Dimitri McKay’s Nerd News

iPhone 3G: No compelling reason to buy it

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 19:03:12 -0400

As an early adopter I found myself last year sleeping in my car outside an AT&T store, anxiously awaiting the retirement of my Treo650 and my Nokia 8801. Both, although they served me well, were tired old technology about to be surpassed by the hottest, sexiest, most overwhelmingly cool phone to hit the market since... well... ever. (Can you imagine what life was like at Nokia, Palm, Samsung or NTT DoCoMo the day Jobs demo’d the iPhone? I imagine it went something like this. “Oh @#$%.”)

A year later, I find myself with that same phone. I’ve watched the competitors scramble to catch up. I’ve seen everyone claim to be “an iPhone killer” much like everyone scrambled to be the “ipod killer.”

*yawn*

Keep dreaming, Samsung. Your “Instinct” did nothing to inspire. In fact, your commercials, claiming to be “better than the iphone” or my favorite “faster downloads than the iphone” is pathetic. (see the commercial here:)

Yet, a year later, as we step into the new phase of the iPhone, we see the iPhone 3g.

New Features:
GPS (without turn by turn directions)
3G downloads
Colored cases

Frankly, as I sit with my v1 iPhone, none of those features get me hot and bothered. I don’t do enough downloading to make it worth my while. If I could TETHER my Macbook Pro to the phone via bluetooth and use it as a wireless modem? Absolutely. I’d be alllll over it. But I can’t. So all I can do now is download faster. Not inspiring.

Beyond a GPS chip and a different radio, it’s the same phone. I already own one!

The software, the new software... the iPhone 2.0 software works for all of us. New iPhone, old iPhone. all of us. We all get the app store. We all get mobile-me. We all get exchange push.

So as of right now, am I going to buy the new iPhone? Absolutely not. Not unless there is some absolutely compelling event, however, from where I’m sitting, the old vs. new iPhone has the same processor, same RAM, same display, same touch-screen features, same features minus two which will suck the life out of my battery at 2x the normal rate.

No thank you.

So... will you be upgrading to a new iPhone?
If so... what’s your compelling reason?

Movie Review: Hancock

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:36:28 -0400

If you haven’t seen Hancock yet, or you’re considering watching the movie, I’d stop reading now.

If you’ve no desire to see it, or wonder what my opinion is OF the movie... here goes.

It’s summer again, and on the cusp of 4th of July. I know this because Will Smith has yet another summer movie, with a ton of advertising behind it. I haven’t read others review, but here’s mine.

After seeing Will Smith in “I Am Legend” (see here for the review of that flick.) I thought he was great. Hancock? Well, it was fun at first. I’m guilty of enjoying it.

Then, out of the blue, it was just friggin wacky. And I couldn’t get on-board. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. It went from being a cool story about a lonely, down and out, overly drunk, and outrageously hot tempered “super hero” who was looking for public acceptance to a crazy love story which, in my opinion, was sorta pathetic, and tried to hard to be romantic, when it just ended up sorta cliche.

Just my .02 cents.

What did you think of the movie?

The Pirate Bay urges ISP’s to block Sweden

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:25:30 -0400

Although I’m not all that big on downloading warez... (anymore)... I’ve been known to grab the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica from The Pirate Bay if I happen to miss it on SCI-FI. Prior to NBC pulling its content from iTunes, I’d gone there as a solution.

Anyway, although the boys at TBD are making a fortune on advertising dollars (and I mean a FORTUNE)... the fact that they are pro-privacy makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I love the “fight the power” attitude on any scale. Cheers to them.

Read more below:

Earlier this week, Swedish parliament had voted in favor of a new “wiretapping” law which invades the privacy of its citizens by allowing the government to monitor Internet traffic and phone calls, without the need for court orders.
Before the law was passed, The Pirate Bay crew spoke out against it, and now they are upping the ante.

In an initial response they went out putting “wanted posters” up, of politicians who voted in favor of the law. Their next move is to ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, according to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

“Together with other people that work against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs need to block Sweden in order to protect their own customers integrity since everything they do on Swedish ISPs networks will be logged and searched.”

That is not all though. In addition to these lobbying efforts The Pirate bay will also add SSL encryption to their site, and they will inform their users on how to protect their privacy. For Swedes they already have a VPN solution up and running, which they will open up to international users in the near future.

“We’re going to help out in any way we can with fighting the law,” Peter writes. “This week we’re going to add SSL to The Pirate Bay. We’re also going to help out making a website about easy encryption - both for your harddrives and your net traffic.”

It’s good to see that The Pirate Bay team will not give up their privacy as easy as some of the politicians. “Trust me, this war is not lost,” Peter told TorrentFreak. “We will win. We have many aces up our sleeves and we’re gonna use them. No worries.”

Ice found on Mars: Now where’s the aliens?

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:58:21 -0400

I saw this over on slashdot, and thought I’d post it. I thought it was great, actually. So, I’m a huge fan of space exploration, and I think that it’s a bit ridiculous to think that in a universe as large as ours, that we are the only life in it. (we’re not that special.)

Anyone up for a search for Caprica? heh.

"Scientists have figured out the mysterious white substance unearthed by NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars. It's frozen water. The breakthrough came last week when Phoenix's stereo camera caught the substance in the act of disappearing. Bathed in martian sunlight for four days, the white substance sublimated — i.e., it transformed from solid to gas without passing through the liquid state. This is how water behaves on Mars.... Some readers have asked, how do we know the white substance is not frozen CO2 (dry ice) instead of frozen water? Answer: Phoenix's landing site is too warm for dry ice. The average daily temperature is about -70 F while dry ice requires temperatures lower than about -109 F."

Freedom Tower gets massive fuel cell:

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:05:36 -0400

I read this earlier on EcoGeek’s blog. I thought it was interesting, but I think I’d much prefer to see solar windows, or something, than a fuel cell. It’s a step in the right direction, but not there yet, in my own humble opinion.

“My gut tells me that at this point in time and with our world’s scientific knowledge, there is no excuse for building something that isn’t energy efficient on at least some level. Luckily, even large scale, high profile construction projects are on the same bandwagon.

The New York Power Authority and UTC Power are hooking up to create one of the world’s largest fuel cell installations. The Freedom Tower and three other new towers under construction at the WTC site are getting 12 fuel cells – the PureCell Model 400 – that will increase energy efficiency for the buildings. This particular model of fuel cells is reportedly one of the cleanest, quietest and more energy efficient on-site power generating technologies available, delivering twice the power and double the lifetime of the previous model – apparently nothing but the best for the Freedom Tower. Though, at the current rate of research and improvements, they may be outdated pretty quickly. The cells are reported to not require any fossil fuel to produce their 400 kilowatts of energy each, and they meet the strictest air emissions requirements in the US. But from what I can find on UTC's website, the PureCell still needs to be plugged in to the grid, hence, fossil fuels are burned elsewhere. But, the plans are to waste not, want not, as the thermal energy generated by the fuel cells will be used for cooling and heating.

This project, like any similar project in our country, doesn’t come without a few feathers to stick in one’s hat. At times, that seems like the whole reason behind some eco-friendly construction. The incorporation of these fuel cells scores points for LEED certification, a significant goal for all the WTC tower projects. Then, there is also the symbolism, which, honestly, I think really does go a long way in promoting green thinking among the general public:
"One of the most important building projects in the nation will be equipped with space-age energy technology that uses an electrochemical process to produce clean on-site power," Gov. David Paterson said. "The fuel cells and other measures will help make the new World Trade Center towers an exemplar of environmental sustainability and will signal to the world New York State's commitment to greater energy security and reduced dependence on foreign oil. I can think of few sites in the country where the symbolism of this is more important."

Symbolism aside, fuel cells may not have been the best bet for generating power, considering some other ideas that could have been utilized on buildings of this scale. For instance, solar windows, solar panels on the roof, wind microturbines…all of which cart around less negative impact than fuel cells. There are quite a few tower projects that could be used as examples for better ideas. But, steps are steps are steps.”