The Weight of the Nation

A 4-part series about obesity, going over why it happens, and how people can solve it.

Sometimes, companies make the poop fly.

I sent this email to my internet service provider, because they cap the upload speeds at about 1/6th the download speeds. (high-speed cable connection)

Hello,
I’m experiencing huge issues with the capped upload speeds: every day, I have to upload my personal backup files to my backup services, which takes forever. I read recently on a major tech news site (I think arstechnica.com) that the reason upload speeds are capped so far below download speeds is because: (paraphrasing) "it can get a little complicated, but it’s essentially because they can."

That is horrible.
Today, I was trying to send a 3gb file to someone, via the app Dropbox (very popular for backup and synching between computers), but the upload was going to take several hours. It was all the photos from a recent photo shoot I did, and I had to cut 2/3 of the pictures out, to get it down to 1gb, just so the file would get there before too late tonight (the person is a few hours ahead).

Can you please increase the upload speed, either for everyone, or for certain ports used by all known backup services? (That is, ports for backup, synching, FTP, and anything at all that is crucial for keeping society/business moving forward at the max possible rate. You can’t just cap the world… unless you want history to remember companies like this as only sad parasites.)

Thanks,
- Dario D.
www.alphaila.com

Their response to this email was asking me to restart my computer, clear my internet cache, and check for network latency issues. ………………. When I pointed out I wasn’t talking about that, they asked me to schedule a technician visit, so someone could come waste my time, do absolutely nothing, and leave. When I said that STILL wasn’t what I was talking about, they told me to call their Data Usage Allowances group, to discuss monthly bandwidth limits. Bandwidth limits are different from speed caps, so I stopped responding at that point.

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I forgot to mention in my email that even they even have their own file backup service… I guess just to remind everyone how slow their upload speeds are.

It’s really bad. People who do daily backups can’t even turn off their computers at night (global warming isn’t some joke), and it slows down the lives of those who either do business without having the money for super-expensive, business-style connections, or just do various computer projects. Also, all the people who run game servers, with all these players connecting to them, have to make everyone wait forever, if there are any custom files to send out. (If the server uses any custom maps, textures, or mods, then joining players have to download them first, while connecting.) I always have to quit when trying to join custom servers, because their upload speeds often make it take 5 minutes or more.

If you’re in the US, or any place with capped upload speeds, please bother your ISP (internet service provider) about this stuff. The major ISP’s in the US are routinely criticized by studies and technology sites, because they offer some of worst high-speed internet connections in the world. There’s very little competition – they can do what they want, as you have few alternatives – and they really do bring the stink wherever they can get away with it.

Doing something about this takes 5 minutes:
- Your ISP usually has a contact form on their site.
…then copy/paste that message, and complain to the FTC.
…and the BBB (Better Business Bureau).

To me, all the world is fascinating to no end. As such, I get excited when I’m in a grocery store, and spot something like this. Here’s Cosmopolitan’s May 2012 issue. Apparently, it’s ‘The Sex Issue’.

…

That’s like saying this month’s Golf Digest is about golf.

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On the good side, I was glad to see a healthy-looking girl on the cover, and not another toothpick model. (It’s reality TV star Khloe Kardashian, who has some meat.)

It reminds me of a bit of good news: the fashion magazine Vogue, which operates all over the world, recently announced that it would stop working with unhealthily thin models.

If every media outlet did this, normal-sized women would become the media’s norm, and there would be tons, tons less trouble with self-image all around the world. Without realizing it, even men would appreciate their non-toothpick women’s appearance more, and the average satisfaction that people have with women’s appearances would go up.

Back to Cosmo…
Here’s the picture I made a while back, inspired by this earlier issue (March 2008).
Make this full-screen:

Regarding image, I think the media’s “normal” for women really needs to reflect the *real* normal. And not just regarding weight, either. For instance, the more that TV commercials, movies, shows, etc, pump imagery of “perfect people”, the less impressed we are with how REAL people look. …That is absolutely horrible.

Even with just body poses, here’s what can happen:

In the media, MOST sexy-style posing is done with crazy bending, like this woman’s rear lifting off into space.

Now, one day, every man will walk into his kitchen, and see his love doing something similar:

What if she’s THAT thin, and yet your first thought is, “Hmm, those curves aren’t quite as I expected. Unfortunately, I see a minor element of sleaze in her body.” If your love is as thin as above, and these tiny things still steal away your attention, the media has robbed you first-class.

Now, I don’t think it’s strange or wrong at all for women to bend crazily in private, for their men, just that I’m tired of seeing it absolutely everywhere. Look at this Google Image Search. I’m certain that if you see this type of imagery too much, your mind starts leaning toward expecting women to naturally give off this vibe. I don’t think you’d notice it consciously, just that the normal postures of women would lose their appeal.

Here’s one place the problem comes from:

 

So, ask yourself this: What if there were goggles that made you see all the REAL people around you looking a good deal less attractive than reality? Well, we’re literally wearing those goggles.

The same exact thing happens with porn.  That’s another disaster I’ll cover later on, but anyone knows the basics: When you’ve seen too much porn, “normal” nudity takes a dive. Pretty soon, if you’re aren’t looking at super-high-level visuals, it’s hard to care. (They’re finally starting to do studies on this.)

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Back to appearances…
Just note that I certainly don’t think super good-looking people should NEVER be shown; just that they shouldn’t dominate the screen like they do. The balance probably lies in the media producers/editors/etc who choose the roles for stuff. For isntance, when casting for a movie, do we really need all 400 characters to look like models? That’s not the cure society needs. (In fact, I hope that one day it’s seen as unrealistic and fake… like, “Why are there a thousand models in this movie?”)

I do wonder, however, if some media people might be afraid to make these changes, because of the awkwardness of suddenly showing lots of more normal-looking people… but I’m certain that viewers would appreciate it a great deal. Word would surely explode about what’s happening, and why, and there’d be this big, collective sigh around the world of, “Ahhhhhh, this is wonderful.”

Windows 8 is on the way!

First, watch:

An unfinished, preview version of Windows 8 is available to the public. It’s more up-to-date than the video above, and looks like this:

(click all images for larger)

That above is the new “Start Screen”, which, at least so far, completely replaces the Start Menu.

It currently runs full-screen only, for some reason (like tablets), with no choice to opt back into the Start Menu. It uses an interface style called “Metro”, first seen in Microsoft’s new, failing phone OS, Windows Phone 7. (I did some commentary on the look of Metro at the bottom of this. Only read if you’re nerdy, artsy, or both.)

As pointed out in the link above, I personally don’t like the look of Metro. I think its style is suited for other things (like this pic), but certainly not computers/tablets/etc. Others might see it differently, but those others apparently haven’t been enough to circumvent this huge war that has sparked over the Start Screen. More on this later.

Fortunately, the desktop is still here, which currently looks like this:

I think I like the new “ribbon”, at the top of folder windows. Perhaps it has some clunk, but it brings dense functionality, and can auto-hide. (Someone has also shown that it’s quite a bit easier to reach most features than in Windows XP’s interface. Not sure, though, if it’s ultimately faster than Vista’s or Win7’s. (In the list of how many steps things take, more ‘weight’ has to go to things that are used more often.))

SO!

The Start Screen and Metro style are the major new things, and I think Microsoft has 2 main ideas lying underneath them… the second of which I like a great deal:

1) Make Windows more accessible and inviting on things like tablets – where Windows 7 failed – without having to make a separate UI for them.
(Not sure why not. I think absolute UI unity, across all systems, is an overvalued concept.)

2) On ANY system, make Windows easier for technophobes, and those who are new to this stuff.
(That’s most of the world’s population. Only 1 billion people have access to computers – a lowly 1 in 7 people – but mostly only through access at work and school. Only about 5% of households worldwide have at least 1 computer inside.)

Good ideas are one thing – and I love their pursuit – but then there’s good execution, which often doesn’t come so naturally…

To start, I believe the developmental progress of the entire world depends on computers not being presented as overly simple “easy-stations”, at least not for everyone. I really like the idea of making stuff easier for newbies, but what about the people who DO STUFF, and what about when the newbies aren’t newbies anymore?

Next, as much as Windows 8 gives that impression of being simple, it’s loaded with stuff that’s remarkably unintuitive. For example, you’ve got the invisible Start Button… It’s literally invisible, sitting in the bottom-left corner of the screen, not showing itself until you mouse into the far corner. (There are a couple videos on YouTube showing peoples’ parents trying to find it. Only watch if you have about 20 minutes.) Windows 8 is crawling with invisible features like this, such as how you flip through and manage open Metro apps. Things like that use invisible zones at the edges of the screen, and worse… for example, in order to see the Metro taskbar, you put the mouse in a bottom-left corner (invisible Start Button), then move the mouse upward. That’s the magic way to show the Metro taskbar. (Tech-savvy users won’t care, but people like my mom will be lost. Windows 8 will surely have to come with a training tutorial, in the final version.)

Also, you know how your running programs normally sit down in the taskbar? Well, the taskbar doesn’t show any of your Metro apps. Not only, but when you’re in Metro, the taskbar there doesn’t show you any desktop apps. It’s like your computer is split into 2 different operating systems, each with its own taskbar. It’s a design disaster.

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Back to the Start Screen…
At least right now, there’s no option to bypass the Start Screen, and just log straight into the desktop… and there’s no option to get the Start Menu back, for the gobs of people who are going to be repulsed by the Start Screen. (perhaps that’s not everyone, but I think it’s going to be a LOT.)

Going further, the OS we have right now, Windows 7, already made launching and managing open programs take more clicks and more time than Vista before it… and now, Windows 8 is looking like it might turn that into a continuing legacy. (For instance, switching between your open Metro apps is a slow, painful process. Even Windows Phone 7 Mango handles it better.)

The “Building Windows 8” blog, written by various members of the Windows Team, makes the case for the Start Screen being more efficient and faster to work with than the Start Menu… however, there are a few significant flaws with the way they present their argument. They first point out (rightly) that nearly every element of the Start Menu is not 100% optimal, and could use some rethinking… That’s fine, but then they miss the most immediate, natural solution of just saying, “So, since the Start Menu isn’t perfect, we need to MAKE it perfect.” Instead, they say more like, “So, the Start Menu is doomed, and the Start SCREEN is the only way to save it.”

Surely another influence is wanting to cater to tablets/touch… so, if that too is the case, why not just ask touch users if they’d like to activate a touch interface?

The biggest point that Microsoft made was something like this:

• These heatmaps (below) show how long it takes for the mouse to hover over an icon. Green means you can hover quickly. Red means the opposite. You can see how the Start Menu is less efficient, because your most-used icons go up on top, in the distant red zone. The Start Screen, however, can be freely organized, so, first of all, your most-used icons can theoretically all go in the green, and second, there’s tons more space on-screen, so, this cancels the need to have to dig stuff out of the cumbersome ‘All Programs’ menu.

Aside from how easy it would be to redesign the Start Menu, to boost its efficiency, Microsoft overlooks quite a few important things in this efficiency argument:

Argument Flaws

– To start, I doubt that many users are going to put their important stuff in the bottom-left of the Start Screen. I assume most people are going to put all that up at the top. That’s just how people sort stuff; top to bottom. See this heatmap below (which I made in Photoshop, using no analysis), showing where I assume people actually keep their most-used icons:

Also, on the Start Screen, when you create a new group of icons, everything is currently forced to start at the top. In order to put stuff at the bottom, you have to make the group packed full of icons.

The Start Screen DOES show more stuff up-front, which is good, especially if you have an app store where people mass-download all these little apps. However, later, I’ll get to a different way to serve these app-downloading people… (aside from just a new, larger Start Menu, or something).

Next:

– Microsoft forgets that the Start Screen has an opening AND closing animation, whereas the Start Menu instantly pops in and out. This throws a hefty wrench into the whole efficiency thing, and I doubt they’d change the Start Screen to ever appear instantly, like the Start Menu. Too abrupt for something full-screen.

– They forget that the Start Screen doesn’t have a taskbar, so, flipping through the open Metro apps is aimless and slow. (You thumb through them one by one, till you bump into the one you want.)

(I do love that Microsoft is trying to back its design with numbers and analysis. Using scientific info is very enlightening and rewarding, because it’s (supposed to) tell you exactly what’s what. However, one thing that scientific study always needs is “peer review”… which means getting an outside evaluation of the study, to make sure all the right questions were asked, and the info is being looked at the right way. It’s just *incredibly* easy to misinterpret what numbers are actually telling you. Analysis needs to be subjected to all factors, and put to the test. One of the problems is that people want their work (or study) to be fruitful, and not go to waste… so, they easily fall into the trap of “confirmation bias”, which means trying to see only the data that confirms what they want to see. They aren’t asking the question, “What does this info ULTIMATELY tell me,” they’re asking, “How much stuff here helps CONFIRM my theory (or reinforces my work)?” If not paying attention, a person can work with confirmation bias almost as naturally as breathing. Not a blamable thing.)

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Based just on crucial looks, think about Windows Phone 7, which uses the Metro look. To start, Windows Phone 7 did NOT turn the heads of your common buyer, which should probably be a warning sign. When choosing products, I think the masses of uninformed buyers go by:

1) How a product “feels”, as in how the whole presentation tickles their brains.
2) Whether or not they can justify the price.
3) How much they think they can actually use it (…even if they aren’t thinking clearly about this one, and let the “feel” part coax them into over-estimating how much actual use it will be).

As such, why would an uninformed buyer choose the 3rd or 4th-place appealing product (Windows Phone 7), if it both costs the same as the more tickly phones, and doesn’t obviously boast superior functionality?

So, on top of Windows 8 having the same visual non-awesomeness, I think a much larger, more vocal group of people is going to be disgusted by the whole Metro thing, and feel that computing is being turned into something completely unintelligent, and unattractive. It’s clear that we’re dumbing down to serve lowest common denominator… but it’s not AT ALL clear if that’s necessary for the goals that Microsoft wants to accomplish here... like helping the world’s newbies get on board with computers.

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As I hope to show below, I don’t think we need to go for dead-simple in order to embrace touch-computing and newbie users. I think that if we just execute the Start Screen differently, using most of the same ideas, we can kill 4 birds with 1 stone…

1: Zero controversy, zero risk.
2: All the touch/tablet functionality that Microsoft wants.
3: All the newbie-friendliness.
4: Extra power for techies.

First, you’d choose between starting out with a simple interface, or a rich, advanced one:

Newbie Desktop

Click images for large versions…
(Note: there’s some intentional variance here and there, just to try out different stuff.)

You could also default to having the taskbar auto-hide, so that newbies get a stronger impression of simplicity.

It would be nice if the widget board came with a rich collection of additional widgets (or PROMINENT access to an online library), so you could add more stuff, like this YouTube panel:

You’ll note how I don’t believe in making things look oversimplified as a means to be newbie-friendly. To combat technophobia, I believe Windows should have something like simple, non-corporate-feeling training videos, and maybe intelligent boot-screen messages (like, “If you don’t know precisely who sent you an email, and the reason why, the odds that it’s spam hovers unbelievably close to 100%.”) If some computers are going to boot too fast, the messages could perhaps be added to the login screen, or presented in some other way.

Advanced Desktop

(here’s that Win 7 article)

By the way, some might point out that the Start Screen sits in front of everything, easily accessible, whereas this would sit behind everything, and require minimizing all your windows in order to get to it. Would that slow things down?

• 1: No, because the Start Menu is back, and, for launching apps, that’s actually your biggest Start Screen equivalent. (remember, the Start Screen is just a full-screen Start Menu.)
• 2: I’d introduce some quick ways to minimize, like perhaps turning that tiny ‘Minimize All’ button in the bottom-right into a larger, second Start Button, just for bringing you back to the widget board… and, if you have a bunch of non-maximized windows floating around, maybe double-clicking the desktop would make them minimize.

The advanced and simple desktops are technically the same one. The only differences are how cluttered they start out, what widgets are showing, which taskbar skin is used (maybe), and whether or not the widget board is set to “Full Desktop”. (That would be a simple option. It would block out having traditional desktop icons above and below the widget board.)

With a layout like this, newbie users could easily and naturally work their way up to an “advanced” layout… and advanced users could do the opposite, if they wanted.

Same story with tablets:

Tablet Desktop (with Start Menu open)

HERE, I chose a partially Win7-style taskbar. Not sure how comfortable I am with the fact that additional programs that you launch would alternate appearing on the left and right sides, but it’s an idea.

I think a Start Menu like this could do well on desktop PC’s too (you’ll see some desktop features above, like a disc drive icon), but more thinking would have to go into some of the details, like how to handle larger programs that actually come with several smaller side-apps, or that need to put some important files up front… like you see often in the Start Menu. Maybe some app icons could expand, and show you the stuff they’re bundled with… I dunno. Got stuff to do. :P

To refresh your memory real quick, here’s Windows 8, so far:

(Fun fact: After Windows 8 loads, you start out FOUR screens away from the desktop. Wading through them is a marathon.)

So, we have last:

The Choice Screen

(Something similar would come up whenever you create a new user account.)

Here’s a Windows 8 installation screen:

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A little analysis…

Looking at Windows 8 so far, I feel that most people new to computers will be trained to feel that most tasks should be overly simple, as in dumb, without much to expect out of anything. Unfortunately, I think that would make people lazy, and less willing to use computers as anything more than enlarged smartphones. (not in a good, convenience way, but like a candy-store app station way.) The whole Start Screen / Metro interface is presented in this painfully simple fashion, which I think enough people will see as kid-style… you know, like educational-software. I think it would channel to the average person this pervasive feeling that computers aren’t important. There are GOOD ways to simplify, and I don’t mind the idea of simple, tablet-like apps on the PC, but I think this system-wide dumbing down will cultivate a laxy-lazy view of technology, more than anything.

This is a dangerous mentality to water down the mighty PC with. For one, think about human progress in the upcoming times, and how reliant it will be on technology… Now, what do you think will happen if you tell people to start thinking of man’s most powerful workhorse as a lazy pony? The point: I believe you can still get EVERYONE on board here, without going the pony route.

Next, if these issues cause enough ruckus out there, and the whole thing is a flop, I think Microsoft might feel VERY awkward trying to later reintroduce things like the Start Menu, and the “regular” approach to things. They might want to trash everything that was part of the equation – including past stuff that worked – and introduce something else completely new. (More risks, and more new stuff for the entire world to learn.)

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Now, I don’t question for a second that at least SOME of the people behind Windows 8 probably see it as “cool, lively modern-style”. (If that were NOT the case, they would have named Metro something like “kids” or “education”, and dumped it)… but here’s the thing: those who advocate things almost always see them from the best possible angles that you could see them. It’s a psychological issue that all people face, which is part of how we get things like poor movies. Like with movies, those who are most closely tied to their creation (writer, director, etc) usually think everything is looking great… (just watch “making of” segments, and see)… but, had others been given a meaningful chance, they could have pointed out that there were serious flaws. Rarely does someone TRY to find flaw in their creation, because it’s so uncomfortable, and leaves you discouraged. (I have this theory that there are actually very few bad movies/books/etc; just a whole lot that have to be seen from very, very specific angles.)

In the world of creating things, it’s massively important to be self-critical, and also not turn away outside judgment. It helps us uncover the other ways in which our stuff might be seen, and not just the good ones.

By nature, I think we people go through this 2-step thought-process when analyzing our own creations, or the things we advocate. There’s some variance from situation to situation, but, in general:

1) We ask ourselves, “Can I find ANY angle from which to see this where it WORKS?” (We usually start out only interested in whether or not something of ours CAN work, almost trying to MAKE IT work.)
2) If we succeed in the above, we think we’ve got it, and try NOT to uncover anything contrary. From then on, we’re all set, and plant this seed of belief… which we furiously try to only water with further reassurances.

This thought-process is devastating to artists and all kinds of “creators of stuff”, which is why it’s SO important for us to be surrounded by respected opinions… corrective, often critical voices. (We just have to make sure that these are constructive voices, specifically trying to make our work BETTER, and not vampires, trying to discourage us. The key is: don’t only tell me you don’t like something. Tell me how you COULD like it.)

Being SELF-corrective is mighty useful as well, just as long as we’re willing to actually sit there, and try to find holes in ideas that we’ve already fallen in love with. On one hand, our minds may have a nasty aversion to allowing opposing thoughts to threaten our ideas… but being self-critical is probably the most useful approach of all, because instead of creating something, THEN getting feedback, you criticize your ideas before you’ve even done anything. (I personally save tons of time on my projects by trying to find flaws first.) I imagine that close to zero people do this, because, until you know its true value, it’s difficult… Trying to sink your own stuff can be very rapid-fire with the challenges, so, in one brainstorming session, you might easily offer yourself more opposition than you’d normally come across in a long time. However, the power it gives you in fixing and improving all of your aspirations is invaluable. It’s like… would you rather spend your life pursuing junk ideas that often fail, or almost always hitting the mark?

(I think the kinds of ideas we need to judge within ourselves are quite varied. It could be whether or not a project or hobby will be as worthwhile as we thought, whether or not a “good idea” of ours will ACTUALLY work, whether or not we’re over-estimating the quality of things we’ve created, etc… Now, we do need SOME defense from these thoughts, because even our everyday thinking can bombard us with all manner of false insecurities about things… so, it helps to really pay attention, and notice when our fears are either just blank illusions, or plausible but not ultimately correct.)

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So, my impression of the Windows 8 preview, so far:
I think it’s good ideas, just being presented wrong. I’m bothered by Metro and the Start Screen, but I like some of the underlying ideas. I’d just present the whole thing from a different angle.

(For further digging on Windows 8 issues, see this article, on CNet.)

Looks like spending a huge deal of time driving every day can do serious damage to the fabric of your life. A study of 2 million Swedish couples concluded that those with long commutes were 40% more likely to divorce. Good gravy.

When you think into this, it seems apparent what a strain mass driving could cause on free time… and the energy needed to cultivate good relations at home. For instance, goodbye happy mornings if you have to get up an hour earlier than everyone else, and be gone before anyone even gets to see you. Goodbye happy evenings if you come home destroyed – not only from work now, but from driving as well – with only enough energy to really sit down and recharge. If you have zero fuel, it might be hard to meaningfully engage other family members.

I imagine some people may spend their entire lives in a continual state of depletion, yet never really notice that it may be the cause of all kinds of issues, because they don’t know what it’s like to live any other way. Doing slave-like work starts as early as school, and we seem to spend almost our entire lives under this heavy burden of slave-like work. Rarely can we step back and really try to understand it – observe it from the outside – and even if we could, we can’t always just opt out.

I can’t wait for robots. They’ll be here soon enough.
If we can offload most of the world’s needed labor onto the shoulders of something else, we can live more freely… while the ‘stuff’ that we need is made for CHEAP, and eventually for free. (I figure that within 60 years, robot labor will be immense, and most things will be free or close to free.)

Microsoft just pointed out that, in China, it only makes 5% of the money it makes in the US, because of piracy… though both countries have similar PC sales. That news got my attention, because I’ve been wondering for a while now if all PC/Mac software may be fundamentally overpriced.

Here’s the thinking:
Most paid computer software is so far above the impulse-buy range, that, even in countries with money, most people have to REALLY think about if they want something. Usually, I think this means that people just don’t buy anything.

If you’ve been on compturs a while, think about how many times this has happened to you:
– Oh, WinRAR Pro? [$30] Maybe for $2, but goodbye!
– WinAmp has a full version with more stuff? [$20] You know, there’s nothing wrong with free WinAmp!

Same when you just need to do some little one-time task. Say you need to rip MP3’s, or download YouTube videos onto your hard drive, or sync your music between all your computers… Anyone would gladly pay $1-3 for one of these.

But then you see the price tag for one… like $24.99. “Who needs to save YouTube videos, anyway?!”

We’ve all seen these programs, and we all remember how we felt when turning away. No matter how good we thought they apps were– no matter how well-made – we knew that we were honestly only going to use these programs for a BRIEF period, then probably never touch them again. And so we decided either do without, or go find some free alternative.

I wonder this: when it comes to utilities, and other apps that aren’t essential for making anyone’s life work, why is it that if it isn’t free, it’s always between $25-50? We just skip right over the range where I believe people would actually buy stuff.

I think small-time software developers probably come to this pricing by following a flawed thought process… (minus the ones who know they’ll be selling ONLY to businesses, which might fork over money more easily). Because, when they first started out on computers, I’m sure most of these people scoffed at the prices of almost every utility they saw… but then, when they launched their own programs, the first thing they thought was probably, “What should I charge? Oh, obviously, I should go see what everyone else is charging, and just copy them!”

Similar to utilities, let’s look at something like Photoshop Elements, which starts at $120. If you aren’t an artist/photographer,  how would you feel about paying that much when you aren’t even sure if you’ll be using it a year from now? Further, let’s say you’re a hobbyist, so you want the FULL version of Photoshop. Even though you’re not a professional, and will probably never make a dime off it, the full version will cost you $700. I’m completely serious. (It’s funny because, for that price, the full Photoshop is QUITE similar to Elements.) I think this is quite unfortunate for everyone, including Adobe, because we know that most people will either do without, use BitTorrent, or find a free alternative.

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I first formed this opinion some years ago. At the time, I was only considering all the “rich” Americans, not even realizing yet that most places had even less money than here… like in China, where you see that people just aren’t putting out any money for software.

I think if most programs were an impulse-buy ($1-12, but especially in the lower range), and if this were a consciously known thing, several things would happen:

1) People would mass-consume…
2) The mass-consumption would increase the worldwide hobby-status of software. There’d be more appeal, more people “into it”, and the industry would make a lot more noise.
2) Software developers would make more money.
3) Piracy would become a lot smaller, because people could actually afford stuff.

(I’m not entirely certain, however, how quickly cultures that are *addicted* to piracy would give it up. Perhaps a good app store would gradually wean them off, like Steam probably does with gamer pirates (to some degree)).

I’ll point out how iTunes attracts people with its easy-sounding $1 per song, and Steam attracts gamers with its crazy fire-sales (75-90% off lots of games, all the time). And, most of all, smartphone app stores have this powerful, almost distracting sense of accessibility, which makes buying cheap software a complete joy… and an unfortunate addiction, for many.

I think the primary reason that smartphone apps exploded was just because of how much you CARED about the whole thing, due to everything being so easy to get. Smartphone app stores are like candy stores. When most apps are either impulse buys or completely free, it makes you want to stick around, and always go see what new apps you can try out, just because you CAN.

(To be fair, there are a few other important factors, all necessary for the success of smartphone apps, but I’m just highlighting what I think is the single largest one: the ridiculous accessibility. If most paid smartphone apps were between $10-30, all the interest would shift over to whatever’s free, and the whole experience would take a huge slide… That slide, I think, would also result in less free apps being made altogether (and they’d be of lesser quality). (btw, note to anyone who only downloads free smartphone apps: you’re missing out.)

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Back to computer apps, we have a few more issues, I think:
With expensive software, people can’t be very curious at all, and get into things “just because”… nor can they afford to buy many curiosities. Now, if someone was walking by a computer section in a store, and saw a box that said you could easily rebuild your house in 3d, with really good graphics, for $5, they might just pick that up. They could have some fun. (In fact, people all over the place might pick that up…) Now, if you bumped that up to $25, most people would suddenly have to think about it very carefully, and would probably brush it off with, “Nah. I don’t need that.”

As another example, picture a promising-looking, powerful movie-editor, for $5. Now think of all the people worldwide who have been teetering on the brink of getting into editing, and needing only a tiny nudge to get going. (I’m sure there are plenty of people – like students wanting to make films over summer – who’d like to upgrade from Windows Movie Maker.) Trouble is, the programs that most people have come to know and want are these “really-gotta-think-about-it” titles… like Final Cut, Sony Vegas, and Adobe Premiere (with their light versions costing $170, $50, and $85). Each of these has a “full”, pro version for $900, $530, and $700. (They seem unfairly priced for professionals/studios. In the full versions, you’re seeing maybe 20-35% feature improvement, for somewhere around 700% more cost. Sony Vegas lowers its price to $340 for students and non-profit organizations, but not non-profit individuals (like me, for instance)).

(Quick note: bear in mind that when a “pro” version of a program offers only 20-35% more features, it’s still better than it sounds. On paper, it doesn’t look like much, but, for someone who spends his life using these apps, tiny details end up saving LOADS of time. A genuine pro would NOT want to spend his career using a light version, and they know this… therefor, they’re really trapped into paying the extra dough.)

If I’m right, all of this pricing stuff has negative effects on the world, which I’ll summarize here:
– It prevents the majority of computer users out there from really getting INTO software (which, quite importantly, slows down the developmental progress of  everything).
– It prevents software developers from making more money, which prevents them from igniting a surge in making new and better stuff. If PC software saw the boom that smartphones apps did, there’d probably be a lot more volume of stuff being made, which would increase competition. More competition means more of a drive to make apps of higher quality (which, again, speeds up the progress of our race. 85% of the world lives in a developing country (places building up – not impoverished), and they need all the help they can get in modernizing).

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Anyway, so, that’s my little theory (which, remember, is just speculation). I’ve thought very similarly about cameras, and a few other things. (I’m wondering if the pricing of all this stuff is a matrix of monkey-see-monkey-do.)

In the world of psychology, a narcissist is a textbook “evil person”… not that science would use the term “evil”, but you surely know what it means. The dictionary will tell you that a narcissist is merely “someone in love with themselves”, which isn’t wrong – that’s PART of it – but it doesn’t get into all the implications of what a narcissist really IS… which is someone who lacks a heart pretty much entirely (though many can wear an attractive mask of friendship), usually self-centered to the core, and ruthlessly resistant to the idea of being wrong or corrected.

Narcissism is a super, super important topic to know about. People should keep a really strong understanding of narcissism in their everyday mental toolbelts, so that they can understand the people they see and interact with all the time.

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Anyway, for today’s post, here’s a question I often go over in my mind: I wonder how many companies have their boardrooms teeming with either narcissists (less common), or just people with various narcissistic traits (more common).

There’s already the idea out there that sociopaths – higher level narcissists, obsessed with manipulation – might be a plague among America’s CEO’s. If true, that would be important news, at least to me and anyone else that actually understands what that means. (in fact, if on one hand, you said that all of Australia had been nuked to oblivion, then you said that 1/2 of western world’s CEO’s were sociopaths, I’d be more alarmed by the latter.) But, even if sociopaths weren’t often CEO’s at all, I’d still wonder how frequently you’ll find people with narcissist traits floating around the top.

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If you think about it, and know a thing or two about psychology, the implications of having narcissists in executive positions makes this a HUGE concept… because narcissists have some nasty, hard-coded limits that could really weigh on things, and affect the world.
(in that headline, you’ll see “megalomania”, which means having delusions of grandeur.)

For example, when narcissistic people invest ANY of their persona into a decision they’ve made, or a direction they’ve pushed for, they usually find it VERY difficult to admit being wrong. It’s hard enough for a narcissist to publicly fail even on one level… now imagine such a person also having their high-visibility executive job on the line, and the bragging rights of having been a reason for the company’s success. (that’s going to sound more tame on paper than it should. REALLY inflate your idea of how hard it would be for them to accept that. It’s hard enough for a normal person, and normal people don’t need to be right that badly…)

Now, in a business environment, a narcissist could probably find some ways to get out of sticky situations. For example, when pressing for a risky direction in a business, ANYONE would want to build up a stockpile of saying, “Nobody can even KNOW if my idea will work for certain, so, we’ll just see how it goes.” Then, when things go south, the failure wouldn’t  look so bad.

Even with simple family matters, being notably wrong about something is a near impossibility for narcissists to accept, and they could battle an idea till the day they die. (There’s often a lot of blaming of outside factors involved… saying that mistakes were all because of X stupid thing, or Y stupid thing.) Now, ANY person might defend something that’s grave enough, but the difference is that a narcissist will do so even with things that others can simply accept.

Understand that a narcissist is entirely ego-driven… A good deal of the things they do in life are for the goal of increasing the way others admire them. (their ultimate desire is to be essentially worshipped by those around them… not with hands to the ground, bowing every day toward Mecca, but hey, if they found a genie that granted three wishes, that would be the first.) They invest much persona into the publicly visible things they do, which they feel are somehow expressions of their their magnificence… whether anyone outside of themselves can even detect that investment or not (much less care about it).

Anyway, anyone breathing should read this. It’s just a pile of info about narcissists.

The article that prompted me to start writing this post was this. It’s a good read about sociopaths/psychopaths in the workplace. (sociopaths and psychopaths are essentially the same thing, though some people out there define differences. They’re just higher-level narcissists, obsessed with manipulation.)

I noticed this while looking up a powerful electric-powered truck, called the T-Rex…

Look at that!

Pretty on one side, then ugly on the other, with hardly a change…

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By no means does this apply to everything, but it does appear enough that I think people should have some grasp on what this effect means in everyday life. (in particular, people who make stuff of any kind, or people in power… even if it’s just bosses/managers at a workplace). As demonstrated in the image above, sometimes the difference between success and failure can be just putting the final layer of polish on a project/task/etc.

If you’re into video games, recall how easily some titles can be destroyed by a lack of polish… Now, others can indeed be very playable even with deep, gaping issues (like Battlefield 2, especially in its release state), but, even there, the issues create a pervasive stench of brokenness that poisons the experience… (Oh, it also makes people talk lots of trash about the game to their friends, and roast the company online.)

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(bed is calling, so I have to wrap this up… …and you can shut up about my 3am blogging.)

In some ways, I find it pretty lame that I must actually argue for the idea of merely applying finish to things.

On the people side of this, I can easily understand how an individual might not have the motivation to polish up a personal project or something, just wanting to call it done. Sometimes, there’s just a lack of motivation, caused maybe by a lack of belief that the project will result in much, or by the work being too uninviting to push through (or both)… but, when you’re talking about companies, and the things THEY make – products that affect the world, and aren’t being created merely for personal self-fulfillment – it’s really lame that there’s so much corner-cutting and “not finishing before releasing”, often just to maximize profits. (Sometimes, things MUST happen this way, but certainly not always.)

For one, I hope that somewhat enlightened companies, like Google, Apple, and Valve – despite some flaws – can continue to show everyone else how it’s done. So far, these companies have done A LOT to inspire and promote better thinking in their industries, and, as the images above point out, it sometimes doesn’t take MUCH to make really big change.

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Also see this similar article, on my other blog, about execution and presentation.

Yesterday was the last day of TED 2011. (dang, I didn’t realize you could apply to attend, until just now. I thought it was invitation-only)

The talks aren’t out yet (the videos are trickled out slowly), but the word on the net is that Google gave a talk showing off their self-driving cars project.

If this becomes mass-market, it will change the way we drive… imagine one day having an entire highway in bumper-to-bumper traffic, moving at 200mph… every movement perfectly coordinated. I believe that this technology – if they take its development all the way to the end – would mean that you’d eventually start buying much, much faster cars. With them, you’d realize that you can casually cart yourself to faraway places you never thought you’d bother to visit. On a whim, you could have your car haul you to any old place you can find on Google Maps…

This would be taken to the next level with cars that fly, which would both be able to drive themselves AND take you to any place you see on Google Maps.

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Next, they just need to figure out a cheap, easy way to get over the ocean. The furthest I’ve speculated is wondering how hard it would be to build undersea bullet-trains (tunnels along the ocean floor)… It would be expensive (at first), but once you had just ONE tunnel connecting each major land-mass, I think the torrents of people seeking a cheap way to cross the ocean might hopefully pay for it. (It may sound crazy, but hey; ALL modern marvels were once considered crazy ideas, and, when you think about the future, you know without question that being able to cross oceans via some kind of bullet-something will happen at some point. I think the only real question is exactly how soon.) I can’t wait til we no longer need our expensive-as-heck airplanes. (Seriously, most families don’t have $4,000 to spend just on tickets.)

Update: Here’s the TED Talk…

E² (series)

A series of half-hour episodes, showing all manner of ideas that try to fix our environment. It goes over things like:

- Green architecture
- Designing low-emission vehicles, and methods of travel
- All kinds of smart design
- The hunt for clean, renewable energy
- Designing cities that don’t drink resources
- Non-destructive production of food

Why should you watch it? Well, if you’re always thinking, "I don’t quite ‘get’ what being green is about, and I feel like I should understand it," this is the cure. Just pop an episode in here and there, and, before you know it, you’ll feel like you finally understand this whole dimension to life. (Understanding this stuff affects the way you think about everything. If everyone always had the drive to bring this kind of betterment out there, everything would be awesome. It would put a new sail on society’s ship, and aim us closer to the new world.)

Season 1 (YouTube)

Season 1 & 2 mixed (Hulu)
(see the ‘Episodes’ strip, toward the bottom, and notice its arrow, on the right.)

Season 3 and “Transport” Season (offline)

 

Here’s a sample episode, from YouTube: