Mystic Negro dot Com

So, over a decade ago Bill Gates refused to have a PDA, which Microsoft produced, because he claimed that tablets were the future and he wanted to dedicated MS to figuring out the tablet paradigm a year or so ago Steve Jobs invented the tablet out of whole cloth, creating something that no one had ever seen or thought of before, as is his way.  Steve proclaimed that tablets will replace the traditional laptops the way that cars replaced trucks.  Back in the day, you see, you used to see a lot of trucks but now you don’t see so many (This is, of course, pure, unfettered bullshit, the Ford F-Series has been the most popular passenger vehicle in America your entire life, selling 528,349 copies in 2010 an increase of 27.7% from ’09 the best selling car, the Toyota Camry, sold 327,804 copies a loss of 8.1% from the previous year which puts it in the number three vehicle spot.  The number two vehicle was the Chevy Silverado at 370,135 vehicles, an increase of 16.9%, which apparently outsold the F-Series when you lump together all of its platform mates.) Being charmed by Jobs’ earnest and truthful analysis of world events I ran out and bought an iPad.

I could barely finish writing that sentence.

Actually, I grabbed a Nook Color and rooted it and had a fine old time until I found out that Cyanogenmod doesn’t support the default Nook Reader program and you have to use the good, but not as good Nook Android app, so my rooted Nook is kind of stuck in rooted nook limbo for the time being.  HOWEVER, in what has got to be the greatest act of prostitution ever, HP spent almost two billion dollars for Palm and then screwed them vigorously.  So, I ended up with one of these for $150 + shipping.

My Expensive Ass Cheap Tablet

Well, now that I have a relatively powerful tablet, with a relatively robust (and much cleaner) OS I guess the thing to do now is to see if I can actually use it to replace my laptop (which I will refer to as “The Beast” as it weighs in at 1.5 metric tonnes of high end gaming goodness) for all but serious photo and video editing duties. First thing’s first, though, impressions.

I’m not sure who at HP decided that it would be a good idea to build a laptop out of Teflon and finger prints, but that’s exactly what they did with the TouchPad.  It’s back is covered in some super high glossy finish that has almost had me drop it multiple times.  A case is on its way, it cannot get here soon enough.

One of the many ways that HP screwed Palm (including doggie style and reverse cowgirl, natch) is that they promised that the wouldn’t ship the TouchPad until it was ready.  They shipped it about two months before the  ready for primetime OS  was ready, then killed it 48 days later.  Which is to say, the first thing any TouchPad owner should do is go and update the OS, the new version is by all accounts more stable and responsive than the shipping version.  I wouldn’t know, I only used the default OS to upgrade to the new one.

Once I got that done I started with the process of trying to do some basic things with the touch pad like syncing my phone and MP3 player.

Wait, you can’t do that?

At all?

Well. Crap.

Trying out the WordPress app for my phone.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

Hallelujah, Verizon finally announced last week that it will have the iPhone available next month.  This is awesome news, mostly because now people will stop asking me when Verizon is getting the iPhone. Most of you may know Verizon as the best cellphone company ever, the one that will save us from the evil that is AT&T and totally not the one that five years ago four months ago was receiving user complaints for disabling phone features for its own gain. Verizon’s network is superdy duperty better, I know so because their commercials tell me so.

I also know, first hand how bad AT&T’s network sucks.  I’ve been using it for almost seven years now.  Here are some of the most truly annoying network issues I’ve had with them…

• Around 2005 The Mrs. was unable to call her family to say Happy Thanksgiving.  This lasted for about the hour it took for us to drive from our house in North Eastern Suburban Atlanta to her friends’ house in North Western Suburban Atlanta. Actually, by “her family” I mean “her one sister” and by “her one sister” I mean, “her one sister’s landline, said sister’s cell phone could be contacted fine.”  Uh, it mostly seemed to be an issue with the network on the other end.  CURSE YOU AT&T!!!!!
• There’s a dead zone that’s about 10 feet long  a block from my office. Fuck You, AT&T!!!!!
• There’s a dead zone that’s about 10 feet long on SR316. DAMN YOU, AT&T!!!!
• They forced me to get an unlimited data plan when I had to replace my original Palm Treo 600 with a Treo 650.  The 600 had died while I was on my way to my uncle’s funeral and contained all of my contact information for my family.  No, for real on that one, fuck you in the ear with an elephant’s cock that cums hot battery acid, AT&T.  That being said, now I’m grandfathered in with a truly unlimited data plan, not the 2GB data plan you can get now.

Obviously, AT&T’s network is shit.  Even here in Atlanta, where they’re based.  As further proof I present to you The Mrs.’ office.  Their entire sales staff now carries iPhone 4s.  This is bad because there is absolutely no signal inside the building.  Well, I mean, the Mrs. is on her fourth Cingular/AT&T phone and has never had an issue with signal.  I’m on my fifth AT&T/Cingular cell phone (one of which was previously a company phone for her company) and can make calls from her office fine, but obviously it’s AT&T’s fault that the iPhone doesn’t get as much signal as the Sone-Ericsson T-610, Palm Treo 600, Palm Treo 650, HTC Fuze, HTC Tilt, HTC Tilt II, LG Quantum and Samsung Focus.

AT&T, assholes.

But now Verizon is here to save all God’s children from the evil of American Telephone and Telegraph.

Unless, you know, the problem is actually that Apple is a design firm, not an engineering firm. That the iPhone sucks as a phone because it sucks as a phone, not because of the network which, anecdotally, is perfectly fine for those of us who don’t do “i”.

Sorry, that’s crazy talk.  All hail the great Jobs!  V is for Verizon!

Things I never thought I’d see include:

1. Pigs flying out of my ass
2. A Black President
3. Salma Hayek naked in my bedroom
4. An Asian hipster basically doing a Jeremy Clarkson impersonation…to review cameras in Hong Kong.

Well, 1 and 3 still haven’t happened, but 2 and 4 are here. See below as Kai, the above mentioned Asian hipster, is challenged to paint an innocent Nikon D90 “the company’s colors.”  It is brilliant and terrible. This is the world of DigitalRev, a Hong Kong based camera store who’s blog apparently seeks to do for photography blogs what Top Gear did for automotive television shows.  And bless ‘em for it.

Granted, some random blog from a former British territory isn’t going to have nearly the production values of The World’s Most Popular Automotive Programme.  But the attitude is there.  Ridiculous challenges? Check.  Sarcastic reviews that are more entertaining than informative? Check. High entertainment value? Check.

I love this site.

I’ll translate the below statement found on Engadget, “Dear Steve Jobs, go fuck yourself.”

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.

So, yesterday Steve Jobs had a press release which he screamed “other people’s phones do this too!!!! There is no problem!!!!! THERE IS NO PROBLEM!!!!!! Here’s the fix to the problem…which does not actually exist

I’m not sure when Steve Jobs became the giant head on the screen in the 1984 commercial, but he pretty much officially is.

But I get ahead of myself.

Apple released a phone with two exposed antennae.  This, in itself is not a bad thing.  Exposed antennae are better than the internal ones.  You get better reception out of them.  Of course, since the human body has capacitive/resistive/conductive properties of its own, you tend not to put antennas where people can touch them.  Unless you’re Apple, then you just put them where they look best, which in this case was where most normal people (and all left handed people) would hold the phone.

This is because, despite Steve Jobs’ line  Apple is not an engineering company, it’s a design company.

No, Google is an engineering company, you can tell this because all of their products look like ass and they never leave beta.  Apple’s biggest asset is that it stuff looks really, really good and their products almost always leave the nest half cooked (who needs MMS? It’s not like you’re going to want to sharepictures you took with your phone camera!)

And that was the problem with the iPhone 4, not that the human body’s capacitance would attenuate the phone signal.  Yes, I can replicate the problem on my phone (an AT&T Tilt 2/HTC Touch Pro 2).  The problem is that in making the phone look good Apple put the antennae in a place where the problem would almost *have* to happen (again, while I can replicate the problem on my phone, it requires holding the phone at the top in an eagle claw type way that no sane person would ever do because it’s both uncomfortable and impractical). This is simple physics and no antenna engineer wouldn’t have raised an alarm at this.

Worse is that it took loads of public shaming to get Apple to release a limited mea culpa  for an issue that Jobs admitted that they knew was an issue before the phone was even shipped.  Their previous fixes of “don’t hold it like that” and “give us $30 for a bumper” displayed a hubris, a sheer douchebaggiosity that even Apple fanboys and fangirls found distasteful.

So, does this mean that the famed Reality Distortion Field is shrinking?  Possibly, but probably not.  If there’s one thing Apple fans have proven is their ability to take anal rape with a smile.  Thing is, most iPhone owners aren’t hardcore Apple fans, those are the people that Apple has to learn how to deal with.  Will they?  We’ll see.