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Happy Anniversary iPod


Today marks eight years since the iPod was introduced.

There were a ton of other MP3 players that were available when the iPod was introduced. They were all crap. The interfaces were like trying to run a three legged race over an obstacle course while blindfolded. Every one of them had ideas about “music management” that seemed to be taken from the pre-industrial age. When the iPod was introduced. Many people derided it.  Only 5 Gigs? Firewire? Who would use such a thing? A scroll wheel? What’s up with that?

Let me take a moment to veer off into a little personal story…

When I was growing up, my Grandmother set every clock in the house ahead, all by some random time. She did this to combat a long held stereotype that Black people are always late (People even referred to it as CP Time – Colored People Time). You see, being Black and being in the south meant that it was not enough to be equal to be given the respect as a human being you deserved – You had to be better because the very color of your skin put you that much further behind from the start. Therefore, it was not enough to show up on time – You had to be early. In other words, she changed the game of time itself by writing the rules to fit her condition. Because you never knew how fast any given clock was, you could not calculate for the difference. Therefore, you always showed up early.

Apple did not invent the digital music player. They changed it. For them, it was not enough to be equal to all the rest – It had to be a whole lot better. It had to be better on every level – design, integration, speed of loading music (hence the reason for Firewire over USB 1.0). By being so much better, they changed the game, thus forcing others to play by their rules.

It’s amazing how far we’ve come in such a relatively short period of time.

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.

Lakota Sage Lame Deer (via mnmal)

Things I’ve Learned Playing Canabalt

Canabalt

Despite my usual better judgment, I’ve recently been playing a game called Canabalt on my iPhone. It’s a very easy and fun to play game actually. The idea is the you have a runner that is trying to escape some unknown catastrophe by running and jumping from building to building. Besides the inherent danger in falling to your death with each leap, there are boxes, chairs and robot bombs put randomly before you that you must also jump over.

I rarely play games. In fact, I purposefully avoid them. I know from past experience that I can get addicted to them and hours of my life can disappear. Frankly, I value those hours, especially as one only has so many to accomplish their goals for this life.

That said, I have actually been doing some thinking (see: justifying) about how, in fact, this game has been beneficial in teaching some valuable life lessons:

  • Obstacles are sometimes your friend. – In the game, the more you run, the faster you get, the more quickly things whiz by, etc. The only way to slow down is to purposely run into a box, chair or other obstacle. There is actually a certain strategy in knowing when to speed up and slow down in the game. Go too fast and you risk losing control and perspective, go too slow and there will not be enough momentum to jump to the next stage. Sometimes, obstacles help to slow us down, learn lessons and occasionally save our asses from certain doom.

  • Listen closely for small details. – The game has a fantastic soundtrack and great sound effects. Many of those sounds, barely audible above the music, let you know when you should get ready to jump. A trap door opening just before the robot bomb falls for instance. Listening for the tiny details help you survive in the big picture and save your ass.

  • Chase your own top score. – I had a pretty good run and set a very high score in my first attempt at the game. That is the score I am trying to beat. I’m not looking at some public leaderboard trying to be better than the next guy. My only goal is to always strive to make this time better than the last.

  • Know when to stop. – As I said, I know how easily sucked in I can get with games. This one is especially easy to say “I was robbed.” or “I didn’t mean to do that.” and thus justify another round. Sometimes, you have to know when enough is enough, cut your losses, and live on to play another day.

petervidani:

I love making these things. This one especially thanks to Noah’s photography.

Someone please tell me there’s a fuckyeahpetervidani site. If not, there should be. Everything I see from this kid (and yes I’m old enough to call him that) is amazing.

My DIY publishing experiment, WITH A LITTLE HELP – Boing Boing

My DIY publishing experiment, WITH A LITTLE HELP – Boing Boing

There’s four different covers on the print book, a hand-bound limited hardcover whose end-papers come from the paper ephemera of various writer-friends; a free audiobook read aloud by voice actor/writers and a for-pay CD-on-demand of the same thing; a donation campaign, and even a one-of-a-kind super-premium chance to commission a new story for the book for $10,000. All the financials for the book will be disclosed online and bound into the books on a monthly basis.

If Cory were to start a religion, I would worship there.

kung fu grippe : For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like a Human

kung fu grippe : For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like a Human

We word types love to piss and moan for days about minor niggles in usage and grammar, but, I’m worried about something a lot bigger and a lot more malignant: a broadly held belief that deliberately opaque PR horseshit is not only okay, but necessary in order to sound — horrifically enough — “real.” And, that’s a shame.

Merlin not only rips those who foist this PR bullshit upon us a few new orifices, he also has the courtesy to show them how it should be done. That, my friends, is class.