The Deletist

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the FIFA games over the last month. This time I printed out a grid to keep track of the teams. After each round my partner and I would reassess our predictions as one team after another was eliminated.

Since my partner and I were working when most of the games were on, we would watch the highlights in the evenings. Usually after the highlights one of the games would be replayed in its entirety. However, I discovered watching a game after having seen the highlights wasn’t that entertaining. Especially since I knew the exact minute that the “highlight” happened. It removed the anticipation and left no surprises.

When you just watch the highlights, you miss out on the process of how the goal(s) were scored. What you don’t get to see are all the near misses, which lend extra weight and anticipation to the excitement of the actual scoring. This momentum builds up the suspense when watching it live. When I watch a game live I don’t know what’s going to happen when. I’m cheering for my team when they get the ball and groaning loudly when they miss a chance at scoring. But all of that effort heightens the impact of seeing the team score.

For me it’s as much about seeing the progression of the win, as the actual outcome. After seeing the highlights, it didn’t feel as exciting to watch. The momentum is not the same. You miss the lead up to the big GOOOOOAAAAAL. You don’t get to see how the team strategized and changed tactics. You don’t get to see how long the ball was in motion before landing in the net. 

I can enjoy watching a game, if I know the score, but not how and when the goals were scored. This even applies for me when watching penalty shootouts. I like to watch the whole shootout, even if I already know who won, but not which shootouts were missed or blocked. It’s still dramatic and gripping to see the kicks and the miraculous saves by the goalies. 

In defense of highlights, I should say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching replays of great moments from some of the top players in the world. I was okay with this because I’ll never watch the full games anyway.

Vive France!

With so much information available on the internet, it would be onerous to find anything if we didn’t have a little help from filtering and customization.

Every time you search for something, everything is essentially available. Think of how many results Google returns in a fraction of a second. However, what appears at the top has likely been filtered by the search engine to guess at what you will find most interesting. The filtering is based on any number of factors including, but not limited to: previous searches, tracking websites and advertisements you click, IP addresses, keywords found in your electronic communications (e.g., email), operating system (Apple vs. Android vs. Windows) and location, to name a few. It’s designed to filter items to the front that you will like the best.

The danger with too much filtering, and customization, is that you may never be exposed to contrarian points of view. You may never discover new things that you might find interesting. I’m hooked on reading news with my NYTimes app. Although I sometimes wonder if I’m only offered headlines of stories that the app guesses I will be interested in based on behind-the-scene algorithms and tracking. 

One of the things I used to enjoy about paper newspapers was browsing through the sections and reading whatever grabbed my attention. In my younger days I would have immediately tossed aside the Sports and Business sections unless a headline enticed me. Consequently, I’ve developed a real interest in some aspects of sports and business.

The old school version of filtering can still be experienced in a library, except a library is a “filter out” instead of a “filter it front.” Every item in a library has been vetted and assessed by a professional for inclusion in the collection. What you see is what’s available. Libraries have always been, and still remain, a place to share and exchange ideas, or to be challenged by new ones. In library school I learned that in a good library everybody should be offended by at least one thing in the collection. This demonstrates that the library offers a wide range of materials to suite a diverse range of needs.

It’s healthy to be informed of different perspectives and try to understand them. This helps us to develop as people and learn how to be compassionate towards one another.

I recently started the process for getting an e-version of my new book, The Art of Making Space: Choosing Quality Over Quantity. I’m self-published and the entire process has been peppered with a lot of lessons learned. The biggest one was probably that the e-version is a lot more complicated than it seems.

Initially I thought the e-version would be as easy as uploading the digital file for my book. Nope. It’s actually more complex than that. When I started researching it, I discovered that the e-version has to be carefully coded on the backend to make it work on the various devices and operating systems available. An ebook won’t sell well if it can only be read on one type of device or e-reader application. It has to be readable on everything, comparable to the ease with which anyone can pick up a paper book and start reading it.

The e-version must be flexible and adaptable to change sizes. People often like to zoom in/out on images and tables. Or increase the text size. Paper books don’t do this.

Since my coding skills are rudimentary, at best, I hired a company to do the heavy lifting. While filling out the paperwork, I noted that the owner referred to her staff as “bookmakers.” Bookmakers? I remember thinking. Is that what they were? After some thought I realized that yes, they are digital bookmakers. The print version looks amazing, but I’ve already had to accept there will be some differences with the e-version. And yes, I need a professional digital bookmaker to handle the adjustments and formatting.

One surprising thing I learned is that digital books don’t really have back covers. When looking at paper books, I think most people look at the cover first (yes, we do judge books by their covers!), then flip it over to read the back. If it’s hardcover, people may also read the inside flaps. But with ebooks, there is no way to “flip” it. Therefore the promotional bits must be delivered in other ways, such as embedded in the book as a description, or on a page near the beginning.

Yup, more lessons learned. Despite all the setbacks, I’m thrilled that the digital bookmaking process is a fairly short one, about two weeks.

E-version coming soon to your favorite device!

Last weekend my neighborhood was in a state of jubilant chaos to celebrate Pride. Friday evening I hopped into a cab to take what is normally a 15 minute ride to my friend’s place. She literally lives down the street from me. OK, it’s two miles (about 3.5 km) away, but it’s off the same street. The ride took over 45 minutes, longer than it would have taken me to walk. If I hadn’t had so much to carry, I definitely would have.

The main problem was that the cab driver relied on his smartphone to direct him. However, the map app he was using didn’t take the Pride festivities into consideration. Consequently, none of the major street closures related to the events were showing up. Even worse, the map app couldn’t readjust itself to the new route we were taking and kept bleating out useless commands to get us back on the original path. It was maddening. I hate “When Smartphones Make Us Dumb.”

I rarely drive in the city and it didn’t occur to me to check. But honestly, I expected better from the driver. And I expected him to use a better map app to get around. It’s fortunate I used Uber so the price was set for the loooong ride.

We’re so overly reliant on technology to do the thinking for us, that we fail to use even common sense sometimes to make things easier for ourselves. Last weekend’s driving fiasco is a classic example. Our public transit system is so deficient, that I always check the transit website if I need to use it on weekends. I also follow their Twitter account for updates. Point is, I don’t rely on Google maps to give me a complete picture. There’s an element of human intelligence required to get around the city. To think fast and readjust.

It’s common to hear about and interact with new technologies in our daily lives such as artificial intelligence, smart appliances, and digital assistants (e.g., Alexa, Google Home, etc.). They’re becoming so integrated with everything that it’s easy to overlook the fact that they were created by human intelligence. It’s not magic.

My father was fond of saying that the only thing you ever really own is what’s inside your brain.

Today’s advice, disconnect to connect. Turn your device off. Exercise your brain by learning something new, like getting around without Google maps.