Home
projects blog photos essays tipjar hair wishlist video interests burn fun
 
 

February 02, 2006

Dumbshit Dept.

Stupid, greedy people

Why do people have to be so stupid and greedy?

For instance, it was announced today that there is a class action lawsuit against Apple claiming "the iPod can cause hearing loss". Duh! If you turn it up too loud you damage your hearing! How is the iPod any different from the WalkMan or any of the other iPod knock offs that play the same volume with the same type of head-phones? Yes, there was a study about ear-bud headphones causing hearing damage, but then why sue Apple and not everyone else? Because Apple has the most amount of money in the bank.

Then, the NTK vs RIM patent issue. Now, I don't like patents -- especially when they threaten to shut down a good service like the Blackberry. But, I find it highly suspicious that almost all 5 NTK patents that pertain to the RIM have been invalidated! I haven't read the patents in question, but I doubt that all 5 are invalid. Either the USPTO is falling down on the job (we know that's true, but this bad?) or the USPTO is getting heat from congresscritters that are addicted to their crackberries. I find that invalidating 5 patents is unacceptable when thousands of other bad patents are still out there. This is not ethical business and will further cause companies to avoid doing business in the US -- welcome to the richest backwaters of the world!

And while we're on the topic of bad business practices that will cause more backwaters -- M$ says: "The intention is to reduce the number of licensees to a manageable level, to lock out 'hobbyists' and other entities that Microsoft doesn't want to have to trouble itself with." In the age of MAKE Magazine and Mythbusters how can a company lock out hobbysists? Well, hobbyists, forget M$ -- the open source world is where you want to be looking -- we're glad to have ya. Now get to work and send us a patch so we can unseat stupid, greedy people!

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by Mayhem at February 2, 2006 11:17 AM

Comments

Because they have to be stupid or greedy, and being just one is more dangerous to others than being both.

Joking aside, your speculation that congresspeople appreciate their blackberries makes the iPods for Senate http://www.ipaction.org/campaigns/ipod/ campaign look smart.

Too bad p2p filesharing usability was (and is) not good enough to hook busy sixty year olds.

Posted by: Mike Linksvayer at February 6, 2006 10:20 PM

Yes, quite true. Also senators have enough money that they don't mind forking over exuberant prices for their music. :-)

Posted by: Mayhem & Chaos at February 7, 2006 12:19 PM

Hi !
I'am a french girl
I want to speak with amercican or english people .. My MSN : skaxurit@hotmail.fr

Posted by: estelle at April 1, 2006 11:58 AM

The difference is in the poor design of using the navigation wheel for the volume control. If you click the middle button to switch to the mode that lets you shuttle through the song and you let it sit for too long, it goes out of that mode. If you turn the wheel to shuttle forward again you actually have the volume turn all the way up which really hurts. This is just poor product design and it's the one thing about my iPod that I *really* hate. Making a separate and dedicated volume control would have been much better.

Posted by: Jason at April 9, 2006 11:58 AM


I was planning on doing all maintenance myself, so I guess that strengthens that resolve...

Posted by: bnbcn at June 22, 2006 09:04 PM

want to speak with amercican or english people .. My MSN : biilows@hotmail.fr

Posted by: download at June 22, 2006 09:05 PM

Yes, quite true. Also senators have enough money that they don't mind forking over exuberant prices for their music. :-)

Posted by: Matthew giles at July 9, 2006 03:36 PM

I agree!!

Posted by: Hunter at July 10, 2006 01:20 PM

Hi !
I'am a amercican girl
I want to speak with french people .. My MSN : Emily@hotmail.com

Posted by: Emily at July 16, 2006 12:24 AM

The difference is in the poor design of using the navigation wheel for the volume control.

Posted by: Sarah at July 16, 2006 03:26 AM

Good!!

Posted by: Sarah at July 16, 2006 03:47 AM

The difference is in the poor design of using the navigation wheel for the volume control. If you click the middle button to switch to the mode that lets you shuttle through the song and you let it sit for too long, it goes out of that mode. If you turn the wheel to shuttle forward again you actually have the volume turn all the way up which really hurts. This is just poor product design and it's the one thing about my iPod that I *really* hate. Making a separate and dedicated volume control would have been much better.

Posted by: Oscar dale at September 27, 2006 11:20 PM
Post a comment












Remember personal info?