Posted on September 05, 2007
I don't know what planet their marketing people are on, but the slogan “The New AT&T” really bothers me. It's not the new AT&T, if anything it's closer to the old AT&T. Check out this image taken from the AT&T wikipedia article:
I guess it’s part of the thinking that if you repeat something enough people will believe it is true. Of course what is really bothering me is I spent 45 minutes with “The New AT&T” last night on the phone activating a replacement lost cell phone for Michelle. I’ve come to the opinion that all cell phone companies suck and it’s no longer the choice of which one sucks less. They’re all large, monolithic organizations that couldn’t care less about their customers and make interacting with them as painful as possible. I want an iPhone, but not bad enough to deal with “The New AT&T.”
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on January 31, 2006
Like most Americans after 9/11 I've been listening for Muslim denouncement of terrorist. I've heard it from American groups but not much else. Apparently I wasn't listening hard enough or the story wasn't told.
Here is a list compiled by Charles Kurzman of UNC that lists statements by Muslims of note in response to terrorism and 9/11.
This is an interesting site on the topic as well.
On another Islam note, apparently free-speech is bad when it comes to Mohammad as is noted here and here. The comics that have spawned death threats, boycotts, and protests are here.
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on January 27, 2006
I found my way on to the mediamatters.org website today from Google news and was initially excited because I thought I found a non-biased site with journalistic integrity that existed to debunk misinformation in the media. I read a few articles, a noticed a slant in the writing so I went to the about page where I found their mission is instead to debunk conservative misinformation. In response I sent them the following email:
I stumbled across your website today and was happy to find a reference for debunking misinformation sent out from the media. Unfortunately it seems you're only interested in debunking conservative media statements and not all biased media statements. You'd show much more credibility if you were pointing out the misstatements, lies, and bias on all sides of the political spectrum.
I'm disappointed to find out you're just as biased as the people you claim to discredit. Maybe one day true journalists will step forward and take a truly non-biased, non-opinionated approach to reporting.
When will we find an organization with a similar mission as yours but without a political agenda? Liberal is just as much a dirty word as you treat the word conservative. You're not helping media accountability, you appear to be promoting an agenda under the guise of correcting misinformation.
One day both extremes of political thought will understand the need for balance and moderation. Hopefully an organization like yours will wake to it and truly be light for accountability and truth in the media.
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on January 26, 2006
Tip to the FreeBSD Community: telling users to RTFM when they have simple questions is another reason why FreeBSD is relatively unpopular in comparison to certain linux distros. Take Gentoo and Ubuntu, both have very accomodating communities who go out of their way to help users.
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on January 11, 2006
I’m excited about the MacBook, I’m in love with the iMac. But why did you add
this annoying little bar to the bottom of iTunes? It is obtrusive. It is obnoxious. If I want to deal with music store content, I’ll go to the music store. If it’s true that
850 Million songs have been sold at a rate of over 3 million a day, is this not just a bit obnoxious. How about having it off by default and telling us it’s there? Most people will leave it on because they don’t know you can turn it off. I’m sure you’ve been counting on that. Don’t get me wrong, I still love you, but you’ve gone one step too far and should go stand in the corner and be ashamed of yourself.
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on December 14, 2005
Lately friends, family, and friends of family have decided that I need to be included in their flurry of forward emails. You know the kind, emails that are cute, funny, or scary. Perhaps they're a call to action or friendly warning. Generally these emails fall into two categories: happy emails and sad emails. Happy emails have funny or patriotic pictures. Cute and fuzzy bunnies and American flags with a crying bald eagle with "9-11 Never Forget" stamped over them. Funny emails of hot girls and ugly girls side by side. You know what I mean. These emails are a waste of bandwidth. Yes jokes are funny. But when I have to weed through every one of your friends email addresses, and their friends email address, and their friends email address to get to the joke, well I'm just tired and ready to move on. If you're going to forward cute and fuzzy emails, at least clean out the email headers from when you click forward. Better yet, don't forward it. Or if you want to be really cool, ask your friends if they want to be on your SPAM list of noxious cuteness prior to sending them said spam. Why is it spam? Spam's generally considered "Unsolicited Email." If I didn't solicit you to send me monkeys flinging poop at people watching at the zoo, then I'm not terribly concerned if my email program carefully files your email in the Spam folder.
Scary emails are where the hoaxes come in. It's unlikely the FCC is about to rule that Christianity can't be talked about on the radio or TV if you've not heard about it on the radio or TV, even if that email said Dr. James Dobson said it was so. It's very likely he didn't. And why not go to Dr. Dobsons website and see what he has to say about it? If he feels so strongly that he wants an email forwarded to all of your friends, he would probably ask for it on his website. In this case, his website dispells the myth. How did I find that magic article? Google. Simply typing "Dobson FCC petition" yielded several pages in the top spots pointing out it was a hoax. Amazing thing, it took less time to do that then it would take to include every friend, relative, and co-worker from my address book on my soon to be forwarded email.
Ok that's one scary type, the call to action... The other is the doomsday, sky-is-falling, internet is going to explode and President Bush has personally tapped your computer riding a patriot act cruise missle in a blaze of Dr. Strangelove glory. The worst virus ever is out! There is some benfit to computer related emails like this, it will possibly scare the person who is inclined to read it and forward it to me and all the world, out of opening attachments that say "Brittany Spears Nude Screen Saver" or "I make greeting card for happy you.zip." YES email viruses are real. They're real because people open attachements and run the viruses. But if you get an email that says "OMG CNN SAYS WORSE VIRUS EVER" why not check CNN and see if it's true? If not you're just wasting time and scaring people. If it is true, it's likely that when people check the news, watch tv, etc, they will find out about it. Unless they live on a small island in the south pacific and only enter the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 into their computer.
One more thought on these emails. Usually people send these emails to all of their friends displaying all of their friends email addresses for all to see. This is like sending phone numbers out all over the internet. When I see a list of emails like that, it makes me want to email photos of you out to every email address I can find. You know the ones, you were at my party, drunk, dancing naked on the table. I don't think your Aunt Jean would want to have to endure THOSE photos. Think of Aunt Jean.
Tagged with: Rants |
Posted on September 27, 2005
When people reduce their speed to 50 at the foot of Newhall pass on the I-5 south. There's no reason for it. It's not steep or dangerous. It's just an automatic "be rude to the people behind you and slow down." Oh yeah, and do it in the #1 lane. It's quite sad when the #4 lane goes faster over the pass then the #1 lane. But after this week, I will no longer be frustrated with this behavior twice a day. You see I'm going to start taking the commuter bus.
Tagged with: Rants |
