Photo: Justin Goode

All while on the bus.

The iPhone has also, on at least three separate occasions, saved me from waiting several hours in line for the Davis-Berkeley shuttle by allowing me to pick up reservations dropped at the last minute, at which time anyone without a reservation would be standing in said line, inconveniently (for the iPhone-less) outside of WiFi coverage.

I’m sure people who have not experienced the joy of owning an iPhone watch those saves-the-day type testimonial ads and think “that’s nice, but how often does something like that happen?” As an iPhone owner, let me assure you that it happens quite often, and every time it does, it is pretty much awesome, and you are all “I am living in the twenty-first century.” And I don’t even have 3G or GPS or [insert missing killer feature of choice].

Man, I can’t wait for the 2.0 software upgrade next month.

If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to read and/or watch Barack Obama’s recent speech, “A More Perfect Union.” For those who don’t follow US election news closely, the speech was prompted in part by controversial comments made by Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but is also an exposition of the state of American race relations in general. At approximately 5000 words (or 40 minutes delivered), it is somewhat lengthy, but I believe must be absorbed in its entirety to be fully appreciated. No news article or highlight reel can do it justice.

There is much that can be said about this speech, but for now, all I will say is this: Show me another living politician in America who can give a speech like this, let alone write it himself in only two days (according to Newsweek).

Artwork courtesy of Shepard Fairey.

With iPhone v1.1.3 and the iPod touch January Software Upgrade come the ability to customize your home screen with bookmarks to your favorite sites. By default, the bookmark icon is a thumbnail of the website, but webmasters can specify a custom icon if they so desire.

Because tiny thumbnails are often indistinguishable and thus not very helpful, I whipped up some custom icons for popular sites that either lacked them (at the time) or had ones I weren’t quite satisfied with, as well as some generic app icons. All are designed to be as simple and recognizable as possible.

To use any of these icons, you’ll need Drew McLellan’s bookmarklet for setting custom bookmark icons, which I’ve reproduced here. Simply drag it to Safari’s Bookmarks Bar, and then sync it to your iPhone or iPod touch: Set touch icon

After you’ve done so, you can specify whichever icons you’d like directly from this web server: http://iphone.graphr.net/icons/

You can also grab a zip file of all 37 icons available so far. I will likely be adding more as I make them.

If there are any other popular sites for which you’d like a custom bookmark icon (either because it doesn’t have one or could use a better one), drop me a comment and I just might give it a shot.

Happy New Year?

I was fiddling around with my iPhone, as I often do when I’m bored, when I noticed him sitting diagonally across from me. A black man, maybe in his 20s, in a puffy orange jacket and sagged jeans. He was eyeing the iPhone. At this point, a person with more sense probably would’ve decided to put it away. Somehow, I didn’t.

A few minutes later, I realized he was trying to get my attention. I pulled out one of my earphones, and looked up.

“Huh?”

He muttered something.

“What?”

He repeated himself, slurring the words.

“Sorry, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

He repeated himself yet again. Finally, I was able to make it out. “Lemme have that.” It took maybe a second for something in my head to click, and for me to understand what he was talking about. I skipped a beat.

“Uh, no.”

I slipped the phone back in my pocket, and watched for his reaction. He scowled at me and started shifting around in his seat. Something about his demeanor was almost comical, as if he was imitating a rapper he’d seen on BET, and I think I might’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so damn nervous. He shoved a hand into his jacket pocket and pushed it slightly forward. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies or something, but my immediate thought was: He doesn’t really have a gun.

I’ve never really been in a fight in my entire life, but it occurred to me that he might try to attack me, and I suddenly found myself consciously sizing him up. His enormously puffy jacket made it difficult to gauge his build, but he wasn’t significantly larger than I was. I started mentally running through my possessions for anything that could potentially be used as a weapon. I could take him.

I briefly considered trying to talk him out of it. My mind could only regurgitate useless movie clichés. Don’t do this, man. It’s not worth it.

I thought about just standing up and moving to the next car, but something kept me glued to my seat. You don’t scare me.

I could almost feel the synapses firing as I calculated my next move. Maybe five seconds had passed. Finally, I threw him the most disbelieving look I could muster, broke off eye contact, and shoved my earphones back in.

Thankfully, the train pulled into Bay Fair only a few seconds later. We disembarked and made our way to a crowd of people coming out of an adjacent car. (Why that car had so many people while ours was almost completely deserted, I have no idea.) After a while, I glanced back to see him disappearing down the stairs to the station floor.

Once my heart had stopped hammering in my chest, I played the scene over in my head and realized that I had essentially risked not only my own safety, but Chungster’s as well, for the sake of a phone. In retrospect, it seemed incredibly irresponsible. All I can say in defense is that I had a gut feeling, correct or not, that we were never in any real danger. Regardless, I’m still not sure if I responded appropriately.

While I retained enough mental faculty to be able to drive Chungster home safely, I could barely think about anything else for the rest of the night.

I would have to be delusional to say that I lead anything but a sheltered life. I’ve never lived in a city with a high crime rate or gone to a school where there was any serious concern about gang violence or drug use. Which isn’t to say I don’t hear, see, and read about that shit all the time in the news and in the media, but it’s not something I’ve ever had to experience first-hand. As a result, I’m probably pretty naive about it.

I hate things like racial profiling. I don’t want to be the one who takes a detour to avoid crossing paths with a black guy in some deserted area. I don’t want to have to automatically assume the worst in people. I don’t want to live with constant fear and paranoia. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, even when they arguably don’t deserve it.

Sadly, it only takes a few incidents like this one to cement a negative stereotype in people’s minds.

Sometimes I can’t figure out how anyone can be anything but overly cynical or completely naive.

You’re probably wondering what could’ve motivated me to post today. The answer: this video from Ill Doctrine¹, described by Anil Dash² as “the best video blog on the web.” It expresses almost perfectly my attitude when approaching certain tasks, and, in extension, why I stopped writing here. Or more accurately, how I stopped writing, as there was never really a reason why.

Done watching the video? Good.

I have to say I’m curious as to how many people are afflicted with the aforementioned combination of procrastinatory and perfectionist tendencies. Hearing my own symptoms described so accurately by someone else has led me to believe that it may not be as uncommon as I had previously thought.

In high school, I would often put off big projects that I actually cared about because I never felt ready or “inspired” enough to do a good enough job on them. Before I knew it, it’d be the night before the deadline, and I’d only have a few hours to throw something together. Faced with the choice of turning in something half-assed or turning in nothing at all, I often chose the latter, as insane as it sounds. I assure you I am not just making this up to justify all the miscellaneous assignments I have not turned in over the years. Even so, I would never dare to actually use this as an excuse, because I think it ranks lower than “dog ate my homework” on the believability scale. Or at least, that’s what I used to think.

Truth be told, I would willingly take tests or quizzes or do all manner of in-class assignments every day if it meant the abolition of homework, simply because there is no opportunity to procrastinate on something that is due at the end of class. Of course, I realize this would never happen, because one of the primary reasons homework exists is to force you to develop good work habits by intentionally allowing you that opportunity to procrastinate. Unfortunately, the development of good work habits is something that has somehow evaded me throughout my entire academic career, while opportunities to procrastinate rarely go unexploited.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that every once in a while, I would actually take the other route, and attempt to do whatever I could with the limited amount of time I had left. More often than not, the result would be surprisingly decent, so much so that no one could tell that I hadn’t spent days putting it together. What this tells me is that not only do I procrastinate and have a perfectionist streak, I probably also routinely underestimate my ability to perform up to my own standards.

I’m not sure if I really have a point to make here, but in any case, I feel like I’ve at least struck some sort of blow against my “little hater” by posting this.

So Voxtrot played a show at our school quad today… to a relatively sedate crowd, unsurprisingly enough. Guess that’s what happens when you play a free show on a college campus during lunch hour. I’m betting the vast majority of the audience had never even heard of these guys.

At one point, the people on the Entertainment Council (the ones who set up the concert) motioned for the audience—who were sprawled across the grass at the time—to stand up… to little effect, of course. Even at the end, only a few dozen people were actually standing and crowded in front of the stage. The lead singer later remarked that this was the most casual venue he had ever played. Ah, well. At least that meant I could get up close for some good photos.

Unexcitable audience notwithstanding, though, they put on a pretty good show. I’m actually not overly enamored with their full-length debut (which came out about a week ago), but luckily, they played a lot of songs from their old EPs as well, including my personal favorite, “Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives.” The sound quality was surprisingly decent for such a seemingly makeshift setup.

That said, Voxtrot are nothing extraordinary. But that’s okay, because they don’t aim to be. Sometimes all you need is some good, catchy guitar pop on a warm summer (or spring) day.

Happy birthday!

You’ve reached an age that has absolutely no significance whatsoever.

No, being the last year with a “-teen” suffix doesn’t count for jack. Sorry.

By the way, this cake kinda sucks.

1. 2006 05 20: Ordered.
2. 2006 05 21: Shipped.
3. 2006 05 24: Received.
4. 2006 06 18: First repair: failed speaker.
5. 2006 07 03: Returned.
6. 2006 07 06: RAM upgraded from 512MB to 2GB.
7. 2006 08 12: Second repair: random shutdowns.
8. 2006 08 16: Returned.
9. 2006 08 30: Third repair: random shutdowns reprised.
10. 2006 09 19: Returned.
11. 2006 09 27: Hard drive failure, replacement requested.
12. 2006 10 04: New hard drive received.
13. 2007 02 21: Hard drive upgraded from 60GB 5400rpm to 100GB 7200rpm.
14. 2007 04 16: Fourth repair: backlight flicker.
15. 2007 04 20: Returned.
16. 2007 04 30: Poor battery life, replacement requested.
17. 2007 05 02: New battery received.

• Days of ownership: 365.
• Number of repairs: 4.
• Number of service incidents (including repairs): 6.
• Total number of days out of commission: 50.
• Approximate number of days out of commission per week: 1.

• Owning a Ferrari that’s in the shop one day a week instead of a Yugo: priceless.

For those keeping count, this is repair number four—number five if you consider replacement of a failed hard drive a “repair.” Seeing as Apple apparently has the lowest repair rate in the industry, either everyone else really sucks, or I just have rotten luck. Or both.

That said, I can see why they score high in tech support, at least. As much as I hate having to wait for repairs, I can’t really complain about any of my customer service experiences, either in-store or over the phone.

UPDATE: Well, that was quick. Picked up Wednesday afternoon, back Friday morning. Not bad.

In Memoriam
April 16, 2007
Virginia Tech

On a happier note…

Apple and EMI have teamed up to release EMI Music’s entire catalog on the iTunes Store… without DRM. Not only that, but these tracks will be encoded at a bitrate of 256kbps, double that of the DRM-encumbered tracks currently available, and pretty damn close to CD quality.

Which means that for the first time ever, (some) songs purchased from the iTunes Store will not be limited in how many CDs they can be burned to, or how many iPods or computers they can be played on, or indeed, limited to CDs or iPods or computers at all. You can do with these digital downloads everything you’ve always been able to do with a regular CD purchased from a brick-and-mortar music store, and the sound quality isn’t too far off either.

It’s about fucking time.

To be clear, Apple isn’t the first online retailer to offer music sans DRM. Services like eMusic have long sold high-quality, DRM-free music, but the selection was limited to relatively obscure, independent artists. The fact that EMI, one of the Big Four record labels, is jumping on the DRM-free bandwagon—and reports indicate that it was EMI who approached Apple, and not vice versa—marks a giant leap of faith in an otherwise extremely conservative industry that has been stubbornly insisting on an inverse relationship between DRM and piracy for years.

What’s the catch?

That said, these higher-quality, DRM-free tracks will not be replacing the old DRM-laden ones (yet), but rather offered alongside them for 30 cents more, at $1.29. Full albums, however, will remain at $9.99 a pop. Not a bad deal.

As much as I try to avoid supporting the RIAA because of all the things they do wrong, it would defeat the purpose to not support them when they do something right. So I fully intend to purchase a few albums’ worth of DRM-free music from the iTunes Store when they become available in May, and I encourage anyone planning on buying music under an EMI label to take that route as well, if possible.

Why?

Because every DRM-free song purchased sends a message to EMI and the rest of the major labels: You don’t need DRM to make money. DRM has never stopped piracy and it never will, but it does make life harder for your paying customers as well as deter many potential ones. So stop combating piracy, and start competing with it.

Want to sell me some music? Want to sell me anything, for that matter? Make it high-quality, make it affordable, and make it convenient, but by all means, do not saddle it with some ridiculous rights management scheme that dictates what I can or cannot do with my purchases, and assumes I’m a criminal out to destroy your revenue stream. The rest will take care of itself.

Consequently, I’ve been permanently banned from accessing the internet through the UC Davis network, effective immediately. The ethernet port in my room has been shut off. My computer’s MAC address has been blacklisted. My wireless login has been disabled.

Suffice it to say that my online activity is now severely restricted, and that BrokenLogic will be updated even more sporadically, if at all. Things should be back to normal in three months or so when the school year ends. Thanks for your understanding.

P.S. My Tumblr may be updated more frequently than this site… or not. Couldn’t hurt to check, though.

BrokenLogic is
on a brief hiatus while
I gather my thoughts

The Arcade Fire

at The Greek Theatre

in Berkeley, CA

on June 1st

See you there.

It’s only ironic if you think it is.

One of the downsides of being a chronic procrastinator is that I’m not very proud of most of the work I do for school. I’ll always know that I could’ve done a much better job on an assignment if I had simply set aside more time to do it, and yet I never do. I find minor comfort in the fact that I can usually pull together something decent in short order, but I rarely take pride in the quality of the work itself. Which is a bit disappointing.

But I’ll make an exception today, and share my final paper for TCS 1. Not because it was procrastinated any less than every other paper I did, but because it was less obviously so, due to the nature of the assignment. And also because I thought it was a fairly interesting exercise.

Part of the requirements read as follows:

• Must be 100% plagiarized.
• Make each source in your bibliography a different color, and then color-code the fragments of your text to indicate from which source you stole the text.
• You may add incidental, connecting words of your own, but there should not be an original complete sentence.
• Your plagiarized chunks must be smaller than complete paragraphs, and fragments smaller than complete sentences are encouraged.

Of course, the paper isn’t truly “plagiarized,” as all the works are cited, but you get the idea. Of the four options we were given for the topic of the paper, I chose the following:

The impact of technology on the tension between intellectual property on the one hand and artistic and intellectual freedom on the other.

…which I felt was particularly appropriate given the format of the paper. I have to say, it was surprisingly difficult to copy-and-paste together an essay without making it sound copy-and-pasted together. I’m still not sure if I succeeded, but the professor apparently thought so.

So without further ado, here it is.

UPDATE: As per Lloyd’s request, a link to disable the coloring. Refresh the page to re-enable it.

First, some background: I loved the Arcade Fire’s full-length debut, Funeral. Simultaneously uplifting and harrowing and everything in between, it is and remains my favorite album of the 21st century so far. Okay, so it’s only been seven years or so, but still. (The album came out in 2004.)

In light of that, I have been both anticipating and dreading the follow-up. The thing is, when your first effort is something as incredible as Funeral, it sets expectations high. Really, really high. Like, “omg how the hell are they ever gonna top that” high.

Well, Neon Bible—which will be officially released on March 5 in Europe, and the day after in North America—leaked to the interwebs a while ago, and I finally got around to listening to it. And all I can say is… wow. It’s too early to tell if this will surpass Funeral in my mind, but in any other context, it’s excellent.

“See the Arcade Fire live” is most definitely on my List of Things to Do Before I Die.

While I’m on the topic of music, Hot Chip’s The Warning probably would’ve made my top five of 2006 had I, you know, actually listened to it in 2006. Sigh. So much music, so little time. But such is life.