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Ida Gulf coast landfall possibility; and finally a new phone
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In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field. |
I don't have much of a commentary on this, other than to mention that a tropical system will be moving in the Gulf of Mexico in the next few days, possibly making a US landfall as a hurricane! This is nearly unheard of in November, so it will be an interesting storm to watch.
Ida's NHC forecast track through Tuesday
New phone
After over a decade of using cheap no-frills phones, I'm finally 'with the times' in the mobile device world with a new Blackberry Pearl. (And again, since rumors have gone around in the past, I have to say that I don't get paid to make these posts - so BlackBerry/AT&T, if you're reading this, how about a Christmas gift card or something? A free car charger/handsfree kit would be nice!)
I had the opportunity to get either an iPhone or a full-sized Blackberry model, but I chose the Pearl for its smaller screen and laptop tethering ability. I will be doing a lot of mobile web site design/video work in coming months, and wanted to have the smallest screen I could for r&d/testing purposes. I have already got my push-email and my Facebook accounts set up on this, and it is really nice to watch the emails come in in real time wherever I am. I can also take and send photos to Facebook with a couple clicks, although the built-in camera is pretty low-grade and useless for anything other than that.
I have been especially impressed with the Pearl's 'half-qwerty' keyboard. Basically, the Pearl has keys layed out like a full keyboard, but with two letters per key. At first I thought that this would be harder to use than a full keyboard, but it turns out that the phone has a typing algorithm that allows you to type on the half keyboard just like you would on a full one. There is no special typing method that you have to learn - you just type away, and the device automatically knows which of the two letters on each key to use. It feels just like using a full keyboard, it doesn't slow my typing down at all. The algorithm so far has never been wrong about which letters to use. I have to hand it to whoever thought this up - nice job.
Another nice perk is that I got a 2GB micro SD card, which is big enough to fit all of my mp3s onto the device. So, this means I finally have a mobile mp3 player - another thing I probably never would have bought by itself but could have always used.
And yes, for those of you who know my past track record with cell phones, I do have insurance on this thing. However, since the Blackberry is a device that I actually use every few minutes during the day (to check new emails and Facebook notifications when they come in), I think I may be less likely to lose track of it. I have it set to chime quietly when new emails come in, so it's always making a little noise to remind me of its presence. My old phone would see a call sometimes only once or twice a day, so it was easier to forget about it. I also put a camera wrist strap on the included port, as the Blackberry has a very slippery surface and would be very easy to drop.
For any who read this blog that actually call me, since I still have my home VOIP line (which I intend to keep indefinitely), my primary phone number will stay the same as it always has. I simply changed the VOIP's simultaneous-ring number to the new phone. All of my voice mail goes to the VOIP line anyway, as it has for years - so I will probably not ever activate voice mail on the cell phone. In fact, email is probably a better way to reach me now, since it all comes to the Blackberry.
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