The Something Manifesto, Part One

somethingI’ve been thinking a lot lately. Or, not so much thinking, but thinking it would be nice to have more time to think. Or more time to do anything. I want to be more productive, even if I’m not sure what I want to produce. I haven’t had time to figure that out yet.

I’ve noticed a convergence of ideas lately, both inside my own head and in the larger world, a world I increasingly interact with primarily via the Internet, despite the fact that I am fully capable of going outside and interacting with it directly. These ideas are mostly circling around a disturbing premise: the tools that are allowing us to share these ideas are consuming our ability to produce them in the first place.

I’ve become something of a Facebook and Twitter addict over the course of the past year. I need the constant affirmation they provide in the form of comments from acquaintances and strangers alike on the random scraps of brainstuff I frequently distribute via this medium. Comments tell me people know I exist. They make me feel important. Increasingly, they serve as a sterilized substitute for genuine human interaction.

But there may just be some hope yet: I’m seeing encouraging signs that I’m not alone in… uh… being alone. Joshua Wentz (of SIDEDOWN) laments the vacuous experience of Facebook. Jason Fried (of 37signals) tells Inc. how popularity on social networking sites does not equal success. Nick Kallen (of Twitter, no less!) discusses how our brains buckle under the sheer mass of information in the modern world.

And so, I present my manifesto. My statement of beliefs about… something. I’m just not sure what.

Family > Work > Social Networking

I need to prioritize. We all need to. What’s really the most important to us, or, more accurately, who is? Our interactions with the people who really mean something to us, who are a part of our daily existence, must come first. These people are our “family,” whether we’re related by blood or not, whether our relationships are legally recognized by the government or not.

Work is next. Work is what we do that matters to us. It’s not necessarily what we get paid to do — though if we’re lucky, we can sometimes make that happen. It’s what drives us and fulfills us.

Social networking? Well, now we begin to see its real place in the hierarchy of things. These tools can help us to reconnect with the people we care about but with whom we no longer share physical space. They can help us meet and develop meaningful relationships with people whose interests we share, but whose physical space we never have (and likely never will). But much of the time they simply provide needless distractions, inundating us with useless details about the lives of people who don’t really mean that much to us. Just because information exists, doesn’t mean it’s important.

Call to action: Delete your social networking bookmarks.

To be continued…

There’s an easily misinterpreted map for that

I’ve been meaning to write about Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” commercials since I first saw them, but now that AT&T is suing, this seems like a good time to remedy my oversight.

The issue AT&T has with the maps in this commercial is, in my opinion, a legitimate one: Verizon’s entire network is 3G, so the gaps on the red map really are gaps. But AT&T maintains a large 2G (EDGE) network, in addition to its rather spotty 3G network. So the white parts of the AT&T map don’t necessarily represent dead zones for AT&T customers.

But there’s another issue with this map, and it’s the same problem I have with election result maps: the U.S. population is not evenly distributed across the physical landscape. It certainly looks bad that AT&T offers no 3G service anywhere in the four-state region of Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota. But the collective population of those states is under 3 million — representing about 1% of the total U.S. population — distributed over 393,000 square miles — representing 10.4% of total U.S. land area. That’s less people than in the St. Cloud/Twin Cities/Rochester blob of blue across east-central Minnesota in the map, and it’s far less than the over 4 million people in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn — an area under 100 square miles.

So, as I’ve said before while studying election maps, the colored areas don’t really tell the true story. Maybe AT&T has a lot of gaps in its map, but there aren’t very many people in those gaps, either.

Now, this is not to go too far in defense of AT&T in this situation. I haven’t had any significant problems with AT&T’s 3G coverage in Minneapolis (although I have noticed my iPhone occasionally dropping down to the EDGE network — a situation that reminds me of Mitch Hedberg’s joke about escalators), but as the Engadget article notes, there are apparently major problems with their network in the most densely-populated areas of the country — San Francisco and New York.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me in this article, though, is the following claim from AT&T:

Verizon’s misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T’s strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers… and we’ve beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn — a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive.

It’s no secret that much of AT&T’s recent success, especially where smartphones are concerned, is due solely to the iPhone. And it’s also no secret that it’s the iPhone hardware/software combo, not AT&T’s service, that iPhone owners are overwhelmingly satisfied with. Consider AT&T’s exclusive rights to the iPhone, and that pretty much negates any value in AT&T’s claim to customer satisfaction.

Were we really once so easily amazed?

Technology has come a long way since the ’80s. I remember this commercial. I don’t remember it seeming so utterly stupid. Maybe that’s because I was only about 10 when it originally aired. Or maybe it’s because back then this was cutting-edge.

All I know is, the phrase “sneaker phone” sounds way more natural to me than it should. I guess this commercial embedded itself in my subconscious all those years ago, permanently tainting my worldview.

Source: Merlin Mann

Update: 1991? Holy crap. Yeah, I didn’t watch it far enough when I first posted this to hear the voice-over guy say, in a semi-lewd tone, “the revealing 1991 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue” (cue whistles). Since that comes out in February (or so I’m told), that would mean this commercial is most likely from 1990 or very early 1991, meaning I was 16 when it aired. You’d think by then I’d have been old enough, or at least jaded adolescent enough, to see how utterly stupid it was. Maybe.

Sneak peek at a new design

Sneak peekYes, it’s only been about 10 days since my last redesign, but I’m already at it again. I always knew that the current design was little more than a palate cleanser… or a rebound relationship.

Ultimately, what it came down to for me was that I just hadn’t put the kind of care and attention to detail into the design that I really want. With blogs it’s easy to put 99% of your design energy into the header, and then kind of just let the rest of it fall together in the default structure provided by the blog software. In other words, a long, undifferentiated stream of posts on the home page.

Well, I’m trying to give things more structure, as well as making the new design both more functional and more fun. And yes, I’m reusing every design trend from 2007. Is it too soon for the shiny floor effect to seem “retro”? Hopefully the sparkles convey an adequate level of irony. No, they won’t be animated.

Due to the level of attention I’m giving this design, I’m not going to be able to finish it in an evening like most of my past redesigns. But I’m too excited about it to hold back just a teaser (the screenshot detail shown here). Plus maybe this will keep the pressure on me to actually finish it.

Update: “Is this it?” Yes and no. I’ve gone ahead and rolled out the new look and feel with the old page structure. So it looks like the new site design, but it’s not. The changes that remain to be made are mostly on the home page, and involve significant modifications to the WordPress theme templates. It’s another level of tinkering under the hood than the superficial design changes I’ve rolled out up to this point. And I want to take the time to get it right. I’d also like to see if I can really implement Helvetica Neue Condensed Black as my headline font, without having to embed it. So, for now, it looks different but acts the same. More changes to come…

I have not formerly addressed this formally

Malaprop'sI’m a geek. Let’s get that straight. I’m not a nerd. Geeks are people who tend to be obsessive over a particular set of arcane knowledge. Nerds are people who are obsessive about learning. The differences are subtle, and to some extent overlapping. I could draw you a Venn diagram, but then, simply by virtue of the suggestion, I think I prove my point. SLP is a nerd. She will provide historical citations to back me up on this. In short, nerds read more books than geeks. At least if you exclude sci-fi/fantasy.

Anyway, yes, there places where geekdom and nerdery overlap. One of those places is in language itself. So perhaps I’m being a bit nerdy here, and not just geeky as usual, but I feel I must address one of my longstanding pet peeves of language misuse that I’ve been observing with increasing frequency: the confounding (to me) confusion (by others) over the words formerly and formally. These two words are not even close in meaning, yet I often see one substituted for the other — almost always “formally” for “formerly,” come to think of it. I suspect that many people just don’t even know “formerly” is a word.

Perhaps, formerly, you were one of them. But no longer.

A Google search confirms that I am not just imagining this phenomenon, and the first result, from About.com, elucidates the difference succinctly:

The adverb formally means “in a formal way.” The adverb formerly means “at an earlier time.”

Another way to look at it is to simply drop the “-ly” adverb suffix and compare the base adjectives: “formal” and “former.” So, really, maybe the problem here is that none of you were paying attention in fourth grade grammar class. Clearly, I think that those who are misusing these words are failing to understand some aspect of the linguistic structure underlying them. Because if you do understand, it’s almost impossible to mix them up.

Or is it?

I certainly thought the two words were about as distinct as could be, until I looked at this quiz which challenges you to read a sentence and determine which of these two words belongs in it. It’s not as clear cut as you might think. For example:

I recognize her face, but she and I never have been introduced (formally/formerly).

My gut tells me to use “formally” here, but “formerly” would also technically be correct (even though “previously” — or nothing — would probably sound better). However, all of the questions in this quiz are only challenging from the perspective of the reader/listener, who is trying to determine the original intent of the writer/speaker. The writer/speaker should not be struggling with this ambiguity, assuming they themselves know what they’re trying to say.

So we’re right back at square one: do you know what you’re trying to say, or not? And if not, why are you talking at all? Formerly I would have been more tolerant, but now I am formally asking you to get it right before you write. All right?