Random #6 - Misreading the tea leaves.
and on the perils of being extremely politically incorrect...
Disclaimer: If you are going to be offended, stop reading here. And if you choose to read from this point on, please know that you have waived any and all rights and claims against the author. It’s not like anyone is forcing this content down your throat….
I need to buy a new phone. I am very stuck because I cannot really find one that gives me enough value for my money. I wanted the S21 - but Samsung doesn’t have the 256 GB version in stock. I briefly considered the iphone but I realized that there is no call recording in that phone. Xiaomi and Redmi phones were considered and even used briefly before I realized these are sending a fuckton of encrypted data back to some mothership - ~5-8x more than my S9+ - and while I am reasonably sure that it is all perfectly innocent, it seems a bit excessive. I’d rather be safe than sorry. Oneplus 10 is perhaps my best bet for now. If that doesn’t work, I will probably have to sell someone’s kidney to pay for a new S22. Or maybe a folding phone? We shall see.
In this moment, what I really wished for was a Motorola Razr V3i with the ability to use whatsapp, maps, some kind of a music app and maybe Uber on it. I don’t really need anything else.
I was googling away hoping some Japanese or Korean or Chinese handset will fit the bill. I found a very expensive (for what it delivers) Nokia, a Japan-only Aquos (which does seem like my best bet for this feature set) and a weird Huawei that I will steer clear of.
In the meanwhile, I landed on this.
Mr. Platt goes on to posit that the iphone will fail because of 3 key reasons:
“iPhone ignores the main reasons that the iPod succeeded: simplicity and ease of use”…
…“iPhone crams too many functions into a single box. Putting everything in the same package so you only have to carry one box sounds like a good idea, until you want to listen to music while surfing the web or reading your email or playing a game”…
…“users will detest the touch screen interface due to its lack of tactile feedback”…
He compares the Iphone to Ishtar and Waterworld. For those of you who know movies, these are fighting words indeed.
I wonder how Mr. Platt feels now? Does he feel a little violated at the middle finger the entire universe showed him? Or, like Barney Stinson, does he continues to root for the phone equivalent of Johnny Lawrence in the Karate Kid?
That said, I will kill for a good quality qwerty phone. I remember the days when there were the Blackberry haves and the have-nots. Seperation of the classes was beautifully enforced by your ability (or lack thereof) to use a full qwerty keyboard. The BBM ping was the sign of something secret, a form of communication that belonged only to higher mortals. Then the fucking touchscreen phone came along and now I get too many whatsapp messages. Needless to say, the misanthrope in me hates it.
Underestimating the web:
Now, once I found Mr. Platt’s article, I went digging for some more. Mr. Clifford Stoll wrote in the Newsweek in 1995:
It’s actually a very well written piece. Funny and acerbic. How do you not take a man with Einstein-shocked hair and what appears to be a large silvery orb seriously?
But everything it pooh-poohs has happened. E-commerce, online books, immersive games, virtual communities, online concerts.
What caught my eye was this one:
And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?
As it turns out, a third of the internet was porn in 2017 and now I can only guess that the number has gone up. Think about it, there is mobile data waves passing through you right now. A third of that is porn. There is pornography passing through you right now. How does that make you feel?
We can only hope its not 2 girls 1 cup.
Sharking Indians:
So, earlier last week, I finished watching Ozark. What a fucking brilliant show.
Once we finished that, the wife and I were faced with a existential dilemma. What to watch next?
Then I made the mistake of listening to my dear wifey and watching Shark Tank India. I was hooked - in a very not-good way. It was like watching Bigg Boss in 2013 all over again. I was a fanboy for one season, running home to watch the next episode. Once that ended, I vowed to never let myself watch this brain numbing sleazefest ever again. Reality shows pander to the basest of base desires in us. And somehow, those are the very feelings Shark Tank India evokes. God only knows why Uday Kotak and Ratan Tata are not present as Sharks.
Here are some of my helpful suggestions:
Allow Ashneer to use MC/BC to his heart’s content. The guy is hard pressed to control himself and sometimes looks like his head is going to explode. Let him curse. He was so backed up from having to talk civilly on the show that he apparently ended up taking out his frustrations on his wealth manager.
Someone should say “No, thanks, mujhe aata hai” to the free Upgrad course.
Can we have a section where Ranvijay questions the life choices that have led him to the point where he dazedly hands questionable e-learning courses to the uninterested?
When any of the sharks pontificate about the lack of profitability of others’ businesses, a marquee should come on the screen at the bottom listing their startups’ revenue, net profit and burn rate.
Mr. Bansal’s well-wishers should perhaps ask him to go a bit easy on CAs. What if all of them unite and stop issuing Lenskart valuation certificates?
But wait, there is more. It seems that criticism got to the show.
I leave you to form your opinions on this gem.
As per Mr. Gupta, if you aren’t rah-rahing at the show, you are most likely a “pseudo intellectual with a colonial hangover who loves everything angrezi or get infatuated when you hear the word daallars.” Or as Momota-di will put it, a “maoisht”.
As an aside, this was a product on shark tank. I wonder why they invited the man in the first place. If the aim was to only snigger at the guy, perhaps they could have eschewed doing it on national TV.
AKA paisa aa gaya, class nahi.
As always, I look forward to hearing from you. If you liked this post, pls feel free to share this or subscribe to this newsletter using the links below. While I have been tardy of late, I try to write a 1000-2000 word essay once a week.