After contemplating it for…well, pretty much ever since the first iPhone came out…I finally broke down and bought one of the 32GB 3GS models today. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have done it even now except I heard it through the Shea-vine that her folks wanted to put some money towards a phone for me for my birthday present so knowing that, how could I resist? (Now if I can just find someone to pay those humongous monthly bills – one of the main reasons I've held off so long.)
So after a day's pretty much non-stop use, what do I think so far? – why'd I wait so long??? This thing is great! Very intuitive, robust and lots of fun!
– I joked to Shea that it might actually save us money. That's a bit tongue-in-cheek but really, I wanted to have a compass/temperature unit in our van since it didn't come with one and I find those extras very useful in vehicles that do have them. But when I checked, it would've been $800 to have this type of unit installed in our van after-the-fact. But now, our iPhone has both a compass and a weather option. Or we could've spent a couple hundred bucks on a GPS unit but the iPhone also has that (although not as straight-forward and accurate as the dedicated GPS units I've seen.) Er, and no jokes about why you'd need GPS in Saskatchewan – it can be handy if you're going to an address you're not familiar with – even in Regina!
– it took me a bit of time to figure out how to transfer over some music but the web is pretty amazing – you type “how to transfer music from iTunes to iPhone” and you're quickly up and running with the instructions some site has taken the time to provide.
– the camera's okay but not as good as I hoped.
– typing on the touch keypad was my biggest worry about whether I'd like the iPhone (and if I was smart, I'd have spent some time at the Rogers kiosk playing around with this to see how I liked it.) But instead, I just kinda said “oh, if other people can get used to it, I can too.” And luckily, that seems to have been the case so far.
– I read somewhere that the extra screen real estate made available by having a full touchscreen rather than a smaller screen with a permanent keyboard below it makes a huge difference. I haven't used a Blackberry or other smartphone with regular keyboards but that made sense to me.
– for some reason, I had it in my head that you couldn't watch YouTube videos on an iPhone. That's definitely not the case and the ones I watched looked really crisp (the smaller screen actually means things are a lot less pixelated than on a regular sized laptop or desktop screen.)
– Apps are definitely a lot of fun – I've probably downloaded a dozen so far – everything from a blackjack game to the Facebook app to a carpenter's level. Those were all free but I did blow $0.99 for Koi Pond – worth every penny! (Oh, and if you have an iPhone or iTouch, send me a message to let me know which Apps you can't live without! Hmm, I put that as an e-mail link. How 1997. I should put my phone number so people can text me – er, is there any danger in doing that?)
– Rogers' coverage in Saskatchewan isn't great and that was another thing holding me back. But there's good coverage in the bigger cities, along major highways and supposedly where my family cottage is and where Shea's parents camp for the summer so that should have me covered for most of what I need. And if we go off the beaten path for camping or whatever, I'm sure I can live for a couple days without checking Reddit and MetaFilter!
– One of the best features will be having what is basically a full-featured computer/camera/etc. unit in my hand at all times. For example, tonight we went to a park north of the city. Pre-iPhone, I'd have had to take our digital camera with us, snap some photos, bring them home, download them to my laptop then upload them from there. Now, with the iPhone, I can do all that from one unit right at the time and place that I take the photos (or video or whatever.) I didn't actually do that out at Evraz Place and just uploaded this photo from my iPhone now (having quickly downloaded and installed a free Flickr uploader App) but the point is that I could have done this two miles north of the city in a goose-poop covered family park that's attached to a steel mill!
– there's probably a few other things I still have to figure out (and things I haven't even realised that I *have* to figure out) but as I said before, I'm very impressed with how easy-to-use and intuitive it is. Oh, funny story – I didn't realise you could use two-finger touches to zoom. Pace got ahold of the iPhone for a brief moment and immediately started doing that! (I read a post by someone on a mesage board where they observed that their three year old was better on the iPhone than they were. I don't doubt that! I joked at the kiosk that when Pace was ready for a smartphone in a few years, it'd probably be an implant directly into his head. I only wish I was joking when I said that! )
This article talks about a new auction site called Swoopo.com which is apparently super-addictive. The gimmick is that the site is sort of like a cross between an auction, a lottery and those “you only pay $0.25/call to vote for your American Idol. Er, vote as many times as you'd like!” deals.
Every item up for bid starts at one penny and every bid increases the final price of the item by one penny. Sounds good except you pay sixty cents for each bid that you make. So when they have a MacBook go for $35.00 that actually means they've had 3500 bids and the site has netted over two grand. Plus each auction doesn't expire until no one else is willing to bid one more time so the auctions could go on forever. Then, at the end, only one person gets a wicked deal but lots of people blew a whackload of cash trying to win the auction, sixty cents at a time. (The article gets a bit into the psychology of why this works – quite similar to slot machines in many respects.)
Anyhow, check it out if you're curious – but don't say I didn't warn you!
I first heard about a new Google service, Wave, during the Emerging Technology Interest Group pre-conference at CLA in early May. The whole idea is “What would e-mail look like if it was invented today?” And Wave is Google's answer.
I never got around to posting it then but with yesterday's announcement that Google is creating a full-fledged OS, built on a Linux kernel and centered on their Chrome browser with a focus on web-based computing, the time is as good as any.
The MetaFilter thread I linked to, as always, has tons of discussion, speculation and observations about what this means for Google, Microsoft and computer users in general.
Do you ever get disappointed when you realise not everything's online and instantly accessible?
For example, tonight I was reading a recent copy of Rolling Stone which had an article called “The Mayor of Hell”. It was about Braddock, Pennsylvania, a dying town of 2900 in Pennsylvania which is still the site of Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill (but whose workers almost exclusively come from elsewhere rather than living in a town in the shadow of a steel mill which leaves a fine dust on everything.) How bad is the town? Braddock was used as the backdrop for parts of the soon-to-be-released post-apocalyptic film, “The Road“.
The town has elected a young social activist mayor named John Fetterman (who's 6'8″, 300 lbs with tattoos and a shaved head) who's trying to re-make the town as some neo-industrial experiment (can't remember the exact term the article used), inviting a “new breed of pioneer” to move there and see if they can make a go of it – whether they're artists, small business people, modern urbanists or just looking for an inexpensive place to claim a part of the American dream.
Unfortunately, the full article isn't online (at least on the Rolling Stone site) so you'll have to track it down the old-fashioned way if you want to read it. I guess the main thing that caught my eye and made me think of posting this to my blog is that the town isn't just the site of Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, it's also the site of the first-ever Carnegie library.
I was planning to throw together one last Meili tribute video since it's been a month to the day since the vote at the NDP convention. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll get it done tonight so instead, I'll dedicate today's “Music Monday” clip to Dwain Lingenfelter who, as I type this, is receiving the nomination in Regina-Douglas Park.
Louis Riel Trail posted a rumour that the Sask Party was looking to run a current member of the Roughriders against Link in that riding's by-election. A couple people responded that this was unlikely but LRT says the source is reliable. Man, that would be a wild battle – Dwain Lingenfelter, the Alberta carpetbagger (in some people's opinion) versus former Saskatchewan's own Grey Cup Champion, Gene Makowsky. For the low-information voter (who make up the majority of the electorate) that could really swing some votes. Yikes!
Sarah Palin announced her resignation on July 3, the Friday before a long weekend which is the classic tactic of a politician trying to bury bad news. But this is Sarah Palin we're talking about here and some are even speculating that she actually timed this announcement to try and tie her news into the July 4th weekend as some ultra-patriotic gesture.
– she is ALLEGEDLY undergoing a criminal investigation because the Sportsplex she had built while Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska happened right around the time she had a half-million dollar mansion built by her “First Dude” husband Todd and “some buddies” and there are RUMOURS that uhm, some of the windows and fixtures in the two construction projects are very similar.
There are other ideas why she resigned and as a slight detour, I'll mention that MetaFilter threads usually get anywhere between 1-100 comments while the really popular ones maybe get in the hundreds. The record for most comments in a thread on MetaFilter eve? The one where Sarah Palin (which my Freudian fingers always mis-type as “Plain”) was announced as VP got 5555! The current one about her resignation is heading towards 1000 last I checked.)
Other speculation about why she resigned now? (My money's on the Fox News gig for what it's worth.)
– she's getting out to take a job as a commentator with Fox News since that's both easier and more lucrative than politics.
– she's going to do a reality TV show/Interview show/religious themed sitcom
– she's writing a book and this will free her to do a big book tour and full-on publicity blitz.
– she's gearing up for a run in 2012 and since people have short memories, her quitting halfway through her first term as Governor won't be remembered as much as all the publicity and campaigning she'll do in the lower 48 over the next couple years for other Republicans and to build her own brand.
– she's sincerely retiring for the good of her family (nah, the woman who flew home from Texas with her water broken to have her baby in Alaska? Unlikely…)
– or maybe, just maybe, she's going to pursue a less-stressful, more-rewarding career as a librarian…
Other blogs have already broken, commented on and projected some potential impacts of this story with the main theme appearing to be: “Team Meili was more than a bunch of people drawn to an inspiring new political figure but a group of already accomplished men and women, many of whom will make up the next wave of leadership within both the provincial and federal NDP.”
From a personal point of view, I've got to say that there was a lot about Noah that impressed me in the short few months that I was a volunteer for the Meili campaign and got to know him a bit. He's obviously highly intelligent, hard-working and committed. Beyond that, it was clear that he genuinely cared about making society better for everyone, not just for a select few. He was also very open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. Perhaps most importantly from my perspective, he's not afraid to call things as he saw them – a rarity for many aspiring, let alone elected, politicians. (Of course, the fact that we share a love of the same NHL team doesn't hurt either!)
Best of luck, Noah! I can't wait to contribute a few bucks to the…uhm, anybody got a good pun on “Money Bomb” to do with Noah's name? Cause I got nothing…
— Since I'm talking about the Palliser riding, I'm going to slip in a few quick thoughts about that riding's former Conservative MP, Dave Batters, who left politics in 2008 to deal with some serious mental health issues. He lost that battle, committing suicide earlier this week with his funeral being held today. I never met Dave but his brother was one of my best friends in undergrad and if Dave was anything like his brother, he was one of the most intelligent, funniest, memorable characters that you'll meet. (I can still remember the exact first words Dave's brother said to me when I met him – how many people can you say that about in this life?)
Since he died, people have been celebrating Dave's life (as they should), lauding the family for their bravery in disclosing that it was a suicide (as they should) and looking hard at the deeper issues (as is the proper thing to do although obviously, it's unfortunate that these things only seem to get attention when a high profile person is involved.)
I do not want to speak ill of the dead but I do have to say that Dave Batters did take one position as a politician that I find unconscionable. I won't get into the details and in some ways, it's nothing beyond the typical “pro-gun/anti-gun”-type stuff that all politicans must delinate themselves on. But it gets to the core of why I'm a supporter of the NDP and proudly so. So to tie it all together, let's hope that we can get the Palliser seat back in NDP hands so that all constituents in that riding will be well-represented, not just the chosen few.
Print-on-demand web site, Lulu.com has a service that helps project how well your book will do based solely on its title. The algorithm was developed exclusively for Lulu by statisticians who studied 50 years' worth of bestseller data encompassing over 700 titles from 1954 to 2004. They compared the attributes of these titles against a control group of less successful titles by the same authors which gave them a model to project the odds of any title becoming a New York Times bestseller.
For example, here are a few trials I ran… Catcher in the Rye – 63.7% chance of being a NYT bestseller Twilight – 63.7% The Da Vinci Code – 35.9% Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – 22.9% Outliers: The Story of Success – 10.2% (I think the algorithm only looked at Fiction bestsellers but there's no reason you can't try it with non-fiction as well – though obviously, this result indicates that there may be some flaws!)
(I heard about this site in a book I just finished called “Super Crunchers” whose author actually used a Google AdWords campaign to help choose between two alternate titles for his book!)
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