Category: Me Myself&I

I just saw Windows 10 Mobile screenshots and oh god no.

8 on the left, 10 on the right. The blue squares don’t stay this way once you have a couple pictures. They show up and make it look good, son. Personally, the 80s desktop real file looking icon has to disappear. 2015 ffs.

I have been using Windows phones since early 2011. The stark design and simplicity of the OS have been fantastic to me. Not only competition never looked attractive –kind of a first time ever with MS products-, competition started to seriously look like my phone with iOS 7 and whatever Android version brought the square and flat design all over the place. I would stop on gadget blogs and be like “wait, is this on WP?”.

I think the WP design team was far ahead and still is in their vision.

Yep 20 people, 8 women. Almost parity. I don’t know, it feels right.

Good design makes a product useful.

All the built-in features of WP makes it extremely useful without downloading apps, out of the box. It is good design to integrate services like they did in the people hub, how the Facebook chat is baked in –you don’t have to use it-, the possibility to update multiple social network at once etc. Think about it: no app to search for, no website to visit to look at the offer, no app to install, no app to learn, no app to update. It’s just a login/pwd and there you go, your content, contacts etc. Imagine today something like Ello instead of having to use a terrible web app you would just login and update on your phone exactly like you do with other networks.

This is good design.

Of course, business and strategy wise that’s not making anyone happy but Microsoft. And the user. Because partners complained and don’t want to depend on MS, Microsoft successively took those features away with 8.1 and now Windows 10. So you have to download “official” apps now, for everything.

I haven’t updated yet.

Good design helps us to understand a product.

Icons are stupid. There, I said it. Icons regardless of how good they look, always have to be guessed. Or need text. WP went brutal on this: TEXT. No visual distraction. It’s very bold but one thing is sure: you know exactly what you’re doing and what you’re clicking. It is honest. Good design is honest, doesn’t try to impress you with busyness.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Which is not the case with notification centers and red dots of FOMO and battery %. That shit is obtrusive! It is telling you constantly “watch me, hey, hey, look something happen, look bright colors, emergency hey hey”. WP design is all about opting in. Yes, you have to choose to unlock your screen to look at notifications. Immediacy is not the only thing that matters in the world, far from that actually.

Good design is as little design as possible.

And that’s where I see WIndows 10 going all Frankenstein annoys me. I understand the challenge: make something different, that will make both developers and users happy. Developers and users are used to iOS/Android and Windows pre 8 UX, MS needs to cater to that insanely diverse and massive crowd. Developers want/need to code as less as possible. This is also consistent with Microsoft’s will to have their apps on all platforms regardless, since the 1980s. So, design compromise for a billion reasons.

The problem is design kind of has to be something you impose without compromise. If you start following trends that makes you look weak, usability gets confusing and people think you are a follower. To create trends you need to stick to them. To gain respect you need to stand still, show interest in people who understand what you’re doing and improve on their feedback. Ain’t happening.

It seems clear that since Steven Sinofsky left after Win8, design centric MS wasn’t into design so much anymore. People as usual with innovative things, hated Win8 by default (remember all the people hating the iPhone’s lack of buttons?). But if you look at forums now, tons of people are as usual with innovative things, liking Win8. I’ve seen people apologize!

It just needed time and now that the public is getting used to it, MS dilutes something they had that was unique, discerning.

Timing is a bitch and ultimately, Microsoft wants market share more than identity. Not sure it’s the best bet, good design is hard. They mostly had it.

So I visited this bitch yesterday. I’m still processing it.

My favorite part of FLW’s work is the dynamic and mystery. You never know what the hell is going on from the outside and you have no idea that it’s so soft (wood) inside when the exterior is so brutal (concrete). This long outside corridor with at the end front doors made of concrete opening up to a low ceiling entrance I mean, you have to live it to understand how sanctuary-ish that shit feels. I wonder if it gets old.

As much as the concrete doesn’t look so great when untreated, inside with its particular soft green color mixed with some gold, connecting with the wood… Concrete can be very cozy. The craft and detail cranked to 11 on every single item, surface in every single room definitely makes it a historic cultural monument. It’s amazing.

The main “attraction” is the living room:

The mantle’s art is awesome. Water was supposed to run at the bottom of the fireplace, connecting with outside ponds. The skylight was providing wind and light so basically you would have all the four elements in one place: Earth (mantle) Air (skylight) Water & Fire (fireplace). All those design decisions materialized, it’s so cool to see.

Sounds nice but obviously having a massive running water system in 1920 was insane and still is in 2015 in L.A. They never used it. The room is so big you barely see that there’s a hole though.

$7 to get in. Not a lot is open to public unfortunately, but it’s a good initiative in this city where everything changes so fast. Preserving and pondering guys, it’s important too.

I know everything. I know we’re nothing I know we’re everything

I know we’re fucked up I know we’re greedy I know you want that property

I know everything, even how Lord of the Ring warns you about that bling

I know rent doesn’t exist, I know in some ways we have no heart

I know we could. I know we should. I know we would

I know most people can’t see long term, I know they still want those kids

I know we have enough to provide for everybody, I know we fake scarcity

I know them plants and trees are ready to save you and me

I know technology would do the rest if only

I know everything, tits lips and p-spot

Hemp, passive gains and how much Dubai costs

I know God is a fallacy, I know all you need is empathy

I know everything, system theory pattern recognition, meat salad and St Emilion

I know white people can’t deal with Nature, that Queen who’s refusing their future

I know women can’t deal with that endemic sense of entitlement, we vile creatures

I know we can do better, I know we’re trying harder

I know persistence is all we got

And I don’t know where it’s going to take us

 

(inspired by the verse 2 of Kendrick Lamar’s Momma, written in one shot)

Just a lot of work and hustling. L.A. changes so fast. The place next door is blowing up. I am a member of the W. Adams Yacht Club and no I can’t tell you nothing about it. Meanwhile all my favorite staff at my favorite coffee place bounced for some reason, probably a lack of raise. I really hope they come back, the place is a desert in the middle of the desert now.

Definitely Kendrick Lamar’d. The Funk permeates my surrounding. I need to participate more.

It’s amazing how a TV crew attracts attention in 2015 in the town that produces like five billion shows a year. People ask questions, are excited looking at a old as fuck camera when everyone in southern California could shoot the same with their phones. The camera becomes the uniform.

I might speak at a conference sometime in the future.

Also, I don’t keep men in my life who pay for sex. Sorry guys. Life is full of double standards. I’ve got no problem with my girls selling it, but you’ve lost my respect if you’re buying.

Coquette.

Exactly. Which is why I stopped giving a flying fuck about sex workers defending sex work it’s like listening to oil companies telling you that yes, you need a car that consumes fossil fuel because this is how it goes. I’m OK with you selling it because in the case of oil there’s still tons of cars running on it or in the case of sex, I understand that it’s a way to independence for people but don’t ever try to sell me that it’s the norm, the future because it’s fucking not.

I agree with Coquette. She’s right. And that’s the problem because that double standard right here is for me why we can’t have nice things between men and women. I have nothing against double standard per se, but as a black man I’m constantly and forever on the bad side of it. This shit sucks hard. Why we shouldn’t have double standard? Because I’d like to think that we’re not at war, that we’re equal, the same damn meat bags and that we live together and respectively need those tits lips balls and dicks?

How can we have more equality and respect  when a dude can buy a woman for the night, that just really doesn’t make any sense. Imagine a kid trying to make sense out of that. How society can shift its perspective on women if in any city you can get a sloppy blowjob for a a couple bills? Everything from slut shaming to cat calling to internet stalking derives from that, men believing that if some women can be bought –it doesn’t matter for what- they can do whatever they want to them because they feel like they are entitled to. Ladies, don’t you get it?

Even for the brightest men (well, maybe not so bright) that shit is confusing. Respect women, but buy one and do whatever you want wit her? It sounds like the perfect recipe to create psychopaths heavy breathing behind you in the street.

Fuck double standards and if you are a woman with some long term views, you shouldn’t support prostitution. Period.

You fight patriarchy while feeding it with slave-like behavior, how is that supposed to even work? It’s not and it can’t. I see things like “when you allow prostitution, rape rates go down!” God so much sleaziness in this argument, I can’t believe it’s being used. Dude, it’s like trading death for permanent injuries maybe it’s an upgrade but come on, we can do way better.

Dear men seeking that kind of service, what the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t get it except that it’s kind of a way to justify the ridiculous hours of work and absence in your life that you’re dealing with. A “fuck it” to the cubical or constantly-on-the-road loneliness. An immature wish that you can now fulfill, OK’d by society as long as you’re not getting caught.

Stop. This. Shit. Get an Autoblow or something. Go see a therapist or start writing a blog if you pay a hooker to hear your stupid lamentations. Dress better. Hit the fucking gym. Learn to listen. Be smart, fuck for free you idiots.

Dude re-calculate your existence, seriously. Not only you fuck up our global relationship with women in general but you’re making yourself swallow so much pride you’re pretty much choking on it until you’re old enough to not give a fuck about anything. That misogynistic selfishness is sometimes disrupted because you happen to have a little girl. Jesus fuck, if you need to have a kid to understand what women go through you are slow up there, like really slow. And you are the problem.

Let’s be equal, fuck for free and build shit/have fun together. How hard is that, really?

Like, super fascinating and funny and sharp article on AI.

Best comment so far: “I’m excited and shitting my pants at the same time”.

 

– Thing to keep in mind: before we reach the ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) level that either kills us or makes us timeless, we have to go through AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) first. We’re super far from that. We’re still fucking around with basic AI and it’s already a nightmare of complexity.

– Moore’s law? Fine. But the limit isn’t so much technology, it’s economy: all that new technology coming is doable, only it takes decades to make those plants and master some processes. We’re slowing way down because shit is becoming extremely, extremely expensive not because we can’t make them at the speed of Moore’s law.

– There are tons of things we could already improve by ourselves without a need for AI. In the article there are mentions of how it could help us:

ASI could even solve our most complex macro issues—our debates over how economies should be run and how world trade is best facilitated, even our haziest grapplings in philosophy or ethics—would all be painfully obvious to ASI.

It’s already obvious for a lot of humans, usually atheists and with a way more chill sense of moral, nihilistic almost. We could solve all of that in a decade. We’re probably slower than any future machine but we could solve that; it’s not AI science.

It’s like the prospect of being immortal thanks to some friendly ASI. People freak out because of a set of beliefs they have been following all their lives but to me it just sounds doable and I’m not thinking much more. I don’t judge or overthink it. Because I already think humans as amazing biological machines, enhancing our meat envelopes so that we don’t age ever? Nothing crazy about that. We would definitely stop having kids by that time, probably. Or conquer other planets which I don’t care for, let me see how we’ll do so much better on Earth.

I might see that in my lifetime. Dayymm.

One post this month damn, that’s not a lot. I did write but didn’t post. Going back and forth between hard work days and days off where I catch up with everything.

It’s weird to be disconnected for days from what’s going on and then go online, freak out and then just freak out, speechless. You want to comment on everything but nothing matters with this endless stream.

There are so many things going wrong, small to huge it’s ridiculous. It feels like what’s going OK is just to hide the horrendous background behind.

So here’s a picture of someone giving 0 fucks about you and life.

Clearly, my life has changed since having black kids around me, since last year. Before if I was thinking about a baby I would automatically see him white. Now I see 2, one black and one white. I’ve basically never hold a black baby, never hold a mini-me, isn’t that effed up?

Making one sounds good in some way I am the root, the start. It definitely makes me smile to think about a big tree with grand-grand-grand-sons and daughters looking back at that French ancestor coming from nowhere. Child, you have grass fed cow milk in your blood and it’s coming from France’s center. 18-58 represent!

But yeah, it just sounds so selfish to me. I think about my teeth DNA, you don’t want that son. I had to wear every single mouth tool available for a decade to make it right. I can’t just be like “well, he’ll be lucky as I have been!” that’s not going to happen in a tighter and tighter world.

I would need so much margin, room, to conceive you and take care of you baby girl I’m not in that ballpark yet. If ever, that’s the bad thing.

Or not, I am so free. Facebook reminds it to me all the time. Meanwhile the window is slowly closing for me. Oh well.

So yeah the Hololens. Neat. I can see some cool games and apps (architecture hell yeah).

However I think people are not that ready or excited because we’re far behind what technology is capable of.

See it this way: if you haven’t moved from where you live for the past ten years and use a computer on a desktop, wired or wireless internet didn’t change your life. Traveling made you aware of wifi’s badassery. Skype is old as fuck but if you’re not using it to communicate with people very far away regularly, you still don’t see how big of a deal it is. And so forth.

So VR, AR “wearables” haptic feedback and all are out of our reality for like, years. I still don’t have a tablet and don’t feel like missing much years after the first one came out. I was waiting for 20 or 24” tablets –audio design on this? fuck yeah- but they’re not coming because you make more money selling loads of smaller screens, I always forget about profit rules (rule #3: fuck people’s needs).

I think there’s another problem: the experience, which barely changes. You can listen to music on your $700 phone with a $10/month subscription and fundamentally, it’s not different from my $20 USB key and my FLAC files. Firefox support the Oculus Rift but you’re still reading pages of text. The biggest change so far has been mobility and we already have it.

There’s also this fatigue. People are already hooked on tech, know it’s bad and now you want deeper connections? Add the NSA and that’s enough for people to chill and play a platform game. In 2D. With a gamepad. On a TV. Offline.

I’m impressed by scale. Scale is an important concept because it’s easy to see 4 (2 power of 2) but way less to see 65536 (2 power 16).

Here’s a stupid example that shows how complex things can be:

So for some computers running Windows 8.1 or above, when you crank up the volume you get that annoying popup.

Damn it Microsoft, it’s all your fault and you suck and you’re the worst oh god why?

Where does that message come from? Well Reddit answered and a MS engineer confirmed that there’s no code in Windows that displays that popup.

This popup is a European Union requirement that manufacturers are free to implement or not at the audio driver level. So Samsung thought it would be cool to implement that on my laptop.

It’s not much of a deal –it’s loud enough before the popup shows up 90% of the time- but what’s interesting to me is that at the scale Windows and Microsoft work, there are tons of shit we don’t know about, things that as users we think are all about Redmond getting their shit together but it’s not. It’s WAY more complex there’s even countries chiming in.

Right there we have MS, computer manufacturer, audio driver maker, EU battling over the sound volume experience in an OS.

If you don’t know now you know.