Surf Daily

Did I go too far?

As some of you know, I have been attempting for some time now to get his eminence Chris Wilson, of Wilson/Powerlines Productions, to join me over brunch, where we would get to discuss the issues of the day over slow food and mimosas (OK, he gets to have the mimosas.  I would have a lemonade).

Regrettably, my attempts have been for naught. The most recent, rebuffed with utter silence, involved the hand-delivery of this invitation to a Powerlines representative who was holding court over a few DVDs of Down the Line at the final Sunday Surf Benefit:

Chris: you don't call, you don't write, and now you've blocked me on Twitter.  How am I supposed to find out about the latest rap videos if you're not promoting them in my timeline?

It didn't have to be like this, you know.  I'm not that scary a guy, although I'm evidently creepy enough to be denied the street knowledge you regularly drop onto a popular microblogging service.  I never went into this whole brunch thing intending to be a dick, but I must admit that I do find it kind of interesting that a guy who stalked me on Facebook and the Ocean Beach comment box on PWR would shy away from any sort of personal contact where we might have finally buried the hatchet, so to speak.

You and I come from different worlds, Chris.  I'm from a rich Jewish suburb of Chicago.  You're from Pacific Heights, which to the best of my knowledge is a bit WASPier.  It's also located inside a city, which proffers a sort of street cred I'm afraid I'll never be able to own.  I'm sure, though, that we could have found some sort of common ground if you would have just given me the chance.  This cold shoulder technique of yours is harsh!  Granted, I guess you do have an image to maintain.

I'm going to leave you alone from now on.  The message you have sent is loud and clear, if only in the absence of an actual message ("no" would have sufficed).  But let the record state: for all your vague (and sometimes not so vague) threats of violence to myself or my friends, all I ever offered in return was to feed you. And I never blocked you on Twitter.

Thoughts on Stoke Report

God knows there's been enough debate lately on Stoke Report about who's behaving appropriately and who belongs where. People have to do a double-take when a bot regurgitates a bunch of it; its nonsensical prattle looks so familiar to the battle-fatigued. Today we were alerted to the fact that we're now the subject of a (somewhat scathing) blurb in this month's SURFER, the relevant parts of which I'll quote below:

On the other side of the spectrum were the Stoke Reporters–equally as, well, stoked as the Saffas, but completely lacking in skill and etiquette.  Stoke Report is a regional website that encourages Bay Area surfers to upload real-time, user-generated surf reports via their cell phones.  The result is a Twitter-esque stream of claiming from tech-savvy kooks who see Ocean Beach as a free ski resort (slowest surfer in front has right of way).  They stroll up to the dunes, take a photo, and upload it for all the desk-bound world to see, along with feel-good claims like "Sloat is going OFF right now! Get down here dude!!!"

Needless to say, the Stoke Reporters' sense of naïve entitlement is not sitting well with the aforementioned ex-con, old-school locals.  The more patient among these detractors have attempted to educate the Stoke Reporters in the complexities of surf culture via polite posts on the site's message board.  "The search is part of the fun!  Even Surfline doesn't condone spot-specific real-time reports!"  No matter how gentle and reasonable the persuasion, all detractors have been permanently banned from Stoke Report.  As a result, the natives are getting restless.  The most prolific Stoke Reporters have reportedly been identified, and the next step seems to be a more physical brand of offline, parking-lot persuasion.

Yikes! I'll avoid responding in kind; Lewis Samuels (the BSNYC of surf) is a fairly trollish writer (which is why I enjoy his work), and it would behoove me to not try to argue with him, despite the fact that he's gotten a few things wrong. Stoke Reporters typically post after-the-fact reports (not really "real-time"), and the ongoing fight between locals and reporters is, for the most part, over reporting on a handful of more sensitive spots. Most of us don't really have a dog in this fight, though now that our precious little site has gotten some (un?)deserved notoriety, it's worth it to at least share my thoughts on the matter.

I'm pretty new to surfing myself. A lot of people on SR are. There's a fundamental culture clash when a bunch of new people join an existing activity or scene, and this is particularly heightened in a city like San Francisco, whose demographics have changed pretty dramatically over the last few decades. A lot of the guys out in the avenues who surf look like the type of San Franciscan who has, for the most part, decamped to the suburbs: white, working class, Irish... Your typical Stoke Reporter is more likely to be part of the new guard of dot-com yuppies who populate the northeast corner of town, where Priuses and iPhones hold court. I might as well be the poster child for outsider-newcomer-SF-surfer: I'm not only a Jewish dot-com yuppie; I'm also a homo! For your typical, embattled Sunset District holdout, I'd probably sit right up on the grudge list next to Asians, Google, and onshores.

Needless to say, I try to practice respect. Most of us do. Samuels has painted us with a broad brush, but I'm inclined to forgive him, given that the incessant flagellation over the reporting issue has engulfed the site, and almost everyone (including myself) has at some point engaged in the debate. You'd be hard-pressed not to conclude that we're collectively advocating the inclusion of "Report on Any Break at Any Time" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I'm of the belief that it's actually a handful of people pushing this. Likewise, a few locals have insisted on debating the opposite, to the extent that the site is nearly ruined by the constant back-and-forth over something that, for the most part, regular users don't care about, except that it go away. Things have escalated to the degree that physical threats have been made. A close friend of mine, who turned me on to surfing last year and has progressed enough in the sport that he's hitting some of the more sensitive spots in SF, has felt compelled to delete his account due to fears of stepping on the wrong toes. This is fucked.

I honestly don't know if the site will survive this drama. I'll be bummed if it goes away. Stoke Report has not only introduced me to a whole slew of people whom I now call my friends; it's also kept me going on the days when I'm "desk-bound" (as Samuels would put it) and allows me to share the joy of participation in a truly sublime activity. Some days when I paddle out I am practically overcome with gratitude for how lucky I am. I'd hate to slink into the mire of paranoia and fear that seems poised to grip our hardy clan of iPhone-wielding kooks with graduate degrees (as one commenter so kindly described us). I'll continue practicing the same brand of healthy respect that I've practiced thus far. Not only will I not report on a place like Fort Point, I won't even surf it (at least not yet)! I can barely negotiate the lineup, let alone handle the waves when they come in. I stay away, as I ought to, and stick to the places where I belong, based on my abilities. Those places include Bolinas, the Princeton Jetty (when it's not too crowded), Cowell's (I think the only thing disqualifying one from Cowell's is being too skilled), and even Ocean Beach when it's small and manageable. I will also practice good ethics in the lineup, not be a dickish wave hog, and send good vibes wherever possible. One thing I won't do, however, is be cowed into staying home, or not being who I am, because a bunch of people resent newcomers on their turf. I'm here, I'm queer, I use Linux, and I'm going to surf (poorly) whether you like it or not. I'd appreciate the only beatings that come my way be from the ocean.

If I weren't expecting this email, I'd think it was a 419

Hi Michael,


Thank you for e-mailing the Nokia Care Contact Center.

We would like to inform you that in order for us to process the refund for operator billing, kindly provide us the following information:

- Bank Name:

- Bank Address:

- Bank Account Number:

- IBAN:

- SWIFT Code:

- Bank Control Key:

- Bank Code:

- Bank ABA Routing Nr.:

This is to inform you that you can have the information above by calling your bank. Please don't send any of these information via email. Our Ovi Store support department will be calling you to get these information. Rest assured that all of the information will be kept confidential.

Apple's Gift to the Mobile Web

or "Why John Gruber is a Snob, and how Apple did us all a Favor by Dragging their feet on iPhone Applications"...

I was using the mobile web before iPhone came out.  That makes me some sort of pioneer!  Or, at least I felt like one, since it was still a novel idea to people that you could look something up on your phone.  Hell, I felt like a bad-ass just being able to pull up NextBus on my E61 and let people know when the N Judah was arriving.  Magic!

I also felt like a bad-ass pioneer because the mobile web fucking sucked.  With the exception of a small, self-selected group of clued-in companies, most people either pretended it didn't exist or, (worse in my opinion) provided some awful crippled mobile site.  To the extent that anyone targeted a particular rendering engine, it was the abysmal OpenWave browser (hey guys, remember WAP?).  Rich websites of any sort were out.  The all-too-typical experience would be that I'd click a link to someone's site on my phone, and I'd get redirected based on my user agent and shunted to their mobile landing page, which had 10 links to yesterday's news and no way of actually finding the content I had a perfectly good link for.

When the first betas of Safari came out, I'd already been using Konqueror in X11 on my Mac since it was such a fast and capable browser (and everything else at the time pretty much sucked).  That's phenomenally nerdy, and it also meant I was super-stoked when Apple announced they were using a modified version of KHTML in their WebKit rendering engine.  It took them a little while to figure out how to actually work with the Free Software community, but that effort has finally paid dividends as KHTML and WebKit are unforked at last.

iPhone wasn't the first phone to have a WebKit-based browser that could capably render the web.  Series 60 phones like mine were already doing so.  The problem is that so few people actually had an even moderately useful browser on their phone that, like I said, nobody was bothering to make the mobile web experience nice.  iPhone changed all of that, simply because it put a browser in tons of normal peoples' hands, and Apple's marketing gave them the expectation they would actually be able to use it.  Rich experiences weren't new to the mobile world... those of us with smartphones already had the opportunity to use a wide variety of applications targeted to our devices.  Rich web experiences, however, were new.

It was a quick and rude awakening, but content providers quickly figured out that if their site didn't present a good user experience to iPhone users, they would go and browse someone else's that did.  Early adopters like myself are demanding, but we lack influence; nobody was going to fix their site's mobile experience to make me happy, but they happily did so when it meant the loss of a million eyeballs.  The mobile web got better, fast, with the introduction of iPhone.

I shudder to think of what would have happened if Apple had allowed development on the iPhone platform right away.  Development of applications for mobiles wasn't a new field at that point (though it's definitely exploded since), and I think the mobile web as a whole would be much shittier if people had had the opportunity to just make an iPhone app instead of having had to learn how to make their site actually look good in WebKit.  Releasing Safari for Windows played right into this, too, as Windows-based web developers had no excuse not to test their site with WebKit, whether or not they had an iPhone.  I don't think Apple ever intended for people to make Safari their primary browser on Windows, honestly.  It's there to help people develop for iPhone.

iPhone has applications now.  Yay, I guess.  It has applications, and a crowd of people bitching about Apple's (admittedly heavy-handed) approval process.  I still don't have an iPhone (instead, I upgraded to the E71 this year), so the debate over the app store doesn't really affect me.  Apple aren't the first to be somewhat hamfisted with their walled garden, and they won't be the last.  But thanks to iPhone, the opportunity exists to create a great mobile experience for your site right now, without anyone having to approve it, and the proliferation of WebKit means that your site will render well on more and more mobile platforms.

It's funny when I hear Gruber bitch about the web app experience on iPhone.  Frankly, I think he's being a snob.  There are other phones out there, and a developer who wants to create a fantastic experience on iPhone has an avenue to do so: he can create an application.  He can also create a very rich web application which will render on tons of devices.  I guess in Gruber's myopic world, people should only care about iPhone.  Witness his recent kvetch about Twitter's new mobile site.  There are plenty of native Twitter applications for iPhone already; perhaps, just perhaps, Twitter is thinking about everyone else.  Frankly, Twitter mobile has always sucked ass and I'm excited about this change because it will benefit me on the device I'm using now.  (Twitter also used to commit the cardinal sin of redirecting me based on not my user agent, but my fucking netblock... I would get their mobile site when my mac was tethered to my phone)

So basically Gruber is a snobbish dick, which everyone knows already, Apple did us all a favor by dragging their feet on the iPhone platform (which I think is a somewhat novel idea), and what's good for WebKit is good for everyone (I think everyone but MS can agree on that).

Dear Flickr: Please Stop Emailing Me

I opened a support ticket with Flickr on Saturday, Nov 21st for an issue with email posting to blogs.  Ever since I added a second blog (this one), my direct-to-blog email no longer posts to either of my blogs (although the image upload succeeds), and I get an email back telling me "Your upload has failed with the following message:" and no message.

This is a minor annoyance.  I can always go into the Flickr Web UI and post to the blogs myself.  Big fuckin' whoop.  However, it'd be nice if it worked, so I opened the aforementioned support ticket.

What I'm trying to figure out is why Flickr finds it so goddamned important to keep emailing me to let me know that someone, some day will look at my ticket.  I feel like I'm on hold with some faceless corporation enjoying the smooth, soulful sounds of Boney James and being interrupted every 4 minutes and 35 seconds with a chipper message letting me know how much they value my business.  I've received three emails since submitting this ticket, none of them with any pertinent information about my actual issue:

First email (received the day I created the ticket):

Just a quick email from Team Flickr to let you know that
we've successfully received your recent Help by Email query
and we hope to respond shortly.

We'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that one
help case per issue is sufficient. If you have questions or
have more info to share, please respond to the unique help
case email address that will be included in the first
response you receive from our Member Support team. This will
ensure you get the best possible assistance.

Multiple cases for the same issue can cause confusion and
lead to delays in getting a timely response.

Lastly, you may not be aware that our FAQs and forums are
full of help goodness:

http://www.flickr.com/help/faq/

http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/

The Flickreenos

Second email (received the next day):

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

I have escalated your email to a senior representative in
an effort to obtain the best answer. We are currently
experiencing a very high volume of requests. We would like
to apologize and inform you that it might take a little
longer than usual for us to respond to your question.

In the meantime, please feel to check out our online FAQs:

  http://www.flickr.com/help/faq

as well as our Forum:

  http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/

If you have any other questions, please feel free to reply
to this email.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Regards,

Flickr Member Support

Third email (received today):

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this problem may
cause you.

At this time we would like to reassure you that we are
doing everything in our power to resolve the issue as
quickly as possible.

We appreciate your patience and understanding on this
matter. As always, your satisfaction is our goal


Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other

questions, please feel free to reply to this email.

Regards,
Cris

That's a lot of mail to send for not having actually had someone look at my problem yet.  Honestly, why do I care that it's still in your queue?  I know that it's still in your queue, because you haven't fixed the problem yet.  Stop fucking spamming me with this dumb shit.

Edit: I decided to send a reply.  Hopefully they'll move fast now that they know THE TWITTERSPHERE IS INVOLVED.  #flickrfail #reallyflickrreally #teaparty:

Please stop sending me email about this case until someone has
actually had a chance to look at it and you have some pertinent info
to share.  I feel like some kid on Christmas who keeps opening a box,
thinking it's going to contain a present, and finding a lump of coal
instead.  Also I'm Jewish.

I understand that it's still in your queue.  I understand this because
my problem isn't solved yet:
http://surfdai.ly/2009/11/dear-flickr-please-stop-emailing-me.html

- Mike

Now that I've added another blog, and intertwined my identities even more, it's worthwhile to remember what the erstwhile founder of modern blogging had to say when he melted down and flounced (epicly). I'm trying to think of what he says here that isn't (still) true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ff-pqubl6c

TypePad Micro has launched! Very proud of the work we've done on it; hope you'll check it out: http://www.typepad.com