Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night for the first time. What an incredibly fantastic movie. I have always adored the original set of movies, even Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the more recent admittedly terrible Tim Burton drek from 2001.

Anyways, this movie has to be my favorite Sci-fi of 2011. And amongst the top 10 favorite movies now. I particularly loved the nuances amongst the ape characters. They were not just apes they had personalities and the conflict and attitudes amongst them were already beginning to develop. All of that left me wanting to leaned more about these apes and how they intend to solve their conflicts. Most notable point of conflict I would love to see them develop further is between Caesar and the one-eyed ape they released from Gentech. That storyline seems ripe for a personality conflict.

Pacing was superb I never felt bored and tension continuously increased throughout the movie. I never felt like the movie dragged on.

Im going to stop the hyperbole and just end by saying that if you have not seen this movie please go out and watch It or rent on Bluray December 13th.

Redesigning My Verizon (part 2)

I finally got around to wrapping up my work on a redesign of My Verizon Mobile application for iPhone. As mentioned before this was my own project I did in my free time.

My Verizon Mobile Redesigned to match the iOS user interface guidelines.

Designing a business card

I’ve been tinkering around with Illustrator lately, as usual and I decided to design my own business card. The inspiration for the final design came at work, out of nowhere quite frankly and I immediately fell in love with it. I hope you like it too.

The 3 colored lines are analogous to mass transit lines you often find on public transport maps. They link on the back of the card to form the intersection of technology, arts and science. The inspiration for that bit came from Steve Jobs when upon introducing the iPad he stated that the reason these things are possible is because Apple tries to be at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology.” I expanded that further to my favorite other area Science, which at a fundamental level binds both those.

Oh yeah, and the little QR code on the back… If you scan it with your smart phone, it automatically adds my contact information to your phonebook!

Without further adieu, my design:

My Business Card (Front)

My Business Card (Back)

Redesigning My Verizon (part 1)

As I mentioned before, I recently bought an iPhone. Although I love everything about it, there seems to be one big gaping hole. The app approval process does not check against things such as terrible design, user interface, interaction, etc. Although Apple publishes it’s own Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, I have found that enough developers seem to think they know better. One of these terrible apps has been an app I frequently use: “My Verizon” app. It’s an app that’s supposed to provide quick at a glance overview of my current account status, billing information etc.

Now, it’s obvious that the app did not go through any design process whatsoever. It looks like a terrible port of an Android application. So I took it upon myself as a design challenge to redesign the app. Now, I’m primarily concerned with the look and feel. All of my design work is done in Adobe Illustrator CS5. The actual functionality would come from a programmer and based on current app functionality, my redesign would not require a rewrite of the program but simply a new GUI.

Here (on the right) is my initial design of what the application should look like. Note that I maintain company branding without being gaudy. The screen provides fast at-a-glance overview and all other functionality can be found under system tabs below. Apple has already thought this through and has specific guidelines on how things should be displayed. Therefore, there was no need to reinvent the wheel as the original app has done.

This is just step one and I will make further changes over the coming weeks. In the next step I hope to add more finishing touches and nicer textures.

Disclaimer: I do not work for or have any associations with Verizon. This is considered a design exercise, a demo of what is possible, but for whatever reason was not done.

My Verizon Wireless home screen (current app design)

My Verizon Wireless home screen redesigned (done right)

Got it!

I finally joined the modern world, I purchased my first iPhone, a 4th generation 32 GB model for Verizon. Why did it take me so long? Well, I was one of those people holding out for an inevitable Verizon iPhone.

Upon returning to the states from Spain I got myself a cheap T-Mobile pay as you go phone. Not only was the phone interface completely unusable, but in addition it was complimented by the worst network coverage I had ever experienced. I’ve been a Verizon customer for about 8 years and have never used anything else, so I grew accustomed to having a signal even few miles out past the Boston harbor and on neighboring isles.

The single best word to sum up iPhone would be: flawless.

The Raw Truth on Raw Milk

I ran across this article the other day, ominously titled “Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally.”

It includes this little gem from a Ms. Reitzig:

“FDA really has no idea what they’re talking about when they’re talking about fresh milk. They have no concept – they really don’t understand what it’s like for people like me who have friends and family who can’t drink conventional milk.”

This article tries to argue by parroting the opinions of uneducated consumers is the concept that raw milk is somehow healthier than its pasteurized companion. That claim in itself is complete and utter nonsense. In fact the reverse is true.

I was raised in Bosnia and during the course of my childhood we almost always had a cow plus either a sheep or a goat. So I had a lot of opportunities to experience milk and milk products in it’s various shapes and forms. However, one thing I was always taught was to never drink raw milk. I’d get yelled at by my grandmother who milked the cows or by my parents. Raw milk must be boiled every single time it is milked in order to kill of all the germs. If these people knew anything about cattle or cows specifically they’d know that cows sleep on their utter which is always touching the floor that’s covered with their feces and urine. I only made the mistake of drinking raw milk once on a recent trip back and I almost paid for it with my life due to dangerous bacteria I inadvertently ingested. It didn’t help that all state medical offices were closed because doctors were on strike either.

So that’s been my own experience with raw milk. When I see my peers in the US wanting, yearning, requesting and claiming health benefits from raw milk that are completely unsubstantiated by science I just shake my head. Even though we had a cow that would provide a few liters of milk per day (half a gallon) we would still go out and buy pasteurized milk on a frequent basis.

In a major lawsuit from the late 80’s the CDC published in conjunction with AMA a detailed report debunking the claimed benefits of raw milk. “Citing 65 references, however, Potter et al. conclude that no significant nutritional difference has been found between raw and pasteurized milk in numerous studies in both animals and humans.” (citation)

According to the CDC report:

“Abundant evidence has shown that raw milk serves as the source of bacteria that cause outbreaks of disease in humans: in recent years, most frequently salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis. In the investigations of such outbreaks, the epidemiologic evidence, combined with knowledge about the occurrence of specific pathogens in cattle and the isolation of some of these pathogens from raw milk, leaves no doubt that raw milk is a vehicle for disease in humans.”

Anyways, I just wish people applied more science to their reasoning. There is a reason that Louis Pasteur is a world-renowned and celebrated scientist. His discovery of the germ theory and pasteurization has saved millions if not billions of lives over the past century. My experience has been that when modern people try “get in touch” with nature and their origins they invariably make stupid decisions that are harmful to themselves. The stupidest of those being people who feed their infants raw cow/goat/sheep milk.

For a thorough debunking that provides far more detail than I ever could please read Quackwatch.