An odd thought. from time to time (such as this afternoon) I sit in Starbucks with my laptop and work on the book I am writing. Starbucks are good, as there are usually power 0utlets in their stores where I can plug in my laptop and recharge its battery while I am working. (I am not sure if it is company policy to provide these, but I suspect so). I buy a coffee, sit down, plug in my laptop and work for two or three hours. In this time, I do not normally get up and have another coffee. This is not because I am cheap - although I am - but is simply because I do not wish to leave my laptop unattended while I get up and buy a coffee. Picking up the laptop, walking to the counter, buying a coffee and then sitting it back down again is simply too much hassle, and if I do this I face the risk of losing the table next to the power outlet to someone else.
Every now and then, a staff member comes along and takes away the empty cups. What I would like is for this person to ask me if I want another coffee, take my money, and then bring me another coffee. Yes, I know that I am asking for waiter service, and Starbucks is a company that minimises staff costs by not providing waiter service. However, what is needed is a sort of limited waiter service which only applies to people having a second or third coffee, or even only applies to people using laptops. What we need is an arrangement where people walk in, buy their first coffee, sit down, and then are waited on from time to time after that. I think the additional staff costs of this would be fairly minimal, and they would certainly sell more coffee to people like me. They have already gone out of their way to be laptop friendly with the power outlets (and the 802.11 wireless networks in some places) and surely this is just a small way to take it further.
I suspect the problem would be that if you offer some table service, then customers would rapidly expect you to offer full table service to everyone and nobody would ever come to the counter. Still, it's a thought.
Thursday, July 18, 2002
Friday, July 12, 2002
Why am I linking to the National Post of Canada so much lately.(Well, this is twice). But anyway, here is another "Buffy is such a wonderful television program" article. These are a bit passe at this point, but they are true. (Buffy is wonderful). Really perceptive people at least figured out that Buffy was something special by the time of the "Angel goes bad" story arc in season 2 in 1997. Really, really perceptive people figured it in season one. There weren't many of them, but at least I was watching the program.
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
We have John Underkoffler, formerly of the MIT Media Lab interviewed in Salon, about the vision of the future in Minority Report. In particular
I think by this he means that they took things that currently exist and then extrapolated them a little bit. There is nothing really out there, and this is why the film looks so pedestrian. That is what happens when you create a thinktank. The results are boring, even if it is a think tank of smart people like the Media Lab or GBN , both of which contain people I respect. To get something really out there, you need creative, obsessive, and somewhat antisocial people on their own. Like Philip K Dick. Or even Ridley Scott. I just don't think that Spielberg and the people around him have the sensibility of Dick, at all. Oddly, I think that Cruise's previous film Vanilla Sky had a much more Dickian sensibility than did Minority Report: besides the fact that Dick's favourite two questions (What is real? and What is human?) are central to that film, there's a scene in the middle of it which is lifted right out of A Scanner Darkly. Vanilla Sky is a remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre Les Ojos. Amenabar seems fond of stuff with a Dickian bent: I think it is there in The Others too, although that is in a genre somewhat removed from Dick. I wouldn't mind seeing Amenabar tackling something from Dick directly. That could be very interesting.
Of all the technological advancements showcased in the film, how much of this stuff actually exists or is in the early stages of development?
Underkoffler: I would say a surprisingly large fraction. Almost an astoundingly large fraction. The mag-lev cars, for example. Although we don't have mag-lev technology that works on vertical surfaces, mag-lev technology has been around for many decades, spearheaded by professor Eric Laithwaite, who died not too long ago. And, of course, in Japan and Europe you have mag-lev trains. The nonlethal weapons are all variants or extrapolations of currently existing or under-development technology. It would be hard to identify anything that had no grounding in reality. I think that was very much by design.
I think by this he means that they took things that currently exist and then extrapolated them a little bit. There is nothing really out there, and this is why the film looks so pedestrian. That is what happens when you create a thinktank. The results are boring, even if it is a think tank of smart people like the Media Lab or GBN , both of which contain people I respect. To get something really out there, you need creative, obsessive, and somewhat antisocial people on their own. Like Philip K Dick. Or even Ridley Scott. I just don't think that Spielberg and the people around him have the sensibility of Dick, at all. Oddly, I think that Cruise's previous film Vanilla Sky had a much more Dickian sensibility than did Minority Report: besides the fact that Dick's favourite two questions (What is real? and What is human?) are central to that film, there's a scene in the middle of it which is lifted right out of A Scanner Darkly. Vanilla Sky is a remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre Les Ojos. Amenabar seems fond of stuff with a Dickian bent: I think it is there in The Others too, although that is in a genre somewhat removed from Dick. I wouldn't mind seeing Amenabar tackling something from Dick directly. That could be very interesting.
Paul Palubicki (pointed out by asparagirl ) thinks that our enemies in this war are a bunch of "half-retarded conspiracy theorists" and we need to mock them a lot more. Mark Steyn in the National post is doing quite a good job of it. (Well he starts off making fun of the media and the FBI, but really gets going by the end of the article).
Via slashdot : A BBC report on the OWL telescope that is conceivably going to be built, most likely in the Andes. The idea of a 100m mirror is simply awe inspiring, given that the largest telescopes in existence now are a little over 10m. This improves what we can see in the universe by a tremendous scale. (Potentially you can see things that are a hundredth of the brightness at the same distance than the best telescope today). This is what happens when you reach a critical point in materials science and computing (both to design and control the thing) at the same time. (Actually the materials science is also largely a spinoff of developments in computing. This is what happens. The computer is invented in the 1950s. It takes a few decades for the impact of this to filter through all sorts of things. And then, suddenly, near miraculous things become possible.
Monday, July 08, 2002
I am writing this sitting in a Starbucks in Wimbledon, in south-west London, on July 8, 2002. (I will log onto the net and post it later). This is quite a famous place of course. Yesterday, just down the road from where I sit, my countryman Lleyton Hewitt defeated David Nalbandian, of Argentina, in the men’s singles final of the All England Tennis championships, which was last won by an Englishman in 1936. The day before, Serena Williams of the United States defeated her sister Venus Williams, also of the United States, in the ladies singles final (won by an Englishwoman more recently than 1936, but still I don't know when). Before coming to this Starbucks I purchased a pair of trousers and a polo shirt from the Wimbledon branch of the Uni Qlo chain of clothes stores. Uni Qlo is an interesting case: this is the chain that supposedly revolutionised the way the Japanese dressed. Essentially, its like the Gap, only Japanese, and somewhat cheaper. It has stores in Japan, and in the United Kingdom. That is it. Just down the road, there is a branch of the Gap, too.
Starbucks too is in interesting case. The company has a reputation from the opponents of globalisation as being the arch enemy: the company that destroys local cultures and decimates all in its wake. And yet, what is curious about Starbucks is the relatively small number of countries it operates in. A few rich countries: a few peculiar countries in the Middle East, and not much else. There just don't seem to be many places that support the $3 cup of coffee in a nice friendly environment. (Starbucks are good at certain things, though, like providing power outlets for you to plug in your laptop).
The details of Starbucks entry to the British market is quite amusing. Prior to 1995, it was extraordinarily difficult to buy a decent cup of espresso based coffee in London. Scott and Ally Svenson, an American couple from Seattle, who were living in London, decided that this was terrible and something had to be done about it. They therefore founded a chain of coffee bars in London, selling the types of espresso based beverages that were becoming common in the US. In the US, this trend started in Seattle, and then spread all over the country. The company in the vanguard of this spread was of course Starbucks, and the Svensons’ British chain was essentially a clone of Starbucks. The same sized cups, the same names for the sizes (other than Venti, which Starbucks have a trademark claim on), the same filter coffee of the day, the same mix of hot and cold coffees, the same mixture of comfortable and more businesslike chairs in the stores. For probably the same reasons that Starbucks was a success in the US – it had previously been extremely difficult to get a decent cup of coffee – the Seattle Coffee Company, as this chain was known, was quite profitable. And then, a funny thing happened. Starbucks decided that it was time to spread into the United Kingdom, and, seeing that someone else had already set up the infrastructure for a chain of Starbucks stores in the UK, Starbucks bought the Seattle Coffee Company outright and rebranded all the stores as Starbucks. (Having a lot more capital than the Seattle Coffee Company, Starbucks then opened new stores much more rapidly than the Seattle Coffee Company ever could have, although they did have 64 shops at the point they sold out). What happened was kind of curious. Rather than barging into the UK market and crushing all in its way, what Starbucks actually did was enter the market after demand had already created its stores for it. Starbucks sort of built itself in London without the company's involvement. London is that sort of city.
And that was how I felt this afternoon after buying my clothes from a Japanese chain store, which incidentally has shops in Japan and the UK and nowhere else. London is I think one of the two most globalised cities in the world, the other being Tokyo. New York is perhaps close, but it is too parochially American (although it is the least parochially American of all America's cities). It's a fascinating place.
Starbucks too is in interesting case. The company has a reputation from the opponents of globalisation as being the arch enemy: the company that destroys local cultures and decimates all in its wake. And yet, what is curious about Starbucks is the relatively small number of countries it operates in. A few rich countries: a few peculiar countries in the Middle East, and not much else. There just don't seem to be many places that support the $3 cup of coffee in a nice friendly environment. (Starbucks are good at certain things, though, like providing power outlets for you to plug in your laptop).
The details of Starbucks entry to the British market is quite amusing. Prior to 1995, it was extraordinarily difficult to buy a decent cup of espresso based coffee in London. Scott and Ally Svenson, an American couple from Seattle, who were living in London, decided that this was terrible and something had to be done about it. They therefore founded a chain of coffee bars in London, selling the types of espresso based beverages that were becoming common in the US. In the US, this trend started in Seattle, and then spread all over the country. The company in the vanguard of this spread was of course Starbucks, and the Svensons’ British chain was essentially a clone of Starbucks. The same sized cups, the same names for the sizes (other than Venti, which Starbucks have a trademark claim on), the same filter coffee of the day, the same mix of hot and cold coffees, the same mixture of comfortable and more businesslike chairs in the stores. For probably the same reasons that Starbucks was a success in the US – it had previously been extremely difficult to get a decent cup of coffee – the Seattle Coffee Company, as this chain was known, was quite profitable. And then, a funny thing happened. Starbucks decided that it was time to spread into the United Kingdom, and, seeing that someone else had already set up the infrastructure for a chain of Starbucks stores in the UK, Starbucks bought the Seattle Coffee Company outright and rebranded all the stores as Starbucks. (Having a lot more capital than the Seattle Coffee Company, Starbucks then opened new stores much more rapidly than the Seattle Coffee Company ever could have, although they did have 64 shops at the point they sold out). What happened was kind of curious. Rather than barging into the UK market and crushing all in its way, what Starbucks actually did was enter the market after demand had already created its stores for it. Starbucks sort of built itself in London without the company's involvement. London is that sort of city.
And that was how I felt this afternoon after buying my clothes from a Japanese chain store, which incidentally has shops in Japan and the UK and nowhere else. London is I think one of the two most globalised cities in the world, the other being Tokyo. New York is perhaps close, but it is too parochially American (although it is the least parochially American of all America's cities). It's a fascinating place.
Saturday, July 06, 2002
Instapundit and Photodude elucidate what I think is becoming pretty clear at this point: the reason we haven't seen an further terrorist attacks of significance from Al Qaeda is because the organisation simply lacks the resources to carry them out. Thus the most we are seeing from them is one or two feeble little attacks. The fact is, the attacks before September 11 (the USS Cole attack, the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania) didn't really demonstrate tremendous resources either. September 11 itself demonstrated planning, but no physical resources at all, just the ability to find and exploit a weakness in the way in which our infrastructure works. I am not especially scared of Al Qaeda at this point, but I am scared.
For more than five years before September 11, I had been saying that I found the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground by the Aum Shinrikyo cult to be one of the scariest news stories I had ever heard. Here we had a deeply strange independent organisation that had managed to put together an impressive scientific infrastructure and had developed large scale military weapons capable of killing thousands of people, and who had only failed to do so through inadequate delivery of the weapon. I felt sure that where they had failed, some organisation would eventually succeed, be it with a chemical weapon like sarin, be it with something biological, be it with a nuclear device of some kind, and a terrorist attack on a major city killing thousands of people would occur.
The came September 11. A terrorist attack on a major city killing thousands of people did occur. Yet it didn't occur through an independent organisation developing a scientific infrastructure but by an independent organisation hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings. This type of attack could have occurred at any time since 1955, but it occurred just at the moment when chemical or nuclear terrorist attacks were becoming feasible. Therefore, we made the mistake of thinking that such attacks would follow from Al Qaeda, when in fact the nature of the September 11 attack probably indicated that Al Qaeda was not the organisation with the capabilities to make such attacks, for if they were that is what they would have used on September 11.
However, the possibility that someone else is out there collecting nuclear isotopes or producing weird nerve gases remains. This possibility continues to terrify me.
For more than five years before September 11, I had been saying that I found the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground by the Aum Shinrikyo cult to be one of the scariest news stories I had ever heard. Here we had a deeply strange independent organisation that had managed to put together an impressive scientific infrastructure and had developed large scale military weapons capable of killing thousands of people, and who had only failed to do so through inadequate delivery of the weapon. I felt sure that where they had failed, some organisation would eventually succeed, be it with a chemical weapon like sarin, be it with something biological, be it with a nuclear device of some kind, and a terrorist attack on a major city killing thousands of people would occur.
The came September 11. A terrorist attack on a major city killing thousands of people did occur. Yet it didn't occur through an independent organisation developing a scientific infrastructure but by an independent organisation hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings. This type of attack could have occurred at any time since 1955, but it occurred just at the moment when chemical or nuclear terrorist attacks were becoming feasible. Therefore, we made the mistake of thinking that such attacks would follow from Al Qaeda, when in fact the nature of the September 11 attack probably indicated that Al Qaeda was not the organisation with the capabilities to make such attacks, for if they were that is what they would have used on September 11.
However, the possibility that someone else is out there collecting nuclear isotopes or producing weird nerve gases remains. This possibility continues to terrify me.
I finally saw Minority Report and I confess that I found the film fairly disappointing and didn't really care for it. It just had a fairly predictable, and very conventional thriller plot grafted on to Philip K. Dick's weirdness, and a bit too much Spielbergian sentimentality. I didn't find the future world presented to be as striking as I had hoped. It was more a matter of start with the present and then extrapolate just a little. We had flying vehicles, advertisements that greet you by name (this happens to me now when I go to Virginia Postrel's Weblog) but little that could be described as strange or unexpected. It was certainly no Blade Runner . The film was okay, but I don't really get the extent of some of the raves it has got.
Spoilers to follow. Stop reading if you haven't seen the movie but intend to.
As for the plot, what was the business with the eyes? Tom Cruise knows that he will be identified by retinal scanners if he attempts to go near his workplace, so he has a black market surgeon replace his eyes with somebody else's. He keeps his old eyes in plastic bags, so that when he gets to his workplace, he can take the disembodied eyes up near the retinal scanner and get into the building. Huh? (Also, he is recognised by several people who know what he looks like). Yes, the new eyes allowed for one or two cool scenes in the movie, plus he could later be greeted by "Hello, Mr Yamamoto" when he went to buy clothes in The Gap, but in terms of hiding his identity, they were a bit of a bust. And if the retinal scanners were so easy to fool with eye transplants and eyes detatched from bodies, is it really such a great idea to use them for security anyway? And why couldn't he be greeted in the Gap outlet with "Hello Mr Hillary, how was the Gore-Tex jacket", or "Hello Mr Hoover, how did the trench coat work out?", or something really fun.
To top it all off, we had one of the hoariest cliches in movie plotting.
This is surely on a par with "And so Mr Bond, before I order all my henchmen to go somewhere else and I kill you in a peculiarly ingenious way, I am going to tell you my entire plan". Remind me to be this careful next time I am implementing my plans for world domination.
(Disclaimer: when seeing the movie, my mood was spoiled somewhat by a projectionist who forgot to put the anamorphic lens on the projector, requiring me to leave the film and complain before I was able to watch it properly).
Spoilers to follow. Stop reading if you haven't seen the movie but intend to.
As for the plot, what was the business with the eyes? Tom Cruise knows that he will be identified by retinal scanners if he attempts to go near his workplace, so he has a black market surgeon replace his eyes with somebody else's. He keeps his old eyes in plastic bags, so that when he gets to his workplace, he can take the disembodied eyes up near the retinal scanner and get into the building. Huh? (Also, he is recognised by several people who know what he looks like). Yes, the new eyes allowed for one or two cool scenes in the movie, plus he could later be greeted by "Hello, Mr Yamamoto" when he went to buy clothes in The Gap, but in terms of hiding his identity, they were a bit of a bust. And if the retinal scanners were so easy to fool with eye transplants and eyes detatched from bodies, is it really such a great idea to use them for security anyway? And why couldn't he be greeted in the Gap outlet with "Hello Mr Hillary, how was the Gore-Tex jacket", or "Hello Mr Hoover, how did the trench coat work out?", or something really fun.
To top it all off, we had one of the hoariest cliches in movie plotting.
"Do you know anything about the death of?"
"No, I have never heard of her. But I will look into any cases of women who drowned in our records, and if I find anything...".
"I didn't say she drowned".
This is surely on a par with "And so Mr Bond, before I order all my henchmen to go somewhere else and I kill you in a peculiarly ingenious way, I am going to tell you my entire plan". Remind me to be this careful next time I am implementing my plans for world domination.
(Disclaimer: when seeing the movie, my mood was spoiled somewhat by a projectionist who forgot to put the anamorphic lens on the projector, requiring me to leave the film and complain before I was able to watch it properly).
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Two images of July 4 in London.
An enormous American flag attached to the side of a building in the West End. Compare the flag with the cars, to see that is one big flag. The most obvious business in the building is "The Long Island Ice Tea company, which I think is a cafe/bar. (I should have gone in). Lots of pubs had American flags flying and were hosting July 4 celebrations. The ready availability of USA Today is clearly a reason why I should hate America.
The US embassy in Grosvenor Square, surrounded by a mesh wire barrier. No obvious celebratory activity of any kind. This photo only shows the shadow of the statue of Dwight Eisenhower. The figure you can see behind the barrier is a British policeman walking backwards and forward with a machine gun, although I perhaps need a better digital camera.
An enormous American flag attached to the side of a building in the West End. Compare the flag with the cars, to see that is one big flag. The most obvious business in the building is "The Long Island Ice Tea company, which I think is a cafe/bar. (I should have gone in). Lots of pubs had American flags flying and were hosting July 4 celebrations. The ready availability of USA Today is clearly a reason why I should hate America.
The US embassy in Grosvenor Square, surrounded by a mesh wire barrier. No obvious celebratory activity of any kind. This photo only shows the shadow of the statue of Dwight Eisenhower. The figure you can see behind the barrier is a British policeman walking backwards and forward with a machine gun, although I perhaps need a better digital camera.
I was just sitting in a bookshop cafe yesterday, and I picked up this wretched book. (I think I wasn't thinking clearly, and thought I was picking up this issue of Granta, which is full of thoughtful pieces from foreign writers who have had experiences of going on American book tours, where they have found lots of sophisticated and intelligent people turn up to meet them in places like Boise, Idaho, and where they have received much genuine and kind hospitality). From the bits I read, An unending screed explaining why the people of the rest of the world are exploited because America uses a large portion of the worlds resources and is therefore rich when they are poor, how how the presence of McDonald's everywhere wrecks local cultures, and more yawn inducing stuff. (Actually, the publication date of the books is today. That's right - these scumbags feel the need to have it published on the fourth of July. Presumably they are going to feel the need to publish a second volume on September 11). Guys, the world has no shortage of resources, and America uses more of them than anyone else because it has more uses for them than anyone else. It has more uses for them because of everything that is good about America, which is Americans ingenuity, openness and good sense. McDonald's have stores throughout the world because people want to eat in McDonald's. Nobody makes anyone do so. (Actually, personally I have always found that the more American chain stores (and international chain stores that originate in other countries, too. These are not nearly as uncommon as you think) per square mile, the more culturally interesting and culturaly complicated the place. Go to Camden markets in London or Shibuya/Harajuku in Tokyo some time for an example).
In any event, what I mean by all this, is happy fourth of July, everyone. May all of America have a good party.
Saturday, June 29, 2002
I went for a walk through the Park Lane / Mayfair / Belgravia area of London yesterday. Besides seeing why the point of Monopoly is to get a hotel on Park Lane or Mayfair, I saw a few showrooms for ludicrously expensive automobiles, and walked past a few embassies. The biggest of these is the American one on Grosvenor Square. (The square contains statues of Franklin D Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower - the Roosevelt statue is of him standing and discreetly holding a stick). The embassy is now protected by a metal barrier a couple of metres from the building. This was not there last time I visited the area in around 1996, but it does have a temporary look about it. It is probably something put up since last September. Standing on the steps was a man holding a nasty looking machine gun. (He was wearing dark blue or black trousers, a white shirt, and a hat with that checked pattern indicating that he was a British policeman of some sort). It rather pains me that such protection is necessary for the embassy of a great power and a friendly country, too. Yes, it's absolutely necessary, but as well as placing barriers between those who have power and those who want to kill them, it also places barriers between those who have power and people such as myself who have no desire whatsoever to kill them, but who would enjoy boiling Osama bin Laden in oil. And the machine gun is quite jarring in a city where the policemen don't normally carry guns at all. However, it is good to see that the people protecting the embassy are wearing civilian police uniforms rather than military fatigues. (You see policemen armed with machine guns at Heathrow airport, too, but at that point you have entered the weird internal and international ecosystem of the world's airports and airlines, so it is not quite as jarring).
Walking down the road a bit, I passed another embassy with another similarly attired policeman standing out front. This one was armed with a handgun. I wasn't sure which country's embassy he was protecting. I looked at a sign on the building a little further down the road and it said "Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago". It struck me as unlikely that they needed much protection, so I looked more carefully. The buildings in the street were large terraces and were connected, so it was a bit hard to tell where one stopped and the next started, and yes, this was a different embassy. I looked up, and saw a large Turkish flag flying from the building above the door being guarded. I am not sure whether the Turkish embassy was being guarded from Greek Cyproits, Kurdish separatists, French islamic fundamentalists or German football supporters, but I can see why they might want to guard that one.
Okay, so far we have guards outside embassies of friendly countries with enemies. The further question is how much protection is outside the embassies of nasty countries. I am not sure where the embassies of China, or Burma, or Iran, or Iraq, or the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia are. (Perhaps I can go and throw a hand grenade through the window of the last one myself. This post has now presumably been flagged by Echelon). Actually it's fairly likely the last couple are in Embassy Row in Kensington, opposite Kensington palace, ideal for when vile Saudis want to fraternise with minor members of the British royal family. (The embassies of the former dominions of the empire are either on or near Trafalgar Square in the West End. Canada and South Africa have nice buildings right on the square: Australia is a few blocks down the Strand next to Bush House of BBC World Service fame. A decade ago you would usually bump into a good few protestors outside the South African embassy when wandering through Trafalgar Square, but these are now thankfully gone. I will conclude this rambling by observing that there is at least one good thing that has happened in the world in the last decade.
(And I should have yesterday got out my digital camera (which was in my pocket) and taken some photos. Perhaps I was intimidated by the men with the guns).
Walking down the road a bit, I passed another embassy with another similarly attired policeman standing out front. This one was armed with a handgun. I wasn't sure which country's embassy he was protecting. I looked at a sign on the building a little further down the road and it said "Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago". It struck me as unlikely that they needed much protection, so I looked more carefully. The buildings in the street were large terraces and were connected, so it was a bit hard to tell where one stopped and the next started, and yes, this was a different embassy. I looked up, and saw a large Turkish flag flying from the building above the door being guarded. I am not sure whether the Turkish embassy was being guarded from Greek Cyproits, Kurdish separatists, French islamic fundamentalists or German football supporters, but I can see why they might want to guard that one.
Okay, so far we have guards outside embassies of friendly countries with enemies. The further question is how much protection is outside the embassies of nasty countries. I am not sure where the embassies of China, or Burma, or Iran, or Iraq, or the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia are. (Perhaps I can go and throw a hand grenade through the window of the last one myself. This post has now presumably been flagged by Echelon). Actually it's fairly likely the last couple are in Embassy Row in Kensington, opposite Kensington palace, ideal for when vile Saudis want to fraternise with minor members of the British royal family. (The embassies of the former dominions of the empire are either on or near Trafalgar Square in the West End. Canada and South Africa have nice buildings right on the square: Australia is a few blocks down the Strand next to Bush House of BBC World Service fame. A decade ago you would usually bump into a good few protestors outside the South African embassy when wandering through Trafalgar Square, but these are now thankfully gone. I will conclude this rambling by observing that there is at least one good thing that has happened in the world in the last decade.
(And I should have yesterday got out my digital camera (which was in my pocket) and taken some photos. Perhaps I was intimidated by the men with the guns).
Friday, June 28, 2002
Okay, in summary, I think one of the key points in all that was this. Music is a product where our consumption has in the past been seriously restricted by the way it was sold to us. Ideally we would all like a universal jukebox where we could listen to any music we want whenever we want, rather than the relatively small collection of songs in our CD collection. Napster gave us this, and someone else is going to give us this in the future. Our consumption (total number of songs we have the right to listen to) is going to go up dramatically. That means the unit price is going to have to go down dramatically. It doesn't mean the total amount of money we pay has to go down dramatically, but it does mean that the business model is going to have to change dramatically.
As far as movies and television are concerned, the total amount we watch isn't likely to change much. Most movies we watch once and once only, and those that we watch more than once we do so a relatively small number of times. We already have the opportunity to watch a large selection of movies on demand. (It's called going to the video store). Technology is going to mean that we have a much larger selection of programming to choose from. Obtaining it might be easier. It will be easier to watch television programming exactly when we want it rather than when the networks put it on. But the total number of programs we consume isn't going to change much. There may be some sligh changes to the business model. (Do you want to watch it once now or pay for the right to watch it as many times as possible? We already have both options with existing media but the balance may shift). But the consumption level will remain much the same and so the per unit pricing can remain much the same. Therefore I don't think Hollywood is especially threatened in the short term. It will find ways to make money out of new technology, as it always has. Unless the industry manages to make copyright law so restrictive and so punitive that it strangles itself. As it might.
As far as movies and television are concerned, the total amount we watch isn't likely to change much. Most movies we watch once and once only, and those that we watch more than once we do so a relatively small number of times. We already have the opportunity to watch a large selection of movies on demand. (It's called going to the video store). Technology is going to mean that we have a much larger selection of programming to choose from. Obtaining it might be easier. It will be easier to watch television programming exactly when we want it rather than when the networks put it on. But the total number of programs we consume isn't going to change much. There may be some sligh changes to the business model. (Do you want to watch it once now or pay for the right to watch it as many times as possible? We already have both options with existing media but the balance may shift). But the consumption level will remain much the same and so the per unit pricing can remain much the same. Therefore I don't think Hollywood is especially threatened in the short term. It will find ways to make money out of new technology, as it always has. Unless the industry manages to make copyright law so restrictive and so punitive that it strangles itself. As it might.
The mighty Instapundit links to an article by Seth Godin in Fast Company, discussing the copyright war once again. It is in some sense the usual discussion, and it has the same old point. It is reasonable for the actual creators of artistic work to be protected by copyright and compensated for their work. However, there is no good reason why the companies that publish that work should have a monopoly on that work, unless what they are doing ensures that the artists are being compensated for that work, and that the artists wouldn't be compensated otherwise. However, there are elso economic benefits that stem from artistic works (and other intellectual property) being distributed as widely as possible, so even if the presence of the publishers does increase the income of the artists, then there still need to be limits on the extent to which the publishers are allowed to exploit the copyright. When technology advances, the publishers have no right whatsoever to demand that copyright law protect their existing business models.
This isn't a new argument, and I have written about it before at length. (My lengthiest comments are in Salon's comment system somewhere and I will try to track them down and find a link later). The actions of the copyright industry in extending copyriught law are all about protecting its monopoly from being broken down by new technology, but they argue (and in many cases appear to have convinced themselves) that it is about occupying the high moral ground and stopping theft. They do not care about the artists, and in some cases have in fact been screwing the artists for decades. And yet somehow they have managed to convince themselves that they have the high moral ground. The reason people flaunt the law so flagrantly here is simply that they know how morally weak is the position of the other side. Hilary Rosen, you are contemptible and I despise you. Jack Valenti, you are contemptible and I despise you.
If either of those people were to read this, they would just sneer at me and say that I was a thief and a criminal, and would no doubt take great offence at what I have said. (I don't despise the movie industry anywhere near as much as I despise the music industry, as I discuss below, but I do despise Valenti and the MPAA because they seem as determined to use copyright law to prevent the future from happening as does the music industry). The odd thing, however, is that I personally do not generally disobey copyright laws. I cannot say that I have never broken them, because they are in some cases so bizarre that there are few people in the world who have never broken them, but I generally buy music on CD. (These days I don't buy as many CDs as once, but that is because I have trouble dealing with the smell of the people I know are behind them). I don't think that the people who do download lots of songs are morally all that bad - certainly they are no worse than the people selling the music - but I have no great desire to break the law myself. Certainly I don't get any vicarious thrill out of doing something illegal.
In any event, I just got a bit too busy ranting to get to the point I was trying to make. The article discusses music and then goes on to discuss motion pictures. In the case of music, it is relatively simple for artists to create music and then put it on the net and for people to download it. The enormous 'music industry' apparatus is completely unnecessary, completely corrupt, and will go the way of the Dodo. The question is simply how long it takes. The music industry, with its star making apparatus, its controly of radio via the 'independent promoter' payola system and the like, is going to collapse under its own weight. It may well be the case that music artists need promoters and publicists, but there is no reason whatsoever why they should only be able to get these from one of five monopolistic corporations.
However, the deal with movies and television is different. Movies cost a lot of money to make. The people who make movies and television tend to get fairly (and sometimes obscenely) paid for their work. Movie making requires huge teams of people, many of who are very skilled in highly specific roles. Hollywood consists of a relatively small number of highly skilled (and highly unionised) artisans, who have to be brought together to make a film. There are relatively few studios not so much because they have a monopoly on distribution but because making the types of films they make is difficult. (If as an independent producer I am capable of raising $100m, hiring people capable of making a good action film and getting the film made, am I going to have any difficult getting the film into American cinemas. The perhaps surprising answer to that is "None at all". There are a few foreign companies that do this kind of thing. An example, "The Fifth Element", a film made by the French company Gaumont).
When you buy a cinema ticket or buy a DVD you are paying for part of a large, complicated production, and people know this. Although the number of CDs I buy has dropped, I now have a huge DVD buying habit, because I want the movies, and I want the special features, and I think the format is beautiful. In my travels, I frequently find people trying to sell me pirated DVDs or VCDs of recent movies, often for next to nothing. I do not buy them, and a major reason why I do not buy them is that they do not have the endorsement of the studio and film-maker, and I thus have no idea about their quality. I value the authenticity of genuine products, and I don't find the price especially unreasonable. I see lots of movies in the first weekend, not so much because I can't see them cheaper later on, but because I want to see the latest film in the best possible situation. Given that the percentage of filmgoers who go and see a film in the first weekend has been increasing dramatically for several years, I am not the only one.
What I am getting to is the one major point on which I disagree with Godins article. He says
While I agree with his basic point - some parts of the entertainment industry will suffer the changes in technology more than others, and just because some don't survive doesn't mean we are worse off in general, and while I think it is unlikely that we will ever see Terminator 10. (I think that without James Cameron Terminator 3 is likely to suck. Jonathon Mostow is self-important and rather irritating hackwho is unworthy of having Wolfgang Petersen piss on him), I don't think the big movie is going to go away. Lots of people want to see it. The studios are the only people with the resources to make it. As long as that fact remains so, their business models will survive. So far the digital revolution has only caused their revenue sources to multiply. I don't think this trend is going to be reversed.
What potentially is interesting is the possibility that it will not remain so. As I said, Hollywood consists of a small number of highly trained and well paid artisans. The vast majority of the cost of any Hollywood film is the costs of these people. Their working conditions and pay rates are quite high, and set by agreements with the various Hollywood guilds. If the spread of internet and the spread of these technologies means that there are suddenly many people in lots of places with the same skills, then suddenly it might be possible to produce similar movies for a lot less money. Or, on the other hand, it may be the case that nobody else can match Hollywood's ability to coordinate the whole process. I tend to think the latter argument may be right, but it shall be interesting to see where this goes.
This isn't a new argument, and I have written about it before at length. (My lengthiest comments are in Salon's comment system somewhere and I will try to track them down and find a link later). The actions of the copyright industry in extending copyriught law are all about protecting its monopoly from being broken down by new technology, but they argue (and in many cases appear to have convinced themselves) that it is about occupying the high moral ground and stopping theft. They do not care about the artists, and in some cases have in fact been screwing the artists for decades. And yet somehow they have managed to convince themselves that they have the high moral ground. The reason people flaunt the law so flagrantly here is simply that they know how morally weak is the position of the other side. Hilary Rosen, you are contemptible and I despise you. Jack Valenti, you are contemptible and I despise you.
If either of those people were to read this, they would just sneer at me and say that I was a thief and a criminal, and would no doubt take great offence at what I have said. (I don't despise the movie industry anywhere near as much as I despise the music industry, as I discuss below, but I do despise Valenti and the MPAA because they seem as determined to use copyright law to prevent the future from happening as does the music industry). The odd thing, however, is that I personally do not generally disobey copyright laws. I cannot say that I have never broken them, because they are in some cases so bizarre that there are few people in the world who have never broken them, but I generally buy music on CD. (These days I don't buy as many CDs as once, but that is because I have trouble dealing with the smell of the people I know are behind them). I don't think that the people who do download lots of songs are morally all that bad - certainly they are no worse than the people selling the music - but I have no great desire to break the law myself. Certainly I don't get any vicarious thrill out of doing something illegal.
In any event, I just got a bit too busy ranting to get to the point I was trying to make. The article discusses music and then goes on to discuss motion pictures. In the case of music, it is relatively simple for artists to create music and then put it on the net and for people to download it. The enormous 'music industry' apparatus is completely unnecessary, completely corrupt, and will go the way of the Dodo. The question is simply how long it takes. The music industry, with its star making apparatus, its controly of radio via the 'independent promoter' payola system and the like, is going to collapse under its own weight. It may well be the case that music artists need promoters and publicists, but there is no reason whatsoever why they should only be able to get these from one of five monopolistic corporations.
However, the deal with movies and television is different. Movies cost a lot of money to make. The people who make movies and television tend to get fairly (and sometimes obscenely) paid for their work. Movie making requires huge teams of people, many of who are very skilled in highly specific roles. Hollywood consists of a relatively small number of highly skilled (and highly unionised) artisans, who have to be brought together to make a film. There are relatively few studios not so much because they have a monopoly on distribution but because making the types of films they make is difficult. (If as an independent producer I am capable of raising $100m, hiring people capable of making a good action film and getting the film made, am I going to have any difficult getting the film into American cinemas. The perhaps surprising answer to that is "None at all". There are a few foreign companies that do this kind of thing. An example, "The Fifth Element", a film made by the French company Gaumont).
When you buy a cinema ticket or buy a DVD you are paying for part of a large, complicated production, and people know this. Although the number of CDs I buy has dropped, I now have a huge DVD buying habit, because I want the movies, and I want the special features, and I think the format is beautiful. In my travels, I frequently find people trying to sell me pirated DVDs or VCDs of recent movies, often for next to nothing. I do not buy them, and a major reason why I do not buy them is that they do not have the endorsement of the studio and film-maker, and I thus have no idea about their quality. I value the authenticity of genuine products, and I don't find the price especially unreasonable. I see lots of movies in the first weekend, not so much because I can't see them cheaper later on, but because I want to see the latest film in the best possible situation. Given that the percentage of filmgoers who go and see a film in the first weekend has been increasing dramatically for several years, I am not the only one.
What I am getting to is the one major point on which I disagree with Godins article. He says
But what about Arnold Schwarzenegger? you ask. How will he be able to make $100 million movies if they're pirated on DVD? Maybe he can't. Maybe a society filled with consumers who pirate doesn't deserve $100 million movies. Perhaps they go away, just as ornate Broadway musicals are a rarity or the June Taylor Dancers are no longer able to get work. Somehow, I think we'll all survive without Terminator 10.
While I agree with his basic point - some parts of the entertainment industry will suffer the changes in technology more than others, and just because some don't survive doesn't mean we are worse off in general, and while I think it is unlikely that we will ever see Terminator 10. (I think that without James Cameron Terminator 3 is likely to suck. Jonathon Mostow is self-important and rather irritating hackwho is unworthy of having Wolfgang Petersen piss on him), I don't think the big movie is going to go away. Lots of people want to see it. The studios are the only people with the resources to make it. As long as that fact remains so, their business models will survive. So far the digital revolution has only caused their revenue sources to multiply. I don't think this trend is going to be reversed.
What potentially is interesting is the possibility that it will not remain so. As I said, Hollywood consists of a small number of highly trained and well paid artisans. The vast majority of the cost of any Hollywood film is the costs of these people. Their working conditions and pay rates are quite high, and set by agreements with the various Hollywood guilds. If the spread of internet and the spread of these technologies means that there are suddenly many people in lots of places with the same skills, then suddenly it might be possible to produce similar movies for a lot less money. Or, on the other hand, it may be the case that nobody else can match Hollywood's ability to coordinate the whole process. I tend to think the latter argument may be right, but it shall be interesting to see where this goes.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
There is a fascinating interview with Bruce Sterling in the German webzine Telepolis . Lots of good stuff on the Military-entertainment complex, why all the dubious deals are now going down in Dubai and the present state of the world. Just why does everything from 9-11 to the South African cricket team seem connected to the Bombay underworld?
To be truthful I don't personally love Italy. I love many of the things in Italy, but I wouldn't say I love Italy itself. It's a country where I find too many things to be a hassle. The public infrastructure doesn't work, and that annoys me. But yes, the food is certainly great.
Oh, that was such a long time ago... Last week I was in Italy hanging out with Linux freeware activists in a college event sponsored by a dance club that's run by some kind of anarchist dive... With Communists, and feminists, and hackers, and the media, and professors of Latin American literature, and radio personalities, and solemn guys with piercings who hate Berlusconi... And man, the food was great. We were all drinking heavily, and the local soccer club won and the population went nuts and ran into the streets.... I haven't had that good a time in ages. Since September 11, really. I just felt so happy, it was like the sun came out of the clouds for me. I love Italy.
To be truthful I don't personally love Italy. I love many of the things in Italy, but I wouldn't say I love Italy itself. It's a country where I find too many things to be a hassle. The public infrastructure doesn't work, and that annoys me. But yes, the food is certainly great.
Monday, June 17, 2002
Rob Walker has a piece in Slate discussing the various future advertisements for presently companies and products that exist in Spielberg's Minority Report
I haven't seen the film yet - it doesn't open in the UK for a couple of weeks - but what is interesting about this is that this isn't new. Another film that was famously set in a future world that contained enormous numbers of advertisements for mainly current day products was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner , the other famous movie to be based on the works of Philip K Dick. It is certainly true that in that movie too the advertisements featured as anchors of familiarity in a fairly alien and hostile environment. Of course, soon after that movie was released, companies that were featured in it started going bankrupt, to such an extent that a Blade Runner curse. has been much discussed since. As to whether this will now happen to The Gap I suppose we will wait and see.
Other creative voices, from filmmaker Paul Verhoeven to writer George Saunders, have wickedly satirized advertising and where its voracious ambitions might lead. But here, in a weird way, the familiar product names may in fact be intended to serve almost as reassuring guideposts: Minority Report is set in a version of the future that is disturbing in some ways and entrancing in others, but it seems that whatever wild twists the future may hold, the one thing we can all be sure of is that it will turn out to be a brand-friendly place.
I haven't seen the film yet - it doesn't open in the UK for a couple of weeks - but what is interesting about this is that this isn't new. Another film that was famously set in a future world that contained enormous numbers of advertisements for mainly current day products was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner , the other famous movie to be based on the works of Philip K Dick. It is certainly true that in that movie too the advertisements featured as anchors of familiarity in a fairly alien and hostile environment. Of course, soon after that movie was released, companies that were featured in it started going bankrupt, to such an extent that a Blade Runner curse. has been much discussed since. As to whether this will now happen to The Gap I suppose we will wait and see.
Sunday, June 16, 2002
Well, here in England everyone is ecstatic about the 3-0 win in the World Cup over Denmark. Personally, as an Australian, I don't have anyone to cheer for directly (Australia last qualified for the World Cup in 1974, and their once every four years humuliation in the qualifying tournament generally ends with them skulking out of a stadium containing 120000 wildly cheering Iranians, or similar). The great thing about the world cup in soccer, however, is that there are so many teams who are capable of being competitive. This year we have Senegal, an African team who have never qualified before, defeating defending champions and favourites France in their first game, and now making the last eight teams. They play either Turkey or Japan in the quarter finals. While both of these are good teams, neither are invincible, and so Senegal making the last four is a real possibility. This is great.
When Cameroon made the quarter finals (and took England to extra time in the quarter final) in 1990, quite a few people thought that African football had arrived. The Africans haven't really impressed since, until now, but maybe this is it. Certainly the final 16 teams have quite a bit of diversity this year. We have nine European teams, two South American teams, two North American teams, one African team and two Asian teams. It may be just home team advantage for Japan and South Korea, but the improvement in the South American teams is also impressive. The days of the World Cup just being Europe versus South America may be coming to an end.
When Cameroon made the quarter finals (and took England to extra time in the quarter final) in 1990, quite a few people thought that African football had arrived. The Africans haven't really impressed since, until now, but maybe this is it. Certainly the final 16 teams have quite a bit of diversity this year. We have nine European teams, two South American teams, two North American teams, one African team and two Asian teams. It may be just home team advantage for Japan and South Korea, but the improvement in the South American teams is also impressive. The days of the World Cup just being Europe versus South America may be coming to an end.
Saturday, June 15, 2002
Just following up on what Instapundit , Tapped , and this somewhat difficult to name blog have to say about Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa etc having their own 'international' soccer teams, and trying to carry the argument to Washington DC. I realise the argument isn't entirely serious but some more serious thoughts on the subject.
Sporting contests between national teams came into being a little over 100 years ago. International matches in soccer were played in 1872, international cricket was first played in 1877, international matches in rugby in 1871, the olympic games in 1896. At the time the world consisted of far fewer units than it does today, and a lot of this cosisted of large amorphous empires. Sports that were played in multiple countries were generally spread around by these empires in the first place, and so the first international matches tended to be matches between the component units of these empires anyway. Therefore, when international sport first started out, teams between 'countries' without independent sovereignty were more the rule than the exception. (The first international match in soccer was between England and Scotland, in cricket between England and Australia, and in rugby again between England and Scotland). The rule seemed to be that if there was some sort of local identity, then there could be a local team. Colonies having separate teams from their imperial masters became accepted and normal, and although these colonies later mostly became independent countries in their own right, this tradition survived. Thus the Dutch Antilles, the Faroe Islands, and various other territories (and for that matter Hong Kong) still have their own independent soccer teams. The point however is that truly international sporting contests grew out of these inter-colonial type events. And while America was never an imperial power in quite the same way were the British or the Dutch, the Puerto Ricans, the American Samoans and the like have some sort of local identity, and since they do, having local teams fits in quite well with this tradition. And while there is no way Catalonia would be allowed to have a 'national' soccer team today without becoming a genuinely independent country, Scotland and Wales do by tradition and it doesn't bother anyone much.
Sometimes, the sporting teams can actually survive the changing in national boundaries. In my favourite sport of cricket, there is a 'national team' called the West Indies, which is a combined team of players from the former British colonies of the Carribean (plus Guyana in South America). These nations are so small that they would have difficulty fielding strong teams individually, but together they can, so they do. When they started doing so, they were all parts of the British Empire, but now they are not. Attempts to set up a federation of former British colonies in the West Indies failed, but they still kept the cricket team. (The West Indian team was awesomely strong from about 1980-1995, but is now, rather sadly, a shadow of its former self, although it still has one or two great players). Australia has had a national cricket team since 1877, but 'Australia' did not exist in any political sense until 1901. Probably the main reason that they got together on the cricket field was that if they did they had a better change of beating England. They did so, and they enjoyed it so much that some people believe that the success of the cricket team was a factor that hastened the political union that occurred in 1901. On the other hand, sometimes the sporting teams do not outlast the political changes. The pre-partition Indian cricket team included players from what later became Pakistan: the post partition team most assuredly did not.
It seems that for a place that is not fully independent to maintain its national sporting teams, it needs some sort of history of being separate from the larger country, some sort of local identity, and some sort of special political status within the larger country, and some sort of desire to have a local team. The key issue may be that sport isn't actually very important, and if it gives a little place that isn't really a country pleasure to have a soccer team, then why not? You do have to draw the line somewhere, but it doesn't hurt if it is in a few places a little anachronistic.
In any event, deciding who is a country for any other purpose, such as UN membership, always ends up a little anachronistic anyway. (The Ukraine and Belarus has their own UN seats for the entire history of the Soviet Union. As to why Texas and Louisiana didn't in this case demand them as well, I have no idea).
Sporting contests between national teams came into being a little over 100 years ago. International matches in soccer were played in 1872, international cricket was first played in 1877, international matches in rugby in 1871, the olympic games in 1896. At the time the world consisted of far fewer units than it does today, and a lot of this cosisted of large amorphous empires. Sports that were played in multiple countries were generally spread around by these empires in the first place, and so the first international matches tended to be matches between the component units of these empires anyway. Therefore, when international sport first started out, teams between 'countries' without independent sovereignty were more the rule than the exception. (The first international match in soccer was between England and Scotland, in cricket between England and Australia, and in rugby again between England and Scotland). The rule seemed to be that if there was some sort of local identity, then there could be a local team. Colonies having separate teams from their imperial masters became accepted and normal, and although these colonies later mostly became independent countries in their own right, this tradition survived. Thus the Dutch Antilles, the Faroe Islands, and various other territories (and for that matter Hong Kong) still have their own independent soccer teams. The point however is that truly international sporting contests grew out of these inter-colonial type events. And while America was never an imperial power in quite the same way were the British or the Dutch, the Puerto Ricans, the American Samoans and the like have some sort of local identity, and since they do, having local teams fits in quite well with this tradition. And while there is no way Catalonia would be allowed to have a 'national' soccer team today without becoming a genuinely independent country, Scotland and Wales do by tradition and it doesn't bother anyone much.
Sometimes, the sporting teams can actually survive the changing in national boundaries. In my favourite sport of cricket, there is a 'national team' called the West Indies, which is a combined team of players from the former British colonies of the Carribean (plus Guyana in South America). These nations are so small that they would have difficulty fielding strong teams individually, but together they can, so they do. When they started doing so, they were all parts of the British Empire, but now they are not. Attempts to set up a federation of former British colonies in the West Indies failed, but they still kept the cricket team. (The West Indian team was awesomely strong from about 1980-1995, but is now, rather sadly, a shadow of its former self, although it still has one or two great players). Australia has had a national cricket team since 1877, but 'Australia' did not exist in any political sense until 1901. Probably the main reason that they got together on the cricket field was that if they did they had a better change of beating England. They did so, and they enjoyed it so much that some people believe that the success of the cricket team was a factor that hastened the political union that occurred in 1901. On the other hand, sometimes the sporting teams do not outlast the political changes. The pre-partition Indian cricket team included players from what later became Pakistan: the post partition team most assuredly did not.
It seems that for a place that is not fully independent to maintain its national sporting teams, it needs some sort of history of being separate from the larger country, some sort of local identity, and some sort of special political status within the larger country, and some sort of desire to have a local team. The key issue may be that sport isn't actually very important, and if it gives a little place that isn't really a country pleasure to have a soccer team, then why not? You do have to draw the line somewhere, but it doesn't hurt if it is in a few places a little anachronistic.
In any event, deciding who is a country for any other purpose, such as UN membership, always ends up a little anachronistic anyway. (The Ukraine and Belarus has their own UN seats for the entire history of the Soviet Union. As to why Texas and Louisiana didn't in this case demand them as well, I have no idea).
Thursday, June 13, 2002
It seems that astronomers are now discovering planetary systems that resemble our own, although we do not yet have equipment capable of resolving Earth sized planets (although we will soon). In any event, the number of planets discovered in other solar systems is greater than 100.
This type of research excites me no end. When I was a kid, I recall being told two things. Firstly, no planets have been discovered orbiting other stars, and from Earth we never will be able to discover any, because telescopes cannot resolve individual stars as anything other than points of light. I also recall being taught that nobody has ever seen an individual atom, and nobody ever will, because it is not possible to design a microscope that uses a light (or electon) wavelength short enough.
Both these predictions have of course been shown to be false in just a few years. Nobody should ever have made the first one to me, as it must have been obvious even then that we would be able to discover planets by watching stars wobble due to gravitational fields, and by watching their radiation vary as planets orbit in front of them, but the second one resolved in a way that was was completely off the wall. The guys at IBM invented the scanning tunnelling microscope using obscure quantum effects and we have suddenly have company logos made from individual atoms. (I think the STM is one of the coolest things ever invented).
In both cases the things I was told were true in narrow terms. It was not possible to refine existing instruments of observation to see planets or atoms. However, in both cases people invented completely different techniques to do the same thing, which did not have the same limitations. This is science at its most wonderful.
This type of research excites me no end. When I was a kid, I recall being told two things. Firstly, no planets have been discovered orbiting other stars, and from Earth we never will be able to discover any, because telescopes cannot resolve individual stars as anything other than points of light. I also recall being taught that nobody has ever seen an individual atom, and nobody ever will, because it is not possible to design a microscope that uses a light (or electon) wavelength short enough.
Both these predictions have of course been shown to be false in just a few years. Nobody should ever have made the first one to me, as it must have been obvious even then that we would be able to discover planets by watching stars wobble due to gravitational fields, and by watching their radiation vary as planets orbit in front of them, but the second one resolved in a way that was was completely off the wall. The guys at IBM invented the scanning tunnelling microscope using obscure quantum effects and we have suddenly have company logos made from individual atoms. (I think the STM is one of the coolest things ever invented).
In both cases the things I was told were true in narrow terms. It was not possible to refine existing instruments of observation to see planets or atoms. However, in both cases people invented completely different techniques to do the same thing, which did not have the same limitations. This is science at its most wonderful.
Sunday, June 09, 2002
There's an interesting obituary of Genichi Kawakami, long term head honcho of Yamaha, in the Economist. Its on overwhelmingly complimentary piece, but it talks about his desire to catch up with and surpass piano manufacturer Steinway in terms of prestige as one of the few disappointments of his career. It also describes his great enthusiasm for everything his company made or did. My favourite story of Kawakami, as told in Bob Johnstone's We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age , involves the electric organ business. As with pianos, you had an old venerable and prestigious American firm (in this case Hammond) which dominated the business. (Okay, Hammond was not quite as prestigious as Steinway). New technology for analog sound synthesis had been invented at Stanford University in California, and the inventors initially went to Hammond. Hammond did not know what to make of semiconductor based technology, and didn't want the product. Yamaha got wind of it, and eventually did a deal. The amusing part of this is that Kawakami conducted the negotiations from a hospital bed. The reason for this was that he had recently been a little too enthusiastic about his company's motorcycles. Yamaha's dominance of the electric organ business has been total, from the cheapest to most expensive organs, ever since.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)