I was in the work restroom today.  There are 3 urinals right next to each other, there was 1 person in the whole restroom other than me, and he had decided to use the center urinal.  As I walked in, I noticed the dude was holding his iPhone in one hand as he was peeing…

So I settle in, right next to him, (obviously this man has no regards for maniquite with being in the center stall) and start doing my business, the whole while, this dude is using his iPhone and peeing.   The whole time, I’m desperately fighting the urge to punch the guy in the face.  The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I didn’t want to get piss on my pants.

He finishes up his business, zips up (single handed), washes his single hand with 1 hand, gets paper towel with his non-iPhone hand and dries off.. the whole time, I don’t think he actually took his eye off of his iPhone the whole time.  I’m not sure if I should be impressed by the fact that this dude could do this, or annoyed because this dude can’t stop smsing or surfing the web long enough to take a piss.

I don’t understand this.  Why is it that every technology company, ESPECIALLY Microsoft, gets thrown under the bus if some device they release has a minor bug in it, or if their upgrade doesn’t include every new feature under the sun.  That is, except for one company… Apple.

Lets recap shall we.  The new version of the iPhone is coming out in the US soon, already out elsewhere now.  Keep in mind, this is the 3rd rev of the iPhone in a year (give or take) (I shall hence forth call it The Jesus Phone), and I actually know people that will have purchased all three revs of the device, and EVEN stood in line for all of them.. 

I don’t understand why Apple gets a pass on this.  The first rev didn’t do 3g, no MMS, no copy/paste, can’t install any applications, cost an arm & a leg and STILL required a 2 year contract.  Didn’t get Push mail, didn’t do video, doesn’t take flash memory, etc.  Second rev, they change very little, upgrade the memory on the phone and call it a day… Now, the 3rd rev is out.  it gets 3G FINALLY, you can buy applications (only via iTunes through the iStore), it gets push mail, bla bla bla.. not that great really, yet everyone gobbles it up.  I get it… The Jesus Phone has a fantastic interface, it does.  it has a really nice form factor, it does.  It’s sleek and sexy, but it’s NOT THAT GREAT.

Another observation, and this is really what drives me nuts, are the tech reviews.  How every new feature is looked at and drooled over.  Features that most devices from the simplest cell phone up to existing smart phones already out on the market have been doing for some time.  The Jesus Phone has GPS.. EVERYONE REJOICE!!!  Yeah.. my phone had GPS last year.  The Jesus Phone has PUSH MAIL!!!! EVERYONE REJOICE.  Yeah, my phone has had push mail for 3 years now, blackberry’s been doing it, and doing it WELL for about 5 years now.  Thank you Apple for stepping up on that one.

Here is how a typical technology blog reviews a normal device:

The GPS on my xPhone is passable.  It took an appalling 30 seconds to nail down my location and *gasp* it put me 5 feet from my actual location, obviously it still needs some work.

And then The Jesus Phone review

Well I got my hands on The Jesus Phone and all I can say is WOW!!!!  I ran outside and waited for it to tell me my location.  It only took about 3 minutes to pull up where I was standing, but I noticed that it placed me at a Starbucks about 3 blocks down the road.  That’s Ok though.  I wanted coffee anyway.

The article would then go on to describe how the Jesus Phone must have been listening to the conversation between him and his buddy while they were trying on moc turtlenecks at the j Crew and it decided that they needed a grande half caf non fat skinny soy caramel late’ with no foam and some nutmeg sprinkled on the top extra hot and that’s why it put their location at Starbucks.  GODDAMN THIS DEVICE IS AMAZING.

Anyway, it’s late, I need to go home and play with the kids.

A few days ago I was driving home for lunch down a 4 lane road when a funeral procession came my way. I instantly pulled over and waited for it to pass. I do this even though the procession is on the other side of the road and there are multiple lanes between us, and so should you.

As I was sitting there, and I wasn’t the only person pulled over by the way, People would come up behind me slow down, then pass me and keep on driving.

That just PISSES ME OFF. Seriously, how hard is it for a person to show a little respect? I can think of maybe one reason that you would be justified to keep driving, and that’s if you have your pregnant wife in the seat next to you and she’s about to give birth, otherwise take time out of your, obviously overly important and busy day and PULL YOUR ASS OVER.

Seriously, It’s a show of respect, not so much for the dead person, but for the family. Remember, the person in that coffin was someone’s mother, father, husband, wife, brother, or sister. It’s a simple sign of respect toward the people that have experienced a loss, as simple as that. There is nothing so important in your day that you can’t take an extra 2 or 3 minutes to respect that simple fact. You don’t have to sit and watch as the procession goes by, hell, send someone a text message or something while you’re sitting there, lord knows you’re probably doing it while you’re driving anyway.

And remember, it’s seriously only going to take 2 or 3 minutes, often times less, sure sometimes someone was very popular or important and the procession will take longer, but what are we looking at, 10 minutes at most?? I think your stomach can wait another 3 minutes before you cram down the quarter pounder you’re about to go buy from McDonalds.

I’m currently in the market for a new mobile device.  I need something that is capable of receiving email and other things from our central email servers.  Blackberries, Windows Smart Phones, and the iPhone are a few of the devices that come to mind…  I would jump up and buy an iPhone right away if it wasn’t so laden with bullshit software restrictions/requirements and wasn’t tied to ATT.  I can get over the ATT part.. I’m currently with them, it’s OK, not great, but none of the cell providers are great.

The iPhone is a very sexy device.  That is the love I have for it.  It is, bar none, the best looking cell phone on the market (my opinion).  It definitely does some nifty tricks, it’s sexy, and has the features I want in a phone, for the most part.

It also has the aura of douchebaggery tied to it (see photo on left to see representation of both the iPhone and of a typical douchebag)

The iPhone is a typical representation of Apple creating a beautiful device and then crippling it horribly with software(see Apple TV, Apple Newton, iPod, Pippin).  I can actually live with the fact that the iPhone is locked down with what you can install on it and such, it essentially does whatever I want it to do so I’m fine with that (for the most part, I would love GPS), my problem is with the huge hunk of crap that they like to call iTunes.

I have an 60GB iPod currently.  I hate having to use iTunes for anything at all.  It cripples the device so badly.  You can’t 2-way sync your music, iTunes (you can not get any music off of an iPod by default when using iTunes) will try to wipe your device if you try to sync it.  I only purchased an iPod because, at the time, it was the only device that was both small and had a 60GB storage capacity so I could port all of my music around with me and still have some room for shuttling some data too.

The other thing about iTunes is it tries to take control of ALL of your media.  It installs quicktime, it tries to take all of your preferences for media playback by default.  Say you like to use Windows Media Player for watching videos.. install iTunes, by default Quicktime will take that preference from you.  Never mind what happens when you try to listen to a MP3 within a web browser, quicktime launches embeded in your browser and it runs it.  You change your preferences back to your desired behavior, and the next time Quicktime or iTunes comes out with an update, even a .0.0.0.0.1 update (which, by the way, almost always requires a full reinstall of iTunes) then Quicktime/iTunes will take the file preferences over again.

The other thing is, when you install iTunes on a windows computer, it installs 2 or 3 services that run all the time on your computer when you start the computer.  Why does it need to do this?  Normal plug-and-play should be enough to detect when the ipod is plugged in and should then launch iTunes for you.

Why all the bitching about iTunes when I’m talking about an iPhone?  Because in order to do ANYTHING with your iPhone (and make no mistake, it is YOUR device, you should be able to use it as you please) you MUST install and USE iTunes.  You have to have iTunes to activate your phone initially, you have to have iTunes to get any firmware updates to it, you have to have iTunes to put any music on it, you have to have iTunes to put wallpapers on it.  Never mind if you want to use a custom ringtone.  You can’t.  You have to buy it from Apple (the iTunes store).  On my current phone, and many previous phones, I could take any MP3 I wanted and make it into a ringtone — the way it should be (yes I know that there are ways around that, but that’s not the point).

I guess all I’m saying is, I sure wish the iPhone wasn’t tied down to so much crap…  it’d be a no-brainer for me to buy it.  Now I don’t know what to do.  I wish there was a windows mobile device that was as sexy as the iPhone.  Blah.

Hello Party People.

I have to say, I absolutely love this definition of Political Correctness.

Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

So I’ve been hearing a lot about the movie "The Golden Compass" and how all the religious people are all up in arms about it because it argues that "there is no god" and bla bla bla…  I have to admit, as soon as I hear someone say that, I tend to tone them out.  Although I do enjoy hearing the people get their panties in a wad..

I don’t have an argument with this actually.  Although having read the whole series of books, the first book (which the movie is based on) doesn’t really touch on this fact.  The big rub for a lot of religious people is not only the story but the author of the books.  The guy is a staunch atheist, and sure, he may be trying to push his views out there but here’s the thing…  It is a work of fiction.

Why is it that people can’t take what something for what it is.  It is a work of fiction.  That’s all.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Not only that, it’s not required viewing.  No where does it say you must go see this movie.  If you don’t like it, don’t go, don’t let your kids go, period.  But the thing is, why can’t a person go and view something for what it is, and basically, it’s a story.  The movie is rated PG-13, young children aren’t supposed to go to it anyway.  Kids above 13 can tell the difference between make-believe and reality.  They should be capable of having conversations with their parents about such things if they have questions right?  If you don’t like it, go watch Narnia.

Anyway, I didn’t start out writing this entry to step up on my soapbox and start preaching.  I’m just trying to say, it’s a work of fiction, take it for exactly that.  If you believe everything you see in the movies, I’d have a delorean assuming I could find a flux capacitor .

One of the people that I support sends an email in asking how to configure something on their computer.  I send them a link to a web page that we made with a simple 5 step procedure on how to do what he asked.  About 10 minutes later he shows up in my office saying that it didn’t work.  I ask if he read the instructions, he says "of course I did", so I ask him a few more questions and it becomes blatantly obvious that he didn’t read a single word of the directions I sent him.  So I tell him to try the directions I sent him and come back if it doesn’t work.  He sits down directly outside my office, boots his laptop up and tries it right there instead of going to his office to try it.  About 5 minutes later he stands up and says "It worked" and walked away. 

Here is the little rant I came across last week.  I tossed around the idea of posting just the URL and sending you to read it from there, but the web page isn’t real work safe so I am going to quote it here.  I try to keep my page fairly clean, I might drop a few f-bombs here and there, but that’s about it.

Quoted from Ernie’s House of Whoopass (click to visit the site, not safe for work!)  Keep in mind, these are not my words, but there’s no way in hell I could have written it better.

…the instructions to install any USB device can be boiled down as follows: First load the software, then plug in the new device.

 

That’s it. It’s a very simple premise. So let me ask you something. Do you put your shoes on before you put your socks on? No, of course you don’t. Especially if each morning, sitting atop your footwear, was an enormous color coded postcard that read, "DO NOT PUT YOUR SHOES ON UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE PUT YOUR SOCKS ON FIRST." I mean even if you don’t know a single thing about computers (or getting dressed), you’d at least be able to follow simple instructions like that, right? Because that’s all there is to it. Nothing else. No DMA channels or interrupt conflicts. No DIP switches or setting of bus speeds. Just true, honest to goodness ‘plug-and-play’ that nerds of yesterday only dreamed about. And all a person has to do is, you guessed it, Follow The Fucking Instructions. Instructions which are presented in step-by-step fashion to where even the biggest fucking idiot could readily keep up:

     1. Insert the CD into your computer.

     2. Close the CD tray.

     3. If the CD does not autorun, double click ‘autorun’.

     4. Follow the prompts on the screen.

     5. When told to do so, plug in the new USB device.

You’re looking at five idiot-proof steps — and I’m very serious when I say this — you have to actually work at fucking up a USB device install. It has to be a conscious effort. You have to wake up that morning and say to yourself, "My life is too easy. I’m going to make my life difficult, as well as the life of those around me." In order to fail with USB you have to come home from Best Buy, unwrap that new toy you bought, stare right at the five illustrated "QUICK INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS" and then you have to choose to fuck things up. You have to choose to transform a very simple task into a very difficult one. You have to choose to not Follow The Fucking Instructions. By performing something like this:

      1. Skip ahead and perform step 5.

      2. Go back to step 2.

      3. Go even further back and perform step 1.

      4. Perform step 5 again.

      5. Frustrated, go back and perform step 3.

      6. Perform step 4.

      7. Repeat step 4.

      8. Repeat step 4 again.

      9. Perform step 5.

     10. Perform step 1.

     11. Perform step 3.

      etc… until you end with…

     27. Call Ernie.

And here’s a newsflash you you. The first thing I’m going to ask — and it’s a question I’ll already know the answer to but I’ll ask it anyway just to hear you lie to me — is, "Did you follow the instructions?" I know what you’re going to say. I know what you’re going to say will be anything but the truth. This is just a question I ask so I have a few seconds to silently curse under my breath. You’re going to say you did. And here’s what’s going to happen next. I’m going to tell you to take unplug the USB device, eject the CD, turn your computer off, turn your computer on, and this time… Follow The Fucking Instructions. Now I know, this is an easy five minute process. Think about that: five minutes. Three hundred seconds. That’s a long time. So when thirty seconds later you say, "Okay, I did that and it didn’t work." I’ll know you’re lying again. You were incapable of following five instructions when they were illustrated with color drawings, so I don’t know what made me think you could follow five verbal instructions but again, I had to go through the motions. Amazed at my fortune telling skills? Wait, because there’s more. Here comes the big finale. I’m going to ask you a very direct question, "You unplugged your new USB ethernet adapter, ejected the CD, rebooted your computer, and reinstalled the software… just now?" And here’s what you’re going to say — and you’re actually going to believe this is a valid answer to my question — you’re going to answer, "I think so."

 

And in the end, I know that it will take less time and be less frustrating to me to get in my car, drive an hour to your house, and Follow The Fucking Instructions for you, than it will for me to try to walk you through this over the phone. Why? Because for some reason I can not understand, you are incapable of Following The Fucking Instructions

There’s just no way I could say it better so I figured I’d quote him.  If you want a good website to hit on a daily basis, I suggest EHOWA