There’s a TV show on PBS called Sid the Science Kid. It is, without a doubt, one of the most formulaic, inspid shows on the network. The fact that it whips a little science on the viewers is great, but the characters are flat, the plot is predictable and the voice acting is terrible.
Each episode begins with Sid, the computer animated muppet, waking up in his bedroom. He heads downstairs to the kitchen where his always perky family feeds him. By the time he’s ready to go to school, he has identified a question that he wants answered (why does the banana get mushy? for example). After breakfast, he is driven to school by his mother, and they sing a song about how mom is cool. Sid then gets dropped off at school, and the song changes to one about finding his friends. Same songs, same animation, same three-minute-or-so sequence in each episode. After he finds his friends – the perky redhead, the wispy Asian stereotype and the dullard – Sid and the others are herded into the classroom by Teacher Susie singing yet another song.
Over the next few minutes, we come to realize a few things. This must be a magnet school in a very, very rich area because there are only four students in the class, and the school is decked out with whatever science equipment they need. Science is the only subject taught in school, and there is no lesson plan – whatever Sid thinks of in the morning is what Teacher Susie teaches the kids about. After Teacher Susie gives the lesson (the banana gets mushy because of decay), the kids go home. Sid always gets picked up by his Grandmother, who has the most annoying laugh in the history of kids’ television. Once home, Sid tells the family what he learned, and the show wraps – sometimes with Sid going to bed, which is a little weird.
That’s my view as a 34-year old adult.
You know what my 4-year old daughter gets out of it? “Daddy, do you know why the pumpkin near the front door looks all squishy like that? Because of decave.” Okay, she meant decay, but she’s four, so we correct her and are impressed that a kid her age has an understanding of the concept of decay.
The moral of the story is this: don’t over-analyze things – and not just when it comes to kids’ television. Realize that your perspective is completely different than that of other people (especially kids). Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar.
Except Barney the Dinosaur. That’s just evil personified.
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But I still hate to watch that show with her.
The 2009 Holiday Gift Guide is out, and it’s full of cool geeky gift ideas for the Dad in your life. How about some Bacon Salt? Page 9. Maybe your geek Dad would like the new book, Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk. Page 4. You’ll definitely want to check out the Star Wars Tauntaun sleeping bag on page 3, and the DVD sets from Signing Time on page 5 make awesome gifts for parents with young children.
The Holiday Gift Guide is 12 pages of awesome, so download it today and pass it around. If you’re the geek Dad, this is the perfect way to make shopping easy on your friends and family. Just email them the PDF and tell ‘em, “hey, this is the stuff I like!”
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Now you know what to buy us.
Imagine you are a software developer, a writer, or an artist. You have something to sell. You walk into a boardroom, a party, or a social gathering where people are interested in what you’ve got to say about your product. Chit-chat is encouraged, people are making small talk. You talk about yourself and talk up your product a bit. You want these people to take an interest in you and your product.
You wouldn’t, if you have any sense at all, start mouthing off about the scumbag Democrats who are forcing their socialist agendas on “us” hard-working Americans. You wouldn’t go on about how Obama is stealing our money, is going to throw people in jail for not buying government health care, and wants to control every aspect of our lives. You wouldn’t go on about how the only people exercising a government health care option would be lazy freeloaders, just like those on welfare and imply that we should be burning flags as a form of protest. You wouldn’t, if you had a brain in your head, jeopardize the success of your product and your business over your inability to keep your mouth shut about politics in a room full of people who are not there to discuss politics.
So why the hell would you do it on Twitter?
I followed someone, until this morning, because I wanted to hear about his software development. I liked reading what he wrote about his life and times. What I don’t like reading is hatred and venom (and it was pure hatred, thick and rich) directed toward people like me, people who believe that while government may not be perfect, helping those less fortunate is a virtue. Say what you like about health care reform, but there is a time and a place for everything, and while you may think that everyone who follows you wants to hear your rants, you’re wrong.
Look, believe whatever you want. Say whatever you want. I’m not suggesting that people should censor themselves if they want to use Twitter as a soapbox. Just make sure you understand the consequences. You’ll lose followers, and maybe because I’m not getting updates about your software anymore I’ll end up using a competitor’s product. When the vast majority of your followers are only doing so because of the software you’ve written, understand that when you piss them off, they’re going to leave.
Worse than that though? I’m an affiliate for this particular product. Piss me off, and maybe I’ll start promoting your competitors (and there are a lot to choose from). You still want to bitch about health care on Twitter? Even if it costs you sales? Are you sure mixing business and personal is the best route to take?
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Seriously considering ditching Twitter
This post is being written on my iPhone using the WordPress iPhone app – which I would link to if it weren’t such a hassle.
That is my major gripe about the app, and it’s one that can’t be stressed enough: writing HTML on the iPhone (on any phone, I imagine) is an exercise in frustration. I suppose if you are just dashing out a three-line post and have no need to link to any address you haven’t memorized, this might be okay. For those of us that write more than a paragraph per post, this is slow, clunky, and annoying.
When I write in web-based WordPress, I have in-theme previews available to me. The app says it “can’t retreive [my] theme” to show a proper preview. Web-based, I have multiple browser tabs in which to look up links, and all the power that being a Thesis user brings. I have none of that in ths app. Was I expecting any of that? Of course not. There is only so much you can squeeze into a smartphone screen and Automattic can only account for WordPress funtionality, not that of third-parties.
Image support? Not so much – only whatever is in your camera roll. Plugin support? Not at all. This app is basically good for a few things: writing short posts, managing comments, and making quick & small adjustments to existing posts and pages.
I think that it’s a good start, and useful in a pinch, but I don’t see this app getting a lot of use in it’s current form.
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Close but no banana.
I was struck by something that I read on Twitter a few minutes ago, and quickly realized that any reply I wanted to make would take more than 140 characters. What I read was “I want Google to make their GPS app an Android exclusive, stick it to Apple for GVMobile. iPhone users can spend $200 for TomTom app/cradle.”
Longer than 140: My first thought was that you’ve got to be pretty self-absorbed to wish ill on millions of iPhone users just because you’re unhappy about the Google Voice/Apple situation. You can live without Google Voice on your iPhone while a deal gets worked out. Then I thought that maybe that’s a little unfair… I know I’ve had similar feelings about companies and didn’t consider the existing user base. Plus, I’m not in the best mood this morning, so maybe I’m being a little uncharitable. So, I’ll leave it at this: in twenty years, when Google is the only thing left standing in the internet and telecommunications fields, we’ll look back and realize that maybe Apple standing up to Google wasn’t such a bad idea after all. We’ll say to each other, “remember when Google was a search engine and they didn’t control every aspect of our digital lives?”
I know it’s fashionable to bash Apple this year, but it’s starting to get old.
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Microsoft got investigated for less than what Google is doing.
With both legitimate marketers and spammers setting their sights on Twitter, it is only a matter of time before spam becomes a major problem.
Anyone at all can send you an “at” message, and unfollowing someone is a very final solution. What if you like 90% of what someone tweets but they throw in a few ads or sponsored tweets every now and then? Do you throw out the baby with the bath water?
There is a better way, at least for some desktop client users: filtering. With filters, you can block words or phrases; for example, a popular hashtag is #ad. Users should be commended for using that hashtag because it makes it easier for us to filter out their ads! I’ll show you how filtering works on two desktop Twitter clients. Unfortunately, this is not an option for the Twitter website or for tools like Power Twitter. I was very surprised, in researching for this article, to find that most clients don’t support filtering yet. Tweetdeck has supported it for so long that I foolishly assumed that other clients had followed suit by now. If you don’t use a client that supports filtering, you’re out of luck. Why not consider one of these tools? Continue Reading >
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Still waiting for the ultimate client
