Blogging by iPad

Well a week into iPad mania, I am here typing this post on the family iPad.

My thoughts are that there is a lot of potential for this device, and a lot of opportunity for creativity in design of apps for it. The early apps are interesting in the variety of how developers have decided to use the workspace and build the user experience.

As we use these apps and comment on weaknesses and strength they will improve greatly in their user experience. In the short run it is a terrific way to browse and interact with web based information. This is particularly true for online media such as newspapers and magazines. I really enjoy email in landscape mode, and this would be even better if one could more easily navigate between different email accounts.

Typing is still an iffy but much improved experience compared to the iPhone, but for those of us with large hands it is problematic to use standard touch typing. Still, I am clipping along pretty well without a normal sized keyboard. I have had a net book for some time and this is far better than those little creatures, though clearly much more expensive.

I have several issues:

Native Printing
Native ability to wirelessly move docs in and out – from another computer – though there are many apps for that, and MobileMe
How about beaming docs?
Multitasking is coming – not a huge deal to me, but it would be nice to switch apps easier..

If Apple is able to bring down the cost for the basic model to $299, they will do incredibly well.

Do you still love your baby?

I’ve had this lady in my life for twenty years, several longer than my wife, and she constantly puts my love to the test. When you have a nearly forty year old car, you don’t drive it much. When you do, there is an air of danger in the experience as you never really know what will break next.

This 1971 Mercedes 280sl was built thirty-eight years ago, when I was fourteen. I’m her third and favorite owner. I know this, as no one could have loved her like I do.

I remember about ten years ago, there was an article in a major magazine about old cars. They rated them as investments and as to what type of person drives them. For my baby, it was a forty-something dentist. Well they got the age right anyway. After the sting of this, I decided I didn’t care, I loved my car anyway.

My son (fifteen) who can drive with another adult in the car (at 14 in Arkansas – it’s pretty impressive – scary but impressive) and who likes to give me constant mouth, thinks its cool, but doesn’t understand why there is always something wrong with it. My mechanic, apparently doesn’t understand this either. “Well you again, what’s wrong now?” (imagine a southern country drawl accentuated by the occasional spitting of tobacco) “You don’t want me to fix this do you?” You would think I don’t pay him. He is as grumpy as my car and seems to live by that motto I love from the despair.com people: “Apathy: If we don’t take care of the customer, maybe they will quit bothering us”. But I don’t.

I do still love my baby, and she tolerates my graying hair. As in any relationship, we have our moments when we aren’t too happy with each other. This weekend, my son and I changed the spark plugs, fixed the turn signals, glued the carpet back down, repaired some vinyl, removed the Chapman Lock and extricated a number of wires from an old burglar alarm. After her Nip/Tuck she is humming. One of the most exhilarating cases of instant gratification I have ever had. She looks and feels great.

Its spring, the weather is beautiful the top is down and off we go. Oh, and while a little gray, at least I still have ALL my hair.

A little 280sl trivia: Elvis bought Priscilla this exact model (1971) in white, it now sits in the car museum at Graceland. It was also the car in the movie “Breaking Away” though the 1968 version (of the car, not the movie – picture to the right).

Tornado Warnings

The death toll in Arkansas from tornadoes this year is fifteen.  Sirens have been common place, and though none of these storms have been stronger than an EF3 (150 miles per hour – yikes!), they have done an inordinate amount of damage.  Like usual, they seem to have exacted their worst toll in rural, poorer communities, but even upscale sections of Little Rock were hit this year.

It was one day after the recent outbreak. It was the kind of beautifully perfect day that ironically follows natural disasters.  One man who had watched the tornado and was from the small farm town of Keo, stood amongst the debris and remarked while surveying the devastation of his little town: “When you see one of these things, it makes you feel small”. 

I grew up in South Florida in the 1960s a time of heavy hurricane activity.  In 1960 there was Donna that killed 50 people.  In 1964 there was Cleo that killed 217 people.  In 1965 there was Betsy which eventually hit New Orleans killing 50 people.  They all had female names in those days.  They hit during the night and left behind uprooted trees, 12 inches of water and no electricity.  I spent most of these storms hiding under my bed as the shutters rattled and the windows whistled, but came through with a keen interest in severe weather.  Storms intrigue and excite me.  Betsy was particularly interesting.  I would track the storms on a hurricane map cut out of the newspaper.  Betsy passed by South Florida heading up towards the Carolina coast, but made a loop near Jacksonville and came back toward us as if changing its mind in rage.  Though scared, I felt a part of a great big power. I think my watching and tracking gave me a sense of control over something I clearly could have no impact on.  I do the same today when a storm system approaches that could spawn a tornado.

Tornadoes in many ways are much scarier than hurricanes.  They give little warning.  They hopscotch across the countryside.  They choose their victims apparently at random.  I equate tornadoes to airplane travel.  Yes, one could cause your death, but your more likely to be in a car accident.  You are far more likely to be in a car accident.  They don’t scare me.  Hurricanes, on the other hand, cut wide swaths of destruction usually 20 to 25 miles wide.  They seem more determined and less random to me, and they bring the power of ocean.

My wife, on the other hand, finds tornadoes particularly unnerving and usually spends the post tornadic quiet in a state of unease and depression.  She feels small and powerless I believe.  The lack of control causes a kind of emotional devastation.

Different people react differently at times of emergency, times of stress, times of fear, times of concern.  We are what we are.  We deal with life either as we’ve been taught by our parents, or as imprinted by events, or as coded by our genes.  Who knows.  Whether a tornado makes you feel big or small it doesn’t really matter.  Life goes on, at least for most of us.

Quit Using My Tree Dammit!

2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai asked the audience “Whose trees are you using?”

In her Speech at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library last evening, she explained to us that since a human inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide, each person requires ten trees to survive. So if you don’t have ten trees, you are using someone elses. Fair enough.

Maathai is the founder of The Green Belt Movement and through encouragement, and as she put it “doing all that I can”, is responsible for planting one billion trees. The Nobel Prize committee, she explained, determined that by pressing governments to manage resources properly we are a step closer to eliminating one of the major causes of war, the inequitable distribution of natural resources.

One of her main points was that if resources are distributed inequitably, those without will surely take action to seek justice as they see it and undermine peace. She eloquently spoke of how Democracy “to many of us is a political system that respects human rights and diversity and allows people to be heard”. She related this in general, but also in terms of her countries current struggle of moving from a dictatorship full of corruption to a democratic form of government. This is why she trys to convince governments of the stewardship role they need to take to foster peasce through better resource management. She has done this at the same time she has been in front of the movement to plant trees across Africa and the globe.

You can read more about The Green Belt Movement at www.greenbeltmovement.org.

So, quit using my tree, dammit.

Clinton Center Earthday Festival

We had a very successful event today, as 10,000 plus came for the Clinton Presidential Center’s annual Earth Day Festival. In the You Tube video below, there is a short presentation of the IDEO Aquaduct Bicycle, as well as a rare look at the Clinton Presidential Center’s new green roof.  The Clinton Presidential Center has a platinum LEEDs rating.  In addition there are some wonderful shots of kids sledding down the sides of the Park’s amphitheater (Yes in Arkansas we sled down hills without snow). Lastly there are various shots of the general scene today :

 

IDEO Aquaduct Team

We had a great Little Rock Reception for the IDEO design team for the Aquaduct.  The four that are visting Arkansas for the Clinton Earth Day Festival this Saturday April 26th were attending a great event hosted on the Arkansas River.  They are a very enthusiastic group (read about the team here) who are excited about all the attention they have received for their device that won this years “Innovate or Die Competition“.

They still have some kinks to work out for this device that combines a bicycle with a water filtration system, but are hoping to be able to have an affordable system that can be used in the third world, both as clean transportation and a source of clean water.

Interestingly enough the team did not seam aware of the device that Dean Kamen has invented: a relatively small electrically powered device that cleans water from any source without filtration.  Currently Kamen sees the product about a year away from being a marketable product. (Newsweek Interview – April 5)

Given that fifty percent of disease related deaths in the world is do to unsafe water, these inventions could make a big difference. 

Clinton Center’s Earth Day to Feature “Innovate or Die Contest” Winner

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park will host the fourth annual Arkansas Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 26.

This year’s festival will host “The Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle,” a potentially revolutionary new bicycle that filters dirty water as it is being transported.

The Aquaduct was the winner of the Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest. The contest, sponsored by Specialized Bicycles; Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; and Google, challenged participants to create a pedal-powered solution for offsetting climate change.

The pedal-powered machine successfully transports and filters water without burning fossil fuels or wood, which contributes to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

 Clean water has been a focus of The Clinton Foundation since The Foundation’s formation in 2004.  The objective of The Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program is “to reduce childhood death and diarrhea through the provision of safe drinking water at the household level.”

“Access to clean drinking water continues to be a major health issue in
many countries around the world. The Aquaduct has great potential to
make a profoundly positive impact on this critical challenge,” said President  William J. Clinton.  “I’m pleased my presidential center will host the team that invented this incredible machine, allowing its innovation to inspire a new
generation of public servants, scientists, engineers and designers vital
to creating realistic solutions to solve this crisis.”

Read more at www.clintoncenterearthday.com