Frazier Blog

I thought Sarah Palin delivered a great speech last night. However, I did not like the tone and approach she took. While the first half, of the speech where she described herself, was funny and delivered well. The second half became a negative monster, full of attack lines and little substance.

While I myself have said the experience card is dumb, I have to wonder, do I really want “just your average hockey mom” being one 72 year old man, away from picking up the phone at 3am?

Here is an interesting article that breaks down claims by Sarah Palin last night. It looks at what was true and false.

I did not like how she claimed “But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

Yet the facts say “but he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.”

I am excited to watch the debates,

Paul

After CNNBRK sent out the following twitter update (tweet) “Jamaica’s Usain Bolt wins the men’s 100 meters gold medal in a world record time at the Beijing Olympics.” I was frustrated as I wanted to try and watch it, without knowing who won. Then came the tweet that helped to give me 15 seconds of fame in the geek world. “U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps wins a record eighth Olympic gold medal with his victory in the 4×100 medley relay.”

I sent a frustrated tweet at CNNBRK saying “idiots! I am removing you for the rest of the games. Do you like being jerks!?!?!?”

Apparently I either did it fast or well because techcrunch.com chose to use my tweet in a story about people being frustrated with CNNBRK spoiling Olympic results. The headline read “CNN Doesn’t Include Spoiler Alert In Tweets, Twitter Users Say It Ruined Olympics” They used my tweet and another users to show some peoples frustrations with the results being spoiled.

Almost all of the 84 comments thought we had it coming. Since we were “subscribed to a breaking news service.” On one level I agree with them. However, yesterday was the first time that CNN had posted breaking news results during the Olympic games. Many medals had already been won and other world records smashed but yesterday was the first day that any Olympic news had been sent out. Slow news day? So I was a little bit surprised that two announcements came out on the same day. Many comments took aim at NBC for not showing the Olympics live, I too wish that NBC would show more (or anything for the west coast) live, but the fact is they are not.

I think my rage at CNNBRK was compounded by many other spoiled results. I have stumbled upon results before I watch them when looking for other world news throughout the week. I seem to recall that four years ago many websites offered spoiler results before they proclaimed the results to world. Can we PLEASE bring these back? I hate going to CNN or NYTimes and seeing the event i was excited to watch spoiled.

I did sent a note to the NYTimes asking them to add a spoiler alert and have removed CNN from my twitter account.

My friend Matt has started a petition asking NBC to show the events live next time. Go sign it.

Now about events being live. I can understand why NBC is doing it the way they are. People are watching and advertisers are buying more ad time. I could be wrong but I don’t think as may people would watch finals if they were showed at 6am or other off peak hours. Although Matt does make a great point that they could then rebroadcast it in prime time.

While, it was fun seeing my name get on techcruch.com, if it ever happens again I hope it will be for something more impressive.

Enjoying the Olympics (spoiled or not),

Paul

I really like that CNN has started to put op-ed articles on its front page.  And allows a very diverse group of people to write pieces.

This one caught my attention and I think it has a great message. It is about the experience of adopting and urging Christians to help more with the problem of orphan children. Click here to read

I really found this article to be moving.  I think if more Christians did actions like this instead of just talking the world would have a much better picture of Jesus.

This article makes me ask myself, how am I loving the ones who need love the most?

Made glorious by Him,

Paul

After a week of iPhone use here is my first review. After this short summary an in-depth review will follow. Overall I really like the iPhone. The UI is quick, easy and fun to use.  The screen is gorgeous and responds to touch very well. Connecting to wireless networks and exchange is easy. 90% of the phone has  been thought out incredibly well, but there is about 10% of stuff that needs to be smoothed out. The 2.1 software has already entered beta so the phone is only going to get better. Overall, if you are waiting to get this phone, go get it.  Unless, you have no way to charge your phone during the day.

Currently five things need to be fixed for me to fully embrace the phone. Four are software issues and one is hardware.

1. Turn by turn navigation, the iphone has a plefera of apps that tell me  where cool stuff is but not how I get there.
2. Skype on the phone, why Skype or someone else has not made a native app yet confuses me. Truphone already is available for download showing that Apple will keep their word an allow voip over WiFi. Truphone costs ~6cents a minute while Skype costs 3 bucks a month for unlimited calling in the US.  From a cost stand point of calling within the US Skype dominates.
3. The ability to type in landscape mode for email, texts and anything else I want. This really is a simple software change. The feature exists already in safari, now it just needs to be porter over to the rest of the phone. It would make typing much better!!!
4. Copy and paste. Enough said.
5. Better battery life. So far in my tests battery is pretty weak, even with lite use I can’t make it all day( 8am to 10pm) without a charge in the middle. Maybe a software upgrade will help with this. I have push enabled, which drains life, and 3g disabled, so that saves me some.

I hope 2,1 comes soon and has fixes for the first four, well besides Skype they just need to publish that!!

I wrote 90% of this on my iPhone. The typing takes alittle while to get used to. I found that the key is taking a leap of faith. Once you trust that it will autocorrect, you can use two thumbs and go to town. Once more apps enable rotating to landscape for a bigger keyboard, typing will be even easier.

Until next time,
Paul

Just read this over at slashdot.org. Very interesting. I know I have heard about this before, but this article explains and exposes the lies of power and signal meters we use everyday.

Check it out.

Surprised by the radically different Wordpress after an upgrade,

Paul

Day one of my iPhone has been marred by ATT messing up. They someone managed to not only remove the text messaging plan from my phone, but all four of our lines. I realized this after I was not getting any texts and a text to GOOGLE never came back.

I have already made one phone and the issue is resolved from the technical side, but now i have 1-2 months of billing headache. Because I am going to be charged two pro rated amounts, so i get to call in after 30 days. Yay. And they also removed the discount I was getting on the plan, so now I have to go back to the store.

As a shareholder in both T and APPL I am disapointed in how this launch has been handled.

However, the phone is amazing! It is so easy to use and fun at the same time.

Hope to talk to you soon,

Paul

Stop. Relax. Slow down. Chill. I need more of those words in my life. I just had an amazing week at houseboat camp. Out of all the sentances the speaker said, i felt like one was speaking right to me, “Why don’t you pray more?”

I need too, and I want too. Therefore I will.

Off to slow down and pray,

Paul

I have been using Mint for over 6 months now. It is a great example of web 2.0. It is basically the financial web-mail. It is free to use and you can be setup in minutes. It aggregates all of your bank information into one central place. Yes yes i know, privacy issues, but when we use online banking anyway it is not that big of a difference. Plus every-time you write a check you give away your bank account information. Don’t believe me? Look it up.

Back to mint. You can set budgets and track how much you have spent on categories or at an individual store. You can press refresh all accounts and in a matter of seconds you have all your bank info on one page instead of having to log into multiple sites.

The best feature for me is the transaction view. In one place I can see what is going on in all my bank accounts. Checking, savings and multiple credit cards. This helps since I use different credit cards for different stores to get the best rewards.

Go check it out. www.mint.com

Enjoying less financial confusion,

Paul

Hello. I know its been a long time….. Enough said about that.

I have been using Trimet and my bike to get me too and from work lately. I ride my bike to the bus stop in the morning and then another .7 of a mile from the bus stop to Columbia Sportswear. (A great place to work by the way. Bike storage and bus passes. ) Then in the afternoons I ride all the way home.

Including the cost of the subsided bus pass I figure I will save 100 dollars in gas each month.

The time is about equal because I don’t consider the ride home time. Confused? Because I am getting a workout I don’t have to go to the gym and do cardio so the time zeros out. Since it takes 40 minutes to get to work in the morning, and round trip would take 40 by car. Equal time with a 100 dollar a month benefit. Hello Iphone.

Saving money and the air,

Paul