Author Archives: Patrick Rhone

Eating dog food, scratching itches, walking talks and all that jazz.

I have ordered a Macbook Air 11inch with a 64GB SSD to replace my 3.5 year old Black Macbook (Blackbook) that had been upgraded with a 320/7200 HDD. 

Once it arrives, I will use it fresh out of the box. I will not “migrate” any of my data until it is needed. Even then, the question before doing so that will always be asked is “Where does this belong?”. I will only install software methodically, deliberately and only when absolutely needed.  I really do think that, with proper data management, 64GB will be enough for me. In fact, I think I will find that the constraint of not having a lot of space will be freeing. Perhaps it will force me to make some honest admissions about what “need” really is.

My photos are a good example of this. I take most photos these days with my iPhone. I sync my iPhone to my iMac because that is where the bulk of my music and movies live. That said, my main photo collection lives on my Macbook. Why? Well, I’m not quite sure. For how long have I had my photos taken with my mobile and photos taken with my main camera in two separate locations? Years. Why? I don’t know. Well, this weekend, I changed that and now all photos live together on the iMac.

Then, if all of my Photos live on my iMac, do I really need to have iPhoto on my Macbook? What about iDVD on a machine that does not have a Superdrive? Do I need to have iLife at all? These are the sorts of questions I will be pondering.

I have done a lot of talking about doing such a thing on this site since the beginning. Now, I’m about to put that into practice and, I’m sure, will share about the experience here with you. Stay tuned…

Path — Introducing The Personal Network

Path — Introducing The Personal Network

No following, no friending…just sharing with the people who matter most.

Path is a new app for iPhone that sets of on a very different approach to social networking. It’s goal is to be a highly focused “personal network” that allows you to share and tag personal moments using photos with no more than your fifty closest friends. Why no more than fifty?:

We chose 50 based on the research of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar, who has long suggested that 150 is the maximum number of social relationships that the human brain can sustain at any given time. Dunbar’s research also shows that personal relationships tend to expand in factors of roughly 3. So while we may have 5 people whom we consider to be our closest friends, and 20 whom we maintain regular contact with, 50 is roughly the outer boundary of our personal networks. These are the people we trust, whom we are building trust with, and whom we consider to be the most important and valued people in our lives.

There are many things I love about this app. Mainly, I love it’s sane, well thought out, and research based constraints. I love the fact that it calls these updates “moments”. I love that it does not allow you to choose existing photos or edit them before posting. It really does force one to share what is happening right then and there. Letting these moments speak for themselves with only enough details to provide context.

But most of all, I love that the people who I share with there are getting an honest peek into a story that I would only tell to those I trust most.

The Driver and The Passenger

When I travel in the car with my family, I’m usually the one who drives. I don’t mind at all. If there is ever any question as to who should drive, I volunteer. If it is a journey to a destination we’ve never been, Bethany is far better navigating me and making the strategic decisions on how to get there. I’m better at following her lead. I enjoy driving.

Most of us really don’t stop to think of how much relaxed yet active focus it takes to drive a car. There are so many iables that require our constant monitoring and adjustment. The speed. The distance between us and every other object sharing the road. The signs and signals to obey come from every direction. I mean, seriously, driving is very busy work. There is not much else that we can (or should) pay attention to but the journey ahead and everything involved in making sure we get to the end of it safely.

For those of us who are drivers, when the occasion arrises to be in the passenger seat, it is like being in a whole new world. A road we may have driven hundreds of times is filled with things that have always been there but we are too busy to notice. While we are busy being focused on the road ahead there was a whole reality that was passing us by. This is not to say that the passenger seat is better. This is just to say that there is a focus on the bigger picture unfolding around the car as it travels ahead. One that is not solely attentive to the act of driving.

I’m having some fairly major surgery this upcoming Monday (November 22nd, 2010). I have some disk degeneration in my neck (C5, 6, & 7) that is causing bulging into the nerve space. This has caused me to be in ious levels of constant pain from my neck down my right arm for over four years now. I’ve finally run out of non-surgical options to treat it and treating it surgically is now the only remaining option. The recovery time is expected to be 4-6 weeks with at least the first two weeks spent in a hard collar/brace that will not permit me to drive or do much in the way of writing, computing, consulting, or posting to my ious sites.

I will be in a unique position. From both a physical perspective (due to the hard collar) and the metaphorical (Not being able to write). One in which the driver and passenger are merged. I will be called to appreciate and enjoy the world that is unfolding around me while at the same time focused on the busy work of keeping myself on the road ahead, making sure I get to the end of it safely.

I’ll see you back here, in the drivers seat, at the end of this journey.