A moment of great joy and pride for us all. The USA is better off because of this new citizen.
♨ flavors.me/howard
At the Sacramento ceremony for 1,770 new Americans. So emotional. So wonderful.
♨ flavors.me/howard
Requiescat in pace Vaclav Havel 1936-2011
"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons ... Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
Did you know you can design and order traffic signs inexpensively online?
Music at the new Insight Coffee (1901 8th Street, Sacramento) is vinyl. I feel young. Nice espresso, too.
♨ flavors.me/howard
In addition to being a prize-winning screenwriter and nascent creator of compelling TV, my friend Joe Acton has spent 40 years as a successful entrepreneurial businessman. Almost alone amongst my acquaintances -- almost all of us somebody's employees, though some are executive employees -- he knows the sweaty reality of performing without a net.
So when he sent me this long rant and was too lazy to put it on his own blog, I decided to rip it off for mine. You might learn something, or at least be reminded of some things you already know. You might also laugh a time or two, and that's never a bad thing.
Q: Should we run government like a business?
A; Are you smarter than a fifth-grader?
by Joe Acton
I was watching Rachel Maddow last night and watched her get sucked down the rabbit hole as to whether or not Mitt Romney was showing a net gain or loss in job creation. Then today I get a blast email from somewhere lamenting that government should be run like business and so we need to elect a businessman as president, because Obama's never run a business. Well, I have run a business and I can tell you it not about creating jobs. Anyhow, I went off my nut and wrote this:
I’m blissfully tucked away in 1941 [note: a reference to his current screenwriting project; trust me, you're gonna love it] but keep getting distracted by the Idiot Right and the Ignorant Left back here in future former present.
Romney supporters – and others equally ill-informed – are saying that inasmuch as Romney has spent his career in the private sector, and given the success of those ventures, he knows how to create jobs. The Idiot Right claims that we need to run the government like a business and the Ignorant Left’s very clever response seems to be “Oh, yeah?”
The very idea that government should be run like a business demonstrates a shocking misunderstanding of governance. And the idea that business is at all interested in creating jobs illustrates that the overwhelming answer is “No” to Jeff Foxworthy’s question, “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?”
First up: American business is not now, nor has it ever been about creating jobs. It is about creating profits, increasing value, and expanding private ownership. Job creation is – at best – a tertiary consideration. The first thing a businessman asks himself is “What can I sell?”; the second is, “What can I charge for it?” and the third is “How much will it cost?”
EIB scholars who want the government to be run like a business had better be prepared to pay an invoice from the fire department after they show up to put out the fire which was started by the Chinese Christmas lights the scholars bought from a company owned by a Romney-esque investment. If American business was aimed at creating jobs, they’d damn sure be creating them in the United States, not shipping them overseas. Repeat after me: “American business is about creating profits, not jobs.” You might want to wander into a US tattoo parlor and get that inked onto the back of your hand, because if Mitt Romney had anything to do with it you’d be planning a trip overseas to get that tattoo, thus increasing the job base of the transportation industry at the expense of the rather fractured tattoo business.
Next up: Governments are not supposed to be run like businesses, they are supposed to control and regulate businesses while they also protect and serve the citizens. When governments run like businesses they start to act like them, cutting corners, ignoring “maintenance”, ignoring all but the big markets – the list isn’t endless, but it’s impressive. Three quick ones come to mind: the Great Depression, the thrift market crash of the 80s-90s, and the Double Dip Recession that everyone says we’re not in, just like they said we weren’t in it to begin with. But don’t take my word for the idea that governments are supposed to regulate business, not imitate it. I didn’t dream up the EPA or OSHA. Richard Nixon did.
Bring up Richard Nixon’s name, though, and you’ve pretty much defined the boundaries for the Idiot Right and the Ignorant Left because everybody wants to hate him, they’re just generally wrong as to why.
The reason Nixon signed the EPA and OSHA, like him or not, was he recognized that business and government come to the table with competing motives; they cannot serve the same master; they are not interchangeable; they are not the same thing. They are so not the same thing that they don’t even share terms. Ask a businessman where he gets capital and the answer will be “investors”; ask a politician and the answer will be the “tax base”. One is voluntary, the other is not. And the road diverges quickly and widely from that not-so-small distinction.
If I were on the search committee to help Microsoft find a new CEO – and they desperately need one – I’d want someone with relevant experience. I probably wouldn’t interview the Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services because I’m guessing that her experience isn’t as relevant as people actually in Microsoft’s industry.
But I’m not. I’m being asked to pick the head of our government. And as a criteria, I’m asked to consider skill sets that are both inapplicable and inappropriate. And worse, I’m given to understand that the people asking me to make this selection, do not themselves appreciate the distinction between government and business.
So let me climb down off my soap box before I fall off and hurt myself: government and business are not the same, cannot be run the same, and should not be run by people who believe that such skill sets are interchangeable.
Government is supposed to serve us all; businesses only a few. If the overarching question is whether I want a policy wonk who has only worked in government running the government, or do I want someone who has shown he can create jobs overseas running the government – I’m going with the policy wonk, every time. You see, I don’t live overseas, I live here – where the policies are going to apply.
Spotted in downtown Sacramento. No grizzlies, no surf, plenty of funs.
As John Gruber said, "Heart breaking. Awe inspiring."
(The commercial itself was narrated by Richard Dreyfus. Jobs is a thoroughly professional piece of voice talent here.) http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-narrates-the-crazy-ones/ ♨ More about me at http://flavors.me/howardIn a meeting all morning; just heard about the neutrino/speed of light findings and immediately remembered this:
"Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness. Even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesnŐt change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irresversibly." Stewart BrandPosted via email from edge & flow
Barb samples Tequilas before dinner at Maya Huel. ♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
A moment of great joy and pride for us all. The USA is better off because of this new citizen. ♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
At the Sacramento ceremony for 1,770 new Americans. So emotional. So wonderful. ♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
on a cool slightly foggy December 20. ♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
Requiescat in pace Vaclav Havel 1936-2011"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately
Did you know you can design and order traffic signs inexpensively online?I've become that guy, preparing this week to put up signposts and warnings along the vineyard road that runs by Redwing Ranch.With the now-bankrupt Renwood vineyards across the road now in the good hands of Rombauer Vineyards, activity has increased dramatically. This is good news; we are grateful to have the vineyards in
Music at the new Insight Coffee (1901 8th Street, Sacramento) is vinyl. I feel young. Nice espresso, too. ♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
In addition to being a prize-winning screenwriter and nascent creator of compelling TV, my friend Joe Acton has spent 40 years as a successful entrepreneurial businessman. Almost alone amongst my acquaintances -- almost all of us somebody's employees, though some are executive employees -- he knows the sweaty reality of performing without a net. So when he sent me this long rant and was too lazy
Spotted in downtown Sacramento. No grizzlies, no surf, plenty of funs. Posted via email from edge & flow
As John Gruber said, "Heart breaking. Awe inspiring." (The commercial itself was narrated by Richard Dreyfus. Jobs is a thoroughly professional piece of voice talent here.) http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-narrates-the-crazy-ones/ ♨ More about me at http://flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
In a meeting all morning; just heard about the neutrino/speed of light findings and immediately remembered this: "Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness. Even the technology is predictable if you know
♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
♨ flavors.me/howard Posted via email from edge & flow
Thomas Friedman:"Remember the first rule of global warming. The way it unfolds is really 'global weirding.' The weather gets weird: the hots get hotter; the wets wetter; and the dries get drier. This is not a hoax. This is high school physics…" Posted via email from edge & flow
Peter Dunlap-Shohl is an artist, thinker, philosopher — and the best cartoonist Alaska's ever produced. The onset of Parkinson's Disease, slowly robbing him of the muscular control that made his drawings, seemed especially perverse and cruel.Well, of course it is. But that's not *all* it is. It's also fueled a multi-year creative burst unmatched in his career before disease. And now it's
Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
Posted via email from edge & flow
Just A Car Guy ponders the insane raises some CEOs make:
TRW CEO John Plant got 510% raise over his 2009 salary of 6.7 million Ford CEO Alan Mulally 524% raise... yet his company has 14 billion in debt Johnson Controls' Stephen Roell 424% raise
So... did those 3 companies make 4 to 500% better business decisions? Better profit? Better products?
Disgusting, but not surprising.
My latest column for New Media Age is out, in which I talk about so-called 'frictionless sharing', as characterised by the functionality built in to Facebook's recent redesign. I don't usually link to the columns I write for NMA here (perhaps I should do so more), but this one is about something I think is important.
The heading given to the piece is slightly misleading but in it I talk about the importance of defaults, and how 'frictionless sharing' changes a pretty big one - from sharing being an active process to becoming a passive one. Which has all kinds of implications that I don't think we've even started to think about. Anyone who is a fan of Behavioural Economics will appreciate the power of defaults. So I wanted to write something about it - and you can read it here.
And if so, why???
Some Beltway types are so addicted to the page views she provides that they continue to pretend to think she might matter, after saying for the past two years that she didn’t.
But, really?
Sarah reached her “do it or get off the pot” moment two weeks ago, and stood up, flushed her supporters down the toilet, and walked away.
Does anyone think she might still influence even one percent of those likely to vote in GOP primaries?
When history looks you in the eye and you blink, the parade marches on, with all the other clowns clamoring for the attention you once commanded.
You become not even history, but merely a footnote to it.
Although I guess being the single least qualified candidate for national office in the political history of the United States does count for something.
But now?
Who, really, is asking, “What does Sarah think?”
She faced her ultimate moment of truth in the first week of October.
And she cowered from it, turned her back and ran for cover, shouting all the way, “It’s God’s fault! He closed the door!”
You don’t have to be an atheist to laugh at Sarah trying to blame God for her own inadequacies.
The Mama Grizzly turned out to be a Mama Ostrich–sticking her head in the sand, so she wouldn’t have to see what a fool she’d made of herself.
I don’t think she’ll ever be able to look herself in a mirror and acknowledge the extent to which she made fools of the gullible and dimwitted who supported her for the past three years, while she carried out the cynical scam that made her a multi-millionaire, even as it left them high and dry–or low and wet, submerged beneath the sewage of her words.
Journalism.co.uk
NYTimes.com increased its monthly unique visitors in the U.S. by 2.3 percent from September 2010 to September 2011, Jim Roberts, assistant managing editor for digital, said at the World Editors Forum in Vienna. Such growth (up to 34 million uniques) was… Read more
I shouldn’t be doing this, rooting for the Cardinals, that is. A rich team, with a winning tradition, and a mad-scientist manager playing against a team that hasn’t won in almost thirty years. But I am and I’m not apologizing for it.
The Brewers have turned into a caricature of a baseball team. Lead by a lunatic center fielder who was discarded by both the Pirates and the Nationals, they’ve turned into a chest pounding, look-at-me bad joke. In the pressure of the NLCS, their defense has fallen apart, their offense has been inconsistent and their pitching ordinary.
The Cardinals shouldn’t, by any measure, be playing in October. They lost Adam Wainwright, one of their best pitchers, before the season even started. They struggled to score runs, Matt Holiday was in and out with illnesses and injuries and King Albert didn’t have his usual extraordinary season. They relied instead on Lance Berkman, who surprised everyone with an excellent offensive year in the twilight of his career. All Berkman did was hit over .300 with 31 homers and 94 RBIs after the Yankees and Astros gave up on him.
The Cardinals also added by subtracting. They unloaded Colby Rasmus, their every day center fielder who insisted on using dear old Dad as his hitting coach and added starting pitcher Edwin Jackson. Rasmus, presumably with his father’s help, batted .225 for Toronto. Jackson, since early September has won every game he’s pitched.
And so we head to Milwaukee for Game 6, with the Cardinals leading 3 games to 2. Tony LaRussa shuffling pitchers in and out with surgical precision and the Brewers beating their chests.
Matt Taibbi:
Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it’s supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.
At the end of my article in the current issue (Subscribe! TM) about the devastating hack of my wife's Gmail account, I promise a detailed online how-to about password generation and other handy security tips.
That will come ... real soon now
In the meantime, let me deal with the most frequent questions that have shown up in emails, concerning one of my two must-do recommendations*: if you use Gmail, you must switch on the two-step authentication system. For the official word from Google about this feature, see this and this. Here are the main questions I keep receiving:
1) Can I use this system even if I'm out of cell phone range? Yes. The app that generates new authorization codes is clock-based, rather than depending on a signal. (At least that is how the one for my Android phone works). You can get a code from the app on your smartphone whether or not it has any coverage at all.
2) What if I lose my phone or don't have it with me? You can generate a special set of one-time-use codes, print them out, and keep them in your purse or wallet. Then you use one of those if you happen to want to log on somewhere and you don't happen to have your phone. OK, if you're mugged, someone could get those codes -- and in theory, if the muggers also know your password (before you changed it), and understood what the codes were, they could get into your Gmail account. But that would be low on my list of worries during a mugging.
3) Is this a big nuisance? It is "a" nuisance, but not a big one. The nuisance/reward tradeoff is comparable to having to carry keys to your house, versus leaving the door unlocked. On any machine you normally use for email, you can set things up so you have to enter the authorization code once per 30 days. It's only when you're using some unfamiliar machine -- at an internet cafe, at someone's home or office -- that you have to enter a code as well as your password. It's a five-second chore each time you do it. On the other hand, it creates a virtually impassable barrier for someone in Lagos or Moscow or Tianjin who has cracked your password but without the code, still cannot get into your account. It protects you from what my wife encountered: the loss of six years' worth of mail, documents, photos, life. Take your choice. (And there can be a small additional one-time nuisance in generating special "application specific codes" for your iPad and certain other devices and mail programs. Tough it out.)
That's it for a few days. But do it now!
____
* Oh, yes, the other must-do chore: For any account that matters -- banking, email, sensitive data of any sort -- use a password that applies to that account alone, and that you have never used anywhere else. Reasoning explained in the piece.
Ina Fried, reporting on first-day iPhone 4S preorders:
“AT&T has seen extraordinary demand for iPhone 4S, with more than 200,000 preorders in the first 12 hours alone, the most successful iPhone launch we’ve ever had,” an AT&T representative told [some website]. […]
“We are very, very pleased with the initial first day of iPhone 4S preorders,” Sprint Vice President of Product Development Fared Adib said in a statement. “Today’s sales and the overall customer experience greatly exceeded our expectations.”
But then Fried ends the piece with this:
Initial reaction to the iPhone 4S was somewhat muted, given its similarity to the iPhone 4, though the new device does pack a higher-resolution camera, a faster A5 processor and Siri, its voice-powered assistant software.
Initial reaction by whom? What could be more initial than record-breaking preorders in the first 12 hours consumers were able to order the product? What she really means is that a bunch of self-proclaimed technology experts and analysts had a muted reaction after Apple announced it, and that, as ever with Apple, they just don’t get it.
After the WWDC keynote four months ago, I saw Steve, up close.
He looked old. Not old in a way that could be measured in years or even decades, but impossibly old. Not tired, but weary; not ill or unwell, but rather, somehow, ancient. But not his eyes. His eyes were young and bright, their weapons-grade intensity intact. His sweater was well-worn, his jeans frayed at the cuffs.
But the thing that struck me were his shoes, those famous gray New Balance 993s. They too were well-worn. But also this: fresh bright green grass stains all over the heels.
Those grass stains filled my mind with questions. How did he get them? When? They looked fresh, two, three days old, at the most. Apple keynote preparation is notoriously and unsurprisingly intense. But not so intense, those stains suggested, as to consume the entirety of Jobs’s days. There is no grass in Moscone West.
Surely, my mind raced, surely he has more than one pair of those shoes. He could afford to buy the factory that made them. Why wear this grass-stained pair for the keynote, a rare and immeasurably high-profile public appearance? My guess: he didn’t notice, didn’t care. One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention. Grass stains on his sneakers didn’t make the cut.
Late last night, long hours after the news broke that he was gone, my thoughts returned to those grass stains on his shoes back in June. I realize only now why they caught my eye. Those grass stained sneakers were the product of limited time, well spent. And so the story I’ve told myself is this:
I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.
Here is a snippet from What Would Google Do?
about Apple as the grand exception to every rule I put forth there:
How does Apple do it? How does it get away with operating this way even as every other company and industry is forced to redefine itself? It’s just that good. Its vision is that strong and its products even better. I left Apple once, in the 1990s, before Steve Jobs returned to the company, when I suffered through a string of bad laptops. But when I’d had it with Dell, I returned to Apple and now everyone in my family has a Mac (plus one new Dell); we have three iPhones; we have lots of iPods; I lobbied successfully to make Macs the standard in the journalism school where I teach. I’m a believer, a glassy-eyed cultist. But I didn’t write this book about Apple because I believe it is the grand exception. Frank Sinatra was allowed to violate every rule about phrasing because he was Sinatra. Apple can violate the rules of business in the next millennium because it is Apple (and more important, because Jobs is Jobs).
So then Apple is the ultimate unGoogle. Right?
Not so fast. When I put that notion to Rishad Tobaccowala, he disagreed and said that Apple and Google, at their cores, are quite alike.
“They have a very good idea of what people want,” he said. Jobs’ “taste engine” makes sure of that. Both companies create platforms that others can build upon—whether they are start-ups making iPod cases and iPhone apps or entertainment companies finding new strategies and networks for distribution in iTunes.
Apple, like Google, also knows how to attract, retain, and energize talent. “Apple people believe they are even better than Google people,” he said. “They’re cooler.”
Apple’s products, like Google’s, are designed simply, but Tobaccowala said Apple does Google one better: “They define beauty as sex,” he said.
Apple understands the power of networks. Its successful products are all about connecting. Apple, like Google, keeps its focus unrelentingly on the user, the customer—us—and not on itself and its industry. And I’ll add that, of course, both companies make the best products. They are fanatical about quality.
But Tobaccowala said that what makes these two companies most alike is that—like any great brand—they answer one strong desire: “People want to be like God.” Google search grants omniscience and Google Earth, with its heavenly perch, gives us God’s worldview. Apple packages the world inside objects of Zen beauty. Both, Tobaccowala said, “give me Godlike power.” WWGD? indeed.
THE SIMPSONS™
September 28, 1990
Mrs. Barbara Bush
The First Lady
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Dear First Lady:
I recently read your criticism of my family. I was deeply hurt. Heaven knows we're far from perfect and, if truth be known, maybe just a wee bit short of normal; but as Dr. Seuss says, "a person is a person".
I try to teach my children Bart, Lisa, and even little Maggie, always to give somebody the benefit of the doubt and not talk badly about them, even if they're rich. It's hard to get them to understand this advice when the very First Lady in the country calls us not only dumb, but "the dumbest thing" she ever saw. Ma'am, if we're the dumbest thing you ever saw, Washington must be a good deal different than what they teach me at the current events group at the church.
I always believed in my heart that we had a great deal in common. Each of us living our lives to serve an exceptional man. I hope there is some way out of this controversy. I thought, perhaps, it would be a good start to just speak my mind.
With great respect,
(Signed)
Marge Simpson
Dear Marge,
How kind of you to write. I'm glad you spoke your mind; I foolishly didn't know you had one.
I am looking at a picture of you, depicted on a plastic cup, with your blue hair filled with pink birds peeking out all over. Evidently, you and your charming family — Lisa, Homer, Bart and Maggie — are camping out. It is a nice family scene. Clearly you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.
Please forgive a loose tongue.
Warmly,
Barbara Bush
P.S. Homer looks like a handsome fella!
Carl Bernstein on Watergate and journalism,
Despite some of the mythology that has come to surround “investigative” journalism, it is important to remember what we did and did not do in Watergate. For what we did was not, in truth, very exotic. Our actual work in uncovering the Watergate story was rooted in the most basic kind of empirical police reporting. We relied more on shoe leather and common sense and respect for the truth than anything else—on the principles that had been drummed into me at the wonderful old Washington Star. Woodward and I were a couple of guys on the Metro desk assigned to cover what at bottom was still a burglary, so we applied the only reportorial techniques we knew. We knocked on a lot of doors, we asked a lot of questions, we spent a lot of time listening: the same thing good reporters from Ben Hecht to Mike Berger to Joe Liebling to the young Tom Wolfe had been doing for years. As local reporters, we had no covey of highly placed sources, no sky’s-the-Iimit expense accounts with which to court the powerful at fancy French restaurants. We did our work far from the enchanting world of the rich and the famous and the powerful. We were grunts.
Martin Langeveld (Neiman/Harvard) came out this morning with a big prediction for the new Amazon Fire tablet:
The advent of the Kindle Fire will impact every business engaged in advertising, from your local weekly newspaper to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Groupon, because it will vastly accelerate the transformation to direct-to-consumer marketing by merchants, manufacturers, and service providers, without the traditional interpolation of advertisements to drive buyers to sellers.
It's a good piece, worth reading.
But there's a logic to commercial information in this Media Interregnum that I need to keep emphasizing, because it's as true now as it was when I began beating this drum six years ago.
Obviously, this logic requires quality software. It requires research. It requires studying local retail businesses and buying patterns to understand what information adds the most value to transactions.I'll need a different approach for scheduling auto repair than I will for buying school supplies or selecting a backyard grill.
Now, after saying all of that, have you noticed the shortcoming in Martin's prediction yet?
By focusing on "direct-to-consumer" marketing by individual businesses, he's essentially betting on the emergence of thousands of individual, disconnected, single-business marketplaces "(merchants, manufacturers, and service providers").
Consumers don't want one set of choices. We want the best set of choices.
Also, what he describes is expensive. The stuff he writes about how tablets as a gadget-class change the psychology of online shopping is all valuable, but if you're imagining a world in which every bike shop in every mid-sized town has to pay some third-party vendor to provide a direct-to-consumer marketing app, -- plus the cost of delivering that app to potential consumers -- well, I'd like to know what color the sky is there.
On the other hand, if you can figure out a way to provide that service for free for all the bike shops in your market, connecting all the retail sellers and all the consumers in your community, you've got a business with a future. That's what I've been betting on since 2005.
David Strom at ReadWriteWeb notes a trend at hotels to re-jigger lobbies as social spaces in which you can plug in your laptop and hang out, instead of sitting in your disinfected Rectangle of Solitude.
I’d give it a try, especially if free or cheap coffee were involved. I think I might enjoy the company, although if someone actually tried to talk with me, I’d undoubtedly give him the stink eye so I could get back to work. Hey, just because I want to be near other human beings doesn’t mean I want to be your friend.
So, yes, I would want to achieve that refined balance of social and impersonal that is of increasing importance in today’s ever-more-public world, and that is at the heart of Starbucks’ value proposition.
Different languages are spoken at varying speeds but thanks to correlated differences in data-density, the same amount of information is conveyed within a given time period.
For all of the other languages, the researchers discovered, the more data-dense the average syllable is, the fewer of those syllables had to be spoken per second -- and the slower the speech thus was. English, with a high information density of .91, is spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Mandarin, which topped the density list at .94, was the spoken slowpoke at 5.18 syllables per second. Spanish, with a low-density .63, rips along at a syllable-per-second velocity of 7.82. The true speed demon of the group, however, was Japanese, which edges past Spanish at 7.84, thanks to its low density of .49. Despite those differences, at the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages would have conveyed more or less identical amounts of information.
(via @mulegirl)
Tags: languageOn Twitter, I’ve been ridiculing the #stormporn in coverage of #Irene: the predictable and numbing repetition, alarmism, and idiocy that is TV. Of course, the storm is serious but the coverage is often laughable and, some would argue, a matter of crying wolf. The inefficiency of the coverage is also boggling: crews everywhere, all shooting the same wind and water, yet saying nothing new.
But obviously, there are many new, more efficient, more informative, more level-headed ways to cover a storm such as this. It’s all only a link away.
CNN iReport and FoxNews amusingly named competitor uReport as well as many media sites post pictures and videos from witnesses. Given the opportunity, witnesses can also provide much more detail. When I oversaw Nola.com, the publisher of the Time-Picayune got us to put up forums so residents could share information about flooded roads. Those same forums were used in Katrina to alert officials to rescue people trapped on roofs.
There is all kinds of data available. There are great maps showing the progress and strength of the storm. Talking Points Memo points to a bunch of outage maps from power companies.
There is much information available directly from governments and their agencies. New York City’s 311 service and site give updates and resources and we can watch the mayor directly on the net. Jen Preston at The New York Times compiled an impressive list of officials using social media to get their messages out. The Wall Street Journal visualized evacuation centers using Foursquare.
Much of the most important information — the forecast — comes from the same sources, such as NOAA and its hurricane center.
And I’m barely scratching the surface of sources of direct information.
So the question the journalists should ask is how they can add value to that. That is the the question must ask constantly now that information can be exchanged so easily and instantly from officials to citizens, data sources to users, and witnesses to witnesses. It’s an everyday question, not just one for emergencies.
Journalists don’t add value by repeating themselves endlessly, but standing in front of random but ultimately uninformative sites where their cameras and trucks happen to be set up (or worse, in the water), by alarming more than informing people.
So how should they? As in some of the example above, they should aggregate and curate reports from witnesses and data from officials. They can visualize data. They provide background and service information. But mostly, shouldn’t reporters report? Standing in the water repeating what we already know over and over is not reporting. Reporting would be finding out what government is not doing — see Katrina. But in truth, with all this information flying by, we don’t need a lot of reporting unless and until government messes up. That’s what is making journalism more efficient and sustainable.
Oh, and journalists and TV networks could still afford a few minutes an hour to deliver real news. While Irene moves up the coast at 14 mph, storms of another sort are still overcoming Syria and Libya, both of which might as well not exist on supposed news networks today. Is that journalism?