Pedal to the metal…

Toyota has recalled 2.3 million vehicles for a problem reported, as close as I can gather, in somewhere around 12 actual cars and trucks. That’s a problem reported in .00005% of the eight vehicle types impacted by the recall; or one in every 191,667. The problem, according to reports, is that the accelerator is “sticky” and people may go faster than they intended to. Of course I’m not making light of this terrible, terrible situation, but as best I can recall, my Tundra already comes with a component that compensates for unwanted acceleration… it’s the brake pedal… That’s hooked to the very large disk brakes, that can drag my very large truck to a stop in short order from even speeds in excess of those posted for highway traffic.

I’m only going to say this once: A car or truck is a machine. Machines are, from time to time, prone to breakdown or the need for maintenance. The fact that these requirements come up occasionally does not constitute a “crisis” nor does it signal the impending collapse of a major manufacturer. It does, however, remind me that the media loves a good story more than any three people I know and that whipping the motoring public into a frenzy about Toyota’s Accelerator Pedal of Doom or Floor Mat of Chaos generates interest, fills column-inches and air minutes, and more importantly, increases revenue. How ‘bout we all start reading, watching, and critiquing the news of the day with a critical eye, kay? Yeah, that would be helpful.

Fanboy...

I’m hopelessly addicted to all things new and shiny… Gadgets make me happy in a way most people will never fully understand. That I’ve switched my allegiance to the bright and shiny products developed by Apple for my computing and telecommunications needs is letting me develop a personal pool of electronic gadgets that is becoming more and more tightly integrated. My phone talks to my laptop talks to the cloud… If satellite phone service ever gets to a point of being almost reasonable on price, I’d have nearly 24/7/365 tie-in to the grid. I get a warm fuzzy by being able to reach out at any time from any place… Ironic, I know, for someone who doesn’t have all that much use for people. But where I don’t know much about people, I do know that I like having access to the data that populates the web. While maybe not the sum total of human knowledge, it’s getting damnedably close to the sum total of human knowledge that most of us will ever need to know. The more data that I have available at any given time, the more I like it.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to hear an announcement out of San Francisco that will add one more layer to connectivity. Apple’s iPad, iSlate, iWhatever should fill the gap between where it’s inappropriate to have a cell phone out and about and where a laptop could be considered overkill. I’m thinking here about 2-3 day road trips, a bevy of staff and project meetings, and all manner of places around the house and the office. I’m thinking here of something that could reasonably replace the pens and legal pads that I tote from meeting to meeting and from city to city… One more link in the chain of perpetual connectivity tied to the cloud by 3G and WiFi.

I’ve been a slobbering fool for technology long enough to know that many “game changers” aren’t… But my last two years with Apple have taught me to expect the unexpected and that sometimes game changers are exactly that. I know some will argue that other companies have done it first, but they would be hard pressed to argue that any previous attempt at a true tablet is as elegant in form or as integrated with a hardware family as whatever Apple rolls out tomorrow. I’m planning to be all geeked out and tuned in to the real-time tech bloggers tomorrow afternoon at 12:00 CST as Steve throws down the gauntlet one more time. This ought to be sweet.

You know what causes that, right?

I’ve been trolling around the internet for the last few minutes and was struck by an article stating that the global population will reach 7 billion in about two years. That’s seven billion, with a “B.” It seems to me that the general consensus is that, really, the planet was basically full two or so billion people ago. If you really want to do something to save the planet, slow down with the procreating. Seriously, you know what causes that, right? I’m looking at you here third world. Yeah. I’m telling you to lay off the scrumping until you have the infrastructure and food to manage more people wandering around your countries looking for work or food or magic beans or whatever it is people look for in your country.

And just in case you think this is only going to be a rant about the poor developing nations, let me put my right wing friends on notice too: I’m not letting you off the hook for this. If you want foreign aid that might help some of these countries that are being overwhelmed by poverty and disease and generally being the ones most responsible for adding to the world’s population, tell your member of Congress that you’re in favor of packing up a few pallets of condoms and sending them overseas. In terms that we understand best, the bottom line is that there are a finite number of resources to go around. The more people there are on the planet, the smaller the sliver of the pie will be for all of us… So lets do our patriotic duty and get on board with some social engineering!

Come on, surely I’m not the only one out of slightly less than 7 billion who thinks exponentially larger populations are a bad idea.

Panic...

For those in my age range and younger, we’ve been living with the 24-hour news cycle all of our adult live. Those born after the launch of CNN know nothing else. That’s why I’m amazed at the buzz surrounding this “new and dangerous” strain of the flu virus. The regular old standard issue flu kills thousands of people directly and indirectly in the US every year. So far, this version has killed the astronomical figure of exactly 1 person here in the States.

I’m not saying that taking precautions like washing your hands and covering your nose when you sneeze is a bad idea… but it’s also common sense stuff that we should all be doing anyway. So before the Homeland Security threat level gets increased to Mayhem and Panic, take some time and think about all that ways that we’re all more likely to be killed than by the swine flu. Yeah, that should make us all feel better.