Author: William

Olympics so far

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Don’t worry, no spoilers until after the fold…

I have been really enjoying the Olympics so far. If the gasp from Kyllan on the other end of the phone are any indication, she is enjoying the games too. The opening ceremony was amazing, even if there was a little controversy. Personally I think NBC has done a horrible job with communicating what sports will be on air at what time. Kyllan is getting “Live” broadcast an hour earlier than I am. It’s great that they are offering live events online, but they should have at least added an audio feed so there would be some commentary with the video. Below are so of my thoughts on the events I’ve been able to catch (click more). Consider any comments to be spoiler rich. (more…)

2008 Summer Olympic Games

William 6 Comments

The Games of the XXIX Olympiad are upon us. Will you be watching the games this year or are you planning to boycott all broadcast in protest of an oppressive government and human rights violations in China? (Oh great, now the blog is going to be blocked by the Great Firewall.) Though I have personally encountered Chinese researchers my age and older who have no idea that there were ever any protest in Tienanmen Square, I plan to watch the games as usual. While I am also not sure that Beijing was the best selection for host city, I don’t know that political opinions should interfere with sport and believe that the Chinese people may benefit from the eyes of the world focusing on their government… It doesn’t look promising though. (That last link is to an article about the Chinese government restricting public displays of faith, and enforcing these laws on athletes at the games. I thought it was really interesting.)

Here is the broadcast schedule. Hopefully the time difference won’t prevent me from catching some events live.

… I don’t know how Kyllan missed this; Her Alma mater, Wake Forest, is ranked #23 in the preseason choaches’ football poll! Is that the first top 25 preseason ranking for Wake?

iReview

William 7 Comments

After multiple attempts and long wait in line next to an extremely chatty woman, who compared the experience to her wait in line for an exclusive beanie baby at Target, I was actually able to pay a large sum of money obtain a iPhone 3G. (The more money something cost, the easier it should be to get someone to actually sale it to you.) While I am disappointed with how the release has been handled, I am very happy with the phone.

Now, there are lots of people this phone is not for. Save your money if you just want a cool looking phone, the hottest gadget or don’t know the difference between push and fetch. (If that is the case and you still want a cool phone, go for the nonconformist vibe and grab a Samsung Instinct or a Nokia N series). This phone is for people who already organize their lives on some sort of device and want/need to always be connected to the cloud. I just happen to be that type of person.

Off the top, the iPhone is by far the best iPod offered (as an personal music player it functions identical to the iPod touch.) As a phone, it offers much better voice quality than my old Samsung Blackjack. I was actually shocked. The 3G makes web browsing practical when not on a the wi-fi network, though the whole actual web pages with Safari still leaves a little to be desired. The thing that really makes the phone are the applications and their integration with the GPS. For instance, while Kyllan was in town, I simply pulled up restaurant reviews using the Yelp! app and filtered them by distance from our location to decided where we should eat and then pulled up a map with turn by turn directions. At this point the device is serving as my phone, iPod, e-mail client, calendar, address book, to do list, weather station, gps, stereo remote (an airport express is hooked into m reciver) and on the fly event planner. It may be the most useful device I have ever owned… and I hate liking anything made by Apple.

All that being said, the battery life sucks. I am in one of those unique work environments where a 12 hour day permits me to have head phones on for 11 hrs without anyone taking a second glance and leave teh Wi-Fi on, so I probably should not complain with all of the use the device is getting on a daily basis, but I am sick of having to hook it up to the charger at the end of the day. The majority of my accessories for my previous iPod don’t work with the iPhone, which also sucks. Apparently new accessories, that look identical to the old ones, are going to be released soon. There is no ability to send MMS, but that doesn’t realy bother me. I love the interface for SMS. I have had a few freezes when opening an app, but the phone has quickly reset afterward. That may be my only real concern, but the consensus seems to be this is associated with useage immediately after installing multiple apps.

So, those are my thoughts. I really like the phone, but only recommend it for the tech geeks and gadget fiends.

Dark Knight

William 8 Comments

This past Friday I invited the lab and some of the graduate students in the department over to my apartment to watch Batman Begins. On Saturday we all met up and went to see Dark Knight (the IMAX: Experience.) Apparently a lot of other people did too. I thougt it was great! Probably the best super hero movie I’ve seen, other than Iron Man. Heath Ledger was just flat out creepy as the Joker. The film was long, it was dark, but it was also very entertaining. I highly recommend to anyone that hasn’t already seen it. (My parents also saw the movie this weekend, but did not enjoy it as much as I did. It may have been a little too dark for them.)

iFustration

William 4 Comments

Will skip past the staying at the lab until 5am Friday and the dog poop on my doormat incident… Early Friday morning I, like so many others, set out to buy an iPhone. At 9:30am I found myself at an AT&T store with a line two blocks long. When I spoke to one of the store employees, I was shocked to learn that was not the line to buy an iPhone. They had sold out of iPhones an hour ago. The line in front of the store was to pay for a phone and come back later when the store received more shipments and then wait in another line… on Tuesday. Luckily, we have two Apple stores in Denver and the boss was expecting me in late; It was his experiment that keep me in the lab until 5am. I made my way over to the Cherry Creek mall location figuring I would have to wait in line 45 minutes to an hour. Surely the line would not be very long. Most people have 9 to 5 jobs. Well, the line stretched the entire distance of the mall and began to loop back around. There had to be more that 500 people. I sucked it up, went to work and figured that the madness would be over on Saturday and I could walk right into the store and get one. When I arrived at the mall on Saturday the line was much shorter, but still an estimated 3 hrs long. If Kyllan had been there I may have actually waited. We could have chatted a little bit. We could have taken turns walking around the mall. But, I was by myself and at this point my excitement had started to dwindle. I made a final attempt Sunday. No line. I walked straight into the store… Only to be told they were sold out.

Now what? I am not really excited anymore. It’s time for a new phone, but I am not waiting in line for one. If things calm down and supply seems steady, I may make another attempt this week. If not, it may be a while.

Reunion Pictures

William 8 Comments

Pictures from the reunion are up. I warn you, there are over 700. I included pictures taken by my Uncle Sam and my father. My Uncle Same would like me to add the disclaimer that his pictures tend to focus on his daughters and granddaughters. With so many photos, I didn’t take time to add an individual title and description to every photo. Enjoy.