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Things people say that make me want to punch them in the face:

“I’m a multitasker.”
Generally speaking, nobody can do more than one thing at a time (unless you count walking and chewing gum). You can switch between several individual tasks, but it’s not like you’re doing multiple things simultaneously. Juggling multiple duties is part of the modern condition. Every human is required to do it.

“I can’t describe what I want it but I’ll know it when I see it.”
Skill comes with being able to describe it. Everybody knows what they want when they see it.

“I’m a very visual person.”
Everyone likes pretty pictures better than ugly, nasty words and numbers (especially two-year-old children, incidentally).

“I don’t have ‘math smarts’ but I’m good with art/literature/writing/whatever.”
In other words, “I’m not smart”.

“I’m such a nerd.”
No, you’re not. Real nerds rarely refer to themselves as such, and few possess the obsessive dedication to a craft required to obtain nerd status. Somewhere along the line it became fashionable to be a nerd, so people like to declare themselves nerds as a form of faux self-deprecation. You might be a dork, though.

“See, me? I’m the type of person that….”
Just stop right there. You’re not special. Get over it.

Science fiction is replete with stories questioning what it means to be human. If it looks like a human and acts like a human, is it human? Artificial lifeforms are perfect vehicles for exploring the human condition. Look no further than Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man or the Star Trek episode, The Measure of a Man, for a thorough examination of the subject.

In the stories, androids struggle to be recognized as people, but in reality it will be humans struggling to withhold that recognition. We already show compassion for machines of every sort, from automobiles to space shuttles. Heck I get sentimental about old computers and clock radios.

Won’t I thank the android that hands me a beer?

We all had a good laugh at France’s new law forbidding mention of Twitter or Facebook over the air, ostensibly because doing so promotes corporate interests and serves as “clandestine advertising” for those two companies.

Naturally the internet erupted with scorn. Many observers attributed the new law to some mix of protectionism, Luddism and spite, and they were probably correct. However, there’s another message here that I think is worth considering–Twitter and Facebook are private entities, and to a degree the French regulators are right that mentioning their names over the air is, in fact, advertising, and promotes their interests to the exclusion of other competing services.

The fact that so much of our lives is entrusted to these two private companies seems to be an uncomfortable truth for most people. We prefer to think of Twitter and Facebook as ever-present and eternal, but either company can, if they choose, cease operations at any time and make your digital life vanish. While this extreme is unlikely, less drastic scenarios such as radical changes to functionality, alterations of privacy policies, etc. can and do happen frequently. It’s their world, you’re just playing in it.

Twitter and Facebook are great, but what I really like are the concepts of one-to-many messaging and social networking/online sharing. I’m optimistic that open standards will take root and a federated social web will thrive, though I don’t imagine Twitter and Facebook will wish to accelerate this process.

The state of technology and the internet in 2010 turned out a bit different than what I envisioned back in ’90s. Here are a few things I never saw coming:

Apple vs. Amazon
It’s no great surprise to me that the tablet form factor has finally been realized in Apple’s iPad, but I would never have predicted that Amazon (basically just an online bookstore at the time) would enter the hardware game with the Kindle, nor would I have expected Apple to become an influential media company.

Apple vs. Google
When Google came around in the late ’90s they provided a fast, superior alternative to Altavista, the market leader at the time. Did any of us foresee their rapid expansion into cloud computing, their ascension to total dominance in the world of advertising, or their emergence as a top provider of mobile operating systems? I sure didn’t.

Never-Ending Browser Wars
In 1996, Netscape was the only browser that mattered. Internet Explorer arrived, grew in popularity, and eventually became dominant. I guess I always assumed there would be one dominant browser, or at least that web standards would be so ingrained that web pages would render the same on all browsers. Now we have at least five viable browser options, each with their own rendering quirks: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, and Opera, to say nothing of the numerous other Webkit and Mozilla browsers currently available.

Infinite Scroll in Web Pages
This is just one of those things I didn’t anticipate, but I really should have considering it’s been used in desktop applications like Excel and Quicken for a long time.

Facebook Domination
I clearly underestimated people’s desire to publish. Easy website creation tools have existed since the birth of the web, and blogging tools came around shortly after, but neither provided the type of safe, closed system that Facebook offers. Photo sharing tools and private discussion groups existed as well, but they didn’t give you the satisfaction of publishing to an audience. Facebook provided the best of both worlds – the ability to publish without fear of exposure to the public at large.

There are more but I’ll stop here lest I further betray my lack of foresight (obviously I should never try getting into the venture capitalism game). What are some technological or cultural developments that took you by surprise?

Facebook is popular not because it “connects” people with friends, but because it offers a platform for establishing an internet identity. It gives its users a microphone with which to broadcast their personalities to a safe and forgiving audience. I addressed this aspect of Facebook in a previous diatribe, but at the time I only perceived it as a component of Facebook’s appeal, not the whole of it.

It’s pretty obvious that Facebook is more about narcissism than “sharing” or “connecting”:

- The web has offered innumerable ways to share information since long before Facebook was created. You can have discussions in Google Groups or post photos to Flickr, yet people chose not to use these services in the pre-Facebook era. They didn’t care about sharing until it became an element of a comprehensive online identity.

- Dialogue doesn’t really exist on Facebook. Comment threads rarely go beyond one or two comments before the discussion dies. People don’t want to have conversations on Facebook, they want to say “Look at me!”

- After deleting my Facebook account, certain people (mostly childhood acquaintances) with whom I interacted regularly on the service disappeared from my life. Guess we weren’t really “friends” after all, huh?

I suppose this is why most web savvy people I know don’t use Facebook; they already have online identities in the form of websites, blogs, and other online communities which they’ve been using for years. What does Facebook have to offer them?

When I began my career in web design, a device like this could be only be found in the world of science fiction. Actually, the iPad, which became available for pre-order this morning, makes Captain Picard’s PADD devices seem clunky and antiquated by comparison.

The iPad’s imminent release, along with the 10th anniversary of NASDAQ’s peak at the height of the dot-com bubble, made me wax a little nostalgic about the “good ol’ days” of the late 90s and early 2000s. The internet was becoming mainstream and computers were gaining wider use. A brand new web design industry was born and I was privileged to be a part of it.

It was a fun era, and while I sometimes miss the adventure of it all, there are a lot of things I’m happy to leave in the past. Here are just a few:

CRT Monitors
These hulking beasts can still be found in many offices and homes, but they are becoming extinct as LCD screens have become more affordable. Moving these things around is real pain in the biceps, and if you stare at them long enough you can almost feel your eyeballs melting.

Floppy Disks
Slow, noisy floppies hold a measly 1.4 megabytes of data. They were basically useless for shuttling large graphic files around, forcing us to use larger capacity ZIP disks (or, god forbid, JAZ disks) because CD writing drives were still pretty pricey.

Spam
Until Gmail came along in 2004, unsolicited “spam” email was just something I lived with. When you receive 50-100 spams a day, the “new message” alert loses all meaning. Sure, there were client-side spam filters, but they needed to be “trained” for several months, and they were far from perfect. Gmail’s sophisticated spam filter restored that little bit of glee at receiving a new message in my inbox.

Beige Boxes
For a time I actually enjoyed tinkering with home-built PCs (though I often enlisted the help of my unofficial AV/IT guy, Voidious) but eventually I’d had enough. I remember the exact night, in fact. It was 3:00 in the morning on a very hot summer evening and my machine was in pieces. Sweat dripped from my brow as I struggled to troubleshoot a hard disk issue. Or was it a power supply problem? Either way, I was done with that shit.

Video Plug-Ins
Remember RealPlayer? Before Youtube and Flash video, we needed specific browser plug-ins to watch video onilne. It was slow, buggy, and the picture sucked. Incidentally, I recall my buddy Chuck experimenting with using Flash for video sometime in ’03 or ’04. At the time I thought it was radical and a little crazy. Guess I was wrong. :)

Viruses/Malware/Spyware
There was a time when security holes in browsers and operating systems were so rampant that it was practically inevitable your computer would become infected. Some of this malicious software was so insidious–actually, wait, some of you are still using Windows and Internet Explorer, aren’t you? Ugh, this is awkward. Yeah, nevermind, I guess this one isn’t a thing of the past just yet. ;)

It’s doubtful that “Buzz”, Google’s newly announced social component of Gmail, will pose any significant threat to Facebook’s dominance. I was nonetheless gleeful at the prospect of a having a viable alternative to the world’s largest “social network”.

My excitement about Buzz correlates precisely to my increasing disillusionment with Facebook. What once seemed like a dynamic social forum is actually just a stream of disconnected, shallow, narcissistic chunks of bullshit from people I sorta know. There is no dialogue on Facebook, only monologue. Like most Facebook users, I only interact with a small percentage of my “friends”, while the majority are more like an audience than a group of people with whom I wish to converse (or who wish to converse with me).

Buzz, by contrast, should consist of people I do wish to engage in conversation, since the friend list is based on my email communications. It supports existing services (such as Picasa and Twitter) without any need for clunky applications and APIs. And best of all, I won’t have to sift through dozens of game results, horoscopes, and notices about people joining cleverly named groups. Incidentally, the people who join these groups will never actually participate in them. They simply join as another means of expressing their individuality.

Facebook offers the promise of socialization, but it is really just a platform for self-expression. It’s like blogging on training wheels. We get to “publish” our thoughts to a safe audience, free from fear of exposure to the entire internet. Unfortunately that safety is derived from the fact that most of your “friends” don’t care about your musings and won’t even read them, much less comment on them. So Facebook fails both as a social network and as a mechanism for public expression.

Now, mockery would not be be an unreasonable response to my complaints about Facebook. Indeed, accusations of hypocrisy would be quite justified. If I’m so dissatisfied with this “social network” then why don’t I just delete my account? Why do I persist with logging in each day, sharing links and photos, and commenting on people’s posts?

I guess the answer is that, like many people, I enjoy socializing online. Sadly, Facebook leaves me feeling hollow. It fails to deliver on the promise of a true social network.

I simply refuse to accept that Facebook is the future of the web. A buggy, walled-in platform can’t be the answer to sharing and socializing on the web. If I want conversation, I’ll use email, chat, Twitter, or hopefully Buzz. If I seek an audience, I’ve got my website and blog.

People may not leave Facebook in droves and flock to Buzz, but if Google’s new foray into social networking lives up to its promise, I certainly will.

Both are good, but one is better.

Since my friends and colleagues are no doubt sick of hearing me yap about the subject, I’ll try to get it out of my system with this post. Here are a few reasons I like Twitter better than Facebook:

Twitter updates are generally positive, meaningful, and substantive. Facebook status updates are often negative, shallow, and narcissistic.

Twitter puts my finger on the pulse of the internet. Facebook puts my finger on the pulse of a closed group.

Twitter encourages creative expression of thought. Facebook encourages expression by proxy (via quizzes, groups, pages, games, etc.).

Twitter is about reaching out. Facebook is about looking in.

Twitter provides real-time updates on any subject. Facebook provides real-time updates of my friends’ achievements in Farmville and Mafia Wars.

Twitter is flexible. Facebook is constrained.

Twitter’s web interface has a single, unobtrusive text ad. Facebook’s interface has multiple, distracting image ads.

Twitter’s settings are straightforward. Facebook’s settings are complicated.

Twitter doesn’t push groups and pages on me after I’ve dismissed them countless times.

Twitter’s interface is quick and simple. Facebook’s interface is sludgy and complex.

Facebook is buggy. Twitter is less buggy.

Twitter doesn’t ever suggest I become friends with a total stranger.

Twitter is a communication medium. Facebook doesn’t know what it is.

Just my opinion, of course. For a more intelligent discussion of the topic check out this article at TwiTip. The truth is I think both Twitter and Facebook are amazing platforms, and they serve very different functions. I will likely continue using both for the foreseeable future.

Jaiku‘s better than either of ‘em anyway. ;)

Just a quick memo for anyone who isn’t up to speed. The following practices are no longer acceptable in online discussion forums. This decree applies to message board replies, Faceboook comments, and anywhere else on the internet where written conversation takes place. Thank you for your cooperation.

Beginning a Post with “Lol” or “Hahah”
This practice is rampant on the web and needs to stop. I confess I do it myself all the time (I’m working on it). It’s a way to quickly indicate agreement with the previous comment and placate the comment’s author. For example:

Netizen: The Joker is the greatest villain ever!
n00b: Lol totally!

Using “Lol” and “Hahah” in the Same Post
People do this to create filler because they can’t think of anything interesting to say. Alternatively, they do it to soften the blow of a dissenting opinion. These terms are the digital equivalent of a grunt. Come on people, nobody laughs this much:

Netizen: Heath Ledger is the best Joker ever!
n00b: Hahah he was ok but Nicholson pwns him lol

Using “Lol” Multiple Times in the Same Post
See above.

Beginning a Post with “Um[m/mm/mmm]” or “Uh[h/hh/hhh]“
Doing this makes you look like a jerk. It’s often used in a reply that disagrees with a previous comment. The respondent uses “um” to start his post as if to indicate he’s pausing (perhaps wincing in pain) as he struggles to comprehend your stupidity. Here’s an example:

Netizen: The Dark Knight is the best movie ever!
Asshole: Um, actually it isn’t.

To seem like an even bigger cocknose, the respondent will sometimes end his reply with a question mark, as such:

Netizen: The Dark Knight is the best movie ever!
Asshole: Uhh, actually it isn’t?

Or:

Netizen: The Dark Knight is the best movie ever!
Asshole: Um, no?

Using the Phrase “I Know Right[?/!]” Ever
I knew the girl who started this back in ’98, when it was a new and neat way to indicate agreement while opening the door for further discussion. Now it just makes you look dumb.

Netizen: Christian Bale was the best Batman ever!
n00b: I know right!

I hope this helps clear up any confusion. Oh, one final note: if you want to come off as the biggest dickhead of all, write a blog post about how stupid everybody acts on the internet.

I posit that Obi-Wan Kenobi, hero of the Star Wars saga, went insane toward the end of his life, leading him away from the moral and ethical foundations of the Jedi Order.

We see evidence of Obi-Wan’s psychosis in Star Wars: A New Hope. There is a great deal of consternation and debate among fans over Obi-Wan’s comment that Darth Vader killed Luke’s father. Most accept his explanation in Return of the Jedi, that what he told Luke was correct from a “certain point of view”. However, I would like to suggest that the old Jedi may have been completely mad by the time he told Luke about Anakin’s fate. It’s possible that in the throes of dementia he actually believed what he was telling Luke, and then later, in spirit form, offered a flimsy justification, embarrassed to admit his former deficiencies.

It’s also not totally unreasonable to suggest that Obi-Wan may have orchestrated the murder of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as a way to guarantee Luke would go with him to Alderaan. He could have led the Stormtroopers to the Lars’ home with an anonymous transmission, or perhaps used the Force to plant a suggestion in their minds. Even more plausible is that he enlisted mercenaries to do the deed, perhaps knowing of Stormtroopers’ incompetence and poor marksmanship. He even mentions that “only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise,” which of course we know isn’t true.

It is quite clear that Obi-Wan believed Luke was the galaxy’s only hope for toppling the Empire. He was old, desperate, and running out of time. Maybe he believed that sacrificing two lives to save the entire galaxy was a fair bargain, at least from a certain point of view.

If you require further proof of Obi-Wan’s mental state, witness his brutal dismemberment of Ponda Baba in the cantina. I view this act as a blatant example of excessive, unnecessary force. We’ve seen this man fight armies of droids, vicious cyborgs, ruthless alien bounty hunters, and deadly Sith Lords. We observed his use of mind control on Imperial troops and drug dealers. There’s absolutely no reason to believe he couldn’t have subdued a common thug by less violent means.

To get your head around this theory, think about the trauma Obi-Wan has experienced. Even putting aside the tragic events which gave rise to the Empire, he’s fought in many battles, witnessed death on a daily basis for years, experienced imprisonment and torture, and faced the most horrifying villains imaginable. And throughout all of it his mind is tapped into a powerful cosmic force that he can never truly control.

Add to this the fall of the Jedi Order, the slaying of his most trusted friend, and the Rise of an indomitable evil Empire, and you end up with one messed up old hermit.