Information Echo

My job takes me over a fairly large geographic area on a daily basis, combined with lots of quick stops at various points.

After having recently seen a few friends posting Foursquare updates on Facebook, I decided that I’d install it on my iPhone and give it a shot. Perhaps adding a level of social networking to my job would make my day go a little faster if nothing else.

I’m still undecided if it’s actually interesting, or completely pointless.

Yes, there are goals - I’ve already become “Mayor” of several locations - the fact that I cover similar geographic areas 5 days a week, often returning to the same customers over and over again makes the “Check In” system ideal for me as I’m guaranteed to be back again after I visit a location. Whereas others covet their Mayorship of their local coffee joint, I’m easily picking up leading roles at many other businesses. Virtual “Badges” are rewarded for completing certain goals so there is some incentive to check-in repeatedly, and if you check in more then anyone else, you become Mayor.

Most locations are valid - businesses, fast food outlets, venues of every sort - but there are an annoying array of junk locations. Sorry, I don’t think that “Nicks Pad” or “Intersection of Simcoe and Taunton roads” really add anything to the system. An local highway exit ramp has it’s own location. Garbage.

In the end it seems much less like social networking and more like a big virtual game. I suppose if you are in a busy urban area, or looking to socialize with others from Foursquare it has potential, but for the average user it seems to be all about the race to become mayor of as many locations as possible (and defend such) as well as collecting badges. It also seems the system is rife with abuse based on observations of certain areas where every single location is held by one mayor.

I suspect as the weeks wear on I’ll quickly loose interest as I have with many other social networking applications like Waze and Gowalla. Who knows. In the meantime, I’ve got a few Mayorships to defend.

A friend messaged me through Facebook a short while ago and asked me if I was interested in going in on a share of an aircraft.

His first suggestion gave me a good chuckle, but the second suggestion was much less tongue-in-cheek, and honestly very interesting.

Aside from the fact that the price point on that is probably out of my range at this point in time (assuming a 1/2 share), my employment situation is currently rather tenuous. That would make entering into any sort of major financial obligation a foolish decision right now.

Looking at the pictures sure do make me want to get back to flying, though.

Our weekend, in celebration of our 10th anniversary and my wives Birthday.

Saturday.

8:00AM: Wake up, have cereal with the kids.

12:00PM: Drop off kids with grandparents, head to Toronto. Reality distortion field energized.

1:00PM: Check into a very, very nice hotel. Experience culture shock.

1PM-5PM: Enjoy all the hotel has to offer in ambiance and services. Our room is heaven.

5:30PM: Depart for the CN Tower for a 5-Star dinner at the 360 Restaurant, 1122′ AGL.

8:00PM: Dinner was great, the view from our windows-ledge seat of the CN Tower is unbeatable as always.

8:30PM: Watch aircraft doing night touch-and-go’s at the Island airport from what is almost circuit altitude.

9:00PM: Return to hotel.

Sunday.

9:30AM: Wake up. Enjoy sun shining in our massive window as well as the rooms elaborate shower.

10:00AM: Breakfast arrives within seconds of our 10AM order placed the previous night.

10:05AM: I could eat this sort of breakfast every morning.

11:00AM: Climb back into bed. Most. Comfortable. Bed. Ever.

12:00PM: Realize our 1PM Checkout time is approaching. Reality distortion field failing.

1:00PM: Checking out. Valet retrieves our vehicle.

….1:45PM: Stop at Ikea on way home, eat 50 Cent hotdogs for lunch at Ikea cafeteria.

Yeah, back to reality. ;)

Desktop Defender has been released for the iPhone. When I first got addicted to this in March of 2007 (and blogged about it) the resulting comments were rather amusing, and it was clear I wasn’t the only person who became addicted.

Between this and Lux for the iPhone (think Risk) my spare time at work is now well spoken for.

You find this Wikipedia article on the bandwidth capacities of various devices extremely interesting.

I just stumbled across it this evening while researching the capabilities of ISDN lines and subsequently spent far too much time reading it. Of particular interest to me was a look back to the early modem timeline and seeing the 100 to 1200 baud era listed in “Characters per second” instead of the usual Kilobytes per second. I vividly remember sitting in front of my computer during the BBS years (connecting at 300 baud) and watching the characters scroll across the screen slower then I could read them.

In other news, I’ve decided that I really want a FiOS GPON (G.984) fiber optic service connection to the Internet.