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.

Palm Pre Number Port Problems

Apparently this morning, Sprint fucked up my number port.

Their servers were overloaded and sent Verizon two requests to move my number, which triggered some type of manual intervention.  I'm being told anywhere from "now" to 2 days to get my number transferred.  In the meantime, my Pre is a brick.  

The other number transferred fine, and the phone is great.  

Update: 11:30pm: Port is still fucked up.  My number belongs to either Sprint or Nextel now, but they cannot transfer it to my phone for some reason.  They offered me a temporary number, which is not accepted.

The Sprint retail rep who sold me the phone is pissed off at his own company it seems; he was yelling at the Sprint corporate reps today, and said that he will handle this problem tomorrow.  At least someone is taking ownership of this issue.  I've heard estimates ranging from "any minute now" to "3-4 days".  Who knows what will happen, but you can bet I'm going to get some free shit out of this.  So far, my activation fee ($54) has been credited to my account.  Working on getting a free month of service ($150) and another $100 of accessories.  We'll see.

Palm Pre Buying Experience

I'll be updating this throughout the day...

Yesterday I did some reconnaissance, going to the Best Buy and Sprint Store in Manassas, VA.  No lines at that time.  

Woke up today at 5:30.  Decided against Best Buy, because their stock is limited (~12 units per store) and they do not open until 10am.  The only downside is that instead of an instant rebate of $200 for the 2 phones, it would be mail-in.

Drove to the Sprint Store in Chantilly, VA.  Arrived at 6:30.  There were already 4 people in line.  The Sprint rep was there and bought a jug of coffee for everyone.  We waited for a while and more people showed up.  By 7:30 there were 18 people in line.  At that time we were each given a number.  I got 5 and 6.  

They asked who was porting from another carrier, we were the only 2 that I heard.  At this time we could also get a Touchstone charger and leather case.  I only opted for the case; they did sell out of Touchstones, so they had less of those than Pres.

We were served immediately in the Sprint store.  Total came up to $675 - $200 mail in rebate.  This includes tax, activation, etc for the 2 phones.

Unfortunately, their network was jammed for porting, so we were unable to leave with our phones.  I'm switching from Verizon to Sprint, a process which will take 1-4 hours, but they could not even start that process yet.  

I'm heading back to the store shortly, at which time the port process should have started.  I'll have to wait until my Verizon phone is dead before activating the Pre.

More updates will be coming later.

Update:  Heading back to Sprint now.  Verizon phones are not working so port hopefully is all done.

The Cairo Speech

Today President Obama gave quite a speech in Cairo, Egypt, in which our country's elected leader finally confronted the gorilla in the room: our relationship with the worldwide Islamic community.  

Weaving together personal history, as well as religious principles contained in at least three separate faiths, the President did his best.  While no one speech can make world peace, it is an important first step towards building trust with the world.

President Obama both praised Israel as well as the history of Islam, which has historically been a very tolerant religion.  Overall, very well done.