I still think the media (as well as President Obama) is overlooking a very important technical limitation of this gift; that is, long-term, without the computer and software that was used to create it, the gift fails.  

If, as reported, she already uses an iPod, she obviously uses iTunes to download, save, or backup content. The fact that she now has an iPod created with another instance of iTunes makes the gift almost worthless (regardless of the content) unless she decides to either overwrite her iTunes library or, overwrite the "new" iPod.

She may elect never to sync the iPod in order to back up the content. However, if this is the case, she better hope that this particular iPod does not suffer any technical glitches other iPods the world over tend to do once in awhile.

I suppose she could send it back to the White House for syncing and/or software updates...

Jobs Save the Queen?


[I have no idea where the image above is from.  If you created it, it's awesome. Thanks.]

Here is what I think I should be able to do:
 
I want to be able to control things around me using the date. I think about watering my lawn. That particular task is based on a couple of things. For one, time, and the other, because I live where lawn-watering is restricted, a date. So a calendar is perfect as a user interface for setting up my lawn watering schedule. However, when it is overly windy or raining, I probably should be able to cancel that operation.
 
Another problem: energy usage. I want to control when my heat should come on and go off. Same with lights. Now, before you get all up in my grill about the fact that programmable devices already exist for this purpose, I will remind you that you set those based on parameters that, in reality, change and therefore render the program useless. When I am gone from my office to a job site or meeting, technically, my heat could be turned down upon leaving. When I return, it could come back on. But, if I am here, I want the temperature more constant. See where I am going with this? It is tied to my schedule. I don't want a house full of sensor technology that is monitoring my movements and logins. I live in an old house.

The photo above shows a simple, color-coded interface to a central calendar application (which, preferably, should be open source and allow API interfacing). The "buttons" are events. Each color and/or shape indicates when a device is activated or stopped. This calendar, in turn, could interface with a synchronized control system that uses this calendar data to send signals through a web-enabled controller. The controller ultimately passes the calendar command through the home wiring system to a connected device. Instead of setting up a complex plan on a central computer or home automation panel, I could control my home using my changing schedule (via a mobile phone even!) that more accurately maps to the reality of my lifestyle.

Just a thought.

EMF = Electromotive Force

Looking at ideas for "seeing" power consumption:  From wireless power-metering devices to home automation and remote sensing, using web-enabled technology for visualizing the electrical power we consume is not only fascinating, but critical as we continue to add computational power to every thing we own.

I am interested in how the development of Smart Grid applications, combined with power usage data are being monitored and secured.  To fully understand what your personal usage is, there needs to be a convenient and efficient way to see this data and easily experience its impact.

The idea is not new.  Using the power of social media along with web-enabled and wireless connectivity is.  Using tactile feedback devices to sense usage may be the most effective way of putting real numbers to the costs of wasteful power leaks.

Some companies who are working in this area:

[ http://www.groundedpower.com/ ]

[ http://www.wattzon.com/ ]

[ http://www.tendrilinc.com/ ]

[ http://www.onzo.co.uk/ ]

[ http://www.energyhub.net/Home.html ]

This list is by no means comprehensive but has gotten me down the road to the point of finding answers to some questions.  However, two of my favorite applications so far are these:

[ http://www.ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt/index.html ]
and
[ http://web.media.mit.edu/~rusti/thighmaster/index.html ]

The photo above is from Annina Rüst's site for the Thighmaster Project.  You should read more about Annina.  She has done some very interesting work in addition to the Thighmaster.

Have you ever felt a real, honest human connection using only digital media to experience that human connection?  Yes, of course, you say?  You have allowed your mind to leap across the discreet abyss to find an analog meaning at the end of a digital circuit?

What are "real" connections in our digital world?  We share stories, ideas, feelings, and even emotions through an electronic medium that has become so real, so inseparable from our lives, so intertwined,  that we have a hard time making a distinction between real and representational.

We have always, in some abstract way, attempted to understand distance between us.  It has vexed us throughout history.  The digital domain, traveling near the speed of light, has created even more questions than it has answered aside from maybe offering a solution to  the problem if immediacy. In Poetry, Language, and Thought, Martin Heidegger created a scenario where we were unsure of what long distance actually did to us:

Man puts the longest
distances between him
in the shortest time.
He puts the greatest
distances behind
himself and thus puts
everything before
himself at the shortest
range.  Yet the frantic
abolition of all
distances brings no
nearness; for nearness
does not consist in
shortness of distance.
What is least remote
from us in point of
distance, by virtue of
its picture on film or its
sound on the radio,
can remain far from us.
What is incalculably
far from us in point of
distance can be near
to us.  Short distance is
not in itself nearness.
Nor is great distance
remoteness.

What can be seen when we look at digital representations of real things?  We soon realize that the image they offer to immediate sensible intuition, quickly falls away.

[image created by me.  a fictional book cover.  for non-fictional reasons.]

Your idea is important.  Even if you think it is not. 

Prototype.  This means draw, build, model, or hack together something that resembles the essence of the idea.  Don't worry if it looks hacked together.

Tell a story with the idea.

Everything worth doing is worth doing poorly.  Deliver half the product, not a half-assed product.  Put more importance on things that pop into your head.  Make some mistakes.

Put it online.  Putting your idea online forces you to consider the usability of your idea.  It forces communication.  We all have ideas.

 
I made this thirty second video yesterday to illustrate a thought or feeling of how creativity, or the inspiration to create, sometimes feels to me.
 
Creativity is not a skill. It is a reaction and a state of being. It is an emotion, like love or anger, that acts upon us in unpredictable ways. Creativity is potential energy; a physical property of the mind and body, which, when released, transforms into kinetic energy and the act of doing.
 
Creativity is energy. It is work. It is power.

Think about those you have discovered online. Writers, Artists, Designers, Makers, Thinkers, Evangelists, Editors, Engineers, Musicians, Crazy People.

What if, using your new-found social media tools, you could assemble a group of these people that interest you. All you know about them is what they have presented of themselves in a purely digital form. Look at who you pay attention to: your online "friends." Imagine if they were real... Could this group inspire you? Could you invent a business or product or action based upon this selected group's expertise or experience? I have fantasized about my own personal "dream team."
 
What if social media actually worked?

Things that drag on and on, without any growth or progress, without any new insight, are dead things.  If something you have been involved with is offering nothing in return, the time has come to abandon it.

It no longer produces anything... and the longer you waste your valuable time expecting it to do so is simply more time you are losing doing other things.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

The Cult of Done was written by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark and is presented here:

http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html

Although I try and maintain a strong connection to simplicity, I admit that I am fascinated by complexity. Take, for instance, the X PRIZE Foundation. Their mission is "to bring about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity." Currently, they and Google have established the The Google Lunar X PRIZE, which is a $30 million competition for the first, privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data - called a Mooncast - back to the Earth.
 
Got it?
 
To find out more about this amazing challenge, check out : http://www.googlelunarxprize.org
 
It is a complicated problem. Incredibly complicated. However, how would you think about solving this problem? Engineers do it all the time. Designers do it. In fact, solving complex problems is not really too different than solving seemingly trivial problems if you think about it.
 
Imagine you were in charge of figuring out how to solve an impossible challenge. How would you develop an approach to solving it? I can close my eyes, and with very little effort, see the steps I would take to create a solution to the problem above:
 
   1. Launch from the surface of the Earth. Achieve an Earth orbit.
   2. Transition from an Earth orbit to a Lunar orbit.
   3. Release a module that descends to the surface of the Moon.
   4. Open the module and move the robot 500 meters across the lunar surface.
   5. Begin transmission.
 
Five steps. That's all. I already have made something "impossible" now solvable in exactly five steps. Feel free to take my algorithm and use it in your own solution.
 
Good luck.