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Today and yesterday are two odd days.

Yesterday, I basically had the day open since 11:00. I knew I should work, but I didn't. There was also little for me to do otherwise. So, I was really bored for most of the day and in the end I didn't get anything done. (Well, for school. I did play piano a bit and get a haircut.)

Today, I basically had the day open since 11:00. I knew I should work, so I got started. However, I kept getting sidetracked. The day moved by relatively quickly, and I didn't get anything done. (Well, I got something started, but that was about 30 minutes of work.)

So when I try to avoid work, I end up getting really bored, and obviously don't get the work done. When I try to do work, I end up getting sidetracked and as a result don't get the work done, but I don't really get bored.

And so I need to utilize what waning time I have left of today to actually finish what I planned to today, among those includes a new blog entry that will probably debut tomorrow.

There's a new sort of craze going round. That's Twitter. People send updates to twitter and that's received by other people. It's simple enough. So what's the big deal?

Twitter is a site full of everyone's thoughts. One can send a message simply relaying their status, location, desires, or general thoughts and anyone who wants to know will get it. So who would want to do it? A lot of people. Looking at my MySpace bulletin list, at least 50% of these bulletins are about how their day was, how bored they are, or just because they felt like letting people know something completely random.

People tend to be very nosy, always wanting to know what other people are doing. Some people are also the reverse, wanting to let everyone know how their life is right then. Twitter has an advantage over IM in that it's a many-to-many sort of communication. All the talkative people can let the nosy people know what their doing with a single message. Twitter is also designed for this sort of thing, "away" (status) messages for IM can be utilized as such, as well as MySpace bulletins, though that's not exactly their primary functions.

Stalker-ish? A little. This isn't really something that private or reserved people would use so much. But then, the same can be said for MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and the dozens of other social networking sites. Twitter is social too, but in a much simpler way. There's also an option to make your updates available to friends only, but your friends might really be stalkers too.

A big time waste? Perhaps, but it only takes 5 seconds to update, which can be done by web, IM, or text. The latter also makes twitter more mobile being able to update without having internet access and receive others' updates similarly. Twitter can also be used in more constuctive ways, for example, to update others in a group collaborating on a single project, as a vacation log to your family, to say when you're doing something then track how long it actually to you to start, or such.

So what's Twitter to me? It's where I send messages that are too insignificant to start a conversation with, or not big enough to blog/bulletin. It's a place to complain or exclaim. It's "microblogging". It's nothing important, just a little added entertainment (distraction).

Why not try it? And for those interested, here's my twitter.

The American people may have to carry a national identification with a radio microchip within two years.

The REAL ID Act mandates a national ID to replace drivers licenses (or rather, bring them up to a new defined standard) to be issued to all citizens, residents, etc. Right now, the states issue their own identifications with not much interstate linking. This act forces states to link databases with the new ID.

There's quite a bit of controversy going on, lots of sensationalism surrounding this act. So let's look over that video and try to pick apart this sensationalism. Starting with the over-the-top movie excerpt...

There seems to be heavy emphasis on the potential of ubiquitousness. "Every this every that." This is quite an endeavor. To place a microchip on every single product manufactured on earth? That's a lot of products. That's thus a lot of chips.

And the anonymity of cash? Why doesn't someone just trade bills with others to conserve that anonymity, or at least lower trackability. If a microchip is on every bill, and the bills someone holds are "disabled", what's to stop this informal transaction? How about asking a friend for change for a five? I highly doubt that every person would have a "treasury note transfer system" for such trades. This would require more work than the microchip and more costly still.

Yes. Soviet flag. More sensationalism. Same goes for the Bible quote, but for the opposite connotation.

The pizza order is also laughable. Would a small company have this much access to government records? Even a large company? The extra charges are again more sensationalism. Delivery surcharge for an "orange zone"?

Then patriotic images. He knows for certain what people 200 years ago would think. The last step before implanting? It might be a slippery slope to it, but is it really that close?

Now, do I think that a national ID is a good idea? Hey, if it will get rid of the need for a driver's license, social security number, passport, birth certificate, and whatnot, sure. I don't really see how it's horribly bad. The positive seems to outweigh the negative. It's merely consolidation of everything I just mentioned.

And the radio microchip? It certainly makes these things harder to forge (assuming they'll be checked by the database). RFID (used in the chip) is already used by WalMart, in US Passports, and basically around the world. So it's not really that new of a concept.

Anyway, it's not as if you need your social security number to order pizza, or a driver's license to make a phone call. But it is necessary to have some sort of identifying information to go on an airline, for example. REAL ID is not a big step up to an Orwellian society.

Do teens naturally sleep later?

I can definitely say that I'm more active later at night. Far too many times have I taken on some programming challenge at 9:00 and found that it was suddenly 2 AM. I once considered shifting over my sleep schedule so I would sleep after school and then wake up during this time. It was supposed to influence my productivity with regards to school. Anyway...

Right now, the high school starts school first, followed by middle, then elementary schools. The study shows that younger children (and adults) wake up earlier than teenagers. Why then are teenagers, brain dead in the early morning (see 1st and 2nd period), made to wake up the earliest? To prepare them for early mornings when they get a job? That will happen naturally as their sleep cycle shifts towards the morning, as in the study. With the buses, schools need to start staggered, but why can't high school start last instead of first?

1st and 2nd period are probably the most unproductive periods of the day. It's still too early for most people and their minds aren't quite together. The most productive periods of the day are probably 3rd and 4th. 6th and 7th fall because people have been in school too long and are anxious to get out, and 5th is simply weird, but that's besides the point.

But personally, I don't really mind the early start. I know if I'm sleeping too late (which might be the case Wed. if I don't start my homework), and I enjoy the "extra" time I get after school. While I may be more active at night, that's not exactly the case with the city, most places closing up shop to sleep, so sleeping late won't necessarily mean going out late.

I'm in the process of shifting my sleep cycle back from 2:30-11 to 11-6. And considering that the natural sleep cycle is actually a bit above 24 hours...

A phone that plays music. That's been done before. MP3 players also existed before the iPod but what set it apart was the design and capacity. The iPod was also far more expensive (like all Apple products), but that didn't stop it from coming out on top. Will it be the same for the iPhone?

Jeremy brought up a good point. Right now, the iPhone is comparable to the PS3 before launch as far as hype and price. Both are far more expensive than the rest on the market, but granted, they're also more powerful. The PS3 also had so much hype, but due to many factors, it's failed to live up to it. Almost everyone's talking about the iPhone right now.

The PS3 and PSP were media devices; they can play music, videos, view pictures, everything. Yet, they're losing (so far) to the DS and Wii which specialize in only one thing: games. Are all-in-one devices really the future? Too many things can result in lackluster performance everywhere.

Apparently, in Japan, phones already do everything, music, e-mail, weather, shopping, credit cards, but the difference there is the price. Then again, these are completely different markets. America's not used to mobile phones like Asia is.

So what am I getting at? Will the iPhone succeed like the iPod, or fail like the N-gage? Will it meet or surpass expectations, or is the price too much for the consumer?

A lot of people thought the iPod would fail 5 years ago because of the price. Obviously, they were wrong. People seem to be less doubtful of Apple now, because at least people seem to be giving the iPhone a chance.

As for me? I'm not spending $500 on phone! Just give me rollover anytime minutes and I'll be happy.

Edit: So CNet has something to say about the iPhone too.