Caleb Playing Clocks by Coldplay
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…
Humanity Video Stress Relief
I had quite a stressful day at work yesterday and sometimes the best thing to do when that happens is watch a few videos to help pull me back to the big picture rather than the single moment I’m currently in. Observing humanity is one way to do that.
A few years ago I worked in Tokyo on some transactions with the investment bank I was working for. I desperately want to go back there to live for at least a month or more to soak it all up again with my family.
This video really captures the feeling of Tokyo. It is an amazing place, you must go there.
Mars? Blade Runner? No it's a Sydney dust storm
A surreal start to the day with a massive dust storm.
The picture left is one of my snaps on the way to Hornsby Station in Sydney.
There’s been some great photo’s of the event on Flickr.
Tron Legacy
I remember as a child walking out of the movie Tron and thinking "I love anything to do with the future". Movies like Tron, War Games and Star Wars were the seeding inspiration around my life as a product builder in financial markets and more recently in web applications.
What’s really interesting is how Apple is promoting these pre-release HD trailers. The content is rich and attracts traffic. Very smart Apple. Is the strategy is to get conversion to Quicktime format? Or, is to get high end CGI work to be associated with their brand which is also very strong in device and web design.
They are also pushing the new fantasy scifi called Avatar which is definitely worth a look even just for the pure CGI talent.
You know you're a geek when…
- You try and pass off your less than 1 year old iPhone to your non geek partner so you can get the new 32GB video enabled one.
- Life looks like a big content opportunity or a chance to have a say on the very obscure but mildly intriguing (that probably will be of zero interest to anyone non-geek). Unless (a) you make a fool of yourself or (b) you said something cutting edge, controversial or offensive in which case you hit a retweet gold mine.
- Writing a blog post has become a chore and an anomaly amongst a plethora of tweets which we all know is “time saving blogging” or otherwise know as 160 character rants.
- Facebook feels childish now and a “zombie chomp” from a friend is just damn irritating. How about you send me a frigging beer instead!
- You start referring to Facebook as FB. If so it’s time to stop using Facebook.
- The word SEO stops meaning opportunity and instead references all those people trying to infiltrate your LinkedIn and Twitter networks.
- When every pixel of white space means something special to you in the sense of design, screen real estate or most commonly an IE6 wireframe implementation headache.
- You stop opening PPT funny files sent to you from friends because generally there is an “I’m not evil please send me to all your friends and create good karma” message on the last slide. OR, when received from a fellow geek your anti-rick-roll defenses kick in.
- You don’t pay for virus software because you know that while AVG exists it’s like dropping a $50 notes through the grill of a street drain.
- You wonder how banks and telco companies with so much IT muscle can build such bad websites.
- You stop trying to fix problems with large companies and instead adopt a cancel service and move on approach.
- You know the font on a document just by looking at it from 100ft away.
- You know what would be a better font choice for that same document.
- You also know that font will look crap on a PC when compared to an Apple.
- You know PC could do better and can’t understand why PC doesn’t fight back with some “[long pause] Hi I’m Apple [long pause] I’m a bit slooooow” adverts.
- You think gradient shades of blue or grey in Web2.0 websites are pretty but will undoubtedly date at some point.
- You catch the train/bus to work so you can tweet and read blogs instead of lame bumper stickers and lower your carbon footprint.
- You get a call at least once a week from a non-geek relative asking you to fix their circa windows98 PC and being a true geek you are happy to help despite telling them every Christmas to switch to Mac next time as PC’s are really best left to the geeks who need power and like to get under the hood.
- You write a blog post about being a Geek and close it with…KTHXBAI
Online Video AKA Lap TV
Often I find myself sitting next to Emma on the couch working on watching my laptop while she watches the TV. I realised I am only about three TV shows from zero dependence on traditional TV content (House, Boston Legal and NCIS are the TV shows if you are interested to know). If they were available on my Lap TV I would watch them on that device.
The key point is “device”. If all my on-demand web based video content were available through HDTV and it had a keyboard and internet access then I’d be happy to switch to the plasma TV from my laptop. The TV is just too restricted in it’s content control and in a user experience sense despite me having disk/dvd/cable content recall at my finger tips. I feel it has a chasm to cross while the internet is only as short “device” leap away from winning the battle. It would remove my need for any Cable or Commercial TV access.
What I Watch
ABC’s iView
This is world class TV on demand produced by Australian’s own ABC network. Being with iiNet as my ISP it’s also completely free bandwidth usage. iiNet have high quality customer support for the record.
TED
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader as it provides a wider content set and provides video’s online through it’s website for free. A customer of Saasu’s, Stephen Collins from Acid Labs, is also passionate about this video content source and he actually got the honor of an invite to TED and went recently to the 2009 event.
Stilgherrian Live
Stil Gherrian’s regular chat show and the odd road trip or special broadcasting via ustream.tv. Covers news, journalism, politics and technology. I have suffered a bit of a laughing fit disease reading the chat streams and watching the video I have to say. The whole audience participation through conversation direction is where I see my consumer attention heading in the future. It simply adds a richness through consumer participation that TV will struggle to compete against if it’s best effort are those stupid red and yellow buttons on your cable remote control.
iJump TV
iJump is about how marketers and communicators are using social media to connect with their customers and audiences. This is what I call Reality Net. Reality TV is scripted, while Reality Net tends to be very adhoc and ultra-candid. Simon Young is a bit of a mad young thing so the interviews are very engaging because the perspective you get just isn’t something you would get in a TV style interview process.
Joost
A way to watch videos – music, TV and movies over the Internet. It’s a video and channel approach. Think of it as a hybrid YouTube/CableTV offering that is free.
Vimeo
Uploaded and shared videos that I find it easier to get higher quality content from than traditional YouTube and Google Video type channels.
Photo: Aaron Escobar
Change your perspective
Tired of the same old, same old, perspective of life. Here’s some alternative ways of seeing things that help snap you out of that automaton existence, that is the day to day.
Sub orbital flight around earth
When catching a plane at altitude turn you head to be horizontal and pretend you are in a context of looking at earth from space. It feels like you are looking at our planet not out of a plane. Photo:marclehmann
Losing your self importance – we are all just ants
Looking down from tall building, planes and mountains is a chance to change your perspective from the day to day macro perspective up to micro. The god like view of things. Photo:kelpenhagen
I’m a fish!
Get you underwater goggles and hop in a pool. Lay on the bottom of the pool. Look up and see the plane of water and sky above. Works best on sunny day and if you can hold you breath reasonably well. Photo:wili_hybrid
Very little visual information
This creates intrigue, assumption and a bunch of other feelings caused by your brain filling in the missing gaps. This shot is taken of my daughter and her friend through the slats of a chair. Photo:marclehmann
Bugs eye view
Get yourself (or your camera) on the ground looking up through the layers of jungle toward the canopy and sky above. Photo:marclehmann
The Blade Runner cityscape
I like this type of photo of Tokyo super city. It gives a feeling of future, excitement, life. Photo:masochismtango
Aura’s
HDR Photography techniques give back an auro to scenes which often the brain or the eye sees but which the camera just can’t capture. The colour intensity gives the world an aura. Photo:_neona_
On holidays? 7 Reasons to Stay Technology Connected:
I have had a few discussions with tech savvy customers about avoiding tech during your holiday break. This topic is clearly a divided camp.
Personally I can switch off from tech for about a week but that is about as long as I can handle going dark (as Geeks call it).
Here’s 7 reasons supporting an argument for staying connected:
1. You’re the tech guy/gal
You can’t avoid tech anyway because someone is going to get a geeky present for Christmas and you are going to have to get it working for them on their outdated Windows Me PC.
2. You just love it, it’s like a hobby anyway.
If tech is your passion in life then taking a break from it may not be a great holiday for you. Be careful not to confuse Passion with addiction. Addiction is more of a love-hate relationship to something while passion is pure love-love. Passion makes people very happy.
3. Your customers might not like it.
I confess to have at least one unhappy customer (that I know off) this Christmas because they couldn’t personally reach me. I make myself far more available to customers than most people in my position. I make no excuse, I needed a break. It’s a personal choice and there is a personal brand cost attached.
4. You could break your flow (your work mojo).
Flow is that space you get in where you can operate really quickly and effectively almost without thought. Martial arts experts, artists, writers, coders are typical environments where flow can be achieved. Stopping breaks your flow and it can be hard to regain it without a lot of Red Bulls and caffeine (in my industry at least).
5. Avoiding the e-mail buildup.
When I take holidays I find that the buildup of e-mail is overwhelming on return. You could adopt an email bankruptcy method to deal with this (I don’t have the guts to do it). If the size of your email inbox generally matches the size of your peptic ulcer then maybe it’s a good thing to keep the inbox small.
6. Avoiding "behind anxiety" can keep you happy.
When I take holidays I find that the buildup of work-flow, thinking and decision making that needs to be done is huge. While you think about your work constantly then you aren’t really on holidays. You’re not present. Your little voice in your head is busy chatting to yourself about what you are really committed to mentally. Keeping digitally connected, if only for half an hour per day can release that mind energy into e-mail, your blog and the like.
7. Work and play are the same thing to you.
Why does your life need to be separated into groupings like work, play, tech, art, family etc. Can’t they just be collapsed into one if you can manage it. I personally love the web, blogging, digital photography and to me they all cross over to my personal life. My digital life enhances my personal life. I regard technology being a part of me and my existence, not separate to it.
Is Perfection Killing Your Execution?
Sometimes perfection can have a debilitating effect on execution. Almost disease like, it can arrest your progress.
Perfection is actually an unnatural state. Ironically natures imperfections seem to give it a feeling of perfection.
I’m as guilty as the next person for wanting all the ducks lined up but this is only in some areas. Other areas I don’t seem to care as much and will knowingly let perfection slip. A typical area I like to be meticulous in is Saasu.com application defects. While at the same time I am ok leaving the odd spelling mistake slip through editing on the Saasu website. I guess I adopt a triage mentality to things we work on.
Here are two quotes I think sum up the attitude worth adopting to get over this issue if you find yourself not completing things because they aren’t quite perfect:
“A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.” General George S Patton
“Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world.” Robert Hillyer
3 Big Stories of 2008
Wotnews.com.au the news arm of Wotif.com has posted the 3 big stories of 2008 according to various CEOs, Gov and Industry leaders. My three were:
The Death of Capitalism (as we know it)
A defining year in financial markets with the emergence of a new species of company that will cause the re-writing of so many economic text books. The “too big to fail” organisation will re-shape the way people invest, the presence of government in corporate share registries and the social and taxation equilibrium of the USA. It’s a new age of taxpayers funding the big end of town’s failures. Will history write it up as another peasants versus kings story? It feels like the tip of the iceberg to me and I’m confident that 2009 will herald an even bigger story than this one.
Heath Ledger
The tragedy of dying young and the elusiveness of truth were both present in the tragedy of Heath Ledgers death. Life shouldn’t be so short and the truth should be told as to why things happen so people can learn from it. However Heaths death just highlights for me that the story told can never be taken as the truth, it’s just someone’s version of the truth and quite often the version of truth that suits their agenda. If it bleeds it reads is the saying. It reminded me that science is nearly always the best reporter despite not being the most exciting one to read. The autopsy results said “We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications”. I couldn’t be help feel that society still over medicates to fix it’s problems. Society continually underestimates the loneliness and trapped state people of fame can exist in. To me this was a pure tragedy and I won’t judge Heath Ledger.
Mumbai
This was a critical event in so many ways. Not even the optimism of potential change in the way the US positions itself globally could stop those still wanting to have a fight. Even with a relatively passive US president elect and the potential for a reduced assertive nature in US foreign policy, it seems terrorists never be happy until their whole region is engulfed in warfare. This is probably the first event that blogging and micro-blogging outperformed traditional media in the time-to-market of live events as they unfolded. Notably Twitter and Flickr furnished the news hungry online consumers with content. Interestingly traditional media seemed to attack these same organisations for exacerbating the problem as terrorist were claimed to be holding twitter accounts along with guns. I’m not sure how they worked this out so quickly and how the terrorist were able to tweet’n'shoot at the same time but the whole blame game seemed to me to smack of Twitter campaign by parties outside of Twitter seemed vindictive fear of this new social journalism than about the truth.
