Aarron Walter

In September of this year I delivered at talk about emotional interface design at Webdagene, an amazing conference in Oslo, Norway. The conference organizers were kind enough to record the talk, which can view on their website in case you missed it in Norway.

Video of Learning to Love Humans Talk in Norway

2009 is shaping up to be a busy year for me. I’m going to be speaking at a number of conferences around the United States, and I hope to meet you at one of them to share a beer and conversation about our craft. 

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Last weekend I visited Strasbourg and Colmar France, and traveled down the Route du Vin, a road that traverses the vineyards of Alsace. Alsace is right on the boarder of France and Germany, and has switched nationalities many times in the past 100 years. 90% of Alsacian wine is white, with a small portion the red Pinot Noir. I got to taste quite a few of them including two Riesling, two Gwurztraminer, two Pinot Gris, and one Pinot Noir. The Route du Vin is filled with both small family-run wineries, and larger, internationally known ones.

Our first stop was Dopff au Moulin, an ancient vineyard farmed by the same family for over 400 years. We got a primer on wine making and tasting, got to see the perfectly manicured vineyards (I snuck a taste of the ripe grapes off the vine), and then we were treated to a tasting. Our host lined up glasses on a bar, and poured three different wines for us to compare. Light cake cleansed our palettes between tastings. My favorite was the Gwurztraminer, a spicy, floral wine with a complex flavor.

Afterwards we cruised down the road to a smaller winery called Allimant-Laugner. We got to see the giant oak casks where the wine is aged after fermentation, which were empty in anticipation of the harvest in just a couple of weeks. After getting educated on the wine making process, we headed in to do some more tasting. This time we tasted 4 wines, one of which was the Pinot Noir. We were all swirling our glasses, observing color, sniffing, and swishing the wine in our mouths like tourists pros.

As we drove back home we passed many abandoned castles atop hilly vineyards, reminders of the long history of Alsacian wine.

Baden Baden is famous for two things, spas and horse racing. Friday I was lucky enough to experience half of their luxuries at the Internationale Galopprennen horse races where fine suits and big hats were the standard of the day. High rollers arrived in Mercedes, Porsches, and even helicopters to place their bets on Europe‚’s finest thoroughbreds.

I had the opportunity to meet one trainer with 30 horses competing, who shared insight about the races (although no hot picks), the training process, and how the horses get prepared for racing. If all goes well, he will be at Churchill Downs for the Breeder’s Cup this November.

Before each race the horses are walked in a show area before the crowd where spectators can size up the competition in order to make an educated decision of who to bet on. Diminutive jockey’s pass through the crowd in colorful attire signing autographs before joining their horses. Gamblers fill out their betting cards then stroll to the booths to slap their money down. There are all sorts of betting options such as betting on a horse to win, place in the top three, or the more complicated route to bet a combination of horses to place first second and third. Small bets are just as welcome as large ones.

Race lengths vary from 1400 meter sprints to 4150 meter marathons. The starting gates are moved accordingly to accommodate the race length.

The excitement of the crowd as a race is about to start is palpable, some even said they got goose bumps as the starting bell rang. Many races were all but clinched until a come from behind rider dashed past the pack on the final straight-away to claim a dramatic victory.

After each race, the horses cool down a bit then trot their rider through the crowd to the winner’s circle where they meet their patrons to receive their prize.

There were many things I learned at the horse races that day, but perhaps the most valuable lesson was that I am a better spectator of the sport than a gambler!

Saturday evening was Lange Nacht der Museen here in Berlin, an annual event that opens the doors to all of the cities major cultural institutions late into the night. Special performances and events take place in and around the museums including art and music performances, poetry readings, special exhibitions, guided tours, and activities for children. For 12 euros, you can get into as many museums as you like, all of which are linked together by a bus system shuttling visitors from place to place as part of their admission fare.

The events outside the museums were every bit as engaging as what was inside. At the Gem?§ldegalerie, an impressive pyrotechnic display lured visitors from afar to the museum. Classical and contemporary music ignited the space while flamethrower devices atop the roof and around the museum shot streams of fire into the air in time. A large flamethrower array burst a massive fiery charge above the crowd at the crescendo of songs.

At Potsdamer Platz, a building facade was transformed into a screen displaying media art works. Giant florescent bulbs in circular and linear shapes serve as massive pixels of the display. I stood mesmerized by the imagery for some time.

A highlight of the evening for me was an installation by Cai Guo-Qiang entitled Head On at the Deutsche Guggenheim. A large drawing of swirling dust and silhouettes of wolves begins the piece. In front of it stands a lone, snarling wolf, poised to spring forward into a large pack of wolves running, and leaping in an arch above the ground, ultimately crashing into a glass wall. Each wolf is quite carefully crafted with what appears to be real fur. The piece captures the motion of the pack suspending dozens of wolves in mid air until their bizarre demise at the wall.

I recently spent and extended, 5-day weekend in the beautiful city of Geneva, Switzerland. The city is situated at the base of the Alps on Lake Geneva, a crystal clear, chilly body of water fed by the melting snow from the surrounding mountain range. A swim in the lake will certainly wake you up! Geneva is one of the world’s most international cities as it is home to the United Nations in Europe, the Red Cross, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade, Organization, and the list goes on. Walking down street you might encounter visitors from dozens of countries in a single block.

On a clear day you can see Europe’s tallest maintain peak, Mont Blanc. An impressive 450 feet tall fountain jets out of Lake Geneva powered by two 2000 hoarse-power engines, which claimed the life of their creator when it was first turned on. The narrow streets of the old city make for pleasant exploring, where you will find shops and cafe of all kinds. Of course there are plenty of fancy Swiss chocolate shops with tempting displays of the finest sweets in the world.

I spent a good portion of a day riding a rented bike around the city, and then stopped by a park that had giant chessboards where old men sat around contemplating intense games. In the early afternoon I watched a fierce battle between two exceptionally talented players. One a refined, slow moving character smoked with legs crossed as he coolly surveyed the board behind mirrored sunglasses. The other was a grizzled bear that preferred to observe the game by walking amongst the pieces. I returned to the park late that night to find the same two opponents still locked in fierce battle. I challenged my friend Martin to a match, in which I crushed him using some of the strategy I had learned from watching the two pros play. (Okay, Martin beat me earlier that day, so we were then even.)

I spent some time in a paddleboat on the lake taking it easy, and nearly had an unpleasant run in with the Geneva fountain. Martin and Nicole narrate in this video, which might give you some idea of just how giant this thing really is.

Last Friday I visited the hallowed ground of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland where Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in the early 1990′s as a means of sharing the research of the many scientists and engineers there. Berners-Lee, in the CERN spirit of open exchange of ideas,
opted not to file a patent on his creation, but rather released the WWW into the public domain, which has allowed it to grow into the history changing medium it is today. Ironically, this free exchange has opponents today that jeopardize the future of the WWW. Berners-Lee also originally defined HTML, created the first web server, the first web site, the first web browser, and established the World Wide Web Consortium that guides the development of the WWW still today. Berners-Lee left CERN years ago and now works full time as the head of the W3C. His pet project is the semantic web, a project that has the potential to revolutionize the way we and our computers interact with our data.

For me the visit to CERN was a pilgrimage to the most significant place of my medium. Just setting foot on the location where it all began made me giddy as a schoolgirl. The artifacts of this significant achievement are not as visible as I had hoped, however. The primary focus of our visit was the amazing nuclear research that is happening at CERN. The facility boasts the largest particle accelerator on the planet, some 45 kilometers in circumference crossing the boarder between Switzerland and France. A particle accelerator speeds up protons to nearly the speed of light using electro-magnetic pulses that propel them faster and faster. Large groups race towards one another until meeting in a giant crash that breaks these tiny atomic particles into even smaller particles such as quarks and various other subatomic elements that are not yet understood. The crashes, which occur every 3 hours, take place in a collector that can map he explosion and the properties of the particles using massive super-computer clusters networked around the world. The data gathered allows physicists to understand the microcosm of elements that make up our universe, which can lead to a clearer understanding of how the universe began, how it works, and even provide advanced medical treatments for cancer. All research done at CERN is published to the public freely, none of which has military applications.

CERN has a number of collectors where they monitor these subatomic explosions, but they are currently working on a rather advanced one called Atlas, which we were lucky enough to see first hand. We were bused to their largest particle accelerator, where we dawned red hard hats before descending 100 meters into the belly of the beast. Descriptions of Atlas will not do it justice, but let me say the complexity and scale are astounding. It really should be classified as one the man-made wonders of the world! Hosts of engineers from around the world climbed and repelled off the giant collector taking measurements, bolting on new parts, and fine tuning their creation. The projected completion date seemed to be a running joke, as the deadline has slipped into the future on more than one occasion. Their hope is that they will be observing proton collisions at the end of the year. The scale of Atlas is immense, and perhaps can best be understood from this video.

As an Apple fan boy I was amused to see that CERN loves the Mac. 90% of the computers scientists were working on (even the receptionists) were Macs. I passed many office doors with Mac stickers.

Check off one item on my list of things I must do in my lifetime!

The World Cup was the big news of the summer here in Berlin, drawing millions of people from around the world to the most watched sporting event on the planet. The final game was held at Olympic Stadium just outside of the city, a place that is amazing to behold, and rich with history. It is probably most famous for the 1936 Summer Olympic games in which Jesse Owens the Nazi party who boasted of Arian superiority over other races including those of African decent. Owens achieved 4 gold medals that year in the sprint and long jump events. A major street in front of the stadium has been named for Jesse Owens to commemorate his achievements.

These games were the first to be televised live, and introduced basketball to the games. In preparation for the games the Nazi party moved all homeless beggars, and vagrants to the first work camps in an effort to prepare the city for the onslaught of foreign visitors. This was a socially acceptable practice at the time as most people saw it as a logical way to make the voluntarily unemployed to contribute positively to society. Of course no one suspect at this time that the people being sent to these camps would be mistreated, and ultimately worked to death.

It’s pretty easy to look back at this as archaic and disrespectful, but the city of Atlanta did something not so different for the 1996 Summer Olympics. The city gave many homeless people one-way train tickets out of the city in an effort to clean the place up. It’s not the same as sending people to work camps, but it is certainly disrespectful.

The stadium is really an amazing place with its new glass awning made just for the World Cup.

Every year Berlin throws one of the most amazing all weekend parties on the planet called the Love Parade. On a one mile plus boulevard called Strasse de 17 Juni that runs from the German Parliament building (the Reichstag) past the Column of Victory, 40 semi trucks loaded with a DJ, massive sound systems, and a truck load of costumed partiers roll by slowly shaking a crowd of 2 million with techno beats. DJs are also stationed at various static locations including inside the Column of Victory itself.

The trucks move both directions down the road, and when they pass by one another their blaring beats compete for attention, sandwiching parts of the crowd between them. The sound waves shake your clothes, and kind of tickle. Even with plugs stuffed in my ears, the music was loud and clear.

Throughout the weekend clubs throw huge parties featuring world famous DJs like Paul Van Dyke starting their sets at around 2AM. People party all night, then head to the parade for more techno and dancing the following day without missing a beat (bad pun there).

Get a taste of the fun in these video clips, which in no way do it justice!

As campaigning is going full tilt in the US, so too is the case here in Germany as candidates prepare for upcoming democratic elections. Persuading the populous to vote for you seems to happen in a much different fashion in Germany than it does in the States. In the US, campaign signs only come in red white and/or blue (evidently better if you include all three), with plenty of stars and stripes, and often the obligatory patriotic b.s. statement that convinces all voters that you are a true, red-blooded American. If a picture is shown, the politician often has some very professional, maybe over-produced shot with stiff hair and a perma-grin. The over all impression it leaves is impersonal, distant, slick, and disconnected to the general population.

Here in Berlin I have been surprised to find most of the political posters to be more human, better designed (using design principles more effectively), and seem to inspire more confidence in the candidate. The photos look human, sometimes a bit unattractive, sometimes in more of a snapshot style setting, but always more like regular people. The designs are simple, and lack the dripping patriotism we see in the US, often opting for colors other than the ones seen in the national flag.

US citizens are as jaded about government now as ever before. I don’t anticipate a miraculous, political reconnection with the needs of voters any time soon, but our politicians would be well served to look abroad in order to understand themselves better.

I did a little shopping today at Hackesche H??fe here in Berlin today. Hackesche H??fe is a group of ultra-hip shops in a series of small, interconnecting courtyards featuring the latest fashion and design from up-and-coming designers. You’ll find fashionistas stitching together couture clothing before your eyes as you shop, funky toyshops, house wares, and amazing shoe stores. I am a big fan of cool shoes that are comfortable, and unique. I find a pair maybe once every two years, and wear the hell out of them. Today I visited Trippen, master cobblers. They make all of their shoes by hand, and tan their own elk, buffalo, and deer leather with vegetable oil using an environmentally concious process. The design is simple and elegant, and the fit is like your childhood baseball mitt.

Wednesday afternoon I caught a flight to Krakow, a city I have been curious about for some time. It maintains an old world feel with its castle, Medieval cathedrals, and the remnants of a city wall with a looming turret. About 1 and a half hour bus ride from Krakow through a primarily agricultural countryside peppered with little villages are Auschwitz and Birkenau in the towns of Oswiecim and Brzeziuka. Though thousands of Poles, Russian POWs, Gypsies, and handicapped people were murdered in these two concentration camps, the greatest number of victims were European Jews from as far as Norway. 75% of Jews who arrived in Auschwitz and Berkenau were killed immediately in the gas chambers. I have always felt it important that I visit these places, maybe to pay my respects or to learn so I might do my part to make sure others don’t forget what happened.

The primary camp is Auschwitz, famous for the cynical sign above its primary entrance that reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work Makes Freedom”. It was first a military camp before World War I for the Polish army, but after the Nazi invasion of Poland was appropriated and converted into a concentration camp. The irony of this place is it is actually quite beautiful, with its two story barracks of brick (originally 1 story, second floor added by Nazis in preperation for more prisoners), and slender trees (added after liberation of the camp). Its history is anything but beautiful. We learned of stories of maniacal medical experiments on inmates, the initial tests of the killing gas Cyclon B, starvation, hangings, humiliation, and torture. Birkenau is the massive, 425 acre camp that we think of when we hear the word Auschwitz. This is where most of the murders took place, where the trains unloaded thousands, sending nearly all Jews directly to the gas chambers and crematoria on either side of the tracks. The killing chambers famously disguised as showers were dynamited in the last days of World War II by the Nazis who wanted to cover their crimes as the Russian army rapidly advanced and ultimately liberated the camps. There were 40 other camps in the area as well that served the “Final Solution“.

People from around the world were visiting the camps, but it seems for different reasons. Some were there to pay respects, others were satisfying curiosity as if gawking at a car wreck. I saw some snapping photos of their grinning, travel mates in front of the entrance gate or the ominous halt signs with their warnings of death as if they were at Disney world posing with Mickey Mouse. For me this was as hurtful to witness as the relics of mass murder as it defiles the memory victims and their suffering. In the remaining crematoria where thousands of lives were erased visitors were talking casually, even chuckling at their unrelated conversations rather than being present to reflect on what happened in the space.

What I take from the experience is not only the imperative to remember, but also to learn from our past. I couldn’t help but consider Darfur, and Bosnia and wonder how the hell mass genocide could happen yet again. The moral of the story is respect and tolerance for all. To some degree it has inspired some pride in my home country of the USA where millions of immigrants melt into one big pot daily and somehow find common ground in disparate cultures. I also feel shame for our failures and equally dark past in slavery, and racism that persists today.

I sign off with a much repeated statement that sticks with me more now than ever.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

- George Santayana