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Friday, May 10, 2002
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James Lileks isn't the only one looking forlornly at older, simpler ways of getting things done.
I'm taking a class on the business aspects of being a freelance writer. At one point in his rambling discussion of the field, the instructor mentioned his solution to the problem of recording what happens during an interview. He doesn't like using a tape recorder because of the possibility of failure and because of the time it takes to transcribe the results. His preference is typing on the AlphaSmart, a simple, cheap, computer-like device with a full-size keyboard and four-line LCD display. It has enough memory to store a hundred pages of plain text and connects to a PC or Mac through a cable that makes the main computer see it as an automated keyboard.
This sounds familiar, yes? Back in the Pleistocene era of personal computer development, Radio Shack was hawking the TRS 80 Model 100, which was basically a keyboard with a four-line LCD display. Reporters and other on-the-road types loved it.
These days, everybody uses a three-thousand-dollar supercomputer-on-wheels with a half-gigabyte of memory, 60 GB hard disk, CD-ROM reader/writer/fabricator, wi-fi card, and stereo speakers. Unfortunately, this behemoth has batteries that last only a few hours, displays stuff on a folding screen that you can't unfold in a cattle-car seat on an airliner, uses an operating system containing 38 million lines of code, and costs more than the GDP of some developing nations.
Seems like overkill for simple writing, no?
I've ordered an AlphaSmart. And, just for the record, I still use the four basic programs built into my four-year-old Palm III.
11:55:59 PM 
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Brink Lindsey wonders how you get to be a warlord.
9:23:07 PM
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Dave Winer has a guest article by Adam Curry, a well-known radio and TV personality in Holland. Curry has a lot to say about the recent assassination of Pim Fortuyn, a candidate in the election for Dutch prime minister. If ever there was an example of the need for very critical reading and watching of big-media offerings, this is it.
The bitter pill was yet to come for the Dutch. As the world's media started to report on the tragedy came more disbelief: Pim Fortuyn was being described by the world press as a "Hard Right Winger", "The Dutch Le Pen", "anti-muslim", "Racist". The only correct description I read or heard was "Populist". That Pim was indeed.
It was stunning to read the New York Times report "Fortuyn's rise mirrored a right-wing resurgence in several European countries, lately highlighted by the anti-immigrant Jean Marie Le Pen's surprise showing in the first round of French presidential elections."
Was the Times talking about the same Pim that the Dutch endeared as he would appear on every talk show, always dressed to the nice with his sharp wit at hand. Was this the same Pim the country had enjoyed for ten years as a writer of many political books and weekly columns always aimed squarely at exposing the underbelly of Dutch politics, which is mostly played out behind closed doors in the Hague. All Dutch know it, but Pim wasn't afraid to say it.
One of Curry's links is to an essay about mass media. These thoughts, from a man who has been in the belly of the beast are well worth reading.
We think we have advanced so far from the days when the regular folk were uninformed peasants who could be roused by the powerful with jingoistic sayings, colorful flags, and the beating of drums. I wonder. Today we are on the average better educated, and we have more information at our disposal. At the same time, the powerful have more sophisticated methods for disbursing their information. Add to that the coincidental effect that money has on how the news establishment creates and carries stories, and I suspect that we may not be so very far ahead of our ancient, uneducated forbears.
12:41:43 PM
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© Copyright
2002
Ivan Heling.
Last update:
6/1/02; 12:16:02 AM.
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