Unremarkable

Sorry this is a bit of a nerdy post, an advanced warning for those of you that don't care. Let's talk about the future of technology, computers specifically, and what it will look like. I wanted to get my thoughts together and documented so that I can see how my perceptions of computing evolution change over time.

We're just a couple days past the release of the third generation iPad, generally speaking Apple calls the iPad (and the iPhone) a "Post PC" device. While I think the marketing term is cute, it sells the scope of what those devices will accomplish in the future, a little short. When most nerds hear Post PC, they seem to either dismiss it out of hand, calling the iPad a toy, or feel that the iPad/iPhone will replace computers for people that browse the web, send email, share pictures, and play games in line at the grocery store.

While true, most people will replace their home computers in the next 2-3 years with an iPad, that isn't going far enough. The iPad and iPhone are destined to replace computing devices utilized by everyone[1] including so-called powers users (programmers, graphic artists, scientists, nerds in general). It won't be long before I can replace the laptop from work, my MacBook, and whatever else with an iPhone and iPad. Sit down at your desk, dock your phone, and that 27 inch monitor (with built in graphics card), keyboard, mouse, and hard drive will all pair with the phone, restoring to the state they had when I picked it up off the doc at home. I'm not even sure that this is going far enough, does the phone even really need to leave my pocket?

These aren't consumption devices, they're just generally not that good yet. The iPad and iPhone are awesome (we own three iPads and have owned five iPhones), but they're just the start. Limited by processor, storage, battery, and connectivity technologies, they can only achieve a fraction of their destined functionality. I can't imagine attempting to modify a large spreadsheet, write code, or play Portal 2 on an iPad today (let alone an iPhone). That isn't because they'll never be suited for such tasks, they just aren't there yet.

Technology will continue to get better and I can imagine that in the next 10 years I won't need this clunky old laptop.

1. I'm ignoring the servers that power all of this, iCloud, the Internet, almost all the services we use daily need them and I don't see them going away any time soon.

Sunday, I ran the march madness half marathon. I had never run it before, but a lot of people from my club were going (and we all know what happens when your friends jump off a bridge...) Registration was tricky. The race was capped at 1,000 and it was sold out within minutes of opening on new years eve at 6am. Daniel surprised me on the morning of the race and tagged along for the hour drive. Parking was a breeze and packet pickup was quick and easy. We meandered around for a bit, before meeting up with the club for a quick group shot.

The only thing I knew ahead of time was that the race was popular, well run, and very hilly. I train on a prairie path (read: net elevation zero) and it was a hot day, so I was planning on using this as a tough training run and cruising into the finish in about 2 hours or so. We lined up (the race was not chip timed and didn't have pacers, so I seeded myself somewhere in the middle with a fellow GER), The gun fired, and we were off.

We decided that our game plan would to run in the 8:40-8:45 range for the first 5 miles or so, then have some time in the bank to take the hills nice and slow since they were stacked in the back half of the course. This plan was thrown out the window almost immediately. We went through mile 1 in 8:03. "Oops, way too fast. Must. Slow. Down." Mile 2: 8:05. "Oh shit, we are going to be so screwed." We didn't settle into a slower pace until the hills picked up around mile 6.

Each hill had a cutesy name. There was the lung buster, sneaky hill, shoe tree hill, big hill, and the ever dreaded 10 mile (aka heartbreak) hill. For the first time ever, I was actually passing people up the hills. After making it past the 10 mile point feeling decent, I decided that I would PR instead of wiping out at the end. And I did!

My official gun time was 1:51:49, which is nearly 4 minutes faster than my previous PR. Here are my garmin splits and elevation map for any other running geeks out there.

Testing

Post PC

March Madness Half Marathon