The Refinement Club

Ideas from The Future of Toys – MassRefinement #09

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:42:00 +0200

Tuesday, May 21st we got together with Thuy, Mikkel and Elvis to talk about the future of toys. It was a lot of fun and in our opinion the ideas we came up with meet the criteria we set beforehand.

Fun.
Versatile.
Spark the imagination.
Contribute to development/be educational.

Take a look and tell us what you think! Do you have an idea for a future toy? You’re welcome to share on our Facebook page.

Go outside!
We’d like to encourage kids to explore the real world more, to be more curious of their surroundings. To do that we need to get them early, while they’re still curious. Kids now a days have so many virtual/digital options that are much more exciting than the real world. And this situation is very comfortable for the parents as well, since the real world is much more unsafe than the interactive game world. There’s no reason to believe that this development will stop, but we have an idea that can combine the fantasy and safety of the digital world, and at the same time encourage kids to get out and explore more in the real world.

Teddy 2.0

What sparked this idea was the thought of “SIRI inside”. Inside a teddy bear. Sounds kind of sad, but think about how much affection and loyalty you had for your favorite stuffed animal as a kid? Didn’t you imagine it with a personality and speech, and wasn’t this toy your very best ally in the world? Wouldn’t it have been awesome if your teddy could have been more active when you two went on adventures together?

The idea is as follows: Combine classic, loveable stuffed toys with digital wonders including powerful voice recognition, GPS and a database of stories and missions. The parents control the functions. They define the area, location and time of all missions. They can pick the storylines/missions that they think their kid will respond to the most, and also upload new missions. They can also pre-approve missions so that the child can initiate adventures on its own.

So, for example, if a kid is skeptical to the little forest close by, the parents could trigger the toy to suggest that they went on a little adventure in the forest to look for squirrels. And it could give different assignments that would give different badges. Like “find a pine nut that a squirrel has nibbled on” or “take a picture of a squirrel”. The toy could have camera and a touch screen incorporated so the child could google things, look at maps, video chat with the parents … Basically be alone and adventurous but at the same time safe and accessible.

Physical Smartgames
Another way to encourage more outdoor activity is to make a new kind of playground, more suited to engage older kids as well. They could be more like outdoor arcades, kind of like what you find at technical museums. We think playground equipment that combines problemsolving and physics challenges is something that would inspire kids to go out and meet their friends, and continue to do so when they get older. Of course if it could spark an interest in science as well, that wouldn’t be a disadvantage!

Be creative!
Playing with Lego is something we look back upon with longing eyes. Therefore we talked a lot about how to do stuff with Lego to enhance the experience.

Lego Rewards
A community where you can share your creations and get rewarded based on difficulty, complexity and creativity. You share your creation with a smart phone application that scan the building and recognizes the Lego pieces used, based on that you get rewarded. People can also explore other peoples or friends creations to get inspired to build new stuff as well as praising the builder. Of course there should be some kind of level system, where you start out as a novice and progresses onto become a master builder.

Lego Missions
Lego Rewards could easily expand and become a real game, but with a twist; you have to build stuff with Lego to progress in the game. First you buy your regular Lego kit, build it and scan it with the smart phone app/Xbox Kinect or what not and the story begins. E.g. the car crashed and now certain pieces are missing. Your mission is to make something new out of the pieces you have left to continue to … (new storyline). When you finish you scan and upload again, and get a new score and a new mission.

It’s social, fun storytelling, and it gets kids to use Lego the way it used to be used once again. More creative.

Lego XXL
With Technic Lego and Mindstorm you can build almost anything. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could build these in real size? Of course, everything that’s small and becomes big are ten thousand times cooler. So let’s just make Technic Lego in human size, then we can build stuff we can actually use. Like for example building a gocart or a crane or a human sized robot…

This commercial gives us the right feeling …

Combine and compete
Competing against friends makes everything more interesting. So we thought about some games that were based on dueling, but with the bonus of being educational as well as encouraging exploration and experimenting.

Spell War
Everyone dreams of wielding their own wand, cast spells and do magic of all kinds. What if you could? With the SpellCaster mobile app you get your own wand that obey your orders and cast spells based on your skills.

Imagine you’re attending Hogwarts, or some other wizard school, and have to learn lots of different spells. You have a spell book, but you have to learn it by heart. As you go through the book you progress into a powerful wizard. Along the way you test your skills and duel your friends. When you practice or duel you use your phone as a wand. Holding and pointing it infront of you. You have to move the phone in a certain way as well as yelling out your magic words to cast the spell. To cast more powerful spells you combine different spells to make an endless range of spells.

The fun thing about this is that it leaves room for the imagination. You and your friends make up the story, the goal of the game and the rules beyond the spells.

Robot duels

Programming is fun and kind of like a game, at least if you make it into a game. What about easy programmable robots? Which you have to program to fight your friends robot. Turnbased, each round performes one action. So you have to program based on what your opponent does. When you start the duel you could also add some conditional statements. Eg:

if (hit) {
launchShield()
)

A round of robot dueling would look something like this:

Player 1:

for (int i = 5; i > 0; i++) {

raiseLeftArm();

moveLeftArmForward(10);

moveLeftArmBackward();

}

Player 2:

while (beingHit) {

bringBothArmsUp();

counterAttack();

}

A fun and engaging way to venture into the world of programming and see all the fun things you can use the skill for, as well as a perfect way to incorporate some math and see the formulas in action.

The Future of Toys – MassRefinement #09

Thu, 16 May 2013 20:14:00 +0200

There’s nothing cooler and more exciting than toys. Toymakers are quick at adopting new technologies and applying them in unexpected ways to make fun, engaging and addictive toys. So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the future of toys beholds.

There are some properties we think every fun and long lasting toy should have:

The toy should be versatile and work in many different ways and situations.
It should spark our imagination.
It should contribute to one’s development, or be educational, in some way or the other.

But most of all the toy should be fun to play with, both with friends and alone.

If we manage to come up with some ideas for new toys that nail more than one of these three points in addition to being fun, we think we have something exciting!

Join us and share your ideas on the Future of Toys at 657 Tuesday – May 21st, 18:00.

Join the Facebook event to share and get ideas, updates and inspiration.

Some inspiration:

Ideas from MassRefinement #08 on Urban Farming

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:14:00 +0200

Two weeks ago we held a MassRefinement about Urban Farming. We were a diverse group of people, some with extensive knowledge on the subject while some of us brought more enthusiasm than farming skills to the table … Which is a good thing! A mix of people generates the best ideas, we believe, and this bunch of people inspired some great conversations and ideas.

We set out with a challenge: ”How can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there?” Read on to get the essence of what we talked about.

If any of these ideas inspire you to take action, contact us at post@therefinementclub.com and we’ll put you in touch with the right people.

We organized all the ideas in different actions; Inform, Recruit and Meet, let’s start by digging into the ideas on how to inform!

INFORM
First of all we need to inform people about urban farming and show the possibilities. Let people see the joy and fruits of farming at home.

Reality show
A reality show we’d actually like to watch! The idea is that we can follow a family or several through a season. Every week they get new challenges to solve, like growing herbs inside, making a window farm, build a small green house on the balcony, make and maintain a vermicompost etc. In classic reality makeover style they get help from professionals to get started, and who evaluate their efforts. The point is that as they learn, we the viewers learn as well. People talk about the tv shows they watch, and hopefully a show like this would get people talking about urban farming. And it would make it seem easier to start growing your own food!

The reality show could of course be a big tv-show on national tv, but it could also work online where the families run their own blogs and share their experience through text, pictures and video. The viewers/readers could engage and help out with advice and tips, or ask for help themselves.

Show off
Get more urban farms into the face of people. Into the streets. Let people smell the roses. Several people are working to do this, but we feel it needs to be accompanied by more information. How about adding small signs which says something about the plant in question and gives some tips on how you can grow it at home?

RECRUIT
Secondly we should recruit people. Make some gateway drugs that get people hooked on growing plants and craving more.

Pass it on
What if everybody who plants and practice urban farming became ambassadors and shared their love and passion for plants? A quite easy and fun way to do it would be to pass on a plant. Just give a plant to a friend who you think would appreciate to take care of it. This will hopefully work like a charm and get your friend hooked on growing plants. Just pass it on.

This could easily be marketed through growing communities like Majobo and so on.

Starterkits for sale
Small and simple kits with a easy growing plant, like cucumber. The package should be accompanied by easy and simple guidance, both text and videos on YouTube that help you out with sowing and caring for your plants.

“Maternity groups”
It’s good to have someone to talk to about your plants, someone who’s in the same situation as you. So we came up with the idea of giving seed buyers access to a sort of maternity group. You buy a bag of seeds and on the bag there’s a unique number you register with on a web site. By doing that you automatically joined with a group of up to nine other people who have bought the same seeds. The web service is a mini social network for urban farmers, specified by type of seed, where they can share experiences, photos and get help and tips from each other.

MEET
When we’ve gotten people hooked on growing plants it’s time to leverage their passion and knowledge and to get them to help each other out.

We’d like a meeting point, both digital and physical place, where information on urban farming in Oslo is collected. A place where experts can give guidance and you can find related products, books and courses. A place where people who are interested can become part of a community, where they share knowledge and advice. A place for distribution, information and making connections.

It would be perfect if this also could be the place where Oslo Kooperativ set up their weekly deliveries.

Everyone in the group felt the need for this kind of meeting place, but Annikken went as far as to give it a name, and we love it; “Oslo Mikrodyrkeri” (it’s one of those nontranslateable things, but it’s a play on “microbrewery”)!

Pop-up restaurant
In connection to this meeting place there could be a pop-up restaurant where groups of people could bring their own produce and a professional cook would make them a meal with the ingredients they bring. In this way the cook could inspire people with new ways to use the results of their urban farming work.

Thank you to all of you who came, it was a great session! Do share your thoughts and new ideas on facebook.

Hope you can join us for MassRefinement #09: The Future of Toys on Tuesday May 21st.

Post-MassRefinement Inspiration on Urban Farming

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:57:00 +0200

The MassRefinement we had on Urban Farming went great! It was an awesome group of engaged people, and we came up with some excellent ideas on how to get more people into urban farming. We’re working on the summary, but in the meantime here are some resources that was recommended.

One of the participants was Ingvil who has vermicompost at home. She told us how amazing soil the worms make and shared this video of how to get started. Check it out!

Annikken is engaged in several urban farming projects, among other things she’s involved with Geitmyra and Geitmyra Hønselag (urban chickens!). She recommends that you also follow Herligheten, GrowlabOslo, Geitmyra matkultursenter for barn and ByBi on Facebook to stay posted on all the urban green stuff happening in Oslo.

Tarek works with MAJOBO, the organization that inspired us before our workshop. He left very inspired and that made us very happy. Tarek made us aware of that MAJOBO often arranges hands-on workshops, like beginners course for balcony gardeners, so follow them on Facebook for updates and tips!

Tim mentioned a kickstarter project to Johannes who was initially sceptic, but then he went home and bought one. Apparently so did everyone else so we have to wait until this amazing “Smart Herb Garden” is out on the market. Pretty neat!

Thanks to all of you who came and contributed with your ideas and resources! As mentioned we’re working on contextualizing all the ideas and we will post them next week organized by “Inform”, “Recruit” and “Meet”.

Inspiration for MassRefinement 08 "Urban Farming"

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:57:00 +0200

We were really lucky with our timing on this MassRefinement, because MAJOBO (an organisation that works to promote organic cultivation in the community) had put together an inspiration night the week before our workshop!

We went there to be inspired and informed, and of course so that we could share what we learned with you. We hope this will get you all geared up to share ideas on how to bring more urban farming to Oslo.

Is food grown in Oslo safe to eat?

Erik Joner, a scientist from Bioforsk, has run tests on food grown several different places in the center of Oslo. He concluded with that it is perfectly safe to eat urban grown vegetables with normal use. Very little of pollutants from the earth are taken up by the plants, and you can remove most of the pollutants from the air by rinsing the vegetables. In addition, by not using pesticides you can decrease the amount of toxins you eat.

Herligheten allotment gardens (The Glory)

Vibeke Hermanrud from Bjørvika Development talked about this years projects and activities in Herligheten allotment gardens in Bjørvika. There are plenty of exciting things happening in this construction area, and it’s really cool that the area can be used in this way in the meantime.

Check out the timelapse of the making of Herligheten here.

In addition to the garden, they have established a field of heritage grain. This year the Flatbread Society will start up Bakehouse Bjørvika:

“Bakehouse Bjørvika will be a public baking facility housed within an experimental architectural structure in Bjørvika. A multi-functional oven will facilitate various types of bread baking, smoking and cooking. The heat from the ovens will heat seating.”

BYBI (City bee)

We’ve heard about BYBI before, since one of our regular AfterWorkShop’ers Mikkel is part of this project. Entrepreneurs and beekeepers Anne Dubrau and Ragna Ribe Jørgenen informed us about bees, beekeeping and their project.

Did you know that Norway most probably has the most healthy bees in the world? This is because of the Norwegian Beekeeper organisation’s breeding program. And that bees are bred to be nice and calm? Anne is actually allergic to bees and have several hives in her garden without problems.

BYBI is a great project, bees actually thrive in the city! Different pollen has different nutrients, and bees need the biological diversity of urban areas.

If you would like to join BYBI and keep bees they arrange beginner classes. If you just would like some honey without all the work, they also need gardens and roofs to place the hives. Domestic bees are one of the most important food producers we have, so let’s pitch in!

Coworking space gets roof garden

The community organisation MESH is making a collective roof garden, and Mads Pålsrud, the founder of GrowLAB Oslo, is helping them. They’ve had two workshops so far and we’re looking forward to the solutions they develop for a pitched roof garden!

This was some of what was talked about, and we highly recommend checking out MAJOBO and GrowLAB. They’re great resources! The conclusion for the research we’ve done is that there’s a lot of engaged and inspiring people in this city, working to get more urban farming to Oslo.

What we see is that the challenge we should focus on is how can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there?

Join us for MassRefinement 08 on Tuesday the 23rd, 18.00 at 657 to share your ideas. Here’s the Facebook event.

The topic of MassRefinement #08 is Urban Farming

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:29:47 +0200

We had a poll on facebook on what topics people were interested in and one of the options was urban farming. As you can see it didn’t end up as the most popular one, but since we have been discussing it a lot lately and spring is upon us it seems like a perfect topic for the eight MassRefinement. We’ll do toys next time, promise.

Why do we want to invite you to a workshop about urban farming?

We’re very lucky in Norway and most people don’t need to grow their own food out of necessity. But we believe urban farming is important for several reasons.

First of all the joy of growing your own food. Using homegrown herbs, tomatos, peppers and other vegetables in your cooking feels special.
Secondly, it’s educational; if more city people understand the effort involved with producing food and get to appreciate the taste of good quality, they will see the real value of the produce they take for granted and be willing to pay more for it.
In addition, we simply believe it’s good for us to bring more nature into city life.

What do you think? Join us for a Massrefinement on urban farming, and let’s find some ideas and solutions to how we can bring more urban farming to Oslo.

Join the event on Facebook.

Where: 657, Fredensborgveien 24D, 0177 Oslo

When: 18.00-22.00, Tuesday April 23rd

No more AfterWorkShop

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:20:00 +0200

We’ve decided to stop having AfterWorkShops and go back to arranging MassRefinements. The reason is that there didn’t seem to be a need for spaces where people could meet and work on their own projects, people came for the discussions. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to prepare and arrange proper workshops once a week, so we think it’s better to do so once a month.

There will be MassRefinements on the following dates before summer:

April 23 (Urban Farming)
May 21 (The Future of Toys)
June 18 (tba)

The nice people at 657 will let us continue to use their space, so hope to see you there once a month at 18.00!

If you’d like to influence what topics we will discuss, vote here.

Some ideas for Google Glass

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:00:21 +0100

We’ve been talking about transhumanism and the future of an enhanced body and mind. Since there’s been so much focus on Google Glass lately we ended up spending much of our time talking about ideas and wants for further use of it. While what we’ve seen from Glass is quite impressive it’s also quite basic functions at the moment, not anything you can’t do with your phone, so here’s some wants and thoughts for the future of Google Glass.

Contextual data

We want Glass to give us contextual data about our surroundings. Relevant information based on your current situation, for example, it could pick up on key phrases during conversations and meetings and give you more information when needed. Like when we started discussing how many people Socrates meant the ideal polis should consist of, the word “polis” and “Socrates” came up several times and would trigger Glass to get the relevant information without the conversation stalling and someone getting distracted on the interwebz …

It would also be very helpful during a workout – showing heart rate, hydration level, need for electrolytes or other key vitals. Or let you have a virtual competitor running by your side or in front of you.

With the inclusion of a thermographic camera Glass could help you out with cooking. By converting the information to show core temperature, and prompt you when the meat is rare enough and the vegetables just right and so on. And by recording everything you eat it would definitely help with dieting, e.g. calorie tracking using image recognition.

Looking out the window and into the sky would give you more information about the weather – like humidity, temperature, wind speed and other basic weather data including the forecast. Tips on what would be appropriate to wear could follow.

Then we have the learning possibilities! Imagine being in biology class, going out into the forest and really see how photosynthesis works!

And of course guided instruction would be a key feature. Both for professionals like engineers, surgeons, construction workers etc. but also for home projects. Wouldn’t it be appreciated to get guided help to setup our IKEA furniture or fix a leaking faucet?

When it comes to journalism and crowd sourced information, this would be a game changer. Imagine being able to switch view to another person on the other side of the world, giving you a whole new perspective?

And it seems like the virtual entertainment future that’s been predicted for ages is finally close. Your life can be turned into a game and enemies can be on every other corner. Video games and live roleplaying could totally merge. Now, where’s that haptic suit?

Google Glass has plenty of potential and we can’t wait to see what people will do with it once it’s out. If the speech recognition is good enough to make navigation natural.

Transhumanism is an exciting topic that we’ll definitely revisit, but what would you want to use Google Glass for?

Transhumanism in Fiction

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:24:00 +0100

On my vacation I got through 3 novels on the topic of transhumanism. I wouldn’t call it high quality literature, but they’re definitely entertaining and worth a read if you’re interested in the subject.

Most important though, they raise some thought-provoking questions. I’m very much intrigued by the thought of getting enhanced or amped, but the societal challenges are daunting.

I haven’t read “Nexus” yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Have you read any other novels on the subject you can recommend?

– Gro

“Amped” by Daniel H. Wilson

“Some people are implanted with upgrades that make them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities - and rights - of ‘amplified’ humans.” – Amazon

“Wired” and “Amped” (sequel) by Douglas E. Richards

“Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania?” – Amazon

“Nexus” by Ramez Naam

“In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link human together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.” – Amazon

As you might guess, the topic for our next AfterWorkShop is “Transhumanism” – join us if you’re in Oslo!

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Any Social Conversation

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:33:00 +0100

The topic of our last AfterWorkShop was how we could improve the way we consume news and current affairs. But we ended up with three ideas on how we could become more knowledgeable. Or more well rounded as we like to call it. Here’s last two ideas which are more related to learning new knowledge.

Imagine you’re invited to a dinner at your friends’ place. She’s a scientist hooked on fantasy and science fiction. You don’t know anything about either advanced science nor fantasy or science fiction. You need to brush up on your knowledge and get some easy talking starters.

Okay, so when is the dinner? This weekend, sure, that means that we have four days to get you fit for fight. What do you already know about the topic? Not much it appears. Just a minute and we’re good to go.

When you have selected the topics you need to learn about, you’re presented with a quiz about the topic. The result of the quiz gives the system good indications of your knowledge level. Based on the quiz results and how much time you got, the system tailors a knowledge program. The more time you got, the more thorough, the less time you got, the more superficial. Now the learning is up to you.

Naturally this would be a mobile enabled system, which you can use when time is at your hand. Open the system and you’re presented with tailored pieces of useful knowledge and fun facts about the topic. As you progress, the knowledge program becomes more advanced.

You can extend your knowledge program to make you into a more well rounded person with diversified knowledge, which again helps you out when you’re out socializing.

But what if you’re at a party and find yourself in the situation of not knowing anything about what the people around you are talking about?

No problem. Just tap the “Shasam-like” function of the app and it analyses the conversation and presents a short explanation, as well as suggesting possible follow up questions or segways to get away from the dreadful conversation.

Our Dream News Service

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:30:00 +0100

The topic of our last AfterWorkShop was how we could improve the way we consume news and current affairs. But we ended up with three ideas on how we could become more knowledgeable. Or more well rounded as we like to call it. Here’s the idea which was most related to news, the other two will follow.

Deep into the matter

Many of the news stories we read every day are linked together. For example the same historic conflict – like everything that happens in the Middle East. But understanding deep rooted conflicts and seeing how current events relate isn’t done in a quick read. We wish there was a service that would focus on helping us understand the news, not just letting us know it happened.

So here’s our wish list:

A newsroom of talented editors who handpick the three most important news stories of the past week.
Experts on different subjects are also included in the editorial staff
Together with journalists and producers etc they put each news story into context. This job would be quite extensive in the beginning, but would naturally decrease as the historic foundation is laid.
The material should be possible to consume in several different ways, and the best relevant imagery and listening options should be included.
The main goal is to educate and inform, but we feel opening for crowd sourcing will add an interesting real time aspect.

This news service should give you the choice between different levels of engagement.

Bite size information
The “Cliffs Notes version”
Timeline

Sometimes you just have time for the headline avec, so you should get that. If you have more time and the story interests you (which it will because the copy will be awesome), then you can expand to the “Cliffs notes version”. Here you will get more information on the current event and how it relates to other recent events and history. With relevant imagery like infographics, photos, video and links to other sources. There’s also an audio option so you can listen to it on the go.

Lastly there’s the timeline view. This is the most in depth version of the news story. You start out with the current event and can scroll backwards through time, or let the audio guide you. As you listen the timeline will move and bring up other relevant articles, videos etc. that you can check out while listening (or put on hold if you wish).

As mentioned earlier we think crowdsourcing should included at some point. Users could link to related news stories and articles, comment on specific parts of the text, save notes, there could be a section for real time twitter updates from the area in question, a discussion area etc etc. All reviewed and moderated by the skilled editorial staff. The way this is included should be clutter free and optional. Kind of like Kindle notes.

In addition this service can be expanded by introducing different topics, so that you can get weekly in depth updates on the subjects you’d like to follow. Like politics, war/conflict, environment, science, technology, art, music …

What do you think? What do you think is missing from the news services of today?

Thoughts on GMOs

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:25:00 +0100

Last week (Jan. 22) at AfterWorkShop we talked about genetically modified crops. None of us have any expertise in this area, so all our background information is from articles we’ve found online. It all started with an article by Mark Lynas and we got thinking about why we were skeptical to GMOs. So this summary is about why we still are skeptical to GMOs after talking it through. Though the technology is amazing, and we definitely support more research and experimentation, we’re not as convinced as Mark Lynas is that GMOs can save the world.

We can’t trust big corporations to take care of our safety. Corporations don’t have a conscience, their goal is to make more profit.

It’s ok to be a guinea pig if we make that choice our self and know what the consequences are. It’s ok if it’s for a good cause, like eliminating world hunger. But it’s not ok if it’s because someone wants to make a profit. The point is, people should be allowed to make that choice themselves.

Patent rules. How can it be legal to hinder independent research on food?

Hanna H. Bjørgaas is on exchange in Brazil from The Centre for Biosafety in Norway, she writes (our translation): “According to the rules, buyers must enter into a separate agreement that prohibits the use of the material for research, among other things. It’s possible to apply for permission to conduct research on genetically modified material, but the process is long and complicated. If the research results are negative, the permit may be revoked, and the company will avoid any negative PR, as well as skeptical politicians and consumers.”

Cash crops. Monocultures.

We need to grow more food. In the US, corn is abundant. GMO corn gives high yields. It’s subsidized. It’s what you have to grow to make money if you’re a farmer. Corn is in everything. Shelves and shelves of cereal, and nothing but corn. There’s no sugar in Coke anymore, it’s corn syrup. With so much corn, you have to use it. In the US even cows and salmon eat corn. Cows are supposed to eat grass. Eating corn fucks up their stomach and makes it more like ours. Which means bacteria that our stomach acid usually kills won’t be killed because they’ve become resistant. So farmers give their cattle antibiotics just to be sure. Which means that even if we all suffer through bacterial infections without antibiotics, it won’t help stop the development of multi-resistant bacteria. Because GMO corn is so prolific and it’s profitable to make cattle eat it.

Roundup Ready.

So Monsanto genetically engineered crops to be resistant to their own herbicide. Which is pretty creepy. But that’s what happens when corporations looking for profit is in charge of the development.

What if we could focus on developing crops that would need less fertilizer or which won’t need pesticides? Or crops that could withstand drought, flooding or frost? Or use salt water? Or crops that could give something back to the soil? That would be worth trying.

We don’t know the consequences.

Scientists used to think that little snippets of DNA couldn’t be taken up by other organisms. But now we know they can. What else don’t we know? We could conduct thorough tests of GMOs and conclude that they are more or less definitely safe, but what happens when one GMO meets another in our stomach? Something unexpected could happen.

And that’s our main issue, we can’t know what the consequences will be on our health, the environment, the soil … So let’s be cautious, but not afraid.

Today we talked about how we can change the way we consume news and current affairs. We want to continue to talk about this topic next week at AfterWorkShop. Welcome!

Greenpeace at AfterWorkShop

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:13:38 +0100

At AfterWorkShop 15.01.13 we met up with Greenpeace and people from Startup Weekend Norway to warm up for Fundlab 2013 – Startup Greenpeace which will be held this weekend at 657 in Oslo. Mainly we talked about ideas around getting more members and volunteers, as well as different ways of getting funding and involving people in Greenpeace’s different causes and missions. It was a really interesting session with quite a lot of good ideas and thoughts around environmental engagement.

If you feel like it, you should definitely join in this weekend and share your ideas, knowledge and skills and help Greenpeace save the world :)

Ps. Designers are especially wanted

"Know thyself" – putting personal data into context

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:20:08 +0100

The topic of the first AfterWorkShop in 2013 was about how we can use the data we collect to make sense of our life and how we can make it better.

Everyday we create tons of data. All your emails, your web browsing, your runs, your food intake, your bank accounts, your search queries, your social interactions, your whereabout … Most of it useless and just data to us humans, but some of it might hold the key to your behaviors, help you optimize your life and change for the better. But right now all this data is scattered around in different places, it’s cumbersome to make sense of it all and even harder to see the correlating data, finding the hidden truths. That’s what we need help with; finding different data that influence each other. For example that your feeling less happy after browsing Facebook for an hour, or if you drink more water you become more active and walk more because you have to go to the loo more often, or that 80% of the time you have slept bad you also ate a avocado before you went to bed.

If we can get all this data into one system, an algorithm which processes and analyzes your data, we hold the power of massive knowledge; and a new era of self help could emerge, self help tailored to you, based on your behaviors and doings.

How could a system like this work? Let’s see …

First you set up your goals, what do you want to achieve? Eg. weight loss, strength, better sleep, healthier diet, time efficiency, career boost, economical growth … After identifying your goals you set up the data sources. The more data sources you add, the more relevant help you get. Examples of data sources:

Google search history
Browser history
Physical activity, e.g. Nike+, Fitbit and such
Body weight, BMI etc
Habits. e.g. Lift
Sleep patterns from Zeo sleep manager, Fitbit or similar
Notes from Evernote
Social life, Facebook checkins, Foursquare, Meetup and similar
To-do lists
Weather services like Yr.no
Your calendar
Your mailbox
Mood trackers
And so forth

So when your system has all this data about you it starts to process the data and learn more about your behaviors, vices and virtues. It looks at hidden combinations and patterns. The power of your system is fed by the data; data becomes knowledge. Okay, so let’s take a look at how this knowledge can be communicated and help out in your daily life.

Your productivity at work starts to decline, it’s been quite some time since you’ve checked of any to-dos, written in Word or used any of your usual work related applications. As a matter of fact, the last half hour you’ve been switching between Facebook, Twitter, The Atlantic and some other random websites. There’s also some other interesting facts, you actually had a quite productive hour before this, but you didn’t drink any water and you been seated the whole time. For the last one and a half hour you’ve been pretty inactive and you’re starting to get slightly dehydrated. Your system knows that your productivity is declining, but it also has a solution; if you get up and take a walk there’s a 79% chance that you will check your to-do list and get back to work. If you also drink some water the chance of you being productive again will be raised to 88%, eating an apple makes you more energized and adds 4pp to the equation. So the system nudges you and tells you to go get some water and a little fruit snack. When you get back to you’r desk there’s a 92% chance that you stop procrastinating and start working on that important task.

You’re on your way home after a productive and satisfying day at work, and since you’ve hit the gym in the morning, the system knows that you tend to feel on top and that you deserve a reward. Usually you get tempted by the not so healthy kebab when you walk past your local kebab pusher, so your system helps you out by suggesting you order some sushi to pick up on the way home instead, even before the kebab has crossed your mind.

After a long day, your optimal bedtime is approaching. Your system starts to prepare you for bed by gradually dimming the lights in your apartment as well suggesting that you should drink a cup of chamomile tea, which has a slight effect on your sleeping pattern. Lately you’ve been waking up in the middle of the night due to hunger, so the system also suggests you to eat a small portion of yoghurt with flaxseed oil. Finally you’re ready for bed and hopefully a good nights sleep. After 7 hours and 15 minutes, your optimal sleeping time, your system turns the light gradually on, waking you comfortably.

So your system connects the dots and advices you in your daily life, giving you hints on what to do to perform better and feel better, as well as automating and refining your environment to better suit your needs.

Data speaks, but what matters is contextual data, how the data affects other data and how we can change it, change it for the better.

Of course there are negative sides to collecting so much data and putting it into context, but we choose to look on the bright side of things!

Stay tuned for our next post on the session we had with Greenpeace today.

AfterWorkShop 2013

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:39:17 +0100

Tuesday, Jan 8th, AfterWorkShop is back up again!

We’ve had a little evaluation and we’re tweeking things a bit. First of all we noticed that more people want to discuss stuff than actually work on their projects, so we will focus more on that. So in a way we’re going back to the original Refinement Club set-up with a topic/challenge every time, except that now anyone can join! Of course you can still come and work on your project. So this is our agenda from now on:

17.00-20.30: Join the discussion on today’s topic or work on your own project
20.30-22.00: Open session where everybody can share ideas, give and get feedback on projects or challenges.

Due to the pre-Christmas-deadline-madness for all parties involved we had to cancel the last event. But we’re still interested in the topic, so that’s what we’re going to talk about next time. Here it is again:

The subject for this session is “Know thyself”.

How can we make use of all the data that we produce to put things in perspective and learn more about our self with the goal of optimizing our life.

Think about how much data we collect every day with the devices and services we use. Services like Nike+/Fuelband, Runkeeper, Fitbit, Aria, The Eatery, Lift, Zeo sleepmanager, Lumoback, Oh Life, Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google search/browser history, Evernote, to-do apps, your calendar, your inbox, the weather …

Would you like to join us? Sign up here.

Next week on AfterWorkShop

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:41:05 +0100

Since October 16th we’ve arranged AfterWorkShop every Tuesday at 657. We’re still working out what it’s should be, but our initial plan was to make an arena where people with dayjobs could bring their personal projects to work on with other engaged people. We’ve had a lot of different people come by and had some very interesting talks. We’re looking forward to what 2013 will bring!

But before that we have a couple of more sessions, and next time some of our new friends will arrange a sort of MassRefinement together with us.

They call themselves Brainstorming Oslo and they’re a group of friends who get together to brainstorm on different subjects. A lot like The Refinement Club, but with a slightly different goal and different methods.

The subject for this session is “Know thyself”.

How can we make use of all the data that we produce to put things in perspective and learn more about our self with the goal of optimizing our life.

Would you like to join us? It’s Tuesday Dec. 11th, 17.30 at 657.

Join Us At AfterWorkShop

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0200

So now it’s on. We have started a collaboration with the co-working space 657 Oslo to host AfterWorkShop. Last week we held our first AfterWorkShop and we’re hosting it every Tuesday.

AfterWorkShop is a place for people with day jobs, who also have their own projects that they work on at night. A place where you can work on your project, find motivation and routine, meet interesting people and give/get constructive feedback. We meet every Tuesday after work (17:00-22:00), and you are welcome.

Join us next week.

AfterWorkShop – An Update

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0200

AfterWorkShop has been on our minds for quite some time now, but now we feel and hope that we are getting closer to a launch date, hopefully around September. The process has been bumpy and we realized that we were complicating the whole project and decided to simplify it. We want to focus on the most important thing; getting together and work on cool projects, after clocking out at our day jobs.

So, AfterWorkShop will be a place where a diverse group of people get together and work on their own projects, once a week. It will be a place for mingling of ideas, feedback and most of all hard work. AfterWorkShop and the people working there will help you to commit and encourage you to finally execute your dream project. Basically AfterWorkShop will be a place to get things done, a office for your side project.

Currently we’re working on sorting out a place to host AfterWorkShop and gathering interesting people. Once we got a proper place to host AfterWorkShop we’re launching it. The sooner the better. We will keep you posted on the progress and if you have a project and want to work on it in a friendly and inspiring environment with interesting people, let us know.

For the time being we’re not planning any new MassRefinements in the near future, but if you have a challenge and a place to host it, we’re happy to arrange one! Just contact us on facebook or write us at post@therefinementclub.com.

MassRefinement 07: The Future of Learning

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Our last #MassRefinement was about The Future of Learning which became a very interesting workshop, and we could have talked about many different topics within this, but we decided to choose three different challenges to work with.

Challenge #1: How to solve distributed learning on a local scale?

Challenge #2: How to use global resources in local education?

Challenge #3: How do I document the knowledge I acquire outside of an institution?

Read about the results here.

This MassRefinement was in collaboration with Pop Up Hub Oslo. We haven’t set a date for the next MassRefinement yet, but if you’re interested – let us know by filling out this form.

MassRefinement 06: The Results 14.03.12

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

The MassRefinement on Social Currency was a great success, so check out the results here!

The last MassRefinement was hosted by Pop Up Hub Oslo, and since it was such a blast we will continue our collaboration. If you’d like to join us, sign up on the facebook event or send us an email to post@therefinementclub.com. Hope to see you there!