Archive for the ‘General’ Category.

My New iPhone sucks

This is exactly what IOS4 did to my 3G iPhone, no exaggeration.

local version:

I called Apple again today to try and resolve this problem. I was on hold for 13 minutes. “Ryan” came on and the call quality immediately went to crap. The call failed after a few seconds. I’ll call back later after my phone rage has subsided.

It is rage because I got this phone because it “just works”. But last week Steve Jobs broke my phone and the best answer I’ve gotten so far is “Well, it was an optional update so we won’t support it.” (yes, exact words). Me along with a million other people got your fucking^W update. I paid to live in a walled garden and now the gardeners are telling me in no unambiguous terms that it is their right to burn down the garden and make me buy another one. The evil Droid phone is starting to look pretty good.

160,000 pictures of my trip

I’m on my way back from Oregon. It was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I must have taken 160,000 pictures or so with my new 12 megapixel camera rig! Yes, really!

Or… Hey, check out my new portable panopticon! Every 10 meters it automatically snaps a 360 degree panorama image that gets stitched into a 36 megapixel 3d image!

On the Oregon Trail

I’m on my first business trip. Brent and I are driving to Oregon right now to take 20,000 160,000 pictures of some roads. Back in SF on Friday.

Then off to Paris Aug 9-13!

Then off to Malaysia Aug 16-20!!

River Town Revival Petaluma Terrific

I got an email Saturday 9am on Dorkbot saying that SRL is going to have a few machines at some River Town Revival thing in Petaluma. I grabbed my things and went right up there.

Coolness abounded.
* I missed the art-boat race but saw some nice vehicles: a sea monster thing, a hand-made row boat, a giant floating wicker basket.
* Saw an artist’s terrific rusted mini submarine
* “Experience the Black Hole” had this spiraling water flowing into a hole. I threw in a donation for it
Here is the view from the top of the Experience the Black Hole. :-)

Yes, that’s the Big Arm and Running Machine by SRL attacking a big glass sign with face shots of elderly people doing errr…. umm… things; suffice to say that the photos appear benign. Later the machines attacked a giant chicken; when the running machine choked the chicken mercilessly, everyone laughed and didn’t tell their children why.

I met up with Noah, a great student of mine from Crucible Youth Kinetics. And Jessie, Erik, and Trebor (who got me the happiest beer of the day!) We all went off to a great dinner in Petaluma.

A great day :-)

Happy Birthday to a Friend

Unsafe BART Construction Zone at West Oakland BART station

I just left voicemail on the BART comment and complaint line  510 464-7134:

Just north of the west Oakland Bart station there is some sidewalk construction going on. Pedestrians are blocked by a fence from crossing Center street. To avoid the fence pedestrians must walk east or west a very long block. Understandably, pedestrians instead choose to break down the fence and walk across the construction zone. It would be easy for Bart to make a safe crossing zone in a nearby area instead of allowing this unsafe crossing.

Please create a safe way to cross this construction zone.

We’ll see if the problem is fixed anytime soon.

Crucible Fire Cabaret “Heat” Friday and Saturday

This looks like it’ll be pretty nice. I’ve been watching them practice. Singers and dancers and flame throwers and contortionists and smithing oh my!

It’s going to be this Friday and Saturday at the Crucible in Oakland.

Bring a date!
http://www.thecrucible.org/events/heat-a-fire-cabaret

Stupid iPhone IOS4 Upgrade for 3g Phone

Short form: If you have an iphone 3g, do NOT get the new ios4 upgrade for your iphone. It’s MUCH slower and doesn’t add any features.

I’m building a list of iPhone ios4 stupidity. I wrote this all in a deadpan tone though I could have used a lot more exclamation marks and words like “stoopidly!” Here’s a start:

Most every app is much slower. For example, it now take 8 seconds to start the calendar, it used to take 4. Starting editing a note takes much longer. Etc…

It sometimes doesn’t detect my button pushes and sometimes mistakenly believes I have pushed a button.  (yes, it’s insane)

I initially did an “upgrade” install. After it the Notes app would sometimes (twice out of 5 or so attempts) lose the changes I made to a note. I then did a “new” install and haven’t has that problem again.

Scrolling email is now much more jerky.

It appears that now voicemails aren’t downloaded to the phone until I try to listen to them. Which causes delays in listening to voicemails

In the first 5 seconds or so of running Notes, Calendar and many other apps, a snapshot of what was on the screen last time it was run is displayed. Of course, it looks editable, but it’s not. You can click all you want but you’re just looking at a picture of the Calendar app, Notes, etc. Key presses are not recorded or registered because… well, you’re looking at a picture of an app, not an app!

Update: 7-15-10: At the suggestion of the Apple rep, I installed iTunes on a new computer. I then Restored my phone to it, making sure to rename the phone when asked. This has fixed the problem. My phone is now as fast as it ever was. :-)

Update 7-25-10: My phone has gotten slow again after the full restore. I just installed 4.0.1. Starting Calendar still takes 8 seconds, up from 3. Eff you Steve Jobs :-)

3.5 Earthquake This Morning

Centered just a mile or so west of Ocean Beach at 7:47am.

I was in bed and barely awake. The building shook a bit more than a building should generally shake when maybe a strong wind blows on it. I was groggy but it felt like just about 3 seconds of shaking.

Wee! I haven’t felt an earthquake in a few years. It’s good to know the earth is still alive… I hope it doesn’t rain down an 8.5 tomorrow.

Fly a Rubber Band Powered Airplane for an Hour!

Wow.

local version:

This happened at Lakehurst Naval Station, in the hangar that was the home of the Hindenberg et all.