Japan’s Zombie Preparedness

Artist and writer Johnny Strategy takes a sobering look at the island nation’s preparedness for any potential crises of the undead.

On the one hand, Japan offers relative safety in that its reserves of zombie-sustaining resources are scarce: “With a cremation rate of 99.85% (2008 data), Japan and their corpse count, or lack thereof, would seem an ideal place to to ride out a plague of the undead.” On the other hand, the country’s geographic characteristics are fraught with post-apocalyptic risk: “Densely populated urban areas serve as ideal feeding grounds. And very little land to actually run to, coupled with the likely probability that other countries would deny you entry due to fear of contamination, certainly raises questions…”

Also included are some fascinating thoughts on the contrast between Eastern and Western zombies. Read more here.

+

NYT: New York City Lags in Recycling

Like a lot of New Yorkers I’m proud of the fact that, by walking or taking the subway almost everywhere, I consume far less gasoline than many residents of other cities. But this article suggests that smugness is not well-founded, as it’s also apparent that I’m probably generating much more non-recyclable waste than I could be. New York ranks sixteenth among twenty-seven cities in Siemens AG’ Green Cities Index and currently recycles just 15% of waste collected by the sanitation department, down from 23% a decade ago.

Numbers aside, the reporter’s own tally of non-recyclable waste products she collected after a week of take-out dining is sobering, and sadly familiar:

“I ended up with three plastic yogurt containers, a paper salad box, a paper cereal bowl, two Styrofoam plates, one plastic salad-dressing container and seven plastic food containers — the rigid ones with snap-on lids. Also, five plastic cups (each with a plastic straw), a paper cup with a plastic lid, a plastic water bottle and a plain old paper cup (it held milk for my cereal). Also, one plastic fork, one plastic knife and two compostable plastic spoons, which I threw out rather than composting.”

Read the full article here.

+

Crayola Trace & Draw

In the past I’ve written about my daughter’s fondness for my iPhone and how it makes a great toy for her, aside from the fact that it’s way too expensive and delicate to be treated as a toy. It’s no surprise that she feels the same way about my iPad, which is similarly perfect for her yet not perfect for us to give to her.

Griffin Technology and Crayola have a solution: their Trace & Draw “is both protective case and art table in one.”

Crayloa Trace & Draw

Its “shatter-resistant” polycarbonate shell snaps onto an iPad 2, and a free app lets the kids trace and interact with Crayola-provided content. If nothing else, it makes for a kid-friendly case, which I welcome. I only wish it fit the original iPad model as well, since I still have one of those and I’m not quite ready to hand over my still-pretty-new iPad 2 to a two year-old. Find out more here.

+

Mary Meeker and Tim Cook on Tablets

The former securities analyst and now Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker (sometimes known as “The Queen of the Net”) just delivered her annual PowerPoint of Internet mega-trends at the Web 2.0 Summit. You can see it here. As usual, it’s amazing and not to be missed. Here’s my favorite slide:

Mary Meeker on iPad

This graph shows the first six quarters of iPad shipments, in blue, in comparison to the first six quarters of shipments for the iPhone and the iPod. This is staggering, and it plays in very nicely with a comment that Apple CEO Tim Cook made during the Q & A portion of today’s quarterly earnings report. I’ve typeset the quote really big so it can’t be missed.

Tim Cook on iPad

Get ready.

+

New Logo for IL Magazine

I wrote about the Italian magazine Intelligence in Lifestyle back in December of last year and I’ve gotten to know its art director, Francesco Franchi, since then. He’s incredibly talented. The magazine now has a new masthead courtesy of the famous type designer Christian Schwartz of Commercial Type, which, if you ask me, makes for the very definition of an embarrassment of riches.

Intelligence in Lifestyle

Francesco has posted samples from the magazine in this Flickr set for everyone to marvel over.

+

Me at Nightlife at Daylife

Next Wednesday evening I’m going to be appearing at the headquarters of Daylife, a cloud publishing startup here in New York City founded by friend and (if you can believe it) high school classmate Upendra Shardanand. The event is part of the company’s “Nightlife@Daylife” series, in which they periodically bring in guest speakers for discussions on interesting topics.

I’ll be interviewed on stage by another friend, Daylife Chief Product Officer and serial entrepreneur Marc Hedlund. The topic will be tablets and the iPad, keying off many of the ideas I’ve touched on in past blog posts, including one I wrote in August: “What Comes After Reading on iPad.” This might include some hints as to what I’ve been working on all year.

You need a ticket to the event, but luckily they’re free and there are a few left at this EventBrite page. Please come by if you can, and if you do, please say hello.

+