06.26.08
Posted in Reviews, books at 12:46 pm by Nate Smith
Simplexity Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)
This is a fun book to read purely because it is largely a collection of little illustrative stories plucked from science and history (and the history of science). I also think it relates strongly to the theme of this blog which I was trying to center around subtle and not-so-subtle contradictions in everyday life.
I don’t think Mr. Kluger really reaches any over-arching conclusions about complexity and simplicity except that they are found everywhere and sometimes one may reveal the other at another level.
Simplexity is an an enjoyable book to read, and because it lacks any strong hypothesis it probably will not change your world-view.
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Posted in rant at 10:50 am by Nate Smith
Upgrade is the name for trading a set of problems you are familiar with or have already mostly solved or come to terms with (the devil you know), with a new set of unfamiliar problems and enhancements.
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06.10.08
Posted in Apple, Google, Windows/Microsoft at 9:54 am by Nate Smith
I’ve often said that you cannot beat Microsoft by going head to head with them. You have to come at them from an angle. Microsoft has crushed all the companies that have tried to oppose them directly. Apple with the iPhone and Google with Android are evolving new paradigms in computing and leap-frogging over Microsoft.
Google understands that content is king, but they realize that their content is your content so their value-add is locating and displaying the content and manipulating it. The key to this strategy is giving access to this content anytime, anywhere. Enter Android. Android should continue the precedent of manipulating content and add inexpensive, anytime, anywhere access to Google. Android won’t run Windows and it won’t have MS Office so down the road we should expect a continuous evolution of tools to use the file formats we are familiar with. At the same time a realization will occur where we learn those files aren’t the best way to use the content anymore and the new tools will be developed using things like Ajax and cloud computing. Exit Microsoft.
What does Apple bring to the party? For one, lots of style and ease-of-use, but where Android will probably look like a portal to Google, the iPhone will combine a high end client end-point with a portal, and local storage. So along with access to a world of Google-mediated information you have music, movies and games.
It will be interesting to see how Apple and Google remove the perceived restrictiveness of these small platforms (particularly small screens) and expand our access to our standard world of information.
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