Robot Roll Call

I cannot be 100% sure but I feel that I am one of the first, if not the first, person to review a hand dryer.

Now I realize that statement may seem odd, crazy even, but I must declare my love of the Dyson Air Blade.

If you are not familiar with this product I am sure you know the company’s name from their line of high end vacuum cleaners.

Imagine if you will, you’re in a public restroom and you have just completed you’re business now on to washing your hands.

This is always a point of contention for me, do the facilities have paper towels, a hand drier or those wall mounted rolls of thin cotton cloth that feed into itself (which on a side note you do not see much of any longer). Paper towels while they are sanitary are not eco friendly, sometimes the previous occupant has even dripped water all over the paper, particularly if said towels are stacked on a surface in the lavatory. The towels do the job and quickly I might add but they make a mess and like I mentioned above they are not eco-friendly. Next we have the old school hand dryer, a fixture in restrooms since forever, they are loud and very slow to actually assist in drying ones hands. Plus they take a huge amount of power to run the motor and heating element. Usually they take two cycles to even get your hands from wet to moist. Additionally they tend to be the victim of vandalism, as a kid I can remember the restaurant which my mother was employed had a hand dryer in the men’s washroom. If you can recall the driers had instructions listed on the face of the machine, such as

1. Push Button
2. Rub hands vigorously under warm air
3. Stops automatically.

The hand dryer at Harry’s restaurant had been defaced to read

1. Push Butt
2. Rubs hands vigorously under arm
3. Stop auto at ally.

In my years I have seen many variations of this list and even more changes via scratches with a knife or some variety of blunt instrument (as shown above). For some reason this alteration in public facilities has haunted me to this day, but I digress. The final option is the roll of cloth which feeds into itself, which was my previous favorite as it was quick and easy like the paper towels but minus the waste. However sometimes the roll was not replaced but rather just flipped and you found yourself attempting to dry your hands with a damp and germ infested piece of nasty.

This brings me to the Dyson Air Blade, a complete rethinking of how a hand dryer operates and how one interacts with a hand dryer.

Number one it does not have a blower mounted to the face of the machine rather it is in the shape of the letter U, the plastic face allows one to insert their hands into the top opening. This in turn activates a sensor which turns the machine on, no button to push for operation, the air flows from both sides of the U. All you do is insert your hands until they are completely inside the U and you slowly pull your hands up. The air is forced out of two very thin openings which act like a blade and a blower, kind of like the air blowers at the car wash. The pressure is significantly higher than the standard hand drier but in no way it is painful or dangerous. The whole process take about 15 seconds from wet hands to dry sanitary hands. The best part is that this machine actually uses less power than the old hand driers since the air is forced through such a small opening the pressure does most of the work additionally the machine does not heat the air which means less energy usage. This is an amazing machine and I strongly encourage you to ask your employer to install these in place of any other type of hand drying apparatuses. Take a moment to see the rad flash movie of the machine in action at Dyson’s web site.

Photo by PRI’s the World

Today the New York Times has an Op-Ed Article by Enrique Krauze titled “The Mexican Evolution”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/opinion/24krauze.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The opinion piece is about how the U.S and Mexican media has been focusing on the violence and drug trafficking occurring in small regions of the country. And how this has caused the U.S. state department to issue a statement that Mexico along with Pakistan are on the verge of becoming a failed state. Krauze’s argument is that Pakistan is much more likely to fail than Mexico, he even goes so far as to make a laundry list of the differences between the two countries. Comparing religious issues, foreign policies, Guerrilla groups and how the country has changed from the one party political system which had a strangle hold on the country for more than 70 years.
These are all very valid points and I understand the point of the opinion piece is to show Americans that Mexico is not a “failed” state as so many others are quick to point out.
Perhaps Mexico is not a failed state however, it is dealing with an enormous plague of crime. The almost overwhelming number of murders, kidnapping and random violence is so large that it eclipses almost everything else. Mr. Krauze’s article barely hints at these issues. While his opinion piece may be focused on the positive aspects of Mexico, to glide over the violence and to blame the media for only covering the brutal aspects of Mexican news makes his article seem very misguided. Of course we all tire of yellow journalism but to ignore the countries problems and then to seemingly push the blame on to the news gathers is achingly naive and ignorant. Of course like all opinion pieces this article has a goal, and that goal is to give Mexico a much needed positive P.R. push. I am sure it is no accident that the vacation season is just around the corner. Of course I doubt anyone will be visiting Juarez Mexico this summer as last year this city of 1.5 million which occupies 72.6 sq miles had 1,600 murders in 2008, this year the city has already had 200 murders as of late February. This is not something one sugar coats with finger pointing and smoke screens in the guise of nationalism. Mexico may not be in the same realm as Pakistan when it comes to failed states, but when one is comparing predicaments on these levels the point almost seems moot.

For some more information about the situation across the border I recommend these two videos. The first is merely a recent news story about Juarez Mexico and the second is a troubling piece by Current TV for their Current Vanguard Series. The Current video titled “Narco War Next Door” is one of the best pieces I have seen on Current.

Videos
http://www.ktsm.com/local/murder-numbers-quickly-approaching-300-juarez

http://current.com/items/89845362/narco_war_next_door.htm#comments

Fidelity Investments rolled out a new ad campaign this week with the slogan “Turn Here”. I saw the ad yesterday and was initially impressed by the creativity of the ad and slogan. That sentiment lasted about 45 seconds, then I became deeply troubled by this. What seemed clever and unique quickly turned to silly and pretentious. I’m sure when the ad concept was pitched the people responsible were beaming. But “Turn Here” is so subjective, almost to a fault.
Perhaps “Leading the Pack” would have expressed the same sentiment without the confusion. Turn Here?, to where, why and I’m almost certain the person who came up with the slogan has a TOM TOM or some other voice navigation system. They may as well say ‘Turn here to savings” which is something you would see in a cursive font below a giant sun-burnt supermarket sign.
In the end the slogan fails to impress, mostly it annoys and confuses, check the link below to see the micro-site and make your own judgment.
Is “Turn Here” a solid concept of a half baked idea rushed out to save an investment company?
I vote for the latter.

http://personal.fidelity.com/misc/gettingstarted/flash/turnhere/index.shtml

Google presents their logo functionally as a reflection of early
internet web experiences — simple and elegant. This emphasis of early
web technology can only be percieved as a marketing strategy, the end
message being a synergy with safety and historic determinism (see index
A). The other significant marketing accomplishment of Google has been
a strong message of “we control the technology.” Having dominated the
search market showdown of the early 00’s Google went on to create standards
in internet advertising stemming from their search technology,
PageRank, and then usurping their corporate mantra “don’t be evil”
with their contextual advertisement programs.

Gmail is great, but I bet it breaks more than Yahoo (an old fav of mine).
It’s really awesome when you can afford the best developers in the world
to create your Javascript (client-side) technology. C’mon Google,
you’ve got the best server farms in the world, what is this, sharecropping?
Forget it, I love you, Google, because you encourage the web to be OPEN
and free. THAT is not evil, good job. Chrome, Google’s web browser, is
pretty cool, btw. By the time Google opens a retail outlet
it will be nothing but an example of how expensive it is to show a
webcam displaying ownership of property in the best parts of
Manhattan, but the great part will be that you are legally in Toronto
while visiting!

Google’s homepage will often show artistic renderings of it’s logo,
which have become increasingly divergent in range over the past few
years. My favorite was during the Summer Olympics in China, when they
had to make the Os cross each other. It felt like a violation of
technological integrity.

Ads in Gmail are placed in the same way that ads are placed alongside
Google search results and, through the Google AdSense program, on
content pages across the web. The goal is to provide you with helpful
ads, links and content relevant to your specific interests.
Advertising and related information are displayed based on a
completely automated process. (from Google’s help files)

Advertising is evil.

The future of Google is medical. One could use a steak knife from a
Ponderosa buffet to perform surgical fat removal, but do a Google
search on it first and you’ll realize that the America invented the
Manhattan Project and ’solved’ the ‘cold’ war. It’s hard being a
robot, but people trust me to do it.

__
INDEX A. historic determinism - creating your legacy by building something.
copyright law is a related to this.

END

ed. note - for more visit Durftek.org