Over the past few years a semi-conscious unease has been steadily growing in my mind: OS X is not getting more reliable and more stable, it is instead developing more and nastier problems that range from interference with getting work done to potential data loss.
This unease is now consciously realized, hence my decision to publish this series of pages and to no longer ignore the eruption of a serious bug, but to document it.
As is clear to anybody, I'm ecstatic about the new ereaders and tablets platforms. I love 'em.
But at the same time, I'm becoming more and more disenchanted and even fearful about what is happening to my once-beloved Mac platform. The Mac Pro has hardly been developed in five years, and the same can be said for the OS, which even seems to be getting worse, including for the very dubious choices of making it look and behave more and more like a smartphone.
Also in general, I feel that culture is getting more and more superficial and less and less interesting, everything is being reduced to sound bites and 140-character-sized "reports".
Something need to change, otherwise I might just step off the horse as a professional computer-user, and step down to a technologically simpler life. Maybe make paintings or write books instead of running a pay site, and use the web less, and ebooks and good films/TV more. Slow down. Go narrower, but deeper. Breathe instead of pant.
Faster and wider communication is wonderful in principle, but when it seems to be mainly used to disseminate either worthless gossip or mindless fear-mongering, I'm out.
Update:
Portlandia has a great sketch which illustrates this: A small newspaper is taken over by a company called Links PDX. And they no longer really write articles, they just link. The former boss gets honors for getting 78 million hits with an article. The whole content of the article is three words:
"Charlize Theron NSFW."
("Not Safe For Work", generally meaning nude.)
LOL. As it were.
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BTW, I've been thinking that a modern outlet for art is phone/tablet cases, tee-shirts, etc etc. So I've been thinking about teaming up with somebody who does that. But just now, an Anon linked to RedBubble.com in a very old post of mine. I'm not even sure if he was spamming for the site or not, but if the quality of their products holds, that might work.
Here's a pretty cool iPad back-cover which is sold via their site:
3 comments:
Eloake, I totally agree with you about the way recent communication technology is affecting society -- I'm tempted to dump it all, just like you. But apart from being a gadget freak myself, almost everyone I know including relatives, is now really only communicating via Facebook - so if I dump that, I lose touch with everyone and I doubt they will bother to keep in touch with the traditional methods. All or nothing, it seems.
I agree. But since you wrote about four distinct subjects (1) OS X quality deterioration; (2) culture of superficial communication; (3) your downsizing plans; and (4) RedBubble service; it is difficult to comment.
Personally, a much bigger issue for me in communication is centralization of media. The great promise of the Internet was de-centralization. And yet, it's all forgotten by now: FaceBook, Blogger, Twitter, etc. All centralized services, like France's Minitel in the 1980s.
I too consider leaving Twitter and all Google services, not so much for the shallowness of communication, but for the centralization.
Yes, I hear you.
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I do sometimes have a tendency to digress and run with it, for better or worse. I guess that's why I have such an affinity for blogs, it's a lovely restriction-less format.
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