disinterruption

If you are even slightly interested in digital content distribution you should go read these two posts by Charles Stross which cover Amazon’s ebook strategy and why publishers should go DRM free. These pieces cover where Amazon is trying to take the market and how publishers can push back against it.

I’m not sure how big of an impact the de-siloing of ebook content will have on Amazon and whether or not they can leverage their cloud reader platform to keep users locked in in spite of DRM restrictions, but I am firmly in favor of anything that will increase competition and nudge Amazon towards improving their content discovery.

To continue the East meets West mixing of iconic visual themes I’d like to share a scene.

I’m walking through the break room at work and there is a ping pong game going on. The Indian software guys at my work have an interesting game developed that revolves around delivering a crushing blow to the ball as soon as possible. Missing the other side of the table more often than not, but hitting the ball very hard. Serve, volley, volley, crush. Serve, volley, crush. etc.

One of the players is an Indian dude that is fairly muscular and he is wearing a Captain America shirt. Not an ostentatious one. It is kind of green-grey and has the circular red white and blue shield on the front. It really caught my eye. Super Indian dude wearing Captain America shirt.

Is he being Ironic? “I’m not American but see, Captain America!” Like the Australian guys on vacation that I once saw in Hong Kong wearing Chinese Red Army uniforms while out drinking.

Is he asserting his belonging? A statement of identity? Does he just like Captain America? Did he get the shirt on sale without knowing who Captain America is?

Endless possibilities and all of them have something uniquely interesting to say about global culture. But I really want to know. Is the shirt a statement?

I want to know, because I want it to be. Because it is just so awesome and so subtle and yet so big.

A month later I walk into the break room for coffee to see five Indian guys standing around the coffee pots. As I’m pouring my coffee one guy says to another, “Is that a Captain America shirt?” I look up and see that the ping pong Captain America dude is wearing the shirt again.

The wearer replies that it is a Captain America shirt with a big smile. The questioner gives a chuckle. Another of the five laughs and one guy says “What is Captain America?” The other four get louder as they all talk over each other explaining who Captain America is. He still has no idea what they are talking about. I restrain myself from chiming in about the Red Skull and Hydra. Finally the guy who first noticed the shirt asks him accusingly, “How are you in America and you don’t know Captain America?” Everyone busts up laughing.

It was awesome. I have no commentary other than it was one of those perfect scenes that directors long to craft for a movie but so seldom achieve.

Bruce Sterling posts an excerpt from a poem published by Wolcott Balestier and Rudyard Kipling in 1892 titled The Naulahka. I’m just going to straight up copy it from Sterling’s blog and paste it here because I really liked it and know that some of you are too lazy to follow links.

“Tarvin gazed about him dispiritedly for the blue
and white sign of the Western Union, or its
analogue in this queer land. He saw that the
telegraph-wires disappeared through a hole in the
dome of the mosque.

“There were two or three
low wooden doors under the archway. He opened
one at random, and stepped upon a warm, hairy-
body, which sprang up with a grunt. Tarvin had
hardly time to draw back before a young buffalo
calf rushed out.

“Undisturbed, he opened another
door, disclosing a flight of steps eighteen inches
wide. Up these he travelled with difficulty, hoping
to catch the sound of the ticker. But the building
was as silent as the tomb it had once been.

“He opened another door, and stumbled into a room,
the domed ceiling of which was inlaid with fretted
tracery in barbaric colors, picked out with myriads
of tiny fragments of mirrors. The flood of color
and the glare of the snow-white floor made him
blink after the pitchy darkness of the staircase.
Still, the place was undoubtedly a telegraph-office,
for an antiquated instrument was clamped upon
a cheap dressing-table. The sunlight streamed
through the gash in the dome which had been made
to admit the telegraph-wires, and which had not
been repaired.

“Tarvin stood in the sunlight and stared about
him. He took off the soft, wide-brimmed Western
hat, which he was finding too warm for this climate,
and mopped his forehead. As he stood in the
sunlight, straight, clean-limbed, and strong, one
who lurked in this mysterious spot with designs
upon him would have decided that he did not look
a wholesome person to attack. He pulled at the
long thin mustache which drooped at the corners
of his mouth in a curve shaped by the habit of
tugging at it in thought, and muttered picturesque
remarks in a tongue to which these walls had never
echoed. What chance was there of communicating
with the United States of America from this abyss
of oblivion ? Even the “damn” that came back to
him from the depths of the dome sounded foreign
and inexpressive.

“A sheeted figure lay on the floor. “It takes a
dead man to run this place,” exclaimed Tarvin,
discovering the body. “Hallo, you! Get up
there!”

“The figure rose to its feet with grunts, cast away
its covering, and disclosed a very sleepy native in
a complete suit of dove-colored satin.

“Ho!” cried he.

“Yes,” returned Tarvin, imperturbably.

“You want to see me?”

“No; I want to send a telegram, if there’s any
electric fluid in this old tomb.”

“Sir,” said the native, affably, “you have come
to right shop. I am telegraph-operator and post-
master-general of this state.”

“He seated himself in the decayed chair, opened
a drawer of the table, and began to search for
something.

“What you looking for, young man? Lost
your connection with Calcutta?”

“Most gentlemen bring their own forms,” he
said with a distant note of reproach in his bland
manner. “But here is form. Have you got
pencil?”

“Oh, see here, don’t let me strain this office.
Hadn’t you better go and lie down again? I’ll
tap the message off myself. What’s your signal
for Calcutta?”

“You, sir, not understanding this instrument.”

“Don’t I? You ought to see me milk the wires
at election-time.”

“This instrument require most judeecious hand-
ling, sir. You write message. I send. That is
proper division of labor. Ha, ha! ”

“Tarvin wrote his message, which ran thus:

“Getting there. Remember Three O.’s. Tarvin.”

“It was addressed to Mrs. Mutrie at the address
she had given him in Denver.

“Rush it,” he said, as he handed it back over
the table to the smiling image.

“All right; no fear. I am here for that,”
returned the native, understanding in general
terms from the cabalistic word that his, customer
was in haste.

“Will the thing ever get there?” drawled Tarvin,
as he leaned over the table and met the gaze of
the satin-clothed being with an air of good com-
radeship, which invited him to let him into the
fraud, if there was one.

“Oh, yes; to-morrow. Denver is in the United
States America,” said the native, looking up at
Tarvin with childish glee in the sense of knowl-
edge.

“Shake!” exclaimed Tarvin, offering him a
hairy fist. “You’ve been well brought up.”

“He stayed half an hour fraternizing with the
man on the foundation of this common ground of
knowledge, and saw him work the message off on
his instrument, his heart going out on that first
click all the way home. In the midst of the con-
versation the native suddenly dived into the
cluttered drawer of the dressing-table, and drew
forth a telegram covered with dust, which he
offered to Tarvin’s scrutiny.

“You knowing any new Englishman coming to
Rhatore name Turpin?” he asked.

“Tarvin stared at the address a moment, and then
tore open the envelope to find, as he expected, that
it was for him. It was from Mrs. Mutrie, con-
gratulating him on his election to the Colorado
legislature by a majority of 1,618 over Sheriff.

“Tarvin uttered an abandoned howl of joy, exe-
cuted a war-dance on the white floor of the mosque,
snatched the astounded operator from behind his
table, and whirled him away into a mad waltz.

“Then, making a low salaam to the now wholly
bewildered native, he rushed from the building,
waving his cable in the air, and went capering up
the road.”

I’ve been having lots of conversations with people lately about the Maker movement and what is so important about it. Arduino, Netduino, 3D printing etc. Through the course of these conversations I’ve honed in on what I think is the core of why the current do-it-yourself movement that has flowered in the last three years matters.

Rapid prototyping. A single individual is now able to come up with an idea for a thing and make it. Whatever it is. Electronics, mechanics, whatever. This is what drove the software development boom that appeared to be an internet boom that lasted from 95 to 05. Now, instead of making software, people who are willing to put in a bit of work to learn something are able to make stuff.

Any way, my main point was linking you to an awesome series of articles over at MAKE that follow a couple of dudes with a car full of 3D printers and their attempt to create a new kind of business. Their second installment gets at my feelings about this stuff much more clearly than I had been able to previously.

If you have half an hour you might enjoy watching this keynote at an Art + Environment conference. You should at least watch a couple of minutes to decide if you want to watch the rest. It’s very tasty.