The Flow of Consciousness

Apple iPad

I figure I’ll contribute to the noise and add my $0.02 about the Apple iPad, which was announced today with much fanfare.

Quick rundown for folks living under a rock who for some reason read my blog and no other news outlet:

• 9.7″ 1024×768 132ppi glass multitouch widescreen display
• 1 GHz Apple A4 processor/SoC
• 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB flash storage
• 802.11b/g/n WiFi
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 3G model supports UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz, i.e., AT&T), GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz)
• Compass, cellular network location service (i.e., no GPS)
• 25 Whr battery, 10 hours battery life in use, one month standby
• 3.5″ headphone jack, speakers, mic
• Standard Apple A/V format playback, H.264 video up to 720p
• Access to Apple App Store, iTunes Music Store, and new iBookstore

The pricing is pretty good, too. The cheapest, a 16 GB without 3G, is $499. The most expensive, 64 GB with 3G, runs $829 + $30 monthly for 3G service. Kudos to Apple for negotiating a no-contract deal with AT&T. That’s right—iPad users are not locked into AT&T contractually. They’re just locked into AT&T if they want 3G service. Here’s hoping that T-Mobile springs up similar plans for folks who want T-Mobile and for whom EDGE service will suffice.

In theory, it’s pretty slick device. Lots of innovation, right?

Hardware-wise, I pronounce that Apple has done it again. It’s a new idea, a new form-factor, a new audience. Apple’s going after the folks who love e-book readers and who maybe need to do some typing every now and then. They’re going after the on-the-go designer, or presenter, or other person who would benefit from having, essentially, the capabilities of the iPhone but with a larger screen and faster processor.

Apple iPad Case

Apple iPad Keyboard Dock

There’s a few accessories for it, including a keyboard dock and a case. The case doubles as a bit of a stand, as well. The dock gives the user a keyboard (it’s not clear to me whether or not the keyboard is included) with which to type in programs such as a new mobile edition of iWork for the iPad. It’s a novel idea, but not terribly innovative. It has an audio jack for in-place speakers and likely relies on a USB keyboard or, more likely, Bluetooth.

Unfortunately, it lacks several things it could really use:

• Web cam, front-facing or user facing — no Skype video, folks
• GPS — there has to be room inside for it, and it would make the device truly mobile like the iPhone
• Lid — I understand that this is where the “upsell upsell upsell” case comes in, but I would have really liked to see some kind of lid or carrier. ZAGG will no doubt have a screen protector for the iPad immediately.
• USB ports — sayonara, expandability

Hardware-wise, I’d buy it if I had a use for it. It’s slim, mobile, and the battery lasts forever. Package up a mobile Bluetooth keyboard, and I’d have a nice on-the-go machine for CES or something.

That’s where the good ends. If you’re an Apple fanboy, now’s the time to go elsewhere.

36" hoops and enough room for your iPad

It’s the software which makes it irrelevant to me. It’s a giant iPhone without voice capability. Or, it’s a giant iPod Touch with 3G data capability. Or, it’s a music player in which the only jeans it would be found are JNCO jeans.

It’s an embedded device, as far as I’m concerned, with its own ecosystem (as giant as it may be, given that iPhone apps run on it, too). The books from the iBookstore are DRM-locked to the device, and there’s been no indication if Apple will allow books purchased on it to be transferred to new devices or to desktop machines.

Another big missing feature: Adobe Flash. No Hulu, no web sites which use Flash. This lack makes it somewhat useless as a laptop replacement computer.

Worst of all, and the real deal killer for anyone who would use the iPad in place of a real computer: no multitasking. That means that you can’t listen to Last.fm or Pandora while working on a paper; locally stored music only. AFAIK, there’s not a VoIP calling application on the App Store yet, and there likely won’t ever be, so forget using the iPad as a call center of any kind.

Could Apple figure out multitasking for the iPhone OS, thereby quashing this point and silencing the Android fanboys (myself included) who constantly berate iPhone users on their inability to check email while listening to Internet music while surfing the web while reading a book and not losing place when switching between any of these? Sure, Apple could. Then iPhone and iPad users would realize that their little snappy device is no longer snappy when they try to run more than one or two apps a time.

Oh, how I could go on and on about such a fun topic as multitasking and its necessity to any computer user expecting a real computer experience.

So, software-wise, Apple fails on the iPad software-wise. Had it been granted Mac OS X privileges, plus the camera, I think it could sway a lot more people. It would be a great platform for we Linux geeks to hack upon, and I can’t wait to see what the open source community tries to do with it.

More evidence of the Jobsian Nation’s collective disappointment: my company is comprised of tens of Apple fanboys, and I only heard one or two saying that they’d get the iPad.

Kudos to Apple for actually using its P.A. Semi property—I was hoping to see something out of it.

TL;DR

Apple iPad is great hardware, but the software makes it stupid. I won’t buy one, likely ever.

If you don’t mind being locked to the Apple ecosystem, go for it. I’d love to play with it, just not bring it home and take care of it.

Engadget has a good hands on of the iPad. Mashable has a great discussion, too, and we’re in agreement on a major disappointment: “It’s an unprecedented win for closed computing.” If you’ve seen some other good articles, post them in the comments.

Let’s say you’re on an event page on Facebook and you want to select all of your friends. Click on “Invite People to Come” and you’ll see the friend selection dialog pop up. Once it’s up, copy and paste this little Javascript gem into the URL bar of your browser:

This will select everyone. Be warned, though, that if you computer is slow or you have a lot of friends, it could take a while. It took about a second on my MacBook Pro with a 2.53 GHz Core2Duo.

To White Castle, the whitest of burger-mongering castles:

Many moons ago, I inquired as to the intent of White Castle, purveyor of the finest sliders in the known universe, to expand its presence into Pennsylvania. I’m interested specifically in its expansion into the western parts of the state, from whence I hail.

In my last communication, I lived near New Castle, Pennsylvania, and the nearest White Castle was in Barberton, Ohio–more than an hour’s drive. I now live near Monroeville, east of the most steely city of Pittsburgh. The nearest one now may in fact still be Barberton, which is approximately two hours from Pittsburgh.

I know that you will remind me that White Castle contracts out its fantastic sliders to various retailers for sale in the frozen goods section, but, alas, such a thing is simply not as pleasing and edifying as the Real Thing.

When oh when, praytell, shall White Castle increase its sphere of influence to include the city of steel, bridges, rivers, buccaneers, and awkward-waddling flightless birds? Its people clamor for the delight of sliderage!

Thank you!

I’ve recently been experimenting with meditation as a means of clearing my mind before going to bed or while sitting in traffic. I see meditation as sort of mental defragmentation; a way to reorganize my thoughts by clearing the proverbial table of everything, then putting this back on the table when needed.

While not concerned with overcoming depression, as I am not affected by that, a recent Change Blog entry titled How To Meditate gave me some pointers to help clear my mind.

You may want to read that article, then return here to better understand the remainder of this post.

I already have control of my thoughts—most of the time, that is. Sure, there are times when random cartoons get drawn or I am compelled suddenly to listen to some obscure song. The latter, though, spawned a great theme for the past few weeks’ work music selection though: shoegazing music, ala My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, etc. I am capable of rejecting thoughts which I’d rather not muse, and can keep those thoughts at bay effortlessly.

Patience is something I’ve always had. There are times I think I have too much patience, but the situation ends up working out better in the end when I’ve used my (legendary?) patience. However, I know it takes time and work—practice—to perfect the art of meditation. My patience is still tried by incompetent or malicious people, and I’d just as soon dismiss them from their responsibilities and take those responsibilities in addition to my own until a suitable replacement comes.

Detachment from my thoughts is related to control of them, but adds in the ability to see the thought from an external camera, per say. If I can let go of a thought—if I can detach from it—I can clear it from my mental table easily. I can also see that thought from other peoples’ perspective, and understand their support or opposition thereof. This consideration of other peoples’ perspective and how much weight it bears in relation to my perspective allows me to understand the greater picture and detach myself from my own tunnel vision.

Remaining intense and disciplined is difficult, but I’m improving with practice. I find I’m able to force myself to begin clearing my head quicker as time goes on.

Concentrating on something else is the hardest part of meditation, at least for me. I tend to clear my mind of one thing by replacing it with another, less important thing. Sometimes, though, that new thought leads to something else which then leads to another heavy thought which I’d rather not consider. Recently, I’ve led my mind to space scenes ala APOD or some of the nature pictures I’ve taken in the past. These are things that have little or no relevance to things related to my daily life and are perfect fodder for mental table clearings—the last thing on the table, perhaps.

Some folks find religious prayer meditative. I don’t because it puts more things in my mind instead of centering me and clearing my mind. If you’d ask me, I’d recommend avoiding prayer when meditating for that reason.

I still have a long way to go before meditation is any more than a means to fall asleep quickly. I’d eventually like to be able to use it to calm myself down when agitated or as way to induce a semi-hypnotic, trance-like state.

The side panel of the Cooler Master Cosmos S PC case has a 200 mm fan and a grating which covers the entire side. The grating is hard, and protects the fan from damage. Inside the grating, though is a lighter mesh which prevents dust from being sucked in by the fan.

This design keeps dust out while providing an enormous amount of cooling for the entire motherboard.

However, cleaning it is annoying. One must unscrew the inner mesh and its panel, then pop the panel out of a number of tabs. Once that’s open, one can carefully clean it. It took me approximately 20 minutes to clean it.

Check out the picture for the amount of dust which had accumulated since mid-March when I reviewed it for ThinkComputers.

The Daily WTF has a story about social engineering at its finest.

Read The Super Hacker at The Daily WTF.

Do it!

Todd Steinberg wrote for LewRockwell.com an editorial entitled Personal Motivation through Austrian Economics. It’s an interesting look at the value of something or some activity.

This paragraph really struck me:

Yesterday, you told me how you would often fall into a rut and it depresses you, which leads you into long stretches of nonproductivity. We all have a monkey on our back in one respect or another. Everyone conquers this differently, but I bet if you take it one day at time, it will be easier if for one day you falter. So in your case, try thinking of each day as a new day filled with a fresh 24 hours that you can use to apply yourself productively. In your mind, by deciding to make each day independent of the other, the non-accomplishments of one day won’t bleed into the next day or the next week and so on.

Give the article a read—it’s one of my favorites on LewRockwell in the past few days.

First off, Yuwie is 100% FREE. Yuwie is like any other “connect with friends” or social networking site. But Yuwie has one major difference: use Yuwie, get paid!

Yuwie pays you to blog, upload pictures, refer friends, chat, hang out, etc.

Click here to join!

You see, MySpace and Facebook and the like get advertising revenue every time there’s a page view. This means that any time anyone looks at your profile, anytime you look at someone else’s profile, or any of the pages that branch from it (photos, videos, etc.), they get a small amount of money.

Yuwie is willing to surrender a good portion of their potential income in order to draw more people to the site. So, when you join, you get 10% of the profits you make for Yuwie just for using it. When you invite someone, you get 10% of whatever they make for Yuwie and they get 10%. It’s exponential, and gets a little smaller after the fourth degree of separation, but if someone 10 levels away from you joins, you get 30% of whatever they make for Yuwie.

I’m giving it a try for a few days. It’s very MySpace-esque: more attractive than MySpace and better functionality, but it’s obviously a newer site.

So, click here to join!