Jason Chen, from Gizmodo, purchased the iPhone off of Brian Hogan, who found the lost iPhone, for $5,000, yes. And Gizmodo did publish this review. However, all the rumors about Jason Chen being arrested and/or being banned from using online devices is simply not true. Jason Chen was contacted by Apple via a mailed letter asking for the iPhone back, to which Jason agreed. An Apple representative came to his house, Jason handed him the iPhone, the rep put it in his pocket and left.

I know a lot of the news sites are reporting this a lot differently than what I’m saying, but don’t take my word for it. I do have evidence of my statements, why not take the time and listen/read it yourself?

Check out Gizmodo’s live blog. Jason Chen is posting live feeds from the Apple press release of the new iPhone 4 dated June 7th, 2010. Obviously, Apple isn’t that upset with him if they let him attend the press release with Steve Jobs.

Give a listen to the Adam Carolla podcast with an interview with Jason Chen. This takes place shortly after he received the iPhone, tore apart, and review it. As well as a section on how Apple contacted him and how he returned the iPhone to them.

Most recently, the Nerdist podcast with Chris Hardwick did a show that featured the release of the new iPhone. One of the guests on the show was Jason Chen.

Click to open Comedy Death-Ray Radio in iTunes

Restless leg syndrome
Fibromyalgia
High fiber fibromyalgia
Hot tub foot
Lou Gehrig’s disease
Lou Barlow’s disease
Lucy Liu flu
Advanced moist shin disorder
A hyper tolerance to lactose
Urinary tract infection
Urinary 8-track infection
Trickle nipple
Thick urine syndrome
Hapsburg cholera
Clogged arteries
Dropsy
Dry lip
Intestinal cholic
Allergic to indoor toilets
Milk leg
Lufa rash
Boneworm
Selective fatigue syndrome
Hepatitis R
Irritable bowel syndrome
Spastic ear discharge
Pubic lice
Amphibial rabies
Anglocentric sickle cell anemia
Scabies
Rabies
Mickey Rooney sugar babies
Tarnished yam simplex
Swollen perineum
Chronic shame disorder
Larval penis
Dirt belly
Parkinson’s disease
Valet Parkinson’s disease
Parallel Parkinson’s disease
Parker Posey pox
Pere Ubu
Canine derived hip displasia
Selective albinism
Scrotal migraines
Prolapsed navel
Puff knuckle
Hard to kill
Carpool tunnel syndrome

Old man Jobs unveiling the iPad (Not actual size)

A lot of people have been making a lot of jokes about how terrible the iPad is. I personally like to joke that the iPad can’t run two apps at the same time, of course my jokes are usually more cleverly worded than this basic statement, but I digress. In case you haven’t heard, Pee-Wee Herman is back and even he is in on making fun of the iPad. Check out this hilarious video where Pee-Wee gets his iPad. Again, I digress.

At this point in time, the iPad is a toy. There is probably very few people, if any, that use the iPad for business. And that’s fine. Think about the similar devices to the iPad. The iPhone and iTouch are basically strictly for entertainment. And, in fact, the iPhone, iTouch and iPad all run iPhone OS. But with the release of iPhone OS 4 right around the corner, the iPad might get a lot more useful. From what I understand the developer edition has been released so app builders can update their apps before the official release. The main feature is “mutli-tasking”. Plus 6 other features (Apple calls the new features “tentpoles” for some reason) that will actually make the iPad a lot more functional. I imagine all these “tentpoles” will be geared towards the iPad, but the iPhones and iTouches will see some benefit to this update. Probably some ported down application of the same features.

From the sounds of it, the “multi-tasking” will not truly be like the mutli-tasking you have on your desktop or laptop, but will allow more apps to run in the background. There will also be a new feature that allows the user to switch between multi-tasked apps quickly as well. After reading that last statement back to myself, multi-tasking doesn’t sound that impressive. I’m sure this feature alone will take the iPad a step or two forward though. And if you look to the horizon, you can see the slick, intuitive touch screen interface of the iPad, iPhone and iTouch taking computing to its next era.

When I first saw someone use an iPhone interface it was like something out of a Sci-Fi movie, like when Tom Cruise is moving windows/objects/applications around on that strange, transparent computer monitor in Minority Report. I personally didn’t enjoy that movie, but that’s just an example of technology. Anyway… with the current interface of the iPad, or even the iTouch or iPhone, it’s not that hard to imagine a desktop computer with a large monitor that has a similar interface that Tom Cruise is using that movie.

So maybe it’s the iPhone that set everything into motion initially, but the iPad takes that to a bigger screen and it’s no stretch of the imagination to picture that on a bigger screen in a couple years. Maybe the high-end model of the next new iMac or MacBook will have some touch screen features. I think that would be amazing and I’m looking forward to Apple revolutionizing personal computing.

1. Comedy Death Ray
2. I Love Movies
3. SModcast
4. The Nerdist Podcast
5. The Adam Carolla Podcast
6. Tell’em Steve-Dave!
7. CiTR — Nardwuar The Human Serviette Presents
8. Daves of Thunder
9. Fitzdog Radio
10. The Skeptics’ Guide To The Universe

Another factor has something to do with who I follow. I follow a wide range of comedians. At any time I open up my Tweetie app, I can expect to find a new tweet by one comedian or another. This makes me feel like I need to be funny. So this is fair warning, as my Facebook re-tweets my messages automatically, there will be a lot more status update action coming your way!

Prepare to be dazzled!

Some people lose their minds over the thought of marijuana being legalized. But let’s face it, crime is actually going to decrease because of it; similar to the massive drop in crime in correlation to abortions being made legal in the United States in 1973. Can pot really be that bad if Canada and 14 of the United States are prescribing it as medication? And just think about it, not everyone is going to start smoking weed just because it’s legal. I don’t smoke cigarettes and they are completely legal. Some people don’t drink booze and it’s legal. It’s not to say that people don’t abuse cigarettes or alcohol. I actually was debating the similarities of alcohol and marijuana abuse the other day.

If you asked me when I thought it was okay to smoke marijuana, I’d tell you in social settings with your friends, family or other loved ones and in moderation. All too often you hear of these people who “wake and bake” and they need it to get through the day and think that it isn’t an issue. If I said I needed a beer or two in the morning to get through the day, I’d be considered an alcoholic. If you need to “wake and bake”, you have a problem. Also, if you spend yours nights smoking up alone in your basement frequently, it’s no different than someone drinking alone in their basement and, again, you have a problem.

And don’t give me that BS that marijuana isn’t habit forming. I don’t believe for one second that a person can’t develop a mental dependency for it just because you can’t develop a physical dependency. And I’m not even sure that you can’t develop a physical dependency, I’ve only heard this pseudo-fact by word-of -mouth. Another big issue I have with pot is that stupid joke that when you drive high you are more careful because you’re paranoid. You can’t really believe your senses are as sharp as they normally are when you are sober. Do everyone a favour and stay out of the drivers seat for a few hours if you’re high.

Anyway, go ahead, have a beer or cigarette – marijuana or nicotine – with your buddies, just not all the time.

“…many common products have smells that give me a huge headache, making learning impossible. Some of these are: perfumes, colognes, shampoos, deodorants and even fabric softener sheets.”

No problem, buddy. I’ll just change every aspect of my self-hygiene regime to accommodate your needs. What’s next? Should everyone stop wearing bright colours because your eyes are sensitive to bright colours? Where are these hyper sensitive people going to draw the line? I don’t normally swear on my blog, but fuck you, asshole. If you have some sort of impeding scent condition that prevents you from learning then take correspondence classes. It’s your problem not everyones.

“Flowery smells seem to affect me the most”

What does this jerk do in the Spring when all the flowers are in bloom? Does he complain to the city to have everyone remove their flowers to accommodate him? Listen, I’m sure we all have walked by The Body Shop in the mall some where and have been so overwhelmed by the scent that it gives us a headache but that’s excessive. And sure we might crack a joke about it, but I’m not going to go into the store and tell them to close down like this introvert probably would. This guy must snap into a seizure when he gets within 50 ft. of one of those stores.

He’s not the first person to complain about this however. I’ve seen these “scent free zones” advertised with signs in various places. They had them up every where when I was going to SIAST. This is just giving these people that are mildly bothered by it, who are probably obsessive compulsive and need some kind of treatment, to think it’s normal for everyone to accommodate them. I wonder what the next crazy thing is going to be that people try to ban.

It kind of makes you happy though, doesn’t it? All these people complaining about things that aren’t really problems. This just shows you that we really have no real problems anymore in Canada. No war on our soil. No wide spread famine. No slavery. To our society, a “real” problem is that someone sitting beside you is wearing too much perfume.

After seeing the torch go by and getting my passport renewed, I headed into Market Mall. I just sold a textbook this morning for $70, so I had some cash to burn. I made about 60% back on the original price of $122. I spent some time looking for a new pair of shoes as my mine are almost completely worn out but to no avail. Since I was at the mall and had some extra cash, I decided to grab some food from the food court. I noticed something strange in the food court at New York Fries specifically. They have an ad for their Twitter page on their menu. A fast food restaurant tweeting!

I’m not sure if people think about this much, but it struck me as something completely out of the ordinary immediately. My immediate question was “Why would a fast food restaurant tweet?” I pondered for a while over my Arby’s curly fries with horsey sauce. I immediately think of advertising. I follow my friends, entertainers (musicians, writers, comedians, etc.), tool-tip sites for Mac, and the like, but I could never imagine following New York Fries or even Arby’s whose food I was enjoying at the time. I couldn’t imagine what possible value you’d get out of following some place that mainly sells french fries, except perhaps coupons or announcements for new products, if a french fry vendor has new products often even. How viable is this form of advertising? A possible validation for it could be the inevitable change in media delivery.

Let’s face it, my generation and younger – and some even older who have caught on – download a lot of media, either legally or illegally. Even videos on YouTube can be posted in conflict with their copyright agreement. Clearly more obvious are torrents. When you download a movie/video/TV show there are usually no commercials. Who ever has taken the time to make them available has taken the time to edit out the commercials. Millions of dollars go into commercials annually, even daily for a lot of events like the Super Bowl. I don’t think events like the Super Bowl have anything to worry about. People tend to watch it live and, so far, most media on the internet isn’t available as a live feed. But downloading a TV show is so convenient. It’s basically like PVR or TiVo, but no commercials to fast forward through. Eventually TV networks are going to have to address it and I am going to see TV made available completely over the Internet in my life time.

This leads me to believe that New York Fries is addressing it by starting a Twitter account. Getting in on the ground floor so to speak. Although I don’t think Twitter is a very effective form of advertising. No one is going to see it unless they seek it out specifically. But I have to say I give them credit for trying, plus it is free to start an account anyway, so no loss. NYF aren’t the only ones to do this and it isn’t only with Twitter. MySpace, Facebook, Google and even just advertising any where on the web is very popular and I think we are going to see a lot more of it in the near future and a lot less of traditional TV in the next 10 years.

It was a spin class. And what that is, for those of you who don’t know, is when someone leads you in riding stationary bike. For some reason the bikes look different than the ones in the general cardio area and, I am told, are more realistic to ride. With no visible computer attached to them, I can’t imagine it being an advanced cycling-cardio experience. Everyone knows that computers and bicycles go together like bread and butter. I think the idea is that people do it if they don’t have the willpower to actually do cardio on their own and instead pay someone to yell at them to do it. So not only is someone telling you to exercise, you also feel guilty if you don’t go because you’ve paid for it. There is nothing about it that really interests me, but I guess for some, it is the way to go. Fair enough, I say, and to each their own.

Today… was different. It wasn’t the fit, healthy people in their 20s and 30s you see in the image I have attached to this post. It was a group I would have never thought would be included in such a class. That group was children, about 10 years old I’d say. I mean that makes perfect since to me, kids don’t want to play basketball, dodge ball, frozen tag, or even ride a real bike that actually moves with their friends to have fun. No, you are all wrong. Kids today want to sit inside a building on a stationary bike well someone tells them to “push it to the max” for “just 2 more minutes”.

Some people know that I have spent 4 years in post secondary prior to my schooling at the UofS. I obtained my Bachelor of Applied Information Systems (IS) from NAIT. I worked at my would-be career for 3 years after my schooling and I decided that it wasn’t for me. After galavanting around Europe, I finally decided that if I was to make any kind of success in a career I needed to go back to school. Going back to my old career in computers may have been an option, but I had already established that it wasn’t for me anymore. So I would like to say that I’m done with computers. Little did I know I’d be in a position of taking an Intro to Computer Science as a requirement for my new degree path. For someone with my schooling this course is like going back to kindergarden. Sure you know how to count to one-hundred, tie your shoes, and identify basic shapes, but now I have to complete assignments and am quizzed on my basic knowledge. You could imagine my annoyance towards this. I’ve appealed it twice only to be told finally that there is no way I will get credit for previous schooling and I have to take it again. However, there is a silver-lining to every situation. My marks are between 90% and 100% on all assignments and exams, so this will help my GPA a lot, and I get to watch people struggle with knowledge I consider very basic.

You might call me an asshole for taking enjoyment in other people’s struggles, and you are probably right but I can’t help it. These people bring it on themselves. I cannot count the times I see someone raise their hand, ask a question and, as soon as the prof. starts answering it, they have their cell phone out and start texting. Or the laptops with Facebook, some flash game, or some random website on the screen. (Mind you the majority of my final year at NAIT involved me playing Trial Bikes during class.) Then people do poorly on the assignments and exams. Our prof. doesn’t help with his pessimism. Every time he explains something he always asks negative questions.

“By show of hands, who doesn’t understand?”
“By show of hands, who is less clear because of my example?”
“By show of hands, who did that do nothing for?”

Then he wonders why everyone doesn’t raise their hand for at least one of these questions. Why not ask if anyone actually understands instead of assuming everyone doesn’t? Or at least that’s the impression I get from his line of questioning. When I first took this course it probably helped that my class was half the size. But I don’t recall anyone struggling as much as everyone seems to be in my current class. I think the major issue is there are no computers in the lecture. With the exception of the prof. for his slideshow or the laptops I mentioned earlier. But I mean computers for applying the knowledge. Instead we do examples on paper. Just like the cavemen use to do it.