Today I attended a rally at the Australian Prime Minister's electoral office here in Brisbane. It was organised by the Maternity Coalition - Australia's national maternity consumer advocacy group, to protest proposed amendments to the "Medicare for Midwifes" bill (Medicare is the Australia's national single payer government healthcare system - not to be confused with the US Medicare system).
The amendments mean that doctors will be given the right to control whether a midwife can practice or not here in Australia - despite midwifery being a distinct, separately regulated profession. Here's a link to Australia's ABC News coverage of the rally and here's a link to the press release put out by the Maternity Coalition, my letter to Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, below and info on how to book a homebirth through the NHS if you live in the U.K. :
I don't know why everyone dislikes its appearance so much. I find it very nice looking. Plus, it's squared corners make it infinitely easier to keep a hold on than iPods and iPhones (which I drop time after time on a daily basis). Some people take issue with the black edge that sticks out (the right edge in the above photo), but it's really necessary because it gives you something to grasp on to. Without it you'd be frustrated by having to hold on to the screen where you'd be activating things accidentally.
The things I love:
It feels very robust and sturdy. It feels indestructible.
It comes with a 16GB SD card and has a replaceable battery.
It has a 5MP camera with dual LED flash. It's very nice that you can instantly share your photos/videos via gmail or other online services.
It is extremely responsive. It has a very fast processor (relatively speaking). There is little to zero delay when doing most anything with the phone. Most importantly you can switch back and forth between lots of different processes instantly.
All programs run simultaneously. This means while you're doing something, if you're interrupted (or you interrupt yourself like to send a text message) your other processes continue unimpeded.
I get a 3G speed Internet connection everywhere. (If you want specifics, there's a map for that.)
I didn't know this until I got it, but it has a very large, very loud external speaker on the back. This is an Enormous benefit to me because I usually am forced to wear headphones with my iPod Touch while I'm driving because its speaker is very weak. It also makes speakerphone calls wonderful.
(Free) voice-guided GPS navigation with satellite view and live traffic updates. I think everyone is familiar with this feature by now.
Very simple universal search allows you to search for anything (websites, map locations, contacts) typed or spoken, and the "spoken word interpreter" is very smart even able to figure out different spellings than words sound (e.g., "in n out" or "pick up stix").
The keyboard, while a little small, feels good and is well laid out (as long as you type with your fingertips).
Instant notification if new Gmail arrives.
Centralized listing of all notifications needing my attention.
You can easily manage the content on your phone without the need for proprietary software like iTunes.
The things I'm confused by (because Google should know better or might work in some way that I can't figure out):
Nevermind this point - see comment below. While the phone is on silent or vibrate mode, you are not given *any* kind of notification that you have received a new text or gmail. What's the deal with that, Google? At the very least the screen should activate so you have the visual notification, but it should definitely vibrate if you have the phone in vibrate mode. Instead it just sits there dark and silent forcing you to manually check it every few minutes to see if there are any new notifications. (I did discover you can set the notification volume separately from the phone volume, but the notification has to be audible.)
Some things are slightly buggy. When setting the notification volume lower than the general phone volume, all volume became almost mute and would not increase until I restarted the phone.
There doesn't seem to be any way to uninstall pre-installed apps I don't want, like the "Amazon MP3" app. Perhaps there's some way to do it, but I haven't been able to find it.
There's no way to set the ringtone individually for different types of notifications (e.g., new gmail, new text, etc.) There's just one ringtone selection to rule them all.
Though it's a snap to upload tons of songs via a USB cable and your computer and use any of them as your phone ringtone, there's no apparent way to use them as the ringtone for notifications.
Anyhow, just thought I'd share my opinions and also hope that maybe someone will inform me how to do some of the things that appear to be impossible. All in all, it is by far the very best phone I've ever owned (my last phone was an LG Voyager, ugh). It's really like having a fully-functional portable Internet-connected computer and I love it.
[edit] I have tried this and can verify it works: a commenter on Motorola's site says the following about adding your own custom notification ringtones:
"you can make Android "see" these files by placing them on your SD card in specific folders. The folders by tone type are as follows:
I have found that Android appears to be rather picky about filenames. I got mine to be visible by removing spaces in the filename when I placed them on the SD Card."
One of the most heartwarming things I've ever stumbled across on these internets.. take a few minutes, it's worth it. And don't forget to tell your parents that you love them, whenever you can.
Here I am. Somewhere in southern Afghanistan, loving life. I'm moving to a new base tomorrow, where hopefully I'll have a more stable, faster connection so I can post a few picture for you. I keep seeing emails saying my posts have been promoted, so thanks to all who did that. I'll catch up with you when I can!
Here's a paraphrased dialog between the doctor at the ER and myself regarding my flu like symptoms.
<after telling him my symptoms and him checking my respiratory system>
Dr: Well it sounds like we have the flu. We don't even test anymore. The CDC has declared that the quick test is only 10 to 50% accurate and the other test is about $1000 and it takes 48 to 72 hours to determine. Furthermore any antiviral I would give you will probably only be around 10%, we save that for pregnant women and those going through chemo.
Me: What if it's swine flue
Dr: There's a good chance it is, but it doesn't matter, you have to do the same things to recover from either. I know it's got a cool name 'H1N1' and all, but really it's a media hype and your chances of dying from it are next to nil. Just get some rest and don't go into work until 3 days after you've stopped coughing
So there you have it from a doctor. I don't know what his bias is if any, but this swine flu 'epidemic' is hogwash. And if I do have it, I've lived through plenty worse illnesses. I'm mildly uncomfortable at the very most. Furthermore, why did I have to pay $100 to get that diagnosis? Because my girlfriend was scared that I had the swine flue. What did I find out? That I might have it...but who cares. Worst $100 spent...ever.
My advice is if you come down with flu like symptoms that are bearable, just tough it out. Get lots of rest and drink plenty of water and all that old school shit. Even if you live somewhere that has public healthcare, it's not worth the time to get checked out. Of course I am not a doctor, don't listen to me.
"This video has been redacted due to the copyright claim of Bill Plympton." -siftbot
Bill Plympton does not understand how the Internet works. His legal shenanigans are not good for freedom of speech, if he wants to censor the internet, he should go to the providers, not propagaters like videosift.
I don't even know who he is, and now I don't care. He sucks.
I don't blame the admins for this, I'm sure they are as outraged as I am. I just want you to know how much he sucks. (It's a lot.)
I submitted this to the Tee Virus workshop and thought I'd share it here. It's a math-centric design and hopefully humorous to one or two of you Sifters.
Here's a follow-up inspired by demon_ix's comment below: If you haven't or don't on a regular basis, please help us by at leaving your comments and casting your votes in the Tee Virus Workshop. There are a few designers there who often get very little to zero feedback on their creations and it'd be enormously appreciated if you'd just lend us 2 minutes of your day. Thanks for your help Sifters!
(And if you were a Sift member before TeeVirus launched, you already have an account there. Just login with your usual username/password.)
I was a ninja. Every time I saw someone taking a picture, I'd 'creep' my way behind them and look into the lens. As soon as I saw the flash, I was gone like the night.
It's a holiday in transition here. I took the kids out and walked around in the twilight - (it's getting to be summer, with longer days). People here seem to be aware of the holiday- but fight it in many households- by turning out the lights and hiding.
Even houses that were decked out with jack-o-lanterns and looked to be safe bets were cringingly embarrassing. A guy comes out with no shirt on - "what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to give you something?" Meanwhile his young costumed daughter- works in the background scooping up lollies to drop in the bags. Maybe it's a generational thing.
1. Out of 2 million low-income voters registered, a small percent of the workers turned in bogus forms with bogus names like Captain Crunch. Acorn was required by law to turn in ALL of the forms rather than arbitrarily discarding some of the forms at their discretion (because if the law were otherwise, people who register voters could throw away half the forms and disenfranchise half the people who thought they had registered). Not one vote is known to have been cast under any of these bogus registration attempts.
2. Some people dressed up as OBVIOUSLY fake pimps and prostitutes, strolled into dozens of ACORN branches until they found someone who put them on (OBVIOUSLY bullshitting them) and they took it completely seriously. Later, they took the videos credulously to Fox news, which also believed every word in the videos was serious, because they're a bunch of morons with no sense of humor.
3. Republicans have a ragefest and try to treat organizations as guilty until proven innocent if any ONE of their employees has been indicted for fraud (i.e. arbitrarily accused by one prosecutor, not yet put on trial or anything). This rule inadvertently bars the gov't from funding a shitload of defense contractors, but that part is not really going to be enforced, because all they really wanted was an unconstitutional bill of attainder against ACORN.
Can we add a 'hide' button beside 'bookmark' and 'playlist' at the bottom of videos? I'm seeing so many FOX news clips, or responses to FOX news clips, etc. etc. - I'm pretty sick of all of it. This would obviously also be good for any other videos users might not wish to see on the frontpage (good example; people at work or home with kids can hide posts that have profanity in the title.) Applicable? Thoughts?
Don't suggest that baby Jesus invented magnetism to your physics professor. Hard as it is to believe, some physics professors and some physics students are, in fact, religious and will take offense to that.
Stumble This
