Category: Musings

BBC News – Facebook users suffer service disruptions

It is a calamity of biblical proportions when millions of Facebook users endure a two-hour span of time during which they cannot instantly find out whether a friend drank a latte, discover that a distance acquaintance inadvertently passed gas, or wonder as to why a particular friend had to forward such a stale political cartoon.

It was so important that, in addition to this BBC News piece, people felt compelled to comment on it on Twitter:

“Facebook is acting like its stock. It keeps going down,” quipped one Twitter user.

Thanks to the network architect gods, the agony of missing pablum is over. We can all feed our addictions. As soon as I click on “publish”, this will be posted to Facebook to be enjoyed by, perhaps, millions. My timing may be perfect, but will I be heard above the noise?

Possibly louder than any protestor in Syria.

When I was an undergraduate student, I was not yet a citizen, but I was blackmailed into registering for the Select Service, aka “The Draft”, in order to receive financial aid. This was a huge motivation for me to become a citizen. I wanted to have some say in the political process that might send me to fight wars in distant conflicts. I had no objection to being subject to conscription, but I found the notion of being denied a voice in the political process that might effect conscription especially unpalatable, repulsive even.

In 1995, therefore, I became a United States citizen and immediately registered to vote. The satisfaction of exercising the political voice whose absence effected the immigration of my family to the US has repeatedly been spoiled by the drudgery of jury duty, however, and today is my third trip to the enervating practice of “justice”.

Although the process has been dramatically improved over the last 10 years through the advent of computerized random sampling, it feels more and more like a dreadful anachronism, which it indisputably is. Two centuries ago, when the process was instituted, juries did not have to deal with anything as complex or as convoluted as modern contract disputes, patent disputes and crimes as bizarre as identity theft. Criminal accusations are ultimately born out or refuted by evidence that has been properly collected and complex civil disputes are best settled by those who have expert understanding of the heart of the matter.

As I am enduring the propaganda video exalting the validity of justice dispensed by juries and arguing the ecstasy of the process of serving, I am haunted by the following question: can we find a better reward than crappy politicians and jury duty for the privilege of suffrage in a democratic society?

Maybe I’ll catch up on my reading a little.

Professional Sports is an Excellent Marketing Model for the Airlines

It is exceptionally difficult not to become furious–downright livid–with the state of the airline industry. As if the incessant prodding by Homeland Security weren’t enough, the advent of online booking began obscuring the actual price of flight tickets (How much will the taxes be? How about the booking fee?). Then, we came upon the reality that even the final price we paid for the ticket wasn’t the actual cost of the flight because airlines first started charging for meals that used to be included in the price of the ticket and then they started charging for hauling our baggage, which also used to be included in the price of the ticket. Even worse, the luggage fee is subject to change, and it varies from airline to airline. Consequently, the final cost of the flight remains a mystery until we check in our baggage.

If the trend continues, Airlines will soon charge for oxygen during the flight, but more civil alternatives that might quell the passengers’ thirst for the Airlines’ jugulars exist. Airlines can take a hint from professional sports and have sponsorship for every event that happens during the course of a flight.

Just as NFL kickoffs are typically “brought to you by the new Buick LeSabre”, the highly anticipated pushback from the gate could be “brought to you by AIG insurance: isn’t now a good time to buy some life insurance? We’re begging you!” The takeoff can be sponsored by “Red Bull: it gives you wings”, or by “Viagra: your turn to take off, baby”, or by “Cialis: nothing can stop you from joining the mile high club”. Dinner can be sponsored by McDonalds or Subway. Long smooth stretches of sky can be sponsored by Smirnoff Vodka or Jack Daniels, and heavy turbulence can be sponsored by “Valium: you need one. Don’t deny it.” The oxygen in the cabin could be sponsored by “Microsoft: without Microsoft, you’d be dead. Don’t you forget that”. Landings, those so happy endings to long flights, could be sponsored by Victoria’s secret, or Trojan condoms, and that blissful moment at which we are allowed to be again shackled by our mobile phones can be sponsored by Verizon. Or Stayfree maxipads.

Airlines can take another cue from professional car racing and put all sorts of logos on the giant fuselages of their planes. Oh, look, it’s the Home Depot plane taking off. Kids can be heard screaming “I wanna fly the Cocoa Puffs plane, please!” And, flight attendants’ uniforms will naturally be covered from head to toe with patches from a thousand different sponsors, from STP to Chilli’s.

Although the net result might be that sponsors will end up prolonging flights the way they prolong football games just to cram a few more commercials down our throats (“We’re making an extra turn in Chicago to show you the Willis Tower. It’s no longer the Sears tower, damn it!”), perhaps we might again be afforded the sanity of knowing one simple fact about our flight: how much it costs!

PS If you got other sponsorship ideas for the airlines, share them in the comments below. PNM

Calligraffiti Exhibit at Pacific Asia Museum

People are saying altogether too much about graffiti. About six months ago, graffiti burst onto the mainstream art scene with a bevy of exhibitions touting the rise of erstwhile taggers to the level of masters. One lovely exhibit was the Calligraffiti exhibit at Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. It consisted of works by graffiti artists from diverse backgrounds who integrated elements of Asian calligraphy into their works. On the whole, the exhibit was very nice, and the art was thought-provoking, but one could not escape the feeling that a great lion of expression had finally been de-fanged, de-clawed and thoroughly domesticated.

Graffiti was an expression of rebellion, much like punk rock. Its appeal was precisely in the way it which exposed, defied and counteracted the accepted order. It was a means for creative souls to circumvent commercial censorship boldly, loudly, crassly, beautifully and arrogantly. That was the point. And, it had to be done in grand style: graffiti’s impact came from the way it transformed and mutated the giant edifices of the corporate, commercial culture. Consequently, lacking any expression of defiance and confined to the small walls of a museum, the medium has no soul, it lacks impact, and it neither impresses nor inspires. The strict enforcement of criminal laws have quashed this wonderful voice. Only oddball geniuses like Banksy manage to provoke despite his ability to garner outrageous sums for his work.

So, as beautiful as these works of art may be, these are not loud avant-garde voices. Jean-Michel Besquiat’s genius and its context in the New York underground art scene in Downtown 81 puts all of this in perspective. Graffiti was the vanguard of underground art, itself the last bastion of creativity in a culture dominated by commercial enforcement of subordination, acceptance, mediocrity and complacency.

And, alas, with the acceptance of graffiti into the mainstream museums, this great vanguard of creativity may finally have been silenced, accepted into submission, swallowed by the capital juggernaut.

Graffiti, rest in peace. You had a great run.