Welcome to my equivalent of mental doodling. Off The Cuff’s intention is to provide a place to put all those ideas that occur to me regularly, but are too short to deserve an entry due to lack of time to develop them into a cohesive article. I might make this a catch all for future blog entry ideas to develop as I get time, or a dumping ground for ideas that deserve more than a transitory post to Facebook or Twitter.
Things like observational phrases, whether they’re mean to be humorous (such as my often mis-credited saying, “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.*”) to more serious truisms that I thought of today or ten years ago (such as “There’s no defense against stupid”).
*It is funny because according to what I read in the 90’s, Hydrogen is less stable than Helium, so actually Helium is more common. Any chemists can correct me if I am wrong.
UPDATES:
“It’s easier to be inconsiderate than it isn’t. Don’t take the easy path: That’s just lazy.”
“It’s not making mistakes nor achieving success that builds wisdom. It’s how much you learn from the experience.”
“Problems that go away on their own, tend to come back on their own.”
and of course my blog’s catch-phrase: “Hey you kids, Get off my digital lawn!”
“Arrogance is often a symptom of ignorance.” Inspirational credit goes to Alan (Wolf) who owns Borderlands in SF after bumping into him at a Death Guild this past Monday after many years. The exchange went something like this.
- Me: “Yeah, we didn’t get along when we first met.”
- Him: “Yeah you were and asshole.”
- Me: “Yeah I was, and so were you.”
- (We both laughed because it was true, we were both arrogant assholes when we were younger.)
- Me:“It wasn’t until we started talking about books that we started to get along.”
- (A few minutes later we toasted to the arrogance of youth.)
Also this will be a scratch pad for ideas that come to me daily, often in groups of 2 or 10. From the silly, to the serious:
- Felinet.com (A site dedicated to the internet’s other purpose: Cats!) UPDATE: new title: Feliminati [A work in progress]
- The CL Historical Project structure [studying problem]
- OSO: Operating System Overseer* (If an operating system is going to crash, maybe it’s time to do more than throw up a panic screen?) [pure fantasy, would need a coprocessor, RAM & a bit of Flash storage to monitor and have a lightweight UI that could take over if it sensed the main system was going to go down.]
- Good Advice site (goodadvice.com is being squatted upon): a parody of an advice site. √ (Still booting it up)
- Dick Tracy: Nuff Said. leveraging BT4’s unique power (Everyone is doing this now so I am thinking about Haptic clothing now…)
- Agloves… Finally gloves that don’t make me feel like a Cosplay reject So Far So Good (Maybe Haptic Agloves? I think I’ll post a quick Idea blurb now… 20120427 since it has been on my mind for a while. This is from an IM chat with my best friend.) √
…and anything else that crosses my mind that should be preserved.
That’s all for now… I’m planning on updating this page as necessary.
Bounce some ideas off of me if you’d like.
From the cutting room floor:
Cut #1:
Why iOS is actually less expensive than Android
A while back I was looking for a new phone, but I wasn’t considering Android for technical and business reasons. When talking to a few local mobile phone store employees (at different stores), and can tell who the smart ones are when I tell them that Android was not as advanced as iOS. The ignorant ones protest saying “it can do everything iOS can do and more!” while the smarter ones ask “why?” Then I tell them about the built in support for accessibility that comes with the virtual keyboard whereas with Android, each dev had to spend time coding in accessibility features which resulted in less apps being able to be used by people with certain disabilities. The business model inferiority, which is still a major problem in Android world: a person is luck if they can run more than 1 major OS update, and often even 1 update either comes out long after new phones are released with it—if at all. In contrast iOS users have historically been able to run at least 2 major iOS upgrades after their phones are discontinued, and they will be able to get them the same day all the phones that can run the new iOS (assuming Apple’s servers aren’t swamped with millions of downloads vying for downloads on overcapacity servers).
The cost of an Apple phone can be divided by more months. Also, it means that Apple users can safely wait two technological generations (36 months) to upgrade. So the cost of ownership per month is $600/36 = $16/month vs. $25/month (replacing their phone every 2 years) or $50/month (replacing their phone every year). BTW, I went from the first iPhone (8GB) to the iPhone 4 (16GB) to the 5S (64GB), while most people on Android have gone through at least 4 phones since 2007 (if they didn’t switch). So, while I’ve paid ~$1800 in 8 year (with another 2 years life expectancy), they would have paid at least $2000 for comparable models and another $500 for the next replacement for a total of $2500. (I am not counting subsidized prices in contract phones, BTW)
Cut#2:
Regression is worthy of Jeers
The only times I do slam people is when they regress. If a company has a product that has great features and usability, but then destroys it with a facelift, I know the designers of the facelift know less than the people who designed the first system. This backsliding is something I mention all the time because it is happening at practically every large company and many smaller ones.
Cut#3 (from an email)
I Look Worse on Paper
I have been writing technical how-tos & other info for end users for about 15 years. That experience along with my extensive technical experience, ability to locate and parse resources for the pertinent parts, allows me to then leverage my communications training & tailor content for almost any audience, even if I can only guess at their level of technical savvy. Unfortunately, communications degree, even when earned with 3.5+ in major GPA (along with my relational/spatial others IQs that clock in at a minimum in the 130s & sometimes hits 160s/170s depending on test and how I was doing that day) is vastly under-appreciated in the every sector. My experience with both good and bad program UI/UX, and building UIs for custom task based DBs & workflows is also discounted because my level of understanding what makes a good UI is completely ignored. If any company with a public facing product ever hires me to build thier UI and docs, I would probably be able to show everyone how its done. I could probably write a book, but without a CompSci degree & Com PhD no one would bother to read it, probably.