Cheese Sandwich: What's up?

It's been busy here. I continue to be almost insufferably contented. I'm waiting for the cancer diagnosis... oh, wait... I'm ludicrously healthy too. Well, then a meteor is going to fall on my head!

Today is going to be another Sunday watching pro football with my friends and neighbors, which is exceedingly fun for such a simple thing to do. We continue to make plans for various parties and get-togethers. This year's Groundhog Day party is going to kind of merge into a Super Bowl event as well. I'm planning on having a flapjack breakfast Sunday morning, playing off the scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray asks the police officer, "Too early for flapjacks?" Later that day we hope to have a cookout with chili as the featured menu item. Might make for an uncomfortable atmosphere in the clubhouse later though. Hmmm...

Friday evening a bunch of us gathered by the pool for a sort of impromptu happy hour event, which went on for the entire evening as various neighbors came by and left. The mosquitoes were incredibly thick, but one of our neighbors brought some insect repellant wipes that actually seemed to work. The iPod HiFi continues to prove to be one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Yesterday I helped one of my neighbors prepare some specimens of green mussels she's studying for her master's degree. They're an invasive species and she's trying to determine how climate affects their range. She collected them with one of our other neighbors, and I mostly watched as she removed barnacles and other organisms before she placed them in an aquarium she'd prepared. I did help scrape some barnacles though, so that was cool. I'm all about the hands-on thing, you know. (And I'm only being partly facetious, I do enjoy doing that stuff.) The lab is located in the same building as the golf center, where cold beer is on tap. Science and cold beer! Now there's a combination nobody told me about in high school.

Later on we watched Knocked Up on DVD. Very funny movie. I'd heard it described as a very raunchy family values movie, and it is definitely all that.

I'm getting ready to head up to Syracuse on Thursday to attend my brother's wedding. My scientist neighbor is going to take Bodhi in for me while I'm gone. I asked her to bring her dog over while we watched the movie so they could get acquainted in an indoor setting. They've been together outdoors a great deal. Bodhi was so excited to have a playmate, I couldn't get him to calm down. She's going to have her hands full with those two, but she seems confident she can handle them.

Condo living has its definite downsides, but so far the good things vastly outweigh the negatives. We face a lot of challenges, and I'm on the board of directors now, so that means I get to face them all; but I'm very fortunate to live so near to so many wonderful people. I had a great summer and I'm looking forward to a similarly fun and rewarding fall and winter. That kind of keeps me away from the keyboard, but that's okay I think.

TV/DVD: Heroes' end

I finished watching the series the other night. It ended far better than it began, and either there was much less narration in the last few episodes, or I became inured to it. I suspect the former because I did happen to notice it at the end, and didn't appreciate it.

It also occurred to me that M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable was a much better take on a very similar theme.

I won't be watching the series this season, and I rather doubt I'll buy the DVD when it ends.

Amazon MP3 Store

The UI is typically Amazonian, which is to say, um... cluttered, and rather beige, but you can't argue with the product or the price. I bought four albums. It doesn't take much in the way of prognosticative skills to say that this thing is likely to be a success.

John Gruber has been offering some of the best analysis and commentary I've read on the development.

Keeping Up With Current Events

Well, shame on me. Yesterday was OneWebDay, intercaps and all, and I didn't even notice, let alone "observe" it. I know... I suck.

Someone please explain to me how this isn't a form of worship? It's ridiculous. When was OneWheelDay?

Doc Searls points to David Isenberg's mention of OneWebDay in the context of a Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, which happened to fall on the same day. About the internet, David writes: In the case of OneWebDay, we need to remember what a miracle the Internet is, how recently it has become a necessity in our lives, its potential to lower the barriers that separate individuals and cultures, and how easily its potential could be wrenched out of our hands.

Miracle? The internet as a work of divine agency? Aren't we a little over the top here? Let's try this:

In the case of OneWheelDay, we need to remember what a miracle the Wheel is, how recently it has become a necessity in our lives, its potential to lower the barriers that separate individuals and cultures, and how easily its potential could be wrenched out of our hands.

When did we ever have a day for the wheel? Or fire? Or electricity? Or indoor plumbing? Penicillin? Help me out with this.

AKMA has mentioned that he's writing something about religion and technology. Maybe he ought to be writing something about technology as religion. What was that thing about "false idols" or something?

The Internet isn't a miracle. It's an artifact. We make them all the time. The fact that we exist at all might be a miracle, but the fact that we make stuff emphatically is not!

We're totally hosed. We've completely lost the plot. Jumped the shark. Bitten the big one. We're done. It's all over but the cryin'. Sorry that's not very "optimistic," but what can I say? People are either crazy or stupid or both. Somebody with more "authority" than me better come along and clean this mess up. That would be a miracle.

GBSM: Yet Another iPod

My first iPod was a 40GB 3G version, the one with the four buttons on top of the scroll wheel. I bought it back in October of 2004 as a refurb after the iPod (click wheel) came out. It's still going strong. The value equation back then was that it cost less than the new 40GB model that replaced it, and it came with the case and remote control. I don't recall if Apple had stopped bundling the dock with the click wheel model, but I did note the case and remote at the time. The newer model did have a better battery, but my iPod spends most of its time in a dock of some kind. Most of the Apple products I buy for myself are refurbs, usually after a newer model comes out and the refurbs are discounted even more deeply.

I've been reading about the new iPods and while I'm pretty jazzed about the Touch, it's a bit less versatile than I'd prefer. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'm inclined to go for the iPhone to get the most that I can out of the device. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to switch carriers right now, so no iPhone for me.

Because my old iPod is still working, I wasn't very interested in buying a new one until some recent correspondence with a friend kind of suggested a new use for an iPod with video capability. I'm working on my new 3rd degree form in taekwondo, and I have a DVD that demonstrates it. I review it from time to time, but I don't take my MacBook with me to class, so it's not available to me there. Naturally, the instructor is, but he's often working with other students. It occurred to me that an iPod would be relatively simple to carry to class, even to keep on my person while practicing the form, and I could refer to it until I've memorized the new form.

Now, if it were just one form, it'd probably be a lot smarter to just do it the old-fashioned way and keep memorizing segments of the form, and I'd have it down in a few weeks and be money ahead in the long run. But I'm also working, in fits and starts it seems, on my instructor certification; and there is a lot of material I have to memorize for that. Theoretically, I already know all of it, but if you don't practice those forms regularly memory is perishable. And then there are the one-steps, which are self-defense techniques, and sparring combinations that have to be memorized as well. These are all documented in text, but they're a little easier to grasp quickly seeing them.

Now, this may all be just the work of the Department of Rationalization and Self-Justification, but it seems to me that I may have a legitimate case for an iPod with video capability. So, which model, the new nano, the Classic, or a 5.5G refurb?

The nano is appealing because of the small form factor and its flash drive. I could carry that on my person while training and not worry about it at all. But 8GB isn't very much room for a lot of video, even at 320x240 resolution, to say nothing of any music.

The Classic is available in a 160GB model, which would likely hold my entire iTunes collection, all my pictures in iPhoto, all the TKD video, and the entire series of The Human Weapon (An interesting series with an unfortunate title.)! But I've read some reports that the digital to analog converter in the Classic doesn't sound as good as the one in the 5.5G, and any new iPod is going to spend a lot of time playing music. It's likely I'd never even hear the difference, but still.

The thing that really put the 5.5G over the top for me is a new "feature" in the latest iPods. It seems the new iPods will be looking for some Apple "verification" chip in accessories before they'll work with them. This is another "evil" move by Apple to extract money from the marketplace. The 5.5G doesn't have this "feature," so it will work with all of the existing accessories, which are also likely to be discounted soon.

So I checked the refurb section of the Apple store, found a white 80GB 5.5G iPod for $229.00 and bought it. I could have bought a new 80GB Classic from Amazon for only a few dollars more, but the DA converter and verification chip "feature" pretty much argued against that. For what it's worth, the 40GB 3G I bought three years ago cost about $350.00, while this one only cost $232.14! That's technology for you.

Now I've got to convert a bunch of video!

Mac: Is Apple Evil?

Apple's been getting some bad press recently, and some people have been comparing them to Microsoft, The Evil Empire™.

Well, for my money, Apple will never replace Microsoft as The Evil Empire 2.0™, that's going to be Google. I thought everybody knew that already. But if Apple did replace Microsoft as The Evil Empire 2.0™, at least it would look good.

But Apple is evil. At least it is if you subscribe to the notion that some corporations are good and most are evil. In reality, all corporations are pretty much the same, and if they do things you like then they're "good," and if they do things you don't like, well, they're "evil." And lately Apple's been doing some things people don't like.

The big difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple makes products I like and Microsoft doesn't. What made Microsoft "evil" to me was that they were so successful, I have to use their products. In 2007, my office computer is running Windows 2000, and Office 2003, and we only recently got Office 2003. And I do this on an ugly Dell computer with 512MB of RAM. Not only is it complex, hard to use, and ugly as sin, it's slow. And naturally, I don't have administrator privileges, so there's little I can even do to make the best of a bad situation.

What made Microsoft successful was that it was a great competitor, not that it made great products. And there is a difference. To refresh your memory, there was that whole lawsuit thing, back when the Justice Department was in the business of law enforcement rather than politics and enhanced interrogation techniques.

As an aside, I do take some pleasure in the fact that Nintendo is eating Microsoft's lunch in the video game business, and Microsoft is eating billions in losses, literally buying market share. Not that I have any great love for Sony either. But the only reason MS can buy its way into the video game console market is because its OS and Office products remain, essentially, monopolies.

Anyway, Apple's a corporation, they're not humanitarians. Presumably, if enough people don't like the things Apple does, they'll stop buying iPods and Macs and Apple will have to adjust to that. Buy my guess is that only the digerati object to Apple's recent moves. Maybe they can educate the public at large, but I doubt it.

DVD: The Guys

Until tonight, I hadn't seen any movies about 9/11. I had never heard of The Guys except that I knew Mary Fahl's The Dawning of the Day was the theme song for it. So I went looking for it and bought it because it starred Sigourney Weaver, and I'll watch anything with her in it.

I just finished watching The Guys. It's a good movie. I can't really write about it, but it's a good movie. I figured I'd take advantage of The New York Times new openness and see what they had to say about it when it was performed as a play. You can read it here.

TV/DVD: Heroes again

I'm almost finished with season one and I can't say that it's really grown on me, though I find the latter episodes better than the earlier ones. Some things I like, because I know I come across too negative sometimes:

I liked the license plate on George Takei's car in the first episode where he appeared as Hiro's father. It's the hull number of the Enterprise. Funny how something like that leaps right out at you when the right context is present. Like the hull number of the cruiser from Forbidden Planet appearing in the movie Serenity on the "forbidden planet."

I liked Stan Lee's cameo as a bus driver. I don't know if he's appeared in other episodes because this was kind of a context thing too. It just happened to be the episode where I was halfway paying attention to the credits and noted that Stan Lee was listed as one of the producers. Then, there he was!

I have to agree with one of my correspondents who mentioned Nathan Petrelli's objection to being a superhero with his flying power. "What am I going to do when I get there? I don't know karate. I don't have a gun." That was clever because it was so reasonable and sensible in a counter-to-expectations way.

I like that the characters are a little more complex, like the cheerleader's father. Looks like he's mostly a corporate spook, with some shred of integrity left. Still doesn't resonate with me. Nathan Petrelli seems more sympathetic. Still, none of them hold a candle to Michael Hogan's Saul Tigh, or James Callis' Gaius Baltar. And the LA cop character is more annoying now than Peter Petrelli.

But the number of characters is growing more absurd by the episode, and I read something that suggested that next season is only going to get worse!

Cheese Sandwich: Notes of a Chord

Partly because it was too hard to pass up the opportunity for a pun title, and partly for a little reciprocity, I want to link to Karl Martino today.

I had my borescope inspection today. Preliminary report is all clear, though they took a little piece of something and they're going to do whatever it is pathologists do with little bits of people and let me know for sure in a couple of days.

The drugs they give you kind of put you out of action for a day. I've been conscious and alert for the most part; but a little dizzy every so often, and then I'd get sleepy and head for the couch. I thought I'd watch some TV but instead I've been listening to iTunes all day. It's been a pretty pleasant day, seemingly endless rainfall notwithstanding.

In some ways, I feel as though I've returned to a younger time of my life. I listen to more music now, and more new music (new to me, that is) than I have in the past couple of decades. This has been true for me ever since the debut of the iTunes Music Store, but even my custom in that regard has changed. I used to sample various tracks and just buy the ones I liked, unless it was an artist I already liked, where I often would buy the whole album. Today I find I'm buying entire albums rather than single tracks, even though there are often songs I don't really care for very much. And I'll frequently listen to music by album instead of by song, most often in the car on my commute to work.

Mostly this is due to the influence of my younger co-worker who is very album-oriented. So I'd say that almost half my music listening is in the album format these days. I still like to shuffle songs because so many seemingly serendipitous events occur that way. I entertain the belief that there is some sort of quantum entanglement (I know I'm not applying the concept appropriately, but I like it better than something like "telepathic connection") between my mind and my iPod. Certain songs are associated with certain people, and when I'm thinking of them those songs play more frequently. I'd love to have my iPod record all the dates and times of when a particular song is played. I'd like to map the early morning random playlists against certain subjects in e-mail. Probably nothing there, but it would be interesting to look at it.

I also enjoy putting playlists together. My co-worker is off getting married and before she left I put together a "cheesy playlist" celebrating her marriage. I've also made playlists for my neighbors. It's fun. I was never one to make mix tapes back when that was kind of the thing. I think I actually skipped over that era. It's just too easy to do with iTunes though.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is to the recording industry's problems. I find all the demagoguery by those who do pretend to know to be rather wearisome, and I really should learn to just ignore them. But I do know that I'm enjoying more music today than I have at any time since college, more different kinds of music too; and I'm certainly spending more on it than any time since college. Maybe it's an aging "boomer" thing, trying desperately to cling to some vestige of youth or something, but I rather doubt it. In some ways I feel a bit like an old Dylan song, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

TV/DVD: Heroes

Back in 2003 or thereabouts, when I heard they were re-making Battlestar Galactica, I laughed it off because the show was so bad when it was new, and they were making the cylons look like people, I couldn't see how anything good could come of it. I didn't make an effort to catch the mini-series when it aired on the Sci-Fi channel. Afterward, I read a lot of favorable reaction to it, and that they might make it into a series. So when the mini-series later aired on NBC I decided to watch it and instantly became hooked.

I hadn't seen an episode of Heroes before, but I'd read a lot of favorable things about it. So I bought the first season on DVD. I'm about a third of the way through it, and I'm kind of wishing I'd rented it instead.

So far, it hasn't hooked me at all. On the one hand, I kind of like the respect the series gives to its comic book sensibilities. On the other hand, I'm not sure I like watching comic books on TV. Superhero movies are fun, and I liked the Batman, Superman and Spiderman movies, the X-Men weren't bad, Fantastic Four kind of sucked, but none of them were especially memorable movies. Spiderman was probably best of the lot, and I think the Heroes creators were going after what made the Spiderman movies a cut above the rest.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to make for great serial drama, to me. Obviously, lots of people love the show so I'm probably missing something.

Some of the things I don't like are the heavy reliance on fake genetic evolution mumbo-jumbo. Sure, with the exception of Batman, all the superheroes have some sort of "super" power, and there's usually a silly "explanation" for it. But the explanation is kind of offered in an "origins" story, and then you engage the willing suspension of disbelief and just enjoy the rest of the story as it kind of explores the question of "What if someone could...?" In Heroes, the "explanation" seems to be a central part of the plot, so we have to deal with some fairly heavy reliance on fake science in every single episode. And fake science, when it's such a central part of the story, just becomes irritating to me after a while. I can take "warp drive" or "hyperlight jumps" all day long, just don't try to worship them in every episode.

Then there's the narration. Oh, I wish that guy would just shut up! The ponderously fake profundity episode after episode is just tedious and insulting to the audience. It's like the creators feel they need to explain to me just how deep and important the events of each episode really are. Give me a friggin' break! Give me a deep and profound episode, and let me figure it out! Don't just put a Big Mac on a china plate and have some guy with a foreign accent try to explain to me how this is really fine cuisine. I know it's just a Big Mac; and while it may be its destiny to be eaten, it's not like, you know, Destiny, no matter if you say it in a low monotone.

Then there's the mysterious, probably government, maybe corporate, guy who's somehow involved in all this. Done to death. And I don't know about anyone else, but I figured he was the cheerleader's dad the instant her mom said dad was coming home from some business trip. Let's just say, it didn't give me chills. And "Mr. Muggles?" What is that? Comic relief? I'm waiting for the dog to exhibit super powers.

I like the cheerleader and the Japanese guys, but none of the other characters are especially sympathetic to me, least of all Milo Ventimiglia, who mostly still looks pissed off that his dad, Rocky, is fighting again. And get a haircut! Chicks must dig that hair across the eyes thing or something.

And just how many people are going to have super powers anyway? All of us? They criticized John From Cincinnati for having too many characters, these guys have a cast of thousands, and there's someone new every week who can "like, cut guns with his mind." (Obscure reference to the much, much better movie, Mystery Men.)

So I figure I'll finish watching season one and maybe they can "save the cheerleader, save the world" and save the series for me. I really wanted to like Heroes, since John From Cincinnati was cancelled and I don't get HBO anymore anyway. But so far, it's just tedious and not very good. Why it gets such high marks remains a mystery to me.

Rhetorical Question

Does a "nice" person go to the trouble of posting a TrollTaxonomy? Or would that be the work of an "angry/negative" person?

Life is so complicated. If only everyone were just like me.

Competing Messages: Arms Race

I've been reading a bit about this Adblock Plus plug-in for Firefox, and it's interesting from the standpoint of identifying what pushes back on commerce. While I'm pleased that there are people who go to the trouble to develop these sorts of plug-ins, I don't think they're going to do much good in the long run.

It seems to me that the this is not a viable solution, because commerce is a competitive enterprise and it is merely going to find another way to get commercial messages in front of people. It becomes sort of an arms race, much like we've seen with spam e-mail. The new ways are likely to be even more intrusive, more difficult to block, like "conversational marketing."

Cheese Sandwich: Better and Better

Had my annual physical this morning, and it was good news all around. All the major numbers were down: Weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, PSA were all down. Cholesterol was down significantly, with LDL falling and HDL rising over last year's test, which was already decent. Creatinine (I think I spelled that correctly) was consistent with my previous tests. A little high for single-bean ops, but it's been that way since the donation, so no change is good.

I'd worried a bit that my fondness for ice cream and beer and omelets would turn out to be somewhat detrimental to my blood chemistry, but evidently not. I mentioned them all to the doc and he seemed to feel that they were nothing to worry about; that I must be enjoying them "in moderation," or I'd be gaining weight.

Next week I've got that dreaded post-50 examination of the lower intestinal tract. Hopefully the results will be unremarkable there as well.

Had a great weekend with my friends and neighbors. We cooked out by the pool on Saturday and hosted a Russian graduate student who is visiting Jacksonville studying hospital administration. We have a number of Russian ex-pats who live here, and the grad student is residing with a co-worker of mine, so I invited her over and arranged a little cookout, which eventually made it's way to Action Dave's Cool-Guy Bachelor Pad with a bunch of Russians, kids and neighbors.

On Sunday, I went to a sports bar with two of my neighbors, one a Dolphins fan, the other a Redskins fan, to watch football. The food was good and there were quite a few Dolphins fans there, as we sat outside and watched the game. Later, our Dolphins fan made a nice dinner for us on the grill.

We kind of reviewed the calendar and it looks like we have many more things to look forward to in the weeks ahead. One of my neighbors brews beer, so we're going to have our own little Oktoberfest. We're going to have a community Thanksgiving by the pool for those who are intersested, to include beer can turkey and football on the clubhouse TV. December has the annual Christmas party. Then there's New Year's and the Superbowl, which is the day after Groundhog Day, so that's going to be a party weekend!

Life is good. I'm very fortunate, grateful and happy to live in such a wonderful place with so many great people.

People: (Belated) Happy Birthday Karl!

Karl Martino turned 35 on Wednesday. Yea, Karl!

Cheese Sandwich: Sounds about right

My co-worker and I have been exchanging music recommendations again. She's introduced me to Patty Griffin, and I've introduced her to Nick Cave. Right now, I'm rather enamored with I Don't Ever Give Up.

Jonathon Delacour sent me some recommendations, including this page, where I alighted upon the Daniel Johnston album at the iTunes Music Store. More on that in a moment.

Matthew Good is another singer/songwriter I happened upon, though I can't recall how just now. Anyway, True Love Will Find You In the End is the track that kind of made me decide to buy his album, Hospital Music. It turns out that it's a Daniel Johnston song, covered by Beck on The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered album. So I bought the Daniel Johnston album too. Lots of good stuff there, including Tom Waits doing King Kong. What a trip. Back to Matthew Good, Avalanche is perhaps a little more accessible than Hospital Music, but both are good.

Watched the end of an episode of House and heard someone singing "Are you alright?" and fell in love with that song. A quick search on the Evil 2.0™ internets led to Lucinda Williams, and I bought three of her albums: West, World Without Tears and Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

I challenged my co-worker to a little contest to see which of us could come up with the playlist containing the saddest, most depressing songs. She laughed and offered that if there was one person she knew who might be able to beat her, it was me.

So, I got that goin' for me...

;^)

Under the Bridge

On September 5th, AKMA wrote that "Tom Coates gets Andrew Keen just right," and links to Coates' post about Keen. I've liked some things Tom Coates has written, most recently his rant about press releases. And I like some things about Andrew Keen, because he's about the only high attention-earner with anything critical to say about the wonderful, wonderful world of the "blogosphere" who's been able to get any attention.

This isn't going to be a comprehensive defense of Keen, it's mostly just snarky examination of what counts for getting Keen "just right."

Tom writes, "I mean, you only have to read his post Etes-vous elitiste in which he declares that people have labelled (sic) him an anti-Christ and then uses that as a platform to sell his speaking gigs, while the right-hand column of his website lists all his media appearances. He wants to stir up an argument to get attention."

I don't think Tom's characterization of Keen's post is "just right." Keen was referring to a question he was asked, and the title of an article, he wasn't "declaring" anything. Though he did use that as a lead-in to his post on his upcoming speaking engagements in Europe. It's not like most of the other blow-hards on the internets don't promote themselves and their own appearances at one or more of the multitudinous events these people are always going to.

And I think Tom's got it backwards, Keen has an argument and he's trying get attention drawn to it. Now, you may not like the argument, or Keen may not be making it as well as he ought to, but what's wrong with trying to draw attention to one's argument? Again, I don't think Tom's got it "just right."

He goes on, "Andrew is the chap who thinks that the whole internet is full of amateurish morons and that nothing rises to the top and that professional media has become corrupted and less good as a result of all this stuff." I'm not sure that this is an accurate, to say nothing of fair, description of what Keen thinks. "Just right?" I don't think so. He goes on in the same vein for several more sentences in this paragraph, basically saying things were going to shit before the internet came along. This is perhaps just right, technology changes how we do things, not what we do, typically expanding them in space and compressing them in time. So I think one can say things are going to shit faster now.

There's more, "The thing is about this, all this conversation is a total waste of time. I don't understand why he gets the traction he does. I mean, what is he actually trying to accomplish? Does he think that the millions of bloggers will get bored and go home if he explains why their voices don't count?"

If it's a "total waste of time," why is Tom wasting his time mentioning it? What is Tom trying to accomplish? It seems to me that Keen is trying to generate some discussion. He's offering some criticism, and he's demanding that we think critically instead of merely swallowing the party line that the internet and the web represent the Second Coming and our salvation is at hand! Redemption 2.0!

More Tom, "The future comes, for good or ill, whether you like it or not. The best you can do in such a situation is try and work to fix the issues you see."

Reminds me of the Yoyodyne slogan in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, "The future begins tomorrow!" I think the main "issue" Keen is trying to "fix" is to get people to recognize that there are issues! Now, he may be legitimately criticized regarding how well he's done so. But according to his critics, his arguments are just baseless! Everything is great! We're all just small pieces, loosely joined, writing ourselves into existence buying and selling conversations (Thank God conversation found a business model!) about everything being miscellaneous and ever so... so... 2.0 (but 2.0 beta!) in the great, vast, flat, Long Tail™.

Tom goes on, future coming or no... "The world we have as a result of technologies of the internet is not a world I find particularly troubling, because it's a world finding its feet and its a world that has also created significant beauty. It's a world I feel comfortable in, and there is always a market for what people want and often for what people need. I don't doubt that journalism will survive or resurge but it will have to adapt."

There's so much to parse in this statement, one hardly knows where to begin. I feel a bit like Dave Weinberger, "If you define "the world" so broadly..." And what does "finding its feet" really mean? And how would that differ from... any other time? And there's that "market" thing again. What is Tom getting at here? "World" = "Market" ? I sure hope not, because I think that would be "troubling."

But it gets much worse... "People like Keen are professional complainers, stirring up fights, decrying the state of the world that we find ourselves in without facing the fact that it is where we are and wishing won't make it not so."

This hits kind of close to home, because I've been called in e-mail, essentially, a "professional complainer." Except I don't get paid and I'm not "selling" my complaints. I'm an "amateur" to Keen's "professional," and therefore as an "amateur," I think should enjoy some immunity from the True Believers™! But no. So, no love from Keen, and none from the "blogosphere." Bummer. Worst of all possible worlds.

Basically, what Tom and AKMA and Dave Weinberger and others are telling Andrew Keen is to "Sit down and shut the fuck up!" Seriously. That's what they're saying. Because he's harshing their buzz. Because they're busy inventing the future, and it's all going to be beautiful, and everything that went before is just crap. Not only that, but it was Crap 1.0! So throw it all out! Who needs those old gatekeepers? We got new gatekeepers! Oops, I mean no gatekeepers!

More Tom, "If you don't like the way the world is, then use the tools that exist and push them further and find a way to compensate for the problems that you think the existing technology has created." More STFU! A few paragraphs before this, Tom, following his own advice I guess, offered this helpful suggestion: "No market for decent commentary and opinion? Look for a business model that could support it!" This gets back to the whole "world as market" fantasy. The answer to everything is presumably "a decent business model." As I indicated earlier, we can thank The Cluetrain Manifesto for developing a business model for conversation. Friendship needs "a decent business model," and fortunately we seem to have one in Facebook. Religion is still casting about for "a decent business model," but they're making progress. There is no small number of people who believe exactly this. I suspect AKMA would not be among them, but he seems to have thrown his lot in with them nevertheless.

Tom again, "The world we have is the world we can work with, and anyone wanting to push it back to the fifties will fail." Forgive me but, "No shit, Sherlock!" Keen is not trying to "push it back to the fifties," and if indeed he's destined to fail, then why devote any attention to him at all?

Then comes the devastating conclusion, and I suspect that this is what AKMA finds so "just right:"

"And that's what really gets to me. Because it's pretty clear that he knows this. He's writing his own bloody blog for a start. He knows he can't win the battle, but he's put himself on the side of respectability, trustworthiness, reliability and is decrying all the terrible new things in the world. As I once said of Nick Carr, this is a brilliant strategy to make yourself like a terribly intelligent and responsible, serious person without actually having to go to any of the trouble of thinking. That's why he's a troll - because his opinion cannot do any good, cannot change anything for the better, but in its decrying of the nascent environment of millions of people finding their voices for the first time, he can get nothing but attention, media coverage and book-sales. It's not an appeal to better standards, it's not an appeal to quality or tradition. It has no aspirations to honour. It's disingenuous to the core, manipulative of the people, anti-progressive, cynical and hypocritical."

"He knows he can't win the battle?" How does Tom know this? The clarity of his vision? Some privileged position, from which he has gleaned some special insight? I think not. What's wrong with being "on the side of respectability, trustworthiness, reliability," unless Tom's not?

And then Tom just accuses Keen of not thinking. Anyone criticizing all the True Believers in the Liberation Theology of Web 2.0™ simply isn't thinking! Because if they were... they'd be true believers!

"Finding their voices for the first time?" Why, it's a wonder anything ever happened in "the world" before the internet came along! Can't have a voice if you ain't on the internet!

Israel 4BC had no mass communication

Don't you get me wrong

Isn't this "just right," AKMA?

Only want to know

If there is anything... anything... that is "disingenuous to the core, manipulative of the people, anti-progressive, cynical and hypocritical," it is this blind faith in new technology to somehow magically liberate the hitherto oppressed, repressed, and suppressed brilliance and compassion of the masses, transforming the world into an Emergent Paradise™ (beta). Well, at least in World 3.0™.

The same facility for easy, offhand commentary that allows AKMA to glibly assert that Tom Coates had Keen "just right," allows me to be a bit intemperate from time to time. And right now is one of those times.

There are many kinds of True Believers™. There are those who believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction just waiting to be delivered to American shores, we just haven't found them because they were all smuggled into Syria. There are those who believe we can deliver democracy anywhere we choose to work our will, providing we have the requisite political will and sufficient optimism. There are those who believe in the infinite wisdom of the "free market." And there are those who believe in technology as a panacea to every human weakness and failing. To be somewhat more "reasonable," there are those who are only too willing to dismiss any troubling effects of this relentless, competitive race to advance technology and to capitalize on it, by waving their hands and simply declaring their unbridled optimism.

Optimism is no substitute for mature judgment. Enthusiasm can't take the place of sober reflection. Hope is not a strategy. In the 21st century, one would hope that we might be able to reflect on the lessons of the unintended consequences of technology in the 20th century and begin to try to apply them to our circumstances. But where's the "business model" for that?

For what it's worth, here is a criticism of Keen that is somewhat closer to being "just right," in my opinion.

Editor's Note

"Don't blog angry. Don't blog angry."

CNN Enquirer

Is it just me, or has CNN become the tabloid newspaper of cable news?

"105-pound woman wins wing-eating contest"

"Wicca teacher: I'm a Mega-Millions winner"

"Costumed creatures parade at sci-fi fest"

"Labor day: Florida couple have sextuplets"

I find myself going to CNN less and less when I want to know what's going on in the world. They were never "great," but at least they had a decent capsule summary of most of the major stories, without so much "noise."

I guess this is what "sells" and they're just meeting the market's "demand."

Playing Along

The Rick Rubin article I linked to below mentioned this guy, Paul Potts, who kind of surprised some people in Britain's version of American Idol. I figured something like that would wind up on YouTube, copyright or not, and so I looked for the performance Rick Rubin saw. You can watch it here.

Now, I know less about opera than what words of more than two syllables mean, but he sounded pretty good to me. Tiny speakers in a laptop and all. So I got to thinking about this and it's a pretty interesting thing to think about, because there are so many things happening here.

First and last, just enjoy someone with a remarkable talent doing something wonderful with it. Everything else I mention here is nothing compared to that. Perspective is something that's often lost as people promote their competing points of view, and we end up writing silly things like "we're writing ourselves into existence." (I mean, thank God for the Web! Or I wouldn't even exist!)

Something I mentioned to a correspondent in e-mail is that I'm not anti-commerce by any means, and something I haven't mentioned here is that for much of at least America's history, we've relied on commerce to be kind of a corrective for society. Those "hierarchies" that don't exist often stratified people on the basis of "class" or economic wealth and education. A vigorous free market was an avenue of escape for many people who would otherwise be destined to remain "less equal" in the (not really, because they don't really fit the definition) "lower" classes. That's somewhat less the case today, though it remains a valuable aspect of commerce that ought to be remembered. The rise of the ludicrously rich, the shrinking middle class, and the growing number of people "just barely above the poverty level," kind of puts a different spin on the way the overarching trends are working out, but it's still a valuable opportunity.

American Idol and Britain's Got Talent kind of exploit that facet of our somewhat shared cultural identity. Granted, the focus isn't on class by any means, but the thought of a mobile phone salesman making it as an opera singer does bring thoughts of class to mind.

The other facet of our culture, although one can debate the extent to which it might be universally true, is that talent and merit are rewarded; and that is more specifically exploited in these commercial entertainment products.

So there's this little vignette being shared on the really small screen ("small screens, loosely shared") of YouTube. Let's posit for the moment that this is authentic, that it isn't completely staged. I don't know, but I'll take it at face value for the moment. We have our hero, Paul Potts. He's not handsome, though he's presentable enough. Looks like he might be an ordinary schlub. Because we're all equal and hierarchies don't exist, everyone eagerly anticipates Paul's performance because everyone knows that ordinary schlubs are often extraordinary opera singers! No wait, that's an alternate universe... Um, we have Paul Potts who doesn't look like an "opera singer" about to perform before a panel of equals, because, you know, hierarchies don't exist. No, wait! Alternate universe again! Standby while I dial down my Weinberger Reality Distortion Field™ generator.

Okay, so we have Paul about to perform before three judges, all of whom are supposedly authorities in the field of music. They have some responsibility to pick someone with some talent, and I suppose they're accountable to the network if they blow it somehow. It's safe to say, I think, that all three of these folks have enjoyed more wealth, fame and privilege than our hero, Paul, that they rank higher in something than Paul.

So we have Paul, our judges, and the crucial third character, the Audience, which is filling in for you. The great Long Tail™ of ordinary schlubs and loosely-joined small pieces ("And be damn happy about it!"), who are there to kind of antagonize the judges and validate the opinions of the Rest of Us™. It's safe to say that most of the Rest of Us™ don't know much about opera either, nor do we especially like it.

So the stage is set, unknown, ordinary schlub, about to face three hard-nosed, "professionals," and an audience that probably isn't thrilled about hearing something called "opera."

Then the guy opens his mouth.

The "pros" remain calm, restrained, professional. The crowd goes wild.

And a very few months later he's got a record contract and a live tour.

And let me add, if that clip doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you're more cynical than I am. Or perhaps I'm just easily manipulated.

So what do we have here? Well, a commercial product has validated the notion of upward mobility and meritocracy (and we all feel better), the pros have validated the opinions of the Rest of Us™ ("See? They really do know what they're talking about!") And an ordinary schlub gets to share his extraordinary talent with the rest of the world through commerce, which is only too happy to exploit his talent.

Now, really, I don't care about all that stuff. I don't know anything about opera, but if that guy is as good as he seems to be, then more power to him. I don't care how many myths are propped up by commercial interests exploiting his talent.

But clearly, here was a guy who loved opera. The avenues that are available to the pros perhaps weren't open to him, so he remained an amateur. He loved his art, which is, I think, an important part of culture. It's possible, I suppose, that I've defined those words too broadly or narrowly to fit whatever preconceived vision of reality my betters would have us believe. But the love of the art preceded the opportunity to exploit it, commercially.

Culture precedes commerce.

And I get to play along in Rick Rubin's "word of mouth" campaign.

But none of all that really matters.

Go Paul Potts!

Competing Messages: "Oh, bullshit..."

The word "hierarchy" takes another beating from "everything is miscellaneous" and "we're writing ourselves into existence" author Dave Weinberger.

I'm a simple kind of a guy, I've no PhD in philosophy or anything like that. In fact, I'm an authority on nothing, so I rely on the dictionary:

noun ( pl. -chies)

a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.

• ( the hierarchy) the upper echelons of a hierarchical system; those in authority : the magazine was read quite widely even by some of the hierarchy.
• an arrangement or classification of things according to relative importance or inclusiveness : a taxonomic hierarchy of phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species.
• ( the hierarchy) the clergy of the Catholic or Episcopal Church; the religious authorities.
• Theology the traditional system of orders of angels and other heavenly beings.

But according to Dave it means: A hierarchy worth the name ought to be a persistent social structure with well-defined and comprehensive power or status relationships, in which each node has exactly one superior node. We can loosen that up somewhat to accommodate the complexities of modern business, but that's what the paradigmatic hierarchy looks like.

"The paradigmatic hierarchy." I guess that's not the one in the dictionary.

You see, if you define hierarchy narrowly enough then all the problems of inequality and uninclusiveness go away, and we're just "small pieces, loosely joined," one great egalitarian blogosphere where ideologues masquerading as idealists get to try to shape perceptions to make reality resemble their dreams. But reality keeps biting us in the ass!

Personally, I hate it when that happens.

Take a look at Facebook and "friends." Now we can all "count" our friends, and he who dies with the most friends wins, or is most trustworthy, or something. Anytime some aspect of our lives becomes explicitly measurable, we compare others with it, and we rank people accordingly. We are intrinsically fascinated with rank. Lots of links means more "authority" than those with fewer links. Woo-hoo! But that's not a "hierarchy."

Thanks for clearing that up, Dave. I'm feeling more equal already.

Culture Precedes Commerce

"The most important thing we have to do now is get the art right. So many of the decisions at these companies have not been about the music. They sign artists for the wrong reasons — because they think somebody else wants them or if they need to have a record out by a certain date. That old way of doing things is obsolete, but luckily, fear is making the record companies less arrogant. They're more open to ideas. So, what's important now is to find music that's timeless. I still believe that if an artist gains the belief of the listener, then anything is possible."

Cheese Sandwich: Mission Accomplished

Had a nice time yesterday at the ballpark, even with a little rain. These guys are going to make a fan of me yet. I used the Retouch tool in iPhoto 08 to remove the corporate sponsor logo from the base. I liked the little onscreen prompt to "Click or drag over blemish to remove." Corporate logos are blemishes on cultural artifacts.

Not that bobbleheads are examples of high culture. They are a couple of rungs up from Seth Godin's "junky plastic Christmas ornaments," though.

The Golden Gate Bridge is another matter entirely. Commerce presses against all boundaries. What presses back?

This just in...

Doc Searls and I agree on something!

"Upstate New York has a lot of pretty barns, half of which are falling down. It’s also a beautiful place."

It would make sense that Doc took the Thruway, I-90, across New York to Massachusetts. Which means he drove past Exit 34, otherwise known as Canastota, the place I call my hometown.

It is a beautiful place, and it's more than the just the barns that are falling down. Part of that great "flat world" phenomenon.

But there you go. What can you do?

Competing Messages: Notes to myself

A few more semi-completed thoughts, which I hope to revisit sometime soon.

Back when I was reading everything I could find about John From Cincinnati, I came across a quote from the series' creator David Milch that kind of resonated with me:

“It's really about the cultural malaise which prevails in our country whereby every experience is turned into an article of commerce. We live by a set of illusions or self-deceptions which we feel are necessary in order to encounter the culture. I find something beautiful about our capacity for denial and self deception,” he says.

At the time, it brought to mind something Hugh MacLeod wrote in this thing he called "The Hughtrain Manifesto:"

"THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE."

"Every experience is turned into an article of commerce."

"The market for something to believe in is infinite."

Doc Searls wrote something in a post called "Prophesies" not long before I read the Milch quote that I wanted to recall later:

"Love is the ultimate lock-in."

Maybe it's only me. Maybe I just don't "get it." But doesn't anyone else find this stuff disturbing? I mean, I find the whole "the market for something to believe in," to be both cynical and offensive. "Every experience is turned into an article of commerce."

"Love is the ultimate lock-in?" Why should "love" have anything to do with commerce? We use the word "love" too loosely. Do I "love" Apple or its products? I probably have said so in the past. Would I give Apple a kidney? No, I would not. Would I cry if Apple folded tomorrow? No, I would not. Do I "love" Apple? No, I don't. I like the company and I like their products. I don't "love" them. They're a corporation.

One of the big so-called "virtues" of the internet, back in the day, was how it "disintermediated" everything. It "cut out the middleman." Except now, we're creating new middlemen. "Friendship" is being intermediated by something called "social software." Dave Winer suggests, The reason Facebook is interesting is that unlike Google it's built on identity, it's built on everyone being identified, and people having one identity (although it's certainly possible to have more than one, it might be hard to get a lot of people to recognize that identity, people with a lot of "friends" may be more trustworthy than people with very few).

"People with a lot of 'friends' may be more trustworthy than people with very few."

So, your "identity" and "trustworthiness" are things that can be "intermediated" by a "social software application" on the internet. And it's a certainty that how many "friends" one has will be used to measure something. Probably something inappropriate, like Technorati used links to measure "authority." It's a certainty that most of us will be in the "long tail" of "friendships."

So is "something to believe in" something you want to buy? If you don't like it, can you get your money back? Better keep track of how many friends you have, or you won't be trusted! Not to worry, someone will be along at any moment to sell you more friends. Or to "optimize" your "search" for "friends." Not sure who you are? Don't worry! We can sell you that too. A service to help you "optimize" your identity.

Okay, I'm starting to get pissed off. Time to let this go for a while. But I'll be back.

"Disintermediated" my ass.

Bonus Link: The other day, Scott Reynen sent me a pointer to this post by Tom Coates. While it's not relevant to the social software bent of this post, it does relate to the notion of commerce pushing against all boundaries as a competitive enterprise. A few choice words: And it needs to be said, quite apart from my own personal irritation with these people, they are actively trying every day to commandeer the conversations that you are having out there by fair means or foul to serve their needs more effectively.

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