Joseph Javier Perla

Let’s talk more about Amazon.

I recently signed up for Amazon Prime. Amazon is brilliant. Immediately after signing up, I bought a dozen items. It is so easy to use. I can understand why Amazon wants to keep their patent of one-click shopping. It is incredibly addictive to see something, and then know that you will have it very soon at the click of a button.

Amazon uses any carrier which is fastest. They have sent me goods using FedEx, UPS, and DHL. My orders almost always arrive in exactly two business days. I can even ship overnight for just $4, if I really need something the very next day. It’s nice to not have to go to CVS or, worse yet, take the unreliable town bus to Wal-Mart. Before Amazon Prime, if I wanted to buy something, I would write it down. Many days/weeks later, after accumulating a list of things to buy, I would go out to the shopping areas and buy everything at once to save time. Now, as soon as I think of something to buy, I get to a computer, order it, and forget about it. I get it within a couple of days without worry.

I share my Amazon Prime account with my parents, so hopefully they will take advantage of this amazing service as well. (You should!)

About a month ago, after Amazon announced earnings on April 25th, Amazon’s stock went up close to 50%. I thought that was incredible for such a large company. They announced a billion dollars in increased earnings. I had noticed Amazon not long before the announcement, wondering why its price seemed so depressed. It is a solid company, with excellent promise of future growth: S3, EC2, etc. seem like the future of the web. Amazon is also experimenting in completely new venues, such as shoe sales through endless.com.

After the huge rise, I decided to learn more about Amazon. I signed up for Amazon Prime. I love it. Amazon Prime lets me ship, free two-day shipping, all of the books, toiletries, and even food that I want straight to my dorm room door. Normally, I have to take long treks outside of the heart of campus and plan half a day around making a new purchase. Amazon simplifies this for me, and quickly.

Just last Thursday, given the fact that investors now have faith in Amazon, and that it is a very solid company financially, I decided to buy them. Today, Monday, the stock rose 8%. giving me very healthy earnings. I have not traded in weeks, maybe months. It’s days like these that give me ridiculously good returns.

For my Physics 210 class, my team and I built a self-balancing robot. It stands on two wheels, and constantly adjusts itself so that it does not fall over, like a Segway. Building something that moves by itself and reacts to its environment is fun and very cool. The link to our final project report is below:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgbtdz37_23pmw7j

I want to get a tablet PC. I have very exacting specifications. No such tablet exists. I will have to build it.

Here is my dream mobile computer that is within the realm of current technology:

goals: light, fast, easy to use — basically an electronic legal pad

specifications:

• dual touch screen, with 128 levels of pressure, input pencil that has an eraser
• 12.1″ screen, high resolution — small, light, power-saving but still high information density and easy to handle
• flash disk drive — for speed and power saving
• laser keyboard — to save space, weight
• no wires: bluetooth, wireless power
• integrated camera/microphone — for videoconferencing
• tilt sensors — for unique input and automatic screen rotation

Can somebody build it? I expect costs to be almost $4000.

How can the NOP be useful to us.
He and I were never very friendly.
How Can her contempt be answer’d.
It isn’t just some Darkfriends and a few Trollocs and maybe a Fade
anymore. Operating procedure for integrated circuit(s) cards.
Under Win95 it is often very difficult to READ disabled text against
the disabled background.
A perfect and celebrated “blood,” or dandy about town, was this young officer.
Billy thought of the song but knew that it was not the time to sing it.
Left + 1, Frame.
Whatever it was was clearly gift-wrapped, neatly and beautifully, and
was waiting for him to open it. She talks about sin all the time.

Check out Justin.TV. I had assumed that the project had been going on for several months, but the site had only gone live a few days before I first looked at it. Justin.TV resembles The Truman Show. Justin Kan, a startup founder, wears a camera and microphone on his cap wherever he goes. Everything he does is broadcast live, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He turns his hat around when he goes to the bathroom. Sometimes, it is oddly absorbing to watch. Mostly, it is ridiculously boring.

Steve Jobs recently announced that EMI, a major music label, will now sell songs on iTunes without DRM. Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace quickly followed. What is DRM? It is what stops you from buying songs from Microsoft and playing them on your iPod. It is what stops you from making backups of your music files. It is what stops you from sharing a song you bought on iTunes with your friend, even though you can share a CD with your friend. It is rights-withholding and useless. It costs media giants millions of dollars to implement, a cost passed down to you.

Finally, the first moves to demolishing DRM are on its way. Mark Shuttleworth, the creator of Ubuntu (an excellent version of Debian Linux), wrote the most eloquent essay on DRM I have ever read. I recommend you check it out.