Why does Sugar Loaf mountain in Rio is called Sugar Loaf

Sugar crystals were clumped together and were removed from the molds into blocks that had taken the geometry form of these metal molds

The Portuguese who arrived in Brazil in the sixteenth century, believed that the hill Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro was a piece made ​​by man.

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Legend Says that it was the Father Anchieta himself who gave the name to the hill "sugar loaf" because it seemed like the cones obtained when refining sugar.

The way to produce sugar during the Renaissance was the “purging”, reffering to the old way to purge the sugar, i.e., separating the formed crystals from molasses, operation characteristic of the old sugar mills. In mills, the separation consisted in placing the massecuite obtained in metal pots molds that were shaped like an inverted cone with a lower hole through which the honey was drained by gravity.

Charles Landseer circa 1827 Sugar Loaf view from Silvester Road

To assist purging process it was necessary to keep the sugar with an appropriate degree of humidity, which is managed by placing one or more layers of mud or manure at the top of the mold, which were thoroughly moistened every five or six days. These operations had to be done carefully in order to assure the quality of the final sugar. Once drained molasses, after a period that could reach a month, depending on the weather, the sugar crystals were clumped together and were removed from the molds into blocks that had taken the geometry form of these metal molds. It kept resemblance to the production of bread, which was also baked in molds, and so by analogy, we started to call "sugar loaf" cone of crystals obtained after purging.

Philip-Galle-1537

But the cones were not homogenous in terms of quality of sugar, nor were practical to pack and carry. Thus, once produced, were broken, by taking into account layers lighter and darker, corresponding to a sugar whiter the base of the cone and darker at its apex. This is another reason that it was a conical mold, as the region of the base of the cone, sugar whiter, was much more voluminous than the apex, where sugar was darker. The regions of the cone that had darker sugar were withdrawn through a machete in an operation called "mascavar" and brown sugar was called "muscovado" which also means "broken." The remaining block of white sugar was broken with the aid of cuttings and wood was then placed in boxes for transport.

There were also special sugars, such as the base of the cone, carefully cut with a thickness of a few centimeters, was packed straw or leather, or trim shaped cubes in order to present. Molasses resulting from the purge was sent back to the pots, where during his concentration was beaten with the help of a slotted spoon and sugar originated the "hit", both white and brown sugar. This process is similar to "mixers" the current amorphous sugar refineries. The described methods have been used for hundreds of years, since the advent of sugar production. With the invention of centrifuging as a method for separation of sugar crystals in the first half of the nineteenth century, the system of purging the sugar by gravity employing molds was quickly abandoned and become curious the past, as well as the words which originated these practices.

Our perception of the world

The adage ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ can easily be proven wrong when we realize that our civilization have a higher level of material comfort provided by the latest technologies achievements, our life expectancy is much greater than our ancestors' was, we are traveling all over the world and we are having fun just because our scientists always found pleasure in discovering more and more.

The Simpsons, episode 257 "HOMЯ"Lisa Simpson was proved wrong when put “As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. See, I made a graph.” The Simpsons, episode 257 "HOMЯ"

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So, the key to our development is in the knowledge of the world around us. Each animal on the planet has different tools for these purposes; these "organs of the senses" vary widely from animal to animal and provide them with different interpretations.

How does a one-millimeter worm perceive the world around it?

We know that we have a far better perception of the world around us than a roundworm – the question is – is our senses the best tool to understand the world?

Perhaps strange phenomena such as the manifestation of ghosts, apparition of UFOs and precognition are mere natural events, which our sensory organs together with our brain’s discernment does not allow us to understand.

A dog has no idea of the enormous amount of information that exists in a library and may interpret the shot a shotgun as the "wrath of human gods". And so much for the worm, it does not make the slightest idea of what a bridge is.

Perhaps when we find a far more advanced living being and ask him about ghosts and UFOs, his explanation would be extremely difficult for us to understand. We may have the same difficulty to understand his explanations as a dog trying to learn how to project and build a bridge using advanced software and the utmost technology.

Sebastian Stoskopff, L'été ou Les cinq sens - July 13, 1597 – February 10, 1657).

Human consciousness is still in a stage "experimental" - is a very recent acquisition of nature. Life began on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, but we just achieve consciousness about 6000 years ago (if we take the writing as the first manifestation of consciousness). This is a subject rarely addressed by science, because misoneism makes us seek solace in religion, which gives us a greater sense of comfort.

There is an animal on our planet that can help us better understand how we interact with our universe, in 1963, Sydney Brenner proposed that the small nematode called Caenorhabditis elegans should be considered the perfect model organism for scientific investigation of animal development and behavior. With about 1 mm long, the C elegans are not parasites, they are free-living, spend 14 hours as an embryo, live in soil and feed on bacteria. It is the first multicellular organism for which scientists have been able to sequence its whole genome.

C. elegans has two types of sex: hermaphrodite and male. A hermaphrodite makes sperms when its in a larval stage and makes ova in an adult stage. A male can only make sperm. Males are a little smaller than hermaphrodites.

the range of electromagnetic perception we have is extremely narrow

The perception that a Caenorhabditis elegans has about the world is much simpler than ours. While this worm has only the somatic sensory system, humans have the traditional five senses of Aristotle; we hear from 20hz to 20,000 Hz, we see from 400 to 790 THz (it is imperative to say that the range of electromagnetic perception we have is extremely narrow, see comparison chart above) we have the sense of touch, smell and taste, and some others like nociception (pain); equilibrioception (balance); proprioception and kinaesthesia (joint motion and acceleration); sense of time; thermoception (temperature differences); and possibly an additional weak magnetoception (direction), and we have a very sophisticated brain to analyze all those data.

The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, termed the distal stimulus or distal object. By means of light, sound or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction. This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus. These neural signals are transmitted to the brain and processed. The resulting mental recreation of the distal stimulus is the percept. Perception is sometimes described as the process of constructing mental representations of distal stimuli using the information available in proximal stimuli.

The Caenorhabditis elegans has about 302 neurons in the brain /whole nervous system, with ~ 5,000 synapses. (Humans have about 85,000,000,000 neurons in the brain /whole nervous system, with ~ 10¹⁴-10¹⁵ synapses). The nervous system is by far the most complex organ in C. elegans, almost a third of all the cells in the body (302 out of 959 in the adult hermaphrodite to be precise) are neurons. 20 of these neurons are located inside the pharynx, which has its own nervous system.

C. elegans has no eyes but they are affected by the ultraviolet light by its transparent body, they should react to the radiation in order not to be exposed to it.

More complex animals have intricate perceptual systems that respond to many different features of their environment – insects, despite their impressive eyes, are most sensitive to trails of chemicals; bats are blind to light but responsive to sonar pulses; dogs and pigs depend more on smell than vision for sensing the world.

Non-human animals may possess senses that are absent in humans, such as electroreception and detection of polarized light.

Many animals (salamanders, reptiles, mammals) have a vomeronasal organ that is connected with the mouth cavity. In mammals it is mainly used to detect pheromones to mark their territory, trails, and sexual state. Reptiles like snakes and monitor lizards make extensive use of it as a smelling organ by transferring scent molecules to the vomeronasal organ with the tips of the forked tongue. In mammals, it is often associated with a special behavior called flehmen characterized by uplifting of the lips. The organ is vestigial in humans, because associated neurons have not been found that give any sensory input in humans.

Dogs do not go to libraries to read, worms do not build bridges and the man still believes that many natural phenomena are supernatural. We all have our limitations of perception and consciousness.

  

What should be the next steps in the evolution of humans?

The starting point for assessing what would make us smarter would be by improving our brain. But scientists insist that the size of the birth canal is the factor that ultimately limited brain size. For that I have the appropriate answer:

The same way that organs like the lungs and heart are protected by a bony armor called the ribcage, which is deformed at birth, allowing passage through the birth canal and then returning to normal, the brain could be inside that same structure (if this morphological alteration take place, we would look like Blemyas - lol).

But what benefit would we have if we had a brain bigger? - I believe that the most important modification would be our communicability, since our social need should be greatly increased.

According to Dr. A. K. Pradeep in his book “The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind”, we received a tremendous amount of information in our brains, but we have great difficulty to process it consciously and an even bigger difficulty to communicates them.

Dr. Pradeep says that we receive approximately 11 million bits through our senses, but we only process consciously about 40 bits a second.

And when we have to tell an experience received in our brain, we have to translate this billions of bits into a few words, task extremely synthetic, which allows millions of information to be omitted and also allows noise and communication errors.

So our next step in the evolutionary response would be 'Homo blemmyae'. In his/her large brain would have billions of neuronal transmission and reception organelles, and thus would be able to practice telepathy.

Blemya Talk Show - Maybe monsters like the Blemya make us better understand monsters like the Blemya

Since we can directly interact in the minds of our fellowmen, lack of reliability would be eliminated, the feeling of pain of our mate would affect us directly, thus we would eliminate all the things that can cause suffering on others, such as treason, corruption, etc.. We also should eliminate poverty, indifference, and hunger since we do not want to feel the effects of these ills issued by someone next to us.

This would be called the era of the 'Homo blemmyae collectivum'.

History of Itã – The man from Sambaqui

at the same moment they arrive at the midden, Itã and his party feed on the prosperous place replete with clam

Year 6700 BC - A small hominid approximately 4.9ft tall leads a group of hunters/gatherers in the interior region near the beach of Cabeçudas in Santa Catarina State (at that time the sea level was higher than today).

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Itã - The man from Sambaqui

We can call this little hominid ITA (shell / polished stone in Ancient Tupi).

ITA proceeds with a small group and finds a tiny Sambaqui abandoned amid a rich reserve of clam on a beautiful and warm beach. This small formation of 6 men led by ITA is sort of a landing party that aims to explore the surroundings after being expelled from a rich site a few miles away.

This Sambaqui seems to have been abandoned due to scarcity of mollusks, but ass time went on, no longer an depleted sambaqui and now shows some prosperity.

Itâ promptly goes back to this family group camped not far form there and tells the 200 members of his tribe about that good news.

This is a fictional story based on the ultimate facts of archaeological research but it may well have happened. There is along the Brazilian coast and on the estuary of large rivers hundreds of archaeological sites of a semi-nomadic people who lived with a certain social organization called Sambaquis.

The Sambaquis (tamba'kï of Tupi, literally "mound of shells") are found throughout the Brazilian coast, also are also called shell mounds, casqueiros, berbigueiros, Sell Middens, etc. These deposits of historical material called the attention of the early settlers, were visited by Emperor D. Pedro II, eminent naturalist, who was enchanted by them were targeted for study by the University of São Paulo and attracted the attention of Paul Rivet, the legendary director of the Museum of Man, and "father" of modern American anthropology. On the southern coast of Brazil were studied by imminent the archaeologist João Alfredo Rohr.

Aspect of a sambaqui

These various archaeological sites of monumental dimensions that sometimes reach up to 30 meters high served as housing, shelter and even a cemetery. For a long time it was believed that it was only the fossilized remains of ancient peoples but recent studies indicate that these shell mounds were purposely built.

The study of these constructions provides an intricate material just like a puzzle that show us how it was the daily life of prehistoric men who inhabited the Brazilian coast.

Objects placed beside the bodies indicate funeral ritual - Museum of Man Sambaqui - Santa Catarina - Brazil

Remains of fish and mollusks indicate that they were fishers and gatherers. "We found that most groups were sedentary and not nomadic, as previously thought," says archaeologist Paul DeBlasis, University of São Paulo (USP).

Then see step-by-step how Sambaquees made ​​hooks from a bone fragment .

Remains of campfire and food indicate that the diet of Sambaquees came mainly from the sea. Some communities already grew vegetables, which brought an unexpected problem: corpses in middens from Rio de Janeiro, thad shown great incidence of caries that may be related to excessive consumption of cassava (Manihot esculenta).

This statue of a couple of birds - Zoólito - indicates that the men from  Sambaqui dominated the concept of art

The dexterity of Sambaquees was recorded in zoólitos, stone sculptures representing over two hundred animals and geometric figures. In some cases, artisans have made images of fish with such care that it is possible to recognize the species represented.

From the south-central coastal plain of Santa Catarina, between Passagem da Barra (municipality of Laguna) and Lake Figueirinha (municipality of Jaguaruna), 76 middens were mapped, of which 48 have already being dated.

Utensils for many jobs

The difference in cultural and in dietary habits, led to the conclusion that they were the work of a society distinct from the Tupi-Guarani, who then populated the entire coastal region of Brazil. Recent studies suggest that the middens have been constucted by people who lived on the Brazilian coast between 10 000 and 2000 years before present.

The systematic survey and dating of sites in Santa Catarina identified patterns of spatial distribution of middens in the region, as the sedimentary context of the time of construction, stratigraphy and age. Thus, they recognized themselves in the sites of the region: geological and geomorphological five contexts of location, three stratigraphic patterns, and four phases of occupation sambaquieira based on the number of sites and the type of constructive dominant pattern.

The wonderful work done by researchers at the Museum of Man from Sambaqui - Padre João Alfredo Rhor in Florianópolis – Santa Catarina promises to reveal even more secrets about the beautiful story of the first men who inhabited Brazil, long before the arrival of settlers.

Trans Global Highway

Large international projects such as the European Channel Tunnel, Suez Canal, Panama, or the Alaska Pipeline represented not only a great engineering effort, but also a big and challenging diplomacy issue to ensure that costs and benefits would be shared equitably. In addition, a bold geological survey must be done to ensure that the proposed tunnels and bridges locations are compatible with the tectonic plates.


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Imagine the planet Earth in medium distant future in which we have the entire planet linked by roads, trains and individual air transport system (know more http://www.didik.com/highway) . You could leave New York driving your own car and the final destination would be Paris. One of the most charming qualities of the floating island of Atlantis II, a Lilypad city, is the road that leads to it. Driving through US Highway 235 from Miami central ring to Key Mango on a sunny day is a memorable experience… especially if you drive a cabrio.

Each of these Lilypad floating cities (know more http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/06/16/lilypad-floating-cities-in-the-age-of-global-warming) are designed to hold approximately around 50,000 people. A mixed terrain man-made landscape, provided by an artificial lagoon and three ridges. To sleep in the first part of the trip you could stay in the Submerged Hilton, about 360 kilometers from New york.

The Trans Global Highway project isn’t even close to happening anytime soon, but there is great value in future forward designs like the Lilypad floating city. They inspire creative solutions, which at some point, may actually provide a real solution to the super populated cities, climate change problem. Would generate new jobs, and the effort to create all the technology would be really useful to colonization of our solar system.

Brasilia a huge capital built in a nightshift

Brasilia, the promised land, is one of the rare cases in which a dream becomes a reality based on premises in which faith seems to be the main reason, and is transformed into a landmark in the history of urbanism and a masterpiece of modernist architecture. Is the only city the world built in the 20th century to be granted the status of world Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1987.

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Usually, the birthplace of a city is chosen by its first inhabitants who settled there for this to be close to a river or a lake, or for having several advantages related to topography, climate, geography, etc. In the case of Brasilia, the site was chosen first, in the midst of a semi-desert savannah region (Brazilian Cerrado) and only then they built the lake, the weather, and other conveniences suitable for sustaining human life.

The capitals of Brazil has always had problems as to its location, The first in “Salvador da Bahia” from 1536 to 1763 and then, Rio de Janeiro from 1763 to 1960, both located in strategically vulnerable venues. The idea of moving its capital to further inland was considered since the time of Brazil colony of Portugal and was established in Brazilian Constitution of 1891.

One of the reasons given for the transfer was the sickly condition of Rio de Janeiro, but it was eliminated with the eradication of the epidemic, during the government of Rodrigues Alves (1902-1906), who, by the way, improved the appearance of the city, driving its development.

The other reason was the strategic vulnerability. History records many attacks against the city of Rio, starting with the sequence attacks of French conquerors who wanted to settle there by the16th century to the “Revolta da Chibata” (Revolt of the Whip), when simple sailors put the government of Marshal Hermes da Fonseca in check, forcing him to make dishonorable concessions to prevent the bombing of the city. Later, the 1904 "Guerra da Vacina” (war of the vaccine), the revolts of 1922, the communist putsch in 1935 and the integralist "Putch" in 1938, in all of this attacks they took advantage of the fragility of Rio de Janeiro in terms of defense.

Italian saint Don Bosco, the founder of the Salesian order had a dream in 1883 in which he described a futuristic city of prosperity and order that would be Brasília's location:

"Tra il grado 15 e il 20 grado vi era un seno assai lungo e assai largo que partiva di un punto che formava un lago. Allora una voce disse ripetutamente, quando si verrano a scavare le miniere nascoste in mezzo a questi monti di quel seno apparirà quila terra promessa fluente latte e miele, sarà una ricchezza inconcepibilie" (Memorie Biografiche, XVI, 385-394 - Between the parallels 15 and 20 degree – south-  there was a very long and very large riverbed from which is formed a lake. Then a voice said repeatedly, when dig the hidden mines in the midst of these mountains it will appear the promised land with rivers flowing with milk and honey and with unconceivable wealth).

On May 12, 1892, Marshal Floriano Peixoto considered unavoidable to comply with the third article of the Constitution of 1891, and imperiously determined to move the capital of the Union and organized an exploration to determine the region's future capital. They’ve chosen the Brazilian astronomer of Belgian origin Luiz Cruls, to lead the expedition.

Consisting of 22 men, 206 crates and bales (about 10 tons), the Commission headed by Cruls, on June 9, 1892, went by train from Rio de Janeiro to Uberaba (MG) and from there to the central plateau.

In Pirenópolis, on August 12, Curls’ staff was divided into two classes, in order to traverse the Plateau and explore in two different ways. The first group - headed by Cruls - went directly to Formosa, where he arrived on 23 August. The second, which went through Corumba, Santa Luzia (now Luziânia), arrived in Formosa on September 14. Both groups were to determine daily the time and latitude. To do so, they should use any phenomena that might serve to determine longitude, as the first satellite eclipses and occultation of Jupiter that should be observed at least in some parts of the itinerary.

Another method used was to determine the length of lunars or by passage of the moon and/or a star by the same vertical height or the same, or by differences in height between the two celestial bodies.

Work completed, much hope of mudancistas (something like "movers") and nothing else. After the report of the Commission then convened Poli Coelho, the subject is still treated with slowness by the Congress for over five years, but then it is established a new location study, but now it is established a maximum period of sixty days to the start and three years for completion. It's the Law No. 1803 passed on January 5, 1953 that define studies on the Central Plateau region between the parallels South 15 º 30 'and 17 and meridians W.Gr.46 º 30' and 49 º 30 '- the so-called “Retângulo do Congresso” (rectangle of Congress) - aiming the selection of the new capital federal. In the second article, that defines:

"Around this site will be demarcated, respecting or not the natural boundaries, an approximate area of 5,000 square kilometers, which should contain at the best way, the requirements for the constitution of the Federal District and will be incorporated into the Patrimony of the Union"

Finally, on April 15, 1955, the Committee responsible for the Location of New Capital compares advantages and disadvantages of the five priority areas for the construction of the city. They choose the “Castanho” site, 25 kilometers southwest of Planaltina, they also define the perimeter of the future Federal District area: about 5850 kilometers square.

In May 1955, Marshal José Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque (mastermind of the construction of the Military Academy of “Agulhas Negras” ) plant a wooden cross at the highest point, considered crucial milestone of the city. Is the current Praça do Cruzeiro. The original cross was taken to the Metropolitan Cathedral, where it is till today.

Now it is time to build the lake, The Paranoá Lake

Created in order to increase the humidity in their vicinity. Paranoá Lake is an artificial lake designed in 1894 by Mission Cruls and materialized with the construction of the city during the administration of President Kubitschek.

The dammed waters of the Rio Paranoá formed a lake with 48 square kilometers, maximum depth of 38 meters and about fifty miles in circumference, with some artificial beaches, such as "Prainha" and "Piscinão do Lago Norte” - Lake North swimming pool.

A Contest was created to give the opportunity to a Brazilian urban planner to conceive Brasilia, 5550 people signed up.

Lúcio Costa won the contest and was the main urban planner in 1957, Oscar Niemeyer, a close friend, was the chief architect of most public buildings and Roberto Burle Marx was the landscape designer.

It was Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, born in September 12, 1902, known also by his initials JK, a prominent Brazilian politician of gypsy Czech origin that had the honor to be the man behind the pharaonic construction of Brasilia.

President of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. He was born in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, and died in 1976. His term was marked by economic prosperity and political stability.

Brasília was amazingly built in 41 months, from 1956 to April 21, 1960, when it was officially inaugurated.

At the northwestern end of the Monumental Axis are federal district and municipal buildings, while at the southeastern end, near the middle shore of Lake Paranoá, stand the executive, judicial, and legislative buildings around the Square of Three Powers, the conceptual heart of the city.

These and other major structures were designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. In the Square of Three Powers, he created as a focal point the dramatic Congressional Palace, which is composed of five parts: twin administrative towers flanked by a large, white concrete dome (the meeting place of the Senate) and by an equally massive concrete bowl (the Chamber of Deputies), which is joined to the dome by an underlying, flat-roofed building.

A series of low-lying annexes flank both ends. Also in the square are the glass-faced Planalto Palace housing the presidential offices, and the Palace of the Supreme Court.

Farther east, on a triangle of land jutting into the lake, is the Palace of the Dawn (Palácio da Alvorada; the presidential residence).

Between the federal and civic buildings on the Monumental Axis is The Cathedral of Brasília (Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida - Our Lady of Aparecida is the patroness of Brazil), considered by many to be Niemeyer's finest. The parabolically shaped structure is characterized by its 16 gracefully curving supports, which join in a circle 35 meters above the floor of the nave; stretched between the supports are translucent walls of tinted glass. The nave is entered via a subterranean passage rather than conventional doorways.

Other notable buildings are Buriti Palace, Itamaraty Palace, the National Theater, and several foreign embassies that creatively embody features of their national architecture. The Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx designed landmark modernist gardens for some of the principal buildings.

How much cost Brasilia? Eugenio Gudin, Minister of Finance of president Café Filho from August 1954 to April 1955, a political enemy of JK and intellectual unanimity, made an estimate of $ 1.5 billion. Only took into account public spending, not to mention "the tremendous waste in transport indirectly, travel to and fro, doubles, waste of time," wrote the economist. In today's values, applying to U.S. monetary correction, the figure would amount to 19.5 billion dollars. With interest rate of 3% per year, average standard of taxation, we arrive at a current value of 83 billion dollars.

President Kubitschek in an interview quoted by the book "Quanto Custou Brasilia" by journalist Mauricio Vaitsman, defended himself in a populist way, to explain that he issued 134 million Cruzeiros in five years of government: "This means that all that plethora of development represented in reality, the sacrifice of only two Cruzeiros in five years, for every Brazilian. "

He appealed to the issuance of money, these two cruzeiros per citizen, because all other forms of financing for construction did not work, especially the sale of land linked to the so-called "Obligation Brasília," heralded as an excellent business proposal that few people wanted. The land in the Central Plateau became easy money and an empty promise.

The amount spent in Brazilia was never equaled, take for instance Songdo International Business District (SIBD) a planned international CBD on 1,500 acres (6 km²) of reclaimed land along Incheon's waterfront, 40 miles (65 km) west of Seoul, South Korea and connected to Incheon International Airport by a 7.4 mile (12.3 km) reinforced concrete highway bridge, called Incheon Bridge. Along with Yeongjong and Cheongna, it is part of the Incheon Free Economic Zone.

The Songdo International Business District will feature the Northeast Asia Trade Tower and the Incheon Tower. Schools, hospitals, apartments, office buildings and cultural amenities are to be built in the district. Replicas of architectural hallmarks, including New York City's Central Park and Venice's waterways, will also be incorporated. This 10-year development project is estimated to cost in excess of $40 billion.

The World or World Islands is an artificial archipelago of various small islands constructed in the rough shape of a world map, located 4.0 kilometres (2.5 mi) off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates will cost something like $14 billion.

The city of Brasilia has been acclaimed for its use of modernist architecture on a grand scale and for its somewhat utopian city plan. It has been criticized for the same reasons.

After a visit to Brasília, the French writer Simone de Beauvoir complained that all of its  “superquadras” (superblocks) exuded "the same air of elegant monotony," and other observers have equated the city's large open lawns, plazas and fields to wastelands. As the city has matured, some of these have gained adornments, and many have been improved by landscaping, giving some observers a sense of "humanized" spaciousness.

Brasilia International Airport Panels 

Although not fully accomplished, the "Brazilian utopia" has produced a city of relatively high quality of life, in which the citizens live in forested areas with sporting and leisure structure (the superquadras) flanked by small commercial areas, bookstores and cafes; the city is also famous for its cuisine and efficiency of transit.

Even these positive features have sparked controversy, expressed in the nickname "ilha da fantasia" ("fantasy island"), indicating the sharp contrast between the city and surrounding regions, marked by poverty and disorganization in the cities of the state of Goiás, around Brasília.

Nothing dates faster than people's fantasies about the future. This is what you get when perfectly decent, intelligent, and talented men start thinking in terms of space rather than place; and single rather than multiple meanings. It's what you get when you design for political aspirations rather than real human needs. You get miles of jerry-built platonic nowhere infested with volkswagens. This, one may fervently hope, is the last experiment of its kind. The utopian buck stops here.

— Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New, Episode 4: Trouble in Utopia

I believe that Hughes is highly misleading, I was recently in Brasilia and did not see VW pods in semi-desert streets, nature blooms in their manicured squares and the number of Porches and BMWs seem to only increase.

Brasilia is still more photogenic than adequate for walking, but no doubt inspire architects, planners and science fiction fans to create their utopia. Undoubtedly will not be the last of its kind.

World Cities Shopping Centres - A new generation of retail store

Imagine yourself parking your car into a giant building forming a complex of shops, and buying brand new items from New York, Tokyo and Milan by the morning, having lunch in an exotic Thai restaurant, attending (virtually) the Paris fashion show, and then, stop by on a Paris store to pickup some of the learned novelties.

In 2013 you won’t have to dream about such place, a new concept of retailing stores is becoming a reality (at least with regard to the Blemya’s concern) the Global Malls, or World Cities Shopping Centres, a complex of buildings with stores that have in its mix one or more shops representing products of each country in the world.

Researches indicates the demand for this sort of shopping mall, even a super-rich class Londoner would like the idea to go to the next door mall to buy genuine Mexican “maiz”, of his on preference to make tortillas mexicanas, and a pair of Brasilian Havaianas sandals that he forgot to buy to his nephew on his last trip to Brazil.

But this mall was specially designed for the upper middle class and lower middle class. International travel has become very cheap, and this public became fans of some cities local brands and want to have them, even the consumer that was not able to travel would became aware of a new foreign brand and adopt it.

The shops don’t sell only the products itself, but also its culture. Attendants are, in its great majority, well-trained students that always inform the client about the product's culture and are able to speak the local languages as well as the language spoken of the shop's nationality.

Another important point for the emergence of this retail segment was the stock on demand according to results of researches and studies promoting the knowledge base of the hospitality and tourism field in world’s major cities, together with the cheap and efficient logistics services and the specialized media (travel books and magazines such as Wallpaper magazine, Lonelly Planet, among others).

Consulates and chambers of commerce no longer have a passive role on this new retail store and enter thoroughly in the story, helping commercially and even subsidizing some culturally important products.

On a not-to-distant-future we would say: “the World Cities Shopping Centres are an important step to demonstrate the beauty and viability of collectiveness”.

The end of “we pay in many ways for our trash” culture

Since the beginning of Industrial era we’ve been buying products packaged in their own marketing, using the product and throwing away its pack.

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We pay for the product and also for it’s advertising made ​​by the industries interested in differentiating themselves from other manufacturers. 

This pack, as we know, becomes garbage at the end of the consume process.

With the increase of world population, this Marketing-packaging-waste model should be changed immediately.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, discovered in late 1990 is certainly the proof that, unlike any other animal on this planet, we, human-beings, are not able to deal with our own garbage.

Located in the central North Pacific Ocean, roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N, an excessive area where ocean currents gathered marine pollution together over the years. It contains all kinds of trash from sinks to plastic bags.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now about 1,760,000 square kilometers; the area is three times bigger than Spain and Portugal peninsula.

It is not only in the pacific, we could find big island of garbage in oceans all over the planet in five main spots, also called the 5 gyres (see http://5gyres.org/ ).

Just for the record, it takes around 20 years for a plastic bag to decompose, while a plastic bottle can take 500 years.

The question we should ask is - Who is responsible for this garbage collection? The logic answers this question by saying “the waste should be picked up by its maker” - the American biologist, Barry Commoner once proposed as his fourth law of ecology, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Everything we produce and consume has both an economic cost and a cost to the environment. 

What goes down our drains and into our landfills will eventually place a burden somewhere on someone, or on some part of nature.  Unfortunately, our throw away culture often forgets this fact.  As a result, the communities who end up paying the costs of our garbage are often far removed in space and time from those who produced it.

In order to try to solve this problem the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment launched a consultation on a Canada-wide Action Plan on Extended Producer Responsibility – EPR. It may include the costs of reducing pollution that stems from the manufacturing process, but also the expenses of dealing with the garbage that results after the consumer has finished with the product.

EPR can be used to shift the responsibility of paying for recycling and garbage programs away from municipalities and onto the companies that produce the waste.

One result of this is that it provides an incentive for the producers of waste to develop more environmentally friendly designs.  For example, since the introduction of EPR laws in Japan and Europe, many electronic manufacturers have shifted to lower use of plastics for many appliances, to reduce the difficulties in recycling.

Fortunately many countries have introduced plastic bag bans: Belgium, Italy, Australia, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa.

A project named as Project Kaisei ("ocean planet" in Japanese) was launched on 19 March 2009, with plans for an initial phase of scientific study of the plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre and feasibility study of the recovery and recycling technologies. The goal is to bring about a global collaboration of science, technology and solutions, to help remove some of the floating waste.

How can the world afford this cleaning effort? - Blemya believes in a simple but not easy solution; the names printed on the plastic packs should pay the bill proportionally to the amount of found material.

In order to prevent new plastic garbage islands on the oceans a New Algae Plastic is become the base for the new packaging industry.

At the SPE’s Global Plastics Environmental Conference (www.sperecycling.org) in Atlanta in October 2011, two brand new recycling operations were introduced along with a new algae bioplastic. The new recycling processes are sophisticated closed-loops for complex post-consumer materials.

To make sure that our efforts at cleaning the oceans, along with the new discoveries made ​​by the bio-engineering plastic/algae materials, Blemya traveled ahead in time and brought us some articles about the beneficial effects of our present actions:

- The advantages of this new material was obvious, once discarded it is easily reintegrated into nature, and if it accidentally ends up in sea waters, it will be deemed as fish food, with a calculated small ecological impact.

Fishes would be able to eat the package

- Unfortunately, the taste of some products changed a little bit once it entered in contact with the new material, but simple solutions such as a separate the aliment from the surface of the pack by a thin layer of paraffin solved the problem.

- It was extremely well accepted by ecological institutions, NGOs, and most important, the consumer.

- The use of bioengineered materials made possible to create a whole line of packs, designed and programmed directly using genetic codes, the result was amazing.

Some milk brands have chosen to use a pack made out of the genes of the Portuguese Man o' War (Physalia physalis), of course the nematocysts and the tentacles have been suppressed, and, strangest as it may seen, it become a huge market success, consumers pay even 30% more just to have the new pack on the table for the breakfast.

Blemya and the “Super Collective Era”

There is a unifying force within globalized society called collective consciousness - the term was coined by Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) to refer to this shared beliefs and moral attitudes in which it operates.

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By definition “The Internet” is a global system of interconnection, we use computers, mobile phones, television, etc. through a common language, (the standard Internet Protocol Suite TCP/IP) to connect billions of users worldwide.

But long before Internet phenomena we always been connected somehow, we have never been isolated.

I am going to give you an example; have you already wondered why in every city of this planet there is someone wearing screen printed t-shirts with the message I (heart) “something”?

Have you already wondered why in every city of this planet there is someone wearing screen printed t-shirts with the message I (heart) “something”? - it should be the Collective Unconscious operating in an unknown level of reality.

It all began with an advertising campaign to promote tourism in New York City and State since the mid-1970s. The trademarked logo appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the state, some licensed, many not. Created by Milton Glaser and Bobby Zarem it consists of the capital letter I, followed by a red heart symbol (♥), below with the capital letters N and Y, set in a rounded slab serif typeface.

Since 1979 so many people have been seen and copycatting the original “I love N.Y.” campaign t-shirt, with little modifications here and there, different variations of it.

This is what is called collective consciousness, a term coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within globalized society.

But strangest it may seen, sometimes you see a behavior that is repeated in different places within different cultures, apparently without any form of connection between them, as if everyone draws ideas, images, and meanings from a common pool. This “Universal Reservoir” is known as the Collective Unconscious proposed by Carl Gustav Jung.

The Collective Unconscious proposed by Carl Gustav Jung, consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, behavior that is repeated in different places within different cultures, apparently without any form of connection between them.

The Collective Unconscious is a term of analytical psychology that describes the existence of a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature, which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.

As Jung, many other people and even entire civilizations believed that we may be connected to a universal and inexplicable force, ancient Greeks believed that before coming to life on Earth, all souls lived in city-state called Kallipolis (Plato - 428-348 BC - “the city of Kallipolis” the perfect society mentioned in “The Republic”). Once they decide that would live a corporeal life, they choose how their lives would be succeeded, then they present their plans to Lachesis, and she would offer the mandatory company of a Daimon, an angel guardian, chosen by each soul.

Kallipolis the perfect society mentioned in “The Republic” by Plato has the same architecture of "Nossolar"described by Chico Xavier

In a dark cave filled with multicolored strings and golden cords that hummed with power sit the Moirae, three sisters, daughters of Zeus and the Titaness called Themis.

Clotho the Spinner, Lachesis the Allotter, and Atropos the inexorable, each one with a purpose and a task that must never end. Clotho the youngest of the three, must forever spin the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle, She is called upon at the ninth month of pregnancy when life must come forth.

Once a life born on Earth, the perfect city is forgotten, but sometimes they still have glimpses of there.

Lachesis, the middle sister, then takes the thread and measures it, for she decides, together with the soul, how long he or she would live and how the thread of his or her life would get tangled with the threads of the people who the soul is going to meet during the lifetime. Artropos, the oldest of three, was the cutter of the thread. She is responsible for the death of this soul on earth.

This is how ancient Greeks believed that we have the option choose the way our life would be lived on earth. It is surprisingly similar to other culture beliefs, see for example, how Brazilian Spiritists conceive it.

Spiritism is based on the five books of the Spiritist Codification dictated by spirits to mediums and written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec.

Spiritists believe in the possibility of communication between incorporeal intelligences (spirits) and living people through mediumship, the ability of a person to experience contact with spirits of the dead, angels, demons or other immaterial entities.
Kardec was a teacher with little scientific background (he had never attended a university), so he decided to do his own research. Not being a medium himself, he used to go regularly to Spiritism séances with a list of questions compiled by him put them to spirits. Soon the quality of the communications with spirits appeared to improve. According to the spirits, we incarnate and reincarnate many times, in every life we evolve a little bit through charity and love (the Spiritism teaches that without charity, there is no salvation).

When we are not incarnated, we wait in colonies as seen in the best-selling novel psycho-graphed (channeled) by the Brazilian spiritist medium Francisco Cândido Xavier, “Nosso Lar” (Our Home).

Or did Chico Xavier, by Andre Luiz based their perfect spiritual society on Kallipolis

'Nosso Lar' refers to dimensions different from ours and establishes a continuum matter-energy-spirit, associated to wise, just, and perfect laws acting on different levels, from matter as we know it to the spirit more ethereal and evolved. The novel 'Nosso Lar' was dictated by a deceased Brazilian physician who adopted the fictitious name of 'Andre Luiz'. Although competent and respected among others when alive, and in spite on having helped numerous people in his private clinic, in the afterlife his inner battles took him to spend approximately 8 years in the lower zones of agony and madness.

Most of the things that the mankind creates here on Earth are copy of something that already exists in the almost 1300 perfect colonies that surround our planet.

Spirits are encouraged to choose how (and when) to suffer retribution for the wrong they did in previous lives. Disabilities, physical or mental impairment or even an unlucky life are due to the choices a spirit makes before reincarnating.

In Spiritism we also have a mandatory relationship with a Spirit Guide (as the Daimons in Ancient Greek philosophy) that will be with us during the life period we spent on Earth.

It does not matter whether you believe in one of these theories or not, the common elements that will lead us to a Type 1, 2 and 3 society ( see http://www.blemya.com/2009/02/future-of-our-civilization-in-3-steps.html ) are here, there is no escape, we are all connected.

After the advent of Internet in the late 60’s we improved enormously our connections toward what should be called “The Super Collectivity”

After the advent of Internet in the late 60’s we improved enormously our connections toward what should be called “The Super Collectivity”, the era in which we shift from individual endeavors to a collective global power, the time when we will have tolerance toward the differences and enjoy the wealth created by the diversity.

Blemya - The friction-free monster of collectivity.

The core philosophy of this blog ( Blemya ) lies in the beliefs that “Super Collective composed by the beautiful and strong different individuals will achieve better present and tomorrow”. The sympathetic character of the blemya monster is regarded to what we are now living; In the beginning, it can be very frightening, but if you can beat that little negative rejection to the monster of collectiveness, you will surely love her.