Don't Know Nothin Bout Birthin No Babies

As little as a month ago, I hadn't considered the possibility that we'd deliver our baby by cesarean section. Our baby-in-waiting had long been sitting head down inside Momma, nosing towards the exit, as it were. Everything was on track, everyone was happy until, without warning, a visit to the obstetrics lab revealed that our Baby Bean had flipped into a complete breech position, at which point things got a little uncomfortable for all concerned.

The sono-doc immediately, if subtly, started counseling us as though something were wrong. A c-section would be needed, and soon (foregoing the clichéd "stat," thankfully). He would call our regular OB, who would certainly get back to us that day to move things forward. At 38 weeks, every all-star check-up and test suddenly got flushed by a late-term sonogram.

Apparently we are not alone in getting pushed down a surgical path. Almost a third of all births in the United States occurred through cesarean delivery in 2005, up 46 percent over the last decade. Clearly, breeched babies and birth complications are not skyrocketing in our advanced society, and yet American women are getting cut open faster than Whitechapel courtesans rather than squeeze a kid through the old-fashioned potato shoot.

When it comes to birthing babies, cesarean sections are the quintessential American procedure. From La-Z-Boys to Escalades, nobody expends more effort making things effortless. So it's no surprise that our default approach to birth is usually, "why feel it if you don't have to?" Pain avoidance is not the worst mantra in the world, but it's disturbing to me how quickly it seems to shut out all other options.

The perversity is that, once pain is removed from the equation, invasive surgery becomes inherently preferred to a natural birth. C-sections are the Tivo of childbirth, allowing everyone to skip the boring parts and deliver the baby on our schedule rather than the baby's. What on-the-go Mom wouldn't love typing "11:30. Have baby" into her Treo? And what doctor wouldn't prefer to avoid a late-night delivery? Fewer and fewer, apparently.

We absolutely adore our OB and count our blessings to have such a proficient and emotionally-connected doctor guiding us through pregnancy. Yet even he is subject to the demands of the Medical Industrial Complex. Our doctor isn't pushing a c-section so that he can ensure a Saturday tee time or an uninterrupted dinner, but he is regulated by an insurance industry that prefers a complex, controlled birth to a natural and unregulated one. He conducts his services within a hospital industry that prefers short and expensive procedures and penalizes doctors who don't do enough of them. And he is informed by an obstetrics industry that is largely ignorant of breech birthing techniques. All this, despite substantial health and financial concerns about elective c-sections.

So, the fact that our OB allowed us time to get Bean flipped came as something of a surprise. The fact that he told us we had a 1% chance of success was not. That may well be the rate among people who do not try, or the rate reported to obstetricians who warn parents against it. The medical industry is continuously poking and prodding its way to identifying every flaw and problem in our bodies, but is strangely ignorant of how bodies actually work.

In the 70's, that meant a mother might just get knocked out and deliver while unconscious. Today's epidural applications mean that moms can get slit open with the same detached numbness as a regular birth. Invasive surgery isn't a cozy cuddle by the fire, but removing pain without losing consciousness makes it a pretty compelling option.

And doctors don't just want to regulate their schedule, they'd prefer to avoid lawsuits too. For a country that pokes and prods its way to identify every flaw and problem, there aren't a lot of doctors that know what to do about them. The human genome, we've got that mapped, but don't even try to find a practitioner who can deliver a baby ass-first. The few who've attempted such barbarity have had a chunk of their gray matter removed by the insurance companies (solely for liability reasons, of course).

There are always other options. If we’d really wanted to push Bean out of the airlock, plenty of doulas could assist a natural childbirth regardless of which appendage made the first appearance. On the downside, that would mean birthing at home, being away from our trusted OB, and incurring a lot more risk (or “uncertainty,” in less loaded terms).

But would it have created more risk, or just different risks? As it was, we opted for the c-section. The birth, while glorious and miraculous in its own right, also yanked our baby from her mother’s gaping stomach well in arrears of her anticipated development. Medical science, which had made her delivery painless and possible, had also missed the boat on her prenatal advancement by about a pound and two weeks. Had we allowed nature to run its course, would our baby have struggled to breath at birth, or sleep through her first two weeks of development? Or could the complications from breech have created a more damaging environment for our daughter? Only Dr. Spock knows for sure, although it seems reasonable to say that the cesarean jump-started a process that the child was as yet unwilling to commit to.

Since we tallied another birth for the cesarean crowd, this also means that our next child will likely contribute towards this trend (Doctors are loathe to deliver a “v-back” once their procedures have weakened the uterus). One day, vaginal births may fall into the same atavistic category as ass-slapped newborns and cigar-chomping dads, and that’s not a wholly terrible thing if it means striking the word “episiotomy” from the Big Book of Post-Partum Recovery Fun. But there’s much to be said for the wisdom of the womb, and I would hope that it always takes precedence over the presumptuous convenience of the knife.

I Hate My Mobile

I begrudgingly bought my first mobile phone in 2000 after my boss dictated that I be accessible while traveling. Despite my resistance, I've generally come to accept and mostly enjoy having a cell phone. But for a ubiquitous communication tool, it amazes just how bad the mobile telephone experience still is.

Why is it that, in 2006, cell phone reception from my close-in urban house still sucks? How can it be that I can still have voice mails disappear into limbo for days? Why do calls still drop along Mo-Pac, the second busiest stretch of highway in Austin? And, most importantly, how is it not possible to block specific numbers from calling my mobile number?

On Tuesday, I fell victim to SMS spam for the first time. It started in the afternoon, when my phone starting buzzing every few minutes. A 347 area code number kept popping up, each time sending a text message. There was a pause after the first dozen, but then the floodgates opened and I was deluged with 46 repetitions.

I called Cingular, who's only answer to the problem was to completely shut off my SMS service. I guess they never heard the old Henny Youngman bit ...

Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this (lifts arm).
Doctor: So don't do that!
Audience: Hilarity.

... because they weren't laughing when they said it. All of a sudden, all the IT flunkies who ever told you to reboot looked like diagnostic geniuses compared to Cingular.

Now I'm stuck in no-text hell, partly to avoid further irritation, but mostly because I'm too lazy to have Cingular turn the damn service back on.

Did I mention, I hate my mobile.

Downer Ballot

It's election day, so I've had one eye on the election coverage to see if W. gets the mid-term smackdown he has coming. Somewhat belatedly, I just finished Richard Clarke's 9/11 tell-all "Against All Enemies," sufficiently frothing my ire to vote against those who would sell a failed personal vendetta as successful counter-terrorism policy.

For better or worse, Lloyd Doggett has been un-re-gerrymandered back into my district (or is that vice versa?). Upside: I get to vote for a solid Dem that I like. Downside: No real Congressional protest vote for me. The best I could do was pee in Kay Bailey's breezy sashay back to another Senate term.

Perhaps I'll take some solace in the fact that my Governor will be elected with over half of the votes going against him. But it's no real comfort to know that those anti-Perry votes either went to a bland sacrificial Democrat, a tactless and content-free independent, or a woman who changes her name and party affiliation more often than her hairstyle.

Months ago, I thought it would be good to have a big crowd rocking the political boat, maybe take Perry down a notch or two with a shrewdly-timed broadside. Instead we get Strayhorn spinning cycles trying to get herself listed as "Grandma" on the ballot while Kinky treats the campaign trail like an audition for the Redneck Racist Comedy Tour. (truthfully, I think Kinky's more of a candidate for the Politically-Unfit Jackass Comedy Tour, but that doesn't rhyme)

Otherwise, voting was little more than an excuse to spin the "hi-tech" dial across a slate of unchallenged judges and dubious bond propositions. A reminder, if ever one was needed, what a fragile sham construct our hyper-segmented form of democracy truly is. I hardly think that a litany of unopposed races and ballot initiatives shielded behind trite marketing slogans matches the Founders' vision of representative democracy.

If my vote is my voice, today's response to six years of deception and mediocrity should have been a scream of outrage blasted in the face of the crooked and complacent. But all they got was a hushed "you suck," mumbled under my breath.

Update: At least some other parts of the country had the option to voice their dissent. Democracy does indeed require a perspective beyond your own ballot.

Transcendent Moment

We're sitting around the dinner table, eating lemon pepper chicken that's perfectly cooked right off the grill. You know the kind, with the fat slightly crispified around the edges, but the middle is perfectly white and juicy.

The Cardinals are playing on TV. Unbelievably, the Cards are leading the heavily-favored Tigers one game to nil, and Game Two is currently scoreless. After the post-season letdown from some high-powered Redbird teams of recent years, there's a refreshing underdog spirit emanating from this squad. And it somehow makes the chicken taste that much better.

Instead of listening to the usual Tim McCarver droning commentary, we have the Rolling Stones playing in the background. Not a CD. The actual Rolling Stones are playing in Zilker Park tonight, and strains from The Glimmer Twins are intermingling with the chicken aroma and Cardinals spirit in quite a sensory smorgasborg.

Later in the evening, the Cardinals may have fallen behind by three, but Keith unleashes the buzzsaw riff leading into Jumpin' Jack Flash. It is a sublime evening in Austin, TX.

Mirrored Glasses

I got new glasses last week. My vision has stabilized of late, so this is my first new pair in several years and I was excited to try a slightly different look. I opted for what I interpreted as austere Euro-styled frames, but in reality they're little more than a warmed over, slimmed down version of the ubiquitous NASA-engineer look from the 60's. I shot for Sprockets, and ended up with Falling Down.

There's always that period of adjustment with new glasses. It took a few days, but the new prescription bludgeoned my corneas into submission, and a few days later I had gotten used to my new look. It must be similar to how people adapt to plastic surgery, except you don't get to put your new titties back on the nightstand before bed.

Anyway, a funny thing just happened. I'm sitting in my London hotel, working late on some TPS reports. I'm working late because in today's digitally flattened world, nobody respects a good 6 hour time zone shift. But that's another story. I'm working late. In between micro-bursts of mini-brilliance, I gaze round my posh room and catch my relection in the nearby mirror. To my shock, I see my Dad looking back at me. Or rather, I see the hazy memory of my Dad's high school photo, complete with (now) retro specs.

I've never been entirely sure which parent I favor, and in what ways. People have commented in either direction, usually basing their opinion on which parent they know (or like) better. My personal pendulum has swung both ways (not like that, perve), but the new glasses definitely tilt the scales back towards Dad.

It's probably not a coincidence that this revelation comes as I'm about to become a father. Not that the glasses are related to knocking up my wife (that I'm aware of), but pending fatherhood is taking its toll. My little girl is still roughly 14 years + 2.5 months away from dating, and I'm already developing an anti-punk scowl to go with my growing collection of guns, both of which bring me that much closer to becoming my Father.

I guess I saw this coming. The new glasses just made everything a little bit clearer.

Warren Buffett: Be Like Flea

In a letter written in liquified gold ink on the back of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Warren Buffett yesterday pledged billions of dollars to charity in stock donations from his personal fortune. Buffett has long been lionized as an investment guru, having amassed a personal fortune worth $44 billion through decades of shrewd market moves. That titanic sum will now be distributed annually, with 5 percent of his Berkshire Hathaway stock donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation each year. Based on current stock value, next month's gift of 500,000 shares should be worth more than $1.5 billion.

The weekend announcement came as something of a surprise, partly because most Americans had no idea that people accumulated wealth other than going to ATM machines. It was also assumed that the world's 2nd-richest man would disperse his wealth posthumously, rather than dump his portfolio into the 1st-richest man's lap. This unexpected generosity has generated speculation about Buffett's newfound motivation for charity. But one need look no further than his letter to the Gates Foundation.

Working through the foundation, both of you have applied truly unusual intelligence, energy and heart to improving the lives of millions of fellow humans who have not been as lucky as the three of us. You have done this without regard to color, gender, religion or geography. I am delighted to add to the resources with which you carry on this work. How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser?

This last line has received a great deal of attention for its non-CEO vernacular, and seems to confirm that Buffett's charitable conversion is at least partially related to a newfound appreciation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Buffett himself seemed to lend credence to this theory during the post-announcement press conference when he was overheard murmering "what I got you got to get and put it in you" several times in succession. Melinda Gates appeared noticably shaken at the riff, but Bill laughed it off as an old Nebraskan aphorism akin to yelling "soo-ey" at pigs.

The Chili Pepper-Buffett connection would appear extremely improbable were it not for the billionaire's other bizarre characteristics, such as voting Democratic and maintaining modest living standards. Berkshire Hathaway has declined any comment regarding the stock donation, clearly wishing to avoid the Chili Peppers issue.

SXSWi: tech assessment

I'm like the blog dork version of Sir Edmund Hillary, lugging my backpack full of digital survival gear around SXSW. I'm as lean as I dare, although a notebook, digital camera, iPod, and requisite power cords and USB cables still seems like quite a load while trying to squeeze into the one empty seat across a row of attendees.

There is, of course, LOTS of personal technology on display at SXSWi, and it makes an interesting statement about the blogging community relative to the general population. Or at least the population I'm used to seeing at more mainstream technology conferences.

First of all, Mac penetration is far beyond my expectations. I assumed that the heavy representation of coder / linux types would naturally lean towards a PC environment, but apparently the evolution of web-based architectures has freed up a majority of SXSW-ers to think different, just like everyone else. I'd place Mac penetration at a conservative 60% across the observed interactive crowd. Sometimes it seems larger, although the glowing Apple icons and reliance on powercord tethering might make the Macs overly visible. The remaining PC drones are an even split among brands, Dell's otherwise ubiquitous global domination having eluded much of this savvy crowd ... except me.

PCs and Macs alike are liberally adorned with a series of bumper stickers and alterna-logos, especially among the panelists. Some of the messages are purely for tech identification ("you are SO off my buddy list"), but many are of various products and websites that are vying for attention at the conference. It creates an interesting dichotomy of individualization defined by brand devotion; the new Iconoclasts are selectively loyal rather than abstractly independent.

And then there are the gadgets, or more specifically the absence thereof. I've seen loads of CE / blackberry phones, but where are all the iPods? SXSW offered a downloadable schedule in iPod format, so I expected loads of techie people to be wheeling their way through session listings. Not so, although this could be because the iPod is an absolutely sucky way to access any information, even music. In that same vein, notepads (the paper kind) are almost as common as notebooks and printed schedules are the default organizational tool.

SXSWi panel summary: convergence and transformation

Saturday 11:30-12:30 Convergence and Transformation
The term "convergence" implies a number of concepts, including the merging of technology, data, people, and socializing. Panelist John Tolva pointed out that technology convergence can be over-simplified to a scenario where "you put all your stuff on one box," but in fact convergence should cover larger concepts of interoperability; I believe his specific term was a "recombinant design philosophy."

David-Michel Davies volunteered the perspective of convergent media, or the "netization of traditional media." This aspect of convergence is particularly pervasive, since it doesn't even require the Internet (see: digital video). Traditional media is consistently trying to exert their influence (and paradigm) on the net, much as the RIAA and MPAA going to great lengths to preserve a known content model in the face of digital creation and distribution. Davies would prefer to make traditional media more like the Net.

Jon Lebkowsky addressed data convergence, particularly how the explosion of tagging is an effort to filter and interact with the increasing "internetization" of information. While even the most tech-savvy adults might have difficulty dealing with the overload, Davies urged the audience to "just deal with it." In other words, tune out when you're disinterested, tune in to things that generate interest.

My tangential take on this philosophy is that adults have grown up in a paradigm where information is precious. Searching and finding is still novel enough that many of us still prefer to embrace knowledge as something that is internalized rather than something that is pursued externally upon demand. To be effective in a convergent information economy requires embracing a paradigm where information is disposable and can be missed.

Products and services must take convergence into consideration, essentially building in hooks so that end-users can become designers themselves. Google Maps is not just a product unto itself, but it is a filter for information that can be used and leveraged in numerous ways far beyond its original intent. David Pescovitz furthered this point by saying that "Consumer" is such a wrong word to apply to end-users. "Customer" is better, but ultimately convergence dictates that many should be perceived as "Collaborators."

If everyone is a collaborator, and convergence has transformed the speed that information and ideas get identified, transformed, and assimilated, where does that leave independent culture and identity? In a spin-cycle culture, the true counter-culture comes from those who to some degree ignore the information overload, or act in spite of it. This can actually promote more real enthusiasm because counter-culture for its own sake quickly becomes unsustainable. When everyone has the directions to hipsterville, only the iconoclasts will find new and interesting ways to get there. This focus should help individuals stop evaluating convergence in perjorative terms (i.e. that change is good or bad), but rather in terms of the standards that make new developments most useful.

links discussed:
shadows
upcoming.org

SXSWi panel summary: beyond folksonomies

Saturday 10:00-11:00 Beyond Folksonomies.
The need to categorize and search online information has led in two directions: top-down taxonomy (e.g. hierarchical structures) and ground-up folksonomy (e.g. tagging). One panelist (I believe it was David Swedlow) described folksonomies as the pidgeon language an adult might learn when immersed in a foreign culture; an ideosyncratic shorthand for the information we produce and consume online.

The primary issue with folksonomies is that each person can produce their own shorthand for slicing and dicing information. While I might tag all SXSW data as "sxswi" (because it all comes from the interactive conference) someone else might tag theirs as "sxsw2006" to differentiate it from previous years. Such variations can have greater meaning to each individual, but hinder aggregate-level value creation and community building. Uncertainty also increases the costs and efforts associated with using folksonomies, so less engaged users (i.e. "the masses") will be unlikely to adopt them. Until these hurdles are addressed, folksonomies will have limited impact on markets and societies beyond the technorati.

The panel struggled to find a solution to this problem, and ended up debating the merits of automated tagging. While pure automation resembles a taxonomy, with all the same weaknesses brought on by rigidity, some form of implicit tagging allows users to leverage work that has already been done while retaining the flexibility of context and interpretation. Google searches represent an example of implicit tagging, in which the user receives thousands of "relevant" items, but the search algorithm has already determined which results are likely to be most meaningful based on the amount of activity (links) attached to each. This type of implicit tagging could serve as the lynchpin between organic folksonomies and more structural (and useful) taxonomies.

Some links discussed during the session:
POPFile
AttentionTrust

SXSW: day one

Going on 3 hours of drink-polluted sleep isn't optimal, but it's the norm for SXSW. Despite the hangover fog, I vowed to hit the conference running and make as many sessions as possible on the first day.

I ended up attending 4 of the 5 sessions, which I'll describe in separate posts. The quality varied over the day, but all the panelists were engaging and had something interesting to say.

By the last session, I could barely stay awake. Conveniently, the Metroblogging meet-up was happening at the Hideout, so I could get some sugary/caffeinated beverage to lift me up. But the conversation didn't last long, because then it was time for the day to shift from Conference to Anniversary mode (1 year ... and they said it wouldn't last).

With visions of meta-tags dancing in my head, I abandoned SXSW and met my wife for a predictably unbelievable dinner at Wink. You'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant in Austin with a better combination of interesting (and fresh) cuisine, cozy atmosphere, and genuine hospitality (as opposed to contrived graciousness).

Rachel and I needed to burn off some calories after dinner, and there's nothing better for calorie burning that gettin' down wit dat hacidic reggae mon. Matisyahu returned to the site of his popular live recording, and brought Balkan Beat Box along to up the Mediterranean hip hop quotient even higher. Both acts represent interesting musical fusion and a welcome departure from the usual litany of angst rockers and hip hop retreads that clutter the airwaves. BBB brought phenomenal energy to their middle-eastern inflected club jam, which Matisyahu built on with some great beat box work and a roof-raising rendition of "King Without a Crown." Ultimately, though, he is still a reggae act at heart, and there's only so much reggae I can hear before it all blurs into a non-descript chorus; pleasant, but a little boring.

SXSW: ground zero

The interactive conference doesn't open until Saturday, but of course Friday has its own share of SXSW activities, mostly administrative and social. I registered for the conference, and marvelled at the massive storehouse of swag bags awaiting owners. Later I met up with Tim and wandered between the Gingerman to Break Bread with Brad and the Red Bull House to mingle amongst the tech toys and blogerati, courtesy of Buzznet.

The whole first night was less crowded and chaotic than I expected. Hell, I even had my choice between two free street parking spots within 2 blocks of the convention center. Somehow I don't think that karma will continue as the interactive, film, and music events lever into full gear.

For never having attended SXSW interactive before, I also felt remarkably at home. It helped to hang out with Tim, who knows far more folks in the online community than I do, but it's also a very welcoming and (dare I say it) interactive crowd; not entirely the reclusive misanthropists that popular stereotypes would lead you to believe.

The Buzznet party was fun, although a little sparse given the pre-conference lag and competing events. I've never used Buzznet, but will give them a shot and compare with the much-enamored Flickr. As of this moment in the space-tech continuum, it seems their primary advantage is the ability to share video. I don't generate much video content, so that doesn't immediately compel me to double my photo-tagging workload, but it could be an interesting resource. The guys from Buzznet were very cool, and it was great fun meeting some previously unknown Zilker neighbors and chatting with Doc Searls. I guess it really is all about the conversations.

open your eyes, jackass

Lots of drivers hate motorcycles. Some people get aggressive whenever they see a bike, maybe feeling the standard testosterone urge to race or dealing with whatever latent resentment they have for that biker goon that cut them off 12 years ago.

The aggro response is completely stupid (and mostly futile), but it's preferable to those who just FREAK OUT for no apparent reason. My favorite are the cagers who suddenly hit their brakes when a motorcycle comes up behind them; from their body language, it's apparent that they haven't looked in their rearview mirror since they left the house, and panic when they finally observe a single headlight closing in on them.

The main problem is that too many people are flat out lazy behind the wheel. How many commuters do you see concentrating on make-up application, dial (or iPod) scanning, cell phone manipulation, child appeasement, and pretty much anything else that doesn't involve the road?

Some civilized cultures actually take pride in their ability to maneuver and manipulate motorized vehicles with some semblance of performance. Not us ... the crowning achievement of American transportation is to disconnect yourself from the driving experience as much as possible. In Europe, your driving skills speak for themself. In the US, even the most incapable driver can represent with 20" spinners and a road-numbed SUV while stupidly floating across lanes and generally ignoring their traffic environment.

That's why you'll never see this ad [.mpg] in the US. Pity, because it's a good one. (Note: video may take awhile to load)

[link originally found at Bikes in the Fast Lane]