So, as my old Nokia had served my for almost half a decade, I decided it was time to retire it, and what I found was the Sony Ericsson S500i in the contrasted copper color shown in the image. And besides the first one being a lemon that I had replaced due to a glitch at the top of the display glass (looked like a good entry point for pocket lint and stuff), I’m happy with it. I think the model has been around since fall, which I guess makes it close to ancient in the tech market, but that might mean it’s a good time to look for special deals on it.
It’s marketed as a “design” phone, so I’ll start from the outside by saying that I think it does in fact look nice. Not incredibly eyecatching, nor overly minimalistic but with nice clean lines, open space between the features and a bit of nice accents. Some have labeled it as feminine design – that might be true of the gold-green or purple version, but unless you’re the kind of guy who immediately gets the hot babe theme or one sporting your car/team logo, you might find one you like in the other color options which in my opinion are pretty neutral. When it comes to construction, I think it feels pretty solid for a mostly plastic design, and the action of the slider bit is good.
I have to mention that I haven’t seen much point in clamshells or any other designs including joints or covers with the size mobile phones reached around the turn of the millenium… but with larger displays and need for larger navigation keys I guess hiding the number pad is a good compromise until even the most affordable phones are chrome framed touchscreen lozenges. At least as long as I don’t have to open it to see the display or call up a number from the phone book.
The phone also comes with lighting effects – something which didn’t sound too appealing in writing, but it is quite subtle in practice. Besides a selection of pulsating effects for incoming calls, the lighting also changes color to match that of the themes (which themselves alter with time of the day and season, depending on theme). It’s an interesting attempt in combining the design of the software with the hardware, and it works well.
If there’s anything to complain about design wise it’s that the navigation keys, though not terrible, might be slightly affected by a form over function compromise. I also don’t find the right side placement of the Fastport optimal – when a headset or charger is connected the largish plug is right where I want my index finger to be and makes the set a slight bit awkward to operate with my right hand. And while a tap on the two softkeys unlocks the keys, there is no similar way to lock them again so you have to either open and close the phone or access an option in the power button menu.
So, to leave the design and go into the device, I guess I can summarize the featues as pretty decent, but not special. It connects over GSM (850/900/1800/1900) with GPRS and EDGE, and has Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and USB for more local communication. The 2 inch display has a 240×320 resolution and 262K colors, and it’s bright and clear enough that I don’t have any problem using it with the backlight turned down to 50% on most occasions. On-board memory is 12MB, and expandable with Memory Stick M2 up to 2GB. The 2Mpix fix-focus camera isn’t any wonder, but I guess it’s alright for snapshots. It has a panorama mode, digital zoom when set to VGA resolution or video, and basic white balance and effect settings. The built-in speaker is alright for speaker phone and game audio but not so much for music. To conclude the hardware overview I must say that battery life seems a bit so-so, but then I’ve been playing around with it a bit too.
Software wise, it’s pretty much what you’d expect as well. Online capabilities include browser, email with push support and an RSS reader. The audio and video players do their jobs, and then there’s the organizer and other aides as well as a pile of basic software for video and photo editing and ringtone composing and so on.
All in all, it’s a decent mid-range phone with just about everything you need in an, in my opinion, attractive package. I paid SEK1300 (About EUR140/USD210), a bit less than regular shelf price of SEK2000-2500 since it was sold with a pre-paid card and locked to the carrier I already use, and for that price I think it was a great deal.
I was pointed to a post on PingMag (this time I remembered to put it on my feeds, btw) about the aesthetics of RFID tags – the little things that make identifying an object, like a buss pass or shipping container, without physical contact possible – and the creativity in the forms of the antenna bit is quite remarkable considering that it’s something that usually would be hidden inside the object it’s supposed to mark.
But then I thought that if it is cheaper to slap the tag on a visible spot, you could also use the tag as a part of the design. Maybe that’s something that’s already going on? Excuse the stereotyping, but it does seem like an innovative Japanese solution to a problem.
Or at least someone with a year of fine art education behind them, and another year at the same school coming up. It’s somthing I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but for various reasons I’ve felt that I couldn’t make the best of the sort of resource art school is. But better late than never, as the saying goes. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m intent on keeping on this path as far as it goes – hopefully by getting accepted to a bachelor program after this coming year (and with most schools here in Sweden that pretty much guarantees a place in the masters program as well unless you screw up totally).
I’ll have plenty of time this summer, and unless I get too bogged down with attention defiency and house moving I’m going to get a portfolio site up during the summer. Until then, I might post something here while I consolidate my work.
Here’s a Smithsonian interview with environmental scientist Wallade Broecker, who proposes CO2 scrubbers as the way to go when it comes to reducing global warming. If it could be put into practice, it would be a great idea.
But what if we add a bit of sci-fi to the concept, along with a splash of water? Then we’d have one neat natural resource on our hands because, as anyone with basic knoledge of chemistry might know, with carbon, hydrogen and a handful of other elements you can make a lot of stuff. Broken down into atoms, not many percent of what we eat is anything other than carbon and hydrogen. The same goes for many of the plastics that much of our stuff consists of. And a lot of construction can be done with fullerenes made out of carbon itself.
It would take some major advances in nanotechnology (which might be on the way…), but the thought of turning global warming into stuff is kind of neat. Especially if you’d end up with a magic fabricating box that anyone could own and use to tap into this resource. I believe this civilization thing we have going won’t work properly before the means of production are in the hands of the individual – but that’s an entirely different story.
Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing Gadgets posted about his first fetish gadget, a Pilot V-Point pen, and I was reminded that I’m looking for a substitute for what recently became a favorite of mine - the Bic Exact-Tip rollerball pen. Any suggestions?
I found one that for some reason had been stuck in a drawer for years, maybe because while it felt great to write with, the ink would smear a bit too much on glossier paper qualities which caused some ugly results on forms and envelopes of such paper (which is what I usually use pens for – when it comes to writing and note taking by hand I’m a pencil user).
But anyway, I found the Bic and I realized it had an excellent use as an instrument for sketching and doodling – with very smooth action, a bit of variation and vividity in the lines and a flow that allowed filling larger areas.
Then, when it ran out, I found that Bic had discontinued it while my pen was gathering dust in a drawer. Apparently I’m not the only one missing them, for example an Amazon commenter claimed to have seen a box auctioned off for $60 on eBay. A bit of searching last time I thought of it found a mail-order company in Australia or New Zealand with some left, but ordering pens across the globe felt a bit too geeky…
So, while it’s a long shot, I ask this question to the internets on the odd chance that someone who shares this conundrum, but has found a suitable replacement, stumbles on this post before I go to the stationery store and buy a dozen liquid ink rollerballs to see if I find something that works…
Unless the Swedish potato chip commercial above was shot back in the day, on the actual Western frontier, which I doubt, there must be some stock of Longhorse left in the world. Maybe there is an obscure fellowship of breeders that have kept these noble beasts alive, awaiting a time when they can serve us again – and now, at the eve of the petroleum age, have decided that their long, powerful are needed to carry us away from our dependence on SUVs and other gas guzzlers.
(Don’t ask me about the short horse, though. Maybe something for urban traffic.)
Found this couple of days ago. Eerie but nice short, directed by Christian Simmons for a project of the Savanna College of Art and Design. It has a feel that I can only describe as, well, very slipstream.
Check their SCADshorts site for more info, high quality version and links to their earlier monthly releases of short films.
Now for that request: I’m looking for the title of an animated short, and I haven’t been able to feed Google with the right combination of words. It’s probably best described as a cut-out/stop-motion hybrid centered on a train, made by folding and cutting printouts from classic live action films (which then play on the created objects). It was made by a German group.
I got to see it during the two week introduction course to traditional animation which was one of many things I got to do at art school this last year, and it would be fun to see it again.
I thought I had outgrown such things (not that I ever really was that much into it), I must say there’s something about Nightwish’s ye olde end of the world ballad. At least in combination with that quaility video. It could have been cheezy, but it does some steampunk/fantasy/post-apocalypse thing in a sort of pretty way.
Blue For Two - Eye of a Storm. A mood appropriate for when night is turning into morning.*
(A wonderful track from the long running co-operation of prominent swedish vocalist Freddie Wadling (probably most known for his work with Fläskkvartetten/The Flesh Quartet) and musician Henryk Lipp.)
(*I thought I had set up the software to show local time for posts… have to fix that)
I've mentioned that I decided it's about time I set up an artist's site, and I'll try to do better than most artists, who in my opinion very often don't take that very seriously. But I doubt it will end up as ambitious as Wim Delvoye's site, with a whole little pixel town to explore. At least not until I have studio emplyees to delegate that to. And a studio to keep them in....
Firefox 3 (you have gotten it already, haven't you?) comes with support for color profiles. Even though it's disabled by default for various reasons, I think it's good news since it means that when everything gets ironed out more images will get to be seen as they were intended to. More info from DRIA.
...haven't I read Ken MacLeod before? Why, why, why? I picked up The Star Fraction yesterday, and I'm probably going to finish it tonight. It's so damned brilliant I'm almost considering sunglasses to be a good precaution when going near it. Got to make a note to get the rest of the Fall Revolution series asap!
I think this needs some sort of change in direction, as far as there ever was one. Both closing the site down or just letting it sit here being updated every other month seem a bit like the wrong options.
...William Gibson's Spook Country, and I just "accidentally" added the Deluxe Collector's Edition of Chan-wook Park's "Vengeance trilogy". Probably the most extravagant film item I've ever bought. More to follow on that, and that much anticipated book, when they arrive.
So, the multiplying posts are gone. Seems it was an older version of this otherwise very nice Sideblog plugin not playing nice with a newer version of Wordpress.
Weird Al is back, kicking off his upcoming album with "Don't Download this Song", a Band Aid-style anthem about not downloading songs. "Don't take away money from artists like me, how else could I afford another solid gold Humvee".
In the latest post at the Dreamhost Blog there is some vociemail from a guy who believes they are the source of all his spam. And man, is he pissed off. He is going to kick their little asses. Legally.
So, as my old Nokia had served my for almost half a decade, I decided it was time to retire it, and what I found was the Sony Ericsson S500i in the contrasted copper color shown in the image. And besides the first one being a lemon that I had replaced due to a glitch at the top of the display glass (looked like a good entry point for pocket lint and stuff), I’m happy with it. I think the model has been around since fall, which I guess makes it close to ancient in the tech market, but that might mean it’s a good time to look for special deals on it.
