karlo.org

The Vitality Glowcap, recently released and available on Amazon starting at $30 is just a great example of design and technology applied to a longstanding, everyday problem: making sure folks take their medicine. They have both the simple, self-contained "glow" model, which bugs you every 24 hours to take the pill (and is reset when you unscrew it off the bottle to get the medicine) and a more complex version that connects via the internet to keep track of your usage, a testament to the design truism that giving users lots of options is often worse than giving them none. Both units have almost zero user interface or configuration requirements. Vitality is a new startup by David Rose, who used to head Ambient Devices.

As much as I love posting my photos here on my blog and on Flickr, I find that I get a lot more out of them when I have them properly printed, framed and hung in my house. I moved into my current apartment in July but I'm just now getting around to hanging a whole new set of photos on the wall. Part of the fun is changing out most if not all of the images when I move to a new place.

You'd think it would be a trivial project to hang a couple of photos on the wall. But I learned this morning that things can get a little more complicated when you're trying to hang a group in an orderly fashion.

Here's what I found out the hard way, maybe it will help you avoid my mistakes:

• Hang the middle photo first, then place the other photos by seeing how they look with that center photo placed.
• If you're marking the horizontal location for that center photo with tape, make sure your dog doesn't eat the tape while you're facing away.
• If you're hanging for people who will view the photos standing, hang with the center 60 inches off the ground. Especially pay attention to this rule if you're taller than normal -- if you try to eyeball it, you're going to be too high. Mine are at 62 inches and I still think they're probably a little too high.
• If you have vertical and horizontal photos, put the hook for the vertical photos higher by exactly half the amount the longer dimension extends past the shorter (i.e., for 11x14 frames, 3/2 inches). Sounds obvious, but it will save you time versus eyeballing it.
• Use picture wires behind the frames rather than the built-in hanging holes. But don't put much slack in the wires... if they get enough upwards angle, they may start dragging the frame clips up the inside of the frame.
• Measure twice... then measure again. Once you've marked the location of the outside pictures, re-measure their distance to the nail or hook for the middle frame, or measure across both and see if the middle matches up with that nail. I found an error of about 1/2 inch when I did this.

(And for the record, the leftmost photo in this image is definitely not one of mine. It's a famous photographer - points for anyone who knows who it is.)

Dog Coat, originally uploaded by karlo.

Seen outside the coffee shop at 88 Orchard on Saturday morning. Couldn't resist.

(That's a pretty nice coat to leave on your dog. But we were almost in the leather district.)

Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.

-- John Gruber on iPhone Application Design.

In a world where services are moving online, and people aren't so much buying your software as choosing to use your service, I'd argue this applies to not just the iPhone but almost any "non-sovereign application" -- pretty much anything short of a word processor, web browser, or spreadsheet program.

NOTCOT: Banksy's Village Petstore & Charcoal Grill from Jean Aw on Vimeo.

I'm definitely going to have to go see this place in person before it closes at the end of the week - the pop-up store is located in the West Village near Seventh Avenue and Bleeker - but this video is fantastic even if you've seen the actual installation.

The best way to view this is to go view the HD version on the Vimeo site.

DSC_2870 - Version 2, originally uploaded by karlo.

Playing around a bit with simulated tilt-shift. Like HDR or Panos, this really only works for a very specific type of photo, but when it does, it's a great technique to have in the bag, especially given that I'm not ever going to spend the $2000+ for a true tilt-shift lens. There's a color version of this shot as well, but I prefer the black and white one.

A delightful, entertaining talk by Hodgman from this year's TED conference. Perhaps not quite an illuminating or informative as the usual TED video, but well worth watching nonetheless.

"The perfect storm of ultra-low rates, securitization, lax lending standards and triple AAA ratings -- these are the key to how we ended up with the previous boom, followed by a bust, and ultimately, the credit freeze."

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture provides the most non-political, straightforward and easy-to-parse explanation of the real estate mortgage bubble and subsequent credit crisis I've seen to date.

Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

"With the 2008 presidential election, Americans face a pivotal choice between not just two candidates, but two paradigms. We need someone who understands the complexity of our time. Someone who believes in investing in renewable energy, in education, in women's rights, in civil rights, in healthcare for Americans. Someone who believes in dealing with global issues with diplomacy so we can restore our respect in the world. Barack Obama represents the change we need and can lead us into a brighter future."

Our dog, Mochi, loves ice cream but it's really not healthy for him to eat his own serving of it -- it's just too rich for him and too sugary. As an alternative, here's the recipe I used o make frozen "ice cream" treats with a yogurt base for him. He loves them, they're cheaper than pre-made frozen dog treats, and they're really easy to make.