Cheese Sandwich: Now With Less Fat

As of this morning, I weigh 206 pounds. I've been losing weight since about the first of the year. I'm down about nineteen pounds from my "normal" high of 225, which I hit at Christmas. I usually bounced between 222 and 225. I haven't been two-oh-anything since, well, probably since I retired from the nav in '01. We've been holding steady at about 206 for a week now. Touched 205 briefly.

I figure it's Bodhi. I spend less time sitting in front of the computer, transferring BTUs from my ass to the seat cushion, and more on my feet walking this very energetic puppy that lives with me.

Feels pretty damn good. First time in a long time my BMI doesn't say I'm "obese." I'm going for 195. I figure if I can get under 200, I'll take my shirt off at the pool this summer. The nephrectomy scar doesn't bother me, it's the other stuff. I'm also shooting for 100 push-ups on my 50th birthday this coming June, which is right about when I'll be testing for 3rd degree decided in taekwondo.

In other news, life remains an unfolding mystery.

Film at eleven.

DVD: Meet Joe Black (update)

Mentioned this one before, but I watched it again this weekend on the 50" plasma and just wanted to comment on what an utterly beautiful movie this is. I could just watch it frame by frame in some scenes.

DVD: An Unfinished Life

Pretty damn good movie. I'm not much of a Robert Redford fan, but his role in this film appealed to my inner cantankerous curmudgeon. The second quote might be a spoiler. It's really a grace note, but an affective one. Especially for me.

(Einar Gilkyson is Redford, Mitch Bradley is Morgan Freeman, Gary Watson is some no-account woman-beater.)

Gary Watson: You've seen too many westerns old man.

Einar Gilkyson: That doesn't exactly work in your favor.

And the end:

Einar Gilkyson: You think the dead really care about our lives?

Mitch Bradley: Yeah, I think they do. I think they forgive us our sins. I even think it's easy for them.

Einar Gilkyson: Griff said you had a dream about flying.

Mitch Bradley: Yeah. I got so high, Einar, I could see where the blue turns black. From up there, you could see all there is. And it looked like there was a reason for everything.

Friday Morning Sunrise

I went to the beach yesterday morning and took a few pictures. Hadn't gotten around to looking at them until today. It wasn't a great morning for spectacular sunrises, but they're almost always beautiful anyway.

Here's some of what I saw, crooked horizons and all:

Mac: Airport Extreme

Action Dave's Cool-Guy Bachelor Skypad has been running on an 802.11b wireless network for some time. It was unsecure, but I controlled access via MAC addresses, and hid the SSID. None of the data was encrypted though, so anyone who wanted to sniff my packets could do so. I had a NetGear MR814v2 router that I liked very much. I've never been a big fan of Apple's earlier versions of the Airport and Airport Extreme, but the new version looked much more appealing.

I had decided to skip the .11g generation of routers, and wait for whatever would be developed to replace them. As it stands right now, none of my wireless clients support .11n, but this iteration of the Airport Extreme offers advantages beyond the increased bandwidth. Not least among those being, as an Apple product, I expect to have little difficulty in getting everything up and running while still taking advantage of the advanced features.

The box arrived last Friday, and I spent some time last Saturday getting everything up and running. The biggest difficulty was getting my Airport Express to be recognized. I ended up doing a hard reset on it, which is a more complicated process than it probably ought to be. You have to hold in the reset button with a paperclip, while plugging it into a power receptacle. I had to do this while standing on the countertop of in my kitchen, because my Airport Express is connected to an iPod HiFi I installed above my kitchen counters. Once that was accomplished, the AE Admin application readily saw the Express and allowed me to configure it properly.

One of the features I was interested in was the ability to attach a USB 2.0 external HD to the router, and have it be accessible across the network. Right now, I have a 160GB 3.5" USB drive hooked up, to play with it and see how I might use it. If I find it very useful, I may replace it with a 2.5" external drive, though since it's "always on," that may not be the best choice. It would remove a power cable though, and have a smaller footprint. Printer sharing might be something I'll explore later, but right now I don't really have to print remotely very often.

You have to install the new Airport Disk client software on any Mac you want to access the drive on the network.

Most of my most frequently used wireless clients are .11g clients. I basically turned Airport off on my 15" iMac G3. I think I'm going to mothball the gumdrop. I hate to part with it, though its utility is really marginal these days.

My oldest daughter started a new job as a realtor, and the realty business is downright antagonistic to Mac users. In order to access her company's web-based MLS application, she needed to run MS Internet Explorer on Windows. Since she's never asked me for anything, and since they've been having a bit of a rough go through this real estate slump, I told her I'd get her a new MacBook and install Windows XP on it for her, which I did. If I never have to install XP again, it'll be too soon. Windows users really don't know how bad they have it. The Boot Camp install went quickly, but installing Windows XP itself took about two and a half hours!

Anyway, I got the 1GHz iBook G4 she had bought from me about a year ago back from her, and gave that to my daughter Caitie. So now the iMac G3 is even more marginally useful, as Caitie can carry her iBook back and forth when she's staying with me.

So with the iMac out the network, I have my 20" iMac, the Mac mini, my iBook G4, the Airport Express and Caitie's iBook G4 as clients on the network, and they're all .11g. I have a Nintendo DS, Palm T|X, and Kodak EasyShare One as portable devices, which I believe are all .11b clients. I use them infrequently on the network, so they don't impose a performance hit with their lower bandwidth. My PowerMac G4 867/DP is a .11b client as well, though it's currently not being used. A PCI .11n solution might be available for it, though I haven't checked.

Performance, from a strictly subjective point of view, seems better. Software updates seem to download more quickly. My "ping" times in Halo are better, though that seems hardly likely to be due to the router, but I'm at a loss for any other explanation. I experienced a few-second dropout in Airtunes this morning, which is the first time that's occurred on this network. It was a very rare occurrence on the .11b network as well. I'll be concerned if it happens more frequently, but right now it seems as though it's working fine.

So far I'm pleased. Setup and configuration was simple and straightforward, though the Airport Express was a bit of a nuisance. Air Disk seems to work as advertised. I'm now more secure than I was previously, and I'm enjoying better performance. It's not an inexpensive upgrade, but so far I'd say it's been worth the premium. But I'm a biased observer.

Fairness

To be fair, I'm going to write about my new Airport Extreme experience here very soon. But right now, I'm going to point to an interview of Doc Searls and, perhaps unfairly, pick on him again.

Now, to be fair, this is an "interview" of someone and by someone who likely consider themselves friends or peers or something. That is, Doc's probably "framing" his response as one to a friendly audience, one that will be uncritical of whatever he has to say, and he can offer whatever he thinks might be most compatible with, call it the atmosphere, of the event. How else to explain what Doc actually says?

This interaction appears at six minutes, five seconds into the interview.

Q: Can you talk to us a little bit about the notion of fairness when writing online? How do you get there?

And I think that being fair is just, you know, it's, it's something that we've, you know, it's part of the ethical framework of everything we do. You know. It's what we have in families. It's what we have in sports. It's what we have in business. Uh. Um. You know, we have laws governing some of those things. We don't need them, if we're just going to be basically fair to begin with.

Holy crap! Don't bogart that joint, Doc! Pass that shit around, man!

I mean, what frakkin' planet is Battlestar Searls from anyway?

"I don't know how you get away from it to begin with." What does that mean? It seems to imply that we all sort of start from a position of "fairness."

He might consider the business fairness of Microsoft, and why Linux met impediments placed in its path, unfairly, by Microsoft. He might consider any of a number of business scandals, which are, at their core, all issues of fairness.

We don't need laws to govern them?! Well, to be fair, maybe not... "if we're just going to be fair to begin with."

Consider, for just a moment, that maybe it's possible, just possible, that in the thousands of years of recorded history, the development of the rule of law came about from the observation that, you know, maybe we're not always, in fact we're seldom, "fair to begin with."

I guess we don't need referees in sports either.

When Doc described the effects of Fairplay, the iTunes Music Store DRM scheme, was he being "fair?"

Was it "fair" for me to include many, but not all, of Doc's "ums" and "uhs" and "you knows" when I was transcribing his interview? Or was it "unkind?" Is "kindness" the same as "fairness?" I think not.

Perhaps Doc should ask Dave Winer how we "get away from it to begin with."

Human beings possess an innate sense of reciprocity as it is extended to them. That is, they are most acutely aware when they are not being treated fairly. But they also have a highly competitive nature that normally places self-interest ahead of everything else.

My point here is not to criticize Doc unfairly, or unkindly, but to point out that this is what often passes as legitimate thought in the "blogosphere" when people come up with "metaphors" like "markets are conversations." I don't know who J.D. Lasica is, but he certainly didn't seem to have any critical thinking skills in play during that interview. Dan Gillmor was present, and he didn't object, or try to explore Doc's prescription for how to "get to" fairness any further. I guess they were all just "feeling the love."

My point is, it's damn hard to get to fairness. Different people have different subjective views of what is fair and what isn't. This isn't easy. If it were easy, we wouldn't have wars or poverty or any of a number of other plagues upon humanity.

It takes effort, chiefly, critical thinking effort. It takes self-awareness, something blissfully absent in this interview. It takes knowledge, and authority, and respect for the notions of responsibility and accountability.

Gah!

I won't go on to critique the rest of the interview, it largely continues in much the same vein. It's mostly a waste of time, unless you're just a groupie of this sort of thing. Feel the love...

By the way, Kurt Vonnegut turned eighty-four last November 11.

Idiot Box Redux

Mary Schmidt offered a rejoinder to the Electronic Home Invasion post, which is interesting, but perhaps not in the way she may have hoped.

Rather predictably, her opening gambit is to dismiss any criticism of television. This tells me she missed the entire point of the post, which is what happens in the blog world where people read and react, never pausing to, you know, think. If you're going to respond rapidly, you have to rely on your biases and expectations to frame your response, and therefore you've pretty much excluded the opportunity for critical thinking. The point of my post was not to indict television, but to use it as an example of the evolution of television, as just one technology, in the competitive marketplace to compete for people's time and attention resources, usually at the expense of social or political activity.

I don't intend to go over that whole point again, she can re-read the post and think about it a little if she cares to, but her reply contains a number of interesting assertions and observations that we might think about.

Back when television first started “invading” our homes, there were great cries about the decline and fall of our civilization, damage to our children, etc. etc. etc. I strongly suspect people reacted in the same manner to radio — not to mention the first use of paper, Gutenberg’s printing press, and new, improved chisels for stone tablets. Oh, and comic books were also going to destroy our youth. (I seem to have made it to adulthood just fine, thank you, with IQ intact. I hardly ever throw a towel around my shoulders as a cape and leap around the living room anymore.)

Ms. Schmidt claims 25 years of corporate experience, so while she doesn't list her age, I'm guessing she's something of a contemporary. This suggests to me that she grew up in the same technological and regulatory era that I did, with four or five broadcast TV stations and regulated content. Our experience is vastly different from that of children today, with unregulated content far more readily available, most of it containing commercial messages intended to influence children. The hyper-sexualization of young girls is a consequence, I think, of this competitive marketing effort.

Ms. Schmidt also maintains that she seems "to have made it to adulthood just fine." As snark, it's pedestrian. As an argument, it's vacuous. She has no other experience to compare it to. How would she know how much better or worse she might be had she not been exposed to television?

But, I don’t see any of us — at least not the rational, responsible adults — trying to “eliminate” anything.

"Rational, responsible adults" aren't "trying" to raise the average temperature of the climate either. My point is to cast the unintended consequences of mindless competitive effort as a cognitive rational choice in order to jar the consciousness of those who are thoughtlessly engaged in a habituated competitive behavior. Obviously, a defensive response is understandable and indeed, entirely predictable. Especially coming from someone who seems to derive their living from the very activity that I'm decrying. So, shame on me for not more gently leading you, dear reader, by the nose so as not to invoke habituated, mindless defensive reactions.

In fact, many of us — aging baby boomers all — are refocusing on quality of life versus quantity. That means a whole lot less commerce and a lot more simple enjoyment of home, family and scenery. And, if we can enjoy that scenery while listening to Ella Fitzgerald (or Metallica or Fergie) on our iPod, what’s the harm?

Again, aging baby boomers are not the people who are going to live with the effects of this new competitive environment, as they didn't grow up in it. As to what the harm is, even for aging baby boomers, I will only point to the example of a man dying alone in front of his television and nobody noticing for more than a year. It's serendipity itself when a story like that comes along, if totally depressing.

He then talks about the problems of companies targeting children in marketing. And, I agree that the commercials are ubiquitous, insidious, shameless, relentless and often just downright stupid. However, I’ve also read a lot of history and I’d bet kids (and their parents) back in — say the 1300s — would be thrilled to trade rotten teeth, mud floors, lice, famine, war lords, and the Black Death for some crappy commercials, occasional sugar overloads and shoddy plastic toys.

Again, we're talking about two different things, so this is a lame cheap shot. I will make no argument that technology has not significantly altered the conditions for living for the better on a vast scale. I'm talking about how a competitive marketplace employs technology to further the ends of the marketplace, which may not, and indeed likely are not, the ends of individuals left to their own devices, free of the influence of commercial messages. But leave it to a marketer to miss the point.

I’m climbing on my well-worn soap box now: Why do people almost never talk about personal accountability when they denounce evil commerce? Certainly, marketers should operate with intelligence and integrity. But, we the people always, always have control over the button, dial, or on-off switch. And, we can make choices (really). If millions of alcoholics can get and stay sober, despite soul-deep craving — we can surely just say no to Barbie, burgers, and the rest of the junk. General Mills doesn’t hold a gun to people’s heads and force them to feed their kids Cookie Crunch. MacDonald’s doesn’t break down our doors and drag us to stuff down Happy Meals. You never even have to go to the toy store, much less walk down the Barbie aisle. And, you can throw those pizza coupons right into the trash!

Here Ms. Schmidt "blames the victim." The notion of "free will" is the underlying foundation for "personal responsibility." Yet the whole point of marketing is to influence people, to reduce their potential to act as an agent of free will, to induce compliance in market behavior. Marketers spend millions, if not billions, of dollars studying human behavior and how to influence it. Modern science even calls into question the very existence of "free will," so what does that do for the notion of "personal responsibility?"

And what of the "personal responsibility" of marketers when she writes, "And, I agree that the commercials are ubiquitous, insidious, shameless, relentless and often just downright stupid." Where's the righteous indignation for the lack of personal responsibility there? It's absent because it's a commercial activity, it's "how things are done." It's "normal." Everyone "expects" marketers to offer ubiquitous, insidious, shameless and relentless commercial messages to children. It's not their fault! "It's just business."

The fact is, we are much less the agents of free will than our popular conceit would have us believe. I will not go so far as to say that "free will" doesn't exist. I believe the only power any person has is the power to choose, but it is a vanishingly weak power, just as gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of the universe. Marketing does its incessant, relentless, insidious level best to reduce that power.

Having missed the entire point of the post, mistaken her experience as the same experience the post was describing, and blaming the victim, Ms. Schmidt invites me to "get over it."

So much for the power of "conversation." If you're not saying something marketers want to hear, you're simply dismissed and invited to "get over it."

By the way, Ms. Schmidt, global climate change is a consequence of commercial activity. But it's just like a marketer to want to treat the symptom instead of the disease. Because the disease is what pays their bills.

BSG: A Day in the Life

I really enjoyed last week's episode of Battlestar Galactica. Of course, that's probably because it focused a good portion of the episode on Adama and Roslin. Some nice interaction between those two. Always my favorite part of the "soap opera."

Parts of Adama's story could have been lifted straight from my life. That was kind of interesting. Small parts, but still interesting.

Open Your Eyes

Via Evelyn Rodriguez.

[ Well, that sucked. The YouTube video that was formerly the content of this post has been removed. Oh well, lesson learned. No more linking to YouTube crap.]

Dead Man Watching

Is any of this sinking in yet?

"The fault, dear Brutus..."

I'm in the middle of something right now that has nearly all of my attention; nothing bad, could be really good, just something to which I must pay attention.

But I have a moment just now to comment on something else Doc wrote. I'm not picking on Doc, but he does seem to represent a certain prevalent, and wrong, point of view that one encounters in many places these days.

Doc was quoting someone else, in agreement I think, when he wrote this:

Politics is not about money, though it may appear that way. Money is just a by-product of connections. The problem of money in politics is actually a problem with our democracy itself: not enough citizens are connected with their governments — at least not in a direct and effective way. In that vaccuum, the few privileged with connections have the most influence. But now that we have the Net as a platform for all of civilization...

Politics is about authority, and money is the most liquid form of authority, and yes we can get into lots of tedious semantic discussions, but I hope my point is clear.

The problem is definitely not one of "connections."

Notice again the unexamined, implicit, axiomatic view that the "problem" with democracy is an inherently technological one. "Now that we have the Net as a platform for all of civilization..."

"The Net" is even capitalized. I detect a faint note of religious reverence here.

Listen up, the "platform for all of civilization" is the brainpan between everyone's ears. It's not "the Net."

I just want to pound my head against the table here.

Does anyone even think past the ends of their noses these days?

Doc points to a story in the Wall Street Journal, that unbiased paragon of journalistic integrity, as evidence of the truth of a technological solution to all of democracies shortcomings. And it is a wonderful story. Just as blogs were a wonderful story when there were only a few hundred or a few thousand blogs. But then the serious competition moved in.

If a wiki for school choice legislation was a good thing, then why not a wiki for health care? And one for substance abuse? And one for pot hole repair? And one for garbage disposal? And one for government oversight? And one for pension reform? And one for tort reform? And on and on and on...

Technology does not expand the attention resources of elected representatives. There can, and likely will be, several early successes that will encourage similar efforts, until everyone realizes that if they're going to have a shot at competing for their representative's attention, their own issue will require a wiki. And then we'll achieve wiki saturation and we'll be right back where are today, where those with the most "authority" ($$$) will be able to command the attention of the representatives, wiki or no wiki.

Until some other technological visionary comes along with another "fix."

The problem with democracy is not an inherently technological one. We have all the technology we need right now. What we don't have is the self-awareness necessary to govern ourselves in a manner consistent with our stated values and ideals.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

That's the conversation we ought to be having.

But no, we all want to play with our toys, and congratulate ourselves on our own infernal cleverness as tool makers.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG!

To be clear...

I'm no more "opposed" to commerce than I am to breathing.

I am opposed to the unchecked expansion of commercial activity at the expense of social and political activities. Markets are not conversations, because conversations are a social activity, not a commercial one. But if you tell people markets are conversations, then it stands to reason that conversations are for sale.

We're in no danger of losing our heads, what else would marketers have to market to? No, we're in danger of losing the notion that life means something more than an economic calculation or a commercial transaction.

Commerce would have us buy a product and that meets all of our social needs; and politics, well, that would all simply be outsourced. John Robb often mentions the rise of the market-state. This is not a thing to be welcomed, I think.

If things go on as the enablers, facilitators and apologists (i.e. the Cluetrain™ crowd) would have them go on, then someday Douglas Adams will be proven correct, the meaning of life is "42."

We'll just be arguing about the currency it's expressed in.

Apropos of Nothing

GHANSHYAM P. SHAH, an 82-year-old widower, spends up to eight hours a day in front of his television watching prayer services, soap operas and financial news. But one afternoon last December, he was completely disconnected from his favorite pastime — and visibly unsettled — because his new digital set-top box was not working.

Appropriately enough, in the "Your Money" section of the Times.

Then there's this...

Bullying, like evil, is in the eye of the beholder. Government officials are used to giving orders, not taking them. Maybe some got hacked off when Google pulled rank. (Via Rough Type)

Electronic Home Invasion

Doc Searls responded to Hobbyhorses with the grace and good humor he is noted for, and which is seldom exhibited here in the 'chuck hole. Nevertheless, I'm afraid I can't agree with Doc entirely when he wrote,

I have a feeling Dave and I would defend common ground there. In fact, I think Dave's demarc between the social and the commercial is helpful here. Especially if our friendly local carriers try talking their way into taking over our homes.

If we pursue the conflict metaphor here, that "common ground," (the home) Doc thinks we might defend was lost long, long ago. The demarc between the social and the commercial I'm fighting for is a metaphorical "last stand," and it exists in the only place left: Inside our heads. Doc and the Cluetrain followers are trying to eliminate that as well.

But let's consider the "home invasion" for a moment to explain why.

"Technology changes how we do things, it does not change what we do." Sorry, I have to assert that, because evoking it gets too subtle for some people.

Now, we do many things, in many different contexts. Inside the home, homes with children anyway, we entertain children. Our culture, which is the product of social, commercial and political action and legacies, has some practices with regard to the entertainment of children. These practices have evolved as society, commerce and politics evolved. Recall that "natural selection" is the governing principle of evolution. I'm pretty sure "competition" is synonymous with "natural selection," if not technically the same thing.

Before the advent of radio and television, children mostly entertained themselves in play, sometimes with toys either made at home, or made available through commerce. Parents sometimes told stories, or read stories to children. Commerce, our economic life, was once so demanding, that parents put children to work in factories. For many centuries, child labor was an economic fact of life on the family farm. So it's not as though it was totally unprecedented. But the competitive drive that governs commerce makes children an attractive labor force. In our culture, social and political forces united to check the competitive economic drives that placed children in factories; and productivity enhancements brought about through technology, and expanding markets more than made up for the loss of cheap child labor. But commerce wasn't finished with children yet.

Radio and television gave us another medium through which we might tell stories, both to adults and to children, but we're going to focus on the home and children in this discussion. Radio and television receivers became commodity items, easily affordable by most people, and they were rapidly incorporated into most homes. Because of the nature of the radio frequency spectrum, expensive high power transmitting stations came under the regulatory authority of the government, politics, and since politics derives its authority from the consent of the governed, the leading social authorities helped to establish standards of broadcasting which were imposed on commerce.

So the situation within the home with rf (radio frequency) communications was governed by limited choices in terms of broadcast channels, and content that was regulated by government through licensing requirements made necessary by scarce frequency spectrum. One had four or five television channels, and many more radio channels. Television, as a visual medium, commanded more of the attention of children than radio, but radio still had appeal for adolescents as an adjunct to their greater social awareness. "Rock around the clock."

Programming or "content" over the broadcast media was "free" to the consumer, economically paid for through advertising. Though the consumer did "pay," only through their time and attention resources. Nothing is ever truly "free."

As technology advanced, driven by competitive forces, cable television was developed as a commercial technology, wherein many more channels could be offered within the home, because it didn't use any of the public rf spectrum. Because it didn't use scarce spectrum resources, it wasn't subject to the licensing authority of the FCC. As a result, the content of programming could be much different from that which was offered over the air.

To make what is already too long a story shorter, commerce identified children as a means to extract money from their parents, and aggressively marketed to them. Children's television shows went from being sponsored by commercial interests to chiefly being commercials. The shows were nothing more than narratives about products being sold. Children no longer work for commercial interests outside the home for a wage. They work on behalf of commercial interests inside the home, for nothing more than a little diversion and manipulation.

The point is, the home invasion was over long ago, and commerce resides quite comfortably in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, everywhere people place a television. The advent of the internet has only somewhat altered the infection.

Commerce competes with the social and the political, and it is winning. Commerce, because of its competitive nature, is much faster to adopt new technologies that afford it a competitive advantage, and it has done so relentlessly.

There is no natural check on the competitive drive of commerce. It cannot ignore the attention resources potential consumers devote to social and political activities, it must have those, if it can. And since commerce appeals to more basic human rewards than social and political activities, and since competition has made commerce a more efficient learning and adapting endeavor, it thoroughly outclasses social and political efforts to push back against it. Commerce and commercial interests effectively control politics in this country today.

Doc and I don't share this "common ground" of the home "demarc," because it doesn't exist. But it's more fundamental than that. Doc and I are on different sides. Doc is an advocate of commerce, and I'm not. The way we live today is too far out of balance, and it's only going to grow worse. Doc can afford to exhibit grace and good humor in response to my posts.

Because his side is winning.

Hobbyhorses

A hobbyhorse is a toy, or someone's favorite topic. For a while, back in the '90s, "free software" was a hobbyhorse that got a lot of online attention. But it only mattered to a small fraction of the general population, and since then the general population has taken up residence online, meaning it gets very little attention.

So folks who would be attention-seekers need another hobbyhorse to ride. Since a large portion of the population buys music and movies, DRM has become a hobbyhorse for some attention-seekers.

A hobbyhorse is also a "cause," a "mission," some virtuous pursuit whereby a few hardy souls bravely take on the entrenched corporate interests on behalf of the great unwashed masses. The "media" aren't the only people familiar with, or constrained by, narrative.

Being "against" DRM is such a hobbyhorse.

I have a few hobbyhorses of my own that I like to saddle up now and then. Except I'm not a lone hardy soul taking on the entrenched corporate interests. I'm just a cantankerous curmudgeon who tilts at windmills, so sayeth the internet, source of all wisdom and truth. Just ask anyone.

Anyway, today we'll canter about a bit on the myth that "markets are conversations."

I was bored yesterday, so I read some Jeff Jarvis. A little Jarvis, like that "Insta-" guy, goes a very long way. Shouldn't have to pass that way again for another couple of years. Whew! But I digress.

My cold, refreshing, Diet Pepsi™ almost blew out my nose when I read this little passage:

David Weinberger said that marketers and the public have been at war for a century and the internet and blogs were to be his refuge from that: a place to have conversations with friends. I asked whether Weinberger, who takes no ads, hates me for doing so. He said, no, because the relationship is, again, clear: It’s about someone buying space on my page, not about buying my endorsement. He called Pay Per Post “corrosive” to the conversation.

PayPerPost is what you get when you conflate the social with the commercial, which is what happens when you tell people that "markets are conversations." They're not. What you get are "conversations" that are marketed.

"Markets are conversations" has done more to erase the boundary between the social and the commercial than any other act of contemporary marketing. To the extent that the social and the commercial compete for our attention, and they emphatically do, it gives the advantage to the commercial at the expense of the social. It lowered a competitive barrier, and has made all of our lives more commercial, our interactions more of a commodity to be traded.

PayPerPost isn't "corrosive" to the "conversation." The bullshit metaphor that "markets are conversations" is.

You'd think they could figure that out by now.

Much as I would love to, I can't lay the blame exclusively at the feet of Messrs. Searls, Weinberger and Locke. If they hadn't done it, somebody else would have. It's kind of like that "I made this wave," thing from yesterday. As the people most closely identified with the metaphor, the greatest "authorities," if you will, they could do something to try and repair the damage, but I don't think you'll see that happen.

The marketplace is competitive, and it competes with everything around it. It has to try and erase the boundary between the social and the commercial, because that's the nature of competition. Eventually, unless we learn how to preserve some social space, unless we develop a practice of social or commercial hygiene, I can see no reason why all of our lives won't become some part of various competing commercial interests.

Don't say nobody ever told you so.

Giddyup! (Rides off into the rising sun.)

Yea!

Tanned, rested and ready...

Steve Jobs: Notes From the "Silo"

In a letter seemingly written directly to Doc Searls, Steve Jobs makes some legitimate points about DRM, and dispels the myth that Apple employs DRM as a form of "lock-in" to an imaginary rhetorical device some call a "silo."

And it seems to me that Jobs places the burden of responsibility for the continued existence of DRM exactly where it belongs, on the shoulders of those who own the "rights" to the music itself.

Not to be an Apple fan-boy or anything, but I really can't abide bullshit, especially from people who claim to be against bullshit-as-usual, who just seem to sell a different brand of bullshit.

Bruised Heel

A consequence of last night's unintended high-speed course alteration seems to be a bruised heel. Bodhi reached the end of his leash at a point in my stride when I had to plant my right foot to try and check my forward motion and make the turn. I recall it hurting at the time, as I was wearing sandals, (Hey, they're expensive "sports" sandals!) and the part of my foot near the heel/instep was pushed hard into the union of the three straps there. It didn't hurt much afterward, but I must have done something because it's pretty damn sore this morning.

So in addition to running along straight courses, I'm going to make sure I have my running shoes on.

Live and learn...

... and limp.

Your Daily Tao

"I made this wave."

(Link courtesy of Scott Reynen)

Link error correction also courtesy of Scott Reynen!

Errors courtesy of moi.

Party Post-Game Report

Spoke to two guests today and got four thumbs up. "We planned to only stay for an hour, but we ended up staying for three!" I'll take that as a favorable endorsement.

The firehouse loved the pasta, too.

So next year, we do it on Saturday, which means more flexibility in scheduling.

Bodhi Notes

HDTV does pose some interesting new challenges.

Last Thursday night, Discovery HD had a show on about groundhogs, featuring some high definition video of woodchucks. That was the first time I'd ever seen Bodhi pay attention to anything on TV, and I had to grab him to keep him from jumping on the TV stand and putting nose prints all over the screen!

No more nature shows for me...

The other morning we were out for a walk. There are parking spaces perpendicular to the sidewalk and if they're vacant, I'll let Bodhi wander out there instead of on the sidewalk or on the grass. Across the street from this particular part of the complex are some one-car garages. Well, someone was getting into their car this particular morning, which seemed to command all of Bodhi's attention and I had to laugh as he walked right into a car that happened to be in front of him.

Tonight we were out walking, and every now and then I'd go into a sprint with him, just because it was a nice cool evening and I felt like getting my heart rate up a bit. He seemed to enjoy it alot. Well, on the last little sprint, Bodhi turned right where we normally turn right, and I kind of intended to keep on going the same direction I had been going, since I was running as hard as I could.

Well, when he's running almost as hard as he can, and he's attached to my arm by his leash - when he turns, I turn too. I slammed into a Corvette, though I managed to put my hand out to kind of cushion the blow. I was certain the car alarm was going to go off, but to my relief, nothing happened. So I think we'll confine the sprints to long straight parts of the walk next time.

A Note About Groundhog Day

Thanks to Karl Martino for pointing to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Groundhog Day, the movie.

I did watch Groundhog Day again this year, about three times in fact.

There's a line in the article that I might differ with a bit: "If we get transfixed by our own shadow... we're condemned to this redundant, selfish side of life." I'm not sure we get transfixed by our shadow, so much as we never see it. The alternate tag-line of this blog used to be "It's about seeing one's shadow." Phil Connors never directly sees his shadow, except through the consequences of his actions; and Phil, like most of us, has been habituated to deny the consequences of his actions. By repeating the same day over and over again, denial eventually becomes impossible.

It is a very Buddhist movie, though the writer, Danny Rubin, seems to disclaim any overt Buddhist influence. This is unsurprising, because Buddhism, in its purest form, springs from original thought or apprehension, not from required knowledge of dogma. I maintain that all of us are Buddhists, though most of us don't really know it. Now, there are some people, including some Buddhists, who might be a bit attached to the definition of what a Buddhist is who might disagree with that, and they might have a point. I have no quarrel with them. As for myself, I am not a Buddhist, except insofar as I am.

So go figure.

The cycle of death and rebirth appears throughout all of our lives, not just at the literal beginning and end. Each of us undergoes changes that involve loss, and so it's not surprising that Rubin, if I recall correctly, did specifically mention Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief as an influence on the movie. And those do appear in the movie, as they do in many movies. Cast Away is another very Buddhist movie, as is Saving Private Ryan. But then, wherever there is a representation of life, there you will find the Buddha. You might have to look a bit, but it's usually there. Especially if it's not. Good luck with that one.

But looking at a movie will not take you very far. If you watch carefully, Phil pursues everything externally, at first discovering that the special knowledge he is afforded by living the same day over and over again gives him an advantage, one could even say a competitive advantage, over others. He gratifies himself in innumerable ways, until gratification becomes meaningless, empty. And then he pursues Rita, the one thing that isn't meaningless to him anymore, and the one desire he cannot fulfill, because he's looking the wrong way.

As we all do.

And when he cannot fulfill that desire, he enters the wasteland. The "depression" stage of the five stages of grief. This is the encounter with transformation, and it is a type of death and rebirth. "I've killed myself so many times, I don't even exist anymore," is about the extinction of the ego, and Phil becomes oriented differently. Instead of gratifying himself, he begins to serve others. He pursues interests which afford him no immediate advantage, but which challenge him and bring forth from him more of what he capable of achieving. He takes the journey inward.

One could quibble and say that serving others is merely another form of gratification, and indeed, some people do pursue service of others as a form of gratification, but that's not selfless. I'm pretty sure one would know selflessness when one saw it. In the movie's defense, I would offer Phil's futile effort to save the life of the old homeless man removed the last shred of selfish ego in Phil's motives.

Phil doesn't try to "change the world," by using his special knowledge to compel others to behave differently. Phil uses his special knowledge simply to help others, and thereby changes himself. Sure, many individuals' lives are profoundly changed for the better by Phil, but it's Phil's life that is changed the most.

Too often, we believe we hold some privileged position from which we can perceive a higher truth; and then we hold forth, extolling others to change their ways. "Markets are conversations!" In a sense, you might say I'm doing that now. Except I'm not, really. At least, I try not to. Mostly, I try to offer something to think about. I'm an authority on nothing, I make all this shit up. You're encouraged to do your own thinking, because that's the only thinking that will do you any good. "The finger is not the moon," and everyone is giving you the finger. Try to keep that in mind.

It's funny, because I'm having my own encounter with the wasteland again. How I got here this time is clear to me, though it's no less difficult. I do know how to get out, but for now I think I need to stay. No doubt, there's something I need to learn. I would share it with you, except it's not mine alone. If I do learn anything, I will try and share that. I will say that while these are never pleasant times, I have found that they have been the most productive in terms of learning something about this experience of life.

Competing Messages: Off Message

In the ongoing rude intrusion of ugly reality into the idealistic, if thoroughly competitive, world of the digerati, the latest amusing development consists of Robert Scoble and a talk he has been engaged to provide on behalf of PayPerPost.

Two of the best responses to that are by Shelley Powers and Seth Finkelstein, though the comments attached to Robert's post are also revealing, to say nothing of Robert's original post and his justification, "'Cause I'm a capitalist."

I may be wrong, because I'm certainly not an objective observer, but I believe several things are at play here. I think accepting the money at first was part of a bottom line calculation. I get the impression Robert's online videos aren't getting the kind of attention he and his present employer desire, so they're probably looking for ways to save money. Second, Robert knew it would be "controversial," and "controversy" is one way of garnering attention, so it could potentially be a "win-win." Except attention for Robert and his antics doesn't necessarily guarantee interest in his videos, none of which I've seen. Finally, going back on the decision is itself something that would be seen as controversial, extending the duration of the event as an attention-seeking exercise.

So I get a sense of desperation here, but I could be wrong.

But I will point out how "capitalism" was Robert's initial justification. And as justification for their decision, it was perfectly legitimate, if somewhat uncharacteristic. But the criticism Robert received, even from his former book-writing partner, makes "capitalism" seem like a bad word!

The point is, markets are not conversations. They're competitive environments, where various entities compete for relatively finite resources. Sure, wealth grows, but not fast enough to keep all competitors afloat. Otherwise we'd all be awash in 1080p LCDs. And if you've got a mortgage on a $900K house, two new cars and a 60" Sony LCD, you've got a big incentive to compete for some of those finite resources, attention being one of them.

So, in a conversation, I can be the kind of person I want to be, and I can be pretty consistent with my values and my previous positions. If I choose to be. Of course, I can do anything I want in a conversation. In a market, I have to be the kind of person that's going to get attention, and make sure someone else isn't getting any that could be going to me. So I have to be someone who is somehow fascinating enough to garner that attention. One way to do that is to be controversial.

The point is, if it needs to be demonstrated again, and unfortunately it does, markets are not conversations. Conflating the social and the commercial corrupts the social to the advantage of the commercial. We need to find a way to protect social interactions from commercial interests. Robert shouldn't be criticized for taking money to speak at an event, just because people don't like the people he's taking it from. That's his job. Any one of us can be criticized because of the work we do, and how the entities that pay our salaries aren't living up to some ideal we all value. That's the way real life is, all men have feet of clay and all that.

Naturally, there are limits. Well, we hope there are limits. "He was just doing his job," doesn't excuse everything. But that's the point of what I call "social hygiene." By corrupting the social to the advantage of the commercial, we help to obscure those limits, so we can't make meaningful judgments. Instead, we get the kind of thing we're witnessing here with Robert.

But people are enamored with this notion that somehow we can make the competitive marketplace a better place by pretending it's a social exchange. It's not, the two are fundamentally different, and the nature of competition is not going to be changed in any meaningful way. It's just going to more thoroughly infect social interactions, until we have no safe places left to be "ourselves." We'll always have to be competing with one another. Which is pretty much where Robert finds himself today. His social self is tied up with his commercial self, because he is his own product. And since he doesn't have the usual attributes of celebrity, great wealth, good looks, or unusual talent, he has to hustle to keep people's attention. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm glad I'm not him.

SITREP

Well, here we are again...

Party? It happened. I had planned for about 25 people who indicated they intended to come, only 15 actually did. This came as a surprise and disappointment to me, but I haven't hosted a party in many years. As the host, it seems hard for me to gauge how it was perceived, but I'll see some of the guests today and get their feedback. My daughter, Melissa, who helped me a great deal, said it was a great party. Too much food though. Way too much. Next year's invitation will include, "Now with less than half the calories!" in a banner or something. My daughter took a large pan of penne pasta and meatballs home with her to give to her firefighter husband to bring to the station. I've still got a ton of chicken and ribs in my fridge, which I'll bring into work and hopefully it will all be consumed.

At the end, the "final four" did engage in a bit too much drinking. We needn't go into the quantity, but it was impressive. So Saturday turned into probably the worst hangover in more than a decade. Not sure I'll be repeating that performance next year either.

I ended up not giving away any door prizes, except the two woodchucks, who went to two of the "final four." I also managed to take a few pictures, but at least on person asked that I not post them on the internet, so no photographs.

Bodhi was fine. He did go a little nuts over some of my neighbors who have dogs he already knows and plays with; but for the most part he was a non-factor, other than to be eye-candy.

I get more compliments about Bodhi, walking him around, at obedience school, at the dog park. He is a beautiful dog, but more importantly, he's a great companion. I'm really grateful and happy to have him in my life. The maintenance guys here love him, and one of them calls him "the happiest dog in the complex."

In other cheese-sandwich related developments, I've contracted a cold. Actually, the symptoms began manifesting themselves on Friday as I was working my ass off getting ready for the festivities. I'm sure over-indulging didn't do much for my immune system. So today I've got a cough and a runny nose and that's more of a nuisance than anything else.

"Da Bears" gave me a pretty exciting first half of football yesterday in the "big game." (Can't say "Super Bowl" now. Markets are conversations, and all that. They're not, you know, competitive.) But when the third quarter looked like it was going to be all Indianapolis, I took Bodhi for a walk, and changed the channel. I didn't see any commercials I thought were especially memorable, though I did enjoy the talking lions, the Fedex moon commercial, and the office drones plunging over the cliff for some job search company. I wondered how many people watching would recall Apple's second most famous Super Bowl commercial that showed IBM-buying office drones walking over a cliff? Probably not very many.

Anyway, life goes on here, like it does pretty much everywhere else. Not as good as I would like, but doubtlessly better than I deserve; and I am grateful, and perplexed, by that.