TANSTAAFL

SIRI and iCloud: Beta or Alpha?

2011-10-15T08:41:00.000-06:00

SIRI

If all you compare SIRI to is the previous iteration of voice control on the iPhone it is leaps and bounds more useful in its overall capability. And yet fails epically if you have a weak or non-existed web connection. The casual english phrasing does seem to be a step out beyond the competition but once you get down to basic word recognition it seems to be on par with the likes of Google Voice or Vlingo. As a result, all that advanced context deciphering is useless if it is determined from the wrong set of words.

Negatives:

Requiring a net connection for even basic capabilities the iPhone already possessed offline seems a needless reduction. Granted its not like the old off line assistant was in wide usage. However this to me is the best evidence that SIRI is almost entirely cloud based. If it was doing any kind of end to end interpretation of voice commands locally you logically would have included prior capability.
Word recognition is improved but still ultimately hit or miss… and on the second tries I now I feel like I am the idiot who thinks talking louder and slower will translate english into another language. Real english phonetic overlaps definitely cause SIRI problems Purana:Pirahna/ G’s :Cheese are a couple of examples I found
To helpful: there needs to be a basic override phrase or action that always stops SIRI cold. As is SIRI attempts to interpret and if it thinks it figured something out and it can do it then it acts. I had LOTS of attempted misdials when doing non-phone stuff because tying a contact to communication seems to be the lowest common denominator. Word of warning.. if you hit a point where SIRI is showing you a list of possible contacts that you didn’t want just say cancel instead of trying to repeat your previous command. At that point whatever else you say will get produce a ‘strongest match’ to the listed contacts.
Not helpful enough: I sort of understand not being able to create new reminder lists, contacts etc… The ‘to helpful’ problem could be disastrous if SIRI had create/delete power. However I am struggling to understand why SIRI is not even allowed to launch various applications or at least the basic Apple provided applications.
Basic word capture is still not ready. Its better that is for sure. But this is what everything else turns on. Kudos to the SIRI developers to get far enough along to try and do more advanced interpretation of language. If you are not sure what I am talking about go open up a note or pages document or something with the ability to take diction and actually try to dictate more than a short basic sentence. There is no automatic punctuation. Word accuracy seems to drop dramatically as longer phrases/passages are attempted. Doing each sentence individually is perhaps a solution but still awkward. Catch 22 because if SIRI can’t automatically determine sentence structure that means you still require some kind of voice prompt language to tell it… and the process of telling the machine to punctuate as you pontificate is the classic problem people have with voice recognition being ‘un-natural’.

Positives:

Context interpretation is good. SIRI follows natural language progression of dropping proper nouns pretty well. This was and is a major sticking point on most voice interaction systems that had no capacity for following a conversational thread. It is often what made it seems so ‘stilted’. This is still fundamentally hampered by problematic basic word capture.
Music control is impressive. Starting playlists, genres, artists etc… all seem to work pretty good so long as the words are correctly interpreted which was most of the time I played around with this particular capability
Wolfram Alpha searches are impressive.
The Alarm/Timer interface is genius. This may very well be the feature that keeps me coming back to SIRI while they are honing the other areas.
Text/E-mail interface is the holy grail I think… but its in view, not accomplished. Had LOTS of problems doing this, and ended up random dialing of contacts a lot. May be more useful on the receiving end than the sending beyond basic stuff. In the positive section because once you understand its limitations it works well. Most of my problems came from screwing around with it.
Meeting setups are similar to e-mail/txting. Fabulous when it works…. again, WHEN it works.
Reminder list works well within its limitations… but lacking when it comes to such things as making a new list or trying to add things to a list with a name that is a bit overloaded. I tried I don’t know about many iterations of trying to add things to a grocery list and ended up with a list of nearby grocery stores far more often than I did with items in the list.

Final verdict : Solid Beta. I think Apple made a good call in pushing this out to 4s owners only. Early adopters are generally far more forgiving of new feature warts than the general masses. SIRI definitely has warts. Knowing that Apple tends to pride itself on shipping complete features I surmise that the key factor in improving SIRI at this point is crunching through massive amounts of data only possible with a large varied real world audience. The next couple of generations of this technology could cross a tipping point and finally make voice a solid form of interface instead of a flaky side show. It will be interesting to see if Apple gets there first as this could easily be the next tipping point in device preference.

iCloud:

I shied away from any specific review of iCloud in my 4s take because unlike SIRI it is iOS 5 dependent rather than 4s dependent. Apple fumbled its last major cloud initiative (mobile me) and it marks one of the few black eyes Apple took under Jobs second tenure. What made it even more remarkable is that it is a black eye Apple never really healed. They tried a couple of major revisions and never really got it even to ‘good enough’ state. iCloud is ultimately a clean slate re-build.

Negatives:

PhotoStream has some major flaws. Flaw number one is that it is either on or off. That is either ANY picture you take is flying around to all your devices or NONE of them are. Removing photos is also an all or nothing process and is one that must be done on each device. Translation… have one photo up there you don’t want you have to reset photo stream on iCloud.com and then reset the photo stream on all devices. How they shipped with this basic problem for something as potentially embarrassing as photographs is beyond me. Serious miss. Also not sure why you can’t access the photos from the iCloud website as that would seem to be one of the most useful capabilities. I could keep going… how about being able to share to others photo streams? (parents taking pictures of their kids with separate iTunes accounts for example) Or allowing others access. Granted not having these capabilities is what lets apple get away with horrendous ‘undo’ control of what gets into the photo stream. But it is those types of uses that will make it most use full in the long run.
iWork on the Mac has been left out in the cold which seems to be a fundamental flaw. You have to upload/download from the site only for these applications and there is no update to bake the ability in. Of course this is fueling even more speculation that iWork is finally about to get updated to a new version.
E-mail sync is for apple mail only. Thats great if you use it but most don’t want to shift e-mail addresses just for this feature. My problem with this is that note syncing is tied to e-mail. Notes should be free players able to cross device sync on their own like reminders.
No general file sync option. Having a folder on your mac that is synced with the cloud ala Dropbox with some granular control on the website for external access would have been killer. Many have been saying that Apple should buy Dropbox. Here is another vote. Either buy them and integrate into iCloud or sherlock the idea and implemented on your own but DO IT. If iWork were the basic means of office document work then this would be less of an issue. But Office still rules and you need this kind of capability to sync Office documents or any other kind of non-mac but highly common/standard file type (pdf, txt, rtf, csv) etc…

Positives:

iCloud sync breaking the cable (or new wireless) tie with a desktop running iTunes is long over due and other than initial growing pains of MASSIVE traffic looks to be the major bright point of this new service.
iWork on the mobile side seems to be well implemented. Just seems to be half a solution without the desktop version along for the ride.
Cross device app synching is nice… but I am already seeing a problem where I want more granular control than sync all of them or none of them. Example… games going to my personal and work phones that are both tied to my personal iTunes account. Sure, I could create an iTunes account for the work phone but then I would have to pay for lots of productivity apps twice that my company does not provide.

Final Verdict : Alpha and Beta. App sync, mobile iWork etc… seem polished and only troubled by massive initial traffic encountered with the roll out of iOS 5, they represent the beta quality points. Lack of granular control of distribution to multiple devices may seem to be an ‘ease of use’ decision but I think Apples refusal to address the intermixed nature of device use is what keeps hosing them on the cloud. Simple things like shared libraries between spouses are a long known issue. Also on the horizon are new issues like work/personal phones or even individual dual purpose phone use. These are the areas Apple is going to have to get better at. Competitors are finally starting to figure out the whole integrated hardware/software angle and they are looking to leapfrog on these particular issues. Final nail in the coffin is no basic file directory content syncing with the cloud. Apple may want to push everyone into a world where we no longer root around in the file system… but it just isn’t going to happen. At least not any time soon.

iCloud and SIRI type technologies are the next generation of uberness for folks in the business of selling computers and mobile devices. It is one of the final links in integration of computers into our lives. To go beyond these two capabilities will require physical interfaces (i.e. brain/nerves to computer). These could easily lead the next 20-30 years of computer advancement. An always on/connected/interconnected frame work tied to natural language interaction is conceptually huge and while nothing new… the possibility that the technology is finally available to make it a reality is exciting.

iPhone 4s: Apples 5th iteration of the phone

2011-10-11T22:21:00.000-06:00

**Just FYI, I have not been hands on with a 4s yet. I normally wait before posting my thoughts on a phone/gadget but feel relatively comfortable posting this now due to the iterative nature of the release. Will revisit this as needed once I have used it for a while (10/12/2011)** ***moved SIRI to its own article that also includes thoughts on iCloud***

Following the Oct 4th announcement by Apple of the details of its new iPhone 4s all critics seemed to predict nothing but doom and gloom.

- No Steve Jobs at the keynote, we find out just a couple of days later it is because he was literally on his death bed, but no matter the reason it is a cause for panic. Apple is no more. Even before Jobs was officially no more. Sheesh. Talk about vultures. Though can’t say I blame them. Apple is no longer the plucky quirky underdog so its no longer cool or unexpected to pick them to succeed. Nope the pendulum has officially swung and now the journalistic preference seems to be predicting the giants fall. Thats what happens when your market value is second to one and causes shifts in the weighting of an entire stock exchange due to its unbalanced level of impact when your stocks values jump around a bit.

- They didn’t call it the iPhone 5. It is not perpetually powered by ambient light, able to double as a 4 inch chefs knife and serve as an eco friendly alternative transport method that will free us from foreign oil. Its just a much improved iPhone 4…. the horror! This is more of the same looking for something to tear down Apple with. If Apple had called this an iPhone 5 they would have derided them for the lack of external design change etc… All in all its just a name. This phone brought some serious updates to the table. Single Core to Dual core chip with a serious graphics capability update. In fact this is essentially the brains of an iPad 2 stuffed in the frame of an iPhone 4 and yet with all the increase in computing/graphic power it still cranks out significantly better battery life that its predecessor and is pushing into iPad territory on some fronts. Pretty frickin impressive stuff. 1080p video, 720p wireless mirroring, 8Mp camera that starts up and shoots faster than some dedicated point and shoot cameras. It hits the ground running with the newest iteration of iOS which brings a completely wireless existence. No more tethering with iTunes required. How long have the critics been screaming for that? And yet they seem to simply complain it hasn’t come sooner.

After all the doom and gloom Apple promptly sold over a million phones in less than 24 hours. For the conspiracy nuts that always seem to claim around now that Apple deliberately shorts their supplies for launch take a second and realize that having more than a million units available for the pre-order launch represented an almost 100% increase in launch stocks over the last release which sold out on day one with ~ 600k units. Nobody else hits these kinds of numbers for product launches. NOBODY. If the off contract cost of the hardware is ~800 bucks then over 1 million sold is approaching 1 billion in sales in 24 hours. This just doesn’t happen.

The bottom line here is this. For the past 5 years Apple has clearly put in place the most consistent performing line of smartphones available which have been tied to the wildly successful App store for the past 4 years. Android handsets from various sources can and probably will catch up on both fronts. But due to the proliferation of devices it is simply going to take time for it to consolidate its commodity position in the market. But that day is not now. Apple continues to take the best of available technology and weave it together in the best overall package. Nothing about this iPhone or any that proceeded it was revolutionary in and of itself. The odd thing about the iPhone wasn’t the presence of the device. It was the fact Apple was making it and that they managed to buck the common wisdom of the time for how to sell phones. What was revolutionary is that Apple figured out how to make such a device appeal to the common user instead of just the geeks. It is what they continue to do better than anyone. Which is another reason why so many of the tech elite are turning on it in my opinion. They keep waiting for the unicorn moment from Apple and instead keep getting better and better mousetraps that appeal to more and more people.

Case in point, there is one feature that even the most cold hearted, blood thirsty, want to see the giant tumble for all the stories they can tell about its fall journalists are all seeming to agree might be a game changer. The integrated SIRI voice controlled assistant. Voice control isn’t new. Its been around since a computer could crunch the signal from a microphone. Its been on cell phones in some various guise or other for almost a decade if not more at this point. Its been on PC’s, Macs and of course everyone hated enemy the automated voice control answer service systems. As such the last thing SIRI could be considered is revolutionary. It simply looks to be the first such system that works easily enough that it will be more than a useless ‘feature bullet’. The revolution is not the technology. Its the fact it works. If Apple keeps building better and better mouse traps they are going to dominate this market for a LONG time.

I tend to wait and post my reviews after I get hands on. But as I mentioned before this phone is in well documented territory. I have an iPhone 4 thanks to work so the Retina Display is nothing new for me. Extra snappiness is extra snappiness. Video reviews I have seen show this phone to be visibly quicker than its predecessor. Still… I will revisit the following bullets if needed once I have a few weeks of hands on time and see what needs changing.

The Good:

Sharp Retina Screen still impresses even if its not the largest screen available.
Poo the identical form factor all you want but sometimes if it ain’t broke it don’t need fixin. Exactly how much smaller do you want your phone to get? Besides this means there is already a HUGE amount of ready to go accessories with no wait for nice cases etc… Defiantly a mark in the + column despite the mobile phone fashionistas insisting anything new must look different.
No More tether requirement with iOS 5 and the iCloud connection. Apple is starting to get serious about their Post PC vision. iPad 3 is going to be interesting.
Better battery life? I mean seriously. For the longest time it seemed a given that the next generation of smartphone did 10 times as much and ran out of battery life 20 times as fast. Apple continues their trend of upending that notion and praise the lord the other manufacturers are following suit.
8Mp with quality optics looks to finally make this a camera on a phone without any need for apologies. Fast access tweaks very welcome. 1080p video overdue but also welcome none the less.
Graphics boost hinting at things to come. Retina display needs pixel pushing power but you can only do so much fine detail that can be appreciated on a ~4 inch screen. The long term goal here is pushing video externally. Untethered device that can drive 1080p wired and 720 wirelessly? Curious. I expect wireless 1080p from Apple TV version 3.
*SIRI needs its own article… * (updated 10/15/2011)

The So So:

Still no SD slot? Really? Least they bumped the max capacity up to 64Gb. But as a new member of the parenthood club I am looking at the 64Gb onboard limitation to support music, photos and 1080p video as a poor match.
No micro USB slot able to support charging? Dongles don’t count.
Air Play is still half baked. Almost nothing supports it and the accessory market just isn’t heating up for it. Still this might be the best shot in the arm for the Apple TV yet. iPad 2 video mirroring was a dubious ability at best simply due to the large screen on the iPad itself. iPhone mirroring brings some interesting possibilities. Controller and game screen anyone?
Double glass case. I have no problem with the overall design not changing. But the double sided glass be it gorilla stuff or not has made the 4 somewhat more prone to breakage. Remember seeing some concepts with ceramic or metal backing. Think it would have been a better call. May consider doing this 3rd party if I can find a warranty friendly solution.

The Ugly:

Lack of official support for 3rd party app stores. Apple should be able to compete with the free market when it comes to apps delivered onto the phone. I withdraw this concern if they would stop censoring app submissions and judge them only on technical/security/privacy merits rather than moral or anti-competitive ones. Prurient content is an obvious example of one such form of censorship… but more importantly Apple often blocks or even co-opts apps that compete with their own offerings. Sooner or later I think it is going to get them into hot water for ‘unfair practices’ similar to the myriad of suits brought against Microsoft in the last decade and a half.

Apple needs to flex their muscle with the phone companies again regarding unlimited data plans. And they need to figure out cost effective joint plans for multiple devices (iPad, MacBook Air etc…). iCloud is going to eat up 2Gb limits for breakfast lunch AND dinner…. or they need to just buyout a major cellphone telco and turn it into commodity ISP service like they should already be and force the race to the bottom. Bandwidth cost is the ‘oil’ of the information economy. Pricing for data plans are currently like paying 100 dollars a gallon to drive a V8 muscle car. AT&T better not get any crazy notions about separating me from my grandfathered in unlimited plans.

Buehler? Buehler?

Prognostication Roundup, Amazon Kindle announcement, and iPhone 5 thoughts

2011-09-28T16:31:00.000-06:00

In February 2010 I wrote the following regarding the then freshly revealed first generation iPad:

Make no mistake this is typical Apple early adopter pricing (read nose bleed high). In the long run this level of pricing may well continue to define the upper end. But based on these numbers I expect to see mobile tablets in the $100-300 range with more capability than the initial iPad inside of 2 years. E-ink is either going to step up its game (color, refresh rates), go sub $100 (sub $50?) or disappear all together. If E-ink gets to color refresh rates on par with LCD technology and remains lower power it will fold into this market quickly.

Prior to the iPad 2 release I also speculated about Retina displays

iPad 2 would have Retina… OR
iPad 3 would have Retina
iPad 3 would release mid cycle

Today, September 27th 2011 about 19 months later Amazon just announced a new Kindle for $79. Not an old version made cheaper. An announced new Kindle with new higher quality E-ink display for $79. They also announced the Fire. A 7 inch color LCD device.

I’m a Genius:

Sub 100 dollar e-ink reader in <24 months ? Check. The newly announced entry level Kindle is $79
- Of special note, this is not a reduced cost older model but a new model with improved screen.

E-reader move to LCD technology in <24 months ? Check (The color Nook from B&N was first a couple months back)
- A major fallout of the move of printed material to electronics is much more direct competition with other kinds of media. I adopted a Kindle 2 for my reading only to supplant it with the iPad not because it was a better reading experience… but because the iPad offered me so much more along with a ‘good enough’ reading experience.

I’m a Schmuck:

Tablet with better specs than original iPad for <=$300 in <24 months? Swing and a miss…. so far. 4 months to go ☺
- Motorola Xoom has the specs (heck it beats the iPad2 specs) but the price is still north of 400 even with incentives
- Kindle Fire and a few others have the price but not the specs
- Double or nothing it happens < 36 months?
iPad2 with Retina? Negatory Nostrodumus, try again
iPad 2s/3 mid cycle release ? barring a surprise release as part of the october 4th event shockingly wrong again.

Still Waiting:

iPad 3 with Retina ? Specs for the next iPad are still the stuff of much speculation. There is some solidifying evidence that Apple is preparing to make a tablet sized display in Retina type DPI ranges. Outlook favorable.
Tablets a default part of the computing landscape in <=5 years? Not even 2 years in and looking good
- Could argue we are already there.
  - Industry Tech discussion regarding tablets has gone from ‘why’ to ‘whats next’.
  - There does not seem to be any real concern about the ‘bubble bursting’ though the fact nobody can crack Apples strangle hold on the market still has a few thinking it is all a ‘distortion field’ driven market.
- Next generation of devices is crucial to this one becoming a slam dunk and I really think a serious competitor to Apple needs to emerge to really drive this one home inside of 5 years from the release of the original iPad

Amazon made some pretty big waves a couple of days ago with its new Kindle Lineup

Base kindle with new higher contrast e-ink perl display, wifi only for $79 bucks.
- 4th generation device now in a pretty strong market and seriously cracking the $100 barrier vs. the typical 99.99 nonsense I think drives them even farther. 2012 will not be good to the printed book industry.
Two new touch driven e-ink devices at only slightly higher pricing…
- 99$, wifi only? (add supported?)
- 149$ no adds and 3g (no adds)
Gives a nice range of selection for the various e-bookworms to choose from.
Highly anticipated color wifi android tablet reader for $200
- Very aggressive pricing for a decent tablet spec.
  - Same screen technology and capacitive touch as iPad but smaller form factor and far fewer widgets (no microphone, no camera, no bluetooth etc…).
- Amazon market for kindle material and Amazon Application market for Android represent the only real alternative challenging the iTunes/App store juggernaut from Cupertino.
- Silk browser is creating some serious buzz and looks to be a truly useful feature

Amazon is fighting guerrilla warfare against Apple here. Head on point to point there is almost no comparison. But the e-ink devices excel at what they do and the launch of an LCD color tablet offers kindle loyalists the chance to expand within Amazon’s lineup and gives Apple escapists a real option in the tablet world with app and content support nobody else is really succeeding in putting together despite the fact android devices are hugely popular. Add in the truly tempting price point compared to even bottom bracket iPads and you have a very compelling device. This is going to be interesting.

iPhones next incarnation is finally officially being revealed on October 4th… quick thoughts.

I am getting one regardless of the details. Will be the first Apple Device Pre-order for me in fact.
- A lot of this is due to the absolute dominance of the app store and my current level of investment in apps
- Also because I am that happy with my iPhone experience to date (primarily 3Gs but now also have a 4 for work)
- Normally I want hands on experience before buying a device like this but the basics of the apple phone ergonomics are pretty well established. Apple would have to do something very unexpected in the reveal on the 4th to make me hesitate on a pre-order.

Guesses that I haven’t seen on other sites… only have one really
- Thunderbolt supported via 30pin dock connector which allows for super fast syncing with thunderbolt equipped machines running iTunes
  - Apples patent for adding thunderbolt to their 30 pin connector was a minor story several months back
  - Apple is strongly embracing thunderbolt… all Macs now have a port and the displays now connect via thunderbolt
  - I strongly believe an eventual endgame for iPad/iPhone will be the ability to drive a Cinema display (or two?) as part of a ‘desktop’ mode of operation. I see this as a long term effort by Apple to erase the basic concept that there must be a distinction between an ‘OS’ and a ‘Mobile OS’. There will just be an ‘OS’. The consumer then only has to decide on how much computing power they really need. ‘Mobile’ processors are rapidly reaching performance levels that could handle full fledged computing tasks with no apologies for the vast majority of users. If the idea of an OS becomes singular rather than context driven then processors will follow suit and the same technology will drive everything from your phone to a server cluster.
- Ability to drive full HD on external monitors
  - Greater than HD would be very interesting as I mention above but I think its too soon for that. Would be an awesome ‘one more thing’ though.
  - Not much of a guess as the iPad2 can already do this and the iPhone 5 will likely have more CPU horsepower and RAM under the hood along with a graphics processor at least as powerful if not a step ahead.

Review: 2012 Mustang GT with Brembo Package

2011-08-21T18:48:00.000-06:00

There have been quite a few mustang reviews for this model so I won’t go into my usual level of detail. For once there is plenty out there and more on the subject. Besides… its a Mustang so whats to know right? Big(ish) engine, bad handling, awful fall apart interior and mullets galore right?

Wrong. Very Very Very wrong. For one, I owned a Mustang that gloriously lived up to that stereotype and this car is nothing like it. For one it doesn’t actively try to kill me at the slightest provocation despite the fact it does still have a live rear axel. Just exactly how Ford managed that is a deep dark mystery… but I suspect someone lost their soul over it.

The new 5.0 deserves its Press. 400+hp hitched to a slick shifting 6 speed tied to standard limited slip differentials in 3 exciting flavors (3.31 ‘fun’, 3.55 ‘hell yeah’ and 3.73 ‘holy $#!&’). All that and it is still a typical base mustang engine (read lots of tuning potential). The difference is unlike in the past you no longer have to tune it just to get the power level that should be there from the start. 400hp with damn near 400 tq out of a lighting fast NA engine is a whole lot of automotive ju ju to play with.

The Brembo Package is a no brainer option for anyone who actually buys this car to drive for reasons other than making large clouds of white smoke (though thats certainly still an option). For those that don’t know this ~$1800 bundle of goodness brings you an actually sporty suspension tune, 255 max performance summer rubber on decent looking if heavy wheels, 14” 4 piston Brembo’s up front that can stand a hot lap or three without melting and a track mode for the electronic nanny for a nice additional touch. Any one of those upgrades over standard would cost you about the same thing as the whole ford factory package and each would risk voiding large sections of your warranty.

Combine the basic GT Mustang with the Brembo option and you get the following…

“Mustang…. its not just for straight lines any more”

It doesn’t even really take the Brembo package… that just seals the deal. Even the base beast is no longer just a traffic light drag race warrior. The base car is now essentially the 2008 Bullit limited edition car with a nicer interior and a serious drive train upgrade which isn’t exactly shabby.

Don’t take my word for it… go drive one. I did and will now do so on a daily basis for the foreseeable future. It may take surgical implements to remove the grin. All this and its still a ‘bang for the buck bargain’. Ford is currently pushing 0% financing out to 60 months and just 1.9% for 72 through early October (2011). Invoice cost is realistic though (patience may be required) and that drops damn near 2k off the sticker.

Oh yeah… I will throw in a couple of nuggets I know nobody else has bothered to report on. The rear latch system will work for a baby trend seat and the V-8 apparently has a distinct rumble that sends infants (well at least one) immediately to sleep :-)

iPad3 Retina Display and the implications

2011-07-18T21:40:00.000-06:00

Ok. So back before the iPad 2 launch I had a post speculating about the possibility of an iPad with a retina display. I held that it was coming on either the iPad 2 (which it didn’t) or the iPad 3. Why do I think this will happen? Numerous reasons

The technology exists
Apple has patented an update to their 30 pin connection to allow for thunderbolt connections which will allow them to support pushing such a gargantuan resolution to an external display.
Rumors have not stopped circulating that Apple is in talks to buy iPad three parts and that acquiring this level of resolution display from samsung is under discussions.
Thunderbolt can be used to run at least 2 monitors at this resolution
As I have discussed before, getting to the 300dpi mark in a device like the iPad will eventually spell the death of the print out and make good on all those thoughts of ‘paperless’ offices
Apple wants to change the primary computing paradigm
iPad is experiencing one of the fastest rates of uptake for a new technology in a corporate environment ever
Lion is showing the future of Apple by moving to a more iOS type interface and method of document handling
- Don’t worry... there will always be a need for a more nitty gritty OS experience... but Apple is looking to pave the nuts and bolts over for real. But in order to pave the way for a universal application environment the current paradigms have to be merged (Mobile and Full Fledge OS).

Here is how all this adds up.

Imagine if you would docking your iPad (or iPhone for that matter) and running an Apple cinema display attached to a keyboard an mouse. The iPad itself could become a pallete based input device or secondary display to assist with actions on the large screen. The large screen itself could even accept touch input and be mounted on a pivot that would allow you to do so with greater ease (see touch iMac patent for how). When you are done you simply undock the iPad and go about your merry business. Your works is saved on the device and if desired on Apples (or other services) cloud servers. You didn’t have to ‘save’ anything, it just did this as you did your work. Lost documents because you forgot to save becomes super rare and generally only costs seconds/minutes of work instead of hours/days. Information is stored in multiple places by default and so the problem of losing a device becomes less critical. Distinctions between working on a document on a ‘mobile’ device or a PC have all but disappeared. Any of your friends that have such a dock setup would be an opportunity for you to run your own personal computer setup rather than having to borrow theirs. When viewing documents on the go the screens 280 DPI or better resolution would be a close match for your standard laser print out quality. Printers soon start becoming something old and stodgy people rely on like fax machines in the face of e-mail. However don’t expect that transition to take a decade or more as with e-mail and fax. As this sort of on the go computing becomes more and more ‘normal’ there will be a ridiculous explosion in how our information interacts. What Facebook has done for online social interaction, tablets are going to do for moribund business processes mired in static media.

This is in a nutshell what Jobs means when he pontificates about a ‘post PC’ world. Make no mistake, Apple is not after a niche market here. They want the brass ring they lost to Microsoft in the early war for the desktop computer market. If they keep going on like this then the late 80’s decline into almost oblivion may ultimately be a ‘blip’ in a computing history dominated by the Cupertino crowd going forward.

The iPad 3 and similar devices are not going to accomplish all of that vision in one fell swoop. But a retina display and ability to drive such a high resolution external monitor will in my opinion be the ‘missing link’ device that gets us a large step down the road from a mobile & PC world to a unified general computing world. OS X and windows 8 both mark a move by the Major OS world to align with the mobile world just as the Tablet interfaces have steadily encroached on what has been considered basic computing.

Will they pull it off? Who knows. Going to be fun to watch.

Thoughts on Facebook

2011-06-06T21:21:00.000-06:00

Here is a link to some information about a book on the Social Internet Darling that brought us ‘pokes’.

So what led me to Kirkpatrick’s book and musing about Facebook in the first place? Well recently I watched the Social Network for the first time. I could care less about the sex lies and scandal all given top billing in that movie. That part was entertaining of course but to me it got in the way of the real story. Facebook is a fascinating phenomenon. The high profile of Facebook in the 2008 elections combined with the information tossed out in the movie regarding the massive success of the site whetted my appetite for a bit more in depth look at just what they had accomplished. So off to Amazon I went to look for a kindle edition book on the subject. A quick glance through the more in depth reviews of the “accidental billionaires” seemed to indicate that the focus on the juicy stuff in the movie wasn’t exactly poetic license for the intent to sex things up... that element featured largely in the book as well which is not what I was interested in. Also I found out that the book was written with zero input from Facebook and almost entirely from the accounts of the estranged friend/partner Eduardo Saverin and the Harvard group accusing Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. “The Facebook Effect” on the other hand was written with a great deal of cooperation from Zuckerberg and numerous of the elite members of the Facebook Team. All in all I figured they would balance out.
While the book deals with the quite sensational birthing story in some detail it has a much longer running focus on the insanity of what the site has accomplished.

Facebook is currently beyond 500 million users and seemingly inexorably continuing towards 1 billion and beyond. That in and of itself isn’t unique. They aren’t the first to hit such numbers and they certainly won’t be the last (not sure about the 1 billion user mark though....). What is amazing is the sustained nature, level and frequency of activity of that massive flock. Some 50% of users visit the site daily. 90% are active within a month and they commit a staggering amount of time on status updates, pokes and social gaming among other pursuits to be found on the eclectic social hub. At this point is when the large but rapidly evaporating pool of non-facebook public collectively sniff and turn away. I had more in common with that mindset than I currently care to admit prior to taking in what “The Social Network” and “The Face Book Effect” had to say. What was that you may ask?

Well lets start off with some back story. For those of you that know me it goes without saying I am a pretty large tech head, geek, nerd or whatever phrase of choice you like to indicate someone who spends too much time obsessing over all things digital. That being said having graduated in 2000 I really was a couple of years ahead of the sea change that Facebook has wrought on the landscape of the internet and of its sweeping change a the college and high school level. Even being one with his ear to the ground on technology fronts I have largely missed what happened having generally dismissed Facebook as largely a waste of time except as a decent spam filter on communicating with ones friends. I knew it was big. I knew it was impressive... but until the past couple of years it seemed like one of many whiz bang companies from Silicon valley that go super nova briefly before vanishing twice as fast as they appeared. Suffice it to say I am finally convinced that they are nothing of the sort and have now been mentally kicking myself for not paying closer attention. I knew I was not up to speed on this particular facet of the web which was a large part of my desire to dig into it a bit more. What I hadn’t realized was the sheer magnitude of my ignorance. It really seems akin to having been walking around in the middle of a cloudless summer solstice thinking it was the dead of night. This shit is world changing stuff. I am not talking better mouse trap changing. Its Atom Bomb level changing. If there is a person or two alive today that will go down in history on par with the likes of Churchill, Stalin, Lincoln, Hitler, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Mao, Gandhi, Henry VIII, Alexander etc... My money and magic 8 ball currently says it is Mark Zuckerberg. He of the fleece hoodie and Adidas sandals good for all occasions. The other potential is the ‘player(s) to be named later’. I will explain in a bit...

Kirkpatrick stops short of such insane claims. But the last chapter or three lays out a general overall trajectory that is hard to miss. It is one my mind began sailing down long before I reached his finishing touches. Its quite possible, hell its likely, Facebook will fall short on Kirkpatrick’s musings (much less my slightly more colorful take) . But if it does (ready for more color????) I posit it will be Athens to some later Rome.

Why do I make these crazy over the top statements? Because Facebook has provided the most effective harness for the voice of the people history has yet to see. If you wonder why that is such an insane thing you should stop to ponder other times in history when individuals, or groups have managed to effectively harness the power of the masses. It built civilization. It created religions, It has sent us through numerous fits of social systems and changes the latest of which was shrugging off monarchal and other forms of elite rule for democracies. It made the streets of Paris run red with Blood. It birthed the ‘Great Experiment’ that is the USA. The ‘networks’ and social structures that made such events possible were nothing to the potential that is Facebook. How so?

Two examples. The first is The Salem Witch Trails. The second is H.G. Wells radio broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’. The first is a classic example of group hysteria and mob mentality but one largely dismissed these days because ‘modern’ society wouldn’t fall prey to such superstitious nonsense or ‘weaknesses’ of a close nit somewhat isolated social group. The second I bring up because it too is an example of group hysteria and mob mentality but one not so easily dismissed. Religion and Radio both had something in common that led to these two events that is fundamentally different from Facebook... and probably the reason Facebook hasn’t torn itself or a society or two apart (Though Egypt may beg to differ...) They are what I call ‘transmit only’ forms of... well for lack of a better phrase... control of the masses. The Salem witch trials are a tragic case of superstition and quite likely social taboo combining in a particularly nasty manner. The War of the Worlds an amazing indicator of the sheer power of mass communication technology to produce a sudden massive mobilization both mentally and physically of the public being broadcast too. Facebook is a new beast in that it is a true conversation of the masses. A signal boosting conversation of the masses if you will. But because it is a conversation it is much more difficult for someone to pull a ‘Wells’ because just as fast as someone kicks out something another movement is almost immediately a foot to unearth the fact there is no ‘invasion’. As a result most of Facebook is just purile noise and non-sense or canceling content of a more serious nature. But every now and again a signal gains critical mass on a issue with fundamental appeal and no obvious counter (not a bad thing in and of itself). 1 Million People against FARC. Egyptian social revolution organization. The not insignificant impact on the 2008 presidential election. Radio and other traditional forms of mass media have some elements of the ‘social’ conversation but it is limited by its logistics (you can broadcast to millions but you can’t take calls from a significant portion of them). Facebook has the power to turn your social circle... and EVERYONE else’s onto a particular thought in minutes/hours that used to take massive effort and days/weeks if not Months/Years.

So what do the Salem Witch Trails and “War of the Worlds” have in common with Facebook? The fundamental structure of Facebook is your inner social circle. This forms a closeness and greatly lowers your desire to question what they have to say critically. It is the dynamics of such tight nit groups that played a pivotal role in the escalation of the Salem trials to their tragic conclusion. While the motivations of ill informed superstitions and literal adherence to such unyielding concepts as “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” are largely gone... don’t think for a second that such circles are any less vulnerable to fits of hysteria given the right circumstances. That is part of the lesson of H.G. Wells taught us. The other part of that lesson was what happens when a more intelligent society encounters something that collectively makes them hit the “I Believe” button on something frightening in short enough order that it bypasses the ‘saftey valves’ so to speak. In effect it proved a modern society could go collectively off the deep end every bit as much as Salem did... and with far greater potential consequences. Finally it is one of the few concrete examples of such a new technology hitting large audiences before it really had figured out what its powers were. Facebook combines the early stage instability of a transformative communication technology far more powerful than Radio and combines it with a fast track of information into your (and everyone else’s) inner circle where it can reverberate and hit home faster than anything before in history.

That brings me back to Zuckerberg heading down into the history books... possibly with a ‘player to be named later’. By that I mean I am wondering right now if he will be someone that puts his hand on the tiller of his creation and does something with it. Think Jefferson/Washington/Hamilton/Franklin seizing on existing philosophies/concepts of de Tocqueville, Locke and others and setting about actually building a nation with them (Starting in Boston no less....). Or will their be a Stalin taking control of the Communist machine built by Lenin and running with it... or perhaps a less damning comparison of Julius Caesar taking the reins of Rome for himself.

Perhaps my examples are a little to far a field for you... I apologize. Perhaps something a bit more approachable and tangible like US presidential elections? In 2008 Facebook exploded on the US political scene. The social network that barely existed in 2004 changed the face of US presidential elections in 2008 whether you realized it or not. It was the first time the service really pinged on my radar as something I needed to pay closer attention to. It seemed like the news casters were competing with each other to see how often they could mention Facebook and its various polling and discussion groups. One of Facebooks early inner sanctum played a pivotal roll in Obama’s ground breaking election team. Nothing ominous in that... simply pointing out that the value of this persons experience was such that it put him in a key role for the election of what is considered the most powerful office in the world. Perhaps not unsurprisingly The voice of younger voters in 2008 was felt in a real way for perhaps the first time in a truly meaningful way. The impact was a few percentage points difference. But it was in the toughest most hard fought national arenas where success and failure is often measured in such small percentile differences. The post electoral break down by the pundits and bobble heads all seem to be willing to grant Facebook its due. It seems a common theme they felt its polling information rivaled and generally trounced long standing polling powers like Gallop. But that isn’t what I find interesting. In 2008 the active Facebook Audience in the US was significantly smaller than the voting population and it was also heavily skewed in favor of the College and 20 something demographic courtesy of Facebooks roots as a college social hub. By comparison, in 2012 it looks like Facebook will be drawing on an active audience in the US that actually rivals that of the voting populace and will far exceed any previous ‘polling’ audience. The odds are extremely high that anyone actually motivated to vote will have a Facebook account and they will be extremely likely to engage in the political process via the wealth of tools the site presents for such discussion. In english this means that in a given day (or certainly week) Facebook will not gather a statistical representation of voting intentions... it could effectively poll a huge percentage of all the voters straight up and put the results in front of you live, tallied up and dissected down to silly specific levels of social breakdowns. By the time the election actually happens it quite possibly will have happened multiple times at the same, or near enough as makes no difference, levels of participation as the ‘real election’ via Facebook. By 2016 if they continue to grow at far more modest rates they will likely garner a far HIGHER percentage of opinion from the citizenry than the official voting process. That is not just amazing. It is scary. It is exciting. It is a world changing possibility because it will be the same in numerous other countries as well.

If you don’t get why that is ‘nuclear’ stuff you really need to brush up on your history of nations. Suffice it to say that at the fundamental level Democracies (really any government) run on the basis of perceived legitimacy. Perception in this case is far greater an issue than reality. Perhaps more aptly I should say that in the case of democracy/government the perception of the masses defines reality. If ‘we the people’ believe the system to be legitimate then it is. If we believe it to be illegitimate then lets just say the ‘spark’ is out of the romance and in all likely hood such a government is going to rapidly be flushed. If the Facebook masses as a community believe their voice is legitimate and the actions of their respective governments run counter there will be a serious crisis. You think hanging Chads were big? Chew on this. Imagine if you will a Facebook election which consisted of a significantly higher voting population than physically cast a vote in the ‘real election’ resulting in the selection of different candidates in a nation critically divided on a critical issue. Remember. Ultimately the people decide what they will accept as real. Tradition will hold the line quite a ways. Suspicions of manipulatable results in the control of Facebook will be another cooling factor. But ultimately it is a question of what people believe. The world thought the Founding Fathers were nutz to place their faith in the vote of the general public. Is placing faith in a company run by a man who turned down a billion dollars cash on more than one occasion to maintain the integrity of an internet cast vote really any different or crazier?

Call me Crazy if you like. I’ve been called worse. While I am not certain Facebook will make good on these possibilities.... I am convinced that the potential is very real that they could... or ‘the people’ themselves could via the incredibly powerful tools Facebook has provided. And if their history is any indication they will waltz into this kind of stuff with barely any warning that its actually happening. It will just suddenly be and a month or two later you will wonder how it ever wasn’t. Heres hoping it all ends well. Enough ranting and raving for tonight... time for some sleep. Debate welcome as always.

New Tax Based on Miles Driven? Really?

2011-03-25T16:53:00.001-06:00

There is a new idea being kicked around in Congress. Basic idea is to start taxing miles driven in addition to existing taxes such as the tax you pay on gas. Why? Well with new efficient cars and technologies such as hybrids and electrics it is possible someone would pay no gas tax and or revenues may fall due to the increased efficiency (less gas\diesel purchased).

Really? I might be able to understand this one if and only if they dropped the gas tax altogether. This is just getting plain silly. Let me get this straight. I make money. I pay income tax. I buy gas and pay sales tax (only in some states) and a federal gas tax. THEN I pay a tax for the miles I drive in the car I pay yearly registration fees (tax) on. Just exactly how many times do I need to get taxed on this?

Let me be clear... I am not some looney that thinks taxes should not be collected. However, I am a firm believer that any dollar I make should only be taxed once. IE if I pay an income tax to the federal and state governments then I should not have to pay ANY more tax because every red cent I make has been taxed. At least then it would be easy to determine just how much money vanishes down the government maw. Lets use this gas thing as an example.

I make one dollar. It is taxed at ~28% after FICA, SS and State income tax is removed. Leaving me 72 cents. If I buy 72 cents of gas that gets me... .21 gallons of gas. In Al that is taxed at about 32 cents a gallon... so 6.7 cents in tax leaving me to purchase ~65 cents worth of actual product from a dollar I made. That is a 35% tax rate on every dollar I spend on gasoline. If I drive a 30mpg car that will let me get a little over 6 miles down the road. If the tax rate is say 1 cent per mile driven (120$ yearly at 12k miles average) that adds another 6 cents leaving me with 59 cents of gas/driving purchasing power with the rest going to the government. ~40%. A ~40% tax rate. taxed at ~40%. No matter how I say it it seems ludicrous.

Now the article I link to does not say what the potential rate would be, or even that it would be a single rate. Perhaps 1 cent is to high? Well a 50 cent per gallon tax (over all national average) would be 1 cent per mile in a car getting 50mpg (not that many get that). Since average gas mileage is in the low - mid 20’s we already pay more than 2 cents a mile on average. So it isn’t crazy talk. Lets not even get into the sticky mess that would be variable rates. A 50mpg 2000lbs car does far less damage to roads than a 6000lbs soccer mom urban assault vehicle, which in turn does far less damage than a fully loaded Semi (~80,000 pounds). A single Semi on a deserted road does less damage than all us rats in our tiny go karts in rush hour. The combinations are endless as is the argument over what would be ‘fair’. Ideally fair would probably be something on the order of some calculation taking into account congestion, weight and cost of maintaining the current piece of road you are on at any given particular time. With GPS and some other electronic monitoring devices that is now actually a realistic possibility.... but that then raises privacy issues. Whether fuel consumption taxing is the best method or not it seems relatively fair to base your share on the amount of fuel you buy. It is is pretty simple and probably good enough. Electric charging stations and home meters can be rigged to charge similarly for juice going to electric vehicle batteries. Seems a much simpler fix than some convoluted electronic nanny system that will likely be royally abused anyway. And for those yammering about commercial vehicles causing more damage they are very right... and they are generally faced with further charges because of it.

Based on 2005 numbers it looks like we generate some where in the neighborhood of 69 billion a year in gas taxes (50 cent average tax per gallon, 20 million barrels of oil a day, 19 gallons of gas from a barrel, 365 days in the year ). This doesn’t include the added collection of diesel taxes. That isn’t enough? Really? Even with hybrids and electrics the amount of gas or diesel being bought isn’t exactly dropping just yet. When it does then perhaps it will be time to reconsider how we fund transit infrastructure costs. But it should NOT involve any method of double (triple if you count income tax) taxation. I personally think this should be rolled into income tax, or the entire tax collection system in the US should be switched entirely to consumption based taxes where money goes to things it is spent on when it is spent. Doing that would have the added bonus of killing the nightmare that is yearly tax filing and refocusing the IRS on sales tax collection\reporting rather than overseeing the incomes of every single wage earner in the country.

Anyway... enough ranting for one night.

AT&T cracking down on Tethering

2011-03-18T06:46:00.000-06:00

Check the story here. But it looks like AT&T has finally deployed technology which allows it to detect who is tethering when they do not have a tethering plan. It is most likely a combination of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) combined with data usage profiles as it is much easier to use LOTS of data when tethering vrs just doing stuff with the phone itself.

Pardon the rant... but this one really chaps my @$$. I currently do not utilize the jailbreak methods to use tethering by this method but I have in the past and I did so with a clean conscious. I pay for unlimited data and even so I always stayed within the loose guidelines of what was determined a reasonable amount of data usage and in fact my usage is not anything insane. For instance I have never threatened the 5gb soft cap assumed to exist for AT&T iOS device unlimited plans. While my TOS has verbiage to the effect of trying to create a distinction between data that is relayed to my computer it is not one that I feel can withstand any real legal scrutiny as a realistic split. It is troll under the bridge stuff at its finest.

AT&T has ZERO right to judge what I do with the data I receive it from their network. Once the data hits the phone it is no longer their business what I do with it. In order to enforce a ‘no tethering’ clause AT&T is determining what I (or you) do with the data after it reaches my phone. This is none of AT&T’s business. Their control over the data ends once it reaches my device and concludes our service transaction... that of access to the mobile broadband network. To say I can’t tether is no different from AT&T saying I couldn’t transfer a photo I downloaded from the web from my Phone to my laptop. IE save image in mobile safari then blue tooth file transfer the image to another phone/tablet/laptop etc... ZERO difference from tethering in terms of the data being retrieved by the phone and sent to another device. Yet most people understand that AT&T trying to do that would be considered INSANE. But because the terms of service says ‘No Tethering’ many believe they can stop you from doing exactly that by the specific method of Bluetooth PAN connection.

I hope that sooner rather than later this issue gets a legal hearing. The terms of service are not ambiguous on the limitation. I am of the opinion that it does not matter. And there is plenty of precedent for ruling insane TOS clauses to be un-enforceable or just plain outright illegal. This is a growing consumer rights issue and I hope it gets resolved sooner rather than later.

iPad 2: Rumor Roundup and Thoughts

2011-01-24T12:22:00.000-06:00

Hmmmm... perhaps I should change this blog title to “There aint no such thing as a free Apple”. Seeing as I have done so many apple reviews. Oh well.

Anyway the rumor mill is churning away on the next generation iPad and here are the basics.

SD card slot. Opinion seems pretty solid that this would be as a ‘photo import’ or similar function ONLY device and not a true memory expansion option. Given the gnarly nature of app authentication and licensing nightmares around itunes media purchases I unfortunately think that is a very real possibility. Here is hoping it will allow you to have some expanded shared document repository functions for license free media/photos and files. It would be a very nice change from the current device. Hooking up to itunes to transfer files for the apps that support it is very annoying. A possible big change in Mobile me could be another way of easing the blow of not completely opening up the compact flash slot for use.
Cameras on the front and back is pretty much a given at this point. SDK diving has revealed there is a good chance the rear job will be a lowly 1mp job for Augmented reality and barcode scanning type applications. The front camera will be a crappy vga deal for face time ala iPhone 4. Crappy may be harsh... so I will give it a quality vga deal (ie smooth etc...). I personally could care less about the front facing camera but it being there looks like the move is finally on to real video phoning being common. The back camera being the 1mp deal seems annoying... just like it was on the Touch. The camera cost is pretty small for those tiny little things and they already have massive production numbers with the iPhone 4 or even the older sensor in the 3Gs for something with a much better quality image. Including more spec will make it more useful... trust the folks out there to find the uses and give them the easy capacity for the couple of bucks the extra mega pixels would cost.
A usb port has been rumored but largely dismissed. I unfortunately think the tea leaves read that way as well. The device can’t run the USB host spec without seriously hamstringing the battery and Apple has shown no sign of offering alternatives to the Apple dock for interfacing physically with their devices. Also SD cards are a better solution for flash memory additions due to being housed internaly which is the only viable host function an iPad USB port could serve. In other words SD is the ‘USB’ option. Apple has never been coy at utilizing less than standard ports. USB host interface will still be available through the dock connector as it is now. Any full implementation of USB host would rely on a powered dock apparatus.
Bumped CPU and Graphics processing to dual core jobs. Both will be welcome though it would seem the Graphics bump will be tied to the big momma rumor of the Retina display for iPad. Without it there would be little need for such a serious jump in pixel pushing power. This is par for the course stuff on a refresh but along with the also expected RAM bump this could allow for some better multitasking in a future iOS release (iOS 5 I’m looking at YOU).
Mini Display Port. Hmmmm... this is also somewhat tied to the Retina display discussion below. Suffice it to say if Retina iPad happens then this makes sense to me. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for it to run the 27” apple monitor at native resolution at that point... and with readily available adapters (just 30$ a pop) it would actually have to drive LESS pixels on almost any other display currently out there. Translation... graphics would no longer be a sticking point on an iPad serving as the basis of your ‘desktop’ system... and mobile multi core processors are rapidly becoming powerful enough to be viable main use options. Hell, many folks today run on 720p resolution desktops... which the iPad can push out externally now. Having a dedicated port instead of relying on the dock connection based adapters means two things. One, they need it to push higher resolutions than they can through the dock connector without modifying it and breaking compatibility with the existing dock periphials (if it can work then don’t expect a separate display port). Two, Apple may seriously be considering a non-tethered life for iPad... ie that it is a primary computing device in and of itself rather than an adjunct device to a ‘base’ computer running iTunes. I think the hardware will be ahead of the software on that front. Think in terms of the delayed release of 4.2 for iPad vrs when it was released. iOS 5 and an iTunes Cloud could promote the iPad to primary device status in the eyes of Apple. To make that jump it will need to run accessories like displays, and iOS will probably have to deign to work with a mouse/trackpad.
Retina Display. See below... this one is to big for even one of my ‘bullets’

The Retina Display for the iPad is rumored to consist of a whopping 2048x1536 resolution 10inch display. While not quite as pixel dense as its iPhone 4 sibling it is still 260ish DPI which is more than double current desktop monitor averages. Many seem to think this unlikely because it is hard or to expensive to make the display.. they would be wrong. Making a 10inch 260dpi display is technically easier than making a 320dpi 4 inch (iPhone 4). Manufacturers didn’t stop increasing pixel densities due to technical holdups in making them. They stopped because of numerous factors that caused desktop display resolutions to hit an HD resolution wall in the market. The question here isn’t how is Apple going to manage to produce a mobile device with this level of resolution... the question is why current desktops/laptops don’t have even higher resolutions/DPI. I bought a 15” laptop with a screen resolution of 1920x1200 more than 4 years ago. It was the absolute bleeding edge of semi portable laptop resolution at the time and it was about a year behind wide spread availability of that resolution on desktops. That marked the start of a stagnation of computer resolutions... largely because bigger screens were not really an option and increasing resolution without increasing physical dimensions means higher DPI which broke, and still breaks, the usability of a huge amount of desktop software and even the Operating Systems. A point driven home to me by some problems I had with that same laptop (its display had something like 140dpi). To my knowledge 1920x1200 is still the maximum resolution available for a laptop today and I don’t think computer monitor resolutions have EVER remained this static for this long since the birth if GUI based personal desktop. I saw several stories about 1 inch HD screens a couple of years ago (camcorder eye piece monitors). That is almost 2000 DPI. 300 DPI is NOT a problem. The graphics for 300 DPI are and Apple is in a position to make the transition to higher DPI levels for iOS devices and have already started with iPhone 4.

You may be asking what the big deal is with 300 DPI. The answer is as simple as comparing a printout of a sheet of text with the same text on your screen. Standard printout quality is 300 DPI. It has remained there despite the technical ability to produce thousands of DPI (used sometimes in high end graphics printing). Apple’s marketing for the Retina display is based on it. Its what you can easily distinguish at typical distances for using printouts. Smaller elements (higher DPI) would look the same. It represents the highest quality display level that will be unquestionably appreciated by the masses. Much higher and the only folks that can tell much (if any) difference are those with either super vision, or those who just always think more is better no matter what they can actually see/distinguish. Either is a niche market. 300dpi is the mass market display resolution maximum barring some means of improving average human vision.

The remaining questions are these. One, does Apple think increased DPI is a marketable feature that will distinguish their devices? Retina display is an Apple marketing term and is one of the leading features touted for the iPhone 4. Case closed, lets move on. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a ‘retina display’ macbook/pro, imac etc... in the not to distant future.

Two, Can Apple afford to bootstrap a new production line for a massed produced screen that has currently only been demonstrated? Yes, they have one of the largest reserves of capital of any company and the money needed to do this does not represent a significant proportion of those reserves (say 2-5 billion out of hundreds in the bank). They even have current experience pushing super high volume of high DPI screens with the iPhone 4... scaling to a 10” screen is not a problem and with the current success of the iPad I think not much of a risk either. Next up, 30 inch screens? Now THAT would be a risk... for now.

Can Jobs and Co convince the board to take a multibillion dollar leap? Yes, the iMax, iPod, iPhone and iPad have proved that over and over again.

This leaves the final and critical question. Was Jobs/Apple confident enough to bankroll a completely new line like this for the brand new tablet market in time for an April ’11 release? iPad was enough of a gamble that by the time the returns were in and they knew for certain how big it was may have been to late for an April ’11 release of the next device with the new screen. In any case I have seen enough to firmly believe it is now just a question of iPad 2 or iPad 3 that comes with a ‘retina’ display.

My take? 15 months is forever in the tech world and from now that is the time it would take to get to an April ’12 device. 15 months ago the iPad didn’t exist and tablets where largely thought to be crazy. Now 17million iPads have been sold to the tune of Billions and dozens of competitors are racing tablet devices to market and corporate environments are sucking them up in almost unprecedented fashion. In 15 months time the iPad could be caught and slaughtered by cheaper super powered android units. It is time to double down for Apple and a 15 month delay for such a stand out feature may miss the boat in a market they created. So, I think the Retina display makes it this round. Possibly with a delayed release. An odd possibility, but not unprecedented for Apple, may be that this becomes a model difference (lower and higher resolution iPads). This is pretty similar to 3gs and iPhone 4s currently. This may also allow a bit higher (or stagnate) price point for the top tier devices while dropping the older generation device down to compete with all the ‘bandwagon’ competitors now rushing to the bottom.

If nothing else I hope this breaks the dam on display DPI being stuck around 100. 300dpi print quality screens are LONG over due. My seriously long range prediction (at least in tech terms) at this point is that iOS 5 and OS XI seriously change how graphics work so that instead of pixels, graphics are based around DPI leading to much easier scaling of various software across different devices with various screen technologies.... it might even be that iOS 5 and OS XI are one and the same literally rather than just very close siblings like 4 and X. If iPad 2 ships with a mini Display port I view it as a sign of this being a real possibility. This also has implications for the iPhone if it continues to match or even exceed iPad specs on the processing side (iPhone 4 currently outstrips iPad in pretty much every way). As that would mean anything an iPad could do... an iPhone could do as well. Food for thought.

Wikileaks: Good Job or Reckless Endangerment?

2010-12-06T08:49:00.000-06:00

A government, just like individuals, has the right to secrets.

Who will watch the watchers?

These two statements represent a kind of immovable object vs irresistible force situation when they collide in the real world as they have with the whole issue of wikileaks. While governments have the right to maintain a certain level of secrecy in the interest of the nation, they do not have the right to abuse that privilege. The question then is exactly how one makes sure they cannot abuse this power. Julian Assange is the latest in a long line of people who have struggled with this issue when having the power to reveal information provided to them which the government desires to keep secret and yet which they feel reveals abuses of the system. Some have dealt with this struggle well (Watergate, The Pentagon Papers) and some have done so not so well (Los Alamos papers).

To those who peer into the annals of history with rose tinted glasses absent, who go poking around in the darker regions of murky dealings between nations... it is no revelation that the business of international politics and wars is at its heart a rather sordid affair. In this sense the wikileaks documents and all such similar revelations in the past are nothing new. Nothing surprising. Nothing those in the know get to terribly riled up about. You see its not the content of the revelations that is the problem. It is the nature of them. It is the dirty mean common imperfection of it all and the bright light that is illuminating this fact which is so dangerous. This focus on these rough edges and the clear exposure to the common man and the unsurprising reaction of indignity is what they are upset about. Herds are normally passive and happily serve as food for the Shepherds. But occasionally they are spooked and they stampede. Wikileaks is the kind of thing that can spook the sheeple herd. And it is very much something to be frightened of. When sheeple stampede you get things like the French revolution, Russian revolution, and yes even the American revolution. You get the Reformation. The Fall of Rome. In short... bad things though in some cases bad things that lead to better things.

Civilization as we know it is based in no small part on some pretty big whoppers that rely on a communal state of ignorance to remain stable. Paper is valuable (money), The People are in charge of their government (particular to democracies), and governments are the expression of ideals.

The idea that paper is valuable is a useful fancy. It establishes the basis of motivation in our society... and collectively if we all believe that it is valuable then low and behold... it IS valuable. But only because we all agree to this common ludicrous assertion. Because we are incapable of coming up with a better means of exchange of value we insert this value less construct to represent real value for purposes of exchange. I bring this up because it is one many people can sort of grasp... they get it to some extent.

The People are in charge. This one is a bit more difficult. We have elections and we believe them to be fair. The thing is that belief is more important than the reality. As long as we believe that we are in charge of putting people in power and taking them out of power we as a whole accept their actions as being an extension of our will. The second we as a whole cease to believe in that then it doesn’t matter how legitimate the election is... anarchy will ensue. It is on this basis we allow our government secrecy. We allow it because we trust them. To not trust them is to be at war with them. To understand this issue is to understand the likes of independence nutz the likes of which produced Timothy McVeigh. The reason we see those groups as nutz instead of as heros is because we do not share their lack of faith in the democratic processes of our government.

We hold the government to uphold our collective ideals of our nation. We hold it to a higher standard than we do ourselves. No different from the previous thought that monarchs were the divine agents of a higher power. We hold our leaders to be above the flaws of mankind in order that we trust their judgement.

Why do we believe in these things? Because they beat the everliving crap out of the alternatives. Exchanging slips of paper or little bits of metal beats the crap out of direct bartering of goods and services. Believing we elect our government and having a chance it is real beats rule by right of birth or might of sword/gun. Placing faith in those we empower to represent us to the world to do so better than we might expect ourselves to justifies our faith in entrusting them with the power (yes that makes for a vicious cycle).

The alternative as far as we know at this point is chaos. A regression to worse means and times. To accept the imperfections is to invite regression. To challenge the realities of these things is to risk regression. We balance upon a knifes blade with a long fall to either side and a greater uncertainty should we try something completely new. It is little wonder we ultimately display such patience with the imperfections of our little world. Wikileaks, and those sites/news outlets like them, play the role of agitator. They hold up these imperfections for close examination and they do their damnedest to knock us off that knifes edge of stability. Not for the purpose of throwing us all into chaos... but in order to help us improve. But change is dangerous, especially to those in power that have a vested interest in keeping things the same, and like clockwork those in power that have had this light of inspection cast on their dark underbelly react instinctively to protect themselves. When the revelations are damaging enough and it attracts enough sheeple to take up pitchforks and have a mind to ‘storm the castle’ in reaction then governments either fall or change enough to pacify the mob. While most consider outright revolution an impossibility in modern “1st world’ democracies it is very important to remember our history. The nice thing about our government and the lack of public memory means the ability to adjust to this new reality peacefully is possible and has happened in the past. However, for that to happen our elected officials MUST adapt. Every major political system of the past has always faced an intractable problem for which it had no answer that led to its demise. It would be silly to presume that modern democracies have no such critical failure point.

I do not think wikileaks is in and of itself strong enough to destabilize things to a great degree and as it exists now it is not that intractable problem, at least not yet. Wikileaks and sites like it are something we had best get used to so in my opinion the problem isn’t really if they are doing a good thing or being reckless... I think they are inevitable so we would best spend our time adapting to the reality of such information generally being available. To try and stop it would be just as silly as attempting to not allow the bible to be printed once the printing press was invented, and as wrong as censoring journalists... a core fundamental freedom we founded our nation on.

Grand Tourismo 5 Review: 6 Years in the making.... 6 years to complete?

2010-12-03T09:19:00.000-06:00

I was always a fan of racing games growing up. However it wasn’t until I bought Grand Tourismo 3 on the PS 2 that I turned into an addict. Grand Tourismo is like that. The funny thing is that most games with this painstaking level of detail and difficulty are rarely widely popular. GT is one of the PlayStation lineup All Stars and each release has been pretty notable. That said the coming of GT 5 was viewed as pretty special from the start. It was delayed form release on the PS 2 because of the promise of the PS 3 horse power. And everyone salivated over what an HD quality version of GT would bring. Little did we know it would be 5 long years before the two would actually meet in a full GT 5 release. So its out... and the review storm is on. I am not going to try and get into every single little detail. But here is the take from one serious hard core addicted GT fan who is around a 3rd of the way through the new release by percentage.... perhaps 5% through in reality.

(plus minus ratings in comparison to the series as a whole)

Driving: +

The core of GT has always been your connection with your car and the track. It is better than ever and better than anything else I have played on PS 3 including Shift and the new F1 2010 game... both of which are pretty damn good driving games. No matter how negative the review I have yet to find one that doesn’t tip its hat to this critical core element and admit it still does not have a real peer in what else is available on a console. The only thing I have heard listed as perhaps on par or even exceeding it is the PC sim iRacer.

Cars: +

Premium cars are awesome. Standard cars are basically GT 4 cars with the updated driving model. While the models have been upped somewhat to PS 3 and do look considerably better than GT 4... they pale in comparison to the premium cars and the track environments. It is noticeable enough I often register if I am driving past a standard or premium car even while in the midst of a white knuckle tire squealing corner. Mostly I don’t care, more choice beats to little choice as long as the driving dynamics remain true. However, the lack of a cockpit view in standard leaves me a bit cold as that is my preferred vantage point. Granted, considering how much time I have spent whizzing around in bumper cam mode I get over it pretty quick and I still occasionally resort to it even in a premium car... particularly right hand drive models on difficult tracks/races. Hopefully Kaz and crew make good on their promise of continuing to upgrade cars to premium status with patches etc...

Tracks: +

There are more tracks than ever. Some old friends, some new creations, some new real locations and some MIA. I really hoped Infineon would remain after its appearance in GT 4 and it is the only real MIA that bugs me personally. The new graphical treatment of the pavement is stellar. Dirt/Snow and Wet all leave a bit to be desired in terms of ultimate perfection in each, but are all done very well. Weather is unfortunately not an option on every track and so far it seems there is no real dynamic component to the weather... ie its either raining and wet or sunny and dry, no range from full dry to torrential downpour.

Modifications and Tuning: -

This is perhaps where Grand Tourismo is sitting on its laurels a bit. For a long time there just were zero options for tweaking your cars mechanical setup to any significant extent in the car racing genre except for GT games. Forza, Shift and even the F1 and some of the NASCAR games have largely lifted this aspect from the GT series and implemented it. In some cases (shift and forza) they have done so pretty well. GT still stays on top but mostly because what tuning you can do has a much better translated impact to your driving experience than what any one else has managed. The actual interface for tuning and making modifications on the other hand is pretty bad... and there are now some glaring omissions. The tuning options have gradually been nerfed into a much more approachable format. The problem is they now appeal to neither extreme. You still have novices complaining that they don’t understand and you have long term series veterans tearing their hair out because they can’t tweak their cars to the same extent they have come to expect from the series. None of this has to do with exterior graphic modification mind you. I am talking about nuts and bolts configuration settings of the cars various systems. My current experience in GT 5 with tuning has left me a bit frustrated. Two key elements are either not available or not available yet. Brake upgrades and being able to monkey with individual gear ratios and final drive gearing. Being able to stop later and maximize getting your power to the ground via drive line gearing have been two MAJOR aspects of learning to go fast with a car in GT. I list the gearing as a medium problem since you can still do a kind of auto adjustment with the top speed setting. Not great but it is better than being stuck with a set gearing. I also cut it some slack because it either unlocks at higher levels or they forgot to enable the dialog for some reason and can easily fix it with a patch. The lack of Brake upgrades is a serious oversight in anything purporting to be the ‘real driving sim’.

All that being said the mod and tuning is still pretty in depth. Suspension is thankfully just as configurable as ever. Would be nice if they would expand tire/wheel to a full performance issue... ie side wall size, tire PSI etc... It does seem they included wheel weight in the equation this time around but there seems to be no way to figure out what the various rims weigh other than by taking note of your total weight before and after installing them.

Core evaluation:

So you have a crap load of accurately modeled cars to modify and race around numerous tracks. That in and of itself is the absolute core of Grand Tourismo and on these counts it delivers and it delivers well. If you like Tourismo games in the past you will have a familiar experience adapting to the new version where old reliable features you loved have been altered or gone completely. After a while you will likely come to appreciate the trade off decisions and happily get back to racing your favorite new races or shaving hundredths of a second off time trail lap times and enjoying some new variations like weather and night driving with headlights.

In the end that is the Bottom line evaluation of GT 5. It does what it has always done and with a few exceptions in the mod/tuning department it does it better than it ever has. The scale of the game is huge. Unfortunately, unlike in the past, I think PD hit a quantity over quality problem with GT 5 and that is where its problems show up.

So what is all the fuss about:

Probably 99% of the flak bouncing around the internet about GT 5 at the moment can be traced to two things that are linked at the hip. It is over baked and over hyped. IT is over hyped because they over baked it, and over baked because they over hyped it. The popularity of GT 5 is such that it is considered a console buying decision. IE there are people that buy a play station JUST for grand tourismo games because it is exclusive to play station and they like what GT does that much. Whether you understand how a game can push someone to buying 400-1000 dollars of gear or not it is a very true state of affairs. As such anticipation of the new release of the game constantly builds and GT 5 spent a very long time in the pipeline. Much longer and it might have started drawing comparisons to the Duke Nukem sequal that is now pushing 15+ years on the ‘its coming’ front. As such the known capability of the PS 3 hardware, the proven track record of polyphony digital to get more out of playstation consoles than just about anyone else, and the amount of time they were taking to do it all combined for a ridiculous amount of hype. To much hype is the majority of the problem. The only real fuel for the fire now that reality has quenched the hype are the over baked elements of the game that really show up as discordant notes in the non-core elements that give it such a huge scale.

What do I mean by over baked? In software development, when you continually work on something and start going through major revisions you encounter some very odd states of affairs. It is very easy on large projects for various elements to get out of sync and reach various levels of completion. As a result if it is not carefully managed you get over baked software (at least that is what I call it) and it is an odd conglomeration of finished, polished, burnt and uncooked elements. GT 5 apparently went through numerous design changes and as they did they continued to carry over bits and add new goals. The driving model, their bread and butter is really the only thing that seems to have gotten better throughout the whole process (The teaser HD download, Prologue and GT academy showed a clear progression) but some other elements kept causing problems. The decision to do premium or HD quality cars meant they hit a real wall in development time. Keeping to standard car detail level with only a mild update would have left them well behind the pack in the graphics department. No matter how quality the guts are, console games live and die by how they look and even GT is not immune to that. Damage and Weather were long term wish list items from GT fans and its creators alike. There is a track generator, TV content, Major licensed content firsts (Top Gear, NASCAR, Red Bull, Ferrari, Lamborgini etc...). All combined it was probably to much to accomplish with a game that has the scope of GT to their previous high standards. And it shows. Implementation of weather and damage are not what anyone really expected. The Top Gear and NASCAR elements have a ‘tacked on’ feeling and missed some obvious options. Even though the new stuff is by and large ‘good’, they are often not ‘great’, and most telling there are a couple that are definitely under par when compared to the competition. This is not what is expected from Polyphony digital. Its kind of like one of the recent golf seasons where Tiger Woods won the most tournaments, made the most money but every one said he had an ‘off year’ because he didn’t win a Major or two.

It is important to keep some perspective. There are more competitors and dedicated specialist titles in the car racing segment than ever before that have intention to be ‘realistic’ or at least more than just an arcade racer. Where GT rally driving was once the only game in town, there are now multiple dedicated titles to it that, unsurprisingly, are better in their tight focus. F1 2010 has an insane weather system that blows GT5 off the track because weather is so crucial to realistic F1 race strategy. We may never see another GT game that dominates its peers the way the old releases did. But that doesn’t mean the new release is bad or worse than previous versions by any stretch of the imagination. What you get in GT 5 would still take buying several other titles to try and replicate with alternatives... and you would still probably want GT as there are elements it is still best at.

Here is hoping that for GT 6 they refrain from trying to incorporate to many ‘new’ elements and finish the ones introduced here. A full stable of premium cars, a working dynamic weather system, more realistic damage, and expanded tuning back to the days of yore would make a very nice next release... or ultimate state of GT 5 after numerous patches that seem to be on the way.

What would I change?

Top Gear would be a MUCH larger section. Ford Transit Van around Nurburgring trying to beat Sabine Schmidts Time from the show. Diesel Jag to try and beat Clarksons. EVO and STI race around the Top Gear Test Track. BMW M3, Audi S4, Merc AMG race. Hot Hatch Race. Reasonable Priced Car Power lap leader board. Stig Challenges. Veyron Challenge. I mean there are so many options to pull from over the history of the show it is incredible that all we got were two really annoying slow runs in old VW’s and a Lotus race on ice skates (comfort hard tires).

Practice would allow you to choose a field of cars of your choosing for a race. Practice would also enable you to choose for fuel/tire wear during the session. Very annoying that you can’t groove a endurance setup anywhere but the actual endurance race.

Better balancing of the field on multi type races. The old ringer problem is back in force and it seems like every race or champion ship is really a competition against a single stand out car in the field and you have no idea how out of whack it will be. Often leads you to having WAY to much car or having no chance at all.

All convertibles would be top down or there would at least be a solid indication of if it will be up or down when driving it on the purchase screen.

B-Spec would be a bit more engaging. The generic slow down, stay put, speed up and overtake missives are not very engaging. It would be nice if you could develop a race plan for your driver and watch the telemetry and relay instructions like brake later into turn 6, earlier into turn 3 etc... This could be a pretty cool way to engage non driving gamers. As is it is kind of like watching paint dry... though fun to watch the race if it has some cool cars.

Online Time Trails would not be for single lap wonders... they would be for 5-10 lap totals and Damage would be ON. Disqualification for running all wheels off track would be much stricter.

Better Driver AI. Shift had pretty good AI... it was nasty and dirty but you got a real sense that the computer cars were aware of you. Often times GT computer drivers act like moving pylons on a pre-ordained line that could care less if you were there first. F1 2010 probably has the best AI I have seen in a racing game.... probably because the drivers act like they have some sense of self preservation (crashes can end the race in that game).

Menu’s would be super streamlined and far more logical to navigate... the damn things look like they were meant for a mouse. There is often no logical method of getting your cursor around the numerous selections. There are LOAD times between menu screens and you have to jump menu screens ALOT.

Garage is available from more places.. hooray... but you still can’t buy a car from the list of allowed cars for given races. This means numerous screens out of A or B Spec, back to GT home then into the dealerships, the dealer , the car, the get in the car back to GT home back out in the A or B spec.... its tired. Its old and it should go. Also your garage should allow for all your modifications/buying/oil changes etc... It is really annoying when you have like 5 new cars to have to go to the garage to ‘get in’ then go change the oil then go back to the garage, get in the next etc... etc... etc...

Oh I could go on and on. Suffice it to say I like the game enough to nitpick it to death with things that could be better. Bottom line is I play it to often and probably will continue to do so for a while to come.

iPAD: The Good, The Bad and AT&T treachery...

2010-07-14T18:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, so despite the fact I wrote about the build up to the iPad I still have yet to post my thoughts now that it is out and I have been fiddling with one since day one of the wifi only release.

Short Version ?

There is good reason Apple has moved more than 3 million iPads since they hit stores about 3 months ago. Is it perfect ? In a word... No. But it is a much better 1st generation device than the original iPhone. And it is a revolutionary rather than evolutionary device... no matter how much it looks like a big iPhone/Touch. If you are a geek then you either have one, are saving for one, or aloofly awaiting the chrome/android alternative. For other folks you can read on... or just go to an apple store and play with it for 10-15 minutes. If you don’t want one after that then you are probably immune... for now. I stood at the table on day one for close to an hour either playing with a device or waiting for another turn... not because I needed more time but because I was absolutely fascinated to listen to the non geek masses as they encountered it for the first time (probably about 60-75% of the folks in the store). To say it sold itself is like saying Crack cocaine is a little addictive. People who had no idea what it was went from clueless to opening wallets in about 3-5 minutes.

So before I get to my typical “The Good, The So So and The Bad” routine I do want to address the second question everyone seems to ask. The first is “Do you like it”, the second is “So what is it good for?” or in other words “Why should I drop $500-800 dollars on it?”. The thing is I am not sure there are some golden light, angels singing, clear cut easy to explain answers to that but here is the best I have. It is the new way for the everyman to use computers. Apple has successfully domesticated the silicon beast that is the modern PC. Windows, Linux and yes even Mac OS X systems are wolves, boars and wildebeest. iOS devices are Dogs, Pigs and Cattle. Instead of being afraid of them or wrestling with them etc... you use them, no muss no fuss. As for what kind of impact that will bring. I really think the iPad is to the PC what the PC was to the Mainframe. While the ultimate winner of this revolution may not be an apple device... I think this style of device is very much here to stay. You can get on board now or wait but I am pretty confident that in as few as 5 years most will have a hard time remembering when they didn’t have a device like this.

* note to self... remember to check in 5 years to see just how stupid that prediction sounded*

The Good:

You know the BASF slogan “BASF doesn’t make a lot of the products you use, BASF makes a lot of the products you use better”? Well, the iPad is like that for some staple computing tasks. It didn’t make the web browser but having an SVGA resolution LED backlit IPS highly responsive capacitive touch screen device weighing in a 1.5 pounds and running 9 hours in between having to recharge makes a web browser better. No more awkward laptops on couches, no squinting at tiny mobile device screens. Just the web in your hands and no need for wires every 10 minutes to keep the beast alive. Complain its nothing new all you want but just relax in your favorite comfy place with one for 5 minutes and I think you will “Get It”. All you folks screaming about flash just be quiet... we will get to that later. Same song different verse for E-mail, calendar, contacts etc... Mouse traps have been built, but Apple generally makes the better ones. This is the meat of the value of the device.

The iPad didn’t make your digital pictures... it makes having digital pictures better. Come on I know you all have struggled with this one. You buy that 2000 megapixel whosamawhatchamacalit supper zoom auto everything camera and take approximately 2 bazzillion images with it in bora bora or what have you... only to find you have a problem. Quality photo printouts are still damn expensive in any kind of volume so you probably don’t do more than a few big ones. The tiny printout pocket size do not do your mega zoom high resolution images much good and dragging out the laptop to view pictures has become the modern day ‘home movie’ projector PITA. Digital still frames are lousy screens with pitiful browsing options and the list goes on. Enter iPad. Large handheld screen, zoom, rotate and swipe your way through hundreds of images with nary a problem. 4 year olds pick it up in 2 seconds, grandparents can see them all in 9.7 inch glory etc... I swear for some folks an iPad could simply be the replacement for photo albums. Seriously. For the number of images you can store per dollar spent I would say it would be a heck of a lot more cost effective to just buy a new iPad when you need more space for additional albums. Currently the image management software is a little light weight for this option but it is something I think will mature in the years to come. It is quite effective even as it is. One thing apple does need to sort out is better support for larger file sizes... as is iTunes syncing likes to re-size the images for optimum iPad viewing. If you keep it at full quality that is perfectly fine as the loss of resolution is simply not visible. But for zooming in on details it quickly shows its weaknesses. You can dump them in un resized but much above 3 - 5 megapixels you can start to make the application pretty unstable.

Somewhat similar to picture viewing is document viewing. Now I will get to the shortcomings of document viewing (end especially editing) on this device in a bit. But first the good news. If you simply need easy access to information at your fingertips then you can store quite a bit of info on the iPad. Unfortunately this is perhaps the worst supported capability in the native iPad software. In order for this to fall into the ‘good’ category you need the Apple office programs or something like Docs to Go. If you are going to use the iPad in a professional setting with fast changing word docs, power point presentations and spread sheets flying around then research the various applications for viewing those types of documents and make a choice... heck download them all. It will be worth it to find the one that works for you. The payoff? NEVER having to deal with the dreaded “PC Load Letter” msg of doom from the local printer. Well maybe not forever... after all you likely will still on occasion have to provide multiple copies for the unenlightened. There are still warts in this area but even with the problems this is a pretty killer app for a large segment of folks. Microsoft has a huge ‘in’ here if they want to own an important use case for these kinds of devices if they can pull themselves together enough to exploit it. If I were Xerox or another big printer company I would be looking very nervously at a tablet form factor finally becoming viable. If Apple moves to a retina level display on the iPad sell stock in any company that relies on printers in the standard letter print out size (ie most of them).

Touch and accelerometer games are still coming into their own but this is an excellent platform for them. From something as simple as chess, to the classic Labyrinth, to the full on RPG or FPS type games the iPad is a very capable performer.

Mobile video. This one surprised me. Store some movies/TV shows etc on this device and you have the best ever in flight entertainment (or child distraction) system at your fingertips and thats without considering books, games or other programs. Netflix streaming from wifi or 3g is surprisingly satisfying. ABC content is also available and Hulu just made its appearance.

The Battery life is actually as good as advertised. Not sure if its worth the lack of flash... but it is a pleasant surprise to not have to divide the advertised run time by 2 when faced with real life use. Don’t believe me? When powered on for the first time I had it plugged into the USB port long enough to sync up all my files and then I ran for the next 10 hours doing anything and everything I wanted with the device before I got the red 20% left warning. With airplane mode on I flew from Munich to D.C. watching movies or playing games (7+ hours) and didn’t get below half battery life. 3G is consistently about 1 hour shorter when utilizing the 3G radio the entire time. Full brightness can reduce it maybe another hour (so 6ish under absolute worse case)... but in most uses I rarely even want the screen above about half brightness. 3G is a necessary evil when out of wifi reach.

Touch screen responsiveness. I passed on the first two generations of the iPhone even while swearing at my numb resistive touch screen HTC phones. The responsiveness of the 3g finally swayed me from the qwerty slider HTC world and the 3Gs cemented my conversion to the way of Cupertino mobile devoutness. The iPad blows the 3Gs out of the water while showing more than double the display information. This is the cornerstone of a touch device and nobody currently does it better than Apple.

E-reader. I read somewhere north of 20k pages a year and love my Kindle 2... but the iPad is now my primary reading device. Eye comfort is not quite as good as E-ink (and certainly not printed material) but it is good enough. This is not a laptop and if you judge your comfort reading on a screen by experience with long tracts of text on a laptop it is not directly comparable... mostly because of the same problems I have below with glare also make it a better reading solution when away from a glare source. It is quite capable of disappearing in your hands and while the battery won’t last you multiple day chewing sessions like the Kindle... it is sufficient to pretty much any single days chores.

The design. Glass and metal destroys the more typical varying grades of plastic so ever present in pretty much any other mobile device design.

The So So:

Storage space. Apple and their damned insistence to not provide for user added storage on their mobile devices. If you are not a geek addict that has to buy the latest and greatest devices (IE you will refresh regularly) and you can afford an iPad then you can afford to get the most memory available. In either line the difference is 200 dollars between 16 and 64Gb... is it to much to pay for 50 some odd Gb of storage ? Yes... and you should still get it. Like a laptop or desktop this is a device you always want more memory than you actually utilize on it... because if you hit the wall it will be a royal PITA. Murphy’s law of managing mobile device storage states that the likely hood of not having a file on the device you want is inversely proportional the importance of having that file... IE the more you need it the more likely it won’t be there. As a result it is hard to place a price on the peace of mind knowing you keep everything you desire on the device all the time. If you must pinch pennies please at least spring for the 32Gb versions. Unless you have some very specific use in mind that will never challenge 16Gb of storage you will thank me later.

Weight. This may be odd... but 1.5 pounds is surprisingly heavy. This is not a one hander device under pretty much any circumstance. Where this falls for you will probably depend on if you are comparing to a net book/laptop (its insanely light svelte etc...) or to a Cellphone or other mobile internet device (its a whale.. possibly a mean white one). This impression has stuck with me since the first day of use but I have certainly adapted to it.

The Apple case... I include this one because I really think Apple should have included something of this nature by default. Just like I complained about the lack with the Kindle it is pretty silly to not provide a solution for protecting the display from accidental scratches etc... As the iPhone and touch have adequately shown the glass used by apple is pretty stout stuff and it takes some doing to leave a scratch... but it does happen and it tends to happen when it is in transit. A micro fiber bag... a removable flip cover or the neoprene thing they produce or something should have been included in the box. The Apple cover does its job... and it has slowly improved on my initial impression of it but it is still a decidedly un-appleish apple product. I do not generally care about such things but this cover is a real grime magnet... and it looked dusty and grungy in about 5 minutes and its damn near impossible to clean. Its flimsy and as a result any orientation other than the wedge needs a pretty stable surface to be of any use. The folded back cover does not really lay right in your hand and the edges are very unergonomic. It does its job... just. Which is why it is here. Check out Mareware for some leather folio options that in general do a better job at the cost of some additional bulk.

The glossy screen. See my post about this same issue on my macbook pro.... then double the problem. The complication is that the natural inclination is to hold the iPad so that it reflects light to your eyes. This is due to years of conditioning all of us have reading printed materials. It doesn’t help that you typically hold it closer to your face than a laptop (magazine distance) which makes the angles such it is far more likely to do this than with a laptop screen. That deep glossy glean is sure purty... but it lasts all of 2 seconds and then of course you have greasy fingerprints all over it and can’t read anything on about a 1/4 (or worse) of the display because all you can see is a florescent panel in perfect mirrored detail only marred by said fingerprints. So why is this a ‘meh’ problem and not further down? Because it doesn’t take to much time before you automatically orient yourself away from such problems.. much the same as you already unthinkingly orient yourself to the light for printouts. It is still annoying and I personally recommend the purchase of an antiglare film. You lose a hair of the sharpness of the image and gain a surface much less reflective and better at resisting fingerprints. Hopefully at some point Apple will offer their anti-glare coating they offer on the Macbook Pro line now.

The Bad:

No USB. In all fairness I must admit that considering the design decision that the iPad was a companion device rather than a primary device means that the lack of USB makes perfect sense. But no matter how logical a decision it was, they screwed up. Exhibit A) The complete and utter lack of Apple’s ability to keep up with demand for the ‘camera connection kit’ which is basically $30 bucks for a plastic doohicky hanging off the iPOD connector port to give you a usb slot. The iPad internals actually have lots of empty space rather than the more typical crammed to the gills nature of bleeding edge mobile gadgets and a USB port could have been provided. Hear is hoping for it by default in future offerings along with complete USB functional support for 3rd party developers. Of course if it does you can trade any fears of burning in hell for freezing.

Zero exposure of the file system in the default iOS load. I am conflicted on this one. On the one hand the paving over of the file system guts is part of why I claim Apple has domesticated the computer... on the other I think what they have done amounts to a patch job and is still pretty half baked once you begin exploring the undesigned for use options. For example the Document viewing that I value so highly just is not really supported well and because they have hidden the traditional solution for file management (access to the file system... think My Documents on a windows machine) they have hamstrung one of the most well developed computer use paradigms that addresses that particular problem. I have no problem with Apple laying out a walled garden default environment... but they should have left some more traditional computing solutions exposed for those so inclined. This is far more forgivable on the iPhone and really is the only weakness when compared to the typical netbook when you start talking about computing versatility.

Lack of multitasking... or backgrounding if you will... out of the gate. What is a glaring lack (now mostly addressed in iOS 4) on the iPhone is a fundamental flaw in the iPad and one competitors need to exploit. Supposed to be fixed in October of this year.

Lack of Flash.THis probably has a lot to do the consistent battery life and it makes it a real hard balancing question to decide if it would be worth it to have included it. Apple says adobe has never demonstrated a capable mobile flash engine and I actually buy it. But when Steve Jobs said the iPad provided the “complete web in your hands” he lied out his his distortion field creating solid waste disposal tract. It is possible that in a few more months the statement may well turn out be true as 3 million+ new affluent mobile browsers is a juicy juicy incentive to have a website that is iPad friendly. The more I have read about this whole mess the more I think Apple is dealing with flash like an ostrich deals with something that frightens it. But to make a long story short the iPad (and pretty much any mobile device) does not have the tech specs to really run flash well... and in the cases where it is tried it is a battery draining demon from Dante’s deepest circles. On the other side of this story the Adobe brain trust is being about as ‘honest’ about the whole situation as the wizard of... I mean Jobs. This will get solved... but probably not for Gen 1 tablet devices. Primary reason being a relatively anemic mobile graphics platform and only 256mb of RAM in the current iPad. That glorious A4 Apple chip can only do so much on its own.

Lack of included screen protection of some sort. 500 dollars minimum entry for a device that is all about the screen should include at least a token screen protection option PERIOD. While I am at it the lack of a microfiber cloth is equally silly for a huge fingerprint magnet that requires you to touch it to do anything. The oleo-phobic magic screen coating makes it easier to wipe fingerprints off... it does absolutely nothing from keeping them from happening in the first place.

And last but certainly not least... AT&T’s )(*&@#)(*&)_#(*@%&_(*&#$@%*_(*@#$ bait and switch on the iPad unlimited 3G data plan. A seriously big selling point to me was the ability to drop 30 bucks for 30 days of unlimited 3G access when needed rather than every month. Most months wifi and maybe the cheaper 200Mb would be more than enough. However AT&T dropped the ability to bounce in and out of the unlimited plan. In fact they dropped the unlimited plan altogether and now only provide $25 per 2Gb and are only allowing folks that had the unlimited plan at the time they discontinued the plan to maintain it. So I generally leave my wifi off and utilize the 3G I am paying for. The replacement big plan that allows 2Gb is pathetic if you use services like Netflix’s streaming content as two or three hours of streaming will get you across that limit. I have yet been able to determine to my satisfaction if Apple knew this was in the works... and to date they have remained silent on the subject. But a huge selling point stressed in El Jobso’s keynote iPad speech was regarding the two data plans, especially the unlimited un-contracted month to month option which didn’t even last 1 month of retail iPad 3G availability. Sooner or later mobile broadband is going to get into a race to the bottom in terms of cost and it cannot come soon enough. In the meantime AT&T bites the wax tadpole. Obviously this is only of concern to those interested in high bandwidth use away from wifi... but when you get an iPad you soon find that without web access it swiftly becomes a paperweight for an awful lot of what you like to do with it. 250mb’s is small potatoes because the increased screen size, and long lasting battery life (we are used to sipping with phones because internet use generally kills them in short order) combine to take you past that very quickly even without heavy hitting services like youtube/netflix etc...

Test Post

2010-03-10T14:13:00.000-06:00

Testing new program that lets me post rather than developing posts on the web page...

Google Books: Knowledge is Power...

2010-02-18T09:54:00.003-06:00

and Power corrupts... This may be the downfall of Google, and also their single greatest triumph.

The great Google library project is gaining steam. It will be interesting to see what happens if Google wins the right to continue scanning every single book in the world, whether it is under copyright or not. If you have not checked out Google books then hit the link and check it out. This is a big deal.

The idea that you can search through any book ever published just by having a web connection is truly powerful. Powerful in ways that we probably cannot imagine because to date it has never been considered realistic. Make no mistake... it is realistic and Google is working very hard to make it a reality. It will also be dangerous. While I am cheering for Google to succeed I also feel very strongly this is something that should not be placed in the hands of a single company. Even one who has the goal "of not being evil". The Constitution strives to provide a delicate balance between various powers in order to keep government from becoming tyrannical. A similar mechanism needs to put in place that keeps any one entity from having control over the easiest access to the collective knowledge of human kind. If you sit in between people and what is stored in books (or any form of knowledge) you can control what they find and what is there to find. There needs to be multiple repositories of this information and there needs to be constant vigilance to monitor for any tampering in order to maintain the integrity of the information for all.

Google is probably the only company I would even think about trusting to begin this great work, and make no mistake this is truly a great work of the ages, but I do not trust them to be the eternal keeper of the 'scrolls' so to speak.

Book Review: "Columbine" by David Cullen

2010-02-18T09:53:00.003-06:00

"Columbine" By David Cullen is an unsettling book. It does not come off as profiteering on the misery of the event. Instead it seems a serious attempt to provide a definitive account of what happened. Not all stories that need to be told are about good things and this one, more than most, needed to be told right. Most importantly in my mind this book attempts to give real insight into the lives of the two young men who left an entire nation scratching their heads and wondering "Why?". For some those questions are answered according to the common stories of the days of the event. It was Dorks vrs Jocks, it was atheist vrs believers, it was violent music and video games, it was racist, it was negligent parenting.

If you still believe any of those after reading Cullen's book I will be amazed. Little that came out about Columbine during, shortly after, or even years after the event bore any real similarity to the reality of what occurred at a previously un-remarkable corner of american suburbia in April 1999. At least not if you subscribe to David Cullen's take. He does not really offer answers. He offers facts. He offers various perspectives. He debunks obviously incorrect Columbine 'myths' and challenges others. There is nothing simple about what happened. There is nothing simple about how it came to happen. And there is nothing simple about how people coped with the aftermath of the event. Whether or not you think he is in a position to do so will determine just how much stock you place in what he has to say. From my perspective he comes across as extremely credible. He was there as a part of the press corp covering the story and has followed it every step of the way in the years since. This is a story that has been 10 years in the making for Cullen and the painstaking work to uncover the full story should be very apparent.

If Columbine is an event you want to understand better. This is at the very least a very good book to start with. It may very well become 'The Book" when it comes to this tragic story.

iPad: Big Touch or something else?

2010-02-18T09:51:00.003-06:00

iPad: Big iPod touch or something more?

I hate trying to review a device that has not even hit the market yet. But this one has already got me to spout off a couple of time already so I couldn’t resist taking another shot at this now that the actual device is out in the open.

Job’s big tagline for his new device is “Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”. Lets take a closer look at this...

Most advanced? - Quite possible this is a true statement of fact here. Apple’s first silicon in a good while and a vibrant 9.7 inch VGA resolution display with 10 hours video playback in a 1.5lbs package. That is pretty advanced.
Magical and revolutionary? - Ok lets just skip past the unicorn statement and dive into the important one of revolutionary. I will argue that it is more revolution than evolution but the ties to its younger siblings are obvious.
Unbelievable price? - Try the only possible price if they didn’t want another ‘Lisa’ on their hands. And they still come close to hosing this one up. If the iPad is to be a revolution then the cheapest price to pay attention to is $629, not $499.

Advanced?

1.5lbs, full VGA high quality multi touch capacitive screen with enough battery to last 10 hours of video playback (read real usage). Any one of those things on its own is no great feat. But the resolution, high quality, light weight AND enough wireless juice freedom to fly from Cupertino to Tokyo watching video the whole way is damned impressive and advanced. I have not heard of anyone claiming this kind of battery life with video playback except for maybe some dedicated video devices and none of those with this size screen. This is probably one of the single biggest things I will be looking for once these hit store shelves and true hands on reviews. If the battery life bears out in real life use this is going to be a very interesting device. 10 hours real use meets my 8 hours with 20% reserve need in my last Apple Tablet post.

9.7 inch capacitive multitouch over an IPS panel in this package is nothing to sneeze at either. And of course rounding it off is the in house (well purchased to be in house) development of custom mobile silicon running the whole thing. This package of beginning to end design with hardware and OS built in lockstep is probably what has been missing from the tablet market to date.

Magical?

Well I suppose Apple could not resist the magical tag... the iPad has after all proven to be one of the more sought after Apple ‘unicorn devices’. By that I mean this thing has probably supported more than one apple rumor sites by itself. Among the mac heads this thing is mythical in proportions and it has those that think it is the second coming on both ends of the spectrum... ie that this device represents the downfall or redemption of Apple. I suppose in that sense the device is ‘magical’... it was hard to watch the keynote and accept that the day had finally arrived even for me and I just think it is potentially some cool tech. Corny... but this was about as ‘magical’ as you get these days.

Revolutionary?

At first glance this seems an odd moniker to attach to the device. It literally looks like an expanded iPod Touch/ iPhone. It runs the same OS (3.2 was on the device at the unveiling). Same home key and lack of damn near anything else and even the same dock connector we have all come to know and love/hate. If that is the case then how the hell can Jobs claim this is ‘revolutionary’ with a straight face? I think it depends on how you look at the birth of this device. Is Apple trying to just make a successful product line bigger (ie this is an iPhone derivative device)? Or did Apple create the market for this device with its preliminary tablet devices (iPhone was the derivative... just produced first)? I hold to the latter. If you believe the iPhone and Touch grew out of Apple’s desire to make a tablet computer then it is easy to see how one could consider the iPad a revolutionary device. The iPhone and iTouch are just precursors, not the revolution itself though they did revolutionize their respective areas. The iPad I think ultimately aims to re-define the basic cornerstone of personal computing. That is revolutionary at its finest. I think the iPad may ultimately be a 'transitional device'... but it is still looking to be a game changer.

If you think the iPad is just a big Touch that is aimed at consuming you really need to think about what it means that Jobs had the iWork team spend the time to do a ground up build of iWork specifically for this new device. Consumption is what will get the iPad into peoples hands because it is what they understand. Apps specifically for the iPad are what will determine if consumption is all it is good for. If it works Apple may succeed in redefining the basic interface of computing. If it doesn't they probably will make a bunch of money on a 'big iPod"... pretty good game plan if you ask me.

All in all the iPad looks evolutionary only if you look at it in direct comparison to the iPhone. If you pull back and look at what Apple is positioning the device to do it is easy to see how in 4-5 years it will clearly be viewed as revolutionary and the iPhone and touch as precursor devices that fleshed out the touch UI concept... if it works.

Unbelievable Price?

The only thing unbelievable about this price is what it seems to indicate for the future of this market provided it takes hold. Pundits predicted the iPad at $1000. Based on windows Laptops that would have been ridiculous for what is being pitched as an accessory rather than main device. Even $500 is pretty pricey when you think of it as an addition to your phone and/or laptop... much less costs ranging up to $829. And don’t even get started on the potential added monthly connectivity costs to get the most from it.

Make no mistake this is typical Apple early adopter pricing (read nose bleed high). In the long run this level of pricing may well continue to define the upper end. But based on these numbers I expect to see mobile tablets in the $100-300 range with more capability than the initial iPad inside of 2 years. E-ink is either going to step up its game (color, refresh rates), go sub $100 (sub $50?) or disappear all together. If E-ink gets to color refresh rates on par with LCD technology and remains lower power it will fold into this market quickly.

Side Issue: iBooks, is this really a good ebook platform?

The quality of the screen and 10 hours of display life (if real) should make this a pretty darn good reading platform. The fact it is not a reflective display like e-ink will make it less friendly on the eyes, but the more I have encountered quality mobile screens the more I have come to the conclusion the real problem with LCDs is not the back light. It is the fixed nature of desktop displays and the distance from your eyes. Low power backlights on mobile devices with high pixel density and more flexible location are not much worse than e-ink. I have a nokia N810, iPhone and HTC Touch Pro 2 and the only real problem with reading on them is battery life sucks, and you have to constantly flip pages because the screens are to small. The iPad size and advertised battery life should solve both issues. There is a lot to like here and the pricing is smack dab between the Kindle 2 and the Kindle Dx. Toss in the fact you can run the Kindle App on the iPad (easy transition for any existing library) and this seems like a real winner. Hands on testing will be the deciding factor but I am seriously considering this as as replacement for my Kindle 2 .

Apple Tablet Madness and general Tech Ramble...

2010-01-06T20:57:00.003-06:00

Seems like everyone is going ga ga over the possibility of an Apple Tablet. Why? Microsoft tried this and it tanked.... TWICE. Tablet PC's have eeked out a slight niche market and Oragami UMPC types have all but vanished. So why is the media absolutely salivating over the possibility of an Apple PC? Why are OEM manufactures pre-emptively presenting reference design tablet hardware just on the possibility apple will release a tablet?

Content consumption.

What ?

Content Consumption.

PC's have a major problem when it comes to content consumption. Even Laptops that can go with us to the sofa do. They are compromised designs that are first and foremost aimed at content creation from the OS all the way to the hardware form factors. Typing, Video Editing, etc... Think of that ubiquitous office work horse the word processor. You create content on the computer that is to this day often printed out for consumption. Reading long documents in word or other processors sucks. Mostly because the program and the systems it runs on simply are not designed for content consumption.

A laptop is a great portable content creation device... it is a mediocre content consumption device. A Smart Phone (Apple iPhone in particular) is a mediocre content consumption device and a HORRIBLE content creation device. Hence the superiority of the iPhone at producing a mobile consumption device over laptops. They both are about as good I would say but the phone is completely mobile in a way a laptop just cannot dream of. 3g has connected them to the web in a meaningful way. But they are still just middling at consumption. The smaller form factor, low battery life etc... all conspire to hinder it just enough to make people think there is a better solution.

Netbooks are cute but simply have to many problems with form factor and useability... they neither produce or consume particularly well but they show the promise of a larger screen in a highly portable form factor. The iPhone/Touch success has shown how to drop a key board and still provide enough input capability to get by.... hence the tablet form that seems to continually be pushed on a public that has routinely rejected it.

What Apple has the potential to produce in a tablet is a good content consumption device. Not a great one... that requires something more than a single company can provide... but a good one. 3g access to Apps (or some equivalent) is a neat and tidy packaged way to present content for consumption in optimized bite sized selections. The iPhone and Touch (or Pre, Droid, Win Mo super phone) small form factor has a high limitation on just how far that can go. But a handheld device as responsive as those devices with a smaller than hard back form factor has a serious potential to provide a long lasting content consumption model. The question is will the size lose to the phone based on mobility and or connectivity. Phones go EVERYWHERE and as a result are the first connection fee paid. Any other device will be secondary which quickly relegates it to 'luxury' status. Without connectivity a tablet is a non-starter in terms of mass market appeal. Because of their small market appeal nobody has yet had the ability to establish a stable market from which to grow the concept.

But Apple is now in a position to do that. They probably have enough credit with their fans that a connected tablet design will garner a considerable audience that has the potential to provide a critical mass for a tablet eco system. 3g connectivity, App Store and personal media integration (Itunes, Iphoto etc...) on a device with a much more usable screen space will be dead sexy. But the numbers to make it fly are Tough. 3g contracts are still to expensive to think double accounts (iPhone and a Tablet) will be common even with Apple fans accustomed to costly computing habits. But it is possible that a wifi connection device designed for less mobile connection options will be sufficient (ala scaled up touch) and the ability to have a 3g enabled one will be explored by those with sufficient disposable income on a smaller scale.

If they do it and it works it puts Apple on the bleeding edge of what could be the next major paradigm shift in computing. They already are riding this wave with the iPod -> iPhone/Touch. Amazon and B&N are riding a somewhat related wave (explosion of electronic Content Consumption) with e-Ink book devices. The question is where this change stops. Are phones the long term solution because we have them with us everywhere? Or is a larger device still going to be needed for replacing the likes of magazines etc... Whoever gets it right will be huge in the years to come.

I talked a while back about what I thought an ideal Tablet would be like but here goes another (probably unrelated stab)...

3g connected device ($20 or less monthly cost of connection, or included tether to phone for $5-10) on a hard back size display (10-11") that is sunlight readable, lasts 8 hours with reasonable power reserve (15-20%) , capacitive multi touch interface, GPS, USB, SD/CF memory expansion, Solid State memory, Dual Mobile Computing core (Say Dual Arm 8) with 2gb+ of RAM, Multi-band Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Blue Tooth, Zigbee, RF and IR (think most flexible wireless communications setup possible).

The use of such a device will be the consumption and correlation of content. Their weakness will be creation. The device above will be a second/third or greater device if the tablet ever actually proves a successful form factor. Ubiquity will never happen until the technology is so cheap it can become so widespread it permeates society like paper.

The concept I really would like to see is a 'phone' based computing solution. The phone provides the brains and connectivity and then we can augment it as needed according to the task at hand. Content consumption tends toward the tablet type device used in concert with the phone and content creation remains more with the traditional keyboard, mouse etc... solutions pending a breakthrough in input technology . All the connectivity between the phone and these adjunct devices is wireless (including display etc...). Ultimately this would probably end up in a silly level of convergence into the device space we use for a 'phone' today. Wallet, ID, PC, Walkman, Picture Album, Archive etc... In short it becomes your universal interface to the digital world.

Is it realistic? I don't know. I think it will be technologically feasible in a very short time. less than 5 years with the correct battery technology or efficient enough high power computing capability (ie make current batteries last...). 20 years at the most. Social uptake is another matter entirely. The sudden surge to iPhone and similar devices indicates there could be a swift move to such a technology shift... but it wouldn't take much in the way of scare stories to keep the masses from adopting such a major shift away from more tangible interactions.

Book Review: "The Gathering Storm" by Robert (Brandon) Jordan (Sanderson)

2009-11-22T17:30:00.003-06:00

Robert Jordan's epic Wheel Of Time continues courtesy of Brandon Sanderson. As a charter member of WOT madness (books 1-4) WOT concern (5-8), WOT disillusionment (9-10), WOT semi-redemtion (book 11) and WOT depression (Loss of Robert Jordan) I must say I am not sure what I expected from this series continuation. Over the years I have re-read the series numerous times, even the horrible 8-10 books in order to prepare for the next offering. That I would buy this book was never in doubt... but I was prepared for the worst.

So what is the verdict? Well at least from this long time fan the verdict is superb. If you are a fan then pick it up. Think of this as J J Abrahms re-vitalizing star trek... only without the time travel nonsense. Sanderson picks up the threads of the story like he had been writing them all along... and he does so with the pace of the early books. He starts with this gargantuan traffic snarl of threads and pushes through solidly to the end and finally lots of progress is made. Here are the highlights (spoiler alert)...

- The willy nilly thread hopping of the last half dozen books is gone. Rand and Egwene represent some 75-85% of the story arc of this book and it is a good thing. By the time the dust settles Rand is poised to resume his rightful place as the centerpiece of the story and the Aes Sedai seem ready to finally rejoin the story as a mature entity rather than the catty fractured monstrosity that has been endemic for the last several books..

- Faile is blessedly absent but for maybe 10 pages... and in that brief time Sanderson adroitly returns her to an independent character of action. Only a paragraph or two is devoted to the dysfunctional relationship between her and Perrin.

- Nayneve is treated in a similar fashion though her closeness to Rand keeps her in the flow a good bit more... a couple of nods to plunging necklines do appear but not at the nails on chalk board repetitive nature of the last several books.

- Min only calls Rand a Wool Head once... and her character is returned to its uniqueness as Sanderson carves out a new niche for her to fill other than flouncing about as the only available booty call for Rand.

- Aviehnda is similarly low key but again her character is moved definitively towards something that will be productive. The past 3 novels of her struggling with no longer being a 'spear sister' is finally (mercifully) put to rest.

- Mat and Perrin have little time between them. This was one of the few disappointments. However I think Sanderson wisely chose not to try and do to much in this book and instead gave just enough of the two to placate long term fans... but they are still very much in a holding pattern. The next book should have two major plot elements with Mat, one involving his connection to Tuon, and the other his jaunt with Thom into the tower of Genji that will probably net a return of Moirane and Lanfear.

- Blessedly absent are almost any plot summary exposition sections trying to keep folks unfamiliar with the intricate story lines up to speed. These sections pretty much ruined books 7-10.

- Surprisingly absent are almost any sections dealing directly with the forsaken. There is one in the prologue... and a brief encounter between Semerihage and Moridin... and that is about it.

- And perhaps my personal favorite... Cadsuane is finally put in her place.

All in all Sanderson has handled the hand dealt him admirably. He is not trying to claim ownership of the story. However he is also not trying to do the impossible of channeling Robert Jordan. His own writing style flows naturally and the resulting effect is minimally jarring. The world remains familiar and the most dramatic change is the pacing of events. He did a lot to clean up the tangle of story lines and as a result has (at least in my eyes) successfully refocused the story. The next book should serve to clean up the few remaining loose ends and poise the story for its grand finale.

Kindle 2: Long Term Impressions

2009-11-22T16:27:00.000-06:00

So I have now been a kindle owner for about 8 months. What do I think now that I have actually lived with it for a while?

The Good:

The Kindle has easily become my main source of reading material. There have only been a couple of cases where I have resorted to a bound book and that is due to having already purchased the book, borrowing, or a gift. No matter what else bad I have to say about the device (and there is plenty of irks and niggles) it is extremely important to remember this simple fact... I read on it and seek books out in a format compatible with it first. End of story.

The best element by far for me has been as a travel companion. Packing the kindle in my bag in lieu of my typical 4-5 novel load has been the 'killer app' as far as I am concerned. A close second is the fact that if I need something new to read it does not take to long to have a new file downloaded.

The So-So:

Lack of a built in light of some sort is quite annoying. It should have been simple to include a little pop out led or something to make reading in low light conditions easy.

Glare... not something I really considered initially but this has been a surprisingly common annoyance. Especially difficult to deal with when using small direct light sources such as night stands. Because it is a direct light source (aimed at the screen) the angles often mean a glare point on the screen sometime necessitating odd angles (compared to a printed page) to avoid. I encounter this same phenomenon with glossy magazines and to a lesser extent with highly bleached stocked (very white).

Wireless enabled Battery life: Let me explain this one. First off... it lasts plenty long enough for day to day reading purposes... I think it might be possible to drain it in a day if you did little else than read (9-12 hours I think...) but it would be pretty uncommon. In realistic daily reading of <>

In the same vein I wish you could set a minimum battery life at which the device will shut down if a page has not been turned. IE at 25% or something. This is because if you forget to turn the radio off 25% battery life is still plenty to read a good long time before having to charge the device up... and picking up a dead device because you forgot to turn the radio off when you are ready to read is a truly irksome experience.... especially when on travel with no real charging options to hand.

Blogs/Magazine subscriptions: They sorta work but by and large they have more problems than they should. It should be mandatory for any segmented source of material to have a good table of contents with a memory for what articles have been read and which not etc... Blogs are just to hard to keep updated and really complicate keeping the device with a usable charge. Images should be included.

Samples: First X % of a book for a sample works relatively well for fiction stories but it sucks hairy balls when searching for a good reference/education book. You should be able to choose chapters for browsing this type of material. Certainly there should be some mechanism in place to keep someone from abusing this (ie downloading different chapters as they need them and never paying).

Amazon really should have allowed for more than a single font.

Needs Improvement:

Browsing capability: This is perhaps the single most frustrating element of the kindle. Not because it is bad, but because of how much more useful the device would be if the browsing functioned at a more tolerable pace. Shopping for a specific book is simple and works fine. Browsing for new books is a form of medieval torture even if you have a good 3g signal. Why? Because loading each page from whisper net takes 10-30 seconds if you are lucky. You often go through two or three levels of category lists before you get to a list of books. The list of books only provides about 6 books on a single screen and there are limited ways of filtering them. You only get a small thumbnail of the cover, title, author and about half a line of the intro on the top level of browsing. Selecting an individual book brings up a summary page of that book that again only has about 2 sentences worth of summary information often requiring a click on a more link for another page with the full summary. So to look at the summary info (equivalent to the inside flap or back of a paperback) you have to load the store front, drill down to a subcategory (say two minimum, Books, then subcategory like sci-fi), a page turn or three to find one that looks interesting, an initial summary page and then the actual summary page. All in all it could take 4-5 minutes to get to this point for the first book you are interested in... then figure 30-120 seconds for each subsequent one. While this is still ultimately less time than driving to a store etc... it is far below par of say standing at a shelf and grabbing a likely title and scanning the back/inside flap etc... In fact this is so annoying that I often go browse for new material at a book store... and take note of what interests me for later download. Browsing amazon with a real computer is a middle ground often used as well... but still sub par to a brick and mortar store for finding interesting new stuff.

How could they improve this? Easy. They need to download their catalog or some significant portion of it locally to the device so that page turns when browsing are the same as when reading. If the whole catalog cannot be reasonably maintained then say the top 25% should be, and it should allow for readers to choose favorite sub categories to maintain full updates on. This is still slow as hell but not intolerably so. In a similar vein they really should create similar repositories for research type web sites like wikipedia or even journal repositories. I would be more than willing to suffer a symbiotic (paired with computer etc...) life for some of the more data intensive sources if whisper net would not allow for something like downloading the top 10-25% of articles on wikipedia.

Wallpaper: In my original hands on review I mentioned this as a niggle. I have changed my mind. This is a major annoyance. First they should allow you to choose a single wallpaper instead of just having random ones cycle through. Two, you should be able to pick a selection of ones you want to be randomized. Three, you should be able to include your own pictures for use. I honestly think the decision of how amazon approached this is very indicative of their mindset regarding the ownership of content on the device. And it does not bode well when you consider it that way.

Content management: Simply not enough ways to filter. They really should have erred to the side of excess on the options for arranging your books... from customized arrangements to Library of congress and the dewy decimal system. A real simple miss they had was read/unread/partially read. They also should have provided the option to have the books in your library displayed the same way they are on the web site with the thumbnail icon of the cover art and summary information of the book should be stored locally. As is you have to pull it from the website even when you own it.

Another major hole in content management has to do with privacy and the option to give up material. You should be able to pass code your device and preferably certain categories you may not want people to easily access. One obvious category of this nature is say romance/erotica material. A parent may not want this to be accessible by their children. Another area of similar problem are such things as politics and religion. The nature of this device is that others want to see it and fool with it. This can lead to some awkwardness if you have material in your library that you may want to keep private for whatever reason. Similarly you should be able to banish some information from the device. For instance I was downloading some free material and ended up with a title I found quite objectionable. I don't want it on my device, I don't want it in my archive for later retrieval or for someone else to stumble across when using my device. While removing something permanently should be hard it SHOULD be possible. Currently it is not. In short the device should be made more friendly for the management of sensitive material be it professional, prurient or just plain personal.

There should be the ability to have the Kindle pull from a remote personal library rather than just the kindle store. That way if necessary I can maintain the safety of my own library or provide access to personal libraries of information. Yes you can keep the files on your computer... I am referring to the ability to point the kindle at this store of information for retrieving books.

Lending: Electronic file ownership should not be any different than print ownership. I should be able to loan my books out to friends and family with the ability to read kindle books. Amazon already maintains ownership information on its servers so managing a loaning system should be trivial. Heck I should be able to even do loans of a specific time limit (say two weeks). During the loan period I should not have access to the material. Barnes and Nobel has understood this with the nook. Here is hoping that Amazon updates the Kindle to provide a similar capability. They should also allow for re-sale/transfer of ownership. Last but not least. Amazon needs to make damn sure they never ever touch material on an end users device again. EVER. For those not familiar with what I am talking about here is what happened. A book was sold through Amazon where the rights were not properly handled. IE someone was selling a book they did not have the right to sell. When this was identified Amazon remotely removed the copies of the book for any user that had downloaded it and that contacted amazon (IE had the radio on). Again. Ownership of a file should not be treated any differently than ownership of a printed book.

Annotations: Taking margin notes is a pretty time honored tradition with books. The kindle does not manage it well. Mostly because of the short comings of using the device for any significant user input. I doubt this will be possible to solve on the device itself. What is needed is a full up computer program that allows you to use your computer for annotations.There probably should be that ability to interleave notes in multiple methods. IE display them in line via different fonts etc... astrix/footnote notation etc... and possibly even a separate outline document that links to relevant passages... ie read from the book and go to notes and then keep going in notes back to the book etc... This is an area where the kindle should shine over traditional print but does not due to artificial restrictions in place due to piracy concerns. If Amazon really wants to get into the text book business with the Kindle they really need to sort this kind of functionality out.

Document Types: Until a universal document type is created for passing digital text documents there should be every effort made to make the device capable of reading as many formats as possible... and any document conversion should be able to be done by the end user. I have documents I would love to maintain on the kindle but I cannot because it would entail sending the document to Amazon for conversion and the information is to sensitive to handle in that way.

Obamacare: A simple observation

2009-08-11T20:09:00.002-06:00

I remember a very common sound bite from Obama while he was on the campaign trail. It went something like this. "I want to extend the coverage I receive as a Senator to the nation." Seems simple enough. Needless to say the current health care reform bill is not extending the Senate plan to the Nation... and I have yet to hear of one Senator saying they would swap their coverage for the new system if it passes. So.... I think a lot of folks are bitching about the proposed health care reform bill for good reason. However, that does not mean we shouldn't be trying to overhaul the current health care nightmare in the US.

Universal health care is neither the commie plot horror tale some make it out to be... nor is it the wonderful health system nirvana others tout. You need only look to other countries employing ‘universal’ systems for examples to prove either. All the systems have problems... all pretty much do a better job insuring their masses than the current US system (or lack there of). Many think we should just leave well enough alone. Me personally? I find it impossible to defend a status quo that unequivocally leaves millions with no care system at all... not to mention millions more with inadequate coverage. It is shameful, it is not something that can be ignored. It is quite simply inexcusable. I offer no silver bullet. I offer no certain solution. I simply contend that where we are is indefensible and we should find a better solution... in the mean time I offer only the following advice to our elected officials currently attempting to solve this gargantuan problem we all face.

If you want to institute a universal healthcare system then I suggest the plan devised be one that congress would unanimously choose for the care of themselves and their families. Because if you are going to devise a plan you yourself would not use... why on earth would you expect anyone else to want it?

Gadget Review: Nike+ vrs GPS exercise tracking on the iPhone

2009-07-30T16:22:00.003-06:00

So like many in the second fattest state in the union I am carrying quite a few extra pounds around. My employer recently decided to offer free gym memberships so I decided it was high time to get serious about shedding a love handle or three. Of course being the geek that I am I also wanted a cool and easy way to track my efforts. When I recently picked up the 3GS iPhone I kind of laughed at the feature bullet listing the new phone as Nike+ compatible. But once I decided to start tracking my workouts I decided to give it whril... since I already default to Nike tennis shoes and the phone could read the sensor signals all I needed was a $20 dollar sensor to see what it was all about. If you are interested in getting one and not sure what you need you can read up about it here. If Nike Shoes are not for you it is possible to rig the sensor to work on other shoes but some of the methods are not for the feint of heart as it can require shoe surgery. There are other less drastic options that will likely bring a call from the fashion police... and if you don't mind the stares and pointing they seem to work just fine as well.

Nike+ is cool... but it is just a simple Pedometer. Considering that the iPhone has GPS I wanted to see if I could use that as well. As luck would have it and as Apple loves to point out "There's an App for That". In this case one called 'Run Keeper Pro". A minimum Nike+ system is much cheaper than RunKeeper... but RunKeeper is cheaper if you already have an iPhone with GPS capability. I of course decided to try both (since I already have the phone and shoes it only cost $30). Also, due to the fact the built in Nike+ app on the iPhone 3GS is allowed to run in the background I have been able to track my walks with Nike+ and RunKeeper at the same time for comparison.

So what exactly is Nike+ ? In short it is an electronic coach that tracks you through a pedometer and keeps up with your workout history on a special website run by Nike... if you like the results of your workouts can be sent out to your friends via Facebook and Twitter. You pick a workout (distance, time, calorie burn goal, open ended), you pick a playlist, hit start your workout and once it picks up the sensor in your shoe rocking along off you go. You will receive periodic updates through your headphones when you reach milestones. You get a notice every mile in distance based workouts, 5 minute callouts on time. I do not know what you get on the calorie burn workouts and it seems you get no periodic updates on the open ended workout. On any workout you can get a status summary by pushing a button that tells you the time, distance and average pace per mile/k depending on your preference. It works extremely well for the most part. When you are done you get a summary of how far you went, your average pace, best time for the mile and approximate calorie burn (highly optimistic for walks I have found... probably more accurate for runs). The next time you sync with iTunes the information will be sent to the Nike+ website where you can view even more information. The website also offers lots of other options like challenges you can join, or goal setting in addition to posting your results automatically to facebook or twitter as previously mentioned.

RunKeeper is GPS based exercise tracker that allows you to track ANY outside based activity where you cover ground... roller blading, walking, running, cycling etc... When you are done it uploads your results via the iPhone mobile web application to a website that is not quite as cool as the Nike+ one but it works well and it also allows for the automatic posting of results to facebook/twitter if you so desire. While it cannot run in the background you can play your music in the background and have some limited control over it (ie you can skip a song if you want) without interrupting the program.

So how well do they work?

The Good:

Application:

Nike+ application is simple and much better integrated with the phone. Run Keeper Pro is definitely more accurate (if it holds the GPS signal) and useful for tracking more types of outdoor activities. Both maintain a basic history on the device and track your high points.

Voice updates on Nike+ is very slickly implemented. It dims your tunes so you can easily understand the status report. The instant status tied to a home button push works very well also.

Website:

Nike+ community elements (challenges, goals etc...) can be a strong incentive for those of a competitive bent... be it with oneself or in comparison to other members of the site.

RunKeepers maps including elevation changes has some serious cool factor. The site is also far more responsive than the Nike+ one.

The So So:

Application:

Neither program seems to agree on calorie tracking... and in looking at numerous online trackers it seems Run keeper falls to the conservative side where Nike falls to the optimistic end... but neither were crazily out of whack. Since Caloric burning is fairly difficult to determine for a given individual it is probably best to view these results more as a 'score' for relative comparison than taken as literal fact. That being said the Nike+ app will adjust your burn rate based on what you say your weight is... so in the long run it probably provides a better comparison value.

Voice updates on RunKeeper are occasionally overpowered by your tunes. Normally not a problem but can suck if you miss your turn around point on an out and back activity.

Website:

Run Keeper has a ways to go to catch up to the community elements of Nike+. Being able to set and track goals is needed. Similar community type challenges to what Nike+ does might be worth pursuing. But don't get me wrong. The website is simple and highly functional... just does not have the same whizbang factor other than the maps.

Nike+ site is sluggish... very heavy on the flash and Nike shopping options are in prime locations which relegates your activity summary controls to less optimum areas of the screen. In other words its designed more for buying Nike stuff than for using as an activity tracker. While the tracking elements are solid... the interface is annoying by being slow and not optimized for that use.

The Bad:

Requiring Nike+ shoes or awkward hack alternatives is annoying. Nike shoes fit me better than most brands so I often gravitate to them anyway. Since I was due a pair it was not a problem to find a Nike+ pair with the hole in the shoe for the sensor... but for many out there this would represent a new cost. It seems to me that Nike could forgo the sensor for the iPhone application and utilize the GPS. Linking people to the website would still bring them closer to buying Nike stuff. And seeing as you have to have an iPhone in the first place... I doubt it would really hurt sales of Nike+ shoes for folks using regular iPods without a GPS capability. This would also allow them to do the cool mapping of what you did rather than just showing your rate changes (really boils down to how often your footstep set off the sensor).

I have been tracking walks with the sensor I bought for about 4 weeks now and it seems the sensor is already dying as I keep getting periods of 0 pace and sometimes strangely fast paces that I did not get when it was new. If this is the case then that would mean having to buy a new sensor ever month or so since the battery is not replaceable. If that is the case the $20 bucks a month just to have a pedometer in my shoes will make this one a one time deal for me. I would be fine with it lasting 3-6 months at a shot.... but not ~1. It is possible this is being caused by operating the RunKeeper app at the same time. I am going to try doing some Nike+ only runs to see if the sensor stops acting up and will update this section later.

GPS exercise tracking is not cheap. There is lots of purpose built gear by the likes of Garmin etc... that do similar stuff to RunKeeper that are cheaper and more accurate. If you already have an iPhone then RunKeeper Pro is cheap at 10 bucks. But if have to buy the iPhone you are spending WAY to much for something that is not quite as accurate as the other purpose built gear. If you count the iPhone cost it is cheaper to buy an iPod (nano), iPod Nike+ unit and Nike+ shoe sensor combined than it is just to get the iPhone. If you already have the iPhone then RunKeeper is much cheaper than the other options at a one time cost of $10... and unlike the Nike+ sensors the GPS receiver doesn't wear out after a couple of months and need replacing.... it also does not require special shoes or oddball sensor mounting solutions.

In short don't buy an iPhone FOR run keeper... consider it if you already have one and don't want to purchase additional expensive dedicated GPS exercise tracking gear. If you are starting from scratch with none of the equipment you probably want to seriously consider the purpose built GPS watches. if GPS is overkill the Nike+ system is relatively cheap if you don't count the cost of the shoes ie you need them anyway so it is not an additional cost.

The RunKeeper application suffers from a common iPhone app malady. It cannot run in the background. This makes iPod music playback operations during your activity tricky and subject to inadvertently pausing your exercise... along with damn near any other interruption that comes from your phone like Texting, taking a phone call etc... The default action of the program when these other things happens is to pause/loose the GPS signal etc... It can be very frustrating. Since I am mostly just walking it is quite possible for me to mess around with reading Texts/e-mails take phone calls etc... and the Nike+ app allows me to do that without missing a beat. RunKeeper requires you to keep that application up for the duration of the exercise. Thankfully they fixed an early bug that meant you even had to have the screen on (drained the battery and made it subject to accidental input in your pocket).

Both applications need to allow for more voice notification options. Currently the iPhone automatic updates are limited to Time/Distance based on which type of workout you choose and they only provide updates at the 5 minute and mile markers only. They need to allow you to chose your desired interval and what information you want to know. IE the only way to get your pace from the Nike app is to hit the home button or read it off the screen. The RunKeeper app only does updates every 5 minutes or every mile but it does provide current pace information... but not average pace. This seems such a simple and obvious addition. They have already done the hard work it making the apps give you any kind of notification... it should be relatively easy to add some additional options for how often and what set of information you would like to hear.

Conclusion:

Well... neither of these applications/sensors etc... is going to get you into shape. However if tracking your progress is a motivator for you then I recommend both provided you like Nike shoes and already have either an iPhone with GPS (for run keeper) or one of the numerous compatible iPod models for Nike+. Right now I personally want to drop the Nike+ tracking and just use RunKeeper as it is more accurate and has no requirement for a shoe sensor I may have to replace often. However, I find the goal tracking and challenges on the Nike+ website far more compelling than the bare bones tracking alone found on the RunKeeper website. For now I am going to continue to try both simultaneously until I reach my first Challenge Goal on Nike+ of 100miles.

Crime, Punishment and Vick

2009-07-21T21:38:00.002-06:00

So Mike Vick has done his time and is once again a free man. The pundits are all kicking up a fuss about what the NFL commissioner might or might not do regarding his NFL eligibility. My question is... why is this even being discussed? what right does the NFL have to determine if Mike Vick should pay further for his crimes? What has happened to the notion of paying your debt to society? Vick did something stupid, wrong, immoral etc... etc... etc... On this I have no argument. In fact I hold no love for the guy and as a long time Falcon's fan I am one of many he has disappointed with his idiocy. As a result of his actions he was found guilty by a jury of his peers and sentenced to serve a prison sentence. He was deprived of his freedom for the past two years. He served his sentence and is now a free man. By and large the idea is that is supposed to be that.

Granted we all know that in reality convicts are not ever really viewed as full members of society. They have broken trust and few if any ever regain it to the same extent they enjoyed before running afoul of the law. Many claim that Vick should be banned from football... that it is a privilege rather than right to play a game for millions of dollars. Perhaps that is true. But I have to ask if it is right for him to be banned? Let us say that Vick was an auto mechanic rather than a Football wonder kid and that the ongoing discussion was to ban him from ever turning another wrench? Would that be right? I think the answer is obviously no and so I think the same holds true for running a naked bootleg on Sundays.... that is if any team will have him. Playing in the NFL IS most certainly a privilege. It is one earned by being better than anyone else at playing a game. That Vick still qualifies on those grounds I doubt anyone would seriously question. I doubt any would care to bet that no team would be willing to pick him up provided the league allows them the option.

I believe the league has the right to ban players from the game. For use of banned substances. For cheating. For illegal/dangerous hits, breaking contracts and any number of things. But I have serious heartburn with the notion that the League has the right to further punish someone who has served time for his crime as adjudicated by the legal system we have entrusted with the responsibility to uphold the laws of the land. In short I feel it is not within the leagues purview to deny Vick a chance to play in the NFL again. That is the responsibilities of all the teams in the league who will have to decide if he is someone they want to risk a roster spot on.

Review: iPhone 3G S

2009-06-20T19:51:00.002-06:00

It has been a very Mac few months for me. First I take the plunge on a mac book pro, then I get an iPhone 3g and here I am with a shiny new 3G S I picked up the first day it was on offer. Why did I plunk down some hard earned cash for the new phone? Well not really to have the new phone (thought that is a nice side effect). I recently joined the ranks of iPhone developers and hope to release some apps and perhaps if I am fortunate make that money back (and more???). When developing for the iPhone it helps if you have some dedicated testing equipment. I decided I wanted to be able to play with the phone specific features so I got the new phone so I could make my old one a test unit.

Initial thoughts:

For those holding on to a current 3g phone and wondering if they should take the plunge? Well the short answer from me is that for most folks there really isn't a reason to go plunk down for the new phone immediately. This is definitely an evolutionary step for the iPhone and the changes are mostly small. Is it faster? Yes, but while noticeable it isn't an earth shattering increase. The speed up is most apparent in more intense applications. Video loads noticeably faster, it is easier to swipe between images, resize etc... Heavy gamers will likely find more benefit here than typical phone users. Also you get a higher quality camera and are finally allowed to record video without resorting to a jailbreak solution.

Think of it this way... the difference between the 3g and the 3g s is similar to the difference between a Subaru WRX and WRX STI, Mustang GT and Shelby Mustang, 3 series BMW and the M variant. In other words it is the same phone with a turbo charger and some bells and whistles. For day to day 'driving' its the same experience and the changes don't show up until you push the limits.

Bottom line, If you are buying new then get the 3g s. It is worth the 100 dollar difference to step up from the 8gb 3g. And if a 100 bucks makes that big a difference to you then I would ask why you are picking up a phone with a 360 dollar a year data plan commitment on top of your phone line/ msg'ing options. For existing 3g owners... wait till your can renew and honestly it might be worth it to wait for the next step. Most likely Apple will go dual core on the CPU and the difference should be far more dramatic.

The Bad: Sure the iPhone is a great device... but it still has its warts.

Still no micro SD expansion slot? Seriously Apple solve this one. Make a dual SIM/SD holder in the top or something. This is so ridiculously overdue it is silly.

plastic body. Don't get me wrong I don't think this is low quality or chintzy. I just think Apple is missing a bet here with materials. Make this phone a 'unibody' phone with an aluminum or other metal (titanium?) block design. It is stronger and more solid in the mac book line.. why wouldn't it be for the phone? It is less prone to scratching and would do more to set the phone apart. Perhaps there will be an iPhone Pro ? While we are on the subject... drop the damn gloss. It looks great on TV and when it is sitting there all untouched. But these puppies live in your oily greasy hands and in 2 minutes that wondrous glossy look becomes a smeared smudgey mess. Design a phone that looks as good after a good day of use as it does fresh out of the box.

Battery capacity. A basic phone will generally be usable for days. An iPhone charge lasts you more than a day only if you use it like a phone. Heavy usage tops out around 3-4 hours, longer in non screen intensive uses like listening to music. I have no real sense yet if the 3g s eeks a bit more life out of its battery than the 3g or not but I doubt it is a significant difference if there is any. Most likely it is much hungrier when you actually use the new capabilities that make it stand apart. Capacity in comparison to other smart phones is solid... this is a problem across the whole genre of phones.

Push Notifications / lack of true multitasking: The iPhone is in many cases a conundrum. Take AIM chat sessions for example. You cannot chat and check e-mail at the same time, or browse the web while your favorite event based app of choice (say mlb) monitors something going on. I applaud Apple's dedication to ensuring the iPhone interface maintains a uniform level of responsiveness but I still can't get over the fact they will not let users opt out of this artificial application limitation. The new push notification system is a poor substitute for multitasking apps.

iPod dock/charging connector: Normally I am all for consistency. And the iPod dock connector provides so much in the way of accessories I have a hard time saying this thing should go. But it should go. Mini/micro-USB should be on the table. Smaller hole to get gunk in and works with more things. Docks and accessories can be used with adaptors until they catch up. As a bonus they should include the ability to be a usb host. If Apple wants to come up with a new proprietary connector that gets my vote I recommend a mag safe style mobile connector for data and power.

E-mail inbox management: Sure OS 3 brings search to e-mail but damnit, every other freaking e-mail client in the world allows you to sort your inbox by date received, to/from, subject etc... so why in *_(#*$&_(*@&#_$(* does the iPhone e-mail client still not allow for this? Unified e-mail inbox and/or the ability to switch directly between inboxes (as opposed to swiping back to the list and back into the inbox), tagging or some form of folder management capability and NO cap on how many e-mails are accessible on the device. Multiple item selection needs to allow for multiple actions such as mark read/unread etc... not just delete.

AT&T Restrictions: The iPhone has brought the smartphone and its attendant data hungry nature to the masses. It takes a lot of backbone guts to serve millions of iFart apps, twitters and facebook pokes. AT&T can be forgiven for underestimating the data appetite of iPhone users to begin with. But we are now 2+ years down the road and the iPhone still isn't allowed to send MMS messages because AT&T is afraid the traffic will melt their servers. Apple provided them with a phone that has sold 17 million units of which a large percentage are new AT&T customers holding expensive unlimited data plans. The revenue from those customers should be enough to have built a dedicated iPhone infrastructure by now. Don't get me started on the debacle that is MMS and Tethering.

The So So:

Compass. Not real sure if this is going to amount to anything. But it works as advertised. Most obvious area of use is static pointing information to integrate with GPS usage.

New screen coating. I'll grant this is better than the 3g screen as far as cleaning it goes (less smearing when cleaning) but it is still finger print city. Get the apple anti-glare smudge resistant screen protectors. They are REALLY finger print resistant and make swiping, scrolling much easier. There is a slight loss in sharpness but at least in my opinion it is very very worth it. It is far better at being smudge resistant than it is at preventing glare.

Voice Control: If you ask me this is a feature box they can final check when compared to most other phones on the market. In my opinion this is something they were right to disregard initially. Voice control is a cool concept that remains a gimick due to how finicky it is. One day perhaps this will be sorted out. But considering massive purpose built computing rigs can't do this well I just don't see it showing up in mobile technology anytime soon.

The Good:

OS 3 brings a slew of new goodies that are not specific to the 3g s but the addition of cut and paste and a device search capability are both very welcome additions to the iPhone... and both are needlessly late. Another small change but extremely welcome is the addition of many more applications that make use of the landscape keyboard. I can type fast enough in this orientation to take meeting notes as long as it consists of relatively simple bulleted information. I hold out hope that one day they will design landscape modes for every thing in the root OS.

Tethering is now built into the OS rather than only possible via jailbreaking and ugly network sharing hacks. Just pair and go ala typical Apple easy peasy operation. Granted AT&T still has this nerfed but the capability is there. It should have been there to start with as it is on other phones of this calibre.

Class leading Capacitive touch screen. The hardest to swallow aspect of the new iPhone was and still remains its touch screen based interface. The spec bumps just make it even more responsive and the 3g was already pretty snappy on all things touch related.

Tight Design. Devices worth the better part of $1000 should not have the feel of dime store trinkets as do many high end phones. These phones are solid and the buttons are sparse but useful. You will use all the buttons on the device routinely which is not always the case in other phones.

The camera spec boost: I am not a huge fan of cell phone cameras. But I have found a lot of use for mine as a poor mans scanner. White board session snaps in particular are the 'killer ap' as far as my needs go. 2mp is barely adequate. 3mp is very capable. Of all the spec jumps this is the one that will be most useful for me in comparison to what I would have been stuck with on the 3g.

Third Party Software: The app store is to Apple's success with the iPhone as Office is to Microsoft's success in the desktop OS world.

Conclusion:

Contrary to popular belief (or at least Apple marketing) the iPhone is not a revolutionary handset. There is not one thing that it does that another handset was not capable of a year or two before even the iPhone 1 showed up on the scene. Web browsing, mobile applications, GPS, e-mail etc... had all be done. But none of them managed to break out of the geek crowd to mainstream audience. Particularly with regards to unlimited level data plans. Many folks bought smart phones purely for stand alone PDA capability without bundled data plans. The iPhone managed to take that existing capability and wrap it all up in a package that sold 17 million individual units with the large majority of those being people new to mobile data usage. In that sense the iPhone was revolutionary. But it got there by building a better mousetrap... not by inventing the idea in the first place. The 3G S is a very very nice mouse trap and it is a very nice step forward from its predecessor. But ultimately it is just keeping the fire alive... not taking it to new heights.

Review: Star Trek

2009-05-09T21:35:00.002-06:00

Ok.... First my take is this. Good Flick, BAD Trek. Still was enjoyable and I look forward to another swipe taken by JJ Abrams with this cast.

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First off lets get the Bad Trek out of the way. First up? Time travel. This device of story telling is pretty much always going to be bad. There are very few examples of good time travel stories and this isn't one of them. The use here is just plain fraught with problems most of which concern the Villain. Spock fails an attempt to save Romulous from a super nova. A random Romulan mining ship guns for him in an act of revenge for his failure. As a part of this encounter both Spock and the mining ship to fall into a black hole accidently and get zipped back through time to emerge 25 years apart? That is bad. The idea that a random Romulan mining ship would be damn near invincible a few decades in the past just takes it from there. The idea that Vulcan and Earth had ZERO other defenses than that provided by the scrambled academy cadets truly stretches this whole mess to the breaking point. This element of the story is dog meat. It is a plot device pure and simple to accomplish two things. Drive the crew of the Enterprise together, and give them a clear slate for future stories without the baggage of the Trek franchise history. It accomplishes both so despite being dog meat it is at least useful dog meat.

Alternatives? All pretty messy. Personally I would have suggested leaving Nimoy's Spock in his own time. Give him a role in the cause of the events leading to the destruction of Romulous significant enough to drive a surviving Romulan element a reason to go after him personally... and via time travel since the idea here was to give Trek a new slate to work from. At least an intentional run to the past by an advanced Romulan military vessel would have explained its nigh invulnerability to older technology... as opposed to the invincible mining ship we were subjected to. A super nova as the cause of the destruction of Romulous was probably a poor choice. They set the table for a social revolution led by Spock in TNG and it could easily have been something that backfired into a destruction of that world by civil war. They even had set up Romulan technology to be centered around controlling singularities which could have been spun to time travel with some liberal techno babbling. All wasted... oh well.

Next up on the bad? The silly(er) use of transporting. Rodenberry was pretty honest about the transporter being a device of convenience and it was a technology he specifically limited in his stories to avoid having it become an impossible story element to deal with. They blast people willy nilly all over the place in this movie at levels they didn't use even in the far future of the Trek universe. In the end I suppose it did what Rodenberry originally intended it to do. It moved the story along without tedious travel by ship. However this particular use of the transporter has plot killing implications for ANY story JJ pursues in his new cannon.

In addition to the transporter use problems they have a serious continuity issue with the time it takes Enterprise to reach Vulcan and the time it takes to get back to earth. Apparently the Villain ship is at least as fast as the Enterprise as it can't catch up before it reaches earth. The trip out seems to take a matter of minutes once the ships leave Earth at Maximum warp. Yet all kinds of convoluted shenanigans happen before the Enterprise even goes in pursuit of the enemy ship headed for earth. Yet they apparently arrive only shortly after the enemy ship plunges its mining laser of doom to Earth.

Alternatives? Don't kick Kirk off the ship in the first place... go ahead and let Scotty be on the ship already and as I already suggested there was no need to put Nimoy's Spock into the alternate universe timeline. As for the continuity of timing, it would have been simple to show the trip out to Vulcan would take a while. This would have provided time to show the crew getting to know each other on the ship doing their duties. Additionally establish that the villain ship was slower thus allowing time for the power struggle between Kirk and Spock to determine the course of action for the Enterprise.

Next up, neither Vulcan or Earth have any defense in this movie other than academy cadets manning whatever ships are left due to a frontier conflict the federation is involved in. This already in-plausible small force is swiftly reduced to just the freshly constructed Enterprise. And I mean there is NOTHING else. This is a somewhat largish hole in the PLOT and considering the action nature of this movie it seems odd they did not take advantage of the opportunity to show more big splashy combat sequences. Of course having the mining ship fend off all comers would have simply exacerbated the whole problem of just why it was invincible. To make it worse it appears it would not have really taken that much to take the laser drilling thing out as despite the ships invincibility to federation ships, the laser itself is apparently easily taken out with handheld weapons once Kirk and crew do the ultimate sky dive to reach it at Vulcan. Lets not talk about why exactly they had to use the mining laser in the first place if the actual weapon being employed was a black hole... all you would have to do with that is get it close enough to the ground for the gravity to start pulling it in. All of this is fine for a no brainer action flick. But that is not the history of the Trek franchise. Trek has, for the most part, established good chops in using 'science' to underpin its story lines through the various incarnations. This particular pile of crap would have been bad on the infamously weak plots of the wrung dry Enterprise series.

Alternatives? Assuming we went with the idea that the Romulan bird was an advanced military vessel from the future then there would have been little problem with having massive defensive struggle with stopping it. The ticking clock could have been provided by some convoluted process needed to spit out a black hole to destroy the planet with. Think Borg episodes in TNG where it went to sector 1.

So how can I say all this and still say it was a good flick? Because it was. There are numerous holes in pretty much any Sci Fi movie and past Trek (even the good ones) have been no exception. For example there was nothing here much worse than say Star Wars, or Chronicles of Riddic etc... It was action packed fun. It just did not capture Trek very well in terms of what was driving the action. However the casting was good. The acting was good. And it sets up a true blank canvass on which to move forward. Doing any Star Trek movie was going to be hard. Doing one that basically took all that has gone before and saying 'Do Over' was a very tall order. Yet I say for the most part mission accomplished. It was messy, and it was fun. Long term I doubt this film will fare well... but if they fire out some good Trek on the now blank Canvass then I think its shortcomings will be overlooked in light of the new opportunities it hopefully has opened.

New AT&T Terms of Use

2009-04-04T09:16:00.004-06:00

Recently AT&T made a change to their terms of service for mobile broadband customers. **Edit: and apparently retracted it almost as fast, the section below is from the old and once again current terms, but my rant still applies. The removed verbage was specifically targeted at sling player with the term "user re-directed streams" added to the list of things you could not do** Here is the section of interest:

Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; (ii) as a substitute or backup for private lines, landlines or full-time or dedicated data connections;

This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited.

Most people probably pick up on the idea here that you can check e-mail but not download a movie via bit torrent or limewire or something. The thing I think a lot of people don't get (fellow geeks aside) is just how bat shit insane these terms are. You see AT&T's network does not give a flip if you are downloading e-mail or said movie from a torrent. Both cause a transfer of 1's and 0's across the network from a given source (remote server) to a given destination (your device). The only difference in this particular example is one of volume. E-mail typically consists of a relatively small amount of data where a movie represents a relatively large amount of data. So why doesn't AT&T just say you can't download more than X amount of data? Because the plans these terms are referring to are 'unlimited' data plans (such as the iphone). Thus in effect they are saying you can download unlimited e-mail and no movies.

So here is the true insanity of this... the amount of data represented by 'unlimited e-mail' is .... wait for it.... unlimited. So if data is data then why does it mater if I download x amount of e-mail data versus the same amount of movie data?

Whether the source of the data is a Youtube server, E-mail server, Webpage or from a sling box makes no difference to your mobile device or to the AT&T network. In all cases this is delivery of content from a server to your mobile device. The only difference is the IP address where the content is coming from. The only aspect which may vary is the bandwidth required between the two sources.

Here is another nugget of insanity. They explicitly state downloading legally obtained music as a legitimate activity. However they explicitly state that streaming audio is not a legitimate activity. What is the difference between streaming and downloading? As far as the AT&T network is concerned, Absolutely nothing. Again as far as the network is concerned it is sending 1's and 0's from a source to a destination. The only difference here is how the device handles the data. Streaming data is played as it arrives. Downloaded content is played after it arrives. AT&T's concern is that users will 'stream' more content than they will 'download'. For example how many songs would you 'download' from itunes vrs 'stream' from XM? Again the crux of AT&T's problem is not what you are accessing but how much you are accessing. Technically speaking listening to a song via 'streamed XM' IS Downloading a legally acquired song assuming you have an XM account that allows access via the web.

So lets do this again. If I can download an unlimited amount of legally obtained songs which represents an unlimited amount of data... then why is X amount of play after I download content any different from X amount of play as I download content?

I could probably come up with a 100 different ways to say the same thing here... but ultimately this all comes down to pure "Troll Under the Bridge" stuff on the part of AT&T. Only to make it worse, in this case, you have already paid the damn troll for permission to cross the bridge and they are telling you what you can carry with you across the bridge. If you consider the 'no tethering* clause' then they are telling you what you can carry across the bridge and where you can go with it once you get across.

The FCC needs to step in here under concerns of false advertisement. The word unlimited should not be allowed if there is in fact a limit. The term should be consistently defined as 24/7 access at a given rate for the term of the contract. If the carriers want to create limits on how fast a device can transfer data across the network that is fine. Also, In addition to stipulating carriers adhere to the concept of net neutrality**, the idea that the provider has any say in where the information goes after it reaches my device (tethering) needs to be criminalized. If I access by means other than my contracted device the carriers have a beef, if I remove speed limitations and exceed the rate I pay for the carriers have a beef. But accessing data via the device within the access restrictions of my contract should be all a carrier can regulate. Not what I access or how I distribute it for my personal use.

*tethering is when you access the internet on your laptop (or any other device) via your mobile device. In effect this is turning your mobile device into a modem. Mobile carriers contend that there is a difference between accessing information on your mobile device and accessing that same information via your mobile device but displayed by another device. If the laptop connected directly to their network this would be true. However, in a tethering setup all transactions with the network are handled by the mobile device. To illustrate let us use an example. Using an I-phone to view a youtube clip and an iphone tethered to a computer viewing the same youtube clip. As far as AT&T's network is concerned the same information was transferred. The information was accessed by your iphone in both cases. The only difference is that when you view it on your computer the iphone passes the information along rather than displaying it on its screen.

**net neutrality refers to the concept that internet providers have no say in what information you access.*

Kindle 2: Hands On

2009-02-28T12:11:00.002-06:00

The Good

1) Backed by a proven innovator
2) Instant Gratification
3) Readable technology
4) Large Library
5) Long battery life
6) Decent Form Factor
7) Multiple sources of material
8) Power by usb standard with provided wall adapter... micro is growing more common

It is easy to forget just how innovative a company Amazon is. They revolutionized the print industry and were pathfinders to internet business success. Once they established themselves as the pre-immanent supplier of books they then expanded to the point many people find it easy to forget it was their original reason for existence. They were one of the first to seize on the fact the core of internet business was not so much what you sold but how you garnered trust and managed the logistics. if you solved those two issues then you could sell pretty much anything. In retrospect it was little more than replicating what Sears Roebuck managed in the previous century with mail order business. Massive selection and trusted transactions. Simple in concept and insanely hard in reality but they have not only managed it... they are all but defining how you do it. They paved the way for internet success with selling tangible objects... making the jump to intangible should not be a huge leap. And in this case Apple has already paved the way with the success of Itunes.

E-books, particularly combined with the Kindle Cellular capability allows Amazon to remove the middle man as it were when it comes to the trusted transaction side of the equation. They no longer have to rely on UPS to deliver. They no longer have to contend with delaying the customers instant gratification desire. Want a book? Then download it. Instant Gratification is provided wherever you can make a Sprint phone call. You can browse for free, and purchase what you want when you want without having to go to the store. All you lack is the physical printed out form of the book. And while people do love to have their books it is important to remember that what readers are addicted to is reading... not stacks of bound paper.

Which brings us to the reading experience of e-ink. First off I have read many many many forum posts and even some professional reviews that dismiss e-ink in favor of PDA/Laptop/Computer screens. Based on my experience with e-ink I can only conclude they are not people who read. E-ink is 90% of the paper reading experience. Transmissive display technology such as CRT and LCD are simply not even in the same realm. I'd say 10% of the paper reading experience tops. They are something to be endured out of necessity because they provide invaluable capability. However, If they were as good as e-ink then the paperless office would be a reality and e-books would have long since replaced print. Instead when folks have to actually read they almost always resort to a print out or book. Many would counter that there are numerous people that 'read' all day long in front of a computer. I don't agree. True enough people use computers for long durations but rarely to 'read'. By 'read' I mean sit down to immerse yourself in a story. Dealing with E-mail, presentation building, web surfing and document review is NOT 'reading'. I am a Net junky and rarely go long periods without staring at some type of screen or other except when I actually 'read'. I have tried numerous times to read books on computers of all stripes and while I have succeeded I have NEVER found a solution that could replace lugging around books despite much money spent in search of it. I tried on old CRT monitors, Laptops, I tried early Palm Pilot PDA's I have tried snazzy windows mobile phones, the Nokia N810 MID and an Iphone. They all tragically fail at a basic capability books posses. The ability to disappear in ones hands. The Kindle 2 disappears and by most accounts so did the first generation device with the exception of accidental page turns. This capability is primarily due to E-ink. E-ink sucks at many things due to its unwieldy re-fresh process. But for reading a book it excels at a level unmatched by anything and I mean anything including print books.... at least at paperback level. Technical manuals are a different matter but I will get to that.

There has been a long standing Chicken and Egg problem with e-books. Technology capable of reading book length material on, and a selection large enough that you would not constantly be having to swap between types of books. While Amazon has not entirely solved this problem they have gone a long long LONG way down the right path. If they succeed in making their entire selection of books available for Kindle then they will have solved the supply of book side of the problem. Their current availability of 250,000 titles is a fantastic start. In fact they have larger selections in individual genre's than most other e-book retailers have been able to provide in their entire catalogues. The Sony Library and Fictionwise house the the only comparable scale libraries and only comes in at around 50,000 titles each. I personally think they have reached critical mass. As long as Amazon remains committed I will bet on them to make e-book availability a given for pretty much anything available in less than 10 years... and probably in less than 5.

So the second part of the problem is the technology. Kindle has solved the two biggest hurdles to e-book technology. The first was a screen that was as easy to read as paper. The second was to produce a reasonable battery life with an acceptable weight profile. You could make a PDA that could run for days or weeks if you would be willing to carry around several pounds of battery... but few want to carry around such a dead weight. The double break through of e-ink was the static display of information without power. In effect the device literally prints a document on the screen. Power is then not needed until you need to print another page. You can think of it to some extent as an etc-a-sketch. What is drawn on the screen stays there until it is shaken/refreshed. With the wireless on the Kindle has an effective life of greater than 1 day which is the minimum I considered needed to be successful. While my early use suggests the quoted 4 day capability is a bit optimistic I think it is safe to say 2-3 days is pretty safe barring constant downloads via shopping or net browsing. If you turn off the wireless then the battery life is truly impressive for an electronic gizmo at greater than a week (2 weeks advertised).

The next element of the technology they have done well on is the form factor. The original kindle was ugly however by most marks it was functional. Kindle 2 is bland but in a good way. Where the Kindle 1 was jarring and distinctive the Kindle 2 is a study in subdued. It fits the hand well and while at first blush the large amount of non-screen space seems a waste it does not take long in handling it to understand that space serves a very important function in helping the device to vanish in your hands. Due to the design/size and placement of the screen it is all but impossible to obscure it while in any position that you find comfortable to read in. The keyboard is necessary for the device to exist on its own without a computer symbiosis like the Sony Reader requires. Whether or not that is an issue is pretty much one up to individual taste. I personally think the devices ability to operate entirely on its own is one of its strongest features. I imagine in the future you will see a symbiotic device design from Amazon but not until the market matures a little further and experiences a higher level of competition.

One thing many people seem to misunderstand about the Kindle is the idea that you can ONLY get material from Amazon. This is not true. I have books from Tor.com, Fictionwise and Baen books on my Kindle 2. You can even download from these sources via the web browser if you are truly patient... but ultimately I would say this capability is largely reliant connecting the Kindle to a computer and dragging the files across. I wish Amazon had licensed all of the major e-book formats instead of just the open Mobi format. But mobi is one of the most widely available from other e-book purveyors. About the only store that does not have titles available for the kindle at this point is the Sony connect library. Don't get me wrong... the Kindle is still largely in vendor lock in simply due to the fact the Amazon library is effectively the only major source of e-book material in multiple genre's. However... the device can use other formats than Amazon's. The Amazon only translation of some formats however is a sticking point I will get to in a bit.

The last good element of the technology I want to talk about is a small one but still important in my eyes. They are utilizing USB micro standard. This means that Amazon is not the only provider of compatible data/power cables for this device. Proprietary cables are a serious pet peeve of mine and I am glad Amazon went this way. I would be happier if they had gone with mini rather than micro. However Micro is finally a standard with a growing market share.

The So-So

There really is not a lot of middle ground where the Kindle is concerned. This device is polarizing device for a combination of reasons. The e-book market is very much in the early adopter phase though it finally looks to be on the road to becoming mainstream. But here are some minor niggles

There is a silly power save feature that puts a 'screen saver' up on the device if a page is not turned for 10 minutes. If the re-start were as quick as a typical page change I would probably not have an issue... but it often takes several second for the device to return to your last page. There should at least have been an option to tell the device to simply continue displaying your last page when entering power save mode and the ability to select what you want to display if it showed something else. The choice of various classic authors of note and other literary themes is pretty neutral but still can be irksome. For example I would love to be able to select or provide images for my favorites and ban others. Again this is a minor nit.

The text to speech function. It works. It doesn't sound as bad as some computer synthesized voices but it certainly is NOT something I would want to rely on. However, For folks with disabilities this in conjunction with the growing amazon library could be a killer app. As for the authors guild suit against amazon I hope it goes nowhere if for no other reason than keeping this capability for those that would find it indispensable without having to pay extra for it.

Wiki access and web access in general is a hard to judge value. Browsing is very limited by the e-ink refresh rate and the process is generally pretty slow going. Access to wiki in an easily readable format could be very useful when doing research. I think some of the more important implications of e-ink technology is going to be when its refresh rates improve... but for now the device is seriously out of its element when trying to surf the web. Wiki works relatively well because many of the articles are like downloading mini books.... complete with a table of contents.

I imagine it was no trouble putting the MP3 function on the device but frankly in having this they should have had the sense to leave a slot for sd cards or something to augment the memory. 2gb is plenty for text information but pretty paltry when talking audible formats.

The Bad

1) Price
2) Price
3) Document Format Compatibility
4) Gift purchases
5) Lack of a card slot
6) Lack of a cover

So lets get the first two out of the way. 350 smackers for the privilege of paying dead tree prices for actual reading material. Granted I understand that part of the steepness of the entry cost here is an up front cellular access cost. But I still think it is nuts. At least unbundle the cellular capability and allow folks that want to buy the device with whisper-net disabled and require the use of a computer to load content. I pretty sure both options would be better than a subscription plan. But it takes a pretty select group of people to look at that price and see it as a worth while investment. It just so happens that those who do are also most likely to be extremely heavy book customers. This combination of instant gratification at or below current print cost in such a mobile package is insanely attractive to those who read, read some more and then continue reading, especially if they are on the go folks who often travel. I would be curious to know what percentage of books sales the top 5-10% of book readers are responsible for. I can only surmise it is significant and that is what Amazon has aimed for. IE they are trying to get the big fish to make the transition in hopes that the rest of the market will inevitably follow.

The 350 is a lot to bite off... but it is only exacerbated by the added insult that you end up paying an almost equal amount for a digital copy as you do for a print edition. Supposedly most of the cost of printing books is actually wrapped up in printing and distribution. Why then does the cost to the consumer of a digital book not reflect the dramatically lower cost of producing and distributing digital content? That is a problem for many with the Kindle and in my eyes is a very legitimate beef. The insult to injury here is that I lose many capabilities I have with a print edition... such as loaning it out. If we are to be subject to DRM on our purchased materials then at the least Amazon should provide for the ability to transfer the rights of the files we purchase from them. I should be able to loan my books to friends as well without having to loan them my device. This notion that an individuals rights are different for some reason when the format of the book is digital vrs when it is a physical print out is absurd and technological impediments subverting those rights should not be allowed. If Amazon really wants this market to explode they need to lower the cost to reflect the lack of physical mass production and distribution. They also need to either provide for a 'loaning' capability OR further reduce the price to reflect the loss of value... perhaps it is possible that the gained value of mobility can offset the loss of loaning. But I doubt it. Ultimately a lack of an ability to loan purchased materials easily will drive piracy and lead to folks finding ways to freely exchange their files.

In the save vein is the lack of direct document format capability. Word/PDF etc translations should have been provided via software a user could run on their own in addition to the pay per cost service of sending it to Amazon. I imagine this limitation is largely driven by copy right concerns. IE if I can convert PDF's locally then there is no check on what PDF documents I convert. Same for word docs, etc... there is a crap load of copyrighted material out there available to those not so concerned with it. By forcing people to go through their servers Amazon can at least pay lip service to preventing unlicensed conversions for use on the Kindle. I just wish the emerging e-book market would learn from the music industries mistakes. The push is on for compatibility which means open formats. Piracy just is not the problem people make it out to be. Folks that pirate material are generally not people that would have bought the material in the first place. The more material people can sample the more they are likely to purchase because they are confident in what they are getting. Another issue here is one of protecting information from Amazon... Ie if I have proprietary information I want on the Kindle in word document formating I probably do not want to send it to Amazon, and simply converting to .txt may lose important formating information.

A really stupid oversight by Amazon that began with the Kindle 1 and has extended to present date is the lack of ability for someone to purchase a kindle file for someone with a kindle. For example if I put a book in my wish list for someone to see when they want to buy something for me they should be able to purchase the kindle version. Right now all Amazon says regarding the issue is buy a gift certificate instead. This is absurd and really silly considering Kindle sales are already up to 1/10th. I plunked down for a digital book reader and as a result I will primarily want to receive books I can read on it. This is a stupid problem and one I hope Amazon addresses sooner rather than later.

They should have left some form of expandable memory slot. I don't care how much material 2gb can hold. Removing this was silly. Sure Amazon is keeping my library intact but will that be the case 50 years from now. At least you can download the files to a computer as well. I might have forgiven them this if they had provided for a way to set up your own kindle server for your material.

Lack of a cover is I think in-excusable. Paying 350 bucks for a device that is based around the concept of staring at its screen for hours on end should have come with an included solution for protecting that screen from scratches.

Conclusion:

The device itself is fantastic. The library is plenty big and complete for most appetites. Mobi compatibility provides access to most other available material out there. The drawback is that it is not yet really an economical option compared to print books.

If you are looking for reasons to economically justify the purchase of a Kindle the only one that has a chance of paying off in short order is if you are a retail hard back junky. At ~15 bucks a pop in savings you can get even in 25 books or so. With paper back you had better be a serious junky as you rarely save more than a buck or two a shot if you save anything at all. For the most part the reason to buy a kindle is to have a portable library and the ability to add to it on the go. Personally I will probably recoup a fair chunk of the cost through new release price breaks... but ultimately I bought it because I travel a lot and often cary multiple books with me when I do. Since the cost per book was as good and sometimes better I considered the ability to travel lighter enough justification in and of itself. My reason and the lower clutter of books around the house are probably the two most common justifications I have encountered in reading about Kindle owners.

One thing Amazon should have done was partnered with Project Gutenburg for access to public domain material in an easily browsable form from the Kindle. As is you can still access it via .txt format downloads.

In the world of e-books the Kindle stands tall with two major advantages. Instant gratification through whisper net downloads, and access to the largest retail e-book library in existence. For those familiar with the Sony products the clarity of this device is better than the most recent iteration and on par with the older 500 series. Page transitions are notably faster. Menu navigation about the same. Search ability far superior.

Kindle 2: Is the e-book finally here?

2009-02-23T19:36:00.003-06:00

10 Reasons why Kindle 2 might represent the arrival of the e-book:

1) 250,000 books available.
2) Commitment by Amazon to bring its entire library to the Kindle.
3) Cellular data connectivity allowing for a stand alone device not requiring a computer.
4) Cost of wireless connectivity built into the cost of the device to cover downloading non-periodical content.
5) Design is no longer so horrendous as to be detrimental.
6) Amazon allowing you to re-download any of your purchases, and sync across multiple devices providing greater security for your investment.
7) 2nd generation e-ink display, slightly less annoying page transitions, same great sunlight visible goodness.
8) Excellent cost improvement to new release material vrs current Hardback costs.
9) Comparable cost for paperback material.
10) 2gb of storage may not sound like much but a 1500 book capacity should keep most in good shape.

5 Reasons why Kindle 2 might not represent the arrival of the e-book

1) Proprietary format e-books you can't lend to a friend
2) Supplier lock in, only Amazon can provide books barring translatable version from other sources
3) User unable to replace battery
4) 1500 book capacity is a lot but why not keep the memory card slot?
5) Expensive up front device cost with limited content cost savings.

As for whether 10 is greater than 5 or the other way around remains to be seen but from what I can tell version 2 is a clear step up from version 1. It is improved enough that I am currently awaiting delivery of my slice of future tech tomorrow. The content lock in worries me. However, the lure of a svelte portable device carrying plenty of books and able to download more most anywhere proved ALMOST irresistible. The fact Amazon finally got publishers to agree to e-book prices lower in some cases and equal in most others put me over the top. They still cost to much but at least they don't cost more... for now I'll survive with having to pay the old early adopter tax.

Tech Review: 2008 Macbook Pro

2008-11-10T17:25:00.002-06:00

Overview:

Like em, love em or hate em. Apple does not take half measures when it comes to the Macbook line and that goes double for the recent revamp of Macbook and Macbook Pro's. Glo(a)ssy screen, all button glass trackpad, unibody aluminum, dual graphics cards, sparse but essential port list and new display port. Most new laptops do good to break ground in a single area. Most new laptops are doing one ups on tech specs. Apple routinely ignores what 'most' are doing and instead looks to what can be better. At least that is what can be better according to Jobs. Whether or not you are a fan of his particular flavor of Koolaid or not I think it is hard to not find some things to like in these new designs. Granted it is also hard not to find things to not like.

The good:

Solid. This is the third laptop I have personally purchased. I have handled countless others either through browsing or helping folks with their computer problems. This is the first laptop I have ever held that actually matches my expectations in craftsmanship when considering the price of the device. Metal, Glass, no creaks, no mushy keys/keyboard. A Power connection mindful of how expensive it is to have a laptop pulled from a table. With perhaps the sole exception of the display hinges there is no single thing that screams "will die with constant use" as all other laptops I have experience with. My Dell D820 was/is solid even after 2 yeas of use.... and you can read my impressions of that machine. They were and are still very positive. The Macbook Pro is just in a different world.

Pretty Picture. The display cuts both ways. But glare aside the picture is just gorgeous. LED backlighting is all it is cracked up to be and then some. Most times a laptop display is one of the worst compromises when it comes to choosing to use a laptop over a desktop. This is by far the best looking display I have ever had the pleasure to use for any extended period of time. Full stop, end of story. There are certainly some issues but we will deal with them in a bit.

Sound. There is a special circle in hell reserved for naughty audiophiles where they will be subjected to their favorite music played through laptop speakers. If you really love music then the poor tinny excuse for sound reproduction that comes from laptops the world over is somewhat akin to nails on a chalk board. However... while the speakers on this bad boy are not a threat to Bose I think it is safe to say they are one of the first actual 'speakers' to be had on a laptop. Certainly they are the first of which I am aware of on a 15.4 machine. I would presume that there are some 17" plus desktop behemoths that may have had decent sound but I do not really consider them 'laptops'. I had a positive take on my Dell D820 speakers but let me put it in perspective. My positive take on the Dell was essentially rooted in the fact they were loud enough to be useful... ie skype calls, system sounds etc... and were not so excessively tinny at volume as to make you want to rip your ear drums out. They still were not capable of more than the most desperate use for listening to something like music or even a movie. I began using my speakers on this laptop while attempting to tame my Itunes collection and found to my surprise that the sound quality was almost *gasp* good.... circa mid 80's fm with lack of decent base.

Multitouch whole button trackpad. Its different of that there is no doubt. However after two weeks of use all I can say is that trying to go back to my old trackpad on my work Dell (D830) is beyond painful. While I have my thoughts regarding 'right click' I have to say that so long as the system is designed around the concept of a single click mouse it just is not much of an issue. Besides the secondary click in a specific corner works 'good enough'. I used to be of the opinion that multi touch was a gimic not long for this world. All I can say is that it is one of those things you have to live with for a little while to understand it. While not a replacement for a good stand alone mouse this qualifies as a non-hinderance device. To put this into perspective. On my previous two machines if I were to work for any length of time doing anything besides typing notes at a meeting I would automatically connect my external mouse. After two + weeks I have yet to attach an external mouse to this machine. If I start doing some serious coding, or sketch-up work it will get broken out... but probably not otherwise.

Dual Graphics Solution. The Macbook Pro brings an integrated and stand alone Nvidia graphics solution to the table. Integrated for battery life and day to day grind stuff. Dedicated card for some fun and or added grunt when needed during graphics intensive work. Now if only they had made the stand alone upgradeable. Ironically the more interesting of the two is the integrated option as this is the first system with the new Nvidia integrated set. This marks the first real competitor to the Intel integrated solution which became almost ubiquitous after its introduction with Centrino. For those interested in how good it is I can tell you it runs X-plane on default settings. The standalone 256mb card will run it on very high detail settings and default densities... but runs best on high detail with longer fields of view. It is no dual SLI rig but for a 15.4 notebook it is more than respectable.

Port placement. No ports, jacks etc... on the front of the box (I'm looking at you macbook pro 17inch). They are all neatly arranged on the left side. Slot load DVD/Burner on the right and nothing on the back. (display would obstruct the way it is designed). Clean as a whistle in comparison to most Laptops.

The So So:

Integrated Ichat camera/microphone. A surprisingly rare combination still in laptops but one which is definitely growing and already standard fare on all mac laptops. If you don't want to use a webcam fine... but if you ever want to with a laptop then having to drag one around with you is... well a drag. Camera's are so tiny and cheap these days the only reason one should not be on there is if it is a security issue. The microphone is perhaps even more important. This one does its job... nothing special but most importantly nothing bad. It works.

Port count. The mag power connection aside (which is old hat for mac anyway) the ports on the Macbook Pro are sparse. 2 usb, 1 firewire, 1 32mm express card slot, power, mic, headphone/digital out, Gig-E and the new mini display port. All on one side. Very nice touch of a flap on the express card port rather than some annoying blank libel to be lost the first time you use a card. The ports are key and they are definitely 'with it'. No legacy connectors, no 'Dock' connector, no standard VGA/DVI/S or HDMI connection. For the most part I think they nailed it as far as an 'essential' list. I honestly have a hard time deciding if this is a problem or not on the Mac. The biggest crime is probably the mini display port. Granted Mac is fighting a chicken and the egg problem with this port and they have a history of breaking the ground on such things. But really... this port is likely to be a pain in the @$$ to deal with for a road warrior. Baring a PC adoption of this port it will NEVER become a standard and with HDMI or even USB I am just not sure I see this one happening.

Keyboard. Jobs anti-button fetish does occasionally hit snags. First let me make it clear the quality of the keys is not an issue. They are SCHWEET!!!! My complaint is the lack of them. Granted my complaint is longstanding with Apple on this one and I find it is still there after all this time. Home - End - Pg Up - Pg Down and a separated Delete/Backspace option are not negotiable in my opinion. Bravo on giving the function keys jobs to do. This one is definitely a bubble issue with me. The size/spacing etc.. of the keyboard is insanely good and no doubt that in large part drives the lack of additional space for extra function keys as you find on typical laptops. Again love hate.... hate love. Doing typical typing it is not an issue. Bouncing around code and doing other wise odd text selection gymnastics leaves you doing the apple keystroke combination finger yoga.

Integral slot load optical drive. Got to help the construction of the device. But I just cannot bring myself to like a drive that cannot be easily replaced. Optical drives will at some point go the way of the floppy but it is not yet and it is REALLY annoying if one dies on your laptop if you need one on a daily basis. Additionally I really like the component setup on many machines that allow you to swap in a secondary battery when needed if you did not need the drive. I don't place this in the 'bad' category primarily because Mac has been doing these slot loaders for a while now and I am not aware of any real failure issues above and beyond a typical tray device.

Pixel count. The display is gorgeous. But it is also somewhat lacking in real estate. Don't get me wrong, 1440X900 is extremely useable. However, you run out of pixels very quickly if you are used to larger desktop setups. Document reviewing and large complicated work environments like IDE's are less than ideal experiences. On the other hand most GUI design just has not caught up to high resolution but small displays. My last system was a 15.4 inch design with 1920 x 1050 resolution. Awesome in some uses, but OS menus and dialogs were often a problem. On that system the problem was being able to read smaller elements. In this case the biggest problem is vertical space. 1200x1024 is pretty much the assumed minimum these days when it comes to application design. Toss in the OS X dock at the bottom and that 900 runs awful short of your typical display in a lot of instances. This is one area Apple has been lagging behind on. I can only guess, but I would imagine it has something to do with tradeoffs on other pieces of the puzzle... like glass, LED and clarity. There are also considerations for display element size (afore mentioned density issues). Hopefully sooner rather than later someone will be able to separate font size and pixel size. That way you can design things like OS dialog/menu's etc... for a specific size rather than specific amount of display elements. IE smaller dot pitch screens display smaller font point for point.

The Bad:

Glass Gloss Glare Display is certainly hit or miss. The backlight can overpower most any indoor lighting problems but forget dealing with sunshine. It is a mirror under an uncomfortably large range of lighting situations and with the black bezel it will always have at least some reflection. As lovely as this screen is under the right circumstances it is really a problem under the wrong ones. Trade offs on glossy screens are nothing new... but they are new to the 15.4 macbook pro. In the past Apple has offered a choice. A Crucial choice since they are the ONLY providers of the hardware. If a Matte option is not produced and they migrate the 17" Pro to glossy this is going to be a real area of contention between apple and its longstanding core of graphics professionals. For me the Pro's outweigh the cons on the glare but I can see where it would not for some folks. Do go check this out at the store or through a friend if possible before purchasing (also applies for the new macbook as well). And be sure you move it around to catch lights at the less than optimum angle.

Trackpad Woes. Yes I love the trackpad and yes it is in the good section. However some of the magic is having problems. Since it is so large that your palms are generally in contact while typing there is some smarts in play trying figure out when you are trying to use it. It works for the most part but it is fairly slow to switch to accepting inputs at times. Also While I personally have not been having the problem there is a pretty big uproar on the Apple forums with folks reporting some click problems on the new laptops. IE clicks do not register. There is word that Apple will be releasing a software update to address the problem. I am hopping it is tied in with the issue I am having and both will be resolved.

Lack of an included VGA/DVI/S adaptor for the mini display port. Even Apple does not yet have a screen out that directly utilizes the new port on these machines. The first (the new drool inducing Cinema display) should be shipping later this month if it is not already... but it is insanely priced for a monitor at 800 bucks vrs 3-400 for a decent non-mac alternative. To not include the dongle and then have the nerve to sell them for 30 freaking dollars is uncool in the extreme and is pretty much the only sour note in my experience thus far with my transition to Apple.

Lack of the native ability to close the screen without sending the device to sleep. I am fine with a default behavior to do this. But there should be an option to change it as needed. One truly annoying example of why this is needed is airtunes. I use my laptop to drive nice speakers. While I am not actively utilizing the laptop I like to keep it closed so that the display does not get dusty and is better protected against accidents. I also like to remain logged into messenger and to have up to date E-mail without having to leave the display open. For me this is a really annoying issue. For others it might not be a big deal. There is an application available for free that enables this behavior however I have read of a few instances in which people had problems with the device over heating. It seems the screen stays on as a result of this program. What truly annoys me is obviously this mode of operation is allowed by the OS as the system does operate with the lid closed when an external monitor and input devices are attached. Granted in the grand scheme of things this problem is a paper cut... highly annoying but ultimately not a huge deal.

Battery life. It sucks. Dedicated graphics battery life is 2-3ish. Integrated is better so long as you are not doing video/flash etc... Previous generation was a solid 4-5 hour machine. What really bites is the reduced the battery size. The new CPU and Graphics were supposed to make this a zero sum change in battery life. In reality not so much. This is not a Morning to lunch machine. You need to close the lid as often as possible if you need to actually stretch much beyond 2 hours of use with any kind of safety margin. While not a major issue for me I have go to think it verges on a deal breaker for some eyeing it for a college machine where lectures are long, and accessible power outlets scarce. I have little doubt the drop in battery size was directly tied to the weight. The unibody gained weight over the previous iteration even with the battery diet. When will manufacturers learn that useable battery life is one of the few acceptable weight penalties most real mobile users are willing to pay. If I were after a truly svelte portable machine this is not where I would be looking. The macbook and or air both are more attractive from a portable standpoint. They should have left the battery capacity alone. On the brighter side there is a chance for a software update that may improve the battery issue as evidently there are issues with the new Nvidia chips. However the improvement there is likely going to be related to the sleep drain. Currently it is more than a percent an hour which is quite annoying compared to most other laptops that often loose only 2-3% a DAY in sleep mode including the previous Macbook Pro.

Conclusion:

This is a real slick machine and you will be hard pressed to find a sexier design... especially in this class of machine (mobile muscle). But like most bombshells it comes with baggage. Only you can decide if you are willing to put up with the 'drama' in order to have this baby on your arm. All in all this is a damn nice machine. But its quirks are not to be 'glossed over' lightly. Hands on experience is highly recommended prior to plunking down hard earned money for what will likely be a long term companion in your life. One thing that cannot be denied is that Apple set a new bar in construction with the new unibody style. One can only hope it is a sign of things to come for Laptop design in general. If initial net reviews are any indication the new display is polarizing... from the glare, to the LED, to the Imac style black bezel it engenders strong opinions from both extremes... sometimes from the same person. Lack of Blue Ray/HDMI is a major bummer for many but of limited concern from my view point. HDMI has limitations and Apple may just be right when it says that Blu Ray is likely to be short lived in the face of HD online content. Lack of higher resolution options is largely off set by the reality of utilizing external displays when such is needed... besides if you really need it in a laptop it is available in the 17 inch machine which is almost as portable as most other manufacturers 15.4 designs.

President Elect Obama: Thoughts, Concerns and What Comes Next

2008-11-10T16:12:00.002-06:00

And the winner of the poison pill is of course Obama. While he didn't take the crown quite as decisively as Reagan against Mondale he certainly did not suffer the fate of the last two elections going down to the wire... hell past the wire. Unlike 'W' Obama can now claim a decent mandate from the people without qualifying for a straight jacket. Considering that, I think it is very important to consider that one of the first points made in his victory speech was not one of vindication. It was to reach out to those who did not vote for him and to promise to be their president too. Here is hoping that statement was not so much pandering and was a sincere statement indicative of how he will act once sworn in. It would be a welcome change.

So much is being said about the Obama campaign effort and the folks that ran it I cannot resist a few comments. One... the Obama campaign was not 'new'. It was the epitome of a campaign. At least that dewy eyed idealistic view to which most subscribe at some point or other in the course of learning about how our democracy works. I wrote a post about "The Audacity of Hope" which I somewhat snidely referred to alternatively as "Mr. Obama goes to Washington". Well I stand corrected. Occams Razor says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. To explain the success of the Obama campaign one must subscribe to one of two theories. One, they were that savvy and that good at reading the tea leaves and called all the right shots.... or that there was something fundamentally different about them from typical campaigns. Namely that they were not trying to 'create an image'. They were campaigning for a candidate who knew where he stood and who was not searching for what to say to make people more likely to vote for him... but was instead searching for better ways to say what it was he believed in so that people could decide to vote for him. And they did that.... they didn't do it where they were 'supposed to' according to the 'book'. They did it EVERYWHERE. If the Obama camp actually did pull off creating 'the image' of Obama... well frankly they should go work for Madame Cleo and be banned from Vegas. I have had my doubts about Obama... and many remain. But of one thing I am fairly certain at this point. He is a new breed. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. Whether or not he even would have won a more typical election will be a discussion for years to come. Bush, Iraq and a number of other factors had the deck stacked pretty hard against the Republicans.

The Obama campaign is Amazon when it first came on the scene. Before Amazon nobody had really figured out how to make 'online' business work. After it the game is different. Nobody will win a national election from this point forward without harnessing the internet at least as effectively as Obama. This was what gave them the ability to pull in small money on a scale simply not believed possible before just as Amazon was able to deliver 'wholesale' to the public in a way previously thought impossible. It is what allowed them to reach out and touch so many people.

So what about the massive turnout? Well it didn't really happen. More ballots were cast than in any other election... but as a percentage of registered voters the turn out was effectively the same as for 2004. The big story of the Obama campaign in history books is most likely to be the money... not who it put in the voting booth. The story regarding turnout and the difference in the campaign is the defeat of Hillary in the Primaries... not as much the presidential win vrs McCain.

Obama's first moves:

Obama continues to show a mix of old school vrs new school. Campaign team ? New. VP ? Old. Chief of Staff? Old. His first major staff appointment is a 7 year vet of the white house in the same roll circa Slick Willie. Has a nasty history of partisan dealing. A lot of Obama's image is riding on how he allows his chief of staff to operate. I do not immediately assume that his past history in the Clinton White House is an indication of how he will operate in an Obama White House. He will take his lead from Obama just as he did from Clinton in the past.

As for fears of how Obama would treat with shall we say 'questionable' leaders of the world? I think Obama should be putting some fears to rest based on his initial response to Iran. Granted the true test is yet to come.

The decision to create a national CTO (not to mention the campaign in general) gives me hope that this administration will a hell of a lot more technically savvy and might just push at least some aspects of US Bureaucracy into the 21st century.

Personal Tech Review: Making the Mac Jump

2008-10-26T09:05:00.004-06:00

So the time for new laptops rolled around. It was time for a change. And not just any change, we decided to make the leap from PC to Mac. So a Macbook for her and a Macbook Pro for me. Baseline models which are running $1400 and $2000 respectively.

Why Mac?:

To some extent my decision to go with Mac was a process of elimination. I have used Windows and several flavors of Linux over the past few years and have just found them lacking. All things being equal my first choice would have been to get a new XP laptop however, since Microsoft has decreed that XP will die so I would have to pay extra to get an older OS these days. Vista bites the wax tadpole and I have zero interest in paying one single penny of my money for it much less extra to get the OS I want in the first place.

All that aside Apple has had one thing I have been drooling over for the last few years. The Macbook pro design. I have been waiting patiently for the PC laptop equivalent for going on 5 years... and the closest yet has been the freakin HP netbook. Seems simple enough, make a high quality, durable case in as slim a package as possible. And yet Apple remains alone in the field of a high end aluminum laptop design. Dell is working on their magnesium composite designs but they just can't seem to get them as slim. Lenovo has gotten into 'air' territory with their exorbitantly priced X300 but still missed the boat on style. Form does not trump function. However when it comes to Laptops, form is function when they are your daily companion. A Nice Keyboard is a necessary element. A good screen is a MUST have. A Durable case a key element. Take two equally functional laptops... and the one with better form wins. The new Macbook and Macbook Pro bring all of this in spades. Clean, elegant and incredibly solid design. Superb LCD evenly backlit screen. New gigantic multi-touch capacitive glass trackpads that is also a multi-function button. Credible speakers (at least on the Pro). Glassed screen and of course aluminum case. In short the design is just out of this world.

Apple has long had a design edge but in the time that Jobs has been back he has engineered two other HUGE changes in Apple computers which is leading to their growth. OS X, and the move to Intel chips. The Intel Chips and boot camp have changed a major issue with regards to making a jump.... now you can jump back to windows even after taking the plunge if you absolutely have to. OS X provides a solid OS which makes a strong argument for not needing to jump back. It is stable. The programs are intuitive and consistent in a way Microsoft can only dream about.

The Apple Premium:

Much has been made of the premium nature of Apple with regards to equipment cost. Apple does not go after the bottom of the market. But if you compare them with equivalent PC equipment (ie of similar quality, spec etc...) you will find they are certainly not the most expensive. A great example is the cost comparison between the Mac Air and it's only real competitor in the Lenovo X300 and X301. Suffice it to say that Macbook's and Macbook Pro's are very competitively prices for the specs they bring to the table.

The Transition:

Once upon a time the switch from PC to Mac was one of no return. Incompatible file formats, completely different software etc... meant you faced a completely new world and often couldn't even talk to the old one. Today? AIM, GMAIL, Yahoo Mail, POP Mail, Exchange accounts make for a seamless transfer. If you know all your account information then you can be up and running on typical activities in no time. Itunes is by and large the most common media management option and it is cross platform these days. If you get by with windows media player then you probably have an issue... at least if you have a large wmv collection as there is no solution for that out of the box with Mac.... just as there are no out of the box solutions for quicktime on PC.

However think of it this way... if your most common interactions with a computer involves a url, mp3 or mpg... PC, Mac or LINUX makes relatively little difference these days. And Mac is probably easier to deal with than PC. In a week of playing with OS X and its default applications I am in awe. Apple has long been about ease of use but it has been elevated to high art since the old days. What quirks there are largely are consistent meaning you only have to learn them once and then they apply pretty much every where else. OS X has a consistency of design that Microsoft users can only dream of.

The remaining major concern of such swaps has to remain Microsoft Office. Currently Office users have relatively little issue since a current version of Office for Mac is available ( this has been an on and off again situation with Mac software ). So while it is not free you can make a relatively easy transition either by buying the apple native suite, or by loading up your existing office disc in an XP install on boot camp or fusion. For those just worried about being able to to office type tasks you should remember that open office is free and quite capable... and can even read/edit all but the newest office formats. There is also the iWork suite available very reasonably from apple (70 bucks).

Basic file transfers which used to be such a bane of OS swaps is now almost childishly simple with usb thumb drives, or even external hard drives.

Conclusion:
I think the best way to sum up our choice is that the question is no longer " Why Mac?". The questions is now "Why NOT Mac?".

Update: Nokia N810

2008-09-30T13:21:00.005-06:00

A while back I wrote up some thoughts on the Nokia N-810 internet tablet right after I bought it. I wanted to take some time to revisit it now that I have owned it for several months (Jan - Sept '08).

So I guess the single biggest question I had prior to owning this thing was how much I would actually use it. The answer has been mixed. At first I toyed with it all the time. I read a few books with FBReader and think it does well enough that I have considered using it as a E-book reader. Battery life is the limiter there. Once the newness wore off itgot relegated to my backpack for 2-3 months and rarely came out. The UI was painfully slow way to often. Anyway, one of the largest reasons I got it was for long trips. I finally went on one, a road trip from Alabama to Boston and back covering just over a week. And it came ito it's own. E-mail and web access along with periodic GPS information on the road made this a very valuable trip companion. Its easy to use sizeover my laptop largely negated any problems with the sometimes slow UI that had been responsible for its long naps in my rucksack. Anyway after I got back I became determined to tinker with it again and see if I could not begin using it more consistently. But after I got back I once again was generally to annoyed with the user interface to break it out rather than wait for time on a laptop etc... A huge factor in all this was the lack of stability in the RSS reader and the E-mail application. These represented the bulk of what i wanted to access with the device and they were some of the buggiest pieces of software I had ever used. I initially thought my ability to take notes with my bluetooth keyboard would keep it employed but even that prooved problematic. The keyboard connection had serious problems with duplicating keystrokes or failing to register all together. I tried using it for a couple of weeks but eventually found myself reaching more and more for my legal pad when I knew I had to take serious notes on something.

Enter Diablo. The Diablo update is annoying for folks on earlier versions of 2008 because it requires a full re-flash of the device. This means an awful lot of tweaks and such are lost and backing up this device can be frustrating pain. However I finally decided that since I just was not using it all that often I didn't have anything to lose so I just flashed it and dealt with whatever I lost along the way. Diablo, or the lack of crap loaded thanks to the re-flash or some combination led to a much more responsive device. Apps loaded faster, web updated quicker and youtube capability was back on the web browser (had to use a standalone application shortly after getting the device originally due to a flash update issue). Most importantly the RSS reader and E-mail applications gained some much needed stability. Once I got my feeds all in order and IMAP access to G-mail up and running it quickly became my default device around the house. So I have been using it now for the better part of 2 months on a daily basis and my laptop at home only gets used when I really need a keyboard or larger screen. It is also experience a revival at work as the connection with my igo keyboard is now much more consistent and I am able to use it as my primary note taking device.

Overall:

I have had my ups and downs with this device, and for a little while I thought I was going to have to reverse many of my previous thoughts on this device. The Diablo update saved it in my eyes and now it is largely upholding my early impressions. Still once I get down to it I think this is superb hardware hampered by half assed software. I somewhat over estimated the ability of the maemo community to plug some gaps. I really thought Nokia or the community would gin up some sort of serious PIM application and office document capacity. I came to the understanding that Maemo was also severely flawed which led to the device spending 3-4 months of the 10 I have owned it largely unused. The Diablo update has not removed all the problems but it has made the device useable in several key areas for me. It is good enough now that the device has become genuinely useful.

Currently its biggest problem in my eyes is that it just does not integrate well with my other toys. By contrast my HTC TynTyn is an extension of my work and personal computing in ways I can only dream about the N-810 being... largely thanks to tightly integrated Office and Outlook clients. The one boon of suffering through Microsoft's mobile OS.

I make no retraction on my words regarding the GPS. It is horrible and the new update and AGPS beta do not seem to really improove anything.

Song/picture/movie handling (PMP duties) are not good compared to I-pod but capable. The biggest problem being that the fancy management programs like Canola over taxes the hardware and video codec support is spotty (and that is putting it nicely). A lot of the warts could be overlooked if it just plain responded faster... but pictures are not fast to load, and video's are just a joke. Music management is good for small collections but large collections get unwieldy in a hurry.

For the future:

I am seriously looking at the 3g I-Phone in part because this device HAS become so useful. The more time I have spent with the apple golden child the more I am swayed by its one crowning glory. Immediate touch screen response. The on screen keyboard while annoying is 'good enough'. The two things holding me back are the keyboard and the lack of tethering. But the bulk of my tethering these days is to the tablet... not my laptop. So I likely would not feel the need for tethering. The more I have used it the more impressed I have become with I-phones ability to get the most out of its screen. The more I experience the responsiveness the more annoyed I get with the relative un-responsiveness of my HTC Tyn Tyn and the tablet... not to mention the two devices vrs one I could have in the I-phone.

When I made my initial decision to buy the Nokia the apple toys were not in the running for three reasons. I-Phone lack of 3g, Touch lack of bluetooth tethering and both lacking Exchange support. The I-Phone now has 3g and Exchange sync. While it is still lacking on the bluetooth front much of that can be gotten via jail breaking.

If I were buying new tech right now the 3g I-Phone is what I would get especially if they go to a 32gb version. The wimax tablet is a non-starter for me and the new hardware has yet to show its face... and in the end I am not sure I will sink money into a device like this again without Exchange/Office document capability. Also in the running is the HTC Touch Pro and Touch HD. Both have screens rivaling the Tablet with cellular capability AND full exchange integration. However I am keeping a close eye on Android. They have already loaded early versions on the tablet and I imagine that work will continue especially now that devices with it are finally starting to hit shelves. If Google nails exchange capability (something they are committed to doing they say) then the tablet will re-enter my thoughts. Maemo is tragically flawed at this time and barring a more dedicated support it will drag this nice piece of hardware down with it.

--
Posted By Tmortn to TANSTAAFL at 9/30/2008 01:21:00 PM

Presidential Update: Nomination, VP's and the Financial Crisis

2008-09-30T11:07:00.002-06:00

So it has been a while since I talked politics and much has happened. Obama managed to wrest the nomination from Clinton. I for one was not surprised at Hillary's initial reaction when Obama got the delgates. I was surprised when she back tracked on her vow to fight all the way to the convention in less than 48 hours. I really would love to know the details behind that change of heart. It could have been her already regrouping for another run down the road. Because if she had taken the fight all the way in I think all bridges would have been burnt. The Democratic nomination process got pretty dirty towards the end and I think it let McCain steal a march on them.

Of course we now have the VP nominations to talk about. I think enough dust has settled from the Palin decision to take a better look at it. But first let us talk about Biden. The choice is one I have a hard time understanding from Obama. He road 'change' and 'new' and 'not typical washington' all the way to the Democratic nomination. He flaunted his lack of credentials to a large extent by showing how inept those who had them were already proving to be. Then he picks a VP candidate who pretty much embodies all of those characteristics. Same old washington? Check. Not new? Check. Not someone credible as representing non-partisan change politics? Check. Biden is about as stereotypical politician as you can get this side of an SNL skit. The only reason I could see going that route would be to add some 'gravitas' to the ticket and Biden just does not add that. He is most famous for telling a wheelchair bound person to stand up, and for plagiarizing speeches. On the other hand he is all and all unremarkable and safe in terms of VP picks. He might help swing his home state, he is aggressive and can walk a more dangerous line in terms of his interactions with the opposition. In otherwords picking him was a page out of Politics 101. A very disconcerting move in my mind for a candidate predicated on changing politics.

On the flip side we have McCain breaking new ground, anointing a wet behind the ears freshly minted Governor of Alaska. 2 years state governor experience and prior to that mayor of a flyspeck bush town in the hinterlands of Seward's icebox. To say the least she was not on the radar, and she is NOT politics as usual when it comes to VP picks. In short she is the kind of pick I much more expected from Obama. She enhances aspects of McCain in the way Biden dims down aspects of Obama... the choices here could not be more diametrically opposed. Any arguments about her ability to perform her job or even to step into presidential shoes if McCain dies are largely moot because it would be hard to argue she has less experience than Obama. To debate the differences will only hurt Obama because democrats cannot not shine a light on Palin in that regard that will not also land on Obama. I for one think Palin would be a better choice than Biden in terms of being president. On the other hand I have compared the Republican effort in this election as doomed to repeat Mondales fate when facing Regan... I didn't think they would go so far as to pick a stand in for Geraldine Feraro to boot :-) Ok that is it for reffering to the second major party nomination of a woman for VP and the first republican nod. In my mind it just is not an issue.

So the stage is set. McCain has rolled the dice and for the most part I think he succeeded in showing folks he is still a Maverick, not just a tired cliche. Obama has moved to the center a bit to solidify his shaky party. The question now is did Obama dial it back to much or did McCain reach to far? For the most part it does not matter. Forget the stage that has been set by the past year of posturing by the candidates. The scene has been changed and the stage is fresh. Financial problems are the new Iraq. It is not going to be fixed quickly. In all likely hood it is going to get worse before it gets better. Right now I honestly believe that a presidential win for either candidate is going to be a poison pill "Herbert Hoover" style. For those not up on presidential history, Hoover was the president in office when October 29th 1929 happend and it rapidly torpedoed his administration through no real fault of his own. Of course this situation is slightly different as this election is rapidly going to become focused on this particular problem. So they will have an advantage Hoover did not have. But I do not think that is going to be sufficient to shelter them from the fallout of the first serious economic meltdown of the new millennium. In one sense it could be far worse as they will spend the next couple of months promising they can avert and/or fix the problem and then be clearly 'to blame' when their solutions fail to work. It isn't that their plans have no chance. I just don't see them being able to back out years/decades of problem rapidly enough to matter come the next election cycle. The current attention span of public discourse just is not sufficient which is a shame. To make matters worse the public patience has already been severely tried by the debacle that has become Iraq and the war on terror.

Financial Crisis:

This crisis is nothing new. We saw a massive downturn in the late 90's when the tech bubble burst. We saw the savings and loan scandal in the late 80's and now we have the sub prime crisis. They ALL have a very common thread. Irresponsible high risk economic decision making on a MASSIVE scale. What makes this one worse than the previous two is the scale and distribution of the risk. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alone comprised 12 trillion dollars of assets, much of which has been poisoned by the sub prime meltdown. The securities floated from many other institutions based on the same mess have circulated the globe. A very large part of me wants to say just let them lie in the graves they dug, consequences be damned. The problem with that is this has the potential to destroy multiple national economies as we now know them. How so? Economies are largely based on trust. The higher flying international trade has gotten the more based on trust it has become. Investment is all about trust. I am going to give you X amount of Money in hopes I will get Y amount back. When faith in that process dies it kills investment. As for what actually drives that trust? Good luck finding out or explaining it. Reading tea leaves, monitoring skirt lengths or even super bowl victories have as good a track record of predicting it as 'expert opinion'. What really is not up for debate is that when trust in the process fails it is devastating. Basic economic interaction today is based on trust. Trust that a piece of paper is worth goods and services. Stop and think about that for a second. We accept money in exchange for the lion's share of our efforts through the day. We do this because it is something we trust to be more productive than going out and trying to meet our needs in other ways... like hunting. Trust in the investment processes is fundamental to the monetary system. Without it banks are a non-starter. They can only afford to hold your money if their is profit in it for them, and without investment there is no way for banks to make money short of taking yours. That in turn reduces the appeal of banks in general which starts a vicious cycle. If you want a crash course in some of the potential side effects study post WW 1 German economics, or for a more recent example check out Zimbabwe.

Anyway, when you hit times like this it takes wide reaching leadership from the top to chart a course out of it. In short, problems like this are why government exists. The problem is we have been so prosperous for so long that we have allowed our government to invent new roles and responsibilities for itself and now we are stretched to far to react well to problems like this one. In short, the US government is just as over leveraged as the whole sub prime mortgage industry. Thus we are in a catch 22. A card government has to play is the bottomless bucket of cash card... IE we spend it first and ask where the hell it came from later. It is something of a slight of hand trick and the idea is that the results of spending the money eventually serves to justify from whence it came. Sort of arguing that the chicken comes before the egg, or that the ends justify the means. The problem with that method is it can backfire and it might become obvious to everyone that the egg does indeed come before the chicken and that the means are as important as the end result. Which is right? There is no way to tell. To the victors go the spoils, or in other word what actually happens will in fact determine what was right. The problem is you can only pull so much money out of a hat before people begin to question money period... and the US government has been pulling money from nowhere for quite a while now. You may not think of it as such but I am sure you are familiar with the term 'Deficit spending' as it has been a standard sound bite for most of the war on Terror. When the common person engages in deficit spending we pull out a credit card. It is the same for the government in that they spend money they do not have. The difference is the US government doing it is like you doing it when you own the credit card company. If you really consider that for a while I think you will begin to see the problems. A little is fine, a lot bankrupts the company.

Let me try to place the proposed financial system bailout in perspective. The number being thrown about for it is 700 billion dollars. 1000 billion is a trillion. Government revenue for 2007 was estimated at about 2.4 trillion... or 2,400 billion. Translation. The proposed bailout represents about 30% of the US governments income from 2007. For every $1 dollar in taxes you spent that means $0.30 would go to the bailout. The problem is before the bailout the government already had a budget spending something like $1.14 dollars for every dollar they received. In other words the US government was already spending more money they they collected, and now they are talking about spending ~30% more. Another way to look at this is the government did not even collect more than 700billion total until 1985. The only time we have seen deficit spending in that range was at the hight of the cold war and Reganomics... and even Regan only got it up to 25% ('82). The current 2008 budget is estimating 13.9% deficit spending. This would ADD another 30% to toss us out there at 43.9%. Imagine if you will... that you went out and overan your household budget by 43%. That is you had to go on credit for almost half of what you earn in a year. Assuming 10% of your budget was discrectionary (able to spend on anything) it would take you 4+ years of spending it on nothing else to catch back up. Or you have to impact other budget items... like saving for retirement etc... You could make minimum payments to your card and ease the pain in return for paying back craploads more money over a much longer term. Now imagine if you did this every year. Sooner or later you get so far behind it just does not work and you end up spending all available money just to deal with interest. The US government is rapidly working itself into a similar situation.

Something has GOT to give and there are only 3 chunks of government spending large enough to even think about carving this kind of money out of in any kind of reasonable time frame. They are DOD, Social Security, and Medicare. All of them sit around 20%, or in other words those three things account for 60% of the US budget year in and year out. Social Security is the piggy bank that gets raided when we 'deficit spend' and it is overdrawn to say the least so we would have to pull from somewhere else. The only other choice is to produce more money. In the past that effectively meant sacking another country for their wealth. Today with paper currency a choice is also to just print more of it. Taking money from any of the three major budget areas has severe consequences. Generating money from thin air has even more severe consequences... and conquest is really no longer a viable option. Now, sit down and try to figure out how you juggle the problems and I think you will see why I think Obama and McCain are completely and utterly screwed. Change... it is an over tired cliche, but change is coming no matter who wins and not just because it is in their campaign slogans. Change is coming courtesy of the financial crisis, ready or not here it comes.

Gas prices solutions: 55mph speed limit vrs Telecomuting

2008-05-23T12:40:00.005-06:00

So gas has hit $4 a gallon. Crude has hit all time highs and suddenly everyone is in a panic over what can be done. One proposal in particular is suggesting we go back to a national 55mph speed limit.

NO

It is not safer, and unless people actually adhere to the limit it will not do anything to improve gas mileage. It would improve ticket revenue however.

If you question my statement about safety just go look it up and find whatever sources you deem credible. There were more wrecks and more fatal wrecks by any measure made during the double nickel era and was followed by a sharp decline after it was repealed. Simple physics says it should be safer... less speed less damage etc. That is true enough but the problem is that the vast majority of people paid zero heed to the signs. Average highway speeds did not decline at the onset of 55mph limits... in fact average highway speed has generally increased over time with improved car design. Today's typical sedan is a far cry from a 70's piece of heavy iron with leaf springs. However because a fair percentage of drivers will ALWAYS adhere rigidly to the posted speed limits this meant there was often a greater relative speed difference between cars on the highway. Relative speed difference is what makes wrecks dangerous. It does not matter if we are talking about a car and a light post or two cars. The relative speed difference is the determining factor in how bad it will be. You also have to remember that the equation for deriving kinetic energy is exponential. That means the energy that has to be dissipated by a car moving at 80mph is not 4 times that of a car moving at 20mph... it is more like 16x the energy.

The equation is E = .5 (m * v^2) or Energy equals half of mass times velocity squared.

Use kg for weight and meters per second for velocity and you will arrive at joules. Map some speeds and you will see what happens. If everyone stayed within +- 5mph of 55 it would indeed be safer... but when speeds are split 55 - 85 that 30mph difference is worse than say a wreck between 25 and 55. Highway wrecks involving 55mph difference.. ie running into a stationary object.. are pretty much the same as hitting it at 85... you are just more sure of fatality to a few more decimal places. Crash tests generally take place around 35-45mph and very few cars can maintain their integrity at that speed much less higher velocity impacts.

So barring a completely different and vastly more effective enforcement mechanism there is no chance lowering the speed limit will increase safety or lower overall gas usage. Both simply because people will not obey it... not because the idea couldn't produce those results.

So what can be done about gas prices? Obviously numerous alternatives are in the wings. However for the most part those options are only in the wings because the higher price of gas has made them attractive. If gas went back down to $2-3 a gallon those ventures would dry up in pretty short order. Why? Because the new technologies are going to run consumers at least as much in total cost of owner ship as current cars with fuel costs around that level. Alternatives are needed so I am not that sure lower gas prices are a good thing. But if you want to lower them it is easy. You lower demand.

The majority of gas demand in the US is driven by the daily work commute of the average American. Cut a day of work and you cut that source of demand by ~20%. But I have to work you say? Fine... work from home. The overwhelming majority of white collar work in the US is computer based. We have this wonderful thing called the internet which virtually all said white collar workers have access to at home. They can do computer work at home and only come on days where face to face events are required. As a standing policy I would suggest a 3/2/2 workweek system. 3 in , 2 out and weekend.

Mon, Wed and Friday in the Office. Tuesday and Thursday as standard remote work days. That would produce a large drop in gas demand if it were implemented across the board in the US. It is realistic, and it is overdue. Lower traffic to work leads to lower gas consumption, less congestion, less smog, less emissions and improves quality of life as you spend less time away from home. It seems so simple. But decades of entrenched thought dictates what the work week is and means. While technically easy to implement this calls for a major change in how corporate bean counters and managers think.

MLB The Show '08

2008-04-09T22:27:00.002-06:00

Had to toss my two cents out about this game. First off I played ball through College and as a general rule I despise baseball video games despite the fact I always have to try them out 'just to see' if they got it. The last baseball game I enjoyed playing more than five minutes was 'bases loaded' on Nentendo.

So... I don't like the standard game mode for all the usual reasons. Fielding just does not work well when you are bugs bunny (playing everyone). And reactions are always messed up because you don't know which player will be selected. But 'Road To the SHOW' is awesome. At least for a pitcher.

What did they get right?

Setting pitches up realistically, hitters strengths and weaknesses are not givens... IE leave a ball in a hot zone and it leaves the park. Most games just don't do well (like most people) with the fact that even a hall of fame caliber hitter is only successful 3 out of 10 times on average even if they get something to hit. That said, screw up in a count favoring the hitter and mistakes will get hammered. Get ahead and hitters get more defensive and are less likely to jump on something... but its still more percentages than 'given'... ie they will hammer it behind in the count and they will miss ahead in the count. Fielding for a pitcher works fairly well though they seem unrealistic on lack of response on shots up the middle. That seems to be tied to your players fielding ability... ie rack up a higher fielding ability with training and more up the middle balls become playable (tappers etc...).

Variable strike zone with ups is only too realistic and VERY frustrating at times.

What did they get wrong?

Default pitch selection signals are horrendous... or maybe that was supposed to reflect bad calling. The game seems to think you have to mix high and low regardless of the pitcher on the hills capabilities and it will call a crap load of up in the zone pitches. There are only a handful of big league pitchers that are successful up in the zone consistently and even they spend most of their time in the lower quarter of the zone. Watch any game and you will see that it is extremely rare for a catcher to ask for a pitch to intentionally be 'up' in the zone.

If you are going to have a 'sweet spot' release point mechanic and you nail it then the pitch should go to the location or reasonably close.

Players should not start at 'F' qualities across the board. Initial point distribution should allow a good 'all round' player or one strong in a couple of areas to be so weak in others. Choosing starting points seems pointless since everything is so awful anyway. If a player was straight F's they wouldn't be in pro ball. Remember those are the attributes that got them a contract. Applying those attributes in games consistently is then what gets them to the show.

The 'missions' or whatever they want to call them are very hit or miss. For a pitcher they love to have random 'strike the batter out' requests which are mostly silly, especially considering how many other little details they got right. Pitchers rarely are on the hook to deliver a strike out. Runner(s) in scoring position with less than two outs is the ONLY time they would even work with a strike out in mind rather than JUST getting them out. At the least getting an out without a runner scoring should have always been a 'positive result'. Measuring pitching success rarely comes down to individual batters. Instead there should have been a pitching chart evaluation for the cumulative outing. IE what percentage of batters were you ahead in the count on, what was your strike/ball ratio, how many times did not let the lead off man on? Etc... these are all things that could have been standard evaluations after the game that were not really to be seen.

Training... man they really goofed that one if you ask me. What they should have done is provided a basic set of points per period in between games and then made players choose what areas to work on. Great performances in games would then have generated bonuses to attributes that were successfully used. IE if a pitcher got a lot of clutch outs they would be granted improvements to clutch performance and been able to focus training elsewhere. Heavy successful use of a pitch would develop aspects of that pitch etc...

All in all though the pitching experience is fantastic from my standpoint. I play every pitch and can REALLY get into the game. Hitters actually seem to respond to the way they are pitched. IE a hiiter who has their weakness exploited will adjust and you can then get them in other areas of the zone (or get hammered if you keep doing the same thing). Larger game trends like reliance on a certain pitch in certain situations will also get you in trouble. The mental game of pitch selection and location is there better than in ANY other game I have ever played.

Road to the show for a fielder is less well done. I don't think they should have limited player involvement to only the plays they were involved in directly. They should have just made it at least every pitch that was put in play. You don't have any chance to get in the 'mental' game of a fielder. Also hitting goals are asinine. Goals like 'reach base safely, or don't strike out' should be for an entire game, not specific at bats. Again hitting just isn't the kind of activity that lends itself well to such specific goals in a given AB. Hit and Run success should be weigted against the quality of pitch received and what was done... getting the ball on the ground to the correct side of the field successfully for a hit is NOT the only means of judging it a success. It is a percentage play in the right counts... which brings up signs. When you bat or are on base then checking signs should be pretty much a given part of every pitch except in obvious 'swing away' circumstances. Also the camera should provide a hitters eye perspective rather than just low behind the catcher... the eye hight is extremely important for pitch recognition etc... Though in the long run for a real decent pitch recognition mechanic in a game they are going to have to have a good 3d image for real depth perception judgement

Speaking of that the camera for base runners rounding second should be given a view of the third base coach... or the third base coach should be in a window. Pick Off warnings should come from the base coach and not from the announcers.

Fielding should include backing plays up... pitchers have a LOT of back up responsibilities but I have yet to see them come into play, and the camera angle for most of the backups of third/home are completely unusable.

Spring training... Why the hell do you only go to spring training if you are auditioning for a new contract? Starters play every year, and up and comers content for roster spots. Top Prospects should always be battling for position in spring training. If you want to give an established 'veteran' the option to skip playing spring training out fine. But honestly I think that is where the 'improvement' dynamic should have been most relevant with it being limited in season by success in games. Practice during the season is largely aimed at keeping sharp.. not on developing except in the minors in some cases.

Foul tips... jeesus H _(*@)(*#&% Christ. Every other at bat sometimes seems like the impossible out where all they do is fould the ball off. It does happen... but rarely does it happen more than a couple of times a game, Early on I literally had like 10 batters in a row where they would foul off an average of 6-10 2 strike pitches... was nutz. Happens WAAAAY to much.

All that said, I love the road to the show for a pitcher. You actually play a game of ball and most of the game is 'right' in terms of what happens though the fielding is sometimes goofy.

Election 2008: And then there were four

2008-02-10T21:42:00.002-06:00

So Super Tuesday has come and gone and what do we have. Democrats are in a hoss race. The Clinton Delegate strategy is keeping them in front of the Obama revolution in the sparsely settled zones. Romney bowed out just when the fight was getting good on the republican side but Huckabee and Paul are soldiering on. I do say there are four at the expense of Dr. Paul because realistically there are now only 4 in the running for the nominations. This does not mean there are only 4 possible candidates for the presidency. I hope to see Ron Paul on the election circut... if he gets a fair shake he might stir some things up. But on to the the current real show... the donkey race between Hillary and Obama.

Well last post I said with a hoss race the odds were 50/50 on a party split. I might be smoking crack rock but I think I will stick to them odds. Of course now that the race is polling this closely a lot of folks are talking about a Clinton/Obama ticket. Never say never and there is a lot to say for this one happening. Obama has an obvious 'uniting' theme to get folks behind a Clinton running mate... but the weirdness factor and fox in the hen house element tells me this isn't likely. I really like the idea of Obama departing from politics as usual when it comes to considering potential running mates. The Republicans are going to have a problem with McCain and if Obama chooses wisely and pulls someone in from outside the party, perhaps even from the Republican camp, he could change the rules of the game and split off a chunk of the republican herd... not that he is there by any stretch of the imagination... but its nice to think about what if.

Don't let the close delegate count fool you. For the most part Clinton is still in the drivers seat. Most bobble heads agree that a Convention nomination favors Hillary... all that backlog of dirty behind the scenes politickin of all the Clinton years will pull a LOT of weight when the doors shut on the convention. Obama needs a clear enough mandate from the party to neutralize the super delegate vote otherwise it is likely he will get oh so close... and yet so far from a front running nomination. The scary thing will be if Obama rolls in an eyelash in front of Clinton, and the super delegates toss it to Hillary. It is anyones guess what happens then. Obmama can't go rogue. His message is of uniting and going rogue is the ultimate divisive move. However... the party can split in a less spectacular fashion. Simply dividing the vote will likely knock the democrats out of the running. If Obama pulls ~5% through write ins etc... he hands the election to the Republicans, even if he is no longer a candidate. His fans CAN go rogue.

Talks of a split aside, if you are a Democrat then watching what is evolving has got to be painful. Having a democratic nomination come down to the convention is going to make it very tough on whoever gets it. The mud is slinging and the more it flies the more divided the party will be. This will put enormous pressure on the democrats to scramble immediately just to collect the pieces of their typically scattered party before really focusing on their opponent. Meanwhile the more archaic, less democratic nomination scheme of the Republicans is already doing its thing. Despites the problems McCain has in his own party the writing is on the wall and the healing process begins NOW barring some kind of last mile surge by Mike Huckabee, the issue facing the republicans from here on out will be about getting behind McCain. And after the Republican convention they will come out swinging for the undecideds while the Democrats will be fighting for their own party votes.

A Hillary Nomination is going to throw those undecideds up for much harder contention because the break thus far has been overwhelmingly for Obama. Gen X and Y is starting to throw their weight around and for the most part they will not be happy with a Clinton nod.

**** Update ******

Since I wrote all the above Obama has swept the Potomac primaries and the race is taking on a decidedly different air. A while back I said for Barak to aspire to anything more than a VP nod he would have to string together a solid campaign in a similar manner to the early Dean run in the last election. I did not think it was very likely he could do that and if I wasn't watching it with my own eyes now I would find it hard to believe, yet here he is looking like he has the momentum with a rapidly deflating Hillary striving hard to grasp the crown she thought was fated for her. When Hillary and Bill played the dirty card in South Carolina I said he had to redefine the game or they would out politick him... and damn if he hasn't. Obama has done something no candidate has accomplished since Regan, he has captured the imagination of the American people. He has consistently refused to play the game on his opponents terms and instead has stuck to his ideals and lofty approach to political discourse. The Clinton's held out the bait and it looked like the only responses Barak made would only paint him in a tighter and tighter corner... and he has all but ignored it. Instead he has kept his eye on the prize and refused to get sidetracked with an momentum sucking quagmire of racial posturing. In short he has been a grownup in what has long since degraded into an immature childish dirty game of name calling that we call our national elections of late. Instead he has walked the straight and narrow and come through a very dangerous period in his campaign smelling like roses and looking like he has the hole shot to the convention.

I sincerely hope that I have misjudged the american people and overestimated the Clinton's. I don't agree with all that Obama wants to do. I still think he is long on vision and short on plans if you know what I mean. But at the same time I am the absolute first person to say that the president is the figurehead... the office is the bully pulpit and it is not exactly required that he have it all planned to the 5th significant digit. I don't expect his message to change between now and the convention. I think he has committed to his campaign what and who he is and that change in the sense of choosing different ways of presenting himself just is not a change he is interested in.

My only word of caution to those who see an inevitable Obama coronation at this point is to remember that the Clinton's have been on the ropes numerous times in their long storied careers. True the outlook is bleak... but they have a habit of pulling off the unexpected turn around when least expected. Right now is when they are most dangerous. Do NOT count them out, do NOT take your eyes off of them, they will bite. On the other hand I think they have made one tragic miscalculation. They are now 'the man'. Hillary did such a fine job of establishing herself as a good capable senator that she planted herself in the establishment and it is rankling her to no end. She has fought and fought and fought and finaly has accidentally clawed her way right into the kind of position many of her opponents have found to their disadvantage over the years. It took a freshman senator with a clear element of newness to clearly outline this facet of her for the general public... but the longer this election goes on the more apparent it becomes that she has embraced being the person in power to folks who never could see past the personae to the raw calculated ambition underneath. She thought she could meld the two elements into a final crowning achievement by taking her 'revolution' all the way to the highest office in the land... only here she is so close, only to be getting pushed out by someone with more 'street cred' when it comes to being the radical person fighting for change.

If you wanted to put this in sports parlance here is how I call it right now. Obama has finally taken the ball and it is now his nomination to loose. But he has GOT to put Clinton away. Rolling into the convention without a decisive delegate count in his favor strong enough to rule out the possibility of a brokered convention puts it all back up for grabs. He is now the Patriots on their way to their last score in this years super bowl. Just keep in mind who actually won that game. Put plain... he needs Texas and Ohio the same way he swept the Potomac. It is the next to last hill to climb for the Cinderella man. My hats off to him. If he has done nothing else, I think he has managed to somewhat elevate the level of the game in the world of politics this election... of course their was no where to go but up. But improvement is improvement and I grant him his due.

Election 2008: Where it all stands

2008-01-26T23:11:00.000-06:00

About a year ago I took a look at where I thought the '08 election was headed. So far I think I was pretty on the money with the sole exception of my take on Gore. I really thought he would at least dabble his toe in the water a little. But for now he is completely out of it. No Polls, no endorsements, nothing. If he maintains this lack of involvement then it bodes well for Clinton because I really think if he came out and endorsed Obama it would put Barak over the top for good.

I still think it is Clinton's race to loose. The current Delegate count is paltry compared to what is about to go down next tuesday and the sweeping range of states going to the polls is one far more in line with the general election than is the early going onesy twosy deals we have had so far. Super Tuesday is going to be the deciding factor. 24 states are casting votes and if anyone walks away with a decisive victory they will have the baton. Right now my betting money is on Hillary. There is to much experience in her campaign when it comes to dealing with the national stage. To date it seems to me that Barak has relied somewhat on snake charming... hands on old fashioned pump enough crowds up and roll on them through election night. But in the comming week that just won't be possible. You can hit the key areas of a state in a week and build a serious wave of momentum heading into an election, but you can't do that in a week in 24 states which means the deciding factor won't be emotion. It will be a more general view of Obama carrying the day. Perhaps the wave is big enough for him to ride it a little longer. But my guess is the next set of debates is going to frame heavily his somewhat thin depth when it comes to concrete plans of how he wants to lead this country. Calling for change is nice. People have heard him and now they are listening. Soon they are going to want to know more than he wants change. They are going to want to know what KIND of change, and how fast it will happen. And if you ask me this week is the week he has to deliver something.

If he does and does it well I think we are looking at a split Super Tuesday (within 5 points) and a grueling remainder to the rest of the democratic primary. If he doesn't answer the bell then I think Clinton walks away with a 10% or more lead and she will be damn hard for Barak to catch at that point.

Edwards is road Kill as far as the nomination goes and he would probably serve the party well by tossing the towel in and trying to push his votes in a direction that will settle the question of Hillary and Barak before it becomes to divisive for the party. If I were a Democrat I would be seriously concerned right now. Hillary will not concede. And Barak looks to be in it for the long haul. The one thing the party can simply not tolerate once it hits the national stage is a conflicted core with folks on the loosing side upset enough to jump ship.... or worse, to out and out go rouge and split the party thus putting two Democratic candidates in the general election.

On the other side we have the republican race begining to come into focus. Guiliani has been a virtual no show in the results thus far and is trailing Ron Paul. Huckabee seems to be popular but not popular enough to be a threat and will likely fall out barring a miracle on super tuesday. Which leaves the field as McCain and Romney. The Republicans had better suck it up and get behind McCain if you ask me. He will stack up far better than Romney against either of the two Democratic front runners. If they want any hope, and I mean any hope at all they had better circle the wagons around one candidate and pray like hell Hillary and Obama go right down to the wire and splinter the democratic party.

The real interestin thing going on in the republican race to me is Ron Paul. Romney or McCain makes no difference to my mind. If they come out facing a unified democratic party behind Either Hillary or Obama I think they are toast. However, if we see a splintered Democratic party still licking its wounds from a civil war in the party then it opens up the door for the republicans to steal an election that by all rights should be a democratic cakewalk. But there is Ron Paul just sitting there waiting to be a stinker. He is polling better than Ross Perot. He has a track record in congress that will sell well on the national stage if only he can get on it. He ain't going nowhere and if Huckabee and Gulianni bow out and he continues to pull a 10th of the vote... and then marches off to mount a libertarian backed second bid republican campaign in the general election he will be the deciding factor.

Call me a ghoul if you will. But what I really want to see is an honest to god split of the Democratic party down the Obama/Hillary fault line. I want to see an embattled republican candidate with a shaky hold on the republican party. And I want to see Ron Paul sitting there with all three of them on even footing on the national stage with the Media unable to ignore him. In short I want an election that will mount a credible attack on the two party system and rattle it to its very core. I doubt it could be surmounted. But if a crack can be put in the armor, I think you could see a serious shift in the mindset of the most apathetic voting block. They could see an opening through which they could vent all their frustration if only they could be handed an option to actually challenge the existing system.

Not that I think there is a snowballs chance in hell it will happen that way... but I would like to see it. On the issue of a Democratic party split I would give it as high as 1 in 10 odds right now... and I would move them to 50/50 if we have a hoss race coming out of next Tuesday. But the Republicans have no issues right now which would prevent them closing ranks behind their eventual nominee... and that as they say is that. I do expect to see Ron Paul out on the general election campaign trail unless he just becomes completely irrelevant. If he polls 5% or better on Super Tuesday I think he will be on the general election Ballot in some shape form or fashion.

For those hoping that Obama will storm through super Tuesday like he did South Carolina... I wouldn't hold your breath. But if Hillary misjudged the tactics in South Carolina and the next week sees a serious backlash against her campaign in the Media it might get right interestin... but no matter what, I just don't see Obama taking super tuesday overall with more than say a 5% lead and if he does that he and everyone in his campaign will be dancing a jig in cut time. I hope I am wrong actually. I would rather see Obama set on his way to a cakewalk nomination with a fat super tuesday pounding of Hillary. If it happens it will be one for the history books.

Amazon Kindle: Is the e-book finally here?

2008-01-26T09:54:00.000-06:00

I normally try not to write about tech devices which I do not own. I am a fairly firm believer that it is hard to truly come to grips with a device that you do not fork over the money for yourself. Granted this makes it hard to compare devices, but the simple act of choosing one over the other in the end says alot about the device. However, in the case of the Kindle I think the issue is not the device itself. It is the decision to buy one that is at stake. This is not just another hand held whiz bang. It is a device which has the basic premise of replacing the single most important technology development of the last few thousand years, the printed book. Despite the profound impact of computers, they have not made a real dent on the physical publication media with the sole exception of ephemeral current affairs discourse (the news). Computers have been long on the promise of leaving paper behind... but short on actually delivering.

Enter e-ink technology. To date this incredible technology has been largely stillborn due to DRM strangulation, publisher greed and an inability to cut the desktop/laptop tether. But the Kindle is doing a lot to change that. Its EVDO connection cuts the umbilical and gives you access to new materials in most places through the device itself. Imagine if when you finished your current book you could just select the next book you want to read, you got charged for the new book and the pages re-loaded to the new book (you get to keep the old ones of course) and you could do it anywhere. IE you didn't have to go home to your computer, you didn't have to go to the store. You could do it anywhere you had a cellphone connection. That is what the Kindle has done. A paid for wireless connection to the book store.

That connection is the true power of the kindle. In a stroke Amazon has joined a reflective display on par with the printed word with wireless access to the published world. It is the first real honest to god step on the way to a paperless world.

So if I think it is so great then why haven't I taken the plunge? Because by and large it is the first step. The first real step... but the first step none the less. Granted I may still take the plunge on the kindle. I travel enough that the idea of having a highly portable device with multiple books on it is very seductive. But the Kindle still suffers from the same ultimate problem of previous attempts at e-book systems... the fact that they are trying to be the only answer is Amazon's most grievous error. paper doesn't care who or what is printed on it. The Kindle only works (largely) through the Amazon store. When you start talking about its ability to work in other ways you encounter all the old intractable problems of previous efforts. Conversion, tied to a computer etc... Had Amazon managed to unite all e-book publishers, or at least made the kindle work wirelessly with all existing e-book outlets (including their own) then I would have been on it to begin with... because then they would have been going down the path of making e-books what they should be. A tool for accessing ANY book. Not just the particular library of a given set of agreements.

You see.... Amazon's solution is 'good enough' for a good bit of popular pleasure reading. But it does not currently nor will it ever (based on the current system) have the simple freedom I have now just in ordering books from their site. IE if a book exists to be bought I can probably buy it through Amazon. This simple amazing feat that they accomplished is what built them. But this e-book technology has no such freedom. I cannot purchase any book available through amazon and request it be delivered in electronic format for the Kindle. If I could I would own one because I could make the eventual swap to an entirely electronic library. No, I can only order what is specifically available in electronic format and that is a very small subset of what is available. Amazon has not really broken the design of prior e-book publishing schemes... they just broke new ground on the method of delivery. It is impressive but ultimately limited.

If Amazon announced that ANY book available for purchase on their site would be provided for the kindle, and that any book I had purchased through them in the past would be available free of charge for the kindle I would order one right now at double the cost. And I think a large number of other people would as well. The ability to transfer my previous amazon purchases to a new electronic storage format and the ability to have the complete amazon library as the basis for future purchases would be enough for me to swallow the still ultimate limitation of one company trying to own the 'new' paper. Because you see... Amazon is perhaps the greatest distributor ever of published material. And limiting to only what they have available means having access to the vast majority of what is available for sale in the printed world.

The issue of books aside... if you are a blog reader, read a lot of best sellers etc... then the kindle is probably for you whether your realize it or not. Access to online material does not have the same issues as the existing printed world and most newspapers are waking up and smelling the coffee on this one. As a periodical distribution technology the Kindle is going to shine and it may well be what keeps it going long enough to make a dent in the book world.

Specifically regarding the device itself... without having held it in my hands and used it myself I can't really speak to its quality, usefullness etc... but based on the numerous reviews I have read and videos I have watched I can tell you this thing is good enough if you want it to be. If you are as yet unfamiliar with e-ink displays all I can tell you is to go see it for yourself. If you have never seen it in person you are likely still thinking of it in terms of what you are used to with computer displays and that just isn't a good comparison. e-ink has more in common with printed paper than it does an LCD. It is that good. So go check it out. Sure there is a refresh delay when changing pages... but there is when you flip a page as well. Harsh criticism of the refresh rate is rooted in computer display tech... not reading tech. An e-ink device is not a computer that lets you read a book. It is a book that has some aspects of a computer. Its abilities are miraculous if you think of them in comparison with a static book. They are inconsequential and largely insurmountable flaws when compared to even a PDA in computer comparisons.

The kindle is a good electronic book... in many ways it is the first electronic book. But it is also trying to be a computer with an e-ink display. On that front the verdict is not nearly so kind... and for me what I want is most certainly a computer with an e-ink display. Perhaps in the not to distant future I will be writing about the device itself rather than the idea of it. However I think that is not likely until at least Kindle 2.0 (e-ink is a rapidly developing tech)... or as I mentioned, a change in how Amazon approaches providing material for the Kindle.

Election 2008: Race and Gender in America

2008-01-26T08:47:00.000-06:00

So it took till South Carolina for the Democratic race to pull out the gender and race cards. Oh sure its been mentioned many times before now...first woman president, first black president etc... but until now neither has been cast as a Woman candidate or Black candidate, they have just been Candidates. Hillary still isn't being viewed as a woman candidate, largely because Obama isn't going there. But the Clinton's are hinting like mad to poison the well (win) of South Carolina by all but outright saying that if he wins its just because he is black. Of course it might backfire if they win, but at this point that does not seem likely.

Welcome one, Welcome all to the re-birth of the Billary show. Bill Clinton the X factor of election '08 is in da house and he is a Teflon strawman able to say things Hillary (or any candidate) could never say or get away with in an election. His role is nothing new as major supporters of candidates have been in this position before, but none would get listened to as much as Bil. If Barak goes after Bill he chases the wild goose and goes off topic and Hillary can flay him for it. If he ignores Bill he is equally hosed unless he can actually convince everyone to ignore him or hope he self destructs. Both highly unlikely considering the past. I don't envy Barak, he is up against one of the slickest political teams ever assembled, run by two of the best pure politicians... and unfortunately Bill is the slicker by far and he is now comfortably tucked away in a largely un-asailable position. He goes to far he is just an ardent supporter of his wife "I just love my wife and perhaps I am just over compensating for not always being there for her....". He gets attacked he asks why he is being debated instead of the candidate.. "Hey Hillary is running not me....". Pretty much anything that can happen bad to Clinton can be deflected into support for Hillary. It is beautiful. It is the never before seen dynamic of a former president being the spouse of a front running presidential candidate. They are playing a well known hand but with never before encountered circumstances... which means the playbook for how to handle it has been tossed out the window. Sure it is a high wire act, but they are the flying Clinton's, used to the heady tripwire laden, land mine abundant field of the national stage. Never you worry they will keep up their end. It is up to Barak to find the right response to this new dynamic... and he had best find it soon.

Admiration for the genius of the Clinton machine aside, I find their tactics appalling and despicable. Turning SC into a racial debate is like taking candy from a baby, and is demeaning to the state as a whole because right now the Clinton's have managed to phrase the outcome of the election in such a way that it will only be judged racially by the media (and thus largely by the sheep of the general public). If Barak wins it will be pointed out that it was due to Black support for a black candidate and not because he was the best candidate. If Hillary wins it will be because they were able to transcend race when casting the vote... regardless of the fact that means whoever wins South Carolina will do so because of the support of the Black vote. Why is that? Because South Carolina IS 60% BLACK. This is highly unfair to the people of SC. Is race and issue? Certainly. Are the vast majority of folks swayed by race and race alone when it comes to choosing a candidate ? NO. Is it wrong to desire a candidate that is more similar to you? No. If white presidents have not been derided in the popular media as having won only because they are white and through support of a largely white voting population, it should not be a reasonable claim that Barak winning SC is only due to the color of his skin. It should be because he is the most appealing candidate to the voters there.

I think Barak has to take the high road here. He doesn't have to be the Black candidate, and he does not have to be 'unblack' or anything. He just has to be American. As for how to do that without directly speaking to the racial spin slowly but surely developing as the filter through which his entire campaign will be viewed? All I know is it is going to be tricky. Talking to it just means that many more sound bites where all a potential voter hears is Obama talking about race. Not addressing it means allowing the opponent to define the race with innuendo. In a chess match this is called a fork. He is forked if he does and forked if he doesn't. The ball is as always, in the Clinton's hands and they have to drop it for him to run with it... at least so long as he allows them to define the game. Barak has got to come up with a new game with new rules. Sooner or later he is going to have to break the mold he is being shoved into... and the way he has been campaigning is not going to be enough.

The 700mhz auction: What is all the fuss about?

2008-01-23T19:30:00.000-06:00

Digital broadcast TV is going to vacate the upper ranges of the spectrum they have been using for the last several decades. Those of you who recall actually watching terrestrial broadcast TV will know the 700mhz band as channels 52-69. This means that one of the best broadcast ranges for wireless data transmission will now be available for use. The auction is for who gets control. Why is this such a big hairy deal?

Let us keep it simple. Remember the world before cell phones? Remember the internet before AOL started giving all you could eat access for 19.99 a month? Remember how big a change it made for folks to be able to reach folks anywhere with a cell phone and how the internet suddenly became useful when you could actually use it all the time?

Well *fingers crossed* the result of the 700mhz auction is going to bring those two factors together. Cheap all you can eat access to the internet on the go. No more being limited to wifi hotspots. No more penny per kb cellular data access charges. The idea will be that you could have a cellphone, laptop, pda, etc... with a 700mhz based system in it and you will have a reasonable monthly fee for access to the internet.

Most wonder how having the internet on the go with you will change anything over just having it at your house. To me those are the exact same people that said having a cell phone would not really be any different from having a phone at your house. I think it is hard to overestimate the impact universal web access will have. And it will have it in both anticipated and unanticipated ways. It will be cellphones on steroids.

What sucks is that this could already be happening. And the reason it isn't happening already is unfortunately a possible reason why the 700mhz spectrum could end in more of the same. Expensive mobile data costs from the same old providers with no way in for someone who wants to change the game.

That is the fuss. The diametrically opposed forces behind the auction that want to use the technology in one way or the other. Google has done as much as they can to ensure that no matter who wins the use of the spectrum will be far more open and accessible that wireless data spectrums of the past. But the true fate will ride in the hands of the auction winner. I for one hopes Google puts their money where their mouth is and goes after it with every bit of market power they now possess.

What could this be for Google? This could be the last mile. 700mhz could put Google almost immediately in touch with just about everyone in America. Right now you can only reach google's services through an ISP... ie through existing telco and cable companies for a fee. Google would likely do the exact same thing they have always done and give away the service in return for your eyballs on adds. In effect it would complete the circle of Googles life. Many seem to think their advertisement model is new. It isn't. Giving away the content to the masses in return for advertisement dollars from marketers is the broadcast TV model of doing business. And if Google wins a block of the auction they could step in and provide internet access in return for add revenue much the way ABC/NBC/FOX etc give away sitcoms for add revenue based on commercials. If they can support broadband rates of access then mobile communications becomes cheap rather than a significant monthly cost. America could go from being the most expensive mobile data/voice nation to the cheapest. And then our rate of inovation would finally have a chance to have a go at just what would be possible with universal one the go data access.

The pieces of the puzzle as I see them fitting together.

Android: the cellular OS system designed by Google and soon to be unleashed on the world. This means they are ready to support mobile on the go systems. They want people on existing systems, but Android will not care what spectrum is used to access it. This means if the race to the bottom is won by an existing technology google has adaptable software that will be relevant no matter who wins. But if Google does own a piece of the pie then suddenly making a physical handset would be likely. But even if they do not, the different way google does business will have an easy time attacting hardware developers to the new spectrum without the headaches of designing hardware for existing cellular networks. The design limitations will be what customers want, not what networks want/will allow.

Google Mobile Data centers + Google Dark Fiber + Google 700mhz ownership: We all have heard about Google's mobile data centers but nobody has really explained what they will be good for. Sure they can help provide added horsepower in high traffic areas of the backbone. But they could also be dumped at the base of a radio tower with access to some of the Google Dark Fiber and provide the last mile wirelessly to folks via the 700mhz spectrum. With the mobile data centers this means Google can roll this out in a hurry and then formalize the infrastructure at a later date (if needed). Getting the bandwidth will mean nothing if they are not posed to exploit it. These three pieces of the google pie, of which they already contain two, could enable them to deploy a parallel internet backbone with widespread wireless access in relatively short order. No building, No hiring. Just dump crates where they are needed and wire them up, manage them remotely. Voila, Google is now in the drivers seat for internet access.... if the access hardware support falls into place with it.

So Google has a mobile device OS, Massive amounts of fiber nationwide, portable data centers that could be deployed to provide last mile wireless access to the fiber over the 700mhz spectrum (if they or a willing 700mhz owner) gets control of the spectrum.... the only thing missing is the hardware that uses the spectrum. Laptop cards, USB dongles, SD devices, Compact flash devices can come quickly and retrofit multiple devices in short order. The next generation will have it built in. We could see this happen in two years. To my eyes Google is positioned about as well as they can be. Success is not dependent on them having control of it all, it just so happens that it probably would be best if they did.

Real ID

2008-01-19T00:03:00.000-06:00

I have a real problem with the Real ID concept. Not allowing people on planes without an approved 'real id' or a passport? Even if flying state to state when you can drive across borders without any such ID check? This smacks far to much of 'Papers Please'. DHS is fast becoming a fear mongering blight on the nation. What exactly are they trying to fix? They want to make it more difficult to get a fake ID... and yet the 9/11 folks had REAL ID's all on the up and up. The reason for which states issued them ID have not changed, students on visa etc... and will not EVER change so it doesn't matter how difficult you make it to get an ID. How 'copy proof' it is made. That isn't the problem. The problem is we have and will always have people visiting this country who will need to function in society. If you make ID a requirement to function in society you have just ensured you WILL issue said ID to the people you don't want to have it. Because you will not know who will misuse it and who will not.

Hint to those not in the know in DC. There is no such thing as an un-hackable, un re-createable ID. Why is this? It exists, therefor it can be copied. If it is done once it can and will be done again by someone else. All this is doing is racking up state budgets with a program they can't afford and placing a greater burden on law abiding citizens and stoking fear. Not fear of the enemy, fear their papers will not be in order. Fear the DHS mandated pat down will lead to a back room and someone with a rubber glove looking to probe you in places you would rather not be probed... and that will be the GOOD possibilities. The bad possibilities are that going into such a back room will begin to mean the same thing it does in other places of the world where many folks disappear. It will make people even more insular and less interested in travel which means less money spent on tourism and on and on and on. It will also make them despise their own government more and more. A trend that has been building for several decades here in the good old U S of A.

What is next? Approval required for any international travel? Border checks between states? Not allowing American citizens into federal buildings? Oh wait that last is a potential reality for any citizens of states that decide the tell the federal government to shove it on a requirement slipped into a military funding bill without proper hearing on the congressional floor... real democratic that little piece of work.

DHS, wake up and smell the shit you are shoveling. Homeland security is not about pestering the citizens of the state you are hired to make secure. It isn't about papers being in order or painful application processes. If terrorism has a book... you are following it by doing your absolute best to prove you are so paranoid about your own citizenry that you begin to turn against them, to suspect them, and in the end to successfully turn them in to the enemy... this kind of stuff is the stuff of which Revolutions are made.

No Taxation without representation. No Real ID... far fetched comparison? The air of late is starting to remind me of what I have seen of the McCarthy hearings. Are you a memeber of the communist party vrs Are you a terrorist? Why did you visit Afgahnistan? Why did you take a job in the middle east? Why did you room with a Pakistani in College?

Now perhaps you are thinking I am going a bit over the top here. Am I against the idea of having a unified ID? No not really. But we pretty much already have one in SS. There are far better ways to implement this than through state drivers licenses. If the Federal government wants a mandated federal ID then the federal government should implement and fork out for it. They have no business levying requirements on the states to do so. They have no business levying how states will or will not implement security in their borders. The Federal goverment is about EXTERNAL security and about inter state dispute. Hence Passports for international travel are fine by me. Federal requirements for ID to travel domestically? NO. If the Federal government wants to do this then it needs to have a truly open discussion on the house and senate floor on a single purpose bill... not some sneaky ass buried line item added as a last minute rider on a bill no one in their right mind was going to vote against.

When you have to 'sneak' things by then there might just be a problem. Remember this is a democracy. If people Choose to be less safe, more prone to identity theft then that is the RIGHT of the people if they do not want a particular policy in place. It is not for members of government to decide for us by circumventing the full process of government to get something they think is necesarry. My opposition to Real ID isn't to the concept of a unified national ID, it is to the underhanded, un-constitutional, and just plain unamerican way in which it has been brought about. It is due to the irrational uses the ID is to be put to and senseless reasons for justifying its existence. This will NOT stamp out fake ID. This will NOT stop underaged smoking. Nothing which has been proposed would even have denied ID to the Terrorists responsible for 9/11 had Real ID been in place at the time. So what is the damn point? I am against it because the concept and implementation and supposed purpose are damn near Orwellian in nature. Isn't that enough?

NOKIA N810 Internet Tablet, a personal look

2008-01-17T21:44:00.001-06:00

So I have had one of these gizmos for about a week now. Gizmo is definitely the right word for what this device is. I like it… actually I LOVE it but this is not to say it is for everyone. I have been eying the Nokia Internet Tablets since the introduction of the 770 with a great deal of interest but the N810 (3^rd iteration) is the first that got me to take the plunge. So let us take a look at what tipped me over the edge.

Overview:

If you didn't already know, this thing is about 25% bigger than the iphone, It has a higher resolution (800x480) transreflective LED b/l touch screen. It is kicking 400mhz with 256/128 on the ROM/RAM front and has two additional flash memory cards, one which is an integral card at 2gb and one miniSD slot. It has Bluetooth, wi-fi and a micro USB connection that can support USB host but is primarly for USB client (serves as a card reader for the internal and removable flash cards). It has a built in GPS receiver and slide out qwerty keyboard. Most importantly it is operating on Linux… a huge blessing AND curse but more on that later. The upshot is this device is very malleable to many purposes rather than custom delivered to one manufacturer controlled configuration. The N810 is truly a device that is defined by you… and not by NOKIA. If you are not going to take the time to extract what you want from the device then you are most likely going to be left a bit cold at the thought of plunking down the money for a pocket sized web browser/e-mail machine…. About the only things it really does good out of the box.

The Good:

The Size:

The slender design is just dead sexy… well if not sexy it is SOLID. I stayed away from the previous tablets due to their lack of keyboard and because they were falling to the wrong side of the dividing line between true pocket friendliness and joke inducing pocket transport (is that a tablet in your pants or…. I am sure you know the rest ). The 770 and 800 were both good devices but the lack of keyboard and pudgy (by mobile standards) size seemed to lead most to relegating them to the backpack when on the go. This dropped them more into comparisons with micro laptops rather than with PDA/smartphones. The 810's design focus on slender with a reduced bezel distilled the tablet line to focus entirely on its strongest feature, a mobile touch screen with real world resolution and plopped its size right into the upper bands of PDA's and smartphones. The limiting factor of most current smart phones/PDAs is and will continue to be QVGA… I am of the opinion the size is far too limiting in regards to what you can display on the screen at one time and is fatally flawed. In contrast, full screen mode on the Nokia internet tablets can display the most popular web page resolution without scrolling sideways (800 width) and you typically only have to scroll down and up (finger friendly). Even on 1024+ sites you tend to be able to see the primary content without side to side scrolling. With the N810's weight loss and slender form you now have this functionality in a true pocket sized package. I understand many bemoan the fact you have to slide out the keyboard for the direction pad… but not having become accustomed to the previous iterations I have to say finger dragging works just fine for me. I will grant it is wise to have a micro fiber cloth handy, but as a long time Windows Mobile smart phone user I am long since accustomed to dealing with the grime of heavy traffic finger screens. Perhaps one day this issue will be dealt with. But for now I will gladly take the smaller more pocket friendly size over a few mm extra here and there for more buttons on the closed up device.

Construction Quality:

Metal Metal and more Metal. This device feels like a solid little bar of aluminum in a good way. It has none of the fragile feel of many cell phones these days. It feels like it was designed to have a long useful and active life, not to be discarded lightly or left behind often. This has been a common thread with all of the tablet devices and I can't help but notice many are still are devoted to their 770 tablets. A wonderful change of pace from the typical chintzy feel of most high end mobile devices these days. Nokia and Apple understand the need for quality construction at least in some of their products.

OS:

The implementation of Linux is good and bad, here is the good. It gives you CHOICE. Nokia didn't lock the device down, they left it wide open for folks to develop and tinker with it to their hearts desire. Thus this is a solid base from which to do some serious mobile device tinkering. Included GPS gives you location information and the open source community gives you metric crap loads of code to sort through as a starting point to creating your ultimate on the go companion. They did an excellent job implementing an interface that is finger friendly though admittedly not quite up to snuff when compared to Apple's superb i-phone and touch interface. It is still light years ahead of windows mobile and the various flavors of symbian I have been exposed to over the years. Given the fact Apple devices are pretty much always in configuration lock down hell it really was never much of a choice for me. I like tinkering, and I crave the ability to make the device behave the way I want it to rather than ONLY the way the designers anticipated. One size fits none in my book. Apple does a great job creating targeted devices that perform admirably at what they decided the device would do… but I much prefer the Nokia approach to open provide an open ended device for the community to work on.

Connectivity:

Connectivity options that are to be found are well implemented and only have one glaring omission (Bluetooth PAN is not supported by default). The high mobility laptop makers should take note of the cell phone tethering wizard and follow suit. Wi-Fi is point and click though I have yet to attempt a WEP connection. USB host presents lots of great possibilities but they are largely thwarted by the micro USB connector… price to pay for the slenderness I suppose. Obviously a standard host port is not an option here (yes its THAT thin), though I think a mini b connector should have been chosen over the largely unknown micro. However, it DOES do host and there are solutions for it. Since it uses an up to date Linux kernel that means the sky is the limit if you are determined enough. On the software front the availability of Pidgin and Skype in full trim rather than mobile hacks makes for a very capable device when it comes to standard instant communication options. Gizmo is a bit to new to know how useful that will be and of course it includes support for standard SIP VOIP protocol so enter your account details and off you go as well. All in all very slick and tidy. Wrap it all up with a full fledged Xterm and Linux command line warriors ride off into the sunset with a very large grin firmly planted on their faces.

Available Software:

Open source repository based package installation software. While the standard Nokia repositories can be a bit flaky, there are several third party repositories with most of the same software and the new/beta/alpha developer community code. The package handling system keeps the pain of Linux software building/installation safely hidden from those not inclined to such things. Additionally it gives you access to programs that would cost you $$$ in typical mobile device software frameworks.

Browsing:

Firefox pared down to its essentials, AJAX works, Flash works. You can watch youtube and you are only limited by your connection speed. This is the best browsing you are going to get in a mobile device this side of an i-phone or UMPC running a full up desktop OS on the larger side.

The Bad

Cellular Voice/Data:

I hadn't had it for 5 minutes before I fell into the camp of followers who wish like hell this thing had a sim chip slot and GSM cellular radio. I had seen pictures of the size comparisons but it really hadn't sunk in just how close this thing is in size to my HTC slider phone. The screen difference is like night and day. Granted I think I understand the reluctance on Nokia's part to not include cell capability and It obviously isn't a deal breaker for me. Pairing with a phone isn't all bad but it is somewhat of a pain to need two devices. On the plus side, as long as Bluetooth networking and DUN are able to tie into a phone connection you can be agnostic about your carriers technology… also you don't need separate data plans if you didn't want to use the device as a phone. Personally I think they should develop a GSM world wide 3g version. Paired with a wristwatch status screen and Bluetooth headset this could be a killer device on your hip. This hardware with cellular capability is what Open Moko should be trying to get their hands on.

In the long run, Nokia is at the cross roads of smart phones and UMPC with these devices. The trend is most certainly towards mobile broadband connectivity of some sort in devices of this nature. I think the time is coming soon when there will need to be a cellular capable version of the tablet. For now I think not including it is the right choice. But CES just launched the attack of the MID's which are all firmly aiming at the Nokia Tablet and I-pod Touch successes and most of them are rolling in with Cellular options. Sooner or later the cell phone market is going to get much more friendly to mobile data access and having multiple plans, or multiple access per plan will not be such a painful consideration. I think that is going to be the glory day of the MID, Nokia Internet Tablet type device. We could be getting close to the Star Trek datapad here.

GPS:

Why in gods name did they not go with a sirfIII chipset? The cold start up time for the GPS receiver is old school… as in before mobile GPS really became very useful old school. Its reception works ok in the car on the open road, but GPS is most useful for something like city exploring… and in urban canyons it fails miserably. However, the bigger sin by far was not bundling a fully capable program with the built in receiver. The map application is mostly good only for showing that the receiver works than for any practical application of GPS. You have to fork over 100+ more dollars to get the real software. To add insult to injury the included maps take up most of the internal card space. The internal receiver, bad or not, with included functional software would have been acceptable. Crappy receiver with crippleware is just silly for the added cost to the device. There are uses for it as is… and the open source mapper provides much of what is missing provided you download the maps ahead of time or have an unlimited cellular data plan to access via your phone.

Look for the next generation to work on this… I have yet to see anyone with a posted online review/opinion of the device fail to hammer this particular issue. If GPS is what has you paying attention to on this device I would say wait or look elsewhere unless you have a serious need for a single device with some of its other capabilities.

Camera:

I suppose there are uses for a VGA webcam on a device like this but I just am not sure what. Gizmo is the only software out of the box that uses it and the user base isn't there. Not to mention video calling has been a technical reality for about 10 years now and widely practical for the last 5 and it just hasn't taken off. That is about all the camera would possibly be good for and it requires very good lighting for any kind of reasonable image. This is a feature check box… I think they would have done better to repurpose the space for the camera to minib USB or even upping back to full SD on the memory card. I could see a use for one of the higher resolution mobile cameras (2.0mp or better)… document 'scanning', business card pictures etc. It wouldn't surprise me to see the N-95 5mp camera show up on the next iteration. While I would still question just how useful it would be, I can see far more use at that point than with this current one.

PAN Connectivity:

Boo hiss on the lack of Bluetooth PAN support out of the box. One might interpret this as Nokia not wanting the device to work easily with Win Mo 6 phones seeing as they have largely moved to a DUN less setup by default and Nokia is sticking to DUN. Enabling PAN would make the device truly handset agnostic at the potential expense of Nokia phone sales. I would be one such to interpret it as so. There is NO reason why PAN should not have been included or added once it became obvious many phones were moving to incorporating it at the expense of DUN. As is, it takes a fairly involved hack to get it up and running, and the hack is something of a moving target as Nokia is releasing OS updates…. This is one of those things that should be getting easier, not more difficult. I like coding and have a fair amount of experience digging around Linux config files etc… it took me about 3 days to Google up the fix for the latest release of OS2008 which was different from the easy to find work around for the first iteration of OS2008, which were in turn different from the OS2007 and OS2006 hack details. Suffice to say if you have a PAN connection phone without DUN and root means the under soil portion of a plant to you then I would highly advise you steer clear if you are anticipating using the tablet tethered to a cell phone, unless you are also willing to switch to a phone with DUN profile

Storage:

My guess is Nokia was to far into the design by the time it became obvious that miniSD was pretty much dead on the vine with flash makers trending to Full SD or Micro. Had the trend to micro been more obvious at the time my guess is they would have kept the dual card setup of the 800 and just moved to micro. Ah how easy to say in hind sight. On the other hand it isn't like 10gb or even 14gb (new 12gb micros are coming) combined flash storage is bad. Personally I would prefer a battery covered micro paired with a full SD external. SD seems to be creeping into compact flash territory with some added peripherals in addition to memory cards being designed for the SD interface, add in the fact the max capacity/speed of SD is far superior. I see a very strong case for biting off the added size.

OS:

The customized mobile UI means that vast stretches of Linux open source software is off limits. This shows most acutely in the lack of thunderbird ports and or Open Office ports which present the most glaring gaps in functionality of the device that is currently available. To some extent such complaints are so much howling at the moon. After all there is only so much one can ask of 400mhz and 128mb of RAM so some of the lacking ports are more due to technological limitations than to desire for them. Pretty much anything else that is obvious has been ported already.

Office Software:

No Calendar, No Office Document viewing for either OO or MS Office? A mostly irrelevant contact and e-mail client? How could they let this device out the door without a FULL PIM suite? Sure there is a Garnet VM for Palm PDA folks. But the software was just not designed for this display and it shows. This is the single most glaring gap in the default device. Currently there is no solution either from Nokia or from the development community around the device. Linux has long been in search of a capable Exchange client and the search continues. I keep hoping someone will come out with a Client side for Google Apps that works standalone and syncs with the online apps. Google is making steady progress in the direction of challenging the MS stranglehold on professional PIM and office software usage.

Charging:

No charging over USB, standard Nokia charger needed. Old story with Nokia and it is still a problem. Just throwing in a USB to charger input cable would have been nice. They could have done two miniB USB connectors, both capable USB ports instead of a micro USB and single purpose power port. I really don't think anyone would have complained about the 1, maybe 2mm difference in the thickness that MAY have been required to do so.

Conclusion:

Well if you read this you might say… geee there seems to be a lot more bad about this device than good. In my mind if that is the way you read it then the device probably isn't for you. If you are of the mind… yeah but I can change a lot of those problems, or they might change in time anyway. Then I think you understand why I love this device. Software gripes can be addressed, The GPS is good enough despite the flawed execution, and there just isn't anything else in this hardware class that is as open ended a device. It has its flaws of that there is no doubt. But it has some serious strengths. For example I paired it with a stowaway Bluetooth keyboard and BAM I had a pretty capable little note taking setup that was much smaller and more flexible than even a micro laptop setup. There is software for pairing it with a bluetooth OBDII scanner for running diagnostics on your car ECU (model years 96 and beyond). Unlike smart phones you can comfortably read text without feeling like you are constantly scrolling/flipping the page etc… it fits a good amount of data on the screen at once at readable levels. It has a high quality build with plenty of thoughtful touches, buttons are not in high traffic hold points, built in kickstand with multiple notches for different angles, protected Micro card slot, USB port, and battery case release button. A screen that can still be viewed in full sunlight.

N810 vrs N800 decision points.

If you are one of the folks agonizing over a choice between the 800 and 810 the key considerations are size, GPS, storage, and of course the slide out keyboard. I feel very confident saying the 810 will go with you more places than the 800. The size reduction gets the tablet into upper end of the smart phone range as opposed to being well outside of it for the 800. Put another way the 800 will likely stay in your backpack where the 810 will go in your pocket. The keyboard is the second major factor. For me, this kind of device without a keyboard is a deal breaker and is probably the single largest factor in me deciding against the 770 and 800, but to each their own. Storage can be an issue, two SD slots provides a great deal more flexibility in storage and even periphial interfaces for the 800. The drawback is the bulk of the 800, your call. MicroSD into a mini adaptor now gives up to 12gb on a single chip. If I could choose one thing to change on the 810 I think it would be for a full size SD in place of the mini. Last and definitely least is in my opinion is the GPS. Yes it has it but it is horribly implemented and the decision to not put in a sirf III chipset or one of equivalent capability was moronic…. This is a last gen GPS without a good bundled software solution. For the added cost of the 810 over the 800 + the cost to upgrade the GPS software to practical status you could by a nice dedicated Garmin or TOM TOM unit. If integration and one device is a huge deal then look into the upcoming SD based sirf III chips for the n800, or go with a blue tooth receiver on either device (seriously)…. To give you an idea how much this receiver sucks, I will probably continue to use my sirf III Bluetooth receiver with my 810.

Unlike many I just do not think cost should be a major deciding factor, there are non-cost reasons to go with the 800 over the 810. And the reasons for choosing the 810 over the 800 have to do with specific features that are not shared… IE you can't really address them with the 800 so added cost just goes with the territory. For example do not cheat yourself out of a built in keyboard if you need it… it will just make you hate settling. If you need the slimmer size you will regret the larger clunk. The only case in which money should be the decider is if you just can't afford the 810 and the 800 will still meet your personal needs. If the answer for you is the 810 then I would just keep saving rather than settling on the 800.

N810 vrs i-pod touch/i-phone decision points.

If you only want web browsing and music/video content management then don't discount the Touch and/or i-phone. Key lack of the touch is no Bluetooth so no tethering for cellular data access, wifi only. Lack of a keyboard on either kills them for me. Touch screens are good at many things… typing isn't one of them. They also hold the edge in size, but at the cost of some VERY valuable pixels, granted there is a heaping serving of Apple mojo to stretch the pixels they do have to their absolute max with out of this world zoom technology.

The New Hampshire Debates

2008-01-05T23:45:00.000-06:00

The New Hampshire Debates

Here are my quick thoughts on the debates tonight.

Republicans:

Well I now understand why Huckabee is doing so well. The man has a solid solid presence and frankly I would say he had the best mix of 'in touch' and presidential demeanor. His religious bearing/history mixed with a fair amount of Arkansas dirty laundry concerns me. Romney is a tool... I just can't think of any other way to put it. He is the definition of a slick politician and everyone, I mean EVERYONE on the stage took pot shots at him the whole night. Ron Paul, how do you do him justice? These are the three I didn't know and Ron Paul is the one that still has me scratching my head. He is very feisty but the question remains, is he just feisty or is he foaming at the mouth mad bonkers and a stark raving mad economic ludite? I will have to look harder at him because he is damn smart, and his background says he isn't nutz. Part of me would like to see someone like him go in and take a sledgehammer to existing beauracracies, but part of me really cringes to think what a bull in china shop approach would do. All in all its proabbly an event you would rather read about in a history book than live through... but it might just be time for something like that. Guiliani, I said it before and I will say it again. He is following last years play book. He is trying to follow the established road to the presidency and has not seemed to fully grasp the fact that this round is going to be different. If the old playbook were working then Barak Obama would not have just taken a primary with a clear lead. Change is the word and he aint it. McCain is McCain. Venerable veteran who is getting better at the national stage every time he goes through this... if he had another 10 or so goes I think he might finally put it all together. I am starting to like him as a VP choice... I honestly think he would make a decent president but I just don't think he will ever put the votes together. Fred Thompson surprised me a bit, he was pretty solid but he has much the same problem Giliani has and the man just isn't 'with it'. He is smart, and he is Washington smart. But I don't think he is front man material.

Democrats:

Richardson is toast baring some miracle... perhaps a VP selection. Edwards is not quite there. he is passionate but he is no longer as carefree in his speaking as he once was. He kept going off on 'I don't want to leave anyone out or offend anyone' tangents during otherwise good responses. He clearly stepped into Obama's camp and sniped Clinton on multiple ocasions, perhaps an indication of things to come? Clinton did well. She definatly lost her temper a couple of times but I really don't think that is a bad thing. As long as she doesn't stick her foot in her mouth in the heat of passion I can think of worse things than a well spoken indignant candidate. She just doesn't have the 'slickness' of her Husband and if she keeps the lid on her temper to much it will just draw attention to how much less accomplished she is at the glass facade political game. She is going to have to fight hard to proove she is still an agent of change because one thing she isn't is 'fresh'. Sure she has the whole 'First Female for President' thing going on but hell... most folks have already cracked jokes about her already having served two terms as president. It is going to be interesting to see how well her experience card plays out. Obama is one smooth dude. He certainly doesn't come across as green. He has the kind of charisma political campaign managers have wet dreams about. He is starting to fill out the details of his positions and his ideas of how he wants to handle being president. But he needs to do more on this front. The cloudy poupular agent of change image will take him a bit farther yet but before long he has GOT to silence the growing volume of calls asking for more details on just how he is going to 'change' things.

All in all I think the Democrats have got to be happy that finally they seem to have the better crop of candidates. The Republicans have a good candidate... if you could combine all the strengths of the guys that were on stage. And apart from Ron Paul none of them had that air of something new going on. However despite the Romney attacks I think the air was FAR more charged with the dems on the stage. They have the ability to pull their party apart if they are not careful. And I don't mean pull apart as in be devisive... I mean a full on party split that could end us up with two candidates and perhaps a new party. If they do manage to split the party then the race dynamics are going to seriously favor the republican nominee unless there is a real cross party movement for someone. Strap yourselves in folks. This is going to be a long and rather interstin ride.

A look at “The Issues”. Part 1: Social Security

2008-01-02T19:10:00.001-06:00

I went out and checked out the glassbooth website today. You know on the surface this seems like a cool concept. Fill out some Q and A to find out which presidential candidate best suits you. However on closer inspection I found a few things I really didn't like. One, it did not just show you the complete candidate comparison list by default. Two, it really didn't seem dead on regarding some of the things I was looking at. But that aside I think it is a fantastic website for taking a look at some collected information about the various candidate about 'THE ISSUES”.

Of course... this look mostly confirms my suspicions that sound bites just don't make for good issues discussion. For example lets take a look at the social security debate. Based on the quotes listed Hillary and Obama are pretty far apart on the issue of SS. They both think privatization is a bad idea but they are diametrically opposed on the issue of extending the cap on SS earnings. Hillary thinks it is silly to consider the additional tax without first dealing with fiscal responsibility and doesn't like the idea of increasing taxes (how very centrist of her). Obama looks at the new source of revenue as a means to attain fiscal responsibility. If you ask me they both are a bit off center on this one.

First I just have to pick on Hillary. Who says you have to increase taxes if you extend the cap? You could just as easily reduce the rates but extend the cap such that it was a relatively revenue neutral choice... one which in my mind would be VERY favorable. It would be a real drop in the middle class burden and significantly up the SS contribution made by the top 5% who account for more than 50% of the wealth in the nation. Bam Bam... you get raised taxes on the wealthy in a fair way (paying SS on all income and not just the first 90k or so) AND you drop the load on the middle/lower class. Seems like a no brainer to me if ever there was one. I mean come on... you get to hand pretty much anyone making less than 100 grand a 1-5% raise... if that ain't a vote getter I don't know what is.

As for Obama? Well his stance is classic “Counting chickens before they hatch”. I always disapprove of spending money before it comes in. The current available Federal Budget is in excess of a couple of Trillion dollars. Frankly, I feel if the Government can't be fiscally responsible with that then I don't think a new resource is going to help much. I think Hillary is right that we should sort out the current mess without asking folks for more money... however as I said above, you don't have to ask for more money (overall) when extending the SS cap.

Regardless of if the move was made to alleviate the SS rates, or just to extend through all earnings I think SS is long overdue for a serious overhaul. I think it is time that SS stopped being viewed as an individual bank in bank out program and instead be viewed as a general purpose program in which the healthy working population pays to support those that cannot. I don't think SS should have scaled payout rates according to pay in. Benefits should be based on cost of living and tied to inflation much the same way Obama suggests regarding the minimum wage. In fact I think the Minimum wage and SS benefits should be largely connected at the hip. After all, they are fundamentally about the same thing, how much it costs to live. I think folks should receive SS benefits and additional retirement income up to double the base living income (poverty line). IE their SS payouts begin to decrease once they get more money on their own than they do from SS alone until they receive no SS retirement benefits if their private sources are double the poverty income level.

Lets look at a simple practical examples. Lets say the SS payout is 100 dollars a year. With no private retirement income you get your 100 dollars a year of SS. If you have 50 dollars of private income you get 150 (SS + your income). If you get 100 in private you get 200. But if you get 150 in private income then you still only get 200 total. So once you get 200 in private income you receive no more SS benefits. The idea being that at that point you are privately receiving double the current poverty line in retirement income. I think the dead zone in there is more than worth the safety net you get in return.

I don't think this means you have to throw out the basic concept behind the privatization of SS accounts either. The Gore idea of a Locked box is comforting but in reality money locked away is generally money not doing what it is best at (making more money). If you are of a biblical bent then go check out the parable of the talents. I certainly agree that the government needs to stop using SS as a slush fund for government programs that realistically will never pay back what they take out. It needs to be a responsibly managed investment setup run strictly on conservative reliable return ventures. For example I talked a while back about how we could establish a pure scientific research facility whos technological achievements could be spun off on a for profit basis and it would take only a small portion of the SS fund to put it in action. Done properly it might manage to create a self sustaining system in which a large chunk of corporate profits ARE government profits used to sustain programs like SS without asking for tax money but instead by reaping the rewards of products in the market place utilizing government funded/developed technology.

At any rate the old saw goes “It takes money to make money” And it takes a lot of money to make a lot of money. Individual privatized accounts are not 'a lot of money' but there are few sums of money that match just the yearly income of SS... much less any kind of long term accrual in times when input outstrips payouts. The idea of individual money management is pretty absurd though attractive concept. Bet the whole pile and reap the benefits of large scale investments rather than throwing all the little peons to the wolves individually. Just whatever we do we have got to stop this raiding of the piggy bank with nothing but worthless agency iou's to show for it.

Ok I think I have ranted long enough....

The VW Golf MKV GTI with DSG Review

2007-12-29T14:18:00.001-06:00

I want to talk about a new car that is a real piece of work. It seems to combine the impossible. Practicality, Affordability, and Performance. Of the three affordability is probably its weakest link since there are several very practical cars for well under 20k… but not so many hot performance cars. This is the gold standard car of the Euro Hot Hatch. After all, the introduction of the Golf GTI birthed the class. While VW abdicated their throne for a couple of generations, the MKV has reclaimed it with a vengeance. Simple, Purposeful interior, Everything is at the drivers fingertips. Hatchback practicality for hauling people or gear (choose one mind you) and the ability to cruise sipping gas at 30mpg with every airbag possible on a car these days. Tight suspension, Alphabet Breaks and an out of this world power box mated to the emerging standard in performance transmissions gives you some serious giggle inducing performance…. All for ~25k. Not cheap, not expensive. Its peers are the Mazda 3, RSX-S, Civic SI and several other multipurpose front wheel drive rockets. The DSG sets it apart. Some call it boring… I call it technology. Finally I can have a car that is fun to drive and has a clutched transmission that my wife can drive since she doesn't have to work a clutch pedal. I get my crisp high performance shifts and real gear/engine control while she gets boring drive to the grocery store ease.

How fast does this transmission shift? When it guesses right? By the time you register the noise it makes, the next gear is fully engaged and the revs are rapidly climbing to the next bfffft gone click. Even a bad shift where it is guessing wrong is pretty crisp… slow for a good clutch artist, about par for your typical joe schmoe just punching the clock and not trying to click and go. I won't say anything silly like it is more enjoyable than a clutch job… but for performance it is pretty damn hard to question it. I know every one of you that has ever loved a clutch pedal has also had those days/times where you just wish you could throw the damn thing into drive and forget about it for a little while. Of course the feeling passes, and you know you would never give it up for the pain that is a slush box. But the DSG isn't a slush box so most of the fun is there in the paddle shifters. The mental game is all the same… you just have to leave your left foot on the sidelines.

How good is the performance? Well… I drive by the seat of my pants. The seat of my pants going around my favorite twisties in my roaring 89 5 speed Mustang GT says 55-65 is pushing it.. and if its raining the posted caution sign is probably much closer to being right than wrong. Driving the GTI… 75-85 feels right and my stomach does flip flops imagining what I would have to do to get that same sensation I used to have squealing tires in my stang at 65 through a nice curvy section of mountain road. I don't believe It is ever going to give me that same raw feeling. But if I want to experience some sideways Front wheel drive mayhem I have just to click off the traction control program, use my DSG launch program and go for it… for the most part I think I will pass. It is a nice change of pace to throw far more than is legally allowed at a road and have a car that is yawning at me and calling me a pussy for not going at it harder. Going fast in the GTI vrs an older car like my mustang is like comparing the DSG to your typical 5/6 speed row action… it does it so well for you that it does a good job of making it boring. But no so boring I didn't sign on the line to trade in my Mustang.

As for practicality? That one is well established. This is just a dressed up Rabbit/Golf. Hatchback bliss. But here you go. I am 5'10 and a smidgin.. and I am Husky (if you are being nice). The salesman was about 6'2 or so. I had him sit in the front passenger seat and place the seat where he had a good inch between his knees and the glove box while I sat in the back… I had a good inch or two myself from the back of the seat. The back seats have air vents (directed center console and under seat) and cup holders as well as through access to the trunk. Color me surprised. The trunk/boot whatever you want to call it isn't large, But it will haul a load of groceries or enough crap for a couple on a weekend jaunt. For any more you need to fold down the seats or go for the roof rack. I think a roof rack and bag would suit a family of 3 best, and be a tad tight for 4… but forget Fido. If you are there you are looking bigger than this class anyway. Golf clubs require at least one of the seats down. All in all a very capable small car.

As for style? That is in the eye of the beholder. I rather like the 3 door hatch look… and with the factory 17" wheels, clean lines (read no crazy wings and intakes) and subtle trim details, the car stands apart from its less capable chassis mate the Rabbit, but brings a much needed understated air to the class of performance compacts. To the initiated, the GTI stands out… to others it just looks like a compact car. That is good for some and not so good for others. To each their own and all that.

All in all this car is one hell of a ride and the grin is still firmly stuck on my face a week after I drove it home.

Game Changers

2007-12-18T20:28:00.001-06:00

You know people talk about game changing technology a lot…. So I find it funny when the real thing comes along to relatively little fan fare. Nobody really paid attention when the I-pod launched. Sure the apple heads were thrilled but at that time mp3 was not a household term and the idea of your computer being the central element to your music collection was pretty well reserved to those of a pretty geeky bent. Today's game changers have had some press sure. But I just am not sure folks really realize the full potential impact of two products that just started to ship.

The first is the new Toshiba Batteries. First story I saw about it was a couple of years ago when it was fresh out of the labs. The past week saw the announcement that they were starting to ship. The quick and dirty? 5000 recharge cycle lithium ion batteries able to be effectively re-charged in 5 minutes. That is 13 years and change at a full charge everyday from a battery technology proven to give 100-200 mile range in electric vehicles. And that is just to the battery maintaining 90% original charge. In other words these babies can last the life of a car through multiple owners and it can be recharged fast enough to be used on extended trips. The only two things missing now are stations with a high capacity recharge capability and some cars that use the technology. 9 gets you one the new flush of plug in hybrid vehicles and even a couple of electric only cars are on the fast track to incorporating these batteries. Charging stations should be relatively easy to install. These batteries can charge and discharge at a high rate. That means a station could house a bank of them that charge off a standard (commercial) outlet and then provide the high capacity needed to fast charge smaller car packs. Stations can charge up overnight during low utility rate periods and as needed during the day… perhaps even off of solar panels though you would need a lot to really make much of a dent in the kind of power storage you are talking about to charge up even a single car with these, much less a line of them. The really nice thing about this? Small installations could be fairly inexpensive to roll out and then they could be very easily expanded as more cars came on line. This really is about as easy an infrastructure change as we could hope for. The hardest transition would be if the cars really take off and the basic power delivery capacity has to be upgraded to deliver more juice to replace gas at the pumps. Make no mistake folks. This battery marks the entrance of practical all electric vehicles. The only real question remaining is will the cost of them make those practical cars luxury items, or an everyman choice? Of course this is not to mention the nice bonus of laptops and cell phones that can be quickly charged from a standard outlet. Are these perfect? No, odds are they will be pricey to start with and the capacity/ energy density is still lower than it ultimately needs to be. But these are a very big deal.

The second game changer to launch is the new nanosolar product. 1$ a watt. Not fiction, not some day. But shipping now and production is bought up for a year and counting. Current Solar panel installation ROI tends to be about 20 years. This cuts that by 75%. Combine it with the above technology with a battery that could have an effective life of better than 10 years and you might manage to improve the ROI time even further. Existing installations tend to use SLA batteries and need to be replaced every 5-8 years…. Granted the added cost of the lithium might more than offset that but if those make it into massive production to support electric vehicles then you will have a high likely hood of mass produced high capacity packs designed to be safe in car wrecks. Think of it this way. You are a housing contractor. If you look at current solar options for grid tie sell back systems your selling point to the owner is that the added cost starts showing ROI after 20 years. With these you get to pitch 5 years… or in other words less time than some car financing options. Again this is truly game changing technology. While I doubt it will usher in an era of universal solar installations, this will do a great deal to shift the decision to 'go solar' into the territory of financially intelligent (if somewhat long sighted) rather than the current 'eco morality feel good' choice it primarily is. IE companies currently install solar for the PR value much more than any potential financial benefit, private installations are often choices of conscious or even made for independence in spite of the added cost. Combine it with tax incentive programs for alternative energy sources and this panel is poised to get solar installations changed from the exception to the expected in new build properties.

Like it or not I think the true 'green' revolution is here. This is the start of the nitty gritty details on how it actually happens. Two imperfect but practical new products which are shipping. Perhaps I am jumping the gun here, but I doubt it. For once the numbers are starting to tilt in the favor of some alternative energy products. Finally, real products instead of marketing pipe dreams and hype. Give these another two years and I doubt anyone will not know about them.

US Research Woes

2007-06-17T09:52:00.000-06:00

Ars Technica has an article up summarizing a book released in the national academy press about the current state of US research in physics. To sum up the summation report in a nutshell.... it SUCKS.

Of course just a personal nit... The national academy report costs 50 bucks for a PDF file. Your telling me that cost is justified? They let you read it online for free but charge 50bucks for a PDF download?

Anyway that is neither here nor there. One of the biggest recommendations coming from this report is the re-establishment of the 'blue-sky' research labs of the past. Such as Xerox, Bell-Labs, Westinghouse etc... What is left of these once famous labs is now beholden to the bottom line which is utter anathema to the spirit in which they were founded. Pure research cannot have an eye on the bottom line else you get what we have today... a dreary endless procession of mild improvements on existing PROVEN technologies. The point of pure research is to push back the boundaries of what isn't proven, to find the new, the revolutionary. Yet that is almost always unjustifiable from a 'profit' making ventures standpoint. It takes a real set of brass business cajones to pin your hope on the 'possible' breakthroughs that 'might' come out of a costly pure research endeavor. And that is why these labs are far more about the bottom line now than they were when they changed the world. It has improved those companies bottom line.... and assured them they will be the first on the extinction list when the next revolutionary change occurs. They are the buggy makers at the advent of the car, candle makers in the path of electric light etc etc etc...

It seems they are vague about how to go about re-establishing such strongholds of intellectual freedom. Well I have a suggestion. Not even a greedy one. One Billion dollars a year. One. A drop in the bucket of federal spending. One Billion free and clear. No strings attached. No agenda with it. One Billion a year to establish an institute which has the sole purpose to explore the un-explored. To test the untested. To push back the boundaries of our knowledge. This would be agreed to for something insane like 999 years with provisions for adjusting to inflation etc... The idea would be to slowly build up the foremost power in discovery. The reward would be for it to exist in the US. How might such an enterprise work? Well I have some ideas and I wanted to lay them out so here goes.

First and foremost I would make it a completely open process. The work would be online, and available to all comers so the first budget expenditure would be in making it a common workplace available for all from anywhere in the world. In other words, the founding principle of this process would be to include as many as possible. And I do not mean completed studies would be available. I mean underway projects would be transparent. The results of test runs would happen real time. All raw data would be available. Monetary expenditures would be equally transparent.

Second, while such an endeavor would obviously need its own research facilities, I would arrange for a yearly allotment of lab time at the top available facilities rather than try and re-invent the wheel.

Third, How to handle the money. First, 25% a year would go into trust for the foundation in order to eventually develop it into a self sustaining venture regardless of the success of its research or the fickle support of government. Another 25% would go into a practical branch which spent its time trying to develop practical uses, ventures etc from the research being done. Their goal not to make money so much as to break ground in the market place for the new ideas. In other words to take the theoretical and put it to solid real world use. A major goal would be to test economy of scale on at least one new technology per year. Most ventures would likely not take hold but a few should and before long should add to the self sufficient nature of the venture. Profits would go into trust or evenly dispersed bonus money to the entire enterprise.

One important note. The person in the highest position of authority could not make more than 3 times the person at the lowest rank in the research process.

The other money would go into making research possible. 1/3 in people, 1/3 in facilities and 1/3 in expenses.

Decisions about what was to be researched would be entirely in the research branch. No input from the practical branch. The price the practical branch pays for its existence and free access to what comes out of the labs is no control in the process. the practical branch also gets the legal headaches. The basic idea is not to control use of what is discovered, but to keep it open for use by anyone. Patent license agreements would be allowed but at no greater than 1% of the value of a finished product sold at retail.

The goal behind the trust is two fold. Eventually a large enough trust would form to create a solid income able to sustain the venture even if nothing ever panned out or government funding were withdrawn (most likely inevitable). Thus making it possible for such a foundation to remain true to the founding principle of 'blue-sky' research. One problem with entities like Bell labs is that they were secondary to the goal of making money and thus once the market toughened the free form nature of the labs was an un-affordable luxury (in the short term at least). Thus establishing a foundation that exists to do research has to allow some means for its future financial independence separated from the success of its work. Second, I would hope that such a stash in concert with profits from those lines of research that do pan out would eventually give the foundation the ability to go after really large projects again with freedom from something like the federal budget process.

That would be fantastic for pie in the sky research. Based on the fact most economic success today is based on some sort of blue sky research in the past I think it safe to say that properly done such an organization would eventually become a very powerful entity. Once it spear headed a new advance or two it was allowed to take financial advantage of it would soon find a freedom never before experienced by a research lab. The tough part about setting it up would be providing it budgetary support long enough for it to become self sustaining... and maintaining that support even if it took decades, or even centuries. The check on the eventual power of such an organization would be that it had no secrets. Its very existence would be predicated on the concept that Anyone had access to its discoveries. Not a technical ability to gain access... but access granted by making it as available as possible.

However not all advances come from blue sky research. There is something to be said for delivery real honest to god results in the real world with real applications. Lets set up something for that.

How about a billion a quarter deposited into an interest bearing account ear marked for technological milestones clearly defined. Hard, far reaching technical milestones. Far beyond the value of 1 billion dollars. But put in another billion the next quarter, and the following etc... Build a lottery for technology. The higher the value went the more likely someone would undergo to effort to claim it. No robbing the piggy bank on this one. Cold hard liquid assets with interest accrual and a ridiculous life span before it defaults back to the government like 999 years. What goals might be put forth?

An established lunar dark side observatory.
A Self sustaining Mars Colony.
A round trip expedition to Alpha Centauri.
The discovery of another earth like planet.

More earth bound goals?
10%, 25%, 50%, 75% payouts for an ecologically sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. The percentages representing market share the alternative must achieve.
A graduate AI that passes the Turing Test.
An automated travel vehicle with F-1 crash survivability for its occupants.
A production Scram Jet
A Fusion Reactor

But more important than the goals would be the basic premise of receiving a payout ONLY if you delivered a final result. Do this in concert with a pure 'blue-sky' research capacity and you should cover both the practical and the theoretical. Currently we are mired in a practical doldrum. Nobody wants to risk the new, and the few ventures that attempt to are generally aborted after any setbacks. At least on the government side of things. Look at the long list of aborted next generation vehicle attempts from NASA over the past two decades. On top of that, cost plus contracting has a nasty habit of nurturing parasitic long term ventures designed more to vacuum money out of federal coffers than to return any more than the bare minimum result needed to continue the influx of money.

To some extent this report simply said the US is moribound in the area of new research. We are in other words sitting on our laurels luxuriating in the glow of past successes... and the rest of the world is catching up fast. The head start the US got on the current technological era ushered in after WWII has just about evaporated. Just like the Dream Team finally got trounced in the Olympics, soon too will we be getting technologically trounced. And that has far more ramifications than falling behind in athletics. We are playing the hare... and tortoise is catching up. Only unlike in the parable tale, the tortoise is really another hare, a motivated hungry hare that will not easily give ups its advantage once it manages to pass us if it has not already. Just because we have done so well for so long does not mean we will continue to do so. We must take steps to ensure we remain at the top of scientific advancement. If history teaches us nothings else I think it has shown that those who advance lead and those who do not are over run.

"The Audacity of Hope" or "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington"

2007-02-11T18:31:00.000-06:00

So Barak has made it official. The Junior Senator for Illinois who only ran for the Senate as a last grasp at politics is now taking aim at the highest office in the land. And the man is riding a feel good wave that hasn't let up and in most cases has built since his delivery of the Keynote address at the 04 Democratic National Convention for John Kerry.

That last grasp is in his words mind you not mine. You will find out about it in his book "The Audacity of Hope". So what did I think of the book? Well first off the man is humble. He clearly understands how fortuitous his present position is, he appreciates how fragile it is and how it it could all come crashing down in an instant. He has magnetism and it flows from his words. He clearly lays out where he stands on the major issues without unnecessary digs at the opposing view point. He points the finger of blame for many of our current messes at ALL involved not just one side or the other. He pays homage to the history and foundation of the US governmental process in a erudite but not condescending manner. He regrets our departure from true bi partisan conversation and the cheapened/simplified sound byte culture we have allowed to infuse politics.

That is the good, and there is plenty more to like about his book. However, there remains one thing sorely lacking from his heartfelt dialog. Details. Plans. Courses of action. Some marks of what he will do as the man in charge. Granted he is the first to admit these things are not to be found on the pages twixt the covers of his book. To some extent I understand this and if he could honestly say he did not write the book with an eye to the presidency I might understand it even more. But accepting that this book was not written with that possibility in mind takes a great leap of faith I am unwilling to make. And in any case even if it has simply been written from the standpoint of his future as a Senator I think he should have gotten down to brass tacks on at least a few issues. He blasts the simplicity of the current public debate and then coasts through his book with middle ground platitudes and soothing calls for compassion and compromise on divisive issues.

So in the end this book will at least make you feel like you know the man a bit more... but in a way where you are not terribly sure what his leadership would be like. It is very easy to fall into reading what you want into Barak Obama. Personally I still have reserved my judgment of his presidential bid, but on the whole I like what I have seen so far. I look forward to seeing how he progresses.

There was one thing in particular that did catch my attention. His discussion about his faith. Perhaps it is just my well honed sense of cynicism when it comes to political professions of faith... but I really thought that section is the one that rang most fake, the most contrived to me. No body seems to doubt a female or minority can make a serious bid for the presidency... but the unspoken understanding for political candidates in the US is that you cannot win without being a clearly professed Christian. To win as a non-Christian you have to avoid the Christian activists groups voting against you en-mass. No one knows how hard that would be but suffice it to say they think it so hard that no major party candidate for president has not been a declared Christian to date. Considering how agnosticism tends to track with higher education levels and that the presidential talent pool has routinely come from the top educational backgrounds available it is laughable to think there have not been Christians of convenience elected in the past. I can just imagine Obama involved in arguments with his advisor's over how to handle that section. I think it is a serious part of his life. However, by and large people of true faith have little need to clearly state the conditions of the their faith such as is done in "The Audacity of Hope". True or not, heartfelt or not, it seems inserted entirely for the reason of establishing his bona fides as a card(cross?) carrying member of the J.C. crowd (not to mention the well chronicled Civil activism of the African American Church community) while clearly limiting its level of effect on his decision making or questioning nature. The statements seem a cold calculated move and rings hollow compared to most of his other sentiments.

It isn't that I think what he does is wrong. This is a standard play to the Strongly Christian element of the electorate. They are not stupid and realize what is often the reality of the situation. One might call it the most basic (and easiest) political career compromises for US politics. However Obama goes to great lengths in most of the book to not come across as the 'Standard' politician. His history of involvement in the church community in Chicago is MORE than enough to speak for itself and available to counteract any claims against his status as a Christian. In fact the man has more credibility in this department than any candidate in recent memory for me. Yet here he lets his well groomed 'not a standard politician' facade slip with a bog standard passage straight out of a national US politics 101 book. And it is that which bothers me. How much of him is Image? How much of him a solid man of consequence ready to lead this nation in troubled times? Is he a light weight thrust into the limelight by circumstance ridding his popularity wave for all it is worth... perhaps all the way to the white house? Or is he the the right man in the right place at the right time? The times are troubled and the people are looking for someone they think can pull us around. I think a great deal of that is what is driving the buzz surrounding Obama... not to mention the palpable feel in not a few democratic minds that Hillary has some SERIOUS electabillity issues. To date the Obama camp hasn't made any mistakes, but playing it safe and staying non-specific will only get them so far. Sooner or later he is going to have to start showing his substance... his leadership inclinations etc... In short he is going to have to present himself as Presidential in the true sense of the word... not just the helmet headed smooth talking baby kissing political sense, but in that way which each American feels down in their gut. If the electorate can't envision him has president he won't stand a chance and to get there he has got to start defining himself with more than platitudes about having a real political conversation (much as I agree with that sentiment personally).

So to make a long story short... I like him but I wouldn't vote for him yet.

Alberto Gonzales... WTF????

2007-01-23T20:57:00.000-06:00

The top Lawyer in the United States does not understand how the Constitution works. He actually stated that the Constitution doesn't grant people the right of Habeas Corpus (The right to Due Process of Law) like that actually meant it was not a right of the people.

I can accept such idiocy from some common Joe Schmoe off the street. In fact many might not know why this is such a farce and make the erroneous counter argument that the Constitution does indeed explicitly grant we the people the right of Habeas Corpus. In point of fact it does not, but let me break it down for you so that you can understand exactly how big an a$$clown Gonzales just showed himself to be when it comes to a fundamental element of his job... understanding the Constitution.

The Constitution does not grant ANYTHING to We The People. The Constitution is written specifically to define the rights and limitations of the Government. You see, the most basic and fundamental assumption of the United States Constitution is that ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO WE THE PEOPLE. The Constitution then goes on to explicitly state what the Government Can, and most importantly, what it CANNOT do. In the case of Habeas Corpus it explicitly states that the ONLY cases under which the Government can suspend the right of Habeas Corpus is when either we are invaded or a state of rebellion exists and then only when it will help maintain public safety. Currently neither is true thus the government has no right to deny Habeas Corpus.

See how that works. By default WE HAVE ALL RIGHTS. The document doesn't gives us the rights, we already have them. The document ONLY defines when and how much the government can intrude upon those rights.

The problem is that over time the 'common sense' understanding of the constitution has come to be it is the granter of our rights and thus is the source of our rights. Nothing could be further from the truth and if our Founding Fathers are aware of such idiocy at the level of the Attorney General of the United States of America they are spinning in their graves.

The Bill of Rights is not a list of our rights. It is the limitation of Government power to intrude on our most basic and fundamental rights. Let me put that another way. The Bill of Rights represents those issues which were deemed so important that it could not be assumed the government would not tramp on them at some point so they EXPLICITLY prohibit the government from intruding upon them. Thus it states things like.

Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Read that again, pay attention in particular to the start "Congress shall make no law". CONGRESS. The constitution is not talking to the people but stating an explicit limit on the power of Government. It allows no exceptions. It doesn’t say in time of war the government can suspend the ability of the people to peaceably assemble. It says NO LAW. If they do try you can say what part of NO don’t you understand. When the government breaks with the constitution it is in effect saying it rules the people and not the other way around. It breaks the pact We the People made that government would be formed under the strictures of the constitution. In fact it nullifies its right to govern us.

If you have never read the constitution before or if you always thought of it as granting We the People our rights PLEASE go read it again in this light. Especially the 10th amendment.

Why does it work this way? Power Corrupts and Absolute power Corrupts absolutely. When people make a compact with a government they make a compact with the devil. Governments allow stability. But they also invite Tyranny. Once the power structure is in place it is hard to challenge and it ALWAYS acts in its interests and not the peoples. Prior to the constitution most governments had been formed around the idea that they granted people their rights. IE the King or other organized power of the land had been imbued with some divine right to give and take away the rights of the people in order to run the country/province etc... The grand experiment of the American Republic was that it turned that notion on its head. We decided that it wasn't the government that doled out the rights but the people who did. Thus instead of the government granting We the People rights it is We the People that dole out and take away the rights of the Government. Thus the idea the government works for us and not the other way around.

Alberto Gonzales…. Go back to school and re-take your Con-Law classes. Jeebus this statement makes anything Quayle ever said look genius by comparison and at least none of his statements could be interpreted as a direct challenge against the fundamental nature of the Constitution.

Presidential Race for '08 update

2007-01-20T13:15:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since I have visited the topic of the next presidential election and particularly the status of former first Lady Hillary Clinton and my thoughts on her upcoming bid for the next presidency.

Despite the fact some thought she would not, she has officially declared her candidacy. For any that have read through my blog they know The upcoming presidential election is one I view with a great deal of interest.

The New Al Gore
Hillary in 08

For the most part I stand by my original Thoughts mentioned there though it seems the new runner in the game is Barak Obama. I do not know too much about Barak but I will be looking into him and putting up my detailed thoughts at a later time... but from the standpoint of an interesting election he poses the added dimension of a credible African American candidate as opposed to the 1 dimensional sensationalist characters we have been presented with through the last couple of decades (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson etc...).

I am not to sure about my thoughts on Gore... He is still insisting he will not make another bid for the presidency and while we are still almost two years away from the election it takes time to gather the resources of a realistic presidential bid. Granted he is in a somewhat unique position in that he is already so well known. Should Gore toss his hat in the ring even at the 11th hour he has enough standing to be a serious contender for the democratic nomination. The only problem is this will be a heavily contested election and it will take some deep pockets to see it through. While waiting late isn’t a bad strategy, waiting to long can mean all the money is gone to someone else. Unless Gore has a serious War Chest already he will need to start gathering resources soon to make a serious bid.

While I think his resurgence in status is going to lead to him being back on the presidential trail, it is not impossible he may let it pass by and decide to play king maker. If he does not run then his endorsement is going to be a key element for ANY democratic candidate but for Hillary it may well be a requirement. Not because of what Gore's backing would give her... but what a lack of backing from Gore would do to her in particular. IE Gore worked with her as Vice president and if he doesn't run AND he doesn’t back her then he is as good as saying... She isn't up to the task. If he runs this is muted because he then is only saying he thinks he can do a better job and it will be up to the people to decide if that is the case or not.

If I had to call the democratic dynamics now I would list them as this.

First, Hillary has the baton and at this point it is her race to lose considering all DECLARED candidates. She must have Gore backing her if he doesn't jump into the race. If he doesn't back her then she better hope he is either not doing so because he is in the race or because he abstains entirely from backing anyone. If he backs someone else he is declaring she can't do the job... and with 8 years in the white house with her he is in a unique position to pass that judgment and people will listen to it, all the more so if he is not in the race (IE his status will not be biasing him). After that it is all in how they handle Bill. However... lemme say this. Betting against the Clinton's when it comes to politickin is like betting against the house in Vegas. The house does lose occasionally, but that isn't the way the odds tilt. Bill will behave, and the issue of his former presidency will be handled as well as it can be. The only question is if it is a fatal flaw or manageable quirk of a Hillary Campaign. Don’t think Hillary will be a Female Bill. She is a different beast entirely. She doesn’t have the glib demeanor and she isn’t nearly as smooth. She is ruthlessly ambitious and knows how to reach her audience just look at her success in New York. In some ways she actually reminds me of Dubbya in that she isn’t afraid to alienate folks in order to strongly reach those she needs. So long as they make the right assumptions about who that is in her Campaign she is the one to beat.

Barak? Well I will get more in depth with him later as I mentioned but at first blush he reminds me an awful lot of John Edwards last time around. He is a nobody who is very good in front of the camera and is in a position to speak strongly yet without substance. He has nothing to lose. In order for him to make it he has to do a Howard Dean without the melt down... that is, keep an incredible surge of popularity going all the way to the end. It has been a while since we have seen a presidential candidate with that kind of magnetism. He could be it, but odds are he is a little to far from left field at this point.

Gore. Whether he wants to run or not Gore is going to figure into this election. He seems poised to play a similar Game to the one Newt Gingrich is playing. IE I don't want it but if We (as in We the People) ask him to then he will. In short Gore knows he can't go up there in a pure politics play. His original campaign was one of politics. He was the incumbent vice president and the political machine pushed him out by default in default way and it didn’t suit him at all. Now he has popularity much more reminiscent of Clinton when he started pulling stunts like playing the sax on late night TV... only unlike Bill, Gore has his popularity building on real serious issues facing the nation. Gore may actually get drafted, and if he heeds the call of the people and continues to play it loose with just the right amount of seriousness then he will be hard to dismiss. Consider it in this light. He currently holds about 10% of democrats in polls and he has repeatedly said he ISN’T interested. That number will take a huge jump the second he tosses his hat in the ring. How much will depend on just how good an entrance he can make.

John Edwards is going to be in the mix as well. Considering he hasn't really come to my attention as anything other than his being Kerry's vice presidential nominee I doubt he is going to do anything different than he did before. IE he will be popular but not near enough to get the nomination. He may once again be a front runner for the vice president slot. Though all in all I think Barak will take that if he doesn't pull off a miracle and actually land the nomination for all the same reasons Edwards wound up on Kerry’s ticket.

Well this has been all Democratic so far. My focus on the Democrats is largely dictated by the fact it is going to be awful hard for the republicans to win. I think the race is for the democratic nomination. Bush is in the toilette ratings wise and if he could run again I just don't see him making it. While I am not on record for it I did think he was likely to win his second election. Mostly because I thought Kerry was a joke. The time was not right for people to want a change in leadership and Bush had him by the Balls with the issue of his change of heart on the War.

However the war play that effectively defeated Kerry in '04 is what has Bush not looking good now, nor the republican power structure in general. The war is a mess and there is no doubt the republicans are holding the bag for the past 4 years. It won't be impossible for a republican to win, but I think it will take a complete splintering of the democratic party, poor campaign by their nominee and a compelling republican candidate. One or two of those I can see happening but not all three.

Of interest to me is what Condi does. She has enough credibility to be a serious candidate. But the last 8 years ultimately are not going to reflect well on her. So in a sense she and anyone else tied strongly to this administration are hamstrung. If she or any of them distance themselves by blasting the administration then the democrats have them in the exact same vise the republicans put Kerry in over the war issue and it will be just as effective. The true power of Condi for the republicans may be as a harbinger of change. IE an African American Woman on the ticket. If she can't get the nomination she probably needs to be the vice president pick of choice for whoever gets it. But hey come on... who doesn't want to see the final presidential debates featuring Hillary vrs Condi?

Giuliani is on a lot of people's lips but he has a MAJOR problem. He is the same old formula, same old presentation etc etc etc. The same old same old has ended in two effective stale mates the past two elections. The Democrats know this, they feel it and they are responding because they lost. The people are tired of the same old same old and currently they are tired of republican leadership. Unless the
Giuliani campaign picks up some serious magic I think he or whoever gets the republican nomination is going to play the role of Mondale in 80. I'll take Giuliani seriously after he (or any generic political image candidate) wins the nomination if he/they put Condi on the ticket as vice president AND successfully manage to distance themselves from the current administration without going anti war. And that will be a neat trick indeed.

Lastly I want to clearly state that while I have made a big deal out of Hillary and Condi, or Sen. Clinton and Dr. Rice if you prefer, being women (and to a lesser Extent Barak). This has nothing to do with their credentials. Being a woman doesn't make them a better or worse candidate. However, election reality is that image plays a HUGE role. The simple fact that they are women, and in Dr. Rice's case a minority, means that a basic fundamental element of presidential image since the inception of the United States of America is going to change. Up until this point we have not seen a major party ticket with anything other than Old White Men. In a perfect world it wouldn't matter if the candidate where a green polka dotted hermaphroditic 35year old so long as they were the best candidate. But to date we do not live in a perfect world. The fact they (or anyone else) are women, or a member of a minority, is in no way shape form or fashion germane to the discussion of their capabilities as leaders. However, in reality it is most certainly germane to the issues of creating a campaign image and how they will be presented. And that has an unfortunate amount to do with who does and does not become president of the United States of America.

The Hydrogen Economy Myth

2007-01-14T14:53:00.000-06:00

Oil is running out, We need a new source of energy and HYDROGEN is the way of the future. Sound familiar? Well as the title indicates I rather think that is a myth.

Why? It is first and foremost a myth because we already have MANY new sources of energy and hydrogen isn't one of then. Hydrogen in any use other than a fusion reactor, is not an energy source. It is only used for energy storage. The energy still has to come from somewhere to create the hydrogen. And quite frankly.... as an energy storage mechanism hydrogen sucks.

For starters it has extremely low energy density, and is cryogenic as a liquid. It is just about impossible to store for long periods of time and for similar reasons makes long distance transportation systems problematic.

Now don't get me wrong. It isn't that these problems can't be addressed. They can be. The question to me is... should we bother? There ARE other methods of energy storage and honestly I think we should be pursuing them. Currently the best bet seems to be nano technology based improvements in batteries and capacitors. Capacitors in particular hold a great deal of promise. Why would these be best? Because they hold the highest levels of demonstrated efficiency in storage/retrieval of electrical power. Solar and Nuclear plants provide electrical power. Storing and retrieving electrical power in an electrical form leads to high levels of efficiencies in power transfers that are hard/impossible to realize in conversions processes like using the electricity to generate hydrogen through electrolysis and then turning the hydrogen back into electricity through fuel cells or combustion. The problem till now has been cost, weight, power density and life cycles of such devices. If those elements start falling in practical ranges then THEY are the future. Not hydrogen.

In any case, barring a breakthrough in hydrogen fusion, the idea of a 'hydrogen' based economy is a myth. Even with a working hydrogen fusion plant, Hydrogen will NEVER become the focus of an economy the way in which oil has. For starters there will NEVER be a war over access to hydrogen. At least not on earth. It just is not that kind of resource.

Bob Woodward "State of Denial" commentary.

2006-12-29T13:34:00.000-06:00

Once again Bob Woodward has helped produce a piece of journalistic work which is making waves at the highest level possible. I sometimes wonder what he thinks of the more current method of journalistic king making/destroying which always seems so slipshod in comparison to the slow steady work which he has done for so many years. How influential is this one? Well I don't think it is going to lead to a presidential abdication of office. However, I'd make a Coca-cola bet this book is what provided the motivating force to replace Rumsfeld at Sec Def and what pushed Bush to finally say on record that Iraq was in a shambles.

Granted it wasn't Woodward per say so much as what he was able to get from folks inside the administration (Including Rumsfeld himself) to say 'on the record' that gave his book this kind of influence. Woodward through the years has defined the epitome Journalistic integrity and it is with that weight behind his words that this book has forced this administration to stop hiding from the truth that has been so obvious to rest of the 'real world' for at least a couple of years.

Some might suggest Woodward was part of the problem in the way he supported this administration in his previous two works regarding Bush's presidency. However in my view he was simply reporting the facts. When last he took on the Bush administration the war was relatively new and the dust had yet to settle on the fall out. The operation to take over Iraq and oust Saddam was an unmitigated success. This book deals with the fallout, the aftermath and the continuing debacle that has come to be the 'restoration of Iraq'. He doesn't change his tune here. He is specifically calling out what Iraq has turned into.

All in all this is a book that is on the short list to read for ANYONE who is interested in what is going on with Iraq. I could go on and on and make my own points but I simply could not make them as well as what you will find in this book. Read it.

Eragon, Movie Commentary

2006-12-29T12:42:00.000-06:00

First off if you have not read the book or seen the movie and are worried about spoilers do not read this commentary as it may give away plot points.

First and foremost, I imagine the immediate question on anyones mind who read the book is "Did they do a good job?". The answer is a most certain and heart wrenching NO. They didn't even get close IMHO. As a movie it stands well enough on its own as a swords, sorcerers, and of course Dragons epic. However, it uses the book only for its broadest outlines and characters. The imagery is fantastic but by and by its hollow. It is like a game with fabulous graphics and zero substance.

Disapointing in the extreme for those that loved the book such as myself. It had such potential for continuing Hollywood's recent string of surprising success with epic fantasy stories.

More details? Jeremy Irons is horribly under used, The kid that Plays Eragon does a fair job at what he was handed but the scripted Eragon was a shell of the book character, Malcovich was miscast not to mention was not supposed to be seen in this part of the story anyway. Durga is played fairly well by Robert Carlyle.

As an example of how they changed the story? The Werecat is gone (budget cut I imagine). Saphira magically grows in short order and names herself. There is almost no training relationship between Brom and Eragon, just a single 10 second long fight with sticks used to prove Eragon can't use a sword well (he then goes off pell mell like he is a master dealer in death). We see little of Murtaugh and have almost no time for him to establish himself before being revealed as a potentially dangerous character to the Hero.

All in all it was a typical Hollywood hatchet job to make a mindless piece of entertainment at all expense of telling a deep and engaging story.

Ahh well. Such is life.

Jefferson County Schools and Affirmative Action

2006-11-28T21:10:00.000-06:00

The Supreme Court of the United States of America is once again hearing arguments in a case of national importance with regards to school integration. In 1954 the SCOTUS handed down one of its most important decisions in Brown vrs Board of Education. In Brown they overturning the doctrine of separate but equal. The Supreme court found that separate was inherantly unequal and that schools could not legally segregate their schools based on the color of students skin. This led to a spate of law suits over the next couple of decades forcing schools to integrate. In most cases the solution was to bus kids to remote schools thus over coming the inherent geographic segregation of American society due to decades of legaly upheld separation of the races.

Fast forward through to today and now a school system is being charged with using racial discrimination in order to keep its school systems integrated. IE they are now using race to maintain DE-segregation. In short it is an affirmative action process by which racial discrimination is being used for good... or so the supporters of the program claim. Essentially they claim that any harm done by using racial discrimination in this manner is outweighed by the benefit of maintaining a largely de-segregated school system population.

The argument is one that is at the heart of American racial discord and an extremely thorny issue. Why is it thorny? Isn't it obviously evil and discriminatory to make any judgement based on the color of someones skin?

Practically speaking if you are to keep a school system from being segregated by geographic default how on earth are you to do it if you are not aware of the ethnic distribution of the students? That is the problem faced by the Louisville school board. A system which did not receive absolution from the federal court system until 1999 that it has sufficiently managed to integrate its schools systems well enough to regain its independence in determining student enrollment assignments. So they have voluntarily maintained a system of insured integration by being sure that among many consideration they maintained a 15-50% minority population in all of its public schools. It is this number guideline, or racial quota in some eyes, that has landed them with a suit in front of the SCOTUS.

Who is right? The school board certainly seems to have the best of intentions but I find it hard to condone ever upholding a system which contains the possibility in which race can trump all other decisions. And saying that race discrimination is wrong while actively discriminating in order to achieve racial balance is a highly hypocritical situation. It is a long term stance of the NAACP that such methods are the only realistic way with which to combat such things as default geographic segregation and a system which was systematically shaped through the decades/centuries by actively discriminatory practices. In a sense that fire must be fought with fire until such time as true parity is attained.

Personally I think the argument from the NAACP has at times reached the level of two kids in the back seat saying they hit the other because they 'got me last' and I had to even the score. The old saw goes "Two wrongs don't make a right". It seems to me the NAACP is saying you can correct years of discrimination with more discrimination. No one would suggest that the justification of the NAACP is the same as that which was used to implement Jim Crow laws. However I find it hard to swallow how blithely the NAACP accepts the notion of discriminatory practices as palatable. No matter how noble the justification, racial discrimination remains the upholding of one over another based solely on the color of ones skin. I must say at the last no matter what your reasoning that is simply an indefensible position.

On the other hand it is equally difficult to suggest that by simply turning a blind eye to race entirely it will be enough to ensure that the problem disappears on its own. Again... if racial integration is a legal mandate of Brown, then how is a school system to ensure racial integration if it does not actively make sure the ethnic make up of its schools is mixed by some arbitrary percentage that is deemed 'enough'?

It is still very much a fact that the population of America is still geographically segregated by default if not law. Thus going to a neighborhood school system (which many systems went back to once receiving their autonomy after the Brown based suits came to segregate them) results in many school systems now segregated by default rather than law. Basically Louisville is getting around this process with a "school of choice" system and by keeping an eye on the racial makeup of its schools. The person overseeing the system is making the (probably accurate asesment) that without explicitly ensuring racial diversity that the schools will over time default back to geographic divisions which in Louisville means highly segregated schools both along racial and socio economic lines. In short the question before the SCOTUS is should it be acceptable for public school systems to use race as a determining factor when assigning students to schools.