LG FLEX: Curved Screen Needs Real-World Uses To Be Effective, Whatever They Are

Source:  thedroidguy.com.

I'm excited by the LG Flex because if its curved screen but I don't know why.  And the Flex isn't the first smartphone with a curved body and screen.  I'm not talking about whatever that phone Samsung also has in store for us.

The Nexus S was the first mainstream phone I know that also had a curved screen.  Despite that, I still could not see just what the purpose is for.  Does it reduce glare, maybe?

Still, like I said, I'm excited.  My hope is that folks are not doing this because they can.  What I want is to know how this would help us in the real world?  Of course, there is also rumors that Apple is looking at curved screens as well.  So, maybe there is something.

In reading the LG press release for the Flex, it spoke about the design.  Nothing new there.  As for use, it stated the curved design of the phone helped put the speaker closer to the user.

I'm more interested in the curved battery that supposedly reduce its wear and tear.

However, I did not find anything in the press release with a stated advantage of a curved screen compared to traditional ones.  And what I said above about the glare?  I'm convinced if done right, it might make the screen more readable in more lit areas like the outside.

Lazy Sunday Morning: Aliens A Classic Movie That Deserves A Remake

I've decided to take Sunday off and watching some TV at home and get some work done around the house.  I'm usually watching Netflix (in the middle of bing watching the third season of The Killing) but I had turned on my cable to see what games are on and I stumbled across Aliens. And it's stuck.

This must have been the sixth or seventh time I've seen the movie.  Each time, I noticed something new.  Something that I missed before.  Maybe there have been different versions on DVD and on television.  And maybe it has to do with the commercial breaks.  But I think it's by far the best of the Aliens movie.

And it's served as basis for many alien or big bad monster movie - a team goes into an unknown situation to investigate an incident or conduct a rescue.  Things go wrong and nearly everyone gets wiped out except for a couple of civilians or scientists.  I mean you usually know going into the movie who is going to get out alive.  It's usually the actor or actress who gets paid the big bucks.

Anyway, it's more about the plot and the character development throughout the movie.  Perhaps it's because this movie was made in the 80s and the characters on the team of marines were more tolerable. And they had the right amount of dialog to add a sense of urgency to the movie.  Essentially, it was just right.

And of course, there's Sigourney Weaver as Ripley who made the movie much more believable. She played along side the team, going with the flow and stepping up at just the right time - whether it's the rescue of the marines in trouble or chiming in at the right time to change the mission a bit.

 Then there is also her unwillingness to leave Newt behind. After gone through so much herself, she could sympathize with the little girl. It likely was not a sudden injection of bravery but she felt the little girl had suffered enough being lone on a planet for so long. During one part of the movie where she was tracking down Newt on the sensor and finding only the bracelet and not the girl, she showed just the right amount of pain. But then seemingly waking up to Newt's screen set everything aside and got her going again.

I can't say much of the other movies that followed.  The Aliens versus Predators movies were a decent distraction.  Scifi movie fanboys' collective dreams come true.  However, there was no Schwarzenegger or Weaver to carry the movie.  There was no anger or urgency or the main character losing it and decided enough was enough.

For anyone reading this, I hope this serves as a reminder to get back into Aliens and rewatch the movie.  Maybe even Predator (came out a year after Aliens).  Both movies had the right balance of story and action.  Unlike today's action or science fiction movies that rely more on special effects that sent budgets sky-high, I'm hoping future directors can rely more on the actors (those who can act and carry a movie) and less on special effects and very loud sounds.

Social: Power of A People, Social Media, And Kindness Helps Kid Battling Leukemia Save Gotham

Source:  Make A Wish Foundation, Business Insider, Politico.

Great news, folks.  Gotham City is once again safe.  Thanks to not Batman (he had a small part in it).  Not one of the various Robins.  Not Nightwing.  Nope, not Superman either.  Or the JLA.  It's Batkid!!!

That's right!  Thanks to Make A Wish Foundation, more than 10K fellow Americans, and thousands if not millions of us on social media cheering him on, Batkid, aka Miles, roamed through Gotham (San Francisco) to save its citizens from evildoers.

What's more, many are cheering him on via social media like Twitter.  Tweets from famous folks, politicans (some of them I like Batkid to deal with, and even the President of the United States.

With little brother aka Robin. Choking back tears! #sfbatkid pic.twitter.com/apIpn9OUYn
— patricia wilson (@pilarwish) November 15, 2013

This has got to be one of the best stories of 2013.  It's just so heart-warming to see what Americans can do even for a 5-year old when we work together.

And Miles, continue the good fight.  We're all pulling and with you!

Also, never once did the Make A Wish Foundation expect their website to crash.  And only the Batkid could do that!

Cloud/Product Rollout: Beta Or Staggarded Roll Out Versus US Government

It's safe to say that the federal government's rollout of the health insurance exchange has not gone well.  In fact, it's pretty dismal.  At the same time, they're hardly to be blamed for this.  Remember all those cloud services that Apple tried to unveil that didn't work? MobileMe, the early days of iCloud?

I'm sure you can think of a few other examples of how things didn't work out well for private companies. And the health exchange is probably many times more complex.  This is why I don't get why Washington thought it could make it work from day one.

Where was the beta testing with real people participation?  Google's Gmail has been in beta for years and I'm sure there are a few other apps that are still in beta?

The health insurance exchange debacle is a very valuable lesson for government officials and entrepreneurs.  This reminds me of Google+ unveiling.  You needed an invitation to sign up.  And it was done over time probably to give Google time to scale properly.

In fact, a few mobile apps that I've signed up for had this system where you can sign up for service you had to wait until the app developers had scaled enough to accommodate more users.  One app in particular was Mailbox from Orchestra.  It took about a week between me signing up for service and when I could actually use the app but it was worth it because it worked seamlessly.

President Obama spoke today about the frustration regarding the ACA roll out.  I think he should have added that the exchange was a beta process and it could be a while before it's up and running properly.  Word is that Google engineers have been tasked to help out.  I think that helps but should have done that from day one.

Source:  Time.

Microsoft Gets Rid Of Bad Stacking Review Policy for Employees - It's Probably Too Late

Source:  The Verge.

For a long time, a decade now, I've wondered why Microsoft has had such a political corporate structure, more so than most of any other companies.  I had attributed that to the media and bias against Microsoft and all things Windows from Mac and Linux folks.  A few months ago, I learned about an employee review process.  Upon understanding how it basically works, I knew right away it was a bad, bad policy.

Essentially, the stack-ranking policy pits one employee against another.  Not just one team versus another but team members as well.  And within each team, it was necessary that some employees be given poor remarks regardless of their true worth and contribution.

Now, Microsoft is getting rid of this.

I wonder if there had not been about fifteen years of back-stabbing and killing off innovative products and services to protect one's turf (like Windows and Office), what an innovative Microsoft could have produced.
However, I wonder if it's too late.

Social: I Was Targeted With An Ad On Twitter But That's Okay. Because I Let It

I found this ad on my Twitter feed today that was very interesting.  It was a Hyundai sponsored feed that specifically targeted me.  A Bruin from UCLA.

I should be outraged?  Well, I'm not.  Here's why.  I let Twitter target me.  I know that anything I tweet has the potential to be seen by everyone and anyone is free to comment, retweet, or whatever they can do with it on Twitter.  An advertiser will attempt to direct something at me that might be of interest to me.

And that's what Twitter is for.  And it makes sense for this format.  Had this happened with Facebook, that I'd be pretty pissed off.  Their views on privacy and what is private or public is much more skewed.  I can see a scenario in which something I write to can be turned into a "story" and be made public to my friends or anyone else.

Supposed a female Facebook user shared with her close friends and families that she's expecting and tracked where she went to look for maternity or baby gears. Then Facebook turns around and tells her friends that she was interested in specific stores or liked.  That would kind of let the cat out of the bag.

It's why I gave up on Facebook.  And people are not happy about it.  It's why they've had to expand their user base to tweens.  It's why more of the valued youth market are abandoning Facebook for other social apps.