Zach Baker: Story-Driven

I’ve had a couple of talks from University of Waterloo professor Larry Smith sitting around on my computer desktop for months and months. I just got around to them. They’re great.

The two talks are all about the exciting future of software. You ever hear about how people in the 80’s used to be so excited about computers solving all kinds of problems and the new companies that were going to rule the economy? That’s Larry Smith’s perspective – it hasn’t changed and his enthusiasm hasn’t changed either. Apart from his very Canadian accent, what I most enjoyed was his enthusiasm for “empire building” software.

He’s really passionate about innovation – economic innovation, that is. It’s the only kind worth interest as far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t want to hear about slightly better graphics or solving some old computer science problems. His interest is in software that gets “big bucks” because it replaces expensive, tedious and error-prone business processes.

Along the way in each talk, he tells an intruiging story of an obscure but quite profitable local software company. He emphasizes that the company is one you would never have heard of, but that’s fine with them.

It probably sounds pretty dry to hear me talk about it, but Professor Smith’s insight and passion makes for an engaging presentation. He offers both a clear-headed appreciation of the big picture in the software business, a lot of detailed observations, and some entertaining storytelling. Check it out if you’re in computer science or software – I’d recommend you watch or listen to “Creating Killer Applications” from early this year at this link:

Larry Smith talks at the University of Waterloo Computer Club

You know, when I was a kid, I got to see so many different places living in LA, but I had no conception of where exactly I was. Since I was just a passenger looking at one freeway or another anyhow, I never much cared where on the map we were. Yet I would go see the Redondo Beach pier, church carnivals, parks, the zoo, and be amazed by the variety of setting in the LA area.

When I started driving, I really had no idea which freeways went where or even what numbers matched to each name. But I sure picked it up quickly. Now I can tell you the best way to get from Woodland Hills to Pasadena and so on, but more importantly, I have a mental model of LA. That’s a very valuable thing, and it’s been developed for a long time.

Since I started driving, I revisited a lot of those places I went with my parents and quickened all those vague memories I had. I get a kick out of that. I’ve gone to places I’ve never been before but I had heard were interesting. And I’ve actually seen a lot of those places I’d only known from a Thomas Guide.

And yet, still, LA is amazingly varied and has so many things to discover, know about and visit. I’ve read in some research papers that the modern urban experience is that of a permanent tourist. I like that. It makes sense. And it means in some respects you’re never going to be entirely familiar with the sprawling metropolis as you would living in a small town. I like that too.

So if I don’t, maybe can’t know all of LA, how hard is it to find one little spot in LA that suits them? Not so easy, and I’ve lived here just about all my life. How can you get a sense of place about one little part of LA?

Well, let me introduce the Los Angeles real estate website that I’ve been working on for the past nine months. It was born of the difficulty I had in trying to find a house in Los Angeles that was within reasonable commuting distance of my job in Santa Monica yet was affordable and had good neighborhood qualities – relatively safe, good schools.

Even though it’s been so long in development, we’re really just getting started. But we do have the one simple thing I wanted when I was house-hunting, the ability to simply copy and paste an address into a site, click a button, and have it tell me what the neighborhood is generally like (crime and school performance) and how much houses go for in that neighborhood. I invite you to try it and let me know what you think.

Ah, another update in the ongoing saga of the seminar and Q&A sessions with Pixar story folks.

Okay, I found an interview with a Screenwriting Expo fellow indicates that they wouldn’t be recorded. This is frustrating from the perspective of those of us here in the future who weren’t around to be there. I’m of the mind that when those who know what they’re talking about share their knowledge, like Milt Kahl did, there should always be careful effort to preserve that for people to learn from. So yeah, it’s frustrating.

But there’s some hope. Andrew Stanton’s talk was recorded, but not necessarily for public consumption. So I guess there may be another chapter yet in this saga…

Having read a New York Times article on Asperger’s Syndrome, I now feel qualified to diagnose the internet as having this emotional syndrome. Here is a checklist from the article.

TYPICAL SYMPTOMS

• Poor eye contact

The internet - the #1 way of avoiding eye contact.

• Inappropriate social interaction

Most definitely. Anything from flamewars to weird chat to general abuse can be found on even the most innocuous corner of the internet.

• Unusually strong, narrow interests

Um, yeah. Pick a TV show, as obscure as you like.

• Above-average to superior intellect

The overall IQ of the internet continues to decrease, but it’s still above-average.

• Lack of voice intonation

This is of course why one needs to use smiley faces… =^) :-) ;-)

• Impulsiveness

Hey, I wonder how my stocks are doing… you know, I should check my Yahoo mail… oh, what’s that link?!

• Literal, concrete thinking patterns

Any frequent user of a search engine knows this.

Okay, so I’m goofing here, but you have to see some similarities, right?

UPDATE 11/16/06 - I realize now that I probably was inflenced by having read the article “Autistic Social Software” some years back, so check that paper out if you’re interested in the idea.

So I saw on reddit that there was a link to some post about why Americans don’t like soccer like the rest of the world does. Well, the link didn’t work, but it’s a good question that’s been answered many times, so why not by me too?

Quite simply, in the USA we decided on American football a long time ago, it has taken the place of every-other-continent football, and, I think most importantly, there is a complete sports calendar for “superfans” anyway.

When America’s football season is over, there’s basketball, and of course baseball and NASCAR, hockey, the Olympics or what-have-you inbetween. Our American superfan archetype is sports polymath Howie Schwab, someone who follows not just a single team or sport but the entire American sports calendar itself. It’s a culture that’s reinforced by ESPN, sports talk radio, American sportswriting, and of course other superfans.

If you want to see a sociological point in America’s disinterest in soccer, look at the diversity and span of the sports of America. What does that say? We always have room for another sport, but devoted fans of one sport are going to be casual fans of several others, so you’re never going to see the same singular focus on soccer across America. But that’s great.