Today’s word: isthmus.

A narrow land bridge connecting two larger bodies of land.

I was thinking about my visit to Gibralter, if you must know.

Now I really do want a One Laptop Per Child laptop. From a product design point of view, this is exactly what I need. What a pity that it will probably be running Windows.

I have some issues with the first version of the OLPC operating system that I saw demonstrated at the Adaptive Path UX Week seminars in Washington DC last summer. My concerns are educational rather than practical, and I wish that the development team presenting there had been able to allay those concerns. Migrating the OS to Windows (or anything mainstream) is probably a safer bet for the long-term economic success of the kids using them.

From a MEX interview with Ken Blakeslee of WebMobility Ventures:

I often am in situations where I know the info I need is available, I just can’t get it [on the mobile device] – frustrating. But it keeps the voice traffic up! – “hi, are you near the computer right now? Great, can you check on the bla, bla, bla…?”

Isn’t it pathetic that this is still true, two years later?

Arutz Sheva reports:

New Zealand’s first kosher restaurant will open by the end of this year, according to the island-country’s Chabad Rabbi Mendy Goldstein. It is being built on the first floor of Chabad offices in the city of Christchurch.

I’m really happy to hear this news. Honestly.

Remembering the reticence of Chabad representatives to use the word “Santa” in my hometown of Santa Monica (known by the Lubavitcher hasidim as “S. Monica”, in company with S. Barbara and many other California towns boasting Chabad branches), is it disrespectful for me to wonder how they are coping with the name of this Chabad branch in New Zealand?

I would like to note that I’ve been the recipient of so much gracious hospitality, food and personal referrals from Chabad representatives in Orlando, Helsinki, Tokyo, Barcelona (where they spell it, endearingly, Jabad), Bangkok and other locations that my gratitude is endless (even if my path in Torah is not the same).

Incredible, but the above headline is for real. The true story is that there was an dynamite-type blast across the street from the hotel, which caused significant damage. (Perhaps easier to bear than the kind of explosion suggested by the headline, which had me laughing out loud.)

I love keeping up with medicine blogs, but rarely are they this amusing.

Where should the GPS navigation screen go in a car? Drivers put them in all kinds of places, trying to find a spot where they can see the screen quickly and easily, without blocking too much of the window. Mounting the display on the dash (near the radio controls, for example) takes the eyes too far from the road when viewing. Mounting it on the windshield creates forward blind spots.

Where “should” the display be? As a projection superimposed on the view in the windshield, seems to me. Especially if it could be quick enough to superimpose the information right onto your view of the real world in realtime.

Other random thoughts about in-car GPS devices:

Here’s a view of the dashboard of a Tokyo taxi:

Is there never a point at which one says “enough”? It sure looks as though there is way too much going on within the driver’s field of view. Worse, look at the GPS control:

Yeah, that’s a remote control you see there. A remote control for the dash-mounted GPS. Now is there enough going on for you? (If there isn’t, try sympathizing with the little cartoon character in the seatback ad just visible in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture. But I digress.)

In contrast, here’s a super low-tech taxi dash in Kyoto:

The messages appear to be printed onto pieces of paper and stuck into place.

Here’s one just for you nervous people out there:

The other day, the driver of the taxi I was in was playing solitaire on his windshield-mounted GPS. He mostly played while idling at traffic lights, but I did notice that the occasional move input while driving was also registered. (For you touch-screen usability obsessives — like me — note that it was a resistive touch layer, and he was pressing the cards using the earpiece of his sunglasses.) This did not inspire confidence.

What was the manufacturer thinking?

Today’s word: vibrissae

…the stiff, sensitive whiskers of a walrus.

[Did you know that the walrus is a pinniped (another great word)? And that Eskimos imitating walrus sounds have received responses from walruses up to a mile away? Silly me, I’ve been distracted by those tusks all these years, and never noticed how clever and charming walruses really are.]

OK, I’m exaggerating a little. But seriously, where are the MIDs (devices formerly known as UMPCs)?

I really need a device like a Nokia N810 tablet with a built-in cellular connection. Like an iPhone with a keyboard and applications. Like a BlackBerry with a big screen and a Nokia browser.

Since attending MWC in Barcelona last February (where my 5-star hotel didn’t have a safe for my laptop), my shoulder hasn’t been able to stand carrying my laptop for more than a couple of minutes at a time. For travel, I can stow the computer in a rolling carry-on bag, but when I am on the road all day and need to get email, get online, update and make a presentation, and maybe read and annotate documents, I need something smaller but nearly as capable.

Yes, I know there are some great eeePC and Vaio devices out there, but am I willing to abandon my favorite Mac productivity programs? Indeed not. (I’m less picky about the browser and email programs for occasional use.) What about MacBook Air, you ask? Yes, it weighs less, but it still has a large footprint, and would require me to carry my laptop-sized purse around. And a charger. I want something that fits in a normal purse.

What puzzles me is that I haven’t found the “right” device, even though so many come so close.

Where’s my dream device? [If you say Nokia Communicator series, you are automatically out.] Anybody listening out there?

One of my favorites! Follow the link and enjoy with a kid you love…

From Phil Baker’s Concept to Consumer blog.

“The manner in which Oliver attends is the way in which he loves,” observed a colleague, the neuropsychiatrist Jonathan Mueller. “The sustainedness of attention is what he does reverence with — and it’s what he gives to his patients.”

from a Wired article about neurologist Oliver Sacks.