iWoz

Finally read all of iWoz, the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, designer of the Apple ][ personal computer. Many of the anecdotes in his life were already familiar to me, but what stood out for me was how several of his proudest hacks were completed under extreme time pressure. It seems like the human brain has something akin to adrenaline that lets us think quickly and clearly when pressured, and I think all experienced engineers would've called upon this well at one point or another.

I do envy those who were in the Valley during those heady days, though. While there are still wildly innovative things to be done in this industry (I think the era of intensely-personal computers like the iPhone is just beginning), it's nearly impossible for a couple of friends to pull it off from nothing. Just a few years after 2000, the main goal of many start-ups already shifted from striking it rich by invention to getting bought out by a Yahoo! or Google. The iPhone App Store briefly brought back the excitement that a one-person outfit could hit it big, but bigger companies are no longer as lumbering as those of Woz's day.

Bye, Floppies

Sony is apparently one of a few remaining manufacturers of the 3.5" floppy disk, and they'll stop production next year. Floppies were an important file transfer mechanism when I was in college, and I remember my copy of Windows 95 was in floppies. CD-ROMs overtook the floppy as a delivery mechanism in the late 90's, so it was relegated to transferring small files from computer to computer. The PowerMac G4 that we bought in 2002 or so no longer had a floppy drive, as networking took that final use case. I think USB flash drives served that purpose for some, but I don't even have one of those in the house.

Of course, no discussion of the 3.5" floppy would be complete without mentioning AOL, which shipped out tons of those before they switched to CD-ROMs.

Challenging the iPhone, Part II

A little over a year ago, I predicted that 2010 would be an interesting one for iPhone competitors. The year's not over yet, but let's revisit anyway.

Google's first strike, the G1, doesn't seem to be talked about much anymore. These days it seems to be all about the Nexus One or the HTC Incredible. Aside from hardware fragmentation I predicted, we're seeing some signs that manufacturers are not really interested in updating already-sold phones to the latest Android releases, and Google is releasing them rapidly. According to a GSM Arena article, there are only about 18% of users running version 2.0+, while 54% are running 1.6 and and another 28% are running 1.5. This is a big headache for developers, and the open nature of Android hurts Google here. Worse, brand new phones are still being sold with version 1.5 on it, which can disappoint less tech-savvy customers.

Palm was, simply put, squished between Apple and Google, and may not last the year. There are still good people working there, and I imagine they'll be lapped up by Google. What happens to Palm's patent portfolio as a mobile device pioneer will be interesting, but I don't think we'll see an angel investor pump more money to let Palm keep pushing. I think either they'll be purchased and repurposed, or have to close down. I think WebOS is dead.

I identified the iPhone App Store as a strength, and it continues to be, with I think some 180,000+ apps. In fact, it's beginning to be the opposite problem of separating the wheat from the chaff. What is debunked beyond any doubt is that Objective-C would be a significant obstacle. iPhones continue to sell very well, and whether the iPad will spread developers thin or attract even more developers remains to be seen.

Microsoft has announced that it will ship Windows Phone 7 later this year, supposedly a rewrite to support multi-touch and other features now expected of smartphones. But in a typically-Microsoft fashion, they first will ship a couple of Danger phones called the KIN, which I'm guessing will not be compatible with Windows Phone 7. It's hard to know what they're thinking, but I'll predict that the KIN will be a footnote.

Blackberries continue to sell well, which is one area where I seem to be quite mistaken. I had predicted that they'll be forced into a massive software rewrite, but they have resisted that so far. However, some surveys show that over 70% of Blackberry users want an iPhone or Android phone next, which should make RIM very nervous.

Nokia seems to have done well recently, but frankly I don't even know what their marquee phone is. I think I'll remain skeptical until they just hop on Android and concentrate instead on hardware.

I think what we'll see for the rest of the year is Apple maintaining a good lead as Google consolidates the "others" in the pie chart to close the gap. I'm going to predict that RIM will not have a happy 2011, and we'll see what Windows Phone 7 will bring.

[Palm has indeed found an angel, and lives to fight another day! HP has announced that it will purchase Palm for US$1.2 billion and continue work on WebOS. This is excellent news, and I'm quite happy for them!]

Praise for the iPad

"Has any other company ever demonstrated a restlessness to stray from the safe and proven, and actually invent things?"

- Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times

"One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised."

- Stephen Fry, Time Magazine

"At the very least, the iPad will likely drum up mass-market interest in tablet computing in ways that longtime tablet visionary and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could only dream of."

- Edward C. Baig, USA Today

"I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook."

- Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal

"a greater leap into a new user experience than the sum of its parts suggests."

- Xeni Jardin, boingboing.com

"the Apple iPad is a very convincing debut. And it will undoubtedly be a driving force in shaping the emerging tablet landscape."

- Tim Gideon, PC Magazine

"The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine."

- David Pogue, The New York Times

"What can the iPad do? In a word, it can simplify computing."

- Noah Kravitz, The Huffington Post

"prior to our iPad's arrival she said she didn't understand why anyone would want or need an iPad. Now she just keeps saying, 'No, you can't have it back.'"

- Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus, Houston Chronicle

"After playing with the sleek tablet for much of the last week, I have no doubt that the techies were wrong and Steve Jobs was right."

- Omar Wasow, the Root

"the experience was stunning. It’s a nearly flawless device. And the iPad beats even my most optimistic expectations."

- Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Two Possibilities

I have to come to one of two conclusions about Republicans, based on their incredibly solid opposition to every major policy initiative from the Democrats in the recent years, but particularly after Obama took office.

The first one is they are unpatriotic. This conclusion supposes that at least some Republicans actually agree with the Democrats enough to vote for those bills, but do not because they are more willing to see Obama fail, even if it means the country fails along with him. Or, they are more afraid of their party leadership than they want to see the country move in the right direction. It is otherwise impossible for 41 Republican senators to always vote "no" on important issues, when even they would admit the status quo is unbearable. If they were patriotic and reasonable, surely they would rather accept an imperfect bill to inaction. Although I cite this as the first conclusion, I don't actually believe it to be true.

The second one is that they are without exception politically quite a bit to the Right of the country as a whole. In the Senate, which is already a body that gives disproportionate weight to the more conservative inner states, 59 Senators can still be found to support the Health Care Reform Bill. This number is conclusive proof that the political center of the country must be somewhere among those 59, and not among the 41 Republicans. (Put another way, Republicans represent only the most conservative 20 states, which have relatively small populations.) One would've expected that the most right-wing Democrat would be somewhat to the right of the most left-wing Republican, if both parties are to have some claim to the political center.

It is the second conclusion that seems more plausible. The Republicans do not only lean Right, they have left the center entirely. When Senator Reid watered down the HCR bill to pacify the right wing of his party, the resulting bill satisfied no Republican enough to defect. So if we are to reject the conclusion above that Republican Senators are all unpatriotic, then they must sincerely believe that Reid's concessions are not enough. If they do, however, then all 41 of them are to the right of Senator Nelson, who is pro-life, endorsed by the NRA, supported Justice Alito's nomination, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and voted with Republicans on bankruptcy reform, environmental protection, stem cell research, and so on.

If so, it means that the two major parties are politically disjoint, which is a dangerous situation. It is increasingly hard for Obama to believe that any Republican will sincerely work with him, rather than set a trap to embarrass him. If none of them can be brought over either because they are unpatriotic or because they are ideologically too far away, the country is going to suffer.

Make Them Walk

We just got back from a wonderful trip to a couple of national parks in southern Utah, and the way each ran things got me thinking. Zion and Bryce Canyon both receive millions of visitors each year, and both provide a shuttle bus into the park's attractions. However, there are differences:

• Zion simply bans private vehicles during the summer peak season. Bryce Canyon's shuttles are not mandatory.
• Zion's shuttles run until about 11:00pm. Bryce Canyon's end at about 6:00pm, which during the summer is before sunset, a most popular time to see the park.
• Zion's shuttles pull up right next to attractions. Bryce Canyon's park farther than the private vehicles.

Riding a shuttle bus has inescapable disadvantages over driving. I can bring more things (water, food, change of clothes, etc.) in my own car that I would have to carry around in a backpack for the bus. Even though buses are 6 or 8 minutes apart, that's still longer than just getting in the car and driving off. That's why it's important to offset these disadvantages, in order for people to use the shuttle.

Zion's mandatory policy is obviously the easiest way to achieve this, and a ranger told us they saw more wildlife just three days after the mandatory shuttle service was instituted in 2000. However, even if you don't want to force people to take shuttles, you should make it advantageous to take the shuttle. For example, the shuttle should take you closer to attractions than cars can. Make them walk. Run the shuttle through sunset, because you actually have a view point called "Sunset Point"!

We saw the same thing flying back to Oakland. The ground transportation roads to the airport are separated into three lanes, the closest one for private car drop-offs and pick-ups, the second for taxis, and the third for buses (including the AirBART bus that connects to the BART rail system). This is completely backwards, if you're trying to encourage the use of more efficient public transportation. The AirBART and other public buses should take me closest to the door, right off the curb. Private shuttles can take the next lane, and private cars and taxis should be farthest.

Now, this is not about punishing private cars. This is about allocating a scarce resource (walking distance) in a way that encourages desirable behavior. As long as it's more convenient to drive, people will do so.

On Gay Marriage

The issue of gay marriage is really quite simple, and I don't really understand why so many people have hang-ups over it.

Imagine, if you will, that somebody establishes the Church of Gay People, which is entirely legal under our Freedom of Religion. The CGP institutes for itself a sacrament of marriage, which is also legal because nobody owns those words. Their marriage, of course, is only between two men or two women. So far, this probably falls under most people's idea of "none of my business".

Now here's where the CGP gets frisky. It begins to lobby the government to make its definition the only legal one! Heterosexual marriages would no longer be recognized if they are successful. Now, straight people don't really need to worry, because we probably outnumber gay people greatly. However, the point is that the CGP's claim is logically no stronger nor weaker than that of any other religion, differing only in the number of believers. Why should the government be in the business of deciding which religion's marriage is the proper one? Put another way, if you don't want your definition of marriage to ever be nullified by government (which you probably already do not trust, given the demographics), you shouldn't oppose a gay person's definition of it either.

The sanctity of your marriage stems from your love and faith, not in the least bit because a government bureaucrat stamped your paper. In fact, I dare say that even if the government got entirely out of the business of marriage (strike "married" from the tax forms, etc), your marriage could still be sacred and happy.

Which means what the opponents of gay marriage are trying to do is to use the government as a tool to force non-believers to conform to their religious views. Stop that.