a) I already own two watches (which I think is one too many, but one was given to me and I might feel a bit guilty if I sold it).
b) I only wear a watch when going out
c) I just want a watch to do one thing and that is show me the time and nothing else, not even the date (I’d prefer to ask somebody what the date is, because if I need to know the date, it’s because I’m filling in a form and there is always someone there… otherwise, what’s the point of even living in a society if we never need anyone’s help with anything?)
d) All Apple watches appear to look identical. Where’s the identity in that? What’s next? The iShirt? iPants? iSocks? iShoes? Oh wait. I probably shouldn’t have said that…
e) I don’t actually want to be like other people. I’d rather be me.
f) Ever since reading the book “Future Shock”, I try to make my life simpler, not more complicated
g) It’s one more thing I’d have to recharge… and I don’t even like putting a new battery in a normal watch once every two years or so
h) I don’t want to own another screen, there are too many pixels in my life already.
i) I can’t be bothered learning something new (I’m very lazy and forgetful)
j) It’s too expensive for me and I’d have to work harder to afford it (I’m getting lazy)
k) I happen to like physical things like watch hands and cogs. I don’t want to see fake digital watch hands.
l) I already know it won’t last as long as a normal quartz-crystal watch. Because the smaller the internal parts get, the less reliable they become.
m)Both of my current watches still work
n) It’s thicker than either of my current watches
o) It’s heavier than either of my current watches
p) It’s not made of truly eco-friendly materials (or anything special)
q) Apple does not give back to the environment what they take out (they hardly even pay tax)
r) I don’t even like the look of it.
s) It’s not that I don’t like the look of it. It’s that the more I look at it —and I haven’t looked at it much— the more I find the design to be ugly. Especially the knob on the right. And even if it didn’t have that knob, it’d still be ugly. Ugly!
t) I know it won’t make me any happier (in fact I know owning it would probably make me less happy)
u) I’d rather look away from my wrist… at something I’ve never seen on the street
v) Apple is not a Cradle2Cradle certified company (and probably won’t ever be)
w) It’s probably not endorsed by the Ellen MacArthur foundation either.
x) I’d rather give a thousand dollars to the IUCN
y) I don’t need it
z) I don’t want it (and I generally feel that consumers are being brainwashed by too much branding)
Here’s something manufacturers and industrial designers need to think more about: backlash on planned obsolescence.
If there’s one thing in this world that I can’t stand, it’s companies like Microsoft and Apple…
Who seem to make things go obsolete well before their time. And no one can tell them not to. They just keep getting away with it. Why? Probably because they make a lot of money getting away with it. That’s why.
But there are no laws to stop them getting away with it. And what this materials scientist thinks right now is “by fucken oath there should be [laws to stop them getting away with it]”. That is coming from an ex materials scientist. Right.
I think you all know what I am talking about. I’m talking about ‘old’ printers that don’t work with newer computers simply because the ‘drivers’ have ‘issues’ with the “operating system”. I’m talking about new software that won’t run on old hardware. I’m also talking about new hardware that won’t run old software. I’m talking about Apple’s proprietry connectors.
Let me tell you a little anecdote. I can even remember my dad saying about 15 or 20 years ago way back when I was a kid that Apple (you know, Macintosh it was once called) forced you to use their special cables and connectors, and thus were able to charge a premium.
At the time, I took what he said with a pinch of salt. I thought “well it’s their computer system, I suppose they would want to do that. Who can blame them?”. But now, fast forward twenty-odd years and my old man is dead [RIP, he died last year] and what he said to me in the 1990’s is looking even wiser now than it did when he said it all those years ago. Because it just so happens to be true. This man, my father, would be 90 years old if he were alive today. He was old but he knew something that I didn’t. That something is called ‘wisdom’ and all early adopters from what I’ve seen tend to suffer from a severe lack of it.
Back in the day, we used things called serial ports and parrallel ports to plug in our printers. So they got the information from one cable and they got their power from another completely separate cable. The thing is, they were slow. Really slow. But when USB came along, all those printers and mice and things became much less useful. The same thing happened to compact discs when Apple decided not to include a CD drives on their latest desktops.
People will always need to buy new peripherals to work with new plugs on their new computer system. That is now happening with USB-C connectors. Do you want to know what I think? I think USB C can go and get fucked, that’s what I think. All of my stuff (two external hard drives, external sound card for microphone, graphics tablet, mouse, wireless solar keyboard, external webcam, flash drives, the entire bloody lot is USB2 now isn’t it?). USB2 and it is plenty good enough. I’m sticking with it.
Yes, I’m talking about Apple ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack on it’s newest smartphone. Now, keep in mind that I don’t even own an Apple iphone. In fact I have never owned an Apple iphone. And here I am, compelled to write a blog article about how narky it makes me feel. Because knowing what I know, I probably won’t ever own an Apple iphone. I’m writing this from an imac retina. I don’t own an ipad. And right now, that is the way it is going to stay. After buying just one Apple product, I’m fast becoming anti-Apple. And the headphone jack decision is my last straw. It is the catalyst to me becoming “anti-Apple”.
So I’m going to just say it here in black and white. I’m going to share with all you strangers the reason it makes me so narky. Because this is my blog, my little ‘space’ and I can say pretty much whatever the hell I want. Right? There’s this thing called “free speech” in the West that not enough people take advantage of… this is vida enigmática… [Read more…]
Our environmental footprint
Most of the global economy is based on the idea of selling physical products. And if you’re not selling something yourself, your clients are people that do.
B I’ve noticed that in some environmental discussions and debates, Westerners automatically assume that their country is less polluting than poorer countries. I don’t think pointing the finger at China really helps. And here’s why:
I think our blatant consumerism in the West doesn’t compare favourably to the third world, because all of the things that we buy have a kind of “environmental footprint” if you like. And note that I’m not even really talking about CO2 emissions here (even though the US carbon emission per capita is 17.56 metric tons while that of China is ‘only’ 6.19 metric tons per capita). Carbon is not the only element on the periodic table although it is the one that goes into the atmosphere more than the others.
If China pollutes rivers or whatever making loads of stuff for the West, who is really doing (causing) the polluting? The chinese manufacturers? Or is the Western consumer demand for those products ultimately to blame?
My main backround if materials science. One of the more eye-opening subjects I found out about (in terms of environmental degradation) is called “extractive metallurgy”. Extractive metallurgy is the study of chemical processes that we use to extract an refine metals from their ores. Basically, in a nut shell, all materials have to come from somewhere. Ususally it’s either the Earth’s crust itself or sea water.
In most of the processes, you need either need huge amounts of electricity and/or high temperatures and/or huge amounts of other chemicals to obtain the desired elements and/or compounds.
For example, here is just one of the many steps in the refinement of germanium:
GeO2 + 4 HCl → GeCl4 + 2 H2O
In this step, the reactive gas chlorine is being used to make germanium more reactive. So chlorine, which is toxic, is used in one of the processes to extract the element germanium from its oxide. Okay.
And here is just one of the steps in tellurium refinement:
HTeO−3 + OH− + H2SO4 → TeO2 + SO2−4 + 2 H2O
In this step, sulfuric acid is being used to make tellurium more reactive. Okay.
And where are germanium and tellurium being used you ask? They are two semiconductors that are the basis for integrated circuits and other electronic components in all sorts of electronic devices. Not so good.
In fact, many other nasty chemical compounds are used in the extraction, refinement and manufacturing industries. Many others.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think the worst offenders are the electronic consumer devices, simply because they contain the most number of hard-to-extract elements. The harder-to-extract elements require more chemical treatment steps. That’s just one of the reasons why they these elements are so expensive (not just that they’re rare). In fact I can probably go so far as to invent a new theory, which goes something like this: “the higher the unit price of an element, the more damaging its extraction process is to the environment.” But I digress…
Here’s the thing. There are a lot of chemical elements used in computers and extracting them from the ground and processing them taxes the environment (especially when you consider all of the planned obsolesence we see today). Our current way of life creates more and more electronic waste that cannot be recovered or recycled (except perhaps the gold bits)
I recently asked a few questions on Quora and I’d like to share those questions and answers with you now. Listed here are some of the toxic chemicals and semiconductors that are used in electonic decices. Go on, take a look. Can you begin to see how big the problem is now?
The point is, nasty chemicals are used at all steps of the extraction and refinement process. We just don’t ever see them being used in industry. Oh but they’re there alright. They’re being used all the time.
Suffice it to say that if Westeners think they pollute the Earth less than a typical 3rd-worlder, in my eyes, they are sorely mistaken. [Read more…]
Discrimination is second nature.
Every time you select a piece of fruit, based on the condition of its skin, you’re judging the contents.
No one likes to eat a soggy banana or a rotten apple. We’ve come to learn that if a banana is bruised & blackened on the outside, inside is most likely a soggy fruit mush.
Even 3 year old children know the difference is in the taste. They won’t eat it. Although sometimes, despite multiple bruises and other exterior imperfections, the interior is not as bad as we think; we are rewarded by what we find inside – 100% intact fruit! Succulent, delicious. Generally though, after years of practice, we learn to judge fruit correctly…
There are two ways of describing this situation:
- Some might say I am discriminating against all fruit with a certain type of skin (be it the colour or the texture); I am pre-judging, I am being critical.
- Others might say that I have a distinguished, discerning or refined sense of taste; I am a perceptive, particular and sensitive person.
One of these sentences contains positive statements whilst the other definitely has negative connotations. Clearly, something is wrong, and I think you’ll easily spot the pattern in the words below-
Synonyms for the adjective “discriminating”:
analytical, astute, authentic, canny, careful, choosy, clever, correct, cultivated, defined, definite, detailed, discerning, distinct, distinctive, distinguish, eclectic, exacting, exact, explicit, genuine, incisive, ingenious, insightful, intuitive, factual, faithful, fastidious, finicky, fussy, judicious, just, keen, literal, methodical, meticulous, observant, particular, picky, proper, prudent, refined, right, rigorous, scientific, scrupulous, selective, sensitive, skillful, smart, specific, strict, subtle, systematic, tasteful, true, unerring, unmistakable, veracious, wise.
Synonyms for the verb “to discriminate”:
assess, be bigot, brand, categorise, classify, collate, compare, contrast, delineate, designate, differentiate, discern, draw distinction, evaluate, extricate, disfavor, favor, hate, incline, judge, pigeonhole, know, note, be partial, perceive, portray, remark, segregate, separate, set apart, show bias, single out, specify, split hairs, tell apart,treat differently, typecast, victimize.
So we can describe someone as being discriminate or discriminating, but the act of discriminating against something without enough knowledge is forbidden.
Whenever you turn on the radio and choose a station you are being prejudiced towards new music styles and discriminating against them by not listening. I prefer cotton over wool, because I’ve found that wool makes my skin itch. Am I biased towards cotton plants or racist (specist) against sheep? Whenever anyone thinks about making any kind of informed decisions, discrimination is second nature.
The circular economy
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