Relevant History

Down at Stanford

I'm outside Tressider (what in the world is a Subway doing here?), checking my mail after doing a couple interviews and sitting in on product design class. I'm starting to work on a piece on product design in Silicon Valley, and was interviewing a couple people in the PD program-- the source of a large number of the region's designers. The article's basic premise is that Silicon Valley is morphing from a geek capital to a capital of cool-- but a very specific geeky sort of cool, at the (rather broad) interface between high tech and high design.

I've also been advocating do a project at the Institute on the future of design, so these interviews will get used in that project, should it ever happen.

There are numerous parents around-- enough for me to think that it's a non-random series of spottings, and something's bringing them here. Is it an event? Have admissions letters gone out, and people coming to check things out? Who knows.

It's weird, but after years of either being at Stanford or ints orbit, the thing-- the one thing-- I like best about the place is its wireless network. Maybe it's just that I'm now blinded by familiarity to all of its other charms. But I find it much more pleasant to come down here, get onto the network, hook up to the Institute's VPN, open my browser, and be in three places at once. I think-- hope-- I'm one of those people who can get more done by multitasking than by focusing on one specific thing at a time, and being in a single geographic and social space.

The kids with parents look too clueless. They must be prospectives. Everyone sticks a little too closely together. I don't think my parents SAW my alma mater until graduation: they certainly didn't help me move in my freshman year (when it might have been useful), or any subsequent year (when it would have been embarassing). Instead, I took the train, which turned out to be one of those Homeric kinds of travel events: it left Richmond at 4 AM, and got into Philly five or six hours later. You left one world in the dead of night-- and for a 17 year-old who'd spent most of his teenage years waiting impatiently to finish high school and get to college, one life-- and woke up in another. Amtrak Crescent as chrysalis.

Okay, a little more work before I leave.

God and latte at the Menlo Park Starbucks*

I'm working at the Menlo Park Starbucks, as the power on Sand Hill Road is out (again). SLAC seems to be the only place that has energy... but then again, you'd hope that a bunch of physicists would be able to keep their own lights on no matter what happens to the rest of us.

This has happened several times this summer, and it's a bit of a pain. However, it affords a lesson in just how mobile knowledge work is becoming. This morning, until I was called up into the courtroom, I was probably doing about as much work I would have if I'd been in my office. Then the network in the courthouse went down, and-- in bits terms, at least-- I was blind and deaf.

The Menlo Park Starbucks is an interesting place, inasmuch as any Starbucks is interesting. The place seems to be Bible study central: every time I'm here there seem to be at least one or two groups meeting. Menlo Park does have an unusually large number of religious institutions-- up to and including a Catholic seminary, complete with its own television station-- and getting around downtown on Sunday mornings is a slow affair, so it's not a surprise that you'd see religious life as part of public culture here. But I don't see similar groups at Cafe Barrone, where I spend a LOT more time; they seem to flock to Starbucks.

Actually, I've sometimes thought that a study of religion in Silicon Valley would be an interesting thing. Those of us who are interested in how the Valley works talk all the time about the importance of social networks and informal connections, but so far as I know no one has paid any attention to religious affiliation as something that serves to connect people together in ways that have ramifications for business and social life (which are so close as to be indistinguishable here). I can think of a number of CEOs and venture capitalists who are notably, publicly religious people, and it's impossible to imagine that the networks that build up around churches, Sunday school, and volunteer work don't end up affecting businesses.

Part of the problem is that many people with a scholarly bent tend to assume that smart, worldly, technically-minded people-- and communities of people-- aren't particularly religious; but I suspect that around here, that generalization is quite wrong. Just what role religious institutions play in the life of the Valley, and how religious ideas or values contribute to the moral economy of the Valley, I can't say; but sitting here, watching people at alternate tables do e-mail, read the Wall Street Journal, and talk about the Book of Matthew, I can't help but think that someone should find out.

*And I was trying to work out some kind of "God and Man at Yale" kind of title, but it just didn't work. Oh well.

Wi Fi in the court

I'm at the San Mateo County courthouse this morning, to be part of the prospective juror pool. The jury assembly room has three walls with desks on them, eight computers with Internet connections, and Wi Fi service. Clearly they know their demographic.

I was last here about two years ago, and spent most of the day in the jury assembly room before being sent home. Now I'm trying to remember: were any triple murders in the area in the last year or so? Better hit Google....

Wow, the pretty colors

People talk about eye candy. I've been showing Grokker to my friends, and it's more like eye heroin: totally addicting, first time out. And it's not like I'm showing it in a darkened room: my work space is The Land of Visual Distraction. Not only do I have my work machine (a Sony Vaio), but I also have my iMac, which is usually set to the 2001 Space Odyssey feature of iTunes; posters of a 14th-century Korean star map, Bay Area earthquakes, and Akira Kurosawa's classic movie "The Seven Samurai;" and a desk covered with books, articles, USB cables, and other stuff too numerous to count. It's got serious competition.

In the course of researching some stuff on games and health this afternoon, I ran across an interesting article presenting a theory of seductive technology. The authors argue that seductive technologies-- whether they're cool cars, some device by Karim Rashid or Michael Graves, or software-- have to do a few things to work they magic: they have to be enticing and diverting; surprise you through novelty; go beyond obvious needs and expectations; create an intense emotional response; connect to personal goals; and possess hidden depth. The model applies here, I think.

Wow, the pretty colors

People talk about eye candy. I've been showing Grokker to my friends, and it's more like eye heroin: totally addicting, first time out. And it's not like I'm showing it in a darkened room: my work space is The Land of Visual Distraction. Not only do I have my work machine (a Sony Vaio), but I also have my iMac, which is usually set to the 2001 Space Odyssey feature of iTunes; posters of a 14th-century Korean star map, Bay Area earthquakes, and Akira Kurosawa's classic movie "The Seven Samurai;" and a desk covered with books, articles, USB cables, and other stuff too numerous to count. It's got serious competition.

In the course of researching some stuff on games and health this afternoon, I ran across an interesting article presenting a theory of seductive technology. The authors argue that seductive technologies-- whether they're cool cars, some device by Karim Rashid or Michael Graves, or software-- have to do a few things to work they magic: they have to be enticing and diverting; surprise you through novelty; go beyond obvious needs and expectations; create an intense emotional response; connect to personal goals; and possess hidden depth. The model applies here, I think.

Wow, the pretty colors

People talk about eye candy. I've been showing Grokker to my friends, and it's more like eye heroin: totally addicting, first time out. And it's not like I'm showing it in a darkened room: my work space is The Land of Visual Distraction. Not only do I have my work machine (a Sony Vaio), but I also have my iMac, which is usually set to the 2001 Space Odyssey feature of iTunes; posters of a 14th-century Korean star map, Bay Area earthquakes, and Akira Kurosawa's classic movie "The Seven Samurai;" and a desk covered with books, articles, USB cables, and other stuff too numerous to count. It's got serious competition.

In the course of researching some stuff on games and health this afternoon, I ran across an interesting article presenting a theory of seductive technology. The authors argue that seductive technologies-- whether they're cool cars, some device by Karim Rashid or Michael Graves, or software-- have to do a few things to work they magic: they have to be enticing and diverting; surprise you through novelty; go beyond obvious needs and expectations; create an intense emotional response; connect to personal goals; and possess hidden depth. The model applies here, I think.

Wow, the pretty colors

People talk about eye candy. I've been showing Grokker to my friends, and it's more like eye heroin: totally addicting, first time out. And it's not like I'm showing it in a darkened room: my work space is The Land of Visual Distraction. Not only do I have my work machine (a Sony Vaio), but I also have my iMac, which is usually set to the 2001 Space Odyssey feature of iTunes; posters of a 14th-century Korean star map, Bay Area earthquakes, and Akira Kurosawa's classic movie "The Seven Samurai;" and a desk covered with books, articles, USB cables, and other stuff too numerous to count. It's got serious competition.

In the course of researching some stuff on games and health this afternoon, I ran across an interesting article presenting a theory of seductive technology. The authors argue that seductive technologies-- whether they're cool cars, some device by Karim Rashid or Michael Graves, or software-- have to do a few things to work they magic: they have to be enticing and diverting; surprise you through novelty; go beyond obvious needs and expectations; create an intense emotional response; connect to personal goals; and possess hidden depth. The model applies here, I think.