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Uncrate’s Nexus One Review

matt — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:45:02 +0000

Uncrate’s review of Nexus One – via Daring Fireball

Just when you thought you were all ready to plunk down your holiday gift cards toward a new iPhone, Google comes out of a left field with a scrappy alternative.

This is my favorite review so far, if you can even call it that.

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Changes

matt — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:08:06 +0000

It was time to make a few changes.

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News Today

matt — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:37:31 +0000

Daily deadlines did in the newspaper industry.

VALLEYWAG: 5 ways the newspapers botched the Web

The pressure of getting to press, the long-practiced art of doom-and-gloom headline writing, the flinchiness of easily spooked editors all made it impossible for ink-stained wretches to look farther into the future than the next edition.

I believe there is a little truth to this statement. The daily pace of the news is intense and it’s hard to maintain a focused vision for the future when the news is always happening.

Many daily paper publications are being dragged into the future. The primary problem facing all of them is finding the balance between slowly accepting shrinking circulation and being at the very edge of that ever shrinking bubble and migrating to a purely internet presence. News organizations need to maintain a connection to their community so that when there is no longer a paper reminder of who produces the news on their doorstep, the community is still aware of the source for quality news and information. A transition to a low-overhead increasingly web based presence will happen fast or many of these publications won’t get the chance to make it happen. The other problem with paper news is that once printed and delivered is yesterdays news, it’s not relevant to the news-now, news-everywhere crowd.

The area of concern for me, as an infrequent news website reader, is quality. I’m concerned when I am overwhelmed with advertisements and have trouble navigating. I most often visit news sites which are simple, clean looking, and informative. They should be simple to navigate, be friendly to mobile browsers and should offer feeds. I don’t even care if there are high quality advertisements within the feeds if they are relevant. I want more community, which is something generic news portals don’t have. Take a site like Digg for instance, it should be instantly apparent what is important to people right now. What Digg lacks is quality, generally because the content is 99.999 percent generated by its users. I’m not saying another Digg is what is needed but certainly there is a trend towards social networking, dynamic content based on an individuals preferences.

* The Slashdot community ponders this article.

Digging NoSQL

iPhone 3G

matt — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:36:14 +0000

The 3G iPhone looks like a pretty amazing piece of technology. Apple has managed to fix all of the things I didn’t like about the first incarnation. The most amazing thing about the iPhone 3G is how Apple will gain mind share and market share from the millions of people who are likely to get one. The reason they’ll gain so much is the thing which bites a lot of people who a low up-front cost. Though some have complained about the increased data plan costs, most who take issue fail to understand that 3G provides real broadband network connectivity. The value of the service has inceased.

The real value though is in the potential of the platform in the form of applications. When you compare what Apple has done in just two years for the mobile telephone market and contrast against a platform like windows mobile, there is no contest as to which company is on top of their game.

It’s almost as if they build their products because it fills some developers personal need versus building a “product” for the express purpose of making money. This is a strategy that I really admire because so far it tends to produce really interesting stuff.

With that said, hopefully the line will not be long.

Update:
I finally managed to get an iPhone. After having spent two days with it I’m very impressed. The only minor issue is battery life, probably because I’ve been using wifi quite often. The application store is incredible but since there are many competing applications it’s hard to know which one is the best. I’ve yet to find a good source of high quality iPhone application reviews. Some applications also don’t disclose information such as third party servers involved in communication, for instance some chat applications proxy certain requests between you and the destination. It’s amazing to me that this device is so far ahead of anything else on the market and in some cases the horizon. It makes every other phone look rather shabby by comparison.

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Olympics

matt — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:34:09 +0000

I’ve been watching the olympics. It is apparent that something about the Chinese women’s team doesn’t add up.

Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government’s news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

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Life is Good

matt — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:32:43 +0000

The other day as I was driving home on the freeway. Traffic was really bad, I could only assume there was an accident ahead. The traffic crept slowly forward, and about twenty minutes later I came upon the source of the congestion. A man was sitting on the edge of a high arching overpass, about fifty feet up from the freeway below. The police and fire departments had closed off the lanes to prevent traffic from flowing underneath him. His legs dangled over the edge and he kept a straight gaze to the concrete below, anyone could tell by looking at him he was serious. The local later got a description of the man whom they described as “distressed”. I thought to myself, “He’s either upset or did something terrible”. I was mostly upset because it multiplied my commute time by three, but it also made me think a little bit. As much as any of us get stressed, and as much as life can be complicated, I know I’ve got it pretty good.

The unidentified man swung his leg over the ledge at 7:27 p.m. and walked about 50 feet back to a line of squad cars accompanied unhandcuffed by a group of Fort Worth police officers.

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Texas Heatwave

matt — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:30:56 +0000

So far, this is the 10th straight day of triple-digit heat for Texas. Interestingly enough, an increased draw on the power grid is predicted.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utility Commission urged Texans to reduce their electricity use Tuesday during peak electricity hours from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Generally Speaking

matt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:29:50 +0000

It is common knowledge that the city of Arlington in Texas has no public transportation. It is a large city whose streets are packed with cars, students and Dallas Coyboys fans soon enough. Befitting that it is also the only city where GM will continue to produce the SUV.

It’s no secret that a lot of industries are feeling the gas crunch. GM

- GM is losing one billion dollars every month.
- Four North American GM plants will close.
- GM is cutting health insurance for retired employees.

That last bit is really terrible in my opinion. Instead of leaving that kind of mark on your legacy, find the money somewhere else. The people who spent their lives in your service are worth more than the phrase “Times are tough”. It shows current employees that they have no future with the company.

I have to remind myself at times, this is the way the market sorts itself. I think often times we are so comfortable with institutions we’ve known our whole lives that we forget there are a dozen or more competitors who are ready to step in and offer what the market wants.

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Four Day Work Week

matt — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:27:01 +0000

Utah goes to 4-day workweek to save energy.

In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state’s energy costs and commuters’ gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.

The environment and common sense seem to have won over stodgy business paradigms. In an increasingly connected world expanding telecommuting options is a good thing for both employee and employer.

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Oh Really

matt — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:21:33 +0000

This is validating some of the critics who said they were opening stores too close to one another,” said James Walsh, an analyst at Starbucks investor Coldstream Capital Management.

I enjoy an occasional starbucks, I would also enjoy seeing one only occasionally.

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