The Life and Times of David Chen

Retaliation in March

2012-05-24T08:26:00.001-07:00

The big news in the entertainment industry yesterday was Paramount deciding to move back one of its major summer tentpole releases until March 2013. I'm only tangentially covering the industry at this point but my guess is that this probably sent shockwaves through Hollywood. The ad campaign for G.I. Joe Retaliation was already in full swing. I've seen trailers in front of movies. Paramount spent millions advertising the film during the superbowl. I saw a giant banner for this film in Bellevue the other day, unfurled right next to one for Men In Black 3. In an industry where so much of a film's success hinges on the first three days, squandering all of that advertising feels like madness, with maybe a hint of desperation.

Why did Paramount do it? Ostensibly it was to give the film time to be converted into 3D, thus generating increased revenue worldwide. I don't doubt that a quality 3D conversion could be completed in that time, but seems like some pretty poor planning to decide that this late if you ask me.

Spinoff Online has some interesting conspiracy theorizing about why the move. My best guess? The suits at Paramount saw the returns on Hasbro's disastrous Battleship and got cold feet. Companies have been ended for smaller flops. Maybe give viewers time to warm up to the idea of a toy-based film again?

Throughout all of this, my heart goes out to director Jon Chu. I was really rooting for him to break out into mainstream success with this film. He's no slouch, to be sure: his past films have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. But Retaliation had the potential to single-handedly reach grosses in the hundreds of millions and cement him as a go-to action director with the chops to deliver a major blockbuster. This decision can't have been an easy one for Chu (and I'm sure he didn't make it, nor was he pleased with it - his Twitter account has been strangely silent, save for a cryptic photo that may have been unintentionally ironic).

Also check out this Hollywood Reporter interview, in which Chu talks about how liberating it was to shoot in 2D. Curiouser and curiouser...

(Thanks to Peter Smith for hooking me up with some of these links)

Places I'm Not Living

2012-05-16T08:02:00.002-07:00

Over the past two weeks, I have seen many, many apartment units in Seattle. After much searching and deliberation, I've finally settled on a brand new apartment in the Belltown neighborhood, and it's spectacular (the photo is above is a view from the rooftop deck). But even though I'm happy with my ultimate choice, this was a long, involved process that I'm not eager to repeat. No place I looked at was completely perfect; each one involved a series of trade-offs that I had to continually assess, as I decided whether or not I wanted to commit to spending tens of thousands of dollars on the property over the course of the next year.

At the end of this process, there were two finalists, each of which I made three visits to, frequently with friends so they could help me evaluate. It's always been weird to me how blithely people approach things like car buying and apartment renting, often committing after a simple 5-minute visit. You're about to spend like $30,000 on this thing that you're going to have to live with/in for the foreseeable future. Why not perform some painfully thorough due diligence?

In order to expedite and organize the process, I frequently shot videos of each location, which was especially helpful when trying to recollect the property later. Just for the heck of it, I thought I'd share a few of them with you. You may find that they provide an insight into the Seattle rental market. It feels kind of weird for me to post these videos, because they contain specific locations in them and I almost lived at some of these places. Alas, they were not to be.

I was initially totally taken with Lawrence Lofts in Capitol Hill. The view is just incredible. However, after a further visit with my friends (seen briefly in this video), they convinced me that the amount of square footage, the total lack of significant closet space, and the open-bedroom format did not justify the asking price of $1975:

Another strong contender was a location called Harbor Steps, located right near the bustling Pike Place market downtown. It is hard to describe how amazing the view is. Breathtaking. The units were also large and spacious. The biggest downsides come from the location; it's located in a sprawling complex with thousands of other residents, and it's right in the heart of one of the busiest areas in Seattle, with tons of tourists everywhere all the time. Parking is also a whopping $210 per month, which doesn't get you your own reserved space. That is unacceptable in my book.

One of my finalists was Citizen apartments in Capitol Hill. Like Lawrence, the apartment complex is totally brand new. I was particularly fond of this unit, which had a ton of space (nearly 800 square feet) and had a decent south-facing view. However, the amenities were not great (no fitness center, with the nearest one half a mile away), and noise from the highly trafficked street below also made the deal potentially unappealing. Parking was $175, slightly higher than in many of the other places I saw, though obviously not as high as Harbor Steps. Nonetheless, I was nearly certain that this was going to be the place until I found my current apartment.

For comparison, here's another unit in Citizen that has slightly less space, but with a courtyard view as opposed to a city view. This unit was $140/month cheaper than the above unit. Is the downgrade in view worth the downgrade in price?

One commenter pointed out that it was "gauche" for me to be occasionally evaluating the property in front of the actual rental agent, something you can hear a bit of in the videos. On the contrary, I think it provided some refreshing honesty. Imagine being a rental agent and showing dozens of people your apartment units for 9-10 hours six days a week (including weekends, when it's most busy). Most people are totally poker-faced about what they think about a unit, and often say nothing until they are talking about it on the car ride home. The process can be frustrating and trying for the agent, who is just trying to do a good job and has nothing to go by. When people are actually honest about their concerns in this process, it's a better experience for everyone.

HUGE THANKS to my friends Sarah, Megan, Audrey, Laremy, and Laura for helping me to navigate this treacherous process. Big thanks also to my rental agent, Kim Reidy, who was an invaluable guide throughout.

The Curse of the New Yorker Profile

2012-05-16T07:34:00.004-07:00

I thought the premise of this article was pretty silly, but it actually contains some great insights into the process and limits of profile-writing for a magazine like The New Yorker:

To put it mildly, there’s something of a New Yorker feature curse going around Hollywood these days. It doesn’t always hold true — Dana Goodyear’s profile of James Cameron certainly didn’t hurt “Avatar” — but when it does, the results can be startling, especially when you set the articles alongside the films they so effusively describe. Tad Friend’s profile of Steve Carell, for instance, portrays its subject as “a brilliant piece of software, a 2.0 fix for the problem of unfunny comedy,” whose approach to collaboration is nothing less than “a painstaking set of procedures aimed at maximum creativity.” The result? “Dinner for Schmucks,” a critical and commercial nonevent that few would hold up as a model of “the golden age of improvisation.”

In the Past 14 Days

2012-05-16T07:31:00.003-07:00

In the past 14 days, I have:

Moved myself and many of my possessions from my home in Boston to my new (temporary corporate housing) home in Seattle
Started a new position at Microsoft
Seen and evaluated dozens of apartment units (at least 20) in several different Seattle neighborhoods
Recorded three podcast episodes, and edited a fourth.
Put down a deposit on a new apartment

Things are slowly settling down, a little bit every day. And the adventure has just begun.

Just Stop Trying Already

2012-05-11T20:53:00.003-07:00

Readers of this blog know that I've recently started a new job at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. I've only been there for a week, but I've already started to feel a sense of pride creeping into my psyche when I read about the company's breakthroughs in tech news. Conversely, I feel involuntarily defensive when people bash it.

Thus, it's no surprise that Alex Goldfayn's piece in Mashable this morning ("Why Microsoft Is Being Left in the Dust") really got my ire going. Here's the main thrust of Goldfayn's argument:

If you want to know why Microsoft’s share price has been flat for 11 years while Apple, Amazon, and Google shares have soared, this is why. Microsoft is not innovating aggressively. It is not leading categories or blazing trails. No, it’s acquiring aggressively as a shortcut to innovation. That isn’t working. Its own history suggests as much.

Let me begin by acknowledging that Microsoft is not a perfect company. It's a massive organization with nearly 100,000 employees and on a fundamental level, large organizations just can't move as quickly as lean and mean startups. Microsoft's track record in the consumer market has not been perfect (see this interview with MS executive Robbie Bach for a fascinating take on this), but it's frequently come out with products that demand and deserve our attention.

Goldfayn's piece is pretty meandering; he brings up a bunch of random examples and doesn't really tie them very well to his thesis. The primary focus of his article is Microsoft's recent investment in Barnes & Noble. Why invest in an organization that is so far removed from Microsoft's core competencies? Goldfayn cites several acquisition examples to back up his claim that this acquisition will turn out to be ill-fated: 1) Windows Phone/Nokia, 2) The Yahoo/Bing search deal, 3) Skype.

With regards to Windows Phone, although Nokia had a rough quarter recently, people love their Windows Phones! With Windows Phone, Microsoft accomplished what any sane observer would have deemed impossible: it took a flagging operating system off the market (Windows Mobile), righted the massive ship, then came back from nowhere with a user experience that some reviewers have described as being "in a class of its own." Windows Phone may not have the market share of other OSes but we are just getting started over here.

With regards to Bing, Goldfayn writes that "Google’s search market share is a dominant 66%, with Microsoft’s Bing a very distant second at 15%. After spending billions building and marketing Bing, Microsoft is barely visible in Google’s rear-view mirror." Again, Microsoft has shown that it's in this thing for the long haul, and its recent innovations in social search show that it's not content to merely be a follower. Will the market share come? I can't say, but I know that we're the only company that has made significant inroads against Google. Who else can say that? Who else even has the capability to be able to do that?

And as for the extremely recent acquisition of Skype, even Goldfayn acknowledges that "it's too early to tell"! Give it a few months, will ya? Sheesh.

There's a broader trend here that really troubles me among the tech pundits, and that's the following implication that I sense from reading pieces such as Goldfayn's: "You stink at this so just stop trying already." I read Apple-centered blogs such as Daring Fireball pretty religiously, and the unadulterated joy that the authors get from seeing Apple completely lay waste to their competition is palpable. It's fun to root for the winning team; no doubt about it.

What we forget is that a world where one company dominates an entire industry isn't really great for anyone (Microsoft is no stranger to this concept). Do we really want ridiculously important industries like search, mobile, and publishing to be dominated by a single company (i.e. Google, Apple, and Amazon, respectively)? Do we really want people like Microsoft to lay down their arms and just give up? Because if so, we're asking for a world with less choice. We're asking for a world where consumers lose big time.

As for me? I for one am glad we're fighting these fights.

Things I've Learned So Far at Microsoft

2012-05-09T21:39:00.001-07:00

I have been an employee of Microsoft for three days. For my first day on campus, all new hires went through New Employee Orientation (NEO), a glorious 9-hour session where experienced employees explained our benefits to us and got us up to speed on the technical ins-and-outs of working at the company. Since then, I've just been soaking up as much information as possible, trying to ramp up for the exciting projects I have in the weeks ahead (and which I hope to explain to you eventually, when the time is right).

In the meantime, I present a few stray observations I've made during my extremely short time here so far:

The People - Over 45,000 people work at Microsoft's Redmond, WA campus, well above the number that populate many universities. The diversity of individuals is insane. There are FTEs (full-time employees) and contractors and vendors, recent college graduates and grandparents, people from every state in the U.S. and from dozens of countries all around the world. All types of viewpoints and personalities are well-represented, but there is one thing that everybody has in common: They are all extremely frickin' smart. From what I heard about Microsoft back when I was at Harvard Business School, the interview/recruiting process is designed to winnow down the pool of candidates to only the best of the best. The intellect of the employees here is palpable, and there's a really empowering sense that one gets from knowing that one is working with some of the most skilled people in the world.

The Benefits - My colleague at Microsoft described their benefits as "the Mercedes Benz of benefits." I'm inclined to agree. In learning about our benefits, I feel very much like Alice in Wonderland; just when I think I've reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, I continue tumbling down. In a word, the benefits are astonishing. People's lives can change due to the benefits they receive here. You can finally get surgeries done that you'd once deemed unfeasible. You can lose that weight you've been angling to get rid of. Most importantly, you can see IMAX movies for $3 a piece! When I learned that I'd be receiving an offer from Microsoft, I felt like I'd won the lottery. And while I don't think that sentiment has changed, learning about the benefits here is like learning I just won the Power Play component of the lottery too.

The Cause - Nearly all the people I've met are not only more than competent, they're also passionate about what they're doing. They love this company. They love what the company is doing, and they love what it stands for. Ultimately, Microsoft is all about harnessing technology to make people's lives easier. And while we all may struggle occasionally with an Excel spreadsheet or agonize over a Word doc, nobody reading this can deny that their lives have in some way been touched by the work that Microsoft has done over the past few decades (most likely for the better!).

People are doing things here that will change the world. They want to surprise and delight their customers. They want to take technology to its fullest potential.

I can't wait to jump in.

Things I've Learned So Far in Seattle

2012-05-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

I've only been in Seattle for about four days, but here are a few brief, unscientific observations I've made during my time here:

Rain - WTF, dude? It's everywhere. It's constant, and it's cold. And people don't use umbrellas? My local friend Megan told me that using an umbrella is a really good way for people to tell that you're not from here. I say, if using an umbrella results in social ostracizing, then I am ready to become a pariah.

Speed - I haven't been here that long, but already I've had a person tell me, "We do things a lot slower here on the West Coast." I'll leave it to your imagination what the context of this was. Suffice it to say, people here are a lot more chill. They drive at the speed limit. They are patient and good at waiting. They don't flip out in the middle of department stores. Basically: the opposite of how people behave in Boston.

The Seattle Freeze - I haven't experienced this directly yet, but many of my friends have made mention of it. To quote from Urban Dictionary:

It's not that people here are unfriendly, they will hold the door for you and wave you into traffic and stuff like that, it's that everything is maddeningly impersonal. The attitude is "have a nice day, somewhere else". It's easy to get along but making friends is almost impossible. People will say they want to hang out with you sometime and look at you like a freak when you actually suggest something. People enthusiastically say they are coming to a party then don't show up. People are flaky and hard to pin down. Girls lead you on for weeks and snub you with no explanation. People are insincere. Norms of social interaction don't apply here. Most people don't like or dislike you, they're totally indifferent. Every interaction will be maddeningly superficial.

This sounds like the worst fate imaginable. I shall endeavor to counteract this as often as possible by forcing my way into people's homes and having dinner with them against their will.

The Food, My God, The Food - I thought I had it good in Boston, but the food scene here is far better than I could have possibly comprehended. I've only eaten at a few restaurants so far and already I have been blown away by the selection and the quality. Dollar for dollar, you cannot beat this place. And I've only just begun my culinary journey.

***

To stay tuned to my travels and my random city photography, be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Regret Makes Us Human

2012-05-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time thinking about my past and about the decisions that have led me to this point. This phenomenon has become even more pronounced, as I have just uprooted myself and moved to Seattle (follow me on Twitter and Facebook to see all my updates as I adjust to my new life here).

A lot of people say you shouldn't spend time in regret; it wastes a lot of energy and doesn't really accomplish anything. Still, a part of me can't help but dwell on my mistakes and ponder the counterfactuals.

Kathryn Schulz's TED Talk on regret, which I just watched today, is perhaps one of my favorite TED Talks ever. In it, Schulz beautifully articulates the importance of regret. Far from being something we should discard, regret is perhaps something we should embrace because it can help make us who we are.

I was unexpectedly moved by this talk. I hope it helps you too.

A Game of Thrones Podcast

2012-05-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've recently started a podcast about the HBO original series of Game of Thrones. Joanna Robinson (from Pajiba) and I talk about the TV show primarily as a TV show, but Joanna's insights as a fan of George R. R. Martin's books really help to make sense of some of the more confusing elements.

We've only been doing this for five weeks, but already the response has been incredible. I've been podcasting for four years and I have never seen listenership growth like I've seen for this podcast. I'm grateful that our audience is so enthusiastic, engaged, and intelligent. Won't you join them?

Subscribe to A Cast of Kings:

And if you like the show, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes! There are literally dozens of Game of Thrones podcasts out there. Any positive comments will help us to stand out among the crowd.

One Last Photo Shoot

2012-04-29T07:49:00.001-07:00

I met Evgenia Eliseeva six years ago. She was the primary photographer at a friend's wedding, and I bumped into her while I was toting around an entry-level DSLR, trying to take some memorable photos of my own. Even back then, I was impressed with how gracefully she worked, how good she was with couples. Above all else, her enthusiasm and energy seemed boundless. And that was before I even saw her photos, which were incredible.

I later found out that, for our day jobs, Evgenia and I serendipitously both worked for the same company. I visited her desk on a number of occasions and she was always incredibly encouraging of my own photographic exploits, even though I will readily admit that my photography was absolute crap back then. Despite my shortcomings, Evgenia hooked me up with a couple of wedding gigs, vouching for me to her own photographic employers. I vaguely recall showing up at a wedding gig one morning as a Canon 50D was placed into my hands and I was told to just GO.

Becoming a wedding photographer is a chicken-or-egg problem. It is difficult to justify spending much on decent gear unless you already have paying gigs lined up. And it's pretty much impossible to get decent gigs unless you own and know how to operate decent gear. Photography may look easy, but using professional-grade equipment skillfully requires making dozens of technical decisions instantaneously with each image that you snap. I didn't have any photography equipment back then and thus, I clumsily fumbled my way through those first few weddings. It was a painful experience that resulted in photos that were not up to my standards, let alone anyone else's. I decided to give up the photography game for awhile and focus on other things.

Years passed. Then, not too long ago, I decided I loved photography too much to let my passion go by the wayside. I'd saved up a decent chunk of money -- enough to give photography a fair shot -- so I invested thousands and thousands of dollars in camera equipment, then spent thousands more on a class with one of the world's best wedding photographers. I spent hours poring over some of the best photography blogs, honing my craft with precision so that I knew exactly how to get the results I wanted "in-camera." Soon, I was shooting gigs regularly for money (including weddings). More importantly, I was crafting images that I was actually proud of.

With my newly learned skills, I went back to Evgenia again, and she encouraged me and referred me with an even greater enthusiasm than before (if that were actually possible). I may have rekindled the spark, but Evgenia helped to keep it burning.

This week, I leave my home in Boston for an exciting new adventure in Seattle. I've been saying goodbye to close friends and colleagues for the past few weeks, but I saved a special goodbye for Evgenia. For months (years, maybe?) I've been trying to convince Evgenia to do a photo shoot with me. But even though she's stunningly beautiful, Evgenia is also quite modest and thus, repeatedly demurred at my request. With my imminent and hopefully permanent departure, I finally swayed her. So, this past Saturday in the freezing and bitter Newton air, we did a photo shoot together. I took some shots of her, then I handed her my Canon 5D Mark II and she took some photos of me too. It was my final photo shoot in Boston, and a great way for me to cap off my time with her. You'll find the photos below. I think it's some of my best work yet.

Sometimes, people touch your life and leave an indelible mark, both emotionally and professionally that can never be forgotten. Evgenia is one of those people. I will never forget her. If you're in Boston and looking for a kick-ass photographer (or even if you're elsewhere, but are willing to pay for travel/other costs), please check out her amazing work!

Click here to access the slideshow, or play it below in your browser:

Everything Matters

2012-04-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

This will be the second in what I hope will be a series of three blog posts chronicling an important transition in my life. Read the first one here.

When I started The Tobolowsky Files a few years ago, I had no idea where the project would lead. All I had was an abiding belief in the extraordinary nature (perhaps even the necessity?) of the stories. I knew that they were of superlative quality. I knew that they needed to be available to the world. And after they became available, I knew they needed to be heard by as many people as possible.

So I worked at it. I produced and promoted it. I devoted hundreds of hours to it, with essentially no monetary compensation. I did all this for no other reason than that I believed in the product. Perhaps I had a vague sense that in the end, it would all be worth it somehow. But that alone could not have been sufficient to motivate me for those first few months and years.

Even before it paid financial and professional dividends, The Tobolowsky Files had already become hugely rewarding. People wrote in with moving stories about how the podcast had made a difference in their lives. I myself enjoyed listening to the stories, many of them over and over again. Certain episodes illustrated truths and forced me to rethink things in ways I hadn't previously imagined.

Then, more conventional markers of success started to materialize. The show was picked up for broadcast on public radio. We got offers to perform the show live at some awesome venues around the country. Simon & Schuster offered to publish a forthcoming book based on the show. Money(!) started to slowly trickle in. But that couldn't have prepared me for the next development.

The short version of the story is this: Stephen and I performed the podcast live in several locations. At one of these gigs, I met some great people who knew some more great people, who introduced me to some awesome people, who recommended me for a job at Microsoft. Obviously, a recommendation isn't sufficient: you have to actually have skills and interview well. But my work for the Tobolowsky Files demonstrated some of my proficiencies, sparked conversations, generated intrigue, and ultimately, led to a job offer.

That job offer came two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I found out my life is going to change, possibly forever. That's how I find myself sitting in the disorganized shambles of my bedroom right now, typing this blog post, slowly packing up my entire life, and readying myself to move from Boston to Seattle in three weeks.

If there's one thing I've learned over the past few months, it's this: everything matters. All the pieces of the puzzle of your life can fit together in unexpected ways, ways that you may have no awareness of until the results become inexorably clear. I'm reminded of my friend and colleague, Dan Trachtenberg, who gained internet fame by hosting a geek video podcast. After building up a huge following on Twitter, Trachtenberg leveraged it to find people to work on his Portal short film, a project that got him dozens of meetings and ultimately a major film deal. Everything matters.

Sir Francis Drake once intoned, "There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory." I'm sure many of you reading this have your own projects and films and exciting things that you're working on. My advice to you is this: If there's something you believe in, work at it passionately. Work at it without the promise of compensation, reward, or personal gain. Work at it because you believe it has to exist. Work at it until its completion.

Because while the work is frequently its own reward, sometimes it can end up leading to unexpected delights.

Cars No Longer a Status Symbol

2012-04-15T05:55:00.001-07:00

Turns out that young people no longer see it as necessary or desirable to own cars. As a guy who owns a camera that's more expensive than his car, I'm fully in support of this trend (via Vicky):

A study by J.D. Power and Associates, most well-known for their quality rankings of cars, confirms what young people tell me: After analyzing hundreds of thousands of online conversations on everything from car blogs to Twitter and Facebook, the study found that teens and young people in their early twenties have increasingly negative perceptions “regarding the necessity of and desire to have cars.” "There’s a cultural change taking place," John Casesa, a veteran auto industry analyst told the New York Times in 2009. “It’s partly because of the severe economic contraction. But younger consumers are viewing an automobile with a jaundiced eye. They don’t view the car the way their parents did, and they don’t have the money that their parents did.”

Amazon, Monopoly, and Monopsonies

2012-04-15T04:44:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit quiet on this front, as I've been prepping for my big move to Seattle, where I'll be starting at Microsoft in early May. I have a few more blog posts to share with you about the interesting process I've been through these past few weeks, so stay tuned for those.

In the meantime, check out this fascinating piece by Charlie Pope about what Amazon is trying to do to shake up the book industry:

You're probably familiar with predatory pricing. A big box retailer moves into a small town with a variety of local grocery and supermarket stores. They stock a huge range of products and hold constant promotions, often dumping goods at or below their wholesale price. This draws customers away from the local incumbents, who can't compete and who go bust. Of course the big box retailer can't keep up the dumping forever, but if losing a few million dollars is the price of driving all the local competitors out of business, then they will have many years of profits drawn from a captive market to recoup the investment. (Meanwhile, helpful laws allow them to write down the losses on this store as a loss against tax, but that's just the icing on the cake.) Once the big box store has killed off every competing mom'n'pop store within a 50-mile radius, where else are people going to shop? Amazon has the potential to be like that predatory big box retailer on a global scale. And it's well on the way to doing so in the ebook sector.

Just Around the Corner

2012-03-31T04:12:00.001-07:00

This will be the first in what I hope will be a series of three blog posts chronicling an important transition in my life.

A few years ago, I befriended a /Filmcast listener from across the pond. What began as a series of harsh disagreements on our interpretations of specific films ended up blossoming into a really meaningful friendship. At the time, I had just come off a pretty bad breakup, and I found this person to be a constant source of comfort. She was and is an amazing person, someone whose kindness and understanding helped me to weather an extraordinarily rough patch in my life. Our friendship took the form of frequent Skype calls, during which I would lament the state of my existence and she would find it in herself to constantly encourage me, and embolden me to make interesting choices that I would typically shy away from.

The thing is, her life wasn't exactly all sunshine and lollipops either. She also suffered from occasional bouts of loneliness and struggled with her career. I think we found a connection in these shared experiences. She always had a saying she was fond of repeating to me:

You never know what is just around the corner.

I really appreciated this expression. There's the obvious implication of hope there, but what I like most is it's trying to tell you that sometimes you don't have the whole picture. You don't have a full understanding of the forces at work in your life. Sometimes, a long period of darkness and despair has an abrupt ending (and soon) that you might not be able to see or even conceive of. So don't give up. In life, you never know what is just around the corner.

Fortunately for her, this saying proved to be true. Within two years after I made first contact with her, she'd found an amazing man, her career was taking off, and she soon became pregnant with what is today a beautiful baby girl. The demands of a relationship and of motherhood have made it difficult for us to chat that much these days. But she is one of those people whose impact on my life was so profound and edifying that I'm grateful to have had her in my life, if just for a little while.

***

Three months ago, I was not in a great place. A significant job offer had fallen through this past fall, which led me to a seemingly endless series of humiliating rejections (of all different varieties). I'd spent years completing my Master's degree, but I was coming to its conclusion with no significantly improved career prospects. My contract at my current job was rapidly coming to an end and I didn't know what I was going to do. In fact, I'd pretty much resigned myself to the idea that there was no longer any possibility for me to work in an exciting, growing field that I was passionate about. Those of you who know me and support me may think it's pretty ridiculous for me to have given up hope at this stage, but the fact of the matter is, when you hear "No" enough times, you start to wonder if "Yes" is even possible.

Then came a phone call.

And another one.

And another.

And still one more.

Within a period of two weeks in early March 2012, several job opportunities appeared out of nowhere, each from a different person I've been fortunate enough to meet over the years. (Perhaps one of the biggest blessings of being down-and-out on your luck is that you are given the opportunity to witness the kindness of friends and colleagues). Within a 10-day period, I'd flown 12,000 miles to job interviews and back to Boston, a whirlwind of self-examination and intense questioning that brutalized the body and the soul, but which was nevertheless filled with excitement. My friend Rachell once expressed to me the truism, "After the final 'no,' there's a 'yes.'"

Yesterday, I received my first full-time job offer in over 5 years.

In the days to come, I'll be telling you all about what i'll be doing with my life for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, I just wanted to share my story -- one of mild success borne out of reaching out, making connections, and finding that those connections have led to my salvation. If it could happen to a schmuck like me, certainly it could happen to any of you. Sometimes, you never know what is just around the corner.

Software Patents Strike Again

2012-03-28T02:49:00.001-07:00

Leigh Beadon details the case of Speak for Yourself, a relatively cheap augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app that's now under legal fire:

Dana points out that PRC's mission statement begins "We Believe Everyone Deserves A Voice" and that their refusal to create an affordable iPad app, and now their attempts to crush a competitor who did, clearly runs counter to that mission. For her, that's basically where the discussion ends: a company is trying to take away the only thing that has been able to give her daughter a voice, and she couldn't care less whether or not they have the legal right to do so.

Quality vs. Quantity

2012-03-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

Andrew Phelps has some cool analysis of Gawker's new editorial guidelines that are geared towards garnering more page views:

The key to the balance probably doesn’t lie in raw numbers, though. A Gawker that was only weird Chinese goats would likely, over time, bore its readers. The more substantive stories serve as tentpoles for the entire site; once in a while, they’ll blow up huge, and they’re probably more appealing to the kind of brand advertisers Gawker seeks. [...]

It also at least has the potential to lead to happier writers who know when they need to chase pageviews and when they don’t.

The Life of a Chinese Immigrant

2012-03-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

As an Asian immigrant whose parents owned a Chinese restaurant, Kevin Heldman's story for Capital New York story about the perils of being an Asian delivery person in the Bronx really hit home with me. For immigrants, so little separates us between prosperity and poverty. The line is difficult to contemplate:

You go to that drawer full of menus with dragons or pandas or bamboo on them, and the random Chinese characters, and the obligatory promise of fast and free delivery. And in 25 minutes or so a Chinese man on a bike will come to your door and you’ll maybe drop him a xie xie with your tip and he’ll give you a bye bye and he’s gone. End of story.

But there’s a different version of that story that goes on in many parts of this city. And that version is about money, class, race, and education. And in that version people are robbed, assaulted and killed, and people live in fear, constantly on guard and under threat over Chinese food.

Sci-Fi and Reproductive Rights

2012-03-15T09:47:00.001-07:00

Annalee Newitz from io9 is so damn smart. Here's a recent piece by her in which she describes what science fiction tells us about our fears and hopes about the future of human reproduction:

If everything from technology to politics will be different in the future, then so will human reproduction. That's why so much science fiction deals with the question of how humans make babies — or don't make them — in alternate worlds that are often quite close to our own. It's also why reproduction is a political issue. After all, a political campaign represents the promise of a new kind of future.

Fascinating and insightful.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes Online-Only

2012-03-13T21:02:00.002-07:00

The times they are a changin'...

Anatomy of a Joke

2012-03-09T14:47:00.001-08:00

From the New York Times comes a detailed analysis and evolution of a joke by comedian Myq Kaplan:

Looking back at the joke’s various incarnations, Mr. Kaplan said it was heartening to see improvement. Yet nothing was more fun than the first time. “When you introduce a joke into the world, and the audience laughs,” he said, “it’s the most invigorating, thrilling thing.”

What If 'The Sopranos' And 'Seinfeld' Had Switched Endings?

2012-03-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed this brief profile of Mad Men creator Matt Weiner in The New York Times, but the best line in it comes from Sopranos creator David Chase, who reflected on how his show ended:

It’s just very difficult to end a series. For example, ‘Seinfeld,’ they ended it with them all going to jail. Now that’s the ending we should have had. And they should have had ours, where it blacked out in a diner.

I can't tell if Chase is speaking tongue-in-cheek here, or if he actually has regrets about the maddening final scene from The Sopranos.

Either way, I think he's right.

More Complicated Than Calories

2012-03-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

From The Atlantic comes this report from Kristin Wartman that maybe what's making us fat isn't just the calories we eat: it's the fact that we're surrounded by pollutants and chemicals that are collectively and profoundly changing our metabolism:

Lustig echoes vom Saal's belief that a wide range of substances in our food supply and our environment are likely leading to obesity and metabolic disease based on hosts of studies of various substances. These include soy-based infant formula, phthalates (used in many plastics), PCBs (found in coolant and electrical equipment), DDE (a type of pesticide), fungicides, and atrazine (a common pesticide).

If the obesogen theory comes to be accepted and casts doubt on the energy balance model, the food industry will be in trouble. It would be harder to keep promoting diet and "health" foods that may be low in calories but that also contain an array of substances that may actually prove to contribute to weight gain.

What's Wrong with 'Kony 2012'

2012-03-09T09:54:00.005-08:00

The "Kony 2012" viral video created by the Invisible Children organization has taken the internet by storm, accumulating over 55 million views since it was released just a few days ago:

While on its face, the video appears to be an innocuous call-to-action (or a call-to-awareness, at least) about the crimes of the Central African LRA-leader Joseph Kony, online observers have raised several issues with this campaign, including its patronizing imperialistic tone and the fact that Invisible Children have not proven themselves incredibly responsible with their finances.

In their analysis of the video at The Atlantic, Kate Cronin-Furman and Amanda Taub describe why campaigns like these frequently fail to achieve any substantive good. In fact, these campaigns have typically exacerbated the problem because they fail to communicate the vast complexities inherent in these situations:

The problem is that these campaigns mobilize generalized concern -- a demand to do something. That isn't enough to counterbalance the costs of interventions, because Americans' heartlessness or apathy was never the biggest problem. Taking tough action against groups, like the LRA, that are willing to commit mass atrocities will inevitably turn messy. Soldiers will be killed, sometimes horribly. (Think Somalia.) Military advice and training to the local forces attempting to suppress atrocities can have terrible unforeseen consequences. Consider the hundreds of victims of the LRA's 2008 "Christmas Massacre," their murderous response to a failed, U.S.-supported attack by Ugandan and Congolese government forces. International Criminal Court investigations often prompt their targets to step up attacks on civilians and aid workers, in an attempt to gain leverage with the court. (Both Kony and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir have tried that method.)

Their piece is a must-read and I agree with almost everything in it. The one point I take issue with can be summed up in the following excerpt from their piece:

Treating awareness as a goal in and of itself risks compassion fatigue -- most people only have so much time and energy to devote to far-away causes -- and ultimately squanders political momentum that could be used to push for effective solutions.

In other words, Cronin-Furman and Taub imagine citizens with a limited "reservoir" of attention, and conclude that an ineffectual campaign such as Kony 2012 drains precious resources from that reservoir.

While I understand that on a basic level, people only have 24 hours per day and must allocate that limited time in prudent fashion, I disagree that campaigns like Kony 2012 are necessarily harmful because of this. In an ideal world, Cronin-Furman and Taub would be correct, and people would be so busy with activism that it would be a crime for them to waste their time entertaining the viral videos of Invisible Children. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in one with LOLCAT pictures, and Youtube videos of skateboarders injuring themselves, and iPad announcements and so forth. 'Kony 2012' pierces that world and perhaps plants the seeds of activism inside of people (even as it's also planting some seeds of misinformation).

There are a whole boatload of issues with the 'Kony 2012' video. The campaign and the efforts of Invisible Children will probably not directly effect the good they are hoping to. But maybe they will cause a politically concerned citizen to educate him/herself on the topic, to explore it more deeply, and to commit to helping in ways that are actually meaningful. And that's more than many of us can ever say about our own efforts in social justice.

Are Law Schools Misleading Their Potential Students About Job Prospects?

2012-03-06T09:25:00.002-08:00

When I graduated from college, I strongly considered attending law school. I even studied for and took the LSAT. I ended up not going that route for a variety of reasons (cost being the primary one), but countless others have in the intervening years. Their experiences have not been uniformly positive. A new movement has sprung up to advocate for transparency in law school admissions. Specifically, people want law schools to give an accurate accounting of their graduates' job prospects, a key statistic when you're about to fork over $150,000 and three years of your life.

New York magazine has a great piece charting one team of lawyers who are determined to keep law schools honest:

[L]aw-school tuition rose 317 percent nationwide during the aughts, compared with a 71 percent spike for undergraduate tuition. At New York Law School, it now stands at $46,200 a year—comparable to Harvard Law’s. But neither the cost nor NYLS’s lowly ranking (it’s 135th on the U.S. News & World Report list) has deterred the students who fill classes that, according to the complaint filed against the school, are a fifth larger than in 2000. It may help that NYLS has consistently claimed what the lawsuit refers to as a “sterling” 90 percent placement rate, a rate that Anziska, Raimond, and Strauss argue simply does not compute.

The questions this case raises are difficult to answer, but whatever happens may have significant implications for the future of legal education in the U.S.

The Tobolowsky Files in Boston and NYC (February 2012): A Photo Journal

2012-03-03T10:18:00.001-08:00

This past week I had the privilege of traveling with Stephen Tobolowsky to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston and to The Bell House in Brooklyn, where Stephen shared his stories and his insights with hundreds of fans. There's something magical about live storytelling that binds us together in the words and performance of another human being. It's an unforgettable experience and I hope each of you get to experience it at some point.

Below you'll find a photo journal of our travels. New York was so lovely and exciting that I'm reminded of how sad I am that I don't live there. Huge thanks to the fine folks at the Coolidge, The Bell House, the Independent Film Festival of Boston, Bumpershine, and Creaghead & Company for making these performances possible!