I got an iPhone Friday at 8pm. No lines whatsoever at the AT&T store I went to in Watkinsville where I was visiting family. I literally bought the iPhone and walked out - it was really simple. Brought it back to my cousin’s place and got it setup (I didn’t have any issues with activation luckily). I’m fairly impressed with it - the interface is amazing and is everything I’ve come to expect from Apple. There’s a few issues I’ve encountered though - IMAP couldn’t see all of my mailboxes by default, so I had to set the IMAP Path Prefix in the settings. Safari isn’t blazing fast (on WiFi that is, its even slower (as expected) when using the EDGE cellular data network as well) and it crashes quite often and I’ve run into quite a few web sites that are broken (I can’t update my status on Facebook and I can’t enter text in the WordPress post writer for instance).
The only learning curve has been getting used to the keyboard (which is quite intuitive and easy to use). Mail works intuitively and comes off as pretty well polished - it’s definitely better than a CrackBerry and any of the Palm OS devices I’ve had in the past. The phone just works, which is critical to me. The switch for vibrate/ring works wonderfully (no more ascending/descending beeps as I mute or unmute my phone). And the iPod portion is simply amazing - it’s intuitive, but far more powerful than a normal iPod (CoverFlow is great). Put simply, I love it. Though I will say - there’s a few things I want to see - MMS (I foresee a software update delivering this soon), iChat (it just makes sense on a portable phone), and a terminal for SSH (I’m not holding my breath on this one though).
Waking up at 7:40 AM Sunday and sitting outside Target before they opened at 8 was well worth it, as I’ve finally acquired a Wii. There were people there since 6:15 in the morning and I was about 10 or 12th in line. I only got the Wii at Target, they didn’t have controllers or component cables when it was my turn to checkout. I’ve had three nunchuks since I happened to come across them at a Walmart during one of my previous Wii searches. I ended up finding plenty of controllers and the component cables at a Best Buy. One of the sale guys noted that for $10 more than a controller, I could get WiiPlay (which includes a controller)… an easy sell obviously.
I’ve got Wii Sports (comes with the Wii), Zelda, and Wii Play at this point, and so far I enjoy Wii Sports the most. I’m still in the tutorialish town adventure thing in Zelda, but I do like it. I haven’t played my Wii a whole lot though, when I got back to Tech Sunday I dropped my stuff and then headed off to a group meeting which lasted until about midnight. I got back and set things up, and I played 4 minutes according the the Message Board on the Wii. The graphics aren’t remotely as good as my XBox 360 games, but the gameplay is interesting and the interface is fun. I also like that the games are still $50, instead of the $60 games for the 360 (or PS3). I’m also glad I didn’t have to shell out $400 (360 Premium) or $600 (PS3) for the console. The lack of high def is a downer, but 480p doesn’t look bad on my TV. I think I’ll get WarioWare at some point, not now though, that’s enough money at once (everything total is still less than a PS3 though). Overall I’m very happy with the Wii.
The NSA has a really good article on why we should (technically some people are, but most people don’t create certificates with ECC signatures or implement it into their solutions) start moving towards elliptic curve cryptography. Basically - smaller keys with better security, which means less memory consumption and reduced bandwidth usage (which all translates into better performance).
There’s a really good article that looks at why NSA Domestic Spying program is a huge waste of money and time from a statistical point of view, without even going into a discussion about the blatant invasion of privacy. Bottom line: data mining doesn’t work when you’re looking for a needle in an incredibly large haystack. But hey, it’s great for spying on reporters.
So I ordered a shiny new 150GB 10,000 RPM WD Raptor last Friday to replace my 74GB Raptor. It came in today (yesterday…) and I set about cloning my data to the new drive. Except that the drive kept freezing up during the cloning process. Wiping the drive was problematic too (stupid thing couldn’t unmount, even when I booted from the 10.4.3 DVD). So I try a bunch of stuff to no avail. So I finally Google it and what do I find? G5s can’t handle a bunch of features on newer SATA drives (and as a result, they don’t work too well with them), so the thing is worthless in my G5. The solution is to get a third party SATA controller card. That’s a pretty worthless solution, as I see nothing but problems with those drivers and OS updates. So it’s probably going to sit on my desk until I get around to building that PC for my CS needs in the next month or two. Argghhhh, stupid technology!
I prefer the black box approach to computers- they just magically deal in 1s and 0s, no need to know of XOR gates and latches (or my newest nemesis- ALU units!).
Google Plans To Build Machine That Can Pass The Turing Test.
Google is already working on a massive and global computing grid. Eventually, says Mr Saffo, “they’re trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing testâ€â€”in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.
I suppose it’s time to decide if we should ban research into artificial intelligence.
Internet Brownout
Level 3, a backbone for internet traffic, cut off communication with a rival over issues with peering. Some people can’t access parts of the internet as a result. Is Level 3 engaged in a terrorist action by cutting off access to a key element of this nation’s economy? Let’s just label them enemy combatants and send them to Guantanamo before the humane treatment law goes into effect. I’ve been affected by this- I couldn’t access a particular website for an updated Mint plugin and had to SSH into my server to use lynx to download the update, which I then had to SFTP download to my computer. This is like shutting off the power, it’s totally irresponsible and this can’t be allowed to happen again. This also underscores how easy it would be for a real terrorist to strike something so vastly important us.
firstname @ gatech.edu
You can get your alias through GT Passport
Read about Technological Singularities, it’s an interesting prediction.
I’m looking forward to taking CS4002