Link of the day: Steve Jobs the tweaker

Steve Jobs's passing prompted a deluge of news articles from all corners of the world, it seemed. I was never happy about the cult of Apple. The company makes good products but there is far too much hype. Why do people pay so much attention to computing products when the world is dealing with economic crises and environmental destruction? Computing technology make some things more efficient, but also saddle us with information overload, invasion of privacy, security problems, and too much email. The world is definitely changing, but is it becoming better? I don't know the answer to that question, but I also don't blindly believe that more technology is always good.

One of my favorite writers, Malcolm Gladwell, argued in, The New Yorker, that Steve Jobs wasn't an innovator, he was a tweaker. He had really good taste in ideas and had an incredible talent for transforming good technology into a beautifully designed status symbol. But he was not some kind of Einstein who came up with ideas that no one had even remotely thought about. I don't denigrate Jobs's accomplishments, but I don't think they should be the object of worship either.

Where does the future of American innovation lie?

Our department chair send out a personal email telling us to attend a special event.  A prominent former head of a major government agency was visiting and the chair, being a personal friend, persuaded him to come talk to grad students and postdocs about careers.

As expected, he was opinionated but sincere and charismatic.  He thought that American innovation will come from startups, not government or academia.  In his opinion, government is paralyzed by interpersonal politics and it is so difficult to get grants in academia (average age of first NIH grant is 43).  Scientists, especially postdocs, are encouraged to do incremental work, rather than something revolutionary.

I asked a question about why it seemed like all the startups were internet software companies.  He said it has to do with scale.  It is much easier to be an internet startup than a startup that has to build something (e.g. clean energy).  The internet startup only has to pay for office space, computers, and salaries.  Since their product is available on internet, there is a huge multiplication factor, as everyone has a computer and a smartphone.  A clean energy startup could take ten years to become profitable.  The key to building a successful startup is that you need to beat a well-established company by an order-of-magnitude, whether that is price or efficiency.

He talked a little about his experience working in government.  He was rather frustrated with how much money is wasted in space science and exploration.  The problem is that the American public doesn't believe anyone should die in exploration or war.  They have to spend money to ensure the safety of astronauts to an extreme degree.  That's why he eventually quit.  Because the stress of being responsible for space shuttle launches was overwhelming.

Yet, he though highly of people who worked in government.  He told us rather emphatically, "If the president asks you to work for him, you should say yes!"  As the discussion wound down, he said "Let me end by telling this story... " (Such a polished, prepared guy that he had a heart-warming story for the end.)  He went to USSR in 1991 to talk with the Soviet space agency.  While he was there, the coup d'état started.  There was shooting and tanks everywhere.  He became alarmed and tried to contact the American embassy.  They said they couldn't help because people were shooting into the windows of the building.  He tried to contact the White House and ask the president what to do.  Meanwhile, he found the pilot and asked him if he could fly them out.  The pilot said that if he took everyone, including all the staff, they wouldn't have enough fuel to get to Helsinki.  He asked the pilot to take out the seats and they found that this reduction of weight would be sufficient.  Eventually, he was told that the president would appreciate it if he stayed as a show of support for democracy.  He apprised his staff of the situation and told them it was their personal choice whether to go or stay.  Everyone stayed.  Then he asked the Soviet space agency director if they were still going to hold their discussion.  The director acted like it was any other day and they got the deal done.  If you're not a complete cynic, I would call that a beautiful patriotic moment.

Non-science daily reading

I try to maintain a balanced perspective on life, despite leading a demanding life in science. Most people I know, including myself, read the news. I favor the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The liberal tone of the New York Times balances with the pro-conservative flavor of the Wall Street Journal. In terms of depth, I spend extra time on sports (go San Jose Sharks!) and technology news. For some literature, I read the Writer's Almanac, which gives me a bite-sized amount of poetry and history (mostly leaning towards dead white people). Finally, I look at some photography blogs including David Kleinart (nature), Stuck in Customs (high dynamic range), and A Walk Through Durham Township. Looking at exotic images transports me to a new place.

Link of the day: Academic Productivity, GTD in Academia

I found two great blogs over the weekend. The group blog Academic Productivity focuses on how technology can help increase efficiency in academia. There are also some posts on GTD-related topics. The solo blog Getting Things Done in Academia is written by Professor Mike Kaspari, an ecologist at the University of Oklahoma. I like his posts on writing effectively and ants (even though that has nothing to do with GTD).

Tech: Espresso Book Machine

At the Technology Review, Jason Epstein discusses the evolution of book publishing. He notes that as the book market has become driven by best-sellers, the large catalogue of rare (arguably more interesting) backlisted books is disappearing. One way to solve this problem is to have a device that can print and bind books automatically given an electronic file (just like how you can print Physical Review articles from .pdfs on your home laserjet). It turns out that machine has been invented. It's the Espresso Book Machine.

Tech: Zoom H4 digital recorder

The Edirol R-09 now has a competitor: the Zoom H4. They are similar products apparently, but the Zoom H4 has more features and costs $100 less. The downside to the Zoom H4 (according to Amazon reviews) is that it has a much more complicated user-interface.

Sony Reader

I learned via the Wall Street Journal that Sony is releasing a new electronic book reader called Sony Reader. It uses a special E-ink technology that creates high-contrast text with very low power. The device looks really nice. What I'm hoping is that one day they will put technical books into e-book form. It would be nice to travel and have access to my library of physics books in a handheld device.

Digital audio recorder: Roland Edirol R-09

Digial audio recorders were featured today in the New York Times technology section. One exciting product is the Roland Edirol R-09. Unlike voice recorders, the Edirol samples at a much higher rate (44 kHz) and so can record music. The Edirol has a built-in stereo microphone. It also uses AA batteries and 2 GB SD cards, which is great if you are doing a marathon-recording session. One promising application is to record snippets of unconventional music (e.g. folk music in a remote country), particularly if you're a music historian or a composer. To learn more about this recorder, check out the review roundup here.

Tech: Keurig coffee maker

On a spurt of inspiration (maybe from all those caffeine guzzling theorists I know), I bought a single serve coffee machine. It's a Keurig B40 Elite model.

It is really nice. All you have to do is put some water in it. Then turn the machine on and it will take about 30 seconds to heat the water. Insert a "K-cup" (a pod containing ground coffee) into the machine and press the brew button. It takes just 10 seconds from there for the machine to make a cup of coffee for you! The serving size of a "cup" is 7 oz -- just right for me.

Whether or not the Keurig will turn out to be cost effective, I'm not sure. But I enjoyed being able to wake up on a Saturday and grab a cup of coffee right away.

Link of the day: Home-made USB charger

This idea looks pretty cool.

"Amateur" radio

I went to a ham radio club meeting today out of curiosity. At the end of the meeting, we watched a clip from the Jay Leno Show. Mr. Leno pitted two teenage text messagers (supposedly the fastest in the US) against two ham radio operators using Morse code (30-40 years of experience). The competition was to see who could send a message faster. A woman in the audience bet on the text messagers, but the Morse coders won. As Jay Leno said to the text messaging teens, "Sorry, you were beaten by 170-year-old technology."

I learned, on a more serious note, that ham radio (so-called "amateur" radio since individuals, not corporations, are the operators) has vital uses in remote areas and during disasters. In an emergency, cell phones and landlines are often jammed and the only reliable method of communication is through ham radio. Sometimes when several different emergency response teams work together (fire, police, ambulance, etc.), they solicit the help of ham radio operators to communicate between the different teams. The reason is that each team uses its own unique frequency so they need ham radio operators to set up a universal communication system.

Amateur radio operators have also campaigned against BPL (Broadband over Power Line). BPL is the idea that you can transmit broadband internet signals over power lines in RF (radio frequency). It seems like a great idea to bring broadband to rural areas, but the preliminary technology interfered with much of the RF spectrum including fire, police, and ham radio frequencies. The ARRL (American Radio Relay League) convinced the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) to ensure the protection of the RF frequency band in areas where BPL might be deployed.

Next generation LEGO Mindstorms

The rest of the LEGO product line might be in decline, but at least there's still Lego Mindstorms, the kit that allows you to make programmable, autonomous robots.

Now LEGO is gearing up to release their third version of Mindstorms called NXT (supposedly it will be released in August 2006). Wired magazine has a feature article and there is a blog about NXT as well.

For now, you can take a look at the LEGO robot I built with a partner for a one-month autonomous robotics contest (circa 2001):

Fashionable watches for the geek in you

While I was reading a holiday New York Times article in the Circuits section, I came across a link to Tokyoflash. Check out the nerdy watches: watches that use LEDs to tell time, a watch that looks like an audio equalizer, even Morse Code!

Trouble waking up?

If you have Winamp mp3 player, you can turn it into a nifty alarm clock with the plugin WinAlarm.

If you really have trouble waking up, maybe you can be the first one to test the prototype "Clocky." It's an alarm clock modelled after your most annoying pet.

Life beyond theoretical physics

What can you do with a degree in theoretical physics besides teaching, research, or Wall Street?

Here's an interesting answer. Martin Fisher is spending his life developing technology for Third World countries. His story is described in this Physics Today article.

If you're a condensed matter theorist, you might know that Martin is a member of the famous Fisher family, which has produced three top-notch theorists: Michael (the father) and Matthew and Daniel (both brothers of Martin).

Link of the day: cochlear implants

There's a great video of a Fermilab colloquium about cochlear implants. The talk was given by Ian Shipsey, who uses a cochlear implant himself.

It's really cool that Fermilab tapes all their colloquium talks. I wish other universities would do the same. Sure, there are books and papers out there, but nothing beats the experience of listening to another human being tell you something!

How does a watch/clock work?

I haven't had too much time to think about this question yet, but I thought I should make a note of it here to remind myself to do more research. The little I've read on the web indicates that there are two kinds of watches, those that run on a quartz oscillator and integrated circuit (powered by a battery in general) and those that are purely mechanical. Here are some good links about how quartz watches and mechanical watches work. The Swiss watch industry also has a page that shows the internal parts of quartz and mechanical watches. Supposedly over 90% of the world's watches are based on quartz oscillators.

Quartz watches are known to be so accurate that they only change by a minute over a year. But as a physicist, I know that even better time keepers exist -- that's right, atomic clocks. But it's late, so I'll report on those devices another time.