if you are so dumb you can’t steal music, then i don’t want to hear your opinion of DRM and copyrights.
Just a little something I found while browsing the blagonet a while back. Last night, I was flipping through channels waiting for Jail to return from a commercial break when I stumbled upon one of the 20/DatePrimeLineTimeLive shows. They were talking about “bloggers”. Yeah, I don’t think I’m included in that, since I post once a week. Maybe. (Incidentally, I kinda posted on this before.) Anywho, they were talking about how these “bloggers” often sit at home in their pjs and talk about whatever is on their mind, posting videos to sites like Youtube and podcasts (which are then explained in a short sentence) to iTunes. I didn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it, but it was enough of John Stossel’s increasingly-high voice to piss me off. He’s talking about it like people who write about what they want online are doing so while smoking a reefer, snorting coke, and getting pleasured by a prostitute while hacking the military’s computers on a second computer. I expect that the sentence after I changed the station went something like this: “These youngins are destroying the validity of reported news by polluting the airwaves and wirewaves with their self-righteous ramblings that nobody reads!” [Do note that, while you read that sentence to yourself, you have to increase the volume and pitch of your voice with each word, to the point that you sound like a deranged 3-year-old at the end. Because that's what he sounds like. A deranged 3-year-old.]
What does he know about the digital age? Does he understand that most people under 30 realize that most mainstream media is contrived? Even if he does, it’s not like he’s going to report that…his employer is mainstream media. Why bite the hand that feeds?
We, the rising youth, report our own news, our own important events. What’s better is that we hear about most things a day or two ahead of the news media reporting it.
An aside moment for local news: other than weather, traffic, and local professional sports teams, local news outlets are pretty much worthless. Incredibly detailed analysis shows that (read: IMHO) 90% of the rest of the local broadcasts are human interest crap. I don’t care if some local woman’s house is overrun by cats. Good for her. I hope she doesn’t reproduce.
Returning, a second item that’s burned my shorts. I’ve had this iPhone for a week. In that week, I’ve had no less than 6 people if I like my “$100 per month phone bill”. To which I reply: “I like my $60 per month bill just fine. What is this $100 monthly bill you speak of?” Yes, the iPhone plans from AT&T are tiered, and the most expensive plan is $100 (I think…what, you assume I’d fact check? Psssh.), but that doesn’t mean that you must get the most expensive plan to “fully” enjoy the device. In fact, news outlets only reported the total monthly bill, not the cost of the data plan. Let’s look at the plan I’ve got. For $60, I get 450 anytime minutes, 5000 night & weekend, 200 text messages, and unlimited internet data. Those first two stats are very similar to a non-iPhone plan. In fact, it’s exactly the Nation 450, which is $40 per month. The iPhone plan adds 200 text messages and unlimited internet for just $20 more. The next step up in iPhone plans is $80 per month. Just like the lower plan, it’s exactly the same as the Nation 900 (900 anytime, unlimited night & weekend), albeit with added text messages & internet. Twenty dollars is all that separates the Nation 900 and comparative iPhone plan. The most expensive plan is the same. So what’s this about “Oh, man, I gotta pay $400 for a phone and $100 per month just to use it?” NO, dumbass, you pay $400 for a phone (which is right in line with fresh on the market, top of the line smartphones) and only $20 more to get a data plan over the voice you would use anyway. You’d be paying someone for voice, so that’s factored out of the equation when comparing the luxury cost of the iPhone. A personal Blackberry data plan from AT&T is a $35 per month option, $15 more than the iPhone data plan. Is the iPhone expensive? Hell yes, it’s brand new technology. (Ok, fine, all of the tech has been around, but this is the first time it was all combined in this way. It’s a brand new device. 
)
ross rant-o-matic
