Friendly suggestion to Android OS developers

I don't know if for my frustrations with my phone I should say thanks to Motorola or Google software engineers, but I do have my frustrations. Big time!

As you can see from earlier posts I have a Motorola Droid 2 Global. And I can't wait for November when I'll be eligible for an upgrade! I'm sooooo gonna switch to another phone, yet another manufacturer!!

I used to have Motorola phones before (StarTac (yeah, I'm old aren't I), v50, v600) and they were full with stupid, mainly usability issues. I swore I was not gonna buy another Motorola one, and yet I did it again. They do design good looking phones... I give 'em that much!

My suggestions is to look up these terms and get familiar with them! ASAP!

If my phone is downloading and installing an app, why wouldn't anything else be working?
If my phone is busy doing anything why wouldn't it respond to any user interactions?

Yeah, fundamental questions and yet they happen all the time. I have the idea that a) prioritizing running processes/tasks is not possible in Android OS, or b) they just didn't care and run everything on the same priority. But if the user would like to do anything, than leave other stuff and get busy! Why shouldn't I be able to write a text message, while Angry Birds is being updated? Why shouldn't the on screen keyboard react to my typing while the phone is busy getting the contact image from the local cache, LinkedIn, Facebook or any other source! If I chose to send him/her a text I probably know who she/he is, and the picture wouldn't help much. And probably not my top priority. My top priority is to figure out if I mistyped anything. But usually I'm done with the first 2-3 words by the time the keyboard shows them (little popup of the letter), vibrates and puts them in the text box... Nice design, now innit?

My only hope is that the Nexus phones are not f*cked up by any manufacturer's sluggish add-ons, so I'm really tending towards getting the latest Nexus in November. But whatever I'm getting appears to be this crappy I'm gonna send it give it back to Verizon on the spot!

My other hope is that by the end of the year Sony comes up with something good and they sign up with Verizon, too! The only phone I loved from the ones I had was the Sony Ericsson W910i. Ah man, that was a great phone!

Week two was a disaster

I rode the elliptical for a total of at least 23 miles in 5 days. That's 5km less than a marathon... But I ended up with more or less the same weight. I have no idea why food has a drug effect on me, but I like eating good stuff, even though I'm not hungry, and when my wife tries to guard the fridge I act like a drug addict... Strange.

I started playing with one of my Christmas Gifts: Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony. There's one song on the radio station 'Electro Choc' that kinda got my attention:


If anybody knows how to get the extended version of this song, or even better the LP, contact me!

Anyways I'll try to get myself together this week, and somehow keep myself busy during the evenings so those cravings don't ruin my efforts. I'll try to get below 220lbs by Friday morning.

Annular Eclipse in Northern California

This evening we watched the annular solar eclipse with my wife. We already saw a total eclipse a bit more than a decade ago back in Hungary in 1999. We feel really lucky to see such phenomenon more than once in a lifetime. We didn't travel to Eureka or up to the Rockies to see the perfect ring of fire, but watched it from our own home. Amazing how bright the Sun can be even though 90% of it was covered by the Moon.

I took some pictures using my IR filter to make a stop motion video of it. Even though Youtube's stabilize function can make magic I should have used a tripod. I might take the time and align the pictures by hand some time and recode the video. It's only 107 pictures, I'd be done in a couple of hours probably...

Until then here it is:

Americans and their trucks

It was bothering me for a while now why are Americans so obsessed with pickup trucks. Apart farm workers, ranchers and landscaping professionals (gardeners) nobody else really needs them. And yet Silicon Valley is full with them. However the ratio of soil and plant related professionals per computer science related professional does not justify the amount of trucks on the roads.

Even my neighbor has a truck and he's retired. It's big as f*ck, and he only drives it to go to the doctor in the morning as I've seen. Apart from that it parks in front of the house all day all week. Never have seen him hauling something big and heavy. Ever.

But look at this. What's common on these vehicles:

Well , both of them are:

• Dodge (irrelevant),
• big,
• powerful,
• big engine,
• loud,
• and have lots of chrome.

Problem solved! Poor Americans like these qualities in a car and yet automakers give them this:

They simply have no other choice but driving trucks. This on the picture looks like a European car. Not American. Kapish?! Leave the wanna-be-boy-racer cars to Europe, Japan and Middle-East! They have high enough gas prices to not to get any better... 1.2L, 4 cylinders, turbo 160 HP @ 7500rpm. It's a joke! Sport-compact my a**!

ばんかい！

After 8 years and 366 episodes ブリーチ (Bleach) anime series ended. I got the feeling that the decision was made quite quick for some reason. They've just started a new story line and after a couple of episodes they quickly solved the problem and ended the show. But at the end how Ichigo says good bye doesn't exclude anything... He might be back.

This was my favorite anime series, and I guess I'm not alone with this feeling. I have mixed feelings about ending this show. The story was agonizing quite a bit in the last couple of years. The original idea was however great. And they managed to come up with new and new story lines after every 50-100 episodes to keep the it interesting, but some of them was a bit ridiculous and when a  fight lasts through dozens of episodes that's just not good enough.

I figured that the best series usually have 20-50 episodes. The ones below 15 episodes are based usually on a bad idea or the artwork is crappy and they failed. The ones over 100 episodes have usually a great story base and good artwork and everybody got carried away and they just don't know when to stop.

Japanese have quite a colorful imagination and quite a a few taboos... I guess this is why from time to time a great anime/manga series emerges.

Since with one exception of Cowboy Bebop the dubbing of any anime series is just awful! I always watch them in Japanese with English subtitles. Otherwise it just cannot be enjoyed. So I picked up a couple of very 'useful' words and expressions that might come handy one day (implied irony):

たたかい	[tatakai]	battle
大丈夫	[daijōbu]	Are you all right?
馬鹿	[baka]	idiot
手前	[temae]	you (Usually translated as 'Bastard', probably not a nice thing to call the other ^.^)

Probably there's more, but I can't remember right now :)

Now I have to finish up Naruto Shippuden (bout 200 episodes are left) and I can start looking for something new. Probably there's at least a couple of series on my hard drive I still haven't seen...

You live in the USA for too long...

... if you

• Prefer soda over water
• Have ice in the freezer
• Regularly make or buy ice
• Drink most of your drinks with ice
• Take your car for distances you rather walked before
• Spend extra 5 minutes to find a parking spot that's closer to the mall entrance, even though walking the extra distance wouldn't take more then 1 minute
• Use voicemail
• Cut coupons out from the Sunday paper
• Start to believe conspiracy theories
• Walk into non automatic doors (ouch, happened once to me...)
• Think it's rude nobody greets you went to walk into a shop
• Actually want the clerk (sales associate) to help you finding something
• Greet people with 'How are you doing?'
• Or 'Sup?
• Reply with 'Hi, how are you doing?'
• Or 'Yo yo, 'sup?'
• Need to snack while watching TV
• BBQ burgers, and you're proud what delicious burgers you can make even though you bought the patty
• Consider check a payment method
• Rather change lanes than switching off cruise control
• Can pronounce 'water' correctly
• Say 'I appreciate' a lot
• Think Budweiser is a beer
• Drink the light one

The workout plan

In case anyone interested in my detailed workout plan that helps me losing weight here it is.

The first week

So I started last week with 235lbs, on Friday morning I was 222lbs, then weekend came, and today I was 225lbs. That's -10lbs in a week. Quite good. I hope I can keep up a similar pace until I get below 210lbs!

Weekend was tough... The only workout I did was washing and detailing 2 cars and mowing the lawn. The cars did look like they came straight from the dealership brand new... And my lawnmower is a push mower, but the size of the lawn is like a driveway (single car), so with raking I usually finish within 10 minutes. Let's not consider that these activities burned a significant amount of calories.

And we also barbecued (the weather was too nice!) :) Plus I tend to snack when I'm not occupied completely. Like watching TV and so on. I'm lucky only 3lbs came back on during the weekend!

How we bought it

How it ended up

And there were pancake's, too...

I also figured that I cheated a bit more than I wanted. A couple of pieces of chips, some nuts, BabyBells (light!) from the office's snack offering did land in my stomach during the week.

Overall I'm satisfied. And if my scale shows something below 220lbs by the end of the week I think I reached my goal for this one!

I'll watch the last 6 episodes of Bleach this week on the elliptical. They finished the show after 8 years and 366 episodes. I'm kinda sad. I liked it very much. Even though the best animes I've seen usually have 40-50 episodes max. If a show runs for that long, the episodes turn into 60% fighting 10% recollection, 20% talk to the enemy while you could finish'em off and 10% new story. But during the fights I realized I ride faster :) And 2 Bleach episodes are 5 mins longer than 2 Naruto episodes. Some more calories burned :)

Re: Gym WTFs

• Why would you choose to do cardio workout wearing jeans?
• Do you go to work after working out wearing the same pair of jeans?
• How could an overweight personal trainer even exist? 
• And what on Earth makes you hire him? What are you expecting? That he succeeds on you even though he couldn't fix himself first?

Gym WTFs

• Why is there an elevator? There's only two floors and upstairs there's only treadmills, elliptical trainers and stationary bikes. If you can't climb the stairs you can't use any of them...
• How does it even come to your mind to read an e-book on your Kindle while working out. On a weight machine! On cardio it's OK, you either watch TV or read. I'll bring Naruto on my mobile :) But on a weight machine?!
• Why do you think that the plastic underwear is actually a pair of tight gym shorts? And why on Earth would you want to wear tight gym shorts? And why do you tuck your (plastic) t-shirt in it?
• Why do you shave your legs (men) but leave your armpit hair grow 5 inches long and work out in a tank top? Armpit hair makes the lack of leg hair not gayish?
• Why do you think that tottering on a decline abs bench count as abs workout?
• Why are you doing super sets in a crowded gym?
• Why do personal trainers come up with crazy workouts that use up a lot of space, make you look crazy and the whole gym notices it? And why are you keep hiring them?
• Why do you need 2-3 sets of dumbbells at the same time?
• If you're old and fat why are you keep walking completely naked in the locker room? Nobody else is doing it!
• Why don't you wipe off the cardio machine after using it? Ever?!
• Do you really think that putting on a 5lbs resistance on any cable machine will do anything besides wasting money for your gym membership?

Ehehehe

This is just plain sick!

This shall be my motto!

The world is now complete

Humanity has invented everything that's worth inventing:

The zero calorie Marshmallow Dip. Better than the zero calorie soda!

Needs testing, though. I hope it's better than the bacon dip! That was awful!

The fight begins

In the last 1.5, almost 2 years since we moved to the US, I gained about 30-35lbs. Since my biceps are bigger too, let's give the optimistic estimate of gaining around 5lbs in pure muscle. That still leaves me with 25-30lbs of pure fat. At least.

The strange thing is that I consider myself leading a quite healthy lifestyle: fast food restaurant not more than once a month, chips or crackers occasionally only, processed food intake is mostly limited to macaroni sauce, ketchup etc., no soda (only 0 calorie diet ones), no pizza, Swiss cheese etc. I also go the gym 5 times a week and I working out straight 60 minutes each time.

Still I have the unique ability of gaining 15lbs in a day just by having a big lunch (one big whole chicken tight rice and cucumber salad, it's definitely less that 15lbs!)...

I start to share the opinion of conspiracy theories. The ones we all know so well from 'documentaries'. The difference between me and them is that they are blaming the government. I think the government has little to do with this as it is so powerless. Money rules everything in capitalism; even the government itself. I strongly believe that behind the scenes the food industry has a pact with the medicine industry: one makes us sick the other one heals us. Both costs us, the victims, money! Cholesterol pills, dietary supplements, and of course food and organic food. Know the difference between food and food products (from which term the 'by-' in front of 'products' was graciously left out. Yepp, food product = food by-product.)! Vicious cycle, isn't it!

So from today on I'll start fighting with everything I've got! Here's what I'll do:

1. Eating:

• Breakfast: coffee and one slice of toast (made from that plastic prepackaged bread that won't get moldy ever!).
• Lunch: what my wife packs me, let's say around 1000-1500kcal.
• End of story. No snacks (with the exception of baby carrots as they fill up the stomach and literally contain no significant calories: 30kcal/85g), no nuts, no nothing.
• Once a week one cheat is allowed: one thing I wouldn't eat otherwise: ice cream, a slice of cake, a piece of chocolate but not a huge meal, one tiny little something to ease the craving.
• One beer is allowed per day, preferably light (brrr) beer (varies between 55-200kcal).
• Vitamins to make up for the lack of proper nutrition.

2. Working out:

• I'll switch my routine as follows:

Every week day: 40 minutes on the elliptic trainer (about 4 miles and 650-700kcal according to the machine, let's say it's around 400kcal); followed by a 30 minutes long weight training chest, arms, back, shoulders and legs (another 1000kcal). One routine per occasion. At the end of each a short abs set.

I'm starting from 235lbs today. Let's see how it goes. I want to reach at least the weight I had when we moved here, somewhere between 200-210lbs. Since I don't think I can take it for long, it has to take an effect in the next couple of months, otherwise I'll give up and give in ;-(

I used to fit in size 33 jeans and now size 34 is getting tight for f*ck's sake!

#BritsOnIdol

This week on American Idol the theme was the 60's and Britpop.

I was quite disappointed: as I knew (and as Wikipedia states) "Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s."

If we follow the 'definition' we should have seen Oasis, The Verve, Blur, Supergrass and so on. Just look up the Britpop musicians on Wikipedia! My problem was that I'm sooooo into Britpop, so I got all excited! For nothing...

According to them Britpop is Zombies (1961), Dusty Springfield (1964), Joe Cocker (1960) and Bee Gees (1960).

Either Parlophone is doing something awfully wrong, or the producers (who are British indeed!) don't know their own music culture.

And if you take today's or the last 10-15 year's music scene from the US and the UK and you compare them, UK is so winning! Here production companies are killing music, I guess. There's a pressure on producers from the labels to create new and new songs, but volume kills quality. While I believe overseas the old pattern is followed: performers are musicians.

I don't think Katy Perry counts as one... Who, by the way gave worse performance last week than many of the contestants who didn't even make it till Hollywood week on this show!

The other theme, the 60's me gusta :)

The ultimate road trip album

I've found the ultimate road trip album. It was released in 1976 and all the songs are from the same artist. But still I think it'd be the best road trip music mash-up.


Bought it on LP from eBay, and converted it to CD and MP3 so I can listen to it in the car and on my phone, too.

Pimp my car - Stage 1

Having my first car with a V engine it bothered me very much, that I only have exhaust pipe. As a European even a V6 engine counts as luxury and you need to show off!

But Dodge decided that for the 2.7L V6 on the Charger one tail pipe will be enough. I guess they thought that not many people will buy this edition, and they didn't even bother to get a separate bumper for this one. So I ended up with a missing left pipe, and to remind me constantly there was the cut out for the missing pipe on the bumper.

I was looking for a solution, and I found Blastin' Bob where I not only found a problem of my missing exhaust pipe but I could also show off my car a little. The Charger (just like the 300C that was I think meant to be somewhat elegant) is asking for modification. And the possibilities are countless. So I got my first upgrade:

These simply put a Y pipe after the resonator and eliminate the muffler, giving a nice V8 sound to the 'tiny' V6 engine. I went with the 10dB version. I was hesitating between the 12dB and the 10dB and I ended up with the quieter one.

Luckily! It's loud enough! It has a nice deep calming drone around 2000rpm in 2nd and 3rd gear, but otherwise not loud much. At least this is how I hear from the cockpit. I bet from outside the experience is a bit different. I realize when I roll down the window :D

I was lazy to make videos, there's already a lot on YouTube. This one is pretty much sums up the driver's experience:


A couple of things I don't have to worry about any more:

• Blind people accidentally trying to cross the road in front of me.
• Children running after their balls not checking if a car comes.
• Blind spots of other vehicles.
• Let my neighbors oversleep.
• When I tailgate a slow vehicle in the left lane and the driver doesn't recognize me because of not checking the rear view mirror.
• There's nothing good on the radio and being bored of all my CDs.

Now I can start saving money for having my windows tinted and get some nice shiny black and chrome rims :D

Table tennis is a loud sport

Why would you think that software engineers

• are playful creatures and they enjoy all kind of fun activities while working (paradox: either you work or you enjoy fun activities :D)?
• don't need a nice quite environment to do their work?

Apparently the interior designer who designed the new building our team was transferred into a couple of weeks ago, thought so. As a result there's a couple of ping pong tables in the middle of the building in a two story high hall.

Right next to the kitchen, full with coffee grinder, espresso machine, hot water machine, refrigerators filled with soda, coffee and snacks. So nobody would ever want to go there... Ever...

As I was moved from my office to a cube and I happen to sit very close to this recreational area, I happen to have my headphones on the whole day, but at least around noon and after 5pm... Can I sue the company years later if I develop hearing damage? ;-)

I understand that tech companies would like to tempt engineers with everything they've got, and many of them come up with the stupidest recreational solution, but at least separate these fun areas from the working quarters and yet have them still easily accessible. That would work.

Thank you!

Sunday at the Ocean

Ever since my wife has her bright red Mustang convertible we never really took it out for a spin. So this Sunday the weather was nice, so she planned a one day trip along the shore line. On the way to the beach we avoided all the highways, so we can cruse nice with the roof open.

Our first stop was Gray Whale Cove State Beach. It's a bit far, norther from Half Moon Bay, but really nice and protected from the wind. I should really stop going to the ocean wearing a tank top. It's more like a turtle neck with a hoodie on top... And a hat.... Down at the water it was very nice. There's some porta potty on the top, if someone would like to know. This is the view from Hwy 1:

When we were leaving I threw a last glance at the water and I saw two probably baby gray whales right on the beach. Approximately in the middle where the water is white on the picture above. I was so excited! The beach lived up to its name! I bet you must be lucky to spot such a thing. And it was our first time!

Our next stop was J V Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. We had luck again. Just a couple of minutes before we arrived a herd of seals came to shore playing, resting and nursing the babies:

 
There were some beautiful flowers blooming at the entrance of the beach:

On the way down to our last stop to Half Moon Bay State Beach, we passed by the airport. It turns out that a classic car and airplane show was on this weekend, the Dream Machines. If only I knew... But our day was perfect anyways. 

 
We took a walk on the beach, but both of us started to be hungry, so after taking some pictures we continued down to Santa Cruz, where we had our shrimp, prawn, fish, seafood fried dinner.