Category Archives: Recommendations

Recommendations from around the web.

The Great Work

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The concept of a life’s Great Work is often mentioned in association with famous artists, social leaders, scientists and so on. That is simply because the Great Works of these people went on to influence very many others. However, we all have these experiential masterpieces hidden within us, just waiting to be manifested fully. It’s not a matter of fame at all. A Work is Great if even one being is greatly thankful for it.

Life has an infinite amount of potential. Often though, we find ourselves at a crossroads, unsure how to unlock what lies within. And this is where Robin’s book comes in. You can see it as a map for reaching a life’s hidden potential:

https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-You-Illusion-Accomplish-Great-ebook/dp/B01MSU561N^

The book’s description resonated deeply with me. I completely agree with the message. As I explained in a previous posting^, I am of the opinion that art is “anything that expresses free will in order to stimulate an intense emotional response”. By reinterpreting the definition of art and celebrating its myriad facets, I share the belief that a Great Work lies within everybody – as an obvious effect of the fact that we are all artists, expressing through our various professions. A scientist turns future-telling into art, a social leader turns communication into art and a good driver weaves speed and safety together into an artful drive.

I am extremely happy to see that this book exists. Having such a wide definition of art also means that I am very encouraging towards people to express their talent in any way they can. I would have loved to take this encouragement I have inside and put it into the perfect words for it to be transmitted. I realized I had this wish only when I learned about this book. I felt like lo and behold, the Universe has been merciful and here it is, a book that encourages and stokes the fire of creation and then some!

I believe we are all not only capable, but are right now completing our Great Works. Life is one’s Great Work. But sometimes, much of it remains under wraps, hidden in the “corner of hope” of our imagination. Let’s shine some light towards that corner and bring out the beauty!

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The Earth without Art Is Just Eh…

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This cute pun is quite old indeed by now, but I praise the anonymous that put forward these most beautiful words. A disarming, naked truth shines with amusement from this simple sentence, a lyrical gem.

Personally, by “art” I do not understand “the arts”, as in: “a rather limited range of accepted creative expression and style”. My definition of art is “anything that expresses free will to draw an intense emotional response”. Food can be art, coming up with a beautiful surprise for a friend can be art.

And when I say “free will”, I mean whatever each being uses as a motivator for actions. We call it “instinct” in other beings in order to separate it from the higher level of consciousness at which we believe ourselves to be. But a wolf has free will even if in its world it has a completely different (wolf-)rationalization than in ours.

From the long lasting to the ephemeral, art has infinite manifestations, just like the Universe that gave it birth. Living this life is the art we are all given time to perform.

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What It Means to Be Holding Space for Someone

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Many of us have problems dealing with friends who are dealing with grief or are acutely or chronically depressed. This wonderful article provides some seriously useful information on the topic.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/what-it-really-means-to-hold-space-for-someone/^

I try to keep a rather neutral tone on the website, or at least try to be open ended about everything I write about. I am also aware that I may be wrong with everything I think about (ahem, ahem, elections USA 2016?^). But in this case, I’m going to seriously ask you to read the article I linked. Come on, you made it this far, go and some extract some invaluable information out of that text.

You don’t even have to read it word for word! It’s good enough if you read most of it. Enjoy! Oh, and if you ever want to thank me, share this post with somebody (couldn’t help it, sorry. Writers have to become popular if they want any sort of chance in life and besides, this is information worth sharing).

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About Zuckerberg’s Global Community Vision

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Two weeks ago Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of FaceBook, dropped what I consider to be an ideological bombshell on the tech industry and on business in general. It doesn’t even matter what the true intentions behind it are. It grabbed attention and dared to change – at least for a little while – the tune of the global business discourse.

Mark’s Global Community^ post is very well written and published at the ideal time to provide maximum PR value. I’m not surprised that some have even seen it as a sort of political statement. I liked how this article^ from The Guardian explores the text.

Perhaps this is indeed the beginning of the age of corporations governing the planet publicly (rather than from the shadows). If it is, I’d definitely have Mark run the show rather than somebody like Trump. I try to keep a balanced tone on this website but even though I can understand why Trump has become the man he is (given the society that shaped him), I do believe it’s healthier to leave his world ideology behind and advance to something more akin to what Mark is envisioning.

Mark’s “manifesto”, as some in the press have called it, is of course rich with positive examples about FaceBook’s achievements. What I really appreciated though is the fact that it acknowledged some serious issues with the website, such as the fact that some people’s posts get censored when they shouldn’t and posts that should be removed are not. Mark’s explanation for this makes a lot of sense: “we’re operating at such a large scale that even a small percent of errors causes a large number of bad experiences.”

Still, FaceBook does censorship. It has a special kind of censorship but it’s still censorship. And I don’t mean this respected author^ getting banned for saying bad things about Trump’s supporters. Perhaps that was a good way to break the circle of insults. What I mean is how FaceBook prevents people from being exposed to other opinions, keeping them inside their comfort zones, blissfully unaware of the storm raging outside. I call this phenomenon ideological clumping. FaceBook engages in this probably because a happy user generates more revenue for the company.

This issue of ideological clumping is addressed in the manifesto so I’m curious how FaceBook will deal with it in the future, especially given the fact that its financial model is based on convincing creatives to pay money in order to get their content in front of their followers. By this I mean how the default follow command on FaceBook only means that a user allows the application’s algorithms to sometimes show posts from a followed person, page or group.

The manifesto also addresses the issue of fake news. The viral spread of misinformation using social media is an intellectual disease that has given Trump more than a few votes – granted, he wasn’t the sole benefactor of this phenomenon. Sadly, this is a problem that Mark & co. will have to work much harder to fix than by writing a goody two shoes manifesto.

Last but not least, FaceBook’s visionary CEO mentions artificial intelligence quite often. Trusting A.I. to do the very hard work of curating content is a risky bet with a lot of unknowns – something he acknowledges, but not strongly enough I think. If A.I. were truly intelligent I’d be more inclined to trust it, but right now, we’re talking about some closed-source (sometimes buggy) algorithms that are controlling the information people are exposed to, not to mention able to shut people up. There’s less intelligence in there than there is manipulation for the advertisers’ interests.

I’m quite sure the company has plenty of ulterior motives when it wants to offer free internet to people. Mark actually made some parallels to television in his text. Well, television was free in many countries if only to make it easier to manipulate the masses. “Connect the world” they say. But FaceBook is not only a tool for change. It’s also an advertisement platform, let’s not forget that. And the kind of product that political parties have to sell is much more dangerous than a brand of bad detergent.

When it’s all said and done, I think that Mark’s step forward volunteering to do what can be done in helping with global problems is a positive example for corporate responsibility. This manifesto was needed and I’m truly happy it’s out there. For this reason, I’m going to give Mark & co. the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see what the future holds. So far, score 1 for FaceBook.

Oh, and one more thing. I am really curious to see how other corporations will respond to this and if they even will. I’m thinking especially about Google, whose “do no evil” mantra 5 to 10 years ago was heading the company towards the same style of social action that FaceBook is doing today. But now-a-days Google’s execs seem even more uninspiring than Microsoft’s.

Today FaceBook has something way more powerful than Google: it has people’s lives, not only their web searches. Combine this with a bright CEO that has a very skilled PR team behind him and you get yourself a serious challenger to tech leadership. If Mark showed anything to these behemoths it’s the fact that in the 21st century a CEO is as much a public figure as any politician and perhaps even more needed.

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How Pregnancy Changes the Brain

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Almost any woman withbaby can tell you that they feel that their mind works differently than before. I always attributed this to the fact that during fetal development, the brain has to adapt to an increased amount of work. It’s all the extra that comes from regulating the operation of all the additional bodily functions that are required by the development of a new human being. After birth, the brain has to adjust once again, dealing with the extremely complex social dynamics that are involved in having a new human being around in a group – and the larger the group, the more variables the brain will have to keep track of.

A recent neuroimaging study has found pronounced differences in the physical structure of women’s brains during fetal development and afterwards:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/12/19/pregnancy-changes-the-brain-for-as-long-as-two-years/?utm_term=.824fa427caec^

The fact that these changes occur shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. It’s our body working at its finest, adapting in wonderful ways to the tasks that it has to undertake. I’m happy that scientists have went through the effort to understand more about this important period in a woman’s life and about the changes that occur. Now we have one more reason to be in awe of our body’s amazing complexity.

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Romania Takes on Corruption in the 21st Century

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Following the proposal and then adoption of a law that would have allowed corruption to thrive, on the 5th of February, 2017, the capital of Romania was the scene of the largest public protest since toppling the communist regime in 1989. The number of people participating in the capital alone was anywhere between 120,000 and 300,000, depending on who did the estimating. The protests spiraled to other cities in Romania as well as many cities around the world that host large Romanian diaspora communities. As a result, the law was repealed.

Here’s a beautiful video showing the scale of the protest as well as some wonderful moments that took place during the peaceful manifestation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPgJ4spMZw^

Backup version:

https://www.facebook.com/alexandru.damian.73/posts/1425087934176498^

Romania can do it. Romania did it twice in less than 30 years. I think this should be an inspiration for other democratic countries where this sort of manifestation can still take place without the fear of military intervention. So, is the USA just going to sit tight while decades of progress in human rights and empathy towards ourselves and the ecosystem are systematically erased?

I’m happy to see my brothers and sisters from Romania standing up against the system in such a beautiful, peaceful way. I wish I could say that I’m proud of my country, but unfortunately what you see in the video is a protest of the minority. The majority has actually voted in this disgusting government. So even if I would care for a feeling like “pride” (I don’t), I still couldn’t be proud of my country. I am sad that Romania was fooled into voting in the current government. But I would totally be proud of the brothers and sisters that try to wake up the victims of mass manipulation.

The only solution I see is to engage in peaceful but determined activism. Wake up the sleepers, educate those left in the dark by offering them alternative sources of information and patiently allowing them to find the truth themselves, for this is the only way to accept it. Open any discussion, even with the most bitter of enemies with a smile: we’re all in this together.

I wish that one day the human species will discover that the greatest gift of having free will is the ability to transform the primordial “survival of the fittest” instinct into something different. We don’t need to compete by killing each other. There are many other more elegant ways for the powerful to show their might.

In fact, the mightiest of the mighty will eventually find that the ultimate show of force is to surrender to peace and love.

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Hypernormalisation

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Wait wait wait. Before you start screaming “Whaaat!? An almost three hours long documentary about manufactured truth and propaganda through social media?!”, just watch this short, 1 minute extract from mentioned documentary:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/chilling-clip-from-adam-curtis-doc-should-make-everyone-rethink-their-online-outrage/^

Now, imagine that there are a lot more minutes like that in the documentary located at the link below. Also imagine that together, these seconds are much more powerful than taken in individual extracts (think “interconnected brains math”: 1+1=3, 3+3=a million). Now feel free to go ahead and advance your awareness of the world:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/hypernormalisation-2016/^

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Four Awesome Photo Series

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These four amazing photography sets have showed their goods in front of my eyes in the past few months. After the ensuing visual orgasm, I have decided to share these with you, dear Reader.

Wildlife photographer of the year 2016:

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/09/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016/499979/^

The most influential images of all time:

http://100photos.time.com/^

20 Awesome modern sculptures:

https://brightside.me/article/17-modern-sculptures-you-will-fall-in-love-with-62655/^

The very best drone photography of 2016:

https://qz.com/868006/drone-photos-dronestagrams-best-images-of-2016/^

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How Donald Trump Becoming President Changed My World

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Months ago, I wrote a short piece rationalizing why Trump will not be president of the USA (unless the Republican party wants to commit political suicide). I was quite sure it will be the last time I’d mention his name on this website. During the following months, I was given a stark reminder that “nothing’s certain”. Not only did Trump get the presidency, but the Republican party is doing quite well.

I’m not ruling out political suicide just yet, but this doesn’t change the fact I’ve made a serious estimation error regarding Donald’s chances. It has been one of my most disappointing prognoses, so I chastised myself over it more than a few times. However, I spent far more energy into learning from this mistake. There are many teachings indeed.

First of all, it seems like some countries are failing to adapt democracy to the Internet age. Starting with the spread of lies about candidates through social media and ending with cyber warfare, I think that the democratic process is in serious need of renovation.

I wouldn’t really call it a teaching – since I was always aware of this – but the fury of the people should never be underestimated. Trump and similar candidates across the world are riding on this wave of anger. I just hope that Americans won’t regret installing Trump as their president like other nations regretted their choice dearly in the past. I can’t help drawing some parallels with a certain leader that got elected in Europe about 85 years ago. We’re still recovering from the emotional scars he left behind.

But the most important change in my life since Donnie Tea became president is that the event miraculously stopped me from reading the news three times a day (I’ve been trying to cut down for years). I’m now at about twice a week, having gained about 2-3 extra hours per week. As I said in the title of this posting, this is about how my world has changed. It’s one of the more subjective posts I’ve written, which is why I filed it under the new category “Life Fragments”.

I’m fed up seeing news feeds clogged with “Donald said that” or “Donald did that”. I’m done being coaxed into reading these venomous sensationalist stories. I can’t help sharing a comparison I made recently: “democracy without education is like capitalism without capital”. Unfortunately, many voters lack the education to properly detect fake and/or manipulative press.

I’m going to pass this season of the “all-you-can-consume information age”. Sure, I’ll keep an eye out on the news, but I’m done letting these companies infect my mind and therefore my life.

Before, during and after the election, many media cartels made tons of money writing about Trump. Most of the published stories consist of the endless repetition of a single event, or are of little relevance. Even in countries that had nothing to do with the circus of an election that occurred in the USA, his name was mentioned more often than the most important local politicians. For example in Sweden, Donnie’s name was mentioned in the press many more times than the country’s most important political figure, the Prime Minister.

For a while, I will stop writing much about politics. Even when I will, my approach will be very cautious. I’ll close this short entry with a few of the more relevant links written in the past few days about the beginning of Donnie Tea’s illustrious career as threat to human rights and civilization.

However, I know that I know nothing. Perhaps some of his and his party’s decisions will turn out quite beneficial for our civilization. So take my comments below as perhaps totally wrong. Let’s see how things look ten years from now.

Denying human-caused climate change and therefore setting back efforts to clean up our ecosystem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html^

Setting back the only recent attempt – however feeble – to improve healthcare in the USA:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-that-could-lift-affordable-care-acts-individual-mandate/2017/01/20/8c99e35e-df70-11e6-b2cf-b67fe3285cbc_story.html?utm_term=.7a657c600a5a^

Turning government into a discount shop for selling the tax payer’s hard-earned rights to a clean, safe and fair country (and accelerating the destruction of the ecosystem – also setting a bad example for governments across the world):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/23/trump-to-ceos-ill-wipe-out-75-percent-of-regulations-fast-track-u-s-factories/?utm_term=.89318c36c008^

Jeopardizing an already fragile geopolitical climate:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-reacts-to-trumps-america-first-inaugural-speech/2017/01/20/5452f9ca-df95-11e6-8902-610fe486791c_story.html?utm_term=.aabf5ad12666^

Using American influence to restrict women’s rights across the world (I’m not completely pro-choice, but I do believe that pro-life is a severe restriction of a woman’s rights, especially in special circumstances such as rape or very risk family environments):

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/abortion/315652-trump-signs-executive-order-reinstating-global-gag-rule-on^

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Why Google Did Away with Project Ara

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Some months ago, Google killed Project Ara, an ambitious venture to create a modular smartphone featuring upgradeable components. And when I say ambitious, boy was it a moon shot.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/project-ara-googles-modular-smartphone-is-dead/^

It’s one thing to upgrade components in a desktop computer or a car, but the smaller the device, the trickier it is to engineer efficient connections between components whose bandwidth requirements and standards of communication vary wildly. Even notebook manufacturers struggle with this limitation as they attempt to engineer ever-thinner devices.

As a result, Project Ara phones turned out a bit on the bulky side and looked like the phone would disassemble if dropped. Regarding this second caveat, don’t get me wrong: dissipating impact energy by falling apart isn’t necessarily bad. Nokia was an expert in this “method”. Its bulky phones could withstand countless drops. But at least for now it’s difficult to get the best of both worlds.

The idea behind Project Ara was good, the timing was not. Our technologies are a bit too scattered right now for this to properly work. There are different manufacturers for each phone component and countless standards in place. Building a prototype was easy (with Google’s money), but getting all those manufacturers in the same boat and getting a good selection of upgradeable components in shops around the world is a daunting logistical challenge. However, the largest obstacle was undoubtedly the fact that…

There is little customer interest in such a project. Who wants to carry around a phone that has 20% extra weight and size only so that they can upgrade a component or two once a year? Some people maybe will, but we live in a world where those that could afford or have interest in upgrading phone components will most probably choose to buy a new phone altogether.

Kudos goes to Google for making the attempt and opening the way. We still have a lot to learn regarding miniaturization, standards and logistics. I think we’ll see something like Project Ara come back sometime in the coming decades. For now, looks like we’re stuck with Samsung and Apple and their consumerist phones for which one can’t even replace the battery (not really, there are plenty of brands that allow this; it’s a pity people don’t press this requirement and instead let themselves fall prey to planned obsolescence).

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