KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Thursday July 15, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Submarines could use new nanotube technology for sonar and stealth New technique lets optical microscopes image objects at .5 nanometer resolution 'Ultimate' solvent for carbon nanotubes brings highly conductive quantum nanowire closer Blind Mice Can See, Thanks To Special Retinal Cells Brain fitness program study reveals visual memory improvement in older adults Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span Study Shows Electrical Fields Influence Brain Activity Tokyo trials digital billboards that scan passers-by Picture puzzles separate human from machine How Twitter Could Better Predict Disease Outbreaks The state of the future Latest News Submarines could use new nanotube technology for sonar and stealth July 15, 2010      "Nanotube speakers" made from carbon nanotube sheets have been found to be able can both generate sound and cancel out noise — properties ideal for submarine sonar to probe the ocean depths and make subs invisible to enemies, according to a report in ACS' Nano Letters. Ali Aliev of MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute, University of Texas at Dallas and colleagues explain that thin films of nanotubes can generate sound waves via a thermoacoustic effect. Every time that an electrical pulse passes through the microscopic layer of carbon tubes, the air around them heats up and creates a sound wave. Chinese scientists first discovered that effect in 2008, and applied it in building flexible speakers. Aliev's group took the next step, showing that nanotube sheets produce the kind of low-frequency sound waves that enable… more New technique lets optical microscopes image objects at .5 nanometer resolution July 15, 2010      Secretary of Energy, Nobel laureate and former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) Steven Chu led the development of a technique that enables the use of optical microscopy to image objects or the distance between them with resolutions as small as 0.5 nanometers, an order of magnitude smaller than the previous best. "The ability to get sub-nanometer resolution in biologically relevant aqueous environments has the potential to revolutionize biology, particularly structural biology," says Secretary Chu. "One of the motivations for this work, for example, was to measure distances between proteins that form multi-domain, highly complex structures, such as the protein assembly that forms the human RNA polymerase II system, which initiates DNA transcription." Secretary Chu is the co-author of a paper now appearing in the… more 'Ultimate' solvent for carbon nanotubes brings highly conductive quantum nanowire closer July 15, 2010      Rice University scientists have found the "ultimate" solvent for all kinds of carbon nanotubes (CNTs): chlorosulfonic acid, which can dissolve half-millimeter-long nanotubes in solution, they reported this month in the online journal ACS Nano. This is a critical step in spinning fibers from ultralong nanotubes, and a breakthrough that brings the creation of a highly conductive quantum nanowire closer. Nanotubes have the frustrating habit of bundling, making them less useful than when they're separated in a solution. Rice scientists led by Matteo Pasquali, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and in chemistry, have been trying to untangle them for years as they look for scalable methods to make exceptionally strong, ultralight, highly conductive materials that could revolutionize power distribution, such as the "armchair quantum wire." The armchair… more Blind Mice Can See, Thanks To Special Retinal Cells July 15, 2010      Researchers at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences have found that mice that didn't have any rods and cones function could still see — and not just light, but also patterns and images — using intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells (ipRGCs) — special photosensitive cells in the rodents' retinas. "Our study shows that even mice which were blind could form low-acuity yet measurable images, using ipRGCs," said biologist Samer Hattar, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology. The exciting thing is that, in theory at least, this means that a blind person could be trained to use his or her ipRGCs to perform simple tasks that require low visual acuity." Hattar's findings also hint that, in the past, mammals may have used their ipRGCs for… more Brain fitness program study reveals visual memory improvement in older adults July 15, 2010      A commercial brain fitness program from Posit Science Corp. has been shown to improve memory in older adults, at least in the period soon after training. The findings are the first to show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of short-term, or "working" visual memory. The research, led by scientists at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is also one of the first to measure both mental performance and changes in neural activity caused by a cognitive training program. In the study, healthy older participants trained on a computer game designed to boost visual perception. After ten hours of training, they not only improved their perceptual abilities significantly, but also increased the accuracy of their visual working… more Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span July 15, 2010      A new study by psychologists at University of California, Davis has found that Buddhist meditation can improve a person's ability to be attentive and helps people do better at focusing for a long time on a task that requires them to distinguish small differences between things they see. A group of 60 people took part in several experiments. At three points during a retreat, each participant took a test on a computer to measure how well they could make fine visual distinctions and sustain visual attention. They watched a screen intently as lines flashed on it; most were of the same length, but every now and then a shorter one would appear, and the volunteer had to click the mouse in response. Participants got better at discriminating the short… more Study Shows Electrical Fields Influence Brain Activity July 15, 2010      Electrical fields can influence the activity of neurons, Yale scientists report in the July 15 issue of the journal Neuron. The researchers introduced slow oscillation signals into brain tissue and found that the signal created a sort of feedback loop, with changes in electrical field guiding neural activity, which in turn strengthened the electrical field. The finding helps explain why techniques that influence electrical fields such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and deep brain stimulation are effective for the treatment of various neurological disorders, including depression. The study also "raises many questions about the possible effects of electrical fields, such as power lines and cell phones, in which we immerse ourselves," said David McCormick, the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neurobiology at Yale School of Medicine, a researcher… more Tokyo trials digital billboards that scan passers-by July 15, 2010      Source Link: AFP "Minority Report" style digital advertising billboards being trialled in Japan have cameras that read the gender and age group of people looking at them to tailor their commercial messages. The technology uses face recognition software to glean the gender and age group of passers-by, but operators have promised they will save no recorded images, only the collated data about groups of people. Picture puzzles separate human from machine July 15, 2010      Source Link: New Scientist Tech Researchers at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan have developed a tool that camoflages images and could be used to make Captcha images, to ensure that website users signing up for accounts are genuinely people, rather than software bots. The work fits with the theory that the brain can only be conscious of one visual feature at a glance, but can track the locations of multiple features simultaneously. Can you find the four hidden animals? (National Cheng Kung University) How Twitter Could Better Predict Disease Outbreaks July 15, 2010      Source Link: Technology Review Invited Guests University of Bristol researchers have released a paper about the utility of Twitter for tracking flu outbreaks, building on research that resulted in Google.org's Flu Trends. The researchers gathered a database of more than 50 million geo-located tweets which could then be compared to official data from the U.K.'s national health service on flu incidence by region. By figuring out which keywords in the database of tweets were associated with elevated levels of flu, they were able to create a predictive model that transformed keyword incidence in future tweets into a prediction of the severity of flu for a given area. Future improvements might involve information from Facebook and other sources of status updates. New Blog posts The state of the future July 14, 2010 by Jerome C. Glenn As noted in our 2010 State of the Future (the 14th annual report from the Millennium Project, just published), the world is in a race between implementing ever-increasing ways to improve the human condition and the seemingly ever-increasing complexity and scale of global problems. If current trends in population growth, resource depletion, climate change, terrorism, organized crime, and disease continue and converge over the next 50 to 100 years, it is easy to imagine an unstable world with catastrophic results. However, if current trends in self-organization via future Internets, transnational cooperation, materials science, alternative energy, cognitive science, inter-religious dialogues, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology continue and converge over the next 50 to 100 years, it is easy to imagine a world that works for all.… more New Books 2010 State of the Future author Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon Millenium Project | This "report card on the future" distills the collective intelligence of over 2,700 leading scientists, futurists, scholars, and policy advisors who work for governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, universities, and international organizations. The 2010 State of the Future comes in two parts: a 83-page print executive summary and an attached CD containing about 7,000 pages of research behind the print edition and the Millennium Project's 14 years of cumulative research and methods. Some unique features not available in other global assessments include: - Building Collective Intelligence Systems - 15 Global Challenges - Producing the State if the Future Index Using the International Futures Model - Emerging Environmental Security Issues - Latin America 2030 - Futures Research and Gaps… more 2009 State of the Future (The Millennium Project) author Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon Amazon | The 2009 State of the Future comes in two parts: a 100-page print executive summary and an attached CD containing about 6,700 pages of research behind the print edition and the Millennium Project's 13 years of cumulative research and methods. Some unique features not available in other global assessments include: International assessment of 35 economic elements of the next economic system that could help improve the human condition over the next 20 years; 15 Global Challenges Prospects, Strategies, Insights; State of the Future Index with and without the world recession; Emerging international environmental security issues; applications of the Real-Time Delphi technique; 750 annotated scenario sets; and much more futures intelligence on technology, environment, governance, and the human condition. This… more Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty author Andy Miah Amazon | This innovative book, inspired by material from FACT's Human Futures program and informed by an inquiry into the future of humanity, combines scholarly essays, images, interviews, design products, artifacts, and creative writing in order to portray how the culture of technological innovation is made and remade through bioculturally diverse forms of consumption. Human Futures addresses biological developments such as cloning, genetic modification, stem cell research alongside issues like the ethics and aesthetics of human enhancement and the future of biological migration. The result is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the clash of art, technology, and science and its impact on our very human future. Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning author Martin Rees Amazon | Nano-machines stand poised to revolutionize technology and medicine, but what happens if these minuscule beasties break their leash and run amok? Rees, the U.K.'s Astronomer Royal and prolific author (Just Six Numbers; Our Cosmic Habitat), warns that the 21st century may well witness the extinction of mankind, a doomsday more likely to be caused by human error than by a natural catastrophe. Bioterrorists are the most widely publicized threat at the moment, but well-intentioned scientists, Rees says, are capable of accidentally wiping out mankind via genetically engineered superpathogens that create unprecedented pandemics, or even through something as weird as high-energy particle experiments that backfire and cause the universe to implode. Rees poses some hard questions about scientists' responsibility to forsake research that might lead to… more On Intelligence author Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee Amazon | Hawkins designed the technical innovations that make handheld computers like the Palm Pilot ubiquitous. But he also has a lifelong passion for the mysteries of the brain, and he's convinced that artificial intelligence theorists are misguided in focusing on the limits of computational power rather than on the nature of human thought. He "pops the hood" of the neocortex and carefully articulates a theory of consciousness and intelligence that offers radical options for future researchers. "[T]he ability to make predictions about the future… is the crux of intelligence," he argues. The predictions are based on accumulated memories, and Hawkins suggests that humanoid robotics, the attempt to build robots with humanlike bodies, will create machines that are more expensive and impractical than machines reproducing genuinely human-level… more The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It author Joshua Cooper Ramo Amazon | Former foreign editor of Time, Ramo pushes the reader into uncomfortable yet exhilarating places with controversial ways of thinking about global challenges (e.g., studying why Hezbollah is the most efficiently run Islamic militant group). His book, which lays bare the flaws in current thinking on everything from American political influence to the economy, is designed to change the physics of the way we think. Analyzing the failure of the Bush administration's Democratic Peace Theory and the fruitless efforts at a Mideast peace process, Ramo suggests that people must change the role they imagine for themselves from architects of a system they can control to gardeners in a living ecosystem. Ramo's message—that the most dynamic forces emerge from outside elite circles: geeks, iconoclasts and maligned populations—is… more The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life author Ben Sherwood Amzaon | Sherwood (The Man Who Ate the 747), a writer for the L.A. Times, travels worldwide to gain insight from people who have survived a slew of near fatal phenomena ranging from a mountain lion attack to a Holocaust concentration camp, and interviewing an array of experts to understand the psychology, genetics and jumble of other little things that determines whether we live or die. Readers curious about their own survivor profile can take an Internet test, which is explained in the books later pages. Sherwood's assertion that survival is a way of perceiving the world around you is enlightening, as are some of the facts he uncovers: you have 90 seconds to leave a plane crash before the cabin temperature becomes unbearable; luck has more… more The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right author Atul Gawande Amazon | That humblest of quality-control devices, the checklist, is the key to taming a high-tech economy, argues this stimulating manifesto. Harvard Medical School prof and New Yorker scribe Gawande (Complications) notes that the high-pressure complexities of modern professional occupations overwhelm even their best-trained practitioners; he argues that a disciplined adherence to essential procedures—by ticking them off a list—can prevent potentially fatal mistakes and corner cutting. He examines checklists in aviation, construction, and investing, but focuses on medicine, where checklists mandating simple measures like hand washing have dramatically reduced hospital-caused infections and other complications. Gawande gets slightly intoxicated over checklists, celebrating their most banal manifestations as promethean breakthroughs (First there was the recipe, the most basic checklist of all, he intones in a restaurant kitchen). He's at… more Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet author Joseph Menn Amazon | In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber-crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers and defense secrets from governments. Using unprecedented access to Mob businesses and Russian officials, the book reveals how top criminals earned protection from the Russian government. Fatal System Error penetrates both the Russian cyber-mob and La Cosa Nostra as the two fight over the Internet's massive spoils. The cloak-and-dagger adventure shows why… more ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century author Susan Greenfield Amazon | If you've ever wondered what effect video games have on your children's minds or worried about how much private information the government and big companies know about you, ID is essential reading. Professor Susan Greenfield argues persuasively that our individuality is under the microscope as never before; now more then ever we urgently need to look at what we want for ourselves as individuals and for our future society. ID is an exploration of what it means to be human in a world of rapid change, a passionately argued wake-up call and an inspiring challenge to embrace creativity and forge our own identities.

KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Wednesday July 14, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Exercise reduces anxiety and depression Hydrogen-powered unmanned plane debuts Wilderness communication without cell towers An invisible computer mouse Crunching cancer with numbers Latest News Exercise reduces anxiety and depression July 14, 2010      Exercise can ameliorate anxiety and depression-like behaviors induced by an adverse early-life environment by altering the chemistry of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that regulates stress responses, researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have found. In the study, rats were divided into groups and either isolated from their mothers for controlled periods of time to induce stress or given normal maternal contact. Half were given access to a running wheel. In addition to being more anxious, animals that were subjected to stress early in life had higher levels of stress hormones and fewer steroid receptors in the part of the brain controlling behaviour. "Both the anxious behaviour and the levels of hormones in these rats were reversed with access to the exercise wheel," said UNSW… more Hydrogen-powered unmanned plane debuts July 14, 2010      The Boeing Company has unveiled the hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system for collecting data and communications, a demonstrator that will stay aloft at 65,000 feet for up to four days. Phantom Eye is powered by two 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engines that provide 150 horsepower each. It has a 150-foot wingspan, will cruise at approximately 150 knots, and can carry up to a 450-pound payload. Later this summer, Phantom Eye will be shipped to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to begin a series of ground and taxi tests in preparation for its first flight in early 2011. That debut flight is expected to last between four and eight hours. More info: Boeing Phantom Works Wilderness communication without cell towers July 14, 2010      Australian scientists have invented software that enables mobile phones to work in remote areas where there is no conventional coverage and in locations where the infrastructure has been destroyed through disaster, or is not economically viable. The "Serval Project" technology enables ordinary mobile phones to make and receive calls without the need for phone towers or satellites. Converting a cell phone into a cell tower The project includes two systems that can operate separately or be combined. One is specifically for disaster areas, and consists of a temporary, self-organizing and self-powered mobile phone network that operates via small phone towers dropped into the area by aircraft. The second system consists of a permanent mesh-based phone network between Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones, with no tower… more An invisible computer mouse July 14, 2010      MIT Media Lab researchers have developed Mouseless, an invisible computer mouse that costs about $20 to build. It uses an infrared (IR) laser beam and an infrared camera. The laser beam module creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on. The user cups their hand, and the laser beam lights up the hand that is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs using computer vision. The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks. More info: Fluid Interfaces Group | MIT Media Lab Crunching cancer with numbers July 14, 2010      Source Link: New Scientist Health Computer scientist Danny Hillis and associates at the new National Cancer Institute-funded Physical Sciences Oncology Center at USC are testing a set of interlocking computational models they have developed to describe and predict different aspects of lymphoma: from protein interactions and modifications within cells, through a tumor's growth and genetic evolution, to the host's response to the disease and various therapies. Within five years, the team hopes to have a single, all-embracing model of mouse lymphoma that, by plugging in key parameters — sex, blood pressure, genetic sequences and the like — could predict an individual's response to various combinations of cancer therapies. Other physical scientists developing new models include cosmologist Paul Davies of Arizona State University and Paul Newton, a project leader at the new physical sciences… more New Books Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals about His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World author David Ewing Duncan Bestselling author David Ewing Duncan takes the ultimate high-tech medical exam, investigating the future impact of what's hidden deep inside all of us David Ewing Duncan takes "guinea pig" journalism to the cutting edge of science, building on award-winning articles he wrote for Wired and National Geographic, in which he was tested for hundreds of chemicals and genes associated with disease, emotions, and other traits. Expanding on these tests, he examines his genes, environment, brain, and body, exploring what they reveal about his and his family's future health, traits, and ancestry, as well as the profound impact of this new self-knowledge on what it means to be human. David Ewing Duncan (San Francisco, CA) is the Chief Correspondent of public radio's Biotech Nation and a… more The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery author Tony Hey, Stewart Tansley, Kristin Tolle Amazon | This book presents the first broad look at the rapidly emerging field of data-intensive science, with the goal of influencing the worldwide scientific and computing research communities and inspiring the next generation of scientists. Increasingly, scientific breakthroughs will be powered by advanced computing capabilities that help researchers manipulate and explore massive datasets. The speed at which any given scientific discipline advances will depend on how well its researchers collaborate with one another, and with technologists, in areas of eScience such as databases, workflow management, visualization, and cloud-computing technologies. This collection of essays expands on the vision of pioneering computer scientist Jim Gray for a new, fourth paradigm of discovery based on data-intensive science and offers insights into how it can be fully realized. Counterspace: The Next Hours of World War III author William B. Scott, Michael J. Coumatos, William J. Birnes Amazon | In Space Wars, Scott, Coumatos, and Birnes created a fascinating war gaming scenario of how World War III might unfold in above the Earth's surface.  Now this thrilling team of writers reunites with Counterspace, an even more chilling fictionalized look at America's most catastrophic fears. What if North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon in space and silenced dozens of satellites? What if an Iranian missile threatened to destroy Israel, while a Venezuelan "research" satellite endangered one of the US's most promising space initiatives? What if tech-savvy terrorist cells unleashed back-to-back horrors in California, creating an avalanche of crises overnight, as national leaders robbed of spy satellite imagery were forced to make decisions in the "blind"? These are the … more You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto author Jaron Lanier Amazon | Computer scientist and Internet guru Lanier's fascinating and provocative full-length exploration of the Internet's problems and potential is destined to become a must-read for both critics and advocates of online-based technology and culture. Lanier is best known for creating and pioneering the use of the revolutionary computer technology that he named virtual reality. Yet in his first book, Lanier takes a step back and critiques the current digital technology, more deeply exploring the ideas from his famous 2000 Wired magazine article, One-Half of a Manifesto, which argued against more wildly optimistic views of what computers and the Internet could accomplish. His main target here is Web 2.0, the current dominant digital design concept commonly referred to as open culture. Lanier forcefully argues that Web… more

KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Tuesday July 13, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Decoding motion detection in the fly's brain Why Our Universe Must Have Been Born Inside a Black Hole Fibers that can hear and sing Can you teach yourself synaesthesia? It's Time to Prepare for the End of the Web as We Know It Latest News Decoding motion detection in the fly's brain July 13, 2010      Neurobiologists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have used state-of-the-art methods to decode the basics of motion detection in a fly's brain. While the number of nerve cells in the fly is comparatively small, they are highly specialized and process images with great precision while in flight. Flies can process a vast amount of information about motion and movement in their environment in real time. One sixth of a cubic millimeter of brain matter contains more than 100,000 nerve cells, each with multiple connections to its neighboring cells. Although it seems almost impossible to single out the reaction of a certain cell to any particular movement stimulus, this is precisely what neurobiologists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have now succeeded in doing.… more Why Our Universe Must Have Been Born Inside a Black Hole July 13, 2010      Source Link: the physics arXiv blog A small change to the theory of gravity implies that our universe inherited its arrow of time from the black hole in which it was born. "Accordingly, our own Universe may be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe." So concludes Nikodem Poplawski at Indiana University in a remarkable paper about the nature of space and the origin of time. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1007.0587: Cosmology With Torsion – An Alternative To Cosmic Inflation Fibers that can hear and sing July 13, 2010      Fibers that can detect and produce sound have been developed by scientists at MIT's Research Lab of Electronics. How it works The heart of the new acoustic fibers is a plastic commonly used in microphones. By playing with the plastic's fluorine content, the researchers were able to ensure that its molecules remain lopsided — with fluorine atoms lined up on one side and hydrogen atoms on the other — even during heating and drawing. The asymmetry of the molecules is what makes the plastic "piezoelectric," meaning that it changes shape when an electric field is applied to it. In a conventional piezoelectric microphone, the electric field is generated by metal electrodes. But in a fiber microphone, the drawing process would cause… more Can you teach yourself synaesthesia? July 13, 2010      Source Link: New Scientist Life A form of synesthesia in which people experience letters or numbers in color may be trainable, University of Amsterdam psychologists have found in an experiment, suggesting that natural synesthesia may develop as a result of childhood experiences as well as genetics. It's Time to Prepare for the End of the Web as We Know It July 13, 2010      Source Link: Advertising Age It won't be enough just to build branded mobile applications that repurpose content across all of the different platforms. That's like newspapers taking the print experience and replicating it on the web as they tried back in the 1990s. Rather, we will need to rethink, remix and repackage information for an entirely different modality than platforms of yore to deal with "content snacking" and "infinite choice." Latest Kurzweil Corner posts Chat with Ramona 4.0! Ramona chatbot Version 4 is now live with improved custom natural language processing. Chat now

El Nacho de paseo

La explosión del rol

Vivimos día buenos para los creadores y los jugadores de rol.

La explosión de juegos amateurs parece eclpsar todo lo que las editoriales de juegos nos ofrecen en sus novedades.

Juegos, e-zines, revistas,ayudas, blogs, traducciones…nos encontramos ante una explosión de creatividad rolera como no se había visto desde los mejores tiempos del rol en nuestro país.

Me atrevería a jurar que en esta fuerza viva que es la creación de rol, se han logrado fusionar dos generaciones de roleros (o tres), los de la vieja guardia con su experiencia y conocimientos y los recién llegados que aportar sus ganas y su nueva forma de ver el mundo.

Me atrevería a decir que, a falta de novedades jugosas en castellano, más allá de D&D4e, y algún juego solitario, serán los juegos amateurs los que mantengan vivo el espíritu de creación rolera en nuestro idioma.

Vivimos tiempos de creación, ahora sólo queda disfrutarlo.

El final de Doctor en Alaska

Revisionando el último capítulo de la serie Doctor en Alaska, no puedo sino quedarme con lo que para mí es el mejor final de una serie de televisión de todos los tiempos.

Olvidaos del final de Lost, Galáctica, o cualquier otra serie.

Nada puede superar en carga emotiva, en sentimiento y sensaciones contradictorias a ese final.

Al terminar el capítulo, Maguie y Chris se abrazan en un baile que para algunos de nosotros todavía dura, mientras una canción suena melancólica y triste.

Uno a uno, los personajes de la serie van desfilando por la pantalla, enfrascados en sus tareas nocturnas, y todos ellos con una sensación de final en el rostro que hacen que, junto con la melodía, se me salten las lágrimas.

Debo reconocer que no soy de lágrima fácil, casi podría decirse que en ocasiones parezco de piedra que dirían quienes me conocen, estoico que me gusta pensar a mí, pero este magistral final, un disparo a la cabeza de la mejor serie televisión de todos los tiempos, pero también un final digno, logra que incluso después de verlo docena de veces se me ponga la piel de gallina.

El final de doctor en Alaska es soledad, tristeza, un punto y final para nosotros, un punto y seguido para los personajes, es una sensación de que se ha completado la epopeya más grande que se ha contado jamás, y al tiempo, un vacío, porque como dice la canción que los guionistas han seleccionado magistralmente para cerrar la serie, lo bueno nunca dura.

Os dejo con la canción:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FikZwgj89HI

Y con la letra en inglés y español:

And you know the sun's settin' fast
and just like they say nothing good ever lasts
well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover
'cause your heart's bound to die
go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town
can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town
goodnight
Up the street beside that red neon light
that's where i met my baby on one hot summer night
he was the tender and i ordered a beer
it's been forty years and i'm still sitting here
But you know the sun's settin' fast
and just like they say nothing good ever lasts
well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover
'cause your heart's bound to die
go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town
can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town
goodnight
It's here i had my baby's and i had my first kiss
i've walked down main street in the cold morning mist
over there is where i bought my first car
it turned over once but then it never went far
And i can see the sun settin' fast
and just like they say nothing good ever lasts
well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover
'cause your heart's bound to die
go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town
can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town
goodnight
I buried my mama and i buried my pa
they sleep up the street beside that pretty brick wall
i bring them flowers about every day
but i just gotta cry when i think what they'd say
If they could see how the sun's settin' fast
and just like they say nothing good ever lasts
well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover
'cause your heart's bound to die
go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town
can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town
goodnight
Now i sit on the porch and watch the lightning-bugs fly
but i can't see too good, i got tears in my eyes
i'm leaving tomorrow but i don't wanna go
i love you my town, you'll always live in my soul
But i can see the sun's settin' fast
and just like they say nothing good ever lasts
well, go on i gotta kiss you goodbye but i'll hold to my lover
'cause my heart's 'bout to die
go on now and say goodbye to my town, to my town
can't you see the sun's settin' down on my town, on my town
goodnight, goodnight


El sol se pone rápidamente
y, como suelen decir, lo bueno nunca dura
Dale un beso de despedida, pero se agararra a tu amante
porque se te partirá el corazón.


Vamos dile adiós a nuestro pueblo, a nuestro pueblo
¿puedes ver que el sol se está poniendo sobre nuestro pueblo?


Buenas noches


Calle arriba, al lado de esa luz de neón de color rojo
ahí es donde conocí a mi amor en una cálida noche de verano.
Era camarero y yo pedí una cerveza
ha sido durante cuarenta años y todavía estoy aquí sentada

El sol se pone rápidamente
y, como suelen decir, lo bueno nunca dura
Dale un beso de despedida, pero se agararra a tu amante
porque se te partirá el corazón.

Vamos dile adiós a nuestro pueblo, a nuestro pueblo
¿puedes ver que el sol se está poniendo sobre nuestro pueblo?


Buenas noches

Es aquí donde tuve a mis novios y tuve mi primer beso
He caminado por la calle principal en la niebla fría de la mañana
ahí es donde me compré mi primer coche
hizo muchos kilómetros, pero nunca fue muy lejos.

El sol se pone rápidamente
y, como suelen decir, lo bueno nunca dura
Dale un beso de despedida, pero se agararra a tu amante
porque se te partirá el corazón.

Vamos dile adiós a nuestro pueblo, a nuestro pueblo
¿puedes ver que el sol se está poniendo sobre nuestro pueblo?


Buenas noches

Enterré a mi madre y enterré a mi padre
duermen por la calle al lado de la preciosa iglesia.
Yo los traigo flores casi todos los días
pero lloro cuando recuerdo lo que decían.

El sol se pone rápidamente
y, como suelen decir, lo bueno nunca dura
Dale un beso de despedida, pero se agararra a tu amante
porque se te partirá el corazón.

Vamos dile adiós a nuestro pueblo, a nuestro pueblo
¿puedes ver que el sol se está poniendo sobre nuestro pueblo?


Buenas noches

Ahora me siento en el porche a ver los relámpagos volar

pero no puedo ver demasiado bien, tengo lágrimas en mis ojos

Me voy mañana, pero no quiero irme
te amo mi ciudad, siempre vivirás en mi alma

El sol se pone rápidamente
y, como suelen decir, lo bueno nunca dura
Dale un beso de despedida, pero se agararra a tu amante
porque se te partirá el corazón.

Vamos dile adiós a nuestro pueblo, a nuestro pueblo
¿puedes ver que el sol se está poniendo sobre nuestro pueblo?

Buenas noches, buenas noches