omenti

on the fantastic flying books of mr. lessismore

The first release from Moonbot Studios, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Lessismore, has been out for awhile, but I tend to discover things at a slower pace.  The illustration is quite wonderful and there is a distinct style that has a fine antique feel to it.  There is much to recommend as you will see with the video, but you should know that you shouldn't watch it.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

(sigh - they have made this link private...)

 

You see the real experience is to be had in the iPad version and its interactivity.  Every page has a bit of something and the viewer becomes engaged leaving passive viewing behind.  And this interactivity is artistic and engaging.  It points in the general direction of the future.

 

Play with something like this and $10 seems like way to much to spend for a movie.  Perhaps $2 seems like too much ...

 

It will take decades for Hollywood - or whatever that becomes - to discover how to use the power of an interactive digital network connected sheet of paper that goes to someone's lap, but there will be illuminations along the way.  This is the first I would consider worthy of the new medium.  There have been a lot of experiments, but this one also mixes in real storytelling and art.

 

I'm guessing a lot of lightbulbs have been fired over the heads of the artistic set.   If you worry about this sort of change you really need to explore with an iPad.  But if you don't have one yet, I would wait a few months ...

 

(a short post as I spent most of the time with the "book")

 

 

 

that first telescope - recommendations

On a clear moonless night near the Rockies you can see the black outline of the mountains cutting into the slowly rotating bowl of stars.  The sight can be mesmerizing - the sort of thing that can put you in danger of frostbite in the Winter.  But a clear night sky was often different.  On some nights the moon was wonderful lighting up the snow on the prairie,  each year, on about August 12^th the Perseid meteor shower gave an opportunity to spend the whole night outside on a lawn chair just watching, and every once and awhile the aurora would explode into view - sometimes so dramatically that you would wake the neighbors at 2am.

 

Even now with fantastic new imaging and results from professional astronomy, you can go out and wonder at the night sky.  Jeri suggested mentioning the Kepler 22-b discovery.  Around some types of stars there is a region where liquid water can exist - a requirement for life as we know it to evolve.  This particular discovery is beyond the capabilities of amateurs, but there are many others that directly involve both communities.  And such discoveries fire the imagination.  As soon as I learned about the discovery I wondered exactly where the star was and if I could see it.  It turns out to be an 11^th magnitude star in Cygnus near its junction with Lyra and Draco.  Something visible with a modest amateur telescope.   If you go out and look you will probably be taken with thought that perhaps there is life there - and that the light you are seeing took about 600 years to reach your eyes.

 

The night sky is a powerful destination.  There is a there there. (apologies to Gertrude Stein)

 

With the longer nights this is a time of year a lot of people think about getting a telescope for themselves or their children.  Most people see a telescope in their local big box store or perhaps in a catalog and just get it.    They, or worse their children,  find these telescopes to be difficult to use and the optics are often terrible.   The initial experience is awful and many of these scopes find themselves stored away and ultimately forgotten.  It is the worst possible outcome - the cost per use is ridiculously high, a piece of unused hardware uses space and the owner is left with a bad first impression of astronomy.  Experiences like this can kill rather than kindle curiosity.

 

Amateur astronomy involves a fair amount of learning.  Perhaps the best path is a bit less steep, but one with high visual rewards and a low initial investment.  

 

I'm going to recommend binoculars and a star chart program as the best "first telescope".

 

Binoculars have a lot of advantages.  You can look at something in the sky and easily find it by just pointing your binoculars at it.  They are very portable, the image is not inverted, they can be used for many other activities and a good enough pair is inexpensive.

 

To appreciate astronomy you really should learn the constellations.  While it is possible to avoid that with some automated telescopes, there is a richness that comes with the familiarity of the night sky.  Just going out and learning is good enough, but binoculars give you the excuse of searching for some specific objects and that rigor will help you learn more quickly.  You'll quickly discover if this is something you love to do.

 

There are many things to look at that are wonderful with the modest 7 to 10 times magnification binoculars give.  They are doing two things - magnifying the view a bit, but more importantly they are gathering more light that your unaided eyes can capture.  You can see much fainter objects.  A reasonable lens (lenses are called objectives) size if 50 millimeters in diameter.  If you are over 35 your dilated pupil is about 5 mm in diameter - so these lenses would bring in about 100 times as much light.

 

The shorthand used for describing a binocular is to list its power and objective size.  A 10x25 has ten power and 25mm objectives.  The best sizes for the beginning amateur are probably 7x50 to 10x50.  These are easy to hold and point at the sky for extended periods and bring in enough light to see some of the best common objects.

 

Go to a sporting goods store or, if you have one, a store that specializes in astronomy and try several out.  If you have astigmatism you'll need to wear your glasses.  You'll want to make sure they are well-made and comfortable, provide a clear image, have coated optics, have an exit pupil that matches your pupil size.¹  You should be able to find something good enough for about $100.  

 

The next thing you need is a star chart.  A year ago I would recommend a good star atlas, but developments in smartphone apps have completely changed the game.  I've used eight night sky apps.  The standout is Sky Safari 3 by Southern Stars for the iPhone and iPad.  Either device is good - the iPhone is highly portable, but the iPad gives you much more area to hold up and "match" to the sky.  These are so good that I would almost recommend getting an iPad before getting the binoculars - you can find a good used original iPad for about $200 these days.  Sky Safari is on sale for the next few days in three versions.  If you think you are going to be interested beyond looking at the sky a few times I would go with the Plus version which shows satellites and has a much deeper catalog.  The Pro version is deeper still and both of these versions can interact with many of the current "goto" class of amateur telescopes.  Star charts and programs can be studied indoors when you can't be outside observing and good ones encourage study. I grew up with the Norton's  Star Atlas - a wonderful resource that I still recommend - but Sky Safari is much deeper and interactive.  If you don't have an iPad, buy one and get the program.  

 

Armed with Sky Safari and a good pair of binoculars, you'll need something to look at. Your library will have a lot of beginner's books on astronomy that will offer suggestions. Binocular Highlights by Gary Seronik is a good resource that is well matched to the beginner.    Sky and Telescope magazine has a nice monthly column with objects in the current night sky that makes the magazine worth the subscription price, although most public and school libraries carry it.  S&T has articles for the absolute beginner as well as some of the most sophisticated amateur observers and telescope makers.  Astronomy is a field that sometimes mixes amateurs and professionals and the magazine has great columns that detail what is going on in professional astronomy and astrophysics at the level one expects in Scientific American.  A fantastic resource - I have had a subscription since I was twelve.

 

If you get to the point where you realize you love this and are beginning to learn the sky it is time to think about a telescope.  These cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars and up, but a great first telescope is a Dobsonian.  They have a very simple design that assumes you just want to point the 'scope at an object and gather the most amount of light for the money you have spent.  They don't compensate for the Earth's rotation and are useless for astrophotography, but they are inexpensive and can provide wonderful view of the night sky.  Chances that you will be frustrated are low assuming you have gained enough experience learning the sky first.

 

A good Dobsonian with an eight inch mirror can be had for $300 to $400.  Add a few hundred dollars and some are fitted with digital encoders that report the orientation of the telescope to a small computer.  When you first set up the telescope you are asked to point it at a few known bright stars and then the computer calculates the telescope's orientation relative to the sky and can give you directions to find thousands of other objects in its catalog.²  Using this star finding scheme is an easy and natural way to spend hours of time - I've gone from dusk to dawn just having fun.  You'll want to get the largest you can afford that can be easily moved to a dark enough observing area and that you can comfortably use.

 

This is a good time to find a mentor.  Astronomy clubs and societies often hold star parties in dark areas and a few have dedicated observatories or places out in the middle of nowhere.  You'll find many amateurs to be passionate and helpful.  You may want to do this before getting a Dobsonian, but it would certainly do it shortly afterwards.  You'll zoom up the learning curve.

 

Moving to a telescope with a mount that compensates for the Earth's rotation adds cost.  The mount quickly becomes a critical component.  Setting up the mount can be complex - a tricky enough procedure that many beginners can become discouraged so it is probably best to move to this class once you have some experience under your belt - or at least the help of a good mentor.  

 

Most people go for six or eight inch compound optics telescope - Schmidt-Cassegrain or Maksutov-Cassegrain designs being the most common.  These folded optical paths  reduce the length of the telescope making them relatively compact and easy to transport.  The price per inch of aperture is greater than a Dobsonian with an entry level eight inch telescope and mount staring at about $1000 with a nicer ''scopes going for about $2000.  It is very easy to move well beyond that with much better mounts and optics, but it is like high fidelity - there is a point of diminishing returns. 

 

At this point serious amateurs tend to specialize and specialized needs can dictate high quality refracting telescopes or specialized reflectors like Ritchey-Chrétien optical designs.  It has been observed that serious hobbyists often spend as much on their hobby as they do on a car.  Dedicated observatories with $50k telescopes on $20k mounts are not unheard of and specialized cameras and accessories can run the costs much higher.   Locations in very dark regions of New Mexico and Arizona are desirable, although getting there can be challenging.  A few communities devoted exclusively to advanced amateur astronomers have appeared along with some focused bed and breakfasts and companies that rent out remote telescopes by the hour.

 

I've used some of the exotic equipment, but don't personally own any "big glass."  I love getting out to these dark locations, but just being under the stars and gazing up often is enough.  I will take an SLR or DSLR and put it on a mount that compensates for the Earth's rotation so I can take a time exposure.  You get the sense of what the sky would look like if your eyes were a hundred or a thousand times more sensitive and you can bring out the colors.  I also like observing the Sun - something that works in heavily light polluted regions.  Traveling to solar eclipses and to places where there are likely to be auroral displays is also a great way to spend time.  Everyone develops some paths they love and these can change over time as you gain experience.

 

Sometimes people ask about activities for kids who are interested in science.  I'm not a fan of heavily scheduling kids with activities.   Instead I believe in a lot of free time and "free range" activities so they can explore and probe on their own.  Amateur science can teach you how to observe nature and ask good questions.  When I get involved in college admissions I tend to look for those who show real passion for such things - those are the ones who ultimately succeed in the sciences.³  These skills can be very useful for some types of work and people who have them are sadly too rare.  Microscopes, telescopes, a chemistry set, a rock hammer and other devices that extend our senses and, when combined with curiosity, can lead to much greater things.  I count myself as lucky that I had dark skies and the gift of unscheduled time along with a very modest amount of money to pursue a few passions.  

_____

¹  There are a lot of specialized issues.  Eye relief is the distance from the eyepiece to where you can see the full image.  Many binoculars are 10mm or less.  If you wear glasses you'll need more - maybe as much as 15mm or more.  The diameter of your dilated pupil decreases with age.  When you are a teen it is as large as 7mm, but drops to about 5 mm when you get to be 35 or so.  The size of the objective divided by the power gives the size of the focused image that can be delivered to the eye.  So a 7x50 would give roughly a 7mm image and a 10x50 a 5mm.  The first would be better for teenage eyes and the second for older eyes.  

Just trying the binoculars gives a good sense.  If you are using mail order shop with a company that specializes in amateur astronomy.  Celestron, Meade and Orion are good places to start that offer a lot of beginner's gear.  Ask for suggestions and tell them about your eyes.

I use Canon 15x50 image stabilized binoculars.  They are extremely spendy and overkill for the beginner who doesn't know if this is something they will come to love.  I them constantly for many purposes and they've given me a decade of service (so far) without any problems, so I'm happy.  Their big advantage is active image stabilization which allows you to comfortably use a slightly higher power than is possible with normal binoculars.  I would recommend them, but only if you know they are something you are going to use heavily.

² Normally I don't like giving specific recommendations without knowing more about someone's specific requirements, but Orion's IntelliScope Dobsonians are great for beginners.  The eight inch is about $550, can fit in most car trunks and breaks into two pieces that are both under 21 pounds.  Anyone over about 5'2 should be able to use it in any orientation without a stool.  Their 12" gives more spectacular views, but probably requires a large truck or an SUV or pickup.  The optical tube weighs 50 pounds and may be too much for some people.  Going a bit larger (14" or 16" in many designs depending on how fast the optics are)  quickly takes you to the point where only Colleen sized people can get away with using it without a stool - I've used one that was a bit too tall for me and found you can easily get into uncomfortable positions.  Some amateur Dobsonians can be huge.  I have used a 36" homemade monster in New Mexico that had a 16 foot optical tube.  You needed a tall ladder to observe and I saw people "hop" the ladders as they went from object to object.  Not exactly safe, but the view of the Andromeda galaxy was astonishing.   The warning for any telescope is to spend time worrying about how you can move it along with the ergonomics of using it.  Using someone else's at a star party can be very useful.

³ There is a lot of real science you can easily investigate on your own.  Figuring out ow to confirm old results is a great learning experience that get you thinking more deeply.  Measuring the speed of light by observing the moon's around another planet should be within the capabilities of a curious 8^th grader.  Your mind goes beyond that as you use your own observations to discover.  While most of the discoveries are known there is a thrill of stumbling onto something and creating dots of understanding in your mind that can later be linked.  I was about 14 when I realized the latest sunrise and earliest sunset did not occur on the Winter Solstice in Montana.  That led to puzzling out why and I ended up teaching myself spherical trigonometry in the process.  It was also about the first time I realized I had thought deeply about something that most adults are not aware of...

People sometimes ask how accurate the television show Big Bang Theory is:-)  While they clearly have a science advisor to get the terminology correct, it completely misses the sociology of science - at least the sciences I'm familiar with...

 

 

inspiring the right people and creating the right condition for leaps

Prizes are curious things.  Most are recognitions of some event, but a few have been crafted to inspire people to do something very difficult - something that makes a fundamental difference.  

 

Perhaps the most famous prize was the Longitude Prize - a reward by the British government in 1714 for a simple and accurate method to establish a ship’s longitude.  Navigation had become extremely important.  Latitude is easy to determine, but longitude was usually found by dead reckoning - an inherently inaccurate technique.

 

The prizes offered were significant ranging from £10,000 for a method that could determine longitude within 60 nautical miles, £15,000  for 40 nautical miles and £20,000 for 30 nautical miles.  Additionally smaller amounts were offered for significant progress towards a goal and advances were offered for promising methods.  The total prize money was £100,000 - roughly $25 million in today’s money.  

 

This set off a major industry of inquiry and invention involving many of the great minds of the day.  The history is fascinating - I recommend Dava Sobel’s Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time for a great read.

 

The trick to a great prize is to find something that is possible, but is still so difficult that little progress has been made.  It is very easy to offer a target that is too easy or difficult.  There should be enough of a reward - usually a mixture of tangible and intangible - to motivate enough people as the real progress often comes from people who are not directly involved in the field.  John Harrison, the winner of the Longitude Prize, was a complete dark horse.

 

Some prizes have managed to capture long standing human dreams.  

 

In 1959 the British Industrialist Henry Kremmer offered a series of prizes for human powered flight.  The first was £50,000 for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a figure eight pattern around two points separated by a half mile.  The starting and finishing points had to be at least ten feet above the ground.  The second prize was £100,000 was to fly over the English Channel.  A few other prizes were concerned with speed and maneuverability and I think some are still unclaimed.

 

I'm lucky enough to have known the principal character behind winning the first and second prizes.

 

Our bicycle club had a few people who were fascinated by slow flight - low speed aerodynamics.  Hang gliding was becoming popular - at least for a few risk takers - and designs were advancing from simple (and sometimes dangerous) rogallo wings to much more sophisticated designs.  Paul MacCready was a gifted aeronautical engineer who was making serious contributions to the applied science of low speed fluid dynamics.  Paul had been a champion sailplane pilot and had some ideas on what it might take to win the prize.  He determined the first two were possible and enlisted local help.  

 

Paul and Peter Lissaman built the Gossamer Condor - actually there were three versions.  I put a bit of labor into the first aircraft - the Pasadena version.  The Shafter version was piloted by a very lightweight and strong hang glider pilot named Bryan Allen.¹ 

 

In August of 1977 the Gossamer Condor - 70 pounds empty and a 96 foot wingspan - flying at about 10 mph with Bryan as its engine won the first prize.  About two years later an improved aircraft - the Gossamer Albatross/Bryan Allen combination made it across the English Channel in a bit under three hours.  Bryan, at about 140 pounds, weighed twice as much as the aircraft and had to supply about 250 watts - a third of a horsepower - to keep it flying.

 

A dream had been realized.

 

Paul was a fantastically interesting guy to chat with - one of those guys who was obviously interested in many things and topics that are important.  One of those guys who connects dots. Spend the twenty minutes or so to watch his TED talk from 1998 where he talks about change.

 

 

In the talk, starting around minute 13,  you’ll notice some small remotely piloted vehicles.  It is important to recognize this talk was giving in 1998.  These came from Paul’s company AeroVironment.  The company is something of a Skunkworks that specialized in low speed aerodynamics and efficiency.  Human powered flight was cracked there and that opened the way to solar powered flight and electric airplanes.  They’ve explored very small aircraft for the military and have an interest in electric power automobiles.  A neat place.

 

The unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming very important for the military and there are literally dozens of types.  The small camera carrying aircraft are sometimes called first person view (FPV) aircraft and stunning advances have been made by advanced hobbyists.  Check out what you can do for a few thousand dollars.  

AeroVironment has a fantastic project called the hummingbird for DARPA that uses bird flight as a model.  It weighs less than 20 grams (about 3/4 ounce) and currently has a mission endurance of nearly 10 minutes.  We may soon have the ability to collect video and other intelligence at very close range with vehicles that are potentiall very inexpensive and difficult to detect.

 

At a larger scale there is a market for agriculture, utility, rescue and police FPV UAVs. The FAA will announce new rules for UAVs in January as current rules are very restrictive and were created with different technologies in mind.  There may be a market - helicopters start at around $2 million and are expensive to maintain and operate while stable camera platforms with very low operating costs can be had in the $5k to $50k range.  Aerovironment’s offering is the Qube and reportedly goes for about $40k.

 

Fully autonomous UAVs have been built and, along with FPV UAVs there are serious society and technology concerns. Some of us were wondering about the use of these devices in the Occupy movement - demonstrators, news and government.  Advanced hobbyists could easily supply the demonstrators now, although it isn’t clear if flying them would be considered illegal or if permits are required.  

 

Larger versions can have an endurance measured in the hours, can be autonomous and operated thousands of miles from a pilot when necessary and can carry payloads that go beyond surveillance - so called “active” platforms.   Even the toy class vehicles are impressive.²

 

Once again we’re on the edge of what may be a major change in what is considered private. 

__________

¹ Bryan was an excellent rider and could easily drop anyone else in the club.  You may wonder "why use a bike rider?"  It turns out this is all about power to weight.  Power generally increases as the square of an organism's size and weight with the cube.  A really big guy can generate a lot of power, but there is a penalty as you have to build a larger airplane.  You are looking for the sweet spot -  the smallest possible (lightest and lowest air resistance) aircraft. Bike racers tend to have huge leg muscles and a lot of endurance - ideal engines.  The sweet spot is for riders between about 120 and 140 pounds of weight.  A shorter pilot with large legs would be ideal.  There are some female riders who have flown this type of aircraft.

The other question is "why legs"?  It turns out it is easy to make a very light and efficient transmission that can transmit the power from the motion legs generate on pedals to a propeller - something over 98% efficiency.  It doesn't make sense to use the arms and the legs as power output is metabolically limited.  As long as a person's legs are adequately trained the total output combining power from other muscles doesn't add anything - if you add the arms, power output from the legs decreases.

² I've flown an AR Parrot Drone with an iPhone.  It clearly takes more practice than I had given it and I crashed a few times, but this is a very impressive device for large indoor spaces or calm outdoor settings.  A serious amount of technology for under $300.

 

 

trees falling in the woods and surfer music

If a tree falls in the forrest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

It all depends on definitions. 

 

If sound is a mechanical wave that is a periodic compression and rarefaction of pressure that travels through a medium like a solid, liquid, gas or plasma  a sound is indeed made.  An observer is unnecessary.  But most of us restrict sound to a range of frequencies that can be detected (usually by us) and are given meaning in the brain.  We are surrounded by an extremely complex field of these waves of mechanical energy that are interacting with each other and their surroundings.  Our ears turn these pressure waves into electrical impulses that are conducted to our brain which manages to make sense of all of this.  We hear crashing trees, crickets chirping in the evening, the distant bark of a dog and music.  A neuroscientist might use a definition of sound that is information processed by and listened to by our brains.  With this definition we need an observer and a brain.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about music today.  I’m a terrible musician, but that doesn’t diminish my enjoyment and the question of perception is fascinating.  Perception is central to digital music compression¹, but and you find your self wading into territory that is still being explored.

 

Our silvermitt ferret Telemna loved music.  Some how we gave her a little toy piano and found she loved to make sounds by striking its keys.  A week or so saw her progress from random notes to strings that were more musical.  Soon she was only playing what we called music.  We got her an eight key piano and she quickly figured out how to make what we heard as music on it. I would play an unresolved chord and she would run up and play the "right" note.  An astonishing talent.

 

Telemna was fascinated by any music in the house and loved loud Ethel Merman types who could belt Broadway tunes.  She would hear something and later would play up to about eight notes of what she must have liked.  

 

Stephen Pinker of Harvard believes music is an accident of evolution - it serves no purpose, but it is nice to have around.  For him it probably only exists in humans.  A few years ago I read Daniel Levitin’s  delightful This is Your Brain on Music.  (If you haven’t read it take a break and order a copy. While you're at it pick up a copy of Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.)  Levitin suggests it is deeper and more important.  I sent this video of Telmena working out a tune (pardon the messy room and the low quality Flip video):

 

his reply:   “In your face Stephen Pinker!”

 

Unlike sound, music is clearly a construct of the brain.  A stereo left playing in the woods sans audience is not producing music.  Some of us can read sheet music and “hear” it in our heads.  Most of us can listen to memories of music and a few can even create new music - starting in our heads, but then translated to something that produces the bits of acoustic energy that make up sound. 

 

The emotional power of music can be enormous.  Today I was reminded of this directly.  On Friday I will be in a high stress situation and have been reaching out to friends.  A very close friend told me she would spend time meditating with some music - specifically some wonderful surf music by the Duo Tones².

 

I give an enthusiastic recommendation to the group.  Two master guitar players and some amazing performances.  She had no way of knowing that I was familiar with them as they are a bit obscure, but she knew enough about me to know what type of music would be appropriate.  The choice of music is important as it covers a terrifically wide emotional range.  The niches filled by recommenders and DJs are important and the gift of a playlist can be rich and important.

 

Music is a component of how I handle stress.  As an undergrad in Pasadena I rarely made it to the beach, but somehow I relaxed with pieces ranging from surfer music to piano trios.  My technique was to spend the day before an intense event (say a major test) by listening to music and taking long walks or bike rides rather than last minute cramming.  The matching of music to the task was important and surfer music  works well for quantum field theory and particle physics and the Duo Tones offer the purest performances I've encountered.  Why they also are perfect for my current issue is a mystery to me, but she sorted it out and recommended them without any knowledge of my history with the genre.  I took a walk in the dark chill of the evening is a sea of swilling colors from performances nearly a decade ago by these masters and as I walked knowing she was doing the same knowing it would support me I was struck by how moving and beautiful this gift of suggestion and action was.  I suspect music is a common glue for many of us as we communicate beyond the limits of speech with others.

 

There is so many things to yet learn about music.  An anthropologist friend and I were looking into this a decade ago. She observed that all known cultures in the world had percussive music and all but a tiny handful had singing.  We thought it would be fascinating to learn enough to compile a book On Music that would be similar in Sontag’s On Photography. Of course we were far to naive on our part.  Even so there were a series of real epiphanies and I'll probably write about a few as time goes on.³

 

So find a nice chair, sit down and carefully listen to a favorite piece or three of music today.  If you are lucky perhaps you will make some new discoveries as I managed with Wipeout tonight.

________

¹ If you are worried about compressing CD quality music using Apple's AAC codec anything over 256 kilobits per second is overkill and if you are over forty anything over 160 is overkill - trust me on that one ...  The subject of what accurate audio reproduction is happens to be a rich subject and CD quality stereo isn't a great match, but is pretty good for most of us.

² Highly recommended is their acoustic album Surf Music.  Their electric work is also amazing, but you also need their purely acoustic music.

³ A good example is that the enjoyment of music often is decoupled with the quality of reproduction.  I was in a classic restored Mustang near Cleveland with the head recording engineer from Telarc Records and a seriously good musician from the Oberlin Conservatory.  We were talking about where music reproduction might go with sound field reconstruction and dramatically more information than CDs could provide when a favorite Beatles tune came up on the 8 track (gasp! - it was an authentically restored Mustang).  The volume came up and the two of them were soon singing along to the music in pure delight.  There is something transcendent about the music - even with the awful reproduction in that noisy environment.  This taught me home stereos might die if we could only give people good enough music that was always with them.  Portable music players with cheap headphones would be good enough.

There were also many cultural learnings.  Music does not exist in a vacuum and there is a rich and fascinating interplay of music and culture.  

why fashion models are tall, thin and white ...

... and what does culture have to do with "the look"?

 

And can we learn anything from the music business?

 

In the mid 90s a few of us published an internal Bell Labs memo that predicted the demise of the recording industry.  It was written out of frustration with our dealings with major music companies.  They had been visiting the Labs, and later AT&T Research, on the technical direction music might take in a networked world along with trying to sort out partnerships and business deals.  But mostly they were focused on how they could fit the new evolving technologies into their model of discovery, production, distribution and promotion.  They were about to be blindsided and didn't realize it.

 

They believed people would only buy the best audio quality - in fact they had been experiencing an enormous increase in sales for about a decade as people converted their home music libraries to "higher quality" CDs.  As it became clear that it would become easy for anyone to rip a clear text CD  and move it over a network at almost not cost, they resorted to Ptolemaic thinking creating an unnatural complex vision of the future. Their vision of their own future depended on the business equivalent of epicycles.  In their eyes complete control of the ecosystem with robust digital rights management backed by legal threats would protect and dramatically grow a very profitable business model.  Working with them caused a schism in my lab as some came to believe the strict DRM model and others felt we were witnessing an unstoppable cultural change that could easily route around a new set of poorly reasoned barriers.

 

We even built a prototype music business to test some ideas.

 

In the end culture damaged their business allowing the emergence of a new model that broke some of their control. The experience taught me not to bet against culture and pay more attention to the intersection of culture and technology. Technology by itself is fun, but working only with it is too isolating and can damage your ability to predict plausible futures.

 

About the same time I became involved with fashion as a hobby and found myself helping out with an emerging black women's fashion magazine.  When you're spending time in an alternate universe you tend to learn much more than you originally imagined.  I thought I would be honing my art, but in the eighteen month the magazine lasted I found myself asking questions.  How does fashion work?, who decided it?, where does a "look" come from?, what is the difference between the commercial and editorial world?, why are most of the models impossibly thin and white and why do some have such unusual appearances?, and so on..  The business stuck me as an extremely inefficient and hyper-conservative world, but I assumed this may be an artifact of my lack of knowledge - after all - the apparel market dwarfs the entertainment world.

 

As my fashion magazine art editor life ended along came a project for the Army that studied how to make uniforms fit soldiers and, with that, a new set of questions that pointed out more inefficiencies.  

 

In the past year or so I've been re-examining all of this approaching the problem culturally and trying to imagine some alternate paths of how design is created, becomes physical, is marketed and the underlying logistics.  There are several interesting possibilities, but most of them don't square with the current way the apparel business seems to work. A few companies are using somewhat different business models ranging from Apple Store-like experiences to a variety of techniques that provide greater customization in design and fit.  A few are trying listen carefully to culture.

 

For those of you interested in the cultural questions - and I think they are far and away the most important questions to be asking at this point - a new book by Ashley Mears has recently been published. Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model examines why models look the way they do, how and why they and the clients they serve are branded, sexism and racism in fashion, the cultural and economic differences between the commercial and editorial worlds, and the deep cultural component of the markets.  

 

Dr. Mears is a sociologist who worked as a fashion model for awhile.  She spent some of her student years doing field work modeling for two major agencies and conducting extensive interviews with a large number of people in that part of the industry.  The concentration is on on culture, image making and branding - areas where there hasn't been much in the way of solid research.  A recommended read - the style is a bit repetitive, but it is accessible and there is enough material and thinking that anyone interested in culture and fashion should read it.   Her discussion on why body type is important, the embarrassing level of racism (quick - look at the website of your favorite brand and see if the percentage of non-white models matches the makeup of your country)  in the industry, and the cultural economics of fashion are particularly illuminating. 

 

One has to wonder how the business is likely to change.  It is ignoring street fashion and new information paths that are forming along with new businesses that have the potential of routing around the current manufacturing, distribution and marketing structures. 

 

Music and fashion are vastly different, but I have the sense fashion is as inefficient, conservative, hubric and tone deaf to culture as the music industry was.  Odd as both are clearly parts of culture.

 

This is mostly a hobby activity at this point and the question list is expanding at a faster rate than I'm finding answers.  Unlike the music industry, isn't at all clear how quickly changes will come and which parts of the industry will change first, but I expect major innovation as well as some interesting carnage.