June 2007 Archives

	Palm Treo 700p	Apple iPhone
Display	2.5" 320x320-pixel Touchscreen 180 ppi	3.5" 320x480 Multi-Touchscreen 160 ppi
Cellular	CDMA with EvDO (3G)	GSM with EDGE (2.5G)
Wi-Fi	None	802.11b/g
Text Input	QWERTY Keyboard	On-screen Keyboard
Onboard Memory	128 MB	4 or 8 GB
Expansion Slot	Secure Digital (SDHC) (up to 8 GB)	None
Battery	Removable 4.5 hrs talk time 300 hrs standby	Non-replaceable 8 hrs talk time 250 hrs standby
Weight	6.4 ounces	4.8 ounces
Thickness	.9 inches	.46 inches
Multi-Media Messaging (MMS)	Yes	No
Stylus Included	Yes	No
Camera	1.3 Megapixels	2.0 Megapixels
Video Capture	352 x 288 @ 15fps	None
Screen Auto-rotation	No (not necessary)	Yes
My impressions of the two devices:
Overall UI Speed	Fast to Pokey	Very Fast to Fast
One-Handed Use	Excellent to Good	Good to Poor
Browser	Good (Blazer)	Excellent (Safari)
Text Entry	Excellent	Fair (No highlighting or cut/copy/paste)
Third-Party Support	Excellent (Thousands of apps)	Poor (Other than browser applets, Apple is sole provider)
Customizability	Excellent	Fair
Fun to Use	Good	Very Good

While the table doesn't say it in so many words, my impression so far is that the Treo 700p and the iPhone do nearly all the same things, but in very different ways. With its dedicated keyboard and strong text-editing functionality, the 700p is much more of a productivity-centric communication device. In contrast, the iPhone does amazing things with audio/video/photo playback, so it is more of a media/entertainment-centric device.

However, that distinction is far from absolute. The Treo can handle audio and video playback in more formats than can the iPhone, and it also has the 3G chops to stream both audio and video over its cellular connection, so it's more flexible in those regards. But, the iPhone has some productivity tricks up its sleeve, such as its ability to multitask (e.g., pull down email in the background) and the excellent Safari browser (which emulates a desktop browser's capabilities fairly closely).

The iPhone's biggest new innovation -- the multi-touch screen -- seems like it could be something incredibly powerful. The current device seems to underutilize this feature, as it's useful only in rare situations (e.g., resizing/zooming a photo). Moreover, multi-touch inherently requires two-handed use, so it's not something someone is going to make use of all the time. But, if future software enhancements can really make strong use of this feature, then we may look back on this launch as actually meriting all the hype.

So, while I have no desire to get an iPhone for my own use, I'm glad the iPhone is out. Innovation pushes all players in the market to bring us consumers their best products, so I look forward to seeing how Palm, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, and the rest respond to Apple's new phone.

A project so massively inspiring as the Genographic Project requires us to pay it some due.

What is it? In a nutshell, scientists are tracking a series of genetic and biological markers through thousands of subjects, alive and long-dead, to determine the likely paths that early humans and their ancestors traveled when populating the planet. From the earliest ancestor common to all humans, who lived in Africa some 60,000 years ago, we can trace every major group of peoples as they made their way to new homes and habitats.

Truly an awesome piece of scientific work.

From Detroit comes a story about a 19-year-old man fathering a child by an 11-year-old girl (12 when she recently gave birth). What is perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that both his and the girl's mothers were fully aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue.

2 Moms Charged In Role In Impregnated Girl Relationship

ECORSE, Mich. -- A 19-year-old has been charged with three counts of criminal sexual conduct after having a relationship with an 11-year-old girl, police said.

Blake Blythe of Ecorse is accused of having a relationship with the girl and getting her pregnant last summer.

Blythe's mother and the girl's mother are also charged because they knew about the relationship. Police said both mothers consented to the two having sex.

Read the entire story

It's stories like this that make me think the conceptual basis for the movie Idiocracy is actually non-fiction.

Previous poems are here and here.

Noisy Toys

Sam would not nap, no matter what
Her poor, sad father was distraught
Inside her crib, she rolled around
She kicked the bars, jumped up and down
"Why won't you sleep?" her father said.
"This really is a comfy bed."
She just frowned and hollered "No!"
To sleep, she simply would not go.
And so she lay there with her toys
Making every kind of noise.
Tweets and bleeps and tweetle-twees
Everything had batteries.
And then her dad had an idea
A secret plan, a panacea
He scooped up all her toys that made
That awful, beeping serenade
And while she watched and made a pout
He took every battery out
Then all her toys were quiet, mute
Her father made a small salute
And then without that constant din
To go to sleep Sam could begin
Her eyes, they fluttered and were drawn
Dad smiled and fought the slightest yawn
And so she lay there fast asleep
Until her father's watch went...BEEP!

As previously promised, here's another poem I wrote last year for Sam (no, no, it has nothing to do with real life events in our household...no, not at all...why on Earth would you think that??):

The Picky Eater

Samantha Elle, she would not eat.
The doctor said, "she's too petite."
No food appealed, not sour, not sweet.
No rice, no bread, no fruit, no meat.
No pancakes, waffles, cream of wheat.
No buttered, battered, boiled beet.

She would not even eat pear pie,
Or jelly on Italian rye,
Or ham and eggs, or pizza pie.
And even just one wee French fry
Upset her so it made her cry.
But never did she tell them why.

And bit by bit, she seemed to shrink.
A quarter inch each night they think.
She would not even take a drink
Although she was upon the brink
Of disappearing in a blink
By washing down the kitchen sink.

Each day her folks repeated pleas.
They begged and pleaded on their knees.
Then one day Sam said, "Scuse me, please.
You've offered meat and bread and peas,
But had you asked, I'd say with ease
That all this time I wanted...cheese."

Last month, I became fed up with the increasingly disgusting state of my LCD screens. Both my laptop and my two LCD desktop panels at work were just rife with dust, lint, and macroscopic unmentionables. Just gross.

So, I thought I'd grab a screen cleaner and wipe them off. Turns out that's not as easy as one might imagine. Most everyday cleaners you find in grocery stores have alcohol, ammonia and/or other chemicals in them that do not play nicely with the plastics and coatings involved in LCD and other portable electronic displays.

So, I did what any conscientious tech blogger would do: I ordered three of the more commonly recommended cleaners to do a comparison test. KlearScreen, Purosol, and Mirachem Optix were all purchased from online retailer Photodon (who provided no monetary or other support for this test other than selling me all the cleaners at their standard price). I also purchased a bottle of the Photodon house brand LCD cleaner just to see how it stacked up. I also bought a brand new microfiber cloth to use in the testing.

Read on for details on the four candidates and the results of my month-long test for performance, endurance, and overall value.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer comes one of the most embarrassingly funny stories ever about bad parenting:

Deputies arrest 'Dr. McDreamy'

In a two-minute video that aired on "Access Hollywood" for an "Are You the Real Dr. McDreamy?" contest last fall, Dr. Jeffrey Betts drove off in a yellow Porsche convertible.

Months later, his yellow Porsche reemerged in a less favorable spotlight. Betts was arrested Friday, accused of leaving his two young daughters in the car, unattended.

Betts, 41, of Indian Hill, was charged with two counts of child-endangering Monday after the incident in the parking lot of the Lowe's store on Mason-Montgomery Road in Deerfield Township. The misdemeanor charge carries a possible maximum sentence of six months in jail.

According to police reports, this is what happened on Friday:

Warren County Sheriff's Deputy Jim Doddy was on patrol around 2 p.m. in the parking lot when he was flagged down by a woman in a red van and told there were two small children unattended in the Porsche.

When Doddy approached the car with the vanity license plates "KEPT GUY," he found the girls, ages 2 and 4, were unresponsive inside. The car was turned off and windows were rolled up.

After knocking on the window, the 4-year-old woke up but couldn't open the door.

Doddy broke out the driver-side window after unsuccessful attempts to unlock the door.

When Betts ran out of the store, he told deputies he went into the store for only a few minutes, and that the car was cool.

"We determined Betts' decision to leave his children in the vehicle unattended created a substantial risk to the children's health and safety," Lt. Brian Tinch wrote in the report.

Betts was arrested and later released. The girls, who were uninjured, were turned over to their mother.

Betts could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The former pediatric radiologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is now a self-employed physician, according to police reports.

Betts left the hospital about a week after his video - which showed him stripping off his hospital scrubs into a Speedo - aired on Nov. 10 on "Access Hollywood."

Read the entire story (with photo) here.

Regardless of its justification, I'm sure the officer was almost giddy with the thought of bashing in a Porsche's side window.

From CNN:

Pittsburgh moms charged after 5 children die in fire

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The mothers of five children killed in a house fire surrendered to police Thursday to face involuntary manslaughter charges for allegedly leaving the youngsters alone while they went to a bar.

Wearing a T-shirt that read "Mommy Loves You" and "God Loves You More," Shakita Mangham, 25, arrived at municipal court early Thursday. Furaha Love, 25, turned herself in at police headquarters a short time later.

Mangham initially told police she left the children with a baby sitter, but later admitted she lied, according to a criminal complaint. Love also said later that she knew there was no baby sitter, and that the children had been left in the care of two 8-year-olds.

Authorities said the early morning fire June 12 was started by children playing with matches.

Love was taken from police headquarters in handcuffs to a patrol car and was arraigned. Her attorney, Ernest Sharif, said they were ready to fight the charges.

"We're in a very emotional climate right now," the attorney said Thursday. "Five children died. Automatically people want to make the connection it was her fault. But from a legal standpoint, it was not her fault."

Read the complete story.

About a month ago, we acquired a Mac Mini to use as our home theater PC (if you recall, our old one died back in January). After working off and on to get the Mini set up to serve our home media needs, I've come to a few conclusions I thought I'd put to pixel. Many of these conclusions are not unique, but as this is my first Apple product since my IIe back in high school, they were all surprising to me.

1) The Mac Mini is a darned impressive PC for its size
One of the main reasons the Mini was attractive to me as an HTPC was its small size and quietness -- both very desirable qualities in something that will sit 6 inches above your primary television. Now that I've had some time to become more familiar with it (and Mac OS X), I'm really pleased at how capable the Mini is. Ours is a 1.66 GHz Core Duo unit with 1GB of RAM, and there's nothing I've asked it to do that has made the Mini seem like it's going to break a sweat. In Windows machines, you can always tell when they're stressed, as the UI starts to falter and you get the dreaded hourglass pointer for long periods at a time. Not so with the Mini; so far, it has seemed rather unflappable. And that impresses me given its rather modest specs (at least for the Windows world). Plus, the Front Row remote just caps off the entire package, at least for our use.

2) Mac OS can do things Windows (at least XP) cannot
I had desired to repurpose an external hard drive from backup on my main Windows machine to media storage on the Mac Mini. It didn't occur to me at first that the reason the Mac wasn't able to write to the new drive was that it was in NTFS. I've been using NTFS drives exclusively now since 2001, so I didn't even think about the file system. Well, it turns out that the only file system viable on both OS's is FAT32. But, and this just amazed me, Windows XP cannot format any drive larger than 32GB to FAT32; larger than that and it must be NTFS. So, after an hour or so of banging my head against the Windows machine's keyboard ("why is FAT32 not coming up as a format option?!??"), I discovered that little limitation. So, I trotted the drive down to the Mini, initialized the drive, and formatted it to FAT32 with no problem. If Mac OS is more capable at something as simple as formatting a hard drive, it makes me wonder what advantages Windows has (other than being an industry standard) to warrant its market share.

3) Mac OS does "just work"...mostly
As this is the first time I've actually used a Mac OS device, the experience has been pretty delightful. Many, many activities that are arduous or unintuitive in Windows (at least XP...I've not played much with Vista yet) are dirt-simple in OS X. For example, unmounting a drive means clicking an icon next to the drive picture. In Windows, you need to click the "safely remove hardware" icon in the task bar and then select the correct drive, often from among several similarly named options differentiated only by a drive letter. However, there are many things I find less convenient (or more cumbersome) in OS X, with most of those emanating from the lack of a right-click context menu. Of all the UI elements in Windows (beyond the requisite ones like icons, dialogs, and slider bars), I think the context menu is probably the single most useful addition. I also do not prefer having to go up to the top of the screen to access drop-down menus; maybe it's an issue of familiarity, but it seems weird (to me) to divorce the menus from the app window. I'll get used to all these things, I'm sure, but this experience has shown me that while Mac OS does seem to have an overall "cleaner" UI, neither OS has a monopoly on ease-of-use.

4) iTunes on a Mac is actually usable
After struggling constantly with iTunes on our Windows machine (for use with my wife's iPod), I had decided that I hated iTunes with every fiber of my being. But, using it on a Mac is an entirely different experience. It actually works...and works well! Cover Flow mode is a gorgeous interface to use, even if it does tweak my obsessive-compulsive tendencies such that I spent too many hours looking up cover art for many of our more obscure albums. Could iTunes still be greatly improved? Easily, especially in ways that would please advanced users (e.g., could we have a UPnP music server function built in, please?).

5) Apple was shortsighted when it disabled optical audio volume control
In a rare example of retarding the unit's usefulness, Apple decided that if the Mini's user decides to use the unit's digital optical audio output instead of analog, system-level volume control should be disabled. That means that no volume control at all can be done via the Mac itself. That means that we lose functionality on two of the six (a third!) Front Row remote buttons as well as the dedicated volume control buttons on our wireless keyboard. Some may argue it's a good decision because then the audio stream coming out of the Mini is pure and untainted by system manipulation of the signal. OK, I don't buy that. Nobody is going to use a Mini for state-of-the-art sound quality. Anyone that concerned is going to have a dedicated DVD player that likely costs more than the Mini. In addition, even if that's a valid argument for locking audio output as line-out, at least give us the option of disabling system-level audio volume control. Many of us are willing to give up some audio quality for the convenience of a fully functional Front Row remote; is a simple checkbox in System Prefs too much to ask?

More as I think of it...

I have an idea. It's pretty crazy and 99% likely never to bear fruit, but I feel compelled to describe it here...just in case. And don't think this is entirely thought out...I'm imagining it literally as I type.

Imagine this: a road race around the 86-mile loop of highway circling Cincinnati, Ohio known as I-275 (map below). I-275 in Cincinnati is a divided highway ranging from 2 to 4 lanes in both directions. It wanders through three different states -- Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky -- and crosses the Ohio river twice.

Who could race in this event? Anyone. It would be a true road race where any road-worthy automobile may enter. Think road rally for the everyman.

But who would race in this event? That's an entirely different question. Since closing I-275 would be impossible for any period of time more than, say, a few hours (if even then), the field of cars would have to be limited to about 180. Here's how I figure that. If one lap is 86 miles and even the pokiest racer should be able to average 100 mph, that's .86 hours, or about 50 minutes around the whole loop. If you want to finish the last car in by noon (to re-open the highway), and you wanted to start each car a minute behind the previous one (so as to limit bunching up), then you could launch cars for three hours straight (e.g., starting at 8am, the last one leaving at 11am and returning just before noon).

But, who would those 180 racers be? Well, we'd need to make sure that they know how to drive, so they would have to show that their cars are road-legal and pass a full race safety inspection (a la SCCA rules). But that would still leave thousands aching for a chance to blast through closed highways at ridiculous speeds.

So, to further pare the field, a $500 entry fee would be required. Maybe make it $1,000...or maybe auction off the spots. Alternately, and this could be done to help offset the costs of hosting the race (more on that later), the organizers could require a $X00 fee to enter a RAFFLE from which participants would be drawn. Then, each participant would have to pay the entry fee to actually race. The motivation would be the thrill, potential prize money, and some local fame.

I also imagine that you'd need a few classes of cars, primarily for sequencing the starts (you should have the fastest cars at the beginning and the slowest at the end in order to minimize overtaking and passing) and based primarily on top speeds (e.g., 180+, 160-180, 140-160, and less than 140). This would be the perfect opportunity for those rich guys with their Porsche Carreras and Mercedes SLRs to really open them up on public roads. It would also make for a really fine exotic car show.

Staging the cars could be done at an on-ramp area near I-75 and adjacent to a large commercial base of restaurants, etc. for helping support the hordes of tourists.

And that brings me to the money part. This could, if managed correctly, be a HUGE money-maker for the region. While you could you sell TV rights to the event, the tourism dollars alone would be enormous. If the race is on a Sunday morning (lightest traffic means the best time to close the highway for a few hours), then the day before, a Saturday, could be a huge parade of all the cars through downtown Cincinnati. It could be like a public Indy 500 for the everyday guy.

My biggest concern would be the ability to negotiate a way to close down a major highway loop that crosses three different states for a period of 4 daylight hours. If that could be done, the rest would be perfectly feasible, I think. And, if it could be pulled off once, the second year would be bigger, better, and easier just because a lot of the complexities would have already been worked out.

So, if anyone from Cincinnati town council or Hamilton County is reading this, please consider this idea; I think it would be at least an interesting thing to attempt. Heck, Cincinnati once proposed to be the site of the summer Olympics. This race wouldn't be one-tenth that much cost or effort, yet might still accomplish many of the same goals for the city and the region.

I'm constantly stunned by the ridiculous stories of awful parenting that appear in the news (which also makes me wonder about what doesn't appear). Just to keep track of some of these terrific examples of terrible parenting, I've created a new content category: Bad Parents

So, if you're ever feeling a tad guilty for saying 'no' to your kid's request for ice cream or for just not having the time to take him to band practice and soccer practice and drama club and Scouts, etc., check back here for some positive reinforcement; at least you're not as bad as these miserable parents. Alternately, send your kid a link to this category to remind him how lucky he is.

To kick off the new category, here's a story from the AP as reported by CNN:

Couple finishes restaurant meal while child tied in hot car

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- Police in northwest Georgia have rescued a boy from a hot car where his mother's companion is accused of tying him up.

Ringgold, Georgia, police say a Cracker Barrel restaurant employee called police after seeing Raymond Minchew take the 6-year-old out of the restaurant and return without him -- then finished eating his meal. Ringgold is about 13 miles southeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Police found the bound boy sitting in the car, crying.

Sergeant John Gass says the child was soaked with sweat and had a rope tied to one of his ankles. Gass says the temperature was in the 80s Saturday in Ringgold.

The 61-year-old Minchew and the boy's mother -- 35-year-old Rachel Gilchrist -- were arrested and charged with cruelty to children and concealing a weapon. There was a handgun in the car.

Investigators believe the boy was in the hot car for about a half hour.

Police Sergeant John Gass says the couple contended the boy had misbehaved, although witnesses at the restaurant disagreed.

The boy has been placed in protective custody.

Original story (CNN.com)

Central Message of the Republican Debate: Vote for us or bad things will happen.

Central Message of the Democratic Debate: Vote for us and good things will happen.

Fear versus hope. I'm tired of fear.

Update (6/9/07): In response to Mark's rather silly comments below, I put together a graph based on public data showing the relationship between tax rate and standard of living for the 10 best nations. It uses the most recent data I could find for each variable and may portray a reasonable temporal effect (one would assume that tax rate would be a leading indicator of standard of living):

Sources: HDI (Wikipedia); Tax Rate (OECD)

With the release of Mac OS 10.4.9, UVC (USB Video Class) webcams will work with iChat. Here's part of a Logitech support document listing a few that will work:

This article applies to the following operating systems: Macintosh OS 10.4.9

This article refers to the following Logitech products: All UVC Complaint Webcams

The Logitech webcams listed below are UVC (Universal Video Class) compliant and can be used with operating systems which fully support this standard; including Mac OS 10.4.9. Please note that standard UVC drivers are provided by the Operating System and will provide minimal camera support only. Unique Logitech features, such as RightLight and Video Effects are not functional via UVC drivers. Furthermore, we recommend the use of a full Logitech installation package, where available, for supported operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista.

QuickCam Ultra Vision SE
QuickCam Ultra Vision
QuickCam Orbit/Sphere MP
QuickCam Fusion
QuickCam Pro 5000
QuickCam for Notebooks Pro
QuickCam Deluxe for Notebooks

Update (6/5/07): I just bought a Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision SE and it works immediately with iChat, including the audio. Nice. :-)