Tag Archives: Technology

Exploring the Ipad 2 & the desire to own every new piece of technology

Business, Economics, Social Networking, Technology, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I finally broke down and bought an Ipad 2. I had bought a Motorola Xoom some months ago, and I had been very disappointed in that product, mainly because it has turned into a glorified doorstop. I’m often the victim of techno hype, in that too many reviewers acted like it was the great alternative to the ipad, but then when I finally got it, I discovered it wasn’t ready, nor was it really as compatible as it should have been with the things that I wanted to use. I could never get any of my music to be recognized by its music reader (people told me to download a different music player than the one installed), the books really sucked, as google books was never the solution to the e-reader issue (people told me to download another book reader), the movie player didn’t play ANYTHING (people told me to find another video player, which I did, and I never did succeed at getting a decent enough one that really worked on the Xoom). Basically, everything I did on the Xoom was subpar and not up to speed. Great doorstop. Or great e-mail reader, if you have wi fi only.

So, I went to the Apple store and they finally had iPads in. I bought the AT&T 3G version, which so far is great, although I suspect the 3G aspect of it is massively overpriced no matter what model you buy. That’s one thing NONE of the cellular companies have figured out in the United States. It’s like we’re in the Middle Ages here, and no one will do anything to make it better.

But my problem is really that I tend to buy whatever new technology thing comes out as soon as it does, and I sometimes pay the consequence for doing so. I bought a Nook Color when they came out, and I was severely underwhelmed by it. They’ve made great innovations with their current ones, but because I bought the first rendition of the Nook Color, I’m left with yet another very expensive doorstop that people tell me is so much better in a later edition. One of my other failings is that when I’ve been screwed once, I don’t give the company a second chance. So I won’t be buying a new Nook. Sorry. Once bitten and all that.

But so far, I love the ipad. I haven’t gone all crazy with it yet, but I’m slowly moving towards getting rid of my Washington Post subscription on the Kindle and choosing alternatives on the iPad. It’s so mucy nicer carrying that thing around (it’s a lot lighter and easier to carry than the Kindle). So far, I haven’t turned on my Kindle once since buying the Ipad. The only thing is: I have no intentions of buying books on the Ipad because their selection is horrid, and their prices, like most Apple offerings, are atrociously way too high. The only advantage I’ve seen so far with the Kindle offering of the Washington Post is that you download the whole thing at once and then don’t have to have a connection to read it. With the iPad, every time I read something, it seems to want to have a connection to the server in order to turn the page. Tried reading the Washington Post on it, and again was seriously underwhelmed. I’ve also noticed that with the Kindle I would read an entire article because you scrolled through them one by one. With the iPad, I scan articles and read very little, kind of like the old way I used to read a newspaper, and that’s definitely not something I like, and it’s a hard habit to break when met with the opportunity.

I’ll let you know further how I do with the Ipad. I’m trying to use the wifi more often than the cellular connection because after the third day, I checked my usage, and man, I was not impressed with how quickly I am using up my monthly amount. Again, while this is more a complaint against AT&T and Verizon, that’s something they need to fix, or they’re going to price themselves out of the cellular market. I think they believe they’ll continue to win because they’re the only game on the block, but what’s going to happen is that someone is going to invent something that circumvents the need for them, and people will jump ship really freaking fast, eliminating them overnight. It’s what normally happens with business and economics; they just don’t seem to believe it’s right around the corner, a lot like Comcast doesn’t realize it’s on its death bed because of how shitty it treated its customers over the years.

Anyway, haven’t posted much lately, mainly because I’ve had very little to say. My writing career has somewhat sucked, and as that was pretty much all I had in my corner, I find myself not very happy these days.

Cell Phones and Cancer

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It turns out that there may be a link between cell phones and cancer after all. About a decade ago, there was a lot of talk about the potential for cancer being caused by using cell phones, but as we’re apt to do in a capitalist society, we ignored it and trusted the companies that make products to tell us the truth. Why are we surprised that model has yielded bad results again?

I’ve always suspected there was some kind of risk when it came to cell phones, which is why I’ve always been glad that I don’t really use one that often. Yes, I have one, and I take calls on it when people call me, but I’m not the social type, so my amount of use on my cell phone is minimal, which means my chances of getting cancer are a lot less than most other people. Had I been a constant user of my cell phone, I probably would have been a lot more concerned, but I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind that there’s probably something wrong here with this picture.

Now, having an iPhone, there’s no way for me to know that just carrying the thing around isn’t causing some kind of damage, which has always been one of my other concerns. But I figure that over the average lifespan of a human, I’m probably not going to be around that much longer to make a difference anyway. I’m just glad I don’t hold that thing up to my ear on a constant basis like so many other people do.

What does concern me is the sort of thing that we have no control over, and that’s the bigger picture. I mean, there are cell phone towers all over the place, which means these signals are floating all over constantly. To me, this has always felt like I’m being subjected to potentially dangerous signals, but I’ve also realized that there’s nothing I can do about it. In order for Muffy and her friends to have 24/7 phones stuck to their ears, I may end up dying of cancer just because I exist. Unfortunately, that’s one of those sign-offs I never got to sign off on at any particular time.

But what doesn’t surprise me is that corporations went out of their way to debunk any criticism against cell phones, mainly because they want to sell you shit, and information often gets in the way of doing just that. Because the cell phone industry is so interwoven into our society, I doubt anything will be done even if there’s hard evidence that proves that cell phones are definitely killing you. People just aren’t willing to give up their convenience in order to let a few other people live. We’re not designed that way.

Which means that we’ll continue killing ourselves, if these phones are, in fact, killing us. 20 years ago, had the manufacturers been a bit more honest, it might have made a difference, but when there’s a dollar to be made, I don’t have a lot of confidence that the “right thing” is going to be done. Why should we start doing that now when we’ve been going the opposite direction for as long as we’ve had a civilization?

Drowning in Misleading Information About Technology

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About six months ago, I decided to give up my iPhone for an Android phone. I’ve never been a real fan of Apple, the company, although I have somewhat been on the sidelines for Apple, the technology. The iPhone was definitely one of their best products ever, and I bought one when they first emerged. Then I upgraded to the second generation of the phone, which I believe was the 3G or 3GS (I get them confused). One of the things I really liked about the cell phone (my first real smart phone) was its long battery life. There were times when I went several days before recharging it.

One of the problems with the original iPhone was that you had to go through AT&T. That’s another one of those companies that I’ve learned to live to love and hate, sometimes in the same sentence. Their customer service is atrocious, no matter how hard their PR people try to make it seem otherwise. And sometimes dealing with them as a customer can be a freaking nightmare. But when you don’t have to deal with that side of the house, they do what they need to do, and things generally go smoothly. Not exactly a five-star endorsement, but you take what you can get, I guess.

Well, I discovered at one point that I couldn’t block calls on my iPhone no matter what I did. I was getting nonstop calls from telemarketers and bill collectors (most not even for me), and it was becoming really frustrating. So I looked to Apple to see if there was an app to fix this. There’s not. Apple doesn’t like you to block things, and if Steve Jobs doesn’t like something, that’s just the way every customer will experience the customer experience. Also, AT&T sucks in this area, as they couldn’t figure out a way to stop this other than to block a call (each one), to which they would charge me a nominal ($10) price to do so EACH TIME. That wasn’t a solution.

So, I bought a Sprint Samsung Epic phone (after trying out a few crappy Sprint phones). So far, I’ve been massively disappointed in Sprint. I mean MASSIVELY. They drop calls constantly, and they have finally acknowledged that there’s something wrong in Grand Rapids, although they can’t figure out what it is, but they’re not willing to really do anything to make the experience better other than to offer a different phone (on the same crappy service, which is actually the problem).

And the smart phone isn’t really that smart. In so many ways, Android fails. Miserably. I use Touchdown to link my work email, and whenever I have an appointment on my calendar, any change to the at calender appointment adds a brand new apointment (AND) leaves the old one in place, so that even though I’ve changed my appointment, my phone constantly wants to remind me at the old time that there’s an appointment, even if there no longer is one. When you work in a place where people are changing their appointments all of the time, this makes your calendar somewhat useless. Again, failure of miserable proportions.

The other day, my phone stopped working. For no reason. And then the next day, it started working again. No explanation. Meanwhile, two people phoned me and kept getting voicemail, which they left messages. No messages, of course, ever went through because, well, Sprint sucks.

So I contacted AT&T again, trying to figure out if there’s some way to get the new iPhone 4, and it turns out that I’m in my upgrade range now. What I didn’t know, until I asked a few colleagues who had iPhone 4s on both AT&T and Verizon, that the battery life of the iPhone 4 is no better than my crappy Samsung epic. For some reason, Apple made a brand new phone that is worse than the previous version. My 3G goes for days; the iPhone 4 doesn’t go longer than a half of a day, which seems to be the life span (battery wise) of almost all smart phones these days. That’s just crappy.

So, it looks like I may end up staying with my old iPhone 3G because it’s still the best phone on the market. It doesn’t matter that we’re already into an iPhone 4, and probably moving to an iPhone 5. I doubt it’s going to be much better itself. And every Android phone made is massively dysfunctional, yet it’s branded as the “thing to beat Apple”. If that’s the case, then we’re still a few years away from ever getting something decent out on the market that fills the need of the rest of us.

And that sucks.

As we suspected, Size Really Does Matter

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I was having a conversation with a female friend of mine, and I stated that no matter how much she says otherwise, size definitely matters. She denied it for a moment, and then after I showed her, she gave in and said that I was right. Size, in fact, does matter. Her exact words were: “Oh, my god. It’s huge!” So the matter is settled. Having a larger computer monitor is DEFINITELY better than having a smaller one.

This weekend, I had been thinking about it nonstop, and then I went to Sam’s Club, and there it was: a 27 inch Samsung monitor. It was huge. It was freaking HUGE, and it was there, just waiting for me. So I put it into my cart, took it to the cash register, wheeled it out to my car, opened the trunk of my car, placed it inside, wheeled the cart to one of those little cart places where they store them so Sam’s Club employees can gather them and make somewhat of a living, but I had to stop halfway because I realized my trunk was still open, so I wheeled the cart back to my car, closed the trunk and then wheeled the cart back to that little cart place where they store them so Sam’s Club employees can gather them and make somewhat of a living, drove back home, stopping to buy an Icee on the way (the Cherry flavored one…can’t stand the root beer one, oh my god, what were they thinking when they invented that), parked my car in the garage, closed the garage door, said hi to the girl who is always crying whenever I see her (that girl really needs to dump that guy…I swear), opened my door, entered my apartment, fought off a rabid band of stuffed animals that were overjoyed to see me again, set up the new monitor, turned on my computer, drank from my Icee, and then embraced the wonder that is a 27 inch computer monitor.

It was kind of nice. The Icee, too. But don’t get me started on that whole root beer flavor thing. I’m just saying.

The Last Typewriter Factory in the World Has Closed Shop

Books, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

According to an article in the Atlantic, the last typewriter factory has shuttered, as it was becoming too expensive to maintain, and not enough of a market to make it worthwhile. Sadly enough, I remember that the very first novel I wrote, Innocent Until Proven Guilty, was written on one of the first personal computers, but because I was so convinced that a writer needed to write a novel on a typewriter, my second novel LOSER was written on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Then my third novel, The Armageddon Project (which later became To Touch the Unicorn, and will soon become 72 Hours in August) was written on a manual typewriter I wrote, convinced that this was the way that a novel needed to be written. Since then, I’ve moved back to computer, and all of my writing tends to be on paper first (handwritten), and then typed on computer. I’m probably one of the last to write this way.

But one can’t feel a sense of loss in that we don’t use typewriters any longer. When I was a counterintelligence agent, we had IBM typewriters throughout the office, and it was the “in” thing to have those. I had an assistant who typed up my reports for me, and there were times when I’d type them myself, feeling that I wasn’t really doing the full job unless I typed up my own reports. But even then, we got a hold of a Wang word processor (Microsoft Word was still someone’s garage fantasy at this time), and literally the universe changed overnight. I even created my first database on the Wang computer. I knew then that the world would never be the same.

So, if I drank, I’d open up a beer for the loss of the last typewriter factory. But I don’t drink, so I’ll just wave my hand and give them a few moments of silence.

Why Didn’t Blu-Ray Take Over the World?

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There was a battle over dvd standards a few years back that was similar to the fight between VHS and Beta Max a decade or so even earlier. Sony had released their Blu-Ray player, and Toshiba had invented a rival called HD DVD. On the surface, the upcoming battle didn’t really seem all that significant (DVDs were still working fine), but Sony was about to release its Playstation 3 with a Blu-Ray player, and Toshiba was putting its HD DVD into the new XBox 360, made by Microsoft. So, the battle waged.

Strangely enough, even though the XBox 360 was the stronger seller (Sony dropped the ball and took way too long to release the Playstation 3), in the end, enough movie companies fell into Sony’s camp, and the Blu-Ray player eventually defeated the HD DVD format, becoming the only survivor. I don’t even think you can find an HD DVD movie anymore.

Yet, for some reason, even though Blu-Ray beat HD DVD, it still has yet to surpass DVD as the standard way of releasing new content for movies, TV shows and computer games. Instead, there has been an almost rebirth of the normal DVD player, the Blu-Ray remaining a higher end product but with an inability to maintain its dominance based on superiority alone.

And it is superior to DVD. In all ways. If you put a DVD player next to a Blu-Ray player and play them both at the same time, it’s obvious which one is better. But is that enough to make a difference?

You see, a couple of other things are going on that made the move to Blu-Ray not happen. First, Blu-Rays never replaced DVDs when it comes to price. In order to be the replacement, the price needs to be set at what people are willing to pay for movies and TV shows. For an average movie, there was a set price that people were willing to pay, and this came from years of establishing that market. Blu-Rays are almost always much more expensive. This was supposed to change over time as they took over the market, in that the prices would come down to match what DVDs used to be, so that they would effectively replace them. But that never happened. Instead, if you paid $19 for a DVD, you were always paying $29-35 for a Blu-Ray. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it is when it comes to the economics of how DVD entertainment was expected. As long as Blu-Rays remained higher in price, it was always going to be seen as an exclusive item, and more of a luxury.

Blank Blu-Ray dvd prices never came down. They’re really expensive. A colleague pointed out to me that a dvd with the actual movie on it is sometimes cheaper than a blank Blu-Ray dvd. As long as that’s the case, you’re never going to get full adoption of the product. Plus, the players are still very expensive. It’s a no go all the way through.

One problem that Blu-Rays have that you never had with dvds is that you often have to make firmware upgrades. People don’t like that. Sorry. When they’re forced to keep updating their software for their dvd player, they get annoyed. With a dvd player, they don’t have to do it. Chances are pretty good, they’re not going to switch. When many dvd players are not connected online, you have even more of a problem.

The last point is probably the most important for the current situation. Blu-Rays needed to be the replacement for dvds, but instead we’re quickly moving online to streaming technology. People don’t even need dvds anymore, and if they see that as the obvious future, the replacement of the dvd is almost dead on a arrival. The thought was that people would pay more money for better quality, but instead streaming has gone the opposite direction, where people are willing to take less quality with more convenience. With that trade off, you might see why Blu-Rays might never take over the world.

It’s a great technology, but it may have been brought in too late to replace the model that was already going to be replaced by something different. Not necessarily better, but more convenient. Unfortunately, not always does the obvious successor become the winner.

Battling Through the Trenches of Publisher’s Row

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"I read all of Duane Gundrum's books because he's so dreamy...."

In case you aren’t aware of it, there is a war taking place. I’m not talking about Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq. I’m talking about the war that is currently waging over the publication of books. What war? You say. Well, let me explain.

For years, in order to get published, you sent out your work to a publisher (or an agent in hopes of getting a publisher), and if you were very lucky, you might get a bit of an advance. Sometimes, those advances were for decent money. Around the 1970s and on, they started getting really small. Kind of dismal, actually. Unless you were already a famous author, like Stephen King. So, you would get about $5,000-$10,000, and then the publisher would take 18 months or so to create your book. Then it would get released. If it started to sell, great. You would receive about $1.67 for a $20 book for each sale, the publisher keeping pretty much everything else. After all, they were the publisher. That $1.67 would continue to knock down the amount of the advance you received until you actually started to make what are called royalties, which would be additional money the book made after you paid off the advance. Most books tended to not even make back the advance, so you were generally lucky enough if you made somewhat of a decent advance.

Well, recently, the publishing industry has kind of been turned on its side. E-books are becoming the new “in” thing, and strangely enough, publishers are still maintaining their dominance in the industry, because they are still the power brokers they used to be. In other words, in order to gain any attention whatsoever, you really needed the publisher to get the attention out that you had published a book. So, not surprisingly, publishers have been publishing e-books, too, and still taking that outrageous amount off the top, leaving writers with very little profit, even though the costs for publishers have diminished to almost nothing.

Something new has started to happen, which is turning the whole industry on its side now. Writers are going directly to the readers and selling their books without the publishers. And needless to say, this is causing a bit of a stir in the whole industry. Publishers need the writers to survive, and so they are doing everything possible to diminish the positive experience for writers, so that publishers still remain the power brokers that they have always been. Unfortunately for them, that model isn’t going to last that much longer.

The publishing industry is a lot like the music industry, and its current dynamic is going through a revolution much like the music industry has recently gone through as well. While there are still seriously powerful music leaders in the industry still calling shots, a lot of artists have gone directly to the Internet with their work, and are bypassing the profit model previously established by the RIAA and other such top-down industry leaders. This has caused all sorts of problems for the industry, but it has done wonders to present new opportunities for artists who may never have received an ounce of attention before.

Move this into the publishing world, and you see the same sort of thing happening there. The publishing industry is still in control right now, mainly because the model hasn’t completely developed yet. Online booksellers, like Amazon, Apple, and somewhat Barnes & Noble, are producing their own e-readers that allow writers to push their content to eager subscribers. However, the battle currently waging is who is going to control the process flow from this point forward.

The publishing industry is counting on its enormous clout to push their agenda forward. They have already pushed back against Amazon (which has forced the others to comply) where they forced the increase in the cost of books being sold on the Kindle. You used to be able to get brand new books for $9.99, but now you’re lucky if you can get one for $12.99. The game changer in the first battle was Ken Follett’s new book Fall of Giants, which publishers forced Amazon to sell at $19.99. The backlash against the book has been interesting as Kindle users included all sorts of bad reviews for the book based on the price alone, taking what would have probably been a five or four star reviewed book down to an average of about 3 stars. What’s interesting is that his reviews on this book tend to resemble an upside down bell curve, with 301 5-stars and 327 1-star reviews, with a tiny amount filling in for 2, 3, and 4-star reviews. In other words, the critics either really liked it or really hated it, and there’s no doubt that the really hated reviews come specifically from people who are pissed off at the price.

If this was the end of the fight, you’d think that the publishers pretty much won, but like most great stories, a new sliver has been added to the mix, with writers being that added variable. Writers, realizing that they need to somehow be able to take advantage of this new technology, have started to show up sans publishers (being their own publishers), and they’re starting to include their own novels at much lower cost than the publishers are forcing down the e-market’s throat. Rather than stick it out at $9.99 (or push it up to the publisher’s price of $12.99), writers are now starting to introduce their books at the $2.99-$4.99 range, providing a more comfortable area for readers to purchase on impulse alone. Some of the more prominent writers, instead of using their fame to push for $12.99, like the gas station economic model the publishers are following (one raises the price, the rest follow), are listing their books at $0.99. According to some of the better known writers doing this, they’ve pointed out that because of the amount of people willing to buy a book at that low price, their profit has actually been better than if they tried to sell their books at higher prices. The economic implications are staggering, the more you think about it.

The biggest problems facing the writers right now is how to actually get anyone to pay attention to them in the first place. The one thing publishers have going for them was that their clout actually got books into bookstores, and without that clout, an unknown writer is essentially that, an unknown writer. If no one knows you exist, the chances of selling a book are dismal, at best. So, right now, the battle has halted, as both publishers and writers realize they’re at an interesting crossroad where both can benefit, but neither seems willing to budge. Publishers aren’t interested in giving up their high percentages they receive for “publishing” books while writers are no longer interested in giving up the entire store just to get their work out there. Which means that once writers figure out how to jumpstart the system in their favor, the whole publishing industry is going to go the way of the recording industry.

But what can a writer do to become marketable without already being a famous writer who was selling books already? That’s an important question and one that I’m spending a lot of time studying.

I’ll let you know once I figure it out.

What is the Future of Government in a Twitter/Facebook World?

Economics, Politics, Social Networking, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We keep hearing stories of how governments are being toppled by people armed with Twitter and Facebook accounts. While these accounts keep forgetting to point out that you need more than Twitter or Facebook to topple an oppressive government, what we should take from these examples (like Egypt, Tunisia, currently Libya and possibly a future Iran) is that revolutionary movements have been assisted by these social networking technologies. And that’s no small deal.

What doesn’t get addressed is something I find even scarier, but seems to be completely off the radar (or gps) of everyone involving this issue. What these technologies definitely do is provide immediate access to higher up entities than have ever been experienced before. What do I mean? In the olden days, a king communicated with his people by throwing up broadsheets that people would read by wandering out into the village square where they were posted. If they were lucky, a town crier would yell out the messages to people as well, which mainly assisted a population that was generally illiterate. As education has emerged and moved from the upper class to the middle class and now finally to all of the classes, people are capable of reading their own messages, so that town cryer is no longer necessary. And because technology has emerged alongside this development, people are now able to receive instanteous communication from higher-ups. This was the paradigm that brought us up and through the 19th and 20th centuries

But Facebook and Twitter also do something else that 19th and 20th century technology did not allow. Instead of just reading messages from leaders, we now have the innate ability to communicate BACK to our leaders. Add email to the mix, and our ability to actually speak to a previously untouchable leader has completely evolved into something kings and queens never imagined (and certainly never wanted). Today, we are moving from a receptive community to a community that is able to push rather than just receive.

What are the implications of this? Well, for one, it means that our need to rely on government is quickly diminishing. In the old days, we had government developed for us because basically we weren’t smart enough to maintain affairs on our own. That’s not the case today. In an enlightened society, or one that may soon be one, the need for government is minimized, which means that those people who have gained access to the halls of power are now seen as oppressive entities rather than those who serve the public good. Right now, we have a debate going on between Congress and the President of the United States as to whether or not government is even necessary (they’re thinking of shutting it down because they can’t pay their bills). What no one is addressing is the reason why this is happening. Those who advocate big government are pretty much behind the idea of needing government to take care of every need and desire, and I’d argue they’re not wrong in that a lot of people DO need government, but there is another segment of society that is slowly divorcing itself from the constraints of government, and unknown to a lot of average people, a whole bunch of them were actually elected to national office. We call them the “Tea Party”, and even though progressives use them as the butts of their jokes. a real movement is taking place right now in this country that should be seen as very dangerous to the natural order. If you want to understand why a lot of Republicans believe that government should be shut down, perhaps people should actually listen to the Tea Party instead of just making up jokes about them and figure no one takes them seriously.

Personally, I think the message that is being put out by the Tea Party is premature, in that I don’t believe the country has moved to that level of sophistication yet. Yes, believe it or not, I actually see their arguments as highly sophisticated; unfortunately, the ones receiving the majority of attention are the most unsophisticated ones imaginable, which is ironic just on that level alone. Only about 70 of them are in power right now, and that’s nowhere near enough of them to make the impact they want to make, so all they’re capable of doing right now is disrupting government, rather than shutting it down.

But what should be seen is the longer term implications from ideas that they do espouse. Our Twitter and Facebook technologies have actually developed movements that coincide with this attitude of the people believing themselves to be superior to government. Granted, another irony is present as well, as most of the Tea Party thinkers are usually way behind the learning curve when it comes to emerging technology, but that’s really for criticism and derision more than an argument. What we should be focused on is that that these types of movements (the usage of technology in its ability to supplant government rather than supplement it) tend to grow, not go away.

My more important question is the one that fronts this entire essay: What is the future of government in a Twitter/Facebook world? In other words, if we finally reach a point where people feel they are on the same level as government, rather than recipients of messages from government only, do we present a new paradigm for the future? Essentially, does this equal status present a situation where people can finally rise above government, believing themselves to be superior, and thus, believe government should be eliminated, or at least changed drastically to reflect the submission of government to the people, as was originally intended by the Founding Fathers? Or do we end up becoming the enemy of government, which will hold onto its last grip of power until finally removed by those who have deemed it no longer worthy?

Personally, I don’t think anyone is thinking this way yet. That’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Although it was destroyed in one.

Cell Phone Companies in the US Really Suck

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Just yesterday, AT&T attempted to (and may have succeeded in) buying T Mobile. Now, personally, this really doesn’t affect me as I don’t have a T-Mobile account. I do have an AT&T account, but as AT&T is doing the buying, and not being bought, it’s not that big a deal to me. However, an inner sense in me tells me that I should be concerned because yet another cell phone provider is gone, taken over by one of the big ones that means less competition and fewer choices for us in the long run.

Some years ago, I was in South Korea, and I had a pretty good cell phone (even though it was pretty hard to understand half of the texts that would come through on it, so I never knew if it was someone from work or someone trying to sell me sex over the phone). The amount I paid per month was minimal, and the coverage was excellent. Sadly enough, I can’t say the same about the amount I pay here, nor can I say very good things about the coverage. Let me explain.

I have been with AT&T since they first got hold of the iPhone. When I first started with them, the coverage was atrociously awful. My phone dropped calls nonstop, and for someone who doesn’t get very many phone calls as it is, that’s extremely problematic. But eventually, it got better, but the pricing never did. It’s like they’re offering a luxury service at luxury prices when in reality they’re offering me something that’s essentially nothing more than a phone. Yes, a phone. Not a teleportation device. Not a phaser or a device that provides me with access to continous sex (or religion for those of you who don’t like the idea of instant access to sex). This is not a luxury item. Yet our cell phone companies act like they’re offering the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: Sliced bread was pretty damn great, and nothing’s really come along since that’s better. The pricing for cell phones is horrible, and that’s something that never seems to get better.

In other countries, they get decent cell phone packages at really good prices. The phone networks are also a lot more stable. And to top it off, they’re built on really powerful cell phone networks that don’t feel like they’ve been established with duct tape and string. The whole 4G thing is probably the straw that should have destroyed many backs of camels a long time ago. Instead of just telling us that they haven’t really produced anything all that great, cell phone companies tell us that they have “4G” coverage, when in reality it’s 3G coverage but designed so that it doesn’t fail as much. Sprint is the one provider that actually has a real 4G network, and I’ll let you in on a little secret I’ve discovered recently. They can’t seem to handle their 3G service in some areas, like where I live in Grand Rapids. Every time I have gone in to complain about lousy cell phone service, a clerk tells me something along the lines of “Yeah, we know about it, but I’ve been told they’re working on it.” Kind of like the government is working on the War on Poverty, right? Working on something, and FIXING something are two different things. Unfortunately, no one seems to get that.

What we really need is a brand new communicator technology that does away with cell phones completely and ends the monopolies that these companies have over our communication network infrastructure. It would be so much nicer if a brand new company came along and offered us something of serious value and put these cell phone companies completely out of business. Of course, I can imagine that these parasites will jump in before that ever happens and claim some weird patent was already filed that reads something like: “Patent covering any technology that actually communicates better than cell phones” and causes our legislators to side against us like they usually do whenever it comes to an argument of big business versus real people.

That’s really all I have to say on the subject. I need to take my medication now. [ /end ridiculous rant]

Finally, Pornography Will Have a Presence on the Internet

Business, Politics, Religion, Social Networking, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yes, after years and years of nothing but clean, wholesome information, pictures and overt religiousness, the Internet is FINALLY going to be able to show pornography. Up until now, as we all know, there’s been a huge dearth of porn-related information on the World Wide Web, but thankfully forward-thinking individuals have figured out how to bring us smut, sex and all things of the prurient interests. It seems that the .com addresses have made it so difficult for pornography to make it way to the mainstream, so entrepreneurs designed what’s called the .xxx address to showcase specifically porn-related information.

In all seriousness, what’s interesting is the current debate over whether or not the inclusion of this address for online pornography will just provide an ability for companies and nations to just block the .xxx site completely, which will lead to x-rated content being pushed right back to the .com and whatever other addresses they can think of to circumvent the censors of various governments and private individuals.

However, what’s also significant to point out is that those who advocate pornography on the Internet are also quick to mention that by adopting the .xxx address feature, this will allow adult websites to operate in an area where they can circumvent a lot of the negativity that also tends to migrate aongside pornography sites, like trojans (be nice…you know what I mean), pop-ups and a lot of other illegal activity.

Years ago, when I was first designing web sites, back in the days when there weren’t a lot of web sites yet created, the first group that moved onto the World Wide Web was the adult industry. A few of my early clients were tied to that industry, ironically enough attracted to my work that I had done designing a few church sites (the porn people came from those churches, seeing the advantages of this new technology). Ever since those days, there has been a tendency for unsavory types of tag alongside the adult community (not necessarily because they were part of it), and it has been very difficult to separate such folk from those who were just interested in providing adult content without the illegal activities as well (the gangsterism, not the illegal stuff that is deemed bad because of moral beliefs).

Personally, I don’t see the .xxx feature being all that productive, as that industry is constantly mired in bad behavior from the lazy criminal elements that see it as easy money. Believe it or not, there are two groups of individuals who make up that industry, and quite often the good people who are just interested in providing material for consenting adults get overwhelmed by the illicit behaviors of those who are out to separate people from their money at any cost. Unfortunately, that unsavory element is the one that always provides a bad name for those who are not like that, and no matter what the good people do, they’re always tainted by the crap pulled by those who have no qualms about cheating, stealing and doing whatever it takes to make a fast buck.