Link of the Day

Link of the Day:
Probe Ministries

Really you named your ministry probe? What were you thinking. This site is fun, it is rife with all of the invalid argument types. Logically fallacy, ad hominem attacks, anecdotal evidence, fallacy of false cause and the list goes on.

It's Too Expensive?!?!?

One of the big concepts that are being pushed on the information super driveway by "industry analysts"* is that the iPhone is too expensive and hence no one will pay for it and it will be a flop just like the Newton thus Apple will fail and this will be one of the signs that they are falling apart, and Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against Apple and destroy it.

What they are missing is that the high cost won't be an issue and is part of their branding. Haven't people learned that marketing trumps rational cost nearly every time?

If you want the cheapest MP3 player you don't buy an iPod and after looking over Amazon's best sellers list though it doesn't look like people buy mp3 player based on price, they buy them based on the fact they are iPods.

The iPhone is an extension of this. Based on the price rational why do you think the black MacBook sells at all? Because people want to have the latest toys and show them off. In general if the price is a premium but not outrageously so people will buy it. Think the Passat vs an Audi, or a Camry vs Lexus. The latter are more expensive but essentially the same yet no one predicts the fall of Audi.

Additionally analysts are saying that there are already phone companies in the market and that Apple can't compete. Um again this is probably a testament to how strong the iPod brand is, there used to be a time, in the long ago, before the iPod existed yet there were several companies (Creative and Intel come to mind) that made mp3 players this didn't seem to stop Apple from making a successful entry into the market.

Additionally the iPod doesn't seem as expensive as it is made out to be. First off the latest Blackberry is $249 with a contract. A 4GB iPod nano, which is the same capacity as the the lower end iPhone is $200. So to get the similar functionality you'll need to spend $449. And you'll need to extra pocket space. Seeing as the difference is about $50 I don't see this as being priced to expensive at all. It seems right inline with what you'd expect. There can also be a high cost for the server side software that may be needed with BlackBerry as well.

I can't guarantee the future of the iPhone, but I can promise you that if they don't sell it isn't because they are too expensive.


*I'll save my rant about industry analysts for a later date.

Allegedly

Why does the photo caption say allegedly in this story? there is nothing alleged anymore the soldiers say they did it.

Dirt on Your Forehead

So today many people have put some dirt on their foreheads, this some how is part of the path to eternal salvation.
Yet I am an outsider because I just think it is silly.
Dirty foreheads just don't seem to jibe with my understanding of how to make the world a better place to live.

Not Only Are They Ugly

They also aren't funny


This is Fox's attempt to cash in by creating the conservative version of The Daily Show. At best this is just shitty veiled racist humor, at worst it describes the thinking of the right "Here's something crazy, a black person who is an Ivy League educated Senator thinks he can be president. How crazy is that? What's next a woman would want to vote?!?"

Besides how offensive the whole thing is.

I'd like to point out two things
1) The Daily Show is actually funny.
2) The current president is a cokehead and an alcoholic.

Another Good Church Going Guy

Fleeced flock hopes crooked pastor gets the max

I sure hope that religion and its leaders aren't really the back bone of the US.

Who is the Bigot?

Oxford's English Dictionary says:
Bigot
obstinately convinced of the superiority or correctness of one's own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions

Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says:
"John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots" link

His beef is over these statements:
"The Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics" and
Regarding what religious conservatives don't understand about "keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds and our families?"

I fail to see the bigotry in these ladies statements. Where I do see bigotry is in statements from Donahue like:
"It is no wonder that Joan Osborne instructs her fans to donate their time and money to Planned Parenthood. It is of a piece with her politics and her prejudices. Her songs and videos offer a curious mix of both, the effect of which is to dance awfully close to the line of Catholic baiting. If even her admirers see something of the sacrilegious in her work, it is hard to maintain that Osborne doesn't have an agenda. It is our hope that she doesn't let her sentiments regarding Catholicism get in the way of whatever artistic abilities she has."

and this with a great response from Marlyn Manson:
Donohue said, "It is Christianity that [Manson] hates, and it is Catholicism that he hates most of all. This guy is at war with Christ."
Marilyn Manson then responded to Donohue's claim by saying, "I can't possibly be at war with Christ, because your religion killed him and what he stood for. But if you want to be at war with me, bring it on."

and this:
"Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism

and this:
"In this country, we are civilized. We don't appreciate it when somebody sticks it to you in the name of freedom of speech, sir. We condemn it. But over there, they take the uncivilized approach. And then they wonder why so many people don't trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty, because they will abuse it."

and lastly this:
"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah."

So really, who is the bigot?
It looks like Donahue is bigotry personified.

Really?

Really?!?, Ted? I'm heterosexual and I've never found myself on meth with a guy giving me a massage. To quote Jane's Addiction "Ted Just Admit It" You like "teh cock" nothing is wrong with that it takes people some time to figure out what makes them happy, Ted, if cock makes you happy embrace it!*



* Pun intended.

But I want to believe in the Tooth Fairy

Would you mother fuckers stop this non-sense

""I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.""

I say then let you faith die or at least euthanize it./

The Newest in New

The Newest in New
Originally uploaded by dcdan.

Who says that web users don't know what time it is?
Goofy Boston govt.

He Was a Good Church Going Christian

Priest arrested in Las Vegas church attack he was in church every Sunday. Speaking of which why bother with tradition?

Video of the Month

The Times They Are a Changing

My take on the OS landscape over the next few years is thus:

Microsoft:
My guess is that Microsoft shops will stay Microsoft shop sites. At the risk of loosing home users (where they are currently loosing) they will focus less on the user interface aspects and more on the core things that excite corporate users. The main people using Microsoft as a non-server system are MSDN members. They will of course continue to use Intel chips and AMD will be around for a while based on price/performance.

Solaris/Sun/Linux/IBM/Unix in general:
Sun and IBM will merge settling on Linux as the OS of choice for Unix based corporate users. Since they are IBM and Sun they will build some kick ass processor that will crush anything Intel makes, but it will only run on the SunBM* chips. They will continue to work along the Java J2EE front because they are strong supporters and because it is ubiquitous in the the non-MS shops and it works as it helps to prevent a lot of developers from writing the "hard code" such as transactionality and the like. This also means that Eclipse and NetBeans will merge and actually have a kick as dev tool that takes cave of the mundane code, where it is easy to make mistakes. The NetBeans GUI tool (now for Swing) will turn into some XHTML/Ajax tool that will take of building web interfaces nicely.

Apple/Sony:
Sony and Apple will merge into a company named iSnApple*. They both have the high ground as far as marketing and home consumer perceptions go. All home users will have a Mac that works with their Sony cameras and Camcorders, as well as their iPhones (the Walkman brand will be dropped and rolled into iPod) [as it stands Sony Ericsson and Apple are competing for a space that the merger would own]

Nintendo:

Nintendo will own THE gaming platform as Microsoft will abandon Xbox in their desire to focus on the corporate world. iSnApple will be over priced (much like the Wii/PS3 battle) Oh sure the PlayStation brand will exist and will be "technically" better than the Nintendo offering much like this video explains being fun and cheap is better than being advanced


*my proposals for the merged names

Post 9-11 Paranoia

Much Better Mooninite
Originally uploaded by dcdan.

---

Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards "bomblike" devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged infrastructure and transportation in the city.

---

Lite Brite toys don't seem to be explosive, but DC buses seem to catch on fire? Idiocy of this is beyond compare and embarrassment for the Boston government. The if thing is what really bothers me. There are a lot of ifs and they shouldn't be used to charge people with crimes.

Their mocking of the press makes these guys impressive as they are showing how much of a joke this really is.