Life in the Silo

DRM is a nuisance, but so is inaccuracy.

Doc Searls' most recent piece on VRM/CRM/DRM (My initials are DMR, so I feel as though I'm obliged to be a part of this.) includes this paragraph that purports to describe the limitations of music files purchased through the iTunes music store:

Right now the "relationship" between Joe and Apple is one by which Apple cripples the goods it sells to Joe, and then cripples Joe's freedoms to do what he wants with those goods. In the former case, the tunes Joe buys are not plain old MP3 or AAC files, but AAC files with extra junk that limits their ability to be copied or used by a computer other than Joe's, or the iPod that copies from Joe's iTunes library. If Joe wants to create an MP3 CD to play in the car he's renting, or if he wants to put his iTunes collection on an external storage device to play through his home audio system, suddenly the iTunes he bought won't copy or play. Those activities are beyond the reach of Joe's DRM chain. He's being "managed".

The songs Apple sells through the iTunes music store don't belong to Apple Computer, Inc. They belong to the companies that produce them. In order to license their music, in order to have an iTunes Music Store, the music companies require that some barriers be erected to make it difficult to easily share these files on a wide scale.

We can have a discussion about whether Apple has bowed to the wishes of the music companies at the expense of its customers, but it must be noted that the limitations imposed by the DRM embedded in iTunes music are not what Doc Searls makes them out to be.

AAC files with extra junk that limits their ability to be copied or used by a computer other than Joe's. You can copy the files as much as you'd like, they're just like any other data file. So if you want to back your collection up to another HD or to a DVD, you're under no constraint to stop you from doing so. Unlike certain copy-protected CDs Sony and others recently tried to foist off on people.

"Used by a computer other than Joe's?" You can authorize up to five different computers to play the songs you purchase from the iTunes Music Store. Now, I'm not a rich man, so this seems like a fairly reasonable number to me. I have four Macs here in my condo, two of which I seldom use, though all are currently authorized. I have a neighbor whose Mac can see my music collection, and I've authorized that computer to play my purchased music. I can deauthorize any or all of my computers at any time. Is five not enough? For some people, perhaps not. But I think they're a small minority. Is it small enough a number to merit being characterized as "crippling?" I don't think so. And you can have your collection on as many iPods as you want.

If Joe wants to create an MP3 CD to play in the car he's renting, or if he wants to put his iTunes collection on an external storage device to play through his home audio system, suddenly the iTunes he bought won't copy or play.

Not accurate. If I want to create an MP3 CD, I have to go through some extra steps. I can burn the iTunes tracks to a CD and then re-rip them to MP3 format in iTunes. That could take a long time if you wanted to put a few hundred tracks on a CD in your rental car. Another alternative might be to use an audio capture utility like Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack or Ambrosia's Wiretap Pro to intercept the digital stream (If I understand how these utilities work, they access the digital data sent to the digital-to-audio converter. I could be wrong. But they do work.) of a playlist as it plays, and reencode it back to MP3. Probably a little more technical than most people are comfortable with, and you would have to go back and enter all your track titles and artists and so forth, but it's doable.

But I think I recently read something to the effect that up to 80% of new cars today come with some form of iPod integration, even if it's only an input jack in the front panel of the car's entertainment system. So why not just bring along your iPod Shuffle and plug that in?

To play your music through your home audio system, you have no fewer than three alternatives: You can either add another computer, like a Mini, to your entertainment center and authorize it to play your purchased music. You can integrate an iPod into your home audio system, and there are products that are designed specifically for this purpose. Remember when you had to buy a CD player to, you know, play CDs on your home audio system? Or you can buy an Airport Express and wirelessly stream your music from your authorized machine to your home audio system.

"Suddenly the iTunes he bought won't copy or play." Not accurate. Those activities are not beyond the reach of the DRM chain.

This isn't to argue that DRM is a good thing or bad thing, but it is a fact of life; and because the iTunes Music Store is the biggest vendor of DRM music, Doc deliberately mischaracterizes the effects of the DRM in order to make a rather lame point about how DRM makes life inconvenient, and how some form of VRM would be so much more, er, convenient.

The fact is, my enjoyment of music is much more convenient today, DRM and all, than it ever was before. Would I prefer files that I could manipulate without going through an occasional hassle? Sure. But let's keep some perspective here. I've bought more music through the iTMS in the last few years than I have in the previous two decades. And I've been listening to and enjoying more music since the advent of iTunes and the iPod than at any other time in my life.

Somehow, I suspect there are more pressing problems in the world than a lack of convenience. But there you go.

Dog Park 12-30

Took Bodhi to the dog park yesterday to let him run around and play with some other dogs. There weren't very many there, but Phoebe, a four-year-old yellow lab played with him for a while.

"Look! Up in the sky!"

"Which superhero are you?" quiz.

(Probably a harmless waste of time.)

"It's Just Marketing"

Jonathon Delacour sent me a link to this story about some ridiculously expensive chocolate. I don't know if Seth Godin, Doc Searls, Kathy Sierra or Hugh MacLeod would call it a success story or not. Read all 10 parts, it doesn't take long. It's not just another Häagen-Dazs story.

I think Seth Godin would think it was great, because of the "story," and he seems to think Hallmark is brilliant selling junky plastic Christmas ornaments.

I think Doc would probably not approve, though I do think the claims by the chocolatier sound as earnest and passionate as Doc's idyllic market's knife maker: Often there were conversations about the work of hands: "Feel this knife. See how it fits your palm." "The cotton in this shirt, where did it come from?" "Taste this apple. We won't have them next week. If you like it you should take some today." Some of these conversations ended in a sale, but don't let that fool you. The sale was merely the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.

Exclamation point indeed. (Along with the dopamine-releasing "Cha-ching!" of the cash register.)

Kathy Sierra would probably approve, since anyone willing to pay that kind of money for bullshit... er... I mean, chocolate is probably a "passionate user."

Hugh MacLeod? Probably in the same camp, because it's all about love. Love of chocolate. Love of money. It's all about the love. Love, love, love. People just doing what they love, selling chocolate, instead of wasting their lives as corporate wage slaves.

Now, you can argue that the fact that this story even exists points to the liberating power of the internet! But I would say that the fact that this chocolate even exists points to a much older story about human beings' willingness to deceive and exploit one another in a competitive endeavor, and our willingness to go along with the deception if it appeals to us. Whether you believe a particular brand of chocolate is worth a 1300% markup, or that "markets are conversations," it's more about something that appeals to you than it is about the truth. We see and believe what we want to see and believe. Myself included.

The funny thing is, I think the company will profit from the attention. They may have to lower their prices at some point, but they'll probably make it up in volume from the attention. I certainly don't think they're going to be "shamed" into closing their doors.

The internet? Just another way of painting a picture or telling a story. Technology changes how we do things, not what we do.

Sad Story

Their love for a dog and some poor judgment led to a tragic outcome for this family on Christmas day. My guess is, I might have done the same thing.

What He Said

I'm sure this guy is merely suffering from a lack of sufficient optimism, and an overabundance of cantankerousness and curmudgeonliness. (Which I don't think is a word.)

Careful, dear readers! He may be "bad for your brain."

Works Both Ways

The "five things" post garnered more notice than just about anything else I've written in months.

To Seth Finkelstein, I didn't notice you had tagged me though I did read your response. I normally don't read the part where others get tagged, but Karl's post kept appearing in bloglines, and so I read it to see what had changed, which meant reading the whole thing including who he tagged. Anyway, that part about the beard gave me pause. I had a mustache once, to please my then-wife, but I never cared for it. I can't say I'm terribly fond of shaving either. I guess that makes me more of a stubble man than anything.

But yes, it was intended to be a koan, given that the nature of ignorance is such that we don't know what we don't know, if that's not too Rumsfeldian. But Stavros and others interpreted the request in a legitimate way that I hadn't anticipated. There are things we do know that we don't know; and considering those, I think, is a worthwhile endeavor too.

Then, of course, there are the things we know, and disclose, that simply aren't true. I've encountered many of them in my life of late, and now expect that I may encounter many more, if I have any luck. Not always a pleasant experience, but there you go.

Saving the World

I watched the latter half of A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge the other night. I'd never seen it before, but thought it was very good.

It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that there's never been a lack of optimism about the world getting "better." Doc Searls points to a lengthy post that seems to be a paean to one man's optimism, which I'm sure appeals to Doc's own optimism.

I'm not inspired by such posts, or by such thinking. I think we've suffered for no lack of it throughout history, and yet we're still not living in a world that doesn't seem to cry out for saving. Christians believe, at least according to the carols of the season, that God sent his son to live as mortal men to "save the world." Mission accomplished? Maybe that's not why he was here.

Of course, today's optimism is justified by our new technology, I think most optimists would say. Today we have the tools to throw off the yoke of our illusions! To shatter The Matrix. We can all be neo-Neos, we can defiantly tell The Machine, "this is how it begins," and then sort of slip the surly bonds of earth and fly up in our Second Life personae. Have they made flying a feature of Second Life yet? Maybe that's planned for Third Life. We admire our tools and flatter ourselves and pay attention to all the wrong things.

Optimism is easy. It doesn't demand anything, just a sunny disposition and a cheerful outlook, neither of which is a bad thing. But they don't change much, and they're largely beside the point.

The point? The world doesn't need to be saved. There is no "there" to "return" to. There is only here, and we've never left. The world is the way it is for you. The world is the way it is for you to learn to change yourself. You don't get three spirits visiting you in the night. You get one still small voice. Trying to change "the world" is simply feeding your ego. Try changing yourself! Your ego won't like that much at all. Because, after all, what's wrong with you? ("What's really going to bake your noodle later on is that you don't so much 'change' yourself, as you, perhaps, 'uncover' yourself.")

Looking at the superficial changes in the world and celebrating them as harbingers of a new "better" world, is every bit an element of the belief system that sustains "The Matrix," as the endless stoking of desire by the competing entities of this world. Watch carefully, ladies and gentlemen, as their hands never leave their sleeves! Really. Think about it. There's always someone coming around the corner to sell you a new "better" world, mostly to benefit themselves more than the world.

Does that mean that some things don't get better, and others don't get worse? Of course not. High definition television is better than standard definition television, just ask Doc or Scoble. Mosquito nets are vastly better than no mosquito nets in malaria areas. Vaccinations are better than no vaccinations. But people with high definition televisions, and mosquito nets and vaccinations still suffer, though perhaps in different ways than people who don't have those things. There is no end to the ways any given thing can be "better," and we probably should pursue many of those. But they remain peripheral to the central issue: Who are you? ("Name five things you don't know about yourself.")

Now does that mean that someone like Bill Gates shouldn't throw billions at philanthropy, to make things "better?" No, I don't think so. But I think Bill Gates could give away every last dime he has and still be a soulless wretch of a human being, if he is a soulless wretch of a human being. I don't know if he is or not. But I know that simply giving away money doesn't change that. What he does with his money is largely beside the point. It's what he does with his heart, and I have no idea what he's done with that.

Fortunately, most of us aren't Bill Gates. And being an optimist doesn't excuse anyone from looking after their own heart or soul, or whatever you want to call it. Just because everyone likes being around you doesn't mean you've done the work, or that you've no work to do. Some bright sunny people have done the work, and they're perhaps the most fun to be around. They're the ones who aren't trying to sell you anything, whether it's a better world, themselves, or someone else.

"You will be visited by three blog posts..."

Once again, I'm an authority on nothing, I make all this shit up. Do your own thinking.

And I'm not trying to sell you anything, not even my opinions.

Merry Christmas.

An Observation

Given enough posts, all bloggers are shallow.

Five Things

Name five things you don't know about yourself?

A much more interesting question, even if the answers are elusive.

Sorry, Karl.

Seven Years

Just to append a few notes to last year's anniversary post:

Bought a condo.

Got a dog.

Bought a computer with an Intel processor for myself. Never saw that coming. Well, not really.

Bought three more Kodak digital cameras! Since Bodhi arrived, I haven't been taking many pictures. That'll change once he gets a little older. You need both hands for an energetic retriever pup.

Bought another 12" iBook G4. This one a 1.3 GHz model with the sudden motion sensor, sold my 1 GHz model to my oldest daughter.

Had a brief visit from my sister and her husband and three of my nephews here at Action Dave's Cool-Guy Skypad condo. The first members of my family to visit me in Florida in a decade. (Hey, it's a long way from New York!)

It's not lost on me that I've chosen to note acts of consumption to mark significant events in the past year.

"Like nothing else I've ever experienced."

"Now I'm in a great relationship. I've only known her for, like, seven days, but I have a connection with her that's like nothing else I've ever experienced," Carter tells People magazine in a story posted Monday on its Web site. "It's really amazing."

Amazing. He's nineteen for cryin' out loud.

"Like nothing else I've ever experienced."

Stick around kid. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Better yet: Join the Army. That's like nothing else you've ever experienced either.

Social Hygiene: "Nothing New"

This is an interesting idea, though I'm ambivalent about the social compact aspect.

Of course, I've had recent experience buying some used (and refurbished, probably not the same thing) items more out of necessity than altruism. Still, it has some appeal.

Competing Messages: Product Differentiation

It is easy to ascribe a cynical motive to publishers’ embrace of commercial trends. Tim Jordan, of B. & H., concedes, “You do get some folks that say you shouldn’t treat the Bible as a fashion accessory or a throwaway.” Nonetheless, he feels that, from the point of view of a serious religious publisher, fashion can’t be ignored as a way of reaching new audiences. The point, he says, is “to expose as many people as you can, because we believe that it’s God’s word, we believe that it’s life-changing, and we don’t take that lightly.”

And to make a little change to pay for the Lexus. You know, that whole "do well by doing good" thing.

Not that we don't see something similar in many religious or spiritual texts. I think I have five different copies of the Tao. If you could read your way to redemption, I'd have made it long ago. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. "Work," being the operative word.

Marketing Uncommon

The other day, I said marketers don't do introspection. Well, I was wrong. Tara Hunt does introspection. Maybe she is an uncommon marketer.

Robert Pirsig Interview

Received a pointer to this interview of Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I found it a very affecting interview. I liked this quote: "He is, he suggests, always in a double bind. 'It is not good to talk about Zen because Zen is nothingness ... If you talk about it you are always lying, and if you don't talk about it no one knows it is there.' Generally, rather than analysing, he says, he would rather 'just enjoy watching the wind blow through the trees'."

I often think I'd rather just enjoy watching the wind blow through the trees too.

Competing Messages: "The fault, dear Brutus..."

"... is not in our metaphors, but in ourselves."

Ever been involved in a conversation that was like a sinking ship?

That would be a simile.

Me neither.

If you found yourself on a sinking ship, you'd probably welcome it if someone threw your a life preserver, or anything that floats. If they cheerfully tossed you a cinder block, that might not be so helpful, good intentions notwithstanding.

Does the market need less "friction?" Ideally, I suppose it does. But nothing in life is ideal. Do we need more consumption? I suppose we do, or the economy doesn't grow. Ironically, it turns out we are not consumers, we are the consumed, as the market consumes our time, attention and authority.

What is your purpose here in life? Is it to make it easier for people to buy crap? Is it to make people want to buy more crap? Seth Godin tells a little anecdote about Hallmark gifts and their genius at selling "crappy little Christmas ornaments." It's probably worthwhile to watch that video again, this time of year. It's part of that wonderful little talk where Mr. Godin chose to illustrate the ordinary person this way:

I don't mean to be too harsh about buying and selling crap. I buy crap all the time. But I don't regard it as the most important part of my life, though it does sometimes feel that way. The market has conditioned me well. I don't need a 42" plasma high-definition TV, but I want one. A guy in my office bought one. It was fun researching the specs with him. Now I'm stuck with this feeling that I want one too. Why?

Conditioning probably.

The other day I learned I'm still carrying around some conditioned responses I learned in my marriage. That came as something of a surprise and disappointment. But they are the product of many years of conditioning, and it's going to take some time and effort to overcome them. So, at least knowing that helps me to avoid the worst problems associated with them.

I'm not sure about how well I might be able to overcome the conditioning of the marketplace. We all have the power to choose, but it's a very weak power. We vastly overestimate our rational cognitive faculties. Most of the time they're employed to reason backward from our feelings. We "feel" we want a 42" plasma TV, so we reason backward from that feeling in an effort called "rationalization."

This feeling will come and go, but eventually I think it will win. I know that when it does, I'm going to get this rush of dopamine when I buy the damn thing, and when I first take it out of the box and set it up, and that's always so much fun. But eventually it'll be less fun when I have to make the payments and I realize that maybe I'll have to ride another month on my bald tires because I can't afford a new set just now. Or that sudden rise in my insurance premium or condo association fee has taken all the slack out of my budget, so I'm back to bag lunches, but hey, my TV picture is high definition!

Rationally, I know I'm better off watching standard-definition TV, but people around me are buying these new sets. People who've bought them utter irrational things about them being life-changing experiences. They even spell out their rationalizations for you, so you don't even have to do your own, you can just copy theirs. Eventually I have a feeling that the part of my brain that wants what it wants will wear down the part of my brain that knows better, and the rest of me is just going to be going along for the ride. Maybe not. It might depend on whether I can get back to a regular practice of sitting. It's hard to meditate with a puppy, but I'm working on it.

Marketers are adept at manipulating emotion to prompt people to engage in rationalization. We know we spend much of our lives in the marketplace, and some small part of us may not feel so good about spending instead of saving. Buying more stuff, only to throw it away or give it away later. Piling on debt, working long hours to pay that debt, spending time working and commuting and coming home exhausted and unable to relate to our families, instead choosing to "relax" by consuming high definition TV, beer, video games, blogs, RSS feeds, anything that feeds our reward centers immediately, which often doesn't include Billy's homework, the housework, your spouse's needs, the budget, the bills, or your own inner life, assuming you still have one.

We feel bad, and we want to feel good. Reasoning backward from our bad feelings, we find "good" reasons to explain to ourselves why we do the things that make us miserable, turn them into virtues and then try to persuade others of their merit.

You don't see much in the way of introspection from the marketing crowd. They advocate things, but you never see them express any doubts, or discuss potential downsides. They're much too "optimistic" for that. You can't sell very well with doubt.

So when they toss you that cinder block as you're treading water, they'll do it with a smile on their face, with a cheerful, optimistic disposition, and encourage you to just, "Hang on! It'll be okay! Just wait and see!" And if you complain about the flotation capacity of cinder blocks, they'll get all grumpy and ask if you would rather they just did nothing?

Yes, I think so.

Social Hygiene: Managing Our Relationship to Desire

It seems to me that we're shackled to an economic treadmill of constant consumption. "We acquire, we use and we waste." The market thrives on consumption, it is in the market's advantage for consumption to increase. There is no competitive advantage for any participant in the market to influence people to decrease consumption. If "markets are conversations," and they're emphatically not, then the only thing they're talking about is buying and selling stuff.

Anything that reduces friction in the marketplace seems, on the surface, to be a good thing. Life gets "easier," we have more "choices." When in reality, we simply have a more comfortable shackle.

Do I have to enumerate the negative effects of consumption? The market has delivered cheap and tasty food that is less nutritious than the former expensive, perishable, inconvenient forms and we have an epidemic of obesity. Well, maybe that's not a problem. Energy consumption to power all of our toys and the machines we use to make them releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, altering the climate. Well, maybe global climate change isn't the result of burning billions of tons of fossil fuels to power our cars, our 50" plasma TVs and our XBox 360s and PS3s. Landfills, toxins, loss of natural habitat, I mean you ought to be getting the picture. Unless these things aren't problems.

Drug and alcohol abuse are forms of consumption. Consumed in no small measure to dull the pain of our commercial existence. The wealth generated by the illicit drug trade is used for conspicuous consumption. The wealth generated by the booze industry is used for consumption too, only it's a little less conspicuous.

Then there are the hours we work, presumably because we love our work, right? And the debt we carry, because we love our stuff.

And the "wealth" generated by this marketplace continues to be concentrated in a smaller portion of the population. So it's not as though we're all benefiting from this practice, this "market," equally.

Who has time for kids when there are so many things to do and play with? To say nothing of so much to sell! Essentially, many developed nations, mostly in Europe, are outsourcing children so they can focus on their core competency: consumption.

We don't need people making it easier to consume. Those people, regardless of how they describe their approach, are marketers. They are selling the business of consumption itself. We have lots of people who do that very well, and they get better at it every day because competitive pressures compel them to be. What are the competitive pressures that influence anyone to pause and reflect on where all this is leading? There are none. The church? Churches are competing in the marketplace now. They want you to consume their "products."

So we have folks who happily go about the business of "creating passionate users" (consumers), and people who want to make the commercial activity of consumption into some ersatz form of social interaction by marketing some idyllic fantasy of what "markets" are or supposedly used to be. And now they're selling some illusion of putting the consumer in control through "vendor relationship management." The only "control" the consumer has is the power to say no to consumption, and nobody's talking about that. The vendor doesn't care if you're in "control," as long as you're buying, as long as the cash is flowing from you to them! For God's sake, just don't stop buying! That's called a recession!

At the end of the day, it's all about consumption. Since most of their audience has something to sell, they endorse, subscribe and promote their views, effectively becoming shills to the new hawkers and hucksters, who are selling the practice of consumption.

The relationships we really ought to be "managing" is our relationship to desire, and our relationship to material things. But where's the market for that?

I don't know how to get off this treadmill, so maybe the best we can hope for is a more comfortable shackle. And who am I to begrudge people a little less discomfort in their lives?

I'm just a cantankerous curmudgeon.

Only twelve more shopping days until Christmas! Which happens to be the same number of actual days until Christmas because you can shop every day of the week. Didn't always used to be that way, which is why "shopping days" used to actually mean something.

Competing Messages: Forms of VRM

Let's look at an early, technology-enabled, form of "vendor relationship management." I'm taking liberties here, because I'm relatively certain this isn't what Doc really intends to mean, but things have a way of working out regardless of our intentions. The road to hell is supposedly paved with good ones.

The credit card is a device that facilitates a form of VRM. Before the credit card, one either paid cash, wrote a check, or secured some kind of loan from a bank or the vendor to pay for goods and services. This meant one had to sometimes carry large sums of cash, had to maintain a checking account with its attendant bookkeeping, fill out various loan applications, and track statements from all the various lenders each month. Checks weren't always taken in places where you didn't already have a "relationship" with the vendor. Not very "consumer-friendly."

Enter the credit card.

With a credit card, the consumer has an instrument that is as good as cash, in fact it's better than cash, since you can actually spend money that you don't have, is accepted by more vendors than checks are, involves only one statement each month, and actually includes some services for the consumer.

If the credit card didn't exist, I think Doc would invent it.

Sounds like a win-win, does it not?

Well, we know it's not win-win.

According to Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the credit card companies are misleading consumers and making up their own rules. "These guys have figured out the best way to compete is to put a smiley face in your commercials, a low introductory rate, and hire a team of MBAs to lay traps in the fine print," Warren tells FRONTLINE.

Warren and other critics say that a growing share of the industry's revenues come from what they call deceptive tactics, such as "default" terms spelled out in the fine print of cardholder agreements -- the terms and conditions of which can be changed at any time for any reason with 15 days' notice.

Frankly, I'm not even especially referring to the machinations credit card companies go through to maximize their bottom line, and you can be certain th at any VRM "system" will be gamed by vendors seeking a competitive advantage. In my opinion, anything that facilitates consumption generally works out to be harmful to society, in the aggregate. I may be wrong, but from where I sit, things don't look so good.

We don't have an effective societal counter to the competitive pressures for increased consumption. As far as "industry" is concerned, people only exist to be consumers, and they're happy to entertain whatever fantasies people wish to indulge in to facilitate consumption.

VRM, whatever that turns out ultimately to be, seems to be nothing more than another mechanism to facilitate consumption, to reduce "friction" in the marketplace, making the market more "efficient." Perhaps the market will be most efficient when people expend 100% of their effort, their "lives," in the acts of production and consumption.

Sorry to be such a downer, but I don't think Doc really understands the nature of the beast he's trying to domesticate.

Mac: Music

I finally got around to setting up my Airport Express last week. I bought it a little over a year ago, so it's a good thing it worked because it was already out of warranty. I connected it to the second audio input on the Zvox speaker set that sits under my 27" lo-def, 4:3 TV.

I was concerned that it wouldn't work very well because I have an 802.11b network here, and not a 11g, so I wasn't sure if I would have sufficient bandwidth for streaming music without the occasional dropout. It turned out not to be a problem, it seems to work just fine.

It is a bit superfluous in this place though. The JBL Creature speakers up in the loft fill the living room with sound just as much as the Zvox, they even sound just a bit better in fact. Acoustically, this place is probably a nightmare, with tile floors and hard walls. The Zvox is only a couple of feet off the floor, and it faces an essentially bare wall about four yards away. The loft is enclosed on five sides, has a carpeted floor, and the open side faces into the large, open volume of the central part of the unit. The little JBL satellite transducers are at the back wall, facing the open side. I'm guessing here because I have no real knowledge of speaker design or acoustics, but I think the characteristics of the loft help it to sort of act as a "virtual speaker," and it projects the sound into the main part of the unit, where your ears can perceive the main signal before you get a lot of high-amplitude reverberation from the floor and walls. The Zvox is so close to so many hard surfaces, that your ears get the main signal, and almost immediately some fairly high-amplitude echoes from nearby hard surfaces ("reverb"), which kind of interact and interfere with each other to muddy the sound. At least, that's my guess why the Creature Speakers sound better than the Zvox, though the Zvox is probably a better speaker set. Not that any of my equipment is up to the standards of any sort of self-respecting audiophile.

Social Hygiene: Be Careful What You Wish For

Doc Searls writes, "What's different now is that I'm far more capable, energetic, optimistic and eager to change the world at 59 than I ever was at any earlier age. And I can't imagine not feeling this way for the duration. Or I won't. (What's the upside to pessimism?)"

Everybody likes Doc, so chances are everybody likes what he has to say here. Those are generalizations, and so they aren't universally true. For example, while I understand the sentiment behind his words, I'm not so sure their meaning is as "upside" as the emotion.

It was a bunch of men and a few women in their fifties and sixties who were feeling especially energetic, optimistic and eager to change the world who started the war in Iraq. So being energetic, optimistic and eager to change the world is no guarantee that you're going to make the world a better place. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that you might just make it a worse one.

I'm not eager to change the world. I don't think I have any real capacity to "change the world." At best, I think I have some limited means to change myself, to try to become the kind of person I'd like to be. I've been working on that for some time, and I think I understand how difficult that is.

Change the world? At best, I think one manages to get a lot of people to embrace a set of opinions or beliefs and then act upon them. Maybe that results in something good, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe it results in mass suicide, like Jim Jones.

Maybe it results in more people believing commercial interactions and relationships are as valuable as social interactions and relationships. Gandhi and Martin Luther King had some pretty well developed ideas about social justice informing their opinions and beliefs. "Markets are conversations?" That's a marketing slogan. Where is that going to ultimately lead us? "Vendor Relationship Management?" Maybe we should all spend as much time thinking about our relationships with our families, or the grumpy guy who lives across the street.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't feel especially cheered that there are energetic, optimistic and eager fifty-somethings who want to change the world by "bringing democracy to the middle east," or through "Vendor Relationship Management." But for me to try to affect that is like trying to "change the world," because the history of the world is one of energetic, optimistic and eager people trying to change it. Maybe, in the very long term, the best ideas will win out. In the meantime, in our brief lives here, we have to endure things like the Iraq war, and people with something to sell intruding ever more into what remains of our lives that we haven't already surrendered to commercial interests.

And so it goes.

Moving Right Along

December already. Sheesh.

Bodhi was neutered on Thursday. So many people call it "fixed," but he wasn't "broken" to begin with, so I'm not sure what's up with that. He's got one of those Elizabethan collars on him right now, so he won't pull out his stitches. The vet said to leave it on for a few days. I haven't noticed him trying to get at them at all, so I don't really know if it's necessary. It sure is a nuisance for all concerned. I think I'm going to take it off tomorrow when I get home from work. I should be able to keep an eye on him most of the time, and if he pulls them out at night, at least the vet will be open in the morning. Of course, then it probably means putting another collar on him, so I'm not absolutely sure I want to take it off. Among the many problems the collar poses is that I can't see what he's doing with his head down when we're on a walk. He has a tendency to ingest anything he finds on the ground, though most of the time when his head is down, he's just sniffing.

Made the first of 360 mortgage payments. Only 359 left to go!

I installed the Mac OS X 2006-007 Security Update and the Intel iMac EFI firmware update, both to no ill effect.

I took advantage of Apple's Black Friday sale and bought a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. It works much better on the plastic surface of this table than the previous Apple Bluetooth mouse, which couldn't seem to track on this textured, kind of pebbled surface. I'm not sure, but I think even the wired Mighty Mouse was erratic on this table. I've been using a Logitech MX-518, which has worked great, the new Bluetooth Mighty Mouse tracks equally as well as the Logitech.

Got back in the dojong just in time to pre-test for Black Belt testing in two-weeks. It's a qualification test to ensure you're ready to test. Because I've been goofing off for the last six weeks, I failed the sit-ups, but I get one re-take next week and I should be fine.

Took Shiva, the Destroyer of Worlds, aka the Montero Sport, in for its 60K mile service and a front end alignment on Wednesday. It wasn't cheap, but it's been a pretty reliable ride for the last five years, and hopefully this will help ensure another trouble-free five years. I went in at 59,600 miles so I could have a couple of oil leaks addressed under warranty, so hopefully I'm done with those for now. The engine sounds so much better with new belts. I know it's an irrational thought, but I seem to think machinery responds to positive attention in a good way.

And that's probably enough of all that.