Check the temperatures! Something is starting to freeze!

My opinion of Apple is softening.

I still don’t like them, and believe they are a bad company, but I have to admit that reality is starting to return to the view of most people.

Some of the recent good moves that Apple has made:

1. Dividends. Apple has done a tremendous job of separating people from their money, jacking up a stock price to astronomical levels, arguable becoming the most valuable company in the world. To what end? Well, at last, there is an end.

2. Charitable donations: This also falls under the category of giving back, but bears notable mention here. A few years ago Apple famously refused to donate to any causes, but is now offering to match donations its employees make to some causes.

3. Apologies: Remember the terrible antenna in the iPhone 4? Remember how it came out that it always had terrible antennas, and that the software was reporting stronger signal than it actually had? Remember the independent studies showing that it was not the network, but in fact the design architecture of the iPhones that resulted in so many dropped calls on the AT&T network? Remember the press conference with the non-apology, accusing the press of picking on Apple? But recently they did apologize for forcing maps, which so many have complained about.

It used to be that when Apple did something bad, it was okay because they were Apple, and I always hated that. Now, they don’t have a free pass anymore. Now they are under the same scrutiny as all of the other techs, more so than many now, and are no longer the perfect company that they never were.

They still do things I don’t like, such as denying customers features that they can roll out, but choose not to in order to improve the attractiveness of the next version. The original iPhone shipped with a 2G antenna, even thought many phones were already 3G. Their slow speeds were blamed on the network, but Apple really needed a good selling point for the next year.

One thing that I must credit them is creating a platform with a very accessible interface that has generated a vast swath of apps to help those with autism.

Which is why, on Black, er, Thursday, I will be standing in line at Target to get my son an iPad. Don’t tell him, it’s his Christmas present.

Hindsight is not 20/20

Memories are an imperfect thing. Eye witnesses to crimes are not reliable testimony. It is not hard to implant a false memory. A bad outcome does not always mean you made the wrong choice. Conversely, a good outcome does not always mean you made the right choice.

Memories are tainted with the context of where we are, right now. There have been experiments with mice showing that when they remember something, they are actually recreating the synapses of that memory. The irony is that the purest memory possible is a forgotten one, lost in an amnesiac’s brain. That’s assuming it’s not overwritten by newer memories.

If we take this to be true in people’s brains, which some people are starting to believe, that means that thinking back on an event, your impressions are clouded by the ultimate outcome. All of the telltale signs you can’t believe you didn’t see? Maybe they were never there. The risk is that by dwelling on a particular memory, continuously re-contextualizing it based on your perception of the outcome actually leeches out lessons that may not actually be relevant, and deaden the lessons one should take away.

Ultimately, one truly does not know what would have happened if they made a different choice, simply because they did not make that choice. Aggregate the experience, learn from it, and make better choices in the future.

On the importance of food

I don’t enjoy thinking about food.

It feels like a confession, to say that. Coworkers sometimes show off their elaborate lunches, or describe some fantastic meal they enjoyed at a wedding celebration or high end restaurant, and while those things are nice, I honestly do not care.

There is nothing on the Food Network that I want to watch. I’ve never taken a picture of a meal that I am going to eat.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy eating food. My wife is a fabulous chef and has made some amazing stuff. She is the polar opposite of me in this regard. She plans around meals, and a lot of strategizing is spent figuring out how to prepare a given meal. One of the more unpleasant things to happen in her day is for something to come up that prevents her from making the dinner she’d planned to make. This is not too uncommon right now, what with two young children at home right now.

This is a problem, largely because food apathy inhibits food creativity. My wife can open the fridge, take stock of what’s in there, and plan out a meal. I can open the fridge, take stock of what’s in there, and go and make a PB&J. They’re simple, tasty, and fill be up, at least at first. Human systems thrive on variety, it seems. The first day, a PB&J will last until lunch. The next day, it lasts until 10. The day after, until 8. By then end of the week, I’ll finish the PB&J and still be starving. The same experience has happened with eggs, and any number of breakfast items. I could mix things up a bit, but that takes a lot of planning and effort, as well as prep time, and I’d much rather use that time for sleeping.

I learned in college that when choosing between eating and sleeping, sleeping wins. I also learned that after using the technique of drinking lots of water to stave off hunger for two straight days, it never works again.

I’m hungry.

Mobile App update

The level of feedback is about what I expected. Still, I turned on Google analytics before making the site publicly known, so folks contributed simply by visiting.

The results are interesting. Out of 17 visits, and about 15 unique visitors, not many people made it past the first page. Most only ventured about two or three steps into the story. The exception is one visitor who appears to have gone through every single option meticulously. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, “Thanks mom!”

Once again, my thanks for those that were able to take some time and try out some of the story options. Hopefully you were at least a little entertained.

At the moment I’m trying to figure out how to preserve the state so that the program remembers where you left off and starts you back there again. I have templates for doing just that, but none of them work even in their template state, so that requires a bit more experimentation.

For those interested, here is the decision tree for the story, indicating possible endings and paths you can take:

From Windows Live Writer

Choose your own adventure?

Mobile app update. I’ve finished the first draft of the content. It’s a story written in the style of a choose your own adventure. I have fond memories of reading these when I was younger, and thought that smart phones would do well to see more of these things become available. For those that are interested, and would like to critique, I’ve posted the entire thing here:

https://sites.google.com/site/dmxcyoacaveexplroer/

From a writing perspective, it’s an interesting challenge to write a branching storyline. It’s the first time I ever really used a branching flow chart to lay out all the different plots, identify choices, and decide how different things will turn out. Sometimes different paths lead to the same point in the story, which means you have to take into consideration what previous experiences might not have happened for the reader, and avoid referencing them.

Because it’s written in the second person, you can’t really characterize the protagonist. It’s not my place to tell you who you are, simply present you with choices and notify you of the consequences. It’s also a mistake to write a single story path from start to finish. You’ll unintentionally make it the preferred path, the one where you put most of your energy, and the rest become more filler and the experience less enjoyable for the reader.

So, I’ve got the framework, I’ve got the content, now it’s time to work on the features. There are a couple of extras I’d like to put into the apps to make the experience more enjoyable, and will spend some time fleshing those out.

In the meantime, feedback is, as always greatly appreciated. I’ve done my best to have a good mix of good, bad and neutral endings, as well as consequences that follow a certain logic.

At the same time, you’ll be dealing with giant lizards, so this is not something to be taken too seriously.

Regardless, please take a look, let me know what you do and do not like. I have a problem with drifting between present and past tense, so kudos to anyone who can flag those that I have missed.

Economies of Scale

Why do smart phones cost so much?

Seriously, why do they cost so much?

They have tiny displays, low power processors, batteries that often prove to be inadequate. My netbook has a more powerful processor, a bigger screen, more of pretty much everything, and yet it cost $300 new, whereas your average unlocked smart phone runs about $600. A few years ago, a device like the HTC Tilt would cost you over $800 unlocked, if memory serves.

It’s easy to nitpick that the processor style for a cellphone vs. a netbook is very different. The software is very different. The smart phone has a touch screen. So let’s take an example that’s a bit harder to argue.

iPhone 4S vs. the “new” iPad.

iPhone 4S 16GB unlocked price? $649.

new iPad 16GB wth 4G? $629.

They’ve got the same processor, same screen pixel density, the same internal storage. The iPad has a faster cellular modem than the 4S. The screen is immensely bigger, as is the battery to power it. The iPad intrinsically costs more to build than an iPhone from a materials standpoint. So what is the justification for the cost of the iPhone? The camera? Siri? (hah!)

This is not a hate on Apple post (picking on Siri notwithstanding), I’m pretty certain every other cell phone maker does the same thing. Apple’s iPad affords a cleaner comparison than is usually available. The question is, why are they able to get away with it? If there is such a massive profit to be had making cellphones, why aren’t more companies doing it, driving down the prices?

Designing for consequences

I don’t design cars. By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll be glad I don’t design cars. At the moment, I’m of the opinion that cars should take out seatbelts, airbags, stability control, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, and all of those safety features they’ve added over the last fifty years.

Instead, they should put a big spike on the steering wheel where the horn is.

Do this for all cars, and suddenly people will become much more cautious and courteous drivers.

I sometimes wonder if the push and drive to increase driver safety comes at a cost. Specifically, it insulates people from the consequences of their actions.

A drunk driver plows into a crowd of pedestrians. Thanks to all of the great safety equipment inside of the car, the driver is fine, and can walk away, but the people he hit were not so well protected. Sure, he might go to prison, but prison hardly heals the injured.

There is an obvious market incentive to increase the level of protection for the buyer. After all, someone who walks away from a wreck that could’ve killed them goes a long way to brand loyalty. But, there’s no incentive to protect things not in the vehicle. The design of cars is largely to absorb as much energy as possible, and transmit the rest away from the passengers.

There is also no market incentive to punish obviously bad drivers. At best, consequences are realized through tickets and a rise in insurance premiums, but it seems that the brain has a hard time internalizing the cause and effect due to time delays between getting caught in your insurance going up, or the the number of times you get away with something vs. the number of times you are caught.

So, how to bring the consequences of your actions into a more real time, present form?

I realize there are a lot of practical issues with the spike, but once something goes from harmless to potentially deadly, it does make one redefine their priorities, as you suddenly face the same potential consequences as those around you.