Tag: technology

Attn Photoshop all-stars

It’s sexier than the iPad. Or rather, it’s much more useful than the iPad. It’s the first pass at the default Adobe Photoshop CS4 mode. Of course, we don’t use Photoshop to any great extent, so any suggestions from experienced Photoshop users for material improvements to the present commands assigned to the default Photoshop CS4 mode would be very much appreciated.

Technofascism redux

Steve Jobs has lost the techno-hipsters:

Then there’s the device itself: clearly there’s a lot of thoughtfulness and smarts that went into the design. But there’s also a palpable contempt for the owner. I believe — really believe — in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple ][+.

But with the iPad, it seems like Apple’s model customer is that same stupid stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother as appears in a billion renditions of “that’s too complicated for my mom” (listen to the pundits extol the virtues of the iPad and time how long it takes for them to explain that here, finally, is something that isn’t too complicated for their poor old mothers).

The model of interaction with the iPad is to be a “consumer,” what William Gibson memorably described as “something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth… no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote.”

The way you improve your iPad isn’t to figure out how it works and making it better. The way you improve the iPad is to buy iApps. Buying an iPad for your kids isn’t a means of jump-starting the realization that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it’s a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals.

Needless to say, I won’t be acquiring an iPad myself. I wouldn’t mind a tablet-sized ebook reader, but I want something that runs open source software, isn’t tied into a DRM machine, and permits me full control over its operations. I don’t care about the way in which Apple prevents the tinkering that Doctorow so values, but I am utterly hostile to Apple’s transparent attempt to exert control over practically everything its users attempt to do. I have very fond memories of my Apple //e and appreciate their industrial design and their marketing skills, but I could not possibly despise their technofascistic, DRM-centric philosophy more.

Sexbots > rainbow-striped unicorns

This was the attempted rebuttal of one Roissy reader, presumably female, to his warning of sexbots on the technological horizon:

A sexbot won’t be your cook, cleaner, masseuse, secretary, arm candy, and public sex kinky bitch. She won’t be social with you, won’t laugh at your jokes, won’t adore you madly, and won’t make you feel alive and fulfilled.

Well, that should certainly end the silly notion that a Victoria’s Secret sexbot line might harbor some appeal to men. Everyone knows that romance has far more appeal to men than a combination of sex and cutting edge technology, right? One wonders if this individual has ever talked to a real man or woman.

I imagine more than a few men read that and immediately thought “On the other hand, she also won’t be my surrogate mother, thought police, social fuhrer, and ISO 9000 examiner. She won’t prefer TV to sex, won’t glare at me when I am insufficiently obedient to her momentary whims, won’t disrespect me, and won’t make me feel as if at any moment I am going to lose half of everything I have ever worked for.”

Some men are certainly fortunate enough to be married to beautiful women who love them and treat them well. However, I very much doubt that describes most men, especially the betas and gammas. And the simple fact is that men have no intention of trying to bitch, complain, and nag society into changing to accommodate their preferences, instead they are going to do what they always do and quietly go about finding a more acceptable solution. I’m just hoping that the technologists get those artifical wombs working before the sexbots are perfected, otherwise it is certain that it is the technophobic who will inherit the Earth.

There are very few equity investments I would advise making in this economy. AI-controlled sexbots, preferably with a solar-powered option, is definitely one of them.

Applefascismo

Cracked underlines the point I have been making for over decade now. It is Apple that are the techno-fascists; the famous 1984 ad was nothing but pure psychological projection:

When you buy Apple products, you don’t just buy computers or gadgets. Apple sells iPods and iPhones that play music purchased in their iTunes store. It’s all part of Jobs’s sales pitch to people who pride themselves on individuality. Even before there were ads featuring the kid from Die Hard 4 bickering with John Hodgeman in heaven, the message was been the same: PCs are for those people who follow the herd, but you choose Mac because you think differently….

[M]anufacturers of other cell phones and gadgets generally don’t care what customers do once they’ve paid for their products with good, honest credit card debt. But Apple goes beyond complaining. They will actively break your shit for disobeying their arbitrary rules. Yes, Apple has sent out updates specifically designed to disable phones that have been modified to work with carriers other than AT&T, or to run Microsoft Office. Seriously now, we’d be inventing new, fluorescent shades of berserk if, say, a PC manufacturer broke your computer for installing Linux.

Now, I have no objection to people using Apple products, even if I don’t deign to use them myself. And I understand the brilliance of Steve Jobs’s philosophy of limiting utility in order to reduce potential problems; every game designer knows that at least one-third of his time will be spent figuring out how to prevent idiots from purposefully ruining their own user experience. I was speaking with a technology reviewer a few days ago and I mentioned that if we created a function called ERASE HARD DRIVE, at least 10 percent of the users would assign it to a button and click it to see what happened. The reviewer laughed and commented that 100 percent of that clueless 10 percent would be furious upon discovering that the function had done precisely what it said it would do. And, of course, they would blame us for giving them the power to destroy their data so easily.

So, there is a solid rationale for simply not letting people do basic things like load their own software onto their own hardware at will. There is a sound logical reason for treating users like cretinous children and refusing to let them make their own decisions. And one can clearly make a great deal of money if that technofascistic attitude is combined with keen vision and great design talent. And yet, that doesn’t make it right.

Eve Online players

MB created the first mode for Eve Online, one of around 40 game and application modes that have been produced to date. Have a look at it and if you’ve got any suggestions for improvements, let us know. Also feel free to tell us which mode you’d like to see posted for review next week. And if you’re interested in putting together a layout yourself for a game or application you use regularly, send an email and we’ll send you the spreadsheet.

For the Ilk

As some of you may recall, the little technology project on which I’ve been working with Markku is approaching the initial stages of completion. Some of you have asked if the Ilk can be of any asistance or score a discount, so here’s what’s up.

Next week we will be announcing a new program giving an additional 15% discount – stackable with the pre-order discount – to those who produce application modes. This doesn’t require anything more than filling out 30 cells on a spreadsheet and it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. But we’ll give the Ilk first crack at participating in the program plus an additional 5% off. Combined with the pre-order discount, the modemaker discount will cut 40% from the retail price for what is easily the best mouse in the business.

We want modes for everything. Old DOS games, strange audio applications, popular mainstream applications, you name it. If it’s got hotkeys or pull-down menus with keyboard shortcuts, we can do it. So, if you’re interested, send me an email telling me the name of an application or game for which you’d like to make a mode. I’ll confirm that we don’t have one yet, you make the mode and send it to me. I’ll pop it into the software to test it out, then I’ll send you the code and you can place your pre-order. However, I’d recommend that you only make a mode for software that you know reasonably well.

More Apple technofascism

Lest you doubt my description of Apple’s design philosophy:

Apple has invested in research to develop what it calls an “enforcement routine” that makes people watch ads they may not want to watch. Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn’t simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad — it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.

I very much look forward to hearing the Macintossers’ rationalizations for how having their machines held hostage to Apple’s advertising revenue stream will provide an objectively superior lifestyle experience for the members of the cult. As I’ve said before, you don’t have to be a techno-retard to prefer Apple products. But nevertheless, that is exactly for whom they are specifically designed.

Forced ad viewing… it’s insanely great!

Now, a patent doesn’t prove that Apple will come out with products designed around the patented technology. But it certainly proves beyond any shadow of a doubt the fascistic elements inherent in Apple’s design philosophy.