apple and other such musings.

Okay, so to start this out I am going to throw out there I am a devoted Apple user, although in my frugalness I tend to stretch technology out rather than jumping on board and getting the latest and greatest. Currently, we have a G4 PowerMac running constantly as a server (with 17" Apple Studio LCD), a G4 PowerMac I use in the home studio running Logic Pro 7 (with a 23" Apple Cinema), Julian's G4 iMac, my G4 PowerBook, an iPod (2nd Gen) and iPod Nano (1st Gen). And I love them all. I am a devoted Apple user for two reasons:

1. First and foremost, the OS
2. For Apple's form and function - their machines are both beautiful in design and intuitive and easy to use

Okay, now let me just say there are also plenty of things that irk me to no end about Apple, including (but not limited to and not really in any particular order):

1. The fact you cannot replace the battery (which inherently will fail) in an iPod, so when it does it becomes something that must be discarded in a landfill and forces us to buy another one (well, or go without)
2. DRM
3. The way Apple controls and forces all Mac users to accept and use iTunes
4. iTunes
5. It seems for a looong time after OS X was released, Apple supported OS 9 (all the way through 10.4 I believe) - but now seems to be quickening its pace to drop support of previous OSes in an attempt to get all users to upgrade to their latest one

There is more, but those are the biggest ones. So now that I have laid out what I like and dislike about Apple (at least to some degree), let me back up and give a thirty-second spiel about "My Story."

Rewind maybe eight years or so. I had a Windows laptop for which I paid Jeff fifty bucks. I had a Windows PC that he had built from spare parts and gave to me for free. I had Netzero. I used the PC for surfing the web (albeit slowly), sending the occasional email, and writing the occasional resumé, letter or the like in Word. I had gotten a copy of InDesign 2.0 (Windows) at a garage sale for five bucks so I installed that on the laptop and started teaching myself InDesign. At work, I was just getting into graphics stuff but the Macs there were still running OS 9 and the likes of Photoshop 7, InDesign 2, (gasp) Explorer (for Mac, duh), and such.

But I never liked working on my Windows machines. Granted, they were hand-me-downs. But fast-forwarding for just a second, all the Macs in this house are hand-me-downs at least as old now as those PCs were then. But back to the PCs - the key was I just did not like or relish working on them. They just were. And I accepted that, since I did not really use a computer all that much back then.

And then things changed at work, and I started getting myself more involved with graphics stuff. And at the same time, our IT department bumped all the Macs from OS 9 to OS 10.3. The only woman working on a Mac in our department at the time did not know OS X, and so I can still remember the meeting we had all of us standing around a table my boss at the time throwing out there "So who wants to learn how to use OS X?" Expecting this to come up, I had already done my homework. I presented a couple pieces of paper from an online OS X class I had found that cost something like fifty bucks and said I did. He gave me the thumbs up, and so I did. And in a little over a year took that lady's job (she actually left to be a stay-at-home mom so it wasn't like a hostile takeover or anything).

But one word about this newfangled OS 10.3 Panther deal, at least for me: Exposé. Yes, now that probably seems lame. But when I first sat in front of a Mac running 10.3 after all those years of totally blasé PCs not being able to multi-task without freezing and discovered the new Exposé feature I was sold. Sold! Well, and OS X also just looked prettier. Much, much prettier. The fonts looked beautiful (uh, anti-aliasing - something Windows did not do). The drop shadows. The scaling and graphics were just incredible (a combination of the graphics card and engine - both of which PCs lacked unless of course you had gone out and bought a higher-end card but Windows still did not have an engine like Apple to drive it in the same way). I could navigate and browse through Finder so much easier, faster and more intuitively than I ever could after years and years of using PCs and Windows Explorer. It just fit, and I loved it.

I was sold.

So back to present day and the fact I do not go a day (unless I am climbing or out backpacking or, well, you get the point) without being on a Mac, and our myriad of (albeit slightly aged) Macs. And there is now ... the iPad. And this is the thing that actually - in reading blogs and other tech sources for reaction to Apple's latest incarnation - spurred me to write this post.

I think one word can be used to describe my reaction to the iPad: disappointment.

Disappointment for actually a lot of reasons. It is locked down. It does not run OS X or some mobile version of OS X. Only applications from the app store (and since I do not own an iPhone I am not sure how the division of profit goes for developers vs. Apple but I would suspect it favors the latter vs. developers being able to sell their software directly to consumers) can be used on it. It has virtually no interconnectivity. No USB. No SD. No eSATA. No HDMI. No nothing. No built-in camera. Seemingly, no upgradeability. The battery is 'built in' so I can only assume that when it fails, the iPad becomes a one-and-a-half pound paperweight. A $500-850 paperweight. Along with the zero interconnectivity (except for the camera accessory Apple sells that lets you plug in a USB connection to your camera or SD card, so I do wonder if that will let you connect just any old USB device - my bet says 'no') comes the lack of (well, lots of things, but an important one) connecting an external HD for expanded storage. Or really any peripheral. So no expandability, either. The keyboard dock is a good idea, but it should have a tilt function so I can watch set the screen to the right angle like I can on my PowerBook. And on and on and on.

But Tuesday is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning, and I do think that given several (yes, several) generations - the iPad could be great and quite revolutionary. It needs to come a long way. It needs to bridge the gap between what a Smart Phone and a laptop both do best (meaning, most likely, a compromise of some sort - it will never be a full-fledged laptop like a high-end MacBook Pro and also, except for possibly Skype, never be used like a phone someone would hold up to their ear if only because of its size). It may morph into a 16:9 format, or have a screen ratio like that as an option. It needs to run a real OS. It needs to be able to be expanded and have options to connect peripherals. It needs to run apps that I do not have to buy from the App store. In short, it needs to be more like a computer. And on and on and on.

But in my reading, I came across a blog from when the iPod was just being introduced back in October 2001 and it was actually really quite amusing if only because of the similarity to blogs being posted now. The comments included some gems like ~

1. Great, just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! (and you know WeezerX80 has owned several iPods since posting this)
2. Apple, are you really aiming to become a glorified consumer gimmicks firm?
3. I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
4. OH NO! Just checked Apple Store - they want $399.00 for this thing ... Ouch!!!
5. $400 for an Mp3 Player! I'd call it the Cube 2.0 as it won't sell, and be killed off in a short time ... and it's not really functional. Uhh Steve, can I have a PDA now? (uh, wonder if this guy bought an iPhone? Or two)
6. All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off. (I love this one)

And then some others, a little more prophetic, chimed in ~

1. No other mp3 player has a harddrive like this ... 5gigs... **** yeah. This is revolutionary ... plus it's just the beginning. This device literally beats anything on the market by about 100x.
2. Y'all are saying it sucks before you have even held it in your hand. I mean 5GB in a little tiny thing like that, it's amazing. I don't see anyone else making something like that. Do you?
3. The reason why everyone's disappointed is because we had our hopes up for this incredible device that would do everything you could possibly use the word "digital" in and most of the things you can't. The truth is that it really is revolutionary. 5 gigs? Where do you see 5 gigs in an Mp3 player? If Apple had gone with something completely and utterly new, it would probably go down the hole that the Cube and the Newton went down ... they were ahead of their time, and suffered because of it. Apple can't have another disaster like the Cube, so they decided to stay just a bit ahead of the game. As long as Apple markets it effectively, I think it's gonna do really well. (this one is good, and quite fitting IMO)
4. This thing's too cool. It's beautiful. It looks too easy to use. It has all sorts of cool features that I will never live without again. This is a home run!
5. No matter what Apple does there are always people who are NEVER happy. Give it a rest. It's a great idea and the first of many. Why don't you give it a chance.

I agree with the last one. The iPad is a good idea. And just like the iPod and the iPhone, before them there were MP3 players and PDA/Smart Phones but over time, well ...

The iPad has a lot of shortcomings, but it is just the first generation. I think it also has a lot of opportunities, more than either of its 'i' predecessors in the capabilities it could do and the change it could bring to our lifestyles (like one of the comments said, and I have heard many utter, about not being able to live without their iPhone) and the industries it impacts. In five years, all newspapers may just be gone and gotten on board with maybe something similar (who knows in five years?) to what the NYT is leading today. Maybe soon enough the eBook idea will take off because prices for the iPad and similar tablets will come down, as will the prices for books (still cheaper to go to the library - read: free - and not much less than a brand new book today). All Apple is doing I think now is laying the groundwork for something much, much better in the future.

But only time will tell. Until then, I know I won't be rushing out and buying the first generation of this thing because of all the reasons I mentioned. It needs to grow up some first. I just hope enough people do to keep Apple developing or it will go the way of the Cube and the Newton.

from form to function [remix].

Another line of notes, written for a song on which I will always be working. Coupled with an idea provided by a friend the other night deep in discussion about the idea of advancement of the human species. My mind so focused on the technological aspect I did not consider any other sides of the story, until she brought up an interesting point about a different sort of human advancement not relegated to neutrons and electrons (well, isn't everything but an analogy meant to convey a technological aspect of sorts).

How about, she offered, we forgive the debts of nations unable to pay them? What if, say, we learn somehow not to bicker and wage war against one another over petty differences? How about treating all people equally, and putting an end to discrimination, bigotry, intolerance? It was her opinion that any one of those would signify an advancement of our species far more profound than any new-found technological prowess.

She made an interesting point. A good one, in fact. And so in my struggle to come to terms with lyrics for a never-ending-work-in-progress song, I grasped at ways to put into words this very idea. Just as the unanswerable questions I threw out there like will we be traveling at or near the speed of light by the end of the twenty-first century (read: will that even be possible?) - likewise, is it even possible that somehow we can end intolerance, cruelty of our own kind, discrimination? Can we see past our insignificant differences to realize the enormity of our likeness?

And, if so, does that pose an even greater accomplishment for our species than any sort of technological advancement?

the range of light.

Last year sometime I ordered a book. I remember not knowing how I came across it. It was called Wild Cascades Forgotten Parkland. And in it were a few plates from some photographer named Philip Hyde, of whom I had never heard. All in black and white, and mostly from around the Cascade Pass region, second to me only to The Enchantments in wonder and amazement. But not by much. And so I Googled his name and something came up about a book of his photography called The Range of Light. And it happened to be available from some seller on Amazon for something like three bucks (if I recall, that's about what I paid for Wild Cascades). So I ordered it.

It is a book of his photography complimented by caption quotes and other writings of John Muir. The photography is of course from the Sierras (also known, thanks to Muir, as 'the Range of Light'). Yosemite. Kings Canyon. And they beckon me to return, which I will. Over and over. Julian and I will go down there again this summer deep into Kings Canyon National Park into the granite peaks basins filled with alpine lakes and strewn about with granite boulders made from glaciers and time. One of the most spectacular national parks, if not only for its wildness but for its roadlessness (much like North Cascades National Park, where to really enjoy any part of it one must get out of their vehicle and stomp on feet through forests and over glaciers and on granite wandering for days at a time to get any sense of the meaning of the place).

Published in 1992, the book is divided into three sections or portfolios and interspersed with a preface written by Hyde along with - at the end - his thoughts on a life devoted to photography. And all in between, the ramblings of a man that speaks to all of us who find in the outdoors – be it high above the clouds on serrated mountain ridges, in the glacier valleys of places like Yosemite, in the river-carved canyons of Zion and the desert Southwest, under a great oak tree rustling in a warm summer breeze, marveling at the smallest details on a fallen nurse log or lost in the most grandiose vistas from a summit buried deep in the North Cascades - a sense of space, of time, of strength, of peace. A man who claimed ~

"I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer."

In this collection of his writings, it seems a more prevalent sense of Muir's deeply-held religion and revere and awe for all the beauty he witnessed during his lifetime and then struggled to paint with words. Quote after quote, Muir writes about his love of God and mountains and rivers and trees and art and in fact all things of this universe and how they are all delicately tied together in a web of wonder even he could not dare to fathom. Only appreciate. He writes ~

"I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built; and rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again."

He seems even more deep in thoughts of the land - the Range of Light - that, much like it did with Ansel Adams, always drew him back. Over and over. No matter how far he traveled, the Sierras were his home and the connection he had with them was as powerful as his connections with his family and, it may seem after reading this, even with God Himself.

His parting thoughts include such ideas as ~

"All the horizon is lettered and lifted. I want immortality to read this terrestrial language. This good and tough mountain-climbing flesh is not my final home, and I'll creep out of it, and fly free and grow!"

And then his final words ~

"The world, we are told, was made especially for man – a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God's universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves. They have precise dogmatic insight of the intentions of the Creator ... with such views of the Creator it is, of course, not surprising that erroneous views should be entertained of the creation. It never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers, that Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit – the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge."

The photography is amazing, and Muir's words profound. Another good three dollars spent.

out of nowhere.

I am blogging this merely for my own sake. Maybe it will do me good to see it and be reminded peridocially.

So on the way to the Seattle REI tonight from the back seat Julian states out of nowhere quite matter-of-factly in a tone I could tell meant he was hinting at the obvious ~

"It's going to be a long time until you publish your music, Dad."

Damn. I had no response to this. None. So this is my reminder in case I need one that someone is actually paying attention.

from form to function.

So a couple of years ago deep in a discussion late one night with Jeff and Kathy and Mom–Dad having long ago dosed off–about the future of the human species and other such light topics, I chimed in with a theory I had been thinking about in my head for a few months before that about an observation I had along the lines of the advancement of our technologies. It went something like this:

I had noticed that even though the rate of introduction of seemingly-new technologies was apparently increasing (think of the newest generation of an iPod which seems to come right on the heels of the last one, or an updated software release, or the latest mobile phone model, wireless network, LED flatscreen, etc.) the underlying, fundamental technologies behind them were not really changing. In fact, I hypothesized–have we perhaps reached the pinnacle of technology much like the hypothesis of peak oil and from here it is all downhill?

I admit that perhaps that was taking it a bit far but it was late.

But what I still go back to is that idea that even though we seem to be advancing at an ever-increasing and fanatical rate, that actually there is the very real possibility that perhaps no other time in our history will our change be so rapid than in our very own generation and that in fact we have already peaked (although it is not necessarily all downhill as I may have once thought but rather a slowing–perhaps significantly–of advancements).

The idea came back to me today flying back from Chicago and reading a Carl Sagan book where he mentioned this very idea by saying ~

"In fact, it can be argued that in many respects there will never be a time when the change can be so rapid as it has been in our generation.

For example (he goes on to write), consider transportation and communication. Just a couple of centuries ago, the fastest practicable means of transportation was horseback. Well, now it is essentially the intercontinental ballistic missile. That is an improvement from tens of miles per hour to tens of miles per second in velocity. It's a very substantial increment. In communication a few centuries ago, except for rarely used semaphore and smoke-signaling systems, the speed of communication was again the speed of the horse. Today the speed of communication is the speed of light, faster than which nothing can go. And that represents a change from tens of miles per hour to 186,000 miles per second. And never will there be any improvement on that velocity."

So that is not exactly what I was postulating, but it was close enough to make me think about it again. And the first thing that came to mind this time was Moore's Law (which is of course merely a hypothesis of its own). Okay, but let's consider that for a second. Just because we double the processing or computational power available on a computer chip eighteen months (or two years, depending on your source) from now, what is really changing? Is the technology changing as much by doubling the computational power as it did when we went from the sliderule fifty years ago to the invention of the first computer chip a couple years later? How big of a leap was that in comparison to just doubling an already mass-produced technology? Sure, the chips might be getting smaller but is that merely an advancement in form rather than function? The leap from sliderule to silicone chip was definitely huge.

Let's look at telecommunications now for a second. OK, so Verizon is coming out with a 4G network spec but isn't that just a bit of an advancement building on from the previous 3G technology? Versus, for instance, the invention of cellular technology from ground-based telecommunication networks. Is that not a much greater leap (which happened back in the 70s)? Or the next generation iPod that includes a video camera and maybe a bit larger hard drive? Versus the phonograph to an iPod Shuffle the size of a quarter? Form over function again. Video camera technology is already prevalent–it is just now being stuffed into an iPod Nano.

If we think of our grandparents–those born in the early twentieth century–and the advances of which they have witnessed in just their one single lifetime. From the invention of the automobile (OK, technically that happened in the late nineteenth century but was not mass-produced until our grandparents were alive so I presume they never saw an automobile until that point in time) to men landing on the moon and spacecraft reaching the outer limits of our Solar System.

Um, wow.

If we try to extrapolate not only that same amount of technological advancement that we might see in our lifetime then but–say let's use something like Moore's Law and assume a continued exponential rate of advancement–what might we witness? Using this extrapolation is it not too far-fetched to think we might be traveling at or near the speed of light by the end of this century? Will we be on our way to visiting nearby star-forming regions or galaxies? How will we be traveling? Will we possibly be morphing through wormholes as theorized back in the 50s? Beaming ourselves to London to catch a concert and return home in an instant? The sky's the limit, so-to-speak.

Or has the rate of growth of technology reached its pinnacle? Will we just introduce a bigger, perhaps more efficiently-operated airplane based largely on technology from the mid-twentieth century rather than some seemingly unimaginable form of transportation like morphing through time or a ship of sorts that launches up into space and back down allowing us to travel across continents in under an hour? An elevator to the moon for an afternoon visit of our celestial neighbor? Will we just build off of existing technologies at a rate much, much slower than what we witnessed during the twentieth century? Is that rate of growth even sustainable and is that what our advancement is up against? Will we be forced to re-examine our technologies in order to create a new balance because we have tipped the scales far to much across the line of unsustainability?

I have no idea. It was late. And it was only speculation.

the way.

"What is really essential, really productive is the Way afterall; Becoming is superior to Being."

~ Goethe

mess in E♭ major.

So this has absolutely nothing to do with anything. At all. I was working on some song I came up with last night and my hand slipped. So I ended up playing a B♮ instead of a B♭. And I discovered the progression to a G♯minor chord from the E♭. And I all of a sudden heard this theme in my head the one that comes in just before the six-minute mark in the linked MP3 the change to the chromatic F♯chord and all and no I cannot believe it took me nearly six minutes to get to it. So in an instant I dropped the song I had been working on to hit RECORD in Logic and just made up apparently fourteen-some-odd minutes of music that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. At all. In the key of E♭ major.

And the linked file is here in case the embedded player does not work in some particular browser. And yes it is apparently over fourteen minutes long so I do not expect anyone to actually listen to it but this is the sort of thing that I hear and think that even an enormous concert grand Bechstein cannot contain for which I can hear a concerto with orchestra in my head and that I randomly came up with one Sunday evening.

the cube.

So while my parents were in from out of town over Christmas this year, Julian whipped out the instructions he drew up for me to teach me how to solve the Rubik's Cube to show Grandma. They were drawn up completely from his memory which I thought was fairly impressive. Since I have not dedicated the time to do it, I can only get through Step 2 (solving the green cross and corners–basically solving one side) by memory and then have to resort to this cheat sheet to solve the middle row and the last side.

But one day–thanks to these handy instructions–I will, too, be able to solve the Cube. Just probably not nearly as quickly as my nine-year old kid (who can also solve the 4x4 and 5x5 cubes).