Taken at Sunflower Café and Garden

“People talk a lot less now. We text, email, IM. But we don’t talk. As Siri takes hold of the next wave of advancement, what if we find ourselves talking to devices more than we talk to other people?”

Scary thought.

As more of our human interactions are mediated by technology, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern subtext, motive, and voice. I find more and more people I know trying to structure more intimate human interactions into their routine lately. I like this. It seems healthy.

But I continue to get weird reactions when I offer that I’d like to structure more “downtime” into my routine. I define downtime as quiet, reflective time – spent mostly alone, mostly unplugged. For me this manifests as time writing, walking, drawing or playing the piano. It is time where the primary focus of my attention is driven by me, not by a device or another person. I like this. It seems healthy. But it seems to put off some people.

Not only do I find the constantly-”wired in” trend to be unhealthy, I actually find it to be counterproductive.  The mind fatigues easily. Constant stimulation, constant attention – this stuff is taxing.

Consider this: I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Why is this?

I’ve read several explanations on this, ranging from speculation about hyper-oxygenation to standing in one place for a while. But the explanation I most buy into is this:

Showering is a routine. It is a routine we are intimately familiar with and one we do not need to think about. The fact that we don’t need to think about it is critically important. Our conscious mind – the one with which we evaluate and make decisions – is silenced by the routine. Because we don’t actively need to think, our subconscious mind is allowed to kick into gear and drive our thinking all over the place. We are truly creative in this time. I do my best thinking and creating during and immediately after periods of downtime.

Imagine if we built more time into our lives for this type of thinking.

Imagine if we “rehearsed” this behavior.

We’d have to start first by letting go of the need to be connected all the time. We’d also need for others to let go of the expectation that we be connected all the time. But we might find ourselves being a little more creative if we do. (And maybe we’ll start actually talking to each other more, too.)

Taken at Apple Store

Taken at Great Divide Tap Room

Bradley Lautenbach, 28, who recently moved to Los Angeles to work at Disney, found enough alternatives to allow him to turn back the technological clock on his TV.

“I’ve always had cable. It’s the thing you do when you move to a new place: call the company and set it up,” he said. Not this time. Instead, he got an antenna and now watches over-the-air news and sports, complemented by episodes of shows like “Entourage” that he buys from iTunes. “I don’t miss cable at all,” he said.

- Rabbit Ears Perk Up for Free HDTV [NY Times]

It’s been fun getting emails from friends all day. One of these days I will write a full post about my decision to quit cable and how I consume media now.

Productivity

Evernote – Evernote is a world-class note taking application. It is cross-platform (desktop, web, mobile, tablet), syncs over the air, supports tagging and a whole host of input formats – voice, text, photo, etc. It is my go-to place to record important information and non-task-oriented lists. There’s a reason its logo is an elephant – it is very hard to forget anything when you store it in Evernote. (free)

OmniFocus – I used to use Cultured Code’s Things for my task management/to-do lists. Unfortunately, they dragged their feet for too long on cloud sync, so I gave up and switched to OmniFocus over the summer. Couldn’t be happier. They make a great suite of products (tablet, phone, desktop) for managing your chores – and they are very heavily influenced by the GTD framework. They come in on the pricier side, but the peace of mind the product buys by freeing up mindshare for things other than remembering chores is well worth it. ($39.99)

iA Writer – This is a beautiful, distraction-eliminating, prose-writing application. If you write seriously, you must have this. ($4.99)

Social

Twitter – the web’s favorite micro-blogging platform, available in a beautiful iPad-native interface. (free)

Flipboard – Flipboard pulls the highlights from your social networks (Facebook, Twitter) and presents pictures, articles, and status messages in a compelling, digi-zine format. It’s a great way to dive deeper into the content your friends are sharing – perfect for end-of-day or Sunday morning reading and browsing. (free)

Entertainment

Netflix – The awesome of Netflix, tabletized. You can stream the same stuff you’d stream to your computer or set-top box to your iPad. The video quality is surprisingly good. Fair warning, though – Netflix can quickly turn into a black hole, sucking all your available time into it. At $7.99/month for unlimited streaming, it’s hard to remember why I ever paid for cable subscription. (free, subscription required.)

Travel

FlightTrack – If you travel even *somewhat* frequently, FlightTrack is a must-have. It has a dead-simple interface for tracking your upcoming flights, including separating the airline’s arrival/departure times from the FAA’s wheels-down/wheels-up times. You’ll have a much better sense of when you’re actually going to leave or arrive with this app. The Pro version integrates with TripIt to pull in your itineraries automagically – which is pretty awesome when you have multi-leg or recurring itineraries. (Unclear how long this lasts, though, as FlightTrack’s developer, Mobiata, was just acquired by Expedia.) ($4.99 standard) ($9.99 pro)

Communication

BeejiveIM - If you use multiple instant messaging services, this is a must-have. Even if you don’t, but are looking for a dead-simple IM client with push alerts for the iPad, this is a great find. I realized recently that IM was one of the reasons I wasn’t using my iPad as frequently, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the iPad version of this app I’ve used on my iPhone for so long. ($9.99)

Fun

StarWalk – One of those great “impress your friends” apps. A must-have if you are an outdoors person or have ever been fascinated by what lies out there in space. A should-have if you ever find yourself outside with friends at night. This app will use your location and give you a 3D rendering of the night sky, perfectly mapped to the current time. Makes identifying stars, constellations, and other nighttime phenomena a breeze. Packed with fun information about everything you might encounter in the night sky. ($4.99)

Osmos HD – The quintessential iPad game. It’s beautifully designed and skirts the line of maddeningly challenging. (You may find yourself googling how to solve certain levels.) But it’s fun and really brings the power of the iPad’s interface to bear. ($4.99)

I know I said 10, but this one’s too good not to include, so consider it a bonus:

Uzu – Trust me on this. Buy it. Your imagination will thank me, your productivity will hate me. [And remember when you use it, you have 10 fingers.] ($1.99)

If you have comments about these apps or want to add your own recos, please do so below!

This summer, I relocated to Los Angeles. I decided that a “dumb” GPS wasn’t going to cut it in the traffic in LA and decided to upgrade. After doing more research, I again settled on Garmin, this time on the just-released 3760T. The “T” means Traffic. With the new device, I received an FM receiver which would pick up traffic signals over the air and display them on my device (and re-route me in the event of really bad traffic).

On my first drive with the new Garmin, I saw a yellow stripe along the highway shortly after I got on it. Almost magically, just as I hit the yellow strip on the screen, the traffic slowed. Sweet (when have I ever thought slow traffic was cool?!).

This carried on, and I was in love.

Then, one morning, no traffic. No colors, no warnings. According to the device, everything was smooth sailing (when it was not). Something was broken. Being the man that I am, I tried everything I could to fix it on my own. I reset it using the normal GUI. I then researched how to do a hard reset using a special/hidden control panel. No dice.

I finally conceded defeat, and began to think about contacting Garmin. The hours for their call center weren’t terribly convenient for someone who works all day and can’t really jump on an hour-long tech support call. (Also they operate on Central Time, which isn’t very helpful for users in Pacific Time). Mentally, I inflated this call to be such a hassle that I put it off for 3 months. For that time, I drove around with my Garmin telling me LA didn’t experience traffic. Ever.

One day I hit traffic that was so bad, I got frustrated enough to call Garmin from work. Much to my surprise, getting to a human being was a remarkably fast process (I wish they’d advertised that the support experience wouldn’t be incredibly painful – as it so often is elsewhere). I think I spoke with Wally, and he walked me through an FM receiver reset that I hadn’t been able to discover in my own research. The device came back to life, this time with traffic. Love all over again.

A few days later, I was stuck in traffic trying to do a re-route when an AD (!!) popped up on the screen as I was trying to adjust my route. Yes, an ad. It was for Red Lobster – a place I’ve never visited. This, I thought, was odd:

1. Why am I getting advertising on a device I spent several hundred dollars on? Isn’t Garmin’s business model to sell devices, why are they now also selling ads?
2. Why am I getting overlay advertising while I’m trying to interact with the device? This is a tragic user experience.
3. Ads appear to be triggered by non-motion. Meaning, when you’re stopped or moving very slowly, an ad pops up. Which is A) likely to be a time you need to interact with the device and B) an indication you’re likely stuck in traffic, possibly irritated.
4. From a brand advertiser standpoint, I wondered why you would want to be advertising in this channel in the first place. If the user is going to get the ad when stopped/slowed, there’s a high probability they are stuck in traffic and likely to be irritated or angry. Do you really want your brand becoming associated with that emotion?
5. Since they’ve started, the ads have been only for Red Lobster and Best Western – neither of which are relevant to me. If I have to suffer through advertising could I at least get some ads that are relevant to me? Which brings me back to…
6. I paid a lot for this device. Why do I have to be subjected to advertising? I would understand if there was a cheaper version with ads, but I paid full price for this. I don’t want ads in this experience. I just want directions.

I will likely look for an ad-free device next time I make an investment in GPS for the car.

Much has changed since the events of September 11, 2001. Our nation has new and different enemies, I have new friends and a new home, and life has an altogether different feeling.

The internet was a proving ground for story sharing and discourse in the days after September 11. I was fortunate enough to have a website at the time and the following is what I posted in response.

Writing my experience down was a way for me to record my thoughts and avoid having to tell my story over and over. Surely there are thousands of stories just like mine. I shared mine, at the time, so that friends and family not physically near New York might have a more personal connection to the event.

Today, this little document remains a reflection of a 19-year-old on the brink of change – and the experience that would ultimately lead him to never stop asking “why?”

————————-

Monday, September 17. 2001 – from New York City

This is my story. Though it accounts for nowhere near the amount of terror some have experienced in recent days, it is what I experienced. This is my way of sharing with friends and family where I was, what I saw, and what I felt in the hours that America came under attack on September 11, 2001. Writing has always been a great therapy (most significant next to music). Since I am still afforded no access to my personal belongings, including my music, this is how I am coping now.

First, let me say to each of you: thank you. After witnessing, firsthand, the worst act of terror ever committed on U.S. soil, I have found much comfort in the incessant support I have received from friends and family. I find myself in a continued state of shock, something I suspect will last for quite some time. Something about looking down 6th Avenue and seeing nothing in the sky just does not “click” with me. Though I know I have not felt terror in the way that those who lost loved ones and especially those who perished have, I know that I will forever be scarred by that dark Tuesday.

I commented once last week… ironically, not only has this been the most terrifying event I have witnessed, but it has certainly been the most unifying event I have witnessed. People have been brought together, nations have united, and New Yorkers have suddenly become polite. It is simply amazing. Not since the time of the colonies has this nation seen such a unified level of patriotism. I only hope that this continues to resonate in our generation; a generation that has known only peace and nothing of inconvenience for 20 years, and a generation that may be faced with one of the greatest struggles this nation has seen.

I hope that this retelling finds you well… It is most of my story, for now, though I will be revising and adding for several days. I most certainly welcome feedback, and would love to hear from everybody, as CNN no longer seems to fill the void of displacement. Please feel free to email me.

Monday. September 10. 2001

The day was spent continuing to get into the swing of things, as it was only the fourth day of classes for NYU. I had an early morning class, discussing the media in America. Little did we know that our entire syllabus would be changing because the biggest news story in decades would be occurring in less than 24 hours.

I spent lunchtime having peanut butter and jelly (they have a whole restaurant devoted to it!) with a friend, Julia, in the West Village. In the afternoon, I headed home to do laundry, take care of some organization, and then headed back to the Village for Chinese food at Suzie’s with Diana and Laura. By this time, nasty thunderstorms had set in for the evening.

I wasted a lot of time in my room on Monday night, talking on the internet, cleaning, and avoiding homework. I didn’t have class on Tuesday, so I didn’t feel too guilty about this.

After getting in touch with my friend Andrew to wish him a happy birthday, I settled in for the night, and went to bed. This was about 1AM.

Tuesday. September 11. 2001

8:50am – I remember the first time I looked at my clock.

I gather now that I was jarred from a state of deep sleep by the first plane hitting the World Trade Center (WTC). At 8:50, I was brought to full awareness by an unusually loud and bizarre siren which passed outside my window (and 12 floors below). I looked over at my roommate, Zack, who had also been awakened, and was staring back at me. I looked at him puzzled, and after a moment, we both dismissed the noise as part of the city.

I had put my head back on the pillow, and was on the road to sleep again, when our phone rang – single ring, so I knew it was a call from within the building. Zack answered, it was his girlfriend, Jessica. He came back in.

“Guess what?” he asked.

“What?”

“The Trade Center got hit by a plane.”

And that was that. The day would drag on for another 16 hours that seemed to blur into eternity. How little we knew then.

I raced to my dresser, put a hat on my head, because I looked like a plane had hit me, and then raced to my desk to grab my camera bag. We took the stairs to the 15th floor, and then the elevator to the 31st floor, where Jessica lived in 3103. We got to her room, which had a perfect view of the trade center, and I began taking pictures. By now, it had to be about 9:00. As CNN has no doubt scrawled in our minds, 2 minutes later, at 9:02, a large aircraft struck the south tower.

Though some people in the room did not see it, and others contested it was a helicopter, I knew it was a plane. It was not until much later that I learned it had been a commercial jet and not a fighter jet as it initially appeared.

Of course, this was a crucial moment in the day’s events. At this point we became keenly aware that we were under attack, and not looking at the aftermath of an accident.

Strangely, in later recounting what happened, those in my building told me that the impact of the second plane was the loudest noise they had ever heard. I don’t recall hearing a thing, though. I think as that plane entered the view finder of my camera, I froze in fear.

Well, at this point, critical-thinking-Brad turned on, and photo-journalist-Brad turned off. I pointed out that these were likely terrorists, and that we had to get out of our building (200 Water Street – a 33 story tower located about half a mile from the trade center).

Zack and I went back to the room, and I put on the clothes that I had worn on Monday,because they were still the most easily accessible and still had my wallet and keys in the pocket. The three of us left the room at this point, and then left the building. On reaching the street, I became very interested in heading towards the towers to see if I could help in any way. At this point I separated from Zack and Jessica, and went on my own way.

I walked across John Street to Broadway, to see what I could do. Most of the way over there, business people were wandering in the opposite direction, not knowing what to do with themselves – something I’ve never seen before on the streets of New York.

I wandered around down on Broadway for a while, and realized that I could be of no help. For whatever reason (and I know I was not alone in this), at no point did it even cross my mind that the towers might collapse – and certainly not as imminently as 10 minutes from then. I continued walking. I snapped a few pictures. I wandered through the EMT staging area, and realized that there were more medics down there than they could deal with. There were injured people everywhere. Some had already died. It was here that grim reality began to set in.

I headed back.

I walked into my room as the phone was ringing. It was my dad, calling from work, who had heard  the news and wanted to see if I was okay. Only later did I learn that they had been trying to reach me since about 9am my time… no cell phones were working and all (212) landlines seemed to be busy or dead. As I was talking to him, I started to feel a vibration that shook our building so violently. I started screaming, “oh my God, oh my God.”

The phone line went dead, and I tried to see out the window what was going on. From my living room, I could not see much of the WTC, because another building blocks it. However, I was able to turn around and look at CNN on TV. What I saw scared me. I had the volume muted since I had been on the phone, and I could see this picture of lower Manhattan as taken from the Empire State Building. There was an atomic-looking cloud spreading out over lower Manhattan. My mind was failing to grasp – I could not see what was going on out the window, so I turned on CNN?

I took the elevator down to 2, to go have a better look out a friend’s window. Once I arrived I found a hysterical Jenni, and what looked like a dirty, nuclear winter outside. I snapped a couple of pictures from the window of the street, and then sat down for a few minutes. At the time, we were being told by our building management to stay inside. My friend Gina came into the room moments later, and as the smoke cleared, I went up to my room with her to fetch some water and other items. From there we went back to the 31st floor, and found an open room, just as the north tower collapsed.

What a sight.

I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt as though my body was on autopilot, and I had dropped my mind somewhere back on Broadway in the midst of the bodies and debris.

We waited in this room for a few more minutes, and then the fire alarm went off. I guess it was around 11:00am. We raced down the stairs to the 2nd floor where we found more of our friends, and each took a damp T-Shirt to breathe through. We left the building with what we had taken whenever we each left our rooms, and that was the last time we were at 200 Water Street.

Upon exiting the building, I wanted to die. We were under attack. We were instructed to go uptown, but we couldn’t see a foot in front of our own faces, and got turned around several times in all the smoke and ash.

As we headed uptown, our group gradually became smaller and smaller. We acquired our friend Ben somewhere in Chinatown, and continued the long march toward air and safety – or so we hoped. We were hearing things about the Pentagon having been hit. We didn’t know that the attack on NYC was really over, so we were still rushing around in a crazy dash, trying to find somewhere that might be safe.

It was during this march to safety (and/or freedom) that we began to consider what had just taken place. We continued, in shock, to recount the morning.

We had just witnessed:

- the single worst act of terror ever committed on US soil.
- the destruction of the two largest structures in the city.
- the deaths of thousands of people.

Thus began a perpetual feeling of nausea that lingered for the rest of the day.

We finally made it to Greenwich Village, and eventually to Washington Square Park. From there, we could see downtown. From places we always looked to see the WTC – to help us find South when coming out of the subway – all we could see was an enormous plume of smoke and dust.

I now knew what it meant to be terrorized.

In the park we discovered more friends, including Sarah, Diana, and Lindsay. Most of us had not eaten all day, so the six of us headed to get some pizza (because what else would New Yorkers do after a terrorist attack?). After eating, Gina headed off to another dorm to seek refuge and the five of us continued on to my cousin’s apartment in Chelsea (another neighborhood).

From here we were able to get in touch with family, and digest several hours of CNN. By mid-afternoon we had a clearer understanding of what we all had really laid witness to, and that the attacks were over for the time being.

That evening, we headed our separate ways, each to different friends’ places to sleep the night, as we would not be returning to 200 Water Street for quite some time. I opted to stay with Sherry, my cousin, and her husband, Mark, for the night. I excused myself for a bit to go find a quick dinner. I wandered down to Tisch at Broadway and 8th to see if I could find anybody else I knew. Nobody.

I grabbed a tuna sandwich from the Delion, and walked back to the apartment. My emotions began to catch up with me.

I made it back to Sherry’s and found a fire truck outside. Thinking nothing of it, I wandered back into the building and returned to the apartment. Empty. Hmmm…

I sat down on the couch, and started to eat my sandwich. Seeing the phone on the table, I decided to call my dad and let him know what was going on. The first thing he said was, ”Brad, Sherry’s apartment is on fire. Take a train to Connecticut, Uncle Ned will pick you up out there.” Hmm… I think to myself. I don’t see fire. “Dad, I am sitting on her couch right now. There does not appear to be fire.” “Well, she left because there was a fire, she and Mark and the baby went to Connecticut.”

I did not want to spend the night alone after all that had happened. Since I could not get ahold of anybody (phones were dead, and I had no address book with me), I headed in the direction Grand Central. It was now about 9:00 in the evening. This was perhaps the most haunting and lonely walk I have ever made on this island. At 9:00pm on a Tuesday, 7th Avenue between 16th street and 34th street should be jumping. I could see Times Square up ahead by the time I got to 34th (which was how far I had to walk to find an open subway station). What was weird about this picture?

I could see THROUGH Times Square. In fact, I could see all the way up the street as far as my eyes could see. Times Square is not even that empty at 2am on Sunday. There weren’t even TAXI cabs out running around. It looked so desolate, it smelled so bad.

I made it to the subway, boarded, and found myself alone again. Something that has never happened to me. Arriving at Grand Central, I asked where to go for the train I wanted, and I was pointed in the direction, and told to run.

As is bound to happen to the film student, I lived out the famous scene: principal desperate character runs onto train platform as train pulls away at deathly SLOW pace. But train will not stop.

Blast.

The next train did not leave for 2 hours, so I found a pay phone sat down on the floor and called home again. I talked politics (something I usually do not do) with my dad for quite some time, and then eventually made it to the train and out to Connecticut. It seemed like a peaceful, normal night outside of the city. My mind was in turmoil, though, and I had trouble falling asleep – feeling very alone.

Aftermath – a week on

Since the attack on America occurred, I have been displaced from my home. I have found myself staying in a variety of places. I thank Scott and Ki, Sherry and Mark, Ryan, and Ned and Cindy for putting me up in the past week. I realize that the trials I have faced in the last week in no way compare to those faced by the workers trying desperately to save lives, and rebuild the south end of the island of Manhattan. I also realize that the sacrifices I have had to make do not match the loss of over 5,000 [sic] innocent people due to the attack last Tuesday.

Since this all happened, I have ventured back down to the area twice. On Wednesday, the day after the attack, I went with a friend, Ki, all the way down to Chambers Street. What we saw was unreal. It was the first time I had seen this with my own eyes since I had fled the scene the day before, and it was good to see that the cleanup was underway, but some of the things we saw were still sickening. I snapped one picture during this expidition, a picture of a doorway covered in ash, in which a message of one person’s message of safety had been scrawled during the escape.

I went down there again yesterday. Most of the areas that could be were reopened, including the street my building is on. Unfortunately, there is no power down there, so we still cannot enter our building. Dust was still everywhere, and I could not help but notice the military stationed on nearly every corner. There were semi-truck-sized electric generators everywhere, and it was still a ghost town.

Through this, I have come to realize something important. Although the media can offer a great opportunity to be somewhere else without moving, it does not offer what real experience does. I think the one image that will haunt me forever is that second plane striking the south tower. It was absolutely terrifying. From where I was, the belly of that plane faced us and looked black as night as it banked toward the left and plowed through the upper floors of that tower. It is an image I have seen replayed over and over again on the television, but never from my angle – never with the intensity I felt as I watched it happen through my camera.

Thankfully, the school has been very good to those students who have been displaced by this disaster. On Saturday, the school dispensed 200 dollars in cash to every displaced student to buy clothes and other necessities. They also made arrangements for us to obtain replacement textbooks at no charge. Beginning Monday, we are being relocated to long-term temporary housing in two hotels uptown. While this does not mean I am going home, it does mean that I can start returning to some sense of normalcy.

I was very much in love with the room I had at 200 Water Street. Only two days before the attack occurred, I was sitting on my couch talking to my mom on the phone, and telling her how much my room felt like a home and not a dorm room. I am eager to return there.

Wednesday. September 26. 2001 – from New York City, via email

It is 11am, Wednesday, September 26, 2001,

• nearly 1,296,000 seconds after an airplane struck a building
• some 21,600 minutes since New York City – the city that doesn’t sleep – was put to sleep
• almost 360 hours after our confidence was tested
• around 15 days after I last woke up in my own bed
• over 2 weeks after life seemed to come to a standstill

I return.

Some things are the same: my room, though apparently trapped in time, is exactly as I left it. My bed was the same mess of twisted blankets that it was when I rolled over to see the black smoke in the air on the 11th. On the floor, my New York Times from Monday, September 10 gripes about the impending mayoral primary, which was to have been on the 11th. Things seem so different now…

Many things are different: downtown is still filthy. A residue of gray coats almost everything, even in the streets. The same smell that nearly suffocated us as we fled still lingers, and will linger as long as the rubble lies there. More than anything, our lives have changed. Little things, like sharp noises set us off into a whirl of paranoia.

On my way to get dinner tonight (my kitchen was emptied by the cleanup crews), I walked with a friend to Broadway and John Street. It was near where I took my pictures of the crippled trade center that Tuesday morning. What lies there now is a mess. It is a mess that is taller than any building in my suburban Chicago hometown, and it is a disaster area that will be in the cleanup process for a long, long time.

I was able to go home to Chicago for the weekend, which was a welcome relief to the nomadic life I had been leading in NYC for the previous two weeks. I saw my family and many friends – which was great relief in trying to process all of this.

Somebody asked me today if I thought I would have any interest in living down here next year. The thought had not crossed my mind until then, and with only a moment’s hesitation I responded: More than anything else today, I felt like I had come home. Walking down Fulton Street with all of what I owned in hand (a backpack and a duffel bag), I was overcome by the thought that I had conquered something – a personal triumph of sorts. Having been through all of this has only made me more attached to this area, and it would be hard to get me to leave now. I hope that in the coming months and years, this will become an even more vibrant area.

I know that New York City will be stronger when this is all said and done. I can already see it here, and it continues to amaze me. I know that we will rebuild, and I know that we will go on. However, it is important that we keep reflecting on what has happened, and keep processing what is going on in our minds. It would be tragic, at this point, if we let our anger get the best of us. While last week may have been the darkest hour we have known, I know that the coming time will be the brightest we have seen.

Again, I offer my continued thanks to everybody who has offered to listen to me, and offered to send support in any way over the last several days. It has, no doubt, been a trying time for all of us. Please drop me a line if you find the time, I would love to hear from you.

B

I’ll state my opinion upfront, and then move onto what I’m left pondering.

I think the plan to burn the Quran is a bad idea. I don’t think there should be laws against it and I don’t think the government should intervene to stop it.

But I think it’s a bad idea:

Not because it is incredibly disrespectful. (It is.)
Not because it puts coalition forces in greater danger abroad. (It does.)

But because IT IS NOT PRODUCTIVE.

It’s the cheap and easy way to get attention for one’s own feelings. How about, instead of protesting by burning another religion’s sacred text, you protest by over-emphasizing the positive aspects of your own? Instead of protesting at all, why not engage the people you seem to dislike so much in an actual conversation? That would be challenging, rewarding, and productive. Burning books is not.

Next, I turn to the media. It is the first amendment of the US Constitution that extends to this Pastor the right to say whatever he wants in whatever form he wants. The same first amendment establishes his right to practice the religion of his choosing. That same amendment enables the press to operate freely in this country.

The media paying all the attention to this Pastor and his protest is a bad idea:

Not because it is giving too big a voice to someone who doesn’t deserve it. (It is.)
Not because it puts coalition forces in greater danger abroad. (It does.)

But because IT IS NOT PRODUCTIVE. Don’t we have more important issues on which to expend our national collective breath? The economy? Education?

Doesn’t the attention this man is getting just make him more likely to carry out this protest? And to carry on being noisy afterwards?

What is he protesting anyway? I’ve read a dozen articles and can’t figure it out. Do the journalists covering it even know?

If a religious text caught fire in a forest, would anyone notice?

The device:

It’s pretty. This is no shock, coming from Apple, though I do find myself impressed with the quality of the display every time I fire it up.

The battery is good. Pogue said 12 hours of straight video play. Haven’t tried that myself but at the rate things are going, I’d believe it.

Downside: it does not charge when plugged into my mac (older machine) and the cord isn’t really long enough to plug into wall and continue playing with it, so you do have to take a break when you want to charge it. Fortunately the battery seems good enough that that shouldn’t be a problem.

The thing is heavier than a kindle and holding it for a while, while not painful, can get awkward. I got a case. I’d recommend it.

The content:

The Apple apps (mail, calendar, etc) are top notch. They feel like they are the full incarnation of what the iPhone version wanted to be. Disappointingly, Apple does not provide a native chat application (still) which feels like a missed opportunity for the device – perhaps that will come in the next OS.

The third party apps I’ve tried so far are also quite impressive. There does seem to be a thinness around the offerings at the moment though, particularly among the free ones. Also, there is no Facebook app, which seems weird to me. I’ve been much less active on Facebook because of that.

File handling is an annoyance. I can’t download a PDF from the web to view later (I can bookmark it and view it in safari – but there is no way to get the file in an offline state – and no way to mark up the PDF unless it’s imported into Pages – which I can only do if I email myself). Access to Mobile Me iDisk (available on the iPhone) is also noticeably absent.

One would presume the apps will catch up as they begin approving in the iTunes Store again this week.

The experience:

The thing moves fast. I imagine that the next iPhone will also process this quickly and finally we will have a powerful smartphone instead of just a smartphone. The apps all load quickly, video runs beautifully, the speaker is good enough quality to watch tv shows with.

Most importantly though, is the lack of multitasking. This will upset power users, but I found myself consistently more relaxed as I was doing only one thing at a time instead of the usual 4 or 5. I wonder if this will help combat ADD overall – I doubt it.

(I should also add, that while typing is obviously not as good as with a keyboard, it is lightyears better than with the iPhone. I can type at near keyboard pace on the iPad screen.)

So what?

Ya, I agree with the sentiment that this device is more about consuming than creating. But I’m okay with that. It’s been a pleasure to consume with it so far and I do now understand the middle zone between the phone and the laptop that this device will serve – I was skeptical about it before.

The verdict: if you like toys and consume a lot of media, it’s worth the add. But yes, there will likely be a slightly cheaper, better one in 12 months. (That said, this does not seem to suffer from the bugginess or rough first outing effects that iPhone 1 did – so don’t make that the excuse.) I like mine, and it’s been an excellent couch companion for the past day.

This post was written from the iPad.

Feel free to ask specific questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

I can think of times in my life where I’ve done things I didn’t enjoy per se simply because of the opportunity to be around certain people. And I’ve experienced this in both the professional and personal environments. With friends, I may go see a movie I don’t particularly want to see because I want to spend time with friends I haven’t spent time with in a while. At school, I may choose the less interesting (to me) of two project topics simply because the team is one I’d rather work with. While these experiences tend to make me think there’s some validity to the hypothesis, I can also imagine a situation where someone takes this to the extreme, chooses to do something they truly hate with people they really like and the hatred for the task leaks over into the relationships.

This notion isn’t offered as a comfort for those taking jobs they aren’t particularly thrilled about, but rather as a prod for those trying out potential employers: it may behoove us to figure out whether we’ll truly appreciate being part of the team, given who’s already on it.

I really have no desire to engage in a debate about MBAs’ approach to recruiting here (at startups or elsewhere) because I think most of the issues have been covered by Rob and Rafael and Charlie (particularly in the comments on Rafael’s post). I do, however, want to say one thing. And I should caveat that this is general commentary inspired by the above conversation and my experiences over the past year and a half, not a response directed at Rob, Charlie, or anyone else.

It frustrates me to no end when people bucket MBAs. An MBA is not a race or a religion. It is a graduate degree. That’s it. There is almost nothing I can generalize about any of the people I’ve ever met in this MBA program (or from any other MBA program for that matter) except to say that they either have or have had an interest in studying business administration.

People who make the assumption that MBAs are X, Y, or Z, simply because they have an MBA are as guilty of lunacy as the MBAs who throw themselves at startups with the expectations of red-carpet-rollouts simply because they have an MBA.

Contrary to popular belief, not all MBAs are flocking to finance and/or consulting. Further, not all MBAs *come* from finance or consulting. There are a ton of people here who come from interesting operational and functional backgrounds and have every intention of returning to operational and functional positions. These are the same types of positions that any startup seeks to fill.

So, what’s my point?

When Kyle said:

While it seems unfair to bucket a whole group based on the actions of a few, it’s human nature to do so.  Those who are really dedicated will figure it out, the perception doesn’t matter.  So I guess my approach is to think: who cares?

My answer to this?

I do.

I care a lot. I don’t want a few people who lack a social compass representing me in the world. I don’t want anybody to assume anything about me when they see MBA on my resume except for that at one point in my life I had an interest in studying business administration. And I want to fight those generalizations that get made (and the people who cause them to be made) for the sake of the rest of us who don’t behave like this. Then maybe the people who use criticism of MBAs and B-schools as a way to sell newspapers and display ads will have to find another way to write about us.

DARPA, the government agency, is sponsoring a challenge on Saturday to test the ability of social networks to mobilize toward a common task. They are placing ten giant red weather balloons (tethered near the ground) around the US for 8 hours on Saturday. The first person/team to correctly submit the locations of the ten balloons wins $40,000.

We will be donating the money to The Global Fund’s AIDS research/awareness initiative.

I’m working on this initiative with several classmates and a few profs from Harvard Business School, and we’re looking at this as a test of the HBS network. Hopefully we win, but I’m confident we’ll learn something in the process!

details: www.projectredballoon.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/helpredballoon

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We need your SUPPORT and it’s for a GREAT CAUSE!