iPhone keyboard

Recently I bought something called an iPhone. It drops calls so often that I no longer use it for audio conversations. It's too frustrating. And unlike my old BlackBerry days, I don't send e-mail on the iPhone because the on-screen keyboard is, as far as I can tell, an elaborate practical joke. I am, however, willing to respond to incoming text messages a long as they are in the form of yes-no questions and my answer are in the affirmative. In those cases I can simply type "k," the shorthand for OK, and I have trained my friends and family to accept L, J, O, or comma as meaning the same thing.

iPad vs Pebble

To judge the usefulness of the iPad you can't compare to Android tablets, but to things that are already available now. This is a comprehensive list of the features between the Apple iPad and your typical Pebble.

Pebble (40,000 BC) features:
Multitasking - no
Camera - no
Flash - no
Windows Apps - no
Removable Battery - no
Optical Drive - no
Ugly bezel - NO
Color selection - VERITY OF DIFFERENT COLORS
Battery life - INFINITY HOURS
Weight - 0.01 LBS
Cost - $0

iPad (2010) Features:
Multitasking - no
Camera - no
Flash - no
Windows Apps - no
Removable Battery - no
Optical Drive - no
Ugly bezel - YES
Color selection - NONE
Battery life - 9-10 Hours
Weight - 1.6 LBS
Cost - $499.00 to $829.00

Note I'm only comparing features, for example I do not include things like touch screens as its not a feature, but a way to make available features more accessible. The pebble actually has a very intuitive and simple design interface. Much more user friendly.

In summary if your choosing between the Pebble and the iPad, they both are similar in feature sets, but the Pebble beats the iPad in Weight, Battery-life, portability, and variety. However the iPad has an ugly bezel around the screen, but than again the iPad is $499.98 to $829.98 more expensive.

In Praise of Idleness

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.