Category: observations

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Going Retina – First Impressions

So, work has kindly equipped me with a brand new Macbook Pro with Retina display. Here are some initial thoughts.

  • The display is gorgeous, and this is coming from someone who’s already been well accustomed to the two other Retina displays out on the market (iPhone 4, iPad 2 and later). Like I mentioned to my colleague the day this product was announced, this screen is going to make every other screen in the world look horrible, and then the rest of the world will have to play catch up. Think full 1080p vs standard DVD.
  • It is very slim too. Granted, a bunch of compromises had to be made to get to this thickness. Because of its reduced thickness, the height to width-length ratio harks back to the 17″ Macbook Pro’s of yesteryear.
  • As far as compromises go, they’ve left out the optical drive, the Ethernet port and shortened the travel on the keyboard. It also only comes with two USB ports – one on each side. Two Thunderbolt ports have included as what I believe to be “wildcard” ports to soften the blow. This is Apple leaving out the floppy drive and dropping the serial/parallel ports in favour of USB in the iMac all over again. Except, USB is going to put up a much tougher fight.
  • There is no longer a Kensington Security Slot, which would have afforded me the option of leaving the laptop at work.
  • Another thing they’ve left out is the external battery charge indicator. I suppose this is the last nail in the coffin to the notion of the battery as an entity independent form the computer. There is no longer battery, only a computer that runs untethered.

While there is a lot more heft to the 15″ Macbook Pro compared to my personal 12″ Thinkpad X201, it is quite something to be able to hop on my daily commute, plug in a 4G dongle and bang away at an experience that come pretty close that of working at a desktop.

For more thorough reviews, lookup “macbook pro retina”

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Human efficiencies

In the world of machines, the notion of efficiency has a particular flavour to it – do more with less. Make the car go further on less petrol. Build a lighter laptop. Run data centers without chillers.

What amazes me though, is how differently the human body, and to a good extent, the biological world functions. Among other things, the success of an athlete often hinges upon the volume of resources his or her body is able to spend through given a finite period of time. The thing that sets Lance Armstrong apart, for example, is that his lungs are able to burn through more oxygen per minute than the average human being (read more VO2max).

Unlike the “save and conserve” motto of the machine world, the human body thrives on throughput – i.e. consume and expend. To be physically healthy is to engage in generous doses of physical activity. To sharpen one’s mind is to seek out and spend one glucose stores on new domains of understanding. To flourish relationally is to literally spend time with another being and often paying out with one’s ego, absorbing the unintended blows and embracing the prickly rough edges.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it” – I once heard; and it’s true. But more importantly and positively, when one puts an ability through the hard yards of regular use, beyond mere keeping, one grows in said ability and quickly realizes an increase in said ability. Be it muscles tearing and rebuilding, broader perspectives, or developing a deeper well of grace to draw from in the face of disgrace.

Lesson of the day? In human terms, you get to keep what you use; Spending is good; and to give of oneself may very well be the pinnacle of humanity, if the above is anything to go by.

p.s. As a counterpoint, can you think of what happens when a human starts stashing away lots of energy, or when abilities waste away from disuse, or shy away in defensive isolation?

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An equation for creating awesome

We were bantering in a post-dinner conversation about what sort of ventures would be worth getting into – one of a narrow set topics where you’d find me readily available to engage in and ernestly contribute to.

The discussion took a turn to a well trodden topic of “If you had xxx, what would you do with it?”. N had much insight to offer to the effect of constraints playing a crucial role in driving good design, and how it’s next to impossible for good design to come out a blank check.

We got talking about what kind of awesome we could conjure up with the skills that were at the table; what creations we thought were excellent in that they were highly considered and truly added value to their respective contexts, and shortly after, arriving at an echelon of products whose sole purpose laid squarely in sheer opulence; created for no other reason than for Mr. Ritchie Rich to outspend his peers.

It was then, something became clear to me: what thrilled me most in my pursuit of creating awesomeness is somewhat captured in the following equation:

Fa (awesome factor) = outcome produced / resources committed

Where Fa is greater than 1, we’re winning. Where Fa is less than 1, not so winsome.

You could start by sticking some values in. Say 4 coins were spent creating a doodad that was then sold on for 5 coins.

5 / 4 = 1.2 Fa ⇒ winning

If 5 coins were spent creating a doodad that couldn’t be onsold for any more than 4 coins,

4 / 5 = 0.8 Fa ⇒ not so winning

A second example: 5 hours were spent creating a widget that saved 1 hour a day. It’s a little more interesting, because on day 1, it’s looking like

1 / 5 = 0.2 Fa ⇒ not winning

But as the days carry on, things start looking better

Day 5:
5 / 5 = 1 Fa ⇒ tie

Day 50:
50 / 5 = 10 Fa ⇒ awesome winning

And if 50 people had access to it for 50 days:

50 × 50 / 5 = 50 Fa ⇒ mmmmmmonster win

On the flip side, we encountered the provervial “money is not an issue”, things start looking bleak for our little equation.

For example, a thousand coins spent to produce the world’s most exquisite disposable luxury toothpick.

value of a disposable luxury toothpick / 1000 coins ⇒ difficult to win

£3bil for a gold encrusted yacht:

gold encrusted floating device / £3bil ⇒ even more difficult to win

compared to

medium-sized aircraft carrier / £3bil ⇒ a little easier to win

compared to

2 × 360-bed metropolitan paediatric hospitals / £3bil

You get the idea.

Where things really start to fall apart and kill the party is when the resources available approaches infinity, which is one extreme that many a naïve idealist operates with:

(most awesome-st idea ever) / ∞  = very near to 0 Fa ⇒ no fun

The other extreme is the magical unexecuted idea:

(an idea) / 0 = ∞ Fa ⇒ delusional

Conclusion, awesomeness is a function of two values, the resources required and the final outcome. This means that awesome can be sought after in two places: first, incremental outcome improvements over predecessors, and secondly, exponentially doing more with less.

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Groceries in 6 seconds

I took this video at the train station. I doubt anyone has used this virtual grocery shelf to purchase anything. The Advertisement Media Manager is probably kicking himself/herself now, or probably hasn’t even realized it yet.

Poor poor job.

Addendum: If it wasn’t already clear from the title, the video and the accompanying text, I’m bagging the poor execution of the virtual store because the rotating billboard requires that you scan the grid of products, find a desired item aim your phone at its corresponding barcode and *snap* within a 6 second time window before getting interrupted by a movie poster and a phone advertisement.

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Make Commodity Beautiful

I’ve noticed something perculiar in the way I’ve begun to use email ever since I switched to Fastmail in my recent mini IT infrastructure shakeup. Previously, I was quite content with Thunderbird hitting up an IMAP account off a cheap web hosting account, and didn’t think much about it.

The big switch came about when I was spending far more time on a work machine than my trusty Thinkpad. I wasn’t comfortable setting up a desktop email client at work, the web email interfaces on my hosting account was downright horrendous, and I wasn’t about to rely on the big G’s ad-funded service for my primary email needs.

So I decided to bite the bullet and pay for a Fastmail account. I’d used Fastmail way back when generous was 16mb’s of email storage, and fast was building your web interface with no images – just straight-up HTML. This was a second coming of sorts.

Every since I’ve started using Fastmail, I’ve even begun to prefer it over firing up Thunderbird on my desktop. Upon further reflection, I’ve been able to narrow it down to one reason – the interface.

The Fastmail web interface is not particularly exciting to look at. I’d say it’s even a little spartan compared to most post-web 2.0 outfits. But where it really sings is the way the whole interface is designed with the power user in mind. The clincher for me was the VIM-like key bindings. I could quickly navigate through my email, report spam, mark, delete and file emails all from my keyboard – no mouse required.

~snips nerdy gush-fest~

The point I’m trying to get at, is that email has largely become a commodified service. Although, I had the the pick of any desktop app, and a choice of 4 different webmail interfaces, I decided instead to paid good money for Fastmail’s web interface.

The more I look, the more I see commodities being bolstered and somewhat “resold” with a coat of thoughtfully applied interface. Programmers all over the world swear by GitHub. Mac OS X coats a BSD Mach kernel with a gratituous gobs of lickability. And, more recently, Sparrow and Fluent are in the market to repackage what is essentially a 26 year old protocol.

If you’re looking for a startup idea, pick a commodity software and make it beautiful. It is a significant, fixable unmet need that is just waiting pay out.

Open source software is particularly suited for this for two reasons. Firstly, you have full access to the source code, and secondly, they usually have a lot of room for improvement as far as UX goes.

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