“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

- Mark Epstein
Thoughts Without a Thinker

[through sbpoet]

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HDR by Stein Fekkes

Some friends you do not see too often… which can lead to pleasant surprises.

Stein Fekkes is one of those friends that I see or talk to every now and then. A bit over a year ago we shared the experience of a workshop Digital Photography at Marcel Kentin. Since then we spoke briefly a few times and it was fun to see Stein’s struggle with his phase in life: Having successfully ended his studies, looking for a job, yet at the same time he is thinking how to kick-start his passion – being photography – into a second career.

And then, actually within a relative short period of time, he manages to do a few photography gigs, saves for some well-chosen equipment, registers with a chamber of commerce, gets his VAT-number and is on a roll!

Fekkes Fotografie

And this is when the surprise hits you: I haven’t spoken to him in a few weeks and I find his new website up and running, with a stunningly pleasant portfolio that portrays his very talented eye: http://www.fekkesfotografie.nl

With his analogue background, his high interest in techniques (both hardware and skills), his eagerness to learn and his natural talent, I trust that his photography career will blossom.

Be sure to check out his site and portfolio, keep an eye on his further development and for those in NL: please make use of his services!

Below a few shots I like and below those you will find the links to the flickr-sets where you will find the many alike.

Flickr Sets

Weekend @ Durbuy, Belgium with friends

USA Trip 2008 part II

As it appears, the Chief Scientist of the company who actually makes this friggin funky stuff, Mr. John Underkofffler (what\’s in a name), was the science advisor during the making of Minority Report.

The company, called Oblong Industries, Inc, describes its product as follows:

The SOE\’s combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.

While this explanation might not give you all the clues you need to understand… you better watch the video:

Very impressive and a very dynamic way of handling data. What do you think? Is this the future?

Filmmaker Dennis Liu has combined his love for music, filmmaking and Mac in this high-wow!-factor music video, that he made for The Bird and The Bee.

Fully understand that he has gotten major attention and nods from the hotshots of both Apple/Mac and the film industry. Compliments!

Enjoying every moment… playing around with my Canon 40D… drinking too much coffee…

There are days though, that I leave my laptop at the office (have not switched to a lightweight Macbook Air yet!) and in that case I have no alternative computer to tune in to Last.fm… till now!

I just discovered a small application called Mobbler.

Mobbler is a Last.fm player and scrobbler for S60 devices and although a bit limited and buggy, it works perfectly well.

I downloaded the app directly on my N95 over wifi from the Google code page, installed the app, logged in with my Last.fm account and there you go! Hooked it up to my stereo set and had all I wished for.

Interface is a bit strangely designed and is messed up in landscape view, but it does the job. It even runs in the background, yet does not display the current track in the standby screen then, which would be a nice feature.

While posting this I see the Pound Sterling character on the left d-pad click and realise I have not tried that yet. Will update when I know what it does.

To use it over 3G (also possible) is maybe a bit too costly, but in a wifi environment, this is a perfect solution. Moreover, with this radio on your N95, you have no need to hook up the headphones.

Great app, great solution.