At long last, the Naturespace catalog is becoming available on iTunes! As long as you have a wi-fi connection, you can download the entire Naturespace catalog directly into the iTunes section of your iPhone or iPod Touch. While most people know about Naturespace because of our iPhone apps, the Naturespace catalog is intended to be used on any iPod, and reside in your iTunes library. We have divided and bundled our catalog into seven albums, four of which are currently available, with the other three expected any day now. Each bundle contains 3 tracks that average 40 minutes worth of audio in total. In addition to those tracks, we provide Earbud Optimized versions as well, so six actual tracks, but 3 different pieces. Click here to go to Naturespace on iTunes! To learn more about each track, please visit the catalog section of our website. We will be updating the website with links to the store soon. And for greater flexibility in choosing, you can also purchase tracks directly from our website’s online store.
Apple has chosen Thundergod for the “What’s Hot” section of the iTunes App Store. If this is how you found us, then we would like to welcome you to Naturespace! Thundergod is an app that will continue to expand and grow… more storms, and a few other surprises. And please, feel free to ask us questions either via this blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter. We have no way of communicating with you via the app store and customer support is a priority at Naturespace.
There is also much information to be had on our website for those who are interested.
Thundergod has been reviewed by The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Check it out! If anyone has any questions about Thundergod, please feel free to post your question here. We take customer satisfaction very seriously, but we have no means to respond to you via the app store. That’s why we have this blog!
Location Spotlight: St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
About a quarter-mile offshore, at the mouth of the Apalachicola River in the Gulf of Mexico, is a small, undeveloped barrier island, St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge. With many types of habitats, ranging from tidal marsh to freshwater lakes and streams, St. Vincent is a haven for many endangered species. Bald eagles, alligators, sea turtles, indigo snakes, colonies of bats, red wolves, and a vast compliment of migratory and tropical birds take up residence here.
With no motor vehicles allowed, and access to the island only by boat, St. Vincent is preserved in as natural a state as possible. Hunting is done in a managed way with the goal of maintaining wildlife populations at a level compatible with the habitat. Our visit to St. Vincent was a unique pleasure; the absence of motors always brings us joy, but it was the uniqueness of such a small island with so many diverse species and habitats that really stands out for us. The Naturespace track Infinite Shoreline was recorded here. Since it is at the mouth of the river, the waves strike the shore at a very oblique angle, which presents a waveline that cascades from right to left, as opposed to head-on. Totally unique, quiet, clean, diverse, and on the ocean; it is one of our favorite spots so far.
Much of what we experience these days is digital. Broadcast television is now completely digital. Most audio is digital. And everything you do on the Internet is digital. Most people know this. But, after contemplating this most obvious of concepts for a while, it occurred to me that all of these things have no mass.
Digital means that something is converted into numbers, or more specifically, a particular sequence of numbers. If you arrange the 0’s and 1’s in just the right way, you get a Spongebob Squarepants episode. When you purchase something on the Internet that is to be downloaded, such as Naturespace audio, or a movie off of iTunes, you are essentially purchasing a specific numerical sequence of zeros and ones, which, in and of itself, has no mass. But it does take up space. And each time it is copied, it takes up more space. There are many of these numerical sequences that are sold on the Internet.
Now it’s not as if you were out of zero’s and needed to buy more, or that you have all these leftover 1’s around from your Spongebob purchase last week because you used more zero’s watching it. You already have the 0’s and 1’s on your hard drive or whatever, you just need to arrange them correctly. Once the numerical sequence is created, it can be disseminated and copied easily, only requiring the energy to transfer the numbers, but not actually existing in the world the way that doughnut you are eating does. Want to eat that doughnut again? Gotta buy/make/get another. Wanna watch Spongebob again? Just run the numbers.
The digitizing of data has made it into something much more analogous to thoughts and ideas: mass-less information. Text used to require a page in a book, now it just appears on the screen. It seems like the world is becoming a lot more like a brain every day.
Naturespace is proud to announce the release of Thundergod, the ultimate Thunderstorm experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Click here to go to the app store. We’ve been through many nasty storms all across the United States to make this app. The addition of the Naturespace blog allows us to communicate directly with Thundergod users, and for those who may have questions before they buy it. So check it out in the iTunes app store and let us know what you think by commenting here. We will also be issuing an update to the free Naturespace player soon, we are just waiting for Apple to put it through. Check back often for the latest updates.
Location Spotlight: Chequamegon National Forest
Most of us here at Naturespace are avid mountain bikers. For us, there is no better way to get away from the endemic noise pollution of roads and highways than riding 20 miles into the thick. We are constantly seeking the best trails in diverse wildlife regions. We will occasionally spotlight our favorite places so you can check them out for yourself. Let us know your experiences if you have been there, and if there is a place you think we should know about, please tell us. The quest for the ultimate ride is never over.
We have chosen the Chequamegon National Forest in Northwest Wisconsin as our first spotlight because it is one of our favorite places to ride and record. Obviously, there are no mountains, but the rolling hills and steep eskers that were glacially cut into the landscape provide some of the best roller-coaster riding we have found. Chequamegon is home to a truly vast network of riding trails. Over 300 miles of single and double-track take you on a never-ending journey of fun in the forest. The wildlife includes black bears as well as a seemingly infinite set of avian species; the forest in late May at 5 am is just ridiculous with birdsong. Affordable lodging means you don’t need to camp, and there are plenty of campgrounds available if that’s how you roll. And then there are the lakes. Warm, clean, clear water that allows you to see to the bottom, dragonflies and butterflies hovering and flitting about makes stopping off for a refreshing dip mid-ride the highlight of the day.
For more information, visit Camba Mountain Bike Trail System. Also, you should know that the Chequamegon Fat Tire festival occurs annually in September, so if you are going to go there for some solitude, stay away for at least a week before and after the event; it’s the only time the place gets really crowded. But if you are into biking with a lot of other great folks, you should do the fest. It’s a major party.
From the very beginning of my role as the chief recording engineer for Naturespace, I have been consistently surprised by the many new ideas and thoughts that result from listening to the accurate recreation of natural sounds and spaces. I am looking forward to being able to share and explore these ideas on our new blog.
One of the most unique aspects of listening to Naturespace is what we call the true “being there” experience. For me, after spending thousands of hours exposed to this “virtual reality”, I have developed a strong desire to understand perception and it’s relationship to reality. Astrophysics and cosmology have always been interesting to me; I am an active astronomy enthusiast and most of the science I read about involves these realms of study. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is something most people do not understand, even though it has been the working model for the world we see around us for the last 60 years. Most people still think of the world in Newton’s terms, and believe that gravity is something like magnetism. But it’s not, gravity is the result of warped space-time due to the presence of matter. Space tells matter how to move, and matter tells space where to curve. But through the endless ideas that physics presents, I have always noticed the absence of consciousness as an integral part of the equation. Since quantum mechanics clearly states that you cannot observe an event without altering it, and relativity states that reality is different for different observers, I have always wondered why it seems to end with no further questioning or explanation of the role of consciousness in the universe. Enter Biocentrism.
Biocentrism is a scientific theory that suggests that life created the universe and not the other way around. One of the fundamental principles of Biocentrism is that a comprehensive physical model of the universe can not, and will never be achieved without understanding the role of consciousness. The first problem one must get past is the obvious chicken and egg scenario where consciousness must reside in a “place” in order to exist, so the “place” must come first. But this is only a problem if you believe that the past is unaffected by the present, which Biocentrism states is not the case. Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology and astronomer Bob Berman have co-authored a fascinating new book explaining this radically new vision of the universe called Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe. In it, they explore and explain the ideas and their ramifications on the understanding of the physical world. I am very encouraged by the prospect that science is finally looking at what I consider to be a most obvious component of the universe.
Dialogue