Pixel Pushing Monkey

Within any office environment, there are always some very interesting social dynamics. Every department has corresponding personalities that one would expect knowing the stereotype. The people working in accounting department tend to be cautious and conservative, straight to the point with numbers and figures; but often seem to have a hidden wild streak to offset the hassles of rather restrained daily personality (These are most likely, the craziest and drunkest people at company parties). Engineers are often filled with plethora of trivial knowledge from all walks of life, and have a tendency to always drive meetings into levels of detail that it was not intended for. Designers are always somewhat aloof and odd in their ways, seemingly to harmonize on a different frequency than everyone else. In a politcally correct climate, we regard stereotypes as taboo, when in reality stereotypes are often established from years of factual observations.

(more...)

I can't take credit for the title of this post, it's really just a part of the discussion on one of the TWIT podcast this past week (or was it the week before? I can't remember). Last week Google announced an astonishingly underwhelming software platform. I mean, it's not horrible or anything, it's just disappointing that a lot of people were expecting Google to throw their hat in a complete consumer product, rather than a half-assed promise to deliver some sort of product nine months from now which may or may not be any good.

Well, Google released the Android SDK today. The SDK was pretty impressive, giving us a good preview of the the OS user interface (via Engadget). However, one can't help notice how much the "mockup" looks like a Palm Centro, or any myriad of Palm or Windows Mobile device that's been available so far. One also can't help but notice how the UI takes many lessons from iPhone's UI. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose, but didn't everyone expect a *lot* more from Google than just another software platform that looks just like any other software platform?

I listen to podcasts when I bike to work every morning (my form of reading the newspaper while having breakfast?), and one of the panelist on TWIT made a lot of sense, although I can't recall it verbatim (and I'm too lazy to listen through a one-hour long podcast to find the exact quote). Whenever Google can't conquer a market, they fragment.

Take for example, the "OpenSocial" initiative that Google just started. Google had their own social networking property (www.orkut.com), which was almost completely forgotten as a footnote to all their other services. Facebook became the monstrosity that overtook MySpace, which long before had overtaken Friendster. Orkut, however, was nowhere in anyone's distant memory. By introducing OpenSocial, Google is undoing Facebook's dominance in building web applets specifically for their service. In away, it seems like a move that benefits every developer, who can now develop for every social networking site (other than Facebook) and support many "platforms" at once. Of course, the "side" benefit is that Google has planted the seed that could possibly unseat Facebook from its dominance at the top, and also insert themselves as the tour-de-force of any social networking site that may eventually take the throne.

Taking a look at what they've done with Android, they've essentially fragmented any previous mobile Linux development, again inserted themselves at the helm of the movement. Furthermore, they've even fragmented the Java development community as well. CNet's Crave blog has a great post on this, which touches on some of the issues with Android's SDK and overall Java development. Of course this isn't all bad, since Java in itself is a platform that has failed to satisfy anyone. However, once again it shows Google as a very shrewd company at being able to project themselves as a kind, gentle company that can do no evil; and at the same time, position themselves as the titan that is able to undermine an entire industry in one fell swoop.

Who does that sound like? You know it, it's on the tip of your tongue, you know exactly who I'm talking about.

Yup, Apple.

Google's Open Handset Alliance is exciting, because geeky programmers around the world just all simultaneously orgasmed and are now struggling to hold their drool inside what is presumed, to be their oral cavity. To be frank, that was not my first response to the announcement. I had a really, really busy day at work when Google hit the press; so my first impression was, "Oh, there are some new info on the Googlephone, great!"

It was another day of soul-searching later, that I said to myself, "Wait, is that all there is to this news? That's it? Really? You mean, I didn't miss anything? I mean.. I combed through my RSS reader for hours and hours looking for more detailed information, something more exciting, something with actual substance.... and... really? That's it?" For at least a few hours, I thought I was caught in some sort of temporal anomaly and was missing vital information that Google has apparently announced to the entire world minus little ol' me.

The truth is rather, disappointing? Underwhelming? Indeed, the news outlets were positive on Day 1, and almost all universally speculative and introspective on Day 2. How many times have we been promised a "mobile phone OS based on Linux & open-source"? This harkens back to the Linux PDA days, and we all know how that went. The only difference between Google's announcement and all the other dozen open-source mobile OS initiative, is that Google has a lot of money. Shitloads of money. Certainly a lot more money than open source Linux companies that's been trying to figure out how to make any money at all by doing, anything and everything?

Of course you'll see an impressive list of partners, it's Google for god's sake! Everyone jump in the pool! The question is, how many of those partners really have any product development plans? How many of those partners will be looking for their own competitive advantage once the SDK is out? How many of those partners will actually, actively contribute to the initiative once they realized that they are at very high risk to put themselves out of business?

The answer for now is, "It's Google, they'll make it work." We'll see what develops in the coming months. I see it as Google just throwing a piece of SDK out there, and allowing the sharks to battle it out for supremacy. After all, taking this strategy really means they have very little stake in any particular company. It's a smart way to position themselves, as a software platform provider that doesn't really care which hardware wins out. If Sony Ericsson develops something great and put HTC out of business, so be it. If Nokia collapse (well, they haven't made a commitment to the consortium at all yet, probably a smart move at this point for them), it really doesn't matter to Google either.

I'm starting to see a bunch of executives & software engineers from companies gather at a coliseum built in Google's backyard (or maybe by naval airbase or something), and someone from Google is sitting atop in the Emperor's seat and just giggling at the bloodshed that's about to happen.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the way that Google is going about this. In fact, it's probably the smartest thing they could do to get into the mobile device arena without actually becoming involved in it. The style just disagrees with me on a personal level. I like companies that design end-to-end solutions that satisfies consumer needs. For example, Tivo is a great company that threw themselves into the heat of the battle, and forever changed the way we interact with televisions.

That kind of a company earns my respect. Google's Open Handset initiative makes me wonder, "Is this just going to be a Linux version of Windows Mobile?"

Another unlikely teenage/college shooting happened today, apparently the argument was over a stolen Playstation. Jonquel Brooks, a 19-year-old freshman at Fresno State was accused of stealing a Playstation by three other guys; when he was confronted by the three man, he choose to shoot them instead of... well, there are a variety of other options, none of which was taken.

What I find really disturbing, especially so soon after the Virginia Tech incident, is that at some point the media will focus their attention at the video game console that is in the center of this event. Just as some people tried to link the VT incident with video games as well, although later proven to be completely irrational. There will always be a part of media, and people, that like to sensationalize violence and associate it with new trends in society that they can't fully accept. For the last generation, movies, music, television were their scape goats. For our generation, it's video games.

Why do I find that disturbing? It's not because I had a particular affinity towards protecting criticisms towards video games. I'm for the most part, completely indifferent about how other people feel about my video game hobby. This incident is disturbing to me, because despite repetitious display of outrageous public, violent act performed by troubled teens, the "tool" at which they use to their means continues to be ignored as one of the factor & culprit of these incidents. We focus on "what went wrong with this kid" and "who do we blame for what happened here", rather than pointing our fingers towards a much more direct question, "Why does a teenager have a gun?"

United States, by my recollection, is the only so-called civilized country that allows its citizen to acquire firearms with ease. Private ownership of lethal firearms is outlawed in almost all other first-world country. Americans as a whole continues to ignore the role that firearm plays into these violent crimes.

I have handled shotguns, went to shooting club with my uncle, took target practice in the past. What surprises me is how easy it was to disassociate a extremely lethal weapon to the potential harm it could do if not used properly. Yes, stabbing a person with a knife is a violent, and potentially lethal act; but there is something strange about using a gun that disassociate at least part of the visceral impact, and the moral ramifications of what you're about to do, to actually doing it. I think of it like fighter jet pilots in a war, where they bomb targets by following instrumentations. It's like playing, *gasp*, a video game, where the act of what they do and the ramifications of what they've done is almost completely disassociated with the actions they are taking.

I just think, that there's a very huge difference between being able to shoot, versus trying to kill another human being without the help and the instantaneousness of a firearm. If we didn't have firearms commonly distributed to private citizens here in United States, a lot of these violent crimes would've happened on a much smaller scale, perhaps not even occured at all. Columbine does *not* happen if those kids only had knifes and bats. Sure, some kids might be hurt or killed, but it would not be as massively terrifying as it was. Virigina Tech does *NOT* happen without a gun.

So why are the media so obsessed with scapegoating video games, movies, television?

I've always believed that a great product is made a few brilliant people with the vision to create something innovative & intuitive. Perhaps it's due to my designer background and philosophy, where the success and the failure of a design firm really rests on the vision of a few people, rather than say, a focus group, research institute or a database collected over a number of years.

Apparently, that isn't the corporate culture we have in America today. The corporate culture we have today is a series of handed-me-down responsibilities. The board of directors demands that the CEO to be responsible for the direction of the company. The CEO demands that his VP's of various operational group within the company be responsible for the direction of the products. So you would think that somewhere down the line of responsibilities, someone has to make choices & decisions.

Problem is, responsibilities is also directly linked with faults and blame. It wasn't the CEO that made the decision to focus on project A instead of B, it was the VP of some other department. It wasn't the VP that made the decision either, it was the people working in the department that gave the VP the valid information, whatever that may be, that led to the decision for the VP to make the recommendation to focus on project A instead of B. Thus causing company to lose market share and money instead of potentially make millions and watch the stock prices go up (which is only a hypothesis, since project B never got off the groundf anyway).

So to preserve one's "lack of blame", one must create at least another level in the chain of responsibilities. Thus, at least this is what I theorized, focus groups & market research were born.

I'm not completely against market research or focus groups, but I *am* against using those as the only benchmark of a company's ability to make the right decisions. Companies hire people with dozens of years of experience in a given field, trusting that their expertise will provide the company with the right process, visions and plans. Yet at the end of the day, the same said company will question their employees to come up with data & research that supports their every decision.

So what if Jack in Sales Operations has 15 years of experience, and knows that the marketing angle we're taking simply won't work? He's only been in the field for 15 years, what does he know? Let's go out and do a round of focus group, market research, surveys, then we'll see if the evidence is substantial enough to prove Jack right or wrong. God forbid if there was inconclusive evidence, in which case we'll just do another round of research and focus groups until we get enough evidence to be conclusive.

At the end of the day, if we don't give at least some credence to the 15 years of experience that Jack had, why did we hire Jack anyway? Why didn't we just hire some fresh-out-of-college data research geek? Google it, wiki it, then focus group, survey; all decisions in consumer product should be made that way, shouldn't it?

I am Jack's rambling rage.

On my morning commute, I tend to drive through a lot of areas with relatively wealthy residents, right into the heart of the Silicon Valley. Once in a while, it amazes me that how trivial it was to see a Porsche, Corvette, NSX, Lamborgini, Ferarri on the freeway. As a child growing up in the Midwest (for what little time period it was), those were cars of dreams, magazines, for the most part fictitious entities that few lucky people in the world would ever own.

Yet here, they are the common vehicles of the wealthy young or old alike. What's most ironic though, is finding a middle-aged man with silver mane, proudly and triumphantly driving down the freeway in his exotic sports car traveling at 55mph. Perhaps they are just past their athletic prime and no longer possess the reaction time required for pushing their vehicles to the limit. Or maybe they're just very aware of how much it would cost if a dent was ever placed on their precious gem.

Either way, there's nothing funnier than following a Porsche at 55mph in the slow lane (I was heading for the exit, mind you), then watching the driver slam on the brake lights as if going any faster would tear their $100k vehicle apart (he, on the other hand, was not exiting).

Alright.. this is just ridiculous....

I just spent half a day of work fixing Windows on my work computer, which Windows Update broke. Apparently, somewhere along the line, the automatic update got some corrupted install files. Every time I started up my computer, it attempts to run itself, then crashes svchost.exe with some memory error.

If you looked into your task manager, you'll probably see several entries by svchost.exe. This is a process that Windows uses to execute DLL's, thus an integral process of the system that just can't be allowed to fail by any extent. After my svchost.exe took a dump (and not all of them, just one of the many processes), my XP-styled UI disappeared, reverting back to "classic style". I couldn't run certain applications, Internet Explorer hung & crashed, and I could not access any networked drives.

The solution was, to turn off automatic Windows Update completely. Reboot the computer so it no longer tries to run the Windows Update process. Then manually go to the Windows Update site to get my updates. After wasting a few hours figuring out what's going on, and fixing it... now my computer is up and running again. Still, isn't this the type of thing that should *never* happen with an automatic update process? Now I'm leaving my automatic update off permanently to prevent any future occurrences of this issue.