McCain will fight – and I don’t like war – but he will fight with practicality. He’s a real soldier, not a G.I. Joe doll like bush. Something will have to improve.

I don’t think he’s as bought and sold to the current Republican party as it is made out. He pays his dues. Try being a part of a group like that some time – at a top level – and you’ll see how much you have to bow down and pay your dues. I think he’s a pragmatist.

I think the venom against Clinton is strong. I remember going to an old person’s house and seeing some Bill Clinton expose book of innuendo they were reading. They also ranted once or twice about Clinton (the male, philandering one). I imagine some of that carries forward. I don’t know, this was anecdotal.

I would absolutely love it if Obama could go the distance. We all want him to.

The battle is going to come down to “experience” if he’s running. Which is ridiculous, because usually the president has a cabinet. The cabinet is made up of other people who also have experience. It’s not like the president makes every decision – he/she puts together a good team, like a CEO or any other kind of boss.

Technorati Tags: children, electricity, toddlers

The problem is, it has always been hard to walk to the mall, and now it is getting harder, and the architects of the mall don’t seem to have foot traffic TO the mall in any of their plans. The parking lot is being constructed as a huge moat of fast moving SUVs, and there aren’t even any designated crosswalks – not even some painted lines – to permit pedestrians to approach the mall on foot, perhaps from the increasingly popular public transportation that Los Angeles has developed.

Here’s a video showing the difficulty of walking/rolling to the mall:

Technorati Tags: ADA, cars, disabled, mall, suv, topanga, westfield

The worst part is that they have added new features – palm trees, 2-story parking garages – that further inhibit foot traffic and add more sources of fast-moving danger – and that they have sidewalks without ramps that are difficult to navigate with wheels, whether stroller or wheelchair.

I’ve put in comment cards over the last several years to no avail. A few months ago I went in and personally spoke to several people in the management office, and it took a while until I found someone managerial to talk to. Now we’re in communication, but they say I’m the first person to ever comment on the difficulty of non-vehicular traffic to the mall. I guess they never got my comment cards from 2005 and 2006.

They’re in the process of building the final addition to the mall – a Neiman-Marcus scheduled to be completed in 2008 – and I’m hoping and praying that they will create a nice pedestrian/disabled/stroller accessible, friendly, safe walkway from Topanga Cyn. Blvd. into the mall on the West side.

Westfield says that all their new construction is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. But the complete lack of any ramps and the randomly dead-ending sidewalk paths – which jut into traffic – from the street to the entrance of the mall seems to contradict ADA regulations on curb ramps.

Below you can click to see a drawing from the ADA website, and I can see where the difficulty comes in. Notice that this diagram shows a disabled person emerging from their CAR and taking the path into the building. It does not show what happens if that disabled, wheelchairing pedestrian came from a nearby street. Would they have to brave their way through incoming traffic? Would the cars see them as they rolled in?

I’m not one of these whiny, exaggerated complainers, so I’m not going to engage in histrionic criticism of everything and claim that the mall is built on ancient burial grounds, but I think if I don’t act fast they will seal off the last remaining chance for pedestrians to get to the mall.

I can be reached at dstolarz@robotarmy.com and my mobile is 818 968 9688 if anyone wants to help me with a solution to this problem.

A recent article I wrote, Monetizing Podcasts & Videoblogs, was just published in Streaming Media magazine and has now been reprinted on streamingmedia.com.

“Any business built around podcasts and videoblogs has to start with the fundamentals: Compelling content that can be exchanged with an audience for their attention. Still, the past two years have taught us many lessons about how we can turn that exchange into a successful business model.”

Read the article

Technorati Tags: emerging media, podcast, videoblog, video

So I was in charge of demonstrating the Nash’s computer features and GUI, and quite a few people said they had seen the original Nash blurb page but didn’t feel like they actually learned anything about it (which was a neat trick in that it gave us the element of surprise, but I imagine some people went “Oh old car I get it” and thought nothing more about it).

Our 1950 Nash Ambassador is rigged up with two computers: One for “audiovisual infotainment” as my brother would say-Streetdeck, and its complete in-car media and navigation features (so many demonstrations…)- and one dedicated to Skype video conferencing. It also has two wireless hotspots, pulling down internet over EVDO, one using Sprint, the other using Verizon, which provided us with wireless connectivity and satellite images for our navigation all the way up from Los Angeles. (With impressive speeds, I might add).
There are three screens in the front: two on the dash, one on the windshield. The left one is a touchscreen for controlling the media/nav computer, the right one a smaller ultra-bright screen for video conferencing. Those can be hidden by the original roll-down metal radio cover, leaving just the rearview screen (which mirrors the image on the touchscreen). This was a feature we used on the drive up. Once we had our music playing we turned on the nav screen with a GPS-based speedometer, trip meter, lat/long etc., shut the window, and relied on the rearview monitor. (The speedometer, incidentally, was much preferred over our authentic but woefully inaccurate steering wheel speedometer.)

All in all, the Nash exhibit was a rousing success. Last year we had a similar set-up, only in a hybrid Toyota Highlander. One thing we learned in comparing that year and this year, is that it’s more impressive and eye-catching to have an old restored car rigged with computers than a new hybrid. Even though the Highlander was pretty, it was not as interesting as the Nash with computers run all through it. Also, it gave the wrong impression that we were a custom shop pimping out cars with computer system, as opposed to carputer hackers and makers, there to spread the message of “Yes, you can also do this in your car!”

And, to spread that message, here be some links:
Streetdeck – The software used in our Nash, with it’s in-car loveliness.
The Mp3Car Forums – The biggest carputer community in the tubes that I know of.
Car PC Hacks – Damien’s book, of course, and my reference of choice.
Now that the senseless plugging rampage is over, I’ll bid you all adieu. We had a long exciting six hour drive up, and have another six hour drive back down to LA ahead of us. For all those who saw us at the show and all those simply reading about our car, thanks very much for the interest.

-adam

Technorati Tags: car pc, carputer, cars, in-car computing, infotainment, make, makersfaire, nash, nash ambassador, navigation, streetdeck

I’ve been watching a bit of the evenly-bilingual TransitTV content since I’ve been commuting on the Los Angleles Orange Line across the San Fernando valley. I seem to be one of the few who uses a laptop/EVDO combination on LA rapid transit.

The system cycles through a lot of short form content, weather, news clips and also shows a map (powered by Microsoft’s Live Maps) so you can see where the bus is. I believe the content refreshes over WiFi when the bus is in the station.

But it doesn’t always go according to plan. Last time I took the bus, the video was having stuttering problems. You could recognize the cause – it looks like some background process was flailing in the background, causing everything to stutter once every few seconds on whatever linux or windows machine was doing the playback. The period of the stutter was just long enough to let you get interested in what the talking head was saying, and then punish you by pausing painfully.

I build those same sorts of systems for cars and online, and I certainly sympathize, but I didn’t know how to let the TransitTV people know that bus number whatever was going to have an inaccurate count of ads served that day.

In the early ’00s I had a company that developed P2P streaming software that powered Internet radio broadcasts. At that time, there was a big risk that Internet radio would get shut down. It didn’t – but it was burdened with regulations that made it pay MORE fees than terrestrial or satellite radio. (Net radio has to pay composer and performers, whereas, due to it’s roots as a promotional vehicle, terrestrial radio only has to pay composers).
Anyway, it’s very important that Internet radio survives. A new proposal is trying to vastly increase the fees in such a way that all the indie stations that are paying hundreds to several thousands a year would go into 5 digits – i.e. they would have to shut down their stations and cease to exist.

This issue has nothing to do with digital piracy or anything exciting and contentious like that; it’s just standard incumbents vs. upstarts, with Internet radio fighting the uphill battle for over a decade now.

In a few years, your car and mobile phone will be bathed in ubiquitous broadband. You’ll be able to tune into any station you’d like, anywhere around the world. The promise of this is great – but some ill-conceieved regulation could establish too high a bar – and prevent the kind of independent communication essential to a healthy culture.

You can call your representative and say Support H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act, if the issue is important to you.

Technorati Tags: car pc, emerging media, emerging technology, infotainment, legislation, activism, congress, radio

http://www.makerfaire.com/

Technorati Tags: AMC, car pc, carputer, cars, damienstolarz, emerging technology, in-car computing, nash, nash ambassador, navigation, make, makersfaire, streetdeck, telematics

Those who know me well know that my interest in hacking cars goes far earlier than CarBot / MP3Car /StreetDeck and now, The Walt Disney Company.

I’ve been tinkering with my beautiful Nash Ambassador for about a decade, and in that time it’s had an engine upgrade, conversion from 6V to 12V system, added power steering, and of course, had several screens including a VGA touchscreen and a car PC navigation system installed.
I’ll be driving my nash up to the Bay Area Maker Faire (in San Mateo) for May 19th and 20th. Over the last few days my Nash has had it’s carburetor rebuilt, it’s engine steam cleaned, all the hoses repaired, and I’ll be patching all the exhaust pipes in the next week.

Make sure you come too!

http://www.makerfaire.com/

Technorati Tags: car pc, carputer, cars, in-car computing, nash, nash ambassador, AMC, streetdeck, telematics

Here’s a couple fun parts of the nash:

Big fat RV deep cycle battery:

Old space, new engine combined:

Nope, it’s a system for tracking your “fleet” of dogs while hunting.

It can even tell you if your dog is “on point” , sitting, running, or “treeing” (standing up against the tree).

Garmin has an entire interactive, video/flash site to help you learn about the product. If you’ve hunted with dogs, you’ll probably find the site incredibly informative. If you haven’t hunted with dogs, you’ll probably find the site hilarious.

I just never thought there’d be a device with a dedicated button called “dog” on it.

Link

Technorati Tags: dogs, garmin, GPS, fleet management, telematics

They also illustrate a cyborg dog of the future wearing the antenna harness – but wouldn’t the dog’s tail would be just as effective as an antenna? Perhaps the tail is dedicated for WiMax.