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Blog von Moritz Ritter mit Schnipseln über Technik, Design, Politik und Kultur – gemischt mit etwas Privatem. Was für ein Konfetti!

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United States presidential pets - Wikipedia

A few observations:

The awards for best names (and definitely best picture) go to King Timahoe, Vicki and Pasha (pets of former President Nixon)

The most extensive presidential pet zoo was that of Calvin Cooldige, who owned everything from dogs over donkeys to a hippopotamus

Presidential Pet-o-phobes who apparently know no joy in life: Donald J. Trump and James K. Polk

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Insightful! I need a version for smartphone usage, though.

“Computer Workstation Variables”/Berkly Lab (Public Domain)

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Hemlis Messenger: A Crowdfunding Debacle

Ideas are awesome – especially if they are bold and useful. Hemlis Messenger, an independently crowdfunded project by Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde, was born as such a very ambitious idea to make messaging more secure and thus give us back the freedom of private communication on the Internet. Yet, it also continues a long line of prominent crowdfunding failures. The origins of Hemlis’ failure are deeply rooted in the broader crowdfunding culture.

Conceived under the impression of the terrifying revelations by Edward Snowden on government surveillance, Hemlis Messenger app, a mobile application to exchange highly encrypted and anonymous messages between its users, seemed like the perfect idea at the right time. Many people, including myself, were happy to invest in something that promised more freedom from governments spying on our private lives. Consequently, Hemlis’ crowdfunding goal of $100,000 was surpassed within 36 hours and the crowdfunding campaign was the talk of the town called World Wide Web. Some two years later, all the crowdfunded money is gone and the project is no more. As announced on the project’s blog, Hemlis is dead. From another blog post Peter Sunde wrote explaining the failure of his project, we can gather that the team ran into a good amount of challenges and had some really bad luck. But let’s face it: All projects do. We have to dig a little deeper to find the true causes of its failure.

The principle behind crowdfundinding is that if you can convince many people to invest smaller amounts of money in your idea, you might be able to realize it. In a world where resources are very unevenly distributed, this is a powerful and idealistic concept. It draws on all the good things about society and the connected world we live in today. Yet, crowdfunding falls short to deliver on its promise in many cases like the one of Hemlis. Why? Because crowdfunding culture values ideas too much and execution too little. Peter himself hints at the actual problems in his aforementioned blog post. Hemlis didn’t fail because of bad luck. It failed because of a severe lack of execution, organization and communication. A few examples:

The necessary budget to create the app was severely underestimated

The necessary budget to build and maintain a global server infrastructure that supports hundreds of thousands of users was astronomically underestimated

The team consisted of friends who had no institutionalized way of working together, so they failed to control their budget or hire more people for such essential tasks

Competing messenger apps were almost completely ignored, so the project’s risk was underestimated

Apparently, there was no release plan or feature list which could have indicated delays early on and allowed for adjustments in the scope of the project

Apart from a few blog posts, there was almost no interaction with the investors or the potential user base throughout the project

This was bad execution all over the place. The problem is that these topics are the opposite of bold and sexy. No one wants to waste time in their project’s video pitch to talk about their great controlling skills, how well they handle spreadsheets or the many ways they know to build and motivate teams. Sadly so. Because, in the end, this is what makes great ideas soar. And, as Science has known for centuries (“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration”) it is often the hard part of making great ideas come to life.

So, who is to blame here? Everyone. We investors, who only want to see flashy renderings and cinematic videos explaining world-changing ideas, as well as those behind the crowdfunding campaigns making bold claims while ignoring many of the challenges in realizing their idea. Sadly, the problem is baked into the system. Those crowdfunding campaigns which make the wildest promises get the most attention and, consequently, the most money by investors. This, in turn, motivates other projects to make the same mistake again and again. I am not sure what the best solution to this problem is. As for me, as bold and useful the next crowdfunding pitch I see seems, until I don’t see some big fancy spreadsheet proudly featured somewhere, I will think twice about clicking the “Back This Project” button.

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On the way to a smarter watch

“Why should anyone use this?” is the most frequent and most important question that every new product has to answer which is put out into the world. For smart watches this question will not be too hard to answer. Smartphones have shown that people seem to have a real need for carrying connected devices with them everywhere they go. Throw in some fancy health tracking and payment functionality and not too much convincing will have to be necessary. 

What is troubling so far is how few answers most companies have provided as to how these little things should work. The sweeping smartphone revolution seems to be still too young, as most smart watch makers are eager to stick to the successful patterns of the beloved app machines in our pockets. But honestly: Who wants a shrunk smartphone strapped to their wrist that you have to charge daily? Another (tiny) home screen to manage? Another app selection to be curated? Another set of my music and pictures to keep in sync? Please, no. 

Pebble, a smart watch maker born on Kickstarter in 2012, seems to be the first company to really try to provide some answers as to how smart watches could work other than by shrinking your smartphone. For starters, they have already nailed the basics with their very first product in 2013, the Pebble: Battery life was up to 7 days, the screen perfectly readable in daylight, it stayed on all the time and was water-proof up to 50 meters. All things that even most of 2015’s wearables can’t offer. But on top of that, with their new watch dubbed “Pebble Time”, apparently Pebble has put some real thought into how we are going to use this weird thing strapped to our wrist. And the answer seems to be so simple that it almost hurts: Organize around time.

Their whole idea of the timeline as the primary way to interact with your watch appears to be so dead simple and yet it just makes sense. Sure there will be apps on your watch, and there might even be some shrunk smartphone functionality. But I will not deal with them via some tiny home screen or some random collection of notifications, but rather along a neat and familiar line of past, present and future. Their cute and almost human animations, which give the interface a friendly touch, only support the impression that someone has tried to make this device as easy, open and unobtrusive as possible. Yet, it’s nowhere near perfect. There’s still apps to install, bluetooth connections to be juggled and tiny screens and plasticky buttons to be dealt with. It will probably get in your way more often than it helps you. We are a long way from making wearables great, but this is the first company that at least tries to divert from the beaten paths. Thank you, Pebble.

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New album by Sufan Stevens titled “Carrie & Lowell” will be out on 31 March 2015. Head over here for pre-orders and a nice trailer. OMGWTF! 

Now let’s hope for a concert in Berlin this fall.

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0% Charged.

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Double Speed

Und dann ist da noch die ältere Dame, die etwas gebückt aber stramm zwischen Jugendlichen steht, die gleich vom Potsdamer Platz zum Kino strömen werden. Ihre frische Dauerwelle ist durch eine transparente Haube vor dem Regen geschützt. Blinzelnd und entschlossen schaut sie zu den 16-jährigen Jungs zu ihrer Linken hoch, die auf ihren Smartphones spielen. Potsdamer Platz. Als die Türen sich öffnen, macht sie beinahe einen Satz hinaus. Mit resolutem Schritt stapft sie davon, der Einkaufstrolley folgt ihr polternd hinterher. Das letzte, was ich von ihr sehe, ist der Aufnäher am Rücken ihrer ärmellosen Sportweste. „Double Speed“ steht darauf in dynamischen Lettern geschrieben, die in der Menschenmenge verschwinden.

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Julien and me partying.

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Every elevator should have a mirror ceiling. #selfiefriendly

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Es gibt wenig Künstlerinnen oder Künstler, bei denen ich zum absoluten Groupie werde, aber Sufjan Stevens würde ich definitiv und jederzeit meinen Schlüpfer auf die Bühne werfen. Doch hört selbst.

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Mit stolzer Mähne

Neulich schaute ich mal wieder „Harry und Sally“ und mir fiel auf, dass die Hälfte der Story eigentlich nur durch die Haare der Hauptdarsteller erzählt werden könnte. Haartechnisch betrachtet sind die 70er und 80er Jahre generell ein Leckerbissen. Meg Ryan raufte sich als Sally ihre beeindruckende Föhnfrisur zum vorgetäuschten Orgasmus, während David Hasselhoffs Mähne als Michael Knight jedem durchnittlichen Lammfell-Sitzbezug Konkurrenz machte. Alec Baldwin zeigte stolz sein Brustfell wann immer er konnte, während Patti Smith ihre Achselhaare gar ins Zentrum ihres Albumcovers rückte. Wo man auch hinschaute: Stolze Mähnen, wallende Locken, heiße Frisen.

30 Jahre später steht es schlecht um die sexy Zotteln. Wenn man nicht gerade einer dieser neuen raubeinigen Superhelden ist, darf kein Härchen mehr den Blick auf die nackte Haut versperren. Bei Frauen ist der Trend noch rigoroser: Seit 1915 eine Werbeanzeige im Modemagazin Harper’s Bazaar Frauen zur Entfernung der „anstößigen Haare“ drängte, heißt die Devise: Follow the Nacktmull. Jeder Haarschatten auf Promihaut ist ein Skandal. Auch wenn bei Kopfbehaarung noch ein wenig mehr Vielfalt herrscht, hat sich auch hier einiges geändert. Frisuren müssen sich heute einem Look unterordnen. Die Föhnfrisur, die auch mal einen Türrahmen ausfüllen durfte, taugt heute, wenn überhaupt, nur noch als komisches Moment.

Übrigens liegt das sicher nicht an mangelndem Rohmaterial. Geographisch betrachtet ist Europa so etwas wie der globale Hotspot der wallenden Pracht – durchnittlich 50–70 Prozent unserer Körperoberfläche sind mit Haaren bedeckt. Schon alleine weil ich nur auf magere 30 Prozent komme, wünsche ich mir mehr Mut von unseren Kulturschaffenden. Tupiert, frisiert, poliert und zeigt her eure Mähnen!

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Wenn man so will, bist du meine chill-out area.

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“Taurobolium” — Devendra Banhart