I Want Sandy

I usually don't like to make pitches even for cool products, because I often cant 1) afford them or 2) really make good use of them. But Sandy is an exception, and no I'm not personifying my Crackberry or something. www.iwantsandy.com is a web-based personal assistant service, and free for those of us who aren't CEOs. You can email Sandy with any reminder, to-do item, appointment, or whatever. My dad has a recurring reminder to sleep at 1 AM every day, which can be sent via email or text. The texting function is especially good because with the amount of email most of us get, we tend to ignore it (especially those people who have real assistants). It seems trivial, but it's actually really nice to just type something really fast than use the sometimes clumsy interfaces of digital calendars, which are the main reason people don't use them. Bits and bytes of text have not yet replaced chicken scratch on the backs of envelopes for many, mostly for speed. Typing and digital tools are great for things that would otherwise be time-consuming (typing a book or report for example), but not yet for the really fast things. An analogy is that it's easier to walk to the corner store than jump in your car and have to find parking too. Anyway, a quick email is all it takes, and there's a mountain of sync options:

1) Sync with Outlook calendar and to-do list through iCalendar
2) Sync with any other calendar like Google calendar that can support a web-feed
3) RSS feed (then open up new/old entries on your mobile device - including iPhone/Touch)
4) Through either outlook or web-based Google calendar or RSS, you can check it on your mobile device. Friends who use it can also set reminders for shared appointments, etc.
5) Absolutely the coolest, though it's gonna be fee-based starting next week. Jott Pro links up with Sandy so you can actually talk with your assistant with your voice!

I have already missed several meetings at work because I've been engrossed in another one meeting and been late for another, more imporant one because I wasn't at my desk to get the Outlook reminder. If I had gotten a text, it would've been awesome! You can also edit the email address to be something to your liking, and also enable other email addresses (your work and personal email for example) to set reminders/tasks/appts. This way, you can keep everything else the way you like it with the same software but not let things fall through the cracks!

http://www.iwantsandy.com/

Music In the Shower

Most everybody I know sings in the shower, if only now and then. I tend to alternate signing and thinking about potential blog entries personally, but I digress. Why aren't shower radios/CD players/waterproof iPod skins more plentiful? In my apartment my roommates and I have taken to blasting music through our surround sound systems in our respective rooms so we can hear it through the walls in the bathroom, but mostly the treble gets lost and all i hear is the rhythmic bass of hip-hop songs from the subwoofer. I'd really like to be able to enjoy some punk-rock in there too - so seriously, less copycat iPod docks and more music in the shower gadgetry! It's not really that hard - I just need something that can handle a few drops of water and not go buggy, or even something unobtrusive that I can hang right outside the shower that won't get muffled and doesn't mind a little moisture and steam. If it could be wireless and could access a dynamic iTunes playlist, that would be great. It's pretty cool to download a bunch of music from a new artist and assess with some suds, right? Or test out a new movie soundtrack with some conditioner? Maybe Bill and Steve already have this up their sleeves as part of their "take over your house" initiatives, but leak something so I can dream about my bathroom being added to the rest of my home which is slowly but surely approaching media nirvana.

The Death of the Superwatch

As late as the 90s, secret agents in movies, including 007 of course, were equipped by their respective Q's with superwatches of the future. The watch would be able to control everything from a car to sattelite communications. Of course, it also came with a handy high-powered laser. What happened to all that? The cell phone. Gone are the days it seems, when the device that almost anybody had at hand (haha...) was their wristwatch. You put it on in the morning, took it off and placed it on your nightstand. Kids used to be excited to get their first watches because the felt like "big-kids" - I remember! But now I can't think of more than few of my friends that wear watches, and one of them only does it on special occassions and just for fashion. Will I ever see the superwatches of yore that I used to dream about after watching Bond movies? Probably not. But it seems the cell phone has taken over. The smartphone will soon be ubiquitous and will follow of the trend of starting out really bulky, slimming down to the point where people can stand that extra weight in their pocket, and then consuming so many devices around it as it becomes "smarter". Too bad. I was really hoping to plunk down for the extra-high powered laser on my first Rolex.

Evolution is lazy and doesn't care about the old

Having read a few books about evolution recently, it certainly seems like evolution is a bit lazy. Random mutation creates traits that may or may not be beneficial to the organism in the short run. The ones that are selected for are those that are beneficial in the short term (technically, those that improve reproductive fitness). Traits that help an organism in the short term (before reproductive maturity) and help an organism to survive till that point are selected for - even those that are detrimental down the line. Many genetic disorders such as (I can't remember - it's one of those that are commonly referred to in genetics books... Huntington's?) are adult-onset, usually during mid-life, after one has kids. Thus this disease is not selected for and the person survives to pass on the disease DNA. There has been research into whether these disease provide some moderate level of benefit to the organism, or whether they are just "piggyback diseases", similar to piggyback bills in Congress that just happen to make it through because they don't really matter and are passed along with another, more prominent one. IF this is the case, evolution is lazy - it conferred that particular benefit without regard for its detimental effects, or in another way of thinking about it, it was the "easiest" way to confer the benefit (by completely ignoring the massive downside). Of course, that's not true, but it's an amusing and cynical way of thinking about. In the same way it doesn't care about geriatrics - there is essentially no pressure against disease that appear late in life.

I have long thought about how humans have thwarted evolution in many senses - we don't necessarily mate according to fitness. The people who have kids are in no way representative of the most fit genetically, but rather that they just best followed the memes of society or socially matched up with someone enough to reproduce. We're living to ages way beyond our bodies were prepared for, and unlike any other species, mental fitness matters immensely over physical fitness. Of course, professional athletes do pretty well for themselves, but otherwise, as a species, we survive because of our minds. Our scientific/medical knowledge has brought up our whole society rather than preserving only the individuals who happen to have that knowledge, as would a beneficial physical trait.

For example, imagine a dinosaur that grows extra long and sharp claws because of some mutation in the claw-growth-stopping-gene. It's hard to imagine that trait would help all of that dinosaur's species. On the other hand, if I come up with a vaccine for HIV next week, it would help our whole species, diminishing the fitness-spread between me (the one with the trait that actually made the vaccine) and the rest of the population. Not that we shouldn't cooperate of course. Just musing.

Posts to Come

-'Wanted' review
-'Mongol' review
-Musing on NYT's 'Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State' and 'Obama's Money Class'

Dasavatharam Review

On Saturday night I went out to see Dasavatharam, a new Tamil movie starring Kamal Hasan. The movie, originally slated for Deepavali 2007 release, has been in the works for a long time and it certainly shows. Despite the critiques many have put forth, it is a quality work, especially given the budget it had in comparison to many American films. Pentafour did a lot of the CGI, and having been to their studios I have seen that they are quite well equipped to handle a job as this and they did quite well. While its certainly not LucasArts, for the majority of the movie there weren't blatant differences between the real and CGI aspects. Kamal takes on 10 roles in the movie, the most ever, and interaction between the characters is significant. While some roles are somewhat superfluous (in the sense that they aren't needed for the story but to reach 10 they are), most play a good role in the plot development. For example there's a Japanese character whose role seems very peripheral, but I must concede that they did a great job making Kamal's eyes look oriental. Other roles are: a tall, amicable Muslim man, a Telugu detective, President Bush, a Sikh singer, a CIA agent, an old lady, a bioscientist, a staunch Iyengar in the 12th century, and a Christian looking to end cultural depravity. The plot is a bit of a stretch, since it seems that salt would kill such a powerful virus, but it gives "reason" for the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami (which I didn't know they were calling that...). Overall, it has a good effect and is entertaining at the same time as an action movie. 4.5/5

Frozen Yogurt

This week instead of my usual nightly pearl milk tea (bubble tea, tapioca tea, PMT) run, it seems I've made a switch - the new thing to do is frozen yogurt? I was surprised to learn this as I have just returned back to the Valley for a significant time since last summer, and trends here are certainly as ephemeral as the old dot-coms were. Anyway, there seem to be a great variety of styles of frozen yogurt (in texture, temperature, color, taste), toppings, store environments, and pricing structures. So far I've only gone to Yogurtland and I Heart Yogurt, which are perhaps the two opposites in structure and style. Yogurtland is very much modern, chic-style design with lots of glass and steel, self-serve, charged by the ounce. On the opposite hand, I Heart Yogurt has fewer options but rotates them so there's a new set of flavors daily, with more traditional toppings choices (as opposed to the fruit and great variety at Yogurtland). The interior design is rather simplistic. Personally, I liked the I Heart Yogurt the best, but I have yet to check out the other two - Tartini and Froyo. More on this breaking story later!

On a sad note, "FinestBlackBeatz" has been temporarily shut down - supposedly the guy running it is an engineering student or something?