Today I worked another shift at The Franchise. It was a good one, as it was a pretty slow day. The weather was pretty snowy and it's New Year's Eve, so I guess a lot of people decided not to eat out tonight.
I did get my new pants. Hooray. Now I can work in at 28 inch waist without constantly reaching down to adjust my rapidly slipping uniform pants.
I did actually learn a few things again:
Cleaning the fryers is terrifying.
In order to clean our five fabulous food fryers, one must don a heat glove, turn the fryer off, remove the grate from the bottom of the unreasonably hot oil, send it back to be washed, remove the backplate, send that back to be washed, pull a valve to empty the fryer, and scrub the walls of the fryer out with a piece of steel wool. This is pretty simple as long as you avoid getting small patches of your skin cooked by the oil. Then comes the terrifying part: You've got to connect a hose to the pipes under the fryer, run it up to the fryer you're cleaning, and pull a valve to spray ridiculously hot oil all over the inner walls of the fryer. This isn't like a normal hose. This is like a high pressure fire hose spewing out fiery hot doom all over the place. I'm told this makes the fryer clean somehow. One wrong move, though, and you'll spray searing hot oil all over the kitchen and your three fellow kitchen workers. Easy right? Yep. Piece of cake.
People need to stop ordering onion rings.
I can bag fries now. It's pretty easy to me since I've learned the touch of the fry bagging masters, and I long ago abandoned all the pain sensing nerves in the ends of my fingers. But onion rings are a different matter altogether. With fries, they usually sit for a few seconds before being bagged. But onion rings have to go straight from the fryer to the bag, with no time to cool off. Also, they are bigger than fries and harder to insert into the bags. These factors combine to make it really hard to bag onion rings. I guess I'll get better with practice, but for now I still fumble around awkwardly every time. So do me a favor and don't order any onion rings while I'm working. Ok? Thanks.
Well, that's what I've got for now. If you were expecting a profound thoughtful New Years message in the post, you're not going to get it here. Click this link for the 2012 post, and replace stuff with things pertinent to 2013. I'm lazy.
Great news: I recently (and by recently I mean yesterday) got a job at a fast food restaurant. I've needed a job for a very long time, so having one unexpectedly is a huge thrill. You'll notice by now that I haven't mentioned the name of the restaurant, and I just want to get a few things related to that out of the way before I start:
I'm not going to mention the name of this restaurant. Ever. Those of you who know me in real life will probably know which one it is, but I will not be using the name of the restaurant online, since the company frowns upon that sort of thing. I will refer to it as The Franchise.
The views, opinions, and narratives I'm expressing in my posts do not reflect those of the company for which I work (which will of course remain nameless.)
Any comments mentioning the name of the company for which I work will be deleted immediately.
All names of coworkers and guests have been changed for reasons which should be obvious to you by now.
With that over with, let's begin the Fast Food Saga.
Day One:
I showed up for my first shift dressed in uniform pants several sizes too big for me. To put my dilemma in perspective, I'm a very tall, skinny guy who usually wears a 29 inch waist with a 34 or higher inseam. These were way bigger than that. But this was the smallest they had, so it would have to do.
After a brief tour of the place, I was plunged into my first task: Making fries. It's a simple job in theory. There are several fryers, and frozen potato sticks are poured into baskets which are then plunged into the extremely hot oil. And when I say extremely hot, I'm talking heat levels that make me seriously confused as to why the oil isn't actually on fire.
When working fries, you must stand in front of these fryers, put batches of frozen potato sticks into the baskets, drop the baskets in the oil, set the timer, and wait for them to cook. After the timers go off, you pull out the baskets, shake them, and dump the fries onto the fry table. Once there's a pile of fries, they are salted and scooped into bags, then placed on the chutes for distribution into guest's orders.
Like I said, a simple job.
But, this being my first shift, it was not simple. I learned one thing very quickly:
Everything is hot.
The kitchen is hot to begin with, considering most of the real estate is taken up by a giant, extremely hot grill and giant, extremely hot fryers. Most of the things in the kitchen are made of metal. And that metal gets very hot.
There's a scoop used to insert the fries into the bags. That scoop is hot.
There are metal baskets used to submerge various foods into the absurdly hot oil. Those baskets are hot.
There are fries coming out of the absurdly hot oil. Those fries are hot.
There's also a saltshaker. A big, metal, demonic saltshaker sent from one of the outer circles of Hell, specifically designed to blister, burn, sear, and otherwise cook your fingers every time you touch it.
I do not like this saltshaker.
Another thing I learned:
Scooping fries takes more skill than is initially expected.
All I have to do is take things and put them in bags. How in the world can that be difficult? I've put lots of things in lots of bags before, but somehow, bagging fries is different. There's a certain touch you have to develop to join the ranks of the expert fry baggers. I do not have this touch.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the only thing shielding my delicate Caucasian basement-dweller hands from a raging inferno of deep-fried death is a thin paper bag. Once I hold a medium bag of french fries for about three seconds, the scalding begins.
In addition, after every batch of fries is dumped onto the table, one must engage in the delightful activity of grabbing Lucifer (that's the saltshaker, I've named it Lucifer) and shaking it upside down to dispense salt on the pile of fries. This involves grasping Lucifer for more than about thirteen milliseconds, at which point one's fingers start to cook.
All these factors combine into a nice little medley of circumstance that makes it very difficult to accurately ensure that the correct number of fries, or any at all for that matter, end up in the bags.
Despite all of the above, I'm beginning to like my job. After a while, most of the nerve endings on my fingers were sautéed to the point where they ceased to register pain. Once I reached this point, I was able to bag fries quite quickly.
The moral to this whole thing, if there really can be a moral, is that you should think of the guys in the back next time you order your burger and fries. It's more work than you might think, and I've found that out on my first day.
That's all for now, folks. Be sure to tune in next time for more tales of the fast food kitchen.
Quote of the Day:
"We'll put you on fries to start out with. That's the easiest job."
Well, I knew about ice cream before. I just found these little pints of ice cream at Pick 'n Save that are really cheap. So...
I bought some.
It started with four pints. I brought them home and put them in the freezer. My thought was, "I'm going to eat these really slowly and make them last two weeks." Later that day I pulled one out of the freezer. Ten minutes later, I'd eaten the whole pint. I justified it as a fluke and something that would never happen again.
Two days later, there was no more ice cream. None. Why? I'd eaten it all. One thought began to completely consume my consciousness: GET MORE ICE CREAM.
So I did. I went to Pick 'n Save and bought four more pints. Just as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I realized that four was not enough. I pulled a quick U-turn (my apologies to the Prius that was in the oncoming lane) and raced back to the store. I ran to the frozen aisle and swept ten or twelve more pints off of the shelf. With a crazed gleam in my eye, I pushed my cart to the checkout aisle, swiped my debit card, and left, finally satisfied. But not for long.
48 hours later, I was back for more. I ran to the aisle. Grabbed the ice cream. Swiped my card. Went home. Ate the ice cream.
Within a week, it seemed normal. I'd wake up, drive to the store, grab the ice cream, swipe the card, drive home, eat. This was my routine. My life.
Until that fateful Thursday when the credit card machine beeped at me. I was swiping my card and it beeped at me. 'INSUFFICIENT FUNDS', it said. I panicked.
"I'll be right back, Rita", I told the cashier (we were on a first name basis by now). I walked back to my van. I took a sharpie and some cardboard and made a sign that said "THINGS FOR SALE." I then began selling everything in my possession. I sold my phone. And my driver's license. I sold the seats from the back of my van. I sold my clothes to a consignment shop. I even managed to convince a lady named Cindy that an empty Pepsi bottle I found in the back of my van was full of air from the royal wedding. Made $15 off of that.
Finally, dressed in an old garbage bag I found wrapped around a stop sign, I returned triumphantly to Pick 'n Save with $329.87 in small bills and change. I purchased all of the ice cream. ALL of the ice cream.
Fast forward to now. I've finally been released from the hospital. I have a session with a therapist scheduled for every Monday and Thursday in the next three months. Ice cream has stopped consuming my life. I'm finally free.
Please note that the above story is completely false. None of this really happened, with the exception of the fact that I did indeed purchase some ice cream a while ago. But it makes a much better excuse for why I haven't posted in such a long time than "I'm too lazy".
For several years, I've used the most popular Google Chrome extension ever, AdBlock. It does just what it says: blocks the ads you see in webpages and youtube videos. I've cruised along in ad-free comfort for nearly four years now. I no longer have to tolerate the obnoxious floating ads all over some websites. I'm no longer distracted by banners proclaiming "Wisconsin Mom Has the Disgusting Secret to Whiter Teeth!" or "21 and Single? Click here to chat now!" or "This One Energy Trick Will Save You Hundreds!"
I also have been free from the ads most people sit through before youtube videos. When I'm watching a quick 30 second tutorial on how to use toggle bolts in a plaster wall, I don't want to be forced to watch an irrelevant advertisement that lasts longer than the tutorial itself.
But the other day I realised something. And it has a lot to do with one of the most ever-present companies in our daily lives.
Google seems like a giant Santa Claus. I mean, they offer me 15 gigabytes of FREE web storage, for me to store whatever I want for as long as I want. They've given me Youtube. They've made this blog possible. They provide a suite of web-based tools I constantly use, like Google Docs, Slides, and Calendar. When I want to drive to a place I'm not familiar with, I do it with directions from Google Maps. When I look at ANY WEBPAGE, it's in Chrome, Google's browser. And did I mention that they run the most popular and useful web search engine on the face of the Earth? No? Well they do.
All of these things are free. Or at least, they appear to be.
But the truth is, Google is not a maps company. They're not a search company. They're not a storage company, or a calendar company, or a video sharing company. They are an advertisement company. The vast majority of their massive income is from advertisements. They offer us free things like Maps, Youtube, Docs, Drive, Calendar, the Android OS, etc, all in return for our clicking on their ads.
I was thinking about this the other day. The ads aren't really that terrible on lots of websites. I'm getting the benefit of the internet for free, shouldn't I be giving something back to the websites I like? AdBlock gives us a choice of what websites we want to support. That's why I've started disabling AdBlock on a number of individual websites I visit regularly. These websites have to pay the bills somehow, that's why they have ads up in the first place. However, the websites that support ads that annoy or offend me get the AdBlock treatment.
I haven't disabled it altogether, though. For instance, I still have it enabled for Youtube. Sorry, Youtube Content Creators, but as much as I love the idea of you guys getting a paycheck when I watch your videos, the ads that roll in front of Youtube videos are just too obnoxious. I don't mind the banner ads at the bottom of the video, or the ones that appear next to the video. But the commercials that interrupt the beginning of the video I'm watching have to stay gone.
That's why I love using AdBlock. Not to completely cripple the Internet as we know it by blocking every ad we see, but to give me the choice of which websites I actually want to support.
For some reason, I get into this debate quite often on the infamous Youtube Comments Section. It seems lots of people don't believe that a genre of music I enjoy immensely, EDM, is true artistry (i.e. not "real" music.) I disagree. Here's why.
People make a lot of statements and generalizations about Electronic Dance Music. One of the biggest ones:
'It's not "real" music because it all sounds the same.'
EDM (Electronic Dance Music) covers a huge range of genres, including Ambient, Ambient dub
,Ambient industrial, Ambient house, Dark ambient, Drone music,
Illbient, Isolationism, Breakbeat, Acid breaks, Baltimore Club, Big
beat, Broken beat, Nu skool breaks, Florida breaks, Nu-funk, Miami
bass, Chiptune/Video game music, Bitpop, Bleep techno, Game Boy
music, Nintendocore, Skweee, Disco, Cosmic disco, Disco polo, Euro
disco, Italo disco, Nu-disco, Space disco, Spacesynth, Downtempo,
Acid jazz, Chill out, Ethnic electronica, New age music, Nu jazz,
Trip hop, Drum and bass, Darkstep, Drumfunk,
Drumstep, Hardstep, Jump-Up, Jazzstep, Liquid funk, Neurofunk,
Sambass, Techstep, Dub fusion genres, Afro-dub, Dubstep, Brostep,
Post-dubstep, Trap, Wonky, Dubtronica, Electro music, Freestyle
music, Electroacoustic music, Acousmatic music, Electroacoustic
improvisation, Musique concrète, Electronica, Berlin school,
Chillwave, Folktronica, Funktronica, Laptronica, Livetronica,
Electronic rock, Alternative dance, Coldwave, Dance-punk, Dark Wave,
Electronicore, Ethereal Wave, Indietronica, Krautrock, New rave,
Nu-gaze, Space rock, Synthpop, Synthpunk, Hardcore, 4-beat, Breakbeat
hardcore, Bouncy techno, Breakcore, Digital hardcore, Darkcore,
Freeform hardcore, Gabber, Happy hardcore, Hardcore breaks, Makina,
Rave, Speedcore, Trancecore, UK hardcore, Hard dance, Hard house, Hardstyle, Dubstyle, Jumpstyle, Lento violento, Eurobeat, Eurodance, Italo dance, House
music, Acid house, Balearic beat, Chicago house, Deep house, Detroit
house, Disco house, Diva house/Handbag house, Hardbag, Electroclash,
Electro house, Complextro, Dutch house, Fidget house, Moombahton,
Moombahcore, Euro house, Freestyle house, French house, Funky house,
Garage house, Ghetto house, Hip house, Italo house, Kwaito, Latin
house, Microhouse/Minimal house, New beat, Progressive house, Swing
house, Electro swing, Tech house, Tribal house, Vocal house,
Industrial music, Aggrotech, Cybergrind, Electro-industrial, Dark
electro, Electronic body music, Futurepop, Industrial metal,
Industrial rock, Neue Deutsche Härte, Japanoise, Power electronics,
Death industrial, Power noise, IDM, Glitch, Jungle, Darkcore jungle,
Hardcore jungle, Raggacore, Ragga-jungle, Post-disco, Boogie,
Dance-pop, Dance-rock, Techno, Acid techno, Detroit techno, Free
tekno, Ghettotech, Hardtechno, Minimal techno, Nortec, Rotterdam
techno, Schranz, Symphonic techno, Tecno brega, Trance music, Acid
trance, Dark trance, Dream trance, Electrance, Euro trance, Goa
trance, Hard trance, Ibiza Trance, Full
on, Progressive psytrance, Psybreaks, Suomisaundi, Progressive
trance, Tech trance, Uplifting trance, Vocal trance, UK garage,
2-step garage, Breakstep, Future garage, Grime, Grindie, Speed
garage, Bassline/4x4 garage, UK funky, and I've only stopped listing them because I think you get the point.
I can assure you that while some of these styles may sound similar to each other, each is different, with its own set of characteristics. Once you listen to a lot of EDM, you start to realize the vast range of sounds that are out there.
Another argument I hear quite often:
'EDM takes no talent or skill to produce. It's just a bunch of noises made with computers.'
That's a tougher one to address, if only because I don't even know where to begin. As someone who's dabbled in EDM production, even though I have only scratched the surface of the skills and practice necessary to create a compelling track, I can say with confidence that it's extremely difficult to just sit down at a computer with FL Studio or Ableton Live and churn out a track without at least some idea of what you're doing.
Take a look at this:
That's a view of FL Studio. This image doesn't even show most of the hundreds, if not thousands of parameters that must be adjusted and tweaked to create a unique sound. Many critics of EDM that I've encountered have never even used software like this, and if I were to plunk them down in front of it and tell them to create a track, they'd probably end up with something like this:
I doubt that's going to be topping any charts any time soon. I whipped it together in about 90 seconds.
Creating a great track can take months. Each synth must be fine tuned to give the exact sound you're aiming for. Every effect must be programed. And I haven't even gotten to the complex art of mastering, the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to an exported track.
I'm not claiming to be great at all of these things, in fact I only know the basics when it comes to FL Studio.
One of my favorite genres is Electro House music (or Progressive House), one of the characteristics of which is a steady, four-to-the-floor beat, usually at 125-130 BPM. Take a listen to this track by one of my favorite producers, Deadmau5 (pronounced Deadmouse.)
At the surface, it may not seem all that creative to some, because of the repetitive structure within the main hook of the song. But there is so much variation and complex structure within that pattern. It's a really tough thing to get right, but Deadmau5 seems to have nailed it to some extent, considering the track's massive popularity on the charts.
Here's another example. I produced the track below, called "There." It took somewhere around two months from start to finish. It's a reasonably decent track (in my opinion at least), and I'm pretty proud of it. However, if you hand me a guitar, and tell me to create a really driving riff for a rock song, followed by a screaming solo, I'm not going to be able to make much of anything. Is it easier to use software to create music? Not exactly. That's just what I'm better at. For a guitar player, it's easier for them to create great music with a guitar than it is for them to use FL Studio.
So shut up and enjoy the music.
UPDATE: Here's a great video of a guy performing EDM live. Yes, it requires skill.
The other day, the headphones I'd bought last fall finally died. I guess that's what happens when you purchase the cheapest headphones on Newegg.
It wasn't too surprising.
So I pulled up B&H photo/video and checked to see if they had a certain set from JVC that I was really interested in. Ten minutes later, I'd clicked "order", and six days later, they arrived at my doorstep. Isn't the internet wonderful?
According to most of the reviews I've seen of the HARX700's, they're the best quality headphone on the market for their price bracket. And I'd have to agree on that one.
First impressions:
The build quality on these seems very solid at this point. There are no creaky or loose parts. Everything fits together well, and the headphones have some heft to them. They're not heavy by any means, but definitely not feather-light either. The non-removeable cable is ten feet long. TEN FEET! That's pretty long. It's also decently thick and should withstand everyday use with no problems. The connector is a standard 3.5mm plug, with an included 1/4 inch gold plated adapter for use with mixers, etc.
The sound at first was very harsh. The bass was there, but it was overshadowed by the extravagant highs and mids. The highs were way too shimmering and really made it painful to listen to at high volume levels.
After a 15 hour burn-in:
Wow! What a world of difference. To burn them in, I just queued up the band Red's entire collection and put it on a loop at just above a comfortable volume level. I let this play for 15 hours, and afterwards they were like a whole new pair of headphones. The highs have receded to comfortable, crisp levels, and the mids are much more refined and accurate. The bass is tight and responsive, but it could be more prevalent. They are rated for 8hz to 25khz, which expands well beyond the normal range of human hearing. This makes for a great experience watching movie trailers; you'll really feel the thunder and explosions.
Songs:
These sound great with a variety of music. Rock is explosive yet balanced, EDM such as Deadmau5 has plenty of punch in the kicks and a lot of definition in the synth lines. Daft Punk's track "Contact" is spectacular on the HARX700's.
Overall:
Honestly, I tried to think of more negative points, but I can't. These are a really solid pair of headphones that deliver great sound for a reasonable price.
JVC HARX700 Headphones, available at Newegg, Amazon, and B&H. $35.99-$55.99
I'm going back to work at camp. It's going to be a blast, and a whole lot of work. Here's a countdown until I get back on August 15th:
I'll try to put up mini-posts on my days off. Also, check my twitter stream on this page.
*Update*
I'd love it if my readers could do what they did last year. Use the comments section as a Twitter feed every day. Let me know what you ate for breakfast. Or anything. It'll be a lot of fun to read them when I get back!
There are a lot of great movies out there. Some of them are quite credible, realistic, and engaging. I enjoy them immensely. But one thing bugs me: Hollywood producers don't seem to know anything about anything electronic.
In most modern-set movies, there will be a scene with a computer. And that computer is making idiotic bleeping noises every time someone presses a button! For me, it destroys the entire realism and believability of the scene when someone's reading a text message on their iPhone and all of a sudden an electronic din fills the room just because they're typing a reply. Directors and screenwriters know that the real world doesn't work that way. But they continue to insist on utterly wrecking the credibility of a potentially awesome scene by inserting corny, tinny beeping sounds into every single computer scene! Why can't movie computers be like real life computers? A pleasant "blinng" here and there when you get a notification is fine. But a constant racket is just obnoxious. Can you imagine if everyones electronics did that? Offices full of computers would be a nightmare.
One thing I've also noticed is that movie characters seem physically unable to operate a computer with a mouse. Seriously. Everything is apparently controlled by typing, just like in 1985 when all you had was a command line!
(Good guy 1: "Oh, no! Looks like the bad guys are trying to access the main gate! Quick, use the computer system to lock it!"
Good guy 2: "Right away sir! Let me try to navigate through this supposedly modern operating system only by quickly hitting random characters on a keyboard! OK, got it!"
Bad guys: "Rats! Foiled again. It's locked!")
Speaking of bad guys, the go-to strategy for pretty much everything seems to be "hacking". Apparently. anything and everything electronic can be "hacked into". It's the same plot-hole filling spackle used in Star Trek (future technology), and Harry Potter (magic). If you're a good writer, you don't have to rely on stupid crutches like that.
(Movie Writer Bill: "Hey Frank! I think I've written myself into a corner! How am I supposed to get our main characters out of the bad guys lair?"
Movie Writer Frank: "I dunno. Have them hack into the light switches with their phones and sneak past the bad guys. Problem solved."
Bill: "Hmm. Seems legit! Okay!"
Frank: "Fine. Pass me another beer, will ya?")
Another observation is that a computer's interface is almost never true-to-life unless the company is paying for product placement. If anyone else has seen the movie "Independence Day" (if not then look it up on Netflix because it's great), you'll notice that at the end, the entire alien scourge is defeated with an Apple Powerbook 5300! Random coincidence? No. Apple paid for the product placement so that the entire culmination of the film is nothing but a cheap advertisement for a laptop.
So consider this an open letter to every movie director, producer, and screenwriter ever:
STOP IT! Just stop! Get back to reality! It's time to salvage any hope of releasing credible movies! Stop with the beeping. Stop with the keyboard commands. And the product placement. And please, please, please, STOP with the hacking.
The air conditioning in this vehicle kicked the bucket long ago, so I prefer to drive with all of the windows down rather than sit inside roasting in the sunlight. I was driving along, listening to music, and really enjoying the beautiful, sunny day.
Suddenly I saw two large "SPLAT" marks appear on the windshield. As I sat and contemplated the fact that I had just killed my first animals with a vehicle, one of the (as I later found out) wasps that had escaped their untimely demise managed to fly into my open window and up my sleeve, coming to rest on an unsuspecting patch of my back. The wasp, I suppose, paused a minute to savor the feeling of avenging his recently splattered siblings, and then with little ceremony, plunged his stinger into my body. I yelped. Loudly.
I've been stung by wasps before. Mostly while I was on staff at Camp Indian Trails last year. But somehow the sting of a wasp avenging the senseless murder of his fellow wasps tends to hurt a lot more than a normal sting. It felt like a red hot needle of justice being inserted into my skin, and pumping in something like battery acid.
Anyway, after yelping, I could still feel the apparently satisfied wasp buzzing and squirming around gleefully in my shirt. This is not a pleasant sensation to experience while motoring along at fifty miles per hour. After narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic, I managed to pull onto a nearby curb, leap from my vehicle, and frantically remove my shirt, shaking it at arms length to try to liberate the insect within. Some poor suburbanite was watering plants in his front yard across the street. He calmly watched this happen, hose in hand, causing major flooding to his tulips.
I finally got the offending bug out of my clothing, and tried to maintain at least a slight air of dignity as I donned my shirt. Despite my efforts to not look ridiculous, the man continued staring at me. I nodded solemnly and uttered a few words about stinging insects and windows. He nodded nervously and backed away as I got back into the car and resumed driving. I still wonder what he thought was going on. All the way to the library I jumped and gasped at slightest sensation of anything touching my body, fearing that more wasps were hiding in the car.
I eventually got to the library, which brings me to the main point of this post. It's weird finally having a drivers license. Being able to go pretty much anywhere alone is a surprisingly scary feeling. The first time I drove alone I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd stolen the car and was going to be pulled over and arrested at any moment.
That being said, it's really nice to have that bit of independance. Since I have yet to crash, I'm allowed to use the van. It gets about fourteen miles per gallon in the city so I'm glad I'm not paying for the gas (yet.)
After the wasp incident I had a relaxing afternoon basking in a sunny window in the library, reading the latest issue of Wired magazine.
Needless to say I drove home with the windows firmly closed.
It's a great post. Read it in its entirety. It explains exactly why the Mac OS is not a productive OS. It's basically identical to what I've been meaning to write, but written much better than the draft I put together. He claims that both platforms are equal, but I would disagree with that claim. I think this article shows a lot of reasons why not to go with a mac. Here we go:
The only reason the myth of Macs (yes, it’s a myth) being better at “design things” exists is because as we all know, the Apple corporation was the first to make real headway in the personal computing market. They were the first to introduce a GUI that anyone recognized (though technically the Xerox Alto was the first to have a GUI, but the “Macintosh” introduced in 1984 was the first real commercial success), and programs/software that actually looked somewhat nice. That is to say, it was not monochromatic green text on a black screen. Back then (we’re talking like circa the early 80’s), if you wanted to compute and make things, you pretty much had basic drawing applications, and lame attempts at “desktop publishing” on Apple computers (see also: MacPaint), and essentially number computing and mathematical calculating on PC’s.
Though to be truthful “PC” means personal computer, so technically pretty much any computer you can buy (IBM PC or Mac) is a PC. But whatever, I’ll just call the one Mac and the other PC to avoid confusion.
Anyway, due to this initial distinction between PC’s as data-number-financial-etc machines, and Mac’s as pretty-functional-fun-designerly-etc machines, it was assumed that Mac’s were for fun, creative people making pretty things like design and art, and PC’s were for stodgy accountants that needed to compile sales figures. It is that distinction, made in the 1980’s mind you, that makes up essentially the entire basis of the “Macs are better at design than PCs” argument that we hear so often today. Just look at the recent Mac ads: Cool young guy who says “Dude” a lot represents Mac, old accountant-looking guy with nasal voice represents an PC. Wow, brilliant marketing. In actuality, it doesn’t really matter what you use to design, since it’s the designer that makes the design, not the computer. All you really need to do is pick whichever you work on best, and most efficiently.
But beyond that, let me go on as to just why it’s such an inaccurate statement. With the introduction of Windows in 1985, the Macintosh was no longer the only “pretty” looking computer. Naturally more software cropped up, and both machines had the capabilities to do the same things; and so the race to dominate the market began. Ultimately Microsoft and Windows won out, as is known by their much larger market share both then and now, but let’s get to how this affects design.
If you're reading this, you've probably noticed that my blog has a new look. I think the whole sliding-transparent-content-area-over-a-picture-of-wood-planks thing was getting a little old. Let me know what you think about it in the comments!
So I'm turning 17 today. I've got an amazing dinner planned, with roasted garlic lemon chicken, heavenly homemade biscuits, and chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Yum.
You may recall last year's birthday post:
I'm not doing anything that spectacular this year, but it's been a great day so far. Today's tea was a custom blended peach-lemon black tea from designatea.com. Really good stuff, I enjoyed it immensely. I also spent some time watching hilarious youtube videos, and incessantly playing "Happy Birthday to ME" on the piano. So I'm happy.
No, Isaiah, I'm not a hipster. But I love tea. I have a twelve ounce mug of the stuff every single day. Chai, black, oolong, green, white, I enjoy it all.
There's something awesome about a hot cup of tea at about 11:00 in the morning. I manage to stretch it out for about an hour, savoring its complex flavors while doing my schoolwork. It contains a little less caffeine than coffee, so something like Chai is a great coffee alternative if you have to go low-caffeine. And I like the whole process of heating the water, measuring out the leaves, and waiting for it to steep.
If you're looking for a great place to get some tea, check out designatea.com. They offer delicious custom tea blends for very reasonable prices. And no, this post is not a paid advertisement.
If you feel trouble brewing, or your temper is beginning to boil, you can usually solve most of your problems by spending a half hour over a cup of hot tea. It's sure to stimulate your creativitea, bring about a sense of tranquilitea, and inspire some originalitea. I guarantea it. (I couldn't resist sticking that in there. My apologies.)
I got the opportunity to get Windows 8 Pro on my computer for $15.81 instead of the usual $199. So that's what I'm doing right now. I will put my first impressions, etc. on this post. Here we go!
Installation Process:
Installation was as easy as a 2gb download and a few questions. Microsoft has made Windows 8 much more fluid and behind-the-scenes than Windows 7. The whole process took around an hour. After restarting a few times, Windows greeted me simply with the word "Hi." in the middle of the screen. I thought that was a nice touch. It did a quick, 15-20 second tutorial on how to get around in the new UI, and after that I was off to the races.
UI & Experience:
I know I've criticized Windows 8 before for being too separated, as if you were running two different OS's at the same time. But this seems to be working quite fluidly. It carries the square, sharp-edged motif past the new start screen and it overflows into the desktop.
UPDATE:
Wow. I have to say, after using this for a while, it is truly beautiful. There is nothing superfluous or bulky about the Windows 8 interface. Very clean, very slick, and it's easy to use once you get the hang of it. I've heard some people complain about moving around in the Start Screen and its assortment of apps, because they think that since there is no touch interface to drag with, you have to click and drag with the mouse. Nope. Use the scroll wheel. It works quite nicely.
Start Screen:
The collection of apps is very nice as well. For instance, right now I have my weather, Engadget feed (a must-have), Netflix, Youtube, and Google Search right there. It's like using widgets in Android. All your info is right there in front of you. Everything I need is just a click away. I might actually end up using the Start Screen more than the Desktop...
Has anyone seen Instagram? Cute, isn't it? Did you know that the people who use it call their filtered, distorted, grainy photos "art"? I have four words for these people:
Instagram is not art.
You know what? That's not enough emphasis. Let's try this:
INSTAGRAM IS NOT ART.
Hopefully, an italic bold underlined over-sized typeface will get this message through to the fake-retro clouded brains of these pour souls.
For the benefit of those who don't know what Instagram is, let me explain. Instagram is a photo sharing service that lets those with smartphones, well, share their photos. At least, that's what it's supposed to do. In reality, what it ends up doing is destroying a lot of potentially great photos by slapping "artistic" filters over them.
I made an instagram'd copy of the first painting you think of when you think "art". Here's my version of the Mona Lisa:
There! I made Art! See how I added that film grain, tweaked the saturation and contrast, and put it into a Polaroid frame? Now it's Art, right? Wrong. There was absolutely no creative process involved. I simply clicked on one of 17 available photo filters. The only part that took any effort was putting both photos in front of a background and adding text. (I did that in Gimp.)
Why do people use these filters? Well, the answer lies in the past. Things from the past are generally perceived as being somewhat magical. Your grandmothers typewriter? Cool. Great-aunt-Bertha's vintage record player? Cool. So if we just make all of our photos look aged, then it logically follows that they will be more authentic and interesting. But the problem is that the majority of Instagrammers weren't even alive in the era they're trying to portray. A picture of your Macbook Air (circa 2011) made to look like a Polaroid (circa 1974) does not add any artistic value whatsoever. These filters are a very lazy habit to get into. Most of the photos on instagram are of feet, food, and coffee. (No, seriously.) If I showed you an untouched photo of my foot or my plate of scrambled eggs, you'd just give me a bored look and continue with your life. But if I do something to those photos to make them look more interesting (such as slapping a filter on them) then suddenly they grab your attention! Except for one thing: They look identical to all of the other 4,000,000 photos of feet and scrambled eggs on instagram. These are ruined photos. They don't capture a moment. They have no character. Their only flaws were put there on purpose. I'll tell you what: If you take a photo of your coffee mug, print it out, and leave it in the desert for 19 years, and then retrieve it and display it with all its scratches and sun-bleaching, then you've made a piece of art. Just like using paint-by-numbers doesn't make you a painter, using Instagram does not make you an artist.
Another reason you shouldn't use Instagram if you claim to be an artist is licensing. With the recent changes to Instagram's terms of service, any photo posted can be saved and used for commercial purposes. That's right: You own the photos, but you have no rights to them. So if a company wants to take the photo you took of your hamburger and use it for profit, there's nothing to stop them. It's legal, and you won't get a penny for your "work".
Are there alternatives to destroying your photos with faux-character and mass-produced authenticity? Yes. Yes there are. For starters, if you'd like to create nostalgia in your photos, then you should do absolutely nothing to them. Sure, your eight-megapixel iPhone camera looks great right now, but in 15 years your kids are gonna laugh at how grainy and low quality the images are. That's real nostalgia.
Changing the color of a photo of an everyday object such as a coffee mug does not make it unique. The only way to create truly unique photos is to take pictures of truly unique subjects, or use interesting techniques in your photography. That's a unique-ness that Instagram simply can't replace.
RED's been my favorite band (bordering on an obsession) for about 3 years now. Their fourth and latest album, "Release the Panic" is coming out in 3 days. I've got hold of an autographed copy of it before it's been released to the general public, thanks to my totally-amazing-greatest-best-friend-you-could-ever-ask-for best friend Isaiah.
To review this album, we need context. Let's set that up, shall we?
RED's first album, "End of Silence" came out in 2006 (wow, that was a really long time ago.) To give you a sample of this album's musical style, take a listen to one of the songs, "Let Go".
I've been reading all the Apple rumors lately. I saw the usual fare: New iPad leaked parts, new iPhone leaked parts, etc, etc, etc. As we found out way back before the iPhone 5, Apple no longer has much of a claim to secrecy. You don't even have to watch Apple's highly choreographed "keynote" product releases anymore. Just check the leaks. Because most of the time, they're right.
Just check out this video, uploaded on September 1, 2012, a full 11 days before the iPhone 5 was even announced, let alone the 2 week waiting period before it was available in stores.
You could go on and on. There were pictures of the iPad mini a full month before the announcement, there were leaks of the new iMac's thinner profile before most people had even heard of it, and no one can forget when a working iPhone 4 was found in a bar in 2010. Apple has long relied on secrecy before the product announcements in order to drum up hype to increase sales. But with spies on every corner and a camera in every pocket, that secrecy has almost ceased to exist. I've learned to believe the rumors like this one about upcoming products, because they're almost always right. For instance, I already know what the iPad 5 will look like. (Picture a blown-up iPad Mini.) So Apple has almost completely lost its secrecy. Has it also lost its class?
Let me explain.
One thing Apple had going for it was class. And by class I mean the "cool" factor. Apple's products cost on average much more than equivalent products from the various competition. If you own an Apple product, you make it clear that you have paid significantly more for said product than someone who buys something from, say, Samsung. I'm not claiming that this is thereason that all Apple customers have for buying Apple's products. But you simply can't deny that this is a factor. Pride and status symbols have been a part of our human nature since, well, the beginning of time. So by appealing to the "elite" crowd, Apple gains not only a lot of wealthy customers but also an overall image of superiority. Class envy sells products. That's a fact that will never go away. Lots of people upgraded their perfectly functional iPhone 4S's to iPhone 5's not because there was anything wrong with the old ones, but because the iPhone 5 is the newest model. And it's not fun to have an "old" product when everyone else is walking around with something newer. I've experienced this myself, and it's definitely a hard thing to ignore.
Hello. So I'm writing this on an iPad. So it might not be the standard of excellence you're used to. Oh well.
I've been experimenting with cool audio stuff lately and generally being lazy, so that's why I haven't posted in so long.
Cool news: I will hopefully be working at camp again this year! Exciting. I'm thinking afterwards I might spend part of my spoils on a canon t3i. It seems to be great camera for the price. My friend Jacob bought a canon t2i a few years ago for $700 (with a lens and stuff.) But I'm thinking that by the time I would buy a t3i, it should be down to about $500 with a lens. So that's my plan at this point.
That's all I've got for now. I will leave you with a picture of me An Elijah. And a few oranges.
I enjoy driving. It's something I dreamed about doing as a little kid. I saw those who could operate a vehicle as demi-gods, people to be revered and envied. I went to Driver's Ed this fall, and now I'm driving. It's fun.
I feel like I look really cool when I'm driving from place to place. After all, there's 2 tons of steel under my control. Then I realize that I'm driving a 1999 Chevy Astrovan that's definitely seen better days. Definitely not a cool car. Let me explain why:
It looks like the picture above, only without the hubcaps. Those got stolen. I mean, seriously? The hubcaps? I found a set of hubcaps for a '99 Astro for $4.95 each on Ebay. These thieves must have been exceptionally stupid, as they didn't realize that the doors were unlocked and there was probably more spare change in the cup holders than those hubcaps were worth. But I digress.
The "cool" factor of this vehicle is pretty low. It's not a sports car. It's not a sports anything. It's more of a kidnapper van than anything else. I can't imagine someone standing in front of this thing in 1999 and saying, "Wow! What a stylish and up-to-date car!"
So that way I compensate for that is to rev the V8 engine loudly when I leave a stop sign. It sounds kind of like a T-rex choking on peanut butter. "VVVVVBRRRRUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHMMMMMMM!!!"
Up until a month or two ago, the A/C blower fan casing was loose. If you turned the fan speed past "low", you'd hear a deep, throaty "MMMMMMRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVV" that would continue until you finally couldn't stand it anymore and turned off the fan. But within a minute or two you'd normally get too hot or too cold and turn it back on again. The combination of the "VVVVVBBBBRRRRUUUUUUUUHHHMMMMMM" of the engine and the intermittent"MMMMMMMRRROOOOOOOOVVVVV" of the blower fan created a din not unlike the apocalypse. People would stick their heads out of their windows as we drove by, wondering whether WWIII had started or else there was a herd of Brontosaurus fighting each other on their front lawn.
I firmly believe that the van is possessed by a small devil who hates me. This devil wants to destroy every ounce of dignity left in my body. So I just hunch over slightly in my seat, cringing as people see me drive past, pretending I'm driving something cool.
