bpope’s blog

Dear <subject>,

<Choose 1:

a - something obvious about the subject that personifies it in an attempt to (1) be cute (2) be insightful

b - passive aggressive note to the subject>

xoxo,

<tweeter>

My take:  It’s like the twitter version of the five paragraph essay: maybe a little overused and not necessarily original but highly effective.  I guess if I saw too many of them, I’d get annoyed, but for now I guess the habit isn’t necessarily good or bad, just is.

I think the Polar Clock is one of the more interesting, and clever, screensavers I’ve come across.  Each ring represents a different scale of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days of the week, day of the month, and month of the year), and the rings sweep around their circumference as time marches on.  Additionally, the rings are slowly, but constantly, shifting colors.

It’s available for both Mac and Windows, and also as a widget and iPhone app.  Find out more here.

Update: while gazing into space looking for inspiration at work, I noticed that the color of each arc is actually dependent upon its sweep, it’s not just a random transition of colors (for example, you’ll notice that as the second “hand” passes the minuted “hand” they’ll take on the same color.  the same happens as it passes each of the other “hands”).

In between bouldering problems yesterday I was reading a back issue of Rock and Ice magazine (R&I), probably from about 5 years ago.  At the beginning was a really interesting letter to the editor.  I don’t have the exact text, but the author was very upset with RI for an article it had published in an earlier edition.  From what I could gather, the article in question described climbing in Yosemite, and how to avoid authorities while living in the Valley for months at a time.  The letter-writer pointed out that, to date, the transient community was what it was because only adventurous and “non-risk-adverse” people take a chance and try to live in Yosemite.  Furthermore, only the clever ones figure it out!  By publishing, essentially, a how-to guide, R&I threatened the composition of that community, inviting a different sort of folk to try things that they wouldn’t have previously risked.

Essentially this boils down to a question of how available information should be.  By publishing the article, R&I made widely available information that was previously only available by word of mouth to those who had demonstrated serious commitment.  In the internet age, information, specifically advice, is more widely available than ever before.  More and more people are becoming empowered in ways never previously considered.  Without a doubt, empowering people is one of the great successes of the internet.

This train of thought reminded me of a line from The Incredibles.  Syndrome, the bad guy , is a non-superhero, spurned as a child by Mr. Incredible.  Later in life he developed a number of technological solutions designed to allow him to compete with supers.  This leads Syndrome to exclaim “Everyone can be super! And when everyone’s super…no one will be!”

But is that true?  It certainly seems to be what the letter-writer thought.  To some extent I think they’re right, widespread availability of information ought to  level the playing field significantly.  Really, though, this should just allow the true elite to emerge, including those who might have previously been disadvantaged.  Yes, this will result in people trying things they would never have before considered.  Unlike the writer that got me started on this train of thought, I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, though.

This is a complex and nuanced issue, I think, and I don’t pretend to do a full analysis, that would take much more time and space than either you or I really want, I think.  Obviously information is a powerful thing, and it needs to be dispensed carefully in some situations, but in most cases I support openness.  At the same time, there will always bee some secrets.  Some things need to stay magic.  Sometimes you need to “never show anyone. They’ll beg you and they’ll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up… you’ll be nothing to them.” [The Prestige]

(And for your non-climbers reading this, beta is climbing slang for tips that will help you get up a route.  The perpetual beta status of gmail is an entirely different subject.)

I got a call today from some dude named Sam. He said he wanted to go climbing, which I thought was cool, but strange because I don’t know any Sams I don’t think. He swore he’d met Ben Pope climbing Squamish, though. Since I’ve never been climbing in Squamish there was obviously some miscommunication going on…

It made me curious, though. Turns out, if you google “ben pope climbing” four of the first ten hits lead to me, so apparently my web presence is getting larger thanks in large part to various sorts of social networking. Two of the hits were from twitter, one from LinkedIn, and one directly to my resume, which has my phone number on it. I assume this is how Sam came to call me instead of the Ben Pope who he was really looking for. I kinda wish I was this other Ben Pope…I did a little stalking and found some photos of him sending v8s and flashing v7s.

It’s interesting how we think google can be so useful, but it’s like any other tool, really. It’s only as smart as the people that use it.