On The Wrong Path (2.0)

Path just re-launched itself with its 2.0 app and visually, it's nothing short of stunning. It's almost perfectly executed from the textured red icon and splash screen to the opening screen: your path. Just one red + button at the bottom left of the app flings out six different things you can add to your path: a photo, a person, a location (AKA a check-in), what music your listening to, random thoughts, or the times you go to sleep and wake up.

They've borrowed--and in some case just lifted outright--design cues from the recently released Facebook and Gmail apps: tapping a list icon in the upper left slides the main screen off to the right and brings up Settings and other things, while tapping the upper-right Friends button slides the Path screen off to the left, revealing friends and ways to manage them. You can also swipe left or right to accomplish the same tasks.

But enough about the beautiful interface. I want to focus on the total pivot they've made from private to public. You see, Path 1.0 started out as a mobile photo sharing app with only your 50 closest friends. It was private. Why 50, you ask? Research someone had done suggested that we have somewhere between 50 and 150 "really close" friends--friends we feel comfortable sharing very personal things with. All the rest are just acquaintances, co-workers, or otherwise not our true friends. How many of these types of true friends can you think of right now? Your number is probably well below 50.

In the old Path, you could post a moment like "Nervous at Home" or "Bowling with Veronica at AMF Lanes". In other words, "Home" was arbitrary; it could be anywhere. It wasn't pinned to a map. Same with "Walking the dog at the park" ... no GPS coordinates required.

Path 2.0 changes all of that, and it really ticks me off. Now, if I want to post that I'm at home, I get to choose a location on a map. This is the experience that raised my eyebrow: I typed in Home and pressed Search... around me, all sorts of "Home" locations started popping up. My best friend lives one block down from me, and to my great surprise, I saw exactly where his "Home" was located. Thing is, he doesn't call it Home. He actually put his name on the house, but kind of stylized. If his last name were Jones, you'd see it on the map as "Joooooones House". Right there on the map for all to see! There were lots of others, too.

And that's when I discovered the next problem with this 2.0 release: unlike the previous version of Path, which required you to actually know these "loved ones" (as Path calls them) you were adding, this version of Path lets you add anybody. Lonely? Want to add an alibi to last night's events? Just tap the Person button, then start typing in a name. I added some guy named Jasun (I know Jason with an "o" but not with a "u")... who is a Path user I've never met.

Why am I up in arms about this? Simple: I'm not a privacy nut, but I see the value in valuing privacy if that makes any sense. Facebook has been largely responsible for eroding our privacy for about the last eight years.  In that time, we've watched as it has opted us into making our profiles public, presenting so many privacy settings and tweaks that we just give up and click "Accept Changes" whenever there's a new privacy change, we've wondered why they implemented Beacon, a feature which tracked your purchases at select retailers online and shared them in your news feed (this feature was later pulled due to user outrage) and Path was the exact opposite. It was the antithesis of Facebook: closed, private. Secure. Trusted.

Now, it's busting wide open and basing all its changes on "Your trust in Path..." People do not seem to be satisfied sharing intimate moments with "loved ones" as Path would like you to call them. No, instead you can post those moments to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and now with the 2.01 update, Tumblr. Intimate moments become sanitized to "every other type of moment" you're sharing on every other network on the internet.

They've expanded the reach from 50 to 150 loved ones. Think about this for a moment. Do you really have 150 loved ones? Come to think of it, do you really have 150 friends close enough that you'd like to share the most private of moments with? The answer for most of you is "no." Very few have that many people in their lives that they feel comfortable sharing private information with. Case in point: Ladies: how many people in your circle of friends do you have that you feel comfortable sharing your Sunday morning, no-make-up, wake-up face with after your kids brought you breakfast in bed and you're in your jammies? Exactly. You can probably count them on one hand, maybe two. Moments like those are worth sharing with grandparents, family, close friends... but not Facebook or Twitter, for example, where many of your "friends" on those network may not be really all that meaningful to you in real life.

So Path, once the hero of privacy, the antithesis of Facebook, has in turn gone the other direction and become yet another "me too!" photo and life/thought sharing service. It's letting you add more friends--and STRANGERS if you want--to your network; you must now geo-locate your ass if you want to add a location; and they've eliminated the action verb of what you're doing, instead opting for a Facebook and twitter and "everyone else"-like text box where you can tell everyone on Path "what's on your mind?" I mean, this is literally copying Facebook's question word-for-word.

Path has essentially become Facebook light in a world where people could really use a network that values privacy over growth. Then again, this is a Silicon Valley start-up, and the product is free. If I had to guess, Path's investors are pushing them to grow faster because they weren't growing fast enough with their closed, private structure and their 50 friend limit.

I get angry at all this, but I have to say that I haven't really used Path all that much, really... I mean, who has?

What do you think of the changes?

As usual, Facebook just opted me into something else, whether I wanted them to or not.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
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Date: Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 9:53 PM
Subject: Facebook will be sending you less email - learn why

facebook Hi Michael, We're trying out a new feature to reduce the amount of email you receive from Facebook. Starting today, we are turning off most individual email notifications and instead, we'll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed. You can turn individual emails back on and restore all your original settings at any time. Thanks, The Facebook Team The message was sent to <redacted>. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future or have your email address used for friend suggestions, you can unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc. P.O. Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Maintenance at Miramonte Trovas Apartments

Our apartment at Miramonte & Trovas, while recently built, has a moisture issue for reasons we have yet to understand. We have been told (and have tried) to open our windows, run our air conditioner more often, and basically "do it yourselves" to get rid of the moisture problem.

Well, we've finally had it with the maintenance here, and that is why we're moving.

When we walk into our apartment, it feels damp and muggy. There is a smell about the air--a musky smell. We generally sneeze and sometimes cough upon entry. Our eyes become irritated. Sometimes one sneeze turns into a sneezing fit that goes on a good 5 or 6 sneezes. We have no pets. Our doors have been closed all day. We're not allergic to anything inside our apartment--except the mold.

You see, the moisture problem has led to a mold problem, which management here at Miramonte Trovas doesn't seem to care about "unless there's staining or the bathroom walls are bubbling, because they're designed to do that when there's mold." Basically: unless you've got a full-blown mold outbreak from a leaky pipe and your wall or cupboard is mushy or falling apart, they could care less about your plight and give you the old "there's nothing we can do" attitude.

That's not team spirit. And certainly not representative of the way they feel about their tenants, right?

Wrong. We've been given lots of advice about how to stop the mold from growing... such sage advice as, "leave your windows open while you're gone during the day." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, given that we're on the first floor. Oh, and then there was the obvious one: "you know, just keep your windows open... even when it's raining outside... I know it's tough, but that'll help keep the air flowing." Are you kidding me?

And then there was this: "78 degrees is a little warm for an apartment while you're gone all day... how about 70?" Wait, isn't the whole point of air conditioning to keep the place nice and comfortable while you're home? While we're at work, there's no point to keep the house at 70 degrees. 78 has been fine at every place we've lived in before.

Our conclusion: this specific unit has some kind of ventilation problem, but nobody wants to do anything about it and make it right. The manager even went so far as to say that all of the apartments have this moisture problem because of their "low ceilings" and the apartments being "on top of one another."

Excuse me, but aren't all multi-level apartments on top of each other? Oh, and by the way, in what world do "

And those mold home test kits? Don't even bother. According to our management here, you could set the petri dish outside and get the same results as what we got inside, which was nasty. So the mold test kits are worthless.

So, management offered to send out a ventilation expert, and see if there was something wrong with the apartment's ventilation system. Note I said system, not just a couple of fans. But you can guess what happened by now. No system was checked--just two fans. One in the bathroom, the other in the kitchen.

Here's the video below, complete with transcription based on what I could hear. The man in blue is our maintenance guy. The man in red is the ventilation expert. Mind you, these guys are supposed to try and figure out why our apartment is always so moist. Could be anything. Bathroom fan, laundry room fan, HVAC ductwork... and here's what they spent their time on. (Skip to 3:00 for entry into apartment.)



Transcript:

Blue: "Hello, Maintenance!"



Red: "Not the best location for one of those, that's for sure." "...ceiling..."

Blue: "They're all like that though."

Red: "Ah."



Red: "and then there's somethin about the kitchen fan, too--from what I was told."

Blue: "It's a recycler, there's uh--uh, there's no exhaust... they think it goes up to uh..."



Red: "Maybe that's what she's trippin about."

Blue: "What?"

Red: "The fact that there's no exhaust and she doesn't understand that."

Blue: "Oh yeah, duh"

Red: "It's smokin, and it's blowin out there."

Blue: "Yeah, they're weird dude."

Red: "Oh really?"

Blue: "Yeah, they give me the weirdest shit dude, like... I dunno, she's allergic to hot air or some shit."

Red: "Hot air?"

Blue: "And then she had something uhm, ... I just fixed her fucking doors or something."

Red: "Okay."

Blue: "Kinda weird people."

I dunno, I'm just drivin up here to check the fans, and it looks like all conditions are clean.

A fine example of how our apartment complex treats it's disabled residents and visitors

Here is a best-in-class example of how Miramonte Trovas Apartments treats its disabled residents and visitors. Not only are they parked in the handicapped parking space, but they're also blocking the wheelchair ramp. Stay classy, Miramonte!

Mike

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Seriously, who brings their DOG to the MOVIES????

Mike

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Wash Your Hands

With the recent outbreak of Swine Flu, I thought I would take a moment to do this public service announcement: please, wash your hands for 20 seconds.

Don't do what so many people do after they go to the bathroom. What am I talking about? Well, you know the type--they're the ones who turn on the water, splash some on their finger tips, flip the faucet off, and quickly dry their hands on one sheet of paper towel before hastily exiting the bathroom. The entire process takes them about five seconds.

What's the number one way to prevent the spread of disease--not to mention just simply avoiding catching a cold? Wash your hands. And don't be one of "those" people who do the 5-second squirt. Strive for cleanliness and, hey, you might even consider using soap!

The proper way to wash your hands is with warm water, soap, scrub for 20 seconds, rinse, and then dry. The whole process might take a minute, tops, from start to finish.

So please, don't do like a lot of people do and just shrug it off... do the world--and yourself--a favor by washing your hands so you keep yourself healthy and you don't end up like this guy (or this girl):