I read that book first on my Kindle, then finished it on my iPhone after the Kindle died an unfortunate death.  At the time, I felt  that I was a little nearer to that world of an actual smart book.

Looking at this recent video from Penguin books, it looks like the iPad will take us a bit further down the road.

Additional videos get a little more high-level, talking about how best to deliver content rich books. Use the ePub format that iBooks and most of the book world (excluding Amazon) uses or create “Apps”.  ePub can support linking to external sources, pictures, and some other simple features, but lacks the ability to bring this really slick stuff to devices. Enter Applications-as-books.  Up shoot, you can make it much smarter, more dynamic, and richer. Downside, this is a bit more complicated then converting a text file to be read by a machine. Also, they would need to go through the Apple App Store, which is pretty incredible but can chafe some developers.

Who knows where this will go. I don’t. But I think it will be pretty cool.

via gizmodo

The World’s Only Reliable Newspaper, finally available online…for free!

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

80% of the time I am looking for a site I am on my phone. The other 20% I get angry at their non-indexed flash pages.

Thanks to everyone who came out, much love to organizers.

I don’t even follow football, but I know this is true.

My cousin warming his chops up on my Gee-tar. Look for our forthcoming album “A Metal Lullaby”. Taking pre-orders now.

Free Holiday Album from itTunes

Wait? Amy Grant is on the first track?  Lame.

Pregnancy Pregnant

Week 28.  We can expect our little bandit to be about 2.5 pounds, be dreaming, and other stuff like that.

I know that, because every Tuesday morning we checkout our little pregnancy app on our iPhone.  Pregnancy Pregnant, has a few neat features and few that are kind of puzzeling.

It has weekly updates on the kiddo, from two perspectives.  A nice “baby” update and some detailed and frankly weird “Mother” side.  The Mom’s side seems to be badly translated Chinese. There are wacky folksy type comments.  But for most part, both are interesting and seem to track along with books we have read.

A selection from the Mother section today was:

A word of wise for would be fathers, believe it or not, research has shown if the mother wants to keep on breast feeding the baby and the father wants to support her, but yet do not know anything about this….Then….Well, what are you waiting for!

I don’t know what I am waiting for, but….then…well….

I personally like the quirks and the app is keeper.  Would recommend it for other soon-to-be parents.

Oddly, I have had a lot of questions about this.  So here are some answers (which is lame for me because know when I stop jogging in two weeks to pursue my hobby of not finishing things, people will know).

I am follow a program called Couch to 5k. Long story short, it is a progress jogging plan that incrementally increases the intensity of the workout until you are clipping along like an Gazelle on the African Plains.  The first few weeks seem really easy, short jogs with walks. This is to give my might legs time to recover and prevent me from following my usual fitness MO of hurting myself right of the bat. Overtime you end up running for a full 30 minutes, which can cover a lot of ground.  This program isn’t for a seasoned runner, but excellent for someone just getting into running or returning from break.

I don’t do well jogging on machines, so I hit the streets in my neighborhood. This seems to make time go by faster and gives me a really nice familiarity with where I live.  The downside, at least this time of year, is the cold. Because, dang. It is coooooold.  Haven’t had to deal with Rain yet, stay tuned on that front.

I like to listen to podcasts when I jog, mostly because it makes the time go by faster.  NPR’s Radio Lab is my favorite for awesome science based news stories.  But hey, go with what you like.

I use a Nike Plus Sensor* for the joy of seeing some metrics on my improvement. For those not in the know, Nike Plus is a sensor that you wear that tracks the number of strides you make along with the time between strides, and creates an estimated distance traveled and calories burned.  There is a lot more science and engineering behind it, making it much more than a supped pedometer, but that is for another post.  My sensor interfaces with my iPhone and synchronizes with my computer when I get home. There are version that don’t require iAnything.

You can track your results on the Nike + site, which look like this:

Nike + Runs

http://my.nike.com/longwalkhome

I used my iPhone (like I do from pretty much everything in my life) along with a neat application called “Couch to 5k”.

Couch to 5k Screen:Week One, Day One

It gives you audio and tactile alarms when you need to either run or walk.

That’s the gist of what I use when I do my thing.  I am strongly considering ditching my running shoes and get something else less cushy.  I spend most my time in flip flops and barefeet, feels weird being so cushioned.

* – Link for Nike Plus Sensor goes to Amazon, buy there from this link and I get a small cut which I will use  for nefarious purposes.

Right, but does it have a backlight?

via Gizmodo

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Any ways, after Big Brown accused him of throwing himself at the innocently reversing truck in a vain attempt for media attention and sympathy (or something) and then wanting to go to court before they would pay for tylenol, things have been settled up.

How, you may ask, did the little hippy win out  when pitched against Big Brown lawyers with lots of money and lots of experience in defending their more poorly trained drivers? Simple. Expert Witness. Me, Baby. Me.

My 17 minute testamony was clearly the shinning beacon of reason in their 4 week long court case. The highlight, when asked about the photo below by the powerful and capable Big Brown lawyer :

Big Brown Lawyer: “Why are you smiling in this photo?!!!!” – Dramatic pause to look at Jury so they can see that this whole case hinges on the fact that people sitting next to a cripple could smile.  Clearly indicating things were fine and dandy.

Me, after being repeatedly told by the amazing, talented, and virtuous lawyer for the Cripple “Be somber”: “It is entirely possible my wife said to say “Cheese”".

Case over.

This amazing feat was accomplished by wearing a card board box (cut to fit) that was covered by play dough. Brilliant.  Right on Friend-Ben.

Sure, this might not have the same legs outside of Seattle. But for Best Halloween Costume for Seattle this right on top.

Post Alley Gum Wall by http://www.westlacountphotography.com/

Also, did you know I miss-spell Costume every single time I write/type it.  What you don’t know about my spelling mistakes could fill a book!

We took a few break from TV. I say that just to get respect from the Post Modern Urban Hippies I know. We watch lot’s of TV, just not on tv’s. Dig?

{Sidenote: If you say “We don’t own a TV” in Seattle, people will nod their heads knowingly and mention something about stopping global-walmart-”fois gras” and how they do the very same thing. Weirdos. Everything is a cause with these people.}

So, we got ride of the TV’s back before the marital consolidation process. I have a really really good memories of curling up in front of the fire at my folks old house with Kate and watching The Offce (US verison, for those who care about these things) on my iPod. Now this wasn’t the fancy new iPod Touch things that always leave me thinking I am playing with something that would have made Issac Asimov pee his pants, this was an iPod 5G. It had a screen which was 2.5″. We would each take an ear bud and watch these copy/paste clone episodes of The Office and were very much happy with life.

Post Consolidation: Video piracy and Kate’s 15″ Macbook Pro brought us into a world where we could actually hear both audio channels and sit back a foot from the screen. We thought this was amazing and razed about the experience of the big “screen”.

This experience was slightly upgraded by the acquisition of Tina Fey. My too-big 17″ laptop.

Now flash forward and I sit and bemoan the absence of George from Grey’s Anatomy from across the room now. This is real progress. We just bought a DVD player for the TV and both in awe of this 20 year old technology*. We still get most of content from Hulu/Adultswim/Torrents. I would say we use Netflix Play Now, but that would be a lie. Our sub-sucky data connection through Broadstripe tanks on streaming their stuff. Thanks City of Seattle Government granted monoply (surrounding Seattlites will also nod their heads at this).

Aside from a weird lingering desire to get an AppleTV I think I am going to freeze any further development on the media playing department. At least until they find a way to sent audio/visual information over the airwaves without using the internet.

* – By “just got” I mean a few months ago
* _ In a related story, I just heard you could record audio data to a magent tape and run it through a decoder that can in turn convert it to an audio signal. Amazing!