Twice a year, in the United States anyway, we change our clocks. Like many people I think this is a useless activity that only serves to confuse people and mess with their sleep patterns. As if setting our clocks ahead an hour each spring and back an hour each autumn for “daylight savings” wasn’t bad enough, recently we decided to change the dates when those two events occurred.
This morning my Verizon HTC Incredible decided that it was time to set the clock back an hour even though the official time change doesn’t occur until next Sunday morning. I have the phone set to automatically get the time from the cell tower, which means the issue is at Verizon’s end of the wire. Or air wave in this case.
I poked around on Google for any reports of this issue and, finding nothing, I went to the Verizon support page to see what I could find. Their page was less than helpful. As a last resort I called *611 and spoke to a representative. Well, in truth I called twice. The first time I followed, or tried to follow, the menu system to allow them to identify my issue. When that failed I hung up, called back and pressed zero over and over until I was transferred to a human.
After explaining my issue he asked me to run part of the phone configuration process. By doing this, he said, it would re-sync the phone with the cellular network. He said he’d call me back in a few minutes to see how things had gone.
After hanging up I called *228 on my phone, and selected option 2. The phone took about a minute to complete the task (complete with obnoxious background music). When that completed the time was still wrong. So I rebooted my phone, which corrected the time.
Caveats: I rooted my phone in June, and I am currently running Cyanogenmod 7.1 instead of the stock HTC Android. Whether the rooting or flashing caused the time issue I do not know. Also, I hadn’t thought to reboot my phone before calling Verizon, so I don’t know if that would have reset the time.
While I had the representative on the line I asked about my hardware update eligibility date. which is currently February 9, 2012. He couldn’t do anything about it, but he said that going to the store I might be able to get that moved ahead by 30 - 60 days. Which would allow me to get an iPhone 4S in December. Maybe I’ll practice my take-pity-on-me look and swing by there this afternoon and hope for a 102 day exception.
Certainly not the United States. Personally I like Switzerland’s and Hong Kong’s the best.
This is fascinating and very good on several levels simultaneously. The nerd in me loves the visualization - it intuitively makes sense. The musician in me (a specialized form of nerdery, I am learning) love the music and seeing it in a new light.
More information on Alexander Chen’s website. And a full screen visualization at baroque.me.
You have to admire the focus and intensity that he brings to this; it helps one to understand the force he must bring to the Free Software Foundation.
AppCode is a new Objective-C IDE from the same folks who make IntelliJ Idea. It’s enough to make me consider fiddling around with Objective-C for a while.
Nerdy and energy saving, learns from your usage, and looks good too? Want.
I used to think the Ubuntu release names were weird.
I, for one, would be happy to see daylight savings time ended.
Very thoughtful piece about the difference between Apple and Google.
I like to read. I read everyday and I am usually reading more than one book on any given day. Paperback, hardback, or eBook, mystery, action, suspense, novel, and even the occasional non-fiction – all are fair game. In 2010 I kept track of the titles I read, so I know I completed 85 books that year.
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Currently I’m reading two books at home. The first, checked out from the library a week or so ago is Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants. It’s the first of a trilogy about World War I.
The book is lengthy at about 985 pages, and heavy too. My bathroom scale puts it at an even 3.0 pounds. Laying in bed at night, reading before turning the light off to sleep is a workout.
{{ “0061977969” | amazon_smallleft_image }} The second book I’m reading is one I got at the library last night. It’s Neal Stephenson’s Reamde.
Since I have all of Stephenson’s other books I don’t know why I thought this one would make a better late-at-night-reading-in-bed book, but I did. At least until I got to the library to check it out. It weighs 2.4 pounds and measures 1024 pages. The .6 pound difference does make the book noticeable lighter, but the book still gets heavy after a while.
{{ “0345529057” | amazon_smallleft_image }} On our recent trip to Germany I decided not to take any paper books at all. Instead I relied upon the Kindle app on my iPad for reading. I consumed the first two George R. R. Martin books from the Song of Ice and Fire series.
A total of about 1800 pages that weight no more than the iPad itself. I find reading on the iPad to be comfortable and enjoyable. However it isn’t the same has having books.
There is a certain smell to books, and a pleasing heft in your hand as you carry one. I like the creak of the binding as you open a new book, and I delight in finding old receipts or business cards that I used as bookmarks when I reread a book.
I will always want real books in my home, both to read and to have and display. But, late in the evening when I am in bed reading, there are times when I think eBooks are a better solution, if only to reduce the chance of hurting myself when I drop a three pound novel on my face.