As the British government works to create alliances with the British Muslim community, they take the path that the law is law for all citizens and not a minority. This approach that favors legal remedies was proposed in the United States post 9/11 but rejected loudly and derisively by the religious right and the neocons of the Republican Party. As recently as a month ago, their acknowledged spokesman, Karl Rove dismissed this strategy as weak just prior to being plunged into a scandal based in his own disregard for the law. At least he is consistent.
The danger in this thinking is summarized in the remark made in the run up to the 'war on terrorism', that it is 'our right wing religious nuts against their right wing religious nuts'. There are tempting parallels but I don't think that exactly catches the image I see and hear in the hallways of American business and private enterprise. It seems that since the return of the Republican Party to power and the September 11 tragedy, an old and comic figure has come to dominate the speech of the right wing: Archie Bunker is back. Archie was a comic figure as he emerged at the end of the period of social revolution of the 1960s, but coming at the beginning of one, he is a terrible omen.
I find him sitting at his desk with his door closed listening to the hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, who eerily resembles the religious instructor at a madrassa repeating the edicts of the illegitimate fatwa. His lack of deliberation has that same empty eyed 'challenge me not' purpose, accepting his fate and the fate of his enemies as he works his purpose: to unify believers, destroy non-believers, and make his office environment pure. He knows without purity of intent and action, we can never defeat our implacable adversaries because to understand them is to justify them, so any attempt to open our minds is to be resisted first with derision, and needs be finally, with force. He lives for that moment when his force can be felt because then he will be triumphant and pure before his God.
His law is the law of the presumption of might. He believes that we can have both peace and cheaper gas if we will just unleash our nuclear arsenal on the countries that oppose us. Unknowingly, he embraces the dark vision of his opposite number: the gates to paradise are under swords.
He is our worst enemy and he is us. He is Archie Bunker not simply telling Edith to 'stifle', but his fellow worker, his mates, his neighbor, his children's teachers, and if needs be, the opposition party. His way is right. His way is rule. All others are his enemies.
While Archie sits stewing listening to the fat man with the radio show, others are beginning to realize that rule of law is the best means to defeat terrorism. Terrorists are murderers. They are not freedom fighters and are not even devout Muslims because Muslims live under religious laws, the sharia and understand the hadith. Mohammed The Prophet was only a warrior for eight years of his life and he taught that even in war there are limits that cannot be trespassed without invoking the wrath of Allah. The members of al-Qaeda have trespassed and have no place in paradise. They have raised their sword against the innocent and in so doing, have violated both divine and human law. Their punishment is to die and their self-chosen destiny to suffer the agonies of eternal separation from the divine.
Here on Earth, we have the law of man and it is the best solution if it can be applied equally, transparently, and where just, mercifully. When the Bani Quraiza were judged by Sa'd bin Mu'adh, he judged them in accordance with their own law, the Torah. This is of importance: we have both international law and the law of the local countries.
Systems of justice are now supported by information systems. This is a business I know well because that is what my company provides. I do not speak for my company, but I do see the immediate potential of such systems as they are provided internationally. Where law can be made transparent, it can be applied equally and where just,mercifully. Where such systems are integrated with the ever growing surveillance systems as they are being, evidence becomes more difficult to obscure and available to all sides in a case. Where integrated with the open source intelligence systems now coming into being, they are incorporated into the deliberative systems that can make it possible for both religious lives and secular lives to be lived if not in perfect harmony, at least in constant reexamination and growth.
The danger is that all sides of the war on terror are enabling the fundamentalists, the Archie Bunkers to drive our deliberations. This is a terrible mistake because whether he sports a cigar and an old hat, or wears a khaftan and a scowel, he is always the same bigoted loudmouth terrorizing his family and his neighbor. We must see him for what he is and understand that in this circumstance, he is not a comic figure but the agent of Shaytan. He leads away from peace, paradise, and the righteous life lived under the law of God and Man, away from dar al Islam to dar al Karb.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
Deliberate Means
Today, President Bush changed his story. Now, he says if anyone in his administration has committed a crime, he will fire them. So one can be pretty certain that his lawyers have assured him that his buds, Karl and Libby, can't be convicted because by some technicality, they haven't committed crimes. But...
Rove & Co. outed a NOC: someone who volunteers to serve in deep cover overseas without diplomatic credentials, meaning if caught, disavowed by their own government and executed. Further, he and his destroyed a CIA front for deep cover operations during a time of war.
If you or I did that, we'd be in prison awaiting execution.
So the President's statements don't express a deeply moral position but I'm under no illusion about President George W. Bush and moral convictions. Yet this story hasn't played out. I was asked, what I thought and I replied,
"I think of 1973 and what happens when one starts pulling a thread on a carefully knitted sweater." The ghost of Tricky Dick visits George W. in the wee hours of the morning.
"So when will McCain dive into the fray. He has felt the lash of Rove's tongue?"
I wrote back, "If he is smart, when it formally becomes his obligation and not before. The lawyers are still parsing. Wait until the result tree is there to be deliberated, then strike like a black mamba."
A smart man is deliberate in his actions and his words. McCain was a naval officer and combat veteran. He is no fool about timing given a known enemy. He learned patience in many life experiences, not least of all, the Hanoi Hilton. He can wait.
The problem is we are at war and can't afford another zedGate. So this is a game that has to end without overtime or a Hail Mary pass. If Rove Inc has one ounce of patriotism, they will resign before the investigation is completed. Because they don't, we have to pray for their survival instincts to take over. All administrations end; thriving is a matter of what one does AFTER the next guy's innaugural. Traitors don't have careers on the salad circuit or sweet consultancies, so if the results of the investigation lead toward prosecution, their survival instincts may kick in.
How this plays out could make or break the next slate of presidential candidates on both sides. So they will be quite deliberate in their deliberations.
That word... hmm?
The press smells blood. If it bleeds, it leads. No moral required; just business. Rove can be hung by the very dynamic he has created, and that may not be justice, but it is bloody well karma.
What works for Rove also works for Jon Stewart. It is a matter of presentation.
Yep, that is Rove's problem. He is the master of the mirror image response. That is a proven tactic on the playground, but it works for anybody. Rove managed the evangelicals because they are conditioned to accept nonsense and the more fantastic the assertion, the more readily they accept it. The rest of the mammals like a good belly laugh. That works for Jon Stewart.
Presentation to the tastes of the audience matters. Is that deliberate? Sure. Is it democratic? Maybe it is just entertainment on both parts.
A good and dear friend writes to me and says
"Regarding Rove, et.al., the subject of a paper I am writing is the need for increased civic engagement and deliberative democracy. If the average person had any idea what goes on up there..."
Well, we engage often. We present, we communicate, but that word again... deliberation. Hmm?
Most people don't know who Rove is. They view politics as corrupt from jump, so a master at corruption looks like someone who is a master at cooking or knitting. They have to see something very graphic repeated before it rises to the forebrain to be considered pertinent to themselves. They sleep through their lives lulled by a 4/4 beat of consumption of mediocrity. Who can blame them? The truth is ugly. We can't be bothered to deliberate about what we don't believe we can change.
That word again...
She made an excellent point: a democratic process is deliberate. That is a precise term. It has meaning. It creates conviction. It exercises reason.
Let's deliberate...
I keep reading that it is important to understand what blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. have offered, that the citizen journalist can change the nature of modern democracies. I wonder if these technologies have offered any new fundamentals or merely changed the character of the existing processes of deliberation. For example, the fact that we can send email speeds up deliberations at a distance, but letter writing is an old and established means. Only the character changed, not the means.
Whereas it has been possible to control most media easily, these new media are not easy to control and they can be used by any participant with access to the Internet. So what? Niche positions emerge quickly.
Is that a fundamental change of means?
Some say that people get More Of What They Want To Know instead of diversity (think Fox News), thus fracturing the electorate, enabling them to be driven by sensationalized issues. In a sense, this is Yellow Journalism come back with a vengence. Success comes down to the strategy for establishing the belief in a system of distraction.
That is manipulation. It is NOT deliberation.
Rove builds a mirror image of any position his opponent takes and uses it to demean the issue into banality. He is able to smear without penalty because even if verified or denied, the damage is already done. Facts don't matter; he is using a non-linear model of recursive self-interests to create emotional perceptions of superiority. That is why the evangelicals are useful; they are conditioned to accept faith-based proclamations without argument and from there, it is easy to get them to accept nonsense of any kind. Goebbels 101: prepare the ground and plant The Big Lie.
Blogging seeds niche issues. Blogs and niche issues don't always have much effect because of a limited readership, but blogs are a testing ground for the talking points.
What succeeds best is a blog-inspired information chase picked up by a central medium. This is amplification. By co-opting blogs AND talk radio and stifling NPR, public radio and E-TV, they are creating a perception of solidarity. Is it real? Perhaps not, but it is effective because it distracts OR informs and it is hard to tell which on any given issue. Even if blogs catalyse and dissolve false positions, they also create support for them. The shared metric is acceleration. Once the talking points are vetted in a blog, it is simply a matter of presenting them in a mainstream media such as TV, then they take off.
Presentation is NOT deliberation.
Democracy is participative. The problem is an abundance of signal and few good reliable filters. I predict the near term result is fatigue. Information overload leads to the desire to opt-out but that isn't easy to do. People want to turn off the cellphones but discover they are addicted to the feed. They organized their lives and schedules around being always connected and now they can't easily disconnect. By participating, they become easy targets for information.
Infoglut is only suffered by gluttons.
In the long run, there is more information, some better information, and those who have a will to know can know... something and they can participate.... across borders. That is better. The influence of the global observers is felt. That is, British, Canadian, etc. citizens become part of the American political conversation, and given the role we play in their economies, they participate to help themselves. It isn't unselfish, but it is the wildcard limiting centralized attempts to steer the conversation with propaganda. The outsider by nationality can participate.
But it isn't entirely global.
In countries and cultures such as China, a different dynamic is emerging. They are using their economic clout to persuade technology vendors such as Microsoft to become partners in filtering the conversation to enable more centralized control. The question is, as the western powers observe this, will central planners attempt to do the same here? The average wirehead believes it is impossible to control the internet, but that is false. It is not only possible, it is reasonable to do so given that unfiltered communications also makes the invasion of privacy, stalking, identity theft, rise of hate groups, and so on more probable. Participation is dangerous.
Participation is NOT deliberation.
The politics of the 90s until now have been about the suppression of deliberation.
Communication is not deliberation. Presentation is not deliberation. Participation is not deliberation. Yet deliberation is the critical skill for participative democracy reliant on communication and presentation. What must be mastered is discriminating among these qualitatively as means to suppress deliberation and these as means to enable deliberation.
Democracy is not only communication, participation, or simply the global conversation. Emphasize the meaning of deliberation: a process of coming to a reasonable position BEFORE voting based on verification, critically noting the results, and continuing a deliberation with new facts. For that to work, one must be able to verify facts. The Internet has made it possible to both get facts and to work in community to verify facts, but it has also made it possible to create false and reasonable domains of interest that distract us just as television did and continues to do. In the end, the Internet is simply an amplifier; it is still the will of the listener to deliberate that settles issues shouted from a merely louder podium.
The short version of this long rant is this: democracy can only survive by mastering the critical ability to discriminate between the means of real deliberation and means that even while disguised as communication, are really means to suppress deliberation.
What about the web enhances deliberation?
An overlooked power of the web is the wikipedia and Answers.com, not the blogs, the podcasts, and the online newspages.
This is not Googling. This is the power to type in a word and instantly get back a definition and all of its available references. Awesome. The ability to 'look at all sides of a question' is the definition of deliberation. That I can find the definition faster may not change the nature of deliberation, but it sure as hell improves the speed and accuracy when the terms are there for everyone's immediate access so we can look at all sides of a question with the same shared meanings.
Those wise in the ways of power will become very aware of these online dictionaries and ontologies. Because these are edited by communities instead of authorities, they make a persuasive case for both the vox populi and the intelligensia.
When ANYONE can post and EVERYONE can edit, a new dynamic emerges and that is a qualitative change. That is participative, that communicates, and that convergence on a sharable, verifiable meaning, is deliberate.
Rove & Co. outed a NOC: someone who volunteers to serve in deep cover overseas without diplomatic credentials, meaning if caught, disavowed by their own government and executed. Further, he and his destroyed a CIA front for deep cover operations during a time of war.
If you or I did that, we'd be in prison awaiting execution.
So the President's statements don't express a deeply moral position but I'm under no illusion about President George W. Bush and moral convictions. Yet this story hasn't played out. I was asked, what I thought and I replied,
"I think of 1973 and what happens when one starts pulling a thread on a carefully knitted sweater." The ghost of Tricky Dick visits George W. in the wee hours of the morning.
"So when will McCain dive into the fray. He has felt the lash of Rove's tongue?"
I wrote back, "If he is smart, when it formally becomes his obligation and not before. The lawyers are still parsing. Wait until the result tree is there to be deliberated, then strike like a black mamba."
A smart man is deliberate in his actions and his words. McCain was a naval officer and combat veteran. He is no fool about timing given a known enemy. He learned patience in many life experiences, not least of all, the Hanoi Hilton. He can wait.
The problem is we are at war and can't afford another zedGate. So this is a game that has to end without overtime or a Hail Mary pass. If Rove Inc has one ounce of patriotism, they will resign before the investigation is completed. Because they don't, we have to pray for their survival instincts to take over. All administrations end; thriving is a matter of what one does AFTER the next guy's innaugural. Traitors don't have careers on the salad circuit or sweet consultancies, so if the results of the investigation lead toward prosecution, their survival instincts may kick in.
How this plays out could make or break the next slate of presidential candidates on both sides. So they will be quite deliberate in their deliberations.
That word... hmm?
The press smells blood. If it bleeds, it leads. No moral required; just business. Rove can be hung by the very dynamic he has created, and that may not be justice, but it is bloody well karma.
What works for Rove also works for Jon Stewart. It is a matter of presentation.
Yep, that is Rove's problem. He is the master of the mirror image response. That is a proven tactic on the playground, but it works for anybody. Rove managed the evangelicals because they are conditioned to accept nonsense and the more fantastic the assertion, the more readily they accept it. The rest of the mammals like a good belly laugh. That works for Jon Stewart.
Presentation to the tastes of the audience matters. Is that deliberate? Sure. Is it democratic? Maybe it is just entertainment on both parts.
A good and dear friend writes to me and says
"Regarding Rove, et.al., the subject of a paper I am writing is the need for increased civic engagement and deliberative democracy. If the average person had any idea what goes on up there..."
Well, we engage often. We present, we communicate, but that word again... deliberation. Hmm?
Most people don't know who Rove is. They view politics as corrupt from jump, so a master at corruption looks like someone who is a master at cooking or knitting. They have to see something very graphic repeated before it rises to the forebrain to be considered pertinent to themselves. They sleep through their lives lulled by a 4/4 beat of consumption of mediocrity. Who can blame them? The truth is ugly. We can't be bothered to deliberate about what we don't believe we can change.
That word again...
She made an excellent point: a democratic process is deliberate. That is a precise term. It has meaning. It creates conviction. It exercises reason.
Let's deliberate...
I keep reading that it is important to understand what blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. have offered, that the citizen journalist can change the nature of modern democracies. I wonder if these technologies have offered any new fundamentals or merely changed the character of the existing processes of deliberation. For example, the fact that we can send email speeds up deliberations at a distance, but letter writing is an old and established means. Only the character changed, not the means.
Whereas it has been possible to control most media easily, these new media are not easy to control and they can be used by any participant with access to the Internet. So what? Niche positions emerge quickly.
Is that a fundamental change of means?
Some say that people get More Of What They Want To Know instead of diversity (think Fox News), thus fracturing the electorate, enabling them to be driven by sensationalized issues. In a sense, this is Yellow Journalism come back with a vengence. Success comes down to the strategy for establishing the belief in a system of distraction.
That is manipulation. It is NOT deliberation.
Rove builds a mirror image of any position his opponent takes and uses it to demean the issue into banality. He is able to smear without penalty because even if verified or denied, the damage is already done. Facts don't matter; he is using a non-linear model of recursive self-interests to create emotional perceptions of superiority. That is why the evangelicals are useful; they are conditioned to accept faith-based proclamations without argument and from there, it is easy to get them to accept nonsense of any kind. Goebbels 101: prepare the ground and plant The Big Lie.
Blogging seeds niche issues. Blogs and niche issues don't always have much effect because of a limited readership, but blogs are a testing ground for the talking points.
What succeeds best is a blog-inspired information chase picked up by a central medium. This is amplification. By co-opting blogs AND talk radio and stifling NPR, public radio and E-TV, they are creating a perception of solidarity. Is it real? Perhaps not, but it is effective because it distracts OR informs and it is hard to tell which on any given issue. Even if blogs catalyse and dissolve false positions, they also create support for them. The shared metric is acceleration. Once the talking points are vetted in a blog, it is simply a matter of presenting them in a mainstream media such as TV, then they take off.
Presentation is NOT deliberation.
Democracy is participative. The problem is an abundance of signal and few good reliable filters. I predict the near term result is fatigue. Information overload leads to the desire to opt-out but that isn't easy to do. People want to turn off the cellphones but discover they are addicted to the feed. They organized their lives and schedules around being always connected and now they can't easily disconnect. By participating, they become easy targets for information.
Infoglut is only suffered by gluttons.
In the long run, there is more information, some better information, and those who have a will to know can know... something and they can participate.... across borders. That is better. The influence of the global observers is felt. That is, British, Canadian, etc. citizens become part of the American political conversation, and given the role we play in their economies, they participate to help themselves. It isn't unselfish, but it is the wildcard limiting centralized attempts to steer the conversation with propaganda. The outsider by nationality can participate.
But it isn't entirely global.
In countries and cultures such as China, a different dynamic is emerging. They are using their economic clout to persuade technology vendors such as Microsoft to become partners in filtering the conversation to enable more centralized control. The question is, as the western powers observe this, will central planners attempt to do the same here? The average wirehead believes it is impossible to control the internet, but that is false. It is not only possible, it is reasonable to do so given that unfiltered communications also makes the invasion of privacy, stalking, identity theft, rise of hate groups, and so on more probable. Participation is dangerous.
Participation is NOT deliberation.
The politics of the 90s until now have been about the suppression of deliberation.
Communication is not deliberation. Presentation is not deliberation. Participation is not deliberation. Yet deliberation is the critical skill for participative democracy reliant on communication and presentation. What must be mastered is discriminating among these qualitatively as means to suppress deliberation and these as means to enable deliberation.
Democracy is not only communication, participation, or simply the global conversation. Emphasize the meaning of deliberation: a process of coming to a reasonable position BEFORE voting based on verification, critically noting the results, and continuing a deliberation with new facts. For that to work, one must be able to verify facts. The Internet has made it possible to both get facts and to work in community to verify facts, but it has also made it possible to create false and reasonable domains of interest that distract us just as television did and continues to do. In the end, the Internet is simply an amplifier; it is still the will of the listener to deliberate that settles issues shouted from a merely louder podium.
The short version of this long rant is this: democracy can only survive by mastering the critical ability to discriminate between the means of real deliberation and means that even while disguised as communication, are really means to suppress deliberation.
What about the web enhances deliberation?
An overlooked power of the web is the wikipedia and Answers.com, not the blogs, the podcasts, and the online newspages.
This is not Googling. This is the power to type in a word and instantly get back a definition and all of its available references. Awesome. The ability to 'look at all sides of a question' is the definition of deliberation. That I can find the definition faster may not change the nature of deliberation, but it sure as hell improves the speed and accuracy when the terms are there for everyone's immediate access so we can look at all sides of a question with the same shared meanings.
Those wise in the ways of power will become very aware of these online dictionaries and ontologies. Because these are edited by communities instead of authorities, they make a persuasive case for both the vox populi and the intelligensia.
When ANYONE can post and EVERYONE can edit, a new dynamic emerges and that is a qualitative change. That is participative, that communicates, and that convergence on a sharable, verifiable meaning, is deliberate.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Reason Is Not Treason
With the recent London bombings, Tim Bray quotes from CNN,
“Authorities across the United States worked to increase security on subways, trains, and other potential targets...”.
then goes on to comment, "That’s really, really stupid. If someone wants to kill you so badly that he doesn’t mind dying in the process, chances are he’s probably going to get you, and a few more cops on the subway aren’t going to help."
Here we disagree. Cops help. Surveillance helps. There is a considerable amount of technology and human resources one can apply to secure mass transit systems. XML, for one. We of the markup community created the core technology for the systems to be applied to global terrorism. Will our technology stop all of the terrorist acts? Never has, but it reduces their severity, intensity and frequency. A sad fact of war, and this is a war, is that it isn't about saving everyone; it is about denying an enemy their chosen target.
My friend goes on:
"My other radical suggestion—which some will denounce as treason—is to work harder at figuring out the “Why?” of it."
Reasoned inquiry and learning is never treason. If one believes the published writings, reasons range from reestablishing a worldwide Caliphate under Muslim law to driving the US out of the Middle East. To the first, that won't happen so we are beyond reason here. To the second, that will happen anyway.
"...when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue."
This is the nut of it: I don't think it is one thing. I believe on the evidence one will find it is many reasons, some fantasy, some an expression of deep discomfort with life as they lead it now. Which is to say, it is not that people adopt insane belief systems that mystifies me. That is common enough. It is that sane people give them support, and for our leaders in the West to change this, they must find and work with these people and change their attitudes about the worthyness of supporting the insane actions of the few.
When the reality of the Palestinian living conditions are brought to the screen, they are compared to the Israeli lifestyle. The Israelis built their country of their own effort. Whose effort improves the conditions of the Palestinians? One thing I've observed in my half century on this rock, when living conditions are made better by the effort of those who live in a place, they seek to keep that place safe. Golda Meir said it best: "When we love our children more than we hate each other."
Some think the Middle East is a culture committed to its own destruction. That's baloney. That is the mote in the eye of the West, and by our own experience, we know that this can change. Thirty years ago, the Russians and the Chinese were a Red Peril. Today they are cagey economic allies working to get a bigger slice of the global economy. The streets of Beijing are not filled with soldiers. It is filled with businessmen. One doesn't read about Great Leaps Forward. One reads about pressuring the US Congress to allow the sail of UNOCAL to Beijing. One reads about the reforms in the banking systems.
Where the West and George W. Bush are blowing it is in creating extra-Middle Eastern terrorists. The next wave will be Caucasians, Western European, the dissatisfied of the well-off seeking a purpose and finding it in the call to worship and the slums of the inner cities. Terrorism is cheap, and as warfare goes, not that challenging. Slaughter of innocents is the easy means to stay in the game. But that game builds no dams, improves no banks, feeds no hungry, frees no prisoner. It is only death come to speak for the disgrace of hunger and powerlessness through the acts of the demented.
This can change for the better. It always has. Through the long slog from global threats of anilhilation to this taste of terror as we board a bus, the one constant has been when someone has more to lose, they work harder to keep what they have. It is a simplistic analysis, but I believe by experience, it is the surest path to a day when we will be able to turn off the cameras.
But until that day comes, be prepared for a world where every act on every public stage is real time hyperdistributed, cataloged, indexed, and analyszed. May we, if we learn nothing else from this experience which is new in human history, the truth about ourselves.
“Authorities across the United States worked to increase security on subways, trains, and other potential targets...”.
then goes on to comment, "That’s really, really stupid. If someone wants to kill you so badly that he doesn’t mind dying in the process, chances are he’s probably going to get you, and a few more cops on the subway aren’t going to help."
Here we disagree. Cops help. Surveillance helps. There is a considerable amount of technology and human resources one can apply to secure mass transit systems. XML, for one. We of the markup community created the core technology for the systems to be applied to global terrorism. Will our technology stop all of the terrorist acts? Never has, but it reduces their severity, intensity and frequency. A sad fact of war, and this is a war, is that it isn't about saving everyone; it is about denying an enemy their chosen target.
My friend goes on:
"My other radical suggestion—which some will denounce as treason—is to work harder at figuring out the “Why?” of it."
Reasoned inquiry and learning is never treason. If one believes the published writings, reasons range from reestablishing a worldwide Caliphate under Muslim law to driving the US out of the Middle East. To the first, that won't happen so we are beyond reason here. To the second, that will happen anyway.
"...when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue."
This is the nut of it: I don't think it is one thing. I believe on the evidence one will find it is many reasons, some fantasy, some an expression of deep discomfort with life as they lead it now. Which is to say, it is not that people adopt insane belief systems that mystifies me. That is common enough. It is that sane people give them support, and for our leaders in the West to change this, they must find and work with these people and change their attitudes about the worthyness of supporting the insane actions of the few.
When the reality of the Palestinian living conditions are brought to the screen, they are compared to the Israeli lifestyle. The Israelis built their country of their own effort. Whose effort improves the conditions of the Palestinians? One thing I've observed in my half century on this rock, when living conditions are made better by the effort of those who live in a place, they seek to keep that place safe. Golda Meir said it best: "When we love our children more than we hate each other."
Some think the Middle East is a culture committed to its own destruction. That's baloney. That is the mote in the eye of the West, and by our own experience, we know that this can change. Thirty years ago, the Russians and the Chinese were a Red Peril. Today they are cagey economic allies working to get a bigger slice of the global economy. The streets of Beijing are not filled with soldiers. It is filled with businessmen. One doesn't read about Great Leaps Forward. One reads about pressuring the US Congress to allow the sail of UNOCAL to Beijing. One reads about the reforms in the banking systems.
Where the West and George W. Bush are blowing it is in creating extra-Middle Eastern terrorists. The next wave will be Caucasians, Western European, the dissatisfied of the well-off seeking a purpose and finding it in the call to worship and the slums of the inner cities. Terrorism is cheap, and as warfare goes, not that challenging. Slaughter of innocents is the easy means to stay in the game. But that game builds no dams, improves no banks, feeds no hungry, frees no prisoner. It is only death come to speak for the disgrace of hunger and powerlessness through the acts of the demented.
This can change for the better. It always has. Through the long slog from global threats of anilhilation to this taste of terror as we board a bus, the one constant has been when someone has more to lose, they work harder to keep what they have. It is a simplistic analysis, but I believe by experience, it is the surest path to a day when we will be able to turn off the cameras.
But until that day comes, be prepared for a world where every act on every public stage is real time hyperdistributed, cataloged, indexed, and analyszed. May we, if we learn nothing else from this experience which is new in human history, the truth about ourselves.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Five Days of Independence
Five days of independence... no gig, no job, a lawn, a picnic, two days of old friends, old movies, one more song in the can.
My son tells me he is becoming disillusioned. At sixteen, I say, that's normal. You are comparing your values with the values of the world, thus, discovering your own values.
That's a good thing.
Will it get better, Dad, and how long?
It will and I don't know. Our culture phases, and so do our relationships. They will swing about as far as they swung. The important bit is what you are doing now: learning about your own values.
Five days of independence. My country is divided. Some say our religious values and our politics are too far apart. Some say they are too mixed. I don't think that is the problem. I think our values are too far from our hearts, our own values too far from our own desires. We've let symbols, wealth, and politics become too centralized and forgotten that it is the single human heart that chooses good, evil, truth, falsity, fidelity, cause and compassion. We believe stories that make us comfortable or resigned and forget that we should be about changing ourselves because that is ALWAYS within our power.
My independence is that I may choose for heartfelt reasons, or for mindfulness, but that in this land, these can be the same for not man nor government may force that choice from me. The beliefs that divide us may divide us from each other, but the heart that chooses against itself chooses a broken heart.
Those who seek power through our hearts seek wisely because that is where power is to be found in politics, but the mind of the broken hearted turns away from the politics of power yielded to power wielded. When democracies cry, change comes.
My son tells me he is becoming disillusioned. At sixteen, I say, that's normal. You are comparing your values with the values of the world, thus, discovering your own values.
That's a good thing.
Will it get better, Dad, and how long?
It will and I don't know. Our culture phases, and so do our relationships. They will swing about as far as they swung. The important bit is what you are doing now: learning about your own values.
Five days of independence. My country is divided. Some say our religious values and our politics are too far apart. Some say they are too mixed. I don't think that is the problem. I think our values are too far from our hearts, our own values too far from our own desires. We've let symbols, wealth, and politics become too centralized and forgotten that it is the single human heart that chooses good, evil, truth, falsity, fidelity, cause and compassion. We believe stories that make us comfortable or resigned and forget that we should be about changing ourselves because that is ALWAYS within our power.
My independence is that I may choose for heartfelt reasons, or for mindfulness, but that in this land, these can be the same for not man nor government may force that choice from me. The beliefs that divide us may divide us from each other, but the heart that chooses against itself chooses a broken heart.
Those who seek power through our hearts seek wisely because that is where power is to be found in politics, but the mind of the broken hearted turns away from the politics of power yielded to power wielded. When democracies cry, change comes.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Bewitched: The Movie
We saw the movie tonight. It sucks.
Hollywood threw all of the talent, wit and ideas at the movie they could devise, and it still sucks.
Some things can only be made of a time and a place and one true love. Liz Montgomery loved Bill Asher and he her. Between them, they could make Bewitched in the light of that love. Some of the best episodes are when Liz is pregnant with her children, and certainly the first two seasons. It doesn't translate to today and it can't be made again because it isn't honest, and it isn't Liz and Bill.
Somehow that makes me glad.
Magic is real. Maybe that is the point of the movie and that is the best they can do is make that point: magic only happens to people in love.
Hollywood threw all of the talent, wit and ideas at the movie they could devise, and it still sucks.
Some things can only be made of a time and a place and one true love. Liz Montgomery loved Bill Asher and he her. Between them, they could make Bewitched in the light of that love. Some of the best episodes are when Liz is pregnant with her children, and certainly the first two seasons. It doesn't translate to today and it can't be made again because it isn't honest, and it isn't Liz and Bill.
Somehow that makes me glad.
Magic is real. Maybe that is the point of the movie and that is the best they can do is make that point: magic only happens to people in love.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Ingrid Bergman
In the roles they choose, their screen time, and the spaces within which they perform, actresses use light to accomplish their goals. Some would be "Sister Mary Benedict" or "Golda", a passionate saint or a leader of nations, while others, are merely "Ilse" dutifully flying beyond the fog
"... not today or even tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life..."
only to become "Maria" for whom
"... it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest."
yet for herself, Ingrid Bergman chose to live a passionate life because she knew that a passionate light illuminates a life even as it wanes. A dutiful light illuminates the moment of discharging that duty otherwise casting no shadow nor making clear the way for any other act.
Time and space pilfer light. The bitterness of the dutiful choice is to finally understand that all we get is old.
"... not today or even tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life..."
only to become "Maria" for whom
"... it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest."
yet for herself, Ingrid Bergman chose to live a passionate life because she knew that a passionate light illuminates a life even as it wanes. A dutiful light illuminates the moment of discharging that duty otherwise casting no shadow nor making clear the way for any other act.
Time and space pilfer light. The bitterness of the dutiful choice is to finally understand that all we get is old.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Revenge of The Sith
Revenge of the Sith is a GREAT movie. Of it's genre, it's one of the very best. No polemic required; the packed movie house and the cheering says it all. Vox populi. Buy a bag of popcorn and a giant belly buster of a cola and sit with your kids for a few hours of pure thrills.
Of course, the ultra right will see that differently and applaud its critics. That is expected. Their inability to relax and enjoy the ride is totally in character. That's why they wear ties: it keeps their heads attached when their hearts are trying to gnaw their red necks off.
"So that is how liberty dies: to the sound of thunderous applause."
Well said, Lucas.
len
Of course, the ultra right will see that differently and applaud its critics. That is expected. Their inability to relax and enjoy the ride is totally in character. That's why they wear ties: it keeps their heads attached when their hearts are trying to gnaw their red necks off.
"So that is how liberty dies: to the sound of thunderous applause."
Well said, Lucas.
len
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Advice for College Graduates
It's not who dies with the most toys that wins, but who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive.
Swing for the fences, but don't be ashamed to be walked to first base.
Wealth without fame is slightly boring, but fame without wealth is surprisingly dangerous.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; so, sell the bird and buy the bush.
Good looks vs good cook: cooking can improve with practice.
A map of popular trends looks like a map of soil erosion for exactly the same reasons.
The surest way to get more of the same is to keep getting it from the same source.
Better is the enemy of More.
Swing for the fences, but don't be ashamed to be walked to first base.
Wealth without fame is slightly boring, but fame without wealth is surprisingly dangerous.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; so, sell the bird and buy the bush.
Good looks vs good cook: cooking can improve with practice.
A map of popular trends looks like a map of soil erosion for exactly the same reasons.
The surest way to get more of the same is to keep getting it from the same source.
Better is the enemy of More.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
A Get Out Of Hell for Free Ticket
A good day at work is when the CEO calls all of the developers and staff in and says, "I'm putting you all back together as one team. Let the code flow."
Today was such a day. Praise the Lord Almighty; change at last.
Verticals in small companies make for good bookkeeping but bad development. Too many product lines emerge and given platforms, versions, customer domains and the local politics of sales and development, it doesn't make for a merged set of services, and more importantly, a sharable codebase. As Jack Welch taught GE, the goal of enterprise engineering is to take OUT work.
The first and last bit of business is product. No idea no plan no product no customer no pay. Services are in the long tail, but they don't have a network effect. Timely innovation is where the risks are and all the fun.
The essential challenge is the codebase. No d'oh. Even if a software company is not publishing open source, within it's own IP and contractural boundaries, it must practice open source to reduce the semantic load from the applications. Uncertainty is proportional to semantic load, thus the high cost of reliable customer-specific adaptations. Where cost == features, features lose unless the business model is features. Customizations cost, implementations cost, conversions, new forms, new interfaces to old systems, help desks, technical documentation, all are features with costs. You Mr. Customer, get to choose what you want.
"Speed is money, how fast can you afford to go?" (Ron Harlow)
Some dumb costs:
1. Rich formatted printed forms designed to reduce the size of a file cabinet but obsolete in the digital age. Yeah, I know about the law and printed forms, but really, get over it. You are out in the range of 10k to 20k to get one from a vendor given a complex report. Simplify.
2. Interfaces to legacy systems. This is unavoidable for ecologically active software environments. Do work with the IT staff to work out with the vendor how to phase this better. Beat the everloving tarnation out of the vendors who refuse to work with you on this. Remember, you pay for it.
3. Multiple languages and platforms are the maximum contributor to dumb costs in software development. Specialty languages seldom are. On the other hand, in an active web environment, failing to master the skill of XML application language development and implementation and not just the standard implementation of a standard vocabulary is failing to master survival. Tags are local even if they are not.
If you are an IT wonk, do the software hood a favor: read the RFPs the contracts wonks are publishing. Show some nuts and insist on taking out the excess. Simpler is more reliable. Cheaper too in most cases.
If shooting consultants is necessary to achieve this, party on. Consultants are just salesmen in lawyer's clothes; bounties vary. I'm not saying consultants aren't useful, but use them wisely, then feed them to a tank of piranha. Fast replacement rates strengthen species.
If there is a lesson to the last of the big ticket big iron vendors from the lowly but doing ok web developers, it is this: less. Use the basic web languages to do as much of the work as you can. The tradeoff of rich vs reach is not just a tradeoff with your customer but within your codebase. You trade on opportunity and cost when you deal in complexity as a barrier to competition.
Today was such a day. Praise the Lord Almighty; change at last.
Verticals in small companies make for good bookkeeping but bad development. Too many product lines emerge and given platforms, versions, customer domains and the local politics of sales and development, it doesn't make for a merged set of services, and more importantly, a sharable codebase. As Jack Welch taught GE, the goal of enterprise engineering is to take OUT work.
The first and last bit of business is product. No idea no plan no product no customer no pay. Services are in the long tail, but they don't have a network effect. Timely innovation is where the risks are and all the fun.
The essential challenge is the codebase. No d'oh. Even if a software company is not publishing open source, within it's own IP and contractural boundaries, it must practice open source to reduce the semantic load from the applications. Uncertainty is proportional to semantic load, thus the high cost of reliable customer-specific adaptations. Where cost == features, features lose unless the business model is features. Customizations cost, implementations cost, conversions, new forms, new interfaces to old systems, help desks, technical documentation, all are features with costs. You Mr. Customer, get to choose what you want.
"Speed is money, how fast can you afford to go?" (Ron Harlow)
Some dumb costs:
1. Rich formatted printed forms designed to reduce the size of a file cabinet but obsolete in the digital age. Yeah, I know about the law and printed forms, but really, get over it. You are out in the range of 10k to 20k to get one from a vendor given a complex report. Simplify.
2. Interfaces to legacy systems. This is unavoidable for ecologically active software environments. Do work with the IT staff to work out with the vendor how to phase this better. Beat the everloving tarnation out of the vendors who refuse to work with you on this. Remember, you pay for it.
3. Multiple languages and platforms are the maximum contributor to dumb costs in software development. Specialty languages seldom are. On the other hand, in an active web environment, failing to master the skill of XML application language development and implementation and not just the standard implementation of a standard vocabulary is failing to master survival. Tags are local even if they are not.
If you are an IT wonk, do the software hood a favor: read the RFPs the contracts wonks are publishing. Show some nuts and insist on taking out the excess. Simpler is more reliable. Cheaper too in most cases.
If shooting consultants is necessary to achieve this, party on. Consultants are just salesmen in lawyer's clothes; bounties vary. I'm not saying consultants aren't useful, but use them wisely, then feed them to a tank of piranha. Fast replacement rates strengthen species.
If there is a lesson to the last of the big ticket big iron vendors from the lowly but doing ok web developers, it is this: less. Use the basic web languages to do as much of the work as you can. The tradeoff of rich vs reach is not just a tradeoff with your customer but within your codebase. You trade on opportunity and cost when you deal in complexity as a barrier to competition.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Remixing History
This is proof that the remixing of history is alive and well on the web, and that there are very talented funny people with far too much time on their hands or on their shirts. So there it is; the mockumentary that Ken Burns was too wussy to make: the faux history of
the Old Negro Space Program.
Some things the Internet made possible should be impossible possibly.
the Old Negro Space Program.
Some things the Internet made possible should be impossible possibly.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
A Quantum Riff On God
Light is in superposition to the observable universe.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
It is continuous therefore to the discrete observer, constant and indivisible, so waveform. Lightspeed is the observable and measurable.
It is the measurements that are discrete and create the illusion of the particle universe.
Observations are made at will.
What is the role of choice in semantic loading?
What are the rights of the chooser?
What are the rights of the chosen?
Whence comes the will to choose?
Whence comes the knowing of choice?
Uncertainty increases proportionally to semantic load.
Simplification reduces uncertainty. It does not induce choice.
It increases the particularity of choice. Choice is particulate.
Infinity is continuous and everywhere the same.
We evolved to be particulate so to measure infinities.
Faith evolved so we could be conscious that we are infinite.
We are light.
What is faith that it gives light the power know itself?
It is the choice to love.
Light gives up the infinite to know that choice.
So we become particulate, to be measured by the immortal light
that thereby knows itself yet always is itself.
One.
Jane Fonda
No one will tell the story of Jane Fonda better than she tells it. Her life has been one of privilege and searching and now of faith. That is altogether a good life. Along the way, she crossed paths with many other lives great, small, privileged and simply searching too.
When I saw Jane Fonda she was speaking at our university in my hometown. I was a high school ROTC cadet dressed in my Army green watching a tall unadorned woman in her shag haircut looking as if she had just stepped off the set of Klute. Her voice was strong, her convictions firm, and she spoke the truth of what she had seen in Southeast Asia, giving voice to what we all knew even if we did not want to say it, that the war was wrong, that people were dieing for reasons that made no sense, and that it was our responsibility to say no. This speech hit home. I returned to the ROTC class the next day with questions for my instructors, questions they could not answer, did not like, yet could not turn away easily from an earnest if far too young cadet.
Regardless of what others think of her, Hanoi Jane, a traitor, a fool, a shallow actress who did not realize that the same media that made her famous could make her hated, Jane Fonda spoke the truth. In that one moment of her life, she stepped up to her convictions and responsibility. She used her privilege and her wealth and her stardom to go to the heart of the conflict and find the truth for herself. Then she used those same qualities to come home and tell her generation of which she was the first and I was the last, that truth. In that moment, if she was foolish, she was also brave, and if she was believed to be a traitor, she was also believed to be a true American. While I was willing to take that step in my uniform, willing to go, because of Jane Fonda, I knew it was wrong. Because of Jane Fonda and those like her who had a truth to tell, before that time came, the war was over. However else she is viewed, she, the first of my generation, saved the last.
The core of American values is independent initiative. By our own initiative, we set out with whatever strength and position and privilege we have to find the truth as well as it can be obtained by one person. If we have that value, then we also have the strength to tell that truth to others, for it is the moment we share, our place in time and history, and our responsibility is to the others who share that moment. This may not be uniquely American, just merely human. But not all Americans or all humans have the strength to seize that moment and present that truth. Jane Fonda has and did and will.
Thirty years on, long after the bombs have stopped falling on the rice paddies, long after the thump thump thump of the Huey blades have quit sounding there, they sound elsewhere. Whatever it is we learn from our moments, however we share the truths we find in them, another generation from first to last will be born and live out their moments. One wishes they would learn the truths of the generations that have come before them, but often they do not and that is another sad truth my generation learns from the present.
I wish that for this generation, a Jane Fonda would come to their university and tell them a truth, a truth to give them questions to take back to their classrooms, for evidently, there are few answers we can share but we can share our questions.
Thirty years on, as the time comes that it may be my son or my daughter's time to go, I thank Ms. Fonda. Thank you for sharing a truth in a moment and a time long ago, but unfortunately, not so far away. You are American, you are of your generation, and you are one of the best of us. Thank you for sharing your truth. It did not come without cost or hurt, but it was generously given and gratefully acknowledged.
When I saw Jane Fonda she was speaking at our university in my hometown. I was a high school ROTC cadet dressed in my Army green watching a tall unadorned woman in her shag haircut looking as if she had just stepped off the set of Klute. Her voice was strong, her convictions firm, and she spoke the truth of what she had seen in Southeast Asia, giving voice to what we all knew even if we did not want to say it, that the war was wrong, that people were dieing for reasons that made no sense, and that it was our responsibility to say no. This speech hit home. I returned to the ROTC class the next day with questions for my instructors, questions they could not answer, did not like, yet could not turn away easily from an earnest if far too young cadet.
Regardless of what others think of her, Hanoi Jane, a traitor, a fool, a shallow actress who did not realize that the same media that made her famous could make her hated, Jane Fonda spoke the truth. In that one moment of her life, she stepped up to her convictions and responsibility. She used her privilege and her wealth and her stardom to go to the heart of the conflict and find the truth for herself. Then she used those same qualities to come home and tell her generation of which she was the first and I was the last, that truth. In that moment, if she was foolish, she was also brave, and if she was believed to be a traitor, she was also believed to be a true American. While I was willing to take that step in my uniform, willing to go, because of Jane Fonda, I knew it was wrong. Because of Jane Fonda and those like her who had a truth to tell, before that time came, the war was over. However else she is viewed, she, the first of my generation, saved the last.
The core of American values is independent initiative. By our own initiative, we set out with whatever strength and position and privilege we have to find the truth as well as it can be obtained by one person. If we have that value, then we also have the strength to tell that truth to others, for it is the moment we share, our place in time and history, and our responsibility is to the others who share that moment. This may not be uniquely American, just merely human. But not all Americans or all humans have the strength to seize that moment and present that truth. Jane Fonda has and did and will.
Thirty years on, long after the bombs have stopped falling on the rice paddies, long after the thump thump thump of the Huey blades have quit sounding there, they sound elsewhere. Whatever it is we learn from our moments, however we share the truths we find in them, another generation from first to last will be born and live out their moments. One wishes they would learn the truths of the generations that have come before them, but often they do not and that is another sad truth my generation learns from the present.
I wish that for this generation, a Jane Fonda would come to their university and tell them a truth, a truth to give them questions to take back to their classrooms, for evidently, there are few answers we can share but we can share our questions.
Thirty years on, as the time comes that it may be my son or my daughter's time to go, I thank Ms. Fonda. Thank you for sharing a truth in a moment and a time long ago, but unfortunately, not so far away. You are American, you are of your generation, and you are one of the best of us. Thank you for sharing your truth. It did not come without cost or hurt, but it was generously given and gratefully acknowledged.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Bewitched: The Movie
It has a chance. Nora Ephron did crack a way to do the story without Liz: by not doing that character, just her situation. That might work.
No one will do Sam and Serena better than Elizabeth Montgomery. She was the magic. Great beauty always is, and if it comes with a disposition to love, it is eternal as well.
No one will do Sam and Serena better than Elizabeth Montgomery. She was the magic. Great beauty always is, and if it comes with a disposition to love, it is eternal as well.
3D Chat: Why VRML Lives
3D chat is the reason VRML97 still lives. For some people, the technology is a passion and a tool. For the VRMLers, the dream is cyberspace and that dream gives the builders a passion to build. VRML collects only some 3D graphics artists, but it collects a very dedicated group of worldbuilders.
And boy, can these people build. Not just game worlds, but parks you want to walk in, forests with tree houses that look out over a sea of islands floating past in the air, malls, museums, stores, exotic secret hideaways by a sea of green and a great big moon, with the sounds of passion in the air. People go there together and enjoy the scenery. It is as if TV let you choose a location, and you can go be with whoever is there and talk about whatever you like.
Quite a dream really.
And wow! They've done it. Those worlds are out there to be explored courtesy of the worldbuilders that just would not give up on their vision. Gibsonian cyberspace was not about the power of the dream, it was about the willingness to dream together, to be together in a dream. Presence.
It is the powerful magic of not being alone.
In the last few years, quite under the radar of the snifly press and the powerful pundits, VRML found its niche: 3D chat. The dream of the 3D junkie is to be able to communicate in a natural language of the humans: bodily gesture and motion in a local space. While the database designers have sought metaphors for tables and rows that store numbers for business, the worldbuilders worked to create environments and objects that resemble what the tables and rows only count and remember.
Human bodily gestures convey emotion, and therefore entangle the viewer. By enabling the avatar in the database, the human viewer intuits intimacy. The human craves intimacy.
So where some dismiss this use of VRML, claiming 3D chat is a waste of bandwidth, I ask you, have you tried it?
I have.
1) It does work as a collaborative space. The use of media types for shared texts combined with the 3D avatar and synth-enabled chat provides sufficient eyeball bandwidth to carry on a real time event. Some say chat is sufficient. I dispute that. Why? Again, the gestures of the avatar provide sufficient onset cues to entangle the human in the conversation emotionally. The chat text keeps them focused if they practice the protocol needed for the chat event. To wit: in a meeting stick to meeting topics and follow the leader. In the square, it's your party.
2) As collaborative spaces go, this is very cheap server technology. A combination of this and RSS would go a long ways toward being an interesting dispatch system given the right document types. Given more online integrated editors, it becomes a cheap 3D library of reusable integratible types. Standards have their benefits. The game industry may not need them, but the non-game industry needs them badly to get costs in line with benefits.
3) The claim that the media is data-costly was true. However, lidar mapping, aerial mapping, and other means of getting that data both in geo-GPS form and in the neartime sampled singals are completely adequate to get resolution in a usable form of reality. It is a cheap means to provide a fused view system of the feeds.
4) Immersive 3D space does not vanish given loss of real-time sensors. Given near time fidelity, presence is simulable.
5) The key term is presence. Creating presence is the secret to command and control.
3D representation enables the UI designer to lose fidelity while clarifying intent, thus allowing the human to focus on more objects even if direct access to available details is slowed. Presence is not the absence of fidelity; it is the fidelity of what is left. Real time 3D cues organize the mind spatially and temporally. Spatial and temporal components couple to the signs expressed in 3D to enhance attention.
Attention is presence.
The second reason is simpler: Joy. The VRMLers build worlds they want to be in, worlds in which the language they want to speak and see, the language of smile, wave, bow, point, flip, turn, fly, walk, jump to, and beyond, the repetoire of human movement in space and time, are performed. If the great Wizards don't get it yet, the VRMLers do: human expression is enjoyed. Add that to chat, and you get a nicely coupled system.
Oh, yes, and the best reason VRML lives:
6) In VRML chat, if you don't like your looks at the meeting, you can buy or build a better body for the next one.
Gender optional.
And boy, can these people build. Not just game worlds, but parks you want to walk in, forests with tree houses that look out over a sea of islands floating past in the air, malls, museums, stores, exotic secret hideaways by a sea of green and a great big moon, with the sounds of passion in the air. People go there together and enjoy the scenery. It is as if TV let you choose a location, and you can go be with whoever is there and talk about whatever you like.
Quite a dream really.
And wow! They've done it. Those worlds are out there to be explored courtesy of the worldbuilders that just would not give up on their vision. Gibsonian cyberspace was not about the power of the dream, it was about the willingness to dream together, to be together in a dream. Presence.
It is the powerful magic of not being alone.
In the last few years, quite under the radar of the snifly press and the powerful pundits, VRML found its niche: 3D chat. The dream of the 3D junkie is to be able to communicate in a natural language of the humans: bodily gesture and motion in a local space. While the database designers have sought metaphors for tables and rows that store numbers for business, the worldbuilders worked to create environments and objects that resemble what the tables and rows only count and remember.
Human bodily gestures convey emotion, and therefore entangle the viewer. By enabling the avatar in the database, the human viewer intuits intimacy. The human craves intimacy.
So where some dismiss this use of VRML, claiming 3D chat is a waste of bandwidth, I ask you, have you tried it?
I have.
1) It does work as a collaborative space. The use of media types for shared texts combined with the 3D avatar and synth-enabled chat provides sufficient eyeball bandwidth to carry on a real time event. Some say chat is sufficient. I dispute that. Why? Again, the gestures of the avatar provide sufficient onset cues to entangle the human in the conversation emotionally. The chat text keeps them focused if they practice the protocol needed for the chat event. To wit: in a meeting stick to meeting topics and follow the leader. In the square, it's your party.
2) As collaborative spaces go, this is very cheap server technology. A combination of this and RSS would go a long ways toward being an interesting dispatch system given the right document types. Given more online integrated editors, it becomes a cheap 3D library of reusable integratible types. Standards have their benefits. The game industry may not need them, but the non-game industry needs them badly to get costs in line with benefits.
3) The claim that the media is data-costly was true. However, lidar mapping, aerial mapping, and other means of getting that data both in geo-GPS form and in the neartime sampled singals are completely adequate to get resolution in a usable form of reality. It is a cheap means to provide a fused view system of the feeds.
4) Immersive 3D space does not vanish given loss of real-time sensors. Given near time fidelity, presence is simulable.
5) The key term is presence. Creating presence is the secret to command and control.
3D representation enables the UI designer to lose fidelity while clarifying intent, thus allowing the human to focus on more objects even if direct access to available details is slowed. Presence is not the absence of fidelity; it is the fidelity of what is left. Real time 3D cues organize the mind spatially and temporally. Spatial and temporal components couple to the signs expressed in 3D to enhance attention.
Attention is presence.
The second reason is simpler: Joy. The VRMLers build worlds they want to be in, worlds in which the language they want to speak and see, the language of smile, wave, bow, point, flip, turn, fly, walk, jump to, and beyond, the repetoire of human movement in space and time, are performed. If the great Wizards don't get it yet, the VRMLers do: human expression is enjoyed. Add that to chat, and you get a nicely coupled system.
Oh, yes, and the best reason VRML lives:
6) In VRML chat, if you don't like your looks at the meeting, you can buy or build a better body for the next one.
Gender optional.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Pope John Paul II
I am not Catholic. I don't think that matters tomorrow. Tomorrow, I shall mourn the death of Pope John Paul II. He was a good Pope, but moreover, he was a brave and kind man who served his God, cared for His people, and in all ways that a man should be remembered, will be.
God keep Pope John Paul II. God bless his successor. God bless and watch over all that he loved: all of the people of the world.
God keep Pope John Paul II. God bless his successor. God bless and watch over all that he loved: all of the people of the world.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Being Oz
It being a classic, most want to do the line: "I Am Oz The Great and Powerful!", but it is not the best line of that character. The best line is, "Well, anybody can have a brain!" because that is when the old humbug knows he is going to get away with it one more time. First, he must handle the Scarecrow because he has ideas and ideas are dangerous, so better give him a title so he will shut up. The Cowardly Lion is more dangerous for he is a forest lion and can shred this man and his balloon. But of all there, the Tin Man is the most dangerous for he cannot persuaded, he must believe he has the heart himself and if he does not, his axe is most persuasive. The girl? The girl is going with Oz.
Acting is about access to emotions at core. It is the emotions that give believability to breath, and breath that gives words to emotions. That is how one goes beyond the lines and the blocking to the onset cues that persuade a mammal brain to suspend belief. While it is possible by dint of hard work to simulate the emotions, learn the expressions, feel just that much inside that one can fake it, it is so hard no sensible mammal tries it. They feel it. That is acting. Listening is everything, timing is everything else. Emotions are the shared currency of acting.
"Better to be what you is because if you is what you ain't then you ain't what you is." - from an old poster in my studio
To find the character of Oz, I did the research into Baum and watched Frank Morgan to learn lines and borrow some magic. But mostly, I listened to Luz Ladrillono, our director. I haven't acted in 30 years. I trained for it from 13 to 23. I loved it when I did it, but two artforms are one too many when working, so I chose the one that made the most money:
.... computer science. And kept a band on the side.
It leaves a tattered hole in the ceiling of one's heart to give up any great love in one's life, and for me, that was theatre. It is the Great Art and the Complete Art. Music is demanding, but theatre asks for all of the talents and the more one can master, the greater the experience of live theatre. So it was both my fortune and God's gift that when I did return to it, Luz was there. It is rare in this area to meet a stone cold professional actress, dancer, teacher, and director who is also kind and willing. Her shaping of my character was basic: some gestures, some voices, placement of the eyes, and simple blocking. Gentle, good, and basic direction given consistently, repetitively, and never sternly but understandably. Luz never raised her voice to the cast even once. Amazing.
Oz is six voices: Professor Chester Marvel, Marvel's Magic Voice, OZ, OZ revealed, OZ the Survivor and the Man Behind The Curtain.
Chester is a carny magician, a man of some background, and one who does this job because he likes it. He isn't a bad fellow, but he believes in his act and uses it to move the world around him. He is a good-hearted man who uses his magic voice to send Dorothy back to the farm, but he is so caught up in his own act that he sees the storm and worries about the horse yet sends the little girl into the storm with only a glance over his back.
OZ is simply big and dismissive. It's an easy voice to do. Easiest of the lot really because one only has to be loud and arrogant. I can manage that. It's a Rock Voice. ;-)
OZ revealed is the timid man. Pulled from behind the curtain, at first he thinks he is toast. He has used up all of his tricks and this time, someone came back from the Haunted Forest. In a land of real magic, this man had none and even though his most fiercesome enemy was disposed of, he was history as The Great and Powerful Oz. Time to get a new act. But first, he has to get to the balloon. When he hears them say, "And what about Scarecrow's brain?", Oz the Survivor knows he has a chance.
In every act, whether as Oz or acting as Oz, there is a moment in the script where the character and the actor find that moment. No turning back. I dropped the bag in my hand.
"Well, ANYBODY can have a BRAIN!?!"
His own voice is the Man Behind The Curtain. When time came to deliver the line that is the point of the tale, I used my own voice. At 51 on a stage toe to toe with teenage actors who had performed flawlessly and beautifully, before all those children in the cast and the audience, for all the adults with them, but most of all for my daughter, I wanted that line to be heard as honest and sincere. In truth, I do look back through the years they look forward through. The wisdom of age is not given, meritorious or heartfelt; it is the truth of the eyes that see and remember and the breath that sustains and marks out time. That truth is itself, ageless.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
The joy of theatre, the reason it is the Great Art is the cast. What we experience together is a far greater magic than that seen on the stage. It is access to emotions, both in the parts we play and as we go to our entrances hugging and smiling at by those who have worked so hard together, excited, nervous, exhillarated and finally triumphant. The play is an act; the emotions are real.
As the cast took its bows, I thought, "We are Oz. The Great and Powerful."
Acting is about access to emotions at core. It is the emotions that give believability to breath, and breath that gives words to emotions. That is how one goes beyond the lines and the blocking to the onset cues that persuade a mammal brain to suspend belief. While it is possible by dint of hard work to simulate the emotions, learn the expressions, feel just that much inside that one can fake it, it is so hard no sensible mammal tries it. They feel it. That is acting. Listening is everything, timing is everything else. Emotions are the shared currency of acting.
"Better to be what you is because if you is what you ain't then you ain't what you is." - from an old poster in my studio
To find the character of Oz, I did the research into Baum and watched Frank Morgan to learn lines and borrow some magic. But mostly, I listened to Luz Ladrillono, our director. I haven't acted in 30 years. I trained for it from 13 to 23. I loved it when I did it, but two artforms are one too many when working, so I chose the one that made the most money:
.... computer science. And kept a band on the side.
It leaves a tattered hole in the ceiling of one's heart to give up any great love in one's life, and for me, that was theatre. It is the Great Art and the Complete Art. Music is demanding, but theatre asks for all of the talents and the more one can master, the greater the experience of live theatre. So it was both my fortune and God's gift that when I did return to it, Luz was there. It is rare in this area to meet a stone cold professional actress, dancer, teacher, and director who is also kind and willing. Her shaping of my character was basic: some gestures, some voices, placement of the eyes, and simple blocking. Gentle, good, and basic direction given consistently, repetitively, and never sternly but understandably. Luz never raised her voice to the cast even once. Amazing.
Oz is six voices: Professor Chester Marvel, Marvel's Magic Voice, OZ, OZ revealed, OZ the Survivor and the Man Behind The Curtain.
Chester is a carny magician, a man of some background, and one who does this job because he likes it. He isn't a bad fellow, but he believes in his act and uses it to move the world around him. He is a good-hearted man who uses his magic voice to send Dorothy back to the farm, but he is so caught up in his own act that he sees the storm and worries about the horse yet sends the little girl into the storm with only a glance over his back.
OZ is simply big and dismissive. It's an easy voice to do. Easiest of the lot really because one only has to be loud and arrogant. I can manage that. It's a Rock Voice. ;-)
OZ revealed is the timid man. Pulled from behind the curtain, at first he thinks he is toast. He has used up all of his tricks and this time, someone came back from the Haunted Forest. In a land of real magic, this man had none and even though his most fiercesome enemy was disposed of, he was history as The Great and Powerful Oz. Time to get a new act. But first, he has to get to the balloon. When he hears them say, "And what about Scarecrow's brain?", Oz the Survivor knows he has a chance.
In every act, whether as Oz or acting as Oz, there is a moment in the script where the character and the actor find that moment. No turning back. I dropped the bag in my hand.
"Well, ANYBODY can have a BRAIN!?!"
His own voice is the Man Behind The Curtain. When time came to deliver the line that is the point of the tale, I used my own voice. At 51 on a stage toe to toe with teenage actors who had performed flawlessly and beautifully, before all those children in the cast and the audience, for all the adults with them, but most of all for my daughter, I wanted that line to be heard as honest and sincere. In truth, I do look back through the years they look forward through. The wisdom of age is not given, meritorious or heartfelt; it is the truth of the eyes that see and remember and the breath that sustains and marks out time. That truth is itself, ageless.
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
The joy of theatre, the reason it is the Great Art is the cast. What we experience together is a far greater magic than that seen on the stage. It is access to emotions, both in the parts we play and as we go to our entrances hugging and smiling at by those who have worked so hard together, excited, nervous, exhillarated and finally triumphant. The play is an act; the emotions are real.
As the cast took its bows, I thought, "We are Oz. The Great and Powerful."
Sunday, March 20, 2005
To The Director
I wished only to portray him as you saw him.
To do this, I surrendered my breath to you,
let your face be the face in my dreams,
let your voice be the voice that guided me,
let your hand be the hand that shaped me.
Only then could I be what I must be, do I what must do
feel what I must feel to achieve my purpose,
.... to shine in your eyes
Then take all of that back and put it away until
it would be needed again, knowing that it is
forever better because for the time that was,
it was yours.
To do this, I surrendered my breath to you,
let your face be the face in my dreams,
let your voice be the voice that guided me,
let your hand be the hand that shaped me.
Only then could I be what I must be, do I what must do
feel what I must feel to achieve my purpose,
.... to shine in your eyes
Then take all of that back and put it away until
it would be needed again, knowing that it is
forever better because for the time that was,
it was yours.
Friday, February 25, 2005
UFOs: Fact or Friction
Yes, I saw the ABC UFO show. Yes, most of it is old material but not all of it.
There are more military types coming out and testifying and more admissions that the radar tracks do exist. More recently retired airline pilots are finally testifying now their careers aren't threatened.
1. There are too many eye witnesses with high credibility and film footage to say it is just kooks and cranks. There are reports that predate 1947. 1947 is when people started paying attention. The Twining report is legitimate and so was the testimony of the officer who used to run Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek was a seriously credentialed scientist.
So smarter people than thee or me take this stuff seriously.
2. The question one asks is: if UFOs are real, extraterrestrial or not, why is the government covering up? Either
a) what they know is bad or
b) what they know they don't know is bad or
c) it is government work or
d) they don't know.
3. Eyewitness accounts are not science. True. But they are evidence. Of what, I don't know. But evidently, neither do the scientists.
4. Is it crazy to believe in unproven things? Lots of people believe in God. So far, proof is minimal but there is more film footage of UFOs than God.
Do I believe? I keep an open mind and watch the skies, because as the old song says,
"There's things going on that you don't know."
There are more military types coming out and testifying and more admissions that the radar tracks do exist. More recently retired airline pilots are finally testifying now their careers aren't threatened.
1. There are too many eye witnesses with high credibility and film footage to say it is just kooks and cranks. There are reports that predate 1947. 1947 is when people started paying attention. The Twining report is legitimate and so was the testimony of the officer who used to run Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek was a seriously credentialed scientist.
So smarter people than thee or me take this stuff seriously.
2. The question one asks is: if UFOs are real, extraterrestrial or not, why is the government covering up? Either
a) what they know is bad or
b) what they know they don't know is bad or
c) it is government work or
d) they don't know.
3. Eyewitness accounts are not science. True. But they are evidence. Of what, I don't know. But evidently, neither do the scientists.
4. Is it crazy to believe in unproven things? Lots of people believe in God. So far, proof is minimal but there is more film footage of UFOs than God.
Do I believe? I keep an open mind and watch the skies, because as the old song says,
"There's things going on that you don't know."
Concerts and Stuff
We lived between the war and before Reagan. For a few years, we partied and we partied well. I'm not sure I want my kids to do what I did but I don't want them to grow up afraid to go out and live. It goes by so fast and as far as there is proof to tell, it goes by only once. What's the point of having all this stuff if getting it makes us spectators when we should be players. Old though I am, when I was young, I was a player. As my son says, "Dad isn't evil; he's just twisted." Fair enough. It was fun.
We were a half generation out of phase between the Beatles and KISS. Whatever else we didn't have or do, we had the best music since the Jazz Era. I went to the Georgia Jam in '74 to see the Allman Bros, Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker Band, etc. It was all 'shrooms, smoke, 'cid and wine at that concert and it rained in the middle of the day. The crowd got under their blankets and sat on the ground holding them up so it was solid ceiling a few feet above the floor and blue smoke pealing out from between. Eventually it all turned to mud so the kids in the middle went to the buff and began to toss each other up on the blanket until they dropped one naked chick and she broke something. Marshall Tucker stayed on stage in the rain and played to us so we'd stay calm. To heck with calm; we were just trying to stay conscious long enough to see the Bros.
Hours later, the Bros hit the stage way late. Betts furious with Greg who was so drunk he fell off his piano stool. I walked behind the mixing board platform, threw up the shrooms, then pushed my way to the stage to boogie to the Statesboro Blues with the best southern rock band that ever picked up a Coricidin bottle to make a slide. It was fabulous.
I caught Clapton twice; once in Birmingham at the old stadium. He was junked out and shot the crowd a bird for squealing for Layla after every song. My bass player and I had hitched to the concert, then found some musician friends who had a motel room. After the show, we went there to do the Seventies party things, then caught a ride back to the 'ville in the back of a pickup. There were about eight or nine of us in the back riding high on I-65. There was a redhead eager to do the nasty, and did while everyone pretended to be asleep. It was without shame, without fear, and long before AIDS. I do feel badly for the mammals now who need a health card to have a fling. Spontaneity is a rare pleasure.
I saw Clapton again later at the VBCC while they were filming Ravagers in town. I was dating a State Representative at the time and she and I walked in with Richard Harris (yeah, Dumbledore and King Arthur). and his wife (Turkel). I was surprised how short Harris was. I wouldn't let Martha Jo approach them though. They were there to see Clapton and enjoy the night and I don't approach public people in public. It's a drag for them. Clapton was cleaned up and did a great show that night.
The best concert I ever went to was the Grateful Dead in Tuscaloosa. This was just after they released the Europa album and they were at the height of their jams. They start loose but play for hours and by the time they get into the second hour, it's delirium. There is no music as good as the Live Dead. I miss Jerry. I hope those guys still kick main butt.
I caught Ronstadt at her peak. Very good. The West Coast had taken the best of Nashville and Bakersfield and turned it into the smoothest pop of the decade. I was playing at the Huntsville Hilton lounge with the band, Bitter Creek, in 1975 which was across the street from the civic center, and everyone stayed there. I partied with most of the bands when this was a venue on the A list. Great memories. Musicians can be monster jerks to civilians but among themselves, they are tribal. I was 21 and the superstars treated me like a little brother. I loved it. The Eagles, Average White Band, even Chet Atkins. All fabulous guys. Big brothers with good advice for the long haired skinny kid with the nylon string doing solos while the crowd came back from the concert.
We made love in the park watching the police cars come and go from the main station. We stayed up all night watching TBS. We hiked to the empty water tower on Green Mountain and chanted inside as the echos swelled inside us like hormones. We climbed to the top and tied out sleeping bags to the post, laid there and watched the sun come up across the peaks in the distance lighting the clouds in the valley that crawled toward us like a bright white fluffy blanket.
We had the sounds, the soul and the urge. Freedom. It breathes and it sings and it plays loud guitar. And it satisfies.
So why not do it for a living? As a party, there is none better; but as a lifestyle, it stinks. The soft sweet music I loved was killed by disco and cocaine infesting the good people, and that was a step too far for me. I partied but I knew poison on sight so when all the cooool people started that trek, I got off the bus. The party days before the suits grabbed the controls once and for all were good, but after that, it was just a job and who gives up their heart to that. Music IS my heart and that I keep for me. "Songs to aging children come; I am one." - Joni Mitchell
Now the programmers have come to free the musicians from the suits. That's a very good thing. It's past my time but I feel good for the kids. They can explore art in ways we couldn't even dream of. They can podCast, make movies, animate worlds, put their music in them, and do it for the whole world with the whole world without ever leaving their backporch. Sure, they should get out and do gigs; that is the best part, but they should also find the guy or girl in Egypt or Turkey or downtown Buffalo that digs their grooves and send them to them.
For Free. For Fun. For Fate. For Love. For Good Times. For the Blue Flame.
I envy you that, and at the same time, I don't. I've had fun and every season that comes as this world spins in a cold night has its own unique concerts and gigs and stuff. Be a player.
Gitcha some.
I have all the toys I want; so now I record what I like, when I like, and only play if there is an audience that really wants it. There is no pressure and I won't be found dead old and alone in a motel room, the death even the superstars fear. I can be in a local theatre production and act again, which is what I trained for. Music was how I paid for college, but then it became the real act. I've had fun. I recommend it to anyone.
At the end of the day, you only have to achieve three things to have an excellent life:
1) status among your peers that matches your level of ambition,
2) a family that loves you,
3) enough stuff.
Most people screw their lives up trying for more status than they really want so they can get more stuff for a family that would rather they be home more. I have enough stuff. It's all extra after that.
You probably do too. Remember that next time you see your kids because it's their time now and the best thing you can tell them is you are proud of them, you love them, and that when they get enough stuff, relax and have fun.
It's not who dies with the most toys; it's who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive. Party on, Babies.
We were a half generation out of phase between the Beatles and KISS. Whatever else we didn't have or do, we had the best music since the Jazz Era. I went to the Georgia Jam in '74 to see the Allman Bros, Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker Band, etc. It was all 'shrooms, smoke, 'cid and wine at that concert and it rained in the middle of the day. The crowd got under their blankets and sat on the ground holding them up so it was solid ceiling a few feet above the floor and blue smoke pealing out from between. Eventually it all turned to mud so the kids in the middle went to the buff and began to toss each other up on the blanket until they dropped one naked chick and she broke something. Marshall Tucker stayed on stage in the rain and played to us so we'd stay calm. To heck with calm; we were just trying to stay conscious long enough to see the Bros.
Hours later, the Bros hit the stage way late. Betts furious with Greg who was so drunk he fell off his piano stool. I walked behind the mixing board platform, threw up the shrooms, then pushed my way to the stage to boogie to the Statesboro Blues with the best southern rock band that ever picked up a Coricidin bottle to make a slide. It was fabulous.
I caught Clapton twice; once in Birmingham at the old stadium. He was junked out and shot the crowd a bird for squealing for Layla after every song. My bass player and I had hitched to the concert, then found some musician friends who had a motel room. After the show, we went there to do the Seventies party things, then caught a ride back to the 'ville in the back of a pickup. There were about eight or nine of us in the back riding high on I-65. There was a redhead eager to do the nasty, and did while everyone pretended to be asleep. It was without shame, without fear, and long before AIDS. I do feel badly for the mammals now who need a health card to have a fling. Spontaneity is a rare pleasure.
I saw Clapton again later at the VBCC while they were filming Ravagers in town. I was dating a State Representative at the time and she and I walked in with Richard Harris (yeah, Dumbledore and King Arthur). and his wife (Turkel). I was surprised how short Harris was. I wouldn't let Martha Jo approach them though. They were there to see Clapton and enjoy the night and I don't approach public people in public. It's a drag for them. Clapton was cleaned up and did a great show that night.
The best concert I ever went to was the Grateful Dead in Tuscaloosa. This was just after they released the Europa album and they were at the height of their jams. They start loose but play for hours and by the time they get into the second hour, it's delirium. There is no music as good as the Live Dead. I miss Jerry. I hope those guys still kick main butt.
I caught Ronstadt at her peak. Very good. The West Coast had taken the best of Nashville and Bakersfield and turned it into the smoothest pop of the decade. I was playing at the Huntsville Hilton lounge with the band, Bitter Creek, in 1975 which was across the street from the civic center, and everyone stayed there. I partied with most of the bands when this was a venue on the A list. Great memories. Musicians can be monster jerks to civilians but among themselves, they are tribal. I was 21 and the superstars treated me like a little brother. I loved it. The Eagles, Average White Band, even Chet Atkins. All fabulous guys. Big brothers with good advice for the long haired skinny kid with the nylon string doing solos while the crowd came back from the concert.
We made love in the park watching the police cars come and go from the main station. We stayed up all night watching TBS. We hiked to the empty water tower on Green Mountain and chanted inside as the echos swelled inside us like hormones. We climbed to the top and tied out sleeping bags to the post, laid there and watched the sun come up across the peaks in the distance lighting the clouds in the valley that crawled toward us like a bright white fluffy blanket.
We had the sounds, the soul and the urge. Freedom. It breathes and it sings and it plays loud guitar. And it satisfies.
So why not do it for a living? As a party, there is none better; but as a lifestyle, it stinks. The soft sweet music I loved was killed by disco and cocaine infesting the good people, and that was a step too far for me. I partied but I knew poison on sight so when all the cooool people started that trek, I got off the bus. The party days before the suits grabbed the controls once and for all were good, but after that, it was just a job and who gives up their heart to that. Music IS my heart and that I keep for me. "Songs to aging children come; I am one." - Joni Mitchell
Now the programmers have come to free the musicians from the suits. That's a very good thing. It's past my time but I feel good for the kids. They can explore art in ways we couldn't even dream of. They can podCast, make movies, animate worlds, put their music in them, and do it for the whole world with the whole world without ever leaving their backporch. Sure, they should get out and do gigs; that is the best part, but they should also find the guy or girl in Egypt or Turkey or downtown Buffalo that digs their grooves and send them to them.
For Free. For Fun. For Fate. For Love. For Good Times. For the Blue Flame.
I envy you that, and at the same time, I don't. I've had fun and every season that comes as this world spins in a cold night has its own unique concerts and gigs and stuff. Be a player.
Gitcha some.
I have all the toys I want; so now I record what I like, when I like, and only play if there is an audience that really wants it. There is no pressure and I won't be found dead old and alone in a motel room, the death even the superstars fear. I can be in a local theatre production and act again, which is what I trained for. Music was how I paid for college, but then it became the real act. I've had fun. I recommend it to anyone.
At the end of the day, you only have to achieve three things to have an excellent life:
1) status among your peers that matches your level of ambition,
2) a family that loves you,
3) enough stuff.
Most people screw their lives up trying for more status than they really want so they can get more stuff for a family that would rather they be home more. I have enough stuff. It's all extra after that.
You probably do too. Remember that next time you see your kids because it's their time now and the best thing you can tell them is you are proud of them, you love them, and that when they get enough stuff, relax and have fun.
It's not who dies with the most toys; it's who has the most fun with their toys while they are alive. Party on, Babies.
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