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June 1, 2017
Remembering Marshall McLuhan – Hot Media; Cool Media
Please know that we have absolutely no plans or no intention to make Ranch & Country Magazine into a digital-only publication. We publish a digital version online along with each print issue. But print is really what we do.
Still, one can’t help but notice the trend toward digital. Some of our millennial friends do not even know how to write a check. All their banking needs are managed digitally. Information about anything and everything can be accessed online. Libraries have all but vanished. All the daily news is just a few keystrokes away. Airline tickets – why fiddle with paper; it’s all on your phone. And your phone buys you that Starbucks coffee to drink while you wait for the plane.
In the 1960’s, a philosopher and pop culture guru named Marshall McLuhan famously wrote “the medium is the message.” By this he implied that whatever form of technology is used to deliver information actually becomes a part of the information. For example if a hot news story comes out and a person reads it in the newspaper, McLuhan claims that the newspaper vehicle is part of the reader’s experience of the story.
In this regard, he went on to distinguish between “hot media” and “cool media.” He defined hot media as film, movies, and print, like magazines and newspapers. He defined “cool media” as television and anything that is digitized. So in this day and age cool media would include the computers and ipads and phones that we use all day all the time.
Hot media, reasoned McLuhan, provides the opportunity for complete involvement on the part of the viewer, without effort, without the viewer having to do anything. Cool media on the other hand requires something of the viewer – cool media is actually made up of pixels, and on some level, albeit well below the conscious level, the viewer is required to do something, ie to put the pixels together into a meaningful configuration.
When I first learned of McLuhan during my college years, I thought there might be something to his views. I knew my experience of going to the movies was quite different from watching t.v. Some years later, McLuhan (who died in 1980) flashed through my mind as I purchased my first digital camera. Not long after that all cameras were digital.
Clearly we are moving along a continuum toward what McLuhan called “cool media.” We still go to movies, but we watch more and more of them on t.v. cable service or through Netflix and Amazon. We spend hours looking at our phones and computers. Our lives are dominated by a visual barrage of pixels.
Here at Ranch & Country Headquarters, we notice that we are getting more and more “digital subscribers.” They are perfectly satisfied to view Ranch & Country Magazine online. They say, “We don’t want the hard copy – save a tree.” But then, we have many other subscribers who say, “I don’t even look at the digital. I want my hard copy. That’s the only way to go.”
So here’s a challenge for you if you’re reading this in print: Go to www.RanchAndCountryMag.com and click the link for “See our Summer Issue.” The digital version will open. Flip through, and then compare your experience with flipping through this print version.
August 2016
The first issue of Ranch & Country Magazine was published in August of 1995. The years have come and gone in a flash, and here we are – celebrating our 21st Anniversary. It’s been a great ride so far – and there is much more to come!
Looking back to that first issue, we were struck by the many changes that have taken place since then. But we were also struck, actually surprised, by how much has remained the same.
For one thing, we still have some of the same advertisers! (Thank YOU!!) And we still continue to feature an artist on the cover of each issue, one who specializes in subject matters reflecting the good in country living. We still publish in the tabloid-sized (larger sized) full color format. We still use our wonderful logo, which is centered around a silhouette image of “Leo” (Leopardo III.) Leonardo III was a gorgeous Andalusian stallion owned at that time by Evelyn Westmoreland of the Santa Ynez Valley.
And even though internet use and websites were not yet commonplace, we actually had a website of sorts (thanks to our savvy graphics artist at that time, Mike Taylor.) Our internet address was http://www.magicwindows.com/~mwinfo/ranchandcountry/ . I pasted this address in my browser and got “save big on new windows” home improvements. Too bad – I would love to have seen what that old site looked like but it must be lost in cyber-space. A couple of years later we registered our domain www.RanchAndCountry.com. Then in 2004 we completely redesigned the website, making it into a search database resource for all types of rural real estate.
As for what has changed, most of these changes relate to the explosion in technological advances over the last 21 years. For example, when we started out, people who advertised with us typically mailed in print photos, which we sent our press company who then scanned and color corrected them. Now, we receive digital photos or digital print files and everything is done quickly and seamlessly by email.
The technology used to print Ranch & Country has advanced as well. And we publish not only a print version but also a digital version of the entire magazine file. The digital version is published on a hosting website that gives it opportunity for hundreds of thousands of views.
Still, nothing beats flipping through the print copy. We often get requests for copies of older issues; unfortunately we don’t have a stash of extras of prior print issues. But we have some customers who tell us they are still holding on to issues that were printed back in the 1990’s.
Some things just never change, and it’s a good thing.
We have now been publishing Ranch & Country Magazine for 20 years! As we celebrate this special anniversary, we look back on how it all began….
When we began publishing, we were responding to a trend that was just emerging — younger professional people were leaving the city, relocating to rural communities, and embracing the values of country life. These values included clean air, fresh wholesome food, peace and quiet, enjoyment and appreciation of the great outdoors, and a love for growing things and for animals – with dogs and horses at the top of many lists (and not necessarily in that order!)
The trend was made possible by the emergence of the internet and the “virtual office.” By mid 1995, personal computers had become house-hold items and conducting business online was fast becoming the norm. Many people realized their profession would allow them to live anywhere and still be successful in their business. The grueling commute under smog-filled skies, with the whir of traffic noise, honking horns, and sirens – these things were gladly relegated to the past.
The trend continued into the new century. Ranch & Country Magazine was (and is) distributed in urban areas and many regular readers referred to it as their “dream book.” Family after family found a way to get out of the city and move to the country. Internet connections grew faster, and technology continued to advance. Amazon found ways to deliver to even the most remote corners (sadly putting some retailers out of business.) But for the troops heading to the country it simply meant that there was nothing out of reach.
In 2008, the Great Recession began. Although the US housing market was the trigger, financial hardships reached into every area and across the globe. Every part of the country felt the squeeze – both rural and urban. But urban areas took the hardest hit, with widespread poverty, crime, and decay. Yet many people who wanted to get out of the city suddenly couldn’t afford to make the move. Saddled with large mortgages that had turned upside down, coupled with wide-spread layoffs, many people just hunkered down with whatever circumstances they found themselves in and rode it out as best they could.
However, a new trend began to emerge, called “off the grid.” This trend was all about having a piece of land where folks could grow their own food, and generate their own power through renewal means such as wind or solar. Housing needs were scaled back, which in turn led to the birth of the “tiny house” – a fully contained home on wheels — with power, water and even sewage addressed in full without requiring the “hook-ups” needed for mobile home living.
It has been 7 years since the Great Recession set in, and in the face of all the proffered doom and gloom rhetoric, signs indicate that most people are better off than they were in the depth of the Great Recession. However, a giant gulf between the “have’s” and the “have not’s” has widened, and inner city crime and terrorism is at an all time high. The “heading for the country” trend seems to have a new wind in its sail – that being a desire to get out of the city because that’s where terrorists have their targets.
So where are we now as 2015 draws to a close, and 2016 opens before us? I believe that many of us look ahead to the year to come with unfaltering optimism. After all, that is truly the spirit of who we are — those who dare to dream, and who are willing to put their bodies on the line to fulfill those dreams.
Many of these dreams include a commitment that has appeared in every issue of Ranch & Country Magazine since the onset (see inside front cover): “Ranch & Country Magazine is committed to a lifestyle – one that lives in harmony with the land and with all forms of life that make up the natural world, one that sees the earth as a place of peace and seeks peace in all situations, one that appreciates freedom of movement in the open country, the opportunity to breathe clean air and slow down and listen to the stars, one that recognizes what is precious and beautiful in all life, and one that contributes to the greater good by valuing even the least of these – knowing full well the common chord that binds us all.”
With this in mind, we look forward to 20 years from now when we celebrate our 40th anniversary.
Everyone seems to be moving to the cloud these days. So here at Ranch & Country Magazine we have decided to join the crowd. As part of this move, the digital version of our Fall 2014 Quarterly Issue is on the cloud in a new way. (Take a look: www.RanchAndCountryMag.com)
But what exactly is the cloud? Those of us who came of age in the ‘60’s know that Judy Collins concluded, after looking at clouds from both sides, that she really didn’t know clouds at all. Her song may have heralded one of the biggest phenomena of the 21st century – cloud based computing.
Back in the old days (the early 1990’s) when a large number of people began buying desktop personal computers, the focus was the hard drive. We bought software and installed it on computer’s hard drive. With the software we created files and saved them on the hard drive. We knew where our files were physically, and where the software program was that created the files. The cloud is rapidly changing this approach to computing, replacing the hard drive’s role with software applications that are accessed online and files that are saved by uploading them, to somewhere in the cloud….
Actually, the cloud began through the internet. Early internet websites displayed content that was from somewhere other than the viewer’s hard drive. The internet itself, was, and is a cloud. As the internet became more popular, a new feature known as web 2.0 allowed visitors to certain websites to interact with the website. By creating a user name and password, a person could upload things to a website – photos, comments, etc. The interaction between user and storage/service provider was the beginning of cloud computing. This led to the introduction of large cloud platforms for both data storage and applications, and the massive genre of social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc.
Most of us use the cloud every day. But few have an answer for where the cloud is. For example, Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, which provides cloud services for not only the world’s largest online retailer but also for Netflix, Instagram, Pinterest, and various other large enterprises, has server storage locations in Virginia, California, Oregon, Sau Paulo, Ireland, Singapore, Toyko, Beijing, and Sydney. And as for what the cloud is, it is something somewhere in the ephemeral link between data and application through which we can, almost as if by magic, access things that we want to access. Once again to echo Judy Collins, I really don’t know the cloud at all.
When we began publishing Ranch & Country Magazine in 1995, our first in-house computer was a Mac with 500 megabytes of hard drive storage. Our magazine print files were stored on an external hard drive, affectionately named “Dark Wing.” But today, we are adjusting to the reality of cloud dominance. For example, the software we use to create our magazine files, Adobe Creative Suite, is gradually phasing out availability of the software in a box, in favor of a cloud based program, Adobe Creative Cloud, accessed by subscription.
www.RanchAndCountry.com was launched in 1996. It was a static display of our logo and an image or two with text descriptions about the magazine. There was no interactivity platform for our customers. But it was a start.
In 2004 www.RanchAndCountry.com was re-designed using a web 2.0 platform that allows our customers to interact with the site, to upload photos and information about their listings into an internet-based search database, thereby enabling visitors to the site to search for and view the properties. We were officially on the cloud well before the phrase “on the cloud” had gone mainstream.
However, Ranch & Country Magazine has always been a separate entity. With its graphical flair and tabloid size, it is and has always been meant to be printed, to be picked up and held and read as a hard copy. For a number of years we have been posting a print file of each issue of the magazine on the website so that our viewers could view the magazine online. In that regard, Ranch & Country Magazine has been on the cloud for some time because it has been on the internet, but only as a print file (PDF)
However, beginning with the Fall 2014 Quarterly issue, the digital version has a new format. Go to www.RanchAndCountryMag.com, click on the cover, and you’re off to the cloud! If you like the new look, please let us know. Email RanchAndCountry@gmail.com. And by the way, if you’re reading this on the cloud, sending us an email is only a click away!
December 1, 2013
In 2009, Bitcoin made its debut online, a virtual currency initially priced at $.30 in US dollars. Apparently the time was ripe for an internationally available, anonymous, non-governmentally regulated or manipulated currency, because on November 27, 2013, the value of one Bitcoin crossed $1000 in US dollars! Pretty amazing – a virtual currency, something that cannot be touched or felt or smelled, or even widely used to buy anything, soars 1000% in value in just a few short years!
The Bitcoin system was created by an anonymous source with the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoins are “found” online when a “miner” solves complex mathematical algorithms with 64-digit solutions, causing Bitcoins to be deposited into the miner’s account. Every Bitcoin account is an anonymous internet address with 27-34 letters and numbers. However, the Bitcoin world is not restricted to mathematical geniuses. Ordinary investors can purchase Bitcoin through various websites and currency exchange sites.
The supply of Bitcoins is finite. The system is designed so that the maximum number of Bitcoins that can be mathematically found is 21 million. At this time, well over 11 million Bitcoins have been mined and put into circulation. In this regard, the Bitcoin monetary system has addressed the supply side of the centuries-old principle of “supply and demand.” On the demand side, however, it’s a puzzle.
Uses for Bitcoin are quite limited. Bitcoins are not widely accepted for purchases, not yet anyway. A few online services accept Bitcoin. The University of Nicosia in Cyprus accepts Bitcoin for tuition. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, recently announced that his $250,000 space flight offering can be purchased with Bitcoin. Unlike fees charged in credit card transactions, Bitcoin transactions have minimal fees. Bitcoin also functions as a financial service and can be used to transfer large sums of money internationally at low cost. In August of 2013 Germany’s government recognized virtual money as real currency. And in November 2013, a US Senate committee concluded that Bitcoin is a legitimate financial instrument.
Everyone wants to possess valuable assets. Yet what value really is can be a philosophical question. Limited supply is not enough to create value. The rare jewel is only of value because people have agreed to assess value to it. That it is a rare jewel in limited supply is only one side of the equation. The other side is that people want to possess it – demand.
On the demand side, value has both intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Intrinsic value, or “true value” is the inherent value, the usability of the asset. Oil has intrinsic value – it can be used to run machines and produce energy and facilitate travel and mobility. Land has intrinsic value – it provides a home-site, and can yield food and water, and support livestock. Even gold has some intrinsic value in that it can be used in manufacturing.
On the other hand, extrinsic value, simply put, is just whatever people will pay for an asset over and above its intrinsic value. Extrinsic value is “value that is not in and of itself but as a means to something else.” Currencies only have extrinsic value; they have no intrinsic value in and of themselves. They have usefulness in that they can be exchanged for goods and services but only because governments or large groups of people assign this exchange value to them. One key difference between intrinsic and extrinsic value: intrinsic value cannot go to zero but extrinsic value can go to zero – theoretically.
Extrinsic value plays a significant role in determining price for most assets. If assets were priced on intrinsic value alone, land would be worth only whatever crops it could generate or whatever livestock it could support. Gold would be worth less than copper. Oil would be priced at present energy needs and not some future value. Dollars, and other currencies – including Bitcoins – would be worth – nothing.
If a Bitcoin is priced at $1000 today and there are 21 million Bitcoins in the system, then the entire Bitcoin monetary system is only priced at 21 billion dollars. The US government has been “printing” 85 billion dollars a month! For Bitcoin to become a widely distributed, widely used currency competitive with other currencies, price will have to appreciate significantly beyond $1000.
In short, the value of Bitcoin could go tremendously higher. Or the whims of public support could shift and its value could go to zero. Not that it will. In fact Bitcoin may represent the future of world- wide monetary practice and financial exchange. If nothing else, it is a fascinating experiment. But right now at this stage of the game, if I were given the choice between Bitcoin or land, I’d take the land.
December 1, 2012
Debt or Go Away Closer – Take 2
We first published the blog note,“Debt or Go Away Closer” in December 2010, when the Greek debt crisis seemed to have peeked. Yet two years later, Greece is still drowning in debt and nothing more than patch work has been done that “kicks the can” and prolongs the agony.
In the United States, the debt situation is quite different from the situation in Greece. The U.S. also has a lot of debt but the U.S. can “print money.” This reduces the value of the dollar but also reduces the value of debt that is in dollars. “Printing money,”or what is popularly known as “quantitative easing” (QE) is actually a procedure that involves the federal reserve buying debt, thereby putting more liquidity into the system. The fed buys the national debt through buying treasuries. The fed can also buy mortgage backed securities.
With “printing money” the debt becomes less onerous. On the face of it, this would appear to be a no-brainer solution to the problem of excessive debt, but not so fast – there is a down-side to “printing money”:
By increasing the volume of money in the system, “printing money” actually causes money to become less and less valuable. Savings accounts become worth less and less over time. Fixed income becomes worth less and less. In turn, basic goods and services cost more and more, because the money used to buy them has become worth less and less. Eventually, as a result of “printing money” all commodities will theoretically rise in value including food, supplies, oil and gas, gold, and – real estate! But these rising costs, also known as “inflation,” could backfire and cause demand for goods and services to contract.
If we really look at debt for what it is, debt is simply a means of distributing goods and services to greater numbers of people. It may not be the best means and certainly is not a utopian means but it is a means. If a car or a home or even a big screen HDTV could only be purchased for cash, imagine how few people would have these things? Without debt, travel, education and recreation would be much less readily available for the average American. While admittedly the debt system is the greatest instrument of global oppression, at the same time the debt system has served to broaden and expand the human experience.
The debt system works as long as demand for consumption continually expands. But when the demand for goods and services contracts, which in turn causes production to be cut back, prices to be reduced, and employment and associated wages curtailed, the debt system implodes on itself. And when the debt system implodes, we are in a financial crisis. The financial crisis that began in 2008 was a debt crisis.
The kicker is that money itself is actually debt. Every dollar is actually a promise to pay. And to pay with what? With another promise that is greater in size because the new promise includes the interest owed on the first promise. The debt system can’t exist in equilibrium. It incorporates the inherent requirement, not only that consumption of goods and services increases ad infinitum, but also that the supply of money increases accordingly. Until… until… ???
Solutions to over-extended debt are not easy to come by. “Printing money” may backfire and actually reduce demand if it causes costs of goods and services to rise too much. “Austerity,” the remedy frequently proposed in Europe, entails spending cuts that contract the economy resulting in less and less demand. This will not solve a debt crisis that can only be solved by increased demand.
In 2010, we concluded the following and today it still rings true, “There is really only one solution to global debt issues, and there is a term for it. Some would say it is a religious term and it may be that. But I think this is a term for what the human experience in this world is really all about, a term for something that solves a lot of problems and sets a lot of things straight. It is “forgiveness”and it is long past due.”
Many analysts say the real estate market in the U.S. has healed and that we’re heading “up” from here. Each short sale or foreclosure along the way has been a form of debt forgiveness. And yet the banks are still making loans. The debt system hasn’t imploded just because of a little forgiveness. Go ahead and write down the Greek debt, and don’t worry, the bond holders will be back for another round.
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