Taking Lessons From Engineering Disasters – NYTimes.com

Eric H. Brown, a British engineer who developed aircraft during World War II and afterward taught at Imperial College London, candidly described the predicament. In a 1967 book, he called structural engineering “the art of molding materials we do not really understand into shapes we cannot really analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the public does not really suspect.”Among other things, Dr. Brown taught failure analysis.

via Taking Lessons From Engineering Disasters – NYTimes.com.

HTC Evo after a couple of weeks…

I’ve been using my EVO for a few weeks now and I’ll be honest…

I’m really happy with it; except for the battery life.

Actually the battery life doesn’t seem too bad compared to my old iPhone 3g. By that I mean compared to the battery life my iPhone 3g had after two years. I can’t compare it to a new iPhone of course, but it does eat up the juice.

Having said that, I’m still real pleased. It does a very good job of being a Hotspot and has all the apps I really need. The only holdout was actually released today, the Android Kindle app. Now I’m complete.

I’m off on another trip soon, to a 4g (WIMAX) enabled city of course, so I’ll be giving it a workout there as well.

Aloha!

iPhone 4…

The new iPhone 4, announced today, looks like a very sweet phone. It’s definitely sexier than the iPhone 3g I own. It’s even nice than the 3gs that followed mine. In fact if I hadn’t already ordered my HTC EVO I’d be very tempted to order one…but…

It’s AT&T. That’s the sticker. I’m a data hog and I know it. Sigh.

So maybe in two years I’ll be back for the iPhone 6, but until then…

HTC EVO vs iPhone…

This isn’t a review or even a real comparison as 1) I don’t have an HTC EVO (yet) and 2) my iPhone is a 3g, not even a 3gs or the new iPhone whatevah.

But here’s the thing, I’ve gone ahead and ordered the EVO ahead of the iPhone announcement. I’ll be leaving the iPhone behind for at least a couple of years. Why? It’s just gotten too expensive to live with AT&T, partially because I have too many devices and partially because of changes to AT&T’s policies.

My collection of stuff includes the iPhone 3g, a broadband USB stick, and the 3g iPad. Even with my employers discount (FAN) I’ve discovered I’m paying about $175 a month in telecommunications fees. Worse, were I to drop any the unlimited data plans at this point if I were to sign up again I’d have to do it on AT&T’s new plans which limit the amount of data one can use at the price.

The thing is, I like all those devices and don’t really want to give them up. I want to be able to have data on my phone, my laptop, and my iPad where and when I life, WiFi or no WiFi. I’m often in places where there isn’t any WiFi so there you go.

The solution seems to be the HTC EVO with their unlimited hotspot feature. Theoretically I’ll be able to run my laptop and my iPad at 4g speeds (actually WiMAX not 4g but hey, it’ll be faster than what I have now) when available, and here in Hawaii we have it (at least on Oahu where I live and parts of Maui). The rest of the time I’ll probably have 3g which is what I have now so it’s a wash.

The difference in pricing is what drove me to leave AT&T. I can get all of this for under $120, a savings of at least $50 a month. That’s pretty good as far as I’m concerned. And I’ll get to play with a different sort of phone to boot.

I know I should have waited till Monday to see what the new iPhone will be, but frankly, it’s not Apple, it’s AT&T.

Aloha!

iPad…yep…but I’ve got to wait…

Sadly(?), I just couldn’t resist and had to order an iPad. No, I didn’t stand in line for the WiFi only version, I want the real deal 3G version. My rationale is simple, I cycle a lot and may not be near a WiFi hotspot, but there are few places on the island I can’t get a phone signal; they do exist though.

In any case it seems like it would be whole lot more fun to lug around an iPad than a netbook, especially since mine weighs several pounds. No, the iPad isn’t a featherweight, but it’ll be a much better fit. At least I should be able to answer my email more easily than with my iPhone (which is really past due for an upgrade).

Of course I probably won’t get my iPad (late April) before I go camping this month, but hey, you can’t have it all. In the meantime here’s the answer to the question everyone must be asking…

Aloha!