Who called it?

I called it.

Microsoft, Armani, and Samsung revealed the brand new and seriously overpriced Armani Phone (it hasn’t been given a price tag yet, but I’m sure it will cost far more than it should).

I can say with absolute certainty that I will not be purchasing this device, but you’re more than welcome to… help spend our way out of a recession.

The Academy Award for best use of a Metallica song goes to… Zombieland!

It also won the award for best celebrity cameo… but I really can’t tell you who, it would spoil far too much.

Seriously, I laughed so hard in this movie, it hurt. I’ve been out of the theaters for hours and I’m still laughing at it. When I go to work in the morning, I will be shocked if the clock strikes 9:30 and someone hasn’t made a Zombieland joke (I saw it with a number of my coworkers).

I’m calling it now: Cult classic.

The humor in this movie was brilliant and so geeky; I loved every second of it.

They don’t waste lines, they don’t waste scenes, the characters are likable, every odd joke is tied back to the characters in strangely meaningful ways (Twinkines anyone?), and it avoids all of the stupid horror clichés such as:

• The awkward, “we’re going to die sex scene”
• Picking off the cast one-by-one beginning with the funny black guy
• And my personal favorite, “oh no, it’s 2009 and my cellphone can’t get reception anywhere!” bit

Every victim in modern horror films must be on AT&T. Take that iPhone users! …with your cool phone and crappy network.

Go see Zombieland.

Thanks again boingboing.

I am exhausted far beyond my capacity for rational thought (which is rare even with the limited sleep I allow myself). With that in mind I am going to relay a public service announcement from regular TGW reader and fellow blogger pochp:

Keep a hardcopy of the serial number for your big ticket electronic devices (laptop, cellphone, iPod, etc). If they are stolen you are going to want to report the theft with a serial number. 

The odds of retrieval aren’t great, but having the serial number can help. It would also help with an insurance claim.

pochp’s blog is called Plato on-line.

I spent most of this past week visiting my younger brother in Arizona. On the flight back I had the great fortune to sit two seats away from an extraordinarily loud and obnoxious man. He happened to work in the same field that I do and claimed that he had great success… and oh boy was he a talker, and that’s coming from a guy who can talk your ear off. Seriously, the guy didn’t shut up until he passed out halfway through the flight. 

Wave to Eddie!

His many angry and inescapable monologues which he directed at me included everything from career advice, to his wife’s “excessive spending habits” (she sitting between us… I cannot tell you how awkward that was), to how “women are destroying the workplace,” to his rage over having to turn his cellphone off during air travel.

In an effort to cope with this guy’s schmucky, misogynistic diatribes I started to write this post in my mind. He was upset that he couldn’t use his cellphone on the plane (among many other things).

If I though that he would have listened I would have explained to him that the reason portable electronics aren’t allowed during takeoff and landing is because there is a concern that they could interfere with communications systems (which are crucial during takeoff and landing). There doesn’t seem to be any conclusive studies that confirm that electronics pose a threat to communications systems, however the FAA and Congress feel that on the outside chance they can cause a problem, it is better to annoy passengers for the first 20 and last 10 minutes of a flight by making them turn everything off instead of crashing a plane and killing everyone on board.

As far as the general cellphone ban on airplanes is concerned, it seems to have more to do with a general dislike of cellphone yappers in close quarters. This issue is still up for political debate. Personally, I think there are enough annoyances on flights: the screaming baby, the guy who hasn’t bathed in a week, the kid who keeps kicking your seat, or the ass who won’t stop ranting at you. I don’t really want to add the self-important business person who can’t put down his/her phone, or the chatty teenybopper who can’t sever the connections with her BFF during a flight to the list of “people you don’t want to sit near.” But that’s just me.

To answer the question of safety, I doubt that anyone’s Nintendo DS, cellphone, iPod, or laptop will bring down an airliner. If that were the case, it probably would have already happened. Plenty of people forget to turn these devices off or they turn on in your bag or pocket. So rest easy, your phone isn’t going to make the plane crash.

For more on this, you can read WiseGeek.

After years of multiple and propriatary cellphone chargers, the industry is rolling out a universal charger that will work for nearly all phones.

It’s about time!

This is a big win for consumers, usability, and environmental conservation.

They should be ubiquitous by 2012.

In the immortal words of The Tick: “Gravity is a harsh mistress.”

When using a flip phone, laptop, or any other device with a hinge, the closed position is always safest during a fall.

The more compact, closed position will almost always take a fall better than the open position. This has to do with a number of factors including:

Smaller surface area – there is less exposed that can break.

Screen exposure – it is less likely that the screen will crack if it isn’t stuck directly.

Self-reinforcement – the more compact, closed position will typically allow the devices parts to reinforce themselves a bit more.

The bottom-line - Keep your laptop or phone closed when you aren’t using it. Especially if it is in a precarious position. 

This won’t necessarily save your device, but it will increase the odds of it surviving a fall. 

If you drop you device in water, follow these instructions: 

http://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/saving-a-drowning-cellphone/

Practice safe computing by not dropping the delicate electronics!

A friend of mine always has a song play (seemingly endlessly) as his voicemail recording. I call because I need to get him some important information and I’m stuck listening Kanye West until the communication gods grant me mercy in the form of a beep. 

A reader has sent me a link to an article that has a number of nifty cellphone tricks. The one I’m most fond of is how to skip long voicemail messages. Unfortunately there isn’t one uniform method for all cell carriers, so the one hitch is that you must know the cell carrier of the person you are calling:

AT&T: press #
Sprint: press 1
T-Mobile: press #
Verizon: press *

If you want to learn more tricks, check out the original article:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2339983,00.asp

That’s all for tonight. I’m pretty bogged down with work on my thesis this evening. I’m really looking forward to finishing grad school in May.

Usually when one of our elected officials is proposing a law to regulate the use of technology, I start foaming at the mouth. However, for the first time in a long time, I actually think that a proposed tech-regulation law isn’t bad at all.

Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York thinks that silent cellphone cameras should be illegal and I think he actually has a point.

I’ve seen some creepy people do some sketchy things in classrooms, on trains, and in other public places with cellphone cameras. Silent cellphone cameras allow privacy invading weasels to take pictures without their anyone knowing. 

At least if the camera makes noise, people will see the person taking the picture.

The big problem with this is that it isn’t enforceable. For one thing, there are so many silent camera phones out there. A new law would only ensure that future camera phones are noisy. The other problem is that any properly motivated bastard with a voyeuristic streak will be able to find a way to silence their camera phone with either a software hack or a small modification to the hardware. 

Sadly this law can never be truly effective, but the intent and logic are solid and it would deter some less sophisticated or motivated perverts.

Making everyone into criminals is fun isn’t it? 

The National Safety Council is pushing for a universal ban on cellphone use for drivers. 

I hate to break it to them, but thats not going to work.

I grew up in New York, the first state to ban cellphone use by drivers. It didn’t work. It just meant that drivers had to get a headset, buy a cellphone with a speakerphone option, or master the fine art of lowering your phone as you pass by an officer of the law. 

This is a true waste of our police officers and courts time. Driving is dangerous, it seems that talking on a cellphone does increase that danger, but so does driving in bad weather (even a little rain increases your odds of getting into an accident). Additionally, I’m not sure how they are evaluating the correlation between cellphone use and accidents. Correlation does not always imply causation. Who’s to say the drivers who got into accidents while speaking on their phones weren’t just really bad drivers?

Furthermore, talking on one’s phone while driving is so socially acceptable that I cannot imagine the vast sum of time and money that would be required to stigmatize it to the point where a legal ban could have a substantive impact.

Thankfully there are organizations such as the Governors Highway Safety Association which object to the NSC’s proposed cell ban. 

All I can hope for is that this doesn’t grow into a national debate issue. There are too many problems that are bigger than this to consider. Maybe we can table this until some of the real problems have been dealt with.

For now, use some common sense while driving and leave my beloved technology alone.