lifeslacker
she said my life’s a bore
Facebook Places a plague, Internet sighs.
Aug 24th
Alright Facebook, you’ve done it again. Like we weren’t already fed up with the invasive ‘implicit consent’ services you offer, this time everyone has to know where exactly I am doing my laundry, unless I spend 20 minutes of my life reading tutorials on how to opt out of the whole shebang.
For those who have been living under a rock, Facebook is that company whose services might be just about useful if they weren’t that horrible. This is to say, it’s fine to share things with friends and one can put up with a little advertising for the sake of financial support. Then the owner decides that having money is a good thing and turns advertising into the sole purpose of FB, dragging the whole user community into sharing everything with everyone and eventually have their stuff displayed in public, all over the web. Yes, yes, we are choosing to be on Facebook of our own will, but at the same time the said company is basing their business on the overall public ignorance as far as legal matters are concerned.
The keyword here is ‘implicit‘. FB assumes we agree with their ever-changing terms & conditions and steals the data first. Then they offer More >
I’m filing a lawsuit
Aug 17th
Have you noticed the latest rage in money making? It’s called a “lawsuit” and it has been hitting every major player in the tech arena for the last year or so. The ingredients for a guaranteed cash recipe are not readily available, but should you do your homework properly and be able to pick the sleaziest of the sleaziest from the shark pool (read: a ruthless team of corporate lawyers) chances are you might land on a significant pile of cold, hard cash. I was taught early in life that the air gets thinner in the upper layers of the atmosphere. I wasn’t expecting it to be that thin at the upper floors of the corporate buildings, where CEOs, CTOs, VPs and various other suit-and-tie species live. It’s either lack of oxygen to the brains, or the city smog gets into their systems and generates funny thoughts involving delusions of world domination as well as getting filthier richer than already filthy rich one was.
Apparently the industry was doing fine. Everyone was going about their business, occasionally collaborating on various projects but still maintaining competition, just enough to ensure a healthy capitalist market. We had the constant flow of gadgets, mobile phones, More >
Big Facebook Brother Google
Aug 11th
“Did you know it’s ran by the CIA?” my workmate asks, while we casually chat over the morning coffee. “What’s ran by the CIA?” I’m still struggling with the early morning hours, hardly getting over that I’d rather be in bed instead of sipping the lousy corporate coffee and trying to get ready for another day of thrilling small town press. “The whole Facebook gig,” he says. “The CIA is running it. Those guys sure love keeping tabs on people.” “What do I care,” I reply, “I’m Canadian.” And with this I’m getting back to my desk and my menial tasks, InDesign and all.
See, that’s the problem with me in the morning – I only understand half of what’s happening around me, until I manage to have my daily intake of caffeine. After that, things start assembling themselves in definite shapes and messages come through. The apparently insignificant conversation over Facebook stuck with me, morphing from egg to larvae to what you’re reading now. Because, you know – what if the guy is right?
There’s an increasingly popular word going around the Internet for the last two years or so: “targeted.” Fashion trends, video games, TV shows, cooking recipes, the music More >
Four weeks with the iPad
Aug 10th
Done with being an early adopter. Been one when the macbook hit the shelves, and the thing’s been in service twice, had a crappy battery out of the box, a flickering display and the plate around the keyboard is still falling apart to this day. Yes, I’m talking about Apple products, although I’m writing this half-hearted and fearing that my computers might get seized. Relax, Thought Police in Cupertino, I’m not going to bash el Jobso’s work. Not today at least.
…That’s why I’ve got an iPhone 3GS days before the iPhone 4 was launched, that’s why I’ve got a 24″ iMac days before the 27″ was launched, and here I am, spared the trouble of yellow displays and signal loss. Like I was saying before, I’m not a hipster and don’t necessarily crave the latest in technology, unless Microsoft forces us all to use *.docx and OpenOffice dies tomorrow. So the iMac is fine and so is the 3GS, together with the advantage of having them for cheaper and at the same time watching others being lab rats at the hands of various manufacturers.
I did not want to take the plunge and buy an iPad from the U.S. before it would More >
Goodbye, darkroom
Aug 6th
“Classic” film photography has never been simple – yet it’s sad to see it go. While it’s not exactly “news” anymore, sometime last year Kodak has discontinued a product that was selling for 74 years. But the Kodachrome didn’t just want to go quietly into the night – it bid farewell to the world in June – and did so gracefully, with a little bit of help from Steve McCurry. I won’t get into details on Mr. McCurry or the saga of the last Kodachrome film roll – that’s a world for you to discover. Suffice to say, hurry to your local supermarket and grab the last rolls of photographic film sitting there by the tills – soon enough you won’t have another chance at it, as they slowly become history.
Joke aside, film processing was not exactly my forte, but I still am thankful for having had the opportunity to work in labs, print contact sheets and expose stripes of film to paper – an almost forgotten craft that few care about today. For the last 10 years or so, the world has become too used with the “instant gratification” digital media is offering, and while everyone is enjoying the comfort and ease More >
Smartphones, tablets and copycats
Aug 1st
“They got it all wrong” would be an understatement if one tried to describe the mobile computing market. The truth is, they got it horribly wrong. As the war rages on and companies evangelize consumer products, it slowly becomes clear that the paradigm was established already a few years ago and it’s here to stay: we’re in for touchscreens, customizable smart devices and ‘app’ stores. At least for the next 10 years or until someone comes up with a brain-grafted computer / cell phone / e-reader a la Matrix.
Granted, I am using a lot of Apple’s products, having at hand at least 3 generations of the company’s computers, an iPad, an iPhone, quite a few iterations of the iPod… and the list is not complete. But then again, I still have two Windows machines that I’m using now and then, I recently switched from a Windows Mobile 6 phone, I might find my way around a Linux if need be and my kid plays with a decommissioned Blackberry. Which should mean that I’m the lazy type and ended up choosing Apple for their ease of use. One thing led to another and here I am today, sharing my App Store purchases More >
The Conspiracy Cloud
Jul 30th
If you think technology is all about consumers and serving their needs, think again. Rumor has it that control is what matters most. Whether it’s crunching numbers about your daily intake of milk & cereals, your shopping habits or the news you’re browsing, companies are already fighting the big fight over who you are and what they want you to become.
All mercantile honesty gone down the drain, an increasingly worrying phenomenon is slowly creeping into our daily lives: creating a need, then supplying it. Following the fine example of any drug dealer with a minimum of intellect, every respectable business starts its own niche, hooks a few soon-to-be addicts and, before we know it, the ball is rolling and the whole world can’t live without Product X. Take, for example, Facebook, whose practices and ‘innocent’ apps already triggered social and demographic studies, as well as cults preaching ‘detoxification’ from it (not to mention the millions who show withdrawal symptoms the second they are removed from their Facebook-enabled smartphones.) Or, more recently, the iAds trend (although still in its inception stage) that is about to be shoved down our consumerist throats. This is going to be the next big thing at More >
Marla on Mothers, the Universe and everything
Jul 27th
I’m browsing the local Home & Hardware shelves one hot Sunday afternoon, trying to decide whether we should buy a really expensive Dyson vacuum cleaner ($600) or keep using the good ol’ ShopVac, which otherwise is fine with the exception that the wand is ever so fragile and my bad back hurts from trying hard not to break it whenever I have to do the carpet. I can’t do woodwork and fix the shed with a decommissioned hand so vacuum it is for me this fine afternoon. Anyhow, I came to the store after reading lots on vacuums and I know for a fact that the Dyson only sucks (pun intended) 5% of how much a Kirby would. But there’s no Kirby dealer in this forgotten town and this leaves me stuck between decisions, as the price tag is kind of high and Wayne “I’ve-got-one-at-home-myself” doesn’t look like willing to give discounts any soon now, being the new store owner that he is.
Long story longer, I’m dragging my frustration through the tills and out of the store when I run into Marla, French teacher by day and amateur gardener over the weekends. She’s holding Luna, the little dog, in one hand More >
This is how it started
Jul 27th
I was working today (allegedly) while chatting on gtalk with the missus who was working too (allegedly.) Long story short, she is reading the economic news while chatting with me while working (allegedly) and rants about Europe and the dying economy back there. There’s this article in the Economist, she says, more or less giving the impression that there’s an economic catastrophe happening across the Atlantic. Of course I have no clue what she’s talking about and I am not reading the article (she was perusing the actual magazine and not the online edition, so she never gave me a link.) But being the genius that I am, I always interrupt people and today was no exception – I start yapping about how the European economic model can’t work because there is no globalism over there, and the EU is pretty much going down the drain as big goals and noble ideals are always put aside, to make way for petty stupid nationalist ideas, “national identities”, narrow religious concepts and the like. ‘Cause, you see, I used to be a radio host and I can catch ideas on the fly and figure out what it’s all about, then talk about it More >
