Goatee Entries March 2003

°2003.03.28.fr | Miami and the Keys

Nora and I have returned from our second venture to Florida. Instead of lingering in Miami, we set out to explore some of the Keys. While we enjoyed our day at Sunset Cove, I realized that the Beachboys probably mention Key Largo because it rhymes with "Kokomo", not because of it's sandless coast along a highway of strip malls. Key West is quaint in a Harvard Square kind of way, but pricey as well.

This travel along the Keys required a car which always ends up being more of a nuisance and cost than I initially foresee. Along the bridges and highway of US1 runs an abandoned train bridge that was damaged in the 1930s by a hurricane and I couldn't help but ask, "Could you imagine how cool this trip would be by train?!" Other things of note from this trip:

Spending the night in a refurbished Airstream motorhome is rather fun, but if you're not short make sure you duck.
Clay Hotel in Miami is still inexpensive and centrally located, though this can become a nuisance when motorcycles race up and down Washington Ave as your drifting off to sleep.
Que Ques and 770 Cafe are no in Miami, but as some consolation Fuddruckers now serves massive Gardenburgers.
As always, Florida's natural resources and parks are the real reason to go: Bahia Honda Beach is an excellent park and even though the visibility wasn't optimum I really enjoyed the snorkeling trip.
I saw a giant sea slug, first mistaking it for a hermit crab, which was pretty darn exciting.
As anywhere, you will find pairs of young Mormon men with their black ties and nameplates, but here they ride bikes.
The speed limit along US1 is strictly enforced — don't think you can shave off any time from a Keywest to Miami red-eye run.

°2003.03.18.tu | The Blogger Swagger

In edwards in person, Lessig writes:

"One note of blog relevance: He spent a long time talking about the failure of the press to make the differences and subtleties of positions clear. Everything for the press was black and white; there was no effort to convey the positions in between. Here is one clear role for weblogs in this election: to fill out the detail."

I'm not confident about this, as I wrote about in The Politics of Science and Vice Versa. The thing that is most alarming/disappointing to me about our cultural norms is the blogger swagger. While the "official" press often makes an attempt at neutrality by finding extreme opposition, bloggers drop all pretense of neutrality — just as well, everything has a bias and pretenses be damned. But many writers don't stop there and happily exude a sense of cruel infallibility. It's rare to find balanced consideration, or the reconsideration of or respect for an opponent's view. It's only slightly more common to find those who state their opinions forcefully, but who then will admit a mistake. (I idly wonder if this behavior is a reflection of a common web programming paradigm that it is often Easier to Ask Forgiveness than Permission (EAFP) than to Look Before You Leap (LBYL)).

Of course, it is rare to find consideration in any medium, but the question is are these gems more common in this one? Is there something about this technology and its culture that promotes such behavior? Since this is a populist medium, it tends to be more like a soap opera than a Bill Moyers special: it's the dramatic and the forceful who set the norm, though the Web does make it easier for me to find the exceptions (e.g., I always appreciate Tim Bray's blog on this note).

°2003.03.17.mo | Good Engineers Borrow, Great Engineers Steal

A hobby of mine is to track the articulation of maxims about Internet design and culture and I've argued that in some ways, these principles are a form of governance themselves. At this month's W3C Technical Plenary Dan Connolly stated, "Good engineers borrow; great engineers steal."

I believe Connolly's casting of "engineer" is a new variant and noted his recent citation of Ken Ramsley's "designer" variant and anecdote from 1999. And of course, this is based on the quote widely attributed to Picasso, "Good art borrows; great art steals." Though this idea is sometimes attributed to Igor Stravinsky with respect to music composers, Steve Jobs with respect to software designers, and others; I suppose the principle of reuse is self-demonstrating! Good ideas travel, and good work should be leveraged as shown by the success of open standards and free software, and the costs of our current copyright and patent policy.

°2003.03.12.we | Dark Fancy

"And I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying, are the best I've ever had. I find it hard to tell you, 'cos I find it hard to take. When people run in circles, it's a very, very Mad World" - Tears for Fears

It's a rare mood in which you'll get me to admit to loving dark and even slightly creepy things. But my Buffy the Vampire acculturation of teenage angst continues as I catch up via syndication. This past week I was entranced by the film Donnie Darko; that led me to become infatuated with Gary Jules version of Mad World, and to fall in love again with the original Tear for Fears version: a synth-pop velvet of gooey poignancy that sends shivers and chills down my back. And while I fear I'll be disappointed, the poster boy of twisted geek chic, Crispin Glover, is starring in the new version of Willard. His grin as the elevator opens and lets forward a flood of rats, projecting external/self loathing as power, reminds me of identifying far more than was healthy with the film's sequel Ben, and The Jackson Five's theme song, in my early teen years. It's thrilling.

°2003.03.06.th | Ice Ledges

Nora likes to step on the crunchy ledge of ice at the edge of the sidewalk. The habit grows on me too and sometimes one of us skips ahead to claim "dibs" and stomp a miniature precipice. I think to myself that they are like tiny ice sheets sliding off their continent, ready to crack and fall under the boot of natural forces. I ask, "I wonder what causes them? Is it the heat of the sidewalk melting their underside, or the erosion of melted snow from above?"

Nora responds, "Not everything has to have a scientific reason, isn't it enough that it makes a satisfying crunch?"

"Of course, but the how and why doubles the fun!"

°2003.03.01.sa | "Answer, Don't Repurpose"

A colleague recently wrote to me, "I've never met anyone who responded to queries by quoting from his own work quite so much as you do. Isn't this taking the RTFM principle a bit too far?" I, of course, answered part of this by citing something I've already written:

"3. I frequently refer to resources (web pages or email archives) when I wish to discuss specifications, policies, expectations, discussions, and agreements. I prefer specific references and citations over unsubstantiated claims and hand-waving. While this is a habit that takes some time to implement efficiently, it also saves the reader time by requiring precision by the author, saves everyone time by reducing ambiguity, and even saves the author time by reducing redundancy: once something is written, it need not be written again. References and citation by myself should not be interpreted as aggressiveness or defensiveness, but completeness." - Reagle's Work Style.

In days past, I used to send lengthy and thoughtful emails but a couple of things happened in parallel over the past 8 years. First, my archive of previously posted web pages was turning out to be a useful cache of history and expression. The economy of being able to rely upon this material was also of benefit to my RSI stricken hands. Second, when I began working at the W3C I was exposed to a very rigorous "don't hand-wave or recollect, but cite" culture that influenced many aspects of my work (and now personal) style. Third, I was finding that when I traveled and composed journal/zine-like updates in email, instead of sending a scattering of incoherent messages here and there, it was better to work on a more generic but higher quality report, and then customize as appropriate and send each email out. Fourth, it would frustrate me to be having a conversation with one friend without being able to reference a relevant conversation of another.

All of these things have biased me towards a point of view that might seem extreme (and maybe even impolite) to others: if something is worth saying in email why limit it to that medium? A concurrence/consequent of this trend is that I also don't discuss very personal matters in email: I used to spend many words in email mediating my friendships. This does not mean that I would violate the confidentiality of personal email nor do I consider all of my email public, but I orthogonally found that email is a medium too prone to ambiguity and confusion; personal issues of substance should be communicated to the person directly.

Sometimes I reflect on this change of interactivity with my peers (all of us reading each others' blogs and sending little quickie emails and SMS messages) and feel nostalgic. However, last week I was also thinking of the great waste of interesting correspondence and reflections in my email archives that no one else will see and I'm slowly forgetting.

Finally, since my colleague's question inspired such a deluge of novel words, I'm posting an adaption of my response here. I've been meaning to write something about this phenomenon and his jab/jibe finally caused me to express the thoughts semi-coherently! This too is something I've been doing for a few years now and further perpetuates the repurposing phenomenon.

[February Archive]