Names is for tombstones, baby!
– “Mr. Big” in “Live and Let Die”

There are times, and in my view quite a few, when names are irrelevant.  I’m not necessarily referring to names of people, like the quote above was, but I am referring to names of “things” (e.g., styles, methodologies, technology).

On the computer programming side of my life, I’ve often ran into cases where I see mention of some sort of technology or methodology listed in some job requirements that I’ve never heard of, yet upon further research is something that I’ve known or dealt with for years.

Why?  Well, somewhere along the course of that “thing’s” lifespan, which often doesn’t happen at “birth”, it is given a name.  The early adopters have internalized the mechanics or methods and go on with their roles as programmers without giving it any further thought.  It’s become part of their daily routine.

Those who come along after it’s become more common-place (and therefore the marketing people have come along to bestow upon it a name) know it as “Such-and-Such” or “SaS” and think that anyone who doesn’t know “SaS” doesn’t know the stuff behind the name.

On the design and photography sides of my life, the same can be said for particular artistic styles.  Although here, it’s more that I’ve come into knowing of a particular style organically.  I’ve developed a particular style from observing others final works, not from some book of styles or style/design course.

In this method of learning, you learn to recognize (or adopt) the outcome, what a particular style (or combination of styles) looks like.  Most of the time, this type of learning will not teach you the names of the styles.  Those you’ll have to go in search of on your own at another point in time, if at all.

This post derived from my attempt at putting into words the particular style that I use for designing sites for another post.  I quickly realized that I couldn’t.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t know “SaS” style, it just means that I don’t know that’s what it’s named.

So.  The next time that you’re discussing something with someone else, before you assume they don’t know what “SaS” is, try describing it in terms other than it’s name.  They might fully understand and know it, but if all you use is the name, they might assume that you only know the name.  You do know more than just the name, right?

Conversely, if you get to the point where you are trying to name something and you can’t, perhaps that’s a sign that you need to go back to school (so to speak) and look into whether or not such a name does exist.

But, remember, “Names is for tombstones, baby!”  So don’t go putting too much emphasis on knowing the names for things.

I am not going to launch into a morality debate here.  To me, this is a much larger issue — an issue of censorship.  But I will say this:  The problem with censoring things like “porn” is that everyone has their own definition of what “porn” is and what it isn’t.  Here’s my definition from a few months ago.  The definition used by many would label Michelangelo’s statue of David as “porn”.  As a photographer, I feel there is absolutely no difference in that statue and a photograph — statues of that period were very anatomically correct and were as close to a modern day photograph as they were able to get given the technology of the period.

As I’ve repeatedly stated on several occasions (although I’m presently unable to locate any such public postings on either Twitter or Facebook :shrugs:) that I am against censorship of any sort.  This is not to say that I feel people shouldn’t exercise restraint.  I just feel that people should not tell others what they cannot say.  After all, in this country we have the freedom of speech.

Forced censorship — by programming it into systems (such as what some large social networking sites have done) — it leaves people wondering where the line gets drawn and who makes that decision.  This is the direction that it is appearing that Apple is heading, hopefully they won’t go as far as censoring the messages sent by users of the iPad (or any other future devices).

“I don’t condone what Dr. Zoidberg did but I’ll fight tooth and nail for his freedom to do it.”

– “Old Man Waterfall” in the Futurama episode “A Taste of Freedom” (transcription)

It is a very sad thing, to me, when a computing device touted as a “savior” of photography begins to censor whole segments of photography.  This is a very slippery slope.

To be perfectly fair, Apple (and Mr. Jobs) is only censoring the applications sold via the Apple App Store, and not the web content visited with the Safari browser on the device, nor are they censoring the content directly placed on the device (e.g., photos or videos produced by a photographer and placed on the device for use as a digital portfolio).

However, ask yourself this, what is to stop them from trying to code usage of a distributed domain blacklist into the device’s browser?  That would be very easy for them to do.  But, what about the content you place on the device?  Well… there’s face recognition software that works good enough for it to be placed in point-and-shoot cameras (e.g., Sony W-Series released in 2007).  So… how hard would it be to alter that technology to recognize other parts of the body?  Couldn’t be all that hard, but I’m not a graphic software engineer — I went thru a different set of courses in college.

Do I honestly think that Apple will do these things?  No.  Do I think that Steve Jobs would if he felt it was the best thing for the iPad?  Hell yes I do.  He’d do it in a heartbeat.

What I’m left with, after reading about the programmatic censoring of content by large companies such as Facebook and Apple, is a sense of dread and worry that they’ll keep expanding such censorship efforts.  In fact, I’ve found myself debating whether or not I should mention Facebook in this post since my blog is being pulled into “Notes” over there.  This is not how people should have to live — under the fear that they’ll have accounts deleted or be unable to use a computer-like device for whatever they want — yet it is exactly what happens when companies start forcing censorship on their own.

More Reading:

• Steve Jobs Offers World ‘Freedom From Porn’
• How Apple is Watering Down Fashion Spreads
  • Favorite sound-bite: “A British fashion magazine has reportedly dubbed its iPad issue ‘the Iran edition’.”
• The iPad Will Change Photography Part 1
• The iPad Will Change Photography Part 2
• Will the iPad Save Photography?
• Facebook’s E-mail Censorship is Legally Dubious, Experts Say

Personal Computers — great, they’ve helped probably in more ways than hurt, but (yes) they’ve hurt. Think of all those families who’ve had problems due to computer-related addictions — gamers, internet junkies, etc.

Cellphones — great, only have one and no land-line, but they’ve also hurt the way we interact with each other as a society.

World Wide Web (no, the Internet pre-dates me) — again great, it’s how I’ve put food on the table almost completely since college. But again, it’s turned into a monster by reducing the direct inter-personal interactions that once were the basis for our great society.

Digital Photography — good, love it, it’s actually *helped* me learn more about photography than I did with film. The notebooks of camera settings weren’t ever able to be paired up w/ the shots in the film days due to lag in developing… and forgetting what I was trying to achieve. Digital it’s all in the file, so I can check instantly and the record is there later. But… digital has pretty much killed film, cheapened the act of photography (even though equipment costs are HIGHER than film), (again) hurt inter-personal connections by making people impatient, and hurt the world by allowing untalented hacks to flood the market with low quality crap, thus lowering expectations, raising skepticism, and making magazines nearly worthless due to the lowering of standards that are accepted.

Digital Audio Formats (e.g., MP3, MP4, & WMA) all have increased people’s ability to listen to music. They’ve made it possible for people to quickly spread music and have allowed those in the music industry to be heard who would probably have never been heard without digital audio. However, the ease with which files are copied and shared between people has hurt the industry. Songwriters don’t make that much as it is, and it’s even less when people are “sharing” music w/o buying the albums (or tracks). Without songwriters, there is no music.

Self-stick stamps are nice, so are the same for envelope flaps, but with the proliferation of electronic communication and rising postal costs, who uses those much any more. When they first came out, I would’ve called them “the greatest thing since sliced bread”. But not now… not really.

Honestly, I can’t think of something that I’d call “the greatest invention of my lifetime”.

My favorite (at the moment) is Kodak’s Endura Metallic paper.