I’m writing to myself.

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#throwoutanidea

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The basic idea is that the harvester is so hooked into their social network and the positive mental tingles they get from that feedback loop that they will harvest every possible ounce of their life onto their social network as possible in a given day. For example if a harvester goes to a party their primary activity is not to meet interesting people or engage in conversation as much as it is to harvest pictures and facebook friends from the party that they can then use to feel better about themselves. You can observe this behavior by watching the account of someone you might know in real life. If every activity you observe is followed with an image upload to facebook or a tweet about ‘brushing teeth’ there’s a good chance you’ve met a social harvester.

These people are become extremely annoying to hang out with as they are constantly proposing inappropriate or boring photo-ops and then immediately tagging, broadcasting and posting on these boring events. They will often take pictures of themselves next to fancy cars or in the “coolest” place they can find even if they are just driving by to increase their perceived visibility and coolness among their friends.

I don’t have a lot of conclusions about what this does to these people except that my gut is that it makes their actual life a lot less interesting and probably points to some kind of insecurity or lack of accomplishment in the realm of reality. I think this behavior also cheapens real friendships and removes focus from actually getting real things done.

I love reading about what family and friends are up especially when people are actually doing cool stuff but there’s a line there and I think it’s easy to get carried away. If the number one thought that pops in your head when you’re somewhere is to post about it facebook or twitter I recommend that you take a short break and cherish some time with friends without turning it into a social media post.

Facebook Reality Check

PROJ::ECHTS – Robo Brazi Domo (VLZ12 Mix) by R3C + T

PROJ::ECHTS – I Said, She Said (2nd Analog Mix) by R3C + T

Do not sign anything until you have completely inspected the machine yourself.

Yeah it’s a pain, and they’ll probably try and get you to sign off on the repair without inspecting it. Bring a disc, your iPod or whatever it is you do with your machine and just do it right there. Have them leave you at the counter while you run your machine through it’s paces. If your experience is anything like mine you have a very high probability of finding a flaw in the repair.

So there I was with a completely busted laptop. I wasn’t too worried, I had bought an Apple Care plan and figured the repair would be covered. I made my first appointment with their “Geniuses” (another example of Apple totally over-selling themselves) over the phone and took my machine in a few days later. According to online reviews not all Apple stores are good for repairs, some such as the Irvine Spectrum look down on broken machines and don’t provide good service. I took mine to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. After waiting in line for fifteen minutes for an appointment I booked days in advance they prepare the bad news for me. After touching the power button to no avail my friendly “Genius” tells me that it’s being shipped off for repair, that my data is probably not going to make it. Fortunately I can get my data off the machine but it will be “VERY” expensive and Apple wont’ do it. Thanks dude, I tell him to screw it, I’m prepared to lose 6 months of music, my code is backed up in source control – I’m an idiot for not taking better backups.

So a week later my laptop is back in the Apple store good as new, or so they tell me. Guy hands me my laptop and prepares to send me off but I insist on testing it first. Sure enough the bottom part of the screen is covered in a tiger stripe pattern. Lovely quality control guys. “Oh you can fix that by resetting the PRAM” says the Genius. Mmmhmm. No that’s not going to work, at all. “Well you’re going to have to make another appointment to get a repair” he tells me. I’m certainly not happy by this point. I have two small children with me and am not looking forward to spending 3 hours in a mall just to talk to another Genius so they can take back the laptop that they couldn’t fix right the first time.

Next meeting with a Genius 3 hours later. I’m told that the laptop will be on rush that I should get it back in days because they are fixing it in-house. That promise came and went a few times as the rush repair stretched out to another 5 days. I drive back in to get my laptop and everything looks good. So I take it home. Big mistake, I really should have learned the first time that Apple repair has little to no quality control. The optical drive is not functioning and I have one functioning speaker.

So here I am finally mad enough to write a post about it. I used to be a fan, I spent a lot of time as a kid cutting my programming teeth on the Apple Classic, IIgs and IIci but I think Apple has really lost it. Not only have they lost my heart as a developer they’ve now lost my confidence as a consumer.

Apple I’m over you.