Crayon Breaker

I'm now kind of abandoning this blog. Thank you for taking the time to read it!

I've set up another page here att blogger, but with the purpose of a showcase/portfolio rather than a blog.
It's called Crayon Breaker.

The helping hand

Do you think my blog looks like shit right now? Me too.
I was really hoping that Blogspots new "dynamic" system for editing the looks of one's blog actually would be "dynamic" and help "make it more personal", but once again my hopes are effectively smashed to the ground by "the helping hand".

We know it best from the patronizing yet inunderstandable (yes, linguistic flexibility is a virtue) world of Microsoft, where you're never too far from a question mark or a wizard, or guide of some kind that is there to help you screw everything up without you knowing it.

Apparently, for their new fabulous operative system Windows Vista (hmm, vaguely reminiscent of another OS...) they've finally realized that the way information is communicated to the user MAY actually affect how the user perceives and understands the system.
How they could've possibly missed that is beyond me, but hey, kudos for figuring it out eventually.
Perhaps now people can feel like something other than spoon fed retards.

Anyway, so this new system of Blogspots isn't of course any real improvement. Quite the opposite actually.
First you have to choose one of fifty templates that looks like if a five year old sat down with powerpoint for five minutes. Then you can choose the positioning of different elements of the blog, which in reality means choosing if you want the links list to be on top of the personal presentation, or the other way around.
That's it, unless you wish to go and poke in the HTML which isn't easier than before.

"But hey", you argue, "isn't this the best for all the people who don't have the same interest in designing?"
Sure, templates are great for a lot of people, but to build a system on the assumption that no one of the millions of bloggers would want to alter the layout (without first attending a comprehensive course in HTML) is just fucking ignorant.

It hinders creativity and actually works against the very purpose of blogging as medium which is broadcasting information and opinions under the same conditions as the commercial medial machine.

(if you wonder why there are no links in the text it's because Blogspot by some fucking reason has chosen to remove that function for anybody with a browser that does not support their key-shortcuts)

The money is where your mouth is

As I read a book in my sociology course about working class women in England I came across the metaphore of capital in social and cultural sciences. Spare time social analyst as I am I delved into the matter.

It was created by the french sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (what is it with the french and vowels?) and is used to understand social interaction mainly in the context of class, ethnicity and gender.
Bourdieu meant that for example white, middle class males have a lot more social and cultural "cash" than perhaps a newly immigrated woman without employment. The man might have an education, an understanding for the culture he lives in and he's probably got a social network.
The woman might not have much at all except perhaps for her femininity and her sexuality, which she could pawn for social "cash" through marriage, but if it turns out to be a bad bet she's more or less lost it.
There's a vast difference between those two.

One could argue that people actually can make more capital by gambling and trading with it (ie acting on the social scene and using their social skills to gain more) but the fact remains that just like in poker or stock broking, some start out with a lot more than others.

I've tried to apply this to my own life and realized that it actually works; every social interaction I make has a purpose in that I expect it to give me something in the end. It doesn't have to be gambling or trading, most social interactions are investments in relations that accumulate and create a social value.

This is a perspective that might seem a little cynical to some, but it's a way of understanding not just how we interact with each other but also help us see differences in power that we were unaware of before.

The ten percent-lie

The market constantly tries to fool us but most people would say that they know of this. Or, like a famous man once said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." But the question is do people actually act on their knowledge, or are they happy with the knowledge that they are being fooled?

I'd say the latter, because otherwise they wouldn't buy the ten percent-lie.
It's based on the common misconception that ten percent off is actually a decent rebate and of good value to customers, which when you actually count on it is not.
If I for instance buy a CD (which I don't, but anyway) it'll put me back about 170SEK (approx. 23USD), but a 10% discount on that would only be 17SEK (2.3USD) which is not a lot of money.
A store sale is used to clear out old stock, but more importantly to get customers into the store only to buy the new, full price-stuff, whereas a ten percent sale isn't a sale, it's just a cheap way to get customers in to the store browsing around.

However, the ugliest and most common way to apply the ten percent-lie is through various loyalty-programs such as membership-clubs or "buy 10 get one for free"-cards. They usually require you to shop for a certain amount to gain a low discount. They can be useful for big households who shop groceries or clothes for loads of money and, most importantly, does it at the same place and would do so anyway.
If you're a young, tight shop-a-holic on the other hand you usually end up buying stuff you don't need and tie your purchases to a certain store. You'll also get a wallet thicker than the bible because of all the other customer loyalty-cards you think you'll use but you don't.

I refuse to become a member of any "club" or take those stupid cardboard-cards from coffee-shops that you get stamps on only to get lost in your wardrobe. I suggest you do the same, the only thing you'll loose are those shackles of "customer-loyalty" that you've been carrying around.

I blame the sun

Ok, so maybe I haven't been the most active blog-poster for the last couple of months but I think I might just blame it on the sun. After all the weather up here has been more than what anyone could ask for on these latitudes!

Still, I have spent quite some time on the internet and thanks to a new toolbar service called StumbleUpon I've managed to actually get something sensible out of those hours.
To give a real boost for those who need a fresh start this autumn I've compiled a list of my 2006 summer favourites, enjoy:

Grotrian Pianos
A completely new way of playing the piano with absolutely no piano skills required.


Universal Packing list
Perhaps more useful during the summer, but still a good link to keep for the next trip.


Ageproject
I've told people for a long time now that my real age is 28 but nobody believes me, now I've got the evidence ("lots of people on the internet can't be wrong" is my motto).


HeroMachine
Mine is called Fuego and has fire instead of hands, what does your hero look like?


PostSecret
A blog continously filled with cut'n paste-postcards that people have mailed in. Is also an exhibition and a book.


We are the web
These are the heroes fighting for our freedom, hear what they've got to say and watch their music video.


GoogleMaps flight sim
Some braniac has taken GoogleMaps and made a flight simulator out of it (although it's bending the definition of "simulator" a little). You can even fire bombs out of the plane!



I realize this is a lame excuse of a post, but I promise that I'll publish some more ambitious posts as soon as school starts (expect the rate of published posts to rise dramatically around papers and exams).
Later on I'll give Bloggers new template-editor a little try and hopefully it will result in some positive design-changes.
Hooray for usability!

My new friend

Yesterday I made a friend on the internet. It's a very special friend and I feel I got very close to her. I decided to put up our ICQ-log here to show how great a relationship you can make in just a few minutes.



Tuesday, 1 August 2006 12:22:41 PM Europe/Stockholm

hey

hey

where do u live

Sweden

cool have u got s girl friend

No I don't have a girlfriend

y
have u gt a 6 pac

no

who old r u

I am 23

\cool do u wont to go out

hmm, where do you live?

forbes y

Forbes?
where's that?

oh l dont know do u wont to go out with me

I don't know you and I don't know where you live so I think that could be difficult on several levels.

did u wint to have sex

I appreciate your honesty but that could prove to be difficult as well because of the very same reasons.

l no

So why did you ask?
I'm confused

have u got a mobile

Yes I do but I prefer not to give out my number to people I've just met
don't take it personal, I just don't

u sound like a really nice person

Well thank you, that's very kind of you.

r u a boy

Yes I am.

do u have msn

Yes

what is your adding

We are talking on ICQ, isn't that enough?

but l wont your pic
well can u get on msn so l can send my pic to u and u can send yours to me

you know you can send pictures on ICQ too

yer but l cant do it l can only do it on msn

well I'm afraid I can't do it right now, I have to go in a couple of minutes

ok

I have to go now actually

no

send your pic quick
plz

ok

ok can u send it quick on msn

[I send a picture of me with a fake moustache]

I really have to be going now, see you later

love u

Eh. Sure. You too. Bye.

Standards, what standards?

If there's anything I dislike more about the USA than its foreign policies, it's the fact that they insists on using a bunch of half-assed standards that the rest of the world has left a long time ago.

Take time for instance. A day consists of 24 hours, but the AM/PM system divides the day in two, leaving it open for all kinds of misunderstandings. Why do their military use the 24 hour-system? For it's accuracy of course! ("Are you saying we were supposed to bomb Baghdad at five PM? I thought you said five AM!")

The military also use kilometers as a measure of length (they call it 'klicks') instead of the highly ambiguous unit of 'miles'. And what's up with yards, feet and inches? I know illiteracy is real high in the US, but isn't the use of using body-measurements as units a little too much stone age, even for them?
The metric system on the other hand is logical and adds up, there's ten milimeter on one centimeter and ten decimeter on one meter. Pretty easy to remember, but how many feet is a yard? And how do you measure anything smaller than an inch? Not to mention pounds (with the unlikely abbreviation of lbs), gallons or ounces.

Meanwhile, on a beach in California: "How warm is it outside today?" "Well it's not boiling yet."
Yes, in a laboratory fahrenheit might be an absolute smashing way of showing heat, but most people don't live in a laboratory.
However, the standard that annoys me the most because that it's something that haunts me in my work is the plethora of paper standards that americans use instead of the metric ISO 216. I've seen designers argue that it's the most beautiful standard but GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. Do you think millions of office clerks would prefer the pretty or the practical format? Thought so.

The problem with standards is that they have become standards because lots of people use them, and getting three hundred million of the worlds most obnoxious and stubborn people to change is a hard task. Fortunately I'm not the only one who wish things to change, there are plans to switch in a long term perspective to most of these standards which are recognized as international standards (SI).

Perhaps in a century or so the US will have caught up with the rest of the world. With a little luck and a few wars.