Happens To The Best Of Them

February 28, 2006 | Software

Herman Daly's "Beyond Growth"

February 26, 2006 | Business & Commerce | People & Society

Interesting post from Catallaxis on the limits to growth, the ecological dimension of economics, and the reconciliation of sustainable and physical growth.

As I see it (Figure 3), the physical dimension of the economy, which can be measured in terms of the scale of material, energy, chemical, and biological throughput, does indeed comprise an economic sub-system of the world's physical biosphere, which includes the sources and sinks for the economic throughput. This is the partial truth in the ecological vision of the economy and it affirms the existence of certain physical limits to the scale of economic growth--but, strictly speaking, these limits only apply to physical economic growth.

With Heavy Heart

February 26, 2006 | Life | People & Society

I'm with Jon. Sad times. Not clear how to fix it either. What can we each do? Miracles are possible, but not typical. But we don't need typical, we need a transformation. How do we feed the transformation?

Two Thoughtful and Emotional Blogs

February 24, 2006 | Life

These are making the link rounds, for good reason.

Dear Elana: Parents journal about the sudden death of their six-year old daughter. "Elena was surrounded by her four grandparents in the hospital. Grandparents are not supposed to bury a beautiful six year old. Neither are parents."

Five Reasons to Get Cancer: A Zen practitioner is diagnosed with prostrate cancer. "That moment was the last moment when I hadn’t quite absorbed the news, when I didn’t quite have cancer yet. Afterwards the thing that struck me was the feeling of nakedness with people, of falling into their eyes and swimming in the spaces there. In the end, this intimacy seemed to be more significant than the news about cancer"

Malcolm Gladwell Has A Blog (Finally)

February 24, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

It's about time!

In the past year I have often been asked why I don’t have a blog. My answer was always that I write so much, already, that I don’t have time to write anything else. But, as should be obvious, I’ve now changed my mind. I have come (belatedly) to the conclusion that a blog can be a very valuable supplement to my books and the writing I do for the New Yorker. Link

Of course, because he's using white type on a black background, it's unreadable. But the XML feed works just fine in your newsreader.

Results of Exercise

February 23, 2006 | Life

I had a physical today, first one in a little over two years. I've been exercising pretty regularly, one to four times a week, for about three months. I'm up to about an hour of cardio per session, and maybe 30-45 minutes of weights, mostly free weights or functional trainers (only occasionally using fixed-position machines). While I feel noticeably better, my objective metrics are eye-opening:

• Blood pressure: 106/62. About a year ago it was 138/86, the highest ever since 2002. The lowest it's ever been since 2002 was 108/80. And I have some stress right now so this is especially good.

• Resting heart rate: 60, vs 84 about a year ago, and 80 two years before that.

• Weight: I've gained about seven pounds, virtually all muscle. I'm not so concerned about my weight, so this doesn't bother me.

This is highly motivating for a non-natural exerciser like me. I need to continue the cardio to burn some more fat, and watch my diet - I think I'm eating more empty calories since I'm so much hungrier - and keep this going until bicycle season gets here. Which, given this so-called winter, may be soon!

Inability to Produce Subjectivities

February 22, 2006 | Governance | People & Society

UFO Breakfast checks in with a powerful post on our liberal plight:

What's at stake is liberal complicity in the destruction of a lifeworld that would produce qualities of character that would make sustenance and resistance possible, not just for the next electoral brouhaha but for generations to come, and not just in news-junkie blog discussions but in all the rockbottom ethical domains in which we get by from day to day. That's what Phil's critique of liberalism at WB has always been about, not that "satire will make us more politically effective in the next election." It's a prepolitical argument, and properly so because it sees the toxin that has brought liberalism down occurring at the prepolitical level, long before it gets to any strategy planning....

The whole technocratic, managerial,"strategic" aspect of liberalism is precisely what engineered its deepest failure, its disdain for the lifeworld, its inability to produce subjectivities that can move effectively in the authoritarian terrain that they've ceded to the right. A certain kind of liberal will always portray the call to "have guts" as the adolescent to his parental cool, the id to his ego. That's the automatic discourse of a failed managerial class who staked their social expertise on divesting oneself of passion, of the particularities of upbringing, in favor of a utilitarian rationalism. But what looked like an ascetic process of maturation open to everyone, has turned out to be an increasingly narrow motor of self-selection in which only a small, anal subfraction of an urban professional elite can see their temperament in that mirror....

We don't argue "principles" like the liberal schoolmarm, smugly, because we think we have more of them than everyone else. We argue them out of terror, because they're being taken away on every side, we have no one providing the resources to have a backbone in each daily small exchange, because we're deliberately made to feel defenseless and bearbaited by "our" side as much as the enemy, as a way of pressuring us toward the accomodations which they deem necessary in their use of us, and because we're tired of living with the humiliation of ceding ground in ways which seem in retrospect to be cowardly. That, finally, is what people won't live with....

Read the whole thing.

33-Pound Cat with 31-Inch Waist

February 21, 2006 | Life | People & Society

"A 33-pound cat in Qingdao, China, is being described as a "feline monster" because of its 31-inch waist and large size, according to a report. The 9-year-old cat from the Shandong Province is so heavy it needs the help of its owner to get onto a bed. However, the cat is in surprisingly good health despite its weight. The cat's owner said it has no interest in eating fish but prefers to eat six pounds of chicken and pork each day. This fat cat is not alone in his weight problem, according to the report. Obesity has become a serious problem for the modern cat, primarily due to a lack of exercise and a richer diet."

Emphasis added. Reality is looking more and more like The Onion.

Health Care Forum

February 21, 2006 | People & Society

This would be one way to feed the procrastination: Debate between Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik on the health care systems in the US and Canada.

Photos of Cuba

February 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society | Travel

Hannah has posted her photos from Cuba. I'm waiting to hear the whole story - I thought it was illegal to visit Cuba, or something. Maybe W made an exception? In any case, they're great photos! Update: More photos from someone else on the trip.

Three Things About Pivot

February 21, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Software | Technology

Very exciting. Chris Boone wrote a brief review of my website management system, PivotCMS. [Man, do I need to do some marketing work – the product far outshines the marketing, especially the currently-lame website.] He calls out three important design decisions we made early on, and learns how they impact his day-to-day work with clients. Thanks Chris!

The Least We Can Do

February 21, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Wealth Bondage: "I do wish that liberals were above the fray, presiding over institutions characterized by moderation, fairness, good will, reason and parliamentary procedure. But that is not so. That is what we have lost, or is rapidly slipping away, under pressure from those who have no intentions of compromising with liberals, who indeed bait them, as ineffectual and diffident as they are, and call them traitors. How will we get democracy back, by fighting with one another, left and middle, or by acting like nothing much has happened, just going on working our daily procedures, as Wealth Bondage sets in? For some of us business as usual sets in like death or paralysis, not just in the body politic, but in our most personal inner selves. We become the knave we play as we go along to get along with the intolerable. To dramatize that knavery, our own, the acts in which we are complicit, is the least we can do out of human decency."

Half-Step

February 21, 2006 | Life

If all you got to live for, is what you left behind

Meanwhile, all this video from the '70s has me wondering about the future. How can I, as Otto Scharmer teaches, learn from the future, instead of the past? There's nothing wrong with the past, but it's not happening in the future. What is?

While pondering that, don't confuse learning from the future with predicting the future. That, as Hunter says, would be pointless:

What's the point to callin shots?
This cue ain't straight in line
Cueball's made of styrofoam
and no one's got the time

"Events in my life suggested to me that maybe it was going to be my responsibility to keep upping the ante. I was in an automobile accident in 1960 with four other guys...ninety plus miles an hour on a back road. We hit these dividers and went flying, I guess. All I know is that I was sitting in the car and there was this...disturbance...and the next thing I was in a field, far enough away from the car that I couldn't see it.

I lost my boots in transit babe, A pile of smoking leather

The car was crumpled like a cigarette pack...and inside it were my shoes. I'd been thrown completely out of my shoes and through the windshield. One guy did die in the group. It was like loosing the golden boy, the one who had the most to offer. For me it was crushing, but I had the feeling that my life had been spared to do something...not to take any bullshit, to either go whole hog or not at all...That was when my life began. Before that I had been living at less than capacity. That event was the slingshot for the rest of my life. It was my second chance, and I got serious."

- Jerry Garcia, quoted in Playing In The Band

Every once in a while, something happens that shakes us into awareness.

Passion of The Boss

February 21, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

Ever wonder why Bruce Springsteen became so popular? Watch this piece of rock theater and wonder no more. August 15, 1978 at the Capital Center in Landover, MD. An 11-minute impassioned performance of Backstreets. Watch him define the early days of the soft piano intro. Watch as the power ballad takes form.

Listen to a young Bruce sing a story, of younger love, memories of growing up, exploration, yearning. Then betrayal, abandonment, loss. Listen to his voice, soft and then thunderous. Contrast the clear high piano with the distorted grunge guitar. Consider the depth embodied in the song. Wise beyond his years.

Watch the performance take on a dark edge as Bruce improvises around a memory. Watch the close-up, dark eyes doubled with the long-shot bright guitar. Think about Springsteen's quote in the recent Bob Dylan documentary where he says that hearing Dylan sing, such as it was, gave him voice - if Dylan can succeed with his voice, anyone can.

Listen to the compositional structure of Backstreets, how the song changes as they approach the beginning, middle, and end. Listen to the crowd, who know all the lyrics, singing along, powering The Boss and the band in a frantic sweaty dance of mutual elevation. Bruce's shows were longer than the Grateful Dead, even into the '80s. He put out this energy for three or four hours a show, non-stop, for years.

Take a gander at his background: Son of a bus driver and a legal secretary, raised in a tough New Jersey borough, Bruce is an unlikely singer-songwriter, an unlikely star. Not particularly photogenic, a little rough around the edges, but with a guitar and a song all that disappears. Realize when this performance took place in his career: He started performing in late 1969, but didn't form the E Street Band, or record his first album until 1973. This performance is five years after that. Imagine playing a 15,000 or 20,000 seat arena five years after starting out. The drama and passion in this performance shows you why he caught fire. When you have that passion, and a determination, your gift can really shine, sometimes in unpredictable ways.

Hat tip to Fred Wilson, a VC at Union Square Ventures in NYC, for the link that prompted this brief reverie. You never know where your links are going to come from....

Unbroken Chain

February 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

November and more, as I wait for the score

"Petersen contrasts the unbroken chain of authority, of the preacher and his hounds, of the hypocrisy of religion epitomized by "They say love your brother, but you will catch it when you try," with the unbroken chain of natural existence, of individuals in the world whose conscience is the true authority: 'unbroken chain of you and me.'" (link)

Here's a nice 14 minute version from a Phil Lesh & Friends show I saw in Boston, on December 1, 2005. (Link goes to a 64K mp3 file; there are also higher quality versions available.) There's a pretty hot St. Stephen that follows immediately thereafter, if you want the rock 'n roll closer.

Listening for the secret, searching for the sound. Inquiry and introspection. Asking questions and listening for answers. Secret searching sounds. Sink like a stone, float like a feather. Contradictions. Ambiguity. Holding both at once. Sinking and floating. Feathers, stones.

Unbroken chain of sorrow and pearls
Unbroken chain of sky and sea
Unbroken chain of the western wind
Unbroken chain of you and me

Monday Biz Links

February 20, 2006 | Business & Commerce | People & Society | Products & Opportunites

A couple of interesting items from lunchtime browsing:

Stowe Boyd: Advisory Capital: A New Basis For Strategic Involvement. Argues for a new model of funding startups. Makes sense to me – the VC route is filled with potholes and speedbumps.

There has been a great deal of discussion in the tech community about the changing needs of Web 2.0 tech startups. When the underyling economics of innovation have shifted so drastically -- cheaper high-powered servers, open source LAMP stack, accelerated development tools and techniques (AJAX, Ruby, Php, etc.) -- more and more companies can bootstrap from pocket change, and be up and running in less time than it takes to secure capital. As a result, going the VC route is increasingly seen as a brake on this class of tech innovation, not an accelerator, at least in the very earliest stages.

I still think Co-ops are a fantastic way to bet on the upside for software startups, but until I put my lawyer dollars where my blog bits are, it's all just recreational typing.

Jeff Jarvis: Edgeio and the Distributed World. Good preview of Mike Arrington's upcoming Edgeio. Useful riffs on classified ads, owning your own listing information, and unemployed middlemen.

Edgeio as it stands is pretty simple: You tag a post on your blog “listing” and Edgeio will spot it and add it to its data base. You add more tags (e.g., “for rent” and “vacation”) and your post/ad will appear in the appropriate categories. Edgeio will allow you to come in and claim your blog to be able to get direct communication from respondents and, eventually, to upgrade your ad via typography and graphics and preference (I hope I got that right). This is just a start but it is a proof of concept of a new world. I’ve been waiting for someone to do this. Arrington has.

Anyone who has thought about online yellow pages or local search will understand that services like this are going to be the future.

Also note Arrington the Brand: He came out of nowhere last year with TechCrunch, reviewing web 2.0 startup companies. Now, with solid street cred he introduces his product and gets immediate coverage from A-list (and C-list!) bloggers. Good moves.

The Candor of Grown Children

February 19, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

The Happy Tutor, a thoughtful, mild-mannered, and quite reasonable person in real life, wrote this apocalyptic post about the loss of tolerance and lust for power that is overtaking our society in March 2005:

My Fellow Consumers! Here's to Freedom. May it pass us in our misery untouched. History is not for the squeamish. It will be written in whatever style they choose, preferably candid and complacent, by the victors, and liberals are not in the running. Their era is over. Their style is dead for any honest public purpose. They will follow meekly enough, or rise above, whether on the cross or the gibbet - or fall short, when the moment comes. My fellow Liberals, Welcome to the Dump. Here at least we can write like friends, God's spies, as Lear said to Cordelia. Let us cherish these moments together. Let come what may, a Band of Brothers and Sisters, speaking out candidly whatever the cost. Thank God, no one is listening. Are they?

It's a keeper.

Nobody Cans Peaches Any More

February 19, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Joe Bageant: Welcome to Middle-Class Lockdown. Wonderful, fantastic, valuable rant:

Joe Bageant's little inner voice is like everyone else's. Whenever I shudder at the condition of the republic, whenever I feel its utter absence of community, it scolds me and tells me I am crazy: Nothing is wrong. This is merely the way things are. It has always been this way. You cannot change that. You expect too much. Look at your wife. She's not upset. She wonders why you cannot just go ahead and be happy. What you see around you is normalcy. Take care of your own family. Relax. Buy something. And I do too. Which is why I own nine guitars, though I can only play one at a time, and even then not very well. The voice made me do it. I was bored.

Something Happens That Shakes Us Into Awareness

February 19, 2006 | Life | People & Society

via Ashley Cooper at easily amazed: Losing Our Way of Life

One of the books I'm playing in right now is Calling the Circle by Christina Baldwin. This passage brought to mind several conversations I've had with people recently... so I offer it here:

"As we grapple with the awareness that our personal lives cannot be separated from the life of our times, we are forced to reconsider the assumptions, expectations, and values that have guided our lives thus far. One by one by one by one, something happens that shakes us into awareness.

When one vision falls, another vision rises. This is not usually a sudden switch, but a long process of the old paradigm fading away--struggling with itself to let go, subverting new forces, becoming reactionary and rigid exactly because the inevitable is obvious. We are losing our way of life, and we need to lose it, in order not to lose life itself.

... And so the fading of what-is-established gives rise to what-is-possible. The new vision starts to come into focus--struggling with itself to shift from dream to reality, tangential, experiential, a vulnerable and determined seed. We are claiming a more aware way of life, we need our awareness in order to save life itself.

...As our vision of what constitutes successful living shifts from acquisition to accountability, we seek social and spiritual forms that help us address these questions. It is the premise--and the promise--of this book that gathering in peer-led, spirit-centered circles provides such a community forum."

What assumptions, expectations, and values have guided your life thus far?

Which ones might be worth reconsidering?

What are your reflections?

From The Comments

February 18, 2006 | Life

Chris Corrigan: "I spent the better part of a day cruising through your Zappa post...."

Dude - I'm so sorry! Oh, man, I didn't intend for anyone to actually click all those links - hell, you could get sucked down the rabbit hole spending the better part of A DAY in the Zappa matrix. Be careful out there.

Baby Snakes

February 18, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

While writing that epic Zappa post a while back, I noticed that I had never watched Baby Snakes. That seemed like an unfortunate oversight, so I ordered up the DVD and watched it this week.

This, gentle reader, is a masterpiece of weird. Officially billed as "A Movie About People Who Do Stuff That Is Not Normal," Baby Snakes celebrates Not Normal and deploys live concert footage, fantastical clay animation, and backstage sophomoric humor to confound the senses and defy categorization. There are long sequences of audience participation on stage, dramatic cinematic interpretations of complex compositions and driving rock beats, an interview with an artist a few peas short of a pod - producing amazing, surreal animations - and rock guitar god tributes. I think Monty Python might have copied the Zappa formula, leaving out the music parts.

In an effort to promote this amazing cinematic accomplishment, I have extracted and posted the 2-minute theatrical trailer (4.8MB .mov file). I encourage you right-click the link (Mac users: Ctrl-click) and download it to your computer in case you want to watch it more than once. Is it worksafe? That's hard to say. It's not obviously un-worksafe, but it's not typical family entertainment. Best to get your own copy to watch in the privacy of your home.

I highly recommend the film; a more unique cultural artifact from 1979 will not be found. I myself hope to watch it several more times with friends, but it's not immediately clear who, exactly, is willing to sit through two hours and forty-five minutes of Intercontinental Absurdities. It's worth it though; it's likely you've never seen anything like this.

Product Recommendation: 3x5 Blank Index Cards

February 18, 2006 | Life | Products & Opportunites

Somehow, I ran out of index cards at both my house and my office. Life nearly shut down there for a day. The index card has got to be one of the best organizational inventions ever made. I keep a stack next to the phone and another next to my desk. I keep some in my outdoor jacket pockets. I keep a some in my suit coat pockets. I have a nifty leather holder for swank events so that if I take a quick note it looks formal and official.

A 3x5 card is perfect for an errand list. It's great for taking a phone message or leaving a note to someone else. They work pretty well for quickie screen designs, or mini-outlines of project issues. You can hand them out at group events to capture ideas, unless you need stickies for posting. Torn in half it is a great bookmark, and you can use the other half to bookmark the endnotes at the back of the book. Folded in half it fits perfectly in your front shirt pocket or in with your folded paper money in your front pocket. They fit nicely in your passport holder for important notes and numbers you don't want to lose.

If you buy them in bulk they cost about a tenth of a cent apiece. Even at Staples in a pack of 500 they're still less than a penny apiece. I probably use about a thousand a year, so the cost is cheap and the waste is minimal. I prefer the blank ones, freeform on both sides. They look better out in public, and in any case the lines go the wrong way - if lined I would want them horizontal in portrait orientation, not landscape.

If you want to feel truly organized, you can download the free D*I*Y Hipster PDA, which is a series of templates that print calendars, to-do lists, etc on index cards. Hot tip: If you like the 5.5" x 8.5" format, he's got a fantastic set of free templates for that size too. Both of these incorporate ideas from Steven Covey's Seven Habits, and David Allen's Getting Things Done.

Let us celebrate the humble index card! Understated, practical, polyphonically useful multitasking assistant extraordinaire.

Friday Link Love

February 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Dave Pollard: Health, Education, And Learned Helplessness: "Our education systems prepare us for dependence on employment by large corporations and government organizations. Why? Because this is the most 'manageable' way to run the system, and conveniently keeps us in our place. If the system were to equip us to be independent entrepreneurs, there would be a number of unpleasant consequences for the established wealth and power hierarchy[...]"

The Happy Tutor wrote a beautiful post celebrating Chris Corrigan: "Power is not in the center, nor at the top of a hierarchy, nor in the head or the long tail of an A-list distribution. Power is in the network, in what was once called "the body of Christ," or "the body politic," or the common weal, or the holy spirit. Dismembered, torn apart, into consuming and producing selves alienated from one another and ourselves, the body of Christ will rise again, and it will have nothing to do with the Pharisees and White Sepulchres, the paltry Caesars and pundits, who have taken his name in vain. Market Freedom is dicing at the foot of Cross. Market Freedom is on the March. But when the soldiers arrive at the tomb, they will find it empty. He whom they seek is everywhere, wherever two or three are gathered in his name."

John Robb checks in with a note on the Cantarell oil fields in Mexico: "If the pessimistic scenarios outlined in the PEMEX study come to pass, it will be very serious. The loss of nearly 1.5 million barrels a day of production capacity within three years will be very difficult to overcome either from other Mexican fields or from new production in other countries. Unlike political stoppages from exporters such as Iran or Nigeria , depletion can't be put right. Mexican exports will be seriously reduced or perhaps even eliminated forever."

Apple embedded a poem in their new Intel-based Macs: "Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./Please don't steal Mac OS!/Really, that's way uncool./(C) Apple Computer, Inc."

Winning The War On The Internet: "Government communications planning must be "a central component of every aspect of this struggle", she added. "The longer it takes to put a strategic communications framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy. In a related speech to the Rooster Foundation, Smoky Joe, Candidia's Chief Misinformation Officer, said some of the Wealth Bondage's most critical battles were now in the "newsrooms. Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... Wealth Bondage has not," he said."

Notio on Technorati

February 17, 2006 | Life | Site Maintenance

I haven't visited the blog search engine Technorati in a dog's age. They had some serious scaling issues a year or two ago, and it was just useless. I don't know why I went to visit yesterday, but the results surprised me.

First of all, they hired a designer, thank god. Second, it was essentially fast enough. I had a couple of searches time out, but it was basically an okay experience. What really got me though, was finding out who is linking to Notio. I was quite surprised. The links are listed by recency, so they may change by the time you visit there, but here's a sampling.

• No surprise on Wealth Bondage. The Tutor and I had a really fun blogging weekend a couple years back, and I have been reading his site since 2003. And he was the genesis for the Giving Conference. So, blog buddy, here's to ya!

• Up A Creek Without A Patl was a surprise, because I didn't know Pat had a blog. And a great name for a blog it is! She's a local tech buddy, who I don't know well, but I hear through the grapevine that she's really good at what she does. I sort of expect to work together on a project at some point, but I don't know why I think that, nor is there any evidence that this is a possibility. But, another subscription for the newsreader!

• Kn@ppster was a total surprise. I've never heard of this site, but he picked up my This Is What's Wrong With The Democrats post on the same day I wrote it. He comments: "Yeah, there's a blogosphere "A-List" (see above), but what the "C-List" is saying may be more important: Notio - 'This is what's wrong with the Democrats,'" and goes on to list a few more sites. Hey, I'll take a C-List blogger ranking any day - thanks!

• There are a bunch of posts on various sites regarding Rails training by Rails core member Marcel Molina, Jr., linking to my post on the Big Nerd Ranch class I attended. Here's an example.

• R Perl's weblog links to my post on Alain de Vulpian and the Process of Civilization. I'm glad that got picked up somewhere - it deserves a wide reading, and I may tackle a longer post on it sometime. InfoDesign and Nicholas Paredes also picked up this post; both are interesting sites.

• Then there are a bunch of spam blogs, that have meaningless sentences strung together, linking to other sites on the 'net. These guys suck, and I'm not linking to them. What a waste of energy. Dudes, go friggin' make something instead of sucking wind out of every one else.

• Of course, I knew that Plausible Story linked here, because Hannah is a local friend and I helped set up her blog. Her site is worth subscribing to, IMHO, for an ambitious attempt at integrating life, fiction, and literary imagination. I wonder if she would agree with this description....

• Chris Corrigan is a friend from the Giving Conference. He was excited that I blogged the Society for Organizational Learning conference in Vienna, Austria. Chris is an excellent role model for how to be in the world, and I hope to visit him on Bowen Island at some point.

• abstractplain I hadn't heard of, but there's some Rails stuff there, as well as other interesting material. (S)he picked up on my science and technology category, which I haven't actually updated in a while.

• Ted Ernst is another Giving Conference buddy. He's a frequent commenter here at Notio, which is amazing since there's a bug in my comment form making people enter their info every time, and blocking even the most frequent contributors until I approve each comment, time after time.

• Michael Herman coordinated the Giving Conference with The Happy Tutor, and works frequently with Chris Corrigan. Another good role model, and it's amazing how influential that conference was in my future.

• That epic Zappa post I wrote a while back got picked up on Kill Ugly Radio, so that's cool. For some reason, duh, I had no idea that there was a whole network of Zappa fan sites.

All in all, it's pretty interesting who's linking here. Thanks for your support!

37signals Launches Campfire

February 16, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Software

It took me a while to realize it, but the essential business plan of 37signals is taking modern technology tools and specializing them for business. They do this by 1) stripping generalized options and leaving only the core functionality; 2) creating a good UI that's obvious (low training and support) and fun to use (easy flow-state); 3) pitching the user benefits instead of the features; 4) having a free trial for every product so you can see how it works directly; 5) having reasonable pricing plans that provide clear value and are dirt cheap for most businesses; 6) improving on the basic tech idea with business people in mind. So, you get:

• Basecamp: Blogs for project management.
• Backpack: Personal or small group wiki.
• Campfire: Secure and archived instant messaging.

Along the way, they also created two completely free products, Writeboard (shared document editing) and Ta-da List (shareable to-do lists). And coming up soon is Sunrise, a CRM for small business, which I expect to be a mini-Salesforce.com.

They have a blog, full of attitude; they publish their ideas; and they release open-source software at the core of their apps. No VC money - all funded through cash-flow. It's a good model, and they're firing on all cylinders.

Broken In Two, Yet Still Functioning

February 15, 2006 | Life

This is a telephone pole on Route 120 near East Plainfield, NH. I noticed it Monday on my drive to work - it hasn't changed all week. You'd think that a sight like this would generate some attention from repairpeople. But apparently it's okay; just put up a couple of warning cones and I guess everything will work itself out eventually.

If you drive by this a couple of times a day for a week, you start to think about things. There are plenty of products, or companies for that matter, that are broken, yet somehow still function. Or relationships - you can imagine a relationship that is broken in two yet still survives. It could stay this way for a long time. People might look at it funny every once in a while, but eventually it too fades into the background and looks normal. But sooner or later the ground will erode, or the supports will rot, or the weight of the ice on the lines will be too much to bear, or another truck will smash into it, and then you notice it's broken for real - usually observed with a loss of electricity, or a loss of communication lines.

Based on this photo, I'd say it's hard to tell when something is broken yet functioning vs. broken for real. You put up your warning cones, you call the repairpeople, and you wait to see what happens.

Opening, Awakening, Listening, Offering

February 15, 2006 | Life

My friend Ashley posted a nice poem today, inspired by a post (and comments) titled "Free speech, responsible listening" over at my other friend Chris Corrigan's blog. I met them both at the Giving Conference a couple of years ago, and I'm glad I did.

Crashing in Bolivia

February 15, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society

My college buddy Allan Karl has a hair-raising tale of his motorcycle accident in Bolivia, and getting his sorry butt back to the States.

In a state somewhere between awake and sleep three hours had passed. The rain, thunder and lightning added dramatic effect to my sprawled body with my left leg in a cardboard box splint as I laid in the Tica Tica medical clinic. Still no ambulance. In a town with one telephone, one restaurant and no motel I wondered if I'd ever get out of Tica Tica.

Many amazing photos - if nothing else you should scan the site for the photos. And if you have time to read about medical treatment in the middle of nowhere, you are in for some good reading.

GTI Project Fast Phase 3

February 15, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites

The final installment of the VW Project Fast marketing campaign has landed:

To those who participated in GTI Project Fast, we thank you for your input. Through our research, we learned a great deal about your fast, including what it looks like. If you haven't already seen it, be sure to visit projectfast.com:

http://e.vw.com/a/tBD8lCNAQU8iiActCSXAHVDnp7H/fasturl

And while you're there, be among the first to configure your own GTI Mk V and take it for a joyride.

It was just an engagement opportunity; no personalization. Cool final presentation though. They've got a mascot for "fast" and everything. If you're into a high-performance small car that guzzles gas for fun times, this is probably your best bet.

Your Song

February 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

As we were finishing dinner at Molly's tonight Elton John's Your Song came over the Musak. It's one of the sappiest songs ever written. On the other hand, it's one of the best love songs ever. I've thought about it both ways many times over the years.

But hearing it tonight got me thinking about junior high, when I played it on acoustic guitar supporting the chorus at the Opera House. I think John Nichols, my instructor, might have been playing piano. It was a big deal, no doubt about it, and I must have rehearsed that song dozens of times in the weeks leading up to the performance. I knew every note, every vocal inflection, every nuance - I probably could have played the song backwards.

The performance went well, as I recall. I was nervous, being a shy introvert. But I was also the best guitar player in the school system at the time. So I just did what I could do, which happened to be better than anyone expected, which turns out to be a winning formula.

I remember at one of the dress rehearsals I was standing there in the front with my guitar strapped on, and Mr. Nichols was talking to the chorus. Chris D. was horsing around, and knocked the piano, where Mr. Nichols' vintage Martin guitar was leaning. The guitar started to slide to the floor, and you could hear the whole chorus take a breath, and I reached over and grabbed the neck, saving the guitar. Mr. Nichols calmly thanked me, put the guitar in its case, expressed his fury by telling Chris to cut the shit (a major word to use in front of 60 junior high schoolers) and reminded Chris that I had saved his life. I think people were pretty focused the rest of the rehearsal.

At some point later that year, or early the next, Mr. Nichols told me he had taught me everything he knew about the guitar, and now it was up to me to practice, learn songs, and go to the next level. That was pretty much the end of my playing guitar. Though I still own two, and hack on them now and again, I wish I had continued to play and hadn't given it up for synthesizers, tape decks, and mixing consoles. I didn't play as well as Jimi Hendrix was all I knew, so why bother trying. Had I only heard Joni Mitchell, Crosy, Stills, Nash & Young, American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, or any of a hundred other folk rock tunes I would have realized that I could play in that style as well as any 13-year old kid alive, and I might have continued.

This would be an easy place to blame my parents for not encouraging or insisting that I continue, but what can you do with a teenager?

During my freshman year at college, I had come home to visit and heard Mr. Nichols was ill - some sort of cancer is what I remember, but I could be wrong. He was teaching sixth grade music, and I went over to visit in the middle of the school day. Just walked into the classroom, and said Hi. He had the class practice some exercises, and we talked for five or ten minutes. He was pleased to see me, and I thanked him for being such a big influence in my life - I still loved music, and I wished I played more, but his four years of lessons were an important part of my life. He didn't mention that he was ill, but I think we both knew why I was there. He smiled when we were wrapping up, and I remember he gave me a hug when I was leaving. I left thinking that I should really pick up the guitar again, a thought that still runs through my mind every few years.

I've only thought about Mr. Nichols, his Back 40 String Band, and the accomplishment of playing Your Song perfectly in front of a few hundred parents and peers a few times since then. Funny that an "okay" dinner with lots of sappy early '70s songs would be the trigger to bring it all back, but that's the magic of music.

Corporate Spin, I Mean, PR, Defined

February 14, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Software

Here are some excerpts from an email Sleepycat Software sent to me this evening.

I'm pleased to announce today that Sleepycat Software has been acquired by Oracle. [They showed me the money!]

By joining the leading database company in the world, I expect that we will be able to serve our customers and the open source community better. [Oracle is well-known for their killer support - NOT!] With the additional expertise, resources and reach of Oracle, we'll be able to accelerate innovation, offer you greater choice, and provide more complete solutions. [Huge autocratic companies are excellent for innovation - that's why they buy companies like mine!]

I assure you that we will continue to deliver the products and services that you are used to receiving from Sleepycat Software. [As long as I'm here - when I get frustrated with the big company hassles I'll buy a nice boat and you can sort it out with your new account executive.] There are no plans to change our dual license model, and we will continue to serve both open source and commercial users. [We can worry about plans later, if need be. For now, all systems go!] Oracle will honor the terms and conditions of existing Sleepycat agreements. [But please see below for important information.]

100% of Sleepycat's employees are expected to transition to Oracle, so we retain all our deep technical expertise and community relationships. [They didn't show the employees any money, so they have to stay.]

Regards,
Mike Olson
Vice President, Oracle
Former President and CEO
Sleepycat Software

The above is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into a contract.

Emphasis added. Now, you tell me, do they really believe I will trust all that hyperbolic PR crap in the letter, when it concludes by saying they won't commit to any of it? Gimme a break.

This Is What's Wrong With The Democrats

February 14, 2006 | Governance | People & Society

In a nutshell, right here:

Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio's closely watched Senate contest, said yesterday that he was dropping out of the race and leaving politics altogether as a result of pressure from party leaders.

Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.

Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.

But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress.

"This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.

I'm incensed. Here's a guy who has the Right Idea, widly popular, and senior politicians tell him to get lost so someone with more seniority can take the slot. Screw that. Let the best ideas win. Are we at least aiming for a meritocracy?

A Curious Mixture of Complacency and Dread

February 14, 2006 | People & Society

John Hagel is no dummy. So when he summarizes his experience at Davos, you can bet it's worth reading.

More fundamentally, a curious mixture of complacency and dread seemed to pervade the formal and informal discussions at Davos. On the one hand, things are going pretty well in the global economy and the participants kept coming back to the strong performance of key economies around the world. As one economist observed on the opening day, “the outlook for 2006 is basically another goldilocks kind of year.”

On the other hand, executives in particular seemed to have a lot of anxiety about a myriad of challenges and frustrations, ranging from the possibility of pandemics to the intensifying economic competition on a global scale. On the latter topic, there seemed to be growing recognition that the cost cutting strategies that have largely driven corporate performance over the past couple of decades are delivering diminishing returns. At the same time, executives expressed considerable frustration about the difficulty in getting large organizations to deliver more significant and sustainable innovation to the marketplace. [...]

Most people immediately assume we are talking about educational policy when we focus on the importance of talent development. In fact, we argue that education is becoming more marginal as the bulk of talent development occurs outside of traditional educational institutions. As one example, the rationale for the corporation is shifting from reducing interaction costs to accelerating talent development.As we begin to recognize that talent development is a continuing process and not confined to one stage of life, we will have to broaden our view of the institutional platforms required for talent development.

Bonus: MP3 of Bill Clinton talking with Davos founder Klaus Schwab (57 min).

Life During Wartime

February 14, 2006 | Governance | People & Society

We got computer, we’re tapping phone lines, I know that ain’t allowed

The Administration says they can do anything they want. Legal scholars are not so sure. It's an election year, so expect it to get ugly. It's not surprising that folks in San Francisco think that these are high crimes and misdemeanors, especially given that Clinton was impeached for - what was that again? - something to do with an intern. Much worse than going to war under false pretenses, lying to Congress, detaining citizens without charging them with a crime, secret renditions, torture, etc. Why does Bush hate the US constitution so much?

While you're pondering that, consider this speech from a 30-year veteran of the CIA and FBI:

The Administration’s wholesale by-passing of court review under the guise of “national security” is an extremely bad precedent. If after-the-fact judicial review of eavesdropping operations can be legally accomplished in a secret court, why should such a review requirement be totally ignored by this President? Is it because the government does not want anyone to know exactly who they are listening in on? Is it only suspected terrorists who are being targeted? If the Bush administration continues to have its way, we, and the congressionally authorized secret FISA court, will never know.

Bonus link: What macroeconomist and hedge fund manager Barry Ritholtz learned over the past few weeks.

Finally, how about that Dick Cheney! Our friends at the Wall Street Journal gather together in one place the late-night jokes.

Rails acts_as_taggable: Plugin vs Gem

February 13, 2006 | Software

There's some confusion in the Rails community right now about two pieces of code with the same name: acts_as_taggable. Here are the differences as I understand them. Your corrections and clarifications are welcome!

For quite some time there has been a Ruby Gem called acts_as_taggable. You can learn more here: http://taggable.rubyforge.org. You install this by doing: 'gem install acts_as_taggable'

In December 2005, the creator of Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson wrote a Rails plugin called acts_as_taggable. You install this by doing: 'ruby script/plugin install acts_as_taggable' You can see the genesis of the plugin during David's presentation at the Snakes and Rubies event in Chicago. Audio and video, and pdf of David's slides. Summary of differences:

The Gem

• The Gem has documentation.
• The Gem runs in Rails 1.0.
• The Gem has some community add-ons, such as Tom Fakes' Tag Cloud.

The Plugin

• The Plugin doesn't have much in the way of docs yet.
• The Plugin only works with Edge Rails, soon to be Rails 1.1. You can lock your app to Edge Rails by doing: 'rake freeze_edge' in your app directory. This will load a full copy of rails into your vendor directory, and Rails will by default look there and use that code if present.
• The Plugin was written using the new polymorphic associations, which is a cool approach.
• The Plugin is the one used in Chad Fowler's new book, Rails Recipes. These are the best docs so far, even though the book is only beta.
• Generally, plugins are a better way to extend Rails.

In the long run, plugins are probably a better way to go, and the code for the plugin is clean. I myself prefer the approach of the plugin, but my skill level makes it hard to use without any docs.

I jumped on the Rails bandwagon a while ago, (see Avoiding Software Fear and ROR Bootcamp at BNR) so I don't mean the following comments to be overly critical. But the situation is generating questions on the Rails list, and it's just another opportunity for newbie confusion and ongoing list pollution. It's easy to fix, too.

My thinking is that it's unfortunate a leader in the Rails community chose to release this plugin without any docs, or without coordinating with the gem coders, or even announcing the differences to clarify the situation. But that's the way it is. Eventually the plugin will have docs, the plugin and the gem may live together in peace, or one may become more popular than the other.

DHH said on the Rails mailing list: "Now here's the truly wonderful part of open source: Creator, maintainer, and documentor needs not all be caps on the same schmoe. Thus, if you find something useful, say a plugin like acts_as_taggable with the creator stamp DHH, you can choose to express your gratitude through one of the other caps.

"That may be a patch to extend or it may be a tutorial about its usage or even READMEs and RDocs for the source. So try not to assume that creator equals sole maintainer or documentor. Only try to understand the truth: There is no vendor."

It's all true, but it's worth considering this thought experiment: If someone else had released a plugin with the same name as a well-known gem, would the community have accepted it, or would they encourage the creator to change the name to avoid confusion? I assert that 1) the creator would have been encouraged to change the name, or take some other clarifying action, and 2) it is because DHH is the creator this didn't happen. The magic of open source community still requires leadership, as well as management. In this example DHH shows his excellent management skills, and his growth opportunity in leadership.

I have been "expressing my gratitude" by clarifying the plugin and gem differences when questions come up on the mailing list, and by encouraging a more meta-solution, like writing docs, and trying to get the plugin working myself. If I do ever get it working, I'll certainly post my code. (Note, it works fine for people who know what they're doing - I'm just a newbie.) In the meantime, the Recipes book is the best introduction to the Plugin. And the gem works fine as well. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Update - DHH responds on the Rail list:

Namespace clashes are problematic for packages that wants to be used concurrently, not for alternatives. How would the situation have improved if I had called it acts_as_polymorphically_taggable (except for making jokes about such a terrible, terrible name)? Would we not have had the same questions as to what does what and why? Of course we would.

In any case, let me summarize the difference quickly. The main difference is not plugin vs gem, but rather that my version of acts_as_taggable is designed to work with multiple classes. So a single tag can be used in the tagging of multiple classes. This requires polymorphic associations and join models, which is why it only works Edge Rails (and will work in the forthcoming 1.1).

So if you need that feature, tagging of multiple classes with the same tags, then use my version. Otherwise, the old version is probably better. It's certainly more feature-rich and better documented.

Fair enough. Nice to have the clarification. For reference, the namespace clash I was referring to was the human-readable one, not whether Rails gets confused or not. (Though, acts_as_polytaggable wouldn't have been so bad.) As a separate issue, yes, we would have had the same questions. The difference is they would have been answered up-front, rather than death-through-a-thousand-confused-list-messages approach we ended up with.

David's a busy guy; obviously he shouldn't have to do everything. Now that I have helped drive some clarification of the issue, how about if someone gets on the case of writing a good tutorial, and documenting the damn plugin!

Advertising on Notio

February 9, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Site Maintenance

Well, I have to make a decision:

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I represent the CPays.com affiliate program. We promote 16 online gambling brands.

I would like to advertise at least one of our gambling brands on your website - either with a text link or banner.

We can sort out a CPA commission plan (one time payment for player) or we can work on a revenue share basis (commission from the players' net loss)

What do you say?

James

I have investigated putting AdSense ads on Notio, but I haven't gotten around to it. Focused blogs can pay the bills this way - I know someone who has a blog focused on TiVo and the like, and he makes about $1,000 a month from Google AdSense. But Notio is hardly focused, in case you haven't noticed. I could probably make a dollar a month or something. Maybe ten. Gambling ads have got to be more lucrative than that.

Let's see, do I care about gambling morally? I have no idea; I've never thought about it. The one time I was in Las Vegas it was weird and disorienting. We didn't play anything the whole four days. Certainly the worst of the gambling downsides are bad - and seeing a thin, pastey, leathery-skinned grandmotherly woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, one hand holding a beach bucket full of quarters and the other a Bud Light, playing slots at 5:30 AM first thing off the elevators is pretty gnarly - but is it bad in the main? Probably not, but maybe, though it's not my cup of loose-leaf green tea. Who was that guy a couple of years ago railing against gambling until he got caught bankrupt from it? Some extreme right-wing hypocrite intellectual (I know that doesn't narrow it down much). He thought it was bad, except he lost his shirt doing it. I'm not nearly that conflicted. I hardly have a horse in this race, yet.

If I say 'sure,' then do I want a one-time payment, or a cut of the player's loss? In gambling the house always wins, so there will certainly be a net loss most of the time. In both cases, you have to trust them to keep good records and pay you honestly. Hehehehehehehehehehehe.

Aesthetically, no, I don't want a banner ad above my beautiful photos. But it probably pays better than the text link, and it might have some irony value.

If I'm operating from my heart, then I'd have to say No. But what if the money is good? What does the heart say to that?

So let's think like a mercenary: How much per month would I have to earn to ignore any personal issues? What's my price? (I should run a survey, to see what y'all think my price is, that would be interesting!)

One incentive would be if they can get the spambots to stop filling my comments with online poker spam - then it would certainly be worth having an ad instead. Good business model for them - flood bloggers like me with comment spam, then offer to turn it off and get a cut of the proceeds. They'd call it a win-win.

GTI Project Fast Phase 2

February 9, 2006 | Products & Opportunites

Round two is even weirder than round one:

We are now beginning phase 2 of Project Fast. According to our records, you chose not to participate in phase 1, but we still value your input. To take part in phase 2, please visit:

http://e.vw.com/a/tBD65E4AQU8iiAcrAzLAHVDnpLm/fasturl

I did participate, but maybe I didn't give them my email?

Recent Email

February 9, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Products & Opportunites | Site Maintenance

We get letters:

Subject: Regarding your website (www.notio.com)

I would like to advertise at your website.
Please get back to me ASAP, I really want to close a deal today.

(Name, company, and email withheld, though it does appear to be from an advertising firm.)

My response:

Sure, anything's possible. What did you have in mind?

It will be interesting to see where this goes.... FWIW, Alexa ranks Notio as the 5,611,319th most popular site on the Internet. That's gotta count for somethin'.

No Comments Yet?

February 9, 2006 | Life | Site Maintenance

Whenever I post at Notio, (using MarsEdit, natch) I visit the website to verify that it's on the air. For some reason, every time, I say to myself, "No comments yet?"

Is that crazy or what? Talk about narcissism. The post has been alive for less than ten seconds and I'm wondering where the comments are? Last week, four people said to me, "Well, it's okay to be self-absorbed sometimes." I took this free ride on the cluetrain as a suggestion, ever so subtle, that I was being self-absorbed. Thank goodness for friends, who can both helpfully point out and willingly accept your flaws, at least for a time.

Interview with Christopher Alexander

February 9, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society

Christopher Alexander's recent work, The Nature of Order, is a 2,000 page, four-volume masterpiece that lays out a holistic view of how space, and especially built space, impacts our humanity. I summarize, as Vice President Dick Cheney once said, Big Time.

The Phenomenon of Life: The Nature of Order, Book 1
The Process of Creating Life: The Nature of Order, Book 2
The Luminous Ground: The Nature of Order, Book 4
A Vision of a Living World: The Nature of Order, Book 3

I have been browsing these books for over four years, and I'm still not ready to actually read them, because I'm concerned that they will be so engrossing that I will have to drop everything in obsessive consumption. Like all of Alexander's works, they have a very high reverie quotient, and it takes long, enjoyable afternoons and evenings to move through the spreads.

Kenneth Baker, a SF Chronicle art critic, reviews the books and then interviews Alexander at home in England.

Reading the first book of Christopher Alexander's four-volume magnum opus "The Nature of Order" reduced me to silence. I went about my business for weeks afterward, unable to tell anyone how exciting and dismaying I found the ideas it contains.

The succeeding volumes as they appeared hammered home my conclusion that I would have to reckon professionally and publicly with this work and its author, whom I had met already once or twice.

This sort of philosophical crisis happens seldom, probably too seldom, to critics. It happened to me because Alexander, a practicing architect who taught at UC Berkeley for 35 years, explained more to me about the world I see, and the potential place of the arts in it, than anyone else has.

For best results, read Alexander subtracting all literalism. This quote from the interview, for instance, can be applied to architecture, as well as many other aspects of life:

"If you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there. ... If you're working correctly, the feeling doesn't wander about. If you have a feeling-vision of the thing -- a painting, a building, a garden, a piece of a neighborhood -- as long as you're very firmly anchored in your knowledge of that thing, and you can see it with your eyes closed, you can keep correcting your actions. ... It's not a question of holding onto every little detail, but of holding onto the feeling."

Baker's pieces are a fine overview to the work, and I highly recommend the books as part of any practice of long-term reflection on large-scale systems.

As an aside, for a guy who has devoted his life to the impact of space on consciousness, patternlanguage.com and natureoforder.com are two of the worst websites on the entire Internet. It's like they totally missed the fact that the web is a spatial medium. There's a lot of information there, but good luck navigating it. Somebody send him a copy of Weinberger's book.

Fear Is Everywhere

February 8, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | People & Society

On the lowercase cover of mtj: massage therapy journal ("keeping you in touch"):

4 tips for a safer practice, p88

how to protect your business, p64

You don't have to look too far for fear.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

February 8, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Life | Products & Opportunites | SoL

A business colleague whom I met at a SoL gathering emailed asking if I or anyone I knew would be qualified and interested in presenting his seminar for 5-7 days in May and June. I sent a bio, CV, and selected projects list. The response (in part):

Wow! Talk about diversity! Clearly you are virtually undefinable.

Taking it as a compliment, I asked if I could use his quote in my media kit. What the heck - if people can't figure out what you do, you can at least have good marketing.

Question: Correct use of 'whom' in the first sentence? Answer: Yes. Details in the comments.

Felice Varini Had a Good Idea

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture

OMG! Check this out. Felice Varini creates 3D painted rooms which, from one angle look like weird random lines, but from another resolve into a specific pattern.

More photos. And videos.

This has got to be the best thing since the invention of latex. Latex paint anyway.

I'm going to buy me some paint this weekend!

Visions of Johanna

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life

We see this empty cage now corrode

The students are building a snow sculpture for winter carnival. I wish I had my camera with me. Takes dedication, since they have to truck the snow in from who knows where - the mountains, I guess. So they have scaffolding, ladders, plywood frames, etc., all holding this big hunk of fragile snow in place so they can carve it into some sort of character. It sits in the middle of the brown grassy quad - the so-called "green" - a monument to white, to what might have been, to winter carnival's past, to what could be, if we only work hard enough, build it up from scratch, carve off what we don't need, and turn it into something beautiful, or at least sustainable.

"Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial"

I wonder if it's fun. Could be, I suppose. Certainly a challenge. It might create a feeling of accomplishment, if they can make it work. Unless the temperature goes to 45 degrees again and it all melts into the mud. Odds are probably 50/50, given the recent history.

Malcolm Gladwell

February 7, 2006 | Arts & Culture | People & Society

Good profile of Malcolm Gladwell in the New York Times. Particularly nice are the two mp3 clips of the interview. Interesting to hear his voice in conversation. Not that he's unaware of the theater of the interview, but conversation is a little more "in the moment" than reading words.

"People are experience rich and theory poor. People who are busy doing things — as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops — don't have opportunities to kind of collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them."

One of the perks of being a best-selling author: Receiving $40,000 per speaking engagement. One of the challenges: having to write lengthy disclosure statements about potential conflicts.

Fire On The Mountain

February 6, 2006 | Life

Almost aflame still you don't feel the heat

Back from Boston. 28 degrees; road frozen with deep ruts. Cat annoyed that I was away for 30 hours. Won't be the last time.

Making Oil Consumption Tangible

February 6, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | People & Society

I heard a story the other night - unconfirmed, so this is just hearsay really - that during the winter months, each morning at 6 AM three oil tanker trucks pull into our local institution of higher learning and unload their contents into the the steam heating plant holding tanks. Every day! Three of those big oil rigs you see on the highway! That is some oil consumption bubba.

Chris Bliss

February 6, 2006 | Arts & Culture

Once there was a way to get back homeward

Fantastic promo video of juggler Chris Bliss interpreting the Beatles' Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and End from the Abbey Road disc. Click "Must-See Finale" on the linked page.

Update: I just watched this again. Totally inspirational, partly because the song is so good. But he's really in the zone, and he knows it.

Simple Twist of Fate

February 5, 2006 | Life

He woke up, the room was bare

I consoled myself about the weather by getting a car wash. No danger of the doors and windows freezing. Turboglacier: "New England, weather-wise, is currently an unacceptable, unholy mess."

Lynne's been in Chicago. She called yesterday while I was out. Got the message at midnight. Called back after I woke up, and the power had come back on, but she was at the workshop. Went about my day. Stopped at the gas station to check the tire pressure (good thing, too). While I was out of the car for five minutes I missed her call on the cell. Called back, wasn't there, left a message. Started driving to Boston. Stopped in Manchester. Was out of the car for five minutes in the restroom and vending area, and again missed her call. Called back but she had left for dinner. 'Twasn't meant to be, apparently. Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Crass Rant vs Eloquent Reflection

February 5, 2006 | Life

Unbeknownst to me, another local blogger and friend was writing a much more eloquent post about the weather, the same day I was. Whereas I was crass, frustrated, and blunt, Hannah was nuanced, reflective, and subtle. She even cites actual data! Yes, ten to twelve degrees F warmer than normal seems about right. I think we both agree it's a bummer, even if we don't speak the same language.

Mission In The Rain

February 4, 2006 | Life

Everything you gather is just more that you can lose

Made it home through the mud. It's 38 degrees and pouring rain outside. I approached the muddy section of the road on the left side, knowing that near midnight - or nearly any other time of day - the chances of another car on my road were slim. The first thing that happened was I slid sideways toward Marilyn's mailbox and as I steered to the right, I hit a huge puddle full of mud and it covered my windshield with thick brown mud. I couldn't see until I hit the wipers and they took a swipe or two. By then I had been pulled into a rut near the middle of the road and had to gun it pretty hard not to sink in. Plowed through that stretch and everything was okay. This stuff is rough on passenger cars. I'm the only one for for a mile in any direction without a four-wheel drive truck, and mostly you only really need them a week or two a year. But this would be one of those weeks. I can park at the neighbors, but who wants to walk home half a mile through eight inches of mud and the pouring howling windy rain at midnight?

"Tomorrow will be Sunday, born of rainy Saturday."

Met four new people tonight, and got better acquainted with three others I already knew. Lots of jokes and banter - I haven't laughed that much in months. And I forgot how amazingly yummy a multi-ingrediant fresh vegetable soup can be! Friends in a New England winter: keeps the place habitable, I tell 'ya.

Let's Talk About the Weather

February 4, 2006 | Life | Travel

Or, better, let's bitch about it. We owe it to ourselves – it's February, and it's 45 degrees again. If it had been below freezing yesterday we would have two feet of new snow. Instead, inches of rain. My dirt road is a real mess, and when I go out to see friends tonight I'm wondering if I'll get back without a long walk and a tow truck. More rain scheduled for tonight, and tomorrow. Sigh.

Growing up, two hours south of here in Connecticut, I remember building snow forts that I could stand up in, during Thanksgiving weekend! I don't think you could have built a fort at all for the past several years. I was so looking forward to skiing this winter, but it's hard to get excited about skiing for the first time in 26 years when it looks like April in January and February. [Plus, I can't believe I'm so old that I can write about something I did 26 years ago. That has its own grim reality.]

I can't be the only one around here thinking about this. Nobody I know has been complaining about it much, maybe because it's so obviously crazy – why bother? But I for one am ready for a few cold, crisp, blue-sky and yellow-sun days, after a couple of big monster dumpings of snow, where I can snowshoe, take a ski lesson, and revel in the beauty of frozen ice crystals. Until then, we're just slogging though the mud up here, and I'm browsing places that have 1) more urban culture, and 2) better weather.

Gaston Bachelard: Subversive Humanist

February 4, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

Well, it's been over 16 hours, and no one has taken up the "Dreams vs. Hope" challenge. Granted, the first eight of those hours would have been "Friday night after work" and in my heart of hearts I know that not all of my readers are rushing home to check in on the Notio Inquiry. And then the next eight hours were after midnight, or early Saturday morning, and most people were sleeping, at least euphemistically.

So I guess it's up to me to rise to the occasion and consider this question.

As we've seen, Thich Nhat Hanh believes hope is an obstacle. I resonated with this when I read it ten years ago, and I resonate with it today. Which is not to say I'm not a hopeful person - but perhaps "hopeful" is best thought of as "optimistic." At least most of the time, modulo the human condition.

Gaston Bachelard was a postal clerk who eventually rose to teach at the Sorbonne. I understand Bachelard primarily through the vectors of phenomenology, the rehabilitation of imagination, poetics, and especially reverie, even though his oeuvre is grounded in epistemology and the history of scientific thought. Mary McAllester Jones writes:

Bachelard was always a polemical thinker, believing, as he declared in La Philosophie du non (1940), that "two people must first contradict each other if they really wish to understand each other. Truth is the child of argument, not of fond affinity."

Bachelard likes to describe himself very simply as a reader, not out of intellectual laziness or false modesty, but because of what happens when he reads: "is not the reader's imagination...revealed to be purely and simply the movement of quickly changing images?" and more strikingly, "it would seem that the reader is called upon to continue the writer's images; he is aware of being in a state of open imagination." Reading poetic images brings us "the experience of openness, of newness," new images, new language, new possibilities in the world and in ourselves. What [Bachelard] brings to it is an attitude of mind, a willingness to accept and not reduce complexity, to take reading a poem seriously, as an aspect of our relationship with something other than ourselves.

What Bachelard reads is images, not ideas. In his first books, these are images of fire, water, air, and earth; later they are images of space - cellars and attics, shells, corners, the cosmos; and then in his last book, images of a candle flame. He reads material and dynamic images, neither perceptual nor rational, nor expressive of lived experience, images which are written, which are in and through language. He modifies and subverts Freud, and eventually, in his second series of books on poetry (1957-61), he rejects psychoanalysis, preferring phenomenology. He does so because psychoanalysis is reductive; it reduces images to the unconscious, the unconscious to lived experience, to infantile social experience in particular. Bachelard modifies Freud by making the source of poetic images not the unconscious ... but rather what he calls an "intermediate zone" on the threshold of consciousness and thought. Bachelard's material images, in which man and matter are conjoined, spring from "the zone of material reverie that precedes contemplation."

In 1957 Bachelard turns from psychoanalysis to phenomenology precisely because this offers a better account of reading. However, he modifies Husserl as he did in his work on science, insisting on the dynamic relationship between subject and object, so that the reader's consciousness is changed by what he reads.

- Gaston Bachelard, Subversive Humanist, Texts and Readings (1991)

So when Bachelard says

We can accomplish nothing good against our will, that is to say, against our dreams. The oneirism of work is the very condition of the worker's mental integrity.

he is trying to infuse all of our activities, all of our lives, with an endless joy in making images as we make the world. It is not just what the reader reads, but what the person does - every moment is an opportunity to infuse our living with dynamic images, allowing our imagination to lead us, as it reacts with where we are, what we are doing, and recursively, what we are imagining.

This is much different that the idle longing of hope. When I think of "one who is hopeful," I think of passive daydreams, infused not so much with possibility, probability, or even plausibility, as with an idealized and disconnected image of perfection. In this perfect hopeful world, things work out according to the script in our heads, driven by our previous experiences and infantile impressions created in our family of origin. In this way, hope is aligned with psychoanalysis in Bachelard's view - reductionist, limiting, and of the past, not the future.

Instead, by living in the moment, by paying attention to the images we create as we work, as we read, as we dream, as we meditate - as we live - we draw our consciousness every moment toward the larger sphere of the infinite. We are not reducing the possibilities to fit our notio, we are alive in the openness of all possibilities. We then react and respond to these images both imaginatively and materially. We are changed by what we read, and also by what we imagine. We observe phenomenologically, and we then observe how our observation changes. Even as we "cram the oven with shovels-full of coal," and "challenge the oven to a duel of energy." The result: "To participate no longer in heat as a state but in heat as growth, to assist enthusiastically the becoming of its growth."

In this, Bachelard gestures toward David Bohm's work on the dynamic aspects of soma-significant and signa-somatic implicate and explicate orders of meaning-making in quantum physics. But that's a reading for another day.

The Reciprocity of Dream and Work

February 3, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

What would a week of philosophical and psychological inquiry be without a bit of Bachelard? This excerpt is originally from La Terre et les reveries de la volonte, translated by Colette Gaudin in a volume titled On Poetic Imagination and Reverie:

If, passively, as an idle visitor, you find yourself in the stifling atmosphere surrounding a china kiln, then the anguish of heat takes hold of you. You retreat. You do not want to look any longer. You are afraid of the sparks. You think it is hell.

Nevertheless, move closer. Take on in your imagination the work of the artisan. Imagine yourself putting the wood into the oven: cram the oven with shovels-full of coal, challenge the oven to a duel of energy. In short, be ardent and the ardor of the hearth will shoot its arrows in vain against your chest; you will be invigorated by the struggle. The fire can only return your blows. The psychology of opposition invigorates the worker. [...]

To participate no longer in heat as a state but in heat as growth, to assist enthusiastically the becoming of its growth – its active, qualifying quality – grants immunity against the very excesses of fire. The worker is no longer the servant of fire, he is its master. [...]

Take away dreams and you stultify the worker. Leave out the oneiric forces of work and you diminish, you annihilate the artisan. Each labor has its oneirism, each material worked on contributes to inner reveries. Respect for deep psychological forces must lead us to keep the oneirism of work safe from any harm. We can accomplish nothing good against our will, that is to say, against our dreams. The oneirism of work is the very condition of the worker's mental integrity.

Exercise for the reader: Reconcile Bachelard's requirement for dreams with Thich Nhat Hanh's recommendation to avoid hope.

Big Life Lesson #1

February 3, 2006 | Life

This diagram seems pretty pertinent.

Update on Blog Comments

February 3, 2006 | Life | Site Maintenance

My aggressive approach to comment spam is having some short-term side effects. There have been a few comments this week that have been snagged by the filter, and I had to tell it to "trust this commenter" and to mark it as "not junk." Then the comments get posted. Hopefully if this happens to you it will only happen once. If I am not careful in scanning my junk folder (about 500 junk comments a day, thank you comment-spam scum) then it's possible I might delete a comment. If this happens to you, my apologies. We don't censor here at Notio, but we do make mistakes. Ask anyone we know!

Catching up on responses:

Chris: I do little food shopping outside the Coop, so virtually all cookie recommendations will be found on their shelves.

Hilllady: I almost took a swipe at the Enneagram, but it was late and I couldn't find my copy of the book. Plus, I didn't want to muddy the waters after working so hard to clarify the situation.

Fallible Signs

February 3, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Jim Holt:

Turing did [see] a Jungian analyst and developed a taste for Tolstoy, but neither is an infallible sign of madness.

– Code Breaker, The life and death of Alan Turing, The New Yorker, February 6, 2006

Learning to Love Again

February 2, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Wendy Brown, via Long Sunday:

We have to learn to love again. We also have to recognize that the ‘we’, the ‘I’, who will be doing that loving, if it is still committed, if there is some continuity in the cares that it has for a humanity that is in some way governing itself, as opposed to being run by a power larger than itself, the ‘we’ that loves again will be a different ‘we’ than the one we are.

She's talking about the "prospect of replacing capitalism with another social and economic form." But you knew that.

Marriage (As A Dada Concept)

February 2, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | People & Society

I wondered what Frank Zappa had to say about marriage. After all, he and Gail were notoriously devoted to each other, and they were married from 1966 though Frank's death in 1993. They raised four interesting children with unique names (Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, and Diva), and they ran a business together, with Frank writing, recording, editing, and mastering music, and Gail manufacturing, promoting, and distributing it. They seemed to have it all worked out.

So I pulled down his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, and there's a whole chapter on the subject! Here are a few choice nuggets:

This division of labor works best when we see each other the least. Don't get the wrong idea from that - Gail is also my best friend. If you can't be friendly with your spouse, it's not going to be much fun to live together. Friendship (let's get maudlin now) is a very important dimension. I think that a marriage without friendship has to be pretty dreadful.

Gail has said in interviews before that one of the things that makes our relationship work is the fact that we hardly ever get to talk to each other.

We talk about business when we have to, but the rest of the time we don't talk at all. The other factor that has kept things interesting is that when I'm touring - which has been almost every year since we got married except 1984-1987 - I am gone from the house six months out of the year.

Even when I'm not touring, our work keeps us on different schedules. The Cottage Industry - getting out records, tapes, CDs, and videos, the mail order business and everything that entails - is sufficiently complicated that, in order to handle all the chores, I have to work the night shift and she has to work the day shift. We see each other on the edges when the shifts change.

If I worked the same hours she does, nothing could get done. Gail has to be awake during the day because the kids have to go to school and she has to handle the telephone. My schedule sort of twirls around the clock. I can't stay on nights all the time because every night I work an extra hour or so, editing, or recording, or on the Synclavier, or, presently, on this fucking book - pushing it a little later each night - but then, once I go to sleep, I want to grab eight or ten hours, and so my "day" keeps changing around. Every three of four weeks I'm back on daylight - and I dread it, because I can't get anything done. The phone rings all the time. All those questions Gail was dealing with when I was sleeping on the day shift, now I have to answer - live, in person. I can't edit - I can't write - I can't do anything because of the constant interruptions.

So there you have it. One perspective on a successful marriage. I wondered what Gail had to say about it, and found this interview from 1997:

SECONDS: When you saw him, you knew he was the one.

GZ: I heard a chorus of voices and they said, "This is it."

SECONDS: He was a sex symbol in those days, if I'm not mistaken.

GZ: I think you're into some fantasy. I never thought of him as a sex symbol. Frank promoted himself and the band as a bunch of ugly guys who played fantastic music. [...]

SECONDS: When Moon was born, did Frank become more of a homebody?

GZ: He was extremely prolific and he always enjoyed working on his craft. He became more financially able to explore different ways of recording and different musical ideas. It's expensive to be a composer and Rock & Roll is what paid for his habit. It was a by-product of his real interest -- writing music. Both Frank and I are straight-ahead and conservative in terms of what we consider the appropriate way to raise a family and conduct a stable environment. [...]

SECONDS: Hmmm ... in conclusion, what was the funniest thing that ever happened between you and Frank?

GZ: We got married and managed to stay together for twenty-eight-and-a-half years. That's the joke.

We'll take that as confirmation of a happy partner!

Feeback to Notio

February 2, 2006 | Life | Site Maintenance

Email from Chris:

Subject: Your post
Chris: Wow. You topped yourself. ;)

Notio: Uh, which one? I've been a little over the top in general....

Chris: The one that wasn't english. With all the abbreviations. That you edited today, perhaps for clarity, though I couldn't tell... ;)

Notio: Blame it on the cookies!

Chris: Seriously, you're going off the deep end. It's fantastic.

(I love my readers.)

Jung's Typology vs. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

February 1, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Yesterday's Singer quote on intuition and feeling generated some confusion because she (interpreting Jung) says feeling is a judging process. But, but - but, if the MBTI is based on Jung's typology, why does it consider feelings as a separate function from judging? Wha'sup wit dat? Here are the differences between Jung's types and the MBTI:

In Jung's types, intuition and sensation are considered perceiving functions. Thinking and feeling are are functions that process information, and to do so certain judgments must be made. So Jung has the two attitudes - introversion and extroversion (which are also commonly misunderstood), and the four functions - intuition, sensation, thinking, and feeling. This gives eight cognitive modes: IT, ET, IF, EF, II, EI, IS, and ES. No one abbreviates them in Jung's world, I do so for brevity.

In the MBTI, they attempt to identify the dominant function and a secondary function by adding the dimension of perception vs. judging. So the MBTI has four polar dimensions - introversion vs. extroversion, intuitive vs. sensing, feeling vs. thinking, and perception vs. judging. This gives 16 modes: ISTJ, ISTP, ISFP, ISFJ, INTJ, INTP, INFP, INFJ, ESTJ, ESTP, ESFP, ESFJ, ENTJ, ENTP, ENFP, ENFJ. Everyone abbreviates these in the MBTI world, I do so for consistency.

Note that the Keirsey Temperament Sorter uses the same terminology as MBTI, but is based on different conclusions as to what factors go towards what outcomes. I don't know what to say about that, except consultants typically need unique selling propositions.

Jung is the primary source material here. It's not clear to me what benefit is derived from breaking out another dimension in the MBTI, especially when experience demonstrates that people who are grounded (or drowning, as the case may be) in their feelings do have the judgmental characteristics that Singer relates. [Did you know INFP's could make such judgmental statements?] I find it more useful to study Jung, which has the depth, if not the concision. Many people are critical of the MBTI because it is not a highly repeatable test - people can change results just by taking the test again. In fact, I typically test as an INTJ, but today I tested as an INFP. Is this a situational change, a long-term change, or a fluke? Hard to tell.

There is another take on personality types in the workplace which I have sometimes found useful: Social Style/Management Style - Developing Productive Work Relationships, by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton. Their book outlines four styles which they call Amiables, Analyticals, Expressives, and Drivers. The helpful teaching here is learning how to "flex" your own style to adapt to the other person. The advantage of this model is that with only four types you can build a 2x2 matrix, a favorite of consultants the world over. This means it's a bit simpler, and you can quickly explain it to someone unfamiliar with the material in a coaching situation. It doesn't have the depth of Jung or the breadth of the MBTI, but it's a reasonable if simplistic model.

Hope as an Obstacle

February 1, 2006 | Life | People & Society

Thich Nhat Hanh:

Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us - to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.

Enlightenment, peace, and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us, and if we dig deeply in the present moment, the water will spring forth. We must go back to the present moment in order to be really alive. When we practice conscious breathing, we practice going back to the present moment where everything is happening.

Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment. Many religions are based on the notion of hope, and this teaching about refraining from hope may create a strong reaction. But the shock can bring about something important. I do not mean that you should not have hope, but that hope is not enough. Hope can create an obstacle for you, and if you dwell in the energy of hope, you will not bring yourself back entirely into the present moment. If you re-channel those energies into being aware of what is going on in the present moment, you will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside of yourself and all around you.

- Peace Is Every Step (1991)

Product Recommendation: Champion Chip Cookies

February 1, 2006 | Life | Products & Opportunites

Possibly the best mass-market cookie ever: Newman's Own Organics Champion Chip Cookies. Specifically, the Double Chocolate Mint Chip. (Mint Flavored Chocolate Chip Cookies with Chocolate Morsels.) At just two inches diameter - they're so cute! - you can eat dozens and not realize it. Great for all-night blogging!

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