Audrey Explains Everything: The World Wide Web
We’ve had this bright orange back issue of Wired magazine sitting on our coffee table for a while. It’s a pretty old one - way back from September of last year. I don’t even remember what my name was back then.
Big, black block letters that say “The Web is dead” take up most of the cover. And last night, after months of staring at these words, wondering what they mean, I pulled back that cover and read the article. Here’s what I learned.
The Web and the Internet are two different things. Rather, the web is a thing that is part of the Internet, which is a bigger thing. The World Wide Web uses the Internet to take information stored in places and get it to places like people’s computers.
In the last decade or more, people have started designing other things that use the Internet to get things to your computer, like apps. Instead of showing up on a website, these things come in their own formats, which live on your computer or smartphone and pull data into a fairly static interface. As people adapt to using mobile devices with smaller screens, these programs are becoming much more popular because they are easier and faster to use then a teeny, tiny Web browser.
So what Wired means when it says the Web is dead is that over time, people aren’t going to rely on it for most of their information and communication anymore. So what will it be used for?
That is a very good question that has a very simple answer: the web will exist primarily as a place for me to share my thoughts and feelings. As the white noise of email and research quiets over time, my voice will remain.
All of this is to say: I’m blogging again people. The habit can’t be beaten. Please check back here with some regularity - but not too much because I won’t be able to keep up.
This is part of an ongoing series I’ll be calling “Audrey Explains Everything.” If you’d like something explained, please tweet your question to [at]AUDiodREY on the Twitter. If facts and truth are important to you, you may want to consult other places on the Web for accurate information - while there’s still time!!
One way to communicate, I guess
Here is an example of one tone of communication I’ve found quite prevalent in the business world. While this is an extreme example of it, this type of passive condescension shows up everywhere to varying degrees. When people choose to communicate in this way, I wonder what is taking up all the space in their brain where social skills and pathos should be. Fritos? Fantasy football rosters?
Hello XXXX Team,
I (and XXXX too) am receiving a large number of emails with subjects that are: 1 word, XXXX part description only, customer name only, or something even less informative. This is making it very difficult to identify emails for action, prioritizing, and who to direct the action to.
As I am sure you are aware in this age of email and texting, communication has gotten to be very brief. Also, we are all working 2 or more people’s duties in these resource challenged times.
I would like to implement an email subject line standard. In the interest of time and priority setting I am requesting a minimum amount of information in the subject lines of your emails.
The subjects should include: Customer name, XXXX part number, issue (that this email covers)
This way we (XXXX and I) don’t have to go back into history emails to find this information to make sure that we provide this detail to the PM or the factory so that we insure we get the data/response we want in a timely manner. Also, when we are traveling, we cannot always get the history data from our smartphones, so waiting until we can get our laptops online somewhere will only delay action.
I will of course do my best to support you, as always, and this will make it more efficient for us to completely support you and minimize the back and forth emails. Speaking of back and forth email, when asking for something from XXXX, as I know you are all aware of now, XXXX requires as much detailed information that can be provided. If you see that an email trail does not include all the details, then please add them. What details am I talking about you might ask. Please put your factory hat on, since you are factory representatives, and think about all the possible pertinent questions a factory might ask. Then ask the customer and forward those responses on.
Please implement this standard immediately.
Best Regards,
XXXX
From the archives: I tried to kick Art Alexakis off the wagon
I’m approaching the anniversary of my return to California. There are at least a few reasons why I could be writing about how far I’ve come in that time, but what’s left when you take away those reasons is the overwhelming sense of how far I have to go.
The creepy nostalgia of returning to a place I haven’t lived for 8 years hasn’t faded a bit since last February. Every time I come across something from the past, I see it through the eyes of two selves. One has hardly traveled, the other hardly enough. Neither thought she’d ever live in San Francisco.
The cumulative effect of confronting your past in a new-old place is that of a second adolescence. You feel awkward and insecure and cling to the people around you who seem to have figured it out. To commemmorate this feeling, I decided to resurrect some relics of the first time I was a teenager. I started with my collection of mix tapes, which I found crammed into a box intended for a doll I had as a kid.
When I popped “Aud’s faves Summer ‘98” into my car’s tape deck, one of the first sounds to greet my ears came from the Everclear album Sparkle and Fade. It reminded me of something I wrote during another awkward transition - the summer after graduating from college. Below is a story about an interaction I had with Everclear frontman Art Alexakis.
Photo by Brad Smith.
Art Alexakis’ girlfriend has never really been that into chocolate. I know this because she confided it to me while trying to restrain her small dog after I had accosted Art, former lead singer of Everclear (also former drug addict and - turns out - alcoholic), across the street from my place of business. For those of you who weren’t obsessed with Everclear in middle school, Alexakis hails from Portland, which explains lyrics like “I will buy you a big house, way up in the West hills,” which allude to the affluent neighborhoods of West Portland.
Moonstruck Chocolate, a Portland company where I worked, just so happens to be nestled at the base of these neighborhoods where Art Alexakis does not live in a big house. He lives in a modest house a few blocks away and can be seen walking the streets of Northwest (though i had never seen him until he emerged on Saturday to peruse the NW 23rd sidewalk sale with girlfriend and dog). Celebrities like Frank Black, Dennis Franz and some chick from the Gilmore Girls have entered Moonstruck, but Art Alexakis has not. Recently, post-Black/Franz/Girl, my manager has taken to asking celebrities to autograph Moonstruck 12oz. cups. So far, all we have is Kevin Duckworth, a former PDX Trailblazer.
One Saturday, Alexakis passed by with his girlfriend and dog to peruse a sidewalk sale. Determined to double our autograph collection, I grabbed a cup, a sharpie and my favorite truffle (a dark chocolate one with a honey and drambuie ganache) to offer him. I hesitated briefly over the liqueur truffle but assuaged my nerves by assuring myself that he was just a drug addict and not an alcoholic. Then I headed out the door and across the street to the former indie star.
When I asked Alexakis for his signature he was very nice and said, “You know, I really like chocolate and I’ve never been in there.” But when I handed him the truffle he looked cautious. “Does it have booze in it?” Feeling like the idiot that I was, I told him yes and he offered it to his girlfriend, who denied it. That’s when she explained that she was “not much of a chocolate person.”
And that’s when I learned that substance abuse is more than meets the eye.
What’s so great about details anyway?
Last time I checked, asking someone about their orientation in a job interview was considered harassment. So how did the ubiquitous “detail-oriented” criterion slip into every job bulletin? Excuse me, but I hardly know you. I’ve gone years before divulging my preference for details in even the most intimate of relationships.
What’s so great about details, anyway? Why does our language have words like “minutiae,” if not to disparage preoccupation with the minute? If you ask me, all this details business is bogging everybody down. Doesn’t anyone care about the big picture anymore? I mean, think about it: the big picture actually contains the details. So if we all just zoomed back a bit, we’d fulfill the second-most sought after skill: multi-tasking.
I hate my upstairs neighbors
At least once a week, my upstairs neighbors put on what sounds like a reenactment of the Revolutionary War as set in a German discotheque. No night is sacred. In fact, Sundays are the most often defiled with the sounds of clomping boot heels stomping to techno beats.
As a recovering insomniac, the amount of rage I feel when kept awake surpasses that of all other transgressions against me combined. I would never admit in waking hours the things I have imagined doing to my upstairs neighbors and their possessions while lying in bed listening to the inebriated epiphanies of philosopher-partiers. Once I was almost driven to act upon the most nefarious act of revenge I could think of. It would have involved a shock-and-awe-inspired siege of doorbell ringing deployed before my 6:30am departure for work. The strategy, however, too much resembles the honking of the distressed motorists whose audible anger also plagues my attempts at sleep. I’ve learned over and over that monotonous pulses of shrill sound lack the precision and clarity I strive for in any method of communication.
Perhaps when I learn to say “I hate you, libertines” in Morse code, I can consider this tactic again.
Here’s a fantasy adventure: take a girl on a date
I went to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday. But before I could sit through the loudly-scored scenes of wizards staring thoughtfully into misty landscapes that made up most of the film, I had to sit through about 8 previews for loudly-scored movies featuring other mythical protagonists staring thoughtfully into misty landscapes. This year’s wave of holiday blockbusters promises that violent, magical shit will happen to ethereal characters in a variety of contexts: in adaptations of Shakespeare, Little Red Riding Hood and Gulliver’s Travels; on ships; on battlefields; and over pic-a-nic baskets.
I’m always amazed at the amount of plot-robbing fantasy-adventure films screenwriters are able to vomit up each year. It almost beats my amazement that people continue to go to see them. Who is going to see these movies and why? My most recent memory of knowing people who liked movies like this takes me back to boys in my 7th grade class. So I have to ask… Boys, are you still going to see these movies?
If the answer is “yes,” then I’ve got an idea for a more age-appropriate fantasy adventure: take a girl on a date. You can dress differently than a regular day - which is kind of like what knights do - and you can negotiate a whole bunch of terrifying, albeit earthly, obstacles. You might even have a hand in tipping the balance of good (making out) over evil (the proliferation of roles for Russel Crowe).
Knowing the names of birds means you’re not crazy
I just got the California Academy of Sciences app for Golden Gate Park. Like most things, I got really excited about it before I understood exactly what it was. I couldn’t help it. When I read “Golden Gate Park,” “field guide,” and “free,” I stopped reading and started downloading.
Here’s what I’ve gleaned in my perfunctory introduction to the mobile application. It contains the names and pictures of flora and fauna native to the park (and probably – like many San Franciscans – some transplants). Not only will this help people to identify plants and animals, but they can log their sightings in the app for others to see.
If this all seems terribly nerdy and like something only an old woman would be interested in, then I say to you, “I agree!” For me, it comes down to one particular old woman.
Ever since I wrote a paper on some poems by Emily Dickinson, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of memorizing the names of birds and plants like she did. There’s just something about sophisticated, encyclopedic knowledge that distracts people from how crazy you are. (Being a gifted poet also helps.) It’s like buying carbon offsets to slow down climate change: the problem isn’t going anywhere, but look what a well-rounded person you are!
Knowing what a California Towhee looks like is going to make me a more interesting person. When I point one out on a walk in Golden Gate Park, people are going to think, “What a sophisticated and worldly young woman.” It won’t matter that just that very morning I picked up two nickels from a dirty gutter in the Mission to round out my bus fare. Or that I spent the ride sweating out booze from the night before.
So thanks be to you, California Academy of Sciences, technology, and the California Towhee, for making it easier for me to feign competence and appropriate behavior!
