Category: Literature & Books

iPad Thoughts

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I’m not sure if you’ve heard about the iPad.  Unless you’ve been under a rock, you can’t avoid the Apple madness.  I’m up in San Francisco this week and couldn’t help but feel the Apple riptide and get drawn into the hype.  So I watched the announcement and here are my thoughts

The iPad is super-duper slick.  I can see some great use-cases for it, such as:

  • If i was pitching a presentation to someone at a restaurant, in an elevator, or anywhere – the iPad would be a much better way to present the presentation than a laptop.  I could see it becoming a must-have for entrepreneurs
  • If i had kids and a family room with lots of people, having a family iPad that people use publicly would be great. Anyone in the family could us it in front of the TV or as the home iTunes download system for movies and TV shows that syncs with their AppleTV
  • Games. This could be one of the most sick gaming machines. It has the graphics, accelerometer, and connection needed to really be badass. I could see someone making a truly unique iPad gaming experience.

All these great ideas and reviews make me love the iPad but i’m not going to get one.  I’m not feeling it yet (not because of the video joke and jokes) and here’s why

  • i have an iPhone and i have a Macbook. I’m not feeling a huge need to have an iPad. If i did, i would want to replace my MacBook and i don’t think the iPad is powerful enough to be a replacement yet. I want all my songs on it (need more than 64 GB) and i want to run a browser and email at the same time. Until those happen, my laptop is vastly superior.
  • The A4 chip seems like a bad idea.  No way Apple is going to consistently be better than Intel or AMD at making low power chips.  Maybe they can now and early billions from it, but it can’t be a long-term solution
  • No camera bums me out.  I’m not sure but i think I’m going to want to take pics with the iPad. Maybe not but i like video skyping and i like taking random pics.  Give me a camera

If you know, you know that i feel that i’ve seen the future. I know what i want and where i want Apple to take me.  It’s this:

  • I want an iPhone device that has huge storage, enough for music (b/c i don’t see cloud music solution for another 5 years), and a fast enough processor that i can put all my files on it and use Google Docs and Dropbox for shared files
  • A portable keyboard and docked monitor so i can plug my phone into them and use it as a desktop computer when i’m at home or at work.
  • Over time, the files get saved more and more in the cloud and my phone become a portable processor, harddrive and network card.  That’s all

I saw with the iPad a keyboard doc and saw this future is coming.  It’s coming but slowly.  i can’t wait

Ebert’s Essays

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I’m reading Roger Ebert’s great essay about Making Out Is Its Own Reward and thinking to myself, “Ebert’s writing is the best kept secret on the Internet.”

Last week I read his article Nil By Mouth where he describes how it feels to not be able to eat following his throat surgery. He offers some great observations from religious to the social.  It’s an amazing essay and a must read for anyone who eats to appreciate what truly results from a meal. Hint: it’s not the food.  One passage:

One day in the hospital my brother-in-law Johnny Hammel and his wife Eunice came to visit. They are two of my favorite people. They’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, and know I’m not. I mention that because they interpreted my story in terms of their faith. I described my fantasies about root beer. I could smell it, taste it, feel it. I desired it. I said I’d remembered so clearly that day with my father for the first time in 60 years.

“You never thought about it before?” Johnny asked.

“Not once.”

“Could be, when the Lord took away your drinking, he gave you back that memory.”

Whether my higher power was the Lord or Cormac McCarthy, those were the words I needed to hear. And from that time I began to replace what I had lost with what I remembered. If I think I want an orange soda right now, it is after all only a desire. People have those all the time. For that matter, when I had the chance, when was the last time I held one of those tall Nehi glass bottles? I doubt I ever had one from a can.

In this latest essay Making Out Is Its Own Reward, Ebert provides a trip back in time to a period where America’s youth was held by all parts of society to the “3 foot rule” where when you’re with a girl/guy 3 of your 4 feet had to be on the floor. He discusses the impact it had on a poor professor who was a touch more liberal, what it meant for him and his life as a teenager in the 50’s, and how that relates to kids today.

The blog from Ebert is a treasure. Some article are solely focused on movies but regardless to topic the writing is fantastic. You get the sense that he’s willing to write about anything with honesty and care. I hope it continues as can’t wait to see what he writes next

My Moments of 2009

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2009 was a fun year.  I traveled to 42 cities, 4 countries and logged over 100k miles.  I also found time to stay at home and do stuff.  Looking back on the year, some things really stand out.  For instance:

  • Up’s tear-jerking silent vignette. With each new film, Pixar finds some way to top itself. The marvelous innovation inUp was the wordless sequence near the beginning, set to Michael Giacchino’s wistful score, depicting Carl and Ellie’s entire life together — including the sad fact that they can’t have children. Who else would dare to try that? And who but Pixar could pull it off so gracefully?
  • I Like This Song.  I started a little experiment in May of placing a good song i like every day to the blog ilikethissong.com.  At first it was easy because there were so many songs i was bursting to share.  But as the year wore on, i got more selective and paid more attention to what i was putting up.  The real treat, however, has been the followers of ILTS who have sent me new music and tunes.
  • The Android OS. I went to the largest mobile phone conference in the world last February and saw thousands of phones that were running Windows Mobile OS that was vastly inferior to the iPhone. I came away from there thinking that the iPhone was going to crush everyone for the next 10 years.  Luckily Google’s OS has grown up and is the real deal.  This is the year when the race for the future of mobile actually started
  • Brett Favre.  Say what you want about him, but for me he has transformed the Vikings from a team that drove me crazy to watch to a team to be proud of every week.  He was inspiring and regardless of how early we go out in the playoffs (i’m thinking first round) i’ll always remember this season because of him.
  • Zach Galifinakis and The Hangover.  Zach G. had slipeed under my radar until The Hangover which was this summer’s must-see movie.  I thought he made the film and i was even more delighted to see that his webepisodes of Between Two Ferns prove him a true comedic talent
  • Death of Old Media.  Magazines crumbled.  Newspapers folded.  Online usage soared.  People who were in the print business ran scared.  Some tried to adjust their print properties.  Others just wove a white flag.  It become evident this year that online is where the users are and if you’re not moving your media business there, you’re either going to downsize or disappear.  This was of personal interest to me as i spent lots of 2009 looking at the advertising piece of this at Buzz and looking at the opportunities this new world creates with Tobes.
  • In-N-Out burger.  I ate so much In-N-Out in 2009 that this could very well be the year of the Double-Double.  Thanks to JT, Pedro and JStreet for coming with me time after time after time.
  • eReaders / Kindle.  The Kindle came on strong this year and The Nook is looking like a solid competitor.  While neither may be long solutions with their closed formats, they have gained serious attention and sales.  I also read my first books on electronically this year and i can easily picture a future when books are primarily sold without paper.
  • Obama.  He came out of nowhere.  We were about to elect someone into the Presidency (Hilary) which would have had two families (Clinton’s and Bush’s) control the office for over 24 years.  THis was not the America i was down with and i was just about to write off the political system for good when Obama came along.  Sure, you can complain about different things he’s done in office thus far but he’s engaged me and he’s made me pay attention. I respect his reasoning.  That word, “hope,” is a strange one and it was a big part of 2009 for me due to him.
  • Avatar, Star Trek and Sci-Fi. This year was an incredible year for sci-fi. I thought Star Trek was awesome, the little indie flick District 9 was refreshing and extremely well done, and of course James Cameron’s epic, Avatar – the film that needed new technology just to complete it – rocked the end of the year. These films showed that sci-fi is alive and kicking and isn’t some little repetitive genre reserved for geeks and nerds.
  • A Personal Stream of Information From Friends.  Before 2009, my RSS feed dominated my web browsing experience.  Twitter and Facebook worked their tail off in ’09 to change the web landscape.  Their impact has been incredible.  The personal stream of information is how many people are now receiving their news and media.  What this means is that the web (and possibly life) won’t ever be the same.  I can’t wait to see where it leads
  • D Wood.  Last and most importantly it’s D. Say what you will about LA but it brought me to Diane and more than anything it will be a year remembered as the year i met her.  That one little meeting has changed everything.

Happy 2009 everyone. It’s been a fantastic year and I wish you all the best in 2010.

Another Option for Your Attention

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TranquilThe world is changing. It is getting smaller, faster, smarter and more accessible. What’s crazy is that some people are bitching that all this technology and change is a bad thing. “Nobody reads anymore” i heard someone say the other day. I do believe that habits are changing due to technology. Mobile phones make it easier to tune out conversations and to not memorize phone numbers. The internet rewards and feeds a short attention span. The question i ask myself is “is this a bad thing?” Chuck Klosterman in his latest book has a whole chapter dedicated to explaining why technology is a bad thing (my thoughts). By i believe he’s equating different to harmful. I recently read this blog post by Steven Johnson where he states:

I think of our present situation as somewhat analogous to the mass migration from the country to the city that started several centuries ago in Europe: the bustle and stimulation and diversity of urban life made it harder to enjoy the slower, organic pleasures of rural living. Still those pleasures didn’t disappear. People continue to cherish them in mass numbers to this day.

I believe this wholeheartedly. Urban life totally disrupted the traditional calm of country life. Today there are plenty who prefer the hustle of the city and many others who prefer to keep it calm in the country. I fully appreciate both. However, i have no patience for people who bash city life (ask my sister about how i attacked her when she started ripping NYC).  Large city culture is unique and can be exhilarating, stimulating and inspiring. But it’s existence doesn’t preclude living in the country – just like the internet and technology doesn’t have to render reading and concentrating in large doses obsolete. Don’t fear the change, just recognize it for what it is: another option for your attention.

Don’t Eat The Dinosaur

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I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman’s latest book, Eating the Dinosaur and i didn’t like it. Before i get into why i didn’t like it, i do want to say that i thought his essays
about Kurt Cobain (Oh, the Guilt) and Garth Brooks (The Passion of Garth) to be really interesting. Also, the Time eating_the_dinosaur_lMachine and Abba essays were okay. I then had somewhat of a problem with the rest. I have 4 main reasons.

The first and main reason i didn’t like the book is this: Chuck writes about what he’s interested in. His past books were about Rock N Roll, Reality TV, Billy Joel, Dixie Chicks and other things. They had an interesting take on items i liked and were very familiar with. These essays expanded my thinking on these topics. For example, i had never realized that the Dixie Chicks were that similar to 80’s Van Halen, nor had i thought about how Billy Joels was a unique kind of cool different than almost all other rock stars (on a coolness range from white to black, he’s an orange). Also, past essays celebrated both the subjects and the concepts. The current essays are about philosophical views on the world. He asks questions and makes statements about society such as,

  • Why we like or hate people who fail
  • Why we interact with popular advertising in the manner we do
  • Why Chuck hates laugh tracks in TV shows and america’s approach to humor
  • Why NFL Football is great
  • Why watching people (voyeurism) is exciting: (because there’s a possibility for anything to happen)

These are the topics of this book and they are just nowhere close to as interesting as his previous topics. His book of interviews, IV, had a great interview with Val Kilmer. Nothing here touches that.

klosterman_chuck

Reason number 2 for not liking this book is that there are lots of quotes in the book. For some reason my Kindle never shows who says these quotes. That makes them WAY less interesting and just frustrating. Don’t read this book on a kindle.

My third reason is that I didn’t like the prose. I think i know why this is. I’ve tracked down Kloserman on podcasts and now seen him speak twice. I know what he sounds like in person. So much so that i now hear his voice talking when i read his text. Do you know when you notice someone is saying the word “like” too much and all of the sudden you find yourself pay attention to them actually say the work “like” over and over instead of whatever it is they are trying to say? Well, this happens with me and Chuck. He uses the words “idiom’ and italicizes his word “must” and i can hear his emphasis. It bothers me. Maybe i’ve just read too much of his stuff.

Finally, the last essay in the book is about his dislike of technology and I completely disagree with his opinion regarding the Internet. He has a part in the book where he criticizes anyone who publicly praises the internet because he argues they only like it because it now makes them relevant. He says,”the only people who insist the internet is wonderful are those who need it to give the life meaning.” I can’t begin to say how wrong that stance is.

At the end, Klosterman comes off as a guy who is just bitter that the world is changing. He reminds me of people who refuse to watch television, won’t own cell phones and only listen to music on vinyl. Grow up.

In-N-Out Burger

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In N Out
Image by pescatello via Flickr

Just finished reading the book In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perlman about the creation of the iconic burger joint. The book has some great stories about the original founders. The husband/wife team Ester and Harry Snyder worked tirelessly and with lots of integrity to create a burger joint focused on “doing one thing an doing it better than anyone else”

The book begins when they founded the company in 1950 and the depiction of that time in LA was really interesting to learn about. The automobile was just coming on the scene and fast food restaurants were just starting. LA was a hotbed for them. In-N-Out, McDonald’s, Carls Jr, Taco Bell an others all started around the same time in the LA area. Los Angeles at that time was the Silicon Valley of fast food in the 50’s  There was a hype and boom around it and it was making many food entrepreneurs millionaires.

From the beginning In-N-Out wanted to be a place that was family owned and run. Harry and Ester continually turned away offers to sell, expand quickly or even change the scope of the business. Whether it was stubbornness or not, staying small and focused was Harry’s belief and it helped shape a truly unique restaurant that has – relative to other burger joints – healthier, better tasting burgers and a friendlier and cleaner environment all at a low price.

The book is also very much a out the Synder family – the dad, mom, 2 brothers, and granddaughter. Over 60 years of operation each one of these family members eventually ran the entire company. Harry was the main entrepreneur who built the core. When he died, he gave it to his youngest son who was equally talented and capable and built it up to be most like what it is today.  When he died, the oldest son stepped in.  He struggled with drug use and 6 years after taking over died from drug complications. After that, Harry’s wife, Ester, at age 82 took over again until her granddaughter was able to assume control.

The beginning is a great tale of growth and success, the middle is an interesting story of politics and growing pains, and the end is sort of tragic as the youngest Snyder (Lyndsi) is far from the dynamic inspiration of Harry nor nearly as competent.

I happy to have read the book and learn about In-N-Out’s secret sauce. If Harry, Ester or his son rich were still running the show I would bend I’ve backwards to eat there. But knowing that the company is now in somewhat incompetent and undeserving hands makes me believe that it’s only a matter of time before they chain tries to overexpand, maximize profits and become more of the same rather that a unique place with a special culture. Sure hope that doesn’t happen too soon

Some interesting facts:

  • In the 1950’s car hops were all the craze. In 1949 Harry built a two-way speaker system that allowed people to order their burger on the way in and pick it up on their way out in a fast, streamlined process.  While Wendy’s claimed to have invented the drive-thru in 1973, In-N-Out used it right off the bat for over 20 years prior to that
  • The entire chain lived by Harry’s quote: “Keep it simple, do one thing and do it the best you can”
  • Harry felt he had to own the entire process on how to make beef patties and deliver to stores on daily basis.  What you won’t see in an In-N-Out are: freezers, infrared lights. or microwaves
  • There’s a secret menu: the term, “animal style” came from the 60’s when the surfing community ordered the burgers with special sause.  The other customers who wanted the sause started calling it “animal style” as they viewed the surfers as animals.  Protein style. Lots think it came with the atlkins craze. But it came in the 70’s when the founder (harry) started eating burgers without the bun to try to lose weight.
  • Harry always paid his employees way over minimum wage.  In 1950, min wage was 60 cents and he started everyone at $1
  • Harry and Ester didn’t want to expand to more stores but their employees wanted more shifts.  Harry finally agreed to expand if he could staff an entire store with current employees and pay for it all in cash
  • Every store opened is completely paid for – there is no debt
  • LA is the birth place of fast-food and burgers.  Right by Baldwin Park in San Bernardino Valley, McDonalds opened it’s first store in 1948.  Similarly, Carl’s Jr started in 1945 and Fatburger in 1952 in LA
  • Ray Kroc, who is credited for building the McDonald’s empire actually approached 4 other chains before the McDonald’s founders decided to sell exclusive franchise rights to him.   In-N-Out was one of the 4.  Harry declined almost immediately.  At that time, many people were getting quite rich by starting fast food chains and franchising them.  Harry felt lots of pressure to do the same.  You can imagine how every one in your industry is doing something one way and you feel like doing the completely opposite.  While he could have definitely made more money franchising, he has created a cult and beloved brand by doing the opposite.
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Kindle vs. Nook

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I just got a Kindle for my birthday about a week ago and have really loved reading on it. I think digital books could change how i read and the amount i read in a great way.

I was bummed however, to read of the new Barnes & Noble Nook not because it’s bad but because of what it represents.173939-bn_nook_reader_180

The hardware of the Nook is better: It has expandable storage slot, it has wifi and it has a touch screen instead of a keyboard which means it’s more flexible for future functionality.

I now have library concerns. The Nook can take not only B&N’s eBooks but also Google’s and PDF’s.  While i’m not one to compare book counts, i am worried about my eBook library.  When i buy a book i want to own it forever.  I don’t want it attached to the device i have at that time.  Think of how bad it would be if the music you had was tied to your iPod.  Every time you got a new iPod, you could only put new music on it.   Granted, it’s not a great analogy because you listen to music over and over and you typically read a book only once.  But i think you see my point.

Vinyl vs. Books.  What i think could happen with me is that my book purchasing starts to look like how many music lovers purchase vinyl.  These people consume music digitally, through mp3’s, but for bands they really love they like to have the physical product – thus they purchase the vinyl record.  I could see myself doing this with books.  I read them all digitally and for authors/books that i really like, i’ll actually pay a premium and buy the physical copy.  Ideally i would like to have a format (like mp3) where i could save every book in and keep them all on a harddrive.

The Nook has sharing capabilities.  With the Nook you can send a book to a friend for 14 days.  This is nice but not a big deal for me.  What i want is the ability to share sections of the book to the web.  I want to post passages to my blog and i want to send to Facebook and twitter sentences that i enjoy.  I don’t see anyone allowing this and it’s troubling.  I want to be able to do much more with digital books then i could with the actual book. That’s why the mp3 is so much more powerful than the CD and that’s why the eBook could be much better than the book

Anyone else had similar concerns with their kindle?

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The Music Business and Days of Radio

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I’m reading the book Free by Chris Anderson on my iPhone Kindle.  It’s the only book i have on it – and i got it because it was free.  It’s actually turning out to be a good read and having it on my phone allows me to read it when i normally wouldn’t read anything (subway rides, waiting in lines, etc.)

radioaniIn the book there’s a good passage about the music business and radio.  In the late 1930’s, radio was emerging as a popular entertainment format but also one that made a mess of the old ways of paying musicians.  At the time most radio broadcasts were live, and the musicians and composers were paid for a single performance but to musicians and composers payment for a single radio performance alone did not seem fair when that one performance was being received by millions of listeners.  To them, if those millions were packed into one concert hall, the musicians share of the receipts would have been huge.

Broadcasters argued that it was impossible to pay licensing fees based on how many listeners tuned in b/c no one knew what that number was.  But ASCAP, which had a near-monopoly on the most popular artists, made the rules and insisted on royalties of 3 to 5 percent of a station’s gross advertising revenues in exchange for the right to play music – and it threatened to raise the rate in 1940 when the contract expired. Whoa.

Understandably, radio stations were pissed and took matters into their own hands and cut live performances entirely.  Recording technology was improving and more and more stations began playing these new things called “records” instead.  Music labels responded by selling records stamped with “NOT LICENSED FOR RADIO BROADCAST” but in 1940 the Supreme Court decided that radio stations could play any record they had purchased.

So ASCAP convinced its most prominent members (including Bing Crosby) to stop making recordings.   Let me repeat that, ASCAP convinced artists to stop making music because of how it was being distributed.  Amazing.

With a shrinking pool of music to play and a crappy deal on the table by ASCAP, the broadcasters struck out and formed their own royalty agency called Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) which had much better terms.  At first it was a magnet for regional musicians such as R&B or Country artists who were usually neglected by New York-based ASCAP.  Because these musicians wanted exposure more than money they agreed to let radio stations play their music for free – and thus business model for charging radio stations to pay a fortune for music collapsed. ASCAP never regained the right to get large royalties.

The irony is large is amazing.  Worried about a bad business model, ASCAP’s bad terms practically drove free music into the radio stations.  A free inferior version of music (radio) turned out to be a great marketer for the paid version.

Similarly today, free music on the web is driving more and more people to concerts. Music consumption continues to rise but record labels are collapsing.   You’d think today’s issues are unique but you only have to look back 80 years to see what we continue to repeat history.

The deal with Google buying reCaptcha

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Google 收购 reCAPTCHA
Image by Fenng(dbanotes) via Flickr

I had no idea why Google would buy a company, reCaptcha, that does captchas. For those of you who don’t know, captchas are the little squiggly text that people enter to prove they are human. The word “captcha” actually stands for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

With these things are all over the internet, why would Google buy this specific company? I found out a few reasons. First, they are the original gangsters – it turns out the guy who invented captchas is the founder of reCaptcha. Second, they way they do the captcha words is quite innovative. Check this out: reCAPTCHA takes scans from newsclippings, articles and old books that can’t be read by machines (because they are scans) then feeds them to humans in a captcha one at a time with other words that it knows. The user then enters both words. The word that reCAPTCHA knows is tested – if correct, it now learns an additional word to use on other challenges. This is how they build up their database of words from scans.

Google has for the past 6 years been scanning books like crazy. They have millions of books scanned. What they don’t have is text of those books available to be searched. The thought is that if you use captchas to surface all the words of those books one at a time, this will enable a massive crowdsourcing project to build a database of literature. Very interesting experiment. I never really hear of such clever business development deals. I love it.

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Getting Beyond ‘Z’

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Was reading The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine the other day and it had some great quotes from Theodor Geisel, a prominent alum and extremely successful author under the name Dr. Seuss.

dr_seussWhile at Dartmouth, Theodor was editor of Dartmouth’s comedy magazine called The Jacko. That is  until he got caught drinking on Easter eve and got kicked out.  By his fraternity (Caste and Gauntlet) he was voted least likely to succeed and he graduated with a 2.4 in 1925.  Given all that he managed to go out and sell  more than 222 million books (66 titles).  That’s pretty amazing

Here are some good quotes:

My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It’s the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-matuzz. You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond ‘Z’ and start poking around

Nonesense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack

If you sat 50 years with your worms and your wishes, you’d grow a long beard before you catch fishes

I’d like to get beyond Z soon. It sounds like a good place to be.

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