Recently I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers which details that genius alone is not enough – it’s where we’re from and what we do and who we do it with that counts more. I’m a strong believer in the theory there are forms of multiple intelligence and that the common IQ test is inadequate for getting a true measure of a person’s intelligence.
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It’s kind of interesting wandering around WWDC as every so often I pull out my HTC Diamond from my hip holster to jot down notes or email addresses. Usually the first reaction is “dude, it’s not an iPhone” as almost every man, woman and pet dog, cat and rat has one here (not surprising, given it’s WWDC). The next reaction is almost an instantaneous justification as to why having an iPhone is the evidence that you’re a superior human being to anyone who doesn’t have one (ignoring the fact I now own 2 iPod Touches).
About this point I rattle off some of the superior reasons I like to use my Diamond over the iPhone in no particular order:
1) It has a superior camera. 3.2 megapixels gives good output with daylight and is on par with my 5+ year old Canon w/o flash.
2) I have wi-fi, BlueTooth, GSM, EDGE and HSDPA access. Many devices only have 3.5G or lower here in USA.
3) I have multitasking. I can switch from one app to another fairly trivially. So I can run Skype, IM, Notes and Opera simultaneously.
4) I have a forward facing VGA camera for video conferencing.
5) I have a nice, crisp high res VGA screen. Bit hard to read sometimes but works exceptionally well regardless.
6) Android. Android is in development for the Diamond. Still getting there however.
7) I can pay and download apps w/o the blessing of Microsoft or another 3rd party collecting revenue.
I can tether without some monopolistic mobile company restricting me from doing so.
9) I also can get and send MMS.
About this point rabid Kool-Aid quaffing iPhone fan will start muttering about how great iPhone OS 3.0 will be when it’s released later in June, about this point I mention I got all of these features late 2008 when I first purchased the Diamond where they feebly claim their iPhone OS 3.0 beta was all cool and stuff. Admittedly the Diamond is slow, has some pretty low battery life at times (though, one of my co-workers mentioned they had to charge their iPhone daily, which is not great vs my 3-4 day life on the Diamond) and some annoying usability issues (resolved with additional apps) however I think it’s a good phone overall.
At the moment only Sprint has the Diamond equivalent (with larger battery & missing the VGA front camera) so I’m not too sore over the smaller battery which leaves my Diamond thinner and lighter than most on the market. Most people get over it and when they realise it’s a superior device for what I need to do, maybe it’s “Dude, why did I buy an iPhone?” after the shafting over AT&T is giving all the US customers for non-existent tethering and RSN MMS capabilities with the release of the iPhone 3GS.
Courtesy of work I’ve been sent to WWDC in SF to catch up on all the Apple stuff going on with iPhone OS 3 and 10.6. After the usual 18 or so hours of travel and flights I made it to SF yesterday afternoon. Be wandering around today in SF taking photos so hopefully be online in FB sometime.
It’s close to a release in a few days now, however the opening scene for Blood: The Last Vampire is available from TwitchFilm.net:
It closely mirrors the opening scene for the Production IG anime with the train to Asakusa and Saya taking out a lone demon. Jeon Ji-Hyun (sorry, Gianna Jun) seems to be proficient in English, which is a good sign so I’m not going to get a repeat of Sukiyaki Western Django on me. More videos are available from TwitchFilm.net.
Ron Burk claims that if you think you’re a competent programmer, it’s likely that you’re not.
Another video about overestimating our own ability such as the Lake Wobegon effect, where people tend to overestimate their own abilities.
The woes of the NVIDIA “bumpgate” seems to be worsening after Inquirer Charlie Demerjian reported the news about bad chip design about a year ago. Essentially under high temperatures the graphics chip could crack its connections and stop working from the stress. A slew of OEM’s such as Apple, Toshiba, HP and Dell all had to recall or extend coverage to handle the higher than expected failures.
Now NUFI (National Union Fire Insurance) is keen not to pay NVIDIA insurance due to NVIDIA obstructing their efforts to figure out what’s going on, hoping for a blank cheque from NUFI to take care of it while avoiding lawsuits from independents. I’m not sure what world NVIDIA is in, but I’ve never known insurance companies to simply hand out money unless good documentation is given to prove the case. Since NVIDIA refuses to admit there’s a problem, nor give info about who’s affected, how many chips, and so on NUFI is trying to get out of the agreement (which seems reasonable).
Kind of a sad turn of events since the good days of the RIVA128 and TNT…
Read about it here.
Just when you thought the Japanese had the stranglehold on big critters chomping up towns, we get US with an outing of “Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus”.
Just when you thought it was safe to fly…