Like every other critic and salivating fanboy, I feel compelled to chime in on yesterday’s religious experience in which The Steve descended from on high bearing a tablet. However, this is not a review, but merely a (lengthy) answer to a simple question: is the iPad for me? I won’t be talking about the market for digital content distribution, I won’t be whining about what software and hardware widgets weren’t included, I’m not going to rant about Apple’s closed ecosystem, I won’t be begging to lick someone’s boots for a chance just to touch one. Additionally, although hopefully this is obvious, this is heavy on speculation, since I have yet to actually hold the product, let alone use it for any length of time.

I’ll also take this opportunity to brag that I got 29.5 points on the prediction score card, with only one question as yet unanswered: will textbooks be available (I said yes, and I think this is eventually likely, based on the list of publishers involved). I was briefly unsure if my existing Apple Wireless Keyboard would be supported, but the Design page indicates that in will be, in spite of the existence of the iPad Dock. I got the name right, and most of the detailed features based on the rumorsphere. The substantive places I was wrong were the absence of a camera, the price point (cheaper than I expected), and the lack of any information on iPhone OS 4. I had a hope for an open development environment, but I knew that wasn’t going to be true, so that’s more a self-docking principle point. I failed to predict the dock, and I gave myself a half-point for saying no 3G when there are models both with and without.

Below the cut I’ll start off with a brief history of my personal electronics habits from college through today, and then consider where the iPad would fit into my little niche… and, if it does fit, whether it’s worth it. I’ll also look at what still-open questions about the device would affect my potential buying decision (not the least of which is that I need to try it out in an Apple Store to get a sense of the ergonomics). While I’m only speaking for myself, maybe my analysis will be useful to people similar to me.

Usage

For the purposes of this post, I’m discussing a subset of my uses for various electronics in rather broad categories. Over time, the breakdown of which device(s) I use for each task has changed, mostly due to the addition of new devices, but also to some extent due to changes in my tasks breakdown over the past 8 years.

• Programming
• Gaming
• Taking pictures
• Listening to music
• Reading news
• Making phone calls
• Remote access
• Online socializing
• Taking notes

I’m not going to get into how my time breaks down into those categories, but it’s safe to say what dominates given my employment (software engineer) and primary entertainment activity (video games). Taking notes is mostly only relevant for school, online social networking has increased since I got on Twitter, and I rarely take pictures or make phone calls.

In all four of the charts below, click to embiggen for a more detailed view (although they’re pretty broad generalizations, given that my percentages are rough estimates at best).

In the Beforetime

I jokingly refer to the period of my adult life before I owned an iPhone, which significantly changed my usual “loadout” when going anywhere by combining my mobile phone and music player into one device and also carving a few of the above tasks away from my (relatively much heftier) laptop. While it is reflected in the chart below, I’m not going into detail about how my habits changed as I accumulated new devices over the course of college.

Chart breakdown of my personal electronics from 2001 to 2005, during college.

At school, my laptop was my sole computer. I still have that PowerBook G4/400, and the only thing it’s needed over the years has been a new battery and a new power cord. Still going strong (more on how that affects my decision later). I got my first iPod at Christmas 2002, and my first mobile phone (a mid-range Siemens that had Mac Bluetooth support) at Christmas 2003. Before then, I had a Koss CD player for mobile music, and I was wedded to a landline. I still have my old Olympus digital camera, even though it’s only 2.1 megapixels and uses one of the losing memory formats, Smartmedia. I’m not a big picture-taker anyway.

The next big change was getting a home desktop computer once I was employed and out of school. My laptop, Chronos, became relegated to 2nd-class status, mostly taking on the roles of Remote Access and Note Taking, and being my primary computer when traveling for all other tasks. Gaming moved to the desktop almost exclusively, since newer games required newer and newer hardware, more than the Rage 128 card in the PowerBook could provide. (As you have read here previously, most of this gaming is World of Warcraft.)

Chart breakdown of my personal electronics from 2005 to 2007, as a young professional without an iPhone

The iPhone Cometh

The iPhone (I got a second-iteration EDGE one) significantly changed my electronics usage by replacing the iPod and phone in one fell swoop. Because I now had mobile data, it also reduced how often I brought my laptop with me, since I could do some limited forms of online interaction while out and about. Now instead of a laptop requiring a backpack (the titanium powerbooks are light, and beautiful machines, but still a lot heftier than a phone-class device), I could bring a device that just clipped to my belt.

Once Apple added the App Store, I suddenly had my first mobile gaming platform (I think my first purchase was Trism, downloaded over EDGE somewhere in Wisconsin while headed to my friend Gus’ wedding). These are all casual games, and mostly only occupy me while waiting somewhere or riding public transit, although I do occasionally play while sitting at home. The state of my electronics post-App Store is below.

Chart breakdown of my personal electronics from 2008 to present, covering two iPhone generations

This past summer, I upgraded to the iPhone 3GS, which meant I had a better camera (in fact, except for the lack of a flash, on par with my old Olympus), and one capable of video. It was otherwise a 1:1 replacement of my old iPhone, which I then promptly unlocked for use in Mali.

Room for one more?

So, how does the iPad likely fit into my usage patterns? In my case, it basically needs to be able to replace the few tasks still assigned to my PBG4. I don’t need a full-power laptop because I have my desktop at home, but I do need a device that has a bigger screen for graphical remote access (Microsoft RDP through work VPN, VNC tunneled through SSH to home Mac), and sufficient input capabilities for taking notes in class. It can also take over a few of the tasks that my iPhone had carved away from my laptop, such as Online Socializing while traveling. Pretty much everything else (larger screen web browsing, iBooks) would be an ease-of-use bonus or creating a use I don’t currently have.

Given my proposed usage breakdown in the chart below, the big questions are whether I can easily get a secure remote desktop connection to both my work and home computers, and how easy it is to take notes in class, possibly using the iWork app, particularly if mathematical notation is involved.

Chart breakdown of a possible fit for the iPad in my usage

I definitely do not see the need for two 3G-capable mobile devices for myself, so I’m glad there’s a WiFi-only version. The other advantage of not being tied to a mobile contract is that I’ll have far fewer qualms jailbreaking the device to run arbitrary 3rd-party apps, as I’ve done with my old iPhone, which might solve my remaining concerns.

Conclusion

At this point, I’d say I’m fairly likely to get one, although I have a hard time giving up on a perfectly functional (albeit old) laptop. It clearly fits in between my laptop and my iPhone in terms of functionality, with some overlap, and I think it might be just enough to retire the old TiBook. Another big advantage is that I won’t feel guilty about playing games while mobile as much, since I don’t have to worry about the necessity of the battery of the device-I-use-as-phone.

If, however, it is very lacking in editing capabilities (The Steve was certainly emphasizing it for content consumption for the most part), or cannot easily access my work and home desktops (possibly requiring jailbreaking), I probably won’t be interested except as a new shiny toy I can lust after until a second generation with improvements.

The verdict is still out until I feel it in my hands. What do you think?

First, Happy 39th Earth Day! I assume we’ll hear big things next year for the 40th, since we love our decimalist celebrations so. I think 3×13 is a nice number myself, but I guess we like those nice round multiples of ten. Hopefully most people do something environmentally conscious every day, as opposed to just once a year, but progress is progress, and I hope the annual holiday continues to improve awareness.

If you know me, you know that I’m pretty big on “Going Green”, and have been since before it was cheap or popular. I think this was in part due to an excellent green civic education obtained through programs that existed in Minnesota in the early ’90s when I was growing up. There were a number of animated mascots teaching important lessons like turning off the lights, buying used, recyling your waste, and so on.

By no means is this intended to be me tooting my own horn; I’m hoping you’ll find some interesting tips and/or data in this post. For one thing, I don’t always succeed, in part because I’m not ready to go “off-grid” and live 100% sustainably. I like my technology a bit too much for that :oP. Last I checked my lifestyle would still require about 3.5 earths if everyone lived as I do; that’s mostly because I eat from the industrial food system and travel cross-country and internationally by jet. One place in particular where I’ve made some progress but hit a wall, the topic of this post, is trying to reduce my paper waste; for the most part this is because other people/organizations with whom I interact still insist on a paper record of our interaction.

I focus in particular on mail that I’ve received (note: this is not a post on the future of the USPS, although that is in and of itself an interesting topic to me), although there’s certainly plenty of other paper I’m forced to waste, such as forms filled out at work and school, receipts received from points of sale, and so on. I finish up with a quick overview of several services out there that can help you reduce the amount of unsolicited paper waste you generate just by existing in modern society.

Data

Since early January, I’ve been using Daytum to track a few trivialities of my day-to-day life. This includes miles traveled (and by what means), beers I’ve drank, what I eat, where I get my caffeine, and relevant to this post, what I’ve received in the mail. You can see my entire data feed; Daytum is a pretty nifty service, and for a monthly subscription you can have additional data sets and display panels. Even free users like myself get CSV export of their data sets, which is what I’ve used in this analysis.

This pie chart shows the percentage breakdown of postal mail received January-April 2009

Here’s how I filtered the categories:

• Charity – any charitable or non-profit organization with whom I have a preexisting supporting relationship.
• Scam – a special case of Junk, I occasionally get notices about free cars. I think these are linked to my DNS registration.
• Package – Orders from Amazon and other sites.
• Financial – Statements, prospecta, and other communication from my banking institutions.
• Personal – Cards and letters from friends and family.
• Junk – A catch-all for other unsolicited paper mail.
• Magazine – Either a subscription, or something from an organization with which I am associated.
• Customer Service – Non-financial communications from utilities and other companies with whom I have a client relationship.
• Netflix – Little red envelopes full of DVDs.

Analysis

A few caveats about this data: first, this is already after enabling a number of paperless billing options from all of my utilities and banks. By my count, that reduces my monthly statement mailings by 8. Second, this data reflects tax season – many charities and financial institutions are legally required to send me paper copies of documents, even when they’re available online. This material spikes at the beginning of the year, in the months leading up to April 15th.

I find it kind of depressing how much money charities I support spend soliciting me for more money by mail. It’s even more annoying to see when a charity I do support has apparently sold my name to related charities, and I get junk from them when I’m not interested.

Netflix, magazines, and packages are all items I have a choice in. Magazines are definitely a luxury; I enjoy reading them, and their longer-term informativeness beats out my usual internet addiction to news and the like. Many magazines are becoming available as a digital subscription, although we’re not quite there yet. Netflix is an example where Big Content wins; there’s no technical reason all of these movies can’t be available via streaming, but I’m sure there’s all kinds of crazy licensing involved.

Another thing to note is that because I am in a multi-unit home with shared entrance but without a central mail room or mailbox unit, my mailbox is apparently in some legal class where I can receive junk like local restaurant menus and other hand-dropped notices; those are included in junk, as a side-effect of having a physical address.

My overall opinion is that the only things I should receive at my address are packages and personal correspondence. I want everything else to be digital, both because it’s easier to use and organize the information that way in the first place, and because that way I don’t have to recycle large amounts of paper or waste fuel having that paper shipped to me.

Solutions

So, how do we get down to this point, and how do we reduce it further?

1. Enable paperless options

This is time consuming, but generally a one-time operation. Most major financial institutions and utilities have a pretty straightforward option on their website to disable most (but not all; again, legal requirements) paper notices. You’ll have to do this separately for each institution, unfortunately.

Most institutions will say on the web form that it could take “several billing periods” for paperless billing to be enabled… does anyone have an idea why it would take so long? Are they just covering their bases so as not to promise an instant fix? It seems to me it should just be a bit associated with my account that gets checked whenever something would be printed, and have it e-mailed to me instead.

2. Reduce junk mail

The junk mail reduction service I used in 2007 was GreenDimes, although it’s been renamed Tonic MailStopper. I guess they got bought; however, filling out the cards they sent me definitely reduced unsolicited junk mail. I did this for both me and my sister at my current address (she briefly had mail forwarded here).

3. Recycle

With what junk you do receive, make sure you recycle it through either your municipal curbside pickup or drop-off at your nearest recycling center. Just because they waste paper on you doesn’t mean it all has to end up in a landfill.

4. Digital signatures

A lot of the “legally required” category above suffers because when I respond to an official e-mail, I have no way of affirming that it’s me, or that I’m making a binding decision. A friend of mine pointed out a service, DocuSign, that does electronic signatures and contract execution. I haven’t used their service yet, but as I understand it they’re very popular with realtors. I’m planning to buy a place in the next couple of years, and I would definitely pick a realtor that uses DocuSign over one who insists on paper forms. I also like reading about companies that “get” social media; they have an interesting blog and are on Twitter.

My main hope is that Harvard (where I’m pursuing my part-time Masters) would adopt a system like this one; every semester I spend a lot of time going to campus just to run around and collect signatures from professors, advisors, administrators, registrars, and the like.

5. Complain

No, seriously. For companies that keep sending you crap, calling or writing might be able to get you off their lists. Look for a phone number on the back of catalogs or in the letterhead of the junk they’re sending you. I’ve had some luck getting rid of a couple of catalogs this way.

If you have relationships with a non-profit, encourage them to rely less on paper mass mailings, especially ones sent to reliable givers who maybe don’t even need the wasteful reminder.

6. Opt out

If you’re signing up for something that requires your address, opt out of any mailings or catalogs. Again, a little extra one-time effort, but it can significantly reduce your incoming paper. Web sign-up forms are particularly bad about this, because sometimes they’ll hide the checkbox and have it default to checked.

Conclusion

The best part about the above steps is that any one of them helps the environment a little bit. You don’t have to take all of them, or enable all of them with every company or organization, but every one you do work on gets rid of a few pieces of paper coming into your home, and prevents a lot of trees, water, and energy being wasted getting a stack of paper to your door that you won’t even read before throwing out.

What do you do to reduce your paper usage?

They both did a great job presenting the issues in a Christian context, with Tara focusing on past case law from the Scopes Trial to Kitzmiller v. Dover and Sasha discussing the scientific method and evidence supporting the theory of evolution, such as the phylogenetic development of feathers in dinosaurs. There are few people that I know who get as excited about case law and science when speaking as Tara and Sasha :oD. After their initial presentation, the forum opened up for discussion, with various members of the congregation joining in with questions.

One of the most interesting comments was from Dr. Helmut Koester, Professor of Divinity (Emeritus) at Harvard Divinity School. I am paraphrasing as best I can from memory, as I didn’t think to record the discussion:

The account in Genesis 1 is in some ways a scientific document from 2,500 years ago. It was an attempt to demythologize the natural world: the sun is not a god, it is a lamp placed in the sky to light the day; the moon is not a goddess, it is a lamp placed in the sky to light the night. Similarly, it says that there is an order to the animals: things that fly, things that swim, things that walk on two legs, on four, and so on. We shouldn’t see it as an opponent of science; it was part of the demythologizing at the advent of monotheism.

It’s a viewpoint I hadn’t considered exactly before. I recall when I was preparing a statement of faith for confirmation, about 10 years ago now (!), that I made a point along these lines: the theory of evolution is not incompatible with the creation story, because the Genesis story (at least, for a non-literalist like myself) merely reflects the best scientific understanding of the nature of the world at the time the story was written down. I do not believe that it is impossible to see science as the “how” and God as the “why” of the Universe.

Darwin, even on the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, remains at the center of a legal and cultural battle, at least in the United States. I love that UniLu is a religious community that has open and heartfelt discussions on issues like this, especially when the focus is on the side of science, which is all to often ignored or rejected (selectively, it seems) by many American Christians. I hope to see a lot of debate in this area this year as Darwin’s birthday is celebrated.