Groundhog
Day
I suppose it is fitting that the first "Rant" should be about, well . . . rants; or more specifically, an explanation of why I felt it necessary to create this section of the site -- especially when it is so painfully obvious that other, putatively more "practical", sections are desperately in need of completion.
Well... Remember the 1993 movie Groundhog Day? For those in need of a quick refresher: The basic gist of it is that the lead character, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray), finds himself perpetually re-living February 2nd in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Over and over again, he wakes to the same obnoxious DJ playing the same inane song on the bedside clock radio, engages in the same chit-chat with the same people in the local coffee shop, observes the same weather "prediction" from Punxsutawney Phil, and even the same weather itself, down to the same inconveniently placed puddle. Lather, rinse -- and yes, most definitely -- repeat. Endlessly.
As you might imagine, this soon gets to be more than a bit frustrating, to the point that Phil becomes so desperate to break this cycle that he commits suicide -- several times, as each time he wakes up the "next" day only to find that... Yes, it's February 2nd, yet again (feel free to insert appropriate swear words here; I'm sure Phil did). It's not until our hero finally takes to heart the old adage, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it"[1] that he can finally begin to grow as a human being, and through that enlightenment eventually find February 3rd.
And *that*, in a nutshell, is what this column is really all about.
For much more than the twenty-one years which have elapsed since I created Appropriate Technology, Inc., I've watched the computer industry, at all levels from the largest mega-corporations down to the individual neophyte home user, make the same mistakes over and over and over again. It was in fact this observation which provided much of the inspiration for the name of the company[2][3].
And as you might imagine, this has indeed gotten to be more than a bit frustrating.
A major part of what I see as "my job" is to protect our clients from as many of the common computer-related pitfalls as we can. And a key part of that task is education -- in short, teaching the client to *not* make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it might at first seem.
First, there is the matter of human nature to deal with; specifically, our inbred resistance to accepting the idea that we have in fact made a fundamental mistake. Some people have more difficulty with this than others; and, not being a psychiatrist, there's really nothing much I can do to change that. Perhaps, with a little luck, some of these folks will sooner or later learn what Phil Connors eventually did.
Then there's the matter of marketing. Now, with all due respect to those who chose to make marketing their life's work (and I count among that number at least one personal friend whom I'm sure I have unwittingly insulted over this issue on at least a few prior occasions), the manner in which marketing is typically practiced, if not marketing itself, is nearly always directly antithetical to the best interests of the very folks it is aimed at -- i.e., the consumers. After all, one of the defining characteristics of Marketing (especially at the retail level) is that it constitutes an attempt to corrupt and distort the natural free market economy; specifically, it is an effort of the supply side to create demand which would not otherwise exist. And it is probably intuitively obvious that the larger and more powerful the marketer, the more successful that effort generally is. Now as it happens, in our little corner of the economy we have several of the largest and most pervasive marketers in the world[4], some of whom are downright legendary in their disingenuousness and abusiveness[5]. So the general level of... ahhh... er... uhmmm.. "male bovine excrement" to which the average computer user is exposed is deep indeed.
Factor in here that computer technology is (or at least "was") widely viewed by much of the general public as a mysterious "Black Art", understandable only by geeks in lab coats and/or propeller beanies, and it's easy to see what an easy target for marketers the average lay computer user really is.
Given all this, I suppose it is not really surprising that most users chronically labor under a number of marketing-induced misconceptions. As Vladimir Lenin quite correctly observed, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" -- or at least the truth perceived by those being told the lie. So is it also not surprising that I find myself giving the same speeches to our clients (sometimes the same clients), over and over again.
But it sure can become more than a bit frustrating.
So in future installments of this feature, I will attempt to not only de-mystify some of the issues surrounding computer technology, but also to de-bunk some of the more popular myths that have grown up around it. Perhaps, with a little luck, this will permit some folks to find their enlightenment, at least in terms of their computers.
Footnotes:
[1] This common aphorism is a popular misquote of what philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) actually wrote in "The Life of Reason" (1905): "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Full quotation HERE.) But in this particular case, the misquote (especially when taken literally) fits a bit better than the original, because I do not believe it is really a matter of "remembering", but of actually *learning* -- something that we, both as a society in general and in many, many individual cases, are incredibly loathe to do.
[2] This, and the other parts of that inspiration, their implications, and the lessons which can (and should!) be gleaned from them, will probably form the basis of a future "Rant".
[3] For that matter, for most of my life I've watched our society as a whole make the same mistakes over and over and over again. But most of that would be too far off-topic to delve into here; and besides, if I were to get on my political soapbox, I'd probably drive most readers away in a heartbeat. So I promise to do my best to stick to computer-related examples from here on out.
[4] For example, here are a few highlights from the top 20% of the current (2006) Fortune 500 (alternate link at CNN):
[5] See this U.S. Department of Justice page for one especially notorious example.
I suppose it is fitting that the first "Rant" should be about, well . . . rants; or more specifically, an explanation of why I felt it necessary to create this section of the site -- especially when it is so painfully obvious that other, putatively more "practical", sections are desperately in need of completion.
Well... Remember the 1993 movie Groundhog Day? For those in need of a quick refresher: The basic gist of it is that the lead character, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray), finds himself perpetually re-living February 2nd in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Over and over again, he wakes to the same obnoxious DJ playing the same inane song on the bedside clock radio, engages in the same chit-chat with the same people in the local coffee shop, observes the same weather "prediction" from Punxsutawney Phil, and even the same weather itself, down to the same inconveniently placed puddle. Lather, rinse -- and yes, most definitely -- repeat. Endlessly.
As you might imagine, this soon gets to be more than a bit frustrating, to the point that Phil becomes so desperate to break this cycle that he commits suicide -- several times, as each time he wakes up the "next" day only to find that... Yes, it's February 2nd, yet again (feel free to insert appropriate swear words here; I'm sure Phil did). It's not until our hero finally takes to heart the old adage, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it"[1] that he can finally begin to grow as a human being, and through that enlightenment eventually find February 3rd.
And *that*, in a nutshell, is what this column is really all about.
For much more than the twenty-one years which have elapsed since I created Appropriate Technology, Inc., I've watched the computer industry, at all levels from the largest mega-corporations down to the individual neophyte home user, make the same mistakes over and over and over again. It was in fact this observation which provided much of the inspiration for the name of the company[2][3].
And as you might imagine, this has indeed gotten to be more than a bit frustrating.
A major part of what I see as "my job" is to protect our clients from as many of the common computer-related pitfalls as we can. And a key part of that task is education -- in short, teaching the client to *not* make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it might at first seem.
First, there is the matter of human nature to deal with; specifically, our inbred resistance to accepting the idea that we have in fact made a fundamental mistake. Some people have more difficulty with this than others; and, not being a psychiatrist, there's really nothing much I can do to change that. Perhaps, with a little luck, some of these folks will sooner or later learn what Phil Connors eventually did.
Then there's the matter of marketing. Now, with all due respect to those who chose to make marketing their life's work (and I count among that number at least one personal friend whom I'm sure I have unwittingly insulted over this issue on at least a few prior occasions), the manner in which marketing is typically practiced, if not marketing itself, is nearly always directly antithetical to the best interests of the very folks it is aimed at -- i.e., the consumers. After all, one of the defining characteristics of Marketing (especially at the retail level) is that it constitutes an attempt to corrupt and distort the natural free market economy; specifically, it is an effort of the supply side to create demand which would not otherwise exist. And it is probably intuitively obvious that the larger and more powerful the marketer, the more successful that effort generally is. Now as it happens, in our little corner of the economy we have several of the largest and most pervasive marketers in the world[4], some of whom are downright legendary in their disingenuousness and abusiveness[5]. So the general level of... ahhh... er... uhmmm.. "male bovine excrement" to which the average computer user is exposed is deep indeed.
Factor in here that computer technology is (or at least "was") widely viewed by much of the general public as a mysterious "Black Art", understandable only by geeks in lab coats and/or propeller beanies, and it's easy to see what an easy target for marketers the average lay computer user really is.
Given all this, I suppose it is not really surprising that most users chronically labor under a number of marketing-induced misconceptions. As Vladimir Lenin quite correctly observed, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" -- or at least the truth perceived by those being told the lie. So is it also not surprising that I find myself giving the same speeches to our clients (sometimes the same clients), over and over again.
But it sure can become more than a bit frustrating.
So in future installments of this feature, I will attempt to not only de-mystify some of the issues surrounding computer technology, but also to de-bunk some of the more popular myths that have grown up around it. Perhaps, with a little luck, this will permit some folks to find their enlightenment, at least in terms of their computers.
Footnotes:
[1] This common aphorism is a popular misquote of what philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) actually wrote in "The Life of Reason" (1905): "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Full quotation HERE.) But in this particular case, the misquote (especially when taken literally) fits a bit better than the original, because I do not believe it is really a matter of "remembering", but of actually *learning* -- something that we, both as a society in general and in many, many individual cases, are incredibly loathe to do.
[2] This, and the other parts of that inspiration, their implications, and the lessons which can (and should!) be gleaned from them, will probably form the basis of a future "Rant".
[3] For that matter, for most of my life I've watched our society as a whole make the same mistakes over and over and over again. But most of that would be too far off-topic to delve into here; and besides, if I were to get on my political soapbox, I'd probably drive most readers away in a heartbeat. So I promise to do my best to stick to computer-related examples from here on out.
[4] For example, here are a few highlights from the top 20% of the current (2006) Fortune 500 (alternate link at CNN):
| Rank | Company | Revenues (US$ Millions) |
Profits (US$ Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Intl. Business Machines | 91,134.0 | 7,934.0 |
| 11 | Hewlett-Packard | 86,696.0 | 2,398.0 |
| 18 | Verizon Communications | 75,111.9 | 7,397.0 |
| 25 | Dell | 55,908.0 | 3,572.0 |
| 39 | AT&T | 43,862.0 | 4,786.0 |
| 48 | Microsoft | 39,788.0 | 12,254.0 |
| 72 | Ingram Micro | 28,808.3 | 216.9 |
| 94 | Comcast | 22,255.0 | 928.0 |
[5] See this U.S. Department of Justice page for one especially notorious example.
|
|
|
