life in 80 pages

Damn, nothing’s original. Rent already said it, but whatever, here’s my version.

Just got BusinessWeek in the mail today (first issue in a one-year subscription), and it got me thinking. What if life wasn’t measured in years or decades, but in.. magazines?

BusinessWeek comes once a week, which would mean I get 52 of them per year. By the time I read 52 issues, one year of my life has gone by. When I think about it that way, life seems short!

If I live to 70, then I have 54 years left, meaning there are 2808 more issues in this story known as my “life”. I can probably read 2808 relatively (compared to 54 years) fast.. It just serves to show how short life is, and that the important thing is.. what is it?

jumping the gun

Too often, people take a small detail and blow it out of proportion. They ignore the facts, and only look at that one detail.

The iPhone 4 really illustrates what I’m trying to get at here. The main problem with the phone is that holding it a certain way (left side, google it for more info if you want) makes the signal drop and eventually, your call is dropped. Oh no! Why would anyone want to buy the phone then, if it has such a serious defect?? That’s exactly what the media has been harping for the past few weeks. What they’re not saying is that they’re making this a bigger deal than it really is.

First of all, some facts.

Yes, the signal drops when you hold it a certain way. But wait, that’s true for the 3GS too. And not just the 3GS, but all phones. The phone is of course going to have weaker reception when you cover the antenna with your hand. There have been many demonstrations that Blackberrys, HTC phones, Samsung phones, and older iPhone models drop signal when held a certain way.

A case fixes the problem completely, and they’re available for $29.

Compared to the 3GS, the iPhone 4 results in 1 more dropped call (out of every hundred).

The return rate for the iPhone 4 is 1.7%, which is less than the return rate for the 3GS. 0.55% (that’s less than 1 percent!) have called to complain about the problem.

Now that we have all that info, let’s break it down and analyze it without bias.

First, the fact that other phones have the same problem. If other phones have the same problem, and people have been using it without complaints before, why start now? Because they’re sheep. They’ve been hearing that the iPhone 4 has this reception problem, so they start thinking “Oh, that means I can’t make calls at all! What a terrible phone”. What a terribly wrong idea.

Who grips their phone so tightly, and on the left side, while making a phone call? Most people are right handed, and I’m just going on a limb here, but right handed people tend to hold their phone in their right hand while talking on the phone. The problem exists on the left side. Also, no one encompasses their phone the way you would have to to drop the signal significantly.

Second of all, cases do fix the problem. You would think that’d calm everyone down, but there are seriously people out there who shout that cases are too expensive. Really? $29 is too expensive compared to your $200 phone with a $30 a month data plan for 24 months? $29 compared to that is chump change. Besides, Apple just made them free for all iPhone 4 owners, so no reason to complain now!

Now finally, the fact that only 0.55% of iPhone 4 owners are calling to complain about it. That’s probably because people don’t actually hold it by the Death Grip, and that existing phones already have the same problem that they’re used to.

If people just took the time to consider all these things, then they would see that the iPhone 4 isn’t such a terrible phone. But, the media realizes that proclamations of fail tend to attract more attention than news about phones being.. phones.

I just had to write all of this because I die a little bit inside when I see people being so stupid. The iPhone 4 antenna news is getting really old really fast, and it would be great if people stopped talking about it like it was the end of the world!

My resources:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/16/antennagate-complaints-returns-and-call-drops-are-all-extremely-low/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/16/steve-jobs-were-not-perfect/ 

online identity

I used to blog a lot, but my posts come up only sporadically now. Actually, nothing’s changed. I blog about the same amount as I used to, but more and more of them have been made private.

First of all, I love blogging. It allows me to type out all my feelings, and archive them. I can later return to dissect them at my own leisure. I don’t have to sit down and analyze all my feelings at the moment they’re happening. Life moves fast, and we don’t always have the luxury of reflecting on actions past. But blogging allows me to do that.

But as with anything online, others can see it. More and more employers are looking on applicants’ Facebooks, Myspaces, Flickr, blogs, etc. I believe that it would make it harder for me to be taken seriously if I posted things like my mental breakdowns for all to see.

The frustrating thing is that the whole point of blogging is to have it out for all to see. Blogs empower everyday people to share their information in a way that would have been deemed impossible 50 years ago. For me to have a blog where I cannot share all my thoughts is incredibly frustrating.

I don’t have a solution to this. Nothing I think of satisfies my every desire. Maybe one day, employers won’t care about their employees’ personal lives. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

when english isn’t english

I always go by the rule “if it’s confusing to read, it’s professional”. Now, that isn’t always true, so I think I’m now going to say “if it’s professional, it’s confusing to read” instead.

I was hunting for an opportunity on Idealist, and I came across this post offering applications to a program at Sustainovate Immersion. Quickly skimming it, I came up with nothing. No idea what this post was about. So I read the whole thing line by line, and guess what? Still had no idea what I just read. Oh, sure, I understood what they were saying, but I didn’t understand anything about the program itself.

“Sustainovate Immersion, an experiential and multi-disciplinary summer program, will empower you to build your capacity as an agent of change in the sustainability movement. This program is designed for young professionals and recent graduates.”

What it means: We offer experience in many subjects to people who are in their late teens/early twenties.

“Gain the tools and skills necessary to excel in the sustainability sector by working in small groups for real clients.”

What it means: Work with people in the sustainability sector, and learn some tips of the trade.

“Led by one of Chicago’s best-connected sustainability professionals, this program introduces you to local industry leaders via site visits and networking events.”

What it means: We are one of Chicago’s best networked professionals, and we can introduce you to many people in/near Chicago!

“A rich mix of readings, guest speakers, and group discussions deepens and accelerates your understanding of sustainable design and social innovation principles.”

What it means: Talk to others that are interested in the same field, and learn from it.

I read all of that, and while I understand what they’re saying, I don’t understand what this program does! Does the sustainability sector revolve around sustainable energy? Or sustainable food? Or something else? Or all of it?

What do you do in this program? What I’m getting out of it is that you walk around talking to “local industry leaders”. But then again, it mentions something about clients and “agent of change”, so there must be some working involved.

Look, it’s nice and all to dress up your sentences with eloquent words, but at the end of the day, none of that matters if no one understands what you’re saying.

web presence

Google make stalking people so easy, it’s scary. If you search up my name, you can find 4 results in the top 10 that are related to me.

The scary part is that almost all of that content is old, and it doesn’t reflect who I am right now. I go back and read the content I produced, and I cringe at how naive I was.

I don’t want people judging who I am based on some opinionated articles I wrote when I was 14. Heck, I don’t even want people to judge me in the future based on what I’m writing now. What if I wanted to get a job at a respectable company, and they decided to look up my personal blog?

If you can publish it online, they can find it. It’s almost impossible to hide from prying eyes if you want to be out there at the same time. Look at Facebook if you don’t believe me.

I guess from now on, I should be careful what I put out there. It’s extremely hard to take content away after you’ve put it up, so the only solution is to not put it up at all. But this is a personal blog, and it’s kind of pointless to have a blog where I can be personal if I’m always so guarded. Ugh, Google, I can’t live with you, and I can’t live without you.

perfect is boring

I seem to like things that aren’t perfect. What’s the fun in having something that’s already done so well you can’t improve it?

Take this theme for example. Robbie Manson did a great job with it (this is easily the best tumblr theme I have ever seen), but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to change it. There was a lot of white space, and I thought a picture would help. And maybe some descriptive text on the side.

Now, I don’t know anything about HTML except for the most basic stuff, so I took his theme and started messing around and seeing what changed when I did what. I love doing stuff like that. Improving on something through experimentation.

And Robbie Manson, if you happen to read this, please know that I’m not saying your theme is bad. It’s really good, but I just like making my stuff a bit different from everyone else’s. Thanks for the incredible theme! =)

“one” more day?

It’s Sunday as I write this, and Memorial Day is tomorrow. We know what that means, no school until Tuesday! I’m missing her a bunch right now, but cause of the aforementioned Memorial Day, I still got two more days until I can see her.

Or is it one? Cause see, she thinks that you only count the days between the current day and the target day. I think that’s wrong.. But a bunch of girls agree with her, and a bunch of boys agree with me. It seems to be a gender thing so far.

Funnily enough, she doesn’t count that way when it comes to other things, like months or years.

This is one of those quirks that I really like about her. They make me smile. Like this. =)

work ethics

You gave an interesting speech on work ethics today. About working hard, being a good employee, a good coworker, honest and everything else. It made me rethink about how I feel about you now.

One, it made me feel even worse about how I failed you. I could have done a lot better. But I didn’t and it’s been gnawing at me ever since.

But the second thing is that I may have just lost a lot of respect for you. That little speech was passionate, and I might have been sucked into it before. But now, I can see that it was so very hypocritical.

Honesty? You used to say you hated it when people stole. But you did once, and you bragged to me about it without a trace of remorse.

Hardworking? Please, I just took that test for you. It’s not even the first time I’ve done your work for you. And that’s another strike against honesty too.

Good employee and coworker.. I’ve never worked alongside you, but you seem so rude with people. You act all charming when you’re around them, but I’ve heard you talk when they’re not around.

I had so much respect for you back then. You’ve lost most of it by now. Maybe you’ll read this one day, but I don’t even care anymore. Because I just realized that you used me, before, today, and you’ll try again in the future. I owe you a lot, but it doesn’t make it any more right. You can be a bigger man. Be the man you say you are. Prove me wrong. I wouldn’t mind being wrong this time.

it’s a pirate’s life for me

I hate when pirates download content illegally, and they claim it is in the name of freedom. Of liberty. Oh, what utter bullshit. Taking away someone’s work has nothing to do with freedom. Someone worked hard to produce that work, and when you take away their compensation, you have committed the crime of theft.

What’s worse is when pirates claim that since they don’t actually have the files on their servers, they are doing nothing wrong. No, they’re making access to the files that much easier. Aiding someone in a crime IS a wrong.

But that’s not to say that the studios are right. Have they ever wondered why people pirate in the first place? Perhaps if there was a better alternative, that didn’t cost so much, piracy wouldn’t exist.

Companies like Hulu are trying to be that solution, but they aren’t perfect. I’d love to watch all my favorite tv shows online. I wouldn’t mind having ads every 10 minutes or so. But no, Hulu is not a viable solution for me. There’s just not enough content on there.

Here’s an idea to the studios. Show ALL of your content on Hulu instead of the last 5 episodes. It will get more people interested in it, instead of resorting to piracy.

Guvera, a recent music site, is very promising. It offers free music to users, and this is all paid for by advertising from big brands. The studios still get money, brands get exposure, and we get free music. This is a model that studios should look more into, because there are plenty of people out there that would be interested.

They want a cheap alternative (look, $19.99 for a movie on DVD is ridiculous), but the studios aren’t listening. As long as the studios follow such an outdated business model, there will be pirates. But that doesn’t mean that the pirates are off the hook.

Pirates: Don’t pirate if it hurts someone in any way.

Studios: Get a better game plan, or else you’re going to keep losing sales.