Random Non-Sequiters

» In my new cubicle location at work. I have it about 80% organized, the other 20% is hidden, so it looks fairly neat anyway.

» I saw Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen last night. Long movie, lots of explosions. All of Michael Bay's female casting is along the lines of Megan Fox. It was the Bayiest Bay movie that ever bayed I think. If the the first Transformers was targeted at 8 to 12 year old boys, this new film probably targets 14 to 17 year old boys. Taken in that context and for that audience, it was a very good film. Don't expect much plot and don't expect the Autobots or Decepticons to take themselves too seriously and you'll enjoy this just fine (if you are a guy.)

BTW, I thought it was much more like the cartoon than the first film, and on some level I'm guessing that it will turn out to be a better G.I. Joe movie than G.I.Joe will turn out to be as well.

» Thinking alot about Advertising today (happens often actually). Thinking about *if* the era of an advertiser asking permission to interrupt someone and deliver a message that the advertiser wants to deliver a customer is over?

I know that interrupting someone with advertising without someone's permission is probably over and often creates as much negative feeling as good. With so much out there asking for a customers attention, why would a customer want to give their attention to anyone providing them an untargeted general message not tailored to their *current* needs at the moment?

I know why I make interruption advertising, I'm payed to. And within the constraints of what is left of that type of advertising, I can accomplish what is accomplishable. But it's a changing world.

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Video

» Improv Everywhere. Bunches of people download an MP3 and then take instructions from a voice, acting in unison.

» Man on the street interviews... people don't know what a browser is.

» Weird Al Craigslist Song.

» What if people treated other people like they do graphic designers?

» Tweettabs Tweetdeck-like web based updating search columns

» Ocipital Red Laser Bar code Scanning App for iPhone 3GS.

» iPhone 3Gs vs. Palm Pre Browser Showdown.

» John Hodgman/Obama Roast. funny.

» Giant Japanese Gundam robot moves it's head, blows steam out of it's frame.

I want to hear your

One one about the stick-figure cartoon, the maniacal clown and the submarines

xkcd is an interesting comic. Besides the entertainment of the comic, however, there are often hidden gems of commentary or insight in the comics "alt" tag text (the hover box when your cursor rests over the image.) A week or more ago there was this comic an amusing enough math geek take on the Seinfeld episode This or That where Jerry and Elaine try to change the rules of sex between Men and women.

Like I said the comic itself is derivative but the alt text? The alt text is pity and profound:

This happens in geek circles every so often. The 'Hey this is just a system I can figure out easily!' It's also a problem among engineers first diving into the stock market.

I've been noodling on that statement 'Hey this is just a system I can figure out easily!' for the past week an half.

Then also this past week, I've had the opportunity to interact with a handful of people I've known a long time, who are in new situations. Same people, new situations. And it's been interesting that certain things I thought would be the way things should be, were.

This would lend itself to reinforcement of people "...just being a system I can figure out easily". Systems that react in reliable predictable ways, are like algebra equations with Xs, Ys and Zs right? Understand the variables and solve for the equations.

The engineering mindset, is that equations are solvable, you just need enough information. Get enough transparency, collect enough data, and you can solve the equation. Or maybe not...

Enter The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight was on HBO this morning, I have all the above spinning in my head, frothing about with current events and current situations and then I get to a scene in The Dark Knight, a movie I've seen before but a movie good enough that if you watch it several times, you can peel back some interesting nuggets of thought. I tuned in, shortly before this exchange:

INT. BAT-BUNKER -- DAY

    Wayne sits at his video screens- they
    all play the Joker's video with different
    IMAGE TREATMENTS and SOUND TUNINGS.
    Wayne turns to Alfred. Indicates
    the screens.

            WAYNE
        Targeting me won't get their money
        back. I knew the mob wouldn't go
        down without a fight, but this is
        different. They've crossed a line.


            ALFRED
        You crossed it first, sir. You've
        hammered them, squeezed them to the
        point of desperation. And now, in
        their desperation they've turned to a
        man they don't fully understand.
    Wayne gets up from his monitors,
    raises the bat-cabinet.

            WAYNE
        Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred.
        We just have to figure out what he's
        after.

            ALFRED
        Respectfully, Master Wayne, perhaps
        this is a man you don't fully
        understand, either.

            ALFRED
            (looks at Wayne)
        I was in Burma. A long time ago. My
        friends and I were working for the
        local government. They were trying
        to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders,
        bribing them with precious stones.
        But their caravans were being raided
        in a forest north of Rangoon by a
        bandit. We were asked to take care
        of the problem, so we started
        looking for the stones. But after
        six months, we couldn't find anyone
        who had traded with him.

            WAYNE
        What were you missing?

            ALFRED
        One day I found a child playing with
        a ruby as big as a tangerine.
            (shrugs)
        The bandit had been throwing the
        stones away.

            WAYNE
        So why was he stealing them?

            ALFRED
        Because he thought it was good sport.
        Because some men aren't looking for
        anything logical, like money... they
        can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or
        negotiated with.
            (grave)
        Some men just want to watch the world
        burn.
    Wayne stares at Alfred.
    Reaches for the bat-suit.

...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money... they can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Another piece to throw into the froth, "irrational drives". Drives so embedded, so built-in that circumstances can't change them. Sure circumstances may mitigate them potentially, circumstances may even submerge them temporarily, but these "irrational drives" so core to a person's make-up, just wait to reassert themselves.

You can't know all the drives, you can't collect enough information on those, there are also likely many drives, many submerged by circumstance. You can't predict fully which ones will surface themselves and play off the surfaced drives of others either.

It's chaos.

But given enough time, you can see the "irrational drives" even though submerged, identify them, and ping your sonar against their depths to check and see that they are still there. But you can't predict when they will surface. And that's stressful. You know the submarine is out there, periodic pings on your sonar over time confirm it. Yet you don't know when it will surface or worse yet, launch one of it's ICBMs. So you build defenses. You try to prepare for all the possible sub attacks, but soon you come to the conclusion that it's just not possible to anticipate them all and their permutations of combinations, for the ocean is large and their numbers are legion.

This is a potential attack. Attacks provoke Fight or Flight or tend and befriend. But neither of these responses work well against the subs.

So then you just blog about it.

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Delayed tweet backs

I was away from twitter all day, but when I got home I scrolled back to my last check in and read them all to catch myself up.

There's a certain point where it's just to late to comment on a tweet in twitter... but if I had been around today, these are some of the tweet back comments I might have made:

On Iran:
By all account the other guy still doesn't care much for America either. I think twitter peeps are a little too excited for the whole Iranian election.

I'm not a fan of the green color over icons thing either, seems too much like the web equivalent of sticking a ribbon magnet on your car.

On a Tweep getting told he was Twitteringto much:
If you are at your desk all day working, tweeting is no different than talking to the cube next to you.

To a tweep fretting about eyebrows:
You have eyebrows? I knew you had eyes, but I'm not sure I ever noticed what your eyebrows look like.

To a tweep making donuts:
mmm donuts!

To the tweep who posted her facebook address:
Hey you're hot!

To my friends currently in Charlotte!:
Whoo Hoo!

To the tweep who thinks the cafeteria lady has a vendetta against him:
You're not paranoid... there really is cafeteria conspiracy... I'm sure of it... ;)

To the tweep buying a $85 power charger:
Ouch... I never have bought into why they get away charging so much for those.

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More thoughts on the Palm Pre

Eleven Days later.

A twitter friend of mine asked yesterday about my likes and dislikes about the Palm Pre. So here's some additional thoughts since I've had a chance to carry it around awhile.

I like the shape and weight of it in my pocket. I'm partial to the whole zen/rock style anyway so the ergonomics and the design of this device are ideal for me. I really dig that the screen in seamlessly molded into the body. If you are a tactile person, this device is a lot of fun to thumb and scroll around on.

Email is pretty great. The device works perfectly with Gmail and my Work's Microsoft Exchange server. Both email services can be viewed separately and since the device supports multiple cards (what they call open applications) you can keep both emails open.

The “push” email is also great. There is a little notification area at the bottom, whenever I get email, I'm notified much like a text message. There is a gmail or an outlook style icon too, so I can tell at a glance if it's my home or work account.

Gmail and Exchange calendars also work great and are displayed sideby side in different colors.

The Web browser works well and pretty much handles everything you can throw at it except flash. And Flash support is supposed to be on the way. It's speedy on both the Sprint network and Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi works great by the way, once I picked out my Wi-Fi zones, it seamlessly switches between work, home and my friends' house.

Videos on the Youtube app are very clear, often better than on my desktops. Search on Youtube works great too.

I use the Accuweather App a lot, Very well layed out visually appealing weather information.

I also really like the Flix and Fandango movie apps, where you can easily find show times and coming soon movie trailers to watch.

What else do I like? I like the tweed twitter app that is available. It works well, not as good as tweetdeck, but no complaints for a mobile twitter app.

The Gmail and AIM instant messaging is fantastic. Being able to carry AIM and and Google Chat in your pocket and use it like a text message is great. Text messaging is also great in that it uses the same user interface as the chat.

The Clock is simple and clean. It looks like one of those old time plastic “flip” clocks. The alarms are easy to set and use, and it does wake me up if I take a nap.

I love the camera. Very clear bright photos. 3 mega pixels and it's very easy to email pictures after you take them. The camera flash is also really easy to turn on, auto and off. I also like that it stores the orientation information with the picture, so when I email my photos to my flickr account for autoposting on my blog, the pictures are vertical or horizontal as I shot them.

I also really like the “Where” app which has a yellow pages that makes it very easy to use the devices' GPS to find your way to restaurants etc.

I suppose I could mention a little about the phone app. ;)

The phone works good, people say that my voice is much clearer than it was on my previous flip phone. Dialing is easy. The fact that it pulls your friends profile pictures from Facebook or Gmail and matches them with their phone numbers automatically is a neat feature. It's really easy to know who is calling when that full screen image pops up. (I forgot to mention that, since it pulls and keeps your Facebook and Gmail Contact friends info into your contact list and merges them, it makes a great address book and an awesome dialer.)

Things that could still use a little work.

Google Maps, Google maps works real well when you have one of the other apps pump the starting and ending addresses into it. But for a device that has GPS, it seems odd that I can't have it auto populate my “from” field and do a simple search to get the “to” field filled. Typing addresses can be a bit tedious on the small keyboard, since you have to shift between numbers and letters a lot.

There is a “You are here” button on the Google maps though, push the icon and it shows you with a little blue dot where you are on the planet.

Visual voicemail would be nice. As it stands now, you have to call up and go thru your voicemail one by one.

The phone app could be better integrated with the contacts app. They really are two different apps and sort of display as two different cards, it would be nice if there was an icon on the phone app that better took you to the contact list within the same card. Not a big issue but it would be a smidgen faster than switching between cards.

Notetaking is sortof lacking... you can look at all the office document formats and view/edit google docs, but the notetaking and document editing could be beefed up abit. The built-in app and Evernote both could use some work. (The simple task app which looks like a molskine binder however is very useful and nice... but it too needs to sync somehow off the device.)

Things I haven't played with yet.

I really haven't done much with video or audio files yet. The Palm Pre does sync with iTunes, but I haven't been using iTunes so I haven't tried any of that out yet. I have a small MP3 player I already use for music/podcasts so this wasn't a big feature for me.

You can also run all the old classic Palm Pilot Apps, I haven't tried any of those yet.

One other note.

This isn't an iPhone.

For me, it has better features than an iphone. The web integration and the multiple apps and multiple views of the same applications are incredibly useful for someone who lives in Twitter the web and email/IM messaging like me. But Palm really hasn't started their Ad campaign yet (it's supposed to start today though) and none of your friends have heard of this phone, so if you want mainstream status, this ain't the phone for you yet until more people get to see it out in the wild. And then you're still going to hear a lot of: “Is that an iPhone? Is that a Windows Phone?”

No, it's better :) (for me anyway.)

I want to hear your

Up

I saw Disney/Pixar's Up yesterday. I liked the movie.

As movies about old bittered grumpy widow guys helping out young asian boys go however, I preferred Gran Torino.

The best part of Up was probably the scenes dealing with the old man's life with and loss of his wife. Very sweet, although the indirectness of it all (since you can't actually say she died, since that might scare the kiddies) wore on me after awhile.

Overall I recommend seeing the movie, but you could wait until DVD, because even though the animation is beautiful, it's not bombastic in anyway and shouldn't suffer on the small screen.

Good Stuff, do see (but see Eastwood's Gran Torino first).

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Let's Go Surfing

» Like eBooks but miss the smell of books? You're in luck!

» Draw Pixel Art!

» Mike Sterling had this fun post on paper rings that came in Topps Trading Cards Packs.

Would be a fun little template to create.

» Automatically Wikify your copy with links to wikipedia.

» 4TB Harddrives That's alot of space.

» USB powered microwave. Very Cool.

» Video on the web is about to get a whole hellava lot awesomer. Watch Below:

» Very convincing argument that 30 Rock is the Muppet Show revamp. Click on the link, you should want to go to there.

» Sure I'm firmly in the Palm Pre camp, but you've got to take hats off to this guy singing about the new iPhone 3Gs.

» Copypastecharacter.com It's a Web Based CharMap program.

» You me and the Bourgeoisie (iPhone Song), The Submarines. The lyrics are actually quite subversive/ironic being that the iPhone is one the Bourgeoisie's iconic representations of conspicuous consuption. I have new found appreciation for Apples' ability to revile it's own customers while charging them for the pleasure.

Here I am with all the pleasures of the first world
Laid out before me, who am I to breakdown?

Everyday I wake up, I choose love, I choose light
And I try, it's too easy just to fall apart

Oh, my baby don't be so distressed
We're done with politesse
It's time to be so brutally honest about
The way we know we long for something fine
When we pine for higher ceilings
And bourgeois happy feelings

And here we are in the center of the first world
It's laid out before us, who are we to break down?

Everyday we wake up, we choose love, we choose light
And we try, it's too easy just to fall apart

Plastic bottles, imported water
Cars we drive wherever we want to
Clothes we buy, it's sweatshop labor
Drugs from corporate enablers
We're not living the good life
Unless we're fighting the good fight
You and me just trying to get it right

In the center of the first world
It's laid out before us, who are we to break down?

Everyday we wake up, we choose love, we choose light
And we try, it's too easy just to fall apart

Love can free us from all excess
From our deepest debt
'Cause when our hearts are full we need much less

Yeah, I know we long for something fine
When we pine for higher ceilings
And bourgeois happy feelings

But here we are, in the center of the first world
It's laid out before us, who are we to break down?

Here we are, in the center of the first world
It's laid out before us, who are we to break down?

Everyday we wake up, we choose love, we choose light
And we try, it's too easy just to fall a-

Everyday we wake up, we choose love, we choose light
And we try, it's too easy just to fall apart

» Playscreen.com games formated for your Palm Pre.

» Japan has a life-size Gundam. Awesome.

» Palm Pre's Fonts Prelude

» Give your netbook the abillity to seek out John Connor

» Nice comparison chart on iPhone, Palm Pre, Android G1, and Blackberry Storm

» I really want this Twitter Shirt

l1nf0:0614

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Let's Go Surfing

» Find CD/DVD/Game Cover Art at AllCDCovers.com

» Read Movie Scripts online. IMSDB.com

» 4 Websites to make you a Visual Basic Guru

» iRex Color eInk eReader in 2011

» Youtube has a streamlined format specifically for viewing videos on your TV: Goto Youtube.com/xl and take a look.

» You should watch the Han Solo, P.I. Opening below...

...and then you need to watch the Magnum P.I./Han Solo P.I. comparison below.

» Crunchpad, computing from your couch is coming. Can't wait!

» Windows Freeware converts JPEGS to PDF

» Extend your XP Taskbar across Muliple Monitors, Freeware

l1nf0:0604

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Random Thoughts About Vacation Time

Yesterday I broke out a calendar for the rest of the year and plotted out my vacation time. Over the next 6 months I marked off 23 days to take off in the next 25 weeks. That still leaves me 2 to 7 days to take during that same period of time. (I'm actually not sure if I got my 6th week last year, or if I get it coming up this year. It may very well be that I still have 7 more days to plot out.)

The time above doesn't count 4th of July and Labor Day which I also get off during the same period.

Out of the next 120 working days, I get 27 off (25 + 2 holiday) and potentially 32 days off (30 + 2 holidays) or basically 1 in every 4 work days off. (I didn't quite plot it out that way... there's a couple whole weeks off in my mix.)

It's really quite crazy.

I haven't taken any vacation time in the last 6 months, which is the reason all of this is bunching up.

It all sounds like a good problem to have, but I'm not the type of person that really relaxes when I know that projects I'm involved in are continuing without me when I'm not there. I don't like that catch-up feeling I have to go through when I come back from a few days off and have to figure out the twists, turns and changes that occurred while I wasn't present.

I guess I'm going to have to get better at dealing with that feeling though.

I want to hear your

Removeable Swapable Netbook SSD Hard Drives

Throwing this idea out to the internet at large. What I would like is a low cost netbook with Easily swappable SSD hard drives.

Think about it, pop in your windows drive, boot and use your favorite windows Apps, pop in you Ubuntu drive and enjoy your open source afternoon. Maybe pop in an Android drive for frequent on and off quick info access while traveling.

With all my data safely in the cloud or in an SD card... The drive with the OS and Apps could become strictly that, a drive only with the OS and Apps.

Sure you could put a bunch of OS's on one big drive and have all these operating systems in a multi-boot environment, but why get that complicated with it? Most OS's don't need more than 4 or 8 gigs to live comfortably, so these SSDs can be small.

All those flash drive makers like Sandisk etc, have to be looking around for some sort of new idea, what with their products getting commotitized all to heck.

Swappable OS/App Netbook SSD Harddrives. Get to it internets!

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Palm Pre first impressions

I got my Palm Pre phone today. First Impressions: sexy, elegant, well done.

I went to Best Buy on Alpine. They had 5 Pre's. All five sold out immediately, which is a little ironic since I was the only person who got to Best Buy a few hours early. The other 4 people walked up at 9:45am. Still although it turned out I didn't need to be there early, I still got the 1st one out of that store so a little bit of geek pride in that.

When off the Pre is solid glossy back. It really does look very much like a river stone in your hand.

Set-up was quick and painless, I added my Google email and password, and my Facebook password and the Pre Grabbed all my contact info and phone numbers off of those two services.

Gestures work great. I very much like the way the gesture area is both on and below the screen. I've seen people complain about the keyboard but after a few minutes I was typing fairly quickly on it, it's small but serviceable.

The screen is very crisp and clear. Device also feels good when the keyboard is extended. Maybe it's my familiarity with flip phones but I felt most comfortable with the keyboard extended while talking.

Downloaded Tweed (a twitter app) and Pandora (streaming radio) from the app store. Also grabbed the Fandango Movie App. All three worked great and simultaneously [hooray for multitasking!] which is nice. I tried the built-in Youtube and it was very clear over the cell network (Sprint TV was abit choppy, but I'm guessing that has more to do with the low bitrates they are streaming and little to do with the phone.

Played with the browser briefly, the pinch zoom and shirk works very well, it's a very dynamic way to move around the screen.

Overall very pleased so far. It's like a little bit of future in the palm of your hand. More impressions later.

I want to hear your

This is a blog post from my pre.

I want to hear your

Batman and Robin

I just read the Morrison/Quietly Batman and Robin #1. It was good. I enjoyed it alot actually. It feels like a book where Nightwing takes over the mantle of Batman should feel. Gotham is still a twisted city but now it's reflected thru Dick Graysons Carnival/Circus prism.

I also liked the Flying Batmobile. Dick would have a flying Batmobile, that makes sense, and is a good reflection of his character. And a fun signal that this is a different Batman.

I like the dark angsty all-too-serious ready to prove himself Robin too. It feels fresh having Batman be the slightly lighter persona and having the young Robin be the one who is a little too dark.

I like that it feels like the Batman and Robin mythos has progressed, instead of being stuck in one place.

Do you want to know what my problem with this book is though? It's all bound to be undone and reversed when they do a "triumphant return" of Bruce Wayne as Batman, after which it will likely be forgotten, mentioned occasionally, if at all, here and there and finally retconned fully out of existence. Except we'll have 4 Robins' (Dick, Jason, Tim and now Damian) instead of just 3.

Ultimately it's just a "real" Elseworlds title to eventually be pushed out of canon. Which is fine, I like a good Elseworlds tale, and it's not like much gets a chance to stay in canon anymore anyway. DC has abandoned canon for an elastic "iconic" status quo.

As I said, it's a good book, but it'd be a better book if there was uncertainty or mystery on how it would all play out. And there is no uncertainty. Bruce Wayne will be back, so beyond this moment in time just being a good story in the here and now... there's little point to this yarn in the Grand Batman mythos in the long term.

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