What Eliot Spitzer’s Apology Should Have Said

< Note: This is filed under “satire” – I’ve realized I need to come right out and say this >

If I were Eliot, I would have told my wife, “listen honey, I really love you and I’m sorry I screwed the hooker. We’ll have some counseling, rent some porn, buy expensive lube, and get the kink happening again. In the meantime, I REALLY need you to come stand beside me as I apologize and try to explain myself to the public.”

Knowing people would want an explanation, I’d would have walked out to the podium holding her hand.

Then I would have stepped up to the mic, turned to my wife and said, “Exhibit A. Look at her…I mean, can you blame me for wanting a hot, 22 year old? Need I say more?”

Technology: Your Work Becomes a Document

In 1996, having recently completed a fermentation program in Davis (CA), I moved to San Francisco to brew beer.

Everyday, I put on rubber boots, gloves, and a protective, industrial version of a farmer’s overalls.   The work I did with my colleagues ended up in either kegs or bottles.  Packaging beer is an explosive, messy process.  Bottles would break, sending glass and beer around the room.  Kegs became geysers.

But at the end of the day, our work had physical presence.  We would move the cases and kegs into a truck, knowing that within days and weeks, our work would be in the bellies of people all over California.

But in the digital world, I feel like everything I do ends up in a document.

Additionally, my work sometimes seems shaped by the constraints of the document.

Powerpoint? Ok, I’ll create slides to create an emotional impact (making sure not to just put up bullet points with no images).

Excel?  Ok, I’ll show the relationship between everything.

Word? Not a problem – we’ll create a table of content and you’ll see what a great writer I am.

I wonder what my work would become if I didn’t have to design its embodiment by reverse engineering from the document options.