Are there any real experts any more? What does it mean to be an expert when a naif plus internet can find more and better information than that contained in the expert's mind?
Set "expert" aside for the moment, and lower the threshold to just "competent" - all of my friends who have ever shared with me their thoughts of work and success have shown some degree of concern that they are just not good at their jobs (at least on some days). I know that there are times when I feel woefully inept, at even the most basic of my job functions.
To paraphrase a conversation I had with a friend this very weekend, sometimes it seems to me that success at work could be defined as failing very slowly. That may seem cynical, but I suspect there may be a little chunk of truth to the sentiment.
At any rate, some days I want to be an expert and some days I just want not to be a charlatan.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Danger - Danger
Another reminder that our society is not yet "post racial":
http://www.theroot.com/views/when-student-power-causes-trouble?page=0,0
I don't even know how to comment in a way that wouldn't be incendiary to someone.
http://www.theroot.com/views/when-student-power-causes-trouble?page=0,0
I don't even know how to comment in a way that wouldn't be incendiary to someone.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Arts and the free loader problem
I will get around to writing about Cheers! in the coming days, but when framing up my thoughts on the show and some other media ideas bouncing around in my head, I realized that the current state of media is going to bring the free loader problem to the fore.
Basically put, the model for originating, distributing, and consuming new media has changed materially in recent years. I'm going to write from my own perspective, but I suspect that my experience is generally common.
If I hear new music (meaning, newly created music, not new to me alone) it is via Pandora assigning something new that happens to match my perceived preferences. Or possibly that I'm listening to the news on NPR and they review a new disc. Contrast this scenario with the 1990s model, where most music delivery came via the radio and a DJ introducing new tracks that either sounded interesting or that the station was payed to play. As a radio listening, I was implicitly paying for that distribution model by listening to ads. There was a revenue channel that could be studied and manipulated, directly or indirectly leading back to the artists who were available to create new art. Under the current system, I'm not sure how new artists are motivated.
Similarly, consider the TV media model for consumers such as I; I watched the Wire, but when the series was over, and on DVD from Netflix. I watched the first two seasons of Parks and Recreation, but on Netflix Instant after those seasons were in the past. I am, essentially, a free loader in this system. I'm allowing other consumers to show the initial interest that gets the show created and on the air, and I allow other consumers to support the show through it's toddlerhood, and I wait around to pick off the choice bits of media that survive.
The problem I see on the horizon is when the balance of the consumer community shifts to match my behavior. If most consumers are waiting around for others to vet the quality of new offerings, the supply of new offerings may dry up. One possible, positive, outcome could be a new wave of experimentation in the area of origination and distribution. YouTube and smaller cable channels definitely have the potential to try out concepts in a lower cost environment...maybe that model is roughly equivalent for an off-off-Broadway show finding a following and moving to the big stage.
Just thinking out loud over here.
Basically put, the model for originating, distributing, and consuming new media has changed materially in recent years. I'm going to write from my own perspective, but I suspect that my experience is generally common.
If I hear new music (meaning, newly created music, not new to me alone) it is via Pandora assigning something new that happens to match my perceived preferences. Or possibly that I'm listening to the news on NPR and they review a new disc. Contrast this scenario with the 1990s model, where most music delivery came via the radio and a DJ introducing new tracks that either sounded interesting or that the station was payed to play. As a radio listening, I was implicitly paying for that distribution model by listening to ads. There was a revenue channel that could be studied and manipulated, directly or indirectly leading back to the artists who were available to create new art. Under the current system, I'm not sure how new artists are motivated.
Similarly, consider the TV media model for consumers such as I; I watched the Wire, but when the series was over, and on DVD from Netflix. I watched the first two seasons of Parks and Recreation, but on Netflix Instant after those seasons were in the past. I am, essentially, a free loader in this system. I'm allowing other consumers to show the initial interest that gets the show created and on the air, and I allow other consumers to support the show through it's toddlerhood, and I wait around to pick off the choice bits of media that survive.
The problem I see on the horizon is when the balance of the consumer community shifts to match my behavior. If most consumers are waiting around for others to vet the quality of new offerings, the supply of new offerings may dry up. One possible, positive, outcome could be a new wave of experimentation in the area of origination and distribution. YouTube and smaller cable channels definitely have the potential to try out concepts in a lower cost environment...maybe that model is roughly equivalent for an off-off-Broadway show finding a following and moving to the big stage.
Just thinking out loud over here.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Cheers!
I've been watching the 1st season pretty much nonstop on Netflix Instant...I've really been enjoying it and I may very well write up some reflections on the series.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
great life advice from 80/20 author
hit the link: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/12/8020.html
"Worry is never useful. When you find yourself worrying, stop it instantly. You do this by posing a choice to yourself - either you act and don't worry; or you decide not to act and not worry."
"You enrich the world and yourself, and can spend your time doing what you want for the rest of your life. If you fail you learn and if you succeed, well, that's okay!"
"Worry is never useful. When you find yourself worrying, stop it instantly. You do this by posing a choice to yourself - either you act and don't worry; or you decide not to act and not worry."
"You enrich the world and yourself, and can spend your time doing what you want for the rest of your life. If you fail you learn and if you succeed, well, that's okay!"
Volatility, continued (and perhaps done for now)
The marbles have continued to rattle around in my brain, and last night settled briefly in an interesting pattern.
If I may state my premise succinctly: Nature, and life by extension, is inherently volatile. Human nature desires to constrain volatility, but is better off accepting core volatility and hedging peripheral volatility.
In more words: there exists an intersection of volatility and control, chaos and order that is ideal for human existence. Too much control leads to a undeserved complacency; too little leads to, well, chaos.
Consider the difference between a politically democratic system and an autocratic regime; the former is superficially volatile, with the masses expressing their cacophanous views, but with an ex post policy trajectory that exhibits little volatility. In contrast, the autocracy promises stability on the surface, but generally leads to periodic expressions of high volatility.
The economic systems often associated with those two political systems exhibit similar characteristics. A command economy is nominally stable, but actually subject to extraordinary volatility (one could argue that command economies and autocratic regimes often act to mask the unpleasant outcomes of the systems in place); in a free economy, the opposite trend generally rules. In a completely free economy / open market, the succession of data points can be extremely volatile, but the trends that emerge exhibit robust stability.
Taking as an example the recent housing market brouhaha, one might incorrectly believe that the meltdown was a free market failure; in fact, the prime actors were operating under significant non-open market motivations and their actions flourished under a scheme of collective market interventions. To be clear, a non-interventionist policy (true laissez faire) would undoubtedly see serious episodes of volatility, but possibly of lesser magnitude and quicker to self-correct than in the intervention scheme.
et cetera and et cetera
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
in defense of _Knocked Up_ and in attack of lazy journalism
So maybe you are all right and a blog focused on poor journalism would not be that entertaining, but maybe just one or two posts would be ok.
Slate.com this morning has a "review" of the new comedy Bridesmaids. I use scare quotes because it is less a review than a platform for beating the dead horse cliche` of "Judd Apatow doesn't care about women". Let's put this to rest here, and in the process sketch out how bad journalism happens.
Read, if you will, the Slate article and meet me back here. Go on, I'll wait.
First off, as my wife would say, it's a just a movie. There is not necessarily a need to get out our freshmen year philosophy textbooks to prepare to analyze a movie, particularly a comedy. Second, is this a review of Bridesmaids or a criticism of Knocked Up? Surely the "darkly hilarious comedy" deserves more copy than a movie that came out 4 years ago...
But since the journalist brought it up: Knocked Up is not misogynist, it does not diminish the female roles, and it actually offers a fairly robust perspective on modern relationships, gender roles, and maturity.
My chief criticism of the Slate piece is that the journalist is exhibiting a tendency to "herding"; the term describes that phenomenon where subsequent opinion pieces tend to "herd" around any early and strongly expressed ideas. And apart from the abortion debate prompted by KU, this discussion of Judd Apatow's supposed misogyny seemed to be the common theme of the media coverage at the time.
Today's journalist trots out the often voiced perspective that the female characters in KU are thinly drawn and "stereotypical" and are effectively downers as opposed to the male characters. I can't help but notice that the journalist, in describing the "bunch of merry fools" that surround the Seth Rogen character in KU, fails to mention the part played by Charlyne Yi - she may have been just one of the guys, but she was definitely a woman, and in that general state of arrested development that defined the group.
Sorry - a brief detour here. Another example of the herd instinct among movie reviewers of late is this persistent harangue against the "man child, arrested development, can't grow up" theme in current comedy film offerings. This straw man is so easy to knock down, it's almost not worth it. Even a cursory survey of the history of the comedy genre will reveal that movies about people (not men, solely, but both genders) struggling with matriculation into the "mature" strata of society have been prevalent in every generation. Apatow did not invent the genre, did not perfect it, and is not exploiting it to any novel heights. If the 2000s featured Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, the 1990s featured Adam Sandler. Stretching my memory back to the '80s and earlier the examples might include Animal House or the original Arthur. And yes, most of those best examples featured men, but what was the Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller if not ensemble pieces showing men AND women struggling with that transition to adulthood? It seems to me that assimilation into polite society is one of the oldest and most persistent themes in the arts.
Back to Knocked Up and the criticism about the women characters. We have already discussed the fact that there is a woman in the mix of the pot smoking porn mongers back at the "boys'" house; the most oft-referenced example of Apatow's poorly drawn women is "Debbie", the character played by Leslie Mann and married to Paul Rudd's character in the film. Not to be too pro hominem here, but it should be pointed out that Leslie Mann is Judd Apatow's real life wife and baby mama. That doesn't imply that he can't write a stereotypical shrew part for this character, but I would suggest the possibility that the actress had more than passing input on the characterization. I would also that her character is roundly drawn, with a fair amount of depth to her motivations and concerns. And how can the audience miss the "man child" echo in Debbie's own desire to hold on to the carefree days of being able to go out clubbing and the subsequent harsh intrusion of adult reality?
The primary female role in KU, played by Katherine Heigl, further deconstructs this male v female notion of the movie. After Allison and Ben start their relationship in earnest, she is shown to adopt pieces of his lifestyle, hanging out on the couch and indexing porn for the website. She enjoys the company of his merry band. And her character's journey is essentially designed to parallel Ben's; they both are caught unawares by the pregnancy, both of them have to reevaluate their life and way forward in light of the baby development, and for both this challenge is meant to highlight that core struggle of accepting adulthood and its constituent responsibilities.
In summary, about 90% of all media coverage of the arts is BS, and today's example is pretty egregious in the laziness exhibited. It's almost as if the new movie simply has to be viewed through the lens of the earlier work, and not on it's own merits.
Slate.com this morning has a "review" of the new comedy Bridesmaids. I use scare quotes because it is less a review than a platform for beating the dead horse cliche` of "Judd Apatow doesn't care about women". Let's put this to rest here, and in the process sketch out how bad journalism happens.
Read, if you will, the Slate article and meet me back here. Go on, I'll wait.
First off, as my wife would say, it's a just a movie. There is not necessarily a need to get out our freshmen year philosophy textbooks to prepare to analyze a movie, particularly a comedy. Second, is this a review of Bridesmaids or a criticism of Knocked Up? Surely the "darkly hilarious comedy" deserves more copy than a movie that came out 4 years ago...
But since the journalist brought it up: Knocked Up is not misogynist, it does not diminish the female roles, and it actually offers a fairly robust perspective on modern relationships, gender roles, and maturity.
My chief criticism of the Slate piece is that the journalist is exhibiting a tendency to "herding"; the term describes that phenomenon where subsequent opinion pieces tend to "herd" around any early and strongly expressed ideas. And apart from the abortion debate prompted by KU, this discussion of Judd Apatow's supposed misogyny seemed to be the common theme of the media coverage at the time.
Today's journalist trots out the often voiced perspective that the female characters in KU are thinly drawn and "stereotypical" and are effectively downers as opposed to the male characters. I can't help but notice that the journalist, in describing the "bunch of merry fools" that surround the Seth Rogen character in KU, fails to mention the part played by Charlyne Yi - she may have been just one of the guys, but she was definitely a woman, and in that general state of arrested development that defined the group.
Sorry - a brief detour here. Another example of the herd instinct among movie reviewers of late is this persistent harangue against the "man child, arrested development, can't grow up" theme in current comedy film offerings. This straw man is so easy to knock down, it's almost not worth it. Even a cursory survey of the history of the comedy genre will reveal that movies about people (not men, solely, but both genders) struggling with matriculation into the "mature" strata of society have been prevalent in every generation. Apatow did not invent the genre, did not perfect it, and is not exploiting it to any novel heights. If the 2000s featured Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, the 1990s featured Adam Sandler. Stretching my memory back to the '80s and earlier the examples might include Animal House or the original Arthur. And yes, most of those best examples featured men, but what was the Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller if not ensemble pieces showing men AND women struggling with that transition to adulthood? It seems to me that assimilation into polite society is one of the oldest and most persistent themes in the arts.
Back to Knocked Up and the criticism about the women characters. We have already discussed the fact that there is a woman in the mix of the pot smoking porn mongers back at the "boys'" house; the most oft-referenced example of Apatow's poorly drawn women is "Debbie", the character played by Leslie Mann and married to Paul Rudd's character in the film. Not to be too pro hominem here, but it should be pointed out that Leslie Mann is Judd Apatow's real life wife and baby mama. That doesn't imply that he can't write a stereotypical shrew part for this character, but I would suggest the possibility that the actress had more than passing input on the characterization. I would also that her character is roundly drawn, with a fair amount of depth to her motivations and concerns. And how can the audience miss the "man child" echo in Debbie's own desire to hold on to the carefree days of being able to go out clubbing and the subsequent harsh intrusion of adult reality?
The primary female role in KU, played by Katherine Heigl, further deconstructs this male v female notion of the movie. After Allison and Ben start their relationship in earnest, she is shown to adopt pieces of his lifestyle, hanging out on the couch and indexing porn for the website. She enjoys the company of his merry band. And her character's journey is essentially designed to parallel Ben's; they both are caught unawares by the pregnancy, both of them have to reevaluate their life and way forward in light of the baby development, and for both this challenge is meant to highlight that core struggle of accepting adulthood and its constituent responsibilities.
In summary, about 90% of all media coverage of the arts is BS, and today's example is pretty egregious in the laziness exhibited. It's almost as if the new movie simply has to be viewed through the lens of the earlier work, and not on it's own merits.
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