Tag Archive for 'people'

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Lift08 – Opening Talk by Bruce Sterling

Published on February 7, 2008 in considerations. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Bruce Sterling at Lift08Notes on the run…

Sci-fi author Bruce Sterling was in charge of the opening talk at Lift08. He wanted his keynote to be “punchy” and “focused”.

He did mentioned Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, the US economic depression and Al-Quaeda, the global warming (quote: “Global Warming is a Way of Life”) since he probably felt compelled to, given the talk was supposed to be a review of 2007 and a prospective review for 2008, but of course that’s not what he focused on.

Instead he developed what he considers to be the essential: Carla Sarkozy, the “Madame du Barry of the French political renaissance”. His prospective scenarios were quite funny, including “the First Beaver of France”.

His point was about publicity, power, politics and money and their relationships and about the impredictibility of things. Could have been brilliant, but honestly I was a little disapointed, the argument deserved a better backup.

Favourite quotes:

Carla Sarkorzy is a Black Swan

2008 will be a Crappy Year

Global Warming is a Way of Life

I'm an epistemocrat

Published on January 26, 2008 in books and considerations. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Black SwanI’m currently reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb‘s Black Swan. I know I will have to read it at least 3 times before I get the whole idea and even then, I’m not quite sure I will get it straight.

It’s the kind of book that totally changes the way you view and understand the world when you’ve read it. I’ll comment once I’m actually done with it.

Just wanted to quote a few lines, before I forget, which will probably change the way I view and understand my own little self:

(…) Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say “I don’t know.” He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.
This does not necessarily mean that he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will call an epistemocracy. The major modern epistemocrat is Montaigne. (…)

Now, that really speaks to me! And it sounds smarter than “shy”, “introverted” or “unsociable”…

The fairy who bends over the Swiss web workers' cradle

Published on December 17, 2007 in web. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Sandrine SzaboEver heard of Sandrine Szabo and her web portal www.profession-web.ch?

Well if you haven’t, you’re either not a web professional in the French-speaking Switzerland or you’re working too hard to see what’s going on.

I don’t even know exactly why nor how she got on the scene, but she’s there and that’s just providential.

I’m not sure she’d appreciate the metaphor, but she seems to me like a loving-mama aiming at pampering each one of us with infinite affection. Let me explain…

Most of us are quite autistic when it comes to communicating and networking. I am the perfect example. I can do brilliant stuff but I can’t talk about it… I always have this geeky attitude whenever I’m asked about my work or achievements… For instance, though I claim to be a good popularizer on complicated projects, I have never been able to get my own mum to fully understand what my jobs consists of exactly. Ok, my mum probably isn’t the best example, but I’m sure you get the idea ;)

We are lousy communicators and it is definitely our fault if ordinary people think that ergonomists walk on the moon or that Ajax it just a detergent (or a Greek Hero for the most learned). Instead of hating us for this, Sandrine has decided to help us and to make something out of it, something rather brilliant: www.profession-web.ch, which is a 2.0 portal for, about, and by local web workers. If I recall Sandrine’s announcement after it was launched a few weeks ago, “If your an actual web developer fed up of receiving advertisements for positions of SAP consultants, well, this site is intended for you“.

She has also carried out the “Swiss Web 2.0” initiative, which feeds on her incredible energy and stamina and allows us to get to know each other (despite our natural tendencies) and keep informed of what’s going on on the local web scene.

I am not going to start a philosophical point here, but in short, I am convinced that beyond its obvious advantages, the mere notion of networking is what make us specifically human. And connectors such as Sandrine make the whole thing possible.

On behalf of the swiss web professionals: THANK YOU SANDRINE for what you do for us and please keep going, you’re making this microcosm a better place!

The Shock Doctrine

Published on December 14, 2007 in books. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Naomi KleinI’ve just finished reading the “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein… Wow!

It has been a continuous effort keeping the book open. Descriptions of torture procedures and other psychological shocks are simply unbearable, but it was definitely worth reading the entire book.

The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi KleinInstinctively, I had always felt that something had gone wrong at the end of the cold war. Today’s unbalanced capitalism has nothing to do with the keynesianist model we knew until then, but I did not have the intellectual and cultural tools to understand the whole phenomenon.

Naomi Klein’s demonstration of the ideological links behind Pinochet’s Chile, the war in Iraq, Israel, and even the hijacking of natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina in New-Orleans for instance) are stunning! The Shock Doctrine or how a few super-rich become even wealthier by pillaging public wealth and promoting destruction and fear.

What a wonderful world…

Yes! Blocher kicked out

Published on December 13, 2007 in considerations. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Our local nationalist, obviously adept of the Chicago school, and dreadfully racist mini-Bush has been kicked out of the Swiss government. At last!
No need to be ashamed of my passport any longer :-)

Blocher the black sheep, kicked out once and for all

Hooray!

On the same subject:

Boris Cyrulnik in Lausanne

Published on November 12, 2007 in considerations. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The famous French ethologist, neurologist and psychoanalyst, Boris Cyrulnik was giving a public lecture, in Lausanne, last Friday evening (Nov. 9, 07) on behalf of the Eben-Hezer Foundation.
First of all I was quite impressed with the queue of people who booked too late and came nevertheless just in case some seats would turn out free at the last minute. I knew the guy was popular, but this was beyond imagination.
I was even more impressed when the talk actually began. Boris Cyrulnik is a brilliant popularizer, which is really not a common feature amongst French scientists. The theme was “Le souci de l’autre”, literally ‘The concern for the Other’.

Does the Concern for the Other exist amongst other living creature than humans? Why does it not exist amongst all individuals within the human species? How can morals be so simply switched off during wars and back on when peace returns?

I’m definitely not going to sum anything up here. First because even though I felt very clever during the lecture (I was indeed under the impression that I understood everything he said ;-) , I feel far less clever now, trying to remember what was actually said. And because I have tons of stuff to do this afternoon.

The one thing that really struck me was the demonstration of the 3 causes that can lead to serious issues in the constitution of the individual’s ‘sensory envelop’ (actually leading to sadism or masochism in the best case and autism in the worst with a huge variety of psychopathic intermediate possibilities) :
1. A shock regarding a close relative during the early childhood (illness or death of a parent for instance);
2. Too much love and affection; too big expectations for a single child to cope with;
3. Too many people around for a constructive relationship to actually take place.
(All this was, of course, supported by various samples of scientific evidence)
If the first argument seemed quite obvious before the talk, I could only vaguely suspect the two latter points. Definitely worth the short trip!
I shall probably attend whatever lecture Boris Cyrulnik gives in the neighbourhood, and I might even read a couple of his books.