The Easter Sunday Sierra el Mayor Earthquake in Mexico gave UC Santa Barbara seismologists an opportunity to gather earthquake data close to home. Dr. Sandra Seale, project specialist at UCSB’s Institute of Crustal Studies was on Intents & Purposes this morning to talk with Tim and me about the mechanics of these major ground shakers and what we can expect from our seismic future. Listen to the podcast.
With the corporate board approval of the United and Continental airline merger the two companies launched a new Web site to promote the idea of creating the world’s largest airline. For those of us in cities serviced by both airlines this might ultimately mean that there are fewer flight times and fares for our destinations, however that remains to be seen. What is known is that if the merger is approved, the unified airline will be known (appropriately) as United but will bear the Continental globe logo and font. Is it just me or does this look like an alternate reality from a Hot Tub Time Machine malfunction? This livery design is not an upgrade. The serif font and 1980′s AT&T-like logo is a side-grade from Continental’s current look and a downgrade from United’s relatively new branding.
I read the now (in)famous Steve Jobs “Open Letter to Adobe Flash” last week. Jobs did an excellent job explaining his position. I agree that the insecure and proprietary system that seemed poised to dominate the web 8 years ago was misguided. The best sites on the Web don’t rely heavily on Flash (except for maybe YouTube, which may soon adopt HTML 5 video tags) and most of us browsers are sent searching for the “skip intro” button as soon as we see some lengthy splash page animation. Madison Avenue has finally come to realize that Flash frustrates and have dialed it back. That and the push for compatibility with mobile devices has stemmed some of Flash’s growth.
However, I find it ironic for Steve Jobs to compare Flash’s proprietary model to that of the iPhone/iPad, yet go on to say that being proprietary is ok for us (Apple) but not for them (Adobe). His crusade against Flash, while it has some merit, seems more like corporate bullying. These are the same or similar tactics that Bill Gate’s tried early on in the browser wars of the last decade in a format held over from before the PC (see Gate’s Open Letter to Hobbyists which attacked open source before the term “open source” existed).
While I don’t agree with what I believe to be Job’s mostly self-serving motivations, I am happy to see the creative ways that hackers and coders have make other technologies work for them in place of Flash. On the Full Channel site that I maintain we have had a Flash slideshow on the main page for some time. It has been an easy way to keep the site fresh and visually interesting, something we would not have been able to easily do without Flash just a few years ago. However, our slideshow began showing up as a mystery box on more and more devices that did not support Flash.
With the release of the iPad and the ever-increasing sight of passersby engrossed in their iPhones it seemed that this Flash-disabled audience was reaching critical mass. So, today I retired the site’s increasing incompatible .swf slideshow in favor of Jon Raasch’s very simple and elegant jQuery Slideshow. I like that jQuery’s motto is “write less do more.” jQuery is a lighter duty alternative to memory-intensive Flash and it works on many mobile devices including Apple’s. That and I feel a special kinship with Raasch as he too must also be spending a lifetime explaining that in fact there are two “A’s” in his last name.
This dual may not be over between Apple and Adobe. The fervor over Job’s letter is just beginning.
For more on this: Ars Technica has a nice piece today arguing that “Apple is presenting users with a false choice between Adobe’s proprietary software and Apple’s walled garden.”
Dr. Erkki Ruoslahti, distinguished professor and founding member of the UC Santa Barbara-Sanford|Burnham Center, was in the studio this morning to share with us the details of his group’s very exciting breakthrough in cancer treatment. His team may have unlocked an important door in the treatment of cancerous tumors with the discovery of an amino acid compound called iRGD. iRGD helps existing cancer-fighting chemotherapy drugs penetrate deep into malignant tumors, while leaving the surrounding healthy tissue untouched and patients potentially without side-effects. Listen to the podcast.
A performance by some of my students in The Anacapa School Band on Santa Barbara Channels cable 17 Teen Network News
Cecilia Rodriguez, the executive director of Child Abuse Listening and Mediation (CALM) in Santa Barbara talked with Tim and me this morning on KCSB 91.9 FM as part of her efforts to raise awareness during National Child Abuse Prevention month in April. CALM was started in 1969 by a nurse in Santa Barbara who ordered a second phone line and began taking calls from parents in need. Today CALM has grown immensely. From 2008 to 2009 the organization served more than 1,300 clients in Santa Barbara County, providing 12,156 hours of treatment. Listen to the podcast of our conversation.
We had a really cool show this morning on KCSB. We were joined in Studio A by Capoeiristas Rafael Hernandez and Vika Hernandez of the UC Santa Barbara campus group Rhythms of Brazil which practices the centuries old Afro-Brazilian tradition of Capoeira. It combines elements of martial arts, music, and dance. Check out the podcast.
I have enjoyed the stories, antics and brilliance of Dr. Richard Feynman since first reading “Surly You’re Joking Mr. Feynman” years ago. Feynman rose to prominence during the Manhattan Project, received a Nobel Prize in Physics for theories I will have to wait for another life to understand and nearly single-handedly discovered the cause of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger accident. He is perhaps one of the most accomplished and equally well-known modern scientists. His reputation is due in part to his jovial attitude and ability to make complex theory accessible to the masses through his lectures given undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
That being said, I am in Pasadena this week for The California STEM Innovation Network Summit which is being hosted by Caltech. I thought that I should check out the book store here in hopes of finding a memento of my visit to Feynman’s campus. I eventually found, after some fumbling, searching online and circling campus in my car, the illustrious (or rather elusive) Caltech bookstore (picture on the left in a photo from Wikipedia as I didn’t bring my camera). I was surprised to find that the store contained little else than these few Feynman books and some “Caltech Dad” XXL T-shirts on a sale rack. The entire remaining “book department” was bare-shelved and empty and the adjacent computer store was a ghost town. I did found a couple Feynman books on this shelf that I hadn’t read, a Caltech logo hoodie on a back hanger behind a XXS Jet Propulsion Laboratory sweater and at the checkout counter I picked up the prank MIT newspaper that Caltech students distributed at MIT’s 2007 Campus Preview Weekend. While it wasn’t the shrine to Feynman that imagined it was a beautiful sunny campus.
My dog Bella is a rescue from D.A.W.G., a shelter in Santa Barbara. She was found pregnant on the beach here one year ago, and gave birth to eight puppies at D.A.W.G. before she came to live with us. One of the owners of the puppies organized a family reunion on Easter Sunday (which also happens to the one year anniversary of the puppies’ births). See the photo gallery for more shots from Hendry’s Beach today.
Public education in the U.S. is going through a crisis: Here in California the controversial High School Exit exam has been accused of disadvantaging females and minorities. Dr. Beth Yeager, director of the Center for Literacy & Inquiry in Networking Communities at UC Santa Barbara and Stephanie Couch director of the K-20 California Educational Technology Collaborative were in the studio with us on March 8, 2010 to record this interview which aired this morning. We discussed the Stepping Into Your Future program which aims to bridge this achievement gap. Listen to the podcast.
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