Maya's Blog

This was my first attempt at moving objects with the Emotive Epoc EEG Headset…

Take 2 wasn’t very pretty.

And here’s Tan Le, head of Emotiv Systems, demoing the headset at the TED Global 2010 conference in Oxford.

I’m lying in bed on my stomach, in my old apt in Tel Aviv, when suddenly I get this weird feeling that something isn’t right. I can’t feel the entire front side of my body touching the bed! I realize that I’m slowly staring to hover above the bed. First just an inch, and then it’s like the entire room is gravity free. I’m weightless and staring to freak-out a little. Then, I realize that I can will things to happen. Curiosity takes over and I start controlling my movements.

It’s like there were two me. One that was experiencing everything and another me who’s the observer of the whole scene. I notice that the beige Asian carpet I have, and my african art collection are also hovering close to the ceiling in the two corners of the room.

I make my way out of the bedroom to the window in the living room, pull myself out and I’m flying! But not in Tel Aviv anymore, in the country side. And I navigate my way between tree branches and as the trees get thicker, I can suddenly fly into the tree tops and go through it. And it is BY FAR the most euphoric feeling I ever had. Ever! Nothing comes remotely close. Not even flying a fighter jet (you can Google that) or pole dancing on a mirror topped bar (you had to be at my wedding for that).

The next thing, I find myself back in my room and it blows my mind that I just fucking flew into trees. I pick up the phone right from where I left it when I went to bed, and I call Noam my (now) husband to tell him. Instead of hearing his voice I get his picture on the phone screen. I try again and the damn thing doesn’t make the call – it just keeps showing different images of Noam. I get so frustrated trying to dial again and again and I can feel as the blood rushes to my head and then, snap! I wake up! on my stomach, in my old apt in Tel Aviv.

They say that in lucid dreaming, when something happens that is too unrealistic, too against any common sense, the conflict makes you snap out of the dream and wake up. So, flying is totally reasonable, but that the iphone doesn’t work, nah’ that just can’t be!!!

That was my first flying lucid dream, about 6 months ago. I am now working on making calls in my dreams…

What are your dreams like?

About lessons learned in New Media Ent’ and much less.

March 24th, Industrial Engineering Building at 18:30 and the full info here: http://eclub.technion.ac.il/?p=1524

One of my favorites from TED Global 2009 + testing if HE translation works in embedded talks.

So I go to Better Place visitors center today, to meet with Inbal who does their marketing. Meeting was great, we discussed some very cool co-op that I’m excited about, I drove the electric car, got the grand tour, loved it and went on with my day to other meetings.

So far, so good.

Around 4pm I make my way back home to the marina in Herzeliya. I’m in zomet hakfar hayarok, on the phone, the light already turned green, when an Indian guy comes running to me, middle of the junction, with suitcases and malle’ paklaoot and puts a sign to my window that says “can you take me to better place?”. I open the window of my rental to ask if he means the visitors center and people behind me already beep cause I’m blocking traffic so I let him in the passenger seat with all his stuff and my car now looks like an Indian bus from the movies.

[Thought: my description of the bus reminds me of the awful campaign to re-brand Israel running in the local media these days - the one with the camels.]

On the way to drop him off in glilot gas station (where he can grab a taxi – traffic was crazy and I was heading the other way…) he tells me this whole story of how he’s been studying the company for more than a year, that it’s his dream, that he’s an MBA student from Bangalore or something, and yada yada…

Inbal gave me this info postcard of the center so I give the place a call to say there’s an Indian guy with suitcases on the way and I give the postcard to him. End of story.

Then it hits me! Isn’t that the weirdest shit ever??? Think of it, in any other context, an Indian guy, running to your car with suitcases, asking you to take him to a better place, would sound totally whack and most people wouldn’t let him in. Most people probably didn’t. Let’s assume, with the PR they’ve been getting lately, and the vicinity, that more people now know what Better Place is. But the visitors center only opened a week ago. Yesterday, I too had no idea where the place was and it was totally out of my focus. But today, of all days, when I’m open to ‘Better Place experiences’ – with the visit and all, this guy who just landed from  India ‘falls’ on my car, like the coke bottle from ‘kulam naflu al harosh’, so that I can take him to Better Place and give the center a call to ‘soften’ his pop visit.

Coincidence? As I said here before, I DON’T THINK SO!

The visit by the way, was very impressive. You should go there even if it’s just for the lesson in marketing. It’s like nothing we know here in Israel. The ride was, well, just like any other vehicle only very silent and smooth. And it’s overall a very cool car. When we pulled back in I said, “WOW, this is the future!” and Raanan, an obviously highly trained “switcher” (which is the Better Place word for the guy that takes you on the test drive) replied: “No, it’s the present”.

Am I switched? Yes.

And as for my Indian friend, well… we exchanged cards, and I hope he does well. Actually, I have no doubt he will.

And following are some pics I took of the visit today, and Shai Agassi’s talk about Better Place at TED2009 – because like any marketer, I can’t pass on an opportunity to embed a TEDTalk in context…

and promise to share more as we come up for air…

The full and most updated information about the event can always be found in the TEDxTelAviv official website. You can also follow TEDxTelAviv updates via RSS or Twitter (if you tweet, please use #TEDxTelAviv).

I normally wouldn’t, but I recently became 30 and I could relate. This is one of those things you can’t be reminded of enough, and at some point you start enjoying it as if it was the first time you heard it…

George Carlin’s Views on Aging when he was 102:

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m four and a half!’ You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m gonna be 16!’ You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life … . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re Just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You GET INTO your 80′s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn’t end there Into the 90s, you start going backwards; ‘I JUST WAS 92.’

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. ‘I’m 100 and a half!’

Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay ‘them’.

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!