Aileen Jeffries

I do not pine for olden days. This is by far the best time and place to be alive in human history. To defend this stance, I need only mention a handful of inventions: anesthesia, birth control, democracy, the Internet.

Simply put, there was no “Golden Era” of anything. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements. If a particular population had it good during a decade of yore (consider white men in the 1950’s or, oh, ever), it was at the expense of someone else.

That said, not everything about history is terrible. There are exactly three things I’d like to revive and incorporate into my otherwise contented, modern existence.

1. Wallpaper.

2. Desserts made with gelatin. Even in our modern times, gelatin is derived from the collagen inside animals’ skin and bones. There’s something satisfyingly thrifty about making food with scraps. My favorite is panna cotta topped with cherries. Made with cream, yogurt, almond extract, and honey. And domestic animal by-products.

3. Silhouette portraits. Popular before photography, I imagine the process originally involved a flickering candle as the only light source and tracing the shadow on a barn door or traveling circus tent with a lump of charcoal from the campfire.

Digital cameras, electricity and Photoshop make silhouette portraiture easier these days. Squirming, unruly subjects – in my case a toddler – add just enough challenge to keep it interesting.

Most of the time when I tell people what I do for a living, their eyes sort of glaze over and I find myself trailing off and finishing with something vague. “Um, the Internet.” Then I talk about how I co-founded my own company, which is a far more relatable accomplishment. The icing on the cake is our actual, brick-and-mortar office which seems legitimize the whole sketchy affair in the minds of my acquaintances.

So it great when I can point to something tangible – this time literally, it can be held in my hand!  Along with a very talented team of developers, designers and strategists, I have been developing an application for the iPhone, which launched this morning. The name of this application? Obama ‘08. That’s right, I managed to combine two of my greatest interests, seeing Barack Obama get elected President this November and nourishing my inner nerd. The application is available for free on iTunes and is designed to allow supporters of the Obama campaign to look up local events, find a local HQ and read Obama’s stance on the issues. Most importantly, it organizes your contacts, prioritizing those who live in key battleground states. This feature makes me realize that I don’t really know too many people who live in battleground states – either it’s Oregon (California’s Canada!) or red states like South Carolina or Tennessee. I’m also not good at calling people up and telling them how to vote, probably a result of emotional trauma incurred during my teen-aged years spent volunteering for various First District Democratic congresspeople.

I’m very happy to have made a small contribution to something I feel very strongly about. More information about this application can be found on barackobama.com/iphone and on various blogs:

• Jason Grigsby’s User First Web
• Lyza Danger Gardner
• Raven Zachary
• Jonathan Wight’s ToxicSoftware

BMW is building 500 electric Mini Coopers. For stupid California with their higher standards and their vision of a cleaner tomorrow and all that. I hold out hope that what a handful of lucky Californians can have today, I can have tomorrow. Surely BMW is aware that there’s more than enough interest in electric cars. I assume they’re just trying to figure out how to fit a very expensive battery into a relatively small price tag.

I parted with my 2002 Mini in April, as two-door subcompacts do not make for ideal family cars. However, should an opportunity to purchase (or lease, so I’d never have to replace said insanely expensive battery) an electric Mini arise, I will throw all rational purchasing decisions out the window.

[BMW to Make Electric Mini. Only in California. Only 500 of Them.]

At least it was an interesting failure. Here’s a photo I took of Kes with my iPhone, no post-processing or alteration at all.