The color black is like silence. An experience we all know, yet does not exist.
Morning. The sun is well above the horizon, yet not at full glory. I am biking to work. Suddenly I am aware of the nature of the color around me. The shirt I normally call black is truly a dark red, the pants a hint of green. The road is a vibrant thing, shimmering red, green, blue. The primary colors of light. The further I look ahead, the more they blend into white.
Wired Magazine explained recently that the "online" world of the web is fading in importance as apps that just work and machine to machine conversations take over the Internet. A major driving force behind this phenomenon is that those of us who grew up with the World Wide Web are reaching the point where we have a few bucks to spend, and would rather pay for a service then spend our time fiddling with computers in order to get access to the ideas, music, news, people, etc. that we love. They take a look at the history of industrial development and the like as a model to understanding the further implications of this phenomenon, and point out that regulated oligopolies appear to be the natural end point for capitalism.
There are some broad implications that occur to me, which I'd like to think through.
My first thoughts are for those of us who are convinced of the principles behind Free Software, and who would see that those principles guide the future. It's been stated repeatedly that our interest is not that people are prevented from making a profit, only that we want to ensure that said profits do not come at the cost of people's liberties. To win the pragmatic side of the debate is likely more important that to win the ideological debate. I suspect that in this case it is actually good news that most people don't care how things are done "behind the scenes" so long as everything basically works. Why? Because machine to machine communication is simplest with open, standardized protocols (I'm thinking TCP/IP and the like). The trick is not, as was thought, to take over the desktop and win the hearts of computer users. The trick is to make sure that the open platforms are the best way to handle the back-bone first.
Okay - Stop writing this for a certain audience. This is a think through..
Damnit. I got to the end without any of the steps. So what is the end? The end is that we use REST to deliver real life services.
Thats the trick. Okay - so what does that mean? That means that your "pizza" application is both a free app and an open api. Nobody fucking cares about the advertisements, coupons, etc. They want to push a button and trade their money for Pizza. Or, more importantly for a guy like me, photos, or what the fuck ever.
Like rats in a cage - push the button, get a food. Button -> food, button -> food, and pretty soon you've got a rat that wouldn't leave his fucking cage if you paid him.
And thus was conquered a world.
Son of a bitch!
Writing an e-mail was inordinately difficult because my brain is trying to comprehend that the Internet + non-dualism + the development of multicellular life implies that the Borg are a probable future; but when we arrive as such it may be a form of enlightenment. If current individuals were particularly intelligent in the next couple of years, they could probably existing technologies to establish themselves as effective precursors. Conclusion: Facebook + wireless sunglasses could turn "friends" into multi-organism beings. But the sci-fi writers knew that no later than 1989, so why does this feel like news to me?
Queries:
Does your brain do this kind of thing? Does everyone's? How much of conversation is spent simply attempting to establish a premise from which you can actually say something useful? How often do you find it hard to tell someone what your schedule is this weekend because you are preoccupied by the idea that sending someone an e-mail in order to make plans is functionally similar to one neuron passing on a message to another, only less efficient?
I've mentioned a wish for effective dense communication in the past. So are we all walking around, intensely frustrated by an inability to communicate the bigger picture of our circumstances to each other, or is all this crap in my head a uniquely problematic: akin to schizophrenia or ADD?
I drop a little ticket and a bill for 200 yen into the machine that sits next to the driver. It makes a small noise, and the he looks at the machine. His eyes widen, he starts speaking in a hushed but urgent voice. I watch blankly until my friend translates. "You paid too much. It was only 150 yen. He doesn't have the right change. You should have used the other slot for change."
"What is that, like fifty cents? Tell him not to worry about it." I move to get off the bus.
My friend gives me a funny look. "He's not going accept that." She tells him anyway.
The driver seems on the verge of panic, he raises a hand to the side of his forehead. The door closes and he stands up, starts talking to the other passengers with that same urgency. Many passengers appear concerned, possibly pitying. A woman brings out a white purse. They exchange money, bow their heads to each other several times.
The driver turns back to me, bowing and smiling in a slightly strange way. As if he had barely avoided disaster. As if I were a fickle giant who might have crushed him had he failed to return with a little coin.
"Thank you," I say, hoping he is one of the people who recognizes that phrase; hoping that he won't recognize up the edge of confusion and irritation I hear in my own voice.
When we are on the street my friend warns me "He probably wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight if that woman hadn't given him change. They are very careful with guests, so don't make it hard for them. It's kind of rude."
That's the second time she's had to warn me. I am certain that I am a foreigner.
As children, my siblings and I were given a rule for conversation: anything we wished to tell our mother had to be finished within four sentences. If we went over the limit she would make us stop, think it through, and then get to the point. It taught us to consider the meaning of our words, separate important ideas from the useless ones.
I open up the top to see what is contained within. Stone walls in a tight circle all the way down, a slight outcrop near the bottom and a pipe, rusty and worn, leading either in or out on the left-hand side. At first I cannot see the bottom. I drop a few small stones and hear them hit bottom. Sound of solid dirt, and when my eyes adjust I can see it. Brown earth. Perhaps twenty, twenty-five feet.
I am growing nervous as I consider that it should be possible to reach the bottom. There are spider webs and the walls are rough. This would be nothing to a rock-climber.
There is some risk, a fall could cause one to bang his head, and the walls slope inward toward the top. This could make it a bit tricky to move from the section below ground to the one above.
I find myself straddling the wall, convinced that there is a difference between the man who climbs down and the one who doesn't. Such a small risk - if one has not the courage for this than the more important chances in life would be too much indeed.
Soon I am at the bottom, testing the ground carefully before giving it my weight. I look upward as the sun filters down, take note of the way the light diminishes along the walls around me.
There was a moment of worry on the way in, moving past the point where I could simply pull myself out by the rim, but the trip was easy. There are more spider webs than I'd anticipated, but spiders here are mostly harmless. I take a few breaths. The air is cool and damp. I let myself grow comfortable before ascending.
So after a decade of trying, failing, reading, learning, adjusting, asking, answering, thinking, exploring, playing, wishing, wondering, re-evaluating, contemplating and so forth, I think I've come up with a motto that encompasses everything I need to know moving forward.
"Kiss the dragon on the nose."
Sounds kind of silly, but it covers love, power, freedom, creativity, adventure, and playfulness. It does so in a way that those words can be remixed into other forms - compassion, courage, humor, joy, etc depending on circumstance. Easy to remember, requires a lot of internal fortitude but also a particularly intense sense of humor and imagination. Plus I stole the core idea from someone who inspires me.
I like it, it's mine. Now I'll have to see how well it applies.
I've been walking for about three hours, an afternoon stroll in the neighborhood somehow turned into trek to the center of the city and back. I'm thinking about how faces change as darkness sets in, the slightly curious amusement of people on a late Saturday afternoon shifts, becomes a guarded question: "am I safe with you around?" From the color of my own thoughts, my face must be the same.
I keep saying to myself "life is supposed to be an epic."
I am passing yet another of the grungy bars in Fishtown, broken glass and grates and buckled concrete ground. A car honks from a block or two away, and I hear a woman yelling "get the fuck out of my car!"
I've been reviewing Dave Ramsey's book, The Total Money Makeover. It's a fairly popular self-help book, focused on teaching people how to manage money over the course of a lifetime such that even a very average person can retire a millionaire. If you are not already on a path toward becoming very wealthy over the course of your life, I recommend reading it.
She's a widow now. Sitting in the pew in front of me, her hands are visibly shaking. For the most part the room is empty. The doors are still closed, but her mother and and a few friends surround her.
She's wearing black canvas shoes, a tee-shirt over the long sleeves. Not crying, just shaking. Then she's up, pacing, more people trying to be useful. Her mother, red hair and attempted restraint, keeps talking about the inadequate amounts of water.
The MC intercedes, separates the family from the friends. I stay put. She moves.
There will be more, a man who might well have been his best friend will be very eloquent. He was quite the story-teller earlier. It's not just for show though. Jack was one of the good guys.
Her shaking up front, and just the few sentences. They loved each other. He made her a better person. Dense/meaning/intimacy. They were well past the stage when one mind emulates the other internally, the other is present even when absent. She must still feel him, be surprised every half second by the repeated epiphany of his absence.