Google Censors

So why all the sudden has Google discovered moralistic censorship? Recently google has begun censoring image search results to provide more family friendly links, and coincidentally Google has also started censoring music search results to lead people to the cleaner, or radio edited versions of songs. Frankly, this seems both counterproductive and self defeating.

This is actually a massive shift in Google’s corporate policy, especially for people under 40, and it might be the beginning of the end for Google. No, I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic.

Let me preface the next part of this by listing some facts. One, I am a huge Google fan. When I got my first gmail account in 2005 I made the conscious decision that Google was offering superior products and services to any other search provider, and that I knew that I was going to be wedded to that service for some time. Slowly Google introduced other products that filled all of my needs. Products like Voice, Reader, News, Picasa, etcetera. Two, I am an Android user and an Android loyalist. I have chosen Android as what I think is superior to any other smartphone platform. Three, I have friends that have worked at Google, interned at Google, and might still work for Google now. So while I am going to criticize this decision strongly, please understand that I want Google to remain the best provider for my search and services. 

Since many studies have found that almost all men consume adult content online, and since those same men search for porn matching their own sexual proclivities and discard things otherwise found to be distasteful or uninteresting. Since music is commonly thought of as profane by older generations, and especially it seems that way for newer music. These two issues seem to generate a train wreck of epic proportions.

Unless something is done immediately to end this counterproductive, puritanical, and easily circumvented censorship Google will quickly become a second-tier and also-ran search provider. It may well be that in ten years when we discuss why Google went bankrupt this will be the cornerstone.

Search is simple, search is honest, and sometimes search isn’t pretty. Google has provided honest, unfiltered search results for fourteen years. They have in that time become one of the world’s most influential companies because of their uncompromising quest for simply what is there. In the past Google has also caught flack for censoring results in other countries, especially when those results are politically unpopular. This is a problem too, and activists in many countries are struggling to end this. What is most shocking about this censorship is that it is taking place here, in America. The supposed land of the free, and the home of Google.

 We need impartial, honest, and fair results for any search. Without it, we should all just move to Bing.

Woodfire Grill

I had the most amazing meal tonight. Woodfire Grill is an lovely restaurant in Atlanta. I was lucky enough to meet Bernard tonight. He was a gracious host, and he and the chef prepared an amazing tasting that was everything I needed. I shared dinner with Jodifer, an old friend from college that lives here in Atlanta. It was, in every sense of the word, sublime. From the yellow tail to the incredible smore fusion dessert I have not had a better meal. We ate at the bar and Blake and Brian treated us like family from the first course. Few restaurant experiences in my life equal this meal. If you are in Atlanta, please try Woodfire Grill.

Is Kickstarter bad for RPGs?

This will be a complicated piece, and a complex issue. So let me start with a few caveats and a few statements. First, I love roleplaying games. I have been playing them since I was eleven. I feel they are a part of me at my very core. I am not complaining about RPGs. Second, I have a great many friends that make their living in the RPG industry. These are some fantastic people, and they mean well. Lastly, even though I like the idea of Kickstarter ‘crowd-funding’ as a whole is headed for a cliff. I apologize to everyone I am going to offend, and I am going to offend people.

There has been a renaissance of Kickstarter projects in the RPG industry that is unprecedented. Many have been so successful that they have raised over a hundred thousand dollars and wildly exceeded their goals by five hundred percent or more. While on the surface this might seem to be a great boon to RPGs as a whole I think this is the beginning of the end. There are a great many things that Kickstarter works well for I just don’t think that many RPGs are good candidates.

Products I love, and want to see are raising obscene amounts of money. Many of these products are simply greedy publishers maximizing their own profit at the expense of their own customers, and I think this is a bad precedent.

My first point is that retail distribution and sales have been problematic for many companies. There are many reasons for this. Retail is an expensive and capital intensive business. Quality employees are expensive to hire and maintain. The OGL phenomenon has lead to a wild proliferation of products. The major publishers have set tighter guidelines. Distribution has shaved margins past the point of profitability. However retail has always been the soul of our hobby.

I have spoken before about how I first started to play in Lincoln Nebraska at Merlin and Mary Hayes original Hobbytown. In the last twenty years I’ve been buying at Emerald City in Seminole Florida. For decades the retail store has been the center of our communities . It was where we bought our games, where we learned about new games, and where we discussed the finer points of the hobby. Without the stores and their commitment to us we would have been adrift without any support.

Kickstarter removes the retail component and redirects that profit to the publisher. On the surface this is a boon for many publishers in the short term, but each dollar of profit removed from the retail channel intensifies the crisis that exists in the retail space today. Quality retailers deserve our support and removing these products creates a death spiral of shrinking margins and closing stores.

Second, Kickstarter promotes bad business models. When I say this many people are going to be angry. I’m sorry, just hear me out. Being a game publisher is hard, you have to wear many hats, you need to write, you need to edit, you need to sell, you need a diverse skill set, and you have to raise capital. This unique blend of components creates a level of excellence. Marginal games with limited appeal don’t get made, and in my mind they probably shouldn’t.

The Indie games community has been thriving for years creating boutique games that explore new avenues and new ideas. Every once in a while those Indie publishers have become very successful. Many people forget that companies like Green Ronin, White Wolf and FASA were once tiny little boutique companies. This system of using the market to create better games has worked well.

Finally Kickstarter is bad for the hobby because it excludes new players. This is related to the retail question and the Indie game publisher question because it affects our industry not just today but also tomorrow. Our greatest evangelists have always been the game store professionals and independent publishers that go out into the community and bring new customers into the fold. RPGs are sadly dying as computer games and social media give all of the utility of the table top experience without leaving your home. While I am not a luddite and understand that the wider world is not going back, working from inside the hobby to destroy these paradigms is not replacing them.

So what do we do?

I think that there is a place for Kickstarter, but I think we need to set some ground rules as responsible publishers and consumers that add value but don’t decimate the core business.

One, set a goal and stop. Capital is hard to come by these days and Kickstarter offers a fantastic way to raise money from like-minded individuals and gauge the market. So if you need ten thousand dollars to print your product, acquire art, or advertise by all means use this tool. You should also stop funding when you reach your goals and use that capital to support the retail and distribution network.

Two, make your products valuable to the retailer. If you offer collectible patches, special editions, and promotional t-shirts turn those products into SKUs and sell them through the retail and distribution channel as well. You can do a special color or designation for early adopters, but you don’t have to cut those channels out of the process.

Three, change your idea when you fail. If your Kickstarter fails to reach your goal solicit and use criticism that can improve your game and make it saleable. If it fails again than it wasn’t meant to be.

Kickstarter isn’t an RPG company, and they don’t build their business model on what is best for our hobby. Another problem is that these projects can make Kickstarter quite a bit of money, so the company has to be conflicted as to what to do. Added to this is the fact that so many different companies are doing so many projects in so many different areas that the company does not have the resources to vet any significant number of them. We have to be our own gatekeepers, and we have to balance the needs of the consumer, the retailer, and the company.

It’s a race, and that is better for everybody.

I read today that iPhone 5 sales have eclipsed Android this month. As the crazy holiday shopping season starts I expect that to continue. RIM appears to be suddenly relevant again, as the digerati are ‘excited’ by some things that the BB10 platform appears to do. Windows Phone’s phantom reboot issue seems to be solved, although the public release of the fix won’t be out for a week or so.

Now I am not stupid enough to think that Windows Phone 8, or 7.9 for that reason, is a contender. I also think that BB10 could make french toast in the morning and it still might be irrelevant, but it is getting interesting.

Windows phone will only become relevant if Windows 8 becomes a hit, and I think that is a sucker bet. Windows 9 will be great, but I think that 8 is the new Vista. A huge hulking behemoth trying to do too much for to many, with too complex a solution. If Microsoft surprises me all legacy support will disappear by 2016 and good riddance to bad rubbish.

BlackBerry 10 is WebOS. I don’t mean it is a copy of Palm’s swan song but everything I have seen shows some sleek innovations built on solid platform tools with a well-defined roadmap. I am sad that it might be two years too late. My own experience with BlackBerry was awesome, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep innovating. Apple is a great example of a company comeback, but RIM doesn’t have a Steve Jobs.

Life as a monopoly is simply stupid, and neither patent trolls or stupid lawsuits can change that. iPhone and Android make each other better every day. There is a constant pressure to make new things and different things. To innovate, consolidate, simplify, improve, and even expand. Windows 8 Phone and BB10 will continue to push innovation too.

We all still need each other, but my dad probably still doesn’t need a smartphone.

Lincoln is doing well in theaters despite historical evidence to the contrary.

I saw Lincoln tonight in Plano. It was nearly flawless.

There were a few uneven performances, but proof to the contrary may well lie on the editing room floor.

This year my favorite joke is: "Lincoln is doing well in theaters despite historical evidence to the contrary."

Of course we all know how the film ends, but the journey is immense and wonderful in so many ways. Daniel Day Lewis was as good as any might hope. Sally Field, David Strathaim, James Spader, and Tommy Lee Jones were amazing. Hal Holbrook was perfect too, but then he always seems to be.

The film moved me to tears, the first film to do so since the opening montage of UP!

Please support this film.

Dredd 3D

As I am want to do traveling across America I went to the movies tonight. Since I figured it could not be worse than the 1995 Sylvester Stallone abortion that raped one of my favorite comics from my childhood; I decided to see Dredd. What a good decision that turned out to be. 

This film is fantastic!

This is a spoiler free review, so let’s start with the basics. This is a film adaptation of a British Comic, set in post apocalyptic America, starring a New Zealander, and shot in South Africa.  It has all the recipes for disaster built in, and yet it captures the essence and style of Judge Dredd almost exactly as I recall him from my youth.  There is literally nothing about this film that I would change.

Even though I generally dislike 3D films, I missed the last 2D showing so I donned my glasses and went in. The film uses 3D in some very interesting and visually pleasing ways. The acting is well balanced and even, the story is tight and linear, the photography is colorful and interesting, and the music is great. This is the best SF action movie I’ve seen in ages. Do not take young kids. This is a bloody, violent film with nothing for children what so ever.

Plans are in the works for two sequels and the film is doing very well abroad, so why does it seem to be tanking in the US? I don’t know, but you should go see it right now. 

For Michael & Lisa

Did you ever meet someone and when you locked eyes and felt a physical impact? That was how I felt when I met her. It was like some deity had grabbed me and said, “Pay attention!” We were having breakfast with mutual friends. She and I had passed occasionally online; seen each other in some kind of weird memetic space. We hadn’t met in a corporeal sense. Still when I saw her sitting on the other side of the table and we locked eyes something in my head went ping.

You know the weirdest thing. Whenever I think of happiness in my life I think of Trey, and I want to call him and tell him that I am so happy but he is still dead. This is a rabbit hole in the second paragraph, and I do not care. I used to be able to call up my friend and talk about anything. Wives, kids, the nineties, the eighties, bad haircuts, girls we fucked, girls we set each other up with, music, love, politics, hate. Now I have to talk to his fucking picture and it sucks. I want to tell him the story I am going to tell you guys, and I can’t. Motherfucker offed himself in the ugliest way I could imagine. He is equal parts my brother and a complete chickenshit asshole. I miss him more than I can say. I think about him, his widow, and his kids, and I am too scared to see them because even years later I am going to start crying and fuck this, rabbit hole over.

Back to what I was talking about, have you ever had a friend so forthright and dependable that you cannot imagine a time when you didn’t know that? Michael is like that. He is all of the things that I wish I could be, but then I’d be him. I am most definitely not him and he is most definitely not me. Still the symmetry of our friendship works. I know he is fairly sure that I would help him bury a body or twelve. He knows I would take a bullet for him in the chest, even though I know that is going to hurt like shit. I know he doesn’t understand me, and I know that much of the time I don’t either. It seems in my life that I admire most in my friends what I cannot see within myself. Shit, sometimes I wish that I could read something a friend would write about me. Just so I could understand myself.

When something happens in our world; something like weddings, funerals, Christmas, new kids, or life then Mike is the go-to guy. He is the rock, the sun, and that which we all orbit. He is the soul of our friendship. Actually that is funny. There is a set of pictures that are old as shit. Fifteen years almost I think. There in every picture are our mutual friends. People we have known since we were children, metaphorically if not exactly. We are laughing, talking, drinking, and smoking. In each picture is Michael. He is a common thread in each of his friends’ lives different from what the rest of us will ever be.

So I met this girl and there was a palpable, immediate, emotional connection. Didn’t I already say that? She has wicked cool curly hair and a look on her face that screams strength and beauty. She has just enough pure genius, and just enough sass to take down any man in the room whether they are twenty years older than her, or twenty years younger. I was impressed, not because she was a woman so much as because she was just too cool. I knew she wasn’t mine though. I knew it immediately.

So imagine my surprise when she introduces me to her boyfriend. Imagine my pleasure to learn that her boyfriend was maybe the best man I had ever known. That Lisa and Michael were together.

It was a funny meeting. If you were there you know just how funny.

So I quickly got the idea that they were infinitely compatible in ways that I am not compatible with anyone. Because of some joke someone else made in poor taste they quipped to me one day that since they were at the courthouse they should just get married. Then something else in my head went ping too.

Now some weeks later I am receiving a text message wondering if I have plans on ‘x’ date…

Ping.

It is awesome when you are happy. However when the mechanism for happiness within yourself is broken seeing your friends be happy is the penultimate. It would be nice to be in love, but when that mechanism for being in love is broken within yourself there is nothing better than seeing two of your friend become lovers, become best friends, become more than friends, and fall in love.

It couldn’t happen to better people, and I know that for a fact.

Friends

I was at my going away party last night, and I was talking to an old friend. They aren't the kind of person I see every week, or even every year, but we've been friends for decades. We can pick up a conversation a year later and know where we left off. He is one of my favorite people in the world.

See I get it. There are real obstacles to being friends as adults. Careers, wives, girlfriends, kids, blah, blah, blah. I get it. If I called him and threw up the bat signal, he'd be there with no reservations.

He had noticed that the ranks of my friends were just as diverse, but that several of my so-called friends were absent. I explained that in the last year I had fired over a dozen, some of them old friends, because they weren't friends at all.

People who would promise to be there for something important, like your going away party, then come up with some bullshit excuse. People who never call, and send you to voicemail on the first ring more than they answer. People who say disparaging things behind your back so they can “keep it real”.

How is this for real: You can hang alone. I don't need people like you.

I was the one who listened to you talk about your ex-girlfriend for months. You were the one who couldn't be bothered when I got divorced. I was the one who got out of bed and came to get your drunk ass, so you wouldn't kill anyone especially yourself. You see my call and you let them ring. I was the guy who put his ass and his reputation on the line to get you a job. You are the one who tried to cut me out of my own business.

I don't have time for you, I do not want you in my life. You are a shitty person and not a friend anyone wants. So if you stop seeing my updates and if you stop getting my calls that's because I am tired of you and I am tired of your bullshit.

I have friends, and I don't need you.

This is a picture of a woman.

This is a picture of a woman, a female body. This picture isn’t vile, evil, or disgusting. This picture is beautiful, and so is this person. This picture isn’t vulgar, pornographic or ugly.  

This woman can bear children if she chooses. She can also finish college and start a career. This woman can marry her high school sweetheart and become a mom. Her breasts can help feed her children; her hips are a great place to rest a baby while she screws the cap on the baby food. Did I mention that her high school sweetheart may also be a beautiful woman?

This person decided she wanted to take a picture of herself on a day when she felt beautiful. Maybe it is for a friend, or a lover, or just to remind her of the perfection of youth.

This picture doesn’t make her evil, or stupid, or a whore.

This picture doesn’t hurt you.

This picture is a person, just like us.

Galaxy Nexus

As I wrote in my last post I left Sprint for SimpleMobile a few months ago. The first phone I purchased was an unlocked Motorola Atrix. It was an excellent phone, except for all the unnecessary crapware that both Motorola and AT&T installed on top of Android.

MotoBLUR was such a complete clusterf**k that I cannot even begin to describe. Motorola’s adding another layer of icing to the Android experience was both poorly thought and poorly executed. Actually, the Sense UI on my EVO 4G wasn’t bad, but Sprint also added several crappy applications especially background processes that made the phone much slower than it was after rooting. Okay, so both my EVO 4G, and my Atrix 4G were pretty sluggish before rooting. After rooting and installing basic Android ROMs both phones were much faster.  So what if I bought a phone that didn’t have all of that carrier bloat and all those unnecessary applications?

A few weeks ago I wrote about Windows 8 and the impending backlash because Microsoft is developing, building, and selling their own tablet. Well that backlash is both real and well documented, but it has a lot to do with the same reasons that are wreaking havoc in the Android world. Once upon a time cellular phones were a lot more problematic than they are now. There were fewer standards, less interoperability, and there was that thing that few remember called Y2K. To deal with these challenges the carriers had to hire and maintain large staffs for testing and quality assurance.

Some years later these entrenched departments became unnecessary, however none of them saw it this way because they wanted to keep their jobs. First Blackberry, then Apple, and finally Google had made these steps superfluous. The software was smart enough to do this for the carriers. All those Executive VPs and Directors liked there jobs so they came up with bad science and big spreadsheets to rationalize their work. Unfortunately that also meant they had to do something. So now we have crapware and UI “improvements” invading our phones the same way that they invaded our desktops.

I ordered my Galaxy Nexus online from the Google Play store. The entire purchase took three minutes, and the phone was shipped to me overnight, and I signed for it. Unboxing was ridiculously simple and I charged the phone to 100% before I inserted the SIM card. The charging time helped. I used that hour to make sure my photos, music, and sundry was all backed up.

The Nexus lacks an SD card slot, but that isn’t a flaw. I think that the 16GB of internal memory are more than sufficient. Especially considering that Google Music and Google Video are cloud services. Having a huge bucket of internal memory is less important now than it used to be. Honestly, since 16GB SD cards became commercially available I have never had more than about 10GB of media on any phone. I doubt my habits will change much moving forward.

When I booted the phone for the first time I was asked to sign into my wireless network before signing into Google. Then I signed into Google and we were off. SimpleMobile does require a few minutes of additional manual programming for network and MMS access. Fortunately I could wait on that while my phone did the Android update dance. Once all of the standard applications were updated I added my personal applications; SwiftKey, Evernote, Kindle, BeyondPod, Astrid Tasks, AirDroid, Shazam, Tumblr, and Pocket. I also install pretty much all of the Google Android extras like Goggles, Translate, Reader, Chrome, Voice, Google+, Drive, and Shopper.

So getting everything signed in, updated, installed, and syncing took about an hour and then I got to play. This phone feels incredibly fast, fast, fast. Fast screen switching, fast animations, fast touchscreen. Even the Camera is great for my purposes and takes quick pictures. Searching and connecting seems fast for a 3G phone. WiFi speeds seemed about twice what I was used to.  Everything about this phone seems clean and fast. Google Now takes a little learning, but one you have the hang of it seems very nice. It makes me wonder what the next few iterations will feel like. Did I mention it was fast, okay, just checking.

The Tech rumor machine is now predicting five Nexus phones from different manufacturers in the pipeline for 2013. Once people start to see the utility of an unmuddied Android phone I think that the Nexus ideal will become the de facto user choice in the Android world. Just like I think that the Microsoft Windows Tablet will be a huge leap forward in the Windows user experience.

You can buy the Galaxy Nexus at the Google Play store. Buying it anywhere else just doesn’t make sense, but buy it. This is the best phone I have ever owned. 

Leaving Sprint

I know that phones are important to people. My phone is how I run my business and my life. I don't expect that to change anytime soon. 

About eighteen months ago my sister first told me about SimpleMobile. For $40 per month, taxes and fees included, she was getting unlimited service. I was shocked. I was paying Sprint about $150 for the same service, but I was scared to change. Sprint’s coverage was outstanding in the Tampa Bay area. My EVO 4G phone was also outstanding. I didn't feel I could risk losing calls, because my business is my phone. 

You couldn't have found a more vocal and supportive customer for Sprint than I was. Of course they weren't happy with that, or so it seemed. My first problem was my rebate. I know, I should have known better. Sprint insisted that they would rebate me $100, by check, when I purchased my EVO. Well guess what? They lost my rebate paperwork, three times. Even though they had all the information, and all of the purchases and activation were made at a Sprint corporate store, they were very sorry that they couldn't help me. I never got my rebate.

Two years before I had bought a Treo 800w. It was an awesome phone, when it worked, but Sprint gave me nine of them over a ten month period. That they refused to simply move me to another phone was upsetting, but I had everything backed up and syncing so the problem wasn't insurmountable. The next phone was a Blackberry Tour, and it was fantastic. I had zero problems with the service, the phone, or anything for nearly sixteen months.

My beloved Blackberry had eaten three batteries, two cases, a holster, and a headset. Call quality was still good, but I wanted more capability. So when Sprint debuted the EVO I kept my eye on it. The Treo 800w experience had taught me to be cautious about jumping to a new phone. I read service bulletins and user experiences. Several months later I took the plunge. Android was exactly what I needed, and the EVO did the job admirably. Even though I had to purchase an extended battery for $60 to get through a day away from a desk, and I rationalized that the added expense of getting screwed out of the rebate was unfortunate but not unforgivable.

Let me just say that I was wrong.

After six months the motherboard failed on my EVO. In the next six monthe this happened 4 times. Although the people at the local Sprint store were apologetic, Sprint had again decided that after three replacement phones I again should not move to another phone.  This is a pretty important point.

After the purchase of my Treo 800w and the resulting awful experience Sprint had instituted a policy of allowing customers to “crossgrade” to a different phone model after three warranty exchanges or a defective phone. This policy remained in force for the entire time I enjoyed my flawless Blackberry experience. After I bought my EVO 4G Sprint revoked that policy. I had a rather heated discussion with several people at Sprint who insisted that they were very sorry that they couldn’t help me. I swallowed hard. Then Sprint announced the iPhone 4S.

For the last few years I had been a Sprint Premier customer. We got some cool benefits like a special toll-free number, annual phone upgrades rather than every two years. Stuff like that. So I figured that I could hold out and jump to the iPhone when it debuted, and that was only three months away. So six weeks before the iPhone debut, Sprint cancelled the Premier program. I was told, very politely, that I could hang.

I took deep breaths even then. I weighed my options, MetroPCS, Verizon, and the dozen or so other carriers available. My sister kept talking about SimpleMobile. I started to listen.

It was almost eerie. As I investigated other carriers it became more and more obvious that Sprint was wildly overpriced. Most US carriers are overpriced. That is why they are some of the most profitable cellular carriers in the world. Also during this time Sprint began to experience a number of Network outages in the Tampa Bay area. I was told by some anonymous Sprint employees that this was partially due to Sprint’s decision to abandon WiMax for its 4G service and move to LTE technology. I went to my local Sprint location one day to complain and the showroom was full of customers who were sharing my frustration with the network issues. I was asked politely by the store manager to call in for a service credit because it would be over an hour before they got to me. He explained that they were aware of the issue at corporate and so I did.

I was told by customer service that there were no issues in Tampa Bay at all. That there hadn’t been in months and that no credit was due. I asked for a manager. I spoke to two managers. I related my entire tale and my desire to stay with Sprint. I was assured that no one at Sprint would issue me a credit. I was incensed. I asked the finance manager bluntly. “Are you saying that my business and my eight years as a customer mean nothing and that you will not issue the credit that your store manager assured me was forthcoming?”

There was silence at the other end of the phone. I asked if she could hear me and she said, “Yes sir.” I asked again and she said, “No sir.” I thanked her for her time and hung up.

In the next five minutes I purchased a used unlocked Android phone and a SIM card for SimpleMobile. I activated and within five days I was a SimpleMobile customer. I doubt I will ever go back to Sprint or any other traditional carrier. SimpleMobile has been awesome.

Now we can do the math. I am saving over $1000 per year on my service. My monthly bill has dropped from $147 to $40. Even with the purchase of a new unlocked phone each year I will save on average $600 per year.

I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Nexus from Google directly two weeks ago. That experience has been very positive as well, and I will write about that next time. 

ERMAHGERD, WINDOWS 8, SURFACE, OEM PANIC!

For some reason although I have been tangentially aware of ERMAHGERD for some time I can no longer keep it out of my head. There is even an ERMAHGERD translator now available.

Some jackass finally figured out that the new Microsoft Surface is going to be hard on MS partners. Well duh. Microsoft knew that when they decided to build the damn thing, as a matter of fact that was why they decided to build the damn thing. The partners have had a couple of decades to get things right, but they keep screwing it up.

Dell has screwed it up so badly that they want to get out of the PC business and sell services and software like IBM. Hopefully they won't be complete idiots like IBM. Cringely's series of columns on IBM mistakes is pretty epic, and I believe them to be completely true.

The tablet ideal is a new paradigm for PCs, and OEMs are screwing it up hugely. Shoddy hardware, poorly assembled, loaded with moderately shitty programs, and processor hungry applications are destroying the user experience and the market share. Microsoft has watched Android tablet after tablet fail for exactly these reasons. Microsoft isn't stupid, and they saw an opportunity to emulate the one company that is doing the tablet correctly. That company is Apple.

Microsoft has relied on OEMs to define the Windows experience, and the OEMs have done a piss poor job. I see my friends spending hours removing unnecessary utilities, terrible programs, and applications that actually cause safety concerns every time they buy a new Windows PC. Microsoft gets one shot for Windows 8 tablet to make a first impression. They must offer the consumer a complete Windows tablet experience without dilution or unnecessary additions. 

Because if Microsoft stumbles significantly on Windows 8 they may become just another enterprise software company, looking to get out of the PC business just like Dell and IBM.

The Tour

So I've been pretty secretive about what has been going on. Not from any desire for secrecy so much as a fear of spoiling the soup. It's pretty cool, and now I can tell you about it.


Starting August first I will be engaged as a corporate chauffeur to Davidoff of Geneva for the Zino Platinum Tenth Anniversary Tour. I will be Travelling all over the USA as far north as Rhode Island, as far west as Las Vegas and all over the in-between. 


Of course I will let everyone know when I will be near them, I won't be back from pretty much September 1st until December 15th with the  exception of Thanksgiving with my family. August will be at the IPCPR show in Orlando and actual travel arrangements. 


I am studying cigars and such as well. This is a fantastic opportunity and I can't wait to start, but I guess I should also talk about the vehicle.


The Mercedes Benz Sprinter is one of the new breed of livery vehicles that is purpose built to be as much a commercial truck as a luxury vehicle. It is wildly impressive, and excruciatingly luxurious.


The vehicle is being built by the amazing team at Boulevard Customs. I will post pictures of the actual vehicle soon. This is a reference image of the base vehicle in white. Mine is flat black, and kitted as a mobile cigar lounge with more accoutrements than I can list. 

So there will be updates as we move forward. I want to thank everyone at Davidoff for the opportunity.


More later. 

The Dark Knight Rises

John and I went to see the Dark Knight Rises marathon at the Regal Parkside Stadium 16 last night with friends. There were some hiccups, but it wasn’t bad.

We arrived about six pm and settled in with friends and like minded geeks alike. Nine hours in a chair, even a very comfortable chair like those in the RPX theater. If you aren’t familiar with RPX, or Regal Premium Experience, this is from their web site.

RPX involves converting individual screens into premium environments. The upgraded theaters will feature luxurious seats that have high-back head rests. The theaters will also have large 60 foot wide immersive screens and dual 30,000 lumen digital projectors capable of showing Real 3D and 2D movies. They will also be equipped with state-of-the-art 100,000 watt 9.1 digital audio speaker systems with 273 loudspeaker components including eight 21 inch subwoofers.

The seats were comfortable, and the sound was good, but I wasn’t aware of any real difference between this and other times I had visited Regal’s other theaters without RPX.

All of these ‘premiums’ are designed to simply increase ticket prices because people just don’t go to the movies any more. Revenues are up slightly, but only because of increased ticket prices. The number of patrons is falling dramatically. The number of patrons will continue to fall as home viewing technology improves, and prices skyrocket. Two large sodas and a large popcorn costs just over twenty dollars. The tickets for John and I were $25 each.

Someday either movie studios are going to change, or disappear. I am a betting man, and I love film, but I am still betting the latter.

Batman Begins stands up well, and is still a better experience on the big screen. After our first twenty minute intermission between films though, we had a problem. It seems the hard drive containing the Dark Knight arrived corrupted. We had no second film. I was appalled.

You see the projectors require a locked hard drive to function, and there was no way to download a new copy of the film. The movie studios are fighting inertia and good customer service to protect their intellectual property for a few days, if that. All that being said, the studio handled it as well as they could.

The General Manager came into the theater and personally apologized, a nice touch. They also gave us all passes to see another RPX film at a later time, and showed us Spider Man to fill up the time. My hat goes off to the GM, it was handled as well as we could have hoped.

About 12:15 we got to see the Dark Knight Rises and what a ride it was. I will keep the review spoiler-free, but let me say this. What an awesome capstone to the series. I think that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is amazing in that only a few hours after the lights came up I am already remembering the three films as one continuous story. Fantastic film making.

For those who doubted Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle I say balderdash. I think she did a great job of being Catwoman. I disliked Michelle Pfeiffer’s characterization in Batman Returns because it strayed too far from the comics. Her look and performance was great, it just shouldn’t have been called Catwoman. Ms. Hathaway was both dead sexy and pretty damn tough as a woman of questionable means and questionable morals in a very nebulous world.

Tom Hardy was physically impressive as Bane, and did manage to act well with about 75% of his face obscured. His eyes were awesome, and his physicality was impressive. All of Nolan’s Batman villains will pale in comparison to Heath Ledger as the Joker, but I think Hardy does as good a job as Aaron Eckhart did as Harvey Dent. Special mention should also be given to Joseph Gordon Levitt. I like him in this film, and that is all I have to say about that.

I won’t reveal the twists and the big reveal. Folks on the interwebs have done a bang up job of spoiling the film for many people. Suffice it to say I think that the film is very true to the spirit and mythology of Batman, though not slavishly worshipping the canon. I think that the film was better written and better acted than both The Avengers and John Carter, the two other ‘tent-pole’ releases this year. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending either.

See the Dark Knight Rises.

After we left the theater we saw a half-dozen police cars outside. I was unaware of the tragedy that occurred in Colorado, and I send my deepest condolences to the victims and their families. 

Yes I know...

You don't love me.
You don't care.
You keep calling.
You keep asking.
You don't want me.
You don't need me.
You keep wanting.
You keep lying.

You go so far as to call my friends and involve them in your life. You never ask about me exactly. You never mention your new men. You just want to be there, to inhabit that space in my head.

The part of me that wants.

I love you, and I despise you, but I still miss you.

Let me go so I can live my life.

Being Normal

This is a difficult thing to write, but my flamboyantly LGBT friends need to back off.

I love you all. I love your wit, humor, faces, and most of all I love your honesty. It is too bad that right now you are being a little counter-productive.

The battle going on right now in American politics is silly but it needs to happen. Gay people are just like us. They deserve equal protection under the law. They deserve to be married. They deserve to be equal. However this also means they don’t get to be special.

Drag queens don’t get to be angry if they threaten people openly. You are a six foot five man, in eight inch platform shoes and a pink gown you scare normal people. If you live as a woman you don’t get to be a caricature. If you are dressed fashionably and tastefully then rock on, but if you dress like a freak I will call you on it.

The more you look like us, the more you will be considered normal.

No this isn’t applicable in a Cabaret show at midnight, but it matters when you speak to Senators, march on your City Hall, and engage in real dialog.

Show the world how normal you are, so we can show you how much we don’t care. You can be just like us, and we can all live together.

Namaste,

Ross Winn

The Whys of Programming Languages

I am commenting on this story here...

This is for Michael most especially but for my other code-wielders as well. This story was obviously written by a programmer who had become a journalist and not vice versa. Why do I say this? 

"Over time, you'd expect that as developers get older, they'd get more wisdom; they'd learn more languages," Meyerovich says. "We've found that's not true. They plateau."

Why would you expect that? Do you expect people to generally learn more languages as they get older? This is not logical as I understand the term any more than it is logical to read this statement:

"There's a tendency in academics of trying to solve a problem when no one actually ever had that problem," said Rabkin, who recently received his computer science PhD at Berkeley and is now at Princeton working on a post-doc.

This is how academics work. Now quite a bit of amazing innovation has come from this supposition, but so has a vast ocean of navel gazing. So it is completely possible that this story was written by someone with no real exposure to academics either.

One huge issue that the author leaves out is the fact that college and university professors write the textbooks, and they don't want to constantly have to relearn something that they can more easily teach by rote. 

Also, C is the lingua franca. This is important. Airline pilots use English, Chefs usually have a working knowledge of French. This allows a free flow of ideas between people who cannot usually communicate. 

Spoiler Free Prometheus Review

I don’t know what I was expecting with Prometheus, but I definitely wanted to see it. John made a funny comment walking out of the theatre, he said he was glad he and I had the sex talk a few years back. If we had had that talk just before we walked in to the theatre he assured me he would be scarred for life. No, there aren’t any sex scenes in the film per se, but if you see the film you might laugh too.

Though not all of the ideas are 100% effective the film does a nice job of expanding on some of the ideas presented in the other films, as well as explaining some backstory. I am sure you must have seen Peter Weyland’s TED talk or the David 8 advertisement. I am generally pleased with the film, especially the acting. The performances by Noomi Rapace and Idris Elba are especially apt.

The ending was a bit of a left turn as well. All in all I think this is a solid film. Go see it, John and I both give it thumbs up.

Ray Bradbury, R is for Rest In Peace

A force in modern American literature has passed from the Earth at age 91.

In my opinion Bradbury had a sensibility that was unmatched in his peers. The Martian Chronicles are amazing, as was Something Wicked This Way Comes, but his singular work was definitely Fahrenheit 451. I believe it to be the most important work of literature in the twentieth century. 

Good rest to you Grandmaster. 

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

Your Facebook "Privacy Notice" Is Unenforceable Nonsense

This is 2012, and this is the internet. It is all public, and you own none of it. The topless photo you sent your boyfriend before prom is public. The suggestive pic that your girlfriend took while you were eating a carrot, public. The time you cried, public. Your love for your children is public too. 

The biggest issue that I have with all of this is the innate ignorance and complete lack of thought most of you have given this.

I decided about twenty minutes after I established my first email account on Netcom in 1995 that there was neither a reasonable expectation of privacy nor was there a shred of chance that there would ever be one. How could anyone think so?

Face it, you didn’t think about it, and you are well and truly fucked now. Your life is making other people money, you get a free email account and the ability to see what your friends are doing this weekend. Congratulations, and good luck with that.

The Facebook IPO and lazy journalism...

So Facebook, yeah, $38, yeah. A news story? Not really.

Here's the rub. None of the journalist are asking any of the right questions because at this point they are simply parroting what banks and other companies are saying. This is ludicrous.

Facebook could have been a public company a couple years, but what no one was watching or paying attention to was simple. They weren't at the top of their market yet. Facebook built value for eight years, and they reached the top of their valuation the day they announced they were finally going public.

So many people were holding shares in Facebook that they should have gone public at least a year ago. However creative accounting and a few hearings kept them off the radar for a while. Once they could no longer delay they created significant media coverage and set a share price of $38 to maximize return.

The idea of a share price in an IPO is to maximize shareholder return. Not the underwriting banks, who'd actually have liked a lower price so that they and their best customers can see a large bounce on opening day. This is a huge mistake. This means that the bank screwed the company and their shareholders by setting too low a price.

When Google opened at (I think) $98 Wall Street made the same complaints. Of course that stock traded today at $590. Big investors and big banks were just upset that they didn't make a lot of money on opening day. None of those banks are upset today if they held the stock.

Facebook maximized the capital they needed to raise, and that was their job. The people who made Facebook got the money they earned through their compelling work. The underwriters, well, they'll just have to buy and hold. Just like they did with Google. I think a 400% return is fine, just be patient.

What if Apple is the enemy?

Last week I wrote about the Google terms of service and how it doesn't make them bad, or worse than anyone else, for that matter. There was another press release from the bay area last week, and now I am forced to admit that Apple is the bad guy and they are getting worse.


People who know me also know that I am, or possibly was, a huge Apple fan. Almost every personal computer I have ever owned has been an Apple Macintosh. Since 1991 I have owned exactly two non-apple computers. One was a generic tower that we used as a home computer from 1999 to 2001, the other is the cheap HP laptop I am typing this on right now.


On both Windows machines the experience is horrid in comparison. The interface of Windows is still light-years behind. The physical machines, especially laptops) are built poorly and lack basic design considerations like HUMAN FINGER SIZE and VISIBLE KEYS. However my MacBook Pro chose to die just as I got laid off from both jobs and was in the midst of writing my novel, so I was rushed into buying what I could afford. With $400 in my pocket I walked into Best Buy and walked out with this ugly utilitarian thing that only barely gets the job done.


Apple has made some incredibly positive decisions over the last fifteen years. OS X is chief among them. Moving to a flavor of UNIX has made the Mac OS better than any other. More robust, more secure, more flexible, and more versatile. OS X is running iPads, Macs, and iPods. There are still, a decade later, very few if any realy viruses written for OS X. I have also found the quality of the applications to be excellent and the physical machines to be smaller (and smaller) works of art.
Yet I may never buy another Macintosh again. Not now and not ever. Because the App Store and Mountain Lion may not be the death of Apple, but they are the death of my trust in their way of doing business. 


If Steve Jobs were alive today I'd tell him to his face that this course of action was bad for two reasons. One, it removes real motivation from Apple to make a better product, and two it removes all real innovation from independent software developers for the Macintosh.


Without question Apple has made the best music software, the best photo software, the best presentation software, and even the best integrated computing experience. Yet all of those innovations was through market pressures and some strategic acquisitions. As an example, iTunes was awesome because of hundreds of steps taken by the developers of Audion, MacAMP, and SoundJam to make their competing products better. However Apple bought SoundJam and destroyed the market with the closed iTunes system.


Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X makes that competition and innovation harder. It makes Apple an arbiter of what software is allowed, how much comptition is 'good' for users, and what elements can be changed later. This is a big deal, and I am angry as a consumer. If there had been any decent Android word processing software available, and there is not, I would have bought a ChromeBook. As it was Window 7 was my only real option.


Now some might say that I am overreacting and as Mountain Lion is presented today that is a definite maybe. However as Apple has closed more and more of its development and embraced more closed standards in the last five years. I see a very disturbing trend.


Now if I can just find a Windows laptop that doesn't feel like a Mattel Toy...

Google Is Not The Enemy

I got a gmail invitation about a decade ago. I had to get an invitation, because gmail wasn't open to the public yet. It was a long time ago. Google was still a new company, they had a shiny ethical statement and it wasn't thought of as a bad guy yet. Some people think Google is bad now, and some people want you to delete your Google data and jump ship before the policy unification goes into effect next month.

Seriously, get over it.

I made a conscious decision that all of this data was free and publicly available over a decade ago. Google is no better and no worse than any other internet search provider. I might venture a guess that all of this righteous indignation is generally a slowly dawning realization of what I surmised in 2001.

Nobody reads the Privacy policies, the EULAs, or the 'fine print' as it were anyway. Basically this discussion is about economics. If you aren't paying money for it then you are the product.

For decades we got used to 'free' radio and television. This stuff was free because we listened to soap and beer commercials. Content has never been free, we just didn't think we were paying, or realize we were paying. If you were paying Google for search and services with real money from your pockets I might understand your indignation. As it is today you just aren't paying attention to some basic facts.

Everyone is collecting this data and using it. Google is being honest enough to tell you. Facebook isn't any better. Neither is Yahoo, and neither is anyone else. They are all monetized by your eyeballs, your habits, and your searches. Facebook is worth a hundred BILLION dollars. This worth is all about your data.

One more thing, the government is collecting all of this data as well. Hundreds of political groups too. The government made it legal, and you can't stop them. Damn near every government is collecting all of this data and you can't stop them; not now and not ever.

Your privacy is, at best, the childish illusion of a buggy whip or a model T. They are cute, and quirky, but we are never going back to them.

You are the product. You have a cell phone, a computer, a tablet, and a television. Everything you do and every piece of data you generate is being sold right now. By your providers, your services, your companies, and your government. Choosing one company is no better or worse than choosing another. Google isn't your friend, but they aren't your enemy either.

So get over it.