Whoops, I realize I’m behind on my What I Learned’s. Which is a shame because I learned a lot. I started dating someone worth mentioning in an oblique way on this blog, which is to say I save all my cleverness for her. Which leaves you, dear Reader, in a state of want. And for that, I ask your forgiveness.
Scene: in front of a manhattan bar. A line. Four dudes approach.
Dude 1: Man, a sausage fest. Someone call Cheeks. He knows everyone. He’ll get us in.
Dude 2: yeah.
Dude 1: I smell Doritos.
Dude 3: what.
Dude 1: someone is eating Doritos.
Me: I’m eating Doritos.
Dude 1: light dinner, huh?
Me: yeah… How’d you know? I had fries for dinner
Dude 1: that’s not very healthy, man.
Dude 2: was that cool ranch?
Me: yes.
Dude 1: what kind of dinner is Doritos?
Me: why do you care?
Dude 1: I’m just saying, not very healthy.
Me: life is short. Whatever.
Dude 1: life will be shorter.
Me: thanks.
Dude 1: just saying…
Me: okay.
Dude 2: I want some doritos…
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs’ joint interview at the All Things Digital conference. Fascinating dynamics, and good history lessons from two landmark figures in personal computing. (2007). An excerpt here, full video on official site:
Steve Jobs narrates Apple’s “The Crazy Ones” commercial, though a version narrated by Richard Dreyfuss was the one that aired. (1997)
Going In-House at Apple with Steve Jobs’ Former GC (2011)- retrospective from the point of view of Apple’s general counsel. Of course I’m going to have a lawyer/IP angle on here.
“He had the ability to shut things out of his mind and just focus very narrowly on one specific issue. I often said that his greatest strength was his ability to say no. Because you can imagine that over the years, so many people came at him with ideas about one product or another,” Cooperman says. “He focused very, very sharply on making excellent products that people would love, and not doing lots of other things that would distract from that mission.”
An extended conversation with Woz – by Dan Lyons (2011):
What was Steve’s biggest strength?
Everyone else will say vision, and gosh darn that’s important but that doesn’t go anywhere without operational discipline. Steve once told me that Apple only lost money when they built junk. It was his focus on good products that I believe was the biggest thing. All we have to do is make great products. If you have a big market. Apple had millions of fans, such a huge user base. Another strength was that he came back and put together a new board of directors. He organized the company to have good tight controls. Watching everything he could — that is operational excellence. Lots of CEOs just look at little points of data and make a decision. Steve was so much more than that. It’s rare.
Steve Jobs Presents to Cupertino City Council (June 17, 2011). In one of his last public appearances, Jobs presents plans to Apple’s new campus to the city council. I’m shocked at how old and tired he looks. (via Kottke)
And, finally, by far, my favorite thing I have watched all week, Steve Jobs’ closing keynote at the 1997 WWDC. Context: Steve Jobs had just returned via Apple’s acquisition of NeXT Computer and he conducts an hourlong Q&A session with Apple developers. They pick his brain and through his answers, you can see every bit of Apple circa 2011 coming out of Jobs’ mouth in 1997. Honest, elegant, well-considered answers from off-the-cuff questions. Focusing is about saying no. We have a unique opportunity because we control the whole stack. Being overly proprietary is not necessary.
… the problem being: who do you marry?
Since I live in a selfish self-centered crabby world, I generally think of the Marriage Problem as an extension of the Self Problem. That is, I think the process of finding a mate is an extension of the process of self awareness: What kind of person am I, and in turn, what kind of person do I need to make a happy long-lived union?
(for clarity of discussion, I’m ignoring the other person’s happiness because I assume, out of self interest, they seek the same. Also there’s some odd circuitous thinking in loving a person so much that your happiness derives from theirs, that I willfully ignore here…)
In approaching love and romance, I say, to paraphrase the old Crab family saying about our religion, “oh, I’m just Practical.” that is, I’m skeptical of thunderstruck love puppies floating down from heaven, blissed out on cupid’s opiates. Rather, I accept that marriage is a generally happy but pragmatic arrangement rife with compromises and challenges. And I imagine love as some indeterminable calculus that requires puzzling over. Which I do.
Also, I assume that while human people have a capacity to grow, develop, mature, and adapt, human people have their own certain responses to stress, emotion, or new experiences that are so foundational and ingrained in their adult psyche that it is nigh impossible to change. Put conveniently: ya can’t change yer man; gotta love em as they come.
I acknowledge that romantic compatibility is probably some secret concoction of complements and supplements. You both like to read. They plan itineraries while you freestyle it. You run hot while they run cold. They have a caring spirit, while you need adult supervision. You both can use chopsticks.
So the question is: what secret mix of ying and yang is sufficient to wed Ching and Chang together? What’s a deal breaker? What’s an insignificant difference that likely turns into an endearing quirk? what’s a trait that makes you cringe every time it bucks it head.
Are interests and hobbies more important than personality? Or to what extent are one’s interest a reflection of their personality? For example, I guess it’s not really important that someone has seen all six star wars movies, believes that Empires Strikes Back is the undisputed masterpiece of the lot, and knows that Gredo would never ever ever shoot first. But yet what does it say about your character if you never seen a single Star Wars flick?? Could I love a pop culture ascetic that you must be?
A common question often asked by loveless puzzlers such as myself is “How do you know?” How do you know that this is it. This is that person. You are ready. How do you know. That’s an imprecise question (which is often why it’s inanely answered with “you just know”.). The better question would be “How do you know if this is good enough for me?”. Something’s going to be wrong with you, with me, with us, and can I deal. in other words WHAT’S THE THRESHOLD LEVEL OF COMPATIBILITY FOR ME TO COMMIT TO THIS SHIT IN A SEMI PERMANENT MANNER HAVING LONG-TERM SOCIAL, FINANCIAL, and LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS, which sounds more like a due diligence procedure for a government contract than a proper How Do I Love Thee Let me Count The Ways.
Seen in Park Slope: a young couple, pushing a baby stroller, talking about someone else’s baby.
The weather in the bay area has been 72 and sunny all week, and apparently it’s like this all year long. What kind of absurd place is this? No wonder every California kid I’ve ever met in NYC is butter soft, always complaining about stupid shit like how it’s raining, or how winter is cold. I would never raise a kid in weather like this; it would like rearing a child in a zero gravity environment: once they try to step out of the airlock, they crumple. That’s why so many kids are california lifers; their weak ass constitution would betray them the moment they crossed state lines.
-I never understood the notion that Apple products are overpriced toys for the gullible and the fashionable. This seems naive to me. A computing product is not merely the sum of its parts, but how well they work together (ask anyone that’s tried to enable wireless on a laptop running Linux). You cannot disassemble an iPhone, add up the cost of each chip, motherboard, sensor, etc, subtract from the wholesale price, and call that the profit margin. Engineering and software are not free, people.
-It’s still impressive to me that Apple is a company that makes billions of dollars by designing and selling physical objects, and not just ads (Google), software (Microsoft), or assorted paper bullshit (Goldman Sachs), but honest to god real tangible goods.
- To a lot of people, well designed software is just about making it pretty. Apple shows us good design is actually about how it works.
- Is steve jobs really that great of a salesman? I have watched many of his keynote speeches; he’s not that great of a speaker. I always thought 99% of his job as salesman is done before he even walks onto the stage. That is, he always makes sure he is selling killer products. And he lets the products basically sell themselves. When you go to an Apple store, did the pimpled-face “Genius” convince you to buy a MacBook or did you just turn the laptop over in your hands 2-3 times, play with it for 5 minutes, and say “I want this”?
-The hallmark of a well-designed product is that they are the products of saying “no”. Apple goods are full of No. Someone in some Apple office raised a question, someone made a suggestion, someone disagrees, someone stays up all night to argue with someone else, hopefully ending in shouting cursing and tears, and someone makes a goddamn decision. And that’s why I like them. I want my products borne of contentious, passionate, decision making.
Apple products generally do not punt issues and say Aw let’s just make it a setting in the preferences panel and go home. That’s chicken shit stuff. And that’s why most open source software can be absolute dreck, because some amorphous group of developers continuously compromise until you have the lowest common denominator software with an ass interface. No one fights for the best design idea and wins.
To me, that’s what you pay for: For someone to figure out a best way to put something together, the best way it should operate. I am not buying something so I can be a fucking middleware developer just to be able to play music on my computer and watch videos of puppies.
I mean, it takes a great deal of conviction to say “fuck you mobile Flash sucks, no way we are allowing it”. It takes courage to say No. The coward’s way is to throw in every feature, no matter if it is terrible, just so you can get some checkbox in some feature list in some comparison chart.
And that’s why I have bought Apple products.
Whenever people invite me to a meal, I always wonder if I’m being lured to an intervention.
Not narcotics-based; but rather, some mixture of cad-like behavior and general nondescript douchery intervention.
Long lost photos from Corsica
Dear livery cab on 4th ave,
Funny running into you today. I did not want to be able to open my passenger side door anyway, so thanks.
Xoxo,
Selfish crab
SELFISH CRAB IS SO CHARMING IT’S NOT EVEN FAIR.
TITTER TITTER CHICKEN DINNER.
The universe, or if you like, Nature, is generally ambivalent about the state of the environment. So long as the world continues to observe the laws of physics, it is ipso facto “natural”. e.g. greenhouse gases pumped into the air, human-caused or not, is still just natural old carbon dioxide, only more of it. The natural processes of Earth will react and adjust accordingly. A shift in a predominant quality, substance, species, will result in a reaction that eventually finds some balance. (You could argue that human-caused imbalances are happening at a rate faster than Nature can comfortably react, but that just makes for a more violent reaction. This is an argument in degree, not of kind.)
For Nature, there is no objective value of tigers or panda bears or the great barrier reef or the polar ice caps. Who cares if a particular animal dies or even an entire species goes extinct? In the long scale of Earth, these are blips of consequence. New species will arise, new chemical processes will dominate, new environmental cycles will be sustained.
What I mean to say is that, since nature really has no fixed objective value, the environmentalism cause is really about preserving a particular set of natural parameters that happen to be the parameters that sustain human life on Earth. This is the principle by which all “green” efforts should be weighed. (I don’t need to talk about the circle of life, do I? Every species and biological perpetuates what we need. Plants make sugar and oxygen from sunlight, we need those. Sugars and other vitamins concentrate in higher lifeforms that we eventually eat. Smaller lifeforms break down dead bits into spare parts. Etc etc. We need all of it.)
It also follows from this that because the natural processes on earth are incredibly complex and intertwined (see, the old yarn about butterflies and monsoons), and our understanding as to how to properly manipulate these forces remain so rudimentary and have many unforeseen consequences (e.g. DDT), our best bet is to maintain the status quo of the earth. AKA, conservation.
So this means preventing a species from going extinct is generally a good thing. That is, losing a given species is not bad because it is a beautiful creature full of grace and majesty, but because its extinction could disrupt the web of species we rely on. There’s also the strength of biodiversity, wherein an ecosystem is more resilient to change if it is ecologically diverse (and does not put all of its species in a single basket, like say a corn crop.)
But keeping species on life support has its limits. If a species is no longer contributing to the ecosystem (e.g. It only exists in zoos or in labs), then we should let it be extinguished. we need to remind ourselves that species can naturally go extinct (just like how a gazelle can naturally get killed and eaten). I also think certain species are a goddamn waste of taxpayer money and time (i am looking at you, giant panda).
This is starting to feel repetitive so I will conclude here (perhaps if I think of more re-imagined green ideas I will update). So, traditionally, environmental activists are seen as do-gooding, virtuous people. But why? As i tried to clarify, environmentalism is actually an entirely selfish cause, species-wise. I think any environmental cause is doomed to fail until it acknowledges it is self-serving, and their appeals are restructured accordingly. Honestly, I think the bulk of this scribble scrabble is self evident, especially with the coming of massive climate change, that makes it apparent how our biological processes are threatened, but maybe it wasn’t clear to you. I hope it is now.
Clearly been watching too much Game of Thrones. Apologies, your grace, for the abrupt shift of diction.
It’s odd, I have had more than a few female candidates say that they check this space and then remark, with disappointment, that they don’t find themselves mentioned. Are they mad?
Firstly, I would more likely report the results of a colonoscopy than bring here happy tidings of my romance. What kind of space do they think this is? Is my logo– my sigil, if you will– a cherished butterfly or a dove of love? No. Upper right. A snarling, cross eyed crab. This is a place where negativity spills from the mouths of babes so it does not pool and drown them. Where hope threatens to choke on its own regurgitations of disappointment. Where Love shares a table with Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and My Superstar Legal Eagle Career at the annual meeting for the Fictitious Legends of Great Import. Bah.
In any case, if you want anonymous dispatches from my heart, check the secret dating journal.
Anticipation lays the seed for disappointment. Hope remains the domain of fools.
In a typical movie scene, one character might gainsay another person, and the person may respond, “what, are you calling me a liar?”
This exact question pre-supposes exactly two types of statements that may come out of human mouths: truths and lies. This is fucking childish.
There are three types of statements:
i.e., a person can be dead wrong, but obviously feel like they are telling the truth (subjective truth, objective falsehood).
This is what is so broken about eyewitness testimony. An eye witness may have no reason to lie that they saw XYZ walk into the convenience story with a gun, but that doesn’t mean they were right. Especially since study after study has shown how unreliable and fragile human memory and perception can be.1 (If you do not believe me, spend 15 minutes with your elderly parents.)
Hell is other people, period.
