Author Archives: Steve Mays

The best thing about the present

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“The most fantastic thing about the present time is that we’re actually still here. In the early ’80s, people who knew what their situation was with the Cold War and nuclear armament didn’t necessarily expect that we’d make it this far. We’ve kind of lost that knowledge. Once the threat was gone, it was like we disremembered it as a species. It seldom comes up anymore, which is really odd.”

“The future will probably know more about what we’re actually doing than we do. Because if it stays history long enough, it doesn’t have to be secret anymore.”

From interview with William Gibson

Something new is happening

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As it becomes increasingly difficult to know what’s ‘true’ and ‘accurate,’ I find myself depending (not he right word but close enough) on how something is said. Am I just talking about style or tone here? Perhaps. Anyway, Bruce Sterling (On Social Media Jihads) never disappoints.

“People are gonna kill ISIS because they want those oil wells back, not because ISIS is sort-of okay at social media and pushing viral atrocity videos. […] When you’re a top terrorist, you don’t really want to “wreak havoc” anyway. Mostly, you want to create a failed state, a place like Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, where you can take over at gunpoint and live it up in the narcotics, weapons, and oil biz.”

And this gem on U.S. foreign policy:

“It doesn’t matter how much data the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence has: They attack the wrong people for made-up reasons and they’re also [a] terribly ineffective occupation power.”

As for the Internet as a global brain uniting all of mankind…

“People don’t realize that the old-fashioned global Internet of the 90s is segregating into radicalized filter-bubbles, but it is, and fast. People are used to the Free World idea, they think the huddled masses behind the Chinese Firewall and the new Russian firewalls want to get out and be rich and happy at the West’s shopping mall. But the Chinese, Russians, and even the Greeks tried that, they don’t like it, and that’s not what is happening any more. Something new is happening.”

Like feeling warm or cold

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“Don’t try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process — like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one’s ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the reality of the feeling. But when this feeling of separateness is approached and accepted like any other sensation, it evaporates like the mirage that it is.” — Alan Watts

Apple Watch. More than a timepiece

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Apple is having one of their product unveiling/press events tomorrow. Me and a couple of my Apple Fan Boys are getting together to watch. Everyone’s expecting to learn more about the upcoming Apple Watch. My buddies can’t wait to get one of these strapped to their liver-spotted wrists. I’ve never been a watch guy but then, I wasn’t a phone guy or a table guy, so who knows. I just don’t like jewelry on my hands. Never wore a wedding ring.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about this new product category from my favorite company. And I’ve followed the tech press as it has speculated about features and price. And price is what I want to talk about today.

If the top-of-the-line Apple Edition carries a price tag of ten or twenty-thousand dollars (or more), a bunch of folks are going to lose their shit. Both fans and haters. I can’t imagine spending that kind of dough on a watch but a lot of folks will. And the fancy pants model won’t do anything that the low-end model can do, so why pay more?

I don’t know a lot of rich people so it’s really unfair of me to speculate about what makes them tick (get it?). But the only reason I can imagine wearing a watch that cost $100,000 (or more) is you want folks to know you are rich. I mean, nobody’s trying to sell “This thing keeps great time!”

And a watch has a few advantages in this regard. Yeah, if you saw me get out of my Lamborghini you’d know I was something special. Or if you visited me in my Malibu mansion. But if you want folks to know you’re a little bit special whenever you go out in public, you gotta wear it.

Now I can’t tell a five-thousand dollar suit from a thousand-dollar suit. But a watch is something you never have to take off (if it’s water-proof). It’s right there on your well-tanned wrist. And if it’s a Rolex or one of the other high-end time pieces… Whoa! Who the fuck is this guy with a 100K on his arm?

I’m starting to sound a little mean or envious here and that’s not my intention. I’m just trying to understand the thinking behind a luxury purchase.

Shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first

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Interesting interview with William Gibson. I guess it’s about style and fashion although I doubt he’d describe it thus. “Tech Wear and the Limits of Authenticity” is a pretty good description.

My rule is that if Dick Cheney couldn’t wear it without creating a stir, I shouldn’t either. I like clothing that isn’t easily noticed. […] I’m embarrassed if I think anyone knows exactly what I paid for something, or even where I got it. I want what I’m wearing to feel good on, wear well, and to be extremely functional.

There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. They assume, actually, that the bad guys will shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first, just to be sure. I don’t have that as a concern, but there’s something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment.

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

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I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, his first novel, published in 1952.

(Wikipedia) “It is a dystopia of automation, describing the dereliction it causes in the quality of life. The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines.”

I don’t recall the novel making much of an impact on me when I read it during college. The world just didn’t seem that mechanized to me back then. It sure seems timely 60+ years later. And it brings to mind my brief (2 weeks?) time working on the assembly line of the General Motors plant in St. Louis. Summer of 1968?

assembly-line

As I recall, every hour 62 cars passed my little work area. In that minute I put six screws into a thing around one of the headlights (1); put rubber bumpers on two little posts the car’s hood rested on (2); attached a little piece of rubber hose to… something (3); put the tire iron behind the spare tire and spread out the trunk mat (4).

I’m surprised I lasted two weeks but some of the guys on the line had been doing similar tasks for 20 years (and encouraged me to drop out of college to get a couple extra years of seniority).

Vonnegut died in 2007 so he saw some serious automation. As for the class conflict depicted in his novel, well, I think we might just be getting started.

Excerpt for Player Piano:

“Well—I think it’s a grave mistake to put on public record everyone’s I.Q. I think the first thing the revolutionaries would want to do is knock off everybody with an I.Q. over 110, say. Then the 100’s would go after the 110’s, the 90’s after the 100’s, and so on,” said Finnerty. “Things are certainly set up for a class war based on conveniently established lines of demarcation. And I must say that the basic assumption of the present setup is a grade-A incitement to violence: the smarter you are, the better you are. Used to be that the richer you were, the better you were. Either one is, you’ll admit, pretty tough for the have-not’s to take. The criterion of brains is better than the one of money, but”—he held his thumb and forefinger about a sixteenth of an inch apart—”about that much better.” “It’s about as rigid a hierarchy as you can get,” said Finnerty. “How’s somebody going to up his I.Q.?”

“I’m going to get myself a uniform, so I’ll know what I think and stand for.”