Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Mood monitors

[Thanks to TTL.] Cute woman, this psychologist.



I think many people have a fear of "becoming too introverted". And it's understandable, it can temporarily hurt your productivity and such, and in most western countries introversion is something which is stigmatized as being an unhealthy condition. But who amongst us don't have feelings we would like to be without? And the more I learn, the more I see the astounding amount of feelings and mental phenomena we are not even aware about. Which I think, per this video, is a field which we now see embryonic technology to help us with.

Twitter and obsessive communication

Obama and Britney-Bitch (as she says her name is in "Gimme More", apparently) both had their Twitter accounts hacked.

Obama has a twitter account??!!

OK, I'm ready to become a dinosaur now. I'm one of the most "online" people I know, but I set the limit at a few things: phone texting... IMing... twittering...

I don't know, those things just seem to me to cross the line from being enhancing communication to becoming pure, compulsive "communication" without any worthwhile content at all, only a high addiction level.

Similarly those young people who always have a mobile phone glued to their hand, if they're not texting, they're chatting. What can they possibly be saying for 16 hours a day which has any substance? Seriously. I mean even if I include things with little substance I still can't imagine what they're talking about.

Update: I've created a Twitter account (eo_stob) as research, because I might be wrong, I might find some value in it.

It seems from their intro video that the purpose of Twitter is to answer the question friends ask each other on the phone: "what are you doing?"
Well, I don't ask that, unless it's just a gentle start to a conversation if it's been a long time. Why would I ask that? What's the value of finding out that my friend (or celeb) is doing laundry or feeding pigeons? Unless he can add an interesting thought about laundry or pigeons, but good luck writing that in 140 characters.

... It seems that other people can write on somebody's twitter stream? WTH?

TTL chimed in:
I too have pondered about twitter, and my thoughts have followed the exact same path as yours.
I have found one concrete and valuable use for it: some companies use twitter as a support channel and in those cases it is the best (or possibly even the only) way to alert them to something. Also, I've noticed that some high profile (=popular) people can be reached through twitter, if needed.
I've noticed that many people who have been critical about twitter have changed their minds. I think Steve Pavlina is one. But then, he is now also a Facebook user, so I don't think his opinion counts for much here.
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Neeraj contributes:
I think, internet social services like Twitter have some similarity to the good old smalltalk between people ...
Years ago, I didn't like it in any form - I mean, what is the meaning of a conversation, where somebody asks you "How do you do?", and at the same time you can feel he really doesn't want to know it? Or to be connected with you on a deeper level?
Meanwhile I'm softer about this - I see it more like a verbal smile, maybe superficial, but nevertheless a kind of smile, acknowledging each other.
--

I have had a similar development. I think the significance of the words is not the only content of a conversation.

Update:
Here's an article which has some nice perspectives.

Well, after a day of using twitter, I find I'm out of things to say. I have a really boring life on the surface, and the deeper levels defy a 140-character limit.
And I also have not found anything much in other people's twits to stick around for.
There may be a slice between "nothing" and something demanding a blog post which might be worth something, but it doesn't seem to me to be worth signing up for and keeping up with one more Net service.

Magnetic Mary muttered:

"Plus you'd have to be pretty arrogant to think people want to know your every move".

It doesn't have to come from that place; no need to think "what I'm doing is so great everybody has to know it", it's more of a friendly chatter, or micro-blogging. I find it cool to be concise to fit a message in 140 characters, and it's also cool to follow the mental gibberish of certain brilliant, curious, creative, neurotic minds. And if you see yourself reflected, bonus!
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Dale R Herbert cried out:

What did we ever do 20 years ago? Were we alive according to today's standards? There is a thing called "get a life" you know. Electronics are just simply getting out of hand. If you really want to communicate, go out and meet people, I mean come on people, let's get real. Use the computer for what you can not do on your own. With the rest of your life, develop yourself, learn to cook and entertain people, write a book, draw, sing, be an artist, learn to speak publicly. PLEASE, for everyone's sake, USE YOUR BRAIN and BE A CONTRIBUTOR RATHER THAN A COMPUSIVE COMMUNICATOR.

Now that I have that off my chest. We are losing the battle of life if we become so cloistered in our daily existence. We are becoming human peripherals of our own doing. Using electronic methods of communicating reduces our humanity. Will the things we write in Twitter and other such avenues be remembered by anyone? Remember, the days of your life are writing your life's biography. Do something that has meaning with your time and don't waste it, because time is what life is made of.
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TTL said:
"I fail to see why communication on the Internet as such is less valuable than other forms of communication." (Eolake had said.)

Yes, and also, I don't think it has been shown that communication on the Internet automatically takes away from off-line communication. I know many people who without the Internet wouldn't communicate at all. I think, as a whole, Internet has made people more communicative.

Physical proximity is of course the richest form of communication. But it can also be very inefficient. I like to think that there are three levels of communication:

1. Spiritual (sensing each others' energies)
2. Mental (passing ideas on a physical medium)
3. Physical (meeting in physical proximity)

The point is, 2 always includes 1. And 3 always includes 1 and 2. But for many things you don't need 3. It might even be a distraction. And it takes a lot of calories to make it happen. (Not good for your ecological footprint ;-)

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

FilmBaby

A chunk of the "Long Tail": Film Baby.

Progress in life

How do you measure progress in life? What's the goal?

When I was young, I took it for granted that the goal was to become BIG, or at least to have a big effect. If it's good to be a millionaire, then it's better to be a billionaire. If it's good to have ten employees, then it's better to have a thousand employees. If it's good be famous as an artist, then it's better to be the most famous artist in the world.

And many people I know who do the same as me (running a pay site), when one site is successful, they start another and another and another, going for an Empire. It seems a natural progression, but I wonder if it's not really more of a way to use up all your free time and then some.

Personally I found that once I'd covered my basic needs and gotten comfortable, I started losing the drive needed to expand more in the base world. It was not an easy transition, I had many false starts and changes of mind back and forth. Actually it may have been coincidence these things happened in the same period, after all many people are poor but still have little interest in expansion, and some are wildly successful but still strongly driven to be more so.

I think empire-building is basically a top-dog game. It's a game of who can dominate. How much admiration can you get.

The tricky thing is, if not Big Goals, then what? If you don't feel happy and satisfied, where do you turn for satisfaction? That's way too big a question for a blog, but I guess answers from various people would go to "family", "job satisfaction", "creativity", "love", "religion", "spirituality"...
I think what's common to them are non-material qualities. Very hard to evaluate even for yourself, and especially for others.

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I guess a good term (I don't know if it's been used before) is "soft qualities". By which I mean those things that can't be measured with numbers. Love, beauty, spirit.

Wing suits

Wing suits, buzzing mountains, new extreme sport.

Pretty amazing, they seem to have a travel-to-fall ratio of at least two or three to one. And surely wing suits can be improved yet, the surface area seems very small.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Canine escape

Cafes

I love a good cafe. (And it seems this town can feel it. When I moved here seven years ago, there was not a single real cafe, now there are half a dozen.) (I hope not too many of them will go bust since I now have an espresso machine myself.) But maybe the Starbucks culture is a little out of hand, particularly "pay fifty bucks (or whatever) for a cup of coffee the size of a Hummer, then get out of the shop in a hurry". For me, cafes are for sitting in, looking at life (meaning girls, mostly).
I did so today actually. The waitress was Petra, a foreign girl with good English, who I hadn't met before. She had a smile exactly like my friend Bettina's, and I told her so. She used it too, copiously and sincerely, very nice.


Dr. Laura

Letter to Dr. Laura, a fundamentalist radio personality. (By the way, is it normal for jews to quote the bible?)
"I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?"

Steve Jobs on his health

Steve Jobs talks, finally, about his mysterious weight loss.

It's nice that he's optimistic, but I think it's mainly to calm the waters. Just like life has taught me, I'm sure it has taught Steve that once we get beyond how a hammer or shovel works, nothing in this world is ever simple or straightforward.
Of course it's still possible that he will become and will stay sound as a pound for the next fifty years, and I hope so.

Waldo

The world belongs to the energetic.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

They can have it. :-)

Saturday, January 03, 2009

In Memory of a Shutter-Bug

In Memory of a Shutter-Bug, article, funny and enlightening.

Wii scream

Beware, noisy video.
It seems the claims that video games can do strange things to kids' minds may not be so wrong.



With other family members, I bought a Wii for my nephews. The reaction was more erudite than this, but sincere. "How do you say thank you for a present like this?"

I actually bought one for myself in 2007, but got bored with it because what I did with the stick seemed to have only so much influence on what happened on the screen. For instance it was impossible to throw a gutter ball in bowling.

Working at Apple

A veteran Apple employee, ex, tells it.

André F. Chocron

You heard it here first: André F. Chocron will be famous. (Though he should lose the F.) His work is just compelling.


Déjeuner du matin from André F. Chocron on Vimeo.



Bars & Tones from André F. Chocron on Vimeo.

Rob Zombie interview

Update: this is a very cool video. It perfectly captures films of a century ago.

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Rob Zombie interview. Some interesting things are said. But I also show it as an example of what's wrong with post-MTV TV and videos: producers are so terrified of viewers becoming bored that they can't show an interview without weird jump-cuts and camera moves, and sometimes actually putting music on top of it. I really hate when films and TV has music on top of dialogue. It's like putting text on top of photos or art. Come on, guys, respect the communication.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Death of the hero

Somebody made a list of superheroes who actually died. That's impressive until you notice that most of them have been resurrected. Lame... it's almost harder to find a superhero who hasn't died and been resurrected. The trick is to find one who stayed dead. (I find it very hard to believe Captain America will be the one.)

Wouldn't it be fun if just once a prominent superhero died and was never resurrected, despite popular demand. Wouldn't it be fun to hear a commercial publishing company say: "Do you really want us to go against our word? The guy is dead! We have integrity, you know."

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Rob Zombie and Beatles

And now for something entirely different.
Though again it is the melody which is the base of the appeal for me.
Embedding is disabled for this one, but you can watch/listen to it here.

And now for something quite different again: All You Need Is Love, performed live and in color in 1967.
What synergy those guys had. Spooky. You'd never think two fellahs like John and Paul could mesh like they did, musically.

And lo! My favorite version of Revolution. I wish they'd done more hard rock.



John Travolta has talked about a theory that anybody has a personality like one of the Beatles. And that his is "Paul all the way, baby".
If so, mine is clearly John.
But what are the personalities of George and Ringo? Pardon my iggorance, I'm just slightly too young.

Does anybody know in which documentary McCartney tells that he and Lennon would sit across from each other and "sort of play at each other" when they were composing?

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Rich said:
The son and I went to an Ozzy concert last year with Rob Zombie opening. Didn't know a thing about him until the night of the concert. We were instant fans - he was more fun than Ozzy. Really cool set, goofy death robot, catchy tunes. Retro-horror-kitsch done right !

Sean said:
I've never particularly gotten into Rob Zombie's music, but I really respect him for doing his own artwork and videos in addition to his music. And his horror movies may not be everyone's cup of blood, but he definitely brings his own special something to the genre.

I just looked him up on wiki, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see he has five platinum albums! I'd no idea he was so popular. He deserves it, he is perhaps the single artist I know who combines near-Ministry intensity levels with great melodies.

... I just checked Rob out on iTunes, and he had one album I didn't have, Educated Horses, so I bought it. Fun to see his titles and looks are getting more subtle.
Man, my connection is great these days! I downloaded all eleven songs in under ten seconds! I remember a few years ago, Steve Jobs showed download speed like this on stage, and the audience laughed with delight and surprise.

Black Box Recorder - "The Facts of Life"

This song has been amongst my faves for a while, and I suddenly wondered if a video was available. I like the sweet melody and the voice of the singer.

"STEAL THIS BOOK"

Here's a popular classic: STEAL THIS BOOK By Abbie Hoffman.

It's about grifting and stealing your way through life. That seems to me an unloving attitude towards your fellow man, not to mention an admission that you can't pay your own way.
But wait, there's a morality:
"Our moral dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral."

... Though the very first chapter is about how to steal from restaurants, so clearly people who own or work in restaurants are not brothers or sisters, but "pillars of the Pig Empire".

"There are still some places where you can get all you can eat for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag sewed inside your pocket and take it with you."

Good lord, what a fucking pathetic life that sounds like.

When looking at Abbie Hoffman (male), he looks to me like somebody who may have had some worthwhile things to say, but who was a person who was deeply mired in a viewpoint of intense conflict with most of the world. (The book contains advice on how to get armor and weapons for conflicts with police!) If you see it that way, that's what you see. Self-fulfilling prophesy.

Employee of the Month

Employee of the Month - totally hil. I don't know why it has mediocre reviews on Amazon, and I don't care much, I'm guessing they were expecting a different kind of movie. It's a highly entertaining satire.



Little person (or whatever the singular of the PC term "little people" is) Danny Woodburn as Glen Ross has a great line: "I like people. From a distance." That's exactly how I feel.
Or as Linus van Pelt put it: "I love humanity. It's people I can't stand."

The media landscape

Hans Lysglimt is echoing here what I've been saying since the mid-nineties, that the decentralization of media will have far-reaching effects we can hardly imagine now.

Back then I didn't realize how big a barrier the technology would still be to most people, but blogging and vlogging is finally changing this now.



Hans says: "The fact that we have a free society in the West ... is an anomaly... Right now we are in an amazing time in human history where we do have a free society for the most part, but that can change very easily..."

Debbie Harry: I Want That Man


I'll keep the money You can have the fame
Debbie Harry, I Want That Man

Very wise words.

I think Def, Dumb and Blonde was a terrific solo album. It's not often a solo spinoff from a popular band is that good.



This seems to be the original video:

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Adam Isler Photography

Adam Isler Photography.
Funny how it's clear that some pictures are modern, some are from the seventies, and some are from the fifties.
(I wish he'd make the text on the pictures more discreet. I never liked text on pictures.)

I love the tones and lines in this one.