Sitting on a bench, watching my baby cousins–the next generation of our family–play soccer. It’s an almost Proustian moment. Because half of my academic career before graduating high school was spent in bleachers. It’s a cold night while the game goes on, and the Mosquitos swarm into thick clouds around the stadium lights. This is history. This is nostalgia. This is a certainty that the ways of the past will keep going.

Like so much in life, it’s not found in the big moments. It’s not in the trumpets blaring fanfare, the moments that announce themselves with gaudy flair and demand attention. It’s in the stolen moments, the little things that make life life. It’s in the cold air and the colder bleachers. It’s in the Gatorade bottles waiting with parents on the sidelines.

There’s plenty of time for higher literary pursuits tomorrow. The bigger problems of life will wait. For now, the world is content to he contained within a conglomeration of metal planks.

Here’s a little writing exercise: write about someone you spot, anywhere, any time, start crafting a background that could sustain a story.

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He walks through teh halls of the college, clutching an artist’s portfolio.  It’s too large for him, but he holds onto it still. He’s fancies himself a fashion model, and he walks with his head held high, eyes partially hidden in the shadow the brim of a newsman hat casts. But the whites still show, still catch the light even in the shadow. And he walks on, his steps long and hard, full of the purpose and hope of someone still clutching his dreams.

He wears a scarf, green with black stripes. It’s cold outside this morning. And he manages to avoid the stares at this inner-city school, full of Wal-Mart knock-offs and Sunday suits. This is the land of the lost, and he is a pilgrim in this land, not meant to last. This world is not his home, he’s only passing through, and he doesn’t expect any of them to understand. He’s a man with a mission.

Fashion design, the sketches in his portfolio, the ones he hopes will land him an internship next fall. That’s a year from now, a year of Texas weather that changes frequently enough to give him whiplash. A year with his mother, a single woman, the proverbial strong black woman, who never quite understood his interest in anything at all. First comic books, and the drawing of them, and when he grew out of that, the graduation to fashion design. The endless hours with the television on, droning in the background as he worked at the small tray that he’d used as a desk since childhood. It’ll be worth it, he tells himself in his week moments. It will all be worth it soon. He just has to last long enough.

So, I’ve kind of abandoned the whole Revolution/Evolution thread. I’ll get back to it eventually. I’m working on integrating modernity into it. It’s turning into a bloody long treatise…

In the meantime, I fully intend to return to this blog. New post to come this week. Promise.

–j

Or, why the iPhone is evolutionary.

This is hopefully the first in a series of posts that will look at the way technology ingratiates itself into our lives, societies, and the ways in which we in turn use and are used by technology (which sounds more Singularitarian than it should).

The iPhone has been around for almost two years. By this summer, we will, in all likelihood, see another iteration of the JesusPhone–although I would argue for a new name: the DarwinPhone.

Recent consumer reports show that Apple hasn’t exactly lost any ground in the brand war, and isn’t doing too shabbily in the current global recession. The iPhone is rapidly gaining ground.

Why is this? The answer boils down to name recognition. Everyone owns an iPod, and anyone who doesn’t and still owns a media player has directly benefited from Apple’s success with their brand. Most other brands of PMPs are only where they are because of competition for market share: a competition in which Apple is far and away the leader.

We’re starting to see the same thing in the cell phone market: if a cell phone maker wants to survive in this new market, they have no choice but to play by the rules Apple first established with the iPhone. Samsung did this with the Eternity a few months ago, but the most high-profile example might be the Blackberry Storm. The touchscreen is a very post-iPhone feature to see on a Blackberry, something which might not have appeared if the iPhone hadn’t materialized.

The paradox comes thusly: What everyone who owns one will tell you  is that the iPhone is an okay phone. It’s missing crucial features, things other smart phones on the market have, copy-paste being the most often complaint, along with Push support.

So why does the iPhone remain such a driving force in the market. There’s a scientifically based explanation, and it does not revolve around the capitalist, semi-Darwinian struggle going on as these various companies struggle for profit. The iPhone may be evolutionary, as I’m going to argue, but it is not Darwinian in the traditional grade-school sense. It fulfills a very specific niche in the ongoing evolution of technology, and as a result, it reaps benefits while other companies do not. Evolution does not occur in a vacuum, and I would put forth that competition for resources is a result of evolution rather than a cause. Competition may fuel evolution, but if we don’t allow for a circle, a causal cycle that isn’t readily understandable, we’re going to overlook an important factor in this process.

Before we begin, it’s necessary to get a working definition of evolution: as I will use it throughout this series, evolution is not the result of a competition for resources; nature is not on it’s own a zero-sum game, as natural resource (those most essential to life) are renewable to a certain point. The zero-sum game comes into existence when a new element is added. It is this new element, given sufficient influence over an environment, which will inevitably change the rules of the game.

To take an example from history, let’s look at the birth of civilizations. In sub-Sarahan Africa, when the Europeans came, they found no trace of civilization, civilization being defined as an organized, hierarchically structured grouping of people in an urban center with a written language. Such a civilization did not develop in Africa because there was no need for one (which is not to say civilizations did not exist, they simply did not exist by European standards). Resources were abundant, there was plentiful game and crops and space. If a population were to grow beyond what is sustainable in one area, people simply branch off to form another civilization, another tribe.  A hierarchical civilization, in which allocation of resources is the key driving force behind the organization,  develops when resources grow thin and need management.

What we see from such an example as this is twofold: first, that competition for resources comes only as a result of a growth, which is in itself the product of evolution; secondly, and this is perhaps the more controversial, that anything complex and evolved carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

In the coming series, I will examine this, and how it applies to Apple’s flagship product. As you’ve no doubt already noted, the iPhone is a far different creature than civilization in sub-Saharan Africa. There are no resources for the iPhone to squander. To which, I shall simply respond by pointing to the current economic crisis. We’ve already seen that cash is a very limited resource.  Something else has to evolve in its place if Apple were to survive.

For Apple shareholders and fanboys, the good news is that, even is only subconsciously, Apple is already aware of this problem, and are beginning to move past the traditional zero-sum game. Apple has already developed one way to avoid running low on the money that serves as its primary resource, and it’s a damned good one. The annual product cycle? A perfect way to avoid running out of consumers. If you set the count to zero year after year, you create an endless supply of resources. But it’s artificial. The stream of consumers, of resources, depends on one thing, and will inevitably run dry like the proverbial well without it.

That one thing is name recognition.

What is more important than money in this new economy that is evolving? Reputation. This is how Apple is able to weather the recession as well as they do, including the consumer electronics section, which is understandably bleak. People trust the name Apple. This is the reputation the company has been building for years.

Reputation also may just cure the second charge of evolved beings: it may allow Apple to escape that clause that says evolved beings inevitably destroy themselves. If you realize which game you’re playing early enough, there is enough time to begin playing by the right rules, but that is being optimistic and getting off the topic of this post.

Apple’s reputation and it’s effect on the company’s market share has implications for the world as a whole, for society and for the economy, and the zero sum game that most economics has become, but I will leave those until next time.

[WARNING: For those who haven't read T.C. Boyle's "Admiral" and want the experience to be a novel one, this entry contains spoilers. Not very many, and certainly none which will take away from the ending of the story in anyway, but spoilers nonetheless. You have been warned.]

“Admiral,”  a short story by T.C. Boyle,  is contained in the most recent Best American anthology. I picked it up yesterday, and read the story in less than a day. I was a little shocked by what I found.

There’s a bit of a stigma in the literary community when it comes to genre fiction, which includes but is not limited to Science Fiction and Fantasy. While some people are working against this, bending genres together (Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem to name a few), by and large the stigma remains.

So when I got far enough into “Admiral” to realize what was going on, I had to stop and wonder. Since this year’s anthology was guest-edited by Salman Rushdie (who, unfortunately, I haven’t read, but will put him at the top of my list now), it shouldn’t really be a surprise that more borderline, genre-bending stories would find their way in the collection.

What comes as a shock is that T.C. Boyle is not a genre-bending author, not specifically. His stories seem solidly literary (what I’ve read). “Admiral” is a literary story by definition–a tight focus on characterization, the presence of a traditionally literary plot–but it is also a science-fiction story. And I have to wonder if anyone actually realized this in planning the collection.

I am certainly not far enough into the collection, which includes Jonathan Lethem and George Saunders, both belonging to that breed of cross-genre writers, to pass judgment on Rushdie’s choices (nor would I even after finishing the collection). It is a nice change to see something more akin to genre fiction in such a prominent position.

Science Fiction, at least as I was taught, is all about people dealing with some aspect of future science, whether it be near-future (as near as tomorrow morning’s headlines) or far-future. Either way yields science fiction. “Admiral” centers around an eponymous Afghan pup, the product of commercial cloning (which is not widespread now, but most likely will be sometime soon). And, like any true artist, Boyle relates the cloned pup to our everyday life. In doing this, he succeeds at something that should be the goal of every science fiction writer: making the possible plausible, and the plausible seem commonplace.

I’m not going to launch into an article on why science fiction writers need to take a lesson from literary writers and vice-versa. Nor am I going to go into the reasons why the barrier between genres should be much more pourous now than in the past (cloning being one evidence of this–okay, so a small spiel). That’s not what this is about. For once, science fiction is creeping its way into literary circles, and I for one am proud of the fact. Genre fiction exists for a multiplicity of reasons, and it’s about time it’s recognized as an art form.

James Gunn stole my idea.

I’m actually interested in seeing how this turns out.

It’s time to show a little love for the world’s most important tuber.

(Is there really more than one tuber? Does anybody know what a tuber actually is?)

Anyway, apparently the UN has decided to do what it does best: pass meaningless legislation. That’s right, the United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. You can find the website here. It’s chock-full of all the information you can stand about our friend the spud.

And really, when you look at it, hasn’t the potato been the driving force behind most of human history? Think I’m exaggerating? Take a look at the website:

The potato is already an integral part of the global food system. It is the world’s number one non-grain food commodity, with production reaching a record 320 million tonnes in 2007. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato’s ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers.

It’s time we rise up and realize just how important the potato is. The potato could actually solve the energy crisis that’s supposedly facing America these days. Granted, it would take a few million potatoes lined up in series–but it could happen!

So let’s follow the example of the UN. The important issue this year isn’t Darfur or Africa, nor the unstable situation in the middle-east. No. 2008 is all about the potato.

God bless our beloved tuber!

PS–I originally heard about this on Fair Game. Their humor is much better than mine. Plus, there’s an interview with the Corn Queen, just for perspective’s sake. Listen to it here.

–jw

I’m just tremendously lazy. But I could see how you’d make that mistake.

I’ve hit a snag in Oneiroi, and I really should be working on something else. Oneiroi feels like its gone off the rails, and now I’m faced with the wondrous task of going back through and figuring out where. Yay and yipee.

Actually–that is lazy. That’s the textbook definition of lazy.

–jw

It is a bloggy blog.

But more on this later.

–jw