details of a global brain

Fundamental changes ahead: petaflop barrier broken

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:47:47 +0100

According to this WIRED blog entry IBM and Cray have both cracked the petaflop barrier. The

Computer scientist Mark Seager of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory claims that this will change the scientific method for the first time since Galileo invented the telescope (in 1509)".

The reason for that is that simulation and approximation can be used to come to acurate models of complex phenomena instead of rjust easoning about formula by theory and experimenting to prove those.

With 362 terabytes of memory and 1.059 quadrillion floating-point calculations per second the Jaguar of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is tuned for scientific calculations like climate and energy models, drug discovery, new materials, etc.

The question arises if these amounts of speed and data processing could one day break one fundamental rule: that some problems wil always be beyond discovery through calculation. Neurology, psychology, sociology, economy and cultural studies are scientific areas that haven't really started yet. Large scale simulation can be the one scientific method that is missing for those (implied that the methods of observation deliver enough data to model upon).

And if so, there is a danger that even governmental policies may one day be driven by probability and not ethics.

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Study Shows How We Evolved Different Personalities

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Zeitgeist: Addendum

Sun, 5 Oct 2008 13:29:47 +0100

Here is a two hour documentary by Peter Joseph from July 2008 explains so much of the backgrounds of a "corporatocracy" today, an unsustainable "monetary-ism" and religious deception that causes social and economic distress.

»Zeitgeist: Addendum« is a sequel to the documentary »Zeitgeist« from 2007:

Zeitgeist: Addendum, attempts to locate the root causes of this pervasive social corruption, while offering a solution. This solution is not based on politics, morality, laws, or any other "establishment" notions of human affairs, but rather on a modern, non-superstitious based understanding of what we are and how we align with nature, to which we are a part

The movie portraits the Venus Project - a life long futuristic vision of Jaques Fresco of a sustainable society. Unfortunatly the site looks like a study site for futuristic industrial design and technology and thus fails to generate interest for the socio-political subtext of Frescos work.

Unfortunatly, while the movie does extensively talk about a global vision, it remains a US centric view as the critisism is focusing on the US agenda. And thus it falls short in the ideas of how to initiate change in the system.

But much of the movie very well explains the problem of the current monetary system and how it came into being.

Information Design and the Monetary System

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 23:31:09 +0100

I am personally interested in how the lack of information or proper presentation of that information led to the current financial crisis. Obviously the information was available — but not well understood, not correctly aggregated or falsely interpreted by politicians that were responsible for phony policies and flawed legislations.

And even now — as the information is presented to legislators - it seems that politicians come to very different conclusions about wether or not there should be a bailout of the failing banks. And the matter is so complex, that obviously only few people understand the issues and the pro's and con's of all options.

There have been other desasters where information has been presented in a fashion that allowed it to be ignored or misinterpreted too easily. I assume that the pretext of the current financial crisis is full of examples of such kind.

People seemed to be surprised by the financial crisis. But market experts have been ringing bells for quite some time.

For instance Thorsten Polleit from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. In an article about the increasing "credit crisis" he wrote in early Februrary 2008 for the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

A crisis must be feared, however, if it has been caused by government action, and if the obvious signs of the crisis provoke ever greater doses of government intervention. In this case, the market would be prevented from doing its job properly. Bad decisions would be perpetuated, and the ultimate crisis may become nasty.

Polleit has written many other very interesting articles for the Mises Institute. Many reflect on the theories of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. For instance an article from early August 2008 about the problems of a government money-supply monopoly:

There is no escape from the costs of correcting the damage inflicted by government paper-money standards. However, when looking for monetary-reform proposals, Mises's work must be given highest public attention: he proposed ending the government money-supply monopoly — which he identified as the root of the problem — and returning money to the free market. Only in this way can the costs of the final monetary and economic collapse be prevented from becoming disastrously high. Mises wrote, "The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

I found this site through a clip from a Duck Tales episode on YouTube that may be understandable for kids as well:

Why is the Duck Tale episode so relevant?

There have been apologets of free market and sound money whose theories seem to be neglected by the Bailout Bill suggested by the US administration. Here is a 42 minute documentary about the US monetary system and the Federal Reserve:

You want more?

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has compiled a good Bailout Reader with articles related to the financial crisis.

If you really want to be up to date what happens in the US the site cpsanjunkie.org collects the most important video clips.

Private control over the monetary system?

If you are leaning towards conspiracy theories — you may think how private control about the money system came into being:

Corrupt Federal Reserve:
Part 1: Robbing Americans since 1913
Part 2: The Secret Government
Part 3: The Media's Main Stranglehold

Ron Paul has recently interacted with Bernard Bernake, the chairman of the Federal Reserve during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. When questioned about the powers of the Fed to create money Bernake only responds with the 1913 Federal Reserve Act:

But as you can see in this video here, Ron Paul thinks that this Act is against the US consitution:

My current question here now is: Would better design of the information needed in the context help to make better decisions in the future?

The political implication of YouTube

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:38:54 +0100

YouTube allows people to make visible the failure of politicians. The way they remain clueless and lie about their cluelessness afterwards. This is very important. But unfortunatly a revealing YouTube video may not get the publicity it should.

Look at this clip here for instance, where Barack Obama confronts John McCain with the fact, that his assumptions ahead of the Iraq war were dead wrong:

Here is another one showing a blunt lie from John McCain about wether or not her saw the financial crisis coming:

The problem with these clips is that — while fundamentally characterizing the deceptive nature of a candidate — they get lost in the stream of other news that are much less critical. And critical clips in itself immediatly attract criticism of being "biased" and "partisan".

The first clip has only 6,301 views last day - the second only 11,628. Compared to other "hot clips" these are fairly low numbers on YouTube. It is fair to say that the impact of such clips is low unless they are made public by national broadcasters.

Let's play Bailout

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:08:54 +0100

It seems US government is denying its responsibility for the financial crash — and even trying to get away with new mistakes by pushing congress to agree on a plan that is hardly

Look at this piece here:

»Privatize gains to a few and socialize the losses to the many.«

Congress member Marcy Kaptur seems to get it right. The whole event, way it came into being, the time, the way it is handled... everything is more than obscure.

Jason Linkins from Huffington Post points a finger on a very odd sentence in the proposal of the White House regarding the $700 trillion Dollar bailout plan:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. (in Section 8; see full text of proposal)

This is really strange. $700 trillion Dollars "donated" to an institution that will take "non-reviewable" actions? It could finance anything - even a private army - without public intervention?

I mean... wait a minute... Decisions ... may not be reviewed by any court or administrative agency?

Jason continues:

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

And if that is not enough... George W. Bush does not seem to be willing to explain details of this proposal or take any questions about it. Instead the White House is putting extraordinary pressure on Congress to pass this economic bill within days, while — attention! — White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto claims that this bill has been put together »had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials«. (Keith Koffler from Roll Call reports)

Ron Paul comments on CNNpolitics.com and sees prior actions of the government is repsonsible for the distortions of the market that caused the crash — and obviously the current government does not seem to learn from its own failure:

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.
The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.

Bailing out in the wrong direction

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:40:32 +0100

US Government is suggesting a $700 billion financial package to prevent a chain reaction at Wall Street. The US national debt to over $10 trillion dollars with just a single decision.

Interestingly there are many experts that tell their own story about what this all means on the long run.

Someone may wonder where this money is coming from. And very simply said there are two sources:

a) Nothing... Thin air!

This could be done by simply done by "claiming" that there's $700.000.000.000 dollars more in the world. This is suggesting that this money is covered by something else and it also allows the value of the dollar to degrade for anybody (but there are other reasons as well). In 2008, for example, it took $21.57 to buy what $1 bought in 1913 (Source)

Experts like Peter Schiff are punding the topic of the collapse of the dollar since years - and other experts try to cover it up. Just watch this piece:

Peter Schiff is also favouring the gold standard:

b) The future

The "future" is... the future taxes, prices and hard work. The "average Joe" is paying it with less social security, less pansion, less money in the pocket for more and longer work.

The only politician in the US that obviously does not try to cover it up seems to be - who else - Ron Paul. Watch his comment here:

Two Red Dot Design Awards for Hobnox

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:33:45 +0100

I forgot to post this here: Hobnox won two Red Dot Design Awards for the website and the Hobnox Audiotool. Unfortunatly the Red Dot website does not list the achievement - and there is no statement from the Jury either.

The Audiiotool also recieved the Flashforward Award 2008 - which is rewarding the best Flash projects worldwide.

BTW: There will be an major Update to the Audiotool as soon as Flash Player 10 is released. New features of the 10th player allow a more reliable Java-free playback and - this is big - the possibility to record sessions to MP3. Saving a work for later continuation is following soon.

Zoot Woman as well!

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:52:33 +0100

I am sorry to "spam" my music interest recently. But I am just so glad about what the Berlin team was able to pull up again. As my Last.fm profile discloses I have been listening to the britsh band called Zoot Woman recently. Now I am happy that Hobnox has the concert and an interview:

[See fullscreen and also interview available]

(Reminds me of the fact that I forgot to link the interveiw with Jose Gonzales in my last post).

Jose Gonzalez Live - exclusively on Sly-Fi.com

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:46:52 +0100

Hobnox is exclusively providing a recording of the live concert of José Gonzaléz in Admiralspalast in Berlin. Beautiful concert, excellent camera work, perfect sound. And we are investigating to deliver this in near-HD video quality soon (stay tuned).

[See on Sly-Fi-Channel]

Hobnox recieved the Grimme Online Award

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:24:56 +0100

Hobnox recieves the Grimme Online Award.

The Grimme Online Award is one of the most prestigious awards for online projects in Germany. The jury does mention the quality of the design.

As Head of Concept and Design this makes me happy. But there have been many people working on the design that are not yet mentioned anywhere. And I want to give them credit here - even though some may have been working for Hobnox only a short period of time:

Christoph Bieselt (Motion Design)
Andreas Echterhoff (Information Architecture)
Ingo Feisthamel (Icondesign and Screendesign)
James Fell (Strategy, Design, USA)
Sami Gültekin (Motion Design)
Jan-Philipp Hochstetter (Illustration, Screendesign)
Arron Joseph (Art Direction and Screendesign, USA)
Thomas Junk (Screendesign)
Markus Ort (Information Architecture)
Carlo Palazzari (Screendesign)
Michael Schmitz (Screendesign)
Niklas Schneider (Information Architecture)
Andreas Schwankl (Information Architecture)
Alex Smetana (Motion Design)
Andre Stubbe (UI Design)
Akemi Tazaki (UI Design)
Christian Wiener (Art Direction and Screendesign)
Sascha Wintjes (Screendesign)

I want to thank everyone mentioned here for the effort that contributed to the achievement. Thank you!

89% want to impeach Bush

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:04:05 +0100

MSNBC has a poll online that asks if people would impeach George W. Bush. Out of 678898 people that participated in that poll 89% think he should be.

Just yesterday Dennis Kucinich presented a very long lists of articles to Congress. Here is a PDF with the transcript of his presentation.

Senate Report: Bush used Iraq intelligence he knew was false

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 17:27:07 +0100

Described in this article of the Huffington Post the U.S. Senate Select Commitee on Intelligence has released a series of reports on intelligence related to Iraq before the war.

The reports show that the Bush administration actively ignored available intelligence to press ahead with an agenda that will ultimately lead to the installment of permanent U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

The reports give examples that there was no intelligence that supported

statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
the statement of the Secretary of Defense that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
repeated statements of the Vice President that the Intelligence Community did confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein concludes:

»Even though the intelligence before the war supported inaccurate statements, the Bush administration distorted the intelligence in order to build its case to go to war. The executive branch released only those findings that supported the argument, did not relay uncertainties, and at times made statements beyond what the intelligence supported.«

Hobnox - now open for everyone! New contest coming up!

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 12:22:42 +0100

So Hobnox (the startup I am working for as "Head of Concept & Design") has reached the end of the private beta phase and is now running as public beta (which means: everyone can register and use it).

There are still many things that we have in the pipeline. As of now it appears to be a (a) video sharing site with a community plus (b) some WebTV plus (c) some Flash apps (which are still in demo mode)... and these things will become more and more interconnected as we move along, because the level of interconnectedness is key to success of the concept.

Meanwhile we get reviews like this:

Coming up:

We restart the Evolution Contest and creatives can win $30.000 in three categories (so the sum of the prizes is $90.000). People will be able to submit projects starting next week... the actual voting starts on 4th of August.

If you wonder what the Evolution Contest is you might still browse the participants of the first contest (Nov'07-Feb'08) in this archive.

Web 3.0? Maybe user generated applications...

Sun, 25 May 2008 12:39:25 +0100

In few seconds I was able to create a new music browsing application combining puzzle pieces together without any effort:

All I needed was Fluid and an example to learn from.

Fluid basically is a bare-bones web browser that turns a website into an double-clickable application. It is a website - but it feels like an application (as long as you are not offline of course). The original idea for Fluid was inspired by Mozilla's Prism project.

But wait... what's happening here?

Is this a step back because it disregards the openness and hypertextuality of the web by suggesting to constrain web pages that are not meant to be pointing to other sites into windows?

It is an interesting trend that — after big browser vendors now finally comply to standards — new concepts appear that require users to use certain devices or browsers (or plug-ins) to use them. Actually the initial design goal (and the reason for standardisation) was to get rid of these dependencies.

But this is not just about the web as standard. It is about users being able to create applications from the rich offerings of the web. It is about DJ-ing with code, mingling logic and shining ideas. Users that can translate "cool ideas" into fun things without becoming an expert first. And it's about developers creating pieces that are basic and yet well crafted and interoperable. It is about everyone contributing to the story.

While it right now does conflict a little bit with the device-independency that has made the web strong... it may turn out big on the long run.

Grimme Online Award Nomination for Hobnox

Fri, 9 May 2008 12:00:38 +0100

Hobnox was nominated for a Grimme Online Award yesterday (category "special"). The Grimme Online Awards have always been a sign post for cultural relevance of web projects for me. So this makes me very glad that Hobnox has achieved this nomination.

Side note: As announced on the FMX/08 conference the Audiotool has been updated with a TR-808 rythm composer. The next update (hopefully) will add saving compositions and maybe MIDI support.

FMX/08

Tue, 6 May 2008 08:55:07 +0100

I am going to speak about web entertainment (and Hobnox) on FMX/08 tomorrow. I will probably see some friends there as well.

I haven't been to a previous FMX-conference. Judging from their program they do focus a lot on technology and Visual FX. The panel I have the privilege to participate in is subjected "realtime".

I think this is a very good topic altough the notion is quite dated. But the term gets a slightly new meaning as the networks start to become real multimedia channels that can deliver streaming high quality video and multiplayer games with minimal latency and without wires.

Yahoo Badges

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:38:02 +0100

Many month ago Yahoo introduced Yahoo Pipes to the public - allowing to mix and process data from sites and RSS feeds from different sources (I have a master RSS feed of a pipe that represents almost all my blog activities)

Now Yahoo has expanded this model to include widgets for displaying the resulting: Yahoo Badges.

See the a demo here:

re:publica 08

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:12:19 +0100

Hobnox will be supporting re:publica 08 conference in Berlin. We will be recording some sessions. I have the honor to discuss »Because we can...« on Friday morning, April 4th, and we will also present Hobnox in a separate session in the afternoon.

New seminars - summer semester '08

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:18:45 +0100

The new seminars for summer term 2008 are fixed. It is always a very exciting moment to think about new topics for projects... or rather: to pick the best from the ideas floating around.

And I always love to define topics with a leightweight appearance but at the same time much depth.

Here are the two candidates:

Project seminar: »Habits«
Design research about our habits and how they shape our daily life and how we use things.

Project seminar: »PIM«
Design for Personal Information Management systems.

iPhone SDK - a complete solution?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:14:47 +0100

Apple has released the iPhone SDK. The 2.1 gigabyte download is free after registration and includes the latest Developer Tools as well.

I personally don't use an iPhone. Being able to hack it (or get third party software for it) was a stopper for me. Another argument against the iPhone was the rather limited storage space — 4 and 8 gigs simply did not seem enough space.

Apple still wants to retain some control over which apps are pushed on the phone, but it seems the upcoming operating system of the iPhone has already been hacked. People may be able to install software independently from Apple (e.g. to remove a SIM card lock) on a hacked phone.

But looking at the developer site for the iPhone simply does it right. I get a clear product, a very readable documentation and easy to digest tutorials - developing hardware and software together again pays out in a consistent product.

The Android SDK on the other hand is lacking the simple question: How can I get started (I mean really)? What devices can I deploy an Android application on? In fact the Android FAQ states that there are no phones that Android is running on. So who is supporting Android? Why should I spend time on developing for a theoretical market? Android is nothing more than an approach to an upcoming problem that Apple has already solved from A-Z.

That is the reason why Apple is succsessful: They offer solutions - not concepts.

People that think the stylishness of their products are key to Apple's success don't know much about Design.