Category: Everything Else

This is Not a Post about Michael Jackson

But it is about music.

One thing that technology has done to music is the decline of shared musical spaces. Years ago, it was habit for me to bring a boom box and a pile of tapes or CDs to the office & play music every day. Music was a shared experience — coworkers would bring in and trade CDs, vote some stuff on or off the playlist, even make office mix tapes. It wasn’t a paradise — especially when your co-workers had very different musical tastes — but it was more social.

Now, each of us sits at our desks plugged into our own private music streams. Nobody has to argue about whether or not [Band X] is good work music, or negotiate a preferred volume level — but also we’re more isolated from each other.

On the whole I’m not sure it’s a step in the right direction.

Point, Counterpoint

Point (Thanks Mike):

Here’s the rule: If you even suspect that you’re at risk of becoming complacent, you probably already are.

Counterpoint (Thanks Richie):

Inspiration is not linear. There is no map to find it by. That book that lit your fire a year ago might seem completely foreign to you now. But the constant pursuit of inspiration is what’s going to make you better. You have to search it out.
…
If you’re not inspired, it’s your duty to seek out whatever it is that gets you going. Re-visit. Talk. Laugh. Read. Listen. Love. Fight. Debate. Get angry. Feel elation. Let pain in. Just don’t deny any moment that might move you forward. At the end of the day, inspiration might be what ends up getting you through.

Mobility and Home Ownership

Now here’s an argument you don’t hear every day:

A decade ago Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in Britain argued that excessive home-ownership kills jobs. He observed that, in Europe, nations with high rates of home-ownership, such as Spain, had much higher unemployment rates than those where more people rented, such as Switzerland. He found this effect was stronger than tax rates or employment law.

If there are few homes to rent, he argued, jobless youngsters living with their parents find it harder to move out and get work. Immobile workers become stuck in jobs for which they are ill-suited, which is inefficient: it raises prices, reduces incomes and makes some jobs uneconomic. Areas with high home-ownership often have a strong “not-in-my-backyard” ethos, with residents objecting to new development. Homeowners commute farther than renters, which causes congestion and makes getting to work more time-consuming and costly for everyone. Mr Oswald urged governments to stop subsidising home-ownership. Few listened.

As always, it pays to remember that correlation is not necessarily causation, but Oswald’s observation is still food for thought.

Living History

I was struck by something when looking at some website analytics today.

This is the image I was looking at:

NY Traffic Map

Notice that line of dots across the middle of the state? That’s no accident. Here’s why:

Erie Canal map

The Erie Canal was a major engineering feat of the early 1800s and was a key transport path for over 100 years, although after around 1950 or so it stopped being a significant part of the commercial transportation network.

It’s kind of neat that the canal is visible from cyberspace.

Dear World

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4.

Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20, 2009. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage.

We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA