We have a new baby in the house. No.4 is very special just like all the others. I’ve noticed he smiles while he is dreaming but new babies don’t smile while they are awake until older. I wonder what he is seeing and dreaming in his sleep that has him smile given how newly born he is. More to the point why is there any content at all given it’s only a few days?

I have a very hectic 2 weeks ahead of me. So I scheduled 20 minutes of me time at the park over the road from my office. This is the view from just below my chin watching the early bird autonomous robots on their way to work.

In a world full of variety, knowledge and potential it’s so easy to operate tomorrow how you did today, yesterday and many days before that. For most of us less than 1% of our lives is truly spontaneous or new. Life can become an inevitable future, what I call an IF. So I try to break my IF by making changes, self expressing and exploring a different way of living and working.

The picture left is one of my attempts to break my IF last year. Something a little crazy. I don’t normally go four wheel driving because I don’t like the environmental impact it has despite owning a 4WD vehicle. It was something spontaneous, a tangent from my normal life and I never regretted it. It was actually brilliant experience with some great people that asked me along (Thanks Mike and Doug).

• Automation is more than machines doing work for you. It’s about MACHINES and HUMANS following RULES religiously.
• Keeping multiple todo lists is very bad. That would then be a list of lists = FAIL. One work list and one personal list is plenty.
• Coincidental results are when you shift your approach to a task in such a way that it causes other tasks to be completed or progressed.
• Relying on memory = FAIL. Write down enough that you can act on. Do you write down phone numbers and later look at them in mystery?
• A few big theme based spreadsheets with more tabs trumps lots of single tab spreadsheets.
• Search your email to find emails don’t file them. Mind shift » Search is in effect treating every piece of text in an email as a folder/label.
• I need one many of these (pictured)

• iPad non-porn by Bob Parson’s marketing machine at GoDaddy.
• Tech Zealots and how to spot them in the wild.
• Megashark infographic. It’s the absolute truth.
• Without civil liberties, government is just a criminal racket by Stilgherrian
• The secret to great work is great play – so that would mean it’s no-longer work, right?

Wikipedia describes Flow as,

the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

It’s difficult to achieve this state but if you can it is an amazing feeling. I find flow requires comfort, awakeness, music, enjoyment of the task at hand. It can also come of the back of a series of epiphanies that lead into excited state of flow for extended periods of time.

Personally I’ve found myself in that state just by laying in bed and brainstorming to music, also in sporting situations when I have been surfing or sailing. Even working (if you like your job like me) it happens but is usually cut short by an environment that tends to destroy the state.

What breaks flow is distraction or fatigue. People also break flow, particularly those that suck energy from an environment with negative speech, behaviour and presence. I also think age can play a part if you let age dull your self expression, learning, health and creativity.

The state of flow probably isn’t very observable because it’s so internalized but a few classic representations of it by the movie industry are the character Neo in the Matrix, Bud fox at the height of his career in the Wall Street and more recently when Sam Worthington masters the skills of natural law of the Na’vi people in Avatar.

I think it’s worth the effort pushing for the state of flow if you can. It takes effort but it is possible with mental training and setting the right conditions for it to occur.

Photo by alaskaent

I love urban photography almost as much as I love nature photography. Here’s some shots from various Flickr photographers I follow:

• Sydney Industrial – clearly it doesn’t have to be about skyscrapers. By Mugley
• Manhattan – so strange without the twins but now balanced with buildings in scale. By paulobar
• Shinagawa Hilton Tokyo – a super city that transports you 10 years into the future. By PSD

The post title is just some snippets from the comment stream that I thought summed it up nicely. Mesmerizing to watch.

Great job by Creative Apps and hat tip to Jake Lodwick.

Record Makers Promo from CreativeApplications.Net on Vimeo.

Recently I walked the South Coast Track in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park wilderness with a friend and neighbour, Michael Sainsbury. It is regarded as one of the top bushwalks of the world because of it’s pristine, remote and wildlife rich nature. Having done it I completely agree.

In summary the trip is a flight into Melaleuca via TasAir and a walk 83km east coming out at Cockle Creek. The trip took us 6 days but you do need to allow 8 days. Bad weather can prevent you crossing the Ironbound Range and river crossings may not be possible if in flood.

It is a remote walk and there is a wide variety of terrain experience. The walk has three superb climbs. The first easy climb is into the Red Point Hills and the second was a difficult, windy, cold one over the Ironbound Range. The final climb is up to the top of the South Cape Range. I created the following elevation chart to highlight the climbs.

There are no roads, fire trails, huts or human infrastructure other than timbered sections of the track and the odd pit toilet to protect the ecosystem. So you are on your own other than the odd bush walker. There’s plenty of drinking water in creeks and streams. All seem to contain frogs, yabbies and fish. Some creeks flow red due to tea tree.

If you plan to do the walk then permits from TasAir flight departure or from Cockle Creek National Parks Office are $30. Take a map, compass, fuel stove (no fires allowed), first aid, an EPIRB and cold/wet gear.

The fauna is evident everywhere. You are certain to see at a minimum yabbies, freshwater fish, frogs, wallabies and many bird species. If you are lucky you may see the very rare Orange Bellied Parrot. There’s an incredible diversity of flora such as the Isophysis tasmanica orchid which we saw when crossing the Ironbound Range. If you like those strange looking plants in Dr Zeus books then you’ll love the Pandani and Scoparia up in the ranges.

I highly recommend reading King of the Wilderness the Deny King biography by Christobel Mattingley. Launceston Field Naturalists Club’s Guide to Flowers & Plants of Tasmania is also an excellent resource if you want to get the most out of the flora experience. Matt Downunder wrote a good post about preparing for a 10 day hike in south west Tasmania.

I’ve posted our Tasmania South Coast Track photo set at my flickr account

One of the joys of being a parent is seeing your kids learn something themselves through the discovery process rather than training. Our son Caleb hasn’t ever had a Piano lesson. Emma and I don’t play the Piano either so he has had to find out for himself how to use it.

He generally finds songs he likes on YouTube or on the back of our CD’s. Once he knows the songs name he searches YouTube for people who play that song using a Piano and learns their keystrokes. It might not be finger choice or timing perfect but I think he is getting the notes right. On the weekend he wanted to get his efforts up on YouTube like the other “Piano People”. Being a parent who wants to encourage kids to create content I helped him upload a video taken from an iPhone into my YouTube account. So here’s Caleb playing Clocks by Coldplay…