#33 (???) - REMAIN HUMBLE / INHERIT THE EARTH -
Interactive Prototyping, Visual Prototyping, Graphic Design, Animation & Coding - Personal Development / Math & Physics / Religion & Theology - Long - Media
Interactive Prototyping, Visual Prototyping, Graphic Design, Animation & Coding - Personal Development / Math & Physics / Religion & Theology - Long - Media
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In 2008(?), astrophysicist Patrik Norquist participated in a part-comedy, part-talk show in his native country of Sweden. At first, nothing out of the ordinary was at play.
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In 2008(?), astrophysicist Patrik Norquist participated in a part-comedy, part-talk show in his native country of Sweden. At first, nothing out of the ordinary was at play.
In typical fashion, two hilarious, but charismatic hosts, laid out the programming schedule for the remainder of the show; an already excited crowd built up their already palpable anticipation to ever greater heights; and last, and the central fixture of the show, a panel of five esteemed subject matters experts, were sporadically consulted by the hosts about their knowledge on various intellectual subjects, often erupting in audible audience laughter and applause as the academics sat back and soaked in their fleeting time in the limelight of the mainstream. Norquist was one of those academics - and for good reason.
By this point in the program - almost a dozen episodes in - he had made a name for himself as a quirky professor with avant-garde perspectives on the world, sometimes manifesting in the form of humorous comments, other times culminating in foolhardy science experience, such as blowing things up by facilitating chemical reactions of various kinds. Without exception, though, Norquist had a point with every things he said and did, as evidenced by the striking declaration he was about to put forth.
Taking the stage - or, at least, absorbing the attention of every onlooker in the corner of the student where he sat - Norquist began voicing a pet peeve that he, from the look of it, appeared to have been incubating for quite some time. You know - one of those things that is so obvious it isn't even talked about among professionals within a certain field (in this case physics), yet non-experts are utterly oblivious about.
The tiny insect known as the ant, Norquist explained, is strong enough to lift and carry objects approximately 8,000 times heavier than itself in its natural anatomical dimensions of 1x1 centimeter (feel free to look this up). However, when inflated to 1 meter (1,000cm), which is an increase in size by a factor of no less than one million, its purported strength would absolutely crumble. How come?
The problem of growing 1 million times in size, is that one would now have to contend with withstanding the grueling pressure of 1,000 times the gravitational pull to the ground.
The drastic increase in gravity, in itself, may not be that big of a deal if it wasn't for the fact that the ant's proportionally small arms and legs - albeit growing in tandem with the rest of the ant's body upon inflation - would not be adapted to its new, enormous size. Compared to the rest of its anatomy, they would be puny. The result?
The ant would now be able to lift and carry objects - not 800, not 80, but 8 times its weight - a far cry from its former, almost supernatural strength of 1000 times that amount.
If we assume an original body weight of 5mg - quite a bit ant, I might add - that means the ant, able to carry a minimum of 5mg (its body weight) × 8000 = 0.04kg in its natural form, can now only carry 5mg x 1000 x 1000 × 8 = 40kg.
That's right - the formerly super-strength ant, once human-sized, wouldn't even be able to muster the load contained in a single-handed dumbbell used by a professional human bodybuilder during a lax session of resistance training.
The point here is not to put down the miraculous (relative!) strength of our distant cousins in the animal kingdom, nor to massage the egos of bodybuilders. Instead, it is simply to offer a sobering reminder about the following:
Don't ever consider things - even your most fundamental assumptions about how the world works to be anything less than tentative - a principle that, luckily enough, far exceeds the scope of physics.
Since the subject at hand is app development, consider an example of why it's crucial to maintain humility about the unknown - and sometimes assumed-to-be known - but as a person actively tasked with crafting tomorrow's next big hit: changing market conditions.
In 2003, MySpace, the first truly widespread social media platform, was founded by a lone programmer with a crazy idea. In the years following its inception, the online service ballooned into a powerhouse that constituted an online pastime, if not a personal sanctuary, for virtually every American teenager.
Had there been a way to travel back to 2006-2007, I'm willing to bet that few individuals would have been open to staking more than a measly fiver on the possibility that MySpace would be subjected to competition, much less significantly outrivaled. But fast forward no more than a couple of years, and it had - in fact - completely obsolete.
By the late 00's and early 10's, Facebook had come to town with its far more appealing look, diverse functionality and clever incentive structure, demolishing any remaining sliver of hope that MySpace might, somehow and some way, make a comeback.
At this junction, anyone that's done their research on early social media platform functionality and their development will be tempted to point out that Myspace was sold by its founding pioneering briefly upon gaining traction, with a big, soulless cooperation overtaking ownership. MySpace was sold, warts and all, by its originator, separating its originator from its foundational vision forever more, and, some may surmise, making it dead on arrival. And if the lessons learned from other promising startup companies that nosedived immediately after its over takers put their grubby hands on them, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that you'd be absolutely correct.
But alas, that's missing the point.
The takeaway here is not to place blame on whoever precipitated MySpace's fall from glory, or even the underlying mechanisms that caused its abrupt downfall.
Instead, it's the fact that nothing in front-end development is exempt from the risk (and potentially opportunity) of change - the only exception, funnily enough, being change itself.
Returning to the success story of Facebook, the proof is already in the pudding. It didn't take much more than a few years for that entity to itself be overshadowed by the aesthetically attractive and clever-functioning concoction better known as Instagram (today owned by Meta, Facebook's parent company). And before you say it, yes - Instagram will, somehow and at some point in future - be forced to throw in the towel as a result of daunting competition from some kind of social user experience that may, quite possibly, be gaining traction in the proverbial underground scene of fledgling social media platforms.
Now, in order to dedramatize the pessimistic, if not bleak, prospect of future misfortunes that may or not befall many current tech giants in the years to come, allow me to use the most humorous repertoire of analogies at my disposal to convey the message of Facebook's fate (no pun intended) in a more, let's say, useful way.
In the sphere of app development, just as in the culinary parable of life, absolutely everything should be on the potential chopping block. And if you can't handle the prospect that your app won't be maintain its esteemed position as king of the hill for all eternity, then... Maybe you shouldn't even be in the kitchen to begin with.
Granted, it is true that having too many chefs can spoil the stew, each chef in this case being a honestly deep-thinking and self-critical idea you're willing to use in order to course correct under constantly changing market conditions.
But if you're dead set on declaring that any idea originating from the camp of your fiercest competitor, based solely on first impressions or years of closed-minded conditioning, will forever be unpalatable to yourself and others, then...
The end user of your product is who will bear the brunt of that rigid mindset, leaving them with a sour, and possibly indigestible, chunk to process as they ponder, helplessly, why the app that they so looked forward to using is, in fact, about as satisfying and useful as a piece of day-old, half-eaten toast.
Lesson: As a developer, try to foster and maintain a sense humility, not just with regard to how you carry yourself in the social context of the outside world, but - perhaps more importantly - in how you conduct yourself on the inside. It is what you harbor on the inside that will, inevitably in fact, be instilled into your product, and - consequently - be extended to the user.
And with that said, let's wrap this up from a point originating from a place none other than the Book of Truth itself.
In Matthew 5:5 of the Bible, it is said that, "blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth." But what does that even mean?
The way the English language has come to be used in our modern day, MEEK instantly connotes a descriptive word for someone who is weak and timid. You know - someone who is wishy-washy, can't take charge, or is afraid to take on roles of leadership. But if you think this has anything whatsoever to do with the way the term was originally used - think again.
Quite the contrary, MEEKNESS used to reference the quality of being gentle and humble. That's right, it was upheld as something positive and desirable. At least in the way it was worded in holy scripture, MEENESS was something downright virtuous, and hence the state of being MEEK, one might say, a flattering compliment.
Once you internalize this semantic reconceptualization - the notion that a passive bystander mentality can, at least sometimes, be equated with actual humility - and you're able to place a life-long premium on exactly that, only the sky's the limit, in life as in app development.
Seeing as we have, by fitting coincidence, just evoked spiritual imagery, those fortunate to be more theologically inclined than myself may even choose to call 'sky' by a term that is even more familiar: Heaven. "Heavenly app development" - I like the sound of that.
Now if you excuse me - I'm taking that baby to the copyright office before someone else gets the whiff of it. Someone like, I don't know... A vigilant, resourceful reader that takes the idea and runs with it before the obsessive developer from whom it was stolen gets his obsessive hands off his keyboard. Oh, what do you know? - there is here now. Walking past my window. Crossing the street. Rounding the corner onto Commercial Avenue. Walking into the copyright office..?
Oops.
You snooze, you lose, I suppose.
Maybe he's launching the next Instagram.