If you're in the southeast Michigan area on Saturday and you like finding some really cool and interesting indie artsy-fartsy type stuff, head over to the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti's Dept town between noon and midnight for the Shadow Art Fair. And while you're there sit down and try out one of the brews created by the Greffs and their team.
Anyone else having issues with Seagate GoFlex external drives when paired up with Macs? I recently picked up a 1TB (USB3 but backward compatible to USB2) unit so I could consolidate my photo archives. After initially working fine and formatting as HFS+ with no problem and starting to copy files from other drives, it started acting up, randomly disconnecting, hanging and not allowing access to files and then refusing to eject.
I ultimately tried to start over and repartition and format on the mac and it kept throwing up posix errors so I tried on a windows box which worked ok. Plugged it back into the mac and trouble started again and now it won't format on either machine. I'll probably take it back and replace with a Western Digital drive which have generally given me less trouble over the years.
I'm now eligible for a discounted upgrade from Verizon and the decision looks like it will be a tough one. I've been rocking an OG Droid since it became available, but I've definitely extended it beyond its limits with too many apps and trying to do more than it's limited 256MB of ram can really support.
I've largely narrowed my choice down to two new motos, the Droid 3 that on sale last week online and in stores this week and the Droid Bionic that was announced at CES and is expected to finally launch around Aug 4. I'm partial to physical keyboards and the D3's example is hugely improved from the original and the new larger 4" screen and dual core processor are pretty sweet. For some reason, Moto opted to leave LTE out of the D3 so its a 3G only phone.
I just checked out the D3 at the verizon kiosk downstairs and its really nice and the keyboard feels really good. My wife and son both have 4 inch phones and I think that's really the sweet spot for a smartphone.
Nobody really knows much about the final specs of the Bionic yet. When it was shown at CES, it was a 4.3" screen with a dual core Nvidia CPU and LTE. Moto has since redesigned the phone and it may now be as much as 4.5 inches from corner to corner which is bordering on being too large for a phone. So far all three LTE phones that Verizon has released have had dismal battery life. I'll be waiting to see how big the bionic is and how long the battery can hold out before I make my decision. If they go to 4.5 and the battery sucks wind I'll probably go with the D3. However, if they can squeeze some decent cycle time out of the bionic and they use the slightly smaller screen, then I may have to go without a physical keyboard.
I'm thinking about voting for Mitt Romney in 2012.
Not because I like Mitt Romney, but rather because I don't. And because it seems that the most effective way to prevent a party's policies from going into effect, these days, is to have that party control the White House.
I'm only half joking, and I'm only half meaning this as a criticism of Obama. This seems like a structural problem: Holding one half of Congress, rather than the White House, seems to be a more effective place from which to effect your policy goals.
Given the undemocratic nature of the Senate and gerrymandering in the House, we're virtually assured that however crazily extreme your party gets, you'll never get so unpopular that you'll get below the threshold of being able to shut down many vital functions of government. This is a pretty big stick — it means that when you're in the minority, you can demand whatever you want and not have to worry about losing anything. In practice Republicans are better at this game than Democrats, but there's no reason Democrats can't do this too.
I'm not saying the presidency isn't powerful. I'm saying a determined Congressional minority can be much more effective at demanding big things than can a determined president can be. It also seems we have to choose: No party, these days, is going to control all the levers of government for long. Either party has to decide whether it wants the White House or one (or two) branches of Congress. Given this choice, it seems like you can get a lot more of your big agenda items passed by being a hard-line minority than you can by holding the White House.
So if you're a liberal and you want liberal policies enacted, why not give up the White House and work from a position of strength? In other words, Liberals for Romney!
Frankly I've never been a blackberry fan. I've been supplied with blackberries by my last two employers and hated both phones. Always ended up with workarounds that let me re-route my mail first to my Treo and then later my OG Droid.
