Category: thoughts

Some notes

Somehow odd, and hence qualifying to be published as a blog post (instead of a tweet): pop-culture-wise, some of my offline friends (regardless of their age, btw) seem to be living under a massive rock. A rock so huge that they don’t seem to realize anything happening outside of their world.

Cosplay, src: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/just-the-two-of-us-cosplay/
Cosplay, src: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/just-the-two-of-us-cosplay

Am I the only one who experiences this? I mean, I have friends – good and dear friends – who don’t care about any contemporary cultural developments, like good music or other commercial art. You don’t have to be an online geek like me, follow any reddit/imgur posts or need to know any internet meme, you don’t need to follow the news / politics or know anything about the technological changes surrounding us. But something small….something would be most welcome.

When I talk to them, I have to make sure not to mention anything that might have been developed after 1980. Sometimes I need to explain basics like the meaning of “nerd“.

Some of these friends have an e-mail address. An inbox they check out once a month. To reach them, I need to call or send an sms. A short message (yeah!), because they don’t even have a smartphone.

These offline friends – I really like them. But still – they are odd. In a contemporary context, probably as odd to me as these Cosplay geeks may be to my mother.

The worst group out there, however, aren’t these “Offliners”, but instead the group in betweeen: the FB-haters who don’t post anything out of fear a future employer may track something embarassing; the FB-haters who keep on mentioning how their kids keep them busy and away from the keyboard (~ while there are a bunch of other mums and dads online who are oversharing); the social-media-haters who dismiss Twitter as a waste of time BUT at the time publish all their mental sensitivities via the offline backchannel also known as WhatsApp (!). The offliners who will overshare “funny” pics and videos you’ve seen on 9gag three years ago. On WhatsApp.

The same group may btw not even know what a BarCamp is all about.

And then there’s this group:

Another brilliant one via XKCD (src: http://xkcd.com/920/)
Another brilliant one via XKCD (src: http://xkcd.com/920/) (thx, Hinek!)

You’re having dinner with a few friends and then someone pulls out his phone and mentions, how he/she has recently seen a nice YouTube video and yaddayaddayadda… what follows is a prolonged YouTube session with uninterested parties sharing “funny” videos online. “Oh, have you seen THIS one….”.

And there you go wondering about Buzzfeed and Mashable sharing yet another “Best of…”, “the best [nominalization]…”, “Top 7 reasons why…” etc. post.

Glycyrrhiza yunnanensis

Bought this packet of “Dried Licorice Slices” from a Chinese shop today. Delicious stuff that I am using for teas and pure chewing pleasures. I also love liquorice (Dutch liquorice, that is), but this certainly is the low carb version and equally sweet :-)

Dried Licorice Slices

Now, as this comes from China, I keep on wondering about the conditions under which this liquorice plant (Glycyrrhiza yunnanensis) is cultivated. Where did it grow? How long has it been transported? How old is it? What kind of water was used to irrigate the plants? Where does the water come from? Is it contaminated in any way? And what about the packaging – what kind of plastic was used and which colours were used for the printing of the packaging?

On Windows 8.x

There’s probably a bunch of things that could be said about Windows 8 or the upcoming update Windows 8.1 – but as someone who has only recently been required to use Windows 8 on his new laptop, let me just say these two things:

1. The User Interface
The Metro UI new Microsoft design language (i.e. the tiles and the fonts) instead of the start menu – this probably makes sense on tablet computers, but for most other requirements (i.e. corporate), most people just want to stick to what they already have and which works for them.
The first thing I did on my Win8 machine was to install Classic Shell to get the tradidtional start menu back. I did this – not because I disliked the new tiles design – but because I missed a quick overview on all installed apps. That is, I understand the need for a clean cut and appreciate all efforts on user interface improvements, but for my needs – and probably a lot of other users too who have a dedicated tablet with its own OS – the old style just worked. Why change this?

2. Passion, or the lack of it.
I believe that Microsoft could be a great company IF only it would be a bit more passionate about its products.
To me and my perception of what they do, there is a huge gap between MS Research (which is really cool!), some good software products they have bought in the past and since killed or reduced in functionality, their focus on low hanging fruits when it comes to corporate IT needs (which would include the HTML rendering within Office since 2007, which is horrible), their bureaucracy and also their marketing approaches which are nothing but a collection of embarrassing spots and moments. All of this could be so sexy and they both have the potential and market dominance, yet what we’re witnessing here is so below the optimum. Too sad.

For professional reasons, I’ll have to stick to using MS-Windows and MS-Office most of the time, but I so often wish they would just make a giant step forward and tackle some legacy issues and also focus on what really matters to most users. Obviously, this does not include being innovative or marketing innovative technologies, so they should instead stick to optimizing on what they’re good at.

Windows 8.1 may be a good and much needed update to a Vista-like image of the current version, but in the end it’s great software tools (which “just work”) that will deliver revenue, imo. It’s a bit irritating that we’re currently experiencing so many cool apps on mobile operating systems, yet when it comes to desktop requirements, it still feels that we’re still stuck in 1999. I wish there could be a smart and flexible OS for my desktop needs that runs just fine and delivers what I need. Windows, OSX and most Linux distros aren’t delivering it – yet.

Auf ein Wort vorm Bildschirm…

Während die freie Welt gerade ihre Grenzen aufgezeigt bekommt und sich digitaler Kanäle zur freien Kommunikation bedient, sitze ich aufm Sofa und blättere in der aktuellen Ausgabe der “Für Sie“. Auf der dritten Seite nach der Werbung stolpere ich im Editorial über folgenden Abschnitt:

wie wollen wir leben

>>…zog es mich in eine Fußball-Kneipe. Der Laden wurde immer voller, und plötzlich saß eine Frau neben mir, die sofort zwei (!) Smartphones aus ihrer Tasche holte. Während ich jedes Tor von Lewandowski mit Jubelschreien feierte, war die Dame in ihre eigene Welt abgetaucht. Eine Minute auf den Fernseher schauen, dann wieder simsen, dann telefonieren (sie verstand kein Wort), so ging das 90 Minuten lang.” (….) Völlig fremdbestimmt von ihren kleinen “Zeitfressern” hatte sie die Zeit vergesssen, den Fußball zu genießen – für den sie ja schließlich in die Kneipe gekommen war. <<

Natürlich könnte ich an dieser Stelle einfach schmunzeln und es wie immer einfach ignorieren. Wer liest schon das Editorial in so einer Wartezimmerzeitschrift, und überhaupt, warhscheinlich denkt die gewönliche Leserzielgruppe ebenso. Aber ich möchte doch gerne folgendes anmerken – zum Internet, unserer Arbeitsweise heutzutage und dem Stellenwert des Ganzen:

1. Im Internet sind wir alle gleich
Diesen schönen Satz las ich neulich so oder so ähnlich in einem Interview mit Raul Krauthausen, der über Menschen mit Behinderungen berichtet. Was so viel heißt wie: Wir können trotz unterschiedlicher Motivation und Vorgeschichte (fast) alle auf einem Level miteinander kommunizieren. Das erinnert natürlich auch stark an das Cluetrain Manifest von 1999, in dem es um das Verhältnis von Unternehmen und ihren Kunden im Zeitalter des Internets geht. Das Internet – und man muss sich das immer wieder vor Augen halten, auch wenn es eigentlich selbsterklärend ist und mittlerweile auch selbstverständlich sein sollte – ermöglicht eine ganz andere Form der Kommunikation, die den körperlichen Bereich ausschließen und sich nur auf die geistige Ebene beschränken kann. Bewegunslos ans Bett gefesselt sein und trotzdem über einen Sprachcomputer oder über Google Glass mit der Welt kommuninizieren zu können – all das ermöglicht das Internet.

2. Onlinekommunikation hat den gleichen Wert wie Offlinekommunikation
Viele meiner Onlinefreunde habe ich noch nie in Person getroffen. Über soziale Netzwerke habe ich guten Kontakt mit Menschen in der ganzen Welt, mit manchen verbinden mich jahrelange Freundschaften und ein richtiges Vertrauen, das sogar soweit geht, dass mir manche Menschen ihre Logindaten geben, damit ich aus der Ferne ihre WordPress Blogs von Malware befreie. Selbstverständlich ist das nicht, aber dennoch wünschenswert und schön.
Ein Kollege arbeitet auch ständig online und hat für das Redesign seiner Websites eine kubanische Designerin beauftragt, die er noch nie persönlich getroffen hat. Die Kommunikation erfolgt seit Jahren nur via Skype und das Ergebnis kann sich trotzdem sehen lassen.
Vor ca. drei Jahren schrieb ich an dieser Stelle schon einmal über diese neue Welt, in der Onlinekommunikation den gleichen Stellenwert hat wie offline. Ich werde aber immer wieder daran erinnert, weil selbst Blogger und andere Onlinearbeiter bei Bloggertreffen wie der re:publica oder BarCamps Wert darauf legen, sich offline zu treffen und ein gemeinsames Bierchen zu heben. Was so viel heißen soll wie: diesen Menschen habe ich real getroffen und kann ihn einordnen. Wahrscheinlich rührt diese Mentalität auch noch aus der Anfangszeit des Internets her, als Rollenspiele und Chats im Vordergrund standen und das Internet eine andere Möglichkeit der anonymen Kommunikation bot. Im Gegenzug könnte ich nämlich die Frage stellen, ob sich durch diese Offline-Bekanntschaft irgendwas am Beziehungsstatus ändern würde? Ist das Arbeitsergebnis einer digital beauftragten Leistung besser, wenn sich Auftragnehmer und Auftraggeber auch offline – also persönlich zum Anfassen – getroffen haben?

3. Sharing is caring
Für manche Menschen ist das Leben vor allem dann schön, wenn man Dinge miteinander teilen kann. Ich bin einer dieser Menschen. Einen Gedanken für mich alleine auszubrüten und diesen ewig mit mir herumzuschleppen – ständig mit der Gefahr, dass man ihn wieder vergessen würde – das wäre ganz schrecklich und sehr unproduktiv. Im Wissensmanagement, wo es auf genau dieses Teilen von Wissen ankommt, geht es oft eher um die passenden Tools, damit Mitarbeiter ihr Fachwissen nachhaltig aufschreiben können – und weniger um den Prozess des Teilens als solches. Und obwohl ich mich als Technikmensch natürlich sehr für Tools begeistern kann, so weiß ich doch auch, dass diese soziale Kompetenz des miteinander Teilens keineswegs selbstverständlich ist und mindestens genauso wichtig ist wie die richtige Software. Diese Kultur des Teilens, das Selbstverständnis zum Miteinander, das mit der modernen Gesellschaftsform immer weiter in den Hintergrund tritt und in der Offlinewelt womöglich auch einen Wettbewerbsvorteil verspricht, darf online nicht genauso vernachlässigt werden. Das Internet mit all seinen vielfältigen Inhalten wäre nicht so selbstverständlich, wenn wir nicht alle ständig hineinschreiben würden. Gute Inhalte würde es sonst nur von Journalisten und professionellen Bloggern geben, automatisierte Inhalte nur von Bots und inhaltslose SEO-Seiten von Content Farms. So ist es nicht verwunderlich (und aus meiner Sicht gut), wenn Vorzeigeblogger wie Sascha Lobo mehr eigene Inhalte im Internet fordern. Dieses ganze Onlinegedöns in den sozialen Netzwerken mit Twitter und Facebook betrachte ich übrigens als einen Teil dessen. Witzigerweise sind es in meinem Freundeskreis gerade die sog. Offliner (also: Online-Dooffinder), die in anderen Kanälen wie WhatsApp jede Befindlichkeitsstörung als Meldung verschicken – gleichzeitig aber Facebook, Google+ und Twitter als Teufelszeug missachten. Hach ja…

Vor diesem Hintergrund also sitze ich auf dem Sofa, lese das Editorial in der Frauenzeitschrift und denke mir nur: was soll das? Was hat aktive Onlinekommunikation mit einem Artikel über “die neue Volkskrankheit Burnout” zu tun, und wieso verbreitet diese Journalistin so eine Offliner-Einstellung?

microSD cards should contain ALL user data

Here’s an idea that has been haunting me for years now, and I am most certainly not the only person who has the following concept in mind: using microSD cards in mobile phones for ALL user data.

ALL user data = everything I enter into the phone. The address book, multimedia files, user defined settings.

800px-MicroSD microSD-card next to 1€ coin

Buy an iPhone, install everything, have it drop to the floor or into the toilet, resulting in a water damage and the phone won’t be recognized by iTunes – well, even your most recent backup on the cloud will only be as good as when you last made a backup. No microSD cards on iPhones.

Many Android phones already come with slots for microSD cards. Plug it in, roll out your backup via the internal backup routine, via Titanium or Google, and you’re done. It’s not 100% the way I want it, but it’s getting much closer than what you have on an iPhone.

Sure, there’s the cloud, some will argue. But a lot of users out there still are on a slow internet connection (if any) and many also don’t want to have their data saved in the cloud.

“Without a microSD card”, I was once told, “there’s less to worry about. And from a business perspective, it’s also more secure”. Well, is this a valid argument?

There’s an older essay on microSD cards in phones by (mobile phone expert and analyst) Eldar Murtazin, where he argues that microSD cards aren’t the better option – but I couldn’t disagree more. Of course, as an analyst he also looks at why phone manufacturers have used memory cards on phones instead of internal memory and the cheaper price may be a reason for their introduction on phones some years ago. He also looks at figures from the actual use and says that many don’t actually use the microSD card or what it is capable of.

Well, for a reason, I’d say. It’s because the current setup where I can only use it for storing multimedia files and apps is really insufficient. My ideal phone is a dumb phone with strong CPU power, some connectivity extras and a smart OS – and where ALL user data is stored on a microSD card on different levels (i.e.):

  • Level 1: apps
  • Level 2: app settings, address book, desktop settings, bookmarks
  • Level 3: static multimedia files (e.g. photos, videos, audio files, documents, etc.)
  • Level 4: swap / cache memory

The phone is dead? Just pull out the microSD card, plug it into a new phone and you are ready to go. So, obviously, there would need to be a standard on this to provide an interaction between different phones that come with the same OS (the requirements already sound a lot like the Titanium backup suite on Android). And the beautiful part about this setup would be that all stored user data is up to date – and not as of three days ago when the phone did a backup of some static data to the cloud.

How many of you have actually lost some important numbers with broken phones? How many have only recently realized that the numbers stored on a mobile device are also backed up online? How many are using SyncML services like Everdroid?

Phones die or “walk away”. Hardware can be replaced, software in terms of your own user data can’t and is the most precious asset of the 21st century in IT. So how come there are microSD cards on phones that are only used in a very restricted way?

(I also love my iPhone, but the current version of iCloud is some crippled piece of shit, just like iTunes).

Hey Apple, this is your chance!

You may have followed today’s news via iFixit or Mashable that the new Apple Mac Book Pro with the Retina Display will contain almost no repairable parts. Much like the iPads, I believe, even though there are still spare parts available for those.

I am always blown away by the amount of engineering found in Apple products, especially compared to the “modular” competitors (i.e. Dell, Lenovo and HP) whose spare parts are still available on eBay & Co. long after their laptops are out of production. Parts fail, displays break, rubberised touchpad buttons wear off, hinges and keyboards wear out and so on.

the opened new MacBookPro Retina, image via iFixit.com

Not so the new MBP Retina (pictured above) which seems to have no repairable parts at all. In case of a hardware fault, most customers are supposed to return it to Apple. My DIY-heart of course yells at this (“I will fix it anyways!”), but I also understand that this step is part of their marketing and quality management.

The battery? Well, as far as I understand there are two main reasons why it would need to be replaced: heat and constant overcharging. And as far as I am informed, this overcharging is prevented by a circuit otherwise only found with previous ThinkPads from IBM/Lenovo. So it seems like there is no reason to have the battery replaced during the first 2-3 years of use.

Ok, and then? What happens after 2-3 years of use when the next generation of MacBooks is waiting on the shelves? That’s the time when most gadgets are turned in for repairs, I think. Repairs that are expensive because they often won’t be covered by a manufacturers warranty.

Here’s the idea

Given that Apple already introduced this “no maintenance required – if broken, we’ll fix it for you”-concept in the past but only nailed it with the almost non-repairable iPad, Apple customers are assumed to be mainly users – instead of tinkerers*. So, obviously, many customers are already used to this concept and would have no problems exchanging their beloved machines for a new one (except for extra costs where applicable).

Now, instead of selling the hardware, the idea would be to only lease out the hardware to customers for a given time frame of 2-3 yrs and then have them return it to Apple.

The benefits

  • Apple could start using better / more expensive materials because all hardware is returned to the manufacturer, remains in a technical loop
  • A recycling is possible = less material costs, less dependency on rare earth metals from China & Co
  • Apple benefits from real world scenarios, has complete control over usage (I know they like that), design teams can pick up on this for further improvements
  • Customers won’t have to cough up USD 1000-3000 at once but pay monthly installments instead (by default!)
  • Apple has the financial resources to take this “risk”
  • Customers get a new machine every 2-3 yrs, consistent market
  • User data is more attractive than hardware: care for home folder, everything backed up in the Cloud
  • Software is the bigger market than hardware (I think): make them stick to an OS and then provide them with apps (see the iPhone – works like a charm on iOS!)
  • Customers won’t have to worry about the hardware as it will be replaced

Heck, if Apple doesn’t do that, someone else should do it. Not the leasing as such but this whole model of ownership – because, after all, with Apple’s latest design we are just users, not tinkerers anymore. Just as we stopped buying complete music albums and go for single mp3 tracks instead, this concept of “ownership” is totally different to the one we had in the past. Maybe not for you or me, but for those a few years younger than us.

I believe that Apple has the right approach and I would like to encourage them going a step further with this Cradle-to-Cradle-inspired proposal. It’s all about having a sound business and still doing good.

*tinkerers: most Apple users I know bought their Apple products because they don’t want to mess with the system or any components. So while they may just be into that DIY-stuff as I am, their Apple products often remain as they are. Not because they couldn’t, but because they don’t want to.

(this Mashable post on G+ inspired me to this blog post)

Pirates, revisited

TEDxRM apacheAn unrelated, but still epic snapshot I took at a recent local TEDx event.

Coming back to my satirical he-said-she-said piece on Pirate Party Kenya, I think there’s 80% truth in it and that Kenya could also use such a modern political party. And this although I also believe that democracy as such still isn’t the best option for today’s Kenya, at least not when it comes to the way it has been implemented in the past and when we look at the historical structure of societies in East Africa.

I am not a member of the Pirate Party Germany because I am trying to be independent and have in the past also contributed to Germany’s first hyperlocal project frankfurt-gestalten.de (which is similar to Mzalendo.com, but for (the City of) Frankfurt am Main only and is more about republishing open data (e.g. hansards from the local parliament) and capturing citizen voices) and have as such tried to keep a neutral position.

I have, however, voted for Pirate Party during the last two local (German) elections because of the following reason(s).

I also voted for them because I am convinced of their concept. You’ll have to understand that about 95% of the German media are currently trying to brand us floating voters as “protest voters“, who voted for the Pirate Party out of protest. This is SO wrong and I am strongly opposed to this limited point of view! The problem is: most of the media didn’t get it. As much as they never understood the need to update their views on the law which regulates the use of (online) content. What’s a free and open media when they are too stupid to understand a completely different approach to politics? A new approach that also requires a different benchmarking system if we are to compare the new option with the traditional alternatives. And please remember: Germany already saw the introduction of the Greens Party (“Die Grünen”) in the early 1980s, so our society here is already familiar with new approaches.

I am calling the Pirate movement a modern party because I strongly believe that their structure is the logical consequence of what the internet has brought us so far. Such as an international and timely response on open issues that have in the past only been dealt with by a relatively small group. I see it as a response to the success of the internet – this world wide network that is as revolutionary as letterpress, radio and television combined. The understanding of the impact the internet has on all of us probably is something that many of the critics do not really want to acknowledge. As such, with new structures that introduced a completely new concept in communication, it’s also about time for a new and different system. Either way, it just happens, whether you like it or not. I also don’t like everything they put on Wikipedia, yet I often use it like many others.

What makes Pirates Party special to me is the integration of modern tools and a completely different understanding of grassroots democracy – something we already know from the internet. “Liquid feedback” is such a system and piece of software that collects voices and forwards votes to a person in the system that has more competence on a particular subject. Everyone can cast his vote on all issues or delegate his vote to someone else. It’s still a relatively new approach, but the one that makes the difference to me.  This alone – the different understanding of TRUE democracy – is reason enough for me to give them my vote.

It is also this understanding why I just laugh at critics who are asking me on “how can you vote for the Pirates – they don’t even have a political agenda next to their internet stuff??! 1!11”. Most critics just repeat what they read somewhere.

And the Pirate name? Well, both in Kenya and Germany, many if not all political parties seem to have names that don’t hold true to 95% of their daily business. Maybe the Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany (founded in 1981 by two punks) is one of the few that is as consequent in their approaches as the name dictates.  So either way you may want to interpret the name and how it qualifies for a better marketing strategy (given that it sounds a bit anarchic to most conservative voters), it probably only matters for marketing reasons and as such, it isn’t the worst.

In a recent election in two different states within Germany, the German Piratenpartei scored between 7 and almost 9%, thereby securing a few seats in local parliaments. They currently have over 23.000 (!) members in Germany, which is quite a lot for such a young party. Something tells me that a) they are doing it right, b) the interest to engage in local politics isn’t dead and as important as it has always been and c) not all of their members are the stereotypical IT folks with long hair who are into Terry Pratchett and/or have a paranoid fear of everything Google Inc. does. All these members, rich and poor, old and young certainly aren’t engaging for the protest only.

It is for these reasons alone, but also for many unmentioned more that I would to see politics adopting more structures that correspond to the technological framework we currently experience on our planet. New structures that enable crowdsourced project approaches, something that will hopefully also change the way we perceive to live in urban communities (e.g. a modernized infrastructure that plays along with our needs, not the other way round as it has been in the past). Pirate Party as such may not be the best option with all its typical start-up problems, but it’s the one that works and that’s all that matters to me at the moment. If we could have the same in Kenya, I’d be very happy!