Wizardry for Apple II (1981) is perhaps the most influential of the early sandbox-style computer RPG games. There was no plot to speak of, but the gameplay mechanics were revolutionary compared to earlier computer adventure games. I got a serious nostalgia overload while watching a youtube clip of the gameplay.

The almost complete lack of a plot was an integral part of the charm of this game. There were no walk-throughs available at the time and every new encounter with a new monster sent my blood rushing through the veins. Like a drug addict, I find myself looking for that same buzz on all the new games I try, but somehow it is precisely all the bells and whistles that make them a bit too predictable for me. Somehow a lot of the modern games seem like a scripted rides through the ghost train. A tutorial level makes me feel like I’m at a driving school, not in some faraway imaginary world.

Shadow of the Colossus and We Love Katamari are great examples of the kind of games that provide a background setting and sandbox-style environment to explore, but still leave a lot of room for the imagination of the player. I wish there were more games like that available. For me, a true sense of curiosity and discovery is a really essential element of an immersive gameplay experience. I’d be happy to hear any recommendations of modern PC game titles to try out and satisfy the explorer in me.

In 1982 Steven Spielberg bought the Rosebud sled used the film Citizen Kane

Substance:
That which underlies all outward manifestations; substratum; the permanent subject or cause of phenomena, whether material or spiritual; that in which properties inhere; that which is real, in distinction from that which is apparent; the abiding part of any existence, in distinction from any accident; that which constitutes anything what it is; real or existing essence.

Cathexis is a Freudian term referring to the process of investment of emotional energy to an idea, object or a person. Although I’m not a big fan of Freud (and who is?), I do think that he is onto something with this particular concept. People do, more or less consciously, invest serious amounts of time in contemplating about their favorite thoughts. Whether they are about ideas, physical objects or persons is really irrelevant.. you become more and more emotionally attached to your “pet thought” as you pet it by thinking about it. This is a mental mechanism that enables advertising to work so well. It enables products to be sold for much higher exchange value than their actual use value is. A beauty product is not only some cheap mixture of chemicals in a jar, but a symbolic vessel of an entire lifestyle carefully constructed by the manufacturer and the marketer of the product. A heirloom signet ring of a family is a circular, metallic concentration of generations of memories and traditions. A special photograph or a letter can be the most valued possession of a millionaire. Emotionally speaking, objects like this are worth thousands of times more than a seemingly similar, but a “non-authentic” e.g. copied or pirated object. Even if it has the exactly same signature, logo or picture on it, a non-authentic object may fail to satisfy the emotional desires of the observer.

As technology proceeds and memories are more and more frequently stored in digital form, an interesting dilemma with emotional attachment is bound to emerge. When a particularly meaningful photograph is originally stored only as a digital file only, are the identical, bit-for-bit copies indeed as good as the original? Will people store and cherish old e-mails, screen shots, text messages and chat transcripts with as much care as people used to store their love letters? How about the cloning of pets and, who knows, perhaps even children in the future? The insurance companies sure are careful to include a clause to not compensate for the “emotional value” of anything.

Cathexis is often a pro-active process. An individual’s hopes are sometimes projected and concentrated onto a single target. It might be their family or a business venture or a piece of art they are creating. The more time we spend thinking about a single subject, the more dependant we become on it. In the film Citizen Kane, the word Rosebud written on a sled is a token for poor, but happy childhood. It is sometimes worth to stop and think over what are the most valuable Rosebuds in one’s own life. They are often much more vulnerable and fragile than you might initially think. If you do not prepare for it, suddenly you realize that you’ve lost some of them only when it’s too late. A loss of inspiration or dignity can be just as devastating as a loss of a friend or, to some extent, even health. To quote another great film, Fight Club…

You’re not how much money you’ve got in the bank. You’re not your job. You’re not your family, and you’re not who you tell yourself. You’re not your name. You’re not your problems. You’re not your age. You are not your hopes. You will not be saved. We are all going to die, someday.

Some time ago I started a series of entries called Where are they now? with a little blurb about Paul Hardcastle

Here comes the part two… drum roll..

Where are they now?
Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova was born to a peasant family in the Yaroslavl’ region of the former USSR in 1937. Yaroslavl is now a part of Russia.

Soon after starting work in a textile mill at the age of 18, Valentina joined an amateur parachuting club. She was a hard worker. Later, at the age of 24, she applied to become a cosmonaut. Just earlier that year, 1961, the Soviet space program began to consider sending women into space. The Soviets were looking for another “first” at which to beat the United States.

As per the paranoia of the time, the entire program was shrouded in secrecy. When she left for training, Tereshkova reportedly told her mother she was going to a training camp for an elite skydiving team. It wasn’t until the flight was announced on the radio that her mother learned the truth. The identities of the other women in the cosmonaut program were not revealed until the late 1980s. Valentina Tereshkova was the only one of the group to go into space.

According to the about.com article she became a rather influential figure in the politics. She was a member of the parliament and the president of the Women’s Committee. In recent years, she has lead a quiet life in Moscow.

She was awarded the Greatest Woman Achiever of the Century award in 2000.

More information available in Wikipedia

The summer is nearing it’s end and I have crawled back to my keyboard, so I guess it’s time to restart this blog.

In the latest edition of my “Where are they now?” series, please let me introduce… The American Bison!

Pleistocene Park

Pleistocene Park in the Sakha Republic in northern Siberia is an attempt by Russian researcher Sergey Zimov to reproduce the ecosystem that flourished during the last ice age, with hopes to back his theory that hunting, and not climate change, destroyed the wildlife.

Russian scientists are restoring the old ecosystem with plants and animals that thrived in the region 10,000 years ago. Japanese and Russian scientists hope to clone woolly mammoths, and to re-introduce them to the park. However, they have yet to find intact mammoth DNA to use for cloning.

So far, the scientific crew has successfully introduced reindeer, moose, musk oxen and yakut horses to the region, and the introduction of American bisons (instead of the extinct steppe bisons) is ongoing. Future introductions include saiga antelopes, yaks and siberian tigers.

Pleistocene Park is a 160 km2 scientific nature reserve (zakaznik), owned and administered by a non-profit corporation, Pleistocene Park Association, consisting of the ecologists from the Northeast Science Station in Chersky and the Grassland Institute in Yakutsk. The reserve is surrounded by a 600 km2 buffer zone that will be added to the park by the regional government, once animals have successfully established.

When general Yi Song-Gye overthrew the Goryeo (Koryö) dynasty in 1392, he transferred the capital from Gaeseong to Hanyang (Seoul) and had a defensive wall built around the city. It was finished in 1398 after three years of work. In keeping with East Asian precedent there was a gate at each of the four approaches to the city: north, south, east, and west. Of the original four, the south gate is the best preserved, dating from 1447. Since goods used to flow into the city through here, a bustling market grew up along the adjacent street. Though the walls have vanished, the market remains, and is larger than ever.

The wooden part of the gate was destroyed by fire on February 10, 2008. According to some witnesses, the fire was incendiary. The identity of the arsonist is not yet known, but a taxi driver in the area observed a male approximately 50 years of age climb to the second floor with a lighted bag and run from the area.

Stonehenge, Statue of Liberty, the pyramids of Gaza… national monuments around the world have incredibly powerful symbolic value. That’s why they are often blown up in epic action movies.

My condolences to the Korean people. This was indeed a very regrettable incident.

Музей советских игровых автоматов

There are moments when you want to come back in the childhood for a short while, because there were so many interesting things that remember cordially till now. From our Soviet childhood they are Souzmultfilm’s cartoons, Olympic Bear, planetarium, Sportloto lottery, football at the yard. They are pioneer camps at the Black Sea, horn sounds, walking-tours and songs near the campfire. They are walks with parents and friends at the Parks of Culture with ice-cream, fizzy drink and candy floss, and more — Arcade Games.

Arcade Games were a part of childhood and youth of soviet people. They were made at the secret military factories from the seventies up to the Perestroika. Forgotten and broken down Soviet-era arcade games are being restored for Moscow’s newest museum and now it is possible to play and feel atmosphere of the passed epoch.

Around 20 of the 37 different kinds of machines are now in working order. They operate with old Soviet 15 kopek coins, the hammer-and-sickle emblem of which itself conjures up a bygone time. Visitors can try their luck with games like ’Sea Battle’, where the player looks through a periscope and pretends to be a submarine commander, attempting to torpedo passing ships. In ’Tankodrom’ the player tries to knock out rocket launchers and jeeps with a small plastic tank. The museum also features Soviet pinball tables, ice-hockey games for two and four players, a target shooting game called ’Sniper’ and early video games with titles like ’Gorodki’ and ’Skachki’ (’horse race’).

Welcome to play, discover and enjoy!

Address of the Museum: 7-aya Parkovaya street, 9/26, Moscow State Technical University “MAMI”, el metro Pervomayskaya

This is like an alternate universe of video game history. One in which Space Invaders, Pacman and Donkey Kong didn’t exist.

Comrades, take good care of those treasures… I’ll come over and visit you one day.

Sir Edmund was apparently so shy that he even proposed to his wife with a message via her mother.

In the years that followed his famous ascent, he shunned the celebrity that had become his overnight.

On the 50th anniversary of his achievement, he even turned down an invitation from the Queen, so that he could instead travel to Kathmandu to be with lifelong Sherpa friends.

He was made an honorary Nepalese citizen in 2003.

Sir Edmund was far happier exploring.

During the next two decades, he led expeditions to the South Pole, searched for the fabled Yeti, and completed six Himalayan ascents.

And he became increasingly concerned by the plight of the Sherpa people he had met on his expeditions.

He spent two years as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India, and founded the Himalayan Trust in 1964, which helped establish clinics, hospitals and nearly 30 schools.

It also supported the construction of two airstrips, bringing in more tourists than Sir Edmund liked.

He continued this work after personal tragedy in 1975, when his wife and daughter died in a plane crash on their way to meet him at a construction site.

Although the explorer was inconsolable for a long time, he found solace in the Nepal landscape and its people.

A man of great virtue… may he rest in peace.

A bit of more of me

David Keith McCallum, Jr. (born September 19, 1933) is a prolific Scottish actor and the son of concertmaster violinist David McCallum, Sr.. He is best known for his role as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, on the popular 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Although McCallum subsequently became a familiar face on television, he was never able to achieve the same level of popular success as he had done with his role as Kuryakin. His best-known roles were in Sapphire and Steel (opposite Joanna Lumley), as the lead in a 1970s remake of The Invisible Man, and as Judas Iscariot in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

In the 1960s, McCallum recorded some albums for Capitol Records with producer David Axelrod, such as Music: A Bit More of Me (1966) and Music: It’s Happening Now! (1967). The most well known of his pieces today is arguably The Edge, which was sampled by Dr. Dre as the intro and riff to the track The Next Episode. There is some controversy over what role McCallum actually played in these recordings, as he did not sing on the tracks (they are instrumentals), nor did he write them.

DJ Majestic Mood played a really nice set a few weeks ago at Palmenhaus. I asked him about a particularly interesting tune and it turned out to be from a weird 60′s album conducted by none other than David McCallum.

I wrote a draft for this entry earlier, but decided to postpone publishing it due to..uhm.. some eBay bidding activity. I am now the proud owner of both of his 60′s vinyl albums. I can’t wait to get back home to listen to them.

As a quick update to our Balkan tour, we’ve succesfully visited Budapest, Ljubljana, Split and the Island of Hvar. On the last night at the island we met an interesting character. He was a local island man, who had studied archeology and came up with the concept of “herbal tourism”. In a word, he was a herbalist. He graciously gave us a whole bunch of wild herbs which he had been collecting earlier that day with a group of Swiss tourists. Sadly, we had to leave for Split and we didn’t have a chance to interview him in more detailed manner. Split was a superb experience as well. Our accommodation was right next to Jupiter’s temple in the Diolectian palace, which is the most active and well preserved site of it’s kind in the world. It is part of the Unesco world heritage program and so is a part of Graz, where we are lodging at the moment.

I’m typing this at the hotel lobby internet terminal while slightly intoxicated, so this will have to do for now. Resuming normal blog update schedule when I’m back in Finland in the beginning of July.

I just found out that Donald Duck magazine is the biggest periodical in Finland. It is read weekly by 1.3 million people in a country with a population of 5 million. In the 90′s a version of the finnish national epic poem – Kalevala – was published in the magazine. Kalevala has had a rather extensive influence on many different fields of art and culture… Beginning with the paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela a century ago and finishing with the lyrics of the modern heavy metal bands, not to speak of all the various contemporary art pieces that deal with the concept of Sampo – a magical mill that perpetually generates three important commodities out of thin air – flour, salt and gold.

During my first years at school, I was immediately casted as Joukahainen (the skinny and impulsive rival of the main character Väinämöinen) to act in the following scene for the school’s end of year party. It was a somewhat traumatic experience to be magically sank into the swamp year after year, but these days I see Kalevala as a great source of inspiration and pride just like it bolstered the self-confidence of a new nation to be 150 years ago. I much prefer a national epic with magic, spirits and interdimensional travel to actual historical stories about kings, monarchies and endless wars with actual neighbouring countries.

I think that there is a tremendous amount of untapped creative potential just waiting to be unleashed in works based on Kalevala.

Kalevala

Vainamoinen chanted and the coat of Joukahainen became a cloud
in the sky. His hat turned to a water lily on the lake, his belt to a
snake among the reeds.

Vainamoinen chanted and Joukahainen sank in the marshy ground,
up to his waist in the swallowing earth.
Cried Joukahainen,

JOUKAHAINEN: (desperately) Reverse your words, undo your spells!
I will give you a hat full of silver, a helmet full of gold!
VAINAMOINEN: (disdainfully) Keep your wealth. My coffers overflow.

He chanted again, and Joukahainen sank to his chest.

JOUKAHAINEN: Reverse your words, undo your spells! I will give
you fields for plowing, meadows for pasture!
VAINAMOINEN: Keep your land. My farm stretches beyond sight.

He chanted again, and Joukahainen sank to his chin.

JOUKAHAINEN: Reverse your words, undo your spells! I will tell
you of the fairest woman, the finest maiden!
Vainamoinen stopped his chant.

JOUKAHAINEN: She is lovely Aino, maiden of Northland, daughter
of age-old Louhi. She’s called a blossom sweet to smell, a fruit ripe
to pluck. Her fame spreads far, the suitors gather. But no proposal
has she smiled on, no suitor given the nod.

Then Vainamoinen chanted again. He reversed his words, undid his
spells. Joukahainen rose from the marshy ground, up from the
swallowing earth.

The cloud became again his coat. The water lily turned back to a
hat, the snake to a belt.

The log became again his sleigh. The boulder turned back to a horse,
the reed to a whip.
The lightning became again his sword. The rainbow turned back to a crossbow,
the hawks to arrows.

The young man wept in shame. The old man raced for home.

The final resting place for Bruce Lee and his son Brandon Lee, photographed by Dwyatt1

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

More quotes by Bruce Lee

Smokey the Bear web site has an inspiring Museum section.

The campaign is the longest running public service campaign in history. Tv infomercials have a long tradition of using motion graphics and animation to convey their message. It is interesting to explore the various visual styles and approaches to the subject over the decades.

The flash intro of the site is a little spooky. As several horror movies have demonstrated to us, you can turn almost anything a little spooky by combining it with a children’s rhyme. The intro reminds me of Twin Peaks and the first poster of the museum reading “Death Rides The Forest”. Quite different from the 70′s Remember, there are babes in the forest poster. The new flash intro is a re-using a visual idea from a 1972 tv spot though.

The TV & Radio section of the museum has radio ads by celebrities and artists such B.B. King, Grateful Dead, Cheech & Chong and Dr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Ripe for sampling.

M.A.NUMMINEN & DJ SANE – THE STORY SO FAR

M.A.Numminen, the legendary figure in Finnish underground (and also popular) music and culture since the 60′s, is known for his need and ability to always move forward and seek new dimensions and ways for expression.

In 2003 he came up with an idea for a new band: M.A.N. Scratch Band, which consisted of keyboardist Pedro Hietanen (his long term accompanion and a member of the legendary prog rockers Wigwam), young jazz cats Olavi Louhivuori (Ilmiliekki Quartet, Oddarrang…) on drums and Lasse Lindgren (Severi Pyysalo Band etc.) on bass and Santeri Vuosara as Dj Sane on turntables. M.A.N. Scratch Band played Numminen’s greatest hits with a groovy, jazzy and sometimes quite strange touch. Sane had a stack of original M.A.N. vinyl records that he used to add scratches and effects on top of the band’s playing.

The friendly neighbourhood club Musik Kiosk had a night of Finnish Tango on Sunday. As a strange conincidence I stumbled upon Myspace page of another Finnish gift to the music lovers of the world… M.A. Numminen. Needless to say, I am not surprised at all that he has recently released an album of poems by Heinrich Heine.

Other recent cultural delights include a Mozart concert at Musik Verein and a visit to the Spanish Riding School. To ensure an overdose of high culture, we booked tickets to Wagner’s last music opera, Parsifal.

Look at those incredible rays of light. What are they? Laser beams from an alien mothership? Angels crying in the heavens above? A photo manipulation study in Photoshop?

They are Peacekeeper multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles with an accuracy of about 90-100 meters. Each individual vehicle would normally carry an atomic warhead that has 25 times the explosive power of Little Boy.

The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, was designed to destroy an entire city even if dropped 10 kilometers from it’s center. Tsar Bomba was tested in Novaya Zemlya in 1961. That’s a couple of thousands of kilometers away from Finland but reportedly some windows were broken here as well.

The MIRVS like the Peacekeepers pictures above are designed to “carpet” an area and to result in greater ground damage.

Containment Policy

The concept of containment springs up from the idea that isolation will lead to stagnation. In earlier times, containment was followed as a tactic, rather than a strategy or a policy. Laying a passive siege to a castle where a powerful or influential lord resided, and cutting off supply lines, was a form of containment. This made the lord helpless, as his tactical ability was limited with only a few soldiers at his command.

The Shroud of Turin: relic, historical artifact, icon or pious fraud?

Proposal to clone DNA:

A secretive group of 13 or 14 Christians called the Second Coming Project propose to obtain a small sample of DNA from the shroud or from a relic that people believe can be traced to Yeshua of Nazareth’s (Jesus Christ’s) body. They propose to clone Yeshua by taking the ovum from a woman, removing her DNA and replacing it with the DNA obtained from a relic. If the fertilized ovum successfully divides, it would be implanted in the womb of a woman and hopefully result in a birth nine months in the future. They targeted 2001-DEC-25 as the date of birth, even though there is a consensus among Christian theologians that Yeshua was born circa 4 to 7 BCE, probably in the fall. There are obstacles to this project. There is no consensus among the scientific and religious communities that Yeshua’s DNA is present on any relic or artifact. There is no assurance that DNA that has been in existence for two millennia can be made to replicate. Bill Merrell, vice president of convention relations for the Southern Baptist Convention, said that this effort is “the height of foolhardiness,” “the highest silliness in the category of neither science nor religion” and “perfectly reprehensible.” The project appears to be founded on the belief that Yeshua is the son of God and that this condition was determined by his DNA. Thus, a cloned version of Yeshua would also have divine status. In essence, they would be creating a God — a fourth member of the Trinity.

2 The project apparently failed, because there was no further information in the media.

I personally believe that cloning and genetic manipulation will be as commonplace as aspirin and band aid within a hundred years or so. That is, if we don’t manage to blow the entire planet up before that.

Space: 1999 Catacombs- Episode Guide

Film Compilations / Film 0 (1976) – 88 minutes

Compiled From:
Breakaway
Ring Around The Moon
Another Time, Another Place

Background

This movie was edited from three episodes to launch the series in Italy. The poster shows astronauts fighting; the spacesuits are white. This scene was not in the movie. It was subsequently released to Italian video.

Music

The title music and incidental themes are by famed composer Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon A Time In America). Most of the music is random tonalities, but it becomes more lyrical during the return to Earth sequences.

Yes, yet another post related to space exploration! It must the Christmas that’s approaching ever so quickly (and those clever Swedes that made it space before us, dammit) that is inducing these fantasies about unexplored frontiers.

I still can’t believe that I missed the Ennio Morricone concert in Hammersmith Apollo while I was practically there… just a few tube stations away. The 50 pound ticket price seemed too steep at the time, but after I saw what eating out and living cost over there, it seems like a bargain now.

He is already 78.. I hope Lady Fate will grant me with one more chance to hear the master before he passes on to the eternal hunting grounds.

Vectrex 1982-1984

The Vectrex was a completely vector graphics based system, hence its name. Vector graphics are the kind of graphics used in such popular games as Asteroids, Battlezone, Space War, and Tempest. Most videogames use raster graphics, which utilize pixels. In this type of display, the beam inside your television or monitor scans across horizontally from the top down, drawing each row of pixels. Vector graphics, on the other hand, draw to exact coordinates – using x/y or “vector” values. Vectors graphics are very sharp and allowed the Vectrex to produce some outstanding visual effects such as scaling and rotation. To produce its special graphics, the Vectrex had its own nine by eleven-inch monochrome monitor (color vectors would have been very difficult and expensive to produce).

The Vectrex had it’s origins at Western Technologies/Smith Engineering, when some of the engineers wanted to find a way to use a bunch of the cheap cathode ray tubes (CRT’s) they had just purchased. An all in one vector gaming system was decided, and the rest is history.

Light pens, 3d goggles with spinning colored discs as accessories. No wonder new games for this system are still being released. Check out the Vectrex game database

I believe the Motorola 68A09 processor used in Vectrex had a floating point performance of about 300 FLOPS. For comparison the PS3 has a theoretical floating point performance of about 2 180 000 000 000 FLOPS (2.18 Teraflops). You could give a Vectrex to every living person on earth to get the same kind of processing power as in a single Playstation 3.

Consider this: A Playstation generation generally has a lifespan of about 10-15 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could give a PS3 to 7000 million persons in year 2030 to get the processing power of a single PS5.

Death Notification

The standard form sent by the British War Office to next of kin to notify them of the death of a member of the army.

My grandfather was killed by an enemy grenade near the end of Winter War. Curiously, my father is also a war veteran. He volunteered to army as a teenager just like one of our former presidents, Mauno Koivisto.

Mauno Koivisto once noted: “”When you have taken part in a game in which your own life is at stake, all other games are small after that experience”.”

Superdollar – Wikipedia entry

A superdollar is an almost perfect counterfeit of a United States banknote believed to be produced in North Korea. The United States government has outlined two reasons behind the North Korean distribution scheme: as a source of income and to undermine the U.S. economy. They have been circulating since the late 1980s.

North Korea calls the accusations “sheer lies” and accuses the U.S. of using the issue as a pretext to war.[1][2] Recently, North Korea accused the CIA of manufacturing the superdollar themselves to undermine the North Korean government.

The notes

The notes are made with the highest quality ink and paper, designed to recreate the various security features of United States currency, such as the red and blue security fibers; the security thread; and the watermark; even experts need to study a note intensively before determining if it is a forgery. Officially they are known as the PN-14342 family, after the classification system the Secret Service uses. The notes are printed using the intaglio and typographic printing processes.

Remember To Live and Die in L.A.? Ahh, I never knew that I would reminisce the 80′s as the good old times. Michael Mann sued the director William Friedkin for plagiarism of Miami Vice, by the way.

Iraq War Photos by David Leeson

Eucharist – Wikipedia entry

The Eucharist or Communion or The Lord’s Supper, is the rite that Christians perform in fulfilment of Jesus’ instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. Jesus gave his disciples bread, saying “This is my body,” and wine, saying “This is my blood.” Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is present. The word “Eucharist” is also applied to the bread and wine consecrated in the course of the rite.

White House apologizes for using ‘crusade’ to describe war on terrorism
Associated Press,
18 September 2001

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush regrets using the word “crusade,” with all its historical connotations of religious war, to describe his campaign against terrorists, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Bush only meant to say that this is a “broad cause” to stamp out terrorism worldwide, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

“I think to the degree that that word has many connotations that would upset many of our partners or anybody else in the world, the president would regret if anything like that was conveyed. But the purpose of his conveying it is in the traditional English sense of the word, it’s a broad cause,” said Fleischer.

Evangelical Christians were one of the biggest backers of Iraq war. Interestingly, there are several thousand muslims serving in the US Army. Some of them have died while serving in Iraq.

There are no winners in any war.

Alex Raymond and Rip Kirby 3

Because Raymond’s death in a car accident came so suddenly, the fateful day has taken on the qualities of myth, of speculation, of a death foretold.  This strip was the last time he would draw Honey and like all of the late strips seems to hint at something deeper.  When John Prentice took over two months later, a post he would have for close to 43 years, the Syndicate told him to copy Raymond exactly so Prentice made sure to let the ink spill beyond the borders. A sad touch, I think.  Raymond’s portrait above was done by Drake in 1979, as part of a series of famous cartoonists and was taken from the photograph that accompanied Raymond’s 1946 King Features biography.  It is included in Alberto’s Glamour International book on Bob Lubbers so perhaps Lubbers owns the original.

For some strange reason the newspaper man has been delivering Helsingin Sanomat every day even though the subscription is only for the weekend issues. It is a traditional and, to be honest, rather high-quality newspaper. It has a sort of monopoly here and the many sections have long traditions.. they have remained relatively unchanged for a long, long time. The comic strip section features Hagar the Horrible and the one and only Rip Kirby. His good manners have been imprinted in the collective subconsciousness of the readers for decades. Rip Kirby is still being published as a re-run of old strips. I’m not a big fan of the strip, but I do appreciate the continuity that his inky and idealistic presence creates in people’s lives.

Subterranea Britannica: Sites: Tower Subway

The Tower Subway consists of an iron tube, 7 feet in diameter and about
1235 feet in length, laid some 18 feet below the bed of the Thames.
It runs between Great Tower Hill on the north side of the river, and
Tooley Street on the south. It belongs to a Limited Liability Company,
and was opened for tramway traffic on the 12th April, 1870. Being a
losing speculation, the tram cars ceased to run on 7th December, 1870;
but it was opened for foot-passengers (toll, one halfpenny) on the 24th
of that month, and the Company have successfully continued it only as
such. It is reached at each end by a spiral staircase of 96 steps. The
Subway is well lighted up with gas, the average heat by the thermometer
being 65 degrees Fahr. Those, however, who are afflicted with chest
complaints should not attempt to make use of it, owing to the extreme
closeness of the atmosphere and the limited space in the tube, which
renders stooping necessary. It is open from 5.30 AM. till midnight.

This week the big news in greater Helsinki area has been the decision to build the extension of the Helsinki subway Westward to Espoo. I searched for a website about the abandonded tube stations in London to illustrate the point that, no matter how modern they may seem at the moment, all subway stations will be abandonded or demolished sooner or later. The best I could find was the description of the Tower Subway in Subterranea Britannica.

However, building a subway to Espoo instead of extending the road network was a major environmental policy decision and I’m really happy for it for many different reasons.

The 9/11 eve tributes have been a big topic in the news recently. I’ve been cleaning up my attic and I found a lot of magazines, vinyl albums and other material from the 80′s. As a little memory exercise, I’ve been trying to figure out what has (and what hasn’t) really changed in the most powerful country in the world. It is the 21st century version of the Roman Empire, so to speak.

Prince – Sign O’ The Times Lyrics

Oh yeah
In France a skinny man
Died of a big disease with a little name
By chance his girlfriend came across a needle
And soon she did the same
At home there are seventeen-year-old boys
And their idea of fun
Is being in a gang called The Disciples
High on crack, totin’ a machine gun

Time, time

Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church
And killed everyone inside
U turn on the telly and every other story
Is tellin’ U somebody died
Sister killed her baby cuz she could afford 2 feed it
And we’re sending people 2 the moon
In September my cousin tried reefer 4 the very first time
Now he’s doing horse, it’s June

Times, times

It’s silly, no?
When a rocket ship explodes
And everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man ain’t happy
Unless a man truly dies
Oh why

Time, time

Baby make a speech, Star Wars fly
Neighbors just shine it on
But if a night falls and a bomb falls
Will anybody see the dawn

Time, times

It’s silly, no?
When a rocket blows
And everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man ain’t happy, truly
Until a man truly dies
Oh why, oh why, Sign O the Times

Time, time

Sign O the Times mess with your mind
Hurry before it’s 2 late
Let’s fall in love, get married, have a baby
We’ll call him Nate… if it’s a boy

Time, time

Time, time

This song was released in 1987. Nintendo had just released the Legend of Zelda. Anti-AIDS drug AZT and anti-depressant Prozac had just been approved by FDA. The first versions of The Simpsons are broadcast as short animated segments on the Tracey Ullman Show. Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded a year earlier, killing seven crew members. The use of the solid version of cocaine, Crack, had reached epidemic proportions. Republican Ronald Reagan was on his second term as the president of USA. He had cut the income tax by 25% and increased the military spending considerably.

This was the time before the Gulf War, 9/11, the suicide bombers, Columbia shuttle explosion, the Columbine school shootings and hurricane Katarina.

When the routine bites hard
And ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high
But emotions won’t grow
And we’re changing our ways,
Taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold
Turned away on your side?
Is my timing that flawed,
Our respect run so dry?
Yet there’s still this appeal
That we’ve kept through our lives
Love, love will tear us apart again

Do you cry out in your sleep
All my failings expose?
Get a taste in my mouth
As desperation takes hold
Is it something so good
Just can’t function no more?
When love, love will tear us apart again

Just heard an excellent bossa nova cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Nouvelle Vague ( iTunes music store link )

She’s joining the formidable ranks of earlier reinterpretators with Paul Young, The Cure, Unbroken, Fall Out Boy, Squarepusher, Swans, Bono, U2 and Jose Gonzalez.

For the record, I confess to be a fan of not only Joy Division, but of all the artists mentioned above. I wonder if it’s a coincidence.

Tho-Radia creme and powder

Some beauty products once assumed that low doses of radiation are good for you

See also Marie Curie and the history of radioactivity

Charisma, Crowd Psychology and Altered States of Consciousness

Of even greater importance is charisma, which stands in absolute contrast to tradition. In its simplest form, charisma is defined by Weber as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (Weber 1978: 242). Individuals possessing charisma are portrayed by Weber as above all else emotional and vitalizing, in complete opposition both to the ennervating authority of the patriarch and the rational efficiency of the technician-bureaucrat. Instead, whatever the charismatic leader says is right not because it makes sense, or because it coincides with what has always been done, but because the leader says it. Orders can therefore be completely whimsical, self-contradictory and even lead to death or destruction for the follower, demonstrating the disciple’s inner emotional compulsion to obey without regard for coherence or consequence.
The extraordinary figures who inspire such unreasoning devotion are imagined by Weber to be, in their typical form, berserk warriors, pirates and demagogues. They reveal their capacities through a highly intensified and emotionally labile state of consciousness that excites and awes the onlookers, and jolts them from the everyday 6.

The primary type, from which the others spring, is the epileptoid magician-shaman who can incorporate the Gods and display divine powers primarily through convulsions, trembling and intense effusions of excitement (Weber 1972: 327, 1978: 401) 7. Through his capacity for epileptoid states, the shaman served both as an exemplar of ecstasy and as the leader in the rituals of communal intoxication and orgy Weber took as the original sacred experience (Weber 1978: 401, 539).

Why should such manifestations of apparent abnormality appeal to an audience? It is not intuitively obvious that a display of epileptoid behavior would be attractive to anyone; in our society quite the contrary is the case. But Weber postulated that extreme emotional states, such as those generated in seizures and other forms of emotionally heightened altered states of consciousness, had a contagious effect, spreading through the audience and infecting its members with corresponding sensations of enhanced emotionality and vitality; these expansive sensation are felt to be emanating from the stimulating individual, who is then attributed with superhuman powers. The charismatic appeal therefore lies precisely in the capacity of a person to display heightened emotionality and in the reciprocal capacity of the audience to imitation and corresponding sensations of altered awareness.

After seeing my friendly little neighbourhood being invaded by tens of thousands of beer wielding devotees, I couldn’t help but to think about the psychology of crowds, swarms, herds and other such groups of living matter. All the mechanisms for behaving in such situations have obviously been hard coded in our genetic heritage for thousands of years. It is exciting to think of our mythical past and try to imagine what mass gatherings have been like before the population explosion, television and urban life.

Charismatic

The term charismatic is also used by certain Christian denominations and movements to indicate that they believe in and practice the spiritual gifts of tongues, prophecy and words of knowledge, as well as other gifts of the Holy Spirit as found in the Bible (I Cor. 12:2- 11; Eph. 4:11-12), without the preeminence of glossolalia and legalism prevalent in Pentecostalism.

Charisma is also commonly referred to in role-playing games, being one of the abilities of a character. Charismatic ability modifies dice rolls concerning communication, persuasion, lying, inspiring trust in others, etc.

Charisma is a difficult thing to define, but one does immediately recognize it upon sight.

Squels of derision rang through the room. “You program a computer?” someone asked incredulously. “Now I’ve heard everything!”

“Enjoy your laugh, beetface,” I thought. “You won’t be chuckling for long.” Little did they know I had MICROSOFT BASIC II, the powerful programming language that uses simple English commands.

I slipped the potent little cartridge into my ATARI Home Computer and closed the door with a confident slap. In a very short time, my friends were astounded at my programming prowess. Information, sounds, colors – even player-missile graphics – leapt across the screen. True, at one point I did have a little bug in a program, but MICROSOFT BASIC IIs debugging features helped me correct it easily. I finished my tour de force by typing in a program written in another computer’s MICROSOFT BASIC dialect.

Oohs and ahs filled the air. “Top Drawer” snapped the Colonel. “What a man,” Mimi cooed. MICROSOFT BASIC II and I had won the day.

EDIT: I can’t believe I managed to write a post without mentioning the all important subject of the week. So here goes: Lordi, Lordi, Lordi.

Right after I graduated from college and realized that some sort of artistic career might be my thing, I applied for a job as an intern at Villealfa film productions. They were a bit suspicious on the phone, but once I told that government would pay hard cold cash to them if they hired me, they invited me over for an interview. Needless to say I never got the job, but it was a valuable lesson in life, as the saying goes.

For a young person it felt a bit like being in a movie by itself. I was asked a single question: “What do you know, son?”. Based on the answer I was told that on location an inexperienced errand boy would be more of a hindrance than an asset.

However, somehow I did manage to create a relatively successful career for myself in the slippery ground between artistic and technical disciplines. Although the appreciation for highly specialized skill sets is becoming more and more prominent every year, I have no regrets in choosing the jack-of-all-trades/master of none career route. There are no hard and fast rules for decisions like this. Often luck plays a major role in determining a person’s eventual profession.

I’m introducing a new series of entries entitled where are they now?

Why? Well, to fill up my other highly unoriginal category of “articles”, the Blast from the past!

Where are they Now?
Paul Hardcastle

If somebody asked me what Paul Hardcastle is doing these days, I’d probably guess that he is a slightly balding DJ at some unknown club in a small british town. Who could have guessed that he has become a highly respected smooth jazz composer and performer. Check out this autobiographical compilation at Amazon.

To refresh your memory on his oddly familiar name, here is a video of his 1985 hit “19″ at Youtube.

To insert some political overtones in this post, may I point your attention to the surprising currentness of the themes in this video.

Ancient Rome: The roman army in ancient Rome.

This new organization of both patricians and plebeians was originally only for military purposes, (that the army might be increased), and the expenses of keeping it more equitably divided among all the people. But gradually, as the influence of the wealthy plebeians began to be felt, the organization was found well adapted for political purposes, and all the people were called together to vote under it. It was called the COMITIA CENTURIATA, i.e. an assembly of centuries. The place of meeting was on the CAMPUS MARTIUS, a plain outside of the city.

In this assembly each century had one vote, and its vote was decided by the majority of its individual voters. The tendency of this system was to give the wealthy the whole power; for since each century represented the same amount of property, the centuries in the upper or richer classes were much smaller than those in the lower or poorer classes, so that a majority of the centuries might represent a small minority of the people. The majority of the wealthy people at Rome were still patricians, so the assembly was virtually controlled by them. In this assembly magistrates were elected, laws made, war declared, and judgment passed in all criminal cases.

The concept of democracy apparently originates from this region of the world. The soldiers were originally voting by raising their spears. Later, a more sophisticated and anonymous system was devised. Soldiers would drop shards of pottery in a jar and the shards would be counted afterwards. No absentee ballots in those days, I guess.

Maori Power – a graffiti in Wellington, NZ

Maori culture – Wikipedia

Certain people and objects contain mana – spiritual power or essence. In earlier times, tribal members of a higher rank would not touch objects which belonged to members of a lower rank. This was considered “pollution” and persons of a lower rank could not touch the belongings of a highborn person without putting themselves at risk of death.

Stanislaw Lem
1921 – 2006

Dylan Thomas: And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Avatars of the Astrological Zodiac – by Patrice Guinard

The appearance of the Zodiac composed of 12 equal signs has been dated from the middle of the 6th century BCE. [2] In his recent work on the birth of astrology in Mesopotamia, Giovanni Pettinato reports the discovery of a tablet from the library of Sippar, unearthed not long ago by Iraqi archeologists: one finds in it, attested at about 600 BCE, a Zodiac divided into twelve sections. [3] The twelve Zodiacal signs of 30 degrees each, delimited on the ecliptic and without reference to the stellar constellations, are quite clearly attested in a tablet dating from 419 BCE. So it was during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE that the reforms of Babylonian astronomical and astrological conceptions of the heavens came into place, and were then passed to the Greeks, who about the same time invented metaphysics.

I don’t believe in astrology, but I find it very interesting how cultural traditions get passed on from generation to generation and sometimes even from civilization to civilization. In 1998 I worked on a video representation of the world view of the Assyrians with professor Simo Parpola and learned quite a lot about this fascinating era. After some digging in my archives I found a couple of images from that video. The picture on the right is probably the King or one of the Gods (which was almost the same thing during those days, since King was seen as the earthly representative of the Gods). Some people are even claiming that the Zodiac originates from the Babylonians or the Assyrians all the way back from about 5000 years ago. I’m not sure about that, but astrology itself certainly dates back a long, long time.

The appearance of the Zodiac does not necessarily include the usage of the astrological interpretations later attributed to the twelve Zodiacal signs when the stellar distribution came approximately to correspond to the months of the seasons. As Florisoone notes, quite appropriately: “Contrary to what one might think, the Zodiac was not an invention exclusively inspired by astrology, but also represents one of the first manifestations of the ‘scientific’ spirit and the birth of a true astronomy in Mesopotamia.”

An important difference between scientific practice in those times and the modern world is that the ancient scientists had the luxury of working in a world view that combined religion, science and everything into a single and omnipresent tradition that explained the trajectories of distant stars and the life of little insects with a unified idea about Gods and the way the world simply works. Although many of their scientific concepts were clearly wrong, I do think that many modern cosmologists have a lot to learn from these old traditions. World may have indeed born from an egg.. it’s just up to the scientists to find out what kind of egg it was.

Planeta Burg (Planet of Storms)

Discounting Kosmitchesky Reis (1935) for its heavy socialist-realism and Stalinism, Planeta Burg is the only truly well made and visually exciting Russian space travel film between Aelita (1924) and Solaris (1972), far better than the stodgy version of Efremov’s classic story Tumannost Andromedy (1968). Three spacecraft set out for Venus, two arrive, one commanded by Caotain Masha (Ignatova) which remains in orbit and one that lands on the planet. The rest is a fast-paced adventure story, told with considerable humor, involving volcanic eruptions, giant animals and hostile plants. The sets are stunningly designed with outlandish color schemes rendering the uncanny alienness of the Venusian landscapes as well as the spectacular aspects of space travel itself. The appearance of a Venusian is wisely delayed to the very end, and even then only suggested as being “just like us”. As in all popular space operas, there is a robot (called John) who occasionally goes out of control. Here he is given to talking gibberish and playing forties dance music, a more appropriate musical accompaniment to space fantasies than the monumentally majestic waltz of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The result is the best straightfoward, unpretentious sf space travel movie made in the USSR.

This movie was made in the beginning of 60′s at the Leningrad Studio Of Popular Science Films. I’m not sure why the review talks about great color, since the movie is black and white as far as I know.

For more stills from the film, see this italian site. I wish there was a TV channel that showed only movies like this. That might not be such a bad idea considering that there seems to be an entire industry involved in producing virtual fireplaces.

Discovering Sherlock Holmes – A Community Reading Project From Stanford University

Like the elusive Sherlock Holmes, his most famous creation, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Scientifically educated, he believed in seances and fairies. An advocate for more equitable divorce laws, he believed that women should be denied the vote. A humanist who identified with oppressed peoples, he staunchly defended English colonialism at its most aggressive. He dreamed of being a serious historical novelist, yet he is best remembered for stories that he considered pot-boilers. The product of a pragmatic, fiercely protective mother and a detached dreamer of a father, Conan Doyle became a man with astonishing self-confidence, a tireless self-promoter who also retained some measure of childish innocence throughout his life.

As a teenager, I consumed a fair amount of british literature. For some reason, the detective stories were located closest to the children’s book section and it was convenient for me to upgrade from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The ideals presented in books read during the childhood and teenage years can easily leave a lasting imprint on the moral standards and aesthetics of a person. Still, I think my main source of influence in such matters at that time were high fantasy and science fiction novels.

Stage outfits are a very important part of the Eurovision song contest.

For inspiration, see Museum of Bad Album Covers.

This painting by a child was sold at a Tsunami benefit auction. I think the child was a local survivor.

Incidentally, also Jet Li (who was starring in Fearless) got caught in the wave. Here is his recount of the experience:

Tsunami ordeal

“When I looked back, everything I saw minutes ago was gone. Everything was surrounded by the ocean. The houses collapsed. I continued to run but the water was already up to my mouth,” he said.

Li said he was then faced with the most difficult choice of his life.

“I thought if the water rose another foot, what should I do? I was carrying my daughters and pulling my maid, do I let go or persist?” he said.

“I chose to go forward.”

Li managed to fight his way through the roiling swells back to his hotel, where the guests donned life jackets for fear of additional waves.

The tsunami left at least 82 people dead in the Maldives. Earlier reports said only that Li had suffered minor injuries.

Li has donated the equivalent of about $158,000 to the victims of the disaster, and he said he hopes that people will continue to give money to the relief effort in the coming months.

He also said Dec. 26 was a defining moment in his life, one that served to bolster his courage.

“Some things I dared not do in the past, I am ready to do them now.”

Also, an interesting quote from our presidential candidate Sauli Niinistö :

But the worst criticism there has come from former Finnish Finance Minister Sauli Niinisto, who survived the tsunami on Khao Lak, and has a firsthand survival tale and loads of criticism for his country. Niinisto saved himself and his two sons by clinging to a lamppost for two hours as floodwaters rose beneath him. He later injured his leg while saving a Swedish child from drowning. “I assumed that there would be an emergency meeting by the government within 4-5 hours of the disaster and more officials would be sent to Phuket,” he told a Swedish TV talk show. “After 18 hours, when I got in touch with Bangkok and Phuket, I realized we had not been taken seriously … I was left with the feeling that no one wanted us anywhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tigers recently. I made a New Years resolution to read more books this year. Conveniently I got “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martell as a Christmas present and it was a good start for this project. The actual story is about an Indian boy who gets stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. It was an entertaining and thought-provoking book to read, but the structure was a bit too postmodern for my taste.

I also read “The Spy who came in from the cold” by John Le Carre, a classic spy story from the 70′s. It felt very cinematic. I’m not surprised that they made a movie out of it (starring Richard Burton). Speaking of John Le Carre, I’m glad that Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for Supporting Actress. I hadn’t realized that Constant Gardener was also based on a book by John Le Carre.

Ahh, I almost forgot what inspired to write this entry. It was the old news story about the Sigfried & Roy tiger attack in Las Vegas. I think there is a lesson to be learned there. You can never truly tame a tiger.

Volkswagenbus History

At Wednesday 23rd of April has Ben Pon at meeting with the British. He talks through his ideas about the import of Volkswagens in the Netherlands. But this a special day, as he does something else. He takes his notebook and he makes a drawing of a oblong transport vehicle. As matter of fact it is not more then a soapbox on wheels, in front, the cab and in the back, the engine. How his conversation ends with the British nobody knows. But one thing is for sure. For his time, 1947, his idea is revolutionary. It is brilliantly simple, a large cargo space in a small area. According to Pon, the vehicle has a weight of 750 kilos and the with the cargo being easily 750 kilos as well. Pon’s based his design on the so-called Plattenwagen. A primitive vehicle, the Plattenwagen looks like a push bike with a Moped engine. The Volkswagen engineers had designed it for internal factory transportation at the Volkswagen plant. Like the Plattenwagen his design must be built on the chassis of a beetle.

The VW minibus became the vehicle of choice for nomadic lifestyle lovers such as surfers and hippies.

Volkswagen already resurrected the beetle. They might do the same thing with the minibus. The new version is called Microbus. It’s been around for several years as a concept car, but I have a feeling that it will never go into serial production.

It doesn’t have quite the charm of old hippie mobiles. Kudos for the solar panels in this particular lovebus.

TV ACRES: Admascots – Miss Chiquita Banana

Miss Chiquita Banana – Female banana character (first drawn by artist Dik Browne) who wore a headdress of fruit and sang the trademark Chiquita Banana song (voice first provided by singer Patti Clayton) that began “Hello Amigo…I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say/You eat the banana in a special way/And when it’s fleck with brown and has a golden hue/That’s when bananas are the best for you….” (Music (c) 1945 Shawnee Press Inc.) The Chiquita Banana jingle was created in 1944 for the United Fruit Company by a BBDO advertising team headed by Robert Foreman.

While trying to find out if the recent Chiquita “Rain Forest Alliance” campaign is just a case of greenwashing, I found this interesting database of advertising mascots.

I recognized only some of them including the Marlboro man, Ronald McDonald and Quaker Oats Man.

Tangerine Dream

When TD’s first album, Electronic Meditation, was recorded, there was virtually no electronic music equipment available at all. How did the group manage to create the sounds?

The recording process was rather exotic and had very little to do with the actual generation of electronic sounds. Sounds were made by using everyday objects, such as a sieve filled with dried peas, an old office calculator, 2 old iron bars and parchment paper. These were recorded with a microphone and then run through reverbs and delays to create unusual sounds. The results were not always very tonal and miles apart from a commercial pop sound. Furthermore, the studio equipment they had at their disposal was by best means very sparse. As they did not have a lot of money, everything was recorded directly onto a Revox 1/4″ tape machine. It was rather rough and adventurous and the band would have hardly dreamed that anyone would have liked to release this album. But… fortunately, history proved them wrong

As a teenage computer geek in the mid 80′s I was obviously fascinated with the electronic music scene as well. From my point of view, synthesizers were every bit as cool as electric guitars. I had a friend at school who played the flute and introduced me to some of the synth artists of the time. Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, Jarre and Vangelis had already been around for some time and their albums were relatively easy to find in local record shops.

Last summer, I scavenged a couple of “Neue Heimat” series of new electronic music collection CDs from Berlin and I’ve been listening to them every now and then. Today I decided to find out if Tangerine Dream is still around and spent some time reading about their history. I suddenly realized that this type of music and creative energy has been around in Germany for decades and the modern electronic music scene is, in a sense, really a continuation of the same german underground love affair with electronic instruments.