Happy iPhone Day!

Unless you're living in a cave somewhere, or you actively avoid technology news, it's likely that you're aware of the iPhone's impending release. At 6pm tonight (it's a rolling release, at 6pm in each time zone) at Apple Stores and AT&T Stores across the US, the much anticipated iPhone will be available for purchase. In some places, people are already lining up (and have been for days), though I was at the Maine Mall the yesterday, and the AT&T Store there didn't look any busier than normal. The kind of hype and excitement surrounding the iPhone's release is the kind usually reserved for the latest video game console, and is unprecedented for a cell phone. Leave it to Apple to turn a convention on its ear, huh?

Predictably, along with the hype, come the haters. Nay-sayers who love nothing more than to tear apart whatever is popular at the moment. In some cases, they have a point. The iPhone doesn't have as many features as some other Smart Phones, and it is limited to AT&T, and doesn't include any expansion slots or a user-replaceable battery. Sure, the iPhone isn't the cure for cancer or a solution to poverty - I'm told it won't even painlessly remove warts or whiten teeth as widely speculated - but there is a very good reason that people are so excited about the iPhone. It's not the advertising hype, it's not the Apple brand itself, it's the interface.

Repeat after me: It's all about the interface.

It's all about the interface.

Interface design is one of the most important, and least appreciated, aspects of product design. It's under appreciated because when it's done well, you hardly notice. When's the last time you thought about how to operate a light switch? Or how to use a pair of scissors? When's the last time you forgot which way to turn the steering wheel in your car to make it go right? These are all examples of interface designs that are so sensible, or at least consistent, that you don't even think about it any more. There's no reason why clock-wise should translate into "turn right". While the top of the wheel is rotated towards the right, the bottom is rotated towards the left, and the wheel itself doesn't move in either direction, it just spins in place. However, it is such a convention at this point that we don't even think about it. This convention is carried into many other products as well. If you were to encounter a product that turned this convention on its ear, for example a stereo that required you to turn the volume knob to the left to turn the volume up, it would be confusing and disorienting. That would be very poor interface design.

Note that I said "turn the volume knob to the left", but you still knew that I meant "counter-clockwise", didn't you?

So what do light switches, steering wheels, and volume knobs have to do with the iPhone? Simply put, the interface design of most cell phones sucks. Modern cell phones are notorious for overly complicated, labyrinthine menus that must be slogged through to perform the simplest of functions. My cell phone, which is made my LG, is relatively easy to use, but some tasks that should be simple are not. As an illustrative example, let's try turning the ringer off:

First, I have to push the blue "OK" button to bring up the main menu. There is little indication that the OK button will do this, except for a red "Menu" blob above it at the bottom of the screen. I know, because I have read the manual, that the red blob is telling be what the blue OK button does, but there is no logical, or natural, connection between the two. Next, I go over to the Settings & Tools menu tab and down to Sounds. Initially I tried System and Call Settings before trying Sounds. From there I select Call Sounds. Here I am presented with Call Ringtone and Call Vibrate. Why the option to turn off the ringer is part of the ringtone menu eludes me. Among other things, this necessitates choosing your ringtone again when you want to turn it back on. Given that they are arbitrarily labeled "Ringtone 1", Ringtone 2" etc., I have to listen to each one to figure out which one it is that I liked. Here I'm presented with four options: Caller ID, no Caller ID, Restrict Calls, and All Calls. Going into the All Calls menu I scroll all the way to the bottom and select "No Ring".

This is a completely arbitrary multi-step process - seven steps in all - for something that I would think would be a common request. This same procedure must be followed to turn the ring tones back on. And really, mine is one of the easiest to use cell phones I've seen in years. Every time a relative gets a new cell phone, I end up sitting down with it for some time, trying to figure out how to do things so that I can teach the phone's owner how to do them. My mother still hasn't figured out how to use her phone's call waiting feature, and often complains that it beeps at her during calls. Given the level of technology we are capable of, this state of affairs is ridiculous. Phones, portable or otherwise, should not be this difficult to use.

Enter the iPhone. I'm realistic, I don't expect the iPhone to answer all of the little annoyances mentioned above. Whenever the number of functions excedes the number of controls, operation necessarily becomes a bit arbitrary, but it can still be logical and easy to follow. And it certainly solves the primary problem above: The iPhone has a switch on the side that turns the ringer on and off. When designing an interface, make simple actions simple and complex actions explicable.

The reason most people - including myself - are psyched for the iPhone is that it looks as if this will finally be the phone that works the way we want it to. The key is the fact that the majority of the interface is virtual, so that the whole thing can be re-arranged to account for the current action. For example, were my mother using an iPhone as another call came in, she would be presented with two large buttons, one offering to put the current call on hold and pick up the new call, and the other offering to ignore the new call and send it to voice mail (there may be a third "3-way calling" option, I'm not sure, but I thought I saw something about that). She wouldn't have to remember that the Send button doubles as a Flash button for switching between calls (she shouldn't even have to remember what a "Flash" button is). At any given time, the interface will show you only what you can do at that moment. As I mentioned above, when the number of features exceeds the number of controls, things become arbitrary. The iPhone's virtual interface goes a long way towards addressing that problem by showing you, to the best of its ability, only what you can do at that moment. Each possible action represented as a single clearly labeled button as in the Call Waiting example.

Despite the fact that the iPhone is a very complicated device, the interface has been thought out in such a way as to make it easy to use. But that's not the coolest part.

More important are the "natural" cues that have been programmed into it. By natural cues, I mean the kinds of things that humans are programmed to expect after thousands of years of dealing with the world we inhabit. Objects have mass and behave in a certain way, interacting with objects causes things to happen, etc. The iPhone's interface has been designed with this in mind. The clearest example, and one that can be seen in several of the recent commercials, is how scrolling works. In order to scroll through a list, you place your finger on the screen and drag it one way or the other, as if you were moving a paper tape over the surface. Beyond this, and far more impressive, the list has mass and inertia. If you fling it, it will keep moving for a time, then slow to a stop. When you hit the end of the list, it bounces slightly, in the manner of a retractable cord that's been pulled out as far as it will go. With these two relatively simple interface details, the list becomes a physical thing that you can interact with. In other words, you know how it works without thinking about it.

How many times have you come to the end of a list on your computer or cell phone, and had to push down a few more times just to be sure you're at the end? How many times have you thought you'd gone all the way to the top or bottom of a list, only to realize some time later that you hadn't? This simple bounce is a subtle but very clear clue that you've gone as far as you can. Both the bounce and the inertia also go a long way towards eliminating some of the abruptness inherent in most graphical interfaces. In the real world, movement and sound don't start and stop with abruptness, and when they do the effect is unsettling. It also makes things hard to follow and track. This is the reason I never, ever use page down when scrolling a document or web page. Pressing Page Down causes the entire thing to abruptly change, with no visual clue as to what has happened, or how far we've gone. Sometimes the last line is still visible as the first line on screen, but that still takes a moment to register, and I always fear I've gone too far or missed something. And what if I've hit it twice by accident? Or the program I'm using interprets Page Down differently? Internal links (the kind that take you to a different part of the same page) are even worse. Have I jumped to a new page? Where am I in relation to where I started? Hard core techies will laugh at me for this, but it's honestly the way I feel and I'm certain I'm not alone. This is basic to the psychology of objects and interaction.

The simplest way to avoid this particular confusion is to cause the document to slide, rather than jump. This can be done very quickly, but so long as it registers, there's no confusion as to what happened. Check this out for a rough example of what I'm talking about. By incorporating natural movement and inertia into scrolling on the iPhone, everything moves in entirely explicable ways. There's no confusion and you feel like you're in control at all times, because you get this. Brilliant.

Another great example is the spelling correction feature. If you misspell a word while typing, a bubble appears under the offending word with a suggested correction. If you choose to go with the suggestion, the incorrect word fades away and the correct word slides up into place. There is absolutely no confusion as to whether the correction has taken place or not (I can't be the only one who double checks just to be sure). In the real world, in order to replace something, you move it out of the way and then move the replacement into the vacated space. Again, the graphical interface of the iPhone mimics the natural cues of real life, letting you know what's going on in a subtle and unobtrusive way.

For these reasons, and countless others expounded elsewhere, the nay-sayers who point out the iPhone's short comings are missing the point, the same way they missed the point when the iPod was released without a radio tuner or voice recorder. In the end, the user experience sold it, and then some. Personally, I'm psyched about the iPhone. Not so much the device itself (I can't begin to afford one), but the ideas it brings to the table. With luck, it will work as advertised, and will completely re-write the rules for how cell phones work. Hopefully the iPhone will wake cell phone makers up to the fact that phones should be designed with the end user's ease of use in mind, and the torrent of crap they've been producing for decades will finally end. Hopefully.

On the other hand, if the iPhone fails to live up to its promises, it will be very bad. People like myself, and even more so people who actually bought one, will be outraged. We will show no mercy if this is the case, having been mislead into false praise and false hope. This would not only be bad for Apple, but for the cell phone using public. If the iPhone fails, people will take this to mean that the concepts it embodies are no good. The industry will just keep doing what it's been doing with the rational that it has worked so far, and the iPhone didn't.

If that happens, it will be very bad indeed. Here's hoping Apple's up to the challenge.

P.S.: In case you can't tell, issues of interface design and interaction interest me greatly. The iPhone is only one example of a technology (whether high or low tech) that fascinates and excites me. Expect more posts in the future about related issues. I'm not an expert, I'm just a regular guy who loves these kinds of ideas and loves sharing them with the world to see what people think. Check out The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman for a fascinating (if dated) look at these issues.

Odd Feed Behavior

For some reason the feed for this site has been doing some odd things. I'm signed up for e-mail updates so I can monitor what's actually getting sent out, and a couple times recently I've received e-mails containing a number of random older posts. I have no idea why this is happening, the feed itself looks fine, and I'm at a loss. So, sorry for any inconvenience or annoyance, hopefully it'll work itself out sooner rather than later.

Now, to ensure that this isn't an entirely boring post, check out what I just came across in Apple's support docs (my emphasis):

6) Check for Viruses
Macs are far more less likely to get a computer virus like Windows PCs are prone to but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

I feel like I should tell someone, but on the other hand they're Apple, they should know better.

iTMS Plus - Higher Bit Rate, No DRM, and Still They Complain

For some reason, I've been receiving e-mails from PC Magazine recently. I didn't sign up for this, but occasionally there is an interesting article or product review, so I don't really mind. Recently, however, the June 21st edition of the "PC Magazine Buying Guide" included a link to the article "DRM-Free Comes at a Price", by Tim Gideon.  In it, he outlines why he's not happy with Apple's plans to offer DRM-free music through their iTunes Music Store (iTMS). This article was first published on May 30th, before the offering actually took place (you can now buy "Plus" tracks by EMI artists which are encoded at 256kbps, and are DRM-free), so a few of his concerns have been answered, at least in part, but that's not what interests me here.  What interests me is the attitude of entitlement and the childish and petty nature of his complaints.

After going over the basics of Apple's announcement, he writes "I'm no fan of DRM, so why am I still annoyed?", and then launches into his criticisms. First is that Apple is charging $1.29 for these "Plus" tracks, as opposed to the $0.99 they've been charging all along.  He explains his disappointment like this:

Let's just bypass the insulting fact that we've been paying for lower quality all this time (since it's not a new gripe) and tackle the real issues here: The increase in bit rate is minimal and will be imperceptible to most ears. So, while you're ostensibly paying more to get better sound quality (which is still not CD quality), what you're really paying more for is the record label's "sacrifice." Since it's letting you actually own your music files now, it wants extra cash.

Insulting?  The quality of the tracks sold on the iTMS has never been a secret, you knew what you were getting when you bought them, so where's the insult?  I have never understood the nearly personal offense some people take to purchasing music from the iTMS.  Some people seem incensed that they're buying tracks that are encoded at "only" 128kbps and are saddled with DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I'm no fan of DRM myself, but where is the insult in all of this?  If you want higher quality and no DRM, don't buy from the iTMS.  It's really that simple.  Apple is offering a service, no one is forcing you to use it, so where does this self righteous anger come from?

As for his real point, the regular tracks on the iTMS are encoded at 128kbps (kilo-bits per second), while the "Plus" tracks are encoded at 256kbps.  Because of the way bit rates work, this doesn't translate directly into twice the quality, but it is a significant boost.  In fact, nearly every source I could find noted that at 192kbps and above, the vast majority of people can't hear any difference, and that's when dealing with MP3s.  The format Apple uses, AAC, uses a higher quality encoding scheme, meaning that these new "Plus" tracks should sound like MP3s encoded at a bit rate higher than 256kbps.  Especially given how often people gripe about the 128kbps encoding now, this increase in quality is hardly "minimal" or "imperceptible".  It is added value, plain and simple.  Whether it is enough of an addition to justify the price increase is up to each of us to decide for ourselves.  Again, no one is forcing you to buy anything, it's your choice.  He's just complaining for the sake of complaining.

As a side note, it is true that the individual tracks cost $0.30 more in their "Plus" version, but the same is not true of whole albums, which for the most part cost the same in either version.  As someone who very rarely buys individual tracks, this is wonderful news.  For example, I recently looked for Emery's "The Question" (which I highly recommend), and found that the full album costs $9.99 in either regular or "Plus" form.  Assuming that you take 256kbps to be acceptable quality (I do), and you don't mind not having the album art (in most cases, I don't), this is a better deal than buying the CD, which generally sells for $15 or more.  For someone like me, "Plus" is the killer feature that could, if the other labels follow EMI's lead, make music stores largely obsolete.

Next, he moves onto what seems to be his primary complaint:

Now on to the damage done: those now inferior tracks that you bought on iTunes over the past half-decade? They'll still have DRM and still be "protected" (from your desire to share them). If Steve Jobs truly believes DRM should be eliminated, the elimination should be retroactive.  This could be achieved by sending iTunes customers new DRM-free versions of all of their previous purchases via an iTunes update, or by updating the software to ignore all past DRM encryption.

As I mentioned above, this article was published before the "Plus" service was actually rolled out, so it's very likely that the author simply didn't know about the "Upgrade My Library" option, which allows you to upgrade all of your purchased tracks to their higher bit-rate, DRM-free "plus" versions.  Of course, this option comes at a cost, you have to pay the extra $0.30 to make up the price difference, so the author might still not be happy about it.  He wants the tracks he already purchased to become "Plus" tracks free of charge, apparently as a matter of principle.

Why he believes that Steve Jobs and Apple owe him anything is beyond me.  This goes back to the "you knew what you were buying when you bought it" point I made earlier.  When you bought songs on the iTMS, you knew that you were getting tracks encoded at 128kbps and saddled with DRM for $0.99 each.  You knew that, and you agreed to those terms, or you wouldn't have made the purchase.  End of story.  Now that there's something better available, why on Earth should you be given that free of charge?  Does that happen in any other industry?  Do people demand free upgrades for the computers they purchased last year because there's something bigger and better out now?  That would be like me demanding that Saturn give me a new Ion because mine is a year old now, and the new ones have some nifty features I'd like to have.  That's simply not going to happen.

And actually, Apple is offering a pretty good deal when viewed in those terms.  If I could get a brand new, updated car by paying the difference between what I paid a year ago and what the new ones cost, I would do it.  The same goes for my two year old iBook.  I paid roughly $900 for it two years ago.  The new MacBooks retail for about $1100.  I would gladly pay $200 to upgrade, but that isn't going to happen.

Of course, when dealing with digital files some of the rules are different.  it would certainly be possible for Apple to just give everyone these upgrades, and all it would cost them is some time (the people running the iTMS have to be paid after all), and possibly bandwidth, though given the monstrous amount they already use, they'd probably hardly notice.  But that's not the point.  Just because they can, doesn't mean they're under any obligation to do so.  They offered a service that you took advantage of, and now they're offering a service that is of greater value to you and they expect to be paid for it.  Welcome to the free market.  You can argue on philosophical grounds all you want that Apple should offer free upgrades, but they are under no legal or moral obligation to do so.

It's also worth noting that the author is willfully ignoring the fact that only one label is offering DRM-free tracks so far, EMI.  The only way to retroactively remove DRM from previously purchased tracks is to somehow separate EMI artists from all of the others.  In other words, to update the tracks themselves instead of the software as a whole.  Part of that $0.30 per track upgrade cost is going to pay for the fact that this has to be done case by case, as opposed to via a blanket upgrade.  Whether this actually costs Apple anything is irrelevant.  They are, once again, offering a particular service at a particular price, it's up to you whether their offer is worth it to you or not.

Finally, the author makes a clear implication that Steve Jobs and Apple aren't really serious about going DRM-free.  I can't speak for the intentions of Jobs himself, or of Apple as a whole, but I can speak to the simplistic - if not outright ignorant - nature of that implication.  It isn't up to Apple whether or not the tracks they sell feature DRM or not.  When the iTMS first opened, Apple had to appease the RIAA - the gate keepers who hold the keys to the majority of music the average consumer would be interested in - or they wouldn't have had anything worth while (from a business standpoint) to offer.  The RIAA is known for being opposed to digital music, to say the least, and so Apple was required to put a Digital Rights Management scheme in place before being allowed to sell anything.  Now that EMI has agreed to sell their tracks without DRM, Apple is able to do so, but they are still in no position to force that on the other labels whose music their sell.  They also have to do whatever EMI asks of them lest they pull the plug.  For all we know, that $0.30 is a condition EMI demanded before allowing this change.

To imply that if Apple "truly believes DRM should be eliminated" they would throw the doors wide is to ignore the realities of the business Apple is in.  They can no more dictate these policies to the record labels than can K-Mart or Wal-Mart (well, maybe Wal-Mart... regardless, Apple doesn't have that kind of clout).  Again, the author is complaining for the sake of complaining, and displaying (yet again) a willingness to ignore facts for the sake of a petty attack.

Maybe it's time I start marking these PC Magazine e-mails as spam, if this is the quality of their offerings.

Movie Review - Knocked Up

First of all, to get this out of the way: I've seen "Shrek the Third" and "Pirates of the Caribbean - At Worlds End", and "28 Weeks Later" between seeing Spiderman 3 and Knocked Up. They were, respectively, "a lot of fun, but not as good as the first two", "weird and wild, but not as solid as the second", and "really good, probably better than the first, but they're so different it's hard to compare". Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about Knocked Up.

Knocked up is Judd Apatow's follow up to The 40 Year Old Virgin. It's an interesting amalgamation of genres that probably appeals across several audiences. It's a pregnancy comedy and the female lead is from Grey's Anatomy, so the chick flick crowd is well represented. However, it also features most of the second string cast of The 40 Year Old Virgin, a goodly amount of stoner humor, and more F-bombs than any comedy in recent memory. Fans of raunchy comedy will be pleased. It also, against the odds for a movie like this, features well rounded characters and a solid story. So what did I think of it?

It's the best movie I've seen all year, hands down.

That's a big claim, particularly in this season of major blockbusters, but I stand by it. The thing is, not only is Knocked Up uproariously funny - I haven't laughed this hard since Borat - it's also a very well made and superbly acted film. Take away the jokes, and it would still be a solid drama. For the most part, everyone seems to agree with me on this. I do have one friend who was quite disappointed with it, but I'll get to me thoughts on that later. The one word I've heard over and over again is "honesty". This movie deals with issues of pregnancy, relationships, marriage, friendship, responsibility, and all of the myriad emotions that go along with them with stark honesty. Even the language in the film, which is filthy to say the least in places, rings true. Also, just to put this out there, I hope that both Seth Rogan (Ben) and Paul Rudd (Pete) star together in many, many more movies. They're brilliant together, to say the least.

I might get in trouble for this, but at this point I would almost describe Judd Apatow as a mature Kevin Smith. Not to take anything away from either film maker, but that's the vibe I get. The naturalistic dialog, bracingly honest treatment of the subject matter, and the low key production are all reminiscent of Kevin Smith, particularly of Chasing Amy. However, Apatow's characters and subjects are decidedly more adult, and his habit of letting actors improvise (something Smith would never do) lends his films a more spontaneous feel. Take from that what you will.

WARNING: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

The inciting incident in Knocked Up is the chance meeting of Ben - an unemployed stoner who's out partying with friends because he doesn't have anything better to do - and Alison - an up and coming talent with E! who's out celebrating her first "on air" assignment. Ben manages to charm the slightly innebriated Alison, and the two of them go back to her place and have sex. Unprotected sex, due to a drunken misunderstanding. Eight weeks later, Alison realizes she's pregnant, and Ben is the only candidate for father.

From there we follow these two near strangers as they try to get to know one another and figure out what to do about their situation. Where Knocked Up differs from your average pregnancy story is in its focus. What makes Knocked Up different from your standard romantic comedy is its honesty and heart. The jokes come entirely from the characters being who they are and bouncing off of one another, the emotional moments are almost painfully real, and not once does the film talk down to its audience.

Ben doesn't have the typical "I don't want to take on this responsibility" reaction when he finds out he's going to be a father. His initial reaction is emotionally violent and angry, but once he's had a chance to come to grips with the idea, he tries to do the right thing as if it's his only option. Alison's reaction is panic and sorrow - she can see her career, all that she's worked for, going away because of this - but she almost immediately decides to keep the baby and do the best she can. Of the few negative reviews I've seen of this movie, most seem to point to these two immediate decisions as a weakness. Why doesn't Alison consider an abortion? Why does Ben so readily give up his hedonistic ways? The answer to the first is simply that she doesn't want to. Most people probably have their minds made up already whether that's even an option for them (regardless of their political views), and apparently it isn't an option for her. The answer to the second cuts a bit closer to the heart of this movie. First of all, Ben is a decent guy. It is largely to Seth Rogan's credit that even when his character is doing something unseemly, you can't help but think that he's a decent guy. Secondly, and here's the real meat of it, he doesn't quite grasp what he's doing at first.

Where the women in this movie - Alison and her sister Debbie - give the film its strength and intelligence, the men - Ben and Debbie's husband Pete - give it its heart and soul. Initially, Ben "does the right thing" by doing what he thinks he's supposed to do, but it's little more than playing the part. It's almost as if he's acting out the things he's seen in movies and TV shows. He means well, but he hasn't yet grasped the fact that he's actually going to have to change his ways. In one scene where this comes to a head, he forgets that Alison is asleep in his bedroom when an earthquake hits. He leaves her there and instead carries a large bong to safety. Pete, by contrast, has given himself over almost completely to his wife and two daughters, and fears that there's nothing left of who he once was. He makes up excuses to get out of the house and do things alone to try and regain some sense of self. This leads to problems in his marriage, which gives Ben and Alison a glimpse into what their future may hold if they can't figure this out.

Again, this movie doesn't play down to it audience, so Pete isn't a stereotypical disinterested father and husband. He loves his kids and is shown to be nothing less than a stellar father, and loves his wife as well, he simply feels trapped and overwhelmed by her. Debbie, for her part, could have played as a standard nagging wife, but instead is possibly the most compelling of the characters here. Alison isn't the model of strength and patience she might have been in less capable hands. Instead, she gives back to Ben just as good as she gets, and nearly destroys her career by trying to hide her pregnancy out of fear. Where Ben's journey takes him from acting the part to actually embodying it, Alison's takes her from fear and uncertainty to strength and maturity.

This shouldn't have to be said, but it's nice to see a movie like this where the women are just as unsure of themselves as the men, and the men are just as redeemable as the women. I'm not ashamed to admit that when Ben finally comes into his own and claims not only his responsibilities, but the inherent privileges and dignity of being an expectant father, I was moved. What he finds in himself is something I can only hope I do if I'm ever in that situation, and that thought touched me deeply. Ben's crowning moment comes when he is finally able to put Debbie - the one character who has always held the moral upper hand thus far - in her place and banish her from the delivery room after she tries to unceremoniously dismiss him. When she says to her husband "He just kicked me out... I think he's going to be a good father... I think I like him!" (or something close to that) it's a brilliant validation that Ben has finally arrived. It's also important to note that Ben does not give up being who he is, his actions are very much in character, only his focus has changed completely (going from himself to his girlfriend and new baby).

Now, about people who didn't like this movie, in my experience so far, they fall into two camps: Those with political objections (lack of focus on the question of abortion, for example), and those who simply felt no connection to it. A good friend of mine saw Knocked Up expecting the funniest movie ever, based on what he'd heard (from myself included). While I freely admit that this isn't even the funniest movie of the year, he saw almost no humor in it. I found that baffling, until it occurred to me that we are at two very different stages of our lives, despite being good friends. I am married, I own a house, I have a degree and work in my chosen field. He is single, will soon be living with his parents again, and works in fast food. I'm certainly not trying to knock him - in some ways I envy him (don't read too much into that, I'm very happily married) - but the fact is that introspective humor centered around long term relationships and what it means to grow up and become responsible not only to yourself, but to a family of your own, just isn't going to resonate as strongly as it would with me.

I had a similar observation about the movie Big Fish, which is still among my top movies ever. After my wife's younger sisters and mother went to see it, I asked them what they thought. The young girls, barely out of high school at the time, thought it was boring and pointless. Her mother, on the other hand, found it deeply moving. Similarly, my father had a very powerful reaction to it, possibly more than I did, due largely to the themes of fatherhood and true understanding across generations.

I stand by my statement that Knocked Up is the best movie I've seen this year. You don't have to agree, it isn't a movie for everyone, but don't be surprised if some day you see it again and find a lot more there than you did the first time around.

Today is a very special day for me

Two years ago today I was lucky enough to marry the love of my life.

Woot.



It'll be interesting to see what happens next.

Taking Stock

For a number of reasons, I've been thinking a great deal about what I really want in life, what I really believe (or don't), and how that fits into the life I'm leading. Over the past few years (particularly the past nine months or so) my interest in things scientific, spiritual, philosophical, and religious has been at all time high.

For most of my life, I have had definite leanings away from organized religion and towards a more scientific world view. I do my best to be a good skeptic though (if nothing else, I've learned that I am a skeptic, and always will be), so I've been looking at as many different viewpoints as I can and holding my beliefs up against them. I've realized how little I actually know about the things I think I know. Pondered this, I found that many of my long held beliefs and assumptions were held without proof or evidence, I simply believed them because I always had. Not good.

The most obvious reason for this is environmental. Like most people, I spent most of my time around people who are somewhat like me. Especially as a child, the people you choose to spend time with are going to be those that you agree with in most cases. In that respect, until the age of 24 or so, I had rarely spoken at length with a person of deep religious conviction, or a staunch conservative, or an anarchist, or even a member of a truly repressed minority (I grew up in Maine, after all, and could count the non-Caucasians I've known well on one hand). It was rare for me to put a political or religious view out there and have it disagreed with. Intellectually, I knew that such people as fundamentalists, free market capitalists, and country music fans existed, but I hadn't knowingly come into close contact with them on more than a few occasions.

What changed all of that for me was the Internet. In particular, I found a forum that for a time fostered respectful debate and disagreement, only occasionally getting personal or nasty, about all of these topics and more. It was filled with intelligent and interesting people from all over the country, and even the world, and from all walks of life and ideologies. Interestingly, it was a forum for a then young web comic about movies. The web comic, Theater Hopper, is still going strong and I highly recommend checking it out. The forum, unfortunately, has declined of late, having been over run by spambots and, regrettably, one too many mean spirited arguments. I still hold out hope that it will reclaim it's former glory, but we'll see.

What happened on that forum was not something that I had really experienced before. Someone made a comment that prompted me to state a smirking opinion about people who believe in the Bible as literal truth. In hindsight it was probably a dumb and impolite thing to say, though I don't remember the exact wording now. I didn't think anything of it, assuming that we would all have a little chuckle about "those people" and then move on to other topics. Instead, someone challenged me, politely, to defend my views. What followed was a long and exhaustive debate covering nearly every facet of that particular argument. I know full well that I didn't sway his opinion, or that of any other true believer, but I came away from that debate feeling very good about it.

Being forced to defend me views had pushed me to actually research them, to see if there really was any basis for what I thought I knew. It turned out that I held a number of beliefs for which there was no basis, mostly about people who think differently than myself. Mark, the person who questioned me, will forever have my gratitude for pushing me towards becoming the person I am today. Granted, I'm sure he would have been happier to have shown me the One True Way as he saw it, but I believe we were both happy to discover that you can respect and be courteous towards people you disagree with, even on such a fundamental level.

That little back and forth started years of research and self examination on my part. I've had to let go of some of the things that I've always held as truth, and accept certain things that I'm not altogether happy about. I've learned that wishing something were true doesn't make it so, and that if you have to overlook or dismiss evidence to defend your position, it's probably not a position worth defending. I've also learned that it's OK to say "I was wrong", and to change your views as new evidence comes to light. Doing so doesn't make you "wishy-washy" or weak, quite the opposite. Admitting you were wrong and altering your whole view of the world is harder and more painful by far.

So, what conclusions have I come to? Where do I stand now on the topics raised here, and others? I'm saving that for (possibly many) future posts. I believe it's important to know where a person is coming from first, and how they got to where they're going, before you get into the big questions. Not doing so is how so many of us, especially myself, ended up holding views that don't stand up to scrutiny, and I certainly wouldn't want that.

The truth is always so much more interesting.

OK, now I really do feel old.

She's probably going to kill me for this, but it's big news and I haven't had anything interesting happen recently (that I can talk about here), so here goes: My sister is engaged. That's right, my little sister is going to get married. I just happen to have a picture of the happy couple (from Christmas) to post, for which she will probably break my knees or remove some vital bit of my anatomy. Oh well, it's a nice picture, and I've found that pictures really spice up a blog page.



While this is certainly good news, I've noticed some interesting things in my reaction to the news. First and foremost, I have to make it clear that I really am happy for them both. He is a good guy and really seems to care about her deeply. Plus, if anything he is even more of a nerd than I am, which makes him interesting company, and makes it really easy to bug her by getting going on some topic she cares nothing about. That's something you can't put a price tag on. They've been together for years now, and really this news was only a matter of time (the only person surprised by this, apparently, was my sister).

Beyond all that, however, my first thought was "but she's so young!" In my mind she is perpetually 14 years old. The fact that she's going to be a senior in college this fall doesn't seem to matter to my subconscious, when I think of her, I think of her at roughly 14 years of age. Those of you with younger siblings - especially if there's a large age difference - and parents as well, will appreciate this sentiment. I'm six and a half years older than her, she's literally my baby sister. I remember the first time I saw her when she was less than a day old, and now she's engaged. When I expressed this to Laura, she reminded me that she was only a year older than my sister is now when we bought this house together.

Really? Wow. That thought is almost as mind blowing as the day I realized that I was older than my father was when I was born.

As of now there are no immediate plans for a wedding. She has another year of school to get through, and they're not really in a position to seal the deal just yet anyway. Good, I say, no need to rush things. I feel old enough as it is, I'm happy to wait a bit before attending my baby sister's wedding.