communication. community. cognition.
Legal disclaimers are often annoying, and sometimes hilarious.
The Bumpit is a toothed, plastic arc that is embedded near the scalp to provide the illusion of more voluminous hair.
Just remember, each disclaimer is there for a reason. Because someone did.
Of course, the proper name for the year is MMX. 2010. The Year We Make Contact, or some such rubbish. Start the countdown clock for the Mayan Calendar hoaxes.
I remember where I was ten years ago.
I was a member of the working media, assigned to sit at the “bunker” of the state of Alabama’s Emergency Operations Center, as all the authorities and grand-high Poohbah muckety-mucks gathered to observe — well, as it turned out, nothing.
Many of us had sounded the alarm that there was nothing to be alarmed about, but we were drowned out with the Millennial Panic that was Y2K. (Which, in another fit of ill-informed irony, wasn’t even the start of the Millennium, which began in 2001.)
I remember the news accounts leading up to that day. For months, the national media had a field day recounting doomsday scenarios for what would happen when internal clocks got thrown for a loop. The news media and the late-night comics had their way with the state of Alabama in particular. While private businesses, state and local governments were throwing budgets to the wind to corral this “Y2K bug,” companies and particularly municipalities in the Heart of Dixie weren’t following Chicken Little’s lead.
At one point in mid-1999, there was a wire story indicating that if Alabama tripled its Y2K preparedness spending, it would still rank last among the states. Of course, it was followed with dire predictions about what would happen, and the obligatory jokes about how Alabama didn’t have enough technology anyway, and was still coping with Y1K compliance…
…yet I don’t remember a single story after-the-fact about how Alabama didn’t waste billions of dollars preventing Dutch Tulip Blight, or the oncoming stampedes of Jackalopes. Funny how that happens.
Because of Y2K, I spent that New Year’s Eve away from my fiance. She was at her apartment, and I was in Clanton at “Ground Zero” for “live coverage” of an “event” that was less than a zero. (By the time in was midnight in Alabama, more than a dozen time zones had already made it safely across the threshold. I think that would make it cease to be ‘news’ at that point.)
As it happens, I was able to pass a coded message to my now wife, in clear defiance of FCC guidelines about using the public airwaves for personal communication. My wife’s name, Brenda, happened to be the same as our lead female anchor. So when I punched the name in the sentence “Happy New Year, Brenda… I’ll be back to see you soon” none were the wiser.
Still, it sucked to be away on a nothing assignment.
There always needs to be a scare of some type, because there is a healthy percentage of the public that doesn’t feel Important unless it is seen to be caring about Big Important Things. Usually, when Big Important Things have to do with personal issues or matters of faith, they don’t have an impact. But when enough people use their panic about Big Important Things to spur government action, they can be very adamant about saving the world with expensive remedies.
Afterward, they can call their prescription a grand success. After all, there was no Tulip Blight, and nary a Jackalope footprint in the snow.
Have a happy and blessed 2010. Make a resolution to keep things in perspective.
Where to begin?
Maybe with my admission that I’ve been a sucker, and odds are if you’re honest you’ll admit you’ve been one too.
Congratulations go to Verizon, for waging one of the most effective marketing/advertising/PR campaigns in recent memory. No, not for the Droid, but rather its successful effort to paint AT&T as some Death Star villain. It’s been years in the making, and in the process many of us have been assimilated into Wireless Tribes who do the dirty work.
The part that amazes me is no one is trying to connect dots, or trace paths of influence. There is a veritable army of people on the internet who will Tweet, Re-tweet, Digg and Share any link that refers to wireless wars. No one has questioned the supposed groundswell of Verizon Love that seems to exist, and here is why I have my suspicions:
We’ve been made to care about a distinction without a difference. The surveys indicate that when it comes to dropped calls or customer satisfaction, we’re looking at a hair’s breadth at most. A hair is enough to claim #1, but the truth is that coverage gaps and complaints vary wildly by market.
We’re comparing plastic apples to rubber oranges. Verizon is very proud of its 3G map, and is quite happy letting you think that “3G” is a universal standard. Verizon’s 3G is not nearly as fast, and does not allow for simultaneous voice and data. When you drop off AT&T’s 3G, you switch to an EDGE network that is just 20-percent slower than Verizon’s best offering.
Sure, Verizon’s map comparison looks fabulous, but when you factor where people use phones the most, you’re likely to have a faster and better experience with AT&T.
Somehow, most of the thought-leading tech writers seem to revel in the notion that AT&T is some evil empire — as though Verizon is some daisy-sniffing non-profit Mom-and-Pop that does things the old-fashioned way, like Ole Graham Bell intended.
Please. The dichotomy is apparent.
Truth is your own customer service experience is going to be your most influential factor. I’ve had great service with AT&T, but I never would have left T-Mobile if it hadn’t been for a bad personal experience. The network plays a role, but how you’re treated is huge.
Which gets me back to the Tribes. The greatest sucker-bait in the whole game is getting us at each other’s throats about the phones we use. The iPhone people, the Android Army, Palm Partisans, and the Windows Mobile folks who catch it on all sides.
Truth is, I really like my phone. I picked it because it does the things I need it to do, and does them well. I’m sure many of you feel the same way.
Now, imagine how angry you’d feel if you ditched something you’re otherwise happy with, and switched to something that wasn’t as advertised.
The “conventional wisdom” that AT&T sucks and that Verizon rescues puppies is too one-sided for me to believe it’s genuine and universal.
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way compensated by AT&T, nor have I ever been. I am on a rate plan that I was eligible for through a previous employer, and have never had a deal or offer that wasn’t publicly available to others similarly situated.
I don’t know how many others can say the same.
Part of the reason I started noodling with WordPress was the ability to “own” my own site. Not have it hosted elsewhere, not beholden to anyone else’s whims and limitations. I can do what I want with the template and the look and the feel and the content. I can even move the URL around, break it, and start all over if I choose.
I’ve learned a lot of helpful things about coding along the way.
Today’s “currency” on the internet is still content, although sharing and linking are vital. You’ve probably noticed that most of the links being shared online are “shortened” links. TinyURL used to have the space to itself, and as the default shortener for Twitter it was poised to be the all-time king.
Now there are many competitors. Bit.ly is the new Twitter default, and even Bit.ly went even shorter, with J.mp. Add in ri.ms and cli.gs and is.gd, and you’re only part of the way there. Google for List of Link Shortening Services and see for yourself.
I wanted to make the move to own my own links because there are some heavy hitters moving in. Bit.ly will be offering its own custom domains for link sharing. WordPress now has WP.me, Google is trotting out Goo.gl, and Facebook will have FB.me.
My links will be at ike4.me.
That will look strange to some people, for sure – but no stranger than adj.ix or anything else that comes along. After all, we’re inclined to click on just about anything.
That’s the other motivation for me. When you see me sharing a link with http://ike4.me you’ll know where it came from. I’ve locked it down, so scammers and spammers can’t use it. It’s also a nice piece of branding, if I say so myself.
The Ike4.me domain is powered by Yourls, and is fairly easy to set up. With little technical knowledge (more than most of my friends, but far less than many who get paid for coding) I was up and running within an hour. More customizations to come.
Oh, and you can find me on Twitter at http://ike4.me/tw and on Facebook at http://ike4.me/fb.
