white noise

Like a good book, I was glued to every word. I had NO idea what might come next:

Luckily Jimmy Kimmel breaks it down for us:

Donna and I finally upgraded our cell phones. She went with the tiny Moto Krzr and I went with the BlackBerry Pearl (you know, made by Research In Motion – sicko). Both phones are a big step up from the old Motos we had. Smaller, lighter, and a lot more capable. We picked the phones up just prior to our trip to San Francisco (blog post on that coming soon) and the Pearl helped out a lot. A bunch of the things I like about the Pearl aren’t necessarily unique capabilities, but they are new to me, and like McD’s, I’m loving it!

Email and IM:
First off, it’s great to be able to have all my email, from several accounts, all push to my phone as they come in. I don’t have to start a browser and check anything. Instead I get a chime and an LED flashes. If I happen to have any mail clients open on any computer, they get the email instead of the Blackberry, but if I’m otherwise disconnected, emails will show up on the phone. If I delete emails from the phone, I can choose whether to leave them on the originating mail server in case I want to save or follow up later. Otherwise I can choose to remove mail from the handset and the server and keep my inboxes in control while I’m away. It’s not exactly fun to be tethered to work email while I’m out of the office, but having the ability is very nice. After all the majority of my personal email comes through my work email anyway.

Instant Messaging is also working well. It’s an integrated client (not browser based) that does a similar chime and LED notification as email. I was surprised how iPhone-like my MSN messages look as they appear all bubbled and threaded. I’m still trying to get LCS messaging to work with our corporate server. It seems I’m close, but the connection is still not getting made. One thing’s for sure, I’ve been using SMS a LOT less since I now now use true IM.

Syncing contacts is also a breeze with Outlook. I have to plug in via USB, but everything syncs instantly either at home and work.

On the ball and SureType:
Yeah, it’s no fancy, schmancy multipoint touchscreen, but the interaction model on the Pearl is great. Most navigation is done with a tiny trackball (the ‘pearl’) which is miles better than conventional D-pads. Meanwhile typing is done using a qwerty-like keyboard but one in which most keys are shared by two letters. Although you can multitap type like on other numeric keyboards, the default is to just hit each key once regardless of the letter. Blackberry’s SureType AI guesses at the words you want and presents options when it’s actually not sure. Although it sounds error-prone and frustrating it really works well after a short learning curve. Like all the reviews I read before getting one – you really have to try it to see how well it works. Now I believe people when they say they can type faster on this than on regular qwerty PDAs. The other cool thing is that this is naturally like a spell check always running which is of great use to me.

Additional Apps:
I’m finding that since Blackberry is a popular platform that’s been around a long time there are a bunch of add-ons readily available on the web. A native version of Google maps was the first one I loaded (and man, was that handy in San Fran), but there’s a bunch I’ll be exploring for a while. Currently I’m checking out the free java development kit that Blackberry provides. It even includes various simulators to mimic mail servers and such so you can try out all aspects of your app/theme before loading it on your phone. Oh yeah, I guess this is as good a place as any to say it’s got a decent camera with flash (that’ll I’ll almost never use), and capabilities for playing music and videos (which I’m finding I’m using more than I expected).

What’s Missing:
Almost nothing has bothered me so far, but I’m annoyed there’s no support for Flash Lite, the mobile spec for Flash. I don’t think think that takes away much, but as a Web monkey and Flash junkie it stings.

I’m not talking about the soap of my namesake, General Hospital, but the video game Guitar Hero. If you’ve never heard of it or seen it, it’s like a modern adaptation of playing air-guitar crossed with the game Dance Dance Revolution.

The game (we play on a PS2) uses an undersized, guitar-shaped, controller in lieu of the usual gamepad. There are 5 fret buttons, one flipper you strum up or down, and a whammy bar. It’s roughly the equivalent of playing 5 notes on a single string of a guitar. But they do switch it up at harder difficulty levels by using two and three finger chords (nevermind the single string strumming model). You play along to various songs from the last 30 years, strumming notes in time with a tablature-like animation on screen.

The first time you play it, it can be very humbling. The guitar parts you hear playing in the song will actually drop out and make errant noises for every note you miss. Between that effect and the realtime tremolo applied by the whammy, the game creates a great illusion that you’re actually playing the music when in fact (especially on easier levels) you may only be required to strum every other (or maybe even every third) note that you’re hearing. After a couple practice songs, the game becomes incredibly addictive.

I picked up a bundle of two guitar controllers and two games (the original and the sequel, Guitar Hero 2) for cheap from one of the guys at MillionManLan. Since then I play it a lot. More than any other game now in fact. And that’s saying a lot since it’s on the ol’ PS2 and not my PC. Between Rayman Raving Rabbids and Guitar Hero, there’s surprisingly much new life in our Playstation. It’s pretty cool that a gaming platform that old can still seriously compete (for my attention) with the latest offerings on the PC. Just like when playing old arcade emulations, I’m reminded that great gaming isn’t always about the slickest eye candy.

The other thing I find remarkable about Guitar Hero is that it’s actually changed the way I listen to music. Thanks to years of band and drum corp in my youth, I’m percussion-centric in my listening. I listen for the beats, tap the beats, anticipate the beats, etc. And due to my own musical endeavors I prefer music heavier on the electronic end of things. I listen to the textures, layers, effects and so on. Listening for (or even tolerating in some cases) guitar parts in songs probably doesn’t even come third. Even though I’ve played a bit of guitar, I don’t think in guitar. It doesn’t speak to me, like drums and synths do, or like vocals do for other people. But I was listening to XM the other day in the car, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t find myself doing the air guitar thing…thinking about how I’d need to reach for orange on this note or that.

Last weekend I spent the bulk of two days cleaning up my man lair – or rather our extra bedroom where my computer and a bunch of other electronics live. It started out with a simple goal of swapping one bookcase with another and ended up as a monumental task of sifting through files, old magazines, and other bits. In all, I got rid of probably three full brown paper bags of paper. Stuff I didn’t even know I had.

I don’t think of myself as too much of a pack rat. Yes, there are things I collect. Wires, cables, cords…I can never have enough of them. Bolts, screws, and other assorted fasteners…I can never bring myself to throw any away. But in each of those cases I’m actually pretty organized in how I store them, plus I do use them quite a bit. On the other hand there’s stuff that’s not collected, but instead just remains. Old magazines with that one interesting article I’ll find time to read someday. Old computer game disc cases that seem like they may be of use later. Old files stuffed with paper that I haven’t looked at in years, but I think “if it was worth filing, isn’t it worth keeping” (btw, NO). This is the stuff that starts to crush you under its weight of irrelevance.

A lot of the stuff had come from college (or even before) and simply made the move over the years without much scrutiny. Brochures from colleges I was considering for a Masters. Correspondence with companies during my post-grad job hunt. Abstracts and white papers related to satellite construction and control systems. All of it about 12 years old. Among the more interesting finds was an issue of Popular Science from 1993. The cover exclaimed “New Brains for Personal Computers”. Inside the feature hailed the upcoming release of the Pentium processor with speeds up to 66MHz. Prices of the Pentium-equipped machines were stated to run $5000 to $8000. In the same issue, the “What’s New” section showed a color printer with a remarkably low price of $995. It claimed that the unit was much less expensive than other color printers because the processing was handled in software on DOS rather than in onboard hardware. Ah, good old Moore’s law has treated us well.

The dust continues to settle.

The iPhone will hit stores later this month and I decided I wouldn’t remain in the 1% of blogs not to post something about it. All the following thoughts are coming completely from web rumor and my own speculation, so like any online iPhone diatribe…it’s all BS.

When I first saw this thing back in January I was blown away and vowed it’d be the first iAnything I’d come to own. Yeah, that’s right, avid music guy that I am, I’ve not fallen for the bouncy white ear bud propaganda and bought into the idea that spending a couple hundred bucks on a bulky mp3 player is OK. But that’s another rant.

Now that release time for the cellular water-walker is getting closer, I’m not so sure. Some things make for a convenient assimilation – D and I have both been on Cingular for years, and our Motos are getting a little dated so we’ve been thinking about upgrading the phones. It’d be nice to have a phone I could use as a media player (music and photos mostly, I don’t care particularly much about watching movies at 3.5 inches wide. Surfing the web isn’t uber-important for me either, I have all kinds of laptops which can do that so much better. I would like to use the future device as a way to shuffle files around (hopefully transferred wirelessly), but that’s icing on the cake. On the other hand, it goes without saying that syncing contacts, calendar events, and texting should be a breeze in any new phone I get.

Today news / rumor that the iPhone wouldn’t support Flash hit the web and I’m not happy about that at all. I’ll hold out hope that this may be just misreported or if not, at least fixed in a firmware update. I also read a report which stated it won’t sync to Outlook on a PC, and another which said it will, but only via iTunes. That would be a deal breaker so I’m anxiously awaiting something more concrete about that. And lastly I’ve read that regardless of what it syncs to, it can’t sync wirelessly, which (if true) is surprising and disappointing for a ‘smart phone’.

Perhaps the biggest downfall of the iPhone will be its biggest selling point – that sexy touchscreen. When you factor in that (1) you must look at the screen to operate it and (2) you’ll have to take gloves off in the winter to use it, it just doesn’t seem all that “smart”. I’m also worried about the screen’s durability. One thing about having a flip phone is that I’ve gotten quite used to tossing my phone in my laptop case or a coat pocket with other stuff (even, gasp, keys). I know this isn’t like an iPod screen, but Apple has yet to prove they can manufacture things that are beautiful and durable. Lastly, in situations which involve the “soft-keyboard” it seems to takes a huge amount of space away from that awesome screen. And doesn’t it seem as though it’ll be really tough to type notes or sms on the tiny touch keyboard?

It’s too bad that they were so in love with the touchscreen that they forgot usability. Typing is a tactile thing damn it. The touchscreen paired with a slide qwerty would have been killer! You know like this:

Some more thoughts: I guess this is “you have to use it to see” kind of thing, but in Apple’s voicemail demo where are my other message options besides delete and call back?

Also in the “I really need to try it first” category is the means in which everything is scrolled. Be it contact lists, your music library, or whatever it all seems to have the same finger slide interaction. The inertia modeled “scroll throw” looks cool, but if I want to listen to “Sisters of Mercy” do I really have to scroll past hundreds of others? Even if it zips along pretty fast that just doesn’t seem efficient. There needs to be a way to type a letter (or three like “SIS”) to skip down.

At the end of the month I’ll be rushing out just like everyone else… to play with one, but I doubt I’ll be lining up to buy one. If the RAZR taught us anything it’s that good looks and marketing hype only go so far (sorry, you guys that actually bought one). Now if it only could turn water to wine…

So our main little man Cameron celebrated the big 4.0 a couple weekends ago and it all went down at the big Cheese. I probably haven’t ventured to that land of creepy animatronics, greasy pizza, and screaming little people for twenty years – and while the ambiance is the same as ever, something else has sure changed since then.

I fondly remember rows of warm, buzzing arcade games – Pacman, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and so on – each robbing me of handfuls of filthy game tokens. But now, in this post- Playstation era, arcade games barely exist, and Chuck E is full of a whole different breed of token munchers. Sure there’s still the every familiar skee ball; but now it’s joined by a bunch of other miniature midway games. The ones that intrigue me most are the ones that actually involve your token as a game piece. Drop in your token and watch it fly, roll, slide, or bounce into oblivion. Rarely do you get such a graphic display of throwing your money away.

That made me wonder if vending machines would fair better if their coin chutes were clear acrylic ramps which launched your change into buckets of different point values. Alter the speed in which you feed in the money and you change the trajectory. Paying with dollar bills would automatically give change, in the form of special vending tokens of course, so everyone can get in the game. Add an alpha-numeric keypad and a small display for high scores and watch sales sore!

But back to the birthday party. I got to thinking about how later this year I will be turning 9 Camerons – eight more of his lifetimes – and how much can actually happen (and will happen for Cam) over those years. All the things you learn, people you get to know, places you see. Not to say the kid hasn’t made great use of his first four years. After all, he’s learned to speak a new language and all sorts of new physical feats. And while Cam was busy doing all that, what have you been up to in your last Cameron of life?

Warm temps are back again and our yard is coming alive!

The UGS/Live Oaks FIRST Robotics Team 158 competed in the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland this past weekend. This was the team’s second and final competition of the 2007 season. The size of this regional was much larger than our previous event in Pittsburgh (58 teams instead of 35) and the game play was very tough. Most teams (like ourselves) had already been to another regional and were either adept at scoring or playing aggressive defense.

The team made great use of our Thursday practice day by passing inspection, warming up their driving skills, and fine tuning the robot’s mechanics and programming. As we practiced, other teams got an early appreciation for our scoring ability and maneuverability. Although we had had completed one ramp and successfully tested its deployment, using it would’ve put us overweight by 3 or 4 pounds so we decided to proceed with only the scoring arm.

The game is played between two alliances of three robots each. Every qualifying match you play is with (and against) a new randomized alliance. Sometimes you get lucky and draw strong, complementary robots for your alliance, other times you must make do with less. In each match we played, the students were happy with our performance and contributions to the alliance. In some cases we played the role of primary scorer for our alliance; in other cases teams called upon us to play solid defense.

We competed in 7 qualifying matches on Friday. The students worked hard on and off the field and were very satisfied with our success throughout the day winning 4 of 7 rounds and tying for the highest match score of anyone that day.

We only had a single qualifying match remaining on Saturday morning. The previous day of aggressive driving had taken its toll on our drive system and we had to make some serious repairs to our transmissions. Luckily we got the drive train back in top shape just in time to take the field. Despite a hard effort we lost that final match giving us a qualifying record of 4 and 4, and a qualifying standing of 33rd of 58.
The elimination rounds began with the top eight teams selecting two alliance partners (like a draft in football or basketball) to take into the finals. Despite our modest ranking, we were recognized as a strong team player with a versatile robot, and the 4th seeded team selected us for their alliance. Considering that we had a much higher qualifying ranking in Pittsburgh (12th) and still missed the opportunity to play in the finals, the students were thrilled. In a best-of-three quarterfinal, our alliance won the first match by a large margin, but then narrowly lost the next two to keep us from advancing to the regional semifinal. All in all, it was a great finish to the season!

So it stinks our team didn’t get into the quarterfinals in Pittsburgh, but it was fun to watch. One of the things I’ll remember most is the sight of one of the winning team’s mentors…a big burly guy, maybe 6’5″ and 250lbs..wiping tears from his eyes, as he gave each kid on his team a big bear hug lifting them off the ground. Whoever said engineers aren’t emotional has never gone to an FRC event.

The UGS/Live Oaks FIRST Robotics Team competed in the Pittsburgh Regional competition this past weekend.

Thursday was a full day of fine-tuning and practice. Our team spent the entire day 8am to 8pm working on completing the robot to get it ready for the competition matches on Friday. Our driver and operator only got one practice round in at the end of the day, because there was so much left to complete. For those of you familiar with our design, we decided to focus on the grabber and worry about adding the ramps later. By the end of the day, we had completed the lift and grabber assembly, passed inspection, and (without ramps) passed the weight limit with flying colors (we were 100 pounds of a possible 120).

The competition matches began on Friday and our team got off to a rocky start losing their first two rounds. As we continued to fine tune the robot’s drivetrain and as our student driver got more experience we starting doing much better. The Cobras played some very impressive defense and consistently scored bonus points for climbing alliance robots’ ramps. Likewise we climbed in the rankings throughout the day as we won the next 5 of 6 matches. The team climbed as high as 6th place and ended the first day in a very respectable 8th place of the 35 teams in Pittsburgh.

When competition resumed on Saturday we implemented an offensive strategy to surprise our opponents (who would assume we’d continue playing defense) and consistently placed three scoring tubes. We split our two Saturday qualifying rounds, giving us a final ranking of 12th and a record of 6 – 4. Although the team narrowly missed the opportunity to advance into the quarterfinals, our drive team and our robot are in very good shape for our next regional in Cleveland in two weeks.