Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous

No, it's not me I try to describe (come to thing of it, it can be a proper description when I kill slugs). Apparently, this is the job description for robots. At a recent Swedish conference on robotics professor Danica Kragic Jensfelt talked about the drivers behind the development in different countries. She also made us rest assured that washing up after dinner by hand is a job we never need to be afraid of loosing out on to robots...

There is no surprise that the US is driving the development of robots for military applications. Japan seems to focus more on developing help to manage the aging population there. In Europe robotic support in industrial processes by robots has been a topic for a while.

I can't help but thinking that maybe what is considered dirty, dull and dangerous also varies among people from different cultures. It's probably a gender issue as well. Interestingly, friends of mine named their automower Bo-Astrid, probably reflecting that both of them, man and wife, used to do the mowing before. There is some research on this too. According to a study made in 2008, people tend to want robots to do work that require memorization, keen perceptual abilities, and service-orientation. At the same time, they prefer people in occupations that require artistry, evaluation, judgment and diplomacy.

I'm not sure if that's because they think people are better at theses tasks or if they are afraid of loosing the relatively fun jobs. No wonder that they also felt more positively toward robots doing jobs with people rather than in place of people. However, the list of quite interesting, not so dirty nor dangerous jobs that are predicted to be accomplished by robots in the near future is unnervingly long.

Long before robots were plentiful, the concept "dirty, dangerous and demeaning" was coined to describe certain kinds of jobs some of which are taken over by robots. I wonder when a job will be too demeaning for a robot?

Drones are often hailed as the solution to many dirty, dull and dangerous jobs. However, it seems that they are now facing another kind of danger: people (like me) wanting to shoot them down when they are hovering around taking pictures without your permission. I'm looking forward to when cheap versions of the DroneDefender from Battelle hit the market.

Robots can be cute as well. Wall-E is one of my favourite films all times. When accompanying my nephew to the Science Fiction Bookstore in Gothenburg, I found this amazing book on how to make crochet robots: Crobots. My ambition is to make at least one! Mum, please help me!

What's Cooking?

Just around the corner from where my aunt lived in Chelsea was one of Gordon Ramsay's own restaurants. We somehow didn't get around booking a table there before she moved to Worthing.

Although there's a lot of shouting and swearing coming from Ramsay, I think of him as very much oriented towards strength-based development and sustainability. This is especially prominent in the shows where he tries to help hotel and restaurant owners. He is very committed to making a sustainable business where everyone is in position to do his or her best, although this sometimes means for some people to swap roles or step back. He tries to compose a manageable and profitable meny, often made from local food. He is dedicated to keeping the kitchen clean and not let things go to waste. He looks at how to make the most out of the building and tries to win the hearts of the local customers, providing a nice and relaxed atmosphere. No wonder he got an OBE for helping to develop the service profession (his charity work probably helped too).

From UK May 2013

There's an awfully lot of metaphors related to cooking. One of the most well known is of course "the boiling frog" parable.  However, it's not true that frogs stay in hot water and boil to death because (sadly) some scientists set out to test it.

Other examples are "you're toast", "the idea is only half-baked", "boil down to", "a recipe for disaster", "key ingredient", "too many cooks", "icing on the cake", "full plate", "sizzling with anticipation", and "food for thought". Many cooking-oriented metaphors are for some reason used in politics: "grill the candidates", "whip up a new policy", and "stir up trouble".

According to Tien Wong, differences between entrepreneurs can be compared to those between chefs. He claims that there are three kinds of chefs (using another set of metaphors): the scientist who in detail follows a very complicated recipe, the magician who finds inspiration in going to the market and then conjuring up a creation when coming back to the kitchen, and the artist who dosen’t work off an exact recipe, but instead relies on instinct and creativity to work within his themes.

From Höstmarknad sep 2014

He then moves on to giving examples of entrepreneurs who follows these three chef stereotypes. I agree with the analysis that the "artist entrepreneur" is probably most likely to succeed although it is the magicians such as Twitter, Google and Facebook that get most attention.

I wonder how to characterise Ramsay as an entrepreneur. I think he's mostly an artist, both as a chef and as an entrepreneur. At least he gets it right most of the time. In 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $60 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 21st highest earning celebrity in the world. Let's just hope in time he'll get a little more understanding towards vegetarians.

Feminist Code

In 1982 Suzette Haden Elgin decided to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, by constructing a feminist language called Láadan and included it in her science fiction Native Tongue series.

To some extent Láadan is traditional in the sense that it includes markers for both speech-acts (such as particles indicating a statement, a request, a promise, a warning, or a question) and grammatical tense (such as particles for present, past, or future). But it also contains features that to me feel a bit more associated with a feminist perspective such as that the command particle is not often used, unless you are talking to small children. I also very much like the evidence particle that indicates to what extent a statement should be considered trustworthy. Here you can choose among the following:

• Known to speaker because perceived by speaker, externally or internally

• Known to speaker because self-evident

• Perceived by speaker in a dream

• Assumed true by speaker because speaker trusts source

• Assumed false by speaker because speaker distrusts source

• Assumed false by speaker because speaker distrusts source who is assumed having evil intent 
• Imagined or invented by speaker, hypothetical

• Used to indicate that the speaker states a total lack of knowledge as to the validity of the matter

Another interesting feature is the sheer number of specific words for being alone:

• alone at last after tiresome experience or people
• alone "in the bosom of your family"
• alone in a crowd of people
• alone and glad of it
• to be alone
• alone with terror
• alone with grief

From Oberammergau 2007

I'm a bit surprised to not find "being alone in a relationship" among them though.

I must admit that I'm a fan of the weak version of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis since I do believe that language to some extent has an influence on the way we think. That is why I think it's good for you to learn several languages. Similar to the underlying cognitive metaphors we use without thinking, we also sometimes have a gender perspective built into our language.

This can sometimes be very confusing. For example, in Hebrew all nouns have grammatical gender. However, this does not indicate that the object is of a specific gender. For example, a book is masculine and an animal is feminine. This, of course, calls into question to what extent "God" should be considered a "he" just because the word has the male grammatical gender. This might be especially interesting for people in Jönköping to consider, since they speak a Swedish dialect prone to add grammatical gender (in direct violation of "proper" Swedish) and where many belong to a Christian community.

From Celtic Christmas 2015

It would be interesting to develop a feminist programming language. This could be similar to the Volvo YCC project, which had the stated goal of meeting the particular needs of female drivers but ended up with many innovations appreciated by both men and women.

This idea has of course already been proposed and made fun of. In 2013, Arielle Schlesinger posted an article on feminism and programming languages (please note the very interesting and respectful comments!). Not long after, the C+= (C-plus-Equality, or See Equality) programming language for feminists was published. Although the authors claim that it was designed as a playful joke in the hacker spirit and tradition, I agree with computer science student Molly White. In a world with very few women working with ICT and a lot of harassment for those few who dare to enter this field, the last thing needed is a text full negative stereotypes against feminists, mockery of various groups of people, and transphobia even if it was meant as a joke. If you don't believe me, check out some of the responses to Ari's article such as this one (including the comments).

I wish Ari Schlesinger all the best and good luck with your PhD thesis. I look forward to learn more about your work!

Ethnic Cleansing

To what extent washing your hands and taking a bath is good for you has really been a topic for a debate for several thousand years. Before industrialisation, the Christmas Bath was a tradition in a Sweden not particularly bothered by hygiene. Now on the other hand, we seem to have gone a bit too far with many people taking showers several times a day.

For the second year in a row, my mother and I spent a whole day between Christmas and New Year's Eve at a spa. Since I like spas a lot, I have been to many of them, especially the ones close to Gothenburg: Arken, Hagabadet, Stenungsbaden, Varbergs Kusthotell, and Vann.

From Varberg 2012

My favourite is Sankt Jörgen Park Resort and Mum likes it too. Very close, good raw food for lunch, excellent massage, nice products, and many different corners to hang out in: the teahouse, the sway shelf, the MuViCure room, the saunas, the rainforest showers, the indoor and outdoor pool and much more.

I've also been to many Roman spa towns such as Saltzburg in 1978 as part of a concert tour with the school orchestra, Bath on my first trip alone to England in 1982, Trier in 1988 as a stop on my journey from Gothenburg to Alicante, Cologne in 1993 on my way back from a ski trip to the Alps, Istanbul in 1999 where I got stuck in the bazaar and never made it to the hammam, Pompeii in 2001 where you were not allowed to use the baths since they were clogged with ashes, Zürich in 2001 where I said no thank you to a job at a international software company, Budapest in 2013 where it took us 45 minutes in a hot pool to figure out that the sign probably said you should spend no more than five in it, and Tbilisi in 2015 where I had a good soak in the tub in my hotelroom.

From Budapest 2013

I've also been to Jerusalem in 2010 where Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus. Maybe the present unnecessary use of hand sanitizer is a sign that we have a lot we wish to rid ourselves from.

Feeding Unicorns

I don't remember when I first saw a unicorn, although it might have been in the books about Narnia. Nowadays they seem to be everywhere, although they have much lost their looks. They also don't seem to be all that attracted to virgins anymore, but more interested in angels. Not many people want to kill them (except for the competition) but quite a lot of them end up dead anyhow.

In 2013, Aileen Lee, a veteran venture capitalist, identified 39 U.S. start-ups U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors. Since this is a tiny portion of the total amount of start-up companies, she called them unicorns to capture how extremely rare and magical they are. Some of them you've probably heard of since they are consumer-oriented such as Uber, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram while others such as Nicira, Splunk and Tableau target enterprises. 

Since then the concept has caught on (even though many seem to have forgotten who coined it) and when searching on Google for unicorns you end up with more references to companies then to the mythical creature (or it might be just the way Google tweaks the search for me...).

In a recent count (Nov 2015), Lee found 84 U.S. unicorns, which means an increase of 115%. The picture illustrating the first article featured a single unicorn, whereas the 2015 article has a whole heard at the top. However, the numbers are changing all the time why there is a constantly updated unicorn leader-board. For those interested in unicorns from other countries as well, can take a look at Fortune's compilation or the CB Insights list updated in real time.

Since there is now a substantial group of unicorns, others than Lee and her team have been looking into what they have in common. Some like Adeo Ressi, claims to have found the recipe for success: using a cycle of three main tactics: (1) the Push, (2) the Markup, and (3) the Backfill. However, I must say that this looks exactly like what VC put us though in the 90ies. I believe Heidi Roizen fictive story is much more pedagogical, although it tells you what not to do.

As is usual when it comes to VC information, it is focused on valuation and capital raised and not so much about the company is doing in terms of sales, profits and customers. And it is also the question of how the valuation has been done, by investors (creating so called paper unicorns) or the market. At least one of the unicorn CEOs is not happy about being bunched together with the other creatures:

"Much the way all wildlife isn’t the same, all unicorn companies don't share the same degree of long-term promise. No one's interests are best served by prescribing the same, one-size-fits-all outlook to such a wide breadth of startups. And judging a category by valuation alone isn't just unfairly harming the reputations of the companies concerned. It's also exaggerating the popular impression of a tech bubble that's ready to burst." Kirk Krappe, chairman and CEO of Apttus

Since the birth rate of unicorn has started to decline, more and more articles have been published containing warnings about an increase in unicorn mortality. For example, The Economist claims that it has become clearer that the high valuations firms achieve in private are not always maintained when they go public. The Bloomberg View concludes that few unicorns have what it takes to protect an acquired monopoly. CNBC is concerned with the lack of public IPOs among the unicorns.

Doug Henwood compares the current situation to the dot. boom and at least takes comfort in that fewer households are now investing in stocks than before.

"Of course, when this bubble bursts—as it inevitably will, especially with the Fed having ended its massive money injections and now talking about raising interest rates in the fall—the narrow holding of tech investments means that fewer innocents will suffer collateral damage from the implosion." Doug Henwood

However, some claim there is no bubble at all. Miguel Helft at Forbes puts it like this:

"Taken as a whole, the 93 firms based in the U.S. (Americorns?) are worth $322 billion, 14% less than Microsoft and a bit more than Intel and Cisco combined. Which would you rather own long term? Microsoft or a basket that includes Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat and Pinterest along with scores of others, a few of which will surely emerge as future PayPals, Twitters or Fitbits? Is that even a hard decision? And if not, what are we worried about? Quite the contrary: If you’re looking for growth, the unicorns minted in the last few years may well be one of the most attractive investments anywhere." Miguel Helft

Well, similar to Andrew Chen I like companies that set out to live forever rather than to become unicorns. I suppose I simply like workhorses better than unicorns.

From Varnhem Autumn 2015

Photo Competition 2015

On and off I have organised a kind of photo competition here at my blogg (2007, 2010, 2011, 2012) The rules are simple: vote for the picture you like most before Februari 10 and then you have a chance of winning some flowers. The competition is open for people I know and you cast your vote by adding a comment here on the blogg, or in Picasa, or sending me an email, or a message on Facebook or LinkedIn. Feel free to motivate your choice or not :-)

This year I have ventured far out from my comfort zone and present to you pictures of me. Since I'm often safely behind the camera, there are not that many of them around.

However, this year I actually found quite a number of them in my albums. The pictures are from various travels and trips: Sweden, Kenya, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thank you so much, friends and family, for providing proof of that I was actually there too!

1. Göteborg. From Photo Competition 2015

2. Mölnlycke. From Photo Competition 2015

3. Billingen. From Photo Competition 2015

4. Nairobi. From Photo Competition 2015

5. Pilane. From Photo Competition 2015

6. Ven. From Photo Competition 2015

7. Fjällbacka. From Photo Competition 2015

8. Baku. From Photo Competition 2015

9. Baku. From Photo Competition 2015

10. Armenia. From Photo Competition 2015

11. Azerbaijan. From Photo Competition 2015

25 Metaphors

1. They say that time's supposed to heal ya
2. I've forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet
3. I'm sorry for breaking your heart
4. It's no secret that the both of us, are running out of time
5. You couldn't handle the hot heat rising
6. I was running, you were walking
7. I want every single piece of you, I want your heaven and your oceans too
8. Let me fall into your gravity
9. I miss you when the lights go down, it illuminates all of my doubts
10. Every story has it's scars
11. When the pain cuts you deep, I will be your remedy
12. No river is too wide or too deep for me to swim to you
13. Come whatever I'll be the shelter that won't let the rain come through
14. Our love ain't water under the bridge
15. If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently
16. But it's in my roots, in my veins
17. I can't love you in the dark
18. It feels like we're oceans apart
19. Please don't fall apart, I can't face your breaking heart
20. Deep down I must have always known
21. To earn my stripes I'd have to pay
22. I miss it when life was a party to be thrown
23. Give me a memory I can use
24. The sweetest devotion hit me like an explosion
25. It is the world to me that you are in my life, but I want to live and not just survive

Adele 25 Lyrics and Videos

From Varnhem Autumn 2015