THE JOY OF BEING INVISIBLE

A side trip to Grand Canyon–campground full–not a problem for the stealthy trailer. I settle near canyon’s edge and for practical purposes I’m invisible. The only thing likely to betray me is my satellite dish. Ah but there’s an easy solution: cover it with a large black garbage bag and it too “disappears.” (Perfectly at night) And does not interfere with reception. In Flagstaff I camp unnoticed just about anywhere: Home Depot, vacant lots, side streets–wherever the night overtakes me, I am at home. I declare my stealth trailer to be as effective as the Klingon Cloaking device..

ENGAGING A HOLY MAN

NOT AN EASY THING TO DO --BUT I MANAGED

I saw him stagger out of the deep forest where he lives, and I quickly maneuvered to intercept and walk alongside. As always I wanted “the story.”

He was deeply suspicious and a bit irritable but I kept walking alongside. He asked me some screening questions: was I a vegetarian? I said that I needed help in knowing what foods were wholesome–the perfect response — he unloaded his truth. We walked a mile (he staggered; wouldn’t explain his gimpiness) In time I got the story.

A career in San Francisco as a music teacher, forced by high rent into a vw van and eventually to solitude in hidden places. He was amazed that I knew the philosophy of Krishnamurti and was absolutely dazzled when I mentioned Bach’s Goldberg Variations played by Glen Gould. (A happy accident – my friend Anita just sent this incredible piano piece to me)

We sat beside the road to complete our visit. Here’s what he’s into: Fasting, meditation and solitude. His fasting is big time–10 days at a stretch taking only water. (check his rib cage and believe it) When the body runs out of food, he said, it will begin to digest the waste in our system–Cholesterol, toxins, germs, viruses and fat of course. Only as a last resort will it consume muscle. For spiritual health, he meditates.

He spoke with an authoritative forcefulness which I found unpleasant. He was not open or lighthearted. I came away considering how unattractive is my own discourse when I get on my “high horse.” Luckily, I have friends who care enough about me not to tolerate my intolerant crap.

Prolonged isolation, whatever its benefits, is, I think, a trap–where your own opinions harden around you like armor and others can’t touch you. It wrenched my heart as he tried to tell me where he was camped–hoping I would visit. I dissembled – I would not–I’m drawn to softer people.

DRAMA IN COW COUNTRY

THE 180 MILE APOLOGY

Yesterday a big-time cattleman drove 180 miles to personally apologize to me for the rudeness of one of his employees.

I reel in astonishment because the offense was not grievous –just a few vaguely accusatory words which did not seriously offend me. He could have phoned the apology. He had my number.

This incident is worth writing about because it shows the incredible power of a personal connection. What would cause a hardened rancher to feel the need to drive 180 miles. one way, to make a personal apology.

Here’s what happened: A friend and I are camped on National Forest Land in a very large meadow leased for grazing by a prominent cattleman who lives 180 miles away. A small herd of about 50 longhorn cattle graze the meadow. These are special cattle used in rodeo roping events. they are a rowdy bunch of adventurous cows that range the full extent of their pasture and more! They escape! Every day they escape by jumping a cattle guard; a pretty amazing sight to see. Then they wander the forbidden territory, the greener grass, a few hours until they get thirsty and want to come “home.” For some reason they are hesitant to jump back, so they cluster at the gate wanting to be let back in. So we open the gate and let them in

Last week the cattleman dropped by my rig and I reported the leaping cows. My neighbor, a high-tech sort, had filmed the jumping cows and showed the action on his computer. The cattleman visited me for an hour or so and as I often do, I “got the story.” He’s a friendly sort and we exchanged phone and e-mail info. On two later occasions my neighbor and I phoned in a report. He was most appreciative of our efforts because he cannot legally put a gate at the cattle guard and rebuilding it is bureaucratically unfeasible. (lots of red tape) Furthermore, he cannot legally authorize me to open the fence gate. I let him know I understood the dilemma and would “handle” the situation. So my neighbor and I did the sensible thing he cannot do: leave the gate open till the cows come home.

OK Here comes the Drama: One day the hired guy comes by and sees the gate open, thinks we’ve let the cows out, speaks a bit harshly to us and huffs off. He doesn’t know the facts and won’t listen. He reports our “offense” to the Forestry Service and they come pressuring us to leave. We decline because we know our rights–two weeks anywhere.

When the owner hears of this he is appalled and makes the long drive to personally apologize and straighten the matter out.

What made the difference here, I think, was that one hour talk where we made a personal connection. Someone showed an interest in his story and it touched him.

ENGAGING AN AMAZON

A REAL LIFE XENA WITH A WARRIOR MIND

I attended a lecture by a lady so articulate, interesting and beautiful that she had to speak twice to accommodate the numbers. We were all charmed and none more so than I because I approached afterwards and asked her to lunch. She declined of course but gave me her e-mail address which I took to mean: Persuade me!

I called forth all my creative powers in composing that e-mail, describing her speech as a well-fletched arrow that hit its target; and again I asked her to lunch. To my amazement SHE SAID YES! She told me later that the word fletch was the deciding factor–that she had to look it up and was intrigued to meet someone who would use the word.

It was a memorable lunch for me because she was as easy-spoken and charming in person as at the lectern. She was associated with the University of course; her field and passion is journalism. The irony of being interviewed by a string-of-questions note taker seemed to amuse her. At lunch’s end I had lots of notes and only a bare outline of what I really wanted to know: what forces and fortune produced so clear and confident a woman. On another level, I must confess, I wanted to experience the rush of being in her presence. It came!

I asked for another contact but she was off to eastern Europe on a lecture tour instructing the freshly-free journalist of Czechoslovakia in the art of going for the truth.

When she returned she graced me with three more interviews and even came to cheer me during my Whitman performance.

I hope that I have made the most of this opportunity to engage an Amazon—for I believe they represent future woman in the same way that Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B Anthony, Isadora Duncan and others modeled personal and reproductive freedoms enjoyed by today’s women.

Webster defines amazon as a powerful woman and she did not object to being so described.
While their lives are far more adventurous than most, there are problems. Relations with men are problematical, primarily because men run away. To romantically reach for an Amazon is like reaching for the brass ring on the carousel –it is risky. Men feel it and most do not reach. Those who do and manage to move into their orbit, often cannot bear the contrast of a superior mind. She asked once if I thought she was smarter than me. In a flash of bravado I said that I was smarter than her. She laughed a long while.

In part two of engaging an Amazon I will share with you what I have learned–all that she will permit. Of particular interest to me is her own speculations as to what gives rise to strong women. Is it genes or superior child rearing or just bootstrapping? How do Amazons relate with regular women. Is an Amazon just too independent to mate? What’s a thinkable alternative?
Do they have time for children? How has it affected me to be in her orbit?

Forgive me if I celebrate my courage in asking this lady to lunch. Stay tuned!

Does anybody really know what smartphone market share is?

An article in Wired online this week had a chart showing US smartphone market share (link). The chart gave more detail than I've seen recently from other research companies, so I thought it was worth reproducing the data here:



The source is Nielsen Mobile, formerly Telephia. The interesting thing about them is that they do much of the service quality monitoring for the operators, so they have much more direct access to mobile usage information than folks like IDC and Canalys, the people usually quoted for smartphone share.

Wired was focused on Palm's loss of market share, which is indeed striking (but not exactly news). But take a look at the chart again; there are a couple of other items that I think are more newsworthy.

The first surprise is that Nielsen shows Apple in fourth place in smartphone share. That's wildly different from what Canalys, the source usually reported, has been saying (link). Here's how they compare for Q4 2007:




What in the world is going on here?

I'm not sure, but I have some guesses. Canalys doesn't directly measure market share, it receives self-reported shipment reports from the manufacturers and then adds them up. That means Canalys measures shipments into the channel rather than sales, and it depends on the hardware companies to be honest.

Riiiight.

Nielsen Mobile doesn't explain on its website exactly how it measures share, but apparently it's using a mix of survey results and the usage data it gathers from the operators (link). So its numbers should reflect current usage of phones rather than shipments. If Nielsen is measuring installed base share, rather than share of current sales, that might explain the difference. Although in that case, share should not be changing as fast as Nielsen shows. So I'm still confused.

If anybody can shed more light on the source of the difference, please post a comment. I've also asked Nielsen, and will let you know if I hear anything.

The conflict in the numbers underlines how ridiculously useless the publicly-available third party sales numbers are in the mobile phone market, and how little attention the press is paying to the inconsistencies. Apple's share varies from 8% to 28%, and no one even notices. Hey, we got a pretty chart and it confirms what we wanted to say, so don't ask questions.

If you want more information on the problems with mobile market share tracking, I wrote a detailed post here (link).

I said there were two newsworthy things about the Nielsen numbers. Can you spot the second one?

That's right, since the iPhone was released, RIM has been gaining share. So much for the folks who predicted at the launch of the iPhone that it was going to take the smartphone market away from RIM. Instead, at least in the first round of competition, we see what you'd expect from a segmented market -- RIM appeals to some customers, Apple appeals to a different group, and both companies do well.

I can't wait to see what the numbers will look like in six months, after the iPhone 3G has been out for a while. Although probably Canalys and Nielsen will still disagree wildly on what's happening.

NEW POEM

Today I completed a new poem celebrating my famous friend Dave Ulmer who invented the game of Geocaching. His photo is in a previous post: Meet my famous neighbor.
HOW GEOCACHING WAS BORN

Until May 3rd, 2000 you wouldn,t
dare to risk your hide
in matters of tricky navigation
‘cause GPS’s lied.

They lied by as much as 300 feet
to confuse any adversary.
The only ones who knew the truth
was God and the military.

Dave Ulmer crashed his snowmobile,
nearly broke a tooth
because he trusted his GPS
to tell locational truth.

In May 2000 the powers that be,
for reasons of their own,
felt that it was safe enough
to let the truth be known

Now we citizens can zero in
with a tolerance of just 3 feet
where longitude and latitude
cross their lines to meet.

None celebrated more than Dave
‘cause out of his fertile brain
came a whopping new idea:
He thought up a brand-new game.

A game as big as all outdoors
for the computer geek
and for adventurers and hunters;
It’s adult hide and seek.

He buried the very first cache,
then put its address on the net,
setting in motion a world-wide game
that’s not stopped growing yet.

Millions now honor a brain so dashing,
and well deserved is his fame;
Dave Ulmer invented Geocaching
and history will remember his name

CHARM OPENS THE OBSERVATORY

What's going on in the Naval Observatory?

Walking up its hill and around its dome every day for exercise made our group a familiar sight. One day we charmed (behaved winsomely) an astronomer lady and she invited us in to explain why taxpayers fund this stargazing enterprise. At tour's end we were satisfied it was money well spent. Here's what we learned:
1. The Navy needs a standard time if ships are to navigate by the stars. Clocks around the world vary because they use different means of measurement. The fantastic consistency of cesium crystal vibrations is one "clock." The rotation of the earth is another and they do not agree. So now and again, they add or subtract a second to the official time to conform to earth rotation time. (which is more important) The "correct time", we learned is a decision and not a discovery. Ships normally navigate by GPS but the Navy insists on a backup system.
2. The Navy needs precise star charts as well as a standard time for accurate positioning and firing IF THE GPS FAILS . Stars move slightly over time and must be updated.
3.The Navy searches for potential KILLER ASTEROIDS, charting their paths, hopefully in time to divert them.
4. The Navy searches for planets outside our solar system. It looks at the wobble of stars that indicate orbiting planets. They've found hundreds.