Motherboards by maxw (CC-BY-NC-ND)
There are many things in life that we just take for granted and rarely think about. The way gadget companies name their products is one of them. I know, not an interesting topic. But I have always wondered about that since I started using my first gadgets a long time ago: video games, personal computers, VCR, cell phones, etc.
Gadget names such as Nokia 5230, TK2000, Asus Eee PC 1015PE, Canon PowerShot A110 IS, Garmin GPSMAP 62St, HP Deskjet F4580 and others really seem like they are supposed to be readable by machines, not humans. They sound too complicated, too techie, too cryptic, and even scary for people who don’t really care about technology itself. Those names are just unnatural for most of us. I know, you might argue that there’s a reason for using those weird sequences of letters and numbers. It doesn’t matter. Those names just don’t make natural sense for most people.
Some companies are doing a better job on naming their products though. Apple, for example, uses human-readable names for all their products. They even keep same name for different generations of the same product e.g. all generations of MacBook is simply called MacBook. HTC and Samsung are getting it right too with their new Android phones – Captivate, Galaxy, Desire, Hero, etc. And there are many others doing it right these days but it’s still quite common to see things like Panasonic TX-P37X20B and Toshiba HDDR320E04EL_CS, unfortunately.
So, if you’re directly involved in the decision of gadget names for your companies, please, give your next product a meaningful and human-friendly name! Let’s make the technology world a bit less scary for everyone.
Myths about Parenthood
Little Julia
Julia is now 4 months old. She’s growing fast and beautifully. She’s the cutest little baby in the whole universe. Of course I’m a little biased here but still… :-P
Here are some quick comments on a couple parenthood myths that have always annoyed me a bit. Those are stereotypes that Carol and I tried to avoid as much as possible. Those myths have to do with maternity and paternity.
“Maternity comes naturally” This is something that we often hear here and there inside our families. It’s about women as natural mothers. They just know what to do when the moment comes, they say. What bothers me about this myth is that it puts a lot of pressure on new mothers to know what to do. They are supposed to know everything about babies, right? Wrong! Having a first baby is a huge learning experience for new mothers. Breastfeeding, bonding, changing nappies, etc. are all things that a learnt from experience – just like anything else in life.
“Paternity is not natural” I’ve heard this kind of thing very often since I was a little kid: paternity is artificial; men have no innate talent for taking care of babies; fathers have no natural role in baby’s development; and so on. Beside the fact that those things are not true, the problem with this kind of attitude is that it removes all responsibility from us, fathers, to participate on the daily care for our kids. You’re not expected to participate. And when you do try to participate, you often get over-criticized about any little mistake – which are common for any new parent after all. This is a very common thing in Brazilian families at least.
We’ve seen and heard of many stories of new parents being stereotyped this way. Luckily, we managed to avoid those by being generous, patient, and caring with each other. The truth is: both maternity and paternity come naturally (in part) and involve a lot of learn-by-doing too. Parenthood is definitely not an easy task. It’s a very powerful life experience with a lot of learning involved for both mother and father – in different ways, of course.