Happy 25th, Amiga

On July 24th, 1985, Jay Miner’s revolutionary computer, the A1000, became a reality...and the envy of the entire computer industry for years to come.

The Amiga community was, and to some extent still is, incredibly passionate about it’s platform. I stayed loyal to the Amiga until 1998, four years after Commodore’s demise. I jumped ship when I found another community whose users were equally passionate about their platform...the Mac community. It’s not that I abandoned my Amigas. I still own my original A500, along with an A2000 and A2500. I just realized that the savior that everyone said was coming, was never going to show up. Plus, the 7MHz 68000 Motorola processor was starting to feel a little slow :(

Happy 25th Anniversary, Amiga. Here’s to keeping the memory alive for the 50th Anniversary celebration.

For an incredibly, and I mean incredibly, in-depth and detailed look at Commodore and the Amiga, I highly recommend the book On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall. Unfortunately, a book about the magical and revolutionary Amiga is not available on the magical and revolutionary iPad :(

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Hey, What About Us?

Feeling a little left out after Steve Jobs failed to mention them during his press conference, Nokia fired off a rebuttal regarding antenna design, explaining how they prioritize antenna performance.

Well, OK. Great. Now they, too, have a video on Apple's antenna page showing how well their prioritized antenna works when held wrong.

Happy now?

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I Don’t Own A Suit Either

Wired Magazine's article on the rocky relationship between Apple and AT&T has one of the best quotes I've ever read.

“We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”

This was in response to AT&T requesting that Steve Jobs wear a suit to meet with AT&T honchos.

WIN.

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Free Bumpers. Happy Now?

I just finished watching the video feed of Apple's July 16th Press Conference (regarding the iPhone 4 antenna hooplah). And, man, was Steve's frustration ever so immediately evident. I know the look well. I'm sure everyone's been put in a situation where something so incredibly stupid is happening it's beyond utter comprehension. And since most of the antenna noise was created by the media and not iPhone users themselves, the source of Steve's frustration was sitting right there in front of him.

Let me be clear here. Apple created the problem by putting a bare, uncoated antenna on the outside of the phone. The media, however, blew this thing way out of proportion. Way, way out...considering that the antenna issue is a minor problem at worst. And one that has a relatively easy fix. Put the iPhone in a case or a rubber bumper (or slap an Antenn-aid on it). Problem solved. If you listened to the media, you'd think the iPhone had a critical failure that prevented it from making calls. Period. Even competitors were jumping on the bashing bandwagon. Kevin Turner from Microsoft said that the iPhone 4 could very well be Apple's Vista. Riiiight. Microsoft wishes they had sold three million copies of Vista in three weeks.

And so, Steve comes out swinging at the press conference. If the competitors are going to pile on, he'll just reveal an industry dirty secret. Guess what? All phones have an antenna flaw. Others just hide it, instead of making it obvious where "X marks the spot".

You'll notice his frustration really peaks when he announces, with a hint of distain, that everyone will get a free case.

"OK. Great. Let's give everyone a free case."

I think it was the right decision. It makes the problem go away. End of story. And if a free case is not good enough, you also have the option of returning the phone for a full refund. Full refund. That should take some of the ooomph out of those pesky class-action lawsuits.

I followed the press conference live via Macworld. What's not shown in the video feed is the Q&A session that happened afterwards. I think Steve should have quit after the conference and foregone the Q&A, but I suppose if you call the media for a press conference, you have to stick around and answer some of their questions. There was a portion where Steve lashed out at Google, which kind of gave away that the whole Google situation is getting to him. I'm sure it brings back old memories, since Google punked Steve pretty much the same way Bill Gates punked him 20 years earlier. Or as they say, history repeating itself.

Steve also reiterated that Apple loves all of it's users. Heh, keep telling yourself that, because a portion of them are assholes, and, to quote Louis C.K again, a bunch of "non-contributing zeros". No one needs to love them. Instead of being reasonable, a lot of these "users" think that everything should work flawlessly...everytime. Awww, so you dropped a call. Then, when you removed your big, sweaty palm from the antenna gap, did you experience the miracle of wireless telephony, making a phone call, through the air, with no cord, while moving about freely, holding a conversation with someone who was not in your immediate vicinity? Today's technology really is being "wasted on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots". Indeed.

Just think about what your computer has to do to receive or send data on the internet. Your system breaks the data down into small 1200-1500 byte sized packets. It locates the destination host on the internet, amongst the billions of hosts out there wherever they may be in the world, wired or wireless. It takes the packet and transmits it on a crowded line in the form of electrical or light pulses, each pulse representing a one or zero. Over and over again, until your data is sent. Then the machine on the other end repeats the process while yours takes all those little received packets and re-assembles them into data your application can use. Imagine how much traffic your system deals with when streaming video (like the Apple Press Conference feed). Making sure each packet is put in the correct order even though it may not be received in the correct order, so the video plays, you know, in order. The fact my computer does this on the internet, fairly reliably, with millions upon millions of other users doing the same thing at the same time, and only my packets reaching me, and it all happens in the few blinks of an eye is...truly amazing. But no one thinks about this. Let a video buffer too many times or Twitter goes down for 20 minutes or people can't plant their virtual corn and the whine from these "users" gets so loud you'd think the world was coming to an end. Give it a minute, it's going to space :)

OK, got off on a tangent there. Whoops.

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*[This post would not have been possible without the comedy of Louis C.K. We do live in an amazing, amazing world]

I'm Sweating The Wrong Way

Enough is enough. The temperatures have been in the high 90s all week long. I've discussed this issue with a few people and we all agree that it's too damn hot and something needs to be done about it.

Taking a cue from the internet, I feel that my only avenue of recourse is to do a lot of whining (and maybe a YouTube video showing the sun shining brightly)...and then bring forth a class-action lawsuit against...the weather.

Yes, the weather. Be prepared to be served.

These high temperatures brought on by pure, unblocked rays of sunshine on cloud-less days are making me cranky and irritable. And hot.

Yeah, I could do the sensible thing and stay indoors, but as a user of the services Earth has to offer, I feel that I should not be confined to a temperature-controlled environment. I also should not be forced to encase my skin in gooey sunscreen or purchase a hat to keep the sun out of my face or sunglasses to protect my retinas from burning out.

Therefore, I am seeking that the weather immediately bring the temperatures down to a more human-friendly level. I want the weather to provide shade on the hot days in the form of sun-blocking clouds. Should temperatures rise, I want a guarantee from the weather that it will provide cooling precipitation. And I demand that everyone in the class-action receive a free day of low temperatures, with or without precipitation at the plaintiff's choosing...and the days can not be given out concurrently.

This might sound like I'm blowing things out of proportion here. Not the case. I need my fifteen minutes of fame.

I imagine the weather will hold some sort of press conference tomorrow, demonstrating that we have the best weather of all the planets (Mercury has it alot worse!), and this hot thing only affects a few whiney users.

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