labyrinth 2

We walked this 'turf maze' in Hilton, Cambridgeshire today. Once again the labyrinth follows the Chartres pattern and is a simple labyrinth anyone could probably make in their garden.

This one was created by William Sparrow in 1660 when he was 19 to commemorate the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England.



For more information ...
labyrinth
labyrinth society

remote but no control

For many years now remote controls have frustrated me as they don't help me. Yes, I can change channel, turn the sound up or down, mute the sound, see the guide but once I leave these basic functions usability not only degrades it disappears.

How do I record a program onto a vcr or hard drive? How do I do a timer record, How can I watch one program and record another? How do I make timer recordings of all the upcoming Heroes episodes. The equipment I have is capable of this, but the 'remote', my interface with the system makes it unusable.

I suspect I am not alone in my frustration. This is not just a problem for the aged, this is a 'pain in the ass' for most people. The major companies associated with TV and other related devices have let us down in a way we would not tolerate from other technology providers and the battle line is the remote.

For me the main problems of the remote relate to some basic functions associated with recording.

• record something that is on now but that I am not watching
• record something that is on later that I wont' be watching
• record something that is on now and that I am watching
• record a series of programs

In fact, really number 1 and 2 are of most interest to me.

Pictured above are the last three remotes I owned, from left to right they have 53, 47 and 53 button (a button that has an up and down function I count as two). That is more controls than most cars and yet the functions I really want are limited.

1. change channel
2. turn sound up, down or off
3. see the guide, scroll through it and select an item (I don't even need info as the guide provides that)
4. record something that is on now but that I am not watching
5. record something that is on later that I may or may not be watching
   
6. record something that is on now and that I am watching
7. record a series of programs

Surely someone can design a better remote to just perform these functions. Maybe Apple should take this challenge on. The iPod and iPhone seems to have simple interfaces to relatively complex functionality, how about the iRemote? Here is my design constructed in 20 minutes.

• To change the channel, press prog and use the scroll like on an iPod, this will scroll through the channels.
• To turn sound up or down press vol and use the scroll like on a iPod, to mute press vol and then OK.
• To see the guide, press guide, scroll using the scroll bar, getting the idea? and then select the program to watch by pressing OK.
  
• To record something that is on now, press guide, scroll to the program then press rec. Then an on screen menu should ask if you want to (a) record and watch, (b) record but watch something else (c) record all programs in the series. Use the scroll and OK to select the appropriate option.
  
• To record something that is on later press guide, scroll to the program then press rec. Then an on screen menu should prompt asking if you want to (a) record and watch later (this would automatically change to this channel when the program starts), (b) record but watch something else later (c) record all programs in the series. Use the scroll and OK to select the appropriate option.
• To record something that is on now and that I am watching, press rec.
• Recording a series of programs was taken care of by the above.

This is just an illustration not a solution. There are other functions to consider, such as text, favorites, live pause, etc., but these are I believe secondary considerations.

Surely someone out there should have invented a better remote and given us back control!

no words

chocolate gorilla

That old marketing adage, 'you don't sell the sausage, you sell the sizzle', always seems applicable when looking at adverts that seem to capture the imagination without flaunting the product.

In the example below a feeling is created and as with most advertising I don't necessarily want to go out and buy the product but Cadbury's have captured some of my attention. The distinctive purple color is used on the background and I think the contemplative nature of the piece is meant to evoke satisfaction and indulgence offered by the product but chocolate is only illustrated at the start and end.

But a key question remains, do I feel like buying some chocolate or a Phil Collins album? Mmmm, ok! I think I fancy a dairy milk.

For more information ...
cadbury
cadbury on wikipedia
gorilla

let no one sleep

Ireland, a nation who had never previously qualified for the world cup, came alive in June of 1990. A nervous start resulting in 3 draws took us through to the second round of the competition. Our luck continued when we then beat Romania on penalties 5-4. Sheedy, Houghton, Townsend, Cascariono and O'Leary scored and then Packie Bonner saved from Timofte to put us through to the quarter finals. A moment branded into the memory of those who witnessed it.

The tournament ended for us when we lost to a goal from Salvatore Schillaci and Italy in the quarter final. Schillaci would go on to win the best player and golden boot award but our luck had run out.

The ups and downs were experienced to the backdrop of the Nessun Dorma, the song of that summer. Pavarotti brought it alive and even though none of us knew of Turandot or Calàf, we all connected with the song.

No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.

So the chorus sings as the night begins to die, a fitting paradox for that great Italian singer who died today, aged 71.


For more information ...
pavarotti
italia '90
nessun dorma
maria callas

labyrinth

A labyrinth is quite distinct from a maze, it does not confuse the walker it guides them. There is a single path through the labyrinth and a single path out. Whilst it does not promote confusion, it certainly promotes thought.

(Calgary labyrinth based on the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth)

In the labyrinth you often seem near the centre when in fact you are far away and when you seem far away a few steps brings you quite close to the centre. The labyrinth is an unfolding journey, as you walk you get to know the labyrinth in a way beyond seeing it.

There is a well developed connection between the labyrinth and religion, many churches feature the labyrinth even though it predates Christianity and transcends western culture. The symbolism is evident and often exploited, 'there is but one path that leads to god', etc.

(Labyrinth at Ely Cathedral)

The practice of walking a labyrinth provides an occasion for reflection similar to that of kinhin, the walking meditation of Zen Buddhism or the stations of the cross in Catholicism. The Celts in Ireland used the word turas for a journey of a spiritual nature, they too depicted labyrinths.

Today I walked an unusual labyrinth at Ely Cathedral with my mother, a nice journey to share together.


For more information ...
labyrinth
kinhin
lough derg
ely cathedral

more monkey than monk 2

I have been trying some breathing exercises recently to calm my mind which due to a stressful work situation is more active than ever. The 'monkey mind' is chattering away.

I inhale through my nostrils for a count of 4, then hold for a count of 2, then exhale through my mouth for a count of 4 and dwell in the quite space after exhalation for a count of 2. Repeat 40 times and it usually changes my heart rate by between 10-20 beats per second.

(photo by marc shandro)

These photos are by a good friend in Canada whom I shared great conversations with on the topics of distractions and awareness. I miss my friends in Canada but in some sense because I am thinking of them I still feel connected, if only a little.

(photo by marc shandro)

For more information ...
marc shandros photos
flickr
more monkey than monk

jungfrukällan - the virgin spring

Sad to see the passing of Ingmar Bergman today. Most people remember his depiction of the Grim Reaper in The Seventh Seal but for me his best film is The Virgin Spring. It is a fable set in 14th century Sweden and explores themes such as innocence, jealousy, death and revenge.

I have an unfinished work that transplants the story into an Irish setting but retains the plot. It is in simple rhyming couplet form and I envisage it been like some of the Canterbury tales. I expect it wouldn't be half as good. The 89 minutes of the film would translate into a large poem and I have not had the creative or physical energy to pursue it but here it is, in unedited form, presented in remembrance of the departed Swede.


Cockcrow call the sun
And with the sunlight morning comes.
Let us look upon the hut
Where idle? Fi sparks the turf.
Eyes hooded dark and deeply felt
When with child she gives to vent.
"Anu, Danu, Don,
Anu, Danu, Don.
Mother of us all,
Mother of the soil.
Let this day break tender fruit
For you to drink of its juice.
Anu Danu Don,
Anu Danu Don."

Morning prayer on day that Saviour died
Welcome now a new and peaceful time.
Mother Mary mortifies her flesh.
As father does the chores before breakfast.
At wooden table seated now
With wooden bowls father, mother, Fi and Clow.
"Mother, does our child sleep late
Dreaming of dances as dance she did 'til late.
Go and awake her now so she may bring
The candles for the priest's blessing."
"I will awake her soon and to the church she will go
But 'til sweet dreams have passed and not before.
For tender is the night that softly lays
Unlike my ghostly visions that perturb my days."

Aisling, the maiden fresh as the spring fair
Still silent sleeps without world's care.
She'll go to mass late this morn
For the candles to be blessed by Father Tom.
Her mother pleads for her to rise
And the young girl does but at her ease.???
"Oh! mother dear, please may I wear my Sunday skirts
White stockings, blue shoes with pearls and the yellow shirt.
The skirts, the blue and the red
The fifteen maidens did weave with golden thread.
And finally to cover all
The darkest blue of my blue shawls."
"Now come! my child so sweet you must take care
Not to please so much the great seducers ear."

"When I was young I saw freedom would come
As a bird falls after flight to the sun.
Your comedy will soon begin", Clow says,
As he recalls wandering his young days.
Aisling now begins to mount
Fair Ban as Fi rides Dark Hunt.
From mother dear a final kiss goodbye
As father says "the Lord bless young life."
They leave the farm from wood it came
And back to wood they journey again.
Dark and fair through wood by lake they go,
Whistling in the trees these words sung by Clow.
"The winged bird will climb on high
And wander far in the spring time."


For more information ...
ingmar bergman
the virgin spring

the way

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)

When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)

For more information ...
Lao Tzu

the road is made by walking

The combination of a physical and mental journey and the interplay between both has attracted humans throughout the ages. The idea of pilgrimage is often associated with the fulfillment of a religious duty but first and foremost it fulfills a human need.

I have often found my reading has a meandering nature leading places I did not know existed or could not have planned visiting. Recently whilst reading Pilgrimage - Adventures of the Spirit, I came across the following lines from the Spanish poet Machado.

I thought the fire was out
I stirred the ashes
And I burnt my fingers.
- Antonio Machado

(photo: ravi bhavnani)

Great, simple lines that capture a moment, a Spanish haiku. My wife was somewhat familiar with Machado so I wikipedia'd him and came across this famous verse by him. What a great way to describe one's pilgrimage or journey through life.

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road--
Only wakes upon the sea.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
- Antonio Machado, Proverbios y cantares XXIX" in Campos de Castilla.

(photo: boblycat)

I probably would hesitate to recommend Pilgrimage - Adventures of the Spirit, unless someone was particularly interested in journeys of a spiritual nature. It does contain some good essays by Jack Hitt on the Camino, Nicholas Shrady on Buddha's journey and Kent E. St.John on visiting the only German concentration camp based on French soil.

Although I am not Christian I would, one day, like to walk the Camino, to climb Croagh Patrick again, to visit Jerusalem and walk the stations of the cross. I would not expect to meet God along the way but I suspect I would learn more about my fellow man.

Meandering though it was, this post is done. Now let's go on.


For more information ...
antonio machado
pilgrimage - adventures of the spirit

phone

After a level of marketing hype only Apple can create, the iPhone launched today. From a product marketing and management perspective there are a number of interesting aspects to this product launch which will be good to bear in mind as we watch how the iPhone fares over the next 12 months.

Convergence
Over the years there have been numerous attempts to converge different products but with mixed success. The combination DVD and VCR never really took off, people still decided to buy these separately. Even though you can easily get tuners for PC's most of us still look at a TV not a monitor when watching our favorite soap. TV's and computers have not successfully converged.
Divergence rather than convergence seems to dominate for a number of reasons. Selling us two products rather than one allows a company to broaden its product line and maximize revenue. From a technical point of view technologies mature and evolve at different rates, combining two technologies will mean that one will be held back by the other.
The iPhone combines a phone, a music device and web browser. This is a definite convergence strategy, will it work where other convergence strategies have failed?

Usability
The mechanical features of the Walkman dominated the design of the early MP3 players. It took the classic design of the iPod to go beyond the buttons and to develop a device that was very usable. However, there is more to the usability of the iPod than the nice touch pad. The iPod only includes features which satisfy the goal of playing music on the go, (e.g. you can't delete a song on the iPod, you do that in iTunes). This goal directed design leads to a simple, powerful interface that satisfies people expectations of the device.
Mobile phones have horrendous interfaces and predictive text is a solution to a problem created by the design of the hardware. The interactive behavior a user has with a mobile phone and a mobile music device is quite different. The interactions on a phone are more sophisticated (typing text messages is more complicated than choosing a song to play). Will the usability principles used to such great effect on the iPod extend successfully to use on the iPhone?

Time to market
People often over emphasize the need to get to market early. The reason for this is simple, greed, the sooner you can sell something, the sooner you will get a return on investment. Apple were definitely not the first to market with an a MP3 organizer or a MP3 player. If memory serves me correctly, I believe they may have been the 7th or 8th player in the market. Napster and others had got into the MP3 organizer space before them and and iRiver and mpio were in the MP3 player space before them.
So, first to market was not the dominant variable in defining ultimate success. Obviously, Apple or not first to market for a mobile that plays music but the situation is a little different from the MP3 situation. Mobiles have been around for a lot longer than MP3 players were when Apple launched the iPod in 2001. Names like Motorola and Nokia are big players in a way mpio and iRiver never were. Will time to market be more of a defining factor for the iPhone than it was for the iPod?

Crystal Ball
I hesitate to predict but let's have some fun and give it a try, we can check in 12 months time.
I think the iPhone will be successful in converging the mobile phone and mobile music experiences. I think Safari maybe an Achilles heel, so maybe people won't use it to browse the web too much.
I think the usability approach will extend well to the mobile phone worlds and this is perhaps an area of great advancement. I have looked at demos of the iPhone and it is so much easier to use than a regular mobile.
I think that Apple won't have it as easy in the mobile phone space as they did in the mobile music space. The companies who are in that space are quite sophisticated with product design, although I think they have under served the consumer.
Final verdict, before the introduction of the iPod/iTunes Apple were not in the music distribution business, today they are the 5th largest supplier of music worldwide. The iPhone is over priced and over hyped but a key benefit of the iPhone is ego gratification. I think we will see Apple move into the mobile phone space but perhaps not have the 70% market share it does in the MP3 space.

Then again it could be Steve Jobs' Apple Newton?

For more information ...
iPhone
Apple Newton

where go the boats

(source: Henry W Taunt)

Dark brown is the river.
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating—
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore

Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child's Garden of Verses, 1885.

I have made my own tune for this poem and have sung this to Tomas at night since he was born. We talk about this as been one of the 'old songs' and when I ask does he want one of the 'old songs', he says yes.

For more information ...
robert louis stevenson

an attempt at writing something positive

(photo: trace project, nasa)

light not heavy
now not then
air not earth
less not more
music not song
pictures not words
feeling not thinking
giving not taking
here not there
quiet not loud
we not I

sleep walking

all your life you have been sleep walking wandering in a dream all your days faking it for real now through the fog you stumble and wake upon an unknown shore feet unsteady and uncomfortable feeling it for real looking around the unfamiliar landscape no landmarks to guide you and then you look down at your feet and wonder

?where have you been?where are you?where will you go?

expanding

warrior of light

Repeated experiences have but one aim, to teach us what it is we do not want to learn.
- adapted from Paulo Coelho.



For more information ...
Paulo Coelho

leaving ithaca

Rain fall tropple,
Dipple, dopple,
Drupple, drapple.
Fall down, down, down.

Water fall down,
Over earth rising,
Boulder bank breaking,
Bedded earth rising.
Flow down, down, down.

To switching sands of shores uncertain,
To seas of strange and untrusting
Waters deep; deepened by our tears of woe
But then to go
Toward on high
Where clouds will fly onward home
From whence to roam and roam again
To wherever where, whenever when
Sometime soon we’ll meet again,
Somewhere where, some when, when.


A recent posting on still life ...with life reminded me of this effort from 12 years ago, so I decided to post it here.

I wrote this after visiting a friend who was attending Cornell in Ithaca, upstate New York. Ithaca's surroundings are dramatically cut by beautiful gorges and this probably prompted the water theme which I combined with an old favourite of mine, the theme of return. Although there are no direct references to Odysseus I was thinking of his return home to that other Ithaca in Greece after his travels.

Inventing words can come across as a naive pursuit and I'm not sure they fully work here but I have decided to leave the poem in the original November 1995 form. I also probably should apologize to Gerard Manley Hopkins as this is one of a few poems that has been influenced by his writings.


For more information ..
ithaca, usa
ithaca, greece
still life ...with life
gerard manley hopkins
inversnaid

be

Be friendly
Be polite
Be vocal
Be quite
Be the change you want to see in the world

Be real
Be authentic

Be thoughtful

Be passionate

Be excited

Be calm

Be willing to change

Be yourself

great expectations, great fears

Moving back to Europe, here are some of my expectations ...

We will see family more frequently
We will get family to do some baby sitting
There will be more time for Louise and I
There will be more time for Tomas
There will be a better work-life balance
We will experience the seasons
We will travel to Greece, France and Spain again
We will see our friends again
I will get to do some good work
I will volunteer more
Simplicity will take over from complexity


Moving back to Europe, here are some of my fears ...

I feel England is more edgy and threatenting and I fear for its effect on us
I fear I will fail at my job
I fear that my job is not what I should do
I fear that England will not be enough
I fear that been close to family is not what will lead to happiness
I fear that family will be too close
I fear for Tomas' safety
I fear for a negative effect on Tomas


After a few months I should check this list and see what has come to pass.

cynics and sentimentalists

Cynics have lost faith in human sincerity and believe that the sole motivation is self-interest. Sentimentalists have an emotional idealism and are believers in the sincerity of all. Although the cynic and sentimentalist have opposing perspectives they share a common denial of what is possible, both the good and bad.

The reality, of course, is that none of us is wholly cynical or sentimental and there is a place for both at certain times and in certain places. However, I have observed in my travels that cultures and countries can have a predisposition towards one or the other. In my experience, the United Kingdom and Ireland tend towards cynicism, the United States and Canada on the other hand tends towards sentimentalism. Both approaches infuses peoples aspirations, their relationship to fame, their critical sense, their humour and also the mood of a country.

(photo from despair website)

Personally I have found that my 8 years in North America has softened my cynical edge and I am more open because of this. Whilst self-help literature is mostly driven by greed not need (cynical side), I have come across books that people have written with a view to helping others (sentimental side). I do find I am more positive about what individuals can do with their life (sentimental side) but I still retain a degree of healthy skepticism because I understand not everything can be done just because we say so, e.g. winning the war in Iraq (cynical side). I find a lot of British humour, e.g. Little Britain, to be very misanthropic and as time passes I am less amused by it. American humour on the other hand is often just not funny.

As we return to the UK I hope to bring with me a degree of positivism I have learned. Creating a better life is at the heart of every immigrants journey and in the UK that will still be my status. Next post will be from Blighty!

For more information ...
despair
little britain
blighty