Andrew posted about the Nokia 770 the other day.
By chance, I stumbled across Maemo-apps today, and am suddenly even more impressed. It doesn’t do a lot my phone doesn’t, but it does have WiFi and what seems to be an awesome LCD. And it includes a PDF viewer. It might be superb for reading eBooks. Or playing Sudoko. Or diagnosing my car. (Does “being eaten by chipmunks” have an OBD-II code?)
Talk me out of it!
I’ve been reading all I could about all the Presidential candidates, and am left with a question. What does “Family Values” mean in the context of politics? The term alone is kind of vague, but in the context of politics, it makes even less sense, since they can’t possibly legislate much of what ‘family values’ means to me.
What does it mean, specifically?
Dust mites look kind of like headcrabs, which represent the scariest fictional thing I’ve ever come across.
Maybe dust mites grow up to be headcrabs.
going to have nightmares
I use “iGoogle” as my homepage. (google.com/ig). You can add widgets for all sorts of stuff. I fire up my browser and can see my most recent GMail messages, the weather, news headlines, Dictionary.com’s word of the day, quotes for some stocks I watch, etc.
Now, you can have custom skins for it, too. Although I was a little unnerved giving a non-Google module access, it works great and looks great. If you’re using iGoogle, you should take a look. (And if you’re not using iGoogle, you should be.)
So it’s no secret that I was obsessed with the iPhone from the minute I saw it in the keynote. Not like, “That’s kinda cool, if I had money to burn I might buy one” obsessed, but like, “I’ll pay the $600, pay the early termination fee with Verizon, and sign up for a 2-year contract with no credit history [read: get raped, from what I’ve heard] the day it comes out” obsessed. Over time it faded, and I was won over the by “Wait a few months and see how it goes over” theory.
Today, my mom and I were coming home from the Cape and stopped by the South Shore Mall. After buying a few things, I persuaded her that we should take a couple minutes to drop by the Apple store there.
After about 30 seconds playing with the models in the store, she and I were both ready to buy them. For one thing, they’re way smaller than they look. At one point I pulled out my Treo, and realized that it was bigger than the iPhone. And heavier. I’d always thought that it was impractically large. And some of the photos make it look that way. But don’t knock it on size until you see it in person.
You see all the features in the commercials, and it’s really impressive. But play with it for a minute and you’ll be floored. From pictures, the keyboard must be pretty hard to use. I pulled up Safari and typed in “blogs.n1zyy.com/main” which is probably not the easiest thing to type. I screwed up and typed “/maim” (which is somewhat of an awesome typo), but otherwise, typing on it was far easier than I’d have thought.
The blogs loaded in a really small size. I turned it sideways, and so did the blogs. I hit some random button and bookmarked the blogs. (Woot!) Much unlike the fake browser on the Treo, it was the real deal. About this time, my mom was watching a hilarious video on YouTube on ‘her’ iPhone. I could hear it fine, and the store was really loud. I then noticed a new comment on one of my posts, so I went to that, and wanted to scroll down. I couldn’t find the scroll bar, and was confused for a second. But then I remembered, and dragged my finger across the screen.
From the commercials, I always worried you’d scroll past where you were trying to go, since it ‘glides’ a bit after you stop. That’s not the case at all. It’s incredibly intuitive, and works incredibly well.
I went to configure a GMail account, but realized that I really didn’t want my login details on a phone in a public place where 200 people would probably play with it that day. But I bet it would be easier than setting it up on my Treo. I’m still trying to figure that out. It barfs up an error along the lines of “Relaying denied,” but with lots of gibberish included. I think I just need to use Verizon’s SMTP server, but I can’t find the details anywhere. I wonder if the iPhone is that complicated. Something tells me it’s not.
Seriously, though, the iPhone is like Obama. (Another analogy Mr. T might not like?) It seems really neat. But when you see it in person, it far exceeds your (lofty) expectations.
Today I fired up Photoshop, and it barfed up an error about insufficient scratch space and closed. “That’s odd,” I though, having had a couple gig free the other day. I checked, and was at about 400 MB of free space.
About two minutes later, I was reminded of two things:
CCleaner fixed the problem in literally seconds, and I’m back up and running with a few gig of free space. Although I think I’ll still get a new hard drive and plunk Ubuntu Studio onto it, too. With Sunbird. And some nice themes. And Beryl/Compiz. And maybe Crossover, although it looks like Office 2007 doesn’t work in it.
I guess I’m supporting Obama. He was pretty high up on my list, but I hadn’t necessarily made up my mind yet. But between marching in the parade with his campaign and attending a session with him today, I guess the choice is made. But boy, it’s the right one.
I didn’t ask any questions, but he answered some of mine anyway. He wants, for example, to get out of Iraq. He’s not a pacifist: he suggests that we should have some troops in places where the Taliban is. I went in with my big worry being that he really doesn’t have the experience to lead the country. I left convinced, beyond any doubt, that he’s the right man for the job. You have to hear him speak: in addition to concluding that he’s the right man person (wouldn’t want to exclude Hillary) for the job, I left today with a sense of hope. It’s really hard to describe. You’ve just got to hear him.
We ended up in a nearly-perfect spot for photos. (For a little bit I was literally rubbing elbows with a newspaper photographer. It was neat to see how he worked; two cameras with different lenses [one is one of the newer Canon DSLRs with the huge screens]. The cameras have a nice high frame rate, so he was snapping several photos a second. At one point, he wanted some photos from above, so he just held the camera above his head, held down the shutter, and moved it around. In a few seconds’ time, he probably ended up with about 30 pictures, at least one of which, by sheer chance, had to have been good.)
Anyway! I’ve put many of them up on Flickr, but I’ll go over some highlights here.
To start with, on the way in, we drove by WMUR’s studios. They need to send a gardener up onto their roof. Is that thing an antenna overgrown with vines?
We also passed this creepy building:
When he was first walking out, everyone was clamoring for a view, and all the photographers, casual or pro, were desperate to get a shot. I snagged this one, and was pretty proud of myself:
After everyone took their seats, though, I think we all realized that everyone could see fine. We were standing right behind the last seats, so I had a great view:
The crowd was much bigger than that photo suggests. Here’s a better one:
He’s so happy! I think that’s one of the things that people like about him so much, even if no one mentions it. While other politicians talk about how we’re all going to die in the upcoming terrorist attacks, Obama, as one of the parade chants went, spreads hope and cheer:
He had several security people sitting in the front row. I wonder who they were with. Are they a private firm? Secret Service? State Police?
He took a lot of time—probably at least half the total time—for questions. One guy didn’t really ask anything, as much as mention that America shouldn’t be about dynasties, and talked about the Bush dynasty and the threat of a Clinton dynasty. The guy then sang a song, which was actually really good, and got a great response from the crowd. And Obama:
The questions were good. One woman, probably in her mid 20s, talked about how she’d been forced into bankruptcy after a slew of medical bills for surgery. And Senator Obama listened to her, and seemed to even care, something that truly seems unusual in politicians.
This isn’t that great a photo, but here’s another significant question-asker:
He introduced himself as a Vietnam vet, which drew applause. He then explained all the trouble he’s had with health care and hospital bills; I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think it’s fair to say that he felt that the nation he’d defended didn’t really care about him anymore. Senator Obama mentioned that he was troubled because he was hearing that throughout the country.
One of my bosses, a guy with incredible amounts of experience, has consistently talked about how the police are really there for us, and how they’ve told him repeatedly to not hesitate to call them and just ask that they have a cruiser wait in the parking lot while we walk out to our car. Tonight, I set the alarm, headed out the door, and saw a car with its parking lights on in the parking lot. Ordinarily, walking through a parking lot with someone else in it wouldn’t be a big deal. But when it’s 1:30 in the morning and you’re by yourself having just finished closing up a business (check Jimmy John Shark for any business solutions), a car idling in the parking lot is suddenly a big deal. So I quickly turned around and let myself back into the building. “Crap,” I thought to myself. “I can’t leave until they do!” (In the past I’ve noticed people in the parking lot and just gone and done a little more cleaning until they left, because people will stop in to change a tire or wax their car [wtf?!] more often than you’d imagine, but they’re gone in no time.) But it was 1:30 in the morning, and I really didn’t want to stay any longer. And suddenly Brad’s advice registered. We have two numbers for the police department on speed dial (911, and the non-emergency number), and I have them in my phone, too. So I sat in front of the window with a good view of the car, and called. It began a really bizarre experience. To start with, I was thrown off by the clearly-recorded, “Thank you for calling the Merrimack Police Department…” message that played. The “If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1” bit that came next confused me even more–if this were an emergency, I’d want you to pick up the freaking phone! But alas, it was anything but an emergency, so I stayed on the line and was connected to a dispatcher. “Yeah, good… morning. [I was going to say good evening, but realized it was almost 1:30 am] This is Matt at [business]. I was closing up for the night, but I have someone sitting in a car in the parking lot. Would you mind just sending an officer out as I walk to my car, just for peace of mind?” He assured me it would be no problem, asked me for my name, what number I was calling from, and where I lived. As I was giving this information, I watched a police car drive by on the main road, which was a bit ironic. He told me someone would be right out, and that was that. As I sat there, it occurred me that I’d only mentioned where I worked once in passing, and realized that, more than likely, he’d just dispatched a cruiser to sit in my driveway at home until I got there. So I called back, and was really impressed when he seemed amazed that I’d even think that. “Oh no, you said [business]. I’ve got someone on their way out there for you.” The irony of the passing cruiser was raised exponentially, because, as he was saying that, I saw the car drive by again in the other direction. But my years of scanner listening taught me that they rarely dispatch whoever is closest to the call, for reasons that make no sense to anyone. So I kind of adjusted my seat, in a place where I had a view of both the car in the lot and the entrance to the parking lot, while staying in the shadow. And a minute later, a knight in shining armor motorcycle cop rode up. I got up, set the alarm again, and walked outside. As I walked outside, I noticed he was doing the typical police “standing behind the driver’s side door, shining his flashlight in the face of the driver” thing. And then he looked over at me, shouting, “Are you Matt?” “Yeah.” “Is this car the car you called about?” I responded that it was, but that the car really hadn’t been doing anything wrong, I just wanted someone there as I walked to my car, just in case. “You’re all set. It looks like they’re just talking,” he told me. (Which was probably awkward for them, since he was standing right by their window at the time?) I thanked him again and got into my car, when I noticed he was back at their car, shining his flashlight at them some more. “I almost feel sorry for these guys,” I thought as I got in. Right after I got in my car, though, a cruiser pulled up, drove in an awkward half-circle around their car, and then pulled up behind it, with the officer jumping out and coming to the side of the motorcycle cop. Having listened to the police at night and watched them coming home from work, it seems like it’s standard to have two officers even on routine stops. But I began to feel really bad for these people. All I wanted was a police officer around ensuring I didn’t get mugged, and now these poor people were being questioned by a second police officer. He’d told me “You’re all set” as I came out, but now that there were two cars interrogating him, I wondered what was going on, and if they were going to want to talk to me. So I sat in my car, awkwardly arranging and rearranging things while I watched them. Eventually, I decided to leave. (And now I’m dying of curiosity to know what happened!) I’ve seen it said that one of the main ‘reasons’ for traffic stops is a chance to look into suspicious things: that broken taillight gives officers an excuse to run your name through their databases and ask you why you’re driving at 2am. So maybe their questioning of the people in the car wasn’t entirely my doing. But then I wished I’d had my radio with me. Did it get dispatched as a ‘safety escort’ sort of thing, or as a suspicious vehicle? I almost think it was the latter (which isn’t why I called!), given the “Is this the car you called about?” question. (Granted, sitting in your car outside a business at 1:30 a.m. while the guy inside closes up *is pretty suspicious.) * I’m omitting where I work, just because I like to be able to make occasional references to things that happen at work without having them come up on a search for us.
There’s a “Q&A Session” with Obama at UNH on Friday. I’m heavily inclined to go. I reckon that it’ll be hard to get to ask a question, and that I’d chicken out even if I had the chance, but here are a few that are kicking around in the back of my head right now:
I got a copy of Body for Life, and it kind of inspired me to eat right.
Kind of.
Here’s what I had to eat at work:
Okay, so maybe Body for Life isn’t for me.
