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| Thursday, September 22, 2005 |
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Rockets rock 
| | So the kid and I headed West into the sunset, looking for a clear view toward Vandenberg. We found one, by an open field just North of Highway 101. We were expecting to be disappointed, since the sky had developed an overcast ceiling, mostly from spread-out contrails. We also didn't expect the launch to be toward the South. |
| | At 7:24 or so, the Kid shouted "There it is!" A bright light, clearly a flame, propelled the Minotaur I in a bright line toward the South. The show was impressive, as the first stage of the rocket pushed through the only break in the clouds, giving us a clear view as the rocket's exhaust expanded into a the shape of a translucent tube, like a long balloon, inflating itself. Then, as the first stage began to burn out, it looked like a comet in the sky. A few seconds passed before the second stage brightened the sky, and continued until it faded from sight, far downrange over the Pacific to the West of Mexico. |
| | It was a fast launch too. According to this story in the Santa Barbara News-Press (which will vanish behind a paywall in five days), the program is called "Streak", because the payload is launched into a low Earth orbit, which appears to make the rocket go faster, and where the orbital velocity needs to be higher than other satellites, to maintain its low orbital altitude. It's a small payload (only 920 pounds), which means it may not be easily visible to the naked eye. (The most visible satellites are the size of railroad cars, or larger.) If it is, it will move much faster than any of the other satellites we usually see. |
| | After this the trail began to loop and curl and slowly drift apart in the high-altitude sunset. |
| | This was the fourth launch we've seen, but not the best. That distinction goes to a launch that vectored West on October 14, 2002. With that one (above) the sky was clearer, and the shapes made by the trail were more spectacular. What you see in that picture is the trail leading from the lower right toward the upper left, and the rocket in the far upper left, like an extremely bright star in the sky. In other words, the closest part of the image is in the lower right and ther farthest in the upper left. The four-pointed pattern, surrounded by a gray-red haze (exhaust expanding out into space, uncontained by atmosphere), was eerie and amazing. |
| | Still, tonight's launch rocked (it was a close second), and we had a great time. I'll get a video up shortly as well. Most of the shots in the gallery linked to the picture above are frames from the video. The last 7 or so are still shots taken by the video camera. I'm bummed that the Nikon camera is still in the shop, but these weren't too bad, considering. |
Give it a look: 7:24+pm tonight, PDT
| | The launch from Vandenberg tonight should be visible over a large area of the Southwest U.S. and Northwest Mexico. |
Deconstruction project
| | Doc Searls objected to the "battlefield" metaphor, presumably because of its implicit violence, explicitly zero-sum outcome, and the associated ideas and beliefs surrounding warfare, like "take no prisoners," or "scorched earth," or "unconditional surrender." It's all very hostile and not very compassionate. Well, there are hostile and not very compassionate aspects to markets, and they're not incidental either, they're significant features of them. |
| | The battlefield metaphor at least accurately reflects the competitive nature of the marketplace, and the potential for suffering by those who engage in it. The conversation metaphor utterly ignores competition, and the aspects of that activity that have the potential to cause suffering. By making markets appear more friendly than they actually are, the metaphor actually makes suffering more likely, because it creates a false expectation, one that marketers can seize upon and exploit. It's not a metaphor, it's a vacuous assertion masquerading as a pithy aphorism. As a "meme" it certainly has sprouted legs, but that's more a reflection of its appeal than its truth. Dave Weinberger offered that it really means markets ought to be conversations, and much of the appeal of the "metaphor" is along those lines, which are projection or wish fulfillment, not, at least as far as I am able to discern, its truth value. |
| | Oddly enough, Doc Searls discussed a better metaphor briefly before dismissing it: |
| | "Another is markets are environments. In The Death of Competition, James Moore speaks of markets as ecosystems where companies and categories evolve, compete in a habitat, for resources like plants and animals, and evolve or become extinct." |
| | This metaphor actually works. Companies and corporations are very much like living organisms, and they do compete for resources with other companies and corporations. They exist in habitats, the real one we all share, legal and regulatory habitats, as well as a kind of "eco-system" that can "evolve" around platforms, like Windows or the iPod. If we regard markets using an environment metaphor, we can see much of the activity taking place in it, and our relationship to that activity, in something of a new or different light, and think of our relationship to it in a different way. |
| | First, we never said markets are only conversations. With 'markets are conversations' we suggest that markets are more than (or other than just) bulls, bears, invisible hands, forces, demographics, battlefields, playing fields, arenas, regions and the rest of the metahpors we've all been using throughout the Industrial Age. In fact, we were trying to get past metaphor altogether, and back to what markets were in the first place: places where people meet to do business and make culture. Although Dave and I emphasize different activities that occur in physical markets, I think we agree that what happens in them matters a great deal. |
| | So, with Cluetrain we urged people to revisit what actually happens in a real-world marketplace, and how the Internet serves as a platform under which a new and very real (though non-physical) marketplace can thrive. We were also suggested that the supply side, no matter how powerful it may remain (yes, the Industrial Age has not really ended), has less leverage than it did before the Net came along — while the demand side has far more. |
| | Second, I do like the environment metaphor for markets. I remember talking with Tim O'Reilly a number of years ago about that. Tim preferred envirnoment to conversation, although he appreciated the way both worked. Both serve, in different ways. |
| | Dave concludes, Talk is cheap and what I've seen of the "conversation" is mostly talk. Tending to our fields is hard work. I think we need less talk and more effort. |
| | Here I think Dave fails to see (or credit) the enormous effort that has been made, by countless individuals and companies. |
| | Has that effort made a difference? Some, sure; but not as much as I'd like. Still, it's enough to make me glad we put Cluetrain out there for people to do whatever they wanted with the ideas it shared. |
| | Read Dave's whole piece. There's a lot of fresh thinking and insight in there. |
And Spring Down Under
| | Happy Fall. The Autumnal Equinox occured a few minutes ago, a 3:23pm PDT. So you're ready for the rest of the solsti and equioxi in your life (or at least to 2020, whichever comes first), here's the full list. |
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