The "Dislike button" app: Why it's wrong.

Recently, the social networking site known as "Facebook" has been barraged with people wanting a "dislike" button. Normally Facebook has a "like" button to show your appreciation for something someone has said, done or posted on the site. Personally, maybe the like button should go also as no problems like this are on the other great networking sites like "Myspace".

First of all, I'm not sure I'd trust that app. I also believe it could lead to phishing or worse, a virus. Besides... do people need to know nor care that you dislike what they like? What if they disliked everything YOU liked? How would that make you feel? Who really cares what you don't like? It's OK to have an opinion, but "unlike" is just plain rude. Suppose you're big into god or the bible and the church and someone came by and "unliked" you praising your god?

In politics, when you vote for a candidate, that is akin to a "like". You get one vote. You don't get to negate or attempt to erase another voters vote by "unvoting" . Your vote is tallied and the winner is the one with the most votes. That should be good enough. There is no "unvote" button.

Why not use the ultimate dislike button and delete the friend that you evidently have so much disdain with? A "dislike" button is a slap in any friends face. You don't have to LIKE everything so don't click "like". If you've got nothing good to say don't say it at all.

This was part of my rant on the facebook "dislike" button on the Darkhours. I said "Gee...if I like Christmas, can I "dislike" Hanukkah? I'm sure my Jewish friends would LOVE me after that. Or those who 'dislike' Pagans and Yule because they think you're a Satanist, ignorant to the reason why Christmas is on Dec 25th rather than the true 'day of Christs birth'. "

Watch what you wish for...It could start wars.

If you'd wish to "unlike" this...just delete me as a friend. If you actually believe in an "unlike" button, grow the fuck up already...and you say "Myspace" is for kids.

Morons.

This is a geek rant of all rants.

I wasn't going to think about it as any sort of conspiracy, but yet...there is one. Hulu.com has chosen to block Playstation 3 users. This may sound silly or ridiculous to get upset about but as a PS3 owner, one can't help but think that there's something afoot. Why is it Microsofts XBox 360 browsers can use hulu and not PS3 which on basic spec is a far superior system? Oh want? Because it has a blu ray player built in they should single out one specific system and it's ability to surf the web? How can a company that gets paid by sponsors, take away an audience because it choses to watch internet television, not from a computer, but from *gasp!* a television!

The explanation I've found online for this ridiculous travesty still makes no sense. I demand we boycott hulu.com until they make it available on all mediums! This is an outrage and technical prejudice! It's like saying "Only iPods allowed here. NO ZUNES!"

Hulu explains why PS3 is a no go.

In my quest for the perfect TV for the cheapest price (due to budget constraints), I've noticed that the bottom, once again most likely due to this horrid economy, is dropping yet again.

Last I looked, you could get a 50" plasma with a stand for $999 on the internet at Tiger Direct. Today in the newspaper, the retail side of that same company D.B.A. 6th Avenue Electronics now offers nearly the same deal if not a few dollars less only now the tv is 57 inches.

Basically, by Black Friday, as the Christmas season comes upon us and as the economy tanks, look for prices to plummet on electronics as retailers struggle to stay afloat.

It seems the best was is to wait.

So recently the music industry decided to start selling music on 1GB Micro SD cards called "Slot Music" to be used in cell phones, MP3 players and computers. Personally, I predicted this as the inevitable future of music as it was as memory cards got smaller in size, cheaper to mass produce even though they are able to hold so much more memory. Geeks in the electronics and music industry are a buzz.

When I had first imagined this many years ago, I had first thought that the big drawback was theft due to size, but as it appears, they will be packaged like CD's in cases and they'll be able to use the extra space to put in booklets and liners and all sorts of extras.

This could bring back the value to owning music again, but the prestige of large CD collections is once again devalued even more past the devalue they took when creating your own CD's and copying them became popular.

Technology marches on. But storing these tiny chips en masse could prove difficult to the consumer. I lost an 8GB micro SD card in my keyboard and didn't find it `til I couldn't use my arrow keys where it was stuck. They're so small...the way the record companies will make money is by people replacing these flat pebble sized cards.

I guess one has to get past the thought of one standard media for owning music, what with file sharing and mp3's and phones, devices, and even hard drives in cars to play them. Who needs these hard copies anyway?
With DVR, HDD recording, Storage cards and chips, all that VCR, Cassette, CD even DVD is soon to become obsolete. The only disc you'll need is Blur Ray unless they start making cards for that too. Face it. This time around, tech moves and grows faster than ever. Who keeps VCR's or VHS tapes in the house anymore? DVD's are nearly as worthless as those old style CRT tube televisions.

The question is: Are you ready to embrace the future?

Ok...it's 2008. The 21st Century. According to Science Fiction, we're supposed to be in flying cars (which exist, but let's face it; post 9/11 I doubt anyone would trust a million potential flying missiles in the skies), be wearing either lots of leather or silver, traveling through space for vacation or on business to our offices or resorts on other moons or planets, have abolished bullets for lasers and have robots do our bidding.

In reality, we can be thankful for at least some of the tech we've waited for. We wanted flip open communicators that responded to voice command, pocket sized computers, wrist sized televisions, robots that vacuum floors, talking devices that guided our journeys, pocket sized lasers (granted they don't cut holes through steel, voice activated cars, small micro chips that carry information and media, boxes that cook our foods quickly and more. The problem was that when we got them they didn't seem so cool anymore. The biggest mistake anyone can make is saying "when I get what I want, I'll be happy". I guess we'll want and want for things but when they finally come, they're not so interesting in reality.

Talking to a dear friend the other day, we wondered what a geek was these days. It used to be you were a geek if you stayed in the house in front of a computer all day. If you were obsessed with the latest gadgets you were a geek. If you'd rather communicate via electronics over face to face you were a geek or a nerd. That line is so thin now it seems the difference between being cool and being a nerd is whether like in Tron, you're a programmer or a user.

Today's kids live like they're cross wired with a central processing unit in their brains. I was in a Sprint store where the counter man noted that it's odd how more people would rather text than talk to people these days. In our technological age we've reverted to typing small notes that deliver themselves over the air as opposed to in a mailbox. We email more than we send regular mail and expect each email to be taken to heart and memorized. Even worse is the blogger. The self styled news journalist who believes each post they write is a major thesis or news column that all should heed as law. Oddly, I'm probably guilty of this too and I admit it. I sent every friend of mine over 30 feeling they were getting old the link to my "40 is the new 20" post.

Technology is dangerous. There are no geeks. We now sit in front of computers and our topics of discussion when we finally come face to face is whether or not you saw a "famous video" on youtube or not.

Our world is filled with new terms like "iEverything" and "somethingTUBE". There's an "i" in front of anything related to portable media and now there are "TUBES" for every subject popping up on the internet.

When we were younger and didn't know anything, if we wanted to know something we went to a dictionary or encyclopedia . Remember those huge books of knowledge you'd flip through? Now the general answer for "What's this?" is "IDK...GOOGLE it!". First of all. I hate people who talk in initials or L337 speak. Spell it out or talk. It won't hurt. Guess what? IDK and I DON'T KNOW have the EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF SYLLABLES!

Since when did GOOGLE become the Great Gazoo of knowledge that is the only answer to life itself? By the way (saying By the way has less syllables than actually SAYING BTW ) if you don't know who the Great Gazoo is, well I guess you'll have to GOOGLE it then watch him on YOUTUBE.

Geeks: People who spend most of their time locked up in their rooms on computers writing programs so people can blog, make social portals like myspace and designing communicators that watch entertainment programs like YOUTUBE.

Cool Kids: People who spend most of their time locked up in their rooms on computers using the programs the geeks made. Enjoy your blogs and myspace watching youtube while texting on your communicator.

Pretty blurry line, huh?

Yes...

Bought.

NEW.

Why is this a big deal? It's like this with me and phones:

I usually try and cheat the system. My phones have always been outdated. They've always been the types I'd acquired via equipment replacement programs by claiming they dropped into the lake, sewer, well...whatever. I did that when I was sick of a phone and figured it was cheaper to get upgrades that way. That's because sucky Sprint used to give NEW customers the best phones FREE and leave the 8 year pre-exhisting customers high and dry. So while all my friends had cool phones like Kitanas and Razors, I was stuck with thick bulky crap phones.

Last week I was going through the Sprint site. They were offering the Samsung M610 for $279. $49 for NEW customers and $179 AFTER a mail in rebate (meaning you had to pay in full first and wait for a rebate in the mail).
Screw that! I was in Best Buy and they had a deal for $79 for old customers along with new customers getting it for $49. Now that seemed fair to me. The offer was only good til 6/16 so I said "fuck it" and went for it.

I could have had a Kitana or a Razor for free, but everyone and their mother has those so I wanted something different.

BEHOLD...the NEW hotness!:

The worlds thinnest, sleekest clamshell phone!

Technical and photographic comparisons in the extended entry. (GEEK inside)

I bought a bike today. A Trek 7100. Actually I bought it last week and picked it up today. I decided that the only way I'm gonna get into performing weight was to actually do something fun. Walking bored me. I remembered how as I young teen, my sister and I would bike to many neighboring towns. I enjoyed it I enjoyed the freedom of biking.

Americans are suffering from an obesity epidemic, so I thought to myself that that statistic is not for me to be a part of. Maybe I just wanna be hot again.So some of this blog may reflect just how far I get into this project.

I have two types of friends. The bike snobs that say you need to spend at least $500 on a bike and then there's bike ignorant who think that buying a bike in Walmart for $100 is the way to go. I've found in my travels that you get what you pay for. $100 bikes break, especially when they are built by layman at home and not by professionals. I mean...these people at the bike shop want me to bring it in after a month to get a "tune up" as they say it starts to change after you ride it for a month.

Some tell me.."naw dawg! You can get a phat bike for $200 from Toys R Us". Great... just what I need: a bike so heavy it gives me a coronary and a bike seat jammed up my ass and sore elbows because the seat and forks don't have shock absorbing suspension. Especially since I live in a hilly area.

The little dome is a tiny bell. I dig the black wheels.

I may have not spent a fortune, but I didn't cheap out even if it is the starting model. Instead of 24 speeds, I have 21. Not a big deal to me since the last time I rode a bike, I had a 10 speed. I do like the fact that the shifter is reminiscent of a motorcycle throttle.

More pics in the extended entry for the bike enthusiast.

It started with this comparison of the Star Trek original series communicator and the Motorola Star Tak. We've been trying to duplicate the future we've created in our minds.

The other day I was amazed when I walked into a Comp USA and saw the Motorola "MING" A1200 Smartphone.

Somehow I MUST have one. My inner geek is screaming for it... only it's not available through my provider... This seems to be the closest thing to a competitor to the iPhone.

Oddly, this is the closest we've made to a communicator without the cheesy 60's look seen here:

This will become one of my new geek mission indulgences... to obtain one.

Serious geeks can view the tech specs in the excerpt.

I could just die.

It's official. The internet is evil. And not the good kind.

So I'm watching the 10 o'clock news and I see a report on women bashing their ex boytfriends on websites like "Don't Date Him Girl" and "Those who cheat". This is wrong in so many ways. First of all, no matter what bad press there is, especially on the internet, it's practically impossible to get the bad taste out of someones mouth.

At work, I carry a product that's awesome! Sure, it's gone through a few prior generations that needed tweaking. now it's pretty much perfect. Yet in it's early incarnation Epinions had a few ancient postings about the product. Now since then mind you, this government researched project got a few poor reviews and a LOT of lies about it. Subsequently, I can only successfully get this product delivered if no one had been to Epinions. We've found that over time, it was our competitors, who could not carry this fine product, posting these statements... only problem was, the public has no idea who to believe now, because Epinions is supposed to be some sort of reliable viable source.

Basically, slander sites suck because people seem to religiously believe whatever they read on the net as if it's law. I once had the same problem. no matter what it said...it could say "Hitler found alive in a hospice in Des Moines", I would have believed it. Then I found that I lost my cyber-lemming disease.

So back to these trash talkin' bimbos. Not that I've been featured on this site, but I feel violated. I can imagine if it was doen to me. Sure, there's probably a few legitimate claims, but I can bet 70% of the allegations are bogus. What if I had a site called "She's a big fat ho dot com"? Then have men go on and rag about women and call them sluts and pigs and other rude comments? Doesn't sound so fair now, does it?

Sure, "Don't Date Him Girl" gives the guys a platform to rebut the statements, but c'mon...who's gonna stop to read it? The girls won't believe him, and his reputation is ruined. PLUS he has no real legal recourse when it comes to BBS sites. They aren't responsible for posts made by others.

And although "Those who cheat" cliams it's equal opportunity rantings, its emphasis is for WOMEN. Either way, these sites are slander at it's internet worst.

I can't stop it... but I don't have to like it.