I came across an excellent site this afternoon that allows you to edit photos online. Pixer is simple and intuitive and has all the tools you would need to upload, crop, resize, and generally edit photos without spending a fortune on offline software.

There is a movement that many people are aware of in moving applications online, from Google Docs to Salesforce. These apps are either open source or subscription-based and provide (at a more basic level for now) many of the same services you will find in traditional offline applications. Moving the entire operating system online is the next step. Some commentators have spoken about something like GooOS, which extends Google’s enormous server-farms, quantity of scale costs and efficiencies, and sheer server power to the operating system. A WebOS like this would again re-volutionise the industry, and determine the winner in the power wars between Google and Microsoft. Of course, a tiny startup without the power or resources of both those players might prove to be the winner. We’ll have to see.

After trying desperately to get through to a human at one of this country’s many monopolies (this one has this annoying interactive voice response system), finally getting through to one and explaining my predicament, I was told a secret. And the secret I was told is far more useful than that pseudo-scientific new age rant The Secret. And the secret is that to get to a human operator, dial #9.

Oh yes and whilst waiting for over 15 minutes for someone to pick up the phone, then being disconnected because that operator preferred her KFC over my deep voice, then re-phoning and waiting again, I had a vision. (Well it’s done to some extent in countries like the US.) Instead of the customer waiting patiently for an operator, why not have the operator phone the customer (well automatically) when he or she becomes available? Then, if you wish, have that operator wait patiently until you are ready to take his or her call? Accountants and call centre nerds will moan about the lack of efficiency of this plan, how it wastes time and money, and all that rubbish, but at the ‘bottom line’ (to use an accounting term), it keeps the customer happy (if that happiness is only in keeping the call centre operator waiting).

Why did Shakespeare write Shakespeare

If vilia meritur vulgus* is true,

The groundlings who made up his theatre

Would find his language hard to chew.

If wealth were Shakespeare’s ‘lighted shaft’,

As modern historians deduce,

Then nonsense would more hit the mark

Than the brilliance he produced.

But, desiring immortality,

He wrote ‘So long lives this’,

This shows his partiality

Towards eternalness.

So I think both accounts are just:

His words, like gold, will never rust.

________________________________________
Copyright (c) Rowan Polo 2005. All Rights Reserved

* Let the vulgar mass admire trash

I read a lot and, like most people, would like to read more in less time (here I’m not talking about reading for pleasure). Over the years I’ve done extensive research and practice into different reading methods and ways to improve reading speed and retention. Here’s an overview of what I have discovered (obviously from a subjective perspective, so don’t take this as the ultimate word on any of these methods):

Speed Reading
Most people have heard of the idea Speed Reading, which is basically a combination of techniques and methods aimed to increase one’s reading speed (how many words you read a minute) as well as comprehension. It involves training one’s eyes to see more of the page in one glance, such as an entire sentence or paragraph, and reducing poor reading methods, such as going back over words you have read and reading words out loud in your head (subvocalisation). It also consists of ways to remember what you have read normally through some sort of pegging system. When these techniques are integrated, one’s overall reading speed is said to increase.

Tony Buzan
I’ve read a few books on Speed Reading, including a few of Tony Buzan’s interesting but not very practicable books on the subject. Buzan is a well-known ‘creative-thinker-turned-celeb’ (a lot of his creativity is in him reworking books into new editions and titles), who writes on improving mental performance and mindmapping.. On the topic of Speed Reading, he generally provides exercises for you to expand your vision (glancing on ever increasing words and numbers for an instant and writing down what you thought you saw), vocabulary increasing techniques, and pegging systems to jog your memory. Personally I find it difficult to achieve mastery on a subject just by reading a book and doing a couple of exercises (unless you let your subconscious do all the work). I assume most people who read books like this feel the same, and soon lose interest in both the subject matter and exercises.  Nevertheless, Buzan’s books are worth reading if just for curiosity sake, as they come with quite interesting anecdotes about mental athletes and histories of mental science and performance. They once gave me the idea of having a world Olympics for mental performance (variations of which exist already in one form or another), which I might pursue when I have enough money to do so (when you have enough money, you don’t need enough time ).

‘Mega’ Speed Reading
With a title like that, how can the gullible fail to be impressed? This is a study package by Howard Stephen Berg (who claims to be the world’s fastest reader) and infomercial extraordinaire Kevin Trudeau (famous for his ‘MegaMemory’ series on memory improvement, his technique being to have his annoying infomercial repeated so often on television that even those with the poorest memories remembered him). I ashamedly say that I bought this course in the mid 90s with great expectations. It comes in this impressive big hard box and opens up to a few cassettes (well in those days) and a ’study’ book thinner than The Olsen Twins. I went through the course, doing all the techniques, and came out with sore eyes and a not much faster reading speed (straining of the eyes, incidentally, is the main reason why speed reading is not sustainable). The techniques are quite vague, not even as comprehensive as Buzan’s, and will certainly not make a sustainable difference to your reading speeds.

PhotoReading
Continuing with my research a few years ago, I came across something called the “PhotoReading Whole Mind System”. This system uses a completely different approach to the traditional ones by improving our reading and comprehension by working through the subconscious mind (the right and at the moment mysterious part of our brain) instead of the ‘conscious’ one. The idea is that our subconscious mind is believed continuously to take in virtually all data experienced through our senses, filter it, make sense of it, and store it. (Many people in this age who speaks of the subconscious, its workings, and its abilities are considered quacks or pseudo-scientists but I think this will start to change as scientific research into this area becomes more mainstream.). PhotoReading takes this idea and asks the reader to relax, defocus the eyes, flip through a book at a page a second without trying to ‘read’ anything, and just allow the subconscious to absorb the text. Then the reader is asked to allow the subconscious to ‘process’ the information (people tend to speak in computer language when they don’t understand how something operates) for about 24 hours and then ‘activate’ the information through a series of techniques. Obviously the assumption is that any text is captured at all (although there is scientific evidence to show that the brain does capture all or most of what it takes in). After the ‘activation’ period, the person is said to have a holistic understanding of the book or material he or she ‘PhotoRead’. I have gone through this process several times and generally am as perplexed about the book or material afterwards than when I began. However, I think in principle this is a far more effective method of absorbing information than traditional speed reading because it tries to replicate how the mind actually absorbs information. The fact that it doesn’t work (there are many unverified claims that it does work though), tells me that the system, rather than the principle, is under-developed and needs more work. I think in time, and as we learn more about the brain and mind (whether there is a difference is left for another post), variations on PhotoReading that actually do work will develop. I commend Paul Scheele (the author of the system) for starting us on this path, even though it doesn’t lead anywhere yet.

(This post doesn’t really have a conclusion, because different methods work for different people. You need to find a conclusion for yourself.)

Some of us who have or have had piano (or any other classical instrument) lessons will remember the days when our teacher (usually old and bad-breathed), used to scrounge around in an old wooden drawer for a particular manuscript or piece of classical music. When they eventually found the piece they were (or weren’t) looking for, they opened it up, allowed dust to permeate out, and proceeded to the photocopy machine (that’s if you were lucky). The shnoop teachers made us pay extra for the photocopies, while the smart ones made us do our own (well not so smart if we lost the manuscript along the way). The manuscripts were often larger than A4, yellowed through decades of use, dog-eared, and thick with relentless scribbling for previous pupils. The photocopies invariably came out with parts of the staves missing on the left or right, illegible notes, and old-fashioned cursive scrawled over the legible parts. The more modern teachers made us go to the music shop and buy what is essentially royalty free music (photocopying is illegal you know!) at expensive prices (the extra charge is often justified on the basis that Mozart actually meant a D-sharp and all the previous edition editors were idiots in misreading it as a C-sharp). Well I’m glad to say that those days are over.

The search-engine hounds in us have over the years managed to find free scannings of classical music. However, it is often difficult to get the pieces we want, and to get there we have to trawl through Smilie adverts and obnoxious pop-ups. The other day, looking for a particular piece online, I came across PianoStreet.com. Piano Street is an online classical music library with a great and growing selection of fully licensed classical manuscripts, all available on PDF for the excellent price of $3.00 a month. All the pieces are easily searchable using a number of filters, and are categorized according to the skill level of the piece. Recordings and original composer transcripts are also available for many of the pieces. The service is only available for piano at the moment, but will no doubt expand to other instruments in time. Only those who have gone through the process described above will appreciate how effectively this service streamlines the finding, storing, and copying of classical sheet music. You simply print or save the manuscript, and it comes out perfectly set on the page, with none of the trappings of those drawer-and-time infested archives of your teacher. Classical music teachers are obviously the perfect customers for the service, because it saves considerable time and cost (let alone shelf-space) in finding the music for the student (and it’s legal). The only problem is that music teachers tend not to be the most technologically clued-up people (especially the nonagenarians amongst them). Hopefully youngsters will use that as an opportunity to earn money (or get lesson discounts) off their teachers by providing the service for them.

I’m a big Ayn Rand fan and used to be an Objectivist, that is, someone who believes that knowledge is gained through reason, that it is universally objective (as opposed to subjective), and that (amongst other things) man’s (and women’s) rational self-interest is in pursuing laissez-faire (hands-off) capitalism. Then I came to realise that ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’ can be defined in any way you wish to suit your own purposes. More so, I came to realise that Objectivism is a closed philosophy tightly held together by a group of middle-aged male zealots who ostracise insiders that dare criticise the philosophy. Oh well…

Now laissez-faire capitalism is a philosophy and practice I strongly hold true for reasons I shall discuss in a later post. I also believe in ethical egoism (people do actions based on self-interest). So how does one retain some views one holds to be true, and reject others in the face of better argued views? One finds philosophies with distinct but subtle variations on the theme. After reading readings on John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (no one can claim to have read that unreadable book), and thereby discovering Robert Nozick’s ingenious work Anarchy, State, and Utopia, I slowly became a libertarian. Libertarianism is actually not that much different from Objectivism (there are distinct differences though - for instance whether a state has a right to meddle in another state’s affairs), however its principles and structure are well argued (and heavily criticised by both left and right). The best and most coherent work on the subject is Milton Friedman’s classic Capitalism and Freedom, which brilliantly, critically, and realistically argues for freedom and thus the free market. It’s one of those rare academic works that is not argued from cloud cuckoo land, but based on reality. The book is so good that you won’t find it in any bookshop (well at least where I come from) so you’ll have to buy it online. (Noam Chomsky’s left-wing pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo overflows on the shelves though).

I won’t go into the merits and demerits of Libertarianism in this post, or how it differs from Conservatism or Objectivism, but just say that it argues for greater social and economic freedom in society. It says that less government and laws is good, but does not come from a naïve standpoint and faces some harsh realities and consequences of its implementation.

I’ve always found it odd how great culture is confined to the fringes of society, such as Art Nouveau cinema houses, specialist book stores, and obscure art galleries, whilst poor (for lack of a better term) culture dominates from the centre. In a perfect world it should be the other way around. ‘Mass’ culture should equate with the good or of the ‘high’ quality, and bad culture (well that’s what it is) should be at the fringe. In other words the world of culture is inside out.

I recently visited that excellent store DVD Nouveau in Cape Town to hire some ‘high’ culture films. Watching some excellent films has again spurred on this debate in my mind. Crime and Misdemeanours is a great, but quite unknown, Woody Allen flick that takes ancient Greek and Shakespearean literary themes about morality, justice, and humanity into the modern New York setting. It’s a brilliant film whose very brilliance has kept it on the societal fringe. It is amazing that it was nominated for any Oscars (that self-promoting mass-marketing device) at all. Annie Hall , another Allen classic, is a workaround of Groucho Marx’s statement (Allen traces it back to Freud but it can be traced back further to Lincoln amongst others) that he doesn’t wish to belong to any club that would accept him as a member. It’s a film that must have been revolutionary in its time in its structure and artistic devices. Barton Fink, a 1991 film by the Coen Brothers, plays on this very inside out theme being discussed. A playwright moves ‘down’ to Hollywood to write a Wrestling flick and invariably writes the best, though most unappreciated, work of his career.

It’s a misconception to see universities and other institutes of ‘high culture’ at the epicentre of society, because it’s far easier for mass culture to spread outwards than minor culture to spread inwards. It is unlikely that ‘Crime and Misdemeanours’ will ever spread inwards and be appreciated by the masses. However it is likely to remain at the fringe far longer than anything constructed from the centre. I will never read Harry Potter.

Vilia miretur vulgus

Saatchi Online is Charles Saatchi’s latest innovation and extension of his online galleries, taking the Long Tail theory into the world of art. The Long Tail theory basically suggests that physical constraints such as shelf-space limit markets and that the Internet de-limits markets (or allows for unlimited ’shelf-space’), thus extending markets down the ‘Long Tail’ into multiple niches. In other words Amazon extends down the Long Tail of books by providing a market for books that would never otherwise find their way into a bookstore.

Saatchi Online does for artists what Amazon does for writers and publishers, thereby creating an opportunity for artists from around the world to market their work in a way that has never before been possible.

John Cage, the 20th century American composer and mushroom collector, once said that ‘I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry’. Well, transposed to postmodern times, this phrase could read ‘I have nothing to write and I’m blogging it’. I hope that this is not the case with this blog and that I have something original and of value to say. This blog will be about whatever I feel like saying, at the risk of saying a lot about nothing and not falling into any category. I hope you enjoy.