December 2006 Archives

What's the swankiest phone on the market right now? Which phone is reminiscent of that most excellent Nokia phone ever, featured in The Matrix (the Nokia 6110)? Which phone retails for $1200, arguably the single most expensive phone ever?

That's right: the Nokia 8801.

And it's pretty fantastic. Not $1200 fantastic, but definitely worth a couple of c-notes (thank you, T-Mobile). Anyway, this phone was intended to replace my long-ago destroyed Nokia 6170 (the only flip I ever loved), and to replace my current Crackberry 7100t (great phone if you're into that whole Blackberry thing... which I've discovered that I'm just not). A few pros and cons...

It's stylish. Literally, one of the most beautiful phones I've ever seen. The materials are great - stainless steel and resin - and the phone carries a weight that makes it feel 'real'. Seriously, it just feels like 'high-end', not plastic and light. The value of this is relative, of course; some people very much prefer light and plastic than heavy and metal. But those are the same people that like Dodge Neons. I prefer the heavy swing and thunk of an Audi door closing. Attention to detail. Quality. Yep. The 8801 has all of that.

And then, as if that just weren't enough (and it's not), the phone is sickeningly durable and scratch-resistant. This is obviously a good thing (especially for me). The screen is protected by some kind of intensely crazy scratch-resistant glass akin to sapphire (i.e. what they use on Rolex watches). Cool? Definitely.

The phone is a slider phone, and the screen slides up to expose the keypad. The design of the slider is nice enough but has some drawbacks. I expected it to be flimsy, but it's not; it slides with authority and speed, and much like the previously mentioned Audi, it does so with weight and even a thunk. Unfortunately, the keys are smallish and slightly rounded, so it makes actuating them slightly uncomfortable. Other reviews really focus on this, and it's true: compared to my 6170, these keys are a pain in the ass. However, they're not unusable and it just takes some getting used to. Text messaging isn't quite as fast, but it's really not as big a deal as most people seem to make of it.

The screen is bright and shiny, albeit a bit small (typical, for some reason, of the high end Nokias). Apparently it's an XVGA screen, high-res. I'm not too terribly worried about it, it looks fine. For my tastes, I thought the icons on the 6170 were cooler, but whatever, that's pretty much irrelevant.

The sound quality is spectacular, and while people have been moaning online about the reception being less than stellar, I've gotten nothing but excellent reception (T-Mobile). I was a little worried (and annoyed) for a bit because I couldn't figure out how to adjust the call volume, and the default setting (at midrange) was low. I couldn't have conversations in anything less than a still and quiet room. I thought to myself "how the heck does a phone this expensive and feature-packed not have a volume control?" The solution is a bit odd, but not terrible. Rather than sully the extremely clean exterior lines of the phone with additional buttons (the usual Nokia remedy), you use the 5-way nav button (left-and-right) to adjust the in-call volume. It's simple, it's straightforward, and it works. The only problem? It's not immediately obvious. And that's kind of disappointing considering the manufacturer of the phone. Nokia has always developed such intuitive user interfaces that I'm a little surprised at this design decision. Now that I know about it, though, it's not even an issue.

It's a great phone, almost as useful as the 6170 (which unfortunately lacked Bluetooth). It's good enough to replace the old girl, though, and definitely a step up from the Crackberry 7100t. Bottom line? Probably not a phone everyone is going to love, and will appeal most to those that value aesthetics a great deal. I like it a lot and give it high marks, but it really comes down to taste.

Well, it's really more like a click-and-drag, but technically yes, it's just one click. This tip is for you Apple power users (i.e. Jimbo Junior and Senior). Let's hear it for Scott Kelby, who writes in the Apple Blog:

Okay, so you’re working in a program like Final Cut Pro or iMovie, which takes up every vertical inch of the screen, and when you go to adjust something near the bottom, the Dock keeps popping up. Oh sure, you could move the Dock to where it’s anchored on the left or right side of the screen, but that just feels weird. But what if you could move it temporarily to the left or right, and then get it back to the bottom when you close Final Cut Pro, in just one click? Here’s how: Hold the shift key, click directly on the Dock’s divider line (on the far right side of the Dock), and drag the Dock to the left or right side of your screen. Bam! It moves over to the side. Then, once you quit Final Cut Pro, just shift-click on that divider line and slam it back to the bottom (okay, drag it back to the bottom). A draggable Dock — is that cool or what!

I actually did not know about this tip, amazingly enough. I've got plenty going on with my dock, but it just goes to show that there's always something new to learn. It's a cool little tip, though, which is why I decided to post it up. Enjoy.

Another very... interesting... aspect of Jeep ownership is driving into the wind. The Jeep is the least aerodynamic vehicle in existence. They couldn't make it less aerodynamic, in fact, if they tried. The new JK looks like they tried to streamline things somewhat, and the TJ has some smoothing in some kind of effort to decrease wind resistance, but for the most part it's like driving a brick around.

Bricks don't move fast. My speed literally fluctuates (significantly) depending on whether I have a tail or head-wind. I'm talking about fluctuations in excess of 10mph. If I get a cross-wind, that's when things get really exciting. Depending on the strength/speed of the wind and the speed of the Jeep, you'll get anywhere from a half to full lane change, quite spontaneously. There's several disadvantages to this, of course, not the least of which is the fact that there might be other cars in those lanes, and they rarely appreciate it when you suddenly drive over them every time there's a gust of wind. Thing is, I don't even have a full soft-top... all this crazy movement is being caused by the soft windows (and the square body) acting like a huge sail. Can't wait to see what happens when I have more square footage of sail-cloth material to really catch the wind.

Head-winds are pretty exciting too. Loss of speed, gas mileage, and even (to a much smaller extent than cross-winds) steering control are all joyous effects of driving your brick straight into a strong wind. I think it might be less obvious if I had a 6-cylinder, but I'm not so sure - the brickyness of the Jeep is pretty freakin' compelling.

All this combines to make Jeeps difficult to control at higher speeds. Luckily, Jeeps don't go very fast; mine has a top speed of about 70-75mph without wind helping out... about 80mph or so with a tail-wind, and about 60-65mph with a head-wind. And when I say 'top speed', that's pedal to the floor, engine screaming, gas mileage down to 10mpg, not 'cruising speed' which is considerably lower. It also makes you look like you're drunk as hell. Can't wait for a cop to stop me for that. Devin's right: for some reason, cops love to stop Jeeps. Great.

But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no, not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider. Allman Brothers rock out.

Finally saw Miami Vice. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Colin Farrell simply can't shake the Irish accent. I mean, yeah, it totally scores the ladies, no doubt, but it's kind of hurting his acting (which really isn't too fabulous to begin with.) Nobody can replace Don Johnson, of course, but Farrell does a passable job, I suppose. Foxx does an acceptable job with Tubbs, although the original was a way deeper character. The story isn't much, but the camera-work and directing is superb. The cinematography is well put together and rendered. The movie is also 2.5 hours long, which is about an hour beyond what it probably ought to have been, considering the depth of the story and characters.

I'm glad it was a rental, because I'm not convinced it's a full-screen movie. Entertaining, though.

I wish there was something more interesting going on right now, but I'm just trying to crank out two projects. I have two additional prospects on the horizon, which means all 4 burners are on, and that's my limit on taking new clients unless I add some more burners (i.e. additional resources like T-Bone). We'll see. I might consider expanding my own cooking range if two of the projects turn out to be gigs I can let simmer (i.e. webmaster/maintenance contracts). In the meantime, just gonna line up and get 'em rolling. I suppose this means that I'll have to crank out a site for Sillysmart. Again. I'm just never happy with that site... hmph.

So apparently there's a guy who is me. Runs in a Jeep, used to drive an Audi (2001, no less). Does geeky things. Probably climbs rocks, too. The craziest thing? His name is Jose Sierra too.

SD-6 must've cloned me back when I was an international superspy. Too wild. But is he as good-lookin' and stylish as me? Of course not! That's impossible!

Apparently he was lookin' to set up a sweet site, and wanted to use our name, but lo, there's already a pretty sweet site chillin' on this here domain... an unfortunate circumstance, to be sure (especially for him.) However, I hope he goes through with his site and lets me know the domain, because I'll be more than happy to link up the sites!

Hmmm. Maybe I'll set up a separate blog on this site... one where I just add Jose Sierra's from around the world as authors... and they can just write whatever they want. It can be like a Jose Sierra collective!

Okay, the title's a little harsh. It's the same old game done... the same old way. That's not really "wrong", per se, but it's nothing new, nothing spectacular, and nothing much to write home about.

In fact, in honor of this surprisingly dull game, I'm going to coin a phrase. Gears of War, my previous review, had a lot of "wonderfully" in it. Wonderfully cool, wonderfully thought out, etc. For Call of Duty 3, I have a new descriptor: wonderdully.

Because Call of Duty 3 has a lot going for it, but ends up being more than a bit wonderdull.

The graphics are improved over 2, but that's not saying much considering how nice the graphics in Call of Duty 2 were. The sound is equally disorienting and engaging, and very well done but nothing spectacular or different, especially when compared to 2. The gameplay is your standard first person shooter with a few twists, like planting charges and driving around a bit. Nothing special there. The gameplay is fine for a while, but it really offers nothing new or different from most other FPS's out there or CoD2.

Atmospheric effects, lighting, fog, slightly improved, which is nice. The storyline does the same bouncing around as CoD2, which has its own charm as you battle it out all over Europe. I don't know. I played it for a few hours, but didn't have any trouble putting it down. In fact, after a few hours, I kind of wanted to put it down. I was bored. That's not a good thing from a 'war' game, much less an FPS. The game just doesn't offer anything new or innovative.

Multiplayer might make me change my tune - so I'll reserve final judgment until I've given it a thorough workout.

People will love this game, I'm sure, simply because of the graphics, or because it's the same ol' game, or just because they'll read reviews that will tell them to buy it and after spending $60 on it, they'll have to love it. Me, I'd rather spend my cash on something worth playing, something innovative. Rent this one, if you must play it, but you won't miss anything by skipping it. It's truly wonderdull.

Cruising around in my local Blockbuster, I ran to the XBox 360 section and lo! I found an available copy of Gears of War. I'd heard quite a lot about this game and how much fun it is, so I scooped it up and figured it might make an entertaining pastime. After spending a week almost drooling on my controller, I can say with full confidence that Gears of War is a damned good time.

In essence it's the same old game, with the same old story - aliens invade the earth, there's different sized aliens of different power, and you and a rag-tag band of futuristic soldiers are tasked with blowing stuff up on a war-ravaged post-apocalyptic earth. You get some pretty neat weapons to blow stuff up with, and they operate with satisfying destructiveness. There are ammo packs indiscriminately (and glowingly) distributed across the battlefield. Same game we've played a hundred thousand times and wished for the days of GoldenEye. But with Gears of War there's so much more.

The controls are incredibly intuitive. You can (easily) take cover and roll between barricades to effectively inch up on your opponents. You can blind fire. You can aim from cover. The combat options really are unbelievably well thought out and implemented, and the controls are so good it quickly becomes second nature to flip around cover, dodge, and shoot.

The graphics are absurdly good. Granted, it's on the XBox 360, so you're pretty much guaranteed next-gen above-average graphics, but even by those standards the graphics quality of Gears of War is pretty ridiculous. The overall feel is a little stylized - the soldiers are all hugenormous armored bodies - but realism isn't really the goal here. There's big guns involved and we want big things to blow up, so it all works out. Talking about big things, some of the 'bad guys' are excellently huge and a lot of fun to blow up. Your 'standard' weapon has a chainsaw attached to it like a bayonet. Memories of Doom come flooding back... mmmmm....

Good use and rendering of atmospheric elements (darkness, shadows, fog, smoke, etc) to create ambience and mood. The sets are detailed and very well put together with lots of cover and great tactical options. This is one of the features that I like the best about the game, and that has been very lightly touched upon by other reviews of the game. There's a great deal of tactical depth in the game, especially considering how simplified the squad commands were made. Your squad-mates hold their own (mostly) in combat and will usually take out the enemy, leaving you to pull flanking maneuvers, bunkering attacks, charges, and pretty much anything you might see on, believe it or not, a paintball field. This aspect of the game is really felt in the multiplayer (as it would be in any multi-player game), but it's extremely nice to see it effectively implemented in the single-player game.

All in all, a wonderfully addictive, wonderfully rendered, wonderfully put together game. More than a rental, I would tag this as a 'buy', which, because of the ridiculous price of XBox 360 games and the majority of them having relatively low replay value, is high praise from me indeed.

Driving home after dinner last night, we were rumbling (rumbling is what you do in a Jeep, by the way) down Yamato and we saw a Boca Raton cop harassing a homeless guy (or what seemed like a homeless guy) who was sleeping against a light-post. Thing about it is, the guy was just sleeping.

I didn't know there was a law against sleeping. Why is it illegal to lay down and take a nap, if you're tired?

The argument was posited that it's technically not illegal to sleep in public, what's illegal is vagrancy. Fact is, it is illegal to sleep in public, apparently, and it's true, vagrancy is also illegal. So apparently, the poor homeless guy - the guy who doesn't have two nickels to rub together - probably got two tickets last night, and maybe (hopefully, I guess?) he won himself a night in jail. I mean, I wouldn't want to spend a night in jail, but in my experience(s) you do get to sleep in a sheltered environment (and air-conditioned too!) and you get fed at least once, maybe even twice. So it's possible that might be desirable, I don't know.

What's unbelievably upsetting to me is that it is illegal to be poor. It's illegal to sleep wherever you want. There is something fundamentally wrong with this. I can see the arguments against this: "Would you rather there be bums everywhere?" I don't know, I suppose not... but I definitely wouldn't want the cops to be able to dictate where and when I can lay down and sleep.

Okay, a little unfair - it's not the cops who dictate, they just enforce. It's the über-rich politicos who've had their existence handed to them and have never known a hard day in their lives that dictate the laws. And even then, they're (technically) just the instruments of 'the people'. Of course, 'the people' are mostly anybody who can pay to be one of 'the people', so really the homeless man has no representation, despite being a citizen. Do you think vagrants would vote for a law stating they can't curl up and sleep in a park when they don't have anywhere else to go?

Yeah, there's homeless shelters, but that's not the point. The point is that I shouldn't be told where and when I can or can't do something that is a basic human function. Sleeping, eating, and even defecating. Society dictates that we do these things in private, and that's fine. But that there's a law against it? That seems extreme. And even so, that shouldn't give the police license to freely harass people. Oh wait, you took offense to the tone an officer took with you? Perhaps you don't feel like complying with his request? Then you get arrested for 'failure to comply with an officer's request', or 'talking back to an officer', or even 'passively resisting arrest'. Passively resisting arrest? What the hell is that?

Maybe I just don't like it when cops are hassling people. They get a little too into it sometimes, stopping people randomly on the street and questioning them. The (somewhat) recently passed law that states that a law enforcement officer can require you to show identification (ze papers, now!) is worrisome. Public servants, indeed. While I've had some experiences with police officers that were very pleasant (relatively speaking, of course), and I wouldn't fault them for being professional about their business, I've also witnessed plenty of experiences where they're out of control. The really terrible part is that the experience you have (I believe) depends on their perception of you. Unfortunately, in many cases their perception of you depends on how nice your car is.