The ultra-rich prisoners

The (ultra-)rich people are becoming more and more afraid of being attacked or blackmailed or kidnapped that they separate themselves more than ever from people and society. Fear for paparazzi further increases the desire for privacy. Also the divide between rich and poor, which is bigger than ever and which can be especially noticed in developing countries without social measures in place, pushes them in the same direction.
So they lock themselves up nowadays in "gated communities". Locked up behing passcodes. Just like prisoners. Only with the difference that they live in a golden cage. In older times, there were castles and soldiers to defend kings and noblemen, so this is nothing new.
There in their golden cage, they are negating life as it is and probably forgetting to live life to the fullest. They are rich but had to compromise on freedom. Just like prisoners. Only with the difference that they live in luxury.
In their golden cage, their information on the world gets filtered by secretaries and assistants, who pass on their views to them. They don't know what happen, they lose touch with reality outside the gates. Just like prisoners. Only with the difference that they chose to be in that place and situation.
The ultra-rich and the prisoners: les extremes se touchent?
(photo: livingindiversity.org)

Recording memories

In an article about IT and telecom and internet in 25 years, I read a lot of speculation, some things I do believe will be reality then, and some interesting points which made me start thinking.
One was that storage will be so cheap and abundant that we will "be able to record every minute of our life in blue-ray quality". Never mind that blue-ray by that time will be at least as old as the compact disc now -- did you still know that that's what the abbreviation CD stands for?).
This is an interesting thought, because we do A LOT in our lives. We work and have fun, discuss and relax, fight and love. We have great moments and bad ones, success and failure, good and bad luck. And we talk to lots of people all the time.
By the way, ever thought how many people you've met in your life? Or just shaken hands with? Or only even seen? But that's food for another thought.
So anyway, from all these events, we generally only take a minute small sample that we actually, conscientiously or not, record. We take photographs and shoot movies during holidays and at important happenings (like weddings and other rites of passage). This is somewhere stored uniquely. But we also write emails (maybe even letters still?), tap in sms's and chats and other whatsapp messages. This somehow stored too, maybe elsewhere (in the case of a letter maybe at the recipient's house in a cupboard). And if we walk on the street or come into a store or bank, we are recorded in CCTV. This is usually only temporarily stored and not generally accessible. Finally, we talk to lots of people. This is generally not at all stored in face-to-face situation (except maybe in spy environment), but it may well be when over the phone and certainly on voice recorders.
By the way, I find it quite strange that voice recordings are so little used and popular. For it is a very personal and unique characterization of the person, and make one relive memories much more vividly than e.g. a letter or even a photograph. There was a time that the post office offered a service to send a cassette tape with voice greetings. If you still remember these things, of course. Again, that's food for another thought.
Now back to recording your life. Would you even WANT to know what you've been doing all this time in the past? Apart from very amusing and ecstatic moments there will most probably also be some pretty embarassing ones, and ones you definitely want to forget rather than remembered or recorded. There are also the intimate moments (e.g. personal hygiene) you rather not see -- or at least not to others.
Some kind of trial was run by an MIT professor who decided to hang his house full of cameras. His explanation was that he wanted to study how babies learn to speak from "gaaaa" to "dad". The university-backed "data-rich research" was probably also motivated by stark narcism and/or true naive love for his first-born sun. Whatever the case, the data can indeed be used to study this linguistic evolution, but also social behaviour in a familiy in general, including trying to find certain patterns in one's life (and how many times you make the same mistake or how fast you learn, etc).
So, though I realise there may be many narcistic people on the planet, I guess that to most sane people recording a whole entire life is over the top. Something they would not want, or at least would want to control what's being saved.
On the other hand, whether you want to record your life or not, you're GOING to be filmed and photographed and recorded much more than in the past. Simply because there ARE many many more recording devices around on the street. Take for example the CCTV's, which have become abundant in cities for security reasons after 9/11. They take fooatge 24/7 of everything passing them. And take smartphones, which have equally become abundant as prices drop thanks to mass production (in China and elsewhere). They can take footage from anything that happens anywhere anytime.
By the way, quality is less an issue, as long as footage can be taken. There is an interesting spagate between evolution between HD-quality and youtube/smartphone quality footage. Another thought.
So, it's a new world. It's the 21st Century. Welcome. Better get used to it. And smile... it's a candid camera!
(photo: flickr.com)

Tiësto the new Mozart?

"DJ Tiësto is a present-day composer of the likes of Mozart or Van Beethoven", I read recently. First question that comes to my mind is: "Is Tiësto a composer?"
Tiësto does make his own tapes with compilations and arrangements of digital soundbytesand sells these successfully. Thinking about what a composer is and does, i.e. the definition of "composer", one can argue indeed that composing or putting together pieces of music makes one a composer. The music may be short or long pieces, written on sheets of music or arranged on a computer, having in mind violins, tubae and horn or synthesizers, mixing tables and digital effects. Although it's clear that there are hundreds of years of difference between how and what is being composed for the human ear (and with what means and with what in mind), it appears that composing pieces of sound (or noise to some) makes one a composer, be it with modern or old instruments.
Second question that pops up: "Is Tiësto a composer of the stature of the greatest classical composers?". It is true that Tiësto is indeed very successful and plays for thousands of listereners and party-goers in the biggest and most famous clubs in places like Ibiza, to where he flies he flies in a private jet. Taking that back a good 200 years or so, it is not unlike Mozart travelling around Europe in luxurious fashion of the time, and drawing big crowds of people who wanted to hear his music and see his spectacular operas. (As to the type of crowds: I'm not sure wheter there would be a difference e.g. upper, middle or lower class.)
Further, Tiësto mixes his digitized samples also on the fly during live performance, which makes him in addition to a composer also a performer (and improviser) of music. Compared to again Mozart: das Wunderkind von Salzburg used to get to the courts and theatres where he was asked to perform his pieces or direct his operas, and the audience was delighted and treated him with applause and other customary forms of honour of the time.
These are 3 parallels between Tiësto and Mozart. But the most important one cannot be drawn today. For the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That is to say, we (or our descendants) will have to wait and see whether DJ Tiësto will prove to be a composer of evergreen and immortal music like Mozart or Van Beethoven (or John Lennon or Leonard Cohen) were. Or whether he will be forgotten in, say, another good 200 years from now.
(photo: animaatjes.nl)

Apple and Your data

Apple may have launched with the Iphone 5 the greatest and highes-tech smartphone ever, there are also lots of problems with it. Their operating system is notoriously closed so that once you lose some of Your data (with Capital "Y"), there is practically no way of getting it back.
Of course there are backups via iTunes and now also backups in iCloud whenever you're in reach of Wi-Fi access. But in many cases backups are old and data is lost everyday by many people. Most of them figure out it can't be retrieved, curse and forget about it, and go on.
In addition to being proprietary, iOS also encrypts Your data, as if you shouldn't be allowed to read it back. Of course it's marketed as a privacy feature, but it's pretty annoying when you want to get some of Your lost data back and have to do a jailbreak or try to find the encryption keys. At least, the encryption of user data should be an option to the user.
Apple, I'd wish you'd announce that next time at an event. It would make these marvelous, state-of-the-art iDevices even better!
(photo: apple.com)