Visionary, Revolutionary, Philosopher, Artist

It is rare to find a person with the qualities of Steve Jobs - a visionary who could see well beyond his time; a revolutionary who had the daring and drive to bring his visions to life; a philosopher who believed in bringing simplicity and emotional experience into a world of technology that had neither; and an artist who could not and would not compromise on the perfection and beauty in everything he did. A man of unparalled standards and patience in a world full of compromise and quick wins - how dull and frustrating would technology be without him! How restrictive and oppressive it would be, accessible to only to the tech savey nerds, while the rest of the world is locked out (as it was until the 80s).
Apple is an amazing company. Its products are not only popular, they set the standard for popular. They are not only innovative, they set the standard for innovative. Apple sets the yardstick for the entire industry: tech pundits compare every smart phone to the iPhone; every tablet to the iPad. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then Apple must be the most flattered company on earth. And this spirit of innovation, the drive for excellence, this uncompromising strive for artistic perfection all came from Steve Jobs. We know this because in the years he was not there, Apple plummeted to near bankruptcy and technological irrelevance. Since he came back, it's become the biggest company in the world (bigger than Exxon Mobile), all by making cool stuff. Not by drilling for natural resources, or making weapons, or doing financial speculation, or monopolizing the industry with drab, boring and inferior products; just by making really cool stuff that people enjoy using. Isn't that a great legacy to leave behind?

Rest in peace, Steve, and thanks.

Free shipping

Our cousins flew in to the country for a trip, and came to visit us for a couple of days. Cousin puzzle told me he had a few things he needed to buy.  "Everything is so expensive back home," he lamented.  He wanted to buy some headsets and airplane adaptor for the flight back (since nowadays headsets are $5 a piece for the kind you stick in your ears, not too comfortable for kids). He also needed a USB splitter. We checked out Radio Shack, but the prices there seemed unnecessarily high. "Don't bother," I suggested to him. "When we get back from our trip, we can order it on Amazon, it'll be a fraction of the cost; and you can have it delivered to one of the places you'll be staying at later in your trip."
So, that evening, after the kids were laid to bed, we sat down for some online shopping on my iPad. As I suspected, the prices were attractive: $5 for a decent pair of headsets, $0.79 for the adaptor, and $3.33 for the splitter. I filled up the cart and headed for checkout.
"Well," I said. "the shipment is just over $12, but if you add another $10 to the order, it's free shipping. Is there anything else you need?"
"I don't know," he said. "Honey, do we need anything else?"
Cousin-in-law Architect sat by us to take a closer look. "How about that body lotion I saw at my friend's house?" she suggested helpfully.
"No problem, Amazon has everything." I said. "What type of lotion?"
"I don't remember," she said. "Let me check their web site."
We did. Half an hour later, we were able to narrow it down to the appropriate brand (There are a lot of body lotions out there). But which flavor? Architect was deeply conflicted. Pomegranate Citrus or Sweet Pea? Tough call.
"How about one of each? They're only $5 a piece," I suggested. It was beginning to get late, after all. The idea was accepted happily, but then, a setback: "They don't count towards free shipping," I said.
"OK, add in one of those." pointed puzzle. I wasn't sure I understood. "One of which?" I asked. "That," he said, pointing at the iPad I held.
"You want to buy a $500 iPad to save a $12 shipping fee???" asked architect, her voice sounding dangerous (but in a charming sort of way). Puzzle quickly reassessed the situation. "Well, how about a plastic cover for my phone? The one I have currently is peeling away." No problem, a quick browse finds half a dozen different brands, from which one ($8.99 for a set of 3) is selected. "This is great," says puzzle happily. "Back home I paid almost $30 for just one. Are we there yet?"
A quick review of the shopping cart: "Still $1.20 to go," I reported. A brief silence ensued as we contemplated the situation.
"I need a case for my phone," said architect thoughtfully. "A nice leather one, but not black like the ones I've seen at the store."
A purple sample was tracked down within no more than 10 additional minutes. "Only $7.99," I said, cheerfully. "But unfortunately it doesn't count against the free shipping."
Dispare was beginning to set in. Were we doomed to pay shipping after all?  Surely we can't give up now, we've come so far!
"Razor blades?" suggested puzzle in a last ditch effort. A final quick lookup. Yes!! they count towards free shipping! Into the cart they go, all $20.99 of them. "Back home they cost me more than twice as much!" says puzzle, satisfied. "I'm saving tons of money here. Are we good to go?" I do a final check.
"Huston, we have free shipping," I announce, and everyone's relief is very visible. "Ring it up and let's go to sleep already," directs puzzle, exhausted. "What's the total?"
"$57.69."
Relief gives way to muted shock. Almost $40 more than the original shopping cart total.
"Well," I venture, "at least the shipping's free."
"Yes," says puzzle as he stands up, tired. "at least there's that."

You can't please everyone - so you shouldn't even try.

In the last few days tech news has been dominated by Windows 8 coverage - revealing more and more info on Microsoft's next generation operating system, to replace (I won't say "Venerable", because after all, it's been only, what, 5 years?) Windows 7.  And one of the main themes apparent in 8 is the commitment to unification of platforms.  While Apple has been taking cautious steps forward in this direction with Lion, which brings iOS-like features to the desktop, Microsoft is going all out and providing one OS to rule them all.
I don't really have an issue with this - it's an ambitious and bold move, which is what one wants from technology companies.  My one concern is that Microsoft is chickening out and providing full backwards compatibility built in to the OS.
So what's wrong with that, you ask?  People who are used to one environment can continue using it, and people willing to try the new one, use the new one.  You can't very well abandon your old user base, can you?
No, you can't; but this isn't a good solution either.  It has numerous problems:
1. People used to the Windows 7 style of working will tend to continue working in what they're used to if they have the option.  It took them long enough to learn how to work with Windows machines; who wants the hassle of starting all from scratch?  At the very least it will delay adoption of the new interface as the default work environment, which is a pity.
2. People will most certainly be confused by the dual interface; when am I working with one, vs. when with the other?  It doesn't help that different devices behave differently, and compatibility is limited across platforms.Wintel programs won't work on Arm based platforms, although the mobile apps should be able to run on Windows; people will never be quite sure where they are as they flip about between the two work modes - metro and desktop mode.
3. It forces Microsoft to continue supporting the desktop mode longer into the future than it would have normally had to, wasting resources and slowing down development.
4. The software complexity of supporting the two interfaces smoothly, with all the patches and updates is high; this may lead to a higher defect rate and slower RCA and resolution time.

From the above, customer confusion is the most dangerous.  If people won't be able to work well with it, or won't understand well how it works, they'll avoid it or limit their use of it.  This will certainly hurt Microsoft.

It's not easy to let go of such a huge installed base of existing users; but Microsoft has to take the bullet and limit the complexity and confusion of using it's new OS.  If someone changes to windows 8, make it simple enough for them to figure out how to work with it, without reverting to supporting all the old ways of working as well.  Make the transition easy, make the new experience an optimized one, and people will flock to it.
Go ahead, Microsoft; take a chance on us.

Stop obsessing about iPad killers

"There is no happiness like happiness at other's misfortune", said some wise people, and they were right.  Particularly if this misfortune befalls a leader (after all, you have to be high up to be able to fall in the first place).  When Microsoft dominated the world, everyone gunned for them (well they still dominate large portions of the world, but the give the impression of decline; so now they garner pity); Google's honeymoon is over and for the last few years it's been Apple.  It started with the iPhone, which Android was going to kill, and now the tech pundits have turned their attention to the iPad.  The only question that seems to enter anyone's mind whenever a new tablet comes along is "will it be the iPad killer?"  Now the Windows 8, Microsoft's planned next OS is receiving the mantel of iOS assassin.  Well, at least it's targeting Android as well.  Poor Android - never had much of a shot at the tablet market, and now, apparently, it's being killed.
The very concept is nonsense.  Too many people mistakenly assume Android has triumphed over iPhone just because it surpassed it in number of devices sold.  But I've not seen any figures that suggest the number of iPhones sold has gone down.  In fact, considering it's only one phone from one company with two available models, it's quite staggering how popular it is.  Android certainly sells well, but it hasn't hurt the iPhone sales, so I don't accept that Android has served as the "iPhone killer".
Similarly, neither Android nor Windows 8 (whenever it comes out) will be an "iPad killer".  That's not to say they won't sell well, and eventually surpass the number of iPads sold (in fact I'm certain they will - at least Android will); but the iPad sales won't go down for a long time, I predict.  Not until the entire market is saturated.
The thing is that Apple never looks to dominate a market to the exclusion of all others.  They're not in the business of making hardware for everyone in the world.  Their prices alone guarantee that a good portion of the population will never have one.  Also, they don't make nearly enough effort to appeal to the business community; at least the tablets they build is not designed for the business user.  Of course, they don't mind, obviously, if business adopt them, but the iPad is designed for a particular type of retail customer, and Apple makes every effort to please that type of customer, sacrificing others that may come along.  Apple cares more about this than sale numbers - or at least it thinks it can sell better if it is focused in such a way.  Otherwise, they'd make a larger range of products with different price points; they'd compromise on style and design; and they could even license their OS out to other hardware manufacturers.  All of those would bump up the number of tablets sold, but Apple won't do any of it.

That's why there's plenty of room for a whole bunch of competitors from every kind, without anyone getting a chance to hurt Apple.  There's plenty of room in the lower pricing tier market - Amazon is going to take that over in a storm, I predict - and the business market as well (where Microsoft can make good headway).  So don't for a second think Apple is going to be worried about any of these companies taking out its market share.
So long as Apple can maintain a decent sized market share - and they can - they'll have the developers to write the apps for their products.  Android phones have passed the iPhone long ago in volume sold and market share percentage; yet there's no drop in the number of apps flooding the AppStore.

So give it a rest, tech pundits.  Judge the new tablets and OS-s on their merit, and not on whether they will kill the iPad or the iPhone or Android or whatever; because they won't.

Hydrogen Zepplins

Undoubtedly, the future of renewable energy lies in solar.  It's the most abundant and available resource we have, and we don't have to do anything to get at it.  My guess is that one day all power will come from the sun.

For now, the most efficient derivation of solar energy is electricity.  Great strides are being made in converting light to electricity, and efficiency in this process will only increase.  However, right now efficiency is relatively low; you need vast arrays of solar panels to get a decent amount of electricity.  This requires two things: space, for lots of panels, and a place where there's lots of strong light for large portions of the day.  Fortunately, we have deserts, and those have plenty of both.

The biggest deserts are in Africa; Africa could become a powerhouse of solar energy generation, with the right investment.  This is great for them, because they need the industry.

The only problem is that the biggest consumers of electricity are the west and the east, both of which pretty far from Africa.  Electricity doesn't travel well over long distances; there's a lot of loss that way.

One solution is to transform electricity into some other energy form, that's easier to transfer.  One such form is Hydrogen.  Hydrogen is good because it can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, and it's also a physical medium, and we know how to transfer physical mediums pretty well.  For example, it might be conceivable to build a pipe that would carry hydrogen through the Mediterranean or the Middle East to Europe and to Asia.  How do you get hydrogen?  Simple - bring the electricity to shore and convert water to Oxygen and Hydrogen.

None of this is new; I'm sure people thought about this already.  My new idea is about getting the Hydrogen to North America, another big consumer of electricity.  It's not a simple matter to build a pipe all the way through the Atlantic (or it would have been done already for Oil).  today, supertankers are used, and I suppose they could continue to be used in the future.  However, why not taking advantage of a key property of Hydrogen - being lighter than air - and creating a new mechanism of transport: the SuperZeppelin.

Build massively large Zeppelin balloons and fill them with Hydrogen, and fly them across to North America.  they would really have to be big, and be made by very strong and very light material.  I'm sure we have such polymers today, or if not, we'll have to develop them.  The plus side is they will carry themselves in the air; you just need a smallish engine to push them forward.

You could build fleets of them that travel slowly, majestically over from Africa to the US.  Then, deflated, ship them back on existing cargo flights.  They could also double as cruise ships of freight carriers (at least in the one direction) and thus serve a dual purpose.

What a sight that would be - a hundred gigantic Zeppelins, single file, slowly and gracefully gliding through the sky.  Nice, eh?

Let's see how long this lasts!

Well, here we go.  I've been thinking about this for quite some time, but finally got around to doing it in a few minutes spare that I have.

Since I heard about blogging I wanted to start one up and ramble on various topics.  I'm a very opinionated kind of person, and I usually have lots to say about almost everything.  The problem is, I'm not really sure my opinion is important enough to soil the internet with, so I kept it to myself (and the poor sods who get within earshot of me and make the mistake of bringing up topics).

However, recently I thought of something else which might be worthy of a blog after all - my idea notebook.

I walk around with an idea notebook.  Whenever the muse hits me and I get an idea for a product or solution to something I see as a problem, I jot it down, primarily not to forget it.  Initially, I thought I'd use the ideas in some manner, but truth is - I'm just too lazy for that.

Recently it occurred to me that the blog could be a good avenue for my ideas.  Perhaps someone will read it who is not lazy, and be able to make something of it.  This way at least something good will come out of it.

Of course the downside is that there probably won't be enough people reading the blog to matter, but I'm writing the ideas down anyway, right?  Might as well publish them.

Also, I may (on occasion) use this space to write general thinking I have which is not idea related.  For this, I apologize in advance.

So, without further ado, here we go.