Social: Become A YouTuber or An Astronaut When You Grow Up

 Source: CNBC. 

Most children in the United States want a career as a YouTuber than other worthwhile professions. This this survey from Legos, professions in science has taken a backseat. In it unclear what options were made available to the children in the survey but what is clear is the shift in focus from the sciences to social media. I first across this survey in a podcast I was listening to a couple of days and going out consistent to what I see out there in the real world and on the Web. as a joke, I thought to myself that the best solution might be for the child to combine both. After thinking more about it, maybe that isn’t such a bad idea.  

Even at my ripe old middle age, if given the opportunity to go into space out or, even better,  a ride on Space X’s effort to build a city on Mars, I would take it before a heart beat is up. As a part of trying to new things each week and trying to push my physical strength, endurance, and health in general, I have been focusing on what I need in my mind and where my body needs to be at if given a chance to go into space or help man one of humanity’s first space outposts that allow civilians. 

After reading this CNBC article about the survey and my thought above about social media and becoming an astronaut, maybe I should give this a try - using YouTube or a podcast to talk about becoming an astronaut and trying to get out into space.

After all, we have people who have a professional day jobs and blog or put out a couple of podcasts a week. They talk or write about their work but other subjects of interest to them. For most of the podcasts I follow, most of the hosts still have day jobs that are means to what they do at nights and weeks - interesting in technology, science, gaming, and general news. I do not think the participants in a role playing podcast do what they full time. I doubt the podcast makes enough to supplement their incomes. 

Perhaps with today’s educational system, there needs to be a managed social component. 

Mobile Tip: Texting Myself Has Helped Me With Organization and Remember Quick Thoughts

Do you talk to yourself sometimes? I do. I talk to myself sometimes. Perhaps, I should talk to myself more often. The best way to do this in the mobile world is through texting yourself. That’s what I do on my iPhone with Messages. It could probably be done with any other app you choose to use. And it has been a great help in helping me keep track of some things while allow me to quickly post thoughts that I don’t want to forget the moment I walk into the house or out the the shower.

In essence, my messaging app has become my default personal and private (as much as I can keep it that way) feed for my daily life. 

I have included locations that I’ve been to that I want to revisit, where I parked my car, and where I want to visit for the first time.

I have also posted links to things that I want to check out later that day.

Other things that I have messaged myself includes quotes, ideas, things I want to consider more in-depth or research, and reminders. I get that there are already apps for that but is there anything out there that really pulls all these together. Your default messaging app is likely your most used app on your phone. It’s a no brainer that you would go to that app automatically because you’ve already got the muscle memory to do that.

In fact, this is not a new idea. There are a few other apps that I have used, Signal, Keybase, and GroupMe that allows self-messaging. Beyond that, they all work the same. So I imagine most other apps would allow self-messaging.  On the iPhone, Messages is my default messaging app on the iPhone so it’s what I use.

I’ll give you an example of how well this works for me. I was walking out of a supermarket with my wife when pointed to a sign about how shopping cart wheels lock up when take out of the parking lot. And I have tried it on the past and the wheels did lock up. In a hurry to get to our next stop, I did not have time to look it up right then and there. So I messaged myself to look up how this works when I get home.

Could I have done that using reminder? Yes. Will I look into it? There is a good chance I will do that but also a good chance that I’ll get distracted and this got pushed back. But since it was on messages, I saw it right away when I got home and looked it up later that evening.

By Arriving 4-5 Years Later, Apple's Fully Autonomous Car Will Try To Leapfrog the Auto Market and Force EV To Compete On Its Terms

  Today, Bloomberg was leaked by someone at Apple that the iPhone maker is still trying to become an iCar maker (I am pretty sure Apple's car will not be called the iCar) by trying to leapfrog competitors in a 4-5 years time frame. The thing about this is that it seems more of a plausible leak of Apple's actual plan rather than those spread by "sources" who in the past really does not seem to know what Apple's plans really are.

While it is typical for Apple car rumors to surface a couple of of times a year to give the stock a jolt upward, it is also typical for rumors of trouble from Asian sources that Apple cut iPhone production in the January quarter to drive the Apple's stock price down, what makes this leak more news worthy is that it seems to be what I think about how Apple will engineer and release a car. 

Apple is going to where no car company has gone before - a fully autonomous vehicle that require no direct control from a driver. If true, it will achieve something Tesla is coming close to do but not close enough. It will truly be revolutionary. If you think about it, despite the advances in build material, engineering, and design, the automobile has not really changed much at all.

Now, Apple will not be interested in a Tesla killer. It will not try to muscle in on the car market with another "me, too" vehicle. Unless Apple can bring something to the market that has more to offer than what is already out there, Apple will not do it. This is why Apple's car project, aka Project Titan, has been around for years not without anything to show for it. 

Sure, Apple can design an awesome looking car and complete with Tesla, Mercedes, BMW, and probably Lucid, the car that Apple seemed to have been rumored to release did not seem to offer anything new. What made today's Bloomberg article about Apple's car more plausible is this - no steering wheels or pedals. Now, that just seem crazy, right? But for an intelligent car that can safely navigate Los Angeles traffic, it would have to be truly revolutionary and do something no other car is capable of.

I'm old school about my car so I cannot imagine ever buying a car that I do not have control over. But wait a minute. Steering wheels and gas/break pedals have been around since the Model T and nothing has changed. It's likely that if the Bloomberg article is true, it means that Apple has indeed come up with a way, maybe better or not, for passengers to navigate the Apple car on the road without the need for a steering wheel or pedals.

Impossible? Well, isn't SpaceX's Dragon capsule sending astronauts into space using iPads in space? Suppose Apple has found a way for iPhone or iPad to allow passengers in the Apple car to navigate traffic to get the intended destination.

There is a caveat here: Apple could be blow smoke screens with this leak to Bloomberg and make its competitors waste resources on something Apple itself is not working on or it not actually going to delivery in 2025 as the leak suggests. From a strategic sense, someone at Apple may believe this leak works for Apple. I would not want to venture a guess as to what that advantage is.

Why do I think that? Well, no steering wheels and pedals. Completely no human operators whatsoever. Perhaps Apple is rethinking the whole idea of transportation. What they are coming up with isn't a car at all but a whole new type of vehicle that is truly autonomous and controlled by an iPhone or iPad. Yes, such a car still need some kind of input from the passengers. And if there is more than one passenger and with multiple destinations, the Apple car will find a the best and safest way to get passengers to their destinations.

Apple will be completing with the EV companies as well as traditional car companies that are trying to evolve into EV companies. Apple is not going to compete against them. These companies are very good at what they do and are entrenched. Maybe Apple might succeed in a minor manner with a regular EV car running of version of iOS. But it means it will be competing on someone else's terms. That is not how Apple has competed in the smartphone market or the watch market. It will bring something truly revolutionary or it will not. 

LG Foldable Glass Is A Good Start But Imagine Its Third or Fourth Version

 Source: Engadget.

When Apple came out with the original iPhone and spoke about how great the first version of the Gorilla Glass from Corner was, I tried to imagine what it would be like five versions down the line. It would be so strong and scratch resistant that, well, it would eventually be crack and scratch resistant, right? Just like this new LG foldable glass, the first generation is promising but I don't know if it will live to up expectations. So, I wonder what the third or forth generation of this foldable glass will be like. To do that, we will have to visit the first time we were told about how strong the original iPhone glass was.

When Steve Jobs went on stage to unveil the iPhone to the world for the first time, it was also the first time we have ever heard of Gorilla Glass from Corning. We heard later about how Apple with with a plastic screen during the prototype stages and how bad the screen became as a short period of use and how Apple went to Corning and Steve Jobs warped Corning's CEO into his reality distortion field and convinced him to give him something impossible.  And the Gorilla Glass was born. 

As far as I know, Apple is still using the Gorilla Glass from Corning. I think we can definitely say that the glass has improved vastly since 2007. I still get a small scratch here and there and continue to cringe each time I see a broken glass in an iPhone 11 or 12 on the Internet. We are not at the point of shatter resistant and through also more scratch resistant, today's Gorilla glass isn't quite there yet. 

So, with LG marketing about how good it's foldable glass is, I have to believe that they have some way of backing up all this talk, especially if Apple will use it one day. Apple will continue to demand only the best and, again, the impossible as far as how durable and scratch resistant the LG glass is going to be. Oh, and let's add crease free to that.

If what LG says is true about its foldable glass and Apple is impressed enough to use it, imagine what the third or fourth generation of the glass is going to be like. Imagine how impress and cool that would be. 

If it all goes according to plan, expect LG to start selling them to customers (ahem, Apple), in a couple of years. 

Should You Upgrade Or Get A Computer, Smartphone, New Car, Or Anything That Runs On A Computer Chip Amidst The Global Chip Shortage

 Source: CNBC.

We seem to be running now on a lot of things. Since this blog is geared more towards, the vast majority of readers probably are aware of the chip shortage for a while now. And with the Holidays coming, tech toys are likely to continue to be in high demand and should fly off the shelves as fast as retailers can stock them. And that's before we even get into the Black Friday discussions. Question is should you upgrade now? 

This reminds me of when a lot of Apple users who are not up with the in-and-outs of Apple's product release schedule and will ask if they should upgrade now or wait. The quick and easy question is upgrade when you need to. And if you can wait, why not? 

However, this chip shortage may be different. The disruption seems to be mostly in the car industry as car manufacturers slow or shut down plants due to chip shortages. Consumer electronics are affected but not to the extend of other markets. You can still get a PC, Mac, or smartphone that you want. Right now, the new Galaxy phones and iPhones are just going through the channels and some models are more difficult to find because of the pinned up demand for new models. There are posts out there that suggest the wait may be longer than past years. 

Let us not forget that media reports of these types are high unreliable and we will not know for sure until the tech companies report their financials for the current quarter to know what is really going on. Production relays are not unusual. Apple devices have taken longer than expected, at least those of public exceptions, and took longer to ramp up. Recent reports suggest that the new Apple Watch 7 which just became available for presale are limited in quantity and the reason seems to be a production issue rather than the result of a chip shortage.

This seems to be different than that of the car industry. If anything, the question about getting a car is a bigger one than if you should get the new game system now or wait for a Black Friday deal. And given that there is a global chip shortage, can you afford to wait too long? 

One other issue to consider beyond chips is the disruption in the supply chain. That is a bigger issue than if your car model is going to be available when you go into the car dealership. Your car, computer, Xbox, or Mac may be sitting on a ship that is currently dock off the coast of California waiting for its turn to have its cargo off loaded. There are good chances that they may not get into the retail stores or warehouses on time.

The chip shortage and supply chain issues may be here to stay at least through all of 2022 and into 2023. Personally, I'm a good place now. I'm happy with what I have. This affords me the chance to sit back and wait to see what the next MacBook from Apple is enough to entice me to upgrade.

Work From Anywhere: Mac or PC

 Source: 9to5Mac.

During the work from home period of the pandemic last year, I had been using my personal MacBook from 2016 as my primary computing machine for work. Since returning to work in the office this June, I had been given a Windows laptop with an i7 chip, which I assume is at least towards the high end of the speed spectrum, with 16 GB of memory.  From my experience, if I was given a choice of a new Macbook with M1 or the Windows laptop, I think I would rather go with the MacBook.

The Windows laptop I was given was an HP laptop with a much bigger screen than my 12” MacBook. There were many advances in laptop technology in the last 5 years and the HP is faster with most operations. It had the advantage of a faster Intel ship, native software from Microsoft, and 16 GB of RAM to my 8 GB on the MacBook.  Plus, my Macbook was barely above 1 GHz.

So, my new Windows HP laptop is a monster, right?  Fearlessly chewing up Excel sheets while allowing me to open about 10 tabs on the default Microsoft browser, Edge, and playing a Youtube video of someone who recently visited Universal Studios, the real one in California, for Halloween without breaking a sweet.

Well, maybe. Maybe not. I could not really tell. See, while it did all that, I also was able to do the same on the Macbook with only 8 GB and an aging CPU vs 16 GB on the latest Intel chip. The Windows laptop was faster with a very large Excel file but I was still able to walk away, make coffee and get a snack and enjoy it before it was finished. With the MacBook, I had time to go for a run and come back and it would be finished. However, with the recent updates from Apple and Microsoft, the same Excel file was also faster on the MacBook as well.

And that same file on a Surface laptop? 16BG and whatever the high end option we could get from earlier in the year seemed to have to labor through those calculations. I think it is faster than my MacBook. I think.

So, I can see why companies that invest in getting Macs for its employees have a better return in the long run than those who go with the traditional Windows option. And this is just a small company I work for.  For enterprises with hundreds if not thousands of companies, they stand to save over $800 per user (see link above) over three years by going with a Mac because it needed less support and had a longer uptime without having to worry about the usual issues that come with machines running Windows.

Furthermore, the Forrester report finds that companies with Macs tend to have a higher worker retention as well as increase productivity. What if you are a small company with only a hand full of employees or going solo?

I still think the Mac is the way to go - the MacBook Air with M1 seems to be designed just for that. It has everything you need right out of the box - Safari for Internet access, Mail for emailing, and Apple’s suite of productivity apps, while far from perfect, are good alternatives to Microsoft Office. Furthermore, the computing environment we have today are nothing like those of the late-90s and the 2000s when even if companies want to deploy Macs, they could not because many applications were Windows only. Today, there is virtually a native Mac version of the top applications. On top of that, many applications can now be accessed through a browser. 

And let’s not forget about the native security features of the MacOS. As far as I know, there has not been a major ransomware hack of a company or government agency running Macs (I do not think there is a government agency in the world that operates with mostly Macs). (See Macworld UK). There are Trojan horses rather than traditional Windows viruses that require the user to do a few things like disabling security measures Apple have in place that keep them at bay. 

On the Windows side, if you’re mostly safe if you do not venture into the bad neighborhoods if you get my meaning.  Even then, there are things that could go wrong. And with hundreds if not thousands of employees, the risk is amplified when running Windows vs Mac. I keep to myself. I run whatever my work laptop is for. I have my iPad or iPhone with me when I need to do stuff that are not work related. I watch YouTube videos and that’s as far as I go with the work computer. And even then, I sometimes wonder if something has snuck in and running in the background without me knowing it just because it’s a Windows laptop.

I don’t have the same concern on a Mac.

Twitter's Communities Can Just Be Better Than Facebook But A Force For Positive Advocacy

 Source: Twitter, The Verge.

Twitter has been a tear lately with some new features and one of the most important one which could really be a breakout for Twitter is its version of communities to compete with Facebook and Reddit. As with anything social media these days, it could be useful or toxic like the spread of false information regarding election fraud or COVID vaccines. Twitter seems to have a good approach from what they are saying and what is on paper. It has to be a positive force for good, not simply better than Facebook.

Twitter is about making money for itself and creating value for shareholders. Twitter is now profitable and its stock has gone up a lot in the last year. Compared to Facebook, it is no where near where Facebook's profit and valuation is. So, Twitter has been trying a lot of new features in the last few years that can retain and engage users and encourage them to come back regularly rather than occasionally checking on their timelines.  That has been Twitter's problem. 

imagine an alternate timeline where everyone just gets you

say hi to Communities—the place to connect with people who Tweet like you. testing now on iOS and web, Android soon! pic.twitter.com/TJdKwUa4D2

— Twitter Communities (@HiCommunities) September 8, 2021

With Communities, it might have a winner.  Twitter seemed to have learned from the mistakes others have made and decided to go at it slowly. It is offering Communities on an invitation-only basis for now and will have qualified moderators. It is also rolling it out at a slower paces to work out any issues or bugs. 

And a slower pace that allows Twitter to do something important that Facebook and other communities have failed to do: others have allowed their communities to go unchecked and become havens for hate, conspiracy theories, and other harmful social platforms. This is not an issue about free speech. Political communities are probably going to be allowed on Twitter across the political spectrum - conservatives, liberals, or moderates. However, extremism must not be allowed to breed and foster on Twitter. Otherwise, Twitter Communities would be no different from from Facebook.

Also, Twitter needs to letting its communities turn into echo chambers and that rules are applied evenly across the board and respect the privacy of users.

Personally, I'm rooting for Twitter to flourish and be a real factor in the social media realm and I'm looking forward to trying Communities out.