Mambo Taxi

Right to Repair is big news. Change is finally coming this July, and I'm sure more changes will follow.

This is a good podcast (and transcript!) interview with the founder of iFixit. I really want to see electronic repair shops everywhere, and a hell of a lot fewer electronics with only minor problems shipped off to to be broken down to base components!

First Person Podcast interviews the CEO of iFixit

"Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed the country’s first broad right to repair bill into law. What will that law change for me as an average consumer?

"The New York law says that starting in July of 2023, all new products have to have those fundamentals — service information, parts and tools available. So if a manufacturer has a repair network for a product — if Apple is running Genius Bar repairs, if Samsung has a repair network for their devices — then they have to make available that same parts, tools and information to the rest of us.

"The environmental impact of manufacturing the things that we have is significant. The phone that’s in your pocket, which weighs like eight ounces, took over 250 pounds of raw material dug out of the ground to make. If every American were to use their phone just a year longer, it would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road. And so to have a world that is disposable — like, you’re talking about literal mountains dug out of the ground every year just to keep up with our gadget habit.

"What if we could just save the world through sheer laziness? It is actually a lot of work to get a new phone and transfer your contacts and your apps over and everything else. If you could just — like, if you drop in a new battery in your current phone, it will feel like a new phone. So that’s my counter. It’s like, let’s spend our time doing other things rather than configuring new technology all the time.

"And so let me be clear, the right to repair does not mean that you have to fix all of your own stuff. It means that it should be possible for you to get it fixed somehow, whether you have a friend who is tech savvy or excited about opening things up and wants to do it, or if you want to take it down to a neighborhood repair shop. You think about — what is the nexus of a small town America? You have a gas station, you have a grocery store, and a car repair shop.

You should probably also have an electronics repair shop. So I think we have an opportunity to create the neighborhood that we want to live in. And so I would encourage people, whether you fix something yourself or not, think about spending a little bit more money on repairs and less on buying new things."

Check out the video for a new painting and sketching app for the iPhone/Touch. Very neat looking. It's got: infinite zoom (vector graphics), free rotation, a clever palette, and brushes that seem to work very much like real brushes (blending, washes, translucency.)

If I had an iPhone, I would be all over it, even though I, um, don't really draw; and not just because I know the author. Who happens to have an art studio in town AND a long history with writing software for artists. So I know the next version of Paintbook is going be even more sophisticated.

Anyhow, happy Monday!

A few cool things I've come across recently:

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http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/ -- finds you flickr photos matching your colour palette. Very pretty.

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For gmail users, there are some useful features available from a new "google labs" tab in gmail preferences. The two I am most happy with do simple things: move the Labels list to a column on the right-hand side; and add a Google Calendar Upcoming Events list to the left-hand side. There are other labs items, such as "canned responses" and "rotating footers".

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Finally: mind maps. I've used them as an organizational tool for quite some time.

They're great for brainstorming- the more I write, the more I think of, and arranging the thoughts spatially can add important structure that makes moving forward easier as well.

Just the other day, I came across a talk and screencast by the author of "Getting Things Done." He uses mind maps often in planning "the bigger picture" - his 20,000-foot view, life-goals and 5-year plans.

Watching his talk encouraged me to go back to a task I'd abandoned a while ago, to find a software mind-mapping tool I liked. (The last time, in '06, I gave up without finding something I'd use).

Jackpot, maybe. This is web-based, and amazingly, it seems to work well in some initial testing. There's a freebie version, which would probably suit me fine, though I might spring for the academic version ($15/yr). Go, check it out, let me know what you think. :)

http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/make-your-own-id/

Biometric fingerprint data's not as secure as you might hope. Not only can it be foiled by a gelatin cast of your finger, or even a digital photo of your fingerprint turned into a geletin cast of your finger, but apparently the numeric conversion of your finger's data, stored in the biometric database, or on your ID card, or what have you, can be translated back into your fingerprint according to a paper by mathematicians at MSU. Check that link for details- and a MythBusters episode where they make a gelatin fingerprint and go around foiling locks with it.

(As it happens, my cousin Simon is a sociologist who writes about the unreliability of forensic fingerprinting. It's a neat topic!)

Thanks to rhythmaning for pointing to the article and reminding me about Ben Goldacre's blog / Guardian column, bad_science. I used to read his column, back before RSS feeds. :)

Speaking of awful security, I can't imagine how angry I would be if my data (or my children's) were on those lost CDs in the UK post. Angry and scared, most likely.

Indeed, I wonder who's stupid enough to send around unencrypted CDs by the non-registerd postal service here in North America.