It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t live through it how transformation technology has been. When I was a child a computer was something mysterious. My Dad has managed to work his way up from the shop floor of the shipyard where he worked and into the planning office.
One evening he broad home some computer paper. I was fascinated by the the way the paper hinged on perforations and had tear off side edges that allowed it to be pulled through the printer with plastic sprockets connecting through holes in the paper.
My Dad used to compile and print off work orders using an ICL mainframe computer that was timeshared by all the shipyards that were part of British Shipbuilders.
I used the paper for years for notes and my childhood drawings. It didn’t make me a computer whiz. I never had a computer when I was at school. My school didn’t have a computer lab. I got to use Windows machines a few times in a regional computer labs. I still use what I learned in Excel spreadsheets now.
My experience with computers started with work and eventually bought my own secondhand Mac. Cut and paste completely changed the way I wrote. I got to use internal email working for Corning and internet connectivity when I went to university. One of my friends had a CompuServe account and I was there when he first met his Mexican wife on an online chatroom, years before Tinder.
Leaving college I set up a Yahoo! email address. I only needed to check my email address once a week, which was fortunate as internet access was expensive. I used to go to Liverpool’s cyber cafe with a friend every Saturday and showed him how to use the internet. I would bring any messages that I needed to send pre-written on a floppy disk that also held my CV.
That is a world away from the technology we enjoy now, where we are enveloped by smartphones and constant connectivity. In some ways the rate of change feels as if it has slowed down compared to the last few decades.
I have read a number of books on Silicon Valley, many of which allude to the impact of the beat generation and 1960s counterculture. Many of which tie it into the rise of what we now know as Silicon Valley. Roszak’s From Satori to Silicon Valleyis really an essay. In his essay is a deeply personal history of how the counterculture influenced Silicon Valley and then devolved into the yuppie culture of the 1980s.
The essay was originally written for a lecture to be given at San Francisco State University. I was particularly struck by a piece at the beginning of the book:
A few weeks before the lecture, a student in the Public Affairs Office at San Francisco State called me to arrange some campus publicity. He had a question from a student.
“Where’s Satori?”
“What?” I asked.
“Your lecture is called ‘From Satori to Silicon Valley,’ ” he explained. “I know where Silicon Valley is. But where’s Satori?”
“The Zen state of enlightenment … you never heard of that?”
“Oh. I never took any courses in Oriental religion “
I started to explain the term, spelling out its once obvious connection with the counter culture of the sixties.
This exchange was had by Roszak in 1985. My own views were rather different. For me the ideas that fired the counterculture revolution had a vibrancy that excited me. Yes hippies were a cliche, but they left a lot of concepts behind.
They had moved orientalism beyond interesting antiques to vibrant ideas. They had tried to marry libertarianism with utopianism that inspired early online culture. They had rooted down into the very nature of quality through metaphysics. This had inspired my wider view of things that gave this blog its name. In terms of eastern high and low brow culture and a holistic ‘renaissance man’ viewpoint.
Yet in that conversation, Roszak highlights the huge gulf that lay between the counterculture that had fuelled so much of Silicon Valley up until then and the new generation. A 30-something Steve Jobs would have choked with incredulity at that conversation.
Roszak’s work is credible because of his personal memories make it real for the essay reader. He was in the trenches shaping the brightest minds to find their way to Silicon Valley. This brings that transition into focus in a way that other authors such as John Markoff had been unable to do.
Roszak’s writing isn’t as witty or snarky as Robert X Cringely’s Accidental Empires.From Satori to Silicon Valley doesn’t try to build a mythologise around the messiness of the counterculture movement.
If you want to understand where technology is taking us (into a digital version of the robber baron gilded age) read From Satori To Silicon Valley. At 64 pages long and smaller than a typical paperback book it makes an easy read on the tube too.
James Earl Jones has one of the most distinctive voices in the entertainment industry as you can hear in this Sesame Street clip. You might recognise from his appearance in Conan the Barbarian film, but James Earl Jones has a surprising variety in his career across film, television and stage performance. James Earl Jones has done voiceover work for everything from Disney’s The Lion King to CNN station idents.
Hollow Spy Coins – talk about niche businesses, this is definitely on the long tail. You have to admire their dedication to engineering this.
Economics
Boomtown of Dubai feels effects of global crisis – International Herald Tribune – Until recently, credit in Dubai was growing by 49 percent a year, according to the Emirates’ Central Bank — a rate almost double that of bank deposits’ growth. That unnerved some bankers here, who felt it could lead to a collapse. “In the U.S., the challenge is about keeping the banks going,” said Marios Maratheftis, chief economist for Standard Chartered Bank. “Here, the economy has been overheated, a correction is needed, and it’s about making sure the slowdown happens in a smooth, orderly manner.”
Klein Verzet: Freaking doomed – the premise is that the demand for shipping of raw materials like coal, bauxite and iron ore have ground to a stand still and soon even the factories of China will be a lot quieter – so the economic outlook is nothing short of ammegeddon
P&G to launch washing gel that cleans at 15 degrees – Brand Republic News – Brand Republic – “According to P&G, Ariel’s Cool Clean campaign encouraged more than five times as many customers than normal to switch to low-energy washing programmes, with Ariel customers twice as likely as the average consumer to wash at a lower 30 degrees temperature (28% of Ariel customers in 2007 versus 13% of those using other brands). P&G has a partnership with the Energy Saving Trust, which encourages people to use energy efficiently and reduce their carbon footprints.”
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Data Debasement | PBS – cloud computing versus DBMS, interesting reading, I need to go back and look at it a few more times to understand it fully. But initial take is that parallel computing as well as parallel processing changes how computing works and databases have to be adapted (like Oracle’s Grid database concept from the tail end of the dot com era and cloud computing. It’s the failings of Moore’s law rather than progress that is driving this change
Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman – while I have sympathy for some of what Mr Stallman says, his argument misses the point about the benefits of social software. Open formats and APIs allow you to move from one service to another as needs must.
I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Collateral Damage | PBS – interesting take on the mobile market, not one that I necessarily agree with, but interesting none the less. Cringely expect that Microsoft Windows Mobile software will fail and has some interesting ideas around the why. I think Microsoft has everything to play for with enterprise users and can leverage items like security authentication and Outlook email access – they might not be dominant but they could still be in with a shout
Beginning of end of megapixel marathon – Pixel count gives phones and cameras the ‘Dixons Factor’ – being able to be sold easily by some pimple-faced oik; but doesn’t mean you will have better quality pictures. I have a digital SLR which takes pictures at 5.1 megapixels and a phone camera that will do the same – no prize for which one takes the better pictures.
FT.com – Vodafone slams curb on rates – The curb on rates is complex. I agree with Vodafone that consumers would not like to pay to receive calls as well as paying to make them – this would bring the UK more in line with the US experience. However, I can understand why a curb on charges is proposed. The curb in charges is inspired by roaming charges that are expensive and the stuff of modern-day horror stories. The curb on charges will be implemented More related content here.
Yahoo Bleeds Purple. And You Thought Microsoft’s Marketing Campaign Was Weird – not sure that as a consumer I would be clear about what the call to action is, but some of the elements in this are quite nice. For sneaker freaker completists; you may want to catch on to a set of limited edition Yahoo! vs Pony in a purple and white colorway. Without giving too much away I have spoken to people in the know and it will all make sense over the next couple of months. Keep an eye on Yahoo! UK for some changes sooner, rather than later
Urban Tours – interesting way for Blackberry to try and differentiate itself from the ubiquitous mapping applications now on smartphones. It also breaks out of the Brooks Brothers-clad Crackberry image
Japanese Women Shy From Dual Mommy Role – washingtonpost.com – “The stakes are high here in the world’s second-largest economy, which now has the world’s highest proportion of people over 65 and lowest proportion of children under 15. According to a recent forecast, population loss will strip Japan of 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.”
Artificial DNA Could Become Savior Of Technology | PSFK – Trends, Ideas & Inspiration – PSFK isn’t normally the place I would go for futurism but their take on artificial DNA is interesting. Artificial DNA offers opportunity as a storage medium that could be much more compact than today’s flash storage or hard drives. Artificial DNA also offers opportunities in new classes of medicinal treatments that might be personalised.
Lost In Translation: Japanese Market Not Sold On iPhone Cool Factor – In Japan, like elsewhere, gadget fans lined up to be some of the first to buy the new iPhone last week. However, after the initial rush, it appears that consumers there aren’t completely sold on the device. Part of this is down to the high quality level of services that they have been used to on their flip phones with added carrier based services and even a social network called Mixi. The iPhone will need to provide a better experience optimised for Japanese consumers