Steve Jobs and Adobe: A grudge of ages?

Steve Jobs is in the middle of the mother of all tech showdowns with Adobe over allowing Flash into the iPhone/iPad walled garden, even going to the effort of blocking a roundabout way of compiling Flash-assembled applications for the iPhone.

Yesterday he posted a reasoned argument pointing out why Flash won’t be allowed – critically, to attempt to position Apple as a reasonable party in this matter, Jobs emphasises Apple and Adobe’s past close relationship:

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products.

This got me curious: the LaserWriter was launched in 1985, around the time Jobs left Apple. Apple then went through a near death experience before Jobs was brought back in 1997, and that was around the time Adobe went to the corporate (the unstated, insinuated “Windows” side) world to get some significant sales.

So what I want to know is: Is this a Jobs grudge playing out after 25 years? “Apple” might have worked closely with Adobe, but did Steve? Anyone got dates on this?

The Multitasking Myth

The interwebbers are abuzz over an article titled “The Autumn of Multitaskers“, a wandering study and story of multitasking and its many and varied pitfalls, chief among which is the argument that multitasking is a productivity illusion. It allows you to look busy, but really you end up doing both things half-arsed. Bloggers of the world nod along in agreement, hailing it as a revelation while reading it on their iPhones, listening to the latest Arctic Monkeys on the commute in to work (while another tab loads up in the background).

The main point made in the article is that multitasking requires the brain to chop and change between tasks frequently, forcing it to move from a deep-involvement to shallow-involvement, and the penalty of multitasking is a drain on productivity, reportedly costing $650 billion a year in America in lost value

For the most part, I would agree with the point of the article, but there are two things that I would take to task about this.

The first is that this is somehow news. Breaking: doing many things at the same time means not everything is done perfectly! The author’s primary example is when he used a phone in his car, and nearly ended up killing himself. Can you say ‘duh’? Other examples are cited, though some, such as Enron’s ability to appear to be a successful trading company while really being a shonky outfit, is dubiously connected to multitasking.

The ‘revelation’ part of this article should be the part of the scientific study that suggests the hormonal shift of chemicals could be damaging in the longer run (it shouldn’t surprise that hormones shift), and the effect this particularly has on kids. Little column inches are dedicated to this, though to be fair it would make for dry reading.

The second is the excuse that the metaphor of brain-as-computer is somehow part of the cause of multitasking, as though computer multitasking has translated into expectations of human multitasking. This is part of the point that many are picking up on around the net, suggesting that somewhere we went overboard with the ability of computers to multitask, and that’s now harming us.

The reality is, as any credible 3rd year computer science student should be able to tell you, computers don’t multitask any better than we do. Until the recent popularisation of dual-core and multi-CPU machines, computers by and large had one CPU, one ‘brain’. Multitasking was an illusion provided by the operating system, where it did exactly what our brains do – puts down the current bit of work, picks up the next bit of work, and works on it, the loop repeating ad infinitum.

The metaphor of brain-as-CPU is a poor one because we can’t do the mathematical calculations as quickly. However, it is an appropriate one when it comes to multitasking, because computers do exactly the same thing. (One might suggest something about ‘in our own image’, if one was so inclined.) The argument that somehow we model our concept and use of our own brains through the metaphors of things we have made (with our brains), and thus computers are to blame for the multitasking world we find ourselves in is a fallacy, if simply because it is a tautology – we think our brains work as computers because we modelled computers on our brains.

Some in the blogging world have taken this as a revelation, and the enlightenment suggests why people maximise program windows (to see more? no, to focus more, obviously!), and the success of the full-screen writing apps recently. I would contend that you’re conflating one issue (multitasking vs single task focus) with other issues entirely (reduction of distraction temptations, more screen real estate). Computers have not foisted multitasking upon humanity, they have merely enabled it to run away from our limited abilities to keep up.

I do not argue that multitasking does not reduce competence, but I do argue with the attempt to blame it on our devices. We’re at fault, and our devices are enablers. We’ve worked out how to put multiple brains in computers to improve multitasking, but we’ve yet to get to that point in humans – until then, multitasking remains a high-investment low-return activity.

Election Week 1: The Tax Break

The Election certainly kicked off with a bang following the Coalition’s $34 billion dollar tax cut package (over 3 years). Labor held out to the end of the week before unveiling a similar package, for $31 billion, with the bulk of the additional $3 billion going towards education – as a tax rebate for families – and some $600 million promised to reduce waiting lists at hospitals, and finally pocketing some $200 million out of the remainder for the government surplus.

The Liberal move surprised me little – Howard and Costello have a track record of buying votes with tax breaks, and people have come to expect them rather than consider it an exceptional circumstance. The truth is however that these reductions in personal tax rely on some other part of the tax base holding up the fort, and while that is the companies at present, it’s a fragile thing on which to base a long term strategy, which eroding the income tax base certainly seems to be.

Still, it’s a bit of more-of-the-same from the Liberals, and I don’t think anyone was surprised too much by them. Polls on Wednesday suggested it resulted in a 2% swing back to the Liberals, bringing them to within 10 points for the first time in a long while.

Labor held out for a few days, rather than react and be forced to reveal their own policy in whatever state it happened to be in. However, when it was released it by and large mirrored the Coalition policy, up to the point of the richest tax bracket (i.e. completely irrelevant to the majority of voters).

This disappointed a lot of people, I’m sure – when you’ve got Jeff Kennet saying the tax cuts would be better spent on health, education and such like, you know perspectives have changed; now we’re just waiting for the politicians to catch up. The $2.3 billion for education and $600 million for hospitals that Labor skimmed off the Liberals’ policy got buried in the headline that the tax cuts will be largely mirrored.

It seems like both sides took to appealing very cynically to people, effectively saying your vote is linked to your hip pocket; it may be that this turns out to be true, and that is what Labor is betting on by trying to neutralise the issue in mirroring the cuts. What I think a lot of people wanted to see though was for Labor to be different – it might not win so many cynical votes, but by being different Labor could have stolen a march on the Coalition.

Spending on education and health are two things that the Liberals could not attack for being “wasteful” or any of the tag lines that would typically be rolled out in the face of different priorities. If $15 billion had been poured into universities and technical schools, virtually guaranteeing a reduction in HECS and fees, it would play very well to the families. Spending the next $15 billion on hospitals would have made a huge impact and really cemented Labor’s position as the social-services party – it might be an old cliché, but the Liberals would be committed to delivering some $30 per-week-over-three-years worth of tax cuts while Labor would be promising to fix services. That would be the true test of the cynical vote and establish a clear difference.

Instead, we’ve got a race to the bottom. The tax cuts are clearly inflationary, and the Reserve Bank is sure to take this view when considering the next round of interest rate movements.

If I were to draw the analogy to the financial world, this is a company promising to pay out a huge dividend. This pleases the simple investors – it means they get a cheque in the mail that’s money for holding the shares. More sophisticated investors however should take it as a warning – dividends are only paid out when the company has no idea what to do with the profits and cash it’s got sitting on its books. That means the company doesn’t have any useful projects it could invest the money into and potentially generate more money down the track.

Microsoft for years didn’t pay a dividend because it had projects to invest money into. In 2004, they had a lot of money on their books and nothing useful to do with it – so they paid it out. This was a clear indication Microsoft didn’t know where to go next, and these tax cuts are much the same concept, broadly – returning money to shareholders of Australia Inc. Except those shareholders are effectively customers too, and they aren’t necessarily happy with the service they’re getting.

All in all, tax cuts are a cynical way to win government, and indicate a lack of direction. They do have an immediate appeal, however, and we see this played out particularly in Australia where compulsory voting pushes the decision of choosing government to the marginals, where cynicism is far more likely to win for its immediate appeal, rather than any long term plan that might help. Here’s hoping this is one promise that can be reneged in favour of more appropriate spending.

Election!

John Howard finally got the guts up to call the election, now set for Saturday the 24th of November. Instantly, he was on the attack and up to his old tricks.

His attack against the opposition was clear and upfront – they “are inexperienced” and his team “had the experience to serve”; if Labor came to power, it would remove “all checks and balances” with Labor parties in government in all the states. You could almost sense Howard going for that sense of inertia keeping people pinned back, relying once more on the status quo to prevail for the sake of it.

Howard also trotted out a new take on the economy, given the previous Coalition claims that interest rates would always be lower under them was now transparent to the public – he claimed unemployment would be lower – from 4.2 today to “something with a 3 in front of it”, and “better sharing of the benefits of strong economic growth.”

Please, can we have enough of this same-old clap-trap left outside of this campaign? Clearly not, I suppose.

Were experience always in question, we would never have switched governments – or oppositions would have to be filled with the same old fogeys going backwards and forwards. This argument should persuade no-one, and it’s clear from previous voting patterns that sometimes, those less experienced do manage to jump through even unexpectedly (Bracks in Victoria is probably the best example). And it’s not as if these people are absolute outsiders to the world of politics, either – this rings clearly as Howard’s weakest attack, targeting the “trust” image of the new Labor – polls suggest though that the people are fairly confident in Rudd, and he’s been prominent for the last year at least.

Checks and balances is a pure matter of misrepresentation; the division of areas of responsibilities between the states and the federal government was something that worked for years before the current government’s reign. To suggest that somehow the federal government is in place to counteract the states is purely ridiculous, and symptomatic of Howard’s downward-reaching policies which has seen the federal government replicating functions the states should be performing, or otherwise reducing the usefulness of the second tier of government, or at worst pushing them down one more tier and leaving councils entirely maintenance oriented. If you’re going to do that, remove them altogether and empower councils. The check and balance for the party in power should be the upper house, the Senate – that is what it was designed for, and what purpose it serves well enough when the government party doesn’t hold a double-majority as with the current Liberal-National government.

Having failed to make his point with taxes, Howard (and by proxy, his “economic manager” and heir-apparent Costello) has chosen to ‘tackle’ unemployment down from 4.2 percent to, at the least, 3.9%. And how does he propose to influence such outcomes? The implication is the answer to more employment lies in the WorkChoices industrial policy – and this shows exactly how Howard is missing the point of the electorate that has rejected WorkChoices out of hand.

Let us not forget that the “unemployment” rate is inevitably a slightly arbitrary figure – it only counts the numbers of those looking for work in comparison to those with, leaving out the disenfranchised entirely – and that its defition can (and has) changed; the barrier for entry to the total ’employment’ figure counts those on limited hours too, which is parcilarly misleading. Finally, further employment rises are more likely to expose inflationary pressures and also is a good indicator of the fact that we have a severe skills shortage. For something he’s got limited control over, again, it’s a bit much of a claim.

Better sharing of economic growth? From Howard? Does he think he’s a socialist all of a sudden? Ha, if you can’t see through this…

Finally, last but far from least, Howard’s sudden contrition around Aboriginal reconciliation; 10 years after he adamantly threw out any sign of caring for reconciliation with these most disadvantaged of Australians, he suddenly finds it within himself to propose a referendum on getting an entirely symbolic passage inserted into the constitution. Wow, Howard, did you come up with that over your lunch break, or did you scramble it in on the limo ride on the way to your speech? He even went so far as to admit that he comes from a time when Aborigines weren’t a political issue, and yet he should recall that his peers and predecessors were able to approach the issue openly, and it has only really been Howard who is most recalcitrant about this issue.

In summary?

Howard, your approach to this election is even more cynical than I could have expected. The Liberals deserve a leader, not another cynical power grab, and i’m afraid that’s what you’ve gone for, quite evidently.

Apple’s Coke Classic moment

Apple released the new iPod family today – a revised iPod Shuffle lineup (colours, really), the iPod nano (3G), the iPod classic (5.5.5G?) and the all-new iPod touch, which takes the iPhone and strips out the phone functionality.

Is this Apple’s New Coke/Coke Classic moment? And where was Jon Ive when they were designing the new nano?

They’ve tacitly acknowledged the desire for oodles of space with the 80GB and 160GB (!) iPod “classic” line, but it does look increasingly isolated as the rest of the iPod line profilerating with flash-based storage. While my own experiences with a hard-drive based iPod suggests this is probably a smart move, and higher capacities are still impractical with flash, it does feel a bit like the classic monkier is a bit of a cop-out – I’m sure everyone would’ve been far happier with the top-of-the-range iPod touch being hard-drive based for a bit more dollars, but that would have gouged the sales of the iPhone even more.

Instead, you effectively have Apple pointing towards the flash players as the future, and keeping the classic there to assuage concerns about a lack of high capacity options.

The new iPod nano is, to be frank, a bit of an abomination to me (and many others, it would seem). While the “fatty” tag it has been getting is far from fair (or PC), its aim to be a video-nano seems a bit incoherent to me. A two-inch screen is pretty small, and I’m sure any video you’re really watching will be a little squint-inducing. The 2G version was elegant and purposeful; this one looks a bit like an effort to really stretch the nano brand. Could we get a nano-classic here?

I really think either Jon Ive was away when this design was dreamed up, or someone else has usurped his primary role in the design process.

Finally, the iPod touch is also the first flavour most outside of the US will get of the iPhone’s new interface, which should be interesting (in the sense that I will get to play with it). And to show just how far we have come – at the end of 2004, I paid AU$550 dollars for a 40GB iPod (which incidentally you can get refurbished today for $179); today, the new iPod touch 16GB is available for the same price point.

Two steps forward, one step back?

Ed: Also of note! The iPod touch doesn’t have games. Something pending in an upcoming update for both the touch and the phone, perhaps?

“Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”

The Daily Dish compares and contrasts the Nazi torture intensified interrogations with that of the current American regime

If this doesn’t convince you that what is happening at Gautanomo and was occurring at Abu Gharib is entirely wrong and unjustified, or that the Bush administration has totally sold-out the moral high ground (did they ever have it?) in the name of their own agenda, I’m not sure what will.

The similarities are stunning; will a future administration be brave enough to call them on it and convict? Or will it fundamentally remain as a sop to “Middle America”, the Red states whose votes count for so much, and be passed off as a phase of history, possibly regretted but never fully apologised for?

I wonder if the revulsion that so many have for the Nazi regime would ever turn on the torturers enhanced interrogators of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. I suspect not; the wrong-doers in this case are English speaking and elected by the majority, so they see too much of themselves in the current regime (those who are already angry are justifiably so). Also, it’s committed on “their own watch”; they re-elected these guys, despite it all.

What hath September 11 2001 wrought?

“Private” Schools

More Privilege for the Privileged: The Federal government has no claim to being a support of public education on the basis of the money they actually provide for it. To quote:

“[T]he budget shows public schools getting 31 per cent of the money while the private schools get 69 per cent. But public schools … have two-thirds of the enrolments.”

(That doesn’t take into account state spending on education, which makes up the bulk of it, but it is in contrast to the Whitlam Government, which started federal funding of education and biased spending appropriate to enrollment.)

“[T]he minimum grant per student paid to private schools ranked as the least needy is now far higher than the grant per student paid to public schools.”

So even the richest private schools get more money than the poorest publics.

“Australia is the only country where … public funding for private schools is the dominant function of the national government – and constitutes the largest item in its education budget.”

So it’s clearly something that we’re on the outer for. And finally:

“Howard has not imposed anything much in the way of conditions on the big grants he’s paying to private schools. What they do choose to do – such as continuing to impose hefty annual fee increases on their parents – is up to them. By contrast, he and his minister are always coming up with new conditions they want to impose on public schools, and always threatening to withhold grants if the states fail to comply.”

If that doesn’t show how stupid and unfair the education funding from the government is, I’m not sure what will.