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The Corruption of Coffee, cont’d

November 2, 2007 in Places, problems | 28 comments

Can somebody tell me where I can get a real cappuccino within walking distance of St. Paul’s in London? Or freaking anywhere besides Peets and Quebrada? Or what one might get, if lucky, by intercepting and patiently guiding the actions of a barista at the likes of Starbucks?

I mean… Jeez.

So i was just at the coffee counter at the office building where I’m working right now, where I asked for a “dry short double cappuccino”.

“Right. A cappuccino”, the barista said, and began to ring up the order. “One pound seventy five”.

“That’s for your shortest?”

“A cappuccino”.

“Can you make it dry?”

“Okay”.

So he made it with skim milk. The result was yet another 12-ounce cup filled with a lot of milk topped by a tiny bit of foam and tanned by an ounce of espresso — roughly replicating every cappuccino I’ve had since I got here on Monday… from Starbucks, from Costa, from Paul… all too much milk and too little coffee.

So I tested my phone’s camera for the first time and produced the above.

And the market, while we’re at it

October 30, 2007 in Future, Ideas, Past, problems | 2 comments

Dana Blankenhorn: Dump the Silo Model. His gist (quoted in the long because by shortening it I risk leaving out his full thrust and the importance of it.

  Bob Frankston says we should all own our own infrastructure. Bob Cringely calls for people to own their own last mile.
  I agree, but I’m into simplicity. I say, free the bits…
  Getting from here to there means blowing up a century of laws designed both to control content and to collect taxes, laws based on an assumption of scarcity. Regulators don’t want to free the telecomm bits because they’re on the take, in the form of “stealth” taxes (look at your own bill sometime). The same is true for cable.
  But the companies that sell these bits are also in on the scam. They make more money by defining bits as “services” and by controlling what those bits do, than they would otherwise. That’s because, by selling services, they’re able to act as monopolists, as gatekeepers, controlling both the customers and the content. If they were selling bits they would have to compete, and all their power would be gone.
  This dance of definition, taxation and regulation made sense 40 years ago, when technology was analog, spectrum was scarce, and networking was complex. But today anyone can be a network manager for the price of a $100 router.
  So you should have the power over bits, no one else. You, the consumer, and you, the producer of content defined by bits, should have the power to choose how you send them and choose how you get them, without constraint. When you want to send bits or receive bits, you have the right to a competitive market. And you have the right to define what those bits mean.
  The market, and the government, exist to serve you, not monopolists. You have the power to make this happen, but only if you seize that power, only if you demand that power, only if you organize with a single, simple demand:
  Free the Bits.

Good place to start. The key, in making the political as well as the business arguments, is to show how regarding the bits as free (as in freedom, not as in beer, by the way) will be good for the larger economy, including the carriers who will be asked (or told) to leave money on the table.

We need to show the benefits to incumbency that are not those of monopolists. What are those? If we can’t answer that question, we won’t be able to sell it.

F-Mobile

October 29, 2007 in problems, Travel, VRM | 11 comments

Made it to München. Munich. It’s kinda fun to dust off what little Deutch remains, forty years after I finished taking three years of it in high school, including the first year twice, then gave most of it back when I was done.

Beautiful airport, München. Wish it was clear enough to see the Alps, but a wispy mist lays across the landscape, so there’s not much to see beyond parking garages and triangular plane tails slicing through the fog.

I’m getting by wi-fi, “roaming” with T-Mobile, an international company to which I pay $20-something per month for unlimited usage. Here I’m paying an extra 18¢/minute.

Yet this is the effing Internet, no? It’s not like I’m dialing “long distance”. There is no distance any more, except in physical space, and the space being charged for here isn’t physical.

Anyway, paying on top of paying too much for something for which the first cost rounds to free is a bit of a pisser.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really free. And I don’t begrudge T-Mobile making money charging for wi-fi. I just think it sucks to have to “roam” when there are no additional real costs to providing the service, other than the billing system itself.

Here’s what T-Mobile needs to know: This kinda shit makes customers hate you.

Okay, gotta get on the next plane and fly to London. I’m just hubbing through here.

Answering questions about Facebook, Microsoft and Identity

October 26, 2007 in Future, Ideas, News, problems, VRM | 6 comments

What does the Microsoft “partnership” with Facebook mean for users? I just posted that question, and angles toward some answers, over at Linux Journal. In part the post also addresses Jeremiah Owyang’s post, How Microsoft got their Passport afterall. Jeremiah’s right to worry about What Microsoft is Up To here. He also has a good question about what the Microsoft-Facebook partnership means for Google.

I believe, however, that the solutions that matter most aren’t going to come from big companies. They’ll come from independent developers working at companies large and small — including Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Also from users themselves, who now play roles as producers as well as consumers. (In fact, much of the open source movement is about the demand side supplying itself — “scratching one’s own itch” and all that.)

That’s why I conclude my post with an invitation for Facebook developers to attend the Internet Identity Workshop in Mountain View on December 3-5. The IIW workshops — going on since early 2005 — are among the most productive I’ve ever been to. Great work comes out of them, every time. And we’re going to need it now, becaused we’re sharing enormous amounts of personal and social information online through Facebook and other “social networks”. What’s done with that data should be our concern, and not just the concern of those who make or spend money “targeting” us with better message rifles.

Calling all Beowulfs

October 25, 2007 in Future, problems, Uncategorized | 3 comments

Over at Linux Journal, I just posted Maybe UCANN school ICANN on whois. It begins,

  Raise your hand if you use whois every day. Even if your hand isn’t up, and you just regard whois as am essential sysadmin tool, this post is for you.
  Because if you’re interested in keeping whois working for the those it was made for in the first place, you need to visit the battlefield where whois’ future is being determined right now. That is, you must be Beowulf to the Grendel that is the Intellectual Property Community. Worse, you must confront him in the vast cave that is ICANN.

The subject is equally geeky, wonky and important. You might wanna check it out.

How to be a Boston Driver

October 24, 2007 in Art, Fun, infrastructure, Life, Places, problems, Science, Travel | 13 comments

1) Ignore traffic rules. They are advisory and not binding, unless a cop wants to get technical.

2) Drive in the middle. You need to keep your options open. If a rare dotted line actually marks a boundary between lanes, straddle it.

3) Don’t look for street signs. They aren’t there. Only side streets have signs. And only some of those.

4) Be ready to dodge pedestrians. They don’t look and are dumb as geese, crossing anywhere they feel like it, in complete oblivity to danger.

5) Block intersections. Otherwise the cross traffic won’t stop for you.

6) Pull in front of moving traffic. There are no breaks. You have to make them for yourself.

7) Don’t signal. You might give something away.

8] Park anywhere. There aren’t enough spaces anyway.

9) Don’t expect road names to make sense. The “Mystic Valley Parkway”, for example, appears and disappears in many places all across Boston. And not just in Halloween season.

10) Expect construction delays and detours. It sometimes happens that all bridges and tunnels in Boston are closed at once, with no signage hinting toward alternatives.

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How to be a Boston pedestrian

October 24, 2007 in Art, Places, problems, Travel | 4 comments

1) Cross any street, anywhere, any time. Your species was here first. The fast metal things just have to adapt.

2) Don’t look left or right. Stay with your purpose. You’re here to cross the road. Nothing else matters.

3) Ignore pedestrian traffic signals. The little white walking guy and the red hand are displayed at random and have no relationship to the signals for cars.

4) Follow the others. The bold and fearless pedestrians near you can show the way. Cross with them, but downstream a bit. If they misjudge, they get hit first.

5) Be preoccupied. Use your phone, study the pavement, lose yourself in thought. You have a life. Watching traffic isn’t part of it.

Or just call it the School of Marketingism and be done with it

October 24, 2007 in Journalism, News, problems | 5 comments

Northwestern’s Medilll School of Journalism has long been in the first rank of J-schools, right up there with Columbia, Missouri, Berkeley, Texas, Michigan… In fact, Google puts Medill right behind those, in that order, in a search for “School of Journalism”.

Yet here’s Medill committee to explore suggestions for new name, in The Daily Northwestern.

It begins,

The Medill School of Journalism is forming a committee to explore a possible name change.

Dean John Lavine said the committee will consider altering the name to better represent the school and what it offers.

“We’re really exploring what the name should be, could be, what people think about it,” he said. “There will be a process for people to have real input on it, and that’s what is important.”

Lavine did not comment on specific names being discussed, but said that in informal conversations he’s had with students and others, adding “Integrated Marketing Communications” to the name was a popular idea.

The piece goes on to quote a number of students on the matter, and closes the piece with the only source that makes complete sense:

Chardae Davis, a Medill junior, said the possible change really bothers her, and that the school was too old to change its name.

“It’s a brand in a way,” she said. “Medill has a reputation and the name stands for something.”

While she understands that journalism is evolving and so the curriculum is changing, Davis said that doesn’t mean the name should be altered.

“We came to Medill for Medill,” she said. “Not for the Medill School of Journalism and insert rest of name here.”

Back in the middle of the piece, there’s this:

“This is not something that any school at NU gets to decide,” Lavine said. “Only the trustees get to decide the name. That’s the way it should be.”

Let’s hope the trustees listen to Ms. Davis.

Meanwhile, “School of Journalism” has already been dropped from the Medill home page. It’s just MEDILL now. The About Page says,

Since 1921, Medill has been recognized worldwide as one of the real jewels at one of the nation’s elite universities. At Medill, young men and women have been shaped for the incredible successes they have achieved in journalism and the Medill-invented field of integrated marketing communications. Here, journalism students are taught on the streets of Chicago and Washington, D.C., and marketing students are taught through projects for real-world clients in for-credit residencies. Something else about Medill: Our values. They are: 1.) Be respectful of the school and of yourself and of others – which includes personal and professional integrity; 2.) Be the best – which means making no small plans, being bold and taking risks; and 3.) Be distinctive; be you – which includes resisting conformity, thinking uniquely.

I’m sure they teach well and do good work. But Journalism and “Integrated Marketing Communications” — a buzzphrase if there ever was one — should, at most, have squat to do with each other. Here’s what Medill says about the latter at its page:

Pioneered at Medill, the graduate program in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern educates students for careers in marketing communications and marketing management. The program combines the traditional areas of marketing communications with business skills in marketing, finance, statistics and organizational behavior to form a unique program on the cutting edge of marketing communications and customer relationship management. Top marketing and media organizations need forward-thinking professionals who understand the changing marketplace and who can implement a customer-focused approach that is critical to their future success. They look to Northwestern’s Integrated Marketing Communications master’s degree program to find these professionals.

Well, the one upside I see here is that maybe I could talk to some of these people about VRM, and how “relationship management” should go two ways and not just one. But I’m sure, if we have that conversation, it won’t be anywhere near the subject of Journalism.

Terry Heaton has similar thoughts on the matter.

Know your bus numbers

October 24, 2007 in problems | 3 comments

I have a paranoid but helpful habit when I travel: When I get out of a taxi, I always memorize the number of the cab, just in case. For example, right now I see two cabs off to my right, lined up at Mt. Auburn Street at JFK in downtown Cambridge, where I’m sitting on a park bench in front of Peet’s Coffee. One is Cambridge 119, the other is Cambridge 129.

I usually remember the cab number for only a minute or so at best, but I figure that gives me enough time to make a call if I suddenly remember I left something on the seat. (Yes, this is a Know Thyself lesson.) Now I’m going to do the same with buses.

Because a few minutes ago, soon as I got off the #77 bus at Chauncy Street, I knew I had left my wallet on the seat, under some cast-off newspapers. In an instant, the whole sequence of events replayed in my mind: How had just walked out of the bakery with a fresh cappuchino and picked up a free paper. How the bus pulled up almost immediatly, so I had to hurry to pull my Charlie Card out of my wallet while stuffing the paper under my arm and holding my coffee while getting on the bus. How I stuck my wallet in my mouth like a beagle chomping a stick while I held the coffee in one hand and used my other hand to press the Charlie card onto the card reader, and doing that while the bus lurched forward. How I felt good about keeping my balance while working my way back to the seats behind the rear door. How I set down my wallet on the aisle seat, moved some newspapers off the window seat and onto my wallet, then set the coffee down on the papers before setting my bag at my feet, all while sitting down at the window seat and starting to read a sports story in the newspaper and taking my first gulp of coffee.

Now the wallet was on the bus, and I was on the sidewalk, breathing the fumes of the departing 77bus.

So I did the only sensible thing: I ran after the bus. Stops are frequent on Mass Ave, so maybe I had a chance of catching this one. I began to gain as the bus approached the stop at Cambridge Common, but the bus had the light and zoomed right through the intersection. Then it did the worst thing: it leapfrogged another 77 bus way down near Church Street, turned left to burrow into the ground under Harvard Square, and went out of sight.

Then I spotted two other busses approaching Mass Ave on my side of Cambridge Common, so I ran up to the first one and jumped on as the driver let off a passenger. Between gasps I told him what had happened and asked him what I should do.

“Stand behind the yellow line,” he said. “It’s safer.”

I moved back.

“Did you see the number of the bus?”

“It was a 77 bus.”

“No, the number on the bus. Every bus has a number.”

“Nope.”

“Was the driver a white guy or a black guy?”

“White, I think.”

“Okay. Hang on.”

He drove the bus down the ramp and past the stop under Harvard Square, to emerge on the far side, facing a series of busses queued up across the intersection, ready to start their routes.

“See? Two 77 busses in the back there. I think the second one is yours.”

I jumped out, ran across the intersection, and knocked on the door of the first 77 bus. The guy let me in. I told him what happened, and he waved toward the back. I looked. Sure enough it wasn’t the right bus.

So I got off through the back door and went to the bus the other driver said would be mine. The driver, who was white, said “Yes, I remember you. Check back there.”

I did. The pile of papers was right where I left it, with my wallet under them. The driver was impressed.

“Wow”, he said. “It was really there.”

“I knew it was”, I said, and re-told my part of the brief saga.

“Glad it worked out for ya. Doesn’t always happen.” he said. “Have a good day.”

“You too,” I said, and got off the bus. It was #4109.

A .jpg fire map at 1800hrs

October 24, 2007 in News, Places, problems, Science, Travel | 2 comments

The map above is a .jpg I put together from this large .pdf at a link off the San Diego County Emergency page. It’s from 6pm today, Pacific time. I like this one because it gets down nearly to the street level, and answers specific questions in the minds of millions of people who either live there, or know people who live there (as do we, for example).

Other excellent maps are at taoe.org and map.sdsu.edu. Some are more recent than the one above.

The Ranch Fire also continues to grow. This map shows its perimeters. And this aerial photo, taken in January 2006, shows that same area, still covered with vegetation, now mostly burned off:

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