“Paper and Lignin-based RFID tags”:http://www.physorg.com/news200760151.html. “Silk electronic metamaterials”:http://www.physorg.com/news200841751.html.

Seems like we are not far away from having processing power embedded in damn near everything. Not lots of processing power, but enough to do identification and limited sensing. Interesting times.

It’s been 8-9 months since I last surveyed what I’m using on my iPhone.

On the first screen,

* the bottom bar is still Mail/Messages/Calendar/Safari, I use each of these apps countless times during the day. Calendar is probably the least deserving. The ios4 Mail app is a tremendous improvement over prior versions, thanks to the merging of my 4 inboxes into 1. * the stock Weather/Stocks/Maps/Camera/Calculator/Clock/Phone apps are all there. I don’t love any of these, they all have problems. Why do I have to enter cities in Weather and Clock? Why can’t Stocks show portfolio information? The Maps app hasn’t changed in forever, why can’t it import map settings from my laptop (ChromeToPhone sounds awesome). I have tried to find other stock apps but they all kind of blow. * the Settings app remains on the first page mostly so I can force Wifi on/off and force 3g on/off as i transition between various locations. Why isn’t the settings app just a folder now? * Echofon for twitter use and Byline for RSS readings make the first page. I am sure there are other fine choices in these spaces but these work well for me. * Evernote is on the first page and I am a total convert. I use this for all kinds of info, every day. And I am now trying to use it for my todo list management, tho the inability to enter todo items on the iphone sucks, hence my current trial of… * Egretlist. Which basically exposes all todo items in Evernote. The UI is horrendous – garish, amateurish. But functional. * Lose it! for calorie tracking tho my usage has fallen off (and my waist line shows it!) * 2 Across for NYTimes crosswards. There are newer and more uptodate alternatives but this one is solid. * and finally a Travel folder with TripIt, KAYAK, Southwest, Flight update as the key elements. Yelp, Urbanspoon, Topo Maps, Google Earth, OneBusAway, Point Inside, Zagat, Trip Journal also take spots in there tho I am not committed to any of them.

With football season approaching, some score app will fight back to the top screen – the ESPN sportscenter app or one of the other competitors, I will have to try them all. The ESPN app is fine tho it sometimes grinds to a halt on busy days.

On secondary screens, the other apps that get some use – Facebook, the App Store, Amazon.com, Starbucks Mobile Card, tideApp, Goodreads, Soundhound.

* “Breathless”:amazon by Dean Koontz. A pleasant little romp about the arrival/evolution of a new species on Earth. Some intrigue, some danger, more questions than answers. “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6327770-breathless gives it a 3.15, Amazon says just 2.5 stars, but I think it is more pleasant than that, I’d say 3. * “Cloud Atlas”:amazon by David Mitchell. An intricately interwoven set of adventures across hundreds of years, all shining a light on unchecked greed and ambition and injustice. Very nicely done, the structure is unusual and engaging. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49628.Cloud_Atlas says 4.2, I give it 5 stars. * “Running Blind”:amazon by Lee Child. An early tale in the Reacher series. Ok tho not great, the central mystery was telegraphed. Amazon says 3.5 stars, “GoodReads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455925.Running_Blind says 4.0, I am stuck at about 3 stars. * “Die Trying”:amazon by Lee Child. Another early Reacher. Solid but that is all. “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220969.Die_Trying says 3.96, Amazon says 4 stars, I’d just say 3. * “Persuader”:amazon by Lee Child. 3 Reacher tales in a month might be a bit much, the misogyny is a little overwhelming. Actually maybe just misanthropy. Whatever. Amazon says 4 stars, “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/455941.Persuader says nearly 4, again I’d just say 3 stars. I am obviously Reacher’d out. * “Bad Things Happen”:amazon by Harry Dolan. Very very very nicely written tale of authors and ambition and murder. The protagonist is an editor of murder tales, and the parallel between his own work process and the evolution of the story is a nice effect. Best read of the summer, amazon says 4.5 stars, it is better than that – 5 stars.

Wow, August is upon us, only 4.5 weeks to “OSU’s kickoff with Marshall”:http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2010/08/01/cfbx01-gi89c2m8-1.html?sid=101.

Super excited about the prospects for this year’s OSU team. An experienced offensive backfield and line, a beastly-looking defensive line, and great talent in most other areas. A gnarly in-conference road schedule tho and a strengthening Big-10 conference will make it a tough year tho. Around the nation, I’m also keyed up for the Nebraska-Texas game, I’d love the see the newest member of the Big-10 wax Texas. And I’ll have my eyes on USC, I think they could do very well in a so-so Pac-10. I’ll probably watch some Washington games tho I have never bonded with the team.

As of this moment, I’ll be attending the OSU November home games, Penn State and Michigan. And depending on the season, potentially the bowl game. I might attend a UW game. I wish I could get back to Columbus for the Miami game or to Iowa City or Madison for the big road games but not likely to happen.

Go Bucks!

* “The Arabs: A History”:amazon by Eugene Rogan. Sweeping history of Arab nations over the last 1000 years. Conflict with the West is an ever-present theme, but a bigger theme is internal divisions and violent self-destruction within the Arab and Middle Eastern nations. At the first opportunity, people seem to pick up weapons in this part of the world to resolve their differences. Amazon says 3.5 stars, “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4100352-the-arabs says 4.6 which is very high. A solid book and worth the time. * “Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth”:amazon by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. What an inspiration. If every public servant had Gandhi’s commitment to the truth, if every revolutionary had his commitment to nonviolent noncooperation, the world would be a better place. The Middle East needs Gandhi-like leaders! Amazon says 4.5 stars, “Goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112803.An_Autobiography_or_The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth 4.06. Not the best writing in the world but great to read the man’s thoughts directly. * “The Light in the Tunnel”:amazon by Martin Ford. Sloppy lazy singularity crap. Thankfully brief tho I couldn’t stomach actually finishing it. Amazon says 4.5 stars, these people need to think harder. Goodreads says 1 star but then I am the only rater on Goodreads so a little circular. If you really want to read singularity crud, go read Kurzweil or Wolfram, at least those guys have put some effort into their arguments.

We have a dock on Lopez Island. It is old and falling apart due to years of rough weather. It is fully permitted by all state, local, and federal agencies. We want to replace it with exactly the same structure or something more eco-friendly of exactly the same size. It has been in place for more than 40 years.

We are on round 7? 8? of discussions with the various permitting agencies (and there are a lot – San Juan county, Army Corps of Engineers, Washington DNR, National Marine Fisheries Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and several more I am sure I forgot). We are employing an architect, a dock design/construction firm, a permit expeditor, a biological survey firm.

Currently we have to come up with a pile driving plan. Any kind of pile driver disturbs some form of wildlife. If we use a vibratory pile driver, we have to figure out the 120db attenuation distance for the sound, and then come up with a marine mammal (killer whales and stellar sea lions) monitoring plan. If we use a impact hammer pile driver, we have to determine the 150db attenuation distance for the sound, and then come up with a marbled murrelet (which look “darn cute”:http://www.google.com/images?q=marbled%20murrelet&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi but I’ve never seen one) monitoring plan. Oh and of course our construction window is very limited to avoid disturbing the eagle nesting season. And we’ve already cleared the fisheries and seabed vegetation hurdles (tho they could always rise back up!)

This is not an exercise for the faint of heart or for the budget-conscious. You have to be committed!

Reardon abused me (not really) for still using Matlab and goaded me to look into the ImageJ world. So I am learning. Seems like I need to get smart on

* “ImageJ”:http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/ and the “Fiji”:http://pacific.mpi-cbg.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page distribution * Python derivatives like “Jython”:http://www.jython.org/ for ImageJ scripting and “NumPy/SciPy”:http://numpy.scipy.org/ for numeric/array processing * There are a ton of other scripting language choices but seems like python covers this well enough. I don’t want the brain damage of “Clojure”:http://clojure.org/.

Other stuff to learn? I’ll have to pick up an editor and source management tool as well. The benefit of all this? Any code I write should be faster, more easily redistributable, and there is a large support community. The disadvantage? I have to assemble all these piece-parts to get something equivalent to MatLab, so more time d&*king around with software which is time taken away from research focus. And the Matlab universe has a pretty good support community too, so not clear I am trading up there. Certainly the ImageJ/Jython/NumPy path is “cooler” along a certain dimension, but do I care?

* “Default Folder”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11217?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tidbits_main+%28TidBITS%3A+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us%29&utm_content=Google+Reader – OK i really wanted to love this. But visually very funky. Ended up nuking. * “PopCharX”:http://www.ergonis.com/products/popcharx/. This is one utility I can’t live without, and the new version with favorites is nice.

Software I haven’t tried but need to:

* “Things”:http://db.tidbits.com/article/11389?rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tidbits_main+%28TidBITS%3A+Mac+News+for+the+Rest+of+Us%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. So frustrated with todo lists on the iphone. I want something that syncs via the cloud with outlook, ical, and has a nice iphone app. * “Panic Transmit”:https://www.panic.com/transmit/. I am pretty happy with Filezilla but Transmit gets super raves. * “Lightroom”:http://thomashawk.com/2010/06/adobe-lightroom-3-i-feel-the-need-for-speed-oh-and-the-most-significant-advancement-in-photo-noise-reduction-i-have-ever-seen.html. I’ve been happy with Aperture and I hate the huge morass of software that Adobe foists on you when you install their apps, but I feel like I’m missing the Lightroom party. * “Trip Journal”:http://www.gadgets-weblog.com/50226711/new_app_turns_your_gadget_into_a_vacation_documentary.php. I’ve installed but haven’t had time to play with yet. * “Yazsoft Sharetool”:http://www.yazsoft.com/products/sharetool/. Always am drawn to these tools that punch thru all the networking goo and let you get your files anywhere – “Homepipe”:https://www.homepipe.net/about.html is another one. But I never seem to stick with them. Something important in that statement.

The great thing about living in the gadget and cloud age is the huge explosion of procrastination aids available to me. Yesterday was my uncle’s birthday so I better send him a message on “Facebook”:www.fac,ebook.com, oh and I wonder if my own birthday wishlist is up to date on “Amazon”:http://www.amazon.com/wishlist/HOUS82ICZY78, and boy howdy do my “Amazon recommendations”:https://www.amazon.com/gp/yourstore/iyr?ie=UTF8&ref_=sv_ys_3 suck, so I better tune those up, and I wonder what my friends are recommending on “Goodreads”:www.goodreads.com, and maybe I should install the Goodreads iPhone app, oh and check out some other “top selling iPhone apps”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/paid-apps/, I can certainly use Fruit Ninja and FatBooth. Oh of course I got the “iOS4.0 release”:http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/ installed on the iPhone, which also drug on the new version of iTunes, speaking of which I really need to update my playlists, oh and I better install all these other updates on my Mac, and hey I got some new RAW support for Aperture, and I’ve been needing to upload some photos from Aperture to “Smugmug”:www.smugmug.com, and is my “BackBlaze”:www.backblaze.com backup working ok? And maybe I should try “Lightroom”:http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/ instead of Aperture, Lightroom has some “cool plugins”:http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/plugins/, though the “Aperture Plugins”:http://www.apple.com/aperture/resources/plugins.html are cool too, and I have to update my “Firefox”:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7 and “Chrome”:http://www.chromeplugins.org/ and “Wordpress plugins”:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/, there are sure some nice “Twitter”:www.twitter.com plugins for Wordpress, and maybe I should check my Twitter feed. And my email. And my facebook stream. And my rss subscriptions. Man it has been a full day and I’ve yet to check in on college football websites, halloween forums, haven’t posted any blog content, but I better take a “DoodleJump”:http://itunes.apple.com/app/doodle-jump-be-warned-insanely/id307727765?mt=8 break first. Though I wonder if I have any game updates on “Steam”:http://store.steampowered.com/ and my two “Kindles”:http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015T963C are out of sync with each other and I have some photos I’ve been meaning to scan in and I want to check the Tivo todo list to make sure I am getting “Louie”:http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/louie/…

OK, it is summer, so of course I am reading zombie books. There are enough of these to probably dedicate a blog just to the category.

* “Patient Zero”:amazon by Jonathan Maberry. Terrorists and their greedy western sponsors create a zombie virus to bring the USA to its knees. Joe Ledger, supercop, leads the fight against the zombie plot. Typical escapist action fare. Amazon says 4 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3993839.Patient_Zero_A_Joe_Ledger_Novel 3.91, this is high, but an entertaining airplane read. * “World War Z”:amazon by Max Brooks. A grittier look at an imagined future zombie war. Of course the humans win but massive deaths, and no one left alive is untouched. Nicely structured as a series of interviews with survivors. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8908.World_War_Z_An_Oral_History_of_the_Zombie_War says 4.17, that might be rich, but this was entertaining with some emotional depth. * “Unholy Ghosts”:amazon by Stacia Kane. No zombies, just hordes of ghosts that won’t go away in the near future. Magic has been rediscovered to control them, and our heroine finds herself in the middle of multiple intersecting plots. An attempt to kickstart a franchise, but ultimately the attempt to create a flawed heroine just didn’t do it for me. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261189-unholy-ghosts says 4.09, but I was left a little bored. * “Boneshaker”:amazon by Cherie Priest. In an 1880s steampunk alterna-Seattle, a manmade disaster has unleashed a toxic cloud of zombification. The zombies are not really the main protagonist, rather it is all the humans scrabbling to live in the transformed city. Really quite good, Amazon says 4 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137215.Boneshaker says 3.7, this is fair, the setting and characters are good. * “Feed”:amazon by Mira Grant. A group of bloggers cover a presidential campaign and uncover a treasonous plot, against the backdrop of a world dealing with a virus which is pervasive in its dormant state and breaks out occasionally in its active zombie-inducing state. I like an author who isn’t afraid to kill off central characters, some real pathos in this tale. I’d like to read the next in the series. Maybe the most interesting science of any of the books. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7094569-feed says 4.24, this was probably the best of the set for me.

* “61 Hours”:amazon by Lee Child. Reacher’s back and never fails to entertain. And gasp a cliffhanger, that is a new element. I hope Child pushes the character more to be honest, Reacher needs to evolve to keep my interest and to avoid replaying the same plot over and over again with ever more outlandish elements – and the crazy WWII era abandoned military facility had a little bit of shark-jumping in it. But still entertaining. Amazon says 3.5 stars, that seems fair. * “The Law of Nines”:amazon by Terry Goodkind. Goodkind seems to sell a lot of books based on shelf space at the local bookstore, so I decided to try one. What an epic piece of crap. Plodding, pedantic, characterless,derivative, logically-inconsistent crap. I am stunned that books this bad get published. How does it rate 3.5 stars on Amazon? This thing deserves negative stars, it saps the life out of any book it sits next to, it is a black hole of literature. * “Infinite Jest”:amazon by David Foster Wallace. After the Goodkind crapfest I needed something of substance, and it was great to dive into a book of complex characters slowly revealed through events. Ultimately this book is not my style, a little too much towards farce, but I can admire the writing. Amazon says 4 stars and I guess I’d agree tho I didn’t finish as it just not my taste. * “Death Comes for the Archbishop”:amazon by Willa Cather. A great tale of a full life on the American frontier. Death comes easy when you have worked long and given much to people. A further cleansing of the mind after that terrible Goodkind book. Amazon says 4.5 stars and I’d agree.

No way your father has any of these…

* “LED showerhead with remote control”:http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/11/finally-a-color-changing-led-shower-head-that-includes-a-remote-control/. Wrong on so many levels. * “Barking USB Dog”:http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/10/move-over-humping-usb-dogs-here-comes-the-dodobongo-usb-dog/. Just because you can make something, doesn’t mean you should. * “RoadKill Rug”:http://design-milk.com/roadkill-rug/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=Google+Reader&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+design-milk+%28Design+Milk%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. High fashion in parts of West Virginia. * “DIY Liquid Nitrogen Generator”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/05/27/diy-liquid-nitrogen-for-less-than-500/. A thousand and one uses. * “The Thing Quarterly”:http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/the-thing.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ch+%28Cool+Hunting%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. No need to pick out an unusual useless trinket for your dad, let The Thing send him one regularly. * Screw the Weber grill, get him a “Fuego modular outdoor kitchen”:http://design-milk.com/fuego-modular-outdoor-kitchen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=Google+Reader&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+design-milk+%28Design+Milk%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

* “The Penelopiad”:amazon by Margaret Atwood. Not sure why I decided to make this book my 3rd Atwood. Well written and engaging but you probably need to be very well-versed in Greek myth to fully enjoy, and I am not. Amazon says 4 stars, “metacritic gives a 74”:http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/atwoodmargaret/penelopiad, these both seem a little high to me, I’d say 3.5 stars. * “Arthur and George”:amazon by Julian Barnes. A fictional retelling of the odd true story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his defense of George Edalji, who was falsely convicted of animal mutilation and other crimes. Oddly engaging although drags a bit in the middle. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “metacritic gives a 79”:http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/barnesjulian/arthurandgeorge. I’d say 4 stars, this is quite a good book, I was suprised at the end to discover just how much of this story was true. * “Ordinary Thunderstorms”:amazon by William Boyd. No good deed goes unpunished – a man tries to return some papers left mistakenly at a restaurant and stumbles into a murder, is chased by the police and the cabal behind the murder, takes to the streets, is mugged, changes his identity, and very nearly loses his life. His impetuous decisions bring him to the brink and his wits eventually lead him out. Fun tale. Amazon says 3.5 stars, not listed on metacritic. I’d say 3.5 stars, I enjoyed this as much or more than the Atwood. * “People of the Book”:amazon by Geraldine Brooks. A book conservator puzzles out the history of an ancient Jewish text. The story is fleshed out with flashback chapters to the historical characters who created and preserved the text. Thankfully avoids veering off into the Dan Brown/National Treasure realm, but doesn’t quite replace silly adventure with emotional depth despite attempts to do so – ultimately the characters were a little thin. Amazon says 4 stars, not listed on metacritic, I’d say 3.5 stars – a solid and engaging tale but could have used a bit more character depth.

OK, this thing seems a little laggy, and doesn’t seem to love Spaces, but the promise of “Air Display”:http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/ is freaking phenomenal. The iPad makes a GREAT auxiliary display for my MacBook. Guys, hammer on the performance and on Spaces integration. This app also somehow seems related to all the remote desktop apps, there is some smart integration work to do there as well – like I should be able to drag windows to my iPad, and then walk away with the iPad, and have it start up a remote desktop session so that I can still use that window remotely.

But a great start.

OK I am sure I will buy one of these when I can because, well, I am a classic early adopter and will get sucked in. But as mentioned at All Things D, why will GoogleTV be any different than any of the other failed tv/internet merged products?

I can already watch tons of movies today or lots of crappy web content on my Comcast box, my Tivo box, my AppleTV box. But none of these let me break free of the Comcast/media chokehold and let me watch the really critical content – HD sports (particularly college football), HD first-run top-100 popular drama/comedy series from ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/UPN/TNT/etc. Google announcements with Logitech and Sony are meaningless – “Logitech will make pretty much anything”:http://www.logitech.com/en-us/431/963?WT.z_sp=Image and “Sony hasn’t been relevant since about 1979”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman. Now if this box came with an announcement of content availability from ESPN and from 4-5 major networks then it might be exciting. But I can’t see why these networks and Comcast would let that happen without being forced.

But I am sure I will buy one anyway…