So I determined the movie version of Scott Pilgrim takes place over at least three weeks (from late March until the third week of April). There are two distinct Fridays mentioned in the movie – Julie’s party and the concert where Sex Bob-omb opens for The Clash at Demonhead. Then after that, the next firm day of the week found in the movie is Thursday (from the AMP v AMP poster against the Katayanagi twins), so thats at least 20 days. Plus the days before Julie’s party. The shortest time span is March 30-April 21, with slightly longer timespans possible.

***

Earlier in the week:
Hanging out at Stephen Still’s house, band practice

Next day:
Hang out with Knives after her school day is over – arcade, thrift shop, music store, Scott’s house (outside)
Ramona dream

Next day: (this might be Friday, just earlier in the day)
Library
See Ramona
Band practice

Friday April 1, 2005 *
Julie’s party
Scott talks to Ramona

Saturday:
Email from Patel
Scott orders amazon movies
Hanging out with Knives again

Saturday or Sunday afternoon:
Band practice

Tuesday:
Amazon delivery
Date with Ramona

Wednesday morning:
Wake up with Ramona, invite her to Rockit “tonight”

Wednesday:
Rockit concert
Fight with Patel
Spent night with Ramona (“first and a half base”)

Thursday April 7 *
Break up with Knives
Band practice
Dinner with Ramona
Fight with Lucas Lee

(nearly a week goes by)

Wednesday
Envy calls
Knives shows up
Encounter with Roxy
Coffee shop – encounter with Envy, Ramona

Thursday April 14th *
Wake up with Walace, Other Scott, Jimmy
Band practice

Friday
Open for Clash At Demonhead
Fight with Todd Ingram

Late Friday night
Pizza pizza
After party
Fight with Roxy
Fight with Ramona

Tuesday [note: not shown in movie, mentioned by Stephen on Thursday, April 14]
2nd round of the TIBB, presumably Sex Bob-omb wins

Sometime between Saturday and Thursday
Band practice

Thursday April 21st **
Concert/battle Katayanagi twins

Later that night (????)
Gideon battle

* Dates extrapolated from the only hard date in the movie, see **

** This is the only hard date in the movie – on the AMP v AMP poster, the date says Thursday, April 21st, 10:00PM Sharp – FWIW, the two closest years with a Thursday April 21st are 2005 and 2011. Every other date is calculated from this poster

***

I have too much fucking time on my hands.

[Update 1: added 2nd round of TIBB]

So if you happen to have an iPhone, why bother with a 3G iPad, when the Wifi version will be enough? Paying $25 twice for 2GB each of iPhone data and iPad data is $50, while for $5 less, plus the $130 you’ll save on the initial purchase, you can get 4GB of data to share between the two (and between any laptops you might have).

There are certainly some downsides – you’ll have to turn on and turn off the Wifi hotspot on the iPhone to conserve battery, and you risk running your iPhone’s battery down quicker. Gruber stated that in his testing on a Verizon iPhone, the hotspot feature used 5% every 20 mintues of hotspot use, or 15% per hour. The iPad’s battery is larger and is better suited to running for longer (and using the cellular data connection more frequently), however since you cant pool your data connections together (yet) and the 3G option is rather expensive ($130 for generation 1 iPads) you’re stuck using the iPhone as the hotspot. The only thing missing is a hardware hack to allow the iPad to recharge the iPhone so that the iPhone can last longer with tethering enabled.

And while conventional wisdom may offer the dubious claim that your teenage years and early 20s are the “best of your life,” woe be onto to them who confuse one chapter of their life for the whole of it, for they will be doomed to repeat it in a series of cycles whose returns are ever-diminishing, and thus hold themselves back from telling any other story.

In the end, adulthood isn’t a single decision you make, but a long series of decisions you make every day for the rest of your life. And the best reason to grow up isn’t because it is expected or required, but because it means moving forwards. Because while it may also involve incredibly tedious things like mortgages and car payments, growing up is a natural function of seeking a life that is more dynamic than static, of choosing ambition and hope over avoidance and fear, of wanting to know who you’re going to be and not just who you were, even if that takes you away from the things you used to love.

2006 Technology Predictions:

1. Mac computers will see a surge in sales as models switch to Intel processors. This is in part due to the ability to run Windows applications easily from Mac OS with only a little performance hit. Customers who ordered their new Macs will be disappointed by the wait times for their new hardware to arrive, but The Steve’s RDF will make it all better. Apple’s shares split as they hit 100 towards the end of the year. [This just about happened! AAPL was between $85-90, though the shares still haven't split]

2. Web 2.0 hype will fade towards the end of the year, however the underlying technology will still hang around and provide neat new innovations. [Web 2.0 hype ended as soon as Apple introduced the iPhone in January 2007, but AJAX and all the useful Javascript frameworks we take for granted today came out 2006]

3. TiVo will have a comeback as they fight for fair-use (not having to buy the same content in DVD, UMD and iPod video just to have it in all those places) and unveil a new Hi-Def TiVo with new integrated features like Podcasting, IPTV (certain codecs — perhaps MPEG 4 AVC/H264), chat and games (better integration than we see in HME now). [TiVo never fought much for fair-use, but we did get an HD TiVo in September 2006 - and features like Podcasting did come to the HD and SD units)

4. HDTV penetration continues — Cheap CRT RPTVs dominate the low end of the market, while DLPs take over the mainstream and plasmas and LCDs fight over the high end 50"+ thin-and-flat segment. 1080P becomes standard for TVs> 50" and 720P below 50", even through there is no source material at 1080P. [This sort of happened, DLPs had their time in 2005-2007 before flat screens really came to dominate the market]

5. MS Vista debuts at the end of the year to mixed reviews. We waited 5 years for this? With all the main “innovative” features ripped out, all we end up with is XP Release 2 (from the users perspective). However the architecture underneath is more solid and stable, and the successor to Vista is announced and might actually contian most, if not all the missing features. [HAH! I was soooo right about Vista being a disappointment, and Windows 7 actually being the refined, complete Vista]

6. Google continues its dominance. Products like GMail start to exit beta and feature more ads. Some products like Orkut are put out to pasture. [Orkut might still be alive but no one in the US uses it, it got taken over by rowdy Brazilians]

7. PS3 Delayed to summer, however Nintendo’s Revolution is the hit of the fall, at only $250 and the ability to play the entire back catalog of first-party Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc) for the NES, SNES, N64 and GC available on-demand via a download for all but GC (GC discs will play in the Revolution). For $25/mo you can play unlimited games. I’m not sure about this part: first-party Sega games along with some third party games for the Master System, Genesis and 32X are available as well. (woooo Phantasy Star!) [The PS3 was delayed until the fall, longer than I had expected, and the Nintendo Wii has sold the most units out of it, the 360, and PS3; also I have played Phantasy Star on the Wii and lost a lot of time to it]

Idea 1: The idea of a personal car is outmoded

One of the bigger announcements at CES is Ford’s all-electric Focus. While this is good for now, the future of transportation isn’t limited to just personal vehicles.

Imagine Sunday night in the year 2030. You’ve got plans laid out for work this week. You get up each day at to be at work by 7, and you leave work at 5 at night. You share your weeks calendar with the AUTOMAT car scheduling system allowing them to know what time you have to be at work, any errands you have to run, and even suggesting you stop by the flower shop for your wife since your anniversary is Thursday.

The massive computers that run the system tell you what time a car will be by your house to pick you up in the morning each day. Yes, the car will pick you up. Using an advanced version of Google’s self-driving car technology, the cars will be able to autonomously drive you around the city, including from their nightly storage and recharge areas (possibly mall or supermarket parking lots) to your home. Think of it like car sharing on steriods. You can even get a discount for carpooling with friends and co-workers.

So what could cars look like if they’re going to be almost crash-proof and typically carrying only one occupant? Far lighter and cheaper than they can be made today. This, compounded with advanced battery technologies, will allow cars to drive hundreds of miles all day at higher speeds without having to pause for a recharge.

You could even sign your children up at age 8. No more needing to take your kids to soccer practice, since they can take themselves in one of these vehicles. They’ll have their own smartphone to control when they need to be picked up if practice ends early.

As cars become more connected, monitoring the cars performance and their occupants will become trivial. Computer systems could easily pinpoint malfunctioning cars before they break down and direct them to service or have replacement cars to your location quickly. The system could even notify you if you accidentally leave your gym bag or cell phone in the car. The vehicle would also have a self-defense system – it could determine if a human driven car was at fault in an accident, or capture the license plate of someone who may have hit the car in the parking lot.

Out of town trips? No big deal. Larger vehicles with cargo space for luggage are also available. Higher speeds would also be available on the highway to get you to your destination faster. Long day trips or multiple day trips might require users to swap cars (or stop to swap batteries) if they want to drive uninterrupted to their destination without stopping overnight at a hotel to sleep.

Larger societal implications

• Reductions in number of auto fatalities. There still might be many caused by outside circumstances – pedestrians and cyclists jumping out in front of cars without looking, human driven cars, etc.
• Taxi drivers and chauffeurs are put out of work – no one needs a human to drive a car anymore
• Auto body and car repair shops see massive reductions in the amount of work they have due to fewer moving parts and more proactive maintenance schedules
• Increased mobility for kids – ages 8 to 16 can now get around without relying on their parents (though safeguards in the system will be set to require parent permission to reserve a car)
• Reduced number of cars produced every year because of vehicle sharing – how does this impact manufacturing?
• Less differentiation between car manufacturers – people still might want to spend the money to reserve a Lexus or BMW but most of the safety concerns of larger and more expensive vehicles will have gone by the wayside
• Increased patronage of bars – if you don’t worry about driving drunk, you can drink more

So thats really just the first idea I’ve had taking up room in my head as I’ve read all the news pouring out of CES. Hopefully I can put together a few more articles the next few days.

Verizon Press Conference at 11AM ET/8AM PT. I’m surprised Apple isn’t announcing it, but then again what is there to announce? To the consumer, the Verizon iPhone will function the same as on AT&T. No new features are being added. If anything, the big news might be on Verizon’s side – if they’ve upgraded their network to CDMA rev B to allow for simultaneous data+voice, along with carrier bonding to allow faster top speeds (from 1.3 to 4.9Mb/s).

I’ve embraced the cloud.

Three months ago I switched off my mailserver and moved it to Google Apps hosted service. I only use 4-5 email accounts, and the service is free to those with less than 25 accounts (50 if you’re a non-profit agency). I also moved the email system for this blog, as well as the email system for a non-profit group I volunteer for over to Google Apps as well.

Things have been just about perfect.

Not only do I get all the email hosting services, I get the Gmail web interface, I get syncing to my phone via Microsoft Exchange protocol (better than IMAP or POP3), HTTPS and all the robustness of Google’s incredibly high uptime.

Beyond just email, I also get Calendaring (also through MS Exchange protocol), Google Docs, and soon I’ll be able to roll up all the other Google services I use (Google Reader, etc) into the same account so I don’t have to try and have 3-4 different Google accounts logged in at once – yes you can do it but its prone to errors.

The app with the biggest impact so far is Docs. From any computer anywhere in the world (almost) I can access my library of documents over HTTPS (so my IT department cant see what I write) and just create a word processing document and write down all my ideas, or create a spreadsheet to do some calculations for something for me to refer to later. All the functionality I need is there to write simple documents (nee screeds) and spreadsheets – page/cell formatting, printing to PDF, etc.

Looking back, I have a hard time thinking about how I did this before. If I had an idea while I was at work, I’d have to write it down on my iPhone’s notes app, and then hope I remembered later to open the notes app back and and look at it. Now I can just create a document, write it down, and then when I get home and open up my web browser, the document is there, staring me in the face.

And the best part is that its free. Thanks Google!

One of the most interesting features of the new XG-PON technical specification is that the frequencies that the 10Gb/s steam uses can be used simultaneously with the 2.4Gb/s stream, increasing total bandwidth to 12.5Gb/s.

Verizon also uses three different strands when they wire a house for FIOS – one for TV (they broadcast all channels all the time rather than using a multicast IPTV solution), one for internet, and one for phone.

Moving to XG-PON could increase consumer speeds up to five times their current speeds. The current top speed is 100Mb/s, and if the user speeds scale with total available speeds, could we see half-a-gigabit connection speeds? What would the average person even do with 500Mb/s? More importantly, I don’t think there are a whole lot of servers out there that could provide speeds that fast.

The specification is scheduled to be finalized in mid-2010, with an unknown rollout date. All of a sudden, the top speed of 160Mb/s from DOCSIS 3.0 doesn’t seem so fast.

Boeing might be selling their Long Beach factory (which was a McDonald-Douglas factory before that) to Tesla for Model S production. Since large scale model S production is still a few years away, they would be using the factory for movie shoots in the interim. Though the idea that they will build the Model S in the same place they once built jets does sound really cool (sorry if the aviation nerd in me is showing). [from The District via AutoBlogGreen]

Sharp’s earnings came in negative for 2008, the first time the company has posted a annual loss in 100 years. The only division to make a profit? The Solar PV division, with 4% year over year growth, while other groups were hurt hard by contracting demand in the consumer segment. Sharp expects to return to profitability this year. [from Recharge News]

Finally, an Isreali company named ETV Motors have secured financing for a microturbine that would burn gasoline more efficiently and in a smaller size (at about the same weight) than a traditional internal combustion engine. There are issues – the high RPMs of turbine engines (80,000 RPM) and high temperature (1000°C) are not something people deal with in cars now. Also, the specified turbine power generation numbers (20kW/60kW) are somwhat low for what might be needed for EREV usage – the Volt’s generator is 53kW, but larger vehicles will need generators up to 100kW. [from Green Car Congress]