This morning after my daily toast and jam, I checked my email and saw a new one pop up with the subject line "How does it feel?" which came from an email address I didn't recognize. Naturally, I thought this was some kind of creepy spam that was advertising male "enhancement drugs" or some other crap, but I was also curious because usually one of my two spam filters manages to intercept stuff like this. So I opened it.
Much to my surprise, it wasn't spam. It was a reader(?) who was overjoyed to be telling me that "Your hero Steve Jobs is spying on you" and was asking "How does it feel to have your privacy raped by Apple?" Then there was a link to a website for an application called iPhone Tracker.
Apparently, your iPhone is constantly keeping track of everywhere you go and "secretly" saving this data. Then, when you sync your iPhone with your computer, iPhone transfers this information to your backup file. It also transfers the data when you migrate to a new iPhone or restore your data for some reason. Two guys names Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden stumbled across it and decided to write a program that allows you to display the data on a map, like so...
Everywhere in the USA I've been for the past ten months.
The tracking is surprisingly deep. This is a drive I made out of Chicago last July.
Three or four trips to Europe, all tracked!
The dots are obviously not actual locations in Corsica I visited... probably just cell towers iPhone signaled.
A drive down the Amalfi Coast in Italy.
Now, my first reaction when I opened the program on my Mac was THIS IS SO AWESOME!! I mean, heck, I actually bought an iPhone app called "Trip Journal" to track my travels... I could have saved some money if I had known the feature was built-in! My only disappointment was that the data only goes back to June 30th, 2010 and I wish it went back further.
But then the implications began to sink it.
The iPhone Tracker developers don't believe that this data is transmitted to Apple in any form, but that doesn't mean that Apple couldn't take a look at it in the future. This alone doesn't scare me much since AT&T already has a record of everywhere I go (they log call locations for billing purposes). What does concern me is that Apple doesn't disclose that this data is being collected. If somebody were to steal my laptop, they could potentially see everywhere I've been and I'd be none the wiser because nobody told me it was there when I bought my iPhone. Not that I really care... I always blog where I'm at and log my every move with Gowalla anyway, but still... this is not a good thing.
Mostly because this data could be used in devious ways now that everybody knows about it. Want to know if your wife is cheating on you? Pull up iPhone Tracker and you can see exactly where she's been at any point in time. Want to know what your kids are up to? Run iPhone Tracker and know everywhere they go. Want to stalk somebody? Break into their house and run iPhone Tracker on their computer so you can track their movement patterns. The list goes on and on.
Obviously I don't think there's any evil motive behind Apple logging this information. They're probably working on some cool new feature for iDevices which will use the data in an interesting way. But they really, really should have warned people that their location is being tracked and definitely give people the option to turn this "feature" off if they should so desire. At the very least they should be encrypting it so that it's not so ridiculously easy to view.
I'm not very paranoid by nature, but every time something like this pops up, I can't help but wonder what other aspects of my life are being analyzed and collected. Then I conclude there's probably no part of my life that isn't on a computer somewhere, and just accept the fact that very little of what we do or say is private.
If you want to spy on yourself, you can download the Mac app to view your iPhone tracking data here.
And so... to the surprise of nobody possessing an internet connection, Verizon announced that the iPhone will be available on their CDMA network on February 10th at long last.
As I usually do when faced with a difficult decision, I decided to make a PRO vs. CON chart in order to figure out whether switching from AT&T would be a good move for me...
| PROS | CONS | |
| Might actually be able to make a phone call that doesn't drop! | Would have to pay out my contract with AT&T plus buy a new iPhone. $$$ | |
| I get 3G coverage instead of shitty EDGE in my podunk home town! | 3G may be more widespread, but is slower than AT&T's 3G. | |
| Data might actually be usable in my podunk home town! | No coverage outside of the USA for most of the countries I usually travel to. | |
| Possibly don't have to pay for tethering to data I'm already paying for?! | You can't talk and surf at the same time, which is VERY handy. | |
| MIGHT ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO MAKE A FUCKING PHONE CALL THAT DOESN'T DROP... I MEAN, SHIT, IT'S A FUCKING PHONE! | I've had pretty good customer service from AT&T, but had HORRIBLE customer service when I was with Verizon Wireless. |
When I first switched from Verizon to AT&T, I was actually very happy. I rarely had dropped calls, and the data service was pretty good over their EDGE network. Then something terrible happened. iPhone became a raging success, and the AT&T network couldn't keep up. The release of the 3G made the problem even worse. By the time I upgraded to the 3GS, things were so bad that I thought my new phone was broken because I kept dropping calls. The 4G came out and I actually got better signal than I ever had (despite "Antennagate")... but AT&T's network was still so shitty that it didn't help.
Because I stil have a year on my AT&T contract and Verizon has shitty coverage outside the USA, I am not ready to switch just yet. And if AT&T wants to keep it that way, here's three steps they could take...
Ultimately, this announcement doesn't affect me all that much. But, if AT&T doesn't DO SOMETHING over the next year in order to improve the shitty state of their network, it could very well be a very big deal in 2012.
It's a wacky kind of Bullet Sunday on this cold December day...
• Pink. Genius writer Blake Edwards passed away this week. He was the creator of a number of important works such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Days of Wine and Roses, but will forever be best known as creator of The Pink Panther series of films he made with Peter Sellers. Out of the opening title sequences from those movies came one of my favorite cartoon characters ever... The Pink Panther...
I used to love those cartoons. For the longest time I've wanted to purchase the DVD sets so I could watch them again, but could never justify the rather high price ($60 at Amazon!). Fortunately, they're also available for rent at Netflix (alas, no instant streaming), so I'll have to get on that one of these days. As for Mr. Edwards... thank you for the laughs. May you rest in peace sir.
• Larry. Call me a hater, but I have never liked Larry King. I found his interviews to be to absolute crap. Half the time Larry seemed completely unprepared and left me wondering if he even knew who he was talking to. The rest of the time he was just plain boring. I never understood why he was so popular... except that he somehow managed to attract popular guests on his show. Probably because doing Larry King is so easy and risk-free since his interviews were always so embarrassingly superficial. Definitely not because he was any kind of appealing personality. He always came off as either a creepier version of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons...
... or a freaky alien...
Needless to say, I'm not sorry he's now retired. And while I'd definitely say that Joy Behar is a step up from Larry, I don't think she's particularly winning when it comes to interviews either. So I don't know what CNN is going to do now. Hopefully find somebody who knows how to give a decent interview.
• Shaun! A couple years ago when I was in Germany, I was introduced to a new television series starring Shaun the Sheep... a character from the Wallace & Gromit short fim A Close Shave. As you'd expect from an Aardman Animations production, the show was fantastically funny and clever... and dialogue-free!
Well, after waiting and waiting and waiting, they finally released the complete first season on DVD...
Highest possible recommendation. Seriously, you've got to see these short episodes. I bought it from Amazon, but episodes are also currently available for Instant Stremaing from Netflix!
• Lens. Every once in a while you get a glimpse of where technology is taking us... a little peek at what's coming down the pipe. This week it was something called "World Lens" for iPhone. It uses the iPhone's camera to "read" an image for text. Then, depending on the filter you select, the app will process it for translation or some other trickery... like reversing the letters in any words it finds. It then pastes the output onto the original live image...
The app is free from the iTunes Music Store. Currently there's $4.99 English->Spanish and $4.99 Spanish->English filters with more promised. To see it in action is pretty spectacular...
One day, they're going to be able to put stuff like this on a contact lens or as a chip implant in your brain so you can just look at something and get it translated directly. And I'm guessing audio translation isn't that far off. The future is all magic from here on out. Or it could be. If we let it.
And there you have it, Bullet Sunday begone!
Yesterday I was supposed to fly out of Albuquerque early in the morning. But mechanical difficulties with the plane kept pushing my flight back further and further until I was ultimately rebooked on an entirely different one. This meant getting into Seattle much later than I originally intended, where I was greeted by torrential rain and rush hour traffic. As if that weren't enough, it was snowing on the passes.
Not wanting to drive home through rain, traffic, and snow on three hours sleep, I decided to crash at my sister's house and come back home this morning.
Which was a smart move, because the drive was pretty spectacular.
At the top of the pass, it looks like all the color has been sucked from the scenery. It's drab, overcast, and depressing... yet still beautiful at the same time...
But once you get to the other side, it's another story entirely...
In the twenty+ years I've been driving over the mountains, I've never stopped along the way to take a look. I've always just enjoyed the view at 60mph. Today I did stop for some reason, and was glad that I did. And a little mad at myself that I never had before.
Sometimes its good to stop and smell the roses. Even if there aren't any roses to smell.
I really should have flown back last night. My friends had gone home in the afternoon, I'd seen the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Albuquerque, and I had to be to work today. But when I made my reservations, I thought it would be nice to have a full day in-between flights so, instead of traveling last night, I took the first flight I could get this morning. Which meant waking up at 3:30am. And as I sit here bleary-eyed at the airport wanting to sleep, I'm feeling pretty stupid about the whole ordeal. NOTE TO SELF: Never book an early flight unless you absolutely have to.
Despite the short length of this trip, I got to see some wacky wonderful things. I was reflecting on them as I rode the shuttle to the airport, and this is what I came up with...
• Rock You Queen Video Slot Machine. Arguably the most amazing slots game I've ever seen, Rock You Queen Slots is so entertaining that you don't even care that it's taking all your money. I hit the Bonus Round on my fourth or fifth spin, then spent all my winnings PLUS $20 trying to hit it again because it was so awesome. I never saw it again, but fortunately, somebody put it on YouTube...
What you are not seeing here is that ABOVE the play screen there's a video screen with the "Radio Ga Ga" video playing and lights going off. Truly impressive!
• A woman playing slots while wearing oxygen... and smoking. I can only hope that the oxygen was turned off at the time. I would have told her that oxygen is extremely flammable, and her face could explode, but instead got my ass as far away from her as possible.
• A man crying after (apparently) losing his last dollar at video poker. Ordinarily, I'd find this sad, as he obviously has a problem. But Culture Club's rediculously happy song "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" was blasting through the casino, which just made the situation funny as hell. I had to stifle a guffaw and run away so I didn't end up laughing in the poor guy's face.
• A woman punching a Kitty Glitter slot machine. In yet another senseless slots-related tragedy, one of my friends was playing "Maltese Puppy Slots" next to a woman who was playing "Kitty Glitter Slots" who all of a sudden screamed "I HAD THAT! I HAD THAT!" and started punching the video kitties. The three of us just kind of scooted away and waited for security to show up, but the crazy woman ran off still screaming "I HAD THAT!" before anybody could get there. Something tells me she really didn't have that.
• Cougarlicious Slots. Need I say more?
• The Ladies of Hard Rock. There's a section of table games called "Baby Dolls" where brutally hot women dressed in pink corsets and fishnet stockings deal cards to hopelessly distracted guys wanting more for their entertainment dollar than you can get from Blackjack alone. I mentioned this yesterday, but didn't mention the uniforms for the waitresses at Lucha's where I had dinner last night... a black bustier, black short skirt, black fishnet stalkings, and... wait for it... fur-topped Ugg boots! Also brutally hot, but in a much weirder way. Say what you like about the place, but you never get tired of the scenery.
• HDR Pro App for iPhone. Apple may have introduced "High Dynamic Range imaging" as a standard feature for their built-in camera, but the stuff I get out of the HDR Pro App is in a league all its own. And sometimes not because of the reason you'd expect. I keep getting happy accidents and funky surprises that make me never want to shoot with any other camera app...
• Airport Crazy. What's the first thing I see as I exit the Hard Rock Shuttle at Albuquerque International this morning? A crazy woman in the no-parking zone picking a fight with airport security! At least I'm assuming she's wacked out of her gourd... who in there right mind would mix it up with airport security now-a-days? My problem is that I can't be content with such simple amusements. My first instinct is always to "improve" the situation. Do you know how badly I wanted to scream "SHE'S GOT A GUN!" or even offer helpful advice like "I think you should cuff her, officer!"?? Fortunately, I was the model of restraint. I didn't even make goofy faces at the crazy lady as I passed. I wish I knew why I feel the need to be an unbelievable bastard all the time. Either I truly am evil to the core, or I just can't resist a good laugh. Problem is, I'm usually the only one who finds it funny.
• Unhappy Kitteh. A woman in a wheelchair pushing a cart was just pushed by me. On top of the cart is a kitty carrier with a very unhappy cat inside. Very. It's screeching "MEOW" every three seconds. This is surprising, because I always assumed that animals are drugged before flying. I rarely see people with pets going nuts like this, and have always wondered why kids can't be tranquilized too. Well, kids and old people who like to complain a lot. And loud talkers. And people who pull on your seat-back every ten minutes. And people with Windows laptops who have the volume on full so you get blasted with that hideous fucking Windows startup sound. And idiots who annoy me. Which is pretty much everybody. Heck, let's just tranquilize the entire plane. Including me. The cats can meow all they like.
And my laptop battery is dying. I guess my time to reflect is over, and I should publish this thing already.
Who knows what new amazing things will happen on the way home?
Today was pretty crazy, so it looks like it's time for a product review!
I've been so busy trying to catch up with work after my vacation that I only just this morning had time to open my new Photojojo camera-phone lenses! There are two... a wide-angle ($20) and a fisheye ($25) which you can get as a set for $40. They attach to your phone in front of your existing camera lens, and stay in place magnetically thanks to a little adhesive ring that sticks on your phone...
Here are some snapshots I took. The first image in the sequence is with no lens. The second is with the wide angle lens. The third is with the fisheye lens...
The wide angle lens is pretty nice. It adds just enough extra width to make scenery shots a little easier. It also doubles as a macro lens, which is equally impressive...
The fisheye lens is kind of goofy. It probably works better on the older iPhones with a smaller lens hole, but on iPhone 4 you get some serious vignetting in the corners because it has a bigger lens. This is disappointing, since Photojojo doesn't warn you... but, it's still a way to fit an impossible amount of stuff into your shot...
Overall, I'm happy with my purchase, with three things in mind...
On the plus side, the lenses come with keyring loops so you can always have them handy and lens caps to keep them in good shape. This is pretty sweet, though my keys are getting almost too big to manage now...
If you're wanting some lenses for your phone, head over to the Photojojo Shop!
I currently have 67 emails remaining in my inbox. Hopefully none of them are from you.
One of my favorite iPhone apps is Trip Journal (which I reviewed here). For the traveler, it's an awesome way to track your movements with the built-in GPS and document the things you see and do. Since Apple made the iPhone OS multi-tasking, it's even more awesome because you can leave it running in the background all the time. This way, it keeps track of where you go even when you're doing something else. Like making a $70 phone call back home. Or trying to calculate how totally worthless the US dollar is vs. the Euro. Or looking up the Italian translation for "There's a burning sensation when I urinate."
This afternoon while I was put on hold for entirely too long, I remembered that I had Trip Journal running during my vacation and decided to take a look...
The black lines are where iPhone ran out of battery or lost signal or aliens abducted me. The lines in red are where I've been. The app tracks you down to street level, and so everything is there. Including when you go to the bathroom. Or visit a urologist. This is really cool, because you can re-live your entire trip...
After a while, you'd be surprised what you can remember...
Of course, it can also make you entirely confused too...
Hmmm... maybe the lines DON'T turn black when you've been abducted by aliens?
Hey! What the heck happened to the Bullet Sunday I posted yesterday? Blech. I'm back one day and am already having blog problems. Oh goody. A mystery to solve tomorrow morning! But enough about yesterday...
I've stopped measuring the length of my flights in hours, and instead measure them by how many episodes of Kevin Pollak's Chat Show I can watch before I land. Oh how I love this podcast. Kevin Pollak's interviews are 100% pure gold, and better entertainment than most anything you'll find anywhere. I am insanely addicted to the show, and more thankful than I can express that the internet allows true talent to have a forum where they can do what they do without interference from television networks, ad execs, and all the bullshit that fucks up "regular" television.
I have to work very hard to restrain myself not to watch the shows live, and instead download them to my iPhone so I have something to watch while I travel. This has made me go from "HOLY CRAP! HOW MUCH LONGER BEFORE WE FRICKIN' LAND?!?" to "WHAT? WE'RE LANDING ALREADY? NOOOOO! I HAVE TWO MORE EPISODES OF KEVIN POLLAK TO WATCH!!"
I swear... the quality of guests he gets... the amazing information he gets out of them... the hilarious way he keeps things moving... THIS is the job he was born to have. I managed to see eight episodes on my way from Barcelona to Amsterdam to Seattle. It was a who's who of fascinating people that couldn't have been better picked if Kevin Pollak had asked me who he should interview...
Paul Rudd. One of my favorite people, he is consistently one of the funniest actors working today and has turned in dramatic performances that rival the best you'll ever see (not only that... he was a guest-star on Veronica Mars!). He's just as amazing off-screen as on, making this an interview you don't want to end.
Rob Riggle. I've mentioned a couple times here how big a fan I am of Rob Riggle and the many places he seems to pop up (The Daily Show, Gary Unmarried, The Hangover, etc. etc.). I knew from his banter with Jon Stewart that he was in the Marines, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. What an amazing, heroic, fascinating guy. Hearing what he's been through and what he gave up for his love of comedy and performing is nothing short of amazing. This is a MUST-SEE interview.
Craig Ferguson. Pretty much the best late-night host since Carson, this interview adds yet another level to a very funny and complex guy.
Maggie Lawson and James Roday. As if Psych being one of my favorite television shows wasn't enough to get me to watch this interview, these co-stars (and real-life couple) were an interesting interview in their own right.
Cheri Oteri. A Saturday Night Live alum with a great story and a fascinating look behind the show. After being entirely too ignored by the superficial "main-stream press," it's about time that Cheri got the interview she deserved. Thank you Kevin Pollak!
Steven Weber. The guy has a wide assortment of terrific roles (including Brian on Wings!) and seems to be fearless in his acting choices. But that doesn't even scratch the surface of who he is. His comedy and political writings are genius... just like this interview.
Neil Patrick Harris. Yet another interview that was so good it could have gone on for four hours and you'd never notice the time passing by. Everything from working as a child actor to adopting twins with his partner... it's all here and it's all good.
Adam Scott. This is one of those actors that keeps popping up so often (Veronica Mars!) that you can't help but notice him. Eventually he landed on Party Down and has joined the cast of Parks and Recreation. Out of all the interviews I watched, I can honestly say that this frank, honest look at "making it" in Hollywood was easily my second-favorite after Rob Riggle's interview.
Next up in my queue... Greg Proops, J.K. Simmons, the Sklar Brothers, Bryan Cranston, and Fred Willard. As if that wasn't awesome enough, there's still the first 22 episodes which I haven't seen yet. I honestly don't know if I can wait until my next trip.
If you haven't checked out Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, you owe it to yourself to give it a look. The main website is here. The iTunes video podcast link is here. The iTunes audio podcast link is here. Highest possible recommendation.
Bullet Sundaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Let's get ready to Rrrrruuummmmmble!
• Tweet! Most of the time I'm too busy to pay any serious attention to Twitter, but every once in a while it's a scary insight into what I'm going through at any particular moment in time. Today was particularly telling, and had me wishing I self-censored a bit better. Oh well. Too late for that now...
So many times when I'm asked for my opinion on something, I'm tempted to say "no" immediately because more often than not the person has no interest in getting an actual opinion... they just want your praise (whether they deserve it or not). Yet I foolishly try to be friendly and helpful with my critique anyway, sometimes getting burned in the process. It's really too bad, because good constructive criticism can be so much more helpful than faint praise... if people are willing to hear it. The question is, how many times will I get burned before I learn not to offer it in the first place? At this rate, not long at all.
• Fore! Oh how I love my new iPhone 4. It is superior to my iPhone 3GS in absolutely every way... especially signal reception. I can now actually make phone calls at my home without having them fade out, go choppy, or get dropped entirely. I've had no problems with the antenna while making calls, but have had some problems while texting or using apps when I cradle the iPhone to type. It took all of one minute to learn how to shift my hand to not block the antenna, so it's pretty much a non-issue now. If you have a case for your iPhone 4, it never was an issue to begin with. Personally, if I were going case-free and couldn't adapt to "holding different," this is my favorite solution...
It's Antenn-Aid to the rescue!
And don't get me started on Apple's amazing "FaceTime" feature, which is the future made real...
But the main reason I upgraded to iPhone 4 was for the camera. My pocket camera is being held together with a rubber band and, rather than replace it, I decided to carry one less thing and just take snapshots with the iPhone 4. The camera has been so highly praised that I figured it was a realistic expectation, but was secretly worried it wouldn't live up to the hype.
And, while it is a vast improvement over previous iPhone cameras, it kinda doesn't live up to the hype. Particularly disappointing is night shooting. Sure the light sensitivity is improved, but the grain is outrageously bad... to the point of being unusable except at massively reduced sizes...
I shouldn't be surprised. The lens is just too small to accept enough light in a dim scenario like this. Shots in "normal" lighting are good... fantastic even... but it looks like my iPhone is no threat to my purchasing a new pocket camera for shooting in low-light. Darn it anyway.
Still, in every other respect, the iPhone 4 is pure WIN, and I really do love it. Heaven only knows what Apple has planned for the iPhone 5.
• Freedom? From watching the news and seeing people re-tweet Sarah Palin on Twitter, you'd think that actual terrorists were wanting to build a monument to the Islamic extremists who died during their 9/11 attacks ON TOP OF "Ground Zero" where the World Trade Center once stood. This is so absurd that it might actually be true, so I looked it up and was disappointed to discover that it was, in fact, not. Some American citizens are just wanting to build a Islamic cultural center and mosque TWO BLOCKS AWAY from Ground Zero on PRIVATE LAND. From what I've read, the mosque won't even be visible from the Ground Zero memorial that's being planned. This type of crazy shit drives me insane. The non-stop parade of lies and crazy exaggerations being sold to people for political gain on both sides of the political spectrum have me hoping for the complete collapse of democracy in this country. If people are so damn stupid as to keep falling for this kind of bullshit, then obviously they can't be trusted with democracy. If people are so hot to have somebody tell them what to think and don't care whether it's true or not, I suggest a nice dictatorship, with ME as Supreme Leader. I am more than happy to tell people what to think. Or to go fuck themselves.
UPDATE: I would have just said "Fuck you, Sarah Palin, you bigoted piece of shit," but Mayor Bloomberg is a much more eloquent and inspiring speaker than I could ever be (thanks for the tip, Etienne!)...
And now... time to put my aching head to bed.
Hopefully to sleep this time.
All I wanted was a White iPhone 4.
But Apple keeps delaying the shit over and over and over again, so I finally just bit the bullet and went down to the AT&T Store to place my order for a Black iPhone 4. I need it to replace my rapidly dying pocket camera (which is currently being held together with rubber bands), and the idea of having one less thing to carry is very appealing to me.
While I was there, I stood next to another customer who brought forth a very interesting scenario.
Let's say you are upgrading your phone. Let's further speculate that you ask the cell phone store employee to transfer all your ringtones and photos and whatnot to the new phone so you don't have to mess with it.
Now let's say that amongst the photos from your phone's camera there are a number of pornographic shots.
How do you handle that??
I would die immediately. Struck dead right on the spot... not so much from embarrassment, but from the realization that I was stupid enough to leave nasty photos on a camera I handed over to a stranger.
But today I learned there's a way other than death in five easy steps...
Apparently lying solves everything. Even when the lies contradict each other.
You really do learn something new every day.
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