Tweet Readings

If you haven't been following Marcus' official Tweet Readings on Vimeo you're missing out some of the sharpest lampooning of social media on the net. Marcus has consistently squeezed out top notch engaging content on the net and has chosen blogger, entrepreneur and cartoonist Hugh Macleod for this official Tweet Reading, the sixth in a series that has been going on for the last two weeks. The official Tweet Reading channel is over here.


Official Tweet Reading VIII: Hugh MacLeod from Marcus Brown on Vimeo.

I did get to meet Hugh over here along with Faris, George (who has a new advertising book out) and Ruby Pseudo. Hugh kindly drew me one of his famous cartoon cards, which I will blog shortly because even though we had both washed down a few cleansing ales after PSFK he summed me up rather splendidly.

Those of you who might have seen me present last week at the marketing to low income customers conference will recognise at least one of Hugh's often profound cartoons below.

trashbat dot cock

fwickafwee

My clever academic and designer chum (Uni lecturer too come to think of it) pointed out to me a few weeks ago that computer operating system upgrades have a lot to answer from their impact on the environment. Each time Windows or Apple (and its not just computing platforms) launch an upgrade, the impact on our planet both in terms of resources 'screwed' from the ground, and waste chucked back into it is huge. All so we can work faster and less smarter while seemingly avoiding any thinking about the planet heating up. Go figure.... I say bring back a mandatory siesta. China? The U.S.? Just do it.

What makes it even more ugly is that each software upgrade just raises the hardware game so that the need becomes a self fulfilling prophecy - duh. Far more intelligent would be to encourage a proper geek culture for a tweaked and patched extended operating system life span. Windows 98 kept me happy far longer than the last notebook that ran it did. That piece of Japanese state of the art kit eventually buckled under the weight of huge CPU requirements for software upgrades (Adobe, MS Office, Symantec, Real, Java, Flash) around the same time as the physical keyboard.

So reading this today, I feel even more uneasy with the relentless and senseless upgrade to New New New New culture. (Terror, Terror, Terror anyone?). I understand that technology designers have a weakness called 'feature creep'. It means that they can't help but add functions that are largely useless to all but the biggest swinging remote control user. Anyway I thought I was going to cut my waffle down for this post but I've gone on like the bores I claim to be so mindful of. In any case when the President of Acer calls it like it is and says Vista is a turkey, I think its time to start telling Microsoft to Change the world or Go Home.

The Usual Suspects

Faris Yacob

Jenny Owen & Hugh MacLeod

George Parker

Charles - The White Album

Faris George Jenny & Hugh