2006
end-of-calendar-digit 2006-12-29 (545 words)
You didn't really expect me to honour the "change of the year as an opportunity to reflect" meme, did you? Well you might be suprised. I have never really cared for the official end of year stuff. Today is a day, and tomorrow is one too. And on one day we write '06, on the other we try not to forget to change our habit and write '07. But then, thi last year has seen a load of changes and developmeents for me and my small family... so I guess I might just as well give you a round up. Trust me, I'll do it in the most cryptic of way I can. You know me by now :)
... more...five things 2006-12-20 (312 words)
Since I have been tagged, I guess I should play along. Well I never really liked playing tag, and usually was the end-of-line for any such game. Once tagged I would never tag anybody else. There are and were very good reasons for that. Nowadays I simply don't run when in a hurry. But more on that below. I'll try to not repeat stuff from earlier infections of this or similar memes...
... more...facts and opinions 2006-12-17 (51 words)
In fact the interesting thing is that the really uninformed people often have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about, but they will have formed an instant opinion based on something they were reminded of when you spoke! (About which they also know next to nothing.)-- Eolake Stobblehouse more...
she came wrapped in black 2006-12-4 (74 words)
Dear reader, meet my new love, Miss Ozone. Not having a voice of her own, she makes my music sing. And she is a very good listener, commiting anything she hears to the permanent memory of my data vaults. She is a daugther of the House of M-Audio. Sleek, slender and very responsive to my every touch, she gives me power to command the noise.
If film people could work without all those specialists, they would. 2006-12-4 (30 words)
- Mark Bernstein on Mastery.
"The hope that we can be excused from mastering programming is the wicked child’s plea to the teacher, "Will this be on the test?""more...
intelligent praise 2006-12-2 (234 words)
I noticed I have a strange thing with praise. I like being praised, everyone does. Only my reaction if quite often "Yeah, right"... Maybe that's a sign of lacking self worth, not really believing I am any good at what I do. Then I dug deeper:...
more...Dance with the Daevls In The Pale Moonlight 2006-12-2 (79 words)
All star coder/musician/soundmagician Vlad Spears is being very busy. Newest addition to his project list: "Daevls In The Pale Moonlight"...
more...It really feels different 2006-11-26 (112 words)
When you are down and feeling it, you sometimes don't know anymore if you are only ill (flu), or if you are just plain lethargic. You can't sleep but also can't really do anything. Well, once you can stop the medications, things do change. I was really starting to think I was chronically lethargic these last days. Couldn't get to sleep but then couldn't get up either once I did slumber away. Today is the first day I spend without pain in my throat and without medication. What a change! My day cycle is totaly twisted, but that's normal for me anyway. It really feels like I'm almost back up to speed.
more...turkeys, virusses and creative rolls 2006-11-24 (223 words)
So a small part of the world is celebrating thanksgiving, also known as turkey day. We don't celebrate that, but I kind of like the notion of 'giving thanks'. Some do it publicly, some in private, some only to themselves. But the idea is the same. Think about what you are thankful for. The mere act of that might show you more things to be thankful about than you ever expected. ...
more...I'm from Philadephia, so it seems 2006-11-20 (125 words)
Your Result: Philadelphia... more...
Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.
published 2006-11-8 (105 words)
With no small amount of pride I would like to point you to my first published SciFi short stoty "Original Death". I've been writing stories off and on for a long time now, but this is a first in the fact that it is not selfpublished. And I might also warmly recommend the site of 365tomorrows, a site dedicated to bringing out one original SF short per day. They already did their first full year run, and all those stories were brilliant. The site is now open to submission, but the original writers still publish and most of all select which submissions actually get published
more...DaevlPakt 2006-11-1 (91 words)
The Daevl.Plugs Audio Transmogrification Suite is live! Go get your copy of this set of audio madness that will give you what no other will....
more...leadersip to beware of 2006-11-1 (103 words)
Beware leadership that requires an enemy in order to hold power. Such leadership mustcreate enemies.
... more...fighting over imaginary friends 2006-10-29 (62 words)
"There are definitely people who look at the entirety of what’s going on the world today as a couple of people fighting over whose imaginary friend likes them better.more...
[...]
And it’s huge and it’s responsible for an enormous amount of worry and difficulty and it’s why I’m not allowed to travel with eight ounces of shampoo."when it rains 2006-10-25 (94 words)
yeah, it pours. It did this week. Not only was our webserver offline since sunday night... I also missed a flight to Düsseldorf someone else had agreed to pay for, and I am still recovering from the 'bug I seem to have caught that lead to my in ability to get to the airport on time. Still quite shakey on my feet, but eating again. Oh yes, I've heard about that 'go out and enjoy some sun' get well-soon meme. That's that outside thing, right? Which happens only in the day hours? Hahaha :)
more...microID - am I missing something? 2006-10-25 (105 words)
MicroID sounds like a good plan. It's a nice and quite simple way to 'sign' content you creat with a verifiable ownership. Cool. The basic idea is that only he who can edit the content can actually add the required hash of
more...MicroID = sha1_hex( sha1_hex( "mailto:user@email.com" ) + sha1_hex( "http://website.com" ) );to the content. Ok. That's for positive verification. But who is to stop someone elde to use my signature for their content? Why would someone want to do that? Well go ask email spammers why they use my email adress to send you their crap, will you?life is good 2006-10-25 (107 words)
and when it's bad, it only does that to show you how good it really can be. and is. Oh whatever :) My webserver is back online and not only I am a happy camper therefore but also some other people who do have some more traffic than I do and live on this same machine. But we now have one more instance that makes us not only consider moving to a new platform. We are considering a virtual server thing. Something that will scale it's 'hardware' transparently. And it needs to have an OS that can seemlesly be upgraded on the fly. Much like Debian could be.
more...new game? find a law to enforce 2006-10-24 (50 words)
THE US has banned Vegemite, even to the point of searching Australians for jars of the spread when they enter the country.
... you get points for the most obscure and unnecessary laws you can find that are enforceable and will alienate the most... (sez da aussie chick) more...Jonas is having a good time 2006-10-18 (28 words)
I so like it when old friends from way back then re appear on my radar. Like Jonas Beckman. Nice to hear that life is good for you :)
more...Open Small Freight Logistics 2006-10-18 (60 words)
Magdalena Bötcher is always good for some real ideas:
"Now something else came to my mind: All the people driving around in their cars and all the people selling and buying stuff online... (Or craving for these special cookies from italy.) How about letting the first group take care of transporting the goods of the second group?"Intriguing... more...leading from the inside out 2006-10-16 (243 words)
"If you have a vision, what do you really want the most? The vision to happen, or you to get credit for the idea?" That was part of a conversation I had way back in April at the 'GAME OF NOW" in Amsterdam. I was trying to describe my approach to ideas and ego. Trying to explain something that had happened to me time and time again: I would pitch an idea to team mates or superiors, with usually little impact. But six months later the same people would come along and say: "Listen to this idea I just had..." - You guessed, it was the very idea I had introduced some time ago. Obviously I had some ego-related reactions to this at first. But then the above question somehow popped into my mind. ...
more...Magpie 2.0 is in the works 2006-10-16 (53 words)
Kellan announces the continued work on the famous Magie RSS suite for PHP. Cool stuff, but what seems like the most important change for me personally is the move to dual GPL/BSD license. There really are situations where you want to use and support OpenSource code, but GPL just won't do it.
more...Motivational Hazard 2006-10-15 (50 words)
"As we learn to affect our brains better there is an increased risk for addictions, to gain pleasure from something harmful or that we edit ourselves to like our current state no matter what. The poppy represents such motivation traps."more...daevl.plugs almost out now 2006-10-14 (96 words)
Vlad Spears has made a beautiful preview page for his upcoming suite of audio transmogrificators:
"To whet appetites, more information on five of the main DaevlPlugs is below. The audio demos use drumloops for consistency: 2 bars of dry loop, 2 bars of DaevlPlug and a final single bar of dry loop again for comparison. The DaevlPlugs sound amazing on anything: voice, bass, guitar, synthesizers, live or electronic sounds of all kinds, up front in a mix or layered beneath to add subtle change and interest."more...the original myth 2006-10-10 (255 words)
In relationship work I recently came across a very interesting concept: "The original myth" of a relation.
... more...No idea needed 2006-10-10 (39 words)
The Friday Spark - No Ideas Needed by Deb Cooperman
What could you create if you gave up the idea that you had to start with an idea and instead started with a question ... a notion ... an opinion?more...welcome to my sofa 2006-10-8 (141 words)
Hey, welcome to my new "office". With the warm weather outside seeming to be over, I got a bad case of very cold feet. Somehow I seem to always get this draft on my feet that evn a double pair of socks and some shoes can't banish. So I finally got around ro installing my WLAN router here at home. Now I can sit on my sofa, have a blanket tucked over my feet and still write. It felt stupid ro do that before, as my desk is only two meters away. But with the advent of cold feet, reasons and motives change. HAHAHA, I am so enjoying this. There was a reason I got a MacBook after all - more than three hours of battery life, a bright screen, a totally cool touchpad with two finger scrolling and rightclick, the works :)
more...a story in six words 2006-10-7 (129 words)
Here is a good exercise in triggering imagination with only a few (six) words: Six Word Story...
more...ok, here we go. 2006-10-5 (145 words)
I did have the impression that thi last week of travel and socializing might for once break my cycle of crashing after being away from home. As much as I enjoy being with people and traveling etc, it seems I usually pay a high price in the week afterwards. Coming home from one week in Berlin I was very much surfing the high until today. Now I am sitting here staring blankly at my screen. Everything feels bland and I can only hear the echoes of the buzz. I will overcome this phase for sure, as I alsways do. It takes time for me to adapt again, and travel does not grant me that. I come home and face a period of desorientation, exaustion and re-orientation. This time the effect was simply postponed. But you know what? The price was very well worth it.
more...How well do you know the back of your hand? 2006-10-5 (4 words)
Well, really. Do you?
more...BarCamp Nürnberg 2006-10-3 (12 words)
Hey! Are you coming to BarCamp Nürnberg? 16th to 17th December 2006.
more...re-connecting with my net 2006-10-3 (131 words)
This seems strange from a certain point of view. I just came home from a week of presentations, solicalizing, meatspace networking and conferencing. And here I am, re-connecting with my social network. All the while I am actually sitting all by myself in my appartment. It became very obvious to me that large parts of my social network are actually "virtual" for most of the time. Some of my closest contacts actually connect to me via IM or email. And even in the case of my wife and children, who I see regularly in realspace, I was reconncecting via Skype. And no, I don't need to go get myself a life. I have one very much thank you. Only it has choosen to express itself through other than traditional channels.
more...more than simple, mutual nuclear annihilation 2006-10-3 (75 words)
The Bottom Line by J.S. Kachelries:
Sol-3 is probably the worst case of planetary self destruction that I have ever seen. Most of our previous projects involved salvaging planets destroyed by simple, mutual nuclear annihilation.” He smiled slightly as he delivered his favorite axiom. “After all, it’s the extinction method of choice for ‘intelligent’ species that have chosen to remove their genome from the evolutionary mainstream of the universe.”more...konstanthom 2006-10-2 (41 words)
more...
Konstantin seems to be having fun with PhotoBooth on a Mac. I do to, a lot. Anoth thinge we have in commen. It was very nice to meet you at BarCamp Berlin, Konstantin.
BarCamp to BatCave 2006-10-2 (74 words)
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look ma, I'm at BarCamp Berlin 2006-9-30 (7 words)
And there are pictures! On Raju's Blog...
more...BlogTalk on eBay 2006-9-30 (10 words)
Thomas N. Burg is selling tickets for BlogTalk on eBay.
more...Are you going to do this anyway? 2006-9-29 (279 words)
We all have had the search for support. an new idea, a cool project. Something we'd like - or even need - help with. But sometimes it's not that easy to get people to help, to support. Even if the idea is very good. and it would vastly benefit them! what is it that makes people want to support one persona and not so much another?
... more...First Server-WG handshake 2006-9-29 (37 words)
Yesterday evening was a historic moment. Two of the three inhabitants of the Server-WG met for the first time in real space. Now we can only top that by all going to Barcelona to met Andi.
more...Martin in Berlin 2006-9-27 (59 words)
Hey, just a short note. I am in Berlin as a guest of Raju Bitter and Mario Jakobs. We are here in the offices of Yokai Studios, and there are two other bloggers/developers here too: Ole and Schorsch. We are having great fun discussing PeopleAggregator and a lot of other topics and simply hacking together in one office.
more...the hard part 2006-9-24 (30 words)
"It's not always the actual work that is the hardest part of a job and success - It's the decisions, compromises and choices that need to be made." - Barbara Abrams Mintzer
more...info overload 2006-9-24 (18 words)
"But information overload isn't the problem. If it was, you'd walk into a library and die." - David Allen
more...your body already knows the truth 2006-9-24 (296 words)
To find our real intention, wants, to make our best decisions, we usually trly heavily on our rationale. We do not trust our gut feeling as it is hard to define and grasp. It's a gut feeling after all.
... more...I am so dying here 2006-9-22 (80 words)
Breakthrough Networking Technique: Silent Meals! People who know me are well aware I have a weird kind of humor... Serenity Hawkfire does it for me today: "Because you can both just sit there, lost in your own happy thoughts, you'll probably have more fun anyway. When it's over, simply exchange cards. I can guarantee they'll never forget you." - Marketing With Serenity: Breakthrough Networking Technique: Silent Meals!
more...travelling merry man 2006-9-20 (97 words)
Well hey! I am not done travelling this month either. Being one of Marc Canter's band of merry men, and the local German guy at that, I shall be meeting up with Marc in Munich on the 25th. We will be attending the WebMontag with Raju Bitter. And on Tuesday it's off to Berlin for some more meetings and fun. Depending on Raju's ability to persude me to stay, I might be attending the Berlin WebStammtisch (on wednesday night I think) and possibly also the BarCamp Berlin saturday/sunday... What a trip, and it's not even started :)
more...Rauschkulissen 2006-9-20 (132 words)
... more...
So, you might ask, where was Martin traveling all alone? and, more specificaly, WHY?
the blind leading the blind 2006-9-20 (295 words)
I have been 'away' traveling alone this last weekend, which is not a very common thing for me to happen. And - in hindsight - the best thing about this trip was the obstacle of getting home.
... more...stupid magically 2006-9-4 (167 words)
Ok, who would have guessed I would say something like this: but I do start to like XSLT. It very much has it's uses for transforming (well, yes) and also filtering of data. And in some ways it currently makes sense for me to outsource some of the actual data munging from PHP to XSLT. ...
more...JavaScript and leaky abstractions 2006-8-24 (225 words)
Simon Willison talks about JavaScript libs and what is important to keep in mind about using them. I like what he has to say about using libs as crutches to handle things you do not know as a programmer: "It's basic tenet is that abstractions that are designed to save the programmer time inevitably leak, and if they leak at a lower level of abstraction than the programmer is familiar with they prove almost impossible to debug. Paradoxically, the more time saving abstractions you are using the more you actually have to know."...
more...Feline Visitations 2006-8-22 (41 words)
it's time for moma to go swimm so little Feline get's to play with Papa and his new MacBook. It has a CAMERA and there is "Lin-ääh" on it. What a pair we are :)...
more...update on the dripfront 2006-8-16 (112 words)
So wow. Now I have an open celing, and we know - or susoect - where it is coming from. Zje boys with the sewage-cam were here today to inspect the pipes and needed to open up quite a bit of celing and wall. Which is cool, only considering they did it in my 'bedroom'. So now I have buckest where my bed belongs, and a wet spot on the flor behind where the TV belongs that reeks slightky of urine. No wonder about that, it is a sewage pipe they needed to open after all. Thank heavens for the stone tile flooe this appartment has. Just imagie this would have been carpet :)
more...Gaurav on fighter kites 2006-8-16 (361 words)
Wow. This sounds like a fun tradition, although it also seems to be dying out. ...
more...theming without templating 2006-8-14 (199 words)
Theming a webapp usually entails a combimation of (HTML( templates and a little CSS. But why this heavy lean on the HTML building blocks? Maybe this is because people stull haven't fully grasped the idea of structural (semantic) HTML, where the markup has only minimal direct relation too the was things look later on. ...
more...Who ever they are 2006-8-12 (127 words)
They are using a really bad way to get people on their site:...
more...excuse me? You really want to write XSLT? 2006-8-12 (293 words)
So hey. I want to use XSLT as transformation p-code in PA. But please I hear you wail. XSLT? Easily maintainable?...
more...developing for PeopleAggregator on MacOS X 2006-8-12 (517 words)
This just a short note for people interested in developing (or customizing) the peopleAggregator code on MacOS X, as I do. ...
more...Why use XSLT in the first place? 2006-8-12 (123 words)
I have been asked why I want to use XSLT for the Import/Normalisation/Export Architecture for PeopleAggregator in the first place. ...
more...there will be typos 2006-8-11 (144 words)
So ok. I was telling you about my transition to Serenity. And how ubercool my new MacBook is. Ha! And it is. But the keybord, and espcially the keys have one big problem for me. The letters on the keys have comparably low contrast. Grey on white. Looks cool, yes. But if you a) don't see too well and b) can't really blind-type (pun intended)... This will take some practice. And that is why I am hell bent on USING this machine for anything and everything now. Only typing a lot and fast will ever give me the safety and coonfidence I had back on Tranquility. Oh, And I am still in awe of the screen. It IS small. and it has higher res, so type faces are even smaller yet.. but still it works quite well. Must be much clearer and sharper :)
more...a blog is a tool baby, not a guarantee 2006-8-10 (170 words)
Here's an interesting post about some publishers who are trying to market books by 'making' the author to blog regularly. I really like the commentary in that post: "I don’t know any successful blogger in the world who takes a few minutes a post. And it’s not just simply a “post” anyway....
more...alter-natives 2006-8-10 (53 words)
Wow this is cool. Apple's WebKit on windows. Swift is a browser based on WebKit, but running on windows. MAybe this really is the beginning of a cros-platform widget-engine? The FireFox/Mozilla/Gecko stuff seems not to have been able to deliver that as of yet - on any platform it supports...
more...Serenity arrived 2006-8-10 (312 words)
And Serenity will eventually replace Tranquility. Not as a concept. Serenity is the machine name of my new MacBook white 1.83 dual core intel - thingie. and Tranquility is the name I gave to this TiBook almost two and a half years ago. ...
more...raindrops keep on falling on my bed 2006-8-10 (216 words)
Oh boo. This is getting serious. What started as a few drops from my celing has drawn out for over two weeks now and became a rush of water yesterday. So we (landlord and me) finally managed to get the comany to get their act together and drill holes and monitor etc. Thing is they need access to the appartments above me to do this at all. We managed to get one of my neighbours after work yesterday evening, but it turns out is probably not from her appartment. So now the (new) hunt for the OTHER neighbour starts. All the while my celing dripps whenever something we can't yet define is happening. It is not constant, so it is likely it is tied to what my neighbour (or the one above him etc) does or doesn't do. ...
more...Life As A Wave: a book in 45 days 2006-8-9 (198 words)
My friend Carl over at UntappedGenius has embarked on a very brave expedition. He has set out to write a book in 45 days. And it is not just any book. This is about a topic that has been very dear to him for most of his adult life. A theory or worldview he has been refining for quite some years now. And has already succesfully applied to many a coaching session too, helping numerous people get a grip on their life and career....
more...more detailed peepAgg import 2006-8-9 (200 words)
So ok. I am a bit quiet of late. Here's why. This DeBabelizing of the profile space is taking form. Which currently means I am fussing about with the extreme verbose-ness of XSLT. Here is how the part will eventually fit together:...
more...Virtualy coaching visuals 2006-8-1 (350 words)
I was recently asked to help a friend with the visual design for his upcoming website. Now we could have worked in the normal fashion of a designer/client relationship. I do some proposals, he comments, I modify etc. That is an incremental process that works well via email etc....
more...What if we just respected each other's wishes? 2006-8-1 (64 words)
In any converstation, can you accept your partner to simply say 'no?' Would you expect them to accept your 'no?' ...
more...not an us vs. them 2006-7-24 (178 words)
Tara Hunt hjas a very nice post up talking about the in-our-mind rift between engineering and marketing... Well this kind of us vs. them is not only there. It can go deep into disaperate parts od the engineering 'team' too. Being a kind of 'jack of all trades' (generalist) myself, I have very often found myself in the position of a moderator between say the middleware (Java/J2EE) and frontend (pure HTML/Photoshop) developers. Ever so often I heard the sentiment of "let's let THEM worry about this". When really it was a team thing. Sit down in one room. We are all in one boat really. It is our sum that makes the product. So I was the moderator. Because I knew enough of both 'worlds' to be able to communicate. And had enough merrit with both camps to be listened to. Maybe you could have called it 'two way marketing'. Mediator, moderator. Could the classical marketing department take up such a role? Be the moderator between engineers and users? Mediate communications in both ways?
more...have you tested your global microbrand recently? 2006-7-22 (203 words)
Ok. If you have been reading this blog for any time - or if you have been blogging yoursef - you might not be surprised to hear me musing about the 'global microbrand'. The way in which my 'name' is known to 'the world'. Judging from the direct feedback I get, I would have to assume that my readership is fairly small. That's ok really. But does it make all the 'Effort' worthwile and all that... Well I have an anectote for you to show it is. and that is all is a matter of perservance and that the effects are always indirect.
... more...my custom GarageBand install 2006-7-22 (187 words)
Well I talked about this on my "Joy Of Noise" page. I nowadays do most my audio twiddeling in GarageBand. It suits me and is quite flexible once you establish a workflow. There are some tricks I still use Audacity ofr, but those are mostly the descructive audio editing tasks like tempo-shift or extreme filtering. But my install of GA has one major difference to the standard one. I have no, zero, nada Apple Loops or any other pre-looped material installed. All my audio material is custom recorded, sampled from other sources (like sample CDs) or just plainly generated (Audacity again, with the Nyquist scripting language). The original reason for this Apple-Looplessness were space constraints. My G4 TiBook has only 10GB of HD... I moved to an external Firewire HD very soon, but the lack of original Apple Loops prevailed. It has become a virtue to me. And I also use only very limited amonts of software instruments. Actually there is only one track that has any, and that instrument is a third-party chello (Claire Fitch). Did anybody say individualist or purits? Hehe.
more...DeBabelizing the profile space 2006-7-20 (701 words)
So now I have my work cut out for me. With PeopleAggregator aiming to be an IdentityHub, a place to normalize and move info and data between digital identities, and me being labeled the 'PA identity guy'. So here is my task for the near future. In simple term it can be called "build import/export capabilities for profile meta-data". With the concept of remote authetication like with SXIP, OpenID or whathaveyou also comes the notion of a remote profile. Now on the technical level the resulting user profiles are not actually 'remote', but we have to pull in any availeable external profile meta-data a user might have with the remote system she is using for login. And to allow for the openess and freeness of user data PeopleAggregator stands for, we need to ALSO build a way to write-back this info. Import/Export you can call it. Marc calls it the DeBabelizer of profile meta-data....
more...witholding distressing truths may render change impossible 2006-7-18 (106 words)
Dick Richards has a short post about what makes - or hinders change.
... more...why not to WYSIWYG 2006-7-13 (54 words)
Mark Bernstein: "Obstacles and constraints embedded in writing systems can sometimes lead to better writing." I agree. Fancy styling will not write your novel, whitepager or report. But fancy styling can very well keep you from concentrating on writing. Writing, is words. If the words don't cut it alone, making them pretty won't either.
more...widgetization of the web 2006-7-11 (394 words)
Richard and Paolo are talking about the "widgetization" of the web. The inclusion of webservices (bits of useful content, links, info etc) in other pages is a very compelling concept. We have been seeing this traditionally with things like Google's AdSense and Amzon banners and boxes. But the concept is now being taken far further with more useful widgets all the time.
... more...tracking external links - for you 2006-7-11 (103 words)
Oh wow. The folks at MyBlogLog.com either had the same idea (or used mine) and went all the way. They are offering a service that can track what people are clicking on oon your site and analyse those logs for you. Popularity etc. Looking at the JavaScript it's really the same basic concept: when a link is clicked, a request to a external image is created by changing the URL of an image element. Pressto we have an entry in a logfile we can analyse. By using all sorts of URL parameters we can pass along all sorts of interesting info too.
more...you didn't expect me to comment on this, but... 2006-7-5 (253 words)
I usually do not comment on things politics and football. You can guess on the reasons for that if you like. But the current development in the World Cup '06 has some aspects I do want to comment on....
more...What the hell is this PeopleAggregator and should I care? 2006-7-2 (33 words)
Gaurav Bhatnagar has taken the time to write up some very good answers to this basic question. Go and read it. Now. Oh, and don't forget to visit PeopleAggregator.net and sign up :)
more...feeling slightly out of sync 2006-7-1 (140 words)
... more...Happy little noises live here 2006-6-29 (59 words)
I recently spent a short afternoon in my beloved Tinderbox to finally give my 'music' page some more structure and actually make some of the tracks that I already uploaded visible to a larger audience. And this is only the beginning. I hope you like "The Joy of Noise". It's about time I uploaded and linked to it also :)
more...we are LIVE 2006-6-28 (19 words)
So no YOU can come on in. PeopleAggregator went live earlier today, and there's no more need for invites.
more...fully getting my kit together 2006-6-25 (385 words)
Well is seems I am really getting this whole Studio thing worked out finally. This weekend I seem to have finally gotten my windows machine back into fully functional mode. And networked and internet connected. Wow. And now you need to know that all that was keeping this thing from being fully functional for almost the last one and a half years (!) was basically the fact that it was always too much hassle to actually get it done. I made do with my Mac and carrying filkes back and forth on a usb memory stick. Each time I tried the networking thing... things went so bad so fast I usually didn't bother. And what is really getting me up about myself mostly in this, is the fast that there was really zero hardware reason for it not to function in a network. I was assuming a faulty NIC. But today I see that it's perfectly ok. Same went for the monitor. I have this lovely EIZO 19" monitor. I really loved it, and was quite proud of it. Super shap and crisp clean colors. Until the last two years or so. It was hurting my eyes. It seems to have a kind of fuzzy unsharpness. Not bad, so some people never really noticed. But my eyes watered after a few minutes. So that was another reason NOT to really look into this thing. And now? I got myself a hight quality monitor cable (no idea when and where it had aquired this crappy one I had been using). And well... what do I say? It's crisp and clear again. For an investment of about 6,- EURO that is quite some payback.
... more...backup, yeah, WTF 2006-6-17 (301 words)
Oh yeah, HEY. BAckup your shit. And I mean, like, NOW. Really, do it. Regardless of what I'm just about to say here.
... more...fully broadbanded now 2006-6-7 (82 words)
Ok, time for some disclaimers/annoouncements... some of you might already know or have gained... I now work for Marc Canter and Broadband Mechanics, on the PeopleAggregator code. It's a real wide spread team, and 'virtual team'. So now you know why I've been a little quiet here, busy! We have release of v1.0 on Jube 30th (Gnomedex)! So now you know why I really wanted this Studio and it's DSL access. So I could be online and WORK all night :)
more...take a break - then edit 2006-6-7 (244 words)
After a long pause, I will finally be re-editing my article "Designing a Tarot Deck in Tinderbox". It was and is meant to be published on TEKKA.net, but somehow the process stalled. I took it as a sign that there might be a time dor everything, and that this was not it. I haven't really looked at it for a few months now. So now this post on Wrestling the Angel seems to come in like synchronicity. Base message: "You need distance from your own words to edit. Take a break, let it lie in a cupboard for a few weeks. Then edit." Well, I guess I now have sufficient distance for that :)
... more...DSL joys 2006-6-5 (42 words)
Yeah, HEY! I am online. Oh I am so ON-line here :)
... more...Assosiative Text... the Bernstein way 2006-5-27 (489 words)
Is this the lazy web at work? Hardly. But when I was reading Dr. Bernstein's (Eastgate/Tinderbox) blog lately, I felt a strong sense of "way cool, my wish is coming true!"
... more...how much is 56k analog dial-up really? 2006-5-27 (167 words)
Just a few days short of finally having a decent DSL line here in the Studio... I fell for trying out the almost forgotten internal 56k analog modem in my TiBook. What can I say?! I'm online! And the "speed" is not soooo bad when compared to the 64k ISDN line I have at home. Ok, ISDN can use two channels at once, which gives a theoretical 128k. But that is then also double the cost-per-minute (two lines), so you don't use it if you can avoid it. So jey, I'm surfing and emailing at least. And man! Will I miss the "tweep-sqeeeech" it does when dialing in. I really missed that when switching to ISDN...
... more...still offline 2006-5-20 (183 words)
My second retreat into the isolation of my Studio is almost ending (I'm going back home today after another three days here). I got the letter from T-COM today finally stating they are working on my DSL connceting. The nominal date of that happening would be the 29th of MAy. But it can well take a week or so longer they tell me. So here I am, working offline and in isolation for as lomg as it is sensible, and going back home to synch with the team SVN and download stuff I need to go on. It is, again, a different kind of workflow. I am quite proud of my own ability to qork inspite of these difficulties. It takes some thought and planning, but it always astounds me what the human mind can come up with if it is asked to ndeal with limitations. Oh, that reminds me: go read my guest post on Wrestling The Angel titled "Limitation as a creative tool" if you haven't already. There's a nice blogging-story about this post, but that's for another entry.
more...Happy 36 to me 2006-5-14 (39 words)
Hey! It's my birthday! And this time I will be celebrating. Last year was not such a good year for celebrations, but this year promises to be even the better for it. So now I am 36. Go figure.
more...Traumwind Studio - first days 2006-5-13 (389 words)
There's a new development in my work/life situation. I seem to be constantly trying out new things :)
... more...Mitch on disposable words 2006-5-10 (218 words)
My friend Mitch, who is just now discovering the read/write aspect of weblogs, has a nice thoughtful piece about the explosion of words through blogs. What I find amusing and very interesting is the periodic nature of these thoughts. ...
more...NoA - Need of Assistance 2006-5-2 (246 words)
Travelling to Amsterdam on my own has been a blast. That's the best I can describe it. And due to my visual handicap... it seemed to be far more difficult than it actually was.
... more...back from Amsterdam 2006-5-2 (200 words)
Oh wow. Back home, and on the verge of moving again. Not moving home this time, but moving office.
... more...coming out of burnout 2006-4-25 (236 words)
In an attempt to finally scare off all my regular readers, here some more weird stuff from my journey through life....
more...A Muse In My Genius 2006-4-14 (332 words)
Ok, now he's cracked. Totally. Martin's been weird from time to time... but this? Whatever. Don't like it, don't read it. Allow me my part of weirdom. Heh :)
... more...The process of Muse 2006-4-10 (48 words)
Artists, Poets...
more...Anatomy of a joke line 2006-4-10 (32 words)
Steve Pavlina has invited a series of guest writes to write about humor. And it's really humorous to read this writing on humor. I love thos one on writing one-line gags.
more...Uhm yes, but no... 2006-4-9 (130 words)
Oh wow, Mark Bernstein really disagrees with Seth Godin. While U can understand Mark's point of view, I also need to add that I think there's a misunderstanding here. When Mr. Godin talks about "marketing" he does not mean glossy ads or superbowl TV commercial. In the Google talk Mark is referring to, Seth makes this quite clear. (At least for me.) Google's superior marketing was not to do with better ads or anything. It had/has to do with what Mark would call "design descisions". Marketing starts at product level, with the actual engeneering. Chouces made, features added or left out. You might call this a superior product. Better designed in an engeneering sense of the word. More of what the poeple want to have. That kind of marketing.
more...Vlad on the finish line 2006-4-9 (147 words)
Vlad Spears is bringing some (most) of his recent suite of special case audio plug-ins into a commercial form. Apparently he is reaching a point of almost there these days, and returns from his hermitage on the virtual moutain of sillent hacking. Also he reports on over one gigabyte of raw (?) audio produced during testing. I'm - honestly - slightly envious of his ability to build custom audio processors this way. But then, I know he envies my "Audio processing voodoo", which feels not so special to me. I guess we both - we all - just have tthing that come naturally and don't SEEm so important or special to ourselves....
more...Me 100Bloggers now 2006-4-9 (28 words)
I just joined 100 Bloggers and started off with my first post. The motto of 100 Bloggere is "connecting the unconnected". Sounds like the mission of my life.
more...random act of Angel Wrestling kindness 2006-4-3 (141 words)
Alison Gresik of Wrestling the Angel had a small lottery to give away a copy of "Living Your Joy". Yours truly is the lucky winner, and today my book arrived all the long way from Canada to Germany. Thanky you Alison!
... more...Euphoria at 0.9Hz 2006-3-31 (646 words)
What might read like a weird title for a new track... might actually be that. But right here I just want to write about a cool little tool I found that creates binaureal tones. These are commonly used for brainwave entrainment. The theory is that if the brain is stimulated with a certain frequency (via sensory input, here audio), it will "entrain" or synchronize with those freqencies. As research has shown, certain states of consciousness (alertness, relaxation, deep sleep etc) have a typical dominant brainwave frequency. As these frequencies are in a range below audible sound (40Hz-0.5Hz), an amplitude modulation of a higher tone is used to create the stimulus....
more...on detail 2006-3-30 (168 words)
My favorite writer of flash-fiction, Bruce Holland Rogers muses about the right level of detail on his blog: "[I] aim to give the reader just enough to collaboratively imagine the scene without making mistakes. That is, I don't want the reader to think of a particular locomotive as painted black if I'm later going to mention its red and green livery. But if color doesn't matter one way or the other, I'm probably going to leave it out.
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When I was working on Ashes of the Sun, the editors asked me to put in more descriptions. It felt to me like adding an unnecessary barrier between the reader and the experience. If the reader wants more detail, let the reader imagine it. That's what I thought."design processes - refine or innovate? 2006-3-30 (175 words)
Mark Bernstein has an inzeresting view on how his design process differs from a more 'sociological' approach: "[H]ow do you move from research to action? I like to try to make things better by making better things -- to look at that things like weblogs want to be, and then to make tools that try to bring out new facets and new affordances, tools that help people do new things. Those tools are always going to be challenging and quirky and strange, at least at first, because their new tools to do new things.
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If you innovate from sociology, you get polished tools that help people do what everyone is already doing, but that use new shapes and new techniques to make things simpler and more comfortable."Not Stockholm, but Amsterdam 2006-3-22 (32 words)
Ok. This change. The best laid plans of men and mice... whatever. The Stockholm thing has moved to Amsterdam. Which is incidentally funny, as it will be around the Queen's birthday there.
more...How long can I hold a fake smile before it forces me to start feeling good again? 2006-3-22 (26 words)
Ok, now that is a really powerful question to ask oneself. What do I do if I'm in flow? Why am I not doing that now?
more...genius, frustration and burnout 2006-3-16 (255 words)
What is frustration? And how does it come to be? What is burnout... and what do they have to do with our very personal unique gifts?
... more...Can you teach by just asking questions? 2006-3-16 (321 words)
Susan has a very fascinating link about this question.
... more...Life.... 2006-3-7 (49 words)
I don't know what to call life when this kind of thing happens. ...
more...How do I get to Stockholm? 2006-3-7 (33 words)
I have been personally invited to "The Game Of Now". And I signed up. So now... how do I get to Stockholm on April 29th? In a way... the game has already begun.
more...Explosive Clicks - Making Noise With Martin (I) 2006-2-27 (42 words)
Well, here we go. On Vlad's request I put together a short audio-tutorial of how the "clicking backbeat" in "Father, I have been dreaming" came to be. I hope you'll enjoy it, there seems to be more of that coming up...
more...5/4 beats 2006-2-27 (67 words)
Curt Rusengren has a post about "personal soundtracks" and how the music we listen to might (or does) influence our reality. I think he is right on spot there. But what really caught my eye there was the mention of 5/4 beats used in LOTR scenes to produce a really off-setting emotional respomse. Now THAT'S something I will be trying in my own audio-tracks!
more...w3log in TCL 2006-2-27 (67 words)
My old friend Andi has written a new blog-software and is now his own best guinea pig. The software runs on TCL (!) and SQLite3. The latter I can fully understand... and TCL? Well TCL is nice and quite powerful once you learn to know it. And frankly I'd write TCL anytime I did Java :) Why? TCL get's things DONE... You have to make Java do that :)
more...I am narrow sighted 2006-2-24 (229 words)
I was born that way. And this is not a confession of a deficit. It's a realisation. And an explanation of what has made me as mentaly flexible as I am.
... more...Genius and cognitive dissonance 2006-2-23 (341 words)
I've been working a lot with the ideas in Dick Richard's "Is Your Genius At Work". Just today something dawned on me. It explains why sometimes we are at a loss to explain the reactions we get.
... more...patience? 2006-2-23 (160 words)
This is a topic I've had before. And I think every blogger knowa how it feels when you put put something you feel is very cool/deep/insightful and then there is no reaction. I just recently learned - again - that "no reaction" might not be because no one cares. Just today I've had two examples that "no reaction" can mean quite something different: in one case it was "I took time and care to formulate a respomse", so patience would have been in order. The reaction that did come rewarded fully for any time waiting. The other was an experience that sometimes what we put out might be just "too much" for the people reading it. "There was so much depth, so much to respond to, I didn't know how to. I was lost for words. So I didn't respond." Wow. Talk about cognitive dissonance! Here I was thinking "no one cares", while I was actually achieving quite the opposite!
more...Father, I have been dreaming 2006-2-18 (49 words)
I just posted my latest audio track to my tracks page. It's more of a mystery play, with spoken text etc. Oh, and some understanding of the Warhammer 400000 universe is helpful to understand what happens, but not neccessary. (Father, I have been dreaming.mp3 6:46min 6.2mb)
more...The Random University (Scene I) 2006-2-17 (339 words)
Here's a quick intro scene to illustrate some further thoughts I've had about this "Random University" idea. You might want to read that post after you read this, or the other way around.
... more...because they don't exist, they cannot fail 2006-2-16 (104 words)
What Mark writes about his unfinished novels is so true about all the things "we want to do". "{B}ecause they are pure, sweet potential, they cannot be sullied by snarky comments from would-be critics. They cannot languish, unloved, in a pile of remaindered titles at Books-a-Million. In other words, because they don't exist, they cannot fail."
... more...listen to your voice 2006-2-15 (326 words)
Do you have a voice? Sure you do. But do you know how it sounds? Really know?
... more...Vlad, a request 2006-2-5 (243 words)
Listing my "four things" recently one might have gathered I'm not so hip on current music trends and tend to listen to stuff I have grown to know and love over the time.
... more...IdeaCenter / IdeaFisher / IdeaBank 2006-2-4 (287 words)
Here's a software package that sounds very fascinating: IdeaFisher (or is it IdeaBank?). I find this very fascinating, as my own idea of "associative text" follows very similar basic assumptions. But IdeaFisher uses a very pre-structured approach to associations:
... more...Incremental Reading 2006-2-4 (236 words)
Here's a very interesting article describing a process for better learning of a large volume of material: 'SuperMemo: Incremental reading" The article relates to a Windows software called SuperMemo, but I find the basic priciples described appliable even without the software. I think this is a very fascinating process of learning:
... more...sleep cycles 2006-2-3 (97 words)
With all the recent interest in polyphasic sleep, polynapping etc. I found this article about sleep phases very interesting. It talks - amongst other things - about how it is possible for a human to suffer from either a longer or shorter inner-phase than 24 hours. Having an inner clock set to something considerably different from the normal day-cycle (23- or 25+ hours) can result in a not easily resettable inner clock. That would mean your optimzm period of sleep drifts in one direction. The description for "Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome" (DSPS) sounds very familliar to me...
more...Arguments of the Mind 2006-2-2 (154 words)
Debbie Call talks about "Mindfrick" in her post entitled "Mind - Saboteur or Supporter?" What I found most interesting about this post is the way it demonstrates something I have said some time ago: logic (mind) is very often little more than a tool of emotion. And not a oposite of emotion.
... more...stealing quotes 2006-1-30 (75 words)
Here are two qoutes I found on lcom and liked so much I needed to steal them and simply put them here, out of context and links:
... more...I've been tagged! 2006-1-30 (393 words)
I was wondering when this "four things" meme would come my way, and who would tag me. I was wondering if I was "connected" enough to be tagged at all. More surprise and delight when I found Vlad Spears doing just that! Cool. I was planning to link to his site for some time now. So here we go:
... more...How not to whine 2006-1-27 (449 words)
Whining won't help. Not you and not anybody. That's one of the first things you learn in NLP. But you need to communicate a problem you are having. You need to clearly state what's wrong. How can you do that without whining? Here's some thoughts:
... more...How to really learn from debugging 2006-1-27 (551 words)
Everybody who has ever done any kind of programming knows the wild hunt for the cause of an error. You change a thing here and try. Same effect. Chage something there. Try. Same problem, but now also something is wrong there. Change back, try this route. Repeat until the problem is gone. Properly done with a good staretegy this is called "debugging", but very often we get so caught up in trying this and that until it somehow magically works. Sometimes this process is so long and the path so twisted with so many false starts and deadends that in the end we no longer know what exactly the resolution was. What actually caused the problem, and how can we avoid it in the future? Here's some ideas about how to learn, really learn from debugging:
... more...Everyone is a rockstar in the making 2006-1-26 (88 words)
Vlad Spears on being an artist (or not): "[An] artist is only different from a non-artist in one way... the non-artist has not yet realized their own areas of artistry." Tell you what: in my personal opinion I can not draw. But that has never stopped me from doing it. I have always felt that is was by far more the urge that made an artist than the pure skill. Skill is important, it helps express an urge. But without urge skill is an empty thing.
more...The Random University 2006-1-23 (416 words)
Inspired by that Paul Graham quote I went off on a tangent. This is maybe a story idea or an utopian view of a possible future. Imagine our way of "finding a job" worked differently...
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[update: I have started to write some scenes for a story to illustrate this idea. Scrolldown in the post to see links]...could you? 2006-1-23 (138 words)
Paul Graham has a very worthwhile read with "How to Do What You Love". But here is a quote that really sparked something for me: ...
more...How can I motivate you? 2006-1-21 (283 words)
What kind of reward makes you more willing to put in extra time and effort? What makes you tick in an employment situation?
... more...Storytelling, Tarot and the Kuleshov Effect 2006-1-10 (233 words)
Readers of this blog know that I see a very strong conection between Tarot and storytelling. I have been interested in story-generative tools for quite some time.
... more...Paradigm Shift 2006-1-10 (22 words)
Coyote and the Paradigm Shift: "[P]aradigm shift," Owl said. "It's all the rage among humans, apparently. They get them like measels."
more...good tools need skill 2006-1-1 (115 words)
The hi-res user experience: "[Learning] music changes music. Learning about wine changes wine. Learning about Buddhism changes Buddhism. And learning Excel changes Excel. If we want passionate users, we might not have to change our products--we have to change how our users experience them. And that change does not necessarily come from product design, development, and especially marketing. It comes from helping users learn."
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