Recently in Observations Category

Statists may want to tiptoe around the N-word, but when the federal government buys equity stakes in private firms and dictates how they should be run, that's nationalization.

I'm a sucker for time-lapse sequences. Maybe it's my inner historian, but I love seeing the effects of time without taking a lot of it. I can still remember the day when I first encountered Noah Kalina's pioneering 6-year daily photo montage: I contemplated starting down that road myself but I quickly realized that I didn't particularly care to put forth the effort. I forgot about the genre until about an hour ago.

It was then that I caught Andy Baio link to Dan Hanna's Photo Aging Project wherein he took two photos a day for 17 years:

HOLY CRAP! That's some forethought and work. I was impressed. And so I started looking for similar, though less-formidable, videos. Boy did I find them!

[Programming note: I'm really torn between just providing links to the videos and actually embedding them inline. If I put them inline, then this is going to be one slow loading and long-ass entry. But if I just link to the video, then you're going to be a-clicking all day. I wonder which one I'll choose.]

• Ines Everyday: this is the one that got me interested in looking further into this. I guess it had seemed previously like a male thing and this made me realize that there was probably a bunch of interesting characters doing these videos. Main takeaways: she changes her hairstyle a lot and seems to enjoy covering her neck.
• Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years: a solid entry by an Asian lady. Main takeaway: she went through a lot of glasses in three years.
• She takes a photo every day: the 200-day entry in an ongoing project. Main takeaways: she really changes her hairstyle a lot, has a lot of earrings, and was that mime makeup? Yes, it was.
• Growing a beard: well-done piece. Main takeaway: he's a slow beard grower. My friend Larry could have made that video in a week tops.
• Ellora Daily Photo reaches 1282: photos from birth on of a little girl. Main takeaway: I wonder what happened that required her head to be shaved on day 915.
• 9 months of gestation in 20 seconds: it's like watching a bell curve form. Main takeaway: the guy behind it is quite a goober.
• Madeline, Five Years - Photo a Day: nice try, but 198 photos is not "Photo a Day." Still, pretty adorable.
• Lee takes a photo of himself every day for three years: nothing special until 50 seconds in. Yowza!
• Michael takes a photo of himself every day for 1 year: teenage boy going from 16 to 17. Main takeaways: lots of hairstyles and why would anyone have that clown picture on their wall.
• Puppy Photo Everyday: Labrador going from 7 weeks to 6 months and completely busting the "Everyday" claim. Still, it's a puppy. Come on!
• Amanda takes a photo of herself every day for 2 years: watch the transformation from 14 to 16. She's going to really appreciate this when she's older.
• Ryan takes a photo of himself every day for 400 days: a black guy takes on the project. Main takeaway: what's the deal with the purple hair at 23 seconds in?!
• Sven takes a picture of himself everyday for 3 years and Tobias takes a picture of himself everyday for 3 years: twin brothers from 27 to 30. Is it wrong that I only watched one?
• Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project: high quality with much better stabilization. He's also got the pictures if the video wasn't enough.

I left off the countless parodies, which were often funny. I think they're strangely compelling because the subjects are real people—not a seedling, for example—and they have the nostalgic appeal of a yearbook with the intervening, gradual tweening that's normally missing.

This article on cargo cult management really struck me. I can't say that I've seen much of that sort of thing at Go Daddy—that's the part where Go Daddy is more startup than big business—but I've definitely seen that theme running throughout the business and management literature. Mike Speiser also nailed the identification of Jim Collins' bilge, which I had always considered spurious but couldn't name what bothered me so much about his approach. Now I've got a formulation to use when I see this sort of activity.

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I was at QuikTrip tonight when some teenaged girls bought some Red Bulls. This apparently offended the gentleman behind them (and in front of me) because he made some comment to the cashier, who was still muttering to himself and incidentally me when it was my turn. The cashier told me that they're (Red Bull) probably going to be on a restricted list soon because of the twenty-year-olds having heart attacks. Then he said that until then they were perfectly legal and snorted, "Capitalism! Harrumph."

Never mind the irony of the gentleman who originally was outraged by the teenagers' purchase of legal stimulants while simultaneously buying a carton of cigarettes and a six pack of beer. Never mind the cashier spouting off political views to a customer he doesn't even know. Never mind the inanity of seeking a ban on a 12 ounce energy drink that contains half the caffeine of an 8 ounce cup of coffee.

For me the supreme irony was that this cashier disparaged capitalism in its very temple. It is hard for me to imagine a convenience store of such variety and value as QuikTrip existing anywhere besides a capitalist economy. (Side note: I'm not at all suggesting that we live in a capitalist economy—but we certainly are among the freest economies in the world.) Sadly, none of these responses occurred to me at the time.

Facebook released a bit more detail about its Application Verification Program today. While it did not offer specifics, there is one big piece of news that wasn't divulged at F8: there will be an application fee and it will be non-refundable.

The application fee may as well be an application fee because it won't be long before the "Verified by Facebook" logo will be the deciding factor in a user's mind about whether to authorize an application. Facebook applications have a certain taint at this stage because of the hokeyness of a large number of them. Those lacking the badge will bear a stigma, especially if Facebook includes the badge on the authorization popup.

At some point, you will pay to be verified because otherwise your app won't be used. I hesitate to call this a shakedown because we don't know the price of the application fee. They could not have instituted the fee at the inception of the developer platform because it would have limited the number of applications. Adding it at the tail end of a rich ecosystem really strikes me as mining. So again I have to wonder why Benjamin Ling didn't mention it at the keynote.

I suspect that it was because the fee would have undercut the user-centric theme at this year's F8. The new profile design, the statement of core values, and the changes to the application developer program all were justified as being necessary to re-establish trust and value for the end user. But this fee plus some of the punitive measures points towards a more "business of Facebook" rationale. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it'd be nice if it was stated frankly.

Prior to attending F8, I believed that the new Facebook profile redesign was motivated by de-emphasizing third-party applications, making more room for ad space, and enabling more integrated ad placement. It was such a radical change and I was aware of the pathetic CPM of the Facebook ad inventory, so I concluded that this move was about Facebook the business.

Having been through three sessions and two keynotes, I now think that the changes are truly user-centric. The justifications presented today by very earnest and sincere Facebook developers and designers ring true to me. In case you didn't want to wade through my copious (and possibly inscrutable) notes from the sessions, the basic rationale behind the radical revamp is to emphasize the feed as a social stream and build user trust by limiting and segregating third-party applications.

They made the excellent point that the current profile easily becomes unwieldy and forbidding after adding just a couple of applications. The tabular nature of the new profile gives the user control over what to emphasize and what to display. The more time I spend with the new profile, the more I like it.

At the same time, I've been working on the open-source framework Facebook.NET in anticipation of the concomitant API changes. At the API level, Facebook has frequently dropped the ball. There are breaking changes, insufficient documentation of other changes, and frequent revisions that aren't discussed unless you happen to notice slight alterations to the documentation. It's truly frustrating due to the flux even though it's supposedly stable and released. I'm hoping that this is the last significant API change for awhile, or, better still, the Facebook platform team realizes the cardinal rule of API design: maintain backwards-compatibility at all costs.

[UPDATE (7/27/2008): I had written this on the plane coming back from F8 but I forgot to publish it when I got connected back on to the Internet.]

The 404 page for Apple's search forums helpfully offers a link to search their forums. If you click it, you get this less helpful screen:

I thought I had noticed something missing recently in the discussion forums, but I figured that the search capability was a figment of my imagination. Now I know that it was there at some point and then taken away at some later point. Very bad form!

[UPDATE (7/16/2008): Oh. They could have at least put a link to that announcement on every page so I would've seen it. Oh. They did. Sorry, Apple Discussions Administrators!]

My ambivalence towards John McCain as president is well-documented. But a thought just hit me that makes me think his presidency might be a net good (but barely): he's opposed by the religious right. As many have noted, the religious right's rise in importance within the Republican Party is worrying and could have positively dreadful effects in the long-term. Anything that serves to limit their influence is promising, no matter how otherwise unpalatable it might be. If he would host Giuliani as his vice-president, then I'll be more optimistic about the return of the GOP to its Goldwater days than I've ever been in my life.

I was reading Clay Shirky's "Gin, Television, and the Social Surplus" today and came across this paragraph that really spoke to me:

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

The larger point of his essay is that we, collectively, waste a lot of time watching television. If even a small portion of that were put to better (maybe different is more a propos) use, we could accomplish a lot. Shirky quantifies it with the entirely-made-up number that a 1% reduction in television viewing is the equivalent of 100 Wikipedia projects. I think that's bogus, but the general point rings true to me.

I think about these things often because a) I grew up watching a lot of TV, b) I am interested in the cultural shifts that the Internet has fostered and forced, and c) I watch too much television as it is. In January of this year, we ditched satellite TV and have limited ourselves to what comes over the antenna. That has severely curtailed the random, idle TV watching but it has largely been replaced with movie watching via Netflix.

Is that really any better? Perhaps, since movies are typically of higher quality and more worthwhile than television sitcoms. But isn't it, in the end, exactly the same? I shudder at all the great books I've neglected, all the music I've never heard, and all the blogs I haven't read—just kidding on that last one—as I fritter away the hours watching Antiques Roadshow or Lost. (Just kidding about Lost: the only way I'll stop watching that is when the series ends.)

I guess it's high time that I got a life.

Google recently announced its AppEngine initiative and I can't say I get who would want it. It strikes me as too inextricable from Google.

Amazon Web Services operates in a similar fashion but it is clearly serving as an infrastructure provider rather than a platform. While it'd be hard to migrate off of AWS if you ever chose to do that, it's not as if you're promoting Amazon by virtue of creating and running your application. At every turn, the AppEngine application uses Google products like Google Checkout and Google Accounts. Building a business so closely associated with the largest Internet company in the world strikes me as perilous.

AppEngine aspires to be a platform like Facebook has become. But it lacks the social aspects that make Facebook so attractive as an application platform. So, ultimately, I think AppEngine's main competitor is not Amazon, Facebook, or even Microsoft (which has its own cloud initiative in development) but Ning. Who's Ning? Exactly. I just don't see this market as compelling so I don't understand why Google's entered it.

Tonight I attended a lecture on "Algorithmic Architecture" by Kostas Terzidis at Taliesin West. Terzidis, a Harvard professor and former software engineer, is interested in the intersection of architecture and technology—mainly the role that computers play in automating much of the design aspects of architecture.

He spent much of his lecture philosophizing about this crossroads we find ourselves approaching. In contradictory fashion, he opined that there is nothing new, only recycled ideas and forgotten truths, while arguing that computers have enabled us to realize designs that were impossible just decades ago. That increase reliance on computer power has divorced us from the practice of architecture while bubbling over the inevitable supplanting of the creative process. Honestly, it wasn't terribly different from some of the incoherent rhapsodies of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The idea of automating the creative process intrigued me greatly though. At first, I was troubled by the mechanization of design. On the surface, it seems to obviate the individualistic architect, the creator of greatness. But upon pondering it more, I think that there's no reason why the stamp of the architect has to go away.

The future of architecture as programming is one where a program is written that takes all the variables and constraints of the architectural problem and devises thousands of buildings that solve it. Site topography, materials, budget, number of rooms, central plant, and so on are just inputs to be considered. While this seemingly diminishes the role of the architect, I think it could easily maintain his part.

Perhaps each programmer qua architect would codify his aesthetic sense in different ways or assign different weights to the various considerations. In so doing, the designs his program generates might look all of a same piece and his particular theme shines through. His job, then, becomes one of practiced selection of the best design combination.

It's going to be awhile before such a transformation of the trade takes place due to the massive increase in computing power necessary to effect it. But it seems inevitable and inexorable.

I went to Netflix just now to rate a movie I watched. On the front page, the image at right greeted me.

You may or may not know, but Netflix is offering a $1 million prize for a 10% improvement in its recommendation algorithm. I honestly don't know if the recommendation at right is what they're trying to improve but if it is then 10% better shouldn't be too difficult.

I mean, because I liked a documentary about capital punishment, a 80s puppet children's show, and my children liked an insipid phonics teaching program they think that I'd really dig a pseudo-martial arts exercise video. Sorry, but WTF?!

They just completed a big ol' upgrade but I think they missed a spot. Yeah, over there. See that recommendation engine-sized dark spot over there. There you go, you've found it.

I read this article {via} today about a truly disgusting act by a Virginia Tech student. The student in question placed, under the cover of night and anonymity, an additional memorial stone among the 32 already-situated memorial stones commemorating the students who were killed there last week. The new stone represented the shooter and the student justified her actions by the following statement:

We lost 33 Hokies that day, not 32. Who am I to judge who has value and who doesn't? I am not in that position. Are you?

I cannot abide the moral relativism inherent in that statement. Judgement is required to live. We must judge that people capable of murdering that many other people are a threat to us. A refusal to judge the Virginia Tech mass murderer is as much a sanction as saying "good job" while you slap him on the back. Mentally ill or not, murder is beyond the pale in a civilized society. I thought this was such a brazen display that no one could possibly countenance it. I mean, no one clamored for the hijackers to be listed at the World Trade Center memorial.

So I asked a couple co-workers what they thought of it. One condemned it without hesitation and the other "totally agreed" with the student. Wha? I was dumbfounded. Unsurprisingly, the views belonged to a conservative and a liberal, respectively. If this sort of view is prevalent, I think we're in for a rocky couple decades.

In the course of preparing this entry for Found on the Web, I came across this video by aleprechaun AKA Emily. I'm hooked!

I'm still trying to decide what about her, the dancing, and the video is the most endearing. Young woman dancing in front of her computer to some music is a YouTube archetype, but I normally just shake my head in disgust at most of the examples I've come across. This one has me watching over and over—something I haven't done with YouTube since the DJ Format videos. So I had to introspect to see what I was responding to.

My first thought, naturally, was that I found her attractive. She's quite pretty and reminds me a lot of Tina Fey. Furthermore, she's got a gangliness that I like. But that's not it.

Next I thought about the choreography, such as it is. I enjoyed that aspect but in the end it's not all that compelling. It's mostly just pantomiming the song's lyrics, which is quite uninspired. In a similar fashion, I dismissed my love for that song, which is considerable, as a rationale.

Then it hit me. The setting is such an integral part of her videos: it's so obviously a college dorm room. When I went to college, I lived and worked off-campus. Plus, I was married. So I never got to experience the collegial aspect of dorm living. In my mind, I always pictured college life like that video—just goofing off and unwinding after a long day of studying. I bet that sort of thing goes on all the time in an average dormitory. Maybe it's not the case, but that's what it's like in my imagination.

It also speaks to youth, to joyful exuberance, to feeling like you "gotta dance." There are times in my own life, when I'm alone, where I just get down because I can't keep it in any longer. I'm a horrible dancer, which is why I can't do it in front of people, but the feeling's there all the same. Anyone that knows me is probably agape right now—it's not a side of me that anyone but my immediate family has ever seen.

And maybe that's exactly what aleprechaun was doing, except that she recorded it and made it available to the world.

The nature of the Internet is decentralization and an attendant lack of control. I think this is one of the reasons why it has become as popular as it is—even though CompuServe, AOL, and Minitel all had tread similar ground prior to the Internet boom. The fact that it was built with precisely this nature is fascinating and amazing at the same time, especially given that it originated as a military and government project. (Side note: its purpose, however, was not to reroute around damage caused by a nuclear war as is commonly thought.)

Since the Web has exploded in popularity, many entities and individuals have bristled at this systemic lack of control. They don't like the unbridled power of the free Web, just as they didn't like the power of the free press in previous era. They send out cease and desist orders to have content removed, they try to stifle free speech by subjecting bloggers to the same onerous restrictions as campaigns, and they attempt to control how other Web sites link to them. The latter is the matter I'd like to focus on.

The recent case in Texas is only the latest example of the phenomenon. For years, many companies have been trying to stifle linking entirely. This is a ludicrous notion that is antithetical to both the nature of the Web as well as the actual self-interest of the companies. Linking brings traffic, recognition, and influence—there's a whole industry built up around soliticiting linkage. To be sure, there are problems with linking but they fall under the leeching of bandwidth, which is an actionable property rights infringement.

Lately, though, I've noticed a disturbing trend among people where they don't want links to their blogs because they don't want people reading their sites. They think that their employers, their friends, or their family won't find their site if they keep a low profile or use a fake name. Security through obscurity (or, in this case, privacy through obscurity) is a chimera: if it's on a public site without password protection, you can consider that everyone you know has or will read your writing. If Google can find it, I can find it via Google. Promise. Operating under assumption will save you a lot of grief and embarrasment.

Anyone or anything that seeks to require permission to link to their site is a fool. In my capacity as a link blogger, I never consider whether or not I should ask about linking to a site. My rule of thumb is that if it's something I can see then it's something I can link. If you don't want me doing that, then make your blog or site private—there's plenty of tools that allow you to do just that. Otherwise, suck it up and enjoy the traffic.

Brown's Theory of Multitudinous Object Cleanup: After cleaning up seemingly all of the objects, there will be one remaining unretrieved on the periphery of one's vision. And then one more after that.

Also known as my developing theory of Lego and puzzle cleanup.

Last night I attended my second meeting of the Phoenix branch of the Social Media Club. The first meeting was utterly useless and I gave the club three strikes before I was done with it entirely. After last night's meeting, I'm going to say that's it out. (I couldn't give it the second strike because it conflicted with a holiday party.)

I have a pretty high standard for organizations and meetings. If I'm not getting something out of them that I can't get elsewhere, then I'm not going to bother. I'm not into any sort of networking because it generally devolves into a sales pitch coupled with feigned interest in my life and work. I've got better things to do; even watching Law and Order reruns is a better use of my time than that sort of thing.

So last night's meeting was on some drivel called the New Media Release. It's supposed to be Press Release 2.0—boy am I glad they didn't think of that—with the ability to get past blogger's bozo filters in a single bound. As far as I can tell, it's a press release littered with graphics, movies, links to post to social bookmarking sites, and a litter of buzzwords. The example from the club itself is decidedly underwhelming: it looks like a press release embedded in a blog entry. Ho hum.

That was pretty bad, but the deciding factor for me was Francine Hardaway. She just wouldn't stop talking, a problem she herself noted in her entry on last night's meeting. But that's not the big problem I have with her: there were several annoying sorts there that loved the sound of their voices. She's one of those insufferable types that is so self-absorbed and pretentious that it made me want to leave mid-meeting. From the name-dropping ("As my friend Scoble said", "As so-and-so said, you do read so-and-so, right?") to the tedious anecdotes (Paraphrase: "Social media is everywhere ... I was attending a real estate conference ... My daughter, who own's her own company, was reading Engadget ... sent me an email with photos of the new iPhone ... All the real estate professionals around me were agog over the pictures and asking questions ... See it's everywhere because they weren't reading blogs during the presentation.") to the elitist pretensions ("Us tech people", "Of course this is baby stuff for us", "I've been in PR for 17 years", "I've been blogging since before it was called blogging", "And they said that Phoenix was too small to have a social media club") to the constant stream of buzzwords ("background himself"), she just rubs me the wrong way. I couldn't imagine attending another meeting of Francine's klatch.

But don't get me wrong, it's not just an issue of personality. The entire notion of the club strikes me as missing the point. It is dominated by marketers whose sole goal appears to be penetrating through to and using the fora of user-generated content producers. How can we get our stuff noticed by bloggers? How can we get our "viral" video onto YouTube? How can we adapt our current way of doing things to the real-time, no-holds-barred new media?

At the same time, however, it's aiming for those interested in social media who don't know much about it. (Its aim is errant because I think that type probably doesn't even know SMC exists and wouldn't attend even if they did.) So it becomes a social media for dummies forum. Let's talk a bit about del.icio.us. Let's have a meeting about how to get your blog recognized by search engines.

The missing party in this is the social media producer: the blogger, the podcaster, the vlogger. But that's where it's at, man. These people could really stand to meet each other, bounce ideas off each other, and get acquainted. That is what I hoped this club would be about, but it'll never happened if it's dominated by marketing flacks. There were a few bloggers there, but I couldn't get a read on whether they thought it was a waste of time as well. Oh, apparently, a couple of them liked it.

The social media producer, however, doesn't need a club for tutorials or acquiring knowledge. The producer is, by definition, comfortable with the Web and there are far better resources on the Web than could ever be assembled in an over-crowded wine room at La Madeleine. So it's not about the presentation by Francine (that would have to stop); it should be about sharing information or advice with people you've never met in person. That's the only advantage a geographically-based meeting has over a virtual one.

If I were changing things (and I don't care enough at this point to even bother trying), I'd have each meeting have a theme relevant to the producers: getting traffic, best services, thinking up content ideas. And then people ask questions, get answers, and share knowledge in a freewheeling conversation. Or announce the topic, have people introduce themselves, and then end the meeting while people gravitate around to talk about the theme.

And for chrissakes, get a meeting room without a substantial table taking up 90% of the floor space, relegating people to the walls and outside the room.

I bought a gift for my friend from Amazon. I think I ended up using the "Pay by Bank Account" option because they said that there was a $1,000 raffle for doing so. Hey, if you've got to pay no matter what, might as well choose the method that might pay you back (as long as there's no catch).

Today I got an email from Amazon saying that the payment wasn't authorized and that I'd better get on it if I wanted to get it to him or her by Christmas. The reason? "The reason your payment was not authorized was due to the phone number you entered not conforming to established guidelines." What phone number it was is not given and I distinctly remember selecting my billing address from the list of known addresses—and there were three or four of the same one.

So if this is a common enough issue that they've got an email prepared, then it must be easy to remedy it, right? I mean we're talking the payment stage, where money changes hands. I would think that any barrier to transferring your money to Amazon would be limited or eliminated entirely.

You would be wrong. Here's the instructions for correcting this oversight:

Follow these steps to submit your new or updated payment information for this order:

1. Go to our home page (www.amazon.com) then click "Your Account" on the top right menu.

2. Choose the option "Change payment method" (found under "View by Order" in the "Where's My Stuff" box).

3. After you sign in, you will see all your current open orders. You can click the "View or change order" button beside any order and make changes.

4. Click "Change" button in the "Payment Information" box beside "Payment Method." At this point, you may review your current payment method, choose a different payment method, or enter a new one.

Not only were some of the options not labeled the same as the email suggested, but even getting to the point the end with didn't make the resolution obvious. I just chose one of the other billing addresses and hoped for the best. If I get another email, I'm just going to pay by credit card.

[UPDATE (12/18/2006): I got another email about the billing failure, so that didn't work. This morning I changed to a credit card and now the package won't arrive until after Christmas. Stupid, stupid Amazon! (Though I certainly could have ordered it earlier, there were assurances all over the site that I didn't have to.)]

I was relating an anecdote to a co-worker yesterday about how it was so incredible to watch a child grow and develop. (Side note: it really is.) I told him that it was neat to see them make connections and I even invoked the shopworn sentiment about seeing things as through the eyes of a child. I don't exactly know what came over me but the thought percolated in my grey matter overnight apparently and some concluding introspection in the shower this morning led me to an insight.

I think the reason why we find children's cognitive development so fascinating is that it reminds us that we were once at that stage. I know for a fact that I thought that when I was talking to my co-worker, but if you think about it that really only gets you so far in explaining the feeling you get when children make new observations and discoveries. Plus, it doesn't explain why the feeling is renewed with each new conceptual growth and identification.

The shower moment came when I realized that I was simultaneously thinking, "Look how far I've come!" It's a reminder of our own cognitive achievement and the feelings that result are pride and satisfaction. I also think that it's an automatized response on a subconscious level because I was not aware of it even after some preliminary introspection. I believe it might be at work even with adults that don't have children since there's nothing inherent in the evaluation about child-possessing.

If you could, take a moment and do your own introspecting. Am I right about this or does your investigation differ? I'd love to get some outside opinions on this.

Once upon a time there was a tree near a forest. This little tree, we'll call him Ernest because we don't want to make any decisions about proper pronouns for awhile, saw all the other trees in the forest and wanted to be as tall and mighty as they were. Ernest watched them grow bigger each year as successive rains gave them the nourishment they needed.

He was taken care of, to be sure. His owner put him in the windowsill so he could get sunlight and spritzed him with water periodically. Ernest would grow a bit and start to feel like he was on his way to majesty, but then his owner would prune him back and he would feel deflated at his lack of progress. He began to feel like he was a shadow of his fellow trees and that he was powerless to change that. Ernest was utterly dependent on his owner to provide the conditions necessary for his growth.

Ernest's owner, on the other hand, was pleased with his static look and carefully-trimmed growth. He had paid a lot of money for this particular plant and considered Bonsai his hobby. He liked to look at Ernest as a version in miniature of the towering pines outside. He didn't want those trees; he liked having his own that he had made with his own two hands.