YESS relic

It was my friend who introduced me to the YESS cassettes. YESS cassettes were produced by a company in Bandung. The were two colors of the covers:  green and blue, the cassettes themselves were typically colored green (later white). The other unique feature is the logo. It looked like a combination of a plane and bird (later on I realized that it was stolen from the art of Roger Dean who was the artist who created my covers of YES albums). 

I always prioritized YESS cassettes over the other (pirated) products. Typically many producers issued a new album of an artist at the same time. Below I pasted the same album of YES produced by Aquarius and YESS. To me the one on the right looked better. 

  

(Notice that the cassette produced by YESS has another album about half of side B. Most pirated cassettes were C60 which has total 60 minutes duration from both sides about 20 minutes longer than LPs which have about 30-44 minutest total play duration consequently the producers had to fill these extra minutes by adding songs from other LP in the above we could see Chris Squire's album added to side B typically the added albums were from the same genre. Chris Squire was obviously the bassist of Yes and hence he would have sounded like YES. I typically listened to this part of cassettes to find out the next artists to listen to)

Back then there was a cassette store in Bandung that would allow us to exchange any cassettes bought there within 24 hours. I remember I exchanged Genesis' A Trick of A Tail album as it had a glitch on one of the songs. Looked like the original LP that they used was scratched 

 

One cassette that had typo was Dave Grusin album below. It was written live in Budukan - obviously the correct word was Budokan. Budukan itself means mangy. I was sure that it was a practical joke by the producer

I could not find YESS cassettes in the city where I spent my junior high school, Cirebon, however I could find those in Kuningan which is about 30 km from Cirebon. Kuningan is much smaller to Cirebon and yet one store had YESS cassettes there. I would bet that I was the only person who bought some of those. 

When pirated cassettes were banned in Indonesia YESS along with some others disappeared from the market. We could still buy them online or in some second hand market but of course we need to have tape player which also had disappeared too.  YESS cassettes are now relics of a past era. 

one month of blogging

I have completed my first blogging month in 2022. Learning from my 365 of days of  exercise as recorded on Strava last year I am convinced that If I putted my mind on something it could be done. I would like to celebrate my first milestone by reviewing my first month of blogging here. 

My first eight blogs were inspired by my running hobby. Those could be found on my wordpress site. I spoke about why ranking (on strava) doesn't matter to me,  how I am addicted to run, how do I see running spiritually, my habit of listening to podcasts as I run, my dad as my inspiration, my running shoes, my earphones, and lastly my experience joining a half marathon. 

Some blogs were inspired by books (Mother Teresa, a book the read when I was a kid), a film (Spiderman), experiences like joining a trekking, some news, a twit, memories (old Nokia phone), things that I saw (a cemetary, a city). I also wrote my memories about Bands that I listened during my teen years (Deep Purple, Van Halen, The Beatles)

I have accomplished but 1/12th of my goal - I need still to write some 330 blogs in the coming months. To be honest I am sure I could come up with some entries (more Bands to write, I listen to podcast daily so I might steal some ideas there, I am picking up books again hoping to have some ideas, etc) - I am sure that on some days I might struggle to find ideas but one thing is certain that no matter what I am committed to accomplish this 365 days blogging challenge this year. 

 

Count your blessings !

Count your blessings ! I quoted this sentence from a web that I googled today. To count your blessings is to focus on all the good in your life. While we all have troubles, if we stopped and did a count our blessings should outweigh our troubles.

It is unwise to compare our life with the life of others but from time to time seeing other people troubles would allow us a chance to ponder about our own life. Oftentimes our trouble is miniscule in comparison to others. 

My first reaction of seeing other's troubles would be admiration. They must be so strong to carry to weights day in and day out. Secondly how grateful am I to be spared of all those heavy burdens. Thirdly I sympathize those people who have such challenges in their life. 

I always remember Voltaire when I am reminded about the different life situations of each of us

 “Each players must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she must alone decide how to play the cards in order to win the game” — Voltaire

Van Halen was my name

After listening to Van Halen's 'Fair Warning' (not from Aquarius this time, too bad forgot already the producer of the pirated cassettes) I fell in love so much to the band that I add Van Halen to my name (written LOOQQAZT VAN HALEN)

The sound of Eddy's guitar was the perfect sound that I thought a rock band should be.  When David Lee Roth screamed his voice turned into some unique howling that was fantastic to my ears. I often day dreaming listening to the cassette when I got bored or distracted during class. My most favorite song was 'Unchained' 

As usual I hunted the other album of Van Halen. The one available one at that time was 'Women and Children First'. I did not know that Van Halen had two previous albums: Van Halen and Van Halen II. Of course 'Van Halen' has the phenomenal 'Eruption' which I listened much later 

The next album that I had was Diver Down.  I thought 'Hang 'Em High' was the highlight of the album. I had this album when I was in high school. At that time Van Halen was still obscure. Compilation (like 'The Best of" was not available yet). However I managed to find a poster of Van Halen (of course pirated). I proudly pasted it in my room

When 'Jump' was released I hated that now everyone knew Van Halen. Eddy's keyboard was catchy but to be honest I hated him for not solely playing guitar. Jump was released as part of 1984  album. It has one track that to me was still sound pure Van Halen 'Hot for teacher'  

The next Van Halen album, 5150, was a real surprise. Sammy Hagar replaced David Lee Roth and Eddy played more keyboard. Now Van Halen was really departing their original path but it was a success. To quote Wikipedia: The album hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, surpassing the band's previous album, 1984. 5150 has more love songs and ballads. Van Halen turned pop. 

I did not buy or listen the next Van Halen albums. If anything I just watched them on MTV specially the album  For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge which was released in 1991. I was in the US at that time studying for my Master's Degree. I thought Right Now was the highlight of that album. The song was no original Van Halen but the piano sounded cool. Before I left the US I bought an original T shirt of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge as gift for my brother. 

Van Halen issued three more albums after that. I listened to none. I was amazed when Gary Cherone took over vocal duties from Sammy. I thought Eddy and Alex were completely mad. But of course I would not careless as to me the real Van Halen was the original line up without any keyboard sound. 

I listened nostalgically when David Lee Roth rejoined the band for their last album A Different Kind of Truth. It still did not sound like the Van Halen that I knew. Lately I learned that Michael Anthony the original bassist was not part of the band anymore.

When Eddy passed away I thought one milestone of my youth has gone too. Van Halen was my name. The Van Halen of the old era where Eddy's guitar sounded angry and rocky. I felt betrayed when he played keyboard or played love songs. I was lost completely amid newer albums. But still Eddy was my childhood hero.  

Queen were the champions

My first queen cassette was the compilation produced by (again) Aquarius. Wearing Flash T shirt Mercury jumped so high that I thought some kind of camera trick was applied. See below

May and Deacon must be more than 165 cm or so - hence Mercury would be more than 2 meter above the floor. Fantastic. The first song of the cassette was 'Love of My Life'. I tried to learn the chords but was stuck toward end, normally I just jumped to the end part:   

Love of my life

Love of my life

Ooh, ooh

When this cassette was released a pirated VHS tape titled "Rock Convert" was circulated. It had videos of Queen performing live. I remember when Mercury sang 'we will rock you' he was piggy backed by a guy wearing superman costume. Apparently it was shot in 1979-1980 during 'The Game' tour. Hence the queen crazed started.

My next Queen cassette was 'The Game'. My band mate wanted us to play 'Need Your Loving Tonight'. The other song that I would not miss was of course 'Crazy Thing Called Love'. I quickly found what the chords are and later I played the song with my Uni mates (1985-1990). 

I hunted all the old albums produced by Aquarius and Monalisa. I love all albums expect for the earlier albums (Queen I and Queen II). Later Aquarius issued the second best compilation of Queen. It contained 'Under Pressure' performed by Queen and David Bowie.

The other song that I remember in this cassette is 'You Take My Breath Away'. I learned the chords. It was easier to play the song on piano rather than guitar. In fact I am sure I didn't learn the chords using a guitar, even though I did not have a piano/keyboard until much later.

I watched Flash Gordon mostly because the sound track was produced by Queen. The movie was pretty cheesy but I still loved the sound tracks. Songs that I loved from the album are: Football fight, Battle Theme, The Wedding March and Flash's Theme Reprise (Victory Celebrations). 

I stopped listening to new Queen materials after listening to 'Hot Space'. It has two songs that were parts of Aquarius The Best 2 above: Under Pressure and 'Life is Real (Song for Lennon)' but the rest are -to me- did not sound like Queen that I knew (choir, rocking riff, etc). To quote Wikipedia ' a notable shoft in direction from their earlier work, the employed many elements of disco, funk, rhythm and blues, dance and pop music on the album'

I thought the only new Queen song that I loved was Radio Ga Ga. Nothing so Queen about it, but the song is catchy. 

When Queen (+ Adam Lambert) played live in Perth (August 2014) I watched them along with a bunch of friends. One of my friends brought Queen T shirts in Jakarta and we wore those to the show. Of course no one around us wore those. Buying T shirt sold during concert was costly - obviously much more to the ones my friend bought in Jakarta.  Of course Lambert is no Mercury and he didn't pretend to be one. But I was pretty satisfied watching (older) May and Taylor on stage

I watched Bohemian Rhapsody with a mixed emotions. Having read one bio book about Queen I did not think the movie was faithful enough to the real history of Queen but of course as entertainment the movie was pretty OK. 

Mercury was dead, Deacon is no longer public but long live Queen, they were one of the loves of my life.

  

with the beatles

I started to listen to The Beatles  pretty much when the pirating cassettes labels in Indonesia (in my case : Aquarius) reissuing their own compilation following the death of John Lennon in the 1980. My journey into Beatles catalogue pretty much followed what Aquarius issued.

I started with the pop-py songs like Hard Day's Night and later to more "serious" tunes like Strawberry field Forever. I was amazed by the range of their musical style. I had no access to any literature about The Beatles so I had to guess and appreciated little that I knew about them. 

Of course I learned how to finger pick their songs too. Aquarius included lyric and chords in the cassettes that really helped me. I also bought a special issue of song books and cassette from a (cassette pirating) company called AR. I am sure my guitar skill was much improved by learning Beatles songs.

I learned my first French lesson from The Beatles's Michelle.  

My Michelle

Michelle, ma belle

Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble

Tres bien ensemble

Many years later (around 1996) I learned that Paul said the word bien the way it is spoken by people from southern part of French. Of course back then I had no clue, it was all French to me

To me the coolest of George's melody was in the tune of 'till there was you. I didn't know that it was a cover version. I was not able to play it until I saw how it was done on YouTube. Listening to the original version would convince listeners how brilliant were the Beatles 

One puzzle that remained a mystery to me until the internet is around was which Beatle played solo on In the end. The solos begin approximately 53 seconds into the song. It turned out that all the three guitarists. McCartney, George Harrison and Lennon perform a rotating sequence of three, two-bar guitar solos. What a fantastic solos they all did. In fact in this song we have the only Starr drum solo even though he disliked solos.

In the end is also special as it ends with a deep cosmic philosophical line

And in the end

The love you take

Is equal to the love you make

our timeline mystery

When I was around 13-15 years old I had friends who influenced me to be fascinated with slapping bass tunes. To us those slapping bass were madness. It is just crazy to play bass in such manner. Try not to tap your feet listening to this song Can't Get Enough from Jeff Lorber Fusion (around minute 1 or so). At that time I could not imagine how one such bass sound. I guess the player must pulling the string or something (check out this video for a quick tutorial). Anyhow my friends and I were busy hunting for that crazy sound by listening to radio and cassettes. I guess if Internet was around by that time we would have easier hunting time

I guess I would listen to different music genre had I was raised in different place. It so happen that I stumbled to group of friends who love such music despite living not in the capital of the province. Of course there is no way for me to find out the alternative universe where I did not meet those friends. 

I am not saying that being crazy about bass slapping was a fundamental part of my identity or something like that. I am just pondering that somehow my line of lifetime crossed over those friends and it colored my childhood and in a way some of my personality. 

Life is a mystery in a sense that what happened to our life is affected by whom we met and it would be impossible to reconstruct each detail of our past. Why did our parent move to that city at that time so that we would met these friends etc. 

In many sci-fi movies it is common to hear that if we changed something in the past - even a small detail of it - then the future as we knew would not happen as life would take a different path of  trajectory. Of course there is no way for those future people to understand that past had been altered. Only those time traveler would have known that a different future had been assembled by changing the past. 

Not sure if time travel would ever be possible. For all we know this is the only timeline that we have and that is not a mystery.

Burning Riff

My first hard rock album was Deep Purple's Made in Europe. I was about 13-14 years old and it was a pirated cassette which was freely (legally?)  distributed in Indonesia. The price was IDR 1000 or about USD 50 cents. I remember I was amazed seeing the drum kit shown on the cover of the album. I was in a band at that time. Our church has a set of musical equipment (including a sax which no one know to play it). I played keyboard. Our drum kit is an ordinary one. Nothing compared to Ian Paice's kit.

I love all the songs in the album but my favorite song was Burn. I thought the riff was fantastic. I did not know this 'riff' term at that time but  to me the sound was fantastic. It was imprinted rather deeply in my head that I was using it as the standard for other hard rock song. I would be disappointed not hearing that sound in any hard rock song. I would not think that a song deserves to be called hard rock without that riff.

At that time I was learning to play guitar. To my delight I was able to mimic that riff rather easily. To be honest I did not expect that. I did not know the term 'power chord' at that time but I observe that the riff was based on two notes of the chords progression. I quickly realized that this two notes appeared very frequently in many hard rock songs. 

Have listened to this album I wanted to hear more Deep Purple's songs. I adored Ritchie Blackmore guitar playing. I thought he was my first guitar god. Soon I discovered that David Coverdale was not Deep Purple only singer. There was another singer called Ian Gillan. Later I found in another cassette Gillan singing the life version of Lazy Gillan scream was great. I think both singers were great in their own ways. I would not think Deep Purple would be who they were if they only had one singer.

In the 80s I met some of my elementary school mates in a church youth gathering. We had a chance to play Deep Purple song called Black Night on stage. The song has great bassline and I really loved it as I played bass at that time. We did not rehearse before the show. But all of us knew the song so well that I remember the gig went OK.

I listened to many bands later on but Deep Purple had built the foundation of my love of hard rock. 

 

The superpower you would not want to have

A podcast suggests that the super power that you would not want to have is the ability to listen what people were thinking. Why so ? Because people might look supportive, all smiling, all encouraging but in their heads that might wishing all the bad things happen to us. 

I would be heart crushing if your friends are not really what you think they are. That all the friendships are all fake. Yes same fake friends could easily be identified, but some might not. Or what if our spouse is thinking something contrary what we would expect ?

Many books covers the art of reading body language, the authorities might use lie detector to check people's confession. But I guess to some extent there are things that buried so deep only we would know. Psychology might even suggest that we might some aspects that we ourselves do not even aware about.

If God were omniscience then I would bet that He would be disappointed or even disgusted to hear our prayers as He would know what we really think deep inside. We might praise Him in front of public etc. but of  course there is no way to hide from Him. Yet we believe that God do love us no matter what we do/think. Such would not sit well with people. If we had such superpower we would certainly react, make judgement, take action etc. Of course our limited sight made us taking wrong action as we would not now the total consequences of our actions. 

Guess such superpower would be better off to be left with God 

  

it is easy to marry the one you love

During the wedding mass of my niece the Priest said that it would be easy to marry the one you love but it ain't easy to love the one you marry. What a clever play of words. Obviously when one marries one's lover the world was filled with honey and roses  and the birds were singing and the sky was blue. Love was in the air. But after a while it takes commitment to love this person day in day out. With time we know that he/she is not perfect, has quirks, limited, etc. So loving this person that we marry is a different thing.

We all knew that after a while the honey moon - all honey moon- would be over. Now the real challenge arrived. Now the vows have to really mean something. Not mere words that we uttered when we were intoxicated by romantic love.

Having been married for more than a quarter of century I know that in time our love and commitment would have to be matured. Life would throw many things to couples and they would have to deal with those and depending on how they deal with those eventually their love and commitment would also be matured and would strengthen their bond as husband and wife. 

So yes, to love the one you married is not easy but working as a team husband and wife would grow together. Their commitment to be a couple would give the strength needed to sail together and deal with what life throw at them. 

death do us part

In this country there is no "mixed" cemetary. Typically people of different religions are not buried in the same place/area.. For sure death people are not buried next to each other. Husband and wife of different religion would not buried next to each other. Hence in that case death do them part. 

I could not understand the logic behind this custom. Of course there would be a good explanation somewhere but still the logic would sound strange to me. Why do we have to separate dead people based on their religion ? They are no longer living so it doesn't really mater for them. 

Looks like the living care so much about this separation. Why so ? One explanation that came to my mind is that cemetary could be seen as place of worship. Or at least place where God exists. In our place of worship God would present and for sure the faithful would be convinced that this God is THE GOD that they believe, worship and pray to. Other God -if exist- is not invited or even would be driven away. 

Following this logic would be understandable that the living would want to have THEIR GOD to be present in their cemetary for the reason that they want to have the dead be accepted by their God to be ushered to their heaven. It would horrified if the dead met the wrong God on the other side and were judged wrongly and went to hell simply by mistaken ruling. One might wonder if such Omniscience God would make such fundamental error judgement simply by forgetting to check the religion of the soul.  

I guess such argument wouldn't be applicable for the cemetary of Atheists.  

Memento Mori

This morning five people died and numerous injured in a deadly traffic accident when a lorry ran over six cars and ten motor cyclers. No one of them woken up knowing that today would their last day on earth. All life has its end and yet no one would not a minute thinking that today might be the day. 

The philosopher Democritus trained himself by going into solitude and frequenting tombs. Indeed visiting cemeteries would  remind me of the inevitability of death. Someday I would not exist in this earth and eventually people who knew me would also perished and hence my existence would ceased completely if not for some obscure record somewhere which no one would even bother to find out.

Strange that such importance escapes our attention almost completely. We live as if  we are immortal. In Catholicism people would mention their dead when reciting Hail Mary prayer  

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

In the spirit of Memento Mori, I try to always recite that part slowly and mindfully. I pray that Mother Mary would remember me always, now and at that hour

Amen

 

  

The shifting 'soul' of a city

Recently I went to the place where my junior high school was. The city looks different. The house that my parents rented is now a Bank. On the street where we lived there are many restaurants, stores, etc (there were none back then). The city has a new big shiny malls. However this new mall sucks out the life out of the stores in downtown area. The downtown is now look like ghost town. Old and rusty. The streets are cleanly sweep daily but it has lost its vigor. As if the city has one soul only. That soul now resides on this new mall at the (then) edge of the city.

Looks like this shifting 'soul' is not unique to this city. In the city that I am living now, the capital of province, the old downtown is also relegated to dusty old place, not even able to shadow its long gone glory. Newer generations or new comers wouldn't be able to guess that this place used to be the main magnet of the city.

Not sure if the 'soul' of the city would remain in this new centrum, only time could tell if a new centrum would emerge. I might not be around to see that, but at least I have seen in my life time the old magnet dimmed to be replaced by a new one. I guess I wouldn't be far off to guess that in the future a new magnet would pop up elsewhere. 

The cliché that change is the only constant is really a cliché, nihil novi sub sole, there is nothing new under the sun. Generation come and go, new centrum rises and abandoned. Only the sun would witness this silently until it too had to go. By that time this place would be very cold drifting aimlessly through space. 

 

The 8th wonder

It is said that Einstein once said “Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world” It implies that your money would always grow more - ad infinitum. Now this quote does not say anything about the not haves. What would happen to the not haves when the haves getting richer?  Is the size of the pie limited ? 

The pandemic has made the world's wealthiest far richer but has led to more people living in poverty, according to the charity Oxfam. 

The above news implies that the size of the pie is limited. Hence the more some get, the poorer others would become. This reminds me of the social critics of Rhoma Irama, the Indonesian King of Dang Dut in his song 'Indonesia'  

Yang kaya makin kaya (The rich gets richer)

Yang miskin makin miskin (the poor gets poorer)

Rhoma sang that the root of this economical gap is corruption 

Selama korupsi semakin menjadi-jadi (as long as corruption is rampant) 

Jangan diharapkan adanya pemerataan (do not expect for economic equality) 

I guess no one would deny the impact of corruption to the problem of wealth distribution in one country. But is it applicable in global scale? I am no economist but I sensed that the economic system is could have some loopholes and flaw that would eventually support this inequality. 

It is possible that the rich people have found loopholes in the tax regime so that they did not pay enough. etc. In any case I sensed that the pie is limited and the recent pandemic has made the slices for the poor people got smaller and smaller. And once the money was redistributed to the rich  it would what Einstein once said : the 8th wonder of the world 

 

Silence of Straw

Somehow I would like to reduce my social radius to minimum, the smallest reasonable that is possible. Looking back in time when I was in my University years I was actively involved in many organizations, mostly related to Catholicism. In my campus and my local church. I was convinced that it was my calling to contribute to Catholic communities where ever I was. 

When I moved to another city due to job, my wife (who shares the same passion) and I were active in our church. When maintained the same passion even when we moved to other countries. However after my 55th birthday last year I see things differently. I want to lead a simple quiet life. I am sure the Catholic church would still be there, just like it has always been whether I am involved or not. Suddenly I see those activism as meaningless noise. 

Looking to the rearview mirror I could see that there was nothing I changed in the church. No one pray more because of me. No one have deeper faith, no one converted to Catholicism. Nothing. I was only noise. And no more

I remember I inherit this passion from my Mom. My Mom and My Dad were very active in church (my Dad was converted later from Protestantism). They both had passed away many years ago (My Mom 2014, Dad 2001). I doubt that I lost this passion because of the passing of my parents. 

I do not think I could explain this change of heart. Of anything the experience of St Thomas Aquinas when we famously said mihi videtur ut palea. All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me

I am no Aquinas, but I see all my activism like straw

Our imperfectness

I followed this person on twitter - he is a doctor living in US. His tweets are informative and I refer to  his postings for Covid related information (Some of his tweets are in Indonesian. He claimed that he does not speak Bahasa Indonesia at all). I am not sure how to react to this tweet. Is he a hypocrite or a mere imperfect person ?    

I would say he is imperfect. See above. He used his mistake to re-emphasize the thing that he preached: Masks work! We could also see that we human could just lower our discipline when we are among family or people that we assumed are safe. But of course we could never tell

 

Alas he took this opportunity to underline his credential. I would see that this thread as example for all of us. Fall down seven times, stand up eight. From spiritual point of view as Christian we could see the lesson of aiming for perfection. Yes we all made mistakes, weak and imperfect. But those are not reasons to give up. 

Keep walking on. If you fell, stand up and walk on

The best story ever

When I was in my elementary school one of my favorite past times was reading stories. Gramedia the leading publisher had this story books series called "Cerita dari Lima Benua" (stories from five continents). I love many reading many of those but to me the best ever is Leo Tolstoy'  What Men Live By. Gramedia titled the book as "Simon dan Malaikat" (Simon and an angel). I have been searching for this book but no luck. When I knew that in fact the story was written by Tolstoy and I could find it online I could not tell how happy I was

To me Tolstoy wrote to confess his philosophical/religious view about God and humanity. I was no older than twelve when I first read the story but it had made a deep impression to my childhood brain. I was not sure why Gramedia has picked that title (Simon dan Malaikat) which to me did not give any clue what the story all about. I remember the cover depicted Simon (wearing ushanka, that unique Russian hat) and the pale angel lying naked with half his body covered with snow.

I remember I was also fascinated by the illustration (I think those drawings were by Dwi Koen). I am sure one of the reasons why I love this book was the illustrations. I adored Dwi Koen's drawing.  Anyway when I finished I experienced that moment of awe, similar when the singer mesmerized the audience to complete silence. 

Tolstoy was a genius

PS: I would want to spoiled the reader by hinting the plot of the story here. I would not want to steal that awe moment from you  

When Nokia was King

I remember the time when Nokia was king. I needed to learn the skill of typing SMS. How to type words using those 12 keyboards. The screen was monochrome and drawings made out of ASCII characters were awesome. Those Nokia are bulky, hot and cumbersome. But of course it was a dawn. We could make phone call anywhere. We were no longer tied by cables

When Blackberry offered QWERTY keyboard the end of NOKIA time had arrived. Now people could type text just like typing using the typewriter or computer keyboard. For business people Blackberry offers the ability to access their emails, anytime and anywhere. During the 911 attack all providers were blacked out but blackberry.

When Blackberry ignored the touchscreen technology of Iphone and Android it was their time to extinct. Blackberry insisted that their physical QWERTY would never persuaded people to migrate to the competitor. Of course they were completely fooling themselves. They could have still able to pocket some money were they not too proud to license the famous BBM to their competitors. Whatsapp was sold for $16 billion. But of course they were too proud to do such

Looking back it would be easy to see why consumer moved from one technology to another one. But of course from Nokia or Blackberry the future is where the gambles were. Blackberry were so stubborn to ignore the touchscreen completely. Nokia did not see that QWERTY was their Achilles heel. 

There other thing that I learned experiencing these changes of era is that the future is non linear. If you asked me what would people be using in 20 years time I might imagine smaller phone (like those Star Trek badges). But I would bet that I would be completely wrong. The future is hard to predict. Just ask those smart people in Nokia or Blackberry