Irving Ruan

What the Hell Happened to You, Google?

Remember back in the day when everyone was enamored by Google? Its “Don’t Be Evil” mantra was echoed across the Internet, respected and loved by all. That slogan was coined back in 2006. Nonetheless, the slogan’s guiding principles served at the core of its foundation in the early days when it was only Larry, Sergey, and a couple of other engineers.

Now, look at what has happened: Search Plus Your World, the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet, and Page’s “new” direction for the company. Oh, and don’t forget all those creepy and anti-privacy Eric Schmidt has made in the past year or so. You remember those, right?

Profits and Revenue

Apple announced its Q1 2012 earnings today. Here’s a re-cap:

• $46 billion in revenue
• $13 billion in profit
• 37 million iPhones sold
• 15 million iPads sold
• 5 million Macs sold
• 15.4 million iPods sold

Google, for Q4 2011, posted $10.6 billion in revenue. Apple’s profits this quarter beat the former’s revenue. Talk about perspective (this quarter is a new record for Apple).

So, yeah. Android is “winning”.

“The Meaning of Life”

One often whimsically muses over the “meaning of life” as a means to either pass by time or engage one’s self in a spiritual joust with the mind. The epigram has undertaken a rather philosophical connotation throughout the past millennia, inspiring some to even go travel around the world in search of the catchphrase’s significance. What remains curious, however, is the ironic nature of the proverb and what most—if not all—people ponder about when confronted with such a benign saying. The strange bridging of two life-affirming words by the most common preposition harbors an usual yet comforting feeling of universality, as if the meaning should bear the same fruit of epiphanic elation for everyone. To say the Person A has, through some metaphysical hokum, found the “meaning of life” will and should not necessitate that the meaning of it will be the same for Person B. Yet, this mindset seems to be inexplicably ubiquitous in today’s society. For what reason, I do not know. Needless to say, my contention is that we are constantly catapulted with fanciful ideas and crazy concepts each day that we can never be in an objective state to formulate our own meaning. In fact, many of our world views consist of a variety blend of other people’s world views, all molded to our own moral compass’s liking.

The original prompt stands as a testament to our insatiable curiosity for the unknown. That we should apply our knowledge to understand the world around us is indeed admirable; however, there are some things we cannot comprehend through the lens of science. To witness a caterpillar courageously emerge from its imprisoning cocoon as a magnificent butterfly can most surely be studied, explained, and understood in biological terms. But what of its nature? Its essence? It seems to me, and probably to you, that it becomes exponentially harder when it comes the task of quantifying nature. Or, to put it in another perspective: understood by the narrowness of our mind. Is this where it ultimately begs the question presented herein? To diligently inspect it on said premise would not reveal anything apparent but what is defiantly obvious is the philosophical inverse of the platitude itself: to give life a meaning. 

The Vision

Steve Jobs’ Vision of the World:

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again