Recently in Nicholas Gerik Category

May 12 (LAWRENCE, Kan.) - In Chris Redford's ideal world, math should never get in the way of slaying dragons. 

Redford, Wellington, Kan., graduate student, was tired of pausing exciting games of Dungeons and Dragons just to calculate dice rolls. So he drew on his computer programming experience and wrote an application for his iPhone that crunched the numbers for him. The one thing it could not calculate was how it would affect his home life.

"It drove my girlfriend crazy that I was working on it all the time," Redford said. "It drove her crazy that I wasn't always mentally present, but once it got released, she was happy."

"She was pretty happy about the profit too," Redford said.

Redford's girlfriend and the significant others of iPhone developers around the world might be more willing to overlook those mental lapses after Apple announced the sale of the one billionth iPhone application on April 24.  Apple's App Store allows developers to sell their applications to the millions who own an iPhone or an iPod Touch.  Redford said that he only makes a handful of dollars a day off of his app but some of the most popular applications have earned their creators thousands. That business potential and the potential for creative applications have made the iPhone popular with developers and consumers alike and are reasons why many think the device can leave a lasting mark on mobile society.

Jason Stewart is a KU graduate student who developed an iPhone application for a British comic book distributor. Stewart thinks the iPhone is accelerating society's transition to primarily digitized content.

"Regardless of where they are, so long as they're getting a signal, people can go into that App Store and buy anything," Stewart said. "We're kind of getting away from the physical CDs and disks and going more to a digital format."

Stewart specifically noted gaming as one area where the iPhone has set a new precedent for downloadable content at an affordable price point. He said the way that the iPhone consolidates entertainment, utility and productivity into one mobile format is becoming more and more appealing to consumers who might not normally get excited about technology.

"It's going to make life a little more streamlined," Stewart said. "People may not be out there trying to download every game that's out there for the iPhone, but there may be that one or two apps that they really find useful."

Jonathan Kealing is counting on the iPhone's wide user base. Kealing is the online editor for The Lawrence Journal-World, which has a mobile Web site that is formatted specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

"We recognize mobile as our future," Kealing said. "People will expect to get more and more kinds of content over time."

Kealing said The Journal-World is constantly trying to expand its mobile offerings. The newspaper currently offers a mobile edition and breaking-news text message alerts. It will soon integrate streaming video and advertising into its mobile site. Kealing said it is important for newspapers to have strong mobile presences on devices like the iPhone in order to stay viable.

"If people can make calls, listen to music, and surf the web on their phones, and that's not a space we're in, we'll quickly fall behind." Kealing said. "I think you'll see more people using this as a primary device than as a secondary device."

Logan Collins, Arma, Kan., junior, designed The University Daily Kansan's mobile Web site. Collins compared the shift to mobile journalism to the period when most newspapers were just starting to develop online Web sites. He said that the increased popularity of apps and mobile Web sites for the iPhone is just another step in the evolution of technology.

"It's bridging the gap and making mobile society grow," Collins said. "It's just a lot more people connected constantly and communicating constantly."

For Chris Redford, that communication is rewarding, but he said it can lead to headaches. Redford said reviewers of his dice-rolling application sometimes expect more features than he has the time or resources to develop. He thinks that as the platform continues to expand, he and other developers will find it easier to slay the dragons of discontent and utilize the mobile world in new and exciting ways.

"I see it getting better and better," Redford said. "I don't think they've yet tapped the potential of the current hardware and software system."

"It's a pretty bright future, I think," Redford said.

April 27 (LAWRENCE, Kan.) - Eight-year-old Andrew Stanley was tired of tripping over his toys when he got out of bed at night. So one night while he lay in bed, he thought of a plan.

He would build a contraption that would turn on his bedroom light from bed. Stanley wanted to make a machine that would use a marble to roll, push, pull and swing its way across the room to the light switch.

So he did.

"I wanted a purpose while I was playing," Stanley said. "I had my problem and I came up with my solution."

Stanley, Overland Park senior, has not stopped solving problems since, and has increased his involvement in his final semester, thanks to a light class schedule. He recently worked with the Student Recreation Fitness Center and Student Senate to pass funding that would enable treadmills to convert human motion into renewable electricity. He helped start the Students for Bar Recycling group and is finishing up his Latin American Studies degree. Stanley also divides his time among Spanish Club, the Global Awareness Program, Students Tutoring for Literacy and others.

"I really enjoy diversity," Stanley said. "I never want to be just sitting in an office behind a computer. It's this whole adventure that I'm after. I feel like if I limit myself, I miss out on a bunch of things."

Stanley's adventure took on a new level of intensity this year, but the journey is years in the making. 

Stanley grew up as the youngest of four siblings, including one brother and two sisters. His oldest sister, Sarah, said that Andrew has always been enthusiastic about his interests and she thought that birth order influenced Andrew's drive for diversity.

"He watched us do things that he stubbornly decided he wasn't going to do," Sarah said. "I remember my mom said that he told her that we played every sport imaginable except football, so he was going to be a good football player."

Football ended up taking a back seat to more creative interests like web design, but Andrew never stopped looking to his family for inspiration.

Stanley's mother, Connie, worked as a pastry chef at Café Nordstrom in Overland Park, while his father, John, was a workers compensation lawyer. Andrew washed dishes at his mother's work for a short time and said he noticed how she and his father interacted with their co-workers and clients, who were often disadvantaged or had immigrated from Mexico.

"It touched me to see how much they appreciated people treating them as a person," Stanley said. "I was never raised to think of people as statistics."

Those observations and the time he spent studying abroad in Mexico during his sophomore year of college convinced Stanley to put his natural leadership skills and creativity toward beneficial causes and not just the disc-jockeying business and the basketball camping group he had already created. Stanley began working at the Office of Study Abroad, where former Outreach Coordinator Natalie Parker noticed Stanley's initiative.

"You usually meet people who say they want to change the world," Parker said. "Andrew is one of those people that I think would come up with an idea and would actually do it."

Stanley had planned to graduate early and had quit his job at Study Abroad last year in preparation for what he hoped would be his final semester. Instead, he found that he was six credit hours short and decided to use that extra time to expand his involvements.

Stanley founded Students for Bar Recycling in the last months of 2008 as a way to reduce the waste thrown away by local bars.  At first, Stanley went by himself to pick up the glass from bars like the Replay Lounge and Jackpot, but his enthusiasm soon attracted more members and the group is beginning to make its impact on and off of campus.

 Parker said that some University professors have taken notice too.

"His name comes up frequently among climate change faculty members as one of the people who is innovative and working within the student body to make change," Parker said.

Cyrus Beedles, Lawrence senior, has been good friends with Stanley since they met in Oliver Hall during their freshman year. Beedles said Stanley told him that he was disappointed he did not find out how many possibilities there were at the University until his senior year.

"I can't even imagine what he could have done if he had started doing these things and had this initiative since his freshman year," Beedles said.

Stanley said he hopes to continue his work after he graduates from the University in May. He said he wants to create a non-profit organization that breaks the cycle of poverty through a self-sufficient means like employing the poor to feed the poor. But he said that regardless of what he does, he wants to see his positive impact on other people.

"All of the things I've done have just taught me that there are good ideas out there," Stanley said. "I just have to pick one and do the best I can and hopefully I'll be successful."

 

March 25 (LAWRENCE, Kan.) - Chris Bay crosses intersection after intersection on his daily drive to work, but none is as important to him as the final one.  
    The intersection of Ninth St. and Schwarz Road is where Bay works as principal of Sunset Hill Elementary, but it is also the site of one of Lawrence's 22 guarded school crossings.
    "My number one responsibility is safety for the kids," Bay said. "In my mind, that's coming and going to school as well as just being at school."
    Safety may be Bay's responsibility, but the funding of school crossing guards in Lawrence is the city's, and if city hall tightens the budget, the guards may be one of the first items to go.   
Lawrence City Manager Dave Corliss suggested eliminating crossing guards from the city's budget at a City Commission meeting on Feb. 3. Corliss told the Commission that if the governor withholds the projected $1.1 million of city's liquor tax income instead of returning it to the city, then cuts would have to be made to the city's existing 2009 budget. Corliss estimated that finding an alternate source of funding for the city's 13 crossing guards would free up $50,000 that could help offset the shortfall for the rest of the year. Additional funds would come from the elimination of other non-essential city services.
    Lawrence City Commissioner Mike Amyx said the budget developments came as a surprise to the City Commission.
    "All things being equal, we would have had a light 2009 and we should have been able to get through it okay," Amyx said, "but if you find mid-year that you'll have a million-dollar loss, then everyone starts to scramble and decisions have to be made."
    The scramble may be a slow one. Many of the City Commission's decisions cannot be made until after Commission elections in April, and even then, the state's final budget may not be finalized until summer, City Hall Communications Manager Lisa Patterson said. Any changes to the budget would take effect on July 1.
    Corliss made preliminary suggestions to the Commission that included meeting with the Lawrence Public School District to discuss the possibility for shared funding of the crossing guards, but Rick Gammill, director of special operations and safety for Lawrence Public Schools, said that the district does not have the budget either.   
    Volunteers are one option the city may turn to if there is a budget shortfall and no alternate source of funding can be found, Corliss told the Commission. He said it is unlikely that the guard program would be cut entirely, but some like Bay are still concerned because they think volunteer guards would not be as reliable as paid employees of the city or school district.
    "With volunteers you always run the risk of whether they'll be there or not," Bay said. "You look at supervision, and you look at training and accountability. All of those would be considerations to think about with volunteers."
    Amyx, however, thinks it is best to focus on the roots of the issue before dealing with contingencies.
    "We should constantly remind our local legislators in both the House and the Senate so that they understand as budget bills come in and show cuts in revenues back to cities that these are the kinds of programs that could be in jeopardy," Amyx said.
    Bay agrees that increased communication among the governmental bodies is important, especially considering the programs in question.
     "It's just unfortunate that one entity is cutting something and hurting another entity in a similar situation," Bay said. "It would be fantastic if there were some way we could work together and find a solution that is beneficial to both."
    "When you've got little kids crossing a busy street like Ninth St., it's definitely needed," Bay said.