I woke up this morning to go check out a little market (Katsuura) for some fresh fish and vegetables. After finishing my shopping, I noticed this fishing boat unloading its catch. I thought it was kind of interesting.
So, I had the chance to play with the new “Google Phone” today. I have to say that I like it. I found no differences in functionality between it and an iphone. The one thing that I could not get to work in under 10 minutes of playing was to get my A2DP headset to play music. It did however, work fine for making and taking phone calls.
The phone feels very solid, unlike the iphone which feels very cheap to me. I think if I dropped this phone, it would be fine, but who knows — maybe it just feels that way. The keyboard is extremely nice. It is tactile and responsive. You can see from the video below that I do not have little fingers. So you can imagine the touch screen keyboard on the iphone becomes the bain of my existance when I am forced to type on it. The touchscreen on the phone is quite nice. It is also responsive and fast. I had no complaints there. The inclusion of the track-ball-mouse is something I really liked as well. I really do not like touch screens for a number of reasons — I cant see what I am clicking on half the time when its small. The mouse is more accurate.
The music player that is built in is functional and works well. It shows album art and has basic playback functionality we expect on a portable music player. The phone supports miniSD cards. I think a 1 gig card was included with this phone, but i may be wrong there. Regardless, the infinite expandability is very nice. miniSD is cheap too. The GPS feature seems to work great (at least in New York City). It provided me nice directions based on my location for free. This is a biggy. I installed a weather app which worked well and some simple games. All worked well also.
Other than the above, I found the marketplace to be a bit barren, but I suppose that is to be expected on day one of a new product. There were some nice apps, including the stated weather apps, some multimedia players and games. I like the ability to have background apps running and copy/paste is a nice option too. In general, the operating system feels solid. For a launch product, I must say – I am impressed. If this is what a “beta” is like, I am very anxious to see what is in-store for the future. I will likely get one of these when they become available on AT&T as I do not feel like switching providers at this point.
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This Summer, there was a 16 ounce tumbler available at Starbucks that looked like a to-go cup, but it was reusable. This cup was pretty neat looking, but rather over priced at the time. I wanted one, but didn’t feel like shelling out $15 for a plastic cup with a logo on it. Well, I thought about it the other day, and thought I wanted one again, and maybe Starbucks would be selling old stock at a discount as they tend to do. Much to my surprise, this was not the case at all. In fact, the cup was so popular that it sold out almost immediately, and has been an EXTREMELY hot item on ebay every since. Check this link. I wonder why Starbucks doesn’t just re-release this cup. There is CLEARLY demand for it. They should try to make a buck. I might even buy one this time.
So Governor Palin thinks that reading books is enough to learn about different countries and their cultures. Hmm. Her wikipedia page seems to indicate that she was not so dedicated of a student.
She also thinks that you can not work and travel and that somehow these things do not go together. Who is she trying to kid? I went to school full time. I received an Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Biology in 6 years. During this time, I worked close to 40 hours a week by taking shifts Friday nights and Saturdays and Sundays all day. I did not make tons of money at these jobs, BUT, I was able to travel to Japan THREE times as a student on this money AND make the Dean’s list every semester. This is something that I wanted to do on my own. I did not get a backpack from my parents either.
Who is she trying to kid. with these statements? Why doesn’t she save face at this point and just admit that she is grossly under qualified for the position of Vice President of the United States. She should just say that she doesn’t know what she is doing and was overly ambitious when she accepted the nomination. She could also say that she is willing to work hard to make up for her deficiencies. This would still not qualify her for the position in my eyes, but at least she would come off as a little bit less of a liar and a cheat.
Here is the second in my series of motion capture tutorials. The first focused on setting up a naming template in Nexus. This tutorial will describe the process of cleaning optical data and filling gaps when occlusion of reflective markers occurs. The video below is part one. If you play it to the end, you will see links to the further parts.
My class on motion capture started recently and I decided to post some tutorials for my students and others to watch. You might find them useful if you are learning to use Vicon Nexus or AutoDesk MotionBuilder. The first series is on how to set up a dot naming template in Nexus.
So I just got a breaking news email from the New York Times. It reads like this:
McCain Seeks to Delay Presidential Debate
Senator John McCain said that he would temporarily suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis and the bailout package pending before Congress. Mr. McCain is asking Senator Barack Obama’s campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to postpone the debate scheduled for Friday night.
Hmm, I thought about this for a minute. Yes, it is important to get this financial crysis settled. I agree, but shouldn’t the future President of the United States be ready to balance multiple important things at once? I mean wise people should be able to debate without preparation as they should already be well versed on their stance since they ARE RUNNING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
What is going to happen if we are attacked AND another finaicial crysis happends again? Will we give John McCain time to prepare? I do not think it works that way.
I watched the game this Monday night and after the first two quarters, I was totally bored. I know the announcers were all stoked about the amazing amount of offense being generated, but I was more interested in one thing; the obvious lack of defense on display by both teams. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I like good games, but this game had WAY too many big plays to be considered a good game. When you have this many big plays, it just ends up looking sloppy.
I am usre I will be reading about how great of a game this was all week, but I for one believe it was a sign of weakness by both teams. Their passing defenses are clearly a deficiency and should be exploited by teams looking for ways to beat them.
So when is a pig with lipstick on it a sexist remark? Apparently whenever John McCain says it is. Why is it OK to use this old phrase one day, then the next you attack your opponent with accusations? This is not acceptable behavior from the President of the United States of America. The President is supposed to be wise and intelligent, not a low life who twists things to his own benefit. This is UNACCEPTABLE.
If you are reading this post, PLEASE think about this mentality — and wisely cast your vote this year. Do we really want this person running a country? I think not.
Over the last few weeks I have had 2 major problems with standing in line. One in New York City and one in Huntington, WV. The funny thing, is that it was exactly the same problem. The issue is the new self check-out kiosks.
