Geek Chic

I’m a Mac user.  Have been pretty exclusively for years.  I use a Macbook Pro at home and at work, and I really love it.

Up until recently, that love of Macs has extended to Apple in general.

But so much is truly fishy about their latest iPhone deal that I’m starting to have some misgivings about my blind support of what I thought was a philosophy, but which is turning out to just be another brand.

It all started when it became clear that Apple made a deal with the devil when it got into bed with AT&T.  The carrier is now charging more for text messages and basically undermining Steve Jobs’ promise at the WWDC: a new 3G iPhone for $199 or $299.

That, my friends turns out to be a complete and utter lie.

Because the new service contract is now more expensive than the old one, it turns out the new iPhone, overall, is more expensive than its predecessor.  Not less.

Check the math
Or ask David Pogue

What’s more irritating to me is the fact that, as a current AT&T customer who is not eligible for a phone upgrade, I have to pay $200 more than these base prices in order to get an iPhone.  Analyst Gene Munster says I’m not alone.  He estimates that only 35% of iPhone purchasers will see the prices that Steve Jobs promised.  Turns out the only people who are eligible to get the announced prices are 1) new customers 2) customers eligible for an upgrade 3) current iPhone owners.  This means loyal customers like me (I’ve been with AT&T for 7 years) are SOL.

That’s shocking! No?

Why isn’t anyone screaming through the streets calling Steve Jobs a big fat liar?

The whole point of this, I remember, was so that more people could afford the iPhone.  So that it had a lower entry point, and wasn’t viewed as a luxury item.  What a scam.

What’s more insidious, I think, was brought to light in an opinion I just read by Nik Cubrilovic on TechCrunch — where he calls out Apple and Apple users for the fact that everyone is raving about the iPhones without acknowledging that they are a proprietary, DRM infested walled garden.  The points that stuck out in my mind were:

1. Apple has a tendancy to take open source technologies and package and rebrand them in such a way that they are no longer open source.  Which seems pretty parasitic to me.

2. All of the open source fans around the world are drooling over iPhones and Apple (me included) and that’s more than a little bit hypocritical.

Solutions?  I have none. I would be the first to buy an Android phone if they were actually an alternative, but I can’t imagine they’ll have anything like the iPhone anytime soon.

But some competition might be nice.  Competition was how Apple got to be good in the first place.  They were the underdog, so they had to fight.  Now it seems like they’re just as bad as Microsoft when they know they don’t have any competition.

All of that said, i’ll probably join the rest of the hypocrites and buy an iPhone when my contract is up in October.  But not before, dammit!

Apparently Radiohead teamed up with Google to do some pretty nifty 3D modeling in the new House of Cards video.

I’d embed it, but doesn’t look like you can.  Click below if you want to watch:

screen cap from http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/

I don’t think I’m saying anything here that people don’t already know, but…

Healthcare providers are EVIL.

I just spent an hour and half talking to vairous ‘health care professionals’ and ‘rapid resolution experts’ trying to deal with a charge of 61.37 that a clinic thinks I still owe them from September of last year.

The reason for that?  The insurance people say it’s because the doctor I went to was ‘out of network’. I had thought he was in network.

You can see how I might have been confused on this point last year, considering he’s listed on their website as being a doctor that is ‘in network’ (!!!)

I know.  People go through this crap all the time.  I’m happy it was only 60 bucks.

Just for fun, we’ll take a jab at their homepage:

‘United Healthcare: Bring us your last sprig of hope.  We’ll kill it for you.  Simply.  Smartly.  Together.’

Ok. One more of these then I’ll quit I swear:

As Seen on TV: The 10 Most Laughably Misleading Ads

#1? The Magniscribe Pen, where the woman is ‘calling now’ to order the pen she so desperately needs USING one of the pens?  Classic.

And I’m not sure this is real or not, but check out the reviews page for #2: My Lil Reminder — a voice recorder/reminder system.  Click here and do a search for ‘Bob of Ohio’.

While we’re on the subject of awesome, I just remembered this:

That guy, man.  That guy.  Wow.

Courtesy of our wonderfully creative friends at Elevator Repair Service.

This is completely awesome:

6 Retarded Gas Saving Schemes (People Are Actually Trying)

I have to say, though, I love the websites with a big sticker on the front page that say ‘Top Secret’.  Shh… don’t tell anyone else on the internet!

But really.  The best part of it is these guys. Spokespeople for #5. The brains of the operation:

Just becuase it’s so amazing, i’ll provide you with a little excerpt of what you get when you watch the video.  Pure science.

“I’d like to explain how our product works.  The enzymes in our product break down the molecular structure of the fuel.  So if you were to look at gasoline or diesel under a microscope, on a slide, you’d see clusters of molecules.  Much like clusters of grapes.  Our enzymes attack those clusters and break them down into individual molecules, allowing for a more complete burn of the fuel.  So if you’re shooting less out your tailpipe as an emission of our byproduct, you’d go further down the road and your fuel economy would be on the rise.  It’s as simple as that.  Thank you.”

It’s like he learned chemistry from Peter Griffin.

Ok.  So we all know by now about Lori Drew — the girl who maliciously concocted a MySpace campaign that led to her adolescent neighbor’s suicide.  Bad news.  She deserves what she gets from the legal system.

But this?

Lori Drew Charged with Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Really?  Not, like, 2nd degree murder?  or manslaughter? Or something with teeth?

The scary thing about it is the implications on the rest of us.  She was basically charged with logging into MySpace under a fake name to gather information, which is a violation of title 130 section (a) (2) (c) of the US Code.  A FELONY.  If she’s found guilty for each of the 4 counts, she could get up to 15 years.  For pretending to be someone else on the internet.

Which is something that is so far beyond commonplace on the internet, I would hazard to say it’s practically the NORM.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think what Drew did was inhuman.  But seriously, lawyers.  WTF?

I don’t know what else to say exactly.  This is mind blowing.  Why on earth would the lawyers in this case think this is a good law to put in the books?  OR that it would not be appealed and overturned?

Ridiculous.

I’d move to Canada, but Apple took back most of their iPhones.