Reflections on CeBIT 2019; or, WTF is an electric H-D good for?

Harley-Davidson LiveWire. Um, no thanks! 

Seeing an electric H-D LiveWire in the flesh at CeBIT today really set me off. WTF is that about? 

The first time I went to CeBIT the event was huge. This year, it was significantly smaller. The original CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, ended last year but Australia decided to push on with the branded local event. I'm not sure if I will go again.

Steve Wozniak was a keynote speaker. This year the keynote speakers in the sideshows provided an open-plan version of the restricted audience by using headphones for those with paid tickets.

There was an interesting budget hologram display at the British Industry stand and lots of virtual reality and AI displays. But it was clear the major exhibitors have moved on.

Some displays reminded me of Expo '88 in Brisbane where what was then the latest technology is now somewhat laughable in the manner of watching early aviation enthusiasts.

The saddest display was Harley-Davidson's e-bike, the LiveWire. A review in the AFR in June suggested the bike had some positives but two weeks ago H-D "pulled the plug" on sales and production due to some problems with the bike.

There is something just not right about an electric H-D. Sure, times are changing. But the "progress" thesis is running out of steam in my view.

The idea of human progress as a linear, inevitable improvement in the lot of humans has some validity, but it also tends to be uneven if you are starving in sub-Saharan Africa. And whether the Middle Ages were an improvement on the glory days of the Roman Empire is arguable.

What I saw at CeBIT was the tired leftovers of earlier technological advances. Much like the Millennium Falcon, things are looking a bit shabby chic. Not that the technology hasn't improved or that things haven't advanced, but to what end?

The H-D LiveWire had me thinking, "what's the point?" Granted, it is better for the environment and die hard H-D fans are no longer turning a profit for the company that is over 100 years old. But a H-D that makes that annoying Formula E zing zing sound? Progress, really?

It would seem that when we talk about the future of work, there is less and less work to be done. And when speakers talk about technology and leadership, what's so new about it all?

Two key things emerged for me at CeBIT. First, technology is replacing humans in everyday life. Who needs to speak to wait-staff or a cashier when you can order and pay for food on your phone? I used me&u for the first time today.

Second, the other technologies that featured heavily at CeBIT were meeting and corroboration tools. But meeting and collaborating to do what, exactly?  With production and manual labour roles now taken care of by technology, what exactly are people discussing in all these meetings?

It is becoming obvious that  it is all a con-job. Meetings are about saying, "see, I'm here!" and ticking off the attendance box. Skype is the same thing except it's, "see, even though I'm not there, I'm still working!"

The use of tech in healthcare and for first responders is important, but it made we wonder: Just how important is all this other work that we do?

I fear that, like the electric H-D, we've lost the point. We are meeting about things that we don't produce, to lead people who don't produce anything. If this is the case, why are there so many meetings?

Cal Newport has shown the way for the future of work. In the meantime, the noise of the H-D has been replaced by the noise of bureaucrats meeting. My key lesson from CeBIT? Don't believe the hype.

The More Wisdom than Wit of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, US President, 1861-1865. Photo: Mathew Brady Civil War Series [Public Domain] via US National Archives.

The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations by Abraham Lincoln

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the third of the Dover "Wit and Wisdom" series I have read, following on from Poor Richard (Benjamin Franklin) and Mark Twain. While the latter two were certainly witty in the humorous sense of the word, its use in relation to Lincoln is one more of quick intelligence, sans humour.

There are many familiar quotes in this book, two at least from popular culture. The first from Bob Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues" (p. 29):

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time (29 May 1856).

The other quote is from Saving Private Ryan, a letter of condolence to a Mrs Lydia Bixby. Lincoln believed that Bixby had lost five sons in the war. The book suggests this was what Lincoln believed at the time, but it was a mistake - she had lost two (p. 78). I decided to delve into this a little more.

While there is much controversy about the actual letter, ranging from opinions that the wording of the letter is greater than the Gettysburg Address, to that it wasn't written by Lincoln but by his assistant personal secretary, John Hay.

What is even stranger is that Bixby may well have been a Confederate sympathiser and operated a house of ill repute! Still, that doesn't take away from Lincoln's eloquence.

There isn't much in the way of humour other than a mild form of self-deprecating humility. My favourite story about Lincoln is his decision to grow a beard, based on the suggestion of an 11 year-old girl, Grace Bedell, in a letter of 15 October 1860 (p. 14). My great, great grandfather, James Beasley Percy, born in 1866 near Armidale, wore the same beard.

Emily and James Percy, circa 1890s.

But there is one thing that Lincoln was famous for, not so much what he wrote but what he didn't send. On 14 July 1863, Lincoln wrote a scathing letter to General George G. Meade for letting Robert E. Lee's forces escape following the Battle of Gettysburg (p. 86). Lincoln referred to these as "hot letters" to let off steam. I suppose it is easier not to post a letter, much less so with a "flaming" email!

While quotes are easy to come by on the internet, and not all are adequately attributed, I find reading the "Wit and Wisdom" series useful in that the quotes are themed around important events or activities. Reading a person's thoughts, letters, and speeches in this way provides a richer idea of the trials and tribulations they faced, rather than the glossy bits that are seen in a simple meme or online quote.

Lincoln appears to be much more serious than Twain or Poor Richard. Indeed, responding to a cabinet minister wondering why Lincoln was reading a humorous book (p. 44), Lincoln replied:

With all the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

And he was under enormous strain. In responding to a reported death threat, Lincoln remarked on 4 April 1865 (p. 16):

I cannot bring myself to believe that any human being lives who would do me any harm.

Alas, there was, but the rest is history.

View all my reviews

Appreciating Ted Hughes

Hawk Roosting: Feet or foot? Photo: Summerdrought [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia

Lupercal by Ted Hughes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I sat down to write about my first reading of this collection of poetry, I drew a blank. I knew nothing of Ted Hughes until he was mentioned in a comment about my reading of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, along with Sylvia Plath. I'd heard of Plath! 

I didn't hate the poetry, nor did I like it. But it seemed strange. I knew it was about animals, but that was the extent of the experience of my first reading. So I took to some research and made some enlightening discoveries.

Hughes was the UK's Poet Laureate, just like Alfred, Lord Tennyson. There had to be something I was missing.

In an interview with The Paris Review from 1995, Hughes mentions a number of issues concerning "The Art of Poetry", such as the differences in drafting verse in handwriting versus typing. In response to the question "Is a poem ever finished?", Hughes mentions a struggle he has had with the singular or plural in the middle of the poem, "Hawk Roosting". Neither worked satisfactorily.

So I start there:

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

Now I hold Creation in my foot

And he's right. Swap feet for foot and back again, and neither works grammatically. But it works as it is in the poem.

I tried another poem, "Urn Burial". On the first reading, my mind was clouded by seeing some of the oldest remnants of human urn burials in Bahrain on a visit during my sabbatical in 2009. All I could picture were the skeletal remains curled up in the large stone urns. No animals in sight.

Then, like a 3D picture, the symbolism became clear: Oh, it's a weasel! (It even reads "weasel", but I was off in another dimension.) It started to make sense.

This was not entirely my own doing. I had to digress with Hughes' ars poetica, "The Thought Fox". Hughes basically tells me how to read his poetry. It's very clever, but maybe a little more academic than I was expecting.

Hughes' fascination with animals came from his childhood experience. His older brother, ten years his senior, loved to hunt. Hughes acted as his older brother's retriever and this continued for something like twenty years. Hughes is also famous for his children's books.

Like many readers these days, I had fallen victim to the general decline in reading poetry for fun. (Except epic and didactic poetry such as Homer, Virgil, and Hesiod.)

This year I have read Frank O'Hara, Sir Walter Ralegh, T.S. Eliot, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, and I am now a convert. I also read Nietzsche's The Gay Science and I am currently reading Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, both works about poetry. It makes more sense to read poetry more than once, and with some study in between. (Hughes said this in his Paris Review interview, too.)

Had I not read up about Hughes, I would have been none the wiser. And I would certainly be missing out.

The icing on the cake was the name of the collection, Lupercal, is derived from an ancient Roman pastoral or fertility festival, Lupercalia, held annually on my birthday. This made more sense of the numerous classical references that had confused me in my first reading. (The birthday bit gave a surprising personal connection!)

Perhaps I am now a Ted Hughes fan.

View all my reviews