No one likes getting mugged. AI pardon me while sit here and shake while i mutter “I’m too old for this shit.” At least it was a failed attempt.
Archive for the 'Business as usual' Category
From the Oatmeal. Used with their permission 
Like the Oatmeal, I’m against SOPA/PIPA-EVEN THOUGH MY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN PIRATED ONLINE. Unlike the Oatmeal I don’t believe it is necessary to pass additional legislation to fight online copying, nor do I believe it’s piracy*. Nor do I think the bills purveyors are suffering any harm from online copying-the motion picture industry of Amerika have just had their 2 most profitable years ever. This is about control of speech, control of access to information and control of populations. And about a corrupt political system for sale to the highest bidder. Trust me, if actual piracy was involved, the President would’ve happily sent the SEALS to cap them.
This is important enough that I spent over an hour standing outside borrowing wifi to make this pos
*There has been one case of movie piracy, where a support feature attempt to take over the main feature by force of arms. They were harshly dealt with. 50 woofie points to anyone who remembers the movie containing that brilliant bit parodying corporate takeovers-
Sometimes you don’t have time to finish breakfast, like when the phone company sends thugs in to throw you out of your apartment. Oh well, I was thinking about moving anyway.
Will the President of the USA please remove the Koch brothers genitals from his mouth? PLEASE!!! You do know they’re not going to give you any money, and you know from all the jobs they created under Bush they’re not going to create any for you. This latest giving in without a fight makes me wonder how he got through university and law school (hint, hint). The affects of this are huge, because increasingly the fabled legendary independents that Obama is always catering to are saying “why should I vote for a fake republican when I can vote for the real deal?”
Andy Ihnatko, like so many other pundits, repeats the common wisdom that Apple created the tablet market:
Despite the iPad’s ungodly dominance of a market that Apple pretty much created, the scramble for the biggest piece of that pie is still very much on
But tech historians and nerds will cringe. It’s a repeat of a pattern that probably dates back to the wheel. Apple didn’t create the market. Dr. Alan Kay, the man who coined the term Personal Computer created the modern platonic ideal of the tablet in the late 60s with his paper on the Dynabook. Pencept, General Magic, Palm, Grid, Casio, and Go created the market, and populated it over 20 years years ago. Apple followed with Newton in 1993, then Microsoft tried to eat the market with Windows for Pen Computing and Windows CE (which would eventually morph into Windows Mobile and Windows Mobile Phone 7). DEC and then Compaq entered the market. Eventually Microsoft came out with Tablet versions of Xp, Vista and Windows 7. Motorola, AT&T and Bellsouth entered the market. Sony, HP, and Toshiba entered the market. Sharp who had already been there almost since the beginning, re-entered with a Linux based tablet. Nokia entered the market. Archos entered the market-years before Apple “created” the market. People are still giivng me their old tablets-a few months after I tossed out my my cache of dead Palms, I’ve been given a boot box worth of Palms, Compaqs, HPs, Nokias, and a weird Ericsson.
I’d argue that Apple wasn’t even first to get it right, causing users to flock to them. I think Palm and Archos got it right first, and Palm has the numbers to prove it. The original Palm Pilot had the fastest product roll out since the VHS deck, a record that wasn’t beaten untill the iPad. Hell, my first generation 33mhz Palm based Visorphone was faster to use as a phone then my first generation 486mhz iPhone (but then my iPhone is faster to use as a phone running Android then IOS). The Archos tablets I’ve played with were totally usable, and fun. What Apple got right was integration with desktop apps, integration with an app store and sexiness.
Nothing new here. While most historians date the personal computer revolution to the announcement of the Altair 8800 kit in the January 1975 edition of Popular Electronics magazine in 1975, there had been personal computers before it, and personal computer kits before it. It did explode in the general public’s consciousness, and lead to the founding of a host of computer companies, including Apple in 1976. Apple’s second computer was a huge hit-so big that they later claimed to have invented the personal computer, more then once.
I’m not really upset with Andy, I’m curious as to why some companies get the credit despite not being there first. You can’t blame it on alpha male pheromones, but some weird mechanism is at work here. And I don’t hate the iPad, they’re fun devices to play with, and for a lot of people they’re all the computer they’ll ever need. But I’m very interested in the upcoming HP/Palm pad and the RIM Playbook. I’ve been waiting for real tablet computing since I first heard of the Dynabook, and looks like we’re finally getting close.
It’s what’s on the ballot this campaign season!
-this message brought to you by your Republican Party,
who approves it’s content but will still deny saying it.
You spend 20 fscking years running around telling everyone that the sky is falling and when it finally does fall, you don’t even get the warm feeling of vindication. You do get your friends and family looking askance at you, wondering what the hell you are talking about, just like they did when you were warning them of impending doom. So rather then jump up and down like I normally do and cite all the points I was right about the current economic collapse, I’m just going to wish you all well (ok, I really want to rub it in, considering when Greenspan announced his retirement I said the economy will collapse within 18 months of his tell all being published).
This is just the beginning, it gets worse form here. Our position in the world has changed, perhaps permanently. Good luck to you all, and take care. And maybe hoard some canned goods 
OH CRAP.
quickly, we need a replacement for de.licio.us, Flickr, and all the other things they’ve bought up…
It helps that she and her husband are retired Airforce officers, but this woman smashed up up the Comcast office for lieing to her and not hooking up her phone. I realize we all wish we could do it. But it’s the wrong target, COMCAST employees on the bottom aren’t the real problem. Hell, most “comcast” employees are actually subcontractors. It’s the snickering millionaire scum on the top who are the real problem. We’re not advocating you send the CEO dead fish or gophers, nor are we suggesting you do a fandango on him or his phone with a hammer. But here’s where his office is.
