Thursday, January 28, 2010

iPad = iFAIL. And it's not just the name.

As a complete anticipation blow, Apple revealed the iPad today. No, not the iSlate, iTab, iTablet, or iWhatever. The thing's called the iPad. Immediately tons of iPad-jokes hit Twitter, clearly there's no woman on that product naming team. But hey, let's not judge the iPad by its name. No matter what it's called, it'll still ultimately be the iFail. Let's do a little round-up on the wish-list I posted only 24 hours ago. (Yes, 24 fucking hours ago I was all wishful and hopeful about this tablet thing)

- Long battery life (at least longer than 1 full day of continuous use);
FAIL. The iPad has an "official" 10 hours of continuous-use battery life and a 30 days standby (which means 5-6 hours realistically. and oh, how the hell does standby matter if it's not a phone?)

- 3G (because finding a WiFi hotspot is a pain); SO-SO. It's optional for an extra $130. The other way to see this is we can pay $130 less by not having it. But the extra one month wait time for the 3G version is A BIG FAIL.

- WiFi (because some stupid places in this planet just doesn't get 3G coverage); PASS. 801.22n too.

- GPS (or else it doesn't qualify as a gadget); FAIL. GPS is only available on the 3G version. WTF? I don't mind paying the $130 but I do mind the feeling of being forced into paying.

- OLED or at least LED backlit screen (LCD is very 2008); FAIL. OMG they went for LCD. And I thought this one is a gimme.Update: Turns out the screen is LED backlit afterall.

- a very awesome touchscreen input method (because all the existing ones for large touchscreens suck); FAIL. We've tried our luck with on-screen keyboards. Do we really need to try again?

- Bluetooth compatibility with Apple wireless keyboard (because even the most awesome input method sucks at times); PASS. It also has an optional keyboard cradle which is neat.

- at least 64gb internal memory or an expandable memory slot; FAIL. 64gb is the largest of the three size options and it's $829 with 3G. No expandable memory either. In fact, not even an USB port.

- ability to run all mac programs and not just the ones pre-approved by some stupid store; FAIL. Not only can it not run any mac programs, it also doesn't support Flash. That's like telling me to forget about browsing the web with it. See below for Adobe's response:

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple's DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab — not to mention the millions of other sites on the web — I'll be out of luck.

- ability to run the Pokerstars client (or else I can't justify bringing it on trips); FAIL. At least for now.

- some e-ink equivalent/comparable display (for easy book reading); FAIL. I think my Macbook works just fine if I wanna read a book off an LCD screen.

- some sort of coolness that rewards me for owning the iMac, the Macbook, and the iPhone (like allowing it to act as 2nd display (dreaming again)). FAIL. Not because there's no freebie for Mac owners but because the iPad delivered absolutely NOTHING to wow me.


Need I say more? Actually yes. I can't express how underwhelmed I was when I first saw the thing. It's fucking ugly! What's with the huge bezel? Oh, and no camera? front AND back?

In conclusion, I'm partly happy because I can now put the $800 I budgeted for some awesome tablet in the bank for my next-gen iPhone. Oh, and please don't give it to me as my next birthday present, it won't be appreciated.



Bonus:

This is why the iPad might still succeed in more ways than we can imagine (currently being zero, btw): click here.Update: click this one as well.

For all iPad jokes: click here. Fun fact: #iTampon was the no.2 trending topic on Twitter today. lulz.

And finally, this clip by MadTV back in 2006. LULZ.



Update: Hilter's reaction to the iPad.


Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ready for the Latest Creation?


YES I AM!!!!! Apple's set to make crazy announcements about crazy products that'll shock the world. It's supposed to be a surprise as the teaser invitation above suggests but then we all know that it's a tablet... but then what if they're also announcing something more? Like the new iPhone OS or the new iPhone (yeah I dream quite a lot). What about the tablet itself? We're all expected to be wowed in more than one way, but what if it comes out and totally completely pwns the Kindle and the Nook and everything? OMGOMGOMG. A friend said this has to be the most anticipated gadget announcement of all time and I'm starting to agree. OMGOMGOMGOMG. To ease the pain called waiting I've made up a wish-list of features I want the tablet to have. I'm starting with the obvious ones and then onto the more far-fetched:

- Long battery life (at least longer than 1 full day of continuous use);
- 3G (because finding a WiFi hotspot is a pain);
- WiFi (because some stupid places in this planet just doesn't get 3G coverage);
- GPS (or else it doesn't qualify as a gadget);
- OLED or at least LED backlit screen (LCD is very 2008);
- a very awesome touchscreen input method (because all the existing ones for large touchscreens suck);
- Bluetooth compatibility with Apple wireless keyboard (because even the most awesome input method sucks at times);
- at least 64gb internal memory or an expandable memory slot;
- ability to run all mac programs and not just the ones pre-approved by some stupid store;
- ability to run the Pokerstars client (or else I can't justify bringing it on trips);
- some e-ink equivalent/comparable display (for easy book reading);
- some sort of coolness that rewards me for owning the iMac, the Macbook, and the iPhone (like allowing it to act as 2nd display (dreaming again)).

That basically wraps it up. OMG I'm SO counting down to 10AM PST!!!!




Bonus:

Puppy Tweets lets your puppy... tweet

Apple might think it's going to change the world tomorrow withsome sort of crazy tablet, but we're here to tell you that the world has already changed. American humans will soon be able to buy a product called "Puppy Tweets," a product actually designed, tested, and released by the Mattel corporation. First, you need a dog with a Twitter account. (Who doesn't have one of those?) Then, you need to use $30 of your actual money to buy Puppy Tweets, a plastic sound-and-motion sensor that clips onto your dog's collar and sends out several pre-written tweets that have extreme amounts of dignity, like "YAHOOOOOOO! Somedays you just gotta get your bark on." Then you have to weep gently for the future of our society.
This is just sad. Now where can I get one for my dog?

Friday, January 22, 2010

Obama, wtf?

Yesterday US President Obama came out with his latest brain-fart of cutting proprietary trading from banks and restricting them from owning or backing any hedge funds or private equities. I mean, what's he been smoking? He's removing prop trading so bankers and traders "cannot gamble with (government insured) depositor's money". I feel that that's unfair categorization. It's true that some hedge funds traders and investment bankers are responsible for the financial crisis. But throwing out a ban like this is like categorizing all hedgies and bankers as evil. It's just unfair. Most hedge funds are less risky than the buy-only mutual funds (because they can hedge their bets... duhh.), and most hedge fund managers are responsible people who take their careers and their investors' money very seriously. To give the impression that by putting a leash on traders he can effectively prevent this mess from happening again is just over-simplifying things and naive.

More importantly, it almost feels like the guy just wakes up with new ideas to mess things around. A few weeks ago we got the bonus tax, which was pretty sick already. (He wants to tax bankers who receive big bonus in 2009 because they're the idiots who got us all into this mess and because the rest of the economy is still suffering from unemployment etc. Again, over-categorization. Maybe the bankers getting the bonuses actually did what they could to prevent the ship from sinking even faster? It's unfair to rip them of their contributions even in a messy situation. Oh, and maybe these bankers actually have their lives depended on the big bonuses? Traders generally make a not-amazing base salary, and their lifestyle and all depends on the size of the check at the end of the year. It's unfair to judge people as wrong because they lead an above average lifestyle.)

I have a feeling that Obama's just throwing out this new prop-trading ban for popularity after the Democrats painfully lost in Massachusetts because they're desperate to do something. All in all, I'm very disappointed and everything smells less and less like democracy and more and more like something else common in China. What happened to checks and balances? Don't get me wrong, I supported Obama during the election and (I think) I still do. I just hope he can get his act together becuase supporters are losing patience.




Bonus: Hilter finds out the Massachusetts Senate seat was won by a Republican


Yeah, some of us might be wishing we've stuck with Hilary instead.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Macau Poker Cup Warmup

OMG awesomeness. I have my buddy Doug in town from Toronto and we planned to go to Macau on the Feb 20th weekend. And then today I saw Pokerstars Macau coming out with a MPC Warmup for that exact weekend! Here's the full schedule:

FRIDAY - February 19

2:10 PM --> FREE-to-ENTER Red Dragon Satellite Special --> Buyin: FREE**
5:00 PM -->Satellite to Red Dragon Satellite Special --> Buyin: $500
8:10 PM -->Red Dragon Satellite Special - 5 SEAT GUARANTEE--> Buyin: $2,200


SATURDAY - February 20

12:10 PM -->Satellite to $4000 KO Bounty--> Buyin: $660
2:10 PM -->Satellite to $4000 KO Bounty--> Buyin: $660
3:00 PM -->1-table satellites to $4000 KO BOUNTY (On Demand) --> Buyin: $880
6:00 PM--> $4000 KO BOUNTY 150K GUARANTEE --> Buyin:$4,000

The plan is to get there on Saturday around noon and have lunch, show Doug around, go to a few casinos, have early dinner, and play in the $4k KO tourney. Inevitably we'll also party after the game and make it crazy! Who else is gonna go pls holla! Let's do some side bets for last longer or most KOs or whatever!


Bonus: 2nd Ultra for all Super Street Fighter 4 characters (except T. Hawk)


cool: Akuma, Cody, Guy, Barlog, Cammy, C. Viper, Ryu, M. Bison, Dee Jay, Ken, Dalsim, Zangief, Fei Long

lame (basically all super projectiles): Chun Li, Sagat, Gouken, Guile, Dan, Sakura, Rose

super lame: Juri (maybe it's just the demo guy being a sucker but it looks like a lot of nothing)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Macau Poker Cup (March 2010) Schedule

Here's what we (at least I) have been waiting for, enjoy.

Macau Poker Cup - March 3 to 7
Draft Schedule

Monday 1-Mar
2:10 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
4:30 AM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
8:10 PM Phase 2 - Red Dragon Satellite $1,100 1000+100 1-in-10 players get entry to Red Dragon

Tuesday 2-Mar
2:10 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
4:30 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
8:10 PM Phase 2 - Red Dragon Satellite $1,100 1000+100 1-in-10 players get entry to Red Dragon

Wednesday 3-Mar
12:10 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
2:10 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
5:00 PM Phase 2 - Red Dragon Satellite $1,100 1000+100 1-in-10 players get entry to Red Dragon
8:10 PM MPC Event No. 1: KO Bounty Event $2,000 1800+200 $500 per KO

Thursday 4-Mar
12:10 PM Phase 1 - Red Dragon Satellite $240 220+20 1-in-5 players get entry to Phase 2 - Red Dragon
2:10 PM MPC Event No. 2: Charity Event (50K Added Prizes) $1,000 500+500 charity 2 rebuys
5:00 PM Phase 2 - Red Dragon Satellite $1,100 1000+100 1-in-10 players get entry to Red Dragon
8:10 PM MPC Event No. 3: $3000 NLH 200K Guarantee 2 day event 200K $3,000 2700+300

Friday 5-Mar
12:10 PM MPC Event No. 4: Deep Stack 100K Guarantee 100K $1,500
2:00 PM MPC Event No. 3 DAY 2
5:00 PM Phase 2 - Red Dragon Satellite $1,100 1000+100 1-in-10 players get entry to Red Dragon
8:10 PM MPC Event No. 5: Red Dragon $1,000,000 Guarantee, Day 1A 1M $10,000 9200+800 150 player cap
10:30 PM Last Chance Mega Satellite - Red Dragon $2,200 2000+200 1-in-5 players get entry to Red Dragon

Saturday 6-Mar
12:10 PM MPC Event No. 5: Red Dragon $1,000,000 Guarantee, Day 1B 1M $10,000 9200+800
5:00 PM Phase 2 - APPT Macau $950 860+90 1-in-5 players get entry to APPT Phase 3
6:30 PM MPC Event No. 5: Red Dragon Dinner Break
7:30 PM MPC Event No. 5: Red Dragon, Day 2

Sunday 7-Mar
12:10 PM MPC Event No. 5: Red Dragon, Day 3
2:10 PM MPC Event No. 6: $500 Rebuy 50K Guarantee 50K $500 450+50
6:00 PM Phase 3 - APPT Macau $4,300 1-in-10 players get 40k entry to APPT Macau

I'm likely to play Day 1A of the Red Dragon so I can sleep in after the inevitable Friday night party. And yes, they've cancelled the Highroller tourney, wtf am I gonna defend?

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Apps. Billions upon billions of them...

On Jan 5th Apple's App Store sold their 3-billionth app download. That's a lot of downloads. Let's put things into perspective and we would be able to see how much this behemoth has grown:

July 2008: 0 downloads (App Store Launched)
January 2009: 0.5 billion
April 2009: 1 billion
September 2009: 2 billion
January 2010: 3 billion

The App Store took a good nine months to achieve their first billion downloads. And then the 2nd billion took five months. And then the 3rd billion took four. Anyone wanna do over/under on how long it'll take for 4-billion?


Bonus: For anyone Street Fighter savvy (and yes that includes you Terrence), you'll wanna see this: (for everyone else, this is the latest trailer of the up and coming Super Street Fighter 4, showing off new costumes and new Ultra Combos)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Superphone? pfffff.

Google has announced its first own-branded Android phone aka Nexus One. It's also coining it the Superphone. Yes they did it without lol-ing. I mean, these people can't be serious, right? A Superphone? Seriously? But wait, they are. They claim that "because of the 1GHz processor, the high amount of RAM, the Google apps and all the software innovations they've made in the Nexus One, the phone is one step higher than smartphones. And it's almost equivalent to the laptops you were using four or five years ago." Blahahahahahaha. So it'll be downgraded to retardophone in 1-2 years time once every other phone is sporting 2Ghz chips and more RAM and better apps?

Google, I thought you're smarting than this.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

My Day Job

I'm a trader and I trade Japan. It's not the best market to be trading in. check vid for more info.




Bonus: check below for a very good poker version.

iSlate or whatever funny name Apple decides to come up with...

I'm gonna get you.


(Note that this is not the real thing but rather a fan-made concept pic of what the real thing is assumed to look like. And no that fan is not me. And the real thing is probably gonna look much different. When was Apple ever predictable right?

We'll get answers by Jan 27th and the thing is supposed to ship by March. Can someone make time go faster please ?)