Timely Commentary: In Defense of Introverts

Apropos my mash note to Andy Crouch, this from the always entertaining Alan Jacobs on the "fascism of Facebook," as he calls it. He links to this 2003 essay in the New Atlantic, which contains this spot-on summary of me, er, of the introvert:

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who . . . can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice? . . . If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands . . . ."

Introverts of the world, rise up against the tyranny of extroversion. Seize your solitude!

One Week To Go. Make Your Transfer-of-Power Plans Now

Almost-President Obama takes office next Tuesday. I hope you'll watch the ceremony. Every four years, I stop what I'm going, a television (the internet works, too!), and watch the vice-president and president take the oath of office. I'm not always happy about who's standing there with his right hand in the air. (And I'm never happy about the "god" part). Four years ago, I wept as I watched (and not for joy).

But I stand witness anyway. That moment of transfer -- that peaceful transfer of power -- defines who we are as a nation and a people. Millions of people around the world would love to enjoy that same privilege.

So whether you supported Obama or not (and I did), I hope you'll take a moment to watch him and Almost-Vice-President Biden become our new leaders.

Detroit, China, Electric Cars, and the Electric Grid

So the Detroit Auto Show is taking place right now. Seems a bit, um, looney to have a Detroit Auto Show, but okay. What do I know? And the buzz at the show is electric, electric, electric. Great. Fine. We all dutifully do our bit for the economy and the environment by buying electric cars.

But -- what's going to happen when we plug them in? Large chunks of the power grid in this country are in less-than-prime condition. I doubt that the grid will hold up under the burden of this new demand.

I gather Almost-President Obama realizes this and his transition team is soliciting plans and ideas for constructing a 21st century "smart" power grid.

Great! We need it sooner than we need new bridges.

But back to the Auto Show. The star of this year's event is the offering from BYD, a Chinese company. BYD's president says he'll be ready to start selling his electric cars in the U.S. in 2010. That's at least a year earlier than Chevrolet plans to release its hybrid, the Volt.

And, get this: BYD's car will cost about $22,000. The Volt? It'll start at $40,000. Both cars, by the way, are mostly-electric, meaning they're designed to run on their charge. Toyota's Prius, in contrast, is a gas-powered car whose electric motor acts a booster rather than the primary power source.

Anyway -- putting on my historian's hat to take the Long View of the Big Picture: All I can think of is the 1970s, when the Japanese began selling their vastly superior (and less expensive) cars in the U.S. Thirty years later, the American auto industry lies in ruins. Bye-bye, Ford, Chrysler, and GM.

Move over, Toyota and Honda. BYD is here. Read more in the excellent front-page story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Clay Shirky on the Future of Publishing

Jacob Grier commented on my previous post, and mentioned Clay Shirky -- of whom, I have to say, I'd never heard. (But I don't get out much...) Anyway, I strolled around the web until I found what Jacob was referring to, and it's worth reading. And I agree with Shirky's comment about the future of publishing:

I think the big revolution is going to be print on demand. Imagine only having one browsing copy of every book in a bookstore. You could say "Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers looks good", and out pops a brand new copy. Why does a bookstore or a publisher have to be in the shipping and warehousing business?

As both a reader and a writer, I've thought about this a lot, particularly in terms of e-books (which I favor): I like to browse among the bookshelves, but if there's no physical object anymore, how do we "browse" as we do now in bookstores and libraries?

Not saying it can't be done; I'm just not sure HOW it will be done. And I'm not sure we can expect the publishers to provide that one copy, unless and until the publishers re-think the idea of a "book." One of a publisher's biggest costs is the initial print run; the cost of printing goes down the more copies the publisher prints. So if there's a switch to e-books, or mainly e-books, how will, say, Barnes & Noble provide "samples" of available books?

More to the point, would B&N even survive? (My bet: probably not.)

n any case, although I love the idea of e-books, it's clear that we're a long way off from figuring out the logistics of such a system. (Well, no surprise there! No one's yet come up with a truly viable e-reader. The Kindle comes close, but I still think Steve Jobs will come up with something better.) All part of the great web of uncertainty that is 21st century life.

Fall-Outta-My-Chair-Laughing Howler Of The Day

Those Google boys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have once again, and inadvertently, demonstrated the virtues of a good liberal arts education, which they obviously missed out because they were busy learning to be computer engineering geniuses. (And I say that will all due respect.)

Backstory (brief version): I use and admire google. It's an incredibly useful tool. I also appreciate that Brin and Page want to scan the world’s books so that the information in them will be accessible to everyone. (This is a controversial project that prompted a lawsuit by the Authors Guild, which was recently settled, and, in my opinion, well-settled.)

Anyway, my complaint about the scanning project was the motivation behind it: The idea that scanning the world’s books would somehow capture the world's "information."

It won't. Archives, for example, contain millions of pages of unpublished manuscript material: letters and diaries, for example, are the mainstay of many historians’ work. So, too, old magazines and newspapers, whether published in 1790, 1890, or 1990.

Many of those are available on microfilm, and many are being digitized. But the number of digitized pages, whether of manuscripts or newspapers, is minute relative to the total.

Anyway, the point is that the world’s “knowledge” isn’t now and never will be confined to books.

But apparently the notion that “books” might be, ya know, useful, is still a novel (no pun intended) concept for our googleaders. Consider this quote from Sergey in a report in today’s New York Times.

There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site.

Damn! Ya think? Wow. I had no idea. Must ponder this insight from Sergey -- in between working on my next book, which, like the previous one, will take five years of my life because it will require me to conduct substantive primary research using material that can’t be found in books. And the finished product will itself be a book that will contain "fantastic information" that is "miles ahead" of something found on the internet.

Tip O' The Mug To Astute Reader Dexter

Big thanks to Astute Reader Dexter for alerting me to yesterday's problem with the blog. MUCH appreciated. (And what I wish for in 2009 is, ya know, no more hackers.

Fat chance. Near as I can tell, hackers live to hack. Any server is their Mt. Everest: It's there, and they will hack.) Anyway, the company that functions as my host is working its way through the fallout from the hack of two weeks ago. They believe (and I hope...) that they've now resolved the major issues.

For what it's worth, much of the trouble these past two weeks stemmed from Movable Type, the "platform" on which this blog is built. As a tool for blogging, MT has many fine qualities. Unfortunately, the people at MT have zero interest in internet security. In that respect, I guess they're sorta like Gates and Microsoft: "We will run the world, but we don't give a damn if that world is full of holes through which hackers can move unimpeded."

I can sort of understand why: Gates wanted to build a tool for using PCs. The folks at Movable Type wanted to create a "publishing" tool. Security wasn't (and isn't) their main interest. And no, for those who are about to email me: The folks at Wordpress aren't any better. About the only "safe" blogging options are the freebies like blogspot, and the "free" system available from Wordpress.

The downside is that those freebies don't provide much flexibility for people like me who also have websites. Anyway, thanks again to Dexter for letting me know things had gone awry, and to the rest of you for being so patient during all this crap. (And crap it is....) Dexter, I gather from your email address that you're in Hawaii. So HEY! How's about sending a little sun, salt air, and warmth my way, eh??????