What A Writer Thinks When They See Poorly Branded Technology

Yesterday, Apple refreshed their MacBook Pro line, taking them from drool-worthy to We’re-going-to-get-high-and-listen-to-Miles-Davis (ding! Mad Men reference!). As per the norm, I’m admitting up-front that I’m not qualified enough to espouse on the what and why behind the increased computing power (if you’re anything like me, you’d benefit much more by getting yourself a MacBook Air and/or waiting until they make MBPs more like MBAs, but that’s another blog post). Instead, what I want to do is focus on one specific new feature.

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Thunderbolt. It’s a new technology from Intel, new to Apple products, and is used, in the most basic sense, to transfer data. Dumbing it down even further, this is what Intel, and Apple, since they’re standing behind it, hopes will eventually replace (be used in conjunction with) your USB port and/or your FireWire port. For people who use external displays, it will also used for that. Thunderbolt is actually pretty neat, as you can see in this info from 9to5 Mac:

Light Peak is significantly faster than any of the other connection technology currently on the market. For comparison, Firewire 400 is 400 Mbps, Firewire 800 is 800 Mbps, USB2 is 480 Mbps, and USB3 (which never appeared on a Mac) is 3.2 Gbps. Light Peak comes in at a whopping 10 Gbps making it close to three times faster than USB 3, and over 10 times faster than Firewire 800. Although this won’t matter too much for Mac users, Light Peak can transfer an entire Blu-Ray movie in under 30 seconds.

Now you’re probably thinking: Wait, you said Thunderbolt. What is Light Peak?

Light Peak is what Intel used as a "code-name" for now-officially-branded Thunderbolt. So I should say, Thunderbolt is Light Peak.

Enter: my frustration.

Any decent writer knows the importance of a good name. If Fight Club had been started by a guy named Gerald Stricklenbocker, rather than Tyler Durden, would it have been quite as believable as an underground boxing cult that was capable of taking over the world? Exactly. The same principle is applied in product branding. Time and time again, products with “good” names sell better than products with shitty names.

Simple. So what’s so bad about Thunderbolt?

First, what we’re talking about here is data transfer. Which we (the unassuming computing public) think of in terms of--speed. Apple’s Thunderbolt info page confirms this. With a connection like this, we use words like “time,” and “seconds,” and “over”: “I’m transferring it over USB.”

However, Thunderbolt, which appears to be a portmanteau of “Thunder” and “Lightning Bolt,”*** which is confirmed by the symbol used in the logo and on the computer:

is comprised of two words that don't help us to instantly think of speed. We've got an auditory descriptor—after all, we hear thunder, and “bolt” which does nothing to help our sense of speed, because it is a visual descriptor--we see lightning.

***It was just pointed out to me that "Thunderbolt" is actually a word:

So while it is not a portmanteau, it still doesn't make sense.

So what about what we see when we hear Thunderbolt? The logo/icon above, compounds the confusion. If it looks familiar, it should:

OK, maybe not the last one, but the first two? That’s the symbol (international?) for DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!, which I suppose could be seen as a symbol of speed (maybe? like in the TOUCH THIS AND YOU'LL DIE FAST sense?), but I’m not sure it’s got the connotation that Intel/Apple wants, even if it could. To me, it has, and always will be synonymous with—DANGER! Even Marilyn Manson thought so:

And DANGER!, or Marilyn Manson, isn't what you want people thinking of before they plug in their $1,000 external monitor, or transfer their collection of 1,600 cat pictures.

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So Thunderbolt doesn’t sound right, and it doesn’t look right. What would work better, you ask?

How about what Intel “code-named” it?

Light Peak!

Because the data transferred over it (OH MY GOD! REMEMBER THE TIME WE DRESSED THE CAT UP LIKE A POLICE OFFICER!) moves at the speed of—light!

When you use it you get—peak performance!

If you do a Google Image search for “Light Peak,” 5 of the first 20 results include this photo:

We still need an icon, right? That image, specifically the ends of the 4 wires, each bursting with light—would be goddamn perfect. I made an (incredibly) crude drawing of it:

It’s got marketing built into it, too:


It’s not USB 2, what we use now, or USB 3, what’s coming, it’s Light Peak—it must be faster—IT’S GOT 4 WIRES!

(And I’m sure people who know way more than I do about technology are shaking their head right now, but c’mon, you know it’s true—this is how people (your mom, my mom, his mom, her mom) think.)

Maybe, as usual, I'm putting too much thought into it.

Since there aren’t even any products on the market (yet) that can take advantage of Light P—Thunderbolt technology, it is impossible to speculate how successful it will be. Maybe it will be great, after all, speed junkies will be speed junkies, regardless of the name.

But technology isn’t thought-up and marketed for/to speed junkies. They will always buy the latest and fastest. Technology and the accompanying marketing strategies are crafted very, very specifically so that your mom and my mom and his mom and her mom will have an easy-as-pie choice to make when faced with something they don't truly understand, but know they need, all while not wanting to look stupid:

2? 3? 4! Yes, 4! That’s what I need!

The technology enthusiast in me is excited for the speed Thunderbolt promises.

But the writer in me can’t ignore the possibility that Thunderbolt might turn out to be a—power outage.

Media Purge

I've posted before about my love for Instapaper (shit, I'm pretty sure I've started a post with that exact sentence). Besides using it to read long articles on my iPad/iPhone, I also use it as a staging area for ideas/inspiration for future posting--bigger issues that I can blog about, or single bits of media that I can post about on Tumblr (tumble about?).

Sometimes, I get a bit of backlog--too much cool shit at once. The internet moves at a pace that doesn't allow for one tumble (?) a day, so I'm breaking my (newish) rule and devoting a blog post to a few single bits of media, mostly because I'm tired of waiting.

First, via my good friend @ViralRobby, is:



Arcade Fire's win at the Grammys made my fucking week, so naturally, some humility is probably in order. Also worth checking out is Who Is Arcade Fire??!!?

Next, via Brian Francis, who's been introducing me to quality, thought-provoking shit since High School, is:



At 19 years old, Tyler, The Creator is about to, at the very least, change hip hop, at least for a little while. Also worth mentioning is this video:



Kanye West has already proclaimed it the video of 2011.

Next, via Daring Fireball, is:

Click to enlarge

So cool.

And last, but not least, via one of my favorite Tumblrs, 454 W 23rd St New York, NY 10011—2157, is:

Some more and less helpful things for the lucky jerk reading ‘Infinite Jest’ for the first time.

Dope.


Hope you enjoyed this media purge as much as I did.

A Review Of The Suburbs (And the suburbs)

Maybe I'm so in love with The Suburbs because it came at the perfect time in my life.

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Arcade Fire's third studio album The Suburbs was released on 2 August 2010, a Monday. I don't think I purchased it until that Saturday, though. I remember Danielle had worked the nightshift on Friday, so when she came home with the car that Saturday morning, I drove to Best Buy and she went to sleep.

I unwrapped the packaging (the Best Buy in Hartsdale only had one of the 8 different covers, so I didn't have to make any tough choices there) in the car and put the CD on. I was familiar with the eponymous first track, as it had been released earlier that summer along with "Month Of May," the album's tenth track.

The two songs were an odd marriage, which, probably not coincidentally, are an apt description of AF's music overall--loud and soft, sweet and sour, gentle and brash. The songs were intentional though. They highlighted the fact that neither represented the album as a whole and were intent on laying the ground rules for what the extremes of the album would be.

We just didn't know that then.

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After completing "Ready To Start," probably the album's most free-standing track, I figured I should probably drive home. By the time I'd pulled into my parking space, I'd made my way through maybe two or three more songs. It hit me that as soon as I went inside, I wouldn't be able to experience any more of what was already obviously an outstanding musical performance, as my midwife fiancée was asleep inside after spending the night delivering babies.

(I've got this thing--I don't like experiencing albums for the first time wearing headphones. I'm a sonic range guy, and no matter how good your headphones are, they will never compare to a pair of well-placed speakers.)

After spending five minutes debating sitting in the car for 50 minutes to finish the album, I went inside.

My first listen of The Suburbs was hushed--one volume notch on my computer's audio level, huddled close, following along with the lyrics, my pointer finger keeping the lines straight.

(I should, at this point, take the time to explain that in August of 2010, I was two months away from getting married, a certain amount of time that I don't remember--more than a year and a half at least--into quitting smoking, eating right, and exercising frequently, if not obsessively, and generally moving away from a mental state that could be described as precarious to stable. I'd graduated with an MFA in fiction almost two years prior and was still forcing myself to tell people I was a writer, rather than an administrative assistant. I lived--live--we live, where I work--on the Manhattanville College campus in Purchase, New York. A big zip code for not so big incomes, but for two kids from The Bronx, the quiet is deafening in all of the best ways, even if from time to time it is a bit--intimidating.)

(Out the front door of our building, maybe fifteen steps, is a field, maybe 200 yards across, until the residence halls across the way. Danielle and I, in the two ((three?)) years we've lived here, have taken to "sitting out," a practice that followed us north, the best kind of childhood nostalgia, no longer on the front stoop of our homes in the big bad crumbling definite article-preceded borough, now facing out on what is, to us, an expanse that offers--peace? Is that what it is? In the summer, and in the spring, and in the fall, we sit in our fold-up chairs and I can't speak for her, but I know that I sit and I fight the urge to say something. I feel it. I have it in my mouth, the feeling that comes right before I say--something, but then nothing comes out. And that felt wrong at first, like realizing I was grinding my teeth. I can't speak to what I'm feeling, because it is only expressed in the sounds around us, sounds that I'm sure you could guess what they are, and the feeling.)

(And there is always the sense, not that I've "made it," because making it means an ending has been reached, but that this is where I'm supposed to be right now. It takes a long time to reach that place. 26 years in my case. But when you realize that not everybody does it that quickly, and that, shit, some people never reach it at all, you take the time to inhale it and watch it and stich it into your memory and maybe smoke a cigar or two in celebration. And I could bore you with our conversations about the meaning of happiness and how it isn't about finding what it is that makes you happy, but instead, taking the time to realize that you already are happy, and making peace with the this-is-as-good-as-it-gets factor. But this was supposed to be a review of The Suburbs, and is instead becoming a review of the suburbs.)

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So this birds-are-chirping, you-are-exactly-where-you-should-be state is where The Suburbs entered my life and promptly became the soundtrack of said life.

I took these pictures during one of our "sitting out" sessions that August, as we re-played The Suburbs again and again through our tiny cell phone speakers:

When I posted them on Twitter, I captioned them "She was shocked in the suburbs" and "He was shocked in the suburbs," paying tribute to what should be a throwaway spoken-word line in the beginning of "Month Of May," but what has remained for me as one of the defining moments of the album.

Watch Arcade Fire perform, especially tracks from The Suburbs. Tell me they aren't soaking it up, even if they're playing whatever track they're playing for the umpteenth time. They are smiling, basking in the glow of musical composition, the celebration of a time and a place.

As we watched their Grammy performance last night, Danielle said, "It just looks like they're having fun," and while she was right, I don't think she realized the depth of her comment.

Just have fun. Youth sports. Little League. Bike riding (think their stage design was a coincidence?). Simple. Nostalgia.

The mistake I made was thinking that once one manged to wrangle happiness, it would remain there, submissive. But it doesn't. Just like The Suburbs, it ebbs and flows, has loud moments and quiet moments, and eventually, ends.

But then there is the living--for those ups and downs, for those moments like at the end of their "acceptance speech" last night, which was really just Arcade Fire's Holy Shit, We Really Won? sputterings, when Win Butler said:

Thank you. We're gonna go play another song--'cause we like music.

Like somebody and a million others once said, "Just go out there and have some fun."

And then there are the words echoed on multiple songs on The Suburbs, at first triumphantly displayed, and then whispered by the end:

Sometimes I can't believe it/I'm moving past the feeling/Again

That notion--of not being able to believe in something you've already experienced, but that you know you will likely experience again--it sticks with you. The meaning changes each time, maybe because the music plays in your head, or maybe because you bring something different to it each time, but it stays.

As I said earlier, maybe I'm so in love with The Suburbs because it came at the perfect time in my life. And maybe you shouldn't trust this as a "review" of the album, because I'm obviously one biased motherfucker.

Or, maybe you should believe me.

Maybe I really was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The Conversation In The Car Park Afterwards

If you don't know who Banksy is, I'm not going to be the one to tell you. There are plenty of people out there who know way more than I do.

What I am going to tell you is to check out the documentary he made, "Exit Through The Gift Shop."

"EXIT tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art. The film charts Guetta's constant documenting of his every waking moment on film, from a chance encounter with his cousin, the artist Invader, to his introduction to a host of street artists with a focus on Shepard Fairey and Banksy..."

If that's not enough to get you interested, read this All These Wonderful Things interview, which was what inspired me to post about EXIT. One of my favorite bits:

All These Wonderful Things: What do you think that you discovered about the form of documentary while making this movie and is there any correlation to your other artistic work? Were you a fan of documentary prior to making the film and, if so, what were some of your favorite films? Did any of them influence what you did on EXIT?

B: I’m from a generation for whom documentary isn’t a dirty word. It doesn’t have to mean endless shots of penguins set to classical music. Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock seemed completely punk to me. And the most punk thing of all was they brought their story undiluted to the multiplex.

Documentaries have an important role in recording culture that’s unlikely to make it into the history books. DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS was the Bill of Rights for skate culture. Having said that, my film was never going to be an authoritative history of street art. Or even an authoritative history of the selling-out of street art. We realized halfway through the edit that the ending needed to be as unresolved as possible. I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it. If we’ve done our job properly with EXIT, then the best part of the entire movie is the conversation in the car park afterwards.

The bold is my addition, included because in this writer's humble opinion, that final sentence highlights what should be the aim of every film, regardless of genre, maybe even of art in general.

Oh, and because we're a visual culture, here's EXIT's trailer:



And if you don't check out Banksy's official site, you're a fool.

Because God Loves Ugly. And Family.

So here's some good news--12 April 2011.

That is when Atmosphere will release their latest LP, "The Family Sign."

While the double EP "To All My Friends, Blood Makes the Blade Holy" filled the space since their last LP, "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold," and it was a good effort, but not a Lucy Ford-esque EP effort, there's nothing like a proper (yup, Pitchfork, I jacked your adjective. Don't be mad though. It stuck out because I've still got Animal Kingdom slang in my head.) LP release.

This morning, Pitchfork posted an interview with Sean Daley, who already appears to be on his online media grind.

Here's one of my favorite snippets:

Pitchfork: On the last record, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, you seemed to be rapping more about people other than yourself. From what you say, this one is more about you and the people around you.

S: Lemons was an exercise for me-- I needed to see how far I could go with these eighth grade creative writing skills I got. And there are a lot of fictitious narratives on this one, too, so I don't know how to categorize it. I'm seen as the guy that creates autobiographical songs and I let people run with it. But let's be honest. If those songs were autobiographical, I would've died from, like, whiskey poisoning. So they're really my interpretations based on details. Ultimately, I'm a rapper and I have to try and make myself cooler than I actually am.

Yes.

12 April can't come soon enough.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Check out of the official Rhymesayers PR here.

The MacBook Air--Now Made With Real Air!

You say you want to know how light the new MacBook Air is?

This light:



Boom!

(Actually, maybe even obviously, this isn't real. Here's the long-winded science behind why it isn't possible. You should read it if you want to feel smart. Or dumb, depending on your situation. Otherwise, here's the spoiler, as you probably guessed: really thin fishing line.)

Still cool, right?

The King's (Real) Speech

Taking a cue from yesterday's Oscars-favorite themed post, I decided to follow-up with another video, also from Devour.

The King's Speech is a great film, even if it is somewhat predictable. It features three great performances from Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter, and highlights a story that most people aren't aware of.

As was the case yesterday, while a bunch of facts were distorted in the interest of good story-telling (never let facts get in the way of a good story), what can't be ignored is that King George VI did have a stuttering problem, a problem that is painfully evident in the following video--actual footage of King George VI delivering a speech in Scotland.

No date is given.