Statrix Redux

Eric H. Brown, a British engineer who developed aircraft during World War II and afterward taught at Imperial College London, candidly described the predicament. In a 1967 book, he called structural engineering “the art of molding materials we do not really understand into shapes we cannot really analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the public does not really suspect.”Among other things, Dr. Brown taught failure analysis.

via Taking Lessons From Engineering Disasters – NYTimes.com.

The camera is an instrument that teaches people

how to see without a camera." – Dorothea Lange

And:

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." – Theodor Seuss Geisel

It's really kind of difficult to pick just one quote and say that's it for all time. Right now though, these are my favorite.

I love the first because it's so very true about photography, or anything else for that matter. I love the second because it's advice I need to remember on a daily basis.

Aloha!

[audio:http://statrix.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/audio-post-2010-07-13-20-35-59.mp3]
This was copied over from my WordPress.com blog (which I don’t really use except to experiment). This doesn’t do transcripts, but it does record nicely.
Aloha!

I’m testing blocking the approval voice, hopefully it will work this time aloha.

As you can see, this doesn’t quite work. As I recall what I really said was “I’m testing blogging with Google Voice. Hopefully it will work this time. Aloha.” Close, but no cigar yet.

I came down with a nasty cold which, I suspect, was caused by my moving in and out of the heavily air conditioned buildings in San Antonio. They really kept things cranked up there. The weather outside was just fine for me though…I like hot.
Anyway I’ve been on my back since Friday afternoon and am still feeling under the weather. I’d love to get out for a few minutes sometime today, just to say I saw the outdoors, but it’s hard to say whether I should even try. I’ve been looking at websites which attempt to answer the question of whether sick people should exercise like the Mayo Clinic.
I did manage to spend some time putting up the rest of my San Antonio Mission Trail images though. I really enjoyed that part of my trip, perhaps because no air conditioning was involved.

I’m back from a week in San Antonio, Texas. It’s really a wonderful city with its Riverwalk and lovely Mission Trail. I couldn’t bike the Riverwalk, but I could and did bike the Mission Trail. Here I am at Mission Conception:

The weather was hot and humid, though cooler I’m told because of Hurricane Alex. Alex didn’t make it inland as far as San Antonio, but it did bring cloudy skies and a bit of rain; three days of rain actually. Still I was able to ride on Wednesday morning and on both Saturday and Sunday.
I’ll have more pictures of the missions up later, but for now I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on. My Bike Friday was great!
Aloha!

I’ve been using my EVO for a few weeks now and I’ll be honest…
I’m really happy with it; except for the battery life.
Actually the battery life doesn’t seem too bad compared to my old iPhone 3g. By that I mean compared to the battery life my iPhone 3g had after two years. I can’t compare it to a new iPhone of course, but it does eat up the juice.
Having said that, I’m still real pleased. It does a very good job of being a Hotspot and has all the apps I really need. The only holdout was actually released today, the Android Kindle app. Now I’m complete.
I’m off on another trip soon, to a 4g (WIMAX) enabled city of course, so I’ll be giving it a workout there as well.
Aloha!

Made with my HTC EVO!

The new iPhone 4, announced today, looks like a very sweet phone. It’s definitely sexier than the iPhone 3g I own. It’s even nice than the 3gs that followed mine. In fact if I hadn’t already ordered my HTC EVO I’d be very tempted to order one…but…
It’s AT&T. That’s the sticker. I’m a data hog and I know it. Sigh.
So maybe in two years I’ll be back for the iPhone 6, but until then…

This isn’t a review or even a real comparison as 1) I don’t have an HTC EVO (yet) and 2) my iPhone is a 3g, not even a 3gs or the new iPhone whatevah.
But here’s the thing, I’ve gone ahead and ordered the EVO ahead of the iPhone announcement. I’ll be leaving the iPhone behind for at least a couple of years. Why? It’s just gotten too expensive to live with AT&T, partially because I have too many devices and partially because of changes to AT&T’s policies.
My collection of stuff includes the iPhone 3g, a broadband USB stick, and the 3g iPad. Even with my employers discount (FAN) I’ve discovered I’m paying about $175 a month in telecommunications fees. Worse, were I to drop any the unlimited data plans at this point if I were to sign up again I’d have to do it on AT&T’s new plans which limit the amount of data one can use at the price.
The thing is, I like all those devices and don’t really want to give them up. I want to be able to have data on my phone, my laptop, and my iPad where and when I life, WiFi or no WiFi. I’m often in places where there isn’t any WiFi so there you go.
The solution seems to be the HTC EVO with their unlimited hotspot feature. Theoretically I’ll be able to run my laptop and my iPad at 4g speeds (actually WiMAX not 4g but hey, it’ll be faster than what I have now) when available, and here in Hawaii we have it (at least on Oahu where I live and parts of Maui). The rest of the time I’ll probably have 3g which is what I have now so it’s a wash.
The difference in pricing is what drove me to leave AT&T. I can get all of this for under $120, a savings of at least $50 a month. That’s pretty good as far as I’m concerned. And I’ll get to play with a different sort of phone to boot.

I know I should have waited till Monday to see what the new iPhone will be, but frankly, it’s not Apple, it’s AT&T.
Aloha!