Fact Finder: Argentina's History

It looks like the honeymoon's going to be in Argentina, specifically Buenos Aires. I would like to learn about the history of the place, so I requested a fact-finding mission of myself. I said, "Self, go find out about Argentina's history," and then I did.

There's a LOT to learn about Argentina, so I'm going to stick to the basics so we don't become overwhelmed.

SOME BASICS:
Argentina (see flag at right) is the 2nd largest country in South America (8th in the world) and is the largest (land-wise) Spanish-speaking nation (though not the most populated). It is officially called the Argentine Republic and is classified as an Upper-Middle Income Country. It consists of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, the capital, Buenos Aires. Interestingly, Argentina has warm regions AND icebergs, as it claims part of Antarctica (the Argentine Antarctic).

A BRIEF HISTORY:
Earliest human settlements date back to 11,000 BCE in Patagonia. What I didn't remember from 5th grade history: The Incans thrived there (not the Mayans, the two of which I often confuse) and in 1480 controlled most of northwestern Argentina. Central and southern areas (Pampas and Patagonia) were controlled by nomadic cultures and not unified until the 17th century. Foods of the early tribes and peoples included corn, yuca, yerba mate, and sweet potato. (Side note: Fried yuca is not yucky - it's DELICIOUS).

In 1516, the Spanish set up a colony in Buenos Aires and kept control of it, even through British atttempts to conquest in the early 1800s. Spanish descendents, descendents of African slaves, and natives constituted one third of the Colonial-era Argentinians. They lived in Buenos Aires and surrounding areas, often as gauchos (cowboys) on the pampas (fertile low-lands), while indigenous peoples populated the rest of Argentina.

Serious shifting of boundaries occurred in 1810 (Independence) when Argentinians found out Napoleon overthrew King Ferdy VII. First, they created the Primera Junata (their first government that was not under the Spanish crown) via revolution. This resulted in 2 nations: The United Provinces of South America and Liga Federal, both of which would become modern day Argentina (ok, parts of Liga Federal would become Uruguay). Other provinces were slow to get on board with this 'unified state' idea. Paraguay succeeded in 1811. A formal declaration of independence from Spain was written in 1816 and became a reality in 1817, thanks to the efforts of Jose de San Martin (and others, obviously. He wasn't a magician or anything, I mean, let's be realistic). 1820: Liga Federal was crushed and absorbed by the United Provinces of South America. Shortly afterwards, Boliva and Uruguay were formed. Due to wars with Brazil and other countries and their own internal 'federales vs unitarios' issues, Argentina didn't create their Constitution until 1853.

1880-1929 was a period of growth and economic restructuring thanks to foreign investment and European immigration. President Roque Saenz Pena enacted universal male suffrage and they had their first election in 1916. President Hipolito Yrigoyen did some good stuff economic- and social-reform wise, but the military overthrew him during the Great Depression and there was another conservative rule. Argentina was neutral during WWI and most of WWII. 1946 brought the somewhat fascist, somewhat Guallist rule of Juan Peron (and Eva "wow she really looks like Madonna in that picture" Peron). Don't cry for me, Argentina: I'm not going to go into alllll the stuff that happened under and after the Perons. Briefly, Peron increased censorship and repression, the peso lost 70% of its value, workers and working conditions were vastly improved, Peron rid himself of advisors and was violently deposed in '55 and left for Spain. Next there was Fonzarelli -- I'm sorry, typo -- Arturo Frondizi, who invested in energy and industry. He was, however, forced to resign by the conservative military in '62. Huh, I'm seeing a trend, really. Arturo Illia comes into power, but then it's the return of Peron, with 3rd wife in tow, in '73. For a year, because he died in '74. I'm going to stop there. I'm more interested in the earlier history anyway. If YOU want more, go here.

Oh, and the current president is the first woman to hold the title: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Another interesting fact: Argentina has had gay civil unions since 2002.


Thank you, Wikipedia.

Fact Finder: Playing the Harmonica

I had a special request from Adrienne, a recent law school graduate, for more information on how to play the harmonica. I don't know, but I'll find out!

First, what type of harmonica do you have and/or want to learn how to play? Is it diatonic? This is most common, and you can play a full 7-note major scale in the key of the harmonica. Make sure, though -- it could also be chromatic, tremolo, octave tuned, special tuned...or something else entirely. This post'll focus on diatonics, in any case.

First, hold the harmonica with your hands on either side--- it has numbers on the top that you want to be able to see as you're playing. Don't cup it, pinch it. (I have a friend who would say, "That's what she said!" after such a statement). I guess you get fancy with the way you hold it (a la Blues Traveler guy, John Popper) later, when you're better. Let's not get over-eager, Adrienne!

Second, I feel obligated to tell you that you have to be a really good breather to play the harmonica. If you're dead, this just isn't going to work out. For those of us who are alive, playing the harmonica is very good for your lungs -- you have to have extremely good breath control to blow air in AND to suck it out. (That's what she said?) Here's a good article on the breath control required.

Music for the harmonica is generally written in tab form, so they'll give you the numbers you're supposed to blow (air out), signaled by the number and an up arrow, or draw (suck air in), signaled by the number and a down arrow. Go to one note and blow and draw -just fool around a little. You'll be able to hear that it sounds like multiple notes or a chord. To play one note at a time, you should experiment with a pucker formation that's kind of like imitating a fish (and not kissing your grandmother). Put the harmonica in your lips, not on them, over the desired note hole and you should be able to get to a one-note sound. Here's more on the pucker method (including a sample song for beginners to try out).

When you want to start playing more songs, here are a few you can try playing by number. There is also the play by color method, if you want to give that a shot, but the the playing by number is most common.


Here are some videos and more resources:
Monkeysee - how to play harmonica
Bunch of videos


Maybe I'll start playing harmonica at T stations...but where will people put the tips? Harmonica cases are a little small...

Fact Finder: Studying for the Bar

Here's another entry from Fact-Finding Friday----
Jessica says: "Hey Pam, I want to know more about techniques to help me remember everything I need to know for the bar exam. Can you help me out with that one?"
Yes, Jessica. Yes I can.

In her blog, Lawsagna, this woman has a bunch of ideas as to how to remember a lot of information for the bar exam. I have never had to remember nearly as much info as is tested on the bar, but I've always found things like mnemonics helpful. She also covers lame things, though, like making crossword puzzles out of law terms. That just sounds ridiculous. But, it's all a matter of what works for you.

For example, her tip to find as metaphors and associations is one that might work well for you. The "memory palace" technique she talks about might sound far fetched, but I know you have a sort of photographic-ish memory, so it could be a good way to go. In this technique, you imagine a place or a route you know well and then place different things/principles/whatever in distinct places in that room or on that route. So like, rules of evidence could be placed in different spots in your living room (in your head, we're talking here). And then when you're trying to remember the rules of evidence, you can "walk through" the living room and say "oh there's such and such a rule, right there by the tv" and so on. Then again, you can't remember where you put your phone a lot of the time, so maybe this isn't a good technique for you.

Here's an interesting bit: Doodling can help you remember stuff during a boring lecture. Although, I see you doing those online lectures and you have to be taking notes all the time, so maybe that won't work. But if you have a free moment, don't forget to doodle if you're bored.

Other than that, looks like the best thing you can do is do the bar prep/barbri stuff. All in all, you are a great standardized tester and I think you're gonna be fine!

More resources:
Project Renaissance

What's your question? Leave a comment and I'll find out the answer.

Fact Finder: Photography & Sepia Tones

Janet says:"Hey Pam, I want to know more about photography and, in particular, developing a sepia tone." Ok, Janet!

I don't know a whole lot about photography (just that I really like taking pictures), so I had to go a googling. For some reason, this made me think of the Price is Right yodler.

Anyway...I'm going to focus on common elements of photography to answer the first part of your question.

Like composition, which is basically how you organize and arrange the elements in the photo. What I ran into the most in my googling was the Rule of Thirds. This says that you should try dividing the shot into thirds vertically and thirds horizontally. Where the lines intersect (think tic tac toe, the corners of the middle square) is where the most important element or elements of the shot should fall. There are more rules and tips and what not (like framing your shot, using leading lines, how to make color the heart and soul of the picture, don't automatically centre your subject, don't be afraid to get too close or zoom in, and more), and the trick is using them until they become second nature. THEN you can break them when it's appropriate - like when you want to be particularly creative. When you do that, there are plenty of things to think about, like what do you want your artistic message to be? What do you want your viewers to see most in the shot? For more on composition and the rules of composition, here's a good website.

Then I found that there are all sorts of things you need to consider about the lighting of the shot. Do you want shadows? Beware of back lighting! Consider the angle of the light for other effects, and so on. Here are some good websites to investigate if you're curious about lighting:
http://www.picturecorrect.com/photographytips/Light.htm
http://www.photographytips.com/page.cfm/157

So once you know about light, then you need to learn more about what in your camera affects light. It's good to know how your camera "sees" light and how much light it allows in. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this light equation, including aperture, shutter speed, and film speed. Changes to your camera's light meter affects all of these things. In general, you want the light meter in the middle for"proper" exposure. But, if you want to get artsy and deliberately over-expose (expose to a lot of/too much light) or under-expose (expose for too short a time to light/not enough light) your pictures, this is where you'd go to do it. There are other reasons you might need to over- or under-expose your pictures, too:
Overexpose (click into the positive settings in your light meter) if:

• Subject is very dark in comparison to background
  
• Snow
  
• On a bright day if your subject is in shadow

Underexpose (click into the negative settings in your light meter) if:

• Subject is very light in comparison to background
  
• To achieve a silhouette effect
  
• On a overcast day to increase color saturation

(from Understanding your camera's light meter)

As far as the specifics of light, there's the aperture, which, like the iris in your eye, is an adjustable doo-hicky in the camera's lens that controls the amount of light let into the camera. Aperture also affects depth of field, which is basically whether your subject/foreground and background can be sharply focused at the same time. Aperture is measured in F-stops, where the higher the F-stop value, the less light you're letting in/smaller the opening.

• Bigger opening (large aperture/small F-stop) = more light, smaller/shallower depth of field (meaning the foreground is in focus while the background is fuzzy).
• Smaller opening (small aperture/large F-stop) = less light, larger depth of field (background will be in focus). Good for landscapes.
  

Aperture can be changed on your camera if it's fully manual or sorta manual, but there are some point-and-shoot consumer, digital cameras out there that don't allow you to change the aperture. Instead, with these cameras, you should look at the different settings or modes (such as macro, landscape, and portrait) and investigate how they might affect your aperture.

Shutter speed has to do with how long the film or digital sensor is exposed to light and should be taken into consideration if you're doing a lot of action or motion photography.
Film speed (ISO sensitivity setting) is the measure of the film's sensitivity to light.

And now for the specific part of your question. "Sepia" actually comes from an artist's pigment derived from the Sepia cuttlefish. (Want to know more about the science behind sepia? Click here.) It's used to create a brownish, antiquey, romancey, nostalgic type look. How do you create this affect? In digital cameras, there's usually a specific setting for sepia. In not-so-digital cameras, you'll have to attach a sepia filter. (You can use external filters in digital cameras too, but most have the internal sepia tone filter option).

To develop sepia toned stuff, you can:

• If your camera's digital, just print it
• Mess around with it in photoshop (for more about sepia tones in photoshop, click here)
• Take it to a lab (and make sure you tell them NOT to color correct)
• Do it yourself by developing the print normally, then bleach the paper to remove the silver. Then rinse and repeat. Just kidding. Rinse, soak it in a sepia bath, wash again, and dry. More about this here and here.

Other resources:
Kodak's guide to 35mm photography
Great tips for night photography
To keep the conversation on photography going, check out the categories on the left of this website

And because I know you, Janet, I know that you've been into photography for a while and probably knew a bunch of this. BUT hopefully some of this/the resources was/were helpful (for you as well as for the other readers)! :) Thanks for askin'!

Fact-Finding Friday

I miss doing research.

THERE, I said it.

So today, my friends, is Fact-Finding Friday: Send me anything you want me to know about, and I will have a post dedicated to it next week. Really! I'll do the research for you! It's quite the win-win, if you ask me.

And you can ask me about anything - tell me about Egyptian mummies, why does a rainbow appear when it's raining, what is the history of the infield fly rule, where does the saying "raining cats and dogs" came from, when is the next shark week, what is the circle of 5ths, why do other languages have gendered words, what celebrities share my birthday, how do I make a cake, what kind of hybrid car should I buy -- anything you want!

Just comment to let me know what you want to know -- complete this sentence: "Hey Pam, I want to know more about--"