My First Siri Request

Gave my new Siri app a little test right out of the box - let's see if she knows how to do this:

"Remind me to make a doctors appointment late next September."

She almost got it right. This resulted in a reminder to make a doctors appointment, but the late part apparently didn't get handled, as it was set for midnight on September 1st. So a switch over to the reminder (fortunately, the one she created was clickable right from the Siri window, so I didn't have to back out of Siri, swipe over to the Reminders app, and dig back through to find it), and change the date to later in the month.

I was wondering if she would somehow select some date in the back half of the month for late, but I guess not. What about the end of next September? Maybe that would have worked better?

I Stand With You (From Way Over Here)

I fully support the nuttiness that is Occupy Oakland.

Just another good reason for companies to move out of California and other states that don't want them around (while simultaneously demanding more and more from them) to states like Texas, that provide a good business environment (and therefore a better living environment for its citizens).

Well done, Oakland.

Movie Review: Little Big Soldier

And now my long-delayed Jackie Chan Film Festival gets an unexpected new entry - 2010's Little Big Soldier, a Chan-written, -produced, -starring and -action-directed movie that IMDb slots in between two American films, The Spy Next Door and the remake of The Karate Kid. But this one is a Chinese production, which gives it a much larger probability of success, as his English films have definitely been hit-or-miss over the last decade or so.

And this one is definitely a hit. It's another historical entry, set in epic times, but somehow with not as large a scope as The Myth. This one concentrates on a mismatched pair of combatants, Chan's unnamed Soldier and co-star LeeHom Wang's unnamed General. They are the only survivors on opposite sides of a battle, with the Soldier portrayed as an ordinary farmer just looking to survive and escape his enlistment, and the younger General looking to use the ongoing battles to unify China.

Jackie's Soldier here is really one of his best characterizations yet - always talking to himself, giving out endless streams of sayings from his father, and doing just enough to stay alive - and hopefully keep his new captive alive long enough to collect a reward. It's been a while since he hasn't played a character who was the best fighter/spy/policeman/whatever around (maybe back to Rob-B-Hood, perhaps?), but this movie definitely shows that Jackie is more than just amazing stunts and fight sequences. In fact, he really only has a couple of fights here, and as is appropriate for his character, they are more about survival and escape than domination (and even the ones with the most technical proficiency end up being dream sequences).

But lest you think this is all broad comedy, there is actually a pretty serious side to the film also. Chan uses this situation as a commentary about the motives of leaders with respect to war, and the impact of battles on both the leaders and the common soldier. The movie ends with a crushing turnabout (which I won't spoil here) that is pretty powerful. I was really impressed in retrospec with just how many little throwaway moments from earlier points in the film led to great payoffs later on.

It doesn't quite stack up with the best of Jackie's career - as I mentioned, this isn't a film for the flashiest fight scenes (and we may be past that part of his career by this point, anyway). And the middle section of the film does drag a bit as the two men are briefly separated - they do seem to work better together. But on the whole, this is certainly Jackie's strongest film in years. Four out of five for me.

Great Moments In Technology Journalism

From some brain surgeon at ZDNet, Ken Hess:

[N]ow there’s an added bonus way to burn up that [iCloud] free space: your PC. Apple wants me to use their Cloud-based storage on all of my devices not just Apple ones. Pretty darn sneaky, if you ask me. Smart too.

...

But, the most intriguing of all is the Photo Stream part of the iCloud application.

To setup your PC to use Photo Stream, click the checkbox and then click Options to see the screen in Figure 2.

Here’s the really sneaky part: People take more photos with digital devices because it doesn’t cost anything to do so. Why is that sneaky? Because everyone wants those photos to be of the highest quality. Higher quality photos means bigger photos. Bigger photos means that they take up more space. Sneaky.

This means that you’ll burn through that five free gigabytes with one or two uploads from your iPod, iPhone, iPad or PC. You’ll have to buy more space as described in, “Avoiding the iCloud storage gotcha.”

From Apple's press release on iCloud:

the storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count towards this 5GB total

Took me about 10 seconds on Bing to find this. I guess technology journalism is hard.

Have I Got A Deal For You

Like many new cars, my Hyundai Tuscon came with a 90-day XM trial. So I gave it a shot and generally liked it - it was miles better than the pathetic set of Austin radio stations, and did pull songs from time-to-time that weren't already on my 80 GB iPod. However, I didn't like it enough to want to pay the full $160 or so per year fee (as my friends will tell you, I'm pretty much a cheapskate).

Soon after the trial ran out, I got a call from a telemarketer for XM, who offered me a five month subscription period for $20. Well, four dollars a month is pretty different from $14, so I decided to accept that deal. They warned me that I would have to call to renew at that rate once the five months was up, and sure enough, I missed the notification. So I was automatically renewed at a rate of about $85 for six months.

OK, that was my fault, so I sucked it up, but once that six month period was about to end, I called up XM and requested a renewal at the original promotional rate, which they readily accepted. So I am back on for another five months at $20 total.

So in summary, we have here about four different subscription rates for the same service - free (for the initial trial), $4/month (for the discount renewal), $13/month (for the normal retail price), and about $15/month (the rate they renewed me at for some reason).

I find that I have a hard time trusting companies or industries that live on this kind of pricing structure - that you have to "know" how to get the good deal. You have to know the magic code, or know how to work the customer service lines, or know to get this special package, or whatever, to avoid paying double or triple the price. Other industries where this happens are airlines and hotels, for example. I don't know why some companies feel they have to hide the ball - provide a good product or service that I like, tell me what it costs, and I will make a decision. Don't make me wonder if I somehow missed the magic incantation that the guy next to me found. Don't make me wonder why you can sell me this service for $5/month when last month you charged me $15 for the same thing.

It shouldn't have to be like this. For example, compare Apple to other computer or cell phone manufacturers. Apple has a relatively small number of models, with a relatively simple number of options (usually installed disk space, memory or screen sizes). They don't have 40 varieties of touch screen models, each with slightly different sets of features. And they don't have lots of special deals - in fact, Apple clamps down pretty severely on their retailers to make sure they sell at the same price. They provide a good product and don't make it hard to purchase. Do their customers squeeze out every last penny that could by running the salesman gauntlets? No - but on the whole they are more satisfied as customers than most other companies.

The New Civility, continued

Al Gore to run a 24-hour "full-on assault" on climate skeptics?

My, my, what violent language.

When You Are A Hammer...

...everything looks like a nail.

Too many Travis County residents are going hungry unnecessarily. Sustainable Food Policy Board member Arthur D'Andrea says only 47% of Travis County residents who are eligible for food stamps actually participate in the program.

See, if the government says you are eligible for food stamps and you don't apply, then of course, you must be going hungry.

Or perhaps, you know, you have other means of support. Or the eligibility requirements are too lenient. Nah, that couldn't be it.

D'Andrea says the county leaves over 150-million in federal money on the table.

And this is a bad thing? I guess in some eyes (i.e. a bureaucrat's), it is. To a tax-payer's eyes, this is a good thing.

D'Andrea says the city needs to make it easier to apply for food stamps and get the word out what it takes to qualify for the assistance.

Look, I actually agree with this - I find it extremely easy to believe that federal, state and local governments have managed to come up with the most complex way possible to apply for aid, and streamlining it (and removing some of the associated bureaucracy) would be a good thing. But I don't think that it's a big problem that not enough people are living off on the behest of the government; quite the contrary, the problem is that too many people are. So efforts to get more people dependent on tax dollars get a thumbs down from me.