An alternate view on cameras in phones ...

Lights, cell-phone camera, action
COLLEGE, CELLULAR FIRM PARTNER IN FILM PROJECT
digby of the day
billmon of the day
remnick interviews obama.
gameboy
dont know if anyone gets it, but g4 (the video gamers channel) has arrested development reruns every night at 1130.
thought i had mentioned something about the minor accomplishments of jackie woodman but i dont see it. worth checking out. tonight at 11 on ifc.
the hill - congressmans office life and politics as reality tv on sundance.
brice marden at moma (is it so wrong to like this work - i think not.)
how feasible is it that farmers are going to be using cloned animals for milk and meat production? i wouldn't think that would even be an option, cost-wise. but still, it's a little unsettling to have it going for FDA approval since there must be a lot more in the works for this kind of thing if it's going through. very creepy.
According to Bush at today's presser, a timetable equals defeat, but a series of benchmarks of things that have to be accomplished with specified deadlines of when they have to be completed is something that will help us acheive victory. Just don't put them in tabular form! Tables are evil, defeatist things!
Warning signs for tomorrow.
gungagalunga
wolcott has been reassimilated aka vanity fair parties like its 1999. welcome to the internets.
bookninja.com
hepburn on cavet tcm now
san francisco hip-hop slang alert
Tejano Music Star Freddy Fender Dies
Hey New Yorkers, Lee Smolin is great. I highly recommend going to this panel if you are free tomorrow night.

THE COOPER UNION

EDGE NYC EVENT TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17!

INTELLIGENT THOUGHT: SCIENCE VERSUS THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN MOVEMENT
Panel discussion
|Jerry Coyne (Moderator), Neil Shubin, Lee Smolin, Seth Lloyd

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 6:30 pm
The Great Hall
7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue - Free

Intelligent design, the concept that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection, is a controversial topic sparking disparate views across the nation. An overwhelming majority of the scientific community views intelligent design as pseudoscience. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions and propose no new hypotheses of their own.
Sometimes, what you really want is a just a fucking phone

My old mobile phone is starting to have problems with the power connector, after 3+ years of hard use. I can't replace it with the same model, because it lacks e911, a mandatory feature for my carrier, Verizon. Besides, I want to get bluetooth so I can do hands free without screwing around with wires while I'm driving.

So here's my wish list ...

required
  • tri-mode: AMPS, CDMA 1900/800 (I need AMPS, the old analog service, so I can use the phone off the beaten track.)

  • NO camera (Some companies don't allow cameras in their buildings. Connectivity is, by definition, sucky if the phone is stuck at a receptionist's desk. Besides, I have a bunch of cameras already. Further, Verizon requires the use of "picture messaging". WTF? Most decent phones have USB. Why would I want to pay extra to send the picture to myself over their network?)

  • blue tooth and voice commands (So I can comply with the new "hands free" law when driving. It's a good idea anyway on windy mountain roads.)

nice to have
  • 1xRTT or EV-DO modem capability

  • GSM would be sweet, but I'm not travelling to Europe much these days, so it doesn't come up much. (It's not a feature of any phone that Verizon supports. And most GSM phones don't do AMPS, so it's an impass.)

  • PDA functionality with POP3 & sync to MS Outlook calendar
Verizon doesn't offer a phone that meets even the required list. Almost every phone has a camera. All the really high end, whiz bang phones drop the AMPS capability. Why can't I get EV-DO and AMPS on the same handset? Is there some law against this? Or have people lost sight of the fact that they are selling phones.

The two high-end phone without a camera are Blackberrys, but no AMPS. The two low-end phones without a camera lack bluetooth.

So, I may settle for an LG VX5300 with a blob of opaque epoxy on the lens of the camera that I really don't need and don't want. It does have data capabilites, but weak ones. I've already got an EV-DO card for my lap top, so I can live with that.
friday 13th bonus post