Mark

Mark is a guy from Michigan who lives in Switzerland. He's a photographer, occasional writer and trained research engineer. His free time is sometimes monopolized by mountain touring or travels. On occasion he attends and presents at BarCamps and blogging events.

Gadget Freak – Pimp Your Digital Camera

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As a gadget freak, cameras are just cool to hold and use.? However, some days you get the feeling that the camera shouldn’t just be a tool to record events, but also an integral part of your look.? The classic photographer response is something like:“The photographer is an observer, and as such should be on the side-lines, recording events and being unobtrusive.”

The thing is, I’ve developed a communication style care of Hunter S. Thompson literature, and sometimes the line between participant and observer should be blurred.? That’s why the writer should be part of the novel, and the photographer part of the picture.?Choosing a camera for the night can be as hard as picking the right sunglasses.? A full DSLR might look good slung over your shoulder when wearing a Lowe Alpine jacket, but a Canon 1D type camera might be too much when sporting a pinstripe suit.? Camera pimping allows one to add or remove accessories as desired.

Pimping a camera out is pretty easy in the world of internet auctions and mail order.? The integration of cheap manufacturing and eBay means you can get whatever you want in the way of camera accessories.? That wouldn’t have been possible even two years ago.

One of the most functional and cosmetic extension for a DSLR is the vertical grip.? Most cameras are landscape oriented, so the photo frame or sensor is wider than it is tall.? But for portraits it’s often nice to make the picture taller than it is wide.? The easiest way to do this tilt the camera 90 degrees.? But then your hand is crooked, and in a non-optimal shooting configuration.? Most prosumer cameras have the option of a vertical grip, it screws into the camera base and generally includes more batteries so you can shoot longer.? The VC-7 for my Minolta 7D is kick-ass but cheap manufacturing technologies from China and commerce via eBay means you can get one for pretty much any DSLR.

The term “Photography” refers light painting, so controlling the light is essential to making images.? Light painting is easiest to do via a camera flash placed away from the subject.? Flashes are plentiful and easy to get off the used market.? Any flash that is big, offers manual control, and can swivel will add instant “cool” to any camera.? Things like flash cards add a professional look as well as providing even flash coverage, and really will improve the look of your photos.

The flash bracket is a timeless camera pimp-out.? Cheap ones can be found for any camera type, even point-and-shoots.? By moving the flash away from the lens you reduce red-eye in photos produced by on-camera flash bouncing off the retinas of your subject.? It also adds bulk and a “professional” look, and those people who don’t know that equipment alone doesn’t equate to quality photos might be impressed.? In addition, it makes the camera easier to hold and adds bulk if you need to use it as a blunt instrument to make a quick escape or are attacked in a dark alley.? A number of expensive and cheap brackets are on the market.? Some of nicer mid-priced but very cool and functional brackets are made by ALZO Digital.

What’s cooler than wireless?? It’s in computers and phones – video flies through the air like ghosts of the 4th dimension.? And now you can cheaply get it for your flash as well.? One goes on the camera via flash-shoe or PC socket, the receiver goes on the flash.? This means you can do crazy lighting on the fly.? You can hold the flash above your head, put it on a stand to add awesome pop to your images.? The added gadget and wires pimps out the camera look, and thanks to Chinese manufacturing and eBay they’re a breeze to buy.? Check out Gadget Infinity.? To learn about using an off-camera flash with radio remotes, check out Strobist.

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So the next time you’re heading out and want to pimp your camera to fit your look, be expressive, take a fashion risk, add the flash or accessories you need to complete your aura.

Zurich Scribbles – King’s Kurry and Indian Palace

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My parents were in town, which means I was eating out with them every other night.  We happened to have a taste for Indian, and took in a few of the Indian restaurants in Zurich: King’s Kurry and Indian Palace.

King’s Kurry is popular throughout Zurich, and is generally recognized as the place to get Indian food.  It’s located at Freyastrasse 3 (map), near the Wiedikon Bahnhof.  The interior is really cool, probably the most exotic Indian place I’ve visited between Zurich and Detroit.  The ceiling is sky blue, the knives and forks look like cool futuristic surgical tools and the bowls look pieces belonging to a collection from MoMA in New York.

Like in every Indian restaurant, King Fisher beer is on the drink list.  You can get all the tasty favorites like tandoori, palack paneer, samosas, dosas, chutney, mango lassies, and pakoras.  As an experience, King’s Kurry is top notch.  The lassi comes with a K drizzled on top, the cool triangular tandoori plate, the curved-handle bowls; all pretty cool and for sure made the meal a memorable one.

Ordering at King’s Kurry was also an experience, the waiter seemed to talk to at a rather quick pace, and when the topic of appetizers came up, in the confusion – it seems we ordered samosas, nan and rice.

Apparently we’d actually ordered the King’s Plater.  A nice collection of pakoras, tandoori chicken, fish, chutney, and dosas.  This offered a nice collection of different tastes, it was a bit much as the main meal was still coming, and the pakoras were cold.  Apparently it also came with a price tag of 55 CHF, which we discovered when the bill came.  If we’d known the price we would have just indulged in a side of samosas.

Talking quickly and bringing out a side dish is not uncommon is some places.  It’s especially common in places like the el Greco restaurant on Zakynthos (in Greece).  At el Greco they dropped off some oiled peppers as a side order and then charged us 2 Euros on the bill.  This way the restaurant makes a little bit more off of the tourists who will be gone the next week.  2 Euros is ok, 55 CHF is a bit much for a blind-sided appetizer.

It’s more a matter of principle than the cost, you shouldn’t have to order and then carefully check every single charge to make sure you’re not buying something unexpected.  So long as the extra charge is small, it’s ok.  As a tourist you want to be carefree and enjoy your time.  For the restaurant it’s a question of long time customers versus short term profits.

Tourists represent shot-term gains, they’re there, spend a lot of money (hopefully) and then leave.  Locals represent long-term revenue, so if you screw with them you screw with your ability to make a consistent profit month to month and year to year.  At King’s Kurry, half of us were tourists, half were foreign locals, who probably will never go back.

The tandoori was good, it came on a large black triangular plate, if you’ve been heavily medicated, the tandoori will probably induce visions of UFOs and Martians coming to abduct you.  The tandoori was yummy, but not much better than what I’d cook at home with tandoori mix.  The rice was some of the best I’ve ever tried and the nan was also quite kick-ass.  I ordered the palak paneer with three chilies, and it was at my limit of hot. This is absolutely outstanding for Zurich, where most places are mild for the European palate.

After a sampling of the King’s Kurry experience, the taste in my mouth makes me feel that presentation was more prominent than quality.  I’m not an Indian chef, but I can dish out a chana masalla or dal without much of a second thought.  I guess this is generally true, it’s easy to cook an awesome meal at home, you go out for the atmosphere.  In the US I go to Indian restaurants because the food is generally not that expensive and usually quite tasty.  Considering that it’s made of basic ingredients and wait staff are usually all related, it makes sense that it should be cheaper.  Otherwise I cook Inidan at home because it’s fast, healthy, and cheap.  For Zurich it feels like a lot to drop a wad of cash on a palak paneer, plus rice, plus nan.

When faced with the prospect of a future visit to King’s Kurry, I’d rather drop 250 CHF on a new dishes, a cook book, and recreate the the experience in the apartment.  Then the dinner would be more personal, and I wouldn’t leave wondering where all the money went.

Indian Palace left a completely different taste in my mind, although not the most originally named – Indian place (there’s many in Detroit) is my choice for going out in Zurich.  Inidan Palace is located at Schaffhauserstrasse 129  (map) near the Milchbuch tram stop.  The prices are about the same, a little less than King’s Kurry, but I enjoyed the experience far more.  I ordered palak paneer with potatoes, and the dinner was served in small bowls with a candle below to keep everything warm.  This is where King’s Kurry and India Palace diverge.  At India Palace the focus was on the excellent savory things we were eating – not on what the cutlery looked like.

Also like every Indian restaurant in the world (that I’ve been to) both places offer an Indian buffet during lunch, which is the thing to do if you want tasty Indian food in Zurich without dropping a wad of cash (usually the buffets are around 20 CHF).  A rather extensive list of Indian restaurants in Zurich can be found here.

Ricoh GRD Awesome Digital Camera Experience

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As a prelude to a forth coming stay in Japan and the desire to lower my mountain pack weight, I picked up a Ricoh GRD digital camera creative set with the 21 mm add-on lens.

Rioch GRD

The Ricoh GRD is a point-and-shoot 8 Mega-pixel digital camera with a fixed 28 mm and 21 mm add-on lens (from a 35 mm camera focal length prespective).  I’d been salivating after the GRD since it was released two years ago.  Like every digital camera, it’s value has dropped after being around so long, and with the release of the Ricoh GX100 and forth coming Ricoh GRD2, the price of the GRD Creative set has become very attractive here in Switzerland.

My motivations for getting the GRD were image quality, size/weight and wide angle lens capability.  After years of hauling various cameras through Europe and around the mountains of Bolivia, Colordao, New Mexico, and Switzerland I’ve come to asess the usability of a camera in relation to how much volume it takes up and how much it weighs as compared with the quality of the resulting photos.  The trade-off between performance and weight or volume is critical for travel and mountaineering.  I bought the Ricoh GRD because it offers high image quality with a wide angle lens in a light weight design.

I also bought the GRD because with its macro capabilities, it opens up more options to explore.  Therefore, the Ricoh GRD was pretty much a no-brainer for me.  Wide angle lenses are generally harder to design and implement in any camera platform.  That’s why most digital cameras have focal lengths from about 35 mm onwards.  This posses a problem for a traveler/mountaineer, since the subjects, mountains and buildings are often times too close to be captured effectively using the 35 mm focal length.  When balanced on a razor rock edge, there’s no possiblity of taking a few steps back to get more of that mountain in the picture frame.  Hence, a wide angle lens is essential for my travels.

People tend to get lost in the Mega-pixel debate.  A consumer is liable to check out the price of a Canon Rebel or Nikon D40 and not give a thought to the lenses that would really excel with those bodies.  An 8 Mega-pixel point-and-shoot with a sub-par lens might be on par with a 2 Mega-pixel DSLR (like the Canon D2000) simply because of the lense quality difference between the two cameras.

So it really makes sense to design a camera and lens together, which is basically what one has with the Ricoh GRD.  The lens is tack sharp as can be, and the image quality with the 28 mm or 21 mm lenses is just outstanding.  But no lens-sensor combination is worth anything without kick-ass user control.  The Ricoh GRD and GX100 are the only point-and-shoots with full manual control.  Yes there’s the Fujis and Leicas/Panasonics which claim full manual, but they don’t have adjustment wheels, you have to do it via menus.  The Canon G7 and G9 come close, but you only have one control wheel.  Plus, and this is huge, the Ricoh GRD has the Raw image format.

Now, it does suck that the time required to write a Raw file on the GRD is a tad long, on the order of 10-15 seconds.  Amateur camera critics and professional equipment complainers throughout the internet have decreed the long Raw write time as a "deal breaker" meaning that they’ll feel entitled to not buy the camera and then waste a great deal of their day complaining about the GRD instead of taking photos in the real world.  The Raw write time is an issue, but it hasn’t been an obstacle for me.

The GRD has no built-in viewfinder.  But an external high-quality finder fits into the hotshoe.  I love this combination because it allows me to get the exposure right by monitoring the historgram on the LCD screen and then composing using the viewfinder for excellent framing and stabilization.  The viewfinder is bright and works great with eyeglasses, sunglasses, or no glasses.  In a sense, the GRD actually exceeds the capabilities of my DSLRs because I get exposure information in realtime (via the live historgram) and only need to take one image.  With a DSLR I have to take an image and then review the historgram (chimp the image), then retake the shot if the exposure was off.  It doesn’t matter if your DSLR can take multiple Raw images per second if the exposure isn’t correct.  So, for a landscape shot, I actually waste more time getting the exposure right with a DSLR than with the 10-15 seconds Raw writing time with the GRD.  Hence, the long Raw write time is a non-issue with me.  Now, it’s true that the new crop of DSLRs have live-view, so one can get the exposure right the first time, but it will be a while before I pick one up.

So far the Ricoh GRD has been along on trips through Zurich, the Alps, and now Tokyo.  I love the GRD, I love the image quality, I love the manual control, and I love how easy it is to use.  When you buy a Ricoh, you’re also supporting the camera design efforts of a company which actually listens to it’s users.  Ricoh cameras like the GRD and GX100 will include a number of firmware updates.  Some will say this is proof that the camera was released too soon, and should have gone through more testing before release.  I see it as Ricoh listening to their customers and providing support to improve the funtionality of their product after the sale.  Ricoh is one of the most foreward looking and innovative camera makers today, and I like the idea of supporting them.  If you’re looking for a take everywhere high-quality camera with wide angle lens, manual control, and Raw image capabilities, the GRD might be for you.  The GRD is stealthy and robust.  It can go dressed up in the city or rugged into the mountains and continually retain its cool factor.

Fuji GA645 wi Wide Angle Film Camera Wonder

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The Fuji GA645wi is another hold-over from the Pro Film era. An often over-looked camera in the long history of photography. The 645wi is in the 6×4.5 cm medium format, with a 45mm f/4 fixed lens. In this age of digital the bandwagon camera geek might take pause and pose the question: “What manner of foolishness is this? Film is dead my friend. Can I recommend the Canon G9? It does RAW!”?

First, a thousand discussions on hundreds of photography web forums suggests that film is not dead. Finger painting didn’t die when brushes were invented. Painting with brushes didn’t stop when the large format camera became available. Large format photography is still in fashion, despite the high-quality 35 mm options. And despite the rise of digital photography, film is still on of my preferred medium for capturing images.

Debating film vs. digital is worse than debating assisted suicide, abortion rights, the war in Iraq, or Israel vs. Hezbolla – because the film vs. digital debate is by definition a colossal waste of time. Use what works for you. What I know is that I get kick-ass photos with film, Fuji Provia is my friend, I like wide angle, I like medium format – and that was enough of a reason to drop 700 USD on a used Fuji GA645wi.

The GA645wi is built with and embodies that age old simplicity design aura, that so many companies ignore. A camera is a light box. Modern ones include automatic shutters and exposure meters, add a bright viewfinder, and not much else matters. The compact Fuji medium format cameras are unique in the camera world, and will for sure never be made again. For travel and mountaineering considerations, the list of equivalent cameras to the Fuji GA645wi is about zero.

It was built to pro standards, is still serviced by Fuji, and produces excellent results. When paired with pro film like Provia, Velvia, Fuji, Kodak, etc., the resulting images are vibrant, sharp, and unlike anything you could get with a comparably priced digital.

45 mm on 6×4.5 is rather unique. Since the lens retracts into the body, you can take the GA645 into many situations, but retain the quality expected of a much larger camera. Much like the GA645 (60 mm lens), there’s program, shutter, and aperture priority shooting modes. Manual focus is possible, but is mainly used only if photographing sunsets that fool the autofocus. The “i” version has two shutter releases, one for portrait, one for landscape orientation.? There’s a built in flash and it will take 120 or 220 film. The autofocus is good, but it’s best when used with static objects. The metering is dead on, it’s designed well and delivers results.

Few things suck more than not being able to capture the image you want after hiking into the Alps or flying across unknown seas. The reason I bought the GA645w is the lens. At 45 mm, the EBC Fujion has an angle of view close to 24 mm on a 35 mm camera body. This is my ideal focal length for land and cityscape shooting. Not so wide that details or subjects are lost, not so telephoto that you can’t fit the whole subject into the viewfinder.

To envision the GA645w, think of a Ricoh GRD or the unreleased Sigma DP1 and stick a syringe of growth hormones into your imagination. A high quality lens paired with a large image capture area. When you buy a Fuji rangefinder, you’re buying a lens with a minimalist, highly engineered body.

The ardent digital defender might say,

“Well, you need to know how to process your photos, with film the lab does all the work, you just don’t know what you’re doing. If you did, you’d shoot digital with RAW.”

This might be partially true. But what I know is that I capture a lot of detail and a large dynamic range with film. It’s a cool look that has over a hundred years of design and development behind it. It just looks good, I know this from experience. Photographing the Swiss Alps or the streets of Europe is awesome with film. Fewer highlights get blown out, and I have more detail in the shadows. I still like film, love digital, and love a wide angle lens, which is also why I’m taking the Fuji GA645wi along on my three month trip to Tokyo, as well as my Ricoh GRD.

I’ve taken some quick shots in Zurich and just love shooting with the GA645wi. The body is rugged and the viewfinder is just an awesome and bright, the way a camera should be. If you’re looking for a compact high quality camera, I recommend seeking one out.

Ulysses Awesome Writing Program Review

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The thing I hate about the software world is that so many products fall back on their “Legacy”. So, a writing program like MS Word was developed on a certain philosophy, which at the time was constrained by the fact that the operating system and user interface was very limited. Now we have limitless User Interface (UI) capabilities, but programs like Office and Word are as archaic as ever.?

The traditional word processor is basically a listing application. You list your thoughts down, and organize everything in your head while doing it. The program does nothing to aid you. If anything, a writing program like MS Word exudes Computer Inhibited Creativity (CIC), or can be characterized as a Creativity Killer. My first choice for a Computer Aided Creativity (CAC) writing program is Ulysses.

My brain doesn’t work like a listing program, it works like a movie making program. So I searched for a writing program which would work with me instead of me working around the limitations of the program. I looked for a writing program which was actually developed for writing, that allows one to move ideas around and jump between different project documents.

I started using Ulysses about three years ago, and have never stopped loving it.

Ulysses was developed around the idea of making content and writing the main focus of the writing process, and specifically not focusing on formatting. The program is straight forward, you write in the main window, on the right-hand side is a Notes window, on the left are all the individual documents in your project, along with their Notes window. Naturally, the user interface can be customized.

With Ulysses you can easily develop an idea in one document, and then transfer to another. What’s really cool is that you can select a document and display it on the left-hand side of the program. You can select text from there and copy it to the main window. This is where it really excels compared with Word, since it aides you in forming and reforming ideas so quickly, it really accelerates the writing and creativity process.?

How exactly does Ulysses enable CAC?

Well, if you have an idea in your head, then you intuitively understand it. The problem is communicating it to others. The most common form is writing. But once you write something down, you will naturally try to modify it, as opposed to writing down a completely new thought. This is where Ulysses kicks ass.

Since text can be moved between documents so easily, and documents can be displayed so quickly, the program actually helps you organize ideas, as opposed to simply being a processor for words.

I use Ulysses for many different projects including webpages, blog posts, technical papers, a PhD dissertation, letters, the list is endless. Projects and documents can be exported as simple text, MS Word, even in LaTex.

If Ulysses could be better, it would be the ability display the documents in a mindmap layout similar to MyMind. This would allow the user to visually organize ideas, but keep all of the actually writing within that visual representation. I highly recommend Ulysses if you’re looking for a writing program, it can change the way you work and think for the better.

MyMind Mindmapping Software Review

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When I started doing research I wanted a computer program to develop ideas and projects.  I also wanted something that would reduce the energy and time needed to translate the ideas in my head into a form which other people could understand.  After searching the net I found MyMind, by Sebastian Krauß.  It’s for the Mac, only for the Mac, and it’s Donation Supported.  It’s simple, fast, and one of the essential tools I use in developing projects.

The concept of mind mapping is simple: create an interconnected visual representation of your ideas.  It’s like combining a text outline and a sketch.  The essential element is that you can visually see how different ideas connect together.  There’s limitless applications for the mind-mapping technique in every work place and profession.

I start my mindmaps by drawing a map on paper, putting all my ideas down and connecting them.  The problem is that words on paper can’t be moved around.  That’s where Computer Aided Creativity (CAC) becomes essential.  So next I transfer my collection of ideas to MyMind, and start moving things around.  In MyMind you list topics in an outline form in one window, and then create a map in a separate window.  You can modify the list or the map, collapsing or expanding different parts of the map and add notes.

The mindmap can be color-coded, font size and thickness of the line connectors can decrease per level and images can be imported. Basically, there’s a lot of customization that one can perform to improve the organization of the mindmap.  I like to use two monitors with MyMind, this gives me the room to develop the organization of ideas and watch project plans evolve.  This allows me to develop a clear representation of a project, research article, dissertation, webpage design, book content, photo project, anything that I need.

There are other professional mind-mapping products such as ConceptDraw, which is for the PC or Mac.  I might switch to ConceptDraw in the future, as this software family also includes variations for project management and web design in addition to basic mind-mapping.  A lot of software is hyped and over-priced, but packages like MyMind and ConceptDraw are no doubt worth every penny and could revolutionize the way you work – both professionally and in your personal projects.

There are amazing possibilities using a touch screen and mind mapping for real hands-on CAC.  Some day I’d like to see a program on a tablet laptop which allows the user to create and modify a mindmap in real time.  This would be a very useful combination of computer aided creativity, technology which really works for the user.  Even better would be the fusion between a mind mapper and word processor.  The writing program Ulysses is going in the right direction.

Writing Work Flow – VVCTFR – CAC

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Management and having a process is important in many endeavors in life, and I find such a construct essential when writing.  Computer Aided Creativity (CAC) has made the difference between writing random notes to myself and producing actual written content.  My writing workflow is like this:

Visualize – Vomiting – Reduce Chaos – Form – Refine

This is not a purely linear workflow, sometimes the steps overlap, combine, separate, they’re always in flux.  Chaotic vomiting might form a refined visualization, or you might have to refine chaos in order to start verbally vomiting.  The gist is that an idea in my head is translated and organized into words on a screen or piece of paper.  I like to call this:

VVCTFR (Writing Cluster Fuck for short)

Visualize – I get an idea in my mind, and a bunch of visual attributes are present, the challenge is getting those elements recorded and developed into a final form.

Vomiting – I take a piece of paper and put down ideas in the form of writing, pictures, and arrows connecting one to another.  Things are chaotic, but recorded.

Reduce Chaos – From an outline or mindmap, I arrange ideas in a certain way so they’re flowing well and playing together.  Then I expand on those ideas, making them more than just jumbled craziness.

Transcribe – I transcribe the main ideas and fragments to Ulysses, my favorite writing program.  Small paragraphs go in the main window, words, things to remember go in the notes section.  There will be many spelling mistakes, the idea is that the written form of the idea is taking shape.

Form – Here I’m working exclusively in Ulysses (or another writing program), moving between documents and adding specifics to what I’m writing.  This is the most critical part, it’s here where I create the final form (more or less) and get ready to export for publishing and formatting.

Refine – At this point everything has been exported into Word or uploaded to my WordPress blog, in the final form for formatting.

I follow this process (more or less) for everything from blog articles to technical papers and dissertations.  When I talk with other people I’m floored to hear that they start papers, publications, and dissertations from scratch, without little plan or workflow.

A writer might purpose that too much structure in the writing process reduces creativity.  A novelist, for example, might use the act of writing as a way to get to know their characters.  The writing process might be seen as a way to develop the story, and hence some writers might advise one against outlining.  A writer who doesn’t use outlines is Timothy Hallinan, who seems to take the view that an outline must be a static prelude to writing.  He notes that he wants to see how his characters develop,

"I don’t want to know how the story will end until it does."

I’ve found the opposite.  I’m a visual thinker, I create stories in a movie form in my head, the challenge is putting those ideas on paper.  For myself outlining and mind mapping increases creativity because visual markers in my head (ideas) are easily recorded and rearranged in reality, thus enabling a final form that is done quickly, is original, and as creative as all Hell.  I use mind mapping as a dynamic entity, not a stagnant thing that needs to be fully complete before I start writing.

Whatever your view, using a workflow which efficiently translates ideas to text helps in everything from writing a long email, a letter, a PhD, a job application, a business plan, movie script, book, anything the creative author can imagine. 

Coming up next in this series, Ulysses – the Kick Ass writing program and Mind Mapping software.

Computer Aided Creativity (CAC)

Tools
The advent of computers and their integration in society occurs on every level.  Actually using computers for something besides email, gaming, and writing is still a novelty for the normal person.  Engineering was revolutionized with the advent of computer aided design (CAD) and engineering (CAE).  What people generally don’t experience and use to their advantage is Computer Aided Creativity (CAC).

Creativity is a confusing beast.  Some say it’s completely natural, and if you’re a natural at being creative then you’re called artistic or a genius.  If you’re not considered creative you’re just a normal minion.  One aspect of creativity is creating new ideas.  But more important day to day is the ability to use old ideas for new purposes.  The problem arises when you try to bring everything together, and that’s where CAC is needed.

Using creativity means combining inspiration with some useful output.  But here’s the crux: If you have an awesome idea for a new car body design, it’s worthless unless you can communicate it (draw a picture) for others to see and experience.

You can have an awesome book in your head, which becomes completely jumbled when you try to capture it in writing.  The reason is that you have to actively translate the feelings from your imagination to the real world – which is not intuitive.  No one can read the book you were never able to write.  The real problem with being "creative" is getting into a workflow where you are able to organize your ideas and communicate them to other people.

If you can organize the thoughts in your head you can play the role of a genius.  What can computers do to help us less fortunate folks?  Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing about some essential computer programs which can help you bridge the gap – taking a creative idea and efficiently releasing it outside of your imagination for others to experience.

As prelude, the main topics are going to include using Computer Aided Creativity (CAC) for:

Developing an Efficient Writing Workflow
Mind Mapping Your Ideas

In the mean time think about this:

What do you consider to be creativity?
Do you think you’re creative?
Can creativity be learned?

Juliette Lewis and the Licks

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A number of artists bring a certain power to the stage, but I saw Juliette Lewis and the Licks bring it to the people during their show at Rohstofflager in Zurich.

Most times you see a lead singer they’re a magnet for female groupies.  The groupies buy the $40 concert T-shirts and when the singer starts clothing line and she wears a white hat on-stage the groupies buy the $20 knock-off at H&M and support her make-up line.  During a show, the  groupies scream and drool when the singer takes the stage and set the energy level for the venue.

Lewis has the rather unique quality of inspiring a rabid following of male groupies, who jump through the crowd-sea with American Indian feathers around their heads – you see them rising above the waves on the shoulders of those below them.  The scene is hip, it’s energetic – visually as well as emotionally commanding.  The thing is, it doesn’t feel like she’s been molded to be a sex symbol or to embody any particular message, she exudes the pure-rocker aura that marks groups like The Doors and the White Stripes.

As a singer Juliette is sort of interesting in that, you don’t get the feeling that she sings because her manager wants a certain look – like with a Britney or a Spice Girl.  She’s already made her mark on the Silver Screen and you don’t get the feeling that she needs to be a star.

Interaction between an artist and the audience is tough, so much so that Pink Floyd: The Wall was written after  Roger Waters spat on a fan after a show.  Juliette is kick-ass in this way, during the Zurich show she surfed the crowd and was interacting on the level of a unique rock-star totally connected with the audience.  After the initial surfing someone’s hands where apparently too intimate because at 21:25 Juliette addressed the crowd:

"When I go out there, who’s the little fucker that tries to grab my tits?"

Her energy is something you don’t see during a main-stream multi-thousand dollar production by Justine Timberlake or even less known groups like The Spores from LA.  I checked out The Spores show when they were in Zurich.  We were packed into a maybe 40 person bar and just 5 feet from the stage.  Despite the puppet show and close proximity to the artists, I was just standing there, enjoying the music, but not being moved by it in my core.  I also had a headache and wasn’t in the mood to have the limits of my ear drums tested, but good shows should rise above such Earthly trappings.

Rohstofflager was an awesome venue for the Licks.  It’s situated in the gritty industrial-club district of Zurich.  It’s a place for people to pack in and get crazy or chill out and soak up the vibes.  My girlfriend took to taking awesome photos while I recorded the night with my sketch book.

 

At the Licks concert I was way back by the bar and later up in the balcony with my girlfriend, far away from the madness of the stage-front; but still felt totally connected to the music, which I was hearing for the first time.  It’s not just the music, at the show you also get her personality, those bad-ass energetic attributes which made her popular in movies like From Dusk Till Dawn and Natural Born Killers.

If the Licks are coming to your town I highly recommend checking them out.  Juliette Lewis and the Licks are the real deal, pure bad-ass kick-ass rock vibes, just like the Shaman intended.

The Modern Science Economy

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An economy is generally defined as a system with surpluses and shortages.? This means that things become more expensive, have more value if there are fewer of them and there is a high demand to acquire them.?So when Pentax releases a new camera, like the K10D, and a lot of consumers buy that camera, and then need lenses to go with it – but the production of lenses isn’t enough to meet the demand of consumers, the prices of lenses on the open market (like eBay) will be very high.?

Science is generally not associated with the idea of an economy.? Science is thought of as a collection of financially independent knowledge.? It is the process of discovering new ideas and enabling a better society through the use of those new discoveries.? For this reason, the education of scientists and engineers generally doesn’t focus on economic or financial topics, with the exception of a few required classes here and there.? Certainly, there is little push to integrate economic ideals into the research process.

I visited a Basics in Management course last summer, and it took about five seconds to realize how one dimensional my pervious engineering education at Michigan State University had been.? The need for scientists to be well-rounded interdisciplinary students increases every year.? While connections between different technical areas are focused on such as: computers-biology, mechanical-materials, chemistry-physics, etc-etc, the idea of applying economic principles to the scientific process are generally ignored.

Research scientists are not exempt from the economic laws of society.? Sound management, marketing, and financing strategies are essentially for any research lab.

First off: Management

There’s an implied fallacy that the primary job of an academic professor is to do research and make scientific discoveries.? 20 or 30 years ago this may have been true, but the modern professor is first and foremost a manager. Understanding this concept and running your research lab according to sound management principles is essential to building a successful, sustainable research lab.

Most important: The Research Economy

An economy is a balance of surpluses and shortages, inside there’s competition between rats to win the race.? In the research world there’s a limited amount of available money, which is distributed through a biased, limited number of funding sources.? At any given time many different research labs are applying for the same funding.? The amount of awarded money depends on how well the submitted proposal was marketed.

Profit: The Product of Research

What is the product of a research lab?? Publications and know-how. Ideally the product of a research lab is pure knowledge, but knowledge is essentially useless if not effectively communicated.? How is this done?? Via publication of research results in peer reviewed journals.? Publications determine what the impact of a researcher’s worth is on the global scientific community.? So a basic question the manager of a research should be asking is:

“How can I streamline scientific production and increase profits?”

Profits in this case means the generation of publications and patents, since these are some of the main factors in increasing institutional funding for the coming years.

You could be a research scientist, a photographer, a blogger, a burger flipper, a teacher, a cab driver – whatever you do in life, learning and applying economic principles to your activities will put you in the position of understanding the world and lend more freedom to where you want to go in life.

Lazy Swiss Sunday – Bos Fulen

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10,000 years ago, in the hunter-gatherer sense of our history, moving and beating the body to it’s core was needed for survival, so it is no surprise that some humans are not yet evolved enough sit in an office every day.

Bös Fulen is neither incredibly difficult, nor is deceptively easy to summit.  It’s the mountain to climb when you need to get away and are looking for a nice green – field – glacier – alpine climb for the day.

The starting point is Braunwald, situated at just over 1256 m it’s accessible by train in about two hours from Zurich.

Along the way we walked through the green fields and yellow and purple alpine flowers and came upon a group of four edelweiss.  The reclusive Alpine flower is placed on pretty much everything from hotel names, climbing stores, airplanes, and most souvenirs from Appenzeller, but are so rare that most people have never seen them in real life.

The summit of Bös Fulen is reached at 2801 m, after first climbing the glacier as high as possible, followed by free climbing the rock face.  You might find an old rusted piton here and there along the climb, but the hand holds are enough for one to feel secure.

There’s a bit of a scree field before the summit, and the keen climber will wait for those teams climbing ahead to summit before following the same line.  The alternative is to duck falling rocks and pray that one doesn’t take your fool head off.

Although it looked like a rather exhausting climb from below, the actual ascent was probably only like half an hour.  The hand-holds are bomber and the foot edges are wide enough to dance on.

The view from the summit is rather spectacular.  All the eastern alps are around, the klettersteig up Eggstöcke, the Glärnish Massif, Clariden and Ortstock.

Once in a while I get the feeling that mountaineering is for those who have realized the presence of their mortality, but not yet seen the wisdom in standing far away from the divide to this life, for one who needs some measure of sustenance to keep their fool unevolved spirits in line.

For the descent we traversed along the east ridge and then down the slope.  If you go too far you might notice the 1000 m drop down the east face, we didn’t stray too far and then boot-skied down the glacier.

The glacier was covered with small pockets of dust and dirt deposits.  They blow over from the Sahara and form these small depressions in the snow layer.  The dust absorbs more energy from the sun and then helps melt the glacier.  It’s like pricking someone a million times with a thin needle and after enough time all of their blood is gone.

If I return in ten years to climb Bös Fulen again, the likelihood that it will be climbable in the same condition is as absurd as buying a freezer in Alaska during December.  Bös Fulen is a fantastic climb for those who wish to see first hand the slow death of the last great European glaciers.

On the way back to Braunwald we happened upon a mountain rescue.  Nothing serious, looked like someone sprained their ankle and needed to be flown out.  Still, watching the rescue helicopter do a nose-dive landing was cool as all hell.

Some could write that mountaineering is a latent fool’s Provence.  Who taught the Swiss to climb?  Who conquered Everest and who starts the wars in the world?  Is it done by those with too much time and with nothing with which to lend fulfillment to their souls and have nothing to fill their days?  Is it like the writer who does not possess the courage to actually do something in this life, and takes to writing in an effort to provide an outlet for their ambitions?  Some might say so, but others might counter that mountaineering is also just a nice way to pass a lazy Sunday and take in the natural beauty which the world bestows upon those who seek the high-country.

All depressive attempts at writing aside, Bös Fulen is an awesome climb, and if you are so inclined I highly recommend it.

Free Source Photography and Copyright

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What if photography were treated like academic research?  It’s a logical question for a academic researcher with a passion for photography to ask.  As a scientist, one might be driven by the challenge of discovery and a desire to understand the world.  It’s also why many people climb, travel, write and do photography.  Pondering the notion of free science, intellectual property and copyrights begs the question:

"What if research were constrained in the same way that copyrights protect photos?"

In general, I am of the opinion that if the modern research process were treated in a similar way that modern photography is, we’d still be riding horses and crossing the Atlantic in sail boats. 

Some might say that photographs are just collections of data points.  Are they really so different from the graphs of data points found in academic journals like Science and Nature?  The scientist knows that although they’ve discovered something, it’s only useful if turned into a technology for people to use.  I know that unless I use the photos that I create, they will serve no purpose and will be lost to obscurity.

Here’s the basics, research institutions employ people like scientists.  Money comes from governments or industry and is assigned based on project proposals, grant applications, etc.  So maybe I get $80,000 to run a research project to develop active-wing technologies and then publish my results in a peer-reviewed journal, or patent the new design or process and translate these new ideas into technologies which benefit society.  Articles in journals might include anywhere from 10-100 references, so you see the road-map of how discoveries were brought about.

There exists an ideal, that every small advancement in science brings the collective of society closer to the stage of enlightenment where we understand the universe on the same level as the gods.  Ah, ok, that’s a bit much – the point is that we’re always moving forward, and that science should belong to and be freely used by everyone in society.  So when Einstein discovers and proposes the Theory of Relativity, it can be used by scientists in the US, Germany, Japan, Korea, China, Brazil, wherever – to develop technologies which give society more freedom.

So in general, a scientific discovery belongs to the people.  Old discoveries are used to feed the creative process and bring about new discoveries.  A photograph belongs to the photographer.  The content is copyrighted and can (in theory) only be used by the originator.  Everyone else in society must start from zero.

Like with photography, there’s literally millions of ideas sitting around in journal articles, many uncredited, never used, obscure to society.  There’s even more photos and images on hard drives, in shoe-boxes, laying somewhere no one remembers – being useless.

Are the photos created just to exist, or to be used?  How is defining and basing my work off of Einstein’s that much different from using an image from another photographer to create a new work?  Forget the laws and complications we’ve made for society.  Very few ideas are new, in general, everything is based off of something else.  Even Picasso based his work on off of other artists.  Who was the originator of Cubism?  How has society benefited?

I produce the images for this website because that’s how I want to use them.  I don’t want other people profiting from my images, but its pointless to horde images on a hard drive and waste energy worrying that someone is stealing them.  If one of my images inspires a viewer to advance and challenge their own ambitions, I think that’s a good thing.  If a photo is taken and used to in a Pepsi ad without my approval, that would piss me off.  If Pepsi initiates an ad campaign based off of my photos, but redo it all in a new photo shoot – I’m generally ok with that.  I wouldn’t see it as loosing money, because I’m not in the business of photography, I’m in the hobby of it.

"Ahh but it’s my vision, it’s my work it’s part of my soul.  Curse the bastard who uses my photo or copies my photo flare!"

Copyrights for songs belong to artists and musicians, and corporations, but Michael Stipe openly tells fans that there are songs from REM that belong to them now – because it’s the fans who are actually using them, who make the music live.

The craziness of copyright protection is often fueled by wannabe lawyers on photo forums, or posts on The Online Photographer.  Horror stories of photos used without permission, and the dream of big-money settlements – but largely is manifested as wasted emotions.

What if photographs were allowed to evolve like technologies do?  Imagine a world where art and science were equally free for those in society to use for our collective artistic advancement.

Imagine the explosion of creativity we could unleash on the world if we removed the constraints we’ve placed upon the creative process.