More photos

Just got back a few rolls of film covering the last few months. A few choice photos. Some taken downtown, some taken in or from my backyard. As usual, all photos by me, taken with a Canon-A1 on 400 ISO film, massaged a bit in iPhoto. This is somewhat chronological:

These were taken sometime in July or August in my back yard:

Looking through the leaves by eibbor7, on Flickr


Bunny!!!! by eibbor7, on Flickr

Took these wandering through downtown on a Sunday. The weather was rainy all day, but turned really nice when I arrived. So it's basically dead, but everything has that freshly washed look to it:

Nexen's slice isn't all that straight... by eibbor7, on Flickr


Stairway to glass or something by eibbor7, on Flickr


Bow Valley Square Looking all White and Clean by eibbor7, on Flickr


Some Alley by eibbor7, on Flickr


Densely abstract, or abstractly dense?! by eibbor7, on Flickr

Took all of these yesterday from my back yard. The sun was out, and autumn was in full effect. Couldn't resist:

Pretty Colours! by eibbor7, on Flickr


More pretty colours! by eibbor7, on Flickr


Mountains, trees, Northwest Calgary by eibbor7, on Flickr


Looking through the grass at some trees by eibbor7, on Flickr


Sunny fall leaves by eibbor7, on Flickr

Been a while. Nothing to say. Here are some photos.

From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From June 2010 - Film SLR From Film SLR - Random Test From Film SLR - Random Test From Film SLR - Random Test From Film SLR - Random Test From Film SLR - Random Test (the rest)

TV service is bullshit

It's interesting to look through TV provider's sites, and configure your own "HD bundle" of shit.

Well, less interesting, and more hugely annoying.

I counted about 15 channels I actually wanted, including... NBC, Fox, ABC, City TV, CTV, Space, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, A&E, Showcase, and BBC Canada all in HD. That is literally all I would ever watch on TV, and I wouldn't give a second thought to anything I might be missing. And yet, in order to get those channels, you not only pay for their non-HD equivalents (which is ridiculous... who would watch the non-HD version when you already have the HD version?), but you also pay for literally hundreds of other channels you don't want at all... stuff in languages you don't speak, sports channels you don't care about, fashion channels you wouldn't be caught dead watching, shopping channels, religious channels, popular music channels, channels that specialize in showing stupid Family Guy episodes basically all day long. And, if you have any semblance of a life, or any hobbies at all... you'll never, ever watch any of them!

What a load of shit. TV as we know it needs to change, or disappear altogether.

And, at the risk of sounding like a raving Apple lunatic... I think Apple has the power to do it. Namely, with iTunes.

I mean, I already download basically all the TV I actively want to watch anyway, generally through torrents. Literally all Apple needs to do is make a monthly TV subscription in iTunes, allowing me to download all the TV shows I want, for a flat monthly rate. I would happily pay that. I would stop using torrents, and however indirectly it is, actually support the show I'm watching. Since I'd basically be directly paying for the content itself (I'm sure Apple takes their share, much like for iTunes music), I wouldn't have to deal with commercials either. If they can do that, and update their TV shows quickly enough, they could completely replace TV for everyone but the technologically inept, and those without hobbies who like to turn their brains off and watch whatever stupid crap is on one of the thousands of shitty, useless channels they're paying for.

Hell, maybe if people lost the ability to lounge in front of a TV for hours on end, watching crap they don't really care about, they'd develop some actual hobbies and interests. Society could flourish, with all these people not wasting their free time getting fat and stupid.

So, Apple: The future of our civilization is in your hands. Free us from the oppression that is network TV!

I may have overdone it a bit...

Quickly: Social networking...

If you want to see it taken to a pretty ridiculous level, have a look at the new "Kin" phones from Microsoft.

This video in particular sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8rqSN34Zmk&feature=player_embedded

There are others, but the "ohmigawd why do you need to be able to do this from your phone?!" factor is the highest in this one.

Quick summary:

It integrates all sorts of social networking services to a frightening degree. You can post to your Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else all at the same time. Your friends from each of these services is consolidated into one big list... um...

Fuckit. I'm way too confused to properly describe it. Just watch the damn video.

I wonder if this is a sign that I'm getting old. Technology that I'm being lead to believe is quite popular, is leaving me completely confused, and wondering what it's actually for. If I ever want to fill my friends in on anything, a simple e-mail (which you can send to more than one address!) does the trick pretty well. And it's far more private. Maybe I don't have enough friends. Or maybe the friends I do have aren't nearly interested enough in the sandwich I just ate... what the hell, guys?!

Edit: I also feel like I need to comment on that interface. That has to be the biggest, but best looking mess I've ever seen. Just looking at it and trying to make sense of what's going on on the screen makes me go cross-eyed. What's wrong with an alphabetized grid or list? There's a reason accountants, clerks, and receptionists put pages in organized piles, or binders, or folders, instead of just throwing things in some general direction. You can actually find things again like that, and you can process the contents of the arrangement exponentially faster. Maybe this interface is designed for people who have no sense of order... the kind of people who have their desktops covered in random, completely unorganized icons, and can never seem to find anything.

The "Cloud"

I posted this in a forum a few weeks ago, and it got maybe 5 responses. I guess most people are more interested in carrying on the Mac vs. PC pissing contest, than actually considering some "grander" ideas:

I've been thinking about this lately. It seems pretty inevitable that more and more, our computing will be done in association with some sort of a cloud. Be it for e-mail, contacts, calendars, storage, etc...

That on its own sounds quite nice to me. However, one part of it is leaving me a little "apprehensive". I sort of get the feeling, that for truly good integration of all these services between devices, you'll basically be putting all your "eggs" (data, whatever) in one "basket" (one company's service).

I'll expand on that for clarity. It looks like right now a few different companies are trying to come up with their own individual cloud sort of services. Apple has its Mobile Me, Google has all its stuff, Nokia is trying to do the same with Ovi, Microsoft has its Live stuff... I'm sure there's more. In each of these cases, the big company is producing a "traditional" desktop/laptop experience, be it through OSX, Windows, Chrome OS, or Nokia's PC suite. Each company also has its mobile division, producing phones, or phone operating systems. So, I have to wonder, will it ever become particularly disadvantageous to pick and choose between these companies?

I mean, right now, I have an Apple computer, a Nokia phone, I use iCal and Address Book in OSX for all my contacts, which sync with my Nokia quite easily... and I use gmail on both of those devices. On top of that, I use iTunes on my Macbook, sync it with an iPod, but also with my Nokia phone. As it stands right now, I'm not being forced to use an iPhone with my Macbook. Nokia isn't forcing me to use an Ovi e-mail address, and put all my music into their Ovi music or whatever they call it in order to sync it to my phone. There's a general level of compatibility between these services. It could be a bit better, but overall, I'm not complaining.

But, what's to stop any of these companies from ceasing to support one of the other ones? Will the day come, when say Apple revamps Mobile Me, and decides to say "yeah, if you want to use this service, you need an iPhone". Or, suppose you'd rather use a Windows computer, but you'd like to use an iPhone, will you ever be forced to ditch Windows and go for a Mac? Will Google force you to own an Android phone, if you want to use Chrome OS and it's associated cloud services? Will Microsoft do the same with it's new Windows 7 Phone Series Phone 7 Windows?

I can't say I care for that notion. Right now, I feel like I'm using the best devices and services for my needs. I don't want an iPhone, Android, or Microsoft phone, I don't want to use a Windows computer, I don't want an Ovi/Apple/Live e-mail address.

So, what do you think? Do you think that our freedom to pick and choose devices and services as we see fit, like we do right now, will slowly disappear in the name of streamlining and improving cloud-based services? Doing so will have clear advantages, with regards to reliability, connectivity, and integration between devices. But, is it worth basically putting your digital life in one company's hands? Do you think there are any ways around this?

And, since it probably needs to be said: Shall we leave brand loyalty and silly fanboy bullsh*t out of this thread? The debate here isn't over which device/service you prefer. (I'm guessing this part turned a lot of people off...)

A severe lack in today's technology, and also fingers.

Two things I've thought about today:

I'm re-reading William Gibson's Neuromancer, because I'm fairly certain half of it passed me by the first time. It's a story with layers, all tucked beneath some of the most interesting, but attention requiring language ever. And, it's continually impressing me how far we've come since that book was written (early-mid 80s). So many of the concepts proposed in that book have come true! No need for protagonist Case to sell 3mb of RAM on the black market, when he can walk into any computer store and buy 4gb for under 100 bucks. While we aren't jacking into a virtual internet, we have cultivated a very extensive, well... regular internet for ourselves since then. But, I've noticed something pretty consistent throughout science fiction that our present is still lacking. It's pretty simple, certainly not something you'd give much thought to, but, what the hell:

I'll use an example.

I was sitting with a friend at school, and wanted to give him some video (probably an episode of a TV show or something). We both had our laptops out, but none of us had a form of external storage big enough to accommodate it. We tried using the bluetooth on each of our laptops to transfer the file, but once we finally got it working, the time required to complete the transfer was on the order of hours. We tried using the school's wireless network, but that was just ridiculously complicated, and probably impossible due to layers of security. And yet, our laptops were sitting there, right god damn next to each other. I don't know about you, but that just drives me nuts! Why do you need to use a bunch of middle-man-ish devices, like external drives. Or why do you need to e-mail it, or host it on the internet somewhere, or make and maintain your own little network? Why can't you just move the file directly from computer A to computer B in a fast, simple manner?!

Our computing technology these days is pretty amazing when you think about it. Graphics cards that can basically render, in real time, near life-like video games. Small laptops with enough computer power to do basically anything, with batteries that last for an entire working day. Mobile phones with as much processing power, storage space, and RAM as high end computers had only 5 years ago. And yet, very little has changed in the way we move information between computers. Yeah, external storage has gotten bigger and a bit faster. Yeah, our internet connections have gotten faster. But, I would argue that in either case, things aren't working nearly quickly enough. You can move data around on a single computer pretty quickly. If I want to move a 5gb file from one folder to another on my Macbook, it takes a few seconds. And yet, if I want to download a 5gb file over the internet, I'd best set aside an entire afternoon to make it happen. Or, more to my original complaint, if I want to move that same file from my Macbook to a desktop computer in the same house, I have to either do it over the network, and wait several minutes, or I have to copy the file from the Macbook onto a USB drive (about 2 minutes), then walk over to the other computer, and copy the file from the USB drive to the other computer (another 2 minutes).

Overall, our ability to move information around isn't even coming close to keeping up with the rest of our computing technology. I mean, look at internet video in general. The internet is finally sort of quick enough to reliably transmit mediocre quality sound and video over some distance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't TVs been doing that for decades now? It's taken the internet this long to do what TV has been doing since the early 20th century? Our worldwide network infrastructure really needs an overhaul. I know a few different entities are working on this, and I thank them. But... hurry the hell up!

Now for the fingers... this should be quicker:

That pesky little iPad has made me think some more. This time about how we interface with technology. A lot of people are complaining about the iPad's lack of a stylus for text entry.

Now, on the surface, I agree, a stylus would be nice. However, if we look back a few centuries, why are we using pens and pencils? Because at the time, there really was no better way to write. A pen provides a lot more precision than a finger. It's sort of a middle-man between hand and paper.

So, that makes me question: Is it still necessary? Are we just clinging to pens because they're the norm? Until very recently, touchscreens have lacked the precision to do anything, well, precise with our finger alone. While I haven't tried an iPad yet, I get the feeling that that is rapidly changing. Maybe we aren't there yet, but couldn't it be possible that the day will come when it's possible to hand write on an electronic touch screen device, much like we do now on paper, just without the middle-man (pen)? I think that would be pretty cool.

Social Skillz

Doesn't that "z" make it look way more hip?

Anyway, I've been thinking about this lately. And, in my thinking, I've narrowed social skills down to 2 intersecting continuums?... continuui?... whateverthepluralofcontinuumis.

First, what brought this on: It's become quite apparent to me that most people are lacking social skills in one way or another. Some people may be plenty loud and outgoing, but lack what I'll now term social empathy. Or, others who have social empathy up the wazoo are too quiet. So, without further ado, my *ahem* Axes of Social Ability:

The Introvert/Extrovert Axis:

We're all familiar with this one. Extroverts talk to everyone and are at the very least "loud enough". They function well in large groups of people, speak with sufficient volume, and are so-called social butterflies. Introverts are less comfortable in large groups of people, and will favour the company of few over the company of many. They are more independent, and may talk quieter on average (I've made no effort to verify this).

The Social Empathy Axis:

Where the Introvert/Extrovert axis deals with general social comfort, this axis deals more with one's responsiveness to the social needs of others. This may take a bit more explaining. Individuals blessed with an ideal amount social empathy are very perceptive of others. They notice everyone around them, and make an active effort to include individuals into conversations. People lacking in social empathy tend to be more socially "greedy". That is, they socialize primarily to entertain themselves, and don't focus on people who aren't entertaining them at that moment. People with too much social empathy develop a bit of a paranoia of the motives or feelings of others, over-think most social interactions, and probably come off as way too "nice".

The ideal place to plot on these axes is right in the middle, I'd say. People who are too extroverted get annoying. People who are too introverted just come off as loners. People with too little social empathy are too socially greedy, while people with too much social empathy over-think every social interaction to the point where it becomes a hinderance, and they just seem awkward.

So, there you have it. I may expand on this later. Or I may end up dismissing it as total bullshit. Whatever.

Where do you think you plot on the.....

Axes of Social Ability

?

Edit: It's occurred to me that I should probably plot myself, so I don't come off as a self-absorbed twat who just judges others. I'm an introvert and I have too high social empathy, to the point where I just say "fuckit" and shut everyone out when I'm not in a conversational mood. Being an introvert makes that pretty easy to do.

See? I'm just as socially inept as you are! Yeah... you.