A few thoughts on the holiday/winter ads by Apple and Samsung

I’ve been tweeting a bit today about Apple’s iPhone ad that is getting some attention this holiday season, along with a new one from Samsung. But I have some comments that are a bit more than 140 characters long, that I’d like to share here.

I first heard about the Samsung ad via Daring Fireball‘s link to it on YouTube. Check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8nJKWJTsUg

I’ll admit to finding the hapless iPhone owner on the chairlift a bit funny. I’m a sucker for cheap laughs like a guy dropping his expensive phone (and later his skis too) from a chairlift. But almost immediately the “Geared up” Samsung owner is creepy. Stalker creepy. He’s supposed to come off like he’s got “the moves” or something (which is creepy enough anyway), but he doesn’t seem suave so much as dripping with white privilege. He can just make the woman next to him on the chairlift give him her phone number because… why not?

The next scene is what really bothers me: he takes a bunch of photos and video of her on the ski slope, without her permission or knowledge. Because… why not? And when he goes up to her at the bottom of the hill to show off his efforts, she’s not creeped out (or is she… maybe… just a little?) because… he’s a handsome white dude who’s all “Geared up” so of course it’s OK.

Of course it’s really not OK. In so many ways, it’s not OK. If this guy were a real person, I’d have plenty more to say about him, but he’s not. He’s an actor, playing a role, attempting to sell a product made by Samsung. So let’s talk about Samsung’s advertising efforts and how sexist they are. Fortunately for me Anjin Anhut already did (in more general terms, but this Samsung ad certainly fits the bill) in a great blog post on Saturday that I encourage you to read.

Let’s contrast the Samsung ad with Apple’s ad, entitled “Misunderstood”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM

I have seen this ad at least 5 times now and every time I tear up. Do I feel that my emotions have been manipulated? Of course. This is a commercial. That a commercial would make me tear up… of course my emotions are being manipulated. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing.

Apple’s ad connects on an emotional level, because that’s where we are with this technology today. Both Apple’s and Samsung’s devices can do so many of the same things, and fill the same needs and desires in their users’ lives, that it’s really down to how we as the users of these products connect with them on an emotional level. That’s really what Samsung’s ad is trying to do, I think. It shows off more specific technologies than Apple’s ad does, but ultimately it’s connecting with its audience on an emotional level as well. But the audience, and the emotions, couldn’t be more different.

There is nothing sexist or creepy about Apple’s ad. It delivers an image we’re all used to seeing these days: the tech-loving teenager, apparently tuning out the people around them and the meaningful experiences they should be engaging in. But the teenager is misunderstood—he’s not tuning out. He’s capturing fleeting, magical moments in his family’s life and he’s creating… putting those moments together into an artifact the family members will be able to connect with long after the holidays end. It’s a commercial that can resonate with just about anyone. It surprises and delights, and it shows us how using an Apple product can help enrich the experiences that matter to us. (It is an ad, after all.)

The Samsung ad? Well, first of all, the ad is targeted at a very specific demographic. It’s an ad for dudes. Want to impress and seduce that hottie next to you on the chairlift? Samsung has just the tech to help you make that happen. Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t license Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” just to underscore the message.

On one hand I find it kind of surprising that any company would think they could get away with running an ad like this today, but the fact is, it’s not surprising at all. This kind of advertising obviously works. It may alienate a huge potential audience but as Anjin Anhut’s blog post describes, it has identified a target audience and is more effective within that audience.

The problem with that strategy though is that the more you target an audience, the smaller it becomes. It may be a subset of the population that is far more likely to buy your product than the average, but you become increasingly confined to that narrow slice of the pie. Unless of course you run different and contradictory campaigns simultaneously (which happens all the time). But still, ultimately, you’re eventually going to reach a saturation point with that target market. Then what? You can retreat to a broader message, but how much damage have you done (not just to your business, but to the community) by that point? And was it really necessary in the first place?

Say what you will about Apple’s advertising, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexist, racist, or otherwise exclusionary—except of Windows users.

Top 5 Albums of 2013

I’ve given it a lot of thought. OK, I’ve given it some thought. OK, I’m actually just making it up as I go. Whatever the case, here are my picks for the best, or at least my favorite, albums of 2013.

5. Phoenix — Bankrupt!
I really got into Phoenix right after Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix came out in 2009 and had thoroughly explored their back catalog while eagerly waiting… And waiting… And waaaaaaaaiiiiiting for the follow-up. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I wouldn’t say the album is a masterpiece; it leaves me wanting something. But it’s still fantastic, with some truly amazing musical moments and some compelling lyrics that reflect on the band’s struggles with its newfound fame… you know, when they got so big that even people like me knew about them.

4. Midlake — Antiphon
Remember what I said about a band being big enough that even I known about them? That probably goes double for Midlake, a band I just learned about last weekend, when the title track of this album played on The Current as I was driving to IKEA to buy a couch. (I wish I were making this up.) Two things immediately drew me in about Midlake: the incessantly burbling drums, and the amazing harmonic detours in the second half of the song.

As soon as I parked the car I went on iTunes on my phone and bought the whole album, which I then listened to twice through while assembling the couch. It’s all great, with several sections (especially those with acoustic guitar and flute) reminding me of Trespass-era Genesis. Except without the preposterous lyrics about anthropomorphized wolves. I’d probably rate this album higher, but I haven’t known it long enough to see how well it holds up.

3. Lusine — The Waiting Room
If the ranking criteria on this list were solely based on how many times I’ve listened to an album, this would undoubtedly take the top spot. I’ve had it on heavy rotation while I work over the past few months, because its low-key grooves are just right to keep me going without being too distracting. Which is not to say it’s background music. I’d describe it as a more listenable (i.e. less weird) Boards of Canada.

2. The Darcys — Warring
There’s only been one album this year that I’ve anticipated more than Phoenix’s Bankrupt! and that’s Warring by The Darcys. The Darcys are one of the few bands that I’ve ever heard that I think might make it big that I’ve known about and gotten into before that happened. I hope it happens for them, in the right way, because they’re really great.

Or to put it another way, they’re my second favorite Canadian band of all time.

I first learned about The Darcys because their second album, last year’s AJA, was something that could have come off as a cheesy stunt. Does that name sound familiar? That’s because it’s also the title of what is arguably Steely Dan’s best album, from 1977. The stunt? This is Steely Dan’s 1977 album, reinterpreted in its entirety in Darcys style. Which is to say, much darker. There is a bleak beauty in The Darcys’ vision that in some ways better suits the desperation in the album’s lyrics than Steely Dan’s original too-smooth-for-its-own-good style. (And I say that as a huge, unabashed Steely Dan fan.)

Anyway… The Darcys released both their self-titled debut and AJA for free on their website, which definitely helped build their audience and the anticipation for Warring, which is all original material, and is utterly fantastic. Unlike Midlake’s album, it didn’t blow me away on first listen, but it only took two or three repeats before the brilliance of the album unfolded and revealed itself. You really need to hear the album in its entirety, but if you only have the patience to check out one song, I’d recommend “Horses Fell.”

1. Nine Inch Nails — Hesitation Marks
There was some criticism for Trent Reznor’s decision to work with a major label for Hesitation Marks and even more for his blunt response to anyone who might complain about it. But that can’t change the fact that it’s a pretty brilliant album.

I was never much of a Nine Inch Nails fan in the earlier, noisier days. There was just too much adolescent angst in the lyrics, and, well, just too much noise. But that all changed for me when Year Zero was released, and I have since been absolutely blown away by the genius soundtrack work Reznor and Atticus Ross did for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, enough so that I actually pre-ordered this album on CD as soon as I knew it was coming.

I saw Nine Inch Nails in concert for the first time this fall on the opening night of their current tour. It was definitely the most intense concert I have ever experienced, and quite possibly the best. The music translated amazingly well to a live setting, and the light show and energy in the performance were like nothing I could even have imagined.

For the concert experience, as much as the music itself, I have to give this album my top ranking for the year. It’s definitely left the biggest impression on me of anything I’ve encountered in the past twelve months.

And while we’re at it…

Although I would never elect any of it to my top 5 list, I actually recorded a ridiculous amount of original music this year, beginning with the January release of 8-Bit Time Machine, my semi-autobiographical sci-fi rock opera. (Yes, seriously.) That one was actually recorded in late 2012, but I followed it up with The Picture of Dorian Mode, composed and recorded entirely on my iPad over a single weekend in February. Then in April, when winter refused to go away, I recorded an EP called Soundtrack for an Endless Winter. In July I finally upgraded to Logic Pro and learned the ropes by recording another EP, cleverly (or maybe not) titled Amateur Logic. I followed that with the year’s biggest project, Falling, in September. For three weeks I sketched out at least one new song idea every day, and when I had nearly two dozen sketches, I refined the best of them into what I think may be my best work to date. (And this doesn’t even touch on the monthly “Figures” EPs I cranked out for the first half of the year.)

Top 5 Albums of 2013: The Contenders

Yeah, I’m still doing this. So let’s go!

Here are the new albums I’ve added to my collection in 2013, and are therefore contenders for this year’s list…

another cultural landslide — last days last days
Atoms for Peace — Amok
Boards of Canada — Tomorrow’s Harvest
Caroline Smith — Half About Being a Woman
The Darcys — Warring
David Bowie — The Next Day
Disappears — Era
Joe Satriani — Unstoppable Momentum
Justin Timberlake — The 20/20 Experience (1 and 2)
Lusine — The Waiting Room
MGMT — MGMT
Midlake — Antiphon
Nine Inch Nails — Hesitation Marks
Nitemoves — Themes
Phoenix — Bankrupt!
Steven Wilson — The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories)
Toro y Moi — Anything in Return
Washed Out — Paracosm

Honestly… I’ve heard some really great new music this year, although my range of styles has narrowed in considerably on “chillwave” electronic music and surrounding genres. And while not completely homogenous, almost all of the artists are men, and almost all of them are white. I regret this, but it is what it is. And what it is, is, the music I listened to a lot this year, which is a reflection of me.

My heart isn’t quite in this whole process as much as it has been in years past. (Also, I just don’t have time.) So let’s cut to the chase. My top 5 albums are in bold above. But in what order? That will come in the next post.

How to install Windows 8 on a MacBook Air

No longwinded backstory in this post. I’m just posting this here so I can remember it if I ever have to install again, since I seem to keep forgetting.

If you’re trying to install Windows 8 (or Windows 7) on a MacBook Air, and you boot to the Windows CD (from a SuperDrive, of course), you may find that when you try to select the BOOTCAMP partition, you get an error stating that Windows can’t be installed on this drive, because it’s in GPT format, and you need to have an NTFS partition.

Well, it doesn’t matter if you have that partition formatted as NTFS or not. The error is happening because of the way you booted up!

Quit the installer, and restart, holding down the Option key. Then when the disk selection comes up, don’t select the Windows installer, select EFI Boot instead. That’s it!

WordPress tip: A simple way to search all post types

I love WordPress, but its huge designer/developer community and extensible structure have made it possible to over-engineer a solution to just about every problem. And then under-document that solution.

Case in point: today I needed to add the ability to search across custom post types, along with pages. But by default search only searches posts. (That is, the “post” post type. Are you with me?)

This isn’t a new problem, even to me, although very few of the sites I build have (or need) internal search. It’s just not that useful on a site that doesn’t have hundreds of pages or posts, and most of the sites I build don’t.

In the few times in the past when I needed to be able to search across other post types, or other content like taxonomy data, I’ve relied on the Search Everything plugin. And judging by the fact that (as of today) it’s been downloaded 555,309 times, clearly I am not alone.

It’s a pretty good plugin, as plugins go. But it can be overkill, especially if all you need is the ability to search other post types.

And that’s where we run into the real, multifaceted problem with WordPress for developers: 1) there’s a plugin (no, make that dozens of plugins) for just about every obscure task, and 2) there are also several ways to go about building your own custom solution, especially if you’re building your own theme, but 3) the documentation is all over the place, and none of it is comprehensive.

Granted, by offering a targeted solution to a very specific problem in this blog post, I’m contributing to that documentation fragmentation, but whaddayagonnado.

There’s a fourth (and probably even more important) facet as well: plugins are developed independently by countless individuals (of varying degrees of skill), and it’s impossible for anyone to test them all for interoperability. The more plugins you install — especially if they’re excessively complex for the problem you’re intending to solve — the greater the chance you’ll introduce an incompatibility that will break your site. So it’s in your best interest to try to keep things as simple as possible. (And to err on the side of installing fewer plugins.)

tl;dr

If I understand correctly, every parameter in WP_Query can be passed in the query string, which means you can add corresponding input fields into searchform.php in your theme to modify the search functionality.

OK, now that was too simple (and abstract). Give me an example I can work with.

Here’s a one-line solution to get WordPress to search all of your post types (even custom post types), not just “post”-type posts. Add this into the form in searchform.php:

<input type="hidden" name="post_type" value="any" />

Guess what… you can also specify multiple specific types of posts using PHP’s method of using square brackets in your input name to pass in data as an array, like this:

<input type="hidden" name="post_type[]" value="foo" />
<input type="hidden" name="post_type[]" value="bar" />
<input type="hidden" name="post_type[]" value="baz" />

A caveat: I tried the above with page as one of the values and it didn’t work; it showed my custom post types, but not “page”-type posts. I suspect it’s because that’s one of the predefined type parameters that make the query behave slightly differently. So this solution isn’t perfect, but using any as the value will work: it gets “post”, “page” and your custom post types.

My goal was to have a simple search form that would just search all post types, so I made this a hidden field, but you could make it radio buttons, checkboxes or a select menu if you wanted to let the user pick, and this just scratches the surface of what you can do to customize your search form to leverage the capabilities of WP_Query.