KPAO by Dave Cortright

The vast clean water disparity

The next major war will likely be fought over water. The Red Cross says, "More than 3 million people die annually from diseases spread though dirty water and poor sanitation facilities". 20% of the planet's population face water shortages, a figure that is expected to hit 30% by 2025, according to the UN. Nearly half of the world's population lacks sanitary toilet facilities and 7,500 people die every day due to this lack of sanitation.

All of this is in my mind as I gawk at the flagrant inefficiency of these urinals at UCSC. I know some people (women) still have to walk 10-20 miles each day to fetch water, and even then the water isn't really that clean. Even here in the USA, the poor and neglected -- such as those in the Navajo Nation -- deal with horrible water conditions. And here I am flushing several gallons of clean, treated water down the drain with my pee.

If you think about it, all of the modern toilets are a water-wasting scandal. Billions of people living in more primitive conditions would be thrilled to have our toilet water for drinking, cooking, and washing. It's much cleaner and safer than the water they have access to. And here we are polluting it with our waste and flushing it down the drain, both literally and figuratively. It's crazy.

It seems pretty straightforward for a system to gather up gray water from sinks and showers in the house and feed this supply into the toilet. Is anyone doing this? We're going to have to start soon if we hope to avert the impending global water crisis.

Warm up your oven faster

OK, this is admittedly a small issue. But I have an oven with digital controls. When you turn it on, you first have to set the temperature before it starts to warm up. What I end up doing is setting the temp. to 350° immediately to start it warming, then I go back and change it to the temp. I want.

What I don't understand is why the oven doesn't start warming up right away. Why not have it already defaulted to 350° when you turn it on, and let you change it from there? It's little things like this that separate a mediocre product design from a great one.

I thought it was The Onion

I laughed out loud when I saw this on the streets of San Francisco.

Good luck with that one, Examiner!

Hi-res credit card logos (Visa, MC, Amex, Discover)

I was working on a shopping cart UI recently, and I was shocked by the dearth of hi-res credit card logos out there. Not only that, but there are a lot of previous brand logos kicking around out there. You think with all the e-commerce going on, the credit card companies would want to go out of their way to provide high-quality, up-to-date images of their brands. Not so. I could find nothing of the sort on any of the credit card web sites. So I created my own.

I started with the largest logos I could find (Tin Eye was a great image search tool for this), then used Photoshop to remove the compression artifacts and correct the colors. The Amex logo was impossible to fix, so I ended up recreating it in vector form in Illustrator, then applied the blue gradient in Photoshop.

Here is a ZIP archive containing all four high-res credit card logos. Enjoy. If you like them, link back to this page from your blog, Delicious, Digg, or wherever.

Update: After a tip in the comments, I compiled this set of vector credit card logos. I had to re-created the AmEx one myself, so it's not exactly right. But good enough until these companies get their act together and provide these assets on their own sites.

Get full sized photos from Flickr

Enough people have pinged me about my previous Flickr photo post, that I thought I should follow up on my current solution. There's a great GreaseMonkey script that adds links to the Flickr photo page giving you single-click access to the original photo (and other sizes as well).

You need Firefox.
Then get GreaseMonkey.
And finally install the Flickr Photo Page Enhancer.

Now when you visit a Flickr photo page, there are additional links in the right column for viewing different sizes of the photo, as well as getting HTML for embedding the photo into another web page.

Best dog leash: Planet Dog zip lead

I bought this lead on a whim from a local store that was going out of business. It turns out to have been a great purchase, even at full price.

I've had my share of Flexi-leads over the years. The concept is great, but they are always too big and heavy, and they require you to actively grip it by the handle. The Zip Lead, in contrast, is small, light, and secures around your wrist like a fixed length lead. It can fit into a coat pocket easily, and it can be locked off and used as a fixed lead if needed.

I got the medium one for my dog, and the 10 foot length is perfect. I had previously had an "extra long" lead which went out 20 feet, and that is just too far. It's too easy for the little bugger to get wrapped around a bush, or to get up a good head of steam thereby yanking it clear out of my hand.

Based on my experiences with this product and their clear support of shelter dog adoption, I'm definitely going to check out the other stuff made by Planet Dog.

Get a Zip Lead from Amazon

The Great Magazine Fiasco of '08

My US Airways statement looked exactly the same as it had for the last 15 or so years: just over 10,000 frequent flyer miles and no recent activity. I stopped flying US Air when I moved from the East coast out to California. Northwest, United, Alaska... pretty much every other airline had better flight options for me.

So I'm about ready to put it through the shredder when I notice the offer to convert those miles into magazine subscriptions. Perfect! I can zero out my account and get some reading material at the same time. They had a reasonable selection, and I wasted no time in signing up for The Economist, The Atlantic, and BusinessWeek. I still had a bunch of miles left, so I got Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. And to finish things off, Conde Nast Traveler and (I'm sorry to admit) Details.

Not long after, the magazines started to show up. And then more came. And then they came pouring in. Three of the magazines are weekly, and the others are monthly. So after about 3 months, I had stockpiled a small library's worth of reading material. I got through some of them on various trips out of town. But I have to face facts: I'm a wired guy. I end up spending most of my free time on the computer.

There is now a 20 magazine limit in the house. I'm pretty much tossing the Details, Forbes and Travelers as they come in. I skim BusinessWeek and try to read The Economist and The Atlantic for the most part. Entrepreneur and Inc are now taken into work and not read there.

It was a good idea, but I took it too far. I should have gotten only a couple of subscriptions, and left the remaining miles to renew next year. But on the upside, I don't have a US Air balance to worry about anymore.

"Pretend your loved one is dead" day

Most holidays we celebrate are meaningless and they are just another day off. Labor Day, Presidents Day, even (sad to say) Memorial Day and Independence Day. It's just a day off of work to have a BBQ or go to the beach. I propose a national holiday that is actually meaningful.

It's interesting to listen to people who are either themselves faced with death, or to the loved ones of those whom are dying or have died. Few are enlightened enough to appreciate (or improve) the relationships in situ; But in the finality, it becomes the most important thing — and even the only thing — that matters. Either people appreciate the great relationship they had, or they regret not having a closer one.

Combining the two ideas, we should have a Pretend your loved one is dead holiday. The idea is to confront your relationships as if it were at the end. Like all forms of introspection, it would prompt you to rethink your approach to all of your relationships, where and how to invest your energy. It would help strengthen your good relationships, and mitigate or possibly even eliminate the "bad" ones.

Of course it needs a better name; Pretend your loved one is dead is a bit morbid. Thoughts?

Yaaaaar!

September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. If you're reading this on September 19th, well then that's today! Show a leg you lubber -- hoist the colors!

The Daily Show on Double Standards

It's clips like these that make me think The Daily Show is the most important political commentary in America today. Who else is doing this sort of expose work and presenting it in a way that the is compelling and entertaining so that reaches so many people? They are a true paragon of the First Amendment.