July 2015 - Sam Harrelson

Is Apple Supporting Terrorism?

“Wittes and Bedell argue that Apple’s decision to “move aggressively to implement end-to-end encrypted systems, and indeed to boast about them” after being “publicly and repeatedly warned by law enforcement at the very highest levels that ISIS is recruiting Americans” — in part through the use of encrypted messaging apps — could make the company liable if “an ISIS recruit uses exactly this pattern to kill some Americans.”

Source: Obama Administration War Against Apple and Google Just Got Uglier

The wars of the future will be fought between increasingly archaic nation states and corporate states just as the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution (and in part the American Revolution) signaled the decline of monarchies in Europe.

Why You Should Fear the Future and Think about Your Business Now

“This is for the same reason we just discussed—the Law of Accelerating Returns. The average rate of advancement between 1985 and 2015 was higher than the rate between 1955 and 1985—because the former was a more advanced world—so much more change happened in the most recent 30 years than in the prior 30.

So—advances are getting bigger and bigger and happening more and more quickly. This suggests some pretty intense things about our future, right?

Kurzweil suggests that the progress of the entire 20th century would have been achieved in only 20 years at the rate of advancement in the year 2000—in other words, by 2000, the rate of progress was five times faster than the average rate of progress during the 20th century. He believes another 20th century’s worth of progress happened between 2000 and 2014 and that another 20th century’s worth of progress will happen by 2021, in only seven years. A couple decades later, he believes a 20th century’s worth of progress will happen multiple times in the same year, and even later, in less than one month. All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century.”

Source: The AI Revolution: Road to Superintelligence – Wait But Why

“Things are changing so quickly these days compared to when I grew up.” – Every person older than 30 that I know

That sentiment is true.

“Change” (in this case technological advancement) happens on exponential curves. We, as humans, are geared to view change linearly or on a straight course based on our previous experiences. We love to share anecdotes about the past and think about the future in terms of small incremental bits. After all, I was born in 1978 and things aren’t all that different now than they were then? Yes, they are.

Business wise, it’s time to think about how you or your company or your church or your nonprofit is going to position itself now for the increasing climb of the Law of Accelerating Returns. 2040 will look dramatically different than 2020 in terms of human advancement.

This will impact everything from how we consume and produce products (already happening) to how we drive (already happening) to how we use, spend, and save currency (already happening) to how we worship or view faith (happening at a shocking pace now) to how we do business (if you think “the internet” is important for business, just wait) to how we monitor and adjust and improve our own biological, mental, and emotional health. Not to mention external variables that will affect our future such as climate change, growth in human population, war, strife, and the coming economic calamity because of the gap between rich and poor.

If we don’t nuke ourselves or die from spoiling our resources, the next 100 years will see an incredible change in what it means to be(ing) human.

So, if you think 2015 is weird and annoying with mobile phones, email, and Facebook and you cannot wait until we all just go back to paper and “how things used to be”… just wait for 2025. You should fear the future.

However, this will be an amazing and monumental time for our species. I’m hopeful that technological advancement will bring human progress in a number of areas.

Either way, prepare your business now by thinking about what’s coming.

Polynomial Codes Over Certain Finite Fields, or Why Things You Don’t Think Matter Actually Matter

“Whatever new technologies are on the horizon, history has taught us that Reed-Solomon-based coding will probably still be there, behind the scenes, safeguarding our data against errors. Like the genes within an organism, the codes have been passed down to subsequent generations, slightly adjusted and optimized for their new environment. They have a proven track record that starts on Earth and extends ever further into the Milky Way. “There cannot be a code that can correct more errors than Reed-Solomon codes…It’s mathematical proof,” Bossert says. “It’s beautiful.”

Source: The Math That Connects Pluto to DNA — NOVA Next | PBS

From storing information via DNA to communicating with spacecraft near Pluto to enabling your cell phone and beyond…

Don’t let people tell you that your work doesn’t matter. Small minds are the enemy of progress.

The Death (and Salvation?) of Religious Studies: A Conversation with Carrie Schroeder

Source: Thinking Religion: The Death (and Salvation?) of Religious Studies: A Conversation with Carrie Schroeder | Thinking.FM

Thomas and I have a new Thinking Religion podcast episode featuring Prof. Carrie Shroeder where we discuss all sorts of things… Stargate to Digital Humanities to why you should blog on your own site (academic or church or individual). Fun listen (I think).

Enjoy…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download () | Embed

https://samharrelson.com/thinking Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Oh, Microsoft

First thing you see when you begin the upgrade to Windows 10… binding arbitration clause. Thanks, lawyers.

Litmus Test

If you get upset when people mispronounce Suetonius, you should listen to Thinking Religion with Thomas Whitley and me.

We love you and we feel your pain.

Civilians Using Handguns in Self Defense

The NRA likes the idea of training so much that it’s floated the idea of mandatory firearms training for school children. On the other hand, it’s opposed laws requiring mandatory training for gun purchases. Many states allow concealed carry without any training or permit for people as young as 16. Most states don’t require gun owners or purchasers to even be licensed, much less trained. And a handful, like Arizona, have passed laws prohibiting localities from imposing their own training requirements.

Source: Watch what happens when regular people try to use handguns in self-defense – Washington Post

I grew up around guns in our home and the homes of my friends (and the occasional gun rack on the back glass of pickups), and hunting culture. I understand the sentiment that guns are tools and can be used for evil just like any other tool. What I don’t understand is the resistance from some groups to legislate mandatory licensing and training (similar to what we do with automobiles).

If you’re really of the “government wants to take away our guns” so we need to hold up the 2nd amendment as our way to preserve freedom persuasion, I’d argue that a citizenry that is licensed and trained to handle firearms is a much bigger threat to “the government” than the current situation.

Wilco’s Star Wars and My Personal Helicon

Only Wilco could make something this eruptive feel so comfy, like a steel-wool security blanket.

Source: Wilco’s New Album: Star Wars | Rolling Stone

I’ve been enjoying the heck out of this album over the past week. I was skeptical at first … it being a “free” and “surprise” album with a cutesy yet askew title that Wilco just dropped on us all last week.

After listening to it in the office throughout the week then on replay during a 5 hour drive (the album is just over 30 mins, which is something of a miracle in itself for a Wilco production), I’m a believer.

To make it completely personal and anecdotal, Tweedy’s lyrics and the band’s music reminds me that even though I’m heading into my 37th year of being here and continue to find my own way in business while working with my clients, there are still opportunities to explore the cracks in the sidewalk and allow myself to be creative. I’ve smoothed over those moments of opportunity. I’ve wasted my words and openings for personal and work actualization. This album has helped me realize that.

It’s not enough to coast. Sky Blue Sky, Wilco (The Album) and The Whole Love were fine albums in their own rights. But they didn’t cause the type of “woah, wait a minute … think about how these lyrics and this music can get you to explore your own space, Sam” moments that made me start listening to Wilco in the first place.

The first time I heard Misunderstood from Being There, I was in college and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. So, I got a religion major. It made sense at the time. That song was a part of that decision that seemed so flippant yet daring looking back on my younger self. “I would never do that today,” I think to myself as I take my multivitamin supplements and do my morning stretches while looking at my agenda.

Shortly after I took my first office job, my friend Jon said I needed to listen to something and slipped me a CD (it was the style of the times). While sitting in my fluorescent cubicle, I plugged in my headphones and the first cacophonous notes of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot entered my consciousness. I started blogging. My career took me on a path I could have never imagined. That song could be a metaphor for my 20’s (at least in my own head) both in terms of work, exploring my creativity, and relationships. It still gives me chills. It, like Misunderstood, was a strange reflecting pool where I could see myself askew and needed to explore that further before I could look away.

The songs on Star Wars are pushing me to that type of mirror pool reflection. The trick, I think, as I turn 37 is to realize that there will be other songs to push and pull me later, but I need to enjoy these for now and see where they go. Creativity in work, and life, is a blessing and a curse as it seems to come as quickly as it goes. You’re thinking up the color of the tech world at 27 and then you realize you’re 35 and still using the same palette.

It’s time to push the obtuse in my work, and find the angles that I smoothed over.

Then, I have to walk on and find the next mirror pond of songs before settling in as I did before:

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

‘Go Set a First Draft’

“In one of her last interviews, conducted in 1964, Lee said: “I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing … is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this — the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea.”

A publisher that cared about Harper Lee’s legacy would have taken those words to heart, and declined to publish “Go Set a Watchman,” the good idea that Lee eventually transformed into a gem.That HarperCollins decided instead to manufacture a phony literary event isn’t surprising. It’s just sad.”

Source: The Harper Lee ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Fraud – NY Times

“What is Left is Pretty Much McDonalds”

“What is left is pretty much McDonald’s — the restaurant of the masses, the great democratizer, the substitute for the community square, where it is possible to read or nurse a cheap cup of coffee for hours, or to nap after taking a daily methadone dose.”

Source: A Manhattan McDonald’s With Many Off-the-Menu Sales – The New York Times

Confessions of a Congress Member

Discouragement is for wimps. We aren’t going to change the Constitution, so we need to make the system we have work. We are still, despite our shortcomings, the most successful experiment in self-government in history. Our greatest strength is our ability to bounce back from mistakes like we are making today. Get over your nostalgia: Congress has never been more than a sausage factory. The point here isn’t to make us something we’re not. The point is to get us to make sausage again. But for that to happen, the people have to rise up and demand better.

Source: Confessions of a congressman: 9 secrets from the inside – Vox

Anonymous member of Congress with some interesting insight into the workings of our government in 2015.

The title refers to a “congressman,” so I assumed this is a male. However the writer never uses that term but frequently uses “member of Congress” or “Congress member.”

Undervaluing The Click and Mobile’s Importance in Conversions

Mobile advertising is worth ten times the amount marketers think because it drives more offline sales than marketers are able to measure, according to Google’s Matt Bush.

Source: Google: mobile is ten times more valuable than marketers think

Part of me (the marketing consultant part) wants to jump up and down and say “YES! SEE! READ THIS, SKEPTICAL CLIENT!”

Another part of me (the cynical online marketing veteran part) looks at this relatively cynically since it is coming from Google. Google is making intentional moves to distance its majority of revenue from cost per click actions on desktops and laptops and focus on transitioning its largest advertisers to mobile, contextual, and video (YouTube) ads. The average Cost Per Click revenue is down 11% this past quarter from a year ago and will continue to plummet as advertisers continue to realize that clicks aren’t a scarce commodity. That would fall in line with this statement from last week:

According to Bush, marketers are underestimating the value of clicks on desktop by about four times and clicks on mobile by as much as ten times. “You can see if someone had clicked on an ad or visited store, we need to start thinking about the creative we put in place.”

So which part of me is right? As with most things (especially in advertising / marketing), it’s not a black-and-white issue. Yes, Google is right to encourage advertisers and marketers to realize that clicks are undervalued when it comes to the conversion process. However, that realization would serve Google well.

For over 10 years, I’ve been arguing that marketers need to get beyond the old metrics we were and have been using for evaluating click effectiveness (whether in a CPC mode or in actually clicking on a link).

We’ll see if mobile finally delivers on that promise.

You Won’t Make Money with Your Website

“The future for most publishers is likely that of pure content production only, save for the few — like Gruber — who are destination sites capable of selling native advertising in stream (or selling subscriptions, like this site). What is very much in question is exactly how users will feel when they finally get what they claim they wish for.”

Source: Why Web Pages Suck – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

Ben is mostly right with his analysis here – the only point I’d include is that there are possibilities (still) for small and niche sites to utilize affiliate marketing for profits. Even better are sites that are shaped around podcasts (*cough* Thinking.FM *cough*) or video etc.

If you’re looking to start a site, grow a large readership, and make money from advertising… that ship has sailed.

As I told a client this morning, websites and podcasts and YouTube channels aren’t direct money makers… they are marketing channels.

Google Affiliate Network 3.0

“To be clear, the merchants will still handle the actual product fulfillment, although the pages will be hosted by Google. The company emphasized that it’s trying to reduce the friction in mobile purchases without interfering in the relationship between merchants and consumers. That’s why the purchase page will carry the merchant’s branding, and if the product isn’t exactly what the shopper is looking for, they’ll even be able to search for other products.”

Source: Google Unveils “Purchases On Google,” Which Are Basically Buy Buttons In Mobile Ads

Sounds a lot like affiliate marketing to me.

Ah, the good ole days.

Affiliate marketing always was a good system in theory, but I’m always a little sad its promise of a democratized marketing industry never really materialized. Like our social interactions, I guess it’s up to the large silos to run the show.

Nice rundown of “Purchases on Google” over at Marketing Land.

Google Domains Web Hosting Partners

This morning I’ve been working on a site domain issue for a new client who we’re building a website for, along with social media and email newsletter campaigns. The issue I’m working on is rather obscure, and I had a quick thought to check out how other domain services handle it to compare with the service we are using (Namecheap) for this account.

I reviewed the regulars such as Hover, GoDaddy, eNom, Network Solutions etc then remembered that Google had recently opened up its own domain service to everyone after a while in beta. We had a beta account early on and I moved over one domain there to see how things worked. It’s a nice, clean, simple, and straightforward approach somewhat synonymous with Hover’s.

What surprised me this morning (I’m sure it’s been there for a while and I’ve just missed it since I don’t use Google Domains on a regular basis) are the promoted website building partners that Google is prompting here along with its own (terrible) Blogger service. Domain services such as Namecheap or GoDaddy offer an in-house style page builder that is an additional cost / upsale for domain purchasers. I wonder what the deal is between Google and these services?

All of these are relatively easy-to-use services and have their own unique monthly or yearly costs. We use Squarespace and Shopify occasionally for clients as a caveat. I wonder what the conversion rates for these are? Do people (not website devs or agencies like ours) sign up for these services through links such as this?

I wondered if other domain services had similar promoted partner offerings, and it looks like Hover has recently rolled out a similar thing…

Obviously, Google isn’t going to promote Tumblr after it was acquired by Yahoo last year, but Squarespace and Shopify also show up in Hover. Format is an interesting addition as I’ve always thought of them as a more static / portfolio type host.

As an aside, I wonder if other smaller site builders such as Ghost or Barley (in reboot mode now) will find audiences through these types of promotions?

Regardless, I encourage everyone to have a blog for their own person and to have a site for their business / group / school / club / nonprofit / church / organization etc. You simply cannot base your online identity (personal or professional) on Facebook or Facebook Pages for many reasons. These types of promotions will hopefully lower the bar and help more people on the web realize that.

Now that you can easily create and design website on your phone, it feels as if the act of setting up a site has moved from something like “specialized knowledge” into common understanding. That’s a good thing and will make the web stronger (even if it gets a little uglier).

And when you get ready to take your site to the next level, get in touch and we’ll build you something unique and capable of what you need after you get your feet wet.

The problem with demanding that secular culture reflect biblical principles

“We were never commissioned to demand that secular culture reflect biblical principles. We were commissioned to reflect biblical principles in the middle of secular culture, pointing to God’s redemptive story.”

Source: Christians Shouldn’t Be Culture’s Morality Police | RELEVANT Magazine

Good article that I wish more people of faith would read. There’s no shame in actually following Jesus and his example of communing with those who disagreed with him and who were labeled as “bad folks” in his culture.

Thanks for passing on, Merianna.

Obama Administration Issues Final Contraception Coverage Religious Accommodation Rules

“Providing written notice, courts have determined, does not constitute a substantial burden on religious exercise. Beyond that, the rulings emphasize, contraception is made available and paid for by others under the plan, not the objecting religious organizations.”

Source: Obama Administration Issues Final Contraception Coverage Religious Accommodation Rules

Finally.

Now let’s move on to issues affecting our communities, states, and country that deserve the type of scrutiny, examination, and money that this has received.

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

“I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.”

Source: DNA/How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

Still a good read from Douglas Adams (16 years later).

Troubling Theology

“Nothing surprises our God. He is perfect in omniscience. He knows everything that can be known including what is going to happen in the future. In other words, what happened on the Friday before last came as no surprised to God. Neither will it prove any kind of meaningful impediment to the advance of His kingdom. We serve the God whose plans could not be derailed by the unjust death of His Son. His church survived the Roman Empire. It survived Christendom. It survived the Enlightenment. It survived Darwinism. It survived Stalin. It survived Mao. The church is surviving ISIS and Boko Haram and Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda. Christians holding to the historically orthodox position on sex and marriage should in no way think that the legalization of same-sex marriage in this country on the basis of the opinion of five people will pose any kind of an existential threat to the church.”

Source: What I said to my conservative church about same-sex marriage | Baptist News Global Perspectives – Conversations that matter

This strand (fractal?) of a theology is so troubling to me.

What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?

Teachers who aim to control students’ behavior—rather than helping them control it themselves—undermine the very elements that are essential for motivation: autonomy, a sense of competence, and a capacity to relate to others.

Source: What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong? | Mother Jones

Must read for parents, teachers, students, and most everyone else.

The Reddit Revolt and Social Silos

The sudden revolt has thrown one of the world’s most popular sites into chaos. It wasn’t immediately clear why Taylor, who joined the company in 2013, was fired. But the response by moderators was as swift as it was ruthless. Within hours, the moderators of /r/IAmA took the subreddit private, effectively shutting it down. That started a cascade of moderators shuttering dozens of subreddits—/r/askreddit, /r/todayilearned, and /r/pics among them—that is still growing, crippling a site with some 160 million users. Many more subreddits, including /r/science, have expressed solidarity with Taylor but remained open.

Source: Reddit Is Revolting | WIRED

Reddit is in a state of turmoil from the firing of a popular staffer as well as a continual breakdown of communication from company officers and subreddit moderators. Reddit itself functions primarily due to the hard work of popular and niche subreddit moderators who laboriously spend time curating and improving the experience of the “internet’s front page.”

What’s interesting to note here is that moderators from hundreds of subreddits are using this as an opportunity to voice their frustration with how the company supports and enables them to do what they do. There’s also ongoing questions and antagonism between community leaders and the company’s new CEO due to her attempts to limit harassing and defamatory posts by users.

Reddit’s distributed model lends itself to such rebellion. Similar things happened to Digg when it began its decline, which gave Reddit a boost of audience. There are cautionary tales of dozens of forums undergoing similar events and eventual departure of key users and members as well.

What does this mean for other social silos such as Facebook or the post-open Twitter or Google+? In my mind, one of the key benefits to the path that Facebook has taken with making key features into standalone services or apps (Messenger, Pages, Instagram, Whatsapp etc) or Twitter with Vine is that these social networks are now more insulated from being left behind due to a mass exit based on inner turmoil.

Much like NASCAR fans decrying the sports’ and associated tracks’ latest announcement asking for Confederate flags to be left at home and, passionate people who feel entitled due to a conception of buy-in can feel betrayed and threaten to leave. Social spaces on the web are built to fail, and companies have to both diversify and continue to attract a membership that is comfortable with evolution.

The problems with ebook subscription models

Way more people watch TV and movies and listen to music than read books or magazines. That’s why we’re starting to see that Netflix is Netflix, Spotify is Spotify, and ebook and magazine subscription sites are, well, something else.

Source: What Scribd’s growing pains mean for the future of digital content subscription models » Nieman Journalism Lab

You have to be careful of those romance novel readers.

I’ve been fascinated by the concepts of ebook monetization since self-publishing and ebook publishing became a bona fide option for mainstream publishers and authors. It’s one of the reasons I’m excited about what Merianna is doing with Harrelson Press and the ultimate direction we’ve mapped out there (more on that later).

However, it’s clear that a subscription type model from Scribd aren’t the best way forward. The ebook industry is a weird and complicated beast as companies from Google to Apple to Amazon have discovered in their various attempts to become the “Netflix” of this respective market.

Regardless, publishers are going to be the ones that have to change and adapt to make sense of this newish form of reading and producing/consuming content. We’ve seen how the music industry seemingly collapsed during the last decade when singles become the prime selling vehicle, replacing albums. Now, we’re seeing a period of consolidation by the major labels and partners such as Apple or Spotify to allow for the labels to make the most profits from agreements while artists are paid fractions of a cent per streamed play. That will change as artists figure out the game and we see more Taylor Swift’s pushing their weight around the industry.

I don’t think we’ll see a similar contraction / consolidation in the book publishing universe because the tools for making and consuming books are more democratized and the industry is ripe for disruption.

Thomas Jefferson Was Obsessed with Mammoths

“For most of his life, Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with mammoths. (More correctly, he was obsessed with American mastodons, tree-chewing cousins of mammoths that lived in the Northern part of the continent—but at the time, he and the rest of the world thought they were mammoths.) He liked theorizing about mammoths, he liked talking about mammoths, he liked making his friends rack up exorbitant postage bills in order to mail him mammoth teeth. And for decades, from the mid-1760s onward, he was particularly dedicated to one surprisingly high-stakes activity—convincing a famous French naturalist that mammoths were still out there, tearing up the wild West with their tusks.”

Source: Thomas Jefferson Built This Country On Mastodons

I had no idea.