A Child Of Atom

In the course of talking with a friend while hiking the other day I admitted to three moments of deep geekery when it comes to calendar dates in my life.

1) Today is Darwin 15th, 40 -- Sometime around 11th grade I read an article touting the "Tranquility Calender." A 13 month calender, designed for scientific use where each month has 28 days, and dates fall on the same day every year. To account for the 365th day there is Armstrong day, a day outside any month, and in leap years Aldrin day. I promptly started dating all of my papers and notes using this system. That lasted for about a year.

2) Today is the Feast of St. Bartholomew -- In art school I began a fascination with Saints Icons and Saints Days, and promptly started appending any date that I wrote down with the appropriate Saints Day. That lasted about two years.

3) Today is the first day of World Hearing Aid Awareness Week -- A few years ago I began an ongoing fascination with... odd holidays... you can read all about those here.

So... what does it say about me that for years now I have been looking for alternative ways to mark events in my life?

One of my favorite authors is fighting with one of my favorite net-denizens... I have a feeling that I would ultimately come down on Ze Frank's side... but don't make me choose boys!

Why do some people have an irrational hatred of Macs? I mean... I understand that there are reasons not to like them, the closed operating systems, the inability to change component parts, etc. etc. blah blah. By why do people just hate the very mention of them? I had the admin of a network today throw up his hands and proclaim that it was my own problem that my "devil machine" couldn't access his wireless network. Nothing he could do about it. Macs "just aren't compatible."

Well... yes... that is true... in 1995. Macs have been seamlessly compatible with PC networks for years now, I have NEVER had any trouble getting on a wireless network that was anything beyond being given the wrong password or the like. It's patently ridiculous. But what it does mean is that I am back in the boat of having to drive 5 miles to get computer access. At least I bought my phone before I left, that helps quite a bit.

My plan was to hit the AT&T store across the street from my office yesterday. At noon the line was down the block. At :30 when I checked back they were sold out. The closest Apple Store to the office had... I'm estimating... 500 people in line. I checked the Soho store and the line was even longer. Having my bag with my laptop and other work stuff in it I decided to head home phoneless. I briefly considered going down to the 5th ave store in the middle of the night (it's 24 hours) but decided I'd rather sleep. So I headed out about 10 this morning, arriving at the store at 10:45. Since it was pouring rain they had moved the line inside. It wasn't terribly long 1:15 from entering the line I had my new baby in hand! I am now an iPhone user! Finally I can have my whole music collection with me again. Urban caching is much easier, won't need my GPS. The 365 Project is easier with no extra camera to carry. And of course unlimited net access anytime anywhere!

And the best part, with the Christmas gift card from my mom, and the anticipated resell proceeds on my iPod touch... it was zero cost to me!

Speaking to the line handlers at the store they processed 5000+ people yesterday, and had over 2 hour waits even at 3 am, so going down in the middle of the night was probably NOT the right choice after all, it was MUCH easier this morning.

Yes, 32 gigs! Addition of MMS and video functionality! Voice control! And a feature that excites me to no end, and was totally unexpected, the ability to not only book a Zipcar through an app on the phone, but the phone acts as the keycard! WOW!! June 19th... June 19th... I only have to wait until June 19th...

Apple's WWDC Keynote is tomorrow afternoon at 1. Rumors are flying all over the net about what is to be announced, but all I care about is the one thing that I have said all along that I am holding out for: 32 gigs of memory. I will most likely be going iPhone after tomorrow regardless, but I will be MUCH happier if tomorrow brings me those 32 gigs. If it also includes the capability of having a bluetooth headset for listening to music as well as making calls then I'll be in heavan because it will mean that I wll be 100% capable of creating the wrist computer that I have been longing for.

Is it just me, or was the JJ Abrams Trek reboot that everyone is gushing over not such a good movie?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and I'm happy to accept these as the new faces of Trek, it was visually very attractive, and I'll go and see the next one but... without the good will of the former installments of the franchise to prop itself up, would this have been as well accepted? Try to imagine this movie with no former knowledge of the characters. Would it even make sense? We have 20 years of Trek history that tells us that Spock left Starfleet to become an ambassador to Romulus to heal the schism between the Vulcans and the Romulans. The movie gives us less than a minute's explanation of Old Spock's role in the former history of the universe, and without my prior knowledge I doubt I would have followed it very well. There is no real explanation of why the Kobiashi Maru is so difficult and dreaded, and why it is so staggering that Kirk "beat" it. There's no discussion of who the Vulcan's are and what their stance on logic and emotion is.... etc. etc. The movie seems like it expects us to KNOW all that back story.

Look at it like this, if you had absolutely ZERO prior knowledge of these characters what you end up with is a story about a not very competent organization that allows a troupe of half trained, hopped up cadets, who routinely lie about their abilities to lead a mission. Kirk is douchebag with anger management issues who charms his way into a completely undeserved field promotion (were there are NO senior officers on that ship other than Pike?) that he then builds upon by coercing and manipulating his superior officer. Sulu lies about being combat trained and possibly about being an experienced pilot. McCoy lies and commits fraud to get his friend onto the ship. Uhura abuses her personal relationship with her superior to get a plum assignment. Scotty assumes command of the engineering section of a ship that he isn't even assigned to after abandoning the facility that he WAS assigned to, not to mention marooning his fellow officer. Spock assaults a member of his crew, nearly killing him, but is allowed to walk off the bridge with nothing more than a sad look from Uhura. These people come off as a collection of reprobates and assholes... but we accept them because we know from previous experience that they are actually a competent and thoughtful group that are really very good at their jobs. (Or at least will be when they grow up.) Without that... I feel like what you have is a pretty bad movie. Agree? Disagree?