), “Amassakoul”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-t6-XY7C7A

Yothu Yindi (Australia), “Tribal Voice”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-hbpWlXNQ

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistan), “Sweet Pain”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVZcPSRqpHk

Ulali (Native American), “Wah Jhi Le Yihm”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WEVtwQnU9w

Angélique Kidjo (Benin), “Babalao”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCWVipbM-aU

Idan Raichel (Israel), “Mima’amakim”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0PWukxRV8U

Rachid Taha (Algeria), “Barra Barra”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUbzX3izyw4

Mediaeval Baebes (UK), “The Snake”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNbL8r96KXc

Keali’i Reichel (Hawaii), “E O Mai”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P88LUs2qAi8

water over there

ratogi — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:35:58 +0000

News organizations throughout the U.S. are giving extensive coverage to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Which is interesting for me, since now is the first time that I’ve seen and heard a lot of the stories of the destruction that the hurricane caused. When Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast in 2005, I was traveling in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. (Side note: Traveling from the U.S. to Spain involved a layover in Miami; our flight to Madrid left Miami less than a day before Katrina arrived there.) So instead of nonstop coverage on three 24-hour news stations, I only got bits and pieces of the story — an online article over a low-bandwidth satellite Internet connection here, an American television interview dubbed into Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, or French there. Not nearly enough to convey the overall magnitude of the tragedy or the effects on individual lives. So in a lot of ways, the current retrospective is an introduction for me since I didn’t have access to the blanket news coverage that helped Stateside folks communally experience what happened while it was happening.

Which I think is, to a large extent, the same experience that Americans are having with the current flooding in Pakistan. Of course, there are periodic updates on the tragedy there on television, online, and in print. But obviously, there isn’t the same level of coverage here in the U.S. that there was of Katrina. So given the same lack of continuous, visceral news coverage in Pakistan that I had with Katrina, I wonder to what extent folks will remember that the individual stories and grand mosaic of destruction and loss brought into their living rooms five years ago have new counterparts today.

on the road

ratogi — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:16:23 +0000

Another season, another blogging hiatus. This time, much of it has been spent in different time zones; stay tuned for photos. Meanwhile, for folks who are serious about their flying, a few sites may be of use. SeatGuru gives you the lowdown on your seat (such as legroom, power outlet availability, and annoyances like noisy MD-80 engines right outside your window). FlyerGuide is a wiki with information on frequent flyer programs for several airlines. ExpertFlyer may also help you get a business-class upgrade, though it is subscription-based. And of course, travel site aggregators like Kayak are good for doing quick, detailed searches for the best airfares, hotel rates, and rental cars.

random song o’ the moment

ratogi — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:07:10 +0000

“Bring It On” by Seal

two years, 350 years

ratogi — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:04:09 +0000

Yesterday marked two years of the current incarnation of this site. While this hasn’t exactly been the most verbose blog in the world, if nothing else it has at least served as a good sharing place for stuff that I’ve found interesting.

A fitting way to mark the last couple of years of publishing here is to look at the Royal Society, which has marked nearly 350 years of publishing scientific papers by highlighting 60 groundbreaking articles on its Trailblazing web site. They range from a 1666 paper on blood transfusions between dogs to a 2008 paper on engineering against global warming. Also included is a paper describing Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment.

the big picture

ratogi — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:03:59 +0000

If you are an information geek, check out Jess Bachman’s wallstats.com. He has created a number of graphics to illustrate things, including the cool one below of the federal budget (view it in fullscreen mode to get the full effect) and a history of Black people in the U.S. Some other projects include several graphics explaining different aspects of the financial crisis.

ciudades de oro

ratogi — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:45:44 +0000

The latest update to the blog software has brought support for embedded Hulu videos. To celebrate, here’s the pilot episode of one of my favorite childhood cartoons, The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Enjoy!

a new park, an old tragedy

ratogi — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:15:47 +0000

On July 17, 1944, a munitions explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine here in the Bay Area killed 320 sailors, most of them African American. In the aftermath, 50 African American sailors were convicted of mutiny for refusing to work under similarly unsafe conditions at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard. The ensuing uproar, including a legal appeal by then-NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall, led to an investigation of the Navy’s practice of assigning menial or dangerous tasks to minority sailors, and eventually resulted in the official desegregation of the United States military. On October 29, 2009, President Obama signed the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, which among other things elevated the existing Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial into the nation’s newest national park. This will enable the National Park Service to enhance the site’s mission to preserve the memory of both the tragedy and its military and civil rights legacy.

the wall between us all must fall

ratogi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:12:23 +0000

…is a line from a 1993 Living Colour song, and a sentiment that was likely on the minds of many Germans when the Berlin Wall finally did fall, 20 years ago today. The anniversary is being noted by news… outlets… all… over… the… world. If you get a chance, check out the excellent movie The Lives of Others, which deals with the spying that the East German Stasi did on its own citizens prior to reunification. Today, Germans can request to review any files that the Stasi compiled on them, which is no doubt a chilling experience.

And an interesting computer science problem, it turns out. The Stasi made a hasty attempt to destroy many of their records through shredding and old-fashioned ripping paper up by hand. Software is now being used to recreate the original documents from scanned images of the pieces.

Meanwhile, the fall of the wall and the demise of Communist governments across Eastern Europe inspired a lot of optimism in early 1990s music. Classics include:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z6dxQVhE8o

“Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Eyao-2KWo

“Wind of Change” by the Scorpions

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pm5jpjcYMY

“Crazy” by Seal

Finally, as with all such significant historical events, people are still debating what the real outcome of it was.