Question Technology

Bailout Beach Reading

I've been reading Thomas Frank's new book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, which is full of fascinating stuff about the conservative movement in the US.  It's topical too, of course, given how the conservative agenda of gutting government and letting free markets run wild is squarely to blame for what's happening right now.

I was surprised to learn that he's now writing a column at the Wall Street Journal.  An excerpt from his latest, from last Wednesday:

Consider the current economic catastrophe, which has been building for a year. Just as it has taken down Countrywide, Bear Stearns, Indymac, Freddie, Fannie, Lehman, Merrill and Lord knows who else in the weeks to come, it has also pulverized the reigning conservative shibboleths of the past 28 years.

There is simply no way to blame this disaster, as Republicans used to do, on labor unions or over-regulation. No, this is the conservatives' beloved financial system doing what comes naturally. Freed from the intrusive meddling of government, just as generations of supply-siders and entrepreneurial exuberants demanded it be, the American financial establishment has proceeded to cheat and deceive and beggar itself -- and us -- to the edge of Armageddon. It is as though Wall Street was run by a troupe of historical re-enactors determined to stage all the classic panics of the 19th century.

By the way, this is the same system the Republicans would still apparently like to put in charge of Social Security. The same system that is minting millionaire CEOs, that is holding the line on wages, and that we will be bailing out for years.

On Monday, John McCain blamed the disaster on "greed by some based in Wall Street." It's a personal failing of some evil few, in other words, and presumably capitalism will start working again once we squeeze the self-interest out of it. In the weeks to come, maybe Sen. McCain will also take a bold stand against covetousness and sloth.

But the structural changes of the past 28 years that have made all this possible -- the waves of deregulation, the takeover of government itself by business interests -- these haven't made too much of an impression on him. In March Mr. McCain actually called for more deregulation in response to the crisis, and at the Republican convention two weeks ago an ebullient Mitt Romney promised that Mr. McCain would take "a weed-whacker to excessive regulation." Just for good measure, this former management consultant also called for yet another round of attacks on the unionized federal workforce, deploring its "tyrannosaurus appetite."

Some tyrannosaurus! Thanks to the party of Romney and McCain, federal work is today so financially unattractive to top talent that it might as well be charity work. It's one of the main reasons -- other than outright conquest by the industries they're supposed to be overseeing -- that our regulatory agencies can't seem to get out of bed in the morning.

Link: Get Your Class War On.

I  also recommend this inspired rant by Bob Sullivan (author of Gotcha Capitalism) on his Red Tape Blog, with a consumer angle on the bailouts: Consumers Deserve Greed Bailout.

And I found this interview of Michael Greenberger by Fresh Air's Terry Gross last week to be really informative: Was 'Adult Supervision' Needed on Wall Street?

The Gospel of Consumption

It probably won't shock anyone to find an article called "The Gospel of Consumption" in (environmentalist) magazine Orion, but this piece by Jeffrey Kaplan is better than your average anti-consumption rant, I think. 

He talks about the forces that created American consumer society in the last century.  In the 1920s the abundance brought about by "labor-saving" machinery could have led to short workdays and a more active citizenship (as championed by people such as W.K. Kellogg).  Instead, industrialists and politicians put economic growth at the forefront, leading to the wonders of advertising to manufacture need in consumers, thus leading to more production and even more work.

Jeffrey Kaplan is an activist and has an agenda, to be sure (see Take Back Your Time for more work along these lines).  I believe his history here to be fairly accurate, though.  It's an interesting contrast to Clay Shirky's story.

Link: The Gospel of Consumption (the sidebar has some interesting links to check out as well, such as the introduction to Kellogg's Six-Hour Day by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt).

Oh, and happy May Day (Wikipedia, Britannica).

Defending Incandescent Bulbs

Update: Brendan Koerner has written a pretty solid rebuttal of Rosenbaum's article: The Case for CFLs (Slate).  I'm still not convinced about the light output, but maybe I just haven't seen the right bulbs (or data) yet.

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Ron Rosenbaum has an article in Slate about what we lose when we outlaw incandescent bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents.  He's a bit too nostalgic for my taste, but he does raise some important points.  Excerpt:

Yes, the idiots in Congress, too torpid and ineffectual to pass a health-care bill for children, have busy-bodied themselves in a bumbling way with the way you light up your world. In December, they passed legislation that will, in practice, outlaw incandescent bulbs because they won't be able to meet the new law's strict energy-efficiency standards. The result: Between 2012 and 2014, incandescent bulbs will be driven from the market. Replaced by the ugly plasticine Dairy Queen swirl of compact fluorescent lights.

From a purely environmental perspective, this move is shortsighted. CFLs do use less energy, which is good. But they also often contain mercury, one of the most damaging—and lasting—environmental toxins. Not a ton of mercury, but still: A whole new CFL recycling structure will be required to prevent us from releasing deadly neurotoxins into the water table. CFLs: coming soon to sushi near you.

Failing to properly recycle your CFLs won't be the same as putting an Evian bottle in the wrong slot. It'll be genuinely hazardous, particularly dangerous to children. Way to go, congressional dimbulbs!

And God forbid you break a bulb. If you do, you are advised by some experts to evacuate the room for 15 minutes to escape the release of mercury vapor, then scrub the area as though there'd been a plutonium spill, virtually wearing a hazmat suit as you dispose of the glass shards. [...]

Good luck. But the greater crime of the new bulbs is not environmental but aesthetic. Think of the ugly glare of fluorescence, the light of prisons, sterile cubicle farms, precinct stations, emergency rooms, motor vehicle bureaus, tenement hallways—remember Tom Wolfe's phrase for the grim, flickering hallway lights in New York tenements: "landlords' haloes"?—and, of course, morgues. Fluorescents seem specially designed to drain life and beauty from the world.  [...]

Not fair!, say the CFL advocates. Our new fluorescent technology is not your father's fluorescence, it doesn't drain blood from complexions like a vampire, it doesn't buzz and flicker the way the old ones did.

I've tried the new CFLs, and they are a genuine improvement—they don't flicker perceptibly, or buzz, or make your skin look green. There is a difference, and I'd be in favor of replacing all current fluorescent bulbs with CFLs. But even CFLs glare and blare—they don't have that inimitable incandescent glow. So don't let them take lamplight away. Don't let them ban beauty.

Link: In defense of incandescent light.

I use CFLs, but still have some incandescents kicking around.  I couple of years ago I bought some full-spectrum incandescents, which I find much nicer for reading than regular incandescents, and they also last very long.  CFLs give worse light than either, and people seem to be ignoring the disposal/recycling problem.

Google tells me there are now bulbs marketed as "full-spectrum compact fluorescent" but I can't tell if the light output is really comparable.  I suspect "full" is marketing-speak for "a little bit wider" spectrum, but I may be wrong.
 

Sandbox Summit on Kids and Technology

The first Sandbox Summit, a conference "exploring the way kids play, learn, and connect in a digital world" took place at last week's CES.  From an AP story:

The International Consumer Electronics Show is such a glitzy celebration of technology that it was striking to see a set of panel discussions here Tuesday exploring whether electronic connectedness is valuable for children.

Are computers and electronic toys providing creative new outlets for kids to play, socialize and learn? Or does staring at screens all day addle the developing mind and hinder critical thinking skills?

It's a little of both, judging by the commentary at this first "Sandbox Summit" at CES. The trick, participants said, is for parents to intelligently monitor their children's use of computers and communication devices.

Link: 'Sandbox Summit' debates tech and kids (AP/Globe and Mail)

There is a website and blog for the conference series here: Sandbox Summit.

Gotcha Capitalism

Terry Gross interviewed Bob Sullivan on Fresh Air today about his book Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day-and What You Can Do About It.  It's a good interview and sounds like an important and useful book.

Links:

• Fresh Air interview
• Web site for the book: Gotcha Capitalism
• Bob Sullivan's blog The Red Tape Chronicles

Radiohead Dismisses Internet-only Albums

The BBC quotes Thom Yorke of Radiohead on their decision to release a physical CD to accompany last October's Internet release of their latest album:

Yorke said the band would have been "mad" to ignore a physical release, which is being distributed by XL Recordings.

"We didn't want it to be a big announcement about 'everything's over except the internet, the internet's the future', 'cause that's utter rubbish.

"And it's really important to have an artefact as well, as they call it, an object," the musician added.

Link: Web-only album "mad", says Yorke (BBC)

Farhad Manjoo at Salon writes:

It's a good point, and well worth remembering in a time of digital hype. CD sales will surely continue to fall, but for many years to come, musicians will still have to make little plastic discs if they want to be heard at all.

Link: Radiohead's Thom Yorke says people still need CDs (Salon)

But I think Farhad misses the point with that paragraph.  It's not about the money (at least not for Radiohead) or about it being too soon to dismiss the CD.  It's about the experience. Even after the CD format is long gone I bet many people will still prefer to buy albums in physical form, on little flash drives or cards or something.

How to Discard Old Electronics

So you got a new iPod, TV, DVD player, stereo, etc. for Christmas.  We all know you can't just dump the old ones in the trash -- you need to take them to an e-waste recycling service instead.  But not all electronics recyclers are equal.  Some simply export your waste to developing countries where it is disassembled or burned in unsafe conditions.

Some things you can do:

• Read the Consumer's Guide to Electronics Recycling from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and find a responsible recycler near you.
• Watch the free trailer for the documentary The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa from the Basel Action Network.  I had the privilege of seeing a screening of this film at my workplace recently.  If you work in the electronics industry (or even if you don't), encourage your employer to host a screening to raise awareness.
• Support the Electronics TakeBack Coalition in their efforts to encourage makers of electronics to take back old products for safe recycling or disposal.

Photo: Electronics waste in Lagos, Nigeria © Basel Action Network 2006.

Is "Generation Digital" Real?

Siva Vaidhyanathan writes about the digital generation:

For a while I have been recoiling at all that talk about how young people today are "born digital" or are part of some special or distinct experiential universe that grants them special prowess or powers and blinds them to other things (like, say, books).

I don't buy it for one minute.

Partly, I resist such talk because I don't think that "generations" are meaningful social categories. [...]

Invoking generations invariably demands an exclusive focus on people of wealth and means, because they get to express their preferences (for music, clothes, electronics, etc.) in ways that are easy to count. It always excludes immigrants, not to mention those born beyond the borders of the United States. And it excludes anyone on the margins of mainstream consumer or cultural behavior.

In the case of the "digital generation," the class, ethnic, and geographic biases could not be more obvious.

And besides, I have spent more than a decade in the constant company of people 18 to 23 years old. The faces change. The age range does not. I have to report that the levels of comfort with, understanding of, and dexterity with digital technology varies greatly in every class. Yet it has not changed in more than 10 years. Every class has a handful of people with amazing skills and a large number of people who can't stand computers at all. A few every year lack mobile phones. Many can't afford any gizmos and resent assignments that demand digital work. Most use Facebook and Myspace because they are easy, not because they are powerful (which, of course, they are not).

Link: The problem with "digital natives"...

More here and see also a post at Henry Jenkins's blog: Reconsidering Digital Immigrants.

I agree with Siva's points.  I'm sure there are some real differences, on average, in the psychology/behavior between generations, but too often these terms are thrown around based just on cliches and gross assumptions.  And when it's not Generation Digital it's Generation Old and Terrified of Technology.

Today I noticed a "Teach Yourself" book called Computing for the over 50s.  It apparently "takes the terror out of technology."  Could they get any more condescending?  And what's with the bear?

Nick Carr and others on 23andMe

From the Guardian last week:

Google's involvement suggests that 23andMe probably has larger ambitions than just providing individuals with gene maps. As its online store of genetic information grows and as customers add personal information, the company could end up with a database of extraordinary value to pharmaceutical firms, medical researchers and insurance companies.

Sorted and analysed with Google's sophisticated data-crunching tools, the database could disclose hidden connections between genes, aptitudes and diseases. In a privacy statement on its site, the company acknowledges that it plans to grant outside groups access to its database, allowing them to search, "without knowing the identities of the individuals involved", for correlations between genetic variations and health conditions. That could well turn into a major business.

The company also says that it will give users "the ability to connect with other 23andMe customers through sharing features". 23andMe could evolve into a social network, a biotech version of MySpace or Facebook where people make connections not with friends but with people who share similar genetic traits. This, too, could provide the basis for a lucrative business. Given that 23andMe tracks its customers' movements with cookies, it may not be long before we see genetically targeted advertising.

Link: Google gives new gene mapping service a bit of spit and polish.

See also earlier articles by David Ewing Duncan in Portfolio: Welcome to the future and David Hamilton in VentureBeat: Will 23andMe and Navigenics lock up your genome and charge you for the key? (via Biopolitical Times)

Miscellaneous Stories

I'm starting to catch up on blogging after a lull because of a move and a new job.  Here are some links that have been festering in my feed reader for a while:

• The Wall Street Journal explains the failure of Negroponte's laptop: A little laptop with big ambitions.  For a shorter take on this, and the Negroponte-Intel feud, read Fake Steve Jobs: Give one, get one -- right in the ass.
• Print is Dead by Jeff Gomez, the latest book to rehash the perennial "future of books" debate, is now available.  I've listened to podcasts of a few chapters and was not terribly impressed.  He's a thoughtful writer, and has done a decent amount of research, but his premises and arguments are seriously flawed, in my opinion.
• Mark Hurst critiques a WSJ article on new e-mail software that tries to solve the problem of e-mail overload: Silicon Valley's solution to overload: More technology.
• Second and third graders draw designs for laptop computers: The laptop club.
• "Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches… What if it controlled your life?" -- Scroogled, fiction by Cory Doctorow in Radar magazine.
• New Greenpeace guide to greener electronics.  Nintendo, Philips, and Microsoft are at the bottom this time.
• Novelist John Degen explains why copyright is important to writers: Copyright = Oxygen.  He includes an excellent rant by Harlan Ellison on the topic (at YouTube).
• Derek Cheshire proposes a slow approach to innovation, taking its cue from the Slow Food movement: Slow Innovation (Change This).  I once considered rebranding this blog as "Slow Technology", for the same reason, but that didn't get far.

The Future: Mobile Phones Required for Parking?

The "Mobile (phone) Wallet" trend is big in Japan and elsewhere, and is now making it to the US.  San Francisco, where I live, recently started a pilot program for using your phone to pay for parking meters (San Francisco Sentinel).  The photo here is from Christian Lindholm's blog and shows parking meters in an area of London.  I can certainly see the convenience of this for parking meters, though what about people who don't have a cell phone?  That's a dwindling population, to be sure, especially in Europe, but plenty of people in the US don't want or need them or can't afford them.

Aside from parking, using a phone for payment sounds like more trouble than it's worth.  I'd still have to carry my wallet, so what's the point?

Public Nanotech Forum

Next Tuesday and Wednesday (October 23-24) there will be an online public forum about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology, hosted by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnology and Consumers Union.  From the description:

Nanotechnology—the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things between 1 and 100 nanometers (1 billionth of a meter)—is seen as the driver of a new industrial revolution emerging with the development of materials that exhibit new properties and potential new risks and benefits at this tiny scale. However, according to recent polls, the majority of Americans have heard little or nothing about nanotechnology, even as consumer products containing nanomaterials are entering the marketplace at a rapid pace. There are already over 575 nanotechnology consumer products available to the consumer, with nanoscale materials now in use in cosmetics, clothing, sports equipment, electronics, automobiles, and home furnishings.

We decided to launch this dialogue in order to provide an easily accessible venue for the public to discuss information and share their thoughts about the usage and potential benefits and risks of consumer products made with nanomaterials. It is aimed at exploring key issues surrounding the ways that consumers, citizens, students, researchers, policymakers, scientific experts, and the media learn about and respond to nanotechnology consumer products. Participants in the dialogue will have the opportunity to ask questions of expert panelists about nanotechnology, to examine its use in consumer products, to discuss who is responsible for oversight, and to brainstorm with each other on needed future actions.

We hope to use information that emerges from this conversation to inform policymakers about how consumers perceive the use of nanotechnology in products that they can buy in the stores or over the Internet and what consumers think about related risks, benefits, and uncertainties. We also hope that consumers will bring to our attention additional nanotechnology consumer products that are not contained in our on-line inventory, which is available at http://www.nanotechproject.org/consumerproducts.

It sounds like a very interesting event.  To participate in the discussion you just need to complete a free registration.  There's much more information at their site: Nanotechnology and the consumer: A public dialogue.

Update: They've posted summaries of the event, as well as archives of the discussions, at the same link: Nanotechnology and the consumer: A public dialogue.

Book Notes

I recently read Tarleton Gillespie's Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture.  It's a remarkably comprehensive study of issues surrounding digital copyright.  He gets beyond the simplistic rhetoric heard from both sides to look at the broader story in historical, political, and social terms.  On digital rights management (DRM), in particular, he discusses how the strategy has moved beyond legal or public relations campaigns to a "turn to technology."  Enforcing a technological solution, by building the restrictions right into devices, is dangerous not only because it subverts tenets of copyright law like "fair use," but because it sets a dangerous precedent by hiding choice away from users.  There are also chapters on the Strategic Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), encryption in DVDs, and the FCC's "broadcast flag."  Tarleton Gillespie has a blog here.

The Best of Technology Writing 2007 is edited by Steven Levy and looks to be a great collection.  Several of the articles, such as a couple by Kevin Kelly and Jaron Lanier, will be familiar to anyone who paid much attention to tech media or blogs last year, but there are a number of lesser-known articles as well.

Aubrey de Grey has written a book, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime.  After reading the material for Technology Review's SENS Challenge last year I think I've had my fill of Aubrey de Grey's prose for one lifetime (finite or not), so I think I'll pass.  Here is a review by Paul Boutin in the Wall Street Journal: Battling Time's Ravages.

Humans as Selfish Equations

In an article at The Register, William Davies questions the economics of the Web 2.0.  Some  excerpts:

Of course many-to-many communication precedes even the internet we know today. Email mailing lists and message boards were features of the first Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), and migrated to the internet. They are both examples of individuals grouping together in a self-organising fashion.

What has changed is that these otherwise secluded and organic realms of social interaction are now the focus of obsessive technological innovation and commercial interest. The same technological zeal and business acumen that once was applied to improving the way we buy a book or pay our car tax is now being applied to the way we engage in social and cultural activities with others.

In short, efficiency gains are no longer being sought only in economic realms such as retail or public services, but are now being pursued in parts of our everyday lives where previously they hadn't even been imagined. Web 2.0 promises to offer us ways of improving the processes by which we find new music, new friends, or new civic causes. The hassle of undesirable content or people is easier to cut out. We have become consumers of our own social and cultural lives.

[...]

Undoubtedly there are instances where we do want our social lives to be more efficient. Organising a party can be time-consuming and tedious, and the fact that Facebook now makes this vastly easier is scarcely going to harm the atmosphere of the party.

But we should worry about this psychology seeping too far into our lives. What if there were an application that could make it easier to pass on my love to a family-member? What if I no longer needed to read books in order to cite them, but could search the quotes other people had extracted from them?

The irony is that Web 2.0 has been heralded as the dawn of a new era of community and togetherness. Through the financial eyes of a venture capitalist, this may appear to be true. For the rest of us, what this means is that community is now available to manipulate, choose and consume.

Link: The cold, cold heart of Web 2.0 (The Register),

via Putting People First.

William Davies has a blog: Potlatch.

I have ventured onto the social web sites a little (if you search hard you may find me, and I welcome your befriendsterness or whatever the kids call it), though few of these sites work for me because I'm just not very social.  I have, however, recently become enamored of LibraryThing because I'm good at collecting and befriending books (my profile).

Cult of the Muggles

I have successfully avoided an iPhone post, but, alas, I am unable to resist a Harry Potter post.

Over at BoingBoing Cory Doctorow is trumpeting the recent pirating and posting of the new Harry Potter book: Last Harry Potter Leaks Online.  There are two things I find amusing about his post: 

1) Cory links to the book at Amazon using his associates ID (link)!  So what's the message here?  Get the book for free, but if you must buy a hardcopy then kick in a few percent for me?

2) He makes a little spoiler joke: "Who dies? The publishing industry."  Ha.  No-one should feel bad for Bloomsbury/Scholastic (they'll still do just fine), and I know Cory is trying to be funny, but the implication seems to be that publishers are useless and ought to be done away with.  Is this really how he thinks?  Cory and others in the "free culture" crowd seem to have a very simplistic idea of culture -- that it just magically happens without the need for intermediaries like professional publishers, and that somehow people will be able to earn a living doing it for free.  I haven't yet read a convincing argument for how this might actually work (though Chris Anderson claims he will explain it all in his next book, Free.)

This brings me back to Andrew Keen and his book, The Cult of the Amateur.  I've mentioned the book before, but I've actually read it now, so I'll offer some amateur thoughts.  Keen does a great job pointing out the fallacies in a lot of this silly talk about Web 2.0, free culture, the wisdom of crowds, and Time's "You".  The book is a polemic aimed at a popular business audience, so you won't find any deep analysis here -- much of the argument is based on anecdote, newspaper articles and common sense.  (There are undoubtedly many smart graduate students working on more rigorous studies, for which we might have to wait a little longer.)  For what it is, though, Keen's book is great -- well-written, enjoyable, stimulating.  My only quibble is with later chapters, where he loses focus and veers off into rants against internet gambling and pornography.  Those topics are worthy of criticism, but seem like they would fit better in a different book.

See also: New York Times: New Potter Book May Have Made its Way to the Web.

p.s. I haven't read the Harry Potter books so I'm not sure if I'm using the term "muggles" in any sensible way... I just thought it sounded funny.