This is promises to be the next killer app for smart phones. Its already available on Android platforms. Now we just have wait until its ported to other platforms like iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia, Windows Mobile, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html
http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=606071
http://buzzdroid.com/wordpress/wordpresscom-dead-blog-stats/
Duh. I know personally I’ve neglected this blog. I’ve been addicted to massively multiplayer online games busy with work and personal matters that I could blog about, but won’t. This is supposed to be a therapeutical thing for me. You know, getting it all off my geeky chest. I’m not out to get paid for this, although that would be nice. I tried to get Google AdSense working, but failed miserably. My failure is amplified because I’m the geek who’s supposed to figure that stuff out. I’ll figure it out one day I guess. Anyway, to anyone who is reading this, I promise to get some new stuff up soon. If you have any ideas to get me jump started, I’d love to hear them. You can email me at phreakincool AT gmail DOT com
I’ve been eargerly awaiting the debut of StarCraft 2, which has been 11 years in the making due to buyouts and mergers, staff departures, etc at Blizzard, they have finally built a successor to StarCraft that’s worthy of the StarCraft name. In my quest for more information on the new StarCraft, I found this interesting link where StarCraft has been used in an academic lecture on the theory of war as conducted in Starcraft.
I haven’t posted here in a while. I’ve had a lot on my mind, but lately I’ve been too busy trying to keep my job. As we all know, the economy really, really sucks. Here is a chart that compares the current recession to recent recessions in 2001 and 1991.
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1683
See that green line? See how its just plunging, suicide-like to the bottom? Shit!
I just took a 2 week vacation from work. And did absolutely nothing but sleep and play videogames. Just thought I’d post about it, since I didn’t bother to post anything either. And while I was too broke to actually take my family anywhere, it was awesome. It was an unscheduled vacation. But one I needed as I felt really burnt-out at that point. The kind of burnt-out where you (might) do or say something stupid at work that you (might) regret later. And the funny thing is, now I’m really anxious to get back to work. Weird.
OK. I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux 8.04 at work for the past 5 months and at home for about the same amount. I’ve used many of the other Linux distros such as Debian, Suse, Fedora, Slackware, Mandrake (Mandriva) , and many of their derivatives. A couple of friends had been trying to get me to try out Ubuntu since version 6, so I finally caved and tried it. I’m glad I did. Despite the funny sounding name, its origins are Zulu, I found it to be one the best, if not the best Linux distro I’ve come across.
Here are the reasons why:
1) Live CD. Many distros have Live CDs. Nothing new there. But Ubuntu’s Live CD essentially lets you try out the entire distro without having to install it. I got the latest version of Firefox, OpenOffice, Wine, and many other applications. If you decide you really like it and want to install it on your PC, just press the ‘Install to Hard drive” icon.
2) Its based on Debian. Which is already a solid Linux distro.
3) Its free. That’s nada, zero, zilch, zippo, donut-hole. Free as in “Free beer”. You can download the install/livecd image and burn your own CD. Or you can request a free CD, that’s in absolutely free CD from Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu and Ubuntu loaded servers and desktops.
You can get it from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu
4) OOBE: Remember the feeling you had when you started Windows 95 or Windows XP for the first time? Its like that and more. I liken it to having a Mac without the Mac. Everything just works. 95% of what most people do are covered. There are a plethora of built-in programs that cover emailing, web-surfing, document writing and reading, spreadsheets, etc.
5) Wine: For the 5% that aren’t handled natively in Linux, there’s wine. No don’t get all liquored up and smash things. No. Wine is a program that provides a reverse-engineered API to run Windows programs. Wine is an acronymn that means: Wine Is Not an Emulator
I’ll be back with more on installing Ubuntu.
I’ve been reading about Meizu’s M8 mini One for over a year now. Its an obvious iPhone knock off that closet Apple fan-boys my actually like. See my other post about closet Apple fan-boys. The form-factor borrows heavily from Apple’s design, but that’s about it. This phone will sport the following (taken from the meizume site:
Networks: Quad-band GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
Dimensions: 107mm x 59mm x 11.9mm (H x W x T)
Processor: ARM11 667MHz+
Display: 3.4″, 16600K, 720×480 pixel resolution, Touchscreen LTPS TFT-LCD
PC Interface: USB 2.0 Ultra Fast Data Transfer
Flash Memory: 8 or 16GB of flash NAND
Operating System: Meizu OS (Based on Windows CE6.0)
Video Playback: AVI, MPEG-2, RM(VB), MPEG-4/H.263/H.264 at 30FPS
Camera: 0.3+ megapixel camera on front, 3.0 megapixel camera on back. Supports auto-focus.
Battery: 1400 mAh Li-ion
Support For:
* 3G & 3.5G
* Bluetooth 2.0
* 802.11b/g WiFi
* TV-out
* Line-out
* Video Conferencing
* USB Host / OTG
* GPS (Add-on)
* Multi-touch NEW!
Additional Features:
* Light sensor allowing the phone to automatically adjust screen brightness in accordance to the lightning in the environment.
* Tilt and movement recognizing sensor that will allow it to auto-adjust screen orientation in accordance to tilting. It can also recognize movements (ie. shaking), a feature which can be used for games.
Here’s a youtube video posted by the CEO of Meizu, J. Wong, that shows the M8 in action:
Aisde from Mr. Wong’s soft-porn content of his demo model, the MiniOne or M8 as it may be called has most of the features the Jesus phone (iPhone). Looks a bit slow to me though. But I’m assuming they’ll fix that. My only other complaint, no CDMA support. That’s a deal breaker for me. 
And I’ve been waiting for this since before the iPhone came out. I’m currently with Verizon and I was looking for an iPhone type phone that had CDMA support and early on in its development, this phone promised to have it. After scaling back and make numerous changes to its offerings, CDMA and WDMA were dropped. Well hopefully version 2 will have CDMA support. Otherwise, the BlackBerry Storm (aka Thunder) is looking pretty good right about now.
Some more Meizu links:
http://en.meizu.com <—English version of chinese site
http://www.meizume.com/ <— Meizu forums
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/13/meizu-m8-minione-closer-to-production-litigation/
http://www.engadget.com/photos/meizu-m8-mini-one-vs-iphone-fight/
http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/meizu-m8-vs-apple-iphone/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRmBeg5Ex9k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo3sZGzzt94
I’m looking at all the news reports about Hurricane Gustav. I’m reminded of Hurricane Katrina and its affect on New Orleans back in 2005. I’m also reminded of all the destruction; lost homes, schools, business, etc. Soon after the people will start to rebuild their homes and their lives. Some times they do this over and over. You know I’ve often heard this quote, “Insanity is the definition of doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome.” By that definition, I’m clearly insane. So I ask myself, why don’t they build hurricane/tornado proof buildings in these regions where they’re prone to them a lot? They would probably still to need to evacuate (maybe not), but their homes or businesses, or schools, or whatever would still be standing, intact, when they returned.
What does a hurricane-proof building look like you ask?
Peep this:
Example of a Monolithic Dome Home
Here are 2 of my favorites:
Eye of the Storm
Now, obviously, these two examples are on the pricier end of the scale. But you can build a much cheaper dome under 100K and better one for more. There are many sizes and shapes to choose from. For more info on building a monolithic dome home go here: www.monolithicdome.com
I gotta let the wife out of the house more often. Today, she went to get her and my youngest daughter’s hair done at Regis Hair salon. Afterwards, she decided to go to the Starbucks next door. Later, I get a call from her. She’s never been to Starbucks before and is wondering if she’s supposed to clean up after herself. I’m like, “I dunno, ask someone.” While I had her on the phone, I asked her to get me a carmel brownie and a vanilla scone. She ordered them and quietly sneaked out.
