JazzKamikaze at Jeriko

One of my cousins tipped me about this band that I hadn't heard about before. And what a great tip. JazzKamikaze - what kind of name is that on a band - delivered a powerful (muscle jazz) and intense jazz session based on material from their two released albums, Mission I and Travelling At The Speed Of Light.

Jeriko on JazzKamikaze:

JazzKamikaze bildades 2005 med ett tydligt mål: att vinna musiktävligen Young Jazz in Denmark. Det gjorde de. [...] Titeln på gruppens färska skiva Traveling at the Speed of Sound speglar den dramatiskt snabba utvecklingen genom att förena tung och aggressiv muskeljazz med en mörkare och mera eftertänksam sida som förtydligar de nyanser och kontraster som finns i gruppens musik.

Need more jazz like this. Now.

El Laberinto del Fauno by Guillermo del Toro

El Laberinto del Fauno is an interesting and beautiful creation from Guillermo del Toro. He succeeds in blending reality with imagination, human beings with fairy tale creatures, vicious fascists with fauns.

You get the picture. It's a good mix, a nice blend. The environments in the movie are stunning. It's actually a bit like the movie Mirrormask.

Geneva sky

The sky, the lake, and the mountains in the background, just before it was time to go to the airport.

Nature and more nature

Tigers frozen in time at Musée d'Histoire naturelle in Geneva.

This corridor gave me a strange feeling; it's almost as if it had been taken from a science fiction story.

History portal in Geneva

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva is a true history portal. You can easily spend a few hours in the museum - it's huge. And it's worth it - not only we thought so.

Impressive paintings.

Pre-Internet communication form. Handwritten, with beautiful paintings.

There's even a cannon hall in the museum.

Indian cuisine in Geneva

Dining with Erik at Restaurant Himalaya, an Indian restaurant located at Rue de Neuchâtel 18. Even though the restaurant is a bit run-down, the food they serve is delicious. The place is definitely worth a visit if you are in Geneva.

CERN presentation at LIFT

CERN, a european organization for nuclear research located near Geneva, held a short intro to their research. Questions about dark matter, alternate dimensions, etc, popped up.

Deep field image from the Hubble space telescope. Higgs particle - will knowledge about it finally enable us to study the multiverse instead of the universe?!

User / citizen centered society at LIFT

Interesting panel discussion about how users and citizens, with the power of the net, with tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc, impact corporations and countries. It's happening now.

Derek Powazek (picture), founder of JPG magazine, describes how users at www.jpgmag.com are the ones in control, the ones that decide which pictures are worth publishing.

Digital orchestra at LIFT

Lucas Grolleau (black LIFT T-shirt, to the right in the picture) operating a digital orchestra at LIFT+.

The orchestra consists of a number of mobile devices playing audio streamed from an iPod.

http://www.soundsgood.fr/

Dealing with technological overload at LIFT

Panel discussion at LIFT about the dangers with technological overload. Interesting and important. A few people in the audience actually admit that they are addicted by putting up their hands. One speaks up about his Internet addiction.

What's the core problem? Addicted to RSS flows? To mails?

Reading / answering one mail while ten new fills up the inbox. Not staying away from the Blackberry / Google's Gmail client - keeping on checking for new important (?!) mails.

Could it be that information overload is somewhat situation based, context dependent, personal - it might e.g. be the result of your own standards, the ones you have set yourself, for acceptable response time on mails / instant messages. This might trigger a sense of overload and also frustration; not being able to respond in time.

Erik - always with Google's Gmail client running on his mobile device. Victim or power user?! Can you become addicted to a tool?!

Coffee at LIFT

Friday. It's time to get caffeinated before the first panel discussion starts.

One?! No, that's not enough - you better give me two cups...

View from Hotel Eden in Geneva

Had to share the view from one of the suite's three balconies. The lake can be seen in the background and another balcony (mine as well) can be spotted to the right.

Shot from the right-most balcony - the mountains can be seen in the background.

Erik waiting in the lounge for me - he didn't get any balcony this time.

Geneva by night

Some night shots from Geneva. I'm walking from the hotel to the old part of the city.

Stones in the walkway, electrified, lit.

Nokia's Chipchase at LIFT

Mr Networking himself in action - Erik, visionary colleague, futuristic blogger, and photographer. Networking while waiting for Chipchase's presentation to start.

Nokia's Jan Chipchase held a presentation on "Literacy, Communication & Design". As usual, his presentation material had that perfect touch; fantastic pictures from his field research, no bullets, just a few words on a slide, simple and beautiful.

Me. Relaxing. In standby mode after Chipchase's presentation.

Networking at LIFT

The LIFT07 crew had prepared the conference center's networking floor with the LIFT logo - tape-paths to be traced.

Brought my Sigma 10-20 wide-angle lens. It's perfect for gatherings like this - no need to step back when taking a photo.

Salmon sandwich at LIFT

What would life be without a proper salmon sandwich - ok, I admit, this is not actually the real stuff, I quickly assembled it myself just to get a salmon shot.

LIFT kicking off

It's Thursday. I'm Caffeinated and ready to go. The laptop is running. It's my first day at LIFT07.

So, what's LIFT07 all about? Let's check the web page http://www.liftconference.com/:

LIFT has a simple goal: connect people who are passionate about new applications of technology and propel their conversations into the broader world to improve life and work.

There's definitely potential in this. A gathering of strategists, visionaries, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc. Interesting keynotes, panel debates, discussion forums, and networking.

Favorite slide so far is "We are wasting a lot of brain power in large organizations". No, you really think so?! - I'm ironic...

It's time for a short break. Let's try SnakeRun - you compete against another H(uman), controlling your snake by touching one of four pads to change the snake's direction.

Hotel Eden in Geneva

In Geneva for the LIFT07 conference.

Got the top suite at the hotel for some reason - weird, but there's no need to complain...

Three balconies. Makes it difficult to choose...

Double Standards at Jeriko

Another great jazz session at Jeriko. This time featuring Double Standards, a local musical dream team consisting of Cennet Jönsson on saxes, Jacob Karlzon on piano, Hans Andersson on bass, and Peter Nilsson on drums.

http://www.kopasetic.se/:

The group interprets standards in a very unique way employing everything from rubato versions to hard swinging jazz! Creative initiatives are being nourished, musical depth , seriousness and humour is being mixed, everything performed with a twinkle in the eye and a big smile!

Jan Olsson, Skånska Dagbladet, on Double Standards' debut album:

Resultatet är lysande [...] en osedvanligt hörvärd och konsekvent musik, spännande och originell, ibland munter och ibland bara vacker. Mycket vacker till och med. [...] För mig är det här årets svenska jazzplatta - hittills.

Wave surfer's heaven

Found the video on youtube.com. It's amazing.

The Departed by Martin Scorsese

I like this movie. The twists in it are great.

Martin Scorsese has created a rough and intense story in The Departed. It circulates around Jack Nicholson's lead character, around a bad guy, or more precisely around the leader of the bad guys. Or wait just a minute, is that really the bad guy?!...

Will see it again. Have to - Jack's in it.