Voices in an age of dilusion, we remain silent.
Poets in a realm of violence, we aspire to be broken.
Dreamers in a universe of possibility, we wish to be grounded.
Sanctity in a world lacking truth, we yearn for you.

Video games are absolutely art. It’s the new expression, I think, of our times, where it combines music, cinematography, 3D art, everything together into one piece. — Mike Capps

Mike Capps of Epic Games is retiring:

It’s hard to believe I’m writing these words, but here goes! After 10 crazy and wonderful years, I’m handing off my current presidential duties at Epic, and transitioning into an advisory role as well as remaining on the Epic board of directors.

You will be greatly missed, Mike Capps. Godspeed.

I just saw David Cronenberg’s, “Cosmopolis” at the Art theater. I am centered.

Combined with the inspirations offered by witnessing Philippe Petit in person three times this week, I am peaceful in being… Me… Perhaps, however I feel “in the moment” is a better choice of words. I am liberated.

Be weird.

While watching Cronenberg’s, “Cosmopolis”, I had a further centering moment. When Packard is walking up the stairs, gun in hand, towards Richard’s apartment, I was there. I was the director. I was David Cronenberg. I could see the ACs, the DP, the cinematographers — the entire crew. I felt what it would be to direct such a film.

I felt at home.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. — Steve Jobs

Watts Martin,

In a comment, John refers to the idea of the “allow access to the address book?” dialog box option as “security theater,” and it is—to the same degree the one for location services is. In both cases, it’s telling you something you probably should have known already (“what do you mean the Yelp app needs location services to figure out what businesses are around me?”), and none of us have any blessed idea what data any of those apps are sending back to their servers even with those dialog boxes.

Good designers use dialogue boxes minimally, yet sometimes we are forced to implement “checkpoints” for reasons none other than passing the buck. “You chose to give us your information!”

This isn’t to say that there aren’t valid reasons for having these checkpoints, but as explained above, they don’t tell us what is being done with that information. The answer to this is developer responsibility. Developers need to create a bond of trust with their users by crafting solutions that take their user’s emotions and respect into account. They need to realize the threat of breaking this trust, understanding the risks of alienating their user base. This threat of abandonment, in turn, is the check-and-balance provided by the user.

Inundating the user with “policies” is not the answer.

Comfort Zones are a dangerous place to lie. They deceive, they thwart. They promise consistency and predictability at the cost of high risk and high reward. Life is painful. Thinking is painful. Existing is painful. Fortunately we have been equipped with adaptation, the ability to subvert pain through constant exposure. Pressure: They say it maketh a diamond.

We toil in the mines of data, seeking to extract a better version of ourselves; one we can sell at a higher price to the covetous and the void — one we can sell to ourselves. We are the living strata of the earth, and yet we wish nothing more than to be lifeless, inanimate objects of subjective worth. If to live is better than to be lifeless, then surely it is better to be more than ourselves, more than human. Such a thing should come at a high price. We value our time. We value our assets. We do not value ourselves. Were we to do so, we would appreciate high risk and high reward. Within our very spirits would begin a fundamental change rooted in becoming the very high price we seek.

Discipline, restraint, and personal responsibility are the pillars of Human 2.0. We can not continue to exist as a self-proclaimed intelligent species when our behavior is modeled after that of the virus. We aren’t even respectful enough to be parasites. We feast until we die.

TV, Internet, information. We feast in new forms as they emerge. Where we once left physical waste, we now leave delusion, aggression, and division. We are not good enough to merit the title, “virus”, for at least a virus has a purpose. In our current form, we have none. Perhaps we are the Earth’s punishment for its transgressions.

Some predict a great change to occur in 2012, proclaiming the end of the world; others see it as the end of our current form. These prophets of prediction are a dime a dozen. Be wary of the public prophet, for they desire only to serve their ego. Listen carefully to the silent. They speak in words that need not be heard.

Wake. Eat. Work. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Sleep. Again. The pattern repeats itself. Every day is exactly the same for those of us in a sick-cycle carousel. Wake, in our comfortable beds. Eat, from our comfortable stoves. Work, in our comfortable offices. Sleep, in our comfortable beds. It matters not whether these environments are physically comfortable. If it is routine, it is a comfort. We write checks from our couches and pews for to help the needy with idle hands would require discomfort. We shop online for to deal with others would distress ourselves. We captivate our minds with the Gehennas of the Internet for to step outside would require embracing reality. Reality is not as we would make it, so we bury our noses in our phones.

The Devil smiles… And we are left none the wiser.

Leena Rao at TechCrunch,

Users tap “Watch with eBay” and type in their zip code, cable provider, channel and the program they are currently watching; and using show and event-specific key word searches, the app will surface relevant merchandise from the more than 200 million listings available on the eBay marketplace.

Very interesting idea. While I find the idea of using an iPad while watching TV distracting, providing it’s a show I care about, it’s good to see eBay thinking outside of the box, transending mediums to promote its service through potentially useful features.

Every time Skype releases an update for the Mac, a glimmer of hope wells up in me. Could this be the version in which we finally get back the wonderful Skype 2.x OS X interface?

Alas, disappointment dawns as not only are we greeted with the awful, I-would-fire-the-designers-in-a-heartbeat Skype 5 interface that, unfortunately, Windows users have had to endure for even longer than we Mac users, but the UI/UX has been made worse, cluttered with features that take away from the joy of making a simple, high-quality call over the Internet.

“Man-in-the-middleware” at its finest.

Rest in Peace, Steven Paul Jobs. You were an inspiration to many, myself included.