Day: September 21, 2005

Kendall Clark on the Joys of Primitive Computing

Over at O’Reilly, Kendall Clark writes about the joys of what he calls primitive computing — specifically, the AlphaSmart Neo. Clark writes,

The Neo is interesting not because of what it does or what features it has, but what it can’t do and the features it’s missing. It’s all about one thing and one thing only: writing. I’m most comfortable turning any task into a writing task (when all you have is a hammer…), which means I’m super comfortable with a primitive device that’s really only good for writing.

Specs? I don’t even know what kind of CPU this thing has, and I couldn’t care less. I think the OS is some variant of PalmOS, but I don’t really know. The word processor, the only app it has, is brain dead. Which means no distractions; it gets out of my way as well as venerable Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS used to — a writerly experience I’ve only come close to replicating with Emacs.

The keyboard action is passable; not great, but no impediment. The screen is a measly six lines, and I’m finding it perfectly acceptable. Especially when it means that battery life — powered by 3 AA batts — is a remarkable 700 hours. Yes, 700 hours! The damn thing weighs all of 2 lbs, though it feels lighter. It’s the ultimate road warrior’s tool, at least if you think of a road warrior as a writer.

I bought my AlphaSmart Neo about a year ago, and like Clark I am still very happy with it. Over at 43Folders.Com, however, some folks are missing the point by dissing the Neo for essentially not being a laptop.

Certainly, the AlphaSmart Neo is not a replacement for a laptop. A better way to think of it is as an accessory to a laptop or desktop machine. I have a very nice, ultralite laptop that gets a nice 6 hours of battery life that I take pretty much everywhere. But I also take my AlphaSmart Neo with me in the same bag. Why?

1. Battery life — after a year of pretty heavy usage, I am still using the set of AA batteries the Neo shipped with when I received it last October. There have been numerous times when my laptop battery died and I did not have easy access to power where the Neo was indispensable.

2. Weight and temperature — Even at less than 4 pounds, my laptop is still pretty hefty. Plus it looks and feels pretty fragile. I’ve dropped laptops from more than a few feet before and the result was not pretty. The Neo weighs about 2 pounds and feels much lighter. I can stick it in its case and run off to a meeting without having to carry along the laptop, the power cord, an external mouse and similar accessories that I find indispensable. Moreover, even my tiny laptop puts out a tremendous amount of heat, whereas the Neosmart simply doesn’t generate any heat at all. I can type with it on my lap for considerably longer than I ever could with my laptop.

3. The lack of distractions and instant on/off — no Internet, no games, no IM, e-mail and the dozen other applications that are constantly distracting me while I’m using my laptop. The AlphaSmart Neo reminds me a lot of Google. Whereas the search engine has a wonderful site because it has a simple text entry box to enter a query, the Neo has a text entry area simply for word processing.

Moreover, simply press the power button and its on in about 2 seconds. Press the button again, and its off in even less time.

Of course the Neo does have limitations. Its got a small, non-backlit screen that only lets you see about 50-60 words of what you’re writing at a time. The lack of a backlight means you can forget about using it in rooms that are dark (when the lights go out for the PowerPoint presentation, good luck making out the screen.

Which means its ideal for some tasks and lousy for others. You’re not going to edit the final version of a 30 page report on the AlphaSmart Neo. But it’s great for grabbing your notes, heading off to a secluded space, and hammering out the rough draft. It is also great for taking notes at meetings, especially where using a laptop might be frowned upon or might offer too many temptations (too many meetings I attend have half the people busy working on other things on their laptop). I typically write many first drafts of blog entries on my Neo and then transfer them to a PC for final editing and then posting.

Is it worth $250? That really depends on how much writing you’re doing everyday and how important portability is to you. I write enough and do so much traveling between buildings and offices every day, that it is a great boon to have this device to tote along and have ready at a moment’s notice.

Starhawk: The Pagan Pat Robertson

Earlier this month, I mentioned my disdain for pagan activist Starhawk. But I did not appreciate just how nutty she is until my wife directed me to Starhawk’s A Pagan Response to Katrina.

The article is bizarre through-and-through, but the highlight is the Pat Robertson moment,

The forms and names we put on Goddesses, Gods, and Powers help translate those forces into terms our human minds can grasp. And so the Yoruba based traditions that originate in West Africa have given the name ‘Oya’ to the whirlwind, the hurricane, to those great powers of sudden change and destruction. Santeria, candomble, lucumi, voudoun, all include Oya in some form as a major orisha, a Great Power. Offerings are made to her, ceremonies done in her behalf, priestesses dance themselves into trance possession so that she can communicate with directly with the human community.

No city in the U.S. has more practitioners of these traditions than New Orleans. On the night the hurricane was due to hit, I made a ritual with a small group of friends to support the spiritual efforts that I knew were being made by priestesses of Oya all over the country. We were in Crawford, Texas, at Camp Casey, where Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Itaq, camped near Bush’s ranch to confront Bush with the painful reality of the deaths his policies have caused. Many of the supporters there were from New Orleans, worried about their homes, their friends and families. The overall culture of the camp was very Christian—we found no natural opening for public Pagan ritual, although a number of people did indicate to me quietly that they were ‘one of us.’ But our little group gathered by the roadside, cast a circle, chanted and prayed.

We prayed, speaking personally in the way humans do: “ Please, Mama, we know what a mess we’ve made, but if there is any way to mitigate the death and the destruction, to lessen it slightly, please do.” That same night Christians were praying and Orisha priestesses were ‘working’ Oya, and the hurricane did shift its course, slightly, and lessened its force, down to a Category Four.

And New Orleans survived. Not without loss, and death, but without the massive flooding and destruction that was feared. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

Robertson, of course, infamously claimed that through prayer he prevented Hurricane Gloria from striking Florida in 1985. In contrast, Starhawk’s accomplishments seem a bit underwhelming.

In both cases, however, it is interesting how indifferent both Robertson and Starhawk were to other people’s suffering during their purported spiritual efforts. After all, Hurricane Gloria went on to wreak havoc on the East coast, while Katrina avoided a direct hit on New Orleans but devastated other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi (Starhawk doesn’t mention the devastation in Mississippi, where hundreds of people were killed by Katrina, even once in her essay). Presumably Mississippians should have employed more voodoo adherents the next time a hurricane comes to town.

As I have said before, what fascinates me about new religious movements is how frequently they are simply that old time religion with a slightly different veneer on it. Although she imagines herself a leftist and a pagan, Starhawk’s views are surprisingly right wing fundamentalist.

Aside from the miracle of altering a storm’s course and strength, she’s got creationist nonsense,

Our human intelligence, our particular, sharp-pointed ability to analyze, think, draw conclusions and act, our esthetic/emotional capacity to thrill at a beautiful sunset, our deep bonds with those we love and our empathy and compassion for others, are all aspects of the Goddess Herself. Indeed, she evolved us complicated, contradictory big-brained creatures precisely to experience some of those aspects. Or to put it simply, she gave us brains and she expects us to use them.

She’s got apocalyptical prophecies inspired by man’s wickedness,

A few weeks ago, when we were preparing for the Free Activist Witch Camp that Reclaiming, our network of Witches, offered in Southern Oregon, I asked, “Is there any way to avert massive death and destruction.” The answer I got was an unequivocal ‘no’.

“The process has gone too far,” was the answer. The image that came to me was river rafting and shooting the rapids.. There was a point where we as a species could have chosen a different river, or a different boat, or a different channel. But now we’re in the chute. We can’t turn back. We can’t stop.

Not to mention people’s contemptuousness of her particular deity,

The Goddess does not punish us, but she also doesn’t shield us from the logical consequences of our actions. Katrina’s destructive power was a consequence of a human course that is contemptuous of nature. A Native American proverb says, “If we don’t change our direction, we’re going to wind up where we’re headed.” Katrina shows us a glimpse of that awful destination.

This last quote is the one I find the most bizarre. So people who die in natural disasters are the victims of their own contempt for nature? I’d love to see her explore the theological implications of the North Sea Flood of 1953.