Author: jkordy

That’s easy!

That’s so easy!  Anybody could do that. I could do that in my sleep!  Oh really?  Have you? I know it looks easy, everything looks easy.  The harder it was to pull off the more work was put into it to make it look obvious and easy, the more they all point and say – that’s easy, I could do that.

Well the devil, or good product, or a truly magnificent finished piece of work is in the details. And those ain’t easy.  Well sure, in theory it’s easy.  “Oh that, that’s just that with that and you’re done.”  Or, “is that all?” Or “that’s just that, but less of it, more minimal. Seriously, anyone, could, do that.  I had that idea a long time ago.  I could have done it anytime, I just never got around to it.” Well ‘in theory’ everything is easy. That’s why it’s theory and not practice.  In real life you have to deal with all the crap that you just gloss over, and not think about, while you’re too busy thinking about how it’s all so easy.

That’s just it. Nothing is easy. Some things may look easy, if you’ve got enough skills and experience, you’ll make it look easy. but it ain’t. Not in the real world at least.  It all gets complicated real fast, and real solutions take work.  Untangling that ball of wires, to make a straight wire, takes real work and skill.

Hey you, instead of going around pointing out how easy everything is, which you are too ignorant to know better, go out and do something, make something yourself. Prove to me how easy it all is.

And you, the one looking back on your own work, appreciate what you done, getting them to say “That’s easy!,”  took real hard work, appreciate and remember that.

Urbanized

Really enjoyed this little nugget.  A great short documentary about all the smart ways that cities are dealing with the reality of exponential city growth. 75% of the world’s population will live in urban centers by 2050. As the world’s population grows cities grow even faster. As many clips in the film show, it’s not very wise to not plan for that, since you can’t really stop the growth.  That’s where Urban design comes to the rescue!

And that is what this film is really about. It’s the third in a trilogy of films Gary Hustwit has made that focus on design, alongside the just as great Helvetica and Objectified films.

In this one, he covers many of the great solutions some of the worlds biggest urban centers have come up with or are planning to implement or are just plain struggling with.  He also covers some urban design mis-steps, and how urban designers and planners have learned a lot from them.  Overall, a lot of great interviews, views, and ideas in a great little package. Highly recommend.

Read some more about the film at
fastcodesign.com

ICE @ the MCA

It’s always amazing to see the International Contemporary Ensemble.  It’s just wonderful to be able to experience contemporary composers within a live concert.  I was excited to hear some John Cage and I was not familiar with Pierre Boulez, so I was looking forward to the concert.

I think by far, the most exciting to me was John Cage’s famous 4’33” which I’ve only read about about before, but never participated in in a formal concert setting like this.  Funny how people’s general awareness of this piece has changed its content a lot since it was first performed.  (certainly a lot of people held-off on their coughing until the end.)

My second fave of the evening was also a John Cage, Radio Music, for eight radios (1956). Once again something I’ve read about, but not seen performed live.  So two fantastic firsts for me.  This one a little more successful than the first in my mind.  It also changes with the times and remains current so long as there are radio broadcasts (who knows how long that will last for, lol). I was actually surprised by how little was taken up by commercials, but even that adds a nice layer to the tapestry of sounds.

In any case, always enjoy seeing ICE at the MCA Chicago, and looking forward to the next one.

International Contemporary Ensemble
correspondence: cage and boulez
october 6, 2012
museum of contemporary art
chicago, il

Emergence – Steven Johnson

Wow, note to self: never write a book about the internet, the near future, or any kind of technological speculation. You just can’t ever predict what will or won’t happen.

On that note this book from 2001, didn’t age very well. Some of it’s predictions never came true, while other things heralded as the the next big thing have already come and gone.

But those are just unfortunate side-effects of writing about technology. The subject matter is still just as fascinating today as it was 10 years ago, and it seems it still hasn’t been explored and exploited enough, even though scientists have been studying the emergence phenomenon for years.

In science some headway has been made in understanding the self-assembly and self-organization of some biological systems. But in the tech sector, we are only now seriously beginning to use the logic of emergence for things like neural nets, pattern recognition, face tracking and learning networks.

The full title is Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. And the author does a reasonably good, thought not very deep, job on the first two or three points, but it’s the last part where too much speculation makes the book more of a sociological artifact on how people perceived the future of tech 10 years ago, than giving any real insight into software and technology. Thought as I said some of the broader implications of emergence are only now gaining wide adoption and watching little dots on a screen self-assemble without any explicit instructions to do so, is just as amazing today as it was then.

This book has been on my to read list for a while. Guess I should have gotten to it earlier.

Indie Game: The Movie

Wow. So so so good. I left the theater inspired. As documentaries go, this one is quite good. Quite a lot more drama, and life journey/development than one might expect from a film following a bunch of developers around. You’d think there would be a bunch of shots of a stack of coke cans, while a dirty bearded hunched-over guy stares at a screen. There is some of that, but really it’s much more about the personal journeys these guys go through while trying to follow their passion in the face of quite a few obstacles. Many of them quite a bit more dramatic than you would expect from some guys just making a game.

I guess you just forget or are ignorant of just how much blood, sweat and tears goes into something like this. And just how many people or circumstances out there are against you. But what is amazing is that in spite of all that they succeed! It is a documentary so not all is well and good, but overall their journeys are inspiring.

The film is 94 minutes long, and that may seem like a lot for a documentary for some people, but I really wished it was longer, not because the arc of the story felt unfinished, it did, but because I wished they had time to follow more people. Each of the teams they follow has such a unique story to tell, that I just wanted more. Fortunately the website has more footage, they did film more people they just didn’t make the theatrical release. And they will soon be selling a DVD, and a special edition DVD with even more content. So I might just get my wish.

Get more info, including when and where the film will be playing on their website – www.indiegamethemovie.com

Oh, and another thing. The whole thing is a kickstarter project. Which just makes the whole thing that much more awesome. I wish I had known about it when they were collecting $$, I would have contributed.

Quote

“It’s an unexpectedly expansive view for New York. New Yorkers don’t sentimentalize, though. They simply note the sight with appropriately jaded detachment.”

— Sodium Dreams

Chicago!

I’m always posting nostalgia inducing videos of nyc,
but Chicago has some amazing architecture, and
an amazing lake, that combo is hard to compete with.

Quote

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

— Aristotle