Mr. Spock

I was sad to read of the passing of Leonard Nimoy, Spock in Star Trek. In the hands of a lesser actor, Spock could easily have been a shallow nerd. But Leonard Nimoy played him as a character who was logical, sophisticated and intelligent.

In so doing, Spock in particular was an inspiration to programmers in the 1970's when it was fashionable for science fiction on TV to be mainly silly and confused. He was a good antidote to that before the hichhikers guide.

I was not a committed Star Trek fan then, simply because I was in Germany and didn't see much english TV. Star Trek was however the only TV show that was free to present ideas about humanity and society and in spite of that it was unpretentious, it did not present itself as a highbrow philosophy program.

That, of course, is part of the point of being intelligent. If you are intelligent, you can say things that ordinary people understand. If you can't, maybe you aren't.

Kicking and Screaming ..

Unfair things happen in life. You might be diagnosed with a disease, demoted for a mistake you didn't make, the ref might make a bad call, an agreement might be broken, a partner might let you down.

Our instinct is to fight these unfairnesses, to give in if there's no choice, but to go down kicking and screaming! We want to make it clear that we won't accept injustice easily, we want to teach the system a lesson, we want them to know that we're not a pushover.

But will it change the situation? Will the diagnosis be changed, the outcome of the situation be any different?

What if, instead, we went at it happy and smiling? What if we walked into our four-year prison sentence determined to learn more, do more and contribute more? What if we saw the derailment of one path as the opportunity to grow or to invent or to find another path?

This is very difficult work, but it seems far better than the alternative.
-thanks to Seth Godin once again!

Mofo remembered

"[Mofo] . . . became the heaviest song maybe we've ever written. I feel like my whole life is in that one tune."
- Bono.




"Is it, isn't it?" Yes, it is the smoothest badass entrance I've ever seen, they could not possibly open a show in any better way!

Coming in through the audience, no other band can do that, just U2.
Those who criticize U2 just haven't seen this live! (I was there, not Mexico city but Mannheim in the rain, Sommer 1997).

Fotodesignarri 2015

Wer wird meine Fotos kaufen? Who will buy my Photos this year?

Strange Noise Festival 1996

"Almost no one" is going to buy your photos. Almost no one is going to become a true fan. Almost no one is going to tell someone else about your work.

Almost no one is going to push you to make your work ever better.

But if 1% of the people in Trossingen (15177) does decide to buy, that's 151 people in the category of "almost no one."

If only 1 out of 10,000 internet users finds your photos, that's still hundreds of thousands of people.

The chances that everyone is going to applaud you, never mind even become aware you exist, are virtually zero. Most products and individuals that fail make the mistake trying to please everyone, and end up reaching no one.

So that's the wrong thing to focus on. Better to focus on making almost no one happy and proud.

Facebook in 2015

Imagine if you were a singer in the 1960s, someone who started in the 50's, like Cliff. Looking forward to a decade or more of performing, then retiring. Then, the Beatles! So what do you do? Curl up in a ball and pretend it's not happening ? But it's music! Yes, it was easier for Cliff Richard in 1961 when there were no Beatles or Rolling Stones. But it's the new music and it's good. So you try to understand it and learn from it. And adapt.

It's like that with Software. You may think you can't learn from people who are younger than you? You're wrong. So of course I use Facebook. Because it's a fixture in 2015. It will heavily influence new systems in the decades to come. And I'm trying to make some of those. So I need to be influenced if I want to be part of the future.  That's why I use it, and if you don't and you're serious about the internet, you're wrong.
-Dave Winer and me.

Cliff is still performing occasionally, and so am I.

Apple vs Hollywood 2014

Interesting, the Web beats film (and soon TV!) (See Netflix, Youtube)

Growing Old?

Happy Birthday noch einmal to me, so far so good!

"To win through by sheer force of genius is one thing; to survive and continue to create when every last door is slammed in one’s face is another. Nobody acquires genius — it is God-given. But one can acquire patience, fortitude, wisdom, understanding. Perhaps the greatest gift [is] to love what one does whether it causes a stir or not."

-Henry Miller

Shortly after his eightieth birthday, Henry Miller wrote a beautiful essay on the subject of aging and the key to living a full life. It was published in 1972 in an ultra-limited-edition book titled On Turning Eighty (public library), alongside two other essays. Only 200 copies were printed, numbered and signed by the author. Unfortunately in 1972 I wasn't clever enough to buy one.