Attention, iPhone Developers

Are you an iPhone developer? If so, I'd like to point out two recent events:

Coincidence? Maybe… or maybe not. But either way, feel free to send those promo codes on.

Why I got an iPhone

As Tom mentioned below, yes, we got iPhones recently. As many of you heard my paeans of BlackBerry love over the last two years, I've already been asked a few times: how on earth did Tom convince you to switch?

Well, here's what it came down to:

We've succumbed

Last Sunday, we switched from our Blackberries to iPhones. I was tired of the small screen on my Blackberry Pearl, and was never thrilled about the BB user interface anyway. And I wanted a real Web browser. Dori would have preferred to stick with BB, as she really wanted a Bold. But we priced it out on AT&T, and it just didn't pencil out. AT&T charges an extra $10/month to enable the BB GPS, and there are some other charges that nixed the Bold.

Besides their exclusive with the iPhone, AT&T has 3G coverage here, and our old carrier, T-Mobile, does not. So that was a factor, too.

So far, I'm loving the iPhone. I'm running OmniFocus...
Link  Email item  

Making electricity smarter

The idea of a "Smart Grid," which applies information technologies and decentralization to electric power generation and distribution, was strongly endorsed by both candidates in the presidential campaign, and has been reiterated by Obama since the election. But I realized that I didn't really know what the idea of the Smart Grid entailed. It turns out to be an interesting combination of changes not just at the utility level, but down to the municipal and consumer levels. I found this Smart Grid white paper (PDF) done by the US Department of Energy that gives a good overview of the project.

The promise of the Smart Grid is that it can make electricity generation and distribution more efficient and...
Link  Email item  

Where to Get the Worst Deal on a Professional-level Mac

Once again, I'm in the market for a new laptop. It's been almost two years since I got my current 2.16GHz MacBook Pro, and the state of the art has advanced enough that a new machine may be worth it to me. The machine I'm pricing now:

15" MacBook Pro

A little bit of shopping around, and I discover that most of the sources to get it have nearly-identical prices, with one exception:

Good to know

What's the statute of limitations on dumb comments?

There's speculation that Obama might nominate Lawrence Summers as his Treasury Secretary. This is a source of consternation among feminists, because Summers said some dumb things about women's intrinsic abilities when he was president of Harvard back in January of 2005, for which he immediately apologized and led to him leaving Harvard. Hit the link above if you want to see what he said, though it's not really relevant.

Summers is very well qualified for the job of Treasury Secretary, not the least because he has already done the job under Clinton, and by all accounts well. He has also been a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and Chief Economist for the World Bank. In...
Link  Email item  

Wanted: Birthday Present

Nine years ago (time flies, doesn't it?) Tom and I wrote the first posts on this blog. Length of time until our first political post: approximately 4.5 hours.

Given that it's our blog's ninth birthday, we're asking you, our readers, for a gift: the United States of America.

Not just for us, but for all of us. If you're an American citizen, please vote.

We'll be getting together tonight with some friends to watch the election results, and hopefully, open a very nice bottle of champagne. From us here to you, our best wishes...
Link  Email item  

Just wondering

After this day and this election is over, will Obama transform his campaign organization, with those millions of volunteers, into a grassroots organization that will help him govern and put pressure on lawmakers to pass his initiatives? Given his deep belief in community organizing, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

He beat me to it: Barack Obama for President

I was going to spend part of this day writing a post detailing the reasons why I will be voting for Obama on Tuesday. I've been writing it in my head for the past few days. Then I read John Scalzi's blog today, and find that he's already said everything I was going to say, and probably did a better job of it. I hope that he doesn't mind me quoting him at length:

I’m going to vote for him because I believe he is what I think a president should be: Smart, informed, engaged, practical in ideas and in the execution of those ideas, deliberative and as we have seen in this campaign, someone who keeps his...
Link  Email item  

A Good Bear Day to you all

I wanted to wish you all a "Good Bear Day," and while finding a link for that, I found that today is also:

But most importantly for us around here, I want to wish Tom a very happy birthday.

My Electoral Prediction (4 November 2008, 9 pm EST)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict what the news will be saying a few minutes after 9 pm EST on Tuesday, 4 November:

Color code:

If you live in one of the tan states, my prediction is that your vote is irrelevant to the electoral total. The only ones that will count are those that close by 9 pm EST (6 pm PST).

I had difficulty finding out what time each state closed their polls, so I made my own chart. You can find it...
Link  Email item  

Once again: it's Debate Bingo!

As promised, and ready for this Wednesday's debate, here's our:

And I should mention a couple of things about Palin-Biden Debate Bingo:

• If you tried to get to it with Internet Explorer, you may not have been able to see the card. That should now be fixed; if you have any further trouble, please let me know.

• Thanks to all of you who linked to it and passed it on to friends! In particular, a shout out to 2020 Hindsight, The Field (both courtesy of Susan Kitchens), Pen-Elayne on the Web, Flutterby, Michigan Liberal, We Love DC, Link  Email item  

Pixel Ponders Presidential Preferences

"Pixel Ponders Presidential Preferences," or Friday Cat Blogging

Loosely inspired by Cats for Obama.com

No Debate Bingo tonight

We've been busy, so we didn't have a chance to update our Debate Bingo application in advance of tonight's debate, which we are christening the Tennessee Townhall Tussle. Look for the next version before the final October 15 Presidential debate (the Hofstra Hassle? Not in love with that. Suggestions happily accepted.- ed.), about a week from now.