The Apple Difference
I bought an iPhone 3G tonight, and no I'm not going to review it. You already know everything you want to know.
I did want to highlight one small detail of the purchasing experience. After waiting about an hour in a line, I was personally serviced by an Apple salesperson who handled the entire process.
There is one part of the Apple mobile phone purchase experience that stands out from the norm. Typically, once you have selected your phone, a store drone runs off, fetches the phone, opens it, and sets it up.
In an Apple store, the assistant helpfully opens the saran wrap, then hands you the box, so that you may open the box yourself, remove the plastic cover, and touch your new phone. And when the salesperson offers you the box, he does so in a voice that implies he knows you want to, and is almost as happy to see you doing it as you are to be doing it.
To some, this may seem a silly detail. But the sort of person who would wait for an hour to get a specific phone (in other words, my sort) is the sort of person who absolutely loves unboxing their new devices. We make videos of this process. So Apple made damn sure the customer opens the box, and fiddles with the device before anything else happens.
Of course, the assistant then retrieves the phone, and sets it up until it's ready for a test call. I appreciated the smooth-as-silk process, even amid the amazing ruckus of the 5th Avenue store. And I appreciated buying from a company that pauses a moment to let me enjoy my new purchase.
It would be so easy not to do this. It's inefficient, an unabashed waste of time. More people would get through faster if the drones worked as fast as they could. It would be faster, but it wouldn't be as fun, and it wouldn't be Apple.
With this small action, Apple lets me know they understand that in my mind, the phone is mine. Phone companies view phones as a tool to access their networks. Apple treats a phone as a treasured object, and respects, nay cultivates that feeling. Laugh if you must, but it's such a treat, in this world of cutting corners, to patronize a company that acts like it respects me.
An old Apple junky like me is used to it, but you can bet new customers will be left with a very strong impression.
That's money in the bank, and that's why I love Apple products.
On Google Chrome
I don't want to throw too much more wood onto what has been an exhaustive internet bonfire of excitement about Google's new browser, Chrome. What I will say is that, for javascript developers like me, Chrome is a big, big deal.
Features and interface questions aside, what Google has produced is a browser that works the right way. Tabs are separate processes and can neither access nor crash each other. Security is ironclad. And the javascript compiles to machine code. (!!)
This sort of bullet-proof environment is the sort we expect for our "regular" apps, and now it is available to our web apps. Google needed this change, because they make some of the world's most advanced web apps. Their users need Google Docs not to crash, so Google needs that, too.
The beautiful thing is, there are no secrets here. The code is open source. Anyone can take these ideas and apply them. If they do, it's no sweat for Google. It just means more users will get a proper environment for running Google web apps.
Contrary to conspiracy theorists, Google does not need a world of Chrome users. What Google needs is a world of Chrome-like browsers. Who makes the browser is largely immaterial. If lots of people use Chrome, hey great, but I think the game is already won for Google, because they've just pushed the entire game toward their way of seeing the world.
Even if Chrome isn't your flavor of whiskey, it's still going to make your life better. You can bet your ass Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft are paying very close attention to what has just happened, and you can bet your ass they will respond in kind. Apps will start running better in all browsers, which means we all win.
So yeah, this is a very big deal, and all I can say is: Thanks, Google. And: Hurry up and make a Mac version already. Yeesh.
Happiness Terrains
Anyone with even a passing interest in computer video games from a few years back likely remembers the smash hit "The Sims". Players were offered the chance to build miniature houses, and then micromanage the lives of the inhabitants. The object of the game was to keep ones sims happy; failure to do so could result in sickness and even death. Keeping sims happy involved maintaining a clean home, buying nice things, and socializing with other sims in the neighborhood.
While you could exercise considerable control over your sims' behavior, it would be tedious to go full manual, particularly with several in your house. So the game provided means for the characters to take initiative. How did the underlying code handle the task?
Your first guess might be to program complex decision processes into the characters themselves, but this becomes rather difficult to implement. Instead, the developers attached happiness values to the various objects and rooms in the house.
Thus a nice lamp or sofa had a high happiness value, while the dreaded clown painting had a very low value. These values morphed an invisible terrain, much like planets and stars warp space and time. Characters approach a very happy object, and fall into it's warped field of happiness.
Pac-Man used a similar scheme, one of "Pac-Man here-ness" that ghosts used to figure out where Pac-Man was so as to eat him.
All of this makes for fun computer programming trivia, or so it would have, were I not in the process of reading Jane Jacobs' remarkable The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In it, Jacobs details what causes city neighborhoods to thrive or fail. Almost without exception, the causes are minute design details. Cities, it seems, have a happiness terrain.
For instance, the quality of a city neighborhood can depend heavily on such seemingly quotidian issues as the width of sidewalks, the number of restaurants, the length of blocks, and the density of buildings. Put a park in the wrong place, and you can turn a neighborhood into a slum.
The key to the whole system is casual interaction, that is, the ability to be around people you don't know, or kind of know, so as to watch. From such materials, public security, child safety, and enjoyable life can be wrought, without much direct interference by authority figures. Anything that encourages the casual mixture of people thus encourages city stability.
With all this in mind, I find myself wondering how often we ascribe responsibility to individuals, when at least some of the blame can be placed on the environment. It's dangerous to absolve a person's bad behavior for environmental concerns, but so often we look at a situation, blame someone, and move on, which fixes nothing. If it's possible to prevent trouble simply by tweaking an environment, then yeesh, why the heck not?
Returning to software and its creation, I find myself pondering my current work environment, and the effect that details of my office have on our work flows.
Why wouldn't shared offices vs. private offices vs. cubicles be an important decision? Why wouldn't light levels matter a lot? And not just on a minor level, but on system-shaping levels, levels that affect the whole company? Is the bathroom in a corner or in the middle? Where do people go to meet? We spend endless hours wondering about our machines and people, but often less time looking at how objects shape the system.
If we do think about objects, it is matters such as whether the chairs are comfortable. Rare, in my experience, is the deep soul searching inquiry: Does this arrangement make us productive?
With Jacobs on my mind, I'm increasingly wondering if neglecting those kinds of questions is not only a lost opportunity, but perhaps a terrible, terrible mistake.
How to Get Good
It's back-to-school time here in America. Thoughts of school always lead to one of the Big Questions of Life: What should I do?
I think about this question from time to time. When people approach this topic, two answers often crop up.
Do What You Love
This is the offering of motivational speakers, TV Very Special Episode characters, and people with lots of money.
Do What You Are Good At
This tends to come from your inner scared kid. The part that tells you you'll never make it, that you'll die lonely on the street, that you need to eat, that you need to pay rent, that you'll never be good enough to do that other thing, so just do what you know you're good at, make some money, and everything will be okay.
The Problem
To start, tell your inner kid to shut up. Doing what you're good at when don't like it, even if you are very good at it, is a path to a lifetime of regret. You are going to spend about a third of your weekdays working. Do you really want to spend them on something you don't like? Don't do it. I know people who work that way. They are not happy.
Unfortunately, I'm also going to have to rain on the love parade. I love many things. For instance, I love reading books. So maybe I should be a book critic, right? Of course, I love watching movies, too. Maybe I should criticize movies, like Roger Ebert. Or make a movie! It's fun to hold a camera. And I started kayaking recently. That's fun, maybe I could be an olympic kayaker, or an outdoor guide.
Of course, none of these have come to pass, nor shall they. What I actually do is make computer software, something I both love doing and am good at.
Do What You Love and are Good At?
So is that the solution? Combine the two? Not quite. See, I didn't actually like programming at first. And I certainly wasn't good. I took an introductory programming course in college, and dropped out after less than a month. I never took that class again. Ponder.
The only reason I kept at programming was because of a crazy idea I had that could only be realized if I learned to program. So I kept at it.
Consider the Love Theory. Consider all the things you love doing. Are you any good at them? I'm willing to bet you have many things you love doing, and I'm also willing to bet you're not expert at most of them. If you are like me, you are just good enough to compete with your friends and/or family.
To succeed at a professional level takes more than that. My employer is not competing with my brother.
Do What You Love Getting Good At
The bad news: This is not an essay telling you how to figure out what to do. I don't think anyone really knows.
Instead, this essay is about how to know you've found what you're looking for once you find it. Simply put, you'll know you've found something worth exploring when you find an activity you enjoy getting good at it.
The Long Road to Mastery
Supposedly, it takes 10,000 hours of intentional development to master any task. That works out to about 10 years, assuming normal human working hours. I started programming around 2001, so in three years, I should be a master. I can tell you this: I've needed every minute, and I know I need more.
Ask yourself if you enjoy any activities to which you would be willing to dedicate 10,000 working hours, in order to get good. Would you spend 10,000 hours learning to write a good novel? And by learning, I mean writing rejected crap, only gradually emerging into respectable material, let alone great art. Seriously, 10 years, all your working time, just writing books no one reads. Could you do it?
This is important, because you are going to be bad for a long time. Any pleasure you get at simple participation is going to die quickly in the face of your ineptitude, particularly if you try to go professional. No one wants to hear what a good time you're having. Imagine a doctor shrugging off a failed surgery with "Well, I enjoyed it, so whatever."
In your professional life, you'll either progress, stagnate, or get fired. I'd choose progress. But a job you don't enjoy is a wasted third of your priceless, irreplaceable time.
Growth is the Important Part
It's all about growth. Growth makes you happy. Growth makes you great. Growth is what you must enjoy.
In college, I didn't enjoy programming, though I do now. But I loved getting good at programming, because it meant I could realize my ideas.
Consider that. I enjoyed getting good before I enjoyed the activity. It is entirely possible that you will enjoy mastering an activity you don't currently like.
It's also possible, maybe even likely, that if you enjoy getting good, skill and enjoyment will take care of themselves.
I don't have a theory on how to find this thing you enjoy getting good at. In my case, it was tied to a dream I had, and that may work for you. Anytime you can hitch growth to a dream, you've probably got a winning combination.
I'll leave you with some motivation: When you do find something you enjoy getting good at, you can make a lot of money, and have a hell of a good time doing it. I certainly do.
Link: Trading Places
An interesting piece on the movement, particularly of the affluent and the young, back into city centers and downtowns, including couples raising young children.
Interesting part to me:
The young newcomers who have rejuvenated 14th and U [D.C.] believe that this recovering slum is the sort of place where they want to spend time and, increasingly, where they want to live. This is the generation that grew up watching "Seinfeld," "Friends," and "Sex and the City," mostly from the comfort of suburban sofas. We have gone from a sitcom world defined by "Leave It to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" to one that offers a whole range of urban experiences and enticements. I do not claim that a handful of TV shows has somehow produced a new urbanist generation, but it is striking how pervasive the pro-city sensibility is within this generation, particularly among its elite. In recent years, teaching undergraduates at the University of Richmond, the majority of them from affluent suburban backgrounds, I made a point of asking where they would prefer to live in 15 years--in a suburb or in a neighborhood close to the center of the city. Few ever voted for suburban life.
The author won't claim it, but I will: Positive images of city life on TV, particularly the exact three mentioned, played a big role in me moving to New York. When I announced my new job and home, many around me expressed concern about my safety. Indeed, my brother lives in the suburbs, and my dad lives on a farm. (Well, a former farm.) Only in New York could Astoria be referred to as a "suburb".
I'm reminded of Hans Rosling's wonderful Ted Talk where he demonstrates how most of our thoughts about developing nations are wrapped up in assumptions formed in the 60's and earlier. Using charts and animations, Rosling vividly demonstrates just how outmoded our prejudices have become.
So, too, the city. Most Pennsylvanians I talked to prior to moving envisioned a New York riddled with crime and danger, particularly at night. In other words, the New York of the 70's. (I recently read that in 1979, subways derailed or collided once every 15 days. Ponder.) Clearly, those I knew had formed their image of New York at that time, and had received no reason to change perspective. Not that I blame them; Until I saw for myself, I shared some of that flawed world view.
What I have found is something quite different.
As the Article notes, there are people everywhere, at all times, engaging in social and commercial activities, and this fosters a sense of safety. I now understand why John Cusack plays a tape of traffic in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: It's comforting.
But as I was saying, sitting in my remote childhood home, watching Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City, I began to wonder if perhaps the city might be the place for me. I heard cities were dangerous, but they also looked like fun.
A few visits and a job offer later, I have found New York even more interesting, more enthralling, and safer than I had hoped. I'm still new here, and I may grow weary, but I certainly do not feel imperiled, and I'm never bored. Positive TV imagery opened me to explore the possibility.
So: Thanks, TV!