Shuttle Launch In Person

So I got the opportunity to go down to Florida and see the May 11th shuttle launch in person.  It was a fun day at the Space Center awaiting the launch and while it was a VERY hot day the launch itself was very cool.  I had expected it to be cool in the whole “I’m witnessing a Space Shuttle launch” way, but it was actually just an awesome sight.  Below are the on site witness video and the official hi-res NASA vid.

Oh and the brightness of the thrust is not captured in either video.  I actually thought to myself as I watched through my 8×40 binos:  I wonder if I should be staring straight at this -shrug- oh well.  :D

The Ultimate Netbook

Lenovo is taking suggestions for a higher quality ThinkPad netbook.  Here are mine:

The Ultimate Netbook: Think Sony P done right (bigger).

Using the Thinkpad Trackpoint & 100% sized keyboard but maintaining the wider format.  You get a 11-12″ screen with the footprint of a 10″ netbook.  Dial back Sony’s ridiculous res to the soon to be standard 1366×768. You have usable resolution on a screen large enough to not require squinting. Take the Asus/MSI over/under-clock to the next level with 1.12/1.66/1.84Ghz & focus on reasonable sized SSDs (32+GB) for the power savings & performance balancing act.  As much performance as possible is great but battery life is key.  8-10hrs would be great but 6+ (in the real world) is required.  Find a way to fit an expresscard/34 slot without losing too much and you’ll be at the head of the class for expandability.  And finally build quality, build quality, build quality.

Such a netbook could command a (relatively) premium price and sit between the std netbooks and ultraportables.

Smart Phones Lead To Mistrials

And you thought mixing cel phones and driving was bad… how about web enabled smart phones and sequestered juries?!

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”

Kindle App For The iPhone

iPhone owners such as myself can now get the Amazon ebook reader as a free app.  While the screen isn’t quite as paper like and battery life isn’t the same – the iphone is more portable even with the new Kindle’s thinner profile.  Oh and the app is $359 cheaper.

Glad I resisted my previous urge.