Daddy Dan

From Daniel Wilson at PopularMechanics.com

And no, the flying car is not one of them.

My three favorites from the list are:

1.  Kid OnStar

Kid OnStar could be packaged into a bracelet or necklace crammed with sensors that monitor location, physiological status and voice stress levels. Parents could receive monthly diagnostic checks on exercise levels, notification if children are injured or kidnapped and the assurance that emergency services will be sent the instant a problem arises. While newer versions of OnStar allow police to automatically disable a vehicle at the touch of a button, we don’t recommend this feature for Kid OnStar—no matter how rowdy your offspring may be.

2.  Insect Force Field

Insects are important for healthy ecosystems, but they also ruin crops, spread disease and occasionally bite your neck—ouch. Clearly, humankind needs a portable device capable of protecting an area from all six-legged critters.

3.  Megatracking System

Ever had an iPod or camera stolen? The time is ripe for microscopic tags that can be permanently implanted into inanimate objects, so they can be tracked to whichever house/pawn shop/precinct they end up in. Prepare for greater peace of mind: With a megatracking system in place, people will think twice before walking off with your umbrella, and airlines will always know exactly where your luggage has landed.

There’s a cool new website where you can post nasty things about your neighbor, or check an area that you’re considering moving to to see if there are any “problem” neighbors. The site is called RottenNeighbor.com.

You simply type in an address or zip code and it brings up a Google map of the area. Red houses indicate rotten neighbors and green houses indicate nice neighbors. Clicking on the houses will bring up comments from the person that added the house to the map. You can also add comments yourself, so warn people about your problem neighbors.

It’s fun to look around and read some of the comments, but be warned - a small portion of the comments are somewhat racist, e.g. “Stay away, too many Mexicans.”

Go check it out.

Rottenneighbor.com

Ok, bonus time is just around the corner and I’ve been wanting a new computer for a few years now.  I’m seriously considering switching from a PC to a Mac.  Should I buy a Mac???

I really only use the home computer for e-mail, pictures, video, and, of course, blogging.  I don’t play computer games or anything like that.

Any of you out there with a Mac (or anyone with experience with a Mac) please provide your input.  Is it difficult to move your files over?  Any input you all could provide would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve been playing with my Amazon Kindle now for a few weeks, so I’m ready to provide my full product review of the product. Let me start out by saying that, despite some small shortcomings, I love it! The Amazon Kindle, beyond between a fantastic e-book reader, comes with several features they don’t even mention at Amazon.com, including a full web browser and a feature called NowNow that I’ll get to later.

First the positives:

• Readability - The Kindle screen uses e-ink technology that makes the screen look very similar to paper. The screen is very easy on the eyes with no glare. It’s easy to read even in bright light. You can also adjust text size, which is a great feature. After using the Kindle for a few minutes you really do forget that you’re not reading an actual printed book.
• Navigation - While I’ve read other reviews where people complain about the navigation, I find it very intuitive and easy to use. The Kindle has a large button running on the right hand side that pages forward. The left hand side has two buttons, one for paging backward and one for paging forward. There’s also a scroll wheel which allows you to select sections of text for various reasons, including leaving notes, bookmarks, or to go to either the dictionary or Wikipedia to look up a word.
• Kindle Store - The Kindle Store is very similar to Amazon.com in that you can search for books by genre/category and it includes reader reviews and ratings. The selection of books is excellent, with most of the current best-sellers and classic books available, most for $9.99 or less. Another absolutely fantastic feature is that Kindle allows you to download a sample of the book for free before deciding whether or not to buy it. The sample size is generous too, usually featuring about the first 10% or so of the book. I love this feature because you can usually determine whether or not you’ll enjoy reading the entire book by reading the sample size. You can also subscribe to newspapers (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.), magazines (Time, Fortune, etc.), and some blogs for a monthly fee. I tried some of them with a 14-day free trial, and they worked fine, but I cancelled them since I didn’t want to pay for something I could get for free on the internet (or even the Kindle web browser).
• Storage Capacity - Kindle has enough internal memory for about 200 books. Even if you decide to delete a book from the memory Amazon knows what books you’ve purchased and you can always add a purchased book back to Kindle free of charge. The Kindle also allows you to add a SD card for even more memory. The 200 book storage capacity will be more than enough memory for most people. If you’re like me you are reading several books at one time and go back and forth between them, depending on your mood. Kindle allows you to take many books with you wherever you go in one small package.
• Your Documents - you can also add your own Word and text documents to Kindle by e-mailing them to a specific e-mail address. Amazon charges 10 cents per download. I’ve only tried this once and it worked flawlessly.
• Battery Life - Battery life, according to Amazon, is approximately 30 hours, more if you don’t leave the wireless feature on.
• Web Browser - Although it’s currently marked as experimental, Kindle comes with a full web browser, which works best for text-heavy websites. I’ve accessed blogs with the browser and it works great. I’ve even responded to comments on my own blog. Best of all, the web browser is FREE and works anywhere you get cellular phone service.
• Ask Kindle NowNow - this service allows you to send in a question and receive 3 responses back, usually within 10 minutes. You can ask anything you like. As a test I sent in the following question: “Who are the ten most popular “Daddy bloggers” on the web today?” I received three responses, all listing ten daddy blogger sites. I didn’t recognize any of the sites except DadGoneMad.com, and alas, Daddydan.net wasn’t included in any of the responses. =)
• Other Features - The Kindle also plays mp3 files, but I haven’t tried this feature yet. I’ll leave that to my iPod for now.

Areas of potential improvement:

• Backlight or attached light - The Kindle has no backlighting or built in light at all. I like to read in bed, so a light would be a nice feature.
• Color screen - The screen is in black and white. A color screen would be nice, especially if the book you’re reading has many pictures or illustrations.
• GPS - Since the Kindle has wireless access that works anywhere cellular phones work, why not add GPS capabilities to the Kindle. That would be a killer app.

Overall the Kindle is even better than I expected. I’ve been getting a lot of use out of it on my morning commute and during my breaks at work. I haven’t had any problems with it at all yet. It’s an expensive toy at $399, but to me it was well worth the price.

A fascinating article in the latest issue of Wired Magazine talks about a Silicon Valley startup, 23andMe, that, for $1,000, will take a sample of your DNA (through saliva that you send in), scan it, and tell you about both your genetic future and ancestral past. 

 The results will tell you which diseases and conditions are associated with your genes, allowing you the opportunity to take preventative action.  A second company, Navigenics, focuses on matching your genes to current medical research, calculating your genetic risk for a range of diseases.

The article states:

The advent of retail genomics will make a once-rare experience commonplace. Simply by spitting into a vial, customers of these companies will become early adopters of personalized medicine. We will not live according to what has happened to us (that knee injury from high school or that 20 pounds we’ve gained since college) nor according to what happens to most Americans (the one-in-three chance men have of getting cancer, or women have of dying from heart disease, or anyone has for obesity). We will live according to what our own specific genetic risks predispose us toward.

This new technology offers great opportunities but also creates dilemmas:

In the genomic age, we will no longer have the problem of not knowing, but we will face the burden of whether we want to know in the first place. We’ll learn what might be best for us in life and then have to reckon with the risk and perhaps the guilt of not acting on that knowledge. We will, counterintuitively, face even more pressure to conduct our lives carefully, strictly, and cautiously; we’ll practice the art of predictive diagnosis and receive a demanding roster of things to avoid, things to do, and treatments to receive — long before there’s any physical evidence of disease. And, yes, we will know whether our children are predisposed to certain traits or talents — athletics or music or languages — and encourage them to pursue certain paths. In short, life will become a little more like a game of strategy, where we’re always playing the percentages, trying to optimize our outcomes.

Like stated earlier, the process costs $1,000.  All of your genetic information can be reviewed by you on the internet.  The price is expected to drop as the technology is further developed.

Honey, I hope you’re reading my blog today. I want this for Christmas. (I doubt I’ll be able to wait that long!)

Amazon has released their long-awaited wireless reading device. It looks like Amazon has put a LOT of thought into this. It looks like a GREAT product.

Some of the features it includes:

• Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. Supposedly, there is no glare on the screen, even in high sunlight conditions.
• Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle. Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot. Plus, all wireless connectivity is free.
• When shopping on Kindle you have access to all of the customer reviews and ratings, just like on Amazon.com.
• Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
• More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers. New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases are $9.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.
• Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
• More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post.
• Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
• Holds over 200 titles.
• Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
• Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
• Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

Here’s a link to a video demonstration of Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/mQOQX2V7KT9ZY:m4H02MFJUILVP

I hope this doesn’t sound like an advertisement for the Kindle. I really want one of these. I know I’d use it all the time.

Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail discusses the phenomenon that as technology has evolved and people have more choices in what they buy, use, and read, there is a lesser demand for the “common culture” hits and a greater demand for niche products and services. He discusses how the Internet is opening up markets and removing the barriers of entry for niche products. It’s a fascinating book.Anderson discusses the three forces that create Long Tail markets:

1. Democratization of the tools of production - The best example he uses here is the personal computer, which has put production tools that once cost big dollars (such as the printing press, film editing equipment, and music studios) into the hands of anyone who wants to use them.
2. Democratization of the tools of distribution - The internet allows everyone to become distributors. The internet has made it increasingly more cost effective for even the smallest of distributors (me for example) to reach people around the world, which would’ve been impossible prior to the internet’s invention.
3. Connecting supply and demand - Supply and demand are connected by powerful forces on the internet including Google searches, filters, product recommendations, and blogs.

The book also discusses other interesting topics such as the future of television, 3-D printers, and provides various examples of the long tail in action today. I recommend this book and I highly recommend the Wired Magazine website and Chris Anderson’s own website, Longtail.com.

On the Daddy Dan scale of 1-10, I give this book an 8.