Every time I listen to New Dimensions, the doors swing open to a deep and fascinating Universe. I can't think of a program that did not make me want to turn out the lights, lie down and just listen.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I stood under the sun, feeling the mud bake and break on my body. I stood there with my feet buried in the mud of a purling brook. Dark brown, fluid mud I had carefully pasted onto my naked body up until my shoulders. Embedded in mother nature, I squinted on the glorious meadows, the blue sky, and the defunct water mill nearby. The sun came to nibble at my sight, turning the dark brown fluid into a light brown cookie crust. The smell of grass, cows, earth, and freedom fed my will. My skin tightend as the mud dried and started crumbling. That was sensational and deserved a lot of giggles. I heard myself proclaim, "I will never be an adult". I stood there, and while I did, the mud kept on me, and I kept the mud on me by moving as little as possible. My younger cousin did not join my prediction. Staying only half-mudded, she was not sure whether to laugh with me or at me. Some crumbling and a little tickle under my armit later, I left mother earth and took her message with me.

When the first shops appeared on the Internet, the price charged for products was not affected in principle. It was the same thing as before: a number, based on some calculus, and set to be more or less permanent. A price was still supposed to generate revenues to cover expenses for advertising and public relations. Later on, shops appeared where the price was connected to user action, for example in the form of votes, or visits to the site. An example would be good here. I searched for one in my bookmarks, but couldn't find an example I was thinking of. Anyways, these cases of flexible, interactive pricing are still rare and often framed as an event, and not as a permanent pricing strategy.

What if flexible pricing had been there on day one, when the first shops appeared on the Internet? Look at my flexible pricing scheme. It was not hard to implement and is easy to administer. I believe this should be the norm for shops on the Internet, rather than the exception. ...(continue reading at the Shufflesome Blog)

At the far end of my shaft,
I fought a freckled spot of gloom.
Roaming up and down the blunder,
my grimace in original sin asunder.

Once I stood the pressures, slid over waves.
Under me, the city melts weakness into slaves.
Into semenal chaos don't go. I stay ejaculated.
Some guys just blow it out, no doubt.

Where is life in the bin of hairy Harrys,
covert blasting operations, and blown jobs?
Bear me away. Bring me the mongrove.
I wanna lie down in the ancient moss.

Lay me by your plants and hear me still.
Wax my anger. Rub my back and hold my head.
Sink me. Wrap me. Come what may, as they say.
Don't teach me what I know. The peril of play,
is from where I sway.

One thing is absolutely clear to me: History is wrong. What we know about our past is most likely very distortet. As information is passed on from person to person, from written to spoken work or vice versa, there must be tremendous loss on each passage.

Our ability, in 2008, to make all our experiences manifest, does not make this lossy process any less lossy. Look around. Read through the blogs. There is exreme drift. A story being retold accurately is rather the exception than the rule. Does availability of information stand in a positive relationship with accuracy of information? I would even doubt that.

More photos here and here

You're looking at a batch of Gregories, the froggiest iPhone Cozies around. As noted before, Gregory is a finalist in the Next Big Thing design competition at Fred Flare. There are 27 finalists in total, and they are being presented one a day at the Fred Flare Blog.

One of the designers will be awared a $1000 cash prize. As far as I know the voting will be on July 2 (I haven't seen the voting page yet), and the designer with the most votes will be crowned 2008’s “fred fan fave” and will receive the $1000.

Will you vote for Annamatic's Gregory? I will.

Image based on Moody intro window.

That's my interpretation of the situation. Next to all the other metadata from which to create playlists, Moody's 4x4 grid offers an intuitive and fast shortcut to selecting songs.

I have written about Moody before. In some weird way, the simple looking grid seems to demand low cognitive effort. More probably though, there is lots of cognition involved, which is lubricated by the emotional response to color. To locate the energy level of a song in terms of your emotional response, there is a vast and complex relationship at work.

Ludwig van Beethoven:

Musik ist höhere Offenbarung als alle Weisheit und Philosophie. Wem meine Musik sich verständlich macht, der muß frei werden von all dem Elend, womit sich die anderen schleppen.

In the context of Moody, I consider a good tag to be one that doesn't get in the way—one that doesn't obfuscate the colorspot I initialy choose. Of all the things that a color, say red, can stand for, it can be either more specific than a word, or more generic, and therefore more flexible. Music is too rich to be subsumable under a single, lowly, word. Yet, the words are essential, as if I wouldn't be able to pinpoint a feeling (or to ensure that one exists) without them. Our emotions are enslaved by our brain.

I feel orange.

As a follow-up to my previous tweet, retwittered by Saul Colt, i'll point out why none of the software—Harvest, Blinksale, Billings, FreshBooks, can move me away from Excel, even though i find the offers very enticing. Without regard to special differences between the apps and usability, my observations come more from a strategic angle.

The apps are perfect for people who work in teams and who invoice time-based services to a handful of clients. Unfortunately, the apps also try to be suitable for businesses that sell products, where every sale is usually to a new person or company. Therefore, none of the apps is really perfect for the latter situation. None of the software makers has the audacity to simply focus on one situation or on the other. Obviously, the demands with regard to processing data can be quiet different in the two situations.

A while ago i wrote about my dissapointments with sloppy hairdressers. I got a little worked up. I pointed out that hair saloons operate on lousy business models to the disadvantage of customers and employees. I still see this, and the situation certainly won't change, unless somebody seizes the opportunity to make a difference. In a recent article about barbershops, Brett & Kate McKay echo the madness:

“If you’re like most men these days, you’re probably going to some unisex chain salon like Supercuts. I used to do it too. Most of the time, I’d walk out of these places with a crappy haircut.”

The article gives some insights into what a man (a manly man—a man who can afford to be more than a drone) is looking for in a haircut experience.

“...a tiny, wimpy star is capable of packing a very powerful punch”.

Source: Nasa

HER MILK is one of 4 new sticker designs for iPod nano. The stickers can be purchased at shufflesome.com. I have only produced a handful of these, and don't plan to reprint any designs during the next one or two month, as i'll be hunching over books in the library.