android | Michele Roohani

Let me tell you, living in Paris isn’t easy! Aside from dealing with stressed out Parisians on the Metro, one of my big problems here is that there are so many different wines: some great, some OK, and some terrible— and it isn’t easy to remember which are which! I thought that there must already be a great Android Wine App for that, so I searched and searched… to no avail.

And thus Wine Secretary was born. It’s free, so if you like wine and have an Android phone, give it a try now! If you share this app and give it a good rating I will love you forever 🙂

I did find many Apps that promised they would do the job, but when I tried them, they were all terrible! Without exception, they were hard to use, ugly and filled with advertising that I wasn’t interested in…

This led me to realize that there was an opportunity to design an App for Wine Lovers using Android phones! A couple of months later, I am proud to announce that Wine Secretary is now available in the Play Store for free. It allows wine lovers to have a list in their pocket, of all the wines they have tasted.

Adding a new wine to my list is easy, I just type in the basic information and in seconds I’m done! Of course if I want to, I can also rate the wine, and take photos of the front and back labels. To make it easier, Wine Secretary lets me search by Wine Type (Red, White, Rose, Sparkling, or Other).

This is an early version, and we are working very hard to improve the App, so your feedback is greatly appreciated. Please download the app and let us know what you think.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=winesecretary.com

p.s. I would really like to have an iPhone version but it will have to wait a little… 🙁

Working with Android phones a lot, I need to pay an hommage to the fabulous Asimov, the great author and professor of biochemistry who is best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

“The Oxford English Dictionary credits his science fiction for introducing the words positronic (an entirely fictional technology), psychohistory (which is also used for a different study on historical motivations) and robotics into the English language. Asimov coined the term robotics without suspecting that it might be an original word; at the time, he believed it was simply the natural analogue of words such as mechanics and hydraulics, but for robots.

Unlike his word psychohistory, the word robotics continues in mainstream technical use with Asimov’s original definition. Star Trek: The Next Generation featured androids with “positronic brains” giving Asimov full credit for “inventing” this fictional technology.”

He believed that his most enduring contributions would be his “Three Laws of Robotics” and the Foundation Series. His 3 laws of robotics are:

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Some other interesting quotes by him:

“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”

I just found out via Mark that Ray Bradbury passed away today; his Fahrenheit 451 is still relevant after 60 years!

“Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.”

“I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.”

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”