On sustainable mobility: Uber Bike by Jump is affordable, reliable transportation that looks smart, too

Imagine a future where everyone, regardless of their income or where they live, has access to affordable, reliable transportation. The future is now.

During a recent visit to Seattle, it struck me that on nearly every downtown street corner – and especially near the trendy W Hotel (1112 4th Avenue, corner Seneca Street) where I stayed – there was an abundance of smart and safe red Uber Bike by Jump bicycles, a dockless, bike share option that is built of the smartest technology platform in micro-mobility.

The latest generation of these flashy, pedal-assist electric Jump bikes includes a lot of likable and useful features: phone mount, front dashboard, swappable battery and cable lock. Now, riders can use their smart phones for navigation hands free. The swappable battery ensures that bikes are readily available and charged and the cable lock is a good, flexible safety measure that enables bikes to be secured to a rack or permanent structure.

With a smarter and safer fleet of bikes offering its users an optimum performance experience, it will be interesting to see if these sleek Jump bikes, like the ones I saw in Seattle, become commonplace in other urban cities. Upon returning home to Washington, D.C., I started noticing more of them in and around the Capitol Hill and Eastern Market areas of the city as well as near Union Station. Like Seattle, in Washington, D.C., the target demo seems to be under-30-year-old Millennials.

Uber Bike by Jump are available in the following U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin, Texas; Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Phoenix, Providence, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Recently, Nick Foley, Jump’s head of product, was quoted by bikebiz.com as saying “With 4G connectivity, the booking experience – whether reserving remotely or walking up to a bike – is much faster. The ride experience is more reliable, since the bike can now self-diagnose its most common failures.

“And with full connectivity for all on-board vehicle systems, our fleets will be smarter and safer over time, as we use the live diagnostic data from each vehicle to uniquely optimize its performance with algorithms running in our cloud.”

Certainly, with Uber’s ability to mobilize its Jump bikes and place them in locations where they’ll enjoy a high profile, users should never have to trek too far to rent one.

Last fall, Uber announced it was committing $10 million over three years to support sustainable mobility in New York and other cities in which it operates. On Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported that an October study “found more Sacramentans were renting Jump bikes than using Uber’s car service by a 53 to 47 percent margin. That makes Sacramento, Calif., the first of 16 Uber cities that have both bike and car service where the bikes are more popular, company officials said.”

In cities with good weather, a flat terrain and a pro-bike mindset, it certainly looks like Jump bikes are here to stay.

Photo: Uber Bike by Jump by Michael Dickens, © Seattle, 2019.

Thoughts on David Hockney’s “The Queen’s Window” – A country scene to honor a lover of the countryside

Last week, Westminster Abbey commemorated the 65th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign with a dedication ceremony of “The Queen’s Window,” created by British pop art icon David Hockney. Measuring 28 feet by 12 feet, “The Queen’s Window” represents what the New York Times described as “a hawthorn, a thorny floral shrub, blooming in a joyous profusion of reds, blues, greens and yellows.”

In a video interview posted by the Abbey, Hockney said of the newly revealed window, “It’s celebratory.” He revealed that he crafted the trees to look as though “Champagne had been poured over bushes.”

What is remarkable is that Hockney reworked the design for the Abbey window from an earlier painting using a iPad, which has become one of his favorite tools for creating art in recent years. At age 81, he’s been known to use new technology quite extensively – such as cameras, photo copiers and fax machines – throughout his remarkable and colorful career. It has liberated Hockney as an artist and set him apart from others who rely solely on the use of traditional materials.

“For many years, I pondered how we should celebrate The Queen’s reign in the Abbey,” the Very Rev. Dr. John Hall, dean of the church, said, during the dedication of “The Queen’s Window” on Oct. 2, inside London’s Westminster Abbey. “A statue seemed wrong, though there are many from earlier centuries. We already have a portrait of Her Majesty in the Diamond Jubilee Galleries. A stained glass window seemed the obvious thing, and a great window was available, a double lancet surmounted by a circular oculus containing sexfoil tracery, on the west side of the North Transept, the only window there without stained glass.”

Hockney, whom I learned had never before designed stained glass, came to see the window and the next day sent Hall a draft design. The dean responded to Hockney in kind: “As I wished not herald or representational, but a country scene to honor someone we know to be a lover of the countryside, a design evocative of his work in East Yorkshire.”

As the “most celebrated living artist,” in the words of Hall, Hockney seemed a natural fit for creating “The Queen’s Window.” After all, his fame coincided with the queen’s reign. The dean has called Hockney’s work, “absolutely vibrant.” He was quoted by the New York Times as saying: “It’s very legible, so in that sense it’s very accessible, and I think people will be very excited by it.”

Hockney collaborated on “The Queen’s Window” with stained glass experts at Barley Studio in northern England. He’s happy with the final outcome.

Said Hockney: “I think it’s looking marvelous!”

Photograph: Courtesy of Google Images. 
Videos: Courtesy of Westminster Abbey.

UNIQLO For the Win – New Apparel, Same Federer

Roger Federer/UNIQLO Global Brand Ambassador

When the eight-time Wimbledon champion and No. 1 seed Roger Federer walked out on Centre Court to christen the start of this year's Wimbledon Championship and begin his title defense on Monday afternoon, he wore a new brand, Tokyo-based UNIQLO - not Nike, his long-time apparel partner. The decades-long Federer-Nike era was over. It was a stunning sight to the start of this year's fortnight.

The 36-year-old Federer's nearly all-white attire – collarless shirt with a two-button front and a red pinstripe accent, shorts, bandana-style headband, socks and warm-up jacket – had the minimal and slim-cut red and white UNIQLO logo. His white shoes, which are custom made, were still Nike and bore the familiar swoosh logo. Federer's new UNIQLO kit bore the design of the Japanese brand's artistic director Christophe Lemaire.

Within minutes after the 20-time Grand Slam winner took Centre Court for his first-round match against 57th-ranked Dusan Lajovic of Serbia, UNIQLO UK tweeted:

"UNIQLO is honoured to welcome Roger Federer as our new Global Brand Ambassador!"

In a statement released by UNIQLO, Tadashi Yanai, UNIQLO's founder and chairman, said, "Mr. Federer is one of the greatest champions in history – my respect for him goes beyond sport.

"Our partnership will be about innovation on and off the court. We share a goal of making positive change in the world, and I hope together we can bring the highest quality of life to the greatest number of people. UNIQLO will help Mr. Federer continue taking tennis to new places while exploring innovations in a number of areas including technology and design with him."

Federer said, "I am deeply committed to tennis and to winning championships. But like UNIQLO, I also have great love for life, culture and humanity. We share a strong passion to have a positive impact on the world around us and look forward to combining our creative endeavors."

Soon after the announcement, Sports Illustrated executive editor and senior writer Jon Wertheim tweeted:

Roger Federer debuts his new Uniqlo kit
at Wimbledon on Monday.

"Uniqlo for the win. #Wimbledon"

Wertheim added, "As we see a global athlete wearing Uniqlo, a reminder: Tokyo will host the 2020 Olympics. $30 million per year, sources tell us. Do they get into performance footwear now?"

According to Darren Rovell of ESPN.com, the deal "is worth more than $300 million guaranteed over 10 years and has an unprecedented clause that says that Federer will still collect the money even if he doesn't play." He can also sell patches on his shirt, which he couldn't do with Nike.

When you take a look at Federer's $300 million UNIQLO deal, consider this: his career on-court earnings over the past two decades are a mere $116.6 million.

Federer's deal with Nike expired on March 1. He continued to wear Nike without a deal during recent grass-court tournaments in Stuttgart and Halle, Germany, last month. He appeared for his Wimbledon pre-tournament press conference on Sunday wearing an open-collar dress shirt and sports jacket. By all appearances, Federer looked like he was dressed up for a dinner out the Wimbledon village with his family and team instead of coming in from the practice courts.

Christopher Clarey, tennis columnist for The New York Times, said in a tweet that "Federer's Nike deal is done but have been told by industry sources that the RF logo will revert to Federer at some stage in the next few years. Am told they do not own the rights to it in perpetuity so it may well rise again."

As it happened, Federer beat Lajovic in the opening round, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4, in a tidy 1 hour and 19 minutes, then returned on Wednesday afternoon to Centre Court and beat 94th-ranked Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, 6-1. He is undefeated wearing UNIQLO and has now won 26 consecutive sets at Wimbledon. Although it might take a few matches to get used to seeing Federer in UNIQLO instead of Nike, I think the change is a good one for the Swiss maestro. He's playing inspired, efficient tennis and – still – is the player to beat at Wimbledon this year.

"We're going to have to get adjusted to not seeing the Nike swoosh," said Hall of Famer Jim Courier, who analyzed Federer's opening-day match for Tennis Channel. "It's like Superman without the 'S'. We'll see if it has any impact on him. I doubt it."

While Federer's fashion choices will be debated by the media and his legion of worldwide fans, one thing's certain: the new UNIQLO grand brand ambassador still looks fabulous in white. His new adornments highlight his graceful movement and masterful strokes – and, as Federer has shown so far, he still knows how to play superb tennis.

Photos: Courtesy of Uniqlo Twitter feed and Google images.

Because none of us is as smart as all of us

Podcasts are a genre of narrative audio that have taken off in recent years. There are plenty of podcasts devoted to politics, sports, fashion and music. Search long enough and you will find podcasts devoted to topics like knitting and English football, too. While some podcasts lack polish, others sound like NPR programs. One thing they definitely are is portable.

One of my new favorites is "Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly," a podcast that's about the economy, technology and culture. It's motto is: "Because none of us is as smart as all of us."

"Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly" is hosted by Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood, and they use their collective expertise "to connect the dots on the topics they know best, and get help from listeners and experts about the ones they want to know better."

Prior to its launch last month, here's what Kai and Molly wrote on the podcast's website: "Here's what we think when we say 'smart.' Facts and figures? Sure, but not enough. Analysis and opinion? Absolutely, but still not quite there. Understanding, historical context, research and connecting individual stories as pieces of a larger whole? Now we're talking.

"We want to focus on analysis and understanding, not on headlines and talking points. And we each have our own expertise, but we know we're not always going to be the smartest people in the room.

"You have your own smarts. And together, we can all get just a little bit smarter."

"Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly" releases a new episode each week on Tuesday – it can be downloaded via iTunes or you can listen to it on the podcast's website – and the most recent one, "Reputation in the Age of the Protest Economy," made its debut on Feb. 21. It featured a conversation with Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of Ellevest, an investment platform for women.

On the podcast's website, www.marketplace.org/topics/make-me-smart, to draw in listeners for a recent latest episode, "It's the Economy, Cupid," it teased: "Time to take a look at a big thing that's getting lost in the first four weeks of the Trump administration. Hint: It's the economy. Other highlights: a cameo by David Frum, senior writer for The Atlantic, answering the show's "Make Me Smart" question: "What's something that you thought you once knew, but turns out you were wrong about?" Later in the same episode, Kai and Molly talked with Eric Bickel and Michael Weis of the Quantify Louisville blog. What they do is to take publicly available data from the city of Louisville, Kentucky, then look for stories hidden in the data. How cool is that! Bickel and Weis spoke about specific ways in which to judge the value of any given statistic.

On earlier episodes, Kai and Molly talked with Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, author of the book The Attention Merchants, who coined the phrase network neutrality, "which is the principle that internet service providers should enable equal access to all content and applications, and not favor one source of content over another." Also, they spoke to Scott Phoenix, co-founder of Vicarious, a company that is trying to build a new kind of artificial intelligence, and to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass.

"Our ultimate goal at Marketplace is to raise the economic intelligence of the country," Ryssdal said prior to the podcast's launch. "Right now it's especially important that we work together to identify and understand what's truly newsworthy. This is exactly what 'Make Me Smart' does."

Adds Woods: "'Make Me Smart' is really a passion project for both of us. It's taking what Kai and I already do at Marketplace and putting it into a new format that allows us to go beyond what we can do on air. This podcast will let us press pause on what's newsworthy and dive even deeper into the topics that people not only want, but need to hear about."

Photo: Courtesy of Marketplace and American Public Media.

Shaping the world view of wide-eyed optimists

The Mindset List /
The Class of 2019 Mindset List will make you feel old.

Each year around this time since 1998, Beloit College releases the Beloit College Mindset List, which provides a close up look at cultural "touchstones" that shape the lives of students entering college.

I took a particular interest in this year's Mindset List as I have a niece and a friend, the son of our best friends from Seattle, Washington -- born a day apart in September 1996 -- who are both incoming freshmen in the Class of 2019. One stayed close to their Minnesota roots to attend community college while the other was accepted for admission by a well-known university in Boston.

For those of you not familiar with Beloit College, it's a private liberal arts college located in Beloit, Wisconsin that was founded in 1846 by a Yale University graduate, Aaron Lucius Chapin. Beloit College is recognized for its longstanding commitment to curricular innovation.

Among the cultural touchstones shaping the lives of students entering college this fall include:

• There's always been Google.

• They have grown up treating Wi-Fi an entitlement.

• Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have always been members of NATO.

• They have never licked a postage stamp.

• Color photos have always adorned the front page of The New York Times.

• Vote-by-mail has always been the official way to vote in Oregon.

• They have avidly joined Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione as they built their reading skills through all seven volumes.

• Hybrid automobiles has always been massed produced.

• The Lion King has always been on Broadway.

• First responders have always been heroes.

The Class of 2019 enters college this fall with high technology playing an increasing factor in how and even what they learn, according to Charles Westerberg, Director of the Liberal Arts in Practice Center and Brannon-Ballard Professor of Sociology at Beloit College.

"They will encounter difficult discussions about privilege, race, and sexual assault on campus," Westerberg said. "They may think of the 'last century' as the twentieth, not the nineteenth, so they will need ever wider perspectives about the burgeoning mass of information that will be heading their way. And they will need a keen ability to decipher what is the same and what has changed with respect to many of these issues."

Critics of the Mindset List call it "a poorly written compendium of trivia, stereotypes and lazy generalizations, insulting to both students and their professors, and based on nothing more than the uninformed speculation of its authors." The website Beloit Mindlessness said: "It inspires lazy, inaccurate journalism and is an embarrassment to academia."

To its credit, the Mindset List has generated a book: The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think is Normal was released in July 2011. It has a Facebook page that's been liked by more than 5,000 fans. And, it's been the subject of attention on broadcast news on The NBC Nightly News and in print in Time. 

Like it or loathe it, the 50 items which comprise the Class of 2019 Mindset List will make you feel old.

How We Got to Now: The power and legacy of great ideas

How We Got to Now / The history behind
everyday objects that are a part of our
contemporary life.

Steven Johnson is a bestselling author of nine books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, a founder of a variety of influential websites, and the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. His newest book is my current reading project, the just-published How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World.

It is cerebral fun.

In How We Got to Now, Johnson explores the power and legacy of great ideas by investigating the secret histories -- innovation trails -- behind everyday objects that are a part of our contemporary life. He examines "unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated fields: how the invention of air-conditioning enabled the largest migration of human beings in the history of the species to otherwise uninhabitable cities such as Dubai and Phoenix; how pendulum clocks helped trigger the industrial revolution; and how clean water made it possible to manufacture computer chips."

Each of the six innovations that made the modern world, according to Johnson -- glass, cold, sound, cleanliness, time and light -- garners attention in How We Got to Now. 

"Johnson is a polymath," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "It's exhilarating to follow his unpredictable trains of thought. To explain why some ideas upend the world, he draws upon many disciplines: chemistry, social history, geography, even eco-system science."

In the book's opening chapter about glass, for instance, Johnson writes: "Mirrors appeared so magical that they were quickly integrated into somewhat bizarre sacred rituals: During holy pilgrimages, it became common practice for well-off pilgrims to take a mirror with them. When visiting sacred relics, they would position themselves so that they could catch sight of the bones in the mirror's reflection. Back home, they would then show off these mirrors to friends and relatives, boasting that they had brought back physical evidence of the relic by capturing the reflection of the sacred scene. Before turning to the printing press, Gutenberg had the start-up idea of manufacturing and selling small mirrors for departing pilgrims.

"But the mirror's most significant impact would be secular, not sacred. Filippo Brunelleschi employed a mirror to invent linear perspective in painting, by drawing a reflection of the Florence Baptistry instead of his direct perception of it. The art of the late Renaissance is heavily populated by mirrors lurking inside paintings, most famously in Diego Velázquez's inverted masterpiece, Las Meninas, which shows the artist (and the extended royal family) in the middle of painting King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Spain. The entire image is captured from the point of view of two royal subjects sitting for their portrait; it is, in a very literal sense, a painting about the act of painting. The king and queen are visible only in one small fragment of the canvas, just to the right of Velázquez himself: two small, blurry images reflected back in a mirror.

"As a tool, the mirror became an invaluable asset to painters who could now capture the world around them in a fare more realistic fashion, including the detailed features of their own faces."

Who knew!

In reviewing How We Got to Now, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Monks transcribing religious manuscripts in the 12th and 13th centuries began using pieces of crystal the better to see their work with, and so spectacles were born. And then came Gutenberg, whose printed books created a bigger market for them. In 1610, Galileo used a crystal lens to make the telescope, through which he observed moons orbiting Jupiter, and from there came the doctrine-shattering revelation that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

"The discovery had a reverberating impact that is still being absorbed today. Not only did it reveal a truth about the physical world, it reflected back on the human sense of our place in time and space."

Walter Isaacson, the author of Steve Jobs, calls Johnson "the Darwin of technology. Through fascinating observations and insights, he enlightens us about the origins of ideas."

By connecting all of the important dots through the centuries, Steven Johnson takes us on a wonderful journey through time and innovation. And, in doing so, he makes learning about science and technology great fun.

Form + function + green technology = meeting the aesthetic and environmental needs of a city

"Seismic Wave" / Waiting for the Muni
Metro N Judah train at the corner
of Carl and Cole in San Francisco. 

The city of San Francisco has enjoyed a history of environmental sustainability and it prides itself on being a city of inclusion, too.

Reflecting these values are the colorful and artistic "Seismic Wave" Muni transit shelters that have sprouted up all around the City since the first one debuted on Geary and Arguello Boulevards in 2009. By the end of this year, there will be about 1,000 transit shelters that are making use of innovative solar technology and design.

In the words of former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who oversaw the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the first of the new transit shelters nearly four years ago, they "will make getting around this beautiful city easier and greener."

On a recent visit to the City, I rode the Muni Metro train from Embarcadero Station to Golden Gate Park to see the Rudolf Nureyev exhibit at the de Young Fine Arts Museum. During my nearly half-hour ride, I noticed several of these aesthetically-pleasing transit shelters dotting the N Judah route.

On my return trip downtown, I encountered one of the hip, "seismic wave" shelters up close at the corner of Carl and Cole Streets, across from the Crepes on Cole cafe where I had stopped for lunch, in the heart of the City's Cole Valley neighborhood.

I didn't mind that my wait for the next N Judah train would be eight minutes because it gave me time to study and admire the "Seismic Wave's" design and function.

A poster inside one of the shelter's display panels caught my attention: "Form and function combine with green technology to create a compelling, iconic structure designed to meet the aesthetic and environmental needs of a City at the forefront of new age technology."

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) touts its new "Seismic Wave" transit shelters as "the most sustainable shelter under the sun."

It's easy to see how and why.

Among the shelter's many "green" features" according to the SFMTA are:

• Solar-powered photovoltaic cells can generate up to 100 watts of electricity -- enough to power high efficiency fluorescent backlit information panels, super efficient rooftop lighting and NextBus and Push to Talk technologies.
• Up to 40 percent of all energy captured can be recycled back into the power grid.
• Wave-shaped plastic canopy composed of 40 percent post-industrial recycled content.
• Galvanized steel beams created with 60 to 70 percent reclaimed product.

Other features include: ergonomically-designed seats for up to six customers and steel support columns that can vary in length to accommodate San Francisco's hilly terrain.

In a 2009 interview with sf.streetsblog.org., project designer designer Olle Lundberg said it's been fun leaving his signature on the city. Lundberg Design, a local architect, was selected in a competition to design the civic project.

"We've done some really beautiful buildings in the city, but honestly nothing will have the same impact as (1000) of these will," said Lundberg. "These are going to be everywhere and are going to be this kind of icon. I do hope that they become part of the street vocabulary of San Francisco."

Indeed, form + function + green technology = meeting the aesthetic and environmental needs of a city -- the City.

"Seismic Wave" photograph by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013. All rights reserved.