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So I got this here iPhone about half a year ago.  I was thinking of doing a review of it as my blog was going to be up not too long after that.  But alas, the blog didn’t really get going until about a month later than I would have liked to write a review… plus I wasn’t sure I was going to write one in the first place.

Regardless!  I gotta say this: I recently downloaded some new apps for my iPhone prior to going on Christmas vacation, and after installing Google Earth, Public Radio Tuner, Ocarina, and The Price is Right… I was just like “damn, AMAZIIIIIIIIIIIING!”  This was probably the fifth time I’ve had this type of reaction to some sort of iPhone related thing.  I mean, I’ve said a lot of “WOW!”’s, but to get to the amazing shouting levels is not the easiest thing.

Instead of going on about the awesomeness that is iPhone, the convenience of it, all the help and time saving it provides, the beauty of the design and interface, the great hardware features, the intuitiveness and comfort of using it, the endless expansion and enhancement of it due to the App Store… I just want to say what I’ve said to others a number of times: The iPhone is probably the most amazing piece of technology to date.  It’s just one of those few things that actually seems like it’s from 2007/2008.  Just amazing.

In the last of my series of negative posts in a row here: Oh my god, WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.

So I got this question as part of a recent email from my British buddy Sam who just started working for the NHS as his first major job:

…I’m entitled to at least 5 weeks annual leave/holiday every year for this job. Oh speaking of which someone at work mentioned that people in the US are only entitled to only 2 weeks annual/holiday leave every year? Trey said this was true but I’m surprised if it applies for the whole country as I didn’t think it was that bad for something like that? (if so tell Obama that needs to change!).

 …and isn’t two weeks somewhat of a good start?  Don’t you get only one week at many places?  What’s more unacceptable is as follows:  I work for a contractor, but I work full time, 40-hour weeks, and yet I don’t get any sort of actual health insurance from them, and I don’t get sick days.  All I really get is paid holidays (as in, national holiday individual days), and even that only started after six months of work.  So, a couple months ago I was out sick for two or three days and as a result I do not get paid for those days.  So basically, I get penalized for being sick… and am provided with no health insurance… and am working full-time - HOW IS THIS LEGAL?

The lack of respect for labor in this country is disgusting.  More and more-so as you go down the wage scale.  For example, in the American retail sector, you are really treated as a second class piece of shit, in most cases.  I worked at a store in a Westfield Mall a few years ago, and besides the poor pay, when the holidays roll around, you better lay down on the ground and let everybody walk all over you.  As one example, at the start of the holiday shopping season you get these notices that employees must park in this way far away parking lot, from which you either have to walk all the way back/to the mall in the cold, or wait for a shuttle van to pick you up, which will be playing Christmas music (you know, since mall employees haven’t had a chance to hear it every second of the work day - whoever the genius is that thought of that one - there could be a whole blog entry lambasting Westfield).  Anyway, so we had to park in this far away lot because “damn… ooohhhh… the shoppers are so much more important and better than us and have to take all the close spots, so you’d better smile at them a lot!”  Ok… so why is it that when you go to a university, all the front/good parking is reserved for the professors?  Are they not employees of the school?  And the students paying customers who wish to attend the university?

The university model makes sense to me and is a great display of respect for labor.  I guess labor is only somewhat respected in America when it is labor of high income.  There is something that really rubs me the wrong way with that.  And even then you don’t get much vacation time.

I was going through FAIL Blog’s YouTube videos and had the ultimate WTF face when I was watching this one:

That is just sad.  I’m thinking this has to be in North Korea, yet most of the video comments seem to say that this is in Japan?  I can’t imagine this being Japan.

I’m disappointed in Apple selling their iPhone through Wal-Mart now.  You know, cause Wal-Mart sucks majorly… and how can such a liberal company team up with such a conservative one!?  Disgusting!  It’s like WTF JARBZ!?

The ability to manipulate a machine does not make one an intelligent person.

I thought of this because you often hear automatic praise and high intelligence attribution to those who are, for example, computer programmers.  “Oh, he’s a programmer, he’s so smart.”  “He works with computers, you know, he’s smart.”  But is he, or she?  It is my assertion that there are a large number of such people out there who are fools when it comes to other subjects, issues, or dealings.  This is, at its base, obvious, and of course applicable to any field, be it doctors, lawyers, what have you.  I mean, I’m sure there’s a decent correlation between people in these higher wage fields and intelligence, but it certainly is not high enough to be considered a given.  I’ve noticed that persons in such positions often unfortunately assume their own intelligence as well.  Though sometimes true, one should not think it to be automatic.  Though if one does not think it to be automatic, they’re probably smarter than the one who does.

And no, I don’t think I’m the smartest guy on planet Earth.

…how about the fucking ability to manipulate those blockquote quotes (mine) = fail.

Hilarious/sad blog post.

A lot of ranting and raving about how great WordPress 2.7 is… but I can’t agree.  Sure it’s got some good improvements such as being able to re-arrange elements, comment control from the main dashboard, easier access to drafts, better plugin and upgrading system, a lotta good stuff, but I don’t like the color scheme in the Back End UI (either of the two options), I just had two cursors blinking, one in the title area and one in this body area, and here’s the main problem:

On the WordPress site linked above, it states:

Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks and be faster in 2.7 than it did in a previous version.

WRONG!!  Well, not wrong if the “nearly” part refers to omission of the visual editor.  The visual editor is now a CPU HOG!!!  I was trying to blog as usual and noticed that when I pressed backspace, there was a noticeable delay, and it doesn’t go away.  Further investigation reveals that somehow the visual editor is eating crazy amounts of CPU.  I’m sorry, I understand some slowdown for movable elements and the such, but something like text editing should become faster and more optimized, not majorly slower.  Do I have an old computer?  Yes, but not anything that shouldn’t be able to manipulate text!!  It’s an Athlon XP 2400+.  I also tried this on my fairly new MacBook.  Check out these stats:

Athlon XP 2400+, 2GHz | Windows XP | Firefox 3.0.4:

Deleting text: 60% CPU usage

Moving left/right with arrow keys between text: 100% CPU usage

MacBook Air, Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz | Mac OS 10.5 | Firefox 3.0.4:

Deleting text: 30% CPU usage

Moving left/right with arrow keys between text: 50% CPU usage

MacBook Air, Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz | Mac OS 10.5 | Safari 3.1.2:

Deleting text: 20% CPU usage

Moving left/right with arrow keys between text: 30% CPU usage

Now as you can see the faster browser, Safari, had the best results but damn… are you guys kidding me?  That much CPU usage for manipulating text!?!?  That’s insanity.  I do most of my blogging on this Windows box so I’m either going to have to downgrade my WordPress or suffer and hope for a patch.

Obvious on a personal level… damn it’s so cold!! This is like, I don’t think it’s ever been this cold here, look at this shit:

And it’s going to keep cold, getting down to within 5 degrees of freezing on Wednesday night!?  In LA!?!?  Dog-gone, five less degrees, some precip, and we’ll have snow.*

* I totally expect to be corrected by a weather/climate expert regarding snow not happening due to warmer precip off the ocean water or something.

LOL, that was a pretty good throw too, and pretty good dodging by Bush.

Update: The reporter yelled “This is a farewell kiss!” before throwing the first shoe, and then was yelling “Dog!” at Bush.  Also, Iraq cheers reporter for Bush shoe attack.