To Mac or not to Mac

Lately, I have gone back to the eternal debacle, should I aim for  Mac?  would it be worth loosing all my investment on the PC?The fanboy in me, of course, jumps out a yells ‘you can run windows on a Mac you idiot!’ I quietly reply ‘yes, but at what cost?’  and that is one of the main issues I have at the moment.  Imacs are very nice indeed, but to get the power I have managed to build on my PC, I need one of those top of the line Macs.  After carefully building a ‘match’ on the Apple site, I would be £2,356.99 the poorer for a machine that in some instances has lesser specs than mine.  With that much money I could build a monster on the PC platform (I have not added the cost of virtualization software to this nor the cost of several native apps I would want as to harvest the benefits of having a Mac)  So, there you have it….it is money that stops me switching, nothing else.  I refuse to pay a premium for a pretty case, no matter how devilishly well done it is. I want a work machine, not a Prada bag.  But, the envy continues and I think it comes down to one thing; most programmers writing software for Vista are programmers, not designers.  True, I have seen plenty of nice applications for Vista that make you want to keep them running on your desktop just so you can look at them (a situation common in the Mac platform).  People like Thirteen23 (http://tinyurl.com/athb6f) make absolutely great apps, problem is, they all lack some basic functionality.  I never managed to install their Flickr app (it just refused to connect) and their Twitter app is great, but it does not minimize to the tray, so it just sits there occupying real state on the main task bar.  Again, that is the problem, lack of attention to detail, we, on the PC side, seem to have an inherently bad habit of either building like it is going to be used on an oil rig (rugged) or forgetting the basic tenants of usability.  It reminds me of good old Soviet design, functional yet clunky and ugly.  The simple approach of making not only visually appealing but simple enough that it takes little to use is almost non-existent on the PC side.  Maybe most PC programmers tend to be pimple ridden, front-pocket-full-of-pens, WoW players who spend more time in their second life account than in the real world while many Mac programmers, just by their platform of choice, have shown a certain appreciation for elegance, form and style.  Maybe because the only thing the PC guys have to compete against is Microsoft’s own software, often badly designed and ugly while the Mac crowd has to compete with iLife, Aperture, Final Cut and so many other very well designed applications.  I don’t know, but it has taken Microsoft several years to achieve in Messenger the same simplicity that they themselves achieved in the Mac version, why that is, heaven knows.  I will continue with the hate/envy game I guess, there is no escape, but at least it is clear to me that you let the architect design and the engineer make sure it works, not the engineer design and build.

Is taking a photograph a crime?

It appears that recently, the police has taken to stop people who take pictures of ‘streets and buildings’, specially if you have a ‘professional looking’ DSLR. I have little to say other than ‘try and stop me’ there are laws that protect the individual and in Britain, recently, these laws are being eroded under the convenient excuse of ‘anti terrorism’. The met office has even launched a campaign warning people against photographers!
http://www.met.police.uk/campaigns/campaign_ct_2008.htm

Take a look at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm

and this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyaslarry/2420960125/

Also, if you feel outraged or just feel like defending your civil liberties, sign the No. 10 petition below:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/photographylaw/#detail

ancient museums?

Lately I have taken to visit the British Museum quite frequently. I do like its seemingly structured yet truly chaotic organization. Although the museum has a flair for the good old days when British explorers were raiding treasures across the globe and Howard Carter was dashingly innerving Lord Carnarvon and opening Tutankhamen’s tomb, it also has an enormous failing; it has not evolved much from those days. Being quite familiar with the collection (specially the Egyptian wing) I just recently realized that there is no story being told at the museum, no walk through the ages in an chronological fashion, no clear sense of what is what and when what happened. Things are just thrown together without involving the viewer much. Yes, it is quite democratic, you can touch many of the objects (not what the guards would say, but you can, they would not even notice) but does that really make up for the confusing maze in which all the collections live? I don’t think so. I have been visiting the museum for at least ten years now, and I still get lost. I feel as if the BM is more a leisure walk amongst mementos of times gone by than an actual sojourn through history in any meaningful way.

One obvious failing is the lack of technology in use at the BM. Many museums across the world are embracing new technologies that allows them, in a cost effective and safe manner, to show more of their actual collection than the museum space allows them to. I understand that there is more treasures hidden in the vaults of the BM than we will ever see. Take for example the National Palace Museum of Taiwan (http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/home.htm) not only is the building arranged in a way that tells a story as you go through it, but it also does it in an inspiring way. Their new building on the south of the Island will use amazing technology to immerse the visitor in the history of what they see. The BM fails at this, I guess it fails at the most basic; it fails to teach as you go through. Yes, there are miniscule cards attached to most exhibits, telling you a bit about what you see, but there is no relation between it and the rest of the collection, no perspective across time. Actually, that is the phrase I am looking for; perspective through time. What are you supposed to feel after leaving the BM building? that you just went through one of the most expensive and ancient garage sales collections in history? that you just visited the biggest ‘grandma’s attic’ in recent memory? or that you somehow feel a connection to a time period, a moment in history, maybe not too dissimilar to yours? I would hope for the last one.

Looking at its web page, poor in comparison to most museums and making a feeble attempt at ‘teaching’ online when it fails to do it real time, we can see why it seems to be behind the times. While the British Library has embraced digital technology and has opened up, for example, Shakespeare’s folios online, the BM offers nothing. No 3D samples of objects, no timelines, no cohesive ‘paths’ to take when visiting (maybe based on historical themes, or playing on the connection game, a sort of history’s 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon game, could be done) it offers none of these, it only gives you a magnificent collection propped about and scattered, impaled by its inability to speak. We are not anymore a Victorian society obsessed with collecting and cataloguing, we want to know. History by itself has no meaning, only when linked thorough its humanity can it make sense. Only when the temporal nature of the object comes to terms with the nobility of its survival and the meaning it has in the larger span of human life can we learn from it, otherwise it is no different to an auction.

In Memoriam

In honour of a great man, he will be missed.

From CNN: ‘THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old.’

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/02/05/obit.yogi.ap/index.html

Huckabee, Obama have huge night in Iowa – Shit! (at least the Huckabee part)

One wakes up to the most amazing news sometimes, this one sent shivers down my spine. Although Obama appears to be a nice chap, I am not sure of his potential competence as a head of state; there is some green behind the ears that worries me. He seems honest and humble enough and all that, but so did Carter, and he failed miserably as a president. But, just because he may be the Democratic candidate, I don’t necessarily reach for my backpack and nuclear winter supplies and begin to search for an old abandoned underground shelter somewhere in the world. As for Huckabee (the bloody last name alone gives me the creeps, I keep thinking of Huckleberry Hound), that has me reaching for my backpack. The idea that any group of people consider this man candidate quality astounds me and what’s more, the idea that US citizens may elect him has me looking about for the brain suckers that seem to be ravaging that lovely nation.This man, a former pastor of some denomination or other (a religious figure of any kind has NO place running for president of a country, Talebans can occur under any religion) has the most awkward social views anyone can think of. From likening his weight loss to surviving the holocaust to proposing that any doctor that performs an abortion (at any stage of the pregnancy under any reason) should be prosecuted for criminal acts under the law. Stating that HIV and AIDS patients should be isolated from society and so should gay people for that matter. The list goes on, and his views make George Bush sound like a liberal, a mindless one, but a liberal nonetheless. Why would anyone in America, after seeing what 8 years of uber conservative and pseudo-religious presidency can do to a country (did anyone check the standing of the US globally, or the Dollar for that matter?) would want more of the same, in a jumbo size? I am sure there are thousands of thousands of thousands of serious minded, INTELLIGENT, able people in the US that will not allow someone as this man to even step two blocks from the White House, I mean, we are talking about the American Hugo Chavez here! c’mon! How can anyone in the world respect the US if they keep electing Bozo the clown to office perpetually, are we going to change the Star Spangled Banner to that music they play at circuses when the clowns come in? (Always heard that in my mind whenever Bush comes up on TV)I think the greatest danger the US and the world (as the US likes to ‘get involved’ in world affairs so much) is that the US citizens actually think these people should be president, they betray their own cherished founders who clearly devised a separation of church and state (that also means a separation of religious views and the act of running the country) for the benefit of future generations, who now seem to happily smear the constitution with the grease of Twinkies and MacDonald’s while idly standing on a corner thumping the bible and regurgitating verses while financing a champagne lifestyle and building crappy little churches that will go the way of the PTL, the 700 club, Jimmy Swaggart et al.I’ll keep my backpack ready, just in case.

Cheating on Vista; using an iMac for xmas.

I must admit it; I have used a Mac for the last 12 days. By the happy coincidence of a trip back home and a sister in the design business, I have found myself happily tapping those little square keys (anyone remember Adam’s chiclets?) all in a neat, tidy row, in the new Imac keyboard (the wired one). With 20″ of screen real state and a fairly decent processor speed (2 GHZ Core2Duo with 1gig of memory) I found myself discovering the supposed joys of mac usage.

Firstly, excited about the possibilities, I plugged in my SD card adapter, so I could see some of the pictures I had taken, using the world famous Iphoto. I slowly moved my hand to the back of the screen while eying the USB port, felt the port and inserted the cable…. BANG! the screen swivels and I get hit on the chin. A couple of swears later and I am ready to roll, although the screen is in such state I have to use the handy, stylish, I-would-pay-Apple-for-this-little-rag, black cloth that came with the computer to clean the shiny surface of the screen; it works, although no cloth came to get rid of the thousand and one reflections the screen throws back at me.

After I have managed to tilt the screen to an optimal angle of view, I proceeded to open iPhoto and ‘view’ the images on the SD card. In my excitement, and by mistake, I click the ‘eject’ icon next to the SD card and the fun begins. OSx decided that what I did was a bad move, so the little twirling circle (pretty colours! the people at Apple are so stylish! must be one of those hundreds of new features in Leopard) continues to twirl and twirl in a nauseating eternity while rendering every other open programme useless. As a last resort, I click on the Apple icon on the taskbar….nothing…I do the funny, I-need-twenty- fingers’- hand-to-do-this, keystroke combination….nothing…nothin..oh! wait…it rolls down slowly…slowly, and I click on forcequit. Once done, I try again….it tells me the card is corrupt (two PC laptops see it ok and an old G4 the same) then it opens Iphoto, to stoically show me how big of heart OSx is, even with a corrupt card, it will show me the pictures. The only problem is that it doesn’t , it stays twirling, twirling…and I ritually kiss the keyboard with my twenty fingers hand……

Once recovered, and having given up on the pictures idea, I run Safari (not as bad as people said) as well as a PDF (in preview, great little feature). Suddenly, a link opens up in another window and I want to find it, unfortunately, unless you minimize the application to the dock , the dock does not show inactive windows of the same app, you have to use expose, a rather convoluted way, it would have been easier to use the new stack feature and automatically create an icon of a running app once more than one instance or windows are open, and stack it (‘a la windows task bar, believe it or not’ I say as I dock from the knives and other projectiles thrown at me by the Mac fanbase), sometimes elegance is just a fancy label for laziness or a form over function case. So, I now find my other window and begin to look for the mouse, the lovely supermouse that comes with this Mac seems to have an urgency to slide to he top of the screen at the least movement, or to disappear off to a coffee shop when the Mac goes to sleep, and regret being called back to work once awake.

All in all, I find that I can do almost anything I did before, it makes little difference if it is a Mac or a PC. I find the whole compact idea a great one, and the machine, although lean on the graphics powerhouse , able to handle many of the stuff I throw at it. I grappled with the fact that my wireless connection is turned off when the Mac goes to sleep, to come back but not necessarily find the network, or again insist on a password or key I already entered and requested be remembered, I switch to a cable instead.

I decide to try the little white remote that came with the Mac. A quick tapping of white, smooth buttons (these people think of every detail) and I find myself in front of Front Row, a pale imitation of Windows Media Centre (at this point I have turned my phone off after so many threats from Fanboys), it looks nice (that does not mean it is a good application or that it does the job well) but it can only show videos from Itunes and those in my videos folders or the shared folder, it has no option to search for videos, to explore other folders or to ‘watch’ media folders, it’s either Apple’s way or nothing. The music area only reads the Itunes folder (a bit arrogant to assume that people will only use Itunes on a Mac) and the photo area only works with the Iphoto files and the shared folder. I understand the idea of a seamless working environment, but to me, this becomes propietary, it appears Mr Jobs decided that you can only make a great computer by limiting its usage to the one he envisions. I’d like to see if Front Row recognizes other playlists and other folders, how well it cooperates with other entities. I am sure there is an SDK for it…how open is it…? time will tell.

I must admit the idea of switching has crossed my mind, iMacs are quick, well made and elegant, but instead of seeing it as a move upwards to join the sophisticated club of the uber intelligent and style aware people who would not be caught dead or drunk using a Windows or Linux machine, I see it as giving up my right to choose, my God given right to run what I want and use it with whatever I want. I feel as if I would be selling out to a great idea but whose price is to adjust my needs and usage to those that one single, egotistically infirm individual thinks is best for me, in other words, to switch would be to decide that instead of participating in the future by choosing what software and solutions stay and are better (by purchasing them, using them and recommending them above others) I will be passing that task to Mr. Jobs to do on my behalf. That, I am not ready to do just yet.

Paul Harvey Compares Women & Children Dead In Afghanistan To 911 Hijackers

What’s happening to the US?  Is this the new mentality or just a case where the idiots of the country happen to have the most access to the media?  The thing is that  this man claims he reaches over 1200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations that broadcast around the world and 300 newspapers.  Maybe idiots run the media outlets as well.  Who the hell listens to crap like this? Maybe this goes to prove there are alien abductions, most of his readers probably now have the brain of a slug implanted in them (I am sure the aliens found it easy, plenty of space up there to put the implant and in many cases, nothing at all to substitute)read more | digg story

Bill Maher Psychologically Analyzes President Bush

Bill Maher does it again, why is Bush certifiably ‘crazy’?

Pure goodness, go on, call me a liberal…

read more | digg story

Management and leadership

I am sure many people wonder why on earth certain individuals are in a position to manage others when they can barely manage themselves from minute to minute. What makes organizations think that certain idiots can actually be deemed apt to hold power? We could argue that many assholes have been leaders in the past, who could call Genghis Kahn or Hitler a nice guy? who could say the Borgias were a well rounded family? yet you have to admire the guts it takes to lead, for good or for evil. These people had the ability to lead, to infuse in otherwise uncaring people, a passion,an aim, a purpose. Most of the people I refer to are a despicable and rather sorry excuse for a professional, nice as they may be as a next door neighbour. How many of us have been ‘managed’ or supposedly led by people who in any other situation would not amount to more than a low ranking, inefficient filing clerk? Don’t these organizations realize that the loss of money these people can cause is huge? that the amount of liability these people bring to the workplace would make insurance for the Titanic pocket change? That morale and feel good in the workplace is as valuable as profits, for none will come if the morale of the office ranks in par with that of the Nigerian Space programme. Sometimes it feels like these so called managers resemble blindfolded fools hitting an invisible piñata. The only think they actually hit is those around them, so everyone walks about crouching and with their hands over their kidneys, holding the pain and protecting themselves from the next blow. You find staff running around so busy covering their bosses’ mistakes, upward managing them and making such and effort not to blurt out laughing at their supine stupidity that they have little time left to do their job. I say, these companies deserve to fail, they should get their comeuppance, in those instances, sadly, schadenfreude becomes a natural response, maybe, just maybe, these companies subscribe to the theory that if you take a monkey and a typewriter, in a room and given enough time….

The Social network effect

or why every crappy photographer is good

I have been a Pro user of Flickr for over a year now, I have enjoyed sharing my pictures with others and have meet very talented people on the way. I have also noticed a bizarre social phenomena, probably a side effect of the Web 2 explosion and the social network experience. Flickr has amazing photographers, people such as Lomokev, Cantikfotos, 10thAvenue, Eddie Law, thepinkangel, Parc Cruz, and the holy of holies; Stuck in Customs (there are more, but you would get bored, wouldn’t you?) But Flickr also has bad photographers and by bad I mean people who take pictures because they have a camera,not because they want to share a view of the world. Many times I have gone to people’s pages because I liked one of their pictures, to find that 99% of them are, well, horrendous! that is not a problem, you’d say, people are expressing themselves, you’d counter, yes, yes, they are, but what worries me is that below the horrendously badly taken picture of a chair against a window, or a boat they saw while on holidays, or whatever, is a plethora of comments,mainly because they submitted the picture to a group, ecstatically exulting the beauty of the picture.

’8 out of 10′, ‘you are my golden picture of the day’, the praise never stops. You find comments such as ‘great composition’ despite the fact that the image is crooked, it’s overexposed, blurry and simply awful. What posses these people to do that? what makes people who otherwise have made intelligent, tasteful choices to suddenly praise a good example of a bad photo? I think I have an idea, I think it is their ego, a desperate need to appear in as many places as possible, the hope of being seen as an ‘authority’.

This is the malady created by the social network revolution; anything goes. Normal people, who would otherwise reserve their opinions for more tasteful things suddenly get a feverous need to opiniate; social contribution devoid of substance. I see this in MySpace as well, the aim is to have as many contacts as possible, to get the ranking, not to ‘network’, to share, exchange and consolidate what they are within a larger social group, but to mindlessly assimilate others for the benefit of the self. I know that there are people who actually make good use of MySpace and Flickr, I have found many old friends via MySpace and meet great photographers via Flickr, but the large selling point of sites such as MySpace thrives on the ranking, mindless mingling. Take a look at some people’s MySpace page, their contacts list goes on ad nauseam and most of those there don’t give a flipping hoot about what the others are doing, it is just cool to have many friends. Which makes me wonder, what is the purpose? is this the new definition of friends? is our youth growing up with the idea that being somebody is being acknowledge by as many people as possible?

I appreciate the artists in MySpace, sharing their music, hoping enough people will like it as to further their careers, that’s a good use of time and space. I worry about the psychological repercussions of kids developing a social concept out of these sites (not Flickr, that was just my opening example) it perpetuates the ‘high school’ syndrome of ‘being popular’. We Digg, we post to del.icio.us, we share in Flickr, we obsessively check our ranking in MySpace, is that the new society? the new social model for the 21st Century? to be seen, to be counted, not because we have something to contribute, but because it makes us important?

Maybe next time we are about to invite someone in MySpace we think twice about why; their looks, the number of friends, how cool their friends are? And maybe, before we go lyrical on a mediocre picture on Flickr, we think twice and write a constructive message on how to improve it instead of giving it ‘the golden ribbon’ or ‘my number one choice’ badge, your worth is not in the number of friends in your list or the number of silly photo groups you belong to (and I am so guilty of that one!) its about the quality of what you choose to identify with.