“The most fantastic thing about the present time is that we’re actually still here. In the early ’80s, people who knew what their situation was with the Cold War and nuclear armament didn’t necessarily expect that we’d make it this far. We’ve kind of lost that knowledge. Once the threat was gone, it was like we disremembered it as a species. It seldom comes up anymore, which is really odd.”
“The future will probably know more about what we’re actually doing than we do. Because if it stays history long enough, it doesn’t have to be secret anymore.”
Interesting interview with William Gibson. I guess it’s about style and fashion although I doubt he’d describe it thus. “Tech Wear and the Limits of Authenticity” is a pretty good description.
My rule is that if Dick Cheney couldn’t wear it without creating a stir, I shouldn’t either. I like clothing that isn’t easily noticed. […] I’m embarrassed if I think anyone knows exactly what I paid for something, or even where I got it. I want what I’m wearing to feel good on, wear well, and to be extremely functional.
There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. They assume, actually, that the bad guys will shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first, just to be sure. I don’t have that as a concern, but there’s something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment.
The Internet has become so much a part of our lives it feels strange to say/write the word. Hard to remember a time when it was new and strange. The interview segment below is from 1996 and is a tiny time capsule from those early days of the “world wide web.”
On September 11, 1996, Allen Hammock was the guest on Derry Brownfield’s radio show to talk about the Internet and the “World Wide Web.” Allen and his partner, Dan Arnall, had recently joined Learfield Communications to “explore opportunities” on this new thing called the Internet. Allen and Dan were recent graduates of the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. They created the first websites for our company and worked with our IT department to stream audio for our various radio networks and programs, including The Derry Brownfield Show. This 13 minute segment (edited from an hour-long show) touches on: Personal Communication, Privacy and Security, computer viruses, and getting “on” and “off” the Internet.
On November 22, 1996, Derry did a follow-up show featuring Solveig Bernstein, talking about privacy (and other topics) on the Internet (still newish at the time). Ms. Bernstein was the Assistant Director of Telecommunications and Technology Studies for the Cato Institute.
Earlier this week I posted video of the Missouri State Capitol, shot from a drone piloted by my friend George Kopp. There were some good questions in the comments so sat down with George a couple of days ago to get some answers. He’s been playing with quadcopters for the last year and a half and has learned a great deal. In this 18 minute chat he talks about the evolution of the devices; controls; fly aways; no-fly zones; pricing; flying times and range; and regulations.
The interview below might just be the best interview I’ve heard. (Listen to the Real Stephen Colbert Explain How He Maintained his Flawless Character for Nine Years) Plotz asked really good questions and they were short (I hate long, windy questions).
It was like meeting Stephen Colbert for the first time. I hardly recognized the voice or the person speaking. He takes us through his working day and it was fascinating. And grueling. Difficult to imagine doing this 160 times a year (1400 total).
I’m gonna miss the character but it feels like the right time to stop. Maybe as it was for Seinfeld. I’ll record Late Night (as I did The Colbert Report) once Colbert gets behind the desk. I’m a little nervous about it. Like discovering your wife of twenty years is really a deep cover mole for a foreign government. Will I like the real Stephen Colbert as much as I liked the character I’ve come to know?
A long, but interesting, interview with Chris Rock in New York magazine. A few excerpts to wet your whistle:
If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.
When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
Most radio guys (I’m talking pre-1990) have lots of “Brush With Near Greatness” stories. I know I do. Some famous or almost-famous celebrity or performer they interviewed back-stage or who came by the station. Shoot, it’s a big part of why most of us got into radio. My new pal Gaylon Watson recalled interviewing Rocky Marciano.
Marciano was the World Heavyweight Champion from September 23, 1952, to April 27, 1956. Marciano is the only person to hold the heavyweight title and go untied and undefeated throughout his career. I find this story noteworthy because Marciano was reduced to refereeing cheesy professional wrestling matches at the VFW in Kennett, MO. I can only assume he beat the shit out of his agent.
“Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done.
In ye olden times of 1997, it was difficult and expensive to make things public, and it was easy and cheap to keep things private. Privacy was the default setting. We had a class of people called publishers because it took special professional skill to make words and images visible to the public. Now it doesn’t take professional skills. It doesn’t take any skills. It takes a WordPress install.”
— From interview with Clay Shirky
And this nugget: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution”
“I’m a fairly visual writer; I can get an awful lot out of really closely examining a photograph like that. It’s a very interesting exercise that I would recommend to anyone. Take any photograph – preferably a photograph that contains relatively little information (no humans or animals in it) – and catalog everything visible. It usually can’t be done in less than a thousand words, and it can’t be done well in less than about two [thousand]. It always leaves me thinking that pictures really are worth a thousand words, at least, that the visual matrix is so incredibly rich with stuff and meaning, that there’s actually no place to stop. People who have tried it find they stop because they just get exhausted.”
“The part of me that creates stuff is right now largely offline and unavailable, and I couldn’t summon it if my life depended on it. I have to make myself available and hope it turns up.”
