The Surrogate Brain Algorithm

I thought it would be appropriate to start this post with an exchange I had with my friend @DanFenner (well worth the follow, especially if you're looking for a fresh voice on the Detroit sports scene.)  I hope he doesn't mind.

Dan: “Why the hell can't I get on Google+ to see what the hype is about? I'm gonna go ahead and blame Mark Zuckerberg for this somehow.”

Me: “@DanFenner I think we should both petition surrogate brain immediately.” “@DanFenner speech recognition error. I meant Sergey Brin, Google head honcho. Although maybe Google really is run by a brain in a jar.”

Dan: "It cannot be ruled out as a possibility, haha.”

Now at the time that joke really was a happy accident caused by a speech recognition gaffe.  Then something happened that caused me to examine my social media habits.  

A friend of mine abruptly left Facebook.  They sent out an updated e-mail address to their friends and they were gone. At first I thought they were overreacting.  After all, Mark Zuckerberg is constantly pushing the limits, but most of the time things turn out okay if you just tinker with the privacy settings.  Besides, if all of your friends are on here, you'd be crazy to leave.

Then I remembered an old adage about the Brooklyn Bridge, and decided I would do a of my own investigation before blindly adhering to the Cult of Mark.

This person's complaint had to do with the chat system and messaging system on Facebook undergoing mandatory integration.  Thus, a copy of your chats is automatically saved into your Facebook inbox.  Personally, I don't have a huge problem with the idea of this, because the viewing of the messages between any two people is still limited to those involved. That is, until I discovered something a little scary.


I want to scroll up and see just how many messages were there.  I started scrolling up and down the bar to be interminable.  By the time I stopped (and I'm sure I wasn't at the end), I discovered Facebook had been archiving messages between my friend and I for a least a year and a half.  Although I will admit to being an early adopter, this was well before Facebook had even announced the new messaging system.  It is a little disconcerting.

This is not the first time Facebook has freaked me out a little.  It no longer surprises me to see targeted advertisements based on what I put in my status updates, for example.

Initially, I applauded my friend's gutsy move to switch entirely to a Gmail address.  "Google doesn't save anything," I said.

Then I realize this isn't entirely true, and even in the context I meant it, a more accurate statement might be: "Google doesn't save anything... yet."

Google already saves your search history, something I think almost everyone can tell from just using the toolbar at the top of their browser.  Not too creepy, and that's just convenient.  It is almost impossible however, not to notice the fact that Google is serving up incredibly specific ads to other websites, based upon the things you search for.  With Google+, Google's foray into the social networking space, in limited field trial (side note: why can't I get in?  The thing can't be that limited if everyone on the Oakland Post editorial staff has a profile, but I digress.), is it not inconceivable that as more and more people start using it Google would start marching in the same direction as Facebook has been?  What if suddenly everyone with a Gmail address had a profile by default?  What's to stop Google from mining the data for the benefit of advertisers?  I think it's gotten to the point where we are safe nowhere on the Internet from everything we write being kept in some persistent record.  That's probably not a big problem for me, because as an aspiring journalist, I know that anything you make available at any point can probably be traced back to you.  As such, I've treated the Internet is a public forum for a while now.  That doesn't work well for everybody.  It would be odd if a future civilization found my headstone and it only contained things from my Internet history.

Here lies Kevin Patrick Graham
frustrated insomniac, gamer, writer, technology nerd,
obsessed with music videos; biggest life regret:
never being able to pass level 14 in the
third world of Angry Birds

All those things might be accurate on some level, but they don't really tell you anything beyond the statistics.  Sadly, we are already starting to see this taking place.  I have 179 Facebook friends, and I might talk to 10 of them on a regular basis.  The only window I have into the lives of the others is whatever they post in public.  Public image can be very different from private reality.  It's hard to say who we really know.  So I'm skeptical of anything that starts trying to tell someone who you really are based on that music video you posted a month ago.  I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but isn't that the goal of all advertising?  They find out what makes you tick so they can sell you their product.  There's nowhere to hide.

That said, I will be getting on this Google+ thingy as soon as I can.  Everyone's talking about it. 

World Series of Poker

Normally wouldn't bother with posting this, but I put a lot of effort into this one, so why not?

Ever want to "hold 'em like they do in Texas?" We can't all sing like Lady Gaga, but with this app, we can certainly learn to play poker like her (okay, hopefully better). with the World Series of Poker: hold 'em legend iPod app, you can work your way to the top without even needing a poker face (because this reviewer doesn't have one.)

With this free (for now) app, the player can work their way up from the cash game at the local pub all the way to the final table at Binion's in the World Series. Your bankroll gets you into further events as you go along. It has hand strength and bluffing indicators for the rookies in the audience, but these can be turned off to provide the professional card shark a suitable challenge.

In addition to its robust career mode, that app features quick cash games and and multiplayer via both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

So if you've got the itch to make it rain, but lack the real-life Benjamins to make this possible, this just might be the app for you.

platform: iPod/iPad
size: a little big; 221 MB (iPod)/204 MB (iPad)
price: free (it says for a limited time) 

Let me know if you want me to keep doing these.

When It Comes to All-Star Game, MLB Can't Have It Both Ways

In a lot of ways, the MLB All-Star game is like a confused child.  It lacks a sense of identity.
Adding home-field advantage implications for the winner of the All-Star Game sounds like a great idea.  In theory, it keeps baseball from falling victim to the problems that have plagued the All-Star tilts of other sports-namely, they're a joke.  Major League Baseball's own slogan pretty much sums it up: "this one counts."
Which is why, as a fan that follows the game of baseball closely and hopes to write about it professionally, I'm left confused.

If the All-Star Game is this important, why are the players voted to go not only by the fans, but, equally as important, by their peers and coaches given the option of not showing up?  Derek Jeter isn't going because he's exhausted.  I get it, the past couple weeks have been tough because of the hoopla surrounding your 3000th hit.  Still, the least you can do is go and take a bow for the fans that voted you in as a starter (an honor I'm not even sure you deserve this year given the stiff competition Asdrubal Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta.) 

If it really counted, it wouldn't matter who pitched on Sunday the best candidate would be starting.  I understand why they do it, they don't want to get anyone hurt.  At the same time though, if this was as important as game 7 of the World Series, something the MLB seems to be striving for, everyone would be available.  Justin Verlander would be starting and putting batters in their place.  He is a horse.  He can handle it.  As much as I like the way the Tigers rotation is shaping up right now by having him start the first game out of the All-Star break, I'm sure Jim Leyland wouldn't mind holding him back until Saturday or Sunday if that gave the Tigers, who are in the thick of the playoff race, the best chance of World Series home-field advantage.  Sadly, the MLB won't even allow the option.

This brings me to my solution: treat it like an exhibition.  The players already seem to do this, and league rules involving the pitchers seem to reinforce it.  The Home Run Derby, with the over-the-top commentary of Chris Berman, seems to already indulge in a sideshow atmosphere so why not just fully embrace it?  The same people will continue to watch the All-Star Game.  They tune in for the novelty, to see what a Roy Halladay/Miguel Cabrera duel might look like.  You're not gaining any viewership by putting home-field the line unless they all show up and you let the best players play.

That Troublesome Folder

At some point, we've all asked ourselves this series of questions.  "Why do I have this?  What am I holding on to it for?  Even if I cleaned it up and made it look real nice, what are the odds of having someone take this off my hands?"

This can refer to those multiple books of Pokémon cards that we have.  How about that one time we purchased both volumes of Weird Al Yankovic's Greatest Hits on an impulse from iTunes after discovering we liked that one "White and Nerdy" song? 

Okay, that last instance may be atypical, but guilty as charged on both accounts. 

My computer was getting a little slow recently so I decided to format the hard drive.  For the non-technical in the audience, that's a bit like the mine wiping device in Men in Black.  Everything comes off the computer like it never happened.  Obviously you backup the things you want to keep before doing this: music, important documents, etc.

In addition to these things, I always backup one folder that I just have a hard time parting with.  I fully admit to never looking at most of its contents, but it's almost as if this folder has a certain power over me that I can't quite shake. 

Disclaimer: if you were looking for a hard-hitting article on the current events of the day, check back next week.  I'm committing the ultimate blogging faux pas and asking the reader to come along with me on a trip down my own personal memory lane. 

A little history:

Back in the day (okay, so it was only like 2003), my cousin happened upon a piece of fairly simple game development software and a dream was born.  One 24 hour sleepover later, and we had our first game.  Plenty of sweat and tears (literally, some cousins were more patient than others) were put into it.  The concept was simple: two knights march across the screen to fight each other, first one to get in a clean hit wins.  Still, we were proud.

This was then followed by a series of crash and burn failures.  Sure, there were moderate successes.  Air hockey: think Pong but set it on an ice rink to a soundtrack of Kid Rock and Green Day music we didn't have the rights to.  It was never released, but it was kind of fun.  Word Wizard was an attempt we made at word prediction software.  It left much to be desired in terms of actual usability, but as a first effort, it worked.

Most of our concepts never got off paper.  There was the game about the renegade newspaper editor (seriously is it any wonder I'm a journalism major?)  who leads an underground resistance against the dictatorial government with overtones reminiscent of Orwell.  Then there was the grayscale Into My Abyss, an artsy action adventure title.  We even dabbled briefly in edutainment.  I wrote a script for one level in which Robbie Raindrop takes kids through water cycle.  (I kind of wish I was kidding.)

These projects failed for any number of reasons, but probably chief among them was that I could never really learn to program.  Knowing a little bit of HTML unfortunately does not make me the next Bill Gates.  As a result, my cousin ended up doing most of the programming work which just burned him out.

We eventually tried to do a comedy series in Sims 2 about our failures as a game studio.  Alas, our writing styles were unrefined, and it ended up being mostly bathroom humor.  I tried to reboot it a couple years ago, I even upgraded to Sims 3.  (When it comes to something like this, I consider $40 big budget.  I was in whole hog this time.)  Unfortunately, we never got the voiceovers done and by the time I wiped the computer I forgot the password for the storage of the digital download.  Why I can't recover it involves another comedy of errors which I won't bother going into.  I have four finished scripts if anyone's interested in developing a Web series.  :-) Maybe when Sims 4 comes out.

Nothing was ever going to come out of this folder.  I should just get rid of 95% of the crap.  I could blame it on nostalgia, but the truth is probably closer to laziness.  The finder has managed to survive another transition, and it will probably survive the next one. 

Music Storage Rant

Before I begin this tirade, I would like to point out that the idea of music storage online is an excellent one.  Hard drives inevitably crash and it's nice to have music, or anything you purchased, backed up somewhere so that it can easily be accessed in the event of failure.
At this year's WWDC, Apple announced its iCloud service, its answer to competing services from Google and Amazon.  Now, these services all offer options for files beyond music, but for the scope of this post I would like to confine myself strictly to music.
Apple starts out well by offering automatic cloud backup of any music you bought from the iTunes store, including its DRM protected M4P format.  I'm of two minds about this.  The cynic in me wants to say that Apple has used its own artificial limitation to create a feature that only it can provide.  After all, legally, Amazon and Google cannot break the DRM and therefore cannot play M4P files.  Sure, you can argue that music publishers require a DRM system.  Let's face it though.  The iTunes store is the world's biggest seller of music.  With such a cash cow, the music industry has no choice but to go along if Apple really wants to put the screws to them.  If Steve Jobs forced the issue of MP3s, we would have them.  What are they going to do, not be on iTunes?  It would be a business killer given the market proliferation of iPods.  I'll come back to that.
Apple also announced its $25 a year music match service.  Basically, this will allow iTunes to scan your computer for music not purchased on iTunes.  Sounds like a fair deal seeing as that music could be pirated.  The problem with that is you can also get music legally from CDs or other stores such as Amazon.  So in effect, the music industry, who I have no doubt was behind this idiocy, has in effect legalized piracy for those that have been doing it wrong at the expense of those that have done it right.  I'm all for any provision that puts money in the hands of the artist-they do provide a needed source of entertainment-but not at the expense of the consumer.  It's like double taxation.  Now in this area, Google and Amazon theoretically have you covered as they can handle regular MP3s.  Honestly though, do we really want our music library in two or three different places?
That said, I'll continue to be happy as my download of Tub Thumping by Chumbawamba magically gets beamed to both my iPod and my computer.

Windows 8 a sophisticated iOS?

Windows 8 demo interface

I was quite shocked when I saw the above image.  It represents the newly designed UI for the just announced Windows 8.  Based on the video released, which features the new interface along with the traditional interface for older apps, it seems Microsoft is making a big bet on touch being the technology of the future. 

The thing most surprising to me was how much comparison you could make between this and similar operating systems on Apple's mobile prospects.  The icons, while bigger are similar.  The technology is different, yes.  The icons will change to show whatever website or document you're working on, a cool feature.  The snapping features begun in Windows 7 look great in a touch interface.  However, Microsoft may still have a fight on its hands. 

They are going to have to market this thing like crazy.  Much like Windows has owned the climate among PCs for businesses and most people outside graphic artists and film editors until recently, Apple's devices have a firm hold on the market for touch-based interfaces.  Regardless of how different-and sometimes superior-Windows Phone may be in terms of its features, I don't think anyone would argue the point that it hasn't attained the prime real estate in the minds of consumers that is enjoyed by the iCompany (getting tired of constantly writing Apple).

In addition, I question the point of upgrading to Windows 8 for those dead set on sticking to the traditional Windows interface, as Microsoft has already described this is a straight port of Windows 7.  There will  presumably be no significant performance upgrades because Microsoft has said  Windows 8 will be able to run on any machine currently compatible with 7.

Now it could be that this will lead to a blurring of the lines with the two companies next-generation offerings similar to what has happened in the current generation.  In case you haven't noticed, I would make the argument that Windows 7 and Snow Leopard on the Mac side are not as different interface wise as the companies might like you to believe. 

I guess I'm just thinking out loud.  On another note, I miss my goal of posting daily already.  Life intervenes.  I may do a blitz on the weekends in order to make up for days I miss.  I haven't decided yet.

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's... a Journalist?

Super Journalist

You should definitely read this article. While I don't necessarily agree with everything in it (maybe I'm still too wet behind the ears to fit some of these descriptions), it is very funny, and something mentioned in it only briefly peaked my interest.

The author begins the article by mentioning Clark Kent, by day a hard-working reporter for the Daily Planet, by night a crime-fighting protector of the world who is constantly at odds with Lex Luthor. That got me thinking: Superman isn't the only superhero with a journalism connection. When he wasn't Spiderman, Peter Parker was a photographer for the Daily Bugle. Britt Reid, alter ego of the Green Hornet, even owned his own newspaper. I decided to explore my own explanations for this coincidence, and if you think about it, it makes sense.

1. Journalists are supposed to be the eyes and ears of the public.
   

On the front page of every Detroit Free Press is a motto that says something to the effect of "on guard for like a bazillion years." Much like superheroes fight all manner of villains and crime, journalists protect the public from corrupt politicians and morally suspect business owners. Our job is to find the truth. Sometimes objects in the mirror are not what they appear to be. Don't believe me? Just think about every superhero movie you've ever seen. Usually, the villain's plan seems beneficial to the community, as a real world example let's use a revenue producing sports arena. This is all fine and dandy until you realize that the power source for the arena is dumping toxic sludge into the local river. The journalist must fight against the corrupt corporation in order to bring the facts to the public in the same way Batman must protect Gotham City. By treating everything with an appropriate level of skepticism, the journalist is able to find out all sides of the story so the public doesn't have to.

1. Journalists provide a system of checks and balances.
   

The goal of journalism (at least good journalism) can be loosely translated as "just the facts, please." By reporting on the activities in Washington, the state capitol, or even something as minor as the city's zoning board, journalists provide the public with the information necessary to judge their elected officials for themselves. This provides an essential tool to the public. If you don't like what a politician is doing, you can vote for the other guy in next election. This is the ultimate trump card in an era where politicians seem to have a loose moral compass. One has to make sure they are serving their constituents, and not their own selfish interests. (Kwame Kilpatrick anyone?) This is similar to Spiderman standing up to the prominent Otto Octavius.

Of course, if the superpowers and good looks come along with it, I see myself as Daredevil. A gold star goes to the two of you that get that joke.

Because 420 Characters Will Not Contain Me

Welcome to the Empty Packets blog. If you're here you probably clicked the wrong link on Google. Go ahead and continue with your day. Just mosey on off. Is everyone gone now? Whew that was close.

Seriously though. Why are you reading this and why is it called Empty Packets? I suppose I should start by answering that question.

The simple answer would be that Bits and Bytes was taken. The more thorough answer is that Internet data is transmitted in packets. Since this isn't about anything in particular, I'm calling it Empty Packets.

I believe good writing is a craft, something that takes years of practice to master. I figure maybe by writing something down here every day over a long period of time, I can begin to work on improving my skills. If friends, family, and whatever other audience I might get wants to read it, that's just a bonus.

So I'm not focused on any particular subject. One day I might be writing about technology—I'm convinced of the iPod Touch's value as the Swiss Army knife of the budding journalist. The next day you might see an article (or more accurately, a rant ) on how to improve the Tigers batting order. I'll throw in the occasional pop culture topic, a news item, or commentary. As often as not, (tomorrow, for example) the topic will just be something interesting I read.

Sure, I could do this on Facebook or Twitter (@KevinGraham88), but you try limiting yourself to 140 characters. It isn't easy.

Tomorrow: It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's... A Journalist?