Android Versus iPhone

  Maybe you are like every other person in America who is trying to decide between an iPhone and one of the many (80 or so?) Android phones on the market. If you have never used one of these smartphones before, you will probably wonder why it took you so long to get one. The convenience, usefullness, and sheer fun of having such a device makes it hard to imagine ever being without one again.

  I have been using an iPhone for the past two years. It has been my daily alarm clock, my timer (for cooking), my camera, my note-taker, my GPS mapper, my e-mail checker (for both my work and personal accounts), my texter, and my phone. I used it so frequently that it was necessary to plug it in every night to fully charge the battery. 

   Not long after I purchased my iPhone, my friend Brandon informed me he was getting a phone that would put mine to shame. He was talking about the Google Android, of course. I have watched him operate his Android with skepticism over these past two years. Was it really better than the iPhone? When my contract with AT&T was finished this month, Brandon finally convinced me to come to the Dark Side with the Motorola DROID X2. It has Verizon's first dual-core 1 GHz processor and an 8-megapixel camera. Brandon told me that it would run four times faster than my iPhone (3G.) A smartphone with faster web-browsing capabilities was something I desperately wanted, so it didn't take much prodding to convince me to change.

Motorola's DROID X2 

Apple's iPhone 4

 I also do not like the blocky brick-like appearance of the new iPhone 4. It's nice to see it is available in white, and if I had stayed with AT&T, I'm sure that's what I would have purchased.
   Brandon has a more entertaining view on the differences between these phones. "Steve Jobs is a bit like Communist China," he said. "You get one phone, one browser, everything is the same. That makes it easier for them. With the Android phones, you get a lot of choices." A lot of choices about every aspect of the phones, actually.
    When my DROID X2 was delivered, I had Brandon show me how to use it. I was very impressed with some of the features that were not available on my old iPhone. For one, there is a search button on the DROID X2 that you can hold down for a second, and then you can use voice commands to search the web. Brandon demonstrated this by saying to my phone: "Look up pictures of goats in trees." Within 3 seconds, there were links to pictures of goats in trees displayed on the phone. (OMG...how did I live without this before?!) The 8-megapixel camera is wonderful, since it has more than twice the megapixels of my 3G iPhone. (The iPhone 4 only features a 5-megapixel camera.) I took a great picture of Brandon in the dark and was amazed that the Android had an automatic flash function. Brandon downloaded some of his favorite applications onto my phone, and he kept commenting on how fast it was. "Now I'm going to have to get one," he said.
    I know I'm going to be stumbling around for a while as I get used to the differences between an Android and the iPhone. Brandon also cautioned me that the "open source" applications created for Android phones run a higher risk of being programmed with viruses since they do not go through the approval process of iPhone applications. Freedom has its price, I suppose. As I write this blog, my phone is alerting me of a new text message with the singular, uber-cool, robot-sounding "DROID" rally.  Yeah, this was a good choice.

Steampunk Vader

"The steam is strong with this one..."

Images courtesy of Sillof

  I absolutely love the reimagined Steam Wars versions of the beloved traditional Star Wars characters. A very artistic high school history and film teacher who goes by the name "Sillof" has scores of these little figurines that he sculpted and painted by hand.
  I am just learning more about the steampunk culture that is apparently gaining more and more, eh, steam. The idea behind steampunk envisions a world where steam, (instead of electricity), is used to power machinery. Clothing from the Victorian era is typically worn by both sexes, and aviation-type goggles are a must. Jules Verne characters are often mimicked. Think Captain Nemo, or Phileas Fogg, undertaking grand adventures in a submarine or hot air balloon!
  You may notice that Darth Vader's light saber has a hose that attaches to something under his coat. I'm not sure light sabers were ever imagined to be powered by electricity, but this is not important! Steampunk is about looking cool, and these figurines certainly do that. 
   Please visit Sillof's webpage to see more of his wonderful toys, including his Star Wars 1942 collection. Fantastic work! (Link will appear below when you scroll over it.)

http://www.sillof.com/C-CUSTOMS-Main.htm

Badminton Jedi

Boy Scout Chili Extravaganza 2011!

Dustin Williams and "Pedro" Hillard serve up the goods.

I love this annual event held by Boy Scout Troop 343 in Dover, because nothing screams "ARKANSAS!" quite like this. It is a fundraiser event for the troop, and it only costs $5.00 to attend. After buying your ticket, you may eat as much chili as you want. The fun part is variety of chili available. You can try elk chili, rabbit chili, buffalo chili, squirrel chili, beaver chili, and more. Your ticket also includes a drink and dessert of your choice. 

About Engineers... (Favorite Quote #8)

Dr. Sheldon Cooper (actor Jim Parsons)

"So this is Engineering, huh? Engineering, where the noble semiskilled laborers execute the vision of those who think and dream. Hello, Oompa Loompas of science!"

                   -Dr. Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Traces of Life Found in Meteorites; NASA's Dr. Dr. Richard Hoover Shows the Evidence

Dr. Richard Hoover at the Ice Cave of the Schirmacher Oasis, Antarctica--February  2009.  

That's not a typo in my title. Dr. Richard Hoover has two honorary Ph.D.'s, so I like to call him "Dr. Dr."  (I just read a blog article where a commenter was apparently criticizing Dr. Hoover's credentials.)
I met Dr. Hoover when I was an eighteen-year-old undergraduate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I saw him give a presentation on the possibility of meteorites and comets spreading life throughout the cosmos, and it literally changed the direction of my life. 
Dr. Hoover is the single most influential scientist I have ever met. He has been thinking "outside the box" for longer than I have been alive. He should be considered a national treasure by any standards, and the fact that he has an honorary Ph.D. from the U.S. and Europe should shed some light on the far-reaching implications of his work.
Life probably did not start on this planet. Get used to it, folks! Once I heard Dr. Hoover say, "The Earth is not a closed ecosystem." We are constantly being bombarded by materials that mostly get burned up as they fall through our atmosphere, but many particles (and sometimes much larger objects) actually make contact with the Earth's surface. Astrobiologists like Dr. Hoover do research to determine how long microbes might be able to travel through space in a dormant state, and whether or not they could survive the heat and forces generated during a crash-landing onto a planetary surface. From everything I have seen, the general findings are a resounding "YES - it is quite possible that life could travel via meteorites and comets from one part of the galaxy to another and survive." 
I have been a big fan of Dr. Hoover since I met him in 1996. I am glad his work is finally being acknowledged by a broader audience in the U.S. (He has had near rock-star status in Europe for some time now.) 
  Here is the link to one of Dr. Hoover's many excellent papers: 

http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

"True Grit" nominated for Ten Oscars; Arkansas back in the Spotlight After 42 Years

   Terry Cogburn Tully, a living relative of the real "Rooster" Cogburn

Not many people could fill John Wayne's boots in the theatrical role of Marshall Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, but Jeff Bridges has done just that. The 1969 version of "True Grit" was the only movie that Wayne made that earned him an Oscar. Now, 42 years later, Bridges has been nominated for his own Oscar for portraying the same character.

The story of "True Grit" is a work of fiction, although "Rooster" Cogburn was an actual person living in Arkansas. "But he wasn't a Marshall," said Terry Cogburn Tully, a living relative of the real Rooster Cogburn. "He was a deputy." Tully's paternal grandfather was a first cousin to Rooster. "They were both (Rooster and her grandfather) run out of town for killing a man," said Tully. The reason? "They shot him for snoring too loud. At least," she said, shrugging, "that's the family story."
   
There aren't many major differences between the 1969 "True Grit" plot and the 2010 version, aside from the actors and actresses, and the very end of the movies.  There is a very surprising scene where a character named Quincy grabs a knife and hacks some fingers off of a young man named Moon in a desperate attempt to shut him up. It was so unexpected that many people in the theater gasped and screamed, illuminating the fact they must not have seen the 1969 version since the same event happens in the original film. [You can actually see fingers flying across the room in the 1969 film, and the young Mattie Ross (actress Kim Darby) screams quite loudly. No one who had seen the original movie would forget that!] 

 Matte Ross, a quick-witted and sharp-tongued 14-year-old seeking revenge for her father's murder, is portrayed by Hailee Steinfield in 2010. She mentions her home town of Yell County and other places in Arkansas during the movie, although no part of the filming was actually done in Arkansas. (A very small amount of the 1969 movie was filmed in Yell County, AR.)

   Charles Portis, the author of the book published in 1969 that served as the basis for both movies, is still alive and resides in Little Rock.  Last month, copies of Portis' book were being sold at a rate of 22,000 a week. That's about the same amount that had been sold in the entire two years prior to the 2010 movie release. "It's very pleasing, of course," said Portis of the new surge of interest in his book.