Palin needs to chill out

Sarah Palin is all angry because David Letterman hinted that female members of her family may be sluts. Well, who cares? That's what tends to happen when your 17 year old daughter shows up to the GOP convention 5 months pregnant.

Dumb-phones leave you in the dust

I finally got my first smart phone, which you can read about in nearly all of my posts in June.

How fitting is it that in Wednesday's NYT there is a very good article characterizing the growth of these devices. The adoption rate of data-centric mobile phones continues even with the economy still in a recession.

Why? Surprisingly, the unemployed are picking them up as a way to get ahead in the job hunt. And our society has evolved to the point where instant communication is required:

“The social norm is that you should respond within a couple of hours, if not immediately,” said David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “If you don’t, it is assumed you are out to lunch mentally, out of it socially, or don’t like the person who sent the e-mail.”

DTV Transition

It is beyond me that there are actually people who are not aware of the digital television transition, but it is here, as of June 12. Even the elderly watch TV, do they ignore all of the public service announcements? Tomorrow, it may be chaos in some neighborhoods, but I have a feeling most people will just go down to Best Buy and get a new TV.

Clove Cigarettes will be illegal very soon

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31233307/

While this article does not specifically call this out, kreteks, or clove cigarettes will soon be illegal. As will any flavored cigarette. Not sure how this would do any good for public health, but is interesting. Perhaps the main reason is that clove cigarettes come from Indonesia, so this would be a form of protectionism.

Here is more information on the upcoming trade dispute.

Also in the ban are any flavors other than "standard." So no more cherry-vanilla cigars.

Fun car quiz

I scored 104 points, I guess I've got good taste.

 

http://jalopnik.com/5287073/how-jalopnik-is-your-car

Holocaust museum terrorist details emerge

Here is a post from the alleged shooter today, in which he verbally attacks then-president elect Obama.

It likely wasn't him that posted it, but what is disburbing are the amount of people who seemed to agree with him.

We are starting to see the right wing terrorists come out of the woodwork, and it is best we keep and eye on them. And one thing to keep in mind, they are not all Nazis - even right wing Jewish terrorist groups exist.

Poker is not a crime

Online poker accounts were frozen by the federal government today. This is complete bullshit and needs to stop. These policies first started under the Bush administration, and President Obama should listen to Rep. Barney Frank and stop this immediately.

The Consequences of Hate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061001768.html

 

This is what happens when people hate other groups.  This is where it all ends, in death.  Ironically, in this case it occured at a museum dedicated to fighting hate. 

 

What is even crazier is that the shooter was 88 years old.  I have great hope that the current generation can move past this, but I continue to be disturbed by people of my own generation who harbor negative feelings about others only because of their heritage.

Deeds wins!

Creigh Deeds, who I have supported for the past 6 months, has won the democratic primary for governor of Virginia. This is actually quite amazing, considering that he was down in the polls just a few weeks ago.

He won with close to 50% of the vote in a 3 man race. He is going to face republican Bob McDonnell in the fall election, who he lost to in a race for attorney general a few years ago by 323 votes, the closest in VA history.

This rematch will be in a much more democratic Virginia than that of four years ago, putting Deeds in a good position to win.

Deeds has a remarkable record, which is very moderate. A strong support of gun rights, but also pro-choice and against having the stars and bars on state license plates, he will be a governor that is able to bind Northern and non-northern VA together. Here is a great endorsement by the Washington Post.

Number porting problems solved

My phone number successfully ported this morning, approximately 49 hours after it should have. I'm not pleased, but the worst should be behind me at this point.

The good news is that Sprint has permanently upgraded my family plan to one that allows a "fave 3" feature. I'll also get 2 car chargers half off. Could be worse.

Palm Pre Battery Life Average Use Test for one day (Chart)

I've performed some testing of the Pre's battery, which is more or less me using it like I normally would for one day, and noting the battery charge whenever I had a chance.

Overall, I made several calls throughout the day, probably talking on the phone for about 1 hour.
I used a combination of EVDO and wi-fi browsing, but nothing too crazy and wi-fi was only for a short time. Visited all in all no more than 10-15 websites all day. Data usage for the day was at least 10 MB, if not more. Total texts sent/received was close to 30-40, with several being pictures. I downloaded 1 application.

I also played around with some of the apps, but did not play any music or video. Chat was signed off most of the day, and email was not being checked (I sit in front of a computer at work, so I don't need two notifications for each message).

GPS was off, but I don't think this does anything. I was only asked for my location once during the day, when I opened Google maps, so I think it is probably safe to keep GPS on, as long as you aren't using anything that will activate it (such as the camera for geotagging).

Onto the numbers, and these are very preliminary results.

The above chart started at 7:10am and ended at approximately 11:20pm. With my moderate/light use, the battery fell by approximately 3.1% per hour. I'd imagine for a heavy user, this would be closer to 5% per hour, which would still give you a respectable 20 hours per battery charge, definitely enough to get through the day.

The majority of the calls that I made were between the 1-5 hours and 10-15 and it is noticeable in the chart. Palm rates the battery at 5 hours talk, which would mean 20% drain per hour, or approximately 1% every 3 minutes. This seems to be on the mark.

I don't have too much experience with smart phones other than this one (pathetic, I know) but from what I've read this compares pretty well to the iPhone 3G.

VA Gov Endorsement

Tomorrow in the VA Democratic Primary for governor, I'll be voting for Creigh Deeds.

Between the three contenders, I think that he offers the best experience, and will appeal to both Northern Virginia and the rest of the state.

Phone Wars Heat Up

Things are getting interesting.  

The new iPhone has a lot of improvements, including voice dialing, MMS, and supposed improved battery life.  It also supports tethering, but NOT on AT&T. 

Meanwhile, Palm has the Pre, which multitasks, features very tight integration with Google services and Facebook, and (very importantly) has a hardware keyboard and removable battery.

As you all know, I have the Pre.  One thing that most consumers will not compare is the total cost of ownership.  I calculate that my plan will cost me at least $1200 cheaper over the next two years versus the iPhone.  This is not an insubstantial amount.  

Some things the iPhone has that the Pre does not:

Video recording (for now, the Pre is definitely capable of it)

Compass (who cares)

Voice dialing (for now, the Pre could definitely handle it)

A large App Store.

Supposedly good battery life (Pre lasts about a day, same as the current iPhone)

Some things the Pre has that the iPhone does not:

The ability to multitask, to run multiple programs at the same time

Unobtrusive notifications

Synergy, which connects all your data

Ability to add multiple exchange accounts

Much cheaper data plans

Additionally, people who have had a chance to touch and see the Pre have said it is superior to the iPhone - and this includes at least one Apple fan, and another current iPhone owner, who wishes he'd waited.

iPhone tomorrow?

I've been busy playing with the Pre all day, so I haven't kept too much tabs on the other news, a new iPhone.

Apple may be releasing one tomorrow at the developer's conference.  Rumors include the ability to take videos and possibly have video chat.

Taking videos sees logical, but I'm not sure how videochat would work on such a small device, unless it was in its dock.  Would be way to shaky.  

Pre Numbers in Northern VA

The Best Buys all had 12 or less Pres in stock.  These are definitely all sold out now.

I was told by someone at the Fair Lakes Best Buy that they were sold out before the store was opened, at about 9:30.

My experience in at the Chantilly Sprint Store was that they were not sold out immediately, but within the first hour of the store opening.  They had about 40 in stock.

Heard through a source that the store in Reston sold out of their stock of 80 Pres by noon.  Overall, pretty strong sale numbers, as long as Northern VA is representative.

Palm Pre - First Impressions

While my own phone is inoperable due to a 1 in 10,000 number port issue, I was able to successfully setup my wife's phone today.  I also spent a good time playing with it.

Battery life:

As reported, battery life could be better, but is acceptable.  We used it pretty heavily today, including downloading a massive 60MB download from Palm.  The phone lasted a good 12 hours before the battery got into the red, it will definitely get you through the day.

Display:

Absolutely beautiful.

Gestures:

Worked very well, everything responded well to touch and one handed operations is a cinch.  

Overall speed:

Opening applications could be faster but is definitely not a huge problem.  Web pages loaded very quickly and accurately.

Contact Synch (Synergy):

Would work much better if everyone put their phone numbers in Facebook!  It worked well enough, but we had to manually link a lot of contacts which is to be expected.

I'm very impressed overall, I just need to get mine working.