SOPA not dead yet!

So if you've been on the internet over the last few months there is a chance you've heard something about SOPA. SOPA and PIPA are two bills that have been under consideration by the U.S. House and Senate over the last few months.  The bills are put forth by the content industries ostensibly to provide them with new powers to fight piracy and protect intellectual property which, if you're inclined to believe them, will destroy them any day now. 

Funny I thought we had this argument already back during the whole MP3 thing? It never ceases to amaze me how we have to essentially fight this battle over and over again for each different medium, movies, books, TV, etc. They just can't seem to learn the lessons that the Music industry did a few years back and is now reaping the financial rewards of as a result.  

I like listening to music, watching movies, TV, etc.  I believe in the right of the creators of quality content to be compensated for their efforts in creating it. However I do NOT believe that playing fast and loose with core infrastructure of the internet and arguably the first amendment as was proposed by the now, seemingly dead, DNS blocking provisions that were in SOPA and PIPA. Content and content creators absolutely need to be protected but messing with the foundations of the internet and giving unprecedented powers to the courts and content industry groups, is not the way to do it. 

SOPA seems to have been left starved of air given developments over the last few days but this will not be the last we hear about this type of legislation.  The industry lobbying groups have already declared this is not a fight they intend to give up.  They will hang on to their old business models which tend to benefit them first and consumers second until the last possible moment. It will only end when consumers demand new models by speaking with their wallets.

This battle isn't over and my concern is that now that DNS has been stripped from SOPA and PIPA and the congressional floor managers have tabled these bills that the issue will fade from the collective consciousness and who knows what provisions will make it into the next bill while everyone's attention has been diverted elsewhere. Which is why I support the various blackouts that Wikipedia and other sites will be conducting tomorrow. 

UPDATE: Ars Technica has the MPAA quoted as saying with regards to the blackouts and protests:

 "A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."

Wait WHAT!?! Do they think we live in a police state? Last time I checked the right to peaceful protest was actually an expressly guaranteed power of the people. If there's an clearer evidence for why this fight goes on I can't think of it.

Read up on the SOPA issue:

• "End Piracy, Not Liberty." Here is Google's take on the matter and I applaud them for blacking out their Banner!  - To me that really cuts to the heart of it iTunes and other online Music services have shown that if you give consumers fairly priced easy to use and understand alternatives to piracy they will respect them and your business. That is how you fight piracy not by breaking the internet and usurping the rights of Americans. Again I ask why we have to keep learning/teaching the content industies this lesson?

• The EFF is the go to source for issues like this here is their "Action Alert": EFF Action Alert on SOPA
  
  
• The Verge has been doing a lot of great tech reporting lately and here is their landing page for SOPA stories. 

• Wikipedia's post on their Blackout.
  
  
• The Whitehouse has also come out in opposition of SOPA as well Verge's coverage of that development.

Technology: The Responsible Approach. It's not Magic.

So recently I was listening to a speech given by inventor Dean Kamen (aka that Segway guy). The gist, and this is my own heavy paraphrase, is that while we are a society that is ever more entrenched, and reliant on technology, but we are a people that are increasingly less fascinated by and inclined to simply take it for granted. In 1969 when NASA landed two men on the Moon it spawned a generation that immediately wanted to take apart the vacuum cleaner to see how it worked, or go out and build model rockets. Today technology has become something this more often marveled at in awe or wonderment than understood and dissected.

This got me thinking about a number of things. The first is why aren't we doing a lot better in 2012? I would wager that if you were to make a list of say the 5 most common computing tasks things like: How do I get my digital pictures off my camera? How to I make a playlist of music and copy it to my media player? How do I sync my calendar with my phone?, etc. Then took a sampling of folks and asked them to do those tasks and compared their success or failure to that of Windows 95 the results wouldn't be a lot different. These are basics tasks and they are things that generally non-technical people still stumble over, but actually really want to be able to do.

This got me thinking about what a waste some of that technology ends up being. For example you can do amazingly powerful things with iTunes and playlists but I am constantly running in to people who don't even bother to sync music to their phone. Take media for example if you spend the time to tag your photos and store them in a library type of application you can slice and dice them in all kinds of cool ways and yet people still default to the age old method of file system folders. At the risk of sounding elitist, it actually depresses me a bit, to see large numbers of consumers not using their devices to the fullest potential. Particularly when there is so much untapped power locked inside most of them.

This dilemma in turn made me wonder, who bares the responsibility for that problem? Is it the consumers who aren't interested in learning how their devices really work or taking the time to figure out how to use them? Or is it the hardware and software makers who simply aren't providing the user experiences required to surface that functionality and make it useful in a non-burdensome way?

Perhaps it's a catch-22. As technology gets easier to interact with it only enforces the idea that it should be effortless in the users mind. We take things like the iPhone for granted and don't stop to think that just 20 years ago you had to carry a mobile phone in a briefcase. This also leads to a situation where when something goes wrong or stops working users are increasingly impatient and they just don't think about the incredibly complex interdependent systems that make the magic in their hand possible. As the software intentionally hides it's inner workings from the user it also creates an environment where it is more difficult for the user to understand what is happening and why. Users should though bear some responsibility for understanding their technology, and also remember that it is a complex system and in many cases sensitive electronics. If you spill beer on to your laptop, or throw it down a flight of stairs don't be surprised when it doesn't last like it should. Don't start from the position that it must always just work and then get frustrated. It is a complex system and may require some systematic thinking. As with everything you are going to get out what you put in. The more time you take to understand and be familiar with the intended use and functions of your devices the more you will get out. In short the better you treat them, the better they'll treat you.

The question though is what responsibility do the software and hardware makers have in this equation? Why is it still so baffling to accomplish these basic tasks? In the case of Windows a major selling point of perhaps every single edition has been that it will make common media tasks easier to deal with. Yet it feels like we are still waiting for the promise to truly be fulfilled. Even take Mac and iTunes and iPhoto. They are both powerful and easy to deal with...IF...you subscribe to and understand their unique ideologies of media management. In fact they again try to hide the complexities from the users, who then wonder where all their pictures went, "What happened to my folder structure?", as an example. In fact the race to hide complexity and solve every single problem the user might ever have is a trap of software design and tends to result in very complex systems which are potential complex to the user.

I believe part of the problem lies in the fact that here we are in 2012 but we don't really have any modern operating systems.  Windows and Mac and their UI paradigms both have their legacies in an era computing when the primary uses were Word Processing and Spreadsheets. UNIX goes back even further and has its roots in a time before even UI was prevalent. It makes me wonder what would an OS or computing system that started with the goal of fundamentally just being amazing at those 5 things users want to do 90% of the time look like?

Of course this inevitably leads to the question: Well doesn't the cloud just solve this problem? Maybe one day it will. Of course the first problem with that question is that it assumes there is just one cloud and a consistent way of doing everything there. Just in the cloud music space it is an almost dizzying array of services each with their own ideologies, quirks, and idiosyncrasies. The cloud also brings with it of course the issues or privacy, ownership, etc. I frequently run into folks are loathe to put their personal photos online privacy or controls or not. I confess I too fall into that category despite recently going all in on Google Music.

The reality is that the path forward is that both group need to acknowledge the responsibility they have. Users need to treat technology like the complex system and sensitive electronics is really is and not just magic in the palm of their hand.  Software and hardware makers need to be mindful of the ideologies their apps present and the impact they have on the users ability, or very likely, inability to understand how they work. Lastly, society has an obligation to educate future generations in away that removes the mystique of the technological magic occurring in the world around them and inspires them to ask questions like how? and why? about that technology.

Finished "Steve Jobs", A few thoughts...

So I FINALLY finished Steve Jobs the biography written by Walter Isaacson. I say finally because it sprawled over almost 600 pages and when I read non-fiction, particularly the lengthy variety, I have a tendency to get bogged down and for it to start to feel like I'm slogging through to the finish line.  This is purely a indictment of the way I read and consume things than any statement about the prose or subject matter. In any case I'm done now and here's a few thoughts.

I read the vast majority of the book on my iPad and write this now on my MacBook Air. However, in an amusingly ironic turn of events I started reading in the dark by candlelight. It was the midst of the October storm here in New England and I had been without power for about 24 hours with no sign of it returning. Earlier in the day I had finished the Kindle book I'd been reading earlier in the day and wanted to start something new but without internet access couldn't download anything. I purchased the hardcover book as a memento and so I lit a candle and made it through about the first 60 pages that night. The irony could not be escaped, reading about one of the most prolific technology figures and stories in history...by literal candlelight!

Overall I found the read enjoyable particularly being a fan of the early personal computer era and the dynamic between Apple/Microsoft/IBM in those early days.  It's a fascinating time in technology and history and Isaacson does a good job and providing a summary for those readers who might not be as familiar with the time and events. I would have to say though that I agree with the criticism of others that the book doesn't tread a whole lot of new truly uncovered ground. I had already heard a lot of the stories and anecdotes either online, or other tributes, or history of Apple. Perhaps that is a consequence of the material being fresh and having lived through, while not all, much of it certainly the rebirth of Apple.

It also seems that some who've read it have come away feeling conflicted. There is a line that Jobs uses with a columnist about to publish what he perceives to be an unflattering expose on him he says something to the effect of "So you've discovered I'm an asshole, why is that news?"  I wonder if some of the problem people have with seeing how the sausage is made is that it is uncomfortable. Most Apple products are perceived as objects of beauty or joy. In truth though a lot of pain and torment was suffered by those who brought us these products. I have to wonder if part of the issue isn't that we no more want to look at an iPhone and think of the engineer who was made to cry, or fired, etc. than we want to look at our jeans and think of the child in a factory who might have made them.

I think we also know deep inside that while it offends societal norms such dazzling products and advancements could not have come without and equal level of both sacrifice but also dazzling levels of ruthlessness, control and arrogance.  Thinking about this made me remember and old episode of the original "Star Trek."  In the episode there is a transport accident (isn't there always? hehe) involving Captain Kirk. The accident results in two Kirks one the "evil/ruthless" side and the other the "good/compassionate." The "evil" side ends up being confined to the brig, I think, while the "good" side attempts to resume command of the Enterprise. Unfortunately the purely good side is paralyzed as a leader unable to make decisive decisions, etc.  It's an age old idea but we simple aren't ourselves without the flaws. For all the criticism I have to wonder if a similar situation had happened to Jobs what would Apple products look like? Could there ever have been an Apple at all? 

One thing that the story of Jobs has done is made me think a lot about my own life, place in the world, what I'm doing, etc.  Perhaps some of that is that I'm right now essentially the age Jobs was when he was ousted from Apple and decided to start NeXT.  After leaving Apple he talks about how he's 30 and needs to make sure he keeps making and impact on the world. I suspect most of us would be pretty content with having created and entire industry and a billion dollar company, but hey. Equally inspiring/thought provoking is of course the unequaled Stanford Commencement Address with lines like "don't settle" and don't live anyone else's dream, etc.  

It isn't long before you start asking questions like: "Have I settled?", "What is my dream?", "Who's dream am I living?" Perhaps that only serves to connect the story of Steve once again so directly with Apple, both have always challenged the status quo, traditional way of thinking, and made us question ourselves for the better. In other words of course to "think different." If the story, life and work of Steve Jobs inspires people to keep doing that I suspect future is bright both for Apple and in general. I hope that is a legacy which would have produced one of Jobs' perhaps rare but wry smiles.