Apple still being Apple

I know I’m late to the party but here’s Apple’s latest ad:

And here’s a pretty good write up about it. Definitely a risky ad and I’m not entirely sure Apple hit the mark here.

What Happened to Science Fiction?

I’ve always been a huge science fiction (SF) fan in all mediums - books, computer games, TV shows and movies. However, when I stop and take stock of the current state of SF landscape - I can only weep.

On the seldom occasion when I go to the book store I go through an emotional roller coaster of sadness and anger. Anger when I go to the SF section and notice that it doesn’t even warrant its own section separate from Fantasy (yes they are similar but I’m still of the opinion that SF should have it’s own section). And sadness, when I see the size of the SF section and then anger again when I see that the SF section consists spin off novels like Halo, Warhammer or Star Wars and their ilk.

And finally sadness. Sadness that quality SF books are incredibly hard to find these days.

Where did all the Isaac Asimovs, Arthur C. Clarkes, Larry Nivens, Jerry Pournelles, Robert A. Heinleins, Iain M. Banks, Philip K. Dicks of yesteryear go? Where are the SF novels that ask hard questions? Stories that create universes and invent and take technologies to extremes to explore the human condition (the true purpose of SF in my humble opinion).

I want to think when I read a SF novel.

I don’t want a nine book series where each book is longer than the last, with a story that could have probably been told in a single book. I also don’t want endless rehashes of the same idea. No. I want the author to weave their own commentary about the culture and the world today by taking some science or technology to the far-reaching place. Show me a dystopia or utopia that shows the perils of the current path human society is taking,

The movie front isn’t much better with movie studios demonstrating a strong tendency towards safe films that are all style and no flash. The latest JJ Abraham’s reboot of Star Trek is a prime example of this. Granted, the first movie I admit was OK, I even liked the funky way Leonard Nimoy was written into the plot and Karl Urban was perfectly cast. However, the second movie was the kind of beautifully shot (lens flare!) crappy action movie that I have come to loathe.

Granted there is the occasional diamond in the rough SF movie such as Sunshine or District 9. But if they can dumb down ruin a good ending such as the one for I Am Legend. It can only mean a a difficult path for any future SF film that doesn’t rely on action scenes or gimmicks as a crux.

And finally TV…SciFi on TV is probably the worst of the lot. Quality SF shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek Next Gen and DS9, Babylon 5, Firefly, Farscape and Stargate are essentially an extinct species. I can’t even think of any current TV show that is set in space.

Instead the SyFy channel in their infinite wisdom has decided that quality content such as wrestling, made for TV movies and reality TV is the SciFi content we are all desperate to see. And shows like Caprica or Stargate: Universe are cancelled just when they begin to hit their straps and are even denied a resolution to a show ending cliffhanger to end the series in at least some satisfying way.

Maybe one day I’ll get around to writing that book I’ve always wanted to and reinvigorate the SF genre (hey it could happen). But if that never happens all I can say is: can somebody else please bring back the real science fiction?

A Dolphin’s Tale: The Story of GameCube

Amazing article about the GameCube.

“Microsoft is going after performance only, and does not understand that the game is played with software. A Nintendo is ultimately a toy. It is the most advanced machine for playing games, and it is totally different from the Microsoft product. It is just like trying to compare a sumo wrestler and pro-wrestler; they play by totally different rules. We do not consider Microsoft to be our competitor,” said Yamauchi.

Sums up why I love Nintendo and why they’re struggling of late. I dearly hope they can turn it around before it’s too late.

Yet Another JavaScript Rant

So I have recently given into the hype and I’ve begun playing around with JavaScript a bit more lately. And yes I know there are already many many rants about it if you look hard enough. So I obviously thought to add my thoughts to the opinion soup.

There are two main problems I have with JavaScript. My first beef is that JavaScript as a language is loose - very loose. As a consequence JavaScript does not promote writing clean and easy to read code. This is a very bad thing as programmers are generally very lazy and they often have tight deadlines to deal with too. This has lead to the re-emerging of age old discussions about how to maintain large code bases and avoid the tar pit. Various tools and libraries like promises or strict mode have improved things but I just can’t see the language’s essential problems being overcome.

JavaScript is still however, very good for smaller projects as it’s looseness allows for a lot room for kludging to help get things working. But now with the rise of technologies such as jQuery and Node.js in particular, JavaScript is now on a supersonic hype trajectory.

This segways nicely onto the second major problem I have with JavaScript. Given this explosion of JavaScript libraries and Node.js projects means there is a tendency for “one size fits all”-itis. Where JavaScript/Node.js are ham-fisted into projects - where they probably shouldn’t be - in the never ending quest of using the shiniest and newest technology that all the cool kids are doing.

This clearly not a case of using the right jobs for the tool and unfortunately it can be almost impossible to get your voice heard over the hype. One can only hope that as the JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem matures further that the design flaws are overcome and not exacerbated, lest we end up with a large and unwieldy hammer that only builds houses with upside down roofs.

Snapchat Security Disclosure

Given the latest update to the GibSec Snapchat API:

Using our Snapchat API implementation, someone could save media sent to them, DoS Snapchat users, and as we recently found, build a database of Snapchat usernames and phone numbers, connecting names to aliases easily, and with further work connecting social media accounts to entries.

We also found that if someone was able to gain access to Snapchat’s servers, they could easily view, modify or replace snaps sent. With a couple of lines of python, someone could view all your unread messages, and depending on the situation, modify and even replace the images completely.

Firstly, it makes me glad I never downloaded the Snapchat app. And secondly, I’m thinking there’s probably a really cool project using this with OpenCV and scikit-learn (two libraries I’ve always wanted to play around with) if I have the time (read: I probably won’t). It’d be nothing malicious, just classifying the pictures as cat or non-cat.

Betting Snapchat will soon be regretting not taking Facebook’s $3 billion.