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Technology or Nerd Central

APPLE Live Blog!!!!

By | Life, Technology or Nerd Central, Women | No Comments

Ok it is T-Minus 1 minute! Just waiting for it to start!

Tim Cook has just walked out and is doing the intro!

 

“Monster announcements across SEVERAL of our product lines.”

Starting with Apple Watch!

 

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Jeff williams takes the stage.

New features. Time Travel to see your schedule and transit to maps!

Apps can now display video.

Facebook messenger coming to the watch

as well as iTranslate, GOPro turning the watch into a view finder for the camera.

Dr. Cameron Powell now on stage talking about their app AirStrip. How it works to give them their schedule and diagnosis, lab work, and vital signs for each patient.

Even live real time vitals. You can compare current vitals to the ones from the past to see what the pattern is.

This app can be used to monitor pregnant women and unborn babies from home!

Hermes now offering watch bands.

Video now of the new watch models and bands.

Adding now a gold and rose gold finishes.

Product Red Band for the Stainless Steel case.

New models Ship today and the new OS is available September 16th.

 

 

iPAD is up NEXT!!

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Video now of new iPad.

Looks pretty sleek. Its HUGE.

iPad PRO.

Phil Schiller up now to talk about iPad Pro.

Multitasking with iOS 9

Huge screen + better Keyboard.

12.9″ on the diagonal.

iPad Air on the Left iPad Pro on the Right.

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iPad Pro vs iPad Air

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iPad Pro vs Original iPad

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KEYBOARD!!!!

And a PENCIL!!!!!

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Demos now showing the keyboard and Pencil. MICROSOFT is now coming to do a Demo!!!

No that is not a typo. There is a Microsoft Executive giving a demo of Microsoft Word on the iPad Pro using the pencil and other groovy tools. Now going into POWERPOINT!

Now an ADOBE update/Demo

New Medical application now. Real Time 3D modeling to show where injuries are.

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Video now of the iPad Pro.

Apple TV up next

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The future of TV is Apps.

Integrated with Siri, new remote with swipe touch.

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Siri will search across all content apps and give them all to you on a single screen, HULU NETFLIX HBOGO and iTUNES.

Apple TV Demo now.

App store access as well.

Siri has amazing controls.

Now showing what the apps can do on the TV. Basically they have taken a lot of the apps from iPad and iPhone to the big screen. Netflix, HBO Go, HULU Games and more.

Crossy Road demo for Apple Tv.

Apps can be used with the remote or iPhone or iPod Touch for Multiplayer.

You can get universal apps, which means they will be on the TV, iPad and iPhone. You can pick up your game from iPhone right on the TV.

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Up Next iPhone!!

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Video.

iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.

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Rose Gold finish. New Alloy. Same one that is used in the space industry.

4.7″  5.5″ displays with new glass.

Muti-touch.

Now with 3D touch.

Giving tactile feed back. allowing you to go through apps and information faster.

Demo of 3D Touch right now showing how fast it makes getting into and out of apps. it looks AMAZING.

A9 chip. 64 bit.

FASTER!

Demo of gaming on the new iPhone.

Hey Siri demo just turned on the Hey Siri feature on my phone. That was hilarious.

New Camera features.

12MP iSight Camera!!!

Autofocus faster.

Noise reduction for Photo color quality.

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HD and 4K Video!

The retina display is now a flash for Selfies.

LIVE Photos.

Integrating video inside the photo.

Like the pictures in Harry Potter on the newspapers.

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Pre Order Septemer 12th.

Tim Cook thanks the team. And now for the finale.

One Republic to play.

 

 

So in conclusion:

New Apple Watch features

New iPad Pro with Keyboard and Pencil

New Apple TV with Apps and Hey Siri

New Phone 6s and 6s Plus with new Camera and 3D Touch!

Tom Cruise Saint or Sinner?

By | Life, Movies, Technology or Nerd Central, Women, Zen | One Comment

Today an EXCELLENT article about Tom Cruise came out on one of my favorite blogs The Mary Sue about Tom entitled,

“Why Do We Keep Letting Tom Cruise Off The Hook?”

Here is my response.

Thank you for this wonderful Article Carolyn! As a person who grew up in and worked for the Cult of Scientology it is refreshing to see an outsider, a never in if you will, ask this question. When I worked for the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood I can tell you the three important people in Scientology were, L Ron Hubbard the founder, David Miscavige current leader and Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is WORSHIPED in Scientology. Every time he got a new hairstyle EVERY male member of the church would try to copy that. If he was wearing blue button down shirts, THEY wore blue button down shirts. It is sick.

Obviously his body of work as an actor is huge and growing up I was PROUD to watch his movies. As a worker in the church I was happy to see them as well. But as I left the church I found a guilt wracked me as I watched them. Does MI5 look AMAZING???? Yes. Do I want to go see it? Yes. Will I? Well I haven’t yet. He already got paid. I am sure he is probably getting some of the back end. I LOVE the rest of the cast and I want them to be successful, and the crew that worked on the film deserves money for their hard work as well.

But I know what he does with his money. He gives it to Scientology and their HUNDREDS of front groups. That money funds, child slavery, forced abortions, kidnapping, Pedophilia, and death. I witnessed these crimes first hand and experienced many of them as they were perpetrated on me. Tom Cruise IS AWARE of what the church is doing. HE IS ACTIVELY TAKING PART IN THE ABUSE OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. That is a fact.

But hey, he hung off a plane 8 times to do a 2 minute stunt for a movie so that makes everything better right?

Dear President Obama, I just watched “Citizen Four” but you probably already know that.

By | Life, Politics, Technology or Nerd Central | No Comments

Dear President Obama,

I am sure upon receipt of this letter my name will be added to some mysterious list of people who are a threat to this country and you. Well I wish neither you nor this country ill will. I love America. I was born here. My children were born here. Many generations of my family helped to build this country, fought for it in many wars and forged across it to expand it to the west. But I just finished watching “Citizen Four”. To say what I learned in this movie was disappointing would be a gigantic understatement. In 2004, when you spoke at the DNC I fell in love with you. I fell in love with the idea of you. That you were the Un-politician. You were a rule breaker. The rebel that was going to undo the nonsense of the past 8 years and right all the wrongs. You were America’s, and my, knight in shining armor and I was so excited. I wept as you were elected in 2008. I sat holding my 1 month old son weeping as I watched the results come in and my oldest son, 3 was asleep. I knew that this world was going to be a better place for them. That it would not be one filled with war and lies but one of truth and relative calm as we progressed forward with a truly green global agenda and started to make Earth livable for all mankind. I had HOPE.

Then promise after promise was broken. And it was as if nothing had changed in the white house at all except now our President knew how to pronounce “Nuclear”. But 2012 rolled around and I once again, bought into the lies and hope and like a battered wife, promised myself that you were going to change and that you just needed my help to get there. That inside you were a good person and it was just congress that wouldn’t let you get anything done. (And they haven’t let you do one single thing. They are a major part of the problem and I acknowledge that fully but we are talking about you so I will try to stay on topic.) And then once again I was thoroughly disappointed.

I went from doggedly defending you to agreeing, mostly with critiques of you. Why? Because you lied. You are doing the SAME EXACT THING as all the Presidents have done since I don’t know when, promising the moon and the stars and everything we want and then basically do nothing, or just enough to keep us strung out on your hype so that we don’t protest too much.

When the Patriot Act came out I was vehemently against it. I was probably one of 5 non journalists in the country to bother to print the whole thing and read it. Now looking at this movie, Citizen Four, you have taken the Patriot Act and put it on steroids to spy on not just every American Citizen, but the whole world. I am just appalled  at what has happened in the name of “National Security”. We aren’t more secure. We aren’t happier. We aren’t doing better as a nation. We are just angrier. We are poorer and we are tired. So why are we spending countless hours collecting data about each other? To what end? World peace? A cure for Cancer? Those would be noble causes. The “War” on Terrorism? That isn’t even real. You can’t wage war on an idea. Because an idea isn’t real. You can wage war on a person, place or thing. That’s it. Do I think ISIS is possibly the worst group I have seen in my lifetime, yes. Am I disgusted with their actions? Yes absolutely. But, that does not mean that you, or anyone else, has the right to compromise my or ANYONE else’s right to our own lives. To our privacy. To our private conversations on our phones or via text or email. There is no greater cause than our individual right to be ourselves in our own way. We have plenty of other laws in place already that allow for the tracking of criminals via warrants and the courts. Our justice system is built to do that. So there is no reason to go around that system with any type of executive order or anything else.

What has happened to the voice of the people? We don’t want this. We have marched against it. We have sat down in the streets against it. When does it end? What happens to me now if I post this? If I send you this letter. Am I less of an American than I was before I wrote it? Before I thought it? Where is this path leading us? What is the goal of all it?

What your focus should have been is on the environment. On Earth. This is our home. We don’t have anywhere else to go. So who cares about terrorism when the air we breath is killing us. Does killing off all of ISIS make the Oceans clean and stop the glaciers from melting? Does getting Osama turn back the clock on carbon emissions? No. All the war on Terrorism does, in the long run, is nothing. Because the real battle that we should have been waging is how to salvage our Earth so that human kind will still exist. That could have been your legacy. You could have saved us all.

Instead, like so many that came before you, you are just a bought and paid for spokesperson for the big corporations that run everything. How is a dream like Democracy supposed to have any chance at all in a game that is so rigged that your one hope for progress and reform is actually just playing for the other team?

Sincerely,

Nora Crest

United States Citizen

 

And then there were Three.

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There has been a lot of death recently. Robin Williams died, and then yesterday Lauren Bacall died. Two other actors also died. But no one really knew them so I guess they don’t count in the rule of three. But today my Grandfather, Dr. R. Edward Nather, died. He was 88 years old. He was an Astrophysicist. He was a professor for most of my life at the University of Texas and he discovered many things about the stars above our heads. He worked with many great people, some you may have even heard of, Like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.  He didn’t seek notoriety in the traditional sense. He was never on TV or anything like that. But he leaves behind quite a legacy in the Science area. He helped develop the Whole Earth Telescope, or WET. It’s pretty cool.

The biggest impact he had in my life was of course my mother. The fact that she is his daughter has always been impressed upon me. I consider her to be one of the greatest people I know and I was sure that at least half of that came from him. Her smile and wit and her passion were similar to his, except hers is for Cinema and his was for the Cosmos. The conversations I did have with my Granddad were intense and well though out. It was like playing verbal chess with a true master. I told him a few months ago that I was pretty sure that he would never die, that he in fact might be a superhero born of genius and radiation exposure. He liked that theory. It gave him a good laugh. He didn’t get to meet my son’s in person but they sang “Happy Birthday” to him over the phone and told him they loved him. I don’t know if they will remember that down the line but I will never forget it.

To be honest I didn’t really know my Grandfather all that well. I saw him a total of 4 times in my entire life. He was like that. Not there but everywhere. Even though I didn’t physically see him often he always had a huge influence on my life. When I was young I was fascinated with the stars. He sent me my first telescope. I still have it. Every time I have gazed into the heavens I have thought of him. What he would see when he looked up. What the universe looked like through his huge telescope and what secrets did he know about it.  I have never stopped looking up. Never stopped wondering what is out there, where we came from and what it all means. Now that he will be returned to stardust himself, I hope he finds a happy home, there amongst his beloved stars.

LUCY one of the best films ever made, no I am not kidding.

By | Life, Movies, Technology or Nerd Central, Zen | One Comment

I just went to see Luc Besson’s recent masterpiece, Lucy. I am still thinking about everything that happened in this movie. This is akin to how I felt when I left the Matrix for the first time. Or even one of my all time favorite movies, also by Luc Besson, The Fifth Element. Luc has an understanding of the universe and life that I aspire to reach. This movie shows the beauty of humanity and what we are missing in ourselves but what we ultimately can reach and achieve. I love that he consistently writes very strong female characters who, in the end, end up saving us all. As he says in this movie, “Only ignorance brings destruction. Not knowledge.” This is a film that makes you think for the entire film and keep thinking afterward. Go, see this film, and experience it for yourself.

I just watched the movie for the second time this weekend. It was even better the second time. I could sincerely watch this movie over and over and over again. The principals in this movie and the data thrown at you isn’t just entertainment, it is enlightenment.

Cosmos – The most important show on Television.

By | Life, Technology or Nerd Central, Television | One Comment

Cosmos- A Spacetime Odessey starring Neil deGrasse Tyson is absolutely one of the most, if not THE MOST important shows on television.

I watch TOO much TV. I am currently DVRing over 70 shows. which is why I have 3 DVR’s. So I can get all of them. Some of them come on at the same time so multiple DVR’s, for me, is a necessity. I watched Cosmos with Carl Sagan years ago as a child and it made me LOVE the universe and wonder about it and feel like I was part of it.

This show’s new inception is even more of that. Of course the special effects that are available now are a million times what Carl had access to and the science data has evolved as well. How we see the universe now, what we know now about it and what is in it and what it is made of is so much more than we did 30 years ago.

Some things never change. You should always be polite to company and strangers. Always look someone in the eyes and give a good firm handshake when you meet them. Smile. These are constants. But the universe is changing always. And our ability to see the universe and to understand it has changed over the many millennia. That is what is fantastic about this show. It talks about not only what we know now about the universe but the journey that we took to get to this understanding.

If you aren’t watching this show, turn it on. Learn about the universe, after all we are all made of stardust. And that milky way out there in the night sky is the ultimate selfie.

Why I can’t love Android as much as I LOVE my iOS.

By | Life, Technology or Nerd Central | No Comments

Well it happened again!

Every so often HTC or Samsung will get me hooked with a very slick package. I will research the hell out of the phone and fall in love with it. Well most of it anyway. This time it was the HTC One M8. I fell immediately in love with the Camera. The features were amazing. I would have to download at least two or more apps to do that on my iPhone 5S.

Since I have TMobile and I can Jump™ anytime twice a year I decided to take the plunge and get the phone. I backed up my iPhone and went right to the store. Firstly the phone seemed HUGE to me. I am not a fan of big phones. I don’t have gigantic hands and they feel odd in mine. So that was a downside for me. The casing is gorgeous, all metal with a brushed finish. And dual Cameras on the back so you can get a Lytro like effect. I was SO looking forward to that.

Well after taking the couple of hours to set up my phone fully with all the apps that I had on my iPhone and get the ring tones I sorta liked, since not all of them were available, I was ready to go out and take a bajillion pictures with my new fantabulous camera.

Well that was another story as well. Yes I got stunning shots with the camera. No question. But when it came to using all the hyped features. I couldn’t get a single one to work. Not a one. No changing focus nothing. Because my pictures weren’t taken with the right settings. Well what are those settings? Hell if I know. I did the one thing I vow NEVER to do when getting a consumer product of any kind especially a cell phone, I consulted the manual.

But the catch was there was no real annual. It was just a tiny starter guide that gave me no real info. So I decided to just take the pictures as is without any embellishment since they were already pretty spectacular.

Then there was how I answered the phone. It was weird. And by weird I mean not what I was used to with my iPhone. I didn’t like how the apps looked or responded. All of the them were totally different.

So in the end I was left with a really pretty shell that held a great camera with an operating system that didn’t do everything that I was used to or liked. It lasted 10 whole days. I went back and switched back to my iPhone. I have written this down for anyone else out there who is thinking about switching for the pretty outside. And for myself. To remember NOT to do it again.

The iPhone 6 comes out this fall. I will get that. Why not? I have gotten every other version of the iPhone since it came out.

 

Home School 101?

By | Life, Politics, Technology or Nerd Central, Women | No Comments

Well SO much has happened since my last post. I mean I think I saw at least 40 movies in that time and the amount of TV I am embarrassed to say. But mostly it has been LIFE going on. So many changes. Firstly, I am now homeschooling my oldest son. That has been a HUGE change. It has mostly been great though. I was super worried about it because I am NOT a teacher. I have tremendous respect for them and what they do but I had no idea how I was going to do any of that. Curriculum planning and all that was simply terrifying to me. But I ran into a situation with my son where he was not getting what he needed from school. The teacher was not equipped to deal with a child who has Aspergers and so I decided to take on that task as well. After doing a TON of research about home school programs I settled on K12. The K12.com is AMAZING. It is all there. They send you all the materials for FREE and there is a teacher that I can contact at any time to get help. We meet with her Quarterly to do the parent teacher conference. It is all fully accredited and really a great fit for my son. Pretty much all the work is done online, which he LOVES and he can get things done as fast or as slow as he needs to, so he can really grasp it.

My least favorite part of this has been the looks on peoples faces when I tell them I am homeschooling. Like suddenly I grew another head out of my head and it was SUPER ugly like Koato poking out if that guys stomach in the original Total Recall. And then 99.99% of people immediately want to know what I am doing to “socialize” him. What? Did I miss something. When I was a kid, we played outside. We met kids in the neighborhood and played sports and hung out at the YMCA and found friends in all sorts of places. NO ONE ever asked how I was being socialized. That is just ridiculous. He isn’t from another planet. he isn’t learning English as a second language. He is a kid. Yes he is spending a ton of time with me. And he will make friends or not as he chooses. Period.

Yes there are days when I wish I could take a 5 hour recess from the whole thing. I am not going to lie. But I find mostly that I am having a tremendous amount of fun learning again all, some of it frankly I don’t remember learning at all. He is even taking Latin. He is learning so much. I am very proud of him. And happy that he can do well and feel good about school. Most days he is on me to get started. That is a HUGE change from before.

I think that the way schools are being run right now is really doing no one a service. I know many teachers, there is only one thing on their minds, helping their students learn. That’s it. They want the kids to learn, to love learning and to be successful. When all of this “core” curriculum and “standardized” test are thrown in and all anyone cares about is test scores, well the kids and the teachers get lost in the shuffle. The teachers have no freedom to give the kids what they know works and what is best. They HAVE to do this ridiculous curriculum that, as far as I can tell, no one really understands or even likes.  Teachers are burdened with more and more students at once who they cannot, no matter what Herculean effort they make, get to everyone. They just can’t. I have only two kids and I can barely pay equal attention to both of them. I can only imagine what that is like with 35 kids.

I am lucky that I can stay at home with my son. I have the ability to do that because I have my own business with my husband and we work from home. I can flex my schedule that way. I know not everyone can do that. But I think if we can stand united, parents that is, and demand that our public schools are reformed with the best interests of the students and the teachers in mind, I think we could get all kids to be as excited as my son is about learning.

iPhone 5S I LOVE GOOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDD!

By | Technology or Nerd Central | No Comments

Yes it is true. I have iPhone fever. I always have. Since the very first iPhone, I have owned EVERY version of the iPhone.

This time they came out with two phones just to make me crazy. But truthfully the 5C is just the 5 with a plastic back colored. So I am going to pass on that one and try my best to get a 5S. To make things even HARDER I am switching from Verizon to T-Mobile and Apple has decided to NOT give ANY T-Mobile stores in the US a 32 gig version of any color in store. Anything above a 16 gig is special order. WTF Apple. As a fangirl I am dumbfounded! Sincerely! Why would you do that. Anyone who has a lot of songs, takes pictures like I do and has pages of apps NEEDS 32 gigs at least of space. And to not have any in stock?? That is just lame. Don’t punish T-Mobile users. They could rapidly become your most loyal.

Alas I will have to wait a while for my new phone but I will. And I am pretty sure it will be worth the wait!