Inspire

Jeff Jarvis on the Success Factors of the Google Culture

Denis Dutton on the Art Instinct - Beauty, Pleasure, Human Evolution and Universal Laws

His latest book called The Art Instinct - Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution combines two fascinating and contentious disciplines—art and evolutionary science—in a provocative new work that will change forever the way we think about the arts, from painting to literature to movies to pottery. Human tastes in the arts are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just socially constructed.

Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2009 Summary and My Top 10 Movies

The last 10 days I have seen around 40 movies at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2009. It was a good year (a little better than last year) with many interesting new movies. Especially the new Turkish cinema was fascinating to me with movies like Autumn, Journey to the Sun, Pandora's Box and Innocence. I liked the style, the pace, the metaphors and symbolism and the sharp conversations.

My personal favorite by far was Troubled Water, highly recommended. Cinema is about elevation in my view and this movie blew all my senses from the start, especially the outstanding and deeply moving musical scenes. Combined with a powerful and original story about love, transparency, honesty, redemption, forgiveness, sorrow and reconnection.

1. Troubled Water
   
2. Teza
3. 35 Rhums
4. Fixer
5. Pandora's Box
6. Tokyo Sonata
7. Historias Extraordinarias
8. Frozen River
9. Rachel Getting Married
10. Slumdog Millionaire

Hope to see you all next year. It was a blast!

Gary Small on iBrain, fMRI, Media and How Google Changes Our Mind

The video below with a short presentation by Gary Small is in my view interesting in many ways. It is original and shows how Digital Natives differ in their minds relative to Digital Immigrants. It is one of the first neuroscience and fMRI studies related to searching the web and it shows that the web has both positive and negative impact on our minds and learned skills. If you like this video, I strongly recommend reading the extensive discussion related to the August post in Edge.org by Nicholas Carr called Is Google Making Us Stupid? This post raises in my view some important issues related to multi-tasking, continuous partial attention (CPA), focus, critical and structured thinking, concentration and reading long, deep articles and/or books.

Clay Shirky at PopTech 2008 on Generosity, Intrinsic Motivations and Communities

As you probably know I am big fan of TED, LIFT, PopTech, Google TechTalks, Fora.tv and [email protected] Below the latest presentation by Clay Shirky on PopTech 2008. He tells three stories on generosity and intrinsic motivations within communities. "It is better to feel good than to look good". Amen.

John Francis on TED on the Power of Silence

I wished I saw this video with John Francis a few months back. In our hectic lives driven my passion we sometimes forget about the basics. Enjoy the silence, keep on walking, open your heart and listen carefully ;-)

Bruce Sterling on the Internet of Things (New Version)

At our latest Mobile Monday Amsterdam event Bruce Sterling from Wired and The Well and highly acclaimed speaker gave a special talk on the Internet of Things and mobile devices. A great update from his thinking in Shaping Things and his previous LIFT Conference talk on SPIMES. The religious setting makes it complete. We from the Mobile Monday crew and our audience were uplifted. Thank you Bruce! 

Chris Abani with Powerful Stories on Humanity on TED 2008

Most TED videos are informative and inspiring in my experience. This one featuring Chris Abani was enchanting and touching. Makes me quiet inside.

Neal Stephenson Presentation on Media, Science Fiction and Genres

Neal Stephenson - author of Snow Crash and one of the inspirators for the web, Metaverse and Multiverse - shows us his views on (inner) geeks, science fiction, different genres, tv, cinema, books and taking your audience more seriously on an intellectual level to boost identification. Hurray for all the geeks ! 

Highly Innovative Video Combining Animation and Real Life

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.