Richard for real

I took part in a seminar today and picked up some pointers on how to efficiently convey your idea or deal with an opponent in writing:

- Use words and phrase from the opponent, but make them your own

- Irony is always a potential threat to your credibility

- Join the readers and isolate the opponent (“we” approach) or join him/her in a dialogue and leave the readers to decide who is right (“you” approach)?

- A friendly and subtly critical introduction can be very effective

- Formulate question that people have asked themselves but never formed an opinion on, introduce critical questions from a neutral perspective to gain credibility

- An uncommented quote can often be more effective than one that is analysed

- Use “dichotomical questions” which leave the reader with just two choices

- Include and agree with the opponent’s arguments if they are relevant

- Adding details is a good way of strengthening credibility

- If the opponent is relying on the reader’s emotions, exaggerate these arguments to weaken them

- Be clear about your intention from the bery beginning

- Honesty and openness help your credibility 

- To pretend that you know something better than you do works as long as the reader doesn’t know it better than you actually do

- If your opponent writes something unclear or abstract and potentially stupid, make it more concrete to illustrate the stupidity

- Always define what the reader should think, feel and do after reading

And someone had put the following words of wisdom on the door to the seminar room:

 At some point I also allowed myself some doodling:

Today I went to see the people who are responsible for issuing diplomas at my current university in Sweden. Some interesting knowledge came out of this meeting.

The whole started with me wanting to use the same credits from a ten week course (15 ECTS) in two different diplomas in two different fields of studies. Two separate people have ensured me that this is possible. When speaking to the second of these today I chanced to ask how many credits I could theoretically share between diplomas. The answer was the somewhat suspicious: “well, that has never been legally tried … it can actually be quite a lot … but our main concern that our students come up with varied and interesting main subjects for their diplomas”. In my interpretation, this means that within the new Bologna diploma issuing system for three-year bachelor degrees (where a bachelor  consists of minimum 90 credits or three semesters in the main subject and 90 credits, or less as long as the total adds up to 180, in any other subject) Swedish universities allow students to use the same credits to “back up” any number of diplomas as long as the main subject is new and fresh. If this is correct it would have the following implications:

* After finishing a first 90+90 bachelor, a student could get what looks like a new three year diploma every three semesters.

* More ambitious students could study the basic courses leading up to a bachelor thesis semester parallelly during one year and then spend the next year writing their theses and getitng done with courses they might have skipped during the intense year. Then these students could apply for two diplomas: one with thesis A as the main subject and thesis B as “backup credits” and one reversed. If this works (which very well could be the case, especially if the theses are presented at different universities) the student would after two years end up with two diplomas, each saying they have studied three years. 

The bottom line? Congratulations to all students in Sweden and a warning to all employers worldwide!

Do you ever get tired of plastic cards? The come in all colors and for all purposes. Most of them can open doors literally and a few of them also metaphorically. Nowadays they even come with chips so you can feel that extra bit of high tech before carrying all the groceries home.

I got a new card the other day, an event which in itself is pretty uninteresting, but I think the story behind it might be worth telling. The card I got was my European Health Insurace Card. It’s hardly any news that this is around, but I just hadn’t bothered to order it before. The main benefit of this card is that it entitles the card holder to health care on the same premises as a local citizen of all EU/EES countries plus Switzerland when visiting any of these conutries. It is also free of charge (the card that is, not the health care). The insurance card also has a validity period of three years so there’s really no reason not to order it and have it lying around. If you want your personal card you should probably turn to the authority where you would ask for money retrospectively if you paid for a visit to the doctor in another country.

That’s about it.

Well, it’s supposed to be a pun on that eighties movie with Robin Williams. Don’t know how well it came out…

The funny thing is that google, or at least gmail, can tell you many things about your life that you’re not aware of. This is because every email received comes with customized links on the side, anything from sleeping pills to ring tones. When this function works at its best it automatically reads between lines of your correspondence. In some rare cases the cyber-commercial interpretation is just spot on. Like when an application for a summer job is rejected accompanied by a bunch of ads for music festivals and concerts in July. The ads also give plenty of ideas for creative and unorthodox interpretations and replies. Someone writing about an assignment in physics might actually end up telling the recipient they should loose weight or gain momentum by going to an inspirational seminar, for example.

My home-made google consists of:

Unfolded paper clip. For getting the SIM card out of my phone.

Black bracelet. Mum got it years ago with some hair product.

Packaging for under-the-lip-style tobacco. I plan to keep my chewing gums in it to annoy unsuspecting nicotinists.

Another bracelet. Unknown origin, maybe it held the price tag for something, I don’t remember.

Mechanical pencil. Frequently used for my left hand writing excersises.

Bike light. Has a very practical attachment device known to me as “harsnodd”.

It happens every now and then that you need to speed up your life a little bit. To catch that train or make that extra mile when you’re out jogging. A very convenient way to do this is to use a portabe music player and put on some tunes that really get your adrenaline going. I have a playlist called “Overdrive” on my player and I use it to tell myself I need to raise the overall tempo. Having done this for a few months now, the music has even become a bit, so to say, institutionalized. It’s no longer only the speed of the bassline or the determination in the vocals that get me going, but also the mere fact that it’s one of these overdrive songs playing, and not something from the regular ”Dance” playlist. The limited number of tracks also means I’m rarely surprised by what comes on when I activate overdrive mode.

pic: Richard for real

The music I use as my overdrive ranges from turbo rap from Outkast to naughtily overpowered booty bass jams. The name dropping could go on forever but instead of just ranting away I put together a five track sample selection with the approriate MySpace links. Enjoy!

Soulja Boy - Crank Dat Soulja Boy (Cousin Cole remix) (YouTube)

Justice - Let there be light (DJ FUNK remix) (YouTube)

MSTRKRFT – Bounce (The Bloody Beetroots remix) (YouTube)

Kavinsky - Testarossa Autodrive (SebastiAn remix) (YouTube)

Skepta - Rolex Sweep (Vandalism remix) (YouTube)