Yeah, that's me right now.

Except I'm probably going to have a hard time following up that act.

"What did you do to improve the world?"

Steve:

"Oh, just changed it entirely. Couple of computers, a music player, a phone, a tablet. It's all good."

Me:

"...working on it, brb"

You mad, bro? So, yeah, that just happened. The fifth-generation iPhone is--tada--the iPhone 4S, an evolution of the iPhone 4. It doesn't slice bread, but you can probably ask it the meaning of life and it will tell you.

I saw a lot of hate spewed out across the live blogs, comments on Engadget and MacRumors etc., and the Twitter. A lot of people failed to manage their expectations. The iPhone 4 sells like hotcakes, and so do the cases and accessories that fit it, so why would Apple change that? I know yesterday I told them to do just that, but for them to do so amidst booming sales doesn't make sense. People who will upgrade to the iPhone 4S will get a nice speed bump, a hell of a camera, a world of goodies that already work with the iPhone 4 to choose from, and will live happily ever after. People who aren't impressed will pass on that, and will live happily ever after. It's the same story every year.

They managed to cram CDMA and GSM/HSPA, a faster processor, more capacity, a better camera, AND the same/better battery life into the same small enclosure. Of course, iTunes still needs to be thrown out like the garbage that it is, and that silly 3G 20mb download restriction needs to be stabbed thoroughly, among other things. They're not perfect. But ignore the brand hate for a moment and just admire it for what it is and what it has done. The iPhone changed communications and information access for the better. I now exclusively use mine as my instant messenger, quick "let me google that for you" lookup of just about anything, podcast collector & player, and time waster (Angry Birds anyone?). I still don't keep up on Facebook like a good honest Facebookian should. But in any case, I have it all everywhere I go with me now. Try to imagine what it would be like if we were still tethered to a keyboard that's wired to a tower that's sitting on our floor next to the cable modem in order to do computer-like things.

I don't care what logo is on the stuff I use (as much as you might think I'm an Apple fanboy), but no one can deny that Apple brought it on. Their devices and interfaces have yet to be matched in many ways. I'd happily switch to my Android if it stopped hanging & rebooting, missing calls, and failing to play my music and stuff. Palm/HP failed miserably, sadly. Windows Phone 7 looks promising, I think it'll be worth a try.

Bottom line, the iPhone 4S has new, faster innards. It has features the old one doesn't have. It still has good battery life. Marvel at the mind-boggling technology that allows you to have a supercomputer in your pocket. I certainly will.

"But...but..fury... I wanted them to give it a bigger screen! And--and a thin aluminum case design! And a keyboard. Oooh, ooh, and an SD card slot so I'm not limited in how much content I can put on there!"

I think they call that a MacBook Air.

Today is keynote day.

Obviously, since the invite has 4 icons on it, like the home screen of the 6th generation iPod nano, this will be an iPhone nano.

There will be 8 buttons, because Steve Jobs is no longer at the helm, and you will press at least 3 of them in any attempt to pull it out of your pocket or find which side is the one that has the power button.

Since the phone icon has a red 1 badge on it, this clearly means the phone will have enough battery for 1 phone call, and since AT&T drops all your calls up in here anyway, that ain't saying much.

Oh, and the maps icon isn't actually at Infinite Loop in Cupertino. It's in spaaaaaace. At the space station Steve has built to take us all back to his home planet. (what, you think he actually waited for Cupertino's blessing to start building it?)

In all seriousness, I don't expect as much of a jump as from the 3G to 3GS or 3GS to 4. More like from the iPad to the iPad 2. Thinner, lighter, faster, and able to slice food with its sharp edges. The keynote will have a couple of blunders (maybe a wifi breakdown or two), a dozen developers coming out and talking about how amazing they are, and then maybe a song (since this is also supposed to be the iPod event).

Am I the only one who thinks Apple needs to upend their own table and reinvent the phone...again? It's all gotten just a little too predictable and, dare I say it, ho hum. They raised their bar so high with the first one that anything less than such a raise is now merely evolutionary, and maybe in some ways a little disappointing.

I was on vacation recently and managed to stay mostly low carb. I had some taters in a stew a couple times, and breaded fish for dinner a couple times, overall not nearly as bad as I thought I was gonna get.

I feel pretty good. I am cooking home made mushroom & swiss burgers for dinner lately and finding that I'm not hungry for all of it, so I end up reheating it for breakfast and getting a good boost of energy instead of the usual cardboard bar & "energy" shot breakfast I got used to.

One of these days I plan on learning to swim, because I just got a waterproof case for my iPhone. :P

288

Much to my surprise, I am apparently on their radar and now their shit list. I received the following email yesterday morning:

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

No warning, no explanation. Just gone.

I went through said appeal process, not that it did any good. Not even a day later:

Hello,

Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you've provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program. However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we're unable to reinstate your AdSense account.

As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about your account, the actions we've taken, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Yup. That's it. No more ads for my poor little blog site and forums and game. Hundreds of content farms and spam sites continue to make thousands a month off of Google, but nooo, we can't have me making a hundred bucks every 2-3 months. That would lower the effectiveness of the advertiser-publisher relationship!

No idea what tipped them off to this supposed "invalid activity," as of course I cannot access the data in my AdSense account. No explanation as to what I could do to correct or prevent said invalid activity. No appeal. Well, no appeal that actually gets due process, anyway. This is what happens when Google acts like they have a monopoly on the ad market and nobody stops them.

I shall, of course, find a competing service to fill the void (gotta keep those private jets going), but I wanted to inform you that Google AdSense is, as the title suggests, bullshit.

I weigh in at 316 now. Compared to where I left off a little over a month ago, that's a loss of another 9 pounds. Not as fast as the loss was in my first month, but it's a more sensible rate of loss, and it means I am not crazy. That's 24 pounds gone, and I'm setting a goal of 100.

I could do better. Some of the things I eat aren't perfect from a low carb standpoint. Macadamia nuts and almonds, while not horrible on the carb scale, are very tempting and very easy to eat 15-20 carbs in one sitting. Things like the [insert mystery meat] & mushroom pan at the cheap Chinese buffets are my downfall, since there's usually some sugar in the sauce they use to cook them. And I do tend to eat a lot of cheese. It's not all that bad, but I'm not making as much progress as I could. But if I did without them, my food choices would be pretty bland and this would feel more like a starvation diet, and I wouldn't be very likely to succeed. After all, why the hell do we have taste buds if not to eat good food?

The progress I've made can also be quantified (or is that qualified?) as having energy that I haven't had in a while. The energy to jump out of bed when the alarm goes off. Or, at least, when the second alarm goes off. The energy to be all enthusiastic and stuff, and almost make it sound authentic. Energy to think, energy to burn. I feel...alive.

Now, with the iPad 2, it's the complete opposite approach -- even shorter supply, random store delivery amounts & schedules, no reservations, and no pre-orders. There's plenty to go around to the stores where nobody's expecting them, and a few random passers-by or online stock checkers happen to waltz in and walk out with one. But Apple retail store customers in popular areas, where one would expect to get the most shipments, are lining up in droves only to find the stores didn't even get iPads today. All they're told is "try again tomorrow." No information about whether a shipment will arrive for sale tomorrow (rivers of bullshit like "we receive shipments daily" don't cut it). No indication during the long wait in line from 4 AM til 8 AM that the store will even have any. And when a shipment does magically arrive at the store for that day, there are often dozens of scalpers in front planning on doubling up and scooping up every iPad to sell it on eBay or craigslist for $300 more. But that's a whole other rant entirely.

I don't know about you, but a few days in a row of waiting god-knows-how-early and leaving empty handed like that can dampen even the most care-free spirits. This is a step back for an Apple product launch. With dozens of people swarming up to the doors, you would think Apple would have the decency to post something in the stores to the effect of "hey liner-uppers, sorry, but we won't have any today, go home and sleep." They have the same or even greater demand, but none of the demand-targeting-and-minimizing of last year.

Hopeful iPad 2 buyers in densely populated areas are reduced to three options: taking their chances lining up (store security guard permitting), ordering online and getting it in a few months, or scrambling to check stock at each Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Verizon and AT&T store in town that has a phone number. This is such a mess compared to last year. There were still stock shortages with last year's iPad, but the stores got a better ratio of iPads to the demand they experienced, people did have a better chance to know for sure they'd get one, and that meant the demand was satisfied much more quickly, resulting in happy customers telling happy potential customers how to get one.

Apple, you should have known from the first iPad to gauge the demand with pre-orders and reservations instead of spreading iPads around scattershot and letting it become a crapshoot. Now, a lot of your unhappy potential customers are going home and telling their friends, "I wasted my time in line at the Apple store, don't even bother." This isn't your style. Fire whoever is responsible for this disaster and go back to the people who did it right last year.