Author Archives: Steve Mays

Somebody else said it better

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In a month this blog will be 9 years old. Should be very close to 5,000 posts by then. My friend George has been following along for the last several years and he says the blog has changed. He says I’m much more likely to post a line or two followed by a block quote from some other source. Or a video. Or a photo. George is of the opinion that I used to write longer, original pieces. I’m not sure he’s correct and it would just take some time to check but I’m willing to stipulate that he is right. So, why the change?

  • I’m less sure of my opinions. And, more importantly, feel less need to share them or -thank god- be “right.” I’m pretty sure I would be unable to pass Scott Adams’ “Ignorance Test” on a lot of subjects I’ve expressed opinions on. Oh, and it has finally sunk in that almost nobody really cares what somebody else thinks.
  • More (better?) places to share thoughts/links. When I started this blog in February of 2002, there was no Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Posterous, etc. A lot of the links and block quotes that used to land here, are shared somewhere else.
  • Somebody else said it better. I think this is the Big One. I read more (and more varied) stuff now than at any other time in my life. The web has exposed me to an almost infinite variety of ideas and perspectives. From people who CAN pass the Ignorance Test. Who DO know what they’re talking about. And who express themselves clearly and powerfully. So, if there’s an idea that I think is worth sharing, I link to them with an excerpt to pique your interest.

George is right. smays.com has become more about aggregation and curation. Maybe a little like my personal card catalogue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back here to find a quote or a video or reference that would otherwise be lost (to me) forever.

Tiny projector for iPhone/iPad

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Tom Piper demos Laser Pico Projector. A little pricey at $450 but a cool gadget. Just not sure if/when/where I would use it. If the setting is cozy enough for this wee projector, why wouldn’t I just use my laptop or iPad? If I didn’t have those with me, however, the projector (almost exactly same size as iPhone) fits easily in my pocket. What do you think?

The State, the Press and Hyperdemocracy

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“Information flow is corrosive to institutions, whether that’s a record label or a state ministry. To function in a hyperconnected world, states must hyperconnect, but every point of connection becomes a gap through which the state’s power leaks away.”

“Script kiddies everywhere now have a role model. Like it or not, they will create these systems, they will share what they’ve learned, they will build the apparatus that makes the state as we have known it increasingly ineffectual and irrelevant. Nothing can be done about that. This has already happened.”

Mark Pesce is one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality and works as a writer, researcher and teacher. You can read the full article here.

What will 2011 bring for journalism?

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“…syndication makes little sense in a world with URLs. When news outlets were segmented by geography, having live human beings sitting around in ten thousand separate markets deciding which stories to pull off the wire was a service. Now it’s just a cost.”

“Giving credit where credit is due will reward original work, whether scoops, hot news, or unique analysis or perspective. This will be great for readers. It may not, however, be so great for newspapers, or at least not for their revenues, because most of what shows up in a newspaper isn’t original or unique. It’s the first four grafs of something ripped off the wire and lightly re-written, a process repeated countless times a day with no new value being added to the story.”

Full article by Clay Shirky

How the bailout program works

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It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

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