So, apparently Google is going to come out with their own phone - personally I've seen this coming for a while now, and I've got some ideas as to how it would work.
Actually, I can't say I really predicted Google coming out with their own device - I figured that they would only come out with their own phone if they couldn't get partners to agree to supporting their vision on the Android platform; since Google's building their own device, I'm guessing they couldn't.
So, how will it work? From a user perspective, here's how I think it'll go.
I want to talk to my friend, John Doe, and I'll just dial "John Doe" on my phone. The GPhone will automatically see if he's on Google Chat / Voice, and if so directly connect me to him that way - entirely via IP - if I'm on a wifi point then it'll use that, otherwise it'll use my data carrier. If John isn't on some kind of IP-enabled system, then it'll dial him by regular old phone, but of course doing it in a Skype / Calling-Card kind of way, using VOIP to get to the closest POTS switch and then dialing from there. If I want to dial a phone number directly without going through this username mumbo-jumbo, then I'll just dial it like a normal phone - the difference is that I'll be paying for that, either as a direct payment or by using up minutes in my plan. My guess is that Google will make calls to a persons Google ID free of charge, even if they're really doing some Google Voice mumbo-jumbo behind the scenes.
From a receiving standpoint, the phone will do the same thing - I'll have a Google Voice phone number, which will be tied into my Google ID - when someone calls my number or my ID, that'll get piped to my phone. I don't know if Google will charge for minutes when someone calls my number instead of my ID, but I suspect they might in order to further persuade folks to keep it all within the Google IP universe.
This phone's going to mark yet another change in the way we view communications, one that I think we're ready for. Not that long ago, we had to remember (or write down) people's phone numbers. Once cell phones came along, we slowly adjusted to not needing to remember numbers - I don't know about everyone else, but I haven't memorized a phone number in quite a few years (with the exception of my own or my wife's, and that's just so I can give it to people quickly). Over time, the association of numbers to people has even started to fade; I mean, if I think about it, I know that a person's entry in my phone is tied to a number, but I don't actually _think_ about it - if I send an SMS, I just send it to that person. I think part of Google's vision is to capitalize on this thought trend, and get people to stop caring about phone numbers entirely. If you get a person's phone number, you can call their phone; get their Google ID and you can IM (GTalk), send them email (GMail), see their public calendar (GCal), see where they physically are (Latitude), and, or course, call them on the phone - why would you ever bother to get a phone number again?
The only think that I wonder is where Google will find a carrier who is willing to support this device - after all, voice calls are the bread-and-butter of mobile telecoms, and SMS is the icing on the cake - the Google phone would destroy all of that. In order for this to work, Google needs to partner with a carrier that's willing to give folks a pure data plan that's going to have a _lot_ of bytes shoved through it, for a price that more than competes with a traditional plan - what carrier in the U.S. is going to willingly sign up for that? I'm guessing not Verizon, or else this would already be standard on the Droid (OK, maybe not "standard", but the phone would at least have some apps to replicate the functionality I'm talking about). Or, maybe Google has some plan to shift most of the data burden to something else that they control? Only time will tell, but expect we're going to find out RSN.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
yay new meme!
I don't know why this didn't become an Internet pastime sooner. Start with the self portrait of 18th-Centure painter Joseph Ducreux:
Man that's a pimpin' pose? Why not slap some modern pimpin' lyrics on top, such as "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one". Or, even better:
Loving it! Check here for the whole shebang.
And, of course, some folks just have to cross the streams, thus creating a delightful meme mashup:
Man that's a pimpin' pose? Why not slap some modern pimpin' lyrics on top, such as "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one". Or, even better:
Loving it! Check here for the whole shebang.
And, of course, some folks just have to cross the streams, thus creating a delightful meme mashup:
Dumbing down my poker
I've been on a very bad run of poker lately. It's been impossible to get a read on anybody. Every time I get some playable cards, I encounter raises and re-raises and re-re-raises. Every time I have a monster, everyone folks to my modest raise. My bluffs fail: I go through a lot of trouble to set up a tight image, but then everyone calls my raises, no matter how infrequent they are. Every bet / semi-bluff / bluff I make gets called or raised, despite my telling a beautiful, well-crafted story about exactly what I have. Nobody else's bets make sense; they're folding good hands and pushing all-in with nothing. Add to this a general card-deadness and lack of hitting draws, and you have the recipe for a very bad losing streak.
After about a month of failing, I read this post, which gave me a moment of clarity: I'm thinking too deeply. I'm trying to represent a particular hand or image to folks who aren't even paying attention. When I make that check-call with two hearts on the board, then bet big after the third heart comes in, folks aren't paying attention. Conversely, when I over-bet the pot on a board with two to a flush, folks are calling it with flush draws. Basically, I'm giving everyone too much credit. I mean, in a sense, I knew this already, but it hadn't really registered. So, now I'm back to basics: tight play, sit around and watch the other folks until I get a really good sense of what level they're thinking on. The only problem with this is that the donkeys' money tends to go to other folks who are willing to make questionable calls earlier on in the game. Since making this adjustment, things are going much better. Oddly enough, I now seem to also be getting better cards in better positions - or, maybe now I'm just calling at the right time, after taking the time to carefully analyze how my opponents are playing. At any rate, I'm enjoying it again, and that's what's important. Seriously considering heading down to Salzburg or up to the Spielbanken casino one of these weekends for a session.
After about a month of failing, I read this post, which gave me a moment of clarity: I'm thinking too deeply. I'm trying to represent a particular hand or image to folks who aren't even paying attention. When I make that check-call with two hearts on the board, then bet big after the third heart comes in, folks aren't paying attention. Conversely, when I over-bet the pot on a board with two to a flush, folks are calling it with flush draws. Basically, I'm giving everyone too much credit. I mean, in a sense, I knew this already, but it hadn't really registered. So, now I'm back to basics: tight play, sit around and watch the other folks until I get a really good sense of what level they're thinking on. The only problem with this is that the donkeys' money tends to go to other folks who are willing to make questionable calls earlier on in the game. Since making this adjustment, things are going much better. Oddly enough, I now seem to also be getting better cards in better positions - or, maybe now I'm just calling at the right time, after taking the time to carefully analyze how my opponents are playing. At any rate, I'm enjoying it again, and that's what's important. Seriously considering heading down to Salzburg or up to the Spielbanken casino one of these weekends for a session.
The bank / tax debacle
The problem with not writing for a long time is that after awhile so many things build up that you have no idea where to start. There's life developments, job developments, tech developments, poker developments. I guess I may as well start with the life developments, then see what else happens.
So, let's start with my latest FML moment. A bit of backstory:
After I transferred to Munich, someone forgot to mention to payroll that I was no longer working in the U.S. As a result, I was getting paid in both the U.S. and in Germany. I figured this out pretty quickly and did the appropriate thing: I notified H.R. I pestered H.R. after each U.S. paycheck until they told me (nicely): it's being dealt with, don't worry, now piss off. A month after that, I told my boss, who really set off the alarms and fixed the issue.
Since I'm a responsible person, I figured that my employer would eventually figure out the mistake and ask for the money back. The money had been going into a bank account in California, which had remained our principal bank account even after moving to New York, and had been used to pay all our bills / mortgage / etc in the U.S. After moving to Germany, the bank account never got used, so I kept the money in it (along with some savings that was there before the debacle started), untouched, waiting for my employer to ask for it back. See how responsible I am? I didn't get any indication from them, but then again it's a very large company, and I assumed - no, I KNEW - that someone, eventually, would notice, and I wanted to be able to say I did the right thing and even tell them "just take it right back from the same bank account". Flash forward to 6 months later...
Right before taking our vacation to the U.S., we (Clau and I) realized that there was a potential problem with our ATM cards for our bank in New York. As a backup procedure, I grabbed the ATM card for the California bank and went online to transfer some money from the savings account to the checking account (again, to avoid touching the mistaken payment money). To my horror, I discovered that both the checking and savings accounts were empty. Heart racing, I called up the CA bank and asked what had happened. After quite a few phone transfers, it was determined that the great state of California had seized ALL my money for reasons unknown.
Some phone calls later to the CA FTB (franchise tax board), I was told that I had not filed a CA tax return for 2005, which was the year we sold our house in CA, after a year of renting it out and deciding it wasn't worth it. Apparently, if you sell a house in CA, you are required to file a CA tax return for that year, regardless of your state of residence for the year. Ironically, Clau and I filed our taxes with H&R block that year for that EXACT reason: we didn't know what we were required / supposed to do, and we wanted to make sure there were no screwups.
(Side note: H&R block are a bunch of idiots, set up for people who are too stupid / lazy to fill out a 1040. Don't give them anything more complicated than that or they WILL screw it up. They supposedly offer a warantee that will reimburse you if you get audited and found wanting; I'd be curious to see if that warantee has EVER been successfully used. Also, their "rapid refund" service is just a patently evil scheme designed to further screw folks in need to the wall. In retrospect, I should have just fronted the cash and time and gone to a real accountant. Lesson learned.)
Getting back to the story, apparently someone in cash-strapped California had noticed the house sale from 2005 and decided that CA was entitled to taxes on the SALE PRICE of the house, which of course added up to a boatload of money. So, they took all the money from my bank account (for which the bank charged ME $100, but they were at least kind enough to subtract that from the bank accounts before giving the remainder to the CA FTB).
The folks at the CA FTB were surprisingly nice, and cheerfully told me that all I had to do was file a retroactive tax return for 2005, and they would happily send me a reimbursement to my address (in Germany!) after receiving my return. Needless to say, I filed the return post-haste and sent it certified receipt mail from CA while I was there.
What the CA FTB failed to mention is that they take their sweet time with retroactive returns; I've called once every two weeks and each time the response is "we haven't even opened it yet. Check back in a month." Somehow, I have a feeling that if there had been a check enclosed in the return, they might have gotten to it sooner.
I really don't like this, of course, but then again, the money was just sitting there waiting for my employer to eventually ask for it, so in this case I'll survive. Of course, imagine if that wasn't the case? What if that were still my main bank account, as it was when Clau and I lived in New York? We would be all kinds of screwed - Clau's salary wasn't enough to cover all the bills - we wouldn't have been able to make our mortgage payment (ironically to the same bank that couldn't hand our money to the FTP fast enough). All our family and friends would be receiving candy bars for Christmas gifts. Seriously - how can the CA FTB do that and get away with it? Particularly when everyone agrees that I ultimately should be receiving the money back?
So, that was bad enough: here comes the kicker. A week or so ago I get an email from one of our neighbors in our old apartment building in NY, saying that a FedEx package had come for me. Turns out that my employer had, after all, figured out quite a while ago that they had been paying me twice, and had been sending letters to my OLD address (despite my having updated my address in all applicable areas in my company) asking for the money back. The FedEx envelope contained a "final warning before collections" letter. And now, of course, the money is not there. F.M.L.
For those who might be concerned, it's all gonna work out OK. My company's payroll dept has been really nice about the whole thing, especially after confirming that they had, in fact, been sending the letters to the wrong address. I was also quick to point out that, had they sent the original notices to the correct address, or via email, or given me a phone call (I still have the same extension), they would have received the money. Now, they just have to wait. It has, however, cost me a lot of time, which fortunately I have an abundance of lately. More on that in subsequent posts.
So, let's start with my latest FML moment. A bit of backstory:
After I transferred to Munich, someone forgot to mention to payroll that I was no longer working in the U.S. As a result, I was getting paid in both the U.S. and in Germany. I figured this out pretty quickly and did the appropriate thing: I notified H.R. I pestered H.R. after each U.S. paycheck until they told me (nicely): it's being dealt with, don't worry, now piss off. A month after that, I told my boss, who really set off the alarms and fixed the issue.
Since I'm a responsible person, I figured that my employer would eventually figure out the mistake and ask for the money back. The money had been going into a bank account in California, which had remained our principal bank account even after moving to New York, and had been used to pay all our bills / mortgage / etc in the U.S. After moving to Germany, the bank account never got used, so I kept the money in it (along with some savings that was there before the debacle started), untouched, waiting for my employer to ask for it back. See how responsible I am? I didn't get any indication from them, but then again it's a very large company, and I assumed - no, I KNEW - that someone, eventually, would notice, and I wanted to be able to say I did the right thing and even tell them "just take it right back from the same bank account". Flash forward to 6 months later...
Right before taking our vacation to the U.S., we (Clau and I) realized that there was a potential problem with our ATM cards for our bank in New York. As a backup procedure, I grabbed the ATM card for the California bank and went online to transfer some money from the savings account to the checking account (again, to avoid touching the mistaken payment money). To my horror, I discovered that both the checking and savings accounts were empty. Heart racing, I called up the CA bank and asked what had happened. After quite a few phone transfers, it was determined that the great state of California had seized ALL my money for reasons unknown.
Some phone calls later to the CA FTB (franchise tax board), I was told that I had not filed a CA tax return for 2005, which was the year we sold our house in CA, after a year of renting it out and deciding it wasn't worth it. Apparently, if you sell a house in CA, you are required to file a CA tax return for that year, regardless of your state of residence for the year. Ironically, Clau and I filed our taxes with H&R block that year for that EXACT reason: we didn't know what we were required / supposed to do, and we wanted to make sure there were no screwups.
(Side note: H&R block are a bunch of idiots, set up for people who are too stupid / lazy to fill out a 1040. Don't give them anything more complicated than that or they WILL screw it up. They supposedly offer a warantee that will reimburse you if you get audited and found wanting; I'd be curious to see if that warantee has EVER been successfully used. Also, their "rapid refund" service is just a patently evil scheme designed to further screw folks in need to the wall. In retrospect, I should have just fronted the cash and time and gone to a real accountant. Lesson learned.)
Getting back to the story, apparently someone in cash-strapped California had noticed the house sale from 2005 and decided that CA was entitled to taxes on the SALE PRICE of the house, which of course added up to a boatload of money. So, they took all the money from my bank account (for which the bank charged ME $100, but they were at least kind enough to subtract that from the bank accounts before giving the remainder to the CA FTB).
The folks at the CA FTB were surprisingly nice, and cheerfully told me that all I had to do was file a retroactive tax return for 2005, and they would happily send me a reimbursement to my address (in Germany!) after receiving my return. Needless to say, I filed the return post-haste and sent it certified receipt mail from CA while I was there.
What the CA FTB failed to mention is that they take their sweet time with retroactive returns; I've called once every two weeks and each time the response is "we haven't even opened it yet. Check back in a month." Somehow, I have a feeling that if there had been a check enclosed in the return, they might have gotten to it sooner.
I really don't like this, of course, but then again, the money was just sitting there waiting for my employer to eventually ask for it, so in this case I'll survive. Of course, imagine if that wasn't the case? What if that were still my main bank account, as it was when Clau and I lived in New York? We would be all kinds of screwed - Clau's salary wasn't enough to cover all the bills - we wouldn't have been able to make our mortgage payment (ironically to the same bank that couldn't hand our money to the FTP fast enough). All our family and friends would be receiving candy bars for Christmas gifts. Seriously - how can the CA FTB do that and get away with it? Particularly when everyone agrees that I ultimately should be receiving the money back?
So, that was bad enough: here comes the kicker. A week or so ago I get an email from one of our neighbors in our old apartment building in NY, saying that a FedEx package had come for me. Turns out that my employer had, after all, figured out quite a while ago that they had been paying me twice, and had been sending letters to my OLD address (despite my having updated my address in all applicable areas in my company) asking for the money back. The FedEx envelope contained a "final warning before collections" letter. And now, of course, the money is not there. F.M.L.
For those who might be concerned, it's all gonna work out OK. My company's payroll dept has been really nice about the whole thing, especially after confirming that they had, in fact, been sending the letters to the wrong address. I was also quick to point out that, had they sent the original notices to the correct address, or via email, or given me a phone call (I still have the same extension), they would have received the money. Now, they just have to wait. It has, however, cost me a lot of time, which fortunately I have an abundance of lately. More on that in subsequent posts.
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