Earthquake this morning
Earthquake this morning at 4:37 a.m. I was awake and lying in bed. Jill was downstairs with Tyler. It was really weird. Thought I was hallucinating when the bed moved, then concluded it was the wind coming in through the windows that was making the door shake in its jamb. Strangest thing is that Tyler was fussier than normal for the three hours beforehand, arching his back, etc. — so bad, in fact, that Jill took him downstairs to lay on the couch. That never happens. As soon as the quake was over, he was out like a light. It’s like he could sense it coming.
Sphere: Related ContentBranding in a Web app world
Among other things, I’m a trademark lawyer. I’m also a social media enthusiast, and I can prove that by my use of Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed.
The social media space is aswirl with fast pace conversation and ever-changing memes. New features, companies and third party apps come on the scene every day. Just read Somewhat Frank for awhile to notice that.
I’m learning a lot about new media/social media by reading Geoff Livingston’s book Now is Gone. Brian Solis wrote the introduction, and one of the points that really resonates with me is the fact that modern Web users don’t want to be marketed to. Instead, according to Solis, wise PR activity requires an entity to become a part of the community it serves.
Where does this leave traditional trademark law? Given the cultural environment of the modern web, it would seem anomalous for companies in that space to take a hard-line stance when it comes to trademark protection like they might have in the good ol’ days. Look at the number of apps that play on the name Twitter. When is Google going to say something about ReadBurner which obviously mimicks the name Feedburner?
But these brands have enourmous value. Scott Karp put up this insightful post which led me to consider a new facet of this. The thesis of Scott’s post, I think, is that the value and goodwill of a Web app comes largely from its user base. From a trademark perspective, does this clarify or obscure the analysis? To whom does the goodwill belong? The company or the community around it?
Sphere: Related ContentReturning from Macomb
The Trip Home
I delight in hearing the song of a cardinal outside my window. It must be after 5 a.m. My alarm is set for 6 a.m. I hear Dorothee come upstairs at 6 a.m. She knocks on my door and says she’ll bring cofee up in a few minutes. She returns a few minutes later with the coffee on a tray. I shower and get dressed and finish packing up. Downstairs at about 6:35. We depart in Dororthee’s station wagon at about 6:40. It’s a gray and rainy morning but not too cold. Arrive at the Amtrak station. Dorothee hands me my breakfast in a blue bag and I go inside. Check in with the attendant who confirms my ticket. Train is dealyed a bit. Although scheduled to leave at 7:00 it does not pull into the station until about 7:15. While waiting for the train I read from the March issue of Wired magazine. About 10 or 15 people board the train in Macomb. I go to Business Class which is at the front of the train and get settled in. I’m enjoying the coffee Dorothee made for me from the Inselhaus stainless steel coffee mug she packed for me.
We stop in Galesburg to drop off and pick up passengers. I don’t notice anyone getting on or getting off, however, in business class. It’s raining pretty hard. Definitely spring — an April shower. I continue working on my laptop, staying up with this account of the journey, keeping up with Twitter, etc.
Sphere: Related ContentTrip to Macomb
The Amtrak Experience
Am travelling to Macomb, Illinois this morning via Amtrak to meet with a client this afternoon. Will spend the night at the Inselhaus Bed & Breakfast. A fun adventure. First leg of the trip this morning is to drive to the Route 59 station to catch a Metra train to Naperville where I catch the Carl Sandburg to Macomb.
I get off the Metra at Naperville and make my way into the station. Ticket office closed. Self-service ticketing machine broken (I have a reservation but no ticket). Signs at Metra ticketing window rudely say they have no information about Amtrak. Don’t want to get my head bitten off if I were to ask. I’ve had bad experiences with Metra employees in the past. Only info I can get is from a sign that says call 1-800-USA-RAIL. My Blackberry has no alphanumeric keypad. Have to track down a pay phone to translate the letters to numbers.
Rep says that only choice is to refund my ticket (credit will show in 3-5 days) and for me to purchase new ticket on board. I await the arrival at the station, not knowing whether it’ll be on the north or south side. I suspect north, because that’s the track I see it on when it passes by at Route 59 but I’m not sure. Just no information available and that’s frustrating.
Turns out not to be a big deal. A semi-audible voice comes over the speaker as I am standing on the south platform in Naperville saying the train will be arriving and departing from the north track, so I wal under the tunnel and emerege on the other side. The train approaches quickly and about a half dozen or so people board. A woman tells the conductor that the ticket machine is broken, and the conductor is calm about it, reassuring us that we’ll be able to get our tickets. I ask which way to business class and am directed to the back of the train.
Nice accomodations. Large, comfortable leather seats, power outlets, tray tables. The conductor comes back and we take care of the ticket situation, with me purchasing my new one. Turns out I didn’t need to cancel my reservation, as my name was on the manifest and I could have just waited and it would have been taken care of. But I had cancelled it with the customer service representative and that was that, so I need to buy a new ticket.
In any event, I get settled in nicely, and the steward gives me the obligatory talk about the emergency exits and tells me about the complimentary beverage to which I am entitled. I get my Blackberry out and post to Twitter, by this time already being in Aurora, and having taken a short video clip as I passed by the Route 59 station where people are boarding the 8:12 train that I usually take. Neat to have this perspective, as I notice this Amtrak train nearly every morning when I’m boarding the Metra train there.
We pass through Aurora and I call Jill and the boys and talk to them. Austin was sad when he woke up because I am not there, and when Jill tells him that I’m going to Macomb, he is excited because he expects me to bring him a macaw. I’ll see what I can do about that.
We stop in Plano, Illinois. The train continues into the more sparse flatland, as we pass farm after farm. I am on the computer and catch up in my journal, get the pictures and video I’ve shot already off the camera and on their way up to Flickr (which started supporting video just yesterday). This is fun. A homogenous landscape punctuated by moraines and a huge wind farm! We stop at Mendota, then Princeton. I don’t notice anyone getting on or off. After Princeton the landscape becomes rolling. More like home in Southern Indiana, with rolling hills covered by agriculture.
We arrive in Galesburg at about 10:10 which, according to the conductor, is right on time. This is the biggest place we’ve stopped so far. My information tells me there will be another 35 minutes or so to Macomb.
But that news of being on time has now changed. We pass through the small town of Prairie City and come to a stop. Engineer comes over the speaker and says we’re going to be following freight traffic and that will delay us at least a half hour. I try calling Dorothee, the proprietor of the Inselhaus, who will be picking me up at the train station to let her know I’ll be late, but she doesn’t answer, and I fear she’s already left for the train station. In any event, I continue to enjoy myself while updating this entry, loading video and pictures off the camera, and preparing for the remainder of the trip.
The Afternoon in Macomb
I arrive in Macomb at about 11:15 or so, and about a half dozen people get off the train. Dorothee is there waiting for me and it is not difficult to discern that I am her guest. She insists on carring my luggage and we get into her white Ford station wagon for the short trip to the Inselhaus. She speaks to me in good English but with a distinct German accent.
We go in the back way and she shows me to my room, No. 5. We chat in the hallway upstairs for a few minutes about various topics like how she and her husbank Karl ended up in Macomb (they moved from Germany in 1998 and bought a farm north of town) and how her son who has graduated law school is looking for a job in Chicago.
Dorothee goes downstairs and I spend the next hour or so on the computer upstairs in my room, reading feeds, updating pictures, checking and replying to email, etc. I call the client and arrange that he’ll pick me up here at 6:30 and we’ll meet this evening. At about 12:40 or so I head downstairs and introduce myself to Karl Gossel, Dorothee’s husband who has arrived. I then depart out the front door and head south toward the courthouse square to the Secret Garden restaurant which Dorothee recommended to me for lunch.
I enter the Secret Garden restaurant which is not busy at all — maybe one other customer. The waitress offers me a table near the front with lots of natural light. I sit facing inside the restaurant, but turn around often to look outside to the courthouse square. The restaurant is situated on the west side of the square. I order iced tea to drink and after looking at the menu order a sandwich and cup of cream of broccoli soup. The sandwich was very good. On sourdough bread is swiss cheese, bacon, artichoke, avocado and tomato. Afterward the waitress talks me into blackberry cobbler with ice cream. Very good as well. Different from the cobbler I’m used to, in that it is more bread-like rather than having crust. Very good.
Pay the bill and leave, walking around the court house square, snapping pictures, then making my way back to the Inselhaus where I find the door locked but fortunately have a key to unlock it. I go upstairs and get my computer which I bring into one of the parlors downstairs. I get my most recent pictures and video off the camera, upload those to Flickr and get this entry up to date. Dorothy comes in the room and we talk about the history of the house for awhile and I look through her photo album of the renovations in 2003 and 2004.
I then go up and change into running clothes. First head east from Inselhaus and then swing back heading west, across 67 and on, down into a rolling area in which Western Illinois University is situated. Very pleasant run. Probably in the 50’s; would be a bit chilly if I were not running but with the increased metabolism from the run it feels nice to be in t-shirt and shorts. Take a swing through campus and then return back to Inselhaus, being gone for exactly a half hour. Extremely energized by the exercise. Dorothee is gone so I use my key to enter the house. I go upstairs, shower and get back into my work clothes. I call and talk to Jill for awhile, and to Austin, who has finished dinner. Tyler is taking his bath. Spend some time on the Internet getting caught up, then get caught up in this journal. Am anticipating the clients coming to pick me up at 6:30. It’s 6:12 as I’m typing this.
The Client Meeting
The clients picks me up at 6:30 as planned. We drive to the Red Ox which is on the west side of town and go inside. Good conversation. I order grilled salmon encrusted in peppercorn. Very good. After dinner we go to the clients’ office and have the meeting. Very interesting subject matter. A conundrum as well. I return to the Inselhaus at about 12:30 a.m. Get things packed up a bit, and head to bed.
Sphere: Related ContentMore trees these days?
If so, is “capitalistic stewardship” the reason?
I used three paper towels to dry my hands in the men’s room. A coworker chided me for it and in so doing called me out as as being unsympathetic with environmental causes. I responded that there are more trees now in the U.S. than there were in 1900. That’s something that my dad used to tell me. Then I started wondering if it’s true.
The answer did not lend itself to a quick Internet search, but I did find this editorial from a publication in Hawaii. Wish I could find better authority, like the Forest Service report the author cites, but I haven’t taken the time to do so.
In any event, the proposition seems to make sense, and one of the main points of that article is that greed motivates conservation. The example he gives is that timber companies don’t want to destroy all the trees because that would but the companies into bankruptcy.
I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as “greed” being the motivator if called on to put it in my own words. “Rational economic activity” would suit it better. How about something along the lines of “capitalistic stewardship”? Wise, sustainable “use” of natural resources, in my book (printed on recycled paper, of course!), presumes the same kind of progress — economic, social and cultural — which we’ve grown to enjoy in America.
Sphere: Related ContentThe connected-immersive world as we’ll know it
While reading my RSS feeds this morning I ran across two interesting stories that relate to one another inasmuch as they’re futuristic, and describe technologies that will underlie the “online” experience. I put “online” in quotes because these technologies may change that experience not only in magnitude but in kind.
The first article talks about ultrafast connectivity which makes broadband look like a soda straw: ‘The Grid’ Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete. The second article addresses processing that would enable a more real-life virtual experience: Matrix-style virtual worlds ‘a few years away’ See the connection between those two things?
I just hope that talk about this stuff doesn’t seem as quaint as some of the predictions in this article: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?
Hat tip to Paul for a couple of these links.
Sphere: Related ContentPaused a moment to rethink time travel
For awhile I’ve been convinced that time travel must be impossible because there are no tourists coming from the future to visit us in this present. This theory does not originate with me, of course.
I paused for a moment this morning while having a conversation with Jill about this, when the thought occurred to me that perhaps the reason there are no visitors from the future is because the future has not yet occurred, and those visitors have not yet come into existence. Their existence, of course would be a necessary predicate for them traveling back in time to this present.
But then I remembered, there is only one present, this present, back to which those future beings could travel. It is in this, and only this present, that they would return. So I think my doubts concerning time travel remain valid. Right?
Sphere: Related Content2001: A Space Odyssey - that last scene is pretty messed up
A few months ago I saved Stanley Kubrick’s awesome 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey on the DVR. As you know, the movie is based on a book of the same name by Arthur C. Clarke who, incidentally, passed away a few weeks ago. I finally got around to watching it last night.
The movie is great, with its cinematography and photographic effects. Makes you think about ethics and technology too, in that one of the fundamental points of the plot is the conundrum of how to deal with HAL, the powerful computer that was essentially in charge of the mission to Jupiter.
The last scene of the movie (Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite) is way screwed up, and one is naturally left to ponder its meaning. Here’s what I think:
You’ll notice that Dave became that which he saw. When he arrived in that white, illuminated bedroom in the pod, he first saw himself standing in his space suit before himself. The pod then disappeared, and Dave was alone, standing in the space suit outside the pod. Then the space-suited Dave saw himself seated at a table, eating, as an old man. He then became that old man. The old man, after knocking the glass of water off the table, looked over and saw the wretched version of himself lying in bed, whom he became. That wretched version then saw before him the black monolith. We then see the transformation of Dave into a fetus. So, bottom line, the monolith must represent something of the origin of life.
Here’s a really interesting mashup, the scene with Pink Floyd’s song “Echoes” laid over the top of it.
I had always heard that Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon synched with The Wizard of Oz, but didn’t know about any purported synchronization between Echoes and 2001 until doing the research for this post. Here’s some more background on Wikipedia.
Sphere: Related Content