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Use Your Imagination!

2009-03-28T22:50:00.000-04:00

More great product news: if you're not so much interested in Dunkin' Donuts after seeing the calorie report from my last post, then perhaps you'll be interested in this new item I found on Friday at my local supermarket: Squeezy Fruit (or Squ'eezy Fruit), made by Goodness Gardens of New Hampton, NY.

First, there was Go-Gurt - yogurt in a tube - and now, of course, there's fruit in a tube. I'm actually surprised it's taken us this long to get to this point. Of course, it's hard to complain about Squeezy Fruit; having looked at the ingredients, it's about as natural as a fruit-in-a-tube product could reasonably be. It's more the principle involved: why do we need more processed fruit at all?

Well, I believe in markets and freedom, and so if there's a free and open market for squeezable fruit ... great. As it says on the side of the tube: Use Your Imagination!

Truth in Advertising

2009-03-25T22:40:00.002-04:00

This might be the most honest advertisement I've ever seen! Although it is also a bit astounding: are those calorie counts per donut? And really, is that supposed to be an inducement to buy, or a warning to run three laps around the block first?!

Dunkin' Donuts, I think you might have missed the mark with this one. But for those looking for to channel their creative energies into the magical field of donut-making, definitely check-out their latest promotion: the Create Dunkin's Next Donut contest. Hey, you could win $12 grand!

Ever Excellent Mia

2009-03-22T12:23:00.001-04:00

Thankfulness seems to be in the air at the moment. A couple of weeks ago, I offered some public thanks to the good people behind Evernote, an excellent note-taking program I have long used.

And then after that, there was radio silence, so to speak. The blog went dead because Blogger (owned and operated by Google) decided it no longer wanted to publish my material. Just like that.

Which is why I want to offer a huge public thank you to the good folks at Mia.Net, which has served as "host" for my websites and all-things-internet since the mid-1990s. They are terrific, helpful, patient (particularly with my mother), and they get things done. If you are looking for a company to handle your domain, website, e-mail, or server needs: talk to them.

***

More back story: I spent the first week of this blog "silence" trying to dig through the mountain of disorganized and largely useless "support" materials offered by the folks of Mountain View, CA, to try to figure out why - out of nowhere - Blogger had decided it didn't like me. I was getting a series of error messages that indicated Blogger couldn't publish to my server except, oddly, it could publish updates to the home page just fine. If during this period you happened to land here, and happened to see content coming and going, that's why: I could get the home page to publish, but not the sub-pages. In other words, it wasn't that Blogger couldn't publish, it just ... didn't want to.

Here's the thing about "free" anything: it has limitations. We live in a world increasingly riven by the fight between free and pay-per-use items, like the argument between free software versus paid, or free news content versus paid-for content. Items on the "free" side of the balance sheet have been winning the long war, as the state of the newspaper industry clearly indicates.

What "free" anything often lacks, however, is the help that is sometimes needed. I use (and love) Mozilla's Firefox web browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, and likewise use (and love) OpenOffice.org's suite of office software tools. Fortunately, I have had few problems with any of these tools and so have not had to put their equally free support systems to much of a test.

Blogger is also free - and problematic. Over the years, it has stopped working for me for days at a time. And each time, as I have gotten near the limits of my frustration, it has magically started working again, and so here I remain. This time, however, more than two weeks went by and it didn't fix itself. The error messages I was getting contained no helpful information, and searching Blogger's support systems based on those error messages generated nothing useful either.

And good fucking luck trying to get in touch with an actual person at Blogger or Google. Like many companies, the page on their web site that says "Contacting Support" is really just an endless loop back to the same page, with lots of detours to the same unhelpful information one has already seen.

I started looking for alternatives, like WordPress. What I wanted was something I could pay for, at reasonable cost but with enough financial motivation for the company that I could get actual support service when I actually needed it.

***

In comes Mia.Net. Blogger.com's problems are not their problems, to be sure. At Mia.Net, my sites have been on the same server, with the same set-up and the same ports and bells and whistles and do-hickeys for years. It wasn't like Mia.Net changed something and didn't tell me.

To the contrary, it seems like Blogger changed something and didn't tell anyone. I shared my problems (and error messages) with Mia.Net and they poked around and proposed a solution for us to test. They decided to switch me to a different server, one running Linux, as a means of perhaps solving the problem. So far, it seems to be working (and in the process gave me access to a whole new set of bells and whistles to control my sites).

So, this is why I am grateful: I am grateful that Mia.Net exists; that they have a well-run business; that I was able to reach them when I needed help; that they responded,;and that they helped me resolve the issue. Mia.Net is very affordable, but not free. And I don't care. In this case, free didn't help me - while the service I paid for was responsive and responsible.

In case anyone has any doubts: that's worth the price.

this is a test

2009-03-16T16:24:00.000-04:00

This is only a test. (But if you don't hear any white noise or beeping, that's a good sign.)

Evernote Thanks

2009-02-28T22:10:00.001-05:00

It's easy - too easy - to be constantly critical, in the negative sense, of what goes on around us. Therefore when something works as it should, it seems worth saying "Thank you!" And when the something that worked as it should is a small company with a good product, saying "Thank you!" publicly is even more important.

So: Thank you, Evernote!

I have been using Evernote since 2005 to track my notes and ideas, keep clips from web sites and other sources, and generally help manage my life. The early version of the program was easy to use, easy to learn, and free. Eventually, I upgraded to a low-cost paid version, which enabled a synchronization feature, so I could sync my "notes" across different computers using a USB flash drive as the go-between.

Last year, Evernote released version 3.0, an even more sophisticated version - also free - that offers the synchronization feature across Windows, Mac, iPhone, and other platforms, along with a web interface. The premium version, very reasonably priced at $45 per year, turns Evernote into a file server: drop attachments into your notes, and they also synchronize across the entire system. Open those attachments up, edit them, and the changes are saved back to the system.

All this was cool enough, but it was not until I ran into a problem that I really appreciated how great Evernote is. A note I created with multiple attachments got corrupted; first time it has happened, and I don't know what caused it, but it stopped the program from syncing. Within one hour of asking for help, I had a response asking for some more detail; within 12 hours I had an e-mail from Evernote with the solution to the problem. Everything was back to normal after that.

If you're the kind of person who likes to jot down ideas, keep track of receipts, categorize information or to-do lists across different areas of your life, take pictures or audio notes to remind yourself of different things, and more ... Evernote is the program for you. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and they deserve a public thank you for their great product, and for their great customer service.

Soon

2009-02-23T22:22:00.000-05:00

...There will be more content coming shortly...

Arguably Consummate

2009-02-16T16:25:00.000-05:00

I have been surprised lately to notice two words popping up endlessly, each in two very different contexts.

The first appears in news stories of one kind or another. That word is “arguably.” And, arguably, the word is journalism’s mitigator-of-choice these days. Just to make sure I wasn’t kidding myself that I have been seeing the word so often, and to soothe my curiosity, I did a Google News search, which came back with more than 17,000 hits. That’s 17,000 current news articles that use the word in the text or the headline, some examples of which are:

- Tour of California arguably best field assembled in US

- In Gingrich Mold, a New Voice for Solid Republican Resistance (“The Republican Party is arguably weaker today than it was in 1993...”)

- Mortgage Subsidies: Arguably Useless, Likely Expensive

- Students paying more, arguably getting less

- A 40-Year Wish List (“... airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.”)

Arguably, in a 24/7 news cycle environment, when things keep shifting and a reporter doesn’t have time to nail down whether something might really be what they think it is (or want it to be), it winds up existing in a state of arguability. Actually, I would argue that the preceding sentence is true, without a doubt.

Perhaps using “arguably” is easier than writing a correction for a mistake after the fact, or another seemingly clever way of sidestepping the phrase “I think” as a qualifier for a thought. But it is overused. It is also unhelpful for the reader, especially since the word occurs in many articles purporting to be “analysis.” While analysis should not automatically imply certainty, if one is reading a publication for its expert opinion, and even the experts are constantly hedging on their opinion, well, it devalues the whole construct. After all, opinion is, by definition, arguable.

So it just seems consummately lazy. Which leads me to my next word: consummate.

As in: so-and-so “is a consummate professional,” or a “consummate” networker, etc. The word keeps appearing in the so-called “recommendations” for other people that pass by my eyes on the business networking site LinkedIn.com. I do not object to the word per se; rather, as with “arguably,” it is the overuse of the word that gives me pause, because it simply is not realistic that everyone is the best, an expression of perfection, at what they do. Instead, it feels like a lazy word: a way of offering high praise in what feels like grandiose terms, and avoiding the nitty gritty challenge of choosing one’s words carefully. After all, one can be very professional and still have weaknesses; most of us do.

Indeed, such weaknesses are themselves arguably the consummate expression of our humanity.

Apple Blinked, Stuttered

2009-02-08T17:03:00.001-05:00

Over on the other side today, I once again lavished some praise on Apple for its terrific retail sales and service. But I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't also acknowledge that Apple failed one small test today - something that should have been an easy one.

My wife and I went to the Fifth Avenue store today to take a look at a new machine and, most importantly, get information about running Windows on a Mac. There are, alas, a few programs that my other half uses that work only in Windows ... but she needs another computer and Macs are definitely part of my present and future.

Conceptually, we know that Windows-on-Mac is possible, via Boot Camp or Parallels or other programs. Practically speaking, we wanted to see it in action: what does Windows really look like, how will it work, is there any impact on performance ... ? All obvious questions, most of which can be answered by reading items on Apple's web site - but reading the web site and seeing for one's self, in person, on the computer, is different. Isn't that the whole point of having a retail store, so people can see for themselves, in person?

So, it was a bit of a shame that Apple seems unprepared to address this question in any substantive manner. Not a single computer in the store was running Parallels, and only one - an old laptop - was running Boot Camp. The sales staff was trying hard to be helpful, but their knowledge in this area seemed more limited than we had expected. (Certainly more limited than I expected based on past experience.)

It is probably unrealistic to expect Apple to be able to demonstrate every piece of software it sells, but running Windows isn't every piece of software: it's been a major, if subtle, selling point ever since Macs moved to an Intel-driven computing platform. If someone from Apple ever reads this, I hope they'll take this into account for the future.

Guilt/Pleasure, 2009 Edition

2009-01-25T20:27:00.000-05:00

It's back! Burn Notice, is back! I wrote about my affection for this show back in August 2007, and through the Summer 2008 "season," that only grew. And now we get a winter "season," too.

Fans, rejoice!

DC, Then & Now

2009-01-18T22:52:00.001-05:00

In his column in today’s New York Times, Frank Rich looks back to his childhood in Washington, DC, and even mentions his attendance at Woodrow Wilson High School, which was also my high school. But Rich describes an environment that was the opposite (and precursor) to the one I knew: in my time—after desegregation, and in the era of Marion Berry—white (to say nothing of Jewish) kids were the minority population at Wilson.

I cannot speak to what Wilson is like these days; I’m too far removed. I can say that the new schools chancellor in Washington, Michelle Rhee, would certainly have been welcome when I was growing up. While Wilson was generally well-run (under the firm hand of then-principal Michael Durso), the impact of the mess within the broader school system was evident. One year, our English teacher missed about a quarter of the school year—but no amount of action by motivated parents (some of whom were lawyers) could dislodge her from her post, in the face of the intransigent teachers union. So the teacher kept her job, and we the the students suffered. In my senior year of high school, our island of (relative) calm was shattered by the first shooting of its kind to come across the transom. That seemed to me the beginning of the end.

The DC that Frank Rich grew up in has changed, but many things remain. Rich describes a place that is now and was then very segregated, such that growing up in the northwest part of Washington was and is like living in a different place altogether.

Obama’s election and soon-to-be inauguration is stunning, nearly as thrilling for me imagine as it is for Rich. Whether Obama’s arrival in the White House can change the nature of the capital city is an interesting question indeed. Entrenched DC politics, and out-of-date mindsets, may prove harder to conquer than the current financial crisis, but one can hope.

January Miscellany III

2009-01-15T08:27:00.001-05:00

I can admit this because, ridiculous though it is, it works: a few weeks ago, we bought the Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar.

It was late at night, we were tired and watching TV. There was an ad. We egged each other on, and the next thing we knew, we'd ordered it. After hanging up the phone, we wondered whether we'd just spent a bunch of money ($49.99 when all was said and done) on something that wouldn't work.

Imagine my surprise, then, to discover: it really does work! And it's basically small enough that even in an NYC apartment, we have room to stash it.

For anyone interested, though, it's now available via Amazon, which might be an easier place to order from, since the phone ordering process forces you to say NO to all sorts of other options (like monthly services) you probably won't want.

(Oh, and I'm up to five consecutive pull-ups now. How 'bout you?)

January Miscellany II

2009-01-13T21:34:00.001-05:00

If you’re a conscious adult over the age of 18, you’re probably aware that the print media industry is in deep trouble, and magazines face as many challenges as newspapers.

Which raises a question I have long wanted to ask: why, in an age of “just in time” everything, an era when you can order something on the web and have it delivered to your door the next day (if not earlier), when such a mind-boggling array of databases are linked together to bring mountains of junk mail to my inbox on a daily basis …

… Why does it still take most magazines six to eight weeks to "process" a subscription? Seriously. Even if you do the sign-up on the web, you get a note telling you that it’ll take that long for your first issue to arrive. Hunh? It’s not like I don’t know the current month's magazines are printed already. What’s the hold-up?!

No wonder that industry is in such trouble. Readers are using the internet, while publishers are still relying on the Pony Express.

January Miscellany I

2009-01-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my new hero, Bruce Schneier, and the continuing farce of “security theater.” For anyone interested in this subject, boingboing.net did an interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on the subject in mid-December. [Hat tip to Economist.com’s Gulliver blog.]

To the Class of 1989

2008-12-17T15:15:00.003-05:00

An Open Letter to My Hampshire College Classmates

Dear Class of 1989:

Give to Hampshire. Please. Give now.

I recently met with a development officer from Hampshire, and was stunned to find that a mere 14% of my classmates contribute anything at all to our alma mater. Total giving for our class for Fiscal Year 2008: $6,607. The class of 2004 has 14% giving participation—and they just graduated! We're getting clocked by the kids who are barely out of college!

Your support for Hampshire College matters. Included below is a longer statement from me about why giving to Hampshire matters to all of us. I hope you’ll read it.

At the same time, you should also know that I am giving to Hampshire. (I cannot ask you to give if I'm not doing it myself.) My 2008 contribution to Hampshire will be $1,200, because I believe it is an important sacrifice to make. I realize that not everyone can give at that level—but most of us should be able to give something.

***

Here's why your gift to Hampshire College matters.

Support from alumni helps cover the basics, everything from shoveling snow, to buying books for the library, to paying for professors, to the costs of bringing in visiting scholars and lecturers.

Alumni giving helps sustain Hampshire’s financial aid program—critical funds that more than 50% of Hampshire students receive.

Our gifts affect something you may never have thought about: giving from others. Foundations, bond rating agencies, and even wealthy donors all look to see whether the people who graduated from Hampshire care enough to give before they make their own decisions.

And there's still one more reason to give: Hampshire College has a small endowment—tiny when contrasted with Harvard University (roughly $28 billion) or even Amherst College (roughly $1 billion). Those schools lost more in this down market than Hampshire had in the first place!

The upside to this situation is that Hampshire is relatively insulated from recent market losses: it was never able to rely on its endowment much in the first place. The downside is the little money Hampshire did expect from its endowment has been eroded.

So, what about me? I am in the midst of childrearing (not cheap), slowly working to pay off a mortgage, and attempting to save for retirement. I am trying to help my firm weather the present economic storm (so far successfully). And I am acutely aware of how an unstable and unpredictable environment may affect my finances next year. Nonetheless, as I noted in my cover letter, I am contributing $1,200 to Hampshire for 2008, because I consider it important to do so.

Whatever our issues were, the College has a new president, a lot of new blood, and some exciting plans for the future. Our memories of Hampshire may be mixed, but face it: anything else would be unrealistic after four years in a complicated environment, one that (hopefully) challenged our minds, our assumptions, and our beliefs. But think of it this way: here's your chance to help Hampshire College give someone else the opportunity to experience those same things.

Class of 1989, we can do better than a 14% giving rate. If I did not think so, I wouldn't be as public about my own commitment. And as alumni, it is our responsibility to try to help Hampshire. Not because we feel some sense of obligation (though we might), but because as graduates of Hampshire College, a school that helped educate us to be responsible citizens in a complicated world, we should be trying to help Hampshire in turn.

***

For anyone interested in stories about college and university endowment challenges right now, here are two news items of interest:
The Economist: "Ivory-towering infernos"
National Public Radio: "Economic Downturn Hits Liberal Arts Schools"

Keep Learning

2008-12-07T14:59:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, my mother and a pianist friend created a program they called “Adventures with Music and Design.” Over the course of many years, they would take multi-day trips around the country to different schools, museums, or community centers, presenting their program, pieces of which were often beta-tested on my brother and me. At the time, I neither knew the word synesthesia or its meaning, and I’m not sure it was on my mother’s mind either. If I had known, it might have helped define some of the context for the program, which sought to connect the kind of intellectual and (almost) emotional dots between and across the borders of our observational, aesthetic, and artistic experience.

For example, the children’s song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” is more than a collection of lyrics, and more than a snippet of music by Mozart (and more than the common melody for singing the English alphabet). Almost every element can be connected to some other level of sensory experience—from the difference between hearing the song on the piano or the guitar, to the ability to match up the pattern of the song with the outline of a particularly ornate building facade, or even the fact that the song’s lyrics call to mind something very specific (a star) that conveys implicitly a collection of shapes and colors (night time sky, bright white star). And if it seems like there is something Steiner-like in all this, well, yes; although again, I don’t think that this was top-of-mind for my mother, and certainly was not for me.

In the intervening years, a number of studies have shown the value of and connection between education in the arts and how children learn non-arts subjects. My mother’s program was definitely ahead of its time.

I think it’s fair to say that my absorption of art as a child had a tremendous impact on shaping my intellectual growth, but as the child of a museum director mine was hardly the average experience. As someone who now works in support of arts organizations, this has mostly seemed like a professional issue in recent years. I have seen the statistics from several of these studies, and the “proof” (as it were) looks solid. But promoting arts education is a challenge at the best of times. I think it’s simply too healthy for most news media, not filled with enough of the conflict needed to animate even a feature story.

***

Now, as a parent, this whole subject takes on a very different cast. Watching my child learn shapes, colors, sounds, music—and trying to help her make connections between each of these things—is fascinating, as both an observer and an encouraging-participant. The straightforward beginnings are just that, straightforward: one starts with colors and shapes, separately and together, and eventually that knowledge becomes such a part of us that we may forget we ever had to learn it, just as at a certain point I watched my daughter start to respond to those questions without much thinking. She is also physically responsive to music, as are most babies and young children I have ever seen; the desire to move one’s body to the rhythm seems absolutely innate (no matter how uncoordinated one might be).

The next threshold seems key: beginning to piece all of these elements together, not only because the connections one can make are enjoyable on their own, but because of the broader intellectual value that is born of the process. Sure, learning to hum “Twinkle, Twinkle” on a kazoo is funny—most things on a kazoo are funny—and being able to play it on a harmonica is … well, let’s call it an aspiration, if you’ll forgive the pun. Beyond that, though, our world is anything but static; it has biology, physics, and art embedded in it deeply, and anyone who has ever looked at the study works by Leonardo da Vinci knows that biology and physics can also be seen and expressed as art.

Learning that how the kazoo works may seem silly, but in doing so my daughter learns that there are different ways to expel air. Learning (as she apparently has) that the harmonica (unlike the kazoo) can be made to work by breathing both in and out also teaches more than just music making. And the seemingly ridiculous toy a friend gave us is anything but, combining tones, patterns, numbers, letters, colors, and shapes together. At the same time, the knowledge of and ability to identify colors and shapes seems to be playing an implicit role in her process of learning to identify numbers and letters. These can also have colors, and incorporate different shapes, and may have textures too. Some of this learning is clearly rote: “c” comes after “b” because that’s how the song goes. Yet it is evidently deeper than that, and I say not that to brag about my child but as a supporting witness to her process of learning.

I’m sure that my brother and I laughed at my mother; that’s what kids do. Fortunately, I have no specific memories of that, so no corresponding guilt. But also fortunately, the whole range of experiences seemed to seep through anyway. As a museum child, I learned not to fear the institutional authority those heavy, stone edifices were constructed to convey—to respect them, yes, but to be comfortable in them and to believe deeply in the importance of sharing the beautiful objects they hold within. More importantly, I came to understand the connections across and between objects and ideas in the world around me, a skill I use every day to link disparate but related subjects together: in this space, in my work, and now as a parent trying to pass some of this on to the next generation. I hope we can continue to provide an environment in which such learning not only takes place, but is simply second nature.

My New Hero

2008-11-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

Bruce Schneier is my new hero. The November 2008 issue of The Atlantic has a terrific article by Jeffrey Goldberg [an honorary hero] called “The Things He Carried,” about Goldberg (and Schneier) testing the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) work to “protect” air travel. For anyone who travels periodically, or who has been frustrated or amused at the absurd and arbitrary nature of TSA “enforcement,” this article is a must-read.

It reminded me of two related things, the first of which was a recent series of trips, one week apart. Trip #1 was to Boston for the day, and at the airport I presented my then-current driver’s license, which was set to expire on the 29th of this month. The agent looked quickly at the license, looked at me, looked at the date on the license, and reminded me that while it was “good” for a year after expiration I should probably get a new one. [Side note: it might be “good” for the TSA for a year, but it would hardly be legal for driving. Maybe the TSA should take over policy making for state departments of motor vehicles, too.]

A week later, I was off on trip #2, to Minneapolis … with my newly minted license in hand, fresh from the New York State DMV. Unlike the old license, this one has all sorts of security and holographic anti-forgery features built into it. At the checkpoint, the TSA agent looked at my license, looked at me, then picked up his loupe and looked at the license to confirm it was authentic.

That’s when it hit me: the previous week, the agent had a loupe, but he didn’t use it—because the old license didn’t need it, didn’t have much in it to look at through a loupe. In other words: if one wanted to fake one’s way past security, use an identity document that is “old” enough that no one would expect many of the obvious, modern anti-forgery tools to be included. Because apparently, old documents receive less scrutiny since there is less to scrutinize quickly.

[Two minutes later, something else happened: as my mind was pondering the implications of the above scenario, I absentmindedly passed my luggage through the x-ray scanner and walked myself through the metal scanner to the other side. As I was putting my shoes back on, I realized I had forgotten to take my Ziploc bag of liquid toiletries out and send them through separately. No one had said anything. So much for consistency, and yet more reinforcement for Schneier’s “security theater” argument. And on my return flight from Minneapolis, the agent at the x-ray machine was so busy bossing around her neighbors that she was paying scant attention to the scanned images on the screen in front of her.]

All of this reminded me of John Gilmore’s lawsuit over identity-and-security issues, as tracked by Reason Magazine in a series of articles in 2003 and 2004. As author Brian Doherty wrote in 2003,

"Real security, he [Gilmore] believes, comes from making sure travelers don't have weapons or explosives on them and having people on planes ready to fight would-be hijackers. Thus, the ID demand -- apparently the result of the still-secret government mandate -- serves no necessary state purpose and violates his right to travel, his rights to peaceably assemble and to petition his government for redress of grievances, and his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches."

To which I can only say: Amen. My trips to Boston and Minneapolis are perfect examples of this issue, where my identity should not have mattered much—but the security inspection of my luggage might have been more preventative and, thus, more effective. Or vice-versa.

***

Oh, and for the record—other heroes include Phil Zimmerman, Muhammad Ali, and John Lennon. There are more, but that’s enough for now. Long live eclecticism.

Slow Blogging

2008-11-23T17:39:00.002-05:00

According to an article in today's New York Times, "Haste, Scorned: Blogging at a Snail’s Pace," it's OK to have a blog and not post something on it every hour, or even every day. Apparently there's even a "slow blogging" movement.

Seriously?

I've been doing this in one form or another for about eight years now, and somehow I managed to survive this whole time - posting about once a week! - without ever having to self-identify as part of a "movement" to write more slowly and thoughtfully. But then, I was never much for identity politics.

19 Years

2008-11-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

The deed, as they say, is finally done—my Dell XPS of Sh*t has died. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to back everything up recently—and the technical know-how to yank the hard drive out of the old Dell box once the failure was complete, so I can still get to my files.

I did the math: it was 19 years ago that I left Macintosh computers, long enough ago that that's what people still called them. At the time, no longer living at home and suddenly realizing I needed a computer of my own, I had a decision to make, and I chose a PC. It was an economic decision as much as anything else: then, as now, Mac’s are more expensive.

Meanwhile, my beloved little Fujitsu Lifebook P5020, which has served me well and (mostly) faithfully for about five rugged years … is also dying. It has a tiny hard drive at 30GB, and enough processing power for basic tasks, but multiple open programs really slows it down. Plus, it has taken to showing its inner blue screen a few times too often to be counted on in a pinch.

So: I’ve done it. I have bought a new MacBook, and a day later it’s already easy to see why people have remained so passionate about these computers for so long. It’s visually bright and crisp, and it’s easy to use and set-up so far—and it isn’t Windows Vista, which I have used and which is unappealing, with its built-in nuisances and nags.

***

I did not arrive here easily. Some of the hurdles from 19 years ago remain, like the higher cost of a Mac. And the migration issues are not perfect (if minimal). I have been a Windows user for so long that I also worry about how quickly my brain will adapt to the changes—and how well I will be able to adapt to switching between a Mac at home and a PC at work on a daily basis.

Frankly, I feel bad for Fujitsu. I did my research, and there is a lovely looking replacement model for my current laptop. But Fujitsu does not offer computers with Windows XP pre-installed any more; neither does Sony, which has an equally nice Vaio, or a few other companies with machines I might also have considered. If some PC maker offered a nice-looking machine with Windows XP pre-installed, I might not have gone down this route. At the least, I might have delayed it for another purchase cycle, though of course XP is itself an 8-year-old technology.

I do not feel bad for Dell. I think the promise of cheap computing is, or at least was, amazing. But I am now also convinced that you get what you pay for. In my case, that was two computers with two consecutive motherboard failures—and a support network that was responsive only when I took extreme action. I don’t have the energy for that again.

And if Fujitsu and Dell have complaints? Both companies should blame Microsoft. I have seen Windows Vista, I have used Windows Vista, and the sooner I never have to see or use it again ... the better.

***

So, here I am. Migrating my data. Working on finding the right mix-n-match programs for the Mac to meet my needs. Slowly figuring how to set the preferences as I want them, and organizing my information as I’ll need it. And looking forward to a learning challenge that I expect will only be positive. The consumer confidence issues are real, but I’m considering this computer an investment in my future, and hoping it’s a more satisfying experience than Michael Kinsley’s coffee maker confusion, or than my past history with Dell.

XPS of Sh*t

2008-11-02T18:07:00.000-05:00

I feel like I’m watching something crash in slow motion: my three year old Dell XPS 400 is apparently dying. And lucky me, I get to watch.

If you are thinking about buying a Dell computer any time soon, you should read this.

A few days ago, I came home and turned on my computer. (I no longer use the “Suspend” feature, since doing so disables my peripherals. And I am still having trouble with my WiFi connection.) It went through a series of beeps and whirs, and then turned off. Then it turned back on, beeped and whirred again ... and then turned off. It kept running through this cycle. Eventually, I interrupted the process and, having seen this bad behavior before, I did what the Dell technicians told me to do the last time: I unplugged all the cables, opened up the box, and looked inside to make sure there was no massive dustball causing a static electric short. (Answer: no.)

I re-started the machine—and got a message telling me that the PCI Express Card is running in X1 mode. If you can actually figure out what that means, you’re in better shape than I. Yes, I can Google it, too. Yes, the most common answer is that the card isn’t firmly in place. And no, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. Practically, it seems to mean that my USB mouse and keyboard work, as does my wireless network adapter, but not my USB printer or camera connection. Go figure.

Moreover: I am now afraid to turn the machine off. The last time I did—after first getting the PCI card message, in order to check the problem—the computer entered the same non-boot-up “static electricity” routine. It’s working now, but for how long?

***

If you are planning to buy a Dell computer, I urge caution. And unfortunately, you should probably pay for the extended service warranty. Based on my own history, I can tell you: you may need it; there’s just no telling.

My history with Dell is mixed. On the one hand, my firm bought me a new computer in October 2001 It was a top-of-the-line Dell desktop unit, with a great processor, dual optical drives, lots of RAM ... it was an expensive machine, but I use my computer a lot, and it seemed worth it. It just died (pure hard drive failure) four weeks ago, almost seven years to the day from its purchase.

On the other hand, in 2003 I purchased a Dell desktop unit for my home-office. Like the company computer, this was a top-of-the-line machine, with a great processor, dual optical drives, lots of RAM ... it was expensive, but just as at work, I use my computer a lot, and it seemed worth it. It was cheaper than the equivalent machine from other PC makers, and certainly cheaper than an Apple of the same power. Two years later, it died: from one day to the next, it simply wouldn’t turn on. Extensive time with Dell customer support led only to increased frustration. Over the course of several weeks, Dell screwed up each effort to fix the machine, sending the wrong part or a technician who spoke no English, and like phone company visits of yesteryear required me to stay home all day waiting. Unwilling to settle for such treatment, I eventually resorted to the only weapon I had left: a human sense of shame. Fortunately, I had saved the online chat sessions from my various “conversations” with Dell support. I FedExed these, along with a sharp letter, to a list of top Dell executives, and copied both some well-known technology journalists and stock analysts who cover the tech industry.

Dell replaced the machine entirely. That replacement machine is the XPS 400 that is currently dying, a mere three years later.

***

I also have a small Fujitsu laptop, a machine that is almost five years old and has survived trips to South Africa and around Europe, Mexico and Canada, and to at least 15 different states here in America. It has been left running endlessly, and been shut down on the fly; been through endless airport x-ray scanners, shoved in bags and tossed in the trunks of cars; and endured a lot of abuse of its processing power and hard drive in the name of on-the-go expediency. And it still works.

Yet two Dell desktops that have sat un-assaulted and unabused in my home-office—with a stable climate and a good surge protector—have had endless problems; both software problems (mostly stemming from Microsoft Windows; not really Dell’s fault) and hardware problems (definitely Dell’s fault). It does not even matter what kind of problems they are. It’s the fact that there are problems that is, itself, the problem.

SO, I might have to replace this computer soon, and I do not think I will be buying another Dell. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I might even switch (back) to a Mac. Maybe I will change my mind, or maybe it will turn out that I’m wrong about the state of the current computer. What I know is that I don’t have the patience for this crap any more: I just want them damn thing to work, and seven years sounds a whole lot better than three for an average life-span.

Leaves Turn to Brown

2008-10-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

Wallace Stegner is on my brain. Since I am currently reading The Big Rock Candy Mountain this is logical enough, but what I’m thinking about even more is Stegner’s last novel, Crossing to Safety, in which a New England home played a central role—and the role such a home plays in my own life.

Having just spent part of my weekend stomping through and raking up piles of leaves, I was reminded all over again about how important my New England home base has been for me. This weekend, the leaves of red and golden yellow from the maple trees that line the yard, and the heavy, curled brown leaves from the hickory trees in the center, were raked into piles and then moved off the lawn to stone walls on the side. Difficult to reproduce in facsimile is the satisfactory warmth that began in my shoulders and eventually spread to the rest of me, with each vigorous movement of the rake, each shuttling of the leaves from one place to another, and the smells of the dried leaves on top and the damp ones down below. It ends with the pleasure of finishing up and stomping back inside the warm farmhouse—knowing just the same that in another week, still more leaves will have fallen to take the place of those just removed.

Just as meaningful is the opportunity to introduce to my daughter the silliness and joy of playing with these leaves, of bundling up against the October breeze and stomping through the piles, or taking a ride in a wheelbarrow with leaf cushioning. Nearly sacred is the opportunity to spend unstructured time outside, enjoying the bits of life that make life worth living, from the time with family and friends, to the wind in the trees and their pervasive rustling, and the quiet watching of the chipmunks that have lived there as long as we have (and likely longer).

And then there is the consistency that comes from being in a place season after season, year after year. Those are, unquestionably, my memories: of unstructured time spent reading or playing; of walking in woods and cursing mosquitoes; investigating dark corners of an ancient house and being frightened by one’s own shadow; of being inside and outside, outside and inside; of friends visiting; of meals cooked and enjoyed together, with the seasons of the food itself, from mulled cider in winter to gin-and-tonics in summer; and of the trees and their leaves, the grasses and the hay, in and out of every season.

My memories of this place are surely different from my parents’, and so too will my daughter’s be. It is the opportunity to have those memories that we should not take for granted, while trying to ensure that the opportunity remains, year after year and, hopefully, generation after generation.

Unetaneh Tokef

2008-10-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

As part of the service for the second day of Rosh Hashanah this past week, our rabbi asked me to give an introduction (of sorts) to the Unetaneh Tokef prayer. The text for this intro follows below.

***

We are about to read the Unetaneh Tokef, proclaiming a day filled with awe, and there is a passage that I think is there specifically to help us face the secrets we have collected over the last year. In addressing our hearts and minds to God, we say “You record and seal, count and measure; You remember even what we have forgotten.”*

I want to talk more about secrets. In May of this year, my maternal grandmother died at 95, after several years of being both physically and mentally incapacitated. Elinor and I were never very close, though both of us tried many times to build a better relationship. In the few years between my getting married and the full onset of her dementia we did finally reach a kind of understanding—though it was by and large an intellectual one, rather than the emotional connection that I desired.

But emotionally, we were always out of sync. To me, Elinor was stern and cold, emotionally distant—a distance I felt all the more strongly because she (and my grandfather, too) seemed to have no past. Sure, there was a kind of benign recent past, consisting of snippets of my mother’s childhood, or the trips my grandparents had taken to other countries. There were a few genuinely old family friendships, and a smattering of cousins with whom the family was still in touch. But my grandmother had actively excised much of her past, and always said that she did not want to talk about it. And meanwhile, I had a difficult time accepting the vigorous, enforced lack of sentimentality that Elinor needed to sustain this excision.

However, it turns out that I was mistaken about my grandmother. Or, if not mistaken, simply more confused by her now than I was when she was alive. In the period following her death, my parents found themselves going through the many boxes stashed in the house where my grandparents had lived for more than fifty years.

What turned up were photographs dating back to the 1930s, all annotated in my grandmother’s careful hand with the location, the date, and the people—the names of cousins, friends, or neighbors—written on them. Box after box of photographs. And box after box of pieces of paper, noting who had visited for a holiday, which gifts she had sent to which children or grandchildren, even lists of who had neglected to call for her birthday in a particular year.

What my parents found, in other words, was my family history, after a fashion. At least some of the history that Elinor so vigorously denied caring about had, in fact, been maintained by her— secretly.

So back to that line from Unetaneh Tokef—“You record and seal, count and measure; You remember even what we have forgotten.”

I know, of course that the “you” in this passage is not my grandmother. And yet Elinor is on my mind this holiday. Not only because she was, it seems, recording, counting, and measuring the twists and turns of her life so diligently.

She is on my mind because as I think about the words and deeds of my own life over the last year, I cannot help but think about my relationship with her, and about this secret that she kept—an aspect of her that might have helped us develop a better emotional connection and revealed her to be a more sentimental person, if only I had known. If only she had let me know.

As we read Unetaneh Tokef, and reflect on life, we may try to think about our own secrets from the last year, both the things forgotten and those we have tried hard to forget. Hopefully, we can remember these secrets, engage them, and confront them, in order to have better, healthier, and more open relationships with ourselves and with others.

*Text translation from page 283 of The New Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, edited by Rabbis Sidney Greenberg and Jonathan D. Levine, The Prayer Book Press, 1995.

PC vs. ...

2008-09-19T07:00:00.000-04:00

Ever since I installed Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Windows XP a few weeks ago, my computer’s Wi-Fi connection has needed both a software and hardware restart to make or sustain a network connection. A restart each time I want to use the computer.* I thought I was prepared for this so-called update: I checked out the details, backed up my files, etc. Apparently, it was not enough. Nor am I the only person experiencing this kind of an issue—not that this makes me feel better.

Given the problems I have had with Windows in recent years, some of which I have written about here, and given the problems Microsoft is having with Vista, the replacement for XP, it might just be time to start thinking about other, non-Windows-based computer options. I moved away from Apple computers a lifetime ago. Early Macintosh computers were frustrating for someone like me, who liked to access the inner bits of a computer’s hardware and software: Macs locked users out from the underlying system even more then Microsoft did. (I had both Commodore and Coleco computers; playing with the computer’s programming was part of the fun.) Moreover, Macs were (and remain) significantly more expensive, another factor in every purchase along the line, especially in early adulthood.

New Macs are not like their much older siblings, and the new Apple operating system is built on a different code platform. And, of course, one can now run Windows on a Mac too, if need be. I have already moved as far away from Microsoft as I can while using Windows: I draw on as much open source software as I can, from Firefox and Thunderbird to OpenOffice.org to KeePass. If the quality of new Macs is anything like the quality of my amazing new iPhone, Windows-based PCs are doomed.

It is therefore all the more disturbing—and sad—that for Microsoft, the present problems it faces are apparently about television commercials instead of software quality. Even talking about the issues of PC vs. Mac (vs. Linux) as if it’s about the commercials misses the point. Which might be why Microsoft’s software—ubiquitous though it may be—is riddled with problems like the one I am presently faced with, problems seemingly without solutions.

For this consumer, the issue is not TV commercials. It’s about functionality, quality of experience, ease of use, and not being frustrated every time I turn on my computer, anxiously wondering what won’t work this time.

(*If you're a Microsoft person reading this, let me clarify: nothing else in the household or the computer set-up changed other than the installation of SP3. Other, non-Windows Wi-Fi devices continue to connect to my home network with no trouble, so no it's not a problem with the router. It's a problem with Windows XP SP3.)

Job Hunting 101

2008-09-13T12:11:00.000-04:00

I think the issue of how people apply for jobs is important enough that I'm cross-linking to this article from my other site: Jobs Top 5. I also want to call out other articles I have written on job-related issues, from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, and 2002.

And I am a big fan of Gina Trapani and her team at Lifehacker, which has posts tagged for job searches and careers, and sometimes provides good insights for both traditional and non-traditional approaches to job-hunting.

Memory Lane

2008-08-24T14:36:00.000-04:00

Recently, I had to provide my college transcript to a foreign client, to prove my credentials. Since I was ordering a transcript for them, I requested a second copy for myself, for a refresher on an experience that continues to recede in time and memory.

Hampshire College provides written evaluations instead of grades; thus what arrived was a 17-page packet, with copies of the core evaluations from my time there. (Thankfully, certain things – like my self-evaluations – were not included.) I have not read the whole package cover to cover, but scanning snippets has been a good reminder of the pleasures of my experiences there, and of how much I learned.

One paragraph in particular jumped out at me, because it relates so directly to aspects of my current life. In the evaluation for the completion of my Division II, the Committee wrote (in part) the following:

The substantial body of written work that Sascha included in his Division II portfolio documents his fine intellectual growth and the development of his academic skills. ... His short papers were particularly sharp and perceptive. His longer research papers at this first stage of his Division II were also promising ... but they also tended to need more systematic development. It seemed that once Sascha conceived of his thesis or interpretation, that he preferred to present it quickly and journalistically, rather than developing a mass of evidence in support of his conclusion. It is to his credit that Sascha recognized this characteristic of his work and sought to redress it.

Here I am, years later – and this analysis of my writing still rings some bells. I am certainly a better, more confident, careful, and fluid writer than I was then; my style, language, and tone have all evolved (as one would hope and expect). But in pinpointing my approach to “quickly and journalistically” articulating my thesis, the evaluation reminded me of two things in particular.

The first is the importance of intellectual flexibility, in writing as in most things. It was undoubtedly true at the time that I tended to punch out my thesis at the beginning of a paper, and it was also true (as the evaluators noted) that I tried to self-correct for this “problem.” (A problem in the social sciences, anyway.) Now, as an adult for whom writing is so much a part of my life, my approach varies according to the situation. What Hampshire helped me learn was the application of different styles for different settings, a set of skills that make it possible for me to move easily between writing reports for clients, writing for a publication like The Art Newspaper, and writing about politics or other elements of contemporary society.

The second reminder from this packet of evaluations is about the tremendous value of Hampshire’s structure. The professor(s) writing the evaluation I quoted knew me – well. At the time they wrote those words, we had spent three years working together, reviewing my progress and my intellectual and academic development, and with their encouragement I learned, I challenged myself, and I learned some more. Had my transcript consisted principally of a listing of courses and grades, I would not have had the same opportunity for reflection all these years later. In turn, I might be less aware of the evolution of my own writing, an awareness that helps me be a better writer now and will continue to help me in the future.

I have written about Hampshire before, and I continue to believe it is the right school for some people – and definitely not the right school for everyone. For those lucky enough to attend, I highly recommend a similar trip down memory lane. Not too soon after graduation; wait just long enough for some transformational event to help put a new perspective on the world. Then take a peek back at the person you once were, and might still be today, and see how it feels.

Words, More Words

2008-08-10T19:38:00.001-04:00

In the midst of everything I do on a daily basis, it is sometimes easy to forget that, ultimately, words are my business: ideas and concepts, clearly expressed through words, are the engines upon which my life depends. If this sounds rather obvious, I will not argue the point! Still, it is important to remind myself periodically that the clarity of language can be subjective, and to look for opportunities to improve my writing—even while recognizing that subjectivity.

Therefore, I was thrilled to stumble across the “Simple Measure of Gobbledygook” or “SMOG Calculator.” The approach was developed in 1969, by clinical neuropsychologist Harry McLaughlin, who described his formula in plain terms: “...count the words of 3 or more syllables in 3 10-sentence samples, estimate the count’s square root, and add 3.” The online version of the tool makes it possible to submit texts for an instant analysis of the writing level, resulting in a score on a scale of 1 to 19+. The score correlates both to reading level (e.g., junior high school or university degree) and to a sample publication that fits the reading level (e.g., Reader’s Digest or Atlantic Monthly).

The SMOG calculator then reminded me of a similar site I came across a few years ago, the so-called “Gender Genie.” This tool uses a word analysis algorithm (developed by Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Shlomo Argamon, from Illinois Institute of Technology) to determine the gender of the author based on the presence and repetition of certain words. Again, a submission box generates an immediate analysis, a pair of scores showing the female / male weighting of the text, a list of the critical words that were evaluated, and the tool’s final conclusion about the author’s gender.

Taken together, these two tools can be addictive. To start, I tested eight items I have written, with interesting results: my average SMOG grade for these five items was 15.17, which places me between the “Some college, New York Times” range (a SMOG score of 13-15) and the “University degree, Atlantic Monthly” mark (a score of 16). This sounds right to me: I would say that these texts should be generally accessible to a reasonably educated audience, without being as obtuse as “IRS code,” the highest (or, worst) SMOG score available. (See below for a summary of the specific writing samples I tested, with links to those pieces, and the cumulative and average scores from each tool.)

The Gender Genie guessed I was male 88% of the time, though the difference between the male and female scores on certain texts was in one case as low as 39 (in favor of a male author) and in another as high as 1381. If one takes the science behind the Genie as meaningful, these results suggests there is great variability in the gendered language I use in my writing. I’ll leave aside broader implications about my personality, but for fun, I did test a more personal piece of writing: the Gender Genie pegged the author as female by a lead of 46 points.

***

Over time, I have come to two different, but complementary, conclusions about writing. The first conclusion is that good writers tend to be confident that they know what is readable, and that they have a good handle on the clarity and calibration of their writing to specific audiences. At the same time, good writers are also aware of when their writing needs the work of an editor (even if they do not always take advantage of one). From my own experience, I have developed various processes to evaluate my written work—from different approaches to re-reading, to knowing to whom I can turn for an edit—and each of these steps help identify problems and catch inconsistencies. I also use other tools periodically, and have even been known to enjoy writing-style brain teasers like this one, which help keep me alert to mistakes I may be making.

So it is interesting to me to think about how the SMOG Calculator could be used to evaluate something I have written before I share or publish it, to evaluate very basic, but important, questions: Is this piece of writing as readable as I think it is? Is the language effectively calibrated for the intended audience? Simple formulas can have their drawbacks—but may also reveal very different elements than the more contextually driven feedback provided by a human reader. And while (generally speaking) my gender is irrelevant to much of what I write, there have certainly been moments when (perhaps in recognition of the different styles of language men and women tend to use) feedback from female friends or colleagues has helped me write more clearly and effectively—suggesting that even the Gender Genie could provide useful information.

The late comedian George Carlin once said “Words are all we have, really,” and he had a point. All the more reason to take care with the words we use, and to make sure that we continually evaluate how we use them, and that we are writing (and speaking, too, for that matter) in a manner that most effectively conveys what we mean.

And for anyone interested: the SMOG score for this op-ed? A grade of 15.25. The Gender Genie is convinced the author is male, by a score of 1369 to 667.

***

Writing evaluated for this article, analyzed by both the SMOG Calculator and the Gender Genie:

Chinese Torture, Olympic Style
SMOG Score: 12.24
Female Score: 859
Male Score: 1015

In Pursuit of Happiness
SMOG Score: 14.6
Female Score: 1069
Male Score: 1532

The Jobs and Education Con Game
SMOG Score: 16.78
Female Score: 2799
Male Score: 3132

Women Aren’t Commodities
SMOG Score: 17.11
Female Score: 2438
Male Score: 3581

V for Dissociate
SMOG Score: 16.42
Female Score: 935
Male Score: 1413

R.I.P. Elinor
SMOG Score: 13.49
Female Score: 695
Male Score: 649

Arts & Public Policy - A Book Review
SMOG Score: 16.2
Female Score: 1388
Male Score: 1427

On Trends & Statistics
SMOG Score: 14.48
Female Score: 835
Male Score: 2216

Average of all the above scores:
SMOG average score: 15.17
Female average score: 1377
Male average score: 1871