Strange search

Google has released search querry top called Google Zeitgeist.

One very strange thing i found so far is, one of the most popular Google search querries in Sweden is... google.

Go figure...

Handy English

I've been thinking on why many non-English speaking musicians (or wannabe musicians) write songs in English. First obvious reason is that English currently is lingua franca. But that answer didn't satisfy me, i thought there's something more going on.

And finally i got it yesterday night.

When i started to write songs, first three or four were also in English. I tried to write some lyrics in Latvian, but i found it very difficult and didn't succeed. At that point i didn't try to put the finger on the reason why there is such a paradoxical problem (i should be better with Latvian, after all). But the reason is this: English language is incredibly rich with one syllable words. One syllable words are extremely handy for songwriter, since, when putting lyrics to melody, you (usually) have to match the heavy beat of the bar (i'm not sure if that's correct term) with the stressed syllable of the word. Which means it will sound awkward, if you, for instance, start the song with heavy beat, but the word itself has a stress on second or third syllable, in other words there is a limitation.

With single syllable words there is no problem, you can arrange them as you wish, change order, no problemo.

Beatles' "Hey Jude" first verse has 29 words, 25 of them are one syllable.

ABBA's "Take a chance on me": 81 words, of them 75 - one syllable words.

Britney Spears "Oops, i did it again": 45 and 38

The first song i ever wrote (in English, obviously): 32 and 29.

Good news from space

I'm a big eater of sweats - candies, cookies, desserts, sweet-and-sour chinese pork - you name it. That's why i cheer to the great news of today - sugar is found in space! Now if decide to leave this planet, i'm sure i can have my dose of sugar even in the outer space.

P.S. Is it just me, or the drawing of the glycolaldehyde molecule looks a bit like giraffe?

Religion of peace?

The tragic events in Mumbai made me remember one story from the Danish cartoon craze couple of years ago. Some people in London, demonstrating in front of Danish embassy, held up a banner, which said: "Behead those, who say Islam is violent."

I wonder how it feels to be a moderate Islamist reading today's news.

Social net-WORK-ing

I'm now starting to understand that some people in the west are hiring other people to do their social networking for them. I'm currently registered on three sites: draugiem.lv, Facebook and LinkedIn, and i start to feel the pressure. When it's only the closest circle of friends you're linked to, you don't feel any pressure, but when it gets bigger and you're getting invited by people whom you don't know personally, it gets tougher since, what's the point of accepting their "friendship" if you afterwards don't socialize with them at least on "small chat" level? 

Now, should i accept the friendship of the guy who invited me today, or just pretend i'm dead?

On why religion is a terrible thing

I'm a fan (if you can say so) of writings of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Both guys are atheists as much as it is epistemiologically possible (Dawkins is a scientist, after all). "God delusion" and "End of faith" have shaped my views on religion. It's too difficult to explain in one post, read the books yourself. 

But what i wanted to write about is that all the silliness of religion got condensed in one little detail i was reading this morning. It's from Tom Wanderbilt's "Traffic" - a book about modern... traffic. And he writes that in L.A. many of the pedestrian crosswalks where you have to press a button for traffic lights to switch to green light, after the request of Rabbinical Council of California operate under so-called "sabbath-timing". Which means, that in time of sabath, pressing the button wont affect the light, since "sabbath-observant members of Jewish faith are not supposed to operate machines or electrical devices" in time of sabath or in selected holdays. Hebrew calendar is even programed into controller computers.

Because of handful of people who have blind trust in the piece of ancient literature (and other people who have limitless respect to these silly views) many more can't cross the street or have to wait at a crosswalk with no pedestrian in sight. I think i should finally start with inventing the religion of my own: the possibilities are truly boundless.

Jokes with a beard

Expression "joke with a beard" is usually used for old, not-funny-anymore jokes. But one professor William Berg has translated 1600 years old book of jokes from ancient Greek into modern English. So they're jokes with a reaaaaally long beard. What's surprising that the topics are largely the same: farts, sex, driving (the chariott) and ugly, annoying wifes. Same things, in short. Some things don't change, do they?

Curse of weekends

Listening to a radio programme yesterday evening. Anchor asked to send in messages about what good has happened to people today. One girl wrote: "Monday is over, so i'm one day closer to weekend."

I do know the feeling, i've been in a crap job for a little while ten or eleven years ago: grinding through the week in anticipation of the two free days. But i was smart or lucky enough to move away very quickly, however many, many people are working in crap jobs and paradoxically, perhaps the only thing that keeps them in the paid job are free days. Now, what would those people do, if you took those two free days away? Many would reconsider what are they doing with their time and if it's something they want to do.

Someone's got to do the crap job, i hear you saying. But i have this naive and idealistic view, that the more happier the people are around you, the more happier you are yourself. So let's cancel the weekends.

Idea #3: glue

Some people have this tendency of getting high by sniffing glue (they're not very high on the social ladder thou). So why not make a glue with some nice smell? Like lemon or peppermint.

Idea #2: heating

I've had this thought for a while, but now two things made me remember it. First, central heating in my appartment was switched on. And second: i went to a bar in London on a Thursday night.

Thing is, if you think about it, heating the whole room you're in (that means air in it, floor, walls, ceiling, furniture etc.) seems like a horrible waste of energy. In the end those inanimate objects don't feel the discomfort of being cold. So couple of days ago, while in London, we went to a bar, which had little terrace outside and we sat there (inside was all full). It was around +10°, and a little bit wet. To my surprise, after couple of seconds i felt a really nice wave of heat, but no visible source... And then i looked up.

The idea is basically this: to have an infrared lamp in the room (or lamps, depending on the size), which is able to track your motion. This lamp "follows" you around wherever you are. And since you can focus the infrared "light", you heat only the exact spot you're currently situated. Maybe there are some hidden physics issues, but it seems that you should be able to save a lot of energy.

And your drink stays cold for longer!

Walking issue

Spending couple of days in London this week i noticed a trend. Despite the fact that cars in UK drive on the wrong side, people, by and large, still tend to walk on the right side of sidewalk. It was especially noticable on long stretches without any possibility to turn, like "Millenium" bridge (but this one doesn't really serve as a proof since it's touristy area), but also on Oxford street and other busy sidewalks.

I wonder if it's something inherent to people, or maybe there's some very easy explanation, like the fact that most people carry their bag on right shoulder, and walking on the right keeps the bag from hitting those, who're walking in the opposite direction.

Idea #1: photocamera

When i was in Italy this summer, i didn't have any photocamera with me. On one hand it felt great: you're not obliged to spend time taking pictures, instead you can simply feel the athmosphere, enjoy the place/time/people. On the other hand - it would be nice to bring some pictures home. 

So i had the idea of making a new type of photocamera. Camera which DOES NOT require you to push the button (even monkeys can do that). Basically it would be small device, hanging in strap from your neck. When you switch it on, the device would take the pictures at random moments, maybe even without you knowing it. That way you would have something to bring home and also a suprise moment later of what is actually caught on (digital) film.

The operation of the camera would be extremely simple. It would have only one control button - one with which you set the number of pictures per hour.

Now i have to find the producer.

Trendspotting

All marketing or business gurus will tell you how important it is to spot a trend before it actually happens. Good for business and for development too. So here's one. 

Music industry is going through massive changes. It can no longer support itself through sales of media (be it cassette, vinyl or CD (or suing people)). So the biggest "revenue-maker" for the industry and bands in the future will be gigs. Which means that the total amount of concerts will increase. It's already happening, this summer in Latvia was a clue to that, very busy with different artists coming to play here.

So if i have to think, how to make money out of that, one obvious direction is to buy or build venues to hold those gigs. But bugger me if i know what to do with that piece of information...

Porn

There is an article about porn in... "Financial Times". The issue is, that due to websites, which mimic YouTube in interface, and sometimes in name too, but has adult content, porn industry is suffering massive loss of revenue. So some of the biggest players are starting to sue those sites (like "Viacom" sued "YouTube"). 

What is suprising for me, is that porn industry was always on good terms with tech advance, be it VHS, DVD or initial broadband expansion, always being at the forefront of tech innovation. But now they've started to use backwards tactics a la RIAA or MPAA. It's a lost battle.

Megahertz wars. Err... what wars?

It occured to me today, that some six, seven years ago big part of computer marketing was the speed of processor, expressed in MHz. It used to be a really big thing how fast your processor is. Now, this is gone.

I started to wonder why and here are some thoughts:

1. Processor speeds ventured into gigahertz territory, and maybe for some unknown reason, gigahertz doesn't sound so cool as it's mega brethren.

2. "Apple" finally succeeded in convincing general public, that processor speeds aren't that important. That was time when Macs were still running PowerPC processors, which were slower than their "Intel" counterparts. Irony is, that for some time now "Apple" is using "Intel" processors as well.

3. Or, most likely, computers have very much infiltrated the life of mainstream public. Fancy terms like "megahertz" doesn't mean anything to them and are difficult to remember. There are more important things like design, brand or color.

I suspect this should happen with any advanced technology. First it's marketed through technological advancement, but any tech advance "commodizes" over time and in the end it's always down to what color the stuff is.

Guilty as charged

Seth Godin has a post in his blog, which strikes a chord. The key phrase is:

When in doubt, challenge the strategy, not the tactics.

Guilty as charged, Seth. Too many times when recieving a brief, for instance, and feeling that something is wrong, i've started to nitpick the details, but failing to see the bigger picture. I'll try to remember this.

Cheap luxus

Spotted today, when coming to work. The white sign says: "Sale - gold for 12 Ls a gram". The yellow line in latvian: "Gold can't be cheaper". 

The guy or gal who decided to put such signs out isn't really good with psychology, is she? I mean, why do you buy gold? Because it's expensive! Saying "Discount jewellery" is the same as trying to sell Roll's Royces, using 10% off as an argument.

Disability discrimination

I'm bad at olfaction. Which is a complicated way of saying that i have a quite bad sense of smell. It's most obvious when something stinks: people start to wince and only after a minute i say "yeah, there's a hint of daisies in the air". It's a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing is i can't be easily bothered with bad smells. Bad thing is - i might die in a fire accident, since i won't sniff the smoke fast enough. Which makes me sort of a disabled person: i'm limited in some way. So the question is, why there are no invalidity group for people with olfaction problems, as there are for people with hearing or seeing problems?

Prepare to meet thy end

Apparently marketers are missing out on the possibility to make some money on the fear of end of the world. "End of the world", of course, is the launch of LHC today, that, as some believe, may create a black hole which will swallow the planet. Don't you think end of the world should be a nice motivation to by sports cars, jewellery, expensive meals, maybe even yachts? 

Imagine a picture of confident male in his 40-ties, sitting in RollsRoyce, headline above: "No better way to meet thy maker".

Input = output

Russian designer Artemi Lebedev writes in his site, that he believes design is solving of the task. Therefore, he implies, you shall never discuss the design itself. What you should and must discuss is whether the task is solved.

Very clear. Just one tiny detail. What it requires is that the task is set precisely and to the point. And that is often overlooked by clients and designers themselves.

Incompetence

Another telecom company sent me the agreement today, to fill in our company details. What the girl sent was a real agreement with real details in, INCLUDING THE BLOODY PASSWORD of that company.

Now what can we do? There are only three wireless telecom companies around, first is this one, second has a bloody ugly logo, and last one is lithuanian...

Walk the walk

A telecommunications company which praises itself as being high tech and connected and all that, and doesn't recieve service application from their webpage? There's something wrong with that.

why can you edit the message but can't delete the entire post?

A man with a vision

I was reading an article about Shai Agassi's vision of getting rid of oil in the transportation industry, mainly through clever ideas and software, rather than breakthroughs in technology, but then another quote caught my eye. It's from Shimon Peres, president of Israel:

Israel, you know, is too small of a country to become a world market and too small a country to become a great world producer, but we have enough scientists per square kilometer to become a world laboratory. And smallness has its own advantages; when you are small you can be really daring, you can be a pilot plant.

An excellent realization of the objective situation, and a vision and ambition to exploit ones own strength. Something we're really missing here in Latvia, when somebody talks about how small the country is. You've got to realize: "small" can be an advantage. And education, btw, is always an advantage.

From Seth again:

When there is both pain and pleasure associated with your service, work extremely hard to separate them by time and geography.
Disney charges a fortune for the theme park, but they do it a week before you get there, or at a booth far far away from the rides. By the time you get to the rides, you're over it. The pain isn't associated with the fun part.

Clever little insight. Same happens with, say, concert tickets, if you've bought them well in advance.
Perhaps that's why promoters charge smaller prices in advance, to separate by time.

Win!

Just got back from Georgia. It seems that the hot trend in Tbilisi is to advertise not the product or brand itself, but lottery, which the brand or product has set up. Something that was popular here, in Latvia, several years ago.

You can't have a bad...

Seth Godin has an interesting post today (partly quoted):

Hence the marketing dilemma: who should get your best effort? Should it be the new customer who you just might be able to convert into a long-term customer? Or should it be the loyal customer who is already valuable?

Sorry, but the answer is this: you can't have a bad table.

This ir really key thing. Very important. Up to this day, when i'm working in my own company, there hasn't been a job where there wouldn't be week link (people in this case, not tables).

And another quote

Paradox, but true.
"Always employ people who are better than you."

Another quote from "How to be a graphic designer"

"To help designers develop verbal skills, i sometimes ask the to describe what they've done before they show me what they've done."

From a book i'm reading

It's called "How to be a graphic designer without loosing your soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy.

The quote is a long one and mostly a note to myself. It goes:

"The designer who shows only signs of self-absorption and narrowness of focus isn't going to inspire his or her client. It might seem obvious, but it's surprising how many designers use meetings with clients to talk about themselves and their work.
These are often the same designers who complaing that their work is frequently rejected or that they are never allowed to "do what they want to do" [...]
If you can demonstrate some knowledge about the client's field of activity, if you can talk about the project at hand and if you can listen instead of prattling on about yourself, you will be astonished at how receptive your new client will be to you and your ideas.
It's a rich paradox, but the less you make a client/designer relationship about yoursel, the more it will tip in your favour."

Color perception

No color tells you something itself.
It's tempting to think that red = danger, gray = boring, blue = business, but these are meanings attached by people, not integral ot the colors itself (there are however certain customs in use of color, but these can be different in different parts of the world, for instance - people wear white color at funerals in Buddhist cultures).

A good answer to someone who says "red means danger" is to ask, why the hell do you eat strawberries then?