Den Beste on CDMA and GSM

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Update, 2008: Six years later, GSM is the protocol of choice, CDMA is on its way out, with current CDMA providers planning to switch to LTE. You may now disregard this post and the story it links to.

Den Beste on CDMA and GSM in the cellphone industry. Very detailed, very informative. I must admit that I too have been guilty of purveying the meme that “GSM is superior and US cellphones are so behind,” but I hadn’t even been aware that CDMA was a relatively new technology with so much promise.

Back in Manila, My mom had a Mobiline CDMA phone, but it was severely limited, as compared to my Globe GSM phone’s text-messaging capabilities. But then, I suppose other factors were (1) Nokia’s domination of the cellphone market, and (2) the cellular provider’s own service aptitude. Mobiline (which later became Piltel/Smart Telecom) was a PLDT subsidiary. Figures.

iWant an iBook.

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iBlog. You most certainly do. (Note to blogpopuli visitors: The blogroots-intended content was the link to iBlog. All that follows is my own personal rambling.)

I’m about 90% certain that before this year is out, I will have traded in my Dell laptop for an iBook. The school uses Mac, OSX looks like a dream come true, these Windows security problems are getting on my nerves, and like, dude, Steven totally convinced me.

My only reservations so far are (1) the lack of a MacOS driver for the Pencam, and (2) Zeldman’s OS X Blues. I’m hoping that both issues are resolved by the time I make the commitment.

Yi-Bei Cha

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My fortune cookie says “Keep on charging the enemy so long as there is life.” Clearly this fortune was intended for a purveyor of credit fraud.

On the other side, it says, Wo xiang-yao yi-bei cha.

Masonic Pastor

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Remember the church which I thought was the best candidate for “home” here in Baltimore? Well, I just found out last Sunday that the interim pastor is an open Freemason. And not just any Mason, but Grand Marshal of the Maryland Lodge. (So says he.)

I most definitely do not want to be worshiping in the context of compromise with an ambiguously Deistic secret society whose ancient rituals contradict the essentials of Christian doctrine, so I think we can forget that church.

Resources and links from the Order of Former Freemasons. (OFF)

DC Area Murders

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Whoa, I hadn’t been aware that the shootings in DC were getting so much attention. Now it starts to sound more worrisome than when I first read it in the news: murmurs of terrorism are in the air. And not 9-11 planes-and-buildings terrorism, but smaller, “grassroots” type ambushes, of the sort which could terrorize people at the neighborhood level.

One reason I breezed over the news story initially was because of my origins in a city where these things happen almost regularly. Everyday in Manila I would step out into the streets, ride jeepneys and buses, and walk the streets of Parañaque and Baclaran and Makati and QC; always aware that a holdup, robbery, shooting, or terrorist bombing could take place. The prevailing mentality of the general populace was that “if it’s your time, it’s your time.” Not a particularly encouraging or uplifting mode of thought, but one which hung over us all like a cloud anyway, as we went about our lives in that choked urban jungle.

Dean is right in the heart of the area. Prayers go out to him and his family. Updates and links here.

Power Shower of Power!

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I, too, have known showers like the Power Shower, and they are fearsome creatures indeed. It desires not libation, but vengeance upon others. Therefore, the libation is best used on yourself rather than on the beast, whereas the Vengeance is best exacted upon other unsuspecting victims. Best served cold.

As for your own ablutions, Ned, I suggest a large pail and a ladle. (Or, as we call it in Tagalog, balde at tabo.)