Sun - August 3, 2008
SUNDAY MORNING REALITY CHECK
for anyone with a cell phone.
University of Pittsburgh nuclear physics professor
Eric Swanson provides an entertaining, absolutely required bit of reading in this morning's
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Professor Swanson lays out in simple, rational
detail why it's virtually impossible for cell phone use to cause cancer -- I
would repeat his perfect summational metaphor here, but I don't want to spoil
the fun of discovering it in context -- and, along the way, delivers a
first-rate primer on why you should distrust, or at least always be critical of,
much of the hysteria that these days passes for
news.
Professor Swanson's common sense strikes an especially resonant chord in my Sunday-Forum-reading heart, reminding me as it does of a couple of other let's not panic pieces I've enjoyed there in the past. And I imagine that, just as we survived Y2K, and just as we have yet to succumb to the Bird Flu, we'll manage to keep on keeping on no matter how many times we all talk on our cell phones.
(Though we may have a few more broken bones to show for it...)
Professor Swanson's common sense strikes an especially resonant chord in my Sunday-Forum-reading heart, reminding me as it does of a couple of other let's not panic pieces I've enjoyed there in the past. And I imagine that, just as we survived Y2K, and just as we have yet to succumb to the Bird Flu, we'll manage to keep on keeping on no matter how many times we all talk on our cell phones.
(Though we may have a few more broken bones to show for it...)
Posted at 11:01 AM
Tue - June 10, 2008
THE WINDOWS
the inveterate, and the slide show
shuffle.
Three years ago, after standing through a
not-nearly-as-insufferable-as-it-seemed fifth grade promotion ceremony, I described how a presumably lovely
end-of-the-year-and-end-of-an-era slide show fell victim to a drab little Dell
laptop and the even drabber operating system that ran upon it. Six adults, one
toddler, all the king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't get those photos
back together again, and what was supposed to be the emotional finale of the
morning went right out the open, frozen Windows.
This morning, after sitting through almost all of a yet another insufferable, hopelessly long, still sort of sweet eighth grade promotion ceremony -- and we all know how I feel about promotion ceremonies -- it was deja vu, and blue screen of death, all over again.
As the kids from Frick ISA -- what a wonderful, close-knit community they are; more on them, their excellent principle, and the damage that may be done to their school by all this Schenley High silliness later in the week -- took the stage to receive their promotion certificates, every young man and woman got a name call, a series of handshakes, and a photo of him(-or-her-)self projected on a pair of big screens facing the audience. The photos, all taken late in the school year, were great: loose and fun, engaging and natural, kind of like yearbook candids crossed with Saturday Night Live cast shots. They nicely captured the kids' personalities, and they gave each student a moment to bask in the abundant adoration of her (or his) classmates. So it's a particular shame that nearly half the students never got to see their photos.
Instead, they got to see the great blue screen of death. And the great white arrow of hope. And the great, gaudy start-up screen of unstable, inferior operating systems. At least two kids got to hear the Windows start-up chime amplified at roughly eight thousand decibels when they should have been hearing their own names read through the sound system. And several dozen kids got to walk beneath a frantic procession of windows and apps and thumbnails, as the tech guy running the show did everything he could -- you know, short of buying a good computer with a reliable operating system -- to get the photos up and running again. He eventually got them going, but only after several dozen young women and men processed beneath a series of images that, if nothing else, should have taught them the value of choosing their tasks and their technology wisely.
In another rare moment of restraint -- I think I may be growing -- I resisted the urge to shout, Get a Mac! Instead, I laughed about it with some nearby Apple users, felt sorry for the parents whose childrens' faces were supplanted by a flickering desktop, and imagined that somewhere, Justin Long and John Hodgman were probably filming a commercial that many more families could relate to.
This morning, after sitting through almost all of a yet another insufferable, hopelessly long, still sort of sweet eighth grade promotion ceremony -- and we all know how I feel about promotion ceremonies -- it was deja vu, and blue screen of death, all over again.
As the kids from Frick ISA -- what a wonderful, close-knit community they are; more on them, their excellent principle, and the damage that may be done to their school by all this Schenley High silliness later in the week -- took the stage to receive their promotion certificates, every young man and woman got a name call, a series of handshakes, and a photo of him(-or-her-)self projected on a pair of big screens facing the audience. The photos, all taken late in the school year, were great: loose and fun, engaging and natural, kind of like yearbook candids crossed with Saturday Night Live cast shots. They nicely captured the kids' personalities, and they gave each student a moment to bask in the abundant adoration of her (or his) classmates. So it's a particular shame that nearly half the students never got to see their photos.
Instead, they got to see the great blue screen of death. And the great white arrow of hope. And the great, gaudy start-up screen of unstable, inferior operating systems. At least two kids got to hear the Windows start-up chime amplified at roughly eight thousand decibels when they should have been hearing their own names read through the sound system. And several dozen kids got to walk beneath a frantic procession of windows and apps and thumbnails, as the tech guy running the show did everything he could -- you know, short of buying a good computer with a reliable operating system -- to get the photos up and running again. He eventually got them going, but only after several dozen young women and men processed beneath a series of images that, if nothing else, should have taught them the value of choosing their tasks and their technology wisely.
In another rare moment of restraint -- I think I may be growing -- I resisted the urge to shout, Get a Mac! Instead, I laughed about it with some nearby Apple users, felt sorry for the parents whose childrens' faces were supplanted by a flickering desktop, and imagined that somewhere, Justin Long and John Hodgman were probably filming a commercial that many more families could relate to.
Posted at 02:29 PM
Sun - May 4, 2008
YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE
but i can never leave.
With a tip o' the hat and a flip o' the Triptik to
one of PittGirl's Facebook minions, I must direct your
attention to my new favorite internet make-your-own: CustomMotelSign.com. It's a great, throwback,
road-trip kinda concept, and what sets it apart -- besides some excellent
execution -- is the impeccable taste with which its creator, Tom Blackwell,
chose the original
sign.
By the time you see the second N, it's like you're looking at the fourth star.
By the time you see the second N, it's like you're looking at the fourth star.
Posted at 09:57 AM
Thu - April 24, 2008
TWIT
for twat.
Hey there! TWM is not using Twitter.
Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people using the web, your phone, or IM. Join today to start receiving boring, pointless, self-absorbed updates from your friends -- and, let's face it, people who aren't your friends, and people you really wish were your friends -- just like these.
This is my first Twitter update. Awesome! 12:37 PM April 23, 2008
This is my second Twitter update. Even more awesome! 12:39 PM April 23, 2008
I just went to my Twitter page and read my first two updates. Awesomest yet! 12:41 PM April 23, 2008
Back at my computer. Just had lunch. Peanut butter and marshmallow. Mmmm.... 1:12 PM April 23, 2008
Big brouhaha over at The Burgh Blog. Censorship. Beatty. Bullshit. 1:27 PM April 23, 2008
"Dissident voice"? Sheesh. Self-important much? 1:39 PM April 23, 2008
iPhone call! Yay, me! I love my ring tone. 2:27 PM April 23, 2008
Wrong number. Sigh. 2:28 PM April 23, 2008
This is SO cool, yo. Can't wait to get my first follower. 2:28 PM April 23, 2008
I think I need to go to the bathroom. 3:47 PM April 23, 2008
I'm typing this with one hand and wiping myself with the other! Yeah! 3:50 PM April 23, 2008
I can't believe I'm really doing this. Ambidextrousness! Take that, be-yo ,.5d df s09u eqr w 3:51 PM April 23, 2008
Shit. 3:53 PM April 23, 2008
Thank God for anti-bacterial soap. 3:59 PM April 23, 2008
Oops. Forgot to unload the dishwasher. L8R, dudes... 4:23 PM April 23, 2008
Just checked my email. 6 new messages. Rockin'. 5:07 PM April 23, 2008
Checked my email again. No new messages. Bummin'. 5:15 PM April 23, 2008
Time for dinner! Mmmmmmeatball sandwiches! 6:15 PM April 23, 2008
I don't like rain. : ( 6:35 PM April 23, 2008
I think I'm gonna call my Mom. 7:16 PM April 23, 2008
Mom's not home. 7:18 PM April 23, 2008
I'm gonna sign on to Facebook now. Look for me, peeps! 7:57 PM April 23, 2008
I have to remember to 8:16 PM April 23, 2008
pay my phone bill. 8:16 PM April 23, 2008
(Sorry! Hit Enter by accident. Lame, I know!) 8:17 PM April 23, 2008
New Office and LOST tomorrow night. Sweetness to infinity, baby! 8:56 PM April 23, 2008
David Cook's hair looks totally rockin' tonight. 9:21 PM April 23, 2008
I hate David Archuleta. Hate hate hate hate him. 9:23 PM April 23, 2008
Really hate him. 9:24 PM April 23, 2008
Really, really hate him. 9:25 PM April 23, 2008
Carly. OMG. That totally sucks. Maybe she should have cried and asked for a restart. Or yawned and acted stupid. 9:57 PM April 23, 2008
Just had milk and cookies. Chocolate Lovers' Chips Deluxe. Way to go, you little Keebler Elves. 10:16 PM April 23, 2008
I think I'm getting tired. 10:59 PM April 23, 2008
Where is everybody? 11:04 PM April 23, 2008
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? 11:05 PM April 23, 2008
LOL 11:06 PM April 23, 2008
I'm definitely getting tired. 11:07 PM April 23, 2008
Goodnight, peeps... 11:08 PM April 23, 2008
Top o' the mornin', peeps! about two hours ago.
Where is everybody? about ten minutes ago.
Maybe you're all reading my blog instead. about five minutes ago.
I'm gonna post to my blog now... about two minutes ago.
Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people using the web, your phone, or IM. Join today to start receiving boring, pointless, self-absorbed updates from your friends -- and, let's face it, people who aren't your friends, and people you really wish were your friends -- just like these.
This is my first Twitter update. Awesome! 12:37 PM April 23, 2008
This is my second Twitter update. Even more awesome! 12:39 PM April 23, 2008
I just went to my Twitter page and read my first two updates. Awesomest yet! 12:41 PM April 23, 2008
Back at my computer. Just had lunch. Peanut butter and marshmallow. Mmmm.... 1:12 PM April 23, 2008
Big brouhaha over at The Burgh Blog. Censorship. Beatty. Bullshit. 1:27 PM April 23, 2008
"Dissident voice"? Sheesh. Self-important much? 1:39 PM April 23, 2008
iPhone call! Yay, me! I love my ring tone. 2:27 PM April 23, 2008
Wrong number. Sigh. 2:28 PM April 23, 2008
This is SO cool, yo. Can't wait to get my first follower. 2:28 PM April 23, 2008
I think I need to go to the bathroom. 3:47 PM April 23, 2008
I'm typing this with one hand and wiping myself with the other! Yeah! 3:50 PM April 23, 2008
I can't believe I'm really doing this. Ambidextrousness! Take that, be-yo ,.5d df s09u eqr w 3:51 PM April 23, 2008
Shit. 3:53 PM April 23, 2008
Thank God for anti-bacterial soap. 3:59 PM April 23, 2008
Oops. Forgot to unload the dishwasher. L8R, dudes... 4:23 PM April 23, 2008
Just checked my email. 6 new messages. Rockin'. 5:07 PM April 23, 2008
Checked my email again. No new messages. Bummin'. 5:15 PM April 23, 2008
Time for dinner! Mmmmmmeatball sandwiches! 6:15 PM April 23, 2008
I don't like rain. : ( 6:35 PM April 23, 2008
I think I'm gonna call my Mom. 7:16 PM April 23, 2008
Mom's not home. 7:18 PM April 23, 2008
I'm gonna sign on to Facebook now. Look for me, peeps! 7:57 PM April 23, 2008
I have to remember to 8:16 PM April 23, 2008
pay my phone bill. 8:16 PM April 23, 2008
(Sorry! Hit Enter by accident. Lame, I know!) 8:17 PM April 23, 2008
New Office and LOST tomorrow night. Sweetness to infinity, baby! 8:56 PM April 23, 2008
David Cook's hair looks totally rockin' tonight. 9:21 PM April 23, 2008
I hate David Archuleta. Hate hate hate hate him. 9:23 PM April 23, 2008
Really hate him. 9:24 PM April 23, 2008
Really, really hate him. 9:25 PM April 23, 2008
Carly. OMG. That totally sucks. Maybe she should have cried and asked for a restart. Or yawned and acted stupid. 9:57 PM April 23, 2008
Just had milk and cookies. Chocolate Lovers' Chips Deluxe. Way to go, you little Keebler Elves. 10:16 PM April 23, 2008
I think I'm getting tired. 10:59 PM April 23, 2008
Where is everybody? 11:04 PM April 23, 2008
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? 11:05 PM April 23, 2008
LOL 11:06 PM April 23, 2008
I'm definitely getting tired. 11:07 PM April 23, 2008
Goodnight, peeps... 11:08 PM April 23, 2008
Top o' the mornin', peeps! about two hours ago.
Where is everybody? about ten minutes ago.
Maybe you're all reading my blog instead. about five minutes ago.
I'm gonna post to my blog now... about two minutes ago.
Posted at 09:33 AM
Thu - April 17, 2008
WRIGHT JESUS JOE BIDEN
caucus iran javier bardem.
Yeah, I know that Search Engine Optimization is all
the rage, and that keywords are key, and that you gotta do what you gotta do to
drive traffic to your site and push up your click rates and bring all those new
peeps to your blog, but Popular Tag marginalia like this
one...
...on Slate's Trailhead page -- and that image is only a little less than half of it -- is really starting to get on my nerves.
Never mind that they look like something your five-year-old whipped up the first time he used a word processor. Never mind that a large part of your web page ends up looking like some demented political or pop-cultural eye chart. And never mind that some of the combinations (Chuck Norris conference; Death Watch debate; Huckabee ice cream) read like LSD-Trip, fever-dream word association exercises. Let's just consider instead that, when you place these things on your web page, you may as well be hanging a banner that reads I'm an internet whore, and this is just one of the mindless, shameless ways I try to seduce you.
...on Slate's Trailhead page -- and that image is only a little less than half of it -- is really starting to get on my nerves.
Never mind that they look like something your five-year-old whipped up the first time he used a word processor. Never mind that a large part of your web page ends up looking like some demented political or pop-cultural eye chart. And never mind that some of the combinations (Chuck Norris conference; Death Watch debate; Huckabee ice cream) read like LSD-Trip, fever-dream word association exercises. Let's just consider instead that, when you place these things on your web page, you may as well be hanging a banner that reads I'm an internet whore, and this is just one of the mindless, shameless ways I try to seduce you.
Posted at 04:16 PM
Sat - February 9, 2008
HD-GYN
on the wall, but not on the
bed.
First, it was the cell phones. Now, it's the flat
screens.
I don't know if this says more about the men or less about the women of England, but a new survey claims that 47% of British men would give up sex for six months in exchange for a 50" plasma TV. This figure is alarming enough on it own -- I mean, it's not as if they only surveyed married men -- but when you add to it the knowledge that only 25% would give up smoking, and that only 25% would give up chocolate, it becomes truly frightening.
No one loves HD more than I do -- I've been known to watch as much as fifteen consecutive minutes of Sunrise Earth, which is pretty much the high definition equivalent of watching grass grow, just to enjoy the beauty and clarity of the image -- but I'd go back to a 13" black-and-white with rabbit ears and a mono VCR before I'd give up sex for six months.
Or, for that matter, before I'd go to England and be made to mingle with a nation of people for whom the pleasures of the flesh can not possibly overcome a severe case of plasma envy.
I don't know if this says more about the men or less about the women of England, but a new survey claims that 47% of British men would give up sex for six months in exchange for a 50" plasma TV. This figure is alarming enough on it own -- I mean, it's not as if they only surveyed married men -- but when you add to it the knowledge that only 25% would give up smoking, and that only 25% would give up chocolate, it becomes truly frightening.
No one loves HD more than I do -- I've been known to watch as much as fifteen consecutive minutes of Sunrise Earth, which is pretty much the high definition equivalent of watching grass grow, just to enjoy the beauty and clarity of the image -- but I'd go back to a 13" black-and-white with rabbit ears and a mono VCR before I'd give up sex for six months.
Or, for that matter, before I'd go to England and be made to mingle with a nation of people for whom the pleasures of the flesh can not possibly overcome a severe case of plasma envy.
Posted at 09:31 AM
Thu - September 6, 2007
Sat - July 14, 2007
PLASMA INFERNO
burn, baby, burn.
I've never known quite what to make of Don Lindich,
the guy who writes the Sound Advice
column for the Saturday
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette. He often does, as his column's
title would seem to guarantee, give sound advice on audio, video, and computer
technology, and his tech blog is generally clear and fairly
informative. But every once in a while he'll write something so wildly counter
to my knowledge or my experience or my plain, ol' common sense that I wonder if
I should just discount him altogether.
Today is one of those days. And this time, I'm pretty sure I should discount him.
In the course of answering a question about LCD vs DLP vs Plasma TVs, Lindich writes:
Plasmas do seem to be more repair-prone than other technologies, and there is always the specter of burn-in, where a logo or image can become burned into the screen if you are not careful. Believe me, this can happen to you, and I can say it with some authority because besides being the columnist here, burn-in happened to me!
It was one of those things you never thought would happen to you, but then it does, and you feel dumbfounded by it. I have a high-end CRT projection TV and recently discovered a faint burn-in image of the "pause" icon from my DVR, obviously from all the times I paused playback to take a phone call or take a snack.
So, just to recap: a guy who writes a digital life blog and a nationally syndicated technology column has produced burn-in on his own projection TV. Because he repeatedly paused his DVR long enough to take a phone call or take a snack -- whatever that means -- and did not bother to turn off his television. Because he thought it would never happen to him. And now that it has, he's sort of dumbfounded by it. But, hey, at least he's learned from it:
If you are going to pause your DVR with your CRT or plasma TV, turn it off after you pause it, then turn it on before you resume playback.
Gee, thanks, Don. But I've been doing that for about six years now. (You know, since the day I got my first DVR.) And I would pass that wisdom on to my sons, but Adam, at thirteen, has known to do that -- and, in fact, been doing it -- since he was seven. (You now, since the day I got my first DVR.) And Ethan, at age seven, has known to do that -- and, in fact, been doing it -- since he was five. (You know, since the day I first let him use the DVR.) Because it's not exactly rocket science for, nor much of a revelation to, anyone who knows anything about video monitors and signals.
I don't know what shocks me more: that he did it, or that he admitted it. (Probably that he did it; he scores at least a few points for his embarrassing honesty.) But I do know, finally, what to think of Don Lindich: the same thing I would make of a mechanic who beat the hell out of his car and constantly had to repair its worn-out parts, or of a Planned Parenthood counselor who contracted a nice case of herpes from unprotected sex. Which is to say, not much. And I'd soon be looking elsewhere for expert counsel, for sound advice on how to take care of my Plasmas, my parts, and my privates.
Today is one of those days. And this time, I'm pretty sure I should discount him.
In the course of answering a question about LCD vs DLP vs Plasma TVs, Lindich writes:
Plasmas do seem to be more repair-prone than other technologies, and there is always the specter of burn-in, where a logo or image can become burned into the screen if you are not careful. Believe me, this can happen to you, and I can say it with some authority because besides being the columnist here, burn-in happened to me!
It was one of those things you never thought would happen to you, but then it does, and you feel dumbfounded by it. I have a high-end CRT projection TV and recently discovered a faint burn-in image of the "pause" icon from my DVR, obviously from all the times I paused playback to take a phone call or take a snack.
So, just to recap: a guy who writes a digital life blog and a nationally syndicated technology column has produced burn-in on his own projection TV. Because he repeatedly paused his DVR long enough to take a phone call or take a snack -- whatever that means -- and did not bother to turn off his television. Because he thought it would never happen to him. And now that it has, he's sort of dumbfounded by it. But, hey, at least he's learned from it:
If you are going to pause your DVR with your CRT or plasma TV, turn it off after you pause it, then turn it on before you resume playback.
Gee, thanks, Don. But I've been doing that for about six years now. (You know, since the day I got my first DVR.) And I would pass that wisdom on to my sons, but Adam, at thirteen, has known to do that -- and, in fact, been doing it -- since he was seven. (You now, since the day I got my first DVR.) And Ethan, at age seven, has known to do that -- and, in fact, been doing it -- since he was five. (You know, since the day I first let him use the DVR.) Because it's not exactly rocket science for, nor much of a revelation to, anyone who knows anything about video monitors and signals.
I don't know what shocks me more: that he did it, or that he admitted it. (Probably that he did it; he scores at least a few points for his embarrassing honesty.) But I do know, finally, what to think of Don Lindich: the same thing I would make of a mechanic who beat the hell out of his car and constantly had to repair its worn-out parts, or of a Planned Parenthood counselor who contracted a nice case of herpes from unprotected sex. Which is to say, not much. And I'd soon be looking elsewhere for expert counsel, for sound advice on how to take care of my Plasmas, my parts, and my privates.
Posted at 01:52 PM
Wed - July 11, 2007
SPRINT DROPS THE CALLERS
while its spokesman drops the
ball.
Now that I'm done whoring myself, my site, and the
order of Daniel Radcliffe's phoenix for a couple hundred more web hits, we can
get back to business...
...which, in this case, is actually about business. And customer service. And crappy communication. So let's take 'em one-by-one, shall we, while a few dozen pervs in search of Harry Potter's peen keep dropping by to find out what cell phones have got to do with their hormones.
First up: Sprint Nextel, one of our big ol', recently merged wireless providers -- in a year or two, there will only be two carriers left: AT&VSprintNextCrickTel, and TracFone -- has decided to add to their bottom line by subtracting some of their bottom feeding customers; in a move that some business analysts and consumer groups decry but that I think sounds fine to me, the good (if somewhat testy) folks at Sprint will be dropping subscribers who incessantly call and whine and complain and otherwise tie-up their customer service lines. About 1,000 of their 53 million customers will have their accounts terminated, without fees and with no more money to owe, because, for lack of a more delicate description, they're a big fat pain in the ass to the company, its finances, and all the rest of its customers who are neither too stupid nor too inept to operate their cell phones.
Now. This may not be good customer service for those 1,000 clueless clods who can't access their voicemail or can't figure out how to turn their ringers to vibrate or who, if the company is to be believed, call their customer care centers an average of 50 more times a month than regular -- which is to say, competent -- customers. But it sure as hell sounds like great customer service for everyone else, who will now subscribe to a carrier with a healthier bottom line, happier customer service operators -- this lack of stress should, as an added bonus, make their Indian accents a little easier to understand -- and shorter waits on Muzak-Hell hold.
It's difficult to disagree with any of that, just as it's difficult to disagree with the idea that people who can not be sufficiently helped after more than 50 calls a month could not possibly be helped by, and surely do not deserve to be helped by, another 50 calls next month. Or the month after that. Or the month after that. At some point, you have to get tough. So consider this Sprint's version of an intervention; they're tired of being co-dependents to these addicts of incompetence, and they want them to get help. Elsewhere.
It is, however, easy to disagree with -- and even easier to be appalled by -- the way that Sprint Nextel company spokesman Jack Pflanz, whose diction and syntax are even more awkward than the spelling of his last name, officially explains the move: In order to execute toward our long-term goal of delivering better top line growth and profitability, at times we need to take action by tightening our policies while continuing to serve our existing customers.
(I'm going to pause here for a moment and try to catch my breath. If you're reading this and you've ever taken BusComm or any other professional writing class with me, you know how close my head has come to exploding. If you know me well, you're no doubt surprised to see that I'm still typing, and that it hasn't already erupted like that poor guy in Scanners. I thank you for your sympathy.)
Okay. That's a little better.
Now.
In order to execute toward our long-term goal of delivering better top line growth and profitability, at times we need to take action by tightening our policies while continuing to serve our existing customers?
My God. I ask you: who talks like that? Who writes like that? Who, in the blessed name of Sam Hill and E.B. White, wants to hear or read anything like that? How can someone who sounds like the demon spawn of a lawyer and a Senator who was abandoned at birth and raised, in turn, by robots and finance majors, actually ascend to the position of Company Spokesman for a major, multi-national corporation?
Only in a world as perverse, and a business climate as soulless, as this could a guy who issues statements like that find work as a communications expert. If he were speaking that sentence in code, in German, backward, while underwater, he could not possibly sound any less like a human being. Which is, I suppose, what makes him so valuable in the corporate world. And yet, out here in the real world, this guy shouldn't even be allowed to speak like that to barnyard animals. And anyone who allows him to speak like that within a hundred yards of a child, even a deaf one, should be arrested for the abuse and corruption of a minor.
What business analysts and consumer advocates should be complaining about -- but inevitably will not, in part because they too have been known to loose such syntactical wreckage upon our delicate souls -- is not that Sprint Nextel would drop customers who can not use their own phones, but that it would employ a spokesman who can not use his own language.
...which, in this case, is actually about business. And customer service. And crappy communication. So let's take 'em one-by-one, shall we, while a few dozen pervs in search of Harry Potter's peen keep dropping by to find out what cell phones have got to do with their hormones.
First up: Sprint Nextel, one of our big ol', recently merged wireless providers -- in a year or two, there will only be two carriers left: AT&VSprintNextCrickTel, and TracFone -- has decided to add to their bottom line by subtracting some of their bottom feeding customers; in a move that some business analysts and consumer groups decry but that I think sounds fine to me, the good (if somewhat testy) folks at Sprint will be dropping subscribers who incessantly call and whine and complain and otherwise tie-up their customer service lines. About 1,000 of their 53 million customers will have their accounts terminated, without fees and with no more money to owe, because, for lack of a more delicate description, they're a big fat pain in the ass to the company, its finances, and all the rest of its customers who are neither too stupid nor too inept to operate their cell phones.
Now. This may not be good customer service for those 1,000 clueless clods who can't access their voicemail or can't figure out how to turn their ringers to vibrate or who, if the company is to be believed, call their customer care centers an average of 50 more times a month than regular -- which is to say, competent -- customers. But it sure as hell sounds like great customer service for everyone else, who will now subscribe to a carrier with a healthier bottom line, happier customer service operators -- this lack of stress should, as an added bonus, make their Indian accents a little easier to understand -- and shorter waits on Muzak-Hell hold.
It's difficult to disagree with any of that, just as it's difficult to disagree with the idea that people who can not be sufficiently helped after more than 50 calls a month could not possibly be helped by, and surely do not deserve to be helped by, another 50 calls next month. Or the month after that. Or the month after that. At some point, you have to get tough. So consider this Sprint's version of an intervention; they're tired of being co-dependents to these addicts of incompetence, and they want them to get help. Elsewhere.
It is, however, easy to disagree with -- and even easier to be appalled by -- the way that Sprint Nextel company spokesman Jack Pflanz, whose diction and syntax are even more awkward than the spelling of his last name, officially explains the move: In order to execute toward our long-term goal of delivering better top line growth and profitability, at times we need to take action by tightening our policies while continuing to serve our existing customers.
(I'm going to pause here for a moment and try to catch my breath. If you're reading this and you've ever taken BusComm or any other professional writing class with me, you know how close my head has come to exploding. If you know me well, you're no doubt surprised to see that I'm still typing, and that it hasn't already erupted like that poor guy in Scanners. I thank you for your sympathy.)
Okay. That's a little better.
Now.
In order to execute toward our long-term goal of delivering better top line growth and profitability, at times we need to take action by tightening our policies while continuing to serve our existing customers?
My God. I ask you: who talks like that? Who writes like that? Who, in the blessed name of Sam Hill and E.B. White, wants to hear or read anything like that? How can someone who sounds like the demon spawn of a lawyer and a Senator who was abandoned at birth and raised, in turn, by robots and finance majors, actually ascend to the position of Company Spokesman for a major, multi-national corporation?
Only in a world as perverse, and a business climate as soulless, as this could a guy who issues statements like that find work as a communications expert. If he were speaking that sentence in code, in German, backward, while underwater, he could not possibly sound any less like a human being. Which is, I suppose, what makes him so valuable in the corporate world. And yet, out here in the real world, this guy shouldn't even be allowed to speak like that to barnyard animals. And anyone who allows him to speak like that within a hundred yards of a child, even a deaf one, should be arrested for the abuse and corruption of a minor.
What business analysts and consumer advocates should be complaining about -- but inevitably will not, in part because they too have been known to loose such syntactical wreckage upon our delicate souls -- is not that Sprint Nextel would drop customers who can not use their own phones, but that it would employ a spokesman who can not use his own language.
Posted at 10:51 PM
Mon - June 18, 2007
YOU DON'T SAY
but apple does.
The folks at Apple have never been shy about taking
a few good-natured pot-shots at their competitors -- the
Hello, I'm a Mac; And I'm a PC
ads are, of course, the most brilliant example -- but a press release they issued this morning,
touting improvements in the battery life and build quality of the
soon-to-be-released iPhone, reduces those shots to an almost Zen-like BusComm
simplicity.
After five typically crisp paragraphs of information and one customary paragraph of boilerplate, the press release, in a move I don't ever remember seeing from any previous Apple press releases, supplies two simple charts. The first details the difference between the iPhone's originally announced battery life stats and the iPhone's current, what-you'll-get-when-you-buy-it-eleven-days-from-now battery life stats. It's nice and clean and effective. And wholly unremarkable.
But the second chart, the one that compares some of the iPhone's specs to those of its main competitors, struck me as a thing of elegant and economical beauty:
The images of the phones -- which one looks like it comes from the future, and which ones look like they're from an awkward and clunky past? -- strike an opening aesthetic blow. The Screen Size, Wi-Fi, and Talk Time differences are simple but often dramatic, providing both a tech and a practical punch. And Display Surface comparison is both smart and — you want Glass? or (cheap ol’) Plastic? -- subtly suggestive. But those twelve spreading across the lower right corner of the chart, the ones detailing -- or, more accurately, not detailing — the Internet Use, Video Playback, and Audio Playback batter lives of the iPhone’s competitors, are what elevate this chart to a kind of insidious and elemental greatness.
That simple, innocuous phrase, They Don't Say, printed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, begins as fact, morphs before long into accusation, and finally, somewhere around the seventh or eight repetition, settles into damnation. What at first seems like a simple omission soon begins to feel a little shady and then, by the time you've reached that twelfth and final (and frustrating) equivalent of No comment, it already feels like a conspiracy.
These other phones are hiding something, you think. And that can't be good.
It's all about innuendo and implication, about simple, unspoken insinuation. It's a Karl Rove attack ad recast as the end of an Apple press release. And so, in its own, quiet, We didn't say anything, but neither did they way, it's a minor masterpiece of fact and suggestion and the connections, however tempting or tenuous, you can urge an audience to make between them.
[Update: A revised and slightly expanded edition of this post also appears here at The Huffington Post.]
After five typically crisp paragraphs of information and one customary paragraph of boilerplate, the press release, in a move I don't ever remember seeing from any previous Apple press releases, supplies two simple charts. The first details the difference between the iPhone's originally announced battery life stats and the iPhone's current, what-you'll-get-when-you-buy-it-eleven-days-from-now battery life stats. It's nice and clean and effective. And wholly unremarkable.
But the second chart, the one that compares some of the iPhone's specs to those of its main competitors, struck me as a thing of elegant and economical beauty:
The images of the phones -- which one looks like it comes from the future, and which ones look like they're from an awkward and clunky past? -- strike an opening aesthetic blow. The Screen Size, Wi-Fi, and Talk Time differences are simple but often dramatic, providing both a tech and a practical punch. And Display Surface comparison is both smart and — you want Glass? or (cheap ol’) Plastic? -- subtly suggestive. But those twelve spreading across the lower right corner of the chart, the ones detailing -- or, more accurately, not detailing — the Internet Use, Video Playback, and Audio Playback batter lives of the iPhone’s competitors, are what elevate this chart to a kind of insidious and elemental greatness.
That simple, innocuous phrase, They Don't Say, printed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, begins as fact, morphs before long into accusation, and finally, somewhere around the seventh or eight repetition, settles into damnation. What at first seems like a simple omission soon begins to feel a little shady and then, by the time you've reached that twelfth and final (and frustrating) equivalent of No comment, it already feels like a conspiracy.
These other phones are hiding something, you think. And that can't be good.
It's all about innuendo and implication, about simple, unspoken insinuation. It's a Karl Rove attack ad recast as the end of an Apple press release. And so, in its own, quiet, We didn't say anything, but neither did they way, it's a minor masterpiece of fact and suggestion and the connections, however tempting or tenuous, you can urge an audience to make between them.
[Update: A revised and slightly expanded edition of this post also appears here at The Huffington Post.]
Posted at 10:42 AM
Wed - May 30, 2007
OVER THE TABLE AND DREAMING
or, just scratching the
surface.
I am, by nature, a major Microsoft skeptic. But if
I can get past a few nagging, gnawing worries about great big Blue Screens of
Death, I must admit that this -- especially the demo with the digital
camera and the PDA -- really kicks ass.
Posted at 10:53 AM
Mon - May 21, 2007
BACK WITH A SOFTWARE UPGRADE
and an online
resolution.
After two and a half years and one thousand one
hundred seventy-nine posts, TWM has experienced -- and happily survived -- its
first full-scale software upgrade. No fuss, no muss. No lost data or suicidal
servers. Just some under-the-hood refinements, two days' worth of
troubleshooting, and a nice chance to clear my head with a couple of
long-awaited, well-deserved
celebrations.
During the downtime, I also decided to upgrade my own online experience with a simple and steadfast resolution: I will no longer watch web video, not so much as a single news or sports or entertainment clip, preceded by an ad or a commercial or (as some sites have taken to calling them) a sponsor message. You want to keep me coming to your site instead of -- or at least in addition to -- traditional media outlets? Then don't make me sit through a thirty-second advertisement before every blurry, endlessly re-buffering ten-second news clip. (You hear that, MSNBC? Slate? ESPN?) I know I have to sit through commercials on local and cable and network news broadcasts, but not before every damned story. And certainly not before every damned piece of video. I'm already looking at four or five (or more) blinking, spinning, swirling, gyrating ads on every page of your site; the least you can do is let me see a couple of seconds of political analysis without making me suffer some excruciating FedEx/Kinkos ad.
So here's the new rule: from now on, every time I click on a video clip and get an ad first, I'm clicking out. And off. And away from your site. Forever and ever. Amen. And it won't matter how truly or madly or deeply I want to see the footage. Because some things, just on general principle, will always be worth sacrificing.
My time, my patience, and my dignity are not among them.
During the downtime, I also decided to upgrade my own online experience with a simple and steadfast resolution: I will no longer watch web video, not so much as a single news or sports or entertainment clip, preceded by an ad or a commercial or (as some sites have taken to calling them) a sponsor message. You want to keep me coming to your site instead of -- or at least in addition to -- traditional media outlets? Then don't make me sit through a thirty-second advertisement before every blurry, endlessly re-buffering ten-second news clip. (You hear that, MSNBC? Slate? ESPN?) I know I have to sit through commercials on local and cable and network news broadcasts, but not before every damned story. And certainly not before every damned piece of video. I'm already looking at four or five (or more) blinking, spinning, swirling, gyrating ads on every page of your site; the least you can do is let me see a couple of seconds of political analysis without making me suffer some excruciating FedEx/Kinkos ad.
So here's the new rule: from now on, every time I click on a video clip and get an ad first, I'm clicking out. And off. And away from your site. Forever and ever. Amen. And it won't matter how truly or madly or deeply I want to see the footage. Because some things, just on general principle, will always be worth sacrificing.
My time, my patience, and my dignity are not among them.
Posted at 10:53 PM
Sun - February 11, 2007
SHE DIED, AND THEN SHE KILLED MY BLOG
autopsy reveals twm killed by people with
no lives.
As I reported yesterday, just before everything
went black and TWM was, for the first time in its history, wiped off the dirty,
smirking face of the internet, this site has, in the wake of the death of that
over-bosomed, under-brained, much-ballyhooed blonde who can no longer be named
here, recently attracted a record amount of hits and visitors and
scandal-sucking, cleavage-loving, no-life-leading web surfers. Imagine their
surprise when they came to this site and discovered, much to their slobbering
chagrin, that all it contained were a host of satirical posts that either
lambasted or lamented their interest in a woman whose chief accomplishments in
life were to disrobe for money and dig for gold. Imagine my surprise when I
discovered that those great, Googling hordes of losers had actually consumed all
of my bandwidth for the month and effectively pummeled TWM into data-restriction
submission.
It just goes to show, I suppose, that they who think least laugh last. Or something like that.
And I do, of course, share some of the blame. I predicted that frightening things would happen once word got out that I had learned and revealed the identity -- with indisputable ocular proof! -- of the father of She He Who Can Not Be Named's baby. But I did not -- and, in fact, could not -- predict that a few sly posts and a couple of silly jokes would wreak such terrible internet havoc.
I apologize to the good people at .Mac, and especially to all the dear and regular readers of TWM, for the disruption. For the inconvenience. And for the sad, sorry existence of people who, with nothing better to do or think about or concern themselves with, believe that their lives can only be enriched by the sordid details of the life and death of one more dim blonde.
It just goes to show, I suppose, that they who think least laugh last. Or something like that.
And I do, of course, share some of the blame. I predicted that frightening things would happen once word got out that I had learned and revealed the identity -- with indisputable ocular proof! -- of the father of She He Who Can Not Be Named's baby. But I did not -- and, in fact, could not -- predict that a few sly posts and a couple of silly jokes would wreak such terrible internet havoc.
I apologize to the good people at .Mac, and especially to all the dear and regular readers of TWM, for the disruption. For the inconvenience. And for the sad, sorry existence of people who, with nothing better to do or think about or concern themselves with, believe that their lives can only be enriched by the sordid details of the life and death of one more dim blonde.
Posted at 10:45 AM
Tue - February 6, 2007
HELLO, I'M A MAC
and bill's a pc.
The good folks at Apple last night released their
latest Get a
Mac commercial -- to watch it, go here, then
click on the Security
spot -- and it may well be the best of the
series so far. Which is high praise indeed, considering how consistently smart
and funny and clever and creative -- you know, just like Mac users themselves,
especially ones who teach and blog and, well, you get the idea -- they've been.
This one is pure perfection: a marvel of brisk pacing, crackling dialogue, and
deft comedic timing, showcasing yet again the subtle beauty and brilliance of
John Hodgman's work as PC. (If they gave Emmy
Awards for best performance in a commercial, he'd have to start clearing a
mantel.) It's really quite amazing that, after almost one year and 18 different
ads, these spots not only remain fresh but actually keep getting better and
better.
Almost equally amazing is the inability -- or is that unwillingness? -- of someone as smart as Bill Gates to understand how the ads work. When asked, in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, whether he was bothered by the commercial in which PC must undergo upgrade surgery to install Windows Vista, Gates replied, I've never seen it. I don't think over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.
Mr. Gates, as he is wont to do when he talks about Macs and PCs, misses a couple of important and painfully obvious points:
1) John Hodgman does not play a PC user. He plays a PC. (Technically, he plays a PC personified, but using language that sounds like it comes from an English Lit class might confuse Mr. Gates -- and, for that matter, a lot of PC users -- so I'm just trying to keep it simple.) This distinction is abundantly clear, since his opening line in these commercials is always And I'm a PC, not And I'm a PC user.
2) PC is not a dullard or a klutz. He's a nice guy who, because he is understandably envious of and occasionally frustrated by the status and achievements of his friend the Mac, is prone to making some unfortunate decisions that sometimes lead to unpleasant consequences. But it's not his fault; he's just a victim of his operating system.
3) PC is the undisputed star of the commercials. Justin Long has that effortlessly cool, understated, charismatic vibe going on -- he is playing a Mac, after all -- but he never really has much to do. He is -- and, for my money, this is the true, ironic brilliance of the conceit -- the straight man. He's sweet and earnest and sincere, always trying to help out his friend, rarely doing anything more than sticking his hands in his pockets and rattling off a few of the Mac's best features and benefits. John Hodgman gets all the good lines, all the funny costumes, all the best and most hilarious moments. He's the one in the hospital gown, with the used-car-lot sales signs, with the webcam strapped to his head. He's the one who gets to bark at Mac and snark at their therapist, roll around in a wheelchair and an arm-cast, and react to the relentless hounding of his own angel and devil doppelgangers. He's the guy we -- even long-time, hardcore, died-in-the-mouse Apple zealots -- really like and love to watch. He is, in short, the guy we enjoy and pull for and even empathize with in these commercials.
Because we know that deep down he is -- much like his defender, Mr. Gates -- a smart man prone to foolish choices, a lovable but misguided soul who just needs to find the right operating system and avoid the wrong one.
Almost equally amazing is the inability -- or is that unwillingness? -- of someone as smart as Bill Gates to understand how the ads work. When asked, in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, whether he was bothered by the commercial in which PC must undergo upgrade surgery to install Windows Vista, Gates replied, I've never seen it. I don't think over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say they are.
Mr. Gates, as he is wont to do when he talks about Macs and PCs, misses a couple of important and painfully obvious points:
1) John Hodgman does not play a PC user. He plays a PC. (Technically, he plays a PC personified, but using language that sounds like it comes from an English Lit class might confuse Mr. Gates -- and, for that matter, a lot of PC users -- so I'm just trying to keep it simple.) This distinction is abundantly clear, since his opening line in these commercials is always And I'm a PC, not And I'm a PC user.
2) PC is not a dullard or a klutz. He's a nice guy who, because he is understandably envious of and occasionally frustrated by the status and achievements of his friend the Mac, is prone to making some unfortunate decisions that sometimes lead to unpleasant consequences. But it's not his fault; he's just a victim of his operating system.
3) PC is the undisputed star of the commercials. Justin Long has that effortlessly cool, understated, charismatic vibe going on -- he is playing a Mac, after all -- but he never really has much to do. He is -- and, for my money, this is the true, ironic brilliance of the conceit -- the straight man. He's sweet and earnest and sincere, always trying to help out his friend, rarely doing anything more than sticking his hands in his pockets and rattling off a few of the Mac's best features and benefits. John Hodgman gets all the good lines, all the funny costumes, all the best and most hilarious moments. He's the one in the hospital gown, with the used-car-lot sales signs, with the webcam strapped to his head. He's the one who gets to bark at Mac and snark at their therapist, roll around in a wheelchair and an arm-cast, and react to the relentless hounding of his own angel and devil doppelgangers. He's the guy we -- even long-time, hardcore, died-in-the-mouse Apple zealots -- really like and love to watch. He is, in short, the guy we enjoy and pull for and even empathize with in these commercials.
Because we know that deep down he is -- much like his defender, Mr. Gates -- a smart man prone to foolish choices, a lovable but misguided soul who just needs to find the right operating system and avoid the wrong one.
Posted at 09:39 AM
Mon - October 23, 2006
PTM
hbd from twm.
TWM takes a moment and makes a post to adulate, to
elevate, to celebrate the single greatest consumer electronics device in
history, my constant companion, and the one high-tech gadget I simply could not
live without.
Player. Tunesmith. Musicman.
Five-year-old Apple of my ear.
Happy birthday, iPod. Thanks for the music and the memory.
Player. Tunesmith. Musicman.
Five-year-old Apple of my ear.
Happy birthday, iPod. Thanks for the music and the memory.
Posted at 07:29 AM
Tue - May 16, 2006
STUPID IS AS STUPID SAYS, PT. 3
please do as i say, not as they
do.
After almost a year and a half of being good,
they're at it again.
Twice last year, I bemoaned how hard it's become to tell my business communication students that they can't write or say stupid things if they want to be successful in business when (at least semi-)successful CEOs keep writing and saying stupid things. The third part of our series, and the latest in a long, sad line of marketing volleys and rhetorical follies, comes from perpetually disgruntled Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser. In an interview posted last week at Guardian Unlimited, Glaser -- whose increasingly bitter presence and nonsensical pronouncements make him seem altogether depressed and obsessed, like a software-shilling Salieri to Steve Jobs' iPod-toting Mozart -- tried to win friends and influence people by explaining that iPod owners are criminals:
If you want interoperable music today, there is a very easy solution: it's called stealing. The average number of songs sold for the iPod is 25, and there are many more songs on iPods than 25. About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal. But it's the only way to get non-copy protected, portable, interoperable music.
Let's first ignore the astonishing stupidity of slandering the very customers you're trying to woo as users of your inferior software. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser in high school, trying to get a date with the star quarterback's girlfriend: Hey, bitch, wanna go to the movies with me tonight?) We'll also ignore the astonishing timidity of the Guardian interviewer, who allowed those four fatuous sentences to pass without so much as a single follow-up question. Let's focus instead on the rampant, wanton absurdities that populate nearly every syllable of that silly, simpering response.
If you want interoperable music -- that's Glaser's dull, Orwellian term for digital files that work on any player; even his pre-scripted sound bites are boring -- today, all you have to do is insert your own CDs into your own computer and legally import your own songs into any number of interoperable file formats: AIFs or WAVs or even those obscure little MP3 things I've heard so much about. Surely Mr. Glaser has heard of them too. And yet he acts and speaks like he hasn't, insinuating that illegally downloading from the internet or illegally copying from friends' CDs is the only way to get those files. My favorite part of that insinuation, the one that proves Mr. Glaser is either insanely jealous of Apple's success, insanely contemptuous of his audience's intelligence, or just plain insane, is that he acknowledges you can produce those files from your friends' CDs but does not acknowledge that you can -- and, in fact, argues as if you can't -- also produce them from your own. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser at work, ripping some tracks from his assistant's CD collection: Boy, I wish I could do this with my discs! That'd be swell!)
Though oft-repeated, the average number of songs sold for each iPod figure -- Mr. Glaser gets it wrong, by the way; it's actually 24, up from 22 earlier in the year -- is a statistical crock anyway, coming as it does from the division of the total number of iTunes Music Store downloads by the total number of iPods ever sold. That methodology assumes, of course, that all the iPods ever sold are still in use and that no one person owns or has owned more than one iPod. Common sense and simple anecdotal evidence -- many first wave of iPods, now almost five years old, are no longer in use, and my household alone owns or has owned seven different iPods -- belies that number. But even if the number were accurate, its use here is specious at best. Of course most iPods have more than 25 songs. Because most iPod owners, being music lovers, own a lot more than 25 songs. And because, being iPod owners and music lovers, they put all those songs on their iPods. Which is perfectly legal.
The 25 songs figure may be a crock, but at least we can see where it comes from -- unlike, say, Mr. Glaser's egregious, and egregiously unsupported, claim that about half the music on iPods is obtained illegitimately. I'd love to see the math on this one. The research. The studies. The evidence. Hell, I'd settle for some spurious stats, some cooked books, even some fuzzy math. Anything. Because it would, however thin and easily refuted, at least be something more than the word of a guy with an axe to grind, a chip on his shoulder, and a symbolic, powdered wig on his head. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser in this interview, sitting at a harpsichord and plinking out a maddening accompaniment of notes as he tries to convince the reporter that Real will surpass Apple: A great mass of death! Requiem mass for the iTunes Music Store, composed by its bitter enemy, Rob Salieri! Oh, what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the digital music! Real has been touched by the people at last. And the people are forced to listen! Powerless, powerless, to stop it! I, for once in the end, laughing at Steve!)
So here we are in the end, as always, laughing at poor Rob Glaser, who thinks, or wants us to think, or is perhaps so blinded by his own inability to match the genius of Apple that he does not think we know enough not to think, that the only way to get non-copy protected, portable, interoperable music is to steal it. Who seems to suggest, if only by omission and innuendo, that only iPod owners steal music, that only iPods contain stolen music, and that it's all Apple's fault. And who, whether he's sabotaging my teaching or bumbling around his own company or groaning and grumbling about the company that's been kicking his company's Real, reeling ass, would do well to learn that the crazy composers at Apple, like God and Mozart before them, are too good and gifted and divinely driven by their creations ever to let a mediocrity share in the smallest of [their] glory.
Twice last year, I bemoaned how hard it's become to tell my business communication students that they can't write or say stupid things if they want to be successful in business when (at least semi-)successful CEOs keep writing and saying stupid things. The third part of our series, and the latest in a long, sad line of marketing volleys and rhetorical follies, comes from perpetually disgruntled Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser. In an interview posted last week at Guardian Unlimited, Glaser -- whose increasingly bitter presence and nonsensical pronouncements make him seem altogether depressed and obsessed, like a software-shilling Salieri to Steve Jobs' iPod-toting Mozart -- tried to win friends and influence people by explaining that iPod owners are criminals:
If you want interoperable music today, there is a very easy solution: it's called stealing. The average number of songs sold for the iPod is 25, and there are many more songs on iPods than 25. About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal. But it's the only way to get non-copy protected, portable, interoperable music.
Let's first ignore the astonishing stupidity of slandering the very customers you're trying to woo as users of your inferior software. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser in high school, trying to get a date with the star quarterback's girlfriend: Hey, bitch, wanna go to the movies with me tonight?) We'll also ignore the astonishing timidity of the Guardian interviewer, who allowed those four fatuous sentences to pass without so much as a single follow-up question. Let's focus instead on the rampant, wanton absurdities that populate nearly every syllable of that silly, simpering response.
If you want interoperable music -- that's Glaser's dull, Orwellian term for digital files that work on any player; even his pre-scripted sound bites are boring -- today, all you have to do is insert your own CDs into your own computer and legally import your own songs into any number of interoperable file formats: AIFs or WAVs or even those obscure little MP3 things I've heard so much about. Surely Mr. Glaser has heard of them too. And yet he acts and speaks like he hasn't, insinuating that illegally downloading from the internet or illegally copying from friends' CDs is the only way to get those files. My favorite part of that insinuation, the one that proves Mr. Glaser is either insanely jealous of Apple's success, insanely contemptuous of his audience's intelligence, or just plain insane, is that he acknowledges you can produce those files from your friends' CDs but does not acknowledge that you can -- and, in fact, argues as if you can't -- also produce them from your own. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser at work, ripping some tracks from his assistant's CD collection: Boy, I wish I could do this with my discs! That'd be swell!)
Though oft-repeated, the average number of songs sold for each iPod figure -- Mr. Glaser gets it wrong, by the way; it's actually 24, up from 22 earlier in the year -- is a statistical crock anyway, coming as it does from the division of the total number of iTunes Music Store downloads by the total number of iPods ever sold. That methodology assumes, of course, that all the iPods ever sold are still in use and that no one person owns or has owned more than one iPod. Common sense and simple anecdotal evidence -- many first wave of iPods, now almost five years old, are no longer in use, and my household alone owns or has owned seven different iPods -- belies that number. But even if the number were accurate, its use here is specious at best. Of course most iPods have more than 25 songs. Because most iPod owners, being music lovers, own a lot more than 25 songs. And because, being iPod owners and music lovers, they put all those songs on their iPods. Which is perfectly legal.
The 25 songs figure may be a crock, but at least we can see where it comes from -- unlike, say, Mr. Glaser's egregious, and egregiously unsupported, claim that about half the music on iPods is obtained illegitimately. I'd love to see the math on this one. The research. The studies. The evidence. Hell, I'd settle for some spurious stats, some cooked books, even some fuzzy math. Anything. Because it would, however thin and easily refuted, at least be something more than the word of a guy with an axe to grind, a chip on his shoulder, and a symbolic, powdered wig on his head. (I'm struck by a vision of Rob Glaser in this interview, sitting at a harpsichord and plinking out a maddening accompaniment of notes as he tries to convince the reporter that Real will surpass Apple: A great mass of death! Requiem mass for the iTunes Music Store, composed by its bitter enemy, Rob Salieri! Oh, what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the digital music! Real has been touched by the people at last. And the people are forced to listen! Powerless, powerless, to stop it! I, for once in the end, laughing at Steve!)
So here we are in the end, as always, laughing at poor Rob Glaser, who thinks, or wants us to think, or is perhaps so blinded by his own inability to match the genius of Apple that he does not think we know enough not to think, that the only way to get non-copy protected, portable, interoperable music is to steal it. Who seems to suggest, if only by omission and innuendo, that only iPod owners steal music, that only iPods contain stolen music, and that it's all Apple's fault. And who, whether he's sabotaging my teaching or bumbling around his own company or groaning and grumbling about the company that's been kicking his company's Real, reeling ass, would do well to learn that the crazy composers at Apple, like God and Mozart before them, are too good and gifted and divinely driven by their creations ever to let a mediocrity share in the smallest of [their] glory.
Posted at 01:43 PM
Tue - May 2, 2006
EVERYTHING JUST KINDA WORKS
with a mac.
I'm biased, of course. And yeah, I'm a zealot.
But these six new ads are some of the subtlest, funniest
things I've seen in a long, long time.
My three favorites are Restarting, Viruses, and Network -- because they're droll, because they're clever, and because they're true.
My three favorites are Restarting, Viruses, and Network -- because they're droll, because they're clever, and because they're true.
Posted at 04:04 PM
Mon - February 27, 2006
NOW THAT'S GOT SOME SHELF PRESENCE
bravo, mrbiiggy. bravo!
Yes, I am an iPod junkie and a lifelong, Apple zealot. And,
yeah, internet parody videos are a dime a dozen and almost always worth a lot
less. But this little burst of brilliance, which answers the
question What if Microsoft redesigned the
iPod packaging?, is the spot-on smartest,
subtlest, funniest one I have ever seen. It's pure genius. (And it's worth
last every second of the load time.)
I laughed 'til I cried.
I laughed 'til I cried.
Posted at 04:20 PM
Wed - December 7, 2005
NOW WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE?
if you can't beat 'em, copy
'em.
Earlier this year, I assailed the dissembling
stupidity of the silly folks at Creative, proud makers of the world's
second-best digital music players -- which is sort of like being the second-best
quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts -- and now reprobate plagiarists of the
world's best digital music players.
Consider:
Do these things remind you of any other digital music players on the market? Ones, perhaps, you might have seen or heard or read something about lo these past few years? Oh, sure, the Zen Vision:M player -- should product names ever have colons? didn't think so -- may be almost twice as thick as those other players, and it may be saddled with 76% more volume and 22% more weight than those other players, but, you know, they still look sort of familiar to me.
And you know what they say about familiarity breeding contempt.
Do these things remind you of any other digital music players on the market? Ones, perhaps, you might have seen or heard or read something about lo these past few years? Oh, sure, the Zen Vision:M player -- should product names ever have colons? didn't think so -- may be almost twice as thick as those other players, and it may be saddled with 76% more volume and 22% more weight than those other players, but, you know, they still look sort of familiar to me.
And you know what they say about familiarity breeding contempt.
Posted at 12:21 PM
Mon - October 31, 2005
TWM EXHUMED
back from the weekend of the online
dead.
Technical difficulties solved. Psychological
turmoil soothed. Regular blogging
resumed.
Thanks to everyone -- especially Sarat Kongara, iBlog Guru and patient troubleshooter -- who helped or advised or simply sympathized as I worked out these gut-twisting glitches in time for a few celebratory tricks and treats.
Now back to our regularly scheduled posting...
Thanks to everyone -- especially Sarat Kongara, iBlog Guru and patient troubleshooter -- who helped or advised or simply sympathized as I worked out these gut-twisting glitches in time for a few celebratory tricks and treats.
Now back to our regularly scheduled posting...
Posted at 10:33 AM
Sat - October 29, 2005
RESURRECTION
one body, one abstract at a
time.
Slowly, painfully, painstakingly. Achingly,
disturbingly, horrifically. Gut-wrenchingly. Eye-gougingly.
Throat-slittingly.
TWM slouches to be reborn.
TWM slouches to be reborn.
Posted at 10:05 AM
Fri - October 28, 2005
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
temporary solutions.
This is not a good omen.
TWM, just three days shy of its first birthday, has experienced its first major malfunction. And it's a big one.
Stay tuned as I try to keep up with the postings, even as I struggle to resurrect the 410 posts now both stranded in hard drive hell and and lost in the online ether. They're all out there, and you can find them with some effort, but the site's archiving and indexing functions are, for the moment, stone dead.
Which, not coincidentally, is how I'm feeling right about now.
TWM, just three days shy of its first birthday, has experienced its first major malfunction. And it's a big one.
Stay tuned as I try to keep up with the postings, even as I struggle to resurrect the 410 posts now both stranded in hard drive hell and and lost in the online ether. They're all out there, and you can find them with some effort, but the site's archiving and indexing functions are, for the moment, stone dead.
Which, not coincidentally, is how I'm feeling right about now.
Posted at 06:16 PM
Thu - June 16, 2005
WINDOWS & THE CORNER OF CONFUSION
when bad things happen to good
slideshows
How many people does it take to get an
end-of-the-year slide show to work on Windows?
This morning, while sweating insufferably and waiting interminably for the Liberty Elementary 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony to begin, I discovered the answer: more than 6.
The ceremony was supposed to begin at 9:30. By 9:35, three people had crowded around a drab little Dell laptop in the corner of the multi-purpose room. It didn’t seem to work. Then there were four. Still didn’t work. Five. Six. (Six-and-a-half, if you count the toddler roaming around the table.) One woman pointed at the screen. Another rubbed her head. Two men, hands on their hips, just stared uncomprehendingly at the host of menus on the screen. By 9:45, they’d given up and just begun the ceremony. At 10:35, when the slide show was supposed to provide the big emotional finish, one of the men came to the microphone and apologized for the technical difficulties that would prevent the crowd from seeing all 109 photos of their children.
We're doing the same thing we did last year, he said, but it's just not working.
The ceremony had already run late, and the room was over-heated, over-crowded and under-chaired, so most people didn’t seem to mind. But those sorts of things — far more than the seven-headed, student-speaking cliché-fest that preceded the promotion certificates — are inevitably the highlights of those kinds of ceremonies. They’re sweet and natural and gloriously candid. And often warmly, genuinely touching. When, of course, they actually work.
It took every ounce of goodwill and self-restraint I had — and they were, I assure you, both diminishing by the minute, especially when parents kept crowding me and invading my square foot of standing-room-only space — to resist walking over to the corner of confusion and volunteering a simple piece of advice.
Use a Mac, I would have told them. You turn it on, and it works.
This morning, while sweating insufferably and waiting interminably for the Liberty Elementary 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony to begin, I discovered the answer: more than 6.
The ceremony was supposed to begin at 9:30. By 9:35, three people had crowded around a drab little Dell laptop in the corner of the multi-purpose room. It didn’t seem to work. Then there were four. Still didn’t work. Five. Six. (Six-and-a-half, if you count the toddler roaming around the table.) One woman pointed at the screen. Another rubbed her head. Two men, hands on their hips, just stared uncomprehendingly at the host of menus on the screen. By 9:45, they’d given up and just begun the ceremony. At 10:35, when the slide show was supposed to provide the big emotional finish, one of the men came to the microphone and apologized for the technical difficulties that would prevent the crowd from seeing all 109 photos of their children.
We're doing the same thing we did last year, he said, but it's just not working.
The ceremony had already run late, and the room was over-heated, over-crowded and under-chaired, so most people didn’t seem to mind. But those sorts of things — far more than the seven-headed, student-speaking cliché-fest that preceded the promotion certificates — are inevitably the highlights of those kinds of ceremonies. They’re sweet and natural and gloriously candid. And often warmly, genuinely touching. When, of course, they actually work.
It took every ounce of goodwill and self-restraint I had — and they were, I assure you, both diminishing by the minute, especially when parents kept crowding me and invading my square foot of standing-room-only space — to resist walking over to the corner of confusion and volunteering a simple piece of advice.
Use a Mac, I would have told them. You turn it on, and it works.
Posted at 02:31 PM
Thu - April 21, 2005
AN APPLE A DAY
keeps the hackers away.
Now that the computer-hacking cat is out of the
business school bag -- the story of Tepper's compromised computer network, about
which I've known since last week but felt compelled not to comment on, has gone
not only local but national -- I finally have the chance to, well,
gloat. The school at which I'm gainfully and happily employed is, shall we say,
quite proudly and defiantly anti-Apple. While faculty are free to buy and use
whatever computers we want, students and staff and administrators are actively
discouraged -- hell, almost outright prohibited -- from buying and using Macs.
Sure, Windows is the platform of choice -- or at least compulsion -- in the business world. Sure, limiting the school to one computing platform saves on time and money and support and resources. And you can, if you're so inclined (I'm not), mount a whole lot of other arguments for why Tepper should bow at the Microsoft altar. But the simple fact remains that all this mess, this morass of breached networks and corrupted computers and possibly compromised personal data and the hours and hours and hours of hard work it's taken to diagnose and troubleshoot and rectify it, were all made possible by one (or more) of the ever-multiplying security risks that allow hacker after hacker after hacker to access an allegedly secure network by sneaking in through a bunch of open Windows. It is also a simple (and tart and tasty) fact that, for a while last week, the only people at Tepper who had uninterrupted access to the campus network -- because they were not at risk for any of the hacking -- were people running an Apple operating system. While most of the rest of the building was shut down and shut out -- and so, ironically, unable to read Walter Mossberg's Wall Street Journal report on the new wave of digital crime to which only Apple Computers are immune -- while some people even had their Wintel computers removed from their offices for safety checks, all the Macs just kept plugging along.
So tell me again -- which is the superior computing platform?
Sure, Windows is the platform of choice -- or at least compulsion -- in the business world. Sure, limiting the school to one computing platform saves on time and money and support and resources. And you can, if you're so inclined (I'm not), mount a whole lot of other arguments for why Tepper should bow at the Microsoft altar. But the simple fact remains that all this mess, this morass of breached networks and corrupted computers and possibly compromised personal data and the hours and hours and hours of hard work it's taken to diagnose and troubleshoot and rectify it, were all made possible by one (or more) of the ever-multiplying security risks that allow hacker after hacker after hacker to access an allegedly secure network by sneaking in through a bunch of open Windows. It is also a simple (and tart and tasty) fact that, for a while last week, the only people at Tepper who had uninterrupted access to the campus network -- because they were not at risk for any of the hacking -- were people running an Apple operating system. While most of the rest of the building was shut down and shut out -- and so, ironically, unable to read Walter Mossberg's Wall Street Journal report on the new wave of digital crime to which only Apple Computers are immune -- while some people even had their Wintel computers removed from their offices for safety checks, all the Macs just kept plugging along.
So tell me again -- which is the superior computing platform?
Posted at 10:46 PM
Wed - April 13, 2005
CYBER SINNERS: EXTENDED EDITION
but not quite a director's
cut
As I've already told some of you, the original
"final" version of Cyber
Sinners -- as my original "final" versions
always, inevitably do -- ran considerably longer than the version that finally
saw print and publication. I always go long on ideas and examples, embrace just
about every rhetorical flourish I can think of, and generally carry my essays to
languorous, near-epic lengths. My editors, who have space crunches and column
inches and deforestation issues to consider, inevitably rein me in by a few
hundred words. And everyone's happy.
But this time, I went Dante-Culpepper-to-Randy-Moss hail mary deep, and they needed Donovan-McNabb-to-Terrell-Owens slant pattern short. Which meant, in simple mathematical terms, that my 1,546 words needed to become the far more manageable 942 words that appeared in yesterday's Post-Gazette. And so a lot had to give. And a lot had to go.
Every other time I've been forced to cut for publication, I've been convinced that, in the end, the cuts were for the best and that the final, printed version was, in fact, definitive. This time -- though I love and passionately defend the shorter version -- I'm not quite so sure. But neither am I sure that the extended version is definitive. Truth be told, the optimal version of the essay, the ideal writer's/director's cut, would probably be a third, mid-length edition that I have neither the time nor the patience to write.
But because I like a a lot of the stuff I had to cut for the PG version, because a few faithful readers have asked about what I cut out, and because, as a writing teacher who constantly preaches the vital and valuable lessons of revision, I thought it would be fun or interesting or (at least) instructive to post the original, extended version of the essay.
Enjoy. And thanks, as always, for indulging me...
CYBER SINNERS
Thanks to the wonders of digital technology and the deficiencies of virtual morality, it’s now possible to kill someone over the internet. From the comfort of your own computer room, you can kick back, tap out a few keystrokes, drop an itchy trigger finger on your mouse, and click out the life of someone who (no longer) lives dozens or hundreds or even thousands of miles away. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
Just ask Howard Giles, who last week became the first person to shoot and kill a living being over the internet. For $300 -- not including license, meat processing, and taxidermy fees -- the San Antonio businessman bought two hours of hunting time on Live-Shot.com, hoping to kill-shot any animal that might wander into the crosshairs on his monitor. About an hour into the hunt, Giles got his wish, using his mouse to fire a round from a 30.06 through the neck of a wild hog -- it had stopped to eat some corn in the Texas hill country, no doubt figuring it was safe from some guy in his home office forty-five miles away -- and so becoming the first person ever to enjoy the online ease and convenience of one-click killing.
The next live hunt and dead animal are scheduled for early April; the triggerman this time will be a 38-year-old paraplegic from Indiana who’ll fire with a special joystick he manipulates in his mouth. If he possesses even a whit of decency or self-awareness, he will not aim for the neck. More cyber-marksmen are already lining up to follow. Unless, of course, the Humane Society or some other outraged organization -- bills banning the practice are currently pending in thirteen states -- manage to kill the site before it kills again.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Because, if the haggard history of attempts at internet regulation shows us anything, it is that plenty of extremists -- many of them even more crazed and less stable than someone who would kill a pig with his PC -- will argue that you can’t go putting stop signs on the information superhighway and will, if they should see a stop sign or two, blow right through them anyway. The internet, they believe, should be driven top-down, full throttle: one big, open road to got anywhere you want and do anything you can, en route to a point-and-click world of downloadable desires and instant gratifications. If it feels good, do it. If you liked doing it, do it again. If it might be illegal or unethical to do it in the real world, do it anyway.
Plenty of otherwise rational, reasonable, ethical people agree.
People who enjoy the wicked opportunities and wanton possibilities (and virtual anonymities) their keyboards and cable modems afford them. People who would never insult someone in person but who happily post hate-filled, vitriolic messages on blogs and bulletin boards. People who would never dream of walking into a music store, stuffing a CD up their shirt, and walking out the door but who eagerly download any MP3 that limewires their way. People -- like the hundred-plus MBA-hunters from last week’s other online brouhaha -- who would never sneak into an admissions office and rifle through its files but who knowingly bypassed network server security to access private application information, then rushed to online forums and chat rooms to rationalize what they’d done. People who, in the real world, would never do – nor think of doing, nor even defend doing -- these things. People who behave one way in person but quite another way online and seem, at least on the surface, untroubled by the contradiction.
For them, the online means always justify the moral ends.
But when they acquire copyrighted music for which they have not paid, either in a store or on a computer, they’re still taking what does not belong to them and so still stealing. When they access information from the private files of a university admissions office, whether they pick a lock or hack a site, they’re still treading where I do not belong and so still trespassing. The actions and avenues may be different, but the results sure seem the same. Their computers and their internet connections may make these things easier, more accessible, even more attractive, but they do not make them right.
And so this phenomenon goes far beyond situational ethics; it creates instead a new, dimensional ethics. The judgments they make, the values they bring to bare upon these questions, change (if at all) almost purely on their plane, on their presence and position in physical or virtual space. They don’t consider why and when they’re doing something so much as how and where they’re doing it. In the real world, they walk the line. In the virtual world, they see no lines. There are no shoulds or should nots; only cans and can nots.
Because when you’re sitting alone at your computer -- with no one looking over your shoulder and only your distant, echoing conscience to ignore -- transgressions, by their very present possibility, seem a lot less transgressive. Responsibilities seem a lot less responsible. And consequences seem much less consequential. It’s just you, your mouse, and your Id. Your Ego’s playing solitaire, your Superego’s stuck behind a firewall, and your browser -- Explorer! Safari! Firefox! -- urges you to go get whatever you want.
And that’s an awfully tempting proposition.
Haven’t we all, at some point in our lives, wondered what it would be like to be free from rules and laws and boundaries, to be unfettered by recourse and accountability? Haven’t we all -- MP3 pirates and MBA intruders, online hatemongers and hog-shooters and simple web surfers like you and me -- thought, at least in our weaker moments, about breaking some law, maybe robbing a bank or beating someone senseless, and never getting caught?
But we've all, in the end, resisted doing those things not just because we thought we’d get caught, but because, somewhere deep down inside, we knew that even if we could, we shouldn’t. It’s easy to resist grand schemes and big capers, but it’s hard to walk away from little temptations, when we can tell ourselves that it’s no big deal and that no one will really get hurt. And those are the true tests. Because in every dimension, morality starts with small things and simple gestures, like buying a CD or waiting for an acceptance letter.
The wonders and possibilities of the digital age -- always accelerating our dimensional dilemma, from dial-up to DSL speeds -- seem to have enlarged those little things, clouding our senses of right and wrong, confusing our notions of virtual capability and actual responsibility. We’re always hard-wired and wi-fied to the potential of the internet, but sometimes we’re cut-off from the promise of the ethics and manners and morals that bind us.
So how do we reconnect? How do we sign-in, log-on, and upload ourselves again?
Conventional communication wisdom says you shouldn't write anything in an email today that you wouldn't be comfortable reading on the front page of the paper tomorrow. That’s good advice, if rarely followed. Perhaps better advice, a point from which to navigate these dimensional ethics, might be that we shouldn't do anything online today that we wouldn't do (or want to read about ourselves doing) offline tomorrow.
Which brings us back to Howard Giles, his dead hog, and the murderous
possibilities they’ve unleashed. Mr. Giles probably wouldn't mind reading about his hunt on the front page of tomorrow’s paper; he’s no doubt already done so and would, I suspect, be content with what he found there. Perhaps because, though we can debate the karmic and ethical merits of his online expedition, he and the men who run the site can, at least for now, rightly claim that, unlike song stealers and site hackers, everything they’re doing is perfectly legal. Which does, I suppose, offer quarter to the hunters and consolation to us, even as it offers neither to the hogs.
But there is, finally, a considerable and sometimes deadly difference between what is legal and what is moral, between what is allowed and what is right. The choices we make -- where we see and draw our own lines, what we will not do even if we can -- define our moral center in any dimension. The faster we browse and point and click, the farther our modems and monitors and keyboards allow us to stray -- not just online but inside, to a place where digital dazzle obscures our vision -- the more delicate those choices become, and so the harder it is for us to recognize differences, to make distinctions, and to measure the ethical distances between them.
For now, it seems, we need much more debate and discussion and honest introspection about wild pigs and pirated songs and grad school admissions to help us bridge these dimensional divides, to help us open our digital eyes and measure our virtual souls. We can only hope it takes much less than the world’s first online murder to remind us that, no matter what amazing feats our technology allows us to do, the true test of our morality, and so the true test of our humanity, is what we allow ourselves to do.
But this time, I went Dante-Culpepper-to-Randy-Moss hail mary deep, and they needed Donovan-McNabb-to-Terrell-Owens slant pattern short. Which meant, in simple mathematical terms, that my 1,546 words needed to become the far more manageable 942 words that appeared in yesterday's Post-Gazette. And so a lot had to give. And a lot had to go.
Every other time I've been forced to cut for publication, I've been convinced that, in the end, the cuts were for the best and that the final, printed version was, in fact, definitive. This time -- though I love and passionately defend the shorter version -- I'm not quite so sure. But neither am I sure that the extended version is definitive. Truth be told, the optimal version of the essay, the ideal writer's/director's cut, would probably be a third, mid-length edition that I have neither the time nor the patience to write.
But because I like a a lot of the stuff I had to cut for the PG version, because a few faithful readers have asked about what I cut out, and because, as a writing teacher who constantly preaches the vital and valuable lessons of revision, I thought it would be fun or interesting or (at least) instructive to post the original, extended version of the essay.
Enjoy. And thanks, as always, for indulging me...
CYBER SINNERS
Thanks to the wonders of digital technology and the deficiencies of virtual morality, it’s now possible to kill someone over the internet. From the comfort of your own computer room, you can kick back, tap out a few keystrokes, drop an itchy trigger finger on your mouse, and click out the life of someone who (no longer) lives dozens or hundreds or even thousands of miles away. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
Just ask Howard Giles, who last week became the first person to shoot and kill a living being over the internet. For $300 -- not including license, meat processing, and taxidermy fees -- the San Antonio businessman bought two hours of hunting time on Live-Shot.com, hoping to kill-shot any animal that might wander into the crosshairs on his monitor. About an hour into the hunt, Giles got his wish, using his mouse to fire a round from a 30.06 through the neck of a wild hog -- it had stopped to eat some corn in the Texas hill country, no doubt figuring it was safe from some guy in his home office forty-five miles away -- and so becoming the first person ever to enjoy the online ease and convenience of one-click killing.
The next live hunt and dead animal are scheduled for early April; the triggerman this time will be a 38-year-old paraplegic from Indiana who’ll fire with a special joystick he manipulates in his mouth. If he possesses even a whit of decency or self-awareness, he will not aim for the neck. More cyber-marksmen are already lining up to follow. Unless, of course, the Humane Society or some other outraged organization -- bills banning the practice are currently pending in thirteen states -- manage to kill the site before it kills again.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Because, if the haggard history of attempts at internet regulation shows us anything, it is that plenty of extremists -- many of them even more crazed and less stable than someone who would kill a pig with his PC -- will argue that you can’t go putting stop signs on the information superhighway and will, if they should see a stop sign or two, blow right through them anyway. The internet, they believe, should be driven top-down, full throttle: one big, open road to got anywhere you want and do anything you can, en route to a point-and-click world of downloadable desires and instant gratifications. If it feels good, do it. If you liked doing it, do it again. If it might be illegal or unethical to do it in the real world, do it anyway.
Plenty of otherwise rational, reasonable, ethical people agree.
People who enjoy the wicked opportunities and wanton possibilities (and virtual anonymities) their keyboards and cable modems afford them. People who would never insult someone in person but who happily post hate-filled, vitriolic messages on blogs and bulletin boards. People who would never dream of walking into a music store, stuffing a CD up their shirt, and walking out the door but who eagerly download any MP3 that limewires their way. People -- like the hundred-plus MBA-hunters from last week’s other online brouhaha -- who would never sneak into an admissions office and rifle through its files but who knowingly bypassed network server security to access private application information, then rushed to online forums and chat rooms to rationalize what they’d done. People who, in the real world, would never do – nor think of doing, nor even defend doing -- these things. People who behave one way in person but quite another way online and seem, at least on the surface, untroubled by the contradiction.
For them, the online means always justify the moral ends.
But when they acquire copyrighted music for which they have not paid, either in a store or on a computer, they’re still taking what does not belong to them and so still stealing. When they access information from the private files of a university admissions office, whether they pick a lock or hack a site, they’re still treading where I do not belong and so still trespassing. The actions and avenues may be different, but the results sure seem the same. Their computers and their internet connections may make these things easier, more accessible, even more attractive, but they do not make them right.
And so this phenomenon goes far beyond situational ethics; it creates instead a new, dimensional ethics. The judgments they make, the values they bring to bare upon these questions, change (if at all) almost purely on their plane, on their presence and position in physical or virtual space. They don’t consider why and when they’re doing something so much as how and where they’re doing it. In the real world, they walk the line. In the virtual world, they see no lines. There are no shoulds or should nots; only cans and can nots.
Because when you’re sitting alone at your computer -- with no one looking over your shoulder and only your distant, echoing conscience to ignore -- transgressions, by their very present possibility, seem a lot less transgressive. Responsibilities seem a lot less responsible. And consequences seem much less consequential. It’s just you, your mouse, and your Id. Your Ego’s playing solitaire, your Superego’s stuck behind a firewall, and your browser -- Explorer! Safari! Firefox! -- urges you to go get whatever you want.
And that’s an awfully tempting proposition.
Haven’t we all, at some point in our lives, wondered what it would be like to be free from rules and laws and boundaries, to be unfettered by recourse and accountability? Haven’t we all -- MP3 pirates and MBA intruders, online hatemongers and hog-shooters and simple web surfers like you and me -- thought, at least in our weaker moments, about breaking some law, maybe robbing a bank or beating someone senseless, and never getting caught?
But we've all, in the end, resisted doing those things not just because we thought we’d get caught, but because, somewhere deep down inside, we knew that even if we could, we shouldn’t. It’s easy to resist grand schemes and big capers, but it’s hard to walk away from little temptations, when we can tell ourselves that it’s no big deal and that no one will really get hurt. And those are the true tests. Because in every dimension, morality starts with small things and simple gestures, like buying a CD or waiting for an acceptance letter.
The wonders and possibilities of the digital age -- always accelerating our dimensional dilemma, from dial-up to DSL speeds -- seem to have enlarged those little things, clouding our senses of right and wrong, confusing our notions of virtual capability and actual responsibility. We’re always hard-wired and wi-fied to the potential of the internet, but sometimes we’re cut-off from the promise of the ethics and manners and morals that bind us.
So how do we reconnect? How do we sign-in, log-on, and upload ourselves again?
Conventional communication wisdom says you shouldn't write anything in an email today that you wouldn't be comfortable reading on the front page of the paper tomorrow. That’s good advice, if rarely followed. Perhaps better advice, a point from which to navigate these dimensional ethics, might be that we shouldn't do anything online today that we wouldn't do (or want to read about ourselves doing) offline tomorrow.
Which brings us back to Howard Giles, his dead hog, and the murderous
possibilities they’ve unleashed. Mr. Giles probably wouldn't mind reading about his hunt on the front page of tomorrow’s paper; he’s no doubt already done so and would, I suspect, be content with what he found there. Perhaps because, though we can debate the karmic and ethical merits of his online expedition, he and the men who run the site can, at least for now, rightly claim that, unlike song stealers and site hackers, everything they’re doing is perfectly legal. Which does, I suppose, offer quarter to the hunters and consolation to us, even as it offers neither to the hogs.
But there is, finally, a considerable and sometimes deadly difference between what is legal and what is moral, between what is allowed and what is right. The choices we make -- where we see and draw our own lines, what we will not do even if we can -- define our moral center in any dimension. The faster we browse and point and click, the farther our modems and monitors and keyboards allow us to stray -- not just online but inside, to a place where digital dazzle obscures our vision -- the more delicate those choices become, and so the harder it is for us to recognize differences, to make distinctions, and to measure the ethical distances between them.
For now, it seems, we need much more debate and discussion and honest introspection about wild pigs and pirated songs and grad school admissions to help us bridge these dimensional divides, to help us open our digital eyes and measure our virtual souls. We can only hope it takes much less than the world’s first online murder to remind us that, no matter what amazing feats our technology allows us to do, the true test of our morality, and so the true test of our humanity, is what we allow ourselves to do.
Posted at 07:24 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:51 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:51 PM