Lollipop SUCKS! Let's go back to the old days . . .
There's no doubt that Google's Lollipop operating system update for Android devices majorly sucks. I used to have a Nexus 7 tablet; after carelessly downloading the update, I now have a slab of toxic waste. However, Lollipop does not suck uniformly on every device; from what I have read, it is primarily Google devices that are rendered useless.
If you weren't creeped out by Google's near-monopolistic stature or the level of surveillance and control it exercises over your life, consider this: we buy into the Googleverse because it provided a reliable technical platform for getting stuff done. Google is apparently no longer capable of either providing that platform or responding to - even ACKNOWLEDGING - complaints about Lollipop.
Maybe it's time to start getting creeped out?
There's a major technical fuck up here (releasing an update that DISABLES YOUR OWN PRODUCTS?) and a major, MAJOR public relations and social responsibility fuck up. We tend to forgive techies for their social faux pas and social butterflies for not being able to change a door lock, but when a major company fucks up on both fronts simultaneously and then does nothing, it suggest that IT. JUST. DOESN'T. CARE. Divine Right, v. 2.014.
I know, that's not how we're used to thinking about Google, right? Maybe it's time to begin.
Here's a shout out from 1961 to despairing Nexus owners of today. Computer scientist and UFO researcher Jacques Vallee describes what it was like to use an early computer, a model that had death built in:
The most beautiful sound I have ever heard is the pure and highly musical hum of the memory drum of the IBM 650 when the computer dies. All power goes out. The motors are still. The console lights stop blinking and of course the program is lost. I become aware of the summer sun in the dusty courtyard behind me. I hear the birds playing and singing. But it takes many minutes for the big drum to slow down to a complete stop. The high pitch gradually turns into a sustained, thrilling note, unnoticeably shifting to a rumble, then just a murmur. Eventually, the drum joins the rest of the computer in death. (Forbidden Science, 1992, p. 47)
I guess I'll be beating the memory drum for my Nexus 7 tablet.
