First day of soccer

We had a very hot first day to the youth soccer season with the temperature close to 100 degrees for the afternoon game at 1:20. By 3:00, things were cooling off fast and our second game was much more comfortable and successful. We lost the first game 4-2, but won the second 9-0. No games next weekend due to Labor Day.

In a first for me, I have my photos from both games online on the first day of the season, this time, in two forms. One is in the Gallery photo album format here while the other two are here and here using Simple Viewer. I prefer the Simple Viewer interface, but the size of the images is smaller and there is more work involved in putting that one together. It may be time to try out Slideshow Pro which creates a very nice photo browser.

iPhone unlocked

I heard this story on the radio this morning and also just saw it online. The iPhone has been unlocked, meaning you could buy one and use it with whatever carrier you choose, not just AT&T, and not just in the US. You wonder if Apple will try to stop it through software updates or legal action, or both. I don't have an iPhone and don't plan to get one due to my lack of interest in phones in general, but I might be more inclined to consider one if I didn't have to continue to go with AT&T. My contract expires next month and I look forward to getting poor service from some other carrier for a couple of years.

pe.com and new media - not a good impression

Newspapers have to adjust to changing times and competition from television and the web. Some do it better than others. PE.com is a local paper which has added some new media elements to their website, but you have to wonder what they were thinking. I checked out their video clip -- 10 questions with Stanford's Toby Gerhart. The video starts with a short and loud car commercial for Corona Chevrolet which is readable and has some motion graphics which look fine. Once the interview with Toby Gerhart starts however, we enter the dimension of overcompressed video which is so overcompressed that some of the questions, show in white on a black background, are completely unreadable. It's also impossible to see Toby's face because of the compression artifacts. The video is such poor quality that I wouldn't go back and watch another one. At least it plays directly on the web page.

The other new media feature on pe.com which is poorly done is the "podcast" feature available for every story. The first time I saw this I wondered how they could afford to create podcasts for all the stories each day. The answer is that they don't. The "podcasts" actually use speech synthesis to read the text of the story. Not something I'd go out of my way to listen to, but it might serve a purpose for someone who is visually impaired. Better than nothing but not much better.

Bathroom conversation

Last week we took a trip to Catalina island from Dana Point. Expensive and short, but it was fun. However, I had an encounter in the restroom prior to the boat ride which was very bizarre. I was in the only stall in the men's room and the bathroom was otherwise empty. Some guy came in and tried to open the stall door by shaking it. Then he said "I guess someone's in there" to himself. He waited about 30 seconds then announced loudly, "hey can you speed it up in there?" I ignored him only because I couldn't imagine that he was talking to me. 15 seconds later he yelled again "you need to speed it up in there! People are waiting." I don't think I've ever spoken to someone from a bathroom stall before, but I said "I've been in there for 2 minutes. Wait your turn." I left about a minute later and shook my head as I walked past him. I'm assuming that he had some issues which were not going to be resolved through any discussion I could have had with him.

White supremacists have to pay up (maybe)

Eight years ago I was on hold on the telephone waiting to talk with a real estate agent in Temecula when the local news came on. It mentioned that a number of local men were arrested in a white supremacist attack on a black man. Hearing that made me wonder if I really wanted to move to Temecula. Today, eight years later, that case was in the news again as the convicted attackers and their families have been ordered to pay the victim restitution. Who knows if he'll ever get the $5.6 million, but I hope he does. Fortunately, there have not been too many more cases like this around here recently, although there have been some.

Oakland Crimespotting site

I don't live in Oakland any more, but I still think the Oakland Crimespotting website is a very interesting use of technology. This is the kind of things that police departments or departments of public affairs could do in large cities to keep citizens informed. I know that I would like to be able to get an RSS feed or email updates related to crime in the places I live and work.

Gothscene.com for goths looking for dates

Where I live, in Temecula, there isn't much in the way of subcultures, just lots of conservatives and their families. Goths are few and far between, so if I was a goth looking for goth dating, I think it would be tough to find suitable goth guys or girls. Gothscene is a dating site for people looking for goths. It's free to join and to create a profile with a description and image and contact information. Check out the descriptions or photos and you can send a message or a flirt when you find someone interesting. The descriptions on this site are much more interesting than the ones I see on other dating sites I've looked at. I don't know if that has to do with the goth theme or not, but the people here are interesting and you may not run into them every day, but you can easily find them online at gothscene.

Deposition Day tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I have to give a deposition in a lawsuit my wife and I filed in regard to an auto accident 2.5 years ago. We tried to negotiate with the insurance company but they never made a reasonable offer to settle the case considering the medical bills and other costs associated with the accident. That was a big disappointment. Now we have lawyers involved and more money. I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow and I'm trying to make sure I have all the facts straight from something that happened a relatively long time ago. Since the deposition is given under oath, I want to be sure I don't contradict anything I said in the statement I already submitted.

PC laptop

We have almost all Macs in our house -- 1 Dell PC I bought 4 years ago is the exception. I think we have 8 or 9 Macs although not all are in use any longer. My sons like to play Runescape on the PC, so one of them decided he wanted a laptop. The lowest end Macbook would be close to $1000 new, so that didn't seem like a good option. Another possibility is to replace the hard drive in a 12 inch G4 Powerbook. I already have the drive, so there would only be the time involved in doing the work, something I've been putting off for months. A third option is a PC laptop. There are quite a few of them at around 500 - $600, but in most cases they don't seem like they would do a whole lot more than the G4 laptop. The other thing is that these PC laptops don't seem to come with much in the way of software. Most have Windows Vista Home Premium, although some have the Basic edition. Added to that is the trialware and usually a limited version of Microsoft Works. Not much of a deal. I think you get more with a Mac laptop, although I could download freeware/OSS like Picasa and Open Office and get what would be reasonable on the PC. It just seems like you don't get too much for the low price.