b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Book Reviews
Recently
Conspiracies Everywhere Or Just Complexity
Real ID Act Response from Congressman Westmoreland
A Mighty Fine Reader
Ever Had a Good Retail Experience?
The Midnight Disease
Thursday, June 16, 2005
It's Too Late, Family Man
Anyone who has kids will appreciate this, and anyone who doesn't have them should see it.
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Conspiracies Everywhere Or Just Complexity
I've been reading The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin by Gordon S. Wood. It's one of the new crop of Franklin biographies that portends to revise our glossy, affectionate view of Franklin the Inventor, Patriot, and Founder with a more realistic and human characterization. It's a good book, with heavy end notes, and I'm about half-way through its 250 pages.
There are a number of interesting passages but one stood out for me today. In the years leading up to the American revolution Franklin was in London. Tensions were running high as English middling folk (what would one day become the middle class) grew increasingly unhappy with the King and Parliament. Riots in the British Isles paralleled those occurring in the Colonies, and papers on both side of the ocean were filled with tales of conspiracy and inflammatory accusations. Leaders were increasingly out of touch with the populace and Franklin thought people on both sides of the ocean had lost their minds:
"To be apprehensive of chimerical dangers, to be alarmed at trifles, to suspect plots and deep designs where none exist, to regard as mortal enemies those who are our nearest and best friends, and to be very abusive"
Reading Juan Cole's assessment of the weird politicization of the Schiavo case (found via Jon Husband), was what made me think of this. He just ascribes too much volition to simple opportunism and petty pandering - the basic motives this administration has shown all along.
And that is also how the Schiavo case makes sense in the end, because the religious Right feminized Michael Schiavo, made him into the pregnant woman seeking an "abortion," and wished to therefore deprive him of choice in the matter. If hierarchy is gendered, then the persons over which control is sought are always in some sense imagined as powerless women. Powerful non-fundamentalist men and uppity Third World countries that won't do as they are told are ultimately no different from feminist women seeking an abortion. All must be subdued, in the view of the Christian Right.
The Bush Administration isn't made up of Religious Men - they're pandering opportunists and see the religious Right as the largest available constituency. Oh, they had some sort of plan (if you can call it that) at the outset, but mostly they do what all politicians do - react, regroup, react again - all the while trying to figure out how to get re-elected and enhance their personal power. As for the Religious Right - it's *us*, our mothers, our fathers, our friends, classmates, and coworkers. These are people we meet in the street, at work, and at home. We disagree on lots of things, but very few of them see themselves as part of some overriding patriarchal conspiracy to rule the world in the ways that are so often portrayed. And too assume so is to ignore the realities of how we got here, how many things had to happen, and how complicated it all is.
In his recent essay How Corporations Became Culturally Dysfunctional and Why Simple Solutions Won't Fix Them, Dave Pollard explains how his study of complex systems has changed his view on the current state of things:
Note that there was no conspiracy here, no master plan to make the lowly medieval corporation designed to allow workers to raise capital funds collectively into today's Frankenstein monster. It has been an evolution, an emergence set in motion by unexpected consequences of the creation of the useful concept of shareholdings, and then affected over centuries by thousands of social, political, economic and cultural events and behaviours, from divine right to the New Deal, from the 19th-century error in US law that gave American and then all corporations the rights of personhood, to the end of physical slavery, the dislocation of labour in the world wars, the emancipation of women and the beginnings of the Two-Income Trap.In other words, cultural evolution is a complex system, and to the extent it gives rise to dysfunctional entities like the modern corporation we cannot expect simplistic solutions (e.g. "rein in corporate power" and "put people before profit"), as desirable as such solutions may look in theory, to work in the real world. The reason they won't work is not because 'they' have all the money and power, it's because we, the workers, as integral parts of the evolution that has given rise (usually peacefully, with the worker massacres of the robber barons and Great Depression riots being notable exceptions) to the emergence of the modern corporation, are complicit in that evolution. It couldn't have happened without us.
So how do Benjamin Franklin, Terri Schiavo, the Bush Administration, and corporate depravity tie together? They show us a pattern, a pattern that says this is not new, it is not simple, and it is not the result of some overarching evil plan. It is a complex system in which we are all complicit - if not by intent, by simple fact. And while simplistic metaphors may help us to understand what is happening, they do not help us understand why and, most importantly, offer no clue as how we can correct it.
Real ID Act Response from Congressman Westmoreland
Recently I contacted all three of my legislators regarding the Real ID Act attached to the emergency Iraq appropriations bill. Senator Chambliss sent me a canned, meaningless response. Senator Isakson didn't respond. First-term Congressman Westmoreland sent the thoughtful response below. I disagree with him, but at least he took the time to address most of my concerns. I wonder if the higher you get in the system, and the longer you've been inside the Beltway, the less you care about people who don't make large contributions to your campaign...
Dear Terry,Thank you for contacting me regarding the REAL ID Act, and the issues surrounding it. I believe strongly that something needs to be done to begin to address the immigration problems in our country, and I supported the legislation both on the original vote, and on the final vote when it was included in the Iraq Supplemental budget request.
There are three major areas that the legislation sought to address: driver's licenses, border security, and terrorism.
The driver's license portion of the legislation did not create a national ID card, as some have alleged. Driver s licenses have become a means of identification for those all across the country and have been used by terrorists and illegal immigrants to blend into society as a whole. Some states do not even require a picture on a driver's license, or issue driver's licenses that last more than 20 years. It is amazing to think that a terrorist or an illegal immigrant could use these licenses to board an airplane.
The REAL ID Act set forth basic standards for driver's licenses that will be used in a federal context, including airplane travel. States do not have to comply with the guidelines, and people can still use alternate means of identification, such as a passport, for federal purposes if their state does not follow the driver's license rules.
The legislation helps protect against illegal aliens obtaining driver's licenses by requiring that proper immigration documents be presented prior to issuance of a driver's license. Currently, ten states do not require proof of legal presence in the country to obtain driver's licenses, and this legislation ensures that driver's licenses used for federal purposes are backed up by proof that the individual is here legally. In addition, the legislation requires that a temporary driver's license for a legal immigrant expires at the same time as their visa. Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks, received only a six-month visa to stay in the U.S. when he first arrived, but received a Florida driver's license that was good for six years.
Another important provision involves the border security fence. We saw how effective the Minutemen Project was in stopping illegal alien traffic across the border, and the resources provided in the legislation to close a three mile gap in the fence in California should help slow down the crossing of illegal aliens into the country. In addition, the additional money provided to beef up the Border Patrol should help secure our borders.
Finally, the legislation makes it easier to keep terrorists out of the United States through major changes in the U.S. deportation and asylum rules. Under current law, some terrorists are eligible for political asylum in the U.S. because their governments believe they are part of a terrorist organization. This does not make sense, and the legislation stops judges from granting asylum to terrorists, and allows judges to determine whether those seeking asylum are telling the truth.
Balancing liberty and security is difficult, and yet extremely important in a post-9/11 world. In addition to the threats we face from foreign terrorism, we face serious threats from illegal immigration into our nation. The REAL ID provisions of the Iraq supplemental strike a careful balance, helping restrict illegal immigration and terrorism while not imposing an undue burden on the people. These are difficult questions we will continue to face in Congress, and I will continue to carefully study the legislation we consider, working to ensure that our freedoms are protected.
I appreciate you taking the time to contact me on this issue hearing from my constituents allows me to better understand your perspective on these issues, and how they impact the future of Georgia and the nation. As your representative in Congress, I will continue to take your views into consideration as legislation moves through the process for votes. Thanks again for letting me know your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Lynn A Westmoreland
Member of Congress
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
A Mighty Fine Reader
Have I bragged lately on the delightful, redoubtable, incomparable Abbyy FineReader? This is a killer OCR application and valuable addition to any personal productivity workflow.
I'm currently using a bundled version, Abbyy FineReader Sprint v4.0, that came with a scanner I bought a few years back. It still performs flawlessly, recognizing virtually anything I throw at it - faxes, printed output, scanned magazine pages - and will dump the resulting data straight into MSWord, including images and formatting! It's amazing, and amazingly accurate. I don't know what the accuracy rate is, but it's really high. I wouldn't rely solely on any OCR for republishing or critical applications, but Abbyy does a job that's more than adequate for any personal use and better than the $100k-plus professional tools I used just a few years ago.
The one thing the Sprint version won't do, but FineReader Pro will, is create a "hidden-text" PDF file. What's hidden text? It's how Adobe Acrobat Capture works, and is one of four available formats for PDF:
FineReader Professional PDF Input/Output SupportWith ABBYY FineReader you can open, recognize and edit PDF files and save them in any of the supported formats or export the data to your favorite application. All PDF files created in FineReader are optimized for publishing on the Web. FineReader supports output in any of the four standard PDF file formats (text and pictures only, text over image, text under image, and image only) with additional controls such as whether or not to replace suspect words with their images. This gives users six PDF saving options.
Maintaining a TIF image file as the visible portion of the PDF, but putting full text in a hidden layer so the resulting PDF has both visual fidelity and searchability is a critical feature for legal and medical applications, where a single character error can cause real problems or the original document may be evidence. But it's useful for personal productivity, too. Imagine scanning all your interesting magazine articles to disk, with the full text searchable by something like X1. Or having all your paper documents available for searching the contents. Sure, many magazine articles are online, but not all of them - especially many of the smaller trade magazines that are great sources of competitive intelligence and insight. Or older magazines that were never online. Many proprietary, and expensive, newsletters still come only in printed form, as well.
That's why I need Abbyy FineReader Pro, the $150 upgrade from the Sprint version. FineReader Pro not only creates hidden-text PDFs, but will do it faster, better, and cheaper than Adobe Capture. (Why Adobe hasn't bought these guys is beyond me, but I'm glad.) I was at the AIIM/OnDemand Expo in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago and picked up a try-and-buy copy of FineReader Pro v7.0 from the Abbyy booth. Over the next few days I'll be installing it and testing it out. Combined with an Fujitsu ScanSnap 5110. I've had one for several months and it's a killer device. One-touch scanning to PDF at 30 pages per minute, with some of the most intelligent software I've ever used. It automatically recognizes if the sheet needs to be rotated, straightened (deskewed in technical terms), cleaned (despeckled), and it knows to leave out blank pages. It scans both sides of the sheet at once. And it's fast. All for about $450. Amazing.
Ever Had a Good Retail Experience?
When did you last walk into a retail store, or a wholesale "superstore", and have an experience that made you smile? Have you ever? I don't mean an experience where you got what you wanted without undue aggravation, although those are rare enough. I mean an experience that went well beyond what you thought was possible?
I had one Sunday, in New York City. I went to B&H Photo on 9th and 33rd in Manhattan. I needed a couple of batteries for my old Canon G2 and someone told me B&H was the best place to go. The place was amazing. Remember the old adage - Price, Quality, or Speed: Pick any two? Someone forgot to tell B&H. They have all three - huge inventory of photo, audio, and video products, great prices, and fast, knowledgeable service.
On first glance the place resembles a cattle auction, with people herding through chutes and aisles and stopping at various gateways. But there is a wonderful logic and balance to the store and the process. Someone greets you at the door to direct you to the right area. Since the store is packed (and I was told it was a "slow" day) this is helpful. Traffic jams are common, but the staff keeps things moving in a non-intrusive way.
At each little section of the store is a knowledgeable, helpful, accessible expert for whatever product you can imagine. If they don't know the answer, they know who in the store does. I talked to someone who knew all about Canon cameras. Afterward he pointed me to someone else who knew all about a couple of other things I needed. Talk about your "expertise finders." Even with the crowds, finding the right expert and getting helpful answers took only minutes.
The shelves are piled high with merchandise, but it's only for display, not for sale. You can touch it and try it and the floor staff will show you how it works, but you don't take it with you. There's only one of each item with inventory in a warehouse where it's under control.
The floor staff make sure you know what you need, writes it down and sends you to an order counter. These are located around the store perimeter and staffed with equally knowledgeable folks who check the inventory for your item, have it brought out to you, and make sure it's what you thought you were buying and what you expect to pay. Again, this takes only a couple of minutes and the order staff can answer any additional questions. Once my order was complete he pointed to the front of the store and said, "Go up to the cashier and your merchandise will be waiting for you."
As I headed toward yet another queue I noticed the overhead conveyors - a web of roller tracks with baskets passing along every few seconds. Once the merchandise is verified it's shipped to the front of the store along these conveyors - customers don't carry anything around the store. I stood in line a minute or so more, but not long, because there is a long row of multiple cashiers who keep things moving quickly. They're not scanning UPC codes and trying to figure out which side of the box is up like most cashiers. They're just taking your credit card for the amount already in the computer.
As soon as that's done you step to the next counter where your basket of merchandise is waiting. Again, multiple clerks, little or no waiting. A fulfillment clerk checks your receipt, hands you the goods, and out you go.
If you think about this, it's a fascinating business model. Holding merchandise until the last minute has one big impact and two subtle side effects:
- B&H's inventory shrinkage is probably next to nothing and one of the reasons they can have so much expertise on the floor and still have low prices.
- Making sure the customers aren't burdened with merchandise means they may shop longer and buy more
- Keeping the aisles free of clunky baskets and overloaded shoppers improves the experience for everyone in the store.
Traffic management is also a business tool. B&H never makes stand still for long. The queues serve to organize crowds but move fast enough that you never actually notice you're waiting in line. And by segmenting the buying process into distinct steps they allow specialists to focus on just what the customer needs at the moment - information/expertise, verification, purchasing, or going home with a smile.
The Midnight Disease
This past weekend I was in New York City for Book Expo America, a large tradeshow for book publishers and booksellers. It was my first time to attend and quite interesting to see all those books. But none of them were for sale and, as a bookaholic, that was painful. So on Saturday I took time out for a little wandering around Manhattan. I went to Grand Central Station to look around a bit and meet John Mohan of Rosebud PLM, Inc. for lunch at Pershing Square. While wandering the terminal before lunch I stopped in Posman Books. I was standing at a table piled high with paperbacks when suddenly a stack of books tumbled off the table (I didn't touch them! Honest!) and scattered across the floor.
The title was "The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain" by Alice W. Flaherty. This immediately caught my attention. Flaherty is a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and teaches at Harvard. She also suffers from manic-depressive disorder and hypergraphia. Hypergraphia is the compulsive need to write, which Flaherty puts to good use. Midnight Disease is a compelling book. Though dense (it's not a book I can skim) there is rarely a wasted word. In a style similar to Oliver Sachs (author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", among others), Flaherty weaves a tale of science, history, and analysis that is rich with anecdotes
and medical histories of writers past and present.
I've only managed to get through the first 100 pages so far, but Flaherty's scientific exploration of creativity is fascinating. It's a refreshing change from the plethora of new-age, right-brain creativity books on the market and balances historical perspective with recent case studies to build a unique view into the human mind. Anyone who's interested in writing or its practitioners, professional or otherwise, or anyone who's ever struggled to write should find this book worthwhile. In fact, I think anyone interested in the origins of creativity will enjoy it.
BTW, Rosebud PLM makes a cool collaborative editing plug-in/service for Adobe Acrobat that lets multiple users do real-time, shared editing of a PDF document without having to use e-mail or a WebDAV server. If you have to do document reviews or editing of any sort you should check it out. And Pershing Square has the best bacon I've ever eaten. Because I hadn't had breakfast on Saturday I had a 3-egg omelet with a side of bacon for lunch. It was so good I went back on Sunday for breakfast. The bacon was nitrate free. I didn't know such a thing existed. Worse, I didn't know that nitrates were the cause of the dry, salty aftertaste that hangs around for hours after eating bacon. I don't often eat bacon but, in the words of Will Smith, "I gotta get me some of that!" If you're a carnivore you should try it.
Good food, good books, good show. I love New York.
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