Shattered iPhone 4 screen

I accidently dropped my iphone 4 on the sidewalk, actually, my son did. The upper right corner shattered (I’ve dropped my iphone 3G so many time, nothing happened, both are with cases). After searching on the internet, someone had cracked screen, either from dropping or something else got their iPhone replaced with no charge! So I decided to try my luck at the applet store with geeks. After they examined the screen, I guess they were trying to see if the cracks is like a spider web originated from a corner, or just random cracks, in latter case, they may replace the phone for free (but you have to try), they informed me that I’d need to pay $200 for a replacement. then I snapped: “Screw you, screw all of you, I’m spending another $200 on this phone!”, well, that was all in my head. I packed my phone and left.

The take home lesson was: warranty was void, now, even if I can live with a crack screen phone, no free repair or replacement if other parts of the phone stops working. In hinder sight,  what I should have done was, first try to find a 3rd party service provider to replace my screen (“Genius” at apple store said this would void the warranty, but they can’t tell, trust me, they are not real Geniuses), WITHOUT reporting my phone to Apple, so they don’t know, and just abuse all the button on my phone, and hope for one of button stops working and ask for replacement.

Further reading: With Antennagate over, is Glassgate next for the iPhone 4?

What do you use Twitter for?

I still don’t quite get Twitter, and how do people use it. I do have a twitter account, I tweet once in a while, and am following a handful of interesting people. I happened to follow guys who tweets quite a bit,  and usually find myself drowned in the sea of tweets.

For businesses and celebrities, the “followed by number” can only be a popularity statement, but there is no way for a business or a celebrity to reach to their customers or fans via twitter, who’s gonna go through all those tweets? We now live in a texting world, maybe there are people who need to tweet every 2 seconds. Not for me though, I don’t need a real time web, or a social media solution, I need a “near real time” solution, I tweet to keep a mini journal of what I’ve been doing, and where I’ve dined, etc., I don’t really need to do this “real time”, twitter won’t allow you to edit your tweet, I guess that beats the purpose. I like Yelp’s check-in feature, I can use it to keep track of my boring life.

Twitter is a record keeper for me, if they keep it closed from google searches, only real use of it would be a real time web repository, which may have some commercial value, but not too much. I just envision an app that keeps track of where I’ve been for a period of time, or a trip to a theme park, collects my location data at an interval in the background, and integrate with map data to figure out if I’m in a bar or a coffee shop, and most importantly, keep the data private! Maybe I’ll write it, I’m here to just claim the idea first.

Update: Twitter is NOT a Social Network, Says Twitter Exec

P2P video streaming is the future!

I watched most of world cup 2010 games online, either from ESPN3 on my PC or mobileTV on my iPhone. I’d expect more and more live sport events, or just live events, being telecasted by streaming. The performance of those world cup games varies, as well as some of PGA tour live streaming. CNN once tested with P2P technology via a 3rd party provider, it was semi successful, but met with some in browser installation and privacy concerns. With online streaming, especially live streaming going main stream, P2P is definitely the technology to go, I’d load up with P2P stocks! We shall see in a couple of years.

Technorati Tags: p2p,online streaming,streaming

Netflix on your iPhone

I was just about to cancel my Netflix account, this new Netflix iphone app came out today. I have been a Netflix subscriber for a while now, on and off. Recently, I’ve using my Samsung Bluray DVD player to stream videos from Netflix via a wired (wireless connection is slow and not watchable) network connection. The quality has been up and down, but there just isn’t much new contents out there, and you have to wait for another 2 weeks before you can get the new releases is a big turnoff for me. Now we have the nice iphone app, so I can watch “Office” anywhere I want, I think I’ll hang on to Netflix a little longer now.

Tiger’s back?!

Only days after his announced divorce, Tiger Wood is back on the golf course, and sharing the lead at Barclays on the first day. He doesn’t need a putter change to get better, though the putter was the only club not made by Nike, so maybe he should return a favor to Nike for sticking out for him. Anyway, maybe it’s too early to tell, but at least Tiger can officially go out and party with no string attached, which would be a good relief for him, and put himself in the old comfort zone. Many sports radio show hosts have been hinting something like this, the national syndicated ones are more subtle, local ones are straight out saying he needs all the women. We shall see, I hope Tiger Woods will be more comfort on the course and with his game.

做个孩子多好！

这次我们俩没有带孩子，两个人上了阿拉斯加的游轮，在和遇到的游客聊天中体会到 “三人行，必有我师”这句古话之正确。一对夫妇是从IOWA来的，老公是政府的职员，有自己的农场，准备退休以后就专职经营自己的农场，老婆是个幼儿园老师。即知道她是老师，我们也就顺其自然地聊起了孩子。他们有三个孩子，最小的一个马上就要大学毕业了，说到这儿的时候，孩子的妈妈不禁欢呼起来，好像马上就要大功告成一样，对自己的成绩感到骄傲和自豪。她说对孩子，就是要让他们知道父母对他们的每个行动的期望是什么（“what do you expect from them”）。比如说，他要是把玩具掉在地上了，你expect他要做什么，孩子就会自觉。他应该知道他要自己捡，没有别人帮他捡。

还有一对是从亚利桑那来的夫妇，有两个十几岁的半大小子了，还有一个2岁多的儿子。说起孩子们来，当爹的满脸幸福，一个劲儿地说：we are lucky, we are lucky! 看来他对生活给他的非常知足并感谢。聊起来他的两个大儿子，因为他们在圣地亚哥有个沙滩屋，我问他圣地亚哥离墨西哥那么近，他们没有想要去TIJAANA去PARTY，他说他一直跟他的儿子们说："all adults want to be a child again, why rush? enjoy the time being a kid! Once you drank, and had sex, you’re not a child anymore!”, 真是，做个孩子多好！就这么简单！

What’s in Tiger’s Head

I think everybody watches sports regularly would hear something like “What’s wrong with Tiger’s game?”, though I think a lot of people know. Tiger Woods came back from a knee surgery after laying off for almost a year, but became a contender right away, winning tournaments, there wasn’t anything wrong with his game. Ever since November of last year, Tiger’s game has gone south, all of sudden, he couldn’t drive well, has changed the ball he plays, now, at British Open, changed his putter, why? I don’t think there is anything wrong with Tiger’s game, his swing, his putting, he’s just missing all the wild parties he used to have, which would release the tension and stress, and put himself into a comfort zone. Golf is a mental game, once he can party again, he’ll be in his groove! Go Tiger!

Free case from Steve, and he loves you!

I have been saying this all along: “iphone is everything but a phone”, after I got it, I have been wondering why other companies were still making smart phones. Hands down, no contest.

Now, with this iphone4 hoopla, Steve is telling you that “He loves you!” and giving out free cases, what else do you want from him, or Apple? i think this may have been blown out of proportion as well, I guess people are more interested in what he say today than anything else. Still will get the iphone4, if Apple or BestBuy call.

The unofficial review of 2010 world cup Jabulani match ball

I have to admit that I’m a little obsessed with the Jabulani match ball. I’ve read article about it, heard people talking about it, saw how it’s been played in the world cup matches, and played with it, I think I have enough information to make a good review. First of all, the ball is made of plastic-like material, not leather, and is heavier than I originally thought, and handles and feels well. Two things in my opinion make the ball unusual: first, there is no traction on the ball, since there is ONLY 8 fake panels molding on the ball plastic surface making it “perfectly round”, but diminish its ability to grab on the ground, those little edges on the surface are intended to increase the traction, but don’t make much of the difference; secondly, the multiple layers make the ball traps the energy inside, and releases it slowly, unevenly, translating into unpredictable ball flight.

We’ve seen one strike by Messi in the Argentina vs Germany in slow motion went high, but clearly the ball jumped at the last moment, the same happened to Klose in the same match, a perfect ground pass jumped at the last moment resulting in the high ball instead of an easy goal. Not to mention the mishandled goals by the goalies in early stages. All the these, IMHO, were due to the fact that the energy trapped in the ball released slowly making the ball “flies on its own”. There have been so many crosses, and straight passes went long and out of reach, making the players looked really bad. They are the best players in the world! It’s the ball! The ball is heavy and with no grab on the ground, soft passes would end up short, harder passes would just either go far or skid off the grass. Giving the players credit, they adjusted, and made fantastic plays, such as swirl the ball to shoot, instead of strike it hard with all mighty (usually ends up high), but with a price: they’ve been changing the way they used to play, which is not something soccer fans want to see.

Why Adidas made and FIFA decided to use Jabulani ball? They should’ve known better, don’t they? More goals, soccer matches need more goals, world cup needs more goals. The ball characteristics doesn’t work toward any team’s advantage, but, with the unpredictable ball flight, could mean more goals, at least this is what FIFA was hoping for. I’m all for more goals, but not to achieve this by changing the way the soccer is played.

礼花

今天是美国独立日，带孩子们去看烟花。来美国以后看过很多次烟花，都觉得没有以前小时候在国庆的时候看的壮观。那时候北京正值金秋，父亲带我去中关村去看烟花，空气里弥漫着烟花的硫磺味道和秋天清爽气息混合在一起，让我一直难以忘怀。现在想想，那时候一个一个放，这里是一簇一簇地放，可在北京我们叫“礼花”。