iPhone, iPhone, iPhone…

Ah yes Apple’s new thing. The media frenzy is starting to hit a fever pitch. Everyone and their grandmother is either zealously defending iPhone or relentlessly bashing it. Not that I mind all that much. Being what could be called the proto-typical Apple fanboy, I’m as eager as the next man to soak in the hype. I have watched all of Apple’s videos concerning the iPhone and how it should fit into my whole techno-gadget universe. I have to say I’m very impressed by the concept, the execution, and the meticulous attention that Apple typically pays to details. Details build empires.

I guess one could be a bit flabbergasted by all the press that iPhone has been receiving, but the power of suggestion and the careful marketing of those involved, has yielded a perfect storm of sorts for iPhone. Not that this is the case, but it doesn’t really matter if the iPhone sucks at single one of it’s duties that it was supposed to perform. People will still line up and buy them on June 29th. I, for one, find that incredible. The thing is reading the intial reviews for iPhone, they all say pretty much the same thing: it meets the hype.

According to such luminaries as Walt Mossberg, Steven Levy, and David Pouge. While they are all admidtely Apple fans they have the same praises and flaws about iPhone. Namely, as a convergent device, iPhone kicks ass. Web browsing, battery life, music playing, and durability are all better than expected. The above are concerned about the keyboard, being tied to AT&T, and the same old problem of it being a 1.0 Apple product.

While some would compare iPhone 1.0 to iPod 1.0, this is an invalid comparison. Both were products that clearly revolutionized or will revolutionize the way that each respective service/industry does business. iPod was had a large capacity, had a phenomenal way to navigate large amounts of digital music, and it was compact. I remember when iPod was announced. I went downstairs to talk with my mother about it and although we both thought the name was a little wonky, we agreed it was a cool idea. She then said to me, something to the effect of, “Must be pretty big to git a hard-drive in there.” I went over to the closet and pulled out a deck of poker cards and showed them to her. “No this is about it for size.”

iPhone has the same ideas going on. It’s pretty compact. The other day I was at work and saw someone take a call through one of those BlackBerry devices. The person looked ridiculous holding up a device that was essentially the size of a notepad to his ear. The user interface is also very impressive. It keeps the thing that I like about Apple’s products true. They work they way that I intuitively think they should work the first time around. Now this is not necessarily true all of the time, but for 90% of my personal experience with Apple software, things work that way the right way the first time.

There are several key differences in this arena of smartphones though. First of all, though there were many portable digital music players about before iPod hit the scene it was a burgeoning market and Apple was able to put in a hit right at the perfect spot in the curve to watch the market develop as a reaction to iPod. I can’t say how many times I read the phrase “iPod killer” in the last two years, but it is certainly more than I ever could have wanted to. The thing about the mobile phone industry, at least as I understand it, is that it is saturated with thousands of smartphones, camera phones, cheapies and expensivos. Mobile phones are an entrenched market and making a breakout product is something of a challenge. However the biggest difference between iPod and iPhone 1.0, the difference that will make iPhone a smash hit, is immediate availability with both Windows PC’s and Macs.

I remember feeling a little unhappy having to share my iPod champagne with the PC users, but in retrospect this is what made Apple’s little music player so damned ubiquitous. Having used several smartphones, I don’t understand how frequent users put up with them. They are annoying and convoluted to use. Not that I wasn’t able to figure them out, but after looking back on doing some of the simplest tasks, like making a phone call, I wondered why things had to be this way. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t despise their mobile phone. Maybe iPhone will help with this, maybe not.

The bottom line is that Apple has an opportunity to change the way people use telephones, just like they changed the way that people listen to music and watch movies. Some would argue that this way can’t be any better than what we do now, but given the track record, I would put my bets on Apple

Link of the Day:
Big-Ass Table
Microsoft’s Surface looks pretty fucking cool, but most R&D tech products do. I’m sure that both people who buy Surface, in what form and whenever it comes out will be very pleased with it.

The Inevitable Post about Flag-Burning, Nazis, and the NRA…

After having a somewhat abbreviated conversation with a colleague about the most demure of subjects, flag-burning, I decided that I would take some time and flesh out my thoughts on the subject. I am one of those advocates of free-speech, expression, press, religion and assembly. On the whole I would say that the entire Bill of Rights is important; if it weren’t why then did the Founding Fathers see fit to include all of those enumerated and unenumerated rights right away after the signing of the Constitution? Oddly enough, I think that the most important rights in the Bill of Rights are the Ninth and Tenth Amdendments. Freedom of speech and religion are important to the American ideal, but the ability to freely move about the states without say travel papers, I think, trumps those rights in importance.

That said, the power of expression as a form of protest can’t be overstated. Limits on speech and expression are necessary as dictated by society, but there is something to be said of the quandary of the tyranny of the majority. There are clearly legitimate cases where the flag was burned as a piece of free expression and protest speech. If there is anything that is more sacred in American Constitutional Law it is the right to protest government actions. Apparently expressing displeasure in the American foreign policy doesn’t extend to the most visible symbol of American presence. Aside from McDonalds of course.

The Supreme court said it best in United States v. Eichman when Justice Blackmum talks about the intent of the flag burning message. He writes about how no one would find the burning of a worn-out and well-used disrespectful; in fact one might even find it honorable to dispose of an ensign that way. Yet when the content of the message is one that is disapproved of it is the means of expressing the protest that is forbidden. There is no Government interest in suspending free speech in this instance, save for the fact that the Government disapproves of both the message and the means of it’s expression.

Clearly that was paraphrase of Blackmum’s strait-forward, yet reasoned opinion. Sometimes I find that when reading opinions of anyone other than a select few justices, one can be easily lost in the citations and the tendency for preamble and prevarication. Despite the fact that Antonin Scalia and I seldom agree, I find that his opinions written for the court are concise, scathing, entertaining, and well-writen.

I find the illegitimate destruction of the flag as despicable as many Americans do. Thousands of Americans fought and died and continue to fight and die to protect the ideals that were enshrined within the Constitution two-hundred years ago. To show such contempt for such a meaningful symbol is reprehensible and sickening. Yet it would be folly to say that American governments have always had such a noble purpose in sending those brave warriors to fight and die for their country. Too many Americans have died for unworthy causes to completely wash away the tide of those who desecrate the flag. Yet, as much as they disgust me, I admire the conviction of someone who is so strongly opposed to something as to desire to burn an American flag.

If only it were that way though. There are few noble protesters, fewer still noble governments, and the righteous causes of days gone by are just that, memories. I truly believe that most of those protesters who have burned flags are not those who are so devastated by the actions of their government that they would seek to trample upon the freedom that was paid for by the blood of their comrades. It is mostly those who are caught up in the moment, those who hate for no reason other than there is as powerful entity telling them what they can and cannot do, and those who are delinquents with nothing better to do than to react to a dare.

Despite all of this, even those delinquents have the right to burn the US flag. And I have the right to call them delinquents for doing it.

Links of the Day:
There are two organizations that deal with Constitutional rights that are clearly philosophically opposed. I’m sure that each of them draws their base from different ends of the political spectrum and that each of them may view the other as some form of enemy. However, both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association are both protecting key Constitutional rights. The ACLU is more oriented toward free-speech and expression and defending anyone who says anything from Neo-Nazis to NAMBLA. Clearly their willingness to defend the dregs of society has made them a magnet for criticism from many in mainstream America. Still the important rights that ACLU defends are vital to functioning American society.

Then there is the NRA. Sure current president Wayne LaPierre is a bit on the fringe and the defense of people to own things like fully automatic Thompson sub-machine guns is a bit of a stretch, but firearm ownership by private citizens is a fundamental part of liberty. Not only does the NRA advocate the rights of gun owners across the world, but they also provide safety lessons, training on proper care, use and handling of firearms, as well as several programs to keep gun-owning America safe and savvy.

I would argue that both the ACLU and the NRA play vital roles in keeping the government honest. Both are more polarizing organizations, but underneath it all they both have the same goal.

So I’m a Geek too (the mini iPhone rant)

I have a couple of questions. But first a few caveats and some background information.
I have a job where on any given day I can spend many hours browsing the internet. Not today however. Usually this leaves me with some time to come absorb all the great bits that that the Hive Mind has collected over the day. Interesting local stories, creative things to do with yarn, so on an so forth. I like this kind of stuff. I feel that one can never be stuffed with too much knowledge about just stuff. Clearly I am not alone. The internet is a wonderful place for this kind of activity.

So then there is MacBreak Weekly hosted by the talented and lovely Leo Laporte. I like Leo and all the guys on there. I enjoy the free flowing Ratholes, the geek talk, an the hilarity. They talk about shit that is sometimes interesting to me, sometimes way over my head. Then there is Scott Bourne. Yeah he’s got radio show about the iPhone and people on the show are kinda put off by his talking about Apple’s next big thing, but so what? It’s the man’s job. I know that if I spent the last six months of my life following Apple and trying very desperately to squeeze something out of that secrecy nightmare, I’d want to talk about it alot. Seriously, there probably isn’t that much that he can talk about that isn’t iPhone. Yes Bourne can be a bit abrasive, walking around with his pompous “sources” that he’s throwing around. Mostly I think it has gotten this bad recently because of the way that Laporte, moans about being turned off by the iPhone, mostly because of Scott Bourne’s extensive coverage.

I call childishness all around. Yes iPhone is cool, and if it’s even half as revolutionary as the adds and first-looks and pre-reviews make it out to be, then it will be wildly successful and innovative. Yet there are some concerns. How much of a choke hold is AT&T going to have on it, what kind of battery life they get, and you know how it works as a fucking cell phone. Yeah all the features are really cool, but if someone is going to shell out $600 beans for a phone it better work as one.

I don’t know why I wrote about Scott Bourne except that I get the impression that he is the black sheep of the MBW family. No he’s not my favorite personality *ahem*Andy Ihnatko, but I feel that Bourne has been getting too much flak as of late.

Link of the Day:
About this Particular Macintosh
Don’t really know how I came across this one, but great webzine from Michael Tsai. The man behind SpamSieve writing a Macintosh magazine? Count me in! Each article is full of useful, entertaining, and interesting information about Macs and the whole computing lifestyle. A great read for anyone into Macintosh computers.

So I’m Back…

Sure ignore a weblog for say 10 months and it falls to disuse. Shit I think the NAMBLA website gets better traffic than I do. Then again NAMBLA – shudders.

In going back and reading what I wrote many moons ago, I have come to the realization that I was just a tad pretentious in the whole getting to know the, what 44 of you that bothered too look at some of the drivel. After spending another 10 months in the blogosphere and you know, actually paying attention to them I realized something popular blogs do lots of linking to cool things that they find on other weblogs or have neat tutorials about how to do cool things with tools/CSS/flank steak. While I can kinda do most of those things (tools and flank steak most of all), I realize I have nothing extraordinary to talk about. Do other people really find ordinary people so fucking interesting? I guess.

Quite the shocker, eh? After meeting some real life inspiration, like an actual honest to God person who has a blog and has had one for several years. Cool. I want in again. If those same half-dozen of you who actually saw it when it was called Shades of Mediocrity want to keep reading I have changed a few things.

1. Changed the name when I found out someone else had it. The name is a reference to a signature that a friend of mine had in his email. Though I am convinced that it’s a reference to something, yet my search-fu seems to be failing me.

2. Picked another cookie cutter theme from the WordPress theme site. Yeah it’s generic, but hey I suck at the whole graphic design thing. The first template that I looked at was cooler, but it didn’t have the features like links and such that I wanted for navigation. I’m still fooling around with the WordPress engine – very cool very easy to use I’m just very lazy. I guess thats about it for now – I’ll be working on the sidebar to improve it with sites that I normally visit. I called Daring Fireball an inspiration in design and content when I first started this project. I would still like to think that was true, but I know mine is not up to those standards. I would like to be someday though. Cue the Pinocho music. “Someday it’ll be a real website.” I just want both of you to be patient as I work out the kinks.

New feature: Link of the Day: Dramatic Chipmunk. Makes me laugh every time I watch it. And that’s about a dozen so far.

BTW: The girl says to me that we can’t watch the rest of The Departed because it would be confusing. She apparently spent the first hour of the movie thinking that the Matt Damon character and the Leo DiCaprio character were the same. Wow. Just wow.