Sickkkk. So good.
geo-rge val-des
de-sign de-ri-va-tives
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Inputs are as important as (maybe even more important than) outcomes
I’ve learnt that the metrics that society uses to measure success and failure are not really fit for purpose, measuring only, as they do, progress towards some soulless upper right quadrant. When the dust settles, I’ve found it’s not been the hard measurable outputs alone – sometimes not at all – that have defined success or failure. Instead, what we put into it, in time, care and thoughtfulness, has produced results that endure: belief, commitment, growth, change.
The modern world asks us to set measurable goals. This is not a bad thing. But inputs, sometimes with no firm objective, have their place. To take more walks. To create more time for people. To learn something new. To be truly present.
In this fast-paced, ambitious, have-it-all-now environment that our people and clients operate in, I’ve learned that sometimes the job of the leader is not to make the boat go faster, but to encourage people to stop for a second, take stock, recalibrate how they’re showing up. With fresh perspective, not only are people healthier, the work is often better.
Time To Get Lost
When Pat sent me the instrumental music for what eventually became Time to Get Lost, I put on headphones and went for a walk and listened to it over and over. It stirred up some anger in me. Made me want to shout. And it was probably because Donald Trump was running for president and doing very well (this was before the election) and the track seemed to capture a frustration that had become a routine feeling.
So while recording my politically-infused lyrics (in my bedroom, even though I live thirty feet from a recording studio) I took a break to poop. And on the toilet I came up with this melody for the ending, you can hear it around two minutes thirty five seconds. I record that melody, send it back to Pat, he mixes the song, and we’re done.
But as always Pat gets the bright idea to make life difficult and try something experimental. He tells me not to worry, that he’ll take care of it. A week later he comes back with a score for string orchestra and tells me he’s hired some string players to record it. My job is to sit there and hit record while he conducts them. I think it’s a little nuts, but who am I to question his master’s degree in composition. So I’m sitting there, doing my part, hitting record, when suddenly the musicians start playing a melody from the song, and I realize… it’s my poop melody. Some idea I whistled on the toilet is being performed by professional violin players.
But enough about my bathroom habits, let’s get back to politics. I don’t want this song to be taken as anti-Trump. It’s more about frustration with authority. About the lack of representation I feel from those who claim to represent me. Obama said in his farewell address that “citizen” is the highest office in a democracy. This is a song about remembering who’s in charge. Remembering whose name is on the building.
-TT
PsychicVR
Project from MIT Fluid Interfaces Group combines a VR HMD with EEG mind reading headset to produce experiences of superpowers when you concentrate:
We present PsychicVR, a proof-of-concept system that integrates a brain-computer interface device and Virtual Reality headset to improve mindfulness while enjoying a playful immersive experience. The fantasy that any of us could have superhero powers has always inspired people around the world. By using Virtual Reality and real-time brain activity sensing we are moving one step closer to making this dream real. We non-invasively monitor and record electrical activity of the brain and incorporate this data in the VR experience using an Oculus Rift and the MUSE headband. By sensing brain waves using a series of EEG sensors, the level of activity is fed back to the user via 3D content in the virtual environment. When the user is focused they are able to make changes in the 3D environment and control their powers. Our system increases mindfulness and helps achieve higher levels of concentration while entertaining the user.
Astor place is booming (at Astor Place)
EXCERPTS >|< Jumping over a man’s back | Eadweard Muybridge (1887)
| Download: large image
| Digital Copy: Public domainAnimated GIF created from Plate 166 from “Eadweard Muybridge. Animal locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements. 1872-1885 / published under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. Plates. The plates printed by the Photo-Gravure Company. Philadelphia, 1887.“
EXCERPTS by OKKULT Motion Pictures: a collection of GIFs excerpted from out-of-copyright/historical/rare/controversial moving images.
A digital curation project for the diffusion of open knowledge.>|<
New media, like the computer technology on which it relies, races simultaneously towards the future and the past, towards what we might call the bleeding edge of obsolescence. Indeed, rather than asking, What is new media? we might want to ask what seem to be the more important questions: what was new media? and what will it be? To some extent the phenomenon stems from the modifier new: to call something new is to ensure that it will one day be old. The slipperiness of new media—the difficulty of engaging it in the present—is also linked to the speed of its dissemination. Neither the aging nor the speed of the digital, however, explains how or why it has become the new or why the yesterday and tomorrow of new media are often the same thing.
Herbert Bayer. Drawing for the architecture photo show in perspective and section 1918-1938. (Berlin Bauhaus archive)
From a series by Stan VanDerBeek, with computer scientist Ken Knowlton, using Knowlton’s BEFLIX computer language, which was based on FORTRAN. The films were programmed on a IBM 7094 computer. (1964-1969)