Berkeley Blog

Who Needs the CIA Anymore?

I was using my Peet's e-card this morning to get a cup of chai and finding it invasive when the clerk asked my name, when for the first time it dawned on me: it's irrelevant whether i give them my name. Since I used a credit card to get a Peet's card, they know all about my coffee-tea drinking habits.

The transportation district knows when I cross a bridge using my e-card, and ditto with the subway and the bus lines. Anyone who has access (illegal or not) to their systems, could GPS my movements.

Phone calls made on my cell are tracked (by the cellular provider), although i noticed this month that for the first time they're not sending me a paper record -- which i immediately shred.

I'm not complaining about all this e-invasion of privacy; I just wish someone would figure out a way to put it to use other than to target me as a consumer of whatever it is I'm consuming.

How about a central e-Life service that would profile my home and travel energy usage, phone calls, computer usage, and consumption of anything purchased with an e-card? Each moment I could check my carbon footprint -- in fact, there'd be a color code on my e-Life card that shifted colors from green to red depending on my energy usage. Of course, i'd have to get the e-Life card networked with my bicycle's odometer, but that's an app waiting to happen once the e-Life card takes off.

Something for Microsoft to do now that it's not flirting with Yahoo anymore?

Geek Defense Fails

Han Reiser, the uberprogrammer accused of murdering his Russian wife Nina with their two young children nearby, was convicted of murder today, even though a body was never found. The evidence was damning: a Macbethian spot of Nina's blood in Reiser's car, the suspicious removal of the passenger seat from his car right after his wife's disappearance, and a "housecleaning" as well as a "car cleaning" after the same act.

The defense tried to portray Reiser as a "geeky" guy, more prone to not being able to communicate rather than one capable of committing murder. The trouble is that the more Reiser talked, the deeper he dug his own grave. He may be a great programmer, but he also feels entitled to have his own way, despite the law and anything else -- like a wife -- that gets in his path.

The Reiser defense gives geeks a bad rap. Geeks are people who solve problems, but that doesn't mean they don't have feelings, and that they can't make great parents and lovers and even friends. I work with geeks, and their communication styles range the full gamut, from quiet and even tempered to voluble and sublime.

If Reiser appeals, he should look for a more compassionate (to geeks) lawyer.

The Algorithmist

Yesterday, John Buckman, founder of Lyris, Magnatunes, and Bookmooch, gave a talk at my Downtown Tech monthly lunch at the Berkeley Rep about his pilgrim's progress in learning how to create a digital business he enjoys, that makes money, and that also helps improves the lives of people everywhere.

The magic formula -- or Buckman algorithm -- was achieved with Bookmooch, a booksharing business where people use points, or fantasy money as Buckman calls it, instead of cash. Buckman -- whose childhood hero was the closely named Buckminster Fuller (and see the front page story in yesterday's NY Times about Googleganger, or the tendency for people to Google people with their same name -- likes to find algorithms in human behavior and then leverage those algorithms to create businesses.

With Bookmooch, Buckman realized that people that if people receive a gift immediately, they are more likely to reciprocate immediately. So people who sign onto Bookmooch and list their books are able to receive books right away without having to send any of their own books to anyone. For more innovative features -- such as a Mooch plug-in on your browser that lets you find out if a book you're about to buy on Amazon is available for free on Bookmooch -- see Carleen Hawn's excellent article today on FoundRead.com, which is part of GigaOM.

Buckman also recognizes that people like to give, and Bookmooch makes use of this universal altruistic impulse by allowing users to contribute books to people and organizations around the world.

Eventually, Bookmooch plans to hold the world's largest inventory of books: more than Amazon and more than Ingram, the major U.S. book distributor. Buckman admits this algorithm works uniquely well for books and wouldn't apply to CDs and DVDs. And maybe, should books be Kindleized by Amazon, Bookmooch might have to apply a different algorithm.

Hole in the World

I was bicycling up my last hill this past Saturday in preparation for a 450-mile ride starting this week from Half Moon Bay to Venice, CA, when my cell phone rang. I stopped in relief because I was tired but also wondered why anyone would call. It was the president of Expression College for Digital Arts, an accredited school in Emeryville with degrees in sounds arts, visual arts, and more, who said he had some bad news.

Eckhart Wintzen, founder of Expression, original investor in Wired magazine, and a visionary green and socially conscious entrepreneur, had died Friday, March 21, at his home in southern France. I was too stunned to even ask how or why but later found out it was a heart attack.

Eck was a rebel and an astute businessperson, inventor, writer, and educator. He loved women (and vice versa), having a good time, and dressing in wild prints and colors. I never saw him in a suit. When I see him, I think of Pan.

Eck believed one could be a successful capitalist AND a humanist, ecologist, and rebel without any contradictions. In fact, he would argue that treating one's employees with respect for their abilities and trust, creating a sustainable relationship with the environment, and being creative in one's personal expression were keys to a successful life.

This Dutch billionaire lacked the accoutrements of the ultra wealthy: no airplanes, private cars (he had a bicycle and I picked him up from the SF airport on several occasions), and servants. At Expression, he ate from the same cafeteria as his students, and when he came to some of my Cybersalons in Berkeley, he asked questions of the panelists as if he were a graduate student.

Somewhere along the way Eck discovered the true meaning of life. One story he told me I'll always remember. During the last year of WWII, the Dutch were starving and Eck's family lived on tulip bulbs. Eck told me he thought they were wonderful and he smacked his lips in memory of their taste. That was his way with life -- drawing pleasure from the ordinary and from the multiple ways we express ourselves.

Eck was expression. I will miss him but never his spirit.

Sex and Politics

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's FBI-uncovered flings with a high-paid prostitute mesmerize me, but then I realize that many politicians -- especially presidents, premiers and dictators -- also have a strong sex drive. I'm sure Spitzer's wife knew he was paying for affairs, but they probably had an arrangement that as long as he kept these activities discrete from her and the public, they were what she married into. Secrets like these don't usually exist between married couples...just read John Updike or look at your own family history.

What bothers me is the FBI's wiretapping of private conversations. Why didn't Spitzer book the appointments on the Internet using a pseudonym? His identity would have been protected (until Congress passes a pending law allowing ISPs to give up private addresses). The high-end prostitution ring needed a real webmaster to protect its clients and itself. I'm sure there's a good tech business there, setting up web sites for prostitution services.

If Spitzer hadn't promoted himself as Mr. Clean, the backlash wouldn't have been as severe. With our Governor Schwarzenegger -- who has been confronted personally by a bevy of women who said he sexually harassed them before he even made it to office and who then sort-of apologized -- going to a high-paid prostitute would be seen as business (or play) as usual.

Sex and politics? What strange bedfellows.

Abolition of the Adverb

Like everything else since the invention of penicillin, DNA splicers and the Internet, our language she is a-changing. People of my generation -- who were forced in grammar school to learn how to "diagram" the structure of a sentence, breaking down words into nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs as well as subjects and objects -- have probably noted with horror the absolute flouting of adverbial forms. We were taught to add an "ly" to the end of an adjective, such as "different," when used in the phrase "Think differently." Or "really simple," instead of the magazine that proclaims itself "Real Simple."

High-tech advertisers, marketers, and CEOs like Mark Cuban don't give a damn about adverbs. Obvious...ly. And rather than being annoyed by their irreverence toward hallowed English grammar, I've decided to go with the flow. Maybe eliminating the "ly" and the adverbial form will save energy by saving space. All will work efficient. And more simple.

I twill be easier to teach babies to speak quick. Foreigners can learn speed. We might dump adjectives next and just turn all words except verbs into objects, like object-oriented language. In fact, we might all start speaking in code someday soon. I'd love to hear Mark Cuban speak in bits and bytes, which is what his trenchant thoughts deserve.

Churn

This week I had (and still have) a stomach flu, so it felt as if the upheavals in my intestines were synching with the layoffs and (voluntary?) departures of my friends at Yahoo. Sometimes, there is synchronicity in my universe.

Like my innards -- which will recover -- I think the Yahoo 1000 will find new positions (and rumor is that Bradley Horowitz has already signed on with Google), start new companies, or find new callings outside of high tech that bring them great joy and fulfillment. Maybe being dumped by Yahoo before it's subsumed by Microsoft, the News Corp., AOL or Dubai is a blessing.

In other news, George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of cognitive linguistics and founder of the Rockridge Institute, a progressive think tank in Berkeley, spoke at my Downtown Tech lunch group, which meets monthly at the Berkeley Rep and which I started to connect tech companies, think tanks, and research orgs in Berkeley/Oakland/Emeryville.

Lakoff thinks Clinton and Obama have completely different takes on the presidency and politics in general, with Obama focused on leadership and vision whereas Clinton looks at policies and nitty gritty issues. Whereas Clinton will compromise with conservatives to make things happen, Obama will rise above party divisions and try to bring the country together around ideals. Lakoff gave a perceptive account -- based on cognitive linguistics -- as to why he thinks Obama is going to win. Dave Winer will podcast Lakoff's views (www.scripting.com) at a later date, and since Scott Rosenberg (wordyard.com) and Dan Brekke were there, I'd check their blogs as well.

Of Hubris, High Tech, and Helvetica

Last night I braved the Bay Area downpour to attend a Wired First Generation party hosted by Louis Rosetto and wife Jane Metcalfe for those who worked for Wired and HotWired in the early days. I met some folks I used to know, like Eugene Mosier, a graphic designer I recruited for Wired who stayed with the magazine for many moons, but mostly I noticed all those missing in action, like Paulina Borsook, a brilliant writer who had a run in with the Wired troika (Rosetto, John Battelle, and Kevin Kelly) and lots of other early writers. Chris Anderson, the current editor, was there, but not Katrina Heron, the interim editor brought in from Vogue.

It felt like a wake for a nascent media empire that has been superseded by new forms of digital media, from blogs (which Battelle's Federated Media capitalizes on) to YouTube. Rosetto is now selling chocolate, the analog kind, and fittingly, it's bittersweet.

Helvetica -- a typeface designed by two Swiss in the 60s -- is the most popular font in the Western world, and there's a great documentary by the same name now available from Netflix. The film's real subject is the interplay between culture and technology. Using cleverly aggregated, eye-popping visuals and brief, pointed interviews with seminal font designers, the film makes the case that Helvetica's simplicity and openness helped spur the revolution in digital printing and design. Since watching the film, I notice typefaces everywhere I go, on the bus, the subway, the street and in the grocery store. Most are Helvetica but when they are different -- Garamond or, as in the NY Times, Times Roman -- I take a special delight in understanding why an alternative font was selected.

Without Life (Internet) Support for Two Weeks

Don't try moving into a newly purchased 1938 vintage condo in Albany, CA, and going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the same week. During the space of a few days, I encountered technical issues related to the early 20th century as well as regressive attitudes toward women reminiscent of caveman days.

Whereas the condo's lack of grounded outlets and pressurized plumbing could be mostly remedied with a variety of skilled and well paid technicians, the retro cultural attitude toward women at CES proved more challenging.

CES is a show geared for young men who want to move fast while sitting like couch potatoes in front of their plasma or whatever-material-flashes-the-most screens. The scene at the sprawling series of convention halls was like an Arab mecca, except the mostly male throng wore suits or geek attire consisting of caps, t shirts studded with tech company ads, and pagers. Many of the big companies, including Microsoft (will they ever learn?), used booth babes -- skimpily attired young women -- to demo their respective wares.

Symantec even used children in a dramatic skit demonstrating the horrors of pornographic spam while at the same time spamming the showgoers with appearances of a former Miss America touting the company's spyware. Peter Norton - who was a classmate of mine at Reed's and a serious, honest person -- might not have been amused, I thought as one of the booth babes tried to snag me to meet Miss America.

At one point, succumbing to the show's carne hype and bored by standing in a booth, I donned a bicycle helmet mounted with my client's wearable camcorder. Just at that moment, Doc Searls, Socrates of the Internet, rounded a corner and spotted me. He stopped dead with a confounded look.

"Is that you,Sylvia?" he asked. "My god, you've become a booth babe!"

Doc took some shots of my behelmeted self, and I had to laugh at how easily anyone could slip back into the sexism of an earlier epoch. Or --as the tech industry appears to demonstrate -- never even abandon it.

North Berkeley Gets Dangerous

North Berkeley -- the Athens of the West -- has taken a plunge into Hades this week. I was walking  up the hill from the Gourmet Ghetto (home of Peet's the original,  Chez Panisse, the Cheese Board, and now one of those cultish Grateful restaurants) when a 911 helicopter appeared over my head  aiming for Tilden Regional Park, where I often go hiking and cycling. I wondered if it had anything to do with a fallen cyclist I knew, but then I forgot about it.

The next night I went to a party and two of my hiking friends walked in, looking all pumped up. "What happened to you?" I asked. One said that while they were hiking in Tilden yesterday, three armed thieves in a stolen car broke open her car window and stole her purse, which was "hidden" under the passenger seat. A park ranger across the street -- at the botanical gardens -- knew what had happened as soon as  she heard the glass pop and called 911. Within minutes a helicopter was on its way and police cars from the park district as well as surrounding towns took off after the bright orange car in a high-speed chase, which lasted 15 miles to the town of San Pablo, where the robbers, still armed, took off on foot. The police caught two, and since the helicopter had followed the car during the chase, it snapped photos of exactly where my friend's purse and its contents had been dumped along Wildcat Canyon Road, so most of her items were recovered.

The host of the party we were attending was telling everyone that "Santa" would be coming to the event soon. She had found Santa a few days earlier when she was driving by a bus stop in downtown Berkeley and spotted a large fellow with flowing white hair and beard. She stopped and asked him if he'd be Santa for her party, and he said yes.  This Santa eventually came, wearing a jacket that seemed as if it were about to explode from the breadth of his belly. He smelled, too, but the kids didn't mind as he sat under the tree and told Santa stories.

All of a sudden, Santa had taken off his garb and was wearing clothes that decidedly needed to be sanitized. He headed for the kitchen where the booze was stacked with the look of a pirate in search of his booty. No more "ho, ho, ho." He was suddenly Satan, not Santa. My friend who had been robbed gave me a look that was half fear, half urgency, and we took off immediately.

Only three days later, when I heard the wail of police car and fire engine sirens  in my normally bucolic surroundings, I walked down to Solano Avenue to see what was up. At least a dozen police cars and a fire engine were blocking the top half of Solano, and as I walked down I saw a police officer taking a sample of blood that was streaking the crosswalk. Another officer picked up a purse still holding a large pink scarf. A little girl told me a woman had been hit in the crosswalk and thrown headfirst into a parked car. Just then, a fireman washed away  the blood from the crosswalk with a hose filled with soapy water.  When I returned to the scene a few minutes later, the police cars were gone and it was as if nothing had happened.

Alright, so last night I was walking down Solano to yet another party (for my bicycle club), when I saw two huge CBS Eyewitness news camera trucks beaming bright lights right next to my son's apartment and our favorite Chinese restaurant on the street, King Tsin. This time I was frightened to ask bystanders what had happened. I was beginning to feel like a character in Clockwork Orange, but I was curious so I called my son and asked him to check the CBS news. He went online and found out that a few days earlier, two gunmen had approached the owner of King Tsin during dinner and demanded all his cash. He gave it to them immediately and then they went to two tables where diners were eating and demanded all their cash as well. They escaped.

I've been thinking about all of this, trying to make sense of what's been happening in the past few days. Criminals need to give their families holiday gifts, too, so instead of going to stores, they steal. Maybe we should just do away with Christmas as a time to give gifts except to people who really need essentials.