When it comes to computers, the natural inclination of most people is to stick with what they know. This makes plenty of sense, it takes a great deal of effort to learn a program. For these people, upgrading or changing can be painful or difficult; and when required, they raise an extremely valid point, “My current setup works for me. Why should I move to something new when it simply isn’t needed?”
I’m at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Somewhere in my demented little mind, I need to play with new programs. There’s a reason why I run all three major operating systems – Linux, Windows, and Mac – and why all of my computers have at least one Virtual Machine on them. I’m a software junkie.
For people like me, new operating systems are better than crack. Everything changes! Some of the more obsessive addicts will literally hunt through the most obscure file dialogs and windows just to figure out what’s different. While this is all somewhat humorous for well adjusted people who do not live in their parents basements, the typical geek takes such changes very seriously. “Add and Remove Programs is now called Programs! Gah!” People have demanded that Microsoft be boycotted for less. But while anything related to Microsoft is fertile rant country, I’d like to aim at another company which elicits some very strong feelings from its users: Apple.
On a summer day sometime in 2000, I was walking through a small street market with a friend. This little market was located in the thriving community of La Pintana, a suburb of Santiago, Chile. Open air markets are one thing that is uniquely Chilean and Santiago has several that are utterly charming in their extraordinary weirdness. You can find hand statues, hand carved from stone; beautiful bags knitted and woven from local sheep or alpaca hair; fine horse tack made by local artisans and miscellaneous knick-knacks which can only be justified as “cultural.”
This open-air market, however, was neither charming nor amazing. The atmosphere largely consisted of tin homes, cardboard hangouts, the normal array of Chilean gang-bangers (quaintly referred to as patos malos – literally: bad ducks), a few drug dealers, and more than a few passed-out drunks. And of course, the normal variety of cast off American refuse that is available for sale at such an event: lava lamps that were rejected from the USA sometime in 1980, when the US emerged from the collective nightmare known as the 1970s; pirated music, DVDs, software; and bootlegged porn.
Well … I’ve gone and done it. I got a nasty email. My somewhat thoughtful comments on Eragon and Inheritance have apparently scraped a few ragged nerves (not mine, thankfully). (Coincidentally, the mysterious letter writer fails to specify as a he, she or it; for sake of argument, let’s go with it.) After making various comments upon my person, upbringing and intellect; the writer comments (letter edited for spelling and grammar):
You’re just a bitter wannabe hack who’s angry and jealous that you don’t have the skill to write your own stories. It’s just a children’s book, can’t you cut it some slack?
Before going further, let’s clarify a few simple things. I am not a nice person. Bitter? Check. Angry? Double check and underline. Petty? Oh, yes. In fact, I have an utterly unique ability to alienate, put-off and offend. As my supervisors, family and co-workers have remarked; I am preternaturally gifted at pissing people off. But Jealous? Of Paolini? Hardly.
I wish Christopher Paolini nothing but happiness, wealth and phenomenal success. May he continue to sell well and single-handedly maintain his publishing company. For, in case you hadn’t heard, they haven’t been doing so well lately. After all, when I finally do get round to writing my own stories, I expect to be cut a six figure advancement check as well.
But that is neither here nor there, I would like to focus on and analyze the last bit of the writer’s comment, “It’s just a children’s book, can’t you cut it some slack?”
Why do adventures have to be so stinking inconvenient? Sure, they’re thrilling and certainly allow for interesting stories, but … by their nature, they’re disruptive and they make things difficult. While difficult things can be fun, more often they’re not. In fact, most of the time, difficult is short hand for hard, tedious, unpleasant and (if it involves anything outside) cold. For this reason, I was slightly annoyed to find that I (and a few of my prized possessions) spend most of Friday having an adventure.
I love the winter and I love the spring. What I do not love, however, is the period between the two. It is more than somewhat ironic that we are having a spate of warmer than normal temperatures out here in Rocky Mountain Country and the east is locked in a bitter cold spell. When it's cold, I can do things I enjoy. I like skiing and cold means good snow. I like horseback riding and there are few things more exhilarating than riding through a field of light dusty powder. When you get periods of warm mixed with cold (like our weather of late), however, you get two things I loathe and despise: mud and ice.
Ice ruins everything; it's slippery and dangerous and even worse, it melts! Do you know what melting ice and the questionable mixture of dirt, straw, sawdust and other "stuff" found at most barns forms? If the simple answer, mud, springs to mind; please re-think it. Mud doesn't come close to the reality. Mud brings to mind mud-pies and the days of childhood. Oh no, ice + barn dirt forms a vile sludge. Comparing normal mud to barn sludge is like comparing play-doh to the Blob.
Barn sludge is mud with the character still on. If life crawled out of a big steaming pot of goo, it's that type of mud. It has sawdust, masticated and gastriculated grass, and whatever else comes out of the business end of the horse. Barn sludge is the raw building environment of cellular natural selection. When dry, this mud can be used for buildings and braining people you don't care for. Then, there's the color. Given some of its unmentionable contents, it's a just off green and sometimes steams.
Oh ... and did I mention that because it gets cold that it also freezes? A truly perfect combination: ice frozen shit in the morning and mud in the afternoon. Its neither safe nor pleasant to ride in. So, while a warm spell is sometimes pleasant; give me cold weather in January anytime.
What would the world be like without Ann Coulter? While some might say, "a much sunnier and happy place," I am not so sure. Sure, Ann continually manages to rile people's feathers, and often comes off like a sociopath; but she also says things which are interesting or provocative every once and awhile. After all, she is an author and being provocative sells books. (Sounding like a sociopath also sells books, sorry to say.)
Book selling, however, isn't why I bring her up. A few days ago, Ann appeared on a popular daytime talk show called the View. I'm not really the View's target demographic, but I had a few minutes and caught it on YouTube. Watching Ann either pound or get pounded is usually entertaining. The next eight minutes were creepily familiar to far too many staff meetings, dinner barbeques, and family parties I have attended. In the clip, Ann beautifully plays the case of the asinine dimwit who has an idea and intends to be heard; no matter what!
This got me thinking about something I've had to do far too often: deal with stupid, duplicitous or extremely difficult people. Dealing with stupid isn't fun for anyone. It's often messy, and far too often it is more divisive and just downright nastier than it has to be. After viewing the video, i thought I would share some thoughts on how to manage stupid.
An economy that relies upon innovation to power it is a wonderful thing. As long as there are new ideas that can be brought to market, its ability to grow and expand is virtually limitless. There is, however, a downside. Continuous innovation is extremely difficult and can be tremendously expensive. Some numbers and estimates might highlight just how difficult. In 2004, the Harvard Business Review said that only 1 in 10 product introductions succeed in the marketplace. This, however, only represents product introductions. As anyone who has ever worked in Research and Development can tell you, a relatively small number of projects ever make it to the market. As a conservative estimate, let's say one in three. Taking these numbers, we can estimate that only 1 in 30 project ideas ever really gains success.
There are many and varied reasons to explain this phenomenon. The fickleness of the market is certainly one important reason and serious competition among other vendors is another. I would like to take a moment and examine a third: monumental stupidity and ignorance. Simply put, not all ideas are equal and many terrible ideas get more consideration than they merit. A poster child example appeared in the news last week: Microsoft's patent, number 20080319910.
Here is how Microsoft describes its vision, "Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience":
The scalable performance level components may include a processor, memory, … etc. Software and Services may include word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the tasks or task being performed.
The metering agents and elements allow an underwriter … to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage.
If you are trying to decide if you read the last paragraph correctly, the answer is yes. Microsoft has proposed metered computer usage. I am left more than somewhat speechless by the stupidity. How can an enormous company comprised of many intelligent individuals present a model and system that is out of touch?
Microsoft has successfully applied cell phone and utility logic to computers. This places them in such "honored" company as AT&T, Enron and Big Oil. What is even more shocking, though, is that the patent application recognizes that this particular idea may increase the overall cost of a computer over its life. I only speculate that the model has been proposed in an effort to capitalize on the evolution toward "Software as a Service."
This proposition It is only about thirty years past its time (rather fortunately). In 1978, such a rental model would have made good sense. Most computers were mainframes and hardware costs were a major limiting factor in the proliferation of widespread computer usage. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it's not 1978 anymore. In 2008, the downward spiral of hardware costs has commoditized computers. The limiting factor in today's market might be charitably described as "software costs." I think a more accurate description is corporate greed. I also marvel that Microsoft is failing to learn from experience. It has tried a similar idea in emerging (read third world) markets without any real success.
Thinking like this moves Microsoft (further) towards irrelevance. The computing landscape is stacked in the favor of consumers. For the first time in a decade, there are real alternatives to the computing giant and many of them are free (Linux). Any proposition that increases the overall cost of a computer should be dead on arrival. I fail to understand why Microsoft would actively weaken its position. Thoughts?
It's raining outside. Rain on Christmas isn't like snow on Christmas. Snow on Christmas is quiet and inspiring; rain on Christmas is just depressing. In addition to the rain, the house is currently in Christmas catharsis. The shouts and "revelry" that follows a multigenerational morning Christmas celebration have died down and the "merriment" that will accompany the extended family afternoon celebration has yet to start. Rain and quiet make it a good time to wrestle with some Deep Thoughts.
Anyone who has used the iPod touch or iPhone has probably marveled at its beautiful interface and sleek design. The first time that I held one, I realized that it wasn't a question of "if" I would buy one, but "when" I would have the money. That was nearly six months ago and the shine has finally worn off. There is no doubt that my iPod touch is best the media player I've ever owned; but as I mentioned previously, that was only one reason I bought the iPod.
As a frustrated user, I thought I would share how I have arrived at my current love/hate relationship with the iPod Touch. I absolutely love the way which it syncs media with my Mac. I adore its ability to be used as a Universal remote and … I have an incredibly healthy frustration for how it does most other things. While some of this is Apple's fault, a lot of it is not. An observant person might comment, "It's been this way for months. Why rant about it now?"
The simple answer to this question can be answered by an appeal to who I am. I'm an engineer. Engineers study systems and try and fix things. The simple process of study, design, and implement is where some of the very best software comes from. It meets needs, makes money, and helps to simplify life. Given this background I find the current state of affairs on the iPhone particularly frustrating. Moreover, I am not the only one. The iPhone developer community is starting to talk about the problems and how to solve them. There is just one problem, many of the potential solutions smack of simplicity and don't target the underlying illness. As a user, I thought I would write a bit of a manifesto. In particular, I would really like to have two core questions answered. First: Why is there a wider variety of useful software on other (older) devices? Second: After nearly two years on the market and six months of having an open SDK, why is the iPhone still striving to meet its potential?
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
- Albert Einstein
I had an epiphany today. It came early this afternoon when I was sitting and trying to do something easy. Like all easy things, it turned out to be monstrously difficult. There is, of course, a back-story so let me expound.
For the past several days, I have been trying to finish up my little download manager, and I've made a lot of progress. Then I got stuck. But I was stuck for a good reason: I was trying to make my program pretty.
I thought it would be cool to display an icon in the download table after a file download finishes. I mean, just a list of files with the times the download finished was boring. Shouldn't be hard at all. I'm not writing advanced image processing software, after all. There's just two steps: you retrieve the proper file icon from the file types and then you put it in a little box. It gives the world color and excitement, it might even restore a sense of wonder. Firefox does it, Safari does it; I mean … how hard could it possibly be?
Thinking these and other naïve thoughts, I turned to the great oracle of Google and wasted a ponderous amount of time. I searched for every logical combination of keywords I could think of (and quite of few that were not so logical). I even discovered that Google ignores expletives and other creative language (who would have thought?).
Google, Yahoo Search and even Windows Live Search all failed to find anything helpful (though Windows Live doesn't ignore colorful language). Following my second failure, I pulled out all the stops. I started reading the MSDN community boards. While most of the results were about as helpful as gangrene or tetanus; I did find this. And after an additional hour of searching through some of Google's more obscure search results, I found this little gem as well (on search page 118). I don't understand either example, but that is neither here nor there.
By this point, I was locked in an obsessive need to finish what I had started. So … I created a custom class to retrieve the file icon. It is 66 lines of code long and I have little idea of what it actually does. I resorted to a tried strategy: copy and paste followed by lookup of the compiler output. About half way through, I even got the computer to stop beeping. What's even more surprising, though, is that it worked. I was able to retrieve the icon for my file type. Never mind that the output is 32 x 32 pixels, about half the size I need.
But that isn't really important. What is important is that I finished my download manager … and after struggling with the Win32 APIs, it was a spoiled moment. Now back to my epiphany. This experience made me think of Einstein. He understood an essential truth: things should be simple, elegant and clean. 66 lines of code are not simple, elegant or clean. It is an absolute shame that simple requires so much work. No wonder the world overflows with caring and compassion.
Anyone who has used the iPod touch or iPhone has probably marveled at its beautiful interface and sleek design. The first time that I held one, I realized that it wasn't a question of "if" I would buy one, but "when" I would have the money. That was nearly six months ago and the shine has finally worn off. There is no doubt that my iPod touch is best the media player I've ever owned; but 
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