i'm not sure who deserves the fuck you.

but i'm certain someone does.

the iphone is truly a phone like no other. i believe it is precisely because of that status that it's also the biggest fuck-job of a phone to buy. apple set the bar, and perceived value, high when it released it's first iphone about a year and a half ago. it charged a more than one hundred dollar premium for it's offering as compared to other smart phones. after they lowered the stupid high price, they made it right by refunding early adopters the difference, with a gift card. in the process they really lost nothing in the way of revenue (as a hundred bucks doesn't go all that far at an apple store), and they placed their phone in a self created super premium category.



about a year later, apple offers the 2nd revision of said phone with the expected improvements and a new sales push offering the familiar telecom cross-subsidy business model. tied to at&t service since it's introduction, apple and at&t started getting really serious about making sure those phones didn't leave the store without a service contract. after all that is exactly what's in it for at&t. i get it. what i don't get is the double fuck-job that is now what it is to buy an iphone if you already happen to have at&t service.

about six months after that. i get an iphone gift card as a christmas gift. i am thrilled. i've been pretty fucking hyped on this thing since it came out, but have delayed getting one primarily because of the cost. so this is great right? not as great as i thought. here's where i'm at: i have an at&t contract. i am not yet eligible for an upgrade (not til february twelfth). therefore i pay full price for the the hardware and keep my service arrangement (essentially). fine. i was ok with that. but apparently at&t is entirely inflexible on early upgrades pertaining to iphones, and apple is unwilling to sell an iphone with out a shiny new two year agreement. so, as it stands i get the worst of both worlds. i get to start my two year internment all over again, and pay the full suggested retail for the phone. i guess this year christmas will be in february...about four months before apple will almost certainly introduce the third generation iphone which i will no doubt want.

fuck. you. somebody.

NORAD feels the spirit...

a nice little christmas-nerd fun.

via core

ex cell ent .

the more technology and media evolve, and more familiar we become with it, the more we seek reactionary retreats. sure it's cool to tweet your geo tagged photo complete with meta data hyper linked via a tiny url alias that will in turn update your facebook status which in turn will alert your friends who in turn will do something that will in turn update their facebook status that will in turn send you a notification via plain jane email...but sometimes all you really need is paper and a pen. in hands-on low-tech pursuits many of us find what it is we actually want. satisfaction.

check out an endearing and compelling collection of stop motion shorts.

punks rock.

bullshitting today at the bike shop, where i'm working a few odd days a week to slow the draining of my checking account, Allan Dias came up. Allan Dias the bike mechanic...or if you prefer, Allan Dias the bassist for PiL. This guy. The one in the middle.



His is a pretty interesting story. What no one at the shop seems to know is what exactly happened to him--musically. apparently he wrote and produced much of PiL's music while he was with them, and so it's a bit hard to understand his just dropping out. i'd definitely like to get to the bottom of it, but i can't imagine i ever will. In talking about it, and scouring the internet for pictures, video and the like--i came across this gem. gotta love johnny rotten. in the whole process i rediscovered a band i really like, which for me is the best part of the story.



fuck tom snyder. how do you host johnny rotten on your talk show, and have no idea what you're in for? enjoy.

google knows...

what does google know?

i like that i'm not the only one concerned. light hearted to be sure, but the point is still in there somewhere. i'm no conspiracy theorist, and i certainly don't believe that the development of new non-essential technologies is inherently bad. i just think we need to, at the very least, be aware of what we give up in the name of ease and convenience. what i think we need--to use someone else's words--is a healthy distrust.

via swiss miss

googlefight!

the world is becoming increasingly quantifiable, measurable, and web-browsable...so what do we as a species do with that? i guess you could learn about obscure highly specialized things, glean copyrighted media, or even talk to far away friends. no, that would be stupid. i wanna know the definitive (or at least google derived) answer to the time honored question: who would win in a fight? it's true--people don't want what they want, they want what they know.

fight!

marketing works...sometimes.

it's amazing how easy it is to spot unsuccessful marketing campaigns in their various forms. it's easier still to bemusedly disregard those that are dated, intended for another age group, culture, or nation. seen that viral video that was so unremarkable, you told no one? so, maybe your real amazement should be reserved for the unlikely event that some clever marketing flows seamless and stealthily into your life. how is it that our cultural identities are so finely tuned, yet so hard to explain, so difficult to share, and nearly impossible to teach? some things people are really good at...and i think most of them surround disagreement. we always know when it's not quite right.


one image from a slideshow given by IBM back in 1975.
via swiss miss

too lazy to ride a bike?

don't sweat it, big brother has you covered...and by that i mean google. i've got very mixed feelings about this latest google maps/street view toy. on one hand it's encouraging. google continues to offer more cool and useful things aimed at the relatively internet savvy american. which is good, at least until they set their sights on something a bit more sinister than world information domination. on the other hand it feels a lot like second life...and by that i mean that i mean virtual lameness. it feeds the idealistic inkling we are given as we're growing up. you've probably heard it a hundred or so times, "you can be anything you want". regardless of what precedes or follows to qualify it, you eventually grow up to find out that line simply isn't true. at least least not in the literal sense. go play...



...or better yet, go ride.