I spent the last couple weeks with YouTube, Good Housekeeping, and a bridal magazine.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks forgoing my usual media sources and instead focusing on my wife’s. You can read more about the origins and rules of this Great Media Swap in my previous post. I have tried my best not to cheat and to completely ignore the media I typically consume. The net result is that I’ve just consumed less these last two weeks. But the information and entertainment I have experienced is all stuff Leah would normally see.

So, I feel like this has been a valuable experience. I feel like I know her a little better, like I can empathize just this little bit more (which strengthens a marriage, as I learned from one of her magazines!). Hopefully this exercise has done the same for her.

The Great Media Swap

You can read the follow-up to this blog HERE

Leah had an idea:

What if, for two weeks, her and I swap media? That means forgoing our usual sources and using each other’s.

So we are.

She has given me access to her StumbleUpon and her YouTube account. We traded mp3 players. She took a few of my comic books. I have her new Good Housekeeping, Self, and other magazines. I gave her a list of the shows I watch on Hulu and the password to my Twitter because that is where I get most of my news.

This will be for two weeks; basically we’ll end the year experiencing information–and thereby the world–from the other’s perspective.

As soon as she mentioned this media swap I was on board. In this age of instantaneous information and personal devices, it is so easy to become ensconced in your own bubble. And that leads to close-mindedness.

I am not looking forward to reading through the bridal magazine or having to watch Elle Fowler on YouTube. But that is a great reason to complete this exercise. This is media that Leah consumes on a regular basis, so I should be familiar with it.

Since Leah and I aren’t living together and only see each other every couple of weeks it is even more important that we find ways to share experiences. This will help us continue to identify with each other. My hope is that this provides her with a glimpse at what I love about geek culture. Maybe she won’t be quite so hard on it when she actually experiences it. And maybe I’ll find something to like in beauty and consumer culture. She also has a lot of science and social commentary media that I am excited to explore.

I am going to make a point of writing at least a couple of blogs about topics I normally wouldn’t based on information and articles I encounter in her media.

My relationship with Leah is best described as a series of well-intentioned experiments. This is the latest.

Wanna know how it went? Read the follow-up post.

I’m scared…

And in a stunning change of perspective, I see #Anonymous as the most rational, measured representative voice out there. I have called them terrorists, and I still see them as an extreme reaction, but these are quickly becoming extreme times.

Thursday Night (12.27.07)

Friday morning pounces,
Cold and dark,
Ripping away Thursday night
It was peaceful and fitting
Exciting in a meaningful way.
Now it is just heading toward
Another Friday night.
Thursday doesn’t expect much,
You wind down, have a relaxing evening,
Knowing Friday is only a sunrise away.
Friday is so needy,
Have a date, start an adventure,
Get the weekend going with a bang.
Thursday morning comes softly
Feeling like a great new day,
And if it’s not,
Thursday isn’t too serious.
Here comes Friday,
Overshadowing Thursday night,
Self-important and hypocritical,
Another weekday, but preaching weekend.
Thursday, once a week seems too rare,
For all the joy you bring to me.

– R. Brockey
(12.27.07)

Apple Patents Circles, Sues Wheel-Makers

Here are two articles that summarize, really, what my fundamental problem with Apple is:

TechCrunch: Tablet Zero

Baekdal: Apple Never Designed the iPad, They Undesigned It

Apple’s chief aesthetic is simplicity. “It just works,” as their ad-campaigns say. But when you’ve “designed” your devices–OS, hardware, and all–to be so simple as to not have room for confusion or error, then everything that follows is going to have to share all of those elements. By necessity. You cannot create a wheel without using a circle.

I do agree that other companies should take some risks to differentiate their products. And actually, most do. But they are not going to take risks in every part of the design. When working from the most basic form, it only takes a few additions of complexity and features to make a device unique. Especially this early in the game when nothing other than the most basic version has proven successful.

These two articles clarified for me why I don’t use Apple products. They have no strengths. They are so basic, intended to do everything, and so they do nothing particularly well. I want a product that is differentiated, that is designed to fit my particular use-case and needs. I am still waiting for a device that is actually designed to do something and fill a need.