"Is it as big as a laptop?" they'd ask. I told one woman that it was roughly the size of a manila folder. This seemed to surprise and intrigue her as she, perhaps, imagined slipping it into her purse.

Do you think it's any accident that Steve Jobs showed off the Facebook app working on the iPad? I'm sure more than a few women have already imagined themselves checking their Facebook pages and using that large virtual keyboard to update their status, all while sitting comfortably on their couch.

The iWork productivity suite appears engineered to appeal to moms who have to create PTA flyers, manage home budgets, and help their children create presentations for school.

Mom will have it propped up in her kitchen where she can see it. It'll remind her of appointments and entertain her with her favorite shows while she works in her home office or the kitchen.

Wow I just came across a mind-blowing paper today..all I can say is wow. This is as exciting to me (perhaps more so) than when I came across the transactional interpretation of quantum physics.

Let me summarize it before linking to it.



It is written by Fotini Markopoulou, P.H.D. From her bio:

Quantum gravity is often seen as the problem of unifying or reconciling general relativity and quantum theory, combining the physics of the very large with that of the very small. There are certainly places where we need both, such as black hole physics, where no real progress can be made without a quantum theory of gravity. The incompatibility of general relativity and quantum theory can be stated in many ways and a classic one is the problem of time.

Quantum gravity has been facing the problem of time for half a century. Will it continue to cause trouble for the next half century? Or is the problem of time a fake problem? Could it be a paradox? We arrived at it by putting together true statements from general relativity and from quantum theory and we found a contradiction. Now, either fundamental science is stuck or we just have a paradox that will go away if we find the faulty premise. What can the faulty premise be?

Background independence means to make no distinction between geometry and matter and to describe the dynamics of the universe as seen by observers inside it. Di eomorphisms are not about timelessness but about being inside a dynamical universe, a ffecting it and being a ffected by it, constituting it.\

Let us name geometrogenesis the process of transitioning from a fundamental quantum theory of gravity without geometry to the known geometric physics. The geometrogenesis scenario is a simple one. At high energy, or in the early universe, there is no notion of geometry or geometric locality.

Having raised the possibility that geometry does not exist at the fundamental level, we now need to find a way to do physics without geometry. This may appear hard because all our physics is done with geometry. But we can use a relational and information theoretic language.

In this essay I argued that the problem of time is really a paradox that can be traced to taking spacetime geometry too seriously, beyond its domain of applicability. Timelessness refers only to the geometric time, not the microscopic fundamental time. Fundamental time exists but space, geometry and gravity do not.

This also goes back to what I have concluded myself from my own studies. Why is it gravity and momentum are indistinguishable? The conclusion I came to is this:



What if the things affected by gravity and momentum are not real? And the "forces" we feel are a result of this? Gravity affects mass (which is not real) and momentum is the "force" we feel..the magical tugging when we move. Maybe movement is not real either..and that is why these "forces' magically tug and push at us, and why the forces are identical. The more mass..the more gravity...the more speed...the more momentum.



This paper, and her theory, go a long way to unifying classic general relativity with quantum theory. She is one smart greek! And it is perhaps poetic that one of the original people who proposed motion was not real was Xenophanes (Zeno) over 2,500 years ago. Motion can not possibly be real..so space/geometry can not be real either.



If we come across a viable and testable quantum gravitational theory within my lifetime I will be ecstatic!

here is another paper that comes to similair conclusions:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0904/0904.3520v1.pdf

1. Figure out a way to get Relativity and Quantum Physics to agree. (right now both are considered true but both disagree with each other, a real doozy of cognitive dissonance)


2. Figure out WTF Dark matter is or if it exists at all (I don't think it exists, I think it simply shows our current subscription to general relativity as the model for most everything is flawed)


3. Figure out a way to remove the observer from Quantum physics (many scientists consider it a problem that consciousness plays any role in reality and view it as an error in how we interpret Quantum Physics..I disagree I think that the results are correct and consciousness does indeed play a role in reality) or make better sense of why the observer/consciousness is so critical to the experimental results. (this has been described as the SINGLE GREATEST problem facing modern science and the biggest obstacle for it to make any progress).
   
   
   
   1. If it is impossible to remove the observer from Quantum Physics the conclusion is inescapable: Conscious observers are critical to reality
   
   
   
   


4. Unify Particles and Forces


5. The Physical reasons or mechanism responsible for setting the free constants in the standard model or particle physics are "chosen" by nature somehow. We don't know why or how.

• Lebanon has a large christian population, specifically Maronite Christians


• They had a civil war between political groups of Christians vs Palestinian Muslims


• Israel armed and trained the Phalangist political party (christians) since they had a mutual hatred for Palestinian mulims


• The Phalangist leader Bashir was assassinated in 1982.


• Israel sent forces into Lebanon to help the Phalangists


• Two days after Phalangist leader Bashir was assassinated, the Israeli Defense Forces surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, not allowing anyone to escape


• They then allowed the Phalangists to enter the camp


• 3,500 Palestinian unarmed women, children, old men etc are massacred.

• http://www.365black.com/365black/whatis.jsp


• http://www.365black.com/365black/index.jsp

1. DC Cops respond to incidents in Crystal City, Virginia


2. You can leave a hospital on the 3rd floor via elevator, run across the street to a building where you stashed your silence sniper rifle, and shoot the recovering patient all in the time it takes for a journalist to walk from the same elevator to the hospital room.


3. There is plenty of convenient parking in Washington DC
   
   


4. Reporters drink..ALL THE TIME


5. You can learn a lot of useful information from sweaty guys named Vic if you agree to not one, but two dates


6. Even after your best friend sleeps with your wife you can still continue to trust him, and should be astonished if he betrays you again.


7. You can shove a woman during busy morning commute onto the path of a train and there will be zero witnesses to see you do it.
   
   
   
   1. If you plan on shoving a woman onto the path of a train, and there are only 3 blind spots in the cameras in the metro, your victim will automatically stand right in the sweet spot.
   
   
   
   


8. The only purpose of parking garages in movies is for the psycho guy to stalk you. That and car chases.


9. If a story is important enough then people should have newsprint on their fingers when they read it. No need to you know, post it online or anything. It can wait.


10. Editors serve no purpose other than to let their reporters do whatever they want.

"Unfortunately you were given wrong information as was the public," McAllister wrote in the e-mail "All I have to say to you is Philip is a beautiful person inside and out and could not hurt a fly! A police officer in Boston (or many) is trying to make big bucks by selling this false story to the TV stations. What else is new?? Philip is an intelligent man who is just trying to life his life so if you could leave us alone we would greatly appreciate it. We expect to marry in August and share and wonderful, meaningful life together."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/bu_student_char.html

• The capitalists generate their wealth by exploiting employees. An employee is not paid according to the true worth of his labor but according to what the employer is willing to pay him. The employer pays him less than what his labor is worth so that the employer can make a profit when he sells the produce.


• Wealth and unequal distribution can create social problems (such as higher crime rates).


• Government interference in markets can be skewed to benefit the wealthy. In particular, wealthy people have the financial means and incentives to influence or corrupt government officials and to lobby for favorable legislation.


• Many people have little wealth left over after living expenses, so they can't make it grow quickly. This further deepens the disparity between rich and poor.


• Persistent long-term inequality of wealth undermines the motivation of the poor to improve their stance. This creates not only direct but perpetual sociological inequity.


• Wealthy people save relatively more than poor people. Hence some economists believe that an unequal distribution of wealth undermines an economy's mass buying power, effectively leading to lower aggregate sales, reduced wealth production, unemployment and crises.


• Wealth is defined and judged incorrectly, in many different ways. In particular, people may attach value to things for seemingly irrational reasons (sentimental value). Some may also value spiritual development more than material wealth. Capitalism's focus on absolute monetary value thus undermines the legitimacy of alternate paradigms.


• The wealthy may not put their wealth to productive use. For example, they may buy land just to deny access to it to others, for personal or environmental reasons. They may buy out other companies that produce better products but are a competitor, and then sit on the product not allowing it to be released to the public.


• When everything is done for profit, it creates immoral systems. For example, healthcare is currently for-profit. As a result insurance companies will seek whatever means possible to deny expensive care to people to maximize their profit. People who are poor can not afford health care and have a lower quality of life as a result. Many life-saving operations such as organ transplants are so expensive few can afford them and die instead.


• The disparity between the laborer and the employer is enormous. Currently many executives earn over 500 times what their employees earn.


• Companies can easily circumvent moral hazard of bad decisions by being 'too big to fail'. The company is so large and employs so many people that if it were to fail the entire nations economy would plunge. The companies can use this is blackmail to the Government forcing the government to grant large bailouts. This therefore encourages exploitative and damaging investments and tactics by companies.


• Capitalism encourages debt. Laborers are granted access to loaned money with interest, and encouraged to purchase large items they can not afford to purchase with cash like a house or a car or an education, and then enslaved to that debt for 30 years or more. By the time the debt is paid off the total money repaid is often times more than twice what was borrowed.


• Capitalism does not care about individual people, only profit. As a result many companies try to get as much labor as possible from as few people as possible, ideally eliminating employees all together. The drive for cheaper labor to maximize profits results in labor being imported from overseas, which takes away jobs from those who live within the capitalist nation.


• Capitalism encourages people to seek careers in whichever field generates the most income. Thus someone who would have been a promising teacher instead becomes an investment banker solely for the money. People do what pays the most, not what they love the most, or what they are naturally talented at. Vital work for social health such as teachers, social workers, librarians, are paid the least.


• Capitalism discourages the pursuit of pure science. Funding is easy to find for profitable fields such as baldness treatment, impotence, obesity, skin care and other cosmetic issues, while funding for pure sciences such as theoretical physics, space exploration, etc are much harder to obtain.


• Capitalism encourages people to seek to amass wealth and possessions rather than to help their fellow man or society. It breeds selfishness and discourages selflesness. There is no profit in helping those who have no means to repay you.


• Capitalism displaces justice. The wealthy can afford more talented lawyers and buy their way out of excessive jail time or punishments. They can afford higher fines and fees. The poor can not afford good legal defense and suffer harsher sentences as a result.

After your passenger spends 4 hours getting past airport security ("I Love Freedom" T-shirt draws extra attention from security) you can have your character attend a George Bush rally from behind the 1st amendment barbed wire fencing 3 miles from Bush's appearance where your character will be maced and beaten for being there. Then, to complete the trifecta of freedom your character can travel to the U.S.- Mexico border and help build the border fence while patrolling for hordes of brown skinned devils trying to sneak into our country and cut our grass.

I hear Playmobil is coming out with a waterboarding torture set. I think I'll wait for that and buy them together to save on shipping.

While I'm sure your child will love this do we really want to reveal our security secrets to the terrorists? I bet al-Qaeda is training the next generation with this very product. I am saddened to learn that Playmobile hates America.

I suggest that Playmobil stamp "Arbeit Macht Frei" above the passenger portal on this item.

Conclusion

The Bad

The Good

Elaborations (has some spoilers)

Tangent on Excessively Long Movies

Back to the Review

1. The Father of the penguin in Batman returns wasn't the only guy who deserted his son because he was UGLY.


2. twirling head-on into the middle of the street without heeding traffic is a perfectly safe activity that only bad luck could turn into tragedy.
   


3. You can inherit a factory without ID.


4. Aging makeup still sucks


5. German submarines are no match for rickety tin tugboats


6. If you get shot several times by heavy machine gun through vital organs, you will still have enough time to say something really profound before you die.


7. Just because its 2009 does not mean we can not use the old 'Magical Negro' story device.


8. When your wife starts to show signs of age, abandon her and your newborn baby to ride a motorcycle and wash clothes in India, then return years later for some sex.


9. Dogs can live to be 30 years old


10. Even after being born with a fantastic mutation that reverse ages you, you can still lead a very boring, unremarkable life.

Review Details

What I love

• Full, easy to type on keyboard


• Touchflo 3D


• Opera Browser is fantastic


• VGA high res screen


• No need for Stylus


• It has a stylus


• ability to heavily modify, device is not as padlocked as iphone


• Sprint GPS with turn-by-turn directions, extremely fast lock and accurate


• Built in AIM, Yahoo, MSN chat clients that parse URLs


• Weather animations in touchflo 3D


• SD card can be hot swapped


• Came with high quaility screen protector, tons of accessories


• Phone is tiny!


• Phone is FAST, it really feels like a handheld laptop capable of just about anything


• installing and uninstalling programs is very very easy

What I didn't love, but managed to fix within 24 hours

• Low speaker volume in phone calls (loaded a tweaked sound modification, now its PERFECT)


• Slow SD card navigation


• Sprint branded UI (I removed sprint logo and all sprint crap)


• Locking is boring (I loaded a slide-to-unlock program just like iphones feature)


• Screen does not always rotate (loaded a file to make this work in everything except touchflo 3D)


• Did not come with car charger (bought one for $7)


• Boring looking contact list (loaded iContact for an iphone-like contact list)


• File explorer does not give you the kind of power you'd need to copy lots of files, rename etc.


• Calendar is boring


• Opera kept taking me to mobile versions of website

What I didn't love but I can't fix