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Chris Jacob
@Killjoy: Oh, yes, Zombie, Run! After a conversation about this game with a youth leader at our local church, she had me adapt the game to be a live-action scavenger hunt wherein some some of the 20-somethings in our group volunteered to dress up as Zombies and attempt to attack or capture the kids.
That's right. Because of this game, I got to be a zombie. And attack children. At a church.
They're in a tough spot, need customers to pay more money (either because of the nature of the market or through their own idiotic mistakes). It's not like tiered or metered pricing is unheard of...
But I'd be a whole lot more inclined to listen to these asstards if somebody would just come out and say "Look, we said 'unlimited' when we sold data plans. That was a mistake. We didn't realize how much data folks would use. We're sorry."
That's what gets me. When you offer someone $30/month for "unlimited data", then, when they use a lot of data, you think they're the ones who need an "education" (which they've hinted at elsewhere, also).
Jackasses. Every last one of them. Dudes, own your mistakes and we'll be a lot more cool.
"The users are the problem" hints at quite the paradigm, doesn't it? Namely, that users exist for the benefit of the system. Personally I think systems exist for the benefit of their users, and a system that doesn't is of little use.
@BlueToast: Unfortunately, government's a very bad counterexample. The sole purpose of any government is to codify direction for collective effort that can provide infrastructure, rights, and other similar support that goes beyond what an individual can achieve working on their own. Why would any collection of people decide to create an organizing body that doesn't work in their interest, and instead exists to serve it's own interest? That's self-destructive madness.
You'd have an easier time making your agument in the realm of private business, where it's considered legitimate for collective entities to be established for the benefit of few to the possible detriment of many. And you'd be right that it's considered legitimate, and I don't dispute that. As a user, what I dispute is the usefulness of a system that exists to serve it's owner first and it's users second.
@Killjoy: I wasn't being serious. That's what the second paragraphs about.
However, I disagree with your statement "The sole purpose of any government is to codify direction for collective effort that can provide infrastructure, rights, and other similar support that goes beyond what an individual can achieve working on their own."
The sole(only) purpose of government is to protect the RIGHTS of the people.
Not to protect the people. Not to ensure the peoples wealth. Not to do anything other than ensure our rights.
Governments tend to do a lot more, and sometimes, do the opposite (taking away the right to marry?WTF???).
@BlueToast: We're talking at cross-purposes. The sole *stated* purpose for government, as stated *by* governments, may well be embodied in your phrase. What I'm talking about is more macro - the reasoning behind any group of individuals choosing to adopt a governmental model in the first place. If choice was involved at all... but now we're getting too far afield.
I resubmit that a system designed to serve it's owner before it's users is, by definition, not a system worth using.
@Killjoy: "What I'm talking about is more macro - the reasoning behind any group of individuals choosing to adopt a governmental model in the first place. If choice was involved at alll..."
This is exactly what I am referring to.
"I resubmit that a system designed to serve it's owner before it's users is, by definition, not a system worth using"
Theoretically, the users, and the owners, are the same people.
My 3G has had software fritzes recently, such that Apple generously offered me a new 3GS, for only the low, low, subsidized price, if only I'd sign a new 2-year contract with AT&T. No way in hell I took that offer. My contract is up on July 18; I'm counting down the days until I can ditch those assholes and switch back to Verizon.
It's a pity as I adore the phone itself, but I'm sick as all hell of worrying about calls dropping, data service cuts, etc.; when I was on Verizon I always thought it sucked b/c of the limited phone selection, but the past 18 months have taught me and a couple million other people that it's the network that really counts. When Cingular ran those "fewest dropped calls" ads a couple years back, I remember thinking that I'd never experienced a dropped call in my life, and wondered if it was really a problem. Ironically, now that I'm with AT&T nee Cingular, it's a constant of my existence.
I think AT&T is going to have a mass exodus next year, and hope they go broke because of it. But as a 27-year fan of Apple, I only hope they have a backup plan when they start to lose all of that business.
"Can you hear me now? . . . What's that? Oh, I'm the verizon guy? . . . Hello, hello, AT&T? Are you there? I think they're call was just dropped. Guess they can't hear me now."
@not_a_virus.exe.vbs: It's probably relevant to remember that it took large mergers for Verizon to become as large as it is. Buying Alltel was key in vaulting Verizon into a commanding lead in the coverage battle.
As AmphetamineCrown pointed out AT&T has invested heavily in the last two years in expanding and making better their coverage. If there was another provider interested in being bought out you can bet AT&T would be all over it.
By incentives, he doesn't mean charge more money. He probably means the phone will start giving you little electric shocks or something beyond a certain bandwidth.
While their CS is, well, the suck I stuck with Sprint because, while supposedly outdated, their network just works.
Thank god for Google for actually putting some effort into a mobile phone platform. I have a feeling with the pace they are going with the OS releases and the market that Android will probably ring the death bell for Windows Mobile. Microsoft doesnt own the marketplace like they do on computers so they were mistaken to think they can just sit on a crappy, old OS.
@archercc: Windows Mobile is too ingrained in the corporate and commercial markets to die. It might disappear from the consumer market but it's going to be a long time before there's anything that can replace it completely.
@archercc: sorry mate..but RIM is really only super popular in the US. Winmo and symbian are more popular in the rest of the world, just look at the amount of Winmo phones that get released in parts other than the US. in the US it is dropping from consumers, but internationally many companies are switching to Winmo FROM RIM to help cut costs.
@charles.plush: I approve this comment simply for the "sorry mate...". That and also the fact that I think he's actually making a good point regarding international Winmo usage.
@archercc: It's not Exchange that will keep WinMo alive, it's the sheer number of super-niche uses it's been adapted to, the sort of things that were developed out of a specific need which was not met on any platform, now it's met on WinMo nobody's going to bother with another platform. The market for handheld devices with built in parking ticket printers is fairly limited and since all of the software used has been written for WinMo, nobody is going to release a device running Android, not because it's technically impossible but because no one would buy them since there would be no software, and until there's hardware nobody's going to write the software.
If you want an idea of how big MS is in the commercial space, go to an Apple store. Those little handheld card scanners they carry around... those are running a version of Windows Mobile. You have to assume that Apple would have gone with anyone other than Microsoft if there was anyone other than Microsoft... there wasn't and still isn't.
Oddly, it isn't just AT&T's favorite stat. It is pretty much consistent across the Internet. See the presentations given to the FCC here: [www.openinternet.gov]
1% use 20% of the capacity, 5% use 50%, 20% use 80% (Cable Labs). 1% create 20% of traffic, 10% create 60% (Cisco). 1% use 17%, 5% use 41%, 10% use 57% (AT&T landline).
@AmphetamineCrown: The problem is that ATT is delusional enough to think that these stats are static.
That 3% using 40% of data are called early adopters, meaning that soon everyone will be consuming just as much and those early adopters and those early adopters will have moved on to consume even more data.
That stat is just a red herring used by ATT to divert attention away from the fact that their 3G network sucks. Every day there will be more people using apps on more smartphones. Embrace the future and upgrade the networks!
@PinoSarpedon: I think the fact that the statistics cited aren't early adopter statistics kinda cuts against your point. The Cable Labs stats are for Cable Internet subs generally. The Cisco stats are Internet wide. The AT&T stats have to do with their MPLS network, not their radio network.
This, in some ways, is the essence of net neutrality. If you look at all of those presentations, you see that they all note congestion issues and the need to adopt means of addressing congestion. By and large, they all seem to advocate deep packet inspection to determine packet latency priority and honoring quality of service requirements through gateways from provider to provider. They are quite interesting. All packets are not the same.
I need to develop an "AT&T exclusivity countdown clock" app. Shame we really can't pinpoint the date, but I'm sure the same month that most of AT&T's problems will be fixed will be the moment that iPhone subscribers will be leaving in droves.
@BeyondtheTech: AT&T's problems would be fixed if iPhone users left in droves. Basically, the iPhone seems to be the cause of a lot of the congestion on the network. I hear a lot about people saying "move to T-Mobile," but the reality is that if any significant number of iPhone subs did that, it would crush T-Mobile's network and they'd all be worse off.
A pay-per-byte plan is one great way to get people to leave AT&T. Plus, there's no way they can implement it on existing users without it being a "materially adverse change", which permits people to leave without paying an ETF.
@vmspionage: As long as the iPhone is exclusive to AT&T, you are probably correct that they will continue to hold a sizable percentage of the market. The question is how long Apple will remain with a company that keeps staining Steve Jobs' fine knitted laundry.
@OMG! Ponies!: As much as I love my zune 80 and zune hd, a zune phone would seem like an extremely late entry into the smartphone market, that and it would be competing against winmo7 (or whatever iteration of winmo is out by then)
That and the inevitable increase of android's market share and the unlikelyhood of a decent app store for the zunephone
@Monty: In Canada you can get the iPhone on any of our networks, though I think that still tarnishes the image of Apple as even having the best cell phone network really isn't saying a lot when you look at the competition.
@travisco_nabisco: I had not considered the entire cell phone industry as being an industry controlled by Mephistopheles, but your point is a good one. As someone who anxiously awaits a version of the iPod Touch which is set up for VOIP (Skype) use out of the box, I suppose I am a living example of your point.
02:06 PM
03:39 PM
That's right. Because of this game, I got to be a zombie. And attack children. At a church.
(The actual app was fun, too.)
10:02 AM
10:51 AM
12/10/09
But I'd be a whole lot more inclined to listen to these asstards if somebody would just come out and say "Look, we said 'unlimited' when we sold data plans. That was a mistake. We didn't realize how much data folks would use. We're sorry."
That's what gets me. When you offer someone $30/month for "unlimited data", then, when they use a lot of data, you think they're the ones who need an "education" (which they've hinted at elsewhere, also).
Jackasses. Every last one of them. Dudes, own your mistakes and we'll be a lot more cool.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/10/09
Remember when it was true that the "Sole purpose of Government is to protect the rights of the People"?
Yeah, me neither.
11:44 AM
You'd have an easier time making your agument in the realm of private business, where it's considered legitimate for collective entities to be established for the benefit of few to the possible detriment of many. And you'd be right that it's considered legitimate, and I don't dispute that. As a user, what I dispute is the usefulness of a system that exists to serve it's owner first and it's users second.
12:16 PM
However, I disagree with your statement "The sole purpose of any government is to codify direction for collective effort that can provide infrastructure, rights, and other similar support that goes beyond what an individual can achieve working on their own."
The sole(only) purpose of government is to protect the RIGHTS of the people.
Not to protect the people. Not to ensure the peoples wealth. Not to do anything other than ensure our rights.
Governments tend to do a lot more, and sometimes, do the opposite (taking away the right to marry?WTF???).
01:14 PM
I resubmit that a system designed to serve it's owner before it's users is, by definition, not a system worth using.
03:04 PM
This is exactly what I am referring to.
"I resubmit that a system designed to serve it's owner before it's users is, by definition, not a system worth using"
Theoretically, the users, and the owners, are the same people.
We the people...
12/09/09
It's a pity as I adore the phone itself, but I'm sick as all hell of worrying about calls dropping, data service cuts, etc.; when I was on Verizon I always thought it sucked b/c of the limited phone selection, but the past 18 months have taught me and a couple million other people that it's the network that really counts. When Cingular ran those "fewest dropped calls" ads a couple years back, I remember thinking that I'd never experienced a dropped call in my life, and wondered if it was really a problem. Ironically, now that I'm with AT&T nee Cingular, it's a constant of my existence.
I think AT&T is going to have a mass exodus next year, and hope they go broke because of it. But as a 27-year fan of Apple, I only hope they have a backup plan when they start to lose all of that business.
12/09/09
Which is...? Verizon?
12/09/09
12/09/09
Weed?
12/09/09
12/09/09
As AmphetamineCrown pointed out AT&T has invested heavily in the last two years in expanding and making better their coverage. If there was another provider interested in being bought out you can bet AT&T would be all over it.
12/09/09
12/09/09
Thank god for Google for actually putting some effort into a mobile phone platform. I have a feeling with the pace they are going with the OS releases and the market that Android will probably ring the death bell for Windows Mobile. Microsoft doesnt own the marketplace like they do on computers so they were mistaken to think they can just sit on a crappy, old OS.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
If you want an idea of how big MS is in the commercial space, go to an Apple store. Those little handheld card scanners they carry around... those are running a version of Windows Mobile. You have to assume that Apple would have gone with anyone other than Microsoft if there was anyone other than Microsoft... there wasn't and still isn't.
12/09/09
1% use 20% of the capacity, 5% use 50%, 20% use 80% (Cable Labs). 1% create 20% of traffic, 10% create 60% (Cisco). 1% use 17%, 5% use 41%, 10% use 57% (AT&T landline).
12/09/09
That 3% using 40% of data are called early adopters, meaning that soon everyone will be consuming just as much and those early adopters and those early adopters will have moved on to consume even more data.
That stat is just a red herring used by ATT to divert attention away from the fact that their 3G network sucks. Every day there will be more people using apps on more smartphones. Embrace the future and upgrade the networks!
12/09/09
This, in some ways, is the essence of net neutrality. If you look at all of those presentations, you see that they all note congestion issues and the need to adopt means of addressing congestion. By and large, they all seem to advocate deep packet inspection to determine packet latency priority and honoring quality of service requirements through gateways from provider to provider. They are quite interesting. All packets are not the same.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
Good idea there, de la Vega.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
/troll bait *hides*
12/09/09
12/09/09
That and the inevitable increase of android's market share and the unlikelyhood of a decent app store for the zunephone
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09