Archive for July, 2008
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3g iphone…
I find myself in possession of a 3g iphone. I somehow managed to lose my phone on the trip back from Berlin, probably on the flight from Berlin to Amsterdam. I checked with KLM, but no luck. Replacing it involved spending quite a bit of time on the phone with AT&T, who initially told me that I couldn’t get a new phone, even by extending my contract, unless I paid the “non-subsidy price” (i.e., $200 over the regular price). After escalating this through two more levels, I was able to figure that a) ordinarily I would be able to “upgrade” to the new phone by extending my contract, and that b) I couldn’t because I had signed up for a UM affiliate discount offered for faculty and staff. The AT&T manager was able to take off that affiliation (which put me in their “business” category) and then I could go to the Apple store and get a new phone for the regular price. Luckily, the Apple store had the 16 gb phone in stock in the white color, and I was able to get the phone and a very nice transparent case from a company called Agent18.
The phone itself seems fine. When in 3G mode (which is almost all the time, except when it randomly is not) internet access is definitely spiffier. I think the location features will be nicer with a built-in GPS, although I imagine there will be some software updates that take advantage of it better.
I’ll also need to get some better traveling pants that don’t afford such easy loss of valuable equipmnent…
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Obama in Berlin
Yesterday, Barack Obama spoke in Berlin. We were told that we could enter the area around 4 p.m., and so we agreed to meet at the Parieser Platz (inside the Brandenburg Gate) at 3:30. I was wearing my Obama t-shirt, and so I was interviewed by an East German magazine (self-identified as such) while I waited. Then we all walked out the long walk along Unter den Linden, past the Soviet War Memorial. It was a very crowded, festive atmosphere. Along the way we bought some campaign buttons and tried the German red- and green-tainted beer. They also had a grapefruit flavored beer that was actually not bad.
This guy with the Obama for Chancellor sign made it into the newspaper today.
Security was really tight, and slow. We spent an hour in the line to be scanned after walking out to near the speech area, and there were probably at least 20 lines. We had to sip every bottle of water, go through a metal detector, take pictures with the cameras, and Shiou-yuan had to throw out an umbrella he had. Here’s a picture of Sujai going through security, after I’d gone through.
Then we had to wait for about an hour and a half. We had a lot of food, so we sat down and had a picnic. We also had a bunch of chocolate, which we passed around to the people standing around us. Here’s a picture of our group. From the left, Shiou-yuan, Sujai, Linda, and Chris.
About 7 p.m., the crowd suddenly pushed forward. Obama started speaking about 7:20 or so, and spoke for half an hour. We were quite close, although the teleprompter was in the way so we could rarely see him. Here’s a picture of him while speaking (at least I assume it was him).
The speech itself was pretty good, although I was a bit surprised at how anti-Communist it was. The German crowd was a bit more restrained than an American crowd would have been. They were most enthusiastic when he talked about: reducing nuclear weapons in the world, the genocide in Darfur, building connections among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and doing something about global warming. It was all nicely tied up in a remembrance of the Berlin airlift, and how the citizens in Berin assembled in this same location to call on the people of the world to help them.
The crowd was huge, but very orderly. These guys had a banner asking him to come back (I couldn’t see the rest of it). A few people got up on their friends’ shoulders with a sign about global warming, but the people behind them yelled at them and they got down after a few minutes.
Here’s a shot pointing back toward the Brandenburg gate.
And here’s a picture at the end, as he was going around shaking hands with dignitaries.
All in all an interesting experience, and an unexpected treat on our Berlin trip. I doubt that this speech or this trip with help Obama win this election, but I think it will pay dividends if and when he does so. One of the things that impresses me about him is that he does seem to be thinking ahead. I sure hope he has the chance to put that to use as our President.
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nice iphone Chinese dictionary
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How to set up a WebDAV server on OS X
