***SARCASM AHEAD***
Okay, so, I was originally staunchly opposed to SOPA from hearing about how it could give copyright holders the power to force Internet providers to block access to websites with infringing content without due process. I use a lot of knowledge and information in my attempts to sound smart, so I tend to like the free distribution of knowledge and information. One thing leads to another and you end up with a Josh who really wants to keep SOPA and PIPA from passing.
Then, Wikipedia went down in protest of SOPA. And Twitter exploded. But it didn't explode in the fun way (where it looks all cool from far away and then candy starts raining down on everyone). No. It exploded in one of the most flagrant demonstrations of collective human stupidity ever.
If you're too tired to click the link (I understand. You had a rough night), it is the Twitter feed of somebody who, for the whole of January 18, simply retweeted people's snippets of outrage, confusion, hopelessness, and despair over the fact that Wikipedia -- which seems to have been the only source of information these people had -- was down. Some of them had no idea why it was down. Some of them had no idea for how long it would be down. Some of them thought it was down because of a law that Congress had already passed. And some of them thought this law that was already passed was for the express purpose of taking down Wikipedia. I can only assume that these people are from a parallel universe where absolutely no thoughts can be expressed in more than 140 or 160 characters (depending on whether you're on Twitter or your cell phone), because Wikipedia's homepage curtly answered all of these questions. I theorize this, because "history" is the last word you will read in the first 140 characters of that page.
The most depressing fact of this all is that Herpderpedia only chronicled 400 tweets. I haven't scoured the list for repeat offenders, but assuming there aren't any, then this is just the voice of 400 Twitter users. Imagine how many more there were on Twitter who went unheard, or how many there were who don't have Twitter accounts.
The existence of Herpderpedia proves that we are a nation with no shortage of complete idiots. And yet, we have so many people who seem to be unable to find work, who are reportedly overqualified for menial tasks, and who go to school, wrongfully passing their classes by wide margins because of a broken school system that lets them believe they've succeeded at something, when they haven't done the slightest amount of actual work.
So I will posit this here: Maybe we're better off without Wikipedia. Sure, it settles countless arguments about who wrote what and when and under the influence of which mistress/substance, but it also takes the legwork out of it. Nobody is going to synthesize their own theories about, say, Brave New World if the most compelling arguments on it are handed out to anyone with wi-fi. We learn the most when we have to pay attention to what it is we're seeing, and apparently Wikipedia is leading (or contributing, is the more likely case) to a system where people cease to tangentially absorb information and instead zero in on the facts that are presumed the most pertinent.
And in this sort of society, I think it's safe to say that nobody is truly learning anything. So why treat them like they are? Does anybody remember what we did with people who didn't learn things, back in the days before the Internet? We had them repair our cars. We bought our hamburgers from them. They were the ones who grew crops. And it worked!
So yeah, censoring the Internet may sound like a really scary thing to us, because we're smart enough to know that the Internet has a lot of meaningful uses, but if breaking down the Internet has the side effect of scraping all of this out of my educated workforce, I think it just might be doing something right.
Saturday, January 28
Monday, January 16
How Microsoft could increase WP7 market share
I got an iPhone 4S shortly after it released in October, and I have been incredibly happy with it thus far. It loads applications in a jiffy, I can take calls on it without incident or hassle, it hasn't experienced a kernel panic ever, and all around it responds in a fluid and timely manner to my commands. This all sounds like it belongs in the realm of the utterly mundane, but you should understand, I had a Motorola Droid before this. That entails a lot of things, so let me simplify my gripes as quickly as I can: take everything I said about my iPhone and use an extreme opposite for my old Droid.
But although things are wonderful and easy-going in my new Apple-centric mobile life, in the past few months I was exposed to an HTML5 demo of Windows Phone 7's operating system, and since then I've experienced an overflow of OS envy.
If you're on a smartphone, try the demo for yourself (note that it doesn't work nearly as well on Android devices as on other hardware). If not, take my word that the amount of polish and utility shown off in WP7 is staggering, especially when you consider that this is the same company that brought us Windows Millennium Edition, Vista, and Windows Mobile 6. The concept of the People Hub alone is so magnificent that I'm astonished that this kind of social aggregation hasn't been done before. Really, if our phone is meant to connect us, then why force compartmentalization onto our interactions with people?
The problem, though, is that despite the amazing potential Windows Phone 7 has to redefine our notion of the mobile OS, it is caught in the awful position of being a very late follow-up to the most maligned and stagnant operating system in phone history. It also comes into the game years after iOS and Android, meaning that it's facing an uphill battle of numbers, both in terms of users exposed to its charms, and in the number of devices on sale from the opposing forces.
Microsoft knows this, and that's why they made the web-based demo I linked to up above. The problem is, I checked out the demo on my brand new iPhone, and I'm willing to bet that plenty of other people looked at it on their new iDevice, or their RAZR or Galaxy S. They're already on board with someone else, so what good is this web demo to them?
Let's go back in my own life to the summer of 2007. I was just starting my sophomore year of college, the original iPhone hadn't been out for even a year, I was carrying a plastic, clamshell Samsung device -- which didn't even have unlimited texting -- in my pocket, and the only time I could do anything on the Internet was when I was in front of an archaic device known as a "personal computer". Then Apple came out with the iPod Touch, described by pundits as an "iPhone without the phone". I got one, and within the month it completely changed my life. Suddenly, I had a fully-fledged gateway to the world wide web in the palm of my hand; less cumbersome than my Nintendo DS, and having far more real world applications. It was the perfect companion to my Samsung phone: Now, I had a device that was, for all purposes, my personal data assistant.
It was years from that point until I finally got a smartphone in my Droid, but even after getting the Droid my iPod Touch was a staple of my pockets. Having the ability to use an iOS device for the things that were either too cumbersome or simply impossible on my Droid was too useful to give up.
And now that I see the strength of Windows Phone 7 I'm left asking: why isn't there anything like the iPod Touch, but running the Windows Phone 7 operating system? The iPod Touch is integral to the success of iOS in the mobile ecosystem because it gives Apple access to a market segment that Android and Blackberry don't even touch: non-smartphone owners. I have one coworker and multiple friends who still own either the most basic of cell phones, or a feature phone, because of any number of reasons. Maybe a data plan is too expensive, maybe they like how their current phone works just fine, maybe they're overwhelmed by how quickly new smartphones are released, or maybe don't want to be locked into a multi-year contract. Whatever the reason, they have opted not to get a new phone, and that means they stand almost no chance of being exposed to the Android or Blackberry ecosystem.
But what's this? A device that doesn't come with a contract? It uses wi-fi to access the Internet? It's smaller than my wallet, and I can play games and check Facebook on it? It has a built in camera for photos and video? I can carry all of my music with me? And it's only $200? With far less commitment on the user's end, Apple has just sold another iOS device, and the user can keep everything they love about their old phone.
Windows Phone 7 has just as much opportunity to get new users, and it needs new users. I'm willing to bet that there's plenty of demand for a new device running Mango (aka Windows Phone 7.5) as a direct competitor to the iPod Touch. Heck, I'd be one of the first in line for it, as long as it ran on these few guidelines:
Thanks for reading!
But although things are wonderful and easy-going in my new Apple-centric mobile life, in the past few months I was exposed to an HTML5 demo of Windows Phone 7's operating system, and since then I've experienced an overflow of OS envy.
If you're on a smartphone, try the demo for yourself (note that it doesn't work nearly as well on Android devices as on other hardware). If not, take my word that the amount of polish and utility shown off in WP7 is staggering, especially when you consider that this is the same company that brought us Windows Millennium Edition, Vista, and Windows Mobile 6. The concept of the People Hub alone is so magnificent that I'm astonished that this kind of social aggregation hasn't been done before. Really, if our phone is meant to connect us, then why force compartmentalization onto our interactions with people?
The problem, though, is that despite the amazing potential Windows Phone 7 has to redefine our notion of the mobile OS, it is caught in the awful position of being a very late follow-up to the most maligned and stagnant operating system in phone history. It also comes into the game years after iOS and Android, meaning that it's facing an uphill battle of numbers, both in terms of users exposed to its charms, and in the number of devices on sale from the opposing forces.
Microsoft knows this, and that's why they made the web-based demo I linked to up above. The problem is, I checked out the demo on my brand new iPhone, and I'm willing to bet that plenty of other people looked at it on their new iDevice, or their RAZR or Galaxy S. They're already on board with someone else, so what good is this web demo to them?
Let's go back in my own life to the summer of 2007. I was just starting my sophomore year of college, the original iPhone hadn't been out for even a year, I was carrying a plastic, clamshell Samsung device -- which didn't even have unlimited texting -- in my pocket, and the only time I could do anything on the Internet was when I was in front of an archaic device known as a "personal computer". Then Apple came out with the iPod Touch, described by pundits as an "iPhone without the phone". I got one, and within the month it completely changed my life. Suddenly, I had a fully-fledged gateway to the world wide web in the palm of my hand; less cumbersome than my Nintendo DS, and having far more real world applications. It was the perfect companion to my Samsung phone: Now, I had a device that was, for all purposes, my personal data assistant.
It was years from that point until I finally got a smartphone in my Droid, but even after getting the Droid my iPod Touch was a staple of my pockets. Having the ability to use an iOS device for the things that were either too cumbersome or simply impossible on my Droid was too useful to give up.
And now that I see the strength of Windows Phone 7 I'm left asking: why isn't there anything like the iPod Touch, but running the Windows Phone 7 operating system? The iPod Touch is integral to the success of iOS in the mobile ecosystem because it gives Apple access to a market segment that Android and Blackberry don't even touch: non-smartphone owners. I have one coworker and multiple friends who still own either the most basic of cell phones, or a feature phone, because of any number of reasons. Maybe a data plan is too expensive, maybe they like how their current phone works just fine, maybe they're overwhelmed by how quickly new smartphones are released, or maybe don't want to be locked into a multi-year contract. Whatever the reason, they have opted not to get a new phone, and that means they stand almost no chance of being exposed to the Android or Blackberry ecosystem.
But what's this? A device that doesn't come with a contract? It uses wi-fi to access the Internet? It's smaller than my wallet, and I can play games and check Facebook on it? It has a built in camera for photos and video? I can carry all of my music with me? And it's only $200? With far less commitment on the user's end, Apple has just sold another iOS device, and the user can keep everything they love about their old phone.
Windows Phone 7 has just as much opportunity to get new users, and it needs new users. I'm willing to bet that there's plenty of demand for a new device running Mango (aka Windows Phone 7.5) as a direct competitor to the iPod Touch. Heck, I'd be one of the first in line for it, as long as it ran on these few guidelines:
- It needs to run the shiniest new version of Windows Phone 7 and be eligible for the exact same updates as any other phone released in the time frame. If the non-phone device isn't a gateway through which users can look and say, "Wow, this must be even better on phones", Microsoft will lose any upselling power it might get from this class of device.
- It has to be cheaper than the iPod Touch. Sell it at a nice, digestible price point like $150. Even if this number results in a net loss on hardware sales, increasing the user base will directly increase the number of sales made in the app marketplace, which will lead to more developer interest, which will lead to more apps, which will lead to even more user interest.
- It has to integrate into the user's environment. If the device is complicated to set up, then it won't do well. It should be as easy as possible for users to get content between their device and their computer, be it through iTunes, Zune, Windows Media Player, Winamp, or whatever else they use. Windows Phone 7 is all about simplicity and interconnectedness; if that philosophy isn't maintained throughout the entire experience, then it might as well not exist.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, January 11
Tuesday, January 3
Social networks and sociability
At the end of last year, I made a crucial decision for my own mental health and left Facebook. The general atmosphere toward me within Lincoln was slanderous, threatening, and exclusionary, and my continued presence on the social network resulted in my feeling ironically detached, unwelcome, and downright unloved.
Since my profile still has relevant contact information on my info page, though, I decided not to delete my profile and instead just scramble my password and delete all saved instances of it from the computers I had previously logged in on. I haven't received any text messages or IMs from any Facebook friends yet, but I figure that if it's really important that they get in touch with me, they'll make the effort. If they don't try to get in touch, well, then it obviously shouldn't concern me.
Obviously, I miss some of the interactions I had on the site, but I do have to admit that my life has felt a lot more serene since abandoning it. And, as it turns out, I'm not the only person to discover that Facebook has a negative impact on mood. Daniel Gulati of Huffington Post wrote an article outlining some of the ways in which prolonged activity on Facebook reduces the perceived meaningfulness of our days. In addition to driving us from close relationships to online correspondence, Gulati notes that Facebook is a place where people spend more time writing about their achievements and milestones than their shortcomings. He writes, "Accomplishments like, 'Hey, I just got promoted!' or 'Take a look at my new sports car' trump sharing the intricacies of our daily commute or a life-shattering divorce." Some people react to such announcements by feeling a need to one-up the accomplishment, creating an environment of competition and self-evaluation that has users comparing their successes to the success of others. So really, anyone who has Bill Gates as a friend on Facebook is entirely setting themselves up for disappointment.
Additionally, Facebook takes us out of the "now" of our own lives so that we can read about everything that's happening with our friends. "My interviewees regularly accessed Facebook from the office," Gulati writes, "at home through their iPads and while out shopping on their smartphones." When people do this, they're less engaged with the tasks they ought to be focused on, which leads to less efficiency, less awareness of their surroundings, and a lower sense of accomplishment on finished tasks.
Granted, not a whole lot of the depressors in Gulati's article apply to the scenario that had me leave Facebook, but it is a small comfort to know that there are legitimate other dangers to spending your life on the Internet. Who knows? Maybe a few of my other Facebook friends will realize this and abandon their own profiles in favor of conversation over a nice lunch.
"Facebook Is Making Us Miserable", Daniel Gulati - Huffington Post
Since my profile still has relevant contact information on my info page, though, I decided not to delete my profile and instead just scramble my password and delete all saved instances of it from the computers I had previously logged in on. I haven't received any text messages or IMs from any Facebook friends yet, but I figure that if it's really important that they get in touch with me, they'll make the effort. If they don't try to get in touch, well, then it obviously shouldn't concern me.
Obviously, I miss some of the interactions I had on the site, but I do have to admit that my life has felt a lot more serene since abandoning it. And, as it turns out, I'm not the only person to discover that Facebook has a negative impact on mood. Daniel Gulati of Huffington Post wrote an article outlining some of the ways in which prolonged activity on Facebook reduces the perceived meaningfulness of our days. In addition to driving us from close relationships to online correspondence, Gulati notes that Facebook is a place where people spend more time writing about their achievements and milestones than their shortcomings. He writes, "Accomplishments like, 'Hey, I just got promoted!' or 'Take a look at my new sports car' trump sharing the intricacies of our daily commute or a life-shattering divorce." Some people react to such announcements by feeling a need to one-up the accomplishment, creating an environment of competition and self-evaluation that has users comparing their successes to the success of others. So really, anyone who has Bill Gates as a friend on Facebook is entirely setting themselves up for disappointment.
Additionally, Facebook takes us out of the "now" of our own lives so that we can read about everything that's happening with our friends. "My interviewees regularly accessed Facebook from the office," Gulati writes, "at home through their iPads and while out shopping on their smartphones." When people do this, they're less engaged with the tasks they ought to be focused on, which leads to less efficiency, less awareness of their surroundings, and a lower sense of accomplishment on finished tasks.
Granted, not a whole lot of the depressors in Gulati's article apply to the scenario that had me leave Facebook, but it is a small comfort to know that there are legitimate other dangers to spending your life on the Internet. Who knows? Maybe a few of my other Facebook friends will realize this and abandon their own profiles in favor of conversation over a nice lunch.
"Facebook Is Making Us Miserable", Daniel Gulati - Huffington Post
Monday, January 2
Auld Lang Syne, indeed.
I was acquainting myself with the Blogger iOS app earlier today when I tapped on the last post I had written for this blog. Now I know that doing this immediately puts that post into a "draft" state and will likely avoid doing it again for... at least six hours. But as I loaded that post, I got a glimpse of where I stood almost an entire year ago, and I realized something: 2011 was, through and through, the worst year of my life.
The problems I wrote about a year ago all remained almost entirely stagnant for months, and beyond them, more problems arose. In the past year I was prescribed antidepressants, lost my best friend over a very stupid argument, fought and lost against an enormous wave of malice and cruelty from people I truly cared about, struggled against feelings of isolation and despair, gained twenty pounds and a very unflattering gut, contemplated suicide on several occasions, and told just about all of this to a therapist with whom I meet two to three times a month. The worst of it is the hatred... I haven't cried so much since elementary school, and just like back then, it's not a single event that I'm crying about; I'm crying because there are people in my life who actually want me to be in pain, people who might be reading this right now and smiling about their accomplishment.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I regarded my life with futility at least once a week this last year. But then, I'm still standing, and I have to credit the new friends I made in 2011 for seeing me through the difficult times. David, Nick, and Clint all stood by me, even when I would reiterate all of the problems I'd already told them about ad nauseam. We started bowling together, we hang out all the time, and I can count on their company to make me smile even in the darkest of places.
And now it's 2012. I've got a job that's on my career path, my student loans are consolidated, I'm teaching myself how to program iPhone apps, and my resolution is to publish something on the app store.
A few days ago, somebody called me an optimist, which really struck me, especially because on New Year's Eve, Nick asked me to think of a positive memory from my childhood, and I just shrugged, because I couldn't come up with anything. I have incredible hope for the future, and a good amount of hope for the year to come. I suppose I'm an optimist of the future, and a pessimist of the past. But in fairness, the past is done with. Dwelling on it too much can make you wish for things you can't get back.
Should old acquaintance be forgot. Here's to tomorrow.
The problems I wrote about a year ago all remained almost entirely stagnant for months, and beyond them, more problems arose. In the past year I was prescribed antidepressants, lost my best friend over a very stupid argument, fought and lost against an enormous wave of malice and cruelty from people I truly cared about, struggled against feelings of isolation and despair, gained twenty pounds and a very unflattering gut, contemplated suicide on several occasions, and told just about all of this to a therapist with whom I meet two to three times a month. The worst of it is the hatred... I haven't cried so much since elementary school, and just like back then, it's not a single event that I'm crying about; I'm crying because there are people in my life who actually want me to be in pain, people who might be reading this right now and smiling about their accomplishment.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I regarded my life with futility at least once a week this last year. But then, I'm still standing, and I have to credit the new friends I made in 2011 for seeing me through the difficult times. David, Nick, and Clint all stood by me, even when I would reiterate all of the problems I'd already told them about ad nauseam. We started bowling together, we hang out all the time, and I can count on their company to make me smile even in the darkest of places.
And now it's 2012. I've got a job that's on my career path, my student loans are consolidated, I'm teaching myself how to program iPhone apps, and my resolution is to publish something on the app store.
A few days ago, somebody called me an optimist, which really struck me, especially because on New Year's Eve, Nick asked me to think of a positive memory from my childhood, and I just shrugged, because I couldn't come up with anything. I have incredible hope for the future, and a good amount of hope for the year to come. I suppose I'm an optimist of the future, and a pessimist of the past. But in fairness, the past is done with. Dwelling on it too much can make you wish for things you can't get back.
Should old acquaintance be forgot. Here's to tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)