turntable / as the table turns

On the one hand: immeasurable pride…

I’m still wrapping my head around Obama winning, even though I called it back in January. It’s been incredibly inspiring to see him make it happen. He is a master. He hit every note exactly right. There has not been a more inspiring candidate in my lifetime. I never thought there would ever be a politician as focused, smart and inspiring as Bobby Kennedy was. Even Obama’s family has the beauty and aura of the Kennedy’s. I’m loving and savoring every second of it. I still can’t believe it’s actually happened.

I highly recommend these two photo galleries of Obama: The big picture and this campaign photo journal.

It has changed my view of the ‘old country’. I swore that if John McCain won I wouldn’t go back to the US, even to visit. Now I’m actually looking forward to visiting. I haven’t been back since moving to NZ in 2001, so it’s going to be quite a trip when it happens.

On the other hand, total disgust…

On this end of the world we also had an election. It was the polar opposite to the US election. I predicted that Helen would squeak by, but even she seemed tired of Helen. She had no more fire in the belly.

So New Zealand elected an investment banker as Prime Minister. Wow, that’s really moving in the right direction. You know, because if there’s anyone you can trust to manage this economy it would be an investment banker, right?

John Key’s acceptance speech was sickening, especially compared to the vision and eloquence of Obama’s acceptance speech. I know New Zealand has issues with tall poppies but he was just a dickhead. All he could talk about was winning. He didn’t have anything to say about the country or about the challenges we’re facing.

Helen Clarke made me so proud to be Kiwi. She was deadly smart, passionate, with a holistic view of the country and the world.

John Key is the opposite. He has only one concern – money. And that blind focus on money is useless when it comes to leading a country. Joining forces with Act, a far right party of small minded Luddites, proves what a backwards and clueless turn this country has just taken.

The smartest thing John Key did was adopt every one of Helen’s policies during his campaign. His whole platform was “I’m the same as Helen, but prettier.” With Helen gone he’s going to be at a complete loss for ideas and way out of his depths. Which means things are about to go tits up in New Zealand.

One journalist wrote that New Zealand voted for change for change’s sake and that the voting public “just got bored”.

It’s sad, but painfully true. That’s been the attitude of so many people I’ve talked to.

It’s a strange twist for me to be so extraordinarily proud of the way America voted and so disgusted by the way New Zealand voted. Very strange feelings, indeed.

Four years ago I got in deep shit with my internet provider. My only way of keeping up with the 2004 election was downloading torrents of the Daily Show and my monthly bill went from $50 to $1400 (not that I paid those extortionist fees – let’s just say the provider settled out of court).

Jump ahead to the current election, four years later. Now I watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report via the internet directly on their respective sites. I got to see the debates on YouTube and MyDebates.org. I get to see the SNL clips and other news clips on blogs like onegoodmove.org and CrooksAndLiars.

For some reason I thought that I would stay dispassionate about this election. My feeling is that whoever wins America is far too morally bankrupt and corrupt to change in any significant and meaningful way. Red or Blue, the differences are really not at all “fundamental” as Obama/Biden love to say.

They say that the election should be a giveaway to the Democrats. What they decline to factor in is that this year the candidate is a black guy with a terrorist-sounding name. That’s the major reason why he doesn’t have an insurmountable lead. That and the fact that most American’s have such warped values: elite is bad, thinking is dangerous, violence is good, science is mythology, mythology is truth.

If Obama does win, clearly it will be an important milestone in American history. It will offer the world a glimmer of hope that America might actually be willing to confront its demons and maybe even conquer them. If he loses, it really will be the downfall of the US. I’m pretty convinced that if he loses it would cause race riots, and rightfully so. If it did cause riots then the only hope is that it might spark a full scale revolution.

Win or lose, I’m so incredibly proud of Obama. He has been working his ass off, looking out for best the interests of the “average” American, standing up for his convictions with complete clarity, honesty and determination. Unlike any politician from the past 20 years*, he wants to be President to unite the world, to make it a more fair and decent place, not simply to be leader of the “most powerful nation on earth”. (* if you rule out Nader as a politician).

I can’t wait for November 4th, but if I really search my soul I probably don’t want it to end. I think that this election has been one of the most gripping, revealing and admittedly entertaining.

Last week, I got off the train in the morning and there was a TV reporter that jumped in front of me with a few questions about fare increases. I immediately sensed that she was trying to wind me up, get me irate. But I felt like I was mild mannered and not falling for the bait.

ME: “I can accept the price increase because I know they’re buying new trains, which we really need badly. So as long as I can see the results I’m okay with it.”

TV LADY: “But what if they don’t add the trains? Are you seeing what you’re paying for?”

ME: “I’m not seeing what I’m paying for yet, but I know they’re in the works.”

TV LADY: Strange devilish smile. “What if they raise prices again? Would that make you stop taking the train?”

ME: “No. They basically have me over a barrel. I don’t want to pay for parking, I don’t want to pay for gas, I don’t want to deal with a car. Maybe I could ride my bike sometimes, but not in bad weather. So for me the train is still the best option.”

TV LADY: Looks at camera man with a huge grin. “Thank you.”

Now watch how it was presented on air.

That’s not the angle I was expecting.

Everyone at work was mocking me for being the angry American.

Loving the highly iPhone friendly mobile version of the NZ Herald. It’s an especially good experience over GPRS.

Not loving the new Delicious design. Way too much visual noise. What used to take a few key clicks (tagging new bookmarks) now takes a few additional clumsy key clicks and mouse clicks.

I’m putting together some hands-on workshops, focused on improving online experiences. I’ve created a new site for this little project – please head over to Skyrize.com for all the details.

The first one is Rapid Prototyping in Flash (no experience with Flash necessary). We’ll also be covering many aspects of interaction design. It’s happening on 31 July from 7-9pm. The workshop is for designers, developers, project managers, biz dev and marketing people.

It should be a lot of fun. Be sure to register early, because registration is limited to 10 people, so everyone has quality hands-on time.

It’s always made me crazy that phone experiences aren’t better integrated with the desktop. On the desktop you have the space to manipulate large data sets and UI elements very easily and quickly.

There have been feeble, wretched attempts made by Nokia and Sony. I’m disappointed with the integration Apple has offered so far with the iPhone via iTunes. It’s extremely limited and frustrating. The new Mobile Me interface seems promising, but I’m not holding my breath that it’s what I want.

In the video below, Google demos the type of customisation that I’m looking for. At about 3:30 they show how you to customise the phone experience through a desktop interface. Just drag-and-drop content and UI widgets to your phone. Finally somebody has done it right!

I’ve previously mentioned my antipathy for OSX. It’s been two years since I made a go at switching to a Mac. I can’t say anything major has changed with the Mac since then. What has changed?

• My Vaio has become unacceptably sluggish
• Adobe apps now run properly on the Mac
• There’s no way I’m going to use Vista
• Most of my work happens in a browser, so the OS is secondary

But perhaps the biggest factor: my iPhone. The iPhone has really made me lust for more. More luscious details. More speed. More fun.

It’s now been about 5 weeks since getting my hands on Darryl’s old iMac 24″. That’s 3 weeks more than I endured last go round! Many of my previous gripes still linger. Like the inability to maximize app windows. Font rendering. On the 160 dpi iPhone type is stunningly gorgeous. Font rendering on the 72 dpi Mac is a sad imitation, often resulting in butchered illegible type that makes my eyes bleed. I really don’t understand how type purists delude themselves so relentlessly.

Lucky for me, I have a couple Mac die-hards sitting nearby who have been showing me all the secret five fingered key commands, hidden settings and special software that makes working with a Mac tolerable.

So far, the best thing about being on the Mac is…

• The beautiful bright screen
• The beautiful visual design details like sublime: gradients, drop shadows, translucent windows, and animations
• The beautiful hardware
• Networking is finally acceptable
• It’s fast and stable, unlike my experience 2 years ago

Overall, I’m happy with the Mac experience. I certainly don’t think it’s flawless. But the speed, the lickable graphics (in spite of the type rendering) and the hardware win me over. I admit that it’s starting to make my eyes hurt whenever I go back to using Windows.

There does seem to be an interesting correlation between the increasing number of iPhones and Macs at Xero. Everyone seems to be switching. Even Grant switched.

With the abject failure of Vista, the mainstream switch-to-Apple tipping point is truly upon us. Jobs is well on his way to resurrecting Apple from the dead, while Microsoft have dug their own grave.

Fifty or a hundred years from now I suspect history will smile broadly on Jobs as a monumental business and cultural icon, while reflecting on Bill Gates as a one-time antagonist in the Steve Jobs story.

The night before the Webstock halfbaked challenge I got a hellish fever (it turned out to be tonsillitis). I was up all night with the chills. In my feverish delusional state I somehow had the hallucinatory inspiration to put together a presentation for my halfbaked team to show on my behalf, which for some strange reason they never did show.

You probably need to be fully baked (or feverishly delusional) to appreciate it. Click on the movie, then use the keyboard left and right arrow keys to go through the frames.

I’m pretty certain this could have swayed the vote in our favor.

robot dog

self assembling robots

luke arm

Watch this video of the physics game software Phun (then go download Phun and have a blast playing with it!!).

Also, check out this video showing Crayon Physics.

And Crayon Physics for the iPhone.

You can install Crayon Physics for iPhone by adding http://iphone.r4m0n.net/repos as a source to Installer.app.

Finally, have a look at Moovl. It’s in Java, which I refuse to install, but the intro video provides a good overview of the concept.

Doesn’t it inspire you to dream up cool possibilities for games and learning tools?! Have you seen other games or apps that you find completely fun and inspiring?