Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

The Gay Agenda? · March 20, 2010

Folks, I just had to post this. I got it from a comment by a guy with the nickname of JoePhilly on this article from USA Today.  I couldn’t tell if the poster was serious or not when posting this, but haven’t laughed so hard in a month.  I hope I’ve given enough accreditation here, as I would never want to steal anyone’s material. Enjoy!

“Gays have an agenda and they plan to destroy traditional marriage. Here is their plan (my wife stole it from her hair stylist).

1) Two gay guys buy the house next to yours. They fix up the lawn. And it is Immaculate!!! Your wife is so impressed, that she tells your fat lazy butt to put down the beer, get up off the couch, and fix YOUR lawn.

2) The gay guys invite your wife over for lunch. She sees that they have decorated their house, and it is incredible. When you get home from work, she explains that she wants to spend a fortune to redecorate your house. Fortunately, the gay guys provided sketches. You want to scream.

3) The gay guys agree with your wife that YOUR clothes are hideous. Together, they go out and buy new clothes for YOU. They go with lots of pastel colors because they compliment your skin tone .. whatever that means.

4) The gay guys give your wife a total make-over. She now looks better than when you married her. Meanwhile, you are still a lazy, fat, hair cover chia-pet … other men are now staring at your wife again.

5) One afternoon, one of the gay guys approaches you and offers to teach you about waxing your back, at this point you flip out and attack him. He subdues you because you are fat and lazy, and he goes to the gym twice a day. Your wife files for divorce.
6) Because of your violent actions, she gets the house … and you move to a trailer.

7) You then hear that your ex-wife has taken in a person who is renting a room … it’s a gay woman, a friend of the gay guys from next door.

8) Your 5 state killing spree begins.

If people don’t see this … I don’t know what to say.”

An update on eReaders · January 11, 2010

Coincidentally to my last post on eReaders, there have been a lot of recent developments on the subject. I’ve been following the CES 2010 coverage on new eReaders being unveiled. Of all of the devices being debuted, I’m really interested in two of them.

The first is the Alex Reader by Spring Design. This one, like the Nook, is powered by Google’s Android OS. It has a larger bottom screen, which is also in color. To me the appeal of this one is that it’s running Android, but isn’t tethered to Barnes & Noble. According to Reuters, it looks like this device may be partnering up with Borders, which would be awesome.

The other one that I’m very interested in and plan to watch closely, is the Ocean by Copia. There’s much less information available about their family of eReaders than there is about the others, but to me they have the cleanest looking, most attractive eReaders of anyone I’ve seen. Copia is boasting the first “social” reading experience, where they aim to build a community around e-reading that leverages existing social networks. I’m really hoping to get my hands on one of their eReaders in the near future. Here’s a link to some images of Copia’s eReaders on Flickr.

The overall burning issue that’s still on my mind about eReaders is that unless there’s a decent market behind them for obtaining eBooks, it’s still a losing proposition for me. I’m hoping that somewhere in the near future, the DRM for eBooks can be standardized or just go away. Specifically, I’m hoping that the eReader market explodes and people start buying tons of devices other than the Kindle, making Amazon realize that they should be capitalizing on allowing those folks to buy from their Kindle market.

Kindle, Nook, or iLiad? I think I’ll wait. · January 7, 2010

A lot of my friends are getting and talking about the various eReaders available on the market. While I’m not the avid reader that I’d like to be, these devices have caught my attention, and I’ve been doing some reasearch to see which I might want to buy for myself in the not too distant future. The conclusion I’ve come to is that there’s no clear best choice for me and I’m going to wait a generation or two to see how it all plays out. From the research I did looking into this for myself, here are my observations. I do realize there are other devices that I did not investigate, for reasons that either I’m unaware of them or they were too uninteresting off the bat to consider.

Amazon’s Kindle has become very popular, but I still think it has a long way to go before I give it serious consideration. On its own, it is a pretty substantial device, with the force of Amazon’s digital catalog behind it. However, the chicklet keyboard, non-user-replaceable battery, and closed-platform implementation are big showstoppers for me.

I really like Barnes & Noble’s Nook’s implementation of the open-platform Android OS, and the color touchpad screen for navigation. Being able to replace the battery is key for me too, in case I want to keep it for a number of years without upgrading according to their planned obselecence schedule… The biggest issue I see here, other than my visceral response to Barnes & Noble in general, is that their book catalog is on average more expensive to buy from than Amazon’s. These devices are supposed to be saving money in the long run, not just novelties where I’m spending the same amount for an electronic file that requires no printing or shipping as a book would.

The iLiad from iRex is more of a quiet competitor to the other two, but I can’t really look too seriously at them when they have a price point of $700.00. The appeal to the iLiad is that it’s not tied to a specific provider’s e-bookstore. The downside to that is also that it can’t read the proprietary DRM formats of either Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Right now, the best combination that would work for me is using the Nook on Amazon’s electronic catalog, but I don’t think that’s happening any time soon… Ultimately, I’m waiting for an eReader that doesn’t tether me to using a specific provider for my books. That could also be reworded as a solution where the DRM for eBooks is standardized and any eReader can be used as long as it’s certified. We’re not there yet, and I certainly have enough paper books around the house that I have yet to read, so I’ll wait.