technology

Every year around this time I get to enjoy one of my all-time favorite acronyms. (You know I’m an acronymphomaniac, right?) All of the important data utilized by the National Football League is stored in the “Game Statistics & Information System” — GSIS.

As far as the NFL is concerned, GSIS is awesome and GSIS knows all. This leads to some wonderful conversations …

• Want to know who’s got the most rushing yards right now? Ask GSIS.
• Who scored first in last week’s Steelers game? Check with GSIS.
• Did Tom Brady get a rushing TD in week 7 last year? GSIS can tell you.
• When do the Broncos play the Jets? GSIS knows.

For years now I’ve subscribed to Mark Hurst’s Good Experience newsletter. This week he wrote A Warning Sign on the Way to Digital Utopia, which should be required reading for anyone that owns a computer.
Less than twelve hours ago I sadly had to repeat a conversation I’ve had dozens — if not hundreds — of times in my life.

When you are doing something on your computer, save it. If it’s important, save often. If it’s really important, save often and save it somewhere other than the computer you’re using. If it’s really, really important, save often, save it somewhere other than your computer, and save it someplace other than the same place where your computer is.

That’s it. It’s not rocket science and it’s not complicated. It can be tedious, yes. It can feel like a waste of time, yes. But when you’re on the last page of your novel and you spill coffee on the keyboard and when you get home from Starbucks to find that the dog has eaten your backup CDs, you’ll be very, very glad that you have an extra copy at the office (or your mom’s house, or a safe-deposit box).

The comments on these amazing photos of the Large Hadron Collider are almost as awesome as the machine.

Seventeen hours have passed since I upgraded to the new iPhone. Can it possibly be too early for me to make sweeping generalizations and pass judgment? No. I didn’t think so either. The folks at Apple sort of painted themselves into a corner on this one. The original iPhone was just so incredibly, amazingly, stupendously better than every other cell phone on the market. I am sure most users are going to be thrilled with the 3G, even ones who used the original. So far, though, I am not.

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Last week my wife called me to say that her laptop — my old Dell Latitude D610 — wouldn’t boot. Of course her whole life is on this machine and she had a paper due that evening and, no, she didn’t have any backups. So I left the office around 3pm to try to save the day. Alas, after about five hours troubleshooting and researching and on the phone with Microsoft and Dell customer support, I was forced to admit that the hard drive was toast. Three different Dell technicians all gave me the same advice: Reformat the hard drive and reinstall WindowsXP.

Doing that would have deleted all of her data — including her 3000+ iTunes library. This was clearly not a good solution.
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When the future finally arrives, I think one of the things I’m going to appreciate the most is the digital shower. (Does anyone make one now?) I think being able to simply digitally set the water temperature will revolutionize my morning ablutions beyond belief. Fumbling the faucets for five minutes trying to achieve the perfect shower combination of hot and cold water is so old school. I imagine a world in which I can use a fog-resistant touch-screen to find NPR or ESPNRadio, alert me when I’ve been in there too long, and deliver the exact temperature to make me happy.

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Just how long, do you think, until OscarTorrents gets slammed by Hollywood? They’re making it a snap to download all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films. Stuck somewhere without internet access? There’s a company named FON that’s giving away wifi routers in the hopes of blanketing the country with free wireless internet access. Already own one of the DVDs? LifeHacker has instructions that show you how to load a DVD onto your video iPod. Hell, don’t stop there! Why not host your own radio show — for free, of course — to discuss the films? You could also write about them if you want. Then use some free software to convert your text to a PDF document. Welcome to 2007!

Now … where’s my damn jetpack?

The December issue of Men’s Health includes a Tech Guide with what it says are, “100 products that will change your life!” If you’re looking for the latest news in men’s health, for exercise routines, for dating advice, or for fashion tips, Men’s Health is a great resource. If you’re looking for the latest trends in technology, go somewhere else. Most of the items on their Top 100 list are ridiculous. I can’t imagine a universe in which I’d describe a plastic spork or a chainsaw as something that will change my life. And choosing the Zune as the #1 gadget is simply insulting. I have 9,000 songs using 35 gigs of space on my computer. My 80 gig iPod handles that. A 30 gig Zune won’t. End of story.

We have a Norstar phone system in my office. Sometimes people leave me voicemails on this system. When I look at my phone, it shows “Messages” in the little digital display so I know I must check my messages. To do this I press the “Check VM” button and enter my super secret password. Here’s what drives me crazy: The system robot says, “You have three new messages. To listen to your new messages, press 2,” and then ten other options. I am checking my voice mail. Of course I want to hear my new messages. Why in the world would I check my voicemail and not want to hear my new messages? (Cingular handles this perfectly, by the way. When I check my cell phone voice mail the system robot says, “You have seventeen new messages. The first message was received yesterday at 2 pm from some phone number, and here it is …”)

That’s only mildly annoying, though. What really drives me over a cliff is that once I have listened to the (usually quite unimportant) message, I have to listen to all NINE options before I’m able to delete the thing. “Press 1 to listen to the message envelope. Press 2 to forward the message. Press 3 to reply to the message. Press 4 to replay the message. Press 5 to hear the next message. Press 6 to hear the previous message. Press 7 to save the message. Press 8 to delete the message. Press 9 to hear more options.” I have to listen to all of that before I can delete the damn thing! If I press 8 while the system robot is still talking it ignores me until it has finished reading me all nine options! So. The vast majority of the time, I am simply going to delete the message. The option to delete should be NUMBER ONE. And under no circumstances in any universe should I possibly be forced to listen to all the options before making my choice!

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Oakley has started advertising Thump — “Digital Music Eyeware”. If these had a BlueTooth iPod dongle I would go buy a pair right now — before lunch even. They don’t, though. They have a 256mb or 512mb memory gizmo and you need a USB cable to update your tunes (and what looks like a c. 1995 cell phone battery pack to charge them). It’s tragic. So close to being perfect. Think about how much lighter and slimmer (and cooler) they could be if they weren’t doing the processing! Boneheads. I love Oakley, too. They are a great company. Slick marketing, killer sunglasses. It bites that they missed the target on this.

A Short List of Things That I Had at One Time Thought Were Quite Technologically-Advanced But Which Now Are in My Closet Because I Will Probably Never Use Again (and What Replaced Them)

• VCR (TiVo, DVDs, and 950 Cable Channels)
• Stereo Component MiniDisc Player (iPod, mp3s)
• Portable MiniDisc Player (iPod, mp3s)
• 5-Disc CD Changer (iPod, mp3s)
• Approximately 850 Music CDs (iPod, mp3s)
• 2 Microsoft Sidewinder PC Video Game Controllers (Playstation 2)

I just read about Matt running with a Shuffle. My 40GB is much too big to take on a run. I’ve always wanted to run with music, but have never been able to get around the clunkiness factor. I’m finally getting back to running and rowing. I’ve pulled three four five 6k+, 30min ergs in the last week, too. Maybe I’ll be forced to buy one …

My dad just bought my grandmother a DVD player. She loves it and is thrilled with the quality of DVDs compared to her hundreds of VHS tapes. We were quite impressed with Nana’s willingness to accept the new technology … until she called and asked how to rewind the DVDs before she returned them to Blockbuster …

In a move wireless industry analysts say will infringe on customers’ privacy, clothing designer Benetton plans to weave radio frequency ID chips into its garments to track its clothes worldwide.

link via technoerotica