All is Infinite

By Brian O'lyaryz

A Toaster isn’t a Peppermint

Facebook acquired Instagram and all the world’s aflutter.

The breaking (and apparently controversial) news projected me into a rather interesting conversation between Michael Norton and Adam Hyland. 1

The discussion quickly steered into the topic of “free” services like Instagram and Twitter. Adam responded to my quip with:

What chaps my ass about this whole “don’t do free” crusade is some products NEED to be free or they won’t work.

This might be nitpicking, and I’m probably building kingdoms on straw foundations, but I think “free” is a misleading term for some services. Google & Facebook make money from “free” — Instagram and Twitter do not. The latter, to me, is the truest form of “free”. You use the companies’ services as you please and they take nothing in return. It’s the digital equivalent to a bowl of peppermint candy at your local restaurant’s checkout counter.

Services like Facebook and Google are entirely different beasts. They farm user data and sell it to advertisers. When you make your money off of user data, your priorities shift. You start making decisions you would otherwise never make if you either charged for your product or truly gave away your services freely. Twitter or Instagram would never have tarnished their service the way Google crippled search with Google+. 2

But that’s because Google is playing an entirely different game than Twitter or Instagram. Google is a legitimate 3 company that earns profits, which is a sustainable business model. Gmail is the free toaster when you open a checking account at Bank of America. Twitter and Instagram are the single girls at the prom, hoping that “showing up” to the party alone might land them a date.

The flaw with Adam’s thinking is running a truly free service isn’t the goal, earning 30+ million users and draining financial resources isn’t a model to run a business. Instagram, Gowalla and Twitter can’t operate indefinitely this way. They either need to monetize their business or sell.

But that’s a risky hand and only a few players win.

  1. Both whom host the absolutely delightful podcast, The Impromptu. ↩

  2. Arguebly, the dick bar fiasco is a good counter-example, but that was quickly resolved since Twitter has a VC funding cushion to lean on. ↩

  3. I am regretting writing this sentence in real-time. A milestone, I’m certain. ↩

Christopher Hitchens: 1949 - 2011

This man spoke — nay — controlled English lexicon and prose like no other in our generation. His insight on world politics shook my bones and dusted off all mental glaucoma — I would see and think with new clarity with each editorial he penned.

When he spoke of the ignominious manipulation organized religion is capable of, I was moved, not angry. Because I was no longer bound by God, but embraced what I always attributted to deities, humanism and wonder of the cosmos.

Steve Jobs and Hitchens passed away roughly two months apart. These two men have largely contributed to who I am today, and I’ve never spoken to either of them. They are my heroes. I will think, contribute and create in the wake of these men.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Twitter Stories

A new site by Twitter. Charming, human. It’s everything I love about the internet.

A Decade Under the Influence

Tens years ago, four passenger jets were hijacked by religious terrorists. Three of them successfully collided into iconic buildings in New York City and Arlington, Virginia.

More importantly, nearly three thousand people died in said attacks.

But this isn’t about these people. I’m here to talk about the people that lived. The rest of us.

Humbly, beginning with me.

I was unaware of the severity this event held as it was happening. I was a newly minted high school freshman in Coral Gables Senior High. Sitting idled on my seat in Ms. Depaola’s english class. She picked up her phone as it rang, and became overtly distressed by the caller’s message. She quickly jumped from her seat and ran to turn on the television in the corner.

Everyone in the class saw a burning building.

I recognized that building. The World Trade Center. In nineteen ninety-six my father took the subway with my sister and me to Manhattan for Easter. There was a block party. New York is always busy but this seemed grandiose. Amongst the ocean of people, we saw a sad looking clown preforming with metal rings. He created a sphere and told a random kid “Hey look, it’s a Power Rangers Helmet.” Silly. Later, I saw them.

The buildings.

Looking at the two towers in awe, I exclaimed the extend of my literary prowess. “WOW.” Wow indeed. Despite my anemic lexicon, my dad understood exactly what I meant. They seemed so large to me. I distinctly remember seeing clouds blanketed around them. My father laughed and told me that it was merely fog, but I knew better. I was eight years and nine months old, damn it. I wasn’t a chump. He told me there was a terrorist bombing three years prior. Some angry people tried to bring the buildings, and the people that were in it, down.

Ms. Depaola requested everyone in class to lower their voices. Oddly, the room was already silent. Back to the television, we learned a plane had collided into the building. It didn’t seem that strange to me at the time. Hey, these things happened.

A second plane came into view.

I’ll always remember their faces.

What a peculiar noise, the sound of simultaneous gasps. I wonder how the classroom’s atmosphere reacted with the sudden loss of oxygen, ditto to the rapid introduction to carbon dioxide. I fill my conscious with these inane questions sometimes.

I was naive. I just couldn’t understand what this felt like to most Americans. Terrorist attacks around the world happen almost daily, I told myself. Murders happen daily. Days are filled with horrific events, serendipitous moments and normal occurrences. Why is this such a big deal?

In time, I learned.

Then, I learned some more.

After a while, I began to understand.

The process hasn’t finished, it probably never will.

I’m certain today will be filled with faux-patriotism, American flags, “Never Forget” t-shirts and meaningless inspirational propaganda. I don’t mean to criticize — I understand the reasoning. But reflection is merely a step, usually the first one. Discuss how you felt, talk about how you’re feeling about it today. Do you feel differently? I do.

I will reflect, but I will try not to mourn. I’ve done enough of that. There is only so much empathy I can give. The loss of life and the events that proceeded the attacks are overwhelming. But the one constant in our path towards the inevitable is:

Coping.

In a few hours I will wake up and walk my dog. I will drink a cup of coffee and enjoy breakfast with my wife to be. People will jog, fight, laugh and make plans that will never come in to fruition. It will be a day of normalcy. Life goes on. It was designed that way.

Now excuse me, I’m going to lay down next to the woman I love. The dog will be there too.

Mr. Seymour witnessed Lincoln's Death

In 1956, 96-year-old Samuel Seymour appeared on a game show called I’ve Got A Secret…his secret was that he saw Lincoln’s assassination when he was five years old.

How delightful, when the world feeds my curiosities. I am forever grateful.

Via Kottke

An (Non-Pro) iPad HD

Shadoe Huard at Smarterbits:

It’s easy to see how absurd the whole article is simply because it’s painfully obvious that whoever came up with the idea for an iPad HD clearly didn’t think about what pro users might need or want from such an iPad…Handling and processing large DSLR images and even larger HD video files in a professional workflow would require more CPU, RAM and graphics capabilities than even an iPad with double the current specs could handle.

Huard’s points are [per usual] spot on. Topolsky’s idea that Apple would create an iPad marketed to Pro users make little sense. But I think Huard accidentally answered an unasked question:

What possible reason would Apple have for wanting to turn the iPad into a niche product that would likely have to cost the same price as a MacBook Pro?

Whether all the other specs are doubled or not, I’m certain a theoretical iPad with a “retina display” will eventually come. But I am unconvinced that it will need alternative marketing or a “pro” target audience. With the iPad 2’s launch, Apple promoted the product under the “Post-PC Era” marketing campaign — the idea being specs don’t really matter.

But a 9.7” screen with double resolution [2048 x 1536] would certainly be a feature any company would find irresistible to brag about. But why would a retina display be a feature only pro users crave? Was the launch of the iPhone 4, the first product with such a display, marketed to a niche category of professionals? Is sharper readability sought after only by photographers & filmmakers? Or did Apple want to sell the iPhone 4 to anyone whom desired arguably the best smartphone — & in turn, quite possibly the best computer — insuring them an almost limitless combination of apps to cater to their workflow?

The iPad HD is coming, possibly soon. It will be for everyone.

He Nailed it

Warren Buffett, speaking about the deficit:

I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

That’s probably the best political quote I’ll read all year.

An Unagreement

More than an insignificant amount of my peers would consider me a contrarian. In an effort to avoid claims of ineptitude, I won’t disagree.1 But perhaps my arguments are misunderstood. To negate Occam’s Razor, I will disparage old critics & explain why in what I would consider too bipartisan to be a diatribe & certainly not an epigram for lack of brevity.

I often receive messages in anger from any number of readers, peers & friends when I choose to write a post with an unpopular opinion. They say I chose the “opposing side” of the debate “just to be contrary”. Or boldly claim that I wrote it because I somehow knew it would anger them. Others think I’m just an asshole that likes to piss people off.

All of these are true.

But these motives are not without merit.2 I enjoy a healthy debate, not for the challenge in prose & intellect, but the uncertainty of perspective. Often, I will take a side in a debate that no one has argued, whether I agree with it or not. I have quickly discovered by picking an unspoken side to an argument, I tend to learn a heck of a lot more of my own, true, personal opinions. Sometimes my opinions evolve when I’m arguing against them.

This is not just a selfish exercise.3 I enjoy challenging my network of equals on their own stance as well. You would be shocked to learn that a grand majority of people don’t often ask themselves why they have a particular opinion. I could only guess they once heard an individual of great respect debate (what is now their side of) a conversation & never questioned it, either because it never occurred to them that they could or because the stance was so supremely worded it seemed unquestionable at the time.

But the WHY is often more important than the WHAT.

If you don’t like to debate, to challenge yourself, to see all sides of a prism, you are not only silencing others, you’re potentially silencing large chunks of your own creative & pragmatic mind. It’s exciting to discover thoughts that you’ve owned but never pieced together, like the proverbial Ferdinand Magellan of consciences. Whether you think I’m a dick for sparking a potentially enlightening discussion or not isn’t high on my list of concerns, despite my occasional attempts to avoid offense. I could alter my approach, but one view remains clear:

My nature has made me less agreeable than I would like to be.

  1. I know, two double negatives. I’m bold like that. ↩

  2. Another double negative? Damn. ↩

  3. Yes it is. ↩

My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby D.M.V. office to get my driver’s permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. “This is fake,” she whispered. “Don’t come back here again.”

I promise, without hesitation, this is the best article you are going to read this week. As a first-generation American & resident of Miami, FL, this feels all too real, too close to home. I wish Mr. Vargas all the happiness he has fought for.