The Resurrection of HP Will Not Be Televised

I just finished Stephen Shankland’s CNET report of his interview with Ron Coughlin, who runs the Personal Systems Group at HP, the computer and printer business that split off from Hewlett-Packard in 2015. Coughlin believes that personal computers are still a hot item and that HP is bringing a plethora of innovations to that market. He may be right, but his optimism does not necessarily provide grounds for feeling bullish about HP.

The problem is one of a legacy that goes all the way back to the days when William Redington Hewlett and David Packard were still actively involved in their company’s future. Hewlett-Packard was originally a hardware company. It designed and produced an impressive variety of devices that changed the nature of work in the technology sector. However, these were devices that were designed by engineers for use by other engineers.

As a result, for example, the idea that a digital computer could be “personal” was never part of the HP mindset. The same could be said for the idea that the value in a personal computer had more to do with its software than with its hardware. Thus, in the early days of HP’s venture into digital technology, they may have set a world record for some of the most user-hostile interfaces on the market. Apparently, this legacy does not signify in Coughlin’s mindset. Do a text search on Shankland’s article; and you will discover that the word “interface” never appears.

For those of us for whom computers dominate over the working environment, the future is far from the rosy one that Coughlin anticipates. That is because the software we are using keeps getting progressively worse. This is not just a problem of protection against malware. It is also a matter of basic functionality.

For example, part of my work involves using a Web-based “B2B” (business-to-business) download service. Most downloads are large and are therefore delivered as compressed files that need to be “unzipped” after they have been downloaded. This past summer, many of us using this service discovered that we were getting defective ZIP files that could not be decompressed. Over the course of several months, some of us participated in a variety of test cases, none of which showed signs of much progress. Then, one day, my Inbox had a message that asked if I had tried using Chrome. Sure enough, the Chrome browser downloaded perfectly sound ZIP files while both Firefox and Safari were fumbling the ball!

More recently, I have been making heavier use of audio streaming. For this I need to explain that I use a MacBook Pro, whose lid is kept closed while I work from an HDMI feed to a wide-screen display with “entertainment quality” speakers. Many of my audio resources require Flash, which is software that I try to avoid as much as possible. As a result, I have a setup in which only Safari permits the use of Flash from the sources I need. After the latest Flash “upgrade” (scare quotes intended) I discovered that the audio was no longer coming from my display but, instead, was squeaking out from under the lid of the MacBook! This time I was prepared; and, sure enough, things worked properly once I used Chrome instead of Safari!

I suppose we could turn this into a story about how Google will take over the world. I suspect that Google may have the best talent pool of software engineers in the technology sector, but I do not think that this is necessarily a matter of malicious intent. Rather, I think it has to do with the fact that the basic skills behind writing, testing, and releasing software have all been condemned to SNAFU status. Furthermore, we are so dependent on the technology that, as E. M. Forster predicted in “The Machine Stops,” we basically self-adapt to accommodate every degradation of the services we require. This happens not only at our desks but also in the face-to-face purchases we make, whether on a checkout line or at a food truck.

As the title of Forster’s short story suggests, things eventually come to a head with an across-the-board failing of all service technologies. This does not lead to mass chaos, because people have been so numbed by their dependence that they cannot even think about what to do next. In terms of contemporary culture, Forster assumes a mass of aimless zombies, rather than an angry mob with torches and pitchforks! Was he successful in seeing the future, and are we it?

Signal and Noise from Music Choice

I used to be a faithful subscriber to Sirius/XM as one of the more reliable sources of music for serious listeners. Unfortunately, the prevailing climate of property development here in San Francisco put an end to that. For about a year (at least), I have had to live with the fact that there is no longer a clear path along which I have been able to receive an effective signal from a Sirius/XM satellite. As a result I discovered the Music Choice service that I can receive as part of my Comcast service.

The good news is that this service provides channels that offer an impressive variety of both classical and jazz recordings, and the classical selections have turned out to offer a fascinating journey of discovery. The bad news is that the listener is not always sure just what it is that his/she is discovering. There is an abbreviated display of composer, title, and performers, which definitely provides more content than my old XM receiver; and, for my money, I prefer those displays to the babble of announcers that do not seem to know that all much about what they are playing.

Unfortunately, many of those displays have serious noise problems. Thus, one will read the name of an orchestra conductor while listening to solo piano music. On the other hand, when the music is orchestral, one may read the name of an ensemble that did not even exist when the conductor was alive!

This system is obviously driven by a data base. The problem is that the data base has been "fed" by a process that has no check for data accuracy. Given the size of the library available to Music Choice, one can appreciate their need for efficiency; but efficiency in the absence of accuracy does not count for very much!

For the most part this is little more than an annoyance; and, like those depicted in E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops," we live in a world in which we tolerate annoyance, because we no longer have the technical skills to remedy it. Nevertheless, one has to wonder just how many other instances there are as disinformation being presented as legitimate content for no reason other than the premise that fact-checking costs too much and takes too long to do correctly. Meanwhile, my network connectivity is such that it may be worth checking on whether I can receive Sirius channels through an app on my television or Blu-ray player; but can I count on them to provide more reliable content?

Bad Gecko!

The following was released on the ABC7 News Web site late last night:

Insurance giant GEICO, Government Employees Insurance Company, says it will pay $6 million to settle a complaint accusing the company of unfairly over charging poor, low-and-moderate income women, and single drivers.

This is the sort of thing that happens when a company spends more money on its advertising budget than it does on providing customers with the services they think they are going to get after paying attention to those ads. (In GEICO's case, that involved a veritable deluge of clever advertising.) I am reminded of the terrible service from United Van Lines back when they were sinking all of their money into Stiller & Meara radio commercials.

Who Serves Whom?

In the latest issue of The New York Review, David Cole, in his article "The New America: Little Privacy, Big Terror," makes the following statement:

When we carry our cell phone, use (or have downloaded) apps on those phones, browse websites, send e-mails or texts, drive in our cars, or make purchases with a credit card, we send digital information about our whereabouts, our association, our interests, and our needs and desires to the corporations that serve us.

It is that last phrase that gets to me. We may be customers or clients; but, thanks to all those opportunities that Cole outlines, it is no longer fair to say that any corporation "serves" is customer or client base. Simply by providing all those data, we now serve them. It is almost as if, by virtue of the data they acquire, corporations now, for all intents and purposes, own us and deliberately manipulate us to generate numbers that look good on balance sheets and stockholders' reports.

I should have seen this coming. Back when I was trying to pursue "knowledge management" as a legitimate domain for research, I was first exposed to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). While the ideals of CRM looked good enough on paper, allowing me to address questions of how knowledge management might leverage CRM by providing more personalized interactions with customers, once I saw the technology in use, I realized that it was pointing in the opposite direction. As I put it in a post back in 2010, it was basically a technology for "desubjectivizing" customers, transforming them from agents acting according to their personal motivations into data points to feed banks of analytical software. While others were looking for technologies that would commoditize knowledge, the game was going to those who had figured out how to commoditize their own customers!

Depending on Defective Software

My recent "Confluence of 'Glitches'" piece suggested that the sorts of systems failures that have recently plagued institutions as large as United Airlines and the New York Stock Exchange may be traced back to a major nosedive in what, when I was both teaching and research computer science, used to be called "software quality." Indeed, it has been so long since I have encountered that phrase that I have to wonder whether or not it still has any currency in current software engineering practices. The fact is that our day-to-day life is more and more dependent on software embedded in the devices and systems that we now use heavily. This is no longer a question of OS X software not being as good as it used to be. Within the last 48 hours I had an encounter with a security guard dealing with screen freeze on his cell phone. I have a Blu-ray player that keeps telling me to wait while it upgrades its software; and even after that "improvement" it still freezes on some Blu-ray discs. Comcast recently decided to implement a "smarter" HDMI interface, which has now been upgraded to make it worse than it was when I first used an HDMI connector. To add insult to injury, OS X Firefox can no longer display Blogspot pages with the utility bar at the top of the screen!

Recently, the Business section of the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the rise of "coding boot camps" in the Bay Area. This was a corporate-based response to the observation that coding talent is not what it used to be. Still, there is it worth asking just what sort of training those boot camps are providing? Could it be that software has gone down the tubes due to a competitive environment in which fast delivery is more important than product reliability? (After all, Microsoft conditioned us to expect that all software needs periodic updating.) Is this a sign of just how badly we are at the mercy of technology that no longer works according to plan?

A Confluence of "Glitches?"

It is not often that I agree with the FBI, particularly after Director James Comey's fumbling Congressional testimony on why his agency should have access to all encrypted communications. However, his response to three major computer outages (United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange, and The Wall Street Journal) taking place all on the same day was the right one. Those who investigate criminal acts cannot afford to be "big believers in coincidence."

Indeed, this may be one of those cases in which investigators have to exercise the full scope of imagination to come up with a wide variety of qualitatively different hypotheses. One should be able then to assess systematically each hypothesis. Some will be easy to eliminate, while others will require more intense scrutiny and investigation. (The very question, "What will it take to refute this hypothesis?" can be a valuable driver for deciding the directions investigation should take.)

Even the hypothesis that this was, indeed, a confluence of accidents needs to compete with the other hypotheses. The point is that confluence is not necessarily a matter of coincidence. In this case, for example, it may simply be the result of the general decline in software quality, regardless of the particularly function being served by the software. In other words things went south for United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange, and The Wall Street Journal for the same reason that they keep going south for OS X with increasing frequency.

Rage Against the Technology

Those who get high on the Kool-Aid of disruptive technologies are usually too stoned to realize that, if not properly managed, disruption can result in an eruption of violence. This is what happened when 2800 Parisian taxi drivers went on strike to protest against UberPop. As one can read in Hugo Leenhardt's report for ABC News, things got really ugly; and, as is usually the case in war, the ugliness infected both sides. So, while Uber cars were vandalized, it appears that one Uber driver decided to deal with a cabbie blocking his way by running over the guy. What makes things all the more depressing is that the French government had already declared UberPop to be illegal, banned due to unfair competitive practices. As a result Paris has discovered something that any American city with a plethora of bike riders aggressively competing with motorists on city streets has known all along: A practice is only illegal if legality is sustained through enforcement. Clearly, such enforcement did not not take place "with all deliberate speed" in Paris. This led to the usual problem with vigilante justice: offended parties taking the law into their own hands, usually with violent results.

It is unclear that there is a way out of this mess. The fact is that technology evangelists have managed to disrupt the world of governance while pursuing an agenda that seems to have involved disrupting the world of work. The primary consequence is that all of us are living in a world in which goods are more likely to be defective and services are less likely to be reliable. It is hard to imagine our arriving at a closer approximation to the apocalyptic world that E. M. Forster envisaged in "The Machine Stops." Unfortunately, one of the services that has been disrupted beyond recognition is education. Thus, while in Forster's world people just got more tolerant of an increasing number of flaws, we now seem to be creating a new generation too stupid to realize that those flaws even exist.

Follow the Money to the Man Cave

CNET News reporter Max Taves provided an interesting summary of venture capital investments that were concluded over the past week. I treat this as highly recommended reading matter. I further recommend that every reader review the entire list to look for any sort of common trends. My personal interpretation is that the current generation of venture capitalists is being drawn to self-indulgence in a big way. This is not just a shift from products that do useful things to services that allow the idle rich to be more idle. Rather, it seems to be a calculated response to analytical results suggesting that the fastest way to quick profit is through the exploitation of infantilism. Mind you, this amounts to a corollary of the principle that any form of consumerism involves the exploitation of the potential for infantile behavior. So it should be no surprise that, if you want to follow a venture capitalist's money, the path will probably lead you to the man cave.

Service Providers that Don't

As a followup to yesterday's post about reality-checking innovation, I feel it worth noting that the problem goes beyond the invention of artifacts. Yes, we are drowning in innovative artifacts, all of which are developed to realizes scenarios about how much better things will be when they work, as if the failure of any mere artifact was not an option. However, things are no better in the service sector, possibly because prevailing thinking (such as IBM's effort to declare and then study "service science") seems to have gotten hooked on trying to reduce service to a product. However, Google does not help you find which shelf has the eye drops at your local pharmacy; and, even automatic checkout systems (like the one at Safeway) need a human to see to what happens when human behavior does not meet the expectation of the machine. Similarly, one of the channels on your cable system does not black out all by itself: A machine may implement breaking the connection, but it is responding to some policy decision (or, perhaps, the refusal of the service provider to accept the terms proposed by a particular channel).

These are not consequences of what happens when the technology breaks. They are "corollary events" that arise because, no matter how many machines there are, we are still part of a sector of people inhabiting the world. As people we are consumers of both products and services. The providers may wish that they would not have to deal with our all-too-human frailties, but they seem to have decided that denial is a better strategy than coping.

Still, there is a lesson to be learned here. Don't waste your time raging against the machine. Find out (perhaps with the help of one or more machines) who are the people behind the machine. They are the ones who should feel your rage!

BBC Joins Those Seeking an "Apple Reality Check"

As I discovered from all the time I spent on discussion groups trying to resolve the many problems that arose with the upgrade to Yosemite, I am far from alone in complaining that Apple's house is far from in order, particularly where OS X is concerned. Still it was gratifying to find the BBC adding its voice (albeit an anonymous one) to the protests. Yesterday, the Technology division of Newsbeat responded to the latest new-product show here in San Francisco with an article trying to address why Apple was not fixing existing problems rather than coming up with new cool stuff to shove down our throats. Is this a policy decision that can be traced all the way to the top of the managerial food chain, or does it come from a slightly lower level while Tim Cook goes around "being a personality" with little clue about what is going on in the development and maintenance of his own products? Inquiring minds (not to mention shareholders) would like to know!

Addendum: After I wrote the story, BBC News broke the story about a general software failure in Apple operations that affected iTunes, App Store, and iCloud. It could not have come at a better time. This is not so much a matter of Schadenfreude as it is one of painful nostalgia for days when you could count on Apple when all of the alternatives left far to much to be desired. For my own work activities, I am constrained by the fact that Examiner.com requires the use of either Firefox or Chrome when I submit my articles. I cannot say that I have very much confidence in Chrome yet for either software or hardware. I suppose I might be able to work on Firefox on a Linux machine, but I am not sure how well it supports iTunes. I could care less about the download service they provide, but I have dug myself a hole by using them to index music I have downloaded from other sources. I have never felt that my personal work practices were sufficiently modest that they would not be hard to satisfy, but now it feels like Brünnhilde has finished building her funeral pyre and is about to put a match to it!

If it Ain't One Thing …

I have been braced for the fact that the move to Yosemite on my MacBook Pro would be unpleasant, but I have to confess that I was unprepared for the quantum leap in unpleasantness that I would face. The bottom line is that Yosemite is such a mess that, for the most part, Apple's own Help Desk staff are powerless to be of much assistance. In this brave new world the only assistance comes from discussion groups, and the best ones are the ones not based on Apple Web sites. Thus, when I had to contend with an installation that hung after only 50% of the new system had loaded, I discovered that I learned most of what I needed to know by reading discussion groups while waiting on hold. My telephone connection went through right about when I figured out what I had to do, which means that, at least, I was able to verify the validity of my actions before taking them (with a guy who could barely articulate his words clearly, possibly as a result of battle fatigue). Since then I have had to contend with folder management taking over my entire machine and a Java inconsistency that interfered with my using a piece of software vital for my Examiner.com activities. The latest had to do with iTunes starting spontaneously, leading my wife to ask why she was hearing music coming from the computer room while I was out of our condo.

There has been word in the technology news that Tesla has been recruiting Apple hardware talent. I hope they are not doing the same for software. The idea of cars out there on the roads running software written by the folks that brought the world Yosemite makes my blood run cold.

How Bad is Mail Delivery in San Francisco?

On those nights when I am not reviewing a concert and can pick up my mail after I return, it no longer makes sense for me to check my mailbox until the next morning.

Does Customer Satisfaction Still Matter?

I began the New Year by asking the question "What Makes a Satisfied Customer?" I concluded that, because expectations regarding customer service have become so diminished, the very concept of customer satisfaction may have lost any meaning of significance, this being Max Weber's envisaged consequence of a dominance of market-based thinking. I think I may have recently experienced a data point to reinforce that position.

It began with my intention to get a cup of coffee at Peet's. I seem to have reached an age at which, whatever the time of day, coffee has become helpful in keeping me focused when I am reviewing a concert. Unfortunately, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, one of the best acoustic venues for concerts in San Francisco, is not in the best location for getting coffee. Since it is a short walk from where I live, the Peet's on the ground of my building is one of the more viable alternatives.

The last time I needed to cover a concert at St. Mark's, I made the short detour into that Peet's. After asking for small coffee to go, I asked what flavor scones were available. They were in the display case; but there were no identifying cards specifying ingredients or, for that matter, price. They guy behind the counter absolutely refused to answer my question. When I finally pointed explicitly about the three (different) scones in the counter, he said, "Tell me which one you want, and I'll tell you what it is." At that point I said, "Forget it; and forget the coffee, too." I got my coffee at the Mel's that is only a couple of blocks away from the church.

Reflecting back on this, I realized that the guy may not even have known what a scone was, let alone that they are made in different flavors. However, he was probably trained that, under no circumstances, should he ever answer a question with, "I don't know." In other words, not only was he not trained properly in techniques of providing useful information, but also he training prevented him from being either honest or useful.

This afternoon I decided it would be a good idea to let the manager of that particular Peet's know there was a problem. I found someone behind the counter willing to give me the time of day. I asked if the manager was around, since I wanted to report an incident that had happened over the weekend. She said, "I'll get her." Several minutes later, she came back and said, "She's on a conference call; can you come back at 8 AM tomorrow?" Rather than be as abrupt as I had been the last time, I asked if I could report the incident on the Peet's Web site and was given a useful reply.

On the other hand, I realized that such a Web page could easily be just like that joke about the suggestion box without a bottom positioned over a waste basket. If I had a problem, I had done exactly what market-based thinking said I would do: I took my money to another vendor. If enough people shared my dissatisfaction, they would do the same; and, sooner or later, the bean-counters at Peet's would take notice. If that critical mass was never reached, then I was a meaningless outlier, whose opinion really did not matter.

Max Weber was right; in a world dominated by market-based thinking, fundamental concepts, such as "customer satisfaction," can lose their meaning!

What Makes a Satisfied Customer?

I am assuming that Chris Matyszczyk wanted his latest CNET article "Samsung beats Apple in customer satisfaction, says survey" to be read with a jaundiced eye, since that is the way he seems to like to write. Nevertheless, between those factors that might indicate that the survey was flawed and those that suggest that satisfaction with any product or brand tends to depend on a rich context of factors, many of which get abstracted way by survey designers, there remains the question of whether satisfaction itself is context-dependent. The late Mike Nichols used to do a routine with his then wife Elaine May about a guy at a pay phone trying to get satisfactory service from Ma Bell. This involved more escalations than I can remember, but each one brought with it a different attitude from the service provider.

These days I would guess that we really do not expect very much competence from a help desk. We know that the voice on the other end of the line is just reading things the computer is telling him/her to read. Some of us are experienced enough to know bad advice when it is dished out to us, and others are not so fortunate. The point is that, like all of the characters in E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops," we come to accept the flaws in the system rather than give up all the "improvements" the machine provides, even when it is no longer providing them. In other words we  now live in a world of drastically reduced expectations; and when expectations are that diminished, satisfaction no longer has any meaning. In yet other words, "customer satisfaction" has become yet another phrase that has lost its meaning, thus fulfilling, yet again, Max Weber's proposition that loss of meaning is one of the more dire consequences of a society that is market-based to the exclusion of all other factors.

Is Comcast Being Hacked?

For about half a week I have noticed that specific channels have been unavailable through my Comcast box. Over that period I have watched BBC World Service News go away, come back on Saturday morning, and be gone again later that day. This morning I noticed that Al Jazeera English had been lost, having been my primary alternative to BBC during these "troubles." There have also been some interesting examples of channels, such as BBC America and Showtime, which are unavailable but are accessible through their HD alternatives.

According to the Comcast Customer Service Web site, everything is in great shape. All they know is whether or not there is a signal for my set-top box to detect. They do not care about any of the specifics of that signal. At least through the automated phone service I have been able to confirm that this is a real problem; but, of course, no specifics are to be had. Given the current tenor of the times, it would not surprise me if this is all the result of some external hacking. (Is someone over at AT&T trying to bring down Comcast channel by channel?) What particularly interests me, however, is that this has all the earmarks of a problem with software confronting service technicians who are primarily trained in fixing hardware. Is it only a matter of time before the whole machine stops?

Is the Social Network Sociopathic?

Chris Matyszczyk had a field day today with his Technically Incorrect blog for CNET news. The title of his post was "Does Facebook prolong heartbreak?;" and, as might be expected, the post was all about an affirmative answer to that question. The basic argument is that Facebook has a tendency to remind you of things you would prefer to neglect, one reason being that it has no way of marking certain links in a social network as leading to an emotional minefield for someone at one end of that link. To be fair, there is probably a good chance that any function capable of making such marks is not Turing-computable; but I think that just makes the point stronger. Those of us who continue to caution against unintended consequences continue to be in the minority, even when those consequences may be sociopathic.

However, while Matyszcyk's post may add fuel to one of my favorite fires, I have to be skeptical about its conclusions. The problem is that Matyszczyk's source for this post happens to be an article on Mail Online, the online service provided by the London Daily Mail. While the Daily Mail may have better claims to legitimacy that, say, the National Enquirer, I am not convinced it is that all much better. This particular story was filed by "DAILY MAIL REPORTER," which strikes me as a red flag that protects any particular individual from taking the rap for bad (or, worse yet, libelous) information.

The primary source then turns out to be Sir Nigel Shadbolt, who has never had any problems in accepting the burden of authority by publishing under his own name. The fact that he spends much of his time drinking Semantic Web Kool-Aid is his own affair. The point is that, because I know about his professional reputation, I am in a better position to assess my skepticism of his assertions than I am when confronted with an anonymous source.

I would, however, observe that Shadbolt is one of the co-founders of the Web Science Research Initiative. His co-founders are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Wendy Hall, and Daniel Weitzner. Having voice criticism about the IBM "service science" initiative in the past, my reaction to "Web science" is basically "more of the same." Just as "service science" tried to factor the social dimension out of acts of providing service, I fear that "Web science" may have a similar objective. This is likely to have no effect on any general awareness of unintended consequences and may even reinforce those determined to believe that such consequences do not signify.

Fortunately, since my own presence on Facebook is kept to a bare minimum (and that only because it is required for some Examiner.com communications), I do not think I need worry about any new threats to my own sense of psychological well-being.

Krugman on Microsoft and Apple

Paul Krugman's latest post to his blog for The New York Times (The Conscience of a Liberal) is entitled "On the Symmetry between Microsoft and Apple." This is clearly a reflection on the news of Steve Ballmer's resignation at Microsoft. However, it provides speculation about the future for Apple, as well as Microsoft, beginning with the disclaimer that Krugman is "not a tech industry maven." I actually take this as an asset, since it means that he probably does not have much toxic Kool-Aid flowing through his circulatory system.

Krugman's preference is stated early and is highly pragmatic. In his words, "the wonderful people in the Wilson School IT department, who have saved my life multiple times, aren't set up to deal with Apple products." From this he extrapolates to the generally conservative mindset of those responsible for managing IT for large organizations, and he anticipates a better future for Microsoft than for Apple. He then makes what I feel is the most significant statement about Apple's inadequacy:

And if you are an atypical user, you end up putting a lot of effort into fighting iOS in order to do simple things.

My guess is that Krugman and I are in a similar boat. We both do a lot of writing that depends on doing a lot of background reading, and we want to be supported by quality software. However, we also have recreational interests (such as my dependence on the music on my hard drive to get me through an unbearable flight on United Airlines). Laptops do a good job of satisfying both of these needs. Apple at a lot to do with things turning out that way; and I wish Krugman had been a bit more explicit about the extent to which Windows was, for quite some time, a cheap imitation of the Macintosh operating system. The price of that quality was user-friendliness, which is why, even at a higher price, Apple could still promote the Mac with its "computing for the rest of us" slogan.

At some point, however, Steve Jobs lost interest in that slogan. I have suggested that his new motto promoted Apple as "the world's coolest toymaker." That slogan really took off with the launch of the iPhone and the introduction of the iOS operating system. The result is that I am now in the same boat as many who desperately want to cling to technology that helps us get our work done and keeps seeing that technology withdrawn from us, regardless of who the software provider is. Furthermore, if I were to be so bold as to extrapolate, I see the buzz forming around the iWatch as a sign that "the world's coolest toymaker" may now metamorphose into something that will appeal to more mature consumers, such as "the world's coolest fashion accessory."

I think Krugman missed out in avoiding the role that this "cool factor" may play in the future. Microsoft is not, nor has it ever been, cool. That is what its effort to appear cool in its recent round of Surface ads on television were so embarrassingly painful. It basically imagined a world of work run by slackers whose only behavior pattern consists of salivation every time Apple hinted that a new product was coming. Microsoft would do better to appeal to those stodgy tortoises that at least know where they are headed and will persist even when progress is slow. Sometimes they are slow because they think about what they are doing before doing it. It would be nice to know that there are some technology providers out there who do not want that species to go extinct.

Trying to Break the Iron Grip of Package Television Deals

According to a BBC News report this morning, Time Warner made a move to resolve the current CBS blackout that may turn out to be the first shot in a revolutionary war over cable pricing. It basically said that it was willing to restore CBS service to those customers willing to pay for it as if it were a paid channel like HBO. CBS wasted no time rejecting the proposal. Their ratings have been such that they know they get a better deal by charging a flat fee to Time Warner that gets them included in the "basic" package, regardless of how many people actually watch their programs. This means that they can maintain their priority of appealing to would-be advertisers over appealing to viewers.

Those of us on the other side of the set-top box, whether for cable, satellite, or even an Internet connection, know better. My Comcast box has now allocated all 999 of its channel slot. I know enough of my own viewing habits to observe that this means that there are hundreds of channels I do not watch and probably would never even think of watching. Even under the package I currently receive, that number is probably still more than 100. I can think of any number of alternative fee schedules structured around what I really watch that would give me a lower monthly bill; and, from a logical point of view, it makes sense that Comcast would translate that lack of demand to the content providers that do not get very many viewers. This might even lead to a better economic model for all those previously failed efforts of "serious arts" channels, which would be to find the right "sweet spot" between a smaller number of viewers willing to spend a larger amount of money.

Will there really be a revolution? Probably not. Businesses survive on the basis of inertia, no matter how many evangelists preach innovation at the top of their lungs. Furthermore, the very concepts of "public good" and "successful business" are further apart than ever. This will probably turn out to be yet another case in which we live with the status quo as it gets less and less effective until, finally, "the machine stops;" and nothing is left.

Forster's Machine Stops in the Real World

The "tipping point" (if I may use that expression) in E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" comes when people learn how to live with the mistakes the machine is making, because no one is left with the skills to diagnose or repair those problems. Over the last several weeks I have observed both customers and staff at my local Safeway cross this tipping point. This has involved several weeks of scarcity (if not lack) of inventory, which has now progressed to a pronounced reduction in the number of shopping carts. My guess is that Safeway is far from the only provider of goods and/or services to have gotten trapped in this state; and I would argue that the condition is the ultimate consequence of decisions made in the interest of shareholders, rather than those of either workers or customers. I toyed with the idea of placing my order online and arranging for delivery, but it did not take long to discover that the surcharges were prohibitive. However, one of the floor managers happened to mention that he, himself, did not shop at the branch I use; so, in the interest of gathering more data, I plan to check out another branch on my next trip. That alternative is closer but smaller, so I used to prefer to go to the larger branch where there were more choices. Since my grounds for preference have changed, I figure it is time to reconsider that alternative!

Are We Still Worrying about Rain?

Back in the Dark Ages, when, as a result of my role as a Silicon Valley researcher, I was an early adopter of DSL to my home in Palo Alto (which took SBC about a year to get working, leading my wife to call them "The Stupid Solutions People"), I soon discovered that my connection would get flaky whenever it rained. (These were also the early days of globalizing customer support. So I had my first experience of dealing with a help desk that had no idea what weather conditions were like outside my window, working from a script that he preordained that such information was irrelevant.) Today the Bay Area is getting its first major rainfall (much to the consternation of Giants fans); and, almost as if like clockwork, Yahoo! Mail is exhibiting regular drifts off into Aristophanes' cloud cuckoo-land.

So, as we get besieged with television commercials telling us about the mass proliferation of cell towers, do we need to ask how much of our "advanced" digital technology rests on the foundation of a decades-all infrastructure that still cannot stand up to a little rain?