Caveat lector! The words you are about to read are unvetted, unhomogenized and unlicensed. One of my longer-term projects is to write essays on reasons why you should dismiss the things I have to say. I’ve only done two so far: You should dismiss me because I don’t care if you do and because I can see right through you. There are zillions more reasons, whether I get to them or not, but the one that matters most, in this context, is this one:
I am completely without credentials.
That’s a statement I could quibble with, but I don’t want to. There is no limit to the caviling to be found on that road, and I don’t care, anyway. I am writing about tools that could and should exist, and if you want to dismiss what I have to say because I don’t fit your profile of a nerd — so much the worse for you. The world is awash in a billion blends of stupid, and credentialism is hardly the worst of the bunch. Looking outside yourself for your intellectual self-defense is the parent of that error, though, and that one is deadly.
Whatever. I think these ideas are fun. I’m looking at a much bigger picture, philosophically, but the technology I’m talking about here is a way of effecting those larger ideas in everyday life. You might plead for better organization — and, truly, there is a book scattered around in this stuff — but I believe reading these essays will repay your effort.
Our story so far: Lately, I have been tap-dancing around an idea for a new kind of computer-user operating paradigm. I haven’t explicated the central thesis yet, but it should be easy enough to infer from the essays I’ve written so far:
- Harkening back to Heidi. (A discussion of a self-maintaining Customer Relationship Management system.)
- Sarah, Heidi’s helper in the real world.
- Antoinette the Anticipator.
- Paging Sarah: “If there is a lesson in this story, it is to make sure your cell phone is off when attending a concert.”
- Constance the Connector.
- Google discovers what computing is actually for: “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”
- How to solve the video multiplexing problem you didn’t know you had.
- Q: Your smartphone has just been stolen. What should happen next? A: Your phone should get the cops on the horn and lead them to the thief.
- Get rich fighting crime! Save the girl — and make big money doing it — by correcting one simple error in your thinking. (This is the post from which Heidi and all of these other ideas emerged.)
- Debunking Artificial Intelligence — while programming your computer to be almost as smart as your dog.
There’s more. Here are the essays I wrote about the iPad, at the time of its introduction. Entries #2 and #8 are the best of the bunch, in my opinion.
My early posts on the iPad:
- Apple tablet computer announcement liveblogging now…
- The Apple iPad is a category-cataclysm and no one knows it yet: Double-thinking Steve Jobs and his double-suss of the hi-tech marketplace
- iPad observation #1: The iPad is the computer for the rest of us
- iPad observation #2: Find a bigger dead-pool: The iPad eats everything.
- iPad observation #3: If your baby — or a caveman — can figure out how to use the iPad, the user-interface works
- iPad observation #4: Looking for a smart way to connect with your clients in a pull-based marketing world? Update your iPhone/iPad app.
- iPad observation #5: Linking frees slaves, sometimes, but the future of mobile real estate is unknown to attorneys from New York City.
- iPad observation #6: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
- iPad observation #7: When you’ve built a product that turns whole worlds upside down — what happens next?
- iPad observation #8: The death of mediocrity and, along with it, the death of contempt for the consumer
- iPad observation #9: I went digging through the heap of festering garbage that is the Vook and came home with an education.
- iPad observation #10: Is the iPad an unforced error? I say Google and MicroSoft can’t even copy genius.
That’s a lot of reading, I know, but what else are you going to do with your time — watch football?
