Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Identity Festival rages on in Miami

An electronic music tour has been making its way through the United States.

This tour, known as Identity Festival, is hosted by iHome, which is the No. 1 maker of award-winning clock-radios and speaker systems for iPod, iPhone, iPad and more.

On Saturday, August 4th, Identity Festival took place at the Bayfront Amphitheater in Miami, the same location usually used for Ultra Music Festival. It began at 2 p.m. and continued on past 11 p.m.


Two stages were set up, the main stage and another side one most referred to simply as the dubstep stage. This side stage was surrounded by the downtown buildings of Miami, giving the setting a truly beautiful city feeling.

IMAG0137 Identity Festival rages on in Miami
Identity Festival in Downtown Miami


I arrived around 5 p.m. just in time for Le Castle Vania who I had never heard of before to be honest. He gave a stellar performance and has only convinced me to look further into his music.

lecastlevania Identity Festival rages on in Miami
Standing front and center, mosh pits began to appear and as the set went on, the pits only became bigger and more aggressive.

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For those of you who don’t know what mosh pits are, they’re usually reserved for metal or rock shows and they are an empty space in the middle of crowds where people aggressively dance around, trashing, flipping,  tumbling and essentially “moshing.”


Anyone who falls down is immediately picked up by fellow moshers, making sure no one is severely or seriously injured.

I once was a part of a mosh pit at a punk show and there was one individual in a wheelchair moshing harder than anyone I’ve ever seen.

He would be slammed and pushed out of his wheelchair to the ground and immediately after, anyone in the near vicinity would stop to help him back into his chair.

Soon as he was back in, he would start thrashing around again and pushing people back just as hard. He was having a blast and everyone around him was as well.

Mosh pits aren’t too common at electronic music events but this was the dubstep stage, which has been referred to as the heavy metal of electronic music. Fitting.

I stayed at the dubstep stage for Le Castle Vania’s full set, not exactly being able to or even wanting to leave the sweaty and dirty mosh pits that surrounded me.

Doctor P was the next DJ and he had been one of the top reasons I decided to attend Identity Festival in the first place.

doctorp Identity Festival rages on in Miami
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stick around for the entire set but I can definitely say the part that I did stay for blew my mind.

At one point, it was far too hot in the front, which can happen in the middle of a packed crowd, dancing endlessly in the middle of the Miami summer heat.


I went to get water and made my way to the other stage where Madeon was performing. Another excellent performance. Noisia, Showtek and Excision also played on the dubstep stage later in the night.
 noisia showtek and excision Identity Festival rages on in Miami
Showtek surprisingly was my favorite set of the entire festival. At one point, he told the crowd to sit down! Everyone eventually listened and he explained he wanted everyone to stand as soon as the bass dropped.

I have never seen a DJ do this but it certainly worked as the crowd waited for that pivotal moment and all rose back to non-stop dancing and thrashing.

No DJ disappointed until the last set of the night when Eric Prydz took to the main stage. Few if any epic drops happened and the music was honestly boring.

At that point, I had miraculously managed to find the people I would be leaving the festival with and they agreed to leave earlier than planned simply because Eric Prydz was not doing it for us.

Overall, one of my favorite festivals so far even though it was only one day. The tour continues through Texas, California and Arizona until August 19th.

Photo Creds Identity Festival

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Google Science Fair Hispanic contestants

For those of you that have not heard of the Google Science Fair, it is a competition hosted by Google (of course) intended for children and teenagers from all over the world to participate in.

Thousands of projects from over 100 different countries were considered and many of the final selections were in fact Hispanic kids.

 The Fair consisted of three different age categories 13 to 14, 15 to 16 and 17 to 18 and three different regional categories: the Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and Asia.

30 finalists were selected from each region, 10 from each age group, making it 90 in total. 11 of these 90 entries were from children in Hispanic countries, two from South America and the other 9 from Spain.

Out of these 90, 21 of the world’s young and brightest scientists were selected to gather at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View in order to present their projects to a panel of esteemed judges.

Projects had very high standards and participants followed a science model similar, if not identical, to one all real scientists use when researching. Projects were expected to consist of a summary, step 1 (About Me), step 2 (The Question), step 3 (Hypothesis), step 4 (Research), step 5 (Experiment and Procedure), step 6 (Data), step 7 (Observations), step 8 (Conclusion), references and acknowledgements.

It is encouraging, if not inspiring, that such young kids are determined and motivated to try to make a difference in the world with their inventions.

One final winner was selected from each age group and a team of three boys from Logrono, Spain won the 15-16 age category with their project entitled “The Secret Life of Water.

Ivan Hervias Rodriguez, age 17 
Marcos Ochoa, age 16 
  Sergio Pascual, age 15

The three boys, Ivan Hervias Hernandez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual studied hidden microscropic life in fresh water, documenting and observing the organisms that exist in a drop of water and how these organisms work and influence our environment, at a larger scale.

Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres, age 17

Jessice Bibiana Alba Torres, age 15

 Other Hispanic contestants and winners included; Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres (17) and Jessica Alba Torres, (15) from Bogotá, Colombia, and Alejandro Andres Fuentes Herrera, (15) from Rancagua, Chile.

The contestants from Spain included Carlos Vega García (13) from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Ana María Santos Espósito (13) from Montequinto, Isabel Medrano Sáinz, (14) from Logroño, Pablo González Recio (17), Alvaro Cuevas Alvarez (16), and Alejandro Sánchez Lechón from Madrid, Gonzalo Balbás Moñivas (16) from Madrid, Judith Calvo Rull (16) from La Garriga, Eduardo Sancho Calzada (17), Alejandra Bargues Carot (18) and Laura García Marco (17) from Burjassot, and Adrian Diaz (17), Sandra Garrido Romero (18) from Alcorcon.

Each winner received prizes from Google and their Science Fair partners such as CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American.

To check out these contestants' projects and the steps they took to develop such astonishing results, visit Google Science Fair.

Accelerate: electrifying ancient Jeeps

The Philippines are working towards a greener future. Ancient jeeps are being transformed from fossil fuel run to 100% electric in order to clean up a megacity.

These jeeps, which were derived from American World War II jeeps, are iconic symbols of the Philippines’ ingenuity.

They are the most popular way of transport which is a problem because there are 250,000 diesel powered jeeps in the country, spewing pollution into air and creating something known as the nebulizer where babies are born with asthma and allergies.

University of Philippines reports that these jeeps are the #1 air pollutants. Drivers of these jeeps are the #1 victims of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Read Related: Food crisis: a new normal?

At first these electric vehicles were laughed at because they only ran on a battery and the drivers of the electric jeeps were giving free rides, a very noble and very new concept.

Yuri Sarminto is the CEO of Ejeepney Transport Corp. which began a project in 2007 where 20 electric jeeps took to the road.

They received permission this year from the government to charge passengers which will demonstrate that these jeeps are good for both the environment and businesses.

Their goal is to achieve sustainable transport systems and change the way things are thought about and done.

They have joined forces with a Dutch company, working towards charging the jeeps with renewable electricity such as solar energy from food outlets that then power generators which charge the motors.
The business model of this project also changes the way in which drivers are paid.

 Drivers are on a fixed salary with complete government benefits, health care, and housing benefits.
Sarminto is trying to modernize public transportation even further.

He hopes to establish an electronic fair payment system which would take a largely underground industry and bring it under government control.

This project and business model are now being copied all over the Philippines and Sarminto says change has allowed individuals to look at problems in different ways and to change the way do business.

Read Related: US agricultural exports to China costly in times of drought

Video courtesy of Global Post