After just shy of a month of screwing with it, I can definitely say that it is one of the worst experiences I’ve had on the internet.

There are a lot of inherent problems with it. Even the ‘features’ that people seem to be flocking to it for are fundamentally broken, and the entire underlying foundation holds zero respect for privacy.

Part of the problem lies in what people consider ‘privacy.’ Most people seem to think of it as a one-way street, in which they only share information with certain people, with those outside their circle left out. Privacy goes both ways, though, in that it also keeps you from being bombarded with information from people you don’t know or have no interest in hearing from. Google+ doesn’t understand this, and, by extension, does not understand social networking in the slightest.

Circles are how they seem to be selling their particular brand of pseudo-privacy. You add people to ‘circles,’ and you only share things with the circles you want to hear you. This is in contrast to Facebook, which offers ‘groups’ in which you can choose to exclude from your otherwise universal posts. However, rather than enter into a mutual relationship the way Facebook does, G+ is more passive, allowing anyone to ‘follow’ you by putting you into one of their circles – much in the way Twitter works.

The problem here is that Twitter and Facebook are fundamentally very different. Facebook is about who you know, and Twitter is more about what you say. By this I mean that Facebook’s function is to keep people connected — their entire culture revolves around this, via ‘friends’ and ‘likes’. Twitter, on the other hand, is a bit more passive, in that you offer up short blurbs of something you have to say on a topic, and anyone who wants to listen can opt-in. Inversely, you follow people you find interesting to see what they may have to say. The amount of personal information shared is exceedingly minimal by design, which facilitates a sense of freedom in what many people choose to share.

G+ fits in the middle. It establishes relationships on both a personal and impersonal level; you can have friends & family there, as well as follow or be followed by whoever in the same way Twitter does. Where it flops is that when someone follows you, it basically hands them a bullhorn and lets them begin shouting what they have to say at you whether you’re interested or not. Worse is that, since it’s a shiny new toy, most people are just talking about Google+ and how great it is without actually really using it in the intended way. As a result, tech-nerds think it’s theirs, and they whine and bitch a lot about how Google should make it what they want to keep non-nerds out. Well, mission accomplished. You’ve killed it before it had a chance to take off.

Google+ will most likely be shut down sometime before 2013, just in time to be replaced by the next short-term Google failure. Seriously, even the Ballmer-lead Microsoft isn’t this irresponsible. Ballmer, of course, is a coked-up frat boy.

If you really sit down and look at it, Google’s track record kind of sucks when it comes to trying new things. I’m glad I don’t have an Android phone right now, because they could pull the plug on the project at any moment. Despite having a larger gross share of the smartphone OS market, it is in no way sustainable. They’re not making money on it. The devices are horribly fragmented. The platform has become riddled with viruses — something NO ONE should find acceptable on a phone – due to its “open,” non-curated nature. The carriers are taking it upon themselves to modify and cripple the OS as they see fit. Developers aren’t happy with Android as a platform because Android users, by and large, spend far, far less on apps than any other platform.

Am I saying Android is doomed? No. I wish it were, though. Like Microsoft, Google is now stifling innovation by dominating a market they’re completely incompetent in.

*Failed miserably at something stupid.

• I race R/C cars
• I sold my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro, replacing them with a 27″ i3 iMac & 11″ MacBook Air
• I have not installed Flash on either
• Lots of things happened

I guess I’ll start picking up where I left off.

Embedded YouTube videos is probably the main reason I still even have Flash, because it is kind of nice to play a video without leaving the page you’re on. Now, I don’t even need it for that.

I actually became almost addicted to Flashless-Browsing from using the iPhone and iPad; not having those god-awful, noisemaking ads and other assorted crap that makes a page needlessly take forever to load was a breath of fresh air. I tried uninstalling Flash entirely a year or two ago, but found that there were still a few holdout things I needed it for. Broken Box was a nice compromise; no Flash items load unless I specifically want them to.

We’re at the point now where Flash is starting to become irrelevant, a relic in the same vein as RealAudio. Those who cling to it for video are simply incompetent, as there’s no reason for it. Those who use it for layout are lazy. The only real valid use for it is content-rich applications that don’t require additional plugins, though in many cases, another plug-in may be a far better answer. There’s just no compelling reason to keep it around from both a user and developer standpoint. It’s time to kill it off.

I give it another six months and I suspect I won’t need to even have it installed anymore. I, for one, can’t wait.

The days of passively watching TV are over. We don’t watch it anymore; it gets used for the occasional movie or video game, but it spends far more time off and silent than it does on. Yet, we still see plenty of shows and keep abreast of news as well as anyone else.

Everyone in the house can watch whatever they want to, whenever they want to, and it doesn’t interrupt what anyone else is watching or doing. We use our tablets, our phones, and our computers with services like Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, ABC and YouTube.

In ten years, this will be the norm and the big monolithic black rectangle on your wall will quietly hang there as a monument of a bygone era.

The headstone above the TV’s grave is brought to you by Sony and Google, and it looks like this:

You've got to be kidding me.

A TV’s remote needs to be simple. Distance is already a massive abstraction, which gives a psychological perception of sluggishness, regardless of how responsive the UI is. Thus, information and menus on the TV need to be large enough to be seen from a distance (something video game UI developers seem incapable of understanding), and manipulating them needs to be quick and concise. This is anything but. With the GoogleTV, Google expects you to view webpages – designed to be seen on a screen about 3′ away from you – with it, and, using this “remote,” use it as a “computer” from 10′-12′ away. You’re either going to become frustrated at being unable to immediately see what’s on the screen, or you’re going to be standing up and in the way of anyone else in the room who might want to see what’s on the screen. Even Microsoft learned years ago what a bad idea this is. Engadget, who has a massive unwarranted collective boner for anything pumped out by Google, calls it unwieldy and confusing. They’re trying to turn the TV into a monitor, when the world around them is turning their monitors into TVs.

The Google Cult is extremely excited about it, and thinks it will “revolutionize TV.” However, the Google Cult – if the caliber of Android owners are any indicator – are a bunch of broke, basement-dwelling neckbeards who think everything is owed them and should be priced at an affordable Zero dollars, so until these things start getting handed out for free don’t expect them to sell.

Anyway, grab this for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, RIGHT EFFIN’ NOW:

Epic Citadel

It’s nothing more than a tech demo for an upcoming game by Epic (makers of Unreal) that uses the Unreal 3 engine for iOS devices. Holy crap. This blows Unity away.

The best part is they’re offering the SDK for free (though I’m sure you’ll have to license the engine if you use it). Very cool.

“…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing….”
— Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)

This, of course, brings the number of Spiteful Songs Written About Full House Cast Members to two.

I’m still working on #3, wherein I lambast Candace Cameron for never acknowledging that I exist.