Programming insights to Storytelling, it's all here.
I'm not one to make resolutions every new year, but I often find myself asking others about their new goals for the year. Every year, I send wishes for fortune, success, or just a better life without putting much weight behind it. It is a courtesy or just the standard holiday greeting. But if there is one thing I want to wish to others and myself and actually mean it, it will be to make this year a year of personal responsibility.
Machine learning powered ads are here to stay. I'm not endorsing it in any way, but I see its ultimate power over any other method currently in use. And I fear this is how it is going to stay for at least the near future.
Have you ever wondered how amazon always seems to know what you want to order? The way those recommendations just pop up after you purchase an item and it is a must have product? The same thing happens when you think of a person and suddenly they appear on your Facebook list of people you may know. Type only two characters on google search and it will complete it with the full query you were thinking about. This is the state of technology today. It is powerful enough to kind of predict our next move.
I usually am very excited about tech. I spend my days reading and being distracted by tech news. In the past few years my curiosity has increased dramatically, but at the same time, my will to buy a new product has decreased considerably.
If you read any commentary about Uber, it is awful. It might even be one of the worst companies. Whether it is for their discrimination of women, their political affiliation, the extreme pay gap between driver and employee, or robbing taxi drivers from their jobs, they have all the ingredients to constitute what most people would call bad for humans. But at the same time, they have created one of the most useful business in our decade.
Inspired by Animalus Anthropomorphicus coined by Yann Martell, the author of the excellent book Life of Pi. The term is defined as "the animal as seen through the human eyes." This explains our need/obsession with giving animals human attributes.
What makes the web dynamic is the ability to entering data. Data comes in many forms, but the most prevalent and simplest data format is still text. Text can be written using a keyboard, real or virtual. Whether you want your users to write a personal message, or write a post on Facebook, or tweet, what you need is an input box.
You have to make a choice. Two screens in front of you. One has the long and tedious work you have to do. You have to manually write both JavaScript and PHP validation script for a 40 fields form and it is not styled. You only got a JPEG for reference. On the other screen, the new Unreleased Star Wars movie is playing. If you don't like star wars and boycott Disney like a decent person should, just imagine your favorite movie playing.
Remember when we used to tell people that their phone is a computer? Guess what? They forgot. Now they are convince their phone is smart, and that a computer is this big bulky thing that comes with a desk. They forgot everything about computers.
I had been tinkering with all sort of devices since I could remember. Everyone knew that I was destined to work with electronics. My parents knew I would be a great engineer and make the family proud. But after a couple classes as an electronic engineering major, I checked my wallet and realized that I was broke.
