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January 27, 2010 

My Thoughts on the iPad

I think Apple has made a very wise choice by devleoping the iPad and announcing it today. I agree with Steve Jobs that the netbook is dead. Actually, I never thought it was alive from the start. Netbooks also seemed like crippled devices, and I couldn’t understand or justify paying a lump sum of money for hardware that was only to be used for browsing the Internet. I would rather much prefer an iPhone or an Android phone, or even a regular laptop, over a netbook.

Apple really seems to be pushing the all-in-one be-all end-all solution for general consumers’ computing needs with the iPad. I seriously think that just the introduction of the iPad is going to revolutionize future devices even more so. Being closed isn’t so bad in Apple’s case. They have been continuously creating revolutions for years and years. The iPad actually reminds me of the various futuristic devices seen in movies. They are devices that very small and compartmentalized but yet seem to do so much.

I like that it’s a larger iTouch. The iTouch, while a nifty device, never felt more than a novelty to me considering that it’s nothing but a stripped-down iPhone and beefed-up iPod on a teeny-tiny screen. Apple has certainly created a very nice platform with their store of applications, and it is certainly nice to not have to worry about managing the nitty-gritty underpinnings of the operating system (me, being a crazy computer user).

I would love to lug around a slim-profile computer around especially to my living room where I can do a quick web browsing during live TV without having to switch inputs to my living room PC (whose only purpose if for gaming anyway) or walking the 20 feet back to my other computer (despite how small my apartment is, it’s very annoying to do and I spend enough time in my room as it is).

However, my lifestyle also does not necessarily beg the need for an iPad much like I don’t need a smartphone either. There is rarely a time that I am not near a computer throughout the day. Being a full-time programmer requires me to use a computer. I hardly travel anywhere besides commuting to work everyday by car. It would be a stupid idea and a death wish to use a computer while driving. I am doing some kind of physical activity nearly everyday or taking care of household tasks that computers can’t do. The free time I do have isn’t much, and usually by that time I am ready to fall asleep.

I realize why I can’t get excited about the iPad. Apple’s technologies don’t provide me with any advantage over what I can already do now on my own systems. I still believe that watching movies and listening to music and shrunken devices is a very cheapening experience. Apple still isn’t at the point where they can compete with the video game industry despite that developers have created casual, mobile games. That is the one area that I think where they can at least decently compete with Nintendo.

I think Apple has hit a very good price point for it. The cost of Apple’s technologies has always been a huge turnoff for me because I don’t feel they offer a justifiable value for what they offer at their price. $500 as a base price plus the data pricing plans ($30 for unlimited data) is incredibly attractive. Bu I honestly thought Apple was going to develop a better non-app-based system at least running Mac OS X and having a decent solid state drive. I don’t discredit them though; I really like think they are onto something in the world of computers.

April 17, 2007 

Rationale

Bad things happen, and people always need to ask why. No one ever has a good answer. Instead, the best people can come up with is just about any external factor they can think of. Everybody wants to put the blame someplace else because they themselves cannot begin to understand what was going on in someone’s mind at the time. People can never truly understand someone on a mental level, which is why they try to rationalize someone’s rationale by pointing the finger at some environmental agent. Sometimes it doesn’t matter why it happened. This freaks people out because when bad things do happen, they don’t know how to respond to it. This leads to correlation implying causation which is not always true.

When I heard about the Virigina Tech massacre, the only thing I could feel was a bad feeling. It’s the kind of feeling you get in your gut when you know something is just not right. I knew people would try to find blame. There always has to be a reason for everything. I would probably guess these people think things happen for a reason. They don’t know how to explain it themselves because they would never be capable of doing something like that.

Strangely, all I could think of was when Anakin Skywalker swayed to the Dark side. No one really questions why he became a Sith Lord and why he terrorized the galaxy. They just accept the fact there is The Force. The tricky part about this is that in the Star Wars universe, it makes sense (i.e. it’s logical) because of that context though it’s really a matter of faith.

People may need a logical response for the Virginia Tech massacre, but logic can also dictate that pointing the blame isn’t going to fix anything. The faithful way of looking at it is to just accept it for what it is. Having no reason sounds like a cop-out, but that is where I stand on matters like these. There are too many factors to consider. There is no way to perfectly predict the future and prevent events like this from happening again (even if you had computating power beyond the capcity of the entire human race or had precognizant oracles). I am also entirely sick of using scapegoats (especially if it’s something stupid). What happened can’t be undone, but there has to be a better way to cope than sticking a finger at someone and waiting for it to be broken.

March 16, 2006 

A Passed Past Idea

Back when I was in the 7th or 8th grade, I would listen to the radio sometimes when I did my homework. Some of the songs were catchy and some weren’t. Anytime my family went to Borders Books & Music, I’d go look at the CDs in the music section. I would just peruse through the aisles looking at the various cover art until I found an artist that I had heard on the radio. I would go through the artist’s discography until I found one that contained a song I had heard on the radio. My next few moments would be spent looking at the tracks and wondering if I should buy the CD or not. I had not heard any of the other artist’s songs before and it seemed silly to buy just one CD for one song and a whole bunch of others I hadn’t heard. I almost always put the CD back into the shelf, and then I would continue on looking for another artist I recognized and repeat the process all over again.

I wanted to have music, but I didn’t want to pay for the songs I didn’t want. The songs I liked came from all different artists. My idea was that kiosks should be set up in Borders (the thought of putting in other places hadn’t occurred to me at the time) where people could scroll through a library of songs, pick the ones they liked, and have those selected put onto a CD. People would be charged just one flat rate price for each custom CD that they created.

It was just an idea at the time.

If only.

March 11, 2006 

Hot or Not

It’s a late Friday night, and I just came up with a crazy idea.

Run image algorithms on all the pictures on Hot or Not and find trends in faces that yield a particular score.

My friend only had one response for me: “Thesis!”