What Was Old Is New Again
Japanese Cell Phone company NTT D0C0M0, which is technologically light years ahead of US cellular carriers just introduced a new feature called “Multinumber” service for mobile phones.
NTT DoCoMo Multinumber Service
Well, guess what suckers? We were doing that here in the US of A back in 1995..TEN YEARS AGO! Back then, I was peddling AirTouch cell phones with this fancy “Dual-NAM” feature that nobody ever wanted. Basically, it allowed you to have 2 phone numbers on your then-state-of-the-art AMPS brick phone. As far as I know, when the new digital cell phones started coming out, they did away with dual numbers on the phone….until now.
Creepy
North Korea creeps me out. It is pretty much completely shut off from the rest of the world. There is no email. There is no internet access. There are no outside TV stations or programming allowed, with the exception of the BBC in some areas. The North Korean people are totally shut off from current events around the world, and are only fed whatever information the government allows. On the other hand, South Korea has been gaining ground yearly as one of the foremost technologically advanced countries. Cell phones are prolific and most of the country is wired for broadband that runs well over 10Mbps. Still, the North Korean people live in a nation that is completely devoid of free information.
The fact that the people have not overthrown the current government is quite dumbfounding. North Korea makes China look like a democratic superhero. It’s both sickening and incredible that a government has been able to brainwash it’s entire populace into believing that their leaders are like Gods and should be revered as sovereign beings.
Dan Schorr is an attorney who has been attending Temple Law School in Beijing. He was recently allowed very limited access along with a few other Americans to North Korea. In and of itself, this is pretty amazing, as Americans are not normally allowed to enter the country, and North Korea only gets about two thousand western tourists a year. He has documented his trip on his blog along with some very interesting pictures of North Korea. Since there is no internet access in North Korea, and he was not allowed to take a laptop or cell phone with him, his account of the trip was posted after he returned to Beijing.
Dan Schorr – North Korea Trip, Day One
Dan Schorr – North Korea Trip, Day Two
Dan Schorr – North Korea Trip, Day Three
Dan Schorr – North Korea, Day Four
From the pictures, North Korea looks like a decent place to be. Unfortunately, the tour group had very limited access to the real people of North Korea, so pretty much everything that Dan saw and experienced was exactly what the North Korean government wanted him to see.
I would like to see what sorts of technology and innovation really do exist behind the walls of this hermit nation, but it seems that may never happen…
Technology That Sucks
Sometimes technology sucks. Maybe it’s because it’s old technology, or maybe it’s because it’s a stupid idea in the first place. It could even be a good idea, but just at the wrong time.
Here’s my current list of technology that sucks:
1. TV on cellphones. Why? Who would want to squint to try and watch a 1 or 2 inch screen? Plus the quality is downright horrible. It’s like real player circa 1997 over dial-up, total JUNK.
2. GPS for pdas. This seems like a great idea until you want to get actual map data. Detailed mapping data takes GIGS of space, so you will constantly end up loading and deleting map data for areas you will be in. Too much work for too little benefit.
3. POP email. Why are so many people still using pop3-based email? IMAP sk00lz POP in every way. Still using POP email? Then you = chump, especially if your HDD crashes…kiss that email goodbye.
4. LG Cellular Phones. I have never, ever seen an LG phone that did not look like a total piece of J-U-N-K. I briefly looked at Verizon Wireless as a cell provider and practically all they had were LG phones. I asked the guy, “Do you guys pride yourself in selling the world’s LAMEST handsets?”. Then I left.
5. Podcasting. It’s like AM radio for your ipod…[sarcasm]WHOOPIE![/sarcasm]. Do people really waste space on their ipods for this? Total suckage to the max.
6. Windows XP 64-bit. Be sure to install Windows XP Pro if you want to gain absolutely nothing while at the same time losing a buttload of device and application support. 64-bit totally sucks right now. Maybe in like 5 years when more stuff is running native 64-bit. Until then, what’s the point of running the OS in 64-bit mode while EVERY application, even virus scanning, runs in 32-bit mode?
These things are all stupid and irritate me. That’s all for now. Look for more technology that sucks in the future.
First “New Boss” Burn
So I got stuck at the office tonight waiting for parts for a busted Dell server and I got this brilliant idea to mess with my new boss’s phone. I was feeling pretty loopy, having been up since 5:30 this morning and figured, “why not?”. We’ll see how he takes it, come Monday.
Here you go, the very first BURN at my new job:
More Google Goodness
Google Reader is out in public beta, and boy is it cool. Just about every nerd out there [myself included] is already hootin’ and bloggin’ and hollerin’ about it.
It is definitely a slick interface, AJAX’ed to the max. I’ve been using bloglines when I don’t have access to Thunderbird, but the Google Reader interface is much better in my opinion (which pretty much means nothing). Grumble about Google all you want, but as long as they keep giving me juicy delicious free stuff, they are my pal.
And yes, OMPL import is supported, but it sure did take a while to import all my feeds…
Check it out for yourself:
UPDATE: I still think it’s kool, but it’s slow as molASSes right now. The keyboard shortcuts are totally rad, reminds me of the good old [noarrownavigation] vi days on HPUX11.
Interface with kb shortcut key guide:
