Keith Olbermann Rocks My World

Wow. Just wow.

Flying Pigs?

Seth "Purple cow" Godin offered an interesting, and somewhat uncharacteristic post yesterday called "Marketing Morality." It's worth a read. Please do so, and form your own opinions. I'm going to comment on some portions of it, and you probably don't want to rely on my opinions.

It was a little refreshing to read, "Human beings don't make rational decisions, they make emotional ones, and we've seen time and again that those decisions are influenced by the time and money spent by marketers."

Too often, we seem to believe we're strictly "rational actors," and we flatter ourselves with our cognitive powers. That's not to say that emotional decisions are always irrational ones, they're not. If they were, we probably wouldn't have lasted as long as we have. Evolution has made our emotional apparatus pretty good at arriving the right decision much of the time. It's only been in the last few thousand years that our cognitive abilities have grown very adept at exploiting that emotional apparatus, and also creating the persistent illusion that the cognitive abilities are in the driver's seat.

Godin offers this with respect to marketers, their "power" and "responsibility:"

"As marketers, we have the power to change things, and the way we use that power is our responsibility--not the market's, not our boss's. Ours."

I don't think this is right. It seems to presume that marketers exist as some independent entity of the marketplace, and self-identify as such. They don't. They are a consequence of a competitive marketplace, as are all the less desirable aspects of a consumer culture Godin seems to allude to here. It also seems to imply that consumers lack the capacity to resist the "power" of the marketers. They don't, there's just no economic incentive to develop the awareness that would help them resist that power. Until they're broke anyway. Back when I was living on a very tight budget with maxed-out credit cards, it was easy to resist the power of marketers. Remove that economic incentive, and it's harder, but it can still be done.

But because we live in a competitive culture, there will always be people who will perform the role of a "marketer," even if the incumbent marketers choose not to. So unless marketers have the power to change the nature of the competitive marketplace, I don't think they have the power to change things very much at all.

(As an aside, it's my opinion that the only "power" that exists, apart from the strictly scientific or engineering definition, is the power to choose. All other manifestations of "power" are really an exercise of authority. All forms of authority require compliant individuals to be effective. While marketers are adept a achieving compliance, this doesn't give them a "power.")

In the very next paragraph, I think he offers something much closer to reality, and that is that marketers, as individuals, can't deny their responsibility for what they, as individuals, choose to do. That seems a little contradictory to the earlier point that marketers and marketing don't exist as some entity and activity independent of markets themselves. They don't, but there is still an element of personal responsibility in choosing to be a part of that consequence, just as there is an element of personal responsibility on the part of all those who are emotionally manipulated by "a good story," and who buy "junkie plastic Christmas ornaments." Or bottled water. Or SUVs.

Later on he offers, "We're responsible for what we sell and how we sell it. We're responsible for the effects (and the side effects) of our actions."

Again, I'm very sympathetic, but he's taking on too much of the burden here, and the first sentence contains two different things, "what" and "how," for which marketers have varying degrees of responsibility. "What" is not strictly something marketers are responsible for determining, while "how" is probably much larger portion of the responsibility, it is not exclusively so by any means. Both of these are also the consequences of a competitive marketplace. And I think the effects and side effects he's alluding to are wholly the result of a competitive marketplace and a consumer culture. (Can't leave culture out of this - though I do here.)

A competitive marketplace is going to be generating new products and competing products all the time, the pace of which is influenced by the success of the economy. Unless we say that all entrepreneurs, or better mouse trap builders are themselves marketers, a stretch I think, then "what" is largely something outside the responsibility of marketers.

How products are marketed is also a consequence of many things, to include the state of technology in the marketplace, which is not something that is determined by marketers. For instance, we're doing a great deal of scientific research into behavior and how the brain works. That research is ongoing because it has basic value to science and humanity as a whole. Marketers aren't responsible for that. But in a competitive marketplace, some marketers will look to the results of that research to find a competitive advantage. It is competitive pressure that influences that choice, and it's not as though all marketers will agree to forego a particular competitive advantage out of some moral calculation. Somebody will do it, and ultimately, all successful competitors will too, whether marketers feel good about it or not.

What marketers can do is something I think Godin is attempting to do here, and that is acknowledge that there is something about this process which can be inhumane.

I think they can help to educate consumers about how marketers and markets exploit them and their emotions, and perhaps help them learn to resist the efforts of marketers to some extent. Saying "markets are conversations," isn't going to help. Offering that "metaphor" is really just about writing a new "story" to tell ourselves about the marketplace, one which puts a false gloss on the pernicious aspects of a competitive marketplace. In that construction, all the advantages accrue to the marketer, "We're just talking here," and none at all to the consumer.

I've got some more problems with Godin, but I thought this was a "remarkable" post, much like a "purple cow," or "if pigs had wings..."

It remains to be seen if this was just something of an attention-seeking effort, or an emerging new direction in his thinking.

Worth Reading, and Remembering

Loren Webster notes some important ideas from the life of a recently deceased friend.

Don't forget these.

I'm sorry for your loss, Loren.

Ernesto

Tropical storm (Whoops! Tropical depression) Ernesto is making his presence felt in our neck of the woods right now. So far, not much wind, but some pretty impressive thunder and lightning. Not the frequency of the strikes, more the amplitude. Modest rain so far, though I expect we'll see more before the night is over.

Spoke to my parents this evening on iChat. My mom asked if the sky was really that color this morning? I almost missed that shot. I haven't been paying much attention to the sunrises of late, the skies have been so clear. I happened to glance over, probably to see what cat wanted in or out, and saw this bright band of red light through the closed blinds. I ran out the door and started up the landing, saw the sky and said, "Shit!" Ran back in and grabbed the camera. These things never last very long, so I'm fortunate that I didn't miss it.

But, yeah... "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning."

Morning Fire

"Red sky at morning..."

Practice

As of last week, I started training five times a week, and I may go back to seven here shortly, I'm not sure. I had been only training three times a week, and one of those sessions was on ground fighting, so I was basically not improving at all in taekwondo.

Most of what I want to do now involves improving my techniques in my forms, and that's going to require more strength training, both in my core and my legs, along with some more flexibility in my hips. I also want to work on my conditioning so I'm not so quickly winded in sparring. I've been using one of the treadmills at the fitness center here to help with that.

My right foot is fully recovered from the Plantar Fasciitis, but I'm going to have to pay attention to it; and I should probably learn how tape my arches to try and preclude another recurrence.

I had a ninety-minute class on Monday (Actually, two consecutive 45 minute classes, but there's no break between them, you just go from 1800 to 1930.), and an hour yesterday at lunchtime, and I'm feeling it today. This is a good thing. But I am bit sore.

"Use it or lose it," and I'm not getting any younger.

Remember that whole thing about the disconnect between the aspiration and reality? Yeah, this is how you fix that. Involves a lot of sweat and discomfort, even a little pain.

Aspirations are cheap. You get what you pay for.

Let it Rain

Ernesto doesn't look like it's going to be much to write home about, but we'll probably get some rain and gusty winds.

Nevertheless, it's a reminder that you need to pay attention to these things.

Susan Kitchens, another old alumnus from the editthispage.com days, created a flickr™ group, What's in YOUR disaster kit?, where people can share pictures and discuss their preps. It's just getting started, so join in if you're interested.

Tech: Logitech MM50 iPod Speakers

I bought these some time ago to use in a portable application where I likely wouldn't have access to a.c. power. They have a built-in battery that is supposed to last about 10 hours of play-time.

What has been something of a frustration to me is that I'll charge the unit, then place it in its carrying case and store it in the closet until I need it. However, when I take it out to use it, the battery is depleted, and therefore of little or no use until I spend a few hours charging it.

This didn't make a great deal of sense to me, so I e-mailed Logitech's support center to see if there might be something wrong with the thing. I got a timely response, and it turns out that the IR remote receiver continues to draw power even when the unit is off. Which makes sense, since you can turn it on and off with the remote.

I ended up using them this weekend while I was washing my car. I went out and did kind of the semi-annual, obsessive-compulsive car wash. Since the battery was dead, I took along the power adapter and plugged it into one of the two Belkin 140 watt inverters I carry in the Montero. I was a little worried about noise, but there was none that I could hear. The most annoying thing was I had to have the ignition key in the car with it set to Accessory to power the ports. With the doors open, I kept hearing the "bing-bing-bing" "You left your key in the ignition, you idiot," chime in between tracks.

Anyway, the lesson here is to keep the MM50 plugged in all the time, or at least charge it the night before you expect to use it in a portable application.

DVD: What Dreams May Come

Watched this Robin Williams movie last night. It's based on a Richard Matheson novel that I've never read, but Matheson wrote a number of Twilight Zone episodes, along with the novel I am Legend, which was later made into two moves, one of which, Omega Man, starred Charlton Heston, and Duel, which brought some guy named Spielberg to the world's attention. Lots of other stuff too. Anyway, I like Richard Matheson.

Is it a "good movie?" I enjoyed it. I can see why some people might not. I won't say I loved it, but I won't say I didn't either. That probably doesn't make much sense.

It certainly is beautiful, though.

DVD: Weekend Movie Report

Caitie and I watched Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, and Poseidon. The former was Caitie's idea, while the latter was idle curiosity on my part.

Health Inspector is a criminal waste of time. A movie made by twelve-year-old boys with little imagination and no sense of humor, masquerading as adults.

Poseidon was a relatively harmless distraction apart from the usual disregard of the laws of physics. Not a good movie, by any means, but no worse than watching reality TV or the news.

Divine Right of Kings

Got a nice note from Seth Finkelstein responding to something I offered in New Worlds for Old. With regard to my suggestion that "all men are created equal," is a vacuous assertion, Seth wrote:

It's a mistake to read it with 21st century cultural background. It's pretty clear from the whole paragraph and 18th century context that it was denying the idea of divine right of kings - it's essentially saying only "God doesn't like King George best, God doesn't like any particular man best".

In another e-mail, he also offered this:

Yes, it's certainly *used* as an aspirational statement now, but, historically, it didn't have the sort of meaning we give it. But I think it's a bad example because of reversed cause and effect. The original statement was polemical, but not the sort of marketing under discussion - the intended audience wasn't going to misread it, because they were steeped in the political theories of the time, of King vs. Parliament.

He's right about that, but I'm not sure how many people think about that phrase in context. We certainly should, but I suspected that someone else would think of it in response to my to my commentary as an emotionally appealing assertion with no real basis in reality, yet still serving some greater good. Much as Scott Reynen seemed to, perhaps only responding to my interpretation:

So while “the opportunity that anybody has to enjoy the same, or more. That’s what’s great about blogging” doesn’t appear to be helping anyone much, I don’t think all aspirations stated as fact are harmful. I’m not sure where the distinction is, but here’s a rough guess at what it might be:

The signatories to the Declaration of Independence had something at stake (land claims) in bringing reality closer to their stated aspirations. The cheerleaders of weblogging, on the other hand, have something at stake (attention claims) in preventing reality from matching their stated aspirations. Today, there’s still no scarcity of land in America, but there is a scarcity of attention on the web.

Which is an interesting take, and not entirely inconsistent with my own view.

So, it probably wasn't the best example, and perhaps my point is lost in there somewhere.

The point is this: What's wrong with "the world" isn't due to some shortage of inspirational prose. We're practically awash in the stuff. The disconnect is between the aspiration and effort required to turn it into something more closely approximating reality.

It's easy to experience the emotional rush of a well-written affirmation. It's much more difficult to proceed from mere emotion into different behavior. It takes practice. More importantly, it requires attention, and it seems many, many things, and people, are competing for our attention. With what little we're able to retain for ourselves, it's no surprise that we seldom live up to the loftiest notions of our aspirations. For me, it was enough for some time to simply recall, "Don't drive angry. Don't drive angry." Now I try to remember, "Don't blog angry." And, mostly I do.

Finally, people who desire some authority, which may afford them the perception of higher rank in one or more hierarchies, are good at crafting inspirational, emotionally appealing but meaningless and vacuous assertions, more to serve themselves than some larger good.

In that regard, although again perhaps not exactly in the conventional context, it's good to recall a certain expression attributed to Zen Buddhism, "The finger is not the moon," and consider that most authors of emotionally appealing but meaningless assertions are really giving you the finger. That ought to sort of remind you what the real work is.

Answers

In response to the previous post, Doc Searls pointed to this piece, probably written near the end of January, 2005, as being responsive to the questions I posed. After reading it, I'll attempt to discern what the answers to my questions might be. The questions referred to two brief quotations, only one of which, it turns out, we really need to examine:

"We're building a new world here: one where rank matters less than whatever goods you bring to whatever you contribute to. And how you grow on the job. To me, at least, that's what blogging is about."

And the questions began:

How is the average reader to parse this statement? Who does this speak to? Does it speak to everyone? Should anyone be able to read that passage and discern its truth?

Doc does not identify his audience explicitly. Reading him carefully in the post he offered as an answer suggests his writing is primarily intended for members of what might be described as the "open source community." But I'm not sure an average reader, coming upon Doc's writing either in his own weblog or as quoted in others, would know that without spending some non-trivial amount of time reading Doc's work. I know I certainly get confused. I knew "we" didn't refer to "me," but I wasn't sure just what the hell the rest of it was referring to, so I took it at face value, and I'm not sure that's not what Doc intended.

Given that the original post references both Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat, and Doc's own response to that, an average reader might believe that Doc is writing about everyone and the world in general; and in that sense, the sentiment Doc expresses probably speaks to a larger audience than just the open source community.

Ideally, anyone should be able to read that passage and discern its truth, or lack thereof; but since it seems to be primarily an expression of sentiment, the only truth that is likely to be discerned is whether or not the reader shares the same feeling.

Who are the "we" Doc refers to? Does it include me? Does it include Shelley Powers? Does Doc have a mouse in his pocket? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Again, "we" seems to refer to the open source community. This definitely does not include me. In this context, I don't think I can speak for anyone else.

In my opinion, Doc's statement is intended to speak to a larger audience than just the narrower "we" he refers to; but Doc is at no pains to explain to the larger audience how it differs from "we." Yet he's happy to try to inform anyone who happens to read him.

There is nothing in the information Doc pointed to that suggests whether or not Doc has a mouse in his pocket.

What does it mean that "we" are "building" a "new world?" If we're "building" it, does that mean there's a plan? Is it too late to submit a change order? Who's the architect who signed the blueprints? Are they on file somewhere? What will this new world include, besides "flatness?" Whatever that is.

Okay, "we" doesn't include me, nor lots of other people who may or may not be aware of that - it means the open source community. The next big piece of this misleading formulation is the "new world." Doc does answer this question explicitly in the post he linked to. The "new world" isn't "the world" at all, but the internet. Doc calls it "the wide world of the Net." Again, would the average reader know that? I don't think so. Does it matter? I obviously think it does.

So "building," in this context relates almost exclusively to "the Net." Again, one almost can't figure that out reading that quotation in context. In context, Doc seems to be referring to "the world," the one we all live in. In his response, he strongly suggests he's just talking about the internet.

Then Doc's formulation could reasonably be rewritten, I believe:

"The open source community is building the Net here: one where rank matters less than whatever goods members of the community bring to whatever they contribute to. And how they can grow on the job. To me, at least, that's what blogging's about."

Not as dramatic or emotionally compelling, is it?

Well, since Doc's only talking about "the Net," and since "the Net" is most assuredly not "the world," (we can leave the arguments for whether or not it's "a world" for another day) then it's probably safe to say most of the rest of my questions are irrelevant.

I would probably differ a bit on the whole "building" notion, though; because "the Net" that's emerging is one that is being influenced by a number of different actors, most of whom don't share many interests in common. So there's something of a competitive process underway in creating "the Net," which is not exclusively under the control of anyone.

I wish I didn't have to be so careful when reading Doc to figure out when he's writing about "we" as in "everyone, including me," and when he's writing about "members of the open source community;" also when he's writing about "the world" as in "the place where we all live," and "the Net." If one isn't careful, one could easily be misinformed.

In my opinion, it would probably be better, although maybe not as quotable, if Doc could write more straightforward formulations, rather than making more emotionally compelling statements that don't correspond directly to what he's actually talking about. I think that just makes the world (the one where we all live) a more confusing place, and I think it's confusing enough as it is.

New Worlds for Old

What follows are some serious questions, and some commentary. I'm concerned that Doc might find it disrespectful. I don't think it is. They're straightforward questions. I don't exhibit a great deal of deference to Doc, like I would to an officer who outranked me in the navy, but this is the blogosphere, where deference is supposed to be a null concept.

I'm not sure that "respect" entitles one to a pass when one makes sweeping generalizations that may not be true, and which are likely to be read by wide audiences that haven't exhibited a tendency to regard the things the authors they favor write critically. Sorry for that awkward sentence.

So, with that out of the way, here goes nothing.

In a recent blog post, Doc Searls offered this: "We're building a new world here: one where rank matters less than whatever goods you bring to whatever you contribute to. And how you grow on the job. To me, at least, that's what blogging is about."

How is the average reader to parse this statement? Who does this speak to? Does it speak to everyone? Should anyone be able to read that passage and discern its truth?

Who are the "we" Doc refers to? Does it include me? Does it include Shelley Powers? Does Doc have a mouse in his pocket? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

What does it mean that "we" are "building" a "new world?" If we're "building" it, does that mean there's a plan? Is it too late to submit a change order? Who's the architect who signed the blueprints? Are they on file somewhere? What will this new world include, besides "flatness?" Whatever that is.

What "goods" is Doc bringing to what he contributes to? Metaphors? Is that Doc's contribution? I'm a little fuzzy on that. "Rank matters less than whatever goods you bring to whatever you contribute to." I really have no idea what that means.

"And how you grow on the job." What does that mean? I don't know, but it sounds kind of like a cover your ass statement, so that if "whatever goods you bring to whatever you contribute to" don't bring success even if they're "good," well, it's because you didn't "grow on the job." There's not a damn thing wrong with the business model! Is blogging a "job?" If so, I must see myself about a raise.

Are we really "building a new world?" Or are the changes emerging in the world really the result of many different processes, all of them continuously at work, few of them well understood, most of them chaotic, and almost none of them under any strict control? I think so. Is that really what "building a new world" is? Is suggesting that it's something under someone's ("we") conscious control a "good" Doc's contributing to whatever he contributes to?

Is what I quoted above the kind of statement that actually illuminates, well, anything? Or is it meant to make kind of an emotional appeal, to resonate with how some people wish things could be? Is it meant to associate Doc and his readers with others who share that wish? To become an element of a shared belief system. And what then?

You know what suffering is? Say it with me, "Suffering is the difference between the way things are, and the way we want them to be."

Do emotionally appealing, but utterly meaningless statements that create unrealistic, unreasonable, and irrational wishes for how we'd like the world to be add to suffering, or subtract from it? Can sufficiently appealing emotionally evocative turns of phrase actually reify themselves into something resembling reality? Gosh, if they can, somebody let the administration know so we can get this whole Iraq thing under control.

What is the merit here, in this "meritocracy?"

In the comment to another blogger's post that Doc links to in the first post under consideration here, he offered this:

I don’t want to deny what influence I have. But I would much rather celebrate the opportunity that anybody has to enjoy the same, or more. That’s what’s great about blogging.

And by saying so I am not an apologist or an evangelist for blogging. I am merely reporting one fact that can be denied only by those who insist that all forms of success must have its victims.

Well, I'd like to celebrate that opportunity too. I'd like to see someone enjoy the same influence Doc seems to have, debunking the vacuous, though emotionally appealing, assertions Doc makes about "building a new world" above. Somebody point out to me the voice in the blogosphere that's the "same, or more," than Doc's voice, that undoes all the damage done by emotionally appealing, but vacuous or misleading statements about "building a new world," or "markets are conversations."

I don't hear that voice. Mostly, I see a lot of people who subscribe to notions that have no real meaning because they sound nice. Things they so much want to believe, that they act as though they really are true; and as a result, we're less able to actually "build" anything, because we can't even see clearly the things going on around us, much less agree about what we're working on, or what's working on us.

Now, some sage will come along and point out something like, "all men are created equal," and suggest that it is also an emotionally appealing formulation that has no basis in reality. And despite its presence in the Declaration of Independence, we know the signers didn't, in fact, regard all men as being created "equal," and pretty much ignored women entirely. But, the virtue would supposedly be that it helped to create "a new world," where men were more equal than in the old one. A "flatter" one, if you will. But again, there were more processes at work in that period in history than are captured in that one document, and there was, and remains, plenty of suffering to come in the effort to live up to the notion that "all men are created equal." It doesn't come about because someone put it down on paper, nor is it necessary, but it helps certain other processes gain supporters and adherents. Marketing, in other words.

And, just because I didn't appreciate the way Doc dismissed all those who criticize his idealistic and unrealistic vision of the blogosphere, I'd like to point out that Doc seems to be one of those same people "who insist that all forms of success must have its victims," as he routinely claims he is a victim of the educational system.

So, in the same sense that Doc uses his experience in the educational system to damn the whole thing, I guess we're in good stead by claiming that some bloggers enjoy success, while others are excluded; not by some conspiracy, but by a process that isn't under anyone's control, that obeys laws that are only partially understood, if at all, and which has little or nothing to do with "meritocracy."

The new, "flatter" world we're "building" is one where we flatter ourselves, and then call it "meritocracy."

We're not "building" the world. If anything, we allow "the world" to build us. It's not necessary to "build" a "flatter" world. Nor would I say that it's possible, because what makes the world "unflat" isn't in "the world," it's in people's hearts. Just because the Declaration of Independence declared that "all men are created equal," it didn't make it so. And what keeps that from being true even today isn't a lack of inspiring words on paper or marble or pixels. It's a defect in a heart that can't be fixed by mere words, or new technologies. And as long as we go on believing that we can "build a new world," we'll allow ourselves to ignore the defects in our hearts, and continue to be disappointed that the worlds we build seldom seem to live up to our meretricious metaphorical achievements.

And I don't consider myself a "troll." I suppose few trolls actually do. But I don't think I "merit" being dismissed as one.

Be Prepared

Hurricane season has been pretty quiet thus far, but we're just getting ready for the main event, so this is a timely article:

He is mystified by a study that found 60 percent of people in hurricane-prone U.S. coastal areas have no hurricane plan -- which to disaster managers means up to a week's worth of food and water squirreled away, a kit with flashlights and other gear, and an established evacuation route to higher ground.

I apologize for linking to the "all fear, all the time" network, but it's probably a worthwhile reminder.

I keep about a week's worth of calories on hand, chiefly in the form of cans of soup, the kind with a pull-top that don't require additional water. I don't necessarily have a week's worth of water, but I'll stock up as necessary as a storm approaches. I do have six liters of water stored in the freezer, which mostly act as a buffer in case the power goes out, though they're perfectly potable.

And I also have the "get the hell out of Dodge" box. I just pulled it out of the closet to take a couple of pictures. Glad I did too, one of the things I noticed I was missing was ordinary matches, though I do have one of those big propane lighters.

The stuff in the box is intended for a short stay at a shelter, three or four days max. But it also contains things that might be useful outside of a shelter environment in the event we found ourselves someplace less well organized than a shelter. Plus a few things that might be useful after returning home following a near-miss when we might have some minor damage, and stores might not be open right away. I figure food will either be at the shelter, or at home, though I will bring a cooler with some drinks and "comfort foods," you know, for the kids.

This would be in addition the stuff I always carry in the Montero: Another first-aid kit, a couple of 140 watt inverters. I've got an 800 watt inverter I'll probably just leave at the apartment. Nothing I'll take with me requires that much a.c. power.

Some things it occurs to me to add:

A few toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss. Nobody's going to remember to grab those on the way out. A couple of bath towels. ("Always carry a towel!") Hand mirror. Some plastic utensils, maybe a couple of cups and bowls, or a mug that might be used as a bowl. Have to think about that. Maybe some more cord. Ear plugs! I probably need to get a more current road atlas too.

The box is on wheels, and at the moment I can carry it down the stairs with little difficulty apart from being a bit bulky.

My laptop bag would contain my Gameboy DS, my Gameboy Micro, the iPod Shuffle (though I would have to remember to grab the 40GB iPod, I'd probably forget it though), in addition to the iBook. I'd have to remember to grab the digital camera. Probably need to put a checklist on the top of the box. And all my important records are contained in a couple of plastic file boxes that can travel with me.

It's not enough stuff to re-start civilization or anything, but it comes from a list I made on my Newton while sitting in a shelter when we evacuated for Hurricane Floyd back in '99. It might make an uncomfortable experience a little more comfortable.

Here are a couple of pictures:

The paper, crayons, markers and cameras are kind of there to give the kids something to do. Or maybe just me. There are two tarps. I figure if you need to tarp your roof when you get back, you probably want to do it right away and not wait for the stores to open, so a couple of tarps and a staple gun. I'd leave them at home, but they're potentially too useful in other ways, so they're in the box. I'm of the opinion that you can never have too many bungie cords. There are a bunch in the Montero too, along with some basic tools, though I should add the tool box to the checklist.

Anyway, there are probably a few things I'll find absolutely critical that I haven't included, and a few things I won't need at all. Mostly it's probably just moral support. ;^)

Click here for the full-size contents image.

Pascale Soleil Now at New URL

Since the DNS hasn't propagated yet (whatever the hell that means), I'll point to this post at the old URL, which has a link to the new URL.

Promises to get "oogy."

I'm not sure, but I think that probably has something to do with, "boogie-oogie-oogie till you just can't boogie no more," I think.

Bring your dancing shoes.

Why I Blog

Because after 49 years, even after learning the value of "being still," I haven't learned how to keep my mouth shut.

Not exactly a mystery, is it?

On Fairness

Ethan Johnson at ethmar.com, offers a substantial reply to the notion of the unfairness of life offered in What Can't Be Fixed.

Ethan makes a number of good points, particularly with regard to the ossification of our belief systems, immobilizing us in a rigid set of beliefs that keep us from seeing all that there is to see.

I don't disagree with any of that, and certainly I think we've all known examples of both B and C and their respective points of view. I'm a little concerned that perhaps I've given Ethan the impression that I'm a "C," in other words, someone who is unrelentingly negative about life and the prospects for happiness or success, and this seems to be a recurring reaction to many of the things I write.

I've been called a grumpy, cantankerous curmudgeon in one weblog. One e-mail correspondent has concluded that I'm "just an angry guy." (Imagine being reduced to just that.) Another accused me of "spinning, twisting and taking things out of context to make my point." Also that I'm "one of the most devious and dangerous spin masters," this correspondent has ever seen. Also that I don't allow anyone the opportunity to respond so that I can "lie and spin all you like, with impunity." Kind of like how I denied Doc and Ethan the opportunity to respond I suppose. And I've also been accused of not having a conscience. I can think of a few occasions when that might have been useful but, alas, for better or worse I seem to be burdened with one.

I think it's safe to say I'm not always understood.

But that's okay, because few of us ever really are. In a way, that's probably one of the only "fair" things in life.

And it's probably my fault. I certainly don't approach the topics I feel strongly about, shall we say... discreetly? No, I figure high attention-earners who are regarded as authorities rate having their authority challenged, so I'm pretty in your face about that. But, for the most part, I don't think I call anyone names, or just discard them as hopeless curmudgeons or devious, twisted people. I sometimes come close to the line on that, and maybe I cross it now and then, but I have an unpublished topic for my most vituperative missives, so I am trying to be the change I wish to see in the world. Not saying I always meet that objective, but I work at it.

Anyway, back to the topic of Ethan's post.

I think we're on pretty safe ground saying that "life isn't fair" is a fact. I'm not an expert, but if I had to guess, I'd say the whole notion of fairness grew out of our experience with life and the lack of fairness in our experience. Mostly in the sense that nature isn't exactly fair. Some people get sick, some people don't. Some people get well, others die. The boulder landed on Ug and not Thag, so what's up with all that? We used to make up stories to tell ourselves why one guy "deserved" it and the other guy didn't. Now we believe that it's just random. Well, except for the stories we still tell ourselves why some people deserve what happens to them.

We do love a good story. Just ask Seth Godin.

No, the idea of "fairness" is something of an ideal that we usually try to apply in our interactions with one another. We should always try to be fair, even if we know that we can never be perfectly fair. There's enough unfairness in life, we shouldn't go out of our way to make that any worse. The fact that life isn't fair doesn't give us a pass to be rat bastards; though I think it's safe to say some people have kind of embraced that notion.

And if we're not treated fairly by others, we have a choice. We can go down the path Ethan describes for "C" and kind of wall ourselves off from the world behind a set of expectations that life's going to treat us like shit, and then pretty much have those expectations met.

Hopefully, we don't do that. Sometimes when we're treated unfairly, there's an avenue of appeal and we probably ought to pursue that. Other times, there is no appeal, and we probably should just let it go and not let it excessively color our experience of the world. Shit, in fact, does happen. But so do flowers. So go figure.

One of my e-mail correspondents who isn't convinced I'm the spawn of Satan sent me a link to a book and its associated web site, called The Happiness Hypothesis. From there, I found this site called Authentic Happiness, run by happiness researcher Dr. Martin Seligman. There are a series of surveys or questionnaires on the site that you can take to kind of assess your state of happiness. Out of curiosity, I took all of them. As it happens, I seem to be mostly in the median of happiness and optimism, roughly. Which didn't really come as a surprise to me, because I feel pretty good most of the time, and while I'm not exactly a Pollyanna, I figure that mostly I'm adequate to all I'll confront.

So, for whatever that's worth, I seem to be relatively "normal." Which is comforting, I suppose.

Back to Ethan. In closing, Ethan suggests that we always try to "observe, question, and challenge the maxims, beliefs, and attitudes that define our very existence. And having done this, effect positive change," and I think that's good advice. In fact, I haven't always been as (relatively) happy as I seem to be today. For a good long while there, maybe a decade or so, I was a pretty unhappy and angry guy. About seven years ago, I started talking to someone who observed, questioned and challenged my own maxims, beliefs and attitudes, ultimately leading me to discard many of those. The practice of Zen Buddhism consists of actively doing just that. I think. I'm not an authority on Zen Buddhism, but I do like reading about it.

So I hope you'll read Ethan's post and take his message aboard. I'm certainly not advocating that people act the way I described in the final paragraphs of What Can't Be Fixed. It's a bit of hyperbole, to be sure, but only just a bit. If anything, I'm suggesting that perhaps it isn't worth desiring something so much, whether it's to be an A-lister, or "influential" or anything for that matter, that you have to kind of engage in a lot of behavior that you'll have to spend a lot of time justifying to yourself and others.

I also think it's not helpful to make claims for technology, or ideologies, that don't match up with reality; and you can pretty much count on me getting in your face about that. Respectfully, of course, though I'm sure I'll continue to experience some degree of misunderstanding, just as I often misunderstand you.

Finally, in case you're new, I'm an authority on nothing. I make all this shit up. You're encouraged to do your own thinking.

Al Hawkins Now at New URL

Al Hawkins, former critical care nurse, long-time weblogger, Tinderbox wizard, gourmet chef, greyhound rescuer, father, husband, ex-Marine, screencaster, Mac expert, and Sunday backup nag is now at new digs:

code: theWebSocket;

Update: Al informs me he was in the Army, not the Marine Corps. I knew he was starting to sound almost too good to be true! But, and Al didn't mention this, it just occurred to me now, I also omitted singer and raconteur. So, he's still a man of many talents and a friend.

Cheese Sandwich: Halo Universal

I downloaded and installed the universal version of Halo for the Mac. I hadn't played it under Rosetta, but it seems to play as well as it did on the G4. A couple of details: I had to install the game from the CD burned from the disk image. I originally installed it right from the disk image itself, then burned the CD from the image. Afterward, the game wouldn't recognize the CD. Once I used the installer on the CD to perform the installation, it didn't have any more problems. Also, hitting the escape key doesn't seem to work as it did before, but CMD-escape works. The Might Mouse isn't really ideal as a gaming mouse, I think.

I finally got around to installing the patch to iChat AV that allows a USB webcam to be used instead of an iSight on computers below Apple's 600MHz spec. I installed it on my old 400 MHz iMac DV and hooked up a Logitech Messenger camera. I also had to download an open source video driver to get it to work. It works fine in Rendezvous mode with the other iMac, but for some reason it claims it doesn't receive local video data when making an internet connection. I'll play with it a little more and see if I can get it working. If I can, I'll shoot the whole thing up to my brother in Alabama to use for video chats. If I can't, well, I'll give it away somehow.

I've been using Salling Clicker a lot on the iMac to control iTunes. One nice feature I hadn't been aware of before is that it mutes iTunes, or maybe it pauses - I'm not sure which, when the phone rings. When I get home from work, a lot of the time I'll put iTunes on and then lie down on the couch and listen to music. (Really, I'm taking a nap, but I tell myself I'm listening to music so I don't feel like such a slacker.) Anyway, I sometimes sort of doze off, and then I won't hear the phone over the music if it rings. But the combination of the music stopping and the phone ringing has woken me a couple of times. So... pretty cool!

Amazon has informed me that This Island Earth has shipped. That'll be fun to watch. I love the beginning where the geeks start building this device from plans they receive in the mail or something, a telerocitor or something like that. Not only does it video chat, but it can punch holes through solid steel plates! It's a classic.

I watched The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension again the other day. It remains a delight, but it's very dated and some of its charm depends on an awareness of what American pop culture was like in the 80s. I suspect it's ripe for a "reimagining."

Well, that's probably enough fromage for one day. I've got to go look after some critters. Then maybe I'll listen to some music...

What Can't Be Fixed

I've got a bit of a long piece I put up briefly this morning, but I noticed I started out going in one direction and ended up heading off in another (Like that never happens.), and I want to try and tie that all up together somehow. So it'll be back, but it's in The Cooler for now.

Doc replied to the Gatekeeper post offering, in part: Even if he's right (and I don't think he is), what can I do, besides go back and link to Seth Finkelstein and every other negelected authority I've failed to credit in every subject I've ever written about?

Naturally, it's a rhetorical question.

What can I do about the exploitation of workers in China and other nations? True, I can choose not to buy products made there, but that raises a number of other moral and ethical questions for which I have no easy answers.

The point is, "exploitation" of workers exists, and we may not approve of it, but we cannot just deny it away. Just as "gatekeeping" exists, no fairy tale, or clever metaphor can deny it away.

Doc frequently demurs that he's not an "A-lister." He points to his referers and his page views in his weblog as an example of his modest audience. But that doesn't tell the whole story. A quick subscription to Doc's RSS feed in Bloglines will tell you that there are 2,730 subscribers to Doc's weblog. Now, truthfully, I have no idea what that number means. I guess it means that 2,730 people have used Bloglines to subscribe to Doc's RSS feed. Do 2,730 people actively use their subscriptions to read Doc's posts every day? I have no idea. But when you consider that Bloglines is only one feed aggregator, I suspect that the number of people who read Doc's writing is probably safely in the thousands.

Regardless of how many people actually subscribe to Doc's feed, I think it's also disingenuous to suggest that Doc isn't influential. Although I don't read Tom Friedman (I did buy The World is Flat, though I haven't read it yet.), I know who he is and I know he's a fairly high profile columnist for the New York Times with a Pulitzer or two on his bookshelf. But I read Doc Searls and through Doc I know that Tom Friedman mentioned Doc in either a column or a new edition of his book. So I think it's safe to say that Doc earns not only a great deal of attention from the blogosphere at large, he earns attention from high-attention earners as well.

Therefore, I conclude that it is reasonable to believe that Doc Searls is a high attention-earner, and he has a significant amount of attention-directing authority. I don't track my page views, so I don't know if the post I'm responding to here has sent any traffic my way. I'd guess relatively little, because I rather suspect most people either don't care about this topic, or are tired of it. Me, not so much. But I still think it's reasonable to believe that the things that Doc points to in his weblog generally garner more attention than they might otherwise, with one caveat. When he's pointing "up" the hierarchy, to Tom Friedman say, I rather suspect the increase in attention is in the noise. When he's pointing laterally, say to Jeff Jarvis, it's probably a blip. But when he's pointing "down" the hierarchy, it's likely a significant increase.

But it's not just traffic, because who cares about numbers ultimately? Mostly people use numbers as a shorthand for something else more difficult to measure. Technorati uses it to measure "authority," which is just a marketing effort by Technorati to shore up their specious marketing claim to being "the recognized authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs."

More important than the numbers is reputation. Context is important, but any link from Doc confers some degree of endorsement to the recipient. It's better if it's favorable, otherwise we're just down to the cynical marketing notion that "there's no such thing as bad publicity." But if Doc favorably points to something someone has written, then people who trust Doc are more likely to trust that writing as well. Not all of them and not all the time, maybe only just a fraction of them a fraction of the time, but it represents a significant boost to a voice competing with thousands of other voices to be heard.

What's intriguing in all this is that, in the area of censorship anyway, Doc Searls and Seth Finkelstein share similar points of view. Seth's efforts actually support many of Doc's efforts, and Seth's voice would seem to be a valuable asset in helping to bring about Doc's goals. Seth seems to be frustrated because he often isn't part of "the conversation," and because he bought into the myth regarding the level playing field of the blogosphere. Yet Doc doesn't seem to link very often to Seth, and they've even met in person. Even after coming to Doc's attention in the context of the previous "gatekeeping" conversation, Doc either didn't read Seth, or didn't find what Seth wrote worth linking to. Doc does link often to his friends, or at least the same people, it seems. He does link to others as well, to relative unknowns. Doc's not evil here, I'm not trying to make that claim.

This is not a criticism of Doc. It's very likely that Doc's reading habits simply don't bring Seth's writing to his attention. Nor should Doc's reading habits be tailored to meet some fictitious responsibility he has to link to lesser-known bloggers. The point is, some amount of the attention and trust resources of the blogosphere at large are distributed arbitrarily or randomly, whimsically even, through the reading and linking habits of high attention-earning bloggers.

It's not equal, it's not flat, and it's not fair. In other words, it's just like the world at large, and technology does not change that. Whether I like it or not, my product consumption habits support companies that perhaps don't treat their employees the way we believe they ought to be treated. Short of taking a vow of asceticism, or investing significant amounts of time in investigating the origins of all the competing products I might have use for, I can't change that.

Whether Doc likes it or not, his reading and linking habits help to distribute the attention and trust resources of the blogosphere at large in an unequal and unfair way, and short of investing significant amounts of time into finding, reading and evaluating somehow, the relative merits of unknown bloggers, he can't change that.

Doesn't make either of us bad persons, just people existing in an imperfect and unfair world.

What can Doc do? He can take another look at the situation and perhaps reconsider statements like this one: I've worked in, and with, countless institutions and organizations that are full of gates and gatekeepers. Exclusive territories. By comparison, blogs are the wide open spaces. Nothing about the blogosphere appeals to me more than the absence, or the ridiculousness, of "gates".

"By comparison, blogs are the wide open spaces."

By comparison, blogs and blogging appear different. But that changed appearance doesn't equate to institutions or organizations (if we take those terms at their most general, regarding "the blogosphere" as an institution for instance), let alone a world, that is not full of gates and gatekeepers and exclusive territories. The terrain may have changed, but the competition to be heard remains the same. It remains unequal and unfair. Perhaps more cruelly so, because the changed appearance gave many people to believe that it might be so, it might be fairer, it might be more equal. And it doesn't help that high attention-earners of good reputations like Doc Searls' helped to create that myth and continue perpetuate it.

Which, ordinarily, would be a good way to close this. But I can already read the dismissals and objections. They all begin, "Yeah, but..." and then go on to give examples of people who formerly never had a voice at all and now have a large or a modest readership, and that's all they ever wanted and blah, blah, blah. Great, that's not what we're talking about here. Technology changes how we do things, not what we do. I had a modest readership, probably larger than Groundhog Day, back when I wrote and edited the newsletter for my Apple users group. Big deal. I also would chat with my friends at work, or my neighbors at home, or even the guy who cut my hair, or the gal who poured my beer. In many ways, weblogs have expanded that "space" of contact for casual "conversation."

The kind of voices we're talking about here are the kinds that get mentioned in books by Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, or the kind that go on NPR and blather on breathlessly about how "this changes everything," or the kind that appear on CNN as the "blogfather" or whatever stupid neologism some moron came up with. People like Seth write with authority about important issues and they thought the blogosphere would help them find their voice and reach an audience that would allow them to be influential. Well, it doesn't work that way and it never did.

It's a competitive world, and the blogosphere is no different. Some people have little stomach for competition. I'm ambivalent about it myself. If I have to play, I play to win. I'm not playing this game. If you want to have a large audience and be influential, you have act like a jackass sometimes to get attention, much like a certain high attention-earning weblogger whose initials begin with the same letter that jackass starts with. There's no shortage of that going on. You have to kiss up and piss down. You'd think that it would help if you're intelligent and write well, but there are quite a few high attention-earners who exhibit neither of those qualities. A gift for the good snark or sly put-down helps. Or maybe you can make scribbles, or wear a skirt (that only helps if you're a male). It helps if you have A-list patrons who'll transmit trust and authority to you. It also helps if you flog the popular memes, and endorse the ideas and metaphors of the A-list. Taking off your clothes has helped some. You can be a contrarian, but you'll get a ration of shit from the conventional authorities who will call you names and invite you to sit down and shut up, so come to that party with a thick skin.

In short, you'll pretty much have to sell your soul. But, if you work really hard at all that, and are more than a little bit lucky, you'll have your audience, your influence and your authority. Maybe you'll have your dignity, but that seems like an optional commodity these days. I guess the thinking is that you earn that back once you make the mainstream media circuit.

Now, some of the earliest bloggers didn't have to sell their souls. They earned their trust and authority when there was relatively little competition, and some of them sound as though they don't like the game much anymore either. But you already know the problem with the rat race - only the rats win.

Welcome to the world.

The Lost Art of Conversation, Part Deux

The other thought is that maybe you should reflect on just quitting your blog. You don't like the blogosphere. You certainly don't seem to like those of us who are dedicating lives and energy to its promotion, and--don't be offended by this Nick--we really won't miss you a whole lot if you just sit down and shut up.

Shel Israel Blog Evangelist

Apparently, Mr. Israel only evangelizes for blogs that happen to share his point of view. The rest of them can "just sit down and shut up."

So much for that whole "conversation" metaphor in his book he authored and used Robert Scoble to help promote and garner attention.

Perhaps that's just another "innocent fraud?"

Doc Searls - Gatekeeper

Fraught though this is for having the French taunt me from their castle a second time, here's a little illustration of what the phenomenon is we're talking about here.

If you use Google to search for the term "censorship" on Doc Searls weblog, you get about 109 hits. It seems to vary, the first time I did it, I got 112. But most of them are dupes of some kind because of the nature of Doc's blog platform. When I started clicking on individual links, about page 4, Google truncated it and told me there were about 34 more links that were probably dupes or something, and I'd already encountered quite a few in the first few pages. But here's the list I compiled:

1/24/06 New York Post, Howard Stern censorship http://doc.weblogs.com/2006/01/24

9/29/05: net "censorship" John Gilmore http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/09/29

7/27/02 John Gilmore, Head Lemur http://doc.weblogs.com/2002/07/27

3/30/03 Al Jazeera, Hitchens brothers, war http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/03/30

11/17/05 Charlie Nesson, Dave Weinberger, John Palfrey, others "saving the net" http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/11/17

10/03/02 Bryan Field-Elliot censorship provision in legislation http://doc.weblogs.com/2002/10/03

7/24/06 Michael Rogers, himself, "WOE", Bob Frankston http://doc.weblogs.com/2006/07/24

4/15/05 Judge Steven Russell letter, Jeff Jarvis, http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/04/15

7/1/04 media censorship, politics http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/07/01

11/02/05 Mister Snitch, Catholic School blogs, Forbes piece "Attack of the Blogs" http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/11/02

04/16/02 Marc Rotenberg Fahrenheit 451 http://doc.weblogs.com/2002/04/16

3/16/04 Tony Pierce Broadcast Decency Act http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/03/16

3/24/06 Ethan Zuckerman: Censorship is the sincerest form of flattery. http://doc.weblogs.com/2006/03/24

6/01/04 Neil Boortz media censorship FCC http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/06/01

5/09/01 Google and link breakage? http://doc.weblogs.com/2001/05/09

1/14/06 Don Marti Censorship and Jurisdiction shopping. http://doc.weblogs.com/2006/01/14

10/12/04 J.D. Lassica FCC censorship, "content" metaphor http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/10/12

7/16/03 Richard Bennett, Dean Campaign Blog, blog policy, Dave Weinberger, Larry Lessig, Kevin Werbach, Eugene Volokh http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/07/16

10/15/01 Hunter S. Thompson column news censorship http://doc.weblogs.com/2001/10/15

3/13/04 Washington Post article, Howard Stern FCC crackdown

5/12/03 Salam Pax, Weekly Standard censorship in Iran http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/05/12

2/27/01 Richard Stallman, Declaration of Software Freedom. http://doc.weblogs.com/2001/02/27

None of the links on those pages point to Seth Finkelstein, who is something of an authority on the topic of censorship.

Now, if you search for the term "Finkelstein" on Doc's weblog, it appears only twice on February 12th and 18th 2006, rebutting the charges of "gatekeeping."

Not all of those links where Doc mentioned censorship dealt with "net censorship" per se. But one gets the impression that censorship is an issue Doc is concerned about, and opposed to, yet he never happened to stumble across a blog post by Seth Finkelstein he felt worth pointing to. He pointed to Jeff Jarvis defending Howard Stern's First Amendment right to be a potty-mouth; but Seth Finkelstein, who writes almost exclusively about net censorship and related issues, just never crossed his radar.

It's not that Doc is actively conspiring to keep Seth Finkelstein in obscurity, he's not and nobody is making that claim. It's just that Seth's relative obscurity, in relation to his authority on what is perhaps a niche, although important, topic is due to the fact that high attention-earners have not had occasion to use their attention-directing authority to point to Seth's efforts.

Now, I suppose someone can blame Seth for that, but that's not the point. The point is that it is a myth that if you write well about a topic that people care about, you will receive attention, you will have the opportunity to be influential by virtue of your authority on the topic. That's simply not the case. While I won't go so far as to say it's a patronage system, it's not far removed from that when people advocate that lesser attention-earners link to high attention-earners in order to receive reciprocal linkage.

It also says something inconsistent with the mythos that the only time Seth Finkelstein came to Doc Searls' attention was when he was objecting to the myth and invoking Doc's name as an example of a high attention-earner who acts as a gatekeeper. One could get the impression that Doc is more concerned about preserving certain cherished but false notions than he is about the issue of censorship. I'm not saying that it would necessarily be an accurate impression, but it might be.

Because even after coming to Doc's attention in the manner that he did in February of this year, Doc wrote plenty of posts about "saving the internet" that were directly related to the things Seth is writing about, but evidently Doc doesn't read him, or doesn't find him worth linking to.

On the other hand, Doc did link to the latest Attention Deficit Theater, and if there is a more pointless waste of time and bandwidth, I don't want to know what it is. I'd sure like to have those 20 minutes of Continuous Partial Attention I devoted to it back. I won't obliquely refer to it as crap, like Doc did in reference to Nick Carr's post, I'll come right out and say it's crap, and anyone inclined to follow that link would be well advised to find something more productive to do with that time, like rearrange your sock drawer or something.

And I'd like to say I'm not angry writing this. And I haven't called anyone names or told anyone to shut up, unlike many of the people who have objected to Nick's and Seth's arguments.

Denial, Anger and Bargaining

It occurs to me that much of the vehemence of the rejection of Nick Carr's essay resembles the first three stages of grief, with denial and anger being the predominant features at the moment, with some bargaining here and there. But mostly it's denial with a lot of anger.

In Passing...

There are a lot of things I'd like to write about, but lately I've been preoccupied with some personal issues. Nothing life or death, just stuff that makes life worth living.

But I think it's worth noting that the dust-up surrounding Nick Carr's fairly benign criticism of one of the "innocent frauds" of the blogosphere caused one of the newly-minted darlings of the A-List Mutual Admiration Society to call Nick Carr an "asshole." Pretty amazing reaction for a post that doesn't contain a personal attack on anyone. If anything, I think the rather extreme and irrational response is indicative of how closely Carr's critique cuts to the cherished beliefs of the new élite.

But I think it also puts the lie to another "innocent fraud" of the blogosphere: that all this linking and flattening and stuff is somehow going to make the world a better place.

Once more, with feeling: Technology changes how we do things. It doesn't change what we do. Ain't no technology that's gonna do that for us. Wanna better world? Be better people.

And, you know this, there's the rub.

But hey, the beautiful people, all the folks calling Nick Carr names and saying he's wrong, or just a troll, they all tell us everything's going to be great. So it must be so! If you don't think so, you just don't get it, or you're a malcontent! Or a troll! Or an asshole! You're a pimple on the ass-end of progress! So just shut up already!

Kind of like how that whole Iraq thing is working out. Well, it would have worked if people had just been more optimistic!

Damn pessimists, trolls, assholes and malcontents! Always ruining everything for everyone else! Quit harshing the buzz! Can't you see we're trying to change the world here?!

I'm sorry. My bad.

;~)

An Island Named Blogosphere

It's got to be much more rewarding to be a contrarian when one is oneself a high attention-earning weblogger.

Be that as it may, Nick Carr's latest neatly encapsulates and advances many of my own thoughts regarding the egalitarian "flatness" of the blogosphere.

I wonder if Mark Bernstein will engage him in his comments on the technicalities of what constitutes a "hierarchy?" I rather suspect not.

Self-referential disclaimer: Seth Finkelstein, in the comments, links to a couple of pieces by yours truly. Not that I've been any more effective at influencing the popular thought of the "blogosphere" than Seth or Shelley (Who was today, in effect, told to shut up by none other than Maryam Scoble. Like that'll work. But I think it illustrates a certain presumption of privilege on the part of some.); though with Nick Carr, I suppose we can regard ourselves as being in better company. ;~)

And, yes, I don't offer comments here, so feel free to discount anything you read here. Then again, you could actually write something in your own blog to disagree or reprove or whatever, and chances are I'll find it or someone will point it out to me. It's not like I'm tying a gag in your mouth or anything.

Noted Without Comment

China's super-competitive monks learn new skills

Cheese Sandwich: Still Ticking

We're still ticking.

The follow-up consult with the nephrologist resulted in a couple of additional tests, but I guess we're satisfied now that my bean is operating normally, and we've established a baseline to use going forward. I also found out I shouldn't take aspirin because it's bad for the bean. Probably wish I had known that a couple of months ago when I was eating them like candy while I was grinding my teeth.

I have one more meeting at the clinic on the 23rd where I'll get an overall summary of where I am, some advice that I may or may not follow, and an invitation for a return visit in a year. In any case, it's reassuring to know that since I feel okay, I probably really am okay; and the reason why I seem to lack any stamina while sparring is because I haven't been doing enough conditioning training. But I'm back on the treadmill for now, at least till it cools off a bit in the fall.

For some reason, I went on a buying spree at the iTMS last night. Haven't got the invoice yet, but I think I bought over 130 tracks. That won't translate to something near $130.00, because some of them were on compilations that were near $.50 per track. I mostly bought artists I liked but didn't already have very much of their stuff. Joe Cocker, The Pretenders, The Police, Genesis, Phil Collins, Boz Scaggs, Dire Straits, a little Boston, some Sammy Hagar, a couple Triumph tracks. Also bought Five for Fighting's latest album.

I just used a smart playlist to tell me, but I've added over 450 new tracks just since the end of June, not counting podcasts. About 200 ripped from CDs I've purchased, and the remainder are iTMS purchases. So I guess I ought to throttle that back a bit now. That smart playlist will kind of help me gauge that. I'll wait till it's got no tracks in it before I go and add any more. I listen to the iPod or iTunes a lot these days, and even with about three thousand songs, the number of artists is much smaller and it sometimes seems like I'm hearing the same things over and over again. I meant to grab some Tom Petty while I was browsing, but I guess I'll just wait until the fall.

I watched the extras DVD that came with the new release of The Princess Bride. The trivia contest was trivially easy, but I kind of liked it. The retrospective by the cast was very nice, Robin Wright is still beautiful, though I guess now she's Robin Wright-Penn. I wasn't paying attention to the production date of that mini-feature, so it may not be current but I think it is.

Had a pretty impressive line of thunderstorms roll through here yesterday evening. Looks like we'll have temperatures six to nine degrees cooler this week. That's a welcome bit of relief, though high nineties isn't terribly unusual for Florida this time of year either. If it's a little cooler, I may take the camera out again next week and see what I can see.

I donated blood last week. We used to have the Florida-Georgia Blood Alliance doing all the blood drives at the naval station. The last couple of years it's been the Red Cross. They hand out a lot more stuff when you donate. While I appreciate the gesture, it's really not necessary. This month's freebie was an olive drab ball cap with a Red Cross emblem on the front. It's safe to say I'm never going to wear that. One time I got a clock! Around the holidays, they seem to favor t-shirts, which seems a little silly since that's the time of year one is least likely to be wearing a t-shirt. I guess they hope to appeal to the fitness crowd, believing that perhaps you'd wear it to the gym.

Well, that's probably enough minutia for one morning.

Lack of Imagination or Amnesia?

Dave Winer asks, "Can you imagine traveling without your iPod, laptop, cell phone?"

Well, yes I can.

"When I was your age, the internet was called books."

God, I must be old.

I can also remember the first time I wanted to smack some guy who was listening to his Walkman with the music turned up so loud that anyone within 10 feet of him had to listen to it too. That was waiting for a People's Express flight, in Newark I think. My first experience with the "flatter" world.

Competing Messages: Time to Retire?

There were two posts today that I was thrilled to read. Both dealt with the themes I've been trying to advance since I started Groundhog Day, and each was better written than anything I've done.

This first has been linked to by Karl Martino and Shelley Powers, and I'm emphatically adding my recommendation that you read the thing. I rather suspect it will be either studiously ignored by the digerati, or else dismissed with a casual wave of the hand and an uttered "...seeing what they want to see." As if that little phenomenon didn't work both ways. Go read The Little Prince.

The second is Nick Carr's response to Tim Bray. I like Nick Carr's writing and his point of view, naturally because it is quite similar to my own. But he writes better than I do; and he gets, and likely deserves, more attention than I do. But this little essay neatly captures most of my objections to the ceaseless fascination of the technology élites with the new and the novel, and the breathless declarations that "this changes everything."

One thing my twenty two years of service in the navy gave me was a certain appreciation for the power and utility of technology. When I was commissioned, I started serving in a completely analog ship. The fire control computer for shore bombardment (naval gunfire support) was the MK 1 Able, a mechanical computer built by Allis-Chalmers if I recall correctly. When I retired, the ships I had been embarked in and serving on were nearly all digital. The pace of technological change in the navy, slow though it is by civilian standards, was great enough for me to observe closely how much and how little things actually changed.

For every "problem" technology solved, it brought along new problems of its own. While the superficial appearance of the problems changed, the nature of the problems remained the same. And yes, while we could do more, technology expands what people do in space, and compresses it in time, we couldn't necessarily always do it better. And yes, a qualitative difference in level of technology often does confer an advantage to one side; absent that qualitative difference, relatively equal adversaries will be grappling with the same problems their ancestors grappled with centuries or millennia before.

So the key to success is to master the basics, to understand the nature of the problems or the challenges, not to fixate on some new technology as the answer to all things.

That's my objection to our fascination with our tools. Virtually none of our problems are fundamentally tool problems. They won't be solved by better tools. Now, someone's going to raise their hand and object and point out health problems, or the problems of global warming, or some other superficially good example of a problem that could be "solved" by better technology. I won't go into all the arguments why that's not true, but just bear in mind that all new tools will bring new problems of their own. So if you're not dealing with the essential issues, you're just changing the scenery. Maybe we can have that conversation later.

Anyway, I loved reading Nick Carr's post.

I guess I can't really quit yet. I'm not sure who else is out there objecting to the big lie that "markets are conversations" and all the other efforts to fashion a "kinder, gentler" form of marketing through better tools or better metaphors. But if somebody could take that on, then I'd probably not have anything to write about.

DVD: This Island Earth Re-release

I believe this is the last major title of classic sf movies from my childhood not already in my collection. Fortunately, it's being re-released as a reasonably-priced DVD.

At one point, I had a homemade VHS copy from a TV broadcast, but I've since lost that in one of the too-many moves I've made in the course of my life.

Anyway, it's available now at Amazon for pre-order.

Competing Messages: "I fight authority..."

In Technorati's latest site redesign, they've changed their "about" claim from, "Technorati is the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs," to, "Technorati is the recognized authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs." (Italics mine.)

Recognized by whom? Well, for the record, not me. But who am I? No one of consequence.

I guess by inserting the word "recognized," they might think it reads less like a self-aggrandizing assertion, and more like a simple statement of fact. Or something.

In any event, la plus ça change...

Kevin Burton offers some interesting observations regarding David Sifry's latest "state of the blogosphere." (Does Sifry think he's, like, the president of the blogosphere, or something? Ya gotta wonder about these guys.)

Mac: Seeing Spots

Followed most of the SteveNote this afternoon via various web sites. Here are my impressions, for whatever they're worth:

Apple's Leopard preview pages include a disclaimer that all features are subject to change. Probably just a CYA-type lawyer thing, but probably worth noting.

Time Machine looks pretty cool. I'd still like to have an app a la "lifestreams" that can aggregate all documents/data by date, ideally down to the granularity of something like a Tinderbox note. Naturally, that's not what Time Machine is about, but the UI looked cool and I wondered if it might lend itself to something like a "lifestreams" application.

Liked the web clips feature for Dashboard. I wonder how many web site publishers will object to it in some fashion. Nice to read content without having to put up with the ads.

Mail looks like it's gaining some interesting features. Hopefully, they'll fix some of the bugs too. Lately, I have mail that is sent getting stuck in the Drafts mailbox.

The iChat features look like they'll be a lot of fun. I especially like the screensharing feature, which will make it much easier for a lot of people with friends or relatives who are new to the Mac get some help. Do you reckon you'll be able to make an iChat appointment with an Apple Genius for a little help with a problem you're having?

Multi-user iCal looks like it answers the mail for a lot of people. Not so much for me, but it'll be nice to see certain folks have to find something else to bitch about.

Nothing I'm over the moon about, like I was with iChat AV back in Jaguar. Definitely an evolutionary upgrade, but it looks like all the changes are going in the right direction, not a lot of regression.

One of my consistent disappointments with the pace of change in the computer world today is that it makes it so difficult to truly master something. Back when I was using an Apple II, the rate of change was slow enough that we could really dig down deep into the innards of the machines and their OSs, and discover capabilities their creators never envisioned, and really develop something of a feel for the platform. Nowadays, it's all I can do to keep up, and it's just not as rewarding anymore, in many ways.

But, that's the way life is today, when competition drives the pace of technological innovation. In many ways, it's a good thing. But something has been lost as well.

I guess I'm just getting old.

Social Hygiene: Lonely Nation

This is apropos of... everything, perhaps:

"People are increasingly busy," said Margaret Gibbs, a psychologist at Fairleigh Dickinson University. "We've become a society where we expect things instantly, and don't spend the time it takes to have real intimacy with another person."

Compare and contrast:

"The only things you learn are the things you tame," said the fox. "People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"

But I'm certain someone will promote some new tool to solve this technological problem.

Cycles

Everything seems connected. Perhaps that's a limitation of my finite brain and the nature of neural connections. But I find that ideas that came to me in one context later return to me in another context, and sometimes shortly thereafter, in yet another.

Before I forget, make a note of this, "information is the difference that makes a difference."

Anyway, back in June, on a previous non sequitur Sunday, (It's kind of like a talk show, where I get to be the host and the guest.) I mentioned that listening to the streamed sessions of Bloggercon put me in the mind of the old joke about the drunk looking for his car keys under the street light because "that's where the light is." And that idea has been kicking around, disturbing my sleep, along with several others for weeks now.

Nature, or God, or evolution, pick whatever explanation makes you feel good, has equipped us with some pretty good tools. Tools that allow us to make other tools, mostly tools that extend the capabilities of the tools we already have. I don't think we've made any truly new tools, even computers are really just electronic approximations of what we think a brain might be.

In another post, I was kind of lamenting the tired charge of "seeing what I want to see," as a way of dismissing whatever criticism I'm offering. What's interesting to me is the construction of the charge, and its emphasis on "seeing."

"Seeing is believing."

We have these great tools, vision, hearing, hands with opposable thumbs, legs that propel us from Point A to Point B, noses to smell with, tongues that taste, lips that speak. And we've created more tools that replicate most of the functions of the originals, expanding their range of action in space and spectrum, increasing their speed, which has the effect of compressing their action in time. Using the tools we were born with, and the tools we've created, we can measure and know these changes; and because they were, in the main, desired changes, we regard them as improvements and our confidence and belief in our tools and ourselves, as we are perceived through our tools, grows.

Whenever we encounter a problem, we try to measure it with our tools. And if a solution isn't readily obvious, we believe we can use our tools to create a new tool to solve the problem. Everything, it seems, is ultimately reduced to a technological problem.

This is what I mean by searching under the streetlight, "because that's where the light is."

We use our tools to "change the world," or so we believe, while our tools change us, and so does the the world we've changed.

We are afraid of the dark, are we not? If we can't "see" something, we believe it either doesn't exist, or that we need to build a better tool. And so all our attention is focused on our tools, on things we can "see" and measure.

And let's talk about "seeing" and information being "the difference that makes a difference." With our better tools we can measure things much more accurately. We can "see" greater differences, with all the additional information we gather. We believe more information is better, but is all information the same? Do we search for differences (information) at the expense of how we are alike? How do we manage those differences? Do we not use information to judge people? If someone is fat, don't we have certain ideas about that person based on their size or shape? Who do those ideas serve? What happens when we can "see" a person's genetic makeup? What happens when our tools can help us "see" if someone is being honest or evasive? What are we doing with all the information our tools allow us to discover about one another?

Will our tools one day make us as afraid of the light as we are of the dark?

I don't know.

One night recently, during another bout of insomnia, I was reminded of The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In truth, there was another part of the book I was thinking about, but a wise woman later pointed me to the part near the end of the book, and the story of the prince and the fox. And I was surprised that I couldn't recall just then what that story was about. Later, rather laboriously typed most of it into an e-mail to a correspondent, forgetting that I had done the same thing over a year and a half ago. But since it's unlikely you'll follow the link, and since I condensed that earlier excerpt, I'll just copy what I offered in the e-mail here:

"Nothing's perfect," sighed the fox. But he returned to his idea. "My life is monotonous. I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I'm rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. For me, wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat..."

"I'm responsible for my rose...," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

With all our confidence in our tools, I think we've developed a certain blindness. Now we even have tools to determine how good a "match" you might be for another at online dating sites. Everything, it seems, is simply a matter of the right technology. I love the line, "Language is the source of misunderstandings." I often think I misunderstand myself!

And now I think I'm going to watch Scent of a Woman again, where a blind man tells an institution of learning that there is no prosthetic for a soul.

And tonight, perhaps, I'll dream of Ferraris and the tango.

And maybe, next time, I won't forget the fox's gift of a secret.

In Praise of Cache

This is kind of cool. I follow this blog called In Praise of Paradox and its latest post is called Community, wherein is contained the assertion "community doesn't scale."

The author googled the phrase to see if anyone else had used it before and found a post from Dr. James Vornov at his old On Deciding... Better weblog at editthispage.com. Since the ETP site is long since gone, the post only exists in the dusty corridors of Google's vast cache. But there it was, nonetheless.

It's kind of cool to see that. James, Al Hawkins, Hal Rager, Susan Kitchens Garrett Vreeland and a whole bunch of others all got started on ETP way back when. The web's a different place now, but it was kind of cool to see that old post cited by someone who doesn't know James.

But yeah, community doesn't scale.

Self-referentiality, on the other hand, does.

;~)

DVDs: New Princess Bride Editions

As may be obvious to some, I've been in a Princess Bride frame of mind lately. There is a new edition of the DVD, which was released in June. There are actually two editions, Dread Pirate and Buttercup, but they only differ by the cover art.

Naturally, I bought both.

Curse you, cunning marketers!

Competing Messages: Optimism Considered Harmful

How many wars do you think are started by pessimists?

Does enough optimism make a bad idea into a good one?

Optimism? Isn't that really a form of denial? When an outcome is uncertain, we just sort of choose to ignore or deny the undesirable outcome and label that as "being optimistic."

Optimism seems like "faith lite" to me. Isn't it easier to say one "has faith" when one simply chooses not to think about the outcomes one doesn't like, or to dismiss them?

Now, as a matter of temperament, pessimists are really no better than optimists. Well, except for that part about starting wars, I think. And optimists are probably more fun at parties. But pessimists are just choosing to indulge their fears because the thing they fear the most perhaps is disappointment. As a certain dread pirate used to say, "Get used to disappointment."

I'd like to think, in those rare moments when I'm most lucid, I'm neither a pessimist nor an optimist; though some optimists might disagree. Nor, necessarily, would I say I'm a realist, because things aren't always what they appear to be. And sometimes it's hard to tell what a situation really is.

I think that it's that uncertainty that gives faith meaning. Uncertainty about everything. It doesn't mean one is paralyzed by indecision, it just means one isn't compelled to pursue a course of action that is informed by a prejudice masquerading as a virtue.

I think we have too much of that today.

Mac: "I've always been a quick healer."

Well, I've just completed a second complete clean install, customized to leave out a lot of languages, printer drivers and iDVD, and all went well. Looks like it's a full-up round again.

Now it's all just a bad memory...

(Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk...)

Maintenance Notes

Crap! When did it become August around here!

Okay, standby while I shuffle some posts around. I suppose I ought to be able to automate this process somehow right in Tinderbox. Maybe I'll think about that sometime, when I can spare a few processor cycles.

Mac: "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead."

Due to my distressing lack of rigorous forensic engineering discipline, we can't be certain what brought about what, but as of this moment, the iBook lives.

I popped out the SO-DIMM, but while doing that, I removed the battery and the power connection. Whether or not those two actions would be sufficient to resolve some issue preventing successful software installations seems unlikely, but I don't know.

In any event, I'm going to go ahead and do another clean install, this time customizing a bit to get rid of extraneous language and printer driver support. If that goes well, I'm going to presume that the RAM is bad and pursue a replacement.

Department of Obscure Cultural References.

Mac: L'iBook est mort aujourd'hui

Bummer.

Things happen in threes. The Dell in my office died the week before I had to head north. The iMac glitched on Wednesday, and my iBook went tango-uniform on me last night.

I think it's a hardware problem on the iBook. Before I turn it over to Apple, I think I'm going to pull the 1GB SO-DIMM and see if I might not have bad RAM, though I don't think so.

I pulled the iBook out yesterday to get something from it, left it on my desk while I went to lunch and came back to find it hadn't gone to sleep, there were artifacts on the screen (horizontal lines through some of the windows), MS Office was reporting corruption to some database, and it was running full-tilt and hot as a pistol. Temperature Monitor reported none of the temps was above the recommended maximums, but it was still hotter than I've ever seen it.

Rebooted and the display seemed normal. Temps started to drop until mdimport began running at >90% cpu usage. The MS Office utility that repairs the database reported it couldn't repair it. Disk Utility reported that the HD needed to be repaired. So I shut down until I could take it home. I figured I'd boot into the