Bri’s blog

if you have an iphone 3g, you owe it to yourself to do the following:

download the seadragon app from the app store.  open it, click on "hybrid map" and start those fingers zoomin'.  if you aren't impressed you have a heart of stone.  :)

didn't get the reason for the seadragon symbol until i found this image here.  bonus points for the mandelbrot fractals!  

  

glow-in-the-dark mushrooms.  what could be cooler?

i had no freakin' idea that these things actually exist.  not only that, they are huge!  apparently when you cross a male lion with a female tiger the hybrid is bigger than either specie would normally be. 

it does not appear that they are bred for their skill in magic, however.  :)

wow.  i seriously have no idea if this is a parody or not.  supposedly this is a Christian ska band from the '80's called Sonseed.   really? considering some of the homoerotic lyrics, i find that a stretch.  anyway, the story gets better.  there is a puported letter from one of the band members which you can see in full via the link.  i'll just give you a taste:

the New York Times is running this article today about Greenspan's legacy.  of interest to me are his strong libertarian leanings and his faith in the free market's ability to manage risk.  even today he maintains the notion that derivatives are a good idea that should be regulated by the free market rather than the government.  he feels that what went wrong is that the financial markets didn't act "honorably".  hmmm.  i have no problem with the abstract concept of a free market managing risk.  the devil, as always, is in the details.  when CEO's can walk away from a bank they led into bankruptcy with 100's of millions in their golden parachute, i have to wonder how the risk is apportioned in a major investment bank.  the military general who orders men into combat does not perceive or experience risk in the same way as an infantryman who is being shot at does.  risk is always about the consequences.

this is just weird.  i wonder if anyone else has noticed this.  when i got the original iphone, i decided that a hard case would be a good idea for weekends when my phone is in a pant pocket.  i got a pretty generic looking 2 piece case from agent18.  it was black, and the bottom half slid off for easy docking.  when i got the iphone 3g, i figured i would simply get the same thing.  easy, right?

not so much.  first off, agent18 inexplicably decided to ditch the top/bottom half case design and go with a front/back style.  this kind of case is a pain to remove, and thus isn't dock friendly.  so, why the change?  some people tell me it is because the 3g phone doesn't come with a dock, and thus fewer people need the top/bottom case style.  

this makes no sense to me.  unless there is some disadvantage to the top/bottom set up, wouldn't it make sense to be as inclusive as possible?  and with further research the mystery deepened.  to the left is just a small sample of cases now available for the iphone 3g.  notice something similar?  they are almost all clamshells.  

most people like to see a phone case before they buy it, since the dimensions, texture, and quality are hard to judge from a picture on the internet.  i've been to best buy, the att store, and the apple store... and clamshells outnumber top/bottom sliders 10:1.  can someone tell me why?  at this point, you'd think more manufacturers would be making top/bottom hard cases just to differentiate themselves from the pack.

the last pic in the list is the case i finally got.  i picked it because it is black like my phone, allows me to use a dock, isn't too bulky, and isn't either shiny or covered in leather.  if your criteria match mine, the incase slider in matte black seems to be the only option out of literally dozens of cases.  the only worry is that i suspect the matte finish on my case is a thin rubber coating similar to that used in the audi i used to have.  if this is the case, i expect the layer to start wearing off soon.

funny thing is, i thought my criteria were relatively unique to me.  apparently i thought wrong.  i have been to the apple store on multiple occasions since buying my case, and every time i'm in there people ask me where i got my case since it is what they are looking for.  a salesperson told me that my case is far and away the most popular, and usually is sold out.  

what happened to market research?  first of all, the initial incase slider cases were all white.  the black incase slider case came out around a month after the 3g phone was released.  when you are out and about, which do you see more?  for me, black iphones seem to outnumber white ones by a fair margin.  why not release the white and black at the same time?  also, in july/august of 2008 most 3g cases were clamshells.  isn't a free market supposed to provide what consumers are looking for?  why are the manufacturers all fighting for customers by offering essentially the same clamshell design?  weird.

agent18- i wanted to stay with you since y'all were using recycled materials in your designs... but you gave up your design edge to incase.  why is it i'd be willing to bet your original sliding iphone cases were much more popular than your current 3g clamshell cases?  just a hunch.