Chris Klein

For All Mankind

Just some minutes ago I finished watching what is one of the best and certainly the most interesting documentaries that I’ve seen. Al Reinert’s film For All Mankind.
It’s a film, 80 minutes long, about the first missions to the moon. We’ve all seen those tiny clips in the TV, we all know the legendary words about the one small step, we’ve all heard the pompous music, front-page slogans and all other overwhelming things that accompany the whole moon trip thing. But this is different. Very different. This is calm, quiet, ruminative. This is about the real, humanistic and emotional experience of going to the moon -- the reflections and feelings of the astronauts themselves. And a lot of footage never seen before.
I found this film by listening to one of my childhood’s favorite music albums -- Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks by Brian Eno (try listening to An Ending (Ascent) -- my favorite music composition ever).
I just thought I had to know more about the music that influenced and encouraged my imagination as a child. Music that induced fantasies about different, remote and mystic worlds that I could visit in my dreams. So that’s how I found this gem.

The movie is available on YouTube in several different parts, but I don’t recommend watching it there. It is in a very bad quality (some old VHS recording) and will ruin the experience. Find a way to rent or buy this unworldly film, or, if you’re familiar with torrents, you can try your luck here.
For those of You, who won’t watch it -- here are some of my favorite quotes that I wrote down, spoken by the astronauts in the movie:

You have to literarily just pinch yourself and ask yourself the question, silently -- do you really know where you are at this point and time, and space, and in reality, and in existence…

Everything that I know -- my family, my possessions, my friends, my country -- is all down there on that little thing, and it’s so insignificant in this great big vastness of space.

You just had to steal time now and then, just had to stop chippin’ at a rock and figure out that bringing back a little bit of some kind of thought, feeling was as important as bringing another chunk of rock back.
And not being a machine, being a human being you have to stop and say -- do you know where you are and what you’re lookin’ at?

The moon is different. It’s become man’s first outpost. Our first footstep in space. Where man was able to look back at the earth and see the earth and see himself. In a different perspective.

As time goes on I truly do believe that you’re able to pull out of subconscious a great many things that you absorbed in those moments while you were there, looking back at the earth. And I can almost transform my body, certainly my mind, through time and space instantaneously to that spot on the moon.

I know where I am when I look at the moon. It’s not just some abstract, romantic idea. It’s something very real to me. Stars are my home.

Stars are my home.

Priced to Sell

“The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws.”

Interesting article “PRICED TO SELL – Is free the future?” in The New Yorker. Addressing the issues with free vs. paid.
My opinion – compromise/balance is the answer. There is not going to be everything-for-free utopia, but the old cash-in models will not work as well. The signs are all around.

The Future of …

“When new technologies are being developed, the organizations that win are those that aggressively take risks, put visionary technologists in key decision-making positions, attain a deep organizational mastery of the relevant technologies, and, in most cases, make a lot of mistakes. Being wrong is a feature, not a bug, if it helps you evolve a model that works: you start out with an idea that’s just plain wrong, but that contains the seed of a better idea. You improve it, and you’re only somewhat wrong. You improve it again, and you end up the only game in town.”

A brilliant post “Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted?” in Michael Nielsen’s blog. Although it’s about scientific publishing, it gives very good overview of what and why is happening now in the media industry. A worthwhile read.