Tim Trautmann

Remember the Portland Yellow Bike Project from way back in the 90ies? It was one of those awesome ideas that looked really good on paper but didn’t turn out so good in practice. The main points of failure, as far as I can remember, were vandalism and theft.

Call a Bike
Originally uploaded by probek

Fast-forward to 2007. While I was attending RailsConf Europe in Berlin, I noticed all these red and silver lightweight bicycles all over the city. Each of these was equipped with what seemed to be an electronic lock, a hidden wireless device and a flashing LED beacon. It turns out all these bikes are part of a 1,450 strong rental fleet called “Call a Bike” that is managed by the German Railway (Die Bahn).

The rental process is really easy: 1. Setup an account online with Die Bahn with a starting balance of EUR 5.00. 2. Start renting at EUR 0.08/minute.

The check-out and check-in process is handled via a telephone hotline. Call the hotline, enter your customer number and receive an activation code that can be entered into a number pad on the bike’s electronic lock.

Once you are done, just park the bike on a public sidewalk anywhere in the city, engage the lock and the rental timer stops. Genius! And it is working. In 2007, the rental system recorded 20,000 customers and 125,000 bike rentals.

According to a Portland Tribune article, city commissioner Sam Adams is proposing something similar right here in Portland with a fleet of about 500 bikes. The program seems to be based on a more rigid system that is successful in France. The French version employs fixed rental kiosks where bikes need to be returned to.

While I prefer the German approach, I would welcome any sort of bike rental system even if it involved rental stations. At least for me, a rental-bike network, combined with TriMet, would make getting around the city without a car a whole lot more attractive. Keeping my fingers crossed for this project to succeed.

Highly recommended TV watching. If you can catch this episode on TV, it is time well spent. This episode will be published on Moyers Journal website on pbs.org Constitutional scholar Bruce Fine and The Nation’s John Nichols discuss impeachment on Bill Moyers Journal:

Since Southwest Airlines doesn’t have an electronic feedback form and I am too lazy to send a letter to their Customer Relations department, I thought I’d give a big virtual hug to the Southwest Airlines ground crew in Portland, Oregon. You guys went beyond the call of duty for me and you totally rock. Much LUV!

Hell hasn’t frozen over quite yet… but it’s getting a bit cooler with Apple bringing the Safari web browser to Windows. For a web developer this is one of the best things coming out of WWDC 2007. The more web standards compliant alternatives to IE there are, the better it is for people like me, that have to deal with the complications that IE brings to everyday web standards based development.

Thanks Apple! xoxo

So Apple announced that YouTube videos will be available on it’s Apple TV playback devices. That made me wonder what possible benefit this feature would bring to the Apple TV - unless you consider crappy, blotchy, choppy flash video on a high-definition TV a benefit.

This for example is a video that I encoded for YouTube using YouTube’s recommended settings (MPEG4, 320×250, 30frames/second). Now imagine playing this on an HDTV Television set. Can’t be that cool - really.

Today Isabella discovered my Nintendo DS and promptly got hooked on Mario Kart DS. She is trying to figure out all the controls but knows already how to accelerate and how to reverse. Steering is still a bit of an issue but she is having a blast anyway.

Today Apple upgraded it’s iTunes Music Store to offer higher-bitrate and DRM free music at a premium price (USD 1.29). Just as promised by the Apple/EMI announcement from earlier this year and just a couple of days shy of the May deadline. The new feature requires an upgrade to iTunes 7.2.

After installing the new software, iTunes Plus offered to upsell 4 of my iTunes Music Store bought albums for $12.30 (44 songs in total).

Another feature that has been around for a couple of years now but got it’s own, more prominent portal, is the iTunes U. (as in University). Educational content on iTunes should be much more accessible with this portal which lists all participating schools. Looking forward to see what is out there for broadening my horizons.

This is quite amazing really. Google Maps just added street views for Denver, San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas and Miami. Now, if you zoom in close enough and click on the “Street View” button you will able to browse through those cities using panoramic images. Here is for example the view in front of my apartment.

This cute video introduces the new feature:

If you are a news junkie like me and also can’t stand network and cable television news anymore, welcome to the club!

I have watched television news quality and content slowly decline over the past decade or so. It has been a slow but steady trend replacing objective journalism that covered the issues with infotainment and tabloid style sensationalism. Where once the newsroom of a publishing company was a loss leader but the untouchable crown jewel that was serving the public interest as set forth by FCC regulations, it is now just another profit center for a corporate giant.

This all sounds very depressing, doesn’t it? What’s a news junkie to do? Luckily there is a glimmer of hope coming over the internet. I invite you to check out something that is just starting up: The Real News

From their mission statement:

The Real News is a non-profit news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism. Our staff, in collaboration with courageous journalists around the globe, will investigate, report and debate stories on the critical issues our times.

We are member supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding.

Go and watch the intro videos and interviews. If you love real news, this might be just the right cause for you to support with a few bucks.

From how I understand it, the plan is to have a daily viewer supported newscast by the fall with some documentary productions going live in the summer.

Up until now I have watched the ‘08 Campaign with little enthusiasm. On both sides of the political aisle candidates have been uninspiring and have come across as mediocre at best.

All this has changed for me with the appearance of Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX) on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

With Ron Paul, the Republican party has a candidate that truly gets what is wrong with the foreign policy of the United States. Here is an excerpt of what he said on Real Time with Bill Maher:

I think it has been known for quite a few decades, that our foreign policy has, what the CIA calls, blow back. It has unintended consequences. You can go back to 1953 when we put the Shah into power. Us supporting Osama bin Laden and radicalizing the islamists to go after the Soviets. Our support for Sadam Hussein in the 1980ies and this comes back to haunt us. That is why I have been very attractive and very supportive of what I call a noninterventious foreign policy. Mind our own business and stay out of the internal affairs of other nations.

If it wasn’t for his views on Immigration Reform I would even consider voting for him if he became the nominee.