Downloads! Get Your Downloads!

Attention iPhone users:  have you downloaded the new operating system, iOS4, yet?  If not you're missing out on multi-tasking, iBooks, camera zoom, and my personal favorite-spellchecking (hopefully that will cause a few less headaches from some select contacts' texts).  Fortunately I was able to catch this release during a download phase, otherwise who knows when I would have been squinting my eyes to read a great new pageturner.  

Here are few other finds you can download right on your phone:

• The official Twitter app
• ShakeIt...like a Polaroid picture
• Words With Friends-find me!
• Raphael Saadiq-The Way I See It (you "non-users" can access this from iTunes on your computer)

Apple image

Going Bananas

Once in awhile a tremendous opportunity will come your way.  Sometimes it's a job, or a house, possibly an exotic trip.  Still others it could simply be obtaining a ticket to an event.  Tuesday night such an opportunity came my way to see New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman speak at the beautiful Powell Symphony Hall.  It was a very gracious gesture from my friend Erin to pass her ticket on to me when she was no longer able to go.  Seeing as how Thomas Friedman is the one columnist I must read bi-(or tri, depending) weekly, and how his book, The World is Flat forever changed my expectations in non-fiction literature, research publications, and journalistic articles...well, I gladly took the ticket.

After a lovely early evening walk around the St. Louis Hills neighborhood, myself and I jaunted to Grand Center with pen and paper in hand.  I was more than happy to see the theater packed.  It was strangely comforting to be amongst other, albeit middle-aged or older, nerds.  While the Speaker Series brings in some of the most respected and honorable figures in the world, Mr. Friedman was a real treat.  For one, most writers are not speakers.  So if one happens to be, you know they must be darn good.  His charisma is exactly what such issues as sustainability, American innovation, and foreign diplomacy need to be efficiently enforced in the minds of citizens everywhere.

As the old saying goes, "you learn something new everyday."  My year and then some were covered with last night's lecture.  To expand on some of the more important points made would, in my mind, demean his finesse on the topics.  However, a couple of ideas that really came across were:

• Sustainable Values vs. Situational Values
• Uncertainty is why we act
• For a revolution to become what it is something(s) must die.  So how are we in a "Green Revolution?"
• Treating future as a choice, not fate.
• We have enough time starting now.
• B(uild)A(bsolutely)N(othing)A(nywhere)N(ear)A(nything).  Let's absolutely not head in this direction.

Fortunately you can read an abridged version of this lecture, which just so happened to be his column today, Who's Up for Building Bridges?  Of course you could also pick up one of his books.  I for one cannot wait to dig in to Hot, Flat, and Crowded (which my dear Mother picked up for me today) during my upcoming trip.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea on a Tuesday night, but do yourself a favor.  Allow yourself the opportunity to read a sampling of his work and learn a thing or two.

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.  So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."--Thomas Friedman from The World is Flat

The Future is Ready to Arrive

This first full week of the New Year was marked by a lot of expectation. The stocks opened with a boom on Monday, retail sales have hit a two-year high, and the CES brought out the latest and greatest to be hitting the shelves. For those non-techy "lamewads" out there, the CES is the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas. Such gadgets as tablets and 3D televisions are on exhibition causing great hype among pin stripe suiters and trekkies alike. While the United States and the rest of the world are still trying to overcome the giant obstacles of the economy and terrorism (among many others,) signs of "bigger," "better," and "stronger" are looming just around the corner. It's quite easy to see looking at such innovations on display at the CES and even in other industries such as fashion, media, and automotive. That's because the backbone of every innovative product or idea is imagination. As long as you still have enough people letting their imagination run wild, stories are made, characters join in, and scenes are set.

Here are just a few examples of what we have to look forward to thanks to some daring people...

Plastic wear? These sleek shoes from Melissa Plastic Dreams add some flair to traditional footwear. The best part? After enough wear and tear they're completely recyclable. [Can frequently be found at Ziezo in St. Louis.]

From the movie "Avatar," to the new 3D television from Toshiba, to the recently announced ESPN 3D network, it looks like visual concept is trending right before our eyes.

The Honda Fit is ergonomic, GPS capable, fuel efficient. and comes with USB interface. Sounds like nothing new. That is until you add the caviat that it's also very budget friendly.

The Four R's

These days it's all about the 3 R's: reducing, reusing, and recycling. Back when I was just a wee kid though it was all about the 3 B's: bigger, better, and brand-new. Everyone had the new suburban home complete with the latest gas guzzler, and fresh off-the-press newspaper at their doorstop. How things change. Now these suburban homes are having trouble selling for less than their purchase price, the lower the mileage the more luxurious the car, and very few out there can remember the aromatic blend of carbon, ink, and coffee in the morning. The trend now is to head for the bright lights and big cities. That's the statement I had planned on making after graduation along with most of my friends anyway. Of course that was until one of the worst job markets in our nation's history emerged, and forced us to take whatever we could get, even if it was at home.
The most interesting thing I have found about being back home in St. Louis is that it's actually not so different from where I wanted to be in the big bustling city of Chicago. Not if you look past appearance and statistics that is. St. Louis has some of the nation's best architecture, a ranging taste palate of restaurants, always emerging style, and most importantly culture, a characteristic that cannot ever be clearly defined. Still though, with a heap of vacant buildings sitting where neon lights could shine, people leave in search of cities where these fixtures have already been placed.

Like I said before, when I was younger things were different. Including Downtown St. Louis, where I used to visit my Dad every now and then at work at a very dilapidated factory building in a high crime and impoverished area. A few years later someone got the crazy idea to turn that same building into the city's first residential lofts (The Alexander Lofts). That development had a domino effect all the way down Locust St., around the bend to Washington Ave., up and down Lucas, as well as some neighboring blocks this way and that. It is now the city's most trendy and attractive area, and is a wonderful reflection of modern urbanism. The point is, big cities such as Chicago and New York hold within them a wealth of possibilities and that oh-so popular "culture." Cities like St. Louis also hold, albeit a different kind, a wealth of possibilities. You just need to keep in mind the 4 R's: reduce, reuse, recylce, recreate.

*Photos: Top right: Alexander Lofts; middle: St. Louis MetroLink; bottom left: Old Post Office Plaza; bottom right: Grand Center

Virtual Insanity

If you haven't figured out by now, the buzzword these days is "networking." In the past couple of years so many web sites and technological advances have come around that it is impossible for us not to be contacted, unless we don't want to be. And let's face it, who doesn't want to be?

The truth is some of us might not want to be as connected as we are, but the only thing we ever hear about is how many friends people have and contacts they have made. No one wants to be the person who doesn't have friends, so we join these social networking sites. I realized Monday that I may now be too connected for my own good when I joined the increasingly popular networking site "Twitter." Personally, I felt the concept was a little mundane, but I was assured by many "Tweeters" that it most definitely was not. So on Monday night I joined and let who ever wanted to know that I was watching Sex and the City before going to bed. If that's not mundane then I don't know what is.

Like a sign from the online social networking gods though, I was confronted with a New York Times story about Twitter first thing Tuesday morning: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14twitter).
What I didn't realize is that Twitter can change the world as we know it. In a definite, serious, and possibly needed way. The whole essence behind Twitter is simplicity and convenience. Just letting the world know where you are, what you are doing, or what you are thinking in 140 characters or less. You don't have to actually give any personal information away, and following people can be either a two-way or one-way stream of communication, which is why so many celebrities have taken to the site. Many companies are also on the site, which is how Twitter is capable of changing the world. Companies can use the site as a quick, efficient, and free means of marketing research. They can also share with their followers, developments in their organization.

Of course, since everything in life is a point/counterpoint situation, later on in the evening I found an article that reminded me of why I didn't want to join Twitter in the first place:
(http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/04/14/twitter.study/index.html?eref=rss_latest).
It explains the dangers of immorality and narcissism with such free range and ease of opinion and information sharing. Currently I am a member of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and then there's the whole world of Google that I don't even want to go into. When I think back to why I joined any of these sites I would like to think it started with wanting to keep in better contact with friends while off at college (Facebook), which lead to gathering and sharing information (Google), and has now progressed with making myself marketable as a result of all of these people and information (LinkedIn).

In my littled red book that actually gives me most of my answers and guidance in life, "Simply Mom" by Pamela Folli Scholl, there was an excerpt on her conception of networking. She says this of the subject:

Get to know lots of different people and remember their stories.
You never know when someone might benefit from the information you have gathered.
Share information and contacts. The value of networking simply cannot be measured. You may say it's priceless.

The wonderful thing about all of these sites is that they are priceless, free of cost. Yes, it is a scary thing to hand the world absolute freedom of speech. However, if we are not able to decipher between morality, values, and ethics from harmful extremities then it is probably time to close your web browser and actually step out into this world that everyone is "tweeting" about.

The Day I Had Hoped Would Never Come

Unlike the average student, I don't normally block out topics of discussion intentionally. I find that even if I may not have much to offer to the conversation, I could still learn something especially since it's important enough to be brought up by an academic. When it comes to the newspaper industry, however, I unfortunately know too well of the cold hard facts, and so choose to refrain from discussion on it. Mostly it's because I know I am too much of an idealist and optimist on the topic. I would only be lying and fishing around aimlessly for reasons why the industry could stay afloat. The most cold and hard fact I know on this subject is simply this: very few people have a need or desire for print news.

While I knew the day was coming at a fast pace, it still didn't make it any easier for me to read the headlines everywhere proclaiming "Seattle Post-Intelligencer to Print Last Newspaper." The newspaper is moving solely to an online edition. Now, true the Post-Intelligencer is not Seattle's primary newspaper (that would be the Seattle Times). It's a domino effect though that starts with the smaller papers. I have seen the signs in my own city's newspaper The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper used to arrive in a large bundle that had the essential News, Metro, Business, Sports, and Entertainment sections along with other additional sections depending on the day of the week. Now you only get the bread and butter.

I realize that the newspaper industry has taken one of the biggest hits in this recessive economy, and they unfortunately had to make cuts somewhere. Long before this global struggle though, newspapers had been fighting one of their very own. Readership and subscription sales were down even in a healthy and at time, prosperous economy. The internet and its accessibility on such devices as the Blackberry, gave way to a new form of getting the news. I don't mean just electronically. The news started coming in short, get-to-the point formatting. A headline, a couple of facts, and possibly a quote thrown in now constitute as an article. For many people, it's apparently all they can handle too. Five minutes is much too long to read about breakthroughs in cancer research or the intense conflicts in Darfur, but God forbid most of us give up the half hour we spend watching E! News Daily.

While I admit, most of the news I receive now comes from my New York Times homepage, or CNN Headline News, I will most gladly spend a decent part of my morning with an actual newspaper. There is no denying the greater impact an actual physical interaction with a newspaper has on the mind. It is like anything else in life. If it is right there for you to feel, see, and spend time with in a personal situation, it's going to be more impressionable to you.

I know I better start getting used to these announcements as they are going to become more frequent. However, I dread the day when I won't even have the choice between the paper and my laptop. What I most worry about is the breakfast table. Gone will be the days of kids fighting for the comics, dads grumbling about the sports columnist, and moms frantically scanning every section for the best sales in town. Maybe since I've been in college I'm not aware that these breakfast tables don't exist anymore anyway. They should though, because while that may not be anyone's idea of a great way to start off their day, I can't imagine anything worse for the morning than listening to four different YouTube videos and iTunes libraries while getting the day's headlines. That is unless Barney came back to morning television.

News of the Old

Two funny images were shown while I was watching my daily dose of CNN today. Now there's something you probably don't say too often. Yet today I found myself in the unlikely position of actually not yelling and rolling my eyes at the big bold headlines and color commentators, but being pleased. This came just one hour after blasting the mass media for always putting a different spin about what is actually said to the press, and many times rewording in a negative connotation what the broadcasters themselves say. Most of my frustrations with the media are directed towards their portrayal and constant negative reenforcement of the dismal economy. I realize its bad, anyone enrolled in upper level education knows its bad, and now even the pre-schoolers who watch Sesame Street know it's bad (seriously it has been addressed by Big Bird and his posse). You don't have to be a slick business person to know the lows and even lowers right now because it is being streamed to us at a rapid succession. I appreciate being informed more than most, but there comes a point when you are over-informed. Right now, I feel, we are so over-informed that we are paralyzed. Paralyzed to buy and paralyzed to invest [in any form of capital].

Imagine my excitement then when the Dow ticker would actually disappear when the market hit below 30 points. It would reappear in the right hand corner every time the market would rally a bit. I felt myself watching it as I do the the Colts score, just willing the screen to advance my team more points. The most exciting thing is though, finally the media was rooting for my team. They were actually not enforcing the bad news. Small as it may be, I do realize what strength it must have took for those CNN technical producers to actually not just leave that ticker up all day with no regard. It probably took just as much strength as it did for the second funny image CNN projected, which was of President Obama a male among literally an entire room of females. Today the President signed an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. For someone, and a female someone at that, who has never taken too much of a stand on women's rights one way or another, it was actually a profound image. You just don't see one man with so much power stand completely swarmed with women and giving them more power. Well, other than Richard Simmons. That's a whole other issue though. As stated, a profound and yet funny image.

So today was a day when we were not completely bombarded with bad news. It was actually quite peaceful and gave way for me to be a little more ambitious with my ongoing projects (that of job searching). Not to worry though I am not a complete idealist, and it doesn't take that long in conversation with me to realize that fact. The complexities of what is currently going on in our country I can only grasp, but not explain. Thankfully wiser people than I walk this Earth. I think we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief for that. One of these people is New York Times write, Thomas Friedman. He is also the author of one of my favorite books The World is Flat . Unfortunately not enough people my age have read this book or his column, nor probably have even heard of him. Possibly not that many people in general have. More people should though and they should start by ready this column in particular: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/opinion/11friedman.html
It doesn't bombard anyone too much, or attack a certain group more than another, and it's not even completely negative. It just puts things into an accurate perspective. That's how the news should be presented too. It should help an audience to think in the right frame of mind. After all 99.9% of Americans aren't entertained by this stuff nearly as much as I apparently am.