Interview

As if Google Glasses weren’t creepy enough already

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I’m sure I’ve seen this in films. The hero looks at you through glasses and on the screen comes up information about you. In this case, your age, gender and most specifically what mood you’re in.

But of course now that you can actually do this with Google Glasses and some newly-announced software, you’re not a hero. And it’s one of those cases where software need only pretend to be clever because actually all it’s got to do is tell you that the person you’re looking at through these things is pissed off at you.

I can see that something like this might help people with Aspergers’ who have trouble recognising facial clues. But I feel a punch to the face clears up many confusions.

It’s not just me – the phantom phone vibration

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Countless times I will feel my iPhone vibrate with an alert or a message and I will get it out of my pocket – only to find nothing. No message. No notification. Nothing.

Up to now I have suspected that I am psychotic or that someone at Apple is gaslighting me. Granted, these are extreme possibilities.

But they’re better than the idea of my very soul so aching for human contact that I am creating my own vibrations by telekenesis. Which I’ve also wondered.

I sound like I’ve got the answer to why it happens but really I’ve only got reassurance that it happens to you too.

In 2010, a team of researchers from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts asked 232 of their colleagues to answer a questionnaire about phantom vibrations from their cell phone (or, more correctly, from the area where their cell phones usually are). Of the 176 who responded, 115 — 69% — stated that yes, they experienced the disconcerting fake alerts like the type described above. The researcher’s plain-as-day conclusion: “Phantom vibration syndrome is common among those who use electronic devices.”

Feeling the buzz: where do phantom phone vibrations come from? – Dan Lewis, Boing Boing (22 August 2014)

Phew.

The article does go on to suggest reasons and answers and possibilities but I’m just happy to not be alone in this profound manifestation of a longing and a yearning that rests within my soul, like.

What causes it? There are a lot of theories. Discovery News suggested that “[i]t could be because cell phones produce electrical signals that transmit the feeling of vibration directly to a person’s nerves or simply because of the mental anticipation of alerts.” Mental Floss explains how the first of the two theories would work, likening it to “a physical stimulation similar to what happens when your phone is near a speaker and you hear that weird buzzing sound as it does a ‘hand shake’ with a cell tower and gives off some electromagnetic interference.” And the anticipation aspect is not dissimilar from any other sort of psychological conditioning — we are so used to our phones vibrating that our brains make it feel like it is happening when we “want,” not when it actually does.

Google Reader: I’m not mollified

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Previously… Google took over the world of RSS – an idea that lets websites send their news stories to you instead of you traipsing to them – and when the competition had gone, and all around was peaceful, they dropped it. The same week they dropped this Google Reader service I relied on, they announced a new one called Google Keep: nothing to do with Reader or RSS, it was an Evernote clone that was promoted as the great way to keep all your information for ever.

Or until Google switches it off.

I’m not bitter.

This week, Google’s Jon Wiley did a Reddit Ask Me Anything and the topic of Google dropping features came up. He said:

One thing that’s almost always guaranteed with product design: when you add a feature, no one complains about it outright; if they don’t love it they mostly just ignore it. Whereas if you take something away, you’ll hear about it if people relied upon it… loudly and often. With something like Google Search, even if just a small fraction of people miss a feature and an even smaller fraction says so, that can still be tens of thousands of people. It can seem like a tidal wave of opposition to the removal: “look at all these people who want it back!”

So it would be much easier to leave in everything that’s ever launched. But then you end up with bloatware: an unwieldy array of ill-fitting modules that don’t work well with newer technologies (e.g., the shift to smartphones, or upgraded security, or touchscreens, etc.) and don’t really serve most of your users well either. And nothing comes for free – every feature must be maintained, supported in multiple languages, on multiple devices, and the additional complexity must be accounted for in testing so that the entire service remains reliable. And that cost gets balanced against the impact: is this feature solving an important problem for lots of people?

There are many, many such features that you always have to make tough choices about. We’ve actually cut features that I love. This is one of the toughest but most important parts of designing products – deciding what to trim as you move forward. Sometimes you over-trim – we work to measure the impact and aim to strike the right balance. Sometimes we get it wrong, so it is important that people speak up. We really do listen, and we prioritize according to what seems to satisfy the widest needs given our capabilities.

Google’s Jon Wiley on Ask Me Anything, Reddit.com (24 July 2014)

Makes sense to me. Now, explain why Google didn’t just get rid of a feature, it got rid of an entire service.

Dar Williams on productivity and creativity

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I’ve said this before: I wouldn’t kill to write like songwriter Dar Williams, but I’d maim. She has a fine and long body of work, a now substantial discography but interestingly, she’s against being disciplined and productive. I’m obviously paying more attention and notice because I rate her so much but I think she makes these points particularly persuasively.

She makes them in an old interview on Songfacts where am unnamed interviewer presses on the point thisaway:

Songfacts: When you look at this collection, does it amaze you that you’ve accomplished what you have? I don’t want to ask you to brag, but there must be some moment of pride to be able to look at all these songs and re-visit some of your accomplishments over the years. How does it make you feel when you look at the songs that make up this collection?

Dar: Well, when I was in college, I put a stick-it on my computer, which was huge, that said, “Whatever you do is enough.” I had totally lost my mind, and I was coming back from that. So I would say to myself, you know, you’re supposed to do a ten-page paper, if you do one page you’ll get a D+. If you do two pages, you’ll get a C-, or if you do three pages you’ll get a C-. So that’s all better than an F, so why don’t you do a page?

And it was really, enormously helpful to me. And then a friend of mind was kind of coming back from her lost moment, and I put the stick-it on her computer, and she took a very playful approach to this paper, really appreciating the fact that she wasn’t writing about something very tangible, and just giving it a very playful approach. And she got an A. Her professor said he read it for his wife. It was like, by letting the pressure go and allowing herself to do what she could in that moment, she released a sort of joy in the meaning of the whole assignment.

So it’s like I have a little stick-it on my inner computer that says “Whatever you do is enough.” And I don’t force lines, and I don’t force myself to write every day, and somehow out of that came seven albums that don’t, to me, feel forced. And that’s the only thing I’ll boast about is that there’s nothing about it that to me sounds like I said, “I have to write for 2 hours a day,” with lines where there were no inspiration. I felt it when I wrote it. And I think that experience coming back from being totally insane and putting that stick-it on my computer was a good beginning to a less forced work ethic.

Dar Williams – Songfacts (3 November 2010)

Be sure to read the whole piece: this is all she says on productivity but it’s a wide-ranging interview and she’s smart across it all.

Thanks to @groggy for pointing me at this.

8 Simple Tricks That Will Help You Ace A Job Interview But Rob You Of Your Innocence

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Job interviews are stressful, but here are some time-tested tips to impress any potential employer and render you unable to look at the world in the same unsullied light.

1. Prepare Ahead Of Time
Rehearse answers to common questions a few days beforehand to trick the interviewer into thinking your answers are genuine reflections of your thoughts. This is a lie all job seekers participate in.

2. Give A Firm Handshake
A firm handshake is an effective way to make a good impression, but will also destroy your inner child a little each time you do it. You’re a manipulator of people now.

8 Simple Tricks That Will Help You Ace A Job Interview But Rob You Of Your Innocence – Clickhole (24 June 2014)

Read the other six on the full feature.

Watch Susan Kare talk about icon design

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Only this weekend, I wrote about the ⌘ symbol and that inevitably led to mentioning Susan Kare. And now she’s here on video, talking about the icons she designed for Apple and many more.

Susan Kare, Iconographer (EG8) from EG Conference on Vimeo.

Full disclosure. I swear I’m alert to Susan Kare in the news because I had a drama character I loved named Susan Hare. Complete coincidence, but.

Be smarter: don’t apply for jobs when they’re advertised

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It can’t always be a good idea, but when it’s right, this could work well for you:

Introduce Yourself When They Aren’t Looking

What if you saw an ad for a job where you knew there was a fair amount of turnover. To add to this, let’s assume you are not desperate and unemployed. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to allow the ad to run its course and send a letter a few weeks later to make it appear your interest in the company was genuine and not an opportunistic spur of the moment decision made because there was an enticing ad that sparked your interest? The point here is to get yourself noticed when they aren’t looking — and when there aren’t a hundred other candidates seeking their attention all at once.

8 Ways to Get Noticed During a Job Search – Wisebread (2 May 2014)

The other seven ways are pretty good too: read the full list. (And a nod of the hat brim to Lifehacker for spotting this.)

Have courage of one’s vocation – Picasso

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Pablo Picasso on how hard it is to work as a creative individual and yet how important it is to keep at it – and not give in to having a second, more financially stable career too:

When you have something to say, to express, any submission becomes unbearable in the long run. One must have the courage of one’s vocation and the courage to make a living from one’s vocation. The “second career” is an illusion! I was often broke too, and I always resisted any temptation to live any other way than from my painting… In the beginning, I did not sell at a high price, but I sold. My drawings, my canvases went. That’s what counts.

Well, success is an important thing! It’s often been said that an artist ought to work for himself, for the “love of art,” that he ought to have contempt for success. Untrue! An artist needs success. And not only to live off it, but especially to produce his body of work. Even a rich painter has to have success. Few people understand anything about art, and not everyone is sensitive to painting. Most judge the world of art by success. Why, then,leave success to “best-selling painters”? Every generation has its own. But where is it written that success must always go to those who cater to the public’s taste? For myself, I wanted to prove that you can have success in spite of everyone, without compromise.

Do you know what? It’s the success I had when I was young that became my wall of protection. The blue period, the rose period, they were screens that shielded me. Picasso on Success and Why You Should Never Compromise in Your Art – Maria Popova, Brainpickings

Don’t just read more in the Brainpickings article, go on to read more in the book it features: Conversations with Picasso by Brassaï (UK edition, US edition). The conversations are absorbing but there’s also the engaging and encouraging story of how they came to happen at all.

Louis CK on making choices

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He tells GQ Magazine, I see it on Lifehacker, I want you to know it too:

“These situations where I can’t make a choice because I’m too busy trying to envision the perfect one—that false perfectionism traps you in this painful ambivalence: If I do this, then that other thing I could have done becomes attractive. But if I go and choose the other one, the same thing happens again. It’s part of our consumer culture. People do this trying to get a DVD player or a service provider, but it also bleeds into big decisions. So my rule is that if you have someone or something that gets 70 percent approval, you just do it. ‘Cause here’s what happens. The fact that other options go away immediately brings your choice to 80. Because the pain of deciding is over.

“And,” he continues, “when you get to 80 percent, you work. You apply your knowledge, and that gets you to 85 percent! And the thing itself, especially if it’s a human being, will always reveal itself—100 percent of the time!—to be more than you thought. And that will get you to 90 percent. After that, you’re stuck at 90, but who the fuck do you think you are, a god? You got to 90 percent? It’s incredible!”

Louis C.K. Is America’s Undisputed King of Comedy – GQ magazine (May 2014)

That actually comes from page three of the interview: it’s all a good read so do start right at the top here.

sdfsf

Umberto Eco on lists

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The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.

The list doesn’t destroy culture; it creates it. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists. In fact, there is a dizzying array: lists of saints, armies and medicinal plants, or of treasures and book titles. Think of the nature collections of the 16th century. My novels, by the way, are full of lists.

We Like Lists Because We Don’t Want to Die – Spiegel (2009)

I can’t remember any lists in The Name of the Rose, but oh, how I loved that book. I was reading it in London when working on a magazine. Got to the Tube stop by the office and instead of going up to work, I sat on the platform to finish reading it. To finish the last 200 pages.

Anyway.

Do read more about Eco’s rather well worked out opinions on why we do To Do lists or any other kind of lists in this interview from Spiegel magazine.