June 15th, 2005
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My phone knows where I am…
in case I don’t (which isn’t likely, but interesting nonetheless). After years of teenage action movies pushing the geek appeal of basic electrical science via position triangulation, my new phone has done what privacy lobbyists have always decried, and now I know where I was. Actually, if I get really drunk or something and wonder where my cash went, I guess my phone can help out there (assuming I still have it in working condition at that point).
When I went to Enoshima on Sunday, my laziness and occasional violent lack of responsibility erupted with a cell phone immersed quickly in sea water (to clean off sand). Now, I _know_ full well what happens when water and electricity come together, especially with devices running a tiny amount current comparable to that used in high precision transistors. BUT, I was a little tipsy, and like I said, I just didn’t give a damn. It’s really remarkable how lazy and indifferent I can be at times.
In any case, the phone doesn’t turn on anymore, and the best it can manage is a feeble flickering of the yellow (incoming mail) LEDs. But this phone is nearly three years old and was on the way out anyway after being dropped from a speeding vehicle. BUT none of my emails, phone numbers, or (worst of all) pictures were backed up, primarily because the phone was so old it was virtually impossible to do so. Anyway, I went out Monday and got a new phone. I was going to get the free (en vogue six months ago) one, because the design was kinda neat, and it was orange. But, I compared a photograph it took of a plant in the Vodafone store with one from the brand new stuff, and that was a death sentence for my normally frugal and spartan ways. So I plunked down ninety dollars (heavily discounted since I hadn’t changed my phone in so long), and got a brand spanking new lime green Sharp 603 that came out last week.
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Out with the old, in with the new.
This phone is of the stuff that fuels the still burning lust of Americans for something other than the chinsy, five-year old, antiquated electronics we all have to put up with. It not only receives television and FM radio, but RECORDS them to an SD memory card. It has a weather indicator, motion sensor (you can play 3D golf by swinging the phone like a club), and (of course) karaoke [version 2!] application which ranks your tone-centric prowess. The graphics via Java are pushing 3D, and to show it off the phone comes with a copy of House of the Dead, which uses the motion sensor for turning and reloading (you physically rotate to turn around in the game, and swing the phone over your shoulder to reload). The main selling point for me though was of course the camera, which is two megapixels and has a 2x optical zoom. This puts it almost on par with my dearly departed first generation Casio Exilim. Though I would appreciate some white balance control, the optical zoom is nice. I’ll take a couple sample shots in the next couple of days and post them for benchmarks.
While making the requisite ATM trip to get a crisp 10,000 yen note for my purchase, I was reminded of a poster in the basement of my (very rich) neighbor’s house back in Frederick which had a set of exotic sports cars lined up in a garage by the ocean, with a tagline that said “Justification for higher education.” All the taillights of the cars had little red LEDs in them so the poster lit up at night. This in turn always reminds me of my grade school friend Jeff’s dad (a very prosperous nuclear power plant manager in the 80s) who had a similar poster of a Countach bearing the well-known adage, “The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.” Since I rarely have the opportunity to buy (let alone the time to use) anything more sophisticated than a new phone, I guess this is just further evidence to the fact that I still fall into that latter category. The greater proof is that I actually ponder things like this.
