August 19th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk MacRumors is reporting that some bunch named the American Customer Satisfaction Index have ranked Apple at the top of some customer satisfaction survey. But wait, I thought that Apple was doomed by it’s horrible hubris to a fate worse than corporate death. Oh, that’s just what the doucheblogs want us to think. In reality, the average consumer probably hasn’t even heard of the majority of the issues that we’ve all been nattering about for the last few months. Let me tell you a story… Once upon a time, when I was at EarthLink, I was part of the team that was in charge of data gathering and reporting for customer satisfaction survey data. This means that, among the various unpleasant things I was responsible for, I had not only access to the compiled survey return data but access to the raw stream of survey returns. Of particular note was the survey comments. Based on the comments that we were getting back, it was obvious that EarthLink was possibly the worst company on the face of the planet, and we should all kill ourselves out of embarrassment (a thesis that I’m not exactly disputing). Now, here’s where it gets
Continue reading Suck It Blogosphere!
August 7th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk So, I’m sitting here in my office, working diligently (seriously, for any potential employers out there, I’m working my ass off). I’m also seeing tweets fly by, and reading blog posts by Robert “I have more followers that God (literally, 31,617 vs 600 as of this posting)” Scoble shilling the latest New Media Douchebag Approved™ social blogging network whatever. Meanwhile, over in my email client a funny thing is happening. People I know, people I would even go so far as to call friends are emailing back and forth, planning a happy hour gathering for tomorrow (and incidentally accusing each other of being either hippies or red-necks). Email! I know, it’s fucking shocking. I mean, it’s so 1990’s. No Loopt, no Twitter, not even a dynamic group blog leveraging social networks. Fucking email. Even worse, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, some of us will actually telephone people not on the mailing list to give them the heads up. We may even use landlines. The point behind the snark here? This is what actual friends do; and this is the point that the New Media Douchebags fail to miss. Things like Twitter, and MySpace, and blogs, and Loopt are there
Continue reading Here’s One for All the New Media Douchebags in the House.
August 5th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk Just a quick note to my loyal readers (sorry started laughing at that then lost my breath), I’m not actually deceased. I’ve just been too busy/hungover/flu-infested to generate a proper rant. That is all.
July 23rd, 2008, by The Angry Drunk Continuing in the fine Gawker Media tradition of posting any old crap as long as it gets hits, The Consumerist today brings us the breaking news that people sell bull cocks as dog treats. Shocking, I know. In lieu of commentary, I bring you the sage words of Tom Waits. I was a little shocked! I know you can get just about ANYTHING in this world. You can get a whale’s pancreas if you’d want one! I can get you one! But com’on, a bull’s penis! How busy they were their whole lives. And they throw it to a dog, like that, for a snack! Now, are they available here in the Los Angeles area? They are, aren’t they? Doesn’t that make you a little weazy? Makes you wanna live a long time. Yes, Tom, yes it does.
June 26th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk This piece of utter retardation just popped up on my radar; and, after a solid round of bashing my head against my keyboard, I was compelled to comment. The short version is, Chris Anderson at Wired is making the argument that the availability of enormous clouds of data will allow scientists to eschew the scientific method and just pull conclusions from correlations within “the cloud.” His main argument for this, Google doesn’t have a proper model of why PageRank works, but it does so, there you go. Ars Technica provides a better rebuttal of the scientific points that I feel like writing; so I highly suggest that you read that. But I do have some comments I’d like to make. To start, why, for the love of Ahura Mazda, must every Web 2.0 dork conflate Google with the rest of the gods damned universe. First, Google is an advertising company, nothing more, nothing less. The sooner you nerds realize that everything that comes out of Google Labs is directed at creating a pool of eyes to view those ads, the less disappointed you’ll be when reality comes crashing down. Second,
Continue reading Mind Boggling Stupidity
June 20th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk I’m not going to be arsed to dig up any links to the ongoing debate over whether the iPhone 3G is or isn’t actually cheaper, or a good deal. Instead I’m going to sum this up in simple terms even the simpletons in the blogokleinbottle can understand: If you already own an iPhone (2G) and don’t have a critical need for aGPS or 3G speeds (assuming that you are in a market that supports 3G). Don’t buy the iPhone 3G, it’s a bad deal. If you don’t own an iPhone, or you have a crucial need for aGPS or 3G speed (assuming that you are in a market that supports 3G). Buy the iPhone 3G, it’s a good deal. There, are we all clear? Now go back to speculating on el Jefe’s health; or whatever it is you nerdlingers do when I’m not paying attention.
June 11th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk Now that the blogokleinbottle is coming down from the WWDC keynote crack-hits, some of the denizens of blogoland are realizing that the iPhone 3G isn’t actually the second coming of Jesus (gasp!) One of the biggest themes that I’m picking up surrounds the pricing changes. I’m not going to link to any of the various posts breaking down the price; because, gods know, I’m lazy and you can’t swing a dead hobo without hitting someone blogging about it. The bottom line is, the price of the two iPhone 3G models come down by $200; but the data plan and SMS charges have gone up. In the end, as a few sites have pointed out, you will end up paying more for the iPhone 3G over the life of the 2 year contract. My view on this is: So what? I’m betting that iPhones are still gonna fly off the shelves like Marina Sirtis blow-up dolls at a Star Trek convention. What the vast majority of the blogtards fail to get is, pricing is all about perception. Why else are the prices “$199″ and “$299″? It’s been shown time and again that consumers latch on the the first digit in the
Continue reading Thoughts on the iPhone 3G Pricing
June 2nd, 2008, by The Angry Drunk Read this shit. Read it now.
June 2nd, 2008, by The Angry Drunk Ye gods, get a load of the latest whiny new media entitletard douchbaggery from Michael “I make up quotes” Arrington over at TechCrunch. The gist of the matter is a list of technical questions to the Twitter team from Michael. While the questions themselves have some merit, the absolutely overwhelming sense of new media entitlement surrounding them makes me want to drink even more than usual. Earth to the interwebs: Twitter is an amusing little diversion who’s availability, or lack thereof has fuck-all to do with the real world. I hate to say this, but I really hope that the bitching and outrage over Twitter’s stability is just entitletard douchebaggery. One might almost hypothesize that some parties might have a financial stake in making Twitter look bad.
June 2nd, 2008, by The Angry Drunk This is sure to bring out the trolls and zealots; but what the hell. It seems that Microsoft has issued a warning advising that Windows users not use Safari for Windows. I’m not going to bother to go over the background on this, you can read the advisory yourself here. And I’m not going to dwell on the irony of Microsoft lecturing anyone on “‘security.” My point is that this is the new face of FUD. Users have been so cowed with breathless reporting about all the evil hackers out there in the dangerous back alleys of the intertubes that the most efficient way of sabotaging your competition is to throw out some vague warnings about “exploits,” or “hacks.” Now, before the usual douchebags sally forth to accuse me of defending Apple or some such shit, that’s not what this is about. What I’m commenting on here is a practice that is as retarded when Apple does is as it is when Microsoft, or Mozilla, or PayPal does it. Computer security is a real issue, and needs a real conversation that isn’t just one company using it as a marketing trick to discredit the competition, or a vendor
Continue reading Security: The Most Powerful FUD of All.
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