Philips Digital Photo Display

I picked up a few 7" Philips Digital Photo Display frames for gifts. Of course, I had to set them up before giving them, add a card to increase capacity, add initial photos, etc. Among many in the market, the Philips seemed to have top reviews. And they do indeed work as expected. Adequate display quality. Flexible frequency of photo rotation. Actually, I should be more positive--when working, they are a product worth having. But during setup (which for me, of course means trying every option), I have to admit to thinking "hardware companies should not be allowed to ship software." The out-of-box software experience is just too annoying. What makes it worse is that they obviously tried to optimize for non-technical people. Yes, if you mess with the setup options and button configuration for a while and it becomes fairly natural. But so did DOS...

Evangelicals Going Green?

I heard a panel (sorry, no link, but it was NPR) asserting that Evangelicals are starting to go "green." Specifically, the assertion was that Evangelicals were starting to talk from the pulpit about Global Warming--that it was moving from an economic issue to a moral issue. The panel went on to claim this rise in Global Warming attention from religious leaders wasn't limited to Evangelical Christian leadership, but extended to religious leaders of many faiths. The panel reminded listeners that many of the social issues we take for granted today, such as abolition of slavery, women's right to vote, civil rights, and others, brewed for years without taking off...until they were adopted by religious leaders.

If the panel was correct, this is big. And it's big on many levels: It's big if you follow the priorities professed by the leaders of your faith. It's big if you track the economics of solar panels. It's big if you simply wonder if the world (or even just the U.S.) will ever consider Global Warming a serious threat. Anyone else out there want to confirm this from personal experience?

Freakonomics: Why is Stuff the Way it is?

If selling drugs is so profitable, why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers? Is it possible that the real reason crime dropped in the 90s is an idea so repulsive that a politician mentioning it guarantees election loss? Freakonomics (paper, audio) asks these and a bunch of other questions and uncovers data to find answers. The forward essentially says, "This book is random and the only consistent thread is a search for truth about why our very real-world life is as it is." It's true. I think I remember opening term papers with something like that when I just couldn't quite get the topic to hang together. Funny how an opening admission often makes it ok. And sure enough, they pull it off. Freakonomics is written by an economist, which--I suspect they'd be delighted with this analogy--is like saying Indiana Jones movies are about a history teacher. Steven Levitt is the sort of economist you want to drink with. He looks at the world and asks why…and instead of leaving the question hanging like the drunk whispers of vapid intellectual, he tries to figure it out. If you like data and numbers, you'll like it. If you hate data and numbers, but like truth, you'll like it. If you don’t really care about much of anything, well, you won't like it. If you're a parent and you get it in audio, be ready for people to avoid you as you start arguing with an invisible companion as Levitt undermines your convictions about the stuff you're doing to help your kid be successful in life. He can't be right. But the data is compelling. But he can't be right. But the data...

The drug dealer question is one of the funniest because once you hear why so many dealers are poor, it is just so painfully obvious. And so obviously right. And so obviously based on exactly the same premise as 1001 "legitimate" activities: Amway, insurance sales, chain letters, local politics, stock options, lotteries…I could go on and on.

Oh yeah, and what was it that dropped the crime rate in the 90s? (Gladwell's Blink, another book worth your time and mentioned previously) goes into rather gory detail asserting a pretty common view that the drop in crime in the 90s was something non-controversial: innovative policing tactics. Levitt digs into this also. And compellingly disproves it…with more data. Who ya gonna believe? As usual, you have three choices: flip a coin, look at both arguments to see who is more convincing, or get the data and figure it out yourself. Come on, you know you're not going to do the third one. And you don't really want to be the kind of person that does the first one, right?

So what's the crime drop factor you can't mention without retribution? Hey, don't firebomb Blogger HQ on this…but it's Roe v. Wade. Levitt claims that fewer unwanted children result in fewer children at risk for a life of crime--and he does the math. You'll have to get the book for the details.

[Follow-up: An interesting contrasting view from Frank Zimring, author of The Decline of Crime in the United States. Mentioned briefly above.]

Who Else Benefits from Musiceuticals?

More on Musiceuticals: I've been wondering who else--beyond a music provider looking to differentiate--benefits from Musiceuticals. Perhaps the group with the greatest to gain (at least on a percentage basis!) is new artists. And this is tied intimately to the value listeners receive. It's hard for a typical listener/buyer to say, "I want new music and I like hip hop or classic rock, so find me things I'll like." Typical genre searches just deliver too many hits. You need a tighter filter. So what do many buyers do? They buy more from the artists they know or the artists that are most famous. But if we assume that Musiceutical effectiveness is tied in some way to taste in genres (not required, but I believe it to be true), then a Musiceutical filter lets me say, "Find me music that fits a melancholy mood" [knowing your preference for Country] or "I'm looking for something that gives me energy" [knowing your preference for Electronica] and your chances of finding something you want skyrocket. At that point, you have new confidence when you come face-to-face with a list including new artists. Your list that is far more concentrated in what you are looking for, so it may be worth your time to browse the 10s of artists you haven't considered instead of the 100s that a generic genre search would deliver. New artists are going to see a jump in sales. Who else do you think will benefit?

Cell phones to Flex Muscles as Top Internet Gateway?

I've been wondering about how cell phone internet access will change how all of us use the internet from our PCs. In the U.S., most of us think of our computers as our internet gateway. But there are far more cell phones sold every year than PCs. Over a billion cell phones worldwide in 2006 vs. fewer than a quarter of that number of PCs. And in developing countries, such as India and China, that ratio is far higher. This isn't just a developing country question, however. I did some government agency work recently to bring light to how citizens use services--and what drives satisfaction. (Yes, some bureaucrats think about this....) When you get out and talk to typical consumers of government services...when you hear "oh yeah, I have a PC, but it's broken," it becomes clear that phone-based web access could go from tail to dog. For basic communications (text email, SMS, chat), phones can already be full citizens. (Have you seen how fast some folks type on 9-key?) But what about for research and what we think of as "web pages." How will that change? Assuming the limping dog phone-based internet performance improves, what about screen size? Today, you design for a reasonable PC screen and then try to be sure the experience is acceptable on a handset. Will that switch? Will we all have beautiful 1200 x 1400 pixel flatscreen monitors and find that all our favorite pages are optimized to lower res handsets? The big players will optimize for both, but will smaller players have the time or inclination?