Day 25

The MacWorld key note by Steve Jobs, was long, boring and repetitive of previous presentations. He needs to have someone tell him he is losing his touch, during his performance he wanted to show how easy it was to work with a digital camera, but then at the moment when he wanted to start it up, it did not work. I suspected right away what the problem was: batteries. They probably left the camera on during the tests they must have run earlier. One can see right away that he has no habit of using these digital cameras, as he got all excited, disconnected the camera, threw it at one of his assistants right in the middle of his conference "let's see if you can fix this", like you would throw a towel at someone. He really lost it. He either forget or never knew that these camera batteries drain in the process of having it on while waiting around. His key note started at 9:00 and ended at 12:30.

As far as the show is concerned, it was also very disparate. You had a very good and large stand by Canon, and the one that Nikon fielded was smaller than the fellow who was selling memory chips across the aisle. At the Nikon stand I asked to see their new scanners, and they apologized because they forgot them for the first day, and the new D1 cameras, they did not have either because they are coming out next week, like they do not have access to their new cameras. I asked them what they had a stand for, there was just an empty looking stare. The woman selling hot dogs was more together than Nikon, Inc. Quite unbelievable.

Apple came out with some very interesting new and powerful computer configurations and at very competitive prices. I especially liked the new models were one can save on a DVD disc a lot of images. I have made the equivalent of one of these DVD discs during this trip, so rather than having to save it as I did on 7 separate discs, I could have put it all on a DVD. So much easier to access.

Parking information essentially becomes the same problem as parking automobiles. It's all related to space, here in NY where it's at a premium, you end up having these triple decker parking lots.

On the way home I almost got run over by two people in their wheel chairs, as the woman was holding on to the man who had a motorized unit, and they were going at full speed down the sidewalk. I guess, and also understand, he was showing off to her. Good for him! I had been taking pictures on the street but had not paid too much attention to that side of the street until they were almost on top of me, which is why I also had my camera at hand when this happened. I thought of myself being run over by people in two wheel chairs, I could only laugh, who would believe me.

Pedro Meyer
July 18, 2001
New York City, USA.

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