Why I chose the Evo over the iPhone.

I used to work for Sprint, and before that, Radioshack. I spent the most of my adulthood having some pretty heavily subsidized wireless service. I always felt bad for the “rubes” who didn’t even get a NVP (rad) discount through Sprint or had some sort of $30/week month prepaid habit, extolling the virtures of “not having a contract.” When I was then unceremoniously tossed back to “consumer” status, I began the arduous sketch of the American wireless/smartphone landscape, and I don’t like much what I saw.  I started with what I thought was the value leader amongst the major carriers (why I’d only think about them when I leave Philadelphia ~3/year is another story)

First, we have T-Mobile –  well, they have a confusing matrix of plans. There’s three classes of service they offer: prepaid, weird, somewhat analogous to contract-free monthly service, and the standard stuff. Once you cross that Rubicon, there is the standard choose your minutes, get a number cozy in your head. Then, the standard process asks you to choose a phone before they offer services. Which is rather handy, I guess – it’d be inappropriate to offer something like Blackberry Internet Service for an Android phone.

image via Engadget.

Details »

Published on June 5, 2010 12:04 am.
Filed under: Reviews Tags: , , , ,

Spring 2010 iPod Superstars

Champions that will soon be retired, these are the tracks I overindulged in too many times on my iPod while listening to my expensive Shure SE110s, which I promptly lost in January; then, on some cheapo sony earbuds. About 3 weeks later, back into the sure grasp of Shure SE115s (which sound just as good and Jenny claims have a better fit.

The list, then.

Chamption Tracks

  • C.R.E.A.M – Wu Tang Clan – from the Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers mashup. (free to download, too!)
  • Just for Tonight – Groove Armada
  • Paper Romance – Groove Armada
  • Oil – MC Paul Barman

Albums

  • Lock and Load – Denis Leary
  • The Weather – Busdriver & Radioinactive with Daedelus
  • Full Buck Moon Kaboom: The Mixtape -MC Paul Barman
  • Black Light – Groove Armada

Podcasts

A couple of notes: MCPB has a new full-length album, the first since  I was in goddamned high school. The Full Buck Moon Kaboom included some amazingly creative tracks, such as the hip-hop biography of Weird Al and the first half of the laws of power. So, I have high hopes for tracks I’ve heard the demo versions of and the MF Doom-cut jawns as well.

cheers.

Published on May 19, 2010 10:43 pm.
Filed under: "Real" Blogging, College

School’s almost out – uncork some new pictures!

here’s a sneak preview of the Spring 2010 photoset:

and before you ask, yes, I was watching Quincy, ME while playing with my camera.

Published on May 10, 2010 11:07 am.
Filed under: internets!, Much Ado, Stupid Pictures I Took

Happy belated iPad day. Here’s a van-side worthy wallpaper.

I can’t take credit for the illustration, but I ran across this when I was looking through my old D&D books.

Raistlin battling Fistandantilus back in ye olden 2nd edition.

Anyways, I chopped it up into the right resolution (1024×768, portrait) for those Ipad havers. Or someone using a five year old 15″ LCD wrong.

Direct Link, just in case.

Until the pixel ratio is a little closer to 16:10 or 16:9, I won’t be getting an iPad, btw.

Published on April 4, 2010 1:02 am.
Filed under: internets!, Much Ado

[Podcast] Quick discussion of Final Fantasy XIII

In which Nelson and I talk about the beginning experiences of playing Final Fantasy XIII. I’m a little disapointed so far, but Nelson (the die hard FF fanboi) tells me to keep my chin up until we get a little farther along.

Final Fantasy XIII – Chapter 1

Published on March 10, 2010 1:48 pm.
Filed under: Commentary, internets!

[review] Cory Doctorow’s Makers

This review is a little off schedule, I’ve been making an effort to review a book every week; I frantically read this in one day last week but couldn’t review it right away: The ideas and notions brought forth within it are just too big and near to me as a technolog-phile-ist for me to turn around and fail to give this book its due course.

America’s going to hell in the near future and there is some very smart people who are going to save the stars and stripes with some kick-ass hacking and finally consumerizing RFID (lord knows, I’ve thought about it). The book begins with the genesis of a new company built on the ashes of Kodak and Duracell, massive layoffs, and subtle hints of a country gone crappier since we stopped looking. As part of a visionary restructuring, a CEO lets loose the power of a duo of hackers toiling in obscurity in America’s sweatsock: Florida. These two brilliant hardware-software gurus were in it for the lawls, making non-rent quite easily in a junkyard.

Given the slightest provocation, these two makers, without any sort of business aptitude or motivation create product after product out of the scrapheap of throwaway technology (yes, the iPod does get mentioned here) – and in the process redefine the way people work. The products are everything from a mesh network of elmo dolls to mechanical computers to wiki-style cultural exhibits in an abandoned Wal-Mart. This process of redefinition (and its associated community building) is, of course, very unpopular – by stockholders, the traditional media, the gub’nit, and even Uncle Walt’s beloved multi billion conglomerate.

There is a (blessedly) few point-of-view, place-in-time shifts that feel sudden or coerced and through these shifts, I felt almost like I was reading a Clancy book (in a good way, honest!). Clancy usually has a character or three, never more than five, each contribute, deal with, or engineer some world-shattering event (war) and we only realize the enormity of the event (war) because of the various strata of person (military unit) affected. The America that exists in our near future is bleak, tasteless, and most likely a worse place than we live in today. The characters aren’t simply flat planes, sure, a little DOOM 2.5D at moments, but I found myself hating or loving the lot of them by the end.

The solution found by the duo of makers is one that I’ve been espousing since last year:  If the economy and environment can’t sustain how we live as Americans – its time to teach ourselves to do more with less before we are left by the side of history’s highway selling teledildonics for Mcsnackwrap money.

Published on February 11, 2010 12:26 am.
Filed under: Reviews

[Review] Paul A. Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets

As part of a micro-site I’m working on (I seem to be quite afflicted by the micro-site bug since I updated my “talk”), I’m reading and reviewing a book every week this semester – on top of coursework. This isn’t because I dislike myself, contrary to common sense.

As I was on my way to a literature class, clutching a copy of Jenner’s 18th century work on the vaccination against smallpox in my hot little hands, I happened by a little student-ran book sale. Seeing this book popping from 3 year old organic chemistry books was quite a surprise, although not an unwelcome one at all.

After hearing the excellent Skeptoid podcast on the subject, I decided to determine if any ambiguity remains about this issue. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is no. The podcast uses Offit’s work pretty heavily in order to describe the landscape of “alternative medicine” treatments that parents have bankrupted themselves, including an anecdote about parents who were encouraged to take out a second mortgage to finance a hypobaric chamber for their autistic child to sleep in.

As my literature professor said at the beginning of class when we covered the material about vaccination (more on that soon), he said that there exists a controversy surrounding the sharp rise in autism in the US and UK in the last two decades; some blame the preservatives in the MMR vaccine. The link between the two becomes increasingly-inplausable as the book goes through the argument (read: not debate) since its inception with Wakefield (a now-unlicenced doctor from the United Kingdom).

A humorously-partisan clip regarding his “science”:

The book describes the increasingly-unprovable, wildly made theories about a link between preservatives in vaccinations (specifically the MMR), culminating with Jenny Mcarthy’s battle cry:

“My son is my science.”

I’m alright with the idea that modern medicine is like half guesswork, and largely not as effective as advertised, on the other hand, though, magic seems to work even less. The cottage industry surrounding autism, the descriptions of the increasingly-amatuerish pseudoscience developed for trial lawyers, and the incredible amount of flak that Offit himself received at the hands of his detractors are worth the price of admission – I’d suggest the podcast first, to make sure its not enough (as it would be for most people).

Skeptiod Podcast # 55

Amazon page for the book (includes a brief video featuring Offit)

Published on January 28, 2010 11:30 am.
Filed under: "Real" Blogging, Commentary, Reviews

[Review] Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion

As part of a micro-site I’m working on (I seem to be quite afflicted by the micro-site bug since I updated my “talk”), I’m reading and reviewing a book every week this semester – on top of coursework. This isn’t because I dislike myself, contrary to common sense.

The God Delusion is a shiny-ass book, and what isn’t shiny is orange. Package design isn’t my forte, however, the impression that I got from this was “I’m a book who will do everything I can do to get people asking you if you are an atheist.” I am, but that’s beyond the point. Besides the notion that this book will do equally well as being a more nondescript volume, I find it an interesting thought. I’m nit picking, and this isn’t an accident – the book itself gives me impressions that are minor in nature. Thankfully, the ideas aren’t nearly as style-over-substance.

I’d like to start with that many of these ideas aren’t exactly new or novel, but the approach that Dawkins employs can’t be fairly be called “barely disguised misanthropy” like his fellow atheist-in-arms Hitchens (who was only quoted once, in “the Delusion,” to my knowledge). Some of the child abuse rhetoric Dawkins applies may be a little over-the-top, especially in the context in American children, who are lightyears ahead of even his generation when it comes to the wise application of bullshit filters. Regardless, the point is (admittedly belaboring to make) that overall, the handling of religion is fair, that is, without kid gloves (or worse, with the (bullshit) multiculturalist) or a predisposition to blame religion. All of the attacks, in the English way of using passive voice without seeming to, are backed by personal stories that Dawkins surely had straining the back of his mailman.

In the end, I’d recommend this book as a way to provide others with an easy to understand, relatable, and yes, even spiritually-fullfilling introduction to atheism. True believers aren’t going to change their minds, or else they wouldn’t be true believers, would they? The messages to agnostics and parents are where Dawkins is at his best, in my mind.

Published on January 25, 2010 10:29 am.
Filed under: "Real" Blogging, Reviews

CES 2k10 pulled me out of the Apple reality distortion field.

madcatz

Since I purchased a Macbook Pro in 2007, I’ve had quite the love affair with my Apple machine. Like any interesting love affairs, its been an abusive one, to be sure, but since I’ve been on winter break, I’ve felt the PC love again. Maybe it is because my laptop lies dormant on my desk while I enjoy some much-deserved R&R playing Ogre Battle, or the joy of not having Opera crash every time I open Twitpic, of all programs.

Then, CES.

The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, covered lavishly by my favorite blogs, Engadget and Gizmodo, does have its fair share of stupid peripherals, televisions that are larger than most of the walls in my house, and never-shipping mock-ups (I’m looking at you MSI, but much love later).

Alternatives to Apple supremacy everywhere gets challenged in the ever-quickening product life cycles of computing products. We have the lowest-hanging fruit in that the word this year is “slate” and Apple is going to maybe, probably or definitely ship one. Microsoft believed it, based on their keynote, and I’m left wondering how you tape two HP Windows 7 slates together to get the Courier magic to ignite.

Peripherals: Just because Magic Man was an awesome song doesn’t mean you need the mouse.

I thought about the quickly-aging Logitech MX Revolution mouse on my desk and was flirting with the idea of the Apple’s Magic Mouse. Then I saw the Mad Catz Cyber Rat mouse (MCCRM)[Engadget]. I wish every mouse in the world was made of metal and wasn’t wireless. Really.

[image via Engadget]

What I’m really finding appealing about the MCCRM, besides the industrial design of functionality, is that unless you happen to have ideal hands, mice can be a pain. I loathed my Bluetooth Mighty Mouse so much that I think I killed it with my mind. It simply wasn’t that good at the whole scrolling thing (a pretty common complaint). And it didn’t really fit my long-fingered hand very well, either. This lead to my palm dragging behind the mouse, reminiscent of the rant Martin Lawrence delivered in regards to impractical cars in Bad Boys.

All-In-One PC: The knee-jerk is to buy an iMac.

I got a call from a friend who was shopping for all-in-one computers that could also double as a TV. I almost started on the
“well the iMac does it but its a lot of work to get streaming working with your 360″  then remembered that MSI (I stopped hating you for the reference design that Averatec put out their awful 2100 on) announced the AE2420, a 24 inch beast that startes at $1200. Assuming that base model is packing an i5 and a decent GPU, he can expect similar performance to the 24″ iMac in my house that was about $1600.

[image via Gizmodo]

And, if the indications from earlier MSI all-in-ones are true, then you can expect HDMI input, in lieu of weirdo mini displayport (whatever the hell that is). I’m pretty miffed that Apple waited for LED backlighting for the iMac until this generation. Seriously, this is the future we should have flying cars, the least you can do is rid the world of the CCFL-backlit LCD display.

MSI All-in-one [Gizmodo].

Next Time:

Portable Laptop: I was pretty close to buying a 13″ Macbook Pro.

Christmas Wish 2007: A cool Linux phone. Android what now?

Published on January 8, 2010 1:38 am.
Filed under: "Real" Blogging

The talk returns!

Any of my long-time followers (read: my girlfriend and mom) remember the talk I gave in 2008 about creative web work. Since I was already dusting off the rest of my site, I decided to give it a bit of a facelift and put it back where it’s always been (mydomain.com/talk.html) since I gave it.

Anyways, I hope to make another one pretty soon, when I am once again feeling good about apple-polishing and giving some sage advice to my peers.

Published on January 6, 2010 1:59 am.
Filed under: "Real" Blogging, Archived