Morning Paper

Why Are there So Many Weather Applications?

  I'm posting this from Sunny Southern California, so admittedly changing weather really isn't my concern.   We get three different weather conditions, four if you count night air.

1.  Sunny and Hot
2.  Slightly Overcast
3.  Rain

"If" it ever rains here, our local news teams lose their ever loving minds and go on "STORM WATCH".   Each major station puts reporters in the four corners of the affected area.  The entire news show then becomes reporters reporting to the anchors that it's raining.  I kid you not, it's the most ridiculous Spectical you'll ever wittness.

Coming from a Mid West state where snow, tornadoes  or sweltering heat and humidity leave you with a few nice days out of the year, I know what changing weather is like.  But even in those states, don't you pretty much know what's coming?  I mean outside of an "act of God" surprise event.   If you went to bed and it was snowing, it's a pretty good bet that it's going to be cold the next morning and snow will be on the ground.

So why all the weather apps?

Every week there is at least two new Weather apps made for Palm.  Blackberry is well on it's way to catching up.  Windows Mobile gets its fair share of new and improved weather apps as well.  And the brand new iPhone has five that I've counted.

I bet that If I really paid attention, I could point you to a new Weather app or Widget for MacOS every single day. 

Every Social Networking site, every "internet home page" or desktop client comes with a weather module prominately centered for your convenience.   

We have an entire television channel devoted 24/7 to it, talk radio updates you every 15 minutes, FM music stations every half hour.   Every major newspaper has an entire page dedicated to weather across your local area.   At this point in our technological evolution, ascertaining local or regional weather is as easy as lifting your arm and checking the time. 

Enough with the Weather apps!!!  

Look outside your window, or look up, or use that weather app that came with your phone, IT provider  or OS.  I'm sure that app you bought for your device awhile backs works just as good today as it did when you bought it.

Developers, you've done yoman work giving us pretty, slick and functional weather apps, great job.   How about now turning your skills over to some apps we can really use.  Like a "ScreenCapture" app for Blackberry that doesn't require the use of a desktop computer.

Or a better, faster,  more stable "Browser" for Palm that doesn't require a huge "Java" download to run on the PalmOS.

The Skies the limit developers, but let's put a hold skies "apps" for a little bit, we're all good there.

MARRIAGE PROPOSAL PLANNERS... THE NEW WEDDING TREND?

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

And to celebrate it, here's a story I have to share about marriage proposals cause after all, it's Valentines Day, one of the biggest holidays for proposals. Now this may be old news but I just found out about this new trend and it blew me away!

Are you thinking about getting married? Are you ready to pop the big question? You want it to be all romantic but somehow you're having a hard time trying to figure out how you are going to ask the woman you love to take that leap of faith and be your counterpart in marriage bliss. Well, worry no more, now you can have someone else plan it out for you... for a price! Yes, that's right. Just like wedding planners, there are now Marriage Proposal Planners!

...READ MORE...

Super Delegates Aren't So Super

By now you should all be aware of the Democratic parties version of "fixing an election", it's called Super Delegates. This is where people like ex- President Bill Clinton gets to vote for Hilary with a whopping number of single delegates. Where back room deals, long time friendship and debts owed get called into favor by the candidate that holds the most entrenched political power. See, you thought your vote counted in the Democratic party didn't you? Those who screamed the loudest (and rightly so) over the 2000 election placement of George Bush, have their very own way of making sure the person they want in, gets in.

Instituted after Jimmy Carter, a man the people wanted but the entrenched on both sides of the aisle wanted no part of, was elected to the highest position in the country. After Jimmy Carter won, they decided they could no longer leave it in the hands of the American people. So if primaries and caucus's brought a candidate to the DNC convention floor, they nor the majority of DNC official wants running the party, party officials can cast their "SUPER DELEGATES" to the candidate of choice. It's all highly democratic.

In a rare moment of actually doing his job, Chris Matthews asked Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, who is supporting Hilary Clinton, "If your State votes overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, will you cast your Super Delegate vote for him?" He answered NO. Meaning personal candidate loyalty trumps the will of the people. And that folks, is how this whole dust up began.

A dust up that prompted Donna Brazile, CNN political commentator, to announce that if it comes down to Super Delegates deciding this process (of which she is one) she will quit the DNC. Donna Brazile is a longtime DNC supporter having worked for many Democratic Presidential hopefuls such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and was appointed Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute after the 2000 Presidential debacle. For her to make a statement like that on national television is huge.

The now DNC chair Howard Dean has come out in recent days saying that a broken convention would not be good. And a broken convention is exactly what you'll get if the candidate with the most "pledged" delegates enters the convention and loses because of the back room Super Delegate vote.

Let's imagine for the sake of scenario that Barack Obama wins 6 out of the next 7 states, netting him a 160 pledged delegate lead over Hilary and a 15 state lead over her when they both enter the convention floor. The big MO and the numbers are behind him so none of those pledged delegates change their vote.

But old Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton favors get called in, and entrenched loyalist deal their way to an overwhelming Super Delegate vote in Hilary Clinton's favor and she is announced as the nominee. (This could happen in reverse, but seeing as the Clintons "ARE" the democratic party, it's easier to use this as a possible scenario). The Democratic party would crumble right then and there. The party already has enough of it's own angry with them for getting into power and backing down to Bush on each and every issue. Not even entertaining the ideal of impeachment, or fighting to reinstate Habius Corpus.

If this or anything similar happens, bye-bye Democratic party, hello Independent party. A place more and more Americans are wanting to be.

This election is so amazing this way. It has brought a lot of the unknown to the forefront. Who knew that a state like Utah would vote overwhelmingly for a Black man carrying the name Barack Hussien Obama. Who knew that women voters would be at odds with themselves over a woman candidate. Or that gender could be pit against race in an election for the highest seat in the land. And before this juicy primary, who knew that party officials where the ones actually naming democratic nominees. After all, in years before, after Iowa and New Hampshire the candidates are for the most part picked and on their way to the general.

This Super Delegate situation is much like the Electoral College discovery in 2000. Because so many Americans used Civics class as a time to catch a nap in high school, millions of Americans were shocked and dismayed to discover that their vote didn't make a single difference because they don't live in a state with an Electoral vote. While the cry was loud then, it's silent now for change in the system. So once again, come time to vote for the President of the United States, there are folks who will cast their vote for no reason at all. Because if their candidate doesn't when the Electoral vote, the popular vote won't mean a hill of beans, no matter how wide the margin. And the prospects are the same with the upcoming DNC. The potential for millions of disenfranchised voters is great. Seeing as how this thing is bound to go to the wire, a good portion of that floor is destined to be disappointed regardless. But immediate aid could be delivered by a unified party behind the actual victor. Not so if the victor is delivered from behind closed doors.

Shame on you DNC. Fix this before you destroy your selves and kill off the last remaining hope for democracy in a hopeful democratic country.

Opera 9.5 this way cometh (at some point (soon))

Another week, another "Holy Grail" of mobile web browsers for Windows Mobile.

Remember last week? It was Skyfire, from a company nobody heard of and most tech sites were tripping over themselves hailing it as the greatest thing since sliced bread? Ugh, enough already. Actually ship the product instead of talking about it and then I'll be a little more impressed.

This week, it's Opera Mobile 9.5. At least Opera is a company that many of us already know. It's even the default browser for my Motorola Q9h.

From the official Opera site:

Built on Opera's unique core architecture, the Opera Mobile 9.5 desktop-like browsing experience has been enhanced with innovations such as zooming and panning that make it easier to navigate, load pages quicker and get users closer to the Web content and entertainment they want. With Opera Mobile 9.5, users can experience the real Web and interact with content exactly as they do on their PC.

The Opera Mobile 9.5 experience includes many of the innovations found in Opera's trend-setting desktop browser including:

• Intuitive user interface
• Tabbed browsing
• Improved text wrap
• Page overview, zooming and panning
• Landscape mode
• Save Web page for future offline access
• Call phone number from Web page
• Send link as SMS/MMS
• Send image as SMS/MMS
• Small Screen Rendering™
• Password manager
• Web address input auto-completion
• History and bookmarks
• Copy text
• Opera Widgets

I've never been one for mobile web browsing, but I'd be more inclined to go with Opera Mobile than anyone else at the moment. Not because I think Opera Mini on my Q9 is better than IE Mobile, I don't.

As slow and clunky as IE Mobile is, the few (count on one hand) times I've ever absolutely, positively HAD to access the web from my phone, I found Opera Mini to be just as clunky as IE Mobile. But, with the integration of Windows Mobile with my Windows PC and IE7, I'd already saved my most critical sites as Mobile Favorites so I could get on and off as quickly as possible.

But, to be fair to the good work that the folks at Opera have done, once you get passed the gratuitous IE Mobile bashing at the beginning of the Opera Mobile video demo, it does look like it might even get me to think twice about reaching for my phone to browse the web instead of waiting to get to a real computer.

Help Save Stan Lee!

Honestly I have no idea why this T-Shirt was made. It could be for any number of reasons. But I'm going to go with mine and project my thoughts into the minds of the creators.

Are you tired of seeing your favorite Stan Lee Marvel Comics being made into absolutely horrifically awful cinematic infant diaper waste? Then get yourself a "God Save Stan Lee" T-Shirt and help him stop giving over the rights to ruin your best childhood memories.

Like I said, Not sure why they made it, but I liked the idea enough that I want to do my part.

thesecretheadquarters Via Boing Boing

REDFLY won't fly away

You all know I was just waiting for Papa Ed over at Brighthand.com to chime in on the REDFLY that he got the chance to demo at CES. I figured since he was so enamored with the Foleo, he'd be sure to go for this thing.

Dear reader, my wait has paid off. Well, sort of at least.

Like a lot of other people smoking pixie dust trying to give the device the benefit of the doubt, Ed Hardy breaks from tradition and stings the REDFLY on its lack of multi-media capabilities. Rightly letting the cat out of the bag that this thing doesn't do multi-media well.

No, duh people. (Unfortunately, Ed hedges his bets for when there is a review unit, I'm forecasting a thumbs up from Ed).

In a move even more bone headed than the Palm Foleo, the creators of the REDFLY Mobile Companion, have made a simple dumb terminal. All the thing does it display what's on the screen of your Windows Mobile device to the screen of the REDFLY. It doesn't do anything else and for this, they want you to shell out $500.

I went on record last week saying this thing needs to follow the path of the Foleo and die a quick death. Not because I have anything against the folks that make the REDFLY (seem like decent enough folk), but it's because it still (just like the Foleo) is a dumb and over priced concept.

Remember when the battle cry was to carry less stuff? Why are we returning now to companies wanting us to carry more stuff? Now, all of a sudden, your phone needs a "companion". You aren't already happy enough to have shed devices that they now want you to get more of them?

We here at Morning Paper were about to start blogging live from the floor of CES with nothing but a Windows Mobile and Palm OS phone, virtually impossible a year ago.

Things are converging, like it or not. We will soon have very capable devices that are no larger than the phones we have. It is already amazing what can be done with the one device we all carry with us already.

I'm going to leave the REDFLY alone now. The thing is said to debut in March and the market will have ample opportunity to vote with their dollars.

It's still a dumb idea, though. I'm just sayin'.

Lexus: A December To Forget About It

Is anyone as sick and tired of those damn Lexus Christmas commercials as I am? The American dollar is worth a quarter, folks are being laid off left and right and the high majority of us are trying hard to find deals so we can give our loved ones a nice Christmas.

While we're being crushed by the highest gas prices in history and folks are sweating over their mortgages, Lexus wants us to once again have a December to remember. How can we do this? By surprising our loved ones when they walk out of our swanky million dollar home, to a brand new big shiny Lexus. With a big bow on it no less.

I think these commercials are an insult to the hard working Americans doing their best to eek by week to week.

Sure, this is another MPaper rant about something with little consequence. Sure, I'll give you that. But don't you just want to throw your slipper at the television every time those commercials come on? Go on, you can admit it.

Barack Obama learns: freedom of expression is under attack

There are people who want to control your right to freedom of thought and speech - an guess what: they're not all Republicans.

Sen. Barack Obama is finding out how difficult it is to run for office in today's polarized environment. Gay rights groups are demanding that he sever ties with a gospel singer, Donnie McClurkin, over his views on homosexuality. McClurkin is singing at a South Carolina fund raising even for Obama.

McClurkin's sin? He believes sexuality is a choice..

"I don't believe that it is the intention of God," McClurkin said Monday in a telephone interview. "Sexuality, everything is a matter of choice."

Despite an strong belief by many of us that sexuality is usually not a choice, there is not conclusive scientific evidence that it is. Many scientists indeed believe it is not. So McClurkin's opinion is well within reason, and one would have thought, defended by the Constitution.

Additionally, McClurking does not believe in discriminating against homosexuals. "What people do in their bedrooms and who they are as human beings are two different things," he said.

But he's been called homophobic. "Unreasonable fear or antipathy towards homosexuals".

Now if that were the case, I'd be the first to jump on the bandwagon. But where's the beef in that sandwich?

McClurkin seems to be guilty only of having an opinion, one that is like it or not well within the bounds of reason. An opinion expressed with no perceived malice towards anyone. Some people want him to not be able to have an opinion they disagree with.

That seems a very disturbing trend, and one you would think the gay community as a whole (considering their history) would be violently opposed to. It's McClure's opinion that is under assault today. It may be yours or mine tomorrow. Frankly, I hold some opinions wackier than that and I cherish above all else my right to have them and express them. That's what the country was made for.

If you try and take it away from one person, you've made two enemies.

The Problem With GreenPeace, Now it's the iPhone

By now everyone knows of the very public fight between Gizmodo and GreenPeace over Giz's handling of the story and GreanPeace's lie. When the Greenpeace story broke about materials used in the iPhone, I covered the story with trepidation. I don't believe Greenpeace. Groups like GreenPeace and the ACLU have gone so far out that the good work they set out to accomplish is now buried by ridiculous claims, stupid courtroom battles and the position on the wrong side of almost every issue. Fighting for the planet and the common man has been replaced by the quest for name recognition.

---If you think we just protest against Apple then look out for soon a report covering a wide range of manufacturers as we have done in 2006. While it might not make as many headlines as the iPhone it doesn't mean that we are not focusing on all manufacturers to remove toxic chemicals from their products.--Greenpeace Via Gizmodo

This is exactly what I said when I posted on this story. GreenPeace has a hard on for Apple and they use it for their own benefit. Credibility has been lost with this organization and organizations like it. What is the stance of Greepeace on all of the radioactive materials laying out in the open in Iraq? Or the over use of "Anti-Bacterials" and "Anti Biotic" to the point that they are now basically useless? Or inoculation shots for children that are most likely the leading cause in the sudden high rate of autism? These things aren't as sexy as the iPhone. There was a time that greepeace was an annoyance that was in truth fighting the good fight. Now their fight is with the iPhone, a worthy adversary. And guess what? Greenpeace loses.

The iPhone is a product that people want. Most do not want radioactivity. Hell most of us don't even want gas powered cars anymore. A constructive intellegent fight in the right direction is all the publicity they needed. Apple and the iPhone has effectivly buried them in their zeal to become what they were in the 80's. Necessary. Ronald Reagan and nuclear arms were tailor made for them so one would think the present administration would keep them far too busy to make up claims about Apple. Global warming? Not so.

Not that Apple is right or even wrong in this debate, but it's a debate that Greenpeace is obviously ill equipped to have since that could not engage with FACT and fairness. Now anything they present in the future, right on the money or not, will be met with a cold shouder. As the saying goes "two wrongs don't make a right". If Apple is wrong, it shouldn't be hard to point it out. But this move by Greenpeace was wrong and so far to the left of "right" that what good that may have come has been lost in the dust of the aftermath.

DONALD TRUMP SAYS ANGELINA JOLIE IS NO BEAUTY! HAH!

DONALD "the man who has worn the same hairdo for the last thirty years, the savvy media junkie and the I must have my name and money in everything" TRUMP, pulls attention to himself once more in the celebrity media circus by calling out ANGELINA JOLIE and her revered beauty and wonders why everyone makes a bid deal over her. Uh, cause she's beautiful, stupid! ...FULL ARTICLE...