Posts from — May 2010

I haven’t written about android on this blog at all in the past, though I’d like to start doing so because a bunch of my friends are on android phones now. Anyway, if you’re considering android coming from an iphone, I thought that this comparison was overall quite accurate.

A few notes on some of the issues brought up in that post:
- Taking the battery out of the N1 is not hard. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
- The android browser is called “Browser” instead of “Chrome” because it’s not based on Chrome. They could have just as accurately called it Safari. (Of course, that’s changing with the latest release since they added Chrome’s javascript engine) Also: most phone users have never heard of Chrome and wouldn’t know what it was.
- The rollerball (or any directional controls on an android device) is primarily for navigating text more precisely than you could with just the touchscreen. A lot of reviewers seem to miss this… maybe it only becomes clear after a lot of use.

Bill Maher’s material is very hit-or-miss.. he’s often too acerbic for me, but this segment from a few weeks ago was excellent.

(Some language not safe for work or for people who get offended)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39d1fHRHrM4)

A couple of my favorite quotes from that:
“Our culture isn’t just different from one that makes death threats to cartoonists, it’s better.”

“The western world needs to make it clear: some things about our culture are not negotiable and can’t change. And one of them is freedom of speech. Separation of church and state is another. Women are allowed to work here and you can’t beat them: not negotiable. This is how we roll. This is why our system is better, and if you don’t get that and you still want to kill someone over a stupid cartoon, please make it Garfield.”

When comparing cultures, it can sometimes be very easy to slip in to moral relativism and just accept just about anything (a “peculiar institution”, for example), but it’s important to draw the line somewhere. I think Maher’s list here, though certainly incomplete, is pretty easy to get behind.

“When I was growing up ‘elitism’ was a word sneered from the lips of the Left, now it is sneered from the lips of the Right. The sneering was ugly then and it is ugly now. Knowledge, science, understanding, literacy and curiosity are absolute goods and to hell with anyone who tries to follow that American habit here and attempts to construct a discourse in which only a despised liberal elite are interested in science, the arts, history and ideas. Such wickedness reminds one of those who opposed Education For All at the end of the nineteenth century. All knowledge should be free and available and all people should be encouraged to acquire it. It will not necessarily lead to liberalism, but it will lead to understanding and a desire for openness and decent, non-tribalist exchanges of the kind that can only enrich our democracy.”

(source)

My favorite political ad in a long time. It has everything:
- Excessive, aggressive editing
- Majestic music
- Bickering with opponent about stolen yard signs
- Discussion of opponent’s facebook posts
- Gun that seems to appear out of nowhere (but clearly validates the candidate’s Republican credentials)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0)

This quote is probably truer than most of us would like to admit:

“Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things they would do if they didn’t need to work. In reality, if they had the drive and commitment to do actually do those things, they wouldn’t let a job get in the way.”
-Paul Buchheit

(via greg mankiw)