I haven’t blogged here in a while, mostly because I’ve engaged in a new project – Starport.
I’m a massive Starcraft II fan, and have been working towards providing some free services for the local community. More of that can be found at the actual site: http://starport.co.za
Dispersed but reachable, really.
Facebook groups:
Websites:
IRC:
I, Wogan May, citizen of Earth, feel compelled to announce that I have indeed obtained (by means of preorder), played and consequently completed the singleplayer campaign of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty.
All I can say is: ███ ████ ███████ █████. █████████.
ONWARD!
Just before 11:00pm SAST on 27 July 2010, a user from the Netherlands (IP: 81.204.41.33) gained access to my Gmail account and sent out hundreds of spam messages.
Naturally, the only time my Gmail account connected to anything else was during my recent Facebook signup. Last time I’m doing that.
It’s surprising that a user can send hundreds of emails with similar content to different recipients, within the space of 90 seconds, and Gmail won’t think something’s gone wrong. Look at it – see for yourself. So well done there.
Also, thank you for publicly embarrassing me, Google. My contact list included friends, family and coworkers, and your inability to recognize hack attempts (since when have I EVER connected from the Netherlands) will cost me a lot.
I’m moving my email away from Google thanks to this. Even as I write this, automatic support systems in my contact list are creating tickets and reforwarding thousands of messages. I probably won’t see the end of this event for the rest of the week.
Thank you, Google. Thank you very much.
If you’re hoping for some intelligent debate on the Mexico Gulf oil spill, you won’t find it in this video. What you will find is near 4 minutes of cussing, so consider this NSFW. Personally, I considered it hilarious. Paper towels, hahahaha.
Opinion is the single most malleable thing in existence today. And skilled manipulators know just how to twist information to suit their objectives. In this case, Business Insider published an article headlined “You Can’t Appreciate How Completely Apple Has Humiliated The Cellphone Industry Until You See These Charts“.
First problem there is the word “charts” – charts are incredibly versatile weapons. Then the word “humiliated”, since it implies that other mobile companies actually respond that way to Apple, when they most certainly don’t. It goes on to publish 2 charts showing just how much money Apple is expected to make. The first one looks like this:
There are 3 problems with that chart. One, as the footer indicates, it is an Estimate, and indicates revenues that haven’t happened yet. Secondly, it assumes a linear growth curve for Apple revenue, while making entirely different assumptions about the revenue curves of other companies – and it doesn’t conclusively explain either.
The third and biggest problem, though, is this: It completely fails to take into account Apple’s marketing strategy. What do I mean? Apple doesn’t focus on market domination. They focus on niche domination – completely different thing. They have a well-defined target market, and they market to this niche to achieve 2 objectives:
Once they’ve created their voracious little market, all they have to do is release incremental updates in their products, and their market will pay for it over and over again.
This is the chart that Business Insider should have published:
Those green lines represent the approximate dates at which new iPhone models were released. A new model includes the ones with increased storage capacity, since they were sold at full price. The red lines indicate when a model was discontinued. (Source: Wikipedia)
Note how often new iPhones are introduced, then discontinued. Take into account that most Apple customers are repeat customers (that focused niche market coming into play), and that it’s very likely that one customer will purchase a new model every time it’s released. It becomes relatively clear (to me, at least) that Apple’s revenues are the result of selling and re-selling overpriced hardware to a rabid consumer base.
In contrast, take, say, HTC, one of the “other” companies merged in there. They’re not overly concerned with milking a customer base – instead, they produce phones for a particular type of market, and they produce them well. So well, in fact, that the screens won’t suddenly crack, or the cases won’t suddenly warp, or the irreplaceable batteries won’t suddenly go defective, yellow spots won’t randomly appear, and you sure as hell won’t lose misreported signal if you hold it the wrong way.
They released the TyTN II in September 2007, around the same time as the first iPhone. A colleague of mine still owns one. In the last 3 years that single handset hasn’t let him down, and HTC hasn’t directly pressured him to upgrade.
In my opinion that’s how mobile handsets should be. Not flashy toys that buckle under pressure and cost too much, but reliable devices that can outlast their warranties. Of course, given the (arguably unreasonable) passion most Apple customers have for their favorite devices, they’ll be inclined to disagree with me.
As for Business Insider, two words: YELLOW JOURNALISM.
A few hundred years from now, historians will probably have to recreate the list of World Wonders. We’ve moved past statues, walls and gardens – the list will most likely include things like the cellphone, the internal combustion engine, planetary escape rockets, and most definitely the internet.
I firmly believe that in our generation, the internet will pervade global society to an unprecedented extent, possibly laying the groundwork for the next major evolution of humanity as a whole.
With that being said, there are a few things I’d like to clear up right now. I’m not particularly hoping to reach too many people with this, but I am hoping to at least leave some record that not everyone herded together like sheep in the early 21st century.
For starters: You can’t cure famine, save the seals or stop dog fights by joining Facebook groups. Christians in China will keep suffering no matter how many bibles you send, children in Africa will keep starving no matter how many wordpuzzles you solve.
Posting anonymous comments on political blogs won’t bring about policy change. Retweeting links to gruesome news articles won’t sway the criminals – in fact, short of becoming a police officer, just about nothing you do will make our (or any) country safer.
Forwarding emails about Jane’s heartbreaking liver surgery situation, or Billy who’s gone missing in some town in America you’ve never heard of, won’t change a thing either. In reality, most of those emails are hoaxes to begin with, and no, neither Microsoft nor AOL has the ability or the desire to track how many people you forward things to. Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Apple are certainly not giving away devices to random email recipients, either.
People run into rough patches. Shit happens – people break up, divorce, lose their houses and jobs and sometimes their livelihoods. But you can’t help them. Not online. Posting comments on their blogs won’t comfort them, responding to their forum threads won’t bring their husbands or wives or boyfriends or girlfriends back. Sending them virtual gifts won’t alleviate their very real stresses.
Signing online petitions won’t speed up BP’s repair of the Mexican Gulf situation – just as sending hundreds of thousands of crowdsourced dollars in aid to Haiti didn’t alleviate their situation. Arguably, the random aid drops made the situation worse.
You simply don’t have the ability to save them all. And the more you try to solve problems half way around the world, the more you’ll neglect the shit going down right in your own backyard. It’s easier to save the world than to save yourself.
Equally, for the record: Justin Bieber, Robert Pattinson, Daniel Radcliffe – these people don’t give a shit about you. No matter how much you might think they’ll notice you, and suddenly swoop down from their places of inflated importance to make all your dreams come true, it simply won’t happen – no matter how many Twitter accounts you start, or how many times you change your profile pic or username. And all your partners in fanaticism will leave you as soon as a new divide comes up about the latest pop icon.
While we’re at it, you can’t get rich by doing 4 hours of work a week. There is no magic bullet that can play Google, Yahoo, the Forex market, the Stock market (or any other market) that can net you instant riches. There is no single button between you and financial security, just as there is no honorable secret to instantly getting any woman you want, or losing all your excess weight within a week.
Furious updates on religious differences won’t help solve them – just about any form of online evangelism will ultimately drive your audience away. Not everyone believes what you believe, and you simply can’t fix that. In fact, you probably can’t even admit that you may be wrong, either – neither can anyone else, and that’s why shit gets ugly so fast when it comes to online debates about religion, or parenting, or health, or education.
Just because things have always been done a particular way, doesn’t mean that can’t change. Your old-world ideals about privacy and propriety will be shattered in the face of an impossibly powerful communication medium. Your children will grow up in a world where sharing is the norm, where privacy is automatically suspect, where friends are easy and arguments are easier.
There is nothing you can do about that. There is nothing you can do to stem the tide of an evolution you may or may not agree with – over 7 billion people are pushing race Humanity in this direction, in the single greatest show of democratic choice in our species’ history.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether or not you save the world – so long as you save yourself in the process.
Credit: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP
Last night, the World Cup officially drew to a close, with Spain beating the Netherlands in one of the most epic football encounters I’ve seen yet. Both sides brought excellent game, with the victory going to Spain thanks only to a momentary slip in defense by the opposition.
Now the real test begins. Over the next week, tens of thousands of tourists will be returning home, the fan parks will be dismantled, and life in South Africa will start returning to normal. I guess what I’m hoping for here is that it’ll be a new “normal” – a normal we showed to the world these last 6 weeks, earning us the accolade of “best host nation“.
If anything, the entire WC – from winning the bid to the final whistle – has proven that South Africa has the capacity to take on enormous infrastructure challenges. And beat them.
I’m hoping that, if nothing else, the WC will act as a catalyst to help us resolve outstanding basic supply issues. The reality is that there are still people without houses, water or adequate healthcare, our townships will still be riddled with drugs and violent crime, we’ll still have to live down a number of scandals (probably a good handful from the WC LOC itself).
But my point is that we can. We’ve proved to the world, and (to a larger degree) ourselves, that there is a unifying spirit. That we can achieve things if we work together. And if we want to make the South Africa that we’ve been living in for the last month a daily reality, then it will take effort, but it is doable.
The hard work has just begun.
