Chris Sacca's 'What is left?'

Sorriso, per favore.

Enzo Baldoni, the Italian freelance journalist and author behind Bloghdad who was kidnapped in Iraq and ultimately executed this past week left behind a testament so touching and disarming for its simplicity, sincerity, and unabashed romance:

"[At my funeral] I want people to smile -- did you notice? Funerals always end up with someone smiling: it's natural, it's Life taking over Death. And let people smoke freely anything they like; I'd also be pleased if new love stories would come out, and I'd even consider some aloof sex as an offer to Life rather than an offense to Death. At about eight-nine o'clock, with little or no ceremony, bring my coffin silently to the crematory, while the party and the music should last until late night. About my ashes... throw them into the sea, I'd say. Or do as you want, who fucking cares."

[Link to the original version in Italian courtesy of his fellow journalist Pino Scaccia.]

No numbers, no colors, no fiction, no art.

For a couple of days now I have been reading and re-reading an article from the Globe and Mail about the Piraha tribe of Amazonian Brazil. It is taking just that long to digest the idiosyncracies of their culture.

The article focuses on Piraha's status as the only known group of humans with no system of numbering or counting. This is not for lack of interaction with others who do, however. Linguists living with the Piraha have attempted to teach them traditional counting systems, and the tribe has been in contact with other Brazilians for over 200 years. Yet, the Piraha have been unable (or unwilling) to adopt such a system.

Beyond that though, the author details a litany of further eccentricities of this tribe:

"The Piraha are the only people known to have no distinct words for colours. They have no written language, and no collective memory going back more than two generations. They don't sleep for more than two hours at a time during the night or day. Even when food is available, they frequently starve themselves and their children. They communicate almost as much by singing, whistling and humming as by normal speech. They frequently change their names, because they believe spirits regularly take them over and intrinsically change who they are. They do not believe that outsiders understand their language even after they have just carried on conversations with them. They have no creation myths, tell no fictional stories and have no art."

Any one of those characteristics would comprise a cultural chasm between their world and ours. However, all of them? Like I said, I keep coming back to try to get my head around this.

Don't point your thumb at me, young man!

The NYT had a piece today about the pervasiveness of communications devices relying upon thumbs for entry of data. Nothing too shocking there. Young people use them more than old, some people are really fast, blah, blah. Nevertheless, one observation struck me:

So important has the thumb become on gadgets in Japan, where text messaging caught on earlier, that a certain demographic group is referred to as oyayubi sedai, "the thumb generation." Dr. Tenner pointed to findings that young Japanese, accustomed to using their thumbs to send messages, are now using them to do other tasks - like pointing and ringing door bells - traditionally the realm of the index finger.

Choice and plurality bad for consumers?

All of you have read of the dispute emerging between Apple and Real over Real's reverse-engineering of music file formats that can be played on Apple's devices. While I don't think it is a reach for any of us to understand why Apple would be less than thrilled by the alternative source of tunes to be played on their platform, this recent Business Week article goes too far in my opinion. The heading reads:

"RealNetworks' attempt to make its music downloads work on iPods does Jobs & Co. and consumers a disservice -- and should be thwarted"

Again, while it is clear why Jobs would be ticked, how does the availability of multiple sources for content to be played on a platform spell bad news for consumers? The author's declaration that the realm of digital music somehow defies the power of efficient markets goes unsupported.

Plain and simple, increased competition in this space has already and will continue to drive innovation. Only with the adoption of interoperable standards will the legal music outlets achieve the growth they seek as end-user devices continue to multiply and converge. Apple's insistence upon a gated platform may make good short-term sense for AAPL shareholders, but to impute any pain to consumers is going too far.

Cheney and Rummy could use a little too . . .

Today's update from the Presidential Prayer Team (seriously, these people are sincere):

As the President wraps up his vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch today, pray for him to be renewed; strengthened by time away and restored in mind, body and spirit. As he returns to the White House, pray that he will humbly seek God's divine guidance and will in the many matters facing him. Pray for the members of his team, from the cabinet on, to seek godly counsel from the Scriptures and to turn to God in faith.

In case no one hears your silent testimony, and you need folks to know just how hard you are praying, be sure to stop by the online store and pick up a bumper sticker and mousepad.