October 2010 – Page 2

War

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
– Joshua, War Games

For years I had a Solitaire game called SolFree on my Palm. When I got the iPod, SolFree was available in the app store (a lot of Palm developers moved on to become iPod developers). It is completely free (doesn’t even include ads). So I figured for all the years of playing solitaire and the years to come on the iPod, I could go ahead and pay $2 to the people that make Solfree which would also get me 40 new Solitaire games. I usually don’t like new solitaire games, just classic Solitaire (Klondike, deal 3) and Freecell is pretty good too. But one person who reviewed Solebon (the full pay version of Solfree; Card Shark Collection is another card game collection for $2 but it includes Euchre and a couple of other games where you play against the computer) said they played Colorado, so I tried that out and it was pretty decent once I figured out what was going on. But in order to figure out Colorado, I had to go to Wikipedia, hoping they would have more information about how to play than Solebon’s help had, and also maybe provide some strategy, because at first it seemed like it was totally random and you would almost always lose.

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Wikipedia Templates

Today I was reading my Wikipedia Offline about the Japanese bullet trains. I was doing this because I had read an article that asked if the US would ever get high-speed rail. And it seems like Japan has had it for an awfully long time, so it’s not like it’s all that high tech anymore. Anyway, it quickly became obvious that I wasn’t getting the whole article. Here is what I read:

The , also known as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group

companies. Starting with the Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964, the now long network has expanded to link most major cities on the islands of Honshū and Kyūshū at speeds up to . Test runs have reached for conventional rail in 1996, and up to a world record for maglev trainsets in 2003.

Here is the original article, which has a lot more facts in it, including the name of the train, the speed of the train, and the length of the rail lines:

The Shinkansen (新幹線?, new main line), also known as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group companies. Starting with the 210 km/h (130 mph) Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964, the now 2,459 km (1,528 mi) long network has expanded to link most major cities on the islands of Honshū and Kyūshū at speeds up to 300 km/h (186 mph). Test runs have reached 443 km/h (275 mph) for conventional rail in 1996, and up to a world record 581 km/h (361 mph) for maglev trainsets in 2003.

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Offline Browser

One of the things I liked having on my Palm was an offline copy of my blog and all of my movie reviews. At first I used AvantGo to do this, but that company went out of business and the software only worked through their web servers. Then I found Sunrise XP and Plucker, two pieces of software that would get the pages and then let you see them offline. That was a great combo and, even though the companies no longer supported their product, they worked just fine. And whereas AvantGo limited the size of your cache, Sunrise didn’t care. So I got all of my blog and all of my movie reviews. I also use it to get Roger Ebert’s latest reviews, and sections of the New York Times.

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Wikipedia in My Pocket

Before I got my iPod Touch, I heard you could download the entire Wikipedia and browse it without an internet connection. Once I got the iPod, I realized there were several different programs (“apps”) that do this and I had to decide which one to get. User reviews were not all that positive for any of them. Reviews for one said that in order to do a search, you had to enter the name of the article exactly. So if you were looking for Steve Jobs, and the article was under Steven P. Jobs, you wouldn’t find it. Another seemed to crash a lot. So there seemed to be downfalls on each one.

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New Headphones

I have been using some Sennheiser CX300 headphones for 3 years now. I really like them and have thought about getting another pair, now that they are cheaper, about half of what I paid. When I got home Thursday there was a box that had been delivered on my doorstep that day. I didn’t have any flashlights or other stuff on the way, so I wasn’t sure what it was. The only thing I’m expecting is a rebate of some kind, which is what I thought it might be since the return address was “Fulfillment Center”. But once I opened up the box, there was another box with headphones in it a packing list that said “iLounge Envi winner”. Then I remembered that I had entered a monthly drawing on iLounge for free headphones. I had never won anything from them before, but this time they were giving away 50 pairs of headphones, so my odds had gone up substantially I guess. Even though they had my email address, they hadn’t told me I had won (though I found an article later on with the winners).

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