Two groups worth a look and a feel: IMU is Finland´s self-appointed National Design Team and HIKI makes “sweat surfaces” or trays to make your day brighter.

Saunabus. Helsinki—Milan—Helsinki. The Operation Saunabus is a steaming design exhibition on the road. At the same time it is a sauna in the bus, where you can sleep and cook on the way to the destination.

“For twenty years, I made arrangements to stop any exhibition about me. I discouraged more than one try. Growing older, I thought it would be more fun to see it alive than dead”. Philippe Starck at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. “Venez, venez il n’y a rien à voir, il y a tout à recevoir !”

In a particular place, flying over Billund, home of LEGO, Sigur Rós ( ) sounds better than ever—at around 006 06:38 where one of the never-ending buildings starts. Glad to hear that Peter Gabriel’s harmonies and colors have found a new following. It is refreshing that music this slow and romantic is made in our times.

Just as I had commended Steven Johnson on his questioning of Shirky, I find that he has listened to this record too. There is an open question about the lyrics on this record, what language they are in if any. This said, as my own mother tongue is spoken by a diminishing five million or so, I beg to differ with Steven: English liner notes are not the default.

In Reason before Identity, a lecture delivered at Oxford in 1998, the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen begins with a story:

“Recently, when I was returning from a short trip abroad, the Immigration Officer at Heathrow, who examined my Indian passport, posed a philosophical question of some intricacy. Referring to my address, viz. Master’s Lodge, Trinity College, Cambridge, he asked me whether the Master was a close friend of mine. This gave me pause since it compelled me , of course, to examine whether the binary relation of ’being a friend of’ can be taken to be reflexive, so that I coul legitimately claim to be friend of myself. On reflection, I came to the conclusion that I was a friend—indeed a close friend (a view corroborated further by the fact that when I say silly things I can immediately see that, with friends like me, I don’t need any enemies). Since all this took some time to resolve, the Immigration Officer wanted to know why exactly I hesitated: was there some impropriety involved in my being in Brittain?“

Steven Johnson asks the right questions regarding the distributions that result from freely-connected networks: “So the question that I’m wrestling with is this: let’s say we decided that the existing power-law distribution isn’t quite fair enough, or that there’s some other justification for encouraging a more egalitarian spread (equality of results, and not just opportunity.) If we decided that this was our goal, how would we go about doing it? What architectural changes would fight against the power law trend, without doing it in a command-and-control kind of way? Clay’s piece suggests that perhaps the distribution is inevitable, but I doubt it.” He also has some comments on Sifry’s Technorati.

Clay Shirky has written an engaging essay on Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. It has made the natives restless. While I respect Shirky, I have to say that this time his views have a long and sad prehistory. I will write more on the topic in the coming weeks. For now suffice it to say, that Albert O. Hirschman has called this the “futility” mode of The Rhetoric of Reaction (excerpt). The futility advocates “view the world as highly structured as evolving according to immanent laws, which human actions are laughably impotent to modify.” They are tied to a “belief in the authority of Science and particularly to the nineteenth-century aspiration to construct a social science with laws as solid as those that were then believed to rule the physical universe.” It is a deep yet popular mistake to see our actions, ethics and institutions as an act of nature. There is no link from nowhere (as is evident from Shirky’s recent addition of an Appendix pointing to David Sifry’s “Technorati Interesting Newcomers” list).

In the garden, a neon sign reads: “If the Form Vanishes Its Root Is Eternal” (Se la forma scompare la sua radice è eterna). “Il palazzo non finito” aka Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice has an interesting history of hosts and hostesses and an extraordinary if small collection of European and American art of the first half of the 20th century. On the way back through the Dorsoduro consider a stop for coffee at the Ca’ Rezzonico and experience the trompe l’oeil frescoes in the ballroom.

Or read Hannu Raittila’s Canal Grande. In nominating the book for the Finlandia prize that it went on to eventually win, the award committee commented that Raittila “has written a novel about Finland, the events just happen to take place in Italy. The characters observe a unified Europe from their own comic perspectives through exaggeration, prejudice and generalization.” Indeed one of the characters in the novel, the professional Saraspää asks: “Was what you saw of this world or from the hidden corners of your mind?” A good, persistent question.

“It seems to me that there are many situations in life where the organisation is too brutal, it is the task of an architect to give life a gentler structure.”—Alvar Aalto in 1955.

Opened to the public in September 2002, Riihitie the once home and office of architects Alvar and Aino Aalto, is a wonderfully cosy and intimate building. If you are in Helsinki I urge you to visit this home that shows both design and human frailty. The Alvar Aalto Foundation that oversees the property also publishes a remarkable volume of beautiful manuscripts and arranges the International Alvar Aalto Symposium in Jyväskylä. This time around the theme is “Elephant and Butterfly.”

Björk: “Thought I could organise freedom / how Scandinavian of me” Once again the Icelandic singer sings the truth. The Greatest Hits is a good if not great compilation. The new single It’s in your hands starts with a “look no further.” Pop music.

One of the more interesting presentations in the Open Doors competition at Doors of Perception was Loome by Lavrans Lovlie & Chris Downs. “Trading of personal data in between companies is a billion-dollar business. ’loome’ enables the average consumer to enter into this market, assemble valuable data and sell their personal information. Regarded by some as ’information prostitution’, we see loome as a way to open up a fair exchange between business and the individual consumer regarding the use of personal data.” The winner was Jussi Angeslevä with his Body Mnemonics.

Since the Doors of Perception conference some of you have commented on Múm, the recent sountrack-to-my-life: the record is Finally We are No One and track #3 begins with the fitting phrase: “Please don’t flow so fast.” Thanks to Carolyn Kelley for pointing me to this beautiful slow music.

Bill Viola is to me one of the strongest artists working in the newer media. His Going Forth By Day—while not as clear and pure in form as The Crossing or The Messenger—still works. Nothing like evesdropping on a forest fresco or an upcoming flood. Always painterly, technology invisible.

The brilliant Kaija Saariaho has just won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition 2003 for her first opera, “L`amour de loin,“ (love from afar). As someone who used to be a groupie (this goes WAY back) and brought flowers to the composer after gigs before she made it big, I can only smile. For once ahead of the curve. Check out the music.

On the “Perfect Bookshop”.

There is something oddly scary and comic about this. One person commented that “voting for someone because they have a weblog is like voting for someone because they eat bananas.” Well, witness the weblog. As for bananas, the redesign of the Aula page is beautiful. (thanks to Joi Ito for pointing out blog “politic”).

This idea could really spread. Azeem has written a beautiful provocative piece on “The BBC, Community and Opensource” followed by a brief reply to critics. I urge you to read it and comment. Many people within the said Corporation wait on the sidelines in silence. A strategic discussion unintentionally outsourced to the commons? A public strategic service?

Say Hello to Sanjeep, Er, Sam. This short piece in Wired examines the outsourcing of call centers across the globe. “The American client who took the issue to the top brass, told us that a word like ’intimate’ was unacceptable as it meant something on the lines of intimacy. Since Indians speak English the way Britishers do, we use a few expressions that common Americans normally don’t.”

Yochai Benkler has written a clear beautiful piece on people making things cultural together or “commons-based peer production” as he calls it. The essay is “Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm.” What do you think of this?

“Cut class, not frogs”. The new Web site of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) tutors teenage animal-rights warriors on how to resist dissection in biology class and mystery meat in the cafeteria.