As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
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Devastatingly Challenging Modern Games
For all intents and purposes, challenging video games are long gone. Games used to be hard, brutally hard. Old-school games such as Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Castlevania, Contra, and even the first few iterations of Super Mario Bros. were among some of the most popular titles that brought gaming into relevancy. These games were also incredibly challenging. Now that the game industry has eclipsed motion pictures in terms of revenue, it can be argued that gaming is the most popular form of entertainment in modern society. With that popularity and appeal to mass audiences, games have become eerily realistic with graphical advancements, world-building, and storytelling, but some may say that they have faltered in at least one aspect: Difficulty.
Most games that are released have difficulty levels, a setting that did not exist during the onset of the gaming revolution. Even at the hardest difficulty level, most games released today, do not measure up to the challenge that old-school brought to the table. However, ever so often, a modern game is released that not only challenges the player, but also provides a sense of accomplishment when progression is made. Everyone likes to feel a sense of achievement. With the recent release of the brilliant, yet punishing Playstation 4 exclusive, Bloodborne, let’s take a look at some of modern gaming’s true tests of gaming skill. The following games/series do not hold your hand, but if you are willing to put in the time and dedication, they reward you with an overwhelming loft of accomplishment. For this piece, modern games will be defined as anything released after November 2005, when the Xbox 360 was born. These are just several of the many games that could have been included on this list. They have been chosen because each of them have introduced something revolutionary to gaming. In no particular order, some of the most commercially successful games that also happen to be incredibly challenging:
Bloodborne (2015) and Dark Souls Series (2009-2014)
The game that revitalized this conversation, and the one that millions of players are currently struggling to play through, is the latest controller-breaking release out of From Software, the studio that has a firm grasp on how to make a 3D world extremely challenging. They are known for the Souls games: Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls II. Bloodborne is the spiritual successor to those titles. Anyone who has attempted to play any of these games knows how difficult they can be. That is not to say that they cannot be mastered, but becoming even competent at slaying the beasts within these dark worlds takes time, patience, and an abundance of perseverance. Even at the beginning of the game, enemies can take your character down in just a few hits if you are not careful. Luckily, Bloodborne is a very, very good game, which makes the endless amount of times staring at the loading screen after yet another death more tolerable, because, of course, you have learned something new about the way the world and the enemies work with each failed attempt at progression. The sense of accomplishment that comes when defeating one of the game’s many bosses makes the grind more than worth it. This game is not for the faint of heart. While many will give up after just a few deaths, claiming impossibility, the ones who stick around might be able to conquer the fictional land of Yharnam and become a master Hunter.
Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010, 2013) and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze (2014)
Yes, Nintendo is generally considered a company that targets a younger audience with their releases, but just as the original arcade version of Donkey Kong and subsequent side-scrolling releases on SNES provided experiences that required immense platforming prowess, two recent iterations renewed the difficulty, possibly even reaching a new level. The great thing about Nintendo games is that they have a magical feel to them, but the bad thing about the latest Donkey Kong titles is that the magic can be interrupted rather quickly due to an ill-timed jump, momentary lapse of focus, or just overconfidence. After all, they are kids’ games, right? Wrong. 2010′s sequel to SNES classic Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Country Returns (Creative title, eh?) on the Nintendo Wii was so difficult that when it was rereleased on the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, Nintendo gave players an “easy” mode. While still incredibly hard, it made the game more manageable. Then they came back and released Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, one of the only must-play games available on the Wii U and the difficulty was just as rampant as before. Although these games seem unfair at times, the level design is impeccable, bringing 2D side scrolling to modern gaming in a beautiful way. With colorful graphics, and plenty of secrets to find, the latest entries in the Donkey Kong franchise are amazing throwbacks to classic side scrolling combined with the modern day beauty that technological advancements have brought to games. If you buy these game for your kids, be prepared to help them, although it is not clear if you will be able to provide any useful form of assistance guiding Donkey Kong through the jungle.
Fire Emblem Awakening (2013)
The Fire Emblem series has quietly been around for over twenty years. It’s popularity is much larger in Japan where the studio, Intelligent Systems, is located. Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy game, but it can be described as intense, medieval chess. Strategy is paramount in this series, because although the player has all the time in the world to make a move, the computer is waiting, ready to strike at every misstep. Fire Emblem Awakening was released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and was a commercial success for a game of its kind. On default settings, the way that Fire Emblem is meant to be played, the intriguing concept of permadeath is implemented. Permadeath, or permanent death, means that if one of your characters die, they are not only dead for that level, but for subsequent levels. The character that was vanquished is gone forever, bringing a whole new level of importance to decision making actions. Skill is important but intelligence is a must. The studio, Intelligent Systems, must have picked their name very carefully, because Fire Emblem Awakening takes players to school and often times, fails them over and over. Progressing through each level makes the player feel smart, while also remaining vulnerable, knowing that one of their favorite characters could perish at any time. In modern gaming, given their name, strategy games are supposed to take the most thought, and in that regard, Fire Emblem is king.
Super Meat Boy (2010)
Originally released on Xbox 360 and PC, Super Meat Boy is a glorious love letter to classic gaming. Developed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, Super Meat Boy is one of the most impressive accomplishments in modern gaming. They were two of the pioneers that brought independent game development to the mainstream, inspiring countless aspiring developers that want to create something like what they grew up playing. The game is a side scrolling platformer, that demands expertise of the controls. That is where the challenge lies within Super Meat Boy. The levels are short, but grueling. At times, the player can see the end of the level at the beginning of the level, but jumping over obstacles that cause immediate death make the end so far away. If the player is even slightly off when timing jumps, it is game over. The physics of jumping are developed so well that the game is not unfairly challenging, just difficult to master. The learning curve is drastic, but doable. Once a level is completed, the player would likely be able to complete it again somewhat easily, but the next level is a different story. Taking what you learn from one level to the next helps, but in the end, each level brings a new challenge, a fresh element of gameplay, and a new strategy of controlling Super Meat Boy is needed to advance any further.
Spelunky (2008)
Developed by Derek Yu using Game Maker Studio, Spelunky is one of those rare success stories that started off as a fun project, but turned into a huge success. It has since been released on almost every major platform since Xbox 360 for gamers around the world to enjoy. An action-adventure side scroller with platforming and strategic elements, Spelunky is the love child of almost every gaming genre. While none of the games on this list have been named more difficult than the others, Spelunky probably has the best argument. The game counts how many times the player has died. Typically, it will probably take an above average gamer about 1000 deaths or more to reach the ending. The reason for this, is also the reason why those deaths keep the player coming back for more, every level is randomly generated. Yes, each time you die, the levels change. You will never experience the exact same level layout, enemy placement, or finish line for each of standard sixteen levels. Sixteen levels doesn’t sound like a very long game, but once you die, you have to start over. Despite access to shortcuts by being successful several times over, the shortcuts are more of a way to learn the four distinct worlds within the game, not a way to actually complete the game. There are bonus levels as well, if you are skilled enough to beat the game, and have also acquired the goods needed to access them, but they are even more challenging. A typical round of Spelunky can last anywhere from a few seconds to twenty fifteen minutes if you can beat the game. Yes, the game can be completed in fifteen minutes, even less if your skills are that refined, but expect the death counter to rise before you even get close to the end of the game, and even then, you will likely have to start over many times. You will learn things about the controls, enemies, and items that will assist your travels each time the levels regenerate, but the randomization makes each play through almost as challenging as the last. Spelunky is one of the most interesting modern games, as well as one of the most challenging and rewarding. The best part is that it is always a new experience, which keeps players coming back for more even after they have failed time and time again.
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LinkedIn buys learning firm for $1.5bn
LinkedIn buys online learning business Lynda for $1.5bn, making it the professional networking site’s biggest acquisition to date.
Why Walking Meetings Can Be Better Than Sitting Meetings
Walking meetings are a kind of a big deal at LinkedIn. On any given day you can find workers strolling and talking together on the bike path at the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters. The path takes about 20-25 minutes to circle — perfect for a half-hour one-on-one with a colleague.
The walk and talks have obvious benefits. Desk-bound office workers can all use a bit more exercise. Sitting too much is killing us. Yet the walking meeting’s upsides go far beyond the physical. Walking helps break down formalities, relaxes inhibitions and fosters camaraderie between colleagues — and less eye contact can fuel more personal conversation. Meeting on the go also minimizes distractions — no phones, no email, no texts, no colleagues interrupting you.
Perhaps most intriguing, walking leads to more creative thinking, according to a recent study from researchers at Stanford University.
With sit-downs indoors, you face each other across a table. “You feel like you’re at the principal’s office,” Igor Perisic, LinkedIn’s vice president of engineering told The Huffington Post. “That’s not what you want.”
Perisic recounted a time when he and a colleague were trying to solve an issue with LinkedIn’s search function. They spent hours in a room with a white board trying to work it out. Still he felt that he was missing something.
“So we went out on a walk and talked about it,” Perisic said. When they got back indoors, they had the solution. “And it seemed like the obvious choice.”
You can find many big-shot fans of the walk and talk — including Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and this guy named Barack Obama. There’s even a TED Talk devoted solely to the topic.
Obama (left) is reportedly a big fan of the walking meeting.
We all intuitively understand that it’s nice to get some fresh air outside, but new research shines a light on why walking could be especially good in a work environment.
When we walk we let our guard down, said Marily Oppezzo, who researched walking and creativity, along with her professor Daniel Schwartz, when she was a doctoral student at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. Their paper was published online last year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
“Walking releases your filter,” said Oppezzo, now a post-doc at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Ideas you hold back in a conference room come spilling out when you’re moving.
To gauge walking’s effect on creativity, Schwartz and Oppezzo had test subjects walk and sit, and then asked them to find alternate uses for everyday items like tires or buttons. One person suggested using a button as a doorknob for a dollhouse, a tiny strainer, something to drop behind you to keep your path, for example.
They found that people who walked were able to come up with more unique ideas, both while they were walking and immediately afterward. And, it didn’t matter much if they walked on a treadmill or outside.
“Walking opens up the free flow of ideas,” they write in their paper.
This doesn’t mean you should convert all your conference rooms into gyms. Sometimes you’re going to need to sit down.
The Stanford researchers found that sitting is the better option when you have to solve a problem for which there is only one right answer. For example, they asked test subjects to come up with a single word that combines with the words “cottage, Swiss, and cake.” The sitters were better able to figure out the answer: cheese.
LinkedIn’s Perisic said that sometimes he needs to be near a whiteboard to work on a project. For difficult conversations — say, letting someone know their performance isn’t measuring up — he likes to talk in a more formal setting. “It’s tough to have the conversation outside.”
Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Jeff Weiner are both big fans of the walk and talk.
Still, Perisic, who oversees about 220 people, can often be found walking with someone on his team. And his CEO, Jeff Weiner, has been positively evangelical on the subject.
“It’s energizing to get outside for a 30 minute walk a few times a day,” he said in a recent interview published on LinkedIn. “[It] just changes the whole state of things.”
Other Silicon Valley companies get the whole walking thing, too. Facebook just put in a half-mile loop on the roof of its new headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and workers there do a lot of walking meetings.
LinkedIn’s walking tradition was born more out of necessity than a careful review of research. During the firm’s early days, when it was growing quickly, it was really hard to book a conference room, Weiner told Bloomberg recently. “We had a lot of people and not enough space.”
A colleague suggested walking meetings as a fix — solve the space issue and get some exercise. “It was very practical,” Weiner said.
The company’s expanded since then, and it now has more space. But no one’s going back inside.
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Time… Compressed
I was excited this week when one of my Google Alerts popped up with a link to an infographic on games and gaming, from parents’ perspectives. I always love studies about how families are connecting or not through digital media, since we’re now well into a time when both parents and children grew up playing video games, making them a generational connector rather than divide. As one gamer cohort raises another, are they finding shared passions and pastimes in strategy, tactics and action, or is that trumped by gaming’s evolution from parents playing $50 cartridges on a console to kids “snacking” on freemium games downloaded to a mobile phone? (Clearly, many adults are also casual gamers.)
Either way, I was disappointed to click through to the article and find that it relied on data from 2008 through 2010. Everything, from the breakdown of favorite gaming platforms, to the gender balance, to the parental concerns, to the industry finances, was very much out of date. For context, the most recent study in the graphic was done around the time the iPad debuted, so the statistics didn’t reflect – pardon the pun – the biggest “game-changer” around.
The Entertainment Software Association certainly offers more up-to-date insights on its website, so I’m not sure why the infographic and accompanying article dwelt on old numbers.
In any case, the effect of the throwback snapshot to 2010 was to make me think about how compressed time has become in today’s world, and the implications for research and strategy.
I’m not a great believer in “KGOY” (Kids Getting Older Younger”), though it’s a truism for many in the toy and media worlds. Instead, I hold that most passages of childhood stand unchanged over time: babies, toddlers and kids still go through developmental hallmarks in a predictable order, though with lots of individual variation. It’s industry that fosters KGOY by pushing marketing younger; most kids still love the comfortable touchstones of childhood.
At PlayScience, though, we do often write and speak about shorter tech generations, and how they’re changing kids’ and families’ play and learning. The rapid nature of technology innovation is a mashup of Moore’s Law with a marketplace ever hungry for the newest gadget. IP owners and content creators are eager to have their brands integrated into all available platforms, in innovative ways. As they’ve done since the dawn of radio, marketers seek to convince parents that emerging devices are essential to their children’s learning. Finally, many parents either buy into the latest device hype (who doesn’t want their children to succeed?) or they want the shiniest new toy for themselves and pass down the now hopelessly outdated (but only three-month-old) machine to the kids.
Either way, the result is tighter age cohorts as defined by use of certain device types. PlayScience sees this revealed in our research, whether we’re looking into new ways of play, reading or learning. In a global gaming study we conducted a few years back, the children’s audience split into three narrow age groups: all kids were still playing using the computer, but 2-5 year olds were more oriented next toward touchscreens, 6-9s split their loyalties between touchscreens and game consoles, and 10-13s had shifted to game-specific devices. More recently, in a 2015 survey of children’s platform preferences, all ages now favor tablets, but only the youngest group prefers kid-specific tablets over mainstream ones. The rise and fall of various technologies across very slim age ranges – 2-4, 5-7 and 8-9 – was striking.
The above two examples demonstrate, also, that we need to survey the field more often to track shifts in what devices families own, what they allow children to access, what children themselves own, and how they are using each and all.
Imagine the implications of such time compression on academic researchers and industry producers. Whether conducting a study of media’s impact or launching a new set of characters and stories, the entire world can shift beneath your feet if the development process is too long. Today’s disruptor is tomorrow’s Zune.
Soon, PlayScience will release a new study of the children’s VOD market – part parent survey and part analysis and forecast. Even as we prepare the final report, we’ve had to make constant adjustments, as players and strategies rise and fall (especially in the wake of YouTube Kids).
The industry development and production process is getting more rapid. Streaming video services now serve as a testbed, with audience feedback resulting in popular content getting picked up and expanded by traditional broadcast and cable outlets. Sometimes, the development process is shorter than breakfast to lunch. At a panel in Los Angeles produced by PlayScience, Golin and the Television Academy, YouTuber iJustine described getting up in the morning and asking her 1.75 million Twitter followers what they want to see that day. She’d decide and shoot before lunch and having it online mid-afternoon. Instant analytics shape future content.
While we need new models that respond to the compressed clock and calendar, we also need to be mindful that quality content isn’t always instantaneous, nor does it rush to the “hot” technology. Harry Potter wasn’t written in a day, and as my friend Josh Selig has said, “no one told Melville, ‘great book, but what’s the game.’” There’s a place in kids’ lives for improvised stories but also for big productions that take months or years to write, shoot and edit. Kids love and need diversity in their entertainment just as much as we adults do.
This column appeared originally in Kidscreen.
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7 Ways to Build an App That Users Trust
When it comes to building an app, there are a ton of best practices that are seen as essential in creating a cohesive, user-friendly experience. These typically involve overarching design details, but also include everything from monetization options to specific platform considerations. One thing that businesses rarely focus on when creating an app, however, is how they’ll gain a user’s trust. Instead, they assume that their app is automatically good enough to deserve a customer’s trust.
Unfortunately, we now live in a world where trust is not a given in the app landscape. And while it’s possible for businesses like Uber and Apple to carry on even after trust-related disasters in the public eye, these kinds of missteps can often mean the difference between success and failure for smaller businesses who aren’t as equipped to deal with similar fallout.
In the current tech landscape, trust is — as the industry trends analysts at Hyper Island phrase it – a “high-value currency.” Here are seven ways to build an app with a solid foundation of user trust.
1. Be professional
It may sound self-explanatory, but professionalism is the cornerstone of building trust in your software. In every aspect of your app or website, make sure that you’re demonstrating your expertise. Whether it involves quality design, speedy performance, or great content, be sure that your user is never second-guessing your credibility because of an otherwise-insignificant flaw. No detail is too small when it comes to establishing professionalism – even a small typo in your app’s text can strongly influence a user’s perception of your app.
2. Wherever you can, show your credentials
Sometimes, the smallest signals can make all the difference to a user. Whenever you’re asking a user for their credit card number, you’re taking a huge leap in trust. This makes it essential to show that you’ve been approved by some objective third-party. Indicating that you’re TRUSTe certified, for instance, can mean the difference between a conversion and a pass. Wherever you have applicable certifications, try to provide some sort of watermark or insignia to denote that you’ve been evaluated and approved by a trusted outside organization.
3. Predict the user’s concerns and address them early
If you have to ask a user for information, the first question that often comes to their mind is “why do you need this?” What many apps do nowadays is to let the user know why and how their information will be used. If you’re requesting access to a user’s location services, for instance, let the user know exactly how their experience will improve by allowing this access. By letting them know how they’ll benefit, you motivate them to give you access to the features that allow your app to work.
4. Keep important information out in the open
One of the fastest ways to lose consumer trust is to give them the idea that you’re not being forthcoming with them. Unfortunately, there are many user interfaces which routinely use vague language and functionality in order to trick users into taking certain actions. These types of designs, which the site Dark Patterns attempts to expose, are exactly the type of thing you don’t want to include in your own software. Try to counter even the slightest perception that your app may be running a “dark pattern,” and your user trust will benefit tremendously.
5. Tell us about yourself
One way to develop transparency is to give the user a sense of who you are. Whether you do this on your website or from within your own app (“Credits” listings and “About” sections are good for accomplishing this), do what you can to be forthcoming with your company’s background and motivations. This is already a crucial part of creating a trustworthy corporate identity, but can also be useful when implemented in your own software.
6. Provide security options
It seems that high-profile security breaches are becoming commonplace across the software world, with even some of the largest corporations facing major hacks. As a result, it can be difficult for customers to trust that their credit card numbers and personal information will remain safe with a new app they’re not used to. In fact, if your security is seen as lacking, you face the risk of losing some of your user base. The best way to counteract this is to offer options when it comes to security. Whether it’s two-factor authentication or quick response times to security-related customer inquiries, it’s important that you’re not slouching when it comes to user privacy.
7. Get a good writer
Often, one of the biggest barriers standing between an app and a smooth user experience is that the language is vague or confusing. When the user doesn’t understand an app’s functionality due to poor writing, you’re forfeiting a sense of trust that should have been simple to acquire. The importance of writing in UX has become a popular topic of conversation for two reasons: Because good writing is a great tool for building user trust, and because it’s an essential part of a clear, streamlined UX.
– This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Life Without a Cellphone — Part 4-D: Um, Okay? (Inconclusive Conclusion)
Click here for the previous part of this series and here for part one.
And now for a cloud-wringing surprise twist!
Rather than pick up where I left off, partly because I see no light in describing more of my mistake-filled pendular pettiness but mostly because my memory of the subject has been exhausted, I will pretend that all my musings, despite not leading directly to a conclusion, having saturated the billowy folds of my mind, condensed into a burst of clarity:
I would keep my smartphone’s number but assign it to a yet-to-be-acquired old flip-phone, the kind without even a qwerty keyboard and the only kind that didn’t require the purchase of a data plan, which phone I would keep turned off and buried at the bottom of a large, plastic lidded bin, betwixt the lowest in a pile of towels and pillow cases, the battery removed and stuffed higher up in this linen sepulcher, all sitting in the back of the bin, neat and white, the bin itself in a hard-to-reach area of a closet, another bin needing to be moved out to even access my plastic ark of a covenant, the shelf above then still preventing an easy grasp of its contents, and the closet itself difficult to open as its door did not sit well in its tracks.
Yes, my first act in giving up a cellphone would be to buy a cellphone. And my second to hide it. I would make calls and check the flip-phone’s voicemail from my laptop using Gmail’s calling abilities, but I would not have a Google number and so people could not telephonically reach me on Gmail–which also meant, that when I made calls, I would being doing so from whatever random number the good people at Google assigned to me for the occasion. If the internet were not to work and I really needed to make a call or if I needed to retrieve a text message from a bank or the great Book of Faces or if I had to flee my house during an android or Chaldean invasion, I would exhume my phone from its holy resting place. I wouldn’t initiate contact through Twitter or Facebook. Messages sent to me through these services would be redirected to my email, from which I could respond directly without setting finger in the link-filled booby-traps of T & F (four years on, responding thusly is no longer possible). If someone wanted to text me, they could put my email address in the “To:” line rather than my phone number. If they wanted me to text them, I would send an email addressed to their phone number. Email Email Email. Email would be singular and I unsyncretic. If I met someone, I would give them my email. If I wanted to reach someone, I would do so from email. And if they wanted to reach me, they would have to, one way or another, send a message to my email. Or, as I would soon find out, they could just buzz up to my apartment.
Now, to return to one of the concerns I mentioned at the outset of Part 4, I needed to tell people. Telling is no trivial concern. To tell is to give your story, to represent yourself in the public sphere, to add to the avatar that is you in the social setting. To tell a story about communication–and so to comment on how telling is done in general–only added liberal-arts-major bilge: now it was not just my social avatar in question but also threads from avatar to rest of fabric; now it was not just message I had to worry about, but also the goddamn medium. What words were apposite? What manners befitted the telling? And, of preeminence to my mission, what words, what manners would best facilitate my new acts? ensure the rough transition be made smooth? grant permanence to my parting? What stories served this higher purpose best? This, my entry to a better, disconnected world. I would soon shatter (metaphorically, of course, that shit is expensive) my false idol, but what and how to tell people of my new beliefs? Of my haphazard awakening? Of the inspiring spirit now inside me? Lo, where hideth the Buzzfeed quiz proclaiming what prophet I was meant to be?
Was I an Abraham? Willing to abandon those closest to me at first calling? To sacrifice that which is dearest to me in the name of my new faith? Or would I resist the Word out of humility, like early Moses? Who am I, that I should go unto Jobs, and that I should scold forth the children of America out of Cupertino? I am not eloquent. “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” I am pleonastic on the page. Would my reluctance even stretch beyond the stereotypical prophet’s to manifest itself as Jeremiah’s eventual despondence? Would “…that my mother might have been my grave,” he says. Would people call me as well the weeping prophet? “Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see disfavor and a digital tomorrow?” I say. But would I forbear? Or would words be in my heart as a burning secret shut up in Snowden’s memory? Though, maybe, with no Eli to correct me, I would simply miss my calling. Or would conscience be unto me as an Eli? Would I even volunteer, after Isaiah? God asks “Whom shall I send…?” and he at once replies “Here am I; send me.” Though, really, as Isaiah is apparently the only one present and a seraph has just purged him of sin and you can’t just look around, shrug your shoulders, say to God “no idea; good luck with that,” and walk away, his is a questionable autonomy. No, there is implied duress here. Isaiah is more like Amos than eager seer: The phone hath chimed, who will not quiver? “the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” And when I did prophesy, would I draw from the well of anger oft visited by the prophets? Would I pour forth against the device worshipers? Would I even match Jeremiah’s alternate disposition, which led some to refer to him as a prophet of wrath? This Jeremiah pressed God to punish His people, to “pull [out the wicked] like sheep for the slaughter.” But how to know if the anger building inside me did not exceed what social conditions merited? After all, why should Jeremiah have been angrier than other prophets who faced similar apostasy in the people? And then there was his apostasy, his display of a fury beyond his right to possess. Jeremiah sees God punish those who betrayed Him and seeks to imitate Him, forgets that he is not Him, forgets who is Whose instrument. Would I wrongly seek to smite my tyrannizing enemies, or those who put stumbling blocks in my way, be they friend or manufacturer? Would I luxuriate in the downfall of the persecutory powerful, of Blackberry, say, as Nahum did with Assyria? Or would I end up inhabited by Jeremiah’s alternate alternate disposition, balancing fury with practicality, seeking to appease a mighty foe (who?? what?? email??) so that we all might survive? Or perhaps my ire could instead be tempered in effect by the beauty of Isaiah’s words? Would I spin endless metaphors? Might I possess the ability to approach even just the murmuring flames of his linguistic majesty? Would I even be overly hopeful and consoling, a parallel of Deutero-Isaiah, promising that all this stuff would eventually work out? Could I paint an eschatological vision of man unadulterated? Of man and technology (lightly) holding hands and eating trail mix (one part your basic manna toasted and mixed in with two parts almonds and one part raisins; salt of the earth to taste)? Or would I become like Elijah, a sword-toting soldier of god, challenging hundreds of digital diviners to a duel between my ways and their idols, slaying them myself upon victory? (They’ll be rolling in the aisles.) But could I address a crowd like Elijah, or would I need an intermediary, a Baruch to take dictation and read my words aloud, an Aaron to be to me instead of a mouth, to be, even to be to me as my prophet? Irrespective of who would do the speaking, how would the speaking be done? I just brought up, but in dread quickly discarded, the cancerous issues of metaphor and language–What of rhetorical and syntactical strategies? What of assonance? What of word play? What of sarcasm and what of sincerity? Of feeling? What of concision in phrasing? And what of total output, lazy Obadiah? What of elaborate descriptions, prattling Ezekiel? What of incomprehensible entanglements, without naming names? Oh, what of homonyms? Of inconsistency, ornamentation, and meter? Of repetition and retelling, of gemination, of tangents, of simile and simplicity, of parallelism and perspective, of parable, what of poetics, of prose, poetry, prose that feels like poetry, prosody–in other words, what of Style? A superabundance of stylistic choices at a wap wrenched me, winched me, seizing at me from the variously-fashioned biblical entries, shackling me, racking me, each multiplied by (sundry English translations and the original Hebrew), now tarring me, leaving me tasting fume and hawking plume, now tearing me, rending, extending me, leaving me drawn and almost decimated, leaving me howling and lightly headed, leaving them with pleasure whetted, leaving me feathered, fettered…frittered… who knew words could laugh? I Relent! could chortle so maliciously? Spare me, oh wrathful Language! could howl Let not Diction fall upon me! Too soon did I abandon Content, yes, I agree, and to there I must at once relapse: What to share of my history? Nothing beyond place of origin and approximate time period, who are you Micah? A full life, womb to tomb, framed by ancestors and descendants, I am Jacob? The internal spiritual crises, sigh! sigh! Jeremiah? The external psychological battles, an echo of David and Saul? Imagery drawn from my past, nature comes natural to Amos? Should I even allow my pronouncements to be shaped by my personal life, following Hosea, whose marital tribulations inflected and perhaps determined his words? Should I even allow my personal life to be shaped by my pronouncements, following Hosea, whose words inflected and perhaps determined his marital tribulations? Should I even allow for both? Or would my tale be of a grander and more divers scale, was I an Ezekiel? Like Hosea, his marriage was used as an example–and so in a debatably more tragic context–but Ezekiel as well was carried by visions along with a time-and-space-jumping forerunner of a certain Dickensian ghost, and this prophet could yet at other times decamp into silence, and then from either state could he emerge and partake in all manner of rant, allegorical gesture, and sometimes-odd stunt–”I will let a third of my hair to the wind, to signify the portion of our lives wasted on devices. But first let me weigh it out to make sure it is exactly a third. Does anyone have any balances? Yes? Anyone? I left mine at home. No? What about a knife?” Beyond stunts, was the marvelous out of reach? Could I breathe new breadth into my life, or someone else’s, perform behavior-reforming miracles of inspiration to mirror the resurrections pulled off by Elijah and Elisha? Might what I leave behind, one day revivify? Stepping back a day’s journey, what of ritual and morality? In other words, how much to emphasize the manifold technical changes in my life (how I used technology) and how much to say how life is going (emotions, behaviors, relationships, et cetera)? And, stepping back an additional day’s journey, whichever of the above roads I traversed most often, how to strike the balance between style and content, between elegance and precision, compression and completion? Where to exercise restraint? polish? ambiguity? When is content style and style incontinence? Should I aim for structure or give in to disorganization? To have or have not? Can the disparate be wed? And, stepping back three days’ journey, as I traveled back and forth between condemnation and consolation, stopping in between to urge for a change and repentance that would never come, where would I tarry longest? And would time prove me wrong, or, worse, prove my diction deficient, my words in either case discarded? How could I even know if my honest convictions came about honestly? After all, Micaiah described a lying spirit put in the mouth of certain prophets by the Lord Himself. In other words, would enough of what I said hold true or be said well enough or at least possess enough of the spirit of truth in it to keep me from relegation to the dust bin of false or forgotten prophets? But then would some future compiler or editor–
Wait! Where am I? How did I get here? Where is here?! In whose incubating vision did I just lose myself?? It is not 3,000 years ago. It is today. Therefore I am in a room, sitting on a couch, a room not in Judaea nor Samaria but in New York. I was no prophet. I am holding a computer! Neither was I a prophet’s son–next to me is pizza!–nor had I any interest in being a prophet–I’m an atheist for Christ’s sake!–memorable or not. Prophets, the kind we remember at least (and remember we must because they are past), especially the latter ones (not in my living room on my couch), full of messages, the ones materializing after the judges (but before me), are annoying, are maligned, derided, abused, and rebuked, are persecuted, worst of all are ignored (still…). Ezekiel’s forehead was made like adamant harder than flint so he could face the rebellious house of Israel; Jeremiah (sometimes) knew his admonitions would go unheeded, that the people cannot hearken; Isaiah was to make sure of it. Why would I seek such a fate? I would run from such a fate. Of course, almost all prophets were at least occasionally reluctant or disheartened–and I speak here of the sanctified prophets, the ones who might even reject the title, not of their ofttimes rivals, the forgotten court lackeys and the prophets commissioned solely by shekels–meaning I was in the position of the self-hating Jew on this account. And yes, I’d be saying against an established power structure of sorts, but one could hardly say I was a destabilizing force. I had no sway. I was not ordained. My words would not even be heard, let alone forgotten. I was a mosquito stayed by strong wind. And sure, I had my ideas about what would come to pass, but I was also sure most of them would pass unfulfilled. Then again, vaticinal accuracy and precision were not necessary hallmarks of a prophet–some never even tried to predict and, for those that did, there was leeway for the incorrect/somewhat correct (despite Deut. 18:22) or vague (“Out of the north an evil shall break forth” does not predictive superpowers make). If anything marked the prophets, it was their war against idolatry. And yes, I too was fighting an idol–but my war was a personal one. I was disconnecting–what did that to do with anyone else? So, let me rephrase: Of course I did not believe myself a prophet or anything of the like nor have any interest in acting like one. I did not think myself special–then again the prophets would probably claim likewise (even if their words and actions might counter such self-reflections), so better to say that I did not feel compelled to some mission. Though I knew that friends might accuse me of thinking myself inspired, that family might condemn me for preaching, even, even if I did none at all, just by virtue of my actions with respect to device–even actions alone appearing attestations of my superiority, judgments on my compatriots, urges to repent and mend their ways, or kindling recognitions of truths in kin that must need be suffocated by anger towards me, as a man throweth a stone at the waters if his reflection displeaseth him–my goals were too selfish to care about changing others. Me? A prophet? No. Self-importance didn’t enter into my denomination. Not that the prophets were self-important–they didn’t choose the position. One cannot choose to be this organ; the matter is in the hands of Another. But even if they felt important for having been chosen, and even if they hypothetically had chosen–well, one must efface at least a part of oneself to be played by God. That is, a part of one’s self will be effaced when one is Thus played. So. Where did that leave me? I–I was just a man. A man worried about the what and the how and the why of my life. I didn’t care for more.
But what of the prophets? What of my vision? What to make of my vision?! I can’t ignore it–it’s right there, two paragraphs up, on the page. Where is Daniel?! I need Daniel! “Daniel!” No answer. “Daniel!” Nothing. Think, Think. Now what? What was I to do? Shall I? Shall I try my hand at interpretation? Can I? Me? No, I couldn’t possibly… Well. What choice did I have? None: I cannot imagine that my vision intended to reduce each prophet to an anecdote or particular aspect of personality. Nor, conversely, to imply that an anecdote or particular aspect of personality was peculiar to the prophet under discussion. It seems, as I relive my vision now, that I was granted an occasion to learn something from these (mostly) men, these invested teachers, perhaps to find models of behavior amongst them…them who were made to see and cursed to know the ills surrounding, them who were tasked to communicate the greatest message of all–yes, I think I see it now–some risking their lives to speak and yet to stay silent would incur a Greater’s wrath, that of the most powerful communicator of all, He whose words came to life! On Whose behalf the prophets spoke and demonstrated a message instructing nothing more than the proper way to interact with one another, human with human and human with Creator, up and until eschaton, up and until He wrote His law in the hearts of His people, in their inward parts. But I, I found enough ills in my inward parts to keep me occupied beyond eschaton. These must be dealt with–forget prophetic mission–there could be no new beginning otherwise. So? Perhaps–No. Well…perhaps the prophets, then, perhaps they could be metaphors for me for how I might, intentionally and not, sound to others and behave, even if I did not share an analogous mission, even though–as I said before–I had no wish to change others.
And yet–and yet, that is not it, that is not enough. I did wish for change and I did have a mission and I did feel a certain kinship with the prophets–or, as kinship with men of God is a bit self-aggrandizing, I’ll say instead that I felt a special affinity for the books that contain them. Also, I just spoke of ills to remedy, of remediation as a precondition to a new beginning–hardly antithetical to a prophetic mission. Perhaps then–perhaps it would be correct to say that I did own an analogous mission, just not an external one. Or, rather, one not external to me. I had to make changes in myself so that I might be able to change how I live so that I might improve my life. Perhaps then it would be correct to say that I hoped to be a prophet unto myself. Yes, I suppose that might make some sense, that might account for why I looked to prophetic books for guidance, why I seemed to identify with so many roles in their pages, identifying despite feeling empty of a desire to transform others. This all directed me back to him whose company I always seemed to end up seeking, back to Jeremiah, who had to overcome his own spiritual crises, his own heretical outbursts and mental breakdowns, to “take forth the precious from the vile,” before he could return and continue his outward-facing mission. Of course, the changes I was making and the mission I was possessed by were all confined to me and all intermixed–but there was heresy in what I was doing, there was spiritual crisis behind it, and I might certainly have mental breakdowns if others overreacted. In any case, to keep the battle internal and its outcomes confined, I would need to focus the blurred lines between relation and explanation and justification and proselytization and pen myself below the second demarcation. I say proselytization as slipping into such a mode was a danger for me, not to imply that the prophets engaged in it. The prophets weren’t seeking converts (outside of the wives, children, and servants in their control) (and I had no one in my control, so at least I was safe on that account) (though there was a younger brother under my cellphone plan to whom I would soon refuse a smartphone upgrade)–more like reverts. The prophets sought to restore those who were ostensibly of the prophets’ persuasion to that persuasion. Perhaps they hoped that these reverts might, in the very long run, be a light unto others, others who might “take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you,” but this hope was hardly active prophetic pursuit. And, as there were none of my persuasion extant, I would be a prophet wanting congregation even if I wanted to be a prophet unto others. In any case, I sought neither revert nor convert, not to turn nor return–if I hoped that others would do as I did, it was only because they’d be easier to deal with.
Besides, how could I change others? I had not been chosen. I had not been consecrated. I had no script. What would I say and who was I to say it? Who would anoint me? Would my lips be purified by burning coal? Who would feed me the words I was to say? Was there even anything to illumine? But, again, I had no interest in being a prophet prospecting outwards, a living torah to guide the luddites (I’d have to create) till teachings were set down in writing. My concerns, such as they existed outside of self-reformation, were far more pedestrian and purely neurotic (I have a strange sidewalk in mind’s eye, full of 5th century Woody Allens):
In my efforts to disconnect, was I telling people that communicating with them was not a priority? And by extension that they were not a priority? How to explain that disconnecting from device was not disconnecting from people? That there was no metaphor here? That, if anything, disconnecting from device was connecting to people? But, since this was a goal, if I indeed hoped for more humanity in my interpersonal relationships, was it not strange that I was resorting to a more electronic and detached method–email (and only where there was a computer and wifi) as opposed to phone (cellphone: not just always at hand but always in hand, with potential for talk, for back and forth of text, for endless ways to “express” oneself to others; landline: the qualities of a real, human voice)–of communicating with people? How could I explain that away? But putting content of message aside, what of method? What of delivering said content? Could I send a mass message regarding my new approach or was this one-on-one time? Would the former be viewed as dismissive and distancing or more easily accepted at face value and as non-negotiable? Would the latter be viewed as an opportunity to dissuade me or appreciated as considerate and in the service of fellowship? If I chose the former–mass message–do I do it by text? Direct and with expectation of immediate response. Email? Sometimes impersonal and with some leeway for delaying response. Facebook post? Public-narcissism-with-no-expectation-of-response by point of diamond engraved with heavy-desire-for-response. Etc.? All of the above? Which would serve me best? Which deserved to be elevated by virtue of its use for my lofty explanatory mission? To be recognized as somehow more necessary for human interaction as a corollary of having been chosen to explain my thoughts on human interaction? (Each outlet has come to mean something, even if that something is ever-evolving, to have almost a certain purpose, to convey information in a certain way and within a given structure, even if dependent on context (one might reverse the above notes on text and email for a work context, say) and relationship, to offer a specific degree of personalization and invitation for response and engagement, to carry an inherently different degree and timbre of performance, even if each ear be singular–not that each outlet was necessary for communication; I certainly felt I could massage (email) and (calls by Gmail) to accomplish what I wanted or needed in life, even if life proved unstatic). And, if I chose the latter–one-on-one time–did it behoove me–as, again, one of my goals was to increase ‘connection’ with people, especially when we were together–to let people know in person about my plans to disconnect? Former (mass message) or latter (one-on-one time), did I owe my public a full reckoning or just a Tweet-like proclamation? In other words, was this to be a human moment, a late-night, into-the-early-morning-hours conversation, or a look-what-I-had-for-breakfast-lol moment? And putting content and method aside, what of implementation? Was there a grace period I should give people? A sort of transitionary phase? Or was a communications protocol one of those things you could adjust at will? Should I be more lenient with some than others in the transition or would that send mixed messages about my intentions? Content! Method! Implementation! What to say?! How to say?! When to say?! Direct, descriptive, playful, concise, conciliatory, philosophical, dense with explanations, foamed over by rants, apoplectically apocalyptic, I am exceptionalism, aphorism is wisdom, socially conscious commentator, appeal to finer nature, empurpled tongue vermillion sky, severed from flesh, carnal incarnate, mothafucka of da peeps, grunt grunt, shhhhhhh–What would I be? What manner of being correlated with what reaction? What could issue from me proper to the matter at hand? But forget that–what was the issue? What was I trying to say? I didn’t know. I didn’t know. No, seriously, I didn’t–Fuck. Am I just–I can’t–Am I just stabbing darts here? How should I answer? I mean, where were the questions? What am I talking about? I don’t know. I don’t know. Reread this piece–or even series–so far. I mean–All nonsense. So don’t reread it. I should stop writing now. I can’t figure it out. I have presented a history of Babelism. I don’t know what to write! It is obvious I had failed to pin down what I was trying to say and convey about communication. I am running on babble. It is obvious. I had failed to arrive at something hard and fast, failed to conclude. But had I even sussed out the proper domain? The point of intervention? Elevate? Me? Ha. Ha Ha. The thing about which to take a stance? Have I done even that? I don’t know anything. Enough! I will not go on. No. I didn’t know what I’m talking about. I’m failing to come up with anything! What’s the use? Just to circumlocute like this, inside my own head, battering away at my own brain, exhausted myself and my own emotions, and for what? For melancholy’s sake? Oh, I would it would all stop! To depress myself with continued failure? I hadn’t known. That was my reward? What is the point?? Just made the change already. Stop talking. I will not went on. No phone. Stop Thinking. It hurts! Get rid of it. Simple. You haven’t even figured out your topic?! I’d gotten nowhere. I didn’t know. I’ve regressed, even. At least before I thought I knew and didn’t know how much I didn’t know. And now? That I see this chasm before me? Inside me!! There it was. I gave up. Here am I. I want no more. And–and perhaps it doesn’t matter anyway. I have had it! Perhaps it was all vanity. I haven’t known anything! No more words on the page. How would I?! They ruin me! I don’t see what I didn’t see. How couldn’t I?? All wasted time and squandered energy. Where? I won’t ever. Might I escape vanity? Just go get the flip-phone you want. Perhaps it didn’t merit any attention at all. What comes after? Stop. Writing. Was it worth it? Order it online or something. At what cost? What is its purpose? No what medium. What–you know what you did! You’ll break. Now. What was it going to get me? How could you not know what you are doing? Now now. What does it want from me? No more how to tell. What you have known?? If I keep writing. I don’t know. If I were. Maybe. If I was. You knew! Did it have goals? Nobody cared. if I was maybe if I would it Happened!! When? would it be Clear, distinct, observAble?! Turn off. When will all of it at once be known? People could find out. It, this…thing, this, this, this…it. They’ll call and. this What?! When?! Now what? why? No. No. no no. I would have had…no choice. It’s–it’s not right. The long-term…the long–let me, let me catch my breath, yes, the long term…perhaps the long-term results…are all…the long term results…stronger bonds or…friendship drifts…depression or peace of mind…productivity…boredom…were all–were all…that mattered. Yes. Yes. And perhaps! I couldn’t. I will have had it! I mean, sorry, I, no, No! I can do this. I will myself to… I did… What? this… No! I will do… I had had enough! no, I didn’t mean–just, just…let me!…sorry…I mean (here he gently closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before opening his eyes and then opening his mouth to speak, for a moment breath suspended, and then words issue forth and he like a toy unwinding): and perhaps these were even dependent solely on the change I was setting in motion on the elimination of device and not on any words or behaviors I could produce. There. I could. (here he knew he could). I told you. produce. I. why? but. Who am I? anyway. to… Me?? Who am I? anyway… …here he trails off. And for a moment now, he is again frozen. Then, suddenly, with a single blink and a cartoonish jerk of his head, he reanimates: Oh, I am weary…here, here is a rock, some stones…let me–let me rest my head now, let me sleep a little, that I may…
I believe I have observed before that people believe that they cannot cut down their devices, that they need device to live. This is and was (since I’d gained enlightenment) a sentiment unshared by me, of course. But I do identify with–or, rather, I now identify that I once identified with one of the causes for this sentiment. Spurring each defeatist is more than just pragmatic concern. There is as well spurned fear–no, not spurned, not ignored even, but unrecognized fear, or perhaps deliberately unidentified fear, fear of embarrassment perhaps, of having to say sorry I don’t have a phone, of having to explain oneself forever to everyone, of reproach–even by tone or gesture or facial expression (an unseen movement of the eyes, even, a squeeze just below the nose, ever so slight, a pinch in a corner of a lip, tsk tsk) but also by full-on fulmination–of