A Bridge not too high or too far

While traveling to the beaches of North Carolina last week, we took a route from Uniontown through Maryland on the way to West Virginia, and so on.   Google maps and the iPhone and the Garmin navigation unit all had different opinions on the quickest route (well, the navi wanted us to go to the beltway in DC - not likely).   So, as we plotted an alternate route along the national road (Route 40), we were advised by the navigation unit to veer right down a rather steep but short hill.  And there we ended up looking at some unexpected history - and the history of commerce.

 

The Potomac River is but a stream in this part of Maryland.   Following along the same path as the nearly 200 year old C and O canal.  






 



But the history goes ever further back.  This was a very early waypoint to the "frontier" of what would become southwest Pennsylvania.  George Washington passed through the area many times, starting years before his expeditions further north in what would later become the start of the French-Indian War.



After passing through this place that Washington forded so many years ago, we went on to pay the only tolls of the entire trip.

Built in 1937, a privately owned, toll bridge. It has even been in the news, lately.

It is single lane.

It is safe.

Rated for something like 16,000 lbs.

Wooden boards.

Low - and prone to flooding.

You must wait your turn.

No guard rail.

To pay to go across is 50 cents.


Adjacent to a national park service site, and featured on hiking trails.

Sometimes you plan on adventures.  Sometimes they appear when you least expect them.


Sometimes, they cost 50 cents.

What a difference five years makes

More changes are coming in the online space, but this is a good indication of how where you stand is not where you are going.


Today, a story about the shift the past 5 years toward mobile and iOS (iPhone/iPad, etc) devices. The media site Talking Points Memo has put up the statistics on who looks at their content and from what kind of operating system. Windows has dropped a lot. Mobile devices are booming.


And 3/4 of mobile "views" are on iOS (apple-ish) devices.

Putting it all together:
"So give or take, around 40% of the visits to TPM come from computers or devices that use an operating system built by Apple. Compare that to 20% only 5 years ago."

As I recall, 5 years ago, I had a Palm TREO, which I thought was quite the device. Today, an iPhone 4s, which is a remarkable phone and computer that is also made of beautiful but very slippery glass. I still own a powerful Windows computer which I hardly fire up at all any more.

Anecdote is not data, but things are changing. Thing is, they always have been changing. The next five years will have a new story, to be sure.

Believe in Spring - Thanks, Steve Jobs

On my facebook page (and on twitter) on August 25, 2011, I posted a special NPR story and marvelous video of the 2005 Reed College Commencement address from a very nice Bob Boilen blog about Steve Jobs.  It was the week of the announcement of Steve Jobs' retirement from Apple, and Bob Boilen, who chronicles interesting music for NPR, was taking special note of how Jobs had changed the way that we listen to music.

Steve Jobs was born not too many years before me and his perspectives on life, challenges and living are valuable to me.  His vision and persistence (even if wrong or "right" too early), too.

The Reed College Commencement speech at Stanford is a wise investment of 15 minutes.



When I got the news of Steve Jobs passing tonight (Ocober 5, 2011) I sent a message to my eldest son (who works for Apple), later we chatted.  When the call was over, up fades my audio on my iPhone.  I hear the last bit of a "THIS WEEK IN TECH" podcast....  

up next in queue in my iphone/ipod, Bill Evans/Tony Bennett:

When lonely feelings chill the meadows of your mind,
just think, if winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Beneath the deepest snows, the secret of a rose
is merely that it knows you must believe in Spring!


Just as a tree is sure its leaves will reappear,
it knows its emptiness is just a time a year,
the frozen mountain dreams of April's melting streams,
how crystal clear it seems, you must believe in Spring!


You must believe in love and trust it's on its way,
just as the sleeping rose awaits the kiss of May,
so in a world of snow, of things that come and go,
where what you think you know, you can't be certain of,
you must believe in Spring and Love.

 YOU MUST BELIEVE IN SPRING  1968
     Lyrics by: Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman
     Music by: Michel LeGrand


Steve Jobs had ups and downs in his life, in his career, many springs in the cycle of seasons.   He made a difference, as we all can in our own way.

To change the way we listen, to encourage us to listen - and for so much more -

Thanks, Steve.

Happy Flag Day

For some reason, flag day has about 87 occurrences on my iPhone today. There is some conflict with iCal, Mobile me (don't get me started) and things that go back to my Palm Treo and maybe even the Palm Tungsten T3...

But with all of those "Flag Day" flags, I nearly let the day go without noting it.

To that end, I turn to the Downtown Detroit Hudson's department store of my youth. It was the a guaranteed visit for Mom and me. We went every Thursday after getting parts at Westinghouse for my Dad's business (at least before I was old enough for school). The Mickey Mouse Sundae with the meringue shell collar and the chocolate wafer cookies was a winner. The televisions in that store were where we learned that JFK had been shot.

And Flag Day? Hudson's had that covered.

A day to salute the symbol of our national aspirations.

Happy Flag Day!

The balance between silicon and carbon

This past month or so has been really busy.

The future of my workplace has been in flux

My parents' health, a concern

And in the midst of it all, I witnessed an amazing confluence of things digital (silicon) and living (carbon).

About halfway through the May pledge drive for my station, WDUQ, Pittsburgh (a very important pledge drive), my father suffered a heart attack at his home in Ann Arbor. His neighbors leaped in to help and got him to the hospital, for which I am immensely grateful. Good neighbors are a wonderful thing.

Tuesday, May 26, I had put in a very long day at work and headed home for a hoped for 4 hours of sleep. Instead, it was off to Ann Arbor.

My Dad was not in immediate danger and resting. Wednesday was a day of tests and waiting. And waiting. And waiting. The news was that my father was going to need aortic valve replacement surgery and some heart bypass work. But as we were coming up on the Memorial Day weekend, probably not until the Tuesday of the next week.


Digital Guests

A couple of years ago, as my visits to my parents increased, I had installed wireless DSL at the house. Last year, I upgraded from my old Palm Treo to an iPhone 3GS.

Oh - and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor has free Wifi.

All this plays into how I was able to be a part of the ongoing dynamic of a very important WDUQ pledge drive while 280 miles away tending to very important family business.


Almost Live

While I was with my father and often waiting, the outstanding staff and volunteers of WDUQ continued to do a great job in gaining listener support for this important one-week membership campaign.

Having wireless at my father's house and the hospital and an iPhone in my pocket, I was able to listen in to the pledge drive from Ann Arbor when I had a moment. Remote computer viewing software allowed me to see the impressive progress toward (and past) on-air fundraising goals. But being 280 miles away, while I could observe and call and e-mail back to Pittsburgh, I couldn't be in the drive.

If you ever listen to WDUQ pledge drives, you may notice that they are the one time you hear me, Scott Hanley, on the radio a lot. I used to be a journalist, a producer, am an occasionally a disc jockey. But my real job is mostly making sure that other broadcasters are given the resources, tools and time to do their work as journalists, producers and disc jockeys.

During a pledge drive, you might hear me make extemporaneous "pitches" about anything from the history of WDUQ and public radio, to my time as a member of the NPR board, the importance of independent journalism and more. Mostly, those little spoken "essays" happen as they happen. Occasionally, there are some that get recorded and played at times when I might not be there. But they are most often "in the moment," suitable for a particular instant of the pledge drive or related to timely events of the day.

With me being in Ann Arbor, WDUQ staff could play my messages that were recorded earlier, but serendipitous statements couldn't be. I wasn't there.

There are things that only the General Manager can say - and the message changes over the drive.

And I was waiting. A lot.


Waiting Room

Wednesday, my first full night in Ann Arbor, I pondered what to do from my father's quiet livingroom. With the newish iPhone, I had become impressed with the voice memo application and the microphone implementation with it.

So, in that quiet livingroom, with a decent digital recorder (the iPhone) from my pocket, I gave it a try.

The quality is not as good as the ElectroVoice RE20's we rely on at WDUQ, but the timeliness of the message seemed to outweigh the loss of fidelity.

I used my laptop to send the file back to WDUQ and hoped they could make it work. WDUQ operates a high level digital audio system (ENCO DAD) which Helen Wigger and Chuck Leavens helped make sure the new almost live "spot" could be played on the air.

It worked (you can hear it, here). I was able to spend a lot of time with my Dad and still be a part of my Pittsburgh "family" of listeners and WDUQ staff and volunteers. When I could, I recorded a few messages (one aired within minutes of my recording it). Done on an iPhone and over the Internet.


Based on the surgeon's advice, I headed back to Pittsburgh late Thursday night for a super-quick visit to take care of a few things - and participate in the last hours of the pledge drive - before heading back to Michigan with reinforcements for the weekend.

With my Dad's condition evolving, I was leery of sharing this story. But even when he was in the hospital, he got a kick out of how I was able to be with him and also take care of important things with WDUQ.

Saturday morning of that Memorial Day weekend (not the next Tuesday), I was back in Ann Arbor as my Dad went in for his open heart surgery earlier than expected. Now, eight weeks later, he is home and recovering remarkably well.

My WDUQ family is waiting and looking toward the future - but the most successful May on-air campaign, ever, certainly makes for a better prognosis, too.

So, like I've written before, people matter more than technology. But technology can help with people and things you care about. And friends, neighbors, family and outstanding colleagues are really important.

Radio? It's in there

Just a quick observation on the September 9, 2009 announcement by Apple that the new iPod Nano will have an FM Radio tuner.

(A radio that can pause, it needs to be noted).

An FM radio has been a feature that iPod users have wanted for years. It is also a feature that is waiting for the iPhone.

Back when the 2009 version of the iPhone was released, the site ifixit did their "what's inside" look.





And the folks at phonewreck did an analysis of the logic board on the iphone.




If you look at the block diagram, the lower left hand part of the image, the chip marked "Wi-FI and Bluetooth Tranceiver" also happens to have an FM tuner built in. In the iPhone, on the logic board.

It's in there.

Now for those of us hoping for HD Radio in an iPhone or iPod the way it is in the new Zune, that may well come another day. But just 76 years after Edwin H. Armstrong invented FM, it's in an iPod. And the chip for it is in "the phone."