I have a question:
At what point did the cigarette-smoking culture deem it unconditionally acceptable to beg for a cigarette from a complete stranger?
You just don’t see this with other habits.
We’ve all been in situations where we need to borrow something in a pinch. A pen, a screwdriver, jumper cables, etc. But cigarette smokers are in a different world. They’re all abiding by some sort of unsaid Golden Rule, which is really just an extension of the peer pressure they caved into back in the day.
Unlike other habits, “bumming a smoke” is integral part of the smoking lifestyle. It almost seems to be part of the fun, if there is such a thing. Perhaps it’s a chance for the smoker to bond with another person, to feel accepted, and to feel part of something bigger than themselves. This sense of community is what made smokers want to hang a cigarette from their lips in the first place.
But in most cases, it’s because the beggar is simply exploiting the unsaid Golden Rule, safe in the perception that he won’t be told to fuck off. You never see this type of predictable mooching with, say, ChapStick. Or beer. Or donuts. “Hey, great party, right? You don’t know me, but can I take a pull from your IPA?”
I don’t smoke cigarettes. It was a choice I made a long time ago. But I still get asked for a free cigarette as much as the next smoker. It’s annoying as all hell. If you need a cigarette that bad, then guess what? Even if I was a smoker, your problem ain’t my problem. Go buy your own. Or better, just suck it up and deal with not having one for the next fifteen minutes.
Cringely has some interesting thoughts on this week’s Apple announcement: iCloud’s real purpose is to kill Windows.
This redefines digital incumbency. The incumbent platform today is Windows because it is in Windows machines that nearly all of our data and our ability to use that data have been trapped. But the Apple announcement changes all that. Suddenly the competition isn’t about platforms at all, but about data, with that data being crunched on a variety of platforms through the use of cheap downloaded apps.
What this requires from Apple is a bold move that Microsoft would never make: Jobs is going to sacrifice the Macintosh in order to kill Windows. He isn’t beating Windows, he’s making Windows inconsequential.
And Apple’s only the first. My thoughts exactly:
Having been shown the way by Apple, I expect Google to shortly do the same thing, adding automated backup, synchronization, and migration to Android and Chrome.
War on the horizon:
Both [Apple and Google] will be grabbing for data, claiming territory, and leaving Microsoft alone to defend a desktop that will soon cease to exist.
And what happens once all our data is in that iCloud, is there any easy way to get it back out? Nope. It’s in there forever and we are captive customers — trapped more completely than Microsoft ever imagined.
Apple and Google will compete like crazy for our data because once they have it we’ll be their customers forever.
This transition will take at most two hardware generations and we’re talking mobile generations, which means three years, total.
“Lifeless eyes… black eyes… like a doll’s eyes…”
Via Script Magazine, Steven Spielberg gives his definitive account on the authorship of one of the most famous monologues in the history of cinema: Quint’s USS Indianapolis speech.
Steven Spielberg: I owe three people a lot for this speech. You’ve heard all this, but you’ve probably never heard it from me. There’s a lot of apocryphal reporting about who did what on Jaws and I’ve heard it for the last three decades, but the fact is the speech was conceived by Howard Sackler, who was an uncredited writer, didn’t want a credit and didn’t arbitrate for one, but he’s the guy that broke the back of the script before we ever got to Martha’s Vineyard to shoot the movie.
I hired later Carl Gottlieb to come onto the island, who was a friend of mine, to punch up the script, but Howard conceived of the Indianapolis speech. I had never heard of the Indianapolis before Howard, who wrote the script at the Bel Air Hotel and I was with him a couple times a week reading pages and discussing them.
Howard one day said, “Quint needs some motivation to show all of us what made him the way he is and I think it’s this Indianapolis incident.” I said, “Howard, what’s that?” And he explained the whole incident of the Indianapolis and the Atomic Bomb being delivered and on its way back it was sunk by a submarine and sharks surrounded the helpless sailors who had been cast adrift and it was just a horrendous piece of World War II history. Howard didn’t write a long speech, he probably wrote about three-quarters of a page.
But then, when I showed the script to my friend John Milius, John said “Can I take a crack at this speech?” and John wrote a 10 page monologue, that was absolutely brilliant, but out-sized for the Jaws I was making! (laughs) But it was brilliant and then Robert Shaw took the speech and Robert did the cut down. Robert himself was a fine writer, who had written the play The Man in the Glass Booth. Robert took a crack at the speech and he brought it down to five pages. So, that was sort of the evolution just of that speech
A post about Quint’s speech wouldn’t be complete without Dana Carvey’s classic parody:
