06.21.09
Introducing Bent
Currently I am enjoying the company of my firstborn. My son Bent was born on june 14th. So it will probably be a while before I blog again, but I am sure you will understand.
Please take care of my son’s planet while I am away. 
06.10.09
Why you are here pt. II – Raw data for statistics fetishists
I have a thing for making lists of useless things and then turning it into lists, charts and graphics. This is no cause for worry if you intend to be ironical about it and produce graphics that are both contemporary and hilarious. But 
I take things very seriously. Since autism runs in my family there was some concern about this, but after I took the aqtest and scored easily below average (while being truthful) there is no more reason to hide. I surfed to my Blog Stats, and migrated all data into a spreadsheet and did some serious mathematical analysis. So now I now why you are actually on this blog in the first place. I have also managed to find out that the chance that you will find this information interesting is somewhere below 0.1%…
01. First of all, it will undoubtedly be of interest of you that the infamous 80-20 rule does not apply to my blog, as far as I can tell; 20% of my postings do not account for 80% of visits. Next.
02. Number one reason you are here is because you were actually looking for information Shepard Fairey. Please relax, you are on the right blog (there are several postings on his works), just on the wrong page. A whopping 27% of you ended up on any page in this blog after a Shepard Fairey related query, but pages in which Shepards’ work is mentioned only account for 24% of all visitors… which leaves a gap of 3%.
03. Speaking of whopping. Chances are 2 to 1 that you are interested in a Big MAc, rather than a Whopper, if you are on my blog. Don’t know why.
04. One out of every five visitors of my blog is actually a pervert. Data backs me up here. I am not judging though.
05. There’s about a 50% chance that you are interested in one particular artists, and about 20% chance that you are here for getting wider artistic information.
06. If you’d be asked to name a scientist right now, statistics say there’s a 4% chance that it will be B.F. Skinner.
07. Even though there’s over 90% chance that you wound up here through a search engine, it’s barely over 1% likely that you are interested in reading about them. however, if you are, there’s about 70% chance that are able to read Dutch.
08. Statistically it is highly unlikely that you care about who wrote this… about one out of every thousand visitors look it up.
09. Talking about unlikeliness: The existence of a God is very unlikely. There’s a more than 5% chance that you would like to read what is written (in this blog) about that.
10. Musical preference? If asked the question Korn or Snow Patrol? Bookmakers would pay out 3 to 1 for Snow Patrol.
Chances that you made it all the way down here? Unknown, but dim.
06.03.09
Heidi Klum chatting up Barrack Obama
I guess I’ll just come out and admit it… I am partly responsible for the ungodly and shameless promotion of condoms among European teens. My apologies to all you christian folk out there. Promoting abstinence just doesn’t work. There is simply too much scientific evidence out there that it doesn’t. (on the other hand, being christians, perhaps science does not mean that much to you? Or is that jumping to conclusions?).
So, teenagers have sex and since they do, best to do it safely. Sometimes, that’s a difficult thing to discuss with a new partner. Especially in Europe where you have all these different languages. Our campaign team and our advertising agency have come up with a very smart(phone) digital help for that. And we’ve named it Lovelips. Dutch teenagers can download the iPhone app form the iPhone store (search for Lovelips. Why not? Heck, it’s free) or fo to the mobile site with their smartphone and download the app. Now they have loads of corny lines to chat up that Italian babe or Spanish stud and several ways to say they only practice safe sex as well.
One of the bigger fans of Lovelips has made a film in which Heide Klum and Barrack Obama are chatting each other up. Big hurrah for the online community for their support.
06.01.09
Too damn hot
I am afraid it’s just too damn hot to be blogging these days. I do apologise.
On the other hand: it’s too damn hot to be reading blogs anyway, so what are you doing behind that screen? Go outside, smell some flowers or something.
05.13.09
What goes around, comes around
I am not getting into a discussion about the ‘Iraq war’ being good or bad. Just go to the CNN blog or something if you’d like to do that. I would like to make a comment on war in general: it’s stupid. Just as all violence is stupid. That said, I’d like to ask your attention for a a brilliant bit of work by communication agency Big Ant which deservedly has won a lot of international awards (and a lot of free publicity for their client Global Coalition for Peace).
Thanks for the inspiration room for blogging on this.
05.03.09
Lance and Shephard / sport and art
Two things I enjoy: cycling and art. Two people I admire: Lance Armstrong and Shephard Fairey.
I have blogged before about how cycling is the purest form of art among all sports and how the Tour de France could be considered the Hamlet within that artform. It just felt right to bring those two passions together. I could also have written about the amazing artful design of racing or MTB cycles, but that would bring a whole new discipline into it. Bikes are not designed to be artful, they are designed to perform. But Shephard Fairey changed that. He made a great design for a great bike (and helmet); Lance’s Livestrong Trek Madone 1274. Perhaps not a wet dream of every cycling enthusiast, but a frame that will keep you awake at night nonetheless.
I saw pictures of this frame on Lance Armstrong’s twitter stream and looking at the pictures, it would appear he plans to ride on this frame during the Tour of Italy. Should that really happen, there is no more denying that no sport has more art to it than cycling. Personally, I hope that after Shephard helped Obama to a historic victory in the presidential race, he\’ll help Lance win a historic victory in Paris. You just gotta love the fact that Lance´s bike says ´Obey´ on the ballhead. Go Lance!
Edit:
Fortunately, Lance is very active on Twitter (good to know, the boss arrived safely in Rome and is eagerly awaiting the start of the Giro) and he posted a new link to both the Shephard Fairey designed bike as also the design made by Kenny Sharff. I cannot stop looking at this amazing time trial bike. Whoa!
Click on the images to go to the SuperTouch site where you can see larger images. Keep in mind however that the artists only designed what is printed on the frames, not the actual frames. This information goes without saying for people familiair with the sport, but for art afficionados this might be relevant news. The SuperTouch website does state that they are two majorly different designs… but that’s one is a time trial bike, and the other one is a ‘normal’ racing bike. just so you know. 
Want to read more on Lance, Livestrong and art? Supertouch has written more news about that here.
04.23.09
The Kilosteve crushes scientists for ID
Apparently there is a list of (so-called) scientists who are backing the concept of ID (Intelligent Design). The reason for this, is that they would like to see ID taught at schools in biology class. This would, obviously, be a bad idea. As an attempt to fool the general public into believing that there is any scientific ground for an ID theory they made a list of scientist that believe in ID. These are usually scientists that have no expertise in any relevant field, but whatever.
Stephen Jay Gould, the alpha Steve.
The American National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has started a the Project Steve as a response to this. The NCSE does not believe that the length of a list of scientists who agree on any given subject decides on the scientific value of that subject, their ‘list of Steves’ should be regarded as a “tongue in cheek parody” of the”‘long standing creationist tradition” of amassing such lists. (Creationists, being not proper scientists, do feel that there is any scientific value to be found in the number of scientist are misled by any given belief. ) In honour of the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould they started a list consisting of all scientist named ‘Steve’ that agree with NCSE’s following statement:
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to “intelligent design,” to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation’s public schools.
(taken from NCSE website)
Currently, the list has been signed by more than one thousand Steves (and Stepehens, Stephanies etc.) which led the British popular scientific magazine NewScientist to introducing a new standard measurement: the KiloSteve (kS). The probability of the accuracy of Intelligent Design is currently less than 1 kS or: ID < 1kS. Whoever said scientists don;t know how to have fun?
I am your fatha
Argument taking place on my desk this morning. Need coffeebreak.
04.16.09
Nathan Frizzell keeps on dreaming
True Believer 2008
Don’t we all just hate the wakin’ world of adult life? Whatever happened to running around in the mud only to come back home because your mother calls that dinner is ready? I don’t know about you, but for me the excitement of my first new smartphone came nowhere near the excitement of my first GI Joe.
Financial independence and being allowed to stay up late are great, but also came at a cost. Only when we dream do we still have the ability to shape our own world, just like when we were kids. Those sentimental feelings flowed through me when confronted with the works of Nathan Frizzell. Deep inside this mature exterior there’s still a superhero hidden somewhere. And when I sleep, I still know I can fly. Frizzell’s beautifully painted images make you close your eyes and see what’s painted inside.
Untitled 2006
Crow Ride 2008
04.15.09
Time for a new search engine startup
I am a total non-coder when it comes to computers (or anything else for that matter). I suck at math, don’t even know the difference between a logarithm and an algorithm… However, had I been a computer whizz, I would’ve started my own software firm to develop just one thing; a search engine.
From Google to great
Speed, relevance, reliability
Why, you ask, isn’t Google good enough for you? Well, thank you for asking (nice to show an interest) and: yes it is. It’s damn near perfect to be honest, but whether or not Google is ‘good’ is not the point. A new search engine doesn’t have to be better (in terms of speed, relevance and reliability) than Google. It doesn’t even have to match it. The need for a new search engine isn’t technical, it’s mental. In the hearts and minds of a growing number of people, Google is too big, too commercial. It’s becoming too scary. Google is no longer very credible as the ‘not-enemy’ (mainly meaning: not Microsoft).
Goddamn treehuggin hippies
Volunteers, anyone?
Of course, there are some alternatives for those that wish not to use Google or Yahoo. But initiatives like the human powered search engine Mahalo won’t actually cut it. Mahalo is just too much annoyingly tree-huggin’ happy and cheerful. And you can’t find a damn thing with it either. We need and want tech to do that sort of thing. A search engine like gigablast for example looks too much like it was built in the USSR (before the iron curtain came down, that is). Melzoo on the other hand looks great, works ‘okay’ but is too reliant on a ‘not very necessary’ innovation; showing you a surfable the webpage it’s found for your query in a side bar (a small improvement over ask’s former usp feature)… it doesn’t really work for me.
It’s not about the results that a search engine comes up with, as long as it’s basically ‘okay’ (admit it, unless you’re a researcher or journalist you can’t tell the difference in quality between Google and yahoo or Microsoft search), it’s about the brand. So, if no one else does it, I guess I’ll just have to get my savings together and buy some old obsolete search engine technology myself and position it as some hip yet lefty internet start-up. Should that be the case, watch out Forbes 500. Bankers going down, new search engine techie coming up.
PS#01.
Maybe WordPress’s own search engine will be on top of my bookmark list soon?
PS#02
Edwin Valent added a great tip recently: cuil (which, apparently, is the Irish word for ‘knowledge’). I have to agree… that’s looking pretty good.
ps#03
Who knew Ray Ozzie reads my blog? Or perhaps it was Bill himself who heard about it and put together a team to build Bing, the Google killa.
