Continuing on our theme of internet corporations making me sad, it has come to my attention that the very thing which I lauded twitter and facebook for is about to stop working: at some point in the near future, Twitter will break the Twitter-to-Facebook integration that I rely on to keep entertaining my public. This is because Twitter has decided that they are no longer just a pilot fish in the great internet sea -- they are a destination that is important in and of itself, and therefore there's nothing to be gained by letting Twitter content leak out to other social platforms where someone else can monetize it. If you want The Twitter, you can come to The Twitter, and The Twitter will happily serve you ads along with the content you desire.
For those of us further up the product foodchain, though, the question becomes: now what?
There is a temptation to just simply shift the burden to the reader and force them to charge around to the various social media sites to pick up the pieces of my communications that they care to receive. This is by far the easiest for me, as it means I can just write what I want, when I want, and where it occurs to me, and my faithful readers will of course spring to action and visit all of these lovely sites.
Yeah.
A scenario made even more unlikely due to the fact that A) none of these services let information out in RSS format and B) since Google Reader is being retired, there isn't a decent RSS reader left to read these non-existent feeds anyways.
I'm still seeking social media nirvana, where I can post something and it is automatically disseminated across all the services I use. This will never happen, since Facebook and Google are sworn enemeis, and now Twitter flatters themselves that they can sit at the same table.
Let's briefly look at the competition:
Twitter: microblogging. Not suitable for complex thought, but it is pretty interactive. The advertising is pretty unobtrusive (and currently totally absent if you use a client like Tweetdeck, although rumor has it that Tweetdeck is also going to be binned).
Google Plus: Google just loves you for your data, your sweet sweet demographics data that lets them serve advertising somewhere to.. someone. No one is really sure.
Facebook: all the privacy-violating goodness of Google, except the someone they are serving ads to is you and your readers, and the ads themselves are hilariously bad. Oh, and the chance that there's an actual audience on Facebook is only about 500% higher.
Audience-wise: I think it is a toss up between Twitter and Facebook for numbers.
I've toyed with a number of ideas: there's a service which allegedly will post from one social media platform to another, all you have to do is give it your credentials for everything (ick). Or maybe just doing everything in Blogger (hey! a fourth platform!) and trying to find some like-on-Facebook, tweet-with-Twitter, and +1 buttons and just pushing all three myself when I post something here. That'll get the word out, and drive traffic back to me here. Of course that just turns this Blogger thing into a Tumblr (hey! a fifth service!), doesn't it, so maybe I should just go there and put the buttons on posts there?
I think I still have a tumblr... I wonder if I wrote down the access credentials anywhere.
Anyways this is all forcing me to make decisions, and everyone knows how much I love decisions. So nobody is holding their breath on this.
I'm sure there will be a general announcement if and when I decide what I'm doing.
2013-03-31
2013-03-27
A Defense Of Jargon
Rhett Allain calls for science to stop using three words: hypothesis, theory, and law. The crux of his argument for removing these words is because the common people think they know what those words mean, and the common conceptions of those meanings is inconsistent with science's use of them.
He's wrong -- and in fact, I think his arguments are potent when arguing for more jargon in science rather than less.
Mr. Allain's issues problems with modern language are as follows:
There's no context embedded in the word, so you have to waste more imprecise words to build a context around the word which conveys the meaning that you wish to convey. And in today's world of the five second soundbite, there's no time to build that context.
The legal profession is brutal in this respect, because the vast majority of the words and grammatical constructions that they use in their communications are identical to those found in common English The problem is that in the legal world those words and grammatical constructs have precise meanings without the ambiguity that common English has. But a legal commoner like me can read a legal document, understand all of the words, and come out at the end with a completely different meaning that a lawyer would.
The medical profession gets this right in a lot of ways, because they draw from latin words to describe precise parts of the body. There's no ambiguity about what "thyroid" means or what procedure a "phlebotomy" is. The words have single meanings in common use, which means they have their own context more or less embedded in them. And better: since this context is embedded in the words, it acts as a signal to the common user that there is specific knowledge required that they may or may not have.
There is a collision here, between the media-fueled short attention span, and the increasingly complex concepts in the wider world that can't be fit into shorter and short sound bites. Inevitably people will get left behind in certain areas -- I may be well versed in systems networking, but I am incapable of reading a legal document, or understanding in depths the medical subtleties that arise from specific treatment options. I am forced to accept my specializations and follow advice from lawyers and doctors, or put aside my expertise and begin studying these other areas on my own* .
I think that rather than trying to soft-pedal this complexity in the modern world, we need to be shoving it more up the noses of the uninformed, telling them that they should either educate themselves and participate as a proper member of the community, or get out of the way of those who are.
And bending language to being more precise by embedding context into soundbites is a good first step.
---
* : And I think this is the difference between accepting advice from a scientist, doctor, or lawyer, as compared to a spiritual leader. With time and effort, I could educate myself and become a scientist, doctor, or lawyer. That knowledge can be freely gained, all you need is time and effort. (Complaining that you don't have either of those does nothing to change this fact.) The problem with spiritual leadership is that there is no impartial mechanism you can use to come to same conclusions. You can't test the first principles for yourself.
He's wrong -- and in fact, I think his arguments are potent when arguing for more jargon in science rather than less.
Mr. Allain's issues problems with modern language are as follows:
- The real world is very complex
- There are only so many words
- Therefore, context is important; and implied context king.
There's no context embedded in the word, so you have to waste more imprecise words to build a context around the word which conveys the meaning that you wish to convey. And in today's world of the five second soundbite, there's no time to build that context.
The legal profession is brutal in this respect, because the vast majority of the words and grammatical constructions that they use in their communications are identical to those found in common English The problem is that in the legal world those words and grammatical constructs have precise meanings without the ambiguity that common English has. But a legal commoner like me can read a legal document, understand all of the words, and come out at the end with a completely different meaning that a lawyer would.
The medical profession gets this right in a lot of ways, because they draw from latin words to describe precise parts of the body. There's no ambiguity about what "thyroid" means or what procedure a "phlebotomy" is. The words have single meanings in common use, which means they have their own context more or less embedded in them. And better: since this context is embedded in the words, it acts as a signal to the common user that there is specific knowledge required that they may or may not have.
There is a collision here, between the media-fueled short attention span, and the increasingly complex concepts in the wider world that can't be fit into shorter and short sound bites. Inevitably people will get left behind in certain areas -- I may be well versed in systems networking, but I am incapable of reading a legal document, or understanding in depths the medical subtleties that arise from specific treatment options. I am forced to accept my specializations and follow advice from lawyers and doctors, or put aside my expertise and begin studying these other areas on my own
I think that rather than trying to soft-pedal this complexity in the modern world, we need to be shoving it more up the noses of the uninformed, telling them that they should either educate themselves and participate as a proper member of the community, or get out of the way of those who are.
And bending language to being more precise by embedding context into soundbites is a good first step.
---
2013-03-14
Why Does Google Want To Make Me Sad?
It is all over the interweb, but I might as well pile on while the pilin' is good, so to speak. Google has announced that Google Reader will be Spring Cleaned out in early summer 2013.
The thing of it is, this is how I do most of my reading of internet content. In the old days of 2005, I used to do the bookmark-folder-full-of-links thing* , then open them all up in the morning and drive through them through the day. This got tiresome, because some websites don't update more than once a year, and others update more than once an hour. So you ended up looking at a lot of stale web sites. And missing a lot of timely news.
RSS solves all of these problems:
It got to the point where I don't follow sites that don't do RSS. I might go back periodically, but not regularly. Google drives my direct-website traffic; my list of non-work-related bookmarks is less than a dozen.
Bookmarking is boring.
Let's face it: bookmarking is the internet forcing you to do work that can, and should be, done for you. And RSS and Google Reader together do that work, and give you an interface that is sync'd between your desktop and mobile devices.
This is how I do most of my internet reading on desktops:
...and here is what my iPad's Chrome looks like most of the time:
...heck, the start page for my iPad should speak volumes about what I use it for:
Google Reader has been the way I use the internet for years, changing now won't be easy.
Having to change to something because there's something better is one thing. You are in favor of the change because you are getting something better to you that compensates for the pain of transition.
But getting turfed out into the rain because some product or service you use is getting "Spring Cleaned"...
I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll probably wait a few months and see what the internet decides is a reasonable substitute. There's no point lurching into something new now, since most of the RSS readers use Google Reader as a back-end for collection and cross-device synchronization. It will be interesting to see how many of these survive.
One can hope that the hue and cry being raised around this will persuade Google to reconsider. Frankly I doubt they will. There's no revenue generation from Google Reader, so why would they?
So, in conclusion: Google is making me sad.
---
* This was documented at the time in my Wordpress blog, the one that I customized to the point that it was un-upgradable; and later it got hacked** . It might be amusing*** to dig up the relevant post out of that archive and put it up for posterity.
** Which also made me sad. But at least it wasn't Google making me sad.
*** It might also be tedious work to dig through all that XML, so don't hold your breath.
The thing of it is, this is how I do most of my reading of internet content. In the old days of 2005, I used to do the bookmark-folder-full-of-links thing
RSS solves all of these problems:
- If a site has an update, the update shows up at the top of the list.
- If a site doesn't have an update, it doesn't show up on the list at all. So if a site goes dormant for years, then suddenly starts producing content again, I get it right away, without having to check it for years on end with no joy.
It got to the point where I don't follow sites that don't do RSS. I might go back periodically, but not regularly. Google drives my direct-website traffic; my list of non-work-related bookmarks is less than a dozen.
Bookmarking is boring.
Let's face it: bookmarking is the internet forcing you to do work that can, and should be, done for you. And RSS and Google Reader together do that work, and give you an interface that is sync'd between your desktop and mobile devices.
This is how I do most of my internet reading on desktops:
...and here is what my iPad's Chrome looks like most of the time:
...heck, the start page for my iPad should speak volumes about what I use it for:
Google Reader has been the way I use the internet for years, changing now won't be easy.
Having to change to something because there's something better is one thing. You are in favor of the change because you are getting something better to you that compensates for the pain of transition.
But getting turfed out into the rain because some product or service you use is getting "Spring Cleaned"...
I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll probably wait a few months and see what the internet decides is a reasonable substitute. There's no point lurching into something new now, since most of the RSS readers use Google Reader as a back-end for collection and cross-device synchronization. It will be interesting to see how many of these survive.
One can hope that the hue and cry being raised around this will persuade Google to reconsider. Frankly I doubt they will. There's no revenue generation from Google Reader, so why would they?
So, in conclusion: Google is making me sad.
---
2013-02-18
iStuff Snapshot 2013
(This is hopelessly egocentric post which will probably be of no interest to anyone other than myself.)
LifeHacker wants to know how many apps are installed on your smartphone. This is the kind of thing that is interesting to look back on when it is in the past, so I though I'd capture a snapshot of my phone/iPad usage today.
In general my philosophy is to fight my urge to be a packrat. Although most apps are impulse-buy priced, I have been fairly ruthless about culling things I don't use. The reason for this is I can't stand the litter that comes with having piles upon piles of apps installed -- since there's no organizational standardization, the end user is left with the responsibility of imposing their own. I have never had more than three screens of apps, and even on the iPhone with its reduced real estate I currently only have two. Use of folders and the ruthless culling of unused apps has helped.
This philosophy is admittedly sort of on hold right now as I adapt to having the ipad in rotation. Eventually I'll go through the iPhone and eliminate those apps which are now only used on the iPad.
This is my iPad homescreen:
Wallpaper is "Autumn Fury", a preschool painting that Alex did years ago.
On the tray:
In Games:
In Productivity:
In Audio Video:
In Hockey:
Not in folders:
Most of my time is spent in Chrome, Mail, or Twitter. Most of my game-playing time is spent with Jetpack Joyride, although when I do play Bloons TD 5 I usually end up spending a lot of time with it. I'm frequently in Ascension because I have a bunch of games going, but they are usually quick in-and-out one-move operations.
Other than that, my usage for anything else is pretty thin. I don't like either hockey app -- the Senators app is inconsistent with game updates, but the CBC one only works in portrait mode (I actually have my iPad locked to landscape) and doesn't have the focus on Ottawa that I prefer.
It still annoys me that the Newstand can't be deleted or hidden in a folder.
This is what my iPhone looks like right now:
There's a lot more crap there because I used to use the phone as a general platform before I got the iPad. On the phone I spend most of my time with Mail, Gmail, Phone, and Twitter. Occasionally I use the GPS apps, but I'm not sure I've found one I liked yet. I don't game on it any more unless I'm desperately bored.
Right now the phone has 44 additional apps installed on it, and most of those can/should be removed.
Going through this should give me the encouragement to clean up a bit. Frankly if I decide I want anything back, downloading it from either the base PC or the App Store would be very easy.
LifeHacker wants to know how many apps are installed on your smartphone. This is the kind of thing that is interesting to look back on when it is in the past, so I though I'd capture a snapshot of my phone/iPad usage today.
In general my philosophy is to fight my urge to be a packrat. Although most apps are impulse-buy priced, I have been fairly ruthless about culling things I don't use. The reason for this is I can't stand the litter that comes with having piles upon piles of apps installed -- since there's no organizational standardization, the end user is left with the responsibility of imposing their own. I have never had more than three screens of apps, and even on the iPhone with its reduced real estate I currently only have two. Use of folders and the ruthless culling of unused apps has helped.
This philosophy is admittedly sort of on hold right now as I adapt to having the ipad in rotation. Eventually I'll go through the iPhone and eliminate those apps which are now only used on the iPad.
This is my iPad homescreen:
On the tray:
- Chrome
- Gmail
- Mail (for work-related mail)
In Games:
- Carcassone
- Zombie GS
- Ascension
- Jetpack Joyride
- Bloons TD 5 HD
- Shark Dash
- Ragdoll 3 HD Redline
In Productivity:
- SSH Term Pro
- Most of the iOS built-ins
- The rest of the iOS built-ins
- Find iPhone
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Blogger
- Safari
- Planets
- Write Room
- Google +
- Skype
- Google Earth
- Evernote
- GoodReader
In Audio Video:
- VLCStreamer
- TSA
- 360
In Hockey:
- CBC Hockey
- Senators
Not in folders:
- WeatherEye HD
- Living Earth
- Remote
Most of my time is spent in Chrome, Mail, or Twitter. Most of my game-playing time is spent with Jetpack Joyride, although when I do play Bloons TD 5 I usually end up spending a lot of time with it. I'm frequently in Ascension because I have a bunch of games going, but they are usually quick in-and-out one-move operations.
Other than that, my usage for anything else is pretty thin. I don't like either hockey app -- the Senators app is inconsistent with game updates, but the CBC one only works in portrait mode (I actually have my iPad locked to landscape) and doesn't have the focus on Ottawa that I prefer.
It still annoys me that the Newstand can't be deleted or hidden in a folder.
This is what my iPhone looks like right now:
There's a lot more crap there because I used to use the phone as a general platform before I got the iPad. On the phone I spend most of my time with Mail, Gmail, Phone, and Twitter. Occasionally I use the GPS apps, but I'm not sure I've found one I liked yet. I don't game on it any more unless I'm desperately bored.
Right now the phone has 44 additional apps installed on it, and most of those can/should be removed.
Going through this should give me the encouragement to clean up a bit. Frankly if I decide I want anything back, downloading it from either the base PC or the App Store would be very easy.
2013-02-09
Moar Internets
Just installed the new Rogers cable modem.
...not that I have a record of what it was before, but anyways. The main reason for this was the bandwidth cap -- the boys are living on the internet right now and the overages were awesome. This new plan doubles what we can use per month... which means we should be OK until the summer at least.
...not that I have a record of what it was before, but anyways. The main reason for this was the bandwidth cap -- the boys are living on the internet right now and the overages were awesome. This new plan doubles what we can use per month... which means we should be OK until the summer at least.
2013-02-02
Why I'd Consider A Blackberry For My Next Phone
So leafing through the Blackberry X hype, and I find myself considering that I would seriously consider a Blackberry for my next phone. Yes, I've only had this iPhone for 14 months and I may be stuck with it for another year and a half (but hopefully not -- hopefully only another half year) but it isn't ever too early to consider what I'd do if it was time.
Last time around the choice was pretty clear, and for the most part I have been happy with my Telus iPhone. It does apps, it does GPS, it does mail, it does internet, it does phone. There are problems, of course:
And really, it isn't so much that "Blackberry is now so good I'll get a phone of theirs", it is more a case of my usage pattern changing. What's really changed in my life is that I now have an iPad mini. So for my portable web browsing and app using and movie watching and game playing, I use that. The mini is great -- it even fits in the back pocket of most of my jeans, meaning I can carry it around the house with me when I'm on kid patrol. So frankly, running apps on the phone no longer is a huge issue. I would like some sort of GPS functionality -- and frankly I'm not really happy with the GPS apps I have for the iPhone, I miss the one I had on my previous Pearls -- so over all I'm not tied to the iOS platform as a phone platform.
The Blackberry mail experience was superior to that of the iPhone. The Blackberry phone experience was superior to that of the iPhone. And while I do listen to music on the phone occasionally, it isn't very often. So the fact that I have a bunch of music in iTunes is a bit of a hindrance, but not a huge one.
Put that together, and I just might go back to Blackberry the next time around, depending on what handsets are available at the time.
(It also occurs to me that since I'm no longer tied to iOS as a platform, the same logic could mean Windows Phone becomes a possibility too. But not Android -- frankly the negatives in the Android ecosystem have not been addressed yet, so Android phones are still not on the table.)
Last time around the choice was pretty clear, and for the most part I have been happy with my Telus iPhone. It does apps, it does GPS, it does mail, it does internet, it does phone. There are problems, of course:
- As a phone for coverage it sucks both in comparison with the Rogers Blackberry Pearl 9100 I had, as well as with the Telus Blackberry Bold 9700 my co-worker has. So it isn't the network, it is the phone.
- If you use the apps, the battery life is sharply reduced. So when I'm on call had have to have the phone, I can't play games or surf the web.
And really, it isn't so much that "Blackberry is now so good I'll get a phone of theirs", it is more a case of my usage pattern changing. What's really changed in my life is that I now have an iPad mini. So for my portable web browsing and app using and movie watching and game playing, I use that. The mini is great -- it even fits in the back pocket of most of my jeans, meaning I can carry it around the house with me when I'm on kid patrol. So frankly, running apps on the phone no longer is a huge issue. I would like some sort of GPS functionality -- and frankly I'm not really happy with the GPS apps I have for the iPhone, I miss the one I had on my previous Pearls -- so over all I'm not tied to the iOS platform as a phone platform.
The Blackberry mail experience was superior to that of the iPhone. The Blackberry phone experience was superior to that of the iPhone. And while I do listen to music on the phone occasionally, it isn't very often. So the fact that I have a bunch of music in iTunes is a bit of a hindrance, but not a huge one.
Put that together, and I just might go back to Blackberry the next time around, depending on what handsets are available at the time.
(It also occurs to me that since I'm no longer tied to iOS as a platform, the same logic could mean Windows Phone becomes a possibility too. But not Android -- frankly the negatives in the Android ecosystem have not been addressed yet, so Android phones are still not on the table.)
2013-01-30
Private Notebooks
One of the blogs in my RSS feeds spat up an article on making better use of your time. The author went through and discussed some of the things he's done to make his workflow better and to eliminate some of the time sinks that inevitably creep into a daily routine.
While I'm onboard with some ideas (a couple of years ago I dropped almost all my mailinglists in favor of RSS feeds) and disagree with others (RSS feeds are for collecting -- gotta get 'em all!) what I want to talk about today is the idea of Evernote.
I've glanced at OneNote a couple of times but never seemed to really get what it wanted me to do and what it could do for me. I've also looked at Evernote a couple of times with more diligence -- mostly because of the web-based service and being synchronized/accessible by iOS devices, of which I have a couple now. And today, triggered by the article above, I downloaded and installed Evernote.
Having done that I think I "get" what Evernote wants me to do, and what it will do for me. It is very cool -- the recognizing text out of images is neat, and upgrading to Premium might be worth it only for making all my vendor PDFs searchable from one place. But I'm still not sure I want to buy into it, and today I figured out why.
Evernote, and I presume OneNote, is a really well-done Wiki program. It is easy to get data in, easy to organize and find data, easy to store and easy to access. Evernote is a brilliant success at this.
The problem is: it is private by default.
Not just organization-private, but individual-private. By default, what goes into it isn't viewable by arbitrary people.
Which for a lot of applications, is great! You don't want your private business, your secret sauce, just out there for anyone to take and copy. This is the value you add.
Like the joker says, if you're good at something, never do it for free.
But for what I want, generally, I want public-by-default. A lot of the problems I see and fight with and solve professionally have proprietary details, but the underlying logic of how to line the hoops up to jump through to get the result I want -- that's general. And usually I solve it with some hints from the Internet, usually from other people's blogs and wikis showing what they learned when they did what I'm trying to do.
And therefore I feel a duty to give back to the Internet. Thus, the public wiki, where I put out what I've learned. There are some articles which I am proud of up there. (Some others, not so much.) And very occasionally I get an email from someone saying "thanks!" (or "you are wrong/incomplete, here's why"). But the hit counts on some articles keep going up. I'm doing my part to make the Internet include answers, not just questions.
Now that I've wrestled that revelation out of myself, I'm going to try Evernote for a while to see if it will fit in my workflow. I'll probably even up for the Premium for a year -- I've spent more than $50 on worse things.
While I'm onboard with some ideas (a couple of years ago I dropped almost all my mailinglists in favor of RSS feeds) and disagree with others (RSS feeds are for collecting -- gotta get 'em all!) what I want to talk about today is the idea of Evernote.
I was a OneNote fan for a long time. I still am. However, I switched to Linux two years back, and then moved to a Mac a few months ago. The switch to Linux required a virtual machine to keep OneNote around, but that was a little cumbersome. Then moving to a Mac, I wanted to integrate into that OS more. Thus, I switched to EverNote (Yay cross-platform!). Doubly helpful is their cloud storage of notebooks that I can see and use on many other devices.
I've glanced at OneNote a couple of times but never seemed to really get what it wanted me to do and what it could do for me. I've also looked at Evernote a couple of times with more diligence -- mostly because of the web-based service and being synchronized/accessible by iOS devices, of which I have a couple now. And today, triggered by the article above, I downloaded and installed Evernote.
Having done that I think I "get" what Evernote wants me to do, and what it will do for me. It is very cool -- the recognizing text out of images is neat, and upgrading to Premium might be worth it only for making all my vendor PDFs searchable from one place. But I'm still not sure I want to buy into it, and today I figured out why.
Evernote, and I presume OneNote, is a really well-done Wiki program. It is easy to get data in, easy to organize and find data, easy to store and easy to access. Evernote is a brilliant success at this.
The problem is: it is private by default.
Not just organization-private, but individual-private. By default, what goes into it isn't viewable by arbitrary people.
Which for a lot of applications, is great! You don't want your private business, your secret sauce, just out there for anyone to take and copy. This is the value you add.
Like the joker says, if you're good at something, never do it for free.
But for what I want, generally, I want public-by-default. A lot of the problems I see and fight with and solve professionally have proprietary details, but the underlying logic of how to line the hoops up to jump through to get the result I want -- that's general. And usually I solve it with some hints from the Internet, usually from other people's blogs and wikis showing what they learned when they did what I'm trying to do.
And therefore I feel a duty to give back to the Internet. Thus, the public wiki, where I put out what I've learned. There are some articles which I am proud of up there. (Some others, not so much.) And very occasionally I get an email from someone saying "thanks!" (or "you are wrong/incomplete, here's why"). But the hit counts on some articles keep going up. I'm doing my part to make the Internet include answers, not just questions.
Now that I've wrestled that revelation out of myself, I'm going to try Evernote for a while to see if it will fit in my workflow. I'll probably even up for the Premium for a year -- I've spent more than $50 on worse things.
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