There’s an axiom in behavioral psychology: examine what someone is doing , rather than simply accepting what they’re telling you. Someone might claim that they don’t care about anyone, yet their actions betray a deep care for a family member. Or maybe they claim they love their job, despite the fact that their daily actions suggest otherwise. Even if you’re not a psychologist (I’m not), cognitive…
It’s oddly difficult to find a detailed history of Business Objects, a seminal forerunner to the modern wave of self-service data analytics. The company was acquired by SAP in 2007, and most people nowadays only know about Business Objects as part of SAP’s “BODS” package - unaware of its standalone contributions to the software industry. Bernard Liautaud, co-founder and former CEO of Business…
Old keynotes from NeXT Computer have a compelling, peculiar focus on developer enablement. In the late 80s and early 90s, the company was targeting the higher education and enterprise markets - and banking on a newfangled wave of programming paradigms. After stumbling across a few keynotes on YouTube, it was interesting to delve a bit deeper into the pitch that was being made at the time. By the…
Growing up on The Internet, most of my online expeditions were subject-centric: I would seek out particular forums that I found relevant - an EverQuest forum, a message board dedicated to the odd anime that I’d just watched - and explore the communities therein. It was a relatively quiet era in cyberspace; just by virtue of being online and interested enough to seek out a niche group, you had a…
When I learned about Xenogears, I knew that I had to play it. It was an irresistible package, seemingly tuned to my idiosyncrasies: a Japanese RPG from the 1990s golden era, featuring a famously deep (and convoluted) plot, and with a fanbase that still discusses its underrated status with almost religious zeal. Despite my excitement, playing through Xenogears proved challenging. I’d forgotten the…
Most of today’s social media scandals emerge in one of a few ways. Either there’s something recently posted that’s scandalous, and triggers an uproar. Or, there’s something hidden in the archives of someone’s social media channel, which is resurfaced to today’s more unforgiving eyes. (e.g., Kevin Hart and the Emmys controversy.) In other cases, people get in trouble for engaging online with…
Twitter is easy to pick on; it feels increasingly incoherent. For the average user, the experience now amounts to watching tweets endlessly (and algorithmically) flow down a timeline, hoping for a fleeting gem: a fresh meme, a particularly inspired presidential tweet, or an endorsement for something worthwhile. You can try to prune and mute your way to sanity, but most curation features (e.g.,…
Teradata is a large enterprise software company; SAP is a larger enterprise software company. At one point, the two were partners, working extensively on ways to harmonize their respective products. Then things fell apart - dramatically; and in June, Teradata sued SAP. What went so horribly sideways? In a nutshell, Teradata alleges that SAP used the partnership to learn about Teradata’s core data…
Steve Jobs once quipped, "if VisiCalc hadn't debuted on the Apple II, you'd probably be talking to someone else". Released in 1979, VisiCalc was the original electronic spreadsheet - and its widely recognized as the killer application that landed the personal computer on desks across Corporate America. These days, spreadsheet software seems about as interesting as plywood; it's the default way of…
Artificial Intelligence is in vogue, these days. Whether it's Elon Musk tweeting ominously about the looming dangers of AI, or the daily gaggle of CNBC analysts discussing how AI will upend capitalism as we know it - you can hardly turn on a screen without seeing some reference to the impending, machine-god future. It turns out that we've been here before, in some sense. In What The Dormouse Said…
While aimlessly browsing Twitch a few days go, I stumbled across a channel that was streaming Final Fantasy XIV. I've long been fascinated by the massively-multiplayer Final Fantasy games, starting back when developer Square Enix announced its first attempt, Final Fantasy XI. These games have a daunting goal: distill the iconic design and narrative motifs that define the series's single-player…
I keep thinking about coherence , in the context of modern media consumption. Whatever you think about the editorial side of "new media" - most recently centered on the debate around fake news, and whether sites like Facebook have a duty to guard against it - I think there is a more fundamental topic that merits discussion: the sheer inundation of digital news, and its effect on our collective…