I saw this comic, and I really think it hits the nail on the head. My friend Henrik Joreteg is smart with financial type stuff and has been giving me some insight to the economic mess the world has gotten itself into… crazy stuff. Henrik has decided to start blogging about the state of the economy, and once he gives me the green light I will post some links to hims new site.
For now, enjoy the comic and LOL. (click for a larger version)
There was a new feature introduced with the iPhone 2.1 firmware update that is driving me crazy and making me curse apple an my iPhone daily. I am talking about the SMS multi reminder.
The SMS multi reminder is designed to notify you with an alert if you have an unread SMS (text) message. Sounds good in theory, but trust me, it horrible in practice.
When you receive a new SMS message to your iPhone, the first few lines are displayed in what I can best describe as a pop up box. Often if the message is short, “hey I’m running late”, you see the entire message. This is where the trouble lies. If you get an SMS message and you don’t unlock the phone, open the SMS app, then open the specific SMS thread, the iPhone thinks you haven’t gotten the message, so it will remind you 5 minutes later, and 10 minutes later that you have an unread message, for a total of 3 alerts in 10 minutes for a message you might have already seen.
Example of why this is annoying:
I’m sitting here working on my blog, “PING!”, ah I have a new SMS message on my iPhone, the screen is lit up and the preview box is showing. “From TWITTER: xFLORIDAx - I look like a shaved ape”. Ok, no response needed, I set my phone down. 5 minutes later “PING!” ah! I must have a new SMS message… strange my screen isnt lit up, turn on the screen. no new SMS messages, weird. 5 minutes after that, “PING!”…. so in 10 minutes, I have been alerted 3 times for a message I have already read. ANNOYING! I don’t want to unlock my phone for every little message that is sent to me.
I understand how this could be useful for someone who gets 1-5 text message a day… I average over 200 a day. Most messages come from twitter and don’t require a response. I would disable the multi reminder if I could, but apple doesn’t allow you to change the setting for it. It’s just on, like it or not. The only way to prevent the SMS multi reminder is to disable text notifications all together, and I’m not going to do that. I like getting one and only one notification when I get a new message.
If im in a meeting, should my pocket buzz 6 times in 20 minutes to let me know I have 2 text messages? GTFO! I should only be notified two times.
I really hope that Apple allows people to turn the SMS multi reminder on and off in the next update. I can’t imagine it’s to hard to do.
My friend Kalen Gibbons pointed this out. Insanity if you ask me.
My birthday is September 25th, I just turned 29 years old. I don’t feel 29 years old.
My good friend Eric Raj has connections over at the E! television network. For a birthday present, he arranged for us to go see our favorite E! show being taped, The Soup.
To celebrate my 29th, I took a half day off of work and hung out with my wife. The E! channel is in Los Angeles, so we headed down there early to beat traffic. We hung out on Melrose for a while, didn’t buy anything. After shopping we ate vegan hot dogs and drank cokes at the world famous pinks.
We got to the E! studios about an hour early, so we hung out and walked around. I was blown away that the channel G4 and E! are in the same building. I love G4 even though it has been going down hill for years. I would love to be a host on x-play or attack of the show, or heck, even have my own show! I looked high and low for Olivia Mund, but came up empty.
Finally one of the Soup staff members came into the waiting area and told us that the crew was having difficulties, and it would be another hour. We waited patiently, and our patience paid off! Joel McHale, the host of The Soup came out and hung out with everyone. It was awesome watching him make fun a a drunk guy and his wife to their faces, and not have them realize it because they were so star struck/drunk. The drunk dude took our picture with Joel though.
I talked to Joel about how our dogs, Moose and Samson are friends with the producers dog, Lou, on myspace. It was a totally random conversation. Amy and I were both bummed out when we found out that Lou wasn’t going to be on the set for our taping. Amy had plans to steal him away when no one was looking. It was going to be the perfect crime.
They finally let us in and the taping began. It reminded me a lot of how Florida and I record the notpop podcast. They didn’t really stop unless something really went wrong. That made recording the 20 minute show take only about an hour to film.
Over all we had a great time, and I look forward to doing it again if we get the chance. Maybe the next time that I go back to the studio, it will be for a show on G4. ha!
I don’t look 29… do I?
Thank you Eric Raj for the rad birthday present!
Dear blog,
I have been very busy lately trying to get my new business launched and off the ground. In the last few months I have not been spending as much time with you as I should be. Please let me apologize. You have been there for me for the last 4+ years now (my how time flies). There is a lot of topics that I am planning to blog about very soon. Here is a short list:
I will get to these blogs, and more like them very shortly. Again, I apologize for your neglect and lack of updates. Who knows, I may just give you an entire makeover and a new theme! Only time will tell my friend.
Yours truly,
Josh Highland
In high school, my physics teacher/computer mentor told me something that stuck with me, “Josh, one day you are going to make a million dollars, or serve a million days in prison”. He of course was talking about my computer activities, but I think it still applies in this situation.
I have started another new business! Unlike my pervious envevors, this one has a business model, and tangible items for sale. I have developed and started to sell my own brand of pomade for men! “pomade, you mean hair grease?” That’s exactly what I mean!
Hold Fast Premium Water Based Pomade
So here is the story….
My good friend, Dylan Johnson is a classically trained barber (straight razor shaves and all that). I have been going to him for years to get my hair cut. Over all, I have been using pomade in my hair for almost 6 years now.
I’ve tried Murray’s and other petroleum based pomades. They gave me acne, got on my clothes and my pillow, and most of all they were very hard to wash out of my hair. Water based pomades are the alternative, they don’t give you acne and they wash out with just water.
Clubman made an awesome water based pomade that I loved, but they stopped making it. In response to that, other water based pomades came out, and I used them. I thought they were okay at best. I didn’t like the smell of most of them, or how they would dry out and become stiff like gel as the day went on.
Upset by the hair products and some other situations in my life, I grew my hair out for 2 years. Once I realized I looked stupid with long hair, I went to Dylan and had him make me look like a man again.
With short hair once again, I was back using pomade. I was really disappointed with my pomade options, so I started sampling various water based pomades again, to try to find the one I really liked. In every pomade I tired, there was something that I liked, and something that I hated.
Over time I became so frustrated by the lack of options, that I decided to take the best parts of the various pomades I had tried and create my own premium pomade.
I hired some scientists to create a pomade with the qualities and scent that I wanted (I wish I knew how to cook this stuff in my bathtub!)
After a year of research and tons of samples, I found what i believe to be the winning formula.
A few of the highlights:
The packaging art and design are original works by the legendary Dave Quiggle
It’s a gamble, but I’m very happy and proud of my product.
I really don’t care if I don’t sell a single jar of my pomade, I’m just happy that I have a hair product to use that has all the qualities that I want. Maybe some other people will will feel the same way about it and buy a few.
That’s the story of Hold Fast Pomade. Pick some up, try it out.,,, I need a new computer, and a house 
Yesterday spore was released. I have been waiting for this game for years, literally. Mostly because I wanted to see what the hype was about. I am a casual gamer. I got into computers through games, but I don’t have time to play them for days on end like I used to.
If you dont know what spore is:
Spore is a multi-genre massively single-player online game. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has a massive scope, and is very open-ended. Basically no two people will ever have the same expience with this game, and its completely different frm any other game you have played before.
Riding on the hype of the game, I secured a copy and installed it. Before I could start playing spore, it made me update my nvidia graphics card drivers. Odd, but ok. After a quick reboot, I was up and playing. Instantly was blown away with the visual intensity of the game. It was very easy to figure out and learn to play right away with out any primers needed.
I selected to be an herbivore (I am a vegetarian you know!). I started off as this little swimming creature, hanging out and sucking up plant particles in the water. After I ate a few, I grew, well… actually the world got bigger. Everything that was around me in the water got smaller, and faded to the background. I was in a larger class of organisms now. This continued until I had acquired enough points to mate. This is where the game gets wild. I was able to design a new creature, selecting the body shape, orientation of the tale and mouth (In my case I had 2 mouths and 3 tales!). I also grew horns so I could ram other creatures trying to eat my veggies! Once the design was done, I got to play as that creature. Amazing.
After being in the water stage for a while, you grow legs and come onto land. I could go on and on about this game, but to sum up the land stage of the game, I grew taller, got gnarly claws and spikes. I had a sissy mouth (duck bill) for biting things because I was an herbivore (a decision i had made in the micro organism stage). I grew thick skin to protect me. I started to hunt in a pack, and I killed everything that was in my path. I could have made friends and built up relationships with the other creatures, I actually did that once, then I ripped them to shreds with my gnarly claws and duckbill.
Now I have the ability to start using tools and forming tribes with my duckbilled herbivore velociraptor rhinos
That’s how far I am in the game right now. I’m totally amped on it. From my understanding my tribe will become a society, and keep evolving and eventually be able to travel through space to other planets to set up trades and relationships with other cultures, or most likely in my case, freely handout beatdowns with my duckbill and raptor claws to anyone who wants some.
I love working for TechZulu.com, I get to meet and interview awesome people like Tony Safoian of SADA Systems
C-Low is one of the best dice based street gambling games there is. I have been know to play some mean C-Low in my time, in ghetto situations (random fact: I am in a gang)
Here is how you play:
Gather your homie in a circle, everyone places a set betting amount on the floor. Dollar bills work great.
Everyone rolls one die to determine the rolling order. The higest rolling player goes first, then second highest, etc.
The point of the game is to roll 3 dice until you get a matching pair of three of a kind, what ever happens first. You keep rolling until you get double or triples.
If you roll doubles, your score is value of the dice opposite the pair. Triples (”trips”) beat any doubles. The highest trips win.
Special dice combinations:
1-2-3: “crap out”. auto lose. You are out of the game, your money is gone.
4-5-6: known as “c-low“. Auto win. The game stops, you win all the money. Other players lose their turns.
Game Play Example (5 players)
Player one:
roll 1: 1-4-3 = no matches, roll again
roll 2: 3-5-2 = no matches, roll again
roll 3: 6-6-2 = MATCHING PAIR (6), FINAL SCORE = 2
Player two:
roll 1: 3-3-3 = TRIPPLE 3’s (”trip3″), final score = 333
player three:
roll 1: 5-6-1 = no match, roll again
roll 2: 1-2-3 = SPECIAL DICE COMBO! crap out. Out of the game, no more rolls
player four:
roll 1: 4-5-6 = SPECIAL DICE COMBO! C-LOW! AUTO WIN! no other player is allowed to roll, you take the $$$
player five:
does not get to roll, player four got a c-low.
its that easy!
Wait! What if 2 players recieve the same score? (4 and 4) or (222 and 222)
This condition is called a “push”. The players with matching high scores stay in the game, all other players must double their initial bet. If the buy in was $1 for the first round, the buy in for round 2 = $2 (the losing players now have $3 on the floor, the winners of the first round only have $1 on the floor). The game starts again, giving all players another chance to play.
Why am I posting rules on how to play street gambeling dice games on a mainly tech related blog? Simple, I no longer have to carry dice around to hustle suckas with! Say What? damn straight, with MotionX Dice, a free app for the iPhone, I have a sweet pair of dice to play c-low (or yahtzee) with when ever I want. All you have to do is change the setting to 3 dice, and shake the iPhone.
If playing illegal dice games on your iPhone doesn’t make you feel thug enough, you can always pour one out for the homies with another free iPhone app.
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