I grew up with adventure games. Without characters like Zak McKracken, Guybrush Threepwood, Roger Wilco or Dr. Fred, my childhood is hard to imagine.

Not only did these characters teach me the first meaningful sentences of English outside of an education curriculum, they fed my imagination, humor and curiosity, as well.

I still remember the many days I went to school, looking for that friend who had already solved that brain-wrecking puzzle in Indiana Jones. Yes, when you were stuck back then with an adventure game, you were really stuck. You couldn’t just quickly google “how do I get the mummy up on the roof”. You had to figure it out on your own or ask someone who had already cracked it.

For some reason, adventure games have since then grown out of fashion. In 2000 I remember playing Grim Fandango, and while the 3D graphic was stunning, walking a character around in a three-dimensional environment seemed very different from the old-school method of trying to match the right verb or inventory item with the right point on the screen.

Luckily, there’s Amanita Design, a small independent game developing studio based in Czech Republic.

Their 2009 Machinarium was very much in the tradition of old adventure games, full of pointing and clicking, whimsical characters and hauntingly beautiful 2D graphics, and introduced many younger gamers to this simple but powerful gaming experience.

This year, on April 19th, 2012, Amanita returned with an adventure game that is even weirder, funnier and more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen: Botanicula.

The story is hard to describe. You are playing a strange bunch of tree creatures: a stick, an acorn-like thing, a fly, a creature with a hat, and a mushroom. The tree they live on is haunted by big black spider-like abominations that literally suck the life-juices out of their home.

Doesn’t sound compelling?

Well…

It’s all in the way graphics, soundtrack, puzzles and character animations work together. Rarely have I seen a more immersive adventure game. The soundtrack is not just some background muzak to fill the silence, it’s the product of Czech band Dva and minutely matches everything that happens in the game, down to the smallest click. Moving your mouse-pointer (or finger, in the touch version) through the undergrowth makes little tinkling sounds, when the creatures solve a riddle, layer after layer is seamlessly added to the music until you’re carried away in sonic bliss.

The puzzles are great, with huge variety, and there’s lots of mini-games to discover, too.

5 stars!

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originally posted on andreklein.net

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

An international move is both exciting and scary. Whether you move for work, pleasure or school, you will face culture shock. Consider lessening the impact of culture shock when you learn the language, make logistical decisions and adjust to the culture before your international move.

One of the greatest challenges of and international move is the language barrier. Even if you only plan a temporary move, learning at least a few phrases of the local language can ease culture shock. Start by learning key phrases that help you navigate your new town. Consider learning conversational phrases that enable you to introduce yourself and find out about other people. You will want to know how to ask for a bathroom, food, water or taxi, and you may also want to learn phrases that will enable you to negotiate purchases at the market. Additionally, learn manner phrases like please, thank you and you are welcome.

If you are moving for a job, learn phrases that convey greeting or respect for coworkers and clients. Ask the Human Resources director to prepare a list of words or phrases that would be helpful for you to learn before your move.

Because everyone’s situation is different, make a list of words and phrases you would like to learn, and check them off as you master each phrase. Consider enrolling in Learnoutlive, an online language learning center. While you most likely will not be a fluent speaker before your move, at least start the language learning process and then continue your lessons after you settle into your new home.

In addition to learning the language, you will need to handle logistical details before you move. Apply for the appropriate Visa and a passport. Receive a medical exam, pack prescription medications and purchase medical insurance. Decide how much money you need to take for income and housekeeping. Secure a place to live, and obtain information about applying for a driver’s license. Hire experienced and reliable long distance movers to help make the transition smooth and hassle-free.

Take several additional steps to prepare for a different culture. A new climate, food, friends, home and even street signs can throw you off course. If possible, attend local cultural events and start adapting to the changes before you move. Find festivals, restaurants and shops in local international communities where you can explore the sights, sounds and smells that will soon be your reality.

Join an international club or online chat room where you can talk with others about your upcoming international move. Your new friends will share helpful advice and guide you to books, movies, museums, blogs and other resources that will help you prepare for the culture in your new home.

After you arrive at your international destination, immerse yourself in the local culture. Treat yourself to a meal in a local restaurant. Indulge in a familiar dish while saving the more unusual fare for after your taste buds and stomach adjusts to the cuisine. Visit local shops to get a feel for the artisanship and people in your new town. Contact a local university, religious group or civic group and start building friendships. At the very least, hire a guide to show you around town and offer helpful pointers for your first few weeks.

An international move is a great experience. Lighten the impact of culture shock when you learn the language, handle logistical decisions and prepare for new cultural experiences before you move. While you will face additional culture shock after you arrive in your new home, preparation in these three areas helps you process the overseas move and start your adventure on solid footing.

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 img: Some rights reserved by katerha

About the author: Henry Fitzgerald is a technology consultant located in Seattle. When he isn’t geeking out over the latest social media platforms and Apple gadgets, he enjoys spending his time sailing and attempting to cook. Follow him on Twitter or read more about the latest tech news at technected.com

“The things people do out of sheer boredom! They study out of boredom; they pray out of boredom; they fall in love, get married and reproduce out of boredom; in the end they die out of boredom.”

It was the German author Georg Büchner who put these words into the mouth of his protagonist in the comedy Leonce and Lena written in 1836. And if we take it literally, the proposition of boredom as the prime motivating force in life (and death) seems like a bad joke.

But before we throw out the baby with the bathwater, let’s put the bias on hold for a second and reconsider the role of boredom in the 21st century.

A Brief Anatomy Of Boredom

The English word ‘boredom’ first appears in Dickens’ novel Bleak House in 1852 and perhaps it is no coincidence that it appeared at a time which also saw a rapid increase of steam-powered engines and mechanical contraptions. Was boredom a new privilege bestowed upon the masses by the rise of machine labor? Did pre-industrial man never get bored, or did he simply lack the vocabulary?

It remains to be seen whether boredom is a symptom of (technological) development or a fundamental part of our psychological furnishing. But at one point or another we all experienced that sensation described by psychologists as “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity.”

Many philosophers have written about the topic, among them Martin Heidegger who has contributed lengthy treatises in which he argues that one should attune oneself to this seemingly negative mood rather than shrug it off in the ordinary understanding:

Isn’t that exactly the attitude we still have towards boredom today? The very idea of it seems to conflict with our notions of purpose and a “fulfilled life”. “Hard-working people don’t get bored,” we say. “They are too busy to get bored.”

Boredom In The Age Of Social Media

Clay Shirky recently said something in an interview (which I quoted before) that a lot of people (including myself) can relate to:

 I remember, as a child, being bored. I grew up in a particularly boring place and so I was bored pretty frequently. But when the Internet came along it was like, “That’s it for being bored! Thank God! You’re awake at four in the morning? So are thousands of other people!”

When was the last time you felt utterly bored sitting on a train, standing in line, staring out of your window on a grey afternoon? It just doesn’t happen that much anymore, does it? Nowadays people browse their Twitter feeds on their iPhones while standing in line, whack away at the keyboards of their laptops in trains and flood their eyeballs with a constant feed of “all you can eat” movie subscriptions à la Netflix at home.

And maybe what Sam Anderson said about playing games like “Angry Birds” is also true for many other activities now filling the time once occupied by boredom: “They’re less an activity in our day than a blank space in our day; less a pursuit than a distraction from other pursuits.”

Is boredom dying out? Do we need to prescribe small dosages of boredom to escape the vicious cycle of inane activity? Can reading help bridge the states of non-doing and over-doing?

When I was a teenager and had prolonged access to computers for the first time in my life, I began to notice that it was possible to be bored in front of the computer, moving the cursor around my desktop and arranging files and folders in idle patterns. This was pre-Internet.

Later, I found out that it’s also possible to be bored online, mindlessly hopping from link to link, refreshing profiles, numbly scrolling through newsfeeds.

In a sense, as much as I agree with Shirky that we’re experiencing less and less pure boredom, Social Media and the state of “always on, always connected” seems to put us into a condition where we are neither fully experiencing activity or boredom. It’s a hybrid-state of distraction and exhaustion.

And I remember the presenter of the popular German children TV series “Löwenzahn” addressing himself to the audience while the end-credits were rolling: “Now turn off the TV! Do something else!”

It’s not that we heeded his advice, mind you. On the contrary, we mocked him and continued on our inevitable trajectory of media consumption.

But at least it planted the idea in our heads hat there is, in fact, an alternative to electronic activity, one that we’re increasingly losing sight of in the age of microblogging and hypernetworking:

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img credit: chairs: Some rights reserved by limonada / candle: Some rights reserved by Simon Greig (xrrr)

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

When I first heard the term “digital content curation” I thought of Picasso-peddling online arts merchants, vernissages on Facebook and high heeled iPhone users staggering through Italian designer boutiques.

But what does it really mean?

Traditionally, the term curator refereed to a person who selects, manages and collects works of art or (cultural artifacts of any kind) in a museum, art gallery, library, etc.

Digital content curation seemed to be the buzzword of 2011. A digital content curator does more or less the same things as his analog equivalent, except he deals with digital works of art, bits of information, etc.

Where The Academic And The Layman Intersect

There seem to be two ends of the spectrum here. In its best sense, digital content curation could refer to gargantuan projects like archive.org which collects, files and stores all kinds of digital content for future generations, from old movies and advertising clips and newsreels to student films and much more. A lot of this content is in the public domain and can be used in all kinds of projects. When I was hosting a little experimental TV program with friends, for example, we relied heavily on the Prelinger archive for its infinite reels of footage.

But this complex archiving and building of digital libraries is only one example of digital content curation.

On the other side of the spectrum we have (micro)blogging such as Twitter and Tumblr and services like paper.li or scoop.it!, or even Facebook, all of whose users are participating in digital content curation, whether directly by posting and summarizing, or by reblogging, retweeting and sharing.

The idea here is that we’re drowning in an ocean of information and we desperately need people who select, store and manage these mind-boggling amounts of data so that we can consume them more easily.

Many of the people I follow on Twitter are great curators of obscure and/or unique finds. Together with Reddit and Instapaper they have long replaced the daily newspaper for me (not that I ever liked the huge flapping paper thing) and with their help I find articles, videos and news I could never find by consuming a prepackaged magazine or newspaper alone.

On the other hand, I’ve dabbled a bit with content curation myself, both on my personal Twitter account and on our Learn Out Live Tumblr and my experience with it was and still is … ambivalent.

Content Curation As Ersatz-Creativity

There seems to be a growing notion that in an age of informational abundance curating content equals creating content. And while I do see the importance, necessity and benefits of having people sift through the daily torrents of bits and bytes to order, summarize and distribute materials, there’s also a growing sense of wariness, at least on my part.

There’s just so much content out there that I could spend my whole day just sifting through Tumblrs, twitter accounts, blogs and RSS feeds, selecting the interesting bits, grouping, tagging, and redistributing my finds.

And what I’ve found is that it generates a very different experience than actually creating content. It feels like moving horizontally through an endless expanse of stuff, sighting content from an objective bird’s-eye view of the mind, horizons forever receding. It feels rather impersonal and detached, in other words and couldn’t be further from the intensely personal and psychological adventure of creating things on my own. Even the most mediocre drawing or short story I can produce is still more meaningful to me than the most awesome regurgitated content. And if I didn’t organize my day in a way that encourages creative activity, I would soon drown in an ocean of curation.

In an age of Social Media we’ve all become content curators. Everyone who posts a Bob Dylan video on Facebook, who puts an “inspirational” poster on Pinterest, who reblogs vintage movie clips on Tumblr, tweets Marylin Monroe quotes, we’re all sifting endlessly through a neverending flow of information, constantly rehashing past centuries, infinitely reiterating, like pressing repeat on the record-player of human history.

But does it really replace creating works of our own, finding a voice and learning to “speak” with paintings, music and words?

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img:  Some rights reserved by onesevenone

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

The first ebook I ever saw (it was at the end of the 90s) was one of these “How To Make Money Online” schemes. It came with all the obligatory gratuitous images of bank notes, long sales letter including “social proof” of how Anne and Herbert became millionaires by following the “three step guide” and repeated oversized “buy now” buttons, not to mention a 3d-mockup of the “book”, which in fact was just a flat pdf.

I always wondered who would be so stupid to give these people money for their hopelessly overpriced publications. Even if the content of these dubious electronic books was beneficial, who would actually read a book on a computer? It seemed so counterintuitive.

From The Gutter To The Stars

Somewhere around this time I also discovered the Gutenberg Project and its hundreds of freely available classic novels and plays. Downloading a text file that contained Goethe’s Faust I wondered what to do with it.  I certainly was not going to read it staring into my pre-TFT era screen. To the surprise of my friends, I started consuming these pieces by letting a computerized text-to-speech voice read them out loud. To cover the uncanny effect of listening to a lobotomized virtual “Sam” or “Harry”, I put some Brian Eno ambient music in the background. My friends thought I had gone crazy, listening to the slaughtering of one classic text after the other, its broken limbs and innards insufficiently bedded in “music for airports”.

Ebooks: The Resurrection

Fast forwarding to the year 2012: ebooks have shed their dreary past of cheapskate schemes and clunky delivery. They have become a fixture of contemporary culture, although I still don’t know when exactly the ebook stopped being something you wouldn’t mention in public, and started becoming a serious alternative to dead-tree reading.

For me, at least, it was with the discovery of e-ink. The main drawback of electronic reading had always been the glare. With e-ink, even though the words were rendered on the “page” not by ink but by circuits, the feeling was comfortably unlike staring into a desk lamp.

But the further the ebook makes its foray into our homes, minds and hearts, a new generation of Luddites is fighting its advance.

(img via lMystery Fanfare via jeffreykoterba.com )

Of Book Fetishists and Coffee Table Literates

Whether it’s articles by Jonathan Franzen claiming that ebooks are “damaging society” or those worrying about an ebook-induced memory-impairment, the criticism is rising parallel with Amazon’s ebook sales.

Speaking about Amazon and ebook criticism, I’ve been following a blog called “The Kindle Monologues” for the last few weeks whose purpose is to collect and address the complaints of e-reading critics worldwide, its tagline saying: “I’d rather read books, than whine like a child with a skinned knee, about formats, and what constitutes a “real” book.”

Surprisingly, the arguments of ebook critics are highly redundant:

• ebooks don’t smell good
• with ereaders it’s impossible to show off your book to people in public
• ereaders need to be charged too often
• etc.

Here’s a link to the entertaining rebuttal of these and more by the Kindle Monologues. Reading and thinking about this, it seems that a lot of ebook critics are in fact not as interested in the actual reading as in the secondary effects such as being seen as a literary person, touching and smelling, etc. Here’s a telling quote from the article:

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first image credit:  Some rights reserved by kandinski

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

1. Learning On the Go

Once upon a time, the student trudged to a big brick building where he sat secluded away from sights, sounds and mocha lattes. There he buried himself in books, note cards and oversized reference materials.

Fast forward. Think of today’s study spaces. Can you picture just one? Of course not, because we are a mobile society. Today’s technology empowers all students, including online learners and educators. An effective study space can be created wherever a student or teacher goes. All it takes is a little creative thinking and a few quality tools.

2. Select A Workspace

About one-third of students pursuing higher education take at least one online course. Online education means creating your own online work environment. Select a workspace that fits your needs and personality. Are you someone who needs absolute silence to work or is a bit of background noise more conducive to your studies? Every great workspace also needs good lighting and comfortable seating. In addition, the space should have ample electrical outlets to support your computer and other electronic devices.

3. Equipment essentials

Students taking online classes may prefer a good laptop versus a traditional desktop computer. A laptop offers mobility. The student on the go needs to transport his laptop safely. Invest in a sturdy laptop case/bag or sleeve. Most laptop bags are versatile with storage spaces for your laptop charging cord, notebooks, pens and other essentials such as a candy bar to satisfy a sweet tooth snack attack. Find your perfect laptop bag or case, checking out styles from the traditional briefcase to messenger bags, backpacks and even funky earth-friendly bags such as the Mobile Edge Eco-bag.

4. Noise issues? No problem

The coffee house or student union can be a convenient place to set up your mobile workspace. Either location typically offers sustenance during marathon study sessions as well as a social environment to keep you from losing your mind amid the pages of your online data. However, sometimes the frenetic atmosphere can be distracting. When you need to block out the world and focus, consider a pair of headphones. Beats headphones by Dr. Dre are available in over-ear or in-ear styles. Good quality headphones can help shut out noise and distractions even in the busiest environments. They even come in fun colors!

5. Accessory or essential?

While many coffee shops, student unions and other public venues offer free Wi-Fi, the mobile student may encounter times where a wireless Internet plug becomes an essential. Depending on your budget and needs, you may opt for 3G or 4G. This handy technology gives users a personal mobile hotspot allowing access to online classes, research and networking.

6. Let there be light.

“Turn a light on,” mom always nagged. Mom was right; you need proper lighting for a good workspace. Look for a place to work where you can combine both natural lighting and artificial. This combination may be less harsh on your eyes, helping you to avoid headaches. A good workspace has an ideal balance between soft light that can make your eyes work too hard and the harsh glare of a fluorescent lighting. Even when your workspace has perfect lighting, be sure to take frequent breaks from staring at the computer screen to avoid eyestrain.

Mobile learning offers versatility for students of all ages. As online schooling continues to grow in popularity, students need to be able to create a study space that works wherever they are, even if there are no walls, windows or blackboards.

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img:  Some rights reserved by purprin

About the author: Henry Fitzgerald is a technology consultant located in Seattle. When he isn’t geeking out over the latest social media platforms and Apple gadgets, he enjoys spending his time sailing and attempting to cook. Follow him on Twitter or read more about the latest tech news at technected.com

I went straight from idea to application, to publication, all in just a few hours.

Am I saying that it’s dead simple to publish a bestseller? Certainly not. It’s still a lot of work.

But the playing field has been significantly leveled.

Perfect Is The Enemy Of Done

Did you ever meet someone who’s great at drawing, making music or anything and you said: “Wow, that’s great, why don’t you share this with a wider audience?” and then the person said: “Well, I just don’t think it’s good enough, yet.”

Now, this is not to say that there’s a sleeping Beethoven or Shakespeare in all of us. (If there is, he has to be coaxed out with some serious work or by the right environment.) Maybe some things really shouldn’t be published.

On the other hand, there is indeed lots of mediocre stuff out there. And much of it is by no means the product of people like you and me but backed by corporate capital. If you take any engineered pop starlet of the day and scratch the glossy surface, beneath there’s just mediocrity. Mediocrity all the way down.

They just slapped on so much make-belief make-up that we don’t bother to look twice.

The Entertainment Industry’s Fear Of Risks

Maybe, Hollywood and Co. aren’t in a crisis because of the Internet. Maybe, it’s not piracy that keeps their sales down, but mediocrity. How often does a big label sign an unknown artist just based on his gut-feeling? How often is not a great idea but simply extensive marketing research the raison d’être for that next Blockbuster or thinly clad “diva”?

The entertainment industry, despite all of its apparent evil, is also “just human”. They don’t want to take big risks. If there are millions at stake it’s better to be on the safe side than to do something new and ground-breaking. So they’re just busy rehashing whatever worked the year before. The result: increasingly boring books, movies and music.

An Army Of Ideas: Just Pick One

On the other hand of this spectrum, there’s people like you and me. We don’t have access to expensive equipment or mountains of cash to dominate production facilities and distribution channels.

But we don’t have anything to lose. And our ideas are legion.

Shifting away from physical goods to digital goods, online production and distribution are just a click away and often free.

Whereas movies are still difficult to make without a lot of funding, making music has become available to almost anyone with a computer and a bit of recording gear. Writing and publishing books seems to least depend on the technology: Theoretically, anyone with access to a keyboard can write a bestseller. But in practice, it all depends on that one idea.

If you got one, go for it! If it succeeds, great. If not, get up and try again!

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img:  Some rights reserved by TangYauHoong

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

In the wake of recent discussions about ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and a number of other Orwellian acronyms, the lines have been drawn rigidly. While the claims of anti-piracy lobbyists that illegal downloads destroy artists’ lives and lead to the annihilation of all artforms are somewhat amusing in their death-rattling desperateness, the claims of anti-copyright groups that torrenting the latest movies and music albums is a form of “free speech” are equally skewed.

But instead of further pitting these polarized camps against one another (and inevitably boring the reader with redundancies) I want to ask a different question here, altogether.

What if we stop looking at this issue as a moral one (good vs. bad) and start looking for alternative modes of behavior that lead beyond this dualistic abyss?

Technology (as usual) is not the problem

A strong argument for “stealing” media is: “because it’s easier than buying it!” – It sounds silly, but as the author in the linked article explains, it’s often ridiculously easy to get a movie by illegal means whereas purchasing it online requires the user to jump through all kinds of hoops and download extra software.

The fact that iTunes has (rather successfully) tried to become the #1 way of buying music online doesn’t mean that the principle of buying music online depends on an Apple ID and iTunes.  As I have shown before with the example of Sargent House, there are all kinds of alternative and more flexible ways already existing!

And interestingly, many of these alternatives are a lot simpler and offer the consumer a lot more (multiple formats for one price, no digital rights management, etc.) than iTunes or Amazon’s Music shop.

So, if there are alternative ways and they are really better why don’t more people use them?

There are at least two reasons for that:

1. people don’t know about these alternative methods
2. people don’t support independent artists

The first point is not really an excuse: head over to Bandcamp or Hyperdub right now and see how it is possible to first listen to a full album and then buy it with a few clicks (Bandcamp doesn’t even require you to have a user account!)

The second point is a bit trickier. Because if you go to Bandcamp and search for the latest Britney Spears album or whatever, you won’t find it.

In other words: Independent ways of purchasing media online go hand in hand with independent artists!

Regarding most artists signed on major labels just finding a quick way to buy the album with one click via Paypal or Google Checkout will prove to be almost impossible. If you don’t have an iTunes or Amazon account linked to an active credit card and all the necessary software installed, it’ll be difficult. So I’m not surprised people just get the torrent or rapidshare link and “have it over with.”

A Mini Case Study With Major Label Artists

Now, regarding that new Britney Spears album (don’t know if there actually is one), I can happily live without it. But there are also great artists on major labels (yes, it happens) – As an example, let’s look at Leonard Cohen (because he’s widely accepted as being “genuine” although being a major artist) and his latest album “Old Ideas”.

If I google leonard cohen “old ideas” download here’s what I get:

As you can see the first page shows us a cross-section of the whole ordeal: The links marked in red are the monopolies (Amazon and iTunes) and what I marked in yellow are “illegal” copies.

If you are like me and you don’t like to buy music from iTunes or Amazon and also don’t want to get your hands dirty torrenting, all that’s left is listening to the music on Youtube.

What kind of a choice is this?

Support Your Global Heroes

All of the above may seem complicated when looking at platforms, rights and terms of services. But behind this jungle there are two simple principles:

• By buying from iTunes or Amazon you don’t support the artists, you support the corporate world mainly
• If you want to support artists you have to buy the downloads directly from their homepage

Instead of asking ourselves: “How can I get this stuff?” we should ask ourselves: “How can I get this in the most convenient and flexible way while also supporting the artist in the best way?”

I’m convinced that people are in fact willing to pay. The reason why more and more people download music illegally is certainly not because they are all criminals but rather because the paid service don’t offer any special benefits worth paying for: back in the days owning a CD or Vinyl meant you could look at the cover art and booklet if you owned it, for example.

Therefore, also artists have to learn to look at the process a bit differently. Instead of asking: “How can we get the biggest sales and outrank all the major label artists in the iTunes charts?” they can ask: “How can we offer our music in the most creative and consumer-friendly way while also making sure that we don’t just get crumbs from each sale?”

But this is maybe a bit too much. Some consumers just want to own the stuff and don’t really care who profits as long as they can get it on their iPod as quickly as possible. And some artists on the other hand will find this process cumbersome, not wanting to deal with the business side of it and “just doing the art part”.

This unwillingness of both consumers and artists to take responsibility for the other half respectively has – so far – left the playing field to major music labels that made millions selling music and are now struggling for survival (and sueing everyone on their way to the bottom.)

As soon as physical storage mediums (CDs, cassettes & vinyl) began to fade away, and with it the necessity of costly distribution and production costs, the label empires were beginning to lose ground.

The two big online music retailers are following in their footsteps but if they don’t find ways to support artists and consumers while actually offering customers extended value, their fate is sealed.

The same applies to the movies, books and games industry. Never before did artists and consumers have more power. Why don’t we use it to shift the balance to our benefit?

 img:  Some rights reserved by Fernando Valença

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

(As usual, what happened is rather inconclusive: laptop went to sleep and didn’t “wake up”. The nerds from the computer store told me motherboard is dead.)

It’s not that this is the first time I’ve seen a machine kick the bucket (I must have torn to a dozen machines in the last twenty years…) But it’s the first time I’m actually writing about it, which brings me to the first point…

1. If Your Machine Crashes, The Net Goes On

Ten years ago, when a system crashed and you slowly put the pieces back together or replaced it, you literally had to start out from zero, again. The core of the computing experience, as least as I experienced it back then, was nailed to the physical hardware.

Nowadays, when one system breaks, there’s a chance of just continuing seamlessly on another computer and still have access to all your files, contacts, etc in the time it takes to enter a username and password.

Obviously this largely refers to “light-weight” applications such as email and social networking but since Google Docs, even most of the sensitive data stuff like spreadsheets, letters, etc. can be stored in the cloud, so that even someone would go at your system with a hammer, you could just shrug off the broken hardware and continue working on another system as if nothing had happened.

By having my laptop run down the curtain and join the choir invisible, I became aware of how much of my daily user experience is already happening in the cloud. And while it’s a big part (I’d say 50+%) it’s  certainly not all of it.

Most of my creative work still happens offline. And this is where a crash can hurt!

2. Better BackUp Than Be Sorry

Before my laptop  shuffled off its mortal coil it was so kind to warn me by not waking up as usual. When it finally did came on again, I knew something was fishy so I did a backup immediately of all my manuscripts, pictures and whatnot. (I’m one of these people who know that theoretically backups are a good thing to do but never do them. Having become a bit paranoid after this episode, I found a neat little service called MozyBackup which automatically stores your stuff in the cloud. They give you 2GB for free. UPDATE: As Glenn recommended in the comments, there’s another service called SugaSync and they even give you 5GB for free.)

So when it was finally pushing up the daisies and its screen stayed black no matter how tenderly I pushed its power button, I had everything on a harddrive.

Everything that is, except the last 500 words of a yet unpublished short story I was writing shortly before it hopped off the twig.

(The geeks at the store managed to salvage the document, by the way,  and it’s now finished and awaiting proofreading – more info about this short story series here)

3. Planned Obsolence: It’s bound to break, anyway

Far from being a conspiracy it’s a simple fact that most electronics are built to break down quickly so you’ll have to buy another one, soon. There’s even a term for it: Planned Obsolescence.

And as my laptop (which had been dutifully carrying its load for about 2 years – they never last longer in my hands) finally bought the farm I jokingly said:

If the name Shenzhen doesn’t ring a bell, it’s a place in China where most (correction: all) of our electronics are produced. Despite the fact that Apple continues to make headlines with the problems at FoxConn, a factory in Shenzhen, virtually all major electronics companies produce their gadgets in Shenzhen. If you want to find out more about this, listen to this podcast episode here with the title: MR. DAISEY AND THE APPLE FACTORY.

One of my friends, a China specialist responded to the above tweet with the following:

If the name Ghana doesn’t ring a bell, either, this is the place where many electronics end up when they perish. Here’s a photo gallery of Ghana’s Global Graveyard for Dead Computers.

4. Digital Impermanence: Freeing the Message from The Medium

Interestingly, one day before my laptop dropped dead I was reading an article by Jonathan Franzen about why he thinks ebooks are bad. Like many others he argues that a book is better because it is made out of paper which is a more durable storage medium.

There’s something not quite entirely convincing about this. The ebook critics and digital storage sceptics are everywhere, arguing that in 10 years from now it’ll all be gone if we don’t start hoarding paper.

When my laptop gave up the ghost I became aware again of how flimsy the connection of an idea is to the material which carries it. There’s lots more to say about this, especially in the light of the current copyright disputes (and witch hunts), but I think we have to be careful not to confuse the content with the container.

5. Phantom Pain and Psychological Stress

Last but not least, it occured to me again how much we as humans are becoming fused with the tools we are using. They become part of us and we become part of them. While on the one hand this “extended nervous system” is a great thing, also our identity is stored and invested in these gadgets. The iPhone has almost replaced the car in terms of status symbols and Apple’s success may be largely attributed to the fact that they know how to capitalize on this soft spot of human-machine relationships which are far from neutral and unemotional.

Advertising campaigns are designed to make us feel that we are more with technology, that our gadgets will augment our life. And while I don’t want to lament this, I’m always keen to ask who we are without these “identity crutches”?

Are these things really always helping us to be “more connected” and “more productive” or do they actually increasingly shield us from relating to the world in a more direct and wholesome way?

Feel free to leave a comment below!

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img:  Some rights reserved by Josh Bozarth

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

Sometimes I joke that the day doesn’t have enough hours, the week not enough days and so on and so forth.

But in the end it is all about time management. Especially if you are one of us freelancers or “power procrastinators”.

So. Time Management. Sounds like something out of a business seminar or self-help book, right?

To me it did when I first heard about it. And to be quite honest, it still sounds rather dull: Time Management…

In most peoples’ minds it brings up associations of discipline, routine and planning. Freelancers want to be free of all of that, don’t they?

So, let’s see what happens when we get rid of time management altogether..

Manage Your Time, Lest It Manages You

You start your morning sitting in front of a screen and have a ton of things to do. So you first check your email, see what’s new on Twitter, hang around on Facebook a bit and before you know what’s happening it’s already noon.

By afternoon you still haven’t gotten anything done. But you have checked your email and facebook more than twenty times.

You have “so many ideas”, so much brilliance locked up inside of you just waiting for a chance to be unleashed, but somehow there’s never enough time (!) to get started writing that novel, to work on that song, to write the first few lines of code for that new project.

By the evening, your brain is tired. You look back at the day with a sigh:”If only I would have…” and halfhearted convictions for the next: “Tomorrow everything will be different” while you know that it’s probably going to be the same.

The above scenario is an absence of time management and while exaggerated it affects us all to some degree, especially if you’re one of us freelancers who can’t put the responsibility on someone else’s shoulder. Freelancer are their “own boss” but they’re also their “own worst nightmare”.

What to do? Here are a few time management ideas for freelancers…

A Handful of Tools & Practices For Taming Your Time

Here’s a few time management tips that I’ve found to be helpful:

1. Schedule A Meeting With Yourself

Now, this will sound weird to some people (it certainly does to me) but I’ve found that if I treat every task in my life like an important business meeting, a date (or any other appointment that I wouldn’t miss for all the world) things get a lot easier.

So, when I can’t seem to drag myself out of distraction, I go to my calendar and schedule a meeting with myself, let’s say: “Writing from 9:00-10:00″) – it’s very simple, but it works. And you’ll notice that getting started is the hard thing. Once you’re in it, you’re easily doing more than planned! Plus, the brain releases some of its satisfaction juices once a job is done!

2. Lock It, Block It, Break – Erase It!

If you’ve scheduled a “meeting with yourself” and you’re still checking Email, Facebook etc. it’s a sign you’re not giving yourself enough credibility. So we’re going to need bigger guns. One of them is blocking websites altogether.

I’ve described one way of doing it here.

3. Destroy The Internet (For a Limited Time)

While I’m happy to say that I’ve never had to resort to this last option, there’s a danger of unblocking temporary blocks of websites for the flimsiest of reasons like needing to “look up that message on Facebook” or “re-reading that article posted on Twitter yesterday”.

So, if you’re not taking your blocks seriously, use the Uber-Block: DESTROY THE INTERNET…or well, at least block it completely for a specific time.

There’s software to help you do that, but you could also just unplug your router for a period that you’ve agreed upon before.

But remember, freelancers – in the end, there are no magic bullets! And don’t worry, we all suffer from it. Here’s how Paulo Coelho deals with it, for example.

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 Some rights reserved by HikingArtist.com

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

One year ago at this time, I did something noone prepared me for: I reduced everything that I own to the size of a suitcase.

Why?

My wife and I had decided to move to a foreign country which was almost 3,000 kilometers away.

Shipping the contents of our apartment (furniture, dishes, my homestudio equipment etc.) around the world would cost a fortune, or at least a lot more than just renewing everything once we would arrive.

So a decision was made: We would get rid of everything and take with us only what we could carry.

Easier said than done.

The apartment we were living in at the time contained numerous galaxies of stuff from times and places ranging more than 20 years back. There were shoe boxes full of linguistic textbooks (who knew when I’d need them again, right?), a carefully assembled CD collection and even original drawings from my kindergarten self.

In case you’ll ever find yourself in a similar situation, I hope the following will be helpful:

Week 1: Auctioning Off The Heavy Weights

First of all we decided to sell as much of it as possible. Among these items were: A Technics Sl-1200 (bought second hand in Thailand and shipped once around the world), a four channel mixer, a studio-microphone + stand, a four-octave MIDI keyboard, a CD player, an amplifier, two heavy loudspeakers, a desktop tower, a screen and a printer/scanner/fax thing.

We put all of it on ebay and told the people: “pick it up yourself.” – This resulted in a bit of fast cash and meeting lots of interesting people right at my doorstep. Except the printer/scanner/fax thing we sold everything. And all of the people were really nice, if sometimes a bit peculiar. (I remember one of them bringing a sort of hand-made harness which he fastened to the desktop tower and lugged off with it.) Virtually all of them gave me weird looks when I told them that we were dismantling the apartment. But for politeness’ sake, I guess, they didn’t say anything but paid and carried off the goods.

Once all of that stuff was gone, unfortunately, the apartment didn’t look fuller. The opposite was the case: The more we got rid of these things, the more we became aware of how much was still left.

Week 2: Throwing Out Hard Storage Mediums

But at least it was a bit easier now. Without a CD player there was no need for CDs, and without a record player, what do you need records for? So, off they went. I started auctioning the CDs off, one by one, first, but it was a stupid idea. It took too long and gave me a headache. So I sold them as a bundle. The owner of a 2nd hand music store eventually picked them up and gave me a juicy tip, complimenting me on my taste of music.

A bit more problematic was the fact that one of my favorite media didn’t need any special playback device but was firmly lodged between my shoulders: Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about books!

I had collected many of them over many many years. Again, I started out by auctioning them off, one by one (I loved them too much to just dump them on the street) but it quickly drained my energies and focus. So, after a while I decided to pay the local 2nd hand bookshops a visit and see who was buying what.

First stop was a very German shop that insisted on scanning the books’ barcodes, one by one, compare them with their database and accept them only if they fitted a certain (to me incomprehensible) pattern. Apparently, the staff didn’t have anything else to do than to just lazily swivel on their chairs and interrogate me about the books: “Why did you buy this? Is this good? If you didn’t like it why should we buy it?” and so on and so forth –  it took an eternity and half of my goods didn’t conform to their pattern. So I had to change my strategy.

My wife found a tiny book store a few blocks away in which an old man with a grey beard sat among thousands of old books. It was hard to see anything in there, not to mention walk! But the man was very friendly, obviously a hopeless collector, and we were eager to feed his addiction. We agreed on some kind of euro per kilo offer or something and from then on it was stuffing books into backpacks, going to the store, cashing in and returning home to repeat the procedure.

This, to use the modern speech, unlocked another achievement: Empty shelves!

Week 3: Breaking Down Furniture And Trashing The Unsalvageable

Once the shelves were empty it became relatively easy to dispose of them. A few were old and useless so I just bent them until they splintered, threw them out of my ground-floor window while my wife carried them off to the trash.

Those that were still good we lugged around to the entrance gate of the house and mostly after ten minutes they had disappeared. Among these items were: two wooden bookshelves, a metal/glass desk, two office chairs and a sofa which quickly disappeared from the street only to reappear a few days later, a few meters further away where it waited in the snow for many days until it was finally carried off to the eternal sofa grounds by some unknown force (maybe someone had complained about that bulky thing blocking the sidewalk?).

Week 4: The Devil Is In The Details

Despite getting rid of all of the above, there was still too much left, not too much to feel homey at home, anymore but definitely too much to carry on our backs or just leave to the unsuspecting landlord.

The short answer is that we put everything in boxes and put it out on the street. Everything, from old clothing to dishes to unclassifiable junk was never waiting more than a few hours to be finally picked up and carried off by their new owners. Many times, I remembered, saying to my wife: “What? That? Who could possibly want that?” but then, minutes later, the boxes were wiped clean as if the streets insatiable appetite had devoured even the least desirable of our possessions. (Sometimes even the boxes themselves disappeared!)

The long answer is that it was these small things, from pencils to cables, that caused the most trouble – and actually, we were carrying them off from the first day of this project until the very last.  The lesson here, obviously, is never to accumulate to much of it in the first place, but then again, these things have a way of clinging to human life like leeches. “Oh, a free promotional pen! What space could this possibly take?” we say, but then, years later we open a drawer and are drowned in a flood of junk!

Week 5: The Departure

Nothing I remember better than the final day in this apartment, actually it was early morning.

It was cold. Very cold. Thick ice covered the streets and a terrible wind swept through the darkness.

We woke up on our mattress, the only furniture that still remained in the apartment. While I boiled some water for our last coffee and my wife went into the bathroom, I took the mattress, blankets and pillows and dumped them into the trashcan.

When my wife came out of the bathroom, we sat down at the table, drank our coffee, ate a slice of bred, and then sat the table into the snow next to the house’s entrance gate.

Our apartment was empty. The cups and dishes of our last breakfast went out in a trash can. We took our suitcases, locked the door and then – as previously agreed with the landlord – I put our keys into the caretaker’s mailbox.

I still remember the sound of metal on metal as our keys hit the bottom of his mailbox.

The door behind us was closed. And we stood in the dark, past the point of no return.

So we carried off everything we owned through the icy black morning, realizing that wheels on a suitcase were as useless in the snow as an Alaskan beer cooler.

P.S: here are some nice before/after pictures:

P.P.S: feel free to share your own dismantling stories in the comments below.

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 Some rights reserved by Joseph Robertson

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.

Serendipity is a term that’s not easily translatable. In fact, it has been voted as one of the 10 English words hardest to translate.

According to the Oxford dictionary it was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole, “suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip, the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’.

In modern English one could say it simply means “discovering something positive one didn’t expect”.

What does it have to do with career-planning?

A lot, apparently.

The Old  School Way

In my grandfather’s times, people sat off their obligatory basic schooling (~9-10 years) and started working as apprentices. Only a handful went to university to become doctors, lawyers, etc.

Those who finished their apprenticeship and graduated from university worked in their field for decade after decade, until they themselves became master craftsmen or professors, educating the next generation.

The concept of planning a personal career was foreign, back then – one had to arrange oneself with what there was. Survival came first, maintaining one’s position, second.

If there was any change, it consisted of moving vertically, from trainee to trainer, from worker to foreman,etc. or horizontally from one workplace to another in the same field.

Like on a chessboard, both the board and the moves it allowed could be predicted. Black was black. White was white.

But this was soon to change…

The Quantum Jump Of Non-Linear Organization

With the acceleration of technological developments, almost every field started to change.

The technical knowledge a young apprentice had acquired suddenly was outdated only years later. Faced with new tools, devices and organizational methods, a person had to stay on their toes and keep on learning – not even in order to rise in the new hierarchies but just to keep the status quo.

Computers and the digital revolution kicked this trend into over-drive and suddenly black could be white and white could be black. Furthermore, as with Schroedinger’s cat, it became impossible to say which was which at any particular moment.

The map of employment was disrupted, suspended in a flicker of opportunities.

Planning a career became a race around constantly-shifting coordinates.

It has been like this for quite a while and only now, bit by bit we begin to realize that we’re navigating the present with maps of the past.

In our schools and universities these maps still largely dictate the way things are done: how and what we’re supposed to learn and how to go about finding a job when we have jumped through all the hoops.

No Maps For These Territories

In a linear map you are at point A and draw a straight line to point B, C and D, etc.

If the territory is predictable and fairly stable, these maps will lead to the desired result.

But if the territory is changing quicker than you can make or update your maps, they will lead you anywhere but where you want to be.

This territory is the world we live in today.

Environments, governments, employment, education, technology – everything is changing.

For lack of not having a new way to navigate, we cling to our old maps – linear doodles in a complex non-linear landscape.

Does this mean that we’re doomed to run in circles? Clearly, the answer is no – not if we find new ways to navigate…

As Robert X. Cringely wrote on his blog, this new territory “requires an educated mind that allows for serendipity to play a large role in discovering opportunities and staying just outside of your comfort zone.”

Regarding employment, what does that mean?

Just sitting around and waiting for wonders?

Certainly not.

Serendipity doesn’t mean being passive.

The opposite is the case.

It means shooting your arrow in one direction, but instead of expecting it to hit a linear target (A->B) and fret or fume if it doesn’t, you are open to opportunities from all directions. (yes, even things outside your comfort zone)

This doesn’t mean that a person loses his focus, scattering consistent action in fuzzy blows of indetermination.

It simply means that while having a goal, one doesn’t go for it directly but immerses oneself in fields of likelihood, instead, from which many opportunities will arise that lead to other fields, and so on and so forth – until one either reaches the goal (and suddenly finds it undesirable, perhaps) or accidentally stumbles over a dream-occupation never thought about until that  moment one finds it.

Cringely, for example, notes that moving to a city alive with a work-culture that you’d like to be in doesn’t guarantee that you will get a job but it will get more likely. This is only the tip of the ice-berg, of course, especially considering that more and more people are becoming freelancers and working online, outside of this geographical limitation. But the principle is the same, even there.

The catch is that we often don’t know what we really want until it stares us right into the face.

Even if we do, it doesn’t mean that this is necessarily the best thing for us to do at the moment.

We have to find ways to combine goal-oriented thinking and action with developing a field-awareness for serendipitous effects. At the moment, our cultural operating system still favors the former over the latter.

Reality, however, might look very different.

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img:  Some rights reserved by marco|g

About the author: André Klein was born in Germany, has grown up and lived in many different places including Thailand, Sweden and Israel. He has produced two music albums, performed and organized literary readings, curated an experimental television program and is the author of various short stories and non-fiction works.