Martèl

Clair de femme

2012-01-15T18:04:00.023+01:00

Lydia: Je ne veux pas de votre vie, j'ai assez de la mienne ... Je suis peu de chose, j'demande encore moins. Un tout petit peu de tendresse, de douceur, ça me suffit. Michel: C'est une façon comme une autre de dire que vous êtes très exigeante. Lydia: Oui, très ...

Romy Schneider by Giancarlo Botti, Paris 1974

via

Happy Birthday HAL

2012-01-13T00:25:00.004+01:00

January 12, 1997

The fictional HAL 9000 computer becomes operational, according to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the 1968 movie adaptation, the computer's statement -- I am a HAL 9000 computer, Production Number 3. I became operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997 -- put his birthdate in 1992. Both dates have now passed with no super-intelligent, human-like HAL computer in sight.

2012-01-13T00:23:00.001+01:00

The Rise of the Mobile Workforce [INFOGRAPHIC]

2011-08-09T11:34:00.008+02:00

The Beekeepers

2011-07-03T20:55:00.008+02:00

The Beekeepers is a fascinating experimental documentary by filmmaker Richard Robinson, exploring the cultural history of beekeeping, from Aristotle to medieval monasteries to Darwin to the U.S. Army, and looking for answers to the CCD crisis through a near-expressionist blend of black-and-white archival footage and voice over narration. Equal parts artful and thoughtful, the film is a genre-bender with an uncommon creative angle, offering an illuminating glimpse of the intricate mechanisms driving a complex and all-permeating ecosystem.

Now that the environment is changing, the beekeeper has taken on another role: that of the environmental monitor. It turns out that bees are better at telling us what’s going on in the environment than just about anything else. They’re better than NASA’s satellites at tracking global warming and they’re the most efficient way we know of testing toxic waste sites. The government has even studied them as a way to alert us to environmental disasters. So when colony collapse disorder started killing bees mysteriously, it wasn’t just the food supply that concerned scientists — it was the environment itself.

by

The Traditional Publishing Bingo Card

2011-03-23T10:39:00.005+01:00

The Electronic Publishing Bingo Card

2011-03-22T22:52:00.005+01:00

Cranes - Leaves of Summer

2011-03-19T00:27:00.000+01:00

What Makes the Modern Media Agency

2011-03-17T18:28:00.002+01:00

the gift of the creative beast

2010-07-22T12:52:00.001+02:00

Il faut cultiver son jardin.

2010-07-19T23:07:00.026+02:00

Yesterday I finished reading Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann: "Can one tell – that is to say, narrate – time, time itself, as such, for its own sake?" What a magnificent novel this still is - unparalleled.

And today I wrestled through the second half of Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen: “Last December, a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.”

Fortunately Ms Galchen's novel then lead me back to Four Quartets by T.S. Elliot:

"Burnt Norton
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
..."

Candide, Hans Castorp, Leo Liebenstein, Burnt Norton: full circle.

iPad + Velcro =)

2010-06-19T12:07:00.006+02:00

It is time for your identity crisis!

2010-05-27T23:08:00.011+02:00

And here is a must read Handbook to get you started. A magnificent book in my view on how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.

Designed for doers Business Model Generation is for those ready to abandon outmoded thinking and embrace new, innovative models of value creation.

Paperback-July 6, 2010. Available for Pre-order

Society is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born.

2010-05-22T11:45:00.006+02:00

While Dutch election fever rises, reading Edmund Burke' Reflections on the Revolution in France

"One of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated is, lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters, that they should not think it among their rights to cut off the entail or commit waste on the inheritance by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society, hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin instead of an habitation — and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.

And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which with all its defects, redundancies, and errors is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal. Of course, no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course or direct them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property or exercising function could form a solid ground on which any parent could speculate in the education of his offspring or in a choice for their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As soon as the most able instructor had completed his laborious course of institution, instead of sending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous discipline, fitted to procure him attention and respect in his place in society, he would find everything altered, and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of estimation. Who would insure a tender and delicate sense of honor to beat almost with the first pulses of the heart when no man could know what would be the test of honor in a nation continually varying the standard of its coin? No part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few generations, crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of heaven.

To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution, that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion, that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their father's life.

SOCIETY is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule, because this necessity itself is a part, too, of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be obedient by consent or force; but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.

These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be the sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom. They who are included in this description form their opinions on such grounds as such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring receive them from an authority which those whom Providence dooms to live on trust need not be ashamed to rely on. These two sorts of men move in the same direction, though in a different place. They both move with the order of the universe. They all know or feel this great ancient truth: Quod illi principi et praepotenti Deo qui omnem hunc mundum regit, nihil eorum quae quidem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et coetus hominum jure sociati quae civitates appellantur. They take this tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name which it immediately bears, nor from the greater from whence it is derived, but from that which alone can give true weight and sanction to any learned opinion, the common nature and common relation of men. Persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of reference to which all should be directed, they think themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and cast, but also in their corporate character to perform their national homage to the institutor and author and protector of civil society; without which civil society man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even make a remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue willed also the necessary means of its perfection. He willed therefore the state — He willed its connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection. They who are convinced of this His will, which is the law of laws and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a seigniory paramount, I had almost said this oblation of the state itself as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind taught by their nature; that is, with modest splendor and unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the public ornament. It is the public consolation. It nourishes the public hope. The poorest man finds his own importance and dignity in it, whilst the wealth and pride of individuals at every moment makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible of his inferiority and degrades and vilifies his condition. It is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general wealth of his country is employed and sanctified."

Burke's works at The Online Library of Liberty

Let Out The Creative Beast

2010-04-08T16:20:00.008+02:00

in 2 simple steps!

Pulp Fiction for Brands

2010-03-28T14:11:00.005+02:00

It's not for kids, it's nasty, it's cruel - but it is incredibly well made.

The film was directed by the French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy + Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. It opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short.

(via Baekdal)

Internet of Things and System of Systems

2010-03-21T17:49:00.006+01:00

Internet of Things and System of Systems concepts help to explain a great deal about what is happening now where the digital world meets the physical and intellectual.

"Over the past century but accelerating over the past couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data field. The planet itself - natural systems, human systems, physical objects - have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we didnt used to be able to hear it, to see it, to capture it. Now we can because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And its all interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.

Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. Thats where societies become more efficient, thats where more innovation is sparked.

When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two dimensions. One is to be more efficient, be less destructive, to connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more conscience and deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, new forms of social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information, creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its information but we werent. But increasingly now we can, early days, baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to us."

Source

Author Entrepreneur

2010-03-19T23:58:00.011+01:00

Scott Sigler (Dark Overlord Media): Who Needs You, Big Publishing? How Authors Can Own All Rights and Make More Money.

The End of Publishing for Penquin

2010-03-18T00:20:00.006+01:00

A new viral video that challenges the normal order of the written word. Those with a keen memory for virals of the past will instantly recognize it as a tribute to Lost Generation created in 07, that was in turn based on Truth back in 06.

Source

The three things newspapers should do is experiment, experiment, experiment!

2010-03-14T15:15:00.005+01:00

Presentation made by Google’s economist-in-chief Hal Varian last week at the Federal Trade Commission’s second round of hearings on the future of journalism.

Source

The medium is the message

2010-02-13T12:29:00.010+01:00

The medium is the message

random acts of kindness // boomerang-style...

2010-01-29T21:24:00.012+01:00

Named for the karmic notion that every good deed comes back to its performer, boomerang-style, Boom Boom! Cards exist to inspire altruism. Available in packs of 26, the artistically designed cards each specify a particular act of kindness. It might be something as simple as saying “please” and “thank you” in every interaction over the course of a day, or it might be something more tangible, like buying a stranger a cup of coffee.

Either way, users begin by registering their deck and performing the specified kind acts, one at a time. Each time they do, they give the card away to someone else and then write about their experience on the Boom Boom! website. Users can upload photos and video to help tell their story, and the site's mapping feature allows them to follow each card and see where their kindness spreads. Since the site's launch into beta almost a year ago, more than 2,600 “agents of altruism” have joined what the company calls "the uprising of guerrilla goodness." Each deck of Boom Boom! Cards is priced at USD 9.99; of that price, 5 percent is donated to iSpot Compassion and 5 percent goes to the charity of the purchaser's choice.

Virtue really is its own reward.

See also KIND Snacks' series of KINDED cards

Align yourself with the world

2010-01-23T00:11:00.007+01:00

Source

our whole life is now becoming a service environment

2010-01-10T21:16:00.008+01:00

Sisyphus might have ultimately been convinced to pay a monthly fee for the pleasure of pushing that rock up the hill.

Every click, second of attention and piece of data input is slated to be sold; life itself is put to work. The Social Web is free for us to use but the middleman is paid with our data.

In these slides McKenzie Wark brilliantly condenses the digital economy into a semiotic square. He relates the gamer and the hacker to the worker and the hustler. He then associates online services to these digital figures. The "worker" appeared in proximity to LinkedIn and Facebook, the "gamer" near World of Warcraft.

Source Trebor Scholz

Video: The Debate Over Google Books

2010-01-05T21:05:00.009+01:00

Overview of the issues at stake in Google’s book scanning project. Worth watching considering that many of these larger points tend to get lost in all of the reports on minute developments in the litigation over the initiative.

via