Feces, Meet Fan

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A couple of weeks ago, Frontline kept me up late when I got sucked into their four-part expose on the 2008 financial meltdown, Money, Power, and Wall Street. As always for Frontline, it was an incisive examination of the topic, revealing nuances that the mainstream press mostly overlooked. And it doesn’t appear that anything substantial has been done to repair the damage. The government threw (and continues to throw) lots of money at the problem, while any teeth of reform have been filed down by lobbyists.

I, like most Americans, have my own life to live, and can’t obsess about how big money is corrupting our republic. I have moments of clarity like cold water being splashed on my face, then I bury my head in the sand again. (Which means the sand is going to stick to my wet face. How’s that for mixed metaphors?)

Then my wife and I were talking about generational differences last night, started by a seminar a week ago by a rather good presenter speaking about the challenges of teaching to the Millennials/Generation Y/whatever the hell they end up being called. I had a few quibbles with his generational divides, based mostly on my reading of The Fourth Turning many moons ago. Which got me wondering how Strauss & Howe viewed current events, and if they thought things were lining up for the Crisis period that they had predicted.

Neil Howe believes that the Fourth Turning began with the 2008 financial crisis. Makes sense to me.

A comment on that post led me to a blog called the Burning Platform, where the proprietor has written up a very long analysis of the current Crisis in three parts, entitled You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. His politics appear to be a bit askew (from mine [though so are Neil Howe's]), with a dash of conspiracy theory thrown in, but the vast majority of his points appear sound to me. (Just, for God’s sake, don’t read the comments! 9/11 nuts, crazy fundies of all stripes, and New World Order gold-standard bearers, oh my!)

I’m fairly convinced that the chickens are going to come home to roost over the deregulated banking industry sometime in the next eighteen months. Perhaps appreciably sooner. The news about JP Morgan Chase underscores that these banks are still engaging in risky behavior and are too big and too dumb to stop it. Perhaps when the debt ceiling looms again later this year it will be the breakdown that leads an authority figure (presumably the President) to step forward and take extraordinary measures. I know that it’s cliche to bring up the Nazi’s in totalitarian rhetoric, but I hope that whichever President has the reins then is not a Hitler, or a Caesar crossing the Rubicon, but an FDR, a Lincoln, or dare we hope, one(s) who has(have) the mettle and foresight of the Founders. I worry how Obama will perform in such a crucible, but perhaps the last four years have given him the on-the-job training. Romney thrown into such a crisis I suspect would be an unmitigated disaster, but he has been such a cipher to this point that it’s near impossible to judge what his true leadership would be under extreme pressure.

Being a (more or less) liberal, I think Obama’s stated values (some of which have been compromised over his first term) would be better for the continued health of the country, post-Crisis. But perhaps it will not be this President who will be the great leader who will save us or destroy us during the Crisis, but the next one. After all, we’re probably in this thing for 10-15 more years.

I would like for this to all be conspiracy theory, but historical cycles are clearly real, and the timing looks too convincing to ignore. Must not stick head back in sand…

The good news (assuming Strauss & Howe’s cycles are correct) is that now is the time when we can achieve great solutions to the conflicts of our day and forge a new, better consensus. But no one says it’s going to be easy.

Facebook, it’s not you, it’s me. No, really, it’s you.

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I think I need a break from Facebook. Hell, I think I need to stop using it entirely. Maybe limited to promotion, if that ever becomes a thing (that works).

“People are stupid.” It’s the mantra of a close friend, and I’d be better served by using it as preventative wisdom rather than disgruntled venom after the fact. I know that people have different opinions and we grow by discussing them and blah blah blah. This is the freaking internet. I’ve been here for over fifteen years. You’d think I’d know what it’s like out there by now. Facebook is like AOL ten years ago. Not your first destination for high-minded discussions.

Le sigh.

I’m too weak to go cold turkey. But I’ve got a new (spring? May Day?) resolution. Stop engaging in political discussions on Facebook. Just stop it. People are talking but nobody’s listening. It’s like the stereotypical family Thanksgiving dinner.

Gimme some of that new time religion

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Sometimes I want to found my own religion, but then I remember L. Ron Hubbard. And Joseph Smith. Apparently, you can’t found a modern religion without being cynical or a crackpot.

See, I’ve been reading about Buddhism. Not just recently, but over the past fifteen-plus years since I took a course in college. There’s a lot of kooky stuff in there, like in all religions: karma and reincarnation and celestial Buddhas and magic and demons. But it’s also a religion that meshes fairly well with the secular, scientific modern world. At its core, Buddhism is an agnostic religion, at least when it comes to gods, and its tenet of mindfulness is close to the scientific ideal of observation.

I’ve said a lot over the years that if I were forced to pick a religion, it would be Buddhism. But several things have increasingly bothered me about it in recent years. An old Slate article by John Horgan that I just came across explores some of those conundrums. I could quibble with a lot of his statements, or at least rhetoric. (For instance, saying that karma and reincarnation “imply the existence of some cosmic judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness” seems to fundamentally misunderstand the metaphorical process of karma. Might as well say that the processes of genetic variance and natural selection imply some god-like guiding hand to raise some deserving species to dominance and condemn others to extinction. In the case of both evolution and karma, the key difference from theistic religion is that there is no Santa Claus.)

But as you see, this quickly devolves into theology. That just leads to doctrinal schism and different denominations and to one side calling themselves the High Road and the other side the Low Road.

It’s actually his conclusion that dovetails with the topic that’s been on my mind for many years:

All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d’être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science’s disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can.

Argh. Again, I quibble with his word choice. “Incidental, accidental, happenstance.” They imply the religious disappointment of a lapsed Catholic asking about the meaning of life. It’s a non-sequitur. Only we create meaning. It does not exist without consciousness. And contrary to our self-importance, there is no evidence that the universe would be any the less without our meaning. “What is the meaning of an apple? Of dirt? Of pavement?” Nothing is incidental, accidental, or happenstance. Everything simply is.

(“Is” demonstrates the insufficiency of English when attempting to capture these notions that are at odds with the some-odd millennia of Western thought. “Is” implies stasis. Essence. The sine qua non of a subject. But what I mean is that, “Everything simply dances. Everything simply changes. Everything simply moves invisibly. Everything simply does what it must do.” That’s a lot of freight for a single word, and “is” doesn’t really carry it well, but we’re stuck with it for now.)

But I digress…

Horgan hits the nail on the head with his last line. Can any form of spirituality be compatible with the scientific method? I sure hope so, because the uncertainty of science is not compatible with the human brain. People seem to need the certainty of religion, or at least the comfort of religious practice. And while science as an abstract, devoid of the personalities that fuel its progress, seeks truth, something in the human mind craves certainty. Buddhism appears to be the only religion that attempts to make peace with the uncertainty of the universe (multiverse?) and of human existence within that often unfathomable emptiness that contains everything.

Yet Buddhism has thousands of years of often unwieldy baggage, so perhaps it is not the answer for modern suffering/ennui/existential doubt/uncertainty. Hence, I wish I could start a new religion, one with no god and one that made people comfortable with the perpetual disproof of the scientific method. I’m uncomfortable with some atheists who seem to deify science and make it into Science with the same sort of unassailable Truths that they decry in religion. Humans need some sort of spirituality that can embrace both the intuition of religious/creative experience and the reason of the scientific method. Without it, I’m afraid that the religious meme, which has been such a powerful thought virus throughout human history, will wipe out the brief flowering of scientific enlightenment that we take for granted today.

Unfortunately, I think I’d be a pretty shitty prophet, so I hope someone else is up to the task. And I hope they’re not a nutjob, fraud, crackpot, or thief. And that the high priests who inherit the new religion aren’t power-mad, duplicitous dicks.

What are the odds? History suggests nil.

Dangerous Grammar

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Just cleaning out the spam filter and came across this gem:

I have to say, I dont know if its the clashing colours or the dangerous grammar, however this weblog is hideous! I imply, I dont need to sound like a know-it-all or anything, however could you could have presumably put a little bit extra effort into this subject. Its really fascinating, but you dont signify it well at all, man.

Thanks for the constructive criticism, man. I’ll try to signify better next time, man.

I think I’ve found the new title for my blog: “Dangerous Grammar”.

Alan Moore is a whiny baby

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Apparently, Joe Straczynski is upset.

The so-called blogosphere, comics section, has been calling out JMS on something he said on a panel at C2E2. From his FB post, he said, quote, “Did Alan Moore get a crummy contract? Yes. So has everyone at this table. Worse was Siegal and Shuster. Worse was a lot of people.” He goes on in his FB post to describe comments by Eric Stephenson, one of the heads of Image Comics, to the effect that JMS is saying that creative types should just accept that the world isn’t fair and should just accept it.

And JMS refutes that at some length, saying that what he meant was that all writers, artists, etc, have to work their way up through the business, starting out with crappy contracts (“get screwed”) and working their way up to better contracts as their clout grows (and as they prove they are better artists).

I haven’t read any of the internet kerfuffle that started this, I’ve only read JMS’ post on Facebook, so I don’t really know what anybody else is saying. With that caveat, I still think this brings up some interesting issues around Alan Moore and Watchmen.

First, going solely on JMS’ quote of himself, it didn’t sound like he was saying what he now claims he was saying. What it sounds like he is saying is, Alan Moore is a whiny baby. Frankly, it sounds like that even more now that he’s clarified his comment. He doesn’t deny that Moore got screwed in his Watchmen contract; he just claims that’s par for the course. The proper response for Moore would have been to use his new clout as the creator of Watchmen to get better terms for his next contract. Hell, DC even went to him several years ago and tried to give him better terms if he would agree to sequels and prequels, and he rejected the offer.

JMS seems to be saying that Moore needs to grow up and work within the system. After all, the comics’ publishing world is a lot fairer than in the days when Siegal and Shuster lost all their rights to Superman and were forced to work such jobs as janitor while DC made millions.

But wait… Siegal and Shuster got screwed, and then they never got a better contract. So if that’s what JMS meant, then his explanation doesn’t track.

I think it’s much more likely that JMS is upset that Alan Moore not only disapproves of the Before Watchmen prequels, but calls them “completely shameless.” It’s even possible that JMS is hurt, as he considers Moore to have written one of his favorite comic stories, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I know I would be. If I had the opportunity to write a story in the Watchmen universe and its creator said that he only “wanted this not to happen,” I’d feel pretty shitty about it, too. And it might make me angry.

And if I was being constantly asked why I would work on Before Watchmen when Alan Moore got screwed by DC in the 80s, and I myself had been screwed multiple times by Warner Brothers (ironically, the current owner of DC) over the widely-praised TV series Babylon 5? Yeah, I can see how JMS might be fed up.

Thing is, JMS and Moore have different personalities. (Shocking, I know!) JMS seems more or less like a regular guy. Sure, he’s a sci-fi geek, but he works hard and plays within the system, and when he sees something that needs to be changed, he will fight for it, again, within the system. Alan Moore, on the other hand, is a wizard and a magician. I don’t mean that figuratively, either. When he broke with DC in the late 80s, he didn’t go across town to Marvel, instead, he started his own ill-fated publishing company.

If JMS is annoyed over the Before Watchmen blowback, Moore must be seething. An archly amused seethe, perhaps. He seems to want to put Watchmen behind him. DC never gives in to his demands until years later, and by then he doesn’t care anymore. He apparently left Swamp Thing not only over contracts, but also over the Mature Readers label. Money doesn’t seem to be much of a motivator for Moore; in fact, just the opposite–he’s refused money for any of the recent movie adaptations of his work. I think he wants respect on his own terms, and I think he hates corporate motives (for good or ill).

It comes as no surprise to me that JMS welcomes the chance to play in the Watchmen sandbox and that Moore proclaims a pox on all their houses. JMS is a craftsman and Moore is an artiste.

Funnily enough, I love them both. Watchmen is my favorite comic and Babylon 5 my favorite TV show.

And lastly, should Before Watchmen even exist?

Sure, why not? A large chunk of Alan Moore’s oeuvre is a mash-up of his prior influences. Lost Girls and A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are re-imaginings of their Victorian source material. (And if there is ever a movie that Moore should be angry about…) Watchmen itself is at heart a realist examination of typical super-hero myth. So, absolutely, other creators should take a shot at Watchmen.

But will it be good?

Only time will tell, but the first reports aren’t promising. Unfortunately, the writers and artists seem to be sticking somewhat slavishly to the source material. What’s likely to come from a fannish “expansion” of Watchmen is lukewarm, watered-down gruel. To do it justice, a new Watchmen should almost be a re-telling. A new staging of Hamlet can shed new light on the play, but I don’t think anyone is clamoring for the details on the early reign of Hamlet’s father. I suppose what I mean is that a new piece of the Watchmen myth, if it is to be worthy of the original, needs to be audacious rather than reverential.

I don’t know who is up to that task…

Artificial Scarcity Feeds the Pirates

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“In an abundance model, scarcity looks like a mistake.”

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog: Scarcity and Abundance.

Which has really interesting things to say about the state of publishing, but also is applicable to so much more in the entertainment industry section of our so-called digital age. Why do people get so upset that they can’t get the latest episodes of a TV show, right now, when they want it, and in whatever form they want it?

Yes, people are greedy and impatient, but that’s not the totality of the issue. People are not completely pathological or they would never pay for anything ever, and shoplifting would be a bigger issue than it is. iTunes and Amazon would sell no digital content if that were the case.

“In an abundance model, scarcity looks like a mistake.” Whether in books, or TV shows, or movies, or games.

The bird is the word

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I’m trying to give twitter a chance, but it appears that my non-early adopter policy has bitten me in the ass. My real name has been taken by someone or something which posted a couple of spam links a couple of years ago and went dormant. He/it has 9 followers, all of whom appear to be other link-baiter pseudo-people. I assume these were created for Google juice. It really pisses me off, because I’d like to have the option of using my real name on twitter, but their account policy doesn’t allow for any remediation unless you have a trademark. Apparently, being famous can help. Perhaps I should trademark my name…

Notice that the policy suggests that an account will become inactive after six months of disuse. Yet they are obviously not enforcing this “requirement”. It makes me wonder how many inactive or barely active twitter accounts there are. After all, I’d barely used mine until the last few weeks or so. Add to this the possible plateau of twitter, and it paints a distressing picture of their future. Although a quick Google search for user numbers paints a more rosy picture.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being a curmudgeon. It’s not that I’m a Luddite… I get twitter from a technical perspective. But I am not the most social person to begin with, and a service that is basically a stream of people talking over one another sounds like a party with my in-laws. Yes, I’m usually the one sitting in the corner or sneaking outside.

So, I’m going to continue to experiment with twitter, but I imagine I’m not going to stop being pissed off about the dead spambot with my real name, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s a party that’s just not for me.

I’ll report back in a few months…

Where there’s smoke (Why the Kindle Fire is not a great tablet and why that doesn’t matter)

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First off, the two reviews of the Fire that have resonated with me:

IGN’s review that starts: “I wanted to love the Kindle Fire. I really did.”

And Slate’s review titled “The Underachiever”.

So let’s start with the one thing that everyone can agree on: The on button sucks. It’s hard to turn on when you want to, and easy to turn off when you don’t. The lack of other buttons is also somewhat limiting. I understand the push to move everything to malleable icons that can be controlled by the UI, but I miss the home button from my iPhone and some volume controls would be nice as well.

Speaking of the UI, it is functional, but not slick. If I was hoping for something with the practical ease of use as iOS, I would have been disappointed. The primary function of the UI seems to be to drive one to the Amazon store at any opportunity. The home page is dominated by a scrolling list of icons for apps, etc. that one has used recently, in order of use rather than in order of most used. Under that are smaller “shelves” of pinned icons, which are far more useful. The upper scrolling list could stand to be shrunk down to the same size as the other shelves, and I’m hopeful that will be addressed in a future update.

The screen is a decent resolution and the colors are vibrant. Unfortunately, in sunlight, the glare is a serious problem. Though I had planned to pass along my e-ink Kindle, I think now that I will keep it for reading. The Fire is a little too heavy to comfortably hold for extended periods while reading even without the glare. Watching Netflix has the same problem, but I’m hoping that a case (possibly this one) will offer enough support that I won’t have to hold the Fire while watching.

The app store apparently has some serious holes, but the only one I’ve noticed is Flipboard. Pulse, however, does a decent enough job as a news aggregator. The included e-mail app is serviceable. The web browsing is not as snappy as the pre-release hype would have indicated, but it does well enough. The biggest problem is that the fonts are not easily re-sized and the type is rather small. Good thing I’m near-sighted.

As I said before, I think the speakers are rather good, so I’m not sure what the Slate reviewer is complaining about there.

The touch screen seems less responsive than I’m used to with my iPhone. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the touch system, the UI, or the cpu, but the processor is supposed to be a dual-core, so I’m guessing one of the first two. The keyboard is not big enough to “touch” type on, nor small enough to use both thumbs, so I end up using one index finger, but since I’m used to that from my phone, it’s not that big of a deal.

After all this kvetching, you would have good reason to suspect that I’m disappointed in the Kindle Fire. But I’m not. Not exactly. Did I want it to be a better tablet than it is? Sure, but then I also want Ed McMahon to show up on my doorstep with a million dollars. He stopped doing that over a decade ago, and a $200 tablet is not going to be perfect.

The Kindle Fire is good enough. It’s not as good for reading as an e-ink platform, but it’s good enough. It’s not as slick as the iPad and doesn’t have as many apps as iTunes or even the full Android store, but it’s good enough. It doesn’t browse the web as well as a netbook, but it’s good enough. And it only costs $200.

It may be revolutionary not for how good it is, but by how many new people it brings into the tablet market. I know that I would have put off my purchase of an iPad for at least six months more, if not longer, and the Fire got me to take the plunge early.

I like my Kindle Fire, and I suspect it will tide me over for quite a while. It streams shows and movies from Netflix just fine when I’m lying in bed, and I can check Facebook and Twitter and e-mail and my RSS feeds from the couch. Eventually, I will probably want to upgrade to an iPad, but I can easily wait another generation or two. Unless my wife takes my Fire away from me first.