March archive
March 23, 2007
In my
last post,
I was thinking about how routines can shift over time, gradually changing us in the
process. This idea has really affected how I view myself and my work lately.
Defining oneself by one's occupation is the norm, right? If I meet you for the first
time and we strike up a conversation, inevitably someone will ask, "So what do
you do?" As if what a person does is somehow indicative of who that
person is.
I think for people working in Web-related businesses, it's a dangerous thing
to define people by their job title. This is the day of the mashup, right? No
site is built on a single idea anymore. Google even does more than search now.
The web is constantly changing, too, so how we deal with the web, work on the web,
has to constantly change. And really, there's no term that accurately
describes what I do. Am I a web developer? Yes. Am I a programmer? Yes.
Do I do a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't fit neatly within those two
categories. Yes, a whole lot of stuff.
I participate in design and architecture decisions for our sites, am chiefly
responsible if the servers go offline or don't serve the traffic properly, have
a voice in setting our development/design schedule, and just generally have a
hand in most every area of our work at WPNI. As does everyone else I work with.
Our editors, Tim and Cara, write, shoot video, take photos, and a whole lot of other
stuff. Levi is one part project manager, one part journalist, and several doses
of HTML/CSS developer. Jesse does video crunching, flash, javascript, HTML, and CSS.
And these are just the quick and easy examples.
Rob is all over the place, too, in terms of what he does.
He's really the one we take our cues from and who is largely responsible for this
work environment. In fact, it's one of the things I like most
about working with Rob. No one on our team is cornered into a
certain definition of his or her role. Everyone has a voice in the
process and is actually able to work without worrying about artificial boundaries like definitions of "what we do."
I'm probably not explaining this properly, or doing the idea justice, in this
quick post, but I think it's key to having a successful and fun time on the
web. This is the nature of the web itself. The thing just isn't bound
to a single person's notion of what it is. Each blog reflects the personality
of its writer. Each site — or any good site — is infused with the
life of its creators. And people really are more than any single definition
does them justice. My dad is much more than an accountant, my wife more than a
massage therapist. And I'm sure who they are is nothing like the personality
you just ascribed to them when you read what they do in that last sentence.
So what do I do? A whole bunch of stuff. Oh yeah, and it's all
fun.
March 19, 2007
My four year old, Zoe, just went to bed. Every night
we watch movies or cartoons until she falls asleep on
my shoulder. Then, I carry her up to her bed, tuck her
in, and get some work done before I lay down beside her
in her princess bed. She calls it this because she has
Disney princess sheets and pillow cases.
My wife, Wendy, sleeps with our younger daughter, Waverly.
Wavy, as we call her, will be six months old next month.
They start to bed around seven, but their routine takes
a little longer. Wavy likes to eat her solids, then her
formula, and then play awhile before calling it a night.
Playing, for her, consists of lying on her back, laughing at
her mommy, and trying to catch her toes. She puts up a fight
every night, but somewhere around 8:30 or 9:00 she and Wendy
fall asleep.
This hasn't always been our routine. Before Wavy was
born, we all slept in the same bed in mine and Wendy's room.
Me, Wendy, Zoe, and our dog Macy. Macy is a 100 lb German Shepard and Lab mix. Zoe loved sleeping with her mommy, and
it was hard on her when Wavy came along. But one night,
I'm not sure when, we started watching movies together
to buy some time for Wendy to get Wavy to sleep. Now it's
our routine. Funny how routines change over time.
For the longest time, I considered myself a musician.
I lived to play and actually hacked out a living at it.
Then, I wanted to be a writer and scholar, and worked
hard to get through an English degree. I taught high school for a little while and somewhere along the way picked up web
development and programming. Now I consider myself a
programmer, but really it's only some small part of who I
am.
I don't make a living playing music anymore, but I still love to play when I can. I never managed to finish my
Masters in English, but I still read a lot of serious fiction
and poetry. I don't know how long I'll write code, but I'm sure I always will no matter what my next career. Routines
are funny that way. One gives way to another, each one
leaving its impression, small shifts in behavior that over
time inform who we are.
March 19, 2007
I've been thinking some this weekend about Cory Doctorow's
recent
editorial about reading books on computer screens.
The issue really is, as Cory notes, one of different cognitive styles
used when reading online versus reading a printed book. The point is also
well made that technology causes cognitive shifts.
Cory says this nicely:
The novel is an invention, one that was engendered by technological
changes in information display, reproduction, and distribution. The
cognitive style of the novel is different from the cognitive style of
the legend. The cognitive style of the computer is different from the
cognitive style of the novel.
The question, then, is not will there ever be a nice enough
e-reader that users will abandon paper, but rather, are we undergoing
a technological transformation that will shift the form of the novel, too?
Will readers ever want to abandon the types of reading that paper
lends itself to for the types of reading that computers lend themselves
to? Or is there some new form of narrative that blends the best of
the novel with the best of online writing? And then, finally, could
this form of writing replace printed books?
Borrowing from the life (and death) of CD and film
Some would say mp3 has killed the CD, that streaming video has
overrun cinema. Certainly downloading single songs has boomed, and
YouTube or podcasts like the show with zefrank show the
best of what can be done online with 3 minute videos. I think our project
at Washington Post, onBeing,
is another example of creative online video story telling.
Have these things killed cinema? Has iTunes destroyed CDs or
long-form "albums?" You can make comparative claims to this effect -- CD
sales are down and downloads are up; movie theater attendance is dwindling.
I can make my own comparative analysis. When I go to FYE at my local mall, I
see a lot of CDs and lots of people buying them. Every Friday night in Auburn,
there is still a line for tickets at the Wynsong 16.
Obviously, people find the experience of the thing as useful as
the thing itself, be it music, movies, or even books. I have no fear
either way, and no dog in the fight, as older Southern men are want to say. I
love bits as much as words. I have my doubts, however, that printed books will be
disappearing anytime soon.
March 15, 2007
I've been watching the
ranting of Mark Cuban
for a few days now.
Normally, I like his blog. He's a smart guy, has some good things to say,
and usually offers a unique perspective on tech and entertainment business.
Clearly, he sees himself as the outsider, the rebel, the maverick, as his
own site name would indicate. In this case, though, I think he's showing himself
for what he's become, a member of a media hegemonic order who
would rather use force, cohersion, rhetoric, and law to serve his own
interests rather than the better interests of his company, his users,
even the very works he seeks to protect.
This last point cannot be made loudly enough. When a company
sues another company to protect its "works" or when a company sues
its users to protect its "property" neither of these actions are ever taken
in the interest of the work in question, or in the interests of stake holders
in the work -- i.e. writers, directors, other creative producers, or even the
literal stake holders in the company. Nor are these actions taken to protect
users/readers/viewers of the work. These actions are taken solely to claim,
and then by virtue of law, exercise control over the work. These law suits,
and all the writing by people like Cuban, are about control. Cuban and his
kind don't like that digitial media provides users with control
over how they listen, use, and share music, movies, news, or books.
They will try to disguise this argument in all kinds of rhetoric. Terms like
"piracy" and "intellectial property" are used. Most people don't even realize
that today's laws make any form of digitial copying a crime,
save for the "single copy for backup purposes." These laws are not only
wrong-headed and mis-placed, they are unjust. They favor corporate ownership
overall personal ownership. When you buy a book, CD, or DVD it's not your
book or DVD. It's their book or DVD and you have been allowed
to use it, if you buy into that logic.
I don't buy it. I believe that when I buy something that thing is
mine to do with it as I please. Why should it matter whether the thing in question
is in physical or digitial form? If it's not a purchase, then it's a lease or a rental, and
I should give the thing back after a specified amount of time, and this should be
stated in a lease or rental agreement which both I and the owner sign. If I am buying
the thing, then I have some rights too. Granted, I don't have the right to take my copy
and infringe upon the rights of the seller to sell more copies to even more people, but
how does uploading clips or even whole copies to the Internet really infringe upon
another's rights?
Seriously. How does it? Show me that people sharing copies of a work, even
on as large a scale as the Internet, actually harms your ability to sell other copies.
At least that is an intellectually honest argument, though one that potentially can never be
proven. But this is not what the media hegemony would argue.
They would argue that you don't have the right to share the work because it's not
yours. It's only some psuedo-licensed derivitive of the work, which by
buying, you agreed to the terms of the agreement, even though neither you nor the
provider ever signed such an agreement.
It's nonsense. It's foolish. And it requires unjust laws to support it. I suspect that
deep down Mark Cuban nows this. He's just not interested in just laws or digital
fairness. He's mad at you and wants to pick up his toys and go home. I say let him go
and good riddance. Truthfully, though, he left awhile ago and we're only just now finding
out.
March 9, 2007
For those who may have noticed -- yes, the book previews have stopped appearing
here on my site. I'd like to say this will have no effect on my getting this book done,
but the reality is that the book's future looks very bleak. I've been discussing this
some with my editor who has been both understanding and a complete pleasure
to work with. The short point of this is that the book is on hold until I sort through
some things.
For those who want more information, I may write a longer post in the future
or continue the previews later, depending on how all this works out. I've just
got several major projects looming at work between now and May 15, and these
projects are taking all my time and attention. I certainly hope the load at work won't
sneak up on me like this again, but until I clear out some of these projects, that
element in this equation isn't going to change. No use pretending it will.
I have to say, too, that writing a tech book takes much more attention than
other activities or even other types of writing I've done. I could write 300 words a day on
fiction or for this blog if I really put my mind to it. I find this hard to do with a
technical book, though. I'm sure this has something to do with my own writing
process, but it seems that writing a page in a tech book requires more from me
in terms of ramp up time, writing, and wind down than does writing some code,
a short story, or a blog post. This may have something to do with my own paranoia
at the quality of the content and its accuracy more than anything else. I have found
the process quite paralyzing as compared with other types of wirting.
At any rate, I'll be sure to post here when something definitive happens with
the book. Thank you, my imaginary-ideal-blog-reader friend, for understanding!
