Mind Design

Lately there have been a number of complaints coming from the tech sector, with AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega complaining about iPhone users killing their network, to RIM’s latest Blackberry blackout, and all I can do is look at all these people bitching and moaning about it in utter dismay.

If you have never seen Louis CK’s bit called “Everything is amazing and nobody’s happy” watch it now and continue my post after you have seen it.

I recently watched the video about Louis CK’s take on technology today and it totally altered my perspective on our dependency on technology and the Internet.  Now I’m not saying that the innovations, even in my lifetime, haven’t been completely mind blowing and continue to grow in leaps and bounds, but after watching that video I have come to understand how we are always looking for the next new thing, and how we manage to throw a fucking temper tantrum like a three year old if it doesn’t work.

Now I see people bitching and moaning when their cellphones don’t work in Walmart and I have to resist the urge to slap them in the face and tell them to walk 50 feet to get outside to make the call.  For fuck sakes it’s not like you have to hunt down a payphone hanging on a wall and fumble for change and pull out your 10 pound pocketbook to find the number of the person you want to call and stand there tethered to a phone on the wall that is if you’re lucky enough not to have to wait for some bozo stuck on hold with whoever the hell he’s been trying to get ahold of for the last half hour.

Or people yelling at their GPS because it gave them wrong directions or got them stuck in traffic.  Really?  Are you reading a fucking map the size of your fucking windshield right now?  Do you have to drag another person along just to read it to you like you’re own personal fucking navigator?  How about voice activated controls in your car and people rolling their eyes because it can’t understand what they are saying because they are talking to it while stuffing their face with donuts and coffee in their rush to work.  Come on!  You’re talking to you’re fucking CAR!  AND IT’S LISTENING!  And you’re mad about this?  I mean really?

I think I have to agree with Louis here and say that I am humbled by how far we have come, and while I have also been pissed off when my Internet goes down, instead of throwing a fit like someone just killed my first born son, I grab a book.  We live in an age where we are spoon fed information at such an alarming rate that it’s almost inconceivable how we manage to retain it all, a recent study was done that found that the average American consumes 34GB of data a day, from news articles, to music, to video.  That’s quite a bit to take in, but what if we were forced to go back to reading books on paper?  Or actually having to wait till the next day to get news about the day before?  We’ve come a long way from riding cross country on horseback and I think we need to re-evaluate how we live with technology today.

Now I’m not telling you to go all out Amish here, but to look for alternatives for when your newest technology lets you down.  Because it’s simply Murphy’s law that when you need it most it won’t be there for you.

That is all.

Brian out.

Today is my second day up here in North Bay, Ontario.  For those not familiar with the area it is the definition of cottage country.  More lakes than you can shake a stick at, little communities  spread sparsely apart.  This is just the break I needed.

As I am sure a lot of those who are in the design community understand, working on the same project for a long time can really burn out your creative process.   And if there was one piece of advice I could give to “recharge” it would definitely be…  Get he hell out of the house!

Go find a park, or some backwoods or a beach.  Go and relax.  Although you will likely not go the whole time without thinking about work, at least it gives your mind something else to focus on in the meantime.

I came up here with my girlfriend for her father’s birthday, and I’ve had to sneak away bit by bit to put together this post because I’m not supposed to be on the Internet, usually because one thing leads to another and next thing I know I’m doing more research or just falling into a Stumbleupon induced coma.  It never fails that where there is Internet access, I will get online.