Category: Life, The Universe and Everything

Not All Movement Is Progress

I was having a conversation with a friend recently. We both work in “Big Tech.” Both our employers are sensitive to employees making remotely public statements – and his in particular is pretty notorious for over-reacting. So in an abundance of caution I’ll point out that this rambling represents neither of our companies – just a conversation between two people who’ve been in tech “a fair while.”

We were talking about the most recent operating system released by a Big Tech company that runs on their fruit-themed hardware.

The release has caused a bit of a kerfuffle – it no longer runs a set of applications that were supported by its predecessor. Like other transitions in this company’s past, this one was deliberate and foreshadowed across a couple years. If a customer depends on an application that this OS won’t run, they find an alternative, convince themselves they don’t really need that application, or they don’t upgrade. This last is problematic. Not in the short term – they’ll still get critical updates for their old operating system for a while – but eventually. And if they need to buy new fruit-themed hardware, that new hardware likely won’t run that old operating system. So those customers are one hardware failure away from running out of options.

It’s also generally been a bit of a bumpy release. The initial release had more than its fair share of issues, and even after a couple minor releases there are ongoing sources of customer pain and breakage. I’ve encountered some of these bumps personally, and I reached out to this friend – on a personal basis – to relate my anecdote.

I think it’s safe to say that most tech consumers don’t have personal contacts inside “Big Tech.” They can potentially contact support if they have a problem, but that’s where it ends.

“I don’t expect you to fix this,” I started, “I just want you to hear the unfiltered voice of your customer.” I went on to explain the problem, and how I thought they could have given their customers more options – as they had during past large technology transitions.

I pointed out that, from my perspective, this transition was different from the big transitions in the past. In the past, I argued, customers saw a difference, and that visibility made the changes – even the unwelcome ones – easier to understand. During the transition from their “classic” operating system to their NeXT (sic.) generation operating system in c. 2001, everything looked different. When they changed the CPU their machines were built around in c. 2006, customers bought new computers. Those changes were moments of transition – painful transitions for some customers – that enabled new things.

This time, a customer who “upgrades” their software gets to do less. And it’s pretty hard to explain to a customer how being able to do less enables new things.

That got me thinking about the idea of progress in computing, and software. This is a case where we’re “improving” a computing systems by making it do less than it could do before – and that feels like not progress.

Maybe I’m just old. Part of me can’t give up the Apple ][ that I could open the cover on, and basically understand from the component level up.

That’s not computers anymore.  And as magical as carrying the internet around in my pocket, or on my wrist, is – and it is – I think we’ve lost some valuable things along the way.

…but a whimper

So the Senate acted as expected – voting along party lines to acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of congress and leave him in office.

To paraphrase my favorite TV shepherd “I’m not even sure I think they were wrong.”

Trump is undoubtedly guilty of the offenses he was charged with. Mitch McConnell is undoubtedly a toadying ass. And Mike Pence is undoubtedly more adept at manipulating the US political establishment than his boss, and thereby likely even more dangerous.

“If you strike me down, he shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

“I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit…”

That Pence is not in charge is cold comfort.

There was no winning move. To not impeach Trump was tacit approval of his behavior. To impeach Trump mandated giving the Republican controlled Senate control over the outcome.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,”

The odds of the Republicans breaking ranks and removing Trump from office – regardless of the charges, or the evidence – were basically zero from the outset.

Democrats fall apart. Republicans fall in line.

Well, save Mitt Romney, it turns out. And his behavior over time has made it really difficult to think about his actions in any rational way (or maybe difficult to think about his actions in any way other than a rational actor).

Basically, McConnell was correct in saying “If this was all about politics, and it was, at least at the moment I think it is fair to conclude that we won and they lost.”

Take a second to unpack “we” and “they.” “We” is pretty clearly the Republican party. “They,” as far as I can tell, includes the Democratic party, rule of law, and whomever tries to reign in presidential power in the future.

Including “American Democracy” in that list feels like hyperbole. Just because something’s hyperbole doesn’t mean it’s false.

As of this writing, FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders nearly even odds of gaining a majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic primary. A self-described socialist that has or will alienate moderate voters, regardless of which side of the aisle they lean toward.

I’ve been saying it since he was elected, and I see no reason to amend it now – “If he [Trump] runs again, he wins again.”

I don’t think it’s likely that Trump wins the next election – I think it’s nearly guaranteed that the Democrats lose it.

Please, America.

Prove me wrong.

What I’ve Been Reading

I had given up on RSS for a fair while after Google killed Reader. Some months ago I decided to try again, using Feedly* and to be more selective about the feeds I followed.

When I occasionally send articles to potentially interested parties, they often ask “where do you find this stuff?”

So I figured I’d answer.

I’ve roughly divided my feeds into topics, and provided a link to a sample article.

If this list suggests other blogs I might want to follow – drop me a line with a pointer to a good sample article. I’d welcome the reccomendation.

General Interest:

Economics:

Tech:

Security/Crypto:

* I’ve since switched to self-hosting miniflux, but you probably don’t care.

What, the curtains?

With apologies to Nick Hornby.

Which came first, the Monty Python or the geekery? Was I drawn to Python’s breed of ridiculous and surreal comedy because of who I was, or did “getting” them help point me down this path?

I remember watching The Flying Circus on KDOC-TV (channel 56) on the black and white Zenith television in my bedroom as a pre-teen. Laughing at the few sketches that I understood. Wondering who let this clearly insane group of people make a TV show. And more often than not marveling at whatever the hell was going on with the cartoons. It was my first exposure to what I thought was a British sense of humor. Only later would I learn that appreciation for their brand of funny wasn’t universal anywhere.

I first encountered The Final Ripoff in High School – on cassette. I don’t remember for sure, but I think it belonged to my girlfriend – I’ll ask Dawnise if it was hers when she gets home. Suddenly I could listen – over and over – to the sketches I understood and loved. And maybe more importantly, to the ones I didn’t. I bought the collection on CD – probably from Columbia House Records. It might have even been one of the CDs I owned before I owned a CD player.

From Flying Circus I followed the Pythons where they went and had been – How To Irritate People, the Python films, Faulty Towers, Time Bandits, Michael Palin’s travelogues, Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives. I’d give anything connected to that group a try.

And now there are five.

And the world is a little less funny.

And a little less kind.

Rest in joy and laughter, Mr. Jones. And Thank You.

Hey (old guys)! Does this still work?

After a brief (ok, six years) hiatus, I’ve resurrected my blog. As was the case in the long-long ago when I first set it up, I can’t promise I’ll say anything even remotely noteworthy.

The primary catalyst was wanting a place to archive a series of updates I’ve been sending over the past several months about our experience moving to and living in London – which you can find categorized under “London Calling.”

I also have the old Movable Type database, containing all my ramblings between 2004 and 2013. I’m manually migrating selected entries forward, categorized as “Selected Back Issues.”

Finally, before quitting Facebook in 2018 I downloaded all my data. If and as I find things worth preserving, they’ll be categorized as “Facebook Reprints.”

Happy reading.

Democracy is Coming

This morning I sat in a coffee shop near Edinburgh university. It’s been five days since the American electorate handed the reins of the country over to a mad man.

The crowd that grew over the morning was mixed; mostly students – accents from all over. An elegant middle aged mum with her two sons – dressed in sweater vests and wearing poppies for remembrance day – had breakfast.

I drank a good cup of coffee, scanned the morning paper, and listened to the conversation around me.

Listening to the conversation – snippets about the election and Brexit mixed in with exams and romantic intrigue – gave me the first glimmer of hope in days.

They will outlive and undo our stupidity and go on to be stupid in new and amazing ways.