Adobe isn't in the Flash business

From John Nack.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with my mother on Sunday in regards to the company she works for. I've been telling her that she should be telling them to stop thinking of themselves as a "magazine producer" and think of themselves as information peddlers. They used to use magazines as means of peddling information but that mode of delivery is clearly on the wane. I was saying that they need to get on the iPad wagon but quick.

I was also referencing Honda. I recalled a video I saw where Honda was discussing it's newest human "enhancement" of legs that attach to your legs. Why would Honda be doing that? They are a transportation company. Not a car company. Not a bike company. A transportation company.

The iPad is going to make people re-evaluate WHAT they are doing and realize that the "how" they were doing it was merely incidental.

Ignore the Naysaying "Nerds"

I want people to remember a few things. When the Mac came out with it's GUI it was dismissed as a toy. Later the entire publishing industry was changed. Music production changed. and PC's went from DOS to windows.

The Wii was derided as being underpowered. No way could it compete with the XBox and Playstation 3 that had all the technological bells and whistles. Ahem. How many Wii's have been sold to date? How many homes is the Wii in. And most importantly how many homes is a Wii in that previously never had or even considered a game console?

When the iPod came out. Oh it's too expensive. Oh no one is going to pay for all that when they can get a (insert now bankrupt or dead last place company name here). Yeah OK.

When the iPhone came out. How many people dismissed it? Oh it can't do this. it can't do that. It doesn't have this. It doesn't have that. And how many iPhones have been sold. And how many businesses write special apps for it? And....

I look at some of these "intelligent" critics and think of the housing market bubble. Most of the experts didn't see it coming. Oh there were a few of us who sounded the alarm. Who refused to put our money into what we knew were inflated homes. Yeah. experts who get paid way more than I to make predictions on simple shit like should home prices be going up 50% every two years missed the boat.

They are missing the boat here. Like I said in my previous post, this device and the multiple others that will come along is going to challenge people to reconsider how they compute. Do they use a laptop because it is in fact the best device for the job at hand, or because it's simply the only device available or used to. Change is coming folks the iPad is the first (to market) device to spark the change. Catch the wave. This is change you can believe in.

iPad

I am excited about the iPad. I am excited about the iPad in a way I was not excited by the iPod Touch or iPhone. I'm a long time Mac user that uses a Nokia Internet Tablet (N800) and while many of my peers in the Internet Tablet scene are skewering the iPad, I am very excited about this product. Let me explain why.

When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and watch Inspector Gadget. I was supposed to be doing homework but, there I was. And while Mr. Gadget was amusing with his umbrellas and long arms and feet. I wanted Penny's Computer Book.

I wanted it bad.

I wanted it so badly that I set out to make my own. I was an inventive kid. I made a computer book from a cassette tape case, a solar powered calculator and a set of headphone speakers. Since I didn't want to see wires all over, I used aluminum foil to trace leads along the cassette case. I was proud of my work. I also got odd looks from people when I whipped it out in public.

Going further I took a quiz-wiz and made a larger model of my Computer Book with a better calculator and better speakers.

Then I discovered Star Trek the next Generation. I wanted one of those pads. I wanted to touch a screen and make shit happen. I didn't want to flip open something. I didn't want to type at a keyboard. I didn't want a little scroll ball. I didn't to find somewhere to perch a mouse. I wanted to tap a screen and have shit happen. The iPad is my Star Trek pad.

It is the future of casual computing and all the people moaning about what it doesn't have and can't do are missing the point entirely. This is not about having a terminal (though I'm sure there will be an app for that). It is not about what low level file IO you can do. It's not about installing every codec known to exist.

This is about doing away with what we commonly think of as The GUI Experience. It is the removal of unnecessary tool bars and mice pointers. It's about making your program act intuitively so that menus, when needed only show up for the task at hand. It is about the OS getting out the way so you can do stuff. Think about it. It is a computer where you never have to say to yourself: Where's the mouse pointer?

So do I need to flip out a laptop to check the news websites? Do I need to log into a computer and load up a desktop to check Facebook? When I'm on my couch do I really want to flop open, and make space for my laptop being careful to not block the vents? No.

You know what blew me away? When I saw the presentation on Google Maps and they jumped to street view. That blew me away. It was my Penny's computer book experience. Yes, I can access street view on my Nokia N800. Painfully. It's probably faster on the N900. But it's nowhere near as polished.

Nowhere as polished.

The other things that got my attention was the Brushes application. Again I have an app on my Nokia that does the same thing. But to have that on a 9.7 inch screen? All touch? Again this is the WACOM tablet a lot of artists have been waiting on.
I foresee drum machines and the like. All touch interfaced and polished.

And that is the point. This is not a point and click, use the stylus, crammed down desktop OS. I did that when I installed KDE on my N800. You know what? I got really tired of trying to hit miniature menus and menu-items. I got tired of menus and preference panes that literally fell off the screen. I'm sure some people like it. And they can feel free to not buy an iPad.

Are there problems with the iPad. Certainly. I noticed that the special event presentation excluded any mention of iChat. Makes sense since the iPad is not a primarily typing device but we all know that iChat can do video. So the lack of a front facing camera is a problem. It should be there and in my opinion should have been there from launch.

Another thing is that I'd take GPS built in. If I'm traveling I'd love to have the tablet show me where I am. I use my N800 as my Travel GPS device.

I don't want another data plan to pay for. I have a phone that can tether. I want tethering on the device. I know Apple is playing nice with ATT (for what good reason I don't know) but iPad owners ought to be able to tether with any phone capable of doing so and reach the internet. I do this with my 2007 Internet Tablet. It's 2010, enough with the "do not tether" and the extra tethering fees.

Really.

I'm going to get the 16GB WIFI version not just because I'm cheap but because I don't intend to move all my music to it. I'll keep using my 20GB iPod for that (yes I still have and use it regularly). I don't intend to do much video or gaming on it (prefer my DS and consoles for that). I do intend for it to do the things I generally lug my laptop around for: calendar, e-mail, books and internet reference material all the things Steve Jobs mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. At the cost of the 16GB model (roughly the same as a Mini) That is a bargain. I'll do my video editing and other development stuff on my larger and more appropriate machines just like they do in Star Trek.

I'm very excited about this product. I think there are a lot of people who simply do not get it. Many of these individuals are very bright but are too wedded to the current relatively complex means of computing. There will be laptops and desktops for them. And they can sit and bask about what new trick they did on their device while at their day jobs. The rest of us will be using the new paradigm and making paid applications to run on it and content to show on it and the ones that will surely come after.

Ultimately you'll know if an iPad is the device for you when you evaluate what you do with your current computer that absolutely needs a KB and mouse.

Then you'll look at what absolutely needs a KB and consider the accessory KB.

Then you will understand.

Bleach, Nip. Tuck: The White Beauty Myth

Hat tip Kenyatta Edition

The Obesity Epidemic

So today I had a thought on the obesity epidemic as I was going to work.
Right now I am possibly in the best shape of my life and no where near my 20's. It took a while to get there but the habits I have formed that got me here provided me with an insight, which ought to be obvious, as to how I got it done. Yes it helps that I am naturally slim, but don't mistake that for the magic metabolism(tm) that some people have. I was on my way to being very out of shape and heavy before I snatched the reigns. Anyway the obesity epidemic as broken down by habit:

In the morning I have a small high fibre breakfast(Oatmeal (160 Calories), which includes nothing with high fructose corn syrup, two fruits (apple and banana @80 and 108 calories respectively) and plenty of water. A lot of people will grab a bagel with all manner of high carb toppings and coffee in the morning(A DD sesame bagel is 330 calories. add 150 for the cream cheese and another 120 for the latte for a total of 660 Calories. You don't even want to discuss how much of that are from fat. Really you don't even want to think about it). The calorie count of these things are high and the nutritional value, questionable. There are also long lines at the Dunkin Doughnut stores I pass, usually a large portion of the line are people who simply ought not to be there. They are getting bagels, doughnuts and creamed coffee. So a lot of these people have hit nearly 1,000 calories before 9AM. Particularly if they work in an office with food around. Meanwhile I may have hit 300 or so of far more nutritious food.

Then they work at a job that usually requires a lot of sitting. You don't burn all that much energy sitting. What your body does not use, it excretes or stores. At my weight, 189, it takes me 20 minutes running at 8.6 MPH to burn 440 calories. So we can safely assume that persons who are sitting down for the morning have not burned through most of what they ate in the morning though at noon, they will be "hungry".

So at noon, these individuals, who had close to if not 1,000 calories in the AM most of which were carbs, will go and eat McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC or something else. The calorie counts on these meals can reach 2k calories. Say they have a large fries(570 calories), cheeseburger(310 Calories),and large coke(310 calories)and an Apple Pie (250 Calories) That's a 1.4K Calorie lunch. So by 1PM a lot of people have eaten more calories than the average human will expend in a full day. Yet their entire physical activities for the day will contain: walk to the car, drive, walk from the car, sit, walk to the car, drive, eat, sit, walk to the car, sit.

At noon, I eat a sandwich, hand made, lean cuts, low fat butter. I have some chocolate chip cookies, cause, hey.. I'm not on a diet. I also work out for an hour. So usually by 1PM I'm running a calorie deficit but maintain protein to keep my body from eating away at my muscles.

By the time I get home in the evening I am hungry. I should be. So is the average American. The difference here is that I am hungry because I'm running a calorie deficit for the day and I need to refuel. The average person is hungry in the evening because he or she is used to being fed. Many people are hungry at certain times simply because their bodies are conditioned to expect food. In any case. Dinner is my largest (calorie wise)meal plenty of carbs and protein but still balanced. A lot of people eat far more than I do of food high in fat. Mind you they haven't done much to "earn" that meal by way of physical activity but it's likely they've eaten another 1.5-2k calories at meal time. So if we look at what average people are consuming daily we can see that they are ingesting around 3500 calories each day. In exercise terms, I would have to run 2 hours and 20 minutes at 8.6 MPH to burn all that. Each. Day. Most people aren't even power walking for 20min a day much less running. I wont even get into my no snacking after 10PM rule.

So you understand why someone who was say 120 lbs at age 20 can balloon to 300+ pounds in 10 years. people are taking in upwards of 17,000 calories each work week but all they are doing is sitting down all day. They hire other people to do yard work if they have one. They are parked in front of tv and computer screens in the evenings. It is no surprise then that we have people who are not only out of shape but people are literally gorging themselves to death. If we want to look at the incidences of hypertension, heart disease, etc. we cannot escape that people are having these problems primarily due to how they eat. And the fact is that companies are all willing to profit from this. Republicans like to talk about so called "death panels" but the real death panels are in the corporate boardrooms where they think of new ways to get Americans to eat more fat calories per sitting.

It's a really sad state of affairs. And while I agree that overweight people ought not be discriminated against, I believe the whole "fat acceptance" thing is simply adding fuel to this fire by attempting to legitimize very bad eating and exercise habits and passing it off as self-esteem and anti-thin-establishment.

Engineering Fail

And so as it is with many an old car I heard rattling from a rear speaker. So I go to replace the speaker when I discover the following:

Well first we have the obvious: The broken rubber around the cone that is the source of the rattle. But look closely and you'll note another problem. See it yet?
No?

There are no screws holding the speaker to the frame. Yes, BMW in their infinite wisdom thought it was a good idea to attach the speaker to the frame such that it cannot be removed without breaking the frame. Clearly no one in that department thought that was a good idea. Not. Or maybe someone in the accounting dept. thought that replacements for this part would be a nice money maker for BMW. No way no how someone didn't think that maybe a speaker would get blown and have to be replaced. Rather than go to the store and buy a replacement BMW thought that the buyer, being rich and adverse to doing things him or herself, would think nothing of shelling out what must be a few hundred bucks to pay for the part and labor (nearly $100/hour the last time I hit the dealership).

What makes this worse is that the space left by removing this thing is not to any standard for simply replacing everything. a 6X9 wont fit flush and a 5" won't fit either. Apparently some speaker companies out there provide a new frame for replacement speakers.

So this leaves me with a few options:

1) pay the dealer. Not.
2) Find a junker, hope the part is still there and not broken. Not fun.
3) Pay for a new frame and a new set of speakers. Not.
4) Leave the speaker out. What I'm doing now.
5) Use duct tape to "reconnect" the cone to the rubber. Probably what I'll do.

I can only hope that new BMW's don't have this design. My suggestion to auto manufacturers: Hire people who work on cars for a living to go over your designs. They are the ones who will be seeing your 10 year old "fault" later and that includes your own mechanics at the service area of your dealerships.

Cash for Debt

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought there was something odd about enticing people with cash to go into debt:

For starters, who says the smartest thing for people with working cars is to buy new ones? Indeed, because personal debt is supposed to be a problem, why not look at this as bribing consumers into taking out car loans they don't need? Even with the $4,500 subsidy, not all of these customers are going to be paying cash upfront for their new cars. So they'll be swapping serviceable-but-paid-for cars for nicer cars that are owned by the banks.