Edward J. Markey, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, has been raising hell over in the House on the iPhone’s early termination fee ($175), and the inability of iPhone users to switch to a network other than AT&T. For example, if you move to a place where AT&T service sucks (like where my sister goes to college) right after you buy an iPhone, you’re out of luck. You’re stuck with a $600 phone that either drops every other call or simply won’t function on your new service. The issue arose during a hearing that dealt with the states’ inability to control the pricing of wireless phone plans.

While I agree that it’s ridiculous that iPhones will not be available on networks other than AT&T until 2012, people are forgetting that, without a company like AT&T to share the production and infrastructure costs of the iPhone, those happy little devices wouldn’t be costing $500 and $600 - they’d set us back closer to $1000. Like video game consols, where companies like Nintendo lose money on every system they sell, hoping to make money off of the games, cell phones are sold for less than they’re worth, making the real money on expensive service plans.

I’m sure AT&T took an initial hit during the marketing and production stages of the iPhone. Part of the $600 price tag is an obligation to AT&T, without which we couldn’t buy iPhones for that ["low, low"?] price. Be grateful it’s as low as it is.

Via Washington Post

I apologize for the title…

I remember the good old days when a 128 kbps internet speed was considered relatively good. Heck, it was only a few years ago that my family moved past that benchmark and into “broadband” goodness (I use quotation marks because satellite internet can seem slower than dialup at times. Thankfully, we finally have true broadband.). Unfortunately, 540 Mbps is still a dream of sorts, at least for the online community.

But for one 75-year-old woman in Sweden, 540 Mbps seems slower than dialup. Sigbritt Löthberg, 75, just had a 40 Gigabits per second connection installed in her home. To put that in perspective, The Local calculated that Löthberg will now be able to watch 1500 HDTV channels simultaneously. Similarly, she could download the entire iTunes movie catalogue in about 90 seconds (if, that is, the iTMS actually managed to work correctly for a minute and a half…). *sigh* It’s always the Northern Europeans and Japanese who get all the cool tech gadgets and electronics…

Despite just being cool, the purpose of this experiment was to test out a new system that can transfer data directly between two routers up to 2000 kilometers apart. I won’t pretend that I understand it, so just go read the original article if you want more info.

via The Local

Here at Governor’s School, we have classes that we choose that meet once for one hour - just small discussion groups or workshops that you can go to without any real commitment (they only last for 60 minutes, after all). Today, I went to a discussion about Harry Potter, which comprised of 3 other guys and 24 girls, arguing for an hour about why their theory about Dumbledore or Ron or Harry etc. was right. Now, these weren’t your average Harry Potter fans. These people carried around pocket books with quotes from the books to refer to when needed, knew just about every character name every mentioned in the thousands of pages of the first six books, and have spent hours studying both the American and British covers of Book 7 just to get some clues about what’s to come. If you know who Luna Lovegood and Colin Creevy are, then you’ve got a pretty good idea about the personalities of these people.

I have friends who are obsessed with Harry Potter, and that’s fine. Sure, they may have read every book a dozen times, gone to midnight book release parties and dug through every page to look for parallels that will give hints as to Harry’s outcome, but they do keep it in check when necessary. But as I sit here typing, the rest of the group is back in the dining hall, continuing to discuss dear old Harry because they were just too excited to stop gossiping. They’ve already started to plan meetings for after the book’s released so they can talk about it some more.

But I shouldn’t make fun. Heck, even I’ve been through the trailer for the fifth movie frame by frame in high definition…

I’m sitting here in the library of the University of Richmond - the heat index is 105 degrees, and the air conditioning inside this building is a bit less than adaquate. And it’s only going to get worse as the month goes on, I fear…

But let’s talk about more pleasant things - like the proportion of guys to girls here. In the visual and performing arts program (which I’m in), there are 202 people total, and only 69 of them are guys. Then, you have look further and realize that this is the visual and performinc arts program, so the real question is how many of the 202 people don’t like guys. 20? 30? Eh, something like that.

We have two basic classes that meet every day here at governor’s school, and my second class is all about forbidden things. Essentially, we debate for the entire 90 minutes every day about various topics. If you read the last paragraph, then you’ll understand why the topic of same-sex love and AIDS seems to sneak its way into every debate. Heck, I’m guilty of it, too - my final project in that class is about the reluctance of schools to educate about HIV/AIDS, and how that’s changed over the past 25 years. Fun fun.

*sigh* I’m afraid my writing ability is a bit compromised at the moment due to the heat and the fact that I’m listening to “Over the Moon” from Rent. I need to get out of here and see Harry Potter…