Delta and the like

Here comes a little story with - probably no morale.
It was two years ago or so when we went for an off-site meeting with my colleagues. And we played laser game. Somehow, during four or five plays I played I always (maybe with one exception, don't remember that well) placed first. Whatever my nick I chose my colleagues eventually called me "Delta". You may guess why. Eventually I had to make a confession to my colleagues after being "interrogated": I had seen "Black Hawk Down" maybe five times or even more (and some specific scenes many more times).


And here is the video which reminded me of this old story.


P.S. The interesting thing is that when we played laser game at grammar school my performance was say average. So either watching the movie made me a real shooter or my colleagues or just loosers ;-) (or something in between).

Here and there - missed things and the hard science of art

So this is my 201st post - sorry, the 200th was just in Czech.
Anyway, I spent the last weekend in Helsinki with ESN Alumni and had a really good time! What made it even better was an exhibition I randomly encountered (thanks to Lucia!): Georg Baselitz - Remix. An artist I missed in Prague - suddenly in my beloved city of Helsinki. This time missing something was not that bad - it just made my stay in Finland better. Perhaps there is some kind of deeper true behind this - missing "deadlines" may enrich you (but don't try that at work).

Back to Baselitz and his work: I really like it. The pics follow the line of expressionism and thus may look like something simple and easy to paint. But I am sure that if you would draw just one line in a different way the whole feeling from every particular painting would be different (the same applies to Jackson Pollock's work). It would be nice to have this kind of statement proved by some kind of "hard science" (neuroscience using MR or something like that). I don't think that would be that difficult. What might be difficult (and pretty interesting) would be to see the brain of an artist when creating such pieces.

200

Vypada to na vytrvalost - neco, co bych u sebe uplne nehledal, ale koneckoncu, je to hlavne zabava: psat a tu a tam u toho i premyslet. A tesit se, sem tam, na nejaky ten komentar.

Takze - dvousty prispevek na blogu (tedy pokud system nelze). Vydrzel jsem psat 4 mesice z Helsinek, tak proc ne.

Prvni prispevek je z 26.9.2006. To je priblizne 4,5 prispevku na mesic.

O cem jsem to vlastne psal (viz stitky vpravo - oznaceni neni 100% konzistentni, ale o necem vypovida)? 62 prispevku obsahuje obrazky, 54 se nejakym zpusobem tyka spolecnosti, 48 jsem z tech ci onech duvodu oznacil jako Metaphysique. 38 je psano v anglictine, 24 se tyka rozumu a 20 jsem oznacil jako Da-da. A 18 se tyka umeni. Vzato kolem a kolem, cele to pusobi jako nejaka kompenzace za praci. Asi jo, proc ne. A nebo je to proste zpusob meho mysleni a pocitu. Asi.

Co me prave ted zajima a o cem bych chtel psat? Aspon jeden delsi citat. Snad bude jasne, co jsem tim chtel rici: "Urcite statistiky se snad nikdy nezmeni: pocet zaku propadajicich na zakladni skole, procento rozvodu, pocet danovych podvodu na pocet obyvatel. Totez platilo i o poctu leteckych nehod zpusobenych chybou pilota. Navzdory rade opatreni v leteckem provozu, od povinneho volna pro piloty az po intezivnejsi vyuku, v celem obdobi od roku 1940 az do roku 1990 procento chyb nechtelo klesat a zustavalo kolem 65 procent nezavisle na tom, o ktere letadlo slo, ci kam letelo. Neprijemny fakt zustaval: vetsina nestesti v letecke preprave byla zpusobena spatnym rozhodnutim v kokpitu.

Ale od pocatku devadesatych let zacal pocet leteckych havarii zpusobenych piloty prudce klesat. Podle nejnovejsich statistik stoji chyba posadky za necelymi 30 procenty vsech leteckych nestesti a nehody vyvolane chybnym rozhodnutim klesly o 71 procent. V dusledku toho je cestovani letadly bezpecnejsi nez kdy jindy. (...) Od roku 2001 doslo v USA pouze k jedne letecke katastrofe, kterou zavinila chyba pilota, prestoze kazdy den v USA startuje tricet tisic letadel. (...) Letove simulatory zpusobily revoluci v treninku pilotu. 'Stara metoda pripravy pilotu byla s kridou u tabule' (...) Nez mohli drive piloti vubec usednout do kokpitu, museli absolvovat spoustu prednasek v ucebnach. Vsechny zakladni manevry potrebne k pilotovani se ucili na zemi. Rovnez se ucili, jak reagovat v pripade ruznych katastrofickych scenaru. Co udelate, kdyz se podvozek nevysune? Nebo kdyz letadlo zasahne blesk. 'Tenhle pristup ma jednu vadu' (...) 'vsechno je to jenom teorie. Pilost se tohle vsechno naucil, ane nidky si to nevyzkousel'. (...)

Blahodarne pusobeni letovych simulatoru spociva v tom, ze piloti maji moznost tyto nove vedomosti prozit. Misto aby se pilot postupy ucil nazpamet, muze trenovat svuj emocni mozek, muze ucit ty casti kury mozkove, ktere ve vzduchu skutecne rozhoduji. Diky tomu, kdyz jsou konfrontovani s nejakou katastrofickou situaci pri skutecnem letu (...) piloti uz vedi co delat. Nemusi marit kriticke minuty tim, ze se snazi vzpomenou si, co se v ucebne ucili." (Lehrer, Jonah: Jak se rozhodujeme, Dokoran, 2009, s.279-280)

Lze argumentovat tim, ze letecka doprava je specificka: urovni sofistikovanosti, nakladnosti a co ja vim cim jeste. Ale nakonec je to jen lidske snazeni - a myslim, ze u kazdeho lidskeho snazeni lze zlepsovat zpusob, jakym se v nich rozhodujeme.

Nadeje existuje.

A abych nezapomnel: rano jdu ke kostelu do Resslovky. Tak si taky vzpomente na ty bajecny kluky!