2 Hours in the life of a Mac Fanboy(s)

What?!? You say this is just a reused picture of the last iPhone instead of the 3GS?

Prove me wrong. ;)

As I am sure all of you are aware, Apple spotlighted new Macbooks, new OS and new iPhones all at its opening keynote for the WWDC conference. While I might feel compelled later to expound in length upon some of the designs there in I thought it might be better to view an IM convo I had with a fellow nerd boy DURING the show. If you download the show and skip to 1:35 into it you will have a side by side commentary of amazingness. It will ALMOST be like you were one of the few, the proud, the elite, the people who shelled out 800 bucks a ticket to sit in a small, stuffy room. To see the video go HERE and read on Dear Readers =).

One more thing, no dissing our spelling =P. It was intense out there. You had to be there (or watching a live blog as we were) to truly understand the magnitude of the affairs at the event. Just take our comments as the rarified godlike gifts of wisdom they are and move on =).

NOTE: I lied, I did speal some at the bottom. Have fun.

12:35 PM

me: wwdc? =)

are you watching Aybara.

Perrin: I am

12:36 PM

me: lol, me too

doesnt sound like os 3 will be out today let allone a new iphone

Perrin: yeah

me: poop

teh stuff on the macbooks and snow leopard r cool tho

Perrin: yeah

12:37 PM

snow leopard looks very cool

and the price is most definitely right

me: yeppers

windows 7, meet snow leopard... .its still half as much as u ;)

Perrin: lol

did you notice that family packs of licenses are only $49?

me: and its actually been optomized

Perrin: I don't know how many that will be

12:38 PM

like 4?

me: how many times do you see an OS lose 6 gigs in ugly fat?

Perrin: oh man

I can't wait

me: 5 are in family packs

Perrin: yeah?

me: yes

least thats how iworks family pack is that ive got

Perrin: cool

12:39 PM

I'd be down for going in on one

I think between all of us, that's what, $10/comp?

me: lol

somethig like that

12:40 PM

gosh dangit... get on with it people...

no more demos

Perrin: I know

me: we get teh idea.... you can plug things into it now

Perrin: lol

me: you can buy new crap for games

these are not hard concepts

12:41 PM

stop keeping me waiting so i can get back to work =P

Perrin: lol

have they mentioned when the new iphone is shipping?

me: isgh.... theres only 15 minutes left

nope

i dont know if they even will at this point

Perrin: sigh

12:42 PM

me: seconded

thank the light

Perrin: lol

me: they are done with demos

Perrin: indeed

june 17

me: ah... here it comes

12:43 PM

19th will be iphone 3gs

wait for it...

Perrin: a friday?

me: wait for it....

5 bucks on steve walking on stage

12:44 PM

Perrin: oh, I'll bet he will

for 'one more thing'

me: (Crosses fingers)

come on phil... spit it out

Perrin: lol

12:45 PM

me: which one are u watching? ars

?

Perrin: yeah

me: lol

yay for being mac fanboys

Perrin: indeed

me: we KNOW IT OWNS THE BLOODY MOBILE NET!!!!

12:46 PM

if i have to see one more chart of that...

Perrin: seriously

lol

me: dont care....

WOOT!!!!!

Perrin: lol

S is for speed!

12:47 PM

me: ur face is for speed...

12:48 PM

they love that nyt site dont they?

Perrin: yeah

they sure do

I was just thinking that

me: nice, 15 secs is good

Perrin: for sure

me: opengl!?!?!

glad i waited....

12:49 PM

what type of camera

this new writer sucks

Perrin: yeah

there it is

me: there... useful info

Perrin: the last was 2.0Mp

?

me: yes

with no autofocus

Perrin: oh wow

cool

12:50 PM

me: lol, tap to focus was real

?

i was kinda figuring that was photoshopped shot

Perrin: lol

me: supirsed steve didnt present this

Perrin: yeah

me: dang it, he is nt allowed to die

12:51 PM

Perrin: no. no he isn't

me: well, all the rumers have been tru so far

12:52 PM

glad they kept chrome bezzel

Perrin: yeah

me: ok... agian, its video... move on

12:53 PM

oooo... straight upload to youtuve

handy

Perrin: for sure

me: i like how you can remote wipe them now

Perrin: that's really cool

me: native voice =), excellent

12:54 PM

lol, if you werent in socorro i would have a special viewing of the actual event tonight

Perrin: aww

that would be awesome

me: its amazing what having a faster processor lets one do isnt it?

Perrin: lol, indeed

12:55 PM

me: lol, it talks back

this thing is more powerful than most netbooks at this point

Perrin: yeah

it's ridiculous

12:56 PM

me: lol, and its an 8th the size?

glad apple is staying out of that mess

Perrin: no kidding

me: with something like this they dont need to

12:57 PM

nike+ excellent

thoguht that was stupid having to have two ipods

Perrin: yeah

me: hardware encryptions =) this should shut the sandia idiot police up

Perrin: lol

12:58 PM

wow

me: 9 hours wifi will be nice

Perrin: yeah

me: wonder if thats n

Perrin: not sure

me: don't care

screw the planet

Perrin: lol

but they have to appease all the hippies

12:59 PM

no 'one more thing'?

me: huh... they are leaving tech specs out

Perrin: that is weird

they spent a long time on 3.0 demos

me: memory change?

Perrin: yeah

and when are they ditching at&t?

me: same price

now when

ah, now that is bigger

1:00 PM

lol, you can have verizon Perrin, im sticking with att

Perrin: lol

me: granted they wont give me tethering which makes me want to scream...

at least if i didnt already have a 3G data card =)

lol

Perrin: ooh, a 3g for $99

1:01 PM

me: looks like they arent matt black

now that one i kinda figured would happen

Perrin: lol

me: BOOYAH!

called it =)

19th baby

but wait....

NO!!!!!!!!!!

1:02 PM

im going to be at grand canyon!!!!

Perrin: oh noes!

me: how can i wait in line and sell iburger!?!?!?!

DANGIT!!!!

i sad =(

1:03 PM

:'(

1:04 PM

sigh....

1:05 PM

and it looks like it is over

Perrin: i guess so

sad steve didn't make an appearance

me: yeah...

Perrin: I'm guessing they didn't upgrade the itouch?

me: great, now they will prob sell out by the time i get back to abq

Perrin: except for the availability of 3.0

me: itouch will be a couple months i bet

Perrin: when do you get back?

1:06 PM

me: 21st

Perrin: ah

me: will be in teh boonies

1:07 PM

sigh...

Perrin: sorry, guy

1:08 PM

if I were picking one up, I'd pick one up for you

me: lol

no worries

1:11 PM

lol, people are getting fiesty

Perrin: ??

me: the comments are coming in

Perrin: ah, lol

me: what did you like most?

1:12 PM

Perrin: honestly, I liked snow leopard. it's trim, it has a lot going, and the price is fantastic

even without the family pack

me: indeed

gotta say, long run that should help allot

the 3gs is going to still be king over other "smart" phones

Perrin: oh yeah

me: but just cause the 3g its built on still is

1:13 PM

this is what happens with competition

no*

theres no real drive for apple to be too speedy with stuff

Perrin: yeah

1:15 PM

me: still, i want a faster one so i will wait

1:16 PM

and it STILL is way ahead of teh competition

Perrin: indeed

1:20 PM

me: well, back to work

take it easy Guy

Perrin: you too

You know, in hind site, outside of the Apple induced euphoria, I have to say meh to the new iPhone. It could have been so much more. Nevertheless, I still stick by the statement I made above, it will still be king of the smart phones. Unlike MS or BB, it will have way more apps and actually work most of the time in an intuitive fashion. Even with the same casing it will still make my BB look like the ugly, clunky, useless brick it is. Its web crawling, email, and lack of background apps (yes i am a weirdo who has had the BB try to do this, and fail miserably, for years). So glad Apple stayed out of that quagmire. You see, its just hard to be hard on Apple (no sexual connotation their you sickos ;) for a lack of innovation in this model. They took what they had and made it subtly better. The thing is that the old one is still kicking butt and taking names against near sets today. How can I smack Apple for improving AT ALL if their old tech still shines against competition? I can't, nor can I blame Apple for using the comfy cushion of superiority that they have due to over 2 YEARS of failures by other companies to produce even a comparable product, let alone a better one (yes I know there is a storm, I know there is a pre, I know there are generic LG's; I have at least used the storm... it sucks, there is no where near the dev support for the others so even if they don't suck there aren't apps for them which means they STILL suck). Its hard to have a race when your team is the only one with two legs.

At the end of the day though, to use a slightly modified XKCDism.

"The Macbook is just a laptop, Snow Leopard is just an OS, the 3GS is just a phone... what the hell is wrong with us?!?"

"Fortunately these thoughts subside quickly..."

Though I would like a comfy superiority cushion of my own...

Gmail is Dead (take two, thanks Pages)

Alright, it might seem a little bit silly to start out a posting of this title for everyones favorite email service but I do actually believe this may be the case. See HERE for Googles official introduction to the new service Wave that it will be bringing out shortly. Additionally, if you have time on your hands (like me when I am avoiding other work ;) go HERE to get a nearly 1.5 hour long speal on how amazing this product is. The crazy thing is, I think they may be on to something.

Wave was created by the two Scandinavian lads (from australia) that brought us google maps (lars and hans or something like that). The idea behind the service is, what would our communications look like if we did not base them on 40 year old email and IM technology (scary to think that both have been around for so long).

Anyone who has had had to email multiple people at work or for school know how frustrating it can be to email 10 people at once, add another person to the list later, respond to different emails sent back to them. In one day at work I can have 40 some emails jostling about for one subject while I try to do something stellarly fun like set up a meeting or something (this is all made even more fun by using Microsoft Entourage or Outlook depending on the poison I feel like atm). Ad a couple of IM convos to the mix for the same meeting and everyone can get really really nice and confused after what is going on. Wave puts a well timed end to this.

Rather than send countless emails with the copies of old emails merged into them google keeps EVERY part of a convo on its serve as one WAVE. This can include email type, IM, Picture sharing, blog sharing, google doc sharing/editing. Its all there and it is all in a hierarchal list form that lets everything appear seamlessly in relationship to each other. One can even go back and respond to different parts of an email, its posted real time and other viewers of the wave can see a playback version of the conversation from start to present. Really this is hard to describe and I recommend watching the first 20 minutes of googles video to just begin to appreciate the real possibilities that exist here.

It might at first be slightly limited as I am assuming everyone will have to be on google to do it but the cool kids that I keep company with all have accounts. So I do not see this as a problem. Why will this KILL gmail though you ask? Simple, html5. For the last several months I have been primarily using mobile me to access my email, contacts etc from abroad. Now this service, as numerous writers have pointed out before has some serious limitations however, the way I seamlessly mimics a desktop environment is stunning. With the same drag and drop interactions from a new google architecture (certain to be at least more function than mobile me was when it started) and you begin to see why this will really change the playing field over gmail. These wave conversations are real time and i mean real time. You literally see each word as the other person writes it, you literally see the thumbnails for pictures as they are dropped into it etc. It is like working with a google doc under collaboration, but in the real time capacity that it should have had from teh start. And now, everything you do will be one fluid exchange of information between yourself and others. This really will change the game now that google has the user base to allow people to switch over almost immediately with their friends and coworkers. I am assuming some form of legacy email will be integrated into it for dealing with "other people" (not the cool kids).

I have just been surprised that, after talking to several of my friends it has become apparent to me that not very many of them know what is coming later this year when it is released and I wanted to get this out there for them to see and plan. You may have noticed that this is posted again to google Blogger. That is because I see where Wave will integrate into that in the next couple of months and I must say it is tempting. That combined with google backing this up every 30 seconds really has me beholding to them atm =). I really hate typing things out again and if this means i don't have to do that then al the better. Not sure what will happen to Matrims Secret Bunker but I will keep you informed. So yes, sorry for all the repeat articles that are going to pop into your RSS feed reader.

LEAN!!!

“Hello Bob, Bob.”

“Well you know Bob, you have to do what you have to do... I hope your firings go real well”

-Office Space

As this helpful image below (painted in pretty colors and with small words for management consumption), lean can be thought of as any business buzzword with the word lean in front of it and let me tell you it is all the rage with the economy being slow atm.

Now assuming you have not Pavlovianed on me and gone into a powerpoint induced comma on me from that image, we should go through what this actually means for you (and me unfortunately). To quote the source of these fine articles (please go here to see the original and REALLY learn about lean ;) )

“To most of us the term Lean would hopefully suggest no fat or a minimum level of fat and applying this to business would imply minimum levels of waste. Clearly this would then suggest that to become lean we must remove that fat or waste from the business processes to leave, wherever possible, just that activity that adds value to either the external or internal customer. Whilst this would appear logical, actually understanding that which is of value versus that which is not, and then applying this to all aspects of a business is difficult. And often the answers do not lie within the grasp of management (no arguments here- Matrim) running the business, but with people who are actually closest to the process (IE have others do managements work for them- Matrim) and hence better placed to see the value and waste.”

Now, just as much as the next man, I enjoy a moderately lean delicious (buckhorn) burger, that being said, without fat we are left with a dry, flavorless brisket of meat (owl burger)waiting to be gnawed on (sounds yummy don’t it). Well, the man wants to take your delicious and tasty buckhorn burger and give you a BK whopper (sans cheese, too much fat). Naturally this is a bad thing for pretty much every one of us who’s business has implemented this policy. For those who haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend renting Office Space (you can see a cutscene from it above) and watching the parts with the Bob’s in it. This is pretty much a lean implementation before the term had been coined. Hiring consultants to interview you for your own job and fire you. This of course leads to a “leaner” business (and no, losing weight will not make you lean enough for them).

Both my Wife and I are both now in companies practicing this lean thinking (the brain is mostly fat you know so really, how well can “lean” thinking really work?) and it is no fun. She has by far seen more of this than I (being timed doing routine jobs, having daily “lean” meetings to see where improvement is needed and having her desk rearranged for her to a uniform, lean design... ie, yes they took her preverbal stapler or rather paper clips in this case). Clearly this will make a business run more betterer and survive as the economy collapses.

To make a long story short, in theory, cutting out the weak links in business would be a good thing. GE is a great example of this (not that I would want to work there nor could you pay me enough to but that is beside the point, Southwest Airlines and Wild Turkey are the way for me ;) ). GE fires 15% of its lowest achieving members of its workforce. This not only cuts out the non-performers but puts the fear of God into those that do. This gets the company all kinds of great things like unpaid overtime, employees competing day to day against each others for their very jobs, motivation to cut out the “fat” in their day to day processes etc. Truly a stroke of managerial soulless brilliance.

In the real world, ie. everywhere else, management isn’t even smart enough to whip their employees for fun and profit. Instead, they simply want to look like they themselves are doing something so it is not their jobs that get axed (think Dilbert Boss here). Their implementation looks something more like this: hire random consultants at exuberant rates to waste time every day wasting their employees time, stressing employees (without the generation of bloodthirsty competitiveness seen at GE) and taking employees (cheap) NECESSITIES like paper clips. What about this does not make sense. To put it another way:

$70K/year consultant+multi $k in wasted employee time - a .05 cent paper clip > then letting people do there job.

The fact is, just like the burger mentioned earlier, fat makes people (especially Americans) happy. Whether its the customer that gets more bells and whistles from a product (even if it cost a little extra) to the employee who enjoys their Swingline or pension or cheap group picnic (we call these job PERKS btw, they tend to make people WANT to work (well) at some smart business’ ie Southwest Airlines) everyone benefits from not have the stress and inefficiency that the current implementation of lean management is creating today. It is these little things that often get people through their soul-starving work days. To help fund all these goodies I propose we begin by firing all of the Creative Arts and Literature Degree “consultants”, cut out at least one rung of middle management and spread the reward to everyone, employees that are the ones actually doing value added processes and to the customer.

Either that or write a virus that will “rip off these business big time.... so everyones dream of never working again is realized” -lose Office Space exert. ;)

Week in Recap =)

This is where i post a pic from earlier in the week.

This week we had a flu and cheap NASA stunt and I switched to iWeb (which seems to crash with videos).

There was your recap (as mandatorily prescribed by bloggers everywhere). Now I can go have a pint and still look like i did something =).

(Apollo) = (Orion)

Concentration (TM) NASA edition

Oh isn’t it crazy to watch a design progress sometimes? I can’t think of a better example than NASA’s spanky new Orion lunar/mars(lol) orbiter. In what could be called a classic American mindset, the idea went something like, “I want to go back to the moon, hear its nice there this time of year. How to get there.... I know! I’ll take a 50 year old, ridiculously huge rocket and upsize it 200% (like my favorite happy meal)....” In other words, from 3 crew to 6.

Upon initially hearing about this plan I was seriously stoked, never since NASA had burned up not one but two martian satellites from english/metric conversions was there greater possibilities for hilarium than with this endeavor (for the record I think having people on other balls of rock is a good idea, makes it a little harder to kill ourselves off or have yellowstone do the job for us).

Once the design was settled for the above American style plan (rather than some rather intriguing other private corporation possibilities proposed), NASA pundants tried defending the design direction like in this article here. From the article you can see where the similarities will only be “skin deep” but after reading the whole thing we see that primarily these design “enhancements” will be with the systems and the ship size. Translation, “instead of a Ti being the brain we will chuck a Dell in the thing and we will make it 6 ft bigger”.

In a move that must terrify future astronauts, the first thing NASA did was begin tearing apollo capsules in museums to see what made them tick (I have searched everywhere for this article, I am sorry I can’t find it atm). I am sure the idea went something like “How are we gonna jack this design if it isn’t on AutoCAD =(. I don’t want to work.... I know, grab the calipers....” Now assuming they can handle the math (scaling the whole thing up) we can only pray that the astronauts will be safe enough.

But last in this series of what I would could unfortunate (if not disgraceful) events, it turns out the upsizing just isn’t working..... (see here). I guess multiplying a number by 2 was to much for their Ti’s to handle so now we are going from a 6 crew module to a 4 crew module. So now we have a ship, barely larger than the last, built off scavenged 50 year old parts and this is the best the leading nation in the world can do? Perhaps it was concerns over dehydrating astronauts or the embarrassing fact that at present design speed, we will be hitching rides on Russian ships for 5 years after the shuttles are set aside to decay in peace.

Sigh... I don’t write this to be funny anymore. The more I think on it, it really is sad, simply sad. I guess at this point we can only hope that American capitalism with private ships like Spaceship one and the Falcon can take over as yet another bloated governmental enterprise falls on its face (I am sure that makes us look cool on the international scene).

So Long Blogger

Well, as most of you know, I am switching to my own domain and website for my blog. This affords me the freedom of posting more than a blog, having a better rendered site and neato stuff like that. The address below will take you to the new site within the 48 hours (its already working from my AT&T DNS server). I hope you will visit and let me know what should be improved on the site.

Thanks,

Matrim

www.matrimssecretbunker.com

USE GOOGLES HYSTERIA TRACKER ER... I MEAN FLU TRACKER

Here you can see the literal HUNDREDS of dead from the swine flu. That is nearly 2.14*10^-11 of the worlds population.

So by this point if you haven’t heard of the swine flu you have been either living under a hole in the ground or trying foolishly to torrent on comcast live internet/cable/voip/(whatever other crap we can shove down you throat).

So why am I bringing this up on a tech blog? Well for one thing I am horrendously opinionated and you for some reason like reading that and for another, google has come through to save the day for us.

Now you too can sate your innate innate need for human death and carnage. Google using flu fear mongers (as though yellowstone weren’t going to kill us all) have set up this map so that you can see in real time as people drop like flies (additionally xkcd has an amazing sketch on real time pandemic modeling here as well).

So yes, I know you are just as terrified of this whole thing as I am and as though they wanted to calm us down (as news publications always want to do) Discovery News has helpfully published 10 animals likely to case the ruination of mankind. Now while Discovery is content to leave you cowering in fear, wondering where next to turn I bring you solutions, 10 solutions in fact, to go with the ten threats.

1. 1.Chickens
   

Problem: I am sure most of you remember the avian flu pandemic scare from china (don’t worry, it will come back when this one dies down. ;) virus’s work in shifts you see). It has a nearly 60% fatality rate vs. swine flu’s 6%

Solution: So you have had your first taste of the problem, now I bring you the solution...

If every chicken were instantly converted to Kentucky Fried goodness (grease typically fries at 475 degrees F, a altogether unhealthy environment for hysteria rich virus’s) there would be no more “bird” flu.

2. 2.Pigs
   

Problem: Do I really need to describe this one? The problem is that Babe and Wilber from Charlotte’s Web all want to sneeze on you so you die a horrible death.

Solution:

Same idea as before but this time, to really make sure they are dead we slice them into tiny bits before boiling them in oil.

3. 3.Ducks
   

Problem: Ducks are everywhere. Worse still, your hypothetical children are all intent on feeding them and adding to the menace.

Solution:

Harkening back to classics such “The Christmas Story”, go to your nearest chinese restaurant, preferably on Christmas eve and hack that donald duck up into tasty, mouth sized bites.

4. 4.Goose
   

Problem: Same as duck except they hiss at you to add insult to disease ridden injury.

Solution:

Buy a gun, buy a dog, have fun... you get the idea.

5. 5.Turkeys
   

Problem: Gobble Gobble, they are ugly

Solution:

Inject them with antibiotics and steroids then go to town on thanksgiving.

6. 6.Horses
   

Problem: Equestrians, they are the fantasy of every prepubescent girl, who would have thought they sought the end of mankind. Maybe it was the riding on their backs with sharp pieces of metal wedged in their teeth....

Solution:

Solution: How many times have you broken that priceless vace (or your cats have)? Now through black beauties sacrifice that vace can be as good as new.

7. 7.Dogs
   

Problem: Mans best friend indeed. Look at that innocent look. You would trust that face wouldn’t you? At least till you were dead.

Solution:

As these angry liberals point out, there are nearly 1 billion human beings on the planet (in China) ready to take fluffy, make a coat and have some grub. Problem solved.

8. 8.Cats
   

Problem: Cute kitties, bad bugs.

Solution:

Smile, hug a kitty, make a lolcat of them and except your fate. Cats rule the world anyways, everyone knows that.

9. 9.Seals
   

Problem: You may have seen these creatures wallowing on the beach or liberals throwing themselves between these magnificent creatures and camera toting tourists. Catch is, just like a nuke laden submarine off your port, these critters wait for the chance of a first strike.

Solution:

um... I am beginning to have to stretch here...

Become a minority, make a comfy hat.

10. 10.Whales (yes shamoo)
    

Problem: While these public servants often rid us of the seal menace (see killer whales), they too want us dead.

Solution:

Umm barring the fact that Discovery even perceived these majestic creatures as something to be terrified over (does this mean they support japanese whaling?)... Here is my solution.

Hey, live and let live I always say (unless there is tasty food in the offing). They stick to their oceans and stay away from us and we do the same. To help communicate this, we make each of them perform (or at least watch) Free Willy with THAT kid (Jason James Richter) in it. They won’t be coming near us any time soon after that.

See, why is everyone losing their heads? Problems solved and you got it here first folks. Have a good evening and enjoy the new blog look.