terabyte cafe: half baked ideas

In this increasingly electronic age, it seems almost inevitable that at some point, the United States Postal Service will become pretty much marginalized. Already there is discussion to cut back delivery days to just 5 days per week from the current 6 days.

Someone recently asked me if I like shopping - to shop - and why? I do. I admitted so - and somewhat a bit defensively. In the growing tide against consumerism - shopping has taken on the mantle of a vice. Rampant consumption, purchasing of non-vital goods for the sake of instant gratification, impulse buying, spending into debt, maxing out credit cards to the brink of financial ruin. Addiction to shopping. Easy credit, frictionless e-commerce - integrated purchasing capability - all conspire to sell us things we don't really need. Add on top of that the enormous industry of professional marketers able to tap into our innermost psyche - desire, lust, guilt, vanity - through a barrage of messages in virtually all medium. The world we live in today revolves around commerce and consumerism. Everyone - from shopkeepers to the Federal government - depend on this constant flow of money to fuel their existence.

Hey, I know people are talking about you being sick and maybe even undergoing chemo, so don't take what I'm going to say too seriously. Your companies are doing great, even in this economy.

OK, it's heavy, and it requires unpacking instructions - including flipping the box upside-down to get the speakers out of the box instead of lifting it.

Everything is packed very nicely, with reverence. The speakers are wrapped in a soft cloth-like shipping fabric, the remote, tilt base, power cord and manual are in a separate box with a velvet-like tray. The packaging could have been designed by Apple, but not quite enough cleverness.

The remote is much smaller than I thought - about the size of TEN's round remote, but elongated. Took me a bit of effort to remove the shipping tab from the battery compartment - I had to read the instructions to make sure I wasn't going to break it in the process.

I docked my black 5th generation iPod - its the same model they use in the product photograpy ;-)  Included is a product brochure with lots of verbage about how great Bowers & Wilkins is. Must be there to assure the new owner that s/he has made a great purchase.

(I'm thinking I should have video taped or at least photograph the unpacking and setup process - could be made to look like a ceremonial unveiling)

Nice long power cord - must be like 8-10 feet long.

Clearly, this is no Bose iPod speaker. It's Ford vs. Mercedes-Benz. No wait. Ford vs. Aston-Martin. Let's get our nationalities right.

So.

The sound? Hmm...

It's close to 3am. I don't think the neighbors would appreciate me blasting the music. I try to find "quiet" pieces - piano, vocal, etc. The eclectic collection varies. One piece sounds kind of rough, another sounds crisp and fresh. At first I am confused. Then I realize, of course - a very good quality speakers - near perfect - should almost disappear. I am not hearing the speakers - I am hearing the recording. All of a sudden, on certain pieces, I am thinking that the microphone is in the wrong place - (I'm no recording engineer) - the stereo separation on Yo-Yo Ma's Meditation is lacking and the cello a bit boomy. Whoa - am I sounding like some audiophile critic here? Like a partially blind man suddenly given perfect vision. Some things will look gorgeously better, other things may look much less appealing in such sharp detail.

I can hear the bow being drawn across the strings. I can almost hear the pedals on Helene Grimaud's quiet piano passages. I can hear a new depth in Diana Krall's voice on Case of You. She sounds more sensual, more feminine. But some pieces I like better, others I see some flaws. Damien Rice sounds like he's in the room with me. Some electronica pieces - Japanese - sound very nice - very precise and flawless. All very revealing.

Or is it just my imagination? Projections to justify such an expensive purchase, along with expectations for the brand. A venerable brand it is - reference speakers at top studios - like Abbey Road - for 40 years. Or these are simply the best speakers I've listened to in a long time. Makes me want to listen to most of my library to see what I hear anew.

five stars. hat's off to b&w. and my sympathies for having to deal with Apple. But maybe this is why Apple discontinued their own Hi-Fi speakers. They can't have one of their products be positioned under a third-party's.

I ordered a MacBook Air minutes after you introduced it at MacWorld. I received it 2 weeks later. Two weeks after that, I gave mine away. BTW, 3 months after I got it, I sold my iPhone - no IM, touchscreen typing, slow sucky camera, no 3G, no GPS. I went with the nokia N95-3.

There is such potential, but the reality is that I need less of less - I need a little more. OK, maybe you feel I am asking too much. But I know that you believe that what others think is impossible, you think is possible.

So I think it's impossible for the iPhone to support 3G data, on GSM, 5.0MP camera w/flash, GPS, support a Bluetooth keyboard, have cut & paste, Keychain support, iChat, support Bluetooth photo printers, and 32GB memory or flash memory card slot. Oh nevermind, Steve - other than Keychain support, seems like Nokia already did it with their N95. Yeah, it's bulky. And doesn't have a touchscreen. But I hate typing with that onscreen keyboard - its so slow.

As for the MacBook Air, I don't think you can put in 7mm DVD drive, 128GB SSD, 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3 USB ports, built-in ethernet (or a docking port). Oh wait, other than the 128GB SSD, I think Lenovo just proved me wrong with their X300. Oh, nevermind Steve, your competition has already upped the bar a mere few weeks after the MacBook Air.

Nice industrial design though. Style over substance.

Not everything I know I learned from my years at Cornell, but I did learn lots. For one, I learned that writing well is very important - not just because it communicates more effectively, but because sometimes, what you write, what you create, will be read many years into the future. It's often the most direct, intimate thing you leave behind. Writing is inherently a means of communicating with the future* – with people in the future, unlike phone calls, instant messages, emails - usually. *not necessarily only after you're gone, but you most likely won't be able to discuss, edit or otherwise modify what you've written. So it's important to get it right when you write, because you won't be present when the reader is reading your writing - usually.

So what does it mean to write well? Is it just spelling and grammar? I confess that that is what I thought before Cornell. Freshman year, writing was a requirement. But I nearly flunked out of my first writing course - creative writing. I thought it was the instructor, who clearly seemed to favor the writing of one or two students over others. Perhaps the instructor was just putting their work up as examples of good writing, but it doesn't really help the other students struggling with their own writing. Writing is clearly not a learn-by-example skill - after all, there are clear boundaries like plagiarism that makes examples less helpful. I didn't actually "get it" until the next semester, when I took "philosophy of mind." Unlike "creative writing" - which seemed to me at the time to allow one to write about anything - any subject - philosophy required rigorous logic and reasoning. All of a sudden, there was a clear and present pupose to writing. I had to compose my thoughts into coherent series of explanations, paths of reasoning. Reading other examples of philosophical writing, paying attention to the reasoning and arguments, looking for flaws in logic, etc. - all helped my own preparation for writing. I learned to write effectively, paying attention to nuances in meanings of words, and the context in which they are used. While it was a challenging course, I was profoundly rewarded with my newly developed writing ability. I got it.

These days, the ability to write effectively is still a rare skill in the larger world. Many people write as if they were just transcribing their speech – as in speaking, not a speech. Speaking relies so much on nuances and inflections in the manner of how things are said, and of course the person(s) one is speaking to. It is, of course, far more intuitive than writing. Children, at an early age, learn that how you say it is often as important if not more important than what you say. Writing is a skill acquired at a much much later stage - when even the most rudimentary sentences are heaped with praise and accolades.

I sometimes believe that like many things, writing improves with use and practice. But alas, in my efforts to encourage my son to write - a blog - I think he does not yet "get it". Writing is a counter-intuitive means of communicating.

Went to Disneyland yesterday with Carina (Christopher was on a sleep-over). We went late - got there around 5pm, stayed until about 10p. She had fun - we waited about 40 mins to get on the new Finding Nemo submarine ride - amazing that it was her idea to wait. It was cool, nice effects. not claustrophobic at all - except when the sub stopped for a few minutes. Then we hit autopia - she couldn't get the hang of steering, but the car ahead of us stalled for a couple of minutes.

For awhile, we searched for lolipops and mouse ears. Finally, after the fireworks - which was impressive if they did that every night - we settled on some mickey pops and a princess cone hat with LED lights. The night time experience is quite different - duh - in that it actually seems more dream like - limited vision, flickering lights - and people silhouetted and wearing funny costumes. I saw people with jackets that had elaborate flickering displays on the back - kind of like a miniature times square billboards.

Lots of couples. There's something for everyone, but a bit too much for me. It's impressive that Disney has been able to keep things fresh and not let things just coast while they rake in the bucks. And more impressive that they have tried hard not to let things get "cheap" - as in low quality. Still, some things seem cheesy or cheap.

The on screen keyboard takes getting used to. There's some auto-correction feature that sometimes gets in the way when you want to enter something not in the dictionary - you have to override it. AT&T coverage is ok, but yes, not as fast for data as Sprint or Verizon. No third-party apps is a huge problem for me - especially since Apple has left out many many functions. Doing things through the web browser is not ideal for many applications. There's no tethering - once you connect it to your computer, it wants to sync through iTunes, and the Bluetooth support is limited to Handsfree and Headset profiles. There's no Bluetooth support for printing or even file transfer - basic profiles found on most Bluetooth phones going back a few years.

Maybe Apple will add features and support for some these missing features - or maybe not. I think even mighty Apple had their hands full launching iPhone as it is with as much stability as it could. I know the touch screen function had to have lots of engineering in it because it actually had lots of advance error-correction noise filtering built in. For example, when you put it up to your ear, it ignores the ear touches on the screen so it doesn't trigger hanging up or a number of other options on screen. It's a capacitance screen - not a pressure-sensitive type - so only contact with your skin will be recognized. I think that means no gloved fingers.

Other problems - since there are no drop down menus, I don't know how one selects text for copying and pasting. Since your Mac OS keychain is not synced to the iPhone, when you surf your favoritie sites, you need to type in your username/password again. And since I can't install my password storing app - SplashID - like I can on most smart phones (Symbion, Palm OS, Windows Mobile) - it's pretty frustrating to go to sites where I don't recall my login information (yes, I actually have a different password for each site, and use several different usernames - I'm paranoid that some unscrupulous or breached site with my username/password will allow access into all my other accounts).