WASHINGTON STATE'S DEMOCRATIC SUPER DELEGATES

And how to contact them...

The following news items are my experiment with Google's RSS reader API. If I have time to keep up with it, it will automatically update daily based on the news stories I choose.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the formation of one of the most influential, yet unexploited bands of the 1970s. In commemoration, you can now buy your ringtone versions of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, a song about lead singer Ian Curtis' chronic infidelity to his wife, and Transmission, the band's other most popular release.

Ian Curtis fell victim to the effects of his own music in 1980 in a massive murder-suicide. Fortunately, since nobody really wanted to hang out with him because he was "kind of a spaz," the murder part of his murder-suicide was embarrassingly unsuccessful.

Thirty years later, it's finally not considered morose among polite company to celebrate his lifetime work and vision, nor to market the crap out of his legend an mystery. To this end, you can find tickets to the Ian Curtis documentary, Joy Division, and the feature film, Control, for select engagements in the UK at MoviePhone. Matinée tickets are half off, so take the kids!

However, I refuse to let his legacy disintigrate, slip through my finngers, and find itself ingested only by the jerks, making money off his memory now, who would have also made fun of his music 30 years ago. Somebody who may have admired him 30 years ago deserves some exploitation of the dead guy. Right? Well, I'll pay my price in hell if that's not true. Otherwise, check out my iPod compatible iTunes iMix which is also compatible with iPhone:

Actually, fuck this bullshit. I am afraid. Artists really gotta start taking the art into their own hands.

I made a very clear and sensible decision to stay clear of the iPhone hype. I don't need a phone that does all that. Actually, I have a phone that browses the web, gets my email, wi-fi, bluetooth, mp3, and a gorgeous screen. I use the phone feature only.

Unfortunately, I have friends who are not as budget conscious as I am and were able to stand in line yesterday to get their mitts on an iPhone. We were all out having drinks to celebrate the semi-retirement of a brilliant and lucky buddy in his mid thirties who arrived half an hour late with his brand new iPhone. It was un-activated, so all we could do was marvel at the form factor, which was enough.

It's smaller than you think it's going to be. It's a bit shorter than my T-Mobile SDA and narrower than an iPod. Fits nicely into my pocket with no uncomfortable bulk. Unactivated, it allows you to look at the main screen and slide the slider for an Emergency Call. The numeric keypad pops up so you can dial 911, I guess.

Later, Solomon showed up with his brand new, activated iPhone. That was pretty much the end of my social interaction. The world went silent and my vision went tunnel. It works exactly like they say it will. Typing is something you have to get used to, but you will. You'll want to start out by holding your finger down on the keyboard until you have the letter you want. This allows you to slide a little to the left to get O instead of P, or a little up to get N instead of the space bar. Or, just type as fast as you can and trust that iPhone will correct you correctly when you hit the space bar. It's pretty slick.

Internet is decently fast, and for the applications I can see myself using, perfectly fast enough. YouTube videos take a while to buffer, but once they start playing they're solid.

We played around with the contacts list a bit, which was actually fun. Tap the edit button and then the contact picture icon, point at your friend, and grab a picture of them for their profile. Then when you contact them or they contact you, the background is filled with the designated picture, full screen.

The magnifying glass positioning tool is amazing. In fact, the way everything you're tapping on pops up in a graphic above your finger so that you know what the phone thinks you're touching is a fantastic innovation. Somebody at Apple must hate styluses as much as I do. This finger as stylus thing is brilliant, and brilliantly executed.

So, yes. Now I want one. Even though I don't need it. It's pretty much the greatest phone experience I've ever had. Even if it was fleeting.

Dear Internet,

I've enjoyed my Apple TV a lot since buying it in that first week it was out. Even upgraded my TV. We don't have cable, so we get all of our TV from iTunes - but, it's the off season and I was a little bored with my selection of podcasts and other non-purchased content. Playing with settings in an attempt to veg-out and entertain myself, I happened upon the Update Software feature. Sadly, my Apple TV is up to date.

So I went back to browsing my podcasts, checking them all for some older, unplayed stuff. "Wouldn't it be great," I thought, "if I could just create a playlist and play stuff at random?" Yes! It would almost be like watching TV, but it would be my own channel. I wouldn't have to put up with commercials (as much) and I could lump things together by category, play in order or random, and select the compilation I feel like watching, almost like flipping channels!

Science and tech podcasts over here, comedy and serial TV over here. A veritable self-built cable network streaming through my house!

But the Apple TV won't play videos in playlists. It doesn't even see them. It will do music this way, so why not video? So Dear Santa, please give me video playlists (smart video playlists too!) with the YouTube update.

Love,
Tony

In case you aren't already a fan, I'll post today's and link it to the site. This is one comic that has me in stitches with just about every release. Some of the humor is too geeky to get, but most of it is just brilliant.

While I was never a fan of the show (only watched maybe 1.2 episodes which were sufficiently violent and hateful to turn my stomach), I appreciate the fact that it was well loved by so many people. Plus the fact that it has been in the news non stop for a week has compelled me to become interested.

Not really in watching the show, but understanding the horror and outrage following the series finale. As I read along, I kept hearing about the "cut to black" which brought on a nationwide, anguished scream. But, like they didn't want to spoil it for people who hadn't seen it, nobody was describing the "cut to black" scene sufficiently.

Until I read this (over at Canada.com, so if I'm spoiling it for you, blame them)

"In the feverishly anticipated finale to the HBO series, considered by many to be the best television show ever made, the screen suddenly faded to black as Tony and his wife and children gathered in a diner for supper surrounded by a series of shady characters who seemed ready at any moment to unveil their semi-automatics and blow the family away."

And then, from my friend Julie:

"They are in the middle of a scene...Tony looks up as he hears the ring of the diner door as it opens again...CUT SCENE..all black. No more sound, no more picture...just black screen for like 20 seconds.

Then the credits silently start to roll.

Keep in mind the whole scene had been building up and building up like there was going to be some kind of major event...then cut.

They may as well just had a picture of a hand flipping off people."

I am glad to not be a fan of the show because this allows me to appreciate the genius and artistry behind one of the funniest "fuck you!" to fans I have ever seen. And it's not even a full on fuck you, it's a "haha...look what I can do to you."

This thing is amazing.

There are full instructions on how to create one for yourself on this website.

This is the greatest god damned thing I have ever seen. This was with the prez in the room!

"But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he\?s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know fiction."

Video part 1 on YouTube.com
Video part 2 on YouTube.com
Video part 3 on YouTube.com

And he was on 60 minutes yesterday:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69W70HQVawU
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIDCsvEJIM
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAoBcY61Tt4

And there's an article about his WHCAD performance over on Salon.com.

Here's another interesting example of where basic research can help change quality of life or provide practical applications for people. The government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the Ipod.

If the date is going well, cancel the [prearranged message to friends and family requesting they call you at a certain time] by logging on to the Internet from your cell phone. If you don't cancel, your friends will spring into action, such as by placing a call that could give you an excuse to say an emergency has come up.

A new and interesting Mac OS X Tiger feature is the ability to export any printed page directly to iPhoto via the Save as PDF option. I was then able to export straight out to JPG on on my PSP. Voila! Simple, perfect ebooks.

I opened up an HTML ebook from www.gutenberg.org in Safari, created a custom page size of 3.78 x 6.66 inches, printed to iPhoto using the Save as PDF options menu in the print dialog box, selected all images and rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise in iPhoto, then exported to jpg at 480x272 pixels and save the folder to my PSP.

Opening the first image up on the PSP, turn the PSP 90 degrees clockwise and have a portrait oriented page to read with the page turn "trigger" button right under your thumb.

Most interesting is the fact that apple included this "Print to iPhoto" functionality at the system level...could mean a very interesting "iPhoto Book" in the near future.