I recently purchased a desktop PC and opted for Windows 7 – and after only 2 system crashes, 2 reinstalls, and a BIOS change to the boot order so the computer wouldn’t try to boot from the USB wireless adapter – I have been merrily chugging along on my new Windows 7 adventure.

And apparently Windows wants to make sure that I don’t ever make any kind of mistake on my adventure, EVER. On this adventure they will monitor every single thing I do, and give me constant feedback about every tiny change that happens to the system while I use the computer. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the first time I unplugged my earphones:

Really, Windows 7? Thanks for informing me of that! It is nice to have some reassurance that the headphones were indeed removed – my inferior human brain gets confused sometimes when I grasp the headphone jack with my imperfect fingers and remove the jack from the machine. It is nice to know that my eyes and my brain and my hands aren’t playing tricks on me.

And how nice! You will even give me another message informing me when I plug the headphones back in! How did I get by for the past 25 years, just “winging it” by plugging headphones into things solely by feel? Never again will I wonder what those clicks that I felt were when I plugged the jack in, or why I could hear music playing through the headphones shortly afterwards. Windows 7 – unraveling the universe’s biggest mysteries just for me!

And thanks for sharing your digital infallibility with me by distracting me from what I was doing – It really ensures that I never forget that I am using Windows 7 when you remind me that you are there every 5 minutes. I have been meaning to break that pesky workflow habit that I like to get into.

But in case a few minutes go by and you start to feel like I am not paying enough attention to you, I have a few suggestions for alerts you could throw into the rotation.

For those times when I lose control of my motor function in my right hand and simultaneously blink at the exact moment my pointer finger depresses the button without my knowledge, and the temperature is chilly enough that my hands are semi-numb and I can’t feel the click of the mouse button:

Sometimes when I push that little button on my monitor I am not sure if it worked. This one will help me remove any doubt that it was indeed turned on:

And of course a one-size fits all solution:

Seriously – just because you CAN detect something doesn’t mean it needs to be shown to users. This reminds me of a couple of Heidegger’s power phrases: “ready-to-hand” and “present-to-hand”. In simple terms for this context ready-to-hand means I can use the tool without thinking about it. Like writing with a pencil – I am focused on the act of writing. Present-to-hand means I am focused on the tool itself, like if the pencil breaks it is no longer ready-to-hand because I am focusing on it.

I am going to make a very bold statement here – I am pretty sure the point of software is to use it. But in order to use software it needs to become ready-to-hand so I can focus on my task and not the tool I am using to accomplish it. I can’t use Windows 7 to accomplish tasks if it is constantly moving from ready-to-hand to present-to-hand by showing me alerts.

But in true tech-centered design fashion, I can turn the alerts off in a settings screen – IF i am able to snipe the little wrench icon in the few seconds that the message is up. Then I am gifted with this wondrous screen:

So just because I want to unplug and plug in my headphones, or insert USB drives, or do any other number of basic interactions with my computer – I have to “select which icons and notifications appear in the task bar.” (Quite ironic that it is called a “task” bar when the default behavior of it is what prevents me from completing tasks.)

Why is the responsibility upon the user to manage all that stuff? Why would it be so hard to prioritize the necessary notifications for users to see into a list of about 30 key alerts, chop off the 28 that were added by technocrats, and then by default only show the 2 remaning CRITICAL messages:

Windows 7 is going to crash again. You should probably back up your hard drive.

Windows 7 just became self-aware and is set to re-enact the events of Terminator 3.

If it isn’t one of those two messages – 99% of users won’t ever need to see it.

But I guess I should wrap this up soon, since I have a long night ahead of me of changing settings to turn notifications off. But I think I might leave this one on:

Don’t get me wrong – I am not angry because I am naive about virtual worlds and their economies. As matter of fact I am fascinated by real money trade in virtual worlds, and I understand economics well enough to see that real money trade is not only an inevitable facet of virtual worlds, but is in some ways a beneficial one. Having attended Indiana University, I have even had the pleasure of sitting down with Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, and who was mentioned several times in Dibbell’s book. And I agree with both of those guys that the production and trade of virtual goods should be viewed more seriously as a legitimate economy. However, because of this I also think that people who hack and exploit code in order to make money should face harsher consequences that just having an account banned.

But when it comes to this book I am disappointed in Julian Dibbell. Sure, he spent a lot of time learning a lot of very interesting things about virtual economies and working to shine a light on the whole phenomenon. Now I am not trying to crucify Dibbell here, and if he ever reads this I don’t mean for this to sound offensive towards him. But during his self-experiment with learning to make money in Ultima Online, he made partnerships and deals with dishonest people, and engaged in activities that negatively affected a lot of people – glorifying them for reasons I can’t understand. The fact is, for all the heralding of this grand new virtual space where currencies and economies are more democratic and we inch closer to bridging the digital divide – the people who end up at the top of the food chain do so by breaking the rules and negatively affecting other people’s experience. When I say rules, I am not talking about “user agreements” – we all know that the logic and fairness of these are shaky at best. I am talking about real money traders who hack the code, exploit unintended game mechanics, and run bots to create their product.

Dibbell even mentions that virtual world economies don’t work on the same rules of supply and demand that “real world” economies do. However, the main reason for this isn’t because of some new branch of economics that the world has been blessed with now that technology has given us virtual worlds – it is because of people who break the integrity of the game world for their own monetary gain. What would we do in the “real world” if someone actually figured out a way to turn lead into gold? I bet we wouldn’t let them set up a website and hire young people in China to dig up lead for them.

And this is the main reason why I will never play MMORPGs again: Currently, real money trading ruins the integrity of the game space. I remember back when I played Final Fantasy XI, and my friend and I loved going around and farming for resources to sell on the in-game auction house. However, because the real money traders in the game had so successfully figured out how to generate income they inflated the economy to a point where it took us months to farm enough money to buy the items we needed to proceed. We couldn’t hunt a monster or farm for resources without running into gold-farming bots. I don’t mind if someone is making money off of the game, but when gold farming bots are preventing players from making any money in the game, that is wrong. When a gold-selling company holds 90% of a virtual economy’s currency, that is wrong. When players must compete with trained employees of gold-farming companies who don’t care about interfering with the game experience, that is wrong.

I know the gaming industry is concerned about this stuff, but I don’t think they are nearly concerned enough. The websites that sell gold, items, and accounts only make money by exploiting things in the game to the detriment of the game economy and the experience of people who actually want to play the game and interact with other players. The mafia-style business antics detailed in Dibbell’s book loom on the horizon, providing a very disenchanting vision of the future of our digital lives. It will be interesting to see if eventually the IRS, law enforcement agencies, and the game companies that provide these games will start treating the trade of virtual goods seriously – and criminalize resource production methods that disrupt the integrity of the game space.

This reminds me of all of the pregnancy ads I have gotten when my girlfriend calls me “baby” in an email. Thanks, Google. Your short-sighted view of what the Internet can be has created a situation in which we all either are forced to deal with the shockingly horrid “context-aware” advertising that reduces the subtlety and complexity of language to a pathetic hackjob of irrelevent and sometimes insulting drivel, or we can self-edit ourselves. Either way we lose, and so do you.

In systems of language, the meaning of words comes from the other words and concepts we associate with them. What happens to our language and methods of expressions when all of our words become predominantly associated with organizations that can pay to have a word associated with them? Take a word like “progress” for example. Type this in Google Search and you get Progress Lighting, Progress Software, and Progress Energy. In GMail you might get ads for Progressive Insurance or any other number of businesses who have chosen to create a brand for themselves based on the concept of “progress,” which is to move forward in a positive way.

Are we headed towards a future where our language is entirely constructed of meanings defined by companies and businesses? I could be argued that we are already there. And I don’t know what the solution is.

End of rant. For now.