Hierarchies - Chapter 6 (continued) 

(Continued from the first part of chapter 6| Archive)

Brian hoisted his backpack, Meg grabbed her purse, and they headed to the building's elevator bank.

"You want to show me the other building?" Brian asked.

"Ah. No, I don't think I want to go there again just yet," Meg said. "Let's just walk and talk."

"Asher's teacher-slash-mentor used to say that in Chaim Potok's sequel to The Chosen. Walk and talk," Brian said.

"I read all those. All the novels, not the nonfiction. Potok died a couple years ago, didn't he?" Meg asked.

"Maybe not in your world," said Brian wryly.

"Yeah. So what do you think is going on?" Meg asked. "Should we forget about it and just hope it all goes away one morning when we wake up? Scares me. Anyway, it's not just my world anymore. Looks like you're in it now too."

Brian looked a third excited, a third glum, a third freaked out.

The elevator doors opened and they pushed through the big lobby doors to the sidewalk. Meg pointed to the left, toward Ventura. "Let's walk toward Safeway. I need coffee." Brian nodded and followed.

"So… Stewart Brand?" Meg prompted. "He's the one who wrote The Media Lab at MIT, right?"

"Right," Brian confirmed. "I hadn't paid much attention to him lately either, but the other day Jon Udell mentioned on his blog that The Long Now Foundation's seminar podcasts were a good listen if you felt like thinking, so I checked them out.

"Brand's talk was about how cities learn, extending his work for his book How Buildings Learn. I was way into it -- the podcast -- except he kept referring to slides, and that was frustrating, since I was listening in the car and couldn't even check it see if the PowerPoint was available."

"The point?" Meg urged. (It was their way with each other to indulge in rudeness to advance a discussion.)

"Right. So I ordered the book," Brian said as he rummaged in his pack. "And I just got it today." He pulled out a landscape format paperback with two photos of buildings on the cover.

"Yikes," Meg said.

Maybe more later today

 

Notes on a better MP3 player 

Isn't it interesting how the even the prospect of a Rojas-Winer-Calacanis MP3 player seems to make people kind of happy and hopeful that there might be a world someday where you can get what you want from a manufacturer?

I had a couple random ideas for it, or for another device.

1. Make it driving-friendly. In a post a few months ago I grumbled about the Gillmor Gang files, and how I couldn't tell -- from either the audio, the file name or the ID3 info -- what episode I was skipping to while on the tollway. A large text display on the device would make it easier to see at a glance what's going on while driving. Big, obvious buttons would be a good thing, too.

2. Extend file squirting. This is probably beyond the scope of the Rojas-Winer device. I'd imagine they'd want to keep it simple as possible. But if it had wifi anyway, and supported squirting (sharing files with other device owners, like the Zune and Palm do) -- and if it acted as a thumb drive for other file types, it could be used to squirt the other file types. I keep thinking there's an education application here. The teacher or professor shoots out the lecture and the powerpoint or worksheet or assignment to students in the class who also have the devices. Might even be able to get some of the development for it funded by a government agency or philanthropic company or organization.

Hierarchies - Chapter 6 

(Continued from chapter 5| Archive)

Brian flipped Meg's rambling text into Google's search query field with a deft CTRL-V, then tacked his initials -- BTR -- to the end of the string, and hit enter.

The pair looked at the monitor, looked at each other, and back at the monitor. The Windows hourglass showed that Google was still working on the problem.

"It's taking too long," Brian noted.

"Happened that way before, too," Meg said.

"Did you follow up on the results from the other time?" Brian asked?

"I haven't tried to reach my old playmate," Meg answered, not really wanting to talk while they were waiting for the new results, and keeping an eye on the screen. "But I did spend a little time searching Calacanis's blog and Blake's collected works, and I cou--"

The results started to draw on the screen.

"Those borders? They were there before?" Brian asked.

Meg nodded. She wanted to see the words. Only two results this time. They leaned in to read:

I don't know, Bryan. As you know I spend some 20 pages in my book, How Buildings Learn, on maintenance, but I concentrated mostly on the long-term effects of weather, chiefly water. I should learn more about what people do to interiors to cause buildings to change and differ from one another.

Thanks for planting the ideas,

Stewart Brand

Brian absorbed the message, eyes widening with every sentence. He read it quickly again, then bolted from the desk chair to have a seat in Meg's big overstuffed armchair.

Meg took his place in front of the monitor and read the second entry:

Ms. Harkin, would you be available to meet with me about the unusual search results that have been returned by your question? It interests me, and I would like to attempt to replicate what you have been doing. Please reply by OPML.

Charles Eppes

Charles Eppes… Meg thought the name sounded familiar but could not quite place it.

And "reply by OPML," what the heck is that about, she wondered. Meg looked to Brian for an answer. He had not been able to sit for more than a minute before he was up and pacing.

She wiggled her finger in a come-here gesture, and Brian crossed the living room floor to read from the monitor over her shoulder. He started to smile.

"Who's Charles Eppes?" Meg asked him.

"Maybe you know him better as 'Charlie,'" Brian responded.

"Charlie... Charlie, the genius math professor on Numb3rs?" Meg said incredulously. "But he's not even real."

Brian shrugged. "Let's take a walk and I'll tell you about Stewart Brand."

"I feel a little ansty, too."

Brian picked up his backpack on his way to the door.

"Do you always have to bring that along?" Meg asked, pointing to the pack.

'Is there a spy cam in here?' 

"Yes." Brian stopped. "Wait a second for a commercial announcement from Brick House Security. Let me just check something."

He pulled out of his pack a little device that looked something like an MP3 player. But apparently it wasn't meant for listening to anything. He held it up to his eye and looked around the room.

"What the…" Meg blustered.

"It's a Spy Finder Hidden Camera Detector," Brian explained. "I thought you might have some hidden camera built in recorder in the room."

"Brian! That is so insulting. I wouldn't spy on a friend. I would never do that," Meg said earnestly.

He looked her in the eye to gauge her sincerity. After a pause, he'd decided. "No, you wouldn't." Another pause. "But you might be punking me."

Meg frowned. "I might, but it wouldn't even be funny, so I really doubt it. What do you have to pay for one of those, anyway, and when would you ever use it?"

"The detector is $99 and this is the first time I've used it. It worked into the story pretty well, though, for a change, didn't it? These things are getting so cheap. You could have bought a clock that's hardwired to your VCR for $116, and a wireless one for a little more than double that amount."

I'll post the rest of chapter 6 later today.