I receive hundreds of email messages each day. Approximately five of them are legitimate. The rest are what is commonly called spam. I get messages about pills, investing, internet auctions, vacation deals, and countless other things, but none are authentic communications from parties with whom I have any relationship whatever. On the contrary, many of these messages claim to have business with me, but manifestly do not.
Some of these spam messages attempt to deceive me with realistic looking subject titles, like “Student Loan Information”, or coincidentally come bearing the name of someone with whom I regularly engage in correspondence. In this way I sometimes click on a message believing it to be from my friend Anthony, only to find it is not. Sometimes, however, the spammers don’t even seem to be trying. “Follow-up to our talk about refinancing your house” is one I have received. Really? How absent minded would I have to be? One I got today was “Shocking Tim Russert Sex Tape”. Even if this was a real thing, why on earth would I want to see that? I mean, if I got one that said, “Shocking video of you eating cookies in your yard”, yeah, maybe I’d think that was real, and I’d be concerned enough to click a link. But the other thing? No way.
I hesitate to say anything about this here for risk of attracting more attention from spammers, but I assume many of them are robots anyway and don’t know the difference.
Something must be done. I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for a month or so, and I have it set to filter junk mail, but I still have to regularly sift through the junk to see if any genuine correspondence has been misidentified. Every day something is. Is there a better way to handle this?
Congratulations to the mighty Texas Rangers who won the pennant tonight. They beat my beloved Tampa Bay Rays last week, just as they did last year, but this year they did it without Cliff Lee, and, somehow, they look even better.
A little more than ten years ago, while I was visiting with a close friend, another friend of hers came to call. He invited us to go with him to a local shop of some sort. The name of said shop, which I have since forgotten, did little to identify the nature of the business. The obvious question to ask in that case was, “what do they sell there?” But, perhaps sensing that that question was likely to elicit an evasive reply, my friend asked, “what was the last thing you bought there?” I thought it immensely clever of her.
Tonight I was in the check-out line at the supermarket, buying my stockpile of junk food, when the cashier noticed a certain product on the belt. It was a store brand item, and the young man asked, “is that good?” Knowing I have, let’s say, peculiar tastes, I gave an answer that was fairly non-committal. Then he surprised me. “Do you ever look forward to eating it?”
Since Wednesday, people have been tripping over themselves to hail Steve Jobs the best person in the history of the world. That is hyperbole, obviously, but if you have watched the news, held a newspaper, or read a blog this week, you know what I am talking about. Jobs had legions of admirers, and I don’t begrudge him that. But I think people are getting carried away.
I know many people who use an Apple product of some sort or another. Mrs. Hill uses an iPhone, and many of my friends and classmates have iPods and iMacs. Some of these people, like Miriam, find their Apple product useful, and appreciate whatever convenience it offers, but have not succumbed to the Cult of Apple. Others, however, are obsessed. Sadly, many journalists are in the latter group. I get why. They have iPads and iPhones and apps and all that, and since it’s cool to them they suppose it’s cool to everybody. And I admit, I have seen some iPhone apps that I have thought interesting and even amazing. But the coverage Jobs’ death has received seems somewhat out-of-proportion, as do the accolades some have gone out of their way to heap upon him.
Is the iPhone cool? Sure. But it wasn’t a radically new idea. The iPad is just a bigger iPhone, or, more accurately, a smaller, less-capable notebook computer. And the iPod, while ubiquitous (indeed, you cannot cross a college campus or ride any public transit system without seeing legions of them), is just a small Walkman. People have had it for decades. I don’t even think the iPod was the first portable MP3 player. None of these products was really shockingly new or revolutionary. Steve Jobs was no Johannes Gutenberg or Thomas Edison. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Mr. Jobs, and, to the best of my knowledge, he never compared himself to those great inventors. My point is merely that some in the media have treated him that way.
Was Steve Jobs a great businessman? Given the apparent success of Apple, I’d say undoubtedly. But far more than technological innovation, I think Jobs’ success with Apple was due to clever and aggressive marketing. And when I say aggressive I mean extremely aggressive. Apple commercials have been, and continue to be, omnipresent. Television commercials, print ads, and billboards for Apple products are everywhere, and these ads have been perfectly crafted to appeal to a certain type of consumer. In one type of commercial, Apple uses a catchy, sing-along-type song that viewers cannot forget. This is a tactic that many companies have used, but Apple did it with remarkably effective simplicity. In another commercial campaign–and one that I hated–Apple took two guys, one representing a Mac, the other representing a Windows-based PC, and made the actor representing the PC appear foolish or stupid. Again, the hipster-quotient was excessively high in these ads. The last campaign I will mention is one I think truly insidious. The “If you don’t have an iPhone…” commercials, which feature shots of the iPhone, while a narrator tells you that, “if you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone”. Obviously. But what the commercial is trying to say is that if you don’t have an iPhone you are not cool; you are not relevant; you are not a good person. That campaign appeals to the basest acquisitive consumer impulses. It’s the ugliest sort of advertising: buy this or you’re nobody. The folks at Conan did a pretty accurate parody of an Apple commercial last April:
The title of one of the many op-eds that appeared following Steve Jobs’ death this week hit on something that reminded me of this comedy bit. “Steve Jobs, Enemy of Nostalgia“—which appeared in the New York Times, a newspaper published in the heart of Apple-country—is about the Apple CEO’s lack of reverence for any technology. “One of the keys to Apple’s success under his leadership”, writes Mike Daisey, “was his ability to see technology with an unsentimental eye and keen scalpel, ready to cut loose whatever might not be essential”. Apple customers who found their iPhones or iPads suddenly usurped by a newer, more-expensive model, must understand the drawback of such an “unsentimental” business model.
Granted, a key requirement for success in business is making people buy something new when they already have something old. Light bulbs burn out, cars break down, and clothes go out of style. But Apple fanatics seem have had to endure this to an absurd degree. And if, as Mike Daisey argues, Steve Jobs was an “enemy of nostalgia”, all the focus on buy-and-replace makes sense. Apple users, then, are not meant to experience long-lasting relationships with any single technology, because the future success of Apple requires that these users embrace a new technology. That may be a smart business strategy in the short term, but what will it mean in years to come?
Whether or not any aged hipster will one day write a “Long May You Run”-style ballad about his old MacAir is probably not important. But the anti-nostalgic mind is capricious and is always searching for the new thing. Apple may have seemingly-faithful users today, but if they are as unnostalgic as Steve Jobs, they will only stay if Apple appears to be the newest. If their products are not unique, and their marketing style is easily imitable, what will happen when someone comes along and out Apples Apple?
My beloved Tampa Bay Rays’ season ended moments ago. I wish I could say I am not disappointed. I am. Not only because they squandered the amazing late-season rally that ended in triumph last Wednesday night, but because of how unimpressive they looked in their three losses against the Texas Rangers. The pitching for which the Rays are so famous wasn’t as advertised. True, Moore pitched phenomenally on Friday, but Price was disappointing, Shields didn’t live up to his recent amazing standard, and the young Hellickson surrendered devastating home runs. But even worse, the Rays batters looked downright feeble. Evan Longoria, who won the now-legendary Game 162, went 0-4 today, striking out twice. Upton, who, I will admit has been playing much better this season than last, struck out thrice. Damon, in spite of his amazing hustle, couldn’t come through, either. Sean Rodriguez played his heart out, but that wasn’t enough when the rest of the team was so unproductive. Mostly, I was disappointed with the way my guys just stood there as good pitches went right past them. I understand you have to wait for your pitch, but that looked bad sometimes.
Last year Cliff Lee shut us down. This year the Rays shut themselves down.
Still, I give Texas credit where credit is due. Their bats are dangerous, and their pitching is effective. If Detroit cannot dispatch the Hated Yankees, the Rangers are my team.
Meanwhile, I won’t be all gloom and doom. I am still proud of my guys. They gave me what I always have said I wanted: a winning season. Contrary to what many predicted at the conclusion of last season, the Rays still made the playoffs, and did it without Crawford, Soriano, Benoit, Garza, and others. They demonstrated an astonishing ability to replace big names with nobodies who play hard for much, much less money. Johnny Damon plays with an energy and attitude I love to watch. And this kid Moore who won big last Friday is extremely promising.
Joe Maddon is a remarkable manager. He did what few expected he could do, by taking a team with few recognizable stars, and finishing second in baseball’s toughest division, knocking out a team everyone assumed would win the World Series this year. But I am sorry he couldn’t capitalize on the big opportunity his team had in the post-season. If the Rays could have won the pennant, he’d be a shoo-in for manager of the year. As it is, I fear the Rays’ second-October-in-a-row loss will come to be seen as inevitable, as though the team didn’t belong in the first place. It’s bad enough that the Rays don’t get the respect they deserve considering their do-more-with-less situation – I don’t want to hear people say, “that’s what we expected”. The talking heads on ESPN, MLB-TV, and elsewhere, in a fawning love for New York and Boston that borders on obsequiousness, display demonstrable lack of enthusiasm for the Rays. It would have been nice to rub it in their faces.
So, farewell 2011 baseball. I will eagerly await your 2012 return.
Something must be done. I cannot live like this.