Faruk At.eş

Apple Doesn’t Need “Something New”

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This post was originally published on Medium, where I may publish more things first until I finish my redesign.

The tech industry wants something new so they can continue to avoid addressing real-world problems

Tom Krazit, writing for GigaOm:

Let’s hope [Apple’s] next breakthrough comes soon. Technology is a more interesting subject when we’re all watching something new and exciting bloom.

Krazit is partly right: technology is a more interesting subject whenever Apple releases something amazing. But Apple does not exist for the entertainment of tech geeks, nor does it release products for their amusement or discussion.

What troubles me is this belief being echoed around tech blogs and communities over and over again, with so much time spent and wasted on the latest Apple rumors, how Google or Samsung are beating Apple, or anything along those lines. 

Sure, these are interesting subjects, but not new at all. Apple has been around for 37 years, and during that time they’ve been one of a handful of key companies revolutionizing the world through technology. Of course we’d like more revolutionary products; there’s nothing wrong with that.

But there’s a world of 7 billion people out there who can benefit from products not made by Apple. There are gigantic social, economic, environmental and political problems to be solved all over the world. Technology—through both hard- and software—often plays a critical role in facilitating people to address these problems, sometimes even solving them through technology outright.

Om Malik and Nick Bilton both just wrote about the echo chamber of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and how it leads people to focus on minute problems that only really matter to those who live within the echo chamber. News and media reporting contributes to this; while it’s great to see Tim Cook talking about Apple and what it is up to, it is unlikely that Apple will solve the hunger crisis, or the climate crisis and the slow, global collapse of our environment. Similarly, Apple likely won’t solve oppressive governments or fix income inequality. But all of these problems need to be solved. 

I write this not to disparage or not acknowledge the incredible work done by those companies and people in technology who already aretrying to address these bigger problems; I’m writing this to encourage many, many more people to follow suit. And if you need any inspiration, here are some ideas.

The Worst Thing You Can Call A White Guy

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This post was originally published on Medium, where I may publish more things first until I finish my redesign.

Louis C.K. is one of the smartest comedians of today, and one popular segment of his, called Being White, helps explain why. In this bit he talks about—and acknowledges—the benefits of both white and male privilege:

“I’m a white man—you can’t even hurt my feelings.” C.K. then continues: “What can you really call a white man that really digs deep? ‘Hey, cracker!’?” But no: “‘Ugh, bringing me back to owning land and people, what a drag.’” 

Of course, the common answer is that the worst thing you can call a white guy is that he’s privileged. Yet that only holds true for people (not just white men) who are in denial about their privilege. Not everyone is.

One of my favorite scenes in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean is when Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner have successfully stolen a ship, and are on their way to Tortuga. Will finds out Jack knew his father, but doesn’t believe him when Jack says his father was a pirate. What Jack then says is poignant and powerful for Will (emphasis mine):

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you’ll have to square with that some day.

We are all privileged, and we will all have to square with that some day—whether we like it or not, lest we deprive our lives of real humanity.

It is impossible not to be privileged at all, for you would have to be born and raised across five different continents, subscribe to multiple religions and no religion, be disabled, be multi-racial, be short and tall at the same time, be politically ambiguously affiliated, allergic to most things, suffer most chronic, neurological and hereditary diseases, fat and malnourished, be both young and old, have no access to healthcare, education, technology, transportation or support, and be a refugee of most countries. Gender, race, sexuality, class, ability, culture, geographical environment, the society in which we live…everything that plays a part in our lives can be a privilege for us, but those privileges are not granted to everyone equally, sometimes not at all.

We all have some privileges—and some have many more than others—but no two privileges are of equal importance or significance.

Calling someone privileged who has already squared with that doesn’t do much harm, if any. And I would argue that today, the base level for being a good model citizen and contributor to our society is, among other things, a readiness to acknowledge one’s vast array of privileges.

People who readily acknowledge their privileges are likely trying to be a good ally to people who have fewer privileges. Now, these people can’t call themselves a good ally any more than they can call themselves not a racist or sexist person. It is not up to them to claim these titles, any more than it is up to someone else to self-proclaim themselves a leader, or a Senator, or the President of the United States. 

Aside: of course there is a big difference here. Not being racist is not a position of power, but it is a matter of not abusing one’s privilege in order to gain undeserved power. After all, most major -isms are used in a societal, systemic way to exert unjust power and control over groups. But I digress.

So rather than calling them privileged, you call them a terrible ally. It is rather effective, as it acknowledges them in full while challenging them on the one thing they can basically not deny—much like calling someone who’s in denial, privileged.

Fortunately for your target, the lessons learned in accepting one’s privileges can be reapplied in this scenario, so they should know that they can be a terrible ally one day, while still being a good one the next. But the win is still yours, because they will either acknowledge or prove that you were right—and with some luck, they go on to be a better ally the next time round, to the benefit of everyone.

Flickr Old Skool Badges, New Edition

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Back when Flickr was acquired by Yahoo!, my good friend Dan Rubin created old-skool badges for those who had been around since the early days of Flickr and who were eventually forced to use Yahoo IDs to log in. The “old skool” badge was a symbol for oldtimers, some who were unhappy with the Yahoo ID requirement, others who simply thought it was a nice reminder of how long they’d been a Flickr member.

With today’s brand new Flickr design comes a bigger profile photo, which highlighted just how old the old skool badge really was. 48x48 pixels no longer looks okay, so with Dan’s blessing I recreated the Flickr old skool badges for the modern age, at 500x500 pixels. You can download a Photoshop file of all six badges, and see them in action below or on my Flickr page.

In keeping with Dan’s original work, these badges have no usage restric­tions, just credit me and link back here if you alter and redis­trib­ute them, and don’t redis­trib­ute the orig­i­nal ver­sions (link directly to this blog post).

Download the PSD

If you use it, feel free to Flattr this free resource

Presentate: Ready for the Stage

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Last summer we introduced Presentate, online presentation software built in HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Presentate is created from the ground up for today’s interconnected, web-driven world.

We raised a small amount of friends & family money to get us on our way, and bootstrapped a comprehensive editing and publishing platform for presentations. Presentate is more than just a presentation layer in the browser, and more than a creation app. Presentate will also help you become a better presenter, share and connect with your audience, better understand them through powerful analytics, and much, much more.

A sneak preview has been available on presentate.com for a few months. We’ve had thousands of people sign up for our beta, and we're excited to let our early adopters try their hand at making presentations.

While we're opening Presentate up to individuals, we also want to talk with companies to find out more about their needs and wants, and see how Presentate can fit into their workflows. If your company wants to explore a great new way to create and share presentations, make better pitches, and be more effective selling and marketing to customers, get in touch now.

Job opening: Business Development (summer hire or full time)

Additionally, we are looking to fill a Business Development role with someone who is passionate about communication technologies, productivity software, and the presentation space in general. Ideally, this person is a self-starter with previous enterprise sales experience who is interested in being an early hire at a new startup. Are you this awesome person? Reach out! We’re looking forward to meeting you.

Project 365 x 52

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A couple of years ago I attempted Project 365, but didn’t quite finish it fully. For 2013 I am trying it again, because my iPhone 5 is a lot more portable than the DSLR I was limited by back then, and allows me to upload on the spot—something which was the main source of interruption last time. I’m also adding a twist: 52 themes, segmenting every week of the year. So this will be my Project 365 x 52, with each original photo uploaded to my Flickr account, and also my Instagram (as long as they behave themselves).

This post will be updated as weeks go by and more themes get decided upon. I may open it up for requests on Twitter from time to time, we’ll see.

52 Topics

1. Beginnings
2. Utility
3. Urban Elements
4. Games
5. Light
6. Colors
7. Patterns
8. San Francisco
9. Macro
10. Perspective
11. Collections
12. Graffiti
13. Frames
14. The City
15. Fun with friends
16. Contrast
17. Poland
18. Vancouver
19. Signage
20. Random
21. Angles
22. Improvisation
23. Architecture
24. Close-up
25. Filters