It's me, Pete... from the podcast.

Apple bows out of EPEAT (updated)

UPDATE: And… they’re back. In a weird first-person letter from Bob Mansfield currently on Apple’s Environment page:

We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.

The problem now is that fewer and fewer Apple products are currently eligible for EPEAT. Apple’s next move will likely be to push a changing standard of recyclability into the EPEAT spec so that their products like the Air and the new Retina MacBook Pro are technically eligible once more. It’s bold, and it’s arrogant, and it’s a quick resolution to something that clearly surprised the company.

—

Here’s the word from CNET: 

Apple has decided to stop participating in a major program devoted to the production of environmentally friendly products, reportedly saying that its design direction is no longer in line with the program’s requirements.

Late last month, Apple told the nonprofit EPEAT group that the company would no longer submit its products for green certification from EPEAT and that it was pulling its currently certified products from the group’s registry.

First, let’s not mistake this move as a signal that Apple is suddenly going to be dropping old laptops into the chipper and flushing the shavings into our water supply. They might, but I doubt it. A move like that presumes that the company was only manufacturing according to the green standard because the standard exists. I find that terribly hard to believe—I can’t think of many consumer electronics manufacturers that are outright evil.

I’m writing this on my new favorite computer ever. It’s the new 11.6“ MacBook Air, and I love it as much as I loved my old 10” PowerBook from years back. I’ve owned several laptops between then and now, and this one is the best, fastest, most comfortable of the lot. Much of that love comes from the form factor—the razorblade taper and the full-sized keyboard make for a brilliant combination. 

But the thinner Apple makes their machines, like this MacBook Air, the more custom the components have to be—standard hard drives and memory and fans just don’t fit in this device. That makes it hard for outsiders like iFixIt to dig into them, but that doesn’t make them any less disposable. It makes them less disposable for anyone who isn’t Apple.

Apple maintains it’s own recycling program and from everything I can find, that program is not in any danger. Apple pulling out of EPEAT is first and foremost a signal that Apple is best equipped to disassemble and competently recycle their own products, and outside agencies are not equipped to pass judgement on that recyclability. Apple built it, Apple knows best how to tear it apart.

What is the role of the EPEAT certification in the sales process? How many times have you walked into the Apple Store and made a buying decision based on EPEAT rating? Me? Never. Maybe the green statement has cemented my decision as a good one, but it has never been a determining factor. And it’s never, ever come up in a conversation with a floor salesperson. Never. 

My sense is that the certification is box decoration, and Apple is confident enough in their internal processes that they don’t need the box decoration to move those boxes. You could make the case that this damages EPEAT more than any other party, which would be a shame. Lobbying efforts on behalf of the environment are important, even if the box decoration is not.

Build & Analyze #84

On Build & Analyze #84 this week, Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin talk through the philosophical differences between patent infringement and copyright infringement. It’s one of those head-slapping-oh-shit founts of awareness that erupts when you realize you’ve been gifted with a sense of insight. I spend a lot of time thinking about these issues for a guy who spends zero time actually patenting or infringing patents, but Marco’s take on these issues is absolutely worth listening to if you’ve never found yourself cursed with such an inner monologue.

Man versus Monkey in Thailand

Let’s just say we’re out to dinner. Maybe there are a bunch of people with us. I go into one of my charming “dinner scripts”, which is great, until I’ve had a glass of wine too many and I have to break out the B or C-level material. That’s when I might say this…

“You know, I used to live in Korea, right? And would watch a lot of local TV… long, hot afternoons and such. So, this one day, I turn on the Korean sports channel and I see this guy in a diaper racing a monkey up a tree to cut down coconuts.”

Then there is silence. Cause people think I’m drunk, and they largely see this as another one of “Pete’s tales of animal cruelty”.

But that’s not what it is this time, see? This time, it’s real! And now I have proof! It’s the annual Man Versus Monkey competition in Thailand!

So watch this thing, and get a load of just how terrific the audience reaction is—the old man is a complete celebrity.

Vytautas Mineral Water from Lithuania

Just when you think you’ve grown comfortable with the fact that marketing is used more often for evil than for good, you stumble across something like Vytautas Mineral Water from Lithuania and realize that all is still very wrong with the world, but there are things in it that are, in fact, awesome.

Kottke might just nail this Apple event rumor

Mostly dead liveblog of Apple’s event:

As a teaser, I’d like to offer the world’s worst prediction for today’s event: Apple announces the iPhone 5. Could you imagine though? After Apple declined the version number bump with the introduction of the 4S, what would a device need to do to warrant it? A fusion energy source? Teleportation? A camera that sees into the future? My money’s on a built-in quadrotor system so that your phone could autonomously run errands for you or spy on your enemies.

Shows this week

Three new releases this week.

the naked marketers • Ep 46: Megan Who?
Dane and I try to make sense of life without Megan, who quit us this week. She stuck it out with our inanity for 46 episodes over two years and finally could take it no more. Apparently, her shiny new role with the Cause Marketing Forum is too compelling a mistress for us to compete anymore. She has such a great presence on these shows, and while we both congratulate her on the change in her role and the exciting opportunities ahead, she will be sorely missed for her good spirit, great humor, and unending patience. That, and she’s dead to us, of course.

The Next Reel Film Podcast • “When Harry Met Sally…”
Predictably, we love this movie. And so far, I can fairly say that this is a movie about which no one I have ever actually met has not loved as well. It’s the quiet, funny kid… the kid that’s just too charming to pick on, even though every now and again, he might eat a booger. It’s also our very special New Year episode because of all the New Year redux scenes in it. It’s a theme thing. Seriously, listen to this show and make sure to comment on Facebook to share your thoughts with me and Andy.

Taking Control • Ep 49: How to make an organizing goal
Finally, Nikki gets to something that has bugged me for years: resolutions suck. They don’t actually deal with the positive change you want to achieve in your life, they deal with the things you invariably hate about yourself for some reason or another. Better to create goals, structure them as projects with milestones, and give yourself a plan to achieve them. Fine to use the New Year season to set some new goals and reset priorities, but once you get good at setting organizing goals, you’ll want to do this all year round.

Dumb as a marketing differentiator

Ina Fried – Adobe’s Mobile Flash Pullback Puts Android Tablet Makers in Tough Spot

RIM rep on their strategy going forward with regard to Flash:

“As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations. RIM remains committed to delivering an uncompromised Web browsing experience to our customers, including native support for Adobe Flash Player on our BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (similar to a desktop PC browser), as well as HTML5 support on both our BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook browsers,” RIM said in a statement to AllThingsD. “In fact, we are pleased that Adobe will focus more efforts on the opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers, and shares our commitment to HTML5 as we discussed together at DevCon Americas.”

Seriously.

Gruber on conflating Flash benefits

‘Opponents’:

It’s not that iOS’s popularity for web browsing led to the death of mobile Flash; it’s that the lack of Flash — and the resulting overall improvement to speed, responsiveness, and battery life — led to the popularity of iOS for web browsing.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Yeah, that’s about how it shakes out. And that, I’d wager, is what’s going to do in Flash on the desktop too. I know I’m not shy about discussing the improvements in stability and battery life on my own laptop since I disabled Flash on my system. I say the same to my non-technical parents, who also have now moved to a Flash-free lifestyle. If my parents can do it, anyone can.

Marco Arment celebrating the end of Mobile Flash

→ Adobe ends mobile Flash development:

This isn’t just the death of mobile Flash: it’s a confirmation from Adobe that all Flash is on its way out.

Adobe’s management is also being pragmatic about its priorities. Rather than fight a losing battle for a particular runtime, Adobe can focus on what it does best: makingtools for creative professionals.

Whether those tools build Flash or HTML apps shouldn’t matter: they should build what creative professionals need to build, and these days, that’s native mobile apps and HTML5 web apps.

(Via Marco.org)

Adobe finally kills Flash player development for mobile

From Danny Winokur, VP & GM, Interactive Development at Adobe:

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

I love Adobe. After Apple, Adobe is the company I count on for having allowed me to quit my job to freelance. I have a very large, soft spot in my professional heart for Adobe. What I know of Adobe is that when they focus, they turn out amazing and powerful tools that we could never have imagined before. With each substantive iteration of Creative Suite and each product announcement, I’m filled with this sort of breathless anticipation at discovering what new wonders will enable me to deliver a vision for my clients they never would have expected.

That’s where Adobe excels. They create the most powerful tools in the world for allowing creatives to do incredible work. Sometimes I get the feeling that Adobe doesn’t know that.

Of course, the real news:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

It’s about time.

This is the march of technology talking on one hand, timing on the other. The problem with Flash has always been that it’s devilishly tricky to optimize in low-power environments. Had mobile chips come out with the horsepower required for Flash and a cold fusion reactor in the first place, we wouldn’t have been having discussions about Flash on mobile. It would likely have been the dominant mobile media delivery mechanism. Unfortunately for Adobe, that reality only exists in some other timeline, which is about to be frozen in amber.

The upside is huge here. Getting Flash on mobile out of the picture means that Adobe will get to the yeoman’s work of creating the tools for creatives to build incredible things on all mobile platforms and focus on telling stories rather than graceful degradation for the mobile experience.

One last interesting point:

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

That Flash will continue as a dominant media distribution package for big media is sort of a no brainer to me. But this last bit seems to me as a realistic assessment of progress in HTML5 for general rich media user experience. That Adobe is continuing to contribute and migrate underlying Flash tools says to me that they’re both aware that their future is in building tools for a standard which they do not control, and that we’re not there yet. I think they’re right on both counts, but this is the first time I’ve heard nuance from Adobe that there is a future out there on the horizon for deprecating the Flash desktop experience in favor of HTML5. It’s right there, in the subtext: if we bring all these rich media capabilities to HTML5, who’s going to be left developing in Flash?

On the upside, seems like the religious arguments about the future of Flash on mobile have dialed back their fervor. And Adobe’s doing a pretty good job of planting the seeds of transformation here as optimistically as they can.

Andy Ihnatko on writer’s block

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITERS’ BLOCK. – Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA)

But don’t say you’re “blocked,” ever. And for the love of almighty God, don’t seek answers from the sort of madmen who insist and reinforce the idea that “writer’s block” is a real thing.

Your brain is highly malleable. If you train it to believe that you need to pull over to the side of the road and stop moving forward the instant a “Writer’s Block” indicator on the dashboard turns red, then over time, that’s the only solution it’ll ever offer you.

Writing is hard. That’s why so few people stick to it and actually finish things. And why you have a right to be immensely proud when you finish something.

And he should know. This guy turns out more word-shaped pixels than just about anyone I [don’t actually] know.

Marco Arment on the new Kindle

Review: The 2011 $79 Kindle with ads and buttons:

The Kindle 1 and 2 felt like high-quality items, while the 3 and the new Kindle feel disposable. But they’re priced accordingly. The Kindle 1 was $400. This one’s $79 with ads.

Even the ads fit in more than I expected because this doesn’t feel like a high-end device that commands respect, for better and for worse. Again, cheap, disposable.

Sounds about right. Too bad.

On losing Ben Franklin

The day Steve Jobs called Walter Isaacson – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Tech

That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet know that taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation. It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him. I had recently published one on Benjamin Franklin and was writing one about Albert Einstein, and my initial reaction was to wonder, half-jokingly, whether he saw himself as the natural successor in that sequence. Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred. Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire.

When Ben Franklin died, it was a loss, I have to imagine. But did they know, back then, that they’d lost Ben Franklin? Albert Einstein? Thomas Jefferson? Nikola Tesla?

It feels like that’s something of substance this morning as I tap away on my MacBook Pro because we know that yesterday, in so many ways, we lost our Ben Franklin. Albert Einstein. Thomas Jefferson. Nikola Tesla.

Steve picked me

On June 10, 2002, an Apple commercial with my face on it first aired on Comedy Central after the first block of South Park. It hit CNN the next morning, and my phone started ringing with calls from people I hadn’t heard from in years. “Do you have a twin brother?” they asked. No, no twin. Just me. Steve picked me.

And put me on the front of Apple.com with a small group of like-minded Apple users.

I was in the first round of “Switchers,” the short-run campaign that offered stories of real users of Apple products. Me, Aaron Adams, Dave Haxton, Dianne Druyff, Liza Richardson, Mark Frauenfelder, and Patrick Gant made up the first run of regular users, Will Ferrell, Yo-Yo Ma, De La Soul, and Tony Hawk making up some of the celebrity users.

Apple flew us to Boston and LA and handed us over to Errol Morris, who filmed us for hours and hours talking into the camera in that hot-as-the-sun white warehouse. And then we finished. They took the film (yes, film), carted it back to Cupertino, and shipped us home.

I switched back to Macs in March of 2002. That’s when I started using media again. I was a mid-level director at a big company, stuck in a monumental rut. But I switched to Mac and found a way out. I discovered what I could do with technology again, what it meant to create.

On August 1, 2007 I quit that job to freelance. And I did it because Apple software and hardware became a catalyst for me to take renewed control over my career. And every time I think about that, not so deep in the back of my mind, I thank Steve Jobs. He represents something bigger than a man, a leader, and an inventor. He’s a representation of what we can become when confronted with tragedy and evolve through it. Watching Steve Jobs taught me not only to ask “what if…” but to find the courage to act on the answer.

The folks I worked with in Apple advertising were very kind. They had told me time and again that all these were subject to “Apple approval.” I’d asked if that meant that the footage would cross Steve’s desk. “All of it,” they said.

That morning in 2002, Patrick Gant called me on the phone and said, “Go check out apple.com. Prepare to be blown away.” For some reason, out of all the switchers to cross that white warehouse stage, of all the stories of how people use these tools, of all the posing and preening and crowing about the gear, for some reason, Steve picked me.

I never got to meet Steve Jobs. I wish, more than anything, I’d had a chance to shake his hand and say all this to his face. In some small part, I think I’ve been holding out hope that one day I’d still get the chance to do so. Now, I’ll just have to trust that this message, along with messages from the rest of us Switchers, and the millions and millions of people around the world sharing their own thoughts, will reach those who need to hear it.

Steve, what you brought to the world changed my life. What you leave in your wake is a fantastic canvas. I’ll do my best never to stop asking “what if,” and to find the courage to create.

The woes of the .co domain – I’m sorry Columbia.

I’m changing my name. Again. It used to be PeteWright.co. That was then.

Now, it’s RashPixel.com.

See the twist there? It’s subtle, and it happens right after the “o” in the “.co…” … … that’s right: I’ve added an “m”. Let me tell you why.

Late last week, I got a call from Linda Bonder, the fantastic director of marketing for The International School. I do some support and web work for the school, so it’s not wholly unusual for Linda to be calling me.

“Do you have a second?” she asks me. “This one is so strange I don’t know how to write it out in email.”

“Yeah. Go ahead,” I say.

“There’s a woman in California who is receiving our emails. Random emails. From the teachers.”

I was sure this random woman in California was on the school’s mailing list somewhere. That’s how these things happen. Even smart people can go cross-eyed looking at long lists of names.

“And she’s not on the list. Anywhere.”

Hrm. So I asked Linda to forward me a few of the messages. The California woman had been receiving them for some time, but the frequency had picked up in the last few weeks, since school started.

I ended up in an unrelated meeting for the next hour, but Linda had taken the liberty of sending me a few samples that Ms. California had passed on. Then, toward the end of the hour, she texted me.

“Isn’t Sophie in Ann’s class?”

“Yeah… why?” I asked.

One of the emails she had forwarded, which I had yet to see, was from Sophie’s teacher. I cracked open my laptop and checked mail. Sure enough, there were two messages from Linda containing messages from Ann to the parents of my daughter’s class, which I’d never seen. Next in the list, a message from my son’s teacher, same deal.

Last, a message from the Chautauqua Institution Special Studies office confirming receipt of my pitch to teach for them this summer. I hadn’t received that either.

These things trigger the Sherlock Holmes vibe in me. And in hindsight, I wish the resolution to this mess hadn’t been so obvious. This is where we get back to the “m” in .com.

In looking at the expanded headers on each message, sure enough, the address for yours truly was pete@petewright.com.

My email address was supposed to be @petewright.co. When I registered the domain, a year ago, I’d thought optimistically that the world was ready for the .co domain, that variants on top level domains had permeated through Internet culture and .co would be included in the canon of Internet reflex. Amazon, Google, Twitter, they’ve all gone with a .co for their products. And it is, after all, the top level domain for the proud Republic of Columbia.

As it turns out, sadly for the Republic of Columbia, most of the world sees .co as a typo.

Sophie’s teacher did. As did my son’s. And so it was with the Chautauqua institution. All had corrected my address to @petewright.com, an address which does not exist … for me. Any time they had sent an email to me at my address@petewright.com, any address @petewright.com, it would miss me completely. Today, I have the benefit of knowing that this email was arriving in the inbox of my new friend, Ms. California. But Ms. California was not the owner of petewright.com. She hadn’t heard of it, doesn’t know any Wrights, and has been using the same email address for more than 15 years. So, for as long as this issue had been happening, she’d been deleting it, marking it junk.

The domain is actually registered by a nice family in California. I know this because as any enterprising citizen of the Internet would do, I looked them up in WHOIS and called them directly. Visiting the site shows it at the registrar’s landing page – clearly they weren’t actually using it for anything. So, I had two objectives: 1) make sure they know that there is a redirect problem and that *@petewright.com email is being redirected to Ms. California. 2) If they really weren’t doing anything with it, might they be interested in letting me have a go with it for a few ducats?

No. They’d registered it for their son when he was born and were sitting on it until he was “of age.” As for the email redirect, they said they might get to it. The nice woman who answered said that it was her husband that handled all the “net stuff” and that I should leave my name and he would call me back. No calls yet.

This weekend, I ended up at a meeting with a group of clients wondering why I hadn’t written them back. They hadn’t heard from me in months. Turns out, Ms. California had been deleting their messages, too.

And my bills, statements, friend’s messages, the works. I don’t know how much mail ended up in Ms. California’s inbox as a result of this snafu, but that any of it missed me because of this typo creates a failing system – one I can’t trust.

So, for now, petewright.co will be retired in favor of rashpixel.com. There’s a story to be told about the new name, one that, I think, represents more of who I am as a service provider, and who I’ve become over the last half-decade of work. I look forward to telling it, as this site evolves over the coming months. I’ll be retiring the original name of my business in this whole messy process, so with this I bid farewell to fifthandmain.com, too. It was fun while it lasted. But I’m really looking forward to what’s next.