What's the point?

This is pretty cool:  In the paper today was a story about a guy in Montana that makes iPad, iMac, and iPhone accessories out of wood.  It seems pine beetles had killed 10,000 trees on his family's property and he was trying to figure out what to do with the dead trees.   He came up with "Bad Beetle".

Before it rots into mush the wood is salvaged and "re-purposed" into these attractive cases and stands.

If I was into fancy cases and such I'd probably get one myself.  But here's what I don't get:  Apple, Samsung and all the rest spend billions of dollars to miniaturize their devices, right?  It's a HUGE deal when they can make a case .02 of an inch thinner.  It gives them massive bragging rights and they can charge a few bucks more....image is everything.

Then we buy these gadgets and before we leave the store buy fashion cases the size of a small paperback book.  Or worse....

I guess that's supposed to be a bar of chocolate?

Is this really an iPhone case?  For mom or the kid?

What's the point in making them a silly millimeter smaller if we're gonna wrap 'em in huge cases?  My iPhone case is just a thin sticky type of rubber, and that's only because I'm too butterfingered to hold on to the slick glass and chrome case it comes with straight out of the box.  And I'm cheap.

S

North Korean Generals are like raccoons....

....they like to collect shiny objects.  "Sorry guys.  We can't give you any food, but how 'bout a few medals?"  

Some of those medals look suspiciously like coke bottle caps that have been beaten flat.  Did you ever do that as a kid?  I wonder if they have their bicycles with baseball cards clicking the spokes just off camera?

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A few weeks ago I decided to give up foods and drinks containing the artificial sweetener aspartame.  I had read that one of its side effects was joint soreness and my knees were killing me.  I put away my beloved Coke Zero's and I feel much better today.  I did take an anti-inflammatory for a couple of days so that might have had some effect, but basically I think I just OD'd on aspartame.  Next....yoga?

Maybe not.

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Has anyone heard any gossip about the next iPhone?  I'm eligible for an upgrade and I'd really prefer to stick with another Apple vs a Samsung, but IMO the one thing Samsung has over Apple is their much larger screen.  I just read that worldwide this past quarter Samsung outsold Apple 70% to 21%, leaving 9% for everyone else.

I'm hoping Apple still has some of Steve Job's passion left in them and will get out a worthy competitor with a comparable screen size to Samsung's.  As it is now they're getting creamed.  If the next iPhone doesn't have a bigger screen, am I going to have to wait another full year for them to get their act together?

That's all from me today.  If it's snowing where you are, stay warm.  If it's pretty out, enjoy.  ;)

S

"Mr. Watson, come here."

These were reportedly the first words Alexander Graham Bell spoke into his new invention, the "tele-phone", back on March 10, 1876.  As I've read that Mr. Bell was quite a player back in his day, I'm guessing when Watson showed up he said, "Check this out, bro.  I took it with me to The Watering Hole last night....chick magnet! "

In 1966 I was in the AT&T pavilion at Disney Land where the demonstrator lady held up "the phone of the future" and asked, "see anything unusual about it?"  It had NO WIRES!  Whoa!

Fast forward to April 3, 1973.  One Mr. Marty Cooper, a techie at Motorola, called his buddy Joel Engle, another techie working for AT&T, and said, "Suck it Engle.  I'm calling from the world's first completely portable mobile phone.  It's gonna be a real chick magnet.  I win."

And that's where it all began.

As I recall the first dilemma was whether to get a bag phone with more power and better range....

....or a less powerful but much cooler looking brick phone.

I remember my friend Jim Williams had a very early mobile phone installed in his truck.  It had a box the size of a computer tower (remember computer towers?) behind the seat, an antennae on top of the cab, and a handset....with a cord.  He was considered a complete nerd in his day.  And a rich nerd because it cost over 2 Grand.

I was a late bloomer.  I didn't get my first cell phone until the early 90's as best I can remember.  It looked something like this:

I remember I had it about a week before I ever talked on it because I was afraid of going over my minutes.  I would pull it out and show friends, flip it open and show off the lighted keypad, then very carefully replace it in it's belt-mounted case.  Smokin' hot!

I especially liked it when my wife called me when I was at the grocery store and told me to get such-and-such while I was there.  This was significant because she once called the office at Tom Thumb (the grocery store) and asked them to get word to me to pick up something she remembered she needed.  

They fired up their PA system and announced, "Customer Scott Park....customer Scott Park....your wife wants you to get some butter and some cream cheese, too."  (True story!)  I couldn't find a hole deep enough to crawl into and hide.

Here it is today 40 years (this week) after Marty called his buddy and razzed him, and now there are six billion cell phones in the world.  I was wondering how that could be as there are only six billion people in the world, but then I saw this....

and this....

....so I guess it's possible.

Then came the smart phone duel between Steve Jobs and Kimchee Samsung*.  I have an ancient iPhone4, while K has a Samsung Galaxy #?.  She says hers is better, but I'm used to Apple and afraid of change.  The new Samsung is out now and Apple's next new version is expected to be out as soon as June.  And I'm due an upgrade.  Decisions, decisions.

See what you've done Marty?

S

*Not his real first name, but it was the only other Korean word I knew.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't

My eyesight sucks.  I've worn glasses since I was a little kid, and later in life tried contact lens, but found them to be more trouble than they were worth.  They were just very uncomfortable, and besides, by then I was totally used to glasses.  And oddly enough, as I'm nearsighted, I sometimes take my glasses off to read if the print is too small.

Then about 8 or 9 years ago (I never did have a good sense of time) I had a series of detached retinas in my left eye....they kept lasering it back on, it kept coming back off.  They finally got that fixed, but the result is I have zero peripheral vision on my left side.

My right eye has gotten substantially stronger to compensate. (Thank you God!)  You learn how to get by.  For example, I put one of those tiny convex (?) mirrors on my driver's side rearview mirror to help me with my blind spot when I drive....so far so good.

A couple months ago I had a spot on the side of my nose (where my eyeglasses rest) removed as it was diagnosed as skin cancer.  The cancer is all gone, but in the process they mucked up the tear duct in my good eye.  GRRR!  What was it Roseanne Roseanna Dana said on SNL?..."It's always something".

Now here's the other side of my conundrum:  I hate carrying stuff around.  Unlike what the late actor Karl Mauldin said in his TV commercial, if it won't fit in my pockets, I DO leave home without it.  "Travel light, freeze at night."  I finally broke down and started carrying sunglasses, which for me was a major concession.

E-readers have been a mixed blessing.  I loved my Kindle, but it was limited.  I wanted to be able to check email and the internet while on the move.  iPhone to the rescue.  Sort of.  It met my requirement of being small and "carryable", but dang that print was tiny!  I mean, you can only stretch/enlarge something so much.

Next, the iPad.  UGH!  Waaaaay too big to tote around.  How about a tablet?  Better....  I bought a Samsung Whizbang III (this was before the iPad mini), and it's worked pretty well.  Still a hassle to carry, but all things considered it could be worse.  Yesterday it was a beautiful day and K and I settled in to a nice table outside Starbucks to drink coffee and read, but the sun's glare off my tablet made reading virtually impossible.  UGH again!

What I need is a screen the size of my gigantic iMac screen that folds in half, then half again, then half again, then half again, and fits in my shirt pocket.  Can any of you really smart geeky-type people help me out here? Invent me one, oh, and dip it in that non-glare stuff, too, while you're at it.  And please hurry....I'm not getting any younger.

S

OK, so geography isn't their forte....

BREAKING NEWS:  Apple Maps is projecting Hurricane Sandy will strike California around midnight tonight.  (Seriously, I hope all my friends in the path of that storm come through safely.)

Not much to talk about today.  Yesterday was my day for football....college football in my case.  I had the unpleasant experience of watching my Texas Tech Red Raiders have their head handed to them by Kansas State, 55-24.  Disappointed yes, but surprised, no.  KState is really good.  Solid all the way around, a true Heisman contender at QB, and expertly coached.  They should be #2 in the BCS poll after this weekend, which means they very well could be playing for the national championship in early January.

K and I went to Starbucks for our weekly coffee and read, then went to the mall near our home to just walk around and people watch.  I never tire of people watching.  Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung all had kiosks set up hawking their newest gadgets.  I asked the Samsung guy why my Galaxy Tab(let) 7.0 didn't come with an owners manual?  His response:  *deer in the headlights look*  It seems it's available online, but it's 100+ pages long....no way I'm gonna print it all out.

I want a simple little booklet like every other gadget in the world comes with.  While at the mall I stopped in to Barnes and Noble and found a "How-to" booklet which will answer my basic questions and is dumbed down to something I might understand.  (Wonder if it knows how technologically dumb I really am?)  Wish me luck.

That's enough drivel for now.  Have a nice Sunday evening everyone.

S