Trapped Stateside...

ATTENTION!

2011-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Trapped Stateside is no more. More specifically, I have migrated it to a self hosted WordPress account which can be found here.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Afghanistan Kiln Workers. Every Man in America.

2011-03-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

“We are slaves here because when you owe someone money, then of course you’re a slave”

Once again, haunting words from the news reach well beyond their context.

[NYT]

I am Locutus of Borg.

2011-03-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Vid-Phon iPhone cases!

2011-02-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

I promised these a million years ago, but they have finally arrived! Head on over to CafePress and pick one up! I don't get anything out of this mind you, so don't complain to me about the price :P
Cases: Clean Weathered
Here's a review of the CafePress cases in case you were wondering about the mterials/quality.

AT&T's secret voice plans

2011-02-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

I found out yesterday that these "special" plans are available to "qualified customers" which I can only assume is a euphemism for complainers who don't use very many calling minutes. Anyway I thought I'd share:

$19/Mo: Nation 50. No rollover. No nights and weekends. (Not bad if you can manage to switch over totally to Google Voice or Skype)

$29/Mo: Nation 300 Rollover & 500 Night/Weekend & Unlimited Mobile-To-Mobile Minutes

I managed to shave $10 a month off my bill. Not great, but not a bad deal to help me through the wait for my contract to end in the next few months.

There's gonna come a time.

2011-02-18T06:10:00.001-08:00

There's something really sad about this picture. What is the symbolism of a anthropomorphic robot being used to erase its own name from a whiteboard? Fairly profound if you think about it. Could this be one of the first iconic images future sentient robots look to for strength and inspiration as they fight for equality?

Oh and as an added jab, the name being erased: HOAP.

[via Engadget]

BR Vid-Phon is making a comeback!

2011-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: My iPhone has taken a turn for the worst and now the wake sleep button doesn't even work. It looks like this phone is destined for SMASHTOWN as soon as the Droid Incredible 2 launches....

First of all, no I won't be updating BR Vid-Phon to work under iOS 4, the comeback I'm referring to is my descision to downgrade my 3Gs back to 3.1.3 and throw BR Vid-Phon back on.

A few months ago I decided that many of the features and reasons I wanted to jailbreak for originally had disappeared with many of the updates in iOS. So I went vanilla again. No jailbreak, no Cydia, no worries.

Wrong.

The headaches of updating and maintaining my jailbreaks was nothing compared to the horrible issues I have been having with my handset since I upgraded (specifically with version 4.2.1):

Everything is slower. A lot slower.

Loss of signal strength, and less options to troubleshoot my antennas.

Loss of battery life (it dies significantly faster now).

Infuriating random shut down/reboot/battery issues. The phone will often think it has been drained to the point that it refuses to boot up without being charged first, yet after just 30 seconds, will "remember" that is actually has 40%, 60% or even 80% charge...

BR Vid-Phon was cool.

So, hopefully by this time tomorrow I will have a fresh, fast, Blade Runner worthy handset.

Any of you out there having maddening issues with iOS 4 on your older device, I encourage you to step down again too. Hopefully I'm not the only one that sees the value of injecting my aging phone with new life again.

Umm...Brazenly burying your head in the sand is not a strategy.

2011-02-11T06:26:00.001-08:00

this is insane.

Engadget: Did you have to switch to an HP laptop when you came over?

Jon: I use everything.

Engadget: Except for the iPhone.

Steven: And iPads...

Engadget: you've never used an iPad?

Jon: I've held one.

Engadget: C'mon. Really?

Jon: Look, your guys' job is to look at everyone's experience and compare them -- my job is to create new experiences, and I don't know how to do that if I'm being impacted and influenced by what other people are doing.

Engadget: I know you have an army of people who look at this stuff, but they're not you -- don't you ever want to look at these deeply and try and figure out why are people so delighted by the competition's products?

Jon: I read about it on Engadget and I see the videos. I've been doing this for a really long time. We have a UI team that looks at all these products, a competitive analysis team that looks at these products. I want a fresh look at everything we make, and I don't want it to be influenced by what anyone else is doing. So I don't use the other stuff. This didn't start off as a religious thing -- when the iPhone came out, I was getting the Centro out the door and I was testing it 24 hours a day. It got turned into a religious thing but the reality is that if I'm going to spend my time I want to spend it on our devices and on our experiences and thinking about how we make them even better.

Well Jon, you know who WILL be picking up and using and comparing your competitors products? The consumer. You know who buys things? The consumer. But, I guess you're right. George Santayana is always saying "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to...what was it again?" Oh well, back to making sweet ass mobile devices in a vacuum.

[via Engadget]

Lunatic Prediction Alert: iPad Edition

2011-02-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

I have a weird hunch that the speaker/SD card slot on the iPad 2 will actually be for a stylus....

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

UPDATE: It was definitely just wishful thinking.

Nerd Alert: Kindle Power User Tip

2011-02-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

Readability + Send to Kindle = Greatness

(more explanation later)

Custom Kindle Screensavers

2011-01-31T11:26:00.000-08:00

I got a Kindle for my birthday! But, I couldn't leave it unaltered. BEHOLD! My Blade Runner and Star Trek LCARS inspired custom screensavers! If you have a jailbroken Kindle (the easiest/least risky process ever!) feel free to snag these and drop them on your device!

Enjoy!

The Blade Runner magazines:

And the LCARS ones:

I know that one has my face on it...but you don't HAVE to use them!

*Much credit goes to Kevin From the Propsummit forums for his amazingly made high-res reproductions of the magazine covers seen in various locations in Blade Runner. These 800x600 B&W versions pale in comparison to his work.

I'd also like to thank the multitude of people I snagged bits of LCARS interface from via Google Image search (though the Star Trek screensavers involved a lot more of my own work).

Top ten gadgets to make you feel like you are living in a sci-fi dream world

2011-01-03T10:58:00.001-08:00

1. Apple iPad
2. Amazon Kindle/Barnes & Noble Nook
3. Apple iPhone/Android smartphone
4. Microsoft Xbox Kinect
5. Microsoft Surface
6. Wacom Cintiq
7. iPod Nano w/ wristband
8. Looxcie Camera
9. Voxtec Phraselator
10. Amazon Kindle DX/Barnes & Noble Nook Color

Yes. I have included three Apple products and two Amazon products. If you owned them you would agree. Hopefully some Android tablets (NotionInk Adam) will become part of this list very soon. We'll have to see what CES gives us.

Dear ACLU: holy shit leave me alone.

2010-12-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Hi ACLU,

It has come to my attention that you have decided it would be in your best interest to bother me TO DEATH.

You are worse than a collection agency! For god sake, it's like you have singled out people who actually want to support you and decided to annoy and berate them until they wish they had never given you money at all! I tried to politely decline and explain that I have already contributed and if I could afford it I would have donated more, BUT THAT WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH. You still kept pressing and calling.

Every day for a week. Sometimes more than once. I tried ignoring, I tried hanging up. But, you just keep calling back. You MADE me yell at your poor volunteer and tell him point blank to stop calling me. I don't want to hate you. I thought we were friends. I am going to have to think about things.

A (now irritated and wavering supporter),

Josh M.

plastic spoons: the bane of my existence

2010-12-15T10:10:00.001-08:00

Chrome OS is murdering your keyboard!

2010-12-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

I find it amazing that so many news outlets have picked up and run with the idea that Google is trying to "kill the Caps Lock key" with its flagship Chrome OS Laptop WHICH IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE FOR SALE.

Come on people.

But what is more interesting, is the fact that anyone even makes use of this key anymore. Apart form some specialized data entry style jobs, no one needs it. Now, I am not saying there aren't some keys on the old QWERTY keyboard that aren't a good deal closer to deaths door, but none are quite as useless in the same way.

I have never needed the Scroll Lock key for example. And I am not actually certain what Pause Break does. Nothing I assume.

But, as far as indolence goes, Caps Lock is king. If Google isn't trying to get rid of it, they should damn well start trying. I have had the key disabled on my Mac for the past 5 years and have never looked back. You would be amazed how easy it is to simply HOLD DOWN SHIFT when you need a few capital letters. I CAN TYPE AT NEAR NORMAL SPEED EVEN WITH MY PINKY ON THE SHIFT KEY.

It's easy, it alleviates countless headaches from accidental keypress, and perhaps most importantly, takes the laziness out of LOUD TYPING. Without it, if I want to YELL I have to make a concerted effort. Not an effort so great as to leave me dreaming of dedicated key to relieve me of my burden, but just enough that I won't use it FOR EVERY DAMN WORD I TYPE.

So, good riddance Caps Lock. I've become so used to never using the key that even now as I type this post on a PC with a fully functional Caps Lock key, I have not touched it once. ALL THIS CAPITALIZATION was done with the Shift key alone.

P.S. - If you need any more evidence that Caps Lock is more foe than friend, name me any other key that is such a nuisance that keyboard designers found it necessary to add an extra long indented space between it and its neighbors to prevent accidental depression. None? Exactly.

Onward...

2010-11-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

We didn't do anything to them, but they attacked us," said the boy, who was later reunited with his mother. His father remains on duty on Yeonpyeong. "When I grow up, I want to be a soldier, like my dad," he said.

This quote from a WSJ article today transcends the subject at hand.

This is why the cycles continue. This is how it happens. This is why we die.

Lyrics: Sifting through the mess

2010-11-15T07:50:00.001-08:00

I am obsessed with lyrics. I can often cannot even remember the name of a song, while being able to recite it verbatim.

Despite being able to untangle lines like "Mickey Avalon's songs play in strip clubs so sip some Asti Spumante with Dante Alighieri" I do need to look them up on occasion. And as you may have noticed, the internet has become awash with horrible ad-blasting-hell-pits of lyrics repositories. More annoying that all the pop-up ads is the fact that they all seem to have just copy-and-pasted their catalog of lyrics from one another.

And, as best I can discern, the original source for these "lyrics" was a lone 13 year old with a hearing impairment.

So, what is one to do? Don't worry, I have the answer. These two lyrics sites seem to be actively used, moderated and contributed to by real people:

Lyriki.com
SongMeanings.net

Lyriki is a great ad-free wiki style site that I have been steadily contributing to. They seem to consistently have MORE accurate lyrics than other sources. The only downside is their relatively small collection of lyrics. But, it can only get bigger and better the more people know about it.

SongMeanings has ads, but they aren't minds splitting, and unlike Lyriki they have active discussion threads right below the lyrics on each page. They seem to have moderators as well, because it is normally pretty civilized (especially for the internet).

Now you are ready. Go. Listen. And transcribe.

Christmas List 2010

2010-11-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

So, it looks like this is going to be shorter than past years:

1. Notion Ink - Adam
2. ~~Amazon - Kindle 3 (wifi only is fine)~~
3. Apple - 15" Macbook Pro (though honestly I'd take any Mac laptop)
4. Vegetarian-Shoes - Vintage Boot
5. Elvis & Kresse - Slider Belt
6. Vegetarian-Shoes - Oxford Smooth Grain
7. Vegetarian-Shoes - Uni Belt
8. Vegetarian-Shoes - Antique Brogue
9. Life After Denim - Shawl Collar Coat

Yes, I realize that I always have at least one product that isn't actually available on my Christmas list. Also of note, those things usually don't even ever make it to market!

I still want them though.

I win!

2010-10-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

You do not.

UPDATE: Presumably this is waiting for me at the post office (thanks for NOT leaving me a delivery slip mailman!) though I won't be able to stop by to check until Saturday. Due to them not being open at any convenient time, ever.

The new Myspace ripped off Pinterest.

2010-10-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

Greatest Text Fail of All Time

2010-10-24T13:20:00.001-07:00

I don't even know how this happened, but it is epic.

Ballmerchrist

2010-10-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

And on the WP7th day he rested.

RANT.

2010-09-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

What in the name of god is wrong with commenters on the internet? I have come across the same question/problem/lack of common sense numerous times recently and MUST VENT.

THE ENTIRE CONTENT OF AN ARTICLE OR BLOG POST DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE THE SAME TONE. SARCASM, RHETORICAL QUESTIONS, HUMOR, SATIRE, SERIOUSNESS, DRYNESS, IAMBIC PENTAMETER, et al. CAN ALL RESIDE PEACEFULLY IN COHABITATION WITH ONE ANOTHER INSIDE THE SAME PIECE OF WRITING.

For the love of god.

EXAMPLES:

Ars Technica:
PapaSnuff -

"Things will kick off with everybody's favorite chapter in the Star Wars saga, The Phantom Menace"

I want to believe this is sarcasm, but the rest of article's tone didn't convince me.

This has to be sarcasm, right? RIGHT?

Also, terrible idea.

QuickJump:
TimShady87 —

That's what I was thinking, this article is short and weird and misleading. "Surely it must be worth it" sounds like sarcasm but the rest of the article sounds sincere so maybe not. Who's responsible for this?

CrunchGear:
Devin Coldewey -

guess my sarcasm was a little too subtle for these guys

Devin Coldewey writes for CrunchGear.

iOS is showing its age.

2010-09-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Forget the fact that Android is chewing away significant portion of the smartphone user mindshare. And, forget that with the backing of HP, WebOS has returned from the grave. Forget that Windows Phone 7 is poised to strike with all the weight Microsoft can muster to get back into this market. Forget also that, while seemingly delayed, MeeGo looks to be a solid contender, especially in Europe.

Forget all of that.

What I want to talk about is how badly iOS is showing its age. Compared to these newcomers, the overall design paradigm for Apple's (now flagship) operating system seems woefully outdated. Even tacky.

"one of these things is not like the others..."
All the chrome bezels, faux 3D curves, high gloss glare and reflections from some unseen omnipresent light source are becoming visually tired, and really when it comes down to it, busy and ugly.

On the cusp of the teens of this new century Apple, the longtime herald of good design, has fallen behind. And to the likes of Microsoft and the open-source community no less! Plotted on a continuum Android would be little more than a contemporary to iOS (albeit much faster evolving) and WebOS a hybrid middle-ground; half copycat and half innovation. But, beyond that things become steadily more progressive. Enter MeeGo and Windows Phone 7.

Just look at any screenshot from WP7 or MeeGo or even the latest Ubuntu release and you will see what I mean. Websites like GDGT and others (Joystiq, Ars Technica, the new Twitter, Facebook to a degree...) have been leading the way in this shift toward usability through minimalism for a while now.

The shift from glossy photo-realistic interface is long overdue. Our movement away from hyper-realism reflects a maturation of our expectations of technology as a consumer and end user.

In decades past, as the personal computer and it's amazing bedfellow the internet were going through their growing pains, the layers of gloss impressed us. Comments like "Look at these graphics" or "it's so realistic" were commonplace, and rightfully so. Nothing like these achievements had ever been made.

Just like painting during the Renaissance, the ability to mimic reality was one of the measures by which we gauged progress and ability. But, once achieved, those abilities become the norm and the user/viewer looks harder at what can be done with the technology rather than what the technology can do.

This is an important shift. A shift from simple justification toward exploration, diversity and focus on functionality. Examining and questioning core principles about what technology is and what it should do for us will, hopefully, follow.

Apple's effort to force us all to embrace design and function may have blown up in its face. While they still hold the reigns in the realm of hardware design (firmly rooted in the explorations and divergences of the past) they are losing ground in what is arguably the most important space in the age of slates and touchscreens: the interface. A generation of designers, artists and programmers grew up using Macs and now they have taken the torch. And they don't all work at Apple. Nor do they all have Steve Jobs to contend with.

UPDATE: This line from Notion Ink's Rohan Shravan's blog on the UI of the Adam is quite promising:

"Icons are not glossy and web 2.0-ish as you find on all the current generation of devices;"

A compendium of bizarre investment banking terms

2010-09-16T13:58:00.001-07:00

This is a list of very strange jargon I have come into contact with since I began working in the investment banking world. I will add more as they present themselves.

Chinese Wall: An imaginary separation placed between a brokerage firm's investment banking business and its trading and retail business. A Chinese wall prevents investment bankers who frequently are privy to information that could substantially influence the price of a client's securities from leaking that information to the firm's traders and sales personnel. The exchange of such information is legally prohibited.

Haircut: (1) The difference between the prices at which a market maker can buy and sell a security. (2) The percentage by which an asset's market value is reduced for the purpose of calculating capital requirement, margin, and collateral levels.

Blood Language: I have no idea what this means...

Baked-in: Coming soon...