Pandarization: The West Gets Left Behind

Ariel's Post Summary: We introduce a phenomenon called Pandarization, an ever-present feature of human development. In essence, pandarization is the effect of fluctuating dominance among economically prevalent cultures. This dominance is reflected in the way in which global business gravitates and caters towards one of them because of the culture's lucrative economic prospects. When the balance of economic power shifts from one culture to another, businesses follow with a more or less pronounced cultural adaptation that invariably takes toll on the adherents of the formerly dominant cultural space.

The Phenomenon of Pandarization

The story goes as follows. It's late 2011 and Blizzard Entertainment, the studio developing World of Warcraft, announces a new game expansion. This time around, its main subject doesn't rely on the Western, Norse mythology as the game traditionally did before.

Instead, the developers introduce a new race of Pandaren, fuzzy panda-like bipeds that live in a secluded misty land (just like the lowlands of inner China for example), have far East Asian names, live in houses with East Asian architecture (reminiscent of that of traditional Chinese) and sub-tropical vegetation (just like the one in the aforementioned part of China). The new land even has its own myths and legends (also much like the Chinese ones). It's spot on to say that Pandaria, the land of these fuzzy pandas, has a culture just like that of the traditional Chinese dynasties.

Upon the announcement, the Western World of Warcraft users rebel and wreak havoc and proclaim their hatred for the developers while some find it an interesting change. But most of all, the plummeting subscription numbers will speak for themselves.

The question that arises is: Why? Why did Blizzard do that? And why did users react the way they did?

Pandas: A Sign of the Changing Times

Blizzard Entertainment has always had a history of controversy when it came to its World of Warcraft expansions. One common denominator of every new course is that they did whatever enabled more room for expansion, no matter how much it skewed the original story.
But this time, the new direction and the reaction to it were immense compared to the previous one.

While one could argue that perhaps users just can't take fuzzy monochromatic animals seriously in a game where the objective is to complete quests and wage war, the players have so far swallowed more ludicrous science fiction elements in previous expansions (see Draenei) without much hesitation.
In addition, the game already toyed with the idea in the past and introduced an in-game Lunar Festival which corresponds to the Chinese New Year.

The real reason is that revenue growth from subscriptions has been slowly declining in the West. A combination of factors like market saturation and poor economic conditions prevented further growth of the franchise.
When the north pole loses its magnetic force, where does the compass needle turn? Simple, to the next big thing: China.

Localization's Breaking Point

My claim is the following: Companies will, in order to cater to the colossal Chinese market, change the product/service experience to cater more to the Chinese consumer at the expense of a Western one. The more radical the change, the more alienated the Western consumer will feel after the transition. 

The calculation is simple: the population of China is two times the size of the West by population, its market is very much in development and the opportunities there seem infinite.

Sometimes, localization is all that is needed to enter a market. But in most cases, localizing an already global product is simply not enough to conquer a market.

Up to some point, every product or service can be localized. For some industries, localization enough to make them successful. McDonald's franchises adapt everything from their language, menu selection and parts of its brand identity like the staple logo (for example, they add a little maple leaf in the Canadian franchises, logograms to the Chinese ones etc.).

Even World of Warcraft was able to do the same to an outstanding extent.
The game has a textbook case of a localization story: first localizing the language, the community,  the support, adapting to the local regulations, tailoring the marketing, customizing and tweaking the experience. It's anything any other successful corporation does to adapt to the local market.

However, World of Warcraft went a crucial step further, it made conscious effort to start developing the whole gaming experience in a way that pleases primarily the Chinese local users. Limited molding of the experience to localize it simply wasn't enough.

The introduction of the Pandaren race therefore represents a breaking point. The level at which the localized user experience changed went from the local level to the core of the game's development, sending a very visible message about its new business priority: winning over the Chinese market.
To make it work, replacement of the very ideas that constitute the World of Warcraft brand was a necessity.



It's All Around You Already

Pandarization is nothing new, however. Though it is an ever-present part of reality of the market, its effect really becomes apparent with the modern forming of a single global market.

If you haven't noticed, the same process has lately been going on in the U.S. direction. Especially in the fast-paced software sector, the United States (and Europe to a smaller extent) is now the North Pole towards which all the compasses of product development are turned.

While you may not be aware of it, it is the Western culture that is having its cultural needs addressed through pandarization right now. Everything from the notions about brands, ideas and stories behind them, to the actual problems and the ways they address them, it's all done in a way that satisfies (or perhaps panders to) a member of the Western cultural sphere.
Now think of all the culture-specific opportunities around the world that nobody will grab because they are not worth pursuing (yet).

If the magnetic force turns eastward - and in some cases it already has begun doing that - the two questions you should be trying to answer are:

1. How not to alienate your customers in the West as Blizzard did while doing the monumental shift?*
2. What does it take to appeal to the consumers in a different cultural sphere?

In The Real World

To apply the issue of pandarization to the real world: who to turn your product towards in a transitory time like ours? And how to go about doing it? It is worth giving it a good thought, especially when you consider the possibility of Samuel Huntington's multipolar world coming into being.

So what happens in Huntington's world of six distinct co-dominant civilisations of which one is economically dominant? And what if two or more are on par in economic terms? It's a life-saving question since we seem to be headed exactly in that direction. The stage is open for debate.

But whatever the reality will be, being aware of the pitfalls and opportunities that simultaneously arise from replanting a product from one cultural environment into another is crucial.
Perhaps World of Warcraft developers made the right decision to "abandon" their Western audience and focus their efforts on the Chinese market. It is a sound suggestion for other companies battling in their own saturated niches.

However, it could also turn out to be a wrong decision if approached with insufficient rigor.
Perhaps the outcome of this will be a different, uncompromising way of building brands, products and services. A way that takes into account several cultural spheres - the civilisations whose markets it wants to thrive in.




* Bear in mind that a similar, closely related process can be virtually invisible. The users don't notice any changes because they aren't visible on the surface. But taking a peek below it, one soon realizes on which end of the pandarization stick they are at: Looking at where companies are cutting down on service and product quality makes you realize whether you are getting the full product deal or a cheaper compromise despite both of them having an identical look and packaging. In this case, the economically stronger market gets better treatment by association: more buying power - more demanding customer.

Gems of the Web: Spam Poetry

The non-canned version of spam comes to us not only to raise awareness about solving all life's problems by entrusting your credit card information to a certain Chinese manufacturing company that will not only be delighted to have your trust in doing fair business of buying impeccably forged products of superb toxic quality with them but also remedy you of any positive account balance and hopefully max out your credit limit.

No, spam also comes to us to enlighten us, make us reflect upon our own selves (with reflection on selves of others being a bonus) and enjoy the pure creative genius of their authors.

Spam makes us marvel at beauty of randomness or guess which new creative writing techniques could have produced such incredible inspiring verses in quantities vast beyond imagining.

I cannot claim it as my favorite pastime but reading spam poetry indeed can be as rewarding as reading high poetry of acclaimed authors who had literary means to transform their suffering from depression and other mental disorders into a readable form.

Instead of emptying your spam folder without giving it a second thought, click on the first supposedly unworthy message and walk through them as if they were an inviting picturesque autumn park in its most vivid foliage on a refreshing cloudless sunny day.

You may find the messages advocating magical remedies for appendages you perhaps do not possess, however the reward of finding priceless gems to marvel at as you walk along this pebbled path will make it worth your time.

Soon after spam poetry becomes your hobby you start wondering if anyone other well cultured individual shares the passion for this young art form. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch of them.

Flocking around the Spam Poetry Institute website like moths around a lamppost these spam enthusiasts are sharing their discoveries with the world. And for those who don't have anything to share, simply reading through the extensive collection of poetic spam is an unforgettable experience.

Take this post's accompanying spam poems, titled "The Tantrum of a Newborn" and "Coming of Fall" respectively, as examples of sheer brilliance of their author. Mastery of words and sounds, playing with the reader in anticipation of the next line, painting a picture of subconscious associations. One way or another, spam poetry is time well spent on getting inspired and discovering your own thought processes.

***UPDATE***

Ed Desautels from Maximum Fiction familiarized me with another form of spam poetry that he learned to create at an innovative writing conference. A good analogy to this "art form" would be creation of sculptures and other artwork types from the parts found in junkyards and garbage containers.

This type of spam poetry is created by creatively adding together only the words or phrases from the original spam email. The end result of this subtraction technique is a convincing spam poem. Click here for a few examples.

Interesting Insights: Where is Facebook Heading?

Based on my previous writing on online self-investment and its paradox, what can Google search data tell us about the current Facebook privacy situation and its consequences?

Taking into account the fact that Insights only offer a limited scope of information, the following data interpretation should be considered with at least some scrutiny.

The famous hockey stick

The first thing that falls into one's eye is the hockey stick shape for searches on deleting a Facebook account. Interest in deleting Facebook accounts has been steadily rising since 2008 but it suddenly spiked on May 13th, remaining a hot topic to this day.


While this hockey stick is not Al Gore's scare tactic to believe in his man-bear-pig, skepticism is due because the data of this ongoing topic is still coming in. However, for the time being it seems that the trend has already reached its peak and is now stagnating, even more signs that the buzz about account deletion is of limited reach.

G3: Blue - quit facebook, Red - delete facebook

Yellow - facebook alternative, Green - facebook evil

What's interesting is that the global increase was only twofold compared to recent data and about threefold in the midterm - which, if paralleled to the already ginormous and still exponentially growing number of Facebook users doesn't seem that big of an increase - certainly, at first sight this fact diminishes the hopes of Facebook profile deletion advocates.

G4: Blue = quit myspace, Red = delete myspace
Yellow = delete facebook, Green = quit facebook

But let's look at it from a slightly better perspective, comparing it to the dying mammoth, Myspace, and its historic record.

In several ways MySpace isn't comparable to Facebook. The main buzz around it was security/safety, not privacy - all thanks to its universally visible profiles (at that time Facebook was ironically offering a private alternative to it).

Additionally, search traffic and circumstances were different three to five years ago than they are now.

Yet still, intriguing conclusions can be made by comparing Facebook and MySpace search data: inquiries into deleting MySpace accounts slowly grew until 2007 and then remained steady throughout. In contrast with that Facebook deletion steadily grew for two years like MySpace and then started an increasingly steeper incline from 2009 onward.

This could mean that there actually is something going on with the number of people deleting their profiles or informing themselves on how to do it, in part because Facebook made it so hard for users to actually delete their profiles.

It could also mean that Facebook has a steady user drop that correlates with user signup.

Though only Facebook internal data could provide a real answer, it remains to be seen what impact this trend will have.

Deleting it or quitting it?

Evidently, quitting is not the word to use when it comes to social networking. Quantities for both Facebook and MySpace when it comes to quitting are practically negligible. What then is the significance of deleting over quitting? The fact is that nobody's quitting or interested in actual quitting but in deleting instead.

In contemporary sense of the word, deleting refers to data removal, it connotes erasing information. The word quitting means severing the ties with no intention of restoring them again, disassociating from social networks and relations you've established, from the profile(s) you've invested yourself in.

In this case, quitting also means turning one's back on Facebook as a brand - as can be seen on the graph (G4), Facebook's quitting record recently started climbing up. Where it will lead to remains to be seen.

Social network "evil"

Why will online self-investment paradox cause Facebook to come out of this relatively unscratched -unless the government gets involved: despite many inquiries into deleting the profile, few think Facebook itself is evil. The number is steadily climbing and is now on the same level at which MySpace was in 2007, at the peak of its evilness.

Compared to MySpace which had deletion and evil stigma walking hand in hand at its peak days, Facebook's evil and profile deletion do not match or correlate at all. This either means that users don't need additional information to verify Facebook's evil intents, that they've become smarter and more decided since 2007 or that the hottest social networking website on the planet is coated in teflon.

Blue = quit myspace Red = delete myspace
Yellow = myspace alternative, Green = myspace evil

Monopoly as the safe harbor

Data shows that there is also very little talk of Facebook alternatives. As discussed in my previous writing on online self-investment and Facebook, this is a major reason why Facebook has nothing to fear.

That could mean that users are maturing, the novelty of social networks is wearing off and the need for further presence anywhere is disappearing with some users, especially those seeking deletion of their profiles. It shows that users could be moving on to other, different niches online, and that they are defining their online interests.

However, that is only a small portion of all the users who are displaying a pattern similar to that of early adopters. Other users who are a majority, however, tend to follow the first wave.

......

That was a very brief overview of some assumptions and speculations that I've conjured up to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found is perhaps even less important than what the data made me think about.

The fact is that Facebook isn't threatened on a larger scale by any means but the share and loudness of those who are actively seeking to make it accountable for its handling of user data and counter its general attitude is growing at a increasingly faster pace. As long as it doesn't outpace the new user sign-ups, Facebook has unfortunately nothing to fear.

Instead of a conclusion I'd offer a hint for Facebook, its enemies and its competitors alike: turn the situation to your advantage by showing ads next to the above mentioned search queries, offering users to either rethink their decision, reassure them of searched service's safety or put a negative spin on it, encouraging them to join another (your) social network.

The real question in this case is: how much is a user worth to you? Search engines are doing it, you should be as well - if you can afford it.

Online Self-Investment Paradox and Facebook

Recently, my mind's attention got caught by this  Facebook transparency rant by Danah Boyd, another call to action in the electrified atmosphere of weighing in on shrinking of online privacy that is becoming an active ingredient of our internet zeitgeist.

Her politically biased discourse aside, the author does make valid and unsparingly honest remarks about the state of privacy on the web at large and the motives of various players trying to influence it.

From my perspective, its main contribution to the current Facebook privacy debate is that it makes a case for all those who (would) disagree with the site yet remain on it, it softens and bends the consumer response logic of voice/exit upon disapproving of Facebook's actions to a point at which those users are portrayed as victims who are not in a position to either leave or complain: the social contract with Facebook that was established when signing up has been gradually broken in such a way that prevents them from either exiting the service or voicing their dissatisfaction with the situation that they are not even fully aware of (again in part due to its gradual morphing).

In my opinion, this forthright attitude needs to be taken a step further. What needs to be exposed is the real underlying cause for the existence of the situation. Why do users online neither exit nor voice their complaints? The voluntary limbo they are in doesn't exist because of their own unsuspecting cluelessness, it's not because of Facebook's foul plan for gradual world domination. The attitude of most users doesn't change even when the full information picture lays bare in front of them.

The real answer lies in countless hours invested in profile building, networking, promoting the website to their social circle, the effort it took them to start trusting it and in the end the lack of alternatives that would outweigh (or have the potential to outweigh) the investment. Lack of alternatives is a major reason that has kept monopolistic services like Facebook above the water.

This real issue stems from what I call online self-investment. It is the prime issue of our internet era and at the same time an online incarnation of a dilemma as old as humanity itself, albeit with a twist.

Online self-investment simply means investing yourself in an online activity. It is a recurring theme in the life cycle of any online service or product. It shows consumer-service interaction and pitfalls thereof from the perspective of the user. It offers an insight into user behavior beyond the classic assumptions of frustration and passive attitude, adding another dimension to it.

Even though investing yourself, your time, money and your cognitive processes into something, that in itself won't prevent you from leaving or attempting to change it, though it will influence your calculation of what to do. In real life, such decisions bear real consequences that for the most part cannot be rolled back.

However, when it comes to the same situation online, the rules change. Unlike in real life, people don't have anything tangible to lose, and it could very likely be rolled back without consequences. But they can, as research shows, perceive virtual life as reality. This enables them to invest themselves into their activity in the same way as in real life.

Online self-investment that I've just described functions in the same way as one would expect from a real life self-investment but leads to a radically different result: O.S.I. therefore inevitably leads to online self-investment paradox.

Instead of deciding between voice and exit, online users keep investing themselves into an activity that they would try to change - or not continue at all - in real life. And they are doing that not despite but because of the fact that their virtual activity and its consequences are perceived as intangible, even if the service itself is costing them real money. In this sense, users still view virtual life as removed from reality.

To rephrase, users online are resuming their activity because they are self-invested in it in a very real way and at the same time still treat it as removed from reality. They are experiencing it as reality but not treating it the same way. This is what I call O.S.I. paradox, the online self-investment paradox.

I have stumbled upon this pattern throughout the internet, again and again. World of Warcraft, a paid MMO service, was a classic example of such dissonance. Millions of players who are investing time and money into an online computer game on a daily bass, a good portion of them privately disgruntled with the publisher's (Blizzard) attitude yet very few quit or raised their voice because of it, they rather kept investing their time in the game.

The lesson for anyone providing a service in this case is that in order to keep the users pacified, it has to ensure the following:

1. provide them with means for perpetual online self investment

2. make sure that you have as little competition as possible (appearing more appealing than the competition is what breaks many more services than it makes)

3. keep realities separate, do not allow for overlapping of the issues with reality: as soon as the online self-investment overlaps with reality, the individual's exit/voice decision reappears.

But what is there to do for users who actually want change? What stance do we assume, that of people as sheep needing to be lead by those who know what is right for them? Is the approach taking the fight (in the case of privacy) to every particular application/website or would time be better spent lobbying for a general regulation?

We hear criticism of Digg that it is caving in to users too much on one side and praise of companies like Facebook and Apple who follow through with their plans regardless of users' opinions. The approach works for Apple but in case of Facebook the situation is different. It is not engineers who bring services to life, it's people who do it, the engineers only serve as administration of the skeleton, the frame that helps you invest yourself in the service.

Taking that into account, Facebook should take the same path Digg did. And this is just the first of many reasons for it.

And since voicing your opinion is to no avail, exiting remains a viable alternative.

Sidenote: Little known fact: Facepook as a Facebook clone actually exists. Since it smells phishy, caution while there is advised.

YouTube Channel Parking

Back in the old days of YouTube, when the site was still considered an online Wild West, Renetto came up with an idea of cybersquatting YouTube usernames. In the video that he posted (it has since been taken down by him along with his all other videos and then reuploaded) he encouraged users to seek as many unclaimed YouTube usernames as they can, all for a chance that some of them might be worth something at a certain point in the future - if sold, of course, to the right buyer. After all, youtube.com/yournamehere is a prominent link.

Numerous potential issues arose around then, including some people accusing renetto of encouraging illegal activity and of not thinking the thing through (due to legal concerns). Those questions are all still valid now, four years later.

What happened then was a sudden eruption of usernames that were either names of famous corporations, people, products, well known brands or imitations of other users' names.

Naturally, this was too good of an opportunity not to jump on the bandwagon myself. So on that day in September 2006 I first created a number of renowned record label usernames and then kept adding new interesting usernames in the following weeks and months. It's important to note that I decided not to do it via botting but create each account manually.

Dozens and dozens of usernames were created and parked for a potential sale in the future. And then I waited. What follows below is how things turned out (thus far).

A thing to note is also that I created and used some accounts for the purpose of political activism in 2007 when YouTube's banning and deleting of users together with video takedowns was abound. It was a real DMCA induced chaos.

The Outcome - thus far

Some of the usernames were evidently popular and my ownership (if it could be called that way, it's still a legal concern) of them was a subject of frustration to those who didn't get them first. A result of that was that those usernames underwent occasional hack and password retrieval attempts.

1st Result: Euronews taken without any questions asked

One of the channels I owned was the Euronews channel. Seeing how it is a prominent European news media company I expected to hear from them soon enough. However, they did not attempt to contact me and neither did YouTube.

The channel was simply taken away from me in early 2007 with no questions asked, no advance warnings and in a completely uncompromising manner. In other words, it was stolen.

YouTube had no firm basis to hand the channel over to Euronews: the YouTube partnership program didn't exist, Euronews does not hold a trademark of the term and the claim to a Euronews channel was completely unfounded.

In this case, nobody was held accountable for YouTube's one-sided actions.

The only thing that remains as a memory of my ownership of it is the channel's creation date: September 18th, 2006.

The same goes for the AlArabiya channel that I owned. YouTube simply stripped me of ownership without notice and handed the channel over to the Al Arabiya news network. However, there still are some glitches remaining from the ownership transfer when I try to log in with the old username data.

2nd Result: Record label's request via YouTube form overturned

In the second case I turned down an official request to give away a known record label username. The request was sent to my email in an official form through YouTube's new (and perhaps automated) username acquisition system.

The content of the automated message was asking me to be kind and hand over the ownership of the account to the record label. I had the option of "yes" and "no", deciding for the latter since the offer was nowhere near my expectations.

But at least they fixed their own faulty system and prevented account stealing from happening again.

3rd Result: Private user pleas for handing over accounts

On several occasions I've been contacted by users through YouTube's internal mail or channel's comment section (the comment wall), asking me if I wanted to donate my account to them. The answer was always negative.

On one of the hottest accounts for a popular Windows service (and a few other channels) users were periodically getting upset about the username being squatted, leaving derogatory comments, including anti-semitic ones.

So far, no profit has been made on this end either.

4th Result: Record label actually offers something of material value

Finally, after four years of waiting I've been contacted by record label who means business. That is, if you decide to call an attempt at bribing me with a T-shirt and a mug conducting business. These two items are what they initially offered me in exchange for deleting my account so they could set up their own in its place.

Of course, this is an extremely humble offering on the part of a record label that's connected with many of the top names in the music industry - but it is a start.

The only risk associated with this last record label is that it could as well be a phishing attack but that could be easily verified.

What happens with this case remains to be seen.

Sad reality of YouTube username squatting

For now, YouTube username squatting has brought me exactly zero in revenue. Most of those who are interested in obtaining a username are inquiring into the possibility under the assumption that it will be completely free of charge.

The only alternative I have is to make at least some of those usernames profitable on my own, hoping that the username itself will be an authority enough to attract viewers. I don't consider this to be very likely without providing quality content at the same time.

What remains, of course, is more waiting.

MacBook Pro in the Winter Cold

I've gotten used to the idea of taking the MacBook Pro outside, simply because of the soothing ambient effect. The only obstacle in doing that is usually the laptop's battery life. In the winter time, however, the main obstacle can be low, below-zero temperatures. These conditions make my usually sweating hot laptop dangerously cold and although it may seem that freezing air is beneficial for my slick aluminum companion, the truth is quite the opposite.

Internal MacBook temperatures stay above 20ºC,
despite having it outside in the ice cold weather.

As I already wrote before about a faulty nVidia GPU when talking about my MacBook Pro, the GPU temperature as seen on the picture seems too high to be viewed as regular in these freezing conditions, especially when compared to the CPU temperature.

In addition, if it does actually have a faulty GPU or other components, then exposing the laptop to extreme temperature shifts during its operation will significantly reduce its GPU's lifespan. Any non-unibody aluminum MacBook Pro model can be affected.

Hard Drive Issues

The same goes for its hard disk drive whose temperature of around 20 ºC is almost pushing the limit of safe operating temperature. As the famous Google's research on this subject has shown, lower temperatures in hard disks are associated with higher failure rates.

The reason for that most likely lies in devastating contraction of materials that hardware components are made of during temperature shifts and their physical properties that favor warmer environments.

Of course, in the end it's still up to me to decide whether I prefer a healthier laptop or some fresh winter air on a peaceful sunny day. For now I'll stick to the latter.

What to do when it's cold?

The bottom line is that Apple's MacBook can survive a fair amount of cold winter air. Its components still get warm enough inside its aluminum (uni)body to operate properly and the chips inside it actually prefer colder temperatures.

The only thing you have to pay more attention to is the hard disk drive (if you have a SSD drive instead you're safe from the disk issue).

The default operating temperature range for hard disk drives is 5º C to 55º C (41º F to 131º F). Keep it in this range to avoid malfunctions. This applies only to a Mac laptop that is turned on.

This paragraph applies to the owners of unibody MacBooks only: If you will be exposing your MacBook to a hellish temperature of -30º C (-20º F) or below for longer periods of time,  make sure to charge/drain your battery to 50% capacity first to prevent any negative effect on its lifespan out in the cold.

To keep an eye on the working hard drive in the cool air, check the laptop's internal temperatures with iStatPro or a similar application regularly and make sure that they are not outside the range of their working temperatures.

It is very important to avoid exposing the MacBook to sudden big temperature shifts (such as going from -20ºC to +20ºC instantly) as that can cause microscopic cracks in its tech components and considerably shorten its lifespan. The computer parts contract and expand with temperature changes and small cracks can form this way.

If you are carrying your Apple laptop outside (even if it's stored in a suitcase or a bag), make sure the MacBook is turned off before returning indoors and then let it "thaw" for a while before turning it on again. That should be enough to keep it safe.


Especially for warranty purposes, keep in mind the official electrical and operating requirements that Apple lists on its MacBook Technical Specifications pages:

• Operating temperature: 10° to 35° C (50° to 95° F)
• Storage temperature: –24° to 45° C (–13° to 113° F)

Take a look at Apple's own notebook temperature guide as well.

And if you are actually hardcore enough to be running your MacBook outside when it's cold, don't forget to check its temperatures regularly. It could mean a difference between a working laptop and a dead one.

(Updated: Added extreme cold MacBook storing information on February 16, 2013) 

If you've got questions, extra tips or advice on MacBooks in cold winter conditions, please share them in the comments below.

The Z Logo

The main thing on this post's agenda is the introduction of my Z logo. While it could also be called the Z sign, Z symbol or a more traditionally sounding Z emblem, my decision to keep referring to it as a logo is solely for the sake of simplicity.

The previous Z logo was all about balance and stability in addition to reflecting the contrast of myself as a person. While all that still applies and the old logo continues to represent me in a nutshell, including the kinky endings of the Z, I have decided to design a logo from a different viewpoint.

This time the focus is not on an all-encompassing personal philosophy of life but what specific characteristics Z-LOT actually binds together, attempting to offer a satisfying answer to the question "what does it actually mean and what does it represent"?

A simultaneous creative process of first thinking and then drawing led me to my new logo. A logo that is out of balance yet still retaining its posture, that annihilates symmetry but remains proportional, a logo that is sharp and decisive, strong and still kinky, puzzling the observant viewer's mind why one part of it is hidden from plain sight - is it hiding or is it meant to be unable to grasp as a whole?

One thing about giving impressions is clear, the (3D) perspective that the logo subtly implies to be observed from is meant as a look from the ground below onto the massive kinky shape, piercing the sky above somewhere in the distance.

The logo is no longer in a square shaped frame but rather in golden ratio proportions which can be either a blessing or a curse. For me it is certainly the former since the logo was envisioned as heavily dynamic, contrary to its predecessor. An additional key benefit is the ease of its manipulability: it can be stretched, skewed and deformed in any number of ways, objects of various shapes and sizes can be added to it and finally, the clean, minimalistic shapes make recoloring process a delight.

I've spent quite some time playing with all sorts of variables, especially adding convenient square shapes to bind the logo to them. My favorite one is the combination of a red square with a black Z logo. It's made of clean lines, simplistic shapes and a radiant,colorful element that attempts to counter-balance the kinky shape and ground its swirling black tentacle.

A more square friendly yet compromising variant is the logo with a colored strip on its side. These can come in handy when it's time to express a certain mood or state of being and don't offer an appealing substitute for a square logo - I'd much rather see it stretched, oversized and cropped to fit or moved to the left side as I did with the favicon of this blog.

Overall, the move to create a new, clean logo felt like the right thing to do and it still does, especially since I managed to put own reflecting thoughts and feelings into a coherent form, calling those same reflections into memory each time I look at the sharp yet massive outline.

It is interesting to note a detail on creative process that led me to choosing such design. At first I was under the influence of old logo, constrained exclusively to straight symmetric lines. As I moved forward, nothing truly new happened until I turned the page, painted it black and made a simple white outline that completely defied the previous logo, putting it a vibrant green rectangular shape which immediately framed its perspective.

It's just the kind of feeling that I get when looking at my own logo, this time on an even more vocal level... mission successful.