The Richter Scale^®

By now we have all probably seen the amazing devotion a die hard group of people have had to the Sony PS3 on the news, with a stampede at a Wal-Mart up north, shooting at people in a PS3 line in New England, and people traveling from outside the U.S. to wait in line for a PS3 as well.

I had opportunity to be in the Miami area yesterday (the pre-launch day) for shopping of my own. Okay - I did entertain a brief thought I might be able to score a PS3 by waiting in line too, but once I saw the line in front of Circuit City (see above), which I learned had started on Tuesday, I gave up that hope.

If you look closely at that picture, you’ll see Gaming Granny there on the right. I can’t compete in a line with the inherent patience someone like Gaming Granny has, never mind that the Circuit City had only 40 units coming in and there were already more than 40 people in line (the folks in the rear either being optimists or ignorant - not sure which is worse).

I must say I was impressed that some gamer managed to rope his grandmother into waiting in line for him while he was off doing something else (working?). I heard that elsewhere folks were hiring the homeless to wait in line for them. Capitalism at its best, I’m sure.

The line at BestBuy in Hialeah was even worse - probably close to 100 people. I asked the BestBuy employee monitoring the line if he had a box of Kleenex for the folks at the back of the line who would be crying after spending a couple of days waiting for nothing. He said, “Let them cry on the sidewalk.” Heartless, and full of disdain. He was probably bitter because store employees were not able to buy units themselves at launch.

An interview published in USA Today quoted a young man who was waiting in line to buy a PS3 - not to play it, but instead to sell it on-line, because he needed the money. And with PS3s listing on eBay for numbers as high as $2000, waiting in line for a couple of days for a 300% return isn’t a bad deal, I guess.

For those looking to buy launch time PS3s to actually play themselves, I question how many of them have the requisite display hardware necessary to really let the PS3 show off its mettle. That means a TV or display device with HDMI in and 1080p display capability. Very few HDTVs on the market presently offer 1080p resolution, and the ones that do aren’t exactly cheap - the price of a loaded PS3 is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of a decent sized HDTV with 1080p capabilities.

Sure, you can use a PS3 with a regular TV or even a newer (but not bleeding edge) 720p resolution HDTV, but that’s like owning a Corvette and driving the speed limit. It’s a waste, in my humble opinion.

With that in mind, planning for my future PS3 purchase once availability has improved, I bought a new Samsung 61” DLP HDTV with 1080p capability yesterday to replace my older 62” DLP 720p HDTV. Better yet, once it’s delivered on Bonaire, I will already be able to take advantage of it because a recent Xbox 360 update delivered by Xbox Live has enabled the Xbox 360 to output 1080p resolution signals both for games that support it, as well as with the new HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 (which I have also just picked up).

One parting comment - think of what would be possible politically in the U.S. if only those folks who slavishly waited in line for days for a gadget (or perceived profit) would be willing to commit the same level of devotion to political change in the U.S., perhaps for a third political party, or campaign reform, or… The mind boggles.

Back in August I had picked up a Subal housing with a pair of Sea & Sea YS-90 strobes so I could take my Nikon D200 underwater. As fate would have it, travel and a general lack of time kept me out of the water here on Bonaire, until yesterday.

I finally got a chance to both take the hour or more that it took to unwrap the housing and accessories and rig up my D200 DSLR, without leaks, and then take a nice leisurely hour-plus dive with friends Martin de Weger and Sebastian Schulherr. Martin is Dutch, Seb is from New York City, and both are long time repeat Bonaire visitors as well as moderators of BonaireTalk.

This was to be Martin’s 600th logged dive, and it was a nice one. We also did a thorough cleaning of the Bonaire ReefCam, one of the many WebCams on Bonaire that I am responsible for maintain and operating.

In any event, it had been perhaps five years since I last dove with a camera housed in a metal case, and I had forgotten about the 4-5 pounds of additional weight, so I had to work a bit harder to stay buoyant than I otherwise would.

The housed D200 is a pleasure to work with, though, especially as I get to use my strobes in TTL thanks to a little gadget from Sea & Sea which allows the YS-90s to sync properly to the iTTL of the Nikon D200. I never liked manual strobe twiddling and this gadget gives me yet another excuse to not need to bother with that.

I can tell however, that I will definitely need a fair number of additional dives with this rig in order to have it feel as comfortable as my old Nikon 8008s, which I had in a Subal housing as well, back five or more years ago.

I am pleased, though, that the D200 handles much more as did the old film SLRs underwater than do the present generation (and earlier) digital point and shoots. Fast focusing, great light balance, and the ability to immediately determine if my subject was in focus.

For those wanting to see my initial results (these all shot with the standard Nikon 18-70mm DX zoom lens), take a look at my visual dive log.

Outsiders often don’t quite understand the relation of Bonaire to Holland. Some assume our island is part of Holland, but it isn’t at present. But it will be next year as the Netherlands Antilles get dissolved.

What Bonaire is at present is one of five islands in the country of the Netherlands Antilles (the other four being Curacao, Sint Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius), and the Netherlands Antilles are in turn part of the Dutch kingdom (or more appropriately, Queendom).

And our monarch here is Her Royal Majesty, Queen Beatrix of the Royal House of Oranje (hope I got that all right).

Queen Beatrix is paying Aruba (another country under the Dutch kingdom) and the Netherlands Antilles a visit this week.

A couple of days ago she arrived with much fanfare on Bonaire - her first stop in the Netherlands Antilles. She was greeted by members of the Antillean government as well as Bonaire’s own Lt. Governor. Because of my work on Bonaire Insider, my partner Susan Davis and I were granted a press pass and were able to take a fair number of pictures (see here and here) and trail along with her entourage for several of her stops on the island. And then yesterday, I met the Queen personally as one of the artists whose works were on display at the exhibition she opened at Kas di Arte.

What struck me the most about the Queen’s visit is the genuine love, admiration, and enthusiasm her subjects on Bonaire have for her. There was regular cheering whereever she showed up, and a real sense of pride among all the people that yes, this was their Queen.

I must say that Queen Beatrix certainly exuded an amazing amount of charm and friendliness. One look at her and her warm smile, and you just sensed that she was a nice person. Or at least that was my first gut reaction. But our Dutch house guests (one of whom is a big fan of the Queen) say that perception is very true. What also amazed our house guests and us alike was how freely she mingled with the crowds. While there were body guards in evidence, they were typically at a distance, giving the Queen free reign (pun intended).

Certainly Queen Beatrix does not have the power of someone like my (as an American) president, George W. Bush, but she does seem to have nearly universal approval, something Bush does not, and for me that was a very stark contrast.

Queen Beatrix left Bonaire for Sint Maarten this morning and life is returning to normal here on Bonaire once again.

My wife and I attended the Miami Beach Gift Show last month to see if we could find some new wares to offer on our http://www.BonaireStuff.com on-line store. While the theme of the show was mostly tropical goods (we found a number of new flamingo products), we also came across The Wink Toy Company, which has taking the emoticons we all know and love in our e-mails and embodied them in plush form (photo below).

Emoticons are the cutesy little things many of us put into our e-mails, text messages, and even on web pages, typically composed of a combination of punctuation marks viewed sideways. For example, a smile can be represented as a colon-dash-parenthesis, i.e. : - )

Change the parenthesis to the letter “O” and you have a look of surprise, or a “U” to have your emoticon sticking its virtual tongue out, or replace the colon with a semi-colon for a wink.

The list of variants is nearly endless. And some software programs, such as AOL Instant Messenger, will even convert those text emoticons into graphical ones (especially useful for those who need things more clearly represented to understand them).

Emoticons have been around for about as long as there’s been e-mail, and that’s decades.

But now, Keith Jaehnert has given emoticons physical substance in the form of his Wink Toys. These come in two sizes (regular and “Bittywinks” - the latter are what’s stuck to the cactus in my yard in the photo accompanying this post), and five colors (baby blue, green, red, yellow, and light pink) and designs (wink, shock, grin, smile, and tongue). The 3-inch Bittywinks retail for $4.50 and the regular 5-inch Wink Toys for $8.99.

Keith told us his inspiration in creating the Wink Toy line of plushes stems from Ty (the makers of Beanie Babies) and frequent exposure to emoticons. One day it came to him he could combine the two. He is planning on following some of the Beanie Baby strategy with his Wink Toys, retiring certain combinations of colors and designs after a while, and then introducing news ones. He even has hopes for a cartoon series to be based on his Wink Toys (somehow I can’t get the image of the Pac-Man Saturday Morning Cartoon show out of my mind here).

Wink Toy launch in July of 2006, and Keith tells us things are already going strong with sales in his home state of New Jersey. Certainly, making emoticons tangible is a fun idea, and the Wink Toys are well made and soft (both key features for plushes). I hope he does well with it.

Keith did drop me a post-show e-mail incidentally, with an offer of a 25% discount for anyone buying off his web site - the special coupon code is “mia206” and good through Sept. 30, 2006.

After having broken her hand in the late spring, and then a summer full of travel, my wife Linda is finally back in full swing painting. She has three active paintings going at any one time (as oils take a while to dry after a coat of paint has been applied), and just finished two new paintings these past two weeks. And one of them is my new favorite.

And that would be the one above, entitled Pelican Vigil. Breathtaking, especially when you see the original.

The other new painting is Trupial Brunch. Trupials are in the Oriole family of birds, and an amazing yellow orange in color across their necks and bellies. They also have this cool blue outline around their eyes. Linda captured them well in the painting (pictured below). She also did an excellent job with the cactus.

She has also converted much of our home into exhibit space for her works, so if you find yourself on Bonaire, call us at 717-4112 for a private showing. The plan is to build an extension onto our home (which on Bonaire is about a 6-9 month project - we’re still waiting to get near-final plans from our architect) which will have a sizable (1000 square feet or so) dedicated exhibit area (and will expand my office with another 150 square feet of space as a result - that’s much needed).

For more information on Linda’s new paintings, take a look at the Linda Richter web site.

It used to be that people would excuse themselves from a conversation, a meal, or other gathering to sneak out for a quick smoke, but make up some other sort of excuse because they either were ashamed of their addiction, or because they didn’t want others to know they smoked or found smoking more important than staying put.

My old friend Gina (a former Good Morning America technology trend reporter, among many other things) comes to mind. She used to sneak out for smokes during meals so that her husband Henry wouldn’t know that she was still smoking. But Gina, if you’re reading this, Henry knew.

That sort of sneakiness still happens with smoking, but less so. The new addiction and habit of many (myself included) is portable e-mail in the form of a BlackBerry, Treo, or other wireless device (my e-mail device is a T-Mobile Sidekick III).

While some folks are blatant in their public use of portable e-mail devices, others are a bit more circumspect, especially when in the company of spouses who abhor the glazed-over look that comes into an e-mail addict’s eyes which start to reflect the miniature text on the screen of their devices, while their thumbs fly across tiny keyboards.

Once an e-mail addict gets sucked into a message exchange, all hopes of meaningful verbal communications are shot (which is why the spouses object, no doubt).

So, those of us aware of our addictions, but unable to completely wean ourselves from our devices (there’s no Nicorette for BlackBerrys), have resorted to the old smoker’s “sneak”. We excuse ourselves under some pretense, such as needing to visit the restroom (which may be a real need) to mask the fact that as soon as we’re out of sight, out comes the BlackBerry or Sidekick, and we’re on-line, checking mail, reading and responding to the latest missives. And just as my friend Gina did, we delude ourselves that our friends and spouses don’t know what we’re doing.

So, how can you spot a closet e-mail addict?

First, they twitch a little every so often - usually on the right side of their body. That comes from when their portable e-mail device has buzzed them in vibrate mode to indicate that a message has arrived.

Second, shortly after “The Twitch”, they excuse themselves from your company.

Third, they spend more time away than is anticipated.

And lastly, when they return, they seem distracted, because they are still thinking about the e-mails they exchanged.

In closing, and in defense of e-mail addicts everywhere, at least we don’t return smelling like an ashtray (that’s how Henry knew, Gina), nor are our habits aurally invasive (unlike the chronic cell phone users who feel they need to share their ring-tones and voiced opinions with all around them).
Or at least that’s how I rationalize my e-mail addiction. And I continue to hope I’m fooling my wife.

We (my wife and I) were recently invited to participate in a juried art exhibition on Bonaire, featuring Bonaire’s artists. The jurying took place a few weeks ago, and the exhibition is slated to happen during the early part of November, with the possibility that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will officiate.

I created three very different pieces to enter into the jurying process:

All of these are based on my photographs, and all involve some level of various digital painting or manipulation. Of the three images, two were selected to be exhibited in November - a pleasant surprise. The only image not selected was “Shades of Growth” - not surprising as the judges indicated that they were looking at color as well as content.

More information on all three of these images can be found on the Jake Richter Art Site. All three images are available in a very limited closed edition and are available for purchase at Caribbean Art.

Back in April, I reviewed the Otterbox iPod Video here as a nice way to protect one’s iPod from the elements and even take it swimming. But my biggest issue with it was that I was unable to find waterproof headphones that would allow me to use the Otterbox properly while in the water.

The folks at Otterbox heard my complaint and a short while later announced that they had come up with a solution - they would offer waterproof headphones from a company called H2O Audio (MSRP $39.95). H2O Audio is a company I first encountered at a diving trade show several years back in Las Vegas, and they have since expanded into more consumer electronics, these headphones among them.

Otterbox sent me a set to review some weeks ago, and I finally got to put them to the test.

The new waterproof headphones are a little unusual, as they use a conical ear piece to create a seal with one’s ear canal - sound travels well through air, but not water, so in order to listen to music underwater, you need to ensure that air remains in the ear canals between the ear drums and the miniature speakers in the head phones. The headphones come with instructions on trimming the cones to ensure the best possible seal (which I followed). They also include a spare set of cones (probably in case you mess up the trimming the first time).

The headphones also attach to your head from behind (see photo). That’s actually a good thing for swimmers, because it means the cord does not get in your way at all.

So how do they actually sound? Well - both bad and good, depending on the environment. Out of the water the sound quality is poor - the cheap plane earbud headphones that I get on my American Airlines flights sound better, and that’s not a compliment. But as soon as you get your head underwater (even just at the surface), the headphones are a delight. The sound is clear and crisp and full bodied. I suspect the difference is that as soon as you submerge, water pressure (and the general sound damping of water itself) makes the seal of the ear plugs complete, shutting out any outside noises. The result is wonderful.

However, as soon as you get your head out of water and the water seal dribbles away, or if you dive down more than a couple of feet and the seal breaks letting water into the ear, the sound quality diminishes or just goes away. For this latter problem, it is possible that I did not do a good enough job with trimming the ear plugs, or that my head is a bit larger than average, but either way, I needed to keep my head within a foot or so of the surface of the water to get the full benefit of the headphones.

That makes these new headphones ideal for snorkeling (when your ears are submerged but near the surface where there’s not too much pressure) or when swimming for sport with one of those cool front-of-the-face snorkels.

But for regular swimming, where your head goes in and out of the water, the benefit is questionable.

In order to make sure that my testing was not just the result of a single-person’s use of the new headphones, I rounded up two other volunteers (my wife and my daughter), and both, independently gave me the same feedback after using the new headphones.

What this appears to mean is that you really need two types of headphones to use the Otterbox iPod Video (and other submersible MP3 player systems) - a weatherproof set for the occasional splash of water when your head is mostly above water, and these new H2O Audio headphones for snorkeling and submerged activity. That’s not an ideal solution, but certainly better than what was available before.

I had originally given the Otterbox iPod Video an 8.0 out of 10.0 on my Richter Scale, and promised that if Otterbox themselves offered waterproof headphones, I would consider raising that score. As I have indicated, the headphones are great for a particular aquatic use - snorkeling - but still fall short of being a decent universally usable waterproof headset. But I’m not sure it’s possible to have a universal headphone for such drastic changes in environment either. If it were, someone would probably already have come up with it.

That said, I’m bumping up my previous rating for the Otterbox iPod Video to 8.5 out of 10.0.

As for the headphones - they get a dual rating on the Richter Scale - a 2.5 for above water use, and a 9.0 out of 10.0 for snorkeling.

I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks with my latest project - a news blog called Bonaire Insider. The idea for Bonaire Insider came about over a month ago when my business partner in NetTech N.V., Susan Davis, and I decided we wanted to get fresher news on the home page of the Bonaire tourism information web site, InfoBonaire, which we own and operate.

It took some intense programming, as well as a lot of exploratory work with the same blogging software which I use for this blog (Expression Engine from pMachine), but two days ago we launched Bonaire Insider.

Among the cool features are the ability for people to sign up to get automatic copies of new posts to the Bonaire Insider news blog, integration of the RSS news feed from the site on the InfoBonaire home page, and integration with Google for running context sensitive ads (to help at least partially offset the costs of running the new site).

We’re still working on generating our internal style guide for news items, but it seems to be coming along well - we’ve had over 10,000 page views in just the first couple of days. Not a bad start for a small site about a small Caribbean island.

I celebrated my 42nd birthday yesterday by not working (and yes, I usually do work on Sundays, so this was unusual). Instead, I sat on my couch and played video games with my children for most of the day (Tomb Raider on the Xbox 360 with me at the controls and my kids helping me figure out how to get past the variety of interesting puzzles).

I don’t feel particularly old, and in fact I feel more alert and alive in some ways than I did (or think I did) a decade ago. Sure, my eyesight is slowly deteriorating from the 20/15 vision I used to have, and my hair is grayer (or whiter) than it used to be, but those changes are minor. It’s what’s inside that determines youth, or at least so I think.

And my wife today sent me a quote attributed to General Douglas MacArthur which I think beautifully underscores that:

Youth is not a time of life--it is a state of mind.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;
people grow old by deserting their ideals.
Years may wrinkle your skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles your soul.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear;
as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

In the central place of your heart there is a recording chamber;
so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage
--so long are you young.

When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snow
of pessimism and the ice of cynicism,
then--and only then--are you grown old.

Douglas MacArthur

I don’t know if MacArthur penned those words, but they certainly are poignant. I’ve already asked my wife to smack me around to shock me back to common sense and reality should I ever lose my enthusiasm for life and learning. I, for one, would prefer not to have a wrinkled soul.