Ibsenmaskin, Oslo Ibsenfestival 2010

Magic moments during Sebastian Hartmann's Ibsenmaskin, premiere 26 Aug 2010, on Nationaltheatret, Oslo.
It is a thematic journey into several of Ibsen's late plays, such as Ghosts, Lady from the Sea, The Masterbuilder, Hedda Gabler.

I'd like to share with you the Love song by young actress Kjersti Botn Sandal who plays Osvald *from Ghosts.
Since I happen to know Kjersti from many summer hiking tours when she was a child, it is especially moving to listen to her song.

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Relevance: Will Diaspora need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions"?

Today I posted this comment following up Jonathan Higgins comment regarding Diaspora (see a recent post for intro):

Will Diaspora or other alternative distributed friendsfeeds solutions need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions" to be relevant? Good Q Jonathan!

On the one hand, I guess perhaps not (though I do not know the technical details).

Because I guess socially, Friendsfeeds can still become very relevant IF it can attract many cliques of friends and thus gain some critical mass also among smaller networks of friends. If it becomes popular, the new practices can then become endemic spreading further.

On the other hand, "users" have actually got new habits through FB and its huge scaling. Some might enjoy to continue friendsfeeding and group connecting through the possibilities of a huge mass social medium. While others may rather wish to move on to more free and "true" friendfeed networks. Thus it might differ among us where and how we may wish to continue. This is only some preliminary thoughts... wish to learn more!

Posted on the website ReadWriteStart by: Birgit | May 16, 2010 3:13 AM

The Four Freedoms, listen to Stallman

Photo courtesy of Think Ubuntu.

SOFTWARE AS COOKING. Freedom for computer use can be compared with cooking, according to Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation. You should be able to do four things:

0. Freedom to use the recipe (or software) when you want
1. Freedom to look at ingredients and change them
2. Freedom to copy recipes and share with your friend
3. Freedom to write down your version of a recipe and give it to the community

These are four essential freedoms for software use as well.
Learn more from GNU website (courtesy http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html):

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. (END of citation)
  

THE PHILOSOPHER. Richard Stallman is behind the GNU project that Linux became a part of. He says nobody knows how people actually use software. Indeed, he does not want tracking of free software.
Stallman rather wants you to defend the four freedoms of free software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:051118-WSIS.2005-Richard.Stallman.ogg

Centralized or distributed friendsfeeds? Notice Diaspora

The Diaspora team maxwell daniel raphael ilya

(Courtesy for photo: joindiaspora.com)

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLOITATION. Currently, much of the attention and discussions in mass media and among companies are focused on how to enter, use and exploit rapidly growing social media such as Facebook (about half of the population of Norway is apparently already having an account on FB).
However, many issues of reuse, commercialization and privacy seem yet unsolved. Would Facebook administrators for example share our FB information and emergent behaviours with corporate others such as publishing houses or magazine sellers?

While some corporations and publishing houses are debating the new media possibilities of reaching potential customers in new ways through Facebook, some users and developers are already looking for alternative and what they see as less centralized ways of sharing news and other content with friends.

THE BIG QUESTION is how to actually combine sharing content with (many or selective) others with some privacy intact or at least a degree of self-governance of your "own" information, pics, news feeds, variety of connections and other activities including both social and purchasing behaviour.

DIASPORA. Notice the alternative project Diaspora by a dedicated "boy-band" it seems, of young developers and students (from NYU). At least when you see four of them on You Tube, seems to be a devoted group of young men, check out the link below where they introduce their dedication to working on this current project. (Need to check out more on their backgrounds and interests later!)

See some introduction first here:

Is Your Startup Too Geeky? Written by Audrey Watters / May 15, 2010 http://bit.ly/cc42Vr

TEAM EXPLAINING. The current Diaspora Team is: Maxwell, Daniel, Raphael and Ilya. Hear the guys self-explaining their project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxQgfQD24M&feature=player_embedded

NAME BACKGROUND. Diaspora, what does it mean? A diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]")

- and according to Wikipedia it is "any movement of a population sharing common national and/or ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective."

(It is a name with a long history of meanings connected to for example exciles of people which is beyond this post).

- according to the current Diaspora project (link) is specifically "the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network."

I guess we might also associate this with the possible future alternatives, complementaries, and/or excile from FB?

Ron Callary over at Inventorspot says:

- The central premise is to replicate the Facebook user experience that’s proven popular (until recent date), but to allow the Diaspora social network to be available on users’ own personal Web servers -- called “seeds.” This differs from Facebook's centralized user interface that claims ownership of users’ content and marketable data while running roughshod over their privacy data. At the rate at which Diaspora is growing and gaining funding, if it continues at its current pace, it might be the Facebook alternative many ex-FBers are looking for.

If anyone has more info on the further work of this free and possibly antifacebook project, please share with us.

UPDATES AND COMMENTS:

Jonathan Higgins comments on Diaspora on 16 May 2010 on the ReadWriteWeb:

- Will that scale ? Time will tell.

Does Diaspora need to scale to hundreds of millions of "users" to be relevant ?

Now that's a question that's worth thinking about.

(SEE my comment in separate new post 16 May).

Visuelt days in Oslo 6-7 May 2010

For two days, a bunch of graphic designers and illustrators and other interested people met in Oslo for the annual Visuelt event offered by Grafill (association for graphic designers and illustrators in Norway). The seminar was arranged in Vika Cinema and included welcome speeches, several visual screenings and a range of interesting presenters, many from international agencies and collectives. On Friday evening, it was time for the annual Visuelt Award Ceremony in Christiania Theatre. A number of awards (so many subcategories!) and much praise was shared with an enthusiastic audience as also the after-awards party time got closer.

You can see more here: ............(links to come)

http://bit.ly/9qfRoD

Taking a sabbatical - designer Stefan Sagmeister

Courtesy to TED and Sagmeister.
Filmed July 2009, posted on TED talks Oct 2009.
Link (if problem with the video here): http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html

Wave is here! New conversational beta email

How would a new email or digital conversational tool look like if we could start anew?

Wave is here from Yesterday 28 May 2009, as beta /Google wave. 

Congrats, exciting news.

See an exclusive probably first interview here with the founding team incl two Danes Brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon (the two brothers are serial innovators, see the originating of what became Google maps elsewhere): 

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/exclusive-video-interview-with-the-google-wave-founders/#comments

Dansens Hus, Oslo

14 October 2008: Visited the new Dansens Hus (house of Dance) in the Vulcan area in Oslo, situated close to Akerselva (*the river dividing Oslo in East and West. Nowadays a growing area for creative industries firms, educational and cultural institutions.) 

Dansens Hus seemed very fit for its purpose, the main performance room could include around 350 people - seat rows were steeply built so that everyone should be able to see the dancers well.

The wooden stage floor appeared to be fit for its dancing purpose.

A long bar and nice mingling area is the first thing you meet when entering. It is also a flexible space for meetings and events. 

We were also guided outside and updated on the plans for this Vulcan area. A food hall is planned in the old brick building, and near to the Maridalsveien a new hotel (Scandic) as well as new theatre stage are going to be built.

The visit was arranged by our Culture and Media group of Polytechnic Society. 

Melancholia

2.10.2008 Den Norske Opera & Ballett
Interesting performance of an entirely new opera: Melancholia is narrating one day in the life of Lars Hertervig, the talented, enigmatic but highly suffering South-Norwegian painter while he was in Düsseldorf striving with his talents and doubts (Ich kann malen!) and fell in forbidden love with Helene Winckelmann, the step-dauhter in the patriarchal Winckelmann house where he rented a room.
It is performed during the Ultima festival in Snøhætta's white new opera in Oslo.
The libretto by Jon Fosse and music by Georg Friederich Haas, a young Austrian composer. I experienced excellent singers! and triggering new compounded music by Haas.