Blog Odyssée

Kristian Evju is a Norwegian artist whose captivating art work is fully drawn by hand using graphite and acrylic.

As described in an interview, Kristian prepares his papers in a very specific way:

I actually take the paper in the shower with me – the paper is almost as tall as me! (Kristian’s 6ft 5) and soak it completely and then prepare the board which is paper emulsion-like fibres which you have to feed with layers and layers of acrylic medium to make it archival and then sand it and then do it again – it’s a long process!

Then you stretch it, which is a delicious process and lay it down carefully, smooth it down nicely and leave it, it’s soft and has a dynamic feel and when it becomes dry it becomes a really hard shell, it’s like leather when it dries. You can shape it into any shape you want. When stretched it reacts and it becomes a smooth service, you can’t believe it. It’s like magic, all the wrinkles come out.

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the landing of allied troops on the beaches of Normandy. It has been marked by a large number of commemorations and festivities, probably because it is the last tenth anniversary that veterans can attend to.

The Huffington Post commemorated by means of "11 Striking Images That Bring The Past And Present Together". Here are my favorites.

In a great article by the title "On the Nature of Digital Transformation: 10 Observations", Mike Arauz draws the set of operating values that defines "Responsive Organizations":

Current world is all about entrepreneurship, but we can notice that, in some anachronistic balancing movement, technocrats thrive.

This is remarkably noticeable in health where huge public initiatives from governments keep failing one after another, with little place left for the bottom-up projects that could deliver the personalized services people so badly need.

Two pictures flashed today on my Twitter List and it is amazing to realize that, combined, they perfectly explain the biology of Shadoks. The Shadoks being these (so French) stupid birds that (so well) impersonate technocrats.

Shadoks’ daily task is “to pump”, unfortunately with no visible effect. They keep pumping, however, for fear that the situation could become even worse if they didn’t.

The first sentence, from @gregyoung explains how Shadoks can multiply:

Wrong models cause massive accidental complexity.

This is something we actually know well in health. IMHO wrong models thrive there because they enable University Hospitals to publish and major companies to build a wall of costly stupid standards (namely HL7) to keep startups away.
The main "wrong model" currently – the seed of technocrats big projects – can be summed up as "a record of medical records is a continuity of care record".

The second sentence, called Bullshit Asymmetry Principle by his author, @ziobrando explains where Shadoks get their energy:

The amount of energy to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

It perfectly explains two things:

1. Wrong models can thrive for years and durably pollute their ecosystem,
2. People can fail while not being able to understand why they failed, giving birth to failures pilling up due to the Duning-Kruger syndrom, as explained by my Complexity Awareness Equation

Better know that, unless they are limited by severe budget cuts, technocrats will keep on trying and failing endlessly. When Shadoks are on the way, entrepreneurs should move to another ecosystem and not wait for them to starve!

Has there been a point when you’ve decided to take a big risk to move forward?

Oh, yeah. There are two frames to this idea of taking a risk. When you’re taking a risk, you can either be audacious or courageous—two different things. If you have audacity and take on a risk, it means you don’t know what you’re getting into; you’re walking through a door, into a dark room, with no idea what’s there. If you have courage, it means that you know exactly what’s behind that door; there’s something dangerous, hard, and it’s going to make you really uncomfortable. I think you get to be more audacious when you’re younger because you don’t have as many experiences to reference. When you’re older, you know a lot of patterns; you know exactly what’s behind that door, and you don’t risk as often. In that frame, I have to say that I have always chosen to be audacious, even though I shouldn’t be. I have the courage to be audacious.

John Maeda (@johnmaeda) in an interview by Tina Essmaker (@tinaessmaker) for The Great Discontent (TGD) (@greatdiscontent).

Original poster from gapingvoid art

Success is so captivating. It’s also very elusive.

What makes someone successful? IQ, EQ, social standing, hard work, good timing, organizational skills, dogged determination, thoughtful delegation, or plain, old, luck? There are a thousand possible answers and certainly no single one. But whatever they are, there is something that truly visionary entrepreneurs have: The ability to make it look easy.

And it’s never easy. Ever.

Until it is.

Until it’s in the past tense.

Funny how that works….

Original comic from Sandra and Woo

Do it for Denmark, come in Paris for unforgettable holidays!

By the way, it works well even when Danish girls come alone…

The first flock of autonomous outdoor quadcopter.

Research is funded by EU ERC COLLMOT project, at Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary.

Published paper available.

I already mentioned the paper by Peter Nonacs titled "Why I Let My Students Cheat On Their Exam".

While cleaning Firefox folders in a old notebook, I rediscovered Don Norman‘s "In Defense of Cheating". The bottom line? Call it "networking" or "cooperative work" and you can eliminate most cheating behaviors by making them plainly legal.

Another great cartoon by @gapingvoidart

Tempest Petra slams the little fishing harbor of Porthleven pretty hard. Some waves were measured up to 15 meters.

A refreshing way to get aware of Porthleven and the Bickford-Smith Institute whose clock tower remains up and ticking despite Petra’s furor. This building opened on December 17th 1884 as a gift to Porthleven from Mr Bickford-Smith of Trevarno, a former Member of Parliament.

The Sunday Times – Icons from Us on Vimeo.

Nice picture from "Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster" by Steve Blank.

From France, all this is usually called "England". Now that we have strong evidence of a much more complex situation, we can conclude that actual denominations are barely manageable and keep on with old habits!

Nous remarquons tous combien "le pouvoir" est devenu vain. Notre précédent "super-président" était surtout pathétique, le nouveau "super-normal" est surtout ordinaire… et ceux qui croient encore en leur capacité à résoudre plus de problèmes qu’ils n’en causent sont toujours moins nombreux.

Les réseaux où se construit une intelligence collective en arrivent à réduire leurs ambitions à espérer que l’évident parvienne à atteindre le niveau de conscience de politiques qui auraient déjà besoin de plus d’un temps plein pour "gérer la politique" (jouer aux échecs contre l’autre camp tout en s’assurant que ses propres pièces ne se bouffent pas les unes les autres).

Un article tout neuf de Susannah Fox vient de me titiller les neurones : elle y parle des conversations avec ses enfants autour des personnages de super-héros et de leurs super-pouvoirs (voler, guérir, être très fort, avoir le don d’ubiquité…) et de sa prise de conscience soudaine qu’elle a elle-même des super-pouvoirs – et que nous pouvons tous en avoir : il suffit d’utiliser ses réseaux à bon escient !

Si nous raisonnons dans l’autre sens, plutôt que de réaliser que les réseaux existants nous donnent déjà des super-pouvoirs, on peut choisir ou concevoir des façons de "faire-réseau" en fonction des super-pouvoirs que nous aimerions avoir… ça peut paraitre anecdotique, mais c’est l’amorce d’une expression des besoins et désirs en Interaction Design.

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