Inception looks like a very interesting movie and I’m excited to see it. However, from what I’ve seen of the trailers so far, it looks like Dreamscape.
Posted by: Park
I wish I could turn off multitasking in iOS4
I’m starting to realize that I don’t want some of the apps on my iPhone to save the state they’re in when I leave them. In fact, I wish I could specifically exclude some apps from the multitasking feature altogether.
Facebook is an example of one I wish would completely quit when I close the app. I want it to start fresh each time I open it (which is rare these days), not show me the picture from someone’s wall I was looking at five days ago when I last used the app. Another example is two apps I use on a daily basis: Foursquare and Gowalla. Now that they’ve turned on the fast app switching “feature” in iOS4, when I return to the app, say, when I’ve arrived at a new place where I want to check-in, I’m looking at the same page from the last time I was using the app. This usually means the app is open to the last venue where I checked-in. When that happens, I have to back out of the screen to get back to a list of nearby places, and sometimes I have to manually refresh the list. I would prefer it if I could tell the app to always open to the places screen and refresh the list.
I know that as life problems go, these are small ones, but it bugs me that a company that tries to focus on making things as simple as possible for the end-user has now made things more difficult. Apple says we don’t need to manage the apps in the multitasking tray, that iOS4 is smart enough to do it for us, but that just isn’t the case.
Here’s what I mean: Before iOS4 fast app switching, when you quit an app it quit completely. You would press the home button and that was it. Now, to fully quit an app you have to click the home button once to get back to the springboard, then double-click the home button to reveal the multitasking tray of apps that are in a saved state, then press and hold one of those apps until they all go into jiggle mode, then press the red button in the top left corner of any app you want to completely kill (see picture above). Big difference.
It would be nice if in the settings for each app, we could toggle on or off the “multitasking” APIs that app is using. That way I could tell Foursquare and Gowalla to start fresh each time I launch the app, whether I’ve deleted it from the multitasking tray or not, and I could tell Facebook to always quit when I leave the app and never even appear in the multitasking tray. Even better would be the ability to set a timeout feature where an app saves its state for a defined time period, but quits completely if you don’t return to it within that time. But that would involve giving the end user more control over their iOS4 device than Apple is comfortable with.
Bonnaroo (update)
I went to Bonnaroo this year, and this is the view from the top of our RV.
And here’s our RV:
Update: I had a good time, but it’s probably something I won’t ever do again. Even with an RV and an air-conditioning (most people were in tents), it’s long and hot and I missed my family. I did get to see some good shows like Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, Phoenix, Tenacious D and The Crystal Method (my favorite), but I prefer ACL here in Austin since at the end of the day I can go home, wash the grime off and sleep in my own bed.
I probably would have had a different take on it 10 years ago.
I love summer
In December, we went up to Michigan again for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It was great to have a couple weeks of real winter with snow, but I can’t really see myself living there permanently. I mean, just today I tweeted that I’m ready for summer. And when I say that, I mean 100 degree Texas summer.
Posted in Uncategorized
Cold really means cold
One thing that has surprised me here in Michigan is how incredibly cold the water is—and I’m not talking about the lakes, I’m talking about out of the faucet.
I’m used to the water in Austin where during the summer the “cold” water is pretty much room temperature. Here however, after a few seconds the water is so cold it makes your hands ache. I know this isn’t exactly the most interesting vacation update, but I just find it strange. It’s in the 70s and 80s during the day, and gets down into the 50s or 60s at night, and I wouldn’t think those temperatures would be cold enough to make the water so cold.
Posted in vacation
Summer in Michigan
For about a week Emily and I are up in Leland, Michigan with Charley, visiting Emily’s parents. The highs here are in the 70s, which is a very welcome change from the 100+ degree heat in Austin. We flew in to Traverse City yesterday, then drove up to Leland which is on a small strip of land between Lake Michigan and Lake Leelanau. It’s such a narrow strip of land that we can walk to both lakes from the house. We walked to the Lake Michigan side last night, and the water is pretty cold (about the same as Barton Spring I think), but I waded in a little bit.
Leland is a very small town, and I think a lot of our time is going to be spent relaxing, playing games at the house and going to the lakes. It should be a pretty good week.
Posted in family
Shopping with a baby
Going to the grocery store (or any store for that matter) is definitely more challenging with a baby.
Now that Charley is a little older we’ve been taking her out with us more and we’ve noticed a disturbing thing: she LOVES the mall. Of course, I’m sure it’s just that her little sponge-brain enjoys all the people-watching she can do there, but I don’t want to start a trend with her where mall=entertainment. I mean, if a few years she’s going to want to buy shit while she’s there, right? And she’s going to use my or Emily’s money until she’s old enough to get a job and pull her own weight in this family—and that won’t be until she’s 8 or 9.
The UT Co-op has unnecessary LCD TVs
I went to the co-op the other day to buy a pen, and this was my view while waiting in line to pay. Doesn’t this seem a bit excessive? I mean, do they really think they need a separate giant LCD tv for each line? Would 3 tvs not have done the trick?
Posted in why
Palm Pre, iPhone and WWDC
Well, here we are at WWDC eve. I meant to do a long post about my ongoing back-and-forth between the Palm Pre and the iPhone, but now that we’re about to get all the juicy iPhone 3GS details in about 10 hours I kinda don’t see the point.
When I first heard about the Pre, I was stoked. But with iPhone 3.0 firmware and the fact that my computer life pretty much revolves around Macs, I’m leaning more and more toward going back to the iPhone when the 3rd gen is finally released. The Pre is amazing, and from a general consumer perspective anything that keeps Apple on their toes is a good thing. I just don’t think it’ll be for me.
I’m trying to convince Emily to get one though 🙂
Posted in tech
It’s crawfish, not crayfish. Look it up.
On Saturday, May 2, I was expecting a FedEx package. I get a little eager when I’m expecting something (a watch in this case), and I tend to check the front porch several times during the day. On what I think was the second check of the day, I opened the door and looked down to see this:
My first thought was that someone was watching and waiting to see the reaction of the dude that opens the door to see a creepy crawfish with a note attached sitting on his porch, so I slammed the door and ran up the stairs to see Emily. She was feeding Charley.
Me: “Okay, you wanna hear something weird?”
Em: Blank stare.
Me: “I was checking for my watch that’s supposed to be here today, and when I opened the door there’s a crawfish sitting on the front porch.”
Em: “A live one?”
Me: “No, a bright red one like it’s been cooked for a crawfish boil.”
Em: “Crawfish are gross.”
Me: “Ooh, I should take some pictures.”
Em: “Okay, but just don’t show them to me. Those things freak me out.”
I went downstairs, grabbed a plastic bag and my grill stick from the side porch, then went to the front door. I wasn’t THAT worried anymore about some 12-year-old hiding behind a tree and waiting to take a picture of my freakout. Besides, even I can appreciate that a picture of a 30-something dude on all fours in his doorway with a camera phone in one hand and a stick in the other, poking a crawfish, would be pretty funny. Video would be even better.
Anyway, I poked the crawfish to make sure it wasn’t spring-loaded, then threw it into the plastic bag using the stick (probably took four tries). Next it was time to read the note.
I was a little puzzled. Does someone think I’m Red Lobster’s CEO? Or was it not directed and me and more of a call-to-action type of thing? Then I wondered if any other porches in the neighborhood got crawfish with little environmental messages attached, and now I wish I had walked up and down the street to check. Either way it’s weird. If it was just us, then why us? And why was this someone walking/driving around with a cooked crawfish. If several houses got them, then the person must have had a whole bag of crawfish. That’s weird too.
Still crouched in the doorway, I flipped over the little strip of papaer.
So there we have it–it was RICARDO! I’ve known one Ricardo in the past ten years. He was a bartender I worked with at Manuels down on Congress Ave. Nice guy. Moved up north somewhere…Portland I think. He’s probably not the one that did it.
To the Ricardo who DID do it, why use a crawfish and not a lobster? After all, you ARE protesting “Lobstefest,” right? I guess if you were carrying 20 or so, crawfish are more manageable. Little piece of advice though, next time try replacing the crawfish with a $50 bill and change the note to read: “Go get yourself some lobster so you can really understand how “Lobsterfest” is hurting our waters. -Ricardo” Do that, and I’ll be MUCH more sympathetic to your cause.
toodark.com 