Art Above All?

Art is the highest expression of human communication, says Oliviero Toscani. I like art, and I like Oliviero. A lot. We had a lovely lunch in Miami last year. Still, isn’t music and poetry an equally high expression of human communication? Well of course. It’s all about translation and destillation. New points of view. Re-evaluation. Discovery. Beauty. Thank you.

Review of the iPhone for the Economist, Written Jan 10 2007

With the iPhone, every mobile gadget has at long last merged into one. It is the world’s smallest wireless computer, and once again Apple have re-invented the way we interface with technology. My Blackberry Pearl has 29 keys and you need to use complicated sequences involving modifier keys to do just about anything. Getting rid of them all in one swipe, the iPhone has an interface that is digital in every sense of the word. It is a clever context-based navigational system that eliminates irrelevant choices and provides the intelligent and gratifying user experience we have come to expect from Apple. Finally eliminating intermediary input devices such as keyboard or stylus, control has become tactile again.

More importantly, the versatility that made the Palm devices so successful in the nineties, have with the iPhone moved portable computing into the 21^st century. Aiming to create a device for the future, Apple understood that any link in today’s technological ecosystem that can’t change, is only months away from the landfill. At the same time as this simple insight mercifully killed the physical buttons, it opened the iPhone for third party developers and an unlimited amount of applications.

I’ve come to love almost everything that Apple creates, but I am baffled by the lack of innovation from other companies. At the same time as they continue to raise the bar with innovative hardware and software, Microsoft is giving us … the Zune? Vista? A little competition in the field would be nice. Fortunately, Apple doesn’t really seem to need it to keep going and you can sense the joy of creativity in almost everything they do.

It will take some time before we’ll be able to put our fingers on the iPhone and truly put it to the test. My bet is that when it finally arrives, the cute and improbable interfaces that amused us so in Star Trek will get the last laugh. They may prove to be truly visionary. Now just beam me one.

Commencement Speech NEST+m 120626

Friends,

Everything you do in life, you have to do a first time. For me, it’s giving a commencement speech. For you it’s graduating. They are both pretty cool I think.

What can I tell you that might be worth-wile?

I think I’ll just talk a bit about journeys, games, girls and boys.

This is all a journey. You’re on it, and there is no getting off. And this journey is a big one. It’s the one and only that you have, so don’t rush it. It goes fast enough anyway.

How to travel well on this little trip? It’s a very long ride so make sure that you don’t get bored. This is why it’s always, a good idea to avoid straight main roads. Yes, they will get you to the other end much faster, but what actually is at the other end? Getting old? The big finale? See what I mean? You should be in no rush to get through your life fast.

Besides, side roads are so much more interesting. Jump off the path, and do something else for a while! The unknown is full of new experiences that will challenge you to use your Creativity and Imagination.

So what really is Creativity then? I’m in what’s traditionally called a creative field but creativity is absolutely everywhere. And it is much more than a smart way to solve problems.

Creativity is a way to be happy in your life. It moves your mind forward and that is really exciting to us. Why is it such a thrill? It seems like all our organs get happy from doing what they’re made for.

Your legs get happy from running. Your stomach from eating, your lips from kissing, and your brain gets very happy from thinking. It just loves to figure things out.

You know the feeling when you suddenly understand something new. It’s like you just added a new room to your mind. We have an urge to challenge our brains and that is why so many of us play games and puzzles or read mystery books.

But even if Fruit Ninjas, Minecraft, Angry Birds and Call of duty are cool, the most exciting game to play is Real Life. If you learn how to play it well, there are incredible rewards. How do you master life?

First:

Be curious, and observe everything. Store as much information about as many things you possibly can. You will need all that to solve complex problems. Besides, you can blow people away in Jeopardy.

Second:

Ask how, and ask why. It is important to question everything. Always see if there is another way to do things. Do as many new things as possible, and try to do old things differently. Always question authorities. It’s hard to do because they are at the top, and don’t want to share, or listen regardless of how old and antiquated and wrong their ways may be.

Third:

Look for opportunities everywhere, and pick up every tool possible. What are the tools? It’s everything you learn to do; riding a bike, playing the saxophone, making a chart, cooking, writing a poem, solving a math quiz. All developed skills are tools that make it easier to reach your goals and enjoy life.

Now it’s time to talk about girls.

Girls are smarter than guys. Trust me.
You may not think so, but that’s because the game – the one I was just talking about – is rigged by guys for guys. It rewards guy thinking. And all they want to do is to win; the job, the prestige, the money, the power.

So this is what I want to say, to all you wonderful graduating girls: For too long, we have been focused on a male value system: winning at any cost. But greed doesn’t work in our ecological system because to get something, you have to give something too.

Women are much more dynamic problem solvers. They are superior at listening, and at understanding complex social patterns. Meanwhile, the male way to solve a problem has always been: Ok, hold on a minute, let me see if I can just shoot it.

This is why this amazing world is also such a mess. We are destroying our environment and abusing people and animals just so that a bunch of guys can stay on top with their joyless hunger for power.

So girls, I think it’s your turn to show how it should be done. I know that you already can see right through all that male BS and find some real smart solutions. Don’t let guys intimidate you.

As for you guys, I feel for you. Remember, I’m one of you.

I really do believe that the girls have the key to it all. Don’t block the doors. Seriously. We have not been too good at this running the world business, so why not give them the shot at it?

For us to be part of a new sustainable world, we have to find other values than “I want more for me”. The best think we can do is to join up with them. Stop abusing power. Show kindness. Work for common goals. You will find your life with love and awesomeness.

And let me tell you how lucky we guys are. We are still in the running! For some strange reason they still need us, and sometimes they might even really like us. I find that amazing. It’s our ticket in. You just have to promise to never abuse their inexplicable love for us, ever.

Paul McCartney ended the last Beatles album with the lyric: And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

It really is as simple as that.

Take care, and good luck with the whole incredible life you have ahead. Work for a better tomorrow but live for today. Don’t let crap get you down. Play by your own rules and do anything to be Happy. Make the trip worthwhile.

Thank you

And Love too?

All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.
John Ruskin

The Future (From Cityvision Magazine)

To think about the future is hardcoded into our genes. The awareness that gives us a sense of ‘self’ also connects us to the concept of time. We remember and think about the past and we imagine a better tomorrow. While the past-to-present connection helps us understand consequences, the more abstract idea of tomorrow is essential for survival. The projection of possibilities that it provides is the driving force for the creativity that defines us as specie. Without it, we would regress. In this way, tomorrow is be the most important consequence of awareness.

Any discussion about the future is about control. Are we dreaming, planning and creating it or are we just coming along for the ride? As a passenger, you can only observe the future as a progression of the present. Extrapolations can provide good wakeup calls, but they disregard our potential for change. Isaac Asimov’s psychohistory put a mixture of psychology and math in the shape of sociology and statistics in the context of history in order to understand the future. The invented science is fascinating. As it predicts the behavior of large masses of people it becomes the passenger’s ultimate dream – an infinite GPS who not only explains where we’re going but why. Today, psychohistory doesn’t seem quite as futuristic as when the Foundation novel was written 60 years ago. Fueled by today’s obsessive social logging and tweeting, algorithms that detect societal moods already exist.

But before the herds of marketer rush to predict what we are buying tomorrow, it’s worth to know that Asimov also understood the limitation of the science. It was good at accurately anticipate the behavior of masses, but clueless against the actions of extremely strong individuals. This may be perfect irony of future predictions: it can only be anticipated if we disregard the strong individuals who actually create it.

Jakob Trollbäck

http://pastshock.tumblr.com/

Clarity

You never know how and why. Suddenly you just see things so much more clearly. But it feels a lot better.

86 BPM

What a thrill, to kiss you

Re: USA, Iowa, republicans, fanaticism

Anger can turn to pleasure

Spite can turn to joy

But a nation destroyed

Cannot be put back together again

-Sun-Tzu The Art of War

circa 551-496 BC