Behind The Times

I feel old.

With people now using Facebook, Twitter, FaceTime, IMs to communicate it leaves very little room for meeting people the traditional way: in person, face-to-face. I used to think, and in many ways still think that the relationships we have in person are more valuable than the ones made online, or virtually, or at a distance.

But the generation that comes after me doesn't do things this way. Relationships are not valued in the way that I did. People don't meet each other in person, in depth too much, but they do it more frequently, more rapidly. They broadcast in 140 characters or less everything there's to note about them. And in fact, if you think about it, most conversations you have with your friends and family don't amount to much more than headlines on your iPad or a tweet.

The technology we have allows us to connect much more rapidly with a much wider range of people, albeit at the loss of personal depth, loss of tactile response, and the loss of privacy. Is it worth it? Not sure. But it is inevitable.

I'm so behind the times.

Complaining and Laziness: Bad Combo

A crisis is a crisis. People get laid off, companies go bankrupt. And people can complain about their job losses and wage freezes and so on. But you have no right to complain about there not being any jobs, because there are plenty of jobs. It's just that it's the jobs that you feel yourself to be too good for. It's the jobs that you let immigrants come to the country for. The same immigrants you then berate for taking jobs you had no intention of taking in the first place.

Dude, please.

The Next Major Inflated Title

In the past years titles like consultant, senior, manager have suffered from major inflation: everybody started calling themselves that, even though few actually were skilled, intelligent or savvy enough to actually carry the job that the title implied.

This year's inflated title is Vice President. (Cue recently promoted VPs looking around nervously)

Virtue of Self-deprecation

People who make fun of themselves are usually quite level-headed actually. They know their weaknesses, and thus strengths as well. They are very aware of how they are perceived and can even manipulate that perception.

But it's very easy to go too far. The worst jokes are the ones you make about yourselves.

Rose Tinted Glasses

Augmented reality is getting pretty big now. Being able to see around you details and relevant information that you don't see with the naked eye is getting awfully close to the scifi movies of yesteryear: the Terminator looking around to see if someone's clothing is his size, sensing if someone's stress level reveals if he's lying.

In a few months we'll have iPhone apps that use the camera and screen overlays to depict the world around you as an alien world in a first-person shooter. We already have apps that show you what deals stores around you have at that time.

Now the next step will be something that will integrate into glasses, rather than a handheld device. The Apple iVisor. Make it.

(Actually, don't. Gotta be too distracting for driving. If you think doing phone calls in traffic is bad...)