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Raise a toast to Douglas Adams…

May 26, ’10 6:07 AM

This didn’t make Facebook’s status limit even with aggressive editing, but it is dedicated to our political system, with love and consternation.

The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

Douglas Adams, the pre-eminent social and political philosopher of our times.  Right behind Monty Python.  Then probably Jon Stewart.  With Friedrich Hayek and John Rawls taking a joint and distant fourth.

Happy Towel Day!

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Cocktail Party to Benefit the San Juan Island Permanent Farmer’s Market

May 18, ’10 8:52 PM

Last fall, at our annual Harvest Dinner and Auction to benefit the San Juan Island Permanent Farmer’s Market project, I donated two cocktail classes and parties.  The concept was that the purchasers would select an era, and if they chose, dress in period clothing.  This last Sunday, I hosted the second of the parties, and it was a ton of fun.

As part of the festivities, I taught a short class on cocktail making fundamentals — the bare minimum one needs in order to mix any drink recipe found in a book, etc.  When to shake, when to stir.  Why the dilution from ice is critical to making a balanced cocktail.  How the various ingredients “work” to produce a tasty, balanced beverage.   And then I simply mixed good drinks for the rest of the evening, with food catered by Market Chef in Friday Harbor.

Each person attending also got a booklet which covered the basics of cocktail making, and a bit of cocktail history, in addition to the evening’s menu of cocktails (with short recipes).  I focused on the history of “martini-like” cocktails, beginning from combinations of Old Tom gin and italian vermouth in the mid-1800′s (e.g., Martinez), down through the transition to dry gin and dry vermouth, to the martini as we recognize it today.  Most of the information, of course, is derived from online sources and the incomparable book by David Wondrich, but it’s fun to have a nice summary.

I wanted to post the menu, for folks who were interested.  And, of course, to pique the interest of others who might want a similar party and class.  It goes to benefit a terrific cause — a permanent, year-round home for the farmer’s market on San Juan Island.  Whether you live up here or not, consider supporting the cause!

 

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Doctorow v. Johnson: iWhatevers versus Open Platforms and the Future of Computing

Apr 6, ’10 3:49 PM

This last weekend the first iPads shipped to early adopters in the general public, including me. Like many of us in the technology business, I’ve kept a weather eye on the first impressions of many folks on the web, and friends in the industry. Most of these reactions are the stuff of geek discussion, and not terribly enlightening either about the device and its potential future uses, or the direction in which our industry is moving.

But one exchange is worth analysis and our attention, whatever the details of the device and our first impressions. Cory Doctorow, open-source freedom fighter extraordinaire and speculative fiction author, published a widely discussed, negative essay concerning the very idea of the iPad. By now, you’ve probably read it, or seen the link. If you haven’t, you should.

Cory’s essential points are two (with apologies if I’m missing something serious). First, that open platforms (think Linux, Android, FreeBSD, etc) are structurally designed to foster innovation at minimal entry cost, and with minimum friction to the innovator, and minimal interference between the innovator and the eventual consumer of those innovations. Second, Doctorow argues that the justification everyone is citing for the closed system — “making computers easy for mainstream users” — is insulting to mainstream users.

Joel Johnson responds that Doctorow’s principal arguments miss the point. In particular, that openness and innovation are not causally linked to the extent that open-source and Linux advocates claim. That innovation will thrive on the “nearly closed” platforms like the iPad and iPhone.

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Do I still use that piece of software?

Feb 4, ’10 12:06 AM

Spending a few days bedridden with some nasty viral thing is giving me the unusual chance to spend time with my main laptop, but without the pressure to actually accomplish something (that would require lucidity and the ability to focus for more than a couple of minutes). A few minutes ago, I noticed an icon in my menu bar, and wondered “do I still need that piece of software?.” Heck, what does it do?

Of course I recognized the name, and that I’d been a user since their beta release, and I remembered renewing my license again this year, but what I couldn’t immediately remember was whether that software was still an integral part of keeping my information current, sync’d, backed up, etc. Basically, is it necessary, or is it cruft?

That’s a general problem these days, and arguably it’s a worse problem on the Mac platform than on Windows, though of course it exists there as well. It’s more of a problem because Microsoft tries to build more of this stuff into Windows itself and its major desktop/server suites. Apple leaves more of it to the ISV community.

And as I noted in a previous post, good Mac software can be had for twenty, forty or sixty bucks. So people, especially professionals and developers, have a tendency to buy new apps just to see if it’s a bit better than the previous generation. I’ve done that with notetaking software, outliners, todo list management, and a bewildering variety of synchronization, backup, and storage apps and utilities.

All of which means that my laptop consistently has more than one “appendix” running — part of the system but functionally useless because it’s not being used.

And all which contributes to complexity and difficulty in troubleshooting. When my contacts database suddenly is empty, or has three or four copies of every contact (both of which seem to happen to me), which link in the synchronization chain is responsible? Is it syncing Address Book to Google Contacts? Plaxo syncing with Address Book?

Ultimately, to manage all this complexity, we’re going to need to be able to map the information flow between applications, so I can ask the question and get an answer. Today, I have to sit down and check each app’s preferences and configuration, and sort of make a list of where things are flowing, and rebuild the picture every time something goes wrong.

In complex systems, just as much vital information is contained in the links between things, as in the things themselves…

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iWork for the iPad: Game changer for the software business

Jan 31, ’10 6:43 PM

Amidst all of the positive and negative opinion pieces and postings which followed Apple’s iPad announcement this week, the impact to software businesses are only starting to become apparent. I think Apple’s announcement that iWork pricing will be $9.99 per app is significant.

It’s game changing not for third-party ISVs already developing for the iPhone, since they’re used to charging 99 cents to a few bucks for an app. For Mac software developers like OmniGroup, it’ll be challenging. There is already a large Mac software ecosystem with apps priced in the $20 – $60 range. These ISV’s have continued to charge such prices even while iPhone app prices dropped a zero, because the difference in functionality and screen size between a Mac laptop and the iPhone is significant. The difference in what users can do is significant.

iWork on the iPad is a laptop/desktop experience, suitable for the vast majority of home and many business users. And yet Apple dropped a zero on the pricing, basically. With a presentation program, word processor, and spreadsheet available for $10 each, or $30 for the entire productivity suite, how will third party ISV’s charge $50 or $60 for an iPad version of their Mac software apps? Perhaps they can’t.

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Is it 10am yet?

Jan 27, ’10 4:33 PM

I’ll admit it.  I’m an Apple fan.  I didn’t actually need to say that out loud to most people I know.  I joke that I should just tithe a percentage of my income to Cupertino, and have them send me one of everything in return – a “hardware subscription.”

This morning, fingers crossed, we’ll learn more about the new “tablet” device.  The leaks have been accelerating for days, business partners ringing my iPhone constantly to tell me breaking news, and of course I’ve read all the non-news news purporting to describe authoritative leaks.

But none of it matters, because ultimately what we want to see is Steve, dressed in his usual black and white, stand onstage and give The Demo.  If you’re in the biz, The Demo is King.  The Demo is where you set expectations, destroy preconceived notions.  The Demo is where you win or lose, fundamentally.  Because before The Demo, the chessboard is empty.  The Demo is where you put your pieces down — not in the starting configuration, but hopefully in position to reach mate in the fewest moves possible.

If you’re Doug Englebart, giving the mother of all demos, you literally change the world by showing us the ragged bits that the rest of us will spend the next forty years making smooth and usable and real.  Everything that followed:  Dan Bricklin’s Visicalc, Alan Kay’s pioneering work, Steve and Steve with the Apple II, Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee and the Web, Netscape, Linus Torvalds…all of it the work of giants in our field…all of it playing out the possibilities inherent in that mother of all demos.

Steve Jobs consciously aims at game-changing demos:  the original iPhone demo was, as was OS X and the Intel transition.  I don’t know that today’s announcement will rise to that level, but I hope so.

I think our industry is getting tired of playing out the possibilities inherent in a forty-year-old demo.  It would be nice to have some new territory to explore.

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