culture / code / change

A little robot looking around. It's something I made for #NewKnowable. (I'm super excited for this! Check out the sneak peak here!)

This sounds so incredible trashy. If the game delivers on that promise, it could be quite entertaining. In that strange B-Movie way.

I am a sucker for these pseudo retro trash tunes. Can't help it.

I just returned from knowable's US-trip. And what can I tell you... it was awesome. I wrote a lot about it in the official blog (head there if you're interested) but I'll be back here with some more in depth thoughts once I get rid of the jetlag.

SoundCloud in the terminal. Your inner nerd wants it, too.

Reasons to be excited: Dark and gritty SciFi set in a pixely world. Zelda meets Balde Runner. Backed on Kickstarter.

(And yes, the game is great, too!)

Found this empty warehouse a few days ago. I am still not sure if the lines in the dirt are there just by accident or if someone put them there. Surreal.

That's seems pretty counterintuitive at first: Who on earth likes problems, right? I am of course not in love with the problem it self – as every sane person I want to overcome it – but it poses the chance to reflect about your usual way of doing. To find the perfect solution you have to rethink what you've done and come up with ideas on what could be changed, added or often even stripped away from your code in order to make it work. You step out of your routine and usual day-to-day flow to start _thinking_ again. You try different things, research new methods and discuss your ideas with people who are more knowledgeable then you. You learn alternative techniques and rediscover forgotten knowledge. In that sense problems enable you to keep moving and never stop learning. I think this is not only true for programming, but also for many other processes you encounter as an entrepreneur, designer - and even as an ordinary person in everyday life: The journey you undertake in order to overcome a problem - the thing that throws you out of your routine - is often more valuable then the solution itself.

That's also why I'm incredibly happy to see that ArenaNet is adding new content every month. The only gripe I have with it are the themes they choose: "[The Shadow of the Mad King](https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/october-2012/)" was Halloween ported over to Tyria and "Wintersday" is just like our real world christmas. This leaves me wondering if the people in Guild Wars - a world that has nothing to do with our universe - don't have their own rituals and holidays. Sure, Tixx is an Asura, has a flying Zepplin and so forth – but no one can deny that he is basically Guild Wars' version of Santa Claus.  I think this is a missed opportunity: Instead of artificial events that don't really fit into the fantasy world of Tyria, ArenaNet could have created updates that let the player discover the cultural individuality and difference of the Asura, Norn, Charr and Sylvari instead of adapting OUR human traditions. This would have been a chance to let players discover foreign places and tell fascinating stories that build upon the lore of Tyria. In a way that's exactly what the "[Lost Shores](https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/november-2012/)" event did: It related completely to the fantasy world itself. (That said, I'm really looking forward to that new jumping puzzle!)

I've had the chance to spend the last days at Seedcamp Paris, pitching and talking knowable.org together with Simon. I was – as excepted - blown away by the amazing Start-Ups that presented their ideas there: The passion, ideas and feedback of the other founders and mentors was really inspiring and turned the event into one big learning experience. During one of the discussions with the other teams, I heard about another start-up that joined Seedcamp after the recent event in Lisbon: [CrowdProcess](http://crowdprocess.com/). "Heard" is actually a bit of an understatement, since the guy was basically raving about it. And quite rightly so! The idea of CrowdProcess is as simple as it's brilliant: By using the idle computing power of your homepage visitors, it builds up a "distributed" super computer. Rings a bell? Well, [Seti@Home](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home) pioneered that concept years ago. But what fascinates and excites me about CrowdProcess' idea is the fact that it creates a completely new source of income for content producers. Big corporations, science labs and other companies that deal with "Big Data" will buy your visitor's computing power - and you'll have to rely less on advertising money. This has certainly the potential to be really big. I guess it's quite a blow for people who believed that a) web content couldn't really be monetized or b) thought that advertising is the only way to do so. Oh, and while you were reading this your computer probably performed some pretty crazy genome folding exercises.

I always turn into a child when I see airplanes and watch the busy life on airports. From a distance everything looks even toy-like.

Airplane.

This perfect Saturday includes: A visit to City17.

Starting the day with coffee & code.