Category: Me Myself&I

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.

Hello 2015. Damn, not a week in. The NAACP bombing was gross but that Charlie Hebdo tragedy touches home for me.

They were a big symbol across all media, for over four decades of freedom of speech in France. I would take the train and look at the newspaper stand and quickly read the front page like millions of people in Paris probably. It didn’t matter if it was brilliant or corny as hell, we all smiled or giggled before getting in the tube. We all took that freedom of speech for granted.  We got warnings but we’re so complacent about how we’re soft with everything, even fundamentals.

What trigger? A generation imploding under heavy unemployment with no upward social mobility: when people are not happy, even smart they become stupid. Religions scoop them all. Second, 9/11. Since then and the monumental hammered in message that it’s “us against them” -I guess Christians VS Muslims kind of vibe?- it’s utterly fucked up.

I see all kinds of messages. France needs more guns. France needs less Muslims. France needs to stand for freedom of speech.

I think France and obviously other nations need less religion. Separation of the State and the Church remember? It’s like we forgot. But as vital, we need to redefine how we get people together economically and how to redistribute our vast wealth. It’s just, it needs to happen.

And dear obnoxious media, you need to stop with “cool pope” and “Islamic terrorists” it’s not a sports game with teams. Fuck.

So yeah, crazy year. I didn’t know how or even if I could make it back to CA so sitting down here on my couch in my little room, watching the sun go up through the windows of my private patio on W. Adams is quite good. Craigslist has been fantastic to me for now maybe I should stop using it before getting that terrible experience that will shatter my faith in bloody humans.

It’s a weird world we’re living in. There’s that struggle for money for tons of people, in so many unexpected ways and yet the super out-of-needing-anything people use the same shit as we do: laptops, taco trucks, UberX (no one cares about other Uber options), Prius, Starbucks. You would not believe the crowd of homeless people on Sunset and Vine drinking their coffee in the morning, most have shoes in better shape than mine, all have smartphones and one has a tablet. People with mansions have three or four Prius parked in the front. Right, the taco truck parked in Beverly Hills is probably for a private party but it’s still just a freaking taco truck.

That cognitive dissonance man it’s been all over this year. Economic inequality has never been bigger and yet we’ve never been closer in lifestyle in so many ways. So I think better redistribution of wealth is even more obvious but anyway.

This year I’ve worked hard to not get much but I knew it would be the case. Transitions, they’re little bitch ass things. Now that I’m mostly settled I have a lot of work to do and I feel great about it. Like, I’m really good at what I’m doing. I’m thorough and reliable. I get what I kind of always needed but never got in France, respect for my work ethics. It feels fucking good. It makes me hungry in a good way. I’ve seen people using computers around, I’m realizing my value my skills more and more and there is no doubt that I can excel and flourish here in LA. Just need a bit more contact, which happens with staying here which is what I’m doing. It feels great not to have to take a plane for once.

I’ve been tripping on Vice’s Epicly Later’d lately, a series of videos on skateboard history. I feel that shit because I see mid 90s footage of LA, which I had seen back in France where I didn’t know anything about Los Angeles. But now I watch it and I know where it’s at or I can tell 12 year old Guy Mariano was probably taking the train from Burbank to DTLA, I can notice differences and of course, nostalgia of that 93-03 era which was fucking amazing skate-wise hits me hard. I look at my deck next to my basketball. Should I go ride today? What if I fuck my ankle up and can’t work huh? Let’s wait a bit before going crazy.

I get the philosophical angle of that question but honestly screw the “why?” what about the “stop, you dumb fucks?”

Why the why should matter? We know enough shit about this world to comprehend that it doesn’t matter why darker people suffer most, it really doesn’t matter. It’s like when people go deep into the system to understand how a jury can not indict a murderer caught on camera in HD, I don’t give a fuck about the detail when it’s so blatantly evident that justice isn’t for all. It is so blatant that darker people shouldn’t have to live in fear their entire life.

What matters is that it needs to stop. What matters is that darker people don’t suffer or die for a fucking body envelope. Every fucking day I read about another dead black person. I’m physically ill reading this stuff, months that I struggle creating with that looming shit. I feel there’s a war going on my body. It makes me want to have black babies now, reasons? Part survival, part I just want to give the middle finger to lighter people.

Fuck your why son.

50+ hours in 4 days, I was fried Friday. Saturday basketball and cleaning up the house. Thursday, sunrise from the 17th floor of an empty and still quiet building in Hollywood, majestic as fuck. Meeting new people everyday. Got the “your accent is amazing” half a billion times now. I still get stuck explaining stuff -I still haven’t match my French vocabulary- but at least I sound good.

Sunday morning listening to my white dad laying down some classic, casual racism and inconsistent liberal thinking on Skype. I love him but is it hard to hear these days, I just blink and move on. Sunday night I was dancing in a backyard in south LA with like 2 white people in a sea of brown and black skin. There’s this release, this real freedom this safety going on I can’t even explain.  And then there are those sunsets going from surreal to apocalyptic in two minutes. My balcony is the bomb.

What a fucking intense year it’s been.

Using Sketchup to sketch my future house. Yeah the blue is the vast amount of glass that allows light to get in, classic passive solar system. The shape is the result of some research. With the right full south orientation and hemp insulation that house would will be the bomb. I have more classic shapes in mind –rectangle, L-shape- but I love this one.

Now the annoying part, building stupid details like more windows, doors and shit. I have started some layout but it’s tedious. I just see it in my head and try -as usual- to visualize if it can work or not. I looked at tons of interiors through rss for months and years, getting ideas here and there. The “science” behind a good kitchen can’t be underestimated.

Now building my house is a far away dream but first I’ll never buy a house, they all suck energy-saving wise. Enjoy your insane energy bills in winter 2020. Second, it’s good to have a goal it helps tremendously with hope and stuff. Third, finances could change faster than I expect and if it happens BAM who can quickly go see people to start that project and prefab walls? That guy.

I’ll have prints of those three pictures somewhere. They’ll be worth zillions.

It’s just that I’m kind of celebrating one year of green card and you guys are like “it’s open season for your black ass oh you can turn on your phone to record everything it don’t matter son”.

So I biked. About 90 kms/55 miles in LA last weekend. It feels good and makes me horny as hell. Another Ciclavia, another fantastic day. Passed a ninja with a Chihuahua and an old Korean lady wearing a summer dress and sporting an umbrella, pushing on her skateboard like she’s about to 3flip a set of stairs.

I also met my first Twitter follower ever, a dude who’s now pretty big but more importantly a great human being. We were on the same Eric Gardner brain wave, a bit knocked out. We hugged, he took a selfie and drinks ensued. I just wish I had money to work with him on a project I thought about last year. Only last year. It feels like it’s from four years ago.

It feels dumb to be patient, even when you have no choice.

Let’s talk about a real problem: our devices screen sizes.

We basically have four devices available. The more we’re using computers, the more both extremes –smartphone and desktop- are important. The smartphone is the swiss army knife. The desktop is Gordon Ramsay’s knifes. You can replace the desktop with a laptop –we all do these days- but if you want to edit videos or produce music or 3D, a real desktop is far better.

We can replace laptops with tablets but not completely depending on our usage: keyboards are still so important and tablets still face the X86/Arm problem were not everything is compatible or optimized.

Smartphones are getting bigger and people love it so they say because I’ve only seen one iPhone6 XL out there and it seriously looks pretty douche-y. It’s not about ease of use it’s about being obnoxious in public with your big ass screen, it’s like wearing a lime green jacket and your friends are like “come on now”.

My criteria: smartphone needs to be able to be manipulated with one hand therefore, anything above 4.7” (my old Samsung WP7) is a straight no. Screen quality and fonts are perfectly readable and I keep a bit of privacy checking my texts at a bar. I have a 3.8” phone right now (Lumia 620) and I love how I can make it fit any pocket.

Laptops… I did everything from 7” (OG EEE) to 15” and my preference is definitely in the 13/14”. It’s not too big and yet big enough to open some development tools and get things done. Mine has a really shitty screen in 768 but it’s matte and soft also, try to play a 3D game in 1080p on your 13” powered by Intel Embarrassing GMA chipsets.

I don’t own a tablet. Definitely super interested in a Surface Pro 2/3 (10” and 12”) as it brings me everything I want out of the box. Problem is it does overlap with my laptop and that tablet isn’t cheap. Cheap Android tablets just add nothing.

If I had a big desktop I’d get rid of my laptop and switch to a Surface I think. The real fight is between laptops and tablets to me. As for now my laptop is my desktop so I’ll just jump between two devices instead of three.

That’s probably better for me anyway.