Category Archives: Tech

Pfft Free Speech

I have been listening to these three great minds (below) for quite some time. These are three advocates of free speech and three self-proclaimed journalists, who think that Twitter is a cesspool and *needs to close, and Redditt needs to grow up and trash the “bad” subreddits. Facebook is fine because Zuckerberg, a man obsessed with profit, already unilaterally decided that on his site, home to billions of people, a kid in flip flops, all alone will decide what you can say.

Three Great Minds who Don't Like Name Calling
Three Great Minds who Don’t Like Name Calling

In 1980 you would be shunned if you said gays should be allowed to marry. In 1960 you could be lynched if you screamed blacks should use the same toilet as whites. In 1940  Germany you could be shot for advocating hiding a Jew in your home. In 1520 you went to jail for proposing that the Earth is flat.

Sometimes the majority is wrong: true that.

Maybe free speech has some draw backs, like trolling, but it is still kinda important, heck it’s even in some documents in famous museums.

Genius or Lucky Nerd?
Genius or Lucky Nerd?

We can either let hipsters with beards running websites determine what is allowed and what isn’t, or we can just like, sorta allow all free speech, like how the founding patriarchs of America intended. Jeff Jarvis or Thomas Jefferson? Lance Ullanoff or John Adams? Sometimes, once in while, here and there, the unpopular opinions are even right. Some of those opinions even change the world. (Albeit, not the ones about the TWiT CEO)

I can cut them some slack when curtailing opinions on a small medium like an irc, but don’t these intellectuals realize that if the pillars of the internet, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, disallow free speech, it sorta creates a problem. Kinda like  if all the TV stations refused to air what they don’t like. Yea, I kinda sorta make sense sorta.

Just to be clear douche-bags; having the pillars of the internet prohibit free speech is effectively prohibiting free speech.

Who knows why the symbol for justice is a scale?
Help, I can’t see!

Perhaps Jeff Jarvis should have to deal with someone calling him a shill on Twitter and Leo should have to deal with someone calling him fat. There is a reason lady justice holds a scale, some issues are more important than others. Lastly, whenever you take “haters” and put them in a ghetto away from normal people you excasserbate the problem. If you’re a lone racist in a crowd of normal people you will be quieted. If you are a racist amongst racists you create peer pressure to be even racist-ier.

Full disclosure I could not care less about Free Speech, it’s just the hypocrisy I can’t stomach.

UPDATE: This is in response to a comment: I am well aware that these are public companies and they are not bound by law to comply with any Free Speech doctrines. Yet, I feel that companies of their size should voluntarily adhere to these Free Speech principals in order to retain credibility as a platform.

* Per Jason Cortez – they never said “it needs to close” that was an assumption by the author regarding the critique of these sites for allowing trolls
**Please alert me in comments for spelling and grammar mistakes
***Sorry for America centric notions but that’s my hometown. And all you other countries like California copied us anyway.

Apple better watch out!

The difference between the philosophy of Apple & Google was never more pronounced then when the two companies released their set-top boxes and respective remotes. Compare these two remotes and you will discover everything about the souls of these two companies.

An elegant remote
An elegant remote, from a more civilized age.

Apple favored simple and avoided confusion like #soup avoids trolls. Their customer’s complaints were always why can’t you; add an app store, add games, add web browsing, add anything? Apple would just say, “no, three buttons is plenty. We will give you more buttons in a few years. We eventually gave you notifications on your iPhone, and copy-and-paste, so relax kids.”

Is this calculus?
Is this calculus?

Conversely, Google could not say “no” to any function. Any engineer could walk up to the lead engineer with an idea and it would be incorporated into the product. My god, look at that thing, have they no sense of what normal non-engineer mammals are like?

I just perused the Apple Watch guide available in iBooks and I instinctively made myself crib-notes to cheat on any surprise pop-quiz. Apple is straying too far. Tap crown, double tap crown, long hold crown, tap side button, double tap it, tap screen, force tap, tap and hold, long tap, scroll crown, swipe up, down, sideways, drag. #WTF

In 2010, there would have been zero third party apps, one button, and much less functionality. Simple.

Will there be math on this text? You said no math.
Will there be math on this test? You said no math.

Google to Sell Milk

Search Milk?
Search Milk?

On the heels of their foray into the wireless service industry, Google Inc announced it will be entering the dairy game. Google will be buying milk farms across Montana and selling Google branded Milk. Google cows will only be fed natural grass. The milk will be available for  purchase by December 2015 in a beta program.

The milk will be sold at a cost equal to 85% of the price of other milk brands. Google will not be making any profit on the milk. In order to be eligible to buy the milk you must have Google set as your default search engine and use an android phone.

Asked for comment the professor said, “This is great, Google cares about people drinking milk. Google is not exercising monopoly power”
Asked for comment the Gum said, “It is a free country and people will benefit by cheaper milk. Google is not exercising monopoly power”

Daity Queen, Maines Own and 365 Milk have all announced plans to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The paradox of paradoxes

The following was sent to me from Captain Juno. The Captain is afraid and receiving threats.

Is he in danger
Is he in real danger?

The captain has made all his videos private (except one) due to these threats. We must unite and get YouTube to change its policies. This bill cosby (if that is his real name) is a troll. Junogate is out of control.

Update 1: In case anyone missed the point. The Captain is not a victim of online harassment. The Captain is not in fear for his life.  YouTube, Twitter and every other online service do not need to change their policies. People are silly on the internet and say silly stuff. Ignore it. We do not need the YouTube API to write an anti-troll script.

Update2: I am sad to report that Captain Juno was killed in a car bombing.

Update 3: Just kidding

GO BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO UBER, no one likes you in NY

Take those stars and shove them...
Take those stars and shove them…
A healthy yellow stream
A healthy yellow stream

Moron driver does not know how to use the app and the estimated arrival time of 2 minutes turns into 4 then 2 then 5 minutes. It is not fun watching him drive in circles. But, no big deal even though I had a reservation to get to. Idiot doesn’t bother using the navigation to get to me-whatever.

Out of the kindness of my heart when we were half way to the destination I tell the driver to make sure he logged the pickup into the app  because my app was showing him still “on the way.” The rest of the ride my headphones were on and i was quiet as a cup. Although, I was amazed his app was not showing a route to the destination, so he took the wrong avenue and didnt know which streets trafficked West and which traveled East.

The lovely & talented & happy Sarah Lane
The lovely & talented & happy Sarah Lane

How does he give me 3 stars. I am the most bestest passenger. I have never given a driver less then 5 stars in my life. This guy I gave 1 to. This retaliatory rating thing is so childish. If you want to gamify travel make it fair. I forgot to mention that he didn’t look that much like his picture yet I didn’t ask for identity proof.   The same bad rating happened to the lovely and talented Sarah Lane although she probably doesn’t stop correcting driver routes.

Was the android experiment a failure?

I will preface this ground breaking article by proclaiming myself both an Apple-fan and a Google-hater. I do like some Google stuff like YouTube and Google-fiber, but let’s save why I dislike Google for another time.  This preamble would not be complete without my declaration that I have never even owned an Android product. However I am willing to stipulate for the record that Android is as functional, useful, utilityish and versatile as Apple’s IOS and possibly more so in many cases. (Albeit quite ugly)

Dumb and not cute
Dumb and not cute

Android has been a phenomenal success. The sales are incredible and they have become #1 while hurdling the obstacle of being second-to-the-party. Android adoption continues to grow and everyone agrees it generally gets better and better. This doesn’t sound like a failure.

Dream big!
Dream big!

The Android experiment was not built just to be a competing operating system to IOS. It was novel, an open platform to be built upon and improved upon by major manufacturers and anyone with a good ideas. That was the experiment, can we build a better OS by making it open to the world. On a basic level, the failure becomes clear when we look at how everyone prefers pure android and not the garbage affixed to it by Samsungesque manufacturers. But the disappointment is greater than that. The same independent (non-Apple) developers who made the iPhone a significantly better device by adding their ingenuity via applications were now supposed to take Android to the next level. Many of us had hoped for more than phones, we wanted the OS to infiltrate technology. Here, It’s free, now go make something great!

We got shit from 3rd party people, nada, zilch, zero. Android is a full OS, it could be stripped down and combined with a crap screen and pottered into a fridge, or you can add to the OS and attach it to a robot. Android was a major ingredient for many new technologies and no one cared.

3rd world like China
3rd world like China

I want some kid in a third world country on a castaway 2009 MacBook and Android to build the next big thing. We got enough from the Amazon, Google and Apple think factories. Instead I see IOS getting more like Android and Android getting more like IOS. Are all the great minds wasting time thinking up new addictive games for my phone.  Enough with the apps engineers.

The Real Official Review

Former producer and former guest
Former producer and former guest

If you read any review and see the following phrase in the review be wary – the reviewer is a “fanboy” and unqualified to do a review.

“It feels good in the hand”

Thinks about it, why would anyone say that?

In related news, on my way home from work someone harassed me  on the train by bumping into me, then the guy at the deli harassed me by calling me “chief” and then a Starbucks barusta kept a penny of my change. Hello , any lawyers out there.

“A star takes time out for the little people”

Musk Does Nothing Again

The tech world is a flutter. Elon Musk tweeted something, sorta.

Major new Tesla product line -- not a car -- will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30 - @elonmusk
Reinventing the Wheel
Reinventing the Wheel

The tech press surmised that a home battery is in our future.  (Note: Musk announced a forthcoming home battery this past January) What will you do with this miracle battery? You can charge it using your home electricity, then plug anything into it that has a long cord and then charge it again when it runs out of power. No word yet on pricing or government tax credits for buying this useless piece of junk.

#TotalDrama is selling a solar powered shovel you can use to dig a hole, then take the dirt (recent content of hole) and fill up the hole, after filling the whole hole, you can re-dig the hole which will be easier because of loose dirt.

The correct opinion about Ellen Pao Verdict

Kleiner Perkins beat the pants off Ellen Pao and her gender discrimination suit. This has become quite the lightning rod for women’s issues much like the Ferguson case was with race issues.

Photo courtesy of Recode
Photo courtesy of Recode (stolen from recode actually)

Whatever your opinion is, make sure of one thing: Do not read the court transcript or look at any evidence. Just form an opinion based on articles or if you’re short on time, just peruse the headlines. And yell passionately at people who disagree with you.

If there is a local rally, make a sign and head on over. Rallys are tons of fun.
Pro-tip:Make out your sign when you get there in case there is an opposing rally and the other side looks like more fun.

Facebook Launching Competing Service to Periscope

TotalDrama’s new News Department has learned that Facebook is launching a competing service to Periscope and Meerkat.  “We feel Facebook is the natural and seamless place for people to start broadcasting.”

Today I went to the dentist
Today I went to the dentist

No word yet on how soon until the long awaited beta is released. We were unable to discover if this will be a standalone app or integrated into the Facebook platform itself.

Can’t wait!