The Intermission

This past Friday, as I usually do, I perused the Amazon Friday Sale. One object in particular caught my eye: the “Merry Pet” brand Mansion Wood Pet House. Here’s a picture:

My mind immediately jumped to two reasons why I would never buy this.

1. If I’m going to spend $450 for a pet house, it should make my pet more than just “merry”. It should be the “Ecstatic Pet” Mansion Wood Pet House. Or the “Suddenly Perfectly Well Behaved” Mansion Wood Pet House.

2. I’m generally opposed to Keiko living anywhere that’s nicer than my home. Mainly, I’m worried that Keiko will spend one night in there, learn how to play pinochle, order a glass monocle online, and then come out the next morning telling me what to do. “I say, dear boy, would you mind fetching me that ball?” In my imagination, she comes out looking and sounding like Mr. Peabody.

Powered by AOL Video

So I’ll steer clear of the pet mansion for now.

A friend who recently read my post about the Nokia iPhone knockoff referred me to another blog where Gong Szeto explains why he likes knockoffs. Gong is talking primarily about the fashion industry, but most of his points could apply to any industry. Basically, he argues that copying is good for innovation because it forces designers to keep innovating. Also, he says it encourages what I will call “deep innovation” — inventing new fabrics, new distribution methods, new categories of clothing.

I can’t disagree with much of what Gong says, but I still disagree with his ultimate conclusion. Although its true that copy cats force established companies to keep innovating, it still feels very wrong to think that the company who spends millions of dollars in R&D for a new product can ultimately lose to a company who just clones that innovation. Of course the copy cat can sell their product for less… they didn’t have to do any of the hard thinking! And by buying from the copy cat, you’re rewarding their laziness.

Think of it this way… you either believe that companies who innovate should be rewarded with success, or you believe that companies who innovate should ultimately be killed by those who are good at copying. Personally, I’m willing to pay a little more to reward a company for innovating, and to encourage them to keep going. Though I’m willing to admit that probably puts me in the minority.

I don’t have the knowledge to do a thorough history lesson on this subject, but I know that people have made basically this same complaint against Microsoft for years. Microsoft finds something successful (e.g. graphical user interfaces, desktop publishing tools, web browsers) and creates a cheap copy. The cheap copy undercuts their competition and forces them out of the market. Then that market stagnates.

Although it sounds good and Darwinian to say that the true innovators will always survive, that’s not really true if they can’t make money from their innovations. But I will agree with Gong that I don’t care for those protracted copyright battles. Companies shouldn’t need the government to protect their intellectual property. Consumers should just buy goods from the companies they want to support.

This news article definitely caused me to pause for a minute:
Russia tests ‘dad of all bombs’ (CNN)

Apparently, the U.S. used to be in command of the world’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb. It is known as the “mother of all bombs”, a nickname derived from it’s official name “massive ordinance air blast”. (There’s a “your mom” joke waiting to happen.)

However, Russia has now successfully tested a non-nuclear bomb that is four times more powerful, and they’re calling it the “dad of all bombs”. Here are some excerpts from how the article describes the Russian bomb: “blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design… [it] explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast… a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.”

Yet Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, says “Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn’t hurt the environment…”

What?! The 990 foot explosion of fire that creates a mushroom cloud and causes massive shock waves doesn’t hurt the environment? I’d like to see the environment after that bomb hits. I’m imagining that this is some magical bomb that only destroys tanks and buildings, but leaves everyone inside and all the vegetation around them intact. Now that would be a sweet bomb!

I’m sure Rukshin intended to say that it doesn’t cause the radiation and nuclear fallout associated with nuclear bombs, but to say that it doesn’t hurt the environment is just silly. Silly Rukshin.

At Bridge, I work with a girl named Megan. Megan is great. She knows her stuff and cuts through other peoples’ crap really quickly. She also happens to be punctual, which causes her some frustration when other people arrive for meetings a little less promptly. So Megan did a little napkin math to figure out how much of her life she has spent waiting for meetings to begin…

So I have this bad habit of being on time to meetings. And I’d say in about 9 out of all 10 meetings I go to, I’m the first one there. And I usually spend 3-10 minutes sitting in the room by myself.

Sometimes I wander back to my desk, sometimes I go find the people I’ll be meeting with.

I probably have an average of about 10 meetings a week. Somedays WAY more and somedays WAY less… so lets do the math.

I’ve worked here for 46 months. = 184 weeks, minus vacation, so 176 weeks.

10 meetings a week = 1760 meetings.

5 minutes of my time wasted per meeting = 8,800 minutes wasted

8,800/1440 (Minutes in a day) = 6.1

I’ve wasted 6.1 DAYS of my life being early to meetings!

FULL DISCLOSURE: This should not, in any way, be read as a complaint against Bridge. Well, I can’t swear for Megan, but I know that I love working there. It’s a great company that works with fantastic clients. It’s also one of the best small companies to work for, according to the Great Places to Work Institute.

I find it interesting that many people clamor for shorter meetings or no meetings at all. To me, that pretty much makes no sense at all. Meetings are where all the best stuff happens. Admittedly, it’s also where the worst stuff happens… there will always be those hour long meetings where you have to attend just to contribute your 5 minutes worth of information. But then there are excellent meetings where great minds hash out important questions. I can’t imagine getting rid of those meetings and still getting anything done.

In the commentary for The Incredibles, someone (Brad Bird?) talks about how Pixar has an abnormal policy toward meetings… they like them! People get in these meetings and hash out all kinds of issues, then go back to work with a lot of creative clarity. Plenty of other bloggers and authors have given rules for facilitating meetings well, but I’m sure 60% of it has to do with the quality of the people in the room. If you get a bunch of smart people in a room, and keep them even somewhat on task, then good things will come out of it.

In contrast, I’m reminded of an old Dilbert comic that showed how managers were biologically well-suited for their jobs by virtue of having smaller brains and larger bladders, which allow them to survive long meetings. I wish I could find that comic for you, but Google does a poor job of searching the text inside of comics (or the books on my bookshelf, which is where I’m sure it is).

One of the things that irritates me is when people talk as if their personal music tastes are “correct”. I suppose it irritates me because I have abnormal taste in music, so I’m often on the wrong end of someone’s soap box speech against my favorite band. So I prefer to talk about peoples’ music preferences with terms such as “like my own” or “not like my own”, rather than “good” or “bad”.
Perhaps your music tastes are like my own, or perhaps they are not. Either way, I think we can be friends.

So here’s some music I’ve been enjoying lately…

Mockingbird by Derek Web
I love Derek’s intelligent lyrics and obvious dedication to living a godly life. He doesn’t accept clichés in life, and he doesn’t write clichés in his music. Also, he has a pretty good sound. It’s sort of a muted, acoustical sound that took some time to grow on me, but it suites the tone of the lyrics really well. If you want to download a single from iTunes, I’d recommend “Mockingbird” or “I Hate Everything (But You)”.

Derek’s latest album is The Ringing Bell, which I’m also coming to like. It sounds very different than Mockingbird, but again, it suits the tone of the lyrics. I’d recommend trying “I Don’t Want to Fight”. (In fact, I’d be very interested in hearing someone’s interpretation of those lyrics.)

Credit for this find goes to Cindy Wallace, who mentioned Derek Webb on her excellent blog.

Our Time in Eden by 10,000 Maniacs
10,000 Maniacs is one of those bands that I remember hearing about in high school, but which I never listened to. So I’m just now discovering some great music from 1992. The songs do get a little repetitive sounding, but they’re very mellow and make a perfect background for working or hanging out with friends. I don’t know the album well enough yet to recommend any specific tracks.

Credit for this find goes to Kyna Southworth, who played this a couple months ago while Sarah and I were at her house.

Everything by Buckcherry
No, not literally every song. The only Buckcherry song I’ve ever heard is the one called “Everything”. I like it a lot. I remember when I first heard it on the radio, I couldn’t decide if I liked it right away. It’s pretty repetitive and the lyrics straddle that line between “interestingly confusing” and “totally meaningless”. But the song is a lot of fun and has made its way into my regular rotation.

Credit for this find goes to 94.9 The Sound, my new favorite radio station in Cincinnati.

I owe a lot of my recent musical discoveries to 94.9. Back in college, I had a friend with her finger on the pulse of unknown, upcoming music, and she would send me songs and CD compilations all the time. But since graduating, I’ve dramatically slowed my adoption of new music.

Just a quick comment on the disappointment I’ve had with some of the online music discovery systems out there (such as Pandora and Last.fm). Pandora and Last.fm are pretty cool, and I enjoyed them greatly… for about 3 days. But the problem is that they just feed you music you’ve already said that you like. My college friend regularly gave me stuff I didn’t care for. But hearing that music helped to evolve my tastes and broaden the scope of music I like. Pandora only ever gave me 5 or 6 knockoffs of the bands I already know. So, all you Web 2.0 gurus out there, take note: If you’re going to create an intelligent music recommendation system, can you make it so it builds into my music taste, not just creates a feedback loop into what I already have?