Incidentally, I've dubbed the iPad “Subtle Condor,” because it isn't, particularly.

[roadrunnertwice]

This is the dorkiest thing in the world to be excited about, but okay, whatever. So yesterday, I was on the train and wanted to get some cash en route to the farmers' market, and since it was wicked hot I didn't want to detour at all if I could avoid it. And then I remembered that my new credit union has an unexpectedly humongous ATM multi-network, so I whipped out the iPad, checked out their ATM locator, and found one that was, like, literally 50 ft. out of my way. Win! Except that the interface on said ATM locator was pretty clumsy, especially given that I had a freaking GPS radio with me and it couldn't talk to it. So I just went poking around in the app store tonight, and bam, there's the goods: network one and network two. Hurray!

Well, I warned you it was some weaksauce squee, dude. Geez. Anyway, in conclusion, fuck you Dracula ATM fees!

Comments

[chronographia]

And so how do you like living in the future? Are there many things made out of hexagons, too?

[roadrunnertwice]

In the future, the hexagons are all made out of trapezoids!

Yeah, actually I'm totally digging it. I held off on the iPhone thing, but the iPad was sufficiently closer to what I wanted from my Improbable Scientifictional Gadgetry that I failed my saving throw, and so far it has basically lived up to my expectations.

* It's a perfectly reasonable thing on which to read long-form text works that can't be easily obtained in print. Between the Instapaper app*, Stanza, and iBooks, it works really well for essays, books, short stories, technical manuals, and all kinds of similar genera. Even better, and this is a big part of how it trumps dedicated e-readers, it shifts effortlessly into read/write mode, so I can tweet or post shit about what I'm reading, respond to the author, or follow an interesting thread down into the global hivebrains.

* As a web browser, it's ideal for some things and less ideal for other things. It won't make me permanently jilt my computer and its tricked-out trunk Firefox build, but what's interesting is the way it's revealed how a lot of the things I've used my computer+browser for are basically not appropriate for said tools. My web time is now split what seems like evenly between the two.

* It's really light, I can use it standing up or smooshed into a corner seat on the MAX, and not having to rely on wi-fi for every little thing is pretty amazing. That's all brand new to me.

* I don't use the map w/ GPS radio every day, but when I need it, it's unbelievably awesome to have.

* Blah blah blah insert other comment about how touch interface plus reasonable information density makes for potentially faster and better experience with certain tasks. Basically, using NetNewsWire for iPad is faster than doing the same task with NetNewsWire for Mac, and using it feels really interesting.

And I'm not even really using its full potential yet. (In particular, I should probably load some TV on the thing sometime soon and see how well that works.) But as an internet tablet, it's superior to anything I've ever seen or even heard of. I think that for what I use it to do, it makes good trade-offs and sacrifices vs. a regular computer.

_____
* Instapaper seriously feels like the Platonically ideal reading experience for essays.

[gyladia.livejournal.com]

I was cashiering today and two guys who came through my line were named Vlad and Igor. Real names, on drivers licenses. And since they came through separately, I assume they didn't know each other. This seems random, but you mentioned Dracula and I remembered it.
Also, last week there was a younger guy who *freaked out* because we carried Count Chocula.

[roadrunnertwice]

I feel like those are names that would become awesome once you turn, like, 24. But up until then, god DAMN.

("You are 8 years old. Your name is Igor. What will you do?
> Attempt suicide
> Punch someone in the face")

This also brings up a totally tangential but very important point, which is that I don't think there's any sort of canonical generic name for wolf-men.