One More Thing

Today’s the day we’ve been waiting for: the day our Great Leader stands before our Great Nation to take stock of previous successes and announce an inspiring initiative that will rock our world.

That’s right: Steve Jobs introduces the Apple Tablet this morning!

Oh, and Barry will be delivering the State of the Union address tonight.

If we’ve recovered from our geekgasm by then, our Open Thread/Unauthorized Finger Gestures will begin at 8:45 p.m. Eastern.

34 Comments

Why do I sadly suspect that Obama’s “oh, and one more thing” is going to be followed by “…just before coming into this room I issued an executive order to gradually eliminate Social Security and Medicare while reapportioning the funds saved to building a fleet of 1000 B2 bombers for the coming war in Iran.”

And, of course, he’ll be savaged by the GOP for offering “too little, too late” while Dems scream in disgust but end up convincing themselves that he’s still better than the alternative.

Welcome to your new American Dystopia.

Apart from The Tablet, rumor has it that God Mr. Jobs is going to tell us that the iPhone is cut free from ATT. Which would mean that I could rush to fork over my $350 and double my cell bill. Woohoo!!!

BTW, the attractive light-skinned well-spoken Muslim reading from the Q’ran, who is he?

Hmm, 8:45pm America time is something like 6:15 am in lotus flower and gunpowder land. Given that I haven’t come close to sleeping past 4 am yet due to jet lag, I may just be able to swim, shower, shave, balance my checkbook and drink five cups of coffee before things get going. I’m in!

it would be great if it was a spiral bound notebook. and he says something like “HA pwned ya bitches”

So do you all think it will be called iTab or iPad? I vote for the former. Benedick, the untethering from AT&T is something I’ve heard from my geeky Sili Valley peeps as a strong rumor. Since I’m locked in for 2 years w/ them, doesn’t really help me…

@Nabisco: How are things other than jetlag? Uneventful election?

@SanFranLefty:
Seriously?

US America isn’t filled with lots of GSM networks (ATT is the biggest) while Verizon and Sprint are CDMA (different technology.)

@SanFranLefty: “free and fair”, with a curiously strong mandate for the incumbent. That was the most unexpected outcome, because conventional wisdom held that they would split the majority vote and win it on the Tamils, instead the majority vote broke 2:1 for the incumbent.

Fonseca is contesting the elections, so now it remains to be seen how tough the government gets. Remember how Dubya claimed a “mandate” with 52% of the vote or whatever he got over Kerry? Lotus and gunpowder dude got almost 60 percent and his brother is head of the military; they’re going to run the table in the time I’m here.

Did I share my tumblr link with any of y’all?

@Nabisco: Not even 51%, and it was – if I’m remembering correctly – the closest margin by which an incumbent president has ever won reelection.

@ManchuCandidate: T-Mobile’s network is in better shape now, due mostly to cooperative agreements. It’s still a hodgepodge but it works in the cities in which I have to work – and the pay as you go plan is 10 cents a minute with minutes valid for a year after you pay for them, rolling over to the next year as long as you buy new minutes sometime within 12 months.

The test of course, comes in shoving a non-AT&T SIM into an iPhone. I’ve jammed about 9 different network SIMs into my Ericsson R520m over the years and all have worked flawlessly. I except the iPhone will give you voice and SMS with any SIM right off the bat.

@mellbell: Yep:

Bush won with the smallest margin of victory for a sitting president in U.S. history in terms of the percentage of the popular vote. (Bush received 2.8% more than Kerry; the closest previous margin won by a sitting President was 3.2% for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.)

@FlyingChainSaw:
*Slaps forehead*
Which is all the more shameful as I did a bit of work to help out the T-Mobile account team (their core is 50% my now former employer’s as is 2/3 of ATT’s)

SIM cards for GSM are interchangeable. Will be no issues with voice or SMS.

@SanFranLefty: Verizon is the only service that works here. I didn’t re-up with them so that I could throw more money at Apple as soon as possible. Though I’m not at all sure what I’d do with an iPhone. I won’t play music or do video. Or log online, follow tweets or such as. Won’t even do email since I have my Air to lug about for that. Maybe… just maybe… I’m better off without? Shock, I know.

The Tablet thingum is probably not for me, either, for reasons before stated. I don’t really need to be carrying around stripped-down versions of Avatar to watch at the dentist. Though I do hear there will be a killer ebook reader. Though would I ever use it? Probably not.

Oh God, have I become tech-indifferent?

@FlyingChainSaw: My iPhone is a virtual brick – or at least a shiny non-telephony iPod – out here because even ATT’s “global suck” plan would charge me $3.50 a friggin minute for in or outbound calls in Asia’s Teardrop. Don’t even mention data plans. I put it in ‘airplane’ mode before boarding in Dulles and can’t even glom on to the sucky wi-fi in this hotel with it. One of the local cellco’s offers Lotus to Conus rates for about 7 cents a minute, ridiculously cheap.

@FlyingChainSaw: Are you subcontinentaling it soon? They totally rock the dal curry here, I put some on my eggs this morning, better than mainline caffeine.

@Nabisco: Go native with LotusTel and see if you can forward calls from the ATT plan, yeah, without inbound international long distance surcharges from LotusTel. Or just leave a message with the new number on your old service – which you may be able to downgrade to a maintenance account.

A Global tariff hammers you with that kind of violence? Is this for in-country calls as well?

@Nabisco: Kuala Lumpur could be on the schedule sometime real soon now.

Did you know that ‘sick’ is the new ‘awesome’? I had no idea. Those darned kids have learned not even to think about coming onto my lawn.

Oh. And if the new Jobs gift to the universe really is called the Apple Tablet how long will it be before the first tech columnist dubs it ‘a bitter pill,’ or writes something along the lines of ‘Apple’s Tablet too big to swallow’?

If it looks like I’m obsessed this morning by a new gizmo I most probably won’t buy I can only say that looks can be deceiving.

Is he on stage yet. HAS IT HAPPENED!!!!!???

BTW. What are the str8 men talking about?

@Benedick: It has a built in camera so you can watch yourself AND take a picture of yourself delivering a hot lunch to the device at the same time – Job’s crowning design achievement, an ergonomic masterpiece.

@FlyingChainSaw: I cannot conceive of a situation in which that would be of use.

@Benedick: BTW. What are the str8 men talking about?
Sport. It’s all they ever talk about. There’s some big game coming up.

TJ/ Orygun passed two tax increases yesterday (54% to 46%), one on individuals making more than $250K, the other raising the minimum corporate tax from $10 to $150. This will allow us to avoid cutting funds to education and other essential state services. As someone who spent years in a state that wouldn’t pass a tax increase to save children starving in the street, I’m amazed and proud.

@Mistress Cynica: Given the howling sense of victimhood of anyone only making six or seven or eight figures a year, they’ll be lots of shrieking and tax attorneys trying to shift clients’ residency status to Texas or New Hampshire.

Or Washington. Yes, this bluest of the Blue States has the most regressive tax structure in the union.

People earning less than $20,000 annually pay 17.3 percent of family income toward sales and excise taxes and property taxes, the report said. People making between $99,000 and $198,000 each year pay 7.6 percent toward their tax bill. Meanwhill, people in the top 1 percent of earners – those making more than $537,000 a year – pay just 2.9 percent, the report said.

We hugz and wuvs our billionaires instead of eating them.

@Benedick: Is he on stage yet. HAS IT HAPPENED!!!!!???

Twenty minutes until the Singularity.

@nojo: OMFG!!!!!111!

@Mistress Cynica: Bravo. Sense has prevailed. And you know what they say? As goes Oregon so goes… um… fool me once… well you’re not gonna fool me again.

Also, I don’t think they’re talking about Sport this time. It seems to be some sort of secret geek-speak about something to do with stuff.

I heart my BB with Verizon service. I can use it to up in the mountains while hunting or snowshoeing, out on the rez, and even at the local ski area. The only place it didn’t work 100 percent was out on the Fort Peck Indian reservation in Montana, 60 miles south of Moose Jaw, Sask. It made calls OK, but I couldn’t send pictures of a prairie fire to someone.

@Benedick: Oh, there are all sorts of things you can do with your iPhone. Countless Sudoko games for me, along with the mapping/direction apps, the Yelp and Urban Daddy apps, the NASA app to livestream video from the various satellite missions, the compass, the Star Wars lightsaber app, the list goes on and on.

Goodness, how do you endure these kinds of deprivations?

@redmanlaw: but I couldn’t send pictures of a prairie fire to someone.

@redmanlaw:
Wireless trivia here.

CDMA (Verizon’s network is based on it) was originally designed as an unbreakable/unjammable military radio system. Perfect for wide open areas, but not as hot in urban places.

GSM’s main strength is in urban areas as you can pick up everything inside buildings etc. Not so good out in the country. This is why GSM dominates the smaller more densely packed European/Asian areas. Also open spec and no major royalties paid out to Qualcomm (owners of CDMA.)

@Benedick: TJ/ Alien Chick Rielle was visibly pregnant in the sex tape with Johnny Mill.

@SanFranLefty: As a newly minted iPhone drone who’s got the NASA logo for his wallpaper, I am intrigued by your mention of streaming NASA apps. Oh yes.

@SanFranLefty: Ewwwww. Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be an enlighted feminist and understand the beauty of a pregnant womyn’s body and all that but … ewwwwwww.

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