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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, August 31, 2004
The Screen
Went to see the new iMac this morning, and chatted about it with that shaven-headed shy Brit, Jonathan Ive, the rock star of computer design. Ive is the ultimate minimalist, and the new screen -- I don't think we'll be calling them "computers" for much longer -- is nice and clean, like a very large iPod. Now if only Apple can create supply that matches demand for once, they might actually gain some market share out of this.
Pas de Playa
No Burning Man for me this year. I've been for five straight years, and it's got to the point where there's barely anything I own that doesn't have tenacious specks of playa dust stuck to it somewhere. Love the event, love the people, love the art, hate the desert. I'll be back next year. In the meantime, I'm getting my Black Rock City fix by reading Brian Doherty's excellent history, This is Burning Man. The author showed up on Forum along with Burning Man creator Larry Harvey a week or so back; the audio is here.
Speaking of Burning Man books, I notice our very own Drama in the Desert is still going strong on Amazon. We've got the 5,149th bestselling book in the country. Woo hoo!
Maybe I'm a Different Chris Taylor
"Nice shoutout on BoingBoing today," writes my old pal Josh, editor of Business 2.0. "I'm impressed."
Huh?
"Maybe it was a different Chris Taylor."
I frantically scan BoingBoing, but can't see my name anywhere.
"Did you or have you ever used Alphaware?"
Ah, I see what he's talking about. It's this item about the AlphaSmart keyboard. "Chris Taylor points out that AlphaSmart has a model that supports memory card," it says in an update at the end.
Now I'm worried. Cory Doctorow, last time I spoke to him, said he was moving to London. Is this some other British Chris Taylor I don't know about? What doppelganging mischief is this? Hey, wait a minute ... that's a pretty sweet keyboard. You take it around with you, type stuff in the tiny LCD screen at the top, then sync it up with your PC or Mac next time you get back to the office. I could write my novel without getting distracted by all the other pretty things on my laptop, and do it out on the deck without having to worry about screen glare.
I go to the website, click on contact us, call the PR person. She's at her desk, very nice, wants to help, goes off to see if they have any spare keyboards lying around. Two minutes later I've got a review unit on the way, due Thursday.
"Hmm," says Josh. "Somehow I see the Big Hand in this correspondence. Cory notes it, I see "your name," alert you and you review it in TIME and the guy behind it makes a zillion dollars."
"Synchronicity," I say.
Daily Blah for... Monday, August 30, 2004
The Coughing Spires
Yikes! My alma mater Oxford has the most polluted air in the UK -- its levels of noxious nitrates being the equivalent to 31 cigarettes per day, which is only slightly more than most students smoke during Finals. So much for my occasional daydream of moving back to the city of dreaming spires. London is better, but only by a couple of cigarettes. And New York, my home for the last four years of the 20th century? Fuggedaboutit. As if the stench of urine-soaked subways weren't enough, prevailing winds in the US blow from west to east -- meaning dear old NYC gets the air pollution of an entire continent, not to mention New Jersey, dumped on its doorsteps. The San Francisco fog may make June and July a bit of a bust, but at least it's from good clean Pacific stock. I used to think my life was on a boomerang trajectory; then again, I like breathing clean air. Call me a nitpicker.
Daily Blah for... Friday, August 27, 2004
How to Fix the World
While we're on the subject of Jon Stewart, my friend Julia just sent me his recent commencement address at William and Mary college in Williamsburg. It's everything you'd expect from America's favorite fake news anchor (who informs us that he is too valuable to live his own life himself, and is actually kept in a vegetable crisper to stay fake-anchor fresh). I especially enjoyed his apology, from his generation to the next, for breaking the world:
I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize.
But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this—and I believe you can—you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up, you outdid us.
We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, August 26, 2004
Kerry Comedy
Anyone who didn't see it already ought to watch John Kerry and Jon Stewart go head to head on the Daily Show last Tuesday. Stewart, who to my mind has become one of the best journalists working in America today (because, as the court jester, he gets to expose hypocrisy in ways the courtiers can't), has already scored surreal interviews with Bill Clinton and John Edwards. And on last night's show he was hectoring RNC chair Ed Gillespie for a moment or two with the boss. "He can bring Laura and the twins," said Stewart. "The couch folds out."
But the Kerry interview could well become the defining moment of the '04 campaign; the equivalent of Clinton playing the sax on Arsenio Hall. Slate reviewer Dana Stevens believes Kerry tanked. I think he came across as more calm and confident than ever; at once able to poke fun at himself and project an air of Commander-in-Chief-ness. He's no comedian, and he wisely stepped out of the way while Stewart handled that side of things. But don't listen to me. Watch it and make up your own mind.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Words Make Pictures
We've had googlewhacking, google bombing, and now here comes Toogle. I can't describe it -- you'll just have to check it out for yourself. All I can say is, I'm glad there are still web designers out there making such uselessly beautiful boondoggles. Or should that be boongoogles?
Daily Blah for... Monday, August 23, 2004
A More Fair Olympics
All you Yanks sitting smugly at home in front of the Olympics, secure in the size of your medals total -- we're no. 1! -- consider this. Of course you're number one -- not only are you the richest country on Earth, you also have more than 250 million people. But what if we broke down the medals totals by head of population? Then the top of the table looks rather different:
Total medals per million population
(Rank, Country, Gold, Silver, Bronze, medals per Million)
1 AUSTRALIA 13 9 13 1.7597
2 SLOVENIA 0 1 2 1.5275
3 ESTONIA 0 1 1 1.4815
4 DENMARK 1 0 5 1.1138
Where's the UK? Number 25. Where's the US? Sadly, all the way down at number 38, below Zimbabwe, Eritrea, and -- most galling of all -- Japan.
A Cottage of One's Own
Greetings from the Columbia Cottage guest house in beautiful Vancouver, to which P and I have repaired for the weekend. And we lucked out -- there isn't another single soul who chose to stay here at the same time. For the price of a room, we've got the place to ourselves. It's every bit as beautiful as the pictures suggest. Dee, our landlady, is delightful, British, and cooks great breakfasts. What more could anyone ask for?
Daily Blah for... Thursday, August 19, 2004
Something Good on TV
Went to a talk at Fort Mason last Friday; another counterintuitive special brought to you by those forward-thinking folks at the Long Now Foundation. The subject of the talk was the threat of global depopulation. Yes, you read that right: according to Philip Longman, author of The Empty Cradle, our numbers are going to continue to grow like those of rabbits for another sixteen years or so before the trend reverses. The world population is going to shrink, and grow older, and Longman spent a good deal of time elucidating why that's a Bad Thing. I didn't necessarily agree, more on which later. But first, what is the cause of this calumny? For what will we stop fornicating ourselves into overpopulated oblivion? Two letters: T and V. When television moves wholesale into any developing country, Longman demonstrated, the birth rate plummets. People stop having children and start clustering like children -- round the tube. For much of the third world today, staring at soap operas is preferable to livin' la vida ninos. People on TV are just as beautiful to look at as babies, they don't leave as much mess, and you've actually got a volume control.
As I said, Longman believes this is a harbinger of global doom (you pretty much have to believe that about any theory these days just to make it into print). He thinks the young urban professional ought to be encouraged to have more kids again, which led to the whispered joke that there would be a party immediately afterwards in the parking lot. Longman says the future elderly -- that is, those of my generation who live this long -- are going to leave a rapacious trail across the Earth in search of ever more thrilling entertainment, ever larger SUVs and ever more cardboard-like Big Macs. Gee, sorry, mister. We didn't do it yet. Where I don't follow Longman's logic is in what way is it going to help if we have more kids if those kids, enamored with all the freedom a global economy can give them, go out and do the same thing?
Longman seemed to be missing the main point, however. After he had mentioned that Mormons and right-wing fundamentalists were going to increase their numbers -- because they're more likely to have kids for religious reasons -- he got a question from the audience: "has anyone figured out a way to make TV shows that appeal to conservatives?" It's a fair question, and one that makes me glad after seeing Outfoxed. As horrific as Rupert Murdoch's assault on journalism is, at least it's helping to dam the flow of right-wing babies.
To quote the great sage Homer Simpson: "Television. Is there anything you can't do?"
God and Politics
A little housekeeping to take care of today. I've got a line of potential Blah entries lining up, waiting to be born. First off, journalism. Everyone should go read Lessley's cover story in this week's SF Weekly. It's about an appropriately mad scientist-artist called Jonathon Keats, who is currently trying to pin down the evolutionary location of God by broadcasting prayer tapes at fruit flies. We had drinks with the guy on Tuesday, and a more interesting fruit fly-observer you could not hope to meet.
Secondly, here's what all that --ahem -- research last week netted:
Could Bill Clinton Beat Abe Lincoln?
The first video game to mimic a presidential election
By CHRIS TAYLOR
Say campaign to a computer-game addict, and he's more likely to think Alien vs. Predator than Kerry vs. Bush. But that may be about to change as The Political Machine (Ubisoft), the first major PC game to mimic a presidential election, hits store shelves this week. You get to play either of this year's presidential contenders or just about any fantasy matchup imaginable. How might Hillary Clinton fare against Arnold Schwarzenegger? Or Thomas Jefferson vs. Abraham Lincoln? Designer Brad Wardell based the game on real polling data from red and blue states, intending to make the playing field as balanced as it is in real life. "Most people have made their minds up already this year, and a game is one way of getting their frustrations out about the race," he says.
As you fly your candidate around the country, you need to raise money, seek endorsements from semifictional groups like the Civil Liberty Union and the Gun Owner's Association and take positions on real issues, from Social Security to the war in Iraq. You get help from spin doctors, war heroes and a video-camera-wielding "kook" who looks suspiciously like Michael Moore. You have to manage the media too — by answering softball questions on Barry King Live or risking a roasting on The O'Malley Scenario. There's enough here to keep political junkies happy until the real game wraps up in November.
From the Aug. 23, 2004 issue of TIME magazine
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Rat Pack at the Gay Way
Special prize for illiterate political commentary this week goes to "Marc Troy," the pen name of one L. Troy Prevolos of Wawona Street, San Francisco, who sent me the following screed. It's rather nicely laid out, with a Greek bust atop a clip-art plinth running down the side of the text. If you hold it at arms length, squint, and try to ignore the exclamation points, you could almost imagine its author was sane. "Has San Francisco's Young Mayor Become just a "Social Photo-Fop?", reads the headline. The phrase "social photo-fop" is underlined, presumably to aid readers unfamiliar with the concept of pun-based neologisms. In regular type, he continues:
Keep it in the family of friends, jump on the gay-way theme super train to notoreity-swapping; job swapping political maneuvering smacks of old time religious politics! The 'photo-op' Mayor has gone from Tenderloin street cleaning photo-ops to fashion magazine model poser, draped amidst his lengthly [sic] leggy wife which is more tabloid substance than for San Francisco's interest and well-being!
At this point I had to admit my ignorance on several fronts. I've no idea what "gay-way theme super train" is, but it sounds like a great name for a Castro club. Nor am I too familiar with "notoriety-swapping." Is that what the kids are doing these days? Throwing their notoriety in a punch bowl at the end of a party, then picking out someone else's? Damn, that'd advanced. In my day, if you were notorious, you pretty much had to stay the same kind of notorious. And yes, I've seen the photo of Gavin and Kimberly reclining on the Getty's rug, but no publication I've seen has yet dared print a picture of the Mayor "draped amidst" his wife. Sounds like a job for Larry Flynt.
The argument can get a little dense, so overleaf Mr. Troy helpfully digests it into eight numbered points. Point one: "The man is simply caught up on the Youth Rat Pack Mentality." Again, my ignorance overwhelms me. Has there been some kind of Rat Pack revival, perhaps with Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams in the Dean and Frank roles? Dammit, I miss everything. Somebody let me know when they're playing Gay Way Super Theme Train.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, August 14, 2004
Beating Republicans for Fun and Profit
Good thing my editors accepted my suggestion to write a review of The Political Machine, otherwise most of my in-depth research this week would have been nothing more than goofing off. I haven't been this utterly engrossed in a computer game since Civilization. I started with a Kerry vs. Bush contest --playing as Kerry, naturally -- and got roundly trounced after accidentally leaving Kerry stranded in North Dakota without enough money to fly out. Bush was flying around all the high-population states, launching ads, giving speeches, winning endorsements. I was holding fundraiser after fundraiser in Fargo, none of them sufficient to cover the candidate's sizeable plane fare. Flying economy, apparently, is not an option.
After that, the gloves were off. I started the campaign game, in which I faced a variety of Republican opponents, each one tougher than the last. I annihilated Condi Rice by painting her as soft on terror. I beat Schwarzenegger everywhere -- including California -- with a blizzard of negative ads. I spent most of my time collecting checks, and practically no time making speeches. William Howard Taft and Gerald Ford were mincemeat. Only when I ran up against Nixon did I find an opponent impossible to beat, even on repeated tries. Tricky Dick has California locked down from the start, and he wins so many endorsements and raises so much money so fast, it's hard not to suspect him of cheating. Did the virtual Nixon hire computerized plumbers to hack into the game somehow? Where's the Woodward & Bernstein button on this thing?
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Koko Pops
I don't know what I love so much about this AP story on Koko the gorilla, even two days after it came out. I knew Koko did sign language, and I'd heard she'd been able to ask for a dentist. All very amazing, and heartwarming. But the AP story has lots of other tidbits, like the fact that she has a DVD player. A DVD player! Some of my friends don't have DVD players. My parents don't even have a DVD player. What the hell is Koko doing with a DVD player? Does she also have a Netflix subscription? Does she pick up a $3.99 copy of Rush Hour while in line at Walgreens? Or is she more a Citizen Kane kind of gorilla?
Or how about the bit with the pain chart, on which she was asked to point to numbers between one and ten for how bad her teeth were hurting. What was she supposed to do if she wanted to say, in jest but also in metaphorical importance, eleven? Grab the chart and eat it?
No, Koko prefers lighter fare. This is my favorite part, when she meets her dental specialists:
Koko, who plays favorites, indicated that one woman, wearing red, should come closer. The woman handed her a business card, which Koko promptly ate.
I love that: business card as aperitif. I now plan to do that the next time some PR drone introduces herself at a corporate dinner. Just to see if I can get a rise.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The Politics of Doom
Got my copy of Doom 3 yesterday, and dove right in. Sure, I can appreciate the immersive quality of it, the uber-moody lighting, the heart-stopping ghostly enemy. And it's fun just wandering around Mars at the start of the game, watching a ten-minute long space news segment on a TV in the rec room, for instance, or walking up to an arcade terminal called "Super Turkey Puncher 7", which does exactly what it sounds like. I live for little details like that. But on the whole, being in a scary movie with a variety of weaponry -- which, ultimately, is what the entire Doom genre is all about -- isn't really my thing.
Here's what got me jazzed today: the prospect of playing The Political Machine, a new game out from Ubisoft. You get to play campaign manager to Bush, Kerry or a variety of historical and fantasy candidates. It's a strategy game with a friendly cartoon feel, but the game engine underneath is based on rock-solid polling data from the last four years. The major hurdle in the game, as in real life: taking a position on a contentious issue will help you in some states but hurt you in others, and flip-flopping will hurt you even more. You can help your image by appearing on "Barry King Live" or "The O'Maley Scenario", but watch out for hecklers, kooks, and smear merchants.
This is catnip to a political junkie like me. I can think of nothing better to get rid of the frustrating feeling of being a mere spectator to the most important election of our lifetimes; of not being able to do anything between now and November. Short of joining a campaign, moving to Ohio and registering voters, that is.
Daily Blah for... Monday, August 09, 2004
Poet of Procrastination
I just finished reading my second Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence. My first experience of Dyer was his most recent book, Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It, a rambling travelogue that kept me giggling on various forms of transportation all the way from Liverpool to Berlin. Rage is all about his half-assed attempts to write a study of Lawrence, and what they're both about is his inability to sit still, to focus, to concentrate, to experience anything without an anxiety attack and a sudden desire to sit in a darkened room watching telly. Dyer comes across as extraordinarily honest writer, the most honest I've ever read, and what he is most honest about is how bad a writer he is, which by some inexplicable transmogrification --the kind that makes even my most jaded self marvel at the power of this craft I chose -- turns him into a good writer.
Sure, there's a little protesting too much going on. Dyer is a good writer; he has an ear for rhythm, an eye for the beautiful minutae of life and a nose for comedy. He's extremely well-read, sometimes stooping to the snobbish habit of identifying authors on their first appearance by their last name only, as if we must all know who they are. Most of all, he's suspiciously unafraid to tackle his darkest moments in the most self-deprecating light. So what does he really suck at? Research. Research and discipline. He takes a hefty volume of Lawrence on vacation to a Greek isle, and wastes no time in sitting down to read the collected letters of Rilke (that's Rainer Maria to you). If there is the slightest crack of light in the gloomy prison of the task he has appointed himself -- no matter how necessary or desired that task is -- Dyer will escape through it, then spend the next page or so in anguished and highly amusing guilt. He is the best poet we have of that very modern malaise, procrastination. Most of the laughs were, for me, cathartic ones. And amazingly, I had the desire to write about it straight away. Thanks, Geoff.
Daily Blah for... Friday, August 06, 2004
W is as W does
Will Ferrell does a great job impersonating W for this lovely little ACT ad. Nice try, Will. But I'm afraid the W impersonation of the month award once again goes to W himself, who came out with this doozy on the campaign trail yesterday. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful - and so are we," he told Pentagon officials, adding: "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we." According to the AP, "no one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted to the mistake." What, not even a roll of the eyes and a gently whispered 'there he goes again'? Are you people even listening? Are you reading the text of the oath required to hear him speak on the campaign trail -- "I herby [sic] endorse George W Bush for the United States [sic]"? Has illiteracy finally taken hold on the right, or is it true that absolutely anything could come out of his mouth at this stage and you just wouldn't care? Can you say 'puppet', children?
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Phishing Expedition
My friend Christine sent me this. It's a quiz her company, Mailfrontier, put together to see if you can spot a phishing fraud. Phishing, in case you don't know, is the collective name for all those fake emails -- supposedly from Paypal, Hotmail or the like -- that try to fool you into giving your credit card details to the phisher's website. The idea is to spot which one of these mails is a fraud, and which legitimate. I only got 8 out of 10 right. See if you can do better.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, August 01, 2004
Be Afraid. Be Vaguely Afraid.
Still not even slightly worried about imminent, inevitable, indeterminate terror attacks? Perhaps you need help from Britain's new Department of Vague Paranoia.
Thanks, Ruth!
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