Luckily for me, the App Store has a free Wordpress application available for download that does a great job at providing the mobile blogger with a basic rendition of Wordpress on the go. With a few taps, I was able to set up my blog to have access with the app, select a new post, tap in a title and a few tags, and boom–I was off and tapping my way to mobile blogging heaven on my iPhone.

Yet, although most may view the slow typing speed as a huge downfall to mobile blogging on the iPhone, there is one benefit. As I sat comfortably on my bed tapping out this post, I was able to use the extra time in between taps to more fully explore, ponder, and in essence revise my thoughts to create an overall better piece of writing. I found myself editing my thoughts before they were put down on pap–err, I mean tapped on screen. This is instead of having to go back afterward and revise sentences or thoughts. While it may seem minor to you, for someone who has always despised the thought of a rough draft and preferred editing and revising on the fly, it works great for my style.

So, while it may not be perfect, and things like a full landscape keyboard could improve typing speeds drastically, mobile blogging on the iPhone has real promise. Trusting the software to correct words for you on the fly and using two fingers really helps, so if you’re considering it, make sure you can do both before blogging on the iPhone.

With my initial impressions of blogging on the iPhone tapped out, I’d love to hear what you think. Share your thoughts or experiences in the comments below.

Edit: Media is handled atrociously with this specific Wordpress app. Images can only be automatically placed at the bottom of a post, giving the author no control over image placement.  I had to go in manually to the post via my PC after to arrange the pictures as you see above. There also doesn’t appear to be any way to embed videos.

Let’s hope that media management is improved in future versions or different apps. If anyone knows of a better one for Wordpress, please let me know about it in the comments.

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“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

For the longest time, I thought it had no purpose. But once you start using it and see the community…you’ll just get it.

Still not convinced? Watch the video below.

Follow Me on Twitter

If you’re interested in following my thoughts, I’m at twitter.com/IanMikutel

Follow The Wiire on Twitter

I’ve also created a Twitter account for my online publication, The Wiire. Follow the The Wiire on Twitter at twitter.com/TheWiire

You’ll get to see what goes on behind the scenes 24/7 @ the site, everything from site development, to upcoming podcast recordings (and Tweets during recordings if you’re an active listener of the podcast you’ll appreciate), to editors posting upcoming stories before they hit the site. We’d also love to hear from you too, you can always reply to our posts by Tweeting “@TheWiire”

Twhirl…Get It, Seriously

If you want the absolute best way to use Twitter, its not through the web interface. Download Twhirl, a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform. Trust me, I’ve used Twitter for some time, but now with Twhirl installed, Twitter has suddenly become a much more practical and fun application to use.

http://www.twhirl.org/

Brilliant Concept - “Slices of Life”

“90 Seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.“

- Heather Champ, Flickr

That last part is the brilliant concept. The folks at Flickr didn’t just release another flash based video player, they created a platform that would “complement the flickrverse”.

The 90 second time limit and 150mb size constraint will help users use the Flickr Video service the way it is intended to be used. Not for watching the latest episode of your favorite TV show. Not for catching the latest political speech. Flickr Video is for capturing what photos have always captured — a moment.

Capturing a Moment in the 21st Century

For too photos have continued to be used in the online world to capture and share our moments. They were invented in a time when the medium for viewing them was not a screen capable of displaying motion. Nor were they invented in a time when the medium for viewing them was capable of producing sound. Yet in the online world of the 21st century, we have both, readily available on our computers. Why are we still capturing and sharing our moments in a form that does not make full use of these advantages?

Flickr realized this, and has provided the solution.

Flickr Video - A Differentiated Service

The press coverage for Flickr’s launch of video sharing has been describing it wrong.

Take for example, the following quote from the AP’s Michael Liedtke:

“Yahoo Inc. will begin showing homemade videos on its online photo-sharing site, Flickr, in a long-anticipated move that may be too late to lure most people away from the Internet’s dominant video channel, Google Inc.’s YouTube.

Flickr’s video technology, to debut late Tuesday, represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up to Google in a crucial battleground.”

- Michael Liedtke, AP

What is important for people to realize this isn’t a new online video sharing service that will compete with YouTube, but rather, a service that will fulfill one niche that people may use YouTube (or others) to currently satisfy. There is a difference.

The ability to contain all your captured moments, whether they be pictures or video, in one place, is a compelling offering that Flickr now uniquely owns.

The Future of Flickr Video

While the feature has just launched, it will be very interesting to watch if it takes off as I believe it will, revolutionizing how we share our moments in the online world, or if its brilliant concept will simply be lost in the sea of online video sharing services.

For Yahoo, who many believe made a poor choice in acquiring Flickr in 2005, this may be one of the smartest and most important moves the company has ever made.

So often golfers get caught up in hitting it further; the barrage of advertisements for the latest drivers year after year are proof. Yet, if golfers spent more time with their wedges and putters, and less with the driver, they would achieve lower scores.

Sweeney actually developed a statistical model to predict scores based on performance factors. His results found that greens in regulation and putting combined to account for 55% of the predictive power of scoring, and when you add scrambling in, it goes up to 78%.

But what is most interesting about this? Using the same statistical model, Driving Distance and Driving Accuracy only added 1% each among tour players. Bubba Watson’s leading average 314 yard driving distance is statistically irrelevant to a player like Tiger Woods who ranks first in a performance factor such as Greens in Regulation.

As Sweeney points out in his article, “as much as golfers love to hit more fairways, Woods has proved that it is a relatively insignificant part of his game — and everyone else’s on the tour.”

I certainly know what I’ll be practicing this season. Goodbye driving range, hello chipping/putting green.

However, there is one problem–he has yet to endorse either candidate.

What are you waiting for, John? Your words certainly speak for themselves. Watch, listen, and perhaps you’ll wake up and do what you’ve known all along.

The feat of doing so is intriguing enough to spark much debate, as science fiction movies and books have shown over the years. But in the information age in which we live in, the 21st century, the most technologically advanced time in human civilization to date, what are the odds of pulling it off?

Many wondered the same thing when JFK guaranteed we’d put a man on the moon by the end of the decade in the 1960’s– yet is it fair to make such a comparison? Back then we had physical evidence, scientific proof that other planets existed, it simply was a matter of time for us to develop a way to make a human get there.

However, when put into such terms it makes one wonder–isn’t that the exact situation we find ourselves in with regards to time travel today? Whether or not time exists is another question in itself, so for the sake of argument, we must assume it does exist. Besides, we all use and rely on it anyway, so we’re stuck with it no matter what.

I believe within the next 50 years the mystery of time travel will be solved, but the process will be much different than the current perceived notion of a “time machine” in which you select a year on a dial and poof, you’re sent off to 469 B.C. to hang with Socrates. No, for I believe the concept of time is difficult to control, and will be difficult to master in terms of traveling through it. There is substantial evidence to back my claim, and I suggest anyone who’s interested further check out PBS NOVA Time Travel.

So what do you think? Is time travel possible? If so, when do you expect humans to figure it out? If not, tell me why in the comments below.

• It is designed to supply a village with 1,000 liters/day of clean water. (Colbert Report)

• You can use any water source — ocean, puddle, chemical waste site, hexavalent chrome, arsenic, poison, 50 gallon drum of urine. (Colbert Report)

• Vapor compression distillation is not new. Doing it in such an incredibly efficient way such that it takes only 2 percent of the power of convention distillers is new. (R&D World and Gizmodo commenter)

• The are no filters to replace, no charcoal, no anything disposable (just distillation). (Colbert Report)

• The Slingshot (as its called) can use half the waste heat (450 watts) from a sterling engine electrical generator (prototype also being designed by Kamen’s company) to boil its water. (TED)

• The heat put into the water is recovered with a “counter-flow heat exchanger” and recycled to heat the next batch of water (that is part of the novel bit). (TED and Gizmodo commenter)

• Slingshot will be less then 60 lbs. (TED)

• The prototype slingshot was hand-built for $100K. The goal is to get production units down to $1,000 to $2,000. (CNN)

• The sterling engine, used as an electrical generator, can produce about 200 watts of power (it will never be more then 20 percent efficient) and 800 watts of waste heat (the waste heat that slingshot uses). TED

• Later sources say the sterling engine can generate 1 kilowatt or enough power for 70 high-efficiency light bulbs. (CNN)

• The sterling engine can run on anything that burns, propane or even cow dung. (CNN)

• The slingshot is a David and Goliath reference aimed at putting water and power back in the hands of the individuals. (AP)

While it still has many obstacles to overcome before it becomes a viable solution to the world’s water problems, Kamen must have felt it is far enough along in development to do an unveiling like this to the public after five years in development. Time will tell if they can get it to a reasonable price and begin distributing them around the world as planned.

What do you think? Will The Slingshot rid the world of 50% of human disease as Kamen proclaims, or never make it main stream (no pun intended)? After the reluctance of commuters to accept the Segway as a serious means of transportation, some have their doubts. I have a feeling the world may just be a bit more thirsty for clean water.

In his swearing-in ceremony as Governor of New York, David Paterson gave an inspiring speech. While his specifics addressed the current needs of New York State, his words can truly be inspirational to a nation that is, on its whole, tired of dirty politics.

For those of you unaware, David Paterson assumed the role of Governor of New York State after former Governor, Eliot Spitzer, was forced to resign after a federal investigation found he was involved in a prostitution ring.

Personally, with a history of blindness in my family (my Grandfather, Aunt, and cousin all have a form of Retinitis Pigmentosa) what I find most inspiring in Gov. Paterson’s speech was not only his words, but also the fact that he became the nation’s first legally blind person to take the Oath of Office as Governor. Furthermore, he is New York’s first African American Governor.

Being legally blind, Gov. Paterson had to memorize all the words in the speech you see in the video below, an impressive feat in this day and age when most politicians rely on a teleprompter or prepared notes.

But what I found most inspiring about Gov. Paterson was the fact that as I watched him speak, I felt a genuine sense of care, passion, and overall grasping of the moment at hand. You can plainly see, as ironically he cannot, a man that did not have ambitions to obtain the office he now holds. He never ran a campaign, had to raise money, or make any back room deals with anyone to become Governor of New York. Yet, there is he, ready to lead the state, sounding as inspiring as a man who knew all along that this day may very well come. His words are empowering and inspiring, not all to unlike those of the Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama (More: Why I Support Barack Obama for President), who has captured a nation this past year with his bid for the White House.

Governor Paterson, may you lead this state well, and make all of those proud who are either black, blind, from New York, or otherwise tired of dirty, unproductive politics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZl5JgRe_1s[/youtube]

For those of you unfamiliar with Larry Lessig, some brief background from Wikipedia:

Lawrence Lessig (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic. He is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. He is founder and CEO of the Creative Commons and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center, launched in February 2005. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

At the iCommons iSummit 07 Lessig announced that he will stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters, and will instead work on corruption in the political system. This new work may be partially facilitated through his wiki — “Lessig Wiki” — which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California’s 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of U.S. Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an “exploratory project”, the decision was made not to run for the vacant seat.