Sunday, February 25, 2007

a step in the "cool" direction

So I've been waiting for a Bluetooth wrist-watch to come out that can discover and communicate with my mobile phone. link Apparently a new one just came out.

Here's what I think does:
-caller ID received from phone then the watch both vibrates and displays the info on the watch
-if you get to far away from your phone the watch lets you know, and this is "a nice loss prevention tool"
-5 days of battery life

Here's the functionality I wish for, now or in the future:
-reject phone calls
-snooze phone calls for 20 seconds with a "hold recording" which I can take momentarily
-display txt messages
-display media player file information (ID3 tags and such)
-control media player volume and track advancement

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

NFL Rookie Year of Vince Young

I was excited to see Vince Young play in the NFL. It looks like his critics were totally right: he can't succeed as an NFL quarterback: he wasn't fast enough to evade NFL defenders, and his arm wasn't good enough to win NFL games. So let's look at his sad rookie report card:
  • gained the starting QB position for the Titans
  • led an 8 of 10 game winning stretch
  • led the largest fourth-quarter comeback in the Titans franchise history, the largest fourth-quarter comeback by a rookie quarterback, and the largest comeback with under ten minutes left in a game in NFL history (11/26/06 vs Giants)
  • beat the NFL Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts once, and very nearly twice
  • first rookie quarterback to rush for more than 500 yards (552) in the Super Bowl era
  • won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year (overwhelmingly--23 votes to 9 vote second place)
  • first rookie QB in the Pro Bowl--ever
Awful, Vince. Better hit the weights extra hard this preseason, or you'll get cut. Here's what he had to say at the Pro Bowl:
"I learned something every day. I'm just looking forward to playing in the game and having one more great experience to finish the year."
Spoken like a true loser. (See failure below)

Sunday, February 04, 2007

If Hillary Clinton is elected...

A hypothetical:
Hillary Clinton wins the presidential race in 2008. She also wins re-election in 2012.


My friend pointed out that if Hillary served for 8 years, then we would have 28 years of two families leading the free world. That is stagnancy, my fellow Americans. Stagnancy. It is the citizens job to elect the best person to be leader. What are the chances that 28 years of presidency should be coming out of two families? Two families that have heads that are certainly chummy.

Americans aren't doing their job as citizens, if the hypothetical becomes reality. Has anyone ever heard of a relationship between stagnancy and a government falling apart? Let me know if you have.

philosophy of bias

I submit that when anyone sets a pen to paper, they are motivated. How much can this motivation interfere with the conveyance of truth? This is a micro-study of bias.

The type of bias I hear most about is what I call "identity" bias. It is a bias that originates from a set of characteristics that a communicator connects themselves to, and so it is defended as the self would be. It manifests itself in lots of ways, subtly as speech inflection and boldly as neglecting to present negative facts. It aims to protect one's identity, not to illuminate truth. It is the usual type of bias I here people refer to.

A type of bias I hear less about is what I call "sensationalistic" bias is probably of the same type. It is a bias that originates from a desire to establish a memorable legacy. It aims to differentiate and glorify an identity, not to convey truth.

Can you think of other types of bias?