Archives for "Euphemisms of Markus"
Apple, the modern Knights Templar
I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed II a lot lately, and simply put – it’s a great game. It has the Knights Templar in it as the main enemy and architects of conspiracies and coincidentally I had to spend some time in an actual Templar related organisation (at least they call themselves Templars, although the order was officially disbanded in the 14th century and their possessions given to the Knights Hospitaller. A group, which used to own the island of Rhodes. But I’m on a tangent here.)
Most people don’t know much about the Templars, but they were the first true multinational corporation and pretty much succeeded in everything they did – They even owned the whole island of Cyprus at one point. They invented a form of cheques (letter of credit) that allowed crusaders to deposit their money in their country of origin and get a piece of paper that stated the value of their deposit – and when the “pilgrims” arrived in the holy land, they could walk to a Templar Express to pick up their check. Pretty cool. This pretty much helped invent the banking system when someone figure out to take interest on the money.
The biggest benefit the Templars had was a serious boon. The only guy they answered to? The root of all evil. The Pope. Literally, the Knights Templar did not have to respect local and/or national laws. Or pay taxes. They could travel freely throughout Europe (and pretty much everywhere else), own land and do pretty much the hell they wanted (they were pretty badass as well, one of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped to defeat Saladin’s army of more than 26,000 soldiers). So they did.
Relatively a few of the Templars were actually soldiers and knights, but they had supporting staff and businessmen running the show in the background – and THOSE guys are the guys I’m writing about today. They had nearly infinite (at that time) resources and they were smart. They didn’t play by the book, they innovated and progressed at an amazing rate, naturally pissing off most of the local empires, city states and kingdoms. When the latter realized they couldn’t out-compete the Templars, they started playing dirty. If they would have had a proper legal system back then, and instead of assassins they would have had lawyers, the Templars would have been sued silly.
Now, to me, it’s been real funny reading all these stories of Adobe, Nokia and now even Nintendo being worried about Apple taking over their business. (Also, to continue with the knight theme, Google is obviously similar to the Knights Hospitaller or the Teutonic Knights (who owned Prussia) – who, instead of opposing the “ruling powers” started working together with them, although all of them still got seriously bitch slapped by their rulers.) But I don’t expect to see Teutonic Google suing Apple, because I think they seriously try to out-innovate Apple and play as fairly as possible.
The others are playing the roles of cardinals and kings, poisoning and assassinating their will through and I think that’s just lame.
Are there any web masterpieces?
My colleague and friend Miemo Penttinen gave a presentation about his experiences of his trip to South by Southwest (the nerd version, not the cool music one) and he was talking about Cennydd Bowles‘ presentation titled Beauty in Web Design.
Mr. Bowles’ presentation touched on the subject on why the web isn’t beautiful and how there are no true masterpieces in the web. He used examples like Ferraris, Fender guitars and the famous spaceship looking Alessi orange juice rocket (or whatever it’s called) as masterpieces. Hearing Miemo’s summary on the presentation got us talking and thinking: Why aren’t there any web masterpieces?
The discussion went on, we tried to look for examples, but my gut was asking the simplest of question – is it even possible to have masterpieces in web? All of those examples are physical, static objects. They can be statues or clocks and even have moving parts (like the iPhone, for example) – but they are still very two dimensional and static compared to what the web is and represents.
We deduced that a masterpiece always creates an emotional reaction and serves some purpose (behavioral reactions) while looking pretty (visceral reaction). The only thing that came in to my mind? Believe it or not, it was the fun kitteh picturs wif funne texts – icanhascheezburger.com
But even then, it’s not truly, truly a masterpiece. Before someone proves me wrong, I think there are not web masterpieces and I’m doubtful if they can even exist. What do you think? Can you think of any masterpieces?
Happiness
Happiness comes in many forms, sometimes from things that are totally irrelevant to other people and extremely important for others. For example, I haven’t seen many people as happy lately as my wife and that comes from mainly three things: the sun, she quitting her job and her new hat (it’s very green). I can’t tell which one of them is the main component of her happiness. I think it’s the hat.
I was so grateful for living in a christian country with christian bank holidays last week, as I managed to get myself a four-day weekend and boy did I enjoy it. The weather supported the holiday and even gave some rain so I could get some gaming action going.
But now, I’m off to meet a Belgian. Oh the drama.
The effects of sleep deprivation
I’m sure this topic is pretty close at heart for many people in this day and age, so I thought I would post this short article here as well. Ironically, I have been postponing this post for over a month because of – you guessed it, lack of sleep and choosing whether to write something for 15 minutes or going to bed early.
The article has a few fascinating bits in addition to the traditional stuff such as memory loss, tiredness (duh), grogginess and mental illness.
- Our brains defrag our hard drives during the night
- the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that as many as 100,000 sleep-related auto accidents occur every year.
- Sleep has shown to be important in regulating blood sugar levels and people who don’t sleep can become increasingly resistant to insulin. Long-term insulin resistance puts extra burdens on the pancreas to produce more, and eventually can result in type 2 diabetes.
- Studies have demonstrated that not sleeping can reduce glucose metabolism by as much as 40 percent. We use stored glucose for energy and sleep deprivation can interfere with how the body stores and processes it.
And many other interesting, fun facts – check it out before you doze off!
eBooking it up
Nearly a month ago I wrote a post titled eBooks, Kindle and the iPhone about turning my last fortress of old technology books into the electronic. I did have to finish a thousand page book first, taking quite a while since I pretty much only have time to read on my twenty minute commute. After that was finished, it was time to go electronic.
I wanted to start with something quite easy and quick to read, so I went with the “classic” X-Wing series by Michael A. Stackpole. So far, I’m nearly done with the first installation of the series, a book starting the tale of the legendary Rogue Squadron. Currently I’ve read some 300 pages using my iPhone and an application called Stanza – which is not only quite good, it’s free.
The reading itself has been surprisingly easy and I’ve had no problems even with an hour long reading session. Turning the pages is similar to Kindle and the Kindle iPhone application – which I cannot download since it’s only available to the United States. Which is just plain retarded. The other retarded thing is the fact that people keep staring me and trying to figure out why I’m trying to out-stare my phone looking thing.
The best part so far has been the independence of having a book with me at all times. I’m a somewhat of a hyperactive person and I need things to do. Before, I had to carry a backpack or a similar carrying device in order to make sure that I’ll have my book with me, but now I have my books with me all the time. The strain on the phone’s battery doesn’t seem to be too demanding, so it’s all hunky dory.
I still miss the touch and the smell of books, but the ebook technology seems to be reliable enough. On an interesting side note, Kindle demographics just came in and it showed that most users are not young technomages, but old geezers. 50% of Kindles users are 50 years or older. I’m sure my dad would invest in a Kindle – if they would sell it in Europe. Still, it’s awesome to see the old timers to be the first to embrace new technology.
How to make your video viral!
How to turn lead into gold! Here’s how Advertising Age starts their article:
How to Make Your Online Video Go Viral
Here’s the Magic Formula to Get Your Push Embraced, and Avoid Being Stalled at the Gate
The emphasis on the topic is mine, but it tells an amazing story. Does one of the leading authorities in the advertising field really, honestly think that viral videos have some magic formula to make things work? And of course you can’t read the article without subscribing to it, hence I’m not linking to it either.
A few months ago I met a game researcher, who we took up the topic of viral marketing and what it actually means. Wikipedia says:
The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.
Well yes, that’s the theory and the mechanism. Then again, everybody knows that viruses are not sentient. They don’t keep spreading because it’s fun or because they really want to hit Ebolas totally hot sister. They do it, because they are genetically designed to do it, it’s nature’s way of controlling populations and helping evolution. So, we came into the conclusion that viral marketing is not really viral, it just sounds more effective that way. That’s why it’s a buzzword.
So, what is a viral video or a viral campaign?
It’s something good, funny, stupid, dreadful, passionate or cute enough to pass around – because we like the content of it.
Why is it happening now? With web 2.0, which is built on the idea of:
- Sharing data
- User-generated content
- Aggregated content
- Basic socio-psychology
You see where I’m going here? We are given tools to share data very easily, recommend them to our friends, who in turn recommend them to friends etc. We usually do that with user-generated content, because it’s usually something original, passionate and something we can relate to. This content is, through recommendations, aggregated into web sites that collect other peoples’ stuff on their site to satisfy their visitors to make advertisement money. Then you just put them on a list on relevance and tell people that other people like this video and leave the emphasis out of “… so you should watch it too.”
So how to really make a video go viral?
Make good videos. Not what you want to tell to the people, but what the people want to see. Sometimes these match, but the reality is that showing your tits in a party while being crazy high with Michael Jackson and Madonna’s Malawian kindergarten will be more successful than you filming your quite mediocre stamp collection in the dark while listening to Babylon Zoo‘s “Spaceman“.
Also, if some of you readers work for “marketing agencies” that sell “cool stuff” to cool brands:
Putting people on skateboards and adding some grunge filters on videos will not make them viral.
Unless you’re Tony Hawk. But it’s still not guaranteed.
Spam’s electric bill? $3 Billion USD
Antivirus and web security company McAfee commissioned a research project from ICF International to measure the ecological effect of spam e-mails. Of course, it’s all about the carbon footprint now and everybody is up to the challenge. Now if only we could have a company to sell us a software that kills sp… oh, yeah. That’s McAfee for you.
So, take all of this with a grain of salt.
The notion still stands though, it’s obvious that the 60+ TRILLION (that’s a thousand billions, or a million million, or 150+ spam mails per person in the world) spam e-mails being sent have a clear effect somehow since they’re not being sent using only good will.
According to the research:
“A new study entitled “The Carbon Footprint of Spam” (registration required) by ICF International for McAfee claims that spam uses around 33 billion kilowatt hours of energy annually, which is approximately enough to power 2.4 million US homes, or approximately 3.1 million cars, for a year. They calculated that the average CO2 emission for a spam email is around 0.3 grams. Interestingly, the majority of energy usage (around 4/5ths) comes from users deleting spam, and searching for legitimate emails. They also claim that “An individual company can find that one fifth of the energy budget of its email system is wasted on spam”. One of the reports authors, Richi Jennings, writes on his blog that “spam filtering actually saves an incredible amount of energy”: “Imagine if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter. We could save about 75% of the spam energy used today–25 TWh per year; that’s like taking 2.3 million cars off the road.”"
Since I last checked, we still were receiving electric bills. So I went on a little trip to figure out how much is the average cost of a kilowatt hour in the States, which came up to 9.64 US cents per kilowatt hour (source here).
So if we have 33 billions kilowatt hours being spent on spam e-mails, and according to Richi Jennings who was participating in the project – this is incremental energy. What is that, you ask? Richi says:
In any calculation such as this, there’s always the concern that we’re double-counting energy that would have been used whether or not there was spam. Let me assure you that this isn’t the case. I only wanted to be involved in the project if we were measuring this meaningfully.
So the data and calculations were carefully designed so as to only measure energy that is used as a direct result of there being spam. In other words, it is “incremental” energy.
PCs and servers use less energy when idle than when doing “work”—in most cases it’s this additional energy that we measured.
So, the total cost of paying 33 billion kilowatt hours?
$3,181,200,000 (three billion, one hundred and eighty one million, two hundred thousand US dollars) per year.
And this calculation is not even taking our lost nerves into account.
The most important question?
Although Lag Wagon sings that the kids are all wrong, they do sometimes have something brilliant in their simplicity. With kids, I naturally mean very young ones, nearly babies. They have an endless curiosity and usually will continue their question barrage of whys after you’ve just finished answering the initial question. Of course, after a while it will always get irritating, but I still think Why? is the most important question I have in my life.
Life 101: What is Open Source and how does it work?
Prostitutes just get younger and less demanding...
French author Marcel Proust once wrote “Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.” Of course, he did it in french but I thought it would be less of an dick thing to have it here translated. However, I agree with the above sentence and will try to do my best in a series of posts I call Life 101. Of course I’ll start with things I actually think I know something about and I hope that you will send me suggestions on the topics for me to cut open and explain in plain English.
So, let’s try with part 1 on Life 101: Explaining what the concept open source means. Wikipedia says that:
Open source software is software where the source code–the language programmers use to make computers do their jobs–is available to everyone. Anyone can see how the code works and can change it if they want to make it work differently. The opposite of open source is closed source, where the source is not available to everyone. Open Source is almost the same thing as Free software, but people who know the difference between the names choose between them because of different reasons.
5th of 5 Reasons why printed media will evolve
Note: This is the fifth and last part of my week-long series of posting 5 reasons why I think the printed media will have to evolve and what I think it should evolve to. The steps will be posted daily starting on Monday, and ending today, on Friday.
If you missed the first part “Time is of the essence”, you can find it here.
The second part “Advertising dollars are being spent elsewhere” is here.
The third, expected part “Ecology and global warming” is here.
The fourth part “Less news for more money” is here.
And now, the thrilling conclusion of the series and tonight’s topic is (drum roll):
5. The penetration of the Internet
If you’ve been reading the previous parts of this series, you’ve noticed that we have been talking more of the bottlenecks and problems with the current printed media, but in this post we will be looking towards how the web enables us to read media better, faster and easier.
With Web 2.0 the web has become three things:
- A lot more social as the users produce a large part of the content on sites nowadays
- A lot more result-oriented and measurable thanks mostly to Google setting the example
- A lot bigger, but much, much more personal thanks to semantic improvements
Why has it become more personal even though it’s got bigger? Well, previously the web was a much like a library. You had a massive collection of information, but the only tool you had was the 1980′s computer that had a similarly aged software for browsing a catalog of thousands of books. Usually the search terms were logical and easy stuff like ISBN numbers (we all know those), author and title searching and that was pretty much it.
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