Kindle Singles is brilliant

One of the unsung advancements of the Internet age is that distribution models no longer dominate the structure of how we disseminate our ideas. In the pre-Internet era, the forms of media strongly dictated the nature of the content on it. You couldn’t simply publish a 1,000 word essay — it needed to be bundled with a bunch of other content, either in a magazine, or a book. Music was limited to 45 minutes (on a 33 RPM album), 75 minutes on a CD, 5 minutes or so to a side on a single. If you wanted to publish a book, you had to come up with at least 150 pages worth of material, even if your idea really didn’t sustain much past, say, 25 pages. This is one of the reasons why most business books suck so bad — there’s one decent idea, and then 90% of filler to make it seem worth putting on a shelf and charging $20 for it.

The internet has made infinitely variable the size of a piece of media. While some think this means everything is getting smaller, and leading to short-attention spans, that’s not really what’s happening. What’s happening is that things are getting right-sized — the shape of the media is appropriate to the content within. We don’t need bloated business books. Or record albums with 2 good songs and 12 unnecessary tracks.

I think this is why I think Kindle Singles is so brilliant. Admittedly, we’ve already seen this model in some e-publishing, but Amazon, with it’s unparalleled retail presence, has the opportunity to make this stick. It’s an inevitable progression of what’s happening in publishing. I do suspect it will take people a while to be comfortable paying $1.99 for a “single”, even though they’ll gladly pay $20 for a book, just because the novelty will give people pause. But once there are a few Singles that prove the model (and get people excited about the opportunity), I think this could be a huge opportunity for authors.

We’ll see.

Better Late Than Never: Hoop Dreams

I watch TV when I exercise. Typically I watch one hour television programs (which actually run about 40 minutes). However, television programmers seem to be losing the ability of showing compelling fare. So, care of Netflix’ “Watch Instantly” service, I’ve been discovering media that has passed me by. My most recent Netflix selection was Hoop Dreams (Netflix, IMDB), a documentary film about two high school freshmen from Chicago’s inner city who are angling to make it in the NBA. As a fan of both basketball and doc films, it’s pathetic that I has not seen this sooner — I think the 171 minute (!) running time scared me away, as it seemed like such a commitment.

It turns out you can break that up into about 4 exercise-length viewings, and that ended up working out quite well. There’s a naturally episodic quality to the film, as it follow Arthur and William year by year. The story the filmmakers uncovered is remarkable, with twists and turns, ups and downs, highs and lows, and very real drama. Hoop Dreams is about so many things — family, race issues, class issues, basketball, motherhood, fatherhood, coming of age — but really what it’s about is America, thick and thin, better and worse. You have to give huge kudos to the filmmakers who stuck with this for four-plus years (and doubtless had so many hours of tape shot that figuring out how to pull together a story must have been beyond daunting), but you also have to show respect for the the film’s two subjects, who make *something* of themselves against extraordinary countervailing pressures.

Anyway, don’t be like me. If you have any inkling of interest in this film, but haven’t seen it yet, do not put off watching it.

Jules starts to stutter

Over the last few days, Stacy and I noticed that Jules had some trouble getting his words out. He’s doing some rather classic stuttering — repeating the initial sound of a word at the start of a sentence.

Being first-time parents, we had what is doubtless the universal response, “Should we be worried?” It turns out: no. Stuttering is common in toddlers, as, it seems, their brain moves faster than their vocal apparatus can support.

Child development is fascinating to observe. Such stuttering is simply the most obvious expression of how Jules’ various systems advance at differing rates. Jules is tall for his age, but his muscle coordination hasn’t caught up, leading to a lot of stumbling, tumbling, and just outright falling. (Though, given his parents’ coordination, this might be a lifelong deficit.)

Movie Review: Exit Through The Gift Shop

Care of Netflix’s Watch Instantly service, I just finished Exit Through the Gift Shop (Netflix, IMDB),a fun, and strange, documentary on street art, psychosis, the idiocy of the art world, and Banksy. The focus of the documentary is Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman living in Los Angeles with his wife and children. He’s something of a videomaniac, continuously recording his life. Through a familial connection, he uncovers the world of street art, which then becomes his obsession, first to document, and then to produce. He crosses paths with Shepard Fairey (of OBEY/GIANT and the Obama Hope poster fame), and, most notably Banksy, perhaps the most notorious street artist in the world.

The film tells the tale of how, at Banksy’s urging, Guetta stopped filming the world of street art, and started making some of his own. Under the moniker Mr BrainWash, he briefly engages in the kind of paste-ups and stenciling the Fairey and Banksy have made famous, but then quickly decides to have his own giant warehouse show. The lark being, his warehouse show, typically the kind of thing that comes after an artist works for years, if not decades, but for him happens after just months, is an overwhelming success.

More then anything, the film is fun. Street art is a great subject, what with all the surreptitious evening shoots and people going where they shouldn’t, doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Guetta is a great subject — outrageous French accent, seemingly crazy, but also with a strange ability to get others to rally in his support and pull off this monstrous show. I actually found that part endearing, because it spoke to a kind of karma — Guetta had given much of himself, his time, and his resources to help other street artists, and they ended up supporting him, too.

A conceit of the film is that it was originally going to be a film by Guetta about street art, but then became a film by Banksy about Guetta. This is important because a one of the film’s main themes is that, well, the art world is a load of bollocks. It starts small, with video of Banksy infiltrating the Tate with his art, then the ascendant rise of street art as a subject of auctions, culminating in Mr Brainwash’s surprisingly popular show, given he had no real art bona fides.

This has lead some to think the whole point of the film is for Banksy to flash a big “up yours” to the art world.

Some have even gone so far as to say the entire Guetta/Mr Brainwash story is a hoax or prank, perpetrated by Bansky and Fairey, to prove their point. A stance I find appalling, because, really, there is no evidence whatsoever of a prank. However, there’s a sad class of smart-erati who live in fear of being duped, and in order to demonstrate their smartness, level accusations such as “prank” or “hoax” on such things. Regardless of whether there is evidence. Really, this kind of thinking is no different than conspiracy theorists, piecing together a set of insubstantial “evidence” as a demonstration of a diabolical master plan.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun, quirky, pointed diversion, Exit Through the Gift Shop is definitely worth a look.

Open Letter to the Anthropological Community

My undergrad degree is in anthropology, and I’m married to a woman with a doctorate in anthropology (emphasis in historical archaeology), and so I find myself drawn to news about the field. When I heard that the American Anthropological Association revised it’s mission statement (Now: “The purposes of the Association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects.”), I rejoiced because my biggest beef with the field was how cloistered and disconnected it was from common discourse. I think anthropology can be an unparalleled tool to help people understand themselves, and, given all the various global crises occurring, it strikes me that this understanding is needed now more than ever.

It turns out that many in the discipline are upset about the change, and, from what I can tell, the foofaraw is centered on the removal of the word “science” from the mission statement, and that this must mean the AAA is forsaking the scientific underpinnings of the discipline. As a relative outsider, I didn’t pick up on that at all, and I also don’t see how the new mission statement can be construed in any way as excluding science. Science is a necessary tool for understanding humankind.

Anyway, as a friendly layperson, I just wanted to encourage the anthropological community to embrace this shift, and take heart the potential positive impact it could have.

Adaptive Path’s 2011 Events: Register Now Save Big!

We now interrupt this irregularly-scheduled blog for this announcement.

Adaptive Path has a big push for our 2011 slate of events. Called “Register Now Save Big!” the point is to help folks use their 2010 training budgets for 2011 events. You can get 15% off the already discounted early registration prices for three events: MX: Managing Experience 2011, UX Intensive Amsterdam, and our flagship conference, UX Week 2011 (We still haven’t announced any speakers yet for UX Week, as it’s pretty far out, but if you’ve gone in prior years, you know what an amazing event it will be.)

So, when registering for the event, use the discount code RNSB for your additional 15% off!

Book Review: Where Good Ideas Come From

The subtitle of Steven Johnson’s latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation, suggests that Steven is looking for his own taste of that Gladwellian mystique, writing a book that has just enough business mojo to command those $25,000 – $50,000 speaking fees at corporate events.

(I refer to the author as Steven, instead of (Mr.) Johnson, because I know him. Apologies if it feels too familiar.)

I found Good Ideas to be a surprisingly curious book. I suppose I was expecting more on the “innovation” front, from a business and technology perspective, but what Steven delivers is strongly weighted on the “natural history” front, with descriptions of coral reef formation, neuronal processes, and other natural phenomena. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising — since Emergence, Steven has had a strong natural science bent, whether ecological, neurological (Mind Wide Open), or microbial (The Ghost Map).

Let me also say that I liked the book. It took a while to grow on me. It wasn’t clear where it was leading, and the collection of stories, and their relationships, felt like a jumble for a while.

But then I realized that the book was an exercise in it’s primary biological metaphor – the coral reef. Coral reefs are remarkably fecund environments, accreting over time in such a way to support a dazzling number of species. The accretion of stories in the book ends up mimicking that process of coral reef development — Steven gathers a bunch of narratives, some with strong connections to one another, others looser, and the reader is left to make sense of the juxtapositions on their own.

This is actually where I prefer Steven’s approach to that of Gladwell. Gladwell might be a better storyteller, but he’s a terrible theoretician — a Mack truck can be driven through the holes in his grand themes (Blink being the prime offender; it refutes itself almost immediately.) Steven doesn’t attempt to knit things too neatly — he presents them, as if in a wunderkammer, with more of a curatorial than authorial orientation.

Rereading my criticism of his prior work, The Invention of Air, I’m amused at how what I found to be flaws in that work turn out to be strengths in this one. In Air I criticized the aimlessness and lack of explicit direction, whereas in Ideas those serve the subject. I think it’s because Ideas is a book about ideas, which are nebulous, networked, and squishy things, whereas Air was ostensibly about a man and his work, which necessitates a focus that I found lacking.

Anyway, Ideas is among the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a while. It’s the perfect book-club book, the kind of book you want your friends to read so you can talk about it with them.

Errol Morris and Werner Herzog chat

On the plane ride to New York, I finally got around to watching the ~hour-long conversation between Errol Morris and Werner Herzog at the Toronto International Film Festival, as blogged by Roger Ebert.

It’s great stuff, and worth your time. They have a remarkably casual candor (considering they’re speaking before what is undoubtedly a sizable crowd), and are able to be insightful and inspirational in their discussion.

If you’re like me, and have trouble sitting at your computer watching lengthy-ish videos, may I suggest the application I use, Evom, to convert it for iTunes and automatically sync with your iOS device (I watched it on my iPhone)? (It might be Mac-only. I don’t know.)

Film thoughts: INCEPTION

I’m wary of calling this a “review”.

With a nearly-two-year-old at home, I don’t get to see many flicks in theaters. We’re pretty choosy, and we want to see films that warrant the big screen. Last night we saw Inception, which, according to my tweet stream over its opening weekend, was a film that nearly everyone I follow saw and loved, with the notable exception of my father, who tweeted, “INCEPTION is an insufferably smart-ass film. Watching it for 30 minutes was like doing penance but I’d rather be in purgatory so I left.”. (Yes, having my father tweet means I have a personal “shitmydadsays.”)

My dad is right that the first 30 minutes are quite weak — it takes a long time for the film to get going (did we really need that full scene with the original architect and the angry mob?). In fact, I felt that what Christopher Nolan (the writer-director) needed was an editor — not a film editor, but a story editor, someone who could have pared this down. This could have been a taut 90-minute mindfuck thriller, but instead it was a bloated 150-minute mindfuck thriller with an utterly unnecessary subplot having to do with a dead wife.

Which reminds me, I think “Cotillard” is French for “crazy chick.”

In terms of the response I’ve seen, I’m surprised that people found the movie perplexing, or warranting of additional viewing in order to understand it. Apart from the bloat, my other criticism of this film is that it was surprisingly literal and calculated. There is no mystery — everything is explained (and explained and explained, mostly to Ellen Page’s character, aka “The Audience Stand-in”). There’s one big supposed mystery (did I mention this would this post would have spoilers?) — “Was it all a dream?”, and it saddens me that most commentators I’ve found think that yes it is. I think they think that because it makes them feel clever, or at least, as clever as Nolan. The thing is, it doesn’t matter.

I know I’m coming across as harsh, but I basically enjoyed the film. It’s just that the enjoyable bits of the film aren’t as interesting to talk about — trippy dream states, fun action set pieces, some cerebrality to noodle on. I was surprised to find that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur character was my favorite in the film, and his scenes in the hotel without gravity were easily the most fun and spellbinding bits. In fact, he nearly steals the film from Leo’s rather unengaging Don Cobb, but he doesn’t have quite enough screen time.

Racking my brain, I think my favorite movie that largely takes place in dreams is still Nightmare on Elm Street. Which, if you haven’t seen, because you’re not a fan of horror, well, you’re missing out on some fun, inventive, and truly clever filmmaking.

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

There was a period a few months ago where, if you listened to NPR podcasts like I listen to NPR podcasts, you couldn’t avoid mention of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks nor the voice of it’s author, Rebecca Skloot, answering questions about the remarkable story she uncovered (and took part in).

I finished this book on the road trip, meaning I returned it to the library something like 6 days late (and have the $1.50 fine to show for it). I’m more than happy to pay up–it was a book worth turning in late. Before I started reading, I was afraid I’d heard the whole story from all the radio interviews, but the book offers much much more.

Immortal Life is a definitively American tale, exposing a bizarre and unfortunate dichotomy in our society — scientific and technological innovation at its highest, world-changing levels, and poverty, racism, and neglect unconscionable anywhere else in the developed world.

The book intertwines two distinct threads — the discovery and development of HeLa cells, an immortal strain that has proven a remarkable boon to biotech; and the trial and tribulations of uncovering the life of Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman (or, in the parlance of the time of her death, “negress”), whose cervical cancer served as the fount of these cells.

Either story on it’s own is fascinating. The idea that there’s a strain of cells that, given just a bit of food and culture, will live forever, endlessly reproducing, seems like the stuff of science fiction (and has been the inspiration for such).

The biography of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants, poor African-Americans who somehow manage to get by, but face trouble (health, money, alcohol, drugs, jail) at every turn is heartbreaking. And always lurking around is the book’s fundamental irony, that Henrietta’s family cannot afford the health care that her cells have made available.

The patron saint of the book proves to be Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s mercurial daughter. After much effort, Skloot bonds with her, though Deborah occasionally slips into paranoid phases where she believes Skloot is out to get her, to be yet another white person profiting off of her mama’s cells. Deborah’s behavior gets to be quite trying, even for the reader, but it speaks to Skloot’s power as an author that, at the end of the book, when you hear that Deborah has died, you feel immensely sad. More than anything else, Deborah did what she could to preserve the memory, and good name, of the mother she never got to know, and deserves our respect.