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August 31, 2006

What will the culture of the 2000s be remembered for?

I don't delude myself about my ability in cultural commentary, but it recently occurred to me that the present decade will probably not have a characteristic culture associated with it.

Each decade in recent memory has had something by which history will remember it. The 60's had free love and Vietnam, the 70's disco and funky hairdos, the 80's--well, ahem--MTV and the classic Mac, and the 90's, (uh... hmm... let's see...) the dot com boom and Monica Lewinsky. Perhaps this is a good time to read "New Kids on the Block", an exercise in armchair sociology whose conceptual framework I will borrow generously from--although I don't agree one bit with its conclusions--for the rest of this essay (take your time, I will wait). The 'naughty aughties', the name some give to the decade starting in 2001, is well past its halfway mark and the only things it has so far are the 9/11 attacks and various manifestations of the global war on terror--hardly something to give future generations the warm fuzzies.

Maybe I just can't think of something because I am living in this decade and I am too close to it. But even after setting aside every generation's usual neuroses about whether it will be remembered at all, and whether its life is not the most decadent and pointless, I believe there are a few good reasons 00's will not have a distinctive culture associated with them like the preceding decades.

It may seem that I am about to contradict what I just said, but I think more than anything else, the 00's is a decade of two things: irony and nostalgia. The 18-45 age bracket tends to set the de facto cultural tone of any given era because it produces and consumes media the most. This culturally significant bracket is largely occupied today by two generations: Generation X and the so-called millennial generation. Generation Xers like irony and the millennials like nostalgia.

Generation X's preference for irony is rooted in their characteristic pragmatic outlook, shaped to some degree as a reaction to baby boomer idealism. Satirical news shows like The Daily Show enjoy raging popularity, with a remarkably large percentage of the population tuning in to them for its regular news diet. Contrarian and somewhat counter-cultural periodicals like The Onion and Slate make telling statements about our time precisely because they highlight its virtues and follies by depicting their opposites.

The millennial generation, on the other hand is defined by the highly programmed lives its members lead, and their almost unquestioning worship of parents, teachers and other authority figures. This admiration manifests itself as nostalgia for the life and times of their boomer parents. The millennial generation frequents 50's-themed diners, 60's-themed bars and 70's-themed clubs, but has not yet been able to explicate any themes characteristic of its own decade. The millennials are a generation that remembers rather than sets its own tone. And as one cultural pundit pithily put it, you can't be remembered for remembering.

Notice how it got harder for me to come up with something that defined later decades relative to the earlier ones? It's not incidental. There won't be one major culture associated with this decade simply because there isn't one standard culture in the mainstream media anymore. Advances in media technologies have resulted in highly customizable content that has fragmented media consumers into several highly specific cliques. It is a lot more difficult for a few media to set the tone of a decade when dozens of underground subcultures nibble away at their spheres of influence. To use a culturally relevant buzzword, we live in decidedly long tail times, where we can infinitely customize our media experience. Unlike a teenager coming of age in the 1980's, a teenager who would come of age in the 2030's has the luxury of looking back at hip hop culture, Latino culture and Asian culture in addition to the white American culture of the past generation. It is culturally empowering and enriching to have more than one mainstream culture to turn to when finding oneself, but it also makes it harder to pick cultural archetypes for a time.

There's nothing wrong with living in a decade defined by irony, nostalgia and a fragmented media. In fact, it is quite a lot of fun nostalgically recreating the lives of previous generations while, ironically enough, not having to face their challenges. The only problem with irony and nostalgia is that they need something else in terms of which they are defined, such as the living conditions of earlier generations. This dependence on something else renders them quite unsuitable for being the pillars of aughties culture.

I want my generation to be distinctly remembered somehow though, so I hope for my own sake that I am wrong about the above. I hope that the generations of this decade will somehow combine their panache for infinite customization with their wallowing in irony and nostalgia to create a way of being remembered by future generations. After all, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Posted by Vishy at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2006

Five things that bug me about a Mac

PCs are not pretty. As if their clunky exteriors are not enough, they run Windows. Yet, I used them exclusively for my home computing needs for over 12 years.

This changed recently when I finally sipped the Kool-Aid and got a Mac. Let me be clear that I have been really happy with my purchase. That still does not put the Mac above criticism for some things it could do better. Here is a list of things a former Windows user (who is something of a control freak when it comes to computers) coming to a Mac wishes it would do better:

  1. Quit applications. In Windows, if I close all windows of an application, I quit it, generally speaking. On a Mac, however, even after I close all Firefox windows (say), it sits around consuming system resources. If I switch to another application after closing all my Firefox windows, there is no way for me to tell that Firefox is still running, save for the little triangle under the Firefox dock icon. Can't I just close all the windows of an application and forget about it?
  2. Navigate among windows. Don't take my Alt-Tab away! Apple-Tab on the Mac only switches between applications, not individual windows of the same application. For the latter, I have to use the decidedly clunky Apple-`. Can't I just have one way to flip through all my open windows?
  3. Show meaningful context menus. I know this is a common peeve, so I won't dwell on it. It's not that I mind that there's only one mouse button. It's just that one of the handiest features of Windows is right-clicking on an object and finding out what you can do with it. On a Mac, no matter what icon I click on, I get the same context menu and I am none the wiser about what I can do with it. How about something handy, like Send To on Windows context menus?
  4. Kill a misbehaving application. The only way seems to be by choosing Force Quit from the context menu of a window's icon in the dock. But wait -- what happens if an application has no windows (see #1)? I have to open up a Terminal window and grep for the process ID from a ps listing because there is no graphical task manager like in Windows. It's not a big problem for me, but what about grandma who bought a Mac because you told her it just works?
  5. Be more keyboard friendly. I am a keyboard czar -- I pick up the keyboard shortcuts of a Windows application quickly and try to use them as much as possible. When I use the same applications on a Mac though, they simply don't have as rich a keyboard-centric user interface. For example, before I send off a Word document to the printer, I hit Ctrl+F2 to see a print preview. What's the keyboard shortcut for Print Preview on Word 2004 for Mac? Zilch. Zip. Nada. To be fair, this is more an application writer's problem than the Mac's, but it still bugs me. Oh, and while we are on the subject of keyboard friendliness, how about replacing a rarely used key (anyone know the Mac equivalent of SysReq?) with a Delete key? No I don't mean the existing delete key, which does the same thing as the windows Backspace key. I want something that behaves like the Windows Delete key.

In due course I'll get over these annoyances and actually begin to grok the Mac Kool-Aid. Then I can go around looking like the unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster from the Mac ads. But while I am not over these yet, why not write about them using a Mac?

Posted by Vishy at 03:11 PM | Comments (28)

August 25, 2006

HOWTO: Fake out someone about where you live in New York

One of the paradoxes of New York City, and Manhattan in particular, is that despite its size, many of its residents tend to live most of their lives within a 10 block radius of their home and office. When one really thinks about it though, this phenomenon is hardly surprising. Each neighborhood has a distinctive character, except perhaps midtown, where people tend to spend time solely for work reasons. When picking a part of town in which to live or spend an evening, this diversity of character results in a high degree of self-selection, sometimes to the point of self-segregation. In short, people tend to keep their favorite two or three neighborhoods. You can use this simple truth to fake someone out about where you live or work in New York.

You may be trying to fend off a creepy guy at a bar, or you may be a B&T spy chatting up a girl under an assumed identity. Whatever be your reasons for doing so, you can use this handy guide to faking Manhattan addresses and be assured of success simply because a disturbing number of New Yorkers simply don't know better. I hope I don't sound condescending, for I count myself among this band of New Yorkers. Most importantly though, it is the truth! Still, armed with a handy map of New York, NY and enough determination, you can accumulate all this *cough* extremely useful information.

Most of Manhattan is criscrossed by numbered and named east-west streets and north-south avenues (if you didn't know this, I'd be afraid, very afraid in your place). Not all avenues intersect all streets. Here's a list of all the avenues and the streets where they begin and end. Just pick an avenue and a number outside its range and bingo, you have a fake Manhattan address.

Going approximately east to west...
Ave D
Runs from Houston St to E 13th St
Ave C
Runs from Houston St to E 15th St
Aves A and B
Runs from Houston St E 14th St
York Ave
Runs from E 60th St to E 92nd St
1st Ave
Runs from Houston St to E 125th St
2nd Ave
Runs from Houston St to E 128th St
3rd Ave
Runs from E 6th St to E 149th St, in the Bronx!
4th Ave
Runs from E 6th St to E 14th St. This avenue wins the dubious honor of being the shortest.
Broadway
From Battery Pl to Well Outside New York City, all the way to Rockefeller State Park, near Sleepy Hollow, NY (not recommended as a fake out, because it actually hits every numbered street in Manhattan. After all, it was a major Native American trail before the Europeans arrived.)
Park Ave
Runs from E 17th St to E 132nd St
Madison Ave
Runs from E 26th St to E 136th St
5th Ave
Runs from Waverly Pl (~8th St) to E 142nd St
6th Ave
Runs from Canal St to W 59th St
7th Ave
Runs from Clarkson St (just North of Houston St) to W 59th St and then, in a remarkable resurrection, W 110th St to W 145th St
8th Ave
Runs from Bleecker St to W 58th St
9th Ave
Runs from W 14th St to W 57th St; continues as Columbus Ave from W 57th St to W 110th St
10th Ave
Runs from W 14th St to W 57th St; continues as Amsterdam Ave from W 57th St to W 188th St and then back to 10th Ave from Dyckman St to W 218th St
11th Ave
Runs from W 22nd St to W 59th St; continues as West End Ave from W 59th St to W 107th St; continues as Broadway until the end
12th Ave
Runs from W 22nd St to W 57th St
Lenox Ave
Runs from W 110th St to W 145th St
Frederick Douglass Blvd
Runs from W 110th St W to 155th St
Riverside Dr
Runs from W 72nd St to W 181st St
As with everything, use the above with a generous dollop of discretion. If you say you live at Ave A and 72nd St, even the most insulated New Yorker is going to call you on it.
I hope you have enjoyed this instalment of useless knowledge.

Posted by Vishy at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)

August 18, 2006

Vishy's Useless Factoid of the Day: Windows calculator keyboard shortcuts

Anyone using the Windows Calculator is struck by how zealously it tries to emulate a real-world calculator. In fact, so striking is the imitation that the limitations of a meatspace calculator get carried over to cyberspace as well.

Most operations in Windows Calculator involve pointing and clicking, actions that need a lot more dexterity in cyberspace than in meatspace. When entering a complex expression with brackets, such as a compound interest calculation, there is no way of seeing the whole expression at once to make sure there are no mistakes. Meatspace calculators (except graphical ones) don't show brackets for reasons of simplicity and economy. But when I pay $1000 for a computer running Windows, I want a calculator application that uses its medium of expression well, rather than an imitation saddled with all the restrictions of its meatspace analogue.

Having said that, there is more to Windows Calculator than immediately meets the eye. Earlier, I was confident that Windows Calculator only recognizes numeric keys from the keyboard. The other day, I was idly tapping my keyboard with Windows Calculator in focus, and I accidentally found that pressing some letter keys also changed its display. After checking the online help for clues about these effects (and failing miserably), I set out on a systematic mission to find what each key does. To use these letter keys, enter a number into the display and press the key for the function you want:

Trigonometric functions


Pressing these keys gives different results depending on whether the numbers you enter are in degrees, radians or grads.

S - sine
O - cosine
T - tangent
Hyperbolic and inverse versions of these functions are also available. See below.

[Why not use C for cosine, especially when C is not bound to the traditional 'Clear' function of a calculator? -V]

Logarithmic and exponential functions



L - common logarithm (base 10)
N - natural logarithm (base e)
X - to enter a number in scientific notation. The key sequence '3 X 2' stands for 3e+02, or 300
V - convert to normalized scientific notation, where the mantissa, the part before the e, is less than 10.

Modifiers


H - hyperbolic mode: calculates hyperbolic trigonometric functions; e.g. '45 H S' would calculate the hyperbolic sine of 45.
I - inverse mode: inverts any of the functions above; e.g. '90 H O' would calculate the inverse cosine of 90. Very useful to me while conducting this investigation.

Other functions


P - fills the display with the value of pi
R - reciprocal
[If they could use P for pi, why not E for e (2.71828...)? -V]

And finally, the poor man's Excel


Calculator also provides a rudimentary statistical toolkit that can be used to run basic analytics on a series of data points. The menus are silent about this feature, as is the four-function mode. The scientific mode only has a cryptic Sta button. But given how counterintuitive the user interface of this feature is, its clandestineness may be calculated (no pun intended).

Hit Ctrl+S to bring up the statistics toolbox. Then, click on the main calculator window, enter a data point and hit the Dat button. Rinse. Repeat. After the Sta window is populated with data points, the Ave, Sum and s buttons spit out the mean, the sum and the standard deviation of the population respectively. The CD and CAD buttons remove data points from the population.

This statistical toolkit suffices for one-off statistical calculations, but God forbid anybody actually has to use it for a living.

Conclusion


Microsoft can really do a lot with Windows Calculator, if they dust off its wide-eyed-intern-contributed codebase and take a second look at it. How about taking some inspiration from one that seems to understand basic natural language? Until then, I hope the above tips make it more keyboard friendly and a little less irritating.

Posted by Vishy at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2006

Funniest. Swag. Evar.

Having witnessed a few cycles of on-campus recruiting from both sides, and having been subject to miscellaneous corporate promotional events, I thought I had seen it all with respect to company swag. I was secure in this notion until I saw this
Source Force
Back at MIT, when morale on a class project was running low, we'd pep ourselves up by conferring on everyone in the team the honorable title of Code Warrior. Now, that veritable institution has been reduced to a mere action figure! My, what is the world coming to?

The FAQ is crafted rather too funnily, especially for Microsoft, whose documents are saddled with too many disclaimers or littered with opaque internal jargon. I do feel like I am the object of faux condescension when I read their FAQ. Contrast similar user-facing documents from Google, which are nice to a fault. I haven't made up my mind about which I prefer.

Posted by Vishy at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2006

The success of Sony's mylo: A Gordian knot

Sony recently announced the imminent release of mylo, a $350 personal communicator that supports WiFi, Skype, instant messaging and MP3s. This device is unique in many respects, but it may doom itself by being a little ahead of its time.

mylo is the killer app of VoIP and WiFi -- the first device that truly unifies voice and data communication. Earlier devices have taken a shot at this goal, but have been stunted by the antics of slow-moving telecom carriers, who want to preserve the status quo. The mylo is different from a PDA because of its much improved communications capabilities. mylo has a full QWERTY keyboard, which differentiates it from Sony's PSP game console. Together with Google's much-touted WiFi service and VoIP-enabled applications such as Google Talk, it may well be the Mobile Skype Cable that challenges the stranglehold of traditional wireless telecom providers on the airwaves.

Although the prospect of a WiFi-enabled personal mobile communicator sounds great, Sony has bet the success of mylo upon WiFi, whose own success has yet to be proven. Freely available WiFi is far from being universal. The lack of ubiquitous free WiFi outside public access areas like college campuses would stunt mylo's voice and IM communication features. Think of all the stories about abysmal cellular phone network coverage you've heard and magnify them a few times to get an idea of the situation. Until ubiquitous WiFi becomes a reality, mylo would be reduced to an expensive MP3 player.

This device is different from Sony's previous forays into personal electronics. It's almost as if the Vaio and PSP teams produced this device after a night of passion. The closest device that comes to mind is Sharp's Sidekick, marketed heavily by wireless carrier T-Mobile. The Sidekick too has a QWERTY keyboard and IM integration.It has a 2.6-inch screen form factor as against mylo's 2.4 inches. It may not support Skype but it has a camera instead. Nonetheless, mylo would beat the Sidekick for the average consumer because it is not tied to a carrier.

Sony's announcement raises a number of questions. Will mylo influence the PSP product line at all? Why is Sony entering the market of general-purpose personal electronics? It may be trying to differentiate itself from Nintendo, its closest competitor in personal electronic devices. Or perhaps it may be positioning itself to capture the detritus left behind by the peaking of the iPod--folks for whom a glorified hard drive with a video screen just doesn't cut it anymore.

If Sony's track record alone were any indication, it can sabotage the success of mylo in many ways. It can exercise proprietary control over technical aspects of the device and stunt its blossoming as a platform. It can try and pull off something as dastardly as the rootkit fiasco from last year. Or it can overprice a device that without WiFi would be a fancy MP3 player. Unless price cuts come soon for this device, lukewarm sales early on can cast a shadow over its future success, just as in the case of N-Gage. The big Internet companies, Google, Yahoo and Ebay, stand to profit considerably from usage of their mobile services on this device. Perhaps they can come to Sony's aid somehow and cut the Gordian knot that will make a seriously cool device like the mylo a success.

Posted by Vishy at 07:33 PM | Comments (1)

August 08, 2006

Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: pass out

pass out. /PAHS·owt/. To graduate successfully from somewhere, especially an educational institution. For example, "I am studying B.Tech Mechanical Engineering at REC Trichy, passing out this year." Although final-year performance usually counts for the most in one's final university grade in India, the sentence above does not refer to any bouts of unconsciousness brought on as a result of the stress. It merely indicates that the speaker is the Indian equivalent of a U.S. college senior.

Passing out usually means moving on to better things. So, I suppose it would be germane to mention in this post that I too just passed out, finally. After years of weighing the question in my mind, I realized that the time is right and I can't hold myself back any longer. I have made the switch.

So, hello blogworld from a gorgeous, sleek black MacBook!

Posted by Vishy at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

August 07, 2006

Vishy's Vonderful Vitticism #6: Why second best may not be that bad

A quip I just saw on a forum:

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Pithiness incarnate.

Posted by Vishy at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)