Mandalay

I came back to Myanmar 10 years later. Photos above were taken in 2009.

In those days was mandatory to travel with a person assigned by the government plus the payment of 25 USD daily to that person. That man controlled everything, including the photos. My feeling then were its a nice but extremely underdeveloped country. No street lights at night. Now in 2019 I had the same feelings.

At least it's easier now, with no people from the government besides you all the time. However the weather these days was horrible. Unbearable heat.

I took some photos, this time with mobile. Here some of them:

Atmosphere in Mandalay is always warm.

Electricity cuts. About 20-30 times per day. Using Internet is scary movie.

Young pink monks spreading happiness.

More little pink monks.

Me. Banana hat stops the EXTREMELY high Sun waves.

For some reason there are this fuel stations style everywhere.

My wallet is too thin for the thick money.

Streets of Mandalay.

No explanation. I just like this photo.

The nature of spider's web

How does the spider learn to make its web? 

Is it just instinct? It looks like an artifact with not easy procedure to deploy at all. This tool definitely requires planificación and mind to visualice the result in advance, something not usual in animals. 

Does it learn from other spiders? I don’t think so because if we isolate a baby spider it could manage to make its web. 

Could we asume a certain level of intelligence in spiders? At lest a high level making web structures. For sure we don't know the hidden goals/plans of nature. And that's not very important. 

And finally the result is full of beauty. The beauty of nature. I'd wonder if other animals different than humans could appreciate it.

Brain connections. Inverted

Playing with Photoshop (one of the best toys ever) while I was designing new cards for my new deck I discovered the beauty of this spread inverted. Details mesmerize me and make me think "Did I draw it?"

A key idea in the evolution of our biological brain deserves much more attention.

Frame for Donau's Journey

 I didn't frame my own Donau's Journey copy until now!

Having this quite big size creation in my hands becomes a weird thing now. With the new frame it feels heavy, bulky and, more important, a finished work. Honestly there were many times when I thought this project could be just an idea (or a collection of many ideas) so complex than never would be a in a real paper.

I'm happy to see it on a wall. I chose a simple but strong and deep frame. It adds a perfect touch highlighting the artwork and at the same time doesn't take much attention.

I would be so glad if you send me a photo of you copy on a wall, please! The ones I've already seen were so great and.. in unexpected environments, oh yes.

You still can buy a copy here.

The Starmaker

Doctor D. Messking is a prestigious astronomer (he has an academic title and a prominent beard). But he is also a little dirty. During decades he worked cataloging stars methodically.

One day a SPECK OF DUST landed on the lens. 

His routine job didn’t help to spot the mistake. He included the new star in the catalogue. He shared his work with the scientist community. Then influential publishers distributed thousands of books. Those books were read by other scientists, teachers, etc. Soon students were obligated to learn the new star. Eventually these kids will procreate and will transfer this knowledge to their children. And so on.

This is an example of how humans perpetuate knowledge. They are specialist in sharing all kind of information, a top skill they can do better than any other animal. Sometimes not many are involved in the details of a discovery but they trust other people in a blind faith mode. That faith starts in the family, teachers and then continues in books, news and ends in the "specialists", the owners of the complex knowledge.

Same as in religions and other no-logic methods, science could also make the mistake of belief. Many scientists never participated in the experiments they believe. Most of the teachers even don’t know the source of information. The wheel continues by its own. 

Despite the development of basic logic, some people's brains use to be confused even in the clearest points. Maybe trust is a positive human trait, useful for evolution anyways. Or maybe it's all wrong and the rest of the species do it even worse than us.

The Orange Manuscript. New copies

A pile of fresh pages from the printer ready to be bound by hand. My robot assistant will be busy...

Still today seeing these pages al together fascinate me. The Orange Manuscript will be always my baby.

Orders can be made by email. Visit this post for more information.

Brain connections. Next levels

The next big step in mankind evolution (maybe the ultimate one) is the emergence of a Super Artificial Intelligence. Before that moment other events will happen. Humans have developed magical technology however there are not changes in our biological setup. Even for communicate each other we use EXTREMELY SLOW ways as talking, writing, etc. 

Connections brain-machine and brain-machine-brain will: 

1.) Boost the speed of information. 

2.) Open the door to another level of use of the brain: sharing feelings, instant knowledge or using other humans senses as they were yours. Even every discovery in this field is a huge thing by itself. Can you imagine coming alive again an old experience to your brain, let's say eating a lion, fighting with a cake (or the other way around better), wild sex adventure, etc., or even "import" those experiences from other people?

3.) As a future interface human-AI. I could imagine a scenario where eventually brains are connected each other and also connected to an AI. In this case brains are just like neurons in a new super brain. I guess that new entity will want to explore outside and establish connection with other intelligences. It looks like brain was designed to play with other brains.

Fascinating!

Cards. Work in progress

Working, or better said, having fun with the design of the new cards. Still a few main ideas to develop and endless details to polish.

Tiny watercolor box for travels

Many people asked me about the watercolors I use in my tiny box. I think it’s not so important and each one should try different colors and could have different needs. Mine are light weight, simple and certain tones. 

Anyways here they are: raw sienna, burnt sienna, turquoise, red, Payne’s grey and indigo. Total weight is 32g. Sometimes I miss yellow. Indigo could be got mixing turquoise and Payne’s grey so maybe there is a free gap for a new color soon.

My current writing tools in use. Updated.

I’m always trying to simplify things. Reducing weight and volume is mandatory for light packing when traveling. Everything should fit in a portable case. You can see my optimized luggage here.

From left to right: TWSBI 580 orange EF, TWSBI 580 EF, Lamy Safari EF, Lamy Al Star EF, Kaweco Sport EF, Micron brown 003, Micron black 005, Pilot G-3, Zebra brush F, Zebra brush M, Kuretake marker orange, Kuretake marker turquoise, pencil 2H, tiny brush, Rotring mechanical pencil HB, oil pencil, glue, sienna pencil, eraser, sharpener, watercolor set and ruler.

I swap metal mechanical pencil Rotring and metal ruler for plastic versions in a trip. 

First page uses to be the last one to be filled

These days I’m finishing the former notebook beginning 2017 to end of 2018. How fat it became! Two full years. This is the first page which includes my fingerprint, 3 hairs and a sample of blood (to be cloned in a future). Its name is MS Chang. Chang means elephant and by coincidence I set a Ganesh in this page long before choosing the name.

I try to have fun with all the points about notebooking as far as it's the only way to keep passion and perseverance. However I found out finishing some pages and filling gaps is a task I don't enjoy. It's a necessary step before scanning the notebooks and store them.

Each label in the next photo shows something to be done in that page. I guess the solution is trying to minimize those gaps and incomplete pages while writing in the new journal.

Notebooks collection

Each notebook is a little universe. All together are a family. And they have a proper home (click here to see it)

I can see the evolution along the years. Fortunately my favorite notebook is always the last one.

Traveling here and there

August 6th is something like my second birthday. It's the day I started my round the world trip, a collection of experiences which changed my mindset.

To celebrate it, I created a folder with photos from different trips during the years. Just a short sample! I will add more files from time to time.

It's easy to know the chronological order since the hair in my head is decreasing with time.

Here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lcUZKYOplbgQ8UiWZzKQtjysQO8MTlfG

And some photos in advance here to decorate this post:

Huge elephant looking at me in Nepal, 2007

Beijing 2007

Aitutaki, Cook Islands, 2008

Writing in Sarajevo, 2013

With my Orange friends in Laos, 2016

Some lost place in my dear Asia

Mumbai 2017

USA 2018

Slovenia 2013

Testing new papers

I'm still trying to find the perfect paper even when I know it doesn't exist. However  I feel lucky to try these AMAZING Hahnemühle papers. They were so kind to send me some samples of my favorite one: Verge paper (also known as laid paper) in cream color.

All of them are excellent. See the amazing texture! Watercolors look better than ever. No see through, feathering, bleeding, ghosting, etc. The only finding I detected is the surface could peel easily when using an eraser (see photo bellow). Maybe I found the way to transform this weakness into a positive power.

Serious candidate for my next notebook.

Laid paper texture.

The Surface peels after using an eraser.