You are currently browsing the archive for the Rants category.
Tags: apple, sean connery, steve jobs
Logo created by a Hong Kong student. Click for more information.
It’s true, I never was a big Apple fan. I got my kids iPods because they relentlessly kept on asking. Oh, and the players were free when I signed up for a bank account (back in the day).
I inherited the old iPods and am using one today. They are not bad devices: easy to use and pretty to look at. But they are overpriced and I hate having to use iTunes to access my music. I hate being sold new material at every turn. I would love to have a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Sure there were MP3s before the iPod. I don’t blame Steve Jobs for making lossy music palatable. But I don’t share in the global outporing of grief that’s on every TV, computer and iPlatform in the world, either.
And Steve Jobs has a family that’s going thru the grieving process. So why start these tasteless Steve Jobs jokes? We may as well ask why we climb Mt. Everest. It’s because we can.
And you have to admit that it takes talent to make a clever joke about a sad, troubling situation. Sort-of like those improvisation shows where a performer is asked to make a joke about starving Somalians. A very poor-taste request, but also a challenge.
So here’s some jokes about the death of the iconic founder of Apple and the creator of the greatest devices in the world:
- I hear President Obama has been implicated in the passing of the iconic Apple founder…
his economic policies killed jobs.
- Steve Jobs’ funeral will feature a private viewing for his many fans.
As each person passes in front of the casket, they’ll pay 99 cents.
After over a decade of patronage, I am canceling my Netflix account. Yes, price is a factor – they are raising my subscription fee by 40%. But I have a pretty high tolerance for this sort of thing, already paying $20/month for Tivo,1 and keeping Netflix despite having a “free” streaming video source in Amazon Prime.
What irks me is that what attracted me to Netflix at first, and held me all these years, was how they catered to film buffs. This has ended. Example: for years, I’d rent the Harry Potter movies to prepare for the sequel, and really enjoyed watching all the extras. I’ll admit, I’m a huge Potter fan, so I appreciated that Netflix made available the extras disc. With great disappointment I discovered that for Deathly Hallows Part 1, only the rental version of the disc is offered. This version has only the movie and a personal invitation from Netflix to go fuck yourself. I’m kidding about the invitation – they couldn’t be bothered. I’ve been seeing an increase in these rental versions, which have zero extras, but tons of trailers and commercials that you can’t skip.2 The Deathly Hallows rental includes a 6 minute commercial for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I can tell you that if you’re on the fence about visiting that wondrous place, being forced to watch a 6 minute commercial may resolve you to boycott it.
And I’m not being melodramatic when I say they don’t care. For one, their subscriber base has gone from 10M to 25M in the last few years, so they assume they’re doing the right thing. If you want concrete proof, go to their cancellation page. They threaten to charge you for discs you don’t return within 7 days, and let you know that even though you’re paid up through the month, you won’t get a partial month refund or even be allowed to continue streaming until it expires! But the most callous part is that they don’t even ask you why. No short answer box, not so much as a multiple choice question with lame answers. And there’s no other form on the site for critical feedback. They really don’t care why you’re leaving.
Well, good riddance. In place of Netflix, I’ll start renting from Amazon or PPV, and even though it will cost me more, I’ll make a greater effort to see films in the theater.3 With the money I save, I’ll invest in a nice collection of films on BD, which I frequently find on sale at SlickDeals. I think I’ll start with the Harry Potter Ultimate editions…
Update: I’m not the only one, as Netflix has revised their projections for this quarter downward, causing their stock to tumble. Sounds like they already factored in the massive subscriber exodus, which proves my point that they don’t care about it.
- Although now that I’m on Cox cable, that will also be canceled when my contract is up. [↩]
- Well, you can with some software, which you can read about here. [↩]
- Note that all major theater chains allow you to buy premium discount tickets in bulk (50+), typically for less than $9 each. I go in with friends and split it. [↩]
Tags: netflix
This is going to be a touchy subject, so I’m immediately going to defend the title. This article represents my opinion only and here are my qualifiers: I am partly of Asian descent so I feel I can write these words without seeming prejudiced against folks from the world regions that used to be called “Oriental” (that would be the Far East; continental Asians such as Indians and people from the Middle East are not included in this discussion).
So this is only my own, twisted, outrageous viewpoint. But please believe that I am not being sensationalistic for shock value: I really do not find Asian girls attractive.1 I think this has a lot to do with the environment I experienced as a child (heavily Jewish neighborhood, almost totally Caucasian school) and not with any learned behaviors.
Therefore, my view is totally unfair to the beautiful ladies gracing this page, or to the many good looking ladies married/dating many members of the CT. This only represents my preference, and nobody should care about my preferences, really.2
I watch a lot of Chinese, Japanese TV shows and movies so I’m definitely exposed to lots of beautiful actresses. But no matter how highly regarded they are, I am not in the slightest moved or attracted. Is this a loss or an advantage? I’d like to think that not being attracted to these ladies gives me a bit of an advantage. I cannot be manipulated or influenced by the beauty of a good 50% of the world’s population. This is good. It feels a bit like a super-power of sorts.
So the title of the article should be “Asians? Not attractive to me, and that’s great !!”
I’ve never written to a Congressman before, but these new airport security measures have inspired me to do so. Here is my letter:
Congressman,
I’m writing to say that I oppose the new invasive airport security procedures (backscatter imaging and aggressive pat-downs). You’re probably hearing this a lot, but perhaps not from people with my background.
First, I’m not a frequent flyer. I fly on average once per year to visit my family during Christmas. And it appears that the airports I’m scheduled to fly out of do not have the full body scanners. Even though this may not affect me for a while, I want to voice my opinion while there is still time to do something about it (and save taxpayer’s money).
Second, I am a registered Republican and while I don’t always vote straight Republican, you’ve had my vote whenever you’ve appeared on my ballot.
Third, I consider myself something of a patriot. I have over a decade in the defense industry. I watched with horror as the towers fell, and I understand the need for security. However, regarding these procedures, I think the cost to our liberty is too high.
I also object to the supporters of this initiative who frame this issue in black and white: we either give up all our rights as travelers and fly with complete safety, or we let anyone and anything on board our aircraft and watch them fall from the sky. Clearly, nobody has to make this choice.
I know you are busy, but please take the time to read this fascinating article about how Israel, who faces terror threats far more often than we do, has secured their airports without engaging in security tactics that are demeaning and demoralizing. Yes, it will take personnel with more training and intelligence than your average TSA employee, but I believe this is exactly what travelers would like to see and would be happy to pay the price.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199
Thank you.
I procrastinated writing an article on using a cool little device called the TV Guardian which allows you to watch TV and DVD with the foul language muted. You can read more about it here but in short: it scans the Close-Caption (CC) signal and everytime it detects a “bad word” it mutes the sound and presents a “cleaned-up” version of the dialogue in the close captions area (eg: Let’s have sex !! became Let’s have hugs.1)
Unfortunately, my delay has cost me dearly. In the years since I tried out this fantastic new technology, most studios have disabled the Close-Captioning signal opting instead for built-in subtitles. So TV Guardian has in effect stopped working for 50% of the movies on DVD and all movies on Blu-Ray, which does not carry the CC signal.
Enter James Cameron, my hero.
He is releasing a 3-disc collector’s edition of Avatar, featuring a family-friendly language track. In this New York Times article, he mentions that he was motivated to do this by watching his kids picking up foul language from watching the original movie soundtrack. He reasons that the clean language track will be made available for airline and network showing, so why not include it now in the Collector’s Edition release.
- Exclamation points deleted, because nobody gets excited about a hug [↩]
I subscribe to several different woodworking periodicals and I also read several woodworking blogs and view several woodworking pod casts. Never before have I been so angry at the stupidity of a fellow woodworker. A couple of months ago a man in Boston was awarded $1.5 Million dollars by a jury (even though he was only seeking $250,000) for nearly chopping off a few fingers while using a table saw. Does anyone remember when someone won a law suit against McDonald’s for spilling hot coffee in their lap? Did anyone else get angry about that one? Well, that’s how I feel about this.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe cuss words are bad. They are considered rude language, vulgar, low-rent. And with good reason; they are only used when you run out of ideas, want to vent at someone or something or want to look tough in the eyes of someone even dumber than you. Cuss words are often used as the default adverb or adjective for any ocassion, and they replace words which have actual meaning1. So your language starts meaning less and less, when you use cuss words.
There’s even a club in Pasadena, CA that promotes the eradication of cuss words, and their membership is growing. And folks are taking to making up fake words that *sound* like cuss words so that they can avoid doing the nasty2.
But don’t judge them too harshly. There’s a reason ‘bad’ words are used today and were in use in Shakespeare’s time (although I don’t think he ever put anything too harsh in his works). They are a great substitute for *actually* punching someone/something out because you are mad/frustrated at some perceived slight. Think about it: primitive peoples chose some random sound and assigned it a ‘bad’ meaning, and agreed that using that sound would connote anger and pseudo-violence. So instead of fighting it out with the guy who cuts you off in the freeway, you can let a few cuss words fly and it has the same effect3
- Remember how awful it was when people started using “Smurfy” instead of a real word? [↩]
- My favorite comes from Dahl’s move “The Amazing Mr. Fox” where the word “cuss” actually takes the place of a cuss word. Brilliant !! [↩]
- Well, sometimes words escalate into violence, but that’s not how it’s supposed to work. [↩]
I am a tech junkie. I have seven computers (despite the fact that there’s only four of us living here). There’s six TVs, three satellite radio receivers, four DVD players, and we each have our own Nintendo DSi. Two PSPs as well.
I am sure this impresses no one on the Crack Team, and may even be laughable to some. The Crack Team contains many savvy enthusiasts that most would find to be eccentric. I disagree with this assertion. I’d like to think we are NORMAL while everyone else falls below the mark as far as tech goes.
I’ll explain with an example.
My wife is the head Veterinary Technician at a 24 hour animal emergency hospital. She knows things about medicine I will never know, and she is definitely smarter than any other woman I’ve been with.
That said, she is a complete fucking idiot when it comes to tech. Although she has come a long way since she’s been with me, she will never get to our level.
True story – When I met her, she thought that the computers main ‘body’ or case was called the “modem.” It took a long time for her to stop calling it that. Whenever she had a problem, she would confuse the hell out of me by saying that she turned the modem on, but saw nothing on the screen.
This is just one example of many.
Just the other week, I had to show her where the “search” function was on her Rhapsody account. It’s not as if they hide these things on purpose. If anything they WANT you to easily search through their catalog. Boom, there it is right on top. You scrolled down too quickly.
This kind of stuff happens frequently and not just with Rhapsody. She’ll download something, but can’t find where it went even though she CHOSE it’s download location.
I can tell when it’s time to help her before she even asks. She’ll be at her laptop, then she’ll start huffing and shaking her head. Finally she’ll say something like “I hate computers.”
and I think I know why.
Two reasons:
One: The majority of tech software and hardware is designed FOR tech people. This is why the few tech companies that CATER to the lesser-savvy majority, are so successful. It’s true! Companies with great products are far more successful when they dumb-down their interface.
Take Google for example. The king of online search. Why is this so? They aren’t the oldest.
Lets look at their main page. (Do not sign in)
Note how basic it is! Sure it’s not flashy, but as far as functionality goes, 99.9% of users can use this page without instruction.
Now let’s look at Yahoo, a veteran search provider. I admit I use Yahoo frequently despite Google’s popularity. However it’s easy to see why most don’t. It’s interface is complicated when placed next to Google’s. There are many viewing options, and even if you want the most basic layout, you must go through some steps to get there and have your setting saved, which of coarse is only available if you remain signed in on your own computer.
It’s this simple: Users and customers don’t like to think. They don’t have time! They want something basic that works with no effort and there’s plenty of companies who thrive off of this.
Apple understands this all too well.
The iPod is not the first disk-free player, yet they capitalize on design and interface so well, that many of Apple’s sheep THINK they invented the mobile media device.
The same goes for the iPhone.
My first PDA-phone was the Samsung SCH-i700 I got back in 2003 (which was nowhere near the first PDA-phone hybrid).
Utilizing a mobile version of Windows, it was amazing. It had a swiveling camera, memory card slot, 3.5 inch touch screen, played MP3s and movies, and connected to my computer for file transfers and backup. It even had a true 3D pool game that I played for hours a day. I was so happy with this device, that I showed it off to everyone I knew.
Fast forward to 2007. I’ve been through two more PDA-phones by this point, my favorite being the HTC 6700 which came with a built-in joystick which was GREAT for gaming, but still a serious PDA to it’s core.
Suddenly people are coming up to me and showing off their new iPhone with the “first ever touch screen” with camera and music player built in.
Excuse me? Did I miss something here? What’s new about this? The CAPACITIVE touchscreen is new, although most had no idea what that even meant.
I grabbed their iPhone and was less than impressed. Although I can see why teens would like this device. It was fun, easy to use… but a little “basic” for me. It was like holding a cartoon in my hand. As opposed to my PDA-phones which were like holding a mini-computer. And even today I still prefer resistive touchscreens for the precision you only get with a stylus, plus the ability to use anything to manipulate the screen. IE fingers, pens, toothpicks, whatever.
Not to mention how HORRIBLY slow the internet was on the iPhone with AT&T. All I wanted to do was show someone what a Bird-of-Paradise flower looked like. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took 30 minutes to accomplish. Pages loaded so slowly, that I would have to put the phone down, do something else, and come back to check the progress. I’m reminded of those Commodore 64 days where you’d have to load a program with the tape player by pressing PLAY and then go outside to skate for a while before checking back to see if we could play Joust yet. Also the iPhone had a tendency to disconnect from it’s data service, which means you had to reconnect and start browsing online from scratch, NOT from where you left off.
The experience was FAR from what the commercials showed, although I’m sure the latest generation iPhone is far better even though it took years for the device to live up to the original hype.
But again, Apple did it right. Commercials, commercials, commercials, and a simple interface designed for the masses.
I am NOT in any way ridiculing anyone on the team if they happen to own an iPhone. If I had extra money, I might own one too. It’s a fun device with many uses. However I am turned off by the lack of customization when compared to a windows based device.
As with any PDA, to get some interesting hacks out of the iPhone you must unlock the firmware. However on the iPhone, if you “jailbreak” the device for expanded uses, you run the risk of being banned from the app community and other Apple services.
HTC on the other hand could give a rats ass what you do with their phones. It’s at your own risk. Play all you want.
Back at the end of 2007, I had a HTC 6800 which had a hidden GPS chip installed for future research. It was not meant for public use, but thanks to the underground/mod community, users were able to reflash the stock ROM with a GPS enabled one. So basically, I had a PDA-Phone with true GPS (actual satellite link) WAY before this was even marketed as a standard feature in other phones. In fact, the iPhone didn’t get true GPS until 2009.
Why is this? Simple. The GPS feature in my 6800 back in 2007 was not without flaws. The device took about 2 minutes to get a solid position lock, and it would only update your position once every ten seconds, which is an eternity when you are driving.
It took about a month of further tweaking to get the GPS to a solid usable state.
So you see why these kind of features take so long to reach the community. Customers want things to work flawlessly, straight out of the box. Which is great, but the downfall for such reliability is that once these kinds of features are released, they are far from cutting-edge anymore.
Now back to my point. Companies that commercialize well, and distribute a product or feature with 3rd grade usability, will be successful.
And now the second reason why the majority are not tech-junkies:
They aren’t given enough time.
Technology upgrades far faster than it needs to.
Unfortunately, consumers demand products to be faster, smaller, and more eco-friendly without knowing why. The only real gain for them is to SAY they own the fastest, smallest, and cleanest product, when the reality is; they haven’t gotten full use out of the existing product yet.
What there needs to be is a final exam. Most don’t enter 4th grade without graduating 3rd. So why buy iKewl 2.0 when you barely understand the functions of iKewl 1.0? It’s because they aren’t given much choice. Suddenly you can’t find iKewl 1.0 anymore. Commercials brainwash you to the point where you feel you can’t exist without iKewl 2.0, and anyone still using iKewl 1.0 is a fucking loser.
Thankfully, this is where we fit in. As anyone who reads Dilbert knows, just as there’s a few people who easily understand advanced math, and others who can quickly pick up a foreign language, there are some people who just get technology. I don’t believe it’s something that can be taught. either you have it or you don’t.
I took three years of Spanish in high-school, yet still, I barely understand anything past the Taco Bell menu. Although I could learn the language, it would require a lot of time and energy that I don’t have. My brain is just not wired to pick this stuff up as easily as others do.
But when it comes to electronics….
This is embarrassing, but I’m going to tell you this anyway in hopes that someone else may feel the same way or at least get a laugh out of this. (Comedy comes before pride):
When I open a new box to something electrical for the first time…. like a new laptop for example. I am much like an animal with a fresh kill. I don’t want to be crowded. GET AWAY! grrrr. I’ll show you later, after I’m done looking it over.
I even smell the item. I’m serious. New electronics have a certain smell, much like the new-car-smell which doesn’t last long, but fills me with a sense of – “oooh good things are going to happen!”
In my house the rule is, it doesn’t matter what the item is or who it’s for. If it has a power button,… I am the first to open it. I don’t care if it’s a freaking vacuum cleaner, my wife ordered. I must be the one to open it, play with all the accessories,…. and of coarse smell it.
Before you laugh, you must consider it from my viewpoint. Chances are, I am the one who needs to put it together anyway, teach others how to use it correctly, not to mention the one who must deal with it if it breaks or has missing parts. It’s best for me to “test drive” the item first to insure the user can’t blame anything on factory defects.
So back to the point. Soon The crack Team will get their hands on a portable teleportation device. It will be great. We can just appear on the East Coast for a nice dinner in New York, then (swoosh) right back to California! Practically for free! (The machine will use no more power than a fridge).
But of coarse, two years after that, the Apple iZoom will come out. It will only have a range of 100 miles, and teleport sites must be Apple approved or it wont work. BUT it will come in many nifty colors with an incredibility easy to operate, one-button interface.
Zoom away!