Keeping Watch in the Walled Garden

Full disclosure: I'm writing this on a Mac mini while my iPhone 12 mini charges and before I do a little drawing on my iPad Pro later. 

Officially, I identify as platform agnostic. I don't care what operating system I have to use; I will make it work. I grew up on classic MacOS, I switched over to Windows XP shortly after college, I was a Linux user for a while, and my phone choices have been equally all over the map. I'm far from an early adopter, but you name it, I've probably tried it. Ever heard of Maemo? Symbian? 

For my money, Apple makes exactly two good products, the Mac mini and the iPad Pro. I often joke to people, "I don't have an iPhone. I have an iPad... Oh, by the way, did you know Apple makes a camera? It takes calls too for some reason." Also in the interest of full disclosure, I have a smartwatch from Fossil that works well enough with my iPhone. I have no desire to buy an Apple Watch. For perspective, my favorite feature about my Fossil is that it doesn't have a screen. It's got a plain, ordinary watch face (which I think is called a complication if you're in the know) and the hands occasionally move to different positions based on what notifications I've set it to. In recent months, however, this has stopped working. It's a little irritating, but I don't miss it. It certainly doesn't make me want to buy an Apple Watch. Those could well be famous last words, but on the whole, the only Watch feature that had my attention was using it as a painter's palette for Procreate, and I don't even think that feature is supported anymore. As for my Fossil, I've actually stopped wearing it altogether. I simply don't need a watch that much, and its use as a pedometer and sleep tracker are simply no longer part of my daily habit. 

As of this writing, the Department of Justice has taken Apple to court over its monopolistic practices, particularly in the smartphone market. Among its talking points was the fact the Apple Watch currently only works with iPhones. Android users are simply out of luck and have to settle for a Garmin, a Fossil, a Fitbit.... 

I'm not saying the DOJ doesn't have some kind of a case against Apple. What I am saying is that their angle of attack speaks more to their lack of knowledge not only of the technology, but of the market itself. This isn't like 20 years ago when Microsoft was under the microscope for their own monopolistic practices, but this is far from apples to apples (no pun intended). That's why I brought up all the other smartwatch brands, smartwatch brands that work with both Apple and Android devices. Moreover, I'm a little confused by this talking point. The DOJ is saying Apple has too much of the smartwatch marketshare with their watch which is exclusive to Apple products. So, what happens if they add Android support? Wouldn't that give them a bigger piece of the pie they allegedly already have too much of? Won't that just land them back in court for the exact same offense but now with slightly different wording? Wouldn't that make any ruling on the matter tantamount to self-incrimination? 

Personally, I don't know anyone who wants an Apple Watch so badly they're willing to give up their Android phone to get one. That's simply not the market we live in. Once upon a time, I worked for a cell carrier that did not earn the iPhone's exclusivity contract with AT&T. Needless to say, this led to a deluge of calls about when the iPhone was coming to our neck of the woods and what hoops would have to be jumped through to make it happen. A workaround did emerge at one point. The iPhone's exclusivity was limited to the United States, so it was possible to use the phone on our network... in Germany. That means you'd have to import a German iPhone, and use a German SIM card, which meant all of your calls would be international ones. Would you believe someone I spoke with still wanted one after all that was explained to them, that it would literally cost them more to use the phone in a month than to buy the thing outright because all of their calls would be for a German number on a North American network? I have no idea if this person went through with their plan, though I like to think he got as far as putting in a bid on an eBay listing before losing it and taking it as a sign to simply wait for the iPhone to be available on other networks. He didn't have to wait long and, frankly, those early iterations of the iPhone are among the many reasons I'm not an early adopter. My first iPhone was a 5c, which was only supposed to be a temporary device while my Sony Xperia phone was getting its battery replaced. None of my iPhones have been the newest model. 

There was likely a certain time in my life when I suffered from the dreaded Fear of Missing Out, but I was a kid, and like all kids, I grew up. So, when I see people lining up to buy a phone or a game console on launch day, I don't envy them. In fact, I only sort of feel bad for them. Do you know who was the first person in North America to own a Nintendo 64? Neither do I. I don't think anyone knows. Even with social media, I don't think we could ever know for certain the name and face of the first person to own a Playstation 5. I'm sure it was a big deal to them, whoever they are, but let's not pretend that this FOMO business is anything to give in to or follow like a cartoon character floating toward a pie cooling on a windowsill. 

I think the DOJ is misunderstanding FOMO, treating it like some perfectly rational mindset in a consumer-driven economy regulated (loosely) by a democratic republic. Someone really wanting an Apple Watch does not make the niche Apple has carved out for itself a monopoly, even if that niche is worth several billion dollars. 

"What do you mean this person has to get a new phone for their watch to work!? This is an injustice!" 

Seriously, where is this attitude when it comes to big Pharma or the oil companies? 

That'$ only a $lightly rhetorical que$tion. 

My point is that the monopoly Apple has allegedly made for itself is nothing like the one that Microsoft got called out on 20-some years ago or the one AT&T was broken up over however long before that. I can't run MacOS on a Microsoft Surface tablet. I can't play Nintendo Switch games on my iPhone. I can't use a BMW part in my Honda. The list goes on. If Apple wants to paint themselves into a corner by playing their cards close to the chest, let them and most importantly let the market decide whether that's playing fair in the game of capitalism. 

(Un)Lucky Number 7: Putting It All On Green

I couldn't find a good way to transition to this from my earlier part about finding out one of my cables went bad, so I decided to make it a separate entry. 

A handful of my coworkers had mentioned recently "going green" as in trading their apples for androids. I can certainly understand the frustrations people have with their iPhones, be it the dreaded "Apple tax" or the toy-like interface. Seriously, when I had to send in my Xperia Z Ultra to get fixed, and I got a 5C to use in the potentially 6-8 week meanwhile, I laughed when I first swiped through the menu. For starters, the screen was absurdly small compared to my Sony Phablet, which was as much a digital sketchbook as it was a phone. Then there was the notable lack of widgets. Apple has finally fixed this, though I almost hesitate to call it a fix as they weren't anywhere near as useful as they could have been on my Android. Maybe I simply didn't have the kind of workflow that benefitted from some of them, but nonetheless the "icons-only" screen that rolled out in front of me felt like a step down and backwards. On the whole, the sole saving grace of the 5C was the camera. I could certainly take photos and shoot video with my Android, but somehow it always felt more than a little bit unpolished, like it was an afterthought in the design. This was especially annoying because this was a Sony product. I'd used Sony camcorders back in high school and college, to say nothing of all the other Sony products I'd owned like various TV's or my minidisc or certainly all of my Playstation stuff. 

In fact, when the Z came back from getting its battery fixed, I kept the 5C around to use as a camera, though mostly for around the house whenever the cats did something cute or I wanted to shoot a video for my YouTube channel. A few months of that arrangement later, and I inadvertently warmed up to the idea of the iPhone being a permanent fixture. I was about to go on a trip to see family, and I didn't want to bother with bringing two cables/chargers, so I "temporarily" activated the 5C again and left the Xperia at home. As the saying goes, I went Mac and never looked back. Given my favorite feature about the Ultra was its screen, it only made sense to phase it out. I'd migrated all of my drawing workflows to my iPad, so a phone with a big screen was rather unnecessary. The 5C was so lightweight in the same bag as the iPad compared to the Z I moved it to my pocket because it was possible I'd forget to pack it in the morning. 

The 5C eventually got traded in for the SE, and that's still one of my favorite iPhones. That got traded for the 7 I currently have now, and that's been an unremarkable upgrade despite my initial hype when the 7 was first announced. Of course, it's been a few years since then, and I'm far more impressed with the newest version of the SE, as I previously wrote about.

Here's my perspective, apart from them being easily by far the best cameras I've ever owned (that don't have interchangeable lenses or true optical zooms), what I like best about my iPhones is how they play nice with my iPad. They also play nice with my Mac mini. Airdrop alone has been a legitimate lifesaver. Forget those Apple stickers you get with every purchase, where's my Airdrop sticker? 

My Not Quite Office Setup

When the Apple Pencil debuted, there was a quiet debate in the community as to how Steve Jobs would have felt about it. The starting point for this discussion was a talk he gave about the iPhone, in particular how frustrating he found the idea of a stylus. 

The counterpoint to this is that Jobs’ issue with the stylus was how it was used as a workaround for a bad user interface, that of a scaled-down desktop OS rather than something dedicated and befitting the medium. This is the reason for the whole tile-based, gesture-controlled philosophy of iOS and, by extension, Android. This was definitely a risk, and not a well-received one at the time. 

As a card-carrying member of that initial camp envisioning the iPad as an OSX-enabled touchscreen-enabled laptop akin to some of the tablet computers HP had out at the time, I remember being legitimately annoyed at how the iPad was just going to be a giant iPhone. I’ve spoken before about this disconnect between people like myself who seek more productivity-focused devices and the average consumer who simply want to watch videos and read emails. In my defense, I wasn’t totally wrong about the target market and the initial capabilities of the iPad. Between the price and the size of the app store on launch, it was an over-engineered e-reader, a digital picture frame with a battery, anything but a productivity-focused piece of hardware. It had creative potential, no doubt, but it felt like it had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from that casual market who saw it as having their toy taken away to be a mere tool. 

While I stand by my initial criticisms, I’m happy to have since been proven wrong. I’ve been drawing on an iPad for about 4 years now and I frankly don’t want to draw on anything else. As for other types of productivity, that’s been a little more trying. I recently purchased a new Bluetooth keyboard that’s gotten me writing more. I also recently learned that newer versions of iOS have added mouse support, allowing me to unbag my Lofree Maus and use it to... well, that’s still in a trial phase. 

Mouse support is actually something that’s been present in iOS for some time, as part of the accessibility setup for people with mobility issues. With the recent release, it’s now more discoverable to people who wouldn’t have otherwise given the accessibility part of the menu the time of day. The cursor appears as a dot which seamlessly morphs into the more familiar vertical line cursor we’re used to seeing in word processing apps, and if you’re not happy with only the single click nature of an Apple mouse, you can customize the buttons for other functions. Windows users know mice have a left and right click (as well as a center click and scroll, but we’ll get to that in a moment), one being for selecting, the other being for a kind of context-sensitive menu. Fortunately, iOS has this, though it’s not activated by default. It takes a little getting used to as it’s not quite the same as right click on Windows, but the added versatility is welcomed. The scroll wheel seems to be reversed depending on the application and has a bit of lag on it, but I think that’s just another session of rummaging in the menu away from working as it should. Then there’s middle click, and we hit a very big wall. 

Not every Windows mouse has this, typically the more gimmicky or stylized ones, and chances are even if you’re aware of it, you can count the instances in which you’ve needed it on one hand. If you work in 3D at all, whether it’s full modeling or simply viewing models, you know how essential middle click is to that workflow. If you’re going to do any kind of CAD work, you need that middle click. That’s why if I were going to do more CAD work at home, I’d likely spring for something in the Surface line. I can certainly do some 3D work on my iPad and even use my Pencil for some of the more complex features, but this is only good in a pinch. I’m certainly not going to be asking our IT department to take my desktop back. 

In the end, I think the “is it a computer yet?” approach to iPad functionality is the wrong mindset. The computers I grew up with are not the computers used today. The very fact that I use “computer” to refer to a desktop or notebook (remember when we called them laptops?) itself is an arbitrary choice, as even pocket calculators are computers, yet we don’t criticize them for not allowing us to read email. 

Batting for Apples

I have a Playstation Vita and I swear that after one particular upgrade to its firmware, my battery life got cut in half. I thought it was just my imagination or finally taking notice of how long I'd had the thing. However, I found a few other users on forums reporting the same issue, with one offering the possibility that the firmware has a new protocol for the Wi-Fi antenna. I don't have the exact post, but it was something about refreshing more often or using more power. If this sounds familiar, you've likely been following the news of Apple slowing down performance of older phones for the sake of preserving battery life (or not, depending on how you read the nuance of various conflicting statements). 

So, as an iPad user who uses an iPhone as a backup for my Android daily driver, here are my thoughts on Apple's whole battery "fiasco".

I don't care. 

I'm not going to go so far as to say #appledidnothingwrong because that's fueling a fire that nobody asked to have started. As far as big corporate deceptions go, this is small potatoes. When I was at T-Mobile, HTC had this "hybrid" style of smartphone (bit of a last hurrah before Android) with battery life so atrociously below specifications that they offered trade-ins for bigger battery packs. 

From my perspective, as someone who got to see the Google G1 phone in person months before any consumers got their hands on it, Apple's exclusivity deal with AT&T was a massive blunder on their part, but also the very definition of serendipity. I have no doubt we'd have gotten Android phones anyway, but that "power vacuum" created by Big Mama Bell had an undeniably immeasurable impact on the smartphone landscape. Smartphones were now for everyone, and everyone deserves as many options as possible for the consumer-based economy to work best. Some people like to tinker with what they buy, while others just want the damn thing to work as advertised. 

My point is, if you're just joining us, welcome to the wonderful world of how upgrades work for Apple fans. You trade customization for stability, and that stability means every few years you get a whole new machine. That sounds cynical, and even condescending, but it's really what Apple users have expected, asked for, and gotten in spades since the beginning. They want their creative productivity machines to be super easy to use and ready to roll right out of the box. In short, Best Buy's Geek Squad is an aftermarket version of Apple's entire business model. If you own a Mac, chances are the most work "under the hood/bonnet" work you've ever had to do with it is upgrade your RAM. Now, by a show of hands, who knows what RAM stands for? Don't be embarrassed if you don't know. As far as adventures in technology goes, RAM upgrades are like changing a diaper or your car's oil. It may not be intuitive or obvious, and can certainly seem daunting, but you can be walked through the whole process in about 2 or 3 steps. 

If you're an iPhone user, you're only holding onto your phone because A) it's still working fine for what you need and you probably don't use it enough to even notice the battery's gradual diminishing, B) you've upgraded and it's now a backup in case something goes wrong with your new one, or C) it's good enough as a hand-me-down or something to occupy a kid or other family member who only needs it for something specific. Speaking of specific needs for family members, check out Music and Memory if you've got a few old iPhones, iPods, or even iPads resting in drawers. 

In my admittedly limited experience with Apple's iPhone line, they're sort of like the original Star Trek or Batman films in that every other iteration seems to get things right. For example, the iPhone 2 was panned by critics for having a lackluster camera despite a high price tag (their Macbook Air had the same problem). Later, the iPhone 4 became a laughingstock because you literally couldn't hold it in your hands without interfering with its reception. The iPhone 6 gave us #bendgate, enough said. More recently, the iPhone 8... well, admittedly those swollen batteries were a rare occurrence possibly blown out of proportion, but they didn't address complaints about the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, so we'll count that as a missed opportunity. Jury's out on the X, though that facial recognition feature causes more problems than it ever solved. Not only can it be fooled by an embarrassingly crude mockup, but if you're under arrest, a cop can unlock your phone just by pointing it at you. It's a scary prospect. 

As for the odd-numbered lot, I can only really speak for the iPhone 5, which is damn near perfect. The most important feature was the variety of 5 models available. There was the standard 5 and the slightly nicer 5s, but then there was the 5c. Intended as an economy/budget-level device, I had a 5c and while it definitely felt like its price tag, it still felt way more solid than any similarly-priced Android phones, and the display alone ran circles around the competition. Later, after I'd finished having my laugh over the 6, I admit to getting genuinely excited for the iPhone 7. Sure, the headphone jack was nowhere to be seen, but they'd given us an awesome camera and finally, finally made it at least splash resistant. For comparison, my Xperia Z Ultra is about 3 years old and nearly every review you'll see from its launch has it getting dunked in a fish tank. It's a small gesture, but I'll take it. 

Building on the success of the 5, Apple made another smart move that may not quite fit the odd-numbered pattern, the SE. The phone has almost identical dimensions to the 5s, but with upgraded guts from the bendy 6. In terms of price, it's filling the same position as the 5c. Sadly, this is a model that's been listed as afflicted by the battery throttling. That said, I've had mine for a few months, and I haven't noticed it. Then again, I only have it as a backup for my Xperia, the same as my old 5c, which I'll be carting off to Music and Memory along with my old iPad Mini 3. I'm sure whoever gets them won't mind some less-than-stellar battery performance. 

Distro Fever

Thingiverse has recently been beset by some "enterprising" individuals and small groups who think spamming forums at best tangentially related to what they have to offer is a legitimate form of advertising in this day and age. Thingiverse is owned by Makerbot, in turn owned by Stratasys. It acts as a file repository for digital files created by its community for purposes of 3D printing, CNC, Laser-cutting, and many other forms of computer-aided manufacturing and rapid prototyping. There is no advertising on the site. 

Without getting into a long, drawn-out retrospective of what Linux is, one of the great aspects of Linus Torvalds' original source code is that it can be customized to whatever extent computer engineering allows. As a result of this, there are hundreds, if not thousands of individual "flavors" of Linux, with Android being the most widespread. The trouble this paradigm presents, however, is one of saturation. Operating Systems are vast technical undertakings, and barring anything simpler than a graphing calculator, they're not handled by small groups on their downtime. Debian, for example, is the culmination of thousands of hobbyists working piecemeal over many decades. The point is that while everyone starts somewhere, "humble beginnings" aren't as endearing a selling point as they once were when there were maybe a dozen computer manufacturers worldwide with virtually none of them having any interest in the consumer market. 

Okay, first big red flag. Never, ever, ever trust anyone who uses "Good day" as a greeting. I know it's more of a language barrier thing than anything else, but I've seen too many e-mail and telemarketing scams that use this slightly-broken English to ignore it. As a rule, "Good day" is a parting phrase, especially if you're Willy Wonka and/or you really want to stick it to somebody. Call it a pet peeve, but couple this with the fact this exact same message was posted in at least 8 different interest groups, and matters start looking more than a little shady, and we're only at the first line. 

What follows is a standard laundry list of claims. While many well-known Linux or other cross-platform applications such as OpenSCAD, FreeCAD, Blender, and Inkscape are as free of charge as they are easily available, certain flavors of Linux like to separate themselves from the endless cacophony by offering included bundles of programs. It's more a stamp of approval than anything meant to be convenient. By having a program preinstalled, you're showing that it's passed your various benchmarks and is guaranteed to work, whereas some Linux flavors may not play nice with others for the sake of favoring a different suite of programs. Again, there's nothing wrong with that (though some argue whether or not it violates the various open source licenses some programs are made under, but those cases are few and far between) and it's honestly very convenient, no more guesswork for one's workflow. 

Then there's this part about giving out free goods and services:

Along with the "Good Day" greeting and the faux pas that is forum spam, another red flag is unqualified promises. Something I used to see on Yahoo! Answers all the time was someone asking a fairly vague question about Risc Management or Viral Marketing or whatever, all wrapped up with the promise, "Help me out and I'll give you anything you want."

 

Yes, yes, I know they're just a phishing operation trying to get my e-mail and can't REALLY get me anything I want, but that's precisely my point. These InventOS yahoos answering the prayers of designers and makers are making the same vague, unqualified offer that a con artist does. If your product, an operating system, is still in the alpha stage as you say, are you sure you've got the resources to back up this 

Let's start with the elephant in the room concerning the economics of this claim. Yes, everybody starts somewhere, and of course you often have to spend money in order to make money, but there's a fine line between a free sample and a free ride, to say nothing of not being able to spell freeloader without free... and load. 

While the technology behind 3D printing is nothing new, with roots going back to the early 1970s, this recent wave of "Open Source Prosumerism" that started with the original Makerbot Kickstarter campaign and the explosive popularity of the Arduino microcontroller is still fairly young. We've had a lot of promising startups rise as quickly as they fall. Many a career has been made and ruined on the power of a few calculated risks. Still, a broad range of events across the board plus a little common sense have given this particular subculture of designers/inventors/makers/artisans/what-have-you a better perspective on how to market themselves. 

Your skills have a value, even if the only cost is your time. 

Offering a service of value for free drives down that value for everyone else in that profession. It's kind of ironic that the open source nature of the software you're using to make your OS (which comes prepackaged with applications other people have made) has seemingly driven you to offer physical printing services and design consultation for free. 

As of this writing, they have no responded, and I rather doubt they will. 

Actually, they're not offering everything for free (they're just asking for volunteers to help them back up their claims). I don't personally know of any Linux distribution that makes use of Patreon, but it's not necessarily a red flag. Ubuntu has a similar business model, offering its software for free but asking fees for technical support. Google doesn't offer Android as a standalone download, instead licensing it to hardware manufacturers with part of the sales helping support further developments. So, technical support and customer service has a dollar value, but a physical print of a design someone has volunteered to me is free, so long as...? 

So, is InventOS a scam? Probably not, but they sure act like it. Between the broad, sweeping claims, sketchy "marketing" efforts, too-good-to-be-true promises of free lunches, and wait-and-see attitude towards valid questions of their business model, it's certainly hard to tell their message apart from the many offers from Nigerian diplomats trapped aboard the ISS who need me to buy them 1,000 spark plugs with unsigned checks they'll mail me before getting sent off to out of state PO boxes. More likely is that they're simply inept. 

By the way, here's what their community forums look like as of today:

Reverse Cryptomnesia?

Also, an inadvertent monograph on the Quinnspiracy and TvW at the UN because that's what happens when you get into a flow talking about programming... 

I talked years ago about the embarrassment of coming up with an idea only to find not only does it already exist, but it's so immensely commonplace and ubiquitous in your own life that it probably took more mental energy to forget it exists than for you to come up with it. This is putting a twist on that idea. 

I don't know programming. I don't know programming at all. I understand some of the ideas around it, but the leap from text in C++ to HD graphics is almost abstract for me. I've tried writing text adventures, but HTML is about the best I can do, and Depression Quest* is pretty much the kind of game I would want to create, though not nearly as pro-social or insightful... or worth playing. 

At one point, after hearing about all the various tools available, I had an idea to use one of these drag-and-drop interfaces to put together the laziest, most bare minimum "Hello, World"-shaming programs and then charge an absurd amount of money for it. Of course, I'm not saying I'm any kind of genius, much less that there's anything more than petty and opportunistic about such a venture, but I figure it's like snuff films; just because the idea is simple and plausible enough doesn't mean anyone's taken it all the way to reality. I know there's a proper name or attribution to the notion of, "if you've imagined it, someone else has likely made it" a more Zen-like perspective on the patent joke "anything that could be invented already has been". As for my "invention": 

Even the most expensive Android app, which is capped at 200USD (but is available as a six app set), is at least a set of desktop themes. I wouldn't call that essential, but at least the developer has enough skill to not look like a shameless opportunist. Meanwhile, one of the most expensive apps on Windows phones is only a mere half-step above the app that I would create. Mine would even be called "the 1000 dollar app that does nothing" (this was before I found out about the price cap) along with a myriad of disclaimers in the description that this is literally a kind of half-hearted social experiment/get-rich-quick scheme. My thinking was that, by the law of averages, I have the power someone would buy it just to burn money and have the dubious honor of having spent a ludicrous amount on a frivolity. 

*For the record, I have no problem with Zoe Quinn. I think the controversy around her has been absurdly blown out of proportion. It did turn my stomach a bit to see her alongside Anita Sarkeesian at the United Nations. As I've said about Sarkeesian, and as much as I legitimately like some of her videos such as the Lego one and even Ms. Male Character, she completely lost my respect with the Women as Background videos with their embarrassingly transparent misrepresentations of the games in question on top of the absurd premise of connecting real-world behaviors to in-game violence. Put simply, she's the worst person to champion her own cause, and while she certainly does not deserve death threats, I feel as though her issues overshadow Quinn's, who has been the victim of a massive, coordinated cyber attack and been accused of attempting to profit from the suicide of Robin Williams. To make matters worse, while I may not care about her personal life, the fact that there are so few women in the games industry does put her in an awkward position where her every inconsequential action carries absolutely onerous consequences. She shouldn't have to be an example, yet I don't think her position is discussed nearly enough. 

I guess you could say the reason I care more about Quinn than Sarkeesian is that Quinn is making legitimate efforts to enact changes in the games industry, blazing trails between the paths less-traveled while Sarkeesian is a bloody backseat driver. 

To put another way: 

If a film critic and a filmmaker were drowning and I could only save one of them... Well, I like The Island and even Age of Extinction had its moments. Sorry, Leonard. 

Final note: double-checking the definition of monograph to make sure I was using it right (you tell me), led me to this site which seems pretty damn awesome at first impression. 

Stumblrbum's Photo Finish

Tumblr's attempts to make posting photos via their mobile app have more or less all gone to pot. At least, that's been my experience of late. To be fair, it's good that they're trying to make it so you can post sets of photos instead of one at a time. Unfortunately, this simply doesn't work efficiently enough, and when your update is less efficient than spamming single photo posts, you really need to rethink your design schemes.

Recap: it used to be that after I took a photo, I could go into the "share" menu and select "Tumblr" from a list of sites. This would take me to a menu within Tumblr's mobile app to create a photo post, complete with tags and tweet settings. It was all very handy apart from not being able to post photosets.

Now, it's completely reversed. I have to go into Tumblr, select the photo post option, and then be taken to a menu where I can pick the photo from my gallery via thumbnails (more on that later) or go into my camera and take a new photo then. First problem, apart from this being very tedious and rather greedy on Tumblr's part by making "timed exclusives" of my photos, is that I can't access all of my camera's options, like exposure and effects filters. Couple that with the fact that I now have to open one application and make at least two selections in order to open another app which otherwise can start up almost instantly, and this is a really bad start. Second, I noticed that the photos I posted this way had a kind of checker board artifact pattern over them, like an old TV with the RCA cable coming loose. When your 21st century digital imaging system looks like a CRT monitor with flimsy composite connections by default, something's gone fundamentally wrong somewhere very far back in your process.

When something works just fine before an update, that's not a hardware failure, that's a limitation. What makes it really awful is that my phone is middle-of-the-road as far as tech specs go, so your update has potentially cut off about two-thirds of your users. Hell, I've heard from people with better phones than mine that they can't post photos at all, now or before.

Now, I have a good idea what your two cents on the issue is, "Look, you're overthinking this. Just do what you did before. Take the photo, then go into the app and post it then. You said yourself you can see your gallery as a grid of thumbnails to choose from."

Problem the third: Not every photo shows up in that grid, and which ones do and don't at any time is completely random.

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Burns and Smithers walk through layer-upon-layer of security checks to get to a master kill switch for the power plant, only to find that said room has a rickety screen door that's nearly fallen off its hinges as another entrance? At least there you get to the same room and everything is there that should be because the console is bolted to the floor. There are more reliable ways to get to Narnia than my own damn photos. I'm really not kidding when I say that certain photos I take will not show up in this menu until days later, if at all. This app is in my phone. It literally has access to all my files on that device. I have to give it permission to do this when first installed. It's designed to be invasive, and it can't even do that. When FOX NEWS has a more complete picture of a story than you, it's time to rethink every decision in your life, ever, and when you've reduced me to making FOX NEWS jokes to analogize your incompetence, then you've really screwed up.

Speaking of grabbing at straws and not getting the full picture, today was kinda the last straw. I'm sitting in a Steak 'n' Shake, drinking coffee, eating a cinnamon roll, and making sketches in a notebook, as I'm wont to do at least once a week. Another part of this ritual is taking a photo of my setup, a spontaneous still life. Think of it as a kind of creative litmus test; if I can make coffee and pastry look interesting, I must be doing something right. Anyway, I go into Tumblr to post the photo, going through the menu to get to the camera app that otherwise starts up instantly and taking the photo. Normally, after all that, I get the menu where I can add a caption, tags, and all that other stuff before posting fairly quickly to my dashboard. This time, however, I get an error message that it could not save my photo and to try again later.

This is the equivalent of taking the photo out of my hands, throwing it in the cluttered mess of other photos which haven't simply gone missing, and saying, "Maybe it'll show up later."

The sole redeeming factor in this debacle is that while Tumblr lost my photo, my phone didn't. I could see it in my gallery right away (my gallery, not Tumblr's slapdash interpretation of it) and now, several hours later and using the full version of Tumblr, I can post it here by way of my DropBox, which the photo was auto-saved to within minutes of being taken.



And here's another I took without using Tumblr's increasingly lackluster interface (notice the effects filter):



So, what does this mean? Well, it simply means that my more spontaneous uploads of photos will be posted to Twitter instead of Tumblr (and then Twitter because of auto-share). If I end up taking a lot of photos of something, like stages of a cooking project or something, I'll post them here as a set. Granted, it's entirely possible Tumblr will fix this issue in future updates. However, given that it's made two since I started having this problem, I'm not optimistic anymore. At least now, though, it doesn't crash when I try to read notes on posts. 

Twitpic Is An Apt Name

My phone has been having fits lately, mostly over the number of apps that I have installed to the memory card as opposed to the internal memory. Here's the problem, the internal memory of my phone doubles as the RAM. Most smartphones, going all the way back to the SDA I had, which was an old-school Windows Mobile phone, had a task manager where you could turn off anything that was running if it didn't already have an exit button programmed into it.
Anyway, the problem lately has been that the phone will claim it can't find the memory card, meaning even my photos can't be seen. As you might imagine, this really irked me in the worst way. Eventually, it would just sort of "fix itself" if I gave it time, at worst just restarting the phone. To be fair, I am a bit rough with my phone, but in my defense, its entire design scheme is built around never turning it off. The HTC Rhyme has a number of quirky little features and accessories that really endeared me to it when I started up my new cell service. One of these items of interest is a charging dock that turns the phone into a kind of desk clock. In fact, it's my primary alarm clock that I wake up to for workdays. The issue with this is that I have to set aside time in the day to allow the phone to die, to run completely out of juice and essentially "let it rest" for a while.
The trouble lately is that it doesn't seem to be enough, and it continues to give me grief over not being able to see the memory card as well as not being able to run certain applications if they're installed to the memory card. I would be browsing sites or checking messages when suddenly I'd get an error message that some app I'm not even really using has "encountered an error" presenting me with the choices of "report" or "force close." It got to the point where I stopped getting eBay notifications because it couldn't really run the app anymore.
As a result, I tried to do a little bit of housekeeping today, going through all my apps, clearing caches and moving them onto the memory card or erasing them altogether if I could, while leaving some apps on the internal memory (apart from the ones that are "locked" and can't be deleted for various reasons), namely Evernote, as it's sort of been my best (non-human) friend on my current writing project. One casualty of this venture has been Twitpic, which is only in a non-working state because it doesn't seem to recognize my account information. I mean, I know I'm entering the right password, but it's not recognizing it. Granted, I'm probably putting in the wrong password regardless of my confidence to the contrary, but I've really just given up on it. Twitpic used to be a place where I posted sketches and work-in-progress photos of art projects I would later post to DeviantART. It was kind of a "behind-the-scenes/coming attractions" sort of exercise, showing a glimpse into my admittedly unremarkable process. I haven't used it much of late as I've been writing, but even when I have made a few drawings or notes, I don't really miss posting the images.
Who knows, maybe I'll join the rest of civilization and just start using Instagram?

Doubtful, but I do have a short essay in mind about Instagram, and the often ludicrous level of popularity surrounding it. In a way, it's kind of like how I felt about Twitter: in theory, it's genius, a kind of "bad by design" camera in line with Lomography or other classic experimental photo techniques. In reality, it's earned a rather unfavorable nickname, something like "Hipster's Polaroid." There's a tweet I found once that's a reply to Nikon regarding their Android camera that came out some months back. If I can find it, I'll write the essay then.

In the meantime, short summation of events:
Phone is wonky.
Writing project is going very well, for better or for worse.
Twitpic has packed up.
Evernote is my best friend.
I'm considering getting an eBook reader, but I'm debating about a color scheme, and the only place I can post a poll about it is on DeviantART, which would mean bumping down a poll that's relevant to my current project.
Current random object of fascination: Book straps.

SEX SELLS (but would anyone buy?)

Here's a little context to set the tone:

Making money off anything to do with the internet is a little like asking for change from the driver's seat of a Ferrari; no one thinks you deserve it, and resent you for asking, never mind that it's a small amount, you only ask once with no issue made of it, and you offer rides to anyone who contributes. It's mind-boggling how many people can be turned away from something if they suspect that it's making money for someone. A YouTuber I follow by the name of KipKay recently had a product placement in one of his videos, some weird energy drink/snack that he was sent as a gift (possibly paid for, I don't know). Despite only being a few seconds out of the total video length, the dis/like bar was almost totally red and a number of comments below cried things like "Sell out!" or "Shill!" or often far worse.
More recently, a businessman by the name of Greg Pabich started a Kickstarter fund to release a fixed version of a notoriously-buggy NES game called Cheetahmen II. The main point of criticism was that the project required upfront payments, citing similar services that produce NES cartridges on consignment (that is, no money upfront, with production being on-demand instead of using pre-orders). This would seem a fair point of discussion, except that the people who were bringing this up were calling Pabich's Kickstarter a scam because of it.
How is using a different business model than someone else a scam? Is Target scamming people because they use different distributors and marketing techniques than Wal-Mart? Obviously that's not to say there are no such things as scams or false advertisements, but merely profiting from something does not a scam-artist make.

I'm starting to feel like I may be preemptively biting the hand that may or may not feed me by defending a business model I haven't even fully-implemented yet. I've started writing an erotica story, one that's shaping up to be fairly lengthy, not quite novella territory, but sizable nonetheless. It's comprised of four chapters and a short introduction/disclaimer. The intro and first chapter are essentially finished, but I don't want to post it anywhere until I have the remainder completed. Part of this is because that's just how I've always written, somehow it just feels like bad luck or counting chickens before they hatch. I'd rather not start shooting a trailer before I have a script.
The main reason, though, is that I'm planning on selling the story, with the first chapter being available for free and the entire story for a price.
I'm either going to have it available on DeviantART using their "points for download" system, though I'm not entirely sure they'll allow the story to be posted there, given their upload guidelines, or through Google Play Books (Android and Chrome platforms). The price, whichever system I go with, will be about 1.00USD (though I'm looking at a few other services to see how their profit-sharing compares). It is turning out to be fairly lengthy, but it's hardly in novella territory yet, but it's shaping up to be at least as long as Ladyhorse which I wrote a few years ago. Following its release, I considered re-inserting a paragraph I'd deleted at the last minute and offering that version up for sale as a sort of "Premium Edition." Obviously, that's going a little overboard for just a paragraph, which is why I also considered commissioning some illustrations for it. In the end, I didn't bother with it. For this, I've considered making some myself, though I'll admit they won't be anything special (in fact, they'll probably be sketches of locations or items in the story, as I've kept character descriptions to a minimum). I don't know if that's worth a dollar, illustrated or not, but compared to some of what I've seen on Google Play for around that price, it's probably more robust. Plus, I'm still working under the notion I set forth in the comic that, in the way of 90% of erotic literature, I could do better. So, this is me putting my money where my mouth is, and possibly shooting myself in the foot for blabbing about this potentially earlier than I really should have.

Here goes nothing.

... better get back to it.

Civilization by Committee (Metropolis Tezuka/Rintaro)

I never thought the time would come when I'd actually get to use the following analogy to describe a film.

Take the DeLorean, the DMC-12, arguably the most famous (if not most recognizable) car in film history. Despite its place in pop culture and history, in terms of automotive design, it's something of a spectacular failure. The fact is, no single element of this car's design is uncool or ill-conceived, but putting them all together on the same car simply doesn't work. The Double-Y chassis designed by Lotus gave the car's mid-engine layout fantastic handling, but the stylish gull-wing doors gave it too high a center of gravity to take advantage of it. The stainless steel body looked striking enough, but was almost impossible to maintain. The engine was a collaboration of three great automakers, yet their combined efforts were staggered by changes made to comply with United States emissions standards.



Rintaro's Metropolis is a DeLorean.

Perhaps it's a matter of expectations being too high, but I was really disappointed by this film. Of course, when your story is patterned after one of the most influential and iconic films of all time, it can be a heavy and cumbersome premise to run with. Imagine if Disney decided to start making films based on the works of William Shakespeare rather than classic fairy tales. There would be no denying the visual craftsmanship, but Disney's usual vibrantly charming animation style and art direction would undoubtedly clash with the dark and subversive tone of something like Titus Andronicus. Dark twists on Disney characters have worked in past instances such as the Gargoyles television series, the Kingdom Hearts games, or some of the lesser-known Mickey Mouse comics like The Throg Ray Wars, but a tragedy about a roman general whose daughter is physically mutilated and takes his revenge by making a meal of her attackers served to their own mother would simply be going too far. Metropolis has this same issue of tonal conflict in that the themes it deals with are done a massive disservice by its presentation. Maybe if the character designs were a little less cartoonish and cuddly, or if the backgrounds were less busy and realistic. Maybe if the score were either a more traditional orchestra or a full-on jazz ensemble throughout instead of jarringly flip-flopping between them at rather inappropriate times. Maybe if there had been a little more clarity of vision to the art direction and design, perhaps there would be fewer distractions that break the immersion into an otherwise beautifully-crafted world. Sadly, however, they distract only from deeper flaws. Beneath the visuals and sounds lay the plots and characters. This is where substance has a chance to step forward and let style save face. Sadly, it doesn't fare much better.

The plot of Metropolis is rather cluttered and scatterbrained, littered with false starts and half-baked ideas, but it's ultimately linear enough that a decent summation can be given before addressing its flaws. The film begins with the celebration of the finished construction of a building called The Ziggurat, a massive tower in the center of the city. There is some unrest surrounding the building's construction because of suspicions that its purpose is completely military and not at all civil. These suspicions are correct as the ziggurat's crowning feature is a device capable of generating sunspots, which causes chaotic interference with all electromechanical devices, namely robots. The weapon is controlled from a single room adorned with an ominous-looking throne. As for who sits in the literal seat of power, Duke Red, the lead military authority in Metropolis, hires the mad scientist Dr. Laughton to construct a new kind of android not only indistinguishable from a normal human, but also modeled after his deceased daughter. The duke's intention is for Tima to take the throne and be the main controlling component of the weapon. Rock, Duke Red's adopted son, feels this plan is all wrong and that it should be the Duke himself who takes the seat. The conflict stems from Rock's resolve to seek out Dr. Laughton's secret lab and stop him from completing construction of Tima. Coincidentally, Laughton is being pursued by Detective Shunsaku and his nephew Kenichi, who rescues Tima from the wreckage of the lab following its destruction by Rock.

The first and most obvious problem that arises from this premise is a question of motivation on Duke Red's part. Why would he want a robot in control? Is it some kind of stalemate tactic, with a robot not recklessly using a weapon that affects other robots? If that's the case, why would the robot be made in the image and given the impression of being the duke's own daughter? If she thinks she's human, wouldn't she then make human decisions? On the other hand, if we look at it from the superhuman angle (as Duke Red and Dr. Laughton insist Tima is), why would a superior being be concerned with or have a better viewpoint of the petty affairs of lesser beings, let alone be in charge of the arsenal? There are just too many factors to see the logic in this plan.

Speaking of multiple factors, the second glaring flaw this film has is that it has no singularly apparent protagonist. At first, we might think Kenichi is the hero and, for all intents and purposes, he is despite being notably absent if not literally unconscious for nearly one-third of his total screen time. More often than not, he serves as a kind of bargaining chip to lure Tima out of hiding; Rock uses a forged letter from him to lure her out of Duke Red's home, and Duke Red himself keeps Kenichi captive in the ziggurat, knowing that his detective uncle will have Tima use her superhuman powers to search for him, thus bringing her to her potential seat of power at the ziggurat. It's an ironic (even cute) twist on the damsel-in-distress trappings of an adventure story, but Tima is too underdeveloped as a character to make it a full role-reversal.
Later on, we're introduced to Rock, whom we almost are led to believe is the real lead (especially if you knew going in that he's an original character created for the film, which I didn't). His should be the most interesting character arc, desperately trying to gain his adopted father's approval yet not being able to keep silent about his father's irrational and immoral decisions. That he doesn't understand his father's plan should make him the audience-identification character given that we don't understand the plan, either. However, he's just too unlikeable to relate to; normally, we can forgive an arrogant anti-hero's antics because of the faults of his personal life or because he eventually commits some redeeming act of selflessness or kindness (Save the Cat, as screenwriters say), but this latter action never comes to pass. He enters as a dastardly antagonist, and exits as one as well, leaving only a body count in his wake.
Detective Shunsaku could have also made a good lead, but he only comes center stage and into his element after Kenichi is taken by Duke Red. When introduced, he comes across as comedy relief, second fiddle to his nephew (again, the one we first believe to be the hero). Even during his separation from Kenichi following the destruction of Laughton's lab, he only offers occasional points of insight before resorting to his usual pratfalls and farcical misadventures. All this just makes his taking the wheel toward the finale that much more unprecedented and difficult to take seriously. Playing the fool in act one only to come out on top before the final curtain is a difficult trait to have in a hero because it throws the audience for a loop and breaks their relationship to the character, which is why more often than not it's reserved for villains or other traitorous denizens of fiction. The only other surefire way it works on heroic terms is when the narrative turns its focus to how the supporting cast reacts to these seemingly out-of-character moments by the lead(*), but this doesn't happen as no one is surprised by or ever doubts his actual competence.
As for the supporting cast, two of the characters who could have made decent contributions to the plot are rendered virtually ineffectual by the same revolving-door narrative structure that marginalizes the main cast. Pero, Detective Shunsaku's city-appointed android assistant, for example, serves the Red Dwarf's Kryten-esque role of "Exposition on Legs" minus any actual personality or relevance, making his death as pointless as that of the man who caused it. That man is Atlas, whose name is an unsubtle reference to objectivism(**), our second-most useless character. Between his late entry and hasty exit, coupled with the fact that the most interesting part of his character arc is his staring match with Pero at the onset of his workers' revolution, he's only one rung on the ladder above Pero in terms of importance to the story. Furthermore, the very revolution he's essentially the face of is by far the least important subplot of the film, which is a shame given how central the workers' revolt was in the original Metropolis. They speak out against the upper class, but their violence is directed at the machines they insist took their jobs, one of which is described as being too dangerous for humans to do in the first place. Overall, the revolt just comes across as incompetent and misguided; One scene a pair of Zone 1 citizens can be seen curb-stomping a robot, and the next scene an entire crowd of them are standing in awe of a firefighting robot putting out a burning building in their zone. For them to then take to the streets and massacre every robot they come across only emphasizes how misdirected the revolt is. Of course, it is entirely possible that the robot massacre is merely a prelude to what should be their real and proper objective of storming the ziggurat, which ends in a slaughter before they get to the front gate, but that just raises more questions about their motives. If the ziggurat was their real target, and the robots were not hindering them (except for Pero to stand in the middle of a very wide street and calmly advise that their demonstration disperse), why the massacre? Sure, the workers' revolt in Lang's Metropolis was equally misguided and needlessly violent, but that's because it was deliberately misguided by a plant in their own ranks. Atlas is no plant, so our only conclusion about him is that he's just an idiot leading a herd of sheep through a minefield. That's not sympathetic, that's suicide.
It's entirely possible that these casualties of characterization and plot development are redeemed by having more fleshed-out backstories and exposition in the original manga. This, however, I cannot accept as a saving grace to the film, or any film adaptation for that matter. An adaptation should do justice to its source material but ultimately stand alone. If the film can't be bothered to tell us enough about Atlas to make him an important character, then the film shouldn't have him in it. If a point made in the source can't be expanded upon or at least done justice in the film, it needs to be omitted and worked around. It's the same problem I have with The Last Airbender and every Harry Potter film since the third one, with them feeling less like adaptations and more like ancillaries. Lastly, even if one were to try and take the source material into consideration as a way of making up for all the film's shortcomings, it would do no good because not only is Rock an original character created for the film (and thus has no excuse), but much of the remaining cast members are actually borrowed from Tezuka's other works, so it's practically impossible to judge them in terms of the source material because they were quite literally never there to begin with.
As it stands, Rintaro's direction of Tezuka's Metropolis fails as a film, on both the style and substance fronts. It's a spectacular failure, true, but a failure nonetheless.

(*)The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is a textbook example of this formula and how it can work effectively as a narrative structure.

(**)Which has absolutely nothing to do with any of the themes explored in any version of Metropolis. In fact, if any character in Metropolis (2001/1927) exemplifies objectivism, it's Laughton/Rotwang (respectively), and they rank among the villains, so it's either a misnomer or a condemnation. Take your pick.