Final Thoughts on Lost

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I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Or sound like a broken record. Or whatever the proper metaphor here is. But I want to discuss Lost one last time.

Given today’s release of Lost’s final season on disc, and with the benefit of having had three months since the final episode was broadcast, I felt the time was right for some considered reflection as to what it all means.

Last we talked, I gave initial praise to the final episode, while noting that “the more I reflected on the episode, the more my enthusiasm began to wan.” I went on to explain why. Earlier in the season, I had expressed my growing disappointment with the direction the plot was headed. Clearly, I was not happy with Lost’s final season.

I remain disappointed. Even more so now.

At the end of Season 5, I was hyped almost beyond belief. The great final scene, with the bomb exploding and the inspired fade-to-white, left me at the edge of my seat. With an eight month wait before the story would continue, my impatience and anticipation for Season 6 could not have been higher if I had been a resident on the space station. When the Season 6 premiere finally arrived, I was sure I would be treated to a great ride And when the ride was over, I would buy the entire six seasons on disc so that I could take the ride again.

It didn’t work out that way. I will never watch Season 6 again. Not will I watch anything close to the entire series again. Why? Because the series ending was so disappointing that it has colored everything that came before it, casting it all in a negative light. I see this much more clearly now than I did last May. To start all over again, knowing where I will eventually wind up, not longer seems fun. Season 6 ruined it all for me.

Specifically…the flash-sideways plotline of Season 6 was by far the biggest disappointment. From my perspective, it was a complete mistake to go in that direction. The flash-sideways added a spiritual “purgatory” and “heavenly redemption” element to the show that I was never able to take seriously. It felt phony and contrived. It not only had no relevance to anything that came before, it seemed almost at odds with the direction the show had been heading in earlier seasons. Worst of all, it rendered almost everything that happened on the island as ultimately meaningless. What did it matter who lived, who died, or why, if they all ended up here for a happy reunion and a joyous stroll into the white light? What a letdown.

And that H-bomb blast at the end of last season? Another fizzle. Yes, it seemed to kick the characters back to the present. But, aside from the death of Juliet, nothing else had changed. I had expected something more.

As for the island scenes in Season 6, they were a disappointment as well. Too much time was spent having characters wander about the geography, with the only significant plot advancement coming in the final five minutes. Occasionally, even the plot advancements were rendered almost meaningless by the events that followed (e.g., we finally get to see inside the temple — only to have it, and almost everyone inside it, destroyed a week or so later). Too often, I found myself bored with the slow pace of an episode, my finger hovering over the fast-forward button.

The fact, lamented by numerous fans, that too many of the mysteries of the show were left unanswered became a minor point for me, in light of all of this other trouble. I imagined so many ways that the time wasted with flash-sideways and island-wandering could have been better spent. Instead, the writers/producers squandered it away.

I do look forward to watching the mini-episode epilog included with the final season package. The preview that I saw on the Web looked promising. And, after more time has passed, I am sure I will rewatch some of my favorite episodes again — including my absolute favorite, the Season 3 finale, “Through the Looking Glass.” But that’s about it.

Despite everything, I will always consider Lost to be, overall, one of the finest achievements of weekly series television. The final season’s mistakes can’t completely undo this. Still, the final season did ruin, for me, what I would have otherwise ranked as my single favorite television achievement ever. Now it’s just somewhere in my top ten. Not bad. But it could have been so much better.

The GOP Takes the Lowest Road

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The other day, I posted a tweet that disparaged the GOP. It was in reference to an article describing the GOP’s collective stance regarding the building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero in NYC. My specific comment was “I suppose GOP is capable of looking like bigger bottom-feeding crap, but it’s hard to imagine how.” In retrospect, I think “scum” would have gone better with “bottom-feeding” than “crap,” — but why quibble?

On Facebook, where my tweets are automatically reposted, someone replied: “Does that mean all who agree with the GOP are but lowly bottom-feeding crap as well? Just wondering.”

I took this question to mean: “Isn’t it possible to believe that the center should not be built at the designated location without being branded ‘bottom-feeding scum’? Can’t there be a legitimate difference of opinion here?”

The question made me aware, once again, of the pitfalls of Twitter’s 140 character limit. If you just decided to glance at the article I cited, rather than read it through — and especially without any additional clarification from me — my tweet could easily appear undeservedly harsh.

In an attempt to make my intent clearer, I replied to the Facebook query. To give this reply as wide an audience as possible, I repost it (in an edited and expanded version) here:

If by “agree,” you mean isn’t it possible to simply believe that the Islamic Center should ideally not be built at that location — then no, that does not by itself mean you are a “bottom feeder.” While I would vigorously debate such a belief, and contend that it is wrong, I recognize that there is room for valid differences of opinion here.

The problem is that the GOP, through its various speakers, has done much more than that. It’s the “more,” as described in the article I cited, that ultimately lead to my Twitter post.

To describe President Obama as “not like an American” for his defense of the center’s right to exist, for playing up the issue with the primary purpose of getting votes, for blindly agreeing to echo GOP playbook statements as if you are Stepford clones, for focusing on what should be essentially a minor local issue when there is so much more important stuff nationally to worry about, for distorting the matter by claiming the building is a “mosque” to be built on “hallowed ground” when such is not the case, for hypocritically ignoring the fact (as seen here) that strip clubs and OTB establishments are already in this same location, for consistently resorting to name-calling and emotional oversimplifications as a political strategy, and mainly for encouraging people’s worst fears and prejudices for short-term political gain — if that’s what you mean by “agree,” then I would say yes, all such people are bottom-feeding scum.

And while I’m on the subject — just how many blocks away would the center have to be before it would be okay with the GOP to build it? And what if the terrorists had been Catholic? Would the GOP have been against building a Catholic church at the same location? Somehow, I doubt it.

In the end, while the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks were Islamic, this doesn’t mean that all Muslims are terrorists. While the truth of this syllogism should be obvious, it seems to have eluded the GOP. To truly show how this country is different from its enemies, we should showcase how we defend religious freedom, even when we don’t always agree with the specifics. The GOP wants to do the opposite.

During World War II, we rounded up innocent Japanese-American citizens and placed them in internment camps. At the time, with fear and prejudice running high, it seemed (at least to some) as the right thing to do. Today, we view it as an embarrassing stain on our historical record. Although the GOPs position here is less extreme, I strongly believe that we will some day look back on the GOP’s September 11-related prejudices and extreme nationalism (from “Freedom Fries” to “No mosque on hallowed ground”) with a similar sense of embarrassment. I can hardly wait.

The Limits of Text Editing on an iPad

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As soon as Apple announced the availability of iWork apps for the iPad, I began imagining a time when I could sell my MacBook Pro and depend entirely on my iPad for getting work done when on the road. To be clear, I am talking about using the iPad for the limited subset of work-related tasks I need to do when traveling — not as a complete replacement for a Mac. The primary such task is writing online articles (such as this one!).

I recently returned home from a 10 day trip. I had both my MacBook Pro and iPad with me. As an experiment, I began the trip by attempting to get by with just my iPad. The iPad was superb for a wide variety of tasks: Web surfing, checking email, keeping up with Twitter, viewing photos, playing games, reading an ebook, and staying current with news, stocks, and weather. If these were all I needed to do, I would gladly sell my MacBook Pro tomorrow.

However, I also wanted to use the iPad to write a couple of articles. For this task, it was an almost complete failure. In less than an hour, I gave up in frustration and switched back to the MacBook.

I knew that the current version of the iPad might not make it in this regard. But I had been hopeful that, as the software and hardware inevitably improved, my imagined future might become a reality. I am no longer confident that this day is coming — at least not any time soon. Several of the problems I had did not seem easily surmountable:

• Hassles with the touchscreen interface. Even though I had a Bluetooth keyboard, I still had to use the touchscreen for frequently needed tasks such as repositioning the cursor. This proved to be a pain — slowing me down to a frustrating pace. A cursor controlled by a mouse or trackpad — or even the arrow keys on a keyboard — are far superior to my index finger trying to bring up the iOS’s loupe.

In one odd glitch, after opening a document in Documents To Go, I had to tap the touchscreen at least once before input from the Bluetooth keyboard started showing up on the screen. It took me several minutes to figure this out. At first I thought the keyboard was not working.

When I tried to type with the virtual keyboard, my frustration level soared higher. In this instance, I was trying to type with all fingers, as I would with a physical keyboard — rather than with the one finger typing I typically do when entering something brief like a Twitter post. The result was that my fingers too often touched the screen in such a way as to cause some unintended effect. The cursor might reposition, so that the next text I typed incorrectly appeared in a random part of the article. In other cases, I wound up deleting an entire paragraph of text (thanks goodness for Undo) or closing a document entirely. It was impossible for me to type for more than a minute without some error interrupting my workflow.

• No multiple windows. Having to switch back and forth between apps for something as simple as copying a URL in Safari and pasting it in a text document proved much more arduous to do on an iPad than on a MacBook. Even when multitasking comes to the iPad, it will not be convenient enough to make such tasks as efficient as they should be. It can take considerable effort just to get a URL successfully selected and copied.

• Weak text editors on iOS devices. Even If I could easily get a URL from Safari to a text-editing app, I’d still have the problem of what to do with it. As far as I know, there is no text editor for iOS devices that allows the creation of hypertext links for URLs. This is just one of several job-critical features that I cannot do with the current crop of iOS text-editing apps.

A partial solution here, at least for articles intended to be posted online, is to work directly in a web-based editor via Safari, rather than a text-editing app. These can be more full-featured than any iOS app. Still, I prefer to work offline until I am close to a final draft. The web solution also doesn’t work for those occasions when I have no Internet access (such as on a airplane).

Some of these problems seem almost inherent to the nature of a touchscreen device. Others seem likely to require more changes to the iOS than we are likely to see within the next couple of years. Similar issues affect other work-related tasks on the iPad, such as Keynote presentations. Perhaps the answer is to accept that the iPad is not intended to be a MacBook replacement — even in the limited sense I have described here — and never will be. Or perhaps I just need to wait longer than I anticipated. Regardless, at least for now, my imagined future of an iPad sufficient to get work done on the road has been put on indefinite hold. Don’t expect to see my MacBook Pro posted for sale any time soon.

Jailbreaking is Legal; Now What?

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Today the U.S. Librarian of Congress ruled that jailbreaking is legal, citing it as an exemption to DMCA regulations. Specifically, they stated: “Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.”

From this summary statement, you might find it hard to figure out what they mean, as the word “jailbreaking” never appears. To find the full details, including specific mention of jailbreaking, Apple, and the EFF (which sought the exemption), you need to read the Federal Register document. Here you will see that Apple essentially lost every argument that it made. It’s a fairly strong slap in the face.

What will be the fallout from this ruling? With the caveat that I am not a lawyer, here’s what I think:

• By citing jailbreaking as legal, it removes a significant stigma from the process. No longer can someone say that you should not jailbreak your iPhone because “it is against the law.” In the short run, this will likely encourage more people to give jailbreaking a try. In the longer run, it may encourage more developers to offer software via the jailbreaking route.

However, as long as jailbreaking remains a “geeky” often technically-tricky task and as long as Apple remains hostile to the process (both of which I suspect will be the case), I don’t see the status quo changing much. Jailbreaking will still be something that attracts only a small minority of iOS device users and developers.

• Nothing in the ruling suggests that Apple has to directly support jailbreaking. Apple retains its right to develop new ways to block jailbreaking with every iOS update and new hardware that it releases. It will continue to do so.

• Apple states: “Unauthorized modification of the iOS is a violation of the iPhone end-user license agreement and because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software.”

This one has me scratching my head a bit. Is it still legal for Apple’s end user license to claim that jailbreaking is prohibited, given that jailbreaking has now been declared legal? Could Apple deny any and all service to an iOS device simply because the device has been jailbroken at some point in its history?

My guess is that, yes, Apple can. However, by taking a significant arrow out of their quiver, the ruling makes it a bit harder for Apple to get away with it.

By analogy, could authorized Toyota service providers refuse to service a car if they detected that the car had ever been serviced by a “non-authorized” provider? I believe they could. But it would be poor policy for them do so. They would ultimately lose money (by refusing to service numerous cars that they would have otherwise repaired) and they would seriously anger their customers (who might buy another brand of car as a result).

Apple is not yet in this competitive position. However, if Google’s Android phones continue to improve and gain in market share, Apple may find itself in a similar position sometime down the road. If so, I expect Apple’s stance towards jailbreaking to loosen.

• What would Apple have done if they won the DMCA ruling? Perhaps nothing beyond what they are already doing. However, I suspect they would use it as carte blanche to become even more assertive. For example, they might have sued, or sought to criminally prosecute, the people who distribute jailbreaking software and who provide the networks from which you can download such software.

Thankfully, we will not see that happen now.

• Overall, while I doubt Apple will ever overtly support jailbreaking, today’s ruling may ultimately lead to Apple becoming less aggressive in its attacks. As a result, jailbreaking may become a more reliable and easier to maintain process.

It has long been my position that many of the risks, complications and problems associated with jailbreaking are a consequence of the actions jailbreakers must take to circumvent Apple’s attempts to block the process. If Apple lightens up here at all, this could change — for the better.

But that’s the long view, and an optimistic low probability long view at that.

In the short run, you can expect Apple to continue doing exactly what it has been doing. Don’t expect to have an any easier time jailbreaking your iOS device next week than you did last week.

Update: Based on feedback from Twitter conversations, I add some clarification:

I in no way believe that Apple must support problems with the use of jailbroken software or secondary problems that are perceived as due to the presence of jailbroken software. This has always been the case with all computer products. Apple doesn’t support problems even with legitimate third-party software on your Mac or iOS devices. Don’t expect to go to the Genius Bar and get help with how to use Photoshop. The question is: If you jailbreak your iOS device, and Apple can detect that you did so, does this automatically and entirely void your warranty for any problem whatsoever? Should Apple be able to refuse to service your device?

For example, what if your iPhone’s screen cracks due to a defect in the design of the screen? Should Apple be able to deny a warranty repair if it discovers that the iPhone is jailbroken?

Or, what if the Calendar app on your jailbroken iPhone keeps crashing on launch, for reasons having nothing to do with jailbreaking? You know this because numerous people who never broke their iPhone are having the exact same symptom. You go so far as to restore your iPhone to its pre-jailbreak state. As you still get the crashes, you bring your iPhone to the Apple Store. If Apple somehow discovers that you previously jailbroke your iPhone, should they be able to refuse service?

A strict interpretation of Apple’s position suggests that they might well answer yes to these questions. I would disagree.