Vraiment, je suis amoureux d’elle.
All posts by dispar
Lydon at His Best
By definition, my reaction is subjective. So it might just be the fact that it’s a sunny day or that Life Is Good®, as my water bottle and diner mug say.
Yet there’s something about the April 17 episode of the Radio Open Source (ROS) podcast with Christopher Lydon which works for me.
Maybe I was just charmed by the introduction as it played with my expectations. But there’s clearly more to my enthusiasm for Lydon’s interviewing style in that specific episode than the mere enjoyment of being fooled. My initial excitement abated a bit as the show progressed and Lydon went back to his I-show mode (which I mentioned before and warned students about). This decrease in excitement strengthens my notion that Lydon was, surprisingly enough, letting participants speak in earlier portions of the show.
In fact, Lydon did something he rarely does, during the first part of this episode: he proposed a topic and let one of his guests respond without even asking a question. Sometimes, Lydon will string together a long series of questions to which the interviewee cannot really respond. In the way I was enculturated, these strings of questions are markers of close-mindedness so I have a hard time understanding why Lydon would produce them.
In fact, I would seriously like to do some conversation analysis of Lydon’s interviewing style. For instance, how long (in seconds) are his questions as compared to his guests’ comments? Is there a difference when the guest is perceived to have a higher status, in which case Lydon might go into “deference mode?” Is my perception accurate, that Lydon speaks differently to women and men? (In my observations, ROS seems to mostly have women as guests when gender is admittedly the focus.) Are there cues in Lydon’s speech patterns which reveal what he might be thinking about his guests? Is Lydon typical of “Old Media” radio shows even though he entered the “Web 2.0 landscape” with ROS?
What ticked me off, originally, was Lydon’s tendency to cut his guests in a very cavalier manner and his habit of emphasising distinctions based on perceived prestige. These issues are less problematic to me during some shows, but they still do tick me off fairly frequently. Lydon’s respect, contrary to mine, seems quite selective.
Why do I care so much about Lydon’s style, you ask? Why do I ever listen to the show if it makes me react so strongly? A number of reasons.
Radio Open Source is one of the first few podcasts to which I subscribed when iTunes began podcast support. Although I’ve unsubscribed to many other podcasts, this is a podcast which became part of my habits. I know several people who watch shows they don’t like so that they can complain about it. It might be the case for my listening to Open Source. Although, I would really prefer it if I were not to complain (I hate myself every time I do). My “problem” is that ROS often has insightful guests, frequently tackles fascinating issues, and represents the cultural specificity of a small segment of U.S. society with which I happen to relate on a fairly regular basis. In fact, ROS often provokes thoughts in me which lead to my own insight about U.S. society specifically or, on occasion, about post-industrial societies in general. And the often insightful blog comments, gatekept by the very thoughtful “blogger in chief” Brendan Greeley, occasionally make their way into the program, which evokes a type of polyvocality that is rare in Old Media (but required in the “Web 2.0 movement”). (Unfortunately, Greeley is apparently leaving the show, on which occasion I might start listening to another Greeley show if it’s podcast.)
So I probably won’t stop listening to ROS for a while. Can’t avert my ear.
Why do I tease Lydon so much? Well, as we say in French, «qui aime bien, châtie bien» or “I keed because I like.” People from the United States, especially those who claim European-American ancestry and respond rather well to the Judeo-Christian liberal model, tend to avoid conflict at all cost. It might be the main reason why, though some members of the ROS staff have contacted me after reading some of my blog posts about the show, I get this feeling that my perspective on the show is falling on deaf ears. It’s not that they don’t want to hear criticisms and critiques of the show, it’s just that my voluntarily confrontational style might clash with their own styles. If anyone on the ROS staff reads this: sorry, nothing personal!
So, do I write those posts just to be mean? Not really. But I do like challenging preconceived notions about the skills of people in positions of power. In other words, I tease Christopher Lydon because I know he can handle it. He apparently has a fairly high status within “PRI culture” (which is possibly similar to the “BBC culture” described by Georgina Born). And, to be honest, he sounds self-assured enough (notice I didn’t say “cocky” or “arrogant”) to dismiss this type of nagging offhandedly.
So, Lydon is the journalist I enjoy teasing.
Hey, it is some people’s idea of fun!
Performance, Expertise, Ingenuity
Wow!
Haven’t read Dr. Atul Gawande’s Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance yet, but from an interview with Gawande on the Science Talk Podcast, it seems that his “systems” approach to his field is almost anthropological. In fact, much of the interview sounded like they would fit in discussions among medical anthropologists, including the importance of ingenuity in medical practise, local conceptions of health, social responsibility, etc.
It also goes well with a previous Science Talk interview with Dr. Christopher Cowley about which I previously blogged. That one had to do with a polemical article on medical ethics published (available as PDF). In that article, Cowley called for open discussion on medical training by making a few recommendations, some of which having to do with giving physicians a broader training. As could be expected, that article generated strong reaction, especially on the part of medical doctors. I sincerely hope that Gawande’s book will generate thoughtful discussion but I get the impression that medical specialists tend to react very strongly at the suggestion that some of the things they do could be improved outside of the strict training they receive. In other words, it seems that physicians and surgeons are unwilling to challenge some broad ideas about their fields. Of course, they’re strongly motivated to improve their practise and enhance their expertise. But it seems rare, in medical fields, to be taking a step back from practise and look at the broad picture.
To me, this is related to both extreme specialisation and to the social status afforded medical professionals.
Some anecdotal examples relating to my thinking about medical fields.
A friend of mine who’s whose [doh!] girlfriend is a student in medicine keeps teasing doctors by calling medicine a “technique.” Another friend, herself a student in medicine, says that it is frequent at the medical school where she is to portray medical students as an intellectual elite («crème de la crème»). Health professionals I know frequently say that one problem in the health system (especially in Quebec) is that physicians and surgeons have too much power. And, in my own experience, those physicians who have been best able to help me were those who took a broader view of health, outside of the strict application of well-remembered guidelines.
One argument against such discussions of what medicine could be revolve around the idea that “a good doctor is someone who has been well-trained.” Often phrased in the “if you had to go through surgery, wouldn’t you want the best surgeon to perform the operation?” (with the assumption that “the best surgeon” is someone who has the most credentials). This perspective is quite common in North America and it relates to a whole ideology of evaluation. Something similar is said about “the best students” (who are likely to be the ones getting “good grades”). What’s missing from it, IMHO, is mostly a notion of appropriateness, flexibility, ingenuity.
So Gawande’s book is sure to stir up some interesting ideas. Especially if medical professionals stop foaming at the mouth and actually spend a few hours thinking in a broader frame about the things they do.
Getting Ready for Google Presentation
Been waiting for this for a little while.
Presentation boost for Google Docs & Spreadsheets | The Register
Using Zoho Show in the meantime. One advantage of the Google version might be that PPT attachments could be opened directly. Also, the access control in Google is fairly decent. But Zoho Show has been fairly good to me.
Brits and Journalism
2.0’Reilly quietly rips up blogna carta | The Register
Aside from the resounding failure of the [blogger code of conduct] itself, the act of proposing it was a huge success for O’Reilly, winning him coverage in such venerable forums of public debate as The New York Times and Metro.
Gotta love The Register! One of the few New Media outlets with the gutz to kindly tease Old Media.
Internet Democracy
There’s been several “If X were a country” analogies, especially with MySpace as a target.
But then:
If the Internet was a country, it would be many times larger than the country of MySpace The Something Awful Forums
And then:
Nicholas Negroponte, the noted futurist and author of ‘Being Digital’, once observed that if the Internet were a country, it would be the nicest place on earth. Security and Vulnerability
Not to mention:
If the internet were a country, you’d know a relative of almost everybody. Scribd
It’d be interesting to use notions we have about actual countries to follow the analogy further. Some might think that the Internet could have a president but most of us seem to agree that the current structure of the Internet, without a specific “head of state,” works fairly well. We’ve known for a while that ordered anarchy can work:
In his classic study of the Nuer of the Southern Sudan Evans-Pritchard presents them as naked cattle-herders, seasonally nomadic, living in grass huts and supplementing their diet of animal products by horticulture. They form a congeries of tribes, sometimes gathering into loose federations but without central administration, rulers or grading of warriors or elders, and the age-sets into which they are divided have no corporate function. Evans-Pritchard speaks of ‘leopard-skin chiefs’ among them, but makes it clear that this position is backed by no coercive force. They show some specialisation but nothing amounting to a profession and cannot be said in any strict sense to have law, for there is no authority with power to adjudicate or enforce a verdict. In sum, ‘their state might be described as an ordered anarchy’. From Village to Empire
Associating the ‘Net with that anarchic model isn’t new. What seems to me a bit newer is to call that system “democratic” (especially in the context of User Generated Content, and other “Web 2.0” phenomena).
Even newer, to me at least, is the idea that the open and flexible nature of the Internet as it was originally designed might not be part of redesigns of the Internet.
Should we apply a more democratic model for the new Internet? How far should the “country” analogy affect the way we remodel the ‘Net?
The literature on nationalism and communities could help.
Confessions d'un papillon social
Tiens, tiens! C’est pas mal, ça… Ça fait plusieurs fois que j’utilise la formule «Confessions d’un {désignation personnelle}», par référence détournée à Rousseau. Amusant de voir que, cette fois-ci, le lien entre «promeneur solitaire» et «papillon social» est même orthographique… 😉
C’est aussi la première fois que je fais un billet aussi personnel. Quasi-introspectif. Et même pseudo-catholique.
Fiou!
Oui, je l’avoue, l’admet, le confesse et le proclame: j’aime les gens. Tout simplement. Tout court.
Pas «j’aime les gens qui me ressemblent». Pas «j’aime les gens de qualité». J’aime les gens. Tous. Les êtres humains. Les membres de mon espèce. Sans raison spécifique.
Ils font de tout, les gens, du plus vil au plus beau, du plus laid au plus louable. Mais ils sont surtout très intéressants, les gens.
Me sens «humaniste» dans un sens très précis: amoureux de la nature humaine. Me fait surtout traiter de «papillon social», y compris par mes proches. Quelqu’un qui passe d’une personne à l’autre comme un papillon qui butine de fleur en fleur. C’est surtout utilisé en anglais, mais des Francophones parlent aussi de papillonnage dans un sens assez proche.
C’est assez réaliste, comme désignation. J’eus toutefois tendance à prendre ça comme un reproche. Surtout quand certains observent ma tendance à passer d’une personne à l’autre lors de rencontres publiques. Ça rend “self-unconscious”. Après tout, il y a cette idée que le papillon social est un être fat, qu’il est motivé par un désir de gloire, qu’il n’est pas loyal… «Papillonnage» est même plus connoté et me ressemble moins puisqu’il touche à la promiscuité, qui n’a jamais été mon truc.
Donc, «papillon social», c’est pas une étiquette facile à porter. Mais désormais, je m’assume en tant que papillon social. Oui, j’en suis fier.
D’après moi, les papillons sociaux ont la possibilité d’avoir des effets intéressants, sur les gens et sur la société. Pas exactement un pouvoir d’influence. Mais plutôt le pouvoir d’un grain de sable dans l’engrenage. Les choses changent, les papillons sociaux participent au changement. Simplement en étant eux-mêmes. Les papillons sociaux ont aussi la possibilité d’unir les gens. Je me sens donc très confortable dans mon rôle de papillon social. Je ne suis pas sélectif dans mes amitiés mais j’accorde beaucoup d’importance à mes amis. Certains sont très proches de moi. D’autres sont plutôt des connaissances. Mais tous ont de l’importance pour moi.
Va pour le côté «social» de mon caractère social. Il y a une part plus intime.
M’allonge sur un divan modèle psychanalytique, tendance Freud et non Jung. Presque Woody Allen comme scène. Et les mots résonnent avec la force du lieu commun: «ça date de mon enfance».
Si si! De ma plus tendre enfance. Mes parents avaient de nombreux amis. Ma mère, surtout. Et ils m’ont emmené avec eux dans toutes sortes de soirées. Souvent, j’étais le seul enfant entouré de nombreux adultes. Parfois, j’étais le centre de l’attention. Toujours, j’avais du plaisir. Du moins, si mon souvenir est bon.
Faut comprendre la chose. Notre vie familiale a toujours été basée sur l’amitié. La maison de ma mère a souvent été le lieu de rencontres impromptues. Nous avions une terrasse sur laquelle nous passions de longues heures à bavarder, avec des amis. Parfois, nous chantions, nous accompagnant à la guitare. Souvent, nous réinventions le monde. Nos références étaient souvent européennes et francophones, étant donné notre lien avec la Suisse Romande et avec la France. Nous mangions, buvions, savourions la vie.
Il y avait un côté européen à la chose. Et mondain. Et intello. Par contre, rien de très bourgeois. Pas de notion d’exclusion. Beaucoup de franchise. Bref, comme une version post-hippie des salons proustiens.
J’avais six ans quand mes parents se sont séparés. C’était donc avec un seul parent à la fois que je découvrais les délices sociales de la «soirée entre amis».
Mais ma famille a toujours été unie. Surtout l’unité familiale formée par ma mère et ses trois fils. Puisque je suis l’enfant unique du deuxième mariage de ma mère, il y a de grandes différences «objectives» entre mes frères et moi. De plus, par diverses circonstances, nous avons souvent été géographiquement distants, les uns des autres. Mais nous avons toujours été unis par des liens filiaux très forts. D’une certaine façon, mes «demi-frères» sont encore plus réellement mes vrais frères que si j’avais été né du même père qu’eux. Leurs amis sont parfois devenus mes amis. Tout ça grâce à ma mère, dont je parle peu parce qu’elle est quasi-sacrée, pour moi. C’est elle qui a soutenu cette cellule familiale. Quiconque parle de familles mono-parentales de façon condescendante n’a pas vécu ce que nous avons vécu.
D’ailleurs, nous avons créé pour nous-mêmes une identité propre. Nous sommes les Enforaks. «En-» pour «Enkerli», le nom de mon père et mon propre nom de famille. Et «-fo-» pour «Thiffault», le nom du premier mari de ma mère et le nom de famille de mes frères. Étant, à l’époque, fan du dessin animé Goldorak, j’ai ajouté le pseudo-suffixe «-rak» au nom d’un robot en blocs Lego que j’avais construit. Pour moi, rien de comparable au noyau familial formé par Marielle Gagnon et ses fils: Christian Thiffault, Pierre Thiffault et Alexandre Enkerli. Les Enforaks, ce fut aussi plusieurs personnes qui ont gravité autour de nous. Si je me rappelle bien, c’est même pour manifester l’acceptation de Catherine Lapierre, celle qui allait devenir ma première belle-sœur, que j’ai bâti et nommé ma construction Lego. Il y eu plusieurs autres Enforaks, y compris une autre Catherine: ma tendre épouse, Catherine Léger.
Oui, je suis nostalgique.
Quoique…
J’ai autant de plaisir maintenant qu’à l’époque, à rencontrer des gens. Et je suis très content d’avoir la chance de converser avec des gens de divers horizons sociaux, culturels, géographiques, idéologiques et professionnels. C’est d’ailleurs plus facile pour moi d’être un papillon social dans l’ère digitale que ça ne l’a jamais été dans mon enfance.
Ma vie familiale et sociale à travers ma famille était surtout heureuse par opposition à ma vie scolaire. J’avais de bonnes notes, les profs m’appréciaient, j’avais l’occasion de développer diverses aptitudes. Mais j’avais énormément de difficulté à me faire des amis. Retour sur le fauteuil: je me suis toujours senti rejeté par mes contemporains. Traité de «maudit Français» à cause de mon accent semi-européen. Mis à l’écart dans le contexte des «sacrements» religieux, puisque contrairement à la quasi-totalité des élèves de mon école primaire, je n’avais jamais été baptisé. Seul «enfant du divorce» à mon école, j’étais une curiosité pour plusieurs, y compris certains membres du personnel. Pacifiste au milieu de bagarreurs, j’avais de la difficulté à me faire respecter. Écrivant «aussi mal qu’un médecin», j’étais la cible d’une attention très particulière. Peu séduisant, je n’avais aucun succès auprès des filles. Bavard, je fatiguais mes congénères. Mes aptitudes scolaires étant bien plus grandes que mes aptitudes sportives, j’avais tout pour me faire détester.
Bref, j’étais seul avec mon moi-même à moi tout seul. Ça te me forme un gars, ça, madame!
Faut dire que, même à la maison, j’étais souvent seul. Entre autres parce que ma mère travaillait à temps plein. Dès l’âge de 9 ans, j’ai commencé à cuisiner et à manger seul, tous les midis de semaine. Puis la maison était vide quand j’y retournais après une journée d’école. Mon frère Christian (qui avait dix-huit ans lors de mon entrée à l’école) ayant quitté la maison familiale assez tôt et mon frère Pierre étant mon ainé de huit ans, je n’avais pas de compagnon de jeu à portée de main. Je passais donc de longues heures seul, dans une immense chambre à coucher, à jouer ou à lire tout en réfléchissant.
Oh, j’ai bien eu des amis. Y compris Frédéric Fortin, avec qui je maintiens de très forts liens d’amitié. Mais j’étais, malgré tout, seul.
«J’écris pas pour me plaindre, j’avais juste le goût de parler.»
D’ailleurs, ce dont je me rends le plus compte, c’est que j’ai pu bénéficier de tout ça. Non seulement ma solitude m’a «fait les pieds» et je suis désormais heureux d’être seul, mais ça a contribué à me faire vivre des moments fort agréables qui se répètent souvent.
Ce qui a probablement changé le plus, depuis mon enfance, c’est que je n’ai plus le désir d’être populaire. Je veux voir les gens, discuter avec eux. Mais je ne tiens pas à ce qu’ils soient admiratifs à mon égard. Oh, bien évidemment, je veux être apprécié, comme tout le monde. Mais j’aime tout le monde et j’aime simplement rendre le monde heureux.
Le plus mieux de l’affaire, c’est que ça marche assez souvent. Quand on est heureux soi-même, c’est facile de rendre les autres heureux. Et quand on se sent bien dans sa peau, c’est facile d’être heureux soi-même. Et quand on aime les gens, c’est facile de se sentir bien dans sa peau. Et quand on apprend à connaître les gens, c’est facile de les aimer.
Intro to Post-Starbucks Coffee
A podcast episode on coffee, with Karen Blumenthal, George Howell and Corby Kummer.
On Point : Coffee Buzz – Coffee Buzz
Blumenthal, author of a book about Starbucks, isn’t mentioned in the show notes but she seems to have set the tone of the show, to a certain extent.
In the rest of the show, I quite like the dynamic between the three main participants: the host, Tom Ashbrook, along with Howell and Kummer. Howell often tends to sound much more forceful in his opinions than he did in this show. And the different takes about Starbucks were quite nuanced.
The show does put Starbucks in the centre of the coffee revolution in the United States and then focuses on newer developments. The current period in the history of coffee in North America is sometimes referred to as the Third Wave, in which is imagined a world of openness and transparency in the coffee-related industries.
As I got my taste in quality coffee from a very different source than Starbucks, I hope that we can now go beyond the Starbucks mentality. In fact, I also hope that we get out of the wine comparisons. Not just because they’re boring but because they miss the point about coffee as a diverse drink. It’s not a very American thing to say but knowing coffee isn’t just about being to tell what is the “best coffee ever.”
One thing the coffee world could import from the wine world, is the idea of pairings. It actually works better for beer than for either wine or coffee, but it can work quite well with coffee, especially with different brewing methods.
BTW, I have nothing against wine. I just think that much wine tends to be much less satisfying than several other drinks including coffee, beer, tea, cider, mead, juice, milk, and water.
Speculating on iTunes Subscription
Yet another Apple rumour, this time about iTunes allowing some type of subscription model:
Media Biz Apple changes its iTune? «
In this case, the comments to the blog entry are, dare I say, more insightful than the entry itself. Movie subscriptions would make more sense than music subscriptions because people are used to rent movies.
OTOH, a WiFi-enabled device which could play any music in the iTunes catalogue could be interesting in a context of DRM-free music tracks.
Yes, there is a logic to this. If you can buy DRM-free tracks, renting DRMed music can make sense as an advanced music discovery service (complete “excerpts”). Especially if you’re provided with a way to share the DRMed music with people who subscribe to the same service. And use a WiFi connection to get music directly on the device.
In fact, an iTunes version of the Ruckus model could work really well. “If you want to keep this track, as a higher quality, DRM-free file, you can buy it directly.” And Apple can bring together ideas from Last.fm, Pandora.com, eMusic, Calabash Music, Microsoft’s Zune, Ruckus, the new Napster, the new Bittorrent, and even MySpace.
It probably won’t happen. But if it does, it could be cool.
The “buffet,” “à la carte,” and “table d’hôte” systems can coexist.
Now, I’m getting hungry.
Googely Voice
Neat new service.
GOOG-411 offers free directory assistance – Lifehacker
Not available in Montreal, but quite useful. Apparently better than Free-411.
The speech recognition and speech synthesis are quite good. In fact, when I was working in speech, such a service was pretty much the main example we used for the need for speech research. With the prominence of cellphones in many different parts of the world, I still think that speech is a field in which technological advancements can have very interesting effects.