Smalltalk with James Robertson

I keep seeing this kind of nonsense popping up:

The explosion of digital culture is, on net, a very good thing. But it necessarily crowds out some activities and one of the things it must do the very most crowding-out of is one’s capacity to read giant honking novels. I find it hard to imagine myself undertaking a project on the W&P/Moby Dick/Brothers Karamazov scale in the era of ubiquitous connectivity. I think this is something we may just be losing as a society.

I just don't get it. I read a lot, and if anything, the iPad I have has made that easier. I can buy a book and start reading immediately, and do so on multiple devices. If you peruse my book list, you'll see that some of the history books I've read are pretty darn long; I don't think that "connectivity" gets in the way of that.

If anything, these people sound like the scolds from my youth, who were sure that TV was rotting our brains. There were probably anti-radio fanatics back in the 1930's as well. If you have trouble getting into a long book, don't blame the net - find a mirror, and ponder what's there - because that's where the problem is.

Technorati Tags: reading

San Francisco is starting to sound like an unpleasant place to visit:

The San Francisco policy, the result of an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, dictates vending machines on city property can no longer dispense Coke, Pepsi and other calorically sweetened beverages. Sports drinks and artificially sweetened water also are included in the ban.

The problem is this - as these sorts of well intentioned rules multiply, you slowly slide into a pit of soft despotism. Combined with the mania for policy over judgment, it's a recipe for an utterly non-functional society.

Technorati Tags: stupidity

Things like this just make you shake your head....

Alyssa Thomas, 6, is a little girl who is already under the spotlight of the federal government. Her family recently discovered that Alyssa is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.

Like a lot of current issues - things I see my daughter run into at school, the response to the oil spill, and so on - this is the elevation of rules and process over personal judgment. As a society, we have decided that "the rules" are all that matters, even when they result in really stupid things.

Technorati Tags: security, stupidity

I think there's something of a quiet revolution going on in retail - I say "quiet" because it goes beyond the typical desire to save sales tax involved in, say, an Amazon purchase.

This morning I had a grocery delivery arrive - unattended, on my front porch, with the perishable foods packed in cold packs. Last week, my iPhone and iPad arrived at my door - and while I was home to get those, I had printed out a "leave them on the porch" form in case I had to go out. I rarely go to places like Best Buy any longer; why would I? I can get hard drives and printer ink (the two most common things I end up needing) delivered to my door for a lot less than they charge, and with a lot more choice in ordering as well.

I might be something of an outlier for my age group, but this kind of thing is on the rise. It's just way, way simpler to order stuff. No driving, no hassles with parking - and it's going to drive a lot more change than the blathering you hear about suburbs vs. urban, or about driving vs. mass transit. Add in the fact that a lot more work can be done remotely, and you have a sea change in how people deal with things. To get the kind of services I enjoy:

• Fast internet
• Inexpensive delivery of goods

You need to live in an area that's dense enough for, say, broadband to pay for itself, but you don't need to live in a city. It's not that you shouldn't live in a city - whatever floats your boat. It's just that the number of trips required for goods are going to plummet out here in the burbs. You'll still have to drive for other things - kids activities come to mind - but a lot of the rest of it will be fading. I suspect that the big box stores have peaked, and will be finding their prospects leveling out - and even dropping - as this dynamic plays out.

Technorati Tags: delivery, lifestyle

Starbucks wants to be your third place:

At Wired’s Business Conference in New York City, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz announced that the coffee giant is now offering free Wifi to customers beginning July 1.

That's a cool idea - it'll certainly make me look for Starbucks shops when I travel.

Technorati Tags: web

Nick Carr's thesis that Google, or the net in general, is making us stupid is, well, stupid. Steven Pinker makes a point that I made awhile back:

And to encourage intellectual depth, don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google. It’s not as if habits of deep reflection, thorough research and rigorous reasoning ever came naturally to people. They must be acquired in special institutions, which we call universities, and maintained with constant upkeep, which we call analysis, criticism and debate. They are not granted by propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap, nor are they taken away by efficient access to information on the Internet.

Put another way, there never was a golden age of mass reflection. Newspapers were a "wuick hit" of information compared to personally delivered news, and radio and TV even more so. It's not as if distraction is a new thing.

Ultimately, I think Carr is looking for an excuse for his own limitations.

Technorati Tags: media

My heart bleeds for poor Zed Shaw:

They have no idea who wrote the web framework they use. They've never met the guy. They could care less about why he designed it one way or another. It doesn't matter because once the programmer was done he wasn't useful. Following his life is pointless because he's poured his life into the software and now they get to keep it. You've stolen his soul like an old sepia tone photo of a Cherokee warrior.

Welcome to reality, dude. Do you know who the designer of your car was? Who designed the LCD screen you watch? I seriously doubt it. Should programmers get more attention? Maybe, but the reality is, outside of the the arts, sports, and politics, there are very, very few "stars" out there. Even in business - beyond Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, only the technorati know who the "tech business stars" are.

Most people labor in obscurity. It's always been that way, and it likely always will be. Put another way: get over yourself.

The mercy rule (if a team is winning by "too much", the game is just called as a victory for them) makes some sense in youth sports - sometimes one team is just so clearly overmatched that it's painful to watch more. But this?

In yet another nod to the protection of fledgling self-esteem, an Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default.

That's just stupid. In sports, it's easy to let your guard drop and be suddenly surprised. Trying to artificially keep games close is bad for all parties involved. The team getting beaten knows that they are being let off easy, and the winning team will end up being filled with rage that their victory has been stolen from them. I can hardly think of a more counter-productive move in sports.

The puritan ethic never really died; it just migrated away from its religious moorings and morphed into a more free floating idea of punishing the notion that "somewhere, someone is having a good time". Consider Apple's app store policies in that light:

According to a Dec. 21 e-mail reprinted by Neiman, Apple rejected his app because it “contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states: Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory

The ban in question is a cartoonist who ran afoul of the policy with satiracal content; a few European publications have run afoul of the nudity bans. It makes me wonder whether Apple will start considering "the great firewall of Cupertino", to protect us while we use Safari on these devices...

Technorati Tags: apple, iPad, iPhone

Clay Shirky has an interesting post up on some absurd claims being made by the ABA (American Booksellers) - to wit, that lower book prices at online retailers like Amazon are somehow leading to the death of reading. Shirky starts from there, but goes on to the larger problems that a lot of street level retail outlets are developing - it's just easier to buy online. Where does that leave, say, bookstores? Maybe a future as a "third place":

The core idea is to appeal to that small subset of customers who think of bookstores as their “third place”, alongside home and work. These people care about the store’s existence in physical (and therefore social) space; the goal would be to generate enough revenue from them to make the difference between red and black ink, and to make the new bargain not just acceptable but desirable for all parties. A small collection of patron saints who helped keep a local bookstore open could be cheaply smothered in appreciation by the culture they help support.

As Shirky points out though, there's no assurance that such a model will work; there may not be enough money in it. I think Shirky is correct that retail is about to take a huge beating as people do more and more shopping online. Ultimately, I think bars, coffee shops, and restaurants will be the surviving "third place" - but go ahead and read his piece.

Technorati Tags: retail, third place