One of the most useful (and free!) applications that I found for the iPhone is the Public Radio tuner. It aggregates the streaming audio from public radio stations from around the country into one, easy to use, interface. Most importantly, both of Hawaii’s stations are available to listen to on my daily bus commute to work.
With the iPhone, I’ve come to expect a 3G signal just like I expect clean air, clean water, and a dial tone. I pay my monthly bill and in return, I expect to have my internet connection wherever I go. I plug in my headset as I walk down to the bus stop and the latest news is delivered via the iPhone. I board the bus and and the experience seamlessly transfers to my city & county limousine. However, as I enter the urban core at the intersection of Kapiolani and Kaheka, my listening experience is suddenly and inexplicably shattered. Without fail, the stream is broken and I suffer sporadic coverage throughout the remaining 1 mile of my ride.
If I were in some outlying area or even in a concentration of tall buildings, I could understand this problem. However, this stretch of road runs through the commercial center of town. There are literally hundreds of businesses operating and thousands of employees working in this area. Hello AT&T, can you explain where my signal went? The most ironic aspect of this outage is that the public radio broadcast emanates from within this area!
While this service disruption is annoying, I find it more emblematic of my personal dilemma. How do I fit technology into my everyday life when something as simple as a radio signal can’t be relied on? I want to embrace the online experience. I want to be wired but if I can’t get a signal in the middle of town, is this lifestyle really ready for prime time?
So That's Life? 
Don’t Fear the Tweeter
02/03/2009If I haven’t already beaten this horse to death, let me continue. Increasing the number of Twitter followers can be overwhelming. It has been compared to drinking from a fire hose and I can personally testify that there’s nobody there to adjust the pressure! Once you go over the 100 following threshold, you’re bound to encounter so many tweets that you just want to give up. After the initial guilt over skipping posts passes, you tend to look for information from people you personally know.
I use Tweetdeck on my laptop which provides a grouping feature that allows me to see posts from particular users. However, this makes it easy to miss interesting items from common sources and forces reliance on your trusted friends to re-tweet stuff you might have missed. While I do have a trusted cadre of people that do this, I certainly don’t want this to be my safety net.
There is also the issue of people who tweet anything and everything that pops into their minds. Let’s call them tweeter-mouths. Some of these people have the BriteKite application installed that tweets their current location. It surprises me that I’m not finding out when they’re in the toilet! Then there are the folks who take oral hygiene habits to extreme and tweet after every meal with a recap of their menu. While I am sometimes interested in where people are or what they have eaten, I really only want to know if these things are interesting. A trip to the gas station or McDonalds meal might be something that inquiring minds want to know but I avoid that rag for a reason. Add to this the tweeting, re-tweeting, and more re-tweeting of AllTop.com lists and my head is just about ready to explode!
Is this just a symptom of not being able to cope with new technology due to a generational gap? Is it possible that younger people are able to filter out noise better than me? I may be in denial but I refuse to believe that this is true. As I’m fond of saying, “acquiescence is approval” and I do not approve. I will continue my search for new techniques and potential allies in the war on blather. Can I get an amen from the congregation?
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