Tag: IPad

The build-up

It’s like a can of worms, once opened, can never be put back.

Yet, that’s what makes us human: from A to B, we insist that a straight line is not the shortest. We have to factor in free will.

Even God respects that (by not forcing us to move quickly through Foxconn-like assembly line).

Our current network has also been designed that way: cache, redundancy, self-healing and load-balancing just to process data from point A to point B.

Our neuro-plasticity performs millions of calculation in milliseconds. “If you can read my mind”, “you won’t read that novel again because the ending is too hard to take”. Most recent finding tells us that we change more than we would admit (evolution in personalities). NYT 01-04-2013.

Seek those who bring the best version out of us.

Schools have done us disservice. Instead of ” edu-care” (bring out of us that which were already there), they try to put in and force fit the curriculum (which purportedly were carefully and thoughtfully designed by those who themselves had been force-fed).

Hence, we perpetuate and produce a planned society of “cogs” in the wheel whose heads are full of doctrine and dogma (stove pipes). No wonder we have problems communicating.

When something is introduced into the “system” (such as Free Will) with no scripted response, chaos and confusion are inevitable.

Like it or not, we are all in perpetual motion, but mostly in maintenance mode. Like an automobile, with engine revving and wheels churning, but is all jacked up, hence staying put.

Frustration leads to lack of confidence and enthusiasm.

Lack of  enthusiasm and lack of  passion give way to compliance. Dead men walking.

The build-up that eventually blows up.

Those who plan well factor this into the system. Controlled release.

Call it vacation, sabbath. Whatever. But  in a grandeur scale, individuals and institutions need periodical audit. How are we doing? Making any progress?

You look pale. Where is the fire? the light in your eyes. What has put it out?

“If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad?”

Get off the line. Go off grid. Go native. Go nature. Go free.

At the very least, be Live Man Walking, and not Dead Man Walking.

Do us and yourself a favor. Let not the build up blow you up. Man’s free will and God‘s (or Government’s) pre-determination. A tug of war for the soul, survivingg and not stifling.

No rest for the weary

Saigon currently is under a shield of grey. The weary, the worried put on ponchos, just to take them off. False alarm.

Oh Come Ye O Faithful blasted out from neighboring homes.

Christmas is in the air. but not for those who make a living hand-to-mouth, and there are a lot them. Maybe this year is the year they can go back home to the countryside.

At rush hour, on CMTT, I spot one blonde girl in a taxi, engulfed by thousands of bikes, inching for any empty space.

The Western lady and the common folks, both try to get somewhere. But they are worlds apart (albeit separated by only thin glass). Even American felt hemmed in on narrow streets of Paris

let alone being in this tight a spot.

It’s symbolic of today’s Vietnam. You may find I-phone 5 and I-pad here.  You can even spot a celebrity now and then. But from their standpoint, even when it moves fast, it still cannot catch up with ROW.

With rising expectation we find more crime on the street. I heard two incidents where people yell “cuop” (thieves).  Scooters chasing scooters. Not sure who was who.

But on cooler days like today, with Christmas in the air, I hope for some rest,for myself and for the weary. For those who sell lottery tickets, those peddlers, recyclers, those who wear cone hats or contact lens.

We even have a blind singer who shouts “We will we will rock you“.  May he have some rest before tonight’s show.

It’s been hot here, with almost two weeks of drought.  You can see it in people’s faces.  Just find a shade, a tree, a breeze, a fan or a A/C room.

Don’t judge (until you experience it for yourself) why people start drinking cold beer around 3PM.  Or the girls, traditionally prefer lighter skin, only go out late evening.

With low GDP, high temperature and young work force, the combination hast been far from perfect albeit promising. As a whole, Vietnam has one thing in its favor: the future. For now, the analog generation is giving way to the digital.

And it’s the latter who shall rule. First online, then off. For now, the weary keeps selling lottery tickets, sweeping the streets by hand, and even starting a fire by charcoal. Just to earn those three meals a day is hard work.  Just so the young can play games online. Can learn English. And occasionally, ride a Wet-and-Wild at nearby theme parks.

Life is good.  The population is happy.  What’s a credit card anyway? I got my change back given to me in two hands. I respect that. Keep at it. Don’t lose it.

Tech talk

NYT‘s David Brooks zoomed out to reveal the evolution of our social philosophy, from care for the Soul, to Personality then eventually to Decision-making (data deluge).

This is the age of the intelligent machine. Massaging data. Algorithm and Analytic.

No wonder, machine language also creeps into our daily speech.

Let’s try to pin them down.
First we google it.

Terms like cramming, cookies, cache . Technology trumps  theology.

A friend tries to ramp up her business. But she needs to retool herself with business and soft skills.

Let’s get cranked up. You are running low on bandwith.

He gunned the engine, but given high gas price of late, he ended up running on empty.

He hardly processes the information before pulling the plug on the project.

One needs to fast-track the program. Otherwise, we call it pre-empt.

EV Battery company runs out of juice, but us human runs low on battery.

With the advent of social media, we are inundated with invitations from strangers whom we don’t want to interface with.

He goes about his day on auto-pilot.

We are analog creatures using digital devices.

Just pop the TV dinner into the microwave.

You look stressed. You need to press “reset”.

Please scan your right index finger for identification, raise and stretch both arms (let everything drop) for the metal-detector.

The class doesn’t tune in to the lecture tonight.

I am exhausted; I need to reboot.

If you rushed to market , you might crash.

As far as this relationship goes, it’s been on screen-saving mode.

Exhausted, I feel I need a massage to recharge.

There was a time in the 60’s when terms like “groovy”, “swell” etc.. appeared then disappeared.

It is to show as a species, we do move on to better “versions”. In social psychology, we concentrate on WE (60’s), then ME (70’s) and now IT (the machine). Someday, it will be MIT (me and machine – Ipod, Iphone, Ipad going to bed together. My nephew sleeps with the I-pad on, to listen to audio-books).

Issues like interoperability, integration and convergence were dealt with in the Bicentennial Man.

In the end, Robin Williams who  played the Machine, asked to be terminated. He regret not being able to cry, like us.

Life is like peeling the onion, one layer at a time. Sometimes, it makes us cry. I would rather die a man than to live in eternity as a machine, quoted Andrew Martin. In other words, please “unplug” me when it’s time to go. Someone quoted aptly that “Jesus wept”. Crying has been a privilege.

It also makes us human. It even makes God human. Empathic we are. I feel for the machine, who no matter at what speed of processing, cannot shed tears. Maybe David Brooks can write a code to teach the machine to evolve, from data and decision matrix to have some personality, and eventually to care for the Soul. Man and Machine can then meet half-way.

toss-up

Theme from Mahogany has a line “so many dreams just slipped through our hands”.

Then “do you know where you’re goin to, do you like the things life is showin you”.

I first heard that while drifting on Wake Island  summer 75.

Back then, I had one thing in mind: departure for the US.

Now, the table has turned. It’s a toss-up for me to come back States, or keep staying here in Vietnam.

I like it here, with all its problems and pain.

Perhaps I could identify with these folks more than with those “snow birds” in Florida. One of whom , in a public library, drew her LV purse closer by reflex (what had they done to her up in New York?) just as I was walking by.

Today, one can catch an Inter-Continental flight and be on the West Coast in less than a day.

They even have Yahoo VN here (along with Yahoo UK, Yahoo Philippines), just to get localized.

Broadband-enabled.

Instant snap shot, then instant transmission = Instagram.

Voila!

Sharing the moment with friends across the pond.

Do you know where you are sending to?

Do you like the things the Ipad is showing you?

I-pod got miniaturized, while a USB could be plugged into a portable speaker on the go.

When osmosis is complete, we will see more VietKieu like myself  stay for the longer term.

Already a new breed of  “snow birds” are forming, starting with repatriating singers and musicians.

(our own Nguyen A Chin, on the other hand, in-shorring to play in front of a homegrown audience of 500 in Virginia last month).

Yes, dreams slipped through our hands.

But if we hold on to at least one, right at dawn,  and make it a reality, then that’s ours for keep.

Do you like the things that life is showing you, do you know?

It’s a toss-up yet a step-up from my one-way nightmare on Wake Island back then.

It’s like I have finally arrived at the real Wake island on my mind. Free to go and free to stay.

Man who whistles

While waiting for my next appointment, I heard a man whistle.

He carried a tune while being oblivious to outsiders. Maybe he just try to pass the time in between classes.

Maybe we should whistle too. We are all passing the time.

Some of us are doing time.

Stephen Hawking wishes he could hear his own voice.

The world-renown scientist himself needs help from technology.

We invented musical instruments: flute, drum, vuvuzela etc… to carry the sound, and use microphones to amplify it.

An I-Pad screen can now be used as a karaoke screen.

Music stand should now be reshaped to mount I-pads. It would then be called the I-stand.

I stand and sing from an I-stand.

Neil Young got inspired by looking at an old man on the farm “Old man looks at my life…”

The old farmer was just content going about his farming business (perspiration) while Young found inspiration.

Now, it’s Neil’s turn to grow old.

“I have been to Redwood, I have been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold and I am growing old” (at 66, he just released a new album).

So it is Christmas, what have you done?

We “use” artists when we need them: late at night, at year-end celebration and in-between classes.

Then we junk the 8-tracks, cassettes, CD‘s, or give them to Goodwill.

Then we move on to YouTube.

I will thank them on all of our behalf then.

Where would we be if not for the Abba who put “Happy New Year” on the musical map!

Music itself evolves with time. Just ask our faculty man who whistles the lonely tune.

By hearing his own tune, he perhaps feels less lonely, because the environment sends feedback with analog precision.

Man and music: both need each other to be complete. No wonder Tina Turner does it differently every time she sings her signature “Proud Mary“. Audience participation does make a difference: their feedback (while on their feet dancing) helps spin her interpretation of the song.

I know during that school break, with me there waiting for my appointment, the man who whistles was probably aware there were more than one person in that lounge. His energy certainly was boosted because his lonely sound impacted beyond the lonely walls of his own soul. Happy is he who wakes up to the sound of music.

colonize, globalize and localize

In that order. Just like Guns, Germs and Steel.

Natural, then with pesticides and back to organic.

First, Mattel outsourced toy manufacturing to Hong Kong (ironically, G.I. Joe , the real one, first saw the larger horizon including the Far East due to the two World Wars) , then every company considers “if it can be outsourced, it must”. In military term, it’s called “mission creep”.

In manufacturing, plant closing. In fiscal term, tax evasion.

No wonder, there are movements which call for localizing (an understandable reaction to the sweeping force of McDonalization and Disneylandization). This makes freight companies quite unhappy.

There is nothing wrong with economy of scale, or homogenization of taste and style.

It lowers the costs of manufacturing (but in my case, it is time-consuming to go for alteration) and uplifts living standards (rising expectations) in Asia, the world factory. Imagine how costly it would be to replace all those vacuum-tube monitors and TV’s had they been manufactured by Westing House, RCA or Zenith in America. We wouldn’t be seeing our  Ipad 2.

Still, it doesn’t make sense to ship tuna from Maine to Manila or rare animal delicacies from Main Land to Main Street Chinese restaurants.

We must apply the circuit breaker for a moment to ask that Reaganesque question: Are we better off than four years ago.

In pursuing that cheapest of price, aren’t we bought in to the relentless pursuit of logistic nirvana.

Neil Postman wasn’t a Luddite, but he raised a good question: through a vast array of technology (such as the amount of available TV channels), we must ask ” what problem was it that this technology is trying to solve.”

I like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. They happen to be empowering technologies, pull and not push.

From the information flow stand point, they are quite disruptive (for the first time, any one can upload this and that, instead of just “downloading”. See my other blog on South-South information flow).

Tools to share our lives, our stuff and our ideals.

It is happening and will be on grander scale. No wonder youth in the Mid East are restless.

Like Rob Reiner‘s mother in When Harry Met Sally, they want “to have what she is having”.

Freedom and self-governance is frightening. But it’s what we are wired for. Just give us the tool, we’ll show it to you. BTW, Facebook fans are joining  and saying, “we are born this way” or “ah ha ah ha, that’s the way the way I like it”.
Why would you try to make us consumers, debtors, etc…. just because of your lack of imagination and innovation. One thing we won’t miss is containerization once localization takes hold.

Until then, we got FourSquares and Groupon to get us a deal (for goods that shipped in from China, via you know what – that’s right. Container).

 

Human ingenuity

When you see population growth which doesn’t equate with starvation, it’s a testimony to our human ingenuity.

The US has less than 2 percent of its labor force in agriculture, yet no one is without a hamburger (even when it’s thrown out by McDonald).

From Malthus to Moore, we have moved up the value chain.

The race to dominate mobile application is driving companies and start-ups to faster deploying wireless devices and software application.

No more excuses, such as  “let me get back to the office”, since office is now mobile (computer and car cultures converged).

Tablets used to be carried around by UPS men.

Then car rental companies used wireless receipt printers in their return parking lot.

And now, I Pad for everyone, everywhere.

Bio tech century ushers in longer life expectancy (hint, longer customer lifetime value).

Clever marketers would think like a customer, visualize not just today, but tomorrow as well.

Engineering has made its mark. The next century belongs to international marketers who can trade without borders.

Not just Multi -National Companies (MNC), but localized product and market development for domestic consumption (BRIC and CIVETS).

(AIG spins off its Japan branch, or Macy in Atlanta has more hat selections).

We learn more about each other, strength and weakness (Kissinger said, ” we did it to ourselves” in retrospect about the war in Vietnam).

So we learn our lessons and move on. Human ingenuity is not without pain. In fact, pain is a prerequisite.

As long as we learn from our mistakes, and factor them into future plan. The sub – prime experience for instance. It should have been limited  to a lesser share of the pie (but loan pushers wouldn’t settle for those otherwise suffice non-sub prime packages. Up-sell til we melt).

Or as President Carter kept saying, ” I should have factored in one more helicopter” – when referring to the debacle of hostage rescue attempt during his last year in office.

We made mistakes. But great men admit them, learn from them, and work them into the equation. In sales, we call it the funnel. We anticipated the many NO’s coming our way. This, we did it unto ourselves i.e. rejection and objection. Part of the job. Part of growing pain. Part of tapping into the well of human ingenuity.

As of this edit, David Brook of the NYT has a piece on “the Humanist Vocation”. Huffington Post has a piece about the anniversary of the Pentagon Papers. All learned lessons. Work that into future Syria strategy. Work that into the next app. Stop not learning and growing.