Cell Phone Prices
Cell phones are ubiquitous for most people in technologically current countries. Cell phones are almost as prolific as America Online disks, yet, unlike America Online disks, cell phones have not become free, rather, the price of a cell phone has sky-rocketed since inception.
Mobile carries push you to get a new phone every two years or more frequently, they cajole you into going for services that are pointless (TXT, mobile web, GPS), and they convince you that it’s OK to pay hundreds of dollars a month to subscribe to their phone service…yet they also want to rip you off by making you PAY for the phone!
Consider a cell phone bill of $25 a month for unlimited everything. This is far less that what most folks pay nowadays, but will serve for illustrative purposes nicely.
At the rate of $25 a month, a cell phone company will get $600 per year from a consumer. Over the course of two years, that’s $1200, yet they STILL would want to charge you for the privilege of PAYING them for a phone? AND they want to contractually FORCE you to pay them and only them for a period of two years?
Poppycock!
Cell phone companies are ripping off consumers. Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, ad infinitum. They simply picked up in the digital age where the Ma Bell left off in the age of analog! Even if you don’t remember ever paying to make a long distance call, rest assured, the old phone companies made billions and billionsof dollars off of folks who just wanted to call their family who lived far away. They ripped us off then, and now cell phone companies are ripping us off now.
Similar price points across cell phone companies, coupled with two-year locked-down contracts are clear examples of industry-wide collusion.
So did the Telecommunications Act of 1996 work as intended? It depends.
If your bill for monthly phone service has increased, it’s a safe bet that the promise of more competition has failed miserably.
If, on the other hand, you are scoring record profits from every new gadget and price point your ram down the throats of your customers, then it’s a safe bet that you are reaping exactly what you expected and laughing all the way to the bank. Oh hell, you’re not even going to the bank, you’re doing free wire transfers to Switzerland over telecommunication lines you own! Enjoy the money while you can - you can’t take it with you.
Win-Win with Windows 7!
I wouldn’t say I download a lot of porn. I am not completely immune to any potential bugs or virii floating around the internet. But I am currently running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 without any anti-virus software installed. I have an Office suite, and I am reading e-mail and I download e-mail attachments that come from trustworthy sources…I just haven’t loaded anti-virus software.
I know I can clean it up if I am infected. I do have a backup solution in place. It would be possible for me to format my disk and start anew if conditions dictated…but for now I am debating the merits of installing anti-virus software at all.
Windows 7 is trucking right along on my computer system. It records movies and finds them on my hard drive. It features my pictures and changes my wallpaper every few minutes, and it is always there when I want it.
It really is the best operating system Microsoft has released, ever.
If you are a fan of Windows XP but hate Vista, then make the jump to Windows 7. Windows 7 has improved the feature that will allow you to transfer all your files and settings from your XP computer to your Windows 7 computer (Software is here. Instructions are here). If you are running Vista, do not hesitate to upgrade to Windows 7, and if you use another operating system, give Windows 7 a try, you may still return to your preferred operating system, but you will admit that this time, Microsoft got it right.
I am not here to sell you Windows, I am not here to tell you it’s better than anything else. I can say: it just works. It works better than any of its predecessors and it’s a worthy upgrade.
Windows 7 will be a big enough target that I will install anti-virus software, but I have been enjoying not having any external updaters running every time I touch my keyboard. See you at the party!
Everything Including the Kitchen Sync
Everybody hates Microsoft. I get it. Buy a Mac! Use Linux! Get an iPod! Zunes blow! Now that that’s out of the way…Microsoft Sync in ford automobiles rocks. Here’s what happened: I needed a four-door automobile due to the changing conditions in my life. I sadly and reluctantly traded in my beautiful 1999 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. I got hosed over on the deal, but what else was I going to do with the car? I have to get rid of it, and I did avoid having to make additional expensive repairs to it - and now I have a four-door vehicle, a 2009 Ford Fusion.
The vehicle came with two features that were semi-interesting but did not seal it for me: Sirius satellite radio and Microsoft Sync technology.
I have been enjoying the Sirius satellite radio, but mainly for the variety of channels. Most of the talk radio available is crap and some of the music stations are repetitive. It’s nice having the weather channels available, I just wish I lived in Boston, Philly, Phoenix, or San Fran (etc.) so I could actually benefit from them. The verdict is out on whether or not I will renew the Sirius subscription when the six-month introductory period expires. I will keep y’all posted.
The Microsoft Sync technology? Rock on! I haven’t figured out all the commands just yet, but I also haven’t read the guides. The buttons are intuitive enough that once you figure out how to hit your voice activation, you just sort of figure out what to say and when. The only thing my dealer helped me with was the initial sync to my bluetooth phone on the night I bought my car. All the rest of the commands and buttons I have figured out through trial and error. It has been pretty easy and the only struggles I had were in the beginning when I couldn’t figure out how to exit a menu easily.
All of the buttons you need are right on the steering wheel and to answer the phone you simply hit the picture of a phone on your radio (right next to your tuning knob).
What this technology gives you is hands-free cell phone communication while driving. Not only is it awesome, it should be required for any cell phone owners who wish to talk while driving.
Microsoft hit a home run with this implementation of their sync technology and it doesn’t require you to reboot your car, ever.
And if this weren’t enough, Microsoft is taking it a step further in their F-150s. It’s only a matter of time before our dashboards are merely an extension of our Facebook profiles. Imagine the update, “Bongo is heading south on 35W near exit 233B, Longitude 44.960699, Latitude, -93.269355.” Frightening? Yes, but hopefully there will always be an opt-out clause.
That’s Why I Choose to Only Shop From Skymall on a Plane
Normal stores stuck on the ground, they strike me as mundane.
That’s why I choose to only shop from Skymall on a plane.
I’ve got a watch that sets itself with satellites in space
And glasses with a fifty inch TV for on my face.
My luggage is the kind preferred by golfers who are pro.
In my my pocket there’s a GPS to tell me where to go.
My grill at home’s accessorized with lights and other things,
Like a doodad on my belt that when my steak is done it dings.
A hanging upside down device keeps my back from getting sore
But when it is I’ve got a plastic stick to rub it more.
I have a toaster oven that’s designed by Wolfgang Puck
And an underwater vacuum–what an extraordinary suck!
My vest has weights. My pet-foods timed. My shoes have built in springs.
I’ve hundreds of alarm clocks, one shoots helicopter things.
There’s a device that’s made specifically to help me fall asleep,
A whooshing sound or waterfall, it sure beats counting sheep.
A stress reducing wrist band that needs a battery.
A pair of golfing glasses make my balls easy to see.
My bike fits in a back-pack1 that I wear when I can’t ride
Like when I walk to aerate my lawn with spikes on my shoes outside.
Speaking of lawns mine’s always well lit for my lights have solar powers.
The sun also charges a vibrating thingy that keeps the moles out of my flowers.
The walk to my house has a gazing ball that’s twenty-three inches and glows
And you can’t tell how I water my grass ’cause a flower pot hides my hose.
I’ve got a step to help my dog get up into my bed,
A gate to keep him from the kitchen, an urn for when he’s dead2.
My golf cart looks like an Escalade1, it cost me twenty grand.
There are hanging seats I hook on my truck, when I tailgate I don’t have to stand.
For my wife I’ve gotten a lot of things like roses dipped in gold,
and her make up mirror has a light so she won’t look so old.
The largest crossword in the world, the smallest helicopter too.
A Star Wars traveling battleship game and litter robot for poo.
A robot shark and floating black jack game–My pool is full of shit!
A little boat that brings the drinks to the chair in which I sit.
Theft is no concern of mine. I’ve cameras all around
And a folding ladder just in case my house is burning down.
There’s a spot on my mantle for Harry’s wand and other wizard things.
I’ve also a copy of Frodo’s sword ’cause he’s the Lord of the Rings!
There are handles for my toilet so I don’t fall down when I poop
And life is so much easier with a heated ice-cream scoop.
A robot Elvis talks to me and sings at my command.
Oxidation I fear not with my rustproof towel stand1.
Believe you me, I’ve got more things, this list is only some
But my plane is boarding. I’ve got to fly! SKYMALL HERE I COME!
1 This used to be in skymall I swear… they must have stopped selling it.
2 Not actually sold by skymall… slackers.
Your Data is (NOT) Secured!
The next time a paper or a web form or a company asks for your SSN and they assure you that their data practices are safe, think of this video and ask them if anyone in their company uses laptops computers. Of course, I am not suggesting that desktop PCs could NOT be compromised with the exact same attack, they can, but it would be slightly more difficult to stroll into corporate headquarters and walk off with a desktop PC or a mainframe server.
Google Trent Lott and Benjamin Nicolas to Find Out Why Trent is Resigning
My experience with the Xbox 360
About two weeks ago I received an Xbox 360 for my birthday from my wife. She did a lot of research and got a really good deal on a refurbished machine with an extra controller and a copy of Halo 3. Now, I know that 360s are notoriously unreliable and one might immediately assume getting a refurbished machine is a bad idea, but the reduced cost and the supposed elimination of the red-ring-of-death problem (that’s what they refurbish) made it seem like a good idea.
Once opened I immediately activated Xbox live and went to a store to pick up a game with the 25$ gift card that some friends had given me. I expected to get Gears of War or Crackdown because they’ve been out for a year–I was wrong. The used version of each was pushing 50$ which I found astonishing. It turns out that triple-A 360 titles are holding their value as much as triple-A Nintendo titles (go try to find a used copy of Smash Bros or Mario Kart). The only good game that I could afford was Dead Rising by Capcom. I think it was a launch title and it was still 30$ so I had to pay a little. I’d never played the game before but I know it reviewed well and I trust Capcom with zombies. The game turned out to be great (lawn mower + zombies = awesome), I had a fellow eightandfiver over and we played passing the controller. We also played a little halo but the game isn’t that good to watch and my wife was playing with us and wasn’t a big Halo fan. We actually ended the night playing Super Mario 3 that was just made available on the virtual console–score one for the Wii.
Within the next week I had gotten Bioshock and Orange Box through game fly. I also had Gears of War briefly but there were too many new games to play before I went through the catalog. I sent it back and got Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (another good Capcom game, this time for the wii, also with zombies). I also managed to throw down a reservation for Rock Band that involved trading in an assload of games to get to the $160 and the last 360 reservation available at the GameStop I shop at.
Bioshock was great, although with Orange Box I had trouble committing to it, I’m sure the significant other and I will get around to it at some point. I put a lot of time into portal and even started replaying Half-Life 2. Damn these are great games. I had trouble playing team fortress 2 because all my multi-player time was going to Halo 3 (also a great game). I really felt like I had in the heyday of the PS2 when we had just tons of great stuff all at the same time (GTA, SSX, Burnout, Katamari…). I was in heaven—and it was during a game of portal just after I got the weighted companion cube that my 360 froze for the first time.
I restarted and started to play Half-Life 2 and got pretty far when it froze again (thank god for tons of auto saves). This time when I restarted the 360 it was flashing red. It was the standard red-ring-of-death that a refurbished Xbox isn’t supposed to get. I know this because the towel trick worked. The problem lies in some solders that fail to connect. The towel trick involves wrapping the console in a towel to deliberately overheat it so the solder expands and connects again. A temporary fix at best.
The real downer was that the next day I got to pick up Rock Band and then leave the house and spend thanksgiving in North Carolina (where I had a marvelous time). I got back on Sunday ready to try the 360 again, with the towel trick if need be, to finally get to try out the killer rock band drums… I couldn’t get past the title screen.
I managed to get a hold of the company that refurbished it and get a return authorization. They were really responsive and allowed me to keep the hard drive and all other accessories. The system is currently in transit to them, they’ve assured me they have a quick turnaround time and that they’ll mail off another system within a day of receiving mine.
I hope I get it soon. I’m afraid my weighted companion cube is going to miss me.
How Far Have We Come?
Those who have worked with the Nextstep operating system know how advanced it was considering that at the time, Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 was the operating system of choice for computers around the world. A quick comparison of the two makes it clear that Steve Jobs was years ahead of the time. This video shows Jobs demonstrating the Nextstep OS 3.0 in 1992. It is interesting to watch, but it brings up an interesting question: How far have we come? In 1997 Apple bought NeXT and its Nextstep OS, the OS then became the basis for the new OS X. It’s been more than 15 years, and we really haven’t come that far when it comes to operating systems, eh? Just something to ponder is all…
Antiques Roadshow the Video Game
Let’s say you had a one gigabyte MP3 player full of music. Using encryption one could take all of the information contained on the MP3 player and turn it into a string of numbers based on the key and equation used for the encryption.
Consider that your DNA is a string of numbers in base 4.
If one had a device that could analyze the data contained in your DNA and determine the proper encryption method necessary to result in the exact same data contained on the MP3 player one could create a storage free MP3 player. It would be some thing that decrypted your DNA is such a way that resulted in your desired playlist.
Of course this would involve reverse encryption, or encryption cracking, which we can’t do effectively yet. It may even be slightly more complicated than that, but I still think it’s a cool idea.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night!
Scientists have announced that a new rock floating through space, Gliese 581 c may be a habitable planet. If this is the case, we will need to start thinking about ways to get there. Hell, we’ve been thinking about it as a species for years but we need to put aside social and political differences and really work toward finding a way to migrate to a new habitable planet. We don’t even need to live there really. We just need to be able to grow food on the planet until we find more planets capable of sustaining life.
Once we discover a planet capable of supporting farming, we can send our robo-workers to do do all the heavy lifting and humans will make future livings as Teamsters. Only we’ll all be piloting space ships delivering foodstuffs and repair parts back and forth. Ice Pirates anyone? It may have been an entertaining farce in 1984, but if we as the human race want to go out with a bang, not a whimper, then we really need to start making real progress into deep-space exploration and migration.
We need inter-galactic spaceships capable of traversing millions of miles a la Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek.
Think of it as science fiction if you must…but things change. Sometimes, fantastic stories that were once considered fiction lead to discovery.
Open Congress, Where Have You Been All My Life?
While listening to On The Media last weekend (one of the top five show on public radio) I was introduced to OpenCongress.org. My life is different now. Instead of thinking of the legislative process as sort of an amorphous conglomeration of radio stories, blog entries and speeches on c-span I can now see it for what it is. Bills being voted on by legislators. Open Congress has the current congressional schedule and all the bills being proposed and voted on. Most importantly it allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds regarding the specific bills you’re interested in (I think there could be some marvelous things done with yahoo pipes and this, but I’m not going to do them–if anyone finds anything let me know).
In addition to the bill feeds it lets you subscribe to the RSS feeds of specific legislators votes. Once I started subscribing I couldn’t stop. I’ve already made a separate tab on my google home page just for Open Congress feeds. I’ve subscribed to each senator and house member from Minnesota and Montana as well as a handful of the potential Presidential Candidates and others that I’m just interested in.
I haven’t even started adding the committee stuff yet but I’m hoping to get to it tonight. I encourage everybody to check it out and use it. It’s a power tool of democracy! Baby!