Quote of the day--on imaginantion

"Evil is not imaginative. It seeks to destroy, and destruction takes no imagination. 

Creation takes true imagination, the making of something new and wondrous, whether it's a song or an iPad, a novel or a new cooking surface more durable than Teflon, a new flavor of ice cream or spacecraft that can travel to the moon. The vibrant imagination of a fry cook with free will should easily trump the weak imagination of a demon, anytime."

--Dean Koontz, from his book "Deeply Odd"

Links:  Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz - Wikipedia

Dean Koontz bibliography - Wikipedia

On the whole "Win an iPad!" thing

If one more organization promises me that I "...could win an Apple iPad" if I simply take their survey, I'm going to choke somebody.

Another dinosaur: FM Music Radio

I've come to the conclusion that FM music radio stations are, like the US Postal Service and paper catalogs and so many other things, just one more dinosaur of the last age.

Think about it, we have our MP3 players or our iPods or iPhones or Shuffles or Android phone or Sirius XM radio or whatever. They play all our own music already, without all the talk time and commericials. Or if it isn't that, we're listening to Pandora or Spotify. It's a much better solution to our music choices, too, since we don't have to listen to some irrelevant babble from people we either don't know or don't care for and advertisements we REALLY don't want to hear.

It even, finally, applies to our cars, too, the last bastion of need for the FM music radio station. This is one more benefit of computers, too, since we get more of either our own music or new things we wouldn't otherwise hear because the radio only plays mind-numbing familiar top-40 songs. Some stations have tried to play different things over the years but it never works. It's not as though it's not some of their faults but most radio music is pretty stale if not out-and-out dreadful. No catalogs and no mail? Great. Less trees cut down. No FM music radio? Good riddance. Sorry, guys. You're outta' here. Eventually, anyway. Find new jobs now, while you can.

What Apple wants is, apparently, slaves

There is a now fairly famous (infamous?) article in The New York Times yesterday on Apple and its iPhones and computer work. It asks why the company doesn't bring and keep those manufacturing jobs here in the States. (see first link at bottom) If nothing else illustrates what Apple and apparently other manufacturers want and think they need, it's this quote: "A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day." Did you get that? "Immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormotories...", gave them "a biscuit and a cup of tea" and got them to work right away. I ask you, is that not just saying you need slave labor? It certainly seems so to me. Between this ability they want and the wages they notoriously pay, it seems clear and obvious they've come to the conclusion that only this kind of slave labor will do. The American worker and so, the middle class, is screwed here. Oh, and according to the article, it's been estimated that having Americans manufacture their products would add approximately $65 cost to each phone. Now that's just too much to ask, isn't it? Link to original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general Links to articles and information on Apple's working conditions here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1; http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/12/2701990/foxconn-150-suicide-threat; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

More societal change due to technology

There's a report out today on Yahoo! News about the movie industry and trends in it: Movie crowds dip to 16-year low as apathy lingers I think this is both the result of a few factors, at least, going on now as well as technology. First, the article states that movie attendance is down ever since James Cameron's breakthrough "Avatar" blockbuster. Fine. That's one thing. More things are that computers and "smart phones" and ipads are giving people (younger people mostly, so far) access to more entertainment and "distractions" like movies and videos and just things to occupy their time. This, largely, combined with the lack of good films, in spite of their large--huge?--quantity, makes for these smaller audiences, too, I think. That and the downturn in the economy so instead of paying to go see a movie, you just stay on your computer/iphone/ipad/"smart phone" or whatever. Here's another thought, too--what if, sadly, we are getting shorter and shorter attention spans from these things so we either don't want to or can't commit our attention spans to a two hour movie? (Yikes. Let's hope not). Here's another thought--like the slow decline of bowling and all that social interaction, what if we are becoming less publicly social this way, too, so we go see less movies at theaters? Finally, it is SO much less expensive--and comfortable--to stay at home, put a movie on the TV--likely a flat screen with it's beautiful picture--and watch there. And this is all before the movie theaters themselves go fully digital, too. When that happens, the movie makers have said they want the films to be released for viewing in people's homes at the same time they "open" in movie theaters. So, the movie theater? Let's face it, it's doomed. Link to original story: http://news.yahoo.com/movie-crowds-dip-16-low-apathy-lingers-153925810.html;_ylt=AhN5c4UXK6SF0Lq2PfJg_was0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTRkc2ZrdjR0BG1pdANTZWN0aW9uTGlzdCBGUCBFbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50BHBrZwM3YWEzM2YyZi01MWQyLTM5M2UtYTIwNS0xMGUyODM5NTJlMDMEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhU2VjdGlvbkxpc3QEdmVyAzVlOWI4MzkwLTMxNmEtMTFlMS04ZGZmLWNlM2RlNzVhZDg0Ng--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

And now, the iBle

With tongue planted firmly in cheek.

I'll keep my "dumb" phone, thanks

I've wanted an iPhone since I saw them. I love the design, I love the things it could do. Clearly, it started doing things no other phones could do. Very cool. But then lots of other new phones came out and the race was on. Sure. I get that. But now? I didn't yet get one, mostly because of the prices and largely because I just didn't need it. That and the fact that it seemed like every 20 minutes, another new one--iPhones--kept coming out. Well, now I see that they aren't just a phone any more. Now they're a small computer in your pocket. And that would be okay except between the text meassages people can and do send, and pictures, and the fact that it can--and does--get your emails and facebook messages and who knows what all AND the fact that the thing "goes off" every time it gets any of this stuff, well, I just don't need or want anything in my pocket that's doing that every 10 seconds or so. No thank you. Is it any wonder people in the world are getting more and more attention deficit disorder? First it was the television set, with all it's twenty thousand advertisements coming at you, all while you're watching only one show. Now this. The phone that is nearly constantly vibrating in your pocket, telling you someone's sent you something or said something to you or--last of all--phoned you.

RIP Steve Jobs

Love him or hate him, a brilliant, brilliant man. Truly a visionary.

I'm so old...

...I remember when learning how to type was a choice. "Should I take typing class?" It wasn't absolutely necessary to exist, it was an option--usually for "secretaries." Remember them? And remember when being called a secretary wasn't pejorative? Yeah, THAT old.

Great article on Sprint last evening

I wasn't looking for one but saw a terrific article on Sprint last evening, asking one simple question: "Why Is There No Sprint iPhone? Which got me wondering, naturally. So read it I did and it was brief, incisive and helpful and now I know. (If you're curious, go check it out. Link at bottom, as usual). But in the meantime, check out their reason number two for why there isn't any Sprint iPhone: "Apple disdains Sprint. Apple execs tend to have personal feelings about U.S. wireless carriers that they don't have about international carriers. For Apple, brand is everything, and the company doesn't want to be associated with brands it sees as "losers." it wants to be a winner, associated with winners. This has worked well for Apple in the past. Apple execs could simply see Sprint and T-Mobile as hopeless loser carriers headed towards extinction, and not worth the company's time." Yeah. Ouch. That's got to hurt. And it can't portend well for our hometown phone company. Hopefully they can turn that ship around. We keep hoping, don't we? Link: http://news.yahoo.com/why-no-sprint-iphone-114941806.html

Maybe now would be a good time to bring this manufacturing to the States

Apple probes blast at China plant said to produce iPad 2

Something more up Apple's sleeve this week?

From Yahoo! News this morning:

Rumor: Apple planning to launch new product this weekend

Is Apple about to surprise us with the launch of a smaller iPhone? Or could it be something completely different – there’s been a lot of talk about its rumored iCloud service recently.

Steve Jobs just wants to know where you are

Apple slammed over iPhone, iPad location tracking

"Cuz we just haven't quite made enough money yet

Enjoy your Sunday, ya'll

Phones and computers: the merge

If it hasn't already occurred to you, telephones and computers are going to merge one day.  And very soon.  Sooner than you'd think.  And more than they already have.

Already, people are getting emails on their phones and watching videos on those little screens.

At the same time, some phone service is certainly already available on our computers and have been for some time.

With the iPad, it's obvious the two will be brought together even sooner.

And if you think about this further, the only thing that matters is that the phone needs to be incorporated into our computers, ala' a pad, whoever makes it.

It only makes sense.

The "pad", whoever makes it, has a screen that's larger so you can watch the videos.

Taken further, the screen is also better for reading and responding to emails.  The keyboard of the pad is better than doing it on a phone, too, of course. 

So since this is going to happen, since it's inevitable, bring it on.

Just give us the phone in the pad (computer)--don't give us a computer the size of a telephone.

Do away with the phones.  Give us fully-operational pads with two cameras and a phone and be done with it.

Quote of the day--on the iPad

"Well, the iPad is clearly going to affect notebook computers. And I think the iPad proves it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. There's a lot of development and progress that will occur over the next few years, but we're already seeing tremendous interest in iPad from education and, much to my surprise, from business.

We haven't pushed it real hard in business and it's being grabbed out of our hands. I talk to people every day in all kinds of businesses that are using iPads... The more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we've got a tiger by the tail here and this is a new model of computing -- you know we've already got tens of millions of people trained on with the iPhone -- and that lends itself to lots of different aspects of life, personal, educational, and business. I see it as very general purpose and very big... One could argue about the timing endlessly, but I don't think you can argue it's going to happen."    --Steve Jobs

Where we're headed, technologically. Maybe

With the advent of the new iPad and the 4th generation iPhone and now new texting technology that's being distributed, with the eventual and unavoidable voice recognition software that's bound to take over our computers one day, it occured to me where we're headed. Yes, it will require us first to not kill each other and then, probably the bigger problem of finally, one day, God willing, figuring out how to share the Earth's resources equitably so some of us don't starve or otherwise die while others are so either fat or rich or both, that they live until they're 150 but (breath), this is where we're going: Remember when Captain Kirk on Star Trek (bear with me) would walk around the Enterprise "star ship" talking to the ship's computer for information or instructions to the ship, to tell it what to do and/or where to go? That, ladies and gentlemen, is where we truly are headed. We went from no computers to rooms full of slow, methodical computers to desktop computers and PC's to laptops and now we're jumping again to "pads" and computer phones that do what computers used to do for us. Right now, on The New York Times, there is an article about what used to be texting prediction software and what is going, as I said above, inexorably, to voice-recognition software. In not that many years, unless we kill each other or further wreck our economies or let too many of us die off, due to climate distortions, we will keep a very powerful "pad" of a computer with us as we go through our day and that will be our main technological tool, for work and play, everything. We'll keep it with us and then, when we go home--if we even have to leave at all--we'll connect that into our home--invisibly, I will add. And with this, we control lighting, temperature, the "television"--or view screen or whatever we'll call it then--everything in our surroundings and it will control our telephone, everything. We will have finally learned, too, that we can't keep continually be replacing these things so it will be a bit of a shell that accepts whatever new technology that comes along, instead of repeatedly throwing away technologies and phones and computers as we're doing now and wasting all those resources and materials. Sure, this fits into old descriptions of the "future"--much older than "Star Trek", Dr. Spock and Captain Kirk but it brings all those old ideas into line with more recent technologies of the last few decades. Keep in mind, too, this is all provided we don't simply kill each other first. And that's a really old idea.

Where--and how--Steve Jobs' (rich white guy) and Apple get their iPads made

Foxconn worker dies in China, the 10th in a year

By WILLIAM FOREMAN

Associated Press Writer

A Chinese employee of Foxconn Technology Group fell from a building and died Tuesday, May 25, 2010, state-run media said, in the 10th such death this year at the world's largest contract maker of electronics, such as the iPod, Dell computers and Nokia phones


Hey, it's just some poor schlubs, right? Who cares?

At least, thank God, they don't have Union labor.


Link to original story:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/24/1968510/foxconn-worker-dies-in-china-10th.html

Follow up to iPad: HP's reputedly better version

The first wave of the flood of pads begins.

You can see more about the purported pluses and minuses of HP's Slate here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100406/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc1480

And remember what I said about the proliferation of backpacks, due to the new "pads"? I saw these advertised on Facebook, to go in said backpack: http://www.case-mate.com/Apple-iPad-Cases/Apple-iPad-Cases.asp?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=ipadcases

Thoughts on the iPad Weekend (amended and updated)

First, is it not the computer/television/phone we've wanted and predicted the last few decades?

Second, this really does change everything. It changes what we think of a computer. It changes how we use it. It changes where we compute, freeing us up far more. It changes what computer manufacturers will now be trying to create. It's almost endless, the changes it initiates.

It will change how we work with computers.

It will change how we play with them.

It will reduce, at least, the need for other resource and reference materials even further. It will all be at the tip of our nearby pad.

If you thought there a lot of backpacks in the past, get ready. They are going to explode in usage. Everyone will have one, to carry their pad. (I'm calling them pads here because that's what they'll be referred to in the future, once all the other companies start making similar products). As if this week, you have approximately 700,000 potential clients for your new backpack. And that's just the beginning, of course.

If you own a backpacking manufacturing plant, good for you. If you don't, it might be a good idea to start one up. Go to the drawing board right now and design one so the iPad slips right in, in one slot, and all the other, peripheral stuff goes in the rest of the pack. And of course it will have lots of little, additional pockets on it, for accessories and your other personal things.

"Man purses"? Outta here. You won't hear that term any longer, since we'll all have some kind of pack for the soon-to-be ubiquitous pads.

The more shallow trend of leather and other fancier backpacks--that wouldn't have lasted otherwise because it was just that, a fashion trend--will be replaced with all kinds of upscale--and downscaled and more casual--backpacks, all so we will have our pad with us at all times, along with all our other stuff.

The theft of these backpacks will explode, too, in the short term. But then, a tracking device will, very shortly, be put in the pads, along with identification so they can be located and returned to their rightful, original owners, unlike the iPhones and iPods, which is unfair and a rip but Apple hasn't addressed it yet. Now, they'll have to.

If you're Garmin, you know the iPad spells an even faster decline of need for your products.

Still work for Blockbuster? Same thing. Get the heck out, now. (You should have know this at some point in the last 5 years, already, truth be told).

Remember the big, recent hoo-hah about making texting in cars illegal? Sure you do. Well, that's going to be nothing in short order. With the new iPad--and the coming of other "pads"--we'll need to make computing in cars illegal. And quickly. It would be that easy to do, otherwise.

You tweet? Like Facebook? It just got a whole lot easier to put many more little thoughts and blurbs out on the 'net for all to see because of the iPad. I'd predict the further explosion of social sites on the internet and in our world, at least for a while, as it's still new. Whether we keep doing that, in the long run, is harder to say and forecast. For now, it will continue to grow.

Hear that sound? The world just shrank a whole lot more. Have a friend who went to Europe (or Japan or anywhere on the planet) for a vacation? Job? Anything? Pull them up on your 2 "pads" and have a face-to-face conversation. Business trip to talk over details? iPad. Done. No hotels. No flights. No days wasted in travel. No big, expensive conferencing system that has to be purchased for a big conference meeting. All in the past.

This will hasten, still further, the decline in need or desire for the newspaper and books. Their sales will shrink and at a faster pace. Sure, some people will still want them but there will be an even faster decline in the purchase of paper media. If you think about this, it's great for the forests and planet and so, in the bigger picture, humankind. On the flip side, if you work for a lumber company, retrain now. Get into computers. Or health care. Or teaching or something. Else.

I have to check but I hope the iPads already have compatibility with TV sets. If they don't, the next version needs to. Entertaining family and/or friends will be terrific, being able to plug our pad into our set and being able to play whatever. If, again, they don't already have this capability and you're Apple, I'm thinking the partner with a huge TV manufacturer quickly, to develop and exploit this capability.

Then, again, for the average schmuck on the street--that would be you and me--quick, think of a cool way you'd like to use one of these things. Something you'd love to do but that isn't yet possible. Write a software program (or two or three) and write your meal ticket for, possibly, the rest of your life, almost no matter your age. Think. Get creative. Have some fun. Then make it happen.

It has to be an incredibly exciting time to work for Apple. Wouldn't you love to already be working for them, now, and show up at work tomorrow morning? The excitement must be nearly palpable. If you were part of developing the pad, I'm thinking they've already got a nearly limitless number of ideas for the next version.

Another big salute and thank you from all of us to Steve Jobs.

Has anyone compared him to Thomas Edison yet?

Live long and prosper, Mr. Jobs. We love your work.



Links to related stories:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/03/11-ways-the-ipad-could-ch_n_523828.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/04/ipad-sales-estimate-600-7_n_524653.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/ipad-features-what-you-ca_n_439232.html

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1977687,00.html?xid=rss-business

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

http://www.tuaw.com/tag/ipad

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/188013/the_ipads_five_best_surprises.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html