Why I love books
The exuberant kiss spontaneously bestowed upon any of my recently acquired books leaves me without doubt that books add value to my life. Unfortunately it also leaves some people doubting my sanity but I guess you can’t have it all.
Walking past a closed book stores stirs up something deep inside of my young heart something akin to the sense of dull emptiness one feels when walking past an old graveyard; and in a sense, these are old graveyards symbolic of the passing away what was once loved and cherished.
What do I love about books? Is it the pages feel in my hands, the way I can crease, dogear, scribble hasty notes in the margin as I mark my current intellect property – or intellectual camp-ground perhaps – and see in those aged pages traces of our relationship? The metlink ticket used as bookmark in the science book I read during summer holidays as a 16 year old, the wrinkled cover of my most loved, most lived-with novels, all symbolic of the history and ingratiation into my life….
I’m quietly wildly nostalgic and sentimental when it comes to books in general – something about clutching onto the idea a time when people had time to read and ponder a single subject from beginning to end. Undeniably,infallibly reading books in their traditional format offer more time to let the subject matter ‘sink in’ and in the online world or with e-books, attention is easily seduced by a dozen things at once. A good book is a long term relationship that changes you indelibly; browsing online articles is an intellectual fling, a one-night stand, a flirtation with information that calls for no solid commitment or intense attention.
You might offer protests to my romantic notions. And perhaps they are correct. Perhaps books in their traditional format are not the superior treasures I believe them to be.
But as love, as they say, is blind.
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(William Shakespear)
Apple; why I won’t take one byte
Often at college when people are trying to impress me with their new fancy shmancy sleek new iPhone/MacBooks etc and I express my disdain for Apple and it’s cult, people stare back with looks of blank confusion or horror tinged with anger that makes me wonder if I’m about to be stoned to death. Luckily Avondale College is a Christian tertiary institution and even though it’s not explicitly stated in the student handbook, I’m fairly confident that’s it’s not really allowed, along with a whole list of other things… But I digress. My personal opinion is that Apple is evil, but I realize that asserting this generally just makes me seem a. uncool b. behind the times or c. an opinionated so-and-so with little sense! In an attempt to explain my mysterious abhorrence of Apple and its products (which seem to be as abundant as bacteria nowadays), I decided to outline a few reasons why I refuse to take a bite of the Apple…
In case you didn’t realize, Apple is currently THE most valuable company in the world, being valued at $337,174billion in August this year (2011). The aphorism “”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” pops into mind as being apt…
To be fair, Apple has come up with some pretty cool stuff. In addition to this they’ve certainly got the PR side of things covered, as well as being an awe-inspiring example of the power of effective marketing. This article is not attempting to debate the delights or frustrations of the various products or Apps Apple may have to offer. I’ve played Angry Birds; I know it’s fun… I’m not saying their products are ALL bad.
But the Apple is rotten at the core, and what follows is just a sample of the how far and how deep the rottenness extends. For example back in 2008, Apple blocked the development of a humanitarian attempt in which players could turn in-game winnings into food for starving people. Developed by Something Inc., “The game would fight poverty and help environmental causes in the real world by turning game prizes into real-life help for social and environmental causes.” The reasoning behind trying to crush Glupod was that apparently the name “Glupod” sounds too much like Apples iconic iPod ( which incidentally Apple now admits it didn’t even invent …And they refused to give the deserving inventor of the concept money/compensation, despite Apple making millions and the inventor Kane Krammer having to sell his business and home and rent a house).
The internet may have turned our brains to mush, and I don’t know about you but personally I doubt I’ve lost it enough to get and Ipod mixed up with Glupod. It’s certainly not like I’d be shopping in Harvey Norman for an iPod (God forbid) and I’d accidentally end up with Glupod products in my basket is it? Incidentally it seems that despite the hurdles, Glupod is now up and running, However it’s just one of many examples of the monsterous companies’ dictatorial Nazi-esque control-freakism in action.
Isn’t it exciting waiting to get your hands on your very own one of the latest iPhones/iPads etc? The speculative hype about what new features/upgrades will have been integrated into the coming product which is certain to be faster, slimmer, and more remarkable; the allure of possessing something so very sleek, sexy and sophisticated that hints that you’ve made it into the “in” posse somehow… But even once you’ve walked out of the store after handing over you hard-earned money in a dopamine-induced, dizzily-happy stupor and are gazing love-struck at the object of your hearts latest desire, do you actually have complete independent ownership of your new gadget? Thanks to the wonders of wireless technology, you are now invisibly tied to the puppet strings of the Apple headquaters. Anything you wish to install on your gadget must have the stamp of approval from the Apple company. And should you at any point rebel against the authoritarian monitoring of what is and is not permissible for you to do and jailbreak your trendy new iPhone, if Apple had their way they would slap you with the decidedly unsexy title of “terrorist”. Yes, that’s right; apparently jailbreaking your iPhone is a threat to national security and can be used to shield terrorists and crash cell phone towers. Thankfully despite Apple filing a complaint along those lines in an attempt to extend their power to be able to seek n destroy any of the sheep straying from the fold , the US Federal regulators denied their claim declaring there was: ““no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model.” Of course jailbreaking means your warranty is voided, so if anything goes wrong Apple will not cover any damages or malfunctions that may occur. But Apple may still have a final evil last laugh even once you have escaped their restrictions and decided to switch to another phone carrier or install unapproved applications like <gasps> Microsoft Office or even something that does not have the same “enemy” tag attached to it as Microsoft products would. In an perplexing demonstration of commitment to customer service, Apple has sent out “updates” designed specifically to disable phones that no are longer slaves to the companies dictatorship.<gasps>
More than three billion apps have been downloaded from the iPhone app store, and with such a plethora of apps being constantly spawned, one would hope that Apple would focus on controlling the quality of apps that keep popping up and minimizing useless cluttersome apps . Apps such as Hold the Button where the longer you hold a button the higher you score. GENIUS! However, Apple’s main focus seems to be about bringing about the destruction of anything that might attract users away from Appleland… Apps that resemble Apple or AT&T apps (and do a better job of it) are likely to feel the scourge of Apple’s wrath upon them: MailWrangler, PodCaster and, most famously, Google Voice have all been banned for “duplicating functionality.” Apparently Podcaster was rejected, “…since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.” A minor detail I’m sure they just accidentally forgot to include in that statement was thatPodcaster is a lot faster and more convenient for the end user, as it allows direct streaming or downloading of podcasts to the iPhone, whereas iTunes requires computer-based downloading followed by syncing. Regarding Mailwranger, the developer was informed “Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion.” Ahh, the confusion card again… Surely users deserve a bit more credit; it seems Apple sees it’s customers are as easily confused as babies in a topless bar. Or perhaps their rejection of MailWranger had something to do with the fact that MailWrangler enables you to manage multiple accounts and log into different accounts, switching back and forth between them as needed as well as use other Gmail features that aren’t supported by iPhones currently-existent mail program, such as starring messages, threading etc.
Instead of embracing and promoting new innovations, Apple has a record of stealing them and making them native to their platforms. And their platforms only. Apple remains in control of protocols and standards, stamping on open-sourcing and freedom as much as it can. They want you to invest all your time, money and energy on their systems and products and theirs alone. All the content you by on iTunes will work on Apple gadgets and Apple gadgets alone. And the longer you stay with them the stronger and deeper the ties become and that bind you to Apple’s headquarters. The empire of Apple is not a pleasant orchid of dreams and caring/sharing; it’s more like Communist Russia or Nazi Germany, only it’s reach extends globally.
Given it’s reach is global, it would be nice if Apple were to take a sincere interest in global social justice issues but this is not the case. They’ve admitted to using child labor in their factories that build their computers/phones/music players etc. And it seems as though working for Apple in some places is decidedly miserable. Although here in Australia we may be lucky enough to have spacious fun relaxing stores in the mall that are pleasant to work in, in China seven young workers committed suicide in May 2010 and at least 14 workers in total since May 2010 have suffered that fate, and another 20 were stopped before they had the chance to end their lives. Factories making iPhones and whatnot have come up with a caring approach and genius idea on how to manage this tragic issue: They now make staff sign pledges not to commit suicide. Gee, there’s a way to promote a vibrant positive corporate culture! Fancy showing up for your new job and being served something like that; not exactly a reassuring sign, is it? Should you become so crushed a depressed by working here , remember that suicide is not allowed and if you jump of a building we’ll fire you. Except by then you’ll be dead. Oops. Oh well, in that case we’ll punish your family too because by signing this “Anti-suicide pact” with us you’re agreeing that your family is only allowed to seek out the bare minimum in damages.” That’s bound to ease the pressure on these workers who are often subjected to working 12 hour days with only one day off in 13! As an extra precursory, anti-suicide nets have been strung up around the dormitory in which the workers reside. The Spokesperson for this situation, Loius Woo, provided further insight into working conditions saying that employees were ‘encouraged not to engage in conversations that may distract them from the attention needed to ensure accuracy and their own safety’. And what constitutes “conversation that may distract…”? All conversation it seems. As Zhu Ghuangbing commented in The Telegraph “Hundreds of people work in the workshops but they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you talk, you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined.” Is it any wonder these workers are depressed? To Apple, people are expendable, less valuable than the machines they are producing/assembling on behalf of the company.
I’ll start dismounting from my soapbox now…
Paid-for downloads are by no means unique to Apple, but none has the credit card details of so many internet users who are accustomed to paying for online content. Hence Apple hold unparallelled power in this regard. The invention of the iPad sparked hope in the hearts of proprietors of print magazines when it first appeared. Finally there was a way of getting people to pay for online content: just make it available on iTunes and let Apple collect the money. Doubtlessly it rankled that Apple took 30%, but that seemed tolerable… But all of a sudden Apple abruptly decided to thrash out some new rules, stipulating that any publisher selling a digital subscription on a website must also make the same subscription offer within the app, from which Apple would take a 30% cut. Publishers loath this but there’s nothing they can do about it. If they want to do business with the iTunes store, then they have to do it Apple’s way.
And despite the fact that they name their gadgets with names like “iPod” and “iPad”, what I would want as an Apple user would be restricted to what Apple wanted and I would become caught up in doing things the Apple way, which I’ve provided a small snopshot of in my above rant.
References/further reading:
http://www.switched.com/2009/07/30/apple-ignores-real-threat-to-iphone-security-makes-up-fake-one
/http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/jailbreak/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-child-labour.html
Hello world!
Hello world,
I’m a tofu-loving, sleep-shunning, blonde-haired philosophising Uni student who is now adrift in cyberspace…
todaytofuture 