My Ode to Android

Android has been a really spectacular operating system for me, and I've had (notice the past tense here) nothing but love for it. Surprisingly, the decision to give it the boot as my primary go-to OS of choice has been nothing short of a life changing decision. It doesn't seem that dramatic until you realize that your entire life is wrapped in these little "Choose your own Adventure" Novella sized Electronic devices that we carry around in our pocket.

To date, I've had Android operating experience since the old T-Mobile G1 days. It happened when my brother gave me a G1 as a gift, and growing up in the old 386-486 days I could appreciate the sheer, ground breaking potential of what the Android operating system could offer. Before then, smart phones each operated in their own little universe having it's own interpretation of an operating system, and things, frankly, were a mess. You paid a ton of money for what resulted as a science experiment. Android blew the cover off the whole thing. They put a GUI (Graphical User Interface) on the Linux operating system and essentially brought the power to the people. It was the magic move that toppled tech empires and made people re-think what the modern computer was all about. 

So, after my personal experience with nearly five years of Android operating systems spanning from the G1 to the G2 (Currently still in use) and the Nexus 7 tablet, nobody could have predicted that I would have skipped the ship and left Android, especially after the years of nearly flawless service that it delivered

So what happened?

If I had to pin it down on one statement, I would have to say that I was finally tired of getting 80% of a product for 10% the price. It sounds weird that I would consider that a bad thing but lets think about it. Let's use the analogy of a car, because I'm a guy and that's what works. 

Let's say you can buy a car that only has 4 of the 7 body panels painted. The 4 panels that are painted are perfect and superior reflecting the best paint technology of the time, but the other 3 are bare sheet metal and you have a ton of body shops out there offering to paint the other three panels, but they are all going to vary in quality, some will do the job for free but have questionable quality to the work. Others will offer to paint the panels in a manner that closely represents the factory job but will never quite represent that factory paint job. Now lets expand on this a little and say that every six months the car company in question changes the chemical composition of the paint and their version of "Red" six months down the road is a little different then the "Red" currently out on the market.

You can start seeing the mess that can transpire. 

The chief argument may be that it doesn't matter because at the end of the day it's still a car, and it beats walking. That may be true, and that's what kept me on the Android OS for the past five years. 

At the end of the day though, when you need to get a job done and you need work to transpire to the next level, the biggest thing I've found is that I need consistency, predictability, and quality control. 

For that, Android simply does not get the job done. Microsoft, on the other hand, does. Like the Tortoise that races the hare, they offer they steadfastness, quality, predictability, and electronic infrastructure that business people and creative thinkers need to get their projects off the ground and into the real world. They offer it, and charge for it, and if your really serious and you need it, you'll pay for it. 

I have, as I find myself typing this blog on a Windows Surface Pro. 

Misdirected Adventures of an Amateur Mechanic turned Ametuer Engineer

I have a membership at a group workshop/hacker space known as a Tech Shop, which features 5000 sq/ft of workshop space with nearly every machine needed for manufacturing available. These machines include Mig/Tig welders, CNC mills, powder coaters, grinders, pipe benders and even a water jet that can cut through steel with a high power water stream. Additionally, we have vacuum formers, laser cutters, a machine press, 3D scanners and printers and even a full computer lab with Autodesk software to help render your creations in a 3D environment.

You would think with all these machines available, that any project that gets started should easily reach fruition, with money and materials being the only limiting factor. However, surprisingly enough there is a very high amount of projects that get started but are never finished. These are not done by amateur’s either, but rather professionals who are well versed in the area of expertise in which their projects are based and have the financial means to finance the project.

So what happens?

On the surface, it’s very easy to get caught up in the atmosphere of the whole thing, and would be inventors immediately run out and start buying equipment and tools with only an inkling of an idea of what they want to build, or if it’s even viable to create such a project. They just want to build something and they just start the process with a hope that it will somehow start putting itself together after a few initial steps.

For example, most projects that I see get started and fail spectacularly are mostly revisions to existing products with either a solar panel added or an electric drive system replacing a gas motor. Most of these fail to reach fruition because mid-way through the project the inventor realizes that aside from fulfilling the ever rampant “green agenda” that seems prevalent in the Bay Area, adding a solar panel or electrical drive system to an existing product serves no other purpose other than decreasing the reliability of the product while increasing the manufacturing and purchasing costs associated with it.

It seems that if people took a step back and understood the implications of what they were trying to put together before they actually stepped into it, then a lot of heart ache could have been saved.

Another problem that I see is miss application or complete disregard of any type of design systems metric or planning. Another example that I saw when I joined was a college student who was attempting to assemble, from scratch, a one-seater electric car. He had a pretty good show going on with close to 3500 dollars of raw materials laid out on the shop floor. This included aluminum beams, brand new wheels and tires, suspension components sourced from ATV’s, and other associated products like a seat and a steering wheel.

However, as good and impressive as it looked it quickly appeared that aside from having the credit to source the materials, there was actually no plan to build the vehicle. Every day he would be at his parts, trying to piece together these raw materials into a vehicle that would one day be flinging him down the road at near highway speeds. I offered to help him one time, and I asked him where his notes were. He had no notes. What was his plan? He had no plan other than to seemingly make it up as he went along. Additionally, he had no experience with working on or building cars so he had no practical wrenching experience, therefore he was making very seemingly elementary mistakes. It seems strange that he would take on a project of such magnitude without having at least an iota of practical experience in the automotive field itself.

Lastly, another problem that I see is the failure to incorporate teamwork into the process itself. Many people for whichever reasons they see decide to one man band the projects on their own accord. They take on the entire project with the idea of tackling the aspects that they don’t understand and learning as they go along. This usually results in a very strained timetable as they haphazardly build the project up, and usually end up having to incorporate a new person on an accelerated timetable to reverse engineer their project or correct previous mistakes that were made.

When putting together a project, even one on a very small scale a newfound appreciation can be gained for the ability to take a project from concept to prototype. You develop a respect for projects that are conducted on a grand scale and the sheer amount of moving parts that must be synchronized to come together at the proper times to form a final product.