Today, we’re reading commentary on our age’s inability to disconnect from work while on vacation, our self-expectation of all-time-availability. Just very good, very true and quite sad. (“Five years ago, in Barbados, none of us consulted a computer. Three years ago, in Costa Rica, a few family members walked to an Internet cafe and checked our e-mail one afternoon just for the novelty of being online in a faraway place. This year I stood in a long line in the lobby of this resort in the Dominican Republic, to wait my turn to sign up for 25 hours of Internet service for $25.”)
Also, ReadWriteWeb posted a selection from its call for comments about the workplace of the future. (“The long-term impact of this trend (an increase in the share of part-time contractors v/s full-time employees) may yield a more knowledgeable workforce constantly aggregating and fine tuning skills as a function of the need to truly multitask efficiently.”) The commuter scene in Indian cities – and I’ve commuted in Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Bombay – is insane. We could each save a couple of daily hours of time, massive amounts of stress and liters of fuel by working mostly from home. I’m a big fan of this. To the fear that “I just don’t trust the productivity levels for when people work from home, and I know our CEO agrees with that.”, we’re just going to have to build teams of people who can function well as a geographically dispersed team. Think Automattic (“We’re very much a virtual company where everyone primarily works from home (or their coffee shop of choice). The half dozen of us in the Bay Area will go in on Thursdays to have a little company, but six days out of the week the space is usually empty.”)
Finally, this lovely live visualisation from Book Depository of books being sold at this moment around the world.
In non-tech, a website that became a favourite destination of ultra-conservative Christians in America, linked to from other popular websites, mentions on a radio show – but is actually a prank. (“… they were posting collaborative humor pieces on the Web. Mr. Butvidas bought the ChristWire.org domain name, and the partners began to conceive the Web site that exists today, something like what The Onion would be if the writers cared mainly about God, gay people and how both influence the weather”). Hilarious. For such gems as “Is My Husband Gay?”
Also, what’s behind the Times of India’s sustained, extremely negative coverage of the Commonwealth Games (CWG). Apparently, a failed attempt to get the “official newspaper” tag (“For 2-page reports on five key milestone days (carrying a half-page ad of CWG at DAVP (department of audio visual publicity) rates and a half-page ad at commercial days); for six one-page reports (where in 65% of the page will have edit and 35% will be paid-for); and 12 full pages of advertorial at DAVP rates, Times proposes a Rs 12.19 crore package.”)
Finally, while we’re on the CWG, my friend Karthik Gadiyar on the Commonwealth Games theme song that (this week) has gotten as many newspaper inches as the Games themselves. (“I don’t know about the Indian spirit, but there is a lack of a high point in the song. The wait for that one memorable point continues through the song, but the one high point (using Rahman’s own previous compositions, a “Jai Ho” chorus or the Sufi qawwali part in “Kehna hi kya”) never comes. As a result, there is no one line or one lyric that you can immediately recall from this song.”)