The King of Winnipeg

Non-Ironic Wolf Shirt, Burton Cummings

Self-Drive Cars [Near Future Prediction]

Listening to 16 episodes of the Four Cast Podcast has gotten me into a prediction mood. Here’s my first prediction:

With an increasing array of dashboard distractions at driver’s disposal, there will be a statistically small but noticeable increase traffic accidents and fatalities in urban centers.
Exhibit A) Studies are starting to emerge showing that anti-cellphone-talking laws have no impact on crash data.
Exhibit B) Just last month nation media made a big deal about 14 pedestrian deaths in Toronto, in the span of a few weeks.

Whether this is a statistically relevant number, I predict that the media will continue covering this sort of thing. Traffic safety will become a major issue. People may even begin to recognize that it has become difficult to drive will so many distractions, but by-and-large people will see this distractions as a necessary evil.

This will set the stage for the self-drive car. Based on the media’s (car-company backed) influence, the general public will see the self-drive car as the cure for the growing pandemic of traffic carnage – among other things. Depending on how bad it gets, manufacturers may even be granted some leeway to tweak the self-drive software, people might say things like “it’s not the drivers fault granny got hit, he had a blue screen of death.”

iPhone OS 4.0 Predictions

Apple have borrowed one or two ideas from the jailbreaking community in the past – the app icon rearranging functionality comes to mind, I’m sure there are others. I think many of the new features we’ll see in iPhone OS 4.0 will be based on functionality added by the community.

Don’t have time to fully explore these ideas in a blog post this morning, but here’s a breakdown of my ideas/wishlist. In order of probability.

• Background processes
  • Not much of a hit to battery or CPU performance with simple apps like twitter or IM clients. Apple could tweak the OS to handle background processes even better.
  • All new smartphones have this ability. iPhone needs it to stay competitive.
• Themes
  • New source of revenue
  • Could be what the paint splotches on the invite are alluding to
  • Only reason not to do it would be inconsistent UI. But, with themes officially supported Apple could apply their stringent review process.
• Lockscreen
  • The lockscreen functionality is really cool.
  • Current jailbroken functionality doesn’t seem fully baked. I think Apple could make major improvements.
  • A dashboard widget type interface would seem to make sense.

// end stream of consciousness.

Where’s The Caffeine?

The most popular post on my blog to date is 5 Reasons Tim Hortons Sucks. In the post, I mentioned how terrible Tim Hortons coffee tastes. I failed to consider the actual caffeine levels of Tim Hortons.

I did some digging around and calculating, Tim Hortons coffee has an average of 0.36mg/ml of caffeine.

On the other hand, Starbucks drip coffee has approximately 0.70mg/ml, almost twice as much!

No wonder an “X-Large” cup of “Timmies” never keeps me awake.

Ps. I did not want to make this a Tim Hortons vs Starbucks issue, but McDonalds (Tim Hortons’ only real competition in Canada) does not post their caffeine content online. Home brewed coffee varies depending on your personal preference.

—
Sources:
http://www.timhortons.com/ca/pdf/caffeine-canada-en.pdf

http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_beverage_detail.asp?selProducts={CE5B1860-C0CF-434A-864E-604185E56724}&x=35&y=13&strAction=GETDEFAULT

Top 3 Podcasts of 2009

I love podcasts. In 2009 I probably listened to more hours of podcasts than music. Here are my top 3 podcasts of the year. As with my Top 3 Board Games of 2009 these are not necessarily podcasts that launched in 2009, instead they are podcasts I really got into for the first time in 2009.

1. Car Talk

Car Talk has been on NPR for 33 years. It has been podcast for 3. The hosts, Click and Clack even made a cameo in Pixar’s Cars as Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze. I am probably one of the last people on earth to have heard the show. I’m not too sure how to explain my fascination with the show.  If you’ve ever owned a car, or ridden it one, I highly recommend this show.

Wikipedia
Official Site
iTunes Link

2. The 404

As a die-hard Buzz Out Loud listener I was initially turned off when they hijacked the BOL feed at CES 2009 (or was it ‘08?). I didn’t give them a chance for quite some time. Once I gave them a chance I quickly grew to love their brand of humor. If you’re of BOL or anything on the TWiT Network, definitely give these guys a listen.

Official Site
iTunes Link

3. AppSlappy

Scott Johnson w/co-host Eric take about iPhone apps news and reviews. It’s basically the same tried and true formula used on The Instance: a little bit of news, some  rumours and scuttlebutt, a few reviews and user feedback. Makes for a great and informative show.

Official Site
iTunes Link

Honourable Mentions: Everything else from Frogpants Studios – Scott Johnson is the new Leo Laporte; The Movielicious; Hype Machine Radio

Most Irrelevant Podcast of 2009: The Dawn & Drew show. I know they’re pioneers and I used to be a big fan. But it just became too much of the same boring 90s psuedo-hippie BS. 2009 is the year I finally unsubscribed for good.