KingAnt.net

You know how at the end of Star Wars – Episode II, Attack of the Clones Yoda is attacking the evil Count Dooku, and he’s like flipping all over the place with his lightsaber and jumping around like crazy? Shaun White is just like that, but with a snowboard instead of a lightsaber.

I don’t like this whole business about “sign a contract for two years and we’ll give you a subsidized phone” (I touched on this a few months ago). It means the wireless carrier recoups the cost of your phone through your monthly fee, which means your monthly fee is higher.

However, when your contract ends you continue to pay the same price. Which means that, as a consumer, if you don’t upgrade your phone as soon as your contract ends then you’re effectively paying for something you’re not getting.

I would much rather pay full price for a phone up front, and have a monthly fee that reflects only the cost of the service and not the cost of the phone. And then consumers can choose to upgrade their phone whenever they wish. Be it after 1 year or after 4.

I recently learned that T-Mobile actually does this. Their service plans are $10 less per month if you don’t have a contract/subsidized phone. If you’re looking at buying a new phone and wondering if you should sign a new 2 year contract, you can look at the price of the phone with and without the contract. If you would pay less than $240 more for a non-subsidized phone, then in the long run you’re probably better off not signing the contract.

And T-Mobile is already cheaper than AT&T and Verizon. While I pay $60 a month for 300 minutes+400 SMS+unlimited data, Emily pays $75 for 450 minutes+200 SMS+unlimited data. And if we both continue to use the same phone after our contracts expire, mine will go down by $10 and hers will stay the same.

Thank you, T-Mobile!

This really is a perfect idea: “Wireless carriers should define the early termination fee as whatever the difference is between the no-contract price and the subsidized two-year contract price, and prorate that cost over the 24 months of the contract.” (from this article)

Mark’s Theorem 1: If you’re trying to do something and not making any progress, do something else.
Mark’s Theorem 2: If you’re trying to do something and making lots of progress, keep doing it.

The SDK for the next version of the Android operating system, 1.6 aka “Donut,” was released last week. The SDK is the set of packaged files that developers use to create applications for version 1.6. Wireless carriers generally push the updated version to devices within a month or two of the SDK release.

I was pretty blown away by a few of the additions:

• Battery usage indicator that shows which applications are consuming your device’s battery, out of a percentage of 100
• Support for four varieties of VPNs: L2TP/IPSEC pre-shared key, L2TP/IPsec certificate, L2TP only, and PPTP only (see screenshots of configuration)
• Device-wide search. Applications can provide search results. So if you search for a friend’s name, the Meebo IM application could return that buddy as a search result, and clicking the buddy could open an IM conversation with them.
• Built-in text-to-speech APIs for applications. For example, the Meebo IM application could speak your incoming IMs if your device’s screen is not active.
• Support for CDMA
• Gestures

I’ve also noticed what appears to be a system wide password safe/keychain/credential store. Here’s a screenshot of some new options from the bottom of Settings –> Security & Location:

This should theoretically allow applications to store sensitive information in a secure way. However, this wasn’t mentioned in the release notes and the API documentation is “hidden,” meaning developers aren’t intended to use the classes yet. The classes are android.security.CertTool android.security.KeyTool android.security.Reply and android.security.ServiceCommand. These classes seem to only used by the Settings application for storing Wifi and VPN credentials.

I tested out the password store with the VPN and it seems to work well–I tried to import a .p12 file and it prompted me to enter the password to unlock my credential storage. I’m not sure if the authorization eventually times out.

I think Android needs a system-wide password storage facility pretty badly, and I really hope they publicize this API in the future. There exists an open source password safe called OI Safe which works well, but this really needs to be a part of the operating system so that applications can depend on it.

In this web log entry I complained about National Water and Power, but then I realized I have already complained about them.

As an addendum, if you forget your password they email it to you. Emailing someone their password is not secure, please never do it ever. This means they store everyone’s password on their servers effectively in plain text. What is it about utility companies that makes them suck so bad?

Edit: Here, check this out (click for full-size version). I’m supposed to read their Terms of Use freaking 8 words at a time. Thanks guys. All that extra space on the page and you couldn’t have made this box any bigger?

Comcast has started doing that thing where opening a totally bogus URL in a web browser will send you to a crappy search results page. More information here.

I hate this. Partially because it has the potential to break stuff and I’m the kind of guy who feels that standards exist for a reason. But also because it’s slow. I would rather see either an immediate error page or a Google Search, both of which are faster.

I recently changed my address for my Health Savings Account with Wells Fargo. They mailed a letter to me at my new address that says, “If you did not request these changes or have any questions, please contact our Customer Service Center.”

Seems kind of useless. Maybe they should have mailed this to my old address?

From: Yours Truly
To: Haynes Automotive Repair Manual for Honda Civic 1996-1998 and Acura Integra 1994-1998

Dear Chapter 11 Section 25,
I believe your step #5 to be somewhat misleading. It reads, “Remove the lower screws securing the sound insulator panel to the lower steering cover, then remove the steering column cover retaining screws (see illustration)” The first half of this step is accurate, and is correctly reflected in the picture. However, I have found that in a 1998 Acura Integra the steering column cover retaining screws do not need to be removed.

Also, your instructions should probably mention that there is a third screw behind the coin tray, and that the coin tray can be removed by depressing the two buttons on the top side of the coin pocket and folding it down all the way, then using a flat piece of metal such as a flat head screw driver to carefully but firmly lever the bottom left corner of the body panel away from the coin tray so that it pops out.

Thank you,
Mark Doliner

I just installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate in a VM. The VM restarted after installing some updates and showed this message:

Do not turn off your computer? Really? What if my power goes out? Will something break? Will it not recover automatically? Will it become unusable and I’ll be forced to repair it or something? Because that’s pretty shitty. It’s 2009–things like this need to be error proof. If you can’t handle that then get out of the operating system business.

I’m pretty selective about the stuff I use. For mice I prefer:

• Wired, not wireless. I don’t like the extra weight/inertia of batteries. I don’t really see a benefit for my usage, and it seems like a hassle to have to charge or replace batteries.
• Optical. Cleaning gunk out of a mouse wheel is tiring. Do they even make mice with balls anymore? I guess probably the males.
• Reasonably high refresh rate.
• I’ve never gotten into the habit of side/thumb buttons, and I tend to click them on accident more than on purpose.

For the past few years I’ve been using a Micosoft Intellimouse Explorer. It’s ok, but I had some problems with it (see the review for more details) so I decided to switch.

I’ve been using a Razer Salmosa for the past few weeks and I’m happy with it. For some reason the Razer company makes some really expensive mice. I don’t know what would justify a $129 mouse. Maybe it solves world hunger one click at a time.

This is long and self-centered. You probably don’t want to read it.

1. I value my time. Like, a lot. I’m pretty busy. From August through December last year I worked on average about 60 hours a week at Meebo, and somewhere between 5 and 10 hours a week on Pidgin (a lot of time was spent migrating to our new servers and reconfiguring services). I spent about 5 hours a week rock climbing and maybe 40 minutes running. I spent the rest of my free time relaxing with Emily, and I really value that time.
2. I care about people, my country, and this planet.

These two themes affect my feelings on a lot of other things:

• I despise spam. You have no idea. In my life I’ve spent hundreds of hours deleting spam email and configuring spam detection and filtering on mail servers and mail clients (thankfully gmail takes this burden away from me).

  Think of everyone else in the world who deals with spam on a daily basis. People clicking “delete” on spam in their inbox. Companies who sell spam filtering software and hardware. Companies who buy spam filtering software and hardware. IT staff who install and configure spam filtering software and hardware. Surely a significantly greater amount of money is spent trying to block spam than is earned by the people who send spam. People who send spam are parasites of society. They cause countless man hours to be wasted for their own gain. Think of what could be accomplished if all this time and energy was spent doing something worthwhile.

• I don’t like wasting other people’s time. I try to be on time. I try not to ask other people to do things that I could easily do myself. I try to be as fast as possible whenever I’m in line at a retail store, bank, restaurant, etc.
• I don’t like it when other people waste my time. Being late for meetings, being slow, being lazy, etc. Obviously some things are out of your control, and you really can’t hold those against people.

On Emily and my flight back from Raleigh to San Francisco on New Years Day we missed our connection in Atlanta because our flight was late leaving Raleigh. We were forced to spend the night in Atlanta, which ended up making us about 15 hours late getting home. There were 7 people total who missed the flight by only a few minutes.

But the annoying thing is that we could have been on the plane. We ran from our arrival gate to our departure gate. Three of us were there 5 minutes before the schedule take off time of the plane, and the other 4 weren’t much later. We saw the plane sit at the gate for maybe 10 minutes before it pushed back. Our luggage made it onto that plane, but because the gate attendants had already closed the door and were no where in sight, we couldn’t board.

That’s 7 people who were delayed 15 hours. No only that, the flight we were on the next morning was now oversold. Which means 7 other people were delayed. The airline paid for our dinner, a hotel, and breakfast the next morning. All in all that’s thousands of dollars wasted because the Delta employees working in the terminals in the Atlanta airport didn’t wait for the passengers who they should have known were coming. Ridiculous.

To say I was livid is an understatement. We waited in line for maybe 20 minutes to talk to the customer service lady to get our flight rescheduled and to get meal and hotel vouchers. There were 3 Delta employees in the area, but only 1 seemed to actually be doing anything. In fact, while we were talking with the employee who was actually useful, one of the other employees came over and complained about how long the line was. WTF?

I know the entire airline industry is doing pretty poorly, and part of me feels bad, but another part of me is like, “oh, no wonder.” Your uselessness is costing the airline industry money. And that trickles down to everyone. You may not have noticed but the US economy isn’t in real great shape. Maybe you should actually do some work?

I’m not sure there is a mobile phone provider in the US that I would be happy with.

• AT&T – I was always happy with their service. But I feel like it’s too expensive. I also feel like it’s a mistake for them to waste money to only double the speed of their 3G network. I think AT&T and their customers would be better off if they didn’t upgrade their 3G network, reduced prices, and accelerated the launch of their 4G/LTE network.
• T-Mobile – Their coverage is noticeably worse than AT&T where I live, and pretty much the entire way down Highway 1 to LA. In our old apartment on the corner of Evelyn and Mary in Sunnyvale I didn’t even have voice coverage. And 3G coverage is spotty everywhere. I do feel like their prices are reasonable when compared to AT&T. They might want to give up on 3G and instead launch LTE before AT&T and Verizon.
• Verizon and Sprint – I don’t have personal experience with either, but CDMA? Come on. GSM seems more prominent in countries I care about. And while I don’t travel much and probably wouldn’t even use my phone overseas if I did, I think there is a lot of value to interoperability. I’d consider Verizon and Sprint only after they’ve switched to LTE.

And woo boy, I hate that unlimited data plans don’t unilaterally include unlimited text messaging. This is one of those things where carriers charge consumers because they can, not because the pricing model is fair. And while that’s a reasonable business decision (although aggressive), I find it really disrespectful to the consumer. Services should cost an amount proportional to the overhead it causes on the carrier. Twenty cents to send 100 bytes is insulting.

The unjust cost of SMS is my primary motivation to make a kick ass IM client for Android. It’s why I’m willing to work so hard on it. And why I won’t stop until I’m satisfied with the product.

Just watched Hackers for the first time ever. Pretty entertaining. Decent soundtrack (or two or three?) Orbital, Underworld, a Massive Attack song with Tracey Thorn (although I don’t see it on any of those albums). A few mentions of the words “elite” and “leet” and someone uses the phrase “blowin’ up” with regards to his pager beeping–pretty early references in my mind (1995).

Pro Tip: If you want your movie to look silly in a few years, try adding a camera flyby that depicts the inside of a computer, and use as much neon as possible.

Dear California Government and US Federal Government,

Quit fucking borrowing money. It’s how you got into this mess. It might make things better in the next two years, but it’s reckless to assume you’ll magically be able to afford to pay back all your loans in the future. It’s also irresponsible to force your debt onto future generations. Suck it up and create a balanced budget. Cut spending, raise taxes, whatever.

I’m a 27 year old kid who tinkers with computers. You are responsible politicians and this is your job. Please stop screwing up.

Yours,
Mark