Travis' Mini-Reviews: Motorola Droid X and Samsung Vibrant

Ok, so I just got back from a T-Mobile and a Verizon store to play with the 2 newest members of the Android Army, and I have to say: Meh.


First up, the Droid X. You can find this big fella for $200 with a 2 year contract. The 4.3 inch screen looks great, and despite the bigger than the EVO body, it looks pretty good and is pretty ergonomic. That being said, I wanted to throw the thing across the store. The UI is yet another failed attempt by Motorola to "improve" Android, but so far only HTC's SenseUI has worked for me. I will say it's better than MotoBlur, it looks far less infantile and doesn't force Facebook and Twitter on me. It packs 7 home panels, which is cool, and has 3 big icons along the bottom (dialer, apps, and contacts). But as you slide to different panels, these 3 icons change to randomly shaped dots to represent which panel you're on. It's good to know which panel you're on, but the change looks dumb and lags the phone a little. Now, like the EVO, a keyboard on a 4.3" screen is great, and coming preloaded with Swype is cool, but I couldn't type on it. It's not like I didn't know how, but the screen was garbage. Everything I did required at least one re-press. Unresponsive is hardly the word to describe it, and it was a beyond frustrating experience. Hopefully it was just that model that was bad, and I will be testing another one most likely tomorrow. Oh, and we found out recently that Motorola was gracious enough to install security that will completely brick the X if you attempt to hack it. Fantastic work at effectively closing good ol' open source Android, Moto. You sure this phone wasn't meant for AT&T?



Now, the one device that made me (mostly) happy today, the Samsung Vibrant. At first, I thought that was the dumbest name for a phone ever. Well, behind the :) (No really, that's it's name). But the name is perfect. The screen, sitting at an even 4 inches, is beautiful. Samsung's SUPER AMOLED technology is on par with an iPhone 4's screen, but of course bigger. The phone comes preloaded with Avatar (Cameron's epic, not M. Night's fail), which is perfect for how amazing that screen is. The phone's design is very nice, thin but seemingly sturdy. My main problem, again, was the UI. Samsung's tweaks are somehow worse than MotoBlur to me. It didn't feel like Android to me. You still get your multiple, customizable panels, but the 4 static icons on the bottom (not changeable) mixed with a totally different app tray simply scream "iPhone knockoff!). Instead of your normal vertical column of apps, you have panels of apps in a 4x4 grid. Just like the iPhone. And the icons themselves are squares with rounded edges with small logos, like the iPhone. While Samsung did figure out that iPhones do sell well, it ruined the Android experience that I love. Careful with the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, Samsung. You may have a recall on your hands.

And 2 quick notes. In the Verizon store, some woman was using one of the live demos to yell at someone else over the phone. Um, bad place to do that. And I popped into an AT&T store to go hands on with the iPhone 4 too. no review on that now, but I did manage to make it drop 4 bars of 3G and 2 bars (or waves?) of WiFi with the Grip of Death. Fun stuff, and we'll see what Apple says about it tomorrow!

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Getting Your News From twitter

Good Idea - News From twitter


I personally don't like to read or watch the news. However, I very much like to know what's going on in current events around the world. A few months ago, I discovered the answer: twitter news. I follow CNN Breaking News (cnnbrk) and our local news station (cfnews13). The big plus is that I know what's going on with very little effort. I like to say "I get all my news in 140 characters." When people ask me "Did you hear about the tropical storm over in the Philippines?" I can say "Yeah, at least 18 dead. Wow." Especially as a teacher (when I'm not on summer vacation. How's work going for everyone?) its good for me to have a little idea what's going on since kids ask really random questions a lot.

Bad Idea - cnnbrk


There are three major problems with only getting your news on twitter. The first is that essentially, you're only getting the headlines of a story. If someone wants to have a discussion about any of this stuff, I can't really participate. Well, I make stuff up and pretend I know more, but I don't actually. For example, I saw this on cnnbrk yesterday:

Deaths of Coppell, Texas, mayor and daughter rules murder-suicide

The first problem is that this tweet actually doesn't make any sense. The commas are in the wrong place. I assume what they meant was "Deaths of Texas mayor, Coppell, and daughter ruled murder-suicide" but that's not what they put, so I could be wrong. They could mean that the death of the Coppells were ruled murder-suicide by a Texas mayor and his daughter. Apparently this mayor listens to his daughter more than his cabinet. Also, do mayors have cabinets?

Anyways, the point being that if anyone brought this topic up, that is the extent of the information I have about the topic. I can't really have a discussion with them. Leads to a lot of me tricking other people into giving me the information about the topic without admitting I don't know anything about it (which if you think about it, is an even better way to get news). Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making people think I'm involved and participating in a conversation when actually I'm just letting them talk (I do it to my wife all the time, and she still doesn't know)(well, she does now because she's reading this over my shoulder).

The other big problem with only getting my news from cnnbrk is that its really repetitive. For example, a couple months back when that earthquake killed a bunch of people in Haiti, I was pretty convinced that Mother Earth was trying to rip us all back into the depths of herself because cnnbrk put up a story about another earthquake ever 4 hours or so. Seriously, there were like 30 earthquake stories in a month. It was crazy. Right now, 32.67% of their posts (I did the math)(by which I of course mean I didn't actually do anything except guess then make it look precise by adding 2.67% to my guess) are about the Gulf oil spill in some way. As a person living in Florida (and no, that does not make me a "Floridian") the spill is kinda important to me, but I'm sick of hearing about it. We get it, the Gulf of Mexico is doomed. We'll be cleaning up this spill for the next 50 years. The ecosystems of that area will be completely obliterated and take lifetimes to recover. It sucks. But really, I'm sick of hearing about it. There's not much I can do to help even if I wanted to (which I don't so much).

Plus, they NEVER put up good stories (by which I mean the actual meaning of "good", as in positive or uplifting). I know this is a go to complaint about all news mediums, but its more pronounced on twitter since there's no room in 140 characters for fluff pieces. Basically, cnnbrk would have you believe we're in a post-apocalyptic world with a corrupt government out to take over the entire world through war and deception while the planet itself is trying to destroy us all, but we still have occasional sporting matches of various kinds, but all of them are very important and memorable.

Well, that's it for this week. And just for fun, check this out: http://therevolvinginternet.com/ WARNING: This link is completely unrelated to my post and may cause motion sickness, irritation, annoyance, nausea and trippy altered states of consciousness.

Wireless Wednesday: Invent-An-App, AT&T Stops Charging for Free Things, and More BlackBerry 6

Fear not, kids! My adventures into philosophy haven't distracted me from the real reason you all come here! It's time for Wireless Wednesday!


First up, Google has announced a cool new application development tool for Android called App Inventor. While still in an invite-only beta, the tool will help those with good app ideas but lack the programming knowledge previously needed to make them. This essentially builds things like Lego blocks: You can still make a building, but legit architects builder far better stuff (for the most part). This means that more people will be developing apps for the Android Market, which is without question an awesome thing.


Next up, AT&T has been selling Microcells, essentially little boxes that you pay $150-$200 for that plug into your cable internet provider and it acts as a miniature cell tower, allowing 5 devices to use its service, for some time now. The device was created to boost service in the homes or office of people with crappy AT&T service. Previously, they charged for the device, and there was a monthly service fee, none of which made no sense because it was their service that sucked in the first place, and the monthly cost was more ridiculous because it wasn't like you were even using their service at that point. Many people claimed that the microcells should be free, and now some AT&T customers are getting their wish. How nice of them. What people should be asking for is waived cancellation fees. On second thought, no. If you were dumb enough to sign up for a service without researching the fact that it doesn't work in your house, AND you didn't test it and return the product within 30 days, you deserve cancellation fees. But I'm not being fair. AT&T does deserve credit here, they are trying to make good on the lack of reception for their die-hard fans.

And finally, BlackBerry released another video demoing BlackBerry 6 on its official Youtube page. The interface is yet again showing off touchscreen gestures, which fortunately aren't reminiscent of the Storm's awful "clicky-touchscreen" method. Also, there's been some buzz about a possible BlackBerry tablet, but nothing really official on that as of yet. Check out the BlackBerry 6 video below (this time, no Black Eyed Peas!).

Excercises in Intellectual Group Masturbation

So last night, I participated in something that I can safely say I've never done, and I don't think many people ever take the time to do. And despite it causing a light case of sleep deprivation, it was awesome.

A good friend of mine is a deeply Christian guy, but not the douchey persecution and abuse of power type. He's the kind of guy that regardless of how well you know him, you can have long and potentially pretentious discussions with. So last week he had sent me an invite to a night meant to "Explore and Discover". Despite the cheesy name, the premise was cool. A small get together of people, some friends, some you've never met, with the goal of having a big discussion on Life, The Universe, and Everything (unfortunately I didn't bring a towel). Oh, and of course free (for me) pizza.

Now I was expecting this to be a bunch of people wearing smoking jackets and ascots, sipping on Scotch talking about the meaning of life and maybe a bit about the East India Company. Instead, I walked, a bit late from work, to about 15 people, sitting in a circle of folding chairs (and no smoking jackets), already in an intense discussion on the morality of adjusting a religion to fit your life. Our "formal" discussion lasted about 3 hours, covering topics such as the existence or active involvement of God, the concept of a void, and a historical perspective on the Bible. Since our group was largely Christian, a lot of the discussion revolved around that, but we touched on universal concepts like altruism as well. And it was truly an enlightening experience. It's not like I had my beliefs changed, or I really learned any objective knowledge. What was so great to me was that these people, all with different beliefs and interpretations, had taken the time out to discuss them with people of dissenting opinions. The majority of this group were Christians and were used to discussing these issues with peers, fellow believers. But they were able to have an open discussion with people of different (or no) faiths in a calm and productive manner. To me, it's something I don't see to much of these days.

I highly suggest setting up a similar gathering for yourself, but there are a few guidelines I think you should follow:

Don't invite douchey people. People who will mock others' opinions or insult people will disrupt the group and just piss people off.

Set up a big, comfortable circle. You want everyone to be comfy and be able to make eye contact with each other.

Have food and drinks. You don't need anything fancy, but free food and drinks will make people more inclined to come, and while they're there, they'll enjoy it more and be more comfortable. Also, it helps reduce talking over each other if you've got food in your mouth.

Invite different people. Don't just get The Gang together, you've probably had these conversations already. Take people from different circles of friends for a better variety of people. They'll have better discussions.

Set ground rules. Be up front at first. Tell everyone it's either be respectful or get the hell out. Try not to interrupt or get too loud. Don't let things get out of control. That said, don't be afraid to have people be honest and passionate.

I truly believe we would all be better off if we did this once in a while. Despite some major differences I had with a few people, it was a very gratifying experience and I felt much better knowing that people take the time to put some thought into their philosophies on life.

The Size of LeBron's Ego Deserves Its Own World Cup

What's that? A post on BluePrints about sports??? Yeah, it's happening. Hopefully I don't make a fool of myself.

So it's been a strange couple of weeks for me in terms of sports. I usually only care about football, but since the season is a bit away, I've been appeasing my appetite in other ways.

First, let's talk LeBron. We'll start with a joke I love and take no credit for: Have you heard about the new LeBron James cellphone? There's a ton of hype around it, but it only vibrates because it has no rings!" Oh nice gravy. Anyway, to briefly recap for our friends who live under rocks or in Finland, prominent but championshipless basketball player LeBron James, in an unprecedented move, rented an hour of time on ESPN to announce which team he'd end up playing for. Now, when I say unprecedented, it's not a compliment. No one has been so egotistical before. ESPN was advertising the crap out of it all week. Now, after a week of attention whoring, one would expect a climactic proclamation with a marching band and enough pyrotechnics to make Michael Bay wet himself. Nope, LeBronze stumbled over his words to say he was going to be in Miami. Literally, he said he was going to South Beach, which made me think he was just announcing a vacation. But no, he's going to play for the Miami Heat. As a Florida resident, I am surprised that this state could get worse. And then I went back to not caring.

On a more positive note, I was also for some inexplicable reason getting into soccer. No, the World Cup. Soccer is a silly sport to me. I have a hard time getting into a game where people can run around for 90 minutes and end the game a 0-0 tie. Yet despite all that, I joined in the great American tradition of not caring about something until the US was doing quite well at it. Yet even after we lost, my interest remained. But the most interesting part to me, other than ESPN sound guys fighting vuvezelas, was Paul the Psychic Octopus, who perfectly predicted the last 8 games. Paul, who is a German octopus, received death threats after predicting Germany's loss to Spain. Yes, angry German soccer fans were calling for the head, or beak, or tenticles of a Precog Cephalopod. That imagery is funny enough by itself, but Paul was presented with a miniature World Cup Trophy. He's probably the most confused octopus in the world right now.

But on a serious note, is it real football season yet?

BluePrints Quickie: Travis Takes AppleT&T's Side!

So, since I tend to type a lot about a lot, I'm going to start covering some stories and try to be brief! And to break it in, I'll talk for as long as I can stand about how I'm on AT&T and Apple's side!

So, recently there was a class action lawsuit filed against Apple and AT&T, basically claiming that people who have ever bought an iPhone through AT&T signed a 2 year contract for the service, but were never informed that the iPhone was going to exclusively be offered by AT&T for 5 years, which causes customers to be essentially signed up for 3 additional years. That's the suit. Now, I'm all for Apple and AT&T paying for the awful business moves and products they both put out, but this is ridiculous! The lawsuit basically assumes that users will resign a contract for new versions, which they definitely aren't required to do. More importantly, once the contract is up, you are more than free to unlock it and move to another GSM carrier. It is ultimately no different than any of the other phones offered by AT&T.

This case is beyond illogical and insanely frivolous, but let's take a bit of humor from it. AT&T, THIS IS HOW MUCH PEOPLE HATE YOU! They are willing to take up a massive class action lawsuit that will most likely go on for far longer than the exclusivity itself will, all in order to say "Hey Apple, WTF are you still doing with them?" And sadly, I agree. Apple would be far better served breaking the exclusivity contract, because I guarantee the amount of money they'd make, even if they only went to T-Mobile would more than make up for however much AT&T sued them for. And that was a BluePrints Quickie!

Good Idea, Bad Idea - Emmy Nominations

Good Idea - Emmy Nominations

I figure since the nomination lists came out today, it would be a pretty good idea to do a post about them. The nominations this year are pretty good. Here's some of the ones that matter (I've also underlined the nominees I hope will win):

Outstanding Drama

"Breaking Bad"

"Dexter"

"The Good Wife"

"Lost"

"Mad Men"

"True Blood"

Outstanding Comedy

"30 Rock"

"Curb Your Enthusiasm"

"Glee"

"Modern Family"

"Nurse Jackie"

"The Office"

Outstanding Actor in a Drama

Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad")

Hugh Laurie ("House M.D.")

Jon Hamm ("Mad Men")

Kyle Chandler ("Friday Night Lights")

Matthew Fox ("Lost")

Michael C. Hall ("Dexter")

Outstanding Actress in a Drama

Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights")

Glenn Close ("Damages")

January Jones ("Mad Men")

Julianna Margulies ("The Good Wife")

Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit")

Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer")

Outstanding Actor in a Comedy

Alec Baldwin ("30 Rock")

Jim Parsons ("The Big Bang Theory")

Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm")

Matthew Morrison ("Glee")

Steve Carell ("The Office")

Tony Shalhoub ("Monk")

Outstanding Actress in a Comedy

Amy Poehler ("Parks and Recreation")

Edie Falco ("Nurse Jackie")

Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("The New Adventures of Old Christine")

Lea Michele ("Glee")

Tina Fey ("30 Rock")

Toni Collette ("The United States of Tara")

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad")

Andre Braugher ("Men of a Certain Age")

John Slattery ("Mad Men")

Martin Short ("Damages")

Michael Emerson ("Lost")

Terry O'Quinn ("Lost")

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

Archie Panjabi ("The Good Wife")

Christine Baranski ("The Good Wife")

Christina Hendricks ("Mad Men")

Elisabeth Moss ("Mad Men")

Rose Byrne ("Damages")

Sharon Gless ("Burn Notice")

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Chris Colfer ("Glee")

Eric Stonestreet ("Modern Family")

Jesse Tyler Ferguson ("Modern Family")

Jon Cryer ("Two and a Half Men")

Neil Patrick Harris ("How I Met Your Mother")

Ty Burrell ("Modern Family")

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men")

Jane Krakowski ("30 Rock")

Jane Lynch ("Glee")

Julie Bowen ("Modern Family")

Kristen Wiig ("Saturday Night Live")

Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family")

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series

"The Colbert Report"

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"

"Real Time With Bill Maher"

"Saturday Night Live"

"The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien"

A couple of quick comments on the nominations. In general, I think the comedy nominations are good. The Outstanding Actress nominations (including supporting) for drama series suck though. I really don't care at all about either of those categories. Why are none of the ladies from Dexter on there? None of the ladies from Lost, House, Bones, 24? (I'm still waiting for them to make a Worst Supporting Actress category so that Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O'Brian from 24) can win her Emmy) On another topic, how awesome is it that while the Jay Lenno show is BOMBING every night, Conan got a nomination for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series? He only ran the show for 7 months, got fired in a humiliatingly public fashion, and then receives an Emmy nomination? I'm just wondering if the industry can find any MORE ways to point out how stupid NBC is. Finally, big props to Glee for receiving a total of 19 Emmy nominations. I really hope that they clean house, because they deserve it. If you aren't watching Glee, you're missing out big time. That show is absolutely awesome in all ways.

Bad Idea - Emmy Categories

The main categories that people care about are pretty interesting. The ones I listed above for example, people might care about. I can even see throwing in Best Director, Best Producer, and Best Writing, but after that, the categories get a little ridiculous and boring. For example, does anyone care which show wins Outstanding Art Direction for A Multi-Camera Series? How about for a Single Camera Series? More importantly, what does that even mean? I thought I understood that it meant they just used one camera or multiple cameras, but Lost, Glee, Heroes, Modern Family, and True Blood all count as single camera series. I don't believe for a second that Lost only uses one camera. And Heroes has been canceled and has sucked for 2 seasons, why is it nominated for ANYTHING?!?!

What's even weirder is that they nominate the show EPISODES, not the specific show or actor/actress. For example, in Outstanding Voice Over Performance, The Simpsons takes 3 of the 6 nominations (which I will agree is an awesome and funny show)(Seth Green for Robot Chicken and H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer are the other two I care about). Why can't they nominate the voice actor/actress on their body of work, not just one episode?

Finally, why are award shows the only place that women don't care about sexism? Women seem fine with having separate categories for Outstanding Actress and Supporting Actress. What exactly are they trying to say? A woman could never beat a man in the same category, so we'll make another one. If we owned a store and had "Employee of the Month" and "Female Employee of the Month" we'd have feminists crawling all over our store and every female employee would be suing us. But the Academy and Emmy association are ok with this? Seems like their protests are only for when they're discriminated against, not when its in their favor. Not real fair, huh?

As seen on the interwebs...

Today's edition comes from Amazon.com where a reviewer gives his opinion over a a product. Seen here is the The Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee and the review is done by B. Govern "Bee-Dot-Govern" of New Jersey, USA. He writes:

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

And that was what amused me today on the interwebs!

Big AND Tall Is A Lie

So yesterday, my wife, a few friends of ours, and I went to go tubing down a creek. For those of you that don't know, this consists of sitting on an inner tube and floating down a creek (which is a small river). Its a great thing to do on a lazy day because all you have to do is lay back and your tube and drink. Very awesome.

Well, we get the the place and start blowing up the tubes, which even with a compressor takes a long time. As we get started, I have a difficult time getting into my tube. This is probably because I tried to do it in the middle of the creek with the current trying to pull the tube away, plus I had my floating cooler attached to my tube, which made the current pull stronger (and yes, I said floating cooler and it is AWESOME). I eventually got into the tube and quickly noticed that the water level was a little too low to be tubing down this creek. Every minute or so, a big rock would get thrust up your butt, which is painful, stops you from floating, and probably not very good for the tube. We got down about 60 yards or so, and I noticed my tube was leaking a little air, so I stopped and blew some air back into it. As soon as I sat in it again, I could feel the intake valve (the place where you blow the thing up) releasing air. I checked to make sure it was fully closed, and tried again. Same result.

Of the five tubes we took (all of them being the same brand and style) mine was the only one that had a problem. I broke a freaking inner tube because I'm so large!!! What's annoying to me is that I don't think I'm all that fat. For one thing, I'm tall. I'm about 6' 3". I agree I weigh a lot (265 pounds or so) but with my height, that isn't completely out of control. I can still walk on my own without a motorized cart thing. Don't need a crane to get me out of the house, and I can stand with other people on an elevator.

This is kinda the story of my life recently though. See, when I was in high school, I was 6' 2" and 130 pounds. I'll do the math for you, that makes me roughly the thickness of a toothpick. I'm serious though, I was REALLY skinny. It wasn't that I didn't eat, because I did. And a LOT. I just never put on any weight. Once I got out of high school though, my metabolism decided it was done. I put on about 100 pounds in a little over 2 years. That still doesn't sound healthy to me, but whatever. So I've gone from this dangerously skinny, Calista Flockhart looking little boy, to an overly large ogre style oaf.

Someone described it yesterday as "You don't realize how big he is until you try to put him into something." I feel that's a pretty good description. This was said because they have a few small cars. One of them is a Honda Civic that I can only sit in the front seat of, and only because there is a sun roof that can be opened to make room for my head. They also have a Toyota Prius that when I sit in makes me look like, well, this:

Actually, come to think of it, I pretty much always feel like kids movie monsters. Like whenever I'm anywhere, they ask me to get stuff that's up high, like this:

Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed when the tube I was TRYING to ride in broke because I sat my big butt in it. But that is only the beginning of my embarrassing day. We ended up walking back up the creek to where the car was parked and had to go to Wal-Mart to find a tube that would work for me. The whole way there (an excruciating 16 miles) there were endless jokes about my size and weight. Including me going into a long rant about how hard it is for me to find clothes. I usually wear a 2 or 3 XL, not because I need it that wide, but because I need it that long. I have to buy extra tall dress shirts, which are difficult to find. But the biggest problem I have is finding pants. Most clothing stores don't carry tall or large sizes, so I've tried going to the Big and Tall store, only to be unbelievably irritated. The big and tall store assumes that you one or the other, not both. It really should be called the Big OR Tall store. All the pants I find are either the right width and too short, or the right length and way too skinny. I am forced to buy clothes that are 4 to 6 inches too large in the waist and 2 to 4 inches too short. Its really irritating.

So after lots of jokes about the shocks in the car not handling the weight, and me being large enough to put dents in the ground as I walk (most of them made by me to be fair), we get to Wal-Mart to find a tube made for a family. We get to the right isle (after returning the other tube because the nicer people in our group insisted it wasn't my fault, but a defective tube) we start looking around for a new tube that might be a little stronger. Being that its the middle of the summer, the selection was limited. We did find an inflatable kiddy pool that we thought would work pretty well (god, I really wish I was kidding), when someone decided to ask an employee what they might have. The employee directed us to an inflatable boat. A two person inflatable boat is the only thing they had that would support my weight. What's even more upsetting, is that this "two person" boat can support me and a toddler and we would hit the weight max on the thing. My pride all but gone for life, I finally agree to just float down in the boat. In all honesty, it will be more comfortable for me, as tubes leave 3/4 of my back and 3/4 of my legs just sticking out in the air, but still, I have to be in a boat to float down a river. We should have just rented a barge!

Well, that's my highly entertaining story (to everyone but me). To really fill out the stereotype (and because I'm more than a little upset now, and I eat when I'm upset) I'm going to KFC for a bucket of Double Downs.

Apple Really Doesn't Care About You and Thinks You're Stupid

Yeah. They don't. Recently, I watched a documentary called "MacHeads", which documented the community of Apple users from 1984 to 2007 (when it was filmed). Despite the blatant fanboy perspective that the documentary took, the film was interesting, showcasing the "culture" around Mac users and the fierce loyalty to the company, even when it basically died. What I found really interesting was the attitude of the MacHeads upon the resurgence of Apple with the iPod and iPhone lines. The hardcore Mac users loved the new desktop and laptop lines, but didn't like the others as much due to the complete lack of community. Previously, user groups had in person meet ups where they shared ideas and software, and it was something that Apple itself loved and even fostered. But what the MacHeads now see is a complete lack of association with the user groups. The change, which hasn't effected sales, did annoy many users.

Ultimately, what Apple users have failed to learn is what Molly Wood of CNET says best: "He doesn't love you back". And today, Apple has shown that they really don't have a big opinion of the intelligence of it's users. In response to the antenna issues of the iPhone 4, Apple released a statement. The statement says essentially that the issue is a software problem, one that causes the iPhone to erroneously display 2 more bars than it should show. And this problem goes back to the iPhone 3G. So you know those areas where you get 4 bars? It's probably only 2. Well fantastic, Steve, but what does that have to do with holding it in my left hand? The answer (and I quote):

Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

....WHAT? How dumb do you think people are? Unless this software also fixes the physical properties of the iPhone 4 or it changes the laws of electromagnetism, this doesn't actually fix the issue! You will still lose signal when you bridge the two antennae. All this fix does is stop lying about how much signal you don't have. It gets better:

We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

Oh, thanks. Now, instead of lying to users, you'll allow them to fool themselves into thinking their coverage is fine by making it look the few bars they have are better. You might as well make the color of the bars you do have darker. Or better yet, don't even bother displaying them, let users be completely in the dark.

But seriously, what the hell is Apple thinking here? How dumb do you think people are? The obvious joke here is "Very, I mean people buy Apple products in the first place". But being completely serious, I truly can't tell what the angle here is. When you add this press release to the leaked customer service memo that said that they won't be issuing free bumpers (which completely circumvent the issue and cost $1 max to make) to disgruntled customers. Previously, I've heard that Apple users love how good their customer service has been, but I just can't see it now. It all comes back to what I've said many times. Apple is making the exact same mistakes it made 10 years ago, mistakes that led them to being all but irrelevant.