A Slight Delay

 I don’t think I’ve ever been, nor do I think I’ll ever really be, what hardcore tech types and marketing gurus like to call an “early adopter.” I tend to adopt late, if I bother to adopt at all. Let the early adopters deal with the high prices, buggy performance, shipping issues, production shortages, and the fact that all the cool features typically come out in the second generation. The early buzz on Barnes and Noble’s new Nook e-reader indicates that there may just be good news for those of us who habitually lag behind the times.

Taken on its own merits, the Nook would appear to be a worthy competitor to the Kindle. It’s premature to call it the “Kindle killer,” as Wired has; the fact that Amazon was there first (at least vis-a-vis the Nook, if not the e-reader market in general) with a good product means that Nook’s presumed dominance — even with a product that looks this good — isn’t a done deal just yet. Entropy goes a long way toward reinforcing brand loyalty.

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 So we’ve just returned from Puerto Rico. Armed with the knowledge of a week in the Commonwealth, I feel fully qualified to offer this travel guide for your time on the Island of Enchantment.  

We’d been warned 1,277 times (conservative estimate) about not drinking the water and told to avoid the streets of San Juan after dark, but this advice, however well-intentioned, only goes so far. The following article picks up where the usual advice leaves off, letting you know where you can find those little touches of home throughout the island, so that you can alleviate homesickness, and so you need not be exposed to the local arts and culture, much less the locals themselves. Fear not; you’ll find reminders of home nearly everywhere you go.

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Paging Mr. Tolkien: I have to admit that before the total collapse of Iceland’s banking industry–and with it, very nearly, the collapse of the country itself–I thought that their principle export was Björk. How wrong I turned out to be.

There’s another story that’s been playing itself out that’s only recently come to light in the media, involving Alcoa, some nutty environmentalists, and some stubborn holdouts from Lord of the Rings. File this one in “Stranger than Fiction.”

We take it more or less for granted that if you’re going to undertake a major construction project, certain preparations have to be made. Plans are drawn up, workers hired, materials gathered. Nobody bats an eyelash when the time comes for an environmental impact study, for instance. All well and good. Standard operating procedure. Nothing wrong with making sure that certain endangered species and mythical–wait a minute, what the hell? (more…)

“Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer. As expert, which he had to become willy-nilly in an extremely specialized work process, even if only in some minor respect, the reader gains access to authorship.” –Walter Benjamin, from “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

We’ve heard it all before. It’s the latest Megatrend, or the latest Microtrend. Some day, somewhere, somehow, computers will upend everything, right down to the way we think, and the nature of what makes us human.

According to the conventional wisdom, the linearity of words on the printed page encouraged linear, rational thought. This set down on paper–literally–ideas of narrative flow and stylistic constraints that have been with us for centuries since.

We were led to believe, early on, that hypertext would upend this model; by rearranging the printed page (and the media experience), it could (theoretically) rearrange human thought. The argument went–as it had earlier for word processing, with its ease of cut-and-paste–that this would divorce thought and narrative from convergent, linear models, in favor of divergent and wide-ranging associations. Add sound and visual elements to the mix, and you have–in theory–the perfect recipe for a medium that would result not only in truly new works of art, but a radically different approach to their creation.

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Nicholas Negroponte (MIT professor, Being Digital author) and his OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) organization have unveiled the XO2, their second-generation laptop, according to an article from the BBC’s website.

The Mac Book Air it ain’t. What it is, however, may prove more important to OLPC’s target “market”: classrooms and children in developing nations. Like the first-generation XO, which has shipped 600,000 units since it was unveiled late in 2005, the XO2 is intended as a low-cost learning tool for classrooms in locales as widespread as Brazil, Nigeria, and China. (more…)

A recent article on MSN.com tells of the rise of self-service checkouts and kiosks. If you listen to the marketing people–and somebody’s got to be listening to them, given that everything from gas stations to doctors’ offices now offers self-service–this improves service, speeds transactions, builds brand loyalty, and saves money.

Oh, really? In no particular order, let’s take this point-by-point. (more…)

The April 12-18 issue of The Economist has an intriguing special section on wireless telecomm that you can read here. The series’ premise—reduced to ridiculous simplicity—is that the technology has had an enormous impact on the way we live, work, write, and… do other things. While that’s not exactly a revelation, there’s something to be said for how it’s reported; you’ll find neither hand-wringing jeremiads or breathless praise. While the report finds much that’s praiseworthy in the world o’ wireless, there’s also some clear-sighted criticism and questioning of the technology, as well as the uses to which it’s being put. Especially worth reading (at least for people concerned with reading and writing) is the last segment, “Homo Mobilis.” There’s likely a longer blog post buried in there somewhere, but you’d do better to just read the original.

Disgruntled employees are a dangerous lot. Just ask the postal service. Or ask the guy who, inspired by equal amounts of frustration and creativity, one day decided to staple a ham sandwich–on a paper plate, no less, with a napkin set rakishly off to one side–to the ceiling over his boss’s desk. Sooner or later, it just needs some kind of outlet.

I thought back to the ham sandwich incident when I read the latest issue of the Utne Reader. Every couple of months, they gather between covers the best of the alternative press, and stories that the mainstream media tend to pass over, and two pieces in this month’s issue cover what they’ve aptly termed the “infantilization” of corporate culture.

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Mother Nature rained on the Yankees’ parade today. Their opener versus Toronto, which starts the regular season, and also their last in Yankee Stadium, was postponed on account of the weather.

Regardless of the end result, there’ll be mixed feelings for the team and their fans this season (as it will be for their cross-town rivals at Shea, playing their last season in the soon-to-be demolished Shea stadium). By this time next year, 85 years’ worth of baseball history will be well on its way to demolition, in favor of a new ballpark just across the street.

Both Shea and the House that Ruth Built join a long line of classic ballparks consigned to the dust heap of history: Veterans Stadium, Busch, Three Rivers Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, and the Kingdome. Both fields’ “replacements” will carry over architectural elements from the older parks, and, as Derek Jeter alluded to in one interview, the ghosts of seasons past. (more…)

Those who think that Sam Walton’s spawn needs to be taken down a peg or two will no doubt be heartened by the news of a recent court ruling stating that Georgia native Charles Smith should be allowed to continue selling his Wal-Qaeda and Walocaust T-shirts. Rather than arguing on good taste, Smith had the sense to argue his case on First Amendment grounds; luckily for him, the judge agreed. The irony here is that Smith—whose sales at the time the ruling was handed down had barely broken 60 shirts—has gone, in a couple days time, from relative nobody to minor celebrity. Had Wal-Mart ignored him, it’s likely he would have remained in obscurity. As it is, they’ve given him his fifteen minutes of fame while simultaneously reinforcing a reputation for heavy-handedness.

Not that they needed Smith’s help, mind you. The company is also taking a beating in the news and the blogosphere this week over its countersuit against Deborah Shank (the backstory, if you’re not already familiar, is available here and here). While I will grant that the company technically had a contract, and the law, on its side, I’d also assert that just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. (more…)