I wrote a comment over at Mule Design’s blog claiming the anti-iPad backlash is a failure of empathy for most computing device users. The comment is still in the moderation queue so I decided to resurrect this little soap-box to republish it here.

What I wrote:

I also disagree strongly with most of the iPad backlash criticism and agree with most of what you have to say. It’s a beautiful device and one which I think a great many people will find a useful and refreshing experience.

My one significant criticism of the device (and the associated platform), however, is of the “I don’t have root” variety, but it’s important to understand why. That the device isn’t “open” by default is not the problem. Even OS X ships with root disabled ( how to turn it on) which is a good thing. Most users haveno interest in manipulating their devices at such a technical, powerful and dangerous level. Nor do I think “rooting” a device should be an easy nor a warranty-protected action. With the power of root comes the responsibility of any consequences.

Many (like Gina Trapani) acknowledge this argument but answer “yes, but people will hack it anyway.” This is true and a very pragmatic point of view. However, the problem I have with the iPad (and other appliance computing devices including the iPhone and gaming consoles) is that, because of the DMCA, it is illegal to root the device, and Apple (and other hardware makers)set up unnecessary hurdles to prevent users from getting full control of the devices they own.

I believe that if I purchase a device that has a certain set of capabilities, I should be able to use those capabilities in any way that I see fit so long as that usage is otherwise legal (DMCA notwithstanding). The DMCA-protected lockdown on these devices is akin to selling me a book under the protection of a law that forbids me from carving out the pages to use it as a book safe (i.e., modifying the device to an alternate purpose). I think this right is an important freedom for many reasons, not the least of which because I believe it is required to foster a culture of innovation.

Again, I don’t think it should necessarily be “open” by default, nor do I think “off label” usage should necessarily be supported by Apple nor covered under any warranty, nor do I think getting root-level access to the device should necessarily be easy or otherwise supported by the hardware maker. My problem is that these hardware makers take active measures under the protection of an (IMO very flawed) law to prevent the people who do wish to modify & adapt devices which they own from doing so, turning tinkerers and innovators into criminals, which has an long-term negative effect on our shared culture.

I’ve been missing Jack Lessenberry’s columns lately and discovered that the old feed I’d made with Dapper had finally choked off. For those of you who like to keep up with Jack and are frustrated by the limited feed(s) provided by the MetroTimes, here’s a new one, thanks to Dapper.

Short version: Help me fund a project to help teach 6th graders math by providing physical “manipulative” aids for a classroom at my old middle school: Making Math Make Sense in Mrs. B’s Classroom.

If you watch the Colbert Report (or listen to NPR as much as I do), you’ve probably heard about DonorsChoose.org. The problem: teachers lack resources for innovative projects within public school budget constraints. People in the school community (defined broadly) want to support these pro-active teachers. Schools resort to a multitude of fundraising gimmicks to fill these gaps, often turning kids and their parents into a free-labor sales force for overpriced products (how many pounds of Morley Candy have my fellow CVHS alumni sold?). People buy these products “for a good cause.” If a company made a bit of a profit off the deal, at least the school got a cut.

In the past, these fundraisers were a necessary evil to compensate for limited school budgets dictated by a political process external to the classroom itself. Asking every possible donor for money for every possible project would have been an impossibly expensive task. The potential donor pool for any specific project is unique (some people want to give in their community; others for teaching math; others for kids with learning disabilities; etc). Instead of incurring the (unreasonable) expense of trying to identify potential donors, inform these donors of the potential project, and importantly, informing interested donors in a timely fashion that there are other interested donors that are also willing to shoulder part of the cost — people instead would fork over some cash in exchange for some chocolate and trust that the school system would manage it well enough; and if not, at least they got some chocolate.

The insight DonorsChoose had is the lesson Clay Shirky outlines in his recent book Here Comes Everybody — the Internet has changed everything. The previously expensive task of publishing a list of potential projects in a timely fashion for discovery by possible donors has become essentially free. Recognizing this, DonorsChoose provided a platform to give teachers the power to reach around the politics and bureaucracy of the school system and give donors the power to see exactly how their dollars will be used.

This evening I saw DonorsChoose CTO Oliver Hurst-Hiller present at the NY Tech Meetup. When I met Oliver after his presentation, he gave me a $30 gift certificate. The first thing I did when I got home was to figure out how to give it away. I quickly found my K-12 school district found one project seeking funding at my old Middle School. I saw that it had already reached 10% of its fundraising goal. I decided to give to this project and double-match the gift certificate, bringing it to 26%. Now it’s up to you to help us finish raising the last few dollars.

My contribution to the LazyWeb today: Brownstoner user Polemicist asks for a way to hide frequently obnoxious “guest” comments on Brownstoner. I write a bookmarklet. Drag the following link to your bookmark toolbar and click it on any Brownstoner post and it’ll hide the guest comments for you.

Hide Guest Comments.

I’ve only tested this in Firefox. This is why everyone should learn DOM scripting. Customize the web.

Amanda tapped me awhile ago for a game of blog tag:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting that you did.

1. When writing/coding, I frequently find myself “conserving” characters when correcting text, rather than retyping those characters even when retyping would be faster. Example: let’s say I typed “foolhardy” and decided “silly” is a better word. I might delete all but “l” and “y” from “foolhardy” and then prepend “sil,” “saving” two letters — which is, well … silly.
2. I long for the day when I can sit around making stupid web pages and other pointless things, full time, for my own amusement
3. I’m very good at dealing with internal contradiction and guilt. I blame my Catholic upbringing. (For example, while I acknowledge that White Castle hamburgers and American Gladiators aren’t good for me nor anyone else, I still consume them with glee and little, ineffectual remorse; or I think this whole ‘tag’ game is silly, bordering on old-people-email-forward-spam waste of time, but here we are)
4. I believe bacon is reason enough to live
5. I seriously considered moving to Astoria solely to run against Peter Vallone, Jr. for City Council (until I learned he’s term limited out)
6. I fail early and often

Who’s “it” next? noneck because he loves the attention; Jacob because he just crashed on my couch; and Sat because his chronometer’s 10s digit just rolled over to 3.

This is not a photoshop job. I kid you not. (Photo by Michael O’Kane).

Ask him about his campaign for Brooklyn Borough President.

So I get lots of ideas for really stupid web projects. For reasons I don’t understand, I feel guilt for not releasing my useless web toys into the Internet cosmos. Perhaps my retroactive New Years resolution will be to make more of these, since I just built one: Single-Serve.com — inspired by this Kottke post.

If you don’t get it, well, you don’t get it. Feel free to email us if you have a site to add, feedback, hatemail, etc.

About once a week:

Me: “No bag. No bag. No, no fork. No napkins. No. No I have it all back at the office. No, just this.”
Halal guy: *smiles and laughs*
Me: Thanks.

One thing I love about NYC lunch time operations is the insane efficiency of busy lunch joints — especially street vendors and deli cashiers (who often handle three customers at once because they make change faster than customers can pay). One thing that drives me nuts is the waste created. In order to refuse any part of the packaging — bag, utensils, sauce packets, napkins, etc. — requires an insane amount of persistence.

In a typical week, I think I only use only three or four varieties of container, which are almost always plastic or styrofoam. While I can minimize the accouterments, I still can’t ditch the container. I wish I could just walk up to the halal guy, hand him a plastic container, and walk away with my food. (Or my soup guy; or my hot bar food from the deli) — but I’m sure if I tried to pull this on my own, most vendors would either refuse or, at minimum, give me a hard time.

I think the City should sponsor a standardization of various takeout container types which vendors could sell along with their products and accept for various kinds of foods. A visit to one of the busy “has everything” Manhattan delis should be able to standardize on a handful of container types that’d be appropriate for most kinds of foods. The city should also accept these containers for recycling. Then, I could walk up to my halal guy, give him my number six, and walk away with my chicken-on-rice happily…

Takeout Conundrum musings at Serious Eats

When I lived in Ann Arbor, I liked the principles of the co-housing communities there — push the cars to the edges; create actually useful common spaces both to make it easier to live in a smaller space (community workshop; spare guest rooms) and to help build community amongst neighbors (large community kitchen and occasional community meals) — but I couldn’t get over the suburban, greenfield setting. I longed to see more urban cohousing communities take root.

I was excited to see recently this Gowanus Lounge post about the newly forming Brooklyn Cohousing Group. I saw the post 30 minutes after the meeting started, but hope to make the next one on December 5th. I suspect this group might not be for us, though. Their stated priorities are “walking distance to Prospect Park” and “good schools” which (to me) means “Park Slope” and “not in the budget” — unless the housing market tanks and I still have a good job.

The folks from my favorite email list host provider CampaignMonitor have taken a cue from the well-established Web Standards Project (which has had considerable success at getting browsers to act more alike) and launched today the Email Standards Project. I’m not the biggest fan of HTML email but having recently dealt with issues around the Pando newsletter — if you thought browser support for web standards was frustrating, you ain’t seen nothin’!