Get Ready!

Quote of the day:
“I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.”
--Rita Mae Brown

It seems my problem with uploading to Blogger is now solved.  As with many computer problems that simply go away, I'm not sure exactly how it was solved. But I'm glad things are working.

So now I have a backlog of pontification. And we can't have that.

Get ready for a possible onslaught.

Isn't that a great word, "onslaught"?

The Kindle

Quote of the day:
“People do more of what’s convenient and friction-free.”
--Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com

Six months ago Amazon introduced an electronic book reader called Kindle. It has been very popular. For a while they were having trouble keeping up with demand.

As much as I am interested in the applications of technology, I’ve always been very skeptical of devices on which you can read books. Most are hard on the eyes and emphasize technology over the actual reading experience.

I do love getting news and information from the internet, especially since page layouts have become more intuitive and attractive. There’s a hitch to this, though.

Even with a bright and sharp monitor, it can be quite tedious to read anything long. I think the internet is built for browsing. Hence the “browser.” And it’s built for referencing.

Images, sound and video are important tools on the web. These three things are irrelevant in the average book. Novels, poetry and non-fiction may contain black-and-white illustrations, but that’s about it.

I’ve always considered reading a book a unique experience. I wouldn’t consider reading a book on the web. It’s never entered my mind to even try it.

For the same reasons I would also not consider reading a book on my iPhone, or any PDA. It’s a little-bitty screen, and I would be fumbling with it so much it would distract from the experience.

Book lovers say things like “there’s nothing like the feel of a book.” They talk about its portability, and a vague connection felt with the author through the physical pages. All of this is true.

From everything I’ve read about Kindle, it succeeds admirably in replicating key parts of the “book experience.” The screen is practically identical to a printed page--black on white with a high resistance to glare. Very easy on the eyes--and you can enlarge the text.

Owners seem to love the chance to carry around a few dozen books with them. And they rave how easy it is to preview, buy and load books directly onto the Kindle from anywhere. The size and weight of it are just about ideal--roughly the same as a paperback. You can highlight and make notes in the margins.

Evidently, there are a couple of major drawbacks. While more than 100,000 books are available, when Merrie went searching for many of the books she wanted to read, most were not available. I suppose this will be remedied over time as Amazon secures more rights.

More unfortunate is that the design of the keys on the device is clunky and not intuitive. Many owners complain about accidently turning pages, or having to fish around for the “home” key which takes you back to your list of books. They also complain about the time lag when turning pages, and the menu functions in the software design.

Amazon is the biggest book seller in the world. They know about books. They are not hardware or software designers.

I think a device like this is in our future, and is a very good idea for many reasons, personally and ecologically. I give Jeff Bezos a huge amount of credit for the work done on this product. It’s also admirable that one of Amazon’s (huge) goals is to increase the attention span of Americans. Kudos for that. (I don’t use the word “props” yet.)

Wouldn’t it be interesting if Amazon worked in partnership with Apple to get the design right?

Buffling Off to Shuffalo

Quote of the day:
“Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.”
--Mike Myers

I’ve noted before that Merrie and I listen to music every morning. These days we’re sticking mostly to fairly mellow stuff. We need the calming, what with the tornado of a German Shepherd puppy surrounding us so much of the time.

I’ve listened to classical music for most of my life. We had just a few classical records when I was growing up, but they were played a great deal. My father loved Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and his Symphony No. 6, so I practically know those works by heart.

I began playing classical records on the radio when I was in college, first on the campus station (“Welcome to Classical Showcase...”), and then on three public stations in Baltimore, Birmingham and San Diego.

What is this, my resume?

Anyway, we usually play classical music in the mornings. I’ve put most of our CDs on our iMac, and I’ve gotten to like putting them on “shuffle” and listening for hours. It’s like having our own radio station.

There are often some strange juxtapositions, especially since individual cuts from CDs are shuffled. That means there will be a movement from a Schubert string quartet followed by an aria from Puccini’s “La Boheme,” followed by something by John Adams.

I know I will now get hate mail from musicians and classical purists, who emit an odd combination of sobbing and retching when they think of anyone listening to single movements out of the context of the larger work.

But I find it illuminating. We often discover buried treasures in the form of music deep inside an album we haven’t listened to much.

Or it might be a work we have heard a lot, but hearing a piece of it out of context gives it a whole new meaning.

It’s kind of like sitting down, putting on just one song and listening attentively to it. Who knows what we might discover?

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Quote of the day:
"Everybody complains of his memory, but nobody of his judgment."
--Francois VI, duke de la Rouchefoucauld (1655)

We’ve been having a lot of fun this year feeding all our Christmas music into iTunes and letting it shuffle. Just like Apple says, it’s like having our own radio station.

We own a dozen CDs of Christmas music, and about 20 LPs. A few are quite good, some are so-so and one or two are highly questionable and rarely played.

Every year we play Vince Guaraldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas.” It’s become a traditional part of our holiday.

A lot of people are like us, I guess. This Christmas album is one of iTunes’ most-downloaded.

The music is good, of course. But more important, it bonds us to the times we first saw “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

This is a Christmas tradition from the 20th century that will stick with us for quite a while. It’s like “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” and stockings from earlier eras. Do you think it’s joined the pantheon of most-important traditions?

I think so. The movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” is climbing the tradition charts, too.

The barking dogs are not climbing, though we will be complaining about them for another 30 years or so.

Thinking and Clicking

Quote of the day:
"I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them."
--Harvey Pekar

I have a package of games on my Mac that are variations of solitaire. I like solitaire because it’s fairly simple but does require some attention and thought, and it’s challenging to win. It a good brief diversion when work on something else gets frustrating.

I’ve learned that all card games played alone are called solitaire. My first thought was that the version I play would be called “classic,” but it’s not. It’s called “Klondike.” Maybe it comes from the northern latitudes.

The descriptions of the 20 or so card games in this package seems to faintly disparage Klondike, saying that “it’s difficult to win.” There are easier-to-win versions included in the package.

Maybe I’m self-flagellating, but one of the reasons I like Klondike is that it’s tough to win.

It seems to me that most of the shoot-em-up computer and video games are quite difficult to “win.” But that’s not a problem for avid gamers. In fact, it’s an advantage, because it keeps away the uncommitted masses. It’s easy to distinguish an elite group of top scorers that way.

Those of you who are hip and happening know that there is serious action going on right now with Halo 3. All across the nation, people are competing online to be in the Halo pantheon.

If I were to compete against anyone in Halo 3, they would make it to level three while I was still taking the cellophane off the box. I haven’t developed the naturally rapid see-move-click responses that a lot of folks have these days.

If you’ve watched 50-year-olds and 20-year-olds navigate the internet, I’m sure you’ve noticed the difference. Those who grew up with video games and the internet come from the land of rapid-fire point-and-click. Those in the older generation are accustomed to mulling over their choices--at least a bit.

So the sequence is more like think-point-think-click.

Is the Internet Democratizing Journalism?

Quote of the day:
“’It was 20 years ago today,’ the Beatles sang 40 years ago today.”
--Mark Steyn

Andrew Keen is causing quite a ruckus. He’s the guy who wrote “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.”

Even though his book immediately annoys me because its title contains a colon, he has some interesting ideas.

The common wisdom these days is that the internet is transformative and salvational. The only discussion appears to be about how salvational it is, and how the transformation might play out.

One point that is chanted by those who parrot each other rather than actually asking questions and thinking for themselves is that the internet is democratizing the flow of opinions and culture.

Keen is quick to say that he is not a Luddite, but that he is concerned that the inferior work of legions of internet amateurs is displacing professional journalists and creative people.

He echoes the founders of our government when he talks about democracy on the internet:

“Pure democracy doesn’t work. It results in chaos and the development of new elites. And the problem with the internet is that the new elites are anonymous. So you have this rise of what I would call an anonymous oligarchy on the internet.”

He also points out research done at the Yahoo Research Center that shows that when a site is “reliably authored by people where everybody knows who they are... the quality of the content is significantly higher.”

It reminds me of the exasperating moment years ago when someone on a clergy e-mail list was criticizing something I had written, and he wouldn’t say who he was.

As Keen says, “why would we go online to be insulted? Why would we go online and listen to crazy people scream at each other and not even know who they are?”

Real News on the Internet

Quote of the day:
“By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.”
--Ian McEwan

Statistic of the day:
51 percent.
--the amount more stale popcorn participants ate when it was served in a large bucket rather than a medium one. The participants had just had lunch. From a study by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab

Our local newspaper, “The San Diego Union-Tribune,” has been irritating various readers recently by cutting some features. Gone are things like tables of stock market statistics and a detailed chart of results in many less-popular local sports.

The routine of reading a newspaper is considered sacred ground by many readers. It is thus quite an affront when anything is summarily changed or, worse, discontinued.

The ongoing business reality of newspapers is pretty clear. The number of people who say they read a daily paper continues to decline, and is at its lowest level ever.

As a result, circulation is down and advertising revenue is down. Budgets must therefore be cut, and that involves shrinking the newspaper. Newspapers are thinner and smaller than ever.

Online, the story is different. Many newspapers are finding success on the internet, though the business model is quite different from the printed paper.

Three observations about online newspapers, in no particular order:

First, newspaper sites have become much, much more user-friendly and attractive over the last several years.

Second, the online news business is extremely competitive, and it is very difficult to make the kind of revenue that newspapers have come to expect.

Third, newspaper sites are the most reliable and trustworthy news sources on the internet.

This reliability and trustworthiness is a godsend in the online world. The number of pseudo-news sources on the internet is huge and grows hourly.

At the same time, our need and desire for substantial, authoritative, exhaustively-reported and well-written content also grows.

This is good news for the best newspapers, and for those of us who depend on them.

Blogger Play

Quote of the day:
“The world is proof that God is a committee.”
--Bob Stokes

I was going to write about all kinds of extremely important world-changing stuff today, but I’ve been sidetracked.

Have you seen Blogger Play yet? The folks at Blogger have enabled a live slideshow of pictures being uploaded to their site in real time. At first, it sounds like it would be profoundly uninteresting.

You just go to play.blogger.com, and the pictures and graphics just start rolling by. I have it playing in the corner of my screen as I write this.

There are pictures of a wedding, a trip to Rome, another to Greece, another to Mexico, there’s someone’s puppy, a food shot, a stock chart, an artistic shot, another dog, a comic book, an album cover, a baby, a family, a street in an unknown city, someone’s great-grandmother, Barack Obama standing next to a Superman statue, more wedding shots, a bowl of fruit, a soccer game, a backyard, three kids, several 20-somethings drunk in a bar and on and on.

It never stops. And it’s mesmerizing.

It would be easy to call this a “portrait of humanity.” But I’m afraid it’s not that, exactly. It’s a portrait of people who want to share parts of their lives and they have this means to do so.

There is an international, global flavor to the site. How about that? All these folks from all these different places want to share a piece or two of themselves.

There are lots of interesting and unusual people among us. And we seem to have a lot in common.

The Future is in My Pocket

Quote of the day:
"I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful."
--Marilyn Monroe

Quote of the day no. 2:
“This is the next step in not accepting poor design any longer.”
--David Myers, executive chef of Food Arts Group in Los Angeles, talking about the Apple iPhone.

Merrie and I have been using iPhones for about two months now. I gotta say, it is one fun and convenient device.

The main criticism of the iPhone has been that, outside of wi-fi areas, internet speed is very slow on AT&T’s Edge network. For Merrie and me, this has not been a huge problem. We are still able to get information and news when we need it, including using the maps gadget in the car to look up where we’re going and the traffic on the way.

The intuitive and ergonomic design of the iPhone is excellent. It is amazingly easy--and fun--to use. The day has arrived when, in a single, attractive and easy-to-use device, I can carry in my pocket the internet, my favorite TV and radio shows, four days worth of music, the internet, e-mail and a telephone.

In coming years, refinements will come--more speed and capacity, customizability, much longer battery life. But the device of the future is here now. And, I say again, it’s convenient, helpful and fun.

Having the iPhone does not make our lives more “gadgety” or full of technological complications. In fact, because it combines so many functions and is so incredibly easy to use, it actually makes our lives simpler, richer and more fun.

iPhone, iPod, iMe

Quote of the day:
“All the smiling television faces blend to make a shimmering suit that might hold you.”
--Mary Gaitskill

Quote of the day no. 2:
“This is the next step in not accepting poor design any longer.”
--David Myers, executive chef of Food Arts Group in Los Angeles.

Myers was talking about Apple’s just-announced iPhone, which has caused a surge in Apple’s stock and lots of chatter about the future of cell phone devices and whether Apple will make much of an impact. He is suggesting that the iPhone will make an impact, even if it is only another step in bringing good design into our daily lives.

I have a confession. I am an Apple fanatic. More accurately I would classify myself a bit shy of “fanatic,” but others have suggested I drop the “bit shy” facade and come clean.

For 23 years I was a tried-and-true Windows guy, at home at at various workplaces. But after getting some advice from a software engineer whose judgment I trust, I bought an iBook two years ago. I will never go back.

When I heard the sometimes-irrational rhapsodizing of Apple people for years, I was tempted but very skeptical. I knew that my PC could do all the same things, and was just as good, and cheaper. Yet once I started using the iBook--and all the associated “i’s”: iTunes, iPod, iPhoto, iWork--I began to know what the fanaticism was about.

Simply put, Apple products are designed with actual, living human beings in mind. The goal is not to adapt a machine to be useful to me, but to begin the design process with human DNA, not silicon. It’s a bit like the difference between buying a suit off the rack and having one made in the exact fabric and fit for a real human body.

It’s clear with everything I do--little things as well as big things--that my needs and interests have taken precedence over the machine’s. Here are three “little” things I love. If you’re an Apple user, you may find yourself nodding as you read this.

First, I open the iBook with one hand and it instantaneously wakes up and is ready to use. I close it with one hand and it goes to sleep. Second, all the inputs and outputs are on the left side. Whenever I need to hook something up, I turn my head slightly to the left and slide the connection in with my left hand. Third, the AC adapter is a white square the size of a deck of cards and plugs directly into the wall if you’re fairly close to an outlet. An extension cord is supplied for longer distances. But I rarely use the AC when I’m working, because the battery lasts four hours or more on a charge.

I know I’m already past three things, but the AC adapter also has those little built-in wings that you can fold out to easily wind up your cord. That’s just way cool.

Those of you who are in PC land--maybe you’re stuck there--thanks for reading this far. Some of you might be saying to yourself, well my laptop also has long battery life, or a similar arrangement of inputs/outputs, or whatever. Your manufacturer is likely copying Apple.

Which is the point. It seems that all other computer (and phone and MP3) manufacturers design a device and then add convenience or styling features. My favorite is the attempt to do away with the beige box. Instead, let’s have a grey box, or a titanium box. Let’s put a curvy design on it and maybe a racing stripe.

For Apple, convenience or styling features are not added on. The device itself is a convenience and styling feature. Most computer (and phone) users will continue not to care about this, evidently caring much more about the design of their refrigerator, which they are neither carrying with them nor sitting behind and looking at for hours a day.

Yet there is a small and steadily-growing segment of the population who do care, which means Apple will continue to thrive.

And even though I find cell phones annoying, I will be buying an iPhone.

Waves and Pulses

Quote of the day:
“The experience of two centuries has shown,...gradualism in theory, is perpetuity in practice.”
--William Lloyd Garrison

Yesterday we mentioned the one part of our increasingly-digital universe that has remained analog: us. Our ears are designed to respond to waves of varying air pressure at frequencies we recognize as sound. Our eyes respond to light waves (and particles, if you’re a physicist).

Because we are analog, the final step in any transmission process must also be analog. This is true even if a CD player or TV screen is reading digital data. At the end of the transmission to us, loudspeakers vibrate to create sound waves, and video screens flicker to create light waves through the air.

You have to admit, one of the true pleasures of being an analog creature is the power we have over digital devices. Even if it’s only to turn them off.

I Am Analog, Hear Me Roar

Quote of the day:
“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”
--W.H. Auden

The digital revolution has brought about easy access to just about any information. It has also allowed more and more text, audio and video to be carried much faster, and in progressively smaller and smaller packages.

But no matter how deeply we immerse ourselves in the digital universe, we still have to deal with one stubbornly analog element: ourselves. Until the day we can channel rapid electronic switching impulses (i.e., digital signals) directly into our brains. Shades of The Matrix.

Our fingers on computer keyboards and mice--and on our TV remote--are analog. Our ears listening to music and our eyes watching video are both analog. Thus transmission of audio, video or text will by necessity involve translation (or transduction) from analog into digital at the source, and from digital to analog at the user end.

What about a movie, which is essentially individually-flashing pictures done rapidly enough that our brains are fooled into thinking there’s motion? Or a CD, which brings music to us in the form of 44,000 on-off switches a second?

More tomorrow.

Another "Sacred Truth" Falls

This morning I read a column by Robert Weston who said that that a fully-equipped Apple Mac Pro computer is selling for $850 less than the comparable Windows-compatible machine from Dell. (See the story at http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060911/news_mz1b11macint.html ) But wait. Aren’t Macs more expensive than Windows-compatible computers?

This is a small example of the sort of “sacred” truth we have come to accept in our daily lives. And people will continue to believe it for a long time, no matter how much evidence presents itself to the contrary. (For example, the evidence that now Macs ARE Windows-compatible computers.)

How a sacred truth develops is a fascinating process. When a statement is repeated often enough, we will begin to simply agree with it. When enough of us agree without questioning, the statement becomes a certainty that simply is believed. When the belief takes on a life of its own, the “truth” becomes sacred--it becomes a mantra. It becomes not just a certainty, but a comfortable certainty. Because these days we are so often seeking both certainty and comfort, their synergistic combination is a potent mixture which begins to outweigh any connection with observable truth. This means that when facts begin to contradict a sacred truth, it will give way very, very slowly--if at all.

Other sacred truths under siege:
Real estate prices always go up.
SUVs are safer than ordinary cars.
Digital surround sound sounds better than monaural television.
Pluto is the ninth planet from the sun.
No cool person reads the newspaper any more.
The religious right is taking over America.

Just Say Non

The French word “non” is much, much, much better than the English word “no,” if your goal is to express an emphatic negative. We Americans use a long “o” sound, which results in an indefinite, sometimes wimpy, sometimes drawn-out end to the word: “noooo....”

But just saying the word “non” is cathartic. The short “o” sound and the clipped ending give it an expressiveness not unlike a car horn.

Speaking of “non,” here’s a great quote from pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman:
“[Britney Spears] is not so much a person as she is an idea, and the idea is this: You can want everything, so long as you get nothing.”

Powerpoint

Jacques Barzun, in his cultural history "From Dawn to Decadence," defines “Mannerism” as the downward curve of artistic intensity in which perfection increases as inspiration decreases. Thus, “perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest art.”

Perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest Powerpoint presentation either. But, as in every creative endeavor, a perceived intensity born out of inspiration is what ultimately separates the good from the bad.

Powerpoint’s supremely reductive nature makes it very difficult to use effectively. To me, the goal of a tool like this should be to organize information in a way that is compelling, clear and substantial. Instead, what I most often see is platitudinous regurgitation in the form of colored shapes, arrows and lists. It may be that we can do better, but I think this tool is simply overused, or is used as a replacement for creativity rather than as a vehicle for it.