Taking It Easy

Normally I go on a long excercise walk on Wednesday morning, but I won’t exert myself this morning. For the past couple of days I’ve been having stomach-flu-like symptoms. I’m thinking either:

A) I’m allergic to all those extra veggies I’ve been eating (I wish!),

B) I caught a mild stomach flu from a coworker who was out with it a week ago,

C) I have that condition from “House” where if I live in a house infested with termites, they emit this poisonous gas that gets stored in your fat and if I try to loose weight then the poison is released in my blood stream and I get sick, or

D) I’ve been shot with some alien laser beam gun that causes your body to slowly liquify from the inside out.

Anywho.

I found this funny article comparing the Commodore 64 to the iPhone 3GS. You can check out the original article here, but here’s the gist:

The devices	Commodore 64	Apple iPhone 3G S
Platform	Commodore BASIC 2.0	Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0
Released	August 1982	June 2009
Closely associated with pioneering computer mogul of 1970s?	Yes, Jack Tramiel	Yes, Steve Jobs
Celebrity owner	Anthony Perkins	Lindsay Lohan
Big-budget TV ad campaign?	Yes	Yes
Catchy tagline	“What nobody else can give you at twice the price”	“The S is for speed”
Price	$595	Starts at $199
AT&T service required?	Yes, at first, if you wished to use a modem, since Ma Bell retained her monopoly on U.S. phone service until 1984	Yes, phone locked to that carrier in the U.S.
Dimensions and weight	I’m not sure, but definitely not pocket-sized	4.5″ by 2.4″ by 0.48″; 4.8 ounces
CPU	1.02-MHz  6502 6510	600-Mhz ARM
RAM	64KB	256MB
Storage	None included; cassette recorder and floppy drives available separately	16GB or 32GB flash memory
Screen resolution	320-by-200	480-by-320
Graphics chip	MOS Technology VIC-II; no 3D capability	Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX with 3D capability
Sound chip	MOS Technology’s legendary SID	You know, I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it isn’t legendary
Camera	None as standard equipment, but you could hook one up via a peripheral called Computereyes	3 megapixel; video capable
GPS	None, which is understandable given that first GPS satellite went up in 1989	Yes
Compass	Nope	Yup
Connectivity	2 joystick ports; RS232 port; printer/floppy port; ROM cartridge slot	3G cellular; Wi-Fi; Bluetooth; dock connector
Use as wireless telephone nearly anywhere in the world?	No	Yes
Dial-up modem available?	Yes, a bunch of them	Not yet, but we can always hope
Maximum data speed	300-bps, initially	7.2mbps, if AT&T ever supports it nationwide
Connect to Internet?	You like BBSs, right? Actually, people have not only connected C64s to the Internet in recent years	Yes, via 3G, Edge, or Wi-Fi
Use as Web server?	Absolutely!	Not so far as I know Absolutely!
Supported by robust economy of third-party accessories?	Yes	Yes
Application store?	Yes, if Toys “R” Us counts	Yes, on iTunes
Total applications available	10,000 (that’s how many commercial apps there were according to Wikipedia; multiple commenters on this post say there were way more in total)	50,000
AOL software available?	Yes, Q-Link	Yes, AIM
Twitter client available?	Not back in 1982, but you’re good to go today	So many of them it’s hard to keep track
Ms. Pac-Man available?	Yes	Yes
Commodore 64 compatibility?	100%	Sigh
DRM-free music available?	Yes	Yes
Major Hollywood releases available  for download same date as DVD?	No, 1982 hits such as E.T., Tootsie, and Fast Times a Ridgemont High still not available	Yes (although E.T. and Fast Times at Ridgemont High remain unavailable)
Units sold	30 million since 1982	Unknown, but one analyst thinks maybe 500,000 One million in first three days

Pretty funny right? Oh how times change.

Oh, on my walk Monday morning I saw a Red-Shouldered Hawk. I saw two of them, actually. Took me a while to find which hawk it is online. I took a picture of it, but of course it only looked like a little dot on the picture. I don’t have much to say about the zoom on my camera. But here’s a picture of what I saw found online:

Red-Shouldered Hawk

Let’s see, what else is new. Chris has been working on a paper (as I told you this weekend) so he’s been putting in a lot of hours this week. He doesn’t mind having the TV on while he works sometimes though, and we found a new show that we really like! It’s called “Burn Notice” (on USA network), it’s about a spy who has gotten a “burn notice” which basically means he’s fired and left without id/documents/papers/accounts/money to fend for himself. The main actor is stuck in Miami, trying to figure out who put the burn notice on him and why, while running spy-like jobs on the side for money. Of course, he gets in all kinds of trouble, but it’s orverall very cute and witty. They are already on season 3 on TV so that means we have 2 seasons to catch up with… although at our current rate it won’t last us long. We’ve been buying episodes on iTunes so far to try it out, but we’ll be getting the DVDs from Netflix from now on (saving money, wooo!).

Anyway, Chris’s paper is due at the end of today, so light at the end of the tunnel for him. Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot, Bonne St-Jean! Today is the national holiday of Quebec, which is called “St-Jean-Baptiste” (or in english, Saint John the Baptist day, he is the patron saint of french canadians)! If you’re interested, you can read more about it here. Usually I’d drink a French Canadian beer in honor of the day, but considering my stomach right now, I’m thinking that may have to be postponed!