VP Pick

Ok, this will be my argumentation for Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Obama’s Pick for Vice President.

First of all, she successfully worked together with Republicans on political issues. I mean she was indeed so successful that, when she ran for re-election in 2006 her candidate for lieutenant governor was a former Kansas state GOP Party Chair. I don’t think that’s too bad. And her husband has a Republican background (daddy was a republican congressman). That shows, that she is able to work together with Republicans.

In general she appeals to republican voters as well, how else can you win in the state of Kansas as a democratic candidate by a landslide?

This is what Obama is trying to do all along, appealing to a broader audience. Why else is he going to campaign in every single state of the nation? Because he thinks/knows, he really has a good shot in winning some of them. With her as VP, it might look even better for him.

She also denied any contributions from insurance companies, when she ran for insurance commissioner of Kansas a couple years ago and she wo! Apparently the first time a Democrat won, for over 100 years. That’s the same attitude Obama shows in his campaign, by refusing any contributions from lobbying firms and PACs.

The Governor also looks good on TV, which we don’t have to forget, is a quite important thing. When Hillary was running, she managed to look quite scary on some pictures. While I am certain the media sometimes was just looking for these kinds of weirdo shots (Yes, I am talking to you Ariana Huffington), I don’t think there is such a great chance of getting such unfavourable pictures from the Governor.

All in all she represents many of the ideals Mr. Obama represents in his campaign and with her they would be able to tell a very complete story to the voter.

But of course nobody is perfect, so let’s bring up some issues.

First of all, she is a woman, but she is not Hillary. Many of the, lets call them “ambitious”,

Clinton supporters, could think that she would be a cheap attempt to get their support, because they were arguing its time for a woman in the White House, and if not as president, then as Vice President. The argument that people will have problems with a black man and a woman running on the same ticket is one I don’t really buy, because those people are not very likely to vote for a democrat anyway. So I call that a none issue.
Then we have the argument, that she doesn’t bring any foreign policy experience on the table. First of all, I don’t think Mr. Obama has a very poor record on foreign relations. I mean he was member of the Foreign Affairs committee in the senate for his time as a senator, which means he actually still is. I also don’t think that a VP must have foreign policy experience. That’s what the Secretary of State is there for.

All in all those were the major critical points I was able to see in this short 5 minutes that I actually looked into the topic.

My next paragraph will be why I don’t think the other candidates, from who the media thinks they are on the short list, are that good of a choice.
First are foremost, our all friend Joe “Potty Mouth” Biden. And I say that with all respect and sympathy that I have for him. But that man just doesn’t know when to not to say the wrong thing. On a certain level that makes him, at least to me, quite admirable. He is the guy who talks straight and who sometimes just says what pops up in his head. And he certainly can afford to do it, as a long standing Senator, who certainly is not challenged anytime soon as Senator in his state of Delaware. As a VP? Ahh, I don’t think so. His record in running for presidential nominee shows this. Let’s just remember last year his comment about that “clean and well articulated black man” (it was Obama, he was talking about). The risk of him making spontaneous remarks like that is evident. Therefore I don’t think he should be the VP nomination.

Next on the list…Governor Tim Kaine. I really don’t think a guy who is a governor for three years is a good choice. Obama should pick somebody who has been in the higher levels of politics for a little longer then he was. Otherwise the whole inexperienced critiques will come back, and McCain has a descent shot when he can win this argument against Obama. Otherwise I haven’t really seen something that outstanding about Kaine (I have to admit haven’t heard of him before). I don’t see any great story that is to tell about him. Therefore he just doesn’t excite me as a VP candidate, which, I think, he should.
Last but not least…Senator Evan Bayh. And I have to admit Evan Bayh is not a bad pick either from what I can see here on his record. Him being Senator for Indiana and before that Governor of the same state shows a record of much political experience. That’s something Obama needs in a race against McCain. Again the only thing I would say, by the pictures I see here, that he might be a little plain compared to Ms. Sebelius (even though some people criticise her first major debut on the national television as not the best performance ever).

Therefore I wouldn’t put all my money on the Governor of Kansas, but I guess a good amount I would be willing to bet.

So now it’s up to you people. If you can educate me a little more about the people on the short list. Or tell my why you guys think somebody else will be on the Obama ticket. Write a comment or send me a mail and I am glad to discuss it here or via mail.

Talk to you guys later

Thomas

PS: that was a long one.

Tags: Election 2008, US Politics

My new office

Not to shabby, is it?

Blogging from my iPhone

Ok, I guess it could be easier but I just wanted to try if it works. And I guess it does. Guys I have to admit I am a fanboy, but things like that are the teason for it.
I got my dataoption activated two days ago and now I am surfing the web with lightning fast GPRS. Maybe not that fast but seriously fast enough, knowing I am only paying a quarter of the monthly fee, that I would have to pay at T-Mobile.Especially I am impressed with google maps. It finds my location quite accurate without wifi enabled and very accurate when I have wifi turned on (I don’t have to be logged into the wifi spots). And it shows the maps in a very descent speed. I would say it takes the app maybe 10-15 seconds to load all the tiles on the screen. Some people that might be to slow, not for me though.
Oh, back to my blogging. So I installed the WPhone plug-in and now get a very nice iPhone interface and can post, manage and most of the other stuff I am used from the web interface.
And right now I am writing this whole post on the iPhone keyboard and think its quite good. I mean I never had a full keyboard on my phone and so a compartoson is very hard to do. But the whole guessing feature works very very nicely.
Unfortunately I cannot post any pictures yet. But also my current normal web inrerface thinks to believe my pictures should not be published to a wider audience.
So maybe from now on I can write a little more in moments of pure boredness (I don’t think that is actually a word). Until then I see you guys soon, or probably not.

Until then
Yours

Thomas

Tags: Personal iPhone

Ok so I did it…

I got my new (old/new) iPhone. its the 1G/2.5G iphone. Unlocked but still wrapped nicely. I got it fairly cheap. I wont say the price here, but trust me I am very happy and the guy who sold it to me probably semi-happy (unhappy about the price/happy that he got rid of it). And also just one day later the guy from my cellphone carrier (E-Plus) calls me and offers me an awesome new deal. So I now save about 20 Euro a month and have added Data to my plan. (I maybe even go a little higher with my minutes, but haven’t decided on that yet).

But people let me tell you I am a very happy camper right now. I waited for it so long and wanted to hold out for the 3G but the pricing and the few added features (3G and GPS) are not worth spending 4 times the amount of money per month that I spend right now. (with even less minutes). 

The triangulation (just vis WiFi) works incredible well here in Berlin. So i don’t see any need for built in real GPS right now. 

About the Data speed I cant tell you yet, because my new plan has to be activated yet (probably within the next 24h) and then I will see if i it too slow for me, which I doubt, because I am very easy to please. I certainly will have to live with it for a while).

Of course I already installed some apps on the phone but most of them are just funny and not really that useful so i deleted them again (I hate it to have useless stuff in my Mac/iPhone). I hope that will improve with the 2.0 Software release in July. 

The only hardware thing, that I knew I wouldn’t be really happy about is the camera. The 2 megapixel thing is fine. The pictures just look pretty blurry on a bigger screen and the picture is very wavy/watery? Which means it is very slow in following your movements and so you can’t make any fast movements with it an get a “clear” picture. 

Otherwise I guess all of you know about the device by now so I won’t tell you anything new. 

Thats for it right now. at the end just let me thank Nicoma my first commenter on my blog. I will think about that but you have to know I am very lazy so going through all that trouble really maybe ain’t worth it for me.

Another shout out to me new friends Jason and Daniel in Australia. Those guys are doing a very decent and funny podcast called Flop Ya Mac Out. Give it a listen, its maybe not everybody’s taste but it for sure is mine. 

Thats for it right now, see you some time soon.

Thomas

3G or not 3G?

Ok, so I am having little trouble to decide. Should I get a new iPhone 3G and switch my mobile phone contract to T-Mobile or should I just buy an old iPhone and stay with my current carrier E-Plus. Problem is of course it comes all down to the money.

I read many comments on the blogs when they posted the new prices on saturday. And boths sides were sometimes very extreme in their opinions. On the one side the guys who are saying “all iphone users are douchebags that have a small penis and try to show off”. Other ones where like “damned T-Mobile has to high rates” And again other guys are like “dude, if you wanna use the iphone you have to be willing to spend more money because its an the best device ever, and we don’t want little 12 year old kids running around with it and make us look bad” (Ok thats maybe not EXACTLY what they said, but you get the picture).

I am not that emotional about that especially when you calculate everything together. (which i did in the lower part of my post)

I actually think that the smallest Iphone tariff for 30 is ok and the XL tariff for 90 Euro and 1000 minutes and 300 SMS and the iPhone 3G (16GB) for 20 Euro is really really good. But I dont use my phone that much. And the Medium and Large tariffs are not quite as good.  And to be honest I was kinda hoping that T-mobile would go down with those (a bit at least), but when looking at their non iPhone tariffs made me realize that they probably would not do that.

And I was right! At least they did keep the original tariffs.

But back to my personal problem here:

At the moment my monthly bill is around 30 Euros. I still have an old Time and More contract. I would probably switch to the current tariff with about 200 minutes or the “Tensation” where you pay 10 cent for each minute.

Anyhow. And I would be willing to pay 20-25 Euro for a data flat. So I would end up with about 50 Euros a month. That does not include a phone. Which I don’t want because I want to use my iPhone of course.

T-Mobile wants for 200 minutes and data flatrate 70 Euros. They also include in that 150 SMS (which I barely use, but that could maybe change) and the hotspot flat, which no one would really need, because 3G is fairly fast via T-Mobile.

So this would make a whopping 20 Euros more a month but include a FREE iphone 3G. 20 (Euro) x 24 (months) would be 480 more than I would be kinda willing to pay.

BUT!!!! Vodafone Italy says they wanna charge 500 Euros for a pay as you go iPhone 3G. So it would actually come cheaper or more or less the same as staying with my current provider and I would have warranty and Visual Voicemail (I never used Voicemail in my life, but again the iphone could change that).

The differences in short:

E-Plus (GPRS): 35 Euro per month with 250MB Data included (which is no problem on GPRS). Add to that the iphone for about 275 Euro.
In 24 months: 1115 Euro

E-Plus (3G) 50 Euro per month with data flat included (which i need with 3G). Add to that the iPhone 3G for 500 Euro (based on Vodafone Italy).
In 24 Months: 1700 Euro 

T-Mobile (3G) 70 Euro per month with data flat (and 150 SMS). Free 8GB iPhone 3G or 40 Euro for the 16GB.
In 24 months: 1680/1720 Euro 

More or less it all comes down on the issue do I need/want 3G or will I be fine with GPRS (which is damned slow). More or less all I wanna use it for is E-Mail and Twitter on the go. And sometimes getting some information from the web (Wiki, Imdb etc.) That is mostly not that bandwidth intense because no big pictures will be loaded. My E-Mails barely have huge attachments. So I guess I would be fine with the slow slow iphone.

But still after writing this I guess 500 Euro are not worth the convenience of 3G. The only problem there is you never know, what beautiful things can come out of faster speed. So it could be possible that you record a video and upload it directly to YouTube. Watching YouTube on the go is fun too. And I bet more and more stuff will come down the road.

So its either saving money and having the best ipod for less than the price of an iPod touch (camera, slow internet but EVERYWHERE, and a phone) or having the convenience of speed and the newest hardware and paying 20 Euros more a month than I actually wanted and 40 Euros than I would with the slow version.

Or should I wait for cheaper iPhone (1st generation) to hit the black market? Because I am not certain they will go down in price that soon. Even though many people think that.

What should I do?

Please comment or write me a mail.

PS: I’m sure I have plenty of grammatical errors in here but I finally wanted to get my thoughts out that were on my mind for the whole weekend.

Tags: 3G, iPhone

Ok what happened to good old NDAs? (Update)

Seriously,

Back in the good old days Steve was able surprise us with his announcements during his keynotes. Recently I have the feeling, that there are so many rumors about possible announcements, that we were not able to be surprised anymore as much as we would have liked to.

The announcements of the last two days are no exception, but at least they give me/us the possibility to speculate a bit about the next iPhone generation.

This is what happened:
yesterday….T-Mobile Austria announcing that they apparently are the test ground for the 3G (actually 2G, for 2nd Generation) iPhone and that they will offer a “more flexible pricing”. Which by the way is not necessarily a good thing, last time I remembered bundle deals ended up being the cheaper alternative and “flexible pricing” ended up being actually more expensive if you wanted to use/buy many components/features.

Today…..Vodafone announcing that they will offer the iPhone (now word of 3G, even though it’s very obvious it will be) in ten countries. Now people thought that might be a sign that Apple is giving up the whole exclusive deal thing. Because earlier reports claimed that Telecom Italia also will be offering the iPhone. (Oh yes, I forgot Italy is one of those ten Vodafone countries). But why then is Vodafone not saying anything about Germany? Also there were rumors that Telstra in Australia will be offering the iPhone. But Australia is also one of the V10 countries.

And those are the three possible outcomes…
1. Contracts still will be exclusive and the whole rumormill talk about it is just some big Hoping and whishing. And everybody is just stealing the news of everybody else.

2. Apple is going away from the exclusivity deals but only in countries where it can do that. And in countries where it didn’t offer the iPhone yet it was able to push for those new “rules”. That’s why as far as I know in the US AT&T will still be the only provider and in Germany it will be T-Mobile. Problem of this model could be, that the unwished import and export of iPhone models would continue and even increase. And this option would bring up some heat in those countries, where the exclusive deals stay. For example in the US, the major market for Apple. Other problem here is the dealing with unlocked and locked phones. When they sold unlocked phones in Germany for a while, many costumers had issues with updating etc. So I don’t think that would be a very practical way to doing it.

Much better would be:

3. Apple is completely abandoning the exclusive model. Here we would have to see what Apple would offer exclusive partners as a compromise. The much rumored subsidy could be one thing. A probable time limited exclusivity wouldn’t make much sense. I think costumers could hold back for a month or so to wait for the phone being offered by other phone companies. Plus it would explain why we haven’t heard yet of any harsher attempts by apple to re-lock the phones. Maybe Apple even knows it can’t win this fight.

So I can only hope for number three to happen, but also one and two, still make sense (at least to me).

Update: So apparently heise online ( knows somebody, that knows somebody at Apple. Who thinks the same way as I do. Which means….Apple can hire me.

Tags: iPhone, Rumors, Speculation

Moved!!

So finally I can declare officially that I moved. From my very pretty Studio Apartment into an also very nice “WG” with three other roommates.

Mostly financial reasons brought me to this decision, but I also really like my new roommates. So that I am pretty certain I will gain more then just two euros by this decision.

Especially I like the radio in the bathroom, the TV in the kitchen AND the livingroom. Oh yes and very important during the summer…..the roof terrace !!! with a beautiful view over the roofs ob Berlin.  So the chances are pretty good I might get a tan this summer. And trust me folks, when I say, I need it.

I still have to put up some books into my bookshelf (yeah im surprised myself, that I have so many) Hang up my beloved Bauhaus pictures and the chandelier.

Maybe I will post some pics later this week, so you get an idea.

Now i can continue my thesis in a more effective way. But I also will be trying to be more geeky again and posting about topics that actually consern the Apple community. Until now, this here, more or less has been a public diary. I just read so much stuff on 3G iphone (which I soooo wanna have) but on the other side many other people also post their opinion so i think nobody wants to hear my thoughts on it too, because you guys are way to tired for that.

Mario Kart for Wii

So Marie and I had this great idea of renting wii games. The new video rental place, which is only one U-Bahn (subway) stop away also has a descent variety of wii games.  So we thought great…we save money by just renting the games, because we wont play them THAT much anyway. It comes, that most recently the video place added Mario Kart to their humble collection. So we rented it for two days. It ended up living with us for 5 days. So we figured damned…we dont want to return it, but that would just be unfair to the other people wo want to rent it. So we figured it doesnt help much…we have to buy it. Fortunately the store still had it in stock and we took it home.

And Guys, I have to tell you we/I love it. It is so much fun actually having a wheel in your hands and to drift around the corners. Marie is all for unlocking as much stuff as possible. So we barely race against each other anymore, rather than playing Grand Prix after Grand Prix and Time Race after Time Race And those Fuckers are pretty damned hard, especially when it comes to the more complicated tracks. The Grand Prix are ok, even though sometimes the Game is just very unfair to you. One moment you are in 1st place and then some big ass bullet shoots you of the track right after that some freaking shell hits you again. And within 5 second you are last. But at least, that way it guarantees that it get boring to fast. For example Mario Galaxy is as well a really fun game, but once you beat Bowser, I cant convince myself to play it again. I could try to unlock Luigi but its just not the same.

I personally enjoy the online gaming experience alot. I have a pretty fast internet connection, which allows me to have a very smooth experience. Only when Marie and I play together online, it is a little jerky. But not as much that it would have any impact on the gaming experience. So if you guys ever want to challenge me in a little one on one. BRING IT ON!!!!

I dont have our Friend Code handy right now, but just shoot me a mail or tweet me and I’ll let you know.

Tags: Personal, Wii

I guess I have to start blogging in english now/again

So, with the latest installment of Wordpress on my not yet, but soon will be, fabulous blog I will try to reach a bigger audience. Even though I know that means, I will emberass myself to even greater audience.

The biggest reason though to switch to english was Twitter. Besides some germans who are following me (Danke Leute!) I also try to find some contacts/friend all over the world. And most of those very intelligent people just cant speak german. So how should they get to know me better.I’m pretty sure whoever reads this will find plenty of grammatical errors in my texts, but hey, I guess all of you will understand me.

So my next blog will probably summarize my person in a few words…so stay tuned and wait for more exciting (and maybe even naughty) stuff.

All the best

Thomas (yeah I dont have a nickname..and I actually like it this way)

Tags: Personal

Wordpress und Strato

Ok Ok,
also ich habe über Zufall herausgefunden, dass Strato angeblich auch eine Wordpress funktion für ihren Basic account anbietet. Nach vielen fummeln und Foren durchsuchen habe ich dann herausgefunden, dass es kein “echtes” wordpress ist. Eines das ohne Plugins und ohne zusätzliche Themes funktioniert. Was mich fragen lässt…was ist daran dann noch Wordpress. Ohne diese Funktionen besitze ich in meiner RapidWeaver Demo Variante mehr Kreativität und Flexibilität als in dem Ding. Ohne PHP und SQL Datenbank läuft da einfach mal GAR NICHTS. Aber ich müsste jetzt meinen Vertrag kündigen um dann in den aktuelen Web irgendwas Basic zu wechseln, welcher das zum gleichen Preis anbietet. Aber momentan habe ich andere Dinge zu tun. Was das ist, wird hoffentlich bald von mir Preis gegeben werden. (Hallo Alex, Kerstin und Sebastion:-))

Tags: Wordpress