Road Trip 2011

I'm on an epic road trip from LA to NYC and back. One lap of the country. To stay updated, visit http://ricksroadtrip.tumblr.com

Thanks for the Future, Steve

The death of a person has never before compelled me to write about it, not even when it was someone I knew. But hearing the news of the death of Steve Jobs hit me much harder than I was expecting. Usually when someone I respect or admire dies, I'm bummed about it for a little while, and then I move on. How much I respected the person directly related to how long I stayed bummed. But never was I moved to tears. Until I heard about Steve Jobs.

The first Apple product I owned was an iPod. It wasn't the first portable MP3 player I'd owned, but it was easily the best. It was so far beyond anything else I'd used before. It seemed designed for me. And not just for me, for everyone. Having been raised on DOS- and Windows-based PCs at home my entire childhood, it was strange. I was unaccustomed to using a gadget that was more concerned with what I could get out of it rather than doing its own thing and not caring whether I understood it. I got my first Mac computer in 2004, a PowerBook G4. It was my second laptop (the first was a Dell). And I could feel that same user-focused design philosophy there too.

Windows is designed to work a certain way. If you were a nerd, understood computers, or were a software engineer, then you knew how to get Windows to do what you wanted. Mac OS X was more about helping me get stuff done the way I wanted. I think Apple was the first maker of tech and gadgets to design their products based on consumer needs, not the thought processes of engineers, at least in my experience.

I'd used Apple computers a lot before 2004. They were the computer of choice for all most all my grade, middle, and high school education. I learned how to type on a Mac. I learned Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash on a Mac. I learned to edit on Final Cut Pro. I made interactive projects with HyperCard. I learned the virtues of careful planning in The Oregon Trail. Much of who I am, how I think, and what I can do came from experiences I had on a Mac. My first experience with a smartphone was the original iPhone. Before that, I'd only ever used a dumb phone.

Since then, I've had two more Mac laptops, a Mac mini, several more iPods, and a bunch of other things. In fact, I think I'm right in saying that the only other technology company whose products I've purchased with as much enthusiasm is Sony. I've tried to convince myself (and others) that I'm not an Apple fanboy or part of that cult, but it simply isn't true. I've converted my entire immediate family to Mac users, and once the iPhone 4S launches, we'll all be using iPhones as well. Most of us also have iPads (which, by the way, is the computing device I've desperately wanted ever since I saw Star Trek: The Next Generation as a kid). Whether I like it or not, Steve Jobs and Apple have become inextricably linked to my life.

I wholeheartedly believe that 100 years from now, Steve Jobs will be remembered by historians as one of the most important and influential people ever to have lived. He forever changed the face of computing (hell, he was one of the founders of personal computing). Home computers used to be big, obtrusive monoliths in drab greys and beiges with wires creating a mess out the back. Then the iMac happened. At first, I was very against it. I was a pretty hardcore PC user at the time, and the lack of expandability made me cringe. What I didn't understand at the time was that Apple was creating a whole new market of computer users. Apple wanted (and still wants) everyone to not just have to use a computer, but want to. They wanted a product you didn't have to hide away under a desk. They gave us the first computer you could actually put on display.

Design and usability are the key tenets in Apple's success, and the whole computer industry has been trying to copy their products. And that's smart, because Steve Jobs and Apple have shown an uncanny ability to create new products that we never knew we needed. Apple hasn't just been ahead of the curve. They're designing the future.

Portable music players that played MP3 files were nothing new when the iPod came out, but never had one been so usable. PMPs were a niche product until Apple came on the scene. Same goes for laptops. Previously, the laptop was the purview of the traveling businessman. Then there was the PowerBook, and then the MacBook. Smartphones, similarly, were also just for businessmen, and RIM ruled the world with the Blackberry. Then there was the iPhone. Now everyone has a smartphone, and RIM is on the way out. The newest is the iPad. Not the first tablet, but the first one to work properly. Now all tablets work better than any pre-iPad model, mostly because their operating systems take cues from Apple's. Without Apple's contributions to these areas, they would still be languishing.

Also, have you noticed how everyone tries to make computers that are aesthetically appealing now?

But I've only scratched the surface here. Sure, the iPod has made listening to music on the go more convenient, but what else has it done? When paired with iTunes (the largest retailer of music of any kind, digital or physical), it has completely changed the music business. Napster came along and was a bit of a wake-up call for the music industry. The old model was shown not to work anymore, but the music industry fought it. The iPod and iTunes have come along, and they are now forcing the music industry to change with the times, or face collapse. Content distribution has changed for movies and TV shows as well. And then there's the whole mobile app phenomenon.

Steve Jobs has managed to take the science fiction world of the future from books, movies, and TV, and made it reality now. In fact it's better. My iPad is way, way more impressive than any of the tech on Star Trek (and that stuff's from the 24th century). Jobs has made this science fiction future a self-fulfilling prophecy. He has forever altered the way we connect and communicate, the way we make content, the way we work, and it's a philosophy he's built into what is now the wealthiest company in America (surpassing even oil companies).

Jobs's final contribution to changing the way we compute is still to come: iCloud. Again, cloud computing already exists, and works fairly well, but I have a feeling it's not going to come into its own until iCloud launches. The features it gives every Mac OS and iOS user (for free) are going to become so essential that not having them will soon become unacceptable.

Not so long ago, a computer would only work if it could fill entire rooms. Now we have computers many, many times more powerful, and they fit into our pockets. And we can't live without them. Steve Jobs has changed human society, and continues to change it even after his death. Right now is an incredible time to be alive. Civilization has not seen such a leap forward in technology since the industrial revolution. This expansion of technology that's been happening for the last couple decades (and that'll continue for god-knows-how-long) will be remembered as a pivotal time in human history, and few have had as big a hand in shaping it as Steve Jobs.

So when the future gets here, remember who to thank.

Have a nice day

Whenever I go to a store, or coffee shop, or restaurant I am always pleased when the employee of whatever establishment I am visiting closes the business transaction with "Have a nice day," or something similar. I find it refreshing when the niceties are observed. (The size of the tips I give waiters is directly proportionate to their niceness.) Whether they tell me to have a nice day, or to enjoy my day, or whatever, I always respond with something like, "Thanks, you too." But I've realized this is just a knee-jerk reaction. Granted it's a cordial reaction, but nevertheless it's mostly automatic.

The problem I see with this response is that I'm talking to a person at work. When I'm effectively telling someone who is on the clock, "Yes, you have a pleasant day as well," I don't consciously think about it, but I know that it is improbable they will actually have a pleasant day. This makes me feel a little guilty. I genuinely want nice people who wish me well to also be well, but telling them so while they're at work seems, at best, insincere. Possibly patronizing. At worst, I sound vindictive: "Yeah, you also have a nice day at this shit job with horrible customers who make you miserable, day in, day out."

Maybe I'm being a bit too hard on myself. I try to believe that my sincerity comes across, but it's difficult to accept good wishes from a customer when other customers have been making your life hell. If it were me, I probably wouldn't give a damn what someone's intentions were when they told me to also have a nice day. Whatever sort of day I'd been having would color my interpretation of the niceties.

But now, in thinking about this, I realize that I probably needn't worry so much. Chances are, a store clerk or coffee shop barista's initial "Have a nice day" has just as much chance of being genuine as not. So if "have a nice day" is only a feigned nicety, then what's the harm in feigning niceness back?


-- Post From My iPhone

The subway makes you tune out

I always knew this was true, but I never realized just how true until today. I was standing by the door of the car, about to disembark. I was facing away from the door, looking directly at a co-worker. She was facing me, but not looking at me. We were 2-3 feet apart with no one between us. I decided, for the sake of social experiment, to wait and see how long it took her to notice I was there. It was a good ten seconds before the train stopped and we all got out. She even passed me on the escalator, oblivious to my presence. This makes me wonder how many times I've been the oblivious one. Probably often, as today was a rare occasion in that I was not wearing headphones on the subway.

-- Post From My iPhone

Google Wave (addendum)

The final line of the haiku should've been:

Wave of the future.


-- Post From My iPhone

Google Wave

Google recently demoed to developers an early version of a new project by the guys that made Google Maps. It's called Wave, and it will completely revolutionize how the world communicates.

The short version is this: the platform allows for complex text, data, and multimedia sharing in the context of collaborative conversation. The subject can be as simple as where to go out to dinner with a bunch of friends or as complex as the ENTIRE workflow structure of a corporation. On a personal level, it will be an invaluable tool for collaborative writing, regardless of where the writers are on the planet.

And it's the "on the planet" part that really excites me. Part of the demo contained an already-functioning robot that translates more than 40 languages ON THE FLY, as you type. With Google Wave the internet becomes what it was always supposed to be: a way for everyone on the planet to communicate with anyone else on the planet, in real time, in their native language.

Also great: it's open source, and it runs in a web browser.

The demo can be found at http://wave.google.com.

When you sign up to be notified of the availability of Google Wave, you are asked to write something to the dev team. They suggested a haiku. I wrote them this:

Talk to anyone.
Language is not a problem.
Wave is the future.


-- Post From My iPhone

You should watch this: The Newsroom

I discovered Ken Finkleman's The Newsroom entirely by accident. I was walking around the now-closed Virgin Megastore in Chicago sometime in college, and in the TV-on-DVD section, I came across the DVD for the first season of the show. I looked at the cover and thought, Looks like somebody's trying to be Aaron Sorkin. I think that may just have been because I was in the midst of the beginning of my Sorkin obsession, and anything that dealt with the behind-the-scenes goings-on of a TV show had to be a Sports Night rip-off. Much to my surprise, the first season of The Newsroom predated Sports Night by about two years.

My interet in the TV news business got the best of me, and I bought the thing. Now I am incredibly glad I did. The Newsroom is a Canadian show about George Findlay, a news director for a major Tornoto TV news outlet. He is the pettiest, most narcissistic man ever to walk the Earth, and he is absolutely hilarious. Findlay is portrayed by writer/director/creator Ken Finkleman, and he plays the role with such an uncomfortable deadpan style that you just can't help but watch. It's not like just watching a car crash (the way Ricky Gervais's The Office played it five-or-so years later), it's like watching a car crash and actually wanting it to get worse and worse and worse.

All three seasons of the series, plus the made-for-TV movie are available on DVD from Amazon.com. If you're a fan of dark comedy, you owe it to yourself to check it out.