MOOCing around

I'm going to be posting my assignments from different MOOCs that I'm doing. Feel free to comment, share and take anything you like.

[moocing-around]

Two Olympic Dreams

At the opening ceremony of the ancient Olympic games, all the athletes, trainers, guardians and judges participating in the games that year, were required to be present at the Council House to swear the Olympic oath before the statue of Zeus Horkios. The priests sacrificed a wild boar (Hus in Greek) on which flesh the participants were required to swear the oath. It was a solemn religious ritual.[i]

Other events also happened during the first day of the ancient Olympic games, like a contest for heralds and trumpeters introduced in 396BC[ii] or the short sprint, wrestling and boxing completion for boys that took place in the Stadium[iii].

As you can see none of this events happening during the first day of the games had an especial moment for lighting the Olympic fire. In fact, the sacred fire of Hestia, virgin goddess of the fire burning on the heart, kept burning nigh and day in a special chamber at the Prytaneion. The sacred flame was used to light other fires but there was no fanfare when this happened.[iv]

According to the IOC: “In the context of the modern Games, the Olympic flame is a manifestation of the positive values that Man has always associated with the symbolism of fire. The purity of the flame is guaranteed by the special way of lighting it - the sun’s rays.

The choice of Olympia as a departure point emphasizes the link between the Ancient and Modern Games and underlines the profound connection between these two events.” Nowadays, the fire has lost its religious symbolism, but the essence remains the same.

The modern use of the Olympic flame began in the Amsterdam 1928 summer Olympics when an employee of the Electric Utility of Amsterdam lit the fire in a cauldron. The initial lighting of the flame in Olympia and the first torch relay took place in the lead-up to the Berlin 1936 summer games.

The original suggestion of Theodore Lewald stated: “A torch is lit at Olympia in Greece, the home of the Ancient Olympics, and then carried by relay to the host city. The last runner, carrying the torch, runs into the main stadium at the time of the Opening Ceremony. The Olympic flame is then lit and allowed to burn throughout the Games until it is extinguished during the Closing Ceremony”[v].

As you can see, not much has change since 1936. The highlight of the opening ceremony of the Olympics is the entrance of the Olympic flame into the stadium. How it does it, how it reaches the cauldron and with whom is kept secret to create a “wow moment” when it happens in front of a global audience.

The lighting of the cauldron during the opening ceremonies of the London 2012 summer Olympics and the Sochi 2014 winter Olympics were so different between each other; that they are worth a deeper analysis.

  The motto of the London 2012 Olympics was “Inspire a generation” and it was very present during the opening ceremony. People were important.

500 men and women build a path for the Olympic torch coming into the stadium in the hands of Steve Redgrave, who handed the torch to seven young athletes, each of one nominated by an older athlete, who jog around the stadium relaying the torch at the rhythm of live music, until they got in front of a group of British Olympic winners from 1948 to 2010, who gave the younger bearers six more torches that they lit with the original torch and the seven athletes jog towards the center of the stadium where 204 petals with the engraved names of the 204 countries participating in the games, were waiting.

The 7 young athletes lit 7 petals and the rest of them start to burn with the sacred fired like a gigantic flower of fire. And like a flower, it was alive, and when all the petals were burning, the flower began to close and formed a single torch with a powerful fire combining the 204 small ones. Symbolizing the unity of all the countries.

The show ended up with a fanfare of fireworks and the image of the Olympic rings live from the International Space Station.

The slogan of the Sochi 2014 Olympics was “Hot.Cool.Yours.” I can relate to two words watching the opening ceremony, and “Yours.” (notice the dot at the end of the word) is not one of them.

The Olympic flame made its appearance into and empty stadium (only some seats were filled with people) in the hands of Maria Sharapova, who handed the torch to Yelena Isinbaeva, who handed the torch to Aleksandr Kareli, who handed the torch to Alina Kabaeva, who handed the torch to Irina Rodnina who run with Vladislav Tretiak to (after handling the torch to him) outside the stadium passing though a corridor made by the people participating in the opening ceremony, arriving to a big empty plaza where the cauldron was waiting to be lit by the two athletes from a platform with a small cauldron that burned and lit a path until heading to the top of a bigger torch where it explode and lit the cauldron.

And so the show off began with a pyrotechnic musical spectacle that lasted for 8 minutes.

Here’s a side note, I found interesting that all the torchbearers inside the stadium were Olympic champions; the first four, summer games but the two in charge of lighting the cauldron, were former winter games champions.

The differences between the two ceremonies were also in the formal aspect.

  In London the producer changed the images constantly creating a live montage to give some dynamism to the even. The were aerial shots to show the venue, general shots inside the stadium were you could see how packed with people it was, medium shots to the torchbearers and detail shots of the sacred fire and the face of the athletes. Also the children singing, the band playing… Even there was a shot from inside the flower/cauldron while it was closing to see the fire with an inside perspective.

In most of the shots you saw people, even at the end, while the firework show was taking place, the producer mixed the images with some epic moments from the past Olympic games like Usain Bolt winning the 100 meters in Beijing or Jesse Owen’s running in Berlin 1936.

  In Sochi, the entire relay and cauldron lit part was a single sequence shot following the torchbearers using the same technique. First a medium frontal shot of the athlete, then a closer look the face, moving to the torch and the fire and then travelling out to follow the subject from behind. Shots were very close and not a single one showed the audience or someone else beside the athletes.

When Irina Rodnina and Vladislav Tretiak left the stadium, there was a shot general shot from outside showing them coming out and then the image went back to back until they arrive to the cauldron, and lit it. There, a crane followed the fire on its way to the top and then the aerial shot began showing the entire Olympic complex and the pyrotechnic show. There was only a single general shot from inside the stadium showing the firecrackers lighting inside.

In my humble opinion, the host city/country of the Olympic games uses the event as a show off to the world. Both London and the Russian Federation did, but in a way, the London opening ceremony produced by Danny Boyle, made me feel more welcomed and a part of the show even tough I was watching it on a flat screen in the apartment of a friend in Madrid, Spain, having hummus and pizza. I didn’t feel that connection with the Sochi show. And ok, you can say that the Olympic flame wasn’t visible from outside the stadium during the London Games and you would be partially right (there were screens showing live footage of flame)[vi], but I still get goose bumps when I see the lighting of the cauldron footage.

  Let’s hope Rio 2016 summer Olympics have Pierre de Coubertin’s in mind, because like he said: “The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”[vii]

[i] Neil Faulkner 2012, A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics, location 3273 on Kindle.

[ii] Finley and Pleket 1976, 43– 4; Miller 2004a, 84– 5, 121

[iii] Miller 2004a, 46; Swaddling 2008, 53

[iv] Yalouris and Yalouris 1998, 14; Miller 2004a, 87; Swaddling 2008, 25

[v] http://www.casey.vic.gov.au/council/our-city/history/edwin-flack/olympic-game-history

[vi] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19045915

[vii] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pierredeco140508.html

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Intercultural Relations: Spain and Russia

If I start looking to the recent history of my country and compare it to the recent history of Russia, I won't see many similarities. 

I live in Madrid, the capital of Spain and grew up in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. From 1939 to 1975, my country was ruled by a fascistdictator and after his dead a new democratic system was rolled out gradually until 1977, as a result of this, Spain joined NATO in 1982 and theEuropean Community (now European Union). The world economic crisis that occurred during the 1990’s had its effects in Spain after 1992, the year of the Barcelona Olympic Games and the Seville Expo ‘92, two events that revitalize Spain’s economy for a short period of time. But the particular case of Russia with its wild neoliberal experiment that ended up in a deep financial crisis for the country in 1998, shook world markets and helped Vladimir Putin to become the President of Russia, did not have any important consequence in Spain.

I started this MOOC not only because I wanted to know a little bit more about Russians and Russia, but also because the Spanish company where I work is going to open its first international retail stores in Russia and they wanted me to go there and teach the new staff. When they made the offer, the HR person said that Russia’s retail working market is so good that people are changing from one company to another very frequently and I had to be ready to explain the same things over and over again, creating different teams in a short period of time.

In the end, the company did not send me to Russia, but this course has helped me identify some cultural gaps that a friend of mine living in Moscow had when she moved from Madrid. The first one been drawn as a cartoon on slide 97 of week 2 presentation. In my friend’s experience, she had to start a new life in Moscow, opening new bank account, renting an apartment… And she always encounter the same problem, people were doing so many things at the same time, that they actually needed to stop from time to time to gather their thoughts up and start all over, also, they measured time in a different way, being always on time while in a formal meeting but not achieving the marked goals for when they were set, something that my friend found very annoying at first, but after 5 years, she’s now used to it.

She has also told me that Russian men are real gentlemen. She was on a date with one and he acted charmingly all night long, opening the car door, paying for everything… And when she offered to pay a drink, he refused saying that she wasn’t suppose to do it, something that she didn’t like, because she is used to Spanish guys who are polite in a date, but won’t mind to share the check if the woman offers.

One curious similarity that I found between old Russians and Spaniards woman is the way they violate the usage of the politeness strategy. Like stated on the second slide of week 4, Spanish old ladies also comment to estrangers how to dress their kids or comb their hair.  This is something that happens in neighborhoods of big cities or in towns, but still happens today in Spain.

I’m sure you have you own stereotypes about Spaniards. Many of my international friends think of us like happy, passionate, party people and in a way, it is true.

In Spain, Russian men are seen like vodka drinkers, ex-KGB spies, mafia lords and Russian women like hot blonde, hollow women, ready to give pleasure to a man. I don’t like to use stereotypes when I meet someone from another country, because in my experience, they don’t work.

I used to have a female coworker raised in Spain but with Russian origins. She was a hard working beautiful brunet woman, very opinionated and sincere that when she smiled our laugh, you knew that she wasn’t faking it.

People in Spain need to wear off these stereotypes since big-spending Russian tourists are flocking to Spain, many of them buying new propertiesalong the Mediterranean coast and we are going to meet many more of them as time progresses. The sooner we get to know each other, the sooner we can start to build a long-lasting relationship.

In order to achieve this, Spain needs to know Russia more. We need to stop being influenced by old Hollywood stereotypes and start creating new connections with activities like festivals, fairs and events like the ones the Chinese or the Indian communities are doing in Madrid. There are only 10 Russian restaurants in Madrid, 71 Indians and 262 Chinese, so I think Russians should consider coping other community’s strategies to open to Spain, while Spain needs to play its part and promote itself in Russia, not only as a touristy destination with good climate but also as a nice place to come to study or start a business.

When we get to know each other, we will learn to respect and accept each other, closing our cultural gap, because in the end, no matter where we come from, we all are humans and one of the key features of our species is our adaptability.

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Zeitgeist of the Modern Olympic Games

The dusk of the 19th Century saw a global development in transportation means from bigger railway systems to faster and better boats. People from that era also enjoyed better communication systems than any human being before them. It al started with the telegraph, then with the telephone and lastly with the radio.

All these inventions and the current political situation with big empires such as the British, the Russian, the Prussian and the Japanese… helped to create a global consciousness where Europe, the Americas and Asia were interconnected, something shown in the International exhibitions, like the one that took place in Paris in 1900.

The dawn of the 20th Century brought new inventions like the cinematographer, with its own language, and new ideas like Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis that marked the beginning of depth psychology.

All these elements were ingredients that made the perfect “Olympic paste” that helped consolidate modern olympism. Now humans were using myths, rituals and religious elements to study the unconscious, while the modern Olympic used the same to acquire transcendence. The media also amplified this transcendence at a time where sports were raising as a mass spectacle where people was able to see the athletes or hear the matches without being there thanks to the photographic camera, the radio and the cinematographer.

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Conflict Resolution and Mediation

Considering the current status of Palestine as a ‘Non-Member Observer State’ in the UN since November 29 2012, I am going to talk about the long lasting conflict between the States of Palestine and Israel.

 The origin of the conflict is not new. It all began in a theoretical way when Theodor Herzl wrote the book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896) creating the political movement of Zionism. In his book, Herzl says: “Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency”. So the Aliot began and with it, the 25,900 square kilometers that comprise the “Holy Land” became more and more populated with Jewish immigrants, sometimes legally and other times illegally (Aliyah Bet) when the British – administrators of Palestine after the First World War- limited Jewish immigration imposing quotas.

  In May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, the following day, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq entered what had been British Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that ended up in 1949 with the division of the land into three parts: The State of Israel, the West Bank (under now Jordan control) and the Gaza Strip (under Egypt control). That’s why is know in Arabic as "The Catastrophe" and in Hebrew as "War of Liberation".

  After many other wars and through the course of the 20th and 21st Century, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip regained its own control by a Palestinian Authority and as I stated at the beginning, now is a Non-Member Observer State in the United Nations, but that doesn’t mean that the conflict is over, in fact, is far from it. Israel has control over the Western Part of the city of Jerusalem and claims that it is its capital city, something not accepted by all countries. Also many Jewish settlements have been built up in parts of the West Bank, most of them are considered illegal, even by Israeli authorities, but little is done to stop them. And the latest part on this ongoing conflict is the building of a wall to “ (...) prevent Palestinian would-be suicide bombers from entering Israel and attacking Israeli civilians, as has happened many times during the Palestinian intifada”.

 As Joel Beining and Lisa Hajjar splendidly puts it: “The competing claims to the territory are not reconcilable if one group exercises exclusive political control over all of it. Jewish claims to this land are based on the biblical promise to Abraham and his descendants, on the fact that the land was the historical site of the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea, and on Jews’ need for a haven from European anti-Semitism. Palestinian Arab claims to the land are based on their continuous residence in the country for hundreds of years and the fact that they represented the demographic majority until 1948. They reject the notion that a biblical-era kingdom constitutes the basis for a valid modern claim. If Arabs engage the biblical argument at all, they maintain that since Abraham’s son Ishmael is the forefather of the Arabs, then God’s promise of the land to the children of Abraham includes Arabs as well. They do not believe that they should forfeit their land to compensate Jews for Europe’s crimes against Jews.”[i]

  To put it in a sentence: both parts want the control of the same territory.

And that is their BATNA, although, both parties will try to achieve it in different ways: Israel will continue occupying Palestinian territory and Palestine will continue with its intifada.

  I particularly believe that the bargain space is very small between both parties. The Palestinians can offer a terrorist’s attacks cease and the Israelis can giveback Palestinian prisoners and respect the borders of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

  At this point in time I believe that the only possible solution would be the creation of two independent states in a confederation where they share an economic zone with open borders to work, just like John Bell puts it in this article. It will be a reasonable solution to the Jerusalem problem as well as the refugees and the settlements situation.

  Achieving this won’t be easy, many mediations strategies and international mediators try to give a viable solution to this problem and none have fully succeed. I would choose to use a dual strategy of facilitation and persuasion using the best of both methods. Like giving the previous-mentioned project well studied and creating a framework where both parts can talk about it. In fact - I know this is not a diplomatic solution- I will use a bit of ‘mediation with muscle’ -taking the name literally-, and won’t let them leave the negotiation table until they finally come to an agreement for the sake of the people living in the region.

 There are too many variables to consider, for instance, Israel can’t stand Hamas, and they are the ruling party in the Gaza Strip. Even there are tensions between Fatah (the rulers of the Palestinian National Authority) and Hamas; but all of their differences should stay aside if everyone wants a peaceful future.

  Mediation and conflict resolution tools are useful for this particular problem, giving new perspectives, projects and a broaden sight could help, also it can contribute to ease tensions during negotiations, but in the end, the final solution should come from the Israelis and Palestinians because, after all, they are the ones living the conflict and as an European who’s visited the West Bank and Israel, that is not a way to live.

[i] Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar, 2014, Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict - A Primer, Page 1

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1 hour to make lava

It took me almost and hour to cook this deliciously sweet basaltic-like lava that ended up cooling in a pāhoehoe shape.

I had some problems with the temperature because I use a vitroceramic and the heat is not constant but after a while I started to feel the resistance of the water vapor trying to scrape forming small bubbles at first and then bigger bubbles that blew up at the top of the mixture while I was stirring.

Here are some pictures to sum up my experience:

Minute 0

Minute 16

Minute 22

Minute 37

Minute 50

If you also want to make this sweet experiment, you have to follow Professor Stix's aunt, Nancy Lazarus recipe. 

You are going to need:

Stopwatch or clock 1 saucepan 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 1 heaping tablespoon cocoa 1 glass of cold water 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

What do you have to do:

Step 1: Mix the sugar, milk and cocoa together in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat while stirring continuously.

Step 2: Reduce heat to medium. From this point onwards, monitor the time using a clock or stopwatch and set time as 0 minutes.

Step 3: Keep stirring continuously during the experiment. If you do not, the sauce will either burn or not work.

Step 4: At 2-3 minute intervals, apply the two methods below for checking viscosity.

Step 5: The chocolate sauce is ready when drops remain intact in the cold water, but cook the sauce for 1-2 minutes longer.

Step 6: Turn off heat. Add butter and stir until it is mixed in and then add in vanilla extract.

Step 7: If you have a sweet tooth, it is a good idea to have some vanilla ice cream on hand with which to enjoy the chocolate sauce!

To check the viscosity

Method #1: Periodically put a drop of sauce into the glass of cold water and observe changes in the consistency of the sauce.

Method #2: Carefully tilt the pan to one side to observe the flow and movement of the sauce.

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How could the EU be more Democratic?

The word “democracy” comes from the Greek word dēmokratia, coming from dēmos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule.’

If we take a closer look to whom the ancient Greeks consider ‘the people’ we'd be shocked to discover that they were only talking about free citizens of the polis (city-state) and those were only the free men.

For the ancient Athenians the voting process also differed to what we do now. Most of our democracies are representative – we choose politician to rule for us in an election. In Athens, sortation was the primary method for appointing officials, something more democratic than elections according to Plato, who said in his Republic VIII, 557a: “Democracy arises after the poor are victorious over their adversaries, some of whom they kill and others of whom they exile, then they share out equally with the rest of the population political offices and burdens; and in this regime public offices are usually allocated by lot.”

Ostracism was also designed as a safeguard for protecting democracy voting a person becoming too personally powerful or who threatened the position of those who already had great influence. Citizens would vote using a shard of pottery (ostrakon) writing the name of the person they thought was too influential and if there was a 6000 quorum, that person would be exiled from Athens for ten years.

Coming back to the 21st century, I said before that most of our democracies are representative, but there are some examples of direct and semi-direct systems, like Switzerland where Parliamentary elections are held every four years but citizens are also asked to vote on particular issues three or four times a year at a canton, commune and federal level.

Many people like Catherine Benning and myself believe that this is the perfect system for the European Union. Instead of having the European Council Reading the Commission proposals accepted with amendments by the Parliament[i], I would take these proposals and summit them to a referendum at a European level, where all the citizens would be able to choose whether if they like the proposal or not if it meets the quorum.

In order to make this system more successful and available to the European people, I would also mirror Estonia’s I-voting system. A system that has proven to be successful and transparent enough that makes me think that it is the kick in the butt that Europe’s Democratic deficit needs.

Sure Estonia is a small country and some may argue that Europe is an aging continent, but if we take a closer look to the statistics, we’ll see that people age between 25 to 54 years old are 41.3% of the total population of the Baltic nation. If we compare that number to –let’s say- the one for Spain, the percentage raises to 46.2 and the same can be said to other countries from the area so an aging Europe is not an excuse to use when we are talking about Internet voting.

Another factor that needs to change to make a more democratic Europe is the focus of eurodeputies candidates during election times. Most campaigns talk about regional problems that candidates will take to the European Parliament to take care of instead of talking about problems that affect the whole of the European Union. This is a problem because it doesn’t let people think with a wider view and let to many deputies wanting different things for each individual country instead of moving forward as the Union that we are suppose to be making harder to create new policies and damaging the image of the entire democratic system where people say that eurodeputies don't do what they promised they were going to do.

I believe in Europe I want a bigger and stronger Europe and in order to do that we need European people to be an active part of Europe. Like anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: “Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

[i] https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/europe/lecture_slides/Week4-Video5-OrdinaryProcedure-Print.pdf

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The EU paradox

I believe in the EU.

I know, this is a strong statement, but it is true. The first time I thought about it was when I was a 12 year old crossing the border between my home country (Spain) and Portugal in 1998 and not needing to show my passport or any kind of documentation to visit the World Expo taking place in Lisbon.

This feeling kept growing inside of me and my first time voting as an 18-year-old citizen was in a consultative referendum about the European Constitution in 2005.  I voted Yes, like the 77% of the voters in my country, but this referendum has the lowest turnout in the history of our democracy with a mere 42% of the electorate.

After the rejection of the constitution by France and the Netherlands, the project was paralyzed but I still believe in it. I think Europe needs a common body to grow bigger and stronger and that common body could be a constitution.

I want to live in a united Europe, a continent that works more like a country, with all of its wonderful diversity and history.

Setting my feelings aside, I can say that I’m a weirdo.  The image of the European Union is in a negative trend with a 28% of the population seeing the Union with a negative image last December and 31% with a Positive Image, rising 13 points and falling 19 points in 7 years respectively.

But not only that, there are countries like the UK who are not where the popularity of far right parties are on the rise. Even the current Prime Minister David Cameron has promised a referendum in leaving the EU if he wins the next election.

Also nearly two-thirds of French people thing the EU is “headed in the wrong direction” and many others are thinking the same.

Now why is this happening? Some say that on of the reasons are the rising unemployment and the troubles of the Eurozone, others say that the “public opinion toward the EU’s institutions can be shaped significantly by the quality of national political institutions within a member state”.

For the average Spaniard, Brussels is a cold and rainy city where there is good beer and chocolate and where a bunch of corrupted politicians are having useless meetings doing what pleases the evil Angela Merkel.

I personally think that one the main reasons why the EU isn’t more popular, is that most people don’t know what the European Union is and what does it do. Also -at least in Spain- there is bad press and low coverage of European affairs giving a strong national view of policies taking place up north.

I'm not going to exhort the Union. People working there are guilty for acting slowly and inefficiently in international events like Syria’s Civil War, or what is going on in Ukraine at the moment and the list goes on.

Another problem I see is that when you try to reach out to any information about the EU on the Internet, most of it is written in a very formal style and in most cases using highly technical language, making it inaccessible for many citizens.

If the European Union really wants to make Europeans engaged in a more active manner, I think they should keep going with their social media effort, with great sites like European Parliament Instagram or Social Europe’s Facebook Page. But they should create more buzz and expectation, in order to hook people using a marketing strategy like Coca Cola or MTV.

As I said at the beginning of this writing, I believe in the EU and I want a bigger and stronger Union with more power. Having said that, I also think that some changes need to be made in the process not only opening up about how things work in Brussels, Luxemburg, Hamburg and Frankfurt (among other places), but also engaging with and including more the most important part of the equation: the citizens.

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Democracy & Peace

For the Hindus, peace is only a momentary state that is going to be followed by destruction, but I believe we need to achieve that peace at some point.

MI know democracy isn't perfect and there’s been wars in democratic societies since the Ancient Greeks, but if I have to choose between military power, free market and democracy to keep peace, I'll choose the latest.

I’m from Spain and I was born in 1986 so luckily, I’ve always known a democratic regime, but that hasn't been always the case in my country. Back in 1936 in the middle of a convulsive republic, a general called Francisco Franco came to the mainland from the Canary Islands with a group of soldiers making a military coup, starting an infamous Civil War that took place for three years, and ended with the creation of a dictatorial state with Francisco Franco at it’s head.

During the dictatorship, Spain was apparently a peaceful country, but in reality, many people died or had to leave the country because of it’s believes and that’s something that I can’t conceive.

My country has risen from the ashes since the death of the dictator and it’s true that some people like my grandfather believe that life was better during Franco’s time, because law was more severe using the paramilitary force of the Civil Guard and the police and there were no large active terrorists groups like ETA but the price to pay for that relative (if you followed the state rules) security was to high in my opinion.

In a democratic society people can share their thoughts freely and without fear making a healthier society and less prone to war or at least less belligerent until they feel that they and their livelihood are undertreated.

I know this is going to sound a bit Martin Luther King Jr.: when I was a kid I had a dream about a united world under a single flag and just one currency, the “mundy”. The reason that made humans come together and forget about their cultural, ethnic and religious differences was the discovery and contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. That single fact made people realize how small we are in the universe and how absurd was to fight for a piece of land or ideology when there’s such a vast universe to explore.

I know this was only the dream of a 12-year-old boy and history has proven that when humans discover new territories, they end up fighting for its control, but who knows, maybe discovering that we are not alone in the universe is the stimulus we need to really become the Human Race.

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Synthesis modules: Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier, Envelope,

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Chorus & Flanger Effects

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Can hegemonic wars be avoided?

Australia is one of the biggest economies in the world, the 10th according to the International Monetary Fund. And according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook 2013, the country has a military expenditure of 1.7% of its GDP, making it the 13th military spender in the world. But if we take a look at Australia’s military history, we see that Australia’s military efforts during the years are basically peacekeeping operations like intervening with UN forces in East Timor or working as an ally of another military power like the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the US, UK and Spain.   

Many analysts like John Blanxland say that the country needs to “rise above its small power pretensions” using “defense diplomacy embracing its middle power status in the region”. This means that the Australian Defence Force should take a look at US Navy-marine methods and prepare for short-notice humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in places like Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia among others. This, can “generate goodwill and enhance regional security and stability” while creating diplomatic bridges, according to Blanxland.

The island state is reportingly incrementing its military air power and shifting its focus to the “military challenges” in the Indo-Pacific region. The new strategy reinforces that the US remains Australia’s closest ally, but also uses a conciliatory tone towards top trading partner China, noting its rising defense capabilities are a natural outcome from its growing economy. It’s also mentioned the importance of the Indian Ocean region with India’s military growth and the shipment of two thirds of global oil through the Indian Ocean.

I think Australia knows where it’s heading with its new defense policy and China relies to heavily on Australian coal and other natural resources to start a war that would destabilized the region.

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Dynamic Processors

Fourth Peer Assignment for Coursera's Course "Introduction to Music Production"

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Starting a project on Adobe Auditions CS6

Second Peer Assignment for Coursera's Course "Introduction to Music Production"

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Automating mixes with envelopes in Adobe Auditions CS6

Third Peer Assignment for Coursera's Course "Introduction to Music Production"

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Microphone Basics

Peer Assigment for Coursera's Course "Introduction to Music Production"

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A century of changes in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans

The conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés in 1524 and Perú by Francisco Pizarro in 1533 meant a great deal for the Spanish crown, all the goods and precious metals brought back to the metropolis triggered a massive craze over the Atlantic and the superpowers of the time, Spain and Portugal started a continental scale invasion in the “New World”. These new lands were conquered by men working for the King, creating transatlantic empires.

Europeans could win this vast amount of land in such a short period of time because when they arrived to the Americas (Indians at the time), they brought with them pathogens to which the Amerindians had no immune response. The final outcome was a profound decimation of the native population (by 1/3 to 1/2) and a fast expansion of the European forces.

There was a small difference between the Spaniards and the Portuguese. While the first tended to use Indians for labor and marry native women creating the “mestizo”. Portuguese didn’t like to mix with the locals and when the first attempts to use natives as workers failed, they looked to the other side of the pond for a new labor force. And so began the Atlantic slave trade[i].

Portuguese sailors weren’t unknown in Africa. Their first conquest in the “dark continent” was in 1445 in the island of Arguin and they kept pushing south creating rich trading posts along the way like Elmina, until entering the Indian Ocean in 1497 by the squadron of Vasco da Gama. This was the first time Europeans entered the Indian Ocean using this route and the Portuguese had to rely on the knowledge of Arabic sailors during their firsts expeditions. By 1510 Portuguese forces had conquered the Indian city port of Goa, by 1511 Malacca and by 1577 Macao. This Portuguese expansion over the Indian Ocean was under king’s command and its only aim was to exploit existing commercial routes. They achieved this introducing the cataz, a naval trade license issued at a low cost granting merchant ships protection against pirates and rival states.

So we can say that for the most part of the 16th century, there were two main national naval forces: the Spaniards and the Portuguese. They founded colonies along both sides of the Atlantic Ocean exploiting their resources but when it came to the Indian Ocean; the Portuguese only conquered city ports and controlled the trade networks, like the silver network from Japan or China’s porcelains and silks sea route throughout Asia and Europe.

In 1571 Spain captured the city port of Manila and inaugurated a trade circuit caring silver from Acapulco to China interconnecting the entire world remembering Fernão de Magalhães and Juan Sevastián El Cano’s 1522 journey.[ii][iii]

In the 1580s and 1590s the Mughals ended the Portuguese monopoly on trade with Europe by allowing Dutch and English merchantmen to dock in Indian ports. And in 1601, Sir James Lancaster commanded the first East India Company voyage. This company had 101 private subscribers funding and owning shares of capital. It soon won a royal chart that let the company exclusive rights to import East Indian goods, creating what was latter called a Mercantilist system.

The charted company model spread thought Europe, for instance in South East Asia, the impact of the Dutch East India Company was so fierce that they almost wiped out the entire native population of the Spice Islands in order to control the spice trade from the islands and the European price of nutmeg and cloves.

Because European products weren't demanded in Asia, the Dutch had to carry Asian goods to other parts of the continent as a way to reduce money payment. Changing the traditional trading networks and shifting the revenue balance towards Europe.

Something similar occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, where in 1606, the (English) Virginia Company, had the power to appoint the Council, Governor and other officials of the English colony and had the responsibility to provide settlers, supplies and ships.

Or the French Company of One Hundred Associates, established in 1627 to provide transportation, sustenance for the settlers for the first three years, enough cleared land for the support of the settlers, Catholic priests for each community and send 300 colonists per year, guaranteeing 4000 by the end of 1643 in return for the title to all the lands claimed by France in North America, receive a monopoly on all trade transactions and govern the settlements through the church.

So during the 17th Century, the private north European company with a royal grant was the dominant force in both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The only exception was Japan, reaming free of outside exploitation. At the begging Japanese officials welcome Europeans because they wanted their technology, but when Christian’s monks converted too many people and realize that the new religion was intolerant of other faiths, the shoguns prohibited conversion to Christianity and after some protests, European missionaries were drove from the country. Only the Protestant Dutch won permission to remain in Japan, confined to an island close to Nagasaki. But they could only unload just one ship each year under a thorough supervision by Japanese authorities.

Works Cited:

[i] http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces

[ii] http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Fernando+de+Magallanes

[iii] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedici%C3%B3n_de_Magallanes-Elcano

Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World: From 1000 CE to the Present (Third Edition). Third ed. W. W. Norton & Company Inc.- Chapters 12 and 13.

Part IV. The Early Modern Period, 1450-1750: The World Shrinks.

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The Promised Land of the Ibex

If you ever go to Israel, you would probably wonder “Why is this The Promised Land?” When you look at it from Mount Nebo, It is so arid and inhospitable that it is hard to imagine many animals living there.

                                                              View from Mount Nebo.   Original

But they do; Israel and the Palestinian Territories are home to many different animal species like snakes, amphibians, scorpions, birds and mammals. Some of these animals like the Arabian Leopard or the Sand Cat are in high risk of extinction, and others like the Nubian Ibex are very vulnerable to human intrusions and disturbance inside their habitat, among other threats.

This particular species of brown wild goat, with long and curved horned males and short and pointy horned females, is even disturbed around the borders of national parks like the En Avdat National Park in the region of the Negev desert.

The ibexes are wild animals accustomed to human interaction but during the lambing season they become more alert and tend to stray away from people.

According to a paper published in the journal ‘Behavioral Ecology’, these ibexes spend less time feeding in areas near the park where tourists visit more frequently and spend more time being alert while foraging, resulting in eating even less food.

Research carried by Solomon A. Tadesse and Burt P. Kotler considered that ibexes forage in three different areas: cliffs, plateaus and garden habitats. The scientists distributed 4 feeding trays in one particular site of each habitat and measured the amount of food the animal left behind.

                                                               Female Nubian Ibex. Ester Inbar

The experiment revealed that herds were more reluctant to eat in specific patches of terrain during the weekend - when there is  a higher number of tourists - than during weekdays.

But that isn’t all. Ibexes are really good climbers; they spend most of the day on cliffs where they feel safer from predators. But when the tourists were on upslope areas near the ibex,  the animal felt so insecure – most of the predator’s attacks occur from up slope – that there was a significant decrease in the time the animals spend feeding in these areas.

In order to account for this, scientists set 9 feeding trays with a 10 m (roughly 33 ft.) space between them at different places along the slope, measuring the food left by the animals and using direct observation of the animals to quantify their activity while in the surroundings of the feeding trays.

                         Nubian ibex feeding, in habitat. BBC Natural History Unit

Not only did Tadesse and Kotler measure the proportion of time the animals were vigilant depending on the position of the tourists on the cliff, but they also ascertained the proportion of vigilance time depending on the age of the animal.  Adult females were the most vigilant followed by juvenile and sub-adult subjects. 

It’s a good thing to have tourists going to protected areas because their money maintains the park, but they clearly have an impact on the behavior of the animals living there. The ibex’s case isn’t the only one. There are some examples of the decline of bottlenose dolphins that are exposed to long-term human disturbance, and female harp seals spending less time nursing their pups during the whelping season when tourists are present. 

So what should the park authorities do? Should they close off certain areas of the park when the animals are more vulnerable? Should they restrict the number of people who are able to enter the park each day? Should going to visitor’s centers where park rangers taught people how to behave in the park before actually entering it be mandatory?

And what should we – as park visitors- do? Should we be more aware of the presence of wild animals when we are visiting their habitat? Should we change our behavior when we are going to a park, like not wearing any perfume or flashing colors and not smoking?

                                                                Male Nubian ibex. Yossi Eshbol

One thing is certain; as the researchers point out in their paper: using behavioral ecology techniques for conservation programs is something that many parks should consider if they want to obtain useful information that may otherwise be hard to gather.