Cleverness Isn't All There Is...

For the most part, Windows Phone 7 has had great reviews. Below lies the fundamental difference between how Apple looks at things and how the rest of the industry does. Google and Microsoft often adopt new features in their products because they are "cool" and that the fact that you can do them is clever. Apple has not worked to integrate social media into their OS(instead allowing others to do so through their own third party apps) because the reality is that a synced Address Book with Facebook friends, Gmail contacts, etc don't always work well together. The different sources think of the term "friend" in many different ways.

What makes it worse, though, is when an OS tries to implement it. In example, read below (from Engadget's Windows Phone 7 review):

Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have “contacts,” per se — it has a People hub, and there’s quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn’t really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you’re “friends” in name only. For typical email accounts — Gmail, Hotmail, Exchange — you’re given the option to sync calendars, contacts, email, and in some cases, photos. That’s perfect — the way you want it to work — but it isn’t consistent throughout the phone. For example, once your Facebook account gets added, everything gets added to the phone. And when a contact of yours uploads a photo, that image appears in your photo hub whether you like it or not. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex’s aunt’s new boyfriend’s dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone. With Exchange or Gmail, this strategy is probably fine in most cases — contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync. But seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether.

Just imagine, if inside my address book, where I scroll through to find a person to text or call, there was all of the people I follow on twitter and the 2,000 something friends on Facebook, their activity and everything in the way of me remembering their phone number.

Something tells me that a separate app for each function is far less annoying than scrolling through meaningless info you don't care about just to accomplish a simple task.

-B

UPDATE: Another Example:

The first thing you notice when you open the Marketplace is that aside from apps, you’ve got music and games as available categories, whereas iOS breaks music and applications out into separate stores, and Android leaves music to third-party providers like Amazon. Swiping to the left takes you to the Featured page of the Marketplace, which oddly mixes up both music and applications into a single view — kind of an interesting way to keep people looking at everything Microsoft has to sell without trying to send users’ attentions to two (or more) completely unrelated places. Unfortunately, that same mixture happens for searches in the marketplace too, meaning that you’ll get mostly song and album info when you’re looking for something like The Harvest. Microsoft needs to give users a way to sort apps from music, because search is completely unwieldy as it stands right now.

Education in America

It’s pretty hard to teach a kid who has been raised by the television, when he hasn’t eaten breakfast, when the family has been kicked out of their home, when he has to work a job to help feed the siblings, when the parents have just gotten divorced or lost both of their jobs, when no-one at home speaks English, or when their most alluring role models are dope dealers, pimps, or gangsta rappers. Imagine, then, trying to teach a room full of such trauma cases. […] If you want better schools, work for more stable incomes, families and neighborhoods.

Robert Freeman (found via Marco Arment) on the true problem in American schools: not bad teachers who slack, but a society that is struggling with poverty and a middle class that can no longer support themselves.

When are we going to see our society and decide that it is no longer acceptable to live like this?  At some point, American innovation and progression will die if our schools continue to face these challenges.

-B

Apple Quarterly Earnings

Like the typical publicly traded companies, Apple hosts an earnings call every quarter to announce revenue and the like. Typically, these are interesting but not phenomenally breathtaking because they rarely announce anything that is unexpected or whatever. You can listen to this entirely here. What's most interesting, the man himself showed up on the call today. Steve had some interesting things to say as well. He came out, claimed the superiority of Apple and then shot down anything and everything Android. He also provided some insight into the future of the tablet market.

Some of my favorites (as paraphrased by MacRumors):

I couldn't help dropping by for our first $20+ billion quarter.

What about Google? Apple activates 275,000 iOS devices per day, sometimes over 300,000. Unfortunately, no solid data on how many Android handsets shipped per quarter. Gartner says 10 million in June quarter, and we wait to see whether iPhone or Android won in the most recent quarter.

Discussing Google claiming Android is "open". We find this disingenuous. Android is fragmented.

"TwitterDeck" (probably TweetDeck) revealed that it had to contend with over 100 different versions of Android in developing its app. Compare to Apple with two different versions.

Amazon, Vodafone, and Verizon have announced creating their own Android app stores. A mess for users and developers. Contrast with Apple's integrated App Store.

Commenting on avalanche of tablets heading to market. Just a handful of credible entrants. Almost all use 7" screen, compared to iPad at nearly 10" screen. 7" screen is only 45% as large as iPad's screen. Hold an iPad in portrait view and draw a horizontal line halfway down. What's left is a 7" screen...too small. There are clear limits to how close elements can be on the screen before users can't touch accurately. We believe 10-inch screen is minimum necessary.

All of these tablets are using Android, but Google is telling them it isn't ready for tablets and to wait until next year.

Q: How do you think about the iPad opportunity a year or two down the road in terms of size of business? A: Jobs: iPad is clearly going to affect notebook computers. It's a question of when, not if. Already seeing tremendous interest from education, and surprisingly, business. We haven't been pushing it with businesses, but they're tearing it out of our hands. We've got a tiger by the tail.

Q: Could iPad be second-biggest business behind iPhone? A: Jobs: I try to report, not predict. But it's already outselling Macs.

Q: You are the tablet market right now. Like RIMM with the smartphone, can you hold onto market share? A: Jobs: We have a hard time seeing the strategies of our competitors. They're not matching us in pricing, and lack of Flash doesn't seem to be causing us difficulties. We're out to win this one.

Q: Steve, you believe Apple should be able to outship Android when looking at all devices. What are the key risks you are managing? A: Our goal is to be the best. We're not the biggest...that's Nokia. We admire them, but don't aspire to be them. We want to make the best devices. Android is our biggest competitor. They outshipped us in the June quarter when we were caught in a transition, and we'll see about the September quarter. We'll be competing with them for quite some time, but we have very different approaches and we believe in ours. We think that's the winning approach in the end.

Q: Aspirations for iPhone and iPad? Looking for a Mac-like model of lower market with higher prices and quality or iPod-like market dominance and low pricing? A: Jobs: Nokia makes $50 handsets. We don't know how to make great handsets at that price. So our goal is to make great breakthrough products but also drive costs down. As you know, we have low share in phones, and high share in tablets. But we don't think about it that way. We're not not making a 7-inch tablet because we don't want to hit a lower price point. We're just believe it's too small to hit the user experience people want. When we make decisions, it's not about cost, it's about value when you factor in the software. We're all about the best products at aggressive prices.

Q: Where is your primary advantage in tablets? A: Jobs: We've designed everything from batteries to enclosures, and we've learned a lot from our prior experience. We know how to design and build in an efficient way. Others will have to source components from middlemen, while we design our own and build them directly.

The only issue with these paraphrases is that they don't quite exhibit the passion in his voice when he talked about these things. Wow. Give it a listen.

Whatever you say, it all seems to be working so far.

-B

An Observation of the Church as it Stands.

One of the things that I do when I drive back and forth from Raleigh to Durham or Raleigh to Cary on a regular basis is listen to podcasts. If I've listened to the most recent lectures that my classes have, I pop on a podcast which I can stream directly from iTunes to my phone sans downloading. The audio plays in the background and I'm able to use my phone as a GPS navigator as well. I mean, this is 2010, and this is awesome. My podcasts if choice are almost always one of three: Macbreak Weekly, The Talk Show (John Gruber on 5by5), and The Engadget Podcast. Because the tech world moves so quickly, and it is hard to keep up, I look forward to listening to these every week.

Something occurred to me today though. I asked myself, what are these podcasts talking about? The answer is easy enough, technology. Current, upcoming, and old technology. Every single podcast refers to the news points of the week: what Apple is doing right and wrong, why Microsoft is so far behind in the mobile world, and why Google is so different and trying to challenge everything. In EVERY instance, the commentators talk about their own reviews and personal feelings regarding the tech industry. It is awesome.

But it occurred to me, I am in seminary. Learning about God, the church, Christ, and anything else having to do with those concepts. And yet, I listen to tech podcasts to and from school nearly every day. So, I searched iTunes for the words "United Methodist". You know what I found? Any and every sermon you've ever wanted to find from any United Methodist Church the world over. I mean seriously, there are tons. But you know what they are? They are the opposite of what is encouraged in seminary. And before you go and and get all upset so quickly, I'm not referring to preaching, obviously preaching is encouraged. But in the act of preaching, very little dialogue goes on. (Sadly)In a TYPICAL church, on a typical Sunday, the pastor gets up to give his sermon, the people listen, shake his hand on the way out, and go home.

Sunday School numbers are dropping.

If you're lucky (and I hope you are) you'll discuss the ideas and challenges of the sermon on the ride home or over lunch. Or you'll think about what teams are playing that night.

Here's the thing about the tech podcasts, it's all discussion.

Theres not one person saying what is right or wrong.

It's discussion of why a product will or won't fail.

Because it is such an exciting time for the industry, things aren't failing as much as they are succeeding.

But, the church, by almost all accounts in America, is failing.

And in seminary, it seems to be all that people can talk about. These conversations are happening.

But in the real world, we post podcasts of sermons. With little discussion. Where are the podcasts where Methodists discuss why the UMC isn't Wesleyan? Where are the podcasts that have commentators from several denominations trying to explore what's going on with the church as a whole? Why aren't we publicly discussing ways to fix it?

Because here is the thing: Seminarians will graduate. Many will either find a church or be assigned a church. And slowly, the depth, consistency, and frequency of the discussions will slow. They'll get bogged down with families, parishioners, and making sure the lights get turned off every night. They'll be discussing "long range plans" and how to get more people to attend their services.

And with that, two things happens. The conversations slow and therefore won't be as fruitful. And those meetings where we try to discuss how to better welcome visitors will stay inside the walls. And we will put some sort of plan in place to make it work, but we won't tell the world how hard we are trying.

I'm ready for the Church podcasts. I'm ready for the things the church is doing to spark so much excitement that debate ensues. I'm ready for the conversations about a church that is past its prime to leave the walls of Duke Divinity. I'm ready for some sort of open, honest, conversation to open up in the Church that becomes so vital to our being that rumor sites open up. So vital that we forget about the devices in our hand and think about what is going on in our hearts.

Why is our image based around sermons and not discussions?

-B

Gay and Straight Stats

I suppose that because of "coming out" day, there is quite a bit of information and talk coming to the front of our culture about the homosexual lifestyle and its relationship with the American culture. Also probably has something to do with that Don't Ask Don't Tell overruling. These are some interesting stats (link below) that I found via John Gruber put together behind how this idea plays into the lives of Gays and Straights in America and Canada.

I'm not sure that there really is one large finding (except for the several points it makes throughout) but the statistics (however accurate or telling they might or might not be) are at least worth reading through.

If America is going to have this conversation in the next few years, and do so in a way where we encourage life and not oppression throughout it, we are going to need to have a handle on how this breaks down.

Of these stats too, keep in mind that this is put together by a dating service. Therefore, many involved may not be the normal Americans, as not every single person I know would ever consider signing up for a dating service.

You can read the stats here.

-B

GUI and NUI

One of the cool things about going to school is that there always other stuff going on around you.  Mostly for free, usually for really cheap.  The other day I found out that Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer was coming to demo the "new ways that humans will be interacting with computers with a 3D demo.". I keep up with technology and some of the strides being made(and told myself that this had to be  their new Kinect) so I decided that I had to be there. After making the 15 minute trek from Duke Divinity to the Fuqua School of Business, I found my way(just in time I might add) to the auditorium that he was presenting in.  If you aren't a geek and don't keep up with techie things, you'll be interested to know that Microsoft Kinect (code named Project Natal) is a new way to interact with computers through the use of motions and gestures tracked by an incredible camera that not only recognizes your body, but can ignore unintended gestures as well. Think of it as the Wii without a controller.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ET6PqZtYd4] The large point that Craig made was not one of the technology behind it (though it was pretty cool) but was more centered around the idea of why a device like this is needed.

When the original Macintosh was released, the breakthrough in the consumer market was one of the GUI, or graphical user interface.  It was now possible to use a system of icons to convey a message, and made computers usable to the general public. You no longer needed to learn code in order to interact with the device. It was, in its truest form, revolutionary.

The point that Craig made was that the trend has moved from the GUI to NUI, or natural user interface. Does this system use graphics still? Of course. However, there is no longer a mouse and a keyboard, you tell the machine what to do by using voice commands and physical hand movements.  In a way, it seems more...natural.

This occurred to me last night when Allie and I were out to dinner and observed a mother with several children.  One child was in her lap, using her iPad to play a game.  One was across the table with her iPhone, supposedly doing the same.  The kids seemed, as far as I the creep across the restaurant could tell, to be able to entertain themselves VERY easily by just tapping on what they wanted to do. They saw the icon, they clicked it. If you think about it, it's brilliant. They didn't have to realize that funny shaped thing next to the computer moved a cursor.  They didn't have to find that cursor on the screen, move it around and then search a menu for what they wanted.  They found the icon, tapped on it, and were off. Its like taking the graphical interface to the next level. It's what Steve refers to as "magical" about the iPad.

This is the difference that Android and the iPhone have made in the mobile market. No longer did you have to scroll through menus with directional keys or navigate through menus with a ton of buttons or scroll wheels.  Oh wait, I guess Android still requires that. No longer did you have to worry about having a stylus with you wherever you go (or losing it).

Sure, the Microsoft Kinect is more advanced in many ways than the interactions with the iPad, but it is the same concept.  Perhaps computers don't have to be so complicated.  It should be relatively easy to do whatever you need to do, as quickly as possible.

It's not perfect yet.  Apple hasn't quite seemed to figure out how to make it easy to manage lots of applications while maintaining the the simplicity. The new folders function seems to help, but isn't perfect. The Microsoft Kinect works well (from the few minutes that I got to play with it) but the gestures have to be large and intentional in order to be recognized and consequently must often be repeated.

But. Imagine a world in the future when yo walk up to the table at a restaurant and the menu is a part of the table.  You point to what you want and it expands to show you the options for preparation. That is already happening in man restaurants around the world with Microsoft's Surface. Imagine never having to touch a cell phone while driving. Ever. And yet it can still be used to make calls hands free and navigate. That is already happening in many cars.

It's changing our world as we know it. It will be interesting to see how it changes in the future.  This is our world.

 

-B

Tyler Clementi

Ellen talks about it here. For a little more coverage, see below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82g-FaKRv4&]

I only have a few statements to make:

I don't see this as teen bullying. Bullying seems like something that can be overcome. This is evil. Pure evil. [There is only one being that can overcome evil]

The students who did this deserve whatever our justice system can give them. I hope that this dramatically changes the course of their lives.

With the age of the Internet and media that can be recorded, produced, distributed, and streamed from a dorm room, society has got to do a better job of making better decisions. Stupid jokes are no longer theoretical jokes, they are reality and can get out of hand ten times faster than we thought possible before.

How does a campus react to something like this? Keep Rutgers in your prayers. And every other high school or College that has dealt and will deal with this type of situation. In a time when it is still not "acceptable" to be gay, every institution across America has someone somewhere who is watching this story thinking...that could have been me that was outed.

Is anyone else tired of living in a society where this happens?

-B

iPad Competition

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaez_4m9mQ&hd=1] Looks pretty good to me.  7 inches.  Pairs with 3G on a blackberry.  Says that the web browsing is "uncompromised".  It's based on webkit (an Apple project) so we shall see.  Ever since the iPhone, Blackberry has been behind in web browsing.  We don't know prices yet but for blackberry lovers, this could be a cool device.  It would interesting to give it a try.  The Galaxy Tab (an Android creation by Samsung) looks to give the iPad a run for its money too, but the pricing (as rumored so far) looks like it may hurt sales.

Any thoughts?

-B

A Society Based on Defense

An Orlando area man lashed out on students on his daughters' school bus. If you didn't catch the story, check it out here. If you want to watch it without spin, the YouTube clip is below. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pvsVHdepsw&]

If you watch the Today Show clip linked above, you'll see that the psychologist's response is that the father stepped out too far and that his actions brought about a bad response. She also says that he must teach his daughter to not be a victim and be able to defend herself. A few questions are begged.

1) Really, who can blame him?

2) Defend herself? Against the kind of actions the kids took on her?

3) IS THIS THE SOCIETY WE ARE LIVING IN?

It's probably a good quality of life if you can live without the actions and words of others hurting you in any way, shape, or form. But NO ONE lives like this. Everyone deals with criticism in different ways, but it always changes the soul.

Bullying though, is like criticism without original fault. Everyone has been bullied in one way or another by someone somewhere. Bullying digs deep into the soul to make the individual most vulnerable. After they are vulnerable, it changes their very way of life. It changes their thoughts. It changes their actions, It changes their mindset. It changes their mood. It draws individuals to do horrible things, even take their own life in some cases.

The psychologist on TODAY suggested that the father ought to find the daughter a new way of transportation (are not the children going to be there when she gets to school too?) and teach his daughter to defend herself (do you understand what this means about society?).

If the SOLUTION to bullying lies inside of a proactive action done by the victim, then we are essentially saying that you must learn to defend yourself against others in order to survive life. Some of you are thinking, "Yeah, that's the world...that's reality...get used to it...you'll never get anywhere if you can't stand up for yourself..." And while we are agreed that confidence has to be a key element in presenting yourself to the world, please understand what this is saying about the world. We are saying that we live in a society that REQUIRES its citizens to defend themselves in order to survive.

I see where this works and flows with Darwinism.

But I don't, from a Christian setting, see where this is AT ALL consistent.

Throughout scripture, both Old and New Testaments, God sticks up and cares for the lowly. God has even gone to extremes to make sure that the needy, less, and unjustly treated are finally cared for and spoken for.

We arrest a man who is sticking up for his daughter (however violently threatening he was) when she is being brutally bullied. He was sticking up for one who couldn't speak up for themselves. THIS is what we are called to do.

IF we allow ourselves to fall into the "teach a man to fish" atmosphere, we separate society into separate beings that don't act communally at all. This allows those who aren't as confident and can't speak for themselves to fall to the bottom, be trampled, and die.

This isn't the Bible I'm reading. What about you?

-B

September 16th, Customer Service, NC State, and False Advertising.

I know, I know, it's after midnight. It's not September 16th anywmore.  But, this was going to happen either way. If you don't like the Apple stuff, keep reading.  This post isn't about Apple. I don't usually like to post about my day either, but this is simply necessary.  You get a tootsie roll pop if you make it all the way to the end.  Think of it as a narrative, you'll enjoy it more.

On September 16th, 1985 Steve Jobs was forced out of his leadership role at Apple Computer Inc.

On September 16th, 1997 Steve Jobs came back to Apple Computer Inc.

He was there for seven years, gone for 12, back for 13. Wired has a good article on it here.

Everyone knows I love Apple.  But here is why I love Apple: they care about user experience.  They have a great place to get your computer fixed.  Their customer support is outstanding and always getting better. Play with their devices, you'll know that they care about user experience. I have come to not be able tolerate paying for something and not getting the experience that was designed. Read on.

Let me tell you about MY September 16th.  The day began. My new hard drive for my laptop came in the mail yesterday.  I copied everything over and put it in the machine this morning.  I didn't lose any screws (there were 27 minuscule ones), and the machine booted up (faster than before I might add) after everything went back together.  Huge success.  It really feel almost like a new machine.  I finalized my installation of the beta version of iOS 4.2 on my iPad.  It's awesome.

Today started out well.

I had one class, it went great and then I came home to read some before heading the NC State vs. Cincinnati game here in Raleigh.

Here is how that process works: If you want a parking pass (the stadium is off campus) you have to stand in line at a certain time during the week to get one.  They are free, but not unlimited by any means.  Allie stood in line for about a half an hour for ours.  We had some friends going with us, so they rode in my car.

Now, these parking passes. They're made of cheaper paper type cardboard material.  Not quite as study as card stock...but almost.  They hang from your mirror (or at least they say that you should hang them).  At the bottom of the pass is a perforated section with a coupon for $10 off of Jiffy Lube.

We had done this before. Last game, we tore off the jiffy lube coupon and they directed us into the parking lot.  Traffic sucked but it was no big deal.  To add, last game we were in line and I saw the guy taking the passes, ripping off the coupons, pocketing them, and then sending the people on their way. Not to be outsmarted, this week I tore off my coupon just like I had before.

So we got to the lot.

And I held up the pass.

And the man asked if we had been in yet, I told him no.  He asked where the coupon was.  I showed it to him.  He told me that THEY have to rip it off. I told him that he could have it. He said I'd need to turn around and leave.  I asked him why. He said that they have a policy that they have to rip it off.

Then he said "TURN HIM AROUND!"

I pulled up a little bit to see if I could talk to the other guy about this ridiculousness.

He yelled again, "TURN HIM AROUND!!!!" **I thought we usually referred to inanimate objects as females**

I asked where I was supposed to park.

He shrugged and said, "You need to leave now"

**Let me pause and say that I was trying to hold my temper. I can't stand disrespect. He was beyond rude in his dealing with the situation.**

The parking pass did not say anything ANYWHERE about not ripping off the coupon.  I mean, it's a coupon.  Why wouldn't you rip it off?

I stopped the car, almost got out and pointed out once more that he could have the coupon and that it shouldn't matter.  The fact that I had the coupon meant that I hadn't been there yet.

He told me to leave again.

I complied. But no one in the car was happy.

I went back to try to find parking on the street somewhere.  A long way away, we found half a spot and squeezed the Jeep in. Throughout this endeavor, my loving wife was calling the number on the parking pass which was labeled "Parking Problems? Call 919-***-****"  She yelled pretty extensively.  Evidently they only deal with towing, not parking problems.  Cool.  Hence, false advertising.

As we were walking toward the stadium, I stopped to ask one of the other attendants if they had a manager or boss.  One of the guys laughed and told me they did. I asked if I could speak to them and explained the situation and the frustration. He agreed, if that's going to be a policy, it should explicitly say somewhere that the coupon cannot be torn off.  (It's worth noting that later we found out that they had been returning the coupons to the pass holders.  So....the guy turned us away even though we had a pass because we...ripped it and he didn't get to?) I asked him if he would say something to leadership because the rule is dumb and needs to be explained if its going to be enforced.  We thanked him and walked on. Success.

Followed by failure.  Of course this put us in the stadium after kick off.  this was especially true for me.  I forgot my ticket in the car throughout this entire fiasco.  Allie's had already been scanned, so she went in, got her hand stamped for North End Zone student section (they told her that I could get a North End stamp when I got back).  I walked the 25 minutes back to the car, got my ticket, and walked the 25 minutes back. I got into the stadium, went to get stamped, and...South End Zone.  When we asked why, we got a "sorry, you're out of luck answer, you two will have to sit at different ends."  Real cool.  My ticket was $25 and it was getting to be well worth it.

Experience, experience. In case you were wondering, NC State Football has no customer service line.  No complaints process.  No way to prove that their policies are silly or don't work.  No compassion for any situation from those working.

I blame it all on the guy who wanted desperately to get my coupon for Jiffy Lube.

We ended up walking around the stadium until the guy patrolling the section our friends were in left.  We went up and watched the second half with them.

It was a good game.  But not a good experience.

I hope someone involved with this endeavor reads this. It's hard to please everyone at a situation as big as a college football game broadcast on ESPN. But, generally, GOOD policies and genuine servants who just wish to accomplish their job without pissing anyone off help with this project.

I've done a little customer service as an RA and in my role as a Support Member at Warren Willis camp. It's hard work dealing with people who are on edge. I get that.

But I also believe in pleasing the customer. Because if you please them, they're happy, they'll come back, and your business will succeed.

College football will always be successful. So customer service is obviously not a priority. Obviously.

If you ever work in customer service, try to do better than this guy.  I hate, no, "strongly dislike" him.

He's probably good to go with oil changes for the foreseeable future though.

September 16th, 1985 sucked for Steve Jobs.

September 16th, 2010 ended up sucking for me too.

-B

The Unfortunate Situation That Is Taylor Swift's Singing

Look, I didn't watch the VMA's last night. I was too busy doing school work.  In fact, I forgot all about it.

I happened to get tipped off by Twitter that Kanye was ending the show.  I figured that because of last year, this might be interesting.

It was terrible.  Kanye didn't apologize, he "toasted" his poor judgement in a way of saying, "Everyone is like this a bit..."

Whatever.

But, I went back this morning to find Taylor Swift's performance.  You can watch it below.  Hurry up before Viacom pulls it down. You may have to click through as YouTube has tried to disable the embedding of it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU04bgrL1_E&hd=1]

Everyone commented just like they do every time she sings live. She's just not a good singer.

There are a few things that play here.

Anyone who has either sung (live) into a microphone that is recorded and listened back later knows that there is no way to make the sound sound like it did live.  For those of you willing to argue about live concerts recorded professionally, YES, they sound good.  But they don't sound exactly like they did live.  They're close...but no quite there.

If you've ever watched a live concert on television, you know this to be the case too.  Every singer sounds a little off. A little out of tune, a little under supported.

Taylor is certainly not an exception to this.

She's young. She's 20.

She sings on tour quite a bit. (This is rough on your voice)

She's mainly a songwriter.

The instruments and sound in the room are loud.

She has in ear monitors that essentially plug her ears and feed her what she needs.

And here's my theory: She's awkward.

Watch her on stage.  She's very pretty, but she's a tall lanky girl, who just seems out of place at times on stage. Many of us who primarily play an instrument and sing often feel that way when we are without an instrument and just a microphone.

Something about all this tells me that she may be personally aware of this. And...because of this, she is less confident.  In watching the clip several times back, I seem to think that this affects the way she sings. Without this confidence, she doesn't have the breath support  to back up some of the phrases she writes.

Nor the range.

Moving along with that theory, she doesn't have the control that many other singers her age have. Listen to Hayley Williams. She gets that control through confidence and breath support control.

I commented on Facebook earlier today that she ought to sing with some sort of pitch correction. After all, you'd be hard pressed to find a pop artist these days that doesn't sing with some effects and pitch control. It's simply a necessity in those situations. Sometimes in live tv performances, those effects are fed to the TV.  Sometimes they're not. I guarantee that you know which ones are which.

The underlying reason that Taylor's performances are not bearable is because the entire song is sung under pitch. Even someone who might be considered "tone deaf" knows when they hear bad singing.

Which leads to my last conclusion, she just doesn't have a very good ear. My guess is that the record company (rightly) picked her up because she was a phenomenal country/pop song writer and she was sellable.  Nothing better than a young, pretty, blonde girl who writes songs (and catchy ones at that) about all the guys that screwed with her. Don't cross Taylor or she'll write a song about you. However, she's not a singer. She's not terrible...we've all heard much worse...but she's not great. Unfortunately for her, that's a large part of being an artist. Musical artists get called on to sing at events live. So you have to be good. People have to enjoy listening to you sing. We just don't with her.

Taylor is great.  She's a better song writer than I'll ever be.

She's got a great heart, as evidenced by the song that she wrote for Kanye and about the experience.

She's got a great story and has only more to look forward to.

She has kept to being a good girl, in a world full of young stars who aren't.

But she can't sing.

She doesn't have the breath support.  She doesn't have the confidence. She doesn't have the ear.  She doesn't have the control.

These are all things that singers consider good and desirable qualities.

Most listeners desire for the artist to posses them as well.

Here's to hoping it gets better.

-B

UPDATE: You can also find the performance here

Lyrics to the song are below:

I guess you really did it this time Left yourself in your warpath Lost your balance on a tightrope Lost your mind tryin’ to get it back

Wasn’t it easier in your lunchbox days? Always a bigger bed to crawl into Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything? And everybody believed in you?

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights is still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent You’re still an innocent

There’s some things you can’t speak of But tonight you’ll live it all again You wouldn’t be shattered on the floor now If only you would sing what you know now then

Wasn’t it easier in your firefly-catchin’ days? And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you Wasn’t it beautiful runnin’ wild ’til you fell asleep? Before the monsters caught up to you?

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights is still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent

It’s okay, life is a tough crowd 32, and still growin’ up now Who you are is not what you did You’re still an innocent

Time turns flames to embers You’ll have new Septembers Every one of us has messed up too

Lives change like the weather I hope you remember Today is never to late to Be brand new

It’s all right, just wait and see Your string of lights are still bright to me Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been You’re still an innocent

It’s okay, life is a tough crowd 32, and still growin’ up now Who you are is not what you did You’re still an innocent

Pure Talent

In case you've had your head under a rock and not seen "The Bed Intruder Song", please watch below. NOTE: Rape is a serious issue, but this is funny.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw&hd=1]

If you don't get it, get online more than once every ten years or watch the original clip here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9lwh8J33pw&hd=1]

The guys who made the auto-tuned version have their YouTube page here.

You've probably seen their other "AutoTune the News" stuff before.

Here's the thing, they continually put out good, catchy material.

Not to mention their funny commentary before and after their videos.

Check them out.  It's incredible

And one more for you entertainment.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIoG4PlEPtY&hd=1]

-B

Hawking and the Creation of the Universe

You may have seen that today Stephen Hawking announced that his upcoming book would state that some sort of divine being was not necessary to set the world and universe into motion.  Rather, he says, the law of gravity has something to do with it, somewhat proving that because gravity exists, a divine being may not have been necessary.  At least that's the way that I understood it.  He's way smarter than me. If you haven't seen it, there are lots of news articles running the story right now.

Particularly interesting to me, his statement to Guardian UK:

Hawking says the first blow to Newton's belief that the universe could not have arisen from chaos was the observation in 1992 of a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions – the single sun, the lucky combination of Earth-sun distance and solar mass – far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes. [I added the emphasis myself]

I'm a new theology student who knows next to nothing.

Something tells me, though, that the earth was not carefully designed to please us human beings. Therefore, why do we need evidence?

Scripture says often that the world was pleasing to God.

I think that the existence and necessity of pleasing God might be more of a goal for Hawking to attack.

I might be wrong, who knows.

-B

A New Way to Nano

I bet you thought that I would write about the Apple event today. You were right.

If you want to check out the new iPods, Apple TV, and iTunes, hit up Apple.com

Some thoughts:

The one thing that I didn't like today was the phrasing of the advertising of the new nano. A new way to nano? Really? I think that's dumb.

I'll give you a dollar if you buy the new iPod touch so we can FaceTime.

Apple TV looked dumb until I saw netflix and AirPlay. If Airplay works that well, it's worth every penny.

Why would anyone buy a shuffle when the nano is that much better?

Steve said that they updated every iPod. He forgot about the iPod classic.

Apple never streams events live. Today they did. I was in class.

What if you could install apps for iPod nano from iTunes? Would the small screen be usable?

Why are HD movie rentals still $5? Hollywood is ridiculous.

Having the abc app for iPad on apple tv would be great. Even though are commercials. I would much rather watch commercials than pay $1 each episode.

Finally printing is coming to the iPad. That should have been included from the start.

The graphics on that game they demoed were incredible. I just downloaded the free demo.

Ping might be cool, but only time will tell. At what point will we have to stop keeping up with so many social networks?

iTunes app updated on my phone without a download from the app store. If apple allowed third party developers to update their apps like that, the world would change. And pigs would be flying.

Check out Airplay. It was by far the best thing announced.

Some days I wish my iPhone had a clip on it like the nano and shuffle.

Peace

-B