The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West was a book by Oswald Spengler. It is interesting in its way, but no one would ever call it riveting. The Decline of the West is real, and it is happening right now. President Obama has destroyed my faith in politicians forever. He made a lot of flowery promises. Even if he was better than Mitt Romney, and make no mistake he was better than the gutless wonder who either lied to the people of Massachusetts or lied to the rest of America.

As an aside, I still maintain that had the governor of Massachusetts actually ran for President he would have won. However Mitt lacked the courage of his previously held convictions. Obama destroyed him for two reasons. American doesn’t give a rat-fuck if someone is gay, and everybody knows that women should control their own bodies.

I’m sure that homophobes still do care. By the way, even if you think we don’t realize that gay people scare you because you have gay thoughts we damn well know that you know. Every time you spew your hatred against LBGTQ people we all see the huge neon sign above your head that says “I WANT TO BE GAY”. Get over it.

I am sure also that white men are terrified of women who control their own destinies. The male dominated white society is a myth. Any man who speaks against equality for women speaks against their own daughters, and their own mothers. Frankly I don’t even consider them men, but I should stop ranting.

The end of America won’t happen with a bang. Did you hear one? No? Well the end of America is happening right now. On Obama’s watch. Oh, it wasn’t his idea. That came from the Bush administration. However he did nothing to fight it’s reauthorization. Nothing to protect the Constitution.

The President of the United States swears an oath to uphold the Constitution. Our last two Presidents have said that their first duty was to protect the American people. Guess what, neither of them read their oath. If you forgot your crib sheet: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

It’s pretty simple. It says preserve, protect, and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States. Notice it doesn’t say “the people”. For over 200 years we had plenty of safety for plenty of Americans with the Constitution intact. It can be that way again. We don’t have to be scared of all the brown people just because a few brown people happened to do something bad.

Yet we have no first, second, fourth, fifth, or sixth amendment rights any more. Since the PATRIOT act was passed in 2001, just a few days after the tragedy of 9/11. It was signed October 26th by George W. Bush and reauthorized as the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 and signed by Barack Obama on May 26th 2011.

If the Republican party wants a serious candidate for President in 2016, like Chris Christie who would be fantastic in my opinion, they need to realize three things. The four largest expansions in the Federal government have all been under Republican administrations. If you want less government in reality you need to stop expanding. If you want women to vote for you you need to treat them as equals. If you want the gay community to vote for you then you need to treat them as equals. Stop demonizing people who think differently. Stop demonizing the poor. Stop believing in hate.

America could be great again.

The Nexus 7

I have said a few times in the last few weeks when asked and when not asked that the Nexus 7 is probably the very best piece of technology that I have ever purchased. That’s a pretty bold statement, and after I said it I was trying to piece together why.

I’ve always been a bit of a gadget freak and I guess I get that from my dad. We were the first family in our neighborhood to have a color TV. We were first to have a VCR, with a remote control even. We were not the first to have a computer. As a matter of fact we were one of the last. My father didn’t get it. Sometimes I wonder if he gets it yet. Tech support has become one of the ways I repay my father for not choking me as a child. Yes, there are days I wish he had. He still goes out and buys things with no idea how they work or how they work with the things he already has. I’m just glad he was such a great dad, that way I don’t have to kill him. I digress.

So why is the Nexus 7 the best piece of technology that I’ve ever bought? Well, there are four reasons. Hardware, Size, Android, and Google Apps.

Some people may think that hardware and size are they same thing, and they are related but distinct. The Nexus 7 has a durable body, bright, crisp display, fast processor, and plenty of storage. The storage issue is a bugaboo for a great many old school nerds, but really it’s just a fear and ignorance thing. I have a Google Drive with 100 gigs of storage for $5 a month. I don’t need to carry everything duplicated on my laptop, phone, and tablet. That’s what the cloud is for. We all remember that floppy disks and all of the many storage media we used for decades was not archival media. I had zip drives, Jaz drives, and all that stuff. None of them were reliable, but the cloud is. You heard it here. You don’t need to carry copies of every thing on every device. You can, if you so desire, but I don’t know why you would want to. While there were some glitches in earlier versions those have been fixed.

Now the Nexus 7 isn’t something that you carry naked. Not in any way shape or form should you carry something made of aluminum and this much glass without a protective case. I have a half dozen. My favorite so far is probably the Moko leatherish case. It’s not leather, not for $16. It feels mildly leatherish and looks mildly leatherish. It protects all four corners and it works well. There are dozens of other manufacturers that make something similar and hundreds of other styles. Buy a case, and leave it in the case. If you decide to sell it some day you’ll thank me. If you drop it, and you will, you will also thank me.

Size is optimal for most uses. After travelling with a full sized iPad for several months last year, and spending some time with the 10” Galaxy tablet the larger form factor isn’t worth the additional awkwardness. I read mail, write, view pictures, and scan the news without any readability issues on the Nexus 7. It sits in my hand and I can read and manipulate information easily. No, the sound isn't optimal. I know that this is partly a design flaw and partly an issue of size and resonance. However I can use earphones and all is well. I think that the 7" form factor is the optimal size.

Android has also come a long way. What was once a proof of concept with a woefully underpowered feature set is now a powerful mobile operating system that does ninety percent of the work of a modern laptop. No it doesn't do video editing yet and although there are some very interesting mobile photo galleries and applications it doesn't do true photo editing either. However it does handle the rest of what I do quite handily. I have multiple files and folders. I have several apps running simultaneously. I see almost no difference between this tablet and my old 12" G4 PowerBook from ten years ago. Actually, now that I think about it I really do everything I used a Windows laptop for a year ago.

I think that this is primarily due to the incredibly capable suite of services now in Google Apps. As a writer, a geek, and a casual photographer Google Apps offers me 95% of the utility of office for free. There are some complex documents containing tables, some advanced formatting and style sheets, and some outlining features that I do miss quite a bit. However I've been able to change my work flow and modify my own quirky habits to generally compensate.

When you combine all of these features this is a pretty amazing device. As far as I'm concerned, after the richness of the experience and the robustness of the platform I'm ditching the Mac.

Those who know me personally also know just how incredibly loyal I've been to Apple since about 1988 when I got my first Mac. The design and software has been so overwhelmingly better than the competition for so long that I've never even questioned Apple products or direction. That's why this is so disturbing to me.

Apple’s decision to treat everyone as simply a revenue stream and slowly remove choice from the platform has upset me. So in about a week I'm probably going to purchase a new ChromeBook. Probably the HP version for the larger screen size. Slowly I'll wean away from the platform I've been using for 25 years.

The Nexus 7 is the best piece of technology that I’ve ever bought. Google has earned a shot at the rest of my business.

*This post was entirely written on the Nexus 7.

It's been a while...

Yes, I've been gone a while and yes I'm sorry. I've gotten the occasional email asking where part 2 of the strip club article is or when I'm going to release an audio version of the book. It seems someone is listening and someone likes my voice. So where do I begin?
At the beginning. The last few months have been brutal on my psyche and the family as well. If you follow any of my other feeds like tumblr, Facebook, or Google+ you know why. My mom passed away a few weeks ago.
The months before her passing were a roller coaster of anguish, regret, mourning, anger, and pain. Alzheimer's, dementia, and the associated disorders are the most insidious disease that I can imagine. Over the years the disease robs the afflicted of her identity, friends, family, and even the ability to communicate.
Someone posted about how romantic that film "The Notebook" was and I ripped their head off in a public forum. I apologized, but as far as I'm concerned Nicholas Sparks is the devil. Yes I know that it's just a book and a film. Cancer isn't fucking romantic either and anyone who plays cancer for romantic comedy needs to be beaten with a mallet, in my opinion.
Added to this stress I was preparing and beginning my trip this year. Needless to say it, but I've been more than a bit distracted. I apologize if you were the person who felt slighted. Hopefully all of the drama of the last year is finished.
We live in hope.